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“Everyone, don’t forget your homework due on Friday. Remember you are to leave in an orderly fashion. See you tomorrow.”
The teacher’s crisp voice dismissed the horde of pre-genin, half of whom left the room trying to look as if they weren’t running. The other half rampaged around chaotically before leaving.
I told them to just leave. They’re bloody making me swear at them, the bunch of demons. By the First Hokage’s hairy ass, I have a headache. Kami, why are those two having another titty fit? My head hurts. Who knows what they think they’re doing, the crazy little haemorrhoids.
Everybody knows and is familiar with Iruka’s calm, controlled voice. What the children don’t know was how familiar he was with swear words.
Iruka nearly constantly had a comfortable stream of profanities trickling along in his head, and his iron control over not saying them out loud in front of the children had never slipped so far.
This control slipped among adults, however. This was why many jounin and chuunin preferred to bring along a niece or a nephew or a genin-team along when they were picking up a mission or returning a report. Iruka-sensei’s swearing was weirdly disturbing.
“Fucking great. Just fan-bloody-tastic. You make me want to Taser my nut hair off, and force-feed it to a virgin in the mountains who would finger fuck you up your anus with a horn that she ripped off a live mountain goat. What the fuck were you thinking. Rewrite this shit, sir. Next.”
As the jounin confusedly limped over to a desk on the side trying not to cover his bottom, a genin team and their jounin-sensei came into the room. Everybody discreetly breathed out a sigh in relief.
The next person in line stepped up to Iruka.
“Kakashi-san, here is your mission. Be careful, and come back safely,” Iruka at least is always sincere when he says those last few words.
“Yes, sensei.”
Iruka was fuming because Kakashi always seemed to catch him when he was forced to be G-rated. Iruka had never been able to tell him in honest words what he really wanted to say to him for the inappropriate sexual suggestion in his voice.
Kakashi’s grey eye arched in a self-satisfied grin. Iruka thought that this must surely be because he knows how the suffering look on Iruka’s face is from having to hold back the barrage of threats that he wants to unleash.
It was as if he liked making Iruka make that face; one that Iruka has developed specially for him. Specially for him only because he was the only one who managed to aggravate him so consistently and so thoroughly. Iruka has years of pent-up profanities just for Kakashi, and the infuriating man somehow had always managed to avoid receiving it.
“Iruka-sensei, you look exceptionally hot today,” Anko grinned and pushed past Kakashi. “Wanna have a quick f – I mean, some nookie in that room over there before my mission?” Anko avoided using the f- word because she knew how scary Iruka could get when he thought somebody was tainting the children.
“Anko, your mission,” Iruka glared daggers at her, putting in almost as much venom into it as he could.
Kakashi stood absolutely still, and Iruka didn’t send him an irritated glance because surely the bastard was plotting with Anko and the only reason he was still here was to tease Iruka.
Anko grinned a very snakelike smile and purposefully touched Iruka’s wrist as she picked up the offered scroll.
Iruka couldn’t swear in front of the children, but that didn’t mean that his temper had disappeared. He swiftly grabbed her wrist in a strong, almost bruising grip and yanked her face toward him so that his mouth was only an inch from her ear.
“Anko, if you do this again in front of the children I’m going to gag you with your own summon’s skin from last year’s moult and watch as the sex-addict guy from Iwa rides you into the wall using six of his rock dildos. Go and come back safely.”
Anko relaxed at the sound of the words she had gotten used to over years of being flatmates when they were teenagers. She took it as a good luck charm from her best friend, fucked up but still sweet.
Anko pecked him fleetingly on the cheek; an intimate, familial gesture between Iruka and herself.
Kakashi blinked twice, rapidly, but this went unnoticed by Anko or Iruka.
*
Finally I see some damn trees, bloody mission didn’t even have any action. They could have sent a messenger bird for this one. Who the fuck thought this was a B-rank? It was so boring it should have been an F-rank. F for Fucking Bullshit.
Iruka was on his way back from a simple delivery mission where nothing went wrong, when he spotted the corner of a thin, brown book. It looked so forlorn and dejected, slowly turning into tatters in the bush, that it caught Iruka’s eye and made him suspicious.
Wonder what this is. Better not be some godforsaken trap. Or better yet, I hope it is, so that I can rip somebody a new one.
Iruka eased what looked like a journal out of the branches, and no trap was sprung. He opened it to find the firm, flowing handwriting of the Third covering the first page.
