Hey all! This is the first fic I've posted, so try and not kill me in the reviews! I'll start posting more when people start reviewing, so give it a whirl! This is kindof a slow chapter, but it's gotta start somewhere, right? There are a lot of originals in this chapter, but this should be the extent of them, and next chapter (if people review…) we'll actually get some real characters. Pairings will develop later on, so I haven't forgotten! Ok, I'm done now.
"Ok Kid, this place is your! Watch out for the loose floor board in the back and don't hit yourself on the way out!" the salesman said quickly, shutting the old door behind him with a snap.
Naruto sighed. He looked around the place, and decided that it could really use some work. He had just 'inherited' one of the oldest, grubbiest bars in Konoha, and had to take a moment to get his bearings.
It had all started when he was sixteen, and being a ninja wasn't exactly paying the bills. After being evicted from his little house, he had kind of wandered for a while. He had tried to mooch off Sakura, but she was one of those 'no boys allowed' people. Like he would have tried anything. Much.
He had thought of Sasuke, maybe hoping the bastard would feel grateful for Naruto having pulled him back from Orochimaru, but he slammed the door after a rain of shuriken told him otherwise.
The occasional ninja mission gave him some money, but it was kind of a problem when there wasn't anything you could do with the money. Eventually, on about his hundredth time around Konoha, he spied a 'help wanted' sign in a window.
He had walked up, and apparently the place was a bar. The man who ran it, an elderly man named Gin, was looking for a waiter/bouncer to work for him. The pay was good, and he said that Naruto could have on of the bedrooms in the back of the shop when it closed.
"Why are there bedrooms in a bar?" Naruto asked suspiciously. He heard a light, tinkling laugh over his shoulder and turned to see a very attractive woman in long serving pants and a white, button down men's shirt.
"Because sometimes the clients want more than a drink to go to bed with." The woman said, introducing herself as Tae the barmaid. Over the years they had worked together, Naruto had noticed that she was clever, strong for someone not a ninja, and had displayed every emotion he had ever thought possible sincerely at least once.
It only took the first day of work for Naruto to get what she was talking about, not having got it before because he was, as Tae pointed out with a laugh, 'very innocent'. The bar opened at 8, and at about 10 seven women he had never seen before filed in, wearing variously suggestive clothes.
They all had a drink before walking into the back hallway and stepping through one of the eight doors. Naruto's room was purposely absent from those entered. After a bit, men and women of all types sidled over to the bar and asked Tae where they could find the 'adult services' (90 of them winked as they said this.) Tae gave the same little giggle, seductive look and forefinger point to every, as Gin called them, mark that came her way.
Naruto, meanwhile, had been too busy serving drinks to everyone that came to notice, until he walked to his room to get something and heard various moans, cries of happiness, and other sex noises coming through the wall.
"Tae, what the hell is going on in the back!" Naruto said, rushing back to the counter, forgetting what he had gone to get.
Tae laughed. "Probably what it sounded like." She said, pushing a platter of drinks to his hand and pointing to the table behind him. As he served the table, it occurred to him that this meant he was working at a brothel. What would he tell his friends? What would he tell Sakura?
Eventually, he was able to look at it from the business angle, and avoid thinking about what was happening. He always felt vaguely sorry for the women, however, since they didn't seem particularly happy and, as far as Naruto could tell, didn't like their jobs.
Now, as he leaned back on one of the circular leather booths set into the wall, he wondered just what he was going to do. It was one thing to tell his friends he worked as a barman for a brothel, but to OWN a brothel? Was that even legal!
He slapped a hand to his forehead. Not only that, but he was hopeless with finances. All he ever felt he needed to know was 'make a profit'. Now he would have to keep track of his workers pay, and tally his entire inventory, and record what the customers liked so he could get more of it, and it made his head spin just thinking about it.
He wasn't particularly sad about Gin's death. He hadn't been a very nice man, to Naruto or to anyone, and he hadn't known him very well, but he was touched in a way that the bar was left to him. He kind of felt obligated to keep it running, like a dead man's last wish or something, which prevent him from just selling the place and moving on.
