-Lines mean a scene change, '(A)' is standing in for Mr.Asterisk, whom FFN so cruelly ate. We're hoping that it doesn't get the munchies for the stand in as well. See the notes at the end for notes on the asterisked bits-
The night sky was a present to us
Winter had arrived in Konoha and the entire village was covered in a blanket of snow. Well, except for the roads, which had been gritted for safety reasons. And the rooftops. Not to mention every other surface that juvenile shinobi might decide it would be a good idea to dare their friends to attempt running over. Winter certainly was a trying time for parents with foolhardy children.
Kakashi was currently 'liberating' some old wooden boards from a dumpster near an area of the village that was being repaired after a recent mishap with a fire jutsu.(A) The annual snow lantern festival began that day and he wanted to have his boards ready for lantern moulding ahead of the usual last minute rush towards the late afternoon.
Kakashi began making his way back through the village towards Iruka's apartment, stopping to converse with Team 7 for a few minutes when he passed them making a 'snow scarecrow' snowman variant with a spare uniform Naruto had pestered Iruka into lending him. Reaching Iruka's apartment, the jounin propped the boards against the wall inside the doorway, removing his sandals and placing them alongside Iruka's below the step. Walking through to the kitchen, he found Iruka sitting at the table reading the Konoha Shinbun while sipping a cup of coffee.
"Ah, Kashi-kun. Were you successful?"
"Hai, found four good sized boards no problem." The jounin answered, taking a seat on the other side of the table. "What time do you want to head out and get sculpting?"
"I was thinking about two o'clock if that's ok with you. I have a place in mind, but if we leave it too late other people might have set their lanterns up there," the chuunin replied, looking a little sheepish. Kakashi immediately recognised that it was Iruka's politeness kicking in as usual. The words 'But we can build it someplace you've chosen if you want,' were unspoken, but Kakashi read them as easily as though the chuunin had spoken them aloud.
"Iru-kun, wherever you've chosen is fine by me. I don't have anywhere particular in mind."
Iruka looked relieved that Kakashi wasn't put out by his forwardness, blushing a little and returning his attention to his newspaper.
"However, I do have one condition," Kakashi stated, smiling to himself as he watched Iruka look up in surprise. "You must let me carve the top of the lantern. You may carve the bottom, but let me carve the top?"
"Uh..hai, of course, that's fine," Iruka said, at first looking taken by surprise, then looking slightly accusing as he said, "So long as you're not trying to make insinuations about who wears the trousers in this relationship?"
"Nani?" Kakashi replied, looking bored as well as falsely non-comprehending. "I don't know know what you mean Iru-kun."
"Oh yes you do," Iruka said, looking embarrassed. "I'm not getting the bottom of the lantern just because I'm the uke am I?"
"Why Iru-kun…using such suggestive language so soon in the day? It's only just past noon," Kakashi said teasingly. "But no, that's not my reasoning. Alas, I can't let you in on my little secret yet."
"Tell me?" Iruka murmured, putting on his puppy dog eyes (think Menchi of Excel Saga). He was leaning his chin on his hands, elbows on the table. That particular look had worked before in situations with a specific goal. Ok, so the goal was usually the bedroom, but that didn't mean it couldn't work in this instance too.
"Sorry, Iru-kun, that's not going to work. My mind's made up."
"Tell me?" Iruka was practically pouting.
"Iie."
Getting up and walking around the table, Iruka stradled Kakashi's lap, arms around his neck. Kakashi just leaned back in the chair and put his arms behind his head, lazily.
"Tell me?"
"Iie. And don't think you can worm it out of me with dolphin charm."
"Tell me?" Iruka murmured, moving closer and pulling down the mask, exposing Kakashi's lower face.
"Still no, I'm afraid."
"…" Iruka leaned forward, kissing Kakashi lightly several times before trailing kisses along his jaw. "Tell me?"
Kakashi, for his part, felt sorry for Iruka. The chuunin was unwittingly rewarding the jounin when he had no chance at all of gleaning the information he sought. Well, almost felt sorry. He decided that if Iruka was going to stoop so low as to use his body as leverage, he deserved to not get what he wanted.
With a low growl Kakashi picked the chuunin up, sat him on the edge of the table and pressed him onto his back, crawling onto the table himself in order to kneel on his hands and knees over the chuunin. Iruka uttered a small 'Eeep' sound, eyes widening in surprise.
"You really are stubborn, aren't you," Kakashi murmured, looking rather hungrily at his trapped prey. "You know what they always say, 'Curiosity seriously impaired the dolphin'.
