Chapter 3

After dinner, Anko devoured a another plate of dango, and then they were on their way. Ibiki had to admit that his first date had been successful by anyone's standards, not just someone who was desperate to make it work.

They hit the street, Anko holding onto his arm. He could get used to that.

"I'll walk you back to your apartment," Anko said brightly.

Ibiki gave her an amused look. "Isn't that my line?"

Anko took his arm. "Maybe, but we came from your place."

"True enough." Ibiki found himself smiling again. He hadn't smiled so much in…Honestly, he didn't know how long. His childhood hadn't been particularly happy. Neither had his adolescence. And his adulthood…self-evident.

The walk back to his apartment was pleasant. He didn't often have company when walking to his apartment at night. Irrationally, having an escort felt good. He knew he could take care of himself. He also knew just which police officers were on patrol at which locations, and how to signal them should he need help. But all the same…he didn't have that tingling feeling on the back of his neck with Anko walking by his side.

She accompanied him into the apartment as well, taking her second visit with nonchalance now that she knew she was allowed to enter.

"Well, we're here," Anko announced, stretching. "The Hallowed Abode of the Ibiki."

"I can see that." Ibiki gave her a bemused look. "Thanks for walking me home."

Anko gave him a dazzling smile. "No problem! I'll walk you home whenever you want me to, Biki-chan."

Ibiki knew that most men would have taken offense to that statement. He even knew a couple who would have throttled her right here and now. He didn't have much respect for any of them. Ibiki crossed the space between them and kissed her cheek. "Thank you, Anko-chan. I appreciate that."

Anko blushed.

"Good night," Ibiki said gently.

"Good night?" Anko tilted her head and looked at him with wide eyes.

"Uh-huh," Ibiki said. He couldn't help smiling in amusement. "It's nighttime, isn't it?"

"Yes, but…"

Ibiki shook his head and walked out of the kitchen, crossing through the living room on the way to his bedroom.

He was not entirely surprised that Anko followed him. Well, that's alright. He took off his leather duster and hung it up in his closet.

"What are you going to do now, Biki?" Anko asked, watching him.

"Go to bed," Ibiki said. "What do you think I'm in the bedroom for?"

"I don't know," Anko said innocently. She crossed the bedroom and wound her arms around his waist from behind.

Ibiki snorted. "Well, I can't go to bed like this. I don't know how to sleep with an Anko on my back."

Anko giggled and let her hands slide down. "Then do something else."

Ibiki flinched. "What are you –" He looked over his shoulder at her.

Anko grinned up at him innocently, tightening her hands on his belt. "I'm helping. Just helping."

"Anko, I'm not sleeping with you tonight. The deal was four more dates, and then you would get to see what you seem so desperate to get to." Her fixation on getting into his pants was a little frightening.

"Most men want to get this over with," Anko said.

"Where did you hear a thing like that?" Ibiki protested.

"The grapevine," Anko said.

Ibiki gave her a look. "You mean Inoichi." That was virtually Inoichi's nickname, like Maito Gai was The Green Beast and Hatake Kakashi was The Copy Ninja. The Grapevine. Hn. Fitting. I'll have to tell him that when I see him next. He doubted Inoichi would be offended by such a nickname. The Yamanaka clan was infamous for their information gathering skills.

He laid his hands over hers and rested them there gently. "Please let go of my belt, Anko. You're scaring me." He hated to play the vulnerability card, in case it didn't work, but he had to trust Anko after working with her and having dinner.

Anko's hands fell away from his belt.

He turned around. Ibiki looked at her for a moment, and then cupped her face in both hands, guiding her to look up at him. He weighed his level of inner stability and where he thought his boundaries were. He really didn't want to sleep with her tonight. But, on the other hand, she wouldn't keep insisting if the idea of sleeping with him didn't provide some kind of sizable incentive or relief for her. He had to think about Anko's needs, too.

Ibiki took a deep breath. "If you need to feel me inside of you to know that I love you, I am willing to do so. But I have to undress myself."

Anko looked up at him with glistening eyes, her lips slightly parted as if she were teetering on the edge of crying. Then she let out a squeal and flung her arms around his neck, kissing him on the lips excitedly. "Biki, that was so romantic!" She quoted him, deepening her voice. "'If you need to feel me inside of you to know that I love you, I am willing to do so.'" She grinned. "That gave me shivers!"

Ibiki was instantly off-balance again. "I really am serious about undressing myself."

She touched their noses together and rubbed gently, nuzzling nose-to-nose. "I know that, sweetheart. I'll leave your belt to your own two capable hands."

"Thank you," Ibiki said, relieved. At least he could breathe easier now.

