[FIC] When Words Aren't Enough
Title: When Words Aren’t Enough
Summary: Konoha, Center for Sight & Hearing Impaired, has always been close to Iruka that now he works there as a part-time teacher. One day he meets a strange man, Kakashi, who lost his hearing in an accident many years ago. To mix things up, Tsunade-sama has come up with a dreadful auction to increase the Center’s next year’s budget. With a dread of losing dear Konoha, everybody in the staff has to participate, even her herself.
Pairings: Well, KakaIruKaka is the main-pairing, but if you have a wild imagination - or not - you can see some other pairings, too.
Rating: Changes from PG-13 stuff to NC-17. This chapter’s PG-13
Disclaimer: Do I look like Japanese? No wait… You don’t know how I look! *cough* Kishimoto-sensei owns them.
A/N: I’m not gonna lie, I got the idea to this from Naono Bohra’s manga Joutzetsuna Yubi but I changed most of the parts to meet my idea. The only similarity that stays here is the fact that one of them is deaf. And you know what else? I really had the intention to make my Wild West-AU-KakaIru my first long fic, it seems this one beat it. Oh well… *sighs*
”Naruto, hurry up, you’re going to be late!” Iruka called from the downstairs, the scent of freshly made coffee wafting through the small two-storey townhouse. The dark-haired man smiled as a loud ‘thump!’ indicated that the blonde young man had heard him. There was the sound of something crashing and not so elegant cursing that followed it and the Iruka made a mental note to ask Naruto clean his room. Really, it was almost a daily routine that his foster-son would trip over every morning in his sleepy state just because he had so much junk in his room that you could barely see the floor.
Iruka sipped his coffee and walked back to the small dining-room. He spread the newspaper and read it in peace, stopping only to butter his pieces of toasted bread and nipped them, while humming slightly with the radio in back-ground. Above him the shower went on and few minutes’ later slightly damp-haired young man hopped down the stairs.
“Morning,” the fifteen-year-old teen mumbled, yawning widely. To Iruka morning-Naruto reminded more of a zombie, which was a total opposite to his normal behavior. But truthfully the tan man wasn’t any better without consuming at least one cup of decent, pitch-black coffee.
“Morning,” Iruka answered and passed half of the newspaper to Naruto, who sat across him with a bowl of cereal. He rose to his feet and grabbed an apple from the tray on the kitchen counter as he went to wash his mug. “I’ll be leaving now, one of the regular workers at the Center, Hayate, is on sick-leave and they need extra hands,” Iruka told, biting the fruit, the sweet juice filling his mouth, “you should come too, Hinata’s been asking you.”
“Yeah, yeah, after school,” Naruto said, his mouth full of cereal, “but you owe me some ramen, if that jerk’s there again.”
A light grin lifted the older man’s mouth. “You know, he asked your whereabouts, too”, Iruka told mischievously, “he said, I quote ‘where’s that loud dope? Did the zoo finally take him back to the monkey-house?’”
A flash of annoyance lit the sky-blue eyes as Naruto bit the spoon hard, gritting his teeth and grumbling something about “tight-assed, snobbish jerks”, which made the other chuckle.
“I’ll see you there,” Iruka said and ruffled the golden locks while passing the annoyed boy, “have a good day.”
The dark-haired man set his hair into his customary ponytail, high above his head, the apple stuck in his mouth. He heard Naruto shout “have a nice day, too!” before opening the door and grabbing his back-pack from the coat-rack. Smiling, he stepped into the cool morning of the suburban area, greeting Aoba, the next door neighbor, who yawned while waving his hand back.
Throwing the back-pack on the backseat of his old car, Iruka drove towards Konoha Center, a local center for the sight and hearing impaired, where he worked as a part-time teacher for the blind children and sometimes for the deaf ones, too. Iruka had been hanging out in Konoha almost his whole life, his mother being one of the main founders - and blind, too. After losing his parents in a car accident, the head of the Konoha at that time had taken Iruka under his wing. And set him straight, more than once. Now, over ten years later he knew most of the staff like friends and the people, who attended there, knew him as Iruka-sensei.
Naruto, on the other hand, had come to his life rather unexpectedly, being the son of the other party of the car accident that had killed Iruka’s parents. At first the tan boy had hated the small child, but after founding the blonde child swinging alone in one of the orphanage’s swings, where they both lived, Iruka had recognized him as a kindred spirit.
Iruka mused how the time seemed to fly; Naruto’s sixth-teen birthday was closing in two months, which meant that the blonde, loud-mouthed hellion was growing. Iruka had noticed lately that Naruto was almost as long as him, finally having the growth-spurt he had yearned for years and also gaining more weight and losing the childish roundness of his cheeks. He himself had turned twenty-five, had no regular work, although he had the qualification to teach in a real school and get some real payment. Plus, he had no real social life; his best friend Anko had moved abroad last year, but kept filling - or terrorizing - his e-mail with some, ahem, scandalous pictures about her well-being. And sure, he went out with some of the workers at Center, but not very often. Mostly he was home with Naruto.
And then there was his love life. Or the lack of it.
The dark-haired man sagged in the seat as the memories of his last relationship surfaced. Thank God Naruto had been there and Anko - she had personally kicked Mizuki’s ass, and not verbally.
Sighing, Iruka parked his car in front of a large, brick-built and three storey building. Behind the high fence was old play-ground and the lower parts of the brick wall were decorated with graffiti-paintings - one of them made by him. Above the large glass-doors hang a large sign with an artistic leaf and underneath it read “Konoha, Center for The Sight & Hearing Impaired”.
There were some children out, playing with a soft ball. Iruka waved his hand to the woman monitoring them. Yugao, Hayate’s fiancé, waved back, but turned her attention back to the small children, her hands moving in signs as she complimented them. Iruka pushed one of the doors open, coming into a large lobby that covered almost one third of the whole first floor.
“Yo, Iruka, I thought you had this day off?”
Genma, one of the resident workers at the center strolled down the stairs, hands tucked in the pockets of his dark-blue denims and the dark eyes looking curiously at Iruka. The long-haired man wore his ever-present bandanna and a sharp needle dangled in his mouth. It was some souvenir from a distant relative, and the older man had kept it so long that Iruka couldn’t even remember him without it.
