Bathhouse revelations

Chapter 10

It was Saturday afternoon. Sprawled comfortably on his couch, Umino Iruka was reading a book, a vague smile on his lips. It had been a while since the last time he had felt this relaxed... Indeed, his few days of vacation had done him much good, he mused with a smile. And after all what he’d gone through in the past weeks with those gossips running around the town, he deserved at least that much. Oh yes, he definitely did.

Iruka sighed heavily as he remembered he would have to go back to work again on Monday morning, feeling a bit depressed by the thought. For some reason, he felt reluctant to face his responsibilities again now that he was enjoying so much having free time and some part of him even wished he could never go back to his tiring routine. But he knew this wonderful quietness unfortunately couldn’t last - he couldn’t stay home like this forever, he had to make a living afterall. Which meant going back to his stressful and demanding job at the academy... But it was not the end of the world; the chuunin knew that when he would see his students’ little faces, his reluctance would disappear and he would find back his usual enthusiasm and devotion; that was just the way he was.

The brown-haired man frowned at the thought of his return to the academy, wondering how people would react. Surely enough, children would be thrilled to see him again; if Team seven and the Hokage were to be trusted, they had missed him quite a lot, he thought warmly. But then again, he would have no problem to deal with his students’ excitement and questions; he was more preoccupied with everybody else’s attitude - that is to say, the other academy teachers and the parents’...

The chuunin wondered with mild apprehension how they would react when he returned to the academy. The Hokage had said that some of his coworkers and a few parents had fought against his sacking, so he knew that he was not entirely unwanted at the academy. But surely enough, some of them probably didn’t see under such a good light Iruka’s return as well. Especially the Principal and the parents who had received the Hokage’s visit – the chuunin could only imagine how cold and distant they were going to be toward him after what had happened... At least, that’s how he had first thought they would react, but the academy teacher had to admit that to the light of the recent events, he didn’t know what to expect anymore.

When he had gone to the mission room on Friday evening for his usual mission room duty, Iruka had expected the mission room to be crowded with curious people gossiping between one another about his dismissal and his quick return. He had even expected people to ask him questions; in such a situation, it was hardly avoidable – everybody would want to know what had happened. Or at least, that’s what he thought. But that evening when he entered the mission room, he was stunned to find it surprisingly empty. Still stranger, the few people in the room weren’t even talking about him! They still watched him curiously though – but much more subtly than before, Iruka had to concede. Which puzzled the brown-haired man, to say the least. But things got even weirder as the day went by; when he walked back home through the village’s busy streets that evening, Iruka noticed with surprise that people had stopped whispering together at the sight of him when he walked down the streets as well. Instead of gossiping like mad at his sight like they used to do only a few days ago, they subtly followed him with their eyes and looked away when he gazed in their direction, obviously trying not to get caught staring at him. Not that they actually managed to; Umino Iruka was a trained chuunin, even if people seemed to forget about it.

The brown-haired man had been surprised and unsettled by this unexpected turn out, to say the least. He guessed the Hokage must have talked to more people than she pretended to... Yes, it was probably what had happened. But Iruka knew better than to imagine people’s sudden respect for him and his private life would last long – no doubts that in no less than a week, the whole village would drop its act altogether and everybody would start to openly discuss him private life again just like before. Not that Iruka actually believed that the Godaime’s warnings – or, knowing the said woman, threats – had been enough to convince people to actually stop discussing his private life out of his hearing range anyway. Iruka had no illusions; people probably started whispering like mad at the precise moment he was out of sight. Because nothing could possibly affect the Konoha gossip channels, not even the fury and the ‘politics’ of the Hokage herself. People were only trying to hide their interest for him for a while, that was all. But still, it was very nice of the blonde woman to have gone through the trouble of convincing people to be more subtle about their obsession with his private life, Iruka thought with a small smile. The chuunin really appreciated the fact that he was not assaulted with questions – it made his life much easier. He would have to remember to thank the Godaime for her unexpected tactfulness... Because let’s say it, tact was not the Godaime’s strong point.

