Written for @catnerys, the runner-up of the Trope Tournament! Please enjoy this fic about fake relationships - however brief it may be.
It all happened very quickly.
They were running down the street, feet firmly on the ground. True, they were shinobi and could easily step up the wall and onto the roof — but few buildings in this village towered beyond the second storey. Their mission wasn’t over to justify blowing their cover just yet.
So when the cacophony of a rabble emerged from the corner ahead, Kakashi was already scanning his surroundings. There, a hiding spot — just behind the row of dumpsters. Not the best place on account of its stench, but compared to the port warehouse at the end of summer when the coolant seals were close to failing and when some unlucky merchant decided that his fish were better off rotting than having to pay for their disposal, well. Kakashi could easily say he had worse.
He turned to yank Iruka towards the dumpsters, a quip about terrible prospects ready on his tongue. But Iruka wasn’t looking at him.
"They're coming," he said, his voice strained with urgency. "Quick — just pretend — "
Pretend what, Kakashi would have asked, entirely confused at prospect of pretending he was a piece of trash. (No pretences required there, thank you very much.) Before he could get a word out, Iruka hauled him by lapels of his hakama with his best impression of Guy's strength and slammed him up against the brick wall.
Now Kakashi was never opposed to Iruka pushing him up against a wall in principle — said principle being that Iruka had a perfectly lovely face and ass and that Kakashi had eyes — but they were next to the dumpsters. Not even behind them. Just next to them.
"Iruka," he began to say — except in that second he took to say Iruka's name, Iruka had stepped into his space, close enough that Kakashi could count each and every of his eyelashes —
— and kissed him.
Kakashi stood there, eyes wide and frozen. Iruka kissed like a knife to the gut, forceful and all too unexpected. A literal knife, given the velocity at which he hurled himself at Kakashi. His fists dug sharply into Kakashi's chest, each knuckle finding the grooves between Kakashi's ribs with painful accuracy. The resulting grip was sufficiently forceful: had Iruka decided to tug hard, he might just behead Kakashi with the collar of Kakashi's own hakama.
Being kissed by an admittedly very attractive man was something that Kakashi had plenty of experience with. Being kissed by Iruka was an experience Kakashi lacked. Him and his bingo book both, considering that Iruka was taking to the task with the force and finesse of a hammer to a nail.
There was the patter of feet and copious amount of yelling as the rabble turned the corner. Kakashi heard Iruka's sharp inhale as the stampede of the mercenaries went right past them, the whistles and cat-calls more a relief than an insult — felt the way Iruka shoved himself closer in a vain attempt to phase through Kakashi and meld into the wall. If it were any other occasion, Kakashi would even encourage Iruka to press the full length of his body up against his own, perhaps even horizontally.
On this occasion, he’d appreciate if Iruka would stop trying to flatten him out like a sheet of mochi.
When the last stragglers from the horde finally retreated under the bridge and around the bend, Iruka drew back to look down the cleared road.
"Thank the gods that worked," he said breathlessly. "People are often discomforted by displays of affection. They tend to look the other way."
It took Kakashi a moment to convince his brain that any breathlessness on Iruka's part was due to his efforts at pretending to snog the living daylights out of Kakashi, and not because Kakashi was a great kisser. Kakashi had just stood there. It took him another moment to say —
"We could have just hidden behind those dumpsters."
"What?"
"The dumpsters." Kakashi pointed at them, helpfully. "There's enough space for two people," he said, also helpfully.
Iruka's eyes began to track the trajectory of his finger — except suddenly there was more shouting and the growing rumble of sandals slapping down against the dirt road.
Give a noble an inheritance, and they'll inevitably spend it. On luxuries, that was a given; the smarter of them would lavish some on might. This particular lordling had decided on the latter, choosing to bolster his forces with mercenaries. Missing-nin were far from short in supply when they were this close to Mist.
Still, smart wasn't quite the word that Kakashi would use to describe him at the moment. Inconvenient, maybe. The group that had passed them by was far from small. Unless that prior group had decided to circle around, this was likely another mercenary group.
"More of them," he shook his head, only to turn and see the wild light of panic in Iruka's eyes. "Wait — the dumpsters — !"
