I (heart) Iruka

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the characters, and I don’t intend to make anything from this except maybe a few happy fans.

Notes: I wrote a response to my own challenge after I was struck by a good idea. It’s about Kakashi and Iruka’s first date. Please let me know what you think, comments of any kind are always appreciated!


I (heart) Iruka

The first day of school was always rough for a new group of students. Iruka walked into the classroom briskly, looking infinitely serious. He dropped a load of heavy books on the table to startle his chattering students. If you don’t show them who’s in charge the first day you will never be able to keep charge of them.

There were some familiar faces in the new group of students, younger siblings of children who had already graduated, and some who were totally new to him.

One child in the front row stood out distinctly. He was so adorable it was like he was begging to be hugged even though his black hair stood out in every direction. Like so many in the village he was scarred from a young age; Iruka felt for him, having a prominent mark himself. The X shaped scar over one eye kept him from opening it all the way making him look rather pathetic. He was giving Iruka a very odd look, one that reminded him of something…. But before he could figure out what it reminded him of there was a loud yelping noise.

Near the back of the classroom a little boy with short dark hair had made an exaggerated gesture of falling out of his chair. Great. A new class clown. After giving the trouble maker a disturbingly loud reprimand he turned back to the rest of the class and started taking attendance off of the sheet the school had provided.

Every name was read off and the dark haired boy in the front hadn’t answered to any of them. Usually the ninja academy was good about these things, but every once in a while this happened; Iruka would just have to straighten things out after class. In the mean time he at least needed to know the boys name, so he asked.

“Uhhhh… Ueno Kaji.“ the boy replied with just a hint of a blush on his pale cheeks.

“Well then Ueno–kun, please stay after class for a few minutes if you would. It shouldn’t take too long to straighten this out.”

The boy blushed harder then and gave a shy look not unlike the ones Iruka sometimes got from the young girls who developed crushes on him. He cleared his throat, trying to clear the minor emotional tension in the front of the room.

Class went on as usual after that. It was difficult for the class to keep awake due to the exceedingly dry material usually covered the first day. When Iruka finally let them out for lunch it was as if the whole class collectively sighed in relief. All but Ueno still in his seat in the front of the room; he was the last to stand and leave the class, looking almost sad to be going.

Iruka breathed his own sigh of relief and sat down to eat. This would be an interesting semester.

Halfway through his simple lunch Iruka realized what had seemed familiar earlier. He had just taken the first bite of a ripe banana and his mind had wandered to the white haired Jounin that so often hijacked his train of thought. Just as he was slipping into one of his more scandalous fantasies about having Kakashi-san in his mouth in place of the banana, he had a revelation. Something that happened earlier popped into his head, but he never had time to ponder it fully. For the second time in one day he was pulled away from an important thought by a disturbance in his classroom.

This time it wasn’t a current class disruptor but an old one. Naruto had just barreled through the door and run right behind Iruka, using the man as a human shield.

“Iruka-sensei!!! Save me!!!” the blond whimpered.

The dark haired teacher wondered for a moment what would frighten his former student enough to cause this reaction when Sasuke stormed in the door looking furious. If anyone could scare Naruto it was the heir of the Uchiha family.

“Boys…” Iruka said in his best disarming voice. But it fell on deaf ears as Sasuke stormed after the blond Kyuubi holder. They stalked each other keeping Iruka’s desk between them.

“Boys…” This time it sounded much more angry and authoritative. Still nothing. A vein was starting to throb on Iruka’s forehead. Sasuke made a sweeping gesture at the blond across from him and knocked a whole stack of papers and several other objects onto the floor. That was it.

“BOYS!!!” Iruka used that angry teacher tone, the one that even Sasuke stopped when he heard. Their former teacher looked furious; breathing hard and pointing to the desks in the front of the room.

“SIT!” They sat.

“Now then,” Iruka started again more calmly, “Why are you two so upset?”

“Tch” Sasuke turned away, refusing to even look at his former teacher. Not expecting the dark haired boy to give him much information, Iruka turned to Naruto. The blond fidgeted in his seat for a minute before blurting it all out.

“Sasuke and I were training all afternoon since we don’t have any missions for the next few days so were walking back from the practice grounds and we saw a bunch of people we know and stopped to talk to them for a minute and then I said we should go for ramen and Sasuke thought it was a bad idea so we went to this other restaurant and I didn’t like the food and then we wanted to walk home but we got lost because I don’t know my way home from there as well as from Ichiraku’s and he started yelling at me in the middle of the street and lots of people started gathering around and I was just trying to get him to calm down and he’s mad because I kissed him in front of some of his fan girls.” It all came out in one long phrase ending with Naruto blushing.