The chuunin wondered if his students’ parents and his colleagues at the academy would act as if nothing had happened as well. Undoubtedly, Iruka would prefer it that way; he’d be glad if he could avoid going over his sacking with his curious coworkers and with some clingy parents. He could just imagine Mrs. Kadokawa, the good-hearted mother of a small red-haired girl in his class, ranting over why she was so glad that he was back: she couldn’t quite believe at first he had been fired, he was such a good teacher, always nice with her little Juuri and all, he helped her with her jutsu like no other teacher had before, oh, there was no need to be that humble – but she’d never liked the principal before, oh no, he was such a snob man, she hoped that he would get fired for lacking so much judgement and dismissing such an efficient and fine young man like him...! And it would go on and on. And if Mrs. Saikyu was to join her, the chuunin knew it would get even worse. Just thinking about it, his head was aching already... No, he’d be happy to avoid all that fuss if he could, but he knew better than to have his hopes up.

Iruka’s chain of thoughts was suddenly broken by the sound of someone knocking on his front door. Getting up, the academy teacher walked to the entrance to answer, wondering who could be visiting him; he wasn’t expecting anyone’s visit and Naruto generally didn’t even bother to wait for him to open up before entering. Opening the door, Iruka was surprised to find out that his porch was surprisingly visitor-free. Looking around, he saw nobody standing in the deserted street and frowned. Could it be a mistake? Or maybe it was a prank of one of his students... But somehow, the chuunin was under the impression that his students, for once, had nothing to do with this suspicious anonymous visit.

Shrugging it off, he closed the door and returned to his book, telling himself that he’d find out what it was about sooner or later. And sure enough, about fifteen minutes later, the knocking sound reached his ears again. Walking up to the entrance, Iruka opened the door and it wasn’t a surprise for him when it revealed no other than Hatake Kakashi, who was looking as relaxed and nonchalant as ever on the chuunin’s porch. But on a closer look, the faint blush appearing at the top of his mask gave away the man’s obvious nervousness to be there, a thing Umino Iruka did not miss to notice.

“Ah, Iruka-sensei...” the jounin greeted with obviously fake boredom. “I hope I’m not bothering you?”

“No, of course not; I was reading a book,” Iruka assured him hastily, feeling a bit nervous as well to face the Copy nin again. The last time that he had seen him, they had both stood over his threshold in a very different situation, he remembered mildly; the silver-haired man and him had had a light, unvoiced disagreement about what was to be done about his dismissal. Iruka wondered with curiosity and mild anxiety why the jounin had come to see him this time... But somehow, his presence was not making him feel as anxious as it should have, for some reason.

“Ah, good,” the jounin answered and there was a short silence between the two men, the ex-anbu suddenly seeming hesitant about something. “Er, sensei, I...”

“Yes?”

“I don’t want to be rude or anything, but... I was passing by and I was hungry and I wondered – that is to say, if you feel up to it – we could go to the restaurant – to claim back the lunch you owe me, so we’d be even.” The silver-haired man had blurted out the last sentence in one shot, without even taking a breath. Then, he stared at the chuunin a bit nervously, like a dog who wasn’t sure if he was going to get reprimanded or not for pissing on the carpet, foolishly hoping his mischief would go unnoticed if he didn’t look too suspicious about it.

Iruka blinked at the Sharigan user, not understanding what the nervous-looking jounin was talking about at first. But then, he remembered their previous lunch at the Yakitori stand and a fond smile found a way to his lips. For some reason, Iruka was feeling amused by the man’s cute excuse to spend time with him, even though the prospect of that meeting was making him nervous. He had not missed to notice the way his small meetings with Kakashi-sensei were starting to look more and more like dating and he didn’t quite know what to think about it – although he had to admit that he truly had good time when he was with the silver-haired man, it still made him a bit uneasy to be around him.

“It’s not rude at all; I do owe you a lunch afterall,” Iruka reassured the jounin with a smile, “Just let me grab my coat and I’m coming.”

“Sure,” the silver-haired man sighed, looking a bit relieved and as he went back inside his apartment to get his coat, Iruka couldn’t help but wonder if the jounin had honestly expected him to turn him down or something. He was not that rude!

Locking his door behind him, Iruka turned around and smiled at the older man. “So. Where are we eating?”

“Feeling up for tempura?’ Kakashi asked on a more relaxed tone and the chuunin smile’s widened.

“Sure. I haven’t had any in months,” he admitted a bit sheepishly and the jounin’s eye curved up happily.

