Mannerisms
-AU- Three things about life: petty criminals make bad roommates; never tape your bank pin on your bank card, and always have a valid excuse for checking out suspicious material. Too bad some people missed that memo.

Penny-pinchers Anonymous

It'd been three months.

Three fucking long months and she couldn't take it anymore.

Hyuuga Hinata was currently living in a dingy apartment with three seedy roommates. She secretly blamed her father for her current predicament. After all, if he hadn't spent all her tuition and boarding money on Hanabi's pie-eating contest tour around the world, though Hinata's got to admit that her little sister's got flair for gulping down pies; she wouldn't be in this mess right now.

But there's a time for that later.

Right now she had more important things to deal with. Like the said roommates.

Ever since Hinata moved to the downtown district of Konoha City, all she had was bad luck. She left half her stuff on the taxi. She got dropped off ten miles away from the school campus and had to walk the whole way in pouring rain. And the apartment she was supposed to live in was torn down and turned into a lemur sanctuary. Luckily, she was able to find another apartment with vacancy. She thought things were looking up.

Then she met her roommates. And things really went downhill.

"DUDE! WE'RE FLAT BROKE! STUPID SON OF A –"

"Tenten," Sakura sighed, "we've been broke for two weeks now."

"Oh."

"I personally blame Ino," Sakura continued, "what with her weekly hundred dollar shopping sprees, spa treatments, gallons of ice cream –"

"Hey," snapped Ino, "take that back! I only spend ninety dollars a week and you eat the ice cream too you pig."

Sakura raised her fists, "you wanna piece of this, you snivelling nincompoop –"

Ino stood up. She wasn't about to back down from a challenge. Especially from Sakura.

"Oh stop that you two," snapped Hinata, "you're acting like kids."

The other three turned to look at her. Hinata didn't insult people. Heck, she couldn't even finish a sentence without stuttering. Ino plopped herself on a sofa and huffed indignantly.

"Much better," smiled Tenten, she turned to Hinata, "thanks for shutting up those bit–"

"So what are we gonna do about our financial status," interrupted Sakura before the other girl could finish the profanity, "it's not like we can find jobs or anything in the city."

"We could always a-ask our parents," suggested Hinata.

"Uh," Sakura said, "Tenten and I are orphans remember? And Ino ran away from home after her mom refused to buy her Herbal Essences shampoo –"

"Hey! That's completely a justifiable to never speak to your parents again –"

"Whatever bitch," Tenten snorted, "the point is we still need money and we have no fucking way of getting it."

Everyone went into super thinking genius mode.

Ten minutes passed.

Twenty minutes.

Suddenly, Tenten brightened up, "I've got an idea! Let's go fish for pennies in the mall fountains. There's got to be a fortune to be made there."

Sakura immediately agreed, "It's just like when we were kids, eh?"

"Then it's settled," said Ino, "off to the mall."

Too bad Hinata didn't get a say in this.

"Hey, you know what's sad? This is the best idea we thought of in twenty minutes."

"WHAT ARE YOU GIRLS DOING?!" screeched mall security.

"WHAT'S IT LOOK LIKE TO YOU DUMBASS? WE'RE –"

Sakura clamped her hand over Tenten's mouth and said sweetly, "we're cleaning out the fountain, good sir. We dearly hope you don't mind."

The mall security was speechless, "Uh, well then. Carry on."

As the guard left, Tenten bit down on Sakura's hand. Hard.

"OWWWW! WHAT WAS THAT FOR?"

"For acting like a prissy stuck up bitch from the nineteenth century, fucktard," Tenten growled, "plus you were choking me. I could've handled that bastard myself."

"For your information, that mannerism would have been appropriate in the early twentieth century," Sakura huffed, "and you could be a little more appreciative. I just saved all of us from being kicked out of the mall. Now let's get back to work."

Tenten mumbled an apology and resumed scooping coins out of the fountain. The three other girls followed suit.

Naruto and Lee were having a heated debate about giraffes and kangaroos. Just because they can.

"Giraffes are totally cooler than kangaroos," Naruto shouted, "They can eat the leaves on treetops."

"But kangaroos carry their young with them," Lee yelled back, "that makes them the most youthful of all creatures."

"But giraffes –" Naruto stopped. Lee wasn't with him anymore. The bushy-browed boy had run off to the gym having spot Lee's idol, Gai.

Naruto sighed, "Some friend he turned out to be."

Just then he spotted a group of girls by the fountain. He grinned. Maybe he could have some fun after all.

Sakura was bending over the fountain ledge trying to reach a particularly hard to reach penny. Any normal person would've left it, but the girls were desperate. They even considered selling Ino out as a whore (which earned them each a whacking by the blond). Sakura was inching closer to the penny, almost there...

"HEY THERE SWEET THANG!"

...and Sakura promptly fell into the fountain. When she emerged, she looked like a rat that drowned in pink dye. At least she got the penny.

She glared daggers at the loudmouthed offender, "You incompetent nitwit, can't you be civil and give warning before you scream your vital organs out."

The blond boy stared at her, "I had no idea what you just said but are you okay?"

"Yes."

"That's great. I'm Naruto, nice to meet you."

"Wish I could say the same," mumbled Sakura.

"Huh?"

"My name is Sakura," Sakura quickly arranged her features into a sweet smile, "a pleasure to meet you."

"So," Naruto drawled, attempting to start a conversation, "What're you all up to?"

"Cleaning out the fountain," Ino replied promptly.

Truth to be told, that didn't sound like much fun to Naruto, but he just got ditched by his best-friend-for-three-minutes with nothing to do. Guess you can't have the pepperoni and eat it too.

"I'd love to help."

The girls looked at each other; Tenten spoke up, "we really don't need any help on this shit."

But Naruto was already working away.

In forty five minutes, the fountain was clean of all things metallic.

"Man," Naruto grinned; "Look at all those coins. Must be worth a fortune, eh? Split the profit?"

Hinata was about to agree when Sakura nodded, "Fine, here."

She placed a paperclip in Naruto's hand.

"Hey! Don't I get more than that? I worked really hard!"

"Life's a bitch. Deal with it," yelled Tenten as the girls bolted out of the mall.

"Cheapskates," mumbled Naruto to himself.

He wondered what he could get with a paperclip and eleven pennies.

"Let's see now," Sakura smiled at their large paint can of coins, "how much profit we've made, huh?"

She took a few minutes to total up the coins. Her face turned grim.

Ino noticed, "What's wrong? Spit it out, girl!"

"After all that work," Sakura sighed, "we've only got about thirty dollars."

"WHAT?! THOSE CHEAP BASTARDS! WHEN GET MY HANDS OF ONE OF –"

Hinata cut Tenten off mid-rant, "this isn't w-working. We n-need a new p-plan."

Sakura smiled, "And I have an idea."