I Don't Think You Understand

Glad this story can help keep people sane...hell, it's keeping me sane too. I'm in college and am fairly busy, and writing this story makes me relax and chuckle, so I am more than happy to work on it. Every time I read the reviews you generous people leave me, I squeal and bounce in my seat with glee and joy!

Again, I don't own Naruto, and as for having to say that, I wish we didn't have to. It gives me ideas.


***||***

He couldn’t believe it. Iruka could not believe it. He had to be hearing this.
“What do you mean he’s....a virgin?”

“Believe what you want, Iruka-kun,” Asuma said laconically, leaning back in his seat. “He’s never---”

Iruka, at that moment, was glad he was sitting down and in the teacher’s lounge, because the words Asuma-san was saying simply weren’t registering with him right away. Nearly forty years old and he’s never even so much as touched someone sexually?! What kind of weirdo--

“---with another guy.”
“What?” Iruka snapped back to the conversation with a small jump and smile. “Sorry, what did you say?”

Rolling his eyes, Asume sighed. “Geez, Iruka-kun, if I didn’t know better I’d swear you were in his fan club or something.”
“In...his...what?” Perhaps he’d misheard. Asuma did not just say that.

“In his fan club.”

Nope. I heard it right the first time.

“Asuma-SAN,” Iruka drawled, emphasizing the honorific with more force than necessary, and taking pleasure in the way he made the jounin jump. “May I remind you that you were the one who brought up Hatake-san, and that it was you who randomly decided to tell me more than I needed to hear in regard to his lack of...certain experiences?”

With vicious glee, Iruka watched the way the jounin squirmed at hearing him speak in his “teacher-punishing-student” voice. “Now, Iruka-kun--”

“Why did you decide to tell me this, Asuma-san?” Hard, sharp and directed at the vitals; Iruka’s voice could slice rocks. Pity the jounin couldn’t claim any of his body parts as made of stronger stuff, even in his more lewd moments.

Inside, Iruka was laughing his head off. What had actually brought this subject to pass was Iruka’s own innocent comment about how he might take up dating again. Asuma had filled in with comments about various men and women (few people actually knew Iruka’s orientation, and he meant to keep it that way for a while) that Iruka might try dating.

Accidentally (though fortunately for Iruka), Asuma had chosen to fixate on Kakashi.

Asuma fidgeted. Got out a cigarette, started to light it, thought better of it, put it away, and twiddled his thumbs. All done gracefully with the ease of familiarity, and the impetus of an extreme case of nerves. “I brought him up because, except for that Uchiha kid, he’s one of the most eligible bachelors in Kono--”

“I don’t think you understand, Asuma-san,” Iruka interrupted. “What makes you think I’m interested in men?”

Once again, Asuma squirmed. “Well...since Kakashi’s never had sex with a guy--”

Oh, so that’s what he said earlier--

“--I guess I thought you’d be interested in hearing that,” Asuma finished, sighing in relief when the chuunin’s tongue didn’t slice him. At Iruka’s continued silence, he dared to put a shit-eating grin on his face. “After all, virgins are great. Nothing like having one, and all that. Besides,” he hurried to add after Iruka’s face darkened, “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you look at anyone, so I thought I’d cover all my bases.”

Iruka decided to “forgive” the man already. Any more and the jounin might ruin his pants. Amazing what the rumors of my childhood exploits do to ensure the cooperation of the higher-ups. “Thank you for your concern, Asuma-san,” he said politely and with real warmth. “I’ll be sure to think about what you’ve said. In the meantime, I have tests to grade, so I hope you’ll forgive me for taking my leave now.”

An exchange of bows (and one hearty slap on the back from the jounin) later, Iruka left the lounge with a few things to think about.

Never? Has he even...ever considered it? It wasn’t uncommon for shinobi of all ages and genders to experiment with each other. So many died early deaths that it was both impratical and nearly impossible to take one’s time in discovering one’s sexuality.

One of Iruka’s most closely guarded secrets was that he wasn’t a virgin, in either respect. He had had sex with a woman and a man on more than one occasion, but had chosen not to tell anyone of his amorous deeds.

He doubted that anyone would want to hear about the mission where he’d had to work in a male strip joint to seduce that woman (and steal back the scroll containing the identities of several ANBU), and how that woman had, to his shock, paid to have him for the entire night.

Given the way she had pounced on him as soon as they were in private, he saw why some people became shinobi. All of that energy had to go somewhere.

He found out a few things that wild evening; one, women were hornier than they were made out to be (I’m not sure if anyone should want to have sex more than twice a night), and two, his stamina was apparently beyond the male norm, if her gasped praises as he slammed into her were anything to go by.

The woman slept right through his getting dressed, grabbing the scroll from where she’d put it after getting it out of her...obscure hiding place (How the hell was she walking normally after having that behemoth jammed up there?!), blushingly cleaning it off, then jumping out the window.

That had been his first time. And his second. And his third...come to think of it, it had also been his fourth, fifth, and sixth.

Though the mission had been pulled off without a hitch and he had returned without injury, the Hokage (Sandaime-sama, gods rest his soul) had been so alarmed at his exhausted appearance that he had ordered the chuunin to stay at home for a week and not to move unless it was to cook or use the bathroom.

For a while, Iruka hadn’t even been comfortable with the “using the bathroom” part. One day into his vacation, he had been certain that he didn’t really want to see (or touch) his penis again, but as the days went on and the fantasies about what he’d (finally) done began to persist, he had found that ignoring it after that night became pretty much impossible...that and his hand was a very poor second choice.