“Tempura it’ll be, then.”

The two teachers started walking together through Konoha streets, Kakashi leading the way to what he assured the chuunin was the best tempura in town and the academy teacher gladly followed him, since he himself had a very poor knowledge of the village’s good restaurants. On their way, their discussion remained light and easy, although Iruka soon started to feel quite uneasy with the attention they were gathering just by walking side by side and talking together; it seemed as if wherever they went, everybody was staring hungrily at them. Oh, they made sure the two men didn’t see them stare openly, but Iruka could just feel their gaze on him at the moment he looked away - and surely enough they weren’t fooling the jounin either.

For some reason, all that attention made the chuunin a bit uneasy. Not that he wasn’t used to that kind of attention; he’d had people staring at him like this for over two weeks now and he had stopped to care about it long ago. But now that the Copy nin was standing by his side, Iruka could not help but think that it made things different; it was practically as if Iruka was giving them more gossip material to talk about. He knew it was stupid of him to think that way, but he couldn’t help it. Of course, he knew pretty well that the gossip channel was bound to go wild again about it - surely enough, some would start saying that Kakashi and him were going out together now that they’ve been seen so many times eating out together...

Oh, and why did he even care?! They could think he was going out with half of the jounins in town if they wanted! After what he had gone through, he was not going to start to care again about what the village thought of his private life. Certainly not. Especially now that he knew that those rumors didn’t change the fact that he was appreciated nonetheless through the village as an academy teacher, like the recent events had allowed him to discover.

On the other hand, if being observed by all those strangers made Hatake Kakashi uneasy, he didn’t show it at all; the jounin kept on walking as if he wasn’t even noticing people were staring, and Iruka could only guess he was used to such treatment, being the famous nin he was. It reassured the chuunin a bit that Kakashi didn’t care as well and they kept on walking and chatting sociably, ignoring the curious glances people were sending them.

To the academy teacher’s surprise, Kakashi led them to a small and rather gloomy-looking building – quite different from the friendly yakitori bar they had eaten at the week before. When they entered it, Iruka had the distinct impression this was the kind of obscure place where people who didn’t want to be found or recognized hid themselves; the mostly deserted restaurant was filthy-looking and badly-lit, the only light being the one coming from the few dusty windows of the building. There was only one waitress, a heavily scarred woman in her mid thirties standing behind a deserted wooden bar/kitchen, washing dishes in silence. In one corner of the room could be seen the only customer of the place, a tall man covered with black clothes half-hidden by the shadows.

Quite gloomy, indeed. Not the kind of place you usually took people to for a date. Which was a good thing... in a twisted kind of way, Iruka mused. But at least, they were sure to have some privacy there.

The two men sat down at a small square table nearby the bar and far from the passer-by’s curious glances, to the chuunin’s relief. The silent waitress almost at once took their order – Kakashi recommended the house’s speciality, the seafood tempura and Iruka imitated him. Then, the waitress went away with their orders and started to cook their food right in front of their eyes at the nearby bar/kitchen – Iruka guessed that in this kind of establishment, it was a given that the food was to be made right under the customers’ suspicious eyes. They watched her for a short while and then started talking about the book Iruka was currently reading, an epic story the jounin said to have been wanting to read for quite some time. Their conversation quickly drifted to literature, a subject they were both fond of, and they talked passionately about books they had both liked and their respective favorite authors.

They were so caught up in their discussion that it was a surprise for Iruka when the scarred waitress came back with their food; he was sure she had left just moments ago! What a quick service! But that was to be expected; the place was nearly empty afterall...

It was only then that the chuunin realized with a start that while he was talking passionately with the ex-anbu, he had somehow missed to notice how the tiny and dirty-looking restaurant had unexpectedly filled up with people. The whole room was suddenly overcrowded with people of all kinds, dozen of people ridiculously massing themselves around its small square tables and by the stunned look on the overworked waitress’ face, such a thing was not exactly a common occurrence. Which didn’t surprise the chuunin much, since he was quite sure all those people hadn’t showed up to taste the place’s famous tempura...

Damn those gossipers. They were chatting discreetly among each other, as if just enjoying a meal with friends, but Iruka wasn’t fooled – all their attention was directed toward them. For some reason, their sight caused some anger to stirr in Iruka’s gusts. Couldn’t they just leave them alone for once? Why did they have to follow them even there?! Didn’t they have respect for anything?

