Izumo's Problem

V.

They arrived without warning, and there seemed to be a score of them. It caused both Izumo and Kotetsu a moment of sheer terror, but they realized soon enough that they were all friendlies—just a gang of, oh, 8 ANBU nins, that suddenly felt a need to stand at the gates of the village. If any civilians had been around, they might have had heart attacks, but of course a set of ANBU ninjas had the skills to pick a time—or arrange a time—with no one around.

There was no panther mask amid the group; Izumo had known that instantly. But aside from the horrible time spent battling with Sound and Sand after the Hokage’s death, never had either chuunin seen an entire ANBU squad at the village gates. This wasn’t likely to be a visit on normal ANBU business.

“Is anything wrong?” asked Izumo, his voice wavering just the tinest bit.

Laughter erupted from behind the masks.

“So cute!”

“Head over heels!”

“Adorable!”

Izumo blushed bright red and bit his lip.

Kotetsu snapped, “If you have business here, say it. Otherwise clear out. You could cause a panic in the village and start dangerous rumors.”

“He has a guard dog!”

“So cute!”

“Hey, pretty, you gonna put a cat bowl out tonight?” asked an ANBU nin in a raccoon mask, leaning in towards Kotetsu.

“Hey, hey, he’s straight, leave him alone!” said Izumo.

“Cat bowl? Huh?” asked Kotetsu at the same time.

More titters and giggles erupted.

“You pricks! Ibiki ought to castrate the lot of you!” shouted Izumo, his rage and reckless response completely out of character. Kotetsu’s mouth dropped open in shock.

“You better shut that mouth, pretty,” said the raccoon-nin as silence fell.

The ANBU moved into a neat semi-circle, silent and looming. Despite the fact it was a warm and sunny day, they loomed so well, that Kotetsu shivered as he grabbed hold of Izumo and shook him. “Izumo!” he snapped in his drill-sergeant voice again, “We are on duty!”

Izumo looked up at the half circle of silent ninjas and suddenly felt guilty. He knew just how awful it felt to be sexually deprived.

He bowed deeply, saying, “I’m sorry, very sorry. Please, forgive me.”

“If you take off your neck protector for a second, we’ll accept your apology,” said the ninja in the Boar mask.

The nin in the Tiger mask, added, “and tell you about your panther.”

Izumo pulled down his neck covering without a moment’s hesitation and even pushed his hair up with his hands and spun around. Kotetsu collapsed into his chair, thinking that this had to be someone else, not his friend Zumo. It had take THREE years before he had gotten to see Izumo’s neck!

“Wow,” said the nin in the Tigar mask.

“Ibiki isn’t, well, he isn’t—“ said Izumo, his voice now clearly wavering.

“Just a few lashes with a whip, nothing serious,” said the nin in the Boar mask.

Izumo turned a sickly white and swayed. Kotetsu leapt up and supported him. “And I’m sure Kurohyou will be so happy that you told his lover that,” he said. “Get out of here, now.”

They went.

“It was a joke,” said Kotetsu, although he had the sick feeling it really wasn’t.

“He can take it,” said Izumo quietly, suddenly stiffening.

Kotetsu thought about the man with that killer smile and nodded. “You’re right, Zumo, he can. You picked a good man.”

And on duty or not, Izumo had to hug his friend for that.

“He’s amazing, isn’t he?” asked Izumo.

Kotetsu thought about how he’d masturbated thinking of his friend’s lover, he who had never been remotely attracted to a guy before, and sighed, saying, “Yeah, he really is.”

“And so sexy, right?”

Fuck! There was no way he was going to answer that! “Hey, what’s this about a cat bowl? What was with that guy in the raccoon mask, Zumo? Do you know him?”

Izumo giggled. “No, I never saw him before in my life! But, he wants your ass, Tetsu!”

“What?”

“I’m not kidding, really. He wants to fuck you!”