"No they don't, you made that up!" Iruka accused, temporarily forgetting his current status as prey and looking put out. His vocation as a teacher of small children often made him petty when it came to bad puns.
"Maa, sou da. Demo, given the situation, it fits. You're a dolphin, not a cat. And while your curiosity may get you in trouble, I'm not vindictive enough to kill you for it."
"Just vindictive enough to 'seriously impair' me for it?" Iruka replied sarcastically
"Well, when I say impair…I mean that I'd have to make it so you were unable to walk straight for a week if you keep pursuing that particular line of inquiry." Kakashi responded with a lascivious leer. Iruka's eyes widened but he looked like his brain was rapidly processing possibilities. The jounin could tell his prey was weighing up the pros and cons associated with getting the information that was being withheld from him. Kakashi hoped his koi realised he wasn't going to get the information either way. Extracting secrets from horny scarecrows wasn't something they taught at the Academy. Well, not the Konoha Academy anyway, Kakashi thought to himself.
Heaving a sigh, Iruka apparently admitted defeat, having followed his train of thought to the fact that a man who had survived the Mangekyou Sharingan wasn't likely to be broken by a cute chocolate-haired teacher.
"Kuso, I guess waiting is the best option after all," He said, grudgingly.
Kakashi's eyes curved into happy arcs as he got up off the table. "Ii desu. It wouldn't do to make such a mess of the table." The silver haired shinobi made for the fridge. Iruka realised the man hadn't eaten lunch yet and just managed to jump up off the table and intercept him in time before he opened the door.
"Oh no you don't, let me fix you something," the chuunin said, a slightly overzealous pitch to his voice.
Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "You want to wait on me hand and foot now? You're not trying a different tack to worm the secret out of me are you?"
"No, I can just imagine what monstrous creation you might come up with if I let you make something yourself," the dolphin replied, looking like he'd rather live on instant ramen for a month than let Kakashi touch the contents of the fridge. "Just what were you planning on making for yourself?" Iruka asked, as if trying to prove a point.
Kakashi shrugged, "A banana hot dog with natto. What else?" He had his 'duh' face on, Iruka observed. Kakashi's near suicidal attempts at food preparation often left Iruka wondering if he maybe did it on purpose. But then, Iruka reasoned, there were only two reasons for such behaviour. One was to freak Iruka into cooking for him so he could be lazy. The problem with that was that not only would Iruka happily cook anyway, Kakashi would have only had to create one such nightmarish dish in the kitchen and as it was he was up to 3 attempts in the 3 days they had been living together. The second reason Iruka could think of was that Kakashi did it to get that disbelieving response from him and to weird him out. However, Iruka knew Kakashi well enough to know when he was enjoying himself at Iruka's expense and now was not one of those times. Which only left the inconceivable fact that Kakashi must actually enjoy the food he prepared himself.
"O….k…" Iruka said, his face only remaining its usual shade because he was trying to figure out the closest 'real food' he could prepare to what the jounin wanted to eat. "How about a bowl of miso and a banana sundae for dessert?" the chuunin said, looking hopeful.
"Hmm, well, I like my idea better, but since you look so eager, I guess that's fine," Kakashi replied, managing to look only slightly put out.
Iruka tried not to look too relieved as he set about preparing lunch for the two of them
In a snow covered clearing in a forest on the outskirts of Konoha the leaf genin were gathered, making snowmen. Various approaches were being implemented. Chouji's snowman didn't really resemble anyone in particular, it was just as large as the boy had managed to make it before he stopped for an extended snack break (which was surprisingly, very big indeed.) Lee had managed to get Neji and Tenten to help him to make something he had dubbed the 'Vision of Gai-sensei'. I.e, a rather frosty looking Gai-totem, in one of his characteristic nice-guy poses (Gai had already been by earlier in the day and shouted something about 'the artistic beauty of youth'). Kiba had made a remarkably realistic wolf, to which Shino had added remarkably realistic fleas. Hinata had made a cute snow-Akamaru nearby. Ino had tried to get Shikamaru to help with her Sasuke-shrine, but the most creative thing he did was draw a few clouds in the snow, after which he sat against a tree gazing at the sky, sighing like an old man.
"Oi, Sasuke-bastard! Incoming!" Naruto had the courtesy to yell as he hurled a snowball at the Uchiha heir. The ball melted a couple of inches from Sasuke's face, melted into liquid by a tiny puff of his katon jutsu. The boy's face remained its usual unimpressed, stoic expression as he said "Dobe, what are you doing?"
