Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or anything that has to do with it. I don't write this for profit. I write this purely for my and your entertainment. The only thing I do own is some copys of the Naruto profiles and a sound-ninja headband because I'm that much of a dork.

Pairings:There is no set pairings for this fanfiction. If you want to see it as Iruka/Kakashi or Kakairu, then be my guest. But that isn't the intention of the story, but that doesn't stop you from reading it this way. So anyone wary of a reading a slash fic, this isn't one. But I can assure you, I have no issues with the slash-fictions myself.

Rating: K Might have very mild swearing during the course of the story. No real mature themes.

Note: This won't have any intentional spoilers. If you read something that you think may be a spolier, than I apologize. This isn't supposed to be in any definite time-line, just a random story in the Narutoverse.

Chapter 2 Summery: There was no doubt that Iruka would get frustrated by all of this. All it really would take was for something else to happen that Iruka would feel that he should have more control over. It just had to get worse and worse? Didn't it? Even in an accident, the tension can never lift... can it?

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- Chapter 2 -
Plans

At that very moment, Iruka was completely alone. He was sitting at his desk in his empty classroom, in complete and utter silence. Two things attributed to the silence; one being the fact that there weren't any loud or rowdy children to interrupt his thinking-space, and two, the snow. It still billowed outside with a consume-all purpose. It still fell with ferocity. It still was lengthening the time that he would have to stay within the Academy.

His pen scratched against the paper in front of him quickly, and every stroke even gave off a frustrated sound as it passed across the page. To say in the least, Iruka wished he had decided to take the day off due to heath. If he had, he wouldn't be there, the children wouldn't be there, but the Jounin and their teams would be there, on their own, and out of his way. And even better, he'd be back home, in bed, and reading a book.

That couldn't be helped now, now could it?

The pen continued to scrape across the page as he made his edits to future lesson plans. He wrote that along with plans for the next time something like this arose, so that he could take the reins himself and not the Jounin. He even found himself writing out a plan for where the Jounin could go next time this happened. But that plan, was crumpled up the moment he finished writing it, and left on the edge of his desk.

At least it passed the time.

He was just getting irritated with a small crack at the edge of the window, which was blowing air annoyingly across the bare skin of his neck and face, when a light knock came at the door. He looked away from the window, still holding the pen erect, and he turned his head to the door. Visitors weren't the top-item on his list of what he wanted at that moment.

He put the pen down and peered through the thin-white of the door, to see who it was before letting them enter the room. Hmm... they were considerably shorter in stature compared to a certain Jounin who shall not be named.

Another knock.

Huh. There seemed to be two people.

"Come in."

The door slid open and in popped the bright-orange Naruto and the bright-green Lee. The two Genin that had horribly clashing clothes when seen together.

He blinked as they came in, leaving the door open, and not bothering to shut it.

"Ah, Naruto, Lee. What can I do for you? Aren't you supposed to be training with the students?"

Naruto parked himself on the edge of a desk, his legs hanging off the side of it. He huffed, crossing his arms. "That's no fun Iruka-sensei. They don't know anything at all!"

Iruka laughed, "Naruto... They aren't as skilled as you are. And I think I remember a certain blond ninja that was just as experienced as these ones not too long ago."

Naruto gave a sheepish grin, a hand to the back of his head. "Heh... Yeah well..." He changed subject and gestured over to Lee. "Lee and I were wondering why you weren't with the rest of us. The other sensei's are teaching the whole group some really cool stuff right now. You should come see!"

"Yes Iruka-sensei! It will be a most youthful experience!"

Iruka blinked. "Teaching...? What are they teaching?"

"Oh... Just simple stuff. Like cool jutsus you wouldn't learn in the academy and throwing kunai with stealth and other really cool things! You have to come see Iruka-sensei!"

Iruka snorted air through his nose and stood up haughtily. "Oh, I'm going to come see alright."

Naruto and Lee were baffled with how at the mere thought of the Jounin teaching the class seemed to peeve Iruka off. Of course, Lee was aware of the earlier little argument between him and Kakashi, but assumed that it wouldn't be an issue anymore. They exchanged glances with each other and Naruto grabbed his sleeve, trying to pull Iruka back down into sitting.

