Breaking and Entering

Breaking and Entering

Author: Snitwick

Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine.

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Having worked with Kakashi for a number of years, Asuma thought he could safely say that he knew the man as well as anyone did. He knew that, although some might consider a few of Kakashi's methods unorthodox, Kakashi was not cracking. He was simply different.

That was why when he heard rumor that Kakashi and Ibiki were engaged in some type of fucked up relationship, he wasn't shocked. After all, he knew Kakashi well enough to recognize that he was an adult and more than capable of taking care of himself. If he had something going on with Ibiki, Asuma wasn't about to disrupt it.

Not being shocked about Kakashi and Ibiki's relationship was not the same thing as not being curious about what exactly it entailed, however. Which was why Asuma found himself sitting in a dim bar next to Kurenai after their shift ending, drinking too weak of a drink for his taste, and being able to think of nothing else.

"What do you wonder that they get up to?" he asked Kurenai suddenly.

"What do who get up to?" asked Kurenai, looking thoroughly confused as to the source of her companion's outburst.

"Kakashi and Ibiki," he said, inhaling on the cigarette he was smoking.

Kurenai shrugged. "Who knows."

A few minutes passed in silence.

"I bet it's fucked up."

A slight smile tugged at Kurenai's lips. "Why do you care so much?"

"I don't know," said Asuma. "I guess I care 'cause it's Ibiki."

"So?" asked Kurenai.

"So, have you ever met the man?"

"Briefly in passing," said Kurenai. "He didn't seem all that odd to me."

"He's sadistic," explained Asuma. "Completely wacko. He's pretty quiet about his past, but I heard from one of the Chuunin that his brother was captured and torture by a Rain nin. Apparently Ibiki managed to rescue him, but he hasn't seen him since. Popular belief is that the event set him off up here." Asuma tapped his temple.

Kurenai rolled her eyes. "Right. I'm sure he's a perfectly decent man. He wouldn't be in a position of authority and responsibility if he was unstable. The Hokage isn't that insane."

Asuma raised his eyebrows and gave Kurenai a doubtful look. "You want to bet on that?"

"Bet? On what?" asked Kurenai perplexed. "Whether or not the Hokage is crazy, or whether or not Ibiki is?"

"Ibiki."

"But what would we judge?"

Asuma's teeth glinted in the dim light of the bar as he smiled. "We could always spy on him and Kakashi."

"No!" protested Kurenai. "That would be going too far."

"Then I guess we'll never know whether or not Ibiki is one kunai short of a full pouch."

Kurenai frowned. "Well, I guess if it was in the name of research..."

"That's the spirit," said Asuma, grinning wider.

They made plans to meet outside of Ibiki's apartment later than night. If he was there, they would spy on him. If he wasn't, they would break in and search for anything that might establish a winner of their bet.

Asuma stopped by his apartment. He changed out of his Jounin outfit into off-duty wear and grabbed a new pack of cigarettes. Then he left for Ibiki's apartment.

Kurenai was already there when he arrived. After they had assessed that Ibiki wasn't home, they picked the lock and slipped inside the darkened apartment. Unwilling to turn the light on in case a neighbor or someone passing by on the street outside saw and their suspicion was aroused, Kurenai and Asuma began searching for something--anything--that might determine a winner of their bet.

Kurenai searched the bookcase near Ibiki's desk, only to turn away disappointed when all she found were a bunch of dull books on the art of interrogation and torture.

"Do you have a bookcase devoted to books on interrogation and torture in your apartment?" Asuma asked Kurenai.

"No," she conceded. "I don't."

He looked smug. "That's proof that he's deranged."

"Sorry. It doesn't count," said Kurenai. "He's the head of the interrogation unit of ANBU. Of course he would own books about torture and interrogation."

The two Jounin went back to searching. A few moments later, Asuma held up an envelope. "I wonder what's in here," he said with a smirk.

Kurenai moved closer as he shook the contents of the envelope out onto the desk. A stack of photos fell out of the envelope and into a scattered mess on the desk.

"They're... pictures of corpses," said Kurenai, her nose wrinkling in disgust.

