Iruka was wrong about his students. When properly motivated, they had very good aim. Any other day, he would have been thrilled to discover that his efforts were actually paying off, but today was an entirely different story, as could be expected, since he was the one on the receiving end of the attack.

And, of course, his head hurt like a bitch.

Getting pelted with shuriken and other makeshift missiles first thing in the morning when it was already very difficult to stay on two feet was enough to push any reasonable teacher over the edge. But of course, Iruka was far beyond the regular reasonable teacher. Using super-human self-restraint, he abstained from going on a crazy massacring rampage and obliterating the whole class, leaving no survivors. He figured he'd probably feel bad about it once the headache died down.

He was able to solve most of his problems by giving the kids lots of busy work and telling them that if they made the slightest noise he'd chuck them into next Tuesday. Having sufficiently scared his class into silence, he was able to relax at the front of the room and drink coffee.

And then there was his other problem. Well, it wasn't a problem, really. A dilemma? A good dilemma, if there was such a thing.

Yes, he decided, Kakashi definitely could be classified as a Good Dilemma.

But what the hell was he supposed to do? He could hardly have himself be drunk every time the man talked to him. And what exactly was going on, anyway?

Iruka fretted. Kakashi was probably off somewhere doing something cool and Kakashi-ish. How could he possibly be so—cool­ all the time! Didn't anything work him up?

Iruka caught himself before he started sounding too much like Gai, what with the obsessing over how "hip" and "modern" Kakashi was.

He hoped his muttering to himself wasn't too visible.

Really, though! Going around reading those damn Icha Icha books and looking all cool in a mask! And he certainly wasn't sitting somewhere worrying about what to do.

Iruka scowled.

Not very surprisingly, Gai-sensei was completely and entirely immune to the skewed blood alcohol content induced chemical imbalance known as the hangover.

As witnessed by Iruka and Kakashi, Gai had zipped off immediately upon waking up, and had completed the bunny laps in record time. Once he was done, he had just enough time to go and grab a quick breakfast before meeting his team for training.

In other words, he had a completely normal morning. He leapt around as usual, spouting about how beautiful the morning was, and giving everything a label of MAGNIFICENT, GLORIOUS, or MARVELOUS. He seemed totally unaffected by the previous night's inebriation.

Granted, for someone like Gai, being drunk didn't change his personality much at all, so it could sort of be expected that he wouldn't get too awfully hung over.

Genma watched from the window of the Hokage's office as a fully sober albeit adrenalized Gai bounded through the street, his team trailing behind. And here he was, hardly able to stand up without his brain feeling like it was trapped in a lemon squeezer. It was embarrassing, really. Unfair.

"You should know, before giving me my next assignment, that I can barely stand up and basically feel half-dead," he told the Hokage, standing respectfully (and painfully) in front of her desk.

Tsunade looked him over shrewdly. "Who were you out with last night?"

"Raidou," Genma started.

Shizune, filing papers over in the corner, cackled and grinned madly.

"—And Iruka, Gai, Kakashi, and Asuma," he finished crossly.

"Fine thing that is, having half of Konoha's Jounin and the school-teacher completely drunk all at once."

Raidou grumbled. "Not Gai."

"Sorry?"

"How he can hold his liquor better than anyone else, I don't know."

Tsunade tsked. "Stop whining. You're to rearrange the filing cabinets in here—the current system annoys me. Alphabetically starting from over there. Rows coming this way. Straight lines. Don't get anything out of order!"

Raidou looked blank.

"Or you can run this scroll over to the Sand Village. Have it there no later than noon," Tsunade smirked, twirling a scroll in her fingers.

There were easily fifty heavy steel filing cabinets in the office. Raidou didn't think it was hardly fair that one of the legendary Sannin, renowned for her super strength, was having a poor hung-over Jounin play office-boy.

But the Sand Village was far away. And he didn't like that dangerous look in the Hokage's eye. He got to work.

Asuma was having a rough morning. First, having a massive hangover, then getting beat up by Kurenai for having said massive hangover, and now this.

All the Jounin in charge of Genin compared their teams, arguing over who had it the worst, talking about which of their students should never have made it out of Ninja Academy, and other kinds of related gossip and complaints. The staff-room consensus was that Kakashi easily had the most to deal with, but Asuma felt strongly that his team was the most dysfunctional out of all of them.

