Chapter Text
"I'm going to kill you, Anko," Iruka muttered to himself. "I'm going to kill you, and no one will ever know where I hid the body."
He huffed and didn't resist the urge to listen. He could hear his own heartbeat, beneath the overly loud voice of Anko shouting for people to line up outside the door. And below the too-fast heartbeat, the sounds of shapes. He counted over a dozen people so far. Ugh. Stupid bribe. Stupid bet.
"'It'll be fun,' she said. 'It'll make all the lonely singles feel better for Valentine's Day,' she said. 'It just adds to your allure,' she said. I don't need allure! Why did I even agree to this?" he muttered, arms now firmly crossed in front of his chest.
Because she'd bribed him, and bribed him good, he thought with a sigh. A month's rent, covered, and she'd watch any movie he wanted with him, any night of the week, for a year. Cuddles allowed (though let's be real, that was a given). Plus a third of all ticket sales into Iruka's own pocket, with another third going to the orphanage. God, he was such a sucker.
"Hey, you ready?" the demon woman in question asked cheerfully, poking her head in through the door.
"No," he grumbled. "What am I, a kiss whore?"
"I meeeeeean, if you don't want to...."
Iruka sighed. "Just send them in," he said.
"Try to look a little happy about it," she said with a grin he could hear quite clearly in her voice. "You get to make out with the most attractive citizens of Konoha! Maybe even..." she paused slyly, "the most attractive citizen of Konoha."
"I'm not even going to see them!" Iruka protested, definitely not flustered.
"So? You still get to make out with them," she said. She wasn't wrong.
"Why aren't you the one sitting here, then?" he demanded.
"Because you'd feel too bad to actually charge anybody anything," she told him.
Right. That was probably true.
"And because you turn more heads than I do."
That was probably less true.
Stupid bribe.
"Fine, whatever," he grumbled. "How many do I have to guess right?"
"Fifty percent. We're capping participants at thirty. You can count."
"Tch." Stupid bet. He should have murdered her the moment she suggested this, but she'd caught him in a good mood. Manipulative.... He grumbled.
"Smile!" she advised, disappearing and closing the door.
Iruka would have rolled his eyes if he could have beneath his blindfold, but instead he just resettled on his stool. He didn't try to grump less.
The door opened. Iruka would have known who it was even if he couldn't hear shapes. The sense of a broad frame and the scent of cigarette smoke gave it away.
"Really, Asuma-san?" Iruka demanded before Asuma had even reached him.
Asuma laughed. "I got bribed."
"You and me both," Iruka said. "Well, I suppose Anko made you pay anyway."
"You have a ruthless friend," Asuma said, and Iruka could hear his grin.
"Don't I just know it. Well, do you want a kiss or not?"
"I'll pass," Asuma said, "but thanks all the same."
"I wasn't the one who bought a ticket," Iruka pointed out. "But if you want me to give two to someone else, I guess that'd be fair."
"What is this, a meet and greet?" Anko's demand came in through the door. "Stop making out in there!"
Iruka couldn't hold back the snicker, particularly since he – and everyone in line – knew she had a radio so she and Tsunade could track who Iruka guessed correctly.
"Sure," Asuma said. "Give two to someone at your discretion. Or to whoever gets flustered first." He laughed, and so did Iruka.
"You got it," Iruka said, amused.
"See you around, Iruka-sensei," Asuma said, letting himself back out.
"See you, Asuma-san," Iruka said, feeling relieved and a little cheered up. Maybe he could have some fun with this. He didn't actually believe the person he'd want to give two kisses would get involved in something like this, but he now had a second kiss for whoever got flustered first, which would definitely be funny.
Anko poked her head in. "Quit guessing ahead of time!" she scolded.
Iruka shrugged with a ruefully amused smile.
"Tch," she said, but she left again, closing the door behind her.
Iruka wasn't surprised that the next figure outlined in his mind's eye was Kurenai. He had some guesses about who had bribed Asuma.
"Hello," he said, feigning ignorance. "Come on over."
Kurenai, her presence flavored like silk and the finest of steel edges, stepped forward and hesitated.
Iruka smiled despite himself, amused. "I'm not going to bite," he said.
