Archive of Our Own

The first time Iruka takes a class on a field trip starts off as a complete disaster. And it's only to the Hokage monument.

He's just started as an assistant teacher a few weeks ago, and he's working with the littlest kids: the three and four and five-year-olds whose parents can't stay at home to take care of them. He's been assigned to Tanako-sensei: her class, he's been told, is one of the tamer ones - though the kids are energetic. After two weeks of running around after the little monsters, Iruka isn't sure he'd call them energetic. Maybe exhausting. Or horrifying.

But keeping them under control in the classroom isn't impossible. Iruka's not looking forward to the field-trip, exactly, but he figures it can't be that bad.

When they leave the Academy gates, Tanako-sensei's group walks along obediently behind her in double lines: Iruka sees one boy contemplate trying to slither through a fence, and all she has to do is say "Keiji," in a warning tone of voice for him to fall back into line.

Iruka's smaller group, on the other hand, is nowhere near as disciplined, despite all his efforts. They scamper around him in circles, chattering and almost tripping him and tugging on his hands and pant-legs. 

One kid manages to get lost within the first ten minutes. Shortly after that, Iruka catches two more trying to sneak away, and grabs each of them by the hand, marching them in front of him. In the time it takes to do that, another one starts lingering behind, as if she thinks Iruka won't notice if she just leaves slowly enough. When he turns around to scold her, he discovers that another one has gone missing. He's down to six of the eight kids he started with, and they're only halfway to the monument. When Tekka, one of the kids whose hand he's holding, slips out of his grip and starts running away, Iruka grabs him by the collar and ends up holding an empty shirt.

Iruka's done a pretty good job of keeping his temper so far: the kids have been pushing more and more, and he's still been following all the guidelines in the teacher's handbook, most of which seem just fine on paper and completely fail in practice. Only two weeks in, and he's pretty sure the other teachers have a running bet on when he'll lose it in class. 

Seeing Tekka running flat-out away from him, shirtless, comes pretty close. When the remaining kids around him giggle, and break off in four different directions at once, Iruka sees red.

He drops Aiko's hand and, hands flying through seals he hasn't used in years, sinks her feet into the ground so she can't go anywhere. She yelps, and he feels bad for about a half second before he does the same for the four kids still in sight, and then jogs to the street corner, and looks both ways for Tekka and maybe the first two escapees.

Tekka is just about to turn a corner - he's run several blocks straight, which is a major tactical error. Iruka will probably have to teach the brat to do better than that at some point, but right now, it's awfully convenient. Tekka yelps as the ground swallows him almost to the waist. Iruka walks over to him.

"Are you going to behave?" he asks, "Or should I leave you here in the middle of the street? I think most drivers won't hit you, but you never know."

Tekka stares at him in disbelief. "You can't do that!" he protests, pulling vainly against the asphalt surrounding him. 

Iruka turns around to walk away. And he's not faking it -- he really is about to go give the other five kids the same choice. He gets almost a full block away before the kid calls out.

"Iruka-sensei, don't leave me here!"

He sounds pathetic. Iruka reminds himself that yesterday, Tekka, who is five and one of the class's ringleaders, nearly took his eye out with a pair of scissors. He walks another block before Tekka tries again.

"I'll behave!" he calls, "I promise!" 

Iruka keeps walking.

"I'm sorry!" Tekka says, "I'll won't run away again, Iruka-sensei! I promise!"

Iruka doesn't turn around, just allows the ground to flow back into its usual shape. This part is the real test: if Tekka makes a run for it, Iruka really will leave him glued to the street. (Part of him, the part that tries to calm the kids down by talking to them, and using positive reinforcement, the part that has read the teacher's manual cover-to-cover several times, is appalled, but Iruka remembers one of his teachers doing this to him so he figures it can't be that bad.)

To Iruka's faint surprise, Tekka just runs to catch up, and follows close at his side as Iruka gives every other kid the same choice. Only one of them tries to run - a quiet kid whom Iruka hadn't pegged for a troublemaker. Iruka flips through the seals, and she's up to her knees in the middle of the sidewalk. Iruka gestures to the other five kids to follow him. They look up at him with big, wide eyes, and scurry to keep up. Kinna screams behind them, really quite loudly: apparently when she does scream, she means business about it.

"We'll see you on the way back, Kinna," he says, and walks away, toward the Hokage Monument. He supposes he ought to go look for the two who've run away, but, really, getting a little lost won't hurt them. The remaining five kids cluster around him like ducklings, and he suppresses the urge to smile.

They catch up to Tanako-sensei's group in a few minutes. She looks at him and raises an eyebrow. He shrugs. "Kinna decided to wait behind." he says.

His five kids look at Tanako-sensei’s group and line up without him asking them to. They all sneak worried glimpses at him when they think he's not watching. He figures this won't last all that long, but when they get to the Hokage Monument, all five of them are still with him, and they sit attentively while he and Tanako-sensei tell them about the first Hokage and the founding of Konoha.

--

Kinna has stopped screaming by the time they reach her, and is visibly on the edge of tears: the sidewalk rising just past her knees means that she's had to stay standing this whole time. When she sees them, she calls out: but not to Iruka.

"Tanako-sensei," she cries, "Iruka made me wait here! I want to see the monument, too!" This hadn't really occurred to Iruka as a potential problem, but if Tanako-sensei lets Kinna out, none of these kids are going to listen to him.

Tanako sensei looks at the little girl, knee-deep in the sidewalk, and says "Hm. Iruka-sensei tells me you chose to stay behind. You'll be able to see the monument next month." Iruka tries not to sigh in relief, but he thinks there's a hint of a grin in Tanako-sensei's eyes when she looks back at him. 

"You might want to talk to Iruka-sensei about whether you're going to come back to school with us," Tanako-sensei suggests, and Kinna's jaw drops.

"But-!" Tanako urges her group onwards, but walks slowly: a dozen pairs of eyes stare back at Iruka in something between awe and horror, as he asks Kinna why she's here.

"Because you're mean!" Her attempt at a glare is almost adorable. Almost.

"No." Iruka says, "Try again."

"Because I tried to run away," she says, sulkily.

"No, but closer," Iruka says, "Try again." She looks surprised.

"Because," she hesitates, "is it because I got caught?"

“Good enough," Iruka agrees. "Now, do you want to come back to school with the rest of us?" She nods quickly, and Iruka lets her up. She walks next to Tekka on the way back, sneaking looks at Iruka the whole way.

--

The next day, when Iruka tells the class to sit down, all eight of his kids plop down immediately, and the rest follow suit.

A few days later, he hears an older kid - a sibling of one of his class's kids, he thinks - telling a friend that Iruka-sensei will bury you alive if you misbehave! He suppresses a smile, and goes to class.