Hi y'all just an FYI, I've changed a few minor details in Chaps 1 to 5 just to fix some holes. Anyway this chapter is chill, literally Iruka is chilling but the DATES HAVE BEGUN! Un-edited, un-beta'd

Chapter 6: When the Lesbians Come Knocking

Iruka blinked at the horrendously large bouquet of hyacinths on his desk. They were tied together with twine and no wax paper. If he squinted, Iruka would see the stems oozing some type of green juice onto the Academy's paperwork and that would bring out yet another migraine since The Whole Damn List situation started. So no. Iruka did not squint, did not bother to look underneath the underneath for some fucking flower juice dirtying his paperwork. His very important paperwork. Paperwork that entailed Clan Head signatures to get renewed funding for the monthly student exchanges to Suna. Iruka blinked again before grabbing the flowers and shoving them into Kiba's chest.

"You take these back to your sister, you take them back now!" he hissed.

"Inuzuka tradition dictates women courting their mates. Flora is customary. Would you have preferred herbs?" Kiba recited and Iruka felt his hairline receding.

A gurgled cry of indignance rose up Iruka's throat but he pushed it back down, "Then tell her to send them to her damn girlfriend, not to me! Do you see this?" Iruka grabbed the stained paperwork and pointed to the small drop of green near the center of the page, "These are important documents!"

Kiba wanted to point out that Iruka-sensei was being unreasonable. In fact, in his stress-induced breakdown, the principal has crumpled the entire right corner of the paper which is definitely worse than the dot of green. Years ago, Kiba would have told him exactly that, consequences be damned. Today, he tells Iruka the same thing because clearly no one would ever say that Kiba was the sharpest tool in the shed.

And that left the Inuzuka man with an egg shaped bruise on his head and a bouquet of flowers, miraculously unsquashed, in his arms standing outside the door.

Kiba turned to face the closed door to the principal's office and shouted, "Hana says she'll swing by at 7!"

Hana does, of course, show up exactly at 6:50 pm, right when Iruka was scrambling to put on the last of his outfit. He felt her chakra wisp in his living room. He walked into her rearrangement of his new pull out couch he got from the city. It looked nothing like a couch now.

"Are you trying to make a pillow fort?" he asked.

"Yea, it's a date. Get comfy," Hana turned to look at him and whistles. "You clean up nice Umino. I'm feeling severely underdressed."

She was in her pajamas. The standard ninja uniform sans the vest, material stretched thin over time.

Iruka sighed, "You could have told me that we didn't need to put on a show. The flowers seemed like a declaration, you know?"

Hana shrugged and Iruka changed. They booted up a cult classic, Return of the Mask, a harrowing tale of an ex-ANBU who needed to redon the mask, and with it, quash his new found love for life. Half-way through his oily chow mein takeout, Iruka turned to Hana and asked, "So, who set you up for this? I know it wasn't Kiba. He knows you're a lesbian."

Hana slurped the rest of the noodles, "His teammates don't know and they all thought it was a good idea. Squirt didn't wanna out me."

"Ah, so is um-" He paused, "Is Anko-san okay with this?"

"She thinks it's fucking hilarious. After she found out I was on The List, she jumped on that quick."

Iruka sighed a breath of relief. Afterall, it would be bad on a professional level if one of his best teachers thought he was the other man. And it would also be bad on a personal note as Anko was a brilliant shinobi who Iruka was proud to call his friend.

"So you're telling me that I also have to go on a date with Anko?"

Hana waved her hand in his general direction, "Nah, but she does want next Friday night off. It's our anniversary but I heard the Academy is going into overdrive from the upcoming Genin Exams?"

Iruka nodded. Ever since the installment of the Genin Exams, this time of year was always frantic. It had started simply enough. As vice-principal, Iruka wanted to add an additional element just to pull literacy rates up for the Genin Exams, but one written component turned into a couple days competency test and really, Iruka had no one to blame but his stupid, hardworking, perfectionist self.

"Deal, she can skip the preparations. It's all voluntary anyway." Not that Iruka ever told his teachers it was voluntary. He just gave them the package and organized meetings past school hours. He was a sneaky little bitch like that.

