I Don't Think You Understand

You like me! You really like me! Wow! What an ego-booster you all are! Thank you again for liking this product of my slightly-lower-than-average temperature brain!

Once again, I do not own Naruto, but if someone could point me in the direction of a place where I might purchase replicas of some of the clothing they wear, I would be most appreciative.

***||***

I miss Kakashi.

There was a time where Iruka would have run screaming from the thought of thinking about someone the instant he woke up. Despite his desire for company growing up, he didn’t want to feel desperate enough for it to think of a person right as he regained awareness now.

He also didn’t like it, since it was a sign that he was growing too attached to the jounin. I’d like to attach myself to him...

Iruka groaned and rolled over. “Enough with the inner dialogue, already!”

Mercifully, his voices then decided they didn’t want to be hunted down, and shut themselves up.

Peace at last.

After a languid stretch, he got out of bed and padded to the bathroom to wash up. He sighed as he looked at his hair in the mirror. Why do I always wake up looking like a bush?

He loved his hair. If he didn’t, he would have cut it long ago, but he disliked it in the morning. He had heard some of his female coworkers discussing bed-hair a while ago, and they had mentioned braiding it before sleep as a good way to tame the morning problem.

Unfortunately, his hair had never been (and if I have anything to say about it, never will) long enough to braid.

After a few minutes of taming it with a comb and a scowl, he deemed himself ready to shower, and hopped in. Ten minutes later, he stepped out, still with a scowl on his face. Do I normally feel this cranky when I wake up, or is it a special occasion?

Iruka was actually a morning person, when it came right down to it. He loved the potential of a brand new day, the challenges he faced in interesting his students in the ninja way...

...seeing Kakashi...

“Yes, seeing Kakashi,” Iruka sighed, grabbing a towel and rubbing it over himself. “Why is my mind so one-track these days, anyway?”

Seconds later, he had his answer. Having been stuck in teacher conferences since yesterday, he’d have to have had something to occupy his thoughts aside from his cheerful imaginations of bloody mayhem to upper bureaucratic school boards and the people who manned them. Since Kakashi, in his own way, was as pleasant a thought as thinking about children throwing kunai at the idiots (err, I mean important officials) who endlessly debated issues that had little or nothing to do with the facts as they stood, it shouldn’t have been such a surprise to Iruka that the man was more or less always on his mind.

Especially that damn mask... That man had trust issues, Iruka knew. He could sympathize, but he wondered why the man wore a mask so...obviously...when he could do what Iruka or Naruto did and use his own face. Iruka already knew that part of it was due to the man’s own desire to drive other people crazy (and gods knew it worked very well at its purpose), but that couldn’t be all of it.

I’ll get him to take that mask off for me if it’s one of the last non-platonic things I do!

***||***

I’ve gotta take the mask off when I’m around him sometime.

That thought, along with attempting to figure out who the hell (who in their rights minds, more like) was sending him those scrolls.

It’s been a month or more since we started dating, and longer since I started tailing him. I know he’s trustworthy. Why haven’t I done it yet?

Iruka, from what he had observed, had to have been one of the most honorable people (barring Gai, though he was currently having trouble thinking of Gai without shuddering) he’d ever met in his life, and he had already spent a month in the man’s company. In that time, he’d had yet to hear a request that he lower his mask.

I think...he understands some of it. Kakashi knew he had trust issues. After most of his precious people died or left, it wasn’t difficult to see why he had them. The mask was a by-product of that distrust of people. He still remembered what he had thought about it back then...if they don’t trust me enough to stay with me, then I won’t trust them to remember what I look like.

The mask hadn’t come off since, though nowadays, he’d had a form of enjoyment out of seeing his new precious people try to see under it. There’s only one way they’re going to get a look at it now, but I doubt they know what it is.

Kakashi snorted softly through his nose, uncaring as the cloth absorbed the heat. Then again, I doubt any of them would figure out the solution. Still, I’ll give them some more time on it. They’re all smart; they’ll get it soon enough.

Still, he had reason to be happy today; it was Friday, and Iruka was out of teacher meetings at long-freaking-last, so he’d get to eat dinner with his boyfriend tonight. His eye smiled as he walked down the street. A nice dinner with Iruka, talking with Iruka, maybe cuddling with Iruka, and then maybe a kiss or two would be really---

“Ah-HAH! My eternal rival!!”

--really nauseating.

Schooling his eye into a bored look, he turned to face the green-spandexed “Green Beast of Konohagakure.” “Gai,” he said simply.

“Augh! Your coolness defeats my youthful vigor!” Gai theatrically clutched his head as he always did at Kakashi’s greeting, but Kakashi found his eye absently wandering down Gai’s chest, where an inner cheerleader that looked suspiciously like Naruto’s Sexy no Jutsu form was doing cartwheels and grinning about the fact that spandex didn’t cover as much as it revealed...

...I have to get out of here...

“I challenge you!”

NOW!

Before Gai could even begin to throw a punch, Kakashi did the one thing he thought he’d never have to do in a match against Gai; he threw his hands into the seals for a teleportation jutsu and fled to the place he knew Gai would never go.

The very top of Hokage Tower. Good thing Gai’s afraid of the Hokage.

This had to stop. Why the hell, out of all the possible people (Iruka being an exception) he started to find himself looking at, did Gai have to be the only other one?!

Part of Kakashi’s inner ten-year old popped out to give a heartfelt raspberry, a drawn out “gah-rooooooooosss!”, and an eye-roll before it popped back into the cage in the back of his mind.

Sad as it is, I’m going to have to agree. Sure, the guy had a great body, a good moral/ethical code, a pleasant enough voice (when not yelling challenges), strong relationships with people, a keen understanding of when he wanted to be left alone and...

....and...

Oh shit. Now I am going to be sick...

Kakashi suddenly had the sinking feeling that tonight’s talk with Iruka was going to be an interesting one...and not in the good sense.

***||***

Feelings, ladies and gents, are NOT logical. My previous tangent included thoughts as to this, but finding your rival attractive all at once is kind of a sickening revelation (as BrucesGirl kindly revealed to me in yet another review; I thank you again for your candidness), but if it's dealt with, it can end either in a very powerful attraction and ensuing relationship, degenerate into an even stronger rivalry, or you can push past it and...just be friends. Since many of you seem to have noticed that this is an Iruka/Kakashi/Iruka (or however it's put in fan-speak), you can probably guess where this whole strange problem might result.

...mind, I said might.

Thank you all for your reviews! You make me so happy to write; will you increase my joy?