Flushing slightly, the pony-tailed man scratched the scar on his nose. “Well, Tsunade-sama called yesterday and told about Hayate,” he told sheepishly, which in turn made Genma snort slightly, “she said you could use some help, so I thought…”
“Please, Iruka, Hayate’s sick almost every second week and we are fine with it,” Genma drawled, looking nonchalant like usual, “but since you are here, would you mind coming help me with the brats upstairs? I was coming here to meet Hinata and her cousin, you know, Neji? He also has the same gene-defect as she.”
Iruka nodded. “I’ve seen him as a boy, but I didn’t know that the effect was already that bad,” he told with a slight frown.
“Yeah, well, bad luck and stuff,” Genma shrugged and peered behind Iruka, “where’s the little monkey? Is he coming today?”
“Yes, Genma, Naruto’s coming today,” Iruka stressed his foster-son’s name, knowing all well that the other man liked to tease Naruto by calling him monkey - just like a certain Uchiha, who preferred call him ‘dobe’. Most of the time that is.
“Good,” the older man said, “Sasuke’s been asking about him. Even though they both deny it, I think the monkey has a good influence on him. Tsunade-sama thinks that he can get his eyesight back in next two years if the progress stays same.”
Uchiha Sasuke was one of the saddest cases in the Center, having becoming blind after witnessing as a small boy his older brother slaughtering his family and closest relatives. Even though his eyes were fine, Sasuke just couldn’t see. Iruka wondered that maybe it was, because he didn’t want to. So it was rather a miracle that the stoic and brooding boy had started to become livelier after his meeting with Naruto, building a thin connection through friendship.
Iruka smiled at the news and went to the elevator that had been installed to the Center during its foundation. Because most of the people suffered some sort of handicap, it had been designed to meet their needs; large, lighted numbers indicate the floor and also a voiced announcement, although that one had been added only three years ago. Iruka pressed the button to get to the second floor, which held most of the group-rooms. He knew he was being lazy, but sometimes it was good to pamper yourself even just by using a short trip in the elevator.
“Second floor” the metallic voice of a woman announced and the doors slide open. A wide corridor opened before him and Iruka stepped out. He walked towards the group-room 3, where Genma and he usually held their “classes”. Although most of the children went on schools that were dedicated for them, Konoha was unique for its offering free-time activities that weren’t usually available for deaf and blinds. They were particularly proud of their little library, where people donated money so that they could, as an example, translate books in to Braille.
Iruka hummed under his breath, a habit he had started to use to alert his coming, even though peoples like Aburame Shino, who had been blind since baby, had a cunningly sharp sense of hearing and could recognize him from his steps. As he stepped into the room, he saw Shino sitting on his usual chair, the white cane leaning against the table and pale fingers dancing over a book about bugs that seemed to be the silent young man’s favorite.
“Hello, Shino,” Iruka greeted him, earning a slight nod as a response, “how have you been?”
“Fine, Iruka-sensei,” was the curt, but polite answer.
“Have you been with Kiba lately?”
Once again, the stoic boy nodded, fingertips pausing on the lines. “Yes, he took me to a park the day before yesterday with Akamaru,” Shino told, “he told me how he’s going to train Akamaru so that it can help me, too.”
“That’s nice,” Iruka said and sat across black-haired boy. “Would you like that?”
Although it was almost impossible to see behind the round sun-glasses and the bandanna that kept his puffy hair up, Iruka was sure that Shino frowned. “Dogs are too loud, it’s hard to concentrate to my surroundings, while they are around,” he replied, “although they are often quieter than Kiba. He and Naruto make my ears hurt sometimes.”
A soft laugh escaped from Iruka’s mouth. “Ah, yes, they’re bit noisy,” he confessed, remembering the one time, when Naruto and Kiba had gotten into a fight, their voices growing so loud until Tsunade-sama had personally come and silenced them effectively with two hard files. That woman had a deadly aim and she was proud of it.
“Bit?” scoffed a new voice, making Iruka turn to look at the new-comer, “please, the dobe is so loud that you can hear him ten blocks away. It’s a miracle he and the dog-boy haven’t broken any windows yet.”
“And good morning to you, too, Sasuke-kun,” Iruka said, a hint of foreboding in his voice, not because of people seemed to call Naruto only by names, but because of the lack of good manners that everybody seemed to suffer today.
The pale young man with pitch-black hair stilled and bowed his head quickly. “Good morning, Iruka-sensei,” he said politely, the jet-black eyes flashing somewhere Iruka’s direction before disappearing underneath the lids.
“How have you been this morning?” Iruka asked as Sasuke slid almost silently to his usual chair in the corner of the room, back against the wall.
“Hn,” the stoic boy answered, making Iruka sigh.
It seemed that only if the topic crossed Naruto, the young Uchiha was ready to talk more than one or two words at time. Oh, might as well continue on the subject… “Naruto’s going to come here today”, Iruka chattered, keeping his face towards Shino, who stopped reading to listen, too, “in case you wanted to know, that is.”
There was a slight snort behind him and the cane’s head hit the carpeted floor with an irritated ‘clank’, which made the tan man grin.
About ten minutes later Genma arrived with the Hyuuga-cousins, Neji and Hinata. Iruka greeted them, but only Hinata answered to him. Neji and Sasuke were too engaged at glaring each other, which was rather amazing with the lack of eye-sight, but somehow they managed to look at the right direction. Genma sighed under his breath, the needle moving to the other side of his mouth as he helped the Hyuugas to sit down.
** ** **
Half an hour later Iruka excused himself for bathroom break. He was in the middle of opening the ugly grey door, when it suddenly slung forward, startling the man as well as the one coming out.