Anko let go of him so he could work.

Ibiki took a deep breath. "I know you're probably enthusiastic about undressing me because of those pornographic movies you've watched, and how much the men in those videos seemed to like it when women hung all over them and undressed them, but I can't guarantee that's ever going to happen. I'd probably freak out still, even if we've been married for twenty years and have three kids."

Anko gestured. "We're not having any kids, remember? We're both totally sterile."

"Yes, I know," Ibiki said patiently, unbuckling his belt with a small smile. "But are you listening?"

"Yes, I'm listening," Anko said. "You said I can't undress you because you'd freak out. I think that's really sad, Biki, but you know I'm going to respect your boundaries. Cause that's the kind of girl I am." She folded her hands behind her back to demonstrate. "I'm not gonna touch you unless you want me to. I don't even have to have sex tonight, if you don't want. I'll go away and lock the door and stuff, and not come back in through the window or bug you or anything."

Ibiki let his hands fall away from his belt and tried, counter-intuitively, not to get all weepy on her. "That's sweet," he said quietly.

Anko beamed, blushing. "You really think so?"

"I know so," Ibiki said.

Anko giggled. "Are you gonna let your belt hang like that? Or are you gonna take it off? You look pretty silly, Biki. Like I interrupted you getting out of the bathroom or something."

Ibiki glanced down at himself and flushed. "Well, it's your fault," he said lamely. "You distracted me by being sweet." He finished taking off his belt, letting his pants fall down around his ankles. That revealed his scarred, slightly misshapen legs, but not anything else. He was wearing boxer shorts.

Anko looked at his clothed crotch blankly. "Oh. You're wearing underwear."

"I always do," Ibiki said dryly. "It's a dress code issue. Underpants are kind of mandatory, don't you think?"

Anko scratched her head. "I thought guys didn't do that."

"Porn, again?" Ibiki guessed.

"Yeah…"

"That's just a movie."

"It's in all of them…" Anko trailed off. She frowned, looking mildly annoyed. "Porn lies."

"I know," Ibiki said.

"I ought to write those porn producers a letter to give them a piece of my mind," Anko said. "Fair representation. I want to be warned when my man has underwear on."

Only Anko. Only Anko could say such a thing. Ibiki was beginning to see that this was one reason why he had fallen hopelessly in love. There just wasn't anyone like her. He knew there wasn't anyone like anyone in the most technical sense, but there really was no one like her. Even a little bit. She was her own beast. And it was incredibly intoxicating.

Ibiki smiled at her, thinking of her finding the studio where the objectionable porn was filmed and upsetting the proceedings. "Maybe you should look them up in person."

Anko gasped and then planted her hands on her hips. "I totally should!"

Ibiki chuckled, satisfied that he'd caused enough chaos to last a month. "For now, you'll have to get used to the idea that I wear miniature pants underneath my pants."

"Yeah…" Anko rubbed her chin. "That does seem a little redundant, doesn't it?"

"Don't you wear underwear?" Ibiki asked.

Anko gave him a sly look. "I thought you wanted to wait three more dates until you find out."

Ibiki laughed. "I don't have to see it to find out. And it's four dates, Anko." He wasn't going to let her haggle him any lower, no matter what sneaky tricks she tried.

Anko pointed. "Then how come I wasn't warned about that?"

"I'd have told you if you'd have asked," Ibiki said. "My wearing underwear isn't much – or anything – of a secret."

"Oh." Anko looked a little let down. "So everybody knows this except me."

Ibiki patted her shoulder. "It's okay. You're not the only one. And it's not like anyone else has seen me in my underwear. In that way, you are the only one that has this information."

She brightened. "Really?"

"Really." Ibiki nodded. "I haven't dated anyone since my experience, and I hadn't dated anyone before. I hadn't thought it was that important. I was a little busy with other things – advancing my career, raising my brother, that sort of thing."

"So I'm your first date. Ever." Anko's eyes widened. "No wonder you want it to last as long as possible. This is all you're going to get." She punched his arm playfully. "Hot damn! Let's do this in style. Ne, Biki-chan?"

"That was kind of the idea," Ibiki said, smiling. He was glad that she had finally caught on to why he was making such a big deal out of this.

Anko flapped her hands at him. "Now go off to bed. You look silly standing around in your shorts."

Ibiki grinned and crossed the room, shedding his shirt and climbing under the covers of his king-sized bed. "Yes, ma'am."

Anko marched over, bent down, and kissed him on the temple. "Good night, sweetie. I'll be here in the morning."

"Why?" Ibiki asked.

"To cook you breakfast after the sex we didn't have," Anko said. She skipped out of the room.