"On second thought, you don't have to go Iruka-sensei! I mean... it'll probably be boring to you..." He gave a nervous laugh. "Just the same 'ol same 'ol, you know? That'll be too boring."

Lee continued for him. "Yes. You are already youthful and energetic enough! These lessons will hardly be a benefit to you Iruka-sensei!"

Iruka looked down at them, "Thank you boys, but that's not the issue."

Naruto held-firm onto Iruka's sleeve, it was obvious that he didn't want any conflict to arise because of this. He didn't want any trouble, and most certainly not because he was one of the people to help this little issue along. Iruka found it annoying, and pulled Naruto's hand off of his sleeve.; looking at the young Genin with a raised eyebrow.

The more they fought him, the more he was going to want to see what Kakashi and the others were doing. He probably would have turned around in the hall and decided to leave it alone if it weren't for Naruto's insistent tugging. Now he had to see what was going on.

Another hand stopped him. Lee's turn. His eye twitched. "If you didn't want me to go see, then why did you come and tell me in the first place? That doesn't make sense, you know."

Lee's hand let loose. "It is just, you look like you are angry, Iruka-sensei." Lee explained, "I do not wish for you to get anymore angry."

"Just what could they be doing to make me more angry?"

A pause.

Then, "I do not know, but you are angry now."

Iruka sighed, and tried to look more visibly calm to the two boys. It really didn't make sense though. First the two looked so eager for him to come and join in, and once they saw his face they pulled back. Which could only mean one thing, the Jounin were doing something that both Lee and Naruto saw as exciting... and something that Iruka would most surely object to. It only took him to get a little ticked at the idea for them to realize that maybe telling him wasn't the greatest idea.

"I'm not angry, I'm just frustrated," he said, a bit truthfully. "But honestly, I do want to see what they are doing. And you never know; I might want to join in." The idea of which completely depended on what they were doing.

They nodded, and Naruto hopped off of the desk, and Lee followed him out the door. As Iruka trailed after them, he didn't need to see their faces to know that they were a little wary now about him coming.

The gym door was open down the hall, so Iruka could clearly hear noises coming from the gym as they approached, the echo almost amplified by the hallway. It almost sounded like something hitting another thing, and somebody speaking... He strained his hearing and walked faster towards the gym door, passing Lee and Naruto. Some children were cheering, so maybe the Jounin were putting on some sort of demonstration... If they were, he certainly wouldn’t mind that, and he would want to sit down and watch himself.

He pushed open the door and looked at the view before him.

The students were on either side of the room, acting the audience. All of the Genin were there as well, watching the show in the middle of the room. Gai and Asuma were off to the side too, but closer to the doorway where Iruka, Naruto and Lee were.

This all would have been fine and dandy if it weren't for what was going to happen in the middle. Kakashi was standing at the opposite side of the gym, far away from one of Iruka's very own students, who stood on the other side of the gym nervously; Kakashi being the closer to where Iruka stood.

"- and that's what should happen," Kakashi finished whatever he was explaining to the group. Iruka never heard the beginning of his speech, even if it was amplified down the hallway, it was too garbled to understand; and now he really wanted to know what was going on.

Iruka stood by the doorway, Naruto and Lee just coming in from behind.

"Alright," Kakashi said with a stance. "Here we go. Alright, Miho-chan, don't you move. Remember what I said, okay?"

What... what was Kakashi going to do?

Kakashi snapped forward, and began running towards little Miho, who seemed, to Iruka, to be scared out of her wits. Iruka couldn't take it. He couldn't watch Kakashi do something potentially dangerous to one of his students. They were only children, not to be used for one of his demonstrations.

"Kakashi!" Iruka shouted out towards him in a fit of anger. Just what the hell was Kakashi thinking?

