Ooooooh, Chapter 6...
I hope you guys are enjoying this, I'm enjoying writing it ^-^
Much love my honeys! xxx
'I know
Where you stand
Silent
In the trees
And that's
Where I am
Silent
In the trees.'
21 Pilots, Trees.
Team 7 Outlet
Temari smoothed her hair and the stripy pencil skirt which she'd fished out of the chest of her mother's belongings. Whilst looking for an outfit to wear to her job interview, she had also come across a bottle of her mother's perfume: Portrait Of A Lady. There was barely a dreg left sliding around the bottom of the small glass barrel, but Temari had still taken it and gushed the fragrance all over her neck. To another nose she smelt like rose syrup. But every time Temari caught a whiff of her own pulse, she smelt the memories of her mother.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, she squared her shoulders and faced the shop front. It was the strangest decoration of a clothes shop Temari had ever seen. The shop itself was arch-shaped and built into a flint underpass. On either side of the shop's yawning entryway stood prop robots, wearing suits of sparkling armour, clasping fans of glowsticks which turned pale in the daylight. The shop's name was Team 7 and had only recently opened.
"Here goes," Temari whispered, making her way towards the weird hellmouth.
Inside of the shop was loud and that was the best word to describe it. Loud colours, loud architecture, loud trance music blasting out over speakers nailed to the walls. Temari eyed the clothes on sale and winced: lurid, fuzzy leg warmers, flashing whistles, and neon t-shirts. All rave merch. She felt suddenly very dowdy dressed in her mother's pencil skirt and a silk blouse.
"Can I help you?" She started when a man drifted towards her through all of the noise and the lights.
"I have a job interview!" She shouted.
The man's face was unreadable, this was predominantly because of the mask he wore that concealed the lower half of his face. Temari saw that there was a rack of these 'Psytrance Mystery Masks' on sale in the shop.
"Can you read?" He asked and Temari scowled, affronted.
"Obviously."
"Count?"
"Yes!"
"You on drugs?"
"No, I am not!" She barked with her hands on her hips.
"Then you've got the job, congrats, I'm your boss Kakashi Hatake. Your uniform's out back, along with your lazy ass colleague." She assumed by the way Kakashi's eyes crinkled around the edges, he must've been smiling.
"Oh," she floundered, "that was the rudest job interview I've ever had!"
"Buckle up." Kakashi chuckled.
The back room was blissfully peaceful. Stacked untidily with wares to go out onto the shop floor. The closer Temari looked, the more she saw, here and there were things like beer mats, pint glasses, and liquor bottles. It looked like this place had once been a bar.
A gush of cold air upon which rode the stench of cigarette smoke, blew in through the back door as someone let themselves in: this must be her co-worker.
"Hi, morning, my name's…"
"Temari?"
A sourness was spreading through her, like the blood in her veins had curdled and spoiled. Shikamaru Nara stood staring at her in apparent amazement, his thin face slack, a dark uniform hanging off his lean frame.
"This is a joke," she said firmly, "a stupid and unfunny joke."
"I work here," Shikamaru confessed apologetically, "Tem, I…"
"Don't, don't you call me that!" She said so fiercely she shocked even herself.
Shikamaru fell silent and stood watching her.
"You look nice…You look kind of like your mum," he said finally and Temari wondered if he knew that this comment would break her heart.
"You look different," she admitted, because it was the truth, "are you different?" The question was a trap and it wasn't a trap, it made sense to ask and it didn't. Temari just needed to know.
"Yes and no," Shikamaru nodded slowly, bracing himself on one of the boxes of produce. "I'm not as angry, not so feckless…" He said quietly and Temari inhaled sharply.
"And TenTen, do you still speak to her?" She watched as he physically cringed, like she'd reached out and slapped him – she had once, a long time ago, but they were past that now.
"Not since," he shook his head and then frowned, "and you, are you different?"
"Do you mean am I still a 'switched-off ice bitch'? I dunno, you tell me," Temari's voice shook and she hated herself for it. She watched Shikamaru's Adam's-Apple slide as he swallowed hard.
"When I said that, I didn't know…"
"That my brother might be dying?" She cut in.
The colour left Shikamaru's face and he swayed every so slightly, grasping the box for support.
"Gaara's…What?"
"Oh, you didn't know," she know she was being cruel using her brother's illness like this, but she suddenly didn't care. Shikamaru wasn't the one booked in to have his kidney's tested to see if he was a match for the transplant, she was. "He's got systemic lupus erythematosus, he needs a kidney…Maybe my kidney," she explained and Shikamaru looked horrified.
"Isn't that really, really risky?"
"Mum's dead, we don't need another one of us dying," she retorted bluntly; it wasn't much of an answer.
They stood in silence for a moment and when it became too much to bear, Temari began to turn away.
"Wait," Shikamaru said quickly, sounding desperate. She waited, feeling stupid. "If you can't forgive me, if we can't go back…Then just let me be your friend again, please," he sounded so frantic that Temari thought she might snap in two right there.
Instead she said:
"Try harder."
Ealing Outskirts
Sasuke drew his hood tightly around his face and quickened his pace.
Don't let me be seen, don't let me be recognised.
He chanted the silent prayer to himself over and over. It wasn't long though before he was out of central Ealing and pacing down the car-free road. He stopped at a set of traffic lights and took out his phone: this was the meeting place.
