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Dear Iruka-sensei,
I want to visit for my birthday, but the old man says we’ll be too busy. He won’t tell me what we’ll be doing, no matter how many times I ask. Anyway, he’s about to send his letter off, so good-bye.
Naruto
Iruka enjoys getting letters from Naruto, even if he has to read them in the Hokage’s office and then give them back to be filed or destroyed. (He hasn’t figured out, yet, which it is. But he suspects most were carefully burnt. There’s nothing worth filing in Naruto being homesick or comparing last night’s meal to Ichiraku’s ramen.) While it isn’t common for Naruto to include a note to Kakashi as well, it happens often enough that Iruka isn’t surprised when Kakashi is also called into the office this evening. It is more surprising when Iruka is handed a very short note (even Naruto usually manages an entire page) while Kakashi is left standing, empty handed. Iruka finishes memorizing the note, hands it over to be burned or filed, and waits to be dismissed so he can go home and make dinner.
Instead, the Hokage stares at him for a long moment before turning her stare on Kakashi and then back again. “I have a mission for you, Umino. Return here the morning after tomorrow to collect a letter that needs to be delivered on the tenth to a safe house near the shore. That should give you time to make arrangements at the Academy.” She waits a moment for Iruka’s quick nod of acceptance before turning to Kakashi. “You have bodyguard duty. Make sure Umino arrives safely. Both of you, dismissed.”
Iruka fumes all the way back home. He may not take many missions these days, but he doesn’t need an entire day to prepare nor does he need a bodyguard for a simple delivery mission within Fire Country. And he has a good many people he’d rather spend a trip across country with than Hatake Kakashi. When he reaches his front door, he takes a deep breath and turns his thoughts to preparing for tomorrow’s lessons and the mission beginning the day after. He doesn’t have to be friends with his teammate in order to do his job.
After leaving the Hokage’s office, Kakashi wanders through the streets of the Village, wondering why they were given a day to prepare. It’s not the first time he hasn’t had to leave almost immediately, but it’s the first for such a simple mission. All he’ll have to do is grab his pack the morning after next from where it sits, ready at a moment’s notice. Part of him suspects this is a punishment detail, but he has no idea why Tsunade-sama would be punishing both of them. Mostly, it looks like a vacation mission, an excuse to give an overworked nin some time off without declaring the nin unfit for duty. But Tsunade-sama must know that he and Umino Iruka are professionally cordial on their good days and, well, barely professional and extremely uncordial on their bad ones. (To be honest, on their single bad day, back before the Chuunin Exams. So maybe she just assumes they will be fine.) Regardless, if his Hokage expects this jaunt to the beach to be relaxing for either one of them, she’s going to be disappointed.
When they next meet in the Hokage’s office, both Iruka and Kakashi are coolly polite and determined to remain so. Their unspoken truce holds throughout the morning, during a quick lunch eaten in the trees, and through the first part of the afternoon. It helps that they speak no more words than are necessary to move the mission forward. Iruka finds that he’s rather enjoying the opportunity to run like this. Maybe he should take more missions during Academy downtimes. Kakashi just runs, letting his focus narrow to Iruka-sensei and any unexpected chakra. He’s acted as a bodyguard before, but never quite like this. He thinks vacation mission is looking more likely, though he’s not sure why either of them would be candidates for one.
They’ve just stopped for a brief mid-afternoon stretch on the ground when Kakashi feels chakra blink in and out of his awareness. “Stay here,” he whispers to Iruka, flashing the hand sign for potential trouble before heading out to see what or who was causing the blink. By the time he tracks the pair of missing nin, they are entering the clearing where Kakashi left Iruka. As he breaks through the tree line, launching himself at the stronger of the nin, he notices Iruka loose two shuriken, one at each of the attackers, apparently without actually looking at either one.
Two minutes later, the missing nin are dead, Iruka is cleaning his weaponry, and Kakashi is impressed. He’s known jounin who could aim pretty well without visual or audio cues, but never a chuunin and never so precisely. They remain silent as they dispose of the bodies and continue on their way, the silence this time that of a team making sure there aren’t more enemies nearby.
When they stop for the night, both confident that there are no other people near to their camping spot, Kakashi finally breaks the silence while he pulls out his favorite flavor of mission ration bar. “You have very good situational awareness.”
Iruka glares and heads for the edge of the clearing, adding a variety of berries, nuts, and greens to the collection he’s been gathering since Kakashi started their small fire. “Thank you.” It’s clipped, as if he heard an insult rather than a compliment.
Kakashi usually lets conversations die when something like this happens, but tonight he decides to try again. “I’ve never seen anyone manage two killing blows like that. It’s a useful talent.”
Iruka turns to look at him again and then sighs. “It only works within about 20 feet, but it helps with my classes. I can’t really make use of it in the field, except in cases like this, where I can make the enemy think I’m unaware of them.”
“But when there are more than one….”
“Oh, I knew you would be coming up behind them. I can be bait and fight back, but it’s safer with a long-range fighter on my team. I trusted you to have my back.”
Kakashi nods, not being able to think of any response that doesn’t seem likely to drive away this friendlier Iruka.
“Have you ever considered infiltration? It would be a good fit there.”
“Except I can’t really turn it off, so constantly being in new places on high alert…. Just, no. I teach; that’s my shinobi way.”
“But isn’t it as exhausting with all the children?”