As for when he’d slept with a man...for some reason, everyone thought that he and Mizuki were sleeping together for a while, though those rumors had been eradicated after the man had thrown that giant fucking shuriken at him...well, at Naruto, but it had still hit him.

No, no, the first man to sleep with him was---

“Iruka-sensei?” Coming back to himself with a start, he realized his feet had carried him right to the base of Hokage Tower without his mind consciously directing them. His mind helpfully (and quickly) supplied the reason why, along with the soothing voice that reached his ears.

“Ah, glad you could make it,” Iruka greeted the lovely young woman, clasping her hands. “And stop calling me ‘sensei,’” he added as an afterthought.

“Force of habit, Iruka-san,” Haruno Sakura said, unconsciously echoing Naruto’s words of a month ago. “You were my teacher for so long...I guess it’s just ingrained.”
“I suppose so, Sakura-kun,” he said with a laugh and sigh, shaking the past from his mind. “Or should I say, ‘Sakura-sensei?’”

She blushed to match her hair. “That has a nice ring to it,” she replied softly. “I’d like to be that someday.”
“Well, isn’t that why I’m here?” He replied impishly. “I am a more than willing tester for this part of your experiment.”
“And you have no idea how glad I am that you volunteered for this,” she said, giving his hands an extra squeeze before releasing them. “Okay. Did you do the exercises I asked you to?”
“This morning.”
“Good, now if you could please follow me?”

Smiling now with a faint hint of amusement (she’s trying so hard to be professional and I keep picturing her at 13 looking that serious for some reason), he followed his young teacher into the Tower for one of his first real lessons in medical jutsu. Almost unconsciously, his face curved into the expression that Konoha hadn’t seen for ten years; the trickster’s grin.

Chew on this, Hatake. What’ll you make of it, I wonder?

***||***

How many hats does this man HAVE?!

Killer taijutsu skills, the ability to sense what he shouldn’t have (unless I’m slipping or something), and now medical training?

Shaking his head, he sensed around for the respective chakra signatures Sakura and Iruka possessed and went around to the windown showing into the room they were in. Sighing, he paid attention to what was going on in there. Reading their lips, he saw that Sakura was asking to do a basic examination of her former teacher. Iruka nodded.

Then he started stripping.

The vest came off first, and was set down gently. Immediately following it was the hitae-ate. Then the zippered black shirt. Then, to Kakashi’s shock, a mesh shirt that he didn’t remember ever seeing the man put on (before he’d stopped monitoring the man getting dressed) was removed.

Why was the sight of a bare back making his mouth this damn dry?

Since he was a lot closer to the chuunin now than he had been when peeping in outside his apartment, Kakashi took the time to examine the flesh before him as if it could explain the cause for his sudden need for water. Contrary to what he had seen earlier, the man’s skin wasn’t warmly golden all around. Several scars of varying color marched their jagged way down a physique that really shouldn’t have surprised him after their taijutsu spar.

One of the more disturbing scars he found was a particularly thick one, maybe about three inches or so in length, that lay right on the man’s spinal cord, near the middle of his back. Widthwise, it was about two inches across.

By all rights, if what Kakashi thought had hit him actually did, Umino Iruka, chuunin of Konohagakure, should have been dead...but he wasn’t. That meant two things. One, the chuunin was beyond lucky.

Two, he shouldn’t only be a chuunin.

Kakashi could have smacked himself for his stupidity even as he watched Sakura blushingly pat her way down Iruka’s muscled chest and back. What the hell had he been thinking about their ranks? It wasn’t all that long ago that he had watched the man dodge kunai, been beaten to a pulp (a now-fully healed pulp) by said man, had the man actually sneak up on him---why hadn’t he seen it?

Excellent taijutsu skills are needed if one is going to teach them. Perfect control of one’s chakra, same; with such control, it’d be easy to hide one’s signature, especially if I’m not looking for an absence instead of a presence. He’s almost as fast as Gai at times--hell, at times, he was faster than me.

The conclusions hit him hard and fast. First off, he was an idiot for not seeing the connections. It was only natural that Iruka’s taijutsu was superior to his own since he didn’t practice it as often. Field shinobi were supposed to minimize risk to themselves, so ninjutsu and genjutsu were more widely used on missions.

Getting into a taijutsu brawl was only wasting time and energy to a ninja, especially if he was outnumbered. It was easier to kill from a distance, or, if one absolutely had to fight in close combat, to use a giant fucking sword or something.

Finally, everything added up into a tidy, neat package. Umino Iruka, chuunin of Konohagakure and an Academy teacher, in training and fact, should have been a jounin or even an ANBU.

He felt pleased about being able to finally satiate a small part of his curiosity about the man’s incredible amount of skill...but realized that he’d still have to follow him.

Kakashi still didn’t know why his mouth went dry around him, after all.

***||***

Today's tangent deals with this fic, of all things. If this shocks you, sorry, but I have to admit that this is the first fic I've written that has an end goal of two people being in love. I have written other fics (currently gathering dust on ff.net under this screen name), but I have never written one that is romantically themed.

Oddly enough, this fic was supposed to be a one-shot. I thought it would end quickly after I started writing it, but as I reached page 10, I realized that if I barely had the patience to wade through a giant one-shot story like this was going to be, it was possible that other people would have my same problem...hence me splitting it up.

I really like Iruka's character concept. He reminds me of all the good things in the world, with enough spice to make him really fascinating. I never saw a reason for him to have completely given up his trickster's ways, so my idea of him in the later years is probably very different from what the eminent Kishimoto-san has drawn/written for him. Who knows?

Finally, since I suspect a little confusion about why Kakashi is (seemingly) being so dense...well, I'll answer that later. Please feel free to leave me a review at your leisure.