Disclaimer
I do not own Naruto.
Summary
It all began with a harmless joke on an unsuspecting chunin. Nothing bad was supposed to happen, really, and Kakashi was supposed to go scot-free. Instead, he got saddled with the finished problem: One super-cute Iruka chibi.
Author's Notes
To think, last time I posted a chapter was in July. I, foolishly, thought that I posted a chapter in September. Sorry for making you all wait so long.
Yes, you people are probably going to kill me after this one. This is the second to last chapter, even thought I said that this story was going to be twenty chapters long. Chapter twenty will be a question/answer chapter to help quell your fears after chapter nineteen.
Not that anything bad will happen, just something interesting.
And remember, chapter nineteen and twenty will be coming out before Christmas. Rest assured, I will do that since I have a lot of work due. Maybe I'll get into Cornell, like I wish. Sigh, Ivy League.
The soft pitter-patter of rain echoed through the apartment, bouncing off the walls and creating a soothing atmosphere to envelope the sleeping man in the bed. The sun, though out, was casting only a few faint rays of meager light to try and penetrate the thick haze from the shower. Therefore the man who was still asleep didn't know what time it was.
The thing that awoke him from his slumber wasn't an alarm, or a shock to his system reminding him that he was late. No. The thing that made the chunin currently asleep in a jounin's bed wake up was the sound of soft purring.
Iruka felt his eyes open slowly to take in his surroundings: The soft light, the slight cinnamon scent, the sound of the rain hitting a closed window, a pale face, still covered by a mask, with the one visible eye closed, the other eye pressed into the pillow. The chunin smiled gently, finding nothing wrong with this picture, and was about to go back to sleep, burrowing under the blankets, when his brain finally caught up.
The only ninja with a mask was Hatake Kakashi. Hatake Kakashi was a well-known pervert. Hatake Kakashi was in a bed with a male chunin. These thoughts were mulled over for a moment, analyzed form every angle, before brown eyes suddenly widened in horror: He, Umino Iruka, an academy teacher of small, innocent, impressionable children, had slept with hot, sultry, moody, jounin Hatake Kakashi.
"Oh my God." He whispered, hand creeping up from underneath the sheets to clasp itself over his mouth.
At the soft words, a low moan came from Kakashi as he rolled over onto his side from his stomach, curling up against the warmth that had settled next to him during the night. He rubbed his face sleepily against Iruka's shoulder, a small moan coming from deep within his throat. Kakashi seemed contently asleep, his arm resting slightly under his jaw as his face nudged itself into Iruka's neck.
'Please, let this all be a bad dream.' The near twenty-two year old stated to himself in his mind, trying to control the urge to scream. 'I'm not in bed with Kakashi-san, we didn't do anything.' Then Iruka moved slowly from the weight nestled into his chest, trying to get up from the bed.
Escaped from his prison, Iruka brushed himself off and looked around the room, trying to find the source of the purring. "What messes I get myself into…" He sighed, threading his hand through his messy hair, wincing when it caught on a knot. "But at least I'm still dressed."
And with that said, the chunin sighed again and moved into the kitchen, mind too troubled to notice a pale arm moving from underneath the covers to hit the purring cat alarm. Or the pair of eyes that opened blearily to greet the wet morning.
Iruka stirred his tea moodily, looking out the window. He hated rain, and it didn't help that he was in an apartment that he didn't recognize. The chunin sighed and flopped down onto the table, his eyes staring blearily up at the window, as if he stared at the outside world long enough the weather would suddenly change to suit his needs. It was only when he heard a shower being turned on that Iruka sat up straight.
"Maybe it isn't Kakashi-san…" He said softly, glancing down at his now cold tea, looking for answers to his sudden dilemma. Iruka swiveled to look out the window again, hoping that the weather had changed for the better, but, alas, it had not. "Probably not…" Iruka muttered; his mood dropping.
The chunin stood up, leaving his cup behind on the table and wandered into the living room, worrying his hands. "I don't need this." Iruka said while his brows furrowed to a point, "I just got into the academy. A nice job filled with nice kids and nice people. I don't need to be found with a naked jounin and have myself fired!
"Wait…" Iruka's face blanched and his pacing stopped. "Was he naked?" Struggling to stop blushing, very hard with his current state of mind, Iruka delved back into his memories from before he had waken up. "How did I even get home with him?" Iruka questioned himself, finding none of his memories leading up to him being in a bed with a "maybe" naked jounin.
"It's not like I've ever really talked to Kakashi-san before." The chunin resumed his pacing, moving back and forth in front of the slightly dusty television. "Maybe once in a while when I was in the mission room, but the hokage just assigned me to the academy and Kakashi-san would never be seen with kids. He never has a genin team to teach."