Iruka shut the book quickly, his heart racing suddenly. His eyes felt a little stingy. He hadn’t seen any new writing by the Third since his death, and though it had been five years, little unexpected reminders of the Third always hit him sharply and he missed the old man dearly.
Holding the book more carefully, and with more reverence, Iruka opened it again, wanting to read it. He found that there were scratches and blots through some words, and the handwriting changed into something messier after the first few pages.
He was a little scared about whether it was actually the Third’s journal, and whether or not it was okay to read it if it was indeed the Third’s private thoughts, but just as a child cannot help but try and eavesdrop on their parents, Iruka started to read the first page.
*****
The Golden Lightning
Katie was looking forward to getting home after that fiasco.
She knew she shouldn’t have gone on a blind date, not after that last creepy guy from Sandtown, but once again, she had let her hopes get the better of her usually faultless logic.
She sighed as the rain pelted on her car, and drummed her fingers, waiting in the crawl of traffic. At least her family would be waiting for her at home. Though her eldest, Patrick, was getting terribly mouthy and snarky now that he was getting older. The car stopped from its crawl again and Katie looked at the dangling photo, hanging from the rear-view mirror.
Eight babies smiled out of the swaying picture. All adopted at different times, because she loved them all and had so much money that the adoption agency couldn’t say no. They gave Katie headaches and countless, pointless arguments, but they never failed to greet her with pure-hearted welcome whenever she came home.
Really, what was I thinking, she chided herself. Eight children was more than a handful, and being a single parent to a bunch like that would keep any other person busy for the rest of his or her life.
But in the bottom of her heart, there was an ache, a tiny, suppressed black hole that kept sucking in some happiness.
Some people were truly independent and could live happily alone; but Katie, who had been alone since she was a small child, wanted, no, yearned for a partner. This hope and desire for a soulmate, a person who connected with her in all the right places, who would accept her love and return it wholeheartedly, festered in her heart, unfulfilled.
*****
“What the fuck?” Iruka blinked and swore absentmindedly. Did the Third write cheesy novels? Was that something he passed on to Jiraiya-sama? Iruka had to blink some more, but then continued reading.
*****
And besides, Katie thought ruefully, a blind-date would never work when I was in love with him. Watching her windshield wipers squeak across the glass in a regular rhythm, she thought about the day when she first noticed him.
The first thing she had noticed was a gorgeous, tight little ass, bending over to lift boxes that he then easily carried into his apartment.
He was the new guy in the apartment down the corridor. When he came out again for another box, he spotted her, trying not to look as if she had been looking, fumbling with her keys. He smiled across the length of the corridor and Katie had to use all her brainpower not to drop her keys.
“Ms. Kat Hanson?” Katie was surprised at hearing her name, spoken in such a smooth, low voice. He walked over to her elegantly, and Katie couldn’t help but glance down at the shirt that clung to his strong shoulders and chest.
“I’m sorry to bother you like this,” he grinned shyly. Katie’s ovaries skipped a beat. “My name’s Indiana. It’s an honor to meet you, I’ve been a fan of your writing for years.” They shook hands, and Katie was dazed by his smile at a close distance.
Patrick chose that moment to open the door, and glared at them in the hallway.
“You’re late. I had to make dinner for everyone instead, and the kitchen’s a mess.”
Katie turned and was going to snap at him, but Indiana interjected.
“Hi, I’m Indiana, your new neighbour. You made dinner all by yourself? I can’t even do that properly yet,” he smiled, looking impressed.
Ten year-old Patrick was taken aback by such friendliness.
“Yeah well, Mom’s always late, so…” Patrick looked at Indiana with open scrutiny and curiosity, but Katie couldn’t let him ruin her reputation anymore, so she quickly bid good-bye to Indiana and rushed inside.
*****
“Double-headed dildo fuck,” Iruka swore because he needed to dislodge some of the sappiness. But he continued reading.
*****
The day she had really fallen in love with him was when Patrick had fallen and broken his arm in the middle of the night. He had been looking for a midnight snack.
Katie woke up abruptly, disorientated and panicked when she heard yells from her other seven children. She rushed over to the kitchen to find Puk Patrick curled up in a ball on the floor, quiet, and everybody else crowding around making a lot of noise. Five-year-old Greg had rushed out of the apartment, yipping about getting an ambulance.
Katie had experience and knowledge about first aid, but it was her own, darling Patrick that had been hurt and she was panicking. But right then, Guru Greg rushed back into the kitchen holding Indiana’s hand.
