Six year old boy walks into a pub. His water's off again and he's getting thirstier by the minute. One time in the orphanage, he was so thirsty that the matron locked him in his room for a whole week, only stopping to empty his bucket and bring him his lunch on a tray, so that the other kids didn't get 'flew', which meant being as thirsty as he was. He wonders if his landlord will lock him in if it happens again. He wonders if his landlord will bother to bring him food and drink or if he'll have to break a window. He wonders if big boys get any lunch brought to them when they are six and they are so thirsty that they have the 'flew'.
Pubs are the only places you can get a drink at 11 o'clock at night… when you haven't got any clean shirts, that is.
So, six year old boy walks into a pub.
Barman, wreathed in smoke and doused in sweat, looks over at him, scowling. He's one of the ones that won't ask no questions if you want, if you've got money… but Naruto knows he likes to beat up people who can't fight back if there's nobody watching, and that he likes making people big, purple bruises right in people's faces, so he can point them out to his mates whenever he wants to. Naruto had a black eye from him only last week, so he knows now not to leave until Barman's busy with customers.
He walks over to the counter.
"Wot?" asks the Barman, sneering. He has a vodka bottle in one hand and a rum bottle in the other. He is mixing them. When he looks up at Naruto, some of the alcohol spills on the counter and he lets it puddle. He has already given Naruto the once over many times before this, but he gives it again, because he likes making children wait.
"Um… can I have beer?" asks Naruto. He hates the taste of it, but it's rather weak and they sell it in bottles that you can tell have or haven't been tampered with.
Barman glares. "Yor a kid," he grunts.
"But I can pay for beer," says Naruto.
Barman gives him the once over again, setting down the vodka and rum bottles with discernible chinks, and putting the resulting mixture up on the counter for someone to collect. It looks like he doesn't care who. Naruto frowns slightly.
Barman grunts, sliding him over a glass, and a brown glass bottle. Neither of the slides are gentle and both bottle and glass nearly overbalance and fall off the counter, but the boy has quick reflexes and manages to catch them both before he's charged a fine. He sets them on the floor, gives the Barman a 10,000 ryo note (because beer here costs almost as much as his landlord pays for women), picks them up again, and carries them over to a corner, where he won't be disturbed. There aren't any seats at the table he chooses, but that doesn't matter: he sits under it.
ooo
He watches feet come and go. It must be nearly half past by now: the beer has gone lukewarm (which is good because it means he can drink it quicker) and some of the ladies coming into the bar are not wearing anything up their skirts. He can smell the tobacco increasing in potency and tries to breathe through his mouth rather than his nose, but that just makes him want to cough and, if he coughs, someone will notice him. He drinks more beer.
Some of the ladies have started dancing; sashaying to the music. One of them is wearing tassles: he can see the ends of them creeping down and swishing over her bare stomach. He can't see any further than her stomach and this, he knows, is a good thing. Other ladies have gone upstairs. He doesn't know why; women get hurt upstairs.
He drains the last of his beer from the glass (another reason he likes this pub: they have clean glasses) and tries to sneak out of the door, but he collides with some drunk in all the loud noise and the chaos, and he is noticed by one of the ladies. She lunges. He runs.
He runs for a long time in the night air. He doesn't know where to and he doesn't know what from, because the woman didn't follow him from the pub, she only tried to grab him, but he runs anyway. He runs past the 'hor-aahs' with all its ladies and the thugs who go there; he runs past the tumbledown houses that the homeless people aren't supposed to live in but do; he runs past another pub, which is for ninjas this time, that ordinary people aren't meant to go to; he runs past a block of flats like his one, only not; he runs past another pub – this time for ninjas and ordinary people together; he runs past a place serving 'chicken', which doesn't cook things properly and makes people ill; he runs past a civilian school; he runs past a bakery that recently shut down; he runs into up-town; he runs; he runs; he runs; he runs past the police station; he runs; he runs; he runs; he runs past the Hokage tower; he runs; he runs; he…
He stops. Pauses.
Breathes.
Turns back home.
Maybe the water will be back on…