Iruka frowned, hand going to cup his chin, "A bet made by Kurenai? She was always for getting me into trouble when I flunked one of her students. But she would never do anything with the jounins. They made her really pissed when the jounins made fun of one of her flower arrangement girls. Something about a huge forehead…"
He was so caught up in his musings that Iruka didn't hear the water in the other room turn off; he also didn't hear the other sound that was often coupled with a shower turning off; the slap of flesh against a cool floor. Iruka turned to the wall nearest to him, looking for a poster to distract his thoughts that were slowly becoming more confusing, and was sadly disappointed when a blank wall greeted him.
"Of course, it could just be me losing my mind after a couple of really hard days with the kids." Iruka nodded, convinced that was the problem, slowly wandering over to the kitchen to make another cup of tea. Caffeine was the only thing that Iruka knew that could fix his problems right now, and he was thinking about making a cup of coffee instead of tea; stronger for his nerves, and he might as well get used to it since he was now a teacher.
"It's a good thing that Kakashi-san has all this stuff in one place or else I'm sure I would…be…" The chunin drifted off as he walked into the kitchen, his eyes fixing on a pale back that was directed towards him. The owner of said back was rummaging through the refrigerator, mindless of who or what was staring at him, it being too early in the morning for him to really concentrate on anything besides finding something edible.
Make that cup of coffee into a cup of sake.
Moving quickly into a deep bow, aware of how he was blushing, Iruka stammered a quick greeting, "Good morning, Kakashi-san. I hope you had a good rest." Before raising his head slightly to see how the elite jounin would react to seeing the younger man in his apartment flat.
"Meh..."
Iruka straightened, ready to reprimand Kakashi for being so rude, but stopped, mouth hanging slightly open, when the full view of the man he supposedly slept with came into focus. 'It's not such a bad idea, now that I think about it…'
A pair of mismatched eyes stared at him with barely contained laughter, the steel colored one slightly more closed. Gray hair hung almost limp from the recent shower. Body just barely covered by a towel wrapped around a slim waist. A mouth revealing strong, straight teeth that were bared in a silent laugh at the befuddled chunin who couldn't place who it was that he was currently staring at.
With a jaunty cock of the head and a hand on the hip, the seductiveness destroyed after placing a cold pork bun into his mouth, Kakashi stared at Iruka. Swallowing his breakfast, or was it brunch, the jounin lifted an eyebrow. "Yo." And then Kakashi walked out the kitchen back into his bedroom, leaving behind a very confused Iruka.
Sakura sighed at the breakfast table, ignoring the pounding in her head. She was sure it was a hangover but she wasn't going to inform her mother about that. It would lead to…questions…and answers…and explanations of Iruka changing into a small child, but he was quickly growing up...
Her mother wouldn't understand. She had never been a teenager and lived a wild life.
So instead, Sakura gratefully accepted the buttered toast her mother handed to her, part of a new diet, and chewed thoughtfully as the room gradually became brighter as the sun rose. This was going to be an interesting day, if anything, so she had to make sure she was fit to be seen. Had to make sure she was cool. Calm. Confident.
"Sakura, honey?"
The shattering of glass, and the above ideals, could be heard as Sakura jumped from her chair straight into the air. After landing, the girl stared at her mother in pure shock, "What is it mother?" Sakura gasped, hand clasped to her chest in an attempt to calm the rapidly beating organ.
Never turning from making pancakes, for the rest of the family who was fine with their self image, the older Haruno created a shadow copy to begin cleaning up the mess behind her. "I was hoping you would be able to get some eggs for me. It seems I forgot I needed three eggs for blueberry pancakes. Silly me."
Instead of waiting for her child's response, Mrs. Haruno turned and placed a list into her daughter's limp hands, closing them and turning back to preparing breakfast. "I also need bread, milk, some tomatoes, a block of cane sugar, make sure it's fresh, ground meat, and a little bit of ginger root."
She paused for a moment, knife tip resting against her bottom lip as she struggled to remember the last item on her list. "Oh, yes! And see if you can find a couple of tulip bulbs that aren't rotted. We've had such horrible weather the past few months. I want to try and plant them before the first frost of winter. They're very pretty when they bloom in the spring."
"O-of course." Sakura said; face turning pale when her stomach growled at the mention of "real" food, also at the large list her mother had just assigned as her unofficial mission of the day. "I'll go out right now." She hurried over to the door and fled the sanctuary that smelt of syrup and sizzling bacon.