“Oh, if I constantly changed rooms or the like, but I have my classroom, which I know perfectly. So I notice if something changes, such as a desk moving, but I don’t have to concentrate either on using it or ignoring it.”
Kakashi grins behind his mask. “So Naruto was right. You do have eyes in the back of your head!”
“Of course!” Iruka grins back at him, clearly not bothered at all. “And you better remember that. I have amazing aim with an eraser.”
Kakashi takes a bite of his ration bar, watches Iruka make a meal with the nuts and berries and greens and something from his pack, and, deciding he doesn’t want this camaraderie to end, says, “I’ll trade you my favorite Naruto story for yours.” He’s a bit surprised how pleased he is when Iruka agrees.
The next night, after a less exciting and more enjoyable day of travel, Iruka notices that Kakashi, yet again, just pulls out a ration bar while Iruka gathers a variety of edible plants to supplement the dried meat in his pack. Tonight, Iruka settles down next to Kakashi while he prepares his meal, raising a questioning eyebrow at the other man when he catches Kakashi looking at his supplies in apparent consternation. “Yes?”
“What are you eating?”
Iruka blinks. It’s an odd question from a shinobi of Kakashi’s years of service.
“I recognize those,” Kakashi says, pointing at some of the berries, “and that,” pointing at a tuber Iruka had been pleasantly surprised to find in this area of the country. “But what are the others?”
“You don’t know? No, wait, sorry. I’m just surprised. We teach….” Iruka stops. Foraging was taught to eight-year-olds, and everybody knows Kakashi was already gone from the Academy long before he turned eight. And, Iruka suspects, during the war, no one would have worried about making sure a child chuunin learned to tell edible plants from poisonous or simply distasteful ones. And after the war, they would, like Iruka himself, have just assumed Kakashi preferred ration bars. “OK, here, taste these,” Iruka pushes three samples at Kakashi, “and tell me what you think of them.” So it’s from the advanced foraging curriculum rather than the beginning, but he thinks a genius will be able to handle it.
In the morning, after a lazy breakfast made solely from foraged plants (Iruka likes having a student this quick and tells him so), they head out for the safe house by the shore. They have strict instructions to arrive between dusk and an hour after, so they actually have to waste time before their arrival.
“I think it’s a vacation mission,” Kakashi says as they take a break by a clear-running stream later in the morning.
“A what?”
“A vacation mission. You know, when the healers don’t actually want to take you off duty but they think you need a break.”
“I’m a teacher! I get school vacations for that!”
“Or it might might be a punishment.”
“Well, I haven’t done anything, Hatake-san. Have you?” Iruka drawls in exactly the tone of voice that every kunoichi Kakashi knows seems to have mastered.
“Don’t tell me you teach that tone at the Academy, too.”
“Nope, I learned it from my mother. Race you to the next stop.” Iruka leaps for the trees without waiting for an answer.
After lunch, Kakashi matches Iruka’s meandering pace through the forest. “You were right, you know.”
“Hmm?”
“It was too early for them to go through the chuunin exams.”
Iruka actually stops for a moment before continuing on his way. “Maybe, maybe not. It’s not the decision I would have made, but I wasn’t their jounin-sensei and I admit I may have been worrying more about Naruto’s response to failure than focusing on the potential for him to learn.”
“I failed them.”
Iruka does stop fully this time and waits for Kakashi to stop as well. “No, you did not. That’s what all new teachers have to learn; some of the kids just don’t make it through the process, and you can’t make it about yourself.”
Kakashi looks away, unwilling to either accept or contradict Iruka’s statement.
“Kakashi-san, if you believed it was best for them to take the Exam, it was the right decision. Will you accept that I believe that?”
Kakashi nods. Iruka is the experienced teacher, after all.
“Good, let’s be on our way.”
They arrive at dusk and wait, per orders, by the large rock some three hundred feet from the cabin. It’s been a good day, Iruka thinks, and Kakashi has been a really good companion these past two days.
“Say, Iruka-sensei.”
“Yes?”
“Will, ah, that is, might you be interested in, ah, joining me for dinner at Ichiraku’s when we get home?”
“Yes. Who pays?”
Kakashi pauses. “Umm…”
“Are you asking me on a date, Kakashi-san?” Iruka has learned that blunt is sometimes best, though he still isn’t sure how to tell before they end up in awkward conversations.
“Yes? I mean, if that’s….”
“I’ll be honored. You pay this time, I’ll get the next meal,” Iruka smiles, and then stills. “There’s someone….”
“Oh, good, you’re both here,” Jiraiya whispers as he pops out from behind the rock and then he raises his voice to shout in the direction of the small cabin on the other side of the clearing. “Yo, Naruto! Come get your birthday present!” Then his voice drops back to a whisper. “So how long have you two been dating?”
Dear Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei,
The old man says I should just write this one letter rather than writing to each of you. I don’t know what’s gotten into him, because he used to be fine when I wrote two letters. We’re moving again, so this will be short. I’m glad you could both come for my birthday! Next time you’re at Ichiraku’s have a bowl of ramen for me, will you? I didn’t know you ate ramen together, but the old man insists he heard you discussing your next trip there. I tried to tell him you don’t really like each other, but sometimes he’s kind of stubborn. Anyway, I’ve got to stop now. Don’t kill each other or anything.
Naruto