Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or the characters used in this work of fan fiction.
Warnings: Eventual Kakairu (which means male/male romance), possible future smut that will be posted elsewhere and crosslinked - R rated versions of chapters will be provided here. Rating of fic will rise to M in later chapters.
Kakashi arrived at the mission room at 7:15, and found it mostly empty except for Iruka, Genma, and Raido. He cast a glance at the two tokubetsu Jounin before stepping in front of Iruka's desk and smiling down at the teacher.
"Hello, Iruka-sensei," Kakashi said. Iruka looked up from the file he was working on and flashed him a quick grin.
"Hello, Kakashi-san. You're early," he said, and Kakashi nodded slightly, then reached inside his jacket to pull out the mission report. He held the crinkled square of paper out to the Chuunin, who looked at it cautiously.
"My mission report," Kakashi told him, and recognition flashed over Iruka's face. He took the piece of paper and gingerly unfolded it, quickly skimming the details. The teacher sighed, smoothed the paper out, and looked up at Kakashi with the patience of the long-suffering.
"If you're going to write them on the field anyway, Kakashi-san, why not turn them in on time?" Iruka asked, gesturing at the blood and dirt stains on the report. Kakashi chuckled self-consciously and scratched at the back of his head.
"Maa, if I did something like that once, then people would expect me to do it all the time, then it'd turn into people expecting me to actually be on time for things…" he let his voice trail off. Iruka laughed and smiled at him warmly.
"Well, thank you for your hard work. I still have a little bit of straightening up to do here, but then we can head out, okay?" he said. Kakashi nodded and pulled his book out, leaning a hip against the teacher's desk. He didn't make it more than halfway through the first page before he was interrupted by Genma poking Raido in the ribs and hissing something. Kakashi arched an eyebrow over his book at the man, but that only made Genma gesture all the more wildly. Iruka apparently noticed it too, because he tucked another file away and stared calmly at the tokubetsu Jounin.
"Yes, Genma?" the tone of the teacher's voice held more than a little command to it, and Genma started speaking at the rapid, desperate rate of a tattling child while Raido tried to cover his lover's mouth.
"I told him earlier, but he wouldn't listen, and then Raido said that I shouldn't say anything but then he came in here and I think that you should know that Kakashi-san is trying to get into your pants," Genma said, all in one breath. Iruka merely raised an eyebrow in return.
"Oh?"
Genma nodded eagerly. Raido sighed and looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there, and Kakashi studiously examined his book. Fortunately, Iruka's gaze remained on the tokubetsu Jounin.
"And how do you figure that, Genma-san?" Iruka asked in an eerily calm voice. Genma twitched and looked for a moment like he was thinking of actually holding his tongue – though that may have had more to do with the way Raido had suddenly stomped on his foot. Iruka intensified the glare, and Genma nearly trembled.
"Ah, well, he came in here earlier and…" the honey-haired man mumbled.
"And?" Iruka asked. Genma gulped.
"And-he-was-looking-for-you!" Genma blurted out. Iruka's brow rose further.
"So, you think that all people looking for me are trying to get into my pants, as you so eloquently put it?" Iruka asked. Genma flinched and looked down at the floor, mumbling something.
"What was that, Shiranui-san?" Iruka prompted.
"I said maybe," the tokubetsu Jounin muttered, then he pouted, though the effect was mostly lost seeing as it was aimed at the ground rather than at the teacher. Iruka sighed.
"Shiranui-san, just because you want to get into my pants doesn't automatically mean that everyone else wants to," Iruka told him with the patient tone that most people used to explain basic concepts to small children. The pout intensified.
"But- but he was looking at you! And if he's not trying to get into your pants, what is he doing here now?" Genma asked sullenly. Iruka sighed.
"Kakashi-san," and he stressed the name, "is here to turn in his mission report. After that, we're going to go have dinner."
Genma looked up at that, and his eyes flared with triumph. "See! I told you!"
