Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Indecent Exposure ~ A Naruto Fan-Fic (K/I) ❯ Chapter 6

Indecent Exposure

A 'Naruto' fan-fiction by Ookami Kasumi

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~ Six ~

 

Iruka's kitchen wasn't particularly large, but with he and Shikamaru both occupying it, the cozy kitchen seemed decidedly crowded. Truthfully, Iruka didn't do much beyond showing the Nara where things were, the cutting board, pots, pans, wooden spoons, strainers, cooking knives. However, he did grate a LOT of cheese.

 

The amount of prep work that went into Shikamaru's lasagna was staggering; chopping then sautéing onions and garlic, plucking and crushing spices, pan-frying meat in more onions and garlic, tossing all of the above into a pot of simmering tomato sauce, boiling noodles with a dollop of olive oil -- and grating cheese.

 

Iruka was very glad he had more than one kitchen apron. The work was rather...messy.

 

Using a wooden spoon, Shikamaru slathered the last of the sauce over the layers of pan-fried meat, boiled noodles, and three different cheeses all piled in a rectangular baking dish. "Rumor has it, Iruka-sensei, that you were once a serious prankster." He sprinkled more cheese over the top.

 

Sitting in one of the two chairs at his tiny kitchen table, still grating cheese, Parmesan this time, Iruka smiled. That he'd once been a prankster wasn't exactly a secret. "It's true."

 

Shikamaru turned to frown over his shoulder at the schoolteacher. "Is that why so many jounin are scared of you?"

 

Iruka dodged his gaze and smiled. "I wouldn't say scared, so much as...wary."

 

Shikamaru turned away to open the oven. "Oh?"

 

Iruka shrugged, but his smile didn't fade. "You remember me saying that all the information in the world won't help you unless you can use it effectively?"

 

"Mmm-hmm." Shikamaru slid the baking dish into the oven and closed the door. He turned the dial on the timer.

 

"Well, that's how pranks work." Iruka scrubbed a particularly stubborn hunk of cheese on the grater. "A good prank matches the crime."

 

Shikamaru turned all the way around to lean back against the counter with his arms folded. His long black bistro apron made him look even taller, and more slender than usual. "Crime?"

 

Iruka raised a finger and spoke loftily. "One shouldn't prank someone that doesn't richly deserve it."

 

Shikamaru nodded solemnly. "Ah... So you like using guilt as a weapon too."

 

Iruka flinched, accidentally spilling a small amount of cheese into his lap. "You really are digging up all my secrets."

 

Shikamaru shrugged. "Sorry, hazards of the profession."

 

Iruka flashed Shikamaru a frown and stuck out his bottom lip. "You're just too damned smart."

 

Shikamaru snorted. "That too."

 

Iruka groaned and lifted the edges of his white ruffled apron. Carefully, he stood up and carried the spilled cheese over to the trash.

 

Shikamaru's brows knit, but the corner of his mouth betrayed a smirk trying to escape. "You look good in ruffles, Iruka-sensei."

 

Iruka curled his lip. "It's the only other apron I have, okay?"

 

The Nara snorted. "The point is -- you have it."

 

Iruka lifted his nose and flounced into his chair. "It was a gift."

 

Shikamaru's smile broadened. "That you kept."

 

Iruka glared at him and raised the last lump of cheese as though intending to pitch it at a certain annoyance's head. "Keep talking."

 

Shikamaru threw both arms over his head, and curled up; lifting his knee to cover his groin, but his smile was completely visible. "Sorry! Sorry!"

 

Iruka returned to his grater. "Anyway... The best pranks not only match the crime, but the culprit."

 

Shikamaru uncurled and frowned. "Okay..."

 

Iruka settled into scrubbing the last hunk of cheese, but smiled. "Once upon a time, when I was a newly made genin, there was this extremely anal-retentive Uchiha jounin who liked harassing...one of my female friends, mostly because she had a weak bloodline limit, but mainly because she was afraid of bugs."

 

Shikamaru's brows lifted. "You're not going to tell me who?"

