Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
You Will Not Remember Me
- A Little Off-Road Bakery -
A tall man walked down an empty road late at night; dragging his feet behind him, creating small, sand clouds in his wake. From beneath the rim of his wide straw hat, he glanced up and tried to find the moon, only to realize that it was the re-start of the lunar cycle that night, so there was no moon.
'A new moon, a clean slate for every month,' he mused.
The man lowered his eyes and focused instead on the things around him; buzzing insects in the humid spring evening, beady-eyed rodents scuttling around his feet, people meeting together for a bit of relaxed conversation behind layers of glass and wood.
Immersed, the man subconsciously approached the entrance of a small bakery with painted ceilings and glass front walls in the middle of the village's main road. Its dim yellow lights illuminated his path, the front of his cloak, and even warmed his feet, while its lingering brown sugar smell wafted out of the opened front door and piqued his interest.
Interested, he stopped moving and turned to look inside the establishment, only to be greeted by his own reflection glaring at him from the reflective surface on one of the front windows.
The majority of the man's appearance was obscured by his strange outfit; a black and red coat, sandals, pants and a straw hat. His coat and pants were blood-stained but in these times, fights and battles were common enough that not one person had given him a second look. The thought was disconcerting, making him scowl slightly – hidden by his coat collar - but at least he did not stand out. The only descriptive things that could be said about his own personal appearance were that he was pale, from the skin his feet and the area around his eyes, tall, lean, and that his eyes were black.
Returning his attention to the bakery's interior, he noted that there were a total of seven people inside the building; five patrons, a waitress, and a cook, whom he analyzed with practiced speed.
There were two elder men, seated directly in front of him, nursing big tankards of a frothy amber-looking drink; their hands were bandaged from some sort of hard labor, probably mining, welding, or contracting. Behind them were two middle-aged, slightly over-weight women, talking animatedly over some kind of round sweet in a large pink box in front of them, their copiously ringed fingers suggesting that they either did no work, or no work involving their hands.
A baker stood behind an open window, rubbing at its counter with a rag, and taking down bits of notepad paper on a horizontally-hung wire. He flicked at something out of sight, turning the back lights out, and exited the restaurant after waving at the waitress, a disgruntled-looking brunette leaning over the counter.
She nodded back, and with an absent flick of her wrist, closed the shutters over the open window and drew forward all the curtains, showing easy power over wind. She might have been intimidating to some purely due to her seemingly telepathic control over the element, but her chakra stores were average, and her body was below average in strength; suggesting that she was the sort who relied almost exclusively on her affinity. At best, she was at an average jounin level in terms of threat, or possible even below.
She was conversing with the last patron, a girl wearing a defeated expression and a hitai-ate as a ribbon to hold back her plum purple hair. She was very obviously a ninja; chuunin judging by the amount of papers stuffed into her clipboard and bags, and a beginning to intermediate lightning-technique user, judging by the rubber coating on her gloves.
Combined, the two would have posed a formidable enemy to any normal ninja, but the tall man walked confidently into the bakery. He had deemed them to be,- if absolutely necessary – easily beatable.
He scanned the hours of operation and the clock resting above the sign. There was an hour till closing. He figured he might get a green tea, some dango, and read something by the window for a while before returning to his hotel room.
Besides, it is not like someone was waiting for him at his room anymore, or anywhere else for that matter.
Over the humming of the chef cleaning the counter, the waitress had been recounting some story to her friend.
"And then I was like, seriously? I mean it was a B-rank mission that took nine full days and that's what they're going to pay me? I know, I know, this newly-promoted jounin who can only blow things around gets crappy pay, whatever, screw you, but also, like, seriously, major depression. So, I had to take two extra shifts here so we can pay the freaking landlord."
"I'm surprised our landlord won't even cut us a break," the chuunin said, her vocal chords straining as she bent over to pick up a fallen notebook, "I mean we are at least somewhat respectable ninja, and his son's in my class."
"Yeah... But he's not that scary, I don't think he'd kick us out if we couldn't pay... Bet he thinks I'm psycho or something" the waitress-jounin said, absentmindedly adjusting her name tag, "Honestly, he probably won't even ask for the rent in person... especially after that last time I was distracted watching TV and I accidentally waved a kunai at him instead of the roll of money when he came for the rent payment that time when you were working overtime at the academy last month; but I do feel like he's been shit-talking us, because that woman who works at the tailors gave me this nasty look-" she ranted without pause for breathe.