That was all the words he managed to get out before Iruka grabbed at his face with one hand — painfully — pushed him into the unyielding brick wall — also painfully — and crushed his mouth onto Kakashi's once more.
The second kiss was as awkward as the first. Iruka's teeth clacked against his and Kakashi couldn't even jerk his head back for how tightly Iruka was holding onto his face. His hand, the one that wasn't attempting to mould Kakashi’s face into a pancake, shoved into Kakashi's hair as though he was searching for a Rasengan-sized louse. His leg shifted — for one heart-stopping moment, Kakashi seriously feared that Iruka would slide a leg between his thighs, except with how enthusiastically he'd been taking to this particular deception he might just knee Kakashi in the balls instead.
To the relief of Kakashi (and his balls), Iruka's leg bent outwards instead of upwards. It was merely insurance for Kakashi to grab at that knee and keep it there lest it wandered into any delicate parts.
So there they stood, as the second rabble careened past them. Amongst shouts of finding the intruders (them) and killing said intruders (also them), Kakashi made the unfortunate discovery that Iruka was very much a method actor when what could only be Iruka's tongue jabbed at the hard enamel of Kakashi's teeth. The accompanying stunted wriggling, likely a misguided attempt at conveying passion to any onlookers, was also... something.
If only he had dragged Iruka behind the dumpsters instead of standing there in shock. Two people kissing — however unconvincingly it may seem — suddenly darting to hide behind dumpsters would inspire only suspicion and an aggressive follow-up. The wisest course of action was to continue the charade.
More shouting, more stamping, more people. He held back a wince when a close shout caused Iruka to grasp a fistful of Kakashi's hair in surprise; the hasty pats Iruka left on his smarting scalp immediately mollified him. In the periphery of his obstructed vision, the horde did not seem to be thinning — instead, it seemed to be thickening.
Where were all these missing-nins coming from? He saw slash marks across all kinds of symbols — Mist, Sand, Lightning, and some even he did not recognise — hell, there was the hilt of a blade and the unmistakable gait of an Iron-trained samurai, even. It felt as though an entire country defected to be hired by this new hotshot heir of a backwater village. How much money did this boy have? What was he paying them with?
How were there still more of them?
No. No, Kakashi had to focus. He was a seasoned shinobi; he had taken on more dangerous missions than this. Granted, none of them had Iruka pretending to stick his tongue down his throat and being terrible at it. He only needed a plan to get behind the dumpsters, naturally.
Lovers shifted and moved around, didn’t they? He could just roll Iruka over and press him up against the wall, switching their places. Hell, he could show Iruka a real (fake) kiss. Like those in Icha Icha, which eventually evolved into real kisses, and then real molesting, unlike the aggressive weeding that Iruka was subjecting his hair to. And then, at some point, real fucking.
All that wriggling Iruka was currently doing against his front was suddenly very, very distracting.
Wait, wait, wait. His main goal was to get Iruka to behind the dumpsters. Any fucking, real or not, came later. Possibly in an inn far away from this place. Kakashi still had his professional pride.
But if he took a bit longer to drag Iruka behind the dumpsters, well. He was only being a fastidious instructor.
His resolve solidified, Kakashi reached down with his free hand —
Only to have Iruka remove himself from his grasp almost immediately.
"They're gone," Iruka announced as he looked down the road, nary a blush on his cheek. The mercenaries were indeed gone, having departed in the turmoil of Kakashi's inner monologue; his hand curled around empty air where the plump curve of Iruka's ass should have been. "Let's go before they come back."
So he went, heedless of Kakashi's shocked disappointment and his burning need to ask Iruka if that entire experience was what Iruka thought was a proper kiss and if he'd be open to notes. Practical notes, with a lot of practical tests and a full-on proper examination that he had to pass but would be likely to fail repeatedly if only on Kakashi's arbitrary whim.
And, underneath all of that, was Kakashi's disbelief that despite everything, Iruka's utter failure to pretend at kissing convincingly was rather... adorable.
Man, he had it bad.
Not wanting to tempt fate with a third mercenary group, he hurried after Iruka.
Based off this particular video.
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