Iruka's shout across the gym gave Kakashi a start. He was just in the middle of preparing the elaborate kick that he was doing for a demonstration; a technique that required some amount of focus. He never had any intent of hitting the small girl, he was just going to make it look like it was full-force, but in the end just feather-kick the girl. But when Iruka's unexpected shout of rage came, the concentration was lost for a split second.

That's all what was needed for it to all go horribly wrong. Any trained ninja could see within that split second that Kakashi's control had been compromised and he was now hurtling towards one of Iruka's students in mid-kick. In these moments, time seemed to slow to a crawl as the mind began to reel hundreds of times faster trying to take in the situation, trying to buy more time that just didn’t exist.

Kakashi was flaring chakra by the looks of it, but at Iruka’s shout the control was lost along with the hold on it. And the only thing that Iruka knew as time slowed was that Miho was in serious trouble if he didn't do something.

After what felt like a few seconds to him, but only a split second after Kakashi lost control in reality, Iruka did the seal for the substitution justu on the spot.

A foot collided with his stomach; hard. And he went flying into the wall that was only a few yards behind him; hitting it with an echoing slam that reverberated throughout the gym. Miho, however, was completely safe, standing bewildered at the doorway that opened to the hall, right were Iruka had been before he substituted himself for her.

Time still seemed to go at that achingly slow rate, Iruka slid down the wall, his teeth grinding together, breath blown out of him, eyes slammed shut. Kakashi was in mid-slide himself, forcing himself to a stop, staring wide-eyed in shock at the spectacle before him.

The room buzzed, but was completely quiet.

It was when he fell to his side unceremoniously did time rapidly speed back up and the room burst into loud commotion. Some were screams of shock coming from the students who had seen the whole thing. Others were calls of his name that were panicked and shaken, demanding to know if he was alright. Some were even cries for Kakashi, demanding to know what he had done.

Iruka's arms curled around his stomach, he gasped for breath that had been blown from him, coughing though he felt he had no air to cough with, and his knees curling into himself with the effort. His stomach twisted in a low hiss of anger, and his fingers tightened on his chuunin vest, as it complained of the harsh treatment.

Footsteps were heard running towards him amongst the loud ringing of the voices of students in the background. The sound of ninja sandals on the linoleum of the gym floors echoed loudly between the voices. He heard it all while his eyes stayed slammed shut.

"Iruka-sensei! Are you alright?" Sound of knees hitting the floor beside him after the footsteps stopped. "Iruka-sensei?" A hand rest on his shoulder.

Iruka was still gasping, his eyes were still shut, but he nodded his head. It was hard to say anything when the wind had been knocked from him as harshly as it had. The hand moved from his shoulder to push him onto his back. He resisted at first, feeling that he could recover just as well gasping on his side, thank-you-very-much, but the hand pushed him over just the same.

Iruka opened one eye, a pained expression; still trying to regain his lost breath between coughs.

"Calm down. Take slow breaths," Kakashi instructed, pushing Iruka's knees down so he lay completely flat on his back. "...Slow breaths..."

He half-glared. He was trying but his body was currently thinking he couldn't breathe. He was perfectly aware that taking slow and calm breaths would be the smartest decision, but his panicking lungs failed in listening to him. The half-scowl he sent Kakashi was unnoticed as the silver-haired Jounin put a hand on Iruka's chest.

"Slow breaths," he coaxed again, and his hand flared up with chakra.

Iruka found his eyes sliding shut at the feeling of chakra flowing into his chest and literally forcing his breathing to calm down; regulating and evening out his own chakra flow there as it did so. His breaths began to even out and became much more sane over the near-hysterical gasps of before. It took a moment though, but after a few long minutes, Iruka found his breathing had returned to normal.

"Are you okay?" Kakashi finally asked again, pulling his hand away from Iruka's chest.

He couldn't hear the students anymore... Iruka opened his eyes and forced himself into a sitting position, a hand moved to his back. He spoke, "Y-yeah... I'm okay now."

He looked around, and saw that the gym was completely empty, save for the two Jounin that were kneeling beside him.

"W-where are the students?" He couldn't for the life of him remember when they had left.