Fighting back the annoyance and the uneasiness he felt at the sight of all those people, Iruka inwardly cursed himself for having been so oblivious to the presence of so many villagers. He couldn’t quite believe he hadn’t noticed all those people before now... What a pitiful ninja he made, really! It was truly shameful! Being so caught up in a discussion that he didn’t notice something like forty people coming in such a tiny restaurant... Really, Iruka didn’t understand at all how he could have missed something so obvious...! He usually wasn’t so oblivious of his surroundings like that; on the opposite, he was usually more aware of his surroundings than your average chuunin due to his long experience teaching to pre-genins – which was actually quite a hazardous profession, even if people didn’t realize it. But then, why had he missed to notice -forty- damn gossipers entering the minuscule restaurant?!

Now that the brown-haired man thought about it, this is exactly what had happened at the Yakitori bar too. Kakashi and him had talked for so long that he had arrived late to his class... Twenty minutes late, in fact. And if it had not been for the silver-haired man, Iruka wouldn’t even have noticed he was late to start with, him who was always so aware of the time passing by!

As he started to eat, the academy teacher mused about that strange effect the silver-haired jounin seemed to have on him; whenever he was with Hatake Kakashi, he seemed to loose notion of time - or of everything else happening around him, for a fact. Which was not like him at all, he thought with a slight frown. He wondered what that meant... Looking at the said man, Iruka noticed the jounin was staring at him with his uncovered eye curved up, his navy blue mask covering his smiling face as usual. But unsurprisingly, the silver-haired man’s serving of tempura seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Once again, the chuunin frowned.

“You shouldn’t do that,” he scolded the silver-haired man, who raised his eyebrow in surprise.

“Do what?”

“Eating so fast.” At those words, the surprised look on the jounin’s face turned into one of mild amusement and he chuckled softly.

“Glad to see you care, sensei.”

The chuunin rolled his eyes with mild amusement at the older man’s teasings. “No, seriously, it is bad for your stomach. And what’s the point of eating out if you don’t even take the time to appreciate the food you’re eating? Isn’t that a waste of money?”

“Good point. In fact, that’s exactly why I eat in small, discreet places like this where people leave me eat alone and don’t always try to steal a glance at my face when they think I’m not looking,” Kakashi explained simply, his uncovered eye smiling.

“I wouldn’t glance at your face if that’s what bothering you,” the chuunin said playfully to the Sharigan user, a smirk on his lips, and the man’s eye glittered with the same playfulness.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t, but I doubt they would show as much discretion and sensibility as you, sensei.”

No need to specify who he was talking about, Iruka thought sarcastically as he eyed the crowd of curious people surrounding them. Of course, discretion and sensibility could not be said to be the whole village’s strong point recently... Looking back at Kakashi, the chuunin noticed that the silver-haired man was looking a bit bitter at that thought. Their eyes met and the ex-anbu’s expression softened a bit.

“I guess I underestimated how interesting we were,” he finally explained, looking more sorry than anything else. For some reason, Iruka felt a wave of pity and affection for the man, who had obviously hoped against all odds that the small, gloomy restaurant would assure them some privacy.

“The great Copy nin Hatake Kakashi, being wrong?” Iruka teased him on a mock-surprised tone to lighten the mood and to his surprise, the jounin burst out laughing. He laughed with that same rich, intoxicating laugh Iruka had heard at the Yakitori bar and at the sound of his frank and cheerful laugh, the brown-haired man felt his heart beat faster in his ribcage for some reason.

“If only...!” Kakashi answered warmly, his uncovered eye glittering with amusement and somehow, Iruka could not help but smile back at him. An easy silence ensued between the two men, as neither of them felt the need to add anything else, and the chuunin quietly finished eating his serving of tempura.

“I wanted to thank you,” the chuunin finally said and the Copy nin’s visible features shifted into a puzzled expression, his eyebrow raising comically.

“What for?”

“I heard you and Team seven fought for me when I was fired...” Iruka explained softly and at those words, the jounin quickly looked away, looking embarrassed.

“You don’t need to thank me. I did what I thought was right, that’s all.”

