A Better Place

A/N: Thank you for the reviews!! They are candy to my soul! x3 I'm so tired at the moment (3½ hours sleep and then biking to the other end of town and back kinda does that to you) but before catching some more sleep I wanted to give you some more of this story! PLEASE ENJOY!
/ Sincerely your Author~!

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A few days at hospital had already passed and Kakashi was BORED beyond reason. His skin was crawling with the urge to go out and do something, but after the third attempt of escape Tsunade had immobilized his legs to keep him in bed even though the jounin knew it wasn’t really necessary to remain still for this long. It was only necessary if they wanted to keep the period of healing down below four months – something that he presently wasn’t all that interested in. He just wanted to get out. The latest Icha Icha just wasn’t as exciting upon the hundredandfiftythird read as it once had been and in the end nothing compared to Iruka. The academy teacher could chase away any trace of boredom by just being in the room. The man certainly wasn’t an exciting person or anything, actually quite to opposite compared to the crazy fellows that Kakashi normally hung around with amongst his rank, but he had these small, natural quirks that the tall man just couldn’t get enough of. His face was more expressive than your usual civilian even and he’d yell and shout one minute, then apologize and pamper the next. He was like a cloud blowing around in the sky – one moment bringing thunder, the next floating around in small puffs, letting through rays of sunshine. Really a peculiar man.

Iruka had not come visit once however. Why? Kakashi was currently gritting his teeth over that matter, his eyes fixed on the perverted text of his book, but without actually reading it. After what Genma had told him about the events at the academy he had really looked forward to get to see the teacher again, but then the man just didn’t show up! Had Kakashi been a character in a comic there would’ve been a dark blur raging around his head and in the door a couple of poor nurses stalled from going in and asking if all was alright, having less professionalism than they had fear for the fuming man. He seriously looked as if he was about to snap.

Soon enough Tsunade walked by however and dealt with the problem. Giving no sign of being afraid she stomped in with her high heels, giving only one harsh knock on the open door as warning as she walked towards the only bed in the room.

“I’ll let you walk again in a couple of days,” the hokage assured as she removed the blanket from Kakashi’s legs, incorrectly assuming that it was her that he was angry at, but as she spoke it was like the air left him and he relaxed back in the bed again. The busty woman quirked a brow and decided to inquire about the real matter as she obviously hadn’t been quite on target. “What’s the matter? Someone stole your favorite book?”

The question at first only earned her a bored glare, but then the man sighed and looked out the window instead.

“Bored,” he admitted and that was it. He didn’t quite understand why he was so angry about Iruka turning up, so he wasn’t going to pour out his heart over it to his leader just like that. Besides, it was a matter between the two of them as men anyway, not as ninjas, and thus Tsunade had nothing to do with the matter anyway. Fortunately the woman seemed to accept his half-lie and with nothing but a nod went on to channeling chakra into his leg to spurt the regrowth of the tendon. Once Kakashi was out of here though, he was going to have Iruka’s head for leaving him alone in such a place. After having gotten so many visits from the jounin, not even having to ask him to come over, Kakashi didn’t find it too much to ask for to get some unrequested visits in return.

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The scarecrow was not the only one caught up in frustration that day. Stuck at the mission desk Iruka could feel an artery near his temple pulsating so violently he thought it was going to explode and before that happened he just wanted to reach out and choke the man before him. What was wrong with all these jounins anyway?! WHY was it so hard to just write on a straight line, complete sentences and NOT spill food all over your report?!

“You seriously can’t expect me to accept this,” Iruka spat out, really struggling to stay civilized with Genma who was grinning widely around his senbon. Ever since Kakashi had gotten hospitalized he’d devoted himself to trying to get to the poor chuunin’s nerves in just the same ways as his friend and the only thing he hadn’t tried so far was inviting himself to the man’s home, but he was getting there. Maybe he would go there tonight, only after teasing Kakashi about it as he was unable to go in his present state. To answer the academy teacher’s question though, he simply shrugged his shoulders carelessly.

All eyes in the room turned as Iruka slammed the wasted paper onto the desk and glared intently up at the grinning idiot before him. It was not funny so could he just stop pretending that it was?! There was a lot that needed to be done in this village that jounins with their crazy quirks obviously couldn’t understand, but was it too much to ask that they just respected it?! Iruka surely didn’t risk his life daily in the field of action, but that didn’t mean that his two jobs weren’t tiring enough. He really could do without all these crappy mission reports.

“Go home. Rewrite,” he said with a fowl scowl then turned a smile just too sweet not to be creepy at the next person in line. “Thank you for your good work! May I have your mission report, please?”