Iruka stopped for a moment to process this. Once he had sifted through the pointless parts of the story he had to force himself not to laugh. This wasn’t the first time these two had fought in front of Iruka, each time over something silly. He had known about Sasuke and Naruto and their budding relationship for the last few months since there were very few secrets the blond could ever keep from his former teacher, especially when he wanted advice every few days. There was a moment of tension as Iruka pondered a solution, Naruto fidgeted and Sasuke fumed.

“You boys should consider that people will eventually find out about your relationship.” Iruka said gently, and not for the first time.

Sasuke looked like he might kill his former teacher, also not for the first time. Naruto simply laid his head in his hand and pondered this as if he had heard it for the first time.

“Or you could just pretend it was a joke Naruto played to piss you off Sasuke.” Iruka just wanted a few more minutes of peace before the children came back into class.

Sasuke nodded almost unnoticeably, he was thinking about the idea and eventually found it agreeable. He stood and stared at the blond seated next to him.

“Come, dobe. You’re going to fix this. Now.” Sasuke held his hand out to Naruto and almost dragged the slightly shorter man out behind him. Naruto flashed one of his adorable smiles as he was whisked out the door and Iruka felt a wave of relief that things had worked out. Well, worked out as far as possible in the middle of the school day.

Sure enough just as soon as the door had shut behind the young lovers a bell signaling class rang. Iruka sighed and tossed the remains of his lunch back in the bottom left drawer of his desk.

The first child back in the room was Ueno-kun. He must have already been on his way back inside when the bell rang because the echo had barely worn off when he slid in the door.

Iruka began to rearrange papers on his desk, picking up after Sasuke’s rage and looking for the notes he’d made on that afternoon’s lecture. It helped him ignore the curious look the short boy in the front row was giving him right then. There was enough strange drama in his life without having a male student with a crush on him.

The rest of the class was back within a few minutes, bringing the grumpy atmosphere of halted play in with them. Iruka wanted to learn names quickly so he lined all the students up and had them practice proper fighting stances while he went around and aided each one individually. This way he could talk a little with each student and use up some of their excess lunch energy, two birds with one stone.

Most of the children seemed stable on their feet, though a few fell over when Iruka corrected their postures. The only one who didn’t need any help was Ueno who seemed to have done this sort of thing already. Iruka acknowledged his accomplishment as blandly as possible, lest the class think he was prone to playing favorites. The dark haired boy just blushed furiously and stepped back into line without speaking.

Following the physical exercise, their afternoon consisted of a lecture. Iruka wrote a few things on the blackboard, but mostly stood facing the class. Which was good, otherwise he might not have noticed the scarred little boy in the front row trying to pass a note. Iruka didn’t mind students passing notes in class, as long as they weren’t caught it was good practice of skills they might need later. But he did take any notes he did find, it encouraged them to practice outside the classroom.

Without breaking his concentration on the lecture he was giving he snatched the note from Ueno’s hand and tucked it into a vest pocket. A few giggles passed through the room as everyone caught on to what had just happened. Iruka was too busy looking at his notes to notice the faint smile on Ueno’s face.

Class was uneventful for the rest of the day. The students were freed at the sound of the bell and they all filed out quickly, except Ueno who had been asked to stay after. He was watching Iruka say goodbye to the other students with amusement. When he was finally alone with his sensei he spoke.

“I’m sorry about the note.” One of his eyes looked apologetic while the other looked disinterested. Iruka sighed and ruffled the boy’s dark hair.

“It’s fine, just don’t get caught again. I don’t even know what could be so important to tell someone on the very first day of class. Do you have the information the school gave you when you first applied?” He found his hand drifting toward the pocket of his vest he had stuffed the note in. Overwhelming curiosity about its contents took him and as the boy beside him took a moment to look through his belongings.

The note was written in sloppy handwriting, with big scratched letters.

I THINK IRUKA-SENSEI IS HOT.

A blush crept over Iruka’s cheeks and scar before he could think to stop it. Ueno cleared his throat.

“I found my paperwork.” He held out a piece of paper that had been folded up several times. Without saying a word the teacher reached out, took it and opened it. It was the same handwriting as the first, and the spelling was a bit off, but the message was crystal clear.

IRUKA-SENSEI WOUD U GO ON A DATE WITH ME?

___YES ___NO

-KAKASHI

There was a little drawing in the bottom right of the page depicting a heart with Ka X I written in it. Iruka’s blush was threatening to take over his entire face. This couldn’t be real. Could it be that all the time this student was really…?

He looked up in time to see his student disappear in a little puff of white smoke.

To be continued

This is just the intro, smut will follow in the next couple of chapters. Tell me what you think!