Side Effects, Chapter 20
"Kakashi-sensei, what the hell did you have to go and do that for?" Naruto demanded, arms crossed and glowering like a little old man. "What did Iruka-sensei do to deserve getting saddled with that bad-attitude cocky-ass bastard all night, instead of being at a festival with us?"
Annnd... time to test the theory. Kakashi draped an arm around Naruto's shoulders and bent enough to murmur into the irritated boy's ear.
"You know, some people would recognize when their kind, generous, and thoughtful teacher is doing them a favor."
"Like how?" Naruto grumped.
"If Sasuke were here, what do you think Sakura-chan would be doing right now?"
"Drooling over him, like always," Naruto said, with a roll of the eyes.
"And he's not here. And you are. Notice that part yet?"
As the slow dawning of comprehension began to light the boy's eyes from within, Kakashi planted his hook: "Or is it that you don't want an excuse to be at a festival when your unfairly brilliant and gorgeous archrival is nowhere to be seen? You're practically out on a date with a pretty girl, you know -- is it that horrible an idea...?"
And if it's even occurred to him that I'm suggesting he might be more interested in Sasuke, he's going to go crimson and start protesting a mile a minute that Sakura is perfectly fine with him and he doesn't mind at all--
But instead, Naruto's face was completely transfigured with a disturbing cocktail of emotions; if he'd had to mix it in a glass, Kakashi would have reached for a bottle of overjoyed glee with a spritz of mischievous calculation.
For perhaps the first time in history, Naruto flung his arms around Kakashi's waist as though he were Iruka.
"Kakashi-sensei, I take it back! I take it all back! Every single time I called you a lying lazy-ass kinky-pervert no-good lame excuse for a teacher, I take it back -- you totally rock! ...Along with Iruka-sensei of course!"
...Now, if that was supposed to be a compliment, I've heard more flattering descriptions used in deliberate insults. "You don't say," he murmured, lips barely twitching.
The boy struggled for a moment, but nothing could shake his good mood at the opportunity for an almost-date with Sakura: "I even forgive you for doing kinky stuff with Iruka-sensei!"
"How wonderfully magnanimous of you," Kakashi replied.
Naruto squinted at him suspiciously. "Hey. Is that word rude or something?"
"Not at all," Kakashi said, almost straight-faced; he'd come to rely on the mask more than he thought, around the kids. Sarcastic, yes; rude, not inherently...
With a bit of mental discipline, he reined in his mischief-imps and offered Naruto a real smile.
"I know how important Iruka is to you, and how protective you are of people whom you care about," Kakashi said to his wriggling student. "Now, keep in mind that I'd stay with Iruka whether or not you objected -- but it's nice to know that I've passed your standards."
He scruffled the boy's hair just to watch him splutter, then added, "So what are you doing wasting time with me when you could be enjoying your almost-date time with Sakura-chan?"
Naruto giggled like a much younger boy, as he scratched behind his ear. "Oh yeah!" And he set off skipping down the street toward Sakura, sing-songing happily: "I'm on a date with Sakura-chan! I'm on a date with Sakura-chan--"
The poor girl's shriek of disbelieving horror and dismay must have been audible for miles.
Watching Naruto latch onto her arm with an ear to ear grin despite the way she propped an elbow on his face to try to pry him loose, Kakashi sighed to himself.
...So they're still going round and round at this after all. He thinks he loves her, she thinks she loves Sasuke, Sasuke thinks he doesn't love anyone, and I'd bet good money they're all at least half wrong.
And even if they could be right, even if they truly do feel the way they think they do -- I know it's for the wrong reasons right now.
Naruto simply wants her to acknowledge him; if she actually offered him anything deeper than that, he'd probably fall over dead of heart failure at the sheer shock.
Sakura wants Sasuke as a trophy as much as a boyfriend, so she can be 'the one pure damsel whose steadfast devotion warmed the lonely heart of the ice prince' or some such.
And the ice prince himself... If Sasuke has any clue what he is or what he wants, he's so far gone in denial of anything resembling normal human desires that I'm not sure anyone could find the truth for certain.
And Kakashi was quite sure that no one could tell Sasuke that truth just yet, particularly if his truth was anything other than "yes, your destined goal in life really is to become the perfect ninja: an asexual killing machine whose lingering humanity is just a temporary and inconvenient distraction." The boy had some remarkable blind spots when it came to things like emotions and normal teenaged non-avenger lifestyles.
Granted, he had teenaged angst down in spades... but that was the only part of normal teenagerness he showed any grasp of. And Sasuke managed to take personal angst to levels most broody teenagers only fantasized about...
I'd hoped they'd sorted some of this out by themselves while we were gone. No such luck, I suppose.
Kakashi pondered this for several minutes, watching with mild interest as Sakura got the sole of her foot onto Naruto's face in further desperate efforts to pry him off.
Good to see she'd been keeping up with her stretches; flexibility and gymnastic talents were some of the best weapons in a ninja's arsenal...
...This is going to be unbelievably messy to untangle. Even for me.
So I guess that means I should drop the whole mess in Iruka's lap! I'll even get to watch him blushing and stammering and looking at me desperately to beg for help... mmm, Iruka with help-me-I-need-you eyes...
Yep, this sounds like a truly inspired solution.
Silently congratulating himself on his brilliant strategy, and following his students down the street from a distance safe enough not to let himself appear too connected to the ruckus they were raising, Kakashi made a mental note to make sure he didn't finish the night without acquiring a decent supply of sake. Desperate times called for desperate measures, after all.
Sitting on the sofa with his feet propped up on the armrest and a mug of tea rather precariously balanced on the sofa's back, Iruka sighed a little, staring through as much as at the pile of his students' homework.
Sasuke stiffened, but didn't speak. He'd apparently used up all his available vocabulary for the night, and was letting rigid tension and fierce scowls and the occasional monosyllable communicate whatever else needed to be conveyed. And he was taking his duty to keep Iruka from harm far too literally, in Iruka's somewhat tart opinion. The boy was studying a scroll while sitting crosslegged on the floor directly in front of the sofa, so that Iruka couldn't possibly put his feet down, let alone try something as daring as standing up.
Iruka shifted his weight awkwardly, trying to sit up a little straighter to ease the pressure on the small of his back. Sasuke lifted his head to look up at him, and then silently got a pillow off a chair and settled it behind Iruka's back, and sat down with his scroll to resume his guard duty.
Somehow, Iruka couldn't decide whether it was more endearing or infuriating. He dragged his attention back to the pile of student papers, checking each carefully written kanji for correct strokes and something approximating readability.
