Note: This is just a short piece I got an idea for while listening to Konoha Peace and Fooling Mode from the Naruto soundtrack (TBH the entire franchise has amazing music to work to if you just need background noise). It's set sometime after Sasuke left the village. If you don't know what the Jonin v Genin event is, it's something that was made up for a OVA where they had basically the cast duking it out for each others' crystals, like the second stage of the Chunin Exams. It's a pretty cute non-canonical short story.
"Man, tha hospital's gonna be croooowded," Haru popped another dango into her mouth cheerfully, "You poor med-nin."
With a snort, Kana shook her head and swung her legs over the roof edge they were sitting on, "I'm not a doctor," she paused to sip some water, "Screw that."
It was the annual Jonin v. Genin event, so the village was in a total fuss as thousands of shinobi bounced around and lobbed shuriken at one another. This year included chunin and tokubetsu jonin for the second time, but Lady Tsunade didn't change the event name because it would have just been too much of a mouthful.
"Eh, we're not supposed to use anything too serious so I doubt it'll be that bad anyways," Totoro said after washing down his tempura with whatever drink he brought with him.
Haru shrugged in agreement and finished the last of the dango from the small bento box in her lap, "Man, cap'n, I don't see how Raido ain't fat, as good as yer cookin' is."
To her right, Totoro and Imai chewed their food just as happily. After everything that had happened in the last year, with Orochimaru's invasion and Sasuke's abandonment, having a day like this was a welcomed reprieve by everyone. It began with the intention to measure the skills of the genin ranks, which is why they were pitted against jonin, but it acted like a field day for the entire military force.
Unfortunately it meant that the entire village was shut down, and the Anbu members were left to their own devices for food. Lucky for them, Kana had access to Raido's kitchen and came prepared.
The kunoichi grinned sheepishly, a smile that her comrades could see since they were wearing their usual shinobi attire, and popped the last piece of crunchy tonkatsu into her mouth. Speaking of Raido…
"What the hell?!"
Kana jumped off of the building they were lounging on and nimbly landed atop the stack of books her most favorite tokubetsu jonin was carrying. While his response wasn't as loud as Genma's, he stuttered out a swear and a panicked look flashed across his face as he struggled to maintain his balance and not drop what was probably an already exceedingly heavy pile of books.
"How ya doing, Rairai?" she said cheerily, as if completely unaware of the strained look on her lover's face.
He shifted uncomfortably while finding his center of gravity with the additional hundred or so pounds readjusting herself so that she was crouching, "Uh…"
Kana's shit-eating grin, nearly identical to the one Anko wore when she was up to no good, expanded, "What's wrong?" she tilted her head to the side, "Looking kinda sweaty, honey. You doing okay?"
"I, uh, I'm just running errands for Lady Hokage…"
"Oh, wow, running errands again. Bummer. Guess that means you can't participate in the event, huh?"
Next to them, Genma began to snicker under his breath as he began to catch on to what was happening.
Raido released a huff, "Kitten… These books are really heavy…"
"Are they?" Kana leaned in just an inch to subtly throw off his balance, "Shame you have to carry them all over the village instead of playing the event, huh?"
The tokujo blanched and staggered back a step, "I-I guess… Kitten-"
"Sooo you're not going to need your crystal, huh?"
That was when the Anbu, observing the scene unfold from where they lounged on the rooftop, began to join in on Genma's laughter. Even Raido cracked a grin through his discomfort once he realized what she was getting at. "It's in my pocket," he gestured over his shoulder with his head, "Tokubetsu jonin just have red, though."
White hair bounced around her face as Kana carefully rolled off of the stack of books as to not put Raido under any more pressure. She slid her palm along the curve of his rear while reaching into his back pocket, getting in a good, discreet, squeeze before snatching the prize she was looking for and giggling quietly when Raido gasped in surprise. When Kana stood up on the very tips of her toes to kiss his neck, the closest she could get to his face with their height differences, she caught a glimpse of the sheepish blush that crossed his cheeks.
"Thaaaank you, Rairai," she sang before bounding away to join her mates.
