After Iruka stole Icha Icha from Kakashi the night before, he kept expecting the silver-haired pervert to come back in his sleep and slit his throat. Every creak from his apartment in the night made him jump; the reason as to why he didn't get much sleep was obvious. It was sometime around 5 in the morning that Iruka gave up on sleeping. He got up early and got ready for school. The teacher was on his way out the door when he was stopped in his tracks by grocery bags. Full of groceries. Then the surprised chunnin remembered his shopping list that he wrote on the back of the mission report. Apparently Kakashi saw it.

Iruka picked the bags up and brought them inside his apartment. He put all the groceries away, but he felt like he was forgetting something on his way out the door. He checked for his keys, lesson plans, weapon pouch, hitai-ate. He seemed to have everything. However, he remembered last-minute before he shut his door about the tests that he graded last night. Iruka realized that he hadn't finished grading them due to Kakashi's appearence at his window.

Even though he still felt like he was forgetting something, he shut and locked his door before making his way to work. The day was uneventful. Iruka was able to finish grading the tests and hand them back to his students. Everything was going fine until 12:30, Iruka's lunchbreak. It was then that the teacher realized that the thing he forgot was his lunch.

Iruka leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. He still expected a certain Icha-reading jounin to show up and demand for his book. But the chunnin was so tired... A few minutes nap couldn't hurt. It's not like he could even stand talking to Kakashi if he was tired. Iruka put his head down on the desk, using his arm as a pillow. His class would wake him up...

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Upon finally rewriting the mission report himself, Kakashi was incredibly bored. He had already trained with his team, he had no mission, Iruka was working, and Icha Icha was missing. It was really too bad that the jounin's new favorite pastime was working, because he really did need his book back. Then the idea of dramatically entering the teacher's classroom and making a scene while pestering him for the book was entertained. And the more the idea was thought through, the more entertaining it became.

So Kakashi found himself walking to the academy. There was no rush, Iruka would be just as irritated now or an hour from now. Unless the chunnin's patience was wearing thin due to his students. The jounin internally shrugged. He would probably wear the teacher's patience down anyway.

Kakashi strode into the school as if he knew what he was doing, then wandered around aimlessly until he found the targeted classroom. He lightly gripped the doorknob, grinned, took a deep breath, and pushed the door open with a good show. He stopped the mini-army of pre-genin in their tracks. Kakashi quickly analyzed the situation. Iruka was asleep on his desk and his class was approaching him with varying looks of meanness to curiousity; but now all eyes were on him. The copy-nin let the deep breath out as a sigh. Then he realised the doorknob behind him and closed the door.

"What are all of you doing?" Kakashi said it as if it were mildly entertaining to him.

But the class wasn't fooled. "It was all her idea! She said Iruka-sensei was hers to write on! She wouldn't let any one else write on him!"

A girl with an uncapped orange sharpie was pushed into Kakashi's line of view.

"Thats not true!" She declared. "/He/ was gonna steal Iruka-sensei's hitai-ate!"

"Actually, all of them declared Iruka-sensei as their own personal doodlepad." A small boy from the middle clarified.

"Hmm. Is that so?" The jounin's tone suggested amusement. No one dared to nod or shake their head.

"Well, either way all of you should be ashamed of yourselves!" His tone abruptly changed to anger and disgust. "All of you standing here will be fellow shinobi one day, if you're lucky. But if all of you are so ready to feed your teammates to the wolves, then none of you even deserve luck! And that man," he pointed to Iruka, "has been kind enough to dedicate his time to teach this to you."

Kakashi walked forward and took the orange sharpie from the accused girl's hand. Then he walked over to Iruka's desk, rolled up the teacher's sleeve, and wrote four letters with the permanent ink.

"Besides, Iruka-sensi is mine. And if I hear that any of you have given him trouble, you will have me to deal with."

The class started nodding fiercely, with scattered words of "understood." And "yes, sir."

"Good." The jounin stated, with a nod of his own. "Now go back to your seats, and let him sleep."

They practically tripped over one another in their hurry.

Before Kakashi left, he turned to Iruka again and kissed him on the cheek. Then he faced the surprised class and touched two fingers to his hitai-ate. The class didn't know it, but it was some sort of miracle that they got to see Kakashi use the door on his way out.

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There was a strange warmth on his cheek when Iruka woke up. The teacher sat up to rub his eyes then touch his cheek. When he did he noticed something brightly colored on his forearm. He held the arm out and read: MINE. It was written in neon orange marker and it stood out nicely on his skin.

"Who wrote this?" He asked, rotating his arm for his students to see.

There was silence for a moment before:

"It was Kakashi-sensei." A small boy answered.

It was thanks to Iruka's limitless patience that he didn't slam his hand onto the desk and swear loudly.

"Right. Thanks." He addressed his class stiffly.

"Iruka-sensei?" A girl began tentatively..

"Yes?"

"Do you like Kakashi-sensei?"

Iruka was caught off-guard by the question but he replied: "Of course. He is very important to the village, and is an excellent ally. Why do you ask?"

"Because Kakashi-sensei really seems to like /you/." Then she giggled nervously. The rest of the class followed suit. But they still all looked scared.

Iruka made a mental note to ask Kakashi what he said (or did) to his class. /He probably just came to get his book. Wait! The book!/ The teacher tried to check the pocket that he had designated for the little orange book without his class noticing. It was still there. So what was Kakashi doing? It irritated him to ponder it. But he still had a class to teach, so he stood up, stretched, apologized for falling asleep and continued with the lesson.

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Iruka was entering his apartment when he got an opportunity to question the elusive jounin. He was once again about to open his door when:

"Hey Sleeping Beauty!" Kakashi greeted him cheerfully, coming up behind him.

