Okay everyone, I used to work in a horrible department store and because I am so delightfully evil, I am forcing as many Naruto characters to work there as I can. This chapter will consist almost entirely of one very long flashback. This is to introduce a couple of characters and give a little background/insight into the terror of retail.

Please note that I have changed the names of the store and company.

Also note that I will not be using any OCs for the staff. They will consist entirely of Naruto characters. The only OCs will be random customers and as anyone who has worked retail can tell you, they don't matter.

Hope you enjoy this.

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Chapter One: The Dreaded Flashback

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Naruto changed his boots and shoved his things as best he could into the shoebox-sized locker. He'd been working at Sellers for only a month and already he had come to discover how horrible this place was. It would be absolute shit if it weren't for a few of the other people trapped in this hellish job with him. Even worse, he'd been hired during December, the holiday rush. He paused and shuddered slightly as he remembered his first day.

"Alright everyone," Iruka, the Human Resources manager had said, "Some new policies were put in place last week, so excuse us if we haven't got everything running smoothly yet."

"What kind of policies?" asked Sakura, whose beauty seemed to make it worth his while to come to this shithole.

"Glad you brought it up!" declared a Gai, the cashier supervisor. He strut into the room proudly and gave them a blinding smile followed by a ridiculous thumbs up. "It was decided by head office that every new hire will spend their first few shifts on cash! That way, later on if the cash registers are busy, we can pull other staff from their departments to help out!"

Naruto recalled how reasonable that had sounded at the time… the memory of what happened afterward was something that would traumatize him indefinitely.

Iruka had left them with Gai, who had dragged them downstairs from the safety of the staff room to the chaos of the actual store. Crazed customers were standing in line and milling all about.

Gai turned to them and gave them another cheesy pose. "Now, I'll pair each of you up with a cashier! You'll stay with them all shift – even taking break together –watching them work, and when they think you're ready they'll step back and watch as you take over! Don't be nervous though, because they'll be right there to hop back in if you get overwhelmed!"

They all walked along the row of registers and he dispensed them to cashiers along the way.

"Sakura, I'm going to drop you off first, here with Lee! He's an excellent cashier and you can learn a lot from him!"

The bushy-browed boy waved her over excitedly. "I am so lucky to have been paired with such beauty!" he greeted. Sakura visibly cringed, but smiled at him anyway.

"Sasuke You run over to Sai there. He's been on cash the longest, so he will also have a lot to teach you. He likes to give nicknames to staff members, so I'm sure you'll get one quick and fit right in with our fabulous Konoha Sellers family!"

Sasuke walked over to stand behind the boy that looked suspiciously like him. Naruto noticed that Sai's line-up seems to be the longest, despite his obvious cash efficiency. One of the many young women in the line-up squealed quite loudly as Sasuke joined him. "Get used to that," was all Sai said to his new student.

"Alright, you're the last Naruto and all our other regular cashiers are on break," Gai explained as they reached the last cashier. The blonde would later find out that there were only two other regular cashiers that he hadn't met…

"Haku," greeted Gai, "Working well I see. Glad to see it too." The overzealous cash supervisor turned to Naruto. "This is Haku and he normally works Stationary as well as HABA, but he's up here to help us out seeing as we happen to be a little understaffed. No worries though, he's fairly experienced with a register and if you two run into any problems, page me or Chiyo. She's the cash captain, that's her over there on the service desk. With her is Shizune. Okay, good luck you guys! I know you can do it!" He pumped his fist enthusiastically and a few customers looked unnerved by the gesture.

After he had walked away, Haku quickly turned to Naruto and directed him to stand behind him. It was difficult to believe he was a boy. His silky, black hair tied into a neat little bun and delicate looking features. Naruto couldn't help but wonder if Gai had been mistaken. Even the dude's voice was kind of feminine. Mentally reminding himself that he liked Sakura and she was a girl and that meant he was NOT gay, he tried to understand what Haku was doing.

Two hours of customers seemed to pass quickly and without serious incident. Haku had to page an associate from another department once because a product was missing a barcode, but the phone rang only a moment later and the problem was solved.

Finally, it was time for break.

"Alright, now push the dinner plate button and swipe your card like this. We get half an hour. After that, we punch back in and go back downstairs. This is how the system knows we've taken our lunch break. Since this is a seven hour shift, we also get another break later on for fifteen minutes. Never punch out for that one." Haku demonstrated as he spoke and then stepped back. "Okay, now you try."

Naruto stood in front of the punch clock and aligned his card as Haku had done. He pushed the button and quickly dragged his card through. The machine made a screeching beep noise and Naruto cursed at it.

"You swiped to fast, go a little more slowly this time," Haku suggested.

Naruto repeated his actions and moved the card more slowly. The machine beeped again. Naruto swore again.

After his eighth attempt, Haku swiped the card for him. It worked on his first try. "You'll get it in time," he said encouragingly as he led his apprentice to the lunch room. They sat across from each other at the long, dirty, table that wore the ugliest Christmas table cloth Naruto had ever seen.

