A shrill scream woke Iruka from his sleep and his body immediately reacted by jumping out of the bed. His consciousness not having caught up spun the whole room before his half open eyes and he fell onto the floor, blankets and all. It took him a few seconds to fully wake up and he looked up at his window. It must've been quite early, but almost time to wake up anyway.

There was another scream followed by excited chattering outside his door.

'Iruka!' His bedroom door burst open and three boy brides rushed into the room.

'Iruka! You need to get ready, we all need to go to Kano's quickly!' One of them practically screamed as he pulled Iruka up.

'ow!' Iruka winced as he felt a sharp pain on his left ankle, and stumbled into the person's arms.

'What's wrong?' One of them asked, untangling the blankets from Iruka's legs.

Iruka looked down and tried to take a step, he winced at another sharp pain. 'I think I twisted my ankle.'

'Oh dear, is it too painful?'

'I think I might've sprained it.' Iruka bent down to feel his ankle.

'Oh that's terrible!' One of the other two gasped. 'We to get it checked quickly.'

Normally, a sprained ankle wouldn't have been a big deal, but for a boy bride, any physical wound meant scarring or worse, a deformity that deemed you damaged.

'Why don't the two of you go ahead to Kano's, and send us the medic on your way.' The boy bride holding Iruka suggested. 'We'll meet you at the grounds later.'

'The grounds?' Iruka frowned as he sat down on his bed.

Boy brides were discouraged from spending too much time outside the palace, and out in the sun to maintain soft skin. No one knew if that helped, but they followed the advice none the less. Iruka for one always thought it was a rather silly beauty tip as he very much loved basking in the sun.

'Oh right! Iruka, exciting news!' The boy bride's face lit up again. 'The Uchiha Shinobis are in town!'

Iruka chuckled and shook his head. 'But we're not allowed outside palace grounds, so it's pointless getting excited about it.'

The three brides giggled uncontrollably and a Iruka puzzled wondered if he'd hit his head too.

'Silly Iruka, we're not allowed to go out, but they're allowed to come in.'

They giggled even harder.

'They are?!' Iruka raised his eyebrows. 'And the Hokage is alright with that?'

'Yes, infact the Hokage invited them.'

'Invited? Inside the palace grounds?' Iruka looked at them suspiciously.

'Yes, a few shinobis are accompanying the nobles for the annual meet, and they need a large area for their morning training.'

'We're the only place with such a large space, so the Hokage offered the the grounds next to the towers.'

'We don't use the towers, so the Hokage thought they wouldn't disturb us.' The three of them giggled. 'But the kitchen maid told Kano san, and everyone knows now.'

Iruka mentally rolled his eyes. Kano san was the groomer, and had all the gossips that she would broadcast to the entire palace. Everyone in the palace must've heard by now, and Iruka doubted if the shinobis would manage to get any training done at all.

'So we have to quickly get dressed and head to Kano san's quarters to get our hair done. We'll send you the medic, make sure you carry your umbrella, Iruka, it's quite a walk.' Two of them squealed as they rushed out the door, their giggles fading as they almost ran through the corridors.

'You sit, I'll pick out a robe for you.' The boy bride still holding him said as he helped his feet up on the bed. Iruka winced as his left leg was placed on the bed, the pain was worse than before.

'Thank you Tomoe, but I don't think i'll be able to walk to the grounds.' Iruka sighed. He did want to take a peek.

'Are you sure?' Tomoe frowned in worry.

Iruka tried to move his leg, and squeaked as he felt another sharp pang in his ankle. 'Definite.' He nodded.

—-

Kakashi chuckled as he watched his fellow shinobis tried to impress their onlookers with their over the top ninjutsu tricks that got fancier and fancier as more boy brides joined the audience. Shinobis were such suckers for attention. Ironically.

A poof of smoke appeared and a tall shinobi stood next to him. 'Yo.'

Kakashi nodded without glancing at him.

'Anyone catch your eye?' The shinobi snorted, leaning against the tree they were under.

'It's hard to look at anyone else when your comrades are making complete fools of themselves.' Kakashi snorted back.

'Cut them some slack.' The shinobi laughed, 'They're just trying to impress the boy brides.'

'hm.' Kakashi shrugged.

'Damn.' The shinobi whistled. 'How can they be that pretty.'

'Aren't you dating the Konoichi from the second squad, Asuma?' Kakashi yawned.

'well.' Asuma cleared his throat. 'I sort of got turned down.'

Kakashi finally looked at Asuma and chuckled. 'What did you do?'

'Why would you assume I did something?' Asuma pushed Kakashi lightly, who couldn't stop sniggering. 'We had been meeting each other often so I assumed she would go out with me, but she turned me down saying she needed to focus on her training.'

'I'm sorry to hear that.' Kakashi tried to hide his laughter but his shaking shoulders gave him away, earning him a harder push from Asuma.

'Shut up.'

'No, really, I am.' Kakashi tried to sound serious but you could hear his smiled in his voice.

'Fuck off Kakashi, like you would understand.' Asuma playfully kicked him.

'But I saw it coming.' Kakashi lazily dodged the kick. 'Kurenai is a tough shell, I did warn you.'

'Yeah, whatever.' Asuma kicked higher and Kakashi half heartedly blocked it. 'Like you would know squat about girls.'

'What's gender got to do with reading people.' Kakashi blocked another kick.

'What's reading people got to do with dating?' Asuma threw a punch and Kakashi dodged it effortlessly.

'everything.' Kakashi poofed himself on the branch of the tree.

'Are you going to just keep blocking and dodging my blows?' Asuma looked up at Kakashi.

'Sorry, I'm not in the mood to train.' Kakashi yawned. He had been reading his book the whole night, it was dawn by the time he had finished it. 'Give it some time Asuma, she'll come around.'

He said and vanished leaving a cloud smoke behind.

'Wha- that lazy perv.' Asuma sighed and headed towards the other shinobis who had now started to do sword tricks as the cheers from the brides got louder. He needed to control these idiots before things got out of hand.

—-

Hello, I'm back. I don't know if people are still reading this anymore, it took me so long to get back to this story. I didn't think I would come back to complete it really. Heartbreaks can be so destroying. I started this with the intention of making it fluffy and romantic, so I couldn't bring myself to write it anymore. Im back now, because I need to complete this, and hopefully someone is still reading this story :)