Ibiki had to laugh. "Make sure you get one of my shirts to wear from the closet," he called.

"I will!" she replied with cheerful sincerity.

Ibiki went to sleep happier than he had been in a long time.

xXx

Ibiki woke up with a start to the certainty that someone was opening his closet. He let out an undignified snort as he woke, proving that he had been snoring like no one's business. The instant he was awake, he grabbed the kunai under his pillow and sprang out of bed.

He was confronted with Anko smiling sheepishly at him.

Ibiki froze, cognizant of standing in his boxers. He looked at the kunai in his hand. He was standing over Anko, in his boxers, with a weapon in his hand. Not the way he thought he would start the day. Ever.

"You gave me permission to break in," Anko said, still cringing a little bit, even though she had to know by now that he wasn't going to ruthlessly attack her.

"I gave…" Ibiki lowered the kunai slowly. Their parting words last night came back to him.

Anko pulled out an old black t-shirt from behind her back and held it up. "See? Stealing your shirt. Hehe?"

Ibiki smiled and tossed his kunai onto his bed. He could finally breathe. "You shouldn't have done that. Not without waking me."

"I can see that, now." Anko made a face at him. "I wanted to sneak in and out without waking you so that I could surprise you with a breakfast already cooked and waiting."

Ibiki couldn't explain to anyone else the utter sweetness of this moment. He knew he would never be able to. Anko's actions were a major breach of shinobi code. And yet, she'd done it out of the naïve desire to please him. He wanted to hug her. Breaking in and sneaking into my bedroom to do a good deed. That is so you.

All he said aloud was, "Carry on, then."

Anko brightened. "Yes!" She shucked off her own shirt and donned his so much more enormous one so quickly that he didn't even get a flash of her bra. She posed proudly, his shirt hanging off of her like an absurd black nightgown.

"Lovely," Ibiki said.

Anko bounced out of the room, grinning. Her parting words floated back to him from the hall. "Biki-chan, you just sleep in until I come to get you, okay?"

Ibiki knew that he could never go back to sleep now, no matter how sincere she might be in wanting him to get some more sleep while she cooked.

Besides, he needed to retrieve his teeth from the bathroom and shave. Not to mention put on his gloves. He didn't know how Anko had managed not to react when seeing his scarred hands, but he supposed being threatened with a kunai had taken priority. He looked at his heavily scarred, ridged fingertips and sighed.

Then he shut himself in the bathroom to get ready for work.

He was shaving when Anko returned, and she spoke so suddenly that it took all of his training not to nick the underside of his chin.

"Breakfast's ready! Get dressed and come get it!" Anko called from the other side of the door.

"Be right there," Ibiki said. "Shaving."

"Got it."

He finished up in a few strokes and patted his face with a washcloth.

Ibiki waited until she'd gone back to the kitchen and pulled on his bathrobe, just to show that he was not at all bothered by her presence and that he would get dressed when he felt like it. He left the bathroom thus attired, in a fluffy red bathrobe on over his boxers.

He entered the dining area and sat down at his table.

Anko turned at his entrance and burst into giggles. "Biki-chan…that's really cute." She shook her head. "I made you an omelet and some rice." She raised the square omelet pan in demonstration. "Is that good?"

"Wonderful," Ibiki said warmly.

Anko beamed and served them both breakfast.

Ibiki knew that most people in their division thought Anko's cooking was toxic, so he didn't know what to expect. Not a perfectly made tamagoyaki and bowl of rice. It was a normal breakfast. He ate it gratefully, considering it head and shoulders above an energy bar bought from a vending machine on the way down to his office.

"When can you move in?" he joked.

"About a week from Thursday," Anko said. "That should give me time to get out of the lease on my apartment."

Ibiki smiled fondly. He didn't have the heart to tell her he hadn't been serious. And the idea of Anko moving in with him, even on such short notice, didn't alarm him. If anything, his lack of worry revealed how lonely he'd really been. "That's great. Would you mind moving in here that quickly?"

Anko shook her head. "Mm-mm." She took a big drink of orange juice.

Orange juice…Ibiki belatedly put something together. "Wait a minute. I don't have any orange juice."

"Yes, you do," Anko said. "I put it right in front of you."

Ibiki glanced at his matching glass of juice, and then gave Anko a look. "You know what I mean. My fridge hasn't contained orange juice in…ever. Ever. And not eggs for three weeks now."

"I went shopping," Anko said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

Ibiki sighed, but he couldn't keep the smile off his face. "You didn't have to do that, you know."

"I did if you wanted breakfast," Anko said. "I snuck a peek last night as I was leaving. Man, you had a desert for a refrigerator. A cold, cold desert."

