Work Text:
これはぼくらの叫びです。 これは私たちの祈りです。 世界に平和をきずくための。
Kore wa bokura no sakebi desu. Kore wa watashitachi no inori desu. Sekai ni heiwa o kizuku tame no.
This is our cry, this is our prayer: for building peace in the world.
~ An inscription at the base of a peace bell at the Children's Peace Memorial within Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park
“Christmas is a time for peace,” the teacher said as she held up a folded piece of paper and a pair of scissors.
“Christmas is so powerful that during World War I, German and British soldiers stopped fighting for one Christmas day and celebrated together,” she continued as she carefully started to cut random bits out of the paper square.
“Christmas isn't about religion. It isn't about gifts or getting things. It isn't about shopping or even Santa,” she said to a host of gasps. Even in a country as non-Western as Japan, Santa still held great sway.
“No,” she shook her head.
“Christmas is about a feeling of being together and knowing that we all live in this world together. It is our unity that makes us strong. We are each of us small,” she went on, setting down her scissors and carefully shaking open her cut-up paper. “But we are beautiful and we can be great.”
The children gasped at the sight of the paper snowflake, enchanted.
“The reason I say this is that today marks a great day of peace for Japan,” the teacher said, holding up a felt cut-out in the shape of a dove.
“It is also a day of great sorrow,” she continued, holding up an origami crane.
“Several times a year—this day among them—every year since 1946, we Japanese have remembered a terrible event–a terrible war that reminds us of why peace is so wonderful.
“We will be making ornaments for a special tree at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and we will be taking them there later this week for a field trip. The whole school will participate so that we have a lot of ornaments to go around. That being said, there will be no lessons today.” She finished to cheers.
“Did you hear that, Kakashi?” Iruka asked, his face in the hallway window. “We're going on a field trip!”
“What are you doing,” Kakashi hissed, waving at him to go away. “You're supposed to be in class!”
“We're coming over here anyhow,” Iruka pouted. “I just left early.”
“You can't just come walking out whenever you fe—”
“Kakashi-kun, is there something you need,” the teacher asked, coming to stand by his desk. He looked at her guiltily.
Iruka ducked, not realizing the teacher had stuck her head out the window and was looking at him.
“You again,” she sighed. “Come inside, Iruka-kun.”
“Yes, Chiyo-sensei,” he mumbled, shuffling his feet.
“Since you're already here,” she trailed off. “You can be be Kakashi-kun's partner today.”
Gai, who had been waving his arms around whispering a loud chant of “Me! Me! Me!” groaned, complaining that he wanted to be Kakashi's partner. Ibiki, his seat mate, gave him a leery glance and leaned away.
“Okay everyone,” Chiyo-sensei called, clapping her hands for attention. “The kindergarten class will be along shortly. All you first years will pair up with one kindergartner.”
Ibiki sighed with relief before paling as a certain dango-loving kindergartner careened into the room screeching his name. For whatever reason, the loud girl always claimed him as her “aniki” and demanded constant attention. Anko might just be a worse deal than Gai. The sickly boy named after a World War II fighter plane that ended up paired with Gai looked as if he might keel over every time Gai did something energetic. It was worrying to see Hayate pale and cough the way he did whenever Gai flailed around and Ibiki felt exhausted just being around the two of them.
The teachers split up the children according to their general dexterity: paper snowflake and felt-shape making to children less likely to dismember themselves with scissors, folding of cranes to children unlikely to make paper shuriken and start ninja battles, and hook forming to the rest of the less articulately gifted.
That being said, children would always be children and Gai somehow got hold of a paper shuriken and proceeded to shout that he was a Great Ninja Warrior. Anko made a paper hat and declared herself a pirate and began to “shoot” him with paper scraps. Their partners gave up on their projects and crawled under the desk to wait out the storm.
Meanwhile, on the far end of the room, Iruka was surprisingly well behaved. His father had shown him how to fold paper cranes when the hospital sponsored a trip to the Children's Peace Monument in October and he found he loved making them. He wasn't quite able to get the creases quite right though, and was busy frowning over a wing fold that kept popping up when Kakashi made an annoyed sound and grabbed the partially-folded paper, shoving a new piece of origami paper at him.
“You're not doing it right,” Kakashi mumbled, carefully creasing the wing flap. Iruka pursed his lips.
“I am,” he countered, snatching it back. “You're the one who's doing it wrong. You don't fold the wing that hard. It's mean!”
“It's not even alive,” Kakashi groaned, grabbing the crane Iruka was yet-again fumbling with.
“And stop messing with it so much! It'll get smushed!” Kakashi scolded, carefully smoothed a crumpled wing.
“You'll get smushed!” Iruka stuck out his tongue and stole the newly formed crane, piling it on his side of the desk.
“Not even,” Kakashi proclaimed. “I'm bigger. You can't smush me.”
“Can too,” Iruka cried, hoarding all the paper on his lap.
“Cannot!” Kakashi tried to steal back the paper.
“Super can too!” Iruka scooted his chair backwards.
“Super double cannot!” Kakashi started to come out of his chair.
“Super double really can too!” Iruka started to lose papers and reached for them just as Kakashi did.
Their foreheads met with a solid thunk and they fell backwards with startled cries, origami flying in the air. Anko and Gai bounded over, curiosity gleaming in their eyes.
“What's going on, Iruka-kun,” Anko asked, an empty paper towel roll in her hand. She pointed it at Kakashi with an unhealthy degree of menace. “What did you do to him.”
“I didn't–” Kakashi was cut off as Gai pushed his way between the paper towel roll and Kakashi.
“Don't point that at Kakashi-kun,” he declared. “No weapons in a cease fire!”
“It's not real!” Anko hit him on the arm with the roll.
Gai was quiet for all of two seconds before he let out a shrill whoop and shouted “ATTACK!”
Iruka, irritated at seeing his papers being trod on, tackled Gai, wrapping his arms around his waist and screaming as he tried to floor the older boy. Gai wiggled and flailed for the table, shouting as he went down. Chairs screamed as they skidded across the floor, papers flying into the air.
Kakashi tried to pull Iruka off Gai when something wet landed on his head and ran down the back of his neck. He looked up just in time to see Anko squeezing the bottle of glue again and rolled out of the way, landing right in the middle of Iruka and Gai's tussle.
Anko threw away her bottle and let out a whoop before leaping at the trio...only to be caught midair.
“What is going on here!” Chiyo-sensei shouted, tucking a wriggling Anko under her arm.
The boys froze and scrambled to disentangle themselves. Iruka stammered a bit as Gai puffed out his chest.
“We were acting out the war,” Kakashi said. “And now we're at the peace part.”
The teacher seemed to heave a full-body sigh of resignation.
“I believe this experience will help us to sympathise with the soldiers,” he lied baldy.
“Nice try,” Chiyo-sensei deadpanned. “You're all still getting detention."