I Don't Think You Understand

Cookies are, in fact, excellent motivation. I wish it worked toward schoolwork, but that's getting done, slowly but surely. Thank you once again for all your kind words and threats to upchuck at the past few strange chapters!

I do not own Naruto, but a hug from him sounds really good right about now...

***||***

Iruka decided on curry for dinner with Kakashi. He loved curry; it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to make, but the outcome of all of the effort made it worthwhile. Curry rice has to be one of the best things in the world.

Eating habit-wise, Iruka was more like Naruto than he let on. He loved ramen (he wouldn’t eat ramen with Naruto so much if he didn’t), but since man couldn’t live on ramen alone, he’d been forced to look outside his preferred eating range for something equally as tasty...so he’d come to curry.

Curry was...oddly innocuous. It didn’t look like much at first, just a brown sauce with meat and vegetables in it, but that was just what sight said. A cautious inhale brought the scent of spices inside to analyze, but those didn’t really make it a fearsome dish either.

No, that was up to the taste buds to determine. One taste brought you the flavors of the meat, the sauce, the vegetables...and an almost overpowering kick that had you screaming for water, a fire extinguisher, an ice jutsu...anything to save one’s tongue.

Iruka liked this feeling. He liked the curry for its ability to surprise. And why I’m making a comparison between myself and food is something to be thought over later.

He had today off; one of the kids (probably Konohamaru-kun and his gang of friends) had tried to blow up the school (...third or fourth time?), and so a team of ANBU were going through looking for the placed explosive tags and talking to the (doubtlessly) grinning miscreants who had called all this.

A day off was welcome, since it took more or less the whole day to make the curry. I’d better get started.

***||***

A character in a book (or some other being before that character) once said that a clean and orderly workspace is the sign of a disturbed mind. Certainly, a high level of organization in one’s affairs could be construed as the person in question possessed of an anal-retentive nature, or too much free time. Either could be bad for the health.

With that in mind, Kakashi set about to making on of the most disjointed lists of questions to ask Iruka that he could think of. I’d prefer it if other people didn’t know of my disturbed thought processes...

List in hand, he looked at the clock and decided to start getting ready. It wouldn’t do for me to be late when Iruka’ cooking dinner. I might get a steaming hot plateful of whatever-he’s-making right to the mask.

His mask was a bitch to clean, so he thought it best to be prudently (and cautiously) on time. I think my students might have a heart attack if they knew I was capable of being early instead of just being on time...

He rose and dressed himself carefully in a shimmery black, long-sleeved shirt and blue slacks. There wasn’t much he could do about the standard-issue sandals (I don’t think any other place except non-shinobi villages even carry them) or his mask (...I’m going to have to take that off around him sometime...), but all things considered, he thought he looked rather nice.

He looked at the clock. The last messenger-bird message he had gotten from Iruka had specified the time of arrival to be 6:30, and it was about a quarter to six now, so if he went for the bottle of sake he was hoping to contribute to the end of the meal now, he would have enough time to wander leisurely over and still be on time.

Perfect.

Searching through the market, he finally found a decent bottle of sake, and after a quick peek at another clock, he discovered that he had accomplished his goal. His eye in a happy curve (after looking around warily for any traces of Gai) and one hand on the list taking up space in his pocket, he made his way to Iruka’s door, and knocked twice upon reaching it.

“Come in,” he heard. With a smile and a shrug, he entered and removed his sandals. He inhaled the spicy aroma with appreciation. Mmmm, smells like curry. Making his way to the kitchen, he had to stop and grin (eye as well as mouth) at the scene before him.

Dressed simply in a t-shirt and comfortable canvas pants, Iruka was stirring a pot, every so often doing a careful scrape of the sides and bottom. His feet were bare, and his ponytail was in a looser, lower tail than usual.

That wasn’t what was catching Kakashi’s attention the most, however. The credit for that went to Iruka’s garishly yellow apron, touting the words “don’t eat me; I’m the cook!” in an equally loud shade of blue.

“Lowering your guard isn’t healthy, you know,” he commented mildly.

Iruka lifted a hand to scratch his head, and a kunai sailed about three centimeters from Kakashi’s ear to stick in the wood of the doorframe.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. “Not healthy for the intruder,” he temporized. “Need any help in here?”
“No, none,” Iruka replied cheerfully, turning to greet Kakashi with a smile. I missed that smile.. “It’ll be ready soon. What’s that in your hand?”

