Courting the Fox (Naruto, Kakashi/Iruka)

The sound of the horn interrupted Iruka mid-sentence. He paused, glancing through the windows at the back of the classroom but there was nothing to see. It was reflex. He could imagine, though, the scene at the front gates as the ANBU and jounin return from the battlefield. Whispers filled the classroom and he could hear similar noise rising from the other rooms along the hall.

Iruka sighed. It was no use trying to teach anymore today. He put his chalk down and waved his students out with a smile. “Go. Off with you, you little hellions.” The class cheered and joined the others streaming out into the hall, no doubt headed straight for the gates to welcome their warriors home.

His students’ good spirit was infectious. Iruka briefly debated joining the children in watching the warriors stream in. He opted instead to go home and shower. It’d been a busy couple of days and he wanted to look his best for the festival tonight. He set out his best kimono – an expensive white silk kimono with pink cherry blossoms that the Hokage had gifted him when he’d reached Chuunin. Some called it girlish, but Iruka had always had a fondness for cherry blossoms.

He ate a light supper while he waited for his hair to dry. It’d been a while since they’d had a festival. The war had been going for years, but it seemed that Konoha finally had the upper hand. Or at least enough of one to send a few of the boys home from the front lines. It bothered Iruka sometimes, knowing that the kids he taught were graduating only to be sent out to war. He counted the lives lost, looked over the scrolls sent back every month searching for familiar names.

There was one name he always looked for first, a name that had yet to end up on a scroll. Hatake Kakashi. Iruka doubted that Hatake even knew Iruka existed. Hatake had finished school long before Iruka even started. He was so far above Iruka’s position that it was like looking up at the sky and admiring one of the stars twinkling too distant to ever reach.