A/N:
Why hello there my dear, dear readers!
Reviewers:
shinycry: yay I find Jiraiya such a funny perv! I know in manga none of them was trained by Jiraiya but I just had to put him into the story! oh and sorry for updating so late but I'm busy converting my newbedroom! yay that's right I'm getting a new bedroom! but there's still lotta work to do, so sorry for my late update and if in the future I update slow again!
jo: ero-sensei means perverted teacher by my limited knowledge of Japanese. and I also like the idea of kakashi's disgust for Jiraiya but I just told how much I like the old perv so i'm not saying that again hehe...
oh and the problem with kurenai is fixed in this chappie... go read it fast! hihi
I also have prenounced shinycry and jo as my first loyal reviewers! congrats you 2! oh and forgot to tell this: I'm going on a vacation for 3 weeks, and I don't think I'll update in the coming weeks, but I'm gonna bring a laptop on my trip so expect lotsa updates when I get back... I remember last year... I brought back 4 new chapters with me! I don't know if I'm gonna make 4 again but I'll try my best!
untill then, I hope all of you review on me... I was kinda disappointed when I saw that until this update I only got 2 new reviews...
I feel a little neglected... I need something to write for... not only to express myself but also to let other people read it... otherwise I wouldn't put it online... so please review... I look a little desperate now, don't I?
Kuraku
Chapter 8:
Fateful evening
The first few months the students had trained hard, but slowly the training sessions were softening and they had a long discussion with their sensei about it.
After the discussion, it all went back to normal.
After a year, four other students entered; Maito Gai, Mitarashi Anko, Morino Ibiki and Uchiha Obito.
The first boy, Gai, was a very… erm… 'unique' boy. He had long pitch-black hair, which always seemed to hold a gloss over it and his eyes looked darkened by his full lashes. He always wore tight clothes, which were most of the times green, as green was obviously his favourite colour.
The minute he had seen Kakashi fight, he had declared Kakashi and him to be 'everlasting rivals'. Kakashi at first found the other boy quite annoying, since Gai always tried to trick him into some sort of game to see which one of them would win it. When Kakashi had finally agreed to one, Gai would make up another set of rules for himself. For example, when he would lose he would spend a full week training on the same sandals Jiraiya wore or do a hundred sit-ups without breathing heavily or something similar to that.
Kakashi never came to check on Gai to see if he was keeping the promise, when the boy had indeed lost, he cared less what his soon-to-be friend was doing, but Gai always kept the promise he made with himself.
'What doesn't kills me, makes me stronger' was what he always said.
He told himself that, because when he would lose to Kakashi by the lack of experience, he would train himself hard every time he would lose and he knew that that was the only way he would become stronger than Kakashi.
'Set a higher goal than your opponent, work up to that goal, then overcome it and you will definitely become stronger than your opponent,' this was how Gai's mind worked.
Therefore Kakashi thought of Gai as a simple-minded self-centred annoyance, who just couldn't shut up, and especially couldn't stop talking about how great and pretty he himself was. But as time slowly passed, they became great friends.
Anko was along with Kurenai the only girl in their little karate-club. She was as loudmouthed, as she was insolent, headstrong and straightforward. She never agreed on anything if she was even only a little bit against it and she could be more stubborn than Kakashi sometimes was.
But even though, she had all those bad qualities, she made it all up in innocence and sweetness. Everyone thought she was the cutest girl they'd ever seen when she blushed, in which only Ibiki could manage in making her do.
She had short black hair, which always stood up in quite a messy way. She was a real tomboy. Her eyes were large and coloured in a deep brown ocean of wild energy and willpower.
Ibiki, the third kid who entered was a year older than the others were and two years older than Iruka and Anko were, as Anko was about the same age as Iruka was.
Ibiki was built in robust way and looked like nothing in the world could ever hurt him. He always had a serious expression on his tanned face and he looked quite emotionless. Nobody seemed to get close to him; he was even that cold towards his own little brother, Idate, who sadly enough respected his older brother too much to stand up for himself.
After a long time only Anko seemed to be able to break through the cold barrier that Ibiki had build to protect himself against the hectic world. Her innocence and bluntness gave Ibiki the opportunity to socialise himself some and soon he and Anko became great friends, although neither one of them were probably ever going to admit that. The two always made needless sarcastic remarks on each other, but they never meant anything by them.