"What the hell have you done to that snowman?" the blond haired boy yelled, not lowering his voice, despite the stares he was getting from several other young ninjas nearby. "You were supposed to be making one of me!"
"Sou da. And I did. Don't you see the resemblance?" the dark haired boy said smugly, looking rather pleased with himself as he ducked another snowball, this one the size of his head.
"Grrrr! Why in the hell did you use dog shit for the hair? My hair's blond, you prick!"
"And do you see anything vaguely yellow in my immediate area? All I see is dog shit and a stick. Perhaps the universe is trying to tell you something, Dobe."
"Hey, there isn't anything pink in the area either, bastard, but I borrowed some food colouring to make the hair on my snowma-I mean woman, pink!"
Sakura didn't hear Naruto's attempt to draw attention to the detail he'd lovingly put on his snowwoman of her. She was far too engrossed in arranging the black mop she'd found in a dump on top of her snowman's head. It was harder than she'd imagined it would be to get the quiff right. The scowl on the face was easy enough though.
"Yo" Kakashi drawled as he and Iruka walked up to the trio. Both had on warm overcoats and scarves. Sakura giggled when she noticed the cute dolphins stitched into Iruka's scarf.
"Iruka-sensei!" Naruto yelled, running to give him a flying hug. It was only once this was achieved that he turned to Kakashi to greet him as well. Sakura greeted both sensei. Sasuke grunted his acknowledgement of their presence, hands shoved deep in his pockets. Had anyone suggested he was trying to keep his hands warm he would have denied it on pain of death. As it was, he was rather concerned of the possibility of having several female shinobi thrusting their gloves at him if he allowed even a tinge of his chilled state to show. He had been blowing tiny sparks into his cupped hands using his katon jutsu whenever he'd been sure no one was looking.
"Well, looks like someone got a little creative here", Kakashi said, amused, as he inspected Sasuke's snowy rendition of Naruto.
"Sasuke-bastard made me a shithead!" Naruto yelled, without pausing to think how it sounded. Everyone in the small snowy clearing turned to look at him. The boy's face went rather blank as the implications sank in.
"I didn't do anything but work with what was already there, Dobe", the Uchiha responded, looking smug.
"It's not very becoming of the prodigy of Konoha's famed Uchiha clan to be playing with dog shit, now is it Sasuke-kun?" Kakashi chided, trying his best look of faux-disapproval. Before Sasuke could respond, however, Naruto tackled him and attempted to shove a handful of snow into his hair.
The jounin and chuunin decided to leave before one of the genin thought of the idea of hurling brown snowballs.
Heading out of the clearing, Iruka led Kakashi to the place he'd picked for them to make their lantern. As he hefted the boards he'd found earlier, Kakashi realised he recognised the route they were on and soon the shinobi memorial was in sight. His eyes automatically moved to the place he knew Obito's name was engraved into the stone, even though they were too far away for it to be anywhere near visible.
"Iru-kun? You want to make the lantern here?" Kakashi asked. He'd expected Iruka to choose somewhere based on the aesthetics of the place, not the sentimentality. The chuunin had known for a long time that he came here to talk to Obito a lot, but he'd never done anything to suggest approval or disapproval of it. Kakashi had assumed his visitations weren't something that occupied many, if any, of the chuunin's thoughts.
"Hai, if you don't have any objections", the younger man replied. " I thought perhaps you'd like to carve it where Obito-san can appreciate it", Iruka replied, smiling.
Kakashi found himself lost for words for a few seconds. Iruka was a very considerate person at his core, but despite knowing this, Kakashi always had trouble pre-empting moments such as these when the chuunin managed to stay 3 steps ahead of him. Having no living family and no one he classed as close friends, he was profoundly touched by moments like these when the chuunin surprised him with his thoughtfulness.
Iruka saw the speechless look on the scarecrow's face and immediately asked, "Kashi-kun? Gomen, I should have thought. Of course this place holds bad memories, it's inappropriate for this occasion. I'm so sorry, I have no forethought at all-"
Kakashi moved forward, dropping the boards, and placed a hand over Iruka's mouth as the younger shinobi began on his automated 'Oh-kami-sama-I've-offended-you', self-depricating rant. He heard a slight, questioning 'Mmm?' from beneath his hand. Removing it, he put his arms around the chuunin, pulling him into a warm embrace.
"Arigato. Of course. I'd love to make it here." The silver-haired jounin said quietly.