Ino needed to be given at least five times the normal dose of sedatives, he thought—maybe­ that would get the noise level down to a dull roar. Of course, there was the deafening crunching sound emanating from Chouji's general direction—he was on his fifth bag of chips this morning. That could be taken care of with, oh, maybe three shuriken?

He sighed, and gave up on plotting ways to—temporarily, of course—put his team out of action.

Ino gave a particularly high-pitched shriek and bashed Shikamaru over the head—Asuma hadn't quite heard, but he felt sure he'd caught a "Don't say that about Sasuke!"

The harassed Jounin buried his head in his arms.

"What are we supposed to be doing, Asuma-sensei?" one of them finally asked.

"I don't know. Go do something productive. Have target practice, or something," he moaned.

Shikamaru slouched off, muttering about how "troublesome" everything was.

Asuma could attest.

Around noon, he staggered off to meet Kurenai for lunch, where presumably he would apologize profusely for getting so drunk and then most likely would be slapped around a bit more before being forgiven.

He felt strongly like he never wanted to drink again, although it certainly provided some interesting new developments. Kakashi and Iruka, or Raidou and Genma, how about that? He'd have to check with Kurenai about that. She tended to know everything in that branch of the gossip vine.

Raidou thought it was way too bright. Damned sun. He wished he had a pair of sunglasses or something, but the fact was that nobody in Konoha got away with wearing sunglasses without looking like Aoba, which was something he wasn't aspiring to do.

He figured he could take the day off. The Hokage hadn't ordered him anywhere, he didn't have a mission to worry about, and he really wasn't feeling well

It was between eight and nine in the morning when he finally picked himself up off the street. The others had already gone off to their various jobs, and he didn't have anything to do, so he meandered slowly back to his apartment. Once he was there, he closed all the blinds, turned off all the lights, and took a few painkillers.

He flopped down his couch and did his best to totally space out.

A few hours later, he was awakened from his stupor by someone pounding insistently on the door. Probably someone with a message from the Hokage, asking him what the hell he thought he was doing, not showing up for work.

He'd just opened the door, and was preparing his excuses, when an exhausted looking Genma crashed into him, nearly impaling him with the senbon in his mouth.

"Genma?"

"I'm crashing on your couch. Right now."

"Why not your apartment?"

"Too far away."

"What have you been doing?" Raidou asked, as the heavily fatigued Genma hobbled across the room.

"Moving filing cabinets."

"Huh?"

"Tsunade's a bitch."

"I never showed up for work."

"Then expect her to have you run off the Sand Village and back when you finally do." Genma flopped down on the couch, and was asleep in a matter of seconds, before Raidou could respond.

Raidou carefully removed the senbon needle from between the sleeping Jounin's lips. Genma'd kill himself one day, falling asleep with that thing in his mouth, Raidou was sure.

He stared at Genma's sleeping form for a few moments, watching his peaceful breathing, and then sat down on the floor in front of the couch and leaned back, resting his head just a few inches away from Genma's. If he was going to get ordered off to the Sand Village later on, he could at least get some more sleep.

Genma smelled good, he realized right before drifting off into a light sleep.

It was ten in the morning. Kakashi had told his team to meet for training at eight, so he had another hour or so to kill before showing up. He wasn't particularly looking forward to it—his headache wasn't getting any better, and a little bit of Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura went a long way this early in the morning.

Kakashi leaned against the wall of a random building reading his book and trying to look cool and Kakashi-ish.

The truth was, it was hard being so cool all the time. He had a reputation to hold up, and his current situation wasn't helping him in the least.

For example, how could he be expected to appear indifferent and nonchalant when he was busy agonizing about What To Do About Iruka?

What to do, what to do, what to do…

He brooded. If he avoided the Academy, the ramen shop, and the mission room as much as possible—no, that was what ten-year-olds did. And Kakashi didn't much fancy the idea of ignoring Iruka, anyway.

Well, maybe nothing was going on anyway. And so there would be no need to do anything. Yes, that was it. Act as if nothing had happened.

No, that wasn't good either. That was also a rather childish take on the matter. He was Kakashi, and therefore synonymous with "cool." Damn. What would Gai expect him to do?

Kakashi was sure that asking the question, "What would Gai expect me to do" was a sure path to everything he did not want to happen, but it really was his only option.

Um. Still have no idea what I'm doing with this, but please do review!