When Iruka entered the mission room, there was chaos

When Iruka entered the mission room, there was chaos. For a moment he thought Kakashi had somehow found out he was stopping by, and caused trouble just to prove himself right about the effect of Iruka's absence. When he got to the center of the room, however, he found it was a rather green-looking Genma who had everyone's attention. It took Iruka about two seconds to figure out what had probably happened, and he groaned. "I thought you grew out of the 'poisoning yourself' thing, Gen-chan!" he called out across the room, across a distance between them that apparently had been an illusion all along.

Every head in the room turned, and Iruka could feel himself blushing, as he waved a hand in greeting. He was rescued by Genma, who swayed dramatically as if he might fall over, which prompted several of the shinobi close to him to get ready to catch, and Tsunade to let out a full, loud laugh. "It was a desperate bid for your attention, I'm sure, Iruka-kun!" Tsunade proclaimed brightly, but her practiced healer's eyes were taking in Iruka, looking for signs of depression, insomnia, or any kind of lingering mental unrest. She had to admit, Iruka looked better today than Naruto had been reporting to her for the past few weeks. He was wearing a t-shirt with what looked like training pants, and even his hitae-ate had been left at home, but his characteristic ponytail was in place. And now he was rubbing his scar shyly, which meant he had noticed her scrutiny, and it was time to stop staring.

Genma hadn't quite managed to extricate himself from his crowd of nosy onlookers, who seemed to be wavering between concerned and amused, so Iruka looked around for someone safe to talk to. After crossing off most of his friends, he meandered up the pretty Chuunin at the desk, and introduced himself. After the formalities were out of the way, he asked, "Soseki-san, how are you settling in here?"

Yori blinked up at him. She was fairly sure this young man was the guy she'd replaced, but what people had said about him wasn't adding up for her. Even if his t-shirt said "Mischief" on it, he was the very essence of polite and kind. There was a warmth in his dark eyes that she hadn't expected, and she was pretty certain her heart was attempting to turn into a puddle of goo within her. "Just fine, Umino-san," she said softly. "It's a nice job."

Iruka chuckled. "The paperwork part of it is okay, I guess. Even interesting. But I can't say I agree with you that it's a nice job, between the complete lack of respect and trying to read reports that my students could have done a better job of." He was looking straight at Yori, but his teacher-senses were reaching out somewhere behind him, wondering what the Jounin behind him were making of his comment. As expected, there was a slight shuffling of feet, and somewhere a nervous titter, which he was pretty sure came from Anko.

Yori shook her head, but before she could reply, Tsunade was click-clacking her way over to Iruka. "Iruka-kun, while I would love for you to talk some sense into my new flunky here, I would suggest you schedule a full training session later. Genma-kun claims you're supposed to be making him dinner, and that means you get stuck taking care of him tonight!"

Iruka rolled his eyes, and glared up at the Hokage, then remembered and bowed to her politely. "Yes, Hokage-sama."

One of Tsunade's very dangerous fists landed softly on top of his head. "Don't do that, Iruka-kun. Go get your friend, go home, and have a nice dinner. If he shows any signs of serious danger from his own stupidity, let me know. But you can let him be a little miserable if you like, as long as he's not in danger... he might even learn his lesson."

"Hey! I carry the antidote on me! And it's not stupid, what if your worthless Hokage ass gets attacked and I have to save you? What if..." Genma started, sounding outraged but managing to still look bored if anything.

Iruka laughed, waved at the new desk Chuunin who was keeping her face carefully blank, and wandered across the room to retrieve his dinner guest. "Come on, Gen-chan, let's get you out of here before you manage to stab someone else too," he joked, earning a laugh from the gaggle of curious shinobi still standing around. He winked at Tsunade and then turned on them, bellowing, "And you! All of you! Don't you have work to do? Is Konoha suddenly so short on work that her shinobi have nothing better to do than stand around laughing at a wounded comrade?" Then he heaved a protesting Genma over his shoulder and teleported, leaving behind a cloud of smoke and some very chastised-looking Jounin and Chuunin, who cleared the room within seconds... and one very pleased Hokage, who giggled and pounded on the desk until her hand went through it.