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As much as they experienced excitement on their missions, a good shinobi never disregarded the opportunity to live on the edge - even at home. Daring, as childish as that was considered, was one of the many methods that were used among colleagues and between friends to make their days more interesting. Of course, the eternal rivalry between Hatake-sama and Maito-san had taken that all to an other level, which many were fine to leave it there and turn the other way. There was a fine line between daring and suicidal, and the average shinobi usually had enough near-death encounters to reflect on to know when that line had been crossed. Accepting Maito-san's challenges proved out to be one of those moments.
Admittedly, Konoha Shinobi Academy's headmaster Umino Iruka didn't belong to the category of an average shinobi. In many nins' opinion, both his career choice and personal history were a clear testimony to that, as was his taste in companions. The day when Konoha's grapevines had buzzed with the stories of Rokudaime-sama been seen kissing Umino-san at Ichiraku stand and then followed with the confirmation that Umino-san was actually encouraging the courting in his own manner, many nins who knew the both men had choked either on air or some other more solid substances. Some had suspected there to be something undefined going on between the two, but even those philosophers admitted that the news had been somewhat of a surprise, since all of them had been more or less expecting to either see their Hokage sport a black eye on the following day or at least hear the resulting yelling that many had grown accustomed to when Umino-san was concerned.
Yet, had they all known how the kiss had formed into happening, they perhaps may not have been so surprised about it.
It had, in fact, resulted from a dare.
However, it wasn't just any regular kind of dare. Not the kind that individuals threw at one another over bottles and glasses of alcohol with fuzziness in their minds and uncontrolled slurring warping their words. Neither was it the kind that the young spirits at the edge of puberty whispered to each other in the classroom or at a slumber party, nor the kind given from one mission operative to the other when working on a boring assignment.
This particular dare had started to brew between the two men ever since Iruka had voiced out his desire to eat lunch when he had arrived for his appointment with Rokudaime-sama in order to discuss about the construction schedules for the Academy's E-wing. The tan man had calmly stated that having food in his mouth might keep him from biting off his superior's genius head should Hatake-sama try to make the negotiations difficult again. With an equally flippant response of perhaps enjoying more of their meeting when Umino-san's sharp teeth weren't nipping at his nerves all the time, Kakashi had agreed to the invitation, and the men had chosen a common ground where they felt equally comfortable – namely Teuchi-san's ramen stand.
Needless to say, the lunch meeting had soon warped into an unspoken arrangement to see each other for lunch at Ichiraku, with or without paperwork. Furthermore it hadn't taken long for Kakashi to realize that the way Umino-san addressed him during the lunch hour was significantly different from the way the dark-haired bureaucrat bullied himself an audience during the office hours. Although, more than the enjoyable conversations they had, it had been the look in the dark eyes that had confirmed the jounin's theory.
In those dark eyes of the intelligent tokubetsu, there had been a dare that had waited for a reaction. A dare for Kakashi to recognize the ramen for what it actually stood for, and to act upon the discovery. As it was, the elite jounin hadn't opposed that invitation, since he had already been thinking along the same lines for quite some time. Even so, the question of a date had brought a very fetching blush on the scarred cheekbones, he had to admit. After their initial stuttering over the correct social terminology, the jounin had noticed how their mutual dare gained more undertones when the tokubetsu's dark brown eyes had regarded him steadily over the rim of the sake cup. As they had went their separate ways that night, the both men had known what would be the catalyst that could push them over the tension which they had both sensed to linger on their shoulders. However, neither of them seemed to be in a hurry to gratify the slowly building anticipation that the increased flirting and the vague confessions of mutual attraction had made them feel whenever they met, and so the dare had continued to plant its seeds into their hesitant hearts until they had met on the third official date over the steaming bowls of ramen.
Regrettably, the moment when their little game had reached its turning point, Iruka didn't get an opportunity to properly process the chaste kiss that Kakashi had brushed against his lips when the daimyo's entourage had glided into the stand while at the same time a missing nin on the run from Mist had decided that it was a good time to practice their stealth by trying to sneak in and steal some of Teuchi-san's ramen. The rest of what had happened during the following fifteen minutes was a story that still circulated among all ranks in all administrative departments, even in ANBU headquarters, much to the tokubetsu's bemused surprise.
Nevetheless, when all had been cleared and the involved parties had been dealt with, the two men, both respected members of their ranks, had shared a look by the end of the long day that was telling enough for them both to know that the nice albeit disastrously ended kiss was only just a sprout of what they both had found themselves cautiously nurturing to grow and bloom between them.
To men who had lived their days with only the sense of solitude by their side, there was no more fitting dare than the one of companionship.