...Of course Megumi-chan has memorized the word for 'watermelon' stroke-perfect. Now if I can just motivate her to remember the difference between 'west' and 'four' -- how to get her to remember that 'west' is the first kanji in watermelon...? And that 'south' is the first kanji in 'pumpkin,' and that's the difference between how to write pumpkin and watermelon...
"Sasuke-kun?" Iruka asked, trying not to get his hopes up about the likelihood of a response. "When you were learning to write, how did your teachers explain the difference between 'west' and 'four' to you?"
He didn't look up this time. After a long moment's silence, he shifted one shoulder closer to his ear for a moment, a minimalist's shrug -- and still kept his eyes on his scroll.
"What are you studying?"
Sasuke hunched over it a little further, all but defensive, as though Iruka had been prying into his personal equivalent of Icha Icha Paradise -- but the covering on the scroll clearly declared it to be about ninjutsu, not hentai manga.
Both exasperated and amused despite himself, Iruka said, "This has really got to stop, you know. Would you please move just a little? I don't want to kick you in the face when I get up..."
"What for?"
"...eh?"
"What do you need to get up for?"
"I'd kind of like a snack..."
"I'll get it."
Feeling his cheeks warming despite himself, Iruka said, "I've also been drinking tea, and there's this extra passenger pushing down on ...places that really don't need any more pressure just now. And that one you really can't take care of for me..."
Sasuke finally lifted his head enough to blink up at him, completely lost.
With a groan, Iruka said, "The bathroom. May I please...?"
Blushing the color of an overripe beet, Sasuke scrambled away from the couch.
Iruka tried to keep some measure of dignity together as he not-quite-hurried toward the toilet.
When Iruka came back from his brief escape from supervision, along with a glass of milk, strawberries, and the peanut butter jar, he blinked in surprise at the almost-an-expression on Sasuke's face.
"What is it?"
"Nothing."
You know, sometimes I wonder why I still bother to ask...
Iruka settled himself into the sofa carefully, so as not to spill the milk, and balanced the plate of strawberries carefully atop his bulge to free enough fingers to unscrew the peanut butter jar and dip the spoon into it.
He spooned some peanut butter onto a strawberry, bit into it with a small sigh of bliss, sipped at the glass of milk, and settled in to brood.
...He said he wished he'd never been born. He said he wished Itachi had killed him...
And I never suspected a thing. No one did. He's Uchiha Sasuke, the genius, the last of his bloodline in Konoha, he's the wonderchild, he couldn't possibly be hiding painful emotions behind that poker face... he works himself far too hard, he obsesses on killing his brother, obviously his life is fine since he's becoming a strong ninja and that's all that matters, isn't it. --What idiots we were, all of us.
But I'm sure Kakashi knew. This must be why he told me to talk to him... he wasn't kidding when he asked how long it would take to go through the list of Sasuke-kun's problems...
Iruka put a spoonful of peanut butter on another strawberry and bit into it, brows furrowed in concern.
And... the way Sasuke was talking about Kakashi and Naruto, and about how anyone could love them... he was so intensely, personally involved in that question... and in his own disbelief.
The three students of Group Seven couldn't have been more different if they'd had to be, really. Sasuke stood alone against the world, tall and rigidly proud, like an oak tree, strong and unbending. Sakura was a willow, outwardly pliant and graceful with a surprising inner core that flexed and bent under pressure but never broke. Naruto was a tumbleweed, scruffy and disreputable, rootless and wandering, and somehow completely indestructible.
And of the lot of them, the oak trees were the most brittle -- unable to yield, or to roll with the punches, with that fixation on standing in silent unshakable resistance, not flexing until they shattered completely under a bolt of lightning, swift, lethal, and utterly overpowering...
Sasuke needed to learn the willow's grace, or the tumbleweed's rootless tumbling survival; the world was simply too cruel for anyone to be able to stand against it alone, and if he didn't recognize that -- if he didn't recognize his own need for love and acceptance...
Iruka wondered, not for the first time, whether Sasuke might be gay. The young man had very little use for women and looked at Sakura strictly as a teammate -- of course, having seen how the poor boy had been chased around the streets of Konoha for years, being all but molested by overpushy kunoichi, Iruka couldn't quite blame him for a trained-in aversion to being stalked, groped, and squealed at.
But Sasuke seemed to have nearly as little use for most men... his actual respect was reserved for less than half a dozen people Iruka could name, most of whom were people who'd proven themselves to be strong or capable of training him.
Not a misogynist, but an equal-opportunity misanthrope...?
There was something between the boys of Group Seven, though. Something more than the name-calling and the withering contempt they admitted to aloud. A rivalry didn't last that long and grow that deep without either total spite or some sort of unspoken mutual understanding developing behind it. Sakura and her friend Ino were another prime example -- they fought like cats over the right to stalk the broody young Uchiha heir, but then they'd also lay their lives on the line for each other's sake, because before they'd been rivals in romance they'd been friends in everything else...
Neither of the boys would have named their relationship a friendship. Both of them were too touchily proud for that; they were polar opposites in too many ways, and far too much alike in others. But they'd worked together for so long, and they'd risked their lives for each other more than once -- immediate, instinctive, the kind of reaction that came with no hesitation at all. Either of them could have let the other die a dozen times over. But without the other as teammate-and-archrival, neither of them would have a standard to measure himself against...
...and still, somehow, thinking about the fierce desperation in Sasuke's voice as he'd asked how anyone could love someone like Kakashi or Naruto... as though he were asking himself more than Iruka...
And that odd tremor in the young man's voice as Sasuke told him that he would never be disgusting...
Emotions were clearly difficult for him to endure, and to express. Iruka could hardly blame him for that, given how many of his life's greatest emotional impacts had revolved around death, pain, and isolation. But the pattern that was forming itself in Iruka's mind was frightening to contemplate, and made far more sense than Iruka wanted it to.
Uchiha Sasuke. The last Sharingan heir in Konoha. All but compelled to renew his clan's bloodline -- which, until he saw me this evening, meant finding a nice woman who didn't try to stalk him and marrying her. And afraid of any human touch, because people you care about die on you and the rest try to hurt you... so he deludes himself with his 'mission,' because it's less risky. Physical pain he knows how to endure; but his emotional pain has never healed, and he doesn't even know where to begin.
So he isolates himself and calls himself an avenger, because it means he doesn't have to feel things for those around him; he doesn't have to feel anything beyond his need for revenge. If he keeps everyone else at arm's length, his contacts with others are restrained, distant, strictly under his own control... and control of everything is so important to him.