To Izumo’s surprise, Kotetsu didn’t curse or talk about vomiting or wanting to kill the guy, but just said, “Well, if he wanted to get me in the sack, that’s a piss-poor way of doing it! Put out a cat bowl—that metaphor doesn’t make any sense at all!”

“It’s not a metaphor. You gotta swear to keep this a secret, Tetsu, or I can’t tell you. Big time, serious swear, cause it involves Ibiki, and you and I both might be the ones getting whipped if he finds out you talked about it.”

Kotetsu bit his thumb and smeared the blood over his lips in a cross, swearing.

“Ibiki asks certain men to be ukes or bottoms for the gay ANBU nins. If you want a little ANBU cock in the ass, you put out a red cat bowl on your balcony that he gives you, and they come visiting. They’ll all try to come, too, so you if you only want one, you have to make that one bring in the bowl.”

“This is a joke, right?” asked Kotetsu.

Izumo shook his head no.

“Do they do that for the straight guys or the women, too?”

“I didn’t ask, but Ibiki said the gay guys have it hard because guys don’t like being fucked by someone that can kill them or whose face they can’t see.”

“They don’t take off the masks?”

“If they do, they are supposed to use a darkness jutsu,” said Izumo.

“Huh, your panther is a bad, bad boy then,” said Kotetsu thoughtfully.

The two of them sat in silence for a while until Kotetsu said, “Seriously, if a rumor did start up, I think more people might want to be in ANBU.”

“Kotetsu! If that was why they joined, they’d be dead on the first mission!”

“Hmm, good point.”

After another five minutes or so of silence, Kotetsu asked, “What if some poor sap just happens to buy a red cat bowl and feed some strays?”

“I don’t know. I think it is a special bowl that Ibiki gives out, but, maybe not. That guy might have a shocking experience!” The friends exchanged glances and then laughed.

“God, who do you think he’s given bowls to?” said Kotetsu after their laughter had died down.

“I don’t know, and I don’t think it wouldn’t be a good thing to be curious about either. Ibiki, Moreno Ibiki, Tetsu, remember?”

“Oh my god, you were seriously thinking of doing it, weren’t you?”

“I hadn’t had sex in ages, Tetsu! Not everyone is like you! God, you even have guys throwing themselves at you!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, you do fine with the ladies. Or have you forgotten Miss Redhead already?” asked Izumo, a little surprised.

“Yeah, yeah, but explain the guy part.”

“Ah, if you recall a certain ANBU nin in a raccoon mask?”

“You said guys,” pointed out Kotetsu.

“Well, there was that drunk guy in The Yellow Flash last November,” said Izumo.

“Oh, please! He was so drunk he probably thought I was a woman.”

“Nope, gay. I have good gaydar.”

“Were all those ANBU nins gay?” asked Kotetsu, his voice curious, not scornful.

“Well, I said good, not great gaydar. The Raccoon, Goat, Boar, and Tigar, definitely. The Horse I’m not sure of. And I didn’t really pay that much attention to the other three because they didn’t talk.”

“He had redhair,” said Kotetsu, thinking of the nin in the raccoon mask.

“What? Who are you talking about?”

“That babe from last night,” said Kotetsu, thinking fast.

“You said he,” accused Izumo.

“Did not!”

“Did so!”

“Nope, you can’t hear, Zumo.”

“Tetsu!”

Just then a knot of people approached the gate, and the two of them let business distract them. But, like most days on gate duty, it soon became just another long quiet period.

“So is it red, down there, too?” asked Izumo after they’d spent ten minutes in silence.

Kotetsu laughed, “If it’s real, the carpet matches the drapes, baby.”

Izumo sniggered, and then with a wicked grin said, “I’ll bet his cock gets as red as that hair.”

Normally that would have Kotetsu scowling and annoyed, but today he grinned back at Izumo saying, “I’ll bet a certain someone would be hissing if he heard you made such a bet. You sure you want to bet on that?”

Izumo did a good fish imitation, making Kotetsu laugh.

