Stranded (Chapter 2)

Disclaimers: Not mine.

"Iruka huh? You have the eyes for quality, Hatake-san," the blonde smirked - a slight upturn of her full red lips - as she glimpsed at the retreating back of the said geisha blended into the crowd. This was not the first time that a customer asked for Iruka right away after they saw him. In fact, this happened so many times before that she had long lost count. Iruka was gifted with the ability to draw customers' attention, especially those who were able to pay for his service, even without trying hard. He was born with a natural charm. And the silver haired man just happened to be another victim fallen into it. The catch here was just that Hatake Kakashi was an infamous business tycoon. A surprise indeed.

"Money is not a problem. I want him," Kakashi appreciated the praise but he did not make any comment on it. Instead, he stated his preferences once again with the assurance that he was willing to pay since the proprietress had not made any confirmation about his request. The male geisha had caught his attention, not because of his look – which happened to be another plus actually - but because of his eyes, his chocolate coloured eyes which were so… clear. Yes, clear. He could not think of any other words since unpolluted did not sound quite right. The pair of warm, dark eyes was clear - like a calm lake, like a mirror. It fascinated him. And it gave him the most primal urge to make those clear, clear eyes clouded with uninhibited lust. He wanted that man.

"I know money is not a problem for you. But I'm afraid that alone won't do," twirling a few strands of pale gold locks between her fingers, the proprietress shook her head softly and smirked again. It looked like the man in front of her was indeed a new comer, and an extremely clueless one at that. She was bounded to sacrifice her time to do some further explanation to the clueless customer, and so she did. "Plus, I assume that you have the completely wrong definition about wanting him."

Curious, Kakashi tilted his head, gave the blonde a sceptical look and asked, "How so?"

"Iruka doesn't serve customers that way. Selling talents is all he does, nothing else," the busty woman answered, purposely emphasizing a certain word with a hard, long pronunciation. A lot of people mistook geisha as prostitutes, she knew. Some of the geisha really did provide services of that sort but prostitution was NOT the right word to describe the job as a geisha, not at all. Being a geisha meant that a person had to start his or her training at a very young age and later on continued even further by being the apprentice of a more experienced geisha. They learnt the art of Japanese tea, graceful movements, polite speaking styles, traditional instruments and so on - they were nothing close to prostitutes because they trained, they practiced, hard. Too bad, people had the tendency to group both categories together as one.

"Oh..." Kakashi nodded in realisation, feeling a tad bit guilty by his earlier assumption - he had thought that he would be able to purchase a night, that kind of night, with the male geisha. Apparently, he was wrong. However, after a little pondering and thinking, he thought that talents were fine by him as well and that was the reason for the continuation of his previous sentence. "As long as I get to spend some time with him, I'm willing to pay. Can you please arrange this for me?"

The proprietress obviously had not expected this to be the answer if the widening of her eyes was any indication. Finally regaining her composure, she smiled and removed the pen that was clipped on her kimono folds as she jotted down some notes. "Alright, I'll try but don't let your hopes up. Iruka is stubborn. He doesn't serve customers that he dislikes and he's firm about it. So if he rejects you, I can do nothing but to refund or get you another geisha. Do you understand?" raising her head to look at Kakashi, the blonde smiled and clipped the pen back onto her kimono folds. Kakashi certainly did not look half as bad as the others – even if the lower half of his face was not visible right now - but Iruka was a picky one. He looked at people, according to Iruka himself, by heart. So no matter how rich or how good-looking a customer was, as long as the customer made him felt uncomfortable, Iruka would reject the offer without a second thought. Kakashi, with no exception, was going to go through the so called inspection as well.

"Yes, thank you very much. And how may I address you?" nodding, Kakashi smiled back at the proprietress and asked. He thought that it would be polite to at least ask about the blonde's name, given that they had been talking for the past five minutes and given that they would most probably had a long lasting provider-customer kind of relationship in the future.

"Tsunade is fine," a short and crisp answer, just as expected from a woman of that personality.

"It's a pleasure meeting you, Tsunade. Here's my card. Just contact me when the booking time is confirmed," taking a black colour business card out of his expensive looking wallet, Kakashi handed it to the blonde who took it gladly with a grin. It seemed that his business here was done and all he needed to do was to wait for the confirmation call. He was surprised at how expectant he was being – the male geisha had certainly attracted him until one extent but right now, he could do nothing but to wait. The male geisha… he ran away a while back then after all.

"Shizune, come here!" a wave of the slender hand accompanied by the loud booming of voice caught the attention of almost everyone in the building. The geisha in white kimono who greeted him earlier when he first reached the geisha house walked towards him gracefully and gave him a small smile when she reached his side. "She'll be serving you tonight, no charges. Take it as an apology for what happened to your arm earlier," Tsunade tilted her chin towards the geisha in white kimono, smiled slyly, and swiftly went back into the building without saying anything else. Kakashi did not get a chance to recover from the brief shock before a pair of slender arms snaked around his bicep and gave it a gentle pull. Surprised, he spared a look at the geisha before he allowed himself to be led into the building, all the while being completely silent.

Throughout the night of dance, music and sake accompanied by a very beautiful geisha, all that Kakashi could think of was surprisingly - Iruka.

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"You better have a very good explanation for me," Tsunade glared at the smiling man in front of him and crossed her slender legs. She was trying to sound as venomous as possible but when she saw the smile – the smile which could melt almost everything in the world, including her anger – she simply knew that she failed to sound like the way she wanted to. And the man just had to make it worse by smiling even wider. And then he fucking goddamned blushed.

