I Don't Think You Understand

You honor me with your words and praise, and though I don't normally mention people, I am going to mention BrucesGirl to thank her for her candid telling of married life and the experiences inherent with said relationship. Your praise, as someone who knows, means a lot to me.

I am also exceedingly grateful for everyone's reviews, of course, and probably at the end of this story (whenever that is), I will most likely take the time and say a little something to every one of you.

On to the necessary disclaimer! I do not own Naruto, though it'd be nice if he could cuddle with me once in a while.


***||***

Fucking teacher conferences. I hate them.

There were days that Iruka’s smile was strained. No one realized this because Iruka was so good at the art of misdirection that as soon as he saw someone noticed, he went out of his way to distract that person with a well-timed compliment or comment.

It was astonishingly effective, even in a village comprised of shinobi. You’d think that a population of ninja as talented and powerful as what we have here would pick up on my little games before this. Huh. Guess this goes toward my theory that ninja are just regular people with more developed physical senses than mental.

Not that people in Konoha were stupid; it was the furthest thing from Iruka’s mind. He was just surprised that each and every time he felt his mask crumbling, fewer and fewer people commented (or started to comment) on it. He had a great many friends who didn’t ask when he felt his smile start to slip, but then again, he usually told them if something was bothering him, so it wasn’t their fault.

The conference was to last the entire day, and part of the next. The kids had been overjoyed at his announcement of the holiday, so that had been taken care of. He had sent a message to his boyfriend to ensure the man didn’t waste his day looking for him, then settled into the routine of a day comprised of lectures to him, instead of the other way around.

His smile was very strained after that message was sent.

To his pleasure, it seemed to have an effect on the snobs who deemed themselves masters of all things to be taught. Someone up on the podium would catch sight of his face, pale, and start stuttering. After about five or so episodes of this, the teacher’s teacher up on stage who involved themselves in the bureaucratic aspects of lessons instead of the person ones would become so embarrassed that their self-important speeches would end early.

Maybe some bloodlust aura is starting to slip through? Excusing himself to the bathroom, Iruka checked on his reflection in the mirror. Smile still there, even if it’s not very sincere, but no, no bloodlust present.

Then again, he was sitting in a room with other people whose pleasant expressions were equally fake. One good rallying cry...

No, no, keeping your job is a good thing, Umino, a good thing.

The wonderful mental images of taking the administrators prisoner and putting them into a room filled with the very children their jobs permitted them to avoid came to mind, but instead of pushing it away, he let it continue, even though he knew it made his smile look distinctly creepy.

Doesn’t matter. At least it looks real now.

***||***

I have to get out of this apartment. Fully dressed in jounin uniform (arsenal and all), Kakashi decided to go for a jump around down and look around. It’d been a while since he could do that without fear of something sinking into his vulnerable flesh.

Then again, that is why I had that armor made.

He leapt. He enjoyed the sun, the mild breeze, the clear purity of the air. He smelled dirt, fruit and vegetables out on display, and the various aromas of restaurants getting ready for the customers that would soon pour in.

He bypassed all of these after little more than a cursory glance. Now that’s why I don’t do this very often; much as I love my home, it’s kinda boring from up here.

He decided to head to the training grounds. He knew he had to get his mind off of Iruka (I miss him already? Dammit, it’s barely been a day), and what better way to do that than to watch people he knew beating the shit out of tree stumps, targets, and each other? None that I can think of!

With a certain eagerness that had little to do with bloodlust, he worked his leisurely (but still quick) way over there, and for the course of an hour, he cheerfully (and expressionlessly) watched Gai do (from the time he arrived) five hundred one-finger pushups (switching hands in the middle), a thousand crunches, four hundred squats, a hundred roundhouse kicks with each leg, and a thousand punches to the tree stump in front of him with each arm.

By virtue of squashing his chakra signature down as far as it could go, he avoided being noticed by Konoha’s “Green Beast” and thus managed to escape having a challenge issued to him.

He moved on from Gai, but he didn’t see anyone else on the field. Gai tended to do his training in the afternoons, since he claimed that “if the sun is at its apex, then so must be I!” or some other quaint notion like that.

Lee-kun, Gai’s student, had no such qualms about practicing at any other time of the day, but then again, Gai’s other student, Negi-kun, also practiced at any and all times of the day, and after Lee-kun had declared Negi-kun his own eternal rival...

Kakashi’s inner musings were interrupted by the sounds of flesh slapping flesh. A fight? Someone’s fighting?

The old instinct to see how others trained reared up in him, and his next coherent moment was up in a tree, shamelessly spying on the two people fighting.

It was Naruto and Sasuke.

