AN: Yeah yeah like three days later and I'm back on my Naruto bullshit I know how it looks, but goddamn have been meaning to write this for a while and am very excited about it!
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Iruka had been on edge all day. To an outside observer it would seem he was overreacting, but he knew better. The day of classes was almost over, but Naruto had not pulled any kind of pranks. It was the first day back from a break, and there hadn't been any prank attempts in a month. He'd tried the long con once in his younger days, but never managed to hold off this long. Whatever Naruto was up to would be huge, he just knew it.
"Um, Iruka is my answer wrong?" Sakura was giving him a confused look, as was most of the class.
"Oh uh" he snapped back to reality, having spaced out for a solid few minutes. "No it was correct, now can anyone tell me why practicing Shurikenjutsu is so important?"
He looked over the class, the weird looks from them all continued. Finally Sakura raised her hand once again.
"Well if no one else knows, go ahead Sakura."
"It's just, that was the question you asked before, and I already answered it."
"Ah" he had made a mistake, he heard a few chuckles amongst the students. "That was a test, very good you saw through the trick. Moving on, let's go get some target practice in!"
There was a cheer as the students prepared to go out to the training grounds. He couldn't help but notice Naruto's normal amount of enthusiasm, another suspicious sign. He tried to ignore the sense of impending danger. Instead he felt the need to focus on teaching seven year olds to throw sharp things and not harm themselves.
"Alright good job everyone" the arrival of some parents meant the day was over. "Remember to keep practicing in your free time as well!"
"Ha I hit more targets than you Naruto" Kiba bragged loudly about this feat.
"You cheated, Akamaru put all the work in" Naruto argued back with him. "Besides I wasn't even trying today."
That odd comment put Iruka back on edge. Naruto was always highly competitive on the training grounds, something was wrong. He watched the group of students slowly filter out as parents came by, as always Naruto was the last one there. If something was going to happen he knew it'd be soon, he'd have to try and prevent it.
"Do you need me to take you home Naruto?" this would give him more time to piece together this prank that was brewing.
"Oh nah I'm waiting."
The alarm bells in his head were starting to go off. Was he waiting for Iruka to leave so he could rig up something in the academy? He did a quick scan of the area, if it was something like that he'd have to have materials somewhere.
"You sure?" his mind started clocking overtime to think of what he could be planning. "We could even stop and get something to eat on the way?"
This was his ultimate weapon to get Naruto to do something, he knew the kid could never turn down ramen.
"Nah I shouldn't have to wait too much longer" he was onto Iruka being onto him, that was the only explanation.
"Well, I'll just sit over here with you, or I could give you some more pointers for throwing shuriken?"
This was his last ditch effort to delay whatever Naruto had cooked up, and he could see him considering it. He thanked the powers that be for helping him prevent this catastrophe.
"Naruto sorry I'm late!" his scheming was interrupted by a new voice as someone else came over. "This place is not easy to get to if you take the roads."
Iruka stopped and looked at this newcomer. They looked to be roughly the same age as him, a bit shorter and with short dirty blonde hair. He tried to figure out who this was as he met their green eyes.
"Oh you must be Iruka!" he looked at the hand held out towards him.
"Uh yes I am" he shook it hesitantly. "Sorry I don't think I know who you are?"
"Really?" they looked over at Naruto. "I thought he would have told you, but right sorry. I'm Rōzu! It's nice to have a face for the legendary Iruka Naruto talks about all the time."
"Well it's nice to meet you too?" Iruka looked over to Naruto, off put by the large grin plastered on his face.
"Oh how could I forget, sorry Iruka this is my mom!"
"WHAT" Iruka snapped his head back up to look at Rōzu.
"Oh and he offered to get us some ramen so is that cool?"
"Naruto you had ramen yesterday you can't have it two nights in a row, but if you'd like to have dinner with us you are more than free to."
Iruka was still in a state of shock trying to process who he was currently meeting. He was only broken from this by the loud laughter of Naruto.
"Yes, I would like that" he didn't want to be rude, but also needed to know if this was an elaborate ruse to mess with him.
"Great, I can write down our address for you then."
"That would be very helpful yeah."
He waited a few moments but noticed they didn't pull anything out to write on.
"Oh do you need a pen or some paper?"
"I kind of just need you to let go of my hand" they looked down at the handshake that was still going on.
"Ah right sorry" Iruka quickly retracted his hand, more than a little embarrassed.
"And you can stop by" they looked over at Naruto while thinking. "I guess around six?"
"Six sounds great" he took the note with the address on it.
"Perfect, this is nice since I wanted to meet with you and ask about how he was in school and everything like that."
"What" Naruto snapped to attention. "That doesn't need to be known. I'm a great student, right Iruka?"
"I think we will have quite a lot to talk about over dinner today" he got to have the last laugh as Naruto's face sunk.
"Great, I'm looking forward to it!" Rōzu took Naruto's head and started to head out.
Iruka politely waved them off and waited to be out of sight before quietly freaking out. Naruto had a mom? He assumed the Hokage would have arranged this so he wouldn't be all alone, but why wasn't told about this? Needing some preliminary answers before showing up to the dinner he went to the Hokage tower. Conveniently he ran into the Hokage as he seemed to be on his way out.
"Ah Iruka" he seemed to be in better spirits than Iruka expected. "A pleasant surprise to see you."
"Thank you sir?" he wasn't sure how, but he knew Naruto had somehow gotten the Hokage in on this prank.
