Disclaimer: not mine
This is the beta-ed version, thanks to Lazy-Hime.
Nightmare Central
4
Genma smiled up at the blond man sitting behind the desk. Pushing the senbon in his mouth from one side to the other he waited for his Hokage to respond.
"Did I understand that correctly, Genma? You want to volunteer for a shift at the day care-centre?" Arashi didn't know what to make of the whole situation and therefore didn't manage to keep the disbelief quite out of his voice.
The young Jounin simply nodded. "Yepp."
"Well, there's no free whole shift, but if you insist you could take the two hour shift this afternoon. Just go to the classroom at the end of the hall at three pm and relieve the Chuunin there."
"Will do."
Genma cheerfully left the Hokage's office, whistling a little tune under his breath.
He had been on a mission when Kakashi had been sentenced to an afternoon in the day care-centre and therefore totally unprepared for the copy-nin's new phobia. The first time his silver haired friend stopped dead in his tracks, shivering, before vanishing in a cloud of smoke, Genma had drawn his kunai, frantically looking for enemies.
The street's only other occupants had been a laughing pair of toddlers and their sitter.
Of course the first thing Genma did when he found his friend drinking at a bar later in the evening was to confront him about his peculiar behaviour.
He had thought he had seen it all untill his friend claimed that children were sadistic monsters out to get him and hell had sent a spy in disguise of the youngest Uchiha brat to prepare the Apocalypse.
Naturally Genma didn't buy it. That was when Kakashi threw down the gauntlet, so to speak, in form of a dare.
"If you think I'm wrong, prove it. I dare you to look after the monsters for an afternoon."
If there was one thing Genma could never resist, it was a dare. He had made it the first business of the following day to ask the Hokage for a shift at the day care-centre.
Genma was still whistling when he arrived at the violet door that was decorated with yellow butterflies. Looking at it he could only shake his head in wonder at the outrageous rumour that insisted said door to be starring in many shinobi's nightmares.
He knocked confidently.
A harried looking teenager opened. Genma's eyebrows rose at the sight. He knew that boy; he was one of the toughest Chuunin in Leaf. The boy looked like he was seconds shy of a nervous breakdown.
"I'm here to relieve you."
The words had barely left his mouth when the Chuunin took off with tears streaming down his face.
"Weird guy."
Entering the room and closing the door, Genma got the first good look at what others referred to as "Nightmare Central".
The room's walls were painted in a nice, friendly shade of yellow, one side decorated with what he assumed to be the children's artwork.
A couple of desks were grouped in the centre of the room, on the left side stood a shelf with artwork materials, books, and toys.
The back of the room was one huge nest of blankets, quilts and pillows.
The room's occupants looked just as harmless as their surroundings.
This is going to be fun. Don't know why they give hazard pay for something like this.
"Hello, kids! My name's Genma. Wanna introduce yourselves so I don't have to call you by numbers?" he said friendly.
The toddlers stopped what they were doing and looked at the new addition.
Silently, Genma did a head count. One, two, three, four, five... ten. Wait a moment, ten? Shouldn't there be twelve?
One of the girl-toddlers looked up at him with shining eyes and asked: "What's into...inro…induse?"
Before Genma could answer her question however, a boy whose head was lying on one of the desks with his eyes closed murmured, "It's 'introduce' and it means telling him your name."
"That's what I said, Shika!" the blonde girl told the boy off, before smiling once again up at the Jounin. "Hi, I'm Ino and I'm going to be Sasuke's wife."
"Ino, you liar! I'm going to be Sasuke's wife, me, Sakura!" a pink haired girl yelled enraged.
Before the girls could come to blows, Genma amusedly interrupted: "So, where's the lucky groom of two beautiful wives?"
If he's already got the ladies fighting for him, I could learn a thing or two.
"Sasuke left for the doctors, he was ill, but he's better now," the pink one answered.
That explains one absence, but where's child number 12?
"So, you two are Ino and Sakura, the boy sleeping on the desk is Shika. And the rest of you guys?" he tried again.
A boy with long dark hair muttered while trying to keep his neighbour's hands out of his hair, "Neji."
The girl so determined to play with his hair chirped, "Tenten."
A boy with two red stripes on his face yelled, "I'm Kiba, the coolest."
This caused the small girl next to him to giggle, before she shyly whispered, "I'm Hinata and this is Shino. He likes bugs."
Genma nodded at the three.
The two boys playing rock, paper, and scissors paused in their game. It was the chubbier of the two that spoke, "I'm Chouji and this is Lee."
"Nice to meet you all. Shouldn't there be one more, though?" If the Chuunin had lost one of them during his shift, Genma would make sure not to be the one to take the fall for it.
Just then the nest of blankets started to move and a pitiful whine could be heard.
The blankets are alive? Wow, wish I had a pair.
"Oh, you mean Naruto. Naruto isn't feeling good; he's been sleeping over there the whole time," Tenten informed him.
Worriedly Genma walked to the nest, shoving the blankets carefully out of the way to get a look at the ill toddler lurking beneath.
Warm brown eyes met watery blue ones. The senbon fell unnoticed to the ground. It was love at first sight.
Huddled deep in the blankets laid a little blond haired angel.
"You're sooo cute!" cooed the Jounin and gathered the boy together with his blankets in his arms.
Naruto who had been feeling miserable and lonely since Sasuke left for his doctor's appointment, smiled up at the nice smelling young man and cuddled into his chest.
This was the sight that greeted Sasuke's eyes as he re-entered the classroom.
TBC
AN: Drop me a comment, would you?