And love is the least-controlled emotion there is. It falls into your life and blows apart all your carefully-constructed safety zones; suddenly there's this other person living in your heart, bumping against painful things, hurting each other unintentionally as you learn how to share what used to be an isolated space inside, someone bewildering and precious and impossible to imagine living without-- your life is tangled into someone else's, and it's terrifying when you realize how deeply you depend on another person's presence, another person's joy...
Renewing his clan wouldn't necessarily have been a loving proposition for Sasuke. Iruka had far too little difficulty in imagining Sasuke choosing someone who was like Hinata -- someone quiet and inoffensive but strong beneath it, someone who would understand the need to bear children without protest since they were required of the Uchiha heir's wife, someone who wouldn't make emotional demands simply because of the technicality of marriage.
Iruka could never have lived a silent marriage of convenience -- he couldn't imagine his life without the vibrant, unpredictable, gleeful spark of Kakashi's exuberance dancing through each day. But he could imagine Sasuke taking care of his responsibility to produce heirs with that kind of emotionless dedication to duty... and telling himself that duty was all there needed to be.
That in itself, Iruka realized, was the essential core of the problem.
He tells himself what to do, what to think, what to feel. He tells himself he has to be fine alone, and so he lives as though he thinks he actually can. He tells himself he has to be an avenger, he has to be strong, he has to renew his clan. He lives according to what he tells himself he has to do.
And he's been doing it for so many years now -- ever since his clan died -- can he even recognize it anymore, if what he wants to do is different than what he tells himself to do? Or does he just make himself want to be what he tells himself to be, what he thinks he has no other choice than to become...?
It made sense. It made too much sense.
Uchiha Sasuke, the last bloodline-Sharingan user, had to be strong to avenge his murdered clan. And the last Uchiha had to pass on the Sharingan ability to children to prevent his gift from dying with him. Kakashi's Sharingan was a transplant; Kakashi's children would not inherit the bloodline, even if Kakashi could train Uchiha children.
But there had to be Uchiha children. The last Uchiha could not be gay. It was not permissible. Therefore, it was not imaginable. And anything that he might otherwise have felt would be pushed away into the corner of his mind that was labeled 'childish things' which he left behind when he became his clan's avenger.
He wouldn't even have admitted the possibility to himself -- he wouldn't have admitted that he even had desires, let alone desires contrary to his single unwavering goal in life.
There would be children. Therefore, there had to be a woman. Women could be endured, if he could find one who didn't irritate him with emotions and demands and needs. Anything could be endured. Anything could be endured because Sasuke told himself so. A life alone, a fated future, a loveless marriage for the sake of breeding Sharingan-bearing offspring -- being duty-driven to take all the agony he'd felt over years of struggling to suppress any gentler emotions and use that rage to strike down the once-beloved elder brother who had killed the rest of his family.
Anything could be endured; or else he would never have been able to live with the single goal of committing premeditated murder, to kill his last remaining blood kin with all the pain he'd gathered up over years of forcing himself to live the life expected of the last acknowledged Uchiha heir, rather than simply a young man named Sasuke who had once been a happy and loved child and who missed it desperately...
...Except that now, there was a possibility he'd never imagined in that preplanned, premeditated life. Now there was another alternative, for a boy who had learned to live with no alternatives to his chosen path for so long that even the thought of having choices like love and risk had shaken him to the soul this evening...
Specifically, the conscious thought of those choices had shaken him. Because when he wasn't consciously thinking like an avenger, Sasuke said and did some very un-avenger-like things. Risking his life for a loudmouthed rival, scolding his visibly pregnant teacher for moving a heavy desk; asking how people living through danger could love each other, as though he suddenly wanted, needed, to understand about how to be strong despite taking emotional risks like love...
Iruka jumped when one pale hand quietly set another plate of strawberries by his elbow.
"You're worrying again," Sasuke murmured. "Stop that."
Iruka realized a few minutes too late that he'd been just staring at his last strawberry for far too long. "I'm sorry! I mean-- I'm-- you didn't have to--"
"Don't apologize," Sasuke said, scowling more fiercely than usual. "And you're low on milk. I can get you another glass but that's all that's left. Is there a convenience store around here?"
"It's all right," Iruka said, feeling his cheeks burn. "I'll get more tomorrow morning."
"You've got three teenaged freeloaders taking up floor space," Sasuke said, sitting down to glare at his scroll again. "The least we can do is help with chores."
But, oddly, his dark eyes kept flickering up from the scroll -- glancing for brief, almost-involuntary moments at the strawberries; the pile of children's awkwardly and carefully written homework; Iruka's hands; the spoon standing in the peanut butter jar; the rounding, ripening girth that gently filled out the belly-panel of the overalls...
"Sasuke-kun?"
The boy's face colored, and he bent his head over his scroll again.
The trouble with his newfound guesses about the pain and duty-driven desperation hidden behind Sasuke's eyes, Iruka realized, was that all his guesses were theoretical. And general. And general theory did nothing to help him puzzle out whether Sasuke was now-fixedly-not-staring at Iruka's peanut-buttered strawberries in bewildered curiosity, stomach-turning bemusement, or an attempt not to burst into un-avengerly guffaws of hilarity...
Cursing his own blushes, Iruka tried to stammer through it somehow. "I know it seems strange -- Kakashi teases me all the time -- but really, it's just like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, only healthier. And... I need the extra protein in the peanut butter and the calcium in the milk, for the baby's sake -- and -- it just... it tastes good together, somehow; the peanut butter kind of glues itself to your mouth without milk or strawberries or something to unstick it with... I'm sorry, I'm babbling again. If it bothers you I can--"
"Stop that," Sasuke said, staring even more fixedly down at his scroll. The tips of his ears were pink. Oddly, it made Iruka feel better to know he wasn't the only one blushing.
"Sasuke-kun--"
"I don't want to talk about it. I've said too damn much already. Forget it. All of it. --And stop worrying!"
"I was just going to say thank you," Iruka said softly.
After a moment of rigid silence, Sasuke murmured, "You're welcome."
Iruka breathed a deep, careful sigh of relief, waiting for his heart to stop pounding in mad panic in his throat. He didn't run again. All right. I can do this. I can. Really.
And I'm going to wait a while before I ask anything personal, just in case.
But... just one thing...
"Sasuke-kun...?" Iruka took a rather unsteady breath, waiting for a reply; when none seemed forthcoming, he gathered what remained of his strained nerves and dove in headlong. "Wouldn't you rather sit on the sofa or..."
"Keep your feet up."
"...All right. I understand. I'm being good. But at least if you sat by the sofa, you could lean against it or something -- I mean..."
Sasuke didn't even look up.
