Slip of the Tongue
By Azure Orbis
Summary: Breakfast time can be an odd time.
A/N- Thanks to krizzlybear for mentioning my mistake. Tsk on me, unconscious does not equal subconscious!
"You want anything?" Kurenai asked as she got up from their shared table. She had wanted to try out this new café-restaurant for the longest time and of course she went with a friend, not wanting to feel foolish and alone if the food was bad. Still, since she heard only good things, she was not overly concerned.
"No, I think I'm good with my dango (1) and sweet breads," her breakfast partner replied, sipping her tea and munching on her foods with great relish. Kurenai looked at the other woman wondering, I didn't know sweets were considered breakfast foods, but since it's Anko, I guess it is.
"Okay, I'm just going to up there and grab a bowl of cigarettes," she answered as she went toward the café's breakfast bar. The dark-haired kunoichi stopped suddenly in her tracks before turning around and returned to the table, her hands empty as her appetite seemed suddenly diminished.
Anko looked at her curiously, "Cigarettes?"
"I meant 'cereal', but it came out 'cigarettes'. How odd is that?" Kurenai asked rhetorically with a bemused look on her face. Her distinctive red eyes gazed off into the distance.
"Cigarettes, cereal. They both start with a 'C'. A common mistake, anyone can make it." Anko assured her with a hidden smirk. Kurenai drank her coffee absentmindedly, feeling oddly bothered and missed the smirk completely.
"Yeah, I suppose," she agreed although she seemed doubtful. A finger tapped her chin thoughtfully as Kurenai wondering how she could have made such a gaffe. Cigarettes? Cereal? She didn't smoke so, how did that happen? Anko's smile only grew wider as she noticed Kurenai grow even more inattentive than she already was.
Anko chuckled a little, "Although it could be because your mind is on something or more like someone." She paused, moving her eyebrows up and down for emphasis; this was too good to let go of so quickly. It was rare to see the usually composed kunoichi so off balance and Anko simply loved teasing people. "I'd say you were definitely thinking of that Asthma guy." Suddenly she clamped her own hands over her mouth in shock at her little slip of the tongue.
Kurenai cocked her eyebrow at the mistake, ruby eyes suddenly locked and wholly concentrating at the stunned kunoichi in front of her. Now it was her turn to be amused at someone else's slip-up.
"Asthma?" she asked coyly, although the smile on her lips was anything but innocent.
"Asuma," Anko corrected herself. "Asuma.I know his name," she said almost to herself. Kurenai only smiled, the flustered look on Anko's face was priceless.
"Kurenai, I think your loopy lingo is starting to affect me too," Anko joked weakly, but the shocked look stayed on her face.
"I guess it is," Kurenai pondered, a thoughtful look replaced her irritating smile. "Funny how we both tripped up on some word related to Asuma," she observed.
"You know, it could be one of those slips, ones that show what you're subconsciously thinking about," Anko offered as an answer.
"We were both thinking about Asuma subconsciously?" Kurenai asked incredulously. She didn't like where that train of thought went. It just screamed, "Dangerous territory, point of no return." Better to stray away than plunge heedlessly in.
"Maybe," Anko replied, even though she thought the theory sounded a little ridiculous once she said it out loud.
"Well, I wasn't thinking about Asuma. Were you thinking about Asuma?" Kurenai asked, unwilling to let go of the subject until she felt she had cleared both her brain and the air of this awkward incident.
"Nope," Anko answered promptly and chomped onto the last dango on the stick, chewing it mechanically as something to do rather than with her customary relish. She didn't like where that thought could lead to either. And there was no feasible reason for her to think about the smoking shinobi either since she only knew him from a few casual conversations, so she could not have been thinking about him, consciously or not.
"Good, then we agree that this was just some involuntary slip of the tongue caused by something like stress or lack of proper nutrition," Kurenai asked. Anko nodded, only too happy to have this little episode of mental blunders be put quickly into the past. The rest of breakfast was quiet with Anko eating her sweet foods with notably less gusto and Kurenai only nibbling on a piece of fruit.
An uncomfortable air fell upon the two, festering and suffocating until it seemed to lift as the two finished and prepared to separate. Kurenai gave Anko a half-hearted smile and was about to ask her if she wanted to breakfast with her tomorrow when Anko spoke first, "Well, speak of the devil." Kurenai followed Anko's line of vision and saw the person she most did not want to see that day, smoking as usual.
"Hello ladies, are you leaving already? I thought I might sit down with you seeing--" Asuma tried to smoothly insert himself in what looked like a comfortable breakfast. He was rather brusquely brushed off by both kunoichi who couldn't seem to get away from him quickly enough. Case in point, Kurenai actually shoved him away in her haste to leave and Anko looked like she wanted to put as much distance between them as fast as she could. His cigarette almost fell out of his open mouth from shock, almost. The thin white casing wobbled precariously as it clung on his bottom lip until his upper lip came down and quickly recaptured it.
Puzzled, he followed the retreating women out of the entrance calling, "Anko? Kurenai?" They were acting so odd.
"Sorry, Asthma, have somewhere important to be. We'll talk later," Kurenai called back, practically running away.
"What she said," Anko agreed, before disappearing too.
Nonplussed Asuma re-entered the café when an attendant came up to him, "I'm afraid there's no smoking here, sir. I'm going to have to ask you to put that out."
Asuma grunted and ground the cigarette beneath his heel, although he was a little sorry to extinguish it before fully enjoying it. Still, what puzzled him most was the two women's behavior. It was like he had an angry red sign on his forehead that said, "Run away from me!" Unable to get that embarrassing image out of his head, he casually glanced into the nearest reflective surface and was more than a little relieved to see nothing marking his unblemished forehead. So, what drove the ladies away? Did he smell or something? Looking around carefully with shifty eyes and being extremely discreet as befitting his status as a jounin, he lowered his nose and sniffed delicately. No, he smelled normal, a little sweaty from early morning running but nothing disgusting in the masculine odor that was completely him. He decided the problem had to be with the women themselves. Perhaps it was that time of the month.
Feeling a little better, he gestured at a waiter who came quickly to his table. Hungry and therefore, irate shinobi were bad for business.
"What would you like to order sir?" He asked politely.
"Sirloin stake and a glass of cigarettes," Asuma ordered promptly, wanting meat after his week-long meat-less diet; which didn't work by the way since he was exactly the same weight as before he started. This was the last time he took dieting advice from Ino.
The waiter stared at the shinobi and for the second time that day, someone asked the same question. "Cigarettes?"
Footnotes:
(1) Dango: Sweet dumplings, shown in threes on a stick. Anko has a fondness for these as shown in both manga and anime.
A/N: Well, that was a rather aimless drabble. I guess I was trying to say that even ninjas, these amazingly portrayed humans who have (really) inhuman skills of strength, speed, endurance, etc. get tongue-tied like any normal human being. And some of them are just silly. This is probably one of the few NARUTO fics without any fighting or angst, a rather rare bird.