Kurenai leaned forward and the faintest floral fragrance – freshly shampooed hair – washed over Iruka. She brushed the briefest kiss, light as a butterfly wing, on Iruka's cheek.
"Really?" Iruka asked, amused over his nerves. "You can do better than that. Besides, I believe the agreement was that I kiss you. Unless you'd prefer to give your kiss to someone else, that is, which I'd also accept."
Then her mouth was on his, gentle and sweet, and just as abruptly, she stepped away.
"See, Kurenai-san? That wasn't so hard," he joked, knowing that he was blushing even as he said it.
She made a small, embarrassed noise and fled.
Anko poked her head in. "Stop scaring the clientele!" she scolded, but she was laughing, too.
"But if I don't scare them, who will?" Iruka wanted to know, chuckling.
"Me, obviously," Anko said, laughing. "You've got, uh... something on your face, there."
"Oh, yeah, right," Iruka said, cheeks warm. He pulled the handkerchief meant for precisely this purpose from out of his pocket and wiped Kurenai's lipstick from his mouth and cheek.
"Maybe we should give people the option of letting me kiss them, like, on the cheek or something," Iruka suggested. "And maybe I can guess after they leave the room and before you send in the next person."
"Oh, hey, that's a good idea," Anko said, bailing again.
The next person came in, and it was a real struggle for Iruka not to laugh. Anko must have threatened more than one person to make them join the queue. His mental outline of Gai looked absolutely hideously uncomfortable with this whole thing. He could tell it was taking everything Gai had not to burst out in a brief but dramatic soliloquy.
"I think we're going to try doing this where I guess after you leave, so you don't get embarrassed if I'm right and I don't get embarrassed if I'm wrong," Iruka chuckled. "If you'd like me to guess while you're here anyway, uh... tap the back of my hand twice," Iruka made up. He knew Anko wouldn't mind his winging it, since she was definitely doing the same thing out front.
Gai stepped forward and kissed Iruka with a surprising amount of gusto, then raced out of the room before Iruka knew what had hit him.
"Gai-san," Iruka said to the empty room after the door had closed. He could hear the man's voice going on about "hip, youthful" something-or-other before leaving the building.
He waited a moment, then the next person came in.
Anko did, at one point, warn him that there would be thirty-one participants, but she didn't give him details before disappearing again.
After fifteen people, Iruka decided to challenge himself by not listening to the shapes of people. They'd already won the wager, so he might as well make it a little more interesting for himself.
Some were more hesitant than others, and a number guided Iruka's hand and thus his kiss to their cheeks, but nobody who was terribly flustered waited around long enough for Iruka to give out the second kiss Asuma had given him.
There were also the individuals who definitely went out of their way to make their one kiss count, Genma being a particularly notable example (and completely, apparently, incapable of counting as high as "one," not to mention close to irresistible; damn, he gave good kisses, and he made no effort whatsoever to conceal who he was, either).
Iruka was almost positive that he was thirty for thirty at the point when the final person entered. Iruka felt his breath catch in his throat at the absurdly silent presence in the room.
He'd agreed to this, all of this, not because of rent and ticket sales money, not because of a bet, and not even because of the promise of cuddles and movies of his choice for a year, but for an entirely different reason he hadn't even acknowledged to himself. But immediately, as soon as the figure came in the room, he had to face the truth: that this person was why. He agreed because of the hope against hope that the object of his stupid schoolboy crush would be one of the people in the queue. It seemed impossible.
He wasn't listening, but he somehow didn't need to, whether it was because of the scent of the person, faint but, he thought, existent, or because of some other sixth sense he didn't understand, but he knew, with dead certainty, that somehow, against all reason, that he knew the man in the room with him.
The figure didn't move for a very long time.
"Ah... someone changed their mind and told me to give someone else two kisses," Iruka stammered, heart hammering in his chest. "Since you're the last person, if you'd like–"
And then, without a whisper of sound, the figure was in front of him, still standing, with that Anbu-level stealth that startled almost everyone, almost... hesitating?
Iruka could hardly believe that the man in front of him would hesitate over anything. He didn't know what to say. Anko had already told the people in line to tap Iruka's hand twice if they wanted him to guess before they left the room, so he didn't even have the excuse of saying that.