Indiana took one look at the situation and calmed everyone down with his dulcet tone.
“Patrick, nobody’s going to touch you until you let them. We’re all here for you. I’m a doctor at the hospital down the road. Can I come sit with you?”
Patrick looked up at him, and slowly nodded.
“Here we go.” Indiana moved smoothly to sit behind Patrick, forming a safe half-embrace. “Patrick, nice and slowly, move your left hand a bit so that I can see your right arm.”
After assessing the damage, Indiana murmured reassuring things in his chamomile voice and talked Patrick into a calmness. He had his arm set in a makeshift splint in a really short time.
When it was evident that Patrick would live, Bisuk Benjamin, the youngest, proceeded to climb onto Indiana’s shoulders and placed a crumbled cookie in his hair as a thank you. Then all her children were climbing over him and asking questions, telling him their own accidents and achievements to impress him. Katie’s heart skipped a beat this time as she watched him sitting in the middle of her kitchen, laughing and joking until her kids got tired and fell asleep on him.
By heaven, he’s perfect, she thought.
*****
This… was strange. Iruka had a feeling that he may have some similar memory somewhere in the back of his mind. He flipped through the book, reading handwriting that became an extremely untidy scrawl, with a growing feeling of dread.
He read through some eyebrow-raising sex scenes of Katie and various douchey partners until he reached the last page, which had more crossing-out than the other pages.
*****
Annabelle, the busty, brazen bitch receptionist sauntered into the hospital lobby. Katie watched as Annabelle walked straight up to Indiana, who was looking so preoccupied and sexy in his slightly loose uniform white coat, and grabbed him by the neck and kissed him forcefully that deranged whore.
Indiana then murmured sweet nothings into her ear; wonderful, loving words that Katie couldn’t quite hear and would never get to know.
Katie’s heart felt smashed into so many tiny pieces. Her soul was a smashed mirror, each shard sharp and irreparably broken, reflecting her hurt and hopelessness; blaming nobody but herself.
Katie slipped quietly away. She wanted to skip work and go home, where her children were waiting for her. At least her children would always be with her.
*****
Iruka felt weird. It was the sort of feeling that someone would have gotten if he had come across a parent of one of his students getting Anko’s snake to lick his privates while simultaneously crying into a peanut butter sandwich. Strangely ashamed, would be a way to put it.
Iruka really hoped that the Third hadn’t written this. For one thing, it was bloody ridiculous. And who could really adopt eight children? Two or three, maybe. Four, even, if they had a lot of money. But eight? Iruka shook his head, but tucked the journal into his pouch. He couldn’t bring himself to throw it away because the first few pages was almost exactly the same as the Third’s handwriting…and even the rest was nigglingly familiar, though he couldn’t quite put a finger on it.
*****
The mission room had had children present for the past two weeks that Iruka had manned the desk for. This meant that Iruka hadn’t been able to swear at any bad reports for the past two weeks. But Konoha’s jounin and chuunin still behaved. They were worried about the eerily pulsing vein on Iruka’s left temple.
A rumour had started that if you touched it, the toucher would receive immeasurable luck. There were great many bets on who could touch the vein first, but so far, nobody had been able to muster enough courage.
Iruka was filing all the reports for the day, and he had let the other office workers leave early in what they thought was a gesture of goodwill. Or to be more accurate, they had scampered away looking like they in fear of a volcanic eruption.
Iruka didn’t mind either way. He needed some time to let off some swears, although he didn’t have much to swear about. Iruka was sullenly muttering nonsense to himself as he filed the papers into their respective slots, when Kakashi stumbled into the room.
He seemed disconcerted to find Iruka alone. Iruka snorted internally in glee. Finally he had Kakashi in front of him, ready to receive the tongue-whipping of the century, with no impressionable child in sight.
Before Iruka could say anything, Kakashi handed over his report.
Iruka’s fingers curled around it as Kakashi uncurled his own from the scroll, and Iruka couldn’t help but notice that three of his fingers had left bloody fingerprints on the paper.
“Kakashi-san,” started Iruka.
Kakashi looked at him, and the tired, fathomlessly empty look in Kakashi’s grey eye made Iruka hesitate.
“…Thank you for your hard work.”
Kakashi’s body language didn’t betray anything. Iruka thought for a moment that maybe he hadn’t heard what he said.
“Hai. Iruka-sensei.”