Haku leaned back and fiddled with the locker behind him until the lock came undone and he pulled out a plastic bag. Naruto realized that the bag contained Haku's lunch and he remembered that he had forgotten to bring one.

"Aren't you going to eat?" asked his mentor softly.

"I forgot my food," Naruto laughed. Spotting a vending machine in the semi-separate kitchen, he dug through his pockets for change. Unfortunately, theses were his work pants and the first time he had worn them. Therefore, no change.

"Here, share mine. You'll want to have eaten once we go back down," Haku said as he pushed the ramen cup to be more between them. He reached into the bag and grabbed an extra set of chop sticks which he handed to Naruto

"Thanks," he laughed again.

"Do you think you're ready to give cash a shot when we go back?" Haku asked.

"Of course. I can so do it!" Naruto exclaimed, "You'll stay though, right?"

"Of course."

After a few moments of comfortable silence, save Naruto obnoxiously slurping his noodles they were joined by the tall and blonde, Ino

"Hey Haku," she greeted as she walked to her locker. She sat beside Haku and opened a salad.

"Hello, Ino. How are things going in the fitting rooms?"

"It's a mess. Nobody knows how to put anything back and I'm covering women's and kid's wear all on my own."

"Who's covering your break?"

"Shikamaru."

"Wow, so he's working fitting rooms, womens, kids, and mens?" Haku looked impressed, "That's all of fashion on his own."

"No, Kiba is backing him up. Pet, shoes, and luggage are all dead departments, so he has the time. I feel bad for anyone lingerie shopping though… I've the two biggest perverts running the show."

"They aren't the biggest perverts – " Haku began.

"You're right. There's that Jiraiya from Loss prevention," Ino broke in.

They laughed.

"What's loss prevention?" Naruto asked.

"Like security, but done entirely by one creepy old man who spends most of his shift using the cameras to watch the women in the store," Ino answered.

In strode a man probably about the age of Iruka and Gai. He nodded politely and walked on through to the bathrooms.

Ino dropped her voice to a whisper. "That's Kakashi. He's the stock supervisor. He's so picky; we only have one stock boy. His name is Shino. He wears sunglasses all the time, even though it's against the rules. He gets away with it though, because Kakashi is friends with Jiraya, who grew up with Tsunade, the manager."

"You shouldn't be gossiping Ino," Haku told her with a smile.

"I'm just saying. Being a stock boy is kind of like joining some elite club. Sometimes, they get night shifts where they can work with the overnight crew putting out stock and they rarely have to deal with customers."

"I wanna be a stock boy!" Naruto announced proudly.

"Well, you better impress Kakashi."

As if on cue, the supervisor walked out of the bathroom. Naruto jumped up as he passed. "I'm UzumakiNaruto! I want to be a stock boy!"

Kakashi's face was hidden behind his collar and silver hair hid one eye. Despite the lack of visibility that would give away the man's response, Naruto got the feeling he wasn't impressed at all. In fact, he looked back to the exit and walked out.

"Okay, so that didn't make you look like a total psycho at all." Ino said sarcastically when their superior was out of sight.

"I don't think it was that bad," Haku added, "but lunch Is over for us, so let's go punch back in and head to the frontlines."

Naruto followed him out and Haku looked at the clock. "Looks like we're cutting it a little close, I should swipe you out just in case. Iruka's nice now, but you don't want to see him if your break runs long."

When they arrived back at their register, Naruto stood in front this time. Doing as Haku told him, he reached down and flicked the switch that turned on his service light. Scanning his badge caused the till to open and he shut it."I can help the next customer in line over here!" He called excitedly.

Before the words had been fully out of his mouth, he had a full line of people. Glancing at his fellow new hires, he was glad to see Sakura had excelled at her job. Sasuke was doing well too, though it was obvious his line would move a little quicker if all his customers didn't hold everything up by flirting with him and Sai

He ignored the two and went about helping his customers. He was sure women would flirt with him too. They didn't though and he became frustrated. Part of him was angry at Haku for making everything look easier than it actually was.

Things wouldn't scan, they came up the wrong price, he couldn't bag things properly, he screwed up change, his voice squeaked when he tried to page a department, and he seemed to get only the most irate people. Then, the shit really hit the fan.

His register stopped working.

It actually just died.

"Sorry, everyone, but we're just going to shift one lane over to an operational register. Sorry," Haku told everyone. He led Naruto to the next till, only to find out that Naruto's numbers had been locked in the last machine. Thankfully, Haku took over.

"Wait at that register, Chiyo will be over in a minute to fix it," Haku instructed.

Standing quietly at his counter, with the light off, he did his best to politely tell random customers that his till refused to work. Nobody took this news well at all.

One woman even hissed at him.

Chiyo finally arrived and helped him. "Your numbers are locked in while the register reboots," she said, "That's going to take a while, so Gai is on his way over to give you something else to do. Wait beside Lee's cash."

"Naruto You look all shook up!" Lee greeted as Naruto took his place beside Lee, watching Sakura work.

"My register locked me out," he told the boy, "Hi Sakura."

She turned her head to look at him, still scanning items as she glared at him.

"She's a tiny bit stressed out, but she's working really well!" Lee said proudly.