“Huh? Oh.” He hefted the small bag. “I thought some sake would go well with the meal.”
“That it would,” Iruka agreed. “Just put it in the refrigerator for now. We can heat it later if that’s what we decide.”

Kakashi complied, and mentally congratulated himself on the way his hands were not twitching. It’s probably better to ask after I’ve got a full belly and some alcohol in me anyway...

***||***

“Ah,” Iruka sighed, plopping himself onto the couch next to his boyfriend. “I’m glad I made that.”
“Me too,” Kakashi agreed, putting an arm around Iruka slowly. “That had have been some of the best curry I’ve had in a long time.”

Iruka blushed. “Thank you.”

Though the meal and the conversation had both been pleasant, Iruka couldn’t help but think that Kakashi looked somewhat nervous about something (and one of these damn days, I’m going to figure out just how I know that by looking at him and that infernal mask...). The man’s body was controlled, but for all Iruka knew, it could have been the slight squint in the visible eye that gave it away.

Or maybe he’s somehow projecting his emotions at me in a way I can sense; can we just get ON with this now?

“Anything on your mind, Kakashi-kun?” Iruka asked deliberately being more familiar than usual. Maybe it’ll relax him...

Kakashi jumped a little in surprise at his familiarity. Or maybe not... “Things here and there, Iruka-kun,” he said slowly, also using less formal speech.
“I’ve missed you these past few days,” Iruka said, leaning his head on Kakashi’s shoulder and nuzzling a little.
“I missed you too,” Kakashi said. The muscles against Iruka’s cheek bunched a little.

He’s steeling himself for it...

“I’m not very experienced in this whole thing,” Kakashi said after a comfortable silence. “When I wasn’t with you, while you were at that conference--”

Iruka made a face at the reference to the past few days of mental trauma, but said nothing.

“--I kept having strange thoughts, so I was hoping if you could answer a few questions for me.”

“If I can,” Iruka answered carefully. I do wonder what he’s been thinking...

“If you have erotic thoughts about your rival or someone other than your boyfriend, is it a bad thing?”

...and now I’m not sure I wanted to know that. He took a moment to organize his answer so he didn’t sound like a jealous idiot (even if I am) or someone who had the sudden nigh-irrepressible urge to throw up the meal he’d eaten earlier.

Fantasies about Gai?!

He took a deep breath, then another, and another for good measure to quell the nausea. “I’m going to answer the second part first,” he said carefully. “I will say that while one’s significant other doesn’t particularly want to know about stuff like that--”

He felt Kakashi wince a little, but scooted a little closer to show he wasn’t upset.

“--there really is no way to stop looking around. It’s just appreciating beauty, and depending on the person doing the looking, nothing more than that.” He snorted air through his nose, remembering a sour occurence with a friend a few years ago.

“One time, a friend of mine’s girlfriend went looking around. She never went back to him, and he was really put out about it because she did what no person just ‘appreciating beauty’ would do; she actually decided to appreciate it up close and personal.”

Kakashi tightened his grip on him, and Iruka realized he’d been letting his voice rise. He rested against his boyfriend for a moment before continuing. “So, it isn’t a bad thing, but you have to know where looking stops and touching starts.”

“And my looking at Gai?”

No, stomach, I forbid you to vomit. I’m the one in control here. “Sometimes it happens,” Iruka said, doing his best to shrug. “Love and hate can be two sides of the same coin, and there are times where that energy’s got to go somewhere. If you do, you do, but you don’t necessarily have to act on it.”

Kakashi suddenly slumped against Iruka, who did his best to hold him up. “Oh thank the gods,” Kakashi muttered. “I would have such a problem doing that...”

Music to my ears. “Well, if you want to, you want to,” Iruka said, doing his best to sound neutral. “It’s all up to you.”

Kakashi pulled Iruka to him and kissed him on the lips through the mask. A shy peck, really, but it warmed Iruka to have the jounin take the initiative instead of hesitating and asking.

“So, next question; what can constitute having sex with someone?”

The good feeling abruptly disappeared. Oh crap...

***||***

Iruka is showing more patience than Kakashi than I would, personally, but then again, he's probably got a lot more control over his hormones than I can even imagine, which is pretty good for me to write. Emotion-wise, though...it's to his credit that he doesn't get angry with Kakashi's admittance of looking around.

Really, there would be no reason for him to get angry, since he looks around too, and it's virtually impossible to deny your significant other something in a relationship that you don't have a limit on. Hypocrisy would be a no-no.

If this chapter was a little late, my apologies, but it's getting down to crunchtime here. Might I have some more cookies to munch on as well?