“That’s not funny! Don’t you dare tell him! And like you are ever going to see a hard cock anyway!”

“I could,” said Kotetsu. “That guy wanted a piece of this hotness here.”

“Hotness! With that hair you look like an electrocuted porcupine!” snapped Izumo, willing to lie to put Kotetsu in his place.

“Really? So you don’t think I’m hot? I seem to recall you saying you would do me in a second if I was gay, Zumo. And in vino veritas, although it was sake, if I recall properly. Hmmm, I wonder what a certain—“

“You, you, you!” Izumo picked up his clipboard and tried to wack Kotetsu with it.

“Hey, hey, we’re on duty, here!”

After a good fifteen minutes with only two people passing through the gate, Izumo sighed and said, “You are sexy, Tetsu, but don’t fuck this up for me, please. I really, really, really think he’s the one I want to spend the rest of my life with.”

“Hey, what about me?”

“Don’t be jealous, silly! Of course I’ll always be your friend until I die. And if you had been gay, well, that’s different. I mean you plan to get married, don’t you? How is me finding someone I love and want to grow old with any different?”

“You love him?”

“Well, they say the only difference between love and infatuation is if you are dumped, it was infatuation. I’m definitely in love, but who can say if it is love, I mean like, the one true love of your life? One thing is definite though. I don’t think I’ll ever find anyone better in bed. God, do you think it’s too soon to tell him I love him?”

“Fuck, Zumo, god damn, just, wow! You really, really are kinky! Shit! I mean I would have sworn you’d be all like conservative, missionary style in bed.”

Izumo laughed, easily following Kotetsu’s changing of the topic from love to being good in bed. “Anal and missionary style is sort of incompatible, moron,” he said.

“You know what I meant! But hell, it just takes a while to like realize I’m the one that’s boring in bed.”

Izumo laughed harder, and after a bit, Kotetsu started laughing too.

After they’d recovered and examined an incoming cart from Grass Country, they sat back in pleasant silence. Kotetsu stretched out and put his feet up on the table, tilting back his chair.

“I was vanilla until last night,” said Izumo. “Shit, he did me in front of a mirror and had me use chakra to straddle it.”

And just as Izumo had predicted, Kotetsu fell backwards, legs flying up in the air. But when he got up he was covering his nose, not something predicted.

“Oh my god, you’ve got a nosebleed! You like the idea, eh? Maybe all you need is some inspiration?”

“Shut up.”

“I’ll bet that raccoon-nin is even wilder than my black panther,” said Izumo.

“I thought you said you’d never find a better lover! What’s with this, wanting to cheat already?”

“No! Kurohyou is perfect for me! But that Raccoon guy sounded pretty confident and like he’d be a talker. And there is different kinds of wild, and some, well, I don’t want go there.”

“A talker?”

“You know, the kind that is all, I’m gonna fuck you harder than you’ve ever been fucked and make you scream sort of thing?”

“So Kurohyou’s not a talker?”

Izumo licked his lips and smiled in a way that made him look sexier than Kotetsu had ever seen before. “No, my Kurohyou is a man of action. He doesn’t need words to be sexy.”

“God dammit! You’re making my nose bleed again!”

“How? I haven’t mentioned big titties or the smell of pussy once! Are you going bi?”

“I don’t know! I think I fell down a rabbit hole! I’m mean Izumo, really, come on, just two weeks ago, would you have believed that Ibiki was a gay pimp for ANBU? That you would be in love and covered with more hickeys than a leopard has spots? Getting fucked hanging off the wall over a mirror? Getting tied up? It’s like, like, oh fuck, I just can’t take it all in! My brain hurts!”

“Here,” said Izumo, handing him a handkerchief. “Your nose is bleeding again.”

“God dammit! Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!”

“Kotetsu, why are you freaking out? I thought you liked Kurohyou. Is it just too much gayness for you? Should I not bring it up?”

“No, no, no. I just—“ Kotetsu looked frustrated as he sat there trying to find the words. Izumo waited patiently.

