Archive of Our Own

It's finally Asuma's turn to be on babysitting duty.

The concept is pretty simple: obviously, while they have students, Jonin Instructors are not given missions at anywhere near the same frequency as they would otherwise. However, sometimes someone has a specific skillset that has to be called upon, or the logistics work out in the worst way possible, or some unnamed commanding officer takes on look at a Village-bound Jonin and realizes if they don't get to stretch their limbs soon then the Village is going to bear the consequences.

Might Guy had conveyed all of this information to Asuma, Kurenai, and Kakashi the very day the three of them learned about their team assignments. "It's only once every three or four months," Guy had said cheerfully, waiting for his meat to cook on the grill, "but it still happens! To ensure the safety and continued education of your students, it would be most YOUTHFUL of you three to make a Babysitting Arrangement!"

Kurenai had eyed him dubiously. "Babysitting Arrangement?"

"Yes! My colleagues and I have an agreement that when one or more of us are on a mission, the remaining instructors will look after all the students!"

"That's all well and good," Asuma said flatly, "but the three of us having a Babysitting Arrangement might mean dumping our impressionable young children on Kakashi."

At once, the other three jonin in the booth turned to the aforementioned man, who was sitting with his book out in front of his face. Asuma knew that if he'd paid attention, he would have noticed when the man ate, but he'd been far too absorbed in his conversation with Guy and (especially) Kurenai, so all that had happened was large amounts of food on Kakashi's section of the grill disappeared while the man himself remained supposedly still.

At the stretching silence, Kakashi finally lowered his book and gave them all a blank stare. "You say something?"

Kurenai turned away from him dismissively. "It's probably fine," she told Asuma. "He's never accepted a team before. He's definitely not going to accept one now. You, me, and Guy will have an arrangement between ourselves."

That had seemed reasonable enough to all of them. Kakashi had just gone back to reading (eating?) without any more input in the conversation.

What they had all failed to consider was 1) there was no way Kakashi wasn't under significant political pressure to pass that particular team, but even if he had enough sway to fight back and remain studentless, 2) Kakashi loved fucking with his friends.

Asuma damn near had a heart attack when Kakashi said that Team Seven passed, and then damn near had an aneurysm when he got woken up in the middle of the night to a carrier pigeon pecking at his bedroom window. The scroll tied to its leg was, quite simply, a babysitting contract, with the signatures of Kakashi, Asuma, Kurenai, and Guy at the bottom.

Kakashi's signature was the only one that wasn't forged.

An inauspicious start for the Babysitting Arrangement, indeed.

As Guy had predicted, it takes four months before they have to call upon the Arrangement. Unfortunately, it happens in a catastrophic way: Kurenai, Kakashi, and Guy are all set to go on three separate missions at the exact same time.

Guy comes to him first, looking apologetic. "I'm sorry, my dear friend," the man says, "but I must request your time in looking over my students."

Asuma shrugs. "Hey, that's what the Arrangement is for, isn't it? I've got your back."

After exchanging a manly hug, the two of them part ways.

Kurenai comes to him next, drenched after walking through a torrential downpour, standing mournfully at the front gate of the Sarutobi family home. He finds her there after returning from a dinner with his students. The resulting conversation is fuzzy in his head, but he remembers with vivid clarity the way her wet hair had curled around her face as she'd shyly looked up at him and smiled just so. Obviously, Asuma was going to agree to taking on her students no matter what — but he's pretty sure he's never said yes so quickly in his life.

He spends the next three days waiting for Kakashi to come talk to him, knowing the man also has a mission at the same time, but he never does. Asuma mentally shrugs, assuming he's found someone else better suited for the job or a unique way to keep the kids occupied, and then he doesn't think any more about it.

He's punished for his lack of consideration at five in the morning, when he opens his bedroom door to find the three genin of Team Seven tied up on the other side, wriggling around and red with rage. They're not even wearing their training gear, seemingly having been kidnapped in their pajamas.

Asuma stares at them blankly before spying the scroll attached to Naruto Uzumaki's ankle. It contains overly detailed feeding instructions more fit for a dog than human children, cheerfully signed by Kakashi.

When he finally cuts the genin free, Naruto screeches, "I'm going to kill him!"

"Not if I do it first," says Sasuke Uchiha.

