Masked-Writer-In-Disguise: Hello!! I've been trying really hard to not keep my readers waiting, and luckily my iPod is cooperating. So far it's actually providing the inspiration I need to write this awesomely cool story. YAY!!! Usually it hates me and erases its memory if I plug it in to the virus infected computer that belongs to the rest of my family, but it likes my computer and so on and so forth. I'm just rambling right now, so, while I continue to ramble, you go on ahead and read the story. I really don't mind if you ignore me in favor of the story, that's why I posted it…-continues talking, y'all scroll on down-
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anybody else that may make an appearance in this little thingamagigit, so don't ask me about it…well, if any OCs make an appearance, then they're mostly likely mine. I also don't own Paranormal Activity I just needed a movie for the characters in my story to go see.
Inspiration: I Like You-Morrissey (hahahaha, it's a funny song. I highly recommend you people listen to it. Its great and fits the chapter so well…)
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Stumble: Chapter 8:
I Like You
By: Masked-Writer-In-Disguise
Iruka opened his eyes slowly. He felt warm and safe and comfortable, mostly safe. The chocolate colored man then took notice of the heavy arm around his waist and the steady breathing against his neck and the pajama bottoms up against his bare body…The man blushed ten different shades of red when he realized he was actually sleeping naked with the village pervert in his own bed. Then he noticed the added weight at the foot of the bed exactly how warm it was.
Iruka opened his eyes and looked around. All of Kakashi's dogs had taken up residence at the foot of the bed, or on top of the two men, as the case may be. Bull was certainly too big to fit at the bottom and he was doing a remarkably good job as an extra blanket. If he ever needed a career change, a family dog would work just fine. Iruka smiled and rolled over to the best of his abilities to face the man behind him, who was watching him with sleepy eyes.
"'Mornin'," the silver haired man yawned and smiled sloppily.
Iruka chuckled and simply made himself more comfortable. "Aren't we doing things a little backwards?"
Kakashi raised his eyebrow and gave all of his early morning attention to the chocolate colored man in the bed.
"You're supposed to take me out on a date first. Then share my bed, you know, after the fifth or sixth date; not the night you ask me on the first date…" Iruka explained with all of the patience of someone explaining 2+3=5 to a five year old, while poking the silver haired man in the chest.
"Well, I was originally going to go to my own room, but my feet kinda led a mutiny against my brain," Kakashi smiled and moved Iruka's hand away from him. He didn't like getting poked.
Iruka looked at the man critically before deciding to believe him on this one. He was very familiar with limbs and other parts of his anatomy taking over. Iruka stretched and looked down at the end of the bed again. The two men had an audience. Most noticeable of the dogs was Pakkun, who was not in his usual place to the left of Kakashi's head. Iruka simply raised an eyebrow at him.
"What? You're in my spot," the pug grumbled and jumped down to the floor. "Kakashi, we're hungry."
"Why can't you go hunting or something?" Kakashi whined and Iruka laughed.
"You're the one who decided to pamper us. If you didn't keep us around your apartment all the time, maybe we would go hunting and act like normal nin-ken. We're all you fault."
"Mm-hmm…" Kakashi made a thoughtful noise before grunting and pushing himself from the bed. "Iruka, you sleep naked?"
Iruka facepalmed, cursing himself for his carelessness. "Yes," he groaned. Nobody had figured that out.
"Well, I usually walk around naked, but I've been restraining myself for your sake. I didn't want to scar you for life…If you were straight," Kakashi paused at the door. "How do you classify your sexuality?"
Iruka blinked and looked at the silver haired puppy man thing. "Um, bi, I guess."
Kakashi nodded acceptingly before leaving and Iruka stretched again, accidentally knocking the dog with the sunglasses off the bed. Iruka apologized and closed his eyes, thinking. Kakashi was possibly mentally insane, not clinically, but still; it was the occupational hazard of being a jonin. That and dying, but that was beside the point. The point was that if he was going to go out with any jonin, and he had gone out with a few, then he was just going to have to deal with the mentally unstable part of it. Kakashi didn't mean any harm by anything he did. He just wasn't used to having people talk to him like he's a human being rather than a trained dog from the K-9 division.