"Um..." he finally tried, and very suddenly, before he knew it was going to happen, he felt the warm mouth close over his own, and good god, but the man smelled good and tasted better. Iruka almost fell off his stool when the man stepped back again, hardly able to believe what had just happened.
"Oh," Iruka breathed. "Ah... if you'd like another...."
There was another moment of silence, and he could imagine the man was fidgeting, though the man himself made no noise.
"If you want it, you can have it. I feel like I'll be cheating the person who gave the kiss away if I don't at least offer it to someone," Iruka said, trying very, very hard not to mumble. Or to stammer. Or both. "You don't have to, if you don't want to, of course, but... well, I won't be sorry if you accept it."
He barely heard the faintest inhale, and then the man's mouth was on his again, and when he felt the man's tongue just lightly run over his lip, Iruka really couldn't help himself from opening his mouth into the kiss.
And when he lost his balance, he had to grab hold of the flak jacket in front of him, and suddenly there were arms around him, holding him close as they tasted one another, hungry and not a little bit desperate.
And then the figure broke the kiss, slowly and reluctantly, gently helping Iruka back onto the stool.
Iruka hesitated, as did the man whose hand, just warm enough to feel, was hovering over Iruka's as he tried to decide whether he wanted Iruka to guess who he was.
Iruka reached up and covered the microphone to Anko's radio so Anko wouldn't hear what he was about to say.
"I– I live in building E, apartment 305," Iruka stammered. "If you'd like– I– I mean, if– if you'd like me to wait and guess later...."
He didn't have to listen below the sound of his own heartbeat to know that the man in front of him was smiling, as the hand over his withdrew. He heard the other man pulling something from a pocket, then the sound of paper ripping, and then the sound of a pen scratching on the paper. Iruka took his hand off the microphone, since it seemed the person wasn't going to reply.
The slip of paper brushed Iruka's hand, and he turned his palm up so the person in front of him could put it in his hand.
Iruka closed his fingers around the paper slip as the figure went back to the door and let himself out, moving silently.
Iruka sighed heavily as the weight of what he'd just done and said hit him.
And also the fact that he'd forgotten to give the man the building's street number. That seemed less concerning in a village full of ninjas, though.
Anko poked her head in. "Any guess for our last customer?" she asked cheerfully.
Iruka shook his head dumbly, knowing precisely who it was and unwilling to say the name in case he jinxed himself. Besides, he'd told the man he'd guess later. Instead, he just reached up and untied the blindfold, blinking against the light that hadn't seemed terribly bright when they'd started and now seemed blindingly bright. It was all he could do to hide the shaking in his fingers as he stuffed the blindfold into a pocket.
"I'm going to go drop by Tsunade-san's office and collect on our wager, then," Anko said gleefully. "Nice work. Thirty out of thirty-one! Even I wouldn't've guessed you'd get that many right." Since she hadn't been giving him feedback after each guess, and no one had actually wanted him to guess before they left (except Genma, who didn't count because he'd blatantly propositioned Iruka), she probably assumed he didn't know he'd gotten every one of them right. But of course he had: since he worked at the Mission Assignment Desk, he knew people's quirks and idiosyncrasies well enough that he ended up being able to identify every one of them just on that basis alone. Besides, if he'd wanted to, he would have been able to hear the forms of those not just in the room but waiting outside. He'd always been able to listen and hear the shapes of things, for as long as he could remember.
"Y– yeah," Iruka said faintly, unhooking his radio and passing it to her. "I... think I'm going to need a night to... decompress," he managed lamely. "Maybe we can rain check our movie to tomorrow?"
"You sure?" Anko asked, suddenly looking a little worried.
"Yeah," Iruka said, smiling reassuringly. "Besides, I need to grade some stuff. It feels like that took longer than we'd expected."
"Only 'cuz you talk so much," Anko teased. "Well, and because you're so popular. I had to turn away a bunch people because of time constraints."
"Are you serious?" Iruka asked, more faintly than before.
"Yeah. The last person had just gotten back from a mission and hadn't had a chance to sign up earlier, so I let them in out of the goodness of my heart. And also because they offered to pay a hiked-up ticket price."
"Anko! How much did you charge?" Iruka asked, appalled.
"Ten times the ticket price," she said cheerfully.