Obito also wasn't one of the most open of people. He wasn't cold, but just really mysterious and careless. The only one who seemed to get close to the boy was Kakashi. The boys didn't see each other much either, only at the training sessions with Jiraiya-sensei, but with only one look they seemed to know what the other was thinking.
When… no, if Obito talked it was always objective and he seemed to be a very down-to-earth boy. He had black spiky hair, courageous eyes daring anyone to cross his path, which always seemed to be lost in something, like he wasn't looking at things, but more like looking through them, as if he was always trying to read underneath the underneath.
He didn't dress out of the ordinary, except for the grey goggles that he always seemed to wear.
Slowly the little kids, who had met a long time ago, were growing up. When Iruka became ten, he quitted their little karate club. He had gotten stuck on a certain level and wasn't able to get better, he was even beginning to slow down the others in progressing.
A month later a new kid entered; Gekkou Hayate.
The boy had brown, shoulder length hair, sick drooping eyes and always had some horrible sounding cough.
Kakashi, Obito and Gai were Jiraiya's most promising students and he had taken some extra time to train them.
One year after Iruka's departure a competition has held in a town nearby. Obito had ended second, Kakashi third and Gai fifth, which of course made Gai do weird training sessions because he had ended lower than Kakashi had.
Life wasn't quite exiting, nobody dared to mock Kakashi anymore and he was making great friends. Iruka stayed Kakashi's best friend, like it had always been and they had lots of fun together.
Iruka hadn't changed much; he still held the same sweet smile, still the soft brown hair hanging loosely behind him in a ponytail, though it had gained length, and the slight blush decorating his tanned cheeks in a cute way. The things that had changed were his way of dressing; he began to wear tighter shirts and in when it got colder with loose jackets over them. His broad body had thinned more in comparison with his body length and made him quite popular among the girls.
As he was half way through his fourteenth year of life, Kakashi had both physically and mentally changed much; his thin body had begun to form more muscular shapes, but what had changed most of all were his eyes. To outsiders the pair of eyes seemed terribly laid back, but to someone who was as close to the silver haired boy as Iruka was, could see the dark grey eyes weren't as careless as they seemed, the word 'peaceful' fitted those eyes better.
Mentally Kakashi had also changed significantly.
He had gotten more laid back than he already was and repeatedly forgot that time existed. It never really got him into troubles though. Sometimes he would even be an hour late for an appointment. He then would always make up some weird excuse that most of the times was so lame almost anyone would laugh about it and forgive the young teenager.
He also learned to ignore most of his parent's new arguments, which were beginning to occur on daily base these last weeks.
He had learned to enjoy every single minute he got to spend with his friends. He felt safe with them, trusted, loved and he could be the person he really was.
They had saved him from the horrible lonely hell he had gotten stuck in now so long ago. They were the ones who had brought peace to his traumatised mind.
All in all, Kakashi had changed much, but one thing always seemed to stay the same; his silver hair wildly spiking up, like he had just woken up.
Kurenai had totally forgotten about her little half-crush on Kakashi and instead developed a full crush on Asuma. Asuma secretly cared more about Kurenai than just a friend too, but just wasn't ready to give it a serious thought.
Genma on the other hand was changing girlfriend week after week.
Also Mizuki was doing fine, he had just won the heart of a girl he had gotten a crush on so long ago, and finally she had noticed him too.
Gai was still the same, as he had claimed he had his life devoted to training. Only Jiraiya wasn't as pleased with this newfound goal as Gai was. Sure, an hour of Gai's preaches about how beautiful he, his life and the world was, was just enough to endure, but more than an hour would probably make any human break down and cry until dehydration killed you.
Obito was getting a little more social with the rest of the karate club and sometimes actually came by to hang with Kakashi, Iruka, Genma and Asuma. Nobody knew what triggered him, but they all enjoyed his presence.
Anko and Ibiki had changed about nothing, except that Anko had decided to let her hair grow longer. Her hair was now at her shoulder length and changed colour every two weeks. Momentarily, Anko had blond hair with dark highlights.
Life became so predictable that it even was supposed to be boring, yet it wasn't. The teenagers liked the peace, but of course exactly those precious things in life were not meant to last forever.