"I'll help," says the pink one. Asuma should really ask her what her name is.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Asuma curses his bastard of a colleague. To the children, he says, "Let's get you some breakfast."

They follow him down the stairs in a single-file line — first Naruto, then Sasuke, and then the pink-haired one (Naruto had called her "Sakura" but that's a little too on the nose, isn't it?) — and he finds himself likening them to immature little ducklings. In this scenario, he would be the Momma Duckling. He doesn't think he's ready for that responsibility.

When he reaches the bottom of the stairs, he finds his father serenely sipping on a cup of tea at the dining table.

"Dad," he says warily, "did you know Kakashi broke into our house?"

Hiruzen Sarutobi, the illustrious Third Hokage of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, smiles fondly at him. "Broke in? Don't be silly — he knocked on the front door."

"And you let him in!" Naruto cries, shoving Asuma out of the way and pointing angrily at Asuma's father. "And you didn't say anything about us! Even though we were tied up! What's your problem, Gramps?"

Sakura audibly smacks her face with her palm in the wake of Naruto's audacity. Sasuke remains completely neutral. Asuma looks upward and prays for patience, though he would also like an answer.

His father says, "It's so rare for Kakashi to ask nicely for things. I figured I should reward good behavior."

Naruto screeches in wordless rage.

Asuma picks the kid up by the back of his shirt and marches out the door, trusting the other two to follow close behind. They'll have to go elsewhere for breakfast — clearly his father is having far too much fun with this.

It's going to be a long few days.

"Um, Asuma-sensei," Sakura says meekly while her teammates scarf down a bento box with impressive gusto, "I…I don't think you should be smoking. It's bad for you, you know?"

Asuma, who has had a lifetime to learn how to deal with people unnecessarily shoving their way into his business, bears the intrusion with grace. "Don't worry about me, kiddo," he says lightly.

Sakura frowns but doesn't comment further. Sasuke, though, says, "My father used to say the only smoke that you should be inhaling is from an actual fire." He proceeds to shove a pickled plum into his mouth and chew it with intense concentration, effectively taking himself out of the conversation.

Asuma looks at him warily. It's been a good long while since all the Uchiha died off but he does vaguely remember them being pretentious about cigarettes. Well, whatever. It's not like the kid's being overly confrontational. Asuma turns away from him, staring into the early morning sky. The four of them are all sitting on the ground next to a small convenience store, the closest place to the Sarutobi house that has bento boxes of what Asuma would consider a balanced meal. Asuma himself has already devoured his bento and has, as the students have pointed out, lit a cigarette, hoping for something to take the edge off his increasing stress at the coming days.

He almost manages to relax.

Then, Naruto says, "What, are you trying to copy Gramps? No offense, but Grandpa Hokage's pipe is way cooler than a tiny little cigarette!"

Patience, he begs internally, eye twitching. Dear lord, give me patience before I bash the kid's head in.

He keeps smoking the cigarette.

He realizes too late that Ino and Sakura are apparently bitter rivals.

One second, they're across the clearing from each other, and the next, the two of them are wrestling each other to the ground, screaming vicious insults in each other's faces. Asuma watches in fascinated horror for all of three seconds before prying them off of each other and all but hurling them in opposite directions.

"They weren't this bad before," Shikamaru offers blandly. "I think time apart made it worse. Somehow."

None of the other four seem ready to kill each other, at least.

After a serious sit-down conversation with the two girls, he ascertains that this is some out-of-control battle for "the right to Sasuke's heart!!!" and runs a tired hand over his face. He vaguely remembers that, way back when he was younger, some of his classmates at the Academy mooned over Kakashi and fought with each other about it but he doesn't remember it being this bad. Maybe Sakura and Ino are a unique case.

Realizing that he probably won't be able to clear years of bad blood over the next few days, he settles on giving the two girls strict orders to be cordial with each other and asking Kurenai for help when she returns.

Speaking of Kurenai…

"Here comes Team Eight," Choji calls out.

Asuma has already met Kurenai's students, Team Eight and Team Ten having done a handful of joint exercises together. When Guy's team shows up a few minutes later, his children are also welcomed with familiarity. It quickly becomes clear that Team Seven is the odd one out.