He had three texts. One from the person he was meeting telling him they were running behind time. One from Kiba asking if he wanted to go dog walking in the morning. And one from Naruto, which was a picture of some lilies on a gravestone with the caption: 'these the ones you were after?' Sasuke smiled stupidly to himself and sent back: 'you're incorrigible.'
What was he doing? What were they doing, more importantly?
Sasuke was no angel, you didn't end up at his lot in life without sharing a few beds. However, this kind of chaste, pure sweet-talk was utterly alien to him. Even stranger was the concept of performing the action with another boy. When he thought about it, it felt weird and confusing. When he was confronted with Naruto however, his brain seemed to fall out of his ear and all sense of rhyme and reason went with the traitor. It was like he couldn't help himself.
'So encourage me…' Naruto sent back and Sasuke bit his lip hard, his throat going dry. There were so many things he wanted to say and so few things he should say…
"Evening," Sasuke glanced up and saw Orochimaru coming towards him from across the road.
"Yo."
Orochimaru wasn't alone, he had Mitsuki traipsing along in toe. The child was dressed in his pyjamas and wellingtons, looking like he'd just been shaken awake.
"I had to bring Mitsuki," Orochimaru explained when he saw Sasuke frowning. "Nobody in the condo is in a fit state, and we had a break in recently, can't risk him being used as leverage." Orochimaru shook his head and Sasuke didn't try to mask how appalled he felt. "So, what's this info you've got for me, it better be good."
"It is, trust me."
Valley of The End Park
They sat in the unloved park, facing one another from across either side of a picnic bench. Mitsuki lay curled up on the table-top, fast asleep.
"So?" Orochimaru pressed, looking unfriendly as he placed his phone on the table between them. The device buzzed and whirred continuously.
"It's about your new runner, the one you sent me to meet at the Hokage Rock Inn just before I lost my job at Green Banks; Neji Hyuga" Orochimaru frowned, folding his long fingers beneath his chin.
"The kid's shifted loads of the Fentanyl," he murmured.
"Yeah well, his dad's a D.I, and a well known one at that," Sasuke hissed leaning forwards. At this pronouncement, Orochimaru's face went cold and sour.
"I see."
"His dad is Detective Inspector Hyuga and he does press interviews, you wanna steer well clear of that," Sasuke advised in an undertone, "you cannot trust the feds, you told me that." Orochimaru met Sasuke's gaze and took a ponderous moment to survey him.
"I did, didn't I?" He murmured, "how did you find all of this out?"
Sasuke drew back and looked away from his boss.
"I…I saw him on the news and recognised him." It was a lie that stood to lose him a lot if he was found out, but he couldn't risk dragging Naruto into this world.
"Really?" Orochimaru looked distracted.
"Sack the kid," Sasuke advised, "don't do any more, just sack him."
"I could." Sasuke knew that meant Orochimaru had other ideas for Neji.
At that moment, a text caught Orochimaru's attention and he swivelled his smart phone towards him. Sasuke waited patiently, watching the mosquitoes swoop and dive around their heads, drawn by their pulses. Mitsuki slept on, blissfully unaware of the deals and schemes formulating around him – or perhaps they did permeate him and Sasuke and Orochimaru were the unaware ones.
"Shit," Orochimaru hissed in an undertone and Sasuke glanced up. "Sasuke, how much of that Fentanyl have you shifted?" He asked looking sharp.
Sasuke shifted uncomfortably, feeling the splinters of the picnic bench grazing against his thighs.
"I haven't, yet," he confessed.
"You need to sell it – quick, I don't care where it ends up, just shift it," Orochimaru was already getting to his feet looking troubled.
"But…"
"Just shift it, Sasuke! I'll deal with Neji."
The Hokage Rock Inn
By the time Sasuke made it back to The Hokage Rock Inn, the moon was high, and his mood was low. He gnawed on his headphone's wire obsessing over the text Orochimaru had received. What had it said? What had spooked him like that? Who had sold him the Fentanyl?
He let himself in through the pub's backdoor and as he made to take his shoes off, something drove itself hard into his body.
"Jesus! You're back!" Naruto gasped, clutching onto Sasuke.
"You what?" Sasuke choked, reeling at the abrupt embrace.
"Why didn't you answer your goddamn phone!?" Naruto gave him a shake and Sasuke's breathing hitched.
"What?"
"I've been calling and calling you! Going out of my fucking mind you prick!" Naruto leant away but he didn't fully release Sasuke. Naruto's eyes were brimming with panic, hurt, and fury. The emotions were so raw and tangible Sasuke could nearly taste them.
"Explain," Sasuke suggested and Naruto's face twitched.
"You haven't seen the news?" Sasuke shook his head, "someone's dead, Sasuke; they took a toxic high and died. I thought…" Sasuke already knew what Naruto thought.
"It wasn't me," Sasuke assured, "see, I'm fine," he pressed Naruto's hand to his chest where his heart beat beneath. "I haven't taken anything."
Though Naruto's face cleared with every passing beat of Sasuke's heart, Sasuke's mind was racing. Suddenly, he had an idea what that text to Orochimaru might have said and why he was so keen for Sasuke to shift the Fentanyl…
Ooooooh dun dun dun... xxx