Hana gave him a knowing look as she pulled a scroll from her ninken's pack, "So, the Godaime and the Rokudaime are on this list." her finger skimmed the rest of the names on the list. It was a lot shorter than the one Iruka had previously seen.

"Seems like a lot of people backed out. Thank goodness."

"Oh no, didn't you hear? The Council kicked off a lot of people from The List. Someone did the calculations and it would have taken you years to go through all the dates."

"Oh." Iruka's stomach did a flip. That's a lot of people. That's more than the previous list then. "I'm in… hot demand." he said slowly, the magnitude of his words slowly seeping into the crevices of his stupid, stupid, oblivious brain. Was this because he was pretty? Mizuki (that flaming piece of shit) used to call him pretty. Sure, it was mocking but what if Iruka had pretty privilege? Iruka ran through the list of good things that happened to him on the regular.

The baker always gave him a few extra cinnamon buns when he went to pick up his order, but that must have been because he was a regular.

The bartender from last week slipped him a drink on the house, but he sure did look like he needed it that night.

A couple of his teachers brought lunch for him on the regular, but they definitely made too much food the previous night.

When one of the kids wiped chocolate stained fingers on his clothes earlier, the Academy ANBU brought him a new shirt - how they knew his size, Iruka would never know.

"Hana," he started seriously, "Do I have pretty privilege?"

"Iruka," she turned away from the TV to look at him, "You've got something worse than pretty privilege."

"You've got the Umino Ass."

Iruka put down his noodles, he was done anyway and gripped his very good friend's shoulders and shook. Like really shook. Really, really shook.

"HANA INUZUKA! I'm being serious, none of this makes sense. Why are so many signing up for the list? It's too many to be a joke but no one ever asks me out."

Hana was giggling and they hadn't even broken into the beer she'd brought. She held a hand to his shoulder to steady herself and tucked away a stray piece of hair behind his ear, "Iruka, Iruka, Iruka," she tutted, "I don't think you realize how many people you've given the let down to all these years."

Iruka's mouth hung down like a nutcracker ornament during Christmas, "What do you mean? I've always been friendly."

"Yes, yes. Friendly. Always friendly. Too friendly, no one goes after someone who treats everyone the same." Iruka closed his mouth and opened it again to protest but Hana kept going, "Do you know how many times I've told people 'Yes, he's single, please take him off my hands' and none of them believe me?"

She narrowed her eyes and poked him so hard in the shoulder, Iruka thought there might be an indentation in his bones. She continued, "And you! You never even stop to think if you like someone. It's a crush one day and somehow, you've convinced yourself that there's nothing to it the next day. Poof, just like that! Attraction houdinis itself out of you, probably buried under all that 'voluntary' work you like so much."

"I like to keep busy!" he sputtered.

"Then go marry your paperwork." she quipped back.

There's something here that Iruka can't place his finger on. Something unsaid between him and his childhood friend. It curls around his abdomen like a waves crashing on a dam, threatening to spill over. Or maybe that's just the Chinese takeout. Iruka was not sure. They don't say anything for a while, the TV played the monologue of the main character, an actor with dyed silver hair and an eyepatch. A clear inspiration from their Rokudaime.

"I know you haven't given it much thought Ru." Hana said, "But I've seen you look at families when we're out, when you think no one is watching. But I've seen it, that dumb sad look you give and I know you make yourself too fucking busy all the time and the only time you stopped and thought was when you tried to adopt Naruto and then he was gone from the village."

Iruka remembers that. Remembers petitioning for guardianship, remembers taking evening classes on sealing jutsu just to prove to the Council that he could handle one little boy in his care when all day, he'd been handing 30 of them. And then Naruto needed to find Tsunade. And then Naruto needed to leave and train and get stronger so a band of criminals couldn't take the weapon that was the Hidden Leaf's. He had been angry at everyone then. At the Akatsuki for trying to kill his little boy, at the Village for seeing Naruto as only a weapon, at the Hokage for sending him away, at himself for not doing anything sooner.

But it was better now. It had been better for a long time. Iruka unclenches his fist.

"So what do you suppose I do, Oh-Great-Lesbian-One?" He gives her a cheeky grin and gets one right back.

