Chapter 21: Play but not Play
Namiashi Raidou was very nervous. He'd spent half an hour looking in the mirror, trying to pep-talk himself for the evening, before Anko wandered in and gave him a little sigh.
"You don't have to impress them, Rai. They're your friends. They've been your friends your whole damn life, and that's why you're doing this, remember?" The kunoichi came up behind him and stood on tiptoe to lean her head over the bigger man's shoulder and kiss his cheek, her eyes straying to the image they made in the mirror.
"I know," Raidou said quietly, automatically pulling away from the touch, though one broad hand slid across her head as if in apology. "That's why I'm so nervous about it. I need this to work. I have to be able to do this, because I can't lose my best friends."
Anko took the physical rejection in stride, used to it from her friend, having long since accepted his lack of comfort with touch sometimes. And, honestly, it's a lot better now than it used to be. Shiranui did a good job on him in that way, and someday I'm hoping to have a reason to thank him for it.
Smiling, she moved to lean against the mirror, blocking his view of it. "You won't lose them. Even if you completely blow tonight, make an ass of yourself, or hell, treat them the way they deserve to be treated after being such self-absorbed brats, they'll still care about you. They might have fucked things up right now, but they're good guys underneath it all, and one little wrong note between you isn't going to make you lose them."
Raidou shook his head and smiled. "You're good at the pep-talk thing, you know that, Anko-chan?" He leaned down to give her a hug, slipped his lips across her cheek in the barest of kisses, and went about finishing getting ready.
"Yeah," she said softly at his retreating form, leaning a little more heavily against mirror and wall. Her smile widened, and she leaned her cheek on her hand, thoughtfully.
At Genma's house, the atmosphere was filled with much the same nervous energy. He hadn't bought any furniture. He'd been living as if camping in his own home still, items tucked away in boxes, broad empty spaces in each room. The living room had a fresh coat of sunny yellow paint, the kitchen a soft shade of blue, his bedroom a darker green. He was glad that at least he'd managed to get the paint smell out of the house already, but it still didn't seem quite right to have company over with the condition of the house, the bareness of it.
Iruka shrugged his shoulders at Genma when he whined this for the billionth time. "Is Raidou really company, Gen-chan? I know you broke up and he moved out and everything, but even when we were younger, and he didn't live here, he acted as if he did, cleaned up after parties with us, spent almost as much time here as he did at home. I think it would feel wrong to worry about whether your place is nice enough when inviting him over."
"It does feel wrong," Genma admitted softly, turning his head and resting it against the wall, his senbon rolling from one side of his mouth to the other. "Okay, so we'll have a little picnic. Play cards in the floor, drink some sake, eat the sandwiches we made. It'll be fine, Raidou won't give a damn that there's no table or no chairs or… he won't care. Hell, it'll be just like all the damn times we didn't use the furniture anyway because we were drunk enough we didn't want to fall off."
The younger man chuckled and reached out to run a hand through his lover's silky hair. "Yup, just like old times. Now get things set up, okay? I'm going to dig us up some cards from the boxes."
The knock at the door came sooner than they expected, and Iruka found himself running to answer it, Genma sitting in the floor as if frozen in place. Two men stood, a door open between them, for a long moment, scarred faces naked with a strange vulnerability and fresh pain. Then the moment was past them, and the younger and smaller of the two men was stepping forward, wrapping his hands around his friend, whispering, "Thank you, Raidou."
The big man wasn't sure what he was being thanked for, exactly, and chose not to think about it. Probably just for coming over, but one never knew with Iruka, not without asking anyway. Raidou's thoughts drifted back to the day when he'd been playing cards with Iruka last in this same house, only then he'd been the one who had answered the door, because he had lived there. They had hugged then too, and that had been when Raidou had asked Iruka if he'd be angry at him if he broke up with Genma.
So much had changed since then.
Nothing had changed since then. Iruka still felt comfortable in his arms, was still his trusted friend. Raidou let the man hold on as long as he wanted, and when he was released, he easily stepped past him into the house, taking in the new colors as he went. The sunny yellow of the living room made him give a low whistle, and the man sitting in the middle of the floor on a blanket with food spread around him for a picnic looked up and smiled.
There was a moment of silence as Raidou and Iruka took their places on the blanket, a moment of awkward shifting as Raidou walked over and paused, then took up a position that forced the younger shinobi to sit between him and his ex-lover. Iruka took it in stride, smiling and leaning down to kiss his boyfriend and then reaching out a hand to pat the scars on Raidou's cheek, the gesture accepted in a way it wouldn't have been if it had come from Genma.
Time passed. Moments ticked away on the clock, food was consumed, sake eased what surprisingly little tension there was. When the cards came out, Raidou immediately took them, and dealt, and when the chuunin of the group saw what was being dealt, he gasped.
