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Iruka is shaking her head over the absurdity of the mistakes in Choko’s explanation of the founding of Konoha (really, she thinks, he can’t possibly believe that the first and second Hokage were father and son?) when Asuka comes up to her, hands behind her back.
“Mommy,” she says, “Can you help me? I can’t read it.” Iruka looks up, because that’s rare — Asuka started reading even before Kakashi had, and she picks up characters like some kids collect lint in their pockets. Iruka gestures her closer, and tugs Asuka into her lap as the little girl pulls a book out from behind her back.
“Now,” Iruka says, peering down at the small print, “which one?”
“This one.” Asuka says, pointing to a page nearly a third of the way through the book. Iruka scans down the page, and then registers what she’s reading. Sure enough, when she turns the book around, it’s Icha Icha Tactics. Iruka has to close her eyes for a moment to keep from yelling.
“That book is a little too old for you, sweetie,” she says, pulling the book away from her daughter (her barely-three-year-old daughter!) and tucking it into her hip pouch. “Why don’t you tell me where you found it?”
Asuka looks up at her through long brown lashes. “Are you gonna yell at Mama when she gets back?”
Iruka sighs — and, because they don’t lie to the kids, not about anything, she says: “Probably. That’s a book for adults. It’s supposed to stay on one of the high shelves in the bedroom.”
The shelves in question are not only above eye-level for Iruka and Kakashi but well out of child-reach from a chair, and trapped on top of that. Whenever the twins finally get the bright idea of seeing what’s on those shelves, they’ll end up hanging in mid-air by an ankle, with a couple of puffs of smoke and flashes to scare them. Iruka’s actually a little surprised it hasn’t happened already.
Asuka looks down, and Iruka doesn’t have to be a mother to know that look.
“Asuka,” she says, “tell me where you found it.” Asuka fidgets for a moment before replying.
“In Mama’s bag.”
“Hmm,” Iruka says, turning Asuka around so she can look her in the eye. “And what else did you find?” Asuka looks up at Iruka through her eyelashes: Iruka has no doubt it will be a very effective look once Asuka learns to stop blinking while she’s doing it. Finally her daughter caves.
“Some kunai and shuriken and bandages.”
“Daiki,” Iruka calls, “come here for a minute.” He comes into the room, wrapped from head to toe and trailing bandages in his wake.
“Daiki’s a mummy!” Asuka says proudly. “See, Mommy?”
“I see,” Iruka says, keeping a smile off her lips through long practice not laughing at Naruto’s pranks. “Whose idea was that?” Asuka grins wide and Iruka shakes her head: she’s not really surprised.
Daiki comes over with a guilty look on his face and one of Kakashi’s kunai clutched in his fist. (His grip isn’t bad, Iruka thinks absently, but it’s not quite right yet.) She holds out her hand, and he gives it to her.
“Now,” she says, tucking the kunai into her thigh-pouch and looking them each in the eye, “what’s the rule about getting into other people’s possessions?”
“It’s not polite,” they chorus.
“All right,” Iruka says, “That’s Daddy’s rule. What’s Mama’s?”
“Put everything back where you found it?”
Iruka nods. “And mine?”
Their smiles slip a little bit. “Don’t get caught ‘cept on purpose.”
“All right,” Iruka says, “show me where Mama’s bag was.” She stands and follows them to the genkan, where one of Kakashi’s hip pouches is on the ground. The strap had broken, so she’d left it on the shelf, Iruka remembers — apparently the broken strap had hung down far enough to be reachable. She picks up the bag and scans its contents: two other kunai, a handful of shuriken, but no exploding tags, nothing really dangerous. Asuka and Daiki make a disappointed noise when Iruka puts it back up on the shelf.
“All right,” she says, “clearly you two need to know how to handle these things better. If you’re good until after lunch, I’ll show you how to throw kunai properly.” They grin and practically dash upstairs and Iruka knows she won’t see or hear them again for a couple of hours.
Iruka settles down to continue grading, amazed all over again at Choko’s ability to remember incredibly fine detail and to mess up the larger framework in which it exists. He really does seem to think the first and second Hokage were father and son, despite all of the detail he goes into in the negotiations between the Senju and Uchiha clans. Iruka makes a note to hold him after class and set up some tutoring, and continues through her stack of papers. By lunchtime she has finished nearly all of them: distinctly unusual for a morning when she’s the only one home with the kids: she might try bribing them with lessons again, see if it keeps working this well.
“Asuka,” she calls upstairs, “Daiki! Lunch!” What had been two virtually silent children turns into a herd of elephants as they stampede toward the stairs.
“Hey,” Iruka snaps, “stairs!” She knows Kakashi thinks this is ridiculous, but Iruka insists that the twins hold on to the little lower handrail that she had Tenzo install, and not horse around on the stairs: she knows enough about most kids to know how tippy toddlers can be, and she’s all too familiar with the kinds of injuries that can result from a fall down a flight of stairs.
Lunch is an impatient affair, as Daiki fidgets and Asuka attempts to convince Iruka that she’s not hungry, really! Iruka just stares her down, and they finally settle back and eat as fast as they can, occasionally dropping something to the floor and making Iruka wish Kakashi were here with one of her nin-ken: they clean the floor better than any broom.
Both kids cheer when Iruka finally judges that they’ve eaten enough and takes them outside.
* * *
When they’re walking back into the house, having gone over the basics of how to hold and throw a kunai and then taken down the (virtually untouched) targets, Asuka stops for a moment.
“Mommy,” she asks, “will you teach us to fight with big staffs, too?” Iruka blinks at the non-sequitur.
“I suppose so,” she says, “but not for a while yet.” Asuka nods.
“All right,” she says, “it seemed like they were noisy, anyway.” Iruka stares for a moment, wondering what Asuka is talking about, and then remembers the passage of Icha Icha that Asuka read. She’s going to kill Kakashi for leaving that book where the kids could find it.