Iruka smiled at that. The image of Kakashi being a happy puppy or a trained, extremely deadly German shepherd just wouldn't go away, although sometimes the image of a fluffy white kitten would pop into his head; the man moved and acted like a cat, sometimes, whether he liked to admit it or not. Kakashi would probably freak out if he were to find that out. Iruka thought it was rather endearing. Either way, Kakashi was like a fluffy infant animal of some kind. It really depended on his mood. Iruka liked him either way, puppy or kitten. He was still unintentionally adorable.
The school teacher pushed himself out of bed and pulled on a pair of pajama pants before going to find Kakashi and his pack of dogs. They weren't really all that hard to find; all one had to do was listen for the clack of the dogs' claws on the linoleum of the kitchen floor.
"How do you manage to feed all of them without going completely broke?" Iruka muttered, not expecting to be heard over the noise the feeding animals were making.
"I live in a really shabby apartment that doesn't cost a lot in the bad part of town," Kakashi was putting the dog food back in Iruka's pantry. "If I do that, I can have enough money to feed me, the dogs, and Team 7, but if I don't feed the boys I can go to the movies or do something for myself, like take really cute academy teachers on dates."
Kakashi smiled brightly at the school teacher and the dogs attacked their food ruthlessly. Iruka shook his head and rolled his eyes and walked to the cupboard that held all of his breakfast stuff that didn't have to be refrigerated. He pulled out a box of cereal, something that he really didn't like but ate anyway because it was supposed to be good for the body, and went over to the fridge to get the milk. As he turned around, Kakashi made a face.
"What?" Iruka asked as he turned on the coffee pot on his way by.
"How can you eat that stuff?"
"I thought you were all into health," Iruka raised an eyebrow.
"In my personal opinion, anything that's green and leafy should be thrown away-it's gone bad- and anything labeled 'healthy' tastes gross," Kakashi looked at the box of cereal as if it were a personal affront to have the box in his presence. "How can anything that tastes that bad be good for you?" Kakashi looked at the school teacher inquisitively, and Iruka couldn't help but agree with the other man.
"I personally think it's disgusting, but I want to take care of my body," Iruka facepalmed as soon as those words come out of his mouth because Kakashi got an evil, mischievous smirk on his face and opened his mouth to say something. "You stop right there, Hatake! I don't want to hear it." Iruka pointed at his perverted house guest and huffed about the kitchen, preparing his breakfast.
Kakashi chuckled evilly, but continued anyway. "I could help you take care of your body, sensei. It's such a nice body, after all," Kakashi came up behind the unhappy Chunnin and wrapped his arms around said chunnin's waist.
Iruka let him. He liked it when Kakashi did that, wrapped his arms around him. It felt right somehow, like he was meant to fit right there. Iruka noticed that his head fit nicely into the hollow of Kakashi's throat and Kakashi's arms were the perfect size to wrap around Iruka's waist. The man's height was also perfect. They just kinda fit together, like puzzle pieces, as cliché as it sounded. The school teacher mentally shook his head and leaned back into Kakashi. The silver haired man was obviously surprised by this and quickly pulled away, looking at Iruka like he had grown a second head.
Iruka rolled his eyes and made his way back to the counter. He was still hungry.
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Iruka looked around his room frantically. What the hell was he supposed to wear tonight? He had no fucking clue; none whatsoever. Of course clothes were on the list of what to wear, but what specific clothes, he had no fucking clue. The brown haired man pulled at the roots of his hair, gritted his teeth, and spun around 360 degrees, looking at his unnaturally messy room. Clothes were piled up on the bed and thrown across the chair in the corner and hanging from the doorknobs on the bedroom door and the closet. His dresser drawers were open and clothes were hanging haphazardly over the edge.
The man stopped and put his hands on his hips and shook his head. Why was he worried over this? It was just a little date. They were just going to hang out; nothing special. Dinner and a movie. That's it, so why was he freaking out? It was just Kakashi; the slightly abnormal jonin. The jonin he'd come to like having in his home. Why was that fluttery feeling in his stomach? Why wouldn't it go away? Why was he nervous?
Iruka just sat down, right in the middle of his bedroom, clothes on all sides, and sighed. One of his hands came up and stroked the area where a beard would be (1) roughly and his head turned to the right, where Pakkun was sitting in the crack of the open door.
"Yes?" Iruka asked the little dog (who would probably get an Edward Elric complex (2) if he knew Iruka was thinking that).
"Kakashi likes blue and green," the pug said simply, managing to somehow pull off a Kakashi-shrug. Iruka chuckled at the image; Kakashi just didn't look good as a pug, a husky, maybe, but not a pug.