Raidou nodded at him, then looked past Iruka to Genma, eyes meeting, a wry smile playing over his lips. "From now on, no more secrets between us three. Ever. I'm going to teach Genma the game Iruka and I play, and you two…"
He slid his eyes from one to the other, taking in the energy that already seemed to mingle between them, the way they had taken up where they left off, only now the tinge of insecurity and intensity between them wasn't there, the instability he'd worried himself sick over for both their sakes around the time they broke up. "You two are going to be your ridiculously sweet, disgustingly happy selves and not worry about hurting me."
Two mouths opened at once, but Raidou merely shook his head, a warning. "Nope, you don't get to talk yet. Neither of you. Now…"
He started in explaining the rules of the game, moving easily through the different ways to set the cards down, how you started playing the cards in descending order, then switched to alternating colors, suits, changed directions, each in turn. "It's not about the cards, it's about keeping track of how they're being played without having to think about it. You lose your concentration, and you lose. If I have to stop and try to figure out which style of play we're on, I'm done."
Genma waxed philosophical, in his own mind, about the way their lives had been the same, jumping from one way of relating to each other to another, and trying so hard to keep up. Even now he was trying hard to keep up, to sit with the two men he loved most in the world and remember, after everything that had happened between the three of them, exactly where things stood now.
A half hour later, Raidou was cocking his head and kicking the senbon-chewing man. "Hey, jerk, I think staring off into space like that counts as a loss, even if you're not looking at the cards."
Genma jumped. Iruka laughed easily and made his best fake-scowl. "Hey, Rai-rai, that happens to be my boyfriend you're abusing. Please leave him at least reasonably in one piece for me."
There was a half-second of tension, and then Raidou smiled and kicked Genma again. "Make me, sen…seiiiii!"
A dark blur raised itself from the blanket, knocking over a cup, and lunged across the blanket to attack, Iruka landing heavily on his friend, cards flying all around them. Genma made a grab for his boyfriend, ready to stop the fight before it managed to get out of hand, but Raidou was too fast, snaking out a hand and jerking Genma down with them.
The wrestling match that ensued made a huge mess. Sake and plates and cards everywhere, the deck destined for the trash, spotted and smelling of alcohol and bent. It ended with Genma and Raidou teaming up on the youngest member of their little group and tickling him, much as it would have in the old days, and Iruka admitting defeat and panting and lying back against the floor, a smile making its way through the exhaustion.
Genma smiled as well. Raidou didn't play, but Raidou still played, and everything was going to be fine, just fucking fine, thank you very much.
Izumo came home to his apartment after his mission and deactivated his traps with chakra, then carefully stepped over the threshold, knowing better than to believe he was safe. He'd given the biggest prankster he knew access to his home, and there was a price to be paid, had to be.
He spent over an hour walking through the rooms looking for any kind of sign as to where the trap lay or what its nature was. There was nothing. Frustrated and feeling a little unloved, he finally took himself off to the shower, leaving his uniform scattered across the floor, messily.
He checked the shampoo bottle, the soap, everything, but it all looked and smelled right, no sign of any strange dyes or fragrances having been added. He shook his head, stepped into the tiny stall, and turned on the water.
The chakra tag stuck to the back of the shower stall activated. It waited the required couple of minutes, just long enough to hopefully give Izumo time to actually get clean, and then whisked him away, the teleportation jutsu plopping him down in the middle of Kotetsu's kitchen, dripping.
"What the hell?" he squeaked.
The two men eating dinner seemed unfazed. "Just be glad you didn't come home in the middle of his classes, he had to set to bring you wherever he was," Kotetsu lied, knowing full well the destination had always been his apartment.
Izumo blushed and turned to glare at Iruka, who merely leaned over and licked playfully at the water running down his friend's belly. "Come on, now, you know you'd have been offended if I hadn't done something to you." He stood and walked past the younger men, headed for the bathroom and a towel for his wet friend.
The other two men stood and looked at each other for a second, and then Kotetsu stood and walked over and whisked Izumo into his arms. "I missed you."
"Missed you too," Izumo replied softly, burying his face in his best friend's neck. "Getting you wet," he added, smiling against the uniform shirt his hair was currently drenching.
"Always do," Kotetsu replied playfully, reaching out to accept the towel Iruka tossed in the room at them.
Izumo wanted to turn to look at the man standing in the doorway behind them, but Kotetsu was busily drying his hair, so instead he called out to him. "Ruka, tell me your news."
The dark-skinned chuunin paused in mid-step, as he had turned on his heel and started to walk away, wanting to give the two their privacy. He was reminded again how much he didn't really understand their relationship, but that too was fine, because it wasn't his to understand, and his relationship to them was something he was starting to understand at least.