“I thought you were the fucker, I mean like, I thought you fucked them, or well, what is it you gay guys say, topped?”

“Yeah. You thought I was top? Why?”

“I don’t know why! I just did!”

“Why does that make a difference?” asked Izumo, genuinely curious. Then before Kotetsu could answer, Izumo asked in a horrified whisper, “You didn’t turn me down cause you thought I wanted to top you?”

“No! No! I don’t want to stick anything in your ass or any guy’s ass. I mean, just, ewwwww! Guys just like, well, us, well guys are just all farting, sweaty, muscled, scarred, beer-drinking, you know!”

“I hate to tell you, Tetsu, but women do fart and sweat and have muscles and—“

“That’s not the point! I mean like, it would be like fucking yourself! I mean if you are going to fuck something, well, I don’t know, it should be something different, something pretty, something special.”

“A guy can be all that, too, Kotetsu. Some guys are real pretty. Take that Sasuke kid, for example.”

“You’re prettier than him!”

“Uh, thanks,” said Izumo.

“It’s just the way you’re born, huh?” said Kotetsu. “I mean, I think you are pretty, and I love you, man, you know that, but I don’t want to LOVE you, you know. I mean, I could jack off with you, but not like, uh, oh, god, I just can’t see kissing you or touching your ass. I mean it’s like, it’s like you’re my brother or something. It’s just wrong! Oh, god, I feel sick!”

“That’s my Tetsu! Hey, it’s ok, Tetsu, seriously! In fact it’s better than ok, cause I love someone else. But I still don’t get how me being an uke or bottom and having a lover is so upsetting. Are you worried we won’t be as close?”

“Not really.” And then Kotetsu continued, talking extremely fast, “It’s just that, well, I never thought about a guy doing me until I saw you getting fucked, and it sorta didn’t seem so gross, and I’m like having a personal crisis here, and if you tease me about this, I am so going to tell Kurohyou you want to know if Raccoon-san’s cock gets as red as his hair.”

“I need a drink,” said Izumo in a dazed voice.

“Yeah, me too.”

“God, I don’t know if I should go home, go to Ibiki’s office, or just go out drinking with you after work.”

“He’s ANBU, Zumo; if he wants to find you, he will. Let’s hit the Broken Kunai after work because it’s his bar too anyway, right? That’s where you met him, right? Or did you meet him at Ibiki’s? Hey, how long have you known about this cat bowl thing? What exactly did happen last night?”

“You really want to know?”

Kotetsu just gave him a look.

“Get your, well, my handkerchief ready, Tetsu. Fuck! I’m getting hard just remembering. I think we need to save the story for later.”

“Tell me, then go jack off in the bathroom. I can cover the gate by myself.”

“And what if that ANBU squad returns?”

“Izumo, face it, we couldn’t do a fucking thing to stop them together, so what’s it really matter? Zumo? Hey, this is like a conversation, you know!”

Izumo moaned.

“Izumo!” snapped Kotetsu in his drill-sergeant voice again.

“Oh, sorry, it’s just that talking about jacking off in a bathroom brought it all back to me. That’s how we met.”

“You were jacking off in the bathroom of the Broken Kunai, and he walked in on you?” asked Kotetsu in a voice that was half shock and half awe.

Izumo laughed, “No, I was peeing, and he caught be before I buttoned up and jacked me off. So I went and complained to Ibiki cause he just felt like ANBU, you know, that sort of, well, ah, you know that aura ANBU gives off?”

“The psychotic one? The I-could-kill-you-in-less-than-a-second-and-not-feel-a-thing vibe?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“But how did you get hard then?”

“I’m gay, idiot, and he’s fucking hot even when he is all scary. After all, he made you think about getting done, didn’t he?”

Kotetsu blushed so red that Izumo felt a sudden bit of fear.