"The lantern. You're talking about the lantern right?" Iruka asked, uncertainly. His leudness radar had been finely tuned to detect Kakashi's insinuations.
The tall man chuckled. "Yes, I'm talking about the lantern. Although I'm open to suggestions." That earned him a thump on his back.
The two shinobi picked up the boards and Iruka removed the rope he'd brought from his pouch. They secured the four rectangular boards into an oblong with tight knots and stood it up on the left side of the memorial. They knew that by the end of the evening there would be a row of lanterns extending onwards from theirs and another row would mirror it the other side. It wasn't the most popular place for lantern building, but nor was it anywhere near the bottom of the list.
Once the boards were in place, the shinobi started to grab as much snow as they could carry and proceeded to hurl it into the the top of the cuboid. The process was slowed at one point by Kakashi deciding it would be a good idea to put snow down Iruka's neck and watch him wriggle, to which Iruka responded by yelling that he was going to put snow down the jounin's pants. While he didn't stand a hope in hell's chance of being able to accomplish what he threatened, it did mean Kakashi wasn't able to drop his guard for the rest of the snow-collecting.
Once the boards were full of snow, Kakashi jumped on top, stamping down the snow, compacting it and levelling out the top. That done, he jumped down, took a kunai from its holster and cut the ropes holding the boards together. All the ropes. So fast that Iruka barely saw him move. The boards all fell away from the column of snow simultaneously.
"You just have to be a flash bastard, don't you?" Iruka muttered, narrowing his eyes.
"Hey, no point doing in 20 seconds what can be achieved in 2, eh?" the jounin responded, eye curved in a happy crescent. "You can start carving now", he stated.
"Huh? Aren't you going to do the top?" The chuunin asked, confusedly.
"No, I'm waiting til you're done. What I'm planning needs space. I can't do it with you standing there."
"Sounds like you want to take a piss, not carve", Iruka replied, sceptically. "You can carve first if you don't want me in the way."
"No, I want to save it til last." Kakashi replied, in a tone that suggested he wasn't going to move on this one. "And if you argue I'll stuff snow down your pants."
Iruka 'eeped', knowing the jounin probably could, and would make good of his threat. "Ok, ok, just don't start complaining that I'm slow."
The chuunin carefully began to carve out the Konohagakure leaf emblem on the front of the snow-column, tentatively at first, then more confidently. He wasn't particularly artistic, but he did have a good eye when the situation called for it. Once he was done with the leaf, he started carving a large hole above it, below it, and two more on the sides of the column, to hold candles. Then he embellished the rest of the bottom of the lantern with shuriken designs and swirling patterns. Finally, satisfied with what he'd produced, he turned around, smiling at Kakashi, who didn't manage to look up at his eyes in time to hide the fact that he'd been staring intently at the chuunin's ass. With a role of his eyes, and a sigh that said 'should have known', the dolphin switched places with the scarecrow, sitting on the warm patch Kakashi had left on the boards.
Kakashi walked casually over to the lantern-to-be, glancing over his shoulder at Iruka to see him watching curiously. Removing his hands from his pockets, he pushed up his hitai-ate, exposing the sharingan eye. Pulling two kunai from his holster, he held them between his teeth while he performed the necessary hand seals. Suddenly moving with incredible speed, he wielded the kunai, slicing at the top of the lantern with what Iruka assumed was some degree of accuracy (it was hard to tell through the flurry of snow if Kakashi was actually carving or butchering the densely packed column.)
After a minute or so, Kakashi's hands stopped moving and he placed the kunai back in his holster. Iruka got up to walk to his side. As the cloud of snow finally settled, Iruka found himself uttering a murmur of disbelief. He found himself staring at a highly detailed sculpture of a scarecrow with a dolphin jumping over its head, complete with water . It seemed Kakashi had used an ice jutsu to freeze the top part of the lantern to facilitate his carving. The sculpture glinted in the light of the now-present moon. It being winter, and it now being around 5pm, darkness was setting in.
"Uwaah!" Iruka exclaimed, in a most un-teacherly semi-coherent fashion. "How the- where in the hell did you learn to do that!"
"I had a low ranking mission in Lightning Country one time that I finished just as their festival of the rains was beginning. They had several artisans who were demonstrating ice carving, so I copied the best one.
"That's not a very professional use of a bloodline-limit ability, Kashi-kun", Iruka said, trying to look disapproving. He managed all of three seconds before he exclaimed, "Damnit, but it's so cute! You even gave the dolphin a blow-hole!"