As the poor chuunin behind him flickered his gaze about and then excused himself only to bolt out of the room, Genma mentally chuckled while turning questioning eyes at the paper he’d worked extra hard to make his crappiest mission report ever, which said a lot. He’d even gone out to eat while writing it so he could spill soy sauce all over the crumpled piece of paper.

“What’s wrong with it?” he asked, trying to look angelic, but failing as a smirk broke free and infested his lips in a way that made Iruka want to kill.

“I SAID GO HOME!” And Genma knew exactly what home he’d be going to. Only after a quick visit at the hospital of course.

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Once Iruka finally was done with his mission desk duty he was dead tired and his back felt as if it was splitting in two. He didn’t know why, but maybe it had to do something with his kids in class playing a prank on him and his chair and then the rough woods of the seats at the mission desk certainly hadn’t helped. Groaning quietly to himself he approached the apartment complex he lived in, forcing a smile for the neighbor lady who was out calling her cat in before heading to bed as usual. Climbing the stairs, he really wished that Konoha had more of such things as elevators, not at all thinking of using his saved up chakra supply to help himself home.

Opening the door to his apartment, adrenaline instantly shot back into his system however as he was pretty certain he had not left any lamps on when leaving this morning and now every single one was lit. Pulling out a kunai he stepped into the room only to get disarmed about three steps in. Spinning around with a gasp, he faced the same idiot who’d eaten his nerves some hours earlier that day and he just wanted to fall down on the ground and cry.

“Does my door have a sign that says ‘Welcome all mad jounin and violate my privacy’ that I’ve just failed to see?” he exclaimed in desperation and when Genma answered him with another of his infuriating grins he just fell against one of the walls and covered his face with his hands. Maybe if he closed them hard enough the intruder would disappear?

“You’re so violent,” the jounin just taunted however, flicking the senbon to the other corner of his mouth and letting the kunai drop to the floor where it impaled itself in the wood. “Do you greet all your visitors in this manner? Even Kakashi?”

There was a pained whimper from the chuunin who slid down into crouching position, wishing he could just wake up and find all the unexpected visits and all this madness just a really bad dream, but of course he had no such luck. And then Genma just had to go and mention the one person he didn’t want to hear anything about. He’d gone once to the hospital to check if Kakashi was alright, but when the nurses had told him that his operation had gone as planned at that he was recovering without complications, he’d gotten strangely shy and turned home. The irrational behavior had confused him so much that he had decided never to think of that crazy mop of silver ever again, but now Genma just had to come and ruin everything.

“Don’t mention that man…”

That earned him a chuckle and despite knowing that Genma would have no problem dodging, Iruka still slid down to sit on his butt so that he could throw out a leg at the offensive intruder. If he found out that Kakashi had sent the idiot then he was one dead man next time the academy teacher met him, if ever.

“He was jealous, you know,” the senbon-flicking jounin continued, after having jumped out of reach of the random ticks of Iruka’s legs. Winking at the poor man on the floor, he made himself comfortable in the couch that Kakashi normally slept in, completely unaware of exactly how his colleague’s visits to this place normally transpired. He’d probably actually be surprised if he ever heard how calm they normally were. Even if Kakashi was a lazy prick, he also had a strong urge to annoy certain people into madness. Genma would not guess he came here to just sleep and occasionally eat and shower. To him that sounded too normal to be Kakashi. “Aggressively so…”

Iruka would be a liar if he claimed that that didn’t have him at least a little curious, but preferred to stay in denial and never hear of the scarecrow ever again so that he could have his normal, calm and rather uneventful life back. Some would probably call him boring, but those people probably didn’t have twenty bouncing balls of mischief to look after for a full day of work. After all that one really appreciated just some calm activity if any. It wasn’t like he didn’t like the kids, he quite loved them in fact, but they were tiring.

“Is that why you’re here?” he asked Genma, trying to force his exhaustion out with every word rather than trying to hold it back. If the man had any decency he would pick up on it and be at least a little bit considerate. “To gossip to me about your friend? Godaime didn’t assign you to any new missions?”

“So cold, Iruka!” was the instant reply and the jounin even made a dramatic pose to go with it, hugging himself and turning the most false puppy eyes in history on the teacher. Considering Iruka’s profession though, he should’ve figured the man was immune even to the greatest set of puppy eyes. “We jounin are as human as you, you know! We too need some rest once in a while!”

It was all a big joke, no mistake about that and Iruka just rolled his eyes.

“No one ever considered my need to rest,” he muttered which wasn’t quite true, but none of the jounin did. He was just an academy teacher after all, so why would he need rest? It wasn’t like he came home from work with severed tendons or anything, so why would he need some rest. Suddenly the anger was stirring within him again and he got back up on his feet, fully prepared to throw Genma out. He was not staying another second in his apartment and he’d prove once and for all that just because he was chuunin rank it didn’t mean that he couldn’t get his way.