"Make sure you take your umbrella! Oh, and don't forget your rain boots! I don't want you to track mud in the house, or catch a cold that you'll infect the rest of your team with." Sakura's mother exclaimed as Sakura was about to walk out the entrance, still clad in her simple everyday outfit and sandals.
The mother of the troubled girl turned and looked out the door, a faint smile on her face when she spotted her only child trudging through the downpour to find her items on the shopping list, "One day, she'll appreciate all of this." And after receiving a silent nod of agreement from her doppelganger, the woman resumed making a meal for her still sleeping husband.
Sakura sighed as she walked down the road, holding her umbrella in the crook of one arm, resting it against her shoulder, and looking down at the list in her other hand to find that every one of the things her mother listed were on the little sheet of paper. "This is going to take me all day to finish." She muttered, sighing when her breath came out in smoky puff.
She wouldn't say she was happy for her mother telling her to put on the extra clothing, it was almost winter, and it was getting colder, but she had other things to do on her day off. "I could be finding out what happened to Iruka-sensei." Sakura sighed. Finding yourself suddenly transported to the top of the hokage monument, and your two other male teammates making out almost on top of you, had put a damper on her morning. Then not finding your teacher, who was supposedly also at the party, not flipped over his own body like the other drunken adults.
It was a damper if Sakura ever knew one.
"I could ask someone to help me with my chores. Make everything go faster!" Sakura brightened, "Naruto and Sasu-" She stopped abruptly. In the middle of the sidewalk, rain running down in torrents on either side of her, staring blankly in front of her as she imagined what the two boys did.
Shivering suddenly, Sakura accompanied this act with a shake of the head. "They wouldn't do that. We're only twelve!" The girl paled when she thought about what she usually thought about when Sasuke came around.
The silence around the young child could have been cut with a knife, if anyone was approaching her. Most of the people just skirted around her, in hopes of not being noticed. A few moved close, but they were promptly shoved aside by the invisible wall known as Sakura's depression.
It was only when a hugely energetic ball of happiness, and green, came skipping down the street, that Sakura snapped out of staring at the one spot in the street.
"Sakura-chan!" Rock Lee spouted enthusiastically, jumping into a large puddle before arriving next to his would be, hoped for, lover. It was one of those strange days that the boy was not fully dressed in green, good by itself, and in spandex, the evil partner that destroys the color.
Maybe from the cold, or from the need to jump into puddles and become soaked, the fellow genin was dressed in a simple pair of dark denim, rarely seen in the village, and a heavy knit sweatshirt that was a dark shade of blue. The only thing that revealed that this youth was, indeed, the mini-Gai that everyone referred him to, was the bright green umbrella held over his head, printed with dancing turtles.
Ignoring her instinct to hit the boy, which is what she did whenever she saw him coupled with running off screaming 'Sasuke-kun, I love you!' Sakura lifted her eyes to see Lee. "Oh...Hi, Lee-kun." She said, considering her options. She couldn't run away, her teammates were no where to be seen, and now she couldn't hit the boy, since she had actually said hello. What a predicament.
The big eyebrowed genin smiled, a twinkle of shine accompanying it, "I was wondering what you were doing out on a day like this? I would have suspected you to be indoors, maybe working on something with your team." He tilted his umbrella back so he could look out at the dreary day, to confirm his words. "It's not a day for simple wandering."
"I'm going out for my mother." Sakura lifted her list from her pocket, smiling shakily back at the boy. When he was spouting off about youthfulness and running laps, he was actually nice. Maybe it was his teacher that made him crazy? Kakashi-sensei always said that Gai-san was a little strange.
Taking a tentative step closer, to avoid being bowled over by a passerby, Sakura blushed lightly. "Actually, I was going to look for someone to go shopping with me. There is a lot of stuff. Would you...?"
Lee smiled again, a more genuine smile, sans sparkle, and hooked arms with the slightly shorter girl. "Of course, Sakura-chan! There's nothing more I love than to help a damsel in distress!"
And with both their days set, the two genin walked off to the market. One with a heart full of hope for possible love, the other, simply trying to fulfill a chore. But the latter was slowly changing her mind.
After the scantly clad Kakashi left the kitchen, probably with the intent of going to his room to get changed, Iruka sat at the table, his mind stuttering to start. The chunin stared at the wall, building his thought process back to speed. That was the first time he had seen Kakashi-san outside of the mission room.
"You'd think I was a lovesick puppy." Iruka grumbled, standing up and wandering into the living room. Falling down onto the couch, he stared out the window at the rain again, his mind refusing to go back to the room he was just in. And the very sexy man who had wandered in and out in less than five minutes.
