A/N: Thanks for the reviews everyone! I really appreciate it! I try to keep the guys in character… I don't know if I do a good job with it, but I do my best XD Like I said, I never made a Naruto fanfic before.. and this is also my first yaoi o.o… So njah, I'll try to update as much as I can (I actually finished chapter 4 as well, but I just want to see how many reviews I can get for this chappie… yes, I am evil -grins-)

Something to kakashidiot: formatting? o.o... I'm sorry, I really am dumb with stuff like that, so I have no idea what you mean with that XD -slaps herself-

Enjoy!

Chapter 3

Where we left…

"So would you mind telling me why you're following me and my class around?" Iruka asked the Jounin, who was busy with wiping some dirt off his clothes. He really seemed ridiculous with the leaves in his hair and the mud and dirt on his vest from the fall- Iruka had to try hard not to laugh.

"Ehm…" He couldn't think of anything- perhaps that fall gave him a concussion or something, which altered his brilliant mind and ability to think of a clever excuse… yes, that was it. His mind started to wonder, and now that he saw Iruka a bit closer, he glanced shortly at his upper body, which was pretty damn muscular. He was wet from the fall in the lake and he had several scars on his chest (though not quite as many as Kakashi had), one of which stopped right under his neck and- Okay, he just slapped himself in his mind, trying to get himself away from those thoughts. This was a mission and he should stay with that.

"And? Haven't thought about an excuse yet?" He glared at the silver-haired man, who was still wiping some dirt of his vest. He looked at the Chuunin, before finally answering his question.

"I was worried about the kids," he said, after a while, getting a leaf out of his messy, silver hair. He figured that wasn't really lying, since there was someone worried about them… and he had to watch them. "So I followed you to the forest, so I could keep an eye out for you." Iruka raised an eyebrow.

"You were keeping an eye out for us and yet you were chuckling over my fall? That doesn't sound like watching for enemies to me." Damn that man, why did he have to be such a smart ass?

"Yeah, well," Kakashi started. "It was hard not to notice since you were all screaming at the top of your lungs. I swear, if these are the next generation of ninja, it's gonna look very bad for the village." Iruka looked thoughtfully at him for a moment, then grinned. Payback time!

"Alright children, I have a mission for you!" Iruka clapped his hands to get their attention. The kids, who had already returned to swimming (they weren't really interested in the Jounin, who didn't look that impressing anyway), looked up at their sensei, before jumping out of the water and gathering around him. Kakashi merely raised an eyebrow- this didn't look good. "Good," Iruka looked at them. "Your mission is to get Kakashi-sensei into the water! You may do whatever you need to do to get him there! GO!" He bellowed his last word, and before Kakashi could even jump up the tree, there were already three children hanging from his legs, trying to keep him from running. Surprised by the sudden 'attack', he looked down and saw the three kids grinning up at him, very pleased that he wasn't able to get away from them, and before he knew it, the little boy called Konohamaru was hanging on his neck. The rest of the class quickly gathered around him, pulling and pushing him towards the water and they actually succeeded a bit- he was already very near the lake. For a moment, Kakashi looked angry towards Iruka, who was now lying on the ground with his arms around his stomach, laughing at the sight of the Jounin, who was looking very silly with all those kids hanging on him.

Not wanting to make a fool out of himself (after all, they were midgets!), Kakashi regained his strength and tried to pull Konohamaru from his neck, without hurting him of course. He gave out a roar and pulled him over his head, threw him and- it failed. Konohamaru (who had by far the most potential of the whole group, but was just way too lazy) had grabbed the arm he was being thrown with and stick to it. Several boys and girls ( about five of them, though Kakashi could've sworn there were ten of them), jumped on his back now that Konohamaru was hanging from his arm, which forced Kakashi to fall down and from that point on, Kakashi knew he had been defeated. By a bunch of midgets. Very small midgets, who barely had stopped sucking their thumbs.

They finally dragged him to the water and before he knew it, he was wet and was being held down by the kids. They yelled and screamed and cheered when he went under water and they all looked at their sensei, to see if he saw they had completed their mission successfully.

"Good job everyone!" Iruka said, between laughs. He had tears in his eyes from the laughter and he had to laugh even harder when Kakashi came out from the water, his silver hair that was usually very messy was now hanging down and the look in his eyes would've scared Iruka… if he hadn't been laughing so much.

"That," Kakashi was standing in front of Iruka. "Was very, very, very, very mean." Iruka finally stopped laughing- well, almost stopped laughing, he still had to grin.

"That," he replied, grinning from ear to ear. "Was my revenge." Kakashi eyed him, a bit confused by this. "Because you left me with the bill yesterday!" Iruka said, throwing his hands in the air. He was a bit surprised the Jounin had forgotten about it already. Kakashi scratched his head.

"Oh, right," he said, giving him a smile. "Forgot about that," he muttered. Konohamaru came standing next to Iruka, and pointed to Kakashi, looking very pleased.

"We kicked his butt, sensei!" He said loudly, as if he had done it all by himself. "So what's our reward?" Iruka thought about that for a while.

"Hm, so you want a reward, eh?" Konohamaru nodded hopefully, and so did the other kids. Iruka grinned again. Kakashi was starting to like Iruka's grin- it was so amazingly dopey, it somehow always made him smile too. "Well, as a reward, you won't be getting any pop quizzes this week!" The children's smiles faded.

"That's not a reward, we wouldn't get any pop quizzes this week! That's what you said last week!" Iruka grinned, while scratching his scar and looking at Kakashi. The younger man clapped his hands again, trying to get the kids' attention (they were still saying things like "you gotta pay us!" or "we want a day off from school tomorrow!"). They stopped talking eventually and looked at him, still a bit angry of course.