Ibiki laughed. "And now it's stocked, is that it?"

"For a little while," Anko said brightly. "I'll have to shop again before I move in, but yeah. It's got stuff in it."

Ibiki shook his head. "You are something else, you know that?"

Anko finished her glass of orange juice and started on his. "Yeah? Like what?"

Ibiki softened. All this work, and we haven't even been going out a whole day. Anko… "Something wonderful," he said gently.

Anko melted. "Biki-chan…I love you."

"I love you, too," Ibiki said honestly. He was a little flustered inside that they'd exchanged two I-love-you's in less than twenty-four hours…but maybe this was normal for couples. He'd have to do some research in order to find out. I should ask Inoichi. He has a wife.

Now he just had to get over his fear of looking utterly stupid. That was going to take a while. No one stole his confidence out from under him like Yamanaka Inoichi.

After breakfast, he retreated back to the bedroom in order to get dressed. Anko came with him in order to return his shirt. He turned his back while she changed, pulling out regulation slate blue pants and jacket from his dresser.

He paused when Anko bent down and poked the back of his left calf. "That's a nasty one, Biki-chan. How did you get that one?"

"Believe it or not, that's a surgery scar," Ibiki said, amused. He knew the puckered scar looked terrible, a vertical line from the back of his knee running all the way down to his ankle. "It didn't heal well, I'll admit. But that's because my body was already taxed from all the other healing I had to do."

Anko straightened and got out of the way, allowing him to put on some pants. "Surgery? What for?"

Ibiki resisted the urge to make a face. "My leg," he said mildly.

Anko made the face he wished he could have made. "I know that." She twirled around and faced the door. "Alright, it's time to go to work cracking some more nuts for their sweet, juicy meat on the inside."

"Is that sexual, or do I have an overactive imagination?" Ibiki asked as they headed out the bedroom door.

Anko laughed. "Overactive, I think."

"Ah."

Their arrival together at work didn't raise any eyebrows. The half dozen or so people who were already there were hard at work, and had been for almost six hours now. Most of them would get off work in an hour or two in order to get some sleep, while the next shift of interrogators took their place.

xXx

Ibiki worked at his desk, going through the reports of activity in the village last night. All the police reports went through him as well as the reports written up by the guards stationed at Konoha's gates. It was boring work, but he found himself unusually content. He sipped his can of green tea while he worked. This morning, Anko had gotten it from the vending machine for him. Usually, he'd have to go out there himself. That was an unexpected perk of dating, and he had to remember to do something considerate for her in return, so things didn't get unbalanced around here.

"Taichou," a familiar voice called from outside his door.

"Enter," Ibiki said, striving to sound as absent-minded as possible.

Inoichi walked into his office, carrying a document, and paused, taking him in for a moment. Then he grinned. "You're aglow, Captain."

"No I'm not."

Inoichi paused and raised an eyebrow.

Ibiki inwardly cursed. In his automatic reaction, he'd forgotten the number one rule: never contradict a Yamanaka.

"Let me guess," Inoichi said, cheerfully closing the gap between them and setting his memo down on Ibiki's desk. "First date."

"That's right," Ibiki said, hoping his agreement would make Iniochi rethink the assessment. "Because I, Morino Ibiki, go on dates."

Inoichi grinned and tilted his head. "Well, you did last night…" He trailed off suggestively, propping one hand on his hip and waiting for his captain's response. His body language begged Ibiki to ask how he knew that.

Ibiki contemplated what to do. Inoichi might have taken over the information-gathering side of T&I's responsibilities, but he still reported to Ibiki. Which meant that Ibiki could fire him. In theory.

In practice, Ibiki knew he was stuck with the man forever, just like he was stuck with everyone else in the division.

"I'm not going to ask you how you know that," Ibiki said dryly. "Neither am I going to hand you another denial, and let you lead me into a discussion." He slid the document Inoichi had brought towards him, picked it up, and glanced at it. "Now, is this all? I'm a busy man."

"Busier than you were before," Inoichi agreed. "Juggling a girlfriend is harder than it looks from the outside. If you need any help…" He winked. "Give me a call. I'll be in my office like always, Taichou."

"You are way too close to me in rank to be properly respectful," Ibiki grumbled. "I ought to demote you and get you out of my hair. Figuratively speaking."

Inoichi laughed.

"Go back to your flower shop, Yamanaka." Ibiki made shooing motions.

Inoichi bowed. "As you wish, Captain. I live for your commands." He sauntered out of the office, looking much too pleased with himself for Ibiki to not suspect he'd somehow given Inoichi all the information the man wanted anyway.

Ibiki hoped to god it was an interrogation trick.