“I’m sorry,” Iruka apologized quickly, hands moving along with the signs, because here in Konoha one could never be sure enough. When Iruka took a better look of the stranger, his eyes widened before he managed to stop them;
The slightly taller man had a very unique hair-color, almost silvery, and it stood up in a gravity-defying way, like a wild bush. A piece of cloth hung droopily over his forehead, effectively hiding his right eye, while left one shone in the darkest shade of blue, almost black, deceiving people to believe it had any other color. His posture was slightly similar to Genma’s, the white cane dangling over his shoulder giving the final touch to the whole ‘devil-may-cry’ air. That was all Iruka could see because for no apparent reason there was a dark mask obscuring the lower parts of the seemingly pale face.
Unlike Iruka, who preferred button-up shirts and comfortable, although bit snug jeans, this odd man wore a worn, brown leather jacket, black turtle-neck and dark-blue slacks.
The pale, but long fingers danced as the silver-haired stranger used sign-language to express himself. ‘It’s okay, it was my fault,’ he told, the visible eye curving slightly, implying that he was smiling.
Politely, Iruka smiled back. The other man moved past him, waving his arm as a good-bye and Iruka couldn’t help but look after him. The dark brown eyebrows burrowed slightly, wondering who the man was. It was the first time he saw him at the Center. Maybe he’s just visiting here, Iruka thought, watching the retrieving man walk to the stairs.
As the day went on, Iruka found that he was unable to think straight as his mind kept wandering back to the mysterious man. He asked from Genma, if he might knew this masked stranger, when they walked to the third floor, where Konoha’s staffroom and Tsunade-sama’s personal office was along with some smaller offices that were mostly used as storages.
“Oh, you mean Kakashi,” Genma frowned slightly, “he’s Jiraiya-san’s godson, or something like that. I’ve seen him every once in a while at the Center’s parking lot, but never actually inside here. Raidou told me once that he lost his hearing in an accident, in which he almost lost his left eye, too.” Genma gave a dry chuckle, making Iruka lift an eyebrow. “You can say that Kakashi’s a peculiar guy. You know, he wears that mask almost 24/7. But what I’ve heard, he’s always been like that.”
When the men reached the third floor, Genma waved his hand, and Iruka saw Raidou, who was nursing a cup of steaming coffee with an expression that reminded of a kicked puppy. It picked up their curiosity, since it took actually a lot to make the older man to look so miserable. The only ones who managed to do that were Tsunade-sama and - in the past - Anko.
‘What’s happened?’ Genma asked, his hands moving fluently and a worried expression replacing the usually relaxed one.
Raidou sighed. ‘We are in trouble,’ he signed back, watching the other two men sat down, ‘and I mean big one, too.’
‘What? Did Shizune find the alcohol-stash?’ Genma asked, rising one of his eye-brows.
‘No, not yet,’ the scar-faced man answered, making sign to express his relief. ‘It’s about this year’s charity-event, Tsunade-sama has been receiving some… disturbing ideas from Jiraiya-san,’ Raidou told, grimacing slightly as his hands moved again, ‘he wants to have an auction.’
‘But that’s not a bad idea, or is it?’ Iruka frowned, when the oldest of them gave a sullen grin to him.
Raidou pulled out his notepad and pen, scribbling quickly something on the paper, before pushing it to Iruka, who took it gingerly. Instantly, the tan man’s eyes went wide and a bright blush colored his cheeks, nearly covering the horizontal scar. Genma, raising an eye-brow to Iruka’s reaction, took the pad and read the single line there. Instantly, his mouth dropped open and the needle fell on the table with a silent ‘bling’.
“Th-this has to be a joke, right?” Iruka asked out loud, too upset to use the sign-language, but luckily for Raidou, lip-reading was like a second nature to him.
He nodded gravely and reached for his notepad while Genma cursed something that he wasn’t able to understand, but Raidou got the idea.
‘I wish,’ he signed, sighing deeply and miserably, ‘but it’s not. To make things worse, we all have to attend it. It’s for charity and this year’s budget was bigger than we first thought.’
Before Iruka could say anything, the door behind Raidou opened and two people stepped out of the room that worked as Tsunade’s office. The dark brown eyes widened a bit as he recognized the man with the blonde director. Genma picked his needle from the table and locked his bored look at Tsunade, but the sharp object’s twitching belied the calm face.
“Why hello, Iruka, Genma,” Tsunade greeted them with a smile that was on the borderline of being a smirk as she saw their expressions. I take that Raidou told them… she mused, while turning to her rare guest. ‘I’ll be seeing you later, brat,, Tsunade told Kakashi, earning only an uninterested expression from the silver-haired man.
“Hai, hai”, he murmured silently, turning to leave. But as he did so the lonely eye caught the dark-brown ones as well as the bright blush on the tan man’s face. The rich color of his skin brought the redness out in a different way than his own pale skin, and Kakashi found himself curious.
Iruka was still too baffled that he forgot the good manners himself and continued to stare openly at the masked man, who suddenly offered a smile, the dark eye crinkling merrily. The pony-tailed man blinked, more blood rushing to his scarred cheeks and quickly Iruka lowered his face, not trusting himself to look up as the silver-haired man walked past him to the stairs, silently berating himself in his mind.
Way to go, Iruka! Wasn’t it you who told Naruto it’s not polite to stare people, and now you’re doing the same? He must now think I’m rude or something, he groaned, hiding his face in his palm, earning some curious gazes from the other people in the room.
A light cough from Tsunade jerked Iruka awake from his thoughts, realizing that he must have looked quite weird. The blush on his face manifested itself stronger again. Raidou and Genma shared meaningful glances with each other, the latter leering a bit, while the other just shook his head with a pitying look in his eyes.
“I believe that Raidou told you the news about this year’s charity-party?” Tsunade asked, her tone light and far too innocent to their liking. Even Raidou felt shiver running down his spine by just seeing the busty woman’s smirk, freezing in the chair, when those hazel-colored eyes turned to gaze at him.
Now that the guest had gone, Genma showed openly his grimace. “I take it that you, Tsunade-sama, are also going to participate?” he asked coolly, folding his arms over his chest.
The light blush crept on Tsunade’s cheeks, but she kept any other emotions away from her face. “Of course I am. It would be unfair, if I’d force my fellow co-workers to do something like that without even taking a part of it myself.”