"Alright, I think that's enough for today. Everybody change into your clothes and we'll head back to school!" The children started to gather their clothes and towels and started changing (even though they were a bit disappointed). Iruka looked back at Kakashi. "Well, as you can see we are fine on our own," he smirked. "And the kids can even beat Konoha's Copy Ninja, so I think we'll be fine." Iruka looked at Kakashi for a second, who was actually blushing behind his mask. Apparently, he was still embarrassed about today and the brown-haired man started to feel a little sorry for him. He was after all a Jounin and not only that- he was the famous Copy Ninja, and today he had fallen from a tree when a Chuunin threw a kunai at him and to make matters worse he was thrown into the water by Iruka's own little army. He thought about it for a while, before saying: "Well, since I did embarrass you two times today, I think I should make it up to you. Ramen?" Iruka smiled at Kakashi while scratching the scar on his nose. The Jounin was taken aback by this offer. He thought about it for a moment, figured he didn't have anything to do anyway (plus it was his mission to look after Iruka for a while) and nodded. "Good! Well, I first have to back to class though, but I'll meet you at the same restaurant at 5, kay?" Kakashi nodded again, before Iruka went back to the bushes with his clothes and changed too.

Five minutes later the kids and Iruka were walking back to the village, still talking about how they threw the famous Jounin into the water. Kakashi had disappeared suddenly, after Iruka went into the bushes, so the teacher figured he just went back to the village.

This wasn't the case though, Kakashi was still looking at them from up a tree. This time a little more careful with hiding.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

At the restaurant

Iruka waited. And waited. Then waited some more. He was late. Late, late, late. Well, not that he hadn't expected this from the Jounin, but still, it was highly annoying.

"Yo," Kakashi came in the restaurant, raising two fingers.

"You're late," Iruka grumbled, taking a sip from his third cup of coffee. "Late, late, late," he repeated the word 'late' as he had done in his mind.

"I think one 'late' is enough, thank you," Kakashi replied, settling himself in a chair. "You won't believe what happened!" Iruka snorted at this.

"No, I probably won't," he gave a sign to one of the waitresses that he was finally ready to order (they kept returning to ask him if he had made his choice, so after a while he just decided to keep buying coffee until Kakashi would show up).

"Guess I should stick to 'I was lost' then?" Iruka nodded. "Alright, I was lost," he said nonchalantly. Now that he thought about it, he actually did have a reason for being late, but he was so used to lying whenever he was, he just blurted out excuses. "Wait," he quickly said. "Actually, I do have a reason!" Iruka raised an eyebrow- this ought to be good. "You see, on my way back from the lake, I saw Gai training with his team and he challenged me like always, so I was still busy with that." Kakashi smiled, his good eye crinkling a bit.

"So, did you win?"

"Of course I did! I wish he would give it a rest, we all know who the most feared ninja is of course," Kakashi grinned, obviously implying himself .

"Yeah, I guess. Gai certainly is kind of scary," Iruka replied, laughing at Kakashi's face (or at least the part that he could see, he still had that mask!). After they had eaten their ramen (Kakashi had said he didn't like ramen, but Iruka started to question this statement), two Jounin Iruka and Kakashi both knew came in. "Genma! Asuma!" Iruka held his hand up, so the two could see them. They waved back, ordered and sat with them.

"Iruka," Genma said cheerfully, senbon in his mouth as always. "And Kakashi, how's it going?" Kakashi mumbled, "pretty good", before Genma turned to Iruka again. "Haven't seen you at the mission's office lately, you still work there, right?" Iruka nodded.

"Yup, but only in weekends now, since I got pretty busy with teaching. It doesn't really matter though, I heard things were going rather slow." Meanwhile, Asuma started to talk to Kakashi a bit. Kakashi, who really wasn't used to this much social interaction, decided it was time to get out of the restaurant. He wanted to read anyway.

"Well," he said, standing up. "I've gotta go. Later," he raised two fingers, giving Iruka a quick look, before turning and walking out of the restaurant.

"So, what's up with you and Kakashi?" Genma asked, looking a bit curious. "I mean, I know Kakashi never really hangs out with anyone." Iruka shook his head.

"Don't know, one minute he's irritating the hell out me, the next he's trying to be my friend. I went to the forest today with my class to go swimming and he actually followed me and hid in a tree. Honestly, Jounin are completely crazy," Iruka concluded. Genma and Asuma laughed.

"You know what I think," Asuma said, grinning. "I think our little Kakashi has a crush on someone." Iruka looked at him, confused. What the hell did that have to do with Iruka?

"Who?" Asuma and Genma stared at him for a moment.

"You!" They both rolled their eyes at the oblivious Chuunin and laughed. Iruka only raised an eyebrow. "Well, it could be true you know," Genma continued, looking thoughtfully at Iruka. "I mean, you're not that bad, if I was a woman I'd-"

"That's enough!" Iruka quickly shouted, turning bright red. "I think I'm going now, I need to finish some paperwork anyway and I have to grade papers, clean my apartment, wash some clothes- anyway, I don't have time to stay here and listen to your lame jokes!" Iruka stood up and said goodbye to the laughing Jounin. Damn them.

"You know," Asuma said afterwards, rubbing his chin and lighting a cigarette. "I wasn't exactly joking…" The looked at each other for a moment, before laughing again.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A/N: I got the idea of the swimming in the lake part from a fanfic called "the Kakashi Mission", same goes for Kakashi actually falling into the lake... ( I don't remember who wrote the fic, but I believe it's on as well, so you should really check it out if you like KakaIru!), I really tried to make it very different and I think I did that pretty well, but I got the ideas from that fic since I really thought that was a wonderful story XD. Just so you know!

Anyhoo, R&R please! I'd like to know what you all think!