“Yo, stay away from my guy! You want to be bi-curious, you get a fucking cat bowl or play with that Raccoon. I’m serious, I love him, and if you really are my friend, you won’t, ah,” Izumo stopped, suddenly finding it hard to think of Kotetsu trying to seduce a guy.

“Oh that’s good advice, thank-you very much, Zumo,” said Kotetsu sarcastically. “I never had a gay thought in my head until this morning, and now you think I should start letting kinky, dangerous guys do me?”

“It doesn’t work that way, silly,” said Izumo. “If they rape the guy with the bowl or do anything that he doesn’t like, big fucking problem. First, they lose the guy putting out the bowl; second, they piss off either a chuunin or jounin who is bound to have friends and isn’t likely to keep quiet about it; and third, they piss off Ibiki. And they are the ones who have seen Ibiki when he really does his job. God, Tetsu, the way Ibiki talked about standing in blood last night, shit, now that was scary. He’s done it, I know, and so has Kurohyou, and likely the others. They need to fuck, or they’ll really go psychotic. God, that black ops shit, and wet work, all that, I couldn’t do that, no way.”

“Me neither, Zumo, that’s why we are, as they say, desk jockeys.”

“Should we apply for more missions?”

“If Tsunade needs us, Zumo, she’ll send us. And what we do is important—well, fuck, most days. Gate duty sucks. Why the fuck are we on gate duty again?”

“Because somebody pissed off Iruka-sensei!”

“I just said he looked like he had gotten some—oh my god, what if he has a cat bowl?”

“Iruka-sensei? He is prime uke material, but, god, I’d think he’d be really high-maintenance.”

“Ewwww, let’s just drop it. I shouldn’t have brought that up. God, thinking about Iruka-sensei having sex is just, ick, ick, ick!”

“You’re not gay, Tetsu, nope, totally not gay!” said Izumo laughing.

“Cause I don’t want to do Iruka-sensei? Who wants to do an uptight, righteous school teacher?”

“Ah, just about every gay man in Konoha! I—I’m talking about the past, now, get that? I would have topped for him if I had a chance in hell of getting him in bed. I don’t know; there’s just something about him that says `fuck me!’ Although lately he hasn’t been giving off that vibe. Maybe because he’s actually getting some now? Ah, whatever, but seriously, Iruka-sensei is like a gaydometer! If you don’t at least think about doing him for just a millisecond, you aren’t gay.”

“But then why am I thinking how I’d like to find out if fucking a guy’s face is better than fucking a girl’s face? Or if I guy would jack you off better cause he knows what the fuck he is doing and doesn’t feel the need to have long fucking fingernails?”

“What did your Uncle Killua give you for your fourth birthday?”

“I don’t have an Uncle Killua! What the fuck?”

“Just checking to make sure you were my Tetsu there. Well, Tetsu, if you want to find out, you’ll have to ask someone else who will likely spread it all over the village. Or you could find a lover who wants to stay in the closet. Or, well, if we actually went on a mission, a far away mission, you could find time to either pick someone up or pay a gay prostitute. Or of course you could ask a friendly Raccoon, which just might be the easiest option.”

“Like I’ll ever see him again!”

“You might if you talk to Ibiki,” said Izumo.

“Yeah, right, there’s no fucking way I will ever talk to Ibiki about anything related to my sex life, at least if I can help it.”

“I can ask Kurohyou to pass it on to him,” offered Izumo.

“How do you know they know each other? I don’t think ANBU is run that way, like they all know each other,” said Kotetsu.

“Of course they do—otherwise any enemy could trick them,” pointed out Izumo.

“Hmmm, maybe.”

“God, I never thought about long nails,” said Izumo with a shudder. “That sounds painful.”

“Getting fifty million hickeys all over not only sounds painful, it LOOKED fucking painful.”

“Oh, god, Tetsu, god, it was torture. I think if he hadn’t let me get off, I’d have died.”

“Let you? Do I wanna hear these details?”

“Probably not, but you made me listen to your disgusting boobie fantasies, so I’m going to tell you anyway.”