 

Iruka waved his hand. "Oh, the Uchiha isn't Sasuke or Itachi." Iruka shuddered. "Even I know better than to prank Itachi."

 

Shikamaru rolled his eyes. "The female friend of yours."

 

Iruka stopped to look him dead in the eyes. "No."

 

Shikamaru flinched back and threw up his hands. "Okay, fine, don't tell me."

 

Iruka went back to grating. "Anyway, the problem with pranking an Uchiha, is that they can see through any henge illusion, or genjutsu mind-trick. Ninjutsu elemental manipulation is out too..."

 

Shikamaru snorted. "Because they can spot anything that uses chakra a mile away." He turned around and began running hot water into the sink.

 

Iruka nodded. "Exactly, so the only option is hands-on, actual tricks. So the first thing I did was start a rumor."

 

The Nara picked up the dish soap and the sponge. "A rumor?" He began scrubbing the pots in the sink.

 

Iruka smiled. "Yep, I told everyone that I could find that a couple of friends of mine saw him kissing another guy behind the bar he liked to go to."

 

Sponge in hand, Shikamaru turned around to look at Iruka, eyes wide. "You started the rumor that he was gay?"

 

Iruka sighed. "Yeah, but that kind of back-fired."

 

The Nara turned around and went back to washing the pots in the sink. "Why? Did he find out it was you?"

 

Iruka shook his head. "Oh no, he never found out it was me." He grimaced. "He really was gay."

 

Shikamaru stilled. "Oh." He went back to scrubbing.

 

Iruka finished the last of the cheese, at last. "Anyway, so I went to his house..."

 

Shikamaru shook his head. "Wait, how did you know where he lived? Wasn't the Uchiha compound closed off, I mean like the whole neighborhood and everything?"

 

Iruka swept the cheese from his hands and smiled. "My paper route included the entire Uchiha compound."

 

Shikamaru turned around to stare at Iruka with his brows arched high. "Paper route?"

 

Iruka frowned. "What? For a genin, delivering newspapers is far better than some D grade missions I could mention."

 

Shikamaru winced. "Good point." He turned back to his pots and pans.

 

Iruka carried his grater to the sink. "So, when the Uchiha went out on a mission, I asked his gardener if he needed his lawn mowed. The plan was to shove a bee's nest into one of his windows..."

 

Shikamaru's eyes widened. "A bee's nest?" He took the grater from Iruka's hand.

 

Iruka leaned against the counter and nodded. "He was supposed to be allergic to bees."

 

Shikamaru shuddered and continued to scrub.

 

Iruka took a damp cloth and went back to the table to wipe it clean. "Well the gardener said I could mow the lawn, as long as I didn't tell the master that he'd let me do it. Only those cleared by the Uchiha clan head could work in an Uchiha household, see?"

 

Shikamaru stilled. "Holy shit, a built in cover story..." He shook his head and set the freshly washed pots and utensils in the strainer on the counter.

 

Iruka swept the loose cheese from the table into his palm and carried it to the trash. "Problem was, the bee's nest I wanted to use was being watched by a farmer, so..." He brushed his hands together and shrugged. "I had to use a wasp's nest instead."

 

Shikamaru looked over at him sharply. "A wasp's nest?"

 

"It was huge too." Iruka held his hands about two feet apart. "About this thick."

 

Shikamaru blinked. "Thick...?" His voice cracked. He picked up the kitchen towel and wiped his hands dry. "Wait, how the hell did you plan to collect and move the damned thing? Wouldn't they just go after you?"

 

Smiling, Iruka moved to the sink and rinsed out the cloth he'd used to wipe the table. "Well I smoked the nest with a sleep powder used for bees that I...borrowed from the farmer. It worked like a charm. I cut the branch it was on and used chakra wires to lower the whole thing into a really big jar.

 

Shikamaru handed Iruka the towel. "A jar? Where the hell did you find a jar that big?"

 

Iruka looked away and dried his hands. "I...borrowed it from my jounin sensei at the time." He'd had to empty it and clean it first. He shivered slightly. The memory still gave him the creeps.

 

Shikamaru lifted one brow. "Dare I ask?"