"Gai lead them out," Asuma explained, pulling his hand off of his back since it didn't seem like Iruka was about to fall over. "Are you sure you're alright? That was a pretty impressive kick you took."

Iruka nodded, feeling at his ribs. Nothing felt broken or strained at all. Maybe a bit bruised, but that was the worse of it. And he knew that if he had broken something, he would definitely be feeling it. He had to give Kakashi one thing, when he had to pull back on a kick mid-way, he did a very good job of it. He hated to know what the results would be if Kakashi hadn't.

A few seconds of silence passed and Kakashi stood up, holding out his hand for Iruka to take. "Here. I'll take you back to your classroom."

Iruka took Kakashi's hand and let himself be pulled up onto his feet. It was still rather miraculous that he got up right after that; even that could stand at all.

Kakashi looked at Asuma with his signature smile and spoke, letting go of Iruka's hand. "Asuma, you bring the students and the teams back in here with Gai. I think it'd be best if we went back to the Genin training them for now, alright?"

Asuma nodded and disappeared to go fetch Gai and the students. Kakashi, however, tugged on the wrist of Iruka's arm so he could help him get back to his classroom, who was still a bit wobbly on his feet, so Iruka took Kakashi's offer of help without much argument. He just followed him in silence, as Kakashi led him, who was very much silent himself.

Kakashi opened the sliding door to Iruka's classroom and let Iruka go in first, who by then felt confident on his own feet, and walked over to his desk and sat down heavily in the chair there. Kakashi, much to Iruka's surprise, closed to door behind him and sat down on one of the student's desks in front of Iruka.

"Thank you very much Kakashi-sensei," Iruka smiled. "I appreciate it."

Kakashi gave a bit of a half-hearted smile, but the silence that followed didn't feel quite what Iruka was expecting.

"Is... something the matter Kakashi?" Iruka asked, quirking his eyebrow up at the Jounin.

There was a silence that followed after Iruka's question. As if Kakashi was contemplating something that he was about to do. As if he was calculating what he was going to say. After a few seconds or so, Kakashi finally spoke, "What were you thinking Iruka-sensei?" Kakashi demanded to know, looking at the Chuunin before him with a hard stare.

"Huh? What...? What do you mean?"

"You know exactly what I mean; what happened back there. Just what were you thinking?" He said with a bit of a biting tone. Probably unintentional, but it was there just the same.

Iruka bristled. He was actually intending on letting it go because of the care that Kakashi took when trying to make sure that he was okay. But then to turn around and blame it on him afterwards? What the hell was that silver-haired pervert thinking?

"What was I thinking!? What was I thinking? What were you thinking? I was merely trying to stop you from killing one of my students!" Iruka instantly retorted. The anger that he told himself to resign began bubbling up again in fury.

"You're the one who came in and disrupted the whole demonstration, throwing me off. That wasn't my fault."

"I didn't intentionally try to do that Kakashi-sensei,” Iruka spluttered. "I would never actually want you to screw up. Especially if you are demonstrating on one of my own students!"

Kakashi snorted, but didn't respond. He still clearly saw that he wasn't the one at fault here.

"Did I ask you to use my students as demonstration dolls? Hmn? Did you ever once come to me and ask if you could? Or even inform me?" He was standing at this point, right in front of the Jounin who was sitting on the desk still. "No! You didn't! I had no clue! Don't you dare put the blame on me."

"I don't think that's the issue here right now Iruka."

"Oh that is the issue right now Kakashi-sensei," Iruka hissed. "The moment you came in here-"

Kakashi cut him off. "I doubted you could have done too much if we didn't come here."

Iruka gaped, and it took him a couple of seconds to regain his words. "What are you trying to say; that I'm not competent enough to take care of my own students!?"

Kakashi crossed his arms, he wasn't really looking at Iruka anymore, rather the window. "Pretty much."

Iruka's teeth grit together, and he wanted to do was grab Kakashi by the collar and set him straight, so it took everything he had to keep his hands at his sides. "How dare you! You have no idea how this classroom works! No idea! None!"

"Really now?"