As soon as Kana disappeared with the other Anbu in tow, the tokujos both took a moment to exchange looks with one another. Genma wiggled his eyebrows in time with his senbon, smirking as he did so, and Raido could only laugh quietly to himself with a shake of his head.
"If you told me three years ago that she was able to smile like that, I'd call you a damn liar," the younger of the two said once they started walking again.
A fond smile tugged at the corners of Raido's mouth. When they first met, Kana seemed to smile when her family was around – Neji and Lee, primarily – but, even then, there was a reserved look to it that always felt somewhat sad. Now, her smiles were broad and loud and radiated warmth.
"You used to smile like that, too," he answered, catching a sideways glance from his best friend.
Genma's eyes fell downcast for just a brief moment before he turned his head up towards the sky, something Raido noticed he typically did whenever he was reminded of Hayate. It made sense – the two always looked at each other like they were the sun. If you asked Raido, he would have said that no one loved anyone as much as those two did each other, which only made it even more of a tragedy that Hayate died before their either had a chance to truly explore anything.
"Yeah… I'm getting better, though." He looked back down to stare ahead as they rounded a corner, careful to avoid tripping on the kunai that littered the dirt path. "Don't let that happen to you two, Rai. Don't make the same mistakes I did."
Raido hummed in agreement. There was no way in hell.
The aftermath of Jonin v Genin was always hilarious.
Raido scanned the room while idly sipping his beer, taking in all of the varying expressions of the shinobi that came by the bar. Some looked let down, others were clearly embarrassed, others were proud of their performance, and others were teasing their friends. No matter how they did, it was clear that everyone in the restaurant was in high spirits from the fun event.
To his left, the magpies jumped up in their seats and waved around their empty pint glasses as if they were emergency flares, cheeks flushed and wearing identical toothy smiles. Raido was pretty sure that those to shared half of the same brain, with the way they were so in sync with one another; he just chalked it up to those two being conjoined at the hip for nearly twenty years.
He looked down at the woman currently passing an aluminum cap over to Aoba. It was a drinking game that Kana picked up during a mission that ended with them spending a couple of days in Suna, where you twist the piece of metal that hung off from the soju bottle cap. Once it was twisted so that it was straight, you flicked it and passed it to the next person, who also flicked it and, if you broke the piece off, the people next to you had to drink. Raido was pretty sure that Genma was cheating, because he seemed to be the only one at the table that looked completely sober.
Alternatively, Kana was nothing but smiles as she joined in on the cheering when some guy named Totoro broke the cap. Raido watched her pick up her shotglass to clink it against the others' before tossing her head back. He was pretty sure that only two people were supposed to be drinking, per the game's rules, but it looked like just about everyone at the table was too drunk to remember. When he and Genma taught her how to properly take shots that fateful night in the jonin bar, Raido had to admit that he had no idea that he would be sitting next to her, three years later, and watching her join in on drinking games with a crowd of people.
Then again, Raido didn't think he'd ever find himself sitting at a cluster of tables that had been shoved together to accompany what looked like a group of ten different Anbu. They weren't in their uniforms, but plain street clothes, which made the experience just that much more surreal.
He laughed at the story that the woman with the strange accent was telling about how one of their friends got stuck in a tree trying to sneak up on someone in another division. It felt a little hypocritical of him to think it, but Raido couldn't help but find himself surprised at how carefree the Black Ops members were as they talked amongst one another, laughing and telling stories. Everyone stereotyped them to be cold, ruthless killers that worked as machines for the village and only existed within the headquarters located within the mountain that housed the Hokage Memorial. Seeing them flashing smiles, sharing food and jostling each other with drinks in their hands was so... Human.
It was that moment that made him realize why Kana was so attached to her life as a member of Anbu. It wasn't just a career for them. It wasn't just a way of life that they were accustomed to. Watching his lover carefully aim her finger to flick the cap of a newly-opened bottle of soju, booing over the cheers when the aluminum bit didn't snap off, he understood why she didn't want to move out of the barracks just yet. There was something wholly organic about the happy air that surrounded them.