"Well, I would say go and have fun. Try out these dates. Clearly some of them are just silly. These two are probably just trying to get you rip-roaring drunk" she points to the Kotetsu-Izumo entry, "And this one is also trying to find entertainment, but who can say no to the Godaime?" she points to Tsunade-sama's name.

Hana pauses, "This is going to be a business proposal. Ichiraku wants funding from the Hokage to develop a restaurant chain." she has her finger on Ayame's name.

Iruka resists the urge to roll his eyes, Ayame could bypass everyone to get Naruto's signature on all things ramen related anyday. He supposes she wants to do it right so no one else in Konoha's restaurant business snubbs them for nepotism. He nods instead.

"You're more familiar with the Rokudaime, do you think he's in it for real?" her hand is by Kakashi's name.

"He ugh," Iruka rubs at his scar, a habit from childhood he has yet to break, "He asked if I'm gay recently."

Hana's mouth forms and O-shape and the flecks of honey in her eyes gleam mischievously, "And what did you say?"

"I didn't know."

"See? All work and no play makes iruka-sensei a confused boy." she tuts and this time, Iruka succumbs to the his eye-rolling urge.

"I didn't want to say something untrue. Pan maybe? Kakashi's eccentric, it could mean something, it could mean nothing. I wouldn't think too much on this."

Hana nods and continues as if they had not been discussing the previous leader of the Leaf's (clearly) romantic interest in his (clearly) favourite teacher turned principal.

"I don't know this one." she says and Iruka reads Yamato's name.

"That's the guy with the head gear. The other leader of Team 7. I've only met him a few times. Sai and him get along great and he's really good at getting Naruto to do work. He's nice?" Iruka doesn't know what else to say. He's sure Yamato is great, but they've never talked longer than common pleasantries. He's a looker though, Iruka knows. Something about that jawline…

"And here's Yu-chan! Glad to see she's finally getting back in it." Hana grins.

Right, Yugao. They were friends, the way that one was friends with people on the edge of their social circles. Iruka tries to remember her from all their group outings because not once have they hung out one-on-one. She's quiet and tends to blend into the shadows more than not but when she says something, she means it - all sincerity and kind. She must be like Hana, Iruka decides, but most likely ANBU.

"Purple hair right?" he says.

"Oh yea, purple hair is the best. My dear Anko has the loveliest locks, have you seen?" and Iruka cuts her off before his (very gay) friend can take the conversation to another direction.

His eyebrows raise a bit higher, "Raidou?"

"Had a crush on you for years."

Iruka wants to slap himself because he must be a shit ninja if he couldn't pick that up, "Isn't he with Genma?"

"The bastards are best friends. Like Ko' and Izumo. Like us."

"Oh!" and if that gasp was a bit pitchy, Hana doesn't comment on it. Because now Iruka understands why Hana's the one to tell everyone he's single, been single, for so long.

She mumbles something under her breath that sounds incredibly like 'you're an idiot' but if Iruka heard it, he also doesn't comment on it.

"Why is Ebisu on this?" Iruka does not like that man. In fact, let it be known that Iruka Umino, categorically, hates perverts. Especially perverts who try to spy on his female ex-students when all they wanted to do was unwind after a hard day of medical training. Iruka might have broke the other teacher's nose the one time he caught him and Ino might have cast a forbidden nightmare-mind jutsu that would last for a month and Sakura might have punched him into Wind Country. But Iruka doesn't know any of that, no not at all and certainly not when the four of them had to give statements to the Hokage. Although it was a good thing that Kakashi had been the Hokage then because he coincidentally sent Ebisu on a 5 month long mission that only Ebisu could do to the Land of Swamps.

"I… I have no fucking clue. But the Council approved it, so there must be a reason" Hana replied.

They spend the rest of their "date" like this. Going through the names of each candidate on the short list and commenting on their likelihood of bagging the one and only Pretty Umino Ass.

.

.

.

A/N: I wrote this as a queer woman trying to capture the spirit of some of my friends. I hope I got their quirks haha. Anyway for next time: Rock Lee and Aunty Ten-Ten's guide to Kakashi's success, Yugao and Iruka getting to know one another better, and WHAT THE HELL DOES EBISU WANT NOW (that closeted perv!) PLUS a cameo from... will be it Yamato? Will it be Kakashi?

Check in soon and STAY SAFE!