And now a peek into the life of the oddball authoress…
Kaori: (standing on her balcony drinking Kool Aid, notices her niece and cousin playing on the patio below) Kukukuku…(starts chucking ice at them)
Dejah: (dodging) Auntie Bianca!
Lavette: Hey! (dodging) Man Bianca, stoppit! I guh tell!
Kaori: AHAHAHAHAAA! Dance monkeys! (continues until she runs out of ice)
BTW: Happy Fourth of July to all my American friends! And Dave, if you're reading this, don't drink too much and try not to swim in any fountains this year.
Where the Hell Are We Now!
By Kaori
It was now time for the dinner shift and Sakura was tired. Her feet hurt from having to walk around and serve customers all day. Thankfully Gina didn't have to make any dinner runs so she could help Sakura wait the tables.
Gina was noticeably faster when it came to this and Sakura chalked it up to the older girl being more familiar with the restaurant. However, the customers seemed to be a lot more talkative around her as well; especially the men. When she confronted Gina about it the brunette laughed.
"It's all in the attitude. You've got to smile more and try and make the customers feel less like they're eating at a restaurant and more like they're eating at their own house. Also, try not to be so stiff in your movements. Swing your hips a little!" Sakura made a face; she was not going to flirt with the customers.
In the kitchen, Sasuke was having a much easier time without having to fill take out orders as well. He gazed at his hands and frowned. He'd been washing dishes since the middle of the lunch shift and his hands were horribly wrinkled. He made a fist. What was he doing here anyway? He should be training to get stronger. At this rate, he'd never be able to kill Itachi. His shoulder started to ache a little and suddenly he felt like somebody had hit him in the head but from the inside.
"The dishes aren't going to wash themselves, Sasuke." Kotorra chided from his far left. The dark-haired boy glared at her. "Glaring isn't going to make this go any faster either. If it's any consolation we'll be done in another hour or two."
"What do you get out of all this?" Sasuke snarled.
"You mean besides cheap manual labour?" Kotorra looked at him over her shoulder. "Oh, you're serious." She put down the ladle and turned around completely. "When it boils right down to it, nothing. The point isn't for me to get anything out of this it's for you to get something out of it."
"What?"
"Time to think about what you've been doing up until now and what you're going to do next." She said levelly.
"I have thought about it." Ground out Sasuke. Kotorra cocked her head to the side and stared at him for a few minutes before turning her back.
"This isn't the place or the time to be having this conversation. We'll talk about this when we get home, but Sasuke, remember this if nothing else: this is about more than just you. Whatever you choose to do in the end, for ill or for good, will affect more than you know." She sighed mentally. "Is killing your brother really that important to you? Are you willing to trade your own life for that one goal?"
The kitchen door swung open and in walked Naruto.
"Ne, Koto-neechan!" he said. "Kakashi-sensei's finally back with the money, Bradley's putting it in the lockbox now."
"It's about time he got back. If I were a suspicious person I'd think he was being vindictive with his tardiness. He doesn't do this on every mission does he?"
"Well, none of the other clients have ever actually tried to make him work before." mused Naruto. "Usually they just let him stand around and read those pervy books. As for him being late, he's always been like that."
"Mah, it's not nice to talk about people behind their backs." Kakashi's voice drifted in.
"It's also not nice to keep people waiting, Kakashi-san." Kotorra said, the tone she used the same as Tsunade's when she's five seconds away from belting you one.
"Sorry, but there was an accident with an ox cart and I had to help sedate the ox."
"LIAR!" Naruto piped up.
"Now, now, I'm sure that Kakshi wouldn't lie to us…" the sole female in the room's expression bordered on sharkish. "'Cause then I would have to reconsider paying in full for this mission…"
Kakashi inwardly flinched at that. This assignment served two purposes: to keep an eye on Uchiha Sasuke, and to keep Uzumaki Naruto in the village for his own protection. It was secretly classified as an A-Rank mission (as far as anyone else knew it was a simple D-Rank mission to assist at the restaurant) and was worth quite a bit of money; money that could be used to buy much Icha Icha merchandise; money that was partially coming out of Kotorra's pocket to keep up appearances. He would have to play this very carefully.
"I'm sure that will not be necessary." Eye-smiled Kakashi, crying on the inside that he would have to wait until he got home to find out if Nanami and Daitetsu ever got to make sweet, beautiful love under the starry sky…
"I think we lost him just now." Deadpanned Sasuke. As Kakashi seemed to go off into his own little world.
"As long as he doesn't start drooling we'll be okay." Kotorra shrugged. "Naruto, do you think you can prop him up in a corner somewhere so he doesn't get in the way?" (1)
1) There was an entire scene after this with the other teams coming in to eat at the restaurant but I had to cut it out because it was disrupting the flow of the story.