"Yes! I can understand if you want to take over because it's a serious situation, and you probably do know better. But don't you dare sit there and assume you can do my job! You can't. And how dare you insult the way I teach my students!" He pointed at him, "And you especially can't just come in and take over and leave me with nothing!"

"Don't blame me if you feel useless Iruka-sensei," Kakashi said, face still towards the billowing white outside. "That's hardly my fault."

Kakashi was either in a really bad mood that day or he wasn't watching his mouth carefully enough, "Last time I checked you were a Chuunin and I, a Jounin; unless you went up a rank while I wasn't looking."

Iruka wasn't sure if his jaw could be clenched any harder. He didn't have any response to that, not that he could have found a good enough one to retort with. He just stared at the Jounin, and felt his anger deflate rather quickly, the tightness of his jaw receding and his fists uncurled limply at his sides.

"... Just... Leave..." Iruka finally said, his voice not holding an ounce of the strength it had before. It sounded rather wilted in comparison to his earlier heated remarks.

Kakashi was looking at Iruka rather oddly after that. Probably because he expected Iruka to bite back full force and throw him out; rather than that weak request as he pointed towards the door. Kakashi seemed to be disappointed at that? No... That wasn’t it… But, at Iruka's lame retort and soft demand, Kakashi’s steam seemed to taper as well and he shrugged, hands shoved in his pockets and he headed out the door.

Iruka didn't watch as the Jounin left, and when the door shut behind him, Iruka slammed his hands on the desk where the Jounin was previously sitting.

"Damnit..." What Kakashi had said hit home. It was true, the issue here was that he felt completely useless as the Jounin took care of everything that needed to be done. There was no use for him at all, he was merely a Chuunin that was in charge of teaching the students, and they were Jounin with full training for the direst situations; situations that he couldn't even dream his way out of.

He found his way back to his desk and sat down in the chair that creaked under his weight. He felt rather emotionally drained as he looked forward, and randomly focused on the scrunched up paper-ball that was still left on his desk. After a moment or so, and after a heavy sigh, Iruka grabbed the ball from the table and unfurled it, scanning over what he had written.

He never knew he could feel so stupid. Really, it was both of their faults that Miho was in danger, but now that he looked at it, everything would have gotten so much smoother if he hadn't of acted so high and mighty. If he didn't want to be in control of things so much, and fight against the Jounin, even in his own subtle way. He looked at the paper again and tore it in two.

Kakashi and the others knew what they were doing; as much as he didn't like it. He should stop fighting now before anything worse happened.

- - -

An hour had passed, and it was already completely dark outside, the snow was barely visible anymore in the dark, but through the light of the window, once and a while, a white flake could be seen. It had lightened up some, but it was still falling with such an unusual haste, and Iruka wondered if it was ever going to stop.

Iruka reached over and pulled open a drawer on his desk, and grabbed a semi-eaten bar of chocolate. Something that he had gotten from Tsunade herself only a few days before, when he was handing in reports to her. Something that was given to her that day, but she decided she didn't want it and handed it off to Iruka.

He was very thankful that he hadn't eaten very much of it before. Only two sevenths of it; so right then he was going to go for broke and probably clear the rest of it off. He snapped off a piece of it and put it in his mouth, sucking on it while he wrote aimlessly on his papers.

At least this was something that he could do. He was going to get ahead of schedule and finish off his other work that didn't have to do with the academy students. Maybe he could take a day off if he got ahead enough. He sure was going to need that stress-relieving break.

He began to chew, always never being patient to wait for it to melt in his mouth, and he swallowed, his pen stopping on the paper for a moment, and his hand involuntarily slammed on the desk.

He tried to get his mind away from all of the incidences that day, and he kept hearing Kakashi's remarks and his own snide ones in return. What was worse, is every time he heard it, he kept hearing more and more that he was more at fault than the elder Jounin; which was to be expected when one had a mind that worked like Iruka’s did.

His fist clenched, he rather that the thought would just go away. He didn't want to have to deal with it. Kakashi and the other Jounin weren't even bothering him, they were dealing with the Genin and the students, already having supper most likely. They probably even already have had it, and were most likely going through some awesome training lesson that they'd be ranting about to him for weeks to come.

