Tsume and Kuromaru walks into the bar with slumped shoulders and shell-shocked faces. Well, Tsume walks into the bar with slumped shoulders and a shell-shocked face, and Kuromaru walks in with what one would assume to be the canine variant. It's an expression, and one that fits, and so Hiashi is sticking to it, even if it makes no sense.
He's drunk in a bar, give him a break.
Kuromaru disappears somewhere with another dog (maybe there's a canine variant of a bar, too? Hiashi wouldn't know), and Tsume slumps down in the seat next to him and steals his beer. Then she chugs it, and Hiashi looks mournfully at the empty glass she leaves behind.
"I was drinking that."
"A wolf," Tsume says. "A wolf," she says again, like Hiashi should have any idea what she's talking about.
"I'm drunk," he says, just to let her know. Tsume's kind of stupid, most days, and she needs you to spell things out for her. Hiashi takes his job very seriously. He wasn't Utatane-sensei's favourite student for nothing, after all. "You drank my beer and I have no idea what you're talking about."
Tsume looks at him like he's the one who stole her beer, not the other way around, and Hiashi considers whether or not he should be offended. Then he sighs, and flags down the bartender to get them a bottle or five, because he can bill Tsume for it later, and it's starting to appear they're both going to need it. As expected, Tsume chugs an entire bottle the moment it appears before her eyes, and Hiashi has to placate the waitress by tipping her profusely, considering she'd just been assaulted for carrying liquor within range of Tsume's reach. She has very long arms, Tsume, and she's always willing to use them.
Hiashi is going to feel terrible, tomorrow.
"A wolf," Tsume says again, like her life is ending. He's far too sober for a drunk person to deal with this, so he chugs down a bottle, too.
"A wolf," he agrees. "Gotta hate them." True story, a wolf once ate his engagement ring. Hiashi had to spend days hunting it, because he knew that returning without it wasn't an option if he wanted to be able to see his firstborn at any point during their first decade. Because she's a horrible person, Tsume neither helped him nor ever let him live it down. Since Hiashi definitely is a spiteful person, and he has reasons, god damnit, he hopes whatever wolf problem that she now has, will be equally unpleasant for her, as searching through feces in white clothing had been for him.
He grimaces. Rats, now he's starting to remember the smell. Thank you very much, Tsume.
"We have dogs, Hiashi." Tsume says this like someone would say their child has been kidnapped and was only ransomed for five yen. "Dogs." Like it was both very dreadful, and very offensive.
Hiashi pats her on the shoulder mock consolingly. "Yes, you do have dogs."
"We don't have wolves."
"You don't have wolves."
"So why is there a wolf in my house?" she bursts out, slamming the bottle down on the table.
"There… is a wolf in your house?" Hiashi asks carefully. Wolves aren't too fond of houses, as far as he's aware. And people aren't usually too fond of having them in houses, either. Not even Inuzukas, even though they have a habit of dragging everything that can breathe and has legs home, and ask their parents to keep it.
"Yes!" Tsume says it like Hiashi is stupid to even ask, and yes, Hiashi decides, he is offended. "There is a wolf! In my house!"
"There is a wolf in your house," he says redundantly, because this entire conversation is redundant. He reaches for another bottle, and downs half of it. Hopefully, it'll dull his brains soon.
Tsume folds her arms on the table and hides her head in them. "There's a wolf in my house," she confirms, again. "There is a wolf in my house, Hiashi."
Hiashi considers that for a moment. "Why," he begins, "is there a wolf in your house?"
Tsume heaves dramatically. "Because it is."
Hiashi simply raises an eyebrow at her, and she folds like a house of cards. "It thinks it's a dog," she mutters under her breath. "And we have dogs, Hiashi. We have so many dogs."
"You do have a lot of dogs. Why do you have a wolf that thinks it's a dog, too?"
The corners of her mouth draw back in a grimace. "Fuck if I know. It can't exactly speak, now, can it?"
"But you speak bark," Hiashi says. "I know you do." Lord knows he's had to explain it too many times to weirded out civilians, whenever she went off and started barking at everyone and their grandmother. Their genin years had been one giant long humiliating cluster fuck. To this day, he still refused to step foot inside the villages nearing the Ame border. Small village people have long fucking memories, and Hiashi resolutely will not put himself through that. Ever.
Coincidentally, the rest of the clan is also banned from entering them. Being Clan Head has its perks, sometimes. There are so many things that have happened, in those few villages, and Hiashi will gladly die before he lets anyone in the Clan find out about it.
Small village people have loose lips. Better not to risk it.
Tsume looks at him like he's disappointingly but predictably stupid, and Hiashi is taking such offense, he's going to ruin her with the interest on the bar tab. "I speak dog bark, not wolf bark." She'll be destitute.
"There's a difference?" It sounds exactly the same to his ears, that's for sure.
"There's a difference?" she repeats mockingly. "Of course there's a difference! I don't see you and Fugaku calling yourself siblings just because both of your clans have black hair and creepy eyes, now do I? Unbelievable. A difference, he says."