Iruka ran a hand down his face, and tried again. "My back always hurts, lately," he said, a little sheepish. "So I suppose I'm just oversensitized, but... you're sitting all hunched up and I can't help thinking... that your back must hurt... and..."
"And you worry about everything," Sasuke finished for him in an undertone. With a dark sigh, the boy picked up his scroll and sat down crosslegged in front of the sofa, his back to the sofa's front. "Happy now?"
"Almost," Iruka said. "Here." He took one of the pillows that had been propped under his ankles and fluffed it a little, then tucked it between the sofa and Sasuke's back. "Isn't that better?" he asked, wistful.
Sasuke made a noncommittal sound, and returned to his scroll.
The baby kicked and rolled inside, protesting the way she rested against Iruka's spine as he lay half-sprawled on the sofa; Iruka rubbed the softly swollen mound in the overalls with a bit of a sigh.
Not just yet, little one. I'll ask him if I can move enough to lie on my side a little later. I just don't know how much I dare to push without letting him settle down for a bit, you see...
And your idiot father is going to have a GREAT deal of apologizing to do if he wants back into our bed any time this decade. How long is he planning on leaving me alone with our own little avengerly time-bomb anyway? I'd swear he's got to be deliberately avoiding this discussion...
"Kakashi-sensei, I'm tired," Sakura protested. "We've been walking all day. And the last thing I want to do is get dragged around some strange village like a dog on a leash and have everyone think I'm actually dating this dork!" She gestured at Naruto, who was still trying to scrub Sakura's footprints off his face and grumbling loudly.
"Come over here a minute, Sakura-chan," Kakashi said, putting his arm lightly around the girl's shoulders and leading her to one side just outside Naruto's hearing range. Sakura glared up at him, with a clear expression of You'd better make this one a GOOD lie, you know.
"Like you said, this is a small, rather backwater village," Kakashi began. "They don't even have ninja. I'm not sure they'd recognize one if one bit them. And this is their big harvest festival."
"All the more reason not to spend it hanging out with him! We train together, we don't have to be joined at the hip or something."
"But I thought he'd come in handy," Kakashi said helpfully.
"For what?"
"Someone's got to carry all the shopping bags, you know."
Sakura blinked. Then blinked again.
"The harvest festival," Kakashi said again, patient. "When everyone's collected up their arts and crafts and their grandmother's favorite jelly recipe and brought them here to sell and trade. They don't have stores with things like shuriken and kunai. That means your souvenir-shopping options are going to be limited to the more mundane things."
Sakura's eyes were enormous green pools of rapid-fire recalculation. Just to make certain the hook had set, Kakashi planted another 'thoughtful suggestion'.
"So that means this weekend's festival is going to be one of the best shopping opportunities you're going to get. I thought you might like to take advantage of being here on the first day, before everything gets picked over--"
Sakura wasn't even listening anymore; she'd latched onto Naruto's elbow despite his yelp of astonishment, and was dragging him down the street.
"S-s-sakura-chan...? Wha--?!"
"Come on, we're going shopping!"
"Shopping?!"
"Just think of it as an almost-date, remember?" Kakashi called. "You do what your date likes to do to keep her happy, right?"
"...Oh yeah! Er-- ehehehe...." Naruto managed to get his feet back under himself, so that he was trotting along rather than being dragged; he even managed to nerve himself to say, "So where do you want to go shopping first, Sakura-chan?"
And that should take care of quite a few more hours...
Iruka looked up from the last of his students' papers in surprise at an odd grumbling sound. When Sasuke ducked his head further in scalding embarrassment, Iruka realized it must have been the boy's stomach.
"...Oh, that's right -- you never did eat any of your ramen! How thoughtless of me -- you've been traveling for days, I should have made sure you ate something more than tea -- I'll..."
"Sit," Sasuke said. "Stay there."
"But..."
"I said stay there."
"Sasuke-kun, I appreciate your concern, but I am not going to spend the next three months lying on this sofa," Iruka said firmly. "Now, if you aren't planning to tie me to the furniture-- and I certainly hope you aren't--"
"I'll get something for myself," Sasuke said, almost desperately, and bolted for the kitchen.
With another small sigh, Iruka took the opportunity to stand and stretch and rub his aching back; the milk glass needed washing too, and so he followed Sasuke into the kitchen, rather more sedately.
Sasuke flinched at the sound of footsteps, and closed the refrigerator hastily.
Bewildered, Iruka asked, "What's wrong with looking in the refrigerator for food?"
The boy groaned and knocked his forehead against the refrigerator door, then opened it and grabbed some things completely at random and shut it again.
Iruka blinked at his collection. "Er... Sasuke-kun...?"
Sasuke looked down at his hands -- a jar of kimchee, a package of cream cheese, raspberry jam, hot dogs, and a half-empty can of baked beans -- and then he said defensively, "I'll think of something. Go rest!"
A little nervously, Iruka asked, "Is there something with fangs growing out of a mold patch in there?"
"...Huh?"
"I can't think of any other reason you'd be so determined to keep us both from looking into the refrigerator."
With a sigh, Sasuke slid down the edge of the counter, landing on the floor with a thump. "...It's nothing. I'm just too damn selfish."
Iruka sat on his heels by the huddle of Sasuke-angst, now completely baffled. "Why on earth do you think you're selfish? Of course I'm going to make sure you eat dinner! If we were in your house, you'd do the same."
"It's not that." Looking away fixedly, Sasuke murmured, "They... smelled really good. Your strawberries, and the peanut butter. But they're yours-- they're your special treat, for the baby, so I'm not about to--"
"Is that all?" Iruka reached over and cuffed him across the head, just hard enough to ruffle his hair. "Strawberries grow, Sasuke-kun! We've got half a freezer full of them and Kakashi keeps a dozen pots of the things growing in our windowsill just to make me blush. Honestly, you find the most amazing things to torture yourself with--"
"You're serious?" Sasuke asked, almost startled. "I mean, if it was Naruto and his ramen I'd be bleeding by now -- and everyone says pregnant women and cravings... er... --I think I'd better shut up again."
Iruka laughed, and ruffled his hair. "Be glad it's not Naruto and his ramen, or the village might not survive the brawl! But as long as you're not planning on eating every strawberry in a ten-mile radius, I'm sure I can manage to soothe my cravings. And if you think you'd like peanut butter with them, they're really, really good dipped in chocolate... I just don't let myself think about that too often, or I'd be twice as big around by now!"
"Really?" Sasuke looked a little skeptical. "They aren't too sour?"
