A Better Place

A/N: In celebration of the first comment - here's chapter 2!! Will update again as soon as I get more comments~! x333

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Tsunade inspected the man currently sitting on the examination bed with a frown upon her face. There were a few details that just didn’t add up.

“You were followed?” she asked while with a slight flinch taking a closer look at the severed tendon. It looked doubtlessly painful, but it was far from the first time she’d seen such an injury. With the demanding training that one went through as a ninja it did occasionally happen that someone tore a tendon, but seeing it having been cut in this manner was a first for her. Judging from what Iruka had told her though, there had once been a chance of healing the tendon before it actually got completely severed, but instead Kakashi had taken quite a detour which had only worsened the damage.

His eyes bored, while his teeth were gritting underneath the mask, Kakashi shook his head instead of using his voice that ought to come out as strained while the Hokage was still poking around the wound. Once she stopped though, he further explained.

“I got distracted by this family of squirrels that were dancing in the streets and when they spotted me they fled towards Iruka’s apartment and I followed.”

In other words, he hadn’t really felt like going to the hospital, but had rather longed to go to the place he found the most comfortable in the entire village. If you asked him he thought they should open a small clinic in the chuunin’s living room, just for him so that he wouldn’t ever have to drag himself to this boring place again. Tsunade obviously disagreed however as she slapped him across the head much harder than Iruka had ever struck him with his hands and Iruka didn’t exactly hold back when he struck. The jounin thanked his mop of hair for absorbing some of the blow, but he was still quite certain there would grow a small bump underneath all those strands of silver.

“Had you come straight here I could’ve had you back on duty in a matter of weeks,” the busty woman scolded while heading to the door to call for a nurse to assist her. “Even with my healing arts it’s going to take months to get that tendon fully healed again and in all that time you can’t even do your regular training.”

Glancing over at the crazy jounin, Iruka expected to see a face that was finally realizing the actual extent of his injury, but the man just sat there as if nothing specific was going on at all. The academy teacher wanted to join with his leader and lecture the man in how important it was to prioritize your health, but somehow he managed to restrain himself. There was also the underlying question of why on earth Kakashi had made himself the trouble to get all the way to his apartment of all places, but that was a question for later when the jounin’s foot wasn’t dangling as if barely attached at all.

“You are off duty for three months from this day and you will come here to the hospital daily for rehabilitation training. Until I tell you that you can stop using them, you’ll be using crutches,” Tsunade continued to instruct as a nurse hurried into the room, pushing a wheelchair that would take Kakashi to the surgery ward in front of her. With Iruka’s and maybe also her short skirt’s help, the petite woman managed to get the rather careless man into the seat and then the academy teacher offered to push the wheelchair, an offer the nurse was thankful for. “Every time you disobey my orders you will just make it harder for yourself. By listening to my every word we can shorten your time of recovery to the minimum, is that understood?”

“Yeah, yeah…,” mumbled Kakashi absentmindedly, his eye fixed on the lower hem of the nurse’s white outfit until Iruka had enough of the perversion and pushed his hitai-ate down over both eyes, sparing the poor girl the leering looks and himself the ticking nerves. He didn’t know why, but it irked him more when Kakashi was thinking with his little brain than when other men were openly displaying their primitive sex drive. A possible reason for that could of course be that Kakashi showed it openly so much more than anyone else did, save for Jiraiya who was a pervert out of anyone’s league.

“I mean it, so no more squirrel-stories,” Tsunade said sternly and pushed open a set of double doors leading out of the emergency ward and into a corridor connecting the other sections of the large hospital. “You better be taking me seriously underneath that mask of yours.”

And she wasn’t implicating the mask he wore to cover his face. She knew he really wasn’t as bored as he pretended to be. Kakashi had his weird little quirks, but if he didn’t possess dead seriousness underneath all that he wouldn’t be of even half of his current caliber.