"Thanks, Pakkun. Any other suggestions?" Iruka smiled and rested his head on his arms that were across his knees.
The pug stood up and walked into the room, looking around critically. Iruka raised an eyebrow. He just somehow couldn't see the dog as a fashion expert, but it appeared as if the dog knew exactly what he was doing. Pakkun trotted around the room, looking at various articles of clothing, pulling out what he liked and bringing it to the man in the middle of the room before running back into the ocean of reds, blues, greens, browns, oranges, and blacks again. All in all, it was hilarious.
"Hey, 'Ruka-chan! Have you seen Pakkun?" Kakashi called from somewhere outside the bedroom.
"Yeah, I got him!" Iruka called back, picking up the green-blue gradient-dyed button-up shirt and the black cargo pants Pakkun had dragged over to him. He looked at the pug with a raised eyebrow and the dog nodded.
At this point, Iruka was beginning to wonder at his sanity, what with all this trusting a dog's fashion sense, but nothing he had been doing lately was making any sense to any one of his personalities and inner voices and what not. Iruka shrugged mentally and stood up, walking over to the full length mirror and holding up the two cloth pieces. Ok, maybe the dog knew how to dress people.
"I have to give Kakashi advice from time to time; he's hopeless," the pug left the room via the slightly open door and Iruka watched him go. That was only a little odd…
Iruka closed the door and got into the outfit, which didn't look at all bad on him, and pulled his hair up into his usual style. There was a sigh from the door and Iruka looked over. He saw two dogs in the doorway, Pakkun and the dog with sunglasses.
"What's up?" Iruka asked as he pulled his hair through the hair tie.
"Hair down," the dog with the sunglasses said simply.
"Umm…I know you've been here for about two, three weeks, but...what's your name?" Iruka pulled his hair out and let it fall over his shoulders. Iruka shook his head and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked hot if he did say so himself. "Pakkun, you have one awesome fashion sense."
The pug grunted and the other dog replied, "Spaz."
Iruka looked at the dog. "Seriously?"
The dog nodded and explained further, "I was hyper when I was younger; more so than average."
Iruka made an 'oh' face and headed for the door. "Well, thank you both for the help."
The dogs just grunted and followed Iruka to the living room. Well, Spaz followed him; Pakkun walked into the bathroom where Kakashi was and soon two different voices could be heard. Iruka just made himself comfortable on the couch while he waited.
He didn't have to wait long.
Kakashi announced his presence by a quiet gasp; a gasp that probably would have gone unnoticed by any ordinary citizen, but Iruka wasn't an ordinary citizen; he was a ninja and as such, he heard Kakashi's quiet gasp. Iruka opened his eyes, which he didn't realized he'd closed, and almost laughed at Kakashi's face. It was a mixture of shock and awe and pleasure. Iruka decided he liked that look. It made him feel special and he'd be the happiest person on earth if Kakashi only ever made that face for him. Iruka smiled one of his smiles that made people go weak about the knees and men and women run into various solid objects because they were staring at him for too long and not at what they were supposed to be doing and pushed himself up. He raised his arms and asked:
"So, what do you think?"
Kakashi opened and closed his mouth a few times before he managed to get any sound out at all. "You look great," was the eventual answer. "You didn't have to get all dressed up for me, sensei."
"I wanted to," Iruka smiled again and Kakashi responded in turn, pulling his mask up around his face.
"Have you ever shown your face to anyone besides me?" Iruka asked as he moved to the door. The man pulled his shoes on and stood up straight to wait for Kakashi.
"Nope. Well, not unless you count my team; not the boys though," Kakashi did up the laces on his combat boots and reached for the doorknob. As the man pulled the door open he patted his pockets as if checking for something.
Iruka raised his eyebrow in question and Kakashi replied to the unspoken question: "I'm making sure I have my wallet. I've left it behind enough times to have to do this."
Iruka laughed and exited the house. "I can hold my own door open, Kakashi."
"Well, I asked you out, so I'll play the part of the knight, albeit a bit more unknightly than most people would prefer," Kakashi closed the door behind him and offered Iruka his hand. Iruka looked at it with a raised eyebrow (he seemed to be raising his eyebrows a lot as of late. It was getting annoying) and took it, twining his dark-skinned, shorter fingers with Kakashi's pale, long, piano playing fingers. "I recommend you close your eyes. Transportation Justu can really disorient a person."
