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"Iruka-sensei!" Naruto roared from the hokage office. His voice was clearly audible even from the street where Iruka crept.
Iruka cackled and darted away, sprinting through the streets of Konoha, dipping between shoppers, ducking through shops and out back doors, and finally to the apartment building he knew like the back of his hand.
He ran up the stairs, a little out of breath – and smashed directly into a slim wall of solid muscle.
He barely caught himself, dazed, and felt steadying arms wrapped around him. He looked up to find Kakashi looking at him, eyebrows raised, an amused glint in his steel-grey eyes.
"Kakashi!" Iruka said, smiling brilliantly.
"What have you done this time?" Kakashi asked, his amusement bleeding into his words.
Iruka gave his best look of outraged offense.
"What makes you think I've done something?" he demanded.
Kakashi huffed a soft laugh.
"You mean, other than Naruto's screaming, and the fact that you disappeared from home an hour and a half ago?" he asked.
Iruka smiled innocently. Or, at least, he apparently tried to smile innocently: the mischievous glint in his eyes gave him away.
"If Naruto asks, I was home all afternoon," Iruka said, leaning in to give Kakashi a peck on the cheek.
Kakashi visibly melted a little.
It gave Iruka great joy that Kakashi still reacted so adorably to little acts of affection, even after all these years.
But Kakashi said, "Ru, no one would believe that here."
"But we're here!" Iruka protested.
Kakashi smiled gently.
"Ru, we haven't lived here for ten years. And you really need to stop antagonising Naruto."
"Ah, it's good for him," Iruka said dismissively. "Keeps him on his toes."
Kakashi laughed, that soft, molten-chocolate sound that Iruka had fallen in love with in their youth.
"Come on, Ru. Let's go home."
Iruka slipped his hand into Kakashi's, unperturbed by the fact that he couldn't remember where they lived. His memory was shot these days, he knew. But Kakashi was always there to remember things for him; Kakashi always found him, no matter where he wandered off to.
They ducked together out the back door – just like the old days, when they used to sneak out for secret dates and nighttime trysts. Somewhere in the front lobby, they could hear Naruto shouting, "Kakashi-sensei! I swear to god if you're harbouring that fugitive from justice Iruka-sensei, I'll hit you with charges of treason! Mutiny! Hate crimes! Piracy!"
Iruka and Kakashi giggled and snuck away, letting the door close softly behind them.
They heard a soft sigh and a foot tapping on the ground.
Both whipped around, Kakashi wielding a kunai in one gloved fist and Iruka, a pen.
Kakashi gave the pen a brief look and quirked an eyebrow.
"It's what I had," Iruka explained with a shrug.
"Right," Kakashi said, turning his attention to the interloper.
And immediately burst out laughing.
The bird-masked ANBU Mina stood, arms crossed across her chest, one foot still tapping the ground, looking – despite the mask – singularly unamused.
She was also covered from head to toe in streaks of what appeared to be chunky peanut butter. And sequins.
"What happened to you?" Kakashi asked, poorly hiding his snickering as he put away his kunai.
"Your husband happened to me," Mina said in her soft-spoken way, though she gave a snort of displeasure. "Your insane, sadistic, menace of a husband."
Iruka's eyes went wide with affected innocence. Kakashi snorted back a laugh again. That look was more damning than anything else combined.
"That's not a nice thing to say about me," Iruka pouted.
"Iruka," Kakashi said, affecting a firm tone even though all he really wanted to do was fist bump his husband and laugh heartily at Mina's misfortune. After all, an ANBU caught in a trap like that clearly deserved it. "Did you do this?"
"Of course not," Iruka said primly. "I couldn't have, because–"
"Iruka-sensei!" Naruto roared, slamming open the door and exploding into the alleyway.
Kakashi burst out laughing so hard he had to lean against the wall to hold himself upright.
Naruto was sporting an impressive, curling moustache in fluorescent purple paint, false cat ears that matched his hair colour exactly, and drawn-on cats-eye glasses. His Hokage robes were covered in yellow tiger stripes, and a long, bushy cat tail swished angrily out the back of the robe.
What really made the whole getup, though, was the pastel purple collar around Naruto's throat, complete with a purple bell and an enormous tag unmistakably reading, "Hinata's pussy."
Naruto could neither perform jutsu nor remove the getup due to the cat paw gloves that were tied with chakra wire over his hands all the way up to his elbows.
Iruka slowly sank to the floor in fits of laughter.
"That's mean," Kakashi gasped appreciatively, still laughing uncontrollably.
"You're a menace," Naruto growled at Iruka. "Mina, help me get this crap off so I can grab Iruka-sensei."
Mina dutifully began picking at the wire wrapped around Naruto's wrists, but no one could miss how even her shoulders shook with stifled laughter.
Click.
"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto screeched as Kakashi stuffed his camera back into his hip pouch.
Kakashi caught Iruka's eye.
They dashed off to a shouted, "Hey! Get back here!"
Kakashi pulled Iruka by the hand through the streets until they arrived at the assisted living home, and – true to form – they snuck into their townhome through the living room window.
"Welcome home," Myōgi deadpanned.
"Hi, Myōgi-chan. Kugi-kun!" Iruka chirped brightly, sweeping up the toddler that had been playing on the floor with a set of blocks. He had been playing with a shadow clone wearing Iruka's figure, but which switched back to Kakashi's form before puffing away. "Mm, something smells good."
"Dinner," Kakashi explained with a smile. There was another pop from the kitchen as Kakashi's other shadow clone vanished.
Kugi gurgled happily and reached saliva-sticky fingers up around Iruka's neck.
"Rururu!" he babbled, smearing stickiness in Iruka's ponytail.
"Kugi-kun!" Iruka cooed back.