Kakashi decided not to ruin the moment by making a comment concerning the words 'blow' and 'hole'. Instead he held Iruka in a loose embrace, standing behind him, murmuring into his hair, "Glad you like it. He has a scar on his nose too".
"And the scarecrow has his dirty book, I see," Iruka murmured, less ecstatic about that detail.
"Of course he does," Kakashi replied, amused. " He won't be around that long once the sun comes out tomorrow and the dolphin is out of his reach. He needs something to help him enjoy his brief existence-" Iruka cut him off before he could start expanding on the life-enhancing qualities of porn by twisting around and pressing his lips to the jounin's. The chuunin's lips felt pleasantly warmer because of the stark contrast of the frosty air around them. Iruka noted that Kakashi still tasted vaguely of the banana he'd had for dessert earlier.
"Mmm," Iruka murmured as he broke it off finally. "You have the candles?"
"Hai. You have the fire jutsu?"
"Ha ha, hai", Iruka responded, letting go of Kakashi so the jounin could retrieve four candles from his pocket. Iruka produced small bursts of fire with a basic fire jutsu (A) to light the candles before placing them in the holes above and below the leaf emblem and in the two holes on the sides of the lantern. The effect was an ethereal light that made the thinner parts of the lantern glow translucently. Kakashi found himself smiling despite himself.
Iruka heard a variety of murmuring, confused sounding voices growing closer. A confused look crossing his face, he said, "Hey, now that I think about it, how come nobody else came here to make their lanterns before? It's getting dark, they've left it kind of late. He looked up at Kakashi, who was looking a little too studiedly surprised at the fact that everyone was so late. After around 5 seconds of chuunin death-glaring, he conceded defeat and rubbed at the back of his neck, saying, "Well, someone may or may not have set up a genjutsu around this clearing to make people walk in circles in the surrounding forest…Maa, I wonder who would do such a thing…"
"You made poor innocent Konoha citizens think they were lost in the woods?" Iruka asked righteously.
"Um…it was an accident?" Kakashi tried.
"Your hands just accidentally went through twenty hand seals in what happened to be that order and you just happened to maintain the chakra to the jutsu all the time we've been here?" Iruka said cynically, arms crossed, angry teacher pout firmly in place.
"It's not unheard of," the jounin replied, trying to look convincing. Then he placatingly said, "I just wanted to spend some quiet time with you before the masses arrived was all. And I knew that wouldn't be possible if everyone and their dog showed up, so I…led them astray…for a while."
Iruka tried look righteous on behalf of the throng of very confused looking people who were now setting up their boards and mumbling to each other how they could have sworn they passed the same rock five times on the way there. He tried, really he did, but Kakashi had the puppy-dog eyes out. The ones that said 'All I do is my best to make you happy. Hug me'. So Iruka gave up and did what the eyes were asking.
Torches brought by the people who were now busily making up for lost time with their lanterns, were shoved into the ground, illuminating with orange light the now dark area. The cloudless black sky was broken by a perfect white moon that shone it's light down, making the snow glint brightly. Children ran, throwing snowballs instead of shuriken.
And a dolphin and a scarecrow sat on four stacked wooden boards sipping sake contentedly and watching the moonlight glint off of smooth carved ice.
Notes
(A)No one was hurt. I figure shinobi have water tags in areas of their homes designed to release water jutsus at a certain temperature The ninja version of a fire alarm.
(A)I figure that they must teach the kids the most basic jutsus of each element regardless of which village they come from. For instance, a fire jutsu could be used to light a fire in a survival situation. Thus, Iruka has some variety of fire jutsu. Of course the series doesn't really let you see what Iruka's capable of, so it may well be that he knows something more impressive than this. Especially what with it being Fire Country and all.
The night sky was a present to us- rough translation of a line from the song 'Funny Bunny' by the Pillows. Strange but I seem to like using Pillows songs for naming Naruto stuff, even though their stuff is linked to FLCL (which I love). I really should try and do some FLCL fanart at some point.
Line of inquiry- Austin Powers reference.
Iie- No/ that's not so
Hai- Yes/ that is so
Shinbun- Newspaper
Maa, sou da- Well, you're right
Demo- but
Koi- short for koibito, meaning boyfriend/girlfriend, dependent on the situation.
Kuso- damn
Ii desu- That's good
Natto- fermented soy beans
Dobe- dead last
Oi- hey
Disclaimer- I don't own Naruto or any of it's characters. Masashi Kishimoto does. I do however own the banana hotdog with natto, so hands off, bitch.