“I heard you were quite... convincing,” the academy teacher said with amusement and Kakashi shifted uncomfortably on his chair, his gray eye still avoiding Iruka’s brown ones. Iruka smiled; somehow, he could not help but find cute the jounin’s sudden shyness.

“Yes well, I’m not exactly the kind of guy people want to confront...” the silver-haired man explained weakly and Iruka laughed warmly.

“I can guess.”

--

The whole meal went well. When Iruka was done eating, they chatted sociably over a cup of coffee, ignoring all the glances people kept on sending them. Then, the chuunin paid for their lunch and they walked aimlessly through the village together, talking about everything and nothing. In the end, they parted a few blocks away from Iruka’s apartment, but right before he went away, the silver-haired man seemed to hesitate. It lasted only a fraction of second, but the brown-haired man saw it. And as Kakashi walked away, the chuunin found himself staring at his retreating back with a thoughtful frown; he had the distinct impression that the jounin had wanted to say something but lost his nerve at the last moment... Somehow, it bugged the academy teacher, who thought about it for the rest of the week-end, feeling both puzzled and mildly annoyed by the Sharigan user’s strange attitude.

Of course, Iruka had his own theory to explain the man’s sudden hesitation - he’d be stupid if he wouldn’t have figured out immediately that the jounin wanted to ask him out. It was obvious. The chuunin just wished he knew why it bugged him so much; he truly didn’t know what to think of Kakashi’s feelings anymore, yet his indecisiveness was starting to annoy him... It didn’t make much sense.

Did it mean he actually wanted to go out with the jounin? Iruka wished he knew... He spent the rest of the week-end wondering what was the nature of his feelings for the Copy nin and why the man’s hesitation was bothering him like that. But much to his own dismay, those questions remained unanswered and when Monday morning finally came, the academy teacher was glad to go back to work, for his musings were soon forgotten at the sight of his energetic students.

As he remembered about his arrival at the academy, Iruka couldn’t help but smile. The seven year olds had been so happy to have him back that it had been impossible to discipline them for the first hour of class or so ; they kept on telling him how much they had missed him and how much of a jerk had been the substitute teacher - some even blabbed proudly of their ‘achievements’ to contest’s Iruka’s departure. The chuunin preferred to refer to those as ‘mischief’ though, because putting fire to the academy, throwing eggs at passer by, breaking a few windows, kidnapping their teacher and breaking havoc into the Hokage tower weren’t quite the kind of things he categorized as ‘achievements’, but his students didn’t seem to mind. When he gave them extra homework to punish them for their horrible behaviour during his absence, the seven year olds didn’t even look put off – obviously, they had been right to do what they had done as far as they were concerned and had no regrets whatsoever, no matter what kind of punishment they received.

But to say the truth, they had gotten off a bit lightly; extra-homework for setting fire to the academy and tying down their substitute teacher to the wall was clearly not a very harsh punishment, and they knew it pretty well. But Iruka didn’t have to heart to be too harsh with them, since they had been doing this for him in a sort of twisted way – even thought the chuunin was convinced that a few of them hadn’t been so interested in defending his rights when they had thrown eggs at villagers and put fire to the west wing of the academy.

And although he would never admit it, the chuunin was a bit proud of his seven year olds for giving a good lesson to the Principal... The old man had it coming. But of course, he would never admit it to his students... or to anyone else, when it comes down to it.

Iruka smiled fondly at the thought of his misbehaving students as he finished packing his belongings in his deserted classroom before heading to the mission room to do his shift at the mission desk, as he always did on Monday afternoon. As he was walking out of the academy, the brown-haired man’s thoughts went to his colleagues and students’ parents reaction and he frowned. He didn’t know what he had expected, but their reaction to his return had been... odd.

Nobody brought up the subject of his dismissal or of his return. They acted as if nothing had happened, talked to him as if everything was normal again. Except that it wasn’t. It clearly wasn’t. Iruka couldn’t put his finger on what was wrong with their whole attitude, but he knew something was off.

Under normal circumstances, he might not have given it much thoughts, but as the academy teacher was walking down the street to reach the mission room, he couldn’t help but notice that people were giving him strange stares. Of course, he was used to the ‘strange stares’ part, but somehow he was under the impression that those stares were a bit different from the ones he usually received. As if there was something new and mildly interesting about him... Not unlike the way his colleagues had acted toward him earlier, now that he thought about it. And Umino Iruka didn’t believe in coincidences; he knew there was something going on. But although this strange change puzzled him a bit, he hardly cared anymore about what people thought or said; he had stooped caring long ago. Nevertheless, this unexpected weird attitude was puzzling him.

