It was raining again and Kakashi was at home forlornly staring out the window. He watched as the raindrops splashed into the puddles that were slowly forming on the road below his apartment. Kakashi knew that Iruka loved the rain. He remembered seeing the younger man sticking his tongue out to catch the raindrops, the happy grin as the water trickled down the chuunin's tanned face. He recalled watching Iruka shaking out his soaked hair, splattering water all over Kakashi's clean, dry bed. He also remembered yelling at the academy teacher and attempting to grab the chuunin as he dashed through the house, weaving, trying to evade the irate silver-haired man and his offending towel. But mostly, Kakashi remembered the hugs and the laughter as he finally caught the other man and vigorously toweled his wet head dry.

It was memories like this that made Kakashi catch his breath whenever he thought of the Iruka. They also made him grit his teeth in impatience at the lack communication from said man in the past week.

[Go do whatever it is you do when you're not on missions or training and still disappear]

Fine. He was more than willing to give Iruka his space if it meant the man wouldn't coerce him into taking off his mask or break up with him outright. But the problem was Kakashi didn't exactly DO anything when he wasn't on missions or training. He sometimes sat around and read Icha Icha Paradise but he wasn't really in the mood for that right now. And there were only so many mission or training sessions his body, well-conditioned as it was, could take before protesting. A little. Ok, a lot.

He could have gone to the memorial stone and stared morosely for a while but the allure of doing that had diminished quite a bit after getting together with the sunny chuunin teacher. Actually, his hobby of staring at the stone had been replaced by spying on the chuunin teacher just before they got together, but Iruka really didn't need to know that. Hmm...maybe he could go see what Iruka was...no no, the whole 'seeing' thing didn't really work that well two days ago.

Kakashi usually managed to keep his chakra hidden on covert expeditions; he was after all, an elite jounin cum former ANBU member and all that. However two days ago, he had worked himself into such a frenzy arguing with himself if he should just confront the younger man rather than wait, that he accidentally forgot to mask his rather unique chakra. The academy teacher had suddenly frozen in the midst of his session with the students he was teaching. Likewise, Kakashi had frozen as the word 'crap' ran through his mind. The chuunin then re-started his lecture and at the same time slowly made his way to the window Kakashi was spying though. Smiling at his class, the young teacher had lifted his index finger and tilted his head in the direction of the tree across the small field, outside the window where Kakashi was currently, rather frozenly perched on. Iruka then seemed to scratch the side of his head and THWARP! A pencil shot past Kakashi's face and imbedded itself into the branch centimeters from his left ear. The children in the class had erupted into applause and chuunin had glared at the offending tree and slammed the window shut. Yeah, maybe not so much with the spying, after all Iruka had made it clear that Kakashi should be 'somewhere not around him'. The man had quite a good aim. For a chuunin.

But, then again, why did he have to listen to what Iruka said anyway? It had been more than a week and he had heard nothing from the younger man. Who did that brat think he was anyway? The only person so far to put up with your mask nonsense without dumping your pale ass, you moron replied the part of his brain that was still properly functioning. Oh. Right. Kakashi sighed. And it wasn't just that Iruka put up with what he knew was a rather unreasonable request. Iruka hadn't even tried to coerce or cajole him into removing it. Any normal person would at least tried to whine or manipulate but not his Ruka. When the younger man wanted something he usually just came out and said it and Kakashi, being the genius that he was could never quite bring himself to say no to those big chocolate-colored eyes. In fact, he could still remember the last time the bluntness of the chuunin had surprised him.

It had been about three weeks ago and Kakashi had just returned from a long and exhausting S-class mission. He was unhurt but grumpy and had been looking forward to spending the weekend buried in bed, doing nothing more than to first take a nap then make love to his favorite academy teacher then nap then make love than nap then...well, you get the general idea. Anyway, Kakashi felt that he had outlined his weekend plans very clearly to Iruka. And Iruka, judging from his coos of sympathy and gentle cuddling of the tired jounin, seemed to grasp the concept sufficiently well. But then, when Kakashi was drifting off into the first nap of the day, the younger teacher, quite out of the blue, poked the pale man and said,

'You wanted to have sex?'

Sleep dazed, the Copy Ninja had blearily opened his visible eye and murmured,

'Wha?'

'I said, you wanted to have sex?' repeated the younger man.

'Uh...yes. Maybe after my nap?' yawned Kakashi, although he thought, if Iruka wanted to do it now, he would be more than willing to delay his first nap of the day. Ah, the sacrifices he made for the younger man. With that idea in mind, Kakashi smiled sleepily under his mask and started to reach for the delectable chuunin teacher.

'Go buy me some mochi then.'

What? Thought Kakashi.

'What?' said Kakashi

'If you want to have sex this weekend, go buy me some mochi.' smiled Iruka, softly stroking the pale hair on the jounin's head. 'Please?'

'What? I...but...Why can't you go?' questioned Kakashi, already staring to re-burrow back under the blankets.

'My feet are really, really tired' answered the chuunin.

'I just finished a very, very difficult mission' countered the jounin.

'Konohamaru is in my class. And Naruto didn't have any missions and was really really bored.' replied the chuunin.

'They threw like a whole bunch of shuriken at me' said the jounin, holding up his two hands to show how big the bunch of shuriken was.

'I think I want chocolate mochi. Oh wait, maybe vanilla' answered the chuunin, thinking deeply.

'And a kunai nearly nipped of the top of my right ear' continued the jounin, rubbing the tip of his right ear.

'Or maybe strawberry...hmmm' pondered the chuunin, biting his index finger.

'It was an S class mission. S!' said the increasingly agitated jounin.

'But don't get the frozen ones, get them fresh ok?' Iruka's dark eyes had crinkled up adorably as he bent down to nuzzle the cloth covered cheek of the prone ninja and gave him, what was possibly the sweetest little peck on the cheek ever known to man or shinobi.

Kakashi had closed his eye and sighed deeply, laying still for a moment longer before shoving off the warm, warm blankets and began to pull his pants and shirt on, all the while muttering about big brown eyes, pouty lips and cute scarred noses. In fact, even as he jumped across rooftops all the way to the other side of town to purchase freshly made, chocolate, vanilla and strawberry mochi he continued to mutter about big brown eyes, pouty lips and cute scarred noses.

Present day Kakashi sighed again. Iruka had said he would come find him once he had finished thinking about...Stuff. Iruka usually said whatever he thought, no deception, no manipulation, no lies. Kakashi continued to stare out at the rain as he waited for Iruka to decide.

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