Iruka sighed again, and shook his head. "I give up." He glanced at Raido, who by this point was flushed red and looked like he was trying to decide between melting into the floor and killing his boyfriend. "Raido-san? Could you please explain the difference to him, after he organizes the rest of these files, since he wasted the end of my shift with this nonsense?" he asked. Raido nodded miserably, and Iruka grabbed his bag and nodded at Kakashi.
"Ready to go?"
Kakashi slipped his book into his jacket and nodded. Iruka smiled slightly at him, and for a moment he thought that the confrontation was over with, but when Iruka passed the tokubetsu Jounin he leaned in to whisper something that Kakashi couldn't quite catch in the other man's ear. Whatever it was, it made Genma turn a dangerous shade of white, and Iruka's smile turned into a smirk as he headed out the door. Kakashi waited until they were a few blocks away before speaking up.
"What did you say to him?" Kakashi asked. Iruka glanced back at him, grinning.
"I just told him that I still remembered where to find his senbon," Iruka said smugly. Kakashi laughed, then tucked his hands in his pockets and followed after the teacher.
***
The teacher's apartment was smaller than Kakashi would've expected. He only realized when he saw the place that he'd had a half-formed view of a small house somewhere on the edge of town, with a tiny, tidy yard and a mailbox. A civilian's home. So it was with more than a little surprise that he watched the intricate hand seals Iruka flashed through before placing his hand against the door. The shock must've shown on his face, because when the teacher turned to look at him, he seemed almost bashful, and he rubbed his finger across the scar on his nose before speaking.
"Ah, it's not much, but please come in," he invited, then stepped inside himself. Kakashi followed after the teacher cautiously, eye taking in the details of the apartment. There was a small couch against one wall, and a bookshelf next to it filled with various textbooks and scrolls, but what really caught Kakashi's attention were the traps. He could count seventeen from his position in the doorway alone, and that was without including the ones Iruka had already disarmed. Some of them were simple and merely meant to hinder the opponent, but most of the others were grouped around a door leading off to the right. The traps used there were nothing short of deadly, and Kakashi tugged the hitai-ate covering his Sharingan back to get a better look at them.
It wasn't the first time he'd seen such elaborate traps, but the sheer simplicity of them was astonishing. They weren't all the type of traps that took two days to install, like Kakashi's own – though there were a fair share of that kind of trap, too. No, what Kakashi found the most impressive were the traps that could have been thrown up in minutes, but for all of that would be nearly impossible to disarm without knowing the pattern intimately. He recognized a few of them, but others he could tell were original. Kakashi let his Sharingan linger on one particularly beautiful arrangement of chakra wire before letting out a low whistle.
"Iruka-sensei. Why is this place so heavily trapped?" the Copy Nin asked, not able to keep the admiration out of his voice. Iruka turned to look at him, then blushed slightly.
"Ah…well…"
Kakashi arched an eyebrow at the teacher, not bothering to cover the Sharingan eye. To the teacher's credit he didn't look away from it, though it did seem to make him slightly nervous.
"Yes?" Kakashi prompted. Iruka sighed.
"Naruto," he murmured. Kakashi blinked.
"Naruto?"
Iruka nodded. "He… used to stay here, sometimes. Before he left," he said.
Kakashi glanced back at the traps, then tugged his hitai-ate down, content that he'd memorized them as best as he could without taking them apart. The teacher's assertion made a kind of twisted sense. Not many people would've been willing to have the demon fox container stay at their house at all. It was logical that Iruka would want some kind of protection set up, just in case Naruto slipped. And the array of traps would've been enough to slow him down, if –
"The traps aren't in the right direction to keep him in, Iruka-sensei," Kakashi said, looking back at the Chuunin. Iruka shrugged slightly.
"That's because they aren't intended to," the teacher said. Kakashi blinked.
"Why have them, then?" the Copy Nin asked.