“Boobs are not disgusting. How can you not like a fine pair of tits? I mean, really, Zumo, so big and soft and squeezable? I just don’t get it.”

“I like tits or nipples; I just like them on guy’s chest. I mean you like your own tits, so liking another guy’s is actually more reasonable.”

“I don’t like my own! What are you talking about, Zumo?”

“Your nipples, Kotetsu. You mean you don’t play with them when you jack off?”

“Eeehhh—no. It never even occurred to me! Why? I mean I got a dick, so, hello, why bother?”

Izumo sighed and rolled his eyes. “Well, I guess you are just vanilla and dull after all. You probably don’t think you can come from attention to the backs of your knees either.”

“Now you’re just making stuff up to jerk my chain.”

“I shit you not, but if Kurohyou had kept his tongue and teeth on the back of my right knee, this one, right here,” said Izumo slapping his knee for emphasis, “for a few seconds more, I’d have come like a fucking geyser without my cock even being touched.”

“You’re serious,” said Tetsu, blinking.

“I’m serious,” said Izumo.

“Oh, shit,” said Kotetsu as his nose started to bleed again.

Izumo laughed and then said, “Go to the bathroom, Tetsu, and wash your face. You look like a bad shaving accident.”

The little bathroom behind the guardhouse was tiny and windowless. Kotetsu washed his face and adjusted his cock, which for some reason had gone from half hard to fully erect the minute he’d gotten in the bathroom. All he could remember was Izumo’s story about getting jerked off in the bathroom of the Broken Kunai. Damn, his cock just wasn’t going down. Maybe he should take his own advice to Izumo? Kotetsu pulled out his cock again and gave it a few strokes, just sort of, to consider it. But really, it would be hot to have someone reach around you, and most girls didn’t have arms that long. Yeah, most chicks were too short to really get the right angle. Yeah, they sucked at reaching around and jerking hard, knowing just how fast to go—girls were either too gentle or too wild, they never got it right, but having a girl give you a hand job was usually just something to get yourself hard before the fucking. But with a guy—Kotetsu’s hand started moving a little faster, and he breathed heavier. Shit, I’m way too excited by this, my breathing is way too loud—

It all happened at once. His brain processed that the breathing was too loud because it wasn’t just his own, there was someone behind him. Simultaneously, one hand covered his mouth, blocking his cry of shock, while another gripped his cock just below his own. And there, there in the mirror over his shoulder was a Raccoon mask.

“Missed me, pretty? You know that it will hurt without a little lotion, don’t you? So why don’t you squeeze a little on your hand and spread it on your dick for me? Or do you want to lick my hand and get it nice and wet, so I can jerk that pretty prick of yours?”

Kotetsu freaked out for a second, thrashing and jerking, but the hands on his mouth and cock held firm and all he succeeded in doing was making himself breathless and his cock feel so fucking good, his nose started to bleed again and his dick leaked a little precum.

His captor chuckled and said, “I’d let you go, but your cock says you like this. And you aren’t really trying to get away, are you? Surely a chuunin can do better than that? That’s it, pretty, get wet for me, so I can show you how a man jerks off a man. No, no, don’t shut those pretty eyes, look at my hand on your cock, look at how wet your cock is. Now if you’d let me move my other hand, I can really make you feel good.”

Really make it feel good? Fuck! That twisting, and the way he moved over the slit—it got better? Kotetsu moaned and pushed his hips forward. The hand over his mouth moved and reached over to the bottle of hand lotion some kunoichi had left in the little bathroom. And then—well—Kotetsu found out that the ANBU nin hadn’t lied.

If Raccoon-san hadn’t covered his mouth, his scream would have caused a problem. He’d never screamed as he came in his life. And he’d almost blacked out—but that was from the nosebleed, right? At least as he sat on the toilet alone, trying to recover, that’s what he told himself. Cause no guy jerking him off was enough to make him cum so hard he’d pass out, right?