“Well, that’s good,” Genma praised with a mock-relief, a sly grin spreading on his face, which made both Iruka and Raidou shift restlessly in their chairs, “because then Jiraiya-san’s money is going to cover almost half of the next year’s budget. I mean, haven’t he tried to get his hands on yoOUCH!”
With a precise aim, an old magazine hit the bandanna-wearing man square on the face, silencing him effectively and making him fall from the chair. Huffing, Tsunade watched how Iruka rushed to check him and see if he accidentally gotten any new piercings, while Raidou stayed perfectly still next to the blonde woman. Miraculously, Genma rose up with no new sharp lip-piercing, although there was some blood, where the sharp tip of the needle had scratched his lip.
“Enough of this,” Tsunade said like she hadn’t just bodily harmed one of her workers, ignoring the dark glares and muttered curses, “Shizune’s been breathing down to my neck these past days, because like you all know, our finances for this year were slightly bigger than we all had thought first. I know this isn’t what we usually do, but the idea’s a good way to hit two birds with one stone. We arrange one event during the day, which is aimed for the families, and for the evening we have something bit more adult.”
Raidou coughed to gain the attention. ‘Has Shizune or the rest of the staff agreed with this?’
Tsunade grinned widely and nodded. “As odd as it sounds, she especially wasn’t against it.” The grin blended into a slightly wicked one. “Even though it was after I promised to talk Maito Gai into this, too.”
All the men groaned simultaneously.
Iruka allowed his thoughts wander back to the silver-haired man, Kakashi, and he wondered, what business the man had with Tsunade. If he really was Jiraiya-san’s godson, that explained their connection, because as long as Iruka could remember, the large - and perverted - man had had a soft spot on Tsunade. Or maybe he had a soft spot on her large breasts? Really, didn’t she get any back-problems for carrying such weight?
NO! Iruka screamed mentally, horrified as he realized what had happened. I did not think that!
Luckily, the rescue came.
A loud sigh made them turn their attention to young, pony-tailed man, who looked down right bored. ‘Naruto’s here,’ Shikamaru signed to Iruka, and even his hand movements were lazy, ‘and he’s fighting with Sasuke. Again.’
** ** **
“Owowow~,” Naruto whined, holding his head, where a rather large bump was forming. Next to him, a very ruffled and irritated looking Uchiha was gritting his teeth, a similar bump on his head. It seemed that the black-haired boy’s pride was the only thing that disallowed him to show the pain.
Usually, Iruka was against any physical force, but sometimes it seemed to be only way to knock some sense in to the two teen-agers that had equally thick skulls. Although, this time the tan man hadn’t been the one to hit them; Tsunade had beaten him and was now standing before the two boys, looking very menacing. Around them the usually clean group room was something akin to a war-zone.
“This is a Center, not a wrestling ring!” Tsunade yelled with her best authority-voice, hazel-eyes storming, and the combination of those two made the boys flinch visibly, “Naruto, you know the rules; if I find you screaming like that again, I’m going to haul your ass out of here personally! And don’t you think I can’t do that! You’ve seen the way Jiraiya flies and he weights more than twice next to you, you little squirt!!”
Naruto opened his mouth to protest, but the blonde woman silenced him with another smack on the skull, making the blue-eyed boy curl and hold his head. Then she turned her attention to Sasuke, who managed to look relatively calm, but the little beads of sweat on his temple belied his nervousness.
“And you! Despite the fact that you seem to get some kind of twisted satisfaction in driving Naruto mad, I do not allow this kind of behavior! Do you hear me, Uchiha Sasuke?! This happens again and you also find yourself flying out of here faster than a rag-doll!”
“Yes, Tsunade-sama,” they muttered silently, heads bowed down.
“Che,” the frightening director of the Konoha voiced and turned on her heels. “As a punishment I want you two to clean this room and put everything back on their places and if there’s any broken furniture, new ones come from your pockets,” she ordered sternly, not giving attention to Naruto’s loud objection:
“Eehhh?! Tsunade-baachan, you can’t be serious?!”
The woman stopped on her track, turning just enough to flash a dark look to the blond boy. “You wanna bet?” she asked icily and despite the fact Tsunade had the worst luck when it came to gambling, Naruto decided, for once, to stay quiet and shook his head vigorously. “Good, Shikamaru’s going to observe that you really do the work, got it?”
The lazy looking boy, who had leaned against the wall this whole time, sighed and mouthed something - ‘how troublesome’ most likely - but nodded.
Tsunade - with Genma and Raidou right behind her - walked out of the trashed room, but Iruka waited for a bit and gave a hard look to Naruto, who just sheepishly scratched the back of his head.
“We are going to have a talk at home”, he only stated, before leaving.
** ** **
Freshly from the shower, Iruka flopped on his bed, not caring if his hair damped the pillow and the fact that he was as nude as the day he was born. He massaged his temples, feeling a nasty headache forming there to torture him. He had given Naruto a piece of his mind after they’d got home, ordering the boy to clean his room and both of the bathrooms as a punishment. After that, there had been an eerie silence in the house the entire evening. Iruka wasn’t sure if the boy was sulking or not - there had been one broken chair that had to be replaced - but at least he had done a good job.
Sighing, the dark-haired man rolled on his side, checking his alarm-clock, before finally deciding to get some night-clothes on. As he pulled the old T-shirt over his head, Iruka remembered Kakashi and his masked face. He frowned, not knowing where it came from, but he tried to imagine how the man had looked underneath it. Iruka had been able to detect the strong jaw and the straight nose, plus a very faint line, where the lips were. His pale fingers had moved ever so fluently while the man had formed the signs, looking fascinatingly nimble and long.
I wonder how they would feel on my skin… Iruka thought, blushing wildly and bit his lip. Great, when did I become such pervert? he wondered darkly and buried himself underneath the covers.
Maybe he visits the Center again…?
** ** ** **
A/N: I’ll try to update this as fast as possible, but I’m rather busy at this moment. So please be patient with me. *doe-eyes*
Edit: (5.6.2011 as in June) I've made some small changes to make the flow of the story better. And I feel such a fool, for promising finish this within months, not years like one of the reviews was afraid of.