"He said yes. I went to see him, and we talked, and… we're doing fine. Genma and I… it's better than I imagined it could be, in all those years we were apart." Iruka chuckled at how ridiculous he sounded.
Kotetsu pulled the towel away, kissed the scar on Izumo's neck, and then stepped away. A slender hand reached out to pet his cheek, a silent 'thank you' and then Izumo turned, slid across the floor and embraced Iruka. "I'm happy for you. And glad you're still here, too."
Iruka hugged Izumo close against him, and smiled over his head at Kotetsu, who smiled back. The uniformed chuunin cocked his head for a second, thinking, and then took a few steps across the floor, putting his arms around both of his friends, pulling on Iruka's ponytail and then kissing Izumo's cheek in turn.
Life settled into a pattern. Iruka came and went easily from Kotetsu's apartment, sometimes Izumo's, occasionally spending a night at the house Genma was slowly and carefully furnishing to his own taste alone.
Parties were held. Naruto came to one almost a month after the night Iruka, Genma, and Raidou had played cards, and spent the entire night holed up in a corner with his old sensei, talking, telling Iruka all the things he'd missed during the time that they'd been apart, that Naruto had been busy taking care of Kakashi to spend time with him.
He didn't ask how the man he'd spent three years with was doing. The young blond didn't offer, talking easily about the politics he was more and more embroiled in, about his training, about his shy girlfriend and the likelihood that he was going to ask for her hand in marriage any day now.
It was almost a month after that when Iruka looked out his classroom one day to see a silver-haired man in an Anbu mask giving him a deep bow before flitting away, off on another mission no doubt. He smiled and whispered aloud, "Be safe, Kakashi," though the man was already gone, couldn't have heard the words anyway, not through the glass.
"I miss him," he admitted, to himself in that moment. "I miss him," he repeated that evening to Izumo, the three of them sitting on Kotetsu's couch and watching a movie.
"Damn it. I'm going out."
Izumo and Iruka both looked at Kotetsu in surprise as he stood, shoved his feet into his shoes and walked out the door, not offering any explanation. The spiky-haired chuunin's back was tense, Iruka could see that much, and then he was gone, and Iruka didn't know what had happened. He looked to his other friend to see, and Izumo gave a small sigh.
"He's probably going to go see Genma," Izumo replied, scooting closer on the couch and putting his arms around his friend. He had been pleasantly surprised to discover that even after Iruka and Genma got back together that nothing had changed between himself and Iruka, the touches between them flowing just as easily, no feeling of holding back or worry over whether it was okay within Iruka's relationship.
Iruka gave a little sigh. "Yes, I suppose I shouldn't have said that, in front of Kotetsu. I know he and Genma have become friends, more so than you and Gen have. I just… I miss Kakashi. It's not like I'm going to overturn everything I'm building and run to him, but we said we would be friends, and we haven't managed it, quite."
Izumo nuzzled his friend's neck. "You only broke up a few months ago. These things take time, Ruka, you can't expect him to just be all okay and comfortable right away. And you told me what Naruto said, that Kakashi is starting to act like himself again, like he was before the two of you were together…"
"That's the problem!" Iruka snapped. He blushed and hid his face in Izumo's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Zumo, I'll sorry. It's just, that's the problem, ultimately, that he's going back to not being a part of anyone's life, not having anyone to care about him. It's not like the kids don't try, but they all have their own lives. And the only close friends I remember him having are Hayate and Genma and Asuma, and two of those people are dead, and one… I think he and Genma have talked a couple of times, but they don't seem to be as close anymore."
Izumo shook his head and stood, disentangling himself from his friend. "I think I'm with Tetsu on this one, Ruka. I would love to sit here and comfort you and tell you everything is going to be okay, because you know I love you. But I can't, because honestly you're the only one who can find a way to make it okay now. You need to talk to Kakashi, and you need to talk to Genma, and damn it if I see you jumping from one to the other of them again, I'm going to be pissed." His normally calm and easy demeanor was gone, the slight man clenching his fists, tossing his hair out of his eyes so he could use them both to glare at his friend.
Iruka flinched, then slid off the couch and embraced his friend, unfazed by the way Izumo's muscles remained tense. "Thank you. Zumo, thank you. I needed that. I'm being a brat again, and I have to stop, and so I'll be a big boy and suck it up and talk to Kakashi about how much his friendship means to me, without turning it into something it can't be. Because I won't leave Genma, not now."
Izumo pulled back and placed a kiss on Iruka's cheek, but there was a thoughtful look in his eyes, and he filed a thought away in the back of his mind to present to Kotetsu when he returned.