Iruka believed that your one true love could be anyone. It didn't have to be someone of the opposite sex, and the village itself was very lax with relationships, so people were never pressured with being cast as a social exile.
Ninjas tend to live very short lives, so they were allowed the leniency to take pleasure in any relationship they wished for. Usually these relationships were short. Not because one of the partners died or anything that dramatic, but mostly for the reason that one of the lovers decided that it was time for them to move on. To not become attached to anyone who might be used against them.
Iruka also believed that love came to those who waited, worked at it and wanted it. He didn't think there was any truth in "love at first sight" or "Cupid's arrows" that man people suddenly fall madly in love with each other at a moment's notice. The chunin thoughts were partially the reason why he didn't have any girlfriends or boyfriends since the academy, though many people seemed interested.
So why were these emotions suddenly dumped on him in less than a few minutes?
It didn't fit in with his logic that was for sure. The pony tailed man wondered what was going to happen next. Was he going to stay and maybe try to find out why he was feeling...amoured? Or was he going to flee in the face of a relationship, like usual?
Feeling strange, Iruka scratched his cheek in consideration. Maybe this was retribution for something he did in a past life? "No..." He muttered, his head feeling heavy and dropping into his lap. "Too early in the morning..." Usually by this time of the day, about four cups of strong coffee had been drunk and he was teaching students the basics already.
When he couldn't move his body past mid bend, Iruka stood and looked down at what he was wearing. "What am I wearing?" He said; shocked at the tight pants companied with a shirt that wasn't all there. "Why would I wear this?" He racked his brain and came up with only one explanation: "Kakashi."
With a new mission, kill the jounin, Iruka stomped down the hallway, chakra flaring up as a warning to the normally bored ninja. Swinging open the bedroom door, chest puffed, Iruka prepared to curse Kakashi.
Only for him to stop mid rant and stare at the picture in front of him.
Curled up on the bed, dressed only halfway, Kakashi was snuggling his pillow. His mask at the moment wasn't his usual piece of fabric. Instead his pillow was doing that job, and his hair lazily fell onto his scarred eye.
As for his dress, or lack there of, the jounin only had on a pair boxers. This, naturally, had a snail print. Probably an inner need of the jounin to show how he always felt on the inside. Slow, but loving every moment of it.
Iruka stood in the doorway, torn between waking up the man who has stolen his heart and simply beating him over the head, or staying where he was and continue watching possibly the most dangerous man in all of Konoha cuddle a pillow. A very difficult decision.
"He fell asleep again, the baka." Iruka said, wandering into the room to sit down on the bed, hoping for Kakashi to wake up at the mattress shifting. "At least this time he has pants on, sort of..." The man muttered, noticing the lack of movement from the jounin. "He must have had a mission and Gai-san must have made me follow him home to make sure he didn't kill himself by drowning in the shower by falling asleep."
With this new excuse in mind, Iruka nodded and stood up, his before intent forgotten, and began to hunt for a new outfit.
Not seeing a closet, he moved towards the only chest of drawers in the room. The top two drawers were filled with uniforms, some patched, and other still a little stiff with dried blood. Sighing, sure this wasn't going to end well; Iruka opened the last drawer and was relieved to find some normal, civilian clothes.
Changing quickly into a pair of jeans and a button up white shirt that were a little too big for him, the tan chunin glanced back at the slumbering Kakashi. During his excavation for an outfit, the jounin has twisted and had revealed his face to Iruka, pillow hung over the bed held in slightly limp fingers.
As if guided by an unseen force, maybe love, the man walked back over to the bed and studied the pale figure. Crisscrossed with light scars, the darkest one being the slash across his left eye, Iruka silently traced them with his eyes. The last one he noticed a nick on his chin, which led his eyes upwards to Kakashi lips.
No longer knowing what he was doing, Iruka leaned downwards to the man's face, stopping just as he hovered over the thin line. Breathing deeply, to clear his mind, Iruka became even more befuddled when the scent of cinnamon assaulted his senses. That's when he made his decision. Who said he couldn't have both sides of his argument?
With a slight moment, he captured the sleeping jounin's lips in a chaste kiss then stood. And without looking back, he strode out the room, running away into the rain. Never looking back to notice the pair of mismatched staring at his retreat.
End of ChapterNotes
You can't kill me, you promised. It'll get better next chapter. Hey, R&R, it'll make me happy, since I'm feeling a little sad, what with me being sick and all. Let's try and get to 173. An nice, odd, number. I think it might be my favorite.
It'll be awesome if I can break 200 on this story. But it'll be alright if I can't. Maybe an early christmas present for me? bats eyelashes>