- Senna-chan
Summary: Konoha, Center for Sight & Hearing Impaired, has always been close to Iruka that now he works there as a part-time teacher. One day he meets a strange man, Kakashi, who lost his hearing in an accident many years ago. To mix things up, Tsunade-sama has come up with a dreadful auction to increase the Center’s next year’s budget. With a dread of losing dear Konoha, everybody in the staff has to participate, even her herself.
Pairings: Well, KakaIruKaka is the main-pairing, but if you have a wild imagination - or not - you can see some other pairings, too.
Rating: Changes from PG-13 stuff to NC-17. This chapter’s PG-13
Disclaimer: Do I look like Japanese? No wait… You don’t know how I look! *cough* Kishimoto-sensei owns them.
A/N: I’m not gonna lie, I got the idea to this from Naono Bohra’s manga Joutzetsuna Yubi but I changed most of the parts to meet my idea. The only similarity that stays here is the fact that one of them is deaf. And you know what else? I really had the intention to make my Wild West-AU-KakaIru my first long fic, it seems this one beat it. Oh well… *sighs*
”Naruto, hurry up, you’re going to be late!” Iruka called from the downstairs, the scent of freshly made coffee wafting through the small two-storey townhouse. The dark-haired man smiled as a loud ‘thump!’ indicated that the blonde young man had heard him. There was the sound of something crashing and not so elegant cursing that followed it and the Iruka made a mental note to ask Naruto clean his room. Really, it was almost a daily routine that his foster-son would trip over every morning in his sleepy state just because he had so much junk in his room that you could barely see the floor.
Iruka sipped his coffee and walked back to the small dining-room. He spread the newspaper and read it in peace, stopping only to butter his pieces of toasted bread and nipped them, while humming slightly with the radio in back-ground. Above him the shower went on and few minutes’ later slightly damp-haired young man hopped down the stairs.
“Morning,” the fifteen-year-old teen mumbled, yawning widely. To Iruka morning-Naruto reminded more of a zombie, which was a total opposite to his normal behavior. But truthfully the tan man wasn’t any better without consuming at least one cup of decent, pitch-black coffee.
“Morning,” Iruka answered and passed half of the newspaper to Naruto, who sat across him with a bowl of cereal. He rose to his feet and grabbed an apple from the tray on the kitchen counter as he went to wash his mug. “I’ll be leaving now, one of the regular workers at the Center, Hayate, is on sick-leave and they need extra hands,” Iruka told, biting the fruit, the sweet juice filling his mouth, “you should come too, Hinata’s been asking you.”
“Yeah, yeah, after school,” Naruto said, his mouth full of cereal, “but you owe me some ramen, if that jerk’s there again.”
A light grin lifted the older man’s mouth. “You know, he asked your whereabouts, too”, Iruka told mischievously, “he said, I quote ‘where’s that loud dope? Did the zoo finally take him back to the monkey-house?’”
A flash of annoyance lit the sky-blue eyes as Naruto bit the spoon hard, gritting his teeth and grumbling something about “tight-assed, snobbish jerks”, which made the other chuckle.
“I’ll see you there,” Iruka said and ruffled the golden locks while passing the annoyed boy, “have a good day.”
The dark-haired man set his hair into his customary ponytail, high above his head, the apple stuck in his mouth. He heard Naruto shout “have a nice day, too!” before opening the door and grabbing his back-pack from the coat-rack. Smiling, he stepped into the cool morning of the suburban area, greeting Aoba, the next door neighbor, who yawned while waving his hand back.
Throwing the back-pack on the backseat of his old car, Iruka drove towards Konoha Center, a local center for the sight and hearing impaired, where he worked as a part-time teacher for the blind children and sometimes for the deaf ones, too. Iruka had been hanging out in Konoha almost his whole life, his mother being one of the main founders - and blind, too. After losing his parents in a car accident, the head of the Konoha at that time had taken Iruka under his wing. And set him straight, more than once. Now, over ten years later he knew most of the staff like friends and the people, who attended there, knew him as Iruka-sensei.
Naruto, on the other hand, had come to his life rather unexpectedly, being the son of the other party of the car accident that had killed Iruka’s parents. At first the tan boy had hated the small child, but after founding the blonde child swinging alone in one of the orphanage’s swings, where they both lived, Iruka had recognized him as a kindred spirit.
Iruka mused how the time seemed to fly; Naruto’s sixth-teen birthday was closing in two months, which meant that the blonde, loud-mouthed hellion was growing. Iruka had noticed lately that Naruto was almost as long as him, finally having the growth-spurt he had yearned for years and also gaining more weight and losing the childish roundness of his cheeks. He himself had turned twenty-five, had no regular work, although he had the qualification to teach in a real school and get some real payment. Plus, he had no real social life; his best friend Anko had moved abroad last year, but kept filling - or terrorizing - his e-mail with some, ahem, scandalous pictures about her well-being. And sure, he went out with some of the workers at Center, but not very often. Mostly he was home with Naruto.
And then there was his love life. Or the lack of it.
The dark-haired man sagged in the seat as the memories of his last relationship surfaced. Thank God Naruto had been there and Anko - she had personally kicked Mizuki’s ass, and not verbally.
Sighing, Iruka parked his car in front of a large, brick-built and three storey building. Behind the high fence was old play-ground and the lower parts of the brick wall were decorated with graffiti-paintings - one of them made by him. Above the large glass-doors hang a large sign with an artistic leaf and underneath it read “Konoha, Center for The Sight & Hearing Impaired”.
There were some children out, playing with a soft ball. Iruka waved his hand to the woman monitoring them. Yugao, Hayate’s fiancé, waved back, but turned her attention back to the small children, her hands moving in signs as she complimented them. Iruka pushed one of the doors open, coming into a large lobby that covered almost one third of the whole first floor.
“Yo, Iruka, I thought you had this day off?”
Genma, one of the resident workers at the center strolled down the stairs, hands tucked in the pockets of his dark-blue denims and the dark eyes looking curiously at Iruka. The long-haired man wore his ever-present bandanna and a sharp needle dangled in his mouth. It was some souvenir from a distant relative, and the older man had kept it so long that Iruka couldn’t even remember him without it.
