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They were asking for it. Had been for a while. They didn’t even seem to realize it. They were practically begging for it with each huff and sigh as they stood in line. With snide comments and elitist posturing. With every crumpled, damaged and stained piece of paper that ended up in Iruka’s hands. Treating their responsibilities like garbage and then complaining when Iruka called them on it. They seemed to think that there would be no penance to pay for their behaviour. Iruka was just a chunin. A chunin sensei at that. But Iruka had a plan. And it was petty.
People assumed Iruka had outgrown his prankster behaviour. They thought he had moved on. In all appearances he had. He was a teacher, a dedicated shinobi and for the most part, kept his behaviour in check. His patience, however, had been taking a beating. Dealing with full-grown, professional adults had become more stressful and time-consuming than teaching children. After weeks of progressively worse paperwork completion and monumental amounts of disrespect, Iruka intended to give them exactly what they deserved. It had cost Iruka time in planning, many bewildered looks at a civilian printing shop and some hard-earned money to get his supplies. Finally, however, everything was ready and Iruka even had a full shift at the mission’s desk to enact his revenge.
Iruka hummed and he walked into the mission room, pep in his step and his nearly empty pack bouncing against his back. He dropped cheerfully into an empty seat at the desk and pulled out a small collection of red pens, the type he would use for grading, and set them on the table. Then neat set down a stack of papers next to them.
“Iruka, what are those?” Kotetsu asked.
“Just something for the jounin-san.”
Iruka made his voice syrupy sweet.
“Oh hell,” Kotetsu muttered but didn’t ask any more questions. He knew Iruka well enough to guess just what he was up to. He even went as far as to move his chair a full meter away from Iruka. As if that was far enough away to keep him out of range from blood spray.
“Next!” Iruka chirped.
A jounin whose name escaped Iruka handed over a report with missing sections and no signature. Iruka whistled to himself as he circled the missing sections in red pen, scribbling helpful notes like ‘Not enough detail for grade points’ and ‘Incomplete. Partial marks only.’ He took a blue, iridescent sticker that said ‘FAIL’ in flowing red script and slapped it down on the payment section of the form. Iruka grabbed a clean form and pushed both into the man's hands.
“I’m sorry, jounin-san. We can’t accept this,” Iruka said using the voice he reserved for infants and small animals.
“What the fuck is this?” The jounin demanded. He jabbed a finger at the sticker.
Iruka stood up behind the desk to lean into the jounin’s space, his smile razor-sharp and the desire for a fight plain on his face.
“Well, if lethally trained adults are going to behave like children then I’m going to treat them like children.”
“You know what you paper pushing-”
“Oh shut up and get moving,” Anko snapped from behind him.
She bodily pushed him out of the way. The man puffed up. Anko bared her teeth in response. The jounin deflated and stomped away, sniping to himself as he went. Anko’s lip curled up on one side in a snarl of amusement.
“Stickers and red pen, huh?”
“Yeah.” Iruka rubbed at the back of his neck, his cheeks heating.
Anko grinned at him. Despite a loud and vivacious personality, Anko was one of the few jounin who Iruka rarely had issues with.
“Petty,” She observed. “I like it.”
She handed over her report and let her eyes wander around the room as Iruka reviewed it. It only took a few moments before Iruka turned it back to her.
“You forgot to sign at the bottom but otherwise everything else is complete.”
Iruka turned the report back to her so she could quickly sign and take her copy to collect her pay. She signed with a flourish, posing dramatically after she was done. Iruka snorted as he deposited the paperwork in the bin for review and was surprised to see Anko was still standing in front of him when he turned back around.
“Yes?” Iruka asked.
Anko usually headed straight out the door for her payment chits and dango. She rarely stayed to chat if there was food to be had.
“Can I still get a sticker?”
“Sure?” Iruka reached for the stack of sheets.
“Can I pick my own?”
