2nd Day of Christmas
Theme:Yamato vs Yamanaka - Battle of Christmas Tree Suppliers

There was a fully-masked ANBU in his apartment. It wasn't quite the last thing Iruka had been expecting, but it was certainly close. A short cough unsuccessfully covered a panicked yelp of surprise, and he backpedaled quickly until his back hit the wall, and he had nowhere else to go.

ANBU in your apartment were not desirable. It usually meant that they suspected you of espionage and were about to drag you off to T&I.

This ANBU, however, gave him a cursory nod and turned back to wrapping lights around the branches of a very statuesque pine.

Odd. Iruka had gone out because they were currently minus a tree - thanks to Kakashi's inventive decorating techniques. Not to mention the fact that the tree stand was sitting next to Iruka's left foot and not in it's proper place under the tree.

As torture didn't seem imminent, Iruka took a couple of steps back towards the ANBU and his tree. Kakashi's water jutsu had done more damage than Iruka'd first noticed. His floor was buckled under the new tree so dramatically that it almost looked like it was merging with the trunk.

Iruka realized what was going on with a start. Even though he had never seen it in action, he'd heard of this jutsu before. His floor was never going to be the same - so much material had been borrowed to grow the tree that it had pulled a good three feet away from the wall on all sides - but he felt a particular pang of sympathy for his downstairs neighbors. The roots had to be incredibly annoying.

Kakashi stepped out from behind the tree and retrieved the lights from the ANBU. He grinned at Iruka. "Welcome home. We have a tree."

"Yes, I see that. Why did you grow it in the apartment?"

"Didn't you want something other than the pile of the charred ashes of our previous tree?" Kakashi looked puzzled.

"Yes, but why couldn't you have just grown it outside and brought it in?"

Both men stared at him. The thought had clearly never crossed their minds. What was it with jounin and having their common sense gland removed?

Iruka sighed and went in search of their box of ornaments - he was not letting Kakashi get creative with the decorations again. It was a very nice tree, all things considered, and as long as he didn't think about how he was going to remove it from his floor, he could enjoy having it around.