He pulled out his hair tie, and let his hair fall, framing his face. He combed it out with one hand as he leaned back, another piece of chocolate planted in his mouth. He almost wanted to laugh with distaste. There he was, sitting, eating chocolate, doing nothing while they were working with the children. For all that he wanted to complain, he really hadn’t taken any action to solve the matter at all. Nor did he even join in. No. He just sat there.

He chewed thoughtfully, tugging out a knot with one hand when a knock came at the door.

"Come in," Iruka said, his voice a bit muffled with melted chocolate; he swallowed.

The door slid back, and Gai came in, holding something in his hand, Iruka couldn't see what it was, and Gai closed the door behind him.

"How are you, Iruka-sensei?"

Iruka snapped off another piece of chocolate, already down to three seventh's left... He responded, pushing hair of his eyes, "I'm alright Gai-sensei. How about you?" He popped the chocolate into his mouth and chewed. Not bothering to wait for it to melt.

“I am doing quite well. How is your stomach feeling?” He asked with a true note of concern lacing his tone.

He smiled, and responded despite still having some chocolate in his mouth, “Just a little sore. It’ll be gone in a day or so. Thank you for your concern.”

Gai sat down on the desk.

Good god, do they even use chairs anymore? Iruka thought to himself as Gai leaned over and set something on Iruka's own desk.

"Hmn?" Iruka swallowed the remaining chocolate. "What's this?"

"Your supper."

Iruka looked down at it. It was a cup of ramen; instant ramen, but ramen just the same. Steam whirled off of it and a few stray bubbles worked their way towards the surface deliciously.

He blinked. Ramen?

Gai explained before he even posed a question. "Ah! We found some ramen in the food stores you have here, but there wasn't nearly enough for all of the students. Of course, there were plenty of other things that we managed to find, so it was of no matter."

Iruka's eyebrows raised and Gai took that as a que to continue.

"Well, we put the students into a simple training contest and the winners got to have ramen. We did this with our own teams of course. There was enough for that at the very least.”

"Oh... I see. Why do I have one? Did you have one extra?"

Gai shook his head and smiled, and he seemed to be on the verge of his 'manly tears' for some strange reason. "Such generous youth! They were willing to give up their own ramen for their dear teacher! I'm very touched that you have such people that follow and respect you Iruka-sensei!"

"... This is one of the students?" He was surprised.

Gai sniffed and wiped away one of his tears. "No. It is Naruto's. He won his team’s contest and he demanded that you have it Iruka-sensei."

Iruka gaped at him, after a pause with the two staring at each other Iruka burst into laughter, which brought the most confused expression on Gai's face. "You're kidding, right? Naruto willingly gave up his ramen for me? Okay, either there was an extra and Naruto somehow found a way to put you up to this, saying that so he looks better in my books, or one of you had to forcibly pry it from him, and you had to tell me the story to keep from the truth." He chuckled. "Whichever it is, I don't care."

"You are mistaken."

"Huh?"

"Don't think so lowly of Naruto that he didn't do this willingly. He was very animate of wanting to give this to you Iruka-sensei. It was very important to him," Gai explained, his face very serious. "He wanted to be sure that his teacher got a good meal."

"I... I never meant..." He sighed. "Tell him thank you for me. I apologize Gai-sensei, I just haven't been very polite lately it seems."

Gai seemed to be keeping up with being serious, thankfully. "I understand. This situation is stressful, is it not?"

Iruka nodded, sliding the chocolate back into his desk drawer. "I know, and it isn't any excuse for me to get so frustrated at anyone else over." He picked up his hair tie and began to re-do his hair so it wouldn't fall into the ramen.

"It's alright, you're still youthful, you will endure!"

Iruka's mouth quirked at a grin at Gai's words. "Thank you Gai."

Gai just nodded and crossed his arms as Iruka picked up the chopsticks and broke them in half. Then he realized, Gai didn't appear to have anything to eat. He stopped, and looked up.