 

Iruka winced and tucked the towel back into the ring over the sink. "Better not. Long story, ugly ending."

 

Shikamaru rolled his eyes. "Okay..."

 

Iruka moved back to the table to collect the rather large bowl of grated cheese. "Anyway, I carted the thing on my bike in my newspaper bag..."

 

Shikamaru folded his arms and frowned. "And no one asked about it?"

 

"Just one." Iruka handed Shikamaru the bowl of cheese and smiled. "I told them it was my science project."

 

The Nara took the cheese and set it on the counter. His brows lowered. "Who...?"

 

Iruka turned to the side and looked from the corner of his eye. "The um... Third Hokage?"

 

Shikamaru winced. "Did he stop you?"

 

Iruka grinned. "He though my project was cool."

 

Shikamaru walked over to the table and lifted his book bag from the other chair. "You know, the longer you tell this story, the more you sound like you're about twelve."

 

Iruka blinked. "I was fourteen was at the time."

 

His brows lifted. "Ah... I see..." He rolled his eyes and unzipped the book bag to pull out a bottle of very red wine. He smiled at Iruka. "I got this from my dad's stash. I hope you like it."

 

Iruka stepped close to look at the label. "Ah, Lambrusco... Perfect for lasagna." He grinned. "I'm ready for a glass if you are?"

 

Shikamaru lifted a brow. "Do you have a corkscrew?"

 

"Absolutely." Iruka moved to the counter and opened a drawer to rummage. He lifted his prize. "Do you want to open it or shall I?"

 

"You can open it." He handed the bottle to Iruka. "So what happened next, with the wasps?"

 

Iruka applied the corkscrew to the bottle. "Well, I kept the jar in my bag while I mowed the yard." The cork came free with a subtle pop.

 

Shikamaru set his book bag on the floor to sit and blinked. "You actually mowed it?"

 

Iruka nodded and opened the overhead cabinet to pull down two wine glasses. "Push mower. Very heavy, very oily." He poured very dark red wine into the two wine glasses. "As soon as the gardener went off to do some sort of errand, I searched for a window that I could get open." He corked the bottle and carried the bottle and both glasses to the kitchen table.

 

Shikamaru took a glass and frowned. "Weren't the windows, you know, trapped?"

 

Iruka sat down and waved a hand. "Oh hell yeah, but I could already get through simple traps and most people don't think to seriously trap the little windows, the ones adults can't get through."

 

Shikamaru stilled then narrowed his gaze. "Attic or basement?"

 

"I went for the attic. I was good at climbing -- without chakra." Iruka smiled and lifted his glass to his lips. The taste was dry and vaguely sweet. "Excellent, thank you."

 

"My pleasure." Shikamaru sipped from his glass. "Oh, nice." He snorted. "Dad has some good stuff."

 

Iruka smiled a little tightly. "He won't miss it?"

 

Shikamaru snorted and his lips twisted in something close to his usual scowl. "If he asks, I'll tell him it was for a gift, but he doesn't normally ask."

 

Iruka frowned briefly. "Oh..." He looked down at his glass. "Anyway, the Uchiha had these really cool round windows up on his roof, but he didn't have an attic, so to speak."

 

Shikamaru blinked. "No attic?"

 

"Nope." Iruka grinned. "They were skylights overlooking a catwalk that went all the way around his dojo."

 

Shikamaru's eyes widened. "You dropped that nest through a dojo skylight?"

 

"And closed the window really quick." Iruka mimed closing a trapdoor window.

 

Shikamaru snorted. "I bet." He sipped his wine.

 

"Oh and..." Iruka sipped as well. "For some strange reason, he'd left all of the interior sliding doors wide open, so the dojo was completely open to the main house."

 

"Wait..." Shikamaru shook his head. "Didn't you say that this guy was away on a mission?"

 

Iruka smiled slowly and nastily. "He didn't come back for two more weeks."

 

"Holy crap..." Shikamaru straightened. "They must have gotten into everything."

 

Iruka shrugged, but a smile tugged at his mouth. "The walls, the ceilings, the closets, the drawers, every little nook and cranny..."