"How do you all know each other, huh?" Naruto asks suspiciously.

"Group training," says Shino. "Why? Because it helps with teamwork."

Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke all look at each other, seemingly having a quiet conversation between them. Asuma feels bad for them, he does — having Kakashi Hatake as a teacher is already bad enough, but the man has been stubbornly dodging every attempt by Asuma, Kurenai, and Guy to hold joint training with Team Seven. Asuma has idly speculated to himself about why: maybe Kakashi doesn't want to have to deal with them (the most likely explanation), or he wants to groom the kids to be just as antisocial as he is (somewhat likely), or perhaps he's embarrassed by his students' mediocre skills (unlikely — Kakashi Hatake does not understand the concept of shame). Either way, it's just a detriment to his three genin charges and Asuma eyes them closely, ready to comfort them if they become upset at their teacher's lack of care.

Instead —

They look smug.

"We have good teamwork," Sakura says. "We're probably loads better than you guys, though!"

"Yeah!" Naruto cheers.

Sasuke provides a supportive silence.

Asuma takes it all back. Clearly these three are just as awful as their teacher.

With great resignation, Asuma lights his second cigarette of the day.

Thankfully, Guy returns after a single day, collecting his students with the same stubborn cheer as always. Asuma is glad — Neji seemingly cannot have a calm and respectful conversation with anyone Naruto, and Naruto is easily riled-up. Kurenai returns the day after that, smiling at him softly as she collects her own students.

Kakashi…well.

For all Asuma knows, that man won't be back for another month.

"Is this it?" Naruto asks him mulishly. "Are we stuck with you forever now? I want Kakashi-sensei back!"

Being told that being around Kakashi is more desirable than being around him is a novel experience for Asuma. He lights another cigarette.

Sakura says, "You've been smoking a lot, Asuma-sensei. Do you need help quitting? My dad did, too. Do you want to talk to my dad?"

"Will you stop commenting on the man's smoking habits?" Sasuke mutters. Asuma almost feels grateful before the brat continues, "It's not our problem if he rots his lungs as long as they don't give out while he's supposed to be teaching us."

"Asuma-sensei's lungs are rotting?" Naruto demands. "Wait, are Gramps's lungs rotting, too? SAKURA, DID YOUR DAD'S LUNGS ROT? SAKURA!!"

Sakura smacks the back of Naruto's head. "Stop yelling in my ear, idiot!"

"Look at her, hitting her teammate," Ino says derisively from her spot at Asuma's side. "It's so unladylike. I would totally never do that! Sakura could never be as graceful as me!" She swoons dramatically. "Sasuke will definitely notice me before her, even if she is on his team!"

Asuma has come to learn that, with Ino, every other sentence may end with Sasuke's name…but every sentence starts with Sakura's. Unwilling to touch that with a ten foot pole, Asuma maintains his silence as he tries to work out new lesson plans in his head to accommodate Kakashi's lack of a schedule. He might have to throw Sakura and Ino at each other to buy time.

"You know," Choji says, munching on some chips, "I never really thought you had a smoking problem, Sensei. Sure, you do it a lot, and you always smell like smoke even after you take a shower, and your smell scares off half the women who seem interested in you —"

"What?" Asuma demands. He looks sharply in Choji's direction. "What women?" Listen, his heart's kind of deadset on Kurenai, but it would be nice to know other women like him, you know?

Choji shrugs. "A lot. But the smell."

"Don't be mean to Asuma-sensei!" Ino scolds. "He can't help smelling like that! You're probably poking at an insecurity."

Choji, who's used to people cruelly poking at his insecurities, wilts in empathy. "Sorry, Asuma-sensei."

"Don't listen to them," Shikamaru says. "Your smoking is fine, Sensei. Looks aesthetic when you're not up close." He shrugs. "What's the phrase? Here for a good time, not a long time."

"And that's enough out of you three," Asuma says. "Come on, we're running laps."

Six groans of misery. Music to his ears.

At two in the morning, someone bangs on his bedroom door.

"Asuma-sensei!" a panicked voice calls. "Please, we need your help!"

He blearily throws his door open, blinking down at the rumpled figures of Team Seven. "How did you get into my house?" he rasps.