Flushing slightly, the pony-tailed man scratched the scar on his nose. “Well, Tsunade-sama called yesterday and told about Hayate,” he told sheepishly, which in turn made Genma snort slightly, “she said you could use some help, so I thought…”
“Please, Iruka, Hayate’s sick almost every second week and we are fine with it,” Genma drawled, looking nonchalant like usual, “but since you are here, would you mind coming help me with the brats upstairs? I was coming here to meet Hinata and her cousin, you know, Neji? He also has the same gene-defect as she.”
Iruka nodded. “I’ve seen him as a boy, but I didn’t know that the effect was already that bad,” he told with a slight frown.
“Yeah, well, bad luck and stuff,” Genma shrugged and peered behind Iruka, “where’s the little monkey? Is he coming today?”
“Yes, Genma, Naruto’s coming today,” Iruka stressed his foster-son’s name, knowing all well that the other man liked to tease Naruto by calling him monkey - just like a certain Uchiha, who preferred call him ‘dobe’. Most of the time that is.
“Good,” the older man said, “Sasuke’s been asking about him. Even though they both deny it, I think the monkey has a good influence on him. Tsunade-sama thinks that he can get his eyesight back in next two years if the progress stays same.”
Uchiha Sasuke was one of the saddest cases in the Center, having becoming blind after witnessing as a small boy his older brother slaughtering his family and closest relatives. Even though his eyes were fine, Sasuke just couldn’t see. Iruka wondered that maybe it was, because he didn’t want to. So it was rather a miracle that the stoic and brooding boy had started to become livelier after his meeting with Naruto, building a thin connection through friendship.
Iruka smiled at the news and went to the elevator that had been installed to the Center during its foundation. Because most of the people suffered some sort of handicap, it had been designed to meet their needs; large, lighted numbers indicate the floor and also a voiced announcement, although that one had been added only three years ago. Iruka pressed the button to get to the second floor, which held most of the group-rooms. He knew he was being lazy, but sometimes it was good to pamper yourself even just by using a short trip in the elevator.
“Second floor” the metallic voice of a woman announced and the doors slide open. A wide corridor opened before him and Iruka stepped out. He walked towards the group-room 3, where Genma and he usually held their “classes”. Although most of the children went on schools that were dedicated for them, Konoha was unique for its offering free-time activities that weren’t usually available for deaf and blinds. They were particularly proud of their little library, where people donated money so that they could, as an example, translate books in to Braille.
Iruka hummed under his breath, a habit he had started to use to alert his coming, even though peoples like Aburame Shino, who had been blind since baby, had a cunningly sharp sense of hearing and could recognize him from his steps. As he stepped into the room, he saw Shino sitting on his usual chair, the white cane leaning against the table and pale fingers dancing over a book about bugs that seemed to be the silent young man’s favorite.
“Hello, Shino,” Iruka greeted him, earning a slight nod as a response, “how have you been?”
“Fine, Iruka-sensei,” was the curt, but polite answer.
“Have you been with Kiba lately?”
Once again, the stoic boy nodded, fingertips pausing on the lines. “Yes, he took me to a park the day before yesterday with Akamaru,” Shino told, “he told me how he’s going to train Akamaru so that it can help me, too.”
“That’s nice,” Iruka said and sat across black-haired boy. “Would you like that?”
Although it was almost impossible to see behind the round sun-glasses and the bandanna that kept his puffy hair up, Iruka was sure that Shino frowned. “Dogs are too loud, it’s hard to concentrate to my surroundings, while they are around,” he replied, “although they are often quieter than Kiba. He and Naruto make my ears hurt sometimes.”
A soft laugh escaped from Iruka’s mouth. “Ah, yes, they’re bit noisy,” he confessed, remembering the one time, when Naruto and Kiba had gotten into a fight, their voices growing so loud until Tsunade-sama had personally come and silenced them effectively with two hard files. That woman had a deadly aim and she was proud of it.
“Bit?” scoffed a new voice, making Iruka turn to look at the new-comer, “please, the dobe is so loud that you can hear him ten blocks away. It’s a miracle he and the dog-boy haven’t broken any windows yet.”
“And good morning to you, too, Sasuke-kun,” Iruka said, a hint of foreboding in his voice, not because of people seemed to call Naruto only by names, but because of the lack of good manners that everybody seemed to suffer today.
The pale young man with pitch-black hair stilled and bowed his head quickly. “Good morning, Iruka-sensei,” he said politely, the jet-black eyes flashing somewhere Iruka’s direction before disappearing underneath the lids.
“How have you been this morning?” Iruka asked as Sasuke slid almost silently to his usual chair in the corner of the room, back against the wall.
“Hn,” the stoic boy answered, making Iruka sigh.
It seemed that only if the topic crossed Naruto, the young Uchiha was ready to talk more than one or two words at time. Oh, might as well continue on the subject… “Naruto’s going to come here today”, Iruka chattered, keeping his face towards Shino, who stopped reading to listen, too, “in case you wanted to know, that is.”
There was a slight snort behind him and the cane’s head hit the carpeted floor with an irritated ‘clank’, which made the tan man grin.
About ten minutes later Genma arrived with the Hyuuga-cousins, Neji and Hinata. Iruka greeted them, but only Hinata answered to him. Neji and Sasuke were too engaged at glaring each other, which was rather amazing with the lack of eye-sight, but somehow they managed to look at the right direction. Genma sighed under his breath, the needle moving to the other side of his mouth as he helped the Hyuugas to sit down.
** ** **
Half an hour later Iruka excused himself for bathroom break. He was in the middle of opening the ugly grey door, when it suddenly slung forward, startling the man as well as the one coming out.