Ignoring the stranger than usual stares he kept on receiving, Iruka headed for the mission room, already hoping for his shift to be over – even though he didn’t want to admit it, his little hellions had completely exhausted him. But as he opened the mission room door, he realized that what he had previously thought would be a nice and quiet evening filling out mission reports was turning before his eyes into a very long and painful evening...

The mission room was downright crowded – Iruka had seen it crowded before, but never that much; the room was so packed with people that the brown-haired man wondered how he was going to be able to make his way to the mission desk. But what really upset the chuunin was not the ridiculously high number of nin packed in the small room, but the whole atmosphere the room radiated. If Iruka hadn’t known better, he would have thought there was a party going on in the place; people were joking out loud and laughing cheerfully, making so much noise his ears were protesting already – obviously, they weren’t there to share gossips or to spy on him. Or at least if they were, this was a very disturbing new strategy...

Iruka stood at the entrance of the room for a good minute, staring with incredulous eyes at the unbelievable mess the noisy mission room was in. He had expected people to sober up a bit because of his presence but strangely, nobody seemed to mind him being there at all. In fact, some people Iruka had never seen in his whole life even greeted him with knowing smiles and patted him on the back affectionately, which only made the chuunin more uncomfortable and suspicious than before. This wasn’t right... The academy teacher knew he should have felt relieved by the fact that people didn’t seem to be so obsessed with him anymore, but somehow he couldn’t help but think that this new atmosphere hid an unpleasant surprise...

As he stared at the room, Iruka suddenly noticed that in the back of the room, somebody’s head was standing a good three feet higher than anybody else, and he could only guess that the said person was standing on a chair or on the mission desk. The said man was busy writing down things in a note book and taking flat, green things from people that looked suspiciously like money bills...

Oh no, this couldn’t be good. The chuunin had a very bad feeling about this...

Scrutinizing, Iruka easily recognized the man who was standing on the mission desk and felt anger stir in him at once. But of course, it had to be him again - the chuunin wasn’t even surprised to see him there. No doubts that he was behind all that commotion! Who else could turn the mission room into such a mess so easily? But it couldn’t go on like that; whatever what that man may think, the mission room was NOT a party room and Iruka was determined to find out what this commotion was about this time and put an end to it. They could call him a party wrecker if they liked, but he was not going to allow such a ridiculous exhibit of lack of professionalism to take place under his shift. No, sir.

The academy teacher braced himself and difficultly made his way through the tight crowd, pushing people out of his way until he finally reached the mission desk on which stood an enthusiast Genma.

“Genma-san!” he yelled through the commotion to be heard. The jounin heard his name and turned around; when he saw Iruka, a wide smile graced his good-looking face and he positively beamed at the brown-haired man.

“Hey, hi Iruka,” Genma greeted the brown-haired man warmly, bending forward him to make it easier for them to talk. “How are you?”

“Genma-san, what is going on here?” the chuunin asked sternly, on a tone he usually used against misbehaving students and which had proved with the years to be just as efficient even with the wildest jounins presenting their badly-filled reports to the mission room. But like Iruka had noticed several times before, Shiranui Genma seemed to be immunized against it, the academy teacher’s annoyance and sharpness bouncing off the carefree man. And just like Iruka had feared, the senbon user didn’t seem to mind the teacher’s obvious annoyance; on the opposite, his smile only widened at the man’s sharp words.

“Well, we’re having a betting pool,” he announced cheerfully, and Iruka mentally twitched.

A betting pool.

In the mission room.

For some reason, the chuunin felt the urge to punch the man for being such an irresponsible jerk and for lacking so much judgment. He was about to scold the jounin, but then thought better of it and eyed him warily; Iruka hoped the jounin had had enough common sense – or at least, enough sense of self-preservation – not to start a betting pool that possibly could stirr the Hokage's anger. Iruka remembered only too well the Godaime’s fury when the opportunist man had used his position as temporary Hokage bodyguard to go through her secret files to find his crush’s birthday... And so did most of the village, in fact - Tsunade-sama hadn’t been exactly very quiet about it. But surely enough, Genma wasn’t stupid and careless enough to do the same mistake twice...