Bemused, Iruka spread the sheets out on the table for her. Anko perused the stickers for a moment, going as far as to stroke her chin and tilt her head, a pose she usually reserved for the serious compilation of dango selection. Finally, she settled on one, snatching it off the paper and slamming it onto her forehead with no small amount of force. The sticker was the largest of the lot, an oval nearly five centimetres long, in fuchsia and declared ‘DISAPPOINTMENT!’ in large black letters.
She sauntered cheerfully out the door to the baffled looks of the people she passed. Iruka chuckled.
“Next!”
*
Word quickly got around about Iruka’s insulting stickers. Iruka was sure some people intentionally turned in shoddy reports a few times just to see what Iruka had in store for them. Even Kurenai had left with one report branded with a white sticker that simply said ‘NO!” in bright red. Anko came by every time Iruka was on shift, regardless of having anything to hand in, to politely request a sticker. It was becoming the norm to see her around the village, a sticker on her forehead declaring her everything from ‘UNFIT’ to ‘DENIED’.
After a few weeks the novelty finally wore off and people had started to get the message. The number of unacceptable reports had dropped dramatically. There were only a few, incredibly annoying, hold outs. Iruka was plotting their deaths. More to the point. One extremely painful and gory death.
“Kakashi-san,” Iruka tried not to grind his teeth but locking his jaw was the only way to stop the pure venom that this particular jounin seemed to inspire Iruka to spew. “This is the fifth time you’ve attempted to give me this report and it’s still just as poorly written as it was THE FIRST FOUR TIMES! DO! IT! AGAIN!” Iruka slapped his hand down on the report to emphasize each word.
“But sensei, I haven’t gotten all of today’s stickers yet,” Kakashi said with a pout.
“What?”
“The stickers,” Kakashi said. “Asuma had one I haven’t gotten yet. You know. The big, pink, sparkly one that says “YOU COULDN’T HAVE DONE WORSE” with a smiley face on it. I want it for my collection.”
“What?” Iruka repeated.
“Well,” Kakashi said, cheerfully. So cheerfully in fact that Iruka could feel a stress headache building behind his left eye. “I have the ‘TERRIBLE WORK, TRY AGAIN’ one but it’s yellow and the puppy looks sad so I don’t like it. The green one that says ‘NO EFFORT NO PAY’ I put on the fridge at home. The white one that says ‘INCOMPETENT’ in big red letters was a little harsh. I do like the gold star with the rainbow that says ‘YOU TRIED’ quite a lot. I finally got the ‘UNACCEPTABLE’ with the thumbs down earlier so now I think the pink one is all that’s left.”
Kakashi beamed at Iruka. Beamed at him. Iruka was so annoyed he couldn’t even speak. Every bit of catharsis he had earned from his stickers was sapped from him at the sight of Kakashi’s cheerful expression. Iruka wanted to shove that man’s face through the table and keep pushing.
“Get out,” Iruka snarled.
“But, Sensei,” Kakashi whined.
“OUT!” Iruka roared.
Kakashi pouted. He clutched his mission report which had nothing more on it than his name, the mission location and a haiku about dogs and strolled out of the mission room. If he had any sense of self-preservation he would have run. Or even wiser would have been using the body flicker technique. Iruka watched his retreating back until it disappeared out the door. Iruka was so angry he was shaking with it.
“You know,” Genma began.
Iruka rounded on him. Genma immediately retreated to the other side of the room, his hands held up in surrender the entire way, the pisspoor mission report he tried to hand earlier still clutched in his hand. Iruka had slapped a cheery orange sticker on it with ‘NOPE!’ in green lettering on the top. Genma scuttled sideways until he could back out through the door. Iruka watched him go with narrowed eyes, his fists clenching and unclenching. Iruka had started to relax, to reign himself in, when Genma yelled back through the door.
“You’d feel better if you just rode Kakashi the way you so obviously want to and then the rest of us wouldn’t have to suffer!”
