Well hello again,
As it turned out I didn't have to worry about whether to volunteer for mission room duties after all. Kotetsu and Izumo took it upon themselves to sign me up for shifts every evening to the end of the month. They said it's to teach me the true art of dignified slacking off. But really they're just keeping tabs. I was pretty pissed off at their interfering at first, but now that I've had time to cool down a bit I'm glad. It is nice to be around people my own age and the pair of them are a lot of fun, maybe too much. As for slacking off, I'm afraid I don't have much talent in that direction. I'm going use the time to reorganize all the old files that got dumped in the back room when the old archives were damaged in the attack.
I've run into the new boss a couple of times in passing, and I can see why she got Kakashi so hot and bothered. I haven't seen so much exposed tit since you and I got drunk that time when we were kids and you dragged me into the women's side of the bathhouse. Only here it's all on one woman.
One of the chuunin teachers brought in her new baby yesterday, as a morale booster since we've lost so many people recently. Tsunade made sweet clucking noises and asked to hold it, as I suppose any woman would. Well the kid must have thought all its prayers had been answered at once. Its little eyes glazed over the way Kakashi's did that day he came home with a new Icha Icha book and found I'd cooked all his favourites for dinner.
Same thought going through both adorable little heads I suppose, big breasts, good food. Anyway, the poor little mite started mouthing all up and down her cleavage trying to find a nipple to latch onto, sucking harder and harder the more frustrated he got. Tsunade started shrieking, and yelling 'get it off me get it off me,' and the poor mother just stood there mortified.
Fortunately Genma came in right then and was able to wiggle his senbon in under the kid's lips to break the suction. From the look on Tsunade's face I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't take advantage of the situation to cop a feel for himself at the same time, but from where I was standing I couldn't swear to it. Anyways Tsunade didn't hang around after that but hurried away to sponge the baby slobber off her chest. Honestly, you'd think the famous slug sannin would be able to cope with a bit of slime.
As soon as she was safely out of the way, and mother and babe had fled the scene, Kotetsu and Izumo decided to reenact the whole show. Except that Kotetsu did manage to find Izumo's nipple and they were obviously enjoying it far too much to be decent in a halfway public place.
I can tell you that keeping a straight face and a dignified shinobi expression was harder to endure than anything Torture and Interrogation ever thought up, even with its current leadership. It took me all night and half the morning to unlock the frozen muscles in my face. On the up side, the kids at school have never been better behaved or more respectful. One look at my rigid features and they fell right into line. Perhaps I should try it more often, stone-face no jutsu?
So, all in all things are both better and worse than you might think. It's almost three weeks since Kakashi left. The mission came directly from the new hokage, so I don't know any of the details. But it doesn't take a genius to have noticed that only the most dangerous missions last longer than a week, and that even they don't usually go past two unless something has gone horribly wrong. On the other hand life goes on. It's amazing what we can get used to. Living in a state of permanent dread, hope and denial has almost started to seem normal.
Today Kotetsu and Izumo are back in respectable chuunin mode, waiting patiently behind the desk like the stuffed shirt civil servants they're supposed to be, so I'm going to tackle those files.
Yours, with sleeves rolled up and ready to keep busy and out of trouble,
Iruka.
A/N I originally wrote the scene with the baby for Princess Poppy, when Kakashi first takes her to see Tsunade, but it didn't quite fit. So I recycled it for this :)