Kakashi and Iruka were slowly sauntering back to Iruka's home from a movie at the local cinema.
"What do you want to do when we get back?" Iruka asked drowsily, he always became so lazy from movies, not that he disliked it though.
"I don't know" Kakashi was going to sleep over that night.
It was a pre-birthday party as Iruka's thirteenth birthday was in less than a week.
"Me either" it got quiet again as both of them enjoyed their sleepy moods.
Iruka's house came into sight. They walked up the short driveway of the house, as it was empty and deserted.
"Hmm strange, mom and dad are still not home" Iruka thought aloud.
His father and mother had decided that all the while Iruka was gone with Kakashi, they would go to a nearby city and buy him presents for his birthday. Taki had tried to find some nice presents in their village earlier that week, but only found a pretty silver necklace for boys, like men in the army have, only without the nametag. It wasn't anything special at all, just some regular necklace, but that was what Taki liked about it, the ordinariness of the little pieces of silver, just like her family was; nothing out of the ordinary, but fun anyway.
She had packed it in paper with happy colours and hid it in her upper nightstand drawer; Iruka always seemed to miss that hiding place when he went looking for his presents.
"Maybe they got stuck into a traffic jam" Kakashi suggested.
"Yeah…" Iruka suddenly got a bad feeling, but he didn't knew why.
It isn't weird to get into a traffic jam at this time of the day, but then why am I having such a bad feeling about this? He thought to himself but couldn't come up with a proper answer and decided to ignore this new unwelcome feeling.
They entered the house and continued to move into the kitchen.
"You want something to drink?" Iruka asked, as he saw his friend settle himself down unto one of the kitchen chairs.
"No thanks, I'm not really thirsty" Kakashi said as he laid his chin down on his arms that were lying crossed on the table in front of him.
"Ah well, I am" he announced unnecessarily.
Iruka got himself something to drink and sat next to his friend.
Iruka quietly sipped at the glass, swallowing only small amounts of the lemonade he had just poured in it for himself. Kakashi gazed at the brown haired boy before him and Iruka gazed back into the dark unrevealing, almost emotionless pair of eyes that belonged to Kakashi.
After their gazing match Iruka suggested to watch some TV, and with nothing else to do the boys moved from the kitchen into the living room.
Slowly minutes crawled by as the two friends lazily watched the screen before them.
After two whole hours had passed slowly by, Iruka began to worry and Kakashi began to get quite hungry. His stomach had decided not to keep it a secret from anyone within a five-mile radius, as it was grumbling like no tomorrow. Kakashi was beginning to get fed up with his stomach's attitude and was about to ask Iruka if maybe the two of them could try to fix some food together, but his unasked question was rudely interrupted by the doorbell that rang loudly through the entire house.
"That's strange…" Iruka murmured but got up to open the door anyway.
It wasn't often that people would ring their doorbell at that hour, as it was slowly hitting seven o'clock. The sun was getting ready to set and let the moon take its place high up in the great, dark, empty sky.
Iruka opened the door and an unknown woman and man were standing outside. They both wore long beige coloured coats, like detectives always seemed to wear. The woman was probably only around her twenties, while the man was definitely hitting the forties. They had both serious expressions on their faces; one could almost even call it anger what was written on the unknown couple's faces, although helplessness would fit in nicely too.
"Um, hello" the woman's angry expression softened quickly, as she looked into the face of the twelve-year-old boy in front of her.
It shifted to Kakashi face when he stood next to his friend, as he had followed his friend to the door.
"Hello, who are you and why are you here?" Iruka spoke up.
"Uh, well, we're looking for someone named Umino Iruka" she said unsure and the sentence sounded more like a question than an explanation.
"I'm Iruka" he said lazily.
"Than can we come in Iruka?" the man spoke up for the first time and when Iruka looked at him he had noticed that also the harsh expression on the man's face had softened.
"Sorry, my mom made me promise not to let strangers in the house" he said carelessly.
"Um, but we're here about that, about your parents" she fumbled in one of the pockets in her coat and got something dark out of it which looked a lot like a wallet of some kind.
"Look, were from the police," she clipped it open and a shiny badge was inside "we have something to tell you" she said very uneasily.