"Because people never seemed to understand that he wasn't the damn fox, and then Akatsuki… I wanted him to feel safe here." Iruka sounded defensive.
"Why keep the traps then, after he left?" Kakashi asked, more than a little curious. Iruka sighed and looked away. When he spoke, it was softly and hesitantly, as if he wasn't quite sure of the words.
"I… I didn't want him to feel like he didn't have a home here. That I'd forgotten about him. So I let them stay up, so that… so that when he comes back, he'll know he's still welcome here," the Chuunin stated. Kakashi shook his head slightly. No matter how much time he spent with this man, it seemed like he'd never understand him. He looked at the man curiously.
"Iruka-sensei?" he asked. Iruka looked at him again, tension still showing on his face.
"Yes?"
"Why are you still a Chuunin?" Kakashi carefully made sure that nothing more than slight curiosity came through in his voice. As soon as he finished asking the question, the teacher's shoulders tensed.
"I… I'm not good at much other than traps. My chakra is low, and I'm not very good with taijutsu," he explained. There was a mechanical tinge to the words, as though Iruka had spoken them many times before, and they made Kakashi raise a brow.
"The traps alone would be enough to get you tokubetsu rank, Iruka-sensei," he said. The words made Iruka tense further.
"Maybe. I should get started on dinner now, if we want to eat before it's time for bed," Iruka said. Kakashi was tempted to press, but he let the excuse stand, knowing that it was too early to push the man further.
***
Iruka seemed to calm down slightly when he walked into the kitchen, and Kakashi watched with slight bemusement as the teacher pulled out no less than ten different types of vegetables. He hooked his thumbs in his vest and slouched against the wall, just watching the man work. There was something comfortable about the way Iruka moved – there wasn't the barely constrained physical power of Gai, or the almost preternaturally fast movements that Kakashi was unconsciously prone to. For all of that, he moved fluidly, and he gathered supplies without needing to look into the cabinets – a trait that convinced Kakashi the man cooked often. Despite the small size of what Kakashi could see of the rest of the apartment, Iruka's kitchen was full-sized with plenty of counter space. Kakashi's attention was caught by a sparkle near the window, and he tried to mentally dismantle the three interlocking traps seated there.
Kakashi was so absorbed in the activity that he almost didn't notice when Iruka threw an eggplant at him, and it was only his reflexes that made him catch the vegetable. He held it up and looked at it skeptically, then glanced over at the Chuunin, whose lips were quirked up in a grin.
"What? Did you think you were the only one who could throw food?" he asked. Kakashi shrugged.
"And you called me childish," he chided. Iruka laughed.
"Yes, well, when you spend as much time every day with children as I do, they rub off on you some," he said. Kakashi snorted.
"I don't know, Iruka-sensei. I'm tempted to think that the rubbing off is going the other way. Dipping his senbon?" Kakashi asked. Iruka grinned at him before turning back to the food.
"He deserved it. You'll find a chopping board in the third cabinet to the left, and knives are in the chopping block," he told the Jounin.
"What makes you assume that I can cook?" Kakashi asked curiously.
"You're a shinobi, Kakashi-san. I assume not that you're able to cook, but that you're capable of cutting something into small pieces," the Chuunin said. Kakashi laughed and shook his head, then pulled the cutting board out from the cabinet Iruka had indicated.
"Slices or strips?" Kakashi asked. Iruka turned around to glance at him.
"Strips. After you finish with the eggplant, you can slice the peppers as well," Iruka said. Kakashi sighed and obediently decimated the eggplant, then reached for a green pepper.
"So what are we making?" Kakashi asked, casting a wary glance at the variety of ingredients. Iruka picked up a slice of pepper and popped it into his mouth, chewing on it and closing his eyes.
"Mmm. Stir-fry," he said. Kakashi nodded. The two fell into an easy rhythm after that, with Kakashi doing most of the preparation for the meal while Iruka started the wok heating and added the vegetables and meat to the pan. The Chuunin added a few spices to the mixture that Kakashi wouldn't have thought to associate with the dish, and when Iruka noticed his skeptical look, he laughed.