"I'm sorry, Tsunade-sama. I forgot to do something back then so I was in a bit of rush," the tanned skin man who stood in front of the desk replied, all the while smiling softly. He was not in an exaggerative kimono like the previous night but he was wearing a simple baby blue yukata instead. Without any makeup, the thin scar across his nose which was in a lighter colour than the rest of his tanned skin stood out even clearer. His long brown hair was loosely tied into a messy ponytail and if he was looking stunning yesterday night, he looked serene right now. And Tsunade totally had a soft spot for that kind of look.

"Argh, I just can't stay angry at you for long. Is it about Naruto again?" running a hand through her golden locks, Tsunade flipped through the paperwork on her desk and asked. On the list of people and things which could make Iruka worried sick like yesterday night, Naruto was definitely on top of the list. She would not even be the slightest surprised if Iruka said yes to her question, it was always about Naruto. It was always about the kids, his kids.

"Yes. I'm very sorry, Tsunade-sama," Iruka bowed and apologized once again, the smile on his face never faded. He knew he needed to keep his smile to keep Tsunade's anger in check, so he did. As for the repeating apology, it was just the standard procedure. Both Tsunade and he knew that he was not being apologetic, at all.

"Fine, fine. Take a look at this," handing a piece of paper with a photograph attached on it to Iruka, Tsunade said and observed the switching emotions on Iruka's face. She was so very eager to know what Iruka's answer would be. She was betting with her lifesavings again – not that she had a lot of money in this case, she lost almost all of them during her last gambling session. But, a bet was still a bet and she would NOT lose again.

"Hatake Kakashi…" the soft whisper of the name slipped from Iruka's tongue without his permission but he did not mind it. From the picture, the view of man's lower half face was obscured by a scarf and part of the wild silver hair was covering the man's left eye. So, the only part he could see was the sole grey eye, looking relaxed but yet so intense at the same time. It took only a couple of seconds for Iruka to recall who the person in the photograph was. He did have a memory power that he was proud of. "I ran into him yesterday night, didn't I?"

"Yeah. He said he wanted you but I told him you don't provide that kind of service. Surprisingly, he still requested for you," Tsunade explained and rubbed her hands together gleefully underneath her desk, her actions hidden from Iruka's view. From the current conversation flow, she was eighty six point seven percent sure that she was going to win the bet. The remaining thirteen point three percent was due to the slight perspiration on Iruka's temples which was a new reaction thus she was unable to identify it as a positive or a negative sign. But again, it did not matter. She was so going to win this.

"Tell him to come over tonight at eight. I'll serve him for the whole night, free of charge," putting the paper back onto the desk, Iruka gave the blonde a smile and said softly. The loud crash followed closely to his answer was expected, but still amused him to no end. It seemed that Tsunade was too happy to contain her excitement of winning the bet that she collided with the desk when she attempted to raise her hands high up in the air as a sign of celebration. That woman, she never changed.

"O-Okay, I'll contact him. How long do you expect him to stay?" stuttering a little, Tsunade gasped in the much needed air as she reached around for her phone. Getting her hands slammed on a desk definitely did not feel good, not at all, not even when she just won a bet. Her eyes were getting wet and she was trembling all over and damn because it hurt like hell, literally.

Looking at the miserable proprietress, Iruka tried hard not to smirk openly. Instead, he gave his answer, short and simple, before he turned to leave the room without excusing himself. He knew he did not need to do so, at least not when Tsunade was drowning in her own miserable little world. Plus, the busty woman did not even care about the so called respect to the leader of the geisha house and such. Thus, it had no point for him to do the standard bowing and stepping three steps back before turning around and left. He just well… left.

It did not take very long for Iruka to come to a realisation. For the first time ever in his career life, he was actually looking forward to meet his customer – the one called Hatake Kakashi.

And that was exactly why he told Tsunade, "Let him stay as long as he wants."

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"Is this Hatake-san speaking?"

"Yes."

"I'm Tsunade. Your time with Iruka is 8 o'clock tonight. Don't be late."

"Okay, thank you very much."

Pressing the flat, red button on his cell phone, Kakashi was unable and did not give a damn to stop the smile that stretched his cheeks and showed his very shallow dimples. Taking less than a day to pass the so called inspection, he was definitely a lucky one.

"Oi, why are you looking like a retard?" removing the cigarette out of his mouth, Asuma frowned and asked when he noted the silly look on his friend's face. It was not a very common occurrence, Hatake Kakashi looking like an idiot that was not. So, there was definitely something wrong with the phone call that his silver haired partner just answered.

"Am I? Maa, it's nothing," Kakashi gave Asuma a bored look and answered with an equally bored tone, effectively switched back to his old self within the matter of seconds. He did not mind Asuma knowing about Iruka but he did not feel the particular need to say that when Asuma was drinking his morning coffee – he was sure that the man was going to spit everything out, perhaps his lungs and intestines along as well.

"Fine, fine. Whatever, just get back to work already," not trusting the answer that Kakashi gave but not wanting to pry any further, Asuma just waved his hand dismissively and got back to his own stack of never ending paperwork. He would kill anyone who said that Kakashi and he were those rich young men who leeched off their fathers' wealth, he really would. The paperwork, it was plain crazy.

"Hai, hai," a way too cheerful answer reached Asuma's ears and it instantly gave him a slight shiver along with some goose bumps. He did not need to be a genius to confirm the suspicion that Hatake Kakashi was definitely up to something – good or bad, his silver haired friend was definitely up to something.

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A/N: Plot bunnies, I beg of you. Please leave me alone for now because I NEED to study… cries. By the way, thanks for the lovely reviews! It was very surprising to get such positive responses so thank you! :)