Thanks a LOT to everyone who reviewed. You made me happy. I wasn't planning on writing anything else for this, but I dunno. I felt like it?
Hehe. I started writing this in my notebook in science today, and now I can't find it, so I think I must have given it to Mr. Lee instead of the vocabulary work. Whoops. Poor Mr. Lee. Ninjas and sunrises instead of alkali metals and semiconductors.
Upon waking, Iruka became suddenly aware of a number of things: First of all, he was obviously not in bed at his apartment. He couldn't not move his legs, or even feel them. His head felt like it had been bashed with a heavy metal object. He seemed to be lying up against someone's chest. And a voice that was curiously close to his ear was saying, "Iruka, wake up," over and over again. He opened his eyes, and looked up. A masked face peered down.
"Kakashi?" he asked blearily.
"Yo."
When Iruka looked towards his feet, he saw that Asuma was sprawled over his ankles, effectively numbing them. Iruka wondered vaguely how much longer it would take for the limbs to fall off entirely.
"Um." To his left was an entanglement of limbs he recognized as Genma and Raidou. And on Kakashi's other side, Gai was sleeping flat out on the ground, snoring.
With some rush of something-or-other in him (he attributed the feeling to his garbled mental state and the horrendously early hour), he realized that Kakashi had his arm around his waist, and one of his own hands was in the Jounin's hair.
He looked up at the storefront and groaned. "The bar…"
"So it seems," Kakashi said lightly, pulling Iruka against him and sitting up straight. Iruka kicked his feet a bit, and Asuma rolled off of his legs, sleeping as soundly as ever. Mercifully, Iruka felt the blood start to circulate back into the limbs.
It was still dark, and the streets were silent, save for Gai's low snores. And a few cats dashed by in the shadows, looking reproachfully at the two. It was around four in the morning, Iruka guessed. There was a hint of a pale golden glow over the stone faces of the Hokage, making the sky an indistinct shade of bright gray. It was chilly out; the air had a crisp bite to it, and Iruka found himself shifting closer to Kakashi, who hugged him tightly.
Iruka wasn't exactly sure how it was he came to spend the night outside the bar amid a heap of other intoxicated ninjas. At least, he could only assume they were intoxicated. It would explain a lot—particularly the splitting ache in his head.
Damn. He knew better that to get drunk like this, he berated himself, but only half-heartedly.
Iruka faintly recalled kissing Kakashi—did that happen? It was just the sort of thing he would go and do under the influence of too much sake, he scolded himself. Those sorts of things came way too easily once he was drunk, and then, when sober, he was skittish and nervous. Granted, now he wasn't at all uncomfortable; he wasn't complaining. He sighed contentedly and relaxed against Kakashi. Curiously, his headache went down considerably.
The two lay in complete silence and watched the sun come up. Iruka drifted off into a light sleep a few times, and when he woke up, Kakashi would always laugh softly and pull him closer. Otherwise, they sat in silence, simply watching the sun come up over the cliff. Iruka decided this was the sort of thing he didn't do enough. The scene was gorgeous—the sun was a deep orange disk amid brilliant smears and stripes of red and yellow and purple—did Konoha always have such a good sunrise?
Truly, this was the most peaceful he'd felt in a long time. Kakashi breathed slowly, and with every breath he took Iruka felt his own body rise and fall along with him.
He watched Kakashi's hands. Sometimes they clasped each other, closing the Chuunin in a protective hug, and sometimes they crept into Iruka's hands, where their fingers interlocked warmly. Iruka was happy.
They were only disturbed once, when Gai woke up. All in the space of one second, he had bolted straight up as if on a spring, whirled around, taking in the odd scene, flashed Konoha in general his trademark pose, and without a word bounded off in the direction of the woods. Iruka reckoned he hadn't forgotten about his pledge of bunny-hopping around the village two-hundred times.
After an hour or two, he remembered he had a class to teach. Really, it was more like he remembered he had a life and an apartment and a job and other aspects of his existence that did not necessarily have anything to do with lying quietly in Kakashi's arms and watching the sunrise.
It was sort of an, "Oh yeah, life," feeling. Iruka didn't have those very often, but this was definitely one of them.
It was just before six, and people would start to appear on the streets any minute. Iruka remembered with a sinking feeling the pile of ungraded papers still on his desk in his apartment. The papers that had gone ungraded for more than a week.
He sighed. To stay here and be mauled by his student's shuriken for failing to pass back any grades, or to avoid injury by leaving the sunrise to Kakashi and getting back to his apartment to start marking papers?
Leaving Kakashi, or multiple shuriken injuries? Staying with Kakashi, or not being attacked upon arrival to the academy?
It really wasn't much of a decision. Without more than a few seconds of hesitation, he leaned back in Kakashi's arms, settling comfortably. His students didn't have very good aim, anyway.
Some random things. Is it Raidou or Raido? I've seen it both ways, and I'm not sure which one is right. And are the plurals for Jounin, ninja, genin, chuunin, and the like the same as the singular? I'm pretty sure they are, but I've also seen them as ninjas, Jounins, etc.. But, then, the title of this is Ninjas Get Drunk… meh. I don't know.
Does anyone know for sure which way is right? If I'm wrong I'll probably just go on using the incorrect one, but… I'd like to know anyway.
Please review!