"What about you? Did you already have supper?"

Gai shook his head, putting up a hand. "Fear not, Iruka-sensei, I have gone many days on end without eating. I can survive without one meal. Besides, I have challenged my eternal rival to see who can go the longest without eating. The deadline is when we finally get to leave. I intend to win!"

"Isn't that a dangerous competition?" Iruka asked, all the while he thought, Knowing Kakashi, he'll be eating something whenever Gai leaves the room. And Gai being... Gai... wouldn't notice a single thing. Kakashi probably never even said yes to the competition anyway…

"As I said, fear not! For I can handle it!"

"Look... Here," he slid the ramen towards Gai. "You have this. I was eating some chocolate anyway, I'll be okay. You came here after some training, which was after a long mission. I know, because I read your report. I know you probably haven't eaten much, and rival or not it'd be better if you ate something."

Gai looked at him, surprised it seemed. Iruka thought he really shouldn't have been. He felt bad if he was going around eating when he was lazing around as he did, and the Jounin were doing so much on top of all of what they have already done.

Gai shook his head. "No! I shall not partake! I have a competition to win!"

Iruka was giving Gai a flat-look. "Competition or no, you should eat you know. I promise that I won't tell Kakashi that you ate anything. I'll even vouch as a witness that you never ate anything in my presence."

Gai didn't seem to want to budge. Iruka tried harder, even though he didn't even know why he was bothering so much to try and get Gai to eat.

"Think of it this way. If you fall over from hunger, then you won't be so much help for the students and the other teams. Right now they need a strong and reliable Jounin to follow after and take examples from. Right? You can't do that on an empty stomach." He then added slyly, with a smirk on his face, "You're a ninja, right? It's part of your job to be sneaky and do things without other people knowing. Just think of this as part of the competition. Right?"

Gai was deeply considering what Iruka had said, one of his thick hands was on his chin as he thought intensely.

He snatched the cup from the table, but not without the tears that followed. "Such great and moving words Iruka-sensei! I shall eat! I feel honored to take such great wisdom from you!"

Iruka put his head on his desk. How in the hell did Kakashi manage to put up with this whenever he saw the man? Worse yet... how did Gai'steam survive this on a daily basis? How come they all weren't brain-dead? Iruka could feel his energy being sapped by the mere presence of the man. Who was, at that current moment, slurping up noodles as quickly as he could, all the wile tears of gratitude fell from his face.

He looked over to the window, head in his arms, thinking to himself with the silence that was given as Gai ate. Well... he felt he helped in some way, right? And at the very least, Gai served as a good distraction to his thoughts. That he appreciated.

Iruka bit his lip as his stomach gave a violent twist completely out of the blue. His teeth clenched, and his felt his hands tightening to fists as the pain fell over him, the core of which being his stomach. His breath seemed to stop with the pain. Why had this come up again? Why so viciously? He actually thought it had gone away.

Had the kick started it up again? Or was it the chocolate that he insisted on feeding it?

Those questions were left unanswered as the pain slipped away as quickly as it came, and almost with no memory of how it felt. Iruka breathed out heavily just as Gai slammed the cup on the table.

Gai swallowed. "Thank you very much Iruka-sensei!”

Iruka jumped at the sound and he looked over. "What? Done already? From what I heard from Naruto... you're almost as fast as Kakashi-sensei when it comes to eating ramen..." He quickly rambled, as if he didn’t just felt a knife-twisting pain…

Oh thank god… Gai didn’t notice.

"Do you really think so? I have witnessed this for myself, and I intend to beat Kakashi in his own game of speed-eating."

Oh good lord this man ever stop? At least it meant that Gai didn’t notice. Good thing too. It was nothing to worry over at all, it was already gone, and it never lasted. He would sleep it off and he’d be fine the next day. Iruka concluded that it started up because he was hungry. So, Iruka retrieved his chocolate by this point and was munching on it again, not even bothering to break of chunks, and was already chewing on a healthy-sized bite as Gai went on and on.