“I’m sorry,” Iruka apologized quickly, hands moving along with the signs, because here in Konoha one could never be sure enough. When Iruka took a better look of the stranger, his eyes widened before he managed to stop them;
The slightly taller man had a very unique hair-color, almost silvery, and it stood up in a gravity-defying way, like a wild bush. A piece of cloth hung droopily over his forehead, effectively hiding his right eye, while left one shone in the darkest shade of blue, almost black, deceiving people to believe it had any other color. His posture was slightly similar to Genma’s, the white cane dangling over his shoulder giving the final touch to the whole ‘devil-may-cry’ air. That was all Iruka could see because for no apparent reason there was a dark mask obscuring the lower parts of the seemingly pale face.
Unlike Iruka, who preferred button-up shirts and comfortable, although bit snug jeans, this odd man wore a worn, brown leather jacket, black turtle-neck and dark-blue slacks.
The pale, but long fingers danced as the silver-haired stranger used sign-language to express himself. ‘It’s okay, it was my fault,’ he told, the visible eye curving slightly, implying that he was smiling.
Politely, Iruka smiled back. The other man moved past him, waving his arm as a good-bye and Iruka couldn’t help but look after him. The dark brown eyebrows burrowed slightly, wondering who the man was. It was the first time he saw him at the Center. Maybe he’s just visiting here, Iruka thought, watching the retrieving man walk to the stairs.
As the day went on, Iruka found that he was unable to think straight as his mind kept wandering back to the mysterious man. He asked from Genma, if he might knew this masked stranger, when they walked to the third floor, where Konoha’s staffroom and Tsunade-sama’s personal office was along with some smaller offices that were mostly used as storages.
“Oh, you mean Kakashi,” Genma frowned slightly, “he’s Jiraiya-san’s godson, or something like that. I’ve seen him every once in a while at the Center’s parking lot, but never actually inside here. Raidou told me once that he lost his hearing in an accident, in which he almost lost his left eye, too.” Genma gave a dry chuckle, making Iruka lift an eyebrow. “You can say that Kakashi’s a peculiar guy. You know, he wears that mask almost 24/7. But what I’ve heard, he’s always been like that.”
When the men reached the third floor, Genma waved his hand, and Iruka saw Raidou, who was nursing a cup of steaming coffee with an expression that reminded of a kicked puppy. It picked up their curiosity, since it took actually a lot to make the older man to look so miserable. The only ones who managed to do that were Tsunade-sama and - in the past - Anko.
‘What’s happened?’ Genma asked, his hands moving fluently and a worried expression replacing the usually relaxed one.
Raidou sighed. ‘We are in trouble,’ he signed back, watching the other two men sat down, ‘and I mean big one, too.’
‘What? Did Shizune find the alcohol-stash?’ Genma asked, rising one of his eye-brows.
‘No, not yet,’ the scar-faced man answered, making sign to express his relief. ‘It’s about this year’s charity-event, Tsunade-sama has been receiving some… disturbing ideas from Jiraiya-san,’ Raidou told, grimacing slightly as his hands moved again, ‘he wants to have an auction.’
‘But that’s not a bad idea, or is it?’ Iruka frowned, when the oldest of them gave a sullen grin to him.
Raidou pulled out his notepad and pen, scribbling quickly something on the paper, before pushing it to Iruka, who took it gingerly. Instantly, the tan man’s eyes went wide and a bright blush colored his cheeks, nearly covering the horizontal scar. Genma, raising an eye-brow to Iruka’s reaction, took the pad and read the single line there. Instantly, his mouth dropped open and the needle fell on the table with a silent ‘bling’.
“Th-this has to be a joke, right?” Iruka asked out loud, too upset to use the sign-language, but luckily for Raidou, lip-reading was like a second nature to him.
He nodded gravely and reached for his notepad while Genma cursed something that he wasn’t able to understand, but Raidou got the idea.
‘I wish,’ he signed, sighing deeply and miserably, ‘but it’s not. To make things worse, we all have to attend it. It’s for charity and this year’s budget was bigger than we first thought.’
Before Iruka could say anything, the door behind Raidou opened and two people stepped out of the room that worked as Tsunade’s office. The dark brown eyes widened a bit as he recognized the man with the blonde director. Genma picked his needle from the table and locked his bored look at Tsunade, but the sharp object’s twitching belied the calm face.
“Why hello, Iruka, Genma,” Tsunade greeted them with a smile that was on the borderline of being a smirk as she saw their expressions. I take that Raidou told them… she mused, while turning to her rare guest. ‘I’ll be seeing you later, brat,, Tsunade told Kakashi, earning only an uninterested expression from the silver-haired man.
“Hai, hai”, he murmured silently, turning to leave. But as he did so the lonely eye caught the dark-brown ones as well as the bright blush on the tan man’s face. The rich color of his skin brought the redness out in a different way than his own pale skin, and Kakashi found himself curious.
Iruka was still too baffled that he forgot the good manners himself and continued to stare openly at the masked man, who suddenly offered a smile, the dark eye crinkling merrily. The pony-tailed man blinked, more blood rushing to his scarred cheeks and quickly Iruka lowered his face, not trusting himself to look up as the silver-haired man walked past him to the stairs, silently berating himself in his mind.
Way to go, Iruka! Wasn’t it you who told Naruto it’s not polite to stare people, and now you’re doing the same? He must now think I’m rude or something, he groaned, hiding his face in his palm, earning some curious gazes from the other people in the room.
A light cough from Tsunade jerked Iruka awake from his thoughts, realizing that he must have looked quite weird. The blush on his face manifested itself stronger again. Raidou and Genma shared meaningful glances with each other, the latter leering a bit, while the other just shook his head with a pitying look in his eyes.
“I believe that Raidou told you the news about this year’s charity-party?” Tsunade asked, her tone light and far too innocent to their liking. Even Raidou felt shiver running down his spine by just seeing the busty woman’s smirk, freezing in the chair, when those hazel-colored eyes turned to gaze at him.
Now that the guest had gone, Genma showed openly his grimace. “I take it that you, Tsunade-sama, are also going to participate?” he asked coolly, folding his arms over his chest.
The light blush crept on Tsunade’s cheeks, but she kept any other emotions away from her face. “Of course I am. It would be unfair, if I’d force my fellow co-workers to do something like that without even taking a part of it myself.”