Yeah, right.

“And what exactly is this betting pool about?” Iruka asked warily, fearing another outburst from the short-tempered Hokage. Whatever he had expected the jounin to answer, he hadn’t expected that.

“About you and Kakashi ending up together or not.”

Genma had said it casually, as if he was talking about the weather, and Iruka stared at him dumbly. It took the chuunin’s frozen brain a good three seconds for the smiling man’s words to sink in, and then Iruka felt incredulity and indignation swell inside of him. He stared at the older man’s face, some part of him hoping to find on it the proof that this was just a very bad joke, but the honest eagerness showing on the jounin’s face proved his hopes to be vain. This... this couldn’t be! He couldn’t be serious! This couldn’t be!

“Say what?!” the academy teacher asked indignantly, glaring at the bandana-wearing man, but the jounin once again didn’t seem to be affected by the brunette’s glare; he merely smiled at the man’s sharp words.

“Oh, it’s just the starting bet,” Genma explained playfully, and Iruka could only gape at him, shocked by his carefree attitude. “If you want, you can bet on more precise things, like on which date you’re gonna kiss, who’s gonna be the women in the couple, how long you’ll stay together... you get the drift. Some weird fellow came two hours ago and bet 200 bucks that Kakashi would give you a nurse uniform for your birthday, see how large the range is. Some bets are even a bit disturbing, if you ask me; I know we’ve got our share of perverts in town, but still-”

“Wait, let’s just make this clear,” Iruka cut him sharply, “You’re betting on my private life?”

“Yup,” the jounin answered unblushingly, “Well of course, I can’t have you or Kakashi entering the pool - it wouldn’t be fair, you know? But I myself bet on you, sensei. I hope you won’t let me down on this one!” Genma winked playfully at the chuunin and Iruka flushed furiously at the man’s carefree words. He couldn’t believe the guts of that man!

“N-No!” Iruka protested indignantly, “Genma-san, you can’t do that!” The senbon user eyed him with surprise.

“What, betting on you? Come on sensei, have more faith in yourself!”

“No! I mean this betting pool!” Iruka all but cried, exasperation making him snappy. “You can’t do something like that!”

The senbon-user gave him a mildly puzzled look. “Why not?”

“Because it’s my LIFE, Genma!”

Iruka didn’t know what he had expected the jounin to say, but when Genma burst out laughing at his words, he was left speechless. Iruka stared at him, stupefied by the man’s arrogance and shameless lack of empathy. Laughing, the bandana-wearing man shoved aside his arguments with a casual wave of the hand. “Oh, don’t be so prude, sensei!” Then, he flashed a wide smile to the chuunin and turned away to face a nin brandishing money toward him, ready write take another bet.

As Genma wrote down into his notebook the man’s bet, Iruka saw red. His fits clenched painfully, the academy teacher stared with disgust and bitter anger the jounin as he took away the better’s money, barely containing his anger. Didn’t he realize how wrong it was? Didn’t they realize how wrong it was!? This was really too much!

“I don’t think the Hokage would approve of it,” Iruka hissed between his teeth with a glare that could have pierced a whole through a concrete wall. But once again, the chuunin’s anger seemed to bounce off Genma, who merely smirked at the academy teacher.

“Hell yes she does,” Genma answered jovially, “she bet 600 bucks on you.”

At those words, Iruka felt something snap in him.

The Hokage. Even the goddamn Hokage. That was the last straw. That was really too much. The jounin must have felt it too, because his smile suddenly faded away and he slowly started to back down carefully; so did the other nins surrounding him, who had also sensed the danger.

But unfortunately for them, it was already too late.

“OUT!!” the chuunin positively roared, “All of you, GET OUT!!”

The mission room didn’t need to be told twice. In less than three seconds, the whole room was completely deserted, apart from another chuunin in duty at the mission desk, who looked very much like he wanted to be anywhere else. And for a good reason too, because Umino Iruka looked like he boiling with anger. And in fact he truly was boiling with anger.

Oh, if he ever put his hands on that Genma again, he swore he’d make him regret to be born...!


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To be continued. Don’t forget to review ;)