Just then, they noticed an unusually dressed man enter the bakery.
In an average-sized village like Iwagakure, per say, he would have been ignored. However, due to the size and obscurity of this village, not many newcomers ever immigrated here. As a result, everyone knew everyone, at least by face, so the two were surprised to see the complete stranger.
Wordlessly, he went to go sit at an empty table before hunching forward. His black hair and hat obscured his face, but not the glint of light hitting metal off his forehead protector.
The waitress raised her eyebrows at the chuunin, but she shrugged back. She had not heard of any new shinobi coming to town that fit his description during her shift at the communication desk that morning. The jounin stifled a small yawn. Protocol for spotting a foreign ninja involved asking all these lengthy, useless questions that could be easily bluffed anyway, so the waitress rubbed her face a bit and began searching for her notepad under the counter mumbling something under her breathe.
"...so long as he pays with legitimate money, I don't really care. Unless he tips like a cheap bastard, then we'll put him in the bingo book."
The chuunin tried to control laughing at her fellow kunoichi's comments and followed her with her eyes as she walked around the counter to take down the new patron's orders. Soon she zoned out, barely registering the bells ringing when the two middle-aged women exited the bakery. Her eyes absently rested on the curtains swept off the floors by the wind drafting in from the opened front door, until she heard something strange.
"Do you by any chance, currently have Hanami dango?"
The chunin looked over at the pair. The stranger held his hat by the brim to prevent it from falling off in the breeze so she could not see his expression. Her friend, however, looked confused, mouth curled to the side as she absently flicked her hands to restrain the current.
"You want dango? The pretty, girly dango with green, pink and white?"
"I believe it is called Hanami dango and that its coloring has to do more with the flavors than who consumes it."
"WHOA! Calm down there, tough guy. Alright then, how many skewers would you like?"
"I'll take eight."
"There are three dango on each skewer."
"I know."
"Ok... So how many do you want packed, then?"
"I do not want any packed."
"So you want a set of cabbage rolls, a plate of onigiri, and eight skewers of Hanami dango, all right here."
"I will have a green tea as well."
The waitress blinked. Normally, the tired jonin would have bit her tongue and walked off to complete the order but because she was tired and miserable she could not stop herself from getting annoyed at every little thing.
"Really? Are you sure that your taste buds can handle this explosion of flavors that is boiled cabbage and white rice? Holy... And how about I get an extra five or six skewers for you?"
Slowly, the stranger looked up at the waitress, the picture of indifference, but unbeknownst to her, his mouth was trembling, like it would when one was holding in a yell or retort. The chuunin managed to catch the little tremor; always the more detail-attentive one among the two, skills especially honed to mitigate the sticky situations that the other's brashness sometimes got them into.
"Niha, leave him alone," she said stepping forward. "And I'm cashing in one of my I-owe-you's. I want a black coffee and two skewers of Mitarashi dango."
"Yay, a dango party. I don't even know why so many people like dango, I mean, they have like zero taste. And seriously eight skewers of dango, order the whole store why don't you? But you know what? I'll make those dangos but I think I'm going to charge extra for having to re-start the oven for all that dango, and like, damn I get that we are technically foreigners and all but what happened to flavour? Like what are these bland foods; who do I have to fight to get some cinnamon-glazed, dark chocolate drizzled- " Niha said to herself, making her way to the kitchen and pulling her features into a bored expression.
As the sounds of an oven starting up traveled to her ears, the chunin suddenly realized something. She had only pulled the I-owe-you because the stranger looked like he was going to yell or cry, and in this irritability over their financial situation, Niha probably would have asphyxiated the poor guy.
However, now the only two courses of action she could take were both equally awkward. She could sit alone at another table and ignore him completely throughout the meal even though she had so firmly told Niha to leave him alone, like she cared about making him feel welcome or something; or sit down beside him and try to talk to a man who was dressed in such a large, and enveloping cloak that she couldn't even see his face.
As the minutes drew on, she ran her hands through her purple hair and rationalized that even if he did not talk much, she might be able to weasel something out of him regarding the outside ninja world and subtly do the whole protocol thing that Niha always skipped.
She decided to sit beside the tired looking man.
When he did not look up or nod to acknowledge her presence, she figured it could not hurt to pose a safe, vague question in the context of some friendly conversation.
"Don't worry about her; she's just worried about not making rent on time. Everyone here is really nice. I am Aida, by the way. Nice to meet you. Who are you?"