#anyway this is funniest if it takes place during Part 1 for maximum slice of life shenanigans

[teatitty]

You know if you only look at the manga canon Iruka doesn't actually have like. Any friends at all, outside of our own headcanons about Kakashi. He has Naruto, but that's more older brother-younger brother, Mizuki betrayed him and then there's Hiruzen who is.... not so much a friend as he is a pseudo-mentor figure. And then there's Kakashi, who goes out of his way to make friends all over, and is completely open to making new connections

Basically what I'm saying is: Kakashi finding out from Naruto that Iruka doesn't actually hang out with anyone and he's worried about his Not-Brother being alone and working all the time so Kakashi is like "bet I got this" and shows up at Iruka's place to bodily drag him out somewhere ignoring all his questions and protests and that's how Iruka ends up shoved into the jounin friendship circle with no idea why

[The "why" is because Kakashi knows how it feels to self-isolate and ignore your own needs and he likes Iruka and wants to help him somehow and so he casually mentions to Gai that he thinks Iruka might be lonely without Mizuki around anymore and oh nooooo would you look at that, Gai's all teary-eyed and determined to make him feel better now so of course he's gonna end up babbling to Kurenai and Asuma and anyone else in their circle and now Iruka has become the hissing stray that all the elites are trying to coax into their homes with scraps of food and really good books]