Naruto waves him away. "Gramps let us in," he says. Asuma really hates his father. The boy continues, "Anyway, Sensei, we need your help with a mission —"

"Don't call it a mission, Naruto!"

"Aw, don't be like that, Sakura! What else should we call it?"

"An errand. A threat. I don't know!"

"Well, Sensei would know if you'd let me tell him —"

"Don't go blaming it on me, moron —"

Sasuke cuts his two bickering teammates off. "Kakashi gave us a task to complete before he got back," he says blandly. "He hid a book in his apartment and told us that if we didn't find a way in to retrieve it by the time he got back, he would make us clean sewers for a month."

"Yeah," mutters Naruto. "What he said."

Asuma would like to call bullshit. He can't imagine a world where antisocial asshole Kakashi Hatake would willingly entice someone else to enter his apartment. Asuma himself has only ever managed to glance inside when Kakashi opened his door — hell, he's willing to bet that even Guy hasn't managed to get in, and Guy is Kakashi's closest thing to a best friend. All that said…Asuma does think Kakashi is the kind of man to give poor, hapless genin an impossible task and then punish them for not successfully completing it.

Asuma considers letting the man give Team Seven whatever lesson he thinks he is, but the petty side of him wins out.

If Kakashi is allowed to barge into Asuma's home and dispatch three children in it, then Asuma should be allowed to do the same to him!

"Give me five minutes to get changed," he tells the children.

Sakura frowns. "Five minutes? Are we just supposed to stand here?"

Asuma shrugs. "Go ask my dad for some milk or something." If his father let them in then he can deal with them, too.

Five minutes later, Asuma exits the Sarutobi house fully dressed and bringing along both his trap and seal kits. The walk to Kakashi's apartment is long — Asuma lives in one of the Village's wealthier suburbs but Kakashi lives in the Village-subsidized apartments on the other side of the Leaf, tiny and rundown. On autopilot, he lights a cigarette along the way.

"Hey!" Naruto says accusingly. "If you smoke while you help us, Kakashi-sensei is gonna smell it when he gets back!"

"I'll get rid of the smell when we're done," Asuma dismisses.

Sakura peers up at him, suspicious. "You can do that?"

"Hey, kid, I'm an elite jonin. I can do damn well anything I put my mind to."

For some reason, that just seems to make Sakura grow concerned. She turns to have a whisper-conversation with Naruto, one he hears perfectly well, but the kids keep interrupting each other and using half-remarks to the point that he has no idea what they could possibly be talking about, except that it's about him and they're being decidedly uncomplimentary. Even Sasuke contributes the occasional grunt.

Suddenly, Asuma is glad that Kakashi is the one who got these three — any other jonin would have been reduced to sobbing at their constant complaints and suspicions. Kakashi, at least, is enough of a bastard to not care.

When they arrive at Kakashi's apartment building, the four of them hike all the way up to the fifth floor and station themselves outside of Kakashi's apartment.

"We got through most of the traps," Sakura explains, "but the last one in the lock is just…way too complicated!"

"Right," says Asuma. "Give me some space." He's not exactly a trap dismantling specialist but he's above-average at it through sheer necessity. You can't be a jonin and have subpar trap skills.

The genin back up as Asuma gets to work. The latch that had tripped the kids up is pretty basic, but it automatically revealed the next trap, and then the next, and the next, until Asuma realizes that they're steadily increasing in difficulty. When he finally gets the door ready to be opened, he's struck with an awful realization: had Kakashi actually been trying to walk Team Seven through trap dismantling and seal deactivation? The defenses he'd set up were so elementary — someone as paranoid as Kakashi Hatake would never leave his apartment this undefended.

…If Kakashi was, in fact, trying to teach them, then Asuma has ruined it.

"It's open!" Naruto cheers, twisting the doorknob and shoving at the door.

And then Kakashi's apartment is laid open before him.

Yeah, this is exactly the kind of place he expects Kakashi to live in. No decorations, some shuriken-patterned bedsheets, an empty desk, a tiny (and clearly unused) kitchenette, and a bookshelf crammed full of books.

"It's one of those," Sasuke says.

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's pull them out!" Naruto exclaims.