"Are you stopping by for any particular reason? I was about to head home for the day."
"Sorry yes I am, I just have a few questions about Naruto's new mom?"
"Oh so you've met Rōzu?"
"Yes I have, when did that happen exactly?" Iruka had done a few missions during the academy break, but didn't think he'd have missed something like that.
"I want to say three weeks ago, I'd have to check my calendar for an exact date though."
"No that's not necessary, another question I have. How did this happen?"
"You'd have to ask the two of them for exact details there, but from what I understand Rōzu met Naruto by chance. They were here for a visit of some kind, and then adopted him, formally became a citizen here, and now work as my secretary."
"So you didn't just assign someone to adopt him? It happened naturally?"
"Iruka I thought you were passed these feelings towards Naruto."
"No it's not that, I'm just a little unsure of him being adopted by someone who just showed up three weeks ago."
"I was too, I assure you, but I personally vetted Rōzu and found them to be perfectly fine. If you'd like I'm sure I could arrange a meeting between you two and you could do your own vetting."
"I'm actually having dinner with the two of them today."
"Well if tomorrow you have doubts of character or fear for Naruto's well being, please bring them to my attention."
"Of course sir."
"Good, now I will be on my way" true to his word, he left.
Having heard the Hokage's information on this situation, Iruka was now only seventy percent sure it was a prank. Without any other options, he just killed the few hours before the dinner plans. He felt confident in his ability to get to the bottom of this, and in his selection of a dessert that he politely bought to bring. He arrived ten minutes before six and knocked on the door.
"SHIT HE'S EARLY, GO STALL HIM!" he heard the sound of frantic footsteps rushing towards the door.
"Hey there Iruka" Naruto opened the door, he could see smoke coming from what he assumed was the kitchen. "Didn't you say a good ninja is on time?"
"Is everything ok?" he tried to see what the cause of the smoke was, but Naruto closed the door some more so he couldn't.
"Yeah it's all, uh, good. There's no burnt cake why would you even mention that."
"I didn't?"
"What crazy!" Naruto started laughing loudly as a distraction to look for another. "Whoa what's that you got there? A bag? That's cool."
"Yeah I bought a small cake to bring for dessert since your mom was making dinner? Is that going ok?"
"Oh the dinner? Yeah that's going uh, real good."
"FUCK" he wasn't convinced.
"Just um, the baking, cause mom wanted to make a cake for dessert. That hasn't been going too great."
Iruka heard the sound of a window slam open and then shut again. After a few moments the door was opened all the way and Rōzu joined the conversation.
"So" they looked at the bag he was carrying. "That's a neat bag you go there huh."
"Yeah I stopped and got a cake for dessert."
"Oh that's great, I um, didn't have time, yeah that's it, I didn't have time to make one."
"Right of course" Iruka didn't want to be rude by mentioning what he'd seen and heard. "Can I come in?"
"Yes of course, welcome to our lovely and currently smoke filled home."
It was of course small, the kitchen dining and living room all seemed to be combined together. He guessed there were two bedrooms from the doors he saw, and that the third one was probably the bathroom. It looked like a reasonably nice place for Naruto to have rented out for this elaborate prank.
"Feel free to pick any seat, also I hope you like chicken I didn't think to ask earlier" Rōzu had gone back into the kitchen area while speaking. "Also do you want a drink? We have water, milk, or wine?"
"Wine?"
"Oh great" they brought the bottle out and a glass for him. "The Hokage gave it to me as a gift but I really don't like wine, so feel free to take the bottle I guess?"
"Oh uh" Iruka was caught up between not being rude and also not wanting a whole bottle of wine to drink with this dinner. "Thank you, but could I also get some water?"
"Of course!"
He waited quietly as they brought out everything else for the meal. Given the scene he'd arrived at, he was surprised to see the chicken stir-fry looked pretty good. Once all three of them were situated at the table they began to eat.
"Thank you for dinner" he was still a little on guard, waiting for something to pop out at him. "It was very good."
"Oh thank you!" Rōzu beamed from the compliment. "Turns out reading cook books is a great way to learn how to cook quickly."
"Yeah you should've been here two weeks ago" Naruto whispered this to him. "We got takeout cause mom kept burning everything."
"I heard that."
"I didn't say anything, you can't prove it!"
"Did you not used to cook?" Iruka didn't understand that.
"Not really no."
"Not a lot of time with your old job?" he felt like this would be a good chance for him to learn more about who they were.
"That is certainly a way to put it."
"What did you used to do?"
"Oh a little of this a little of that, you know?"
"No I can't say I do."
"Oh sure you do, you know, uh, temp work. Yeah, temp work."
"You used to work as a temp worker."
"Yup."
"Uh huh, and where are you from?"
"Oh all over, lots of travel with the temp work. Before that I was born in the Land of Snow and lived there for a good while."
"And you came here because?" he hoped to keep this actual answer momentum going.
"Hard to say, just was here you know."
"Sure" he should've expected that wouldn't work. "And you adopted Naruto?"
"Sure did, there's paperwork and everything to back that up."
"How did you two meet?"
"Oh I got this one" Naruto decided to enter the conversation having sat on the sideline long enough.
"By all means" Iruka did also want to hear this from Naruto as well and assumed he could get Rōzu's take on it later.
"Well it all started when you were on a two-day mission last month, I coordinated my last big prank with you being out of town."
"Of course you did, continue please."
"I was pulling a fast one on some of those losers, you know the ones."
