Naruto and Sasuke's Amazing Adventure
Part 4 Interlude: A Regular Casanova
Naruto was a lot of things and for what he wasn't, he was willing to put forth enough effort to make a change. One such venture was learning how to pick his battles and there was one area where he had concluded he was a total failure.
That was being smooth.
His attempts at asking Sakura out were laughable, even if Sakura preferred inflicting bodily harm instead of laughing. It had been that way ever since the first time he had asked her out in the middle of taijutsu drills in the shinobi academy (she punched him in the nose) to the time when he was feeling a little insomniac and asked her at three in the morning (she clocked him with her alarm clock).
There was no rhyme or reason to any of it and more often than not, the two of them fell into a comedic routine of Sakura denying his advances.
Maybe Naruto should have gotten dressed in nicer clothes, came to Sakura's doorstep with a bouquet of flowers and popped the question, but ideas like that rarely occurred to him, or on the off chance they did, something—anything—would happen to mess it all up.
However, for what he lacked in finesse, he made up in heart and sheer dumb luck.
The time that Sakura actually said yes though, proved that apparently Sakura wasn't a stickler for the finer things in courtship.
Her acceptance came after one of the most disgusting missions Team 7 had ever been on. Naruto was sure they were being sent on this mission in an overdue, passive-aggressive attempt on Old Hag Tsunade's part to punish Sasuke for going missing-nin. The newly reunited team was hired to kill dangerous beasts in a city sewer in Fire Country. Apparently the monsters had gotten tired of eating shit and wanted to move straight to the top of the food chain.
Naruto quickly discovered that sandals and shit did not make him happy. At all.
(The hilarious look on Sasuke's face did).
Fighting did not go well. By the time they killed the last beast, Team Seven was completely covered in steaming (courtesy of Sasuke) fecal matter. Naruto was sure that he was going to get a disease that the Kyuubi couldn't fix and die horribly.
So, of course it was the perfect opportunity to ask Sakura if she wanted to go eat something later that week!
Sakura stared at him with widened eyes for a few seconds of torturous silence. Then with a shake of her head and a wry grin, she accepted, "I guess the day can't get any worse."
Naruto was over the moon. He didn't care that all of his friends, most of all Sasuke, wanted to gag him and chuck him off the Hokage monument by the week's end. His haze of euphoria lasted until he came across his bank account where Naruto found he had enough to apply to the Broke Phi Broke ninja fraternity after paying rent.
All happy feelings shot to hell, Naruto trudged through the streets of Konoha to arrive at the Ichiraku Ramen stall, where he proceeded to fall into a deeper funk when he realized he couldn't afford to drown himself in ramen.
Ayame who always had Naruto's back when things got down, lent a sympathetic ear. "Naruto-kun, what's wrong?"
Naruto raised his head from where it had been resting on the wooden desk. "Sakura-chan finally agreed to a date with me, a real date...and I'm broke!"
Ayame frowned, giving Naruto a sympathetic look. With a shrug she said, "You know...it's the thought that counts."
Naruto let his head fall back on the desk. "Well, I'm screwed then!"
There was the sound of something being placed in front of him and the smell of miso wafted through the crook in between his arms. The blond raised his head to see a bowl of steaming miso-flavored ramen. He gazed at Ayame in disbelief. The ramen chef's daughter smiled. "It's on the house!"
Naruto's openmouthed expression morphed into a grin, and with a cackle he broke the chopsticks placed beside the bowl and dug in. He made a satisfied humming noise. Ramen was truly the best food, and Ichiraku was the best in the world! If there was such thing as gourmet ramen, Ichiraku's would be at the forefront.
Naruto paused mid slurp as an epiphany smacked in the face. "I'm a genius!" he declared, drawing dubious looks from the other Ichiraku regulars.
"Ne, ne, Ayame-neechan! I've got to ask you a favor!"
Author's Note
Had this written for a long time, but I'm only uploading it now because I haven't been writing as much as I had a couple of weeks ago and I felt bad. So forgive the shorter word count.
Unfortunately, we're not going to see many NaruSaku moments in the regular story timeline until the end of this story. Frankly, I was tempted to change the character tag to Naruto and Sasuke. However, since the NaruSaku is the driving force and major conflict of the story, I decided to leave the tags as they are.
However I can't resist writing it, so I decided to insert flashbacks into the narrative periodically.
Broke Phi Broke (We Ain't Got It!) is a hilarious interlude from one of Kanye West's CDs. I'm sure everyone feels like a sister or a brother of that fraternity/sorority sometimes.