 

Shikamaru's face paled. "Fuck..."

 

Iruka sipped his wine then his eyes narrowed. His smile was all teeth. "They never did get all of them out."

 

Shikamaru frowned. "Not even with the help of the bug guys?"

 

Iruka shook his head slowly. "Wasps are notoriously stubborn, especially about where they nest. Two weeks was long enough for them to make themselves very much at home."

 

Shikamaru picked up his wine. "So what happened to the guy?"

 

Iruka looked down to rub the edge of his glass with his finger. "Let's just say that he spent...a while in the hospital for injuries that weren't related to his mission." He shot a sly smile at Shikamaru. "And came out rather...paranoid about wasps." He lifted his head and folded both hands behind his neck. "Needless to say, he never, ever picked on my friend about being afraid of bugs again."

 

Shikamaru winced. "I bet not." He frowned. "Wait, he was an Uchiha, he must have had Sharingan eyes. Those guys can see to move through showers of needles. How'd the wasps get him?"

 

"Well the thing about bees, and wasps in particular..." Iruka propped his chin on his upraised hand and smiled. "Is that they don't fly in a straight trajectory, they sort of zigzag in ever-changing patterns." He moved his hand back and forth in example. "So predicting which way they'll go is kind of tough, especially for someone who is used to dealing with strictly straight-line projectiles." Iruka's smile broadened." And wasps are very fast."

 

The Nara blinked. "I'm surprised the bug guys don't use them in battles."

 

Iruka shook his head. "Wasps are extremely stubborn. They don't like to leave their nests, and they're really temperamental. From what I understand, they can be encouraged to attack if they think their nest is in danger, but even so, they're just as likely to attack the caller as they are the target."

 

"Damn..." Shikamaru shook his head. "You really thought that one out."

 

"I had to." Iruka shrugged. "He was a jounin and an Uchiha." He smiled and lifted a finger. "Proving that that all the ninjutsu and bloodline limits in the world won't save you from someone who knows how to use your weakness; in this case, a simple allergy to bees."

 

"Hn..." Shikamaru sipped at his wine. "So, when did they find out you did it?"

 

Iruka looked down and fiddled with his glass. "Well, from what I can tell, the Hokage happened to mention seeing me with a really big wasp's nest, and it kind of leaked out from there."

 

Shikamaru set an elbow on the table and leaned on it. "When?"

 

Iruka winced and leaned back. "The year before I became a schoolteacher."

 

Shikamaru frowned. "They didn't know for that long?"

 

Iruka turned his head to the side, but his gaze went the other way. "Apparently they thought a very advanced ninja had left it there; someone with untraceable chakra."

 

Shikamaru rolled is eyes. "And all along it was someone that simply hadn't used any." He lifted his hand and shook his head. "Wait... Why did they think it was a ninja, and not just a simple prank? That's stupid. Such a ninja would have just killed him outright."

 

Iruka looked away. "Well, it seems that this Uchiha was one of those that had a reputation for being really hard to kill. He was in a lot of bingo books, but..." He looked briefly at Shikamaru then away again. "While in the hospital, they had to restart his heart." He cleared his throat. "More than once."

 

Shikamaru's eyes widened drastically. "Holy fuck... You almost killed him?"

 

Iruka winced and lifted one shoulder. "I wasn't actually trying to kill him. It was just that he was...really allergic." He focused on Shikamaru and his eyes narrowed. "If I had been trying to kill him, I would have released a few more in his hospital room -- under his bed."

 

Shikamaru shook his head but the corner of his mouth tilted up. "I can see why the jounin think twice about messing with you."

 

Iruka lifted his chin and gave Shikamaru his nastiest smile. "Let's just say that if they do come after me, they better make sure I'm dead when they're done."

 

Shikamaru chuckled. "Now, why aren't you working for Ibiki?"

 

Iruka looked away. "I'm not...mentally suited for assassination."

 

"Ah..." The Nara nodded.

 

The timer bell rang.

 

Shikamaru rose from his chair. "Ready to eat?"

 

Iruka sat upright. "Absolutely!"

 

~ *~