"So you were going to use the door this time?" Iruka replied in a cold tone, without even looking up.

"Well that just hurts!" The pervert's voice dripped with false offense. "Be grateful to your savior."

"Savior or not, what did you say to my class?"

"You ask what I did to your class before you ask about your arm and why I kissed you. I'm starting to think that you enjoy my company more than you'll admit."

Iruka blushed deeply as Kakashi shifted his weight to lean on the doorframe. Now he stood a little closr to the chunnin than was necessary, and the calm, collected school teacher was finding it difficult to insert his key into the lock. Eventually, the frustrated chunnin gave up and replied: "What you said to my students /is/ in fact more important than what you did to me."

Then he turned to face Kakashi with his arms crossed.

"Well you should thank me anyway. As your oh-so-innocent class was about to use you as a doodlepad, I walked in to make a scene and demand that you fork over my book. I even used the door! However, I heard that one of your students thought you were hers, so I corrected that you are /mine/, then wrote so on your arm."

Iruka glared at him in disbelief. "That's all you said to them? And didn't you just say something about kissing me?" He managed to make it to the word 'kissing' before he blushed.

"Oh yes," Kakashi grinned, "I simply told your class that if they bug you then they will have me to contend with. /Then/ I kissed you. I actually wanted my book back, however I forgot to take it on my way out."

"Where did you kiss me?" He remembered the warmth on his cheek, but he wanted to be sure. If it was anywhere else besides his cheek, he would have some explaining to do to his class' parents.

Kakashi shifted his weight again and Iruka instinctually backed up, but found his back to the solid wood of a locked door. The jounin was really much to close for comfort. A gloved hand planted itself on the door above Iruka's shoulder. The other hand went to uncross Iruka's arms. Through the cloth of a long-sleeved shirt, Kakashi traced the letters 'MINE' that were previously written on the other's arm.

"I kissed you..." He moved his face to within inches of the startled teacher's face. "Right..." Then Kakashi grinned, poked Iruka's cheek with the hand that was on the door, and kissed said cheek once again. This time he allowed his masked lips to linger to feel the fire from the blush that was sure to follow. "... Here." But then Kakashi slid his lips over an inch, so his masked mouth just barely touched the corner of Iruka's slightly parted lips.

Then he foound what he was looking for. The jounin removed his hand from the door, and his other hand which had mysteriously migrated to the teacher's torso.

Kakashi retreated about 3 feet. Sometime between Kakashi letting go of him and his backing up, Iruka detached himself from the door to shout, "Hey!"

However Kakashi used the now-familiar teleportation jutsu to escape.

Iruka was left dumbstruck. He slumped with his back to the door again. He was angry and yet confused. /What on Earth possessed Kakashi? Unless.../

The irritated chunnin checked his pockets. Sure enough, Icha Icha was gone. /He must've done that just to get the book./

The thought burdened his mind heavily as he stood up straight to make another attempt at unlocking his door.

/Would I be disappointed if the answer was yes?/

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Kakashi was up early the next morning. This was unheard of; for the infamous copy-nin to get up early. Anyone who saw the silver-haired shinobi ninji at 6:45 in the morning, awake, up, and relatively cheerful, would do a double take and check to see if their eyes were working correctly. The sole reason for Kakashi being up was Iruka. The jounin felt bad for his previous behavior. (No he didn't, he just didn't want Iruka to be mad at him.) So Kakashi was awake, and ready to intercept the chunnin who would soon be on his way to work.

But there was someone waiting to intercept /him/. It was a messenger from the Hokage. An urgent messenger. Now that the incident with his previous mission report had been cleared up, another mission had been assigned to him. Now Kakashi was torn. Was he going to be late going to the Hokage and face Tsunade's wrath, or would he leave for an undisclosed amount of time, and have to face Iruka's wrath. In the end, he decided that Tsunade's wrath could be withstood.

Thankfully, Iruka passed by 5 minutes later.

"Morning." Kakashi said cheerfully, falling into step beside the teacher.

"Morning." Iruka replied. The jounin was amused to see a faint blush creep up the chunnin's cheeks.

"I'm here to apologize for my behavior last night." He tried to sound sincere.

"I don't think you're sorry. At all."

Kakashi grinned; the teacher was sharper than he looked. "Be that as it may, I originally came here to ask you to dinner."

The jounin's companion faltered a step but continued to walk at a steady rate.

"You /originally/?" Iruka stretched the word out.

"Yup. It appears that I have the details of an urgent mission waiting for me at the Hokage's office."

Something in the way that the statement was worded tipped Iruka off to the fact that he still had yet to report to Tsunade.

"So you're not in the Hokage's office right now because you wanted to apologize and tell me your /original/ reason for meeting me."

"That sounds about right. However, upon further thought, I've decided to take you out to dinner when I get back."

"Do I have a choice in this?"

"No. Would you mind?"

"No, it's fine." Iruka said quickly, "Just pick me up whenever you get back or get a message to me of where you want to meet or something. And get going! It was no use asking me to dinner if Tsunade is going to kill you! And thank you for those groceries the other day. I kept forgetting to thank you."

Kakashi grinned again. "Ok. Oh, and Iruka?"

"Huh?" The chunnin stopped walking to turn to Kakashi

"It's a date."

Before Iruka could protest or agree, Kakashi once again vanished. The chunnin rolled his eyes, then realized that he had just been asked out by a jounin. Kakashi, no less. He also didn't fail to notice that said jounin used his name without a honorific. That is a very intimite thing to call someone.

/Does apologizing mean regretting what he did? He didn't deny not being sorry though. I didn't even get to ask if he did that just to get his book./ Iruka looked up at the rising sun and sighed. /I wonder how long he'll be gone.../