Gai went on in that fashion for several minutes; he was standing by then, talking with huge arm flourishes and with such enthusiasm that Iruka was almost sure that he could see the sparkles shining around him as he spoke so passionately about him finally defeating Kakashi. By the time Gai stopped to take a breath, Iruka had already cleared off all of the chocolate and was licking his fingers.

"Hmn? Go on Gai-sensei," Iruka said, a finger in his mouth. "You were going on about how you and Kakashi tied several times in the past three weeks?"

Gai was looking at the torn in two piece of paper on his desk, whose occupant just noticed just where Gai was looking. Iruka's hands slapped over top of them and he smiled sheepishly. "Oh? This? This is just a botched lesson plan. I kept doing it incorrectly so I just scraped it and tore it in two. Nothing interesting. Could you please go on?"

"A botched plan? Nonsense! I could surely help you!"

"N-no! Really. I appreciate the offer, but really, I can do it myself," he said, hands still firmly over top the piece of paper. "It's alright, I much rather hear more about what you have to say-"

Why didn't Gai listen to anything anyone said? The green-beast swiped the torn papers from right under Iruka's hands and he began to look them over. Iruka stood, and tried to snatch them from him. Couldn't the man mind his own business! Shouldn't he understand that this was Iruka's business alone?

"What is this?" Gai began to skim it, and he moved so that Iruka couldn't snatch it away from him.

Iruka couldn’t do anything to stop him from reading it.

After a moment of 'struggle' Gai's eyes looked at Iruka with a questioning stare. "What is this Iruka-sensei?"

Iruka shrunk a bit at that, and he sat down on his desk. "That's... Don't be offended Gai-sensei. I was just frustrated earlier and I don't mean a word of it..."

"..." Gai was reading it again. "Are you really that frustrated with us being here Iruka-sensei? That we drove you to write this?"

"No! Of course not! I must have been having a bad week. On any normal circumstance I would never even think of writing something like that." Oh why, why did he leave that on his desk? Why didn't he throw it out? Or better yet, burn it?

"But this isn't any normal circumstance. Do you really believe that we've been unnecessarily taking over things that we shouldn't be?" The way that he asked the question, almost sounded like a small child that wanted to know what he did wrong, and how he could fix it.

"No! Please understand that I was frustrated! I don't mean a word of it now! I mean, you've been so helpful with the students and keeping them entertained, where I'd have probably bored them to death if it were not for you.”

Gai wasn’t too visibly convinced. He also didn't seem to be directly thinking on any offence that he should have been taking from what Iruka wrote; but rather, the consequences of his own actions.

"Iruka-sensei, if you wanted help, then I greatly apologize for taking over without asking for any consent. You're the teacher here; you know what's best for your students."

"... If only Kakashi-sensei understood that..." Iruka muttered at Gai's statement, unintentionally saying what he meant to think.

"What was that?"

"Ah! Nothing! Nothing at all."

Gai's thick eyebrows furrowed at the teacher, he wasn't going to relent until he found the answer he needed. "Are you angry with Kakashi-sensei?"

"No!" Iruka retorted, trying to get the papers. "Now could you please give those back!"

During all of this, neither of them noticed the door opening. "Who's angry with me?"

The action stopped, Iruka froze mid-grab, looking over at Kakashi who was standing with his arms crossed, his one-eyed gaze over at the two of them and the two halves of a suspicious looking piece of paper.

"Ah! My eternal rival!" Gai greeted too cheerfully for the situation.

Iruka swallowed. Oh damn.

---

Author's Note: Okay. I got the second chapter up! I really appreciate all of the feedback that I have recived, and I am also very surprised at the different points of view. How some of you think that Iruka seems to be leaning more at fault, and the other think that Kakashi is just being too mean.

Anyway, random note. I write these in colour. Chapter one was written in Maroon and this chapter was written in Navy... I wonder what Chapter 3 will be...

Anyway... thank you very much! And I hope to get the next chapter to you soon.

-Laughs evily-

Please enjoy!

(And... No Flaming. If you do so, I will send the Green-beast of the Village Hidden in the Leaves after you. And force you into bright-green spandex.)