tobirama senju x iruka umino | modern AU | tooth-rotting fluff- be warned lol
“Great!” Tobirama huffs, slamming his fist against the wooden desk in front of him. His mind goes back to the events that happened earlier when he left his apartment. He remembers waking up, taking a bath, munching on a light breakfast his fiancé made for him, and then leaving the apartment- taking his goddamn time kissing his lover.
Sighing, Tobirama leans back on his chair as he finally recalls where he left his lunch- on the damn shelf next to the shoe rack.
Iruka blushes, pleased at the compliment. Hearing that he’d impressed the man who originally founded the Konoha Shinobi Academy is one of the best things to happen this year.
“I’m curious, what made you decide to do more chakra control practice?” Tobirama asks, studying the syllabus. “Naruto. We discovered that he had massive problems with the Academy Three due to how massive his chakra stores are and how poor his control was,” he explains. “It’s not fair for something like that to happen to a student, and I’m still annoyed with myself for missing that when I taught him.”
Tobirama nods. “An excellent reason and an excellent change to the curriculum. I regret not making it one of the standards when I first founded the Academy.” He smiles slightly.
“Now, explain to me why you decided on more medic lessons?”
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
A birthday fic for my two fav Naruto characters: Tobirama and Obito! Decided to go with my fav ships for them and post on Valentine's day cause it is in between their birthdays ;)
Pairing: TobiramaIruka
Word count: 1236
Soulmate au: The one where you earn matching marks only after getting to know each other for a while and proving you are compatible
Follow the link or read it under the cut!
KO-FI link in the blog header!
Chapter 170: Tobirama/Iruka
Were he given a choice beforehand Iruka was pretty sure he would have declined the opportunity and insisted that he very much did not belong in the past, that he was too used to the conveniences of the future. It wasn’t until he was thrown back there in an accident involving a child playing with an unknown seal that he was forced to realize he was much more of an old soul than he had ever been willing to admit. Being stuck in the past was kind of worth it just for the not-yet-filthy onsens and the beautiful unadulterated landscapes still unsettled.
Of course, those weren’t the only advantages. There were also dozens of young minds in a fresh new academy with a curricular system that still needed cementing. As soon as the Shodaime Hokage vetted his story that he was from the future he was sent straight to Senju Tobirama, the very one who had invented the academy, his own personal hero, and was told he would be working with the man closely to determine what had worked about the way it was in the future and how it could be improved.
Actually working alongside Tobirama was about as close to a dream come true as Iruka had ever experienced. While he certainly could not be described as the warmest person ever, Tobirama embodied all of the qualities Iruka most enjoyed in a partner of any sort: pragmatic, intelligent, punctual, and surprisingly fond of children under that tough exterior. His tendency to overlook the limits of a normal untrained child under the age of ten was well balanced out by Iruka’s own habit of coddling them passed the age when he should be stepping back to let them make their own mistakes. It was a partnership they both learned from.
More than that, it became a partnership that grew in to a friendship. Even after they had hammered out the academy curriculum in its final form they still continued to meet for lunch occasionally and took long walks together after work on a frequent basis. Iruka listened with a sympathetic ear to whatever stupidity to other man was suffering through at the hands of the admin staff and Tobirama listened with a barely there smile as Iruka gushed about his students, the new prospective ones and the old ones he would miss from the future. Several months went by before he managed to stop himself from trembling with anticipation every morning just for getting to work in close quarters with such a venerated man but once they were able to treat each other as nothing more than fellow human beings they got along famously.
And then came the day when Iruka woke one morning to find a new mark over the skin of his right pectoral, a mark that had never been there before but he recognized immediately. It resembled a pool of water upon which floated a single leaf. Iruka spent ten minutes admiring it before it truly hit him what this meant: he had met his soulmate. They had met and spent time together and the universe had judged them a good enough match to reveal the connection to them.
There were very few people the mark had enough potential to be meant for. Since being thrown back in time he hadn’t made a lot of close friends and spent significant amounts of time with even fewer. Most of his free time he chose to spent with Tobirama and while he absolutely would be thrilled to be matched to the man, Iruka didn’t want to get his hopes up too much. What were the chances he would be matched to him own personal hero?
What were the chances he would be lucky enough to match with the person he had slowly developed a crush on over the past few months? He had trouble believing someone like him could be Tobirama’s type.
He found himself nervous when they met for lunch that day, almost more nervous than when they had first met and he’d felt like he was speaking to a minor deity. Tobirama seemed more quiet than usual as well, oddly enough, so conversation wasn’t exactly flowing while they both sipped at their ramen broth, heads up in the clouds.
“Did you…leave anyone behind when you left your proper time?” Tobirama kept his eyes on his meal when he spoke. Iruka scoffed.
“Well, I had a lot of students. I’m sure they miss me.”
“No partner? No…soulmate?”
“Ah. Um. Funny you should mention soulmates, actually.” Iruka laughed nervously when Tobirama shot him a curious look. “Before I left, I never found my soulmate – in the future I mean – but just this morning I woke up and there it was, my soul mark. I just thought you might find it interesting, the implications that perhaps I was always meant to come back to the past or maybe the implications that some people never find their soulmate because they never had a chance, not being born at the right time. Either one is sort of terrifying to think about, you know? A set time loop or an uncaring universe that separates pairs so callously.”
When he realized he was rambling Iruka cut himself off with a sheepish smile and returned to his noodles, embarrassed in the long silence that followed. Spending so much time with this man had expanded his intellectual horizons and given him a chance to study more than just what his students might be able to comprehend.
Unfortunately it had the side effect of making his rambling habits so much worse.
“You found your mark today?” Tobirama asked finally. “Just this morning? For the first time?”
“Mhm, on my chest. It’s really pretty, actually.”
“I see. Does it, perchance, look anything like this one that I, too, found only this morning?” Tobirama waited until Iruka jerked his head up with shock before carefully pulling his shirt to one side. It was indeed the same mark.
Later, Iruka would be mortified that the only thing he could think of to say was, “Holy crap.”
“Ah, that’s poor language for a shaper of young minds, sensei.” Tobirama was smiling, that special tiny smile more genuine than any other expression he ever made.
“S-sorry! I just – wow! I don’t know what to say!” He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off that small patch of pale chest, either.
“You could say seven o’clock, perhaps.”
“Wait, what?”
Tobirama settled his clothing back in to place, much to Iruka’s disappointment. “I need to return to work soon but I should like to pick you up for dinner at seven if you are willing.”
“Like a date!?”
“Yes. Like a date.” He was smiling a little bigger now, almost unheard of. Iruka’s poor heart was nearly fluttering out of his chest but he managed not to fall off his stool or anything else that would make him look even more ridiculous than usual.
“It’s, ah, sure. Yeah. Seven o’clock it is.”
Staring at the man with what was probably a very foolish expression, Iruka thought that if he ever found the ancestor of the child that sent him back in time, he might have to give them something to hold on to until that boy was born, a gift of thanks for something he hadn’t even done yet. It was just an accident but it given him everything.