“Well, that’s good,” Genma praised with a mock-relief, a sly grin spreading on his face, which made both Iruka and Raidou shift restlessly in their chairs, “because then Jiraiya-san’s money is going to cover almost half of the next year’s budget. I mean, haven’t he tried to get his hands on yoOUCH!”
With a precise aim, an old magazine hit the bandanna-wearing man square on the face, silencing him effectively and making him fall from the chair. Huffing, Tsunade watched how Iruka rushed to check him and see if he accidentally gotten any new piercings, while Raidou stayed perfectly still next to the blonde woman. Miraculously, Genma rose up with no new sharp lip-piercing, although there was some blood, where the sharp tip of the needle had scratched his lip.
“Enough of this,” Tsunade said like she hadn’t just bodily harmed one of her workers, ignoring the dark glares and muttered curses, “Shizune’s been breathing down to my neck these past days, because like you all know, our finances for this year were slightly bigger than we all had thought first. I know this isn’t what we usually do, but the idea’s a good way to hit two birds with one stone. We arrange one event during the day, which is aimed for the families, and for the evening we have something bit more adult.”
Raidou coughed to gain the attention. ‘Has Shizune or the rest of the staff agreed with this?’
Tsunade grinned widely and nodded. “As odd as it sounds, she especially wasn’t against it.” The grin blended into a slightly wicked one. “Even though it was after I promised to talk Maito Gai into this, too.”
All the men groaned simultaneously.
Iruka allowed his thoughts wander back to the silver-haired man, Kakashi, and he wondered, what business the man had with Tsunade. If he really was Jiraiya-san’s godson, that explained their connection, because as long as Iruka could remember, the large - and perverted - man had had a soft spot on Tsunade. Or maybe he had a soft spot on her large breasts? Really, didn’t she get any back-problems for carrying such weight?
NO! Iruka screamed mentally, horrified as he realized what had happened. I did not think that!
Luckily, the rescue came.
A loud sigh made them turn their attention to young, pony-tailed man, who looked down right bored. ‘Naruto’s here,’ Shikamaru signed to Iruka, and even his hand movements were lazy, ‘and he’s fighting with Sasuke. Again.’
** ** **
“Owowow~,” Naruto whined, holding his head, where a rather large bump was forming. Next to him, a very ruffled and irritated looking Uchiha was gritting his teeth, a similar bump on his head. It seemed that the black-haired boy’s pride was the only thing that disallowed him to show the pain.
Usually, Iruka was against any physical force, but sometimes it seemed to be only way to knock some sense in to the two teen-agers that had equally thick skulls. Although, this time the tan man hadn’t been the one to hit them; Tsunade had beaten him and was now standing before the two boys, looking very menacing. Around them the usually clean group room was something akin to a war-zone.
“This is a Center, not a wrestling ring!” Tsunade yelled with her best authority-voice, hazel-eyes storming, and the combination of those two made the boys flinch visibly, “Naruto, you know the rules; if I find you screaming like that again, I’m going to haul your ass out of here personally! And don’t you think I can’t do that! You’ve seen the way Jiraiya flies and he weights more than twice next to you, you little squirt!!”
Naruto opened his mouth to protest, but the blonde woman silenced him with another smack on the skull, making the blue-eyed boy curl and hold his head. Then she turned her attention to Sasuke, who managed to look relatively calm, but the little beads of sweat on his temple belied his nervousness.
“And you! Despite the fact that you seem to get some kind of twisted satisfaction in driving Naruto mad, I do not allow this kind of behavior! Do you hear me, Uchiha Sasuke?! This happens again and you also find yourself flying out of here faster than a rag-doll!”
“Yes, Tsunade-sama,” they muttered silently, heads bowed down.
“Che,” the frightening director of the Konoha voiced and turned on her heels. “As a punishment I want you two to clean this room and put everything back on their places and if there’s any broken furniture, new ones come from your pockets,” she ordered sternly, not giving attention to Naruto’s loud objection:
“Eehhh?! Tsunade-baachan, you can’t be serious?!”
The woman stopped on her track, turning just enough to flash a dark look to the blond boy. “You wanna bet?” she asked icily and despite the fact Tsunade had the worst luck when it came to gambling, Naruto decided, for once, to stay quiet and shook his head vigorously. “Good, Shikamaru’s going to observe that you really do the work, got it?”
The lazy looking boy, who had leaned against the wall this whole time, sighed and mouthed something - ‘how troublesome’ most likely - but nodded.
Tsunade - with Genma and Raidou right behind her - walked out of the trashed room, but Iruka waited for a bit and gave a hard look to Naruto, who just sheepishly scratched the back of his head.
“We are going to have a talk at home”, he only stated, before leaving.
** ** **
Freshly from the shower, Iruka flopped on his bed, not caring if his hair damped the pillow and the fact that he was as nude as the day he was born. He massaged his temples, feeling a nasty headache forming there to torture him. He had given Naruto a piece of his mind after they’d got home, ordering the boy to clean his room and both of the bathrooms as a punishment. After that, there had been an eerie silence in the house the entire evening. Iruka wasn’t sure if the boy was sulking or not - there had been one broken chair that had to be replaced - but at least he had done a good job.
Sighing, the dark-haired man rolled on his side, checking his alarm-clock, before finally deciding to get some night-clothes on. As he pulled the old T-shirt over his head, Iruka remembered Kakashi and his masked face. He frowned, not knowing where it came from, but he tried to imagine how the man had looked underneath it. Iruka had been able to detect the strong jaw and the straight nose, plus a very faint line, where the lips were. His pale fingers had moved ever so fluently while the man had formed the signs, looking fascinatingly nimble and long.
I wonder how they would feel on my skin… Iruka thought, blushing wildly and bit his lip. Great, when did I become such pervert? he wondered darkly and buried himself underneath the covers.
Maybe he visits the Center again…?
** ** ** **
A/N: I’ll try to update this as fast as possible, but I’m rather busy at this moment. So please be patient with me. *doe-eyes*
Edit: (5.6.2011 as in June) I've made some small changes to make the flow of the story better. And I feel such a fool, for promising finish this within months, not years like one of the reviews was afraid of.
- Senna-chan