Asuma watches on as the three approach, wondering if the bookshelf had been trapped, as well, but it turns out to not be the case. Clearly, Kakashi had thought that getting through the front door was enough. Asuma eyes the way the kids all start on different shelves, systematically going through various training manuals and tax law tomes and almanacs. He spots with surprise a few normal fiction novels — mysteries, classics, even two modern literary works — before his eyes land on them. The Make Out books by Jiraiya the Sannin.

Asuma desperately hopes that Kakashi had laid whatever marker of success in any of the other books, but he quickly realizes that's a stupid thing to hope for: Kakashi Hatake wouldn't bat an eye at making three twelve-year-olds open a porn book.

"Okay," Asuma says, approaching them, "how about you let me —"

He's cut off by raw instinct, dodging a kunai that would have embedded itself into the base of his skull. With a curse, he puts himself between Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto and the source of the attack, only to blink at the sight before him.

It's Kakashi Hatake, panting and barely standing, covered head-to-toe in blood. Asuma eyes the bits of a rib bone that's stuck to the metal plate of the man's left glove, a few strands of sinew plastered onto his flak vest, and the drenched droop of his now-red hair. That's…that's definitely going to dye Kakashi's gray strands, right? There's no way it wouldn't. Asuma is once again glad that he himself has dark hair.

"Kakashi," he says slowly. "It's me. Asuma. The kids are here, too."

Kakashi looks at him with crazed eyes — two eyes, that is, because his sharingan is uncovered. Asuma wonders if the man has even heard him, if he's going to have to subdue his clearly exhausted friend. To be fair, if Asuma had gone on such a taxing mission and returned to people in his bedroom, he would go crazy, too.

And then Kakashi rasps, "You're smoking."

Asuma blinks. "What?"

Snatching up another kunai, Kakashi charges him and Asuma curses, throwing himself against the kitchenette before he gets skewers. Kakashi yells, "Why are you smoking in front of children?"

"Oh, please, like you're a good role model!" Asuma shoots back, making a decent effort to slam his elbow into Kakashi's forehead. Naturally, the forehead protector blocks the blow, but Asuma's just trying to knock some sense into him, not actually knock him out.

"You can do whatever the hell you want with your team," Kakashi says derisively, "but I won't let mine pick up your bad habits! I thought you were responsible!"

"Says the man who left three preteens to open up his porn!"

At that very moment, like he was waiting for his cue, Naruto cries, "Found it!"

Both Asuma and Kakashi freeze, turning to look at Naruto. He has a copy of Make Out Paradise open and a small genjutsu is playing over it, displaying tiny fireworks and a cheerful message of "CONGRATULATIONS!" and Kakashi's signature. Asuma can't believe that the man actually let it be his porn —

Then again, from what Asuma can tell, there are no words on the pages. Probably a dummy book then.

"Huh," mutters Kakashi. "Good job, you three."

Sakura, who seems on the verge of tears, says, "B-But we used Asuma-sensei to help us!"

"Not exactly what I was going for but convincing a jonin to help you is no small feet." Kakashi gives them a small smile. "You did good."

And then the man passes out.

"Shit!" Asuma says.

"Oh my god," Sakura cries. "Is it the bloodloss?"

Asuma briefly considers telling her that most of the blood probably isn't Kakashi's but decides against it, instead sending the kids home and hosting Kakashi's limb body over his shoulder and running all the way to the hospital.

It's there, while Asuma is helping the nurses tie Kakashi down to his bed so that he won't escape before the end of his treatment, that Kakashi wakes up. He gazes at Asuma with glazed-over eyes, mind clearly foggy from both chakra exhaustion and being pumped full of painkillers. It's those two factors that Asuma attributes to the following exchange.

"Asuma?" Kakashi rasps.

"Yeah," Asuma responds, tightening the restraints on Kakashi's ankle.

And then Kakashi, with all of the sincerity he would never have while in his right mind, says, "Thanks for looking after my kids."

Asuma blinks. "No problem, Kakashi," he responds, a wry smile on his lips. "It was my turn to babysit, anyway."

Lo and behold, Kakashi answers with a smile of his own.

Asuma will not see more than a glance of Kakashi again until the Chunin Exam nominations, but he does find a fruit basket in front of his bedroom door on the same day Kakashi finally manages to escape the hospital. Asuma is touched right up until he finds a pamphlet on how to quit smoking tucked amongst the apples.

Bastard.