Iruka threw every senbon and kunai he had on him, aiming for the space Genma’s head had been only an instant before. Iruka emptied his weapon's pouch until he was panting from exertion. When Iruka turned back to the desk, most of the jounin that had been milling around had disappeared and the other members of the mission desk shift were diligently working. Iruka stomped back to his seat and continued the rest of his shift, irritated and tense in the shoulders.
*
Iruka had spent twenty minutes picking weapons out of the wall before leaving the mission room. He would need to apologize to the Hokage and repair the wall. Iruka bit back a noise of annoyance. Genma was an obnoxious idiot. And Kakashi was just annoying. Annoyingly smart. Annoyingly talented. Annoyingly strong. He had an annoying voice that he used to say Iruka’s name low and a touch sexy. Then there were those stupidly annoying and stupidly sexy hands. Hands shouldn’t be sexy. And they were attached to a very annoying jounin who was not sexy. Except for his hands. And his voice. And the muscles of his forearms. And the broad lines of his shoulders.
Iruka stopped walking and buried his face in his hands. He groaned and made a sad little noise of self-pity. Hatake Kakashi. Iruka didn’t even know why or how it happened. One day, Iruka just started to notice him more. It seemed like he was everywhere all of a sudden. An annoying itch he couldn’t quite scratch. A not unlivable irritation at first but the more Iruka saw him the worse it got. Iruka found himself looking for the other man as he walked around the village or worked the desk. Iruka worried about him when he wasn’t around for days or weeks at a time. There was a tiny bit of tension Iruka carried that only eased when he knew Kakashi was in the village. It was infuriating.
When Kakashi was in the village somehow Iruka would end up running into him almost daily and every interaction stretched the upper limits of Iruka’s patience. He was always there, a ghost haunting Iruka’s steps. Iruka had lost count of the number of times he would turn around only to find Kakashi right there. Or Iruka would see a pale foot dangling from a tree, and there Kakashi would be sprawled with his “Maa, Sensei.” or his stupid one eye crinkle smile. Which Iruka found annoying, not charming, especially when he was bathed in the colours of a sunset.
“Hello, Sensei.”
Iruka let out a strangled noise of irritation, not surprise and rounded on Kakashi.
“YOU!” Iruka snapped.
“Me?” Kakashi said as if he didn’t know exactly what it was that he had done.
“Yes!” Iruka pushed up into Kakashi’s personal space. “You.”
Kakashi only smiled. Iruka snarled in frustration. Iruka grabbed the front of Kakashi’s flack jacket with one hand and stormed off towards his house. Kakashi, in his typical annoying fashion, didn’t even stumble to keep up. They were only a few minutes from Iruka’s apartment. Kakashi followed along placidly until Iruka opened his door and suddenly he wouldn’t budge. Iruka scowled at him.
“This is your apartment.”
“Wow,” Iruka said with as much sarcasm as possible. “You really are a genius.”
“Sensei.”
“Yes. It’s my apartment. And you’re coming inside with me,” Iruka said, tugging on his flack jacket. “Unless all of this wasn’t your plan while you were following at my heels and getting under my skin.”
Iruka tugged on the jacket again. Kakashi followed him easily into the apartment. Iruka shut the door with barely a slam.
*
Iruka stared at the ceiling. They hadn’t closed the curtains when they had stumbled into the bedroom. A gentle breeze was ruffling the leaves of the tree outside making shadows dance on the ceiling. He was relaxed. Genuinely and truly relaxed. His lower back and hips ached. His lips were kiss-bruised and there was beard burn down his neck. He could feel the faint sting of scratches on his back and there would be bruises on his hips but he was calm. At peace even.
“Huh.”
Kakashi made a questioning noise from where he was sprawled out next to Iruka on the bed.
“I guess Genma was right for once. I do feel better,” Iruka said.
Kakashi pushed his chest off the bed to give Iruka a sleepy smirk.
“Does this mean I get a positive sticker now?” Kakashi asked.
Iruka smacked him in the face with a pillow.
End