"Gross," Myōgi said.
Kakashi traded a look with the lavender-eyed girl before she looked back down at her book. She was most of the way through the thick paperback.
"Let me guess: you were here the whole time?" she asked blandly.
"Wait 'til you see your grandpa," Iruka cackled gleefully.
"Oh? Which one?" Myōgi asked, looking up from her book with the smallest of smiles tugging at her lips.
Kakashi snickered.
"It's better if I show you. I may or may not have acquired photographic evidence," he proclaimed with a smirk visible even beneath his mask. He pulled his camera out of his hip pouch and flicked it on to show her.
"Doesn't that kind of ruin your alibi?" she asked.
"Not at all," Kakashi said, pleased. "It was while I was finding Iruka. Naruto and Mina were with us by that point."
"Which I explain how, exactly?" Myōgi asked, one eyebrow raised, reluctant amusement quirking her lips.
"Shadow clones," Iruka said sagely, as if that were all the explanation necessary.
Myōgi kept one eyebrow raised while Kakashi thumbed through photographs, trying to find the one of Naruto.
"Yeah, so, you two are going to need to find a better hobby before I become hokage," she said blandly before returning to her book once more.
There was a knock on the door.
Iruka went over and, balancing Kugi on one hip, opened it.
He immediately burst out laughing once more, obviously having forgotten what, exactly, he had inflicted on Naruto and Mina.
Kakashi joined them, supporting Iruka and Kugi. Kugi giggled sweetly at Iruka's riotous laughter.
"Iruka-sensei," Naruto ground out, "it's not funny."
He hadn't managed to remove any of the... costume, and Minas peanut butter and sequins had been garnished with chains of false flowers that appeared to be sticking to her almost magnetically. Her masked face looked even less impressed than before.
"We know it was you," Mina told Iruka flatly.
Clickclickclick, went Kakashi's camera.
Naruto gave a yelp of outrage.
They all turned to a small snort of laughter, though Myōgi's expression was deadpan as they looked at her.
"Couldn't be," she said blandly. "They were here with us all day."
Naruto deflated a little at that.
"But.... But.... But we saw them!"
She snapped her book shut and looked up at the seventh hokage with a disturbingly sweet smile.
"Are you calling me a liar, Grandpa?" she asked.
Kakashi choked on a laugh.
"No!" Naruto yelped. "But– yeah, kinda! Dattebayo!"
"I'll tell Grandma Sakura you said so," Myōgi said in a sing-song voice.
Naruto blanched.
"Watch carefully, Kugi-kun," Iruka whispered to the toddler in his arms. "That's how it's done."
Kakashi snorted again and clicked more photos.
"Boruto and Sarada will be here soon," he said, looking up from his camera with a winning smile. "Care to join us for dinner, Naruto? Mina?"
Mina sighed.
"Will I be able to get the flowers and peanut butter off if we say no?" she asked resignedly.
"Nope!" Iruka said cheerfully.
"You could just invite us to dinner like normal people," Naruto muttered.
"Ah, but where's the fun in that?" Iruka asked brightly, stepping back to let Naruto and Mina in.
"Besides, you've been too busy the last dozen times we've asked," Kakashi added. "Everyone's always too busy to see their poor old senseis unless–"
There was another knock at the door.
Myōgi pulled it open and barely stifled another laugh.
Sakura and a snake-masked ANBU stood in the doorway, both also covered in chunky peanut butter, sequins, and flowers. There were a large number of neon flowers braided into the ANBU's black hair, and the mask itself had a flourished, purple moustache across its face to match Naruto's.
The camera clicked some more.
"Naruto!" Sakura shouted, bringing her fist down on his head, making him duck and yelp. "You're supposed to be the Hokage! Stop letting Iruka-sensei–"
"He was here the whole time," Myōgi interrupted in a deadpan.
"I just want to retire," Naruto bemoaned, burying his face in his cat-paw-gloved hands.
Click.
"Not while people are doing that to you and your ANBU," Sarada said, ushering her mother and the snake-masked ANBU into the townhouse. "Even I wouldn't touch that with a pole. Hello, Myōgi. Were you and your brother good for your uncles?"
"Perfect angels," Myōgi said with a smirk. "So much so that Uncle Iruka and Uncle Kakashi said I could have extra dessert tonight. And that they'd buy me the next book in the Shinobi Princess series. Right, Uncle?" she asked Kakashi with a glint in her eye.
Kakashi and Iruka both laughed, sending Kugi into another bout of burbled giggles.
"The next two, even," Kakashi said with a massive, unrepentant grin. "Well, come on in, everyone. I've almost got dinner made, and Iruka can help you all wash up in the meantime."
Mina sighed and pulled off her mask to reveal pale lavender eyes and the ghost of a smile. Hinata had only grown more beautiful as the years had passed.
The snake-masked ANBU, too, removed his mask. Sasuke gave his mask a grumpy look.
"Do you know how hard it's going to be to get this stupid moustache off without ruining the paint job on this thing?" he asked Iruka in a monotone.
"I don't know, it looks like water-based paint to me," Iruka said innocently, leaning over to look. "And it would be just stupid to make the ANBU mask paint water-based, don't you think? Come in, Hinata-chan, Sakura-chan, Sasuke-kun. We have a good shampoo for getting out peanut butter. It's the best thing for getting gum out of hair, you know," he said confidingly. "Peanut butter, I mean, not the shampoo. Never stopped using the shampoo, even after I stopped teaching. Come on."
Myōgi and Kakashi traded another look as the Nanadaime Hokage, the head medical nin, and two ANBU followed Iruka to the bathroom to wash up.
"So, you absolute terrors," Sarada said conversationally as she, Boruto, and Kakashi followed the dark-haired girl into the kitchen, "how was your day?"