"That's what makes it wonderful," Iruka said, wistfully. "Especially dark chocolate. So the strawberries taste even sweeter by comparison with the almost-roasted chocolate flavor -- and then the chocolate starts melting in your mouth, and it's silky and creamy and a little tart from the strawberries and..." He stopped quickly, and shook his head to try to clear out the images before his body managed to convince him that he needed chocolate-covered strawberries. Right then.
"But peanut butter is healthier!" Iruka told himself as much as Sasuke, rather more firmly than usual. "More protein and minerals for the baby. So I should..."
Sasuke's head and shoulders had vanished into the pantry, though. When he came back out, he had a bag of semisweet chocolate chips in his hand. "Will these do?"
Iruka stared, swallowed hard, and looked away. "...But we need to make you dinner."
"All right," Sasuke said, and grabbed something apparently just as random out of the freezer. "I'll cook something. Go rest again."
"Sasuke-kun," Iruka said, trying not to let his eyes focus on the bag of chocolate chips, "you are not going to cook something with kimchee, hot dogs, raspberry jam, baked beans, and frozen edamame!"
"You don't want to watch this, then," Sasuke replied, opening the jar of kimchee. "And you won't need to, if you're in the living room resting like you ought to be. Right?"
"Uh... right." Iruka turned and made a beeline for the sofa again, trying hard not to think too much about the possible combinations there. But it was a little like trying not to think about pink elephants. Raspberry kimchee hot dogs with edamame? Or raspberry baked beans with -- urgh, no, don't go there...
And they say the pregnant women are the ones who eat the strangest food combinations in existence... how many teenaged bachelors have they interviewed...?
Sasuke watched his teacher leave, smiling just a little despite himself. As soon as Iruka-sensei was safely out of eyeshot, most of the ingredients went back into the refrigerator; the kimchee stayed out, though, and he grabbed a packet of noodles from the pantry to make Korean-style beef udon.
The chocolate chips stayed out too. As he waited for two pots of water to come to a boil, Sasuke pulled one of the cookbooks off the shelf and started flipping through the recipes.
"Sakura-chan, aren't you done shopping yet?" Naruto wheezed, staggering as he struggled to keep a grip on five boxes and nine different shopping bags all at once. "What does anybody need this much stuff for?"
"Souvenirs, of course!" Sakura sniffed. "Mom's always wanted a new rice cooker with a handle for picnics, and Ino-chan would never forgive me if I didn't get her that purple dress, they don't make that color of dye anywhere but the Wave Country, and of course if I'm getting something for Ino-chan I've got to get something for Hinata-chan and the rest of the girls from our class too, and--"
"Wait a minute. Does that mean I have to buy stuff like this too?"
"That's why they call them souvenirs," Sakura said. "Hasn't anyone ever come back from a vacation and given you souvenirs?"
"No," Naruto said.
Sakura's eyes widened for a moment. "...No?"
"Iruka-sensei doesn't go many places 'cause of all the teaching and doing paperwork all the time, and nobody else would bother," Naruto said. "Oh yeah. Once Iruka-sensei gave me this paper pine tree thing when he came back from somewhere. But I think it was supposed to make my kitchen trash can not stink. Is that a souvenir?"
"That's a hint about your housekeeping," Sakura said with half-lidded eyes. Something else settled itself into place behind her eyes, and she nodded to herself firmly. "All right. Somebody's obviously got to teach you how to shop!"
"Er... do you have to?"
"Of course! Everyone has to know how to shop!" Sakura rubbed her hands together. "Okay. Who do you want to buy souvenirs for?"
"...Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei and you and that bastard. And maybe the Hokage." Naruto scratched his head, then nodded. "Yep. I'd buy Iruka-sensei some good beef ramen. --I don't know about the rest of you. I'm not old enough to buy the kinds of books Kakashi-sensei wants."
"Beef ramen doesn't survive in a suitcase very well," Kakashi observed thoughtfully.
"And Iruka-sensei's here!" Sakura added. "And so are we."
"Yeah, but Iruka-sensei's not here here." Naruto juggled bags to free up a finger to scratch his head. "You mean it has to go in a suitcase?"
"Souvenirs are things you take back from the place you visit, for the people who aren't there to see it with you," Kakashi said. "It helps if they're transportable."
"Hmmm..."
"Don't worry about us," Kakashi said, rueful. "We're here to see it too, remember? The Hokage might like something, but the rest of us can find our own souvenirs."
"But I wanna get a souvenir for Iruka-sensei to make sure I did it right, since h- I mean-- she! She -- since she's gotta babysit the bastard and everything! Since Iruka-sensei's a she now, and getting all pregnant and stuff... yeah!" He shot a victorious look at Sakura and added, "See, I remembered!"
Sakura had her face in both hands and was whimpering slightly.
Kakashi silently nudged "large quantities of alcohol" higher up on the shopping list. If nothing else, the bottles could be used to knock Naruto over the head with.
"So if I can't get Iruka-sensei ramen... hmmmm..." Naruto set down the bags, plonked down in the middle of the road, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully with one hand. "What else is there to get h-her? I mean, saying 'no ramen' ought to be against the rules or something!"
"Surely there's something else you think Iruka-sensei might like."
"But nothing's as good as nice hot steaming ramen!"
"So let's go for second-best," Sakura said gamely. "What's second-best to hot ramen?"
Naruto rubbed his chin again, and then brightened. "Instant ramen! You can fit a whole lot of that in a suitcase! I'm a genius!"
Sakura threw both hands into the air, said to Kakashi, "You handle this one, I give up," and stalked off down the aisle of shops and stalls.
Kakashi sat on his heels by Naruto, and said, "Let's think creatively here. What do you think Iruka would really adore, but would never think to buy for herself?"
Naruto scratched his head, tipping it to one side and the other, then squinting up at the sky, then heaving a huge sigh. "I would've said a baby, except s-she's like already taking care of that part."
"Not to mention that you can't buy babies," Kakashi reminded him, silently regretting that Sakura had had the reflexes to dump this project on him before he could dodge.
"Oh yeah, that too I guess..." Stumped, Naruto propped his chin in both hands. "I know h-she reads a lot. Except s-s-she's got so many books I don't know all their names."
"You could get her a book to read to the baby," Kakashi suggested.
Naruto brightened for a moment, and then slouched again. "But s-... she won't be able to use that for months and months."
"I wouldn't say that," Kakashi said, wryly. "Some nights, Iruka reads to the baby anyway. It's not silent inside her, you know. Just like you could hear my heartbeat if you listened -- the baby can hear things outside too. Iruka says the baby always starts to kick whenever the alarm goes off in the morning."
"Really?" Naruto's eyes were as wide as saucers. "...You're not lying again, are you?"