"Relax. I do know what I'm doing," he said. Kakashi sniffed.
"You eat tempura. That gives me ample reason to doubt your taste in food," the Copy Nin said. Iruka laughed and shook his head. Kakashi handed him the last few slices of onion, then pulled his gloves off and set them down on the counter. Iruka raised a brow at that, but Kakashi just shrugged and gathered up the dishes that had already been used and started scrubbing them down.
"I can get that after dinner," Iruka told him. Kakashi laughed.
"Maa, Iruka-sensei. First you invite me to dinner at your home, then you set me to work chopping vegetables for you. I think it's a little late to start playing the host."
Iruka rolled his eyes and huffed, but didn't say anything. Kakashi quickly cleaned the dishes and rinsed them off, then dried them with a fluffy towel Iruka pointed out to him. He stacked them neatly on the counter, then dried his hands off and pulled the gloves on. By the time he was finished, Iruka was pulling plates down from the cabinets and filling them with rice and the stir-fry. He handed one of the plates to the Jounin, then gestured at the small table in the corner of the kitchen.
"We can eat here if you prefer, or outside," he said. Kakashi considered it for a moment.
"Outside," he said. The Chuunin smiled and, balancing the plate carefully on one hand, headed out the window. Kakashi followed after him bemusedly, using chakra to stick to the wall, and followed Iruka up to the roof. There was a blanket already arranged there, and he cast a glance at the teacher before sitting down on it. Iruka merely shrugged at him and settled down beside him. Kakashi arranged himself so that he was facing away from the Chuunin, and pulled the mask down. The food was good, better than he would've expected.
"Told you so," Iruka murmured. Kakashi laughed.
"Am I that obvious?" he asked. Iruka nodded.
"When you're moaning with every bite, it's kind of a give away," he told the Copy Nin. Kakashi considered arguing, then decided that was wasting time that he could be spending eating. He focused on the meal and the view of Konoha below, watching as the last few workers headed home for the night. Iruka shifted beside him, and he pulled the mask up before glancing over at the man.
"What is it, Iruka-sensei?" he asked. Iruka shifted again, then sighed.
"Kakashi-san?" he asked. Kakashi quirked an eyebrow up slightly.
"Yes, Iruka-sensei?" he asked.
"…Why are you doing this?" the teacher asked. Kakashi tensed momentarily, and apparently the Chuunin felt it, because he hurried to explain himself.
"I don't mean – I just – you made it pretty clear that you didn't want anyone around. But here we are, eating together yet again, and I just wondered… why."
Kakashi sighed and set his plate down beside him, then stretched out on the blanket, looking up at the sky. He thought for a long time about how to answer. He couldn't tell the Chuunin that he'd been assigned to look after him for a mission, and he was fairly sure that pleading boredom wouldn't work. Instead, he settled on a half-truth.
"I haven't had a friend in a long time," he told the teacher. He heard a slight whisper of movement, and looked over to see the Chuunin had copied his pose, down to the hands tucked behind his head. They stayed silent for a long moment, and when Iruka spoke up, it was in a soft, almost timid voice.
"Do you think that we could be friends?" he asked. Kakashi thought for a moment before answering.
"…yes." Kakashi was surprised to hear the word come from his lips, and more surprised to realize that it was true. Iruka didn't say anything, but when Kakashi glanced over at him, he noticed that the teacher's lips were curved up in a soft smile. He looked back up at the sky and they stayed like that for awhile, then Kakashi pushed himself to his feet.
"I should be going, Iruka-sensei," he told the Chuunin. Iruka nodded and gathered the plates.
"Thank you for coming, Kakashi-san," he said politely. Kakashi hesitated, then nodded and dropped from the roof. As he walked back home, he thought about the traps, the meal, and most of all, the Chuunin.