Asuma was about to put them back in the envelope when a particular photo caught his eye. He picked it out of the stack and held it up, smiling. He handed it to Kurenai, without a word. It was a picture of Kakashi naked, his arms tied above his head.

"Kinky does not equal deranged," said Kurenai simply.

"Come on," cried Asuma. "If that isn't deranged, what is?"

Kurenai fixed him with a look. "Deranged is murdering someone for no better reason than watching them die. Deranged is torturing a cat to death simply because it didn't get out of your way quick enough. Deranged is sneaking into a colleague's apartment because of a bet. Being adventurous in bed is not deranged."

"Fine," said Asuma.

He went back to searching through Ibiki's property in an attempt to prove to Kurenai that he was right. Having finished looking through the desk drawers, Asuma turned his attention to the only other piece of furniture in the room that neither of them had searched yet: Ibiki's bed. As he neared it, Kurenai frowned.

"This was a really stupid idea," she said. "We should leave before he comes home."

"You just don't want to pay up if I'm right," said Asuma.

"I forfeit then," said Kurenai. "I just... have a bad feeling. I don't think we should stick around any longer."

"Just give me a few more minutes," Asuma told her. He pulled up the edge of the mattress and felt around beneath it. When his hand felt something small and stiff, he smiled.

He pulled the folded piece of paper out from beneath the mattress and held it up close to his face. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness shortly after they had first entered Ibiki's apartment, but the writing on the note was small and hard to read.

"What is it?" asked Kurenai, her curiosity getting the better of her conscious.

"It's a note," said Asuma. "From Kakashi."

He unfolded it and began to read it out loud, "'Do you remember when you tested the group of Genin that included Uzumaki Naruto and he passed your test without answering a single question? Well, sometimes I feel that that's how he approaches everything in life, hoping luck will be on his side. Unfortunately, it seems that not even luck can help him when it comes to love. Iruka was just telling me about how he saw Naruto strike out again in an attempt to get Sakura to go out with him. It made me think about how lucky we are. We've found something that works for us, and I have a feeling that's a lot more than most people can say.'" Another piece of paper was tucked behind the first. "This one's from Ibiki. It goes, 'As the summer gives away to autumn, the leaves are beginning to change from green to red and orange. It reminds me of how much I've changed since I first met you. Are you free for dinner?"

Asuma glanced up at Kurenai, with an eyebrow raised. "It's so..."

"Romantic?"

Asuma shook his head. "It's so normal."

Even in the darkness, he could make out her smile from across the room. "Does this mean I won the bet?" she asked.

"No way," said Asuma. "You already forfeited."

"My forfeit was under the condition that we left before you checked beneath the bed," protested Kurenai.

"Too late," said Asuma, jamming the note back beneath the mattress. He was at the door in a matter of moments.

"Where are we going?" asked Kurenai.

"My place," said Asuma. "I plan to make full use of your forfeit."

"But I won!" protested Kurenai.

"Fine," said Asuma. "New bet, same consequences. I bet I can get to my apartment before you."

He waited a fraction of a second for the words to sink in before taking off down one of the alleys next to Ibiki's apartment. He was out of sight before Kurenai could open her mouth to protest.

Kurenai sighed. She locked the door to Asuma's apartment from the inside and shut it behind her.

She knew that by the time she would arrive at Asuma's apartment, he would already be inside and have had time to catch his breath. But Kurenai didn't mind too much. She had been dating Asuma long enough to know that he wasn't adverse to cheating.

Instead of getting mad, Kurenai comforted herself with the knowledge that the next time she won one of their bets, Asuma would be finding himself tied up and naked. Getting Asuma to agree to trying something new in bed was the easy part.

The hard part would be thinking of a way to ask Kakashi where Ibiki had purchased his bondage gear without letting him know that they had broken into Ibiki's apartment on a bet. Breaking and entering was still frowned upon in polite society and somehow Kurenai doubted that 'Asuma and I had a bet about whether or not Ibiki was deranged' wasn't an appropriate explanation for their behavior regardless of their conclusion about his sanity.

Fin.