"I've felt it," Kakashi said, smiling at the boy's amazement. "I tell her that's how we know absolutely for certain he's my child."
"Huh?"
"Who else would father a baby that hates alarm clocks so much before he's even born?" Kakashi chuckled. "Iruka tells me if the baby runs too late being born, she's going to strangle me just on principle."
Naruto had a rather goofily fatuous grin on his face. "...Kakashi-sensei, that's just plain cool. Can I read something to the baby too?"
"If you ask nicely, I'm sure Iruka would be delighted," Kakashi replied, trying not to let himself look too sappy at the thought. The mask really was handy sometimes. "So shall we go find a b--"
Sakura shrieked at the top of her lungs.
On pure reflex, both of them had sprinted half a city block in less than two seconds, and skidded to a halt staring first at Sakura, then at each other.
"Isn't that just adorable?" she squealed, latching onto Kakashi's arm and pointing into a game vendor's stall at a fluffy little stuffed blue-and-green dolphin, with bright sparkling eyes and a happy mouth open in a dolphin-grin that looked as though it was meant for "life is good," or "I want fish," or possibly both.
"That's perfect," Naruto said, elated. "That's what I'll get for Iruka-sensei!"
"Hold it, I thought you were getting a book to read to the baby," Kakashi said.
"This is better!"
"I know. That's why I want to get it for her," Kakashi retorted.
"Hey! I saw it first!"
"Sakura-chan saw it first."
"I don't care, I'm still getting it!" Naruto crossed his arms in preparation for a good sulk.
"Only if you can beat me at -- ...what is this game anyway, Sakura-chan?"
"--My presents! Naruto, you IDIOT, you FORGOT MY PRESENTS!" Sakura wailed, dashing back up the street toward the abandoned pile of shopping bags.
Naruto blinked, then yelled after her, "That's because you were screaming your head off! Jeez. See if I come running the next time you scream like that--"
Kakashi, meanwhile, was talking to the game-stall dealer. "So what would someone need to do to win a prize at this anyway?"
"It's just a ring toss game where--"
"--where he's gotta beat me first!" Naruto cut in, glaring at both of them. "Okay, so what's the rules here again?"
Iruka couldn't resist a half-unwilling, half-morbidly-curious glance toward the contents of the steaming bowl Sasuke brought back from the kitchen. It smelled spicy, and there were noodles and less identifiable vegetables and peppers swimming around in the broth -- but, mercifully, there were no signs of raspberry jam, baked beans, or cream cheese anywhere, so Iruka breathed a great sigh of relief and let himself relax.
Sasuke just quirked a brow, humphed a little, and sat down crosslegged by the sofa again. If Iruka hadn't known better, he would almost have been tempted to call the quirk at the corner of the boy's lips a wannabe-smile.
The silence was almost companionable this time; Iruka had curled up on his side to comfort the baby's protests of the pressure of his spine, and now that the papers were all graded, his eyes were beginning to gradually drift closed at the soft chirping of the crickets outside and the occasional drift of cooler night air through the August-hot house.
So the chime of the kitchen timer twenty minutes later startled him back from the edge of almost-sleep; Sasuke just waved a hand. "Perfect timing," he said, taking his empty bowl back to the kitchen. There were some rattling sounds, dishes being rearranged, and a muffled half-curse, and a metallic clunk, and then a series of softer, unidentifiable noises. Just when Iruka's curiosity was starting to nudge him enough toward waking to contemplate getting up to investigate, Sasuke came back with two plates...
...full of chocolate-covered strawberries. They must have just come out of the refrigerator; the August humidity was beginning to bead on the chilled chocolate, and a trickle of dew dripped down the side of one, and Iruka made a small involuntary whimper.
Then he blinked and scrubbed his eyes, because Sasuke had actually smiled at that. "Are they really that good?" the boy asked, wry and a little wistful.
"Yes," Iruka said, one hand over his face. "And Kakashi already fed me two scoops of ice cream and I've been snacking on peanut butter all evening, and I can't just--"
"Today's a festival." Sasuke sat down in front of the sofa and set one of the plates right under Iruka's nose. "Besides. If you don't eat them, how am I supposed to know if I did them right?"
"...Trust me. You did them right."
"So eat them." Sasuke picked up one of his, looked at it with just a bit of lingering skepticism, and bit into it.
The sweet tang of the strawberry mingling with the rich chocolate widened his eyes for him, and the boy hastily cupped a hand under the other half of the strawberry so as not to lose any of the chocolate flecks or berry juice; he chewed and swallowed with a look of utter astonishment on his face.
"That's... that's just..."
"Decadent?" Iruka suggested wryly. "Spectacular? Ought to be outlawed?"
"...Any of the above." Sasuke finished his first strawberry and licked his fingers, then took another. "Go on. Eat."
"I've been eating all evening--"
"I made those for you," Sasuke said. "And if you don't eat them they're going to melt. And if you let something like this melt, I'm going to have to hurt you, Iruka-sensei."
With a shivering sigh, Iruka picked up one of the berries and closed his eyes and bit into it, making a soft, involuntary sound of pure bliss. Just one. I'll put the rest back in the refrigerator for tomorrow. Naruto and Sakura-chan would like them too...
...well, maybe just two...
After spending forty-five minutes waiting for Naruto and Kakashi-sensei to get done with their no-holds-barred ring-toss duel over the plush toy, Sakura groaned and dropped her bags at Naruto's feet and said "Don't forget them this time, got it? I'm going to finish shopping, I'll be back for you two idiots later... I'm sure you'll still be here."
Honestly. Men. You'd think there was only one cute little stuffed dolphin on the planet.
...Although it was incredibly cute...
Still. Going to those lengths was just ridiculous. Particularly when they were supposed to be undercover!
Sakura wondered in frustrated resignation whether there was even anyone in this town who would believe her if she asked the authorities to break up the ninja ring toss duel before it got into higher-level jutsu.
So far they'd stuck with kawarimi and other low-noticeability swaps, either trying to improve the aerodynamics of the "rings" they were throwing or to sabotage the other's rings. But knowing Naruto, it was just a matter of time until he decided that if throwing one ring at a time was good, throwing three hundred and fifty clones of it at a time must be even better, at which point Kakashi-sensei would likely feel compelled to preserve his chances by either blocking the target with an earth wall or by nabbing the prize and making off with it directly, and from there...
...men! Honestly!
She'd have to have a good gripe session with Iruka-sensei later. Iruka-sensei would understand.
Only when she was halfway back with another pair of dresses did she remember, Oh yeah, Iruka-sensei's a man too.
Kind of. Technically. He used to be, anyway.