"Oh, my god, you're ruthless," Iruka told her, groaning. He couldn't believe she'd done such a thing. And... actually, now that he thought about it, it was a little appalling that the last person had paid ten times the price Anko had set. It hadn't been a coincidence that most of the people who'd bought tickets were jōnin. She'd set the price much, much higher than he would have ever dreamed of doing, and high enough that on his salary, he never would have splurged that amount on... well, probably anything, to be honest. Even chūnin who regularly went on missions had obviously hesitated to pay the 700,000 ryō Anko had asked for. That was very nearly the payment for completion of an S-rank mission, and not something to be given up lightly.
He was seriously considering giving his entire third to the orphanage out of guilt. Even though he'd flatly refused to do this at all unless at least one third went to the orphanage, to begin with.
The cost of ten tickets at 700,000 ryō would cover his rent for half a year. And if the last person had paid ten times the normal price.... It didn't bear thinking about.
"Well... I guess I'll tidy and head back. You want me to pick anything up for dinner?"
"Nah, my treat," Anko said.
"I want to eat something other than dango for dinner," Iruka said with a smile. "Anyway, I don't mind picking up on my way back. I can get you dango."
"Fine, fine," she grumbled, pulling out her wallet and shoving it at him. "Same thing as always, please!"
"Sure," Iruka said, still glued to his seat. He thought his knees might give out if he tried to stand up, and he didn't want her to see. "I'll put the stuff here away."
"Roger. Thanks for being a good sport!"
"Oh. Uh. Sure," Iruka said, smiling again, but she was already out the door and gone.
It took him what felt like a long time to open his fingers to look at the slip in his hand. He didn't know what it said, and he found his hand was shaking.
Please be something positive, he prayed fervently at the slip.
A little bird might come to your window tonight. 10 pm.
(It's not guessing if you're not wearing a blindfold.)
Iruka legitimately nearly fainted at the words. He had to reach out behind him, fumbling to grab the chalk ledge to hold himself up until he could breathe again.
Then it occurred to him to grin. The handwriting on the slip wasn't one he would have recognized, being so shockingly beautiful that it bordered on calligraphy. It was certainly not what he expected, given that he knew the man's chicken scratch handwriting from mission reports. Or at least, he'd thought he had. But apparently, he'd been wrong, which he knew was no mistake on the part of the shinobi in question.
He hesitated, then slipped the scrap of paper into his front vest pocket carefully, pretending to himself that he wasn't going to treasure it regardless of what happened tonight.
He tidied quickly, putting the stool away and going out into the hallway to grab his classroom podium to drag back into his classroom.
It had, shockingly, been Tsunade's idea to hold this "kissing booth" event in Iruka's classroom, since it gave her the opportunity to follow along with the outcome from her office. Because of course it had been her idea to turn it into a bet. Iruka had a sneaking suspicion that she would have assigned it to him as a mission, commissioned by herself, if he hadn't agreed to do it, since once she'd thought of turning it into a bet, she was dead set on the idea.
At least she'd agreed that any winnings would also go to good causes. As had Anko, with some arm-twisting and maybe a little swearing.
He almost forgot to pull down the horribly embarrassing – but thankfully image-less – poster on the front door of the Academy as he locked up to leave. He flushed as he rolled it up. If it had been up to him, he'd've trashed it, but both Tsunade and Anko had threatened him with bodily harm if he damaged it. He was a little nervous to find out what they meant to do with it, but he was more nervous about finding out whether they actually meant it. He was fairly sure Anko did.
He fled the scene, flickering to the tea shop to buy Anko her dango. They always, inexplicably, stayed open until eight o'clock. He checked his watch as he placed her order. It was almost seven forty-five, which legitimately surprised him. He really hadn't expected the stupid event to take that long. He was glad he'd managed to get here before the tea shop closed.
The clerk emerged with Anko's (enormous) order, accepting with a smiled thanks the money Iruka drew from Anko's wallet.
Iruka smiled back, trying not to display his nerves.
He left, meaning to head to Ichiraku, but then he paused. Between his heart still racing and his stomach flipping from nerves, he honestly wasn't totally sure he could eat. Maybe he'd just grab something light. He knew a bento place not too far from here....