The moment Iruka realized polices was standing his door, telling him they had something to say about his parents, the bad feeling from before came back to him and it really started to worry him.
"Uh, well, come in then" he stepped aside and the two adults entered the house, politely taking off their shoes.
All four of them walked into the living room and sat down, the two adults on two chairs at the side of the room and Iruka and Kakashi onto the sofa.
"My name is Toshie Danaka, but please just call me Dan, every one does," the man said and than pointed at his female companion "And this is Asha Nekita" she bowed slightly still quite uneasy.
"And might I ask who you are?" he asked Kakashi.
"Hatake Kakashi, just a friend" he said in a polite manner.
"So anyway, why are you here?" Iruka asked impatient having lost all his senses of politeness.
"Uh, well, I don't quite know how to say this, I've only been ordered to tell a few times before but there's no other way to say this different than to just spit it out," Dan looked serious and worried at the boys before him.
"I'm sorry to say this, but your parents have been in an car accident and didn't survived the crash" the man looked down, he hated to say these kind of things, especially to kids like the young brown-haired boy and his friend before him.
Iruka let a gasp escape his mouth and fixed his eyes on the window.
This can't be true! He told himself, as he looked wide-eyed at the slowly darkening sky outside, not a single tear coming even close to flowing.He wouldn't believe it! It was just some sick joke his parents were playing with him! He desperately awaited his parents to cheerfully walk inside and tell him it was all just a joke, just to trick him, but no one came.
He felt a slight hand touch the end of his shoulder, but he didn't care.
"Iruka?" a sympathetic voice whispered, the voice that belonged to the slight touch on his shoulder; Kakashi.
"B-but… th-that can't b-be tr-rue…" Iruka said in a rasping voice.
He was surprised by how husky his voice suddenly sounded and he quickly swallowed the lump that was forming in his throat.
"W-why coul-ldn't y-you peop-ple save th-them!" he now looked desperately at the man who hadn't lifted his face enough to look the boy in the eyes.
"They… they died instantly and there was nothing the ambulance crew could do about it" he said as quickly as he could.
"NO! YOU'RE LYING! THEY CAN'T BE DEAD! THIS IS ALL JUST SOME SICK JOKE!" Iruka suddenly yelled and spurted away from his company.
Upstairs, in his bed, underneath his covers, where the reality all seemed less serious, he began crying.
Soon after he had entered his room the door carefully opened. Kakashi slowly walked in and closed it. Iruka stopped crying and Kakashi heard muffed sobs coming from underneath the duvet.
He walked up to the bed, pulled away the duvet and laid down next to his friend.
Iruka was slightly surprised by this, but didn't resist, on the other hand; he welcomed his best friend with every little piece of gratitude he could manage to collect from his scrambled conscious.
Kakashi took Iruka in an embrace and whispered in his ear "You should cry now, there's nothing to be ashamed of, let it all out, don't bottle it up, it'll destroy you completely" he knew Iruka was holding the tears back because of him, but that didn't seemed right to Kakashi, Iruka needed to cry now and be comforted.
"Th-thanks" Iruka managed to get out between his heavy sobs and his quietly let himself cry.
There they lay, Iruka clinging to Kakashi for all the support Kakashi could offer. When crying turned to sobs again and the sobs quieted down, only the ensuring whispers of Kakashi were heard in the darkness on that fateful evening.
After what seemed like an eternity, Iruka finally began to feel the exhaustion from everything what had happened in the past few hours, his eyes burned from all his tears, his mouth was dry and Kakashi's shoulder, were he had been crying on, was soaked, but he didn't cared anymore, about nothing.
All that he knew was that he was in pain, that he was exhausted and that he was being held by his best friend. Those were more than enough reasons for Iruka to float away from his conscious mind and take a long trip to the land of Nod.
Kakashi couldn't quite get to sleep and was awake most of the night, just holding his pained friend and feeling miserable for him. Although Kakashi knew the reason of their current position wasn't pleasant, the feeling of holding Iruka and being held by Iruka felt great to him. He knew he shouldn't even be thinking of this, especially not in such a horrible situation, but he just couldn't help to think about how great it was to have a friendship the way he and Iruka had. Finally the thought of their friendship was what drove Kakashi over the edge of consciousness and he fell into a deep slumber, even though it would only last for a short while.