Iruka closed his eyes and suddenly he felt as if he were being pulled in 100 different directions and imploding and exploding all at the same time, then it was suddenly very still and Iruka could hear conversations all around them, none of which seemed all that startled with their appearance. One chocolate colored, brightly shining, slightly apprehensive eye opened a crack and saw Kakashi looking at it expectantly. The eye finished opening and the other followed suit rather quickly. Iruka looked around. They were in the movie theatre.
"What would you like to see, 'Ruka-chan?" Kakashi smiled like the little shit he was because he knew, he knew, Iruka was going to let him get away with calling him that. Iruka did, and replied:
"Paranormal Activity (3)."
Kakashi looked at Iruka critically, "You sure?"
Iruka nodded. "What, the jonin afraid of a movie?"
Kakashi snorted and led Iruka through the ticket booth and the concession stand and into the theatre where they took their seats in the back row. The theatre filled up and soon the lights dimmed and the movie started. Popcorn was making its way to the pair of mouths in a steady stream and the soda pop was almost gone. Suddenly Micah's body came flying at the camera and Katie was standing in the door way. Iruka jumped about a mile high and Kakashi laughed at him, poking his date in the side. Iruka just glared. The screen went black and the audience sat there for a while, not sure how they were supposed to take that before a few people started to laugh and the others stood up and began to pack away.
"Well, I liked it," Kakashi let Iruka leave the seats first, following closely behind the man.
Iruka sighed shakily. "I need to sit down for a bit; my knees are shaking."
"What, Chunnin scared over a movie?" Kakashi teased and Iruka hit the man over the head with his empty popcorn bucket.
"A little bit, yeah. I'm allowed to be," Iruka huffed and crossed his arms over his chest after throwing his now dented popcorn bucket away.
"Well, fine then. While we sit, we'll discuss where you would like to go for dinner," Kakashi sat down against the wall leading to the exit door and Iruka followed him.
"Why only where I want to go?"
"Because I asked you out and I'd like to make this date enjoyable for you," Kakashi smiled cutely beneath his mask, his eye curving into a crescent shape. Iruka smiled back at him; he was actually enjoying himself.
"Um…then I'd like to get some Thai food," Iruka said quietly after a few minutes of a happy silence.
"I know just the place," Kakashi stood up and offered his hand to the still sitting Iruka. "Would you like to walk or transport?"
"How far is it?"
"Not far."
"Walk it is," Iruka took Kakashi's hand and pulled himself to his feet. They began walking, their hands still entwined.
Dinner was a fun affair, only good conversation and good food; no fighting or arguing or general unpleasantness, so as they walked through the door into Iruka's house, Iruka was just waiting for the other shoe to fall ('Well, Iruka, it's been fun, but you're not my type' or 'This isn't going to work' or '-). They made their way to their respective bedrooms and got ready for bed. Iruka crawled into his own bed and soon the door opened, signifying Kakashi's entry before the bed depressed and another heat entered the space. Iruka scooted over to make room for Kakashi, (Why was he doing this? Why had Kakashi come into his room again? Why was he allowing this to happen? Did he like Kakashi? Why? Why? Why?) and Kakashi wrapped his arms around the man again.
The dogs came in soon after and fell into place on top of the pair of men, making themselves as comfortable in the bed as their master. Iruka rolled over and buried his face in Kakashi's neck, wrapped his arms around Kakashi's waist, threw one leg possessively over Kakashi's hips and decided that the questions could wait until tomorrow. Right now he liked lying in bed with Kakashi, so he'd just make himself comfortable.
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Masked-Writer-In-Disguise: Wow, I kinda like this chapter. Do you like it? I would really like to know, so please review. I like reviews.
Footnoteness:
(1) Eddie Izzard and his 'stroky beard meetings' –shakes head- I watched him before writing this chapter
(2) My friends call Edward Elric's (from Fullmetal Alchemist in case you didn't know) short complex an Edward Elric complex, so, yeah…Pakkun has an Edward Elric complex means he doesn't like to be called short.
(3) Paranormal Activity is a really, really, really scary movie that I went to go see with my friend recently. Ahh, I usually don't get scared of movies, but this has had me freaked out for a while. My friend, Ko, doesn't usually get freaked out from movies either, but she was holding my hand just as tightly as I was holding hers. –weird sound- Freakyness.