"That analogy doesn't make any sense." Hiashi frowns gravely in her direction. Tsume resolutely ignores him.
"Yeah, well. Screw you." She mutters into her arms and then gives him the finger. Such a polite person, she is. So refined. "You're not the one who has a wolf in your home."
"No, I'm not," Hiashi says pleasantly, because that's a good point, and it's only fair.
"God, you're so annoying. I don't know why I even went to you in the first place."
"Because you love to torture me, obviously. And you're too stupid to deal with stuff on your own."
Tsume groans loudly enough that people on the other side of the bar gives them the side eye. Hiashi flips them off. And flashes his teeth. God, she's such a bad influence.
"Hey," Tsume protests. "I'm not stupid!"
Hiashi raises an eyebrow at her. "You have your sweater on backwards."
"No, I don't," Tsume says automatically, but given that she almost dislocates her neck by trying to look at it, Hiashi doesn't feel inclined to take her words seriously. She swears loudly when she spots the tag hanging out. Hiashi smiles at her misfortune. Then, she starts stripping, and he stops smiling to put his head in his hands.
"Can't you at least go to the bathroom?" He points to the door leading to it. "It's literally ten feet away."
It's a strategic decision, choosing this table. Hiashi is not a good drunk person.
Tsume's bra is puke coloured and fuck ugly. God, she has no taste. It's actually making him nauseous, and he shouldn't be that drunk yet.
"Don't be a pussy," Tsume says. "I have amazing tits." She drops her sweater on the table. Given that it's a sticky ass table, it's not a very good call. It'll be hell trying to wash out the smell, and Hiashi is just about to let her know that he'll not be helping her, this time, when she takes her own tits in hand and squeezes. "Grade A fatty tissue, right here."
No impulse control, he swears to God.
Someone wolf whistles, and Tsume nearly decapitates them with the kunai she throws their way. "Did I say you could look?" she asks rhetorically. No one answers, which is probably a very good call, because she would undoubtedly take offense and do something about it, and then there would be fallout to deal with, and Hiashi's just not here for that. Thankfully, she puts her sweater back on, right side on the outside this time. Hiashi relishes in her grimace, when it sticks to her skin and upsets her poor sense of smell. Suits her right.
He's just about to say as much to her, to smugly gloat that not only had she had her sweater on backwards, thus proving his point about her being stupid, but she also had the worst taste, ever, when the doors to the bar bursts open and a white blur enters. The white thing stops in the middle of the room, head tilted to the side. The doors close, only to be thrown open again a moment later, the bartender swearing about being careful with his property, damnit, and a brown blur appears, this time.
The bar is silent, staring at the spectacle that is unfolding. The white thing is a wolf, a wolf. A semi tiny young wolf cub, with big ears, and big eyes, and big fucking teeth. Nostrils trembling, it draws in a breath and barks loudly twice.
The brown thing, and oh this is the best thing that has happened to Hiashi this year, thank you lord, throws himself at the wolf cub, encircling his arms around the sturdy throat of it with a shout.
"Mom! Hi!" The youngest spawn of Tsume grins widely at her. "Akamaru's hungry, and no one answered the door at Momo's, and so we came here!" Everything the boy says is a shout. Usually, Hiashi prefers to stay far away for that very reason, he gets flashbacks to his genin years enough as it is, thank you very much, but this time's an exception. This time it's amazing, and he wouldn't miss it for the world.
"You hear that, Tsume. Akamaru's hungry." Hiashi smiles widely at the kid, who smiles back, happy as a clam.
Tsume's mouth stays open for a long moment, before she closes it with a click. "We gave him half a calf's worth of meat, sweetheart," she says stiltedly.
Tsume's spawn blinks in confusion, before he smiles again, blindingly wide. "Oh, Akamaru's already finished that."
"He's already finished that," Tsume repeats slowly, like she can't quite believe what she's hearing. Given the size of the cub, Hiashi can't quite believe it either. Half a calf should at the very least be the cub weight or heavier. Eating that, and still being hungry, is slightly terrifying.
And amazing. Hiashi's so glad he decided to get drunk, today. He's so fucking glad. This is gold, and he'll never forget it.
"Yeah." Tsume's spawn proudly pats the wolf cub on the head. "And he's hungry, now."
The wolf cub lets out a short bark, and Tsume's spawn looks first down at it, and then to the bartender. "Do you have chicken?" he asks. The bartender nods slowly.
"We have some chicken wings I could fry up," he says.
"Mom, can we have chicken? Akamaru says he's never tried it, before."
The eyes of Tsume's spawn are wide open and pleading, and if Tsume doesn't buy him those chicken wings, Hiashi sure as fuck am, because this train crash he wants to see most dearly.
Slumping down in her seat, Tsume waves her hand disjointedly at the bartender. "Sure. Fine. We'll have chicken wings, I guess."
Tsume's spawn whoops in joy, and the wolf cub barks again, its tongue lolling out of its mouth.
"I thought you didn't speak wolf bark," Hiashi says, when the wings have arrived and both spawn and cub are heartily busy digging into their meal.
Tsume glares at him. "Oh, go fuck right off."