Iruka remained silent behind the wheelchair and thus the only sound that the group emitted the last bit of the way was the occasional squeaks of the old rubber tires of the wheelchair as it was turned, the gentle shuffling of Iruka’s and the nurse’s feet and the clinking sound of Tsunade’s high heels tapping against the hard and sterile grey floor. To the consistent set of sounds it was easy to fall away in thought and before long Iruka’s mind was no longer present, drifting around in another place where he more easily could sort his thoughts out. There were questions he wanted to ask, but not daring to voice them he tried to figure them out on his own. Biggest of all of them was not strangely why had Kakashi taken the detour to his place when even toddler could’ve figured out he needed health care and soon? What moved around in Kakashi’s head though only the man himself knew and asking him most likely wasn’t going to answer anything either. When even the leader of the Leaf had been denied the truth and given some stupid bull shit about squirrels, then there was no way a mere chuunin was going to wring the truth out of the scarecrow.

An audible sigh that escaped his lips drowned in the sound of another set of double doors being flung open as they’d reached the surgery ward. The small group of four was obviously expected as a group of medics were right there to meet them and take the wheelchair from Iruka. Before the academy teacher had a chance to say anything the mop of silver hair had disappeared out of sight and into a room to prepare for the surgery. The nurse headed into another room and Tsunade turned to Iruka one last time while making sideways steps to follow the younger woman.

“Thank you for bringing him here. This will take some time, but it’s no dangerous procedure, so go home and rest assured,” she said, clasping her hands together briefly before letting them fall along her sides. There was something more she wanted to say, maybe something she wanted to ask or just set straight, but whatever it was she bit it back and briefly said something else. Iruka thought he could note something similar to disappointment in her eyes as she opened her mouth again. “If you want to see more of this craziness you can come by tomorrow after work.”

And that was it. Iruka was left alone in the sterile hallway, a fading echo of beeping machines hitting his ears in this otherwise deafening silence. Suddenly he felt very uncomfortable and rubbing an arm, he backed out of the ward and into the main hall from where they’d first come. He guessed he should just do as the hokage had bid him – go home and rest assured – but somehow he had a feeling that the second bit was going to be a bit difficult.

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The next morning, instead of coming well rested to school like he’d hoped, Iruka appeared on the premises of the academy with dark circles under his eyes, legs heavy and his usual gentle smile not quite there. He received several frowns from his colleagues, but it was only one of few male teachers who approached him about it.

“You look a bit run over,” the shorter man commented, quirking a questioning brow that asked more than what he’d just voiced. He was graced with a sigh in return that clearly said I don’t want to talk about it and then the scared man pinched the bridge of his nose as if that would help him wake up some more. Another colleague, one of the younger women came and served him a cup of steaming coffee that he gratefully accepted. He’d completely forgotten about coffee this morning. He hadn’t fallen asleep until the sun had been close to rising and then after a few blissful hours he’d realized he’d overslept so he’d just jumped into his clothes, grabbed a piece of bread to go and rushed to work. There hadn’t even been time for a shower, despite him having needed one since last night. All those hours wasted on trying but failing to fall asleep… he should’ve spent those on taking a shower instead. He mentally groaned and flashed a thankful, but weary smile at the other teachers that showed their concern so openly. At least he was fortunate enough to have people that cared about him all around. It had not always been like that, but now that he worked here at the academy he truly felt appreciated. Even if he’d once maybe had had a chance of continuing to improve to reach jounin level, he didn’t think he’d ever want to leave this place. He loved his job and loved the people he worked with. All was perfect really, save for the fact that Kakashi had come and totally scrambled the small orderly box that was his life. What was wrong with that man anyway?!

As the academy teachers stood there, pampering everyone’s favorite dolphin with comforting pats on the shoulder and small phrases of encouragements and the like, Genma popped his head through the door and was instantly amused at the crowd clinging onto the man he was sent to talk to. Well, he certainly had to tell Kakashi about this one! It’d be interesting to see what kind of reaction that would elicit and the best of all he wouldn’t have to make the story up. Iruka really was being cuddled by a whole bunch of people all at once! Chuunins really were a different breed compared to jounins.