"Glad to hear it!" Gai said from beyond them. They faced him and he and Lee high fived. "You are doing great work Lee!" This compliment was followed by a hug. A rather gay looking hug. They broke apart and Gai looked to Naruto. "Follow me! I have a great task for you!"

He brought him to the floor. "I told you Haku normally works stationary and HABA, but since he's working a register, we haven't got anyone in his department. Chouji from food is handling stationary alright, but you can take over HABA for us!"

"HABA?"

HABA stood for Health And Beauty Aids, which was basically code for girly junk Naruto knew nothing about. Which just happened to include, feminine hygiene products and adult diapers.

When Haku arrived to get him for his fifteen minute break, he could not have been happier to see him.

The two sat in the lunch room. Shikamaru from mens wear was already there. His feet on the table and leaning back in his chair.

Down the table a little further was the very shy, HinataHyuuga from jewellery.

"How's your shift going?" Haku attempted to start a conversation.

"It'd be better if Ino would stop bossing me around," Shikamaru responded.

"And you Hinata?" Haku moved on.

She looked at Naruto, who was looking at her and she blushed, "Busy."

"Thanks for taking customers to the jewellery counter for check-out. It's really helped us on cash," Haku told her.

"You're welcome," she almost whispered back.

When they returned downstairs, Naruto had another go at cash. Haku stood very close and handled almost everything. Leaving the blonde to only cover the absolute basics.

"Attention shoppers, the time is now 9pm and Sellers is closed for the evening. We kindly ask that you take all your final purchases to the front check outs where our youthful sales staff will be happy to assist you. The store will reopen tomorrow at 8am for your shopping convenience. Thank you for choosing your store, HVC Konoha and have a youthful evening!" declared the voice of Lee over the announcements.

Forty five minutes later the customers were all finally out of the store and Gaistood before his cashiers. "Alright! Great job today! We've got fifteen minutes before shift ends, so I'll make this quick! Sadly, my new recruits will not be staying as cashiers. So, you guys are going to hang out here for a second and your new supervisors will come around and let you know what you're new position is. As for my cashiers, back to your registers for closing counts!"

They left the trio standing together.

"You were really great today, Sasuke," swooned Sakura. She toyed with a strand of pink hair.

"Hn," was the response.

"You did really great too Sakura! I'm surprised they didn't keep you as a cashier!" Naruto jumped in enthusiastically, hoping to pull her attention from Sasuke. "I know they didn't keep me because Kakashi probably picked me to be a stock boy."

A chuckle was heard from behind them. "Big dreams for a little brat. I like that." The man that joined them was JiraiyaNaruto wanted to pull a face at him, but guessed that wasn't the best idea ever.

"You, with the pink hair, Sakura, right?" asked another man as he approached.

She nodded.

"I'm Asuma. I'm supervisor for all the floor staff. We need someone to work womens and kids. Think you can handle that?"

She nodded again.

"Good, than I guess that just leaves me to take you blondie – "

"WHAT!?!"Naruto shouted.

"You did a decent clean-up in HABA today, I thought I'd put you in bedding."

"BEDDING?!?!"

"Stop screaming," ordered Sasuke from beside him.

"I want to be a stock boy!" Naruto pushed.

"Whatever, I'll see what Kakashi has to say," Asuma said as he rolled his eyes. Picking up a nearby phone he hit page, he asked, "Kakashi, where are you? Come claim your kid so we can go home." There was an echoing noise as he hung up the phone without first disconnecting the page.

The silver-haired supervisor came up quite calmly. Shino following behind. "Sorry I'm late, we were doing a carry out."

"Liar," Jiraiya laughed. Asuma nodded to the team that stood in waiting.

"Shino, tomorrow, you'll be showing Sasuke there the ropes," Kakashi said. The two boys made brief eye contact. "There, now let's go home."

"What about me?" Naruto demanded.

"Hm?"

"I want to be a stock boy!"

Kakashi looked to Jiraiya, then to Asuma. An unspoken conversation seemed to take place and when it ended Kakashi sighed. "Fine. Shino, you'll be showing him around tomorrow too."

"Yess!!!!!!"

They all moved upstairs to punch out. Naruto failed to manage the task again and was told to step aside while everyone else clocked out. When he had his turn again, he still couldn't do it. Iruka had to come help him. Sasuke walked by and smirked. "Way to go…Dead last."

Looking back, Naruto had no idea how he could ever have been so excited about such a crappy job. He sat down in a chair at the lunch room table and kicked up his feet. At least he was a stock boy. It had some wicked perks. Like tips sometimes when you did carry-outs, being able to hide from work in the back room, and girls seemed to dig it. Sasuke had girls follow him everywhere and even Shino had a couple of girls giggling when they passed as he worked. Naruto hadn't had that yet, but he was sure it would come. It had to. He was a stock boy.

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Chapter One: The Dreaded Flashback

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There you have it kiddies!

I like reviews, but don't feel as though you have to leave one. If you do however, it can contain whatever you want. Flames, compliments, random unrelated phrases…seriously, I don't care.

I promise there won't be any more disturbingly long flashbacks.

Until next time!

Naito