Iruka watched as Kakashi disappeared in a delicate swirl of leaves; leaves that looked as though they were saying good bye.
*****
Iruka had filed the report, gone home, slept, taught at the Academy the next day, and had been working for one hour into his mission desk shift when it hit him.
That chicken scratch excuse for handwriting.
In fact, it was so obvious whose it was, that he smacked himself on the head for not realizing it sooner. All the ninjas in the room twitched involuntarily when the teacher punched himself.
“That bloody fucking anal plug!” Iruka swore loudly.
Everyone else now froze. Eyes swivelled to the three shocked genin, who were staring at their former Academy sensei, and shot back to Iruka.
Iruka was so furious at Kakashi and how well he had covered shyness with grossly inappropriate innuendo, that he had completely forgotten that there were children in the room. As soon as he found Kakashi, he was going to –
Kakashi walked in. He slouched to the desk and looked at the surface of the desk near Iruka hands.
Iruka was going to stare stupidly at the jounin.
“Maa, good afternoon, Iruka sensei. Are there any missions for me?”
The mission room was quiet as they waited for the world to explode or something to happen.
“... I’m going to give you a paper cut and squeeze a lemon on it,” Iruka said half-heartedly.
Kakashi was startled, and raised his eyes to meet Iruka’s. Other ninjas in the room gaped. Some were outraged at such blatant favouritism.
“Iruka-sensei?”
“Since when could you fake the Third’s handwriting?”
“How did you…since I got the Sharingan,” said Kakashi warily.
A pause.
“How’s Pakkun doing? His leg give him any trouble?”
Kakashi almost took a step back at the simmering fire in Iruka’s eyes.
“I, uh…”
“Kakashi, don’t move.”
Iruka got up, walked around the desk and stood in front of Kakashi, right in his personal space.
Leaning forward until his lips were a centimetre from Kakashi’s right ear, Iruka whispered a few words that only Kakashi could hear. The other ninjas in the mission room saw Kakashi tremble, and before they could trade glances at the shock of the Great Copy-nin shaking, they saw Kakashi turn his head slightly to place a clothed kiss on Iruka’s now non-existent Vein of Hell. Ton-ton squeaked in horror as his bet went down the drain.
Iruka brought his arms around the legendary Copy-nin in a full embrace.
“Everytime you said, ‘thank you for your hard work,’ Iruka-sensei, I wanted to hear you say ‘welcome home’ instead,” murmured Kakashi into Iruka’s hair. Iruka sighed.
“Mmm. Why did you throw it away.”
“I thought you were with Anko.”
Iruka snorted lightly into Kakashi’s shoulder.
“She’s family. More or less.”
Kakashi was content.
“Why did you write in the Third’s hand?”
Kakashi pulled back slowly, blushing.
“It was the story of us,” he said. “I wanted to record it in an elegant style, the most elegant one I knew… but it was too much effort later, when… when I thought it was hopeless. I got so agitated, and I stopped trying.”
“I’m going to buy a lemon and squeeze it on your stupid scabby fingers right now.”
Kakashi grinned. He brought up his long fingers to cup either side of Iruka’s face and kissed him on the lips.
Iruka was the one to jutsu them into his bedroom.
*
Three months later
Kakashi opened his Sharingan eye. This was going to be a close one, and he felt a bead of sweat running down his face, and another couple following it straight after.
He shouldn’t have done it.
He knew he shouldn’t have done it but he couldn’t bring himself to regret his decision, as he dug out the tightly packed load fan-mail from his letter box.
There were still a couple left, stuck at the back but conspicuous enough to be seen, and Kakashi’s fingers were too occupied to reach it properly, but he knew he could do it, Iruka wasn’t home yet; almost there –
Yes!
Triumphantly having removed the last of the fan-mail, Kakashi summoned Bull, but Pakkun popped out as well.
“Bull, take these and go. I’ll have two steaks ready for you later.”
Pakkun glared at him disapprovingly, and rolled his eyes.
“Iruka’s bound to know about it anyway, brat,” Pakkun growled. Bull picked up the large pile of letters in his mouth and the two dogs disappeared before Kakashi could retort.
*
Genma and Raidou who were snuggled in their own bedroom far away, were rereading their favourite parts of the new Icha Icha novel. Raidou whistled, impressed even after reading it for the second time.
“Damn, Hatake’s one lucky bastard,” he said.
All over Konoha, the adults agreed in their own respective bedrooms. They also made extra sure that their locks and wards were fully secured before they went to sleep.