“Aren’t you popular,” the jounin attracted everyone’s attention, his shoulders slouching as much as ever and the senbon flicking to the other corner of his mouth. Receiving some glares at that, he couldn’t help but be even further amused. Maybe he should start making a habit to come here and to tease chuunins or perhaps even copy Kakashi’s little experiment and chose someone’s couch to crash at every now and then. With the reactions he was currently met with he could easily understand why his friend kept forcing his way into the scarred academy teacher’s home. “You’re relieved of mission desk duty today. I’m filling in for you. Orders from above.”

The glares eased up a bit at that and Genma couldn’t help but grin even wider. Certainly an interesting bunch, this crowd. Signaling his farewell with a casual flick of his wrist, he disappeared in a cloud of smoke, obviously unable to just walk away the usual way as ninja of his rank tended to be a bit eccentric like that. There was no fun in being normal after all, especially not when you had the special abilities to be anything but.

Iruka blinked after the man that had gone away as suddenly as he’d appeared, but another pat on the shoulder brought him out of his surprise and he realized what a relief that bit of information had been. It meant that he had the entire afternoon off as his class would be in other hands on a small exhibition from lunch and forward. Only half a day of work was really heaven sent on this very day. He loved the kids and he loved work, but as tired as he was he was afraid that just the morning classes would be enough to break him. If he would’ve had to go and deal with crazy jounins and their disability to hand in proper mission reports after that, there would’ve been a great risk of him ending up crying in pure frustration. His patience wasn’t the best in the world and when tired it was practically nonexistent. Now he only had four hours to get through though. Thank goodness.

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Over at the hospital Tsunade who had worked well into the morning on that severed tendon was back in the long corridors after a couple of hour’s long nap. She’d actually skipped the high heels and taken a pair of more comfortable shoes which resulted in her feet moving soundlessly across the plastic floor towards one of her most stupid patients in the entire premises. The man a couple of floors could possibly compete with Kakashi, having fallen into his own trap and inhaled large amounts of itching powder, causing him to cough so badly that it was a miracle his lungs weren’t torn asunder or turned inside out. Entering the jounin’s room however, she had all but itching powder on her mind. Genma was obviously already back from the academy and must’ve made a small detour somewhere to pick up that offensive object now resting in the scarecrows hand, because Tsunade was sure it had not entered the hospital yesterday. She had checked Kakashi’s pockets herself right after the surgery and found no such thing.

“Couldn’t you have been a bad friend and brought him something interesting to read instead of this crap written by that lecherous bastard?” she muttered at the man with the senbon while snapping the offensive book out of a not very happy Kakashi’s hands. Genma only laughed in that way that made anyone’s temples twitch in frustration, but then he quickly reported that he’d fulfilled Tsunade’s request to ask Iruka to take the afternoon off. He’d never yet been at the painful end of any of the curvy hokage’s punches, but he’d heard enough to be careful not to get himself there. The perverted old hermit had told tales that were more than enough to inspire respect in anyone for Tsunade’s fists. Behind that amazing cleavage there was a personality and a power NOT to mess with.

“Catch you later, Kakashi,” he pressed out between tight lips and bolted out the window before receiving any kind of response. He’d brought the book, gossiped about the funny academy bunch and reported back to their leader and so he had no reasons to linger around the fuming woman.

Kakashi however remained seemingly untroubled by the flare in Tsunade’s eyes and it soon became apparent that he was rightfully calm as the anger soon died and left a very tired expression in its wake. Dropping the dirty book on the table next to the hospital bed, the superior woman put her hands on her hips and tried to stare him down. He just returned the look with his usual face of boredom and she sighed.

“You can’t tell me why you went to Iruka’s now when he isn’t around?” she begged despite suspecting that she wouldn’t get a straight answer even if she sent him to Ibiki for it. Rightful in her suspicions, she was answered with a shrug as the man turned his eyes to the ceiling again.

“I don’t know. I felt like it?” he said noncommittally and nearly monotonously. “He’s quite funny when he worries.” And that was all Tsunade or anyone else actually would get on that matter. It was possible that not even Kakashi knew more either.