...But he just doesn't count. And I've got to have somebody sane to talk to in this town or I'll just go ballistic. I wonder if Iruka-sensei would mind being my honorary girl-talk girlfriend for a while? I'm sure he needs someone to complain to about Kakashi-sensei; anybody would need someone to complain to about Kakashi-sensei... not to mention Naruto...
There was an all-too-familiar howl from Naruto, and Sakura knotted both hands around her bags and stalked back toward the combat zone.
Iruka stared in dismay at the nibbled stem of the last of the chocolate-covered strawberries, then sighed and put it on the plate with the others. I didn't mean to eat all of them...
I'll have to apologize to Naruto-kun. Of course, knowing him, he'd be happier with a bowl of ramen anyway...
Sasuke was watching him again, with something completely unreadable in those dark eyes.
"...Have I got chocolate on my face or something...?"
"No."
"Oh." Iruka sighed deeply, one hand resting against the curve of his abdomen. "You and Kakashi, honestly... I must have gained five pounds just today."
"So?"
"I don't want to get fat..."
Sasuke snorted. "You're going to get fat whether you like it or not. You might as well enjoy it."
"That's not what I mean," Iruka said, face burning. "I mean... I know I'm... going to be... I'll be very big, by the end. But I shouldn't gain too much that's not for the baby -- I'll need to lose all the extra weight in about a month, I mean, I can't exactly wear maternity dresses when we get back to Konoha, and I can't afford to buy new chuunin uniforms just to be fat for a couple of months, particularly with the baby to feed, and..."
"You worry about everything, don't you?" Sasuke said, incredulous.
"You angst about everything, so I'd call us even," Iruka said, a little sulky. "And I'm serious. I've got to try not to gain too much--"
"No you don't. How many times have I got to tell you to stop worrying?" A little husky-voiced, the boy added, "You shouldn't think of things like that. You should just... revel in this. In your child. In peace, and joy, and... and in the pregnancy. Because none of it lasts. Don't waste a time like this, Iruka-sensei. Just be happy while you can. The rest of us will take care of everything."
"Kakashi told me the same thing this evening," Iruka murmured.
"Kakashi-sensei is a genius, after all."
Iruka chuckled a little. "Because he gives the same advice you do?"
Was that actually a grin tugging at the corner of the boy's lips? "Of course," Sasuke replied. "I'm a genius too, you know."
"Since so many geniuses have told me so, then I'll try to worry less," Iruka said with a smile, reaching over to rumple the boy's hair a little. "But in return, will you do something for me? Since you're taking care of things?"
Sasuke nodded. "Come to the manor when we get back to Konoha. You don't need to worry about buying anything."
"...what?"
Sasuke's voice was almost steady. Almost, but not quite. "My uncle Sakaki was about your height. He always wore formal crested kimono. He was... Family pride was important to him. So there are dozens of his kimono in... in the attic. You can wear them. The handy thing about kimono is that as long as the height is right, the waistline is adjustable... and..." Sasuke bent his head a little, and said, "And it's not like he needs them anymore."
Completely overwhelmed, Iruka whispered, "Sasuke-kun..."
"They're all marked with the Uchiha mon, though," Sasuke murmured. "Do you mind?"
"Mind? I'd -- I'd be honored, if you thought it wouldn't shame your family's symbol-- if you wouldn't mind me wearing them--"
"Some things are more important than traditions," Sasuke said. With a little bit of difficulty, he added, "I think... seeing you smile as you wait for your child to come... that's one of them."
Iruka couldn't even find his voice, let alone words to speak with.
Sasuke cleared his throat, and fixed a good solid glare on his teacher. "So NOW will you stop worrying about having eaten those strawberries?"
"Yes," Iruka choked, embarrassed at the way his voice was breaking. "Thank you. You didn't need to offer something so important, and I'm... grateful, overwhelmed..." He scrubbed a hand across his eyes hastily, trying not to embarrass them both with tears. "And that wasn't at all what I was intending to ask of you!"
"So what were you going to ask?" There it was again -- a glimmer of something that might almost have been a smile: "More strawberries tomorrow?"
"No." Iruka gulped, and tried to keep his voice steady. "No, I wanted to ask... if you could try to trust us a little. To trust that it's all right to be happy. Not to be afraid of the times when things change..."
"I'm not afraid," Sasuke said. "That's just how the world is."
Iruka sighed a little, and said, very carefully, "You said that you'd wished your brother had killed you too--"
"I said too damn many things," Sasuke said, reddening a bit with frustration. "Just forget it."
"But you never say anything lightly," Iruka replied. "Sasuke-kun--"
"Not tonight," the boy said, a little desperately, almost begging. "Just... not tonight. We've been walking for a month. I'm worn out. I'm saying stupid things. --Some other time, all right?"
"All right," Iruka said, gentle. "But if you ever want to talk about anything, Sasuke-kun, I promise I can stop lecturing and listen."
"...I know." Sasuke picked up his scroll and sat with his back to the sofa and pillow again, clearly trying to end the conversation before it could go into even more uncomfortable territory.
Iruka struggled with himself for a long minute, then finally gathered the nerve to reach over to stroke the boy's hair lightly, just for the contact. Sasuke stiffened at the gentle touch; but when Iruka held his silence, Sasuke began to relax a little. Iruka wasn't sure whether the boy was enduring it or enjoying it; but as long as he didn't pull away, it was good enough for tonight.
The little stuffed dolphin which had been the source of such fierce and prolonged combat was now happily peeking out of the collar of Kakashi's turtleneck.
But Naruto was happily skipping along the road with another little plushie in his hands -- an even littler bright-eyed snuggly dolphin that was the same coloring as Kakashi's. They were a matched set, mama and baby.
"...Still think mine's cooler!"
"Honestly, you idiots, why didn't either of you ask if there was another one an hour and a half ago?"
"Training," Kakashi said sagely. "Can't let our target skills go to waste, even in such a sleepy little town..."
"Hah!" Sakura had bought a little toy wagon, both to give to the new parents for their baby and to be able to keep protective watch over her purchases to prevent the shopping-impaired twits from abandoning them again. "You're such a liar, Kakashi-sensei. What on earth makes Iruka-sensei put up with you?"
"Unbelievable, phenomenal, mind-blowing sex," Kakashi answered promptly.
Sakura turned distinctly green.
Naruto was spluttering. "...Auughh! Too much information... did NOT need to imagine... just... auugghh!"
"She did ask."
"So can we go home now?" Sakura asked.
Kakashi glanced up at the position of the moon, considering.