Raido was watching a family.
The lingering feelings of jealousy he held towards the Black Ops lessened significantly as he came to understand that. Raido couldn't blame her for not wanting to separate herself from her family for him. All he could do was feel a warmth in his chest at the promise Kana gave him the night he asked her to move in with him. She didn't say no, she only asked for a little more time.
Kana was willing to leave the barracks, leave this kind of daily interaction, for him.
The tokujo couldn't stop the broad smile that crossed his face as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders to pull her into his chest. Public displays of affection weren't really Raido's thing, as he always felt that intimacy was something that should be shared privately, so it was no shock when Kana made a small surprised noise in the back of her throat when he cupped her jaw with his free hand to turn it up towards his face. After a second, though, she relaxed bonelessly in his arms and allowed him to deepen the kiss with a curious hum.
"I love you, too," he heard her murmur, smiling into the kiss.
Many hours, and many shared bottles of soju later, Izumo found himself smushed between multiple bodies, with another arm draped over his chest.
His cheeks hurt from laughing, his body ached a little from the physical exertion that came from bounding around the village to start fights with people that looked like they wouldn't kick his and Ko's asses. Hour seven was when they ended up getting punched into the ground by a couple of jonin with the build of gorillas, but they had such a fun time laying elaborate traps and trading jabs with each other that they couldn't complain. Izumo was just glad that he didn't have a run-in with that kid from the Sand, who ended up being named Kazekage - he clearly didn't understand the lighthearted nature of the event, because Izumo ended up limping away from that fight with four broken ribs and a fractured collarbone.
Today, though, he just had a few nasty bruises that you'd expect from any normal training session.
Next to him, Kotetsu sighed happily and snuggled closer into his lover's side. He fell asleep wrapped around Raido and Kana in some weird double-layer sandwich, but rolled back over to Izumo after an hour or so out of habit.
They stumbled back to Genma's apartment with the intention of sobering up before bed, but they just ended up collapsing on the tokujo's delightfully huge king-sized bed in a tangle of limbs. At some point they started stripping down to their underwear due to their cumulative body temperature being made worse by the effects of the copious amounts of booze that they had consumed earlier in the night, completely oblivious to the fact that skin-to-skin contact was the more efficient way of keeping warm, not cooling down. Raido made it a point to keep his t-shirt on, though he stripped away the athletic sleeve that covered what marred flesh peeked through his shirt.
With a soft mewling sound, Kana's eyes slowly blinked open as she was roused from sleep, probably from Kotetsu shifting around. She lifted her hand to clumsily push silver-white hair out of her face before propping herself up on her elbows to take in her surroundings. When she met Izumo's gaze, she offered a quiet, sleepy smile and reached over Kotetsu's body to place her hand over the one he had settled over Genma's back, in which he turned over to squeeze back.
Izumo watched Raido's eyes flutter open just long enough to reposition himself to that he was properly wrapped around his lover, sliding his leg between hers and scooting up to press their bodies flush. He placed a chaste kiss on her shoulder before falling back to sleep with a contented sigh, and the smile Kana wore expanded a little at the gesture.
She settled back down, head resting atop Kotetsu's so that her face was buried into his neck, and slid her glowing eyes back shut to resume sleeping.
Being a shinobi had its really shitty moments, Izumo wasn't going to lie. You had to watch your friends die, you had to watch your friends deal with the grief of their friends dying, and there were a lot of times where you had to question if this was the right path for you.
However, it brought people together in ways that he was absolutely sure no other way could. It turned comrades into close friends, and close friends into family. Moments such as this, with the group of friends tightly wrapped around one another, stood testament to that.
He turned his face down to peer at Genma, who was draped over most of his body and had one arm tightly wrapped around Kotestu's waist. They lost a member of their family over a year ago, and Gen had been hurt the worst by it. But it didn't break them. Hayate was the one that brought them all together, in one way or another, but they loved each other enough to stick together even after he was taken out of their lives.
Izumo smiled softly at the ceiling as his eyes began to grow heavy with sleep.
They would always have each other.
Their weird little dysfunctional family.