Naruto still wore orange, but he had toned it down considerably; his clothes these days were mostly black, but there were distinct orange sidebars on his pants. Though the day wasn’t warm, he’d taken off his shirt and was sweating. A necklace swayed around his neck as he dodged a blow from Sasuke that could have taken his head off had they been fighting seriously.

Sasuke too had a different way of dressing now than from when he had been younger. Blue was still a prominent color in his wardrobe, and he no longer wore white; he seemed to favor dojo-style pants and shirts resembling yukata, only much shorter...though at the moment, he too was shirtless.

Kakashi was shocked at the contrast between his former students. Naruto, he knew, was naturally tan, but having spent a great deal of his time in the sun, parts of him were slightly darker than the rest, but for the life of him, he could not understand why Sasuke, who spent as much time (if not more) in the sun as Naruto could still be that shade of tinted white.

They’re both strong. He was proud of them a lot of the time. They’d grown up from being stupid little boys with major ego problems...to near-adults with major ego problems. At least they’re not trying to kill each other now.

Naruto had fantastic muscles. He had never really bulked up; his build resembled Gai’s more than anything else, but with less tone and more raw power. His skin shifted and seemed to writhe as he moved in response to Sasuke’s attacks.

Sasuke himself was no slouch. He’d never be big; Kakashi had known that ever since he had seen him as a genin. He’d grown into having the kind of aquiline, sculpted body that carvers and painters begged to render, but that slenderness was offset by the sheer speed the boy was able to muster.

Not as fast as Iruka-san, though.

It was almost like they were dancing, if the manic grins, lack of half their clothing, sweat-covered torsoes and obvious battle lust could be ignored. The sheer violence of the strikes was countered by the deceptive grace of every movement, every foot or fist landing just so and no farther.

It was beautiful.

Here was their friendship seen firsthand; though the power behind any of those blows could have easily broken tree stumps (I’m glad neither of them are fighting Sakura-chan; she’d shatter tree stumps), the blows that actually landed were gentler than the force behind them led one to believe. They took such exquisite care to not hurt the other one (and to make it look like they were trying to kill each other) that their control had been honed, nearly to perfection.

Seeing them like this, Kakashi’s mind drifted into the future. It was all to easy to envision them going into the ANBU together, either one of them then becoming Hokage (probably Naruto), going shopping with each other for food (they’d live together at that point), kissing each other senseless...

WHAT?!

Kakashi snapped back to himself, and pulled that last mental image back into his sight. It was perfectly clear, as clear as the fighers were in front of him now, though this image had no bearing on reality. Naruto (who was the taller of the two now, though not by much) had grabbed Sasuke, putting one arm around his waist and the other around a shoulder, hand holding Sasuke’s head in place as he fiercely pressed his lips against the Uchiha’s. For his part, the Uchiha was pulling the blond to him so hard that Kakashi was surprised to see them still standing, the blood rushing away around his mouth, making it white, making the kiss violent, a battle for dominance involving two alpha males each determined to own the other...

With a small gasp, Kakashi broke the strange spell of that vision. The real Sasuke and Naruto still sparred on in front of him, oblivious. Right then, I think I’ve had enough.

Jumping away as quietly as he could, Kakashi couldn’t even find it in himself to panic over this latest development. He only had one thought as he jumped back to his apartment, firmly on the idea of cooking himself some food.

Now what the fuck am I supposed to do about this?

***||***

“Sasuke-teme?”
“Dobe?”

Shaking sweat out of his hair, Naruto looked around with a mildly disturbed expression on his face. “I think I sensed someone watching us while we sparred.”

“Probably did,” Sasuke replied indifferently, then muttered to himself, “idiot.”

***||***

My mother is a teacher, a college professor. As someone who has actually sat through a meeting at one of those torture sessions known as a "teacher conference," I have a great deal of respect for teachers in general for not rioting and beating the shit out of the officious farts who think, because they have doctorates, that they can dictate how much money schools get and how teachers teach.

As for Kakashi...someone mentioned in his or her (I can never tell unless there's something obvious in the screen name) review that if he'd been reading porn books, then he must have some idea of what sex between two people is like. The broad mechanics, probably, but I will say this; it's possible to read a porn book if its plot is good. For the purposes of this story, I'm going to say the Icha series has an okay plot (I don't know any differently) and that is what keeps Kakashi turning the pages.

He's noticed the male form in general now. You have no idea how difficult it was for me not to have him checking out Gai...though Gai isn't bad-looking in my opinion, it'd just be too damn weird. I like the pairing, though, because anyone who writes it well can make it work in such a way that leaves me speechless.

As for the scrolls, the majority of you appear to think that Naruto is sending them. Hmm.

I love each and every one of your reviews. Will you keep spreading the love?

And before I forget, if this chapter is slightly late, my apologies. The logistics had me confused for a while.