Not even midnight yet. There's no way anybody, even Iruka, could've psychoanalyzed Sasuke into something resembling sanity already. And I still haven't gotten my hands on any alcohol.
"If you want to have an early bedtime, kids, I suppose Iruka can tuck you in," Kakashi said ever so helpfully. "Me, I'm going to enjoy the best part of the night."
"But all the shops are closed," Sakura said.
"But the bars aren't!" Kakashi turned to Naruto and said, "Shall we let Sakura-chan go home and have ourselves a men's night on the town?"
Tiredness was obviously losing the battle with being-seen-as-grown-up-ness in Naruto's spiky blonde head. "Heck yeah!"
"No, no, no, no," Sakura said, eyes enormous. "No way am I leaving the two of you to get drunk in a town that's not Konoha!"
"Great, then that makes three of us!" Kakashi said blithely. "Come on."
"Wait, I didn't say you could--"
But Kakashi and Naruto were already halfway up the street.
"...oh, hell!" Sakura hastily put a leash on Inner Sakura, grabbed the handle of her wagon, and hurried along after them.
Omake Theater
This is extra stuff, the chapter ended up there. Please skip the rest if you don't like these, but I couldn't NOT put this in since Ciarann sent me my first ever fanart because of the omake pre-chapter 20! 3 3 3 (I'm going to make a gallery for it and put a link somewhere in my profile since links in fics get munched for some reason...)
So I had to leave this in somehow because the pic is just so cute, Chibi Iruka With Sparkles and Sasuke looking appalled and Kakashi happily letching over a fence... and I really can't find anything that says author notes at start and end are prohibited, just something that says using whole chapters for author notes are prohibited... anyway, I'm sorry it's been 3 weeks since the last chapter (which was April 3), just like I said below, work has gone COMPLETELY ballistic...
(Oh yeah, two random notes: Naruto's not going blech at Kakashi to be judgemental of Iruka for being gay; he's just squicked for pretty much the same reason anyone goes blech when someone talks about their teachers and/or parents having sex. Most people, especially barely-teenaged kids, just don't like to visualize their almost-parental-figures doing that. ^^;; And like I said in 16 or so, this story has got to be alternate-timeline because there isn't enough time IN timeline for anything like this to have happened... going to try to wrestle the sequel back closer to timeline though... just over a longer period of time if you see what I mean...)
From April 18:
Chibi-Iruka: Sasuke-kun?
grouchy!Chibi-Sasuke: ...?
Chibi-Iruka: Can you help me move something else?
grouchy!Chibi-Sasuke: ...!
Chibi-Iruka (as though that had been an actual explanation): Yes, yes, I know I'm supposed to be careful, but this really is rather important if we want to get through this story and have it over with in a reasonable amount of time…
grouchy!Chibi-Sasuke: ...
Chibi-Iruka: Thank you! (I knew that would be a motivator...) Come on, it's this avalanche over here.
(After quite a bit of digging through an enormous pile of paper, they discover a vaguely twitching hand.)
startled!Chibi-Sasuke: ...?!
(more digging)
Chibi-Iruka (peeling a flattened ChibiRisu-chan off the ground and dusting post-it notes and staples off): ...now that I think of it, she did mention something about 120-hour work week avalanches...
ChibiRisu-chan (spiral-eyed): ...and remote-access ports 389, 522, 1503, 1719, 1720, and 1731 are blocked at the campus firewall level so that...
Chibi-Iruka (patting her hand): There there. It's a weekend. You can stop hallucinating now.
ChibiRisu-chan: ...yeah. Tell that to the virus writers, the retirees who can't read the email migration documentation, and the guy who sat on my docs for a month and then wanted weeks worth of stuff rewritten in the three days remaining before the new guy gets here. I've been working whether it's a weekend or not...
(blearily checks stats page)
(scrubs eyes)
(passes out again with a thud)
puzzled!Chibi-Sasuke (gesturing at the body on the floor): ...?
Chibi-Iruka: Well, it might have something to do with the fact that it took 16 chapters to get the first 10,000 hits and 100 reviews, and then just 3 more chapters to get to over 20,000 hits and 200 reviews... (nudging puzzled!Chibi-Sasuke in the ribs with a smile:) You should talk more often. Apparently you have fans!
newly-re-grouchy!Chibi-Sasuke: ...
Chibi-Iruka (patting his head since grouchy!Chibi-Sasuke is just too cute to resist): It was just a thought.
(ChibiRisu-chan's otherwise unconscious body twitches a hand over to slap a sticky note approximately on Iruka's knee, then goes thump again)
Chibi-Iruka (reading, then blushing): Er... um... she says thank you to everybody, and that I'm now on thank-you duty while she's out cold. Apparently thank-you duty involves large quantities of glomping and squealing and sparkly eyes... er... why me...?
grouchy!Chibi-Sasuke: ...-_-
Chibi-Iruka (nervous chuckle): Er, you're right. You really should get that checked out by a doctor, you know, but I suppose there's no help for it at the moment. (Sheepishly to the audience:) Sasuke-kun says he's congenitally incapable of sparkly eyes, so I guess I'm going to have to practice. Hmmm...
Chibi-Iruka (takes a deep breath, blinks several times, clasps his hands together under his chin in the universal seal for Cuteness no Jutsu, widens his eyes as far as they'll go -- which is pretty impressively close to three quarters of a chibi head -- and concentrates hard:) Nnnnnggghhh...
(poink! Poinkpoinkpoinkpoink...)
Chibi-Iruka (now with several dozen sparkly little stars shining in enormous chibi eyes and a sweatdrop of effort hanging over his head): ...Sasuke-kun, how's this...?
grouchy!Chibi-Sasuke: ............................................;;;;;
(Chibi-Iruka stares in bemusement as the corner of grouchy!Chibi-Sasuke's mouth twitches despite the sweatdrops and strained attempt to maintain the perfect poker face.)
(In horror at himself, grouchy!Chibi-Sasuke clamps both hands over his face and flees the possibility that his body might be trying to smile at the sheer staggering quantities of cute hovering around.)
Chibi-Iruka (scratching behind his ear): Er... I don't know whether that meant 'good' or 'bad'... (gulp, very very nervous grin:) So... erm... who wants the thank-you glomps and squeals...? --Do I really have to squeal?
(another sticky gets nudged onto his ankle)
Chibi-Iruka (reading): 'If they want you to'... (enormous sigh) Yes, ma'am.
[ChibiRisu-chan waves 'bye for now' to folks - hopefully it won't be another month before I can write another piece! ^^;;; I can't put in placeholder chapters to say 'yeah I'm alive,' apparently, so just kinda take my word for it... sorry...]