He probably wouldn't have done that anyway. The old barn had grown on him, and he felt attached to it, which probably wasn't healthy, but he didn't care. The average shinobi's lifespan was only 30 years anyway. Might as well enjoy them.
A rickety clock on the wall rang out seven bells, an hour from when the place would normally open. Tae would be coming in early, like she always did, but Naruto wasn't quite ready to deal with customers yet. He hung a sign saying closed except for staff outside his door, and waited.
Sure enough, Naruto heard the click of a key in the lock and Tae walked in. "Hey Naruto. So this whole place is yours now, isn't it?" she said, walking to a booth and sinking into it, kicking her feet up on the table. "Not quite hygienic, I know, but they get washed before people come in and worse stuff has landed on the babies than my shoes, believe you me." She said at Naruto's glance at her feet.
"Ok…" he sighed and took a seat across from her. "Yeah, this place is mine now. Don't know how I'm gonna make it, but I'll do it. Somehow. I hope." He said.
Tae laughed again. "So, am I still on the payroll, 'boss'?" she said, putting a mocking emphasis on the last word.
Naruto waved his hand impatiently. "Of course, wouldn't be the same without you. And don't call me boss." He said with a shiver. "Naruto had been fine before, and Naruto is fine now. Ok, let's start cleaning this place."
It was hard work. The floors were grubby, so were the tables, and the leather on most of the booths was almost as dead as Gin. "Couldn't he have died earlier, when this place was a bit nicer?" he grumbled, scrubbing over the same patch of floor for the hundredth time. The ring of the automatic doorbell sounded the arrival of the rest of the women, who sat themselves unceremoniously in various booths and were waiting what was going to happen.
Naruto stood up, wincing as his back cracked audibly. "Ok, now, before we start, there are a couple of things I want to know. By a show of hands, who here actually likes their job?" and he wasn't surprised to see that not a single person like it. "Ok, and who here can find another job?" again, no one raised their hand.
Naruto sighed. "Ok, I can take a hint. Can any of you work the financing of this place?" No one raised their hand for a while, until one of the newer women, younger than the rest, put up her hand.
"Um…I finished high school about a month ago, so I can do math and stuff."
"Ok, you'll do. Tae, can you help her get the hang of it?" After a nod from the barmaid, he sent the girl over. "Now, before we do anything else, who hear wants to work for me?" only two of the girls raised their hand. "And will the rest of you hate me for telling you your fired?" no one raised their hand, so he told them they could leave. He felt a bit like a school teacher, with all this hand raising.
"Do any of you have any discernable talents? At all?" Naruto asked, slightly aggravated. It would be a lot easier if he could just solve his staffing problems right here and now.
"I can cook." One of the women said.
"I have talents in the sack, but I think we're trying to get around that." One woman said with a smile.
"Ok, you can cook and you two can wait on tables, ok?" There was a nod from everyone, until Tae called out from the back "We don' have a kitchen!"
"Well, how much do they cost?" Naruto shouted back with a sigh. "Never mind, I'll look into it. Hey, are any of you good at gambling?" there was a general assent, but one girl stepped out, boldly proclaiming her skills.
"Then why didn't you way that when I asked for skills?" Naruto said. "Ok, here, take this." He handed her a fairly large stack of money from his wallet. "This'll be your application exam. If you can double this and bring it back to me from the casino, I'll open a poker table here and raise your salary if you're willing to work it. If you come back with less money than I gave you, you're fired. Sound good?" with a nod and a smile, the girl turned on her heel and walked out the door.
"Ok, I'm going to go do some manager stuff. You all, I want you to get to work cleaning everything in sight. Don't kill yourselves, but if it's made of wood, I want to be able to see what color it is, ok?" They all agreed, and after grabbing various cleaning supplies went to work.
Naruto walked over to an appliance store. After learning what a professional grade kitchen needed, he worked out that it would cost him about 5 weeks of profits, if things were going at the same rate they had been, allowing for one day of closure each week.
Then it hit him. Crap, what was he going to do about the brothel? Almost a quarter of the money they made was made at the brothel! He couldn't just close it, it was too profitable. But he also couldn't just make all the girls go back to being prostitutes. It must be a horrible life, to do that every night with people you didn't even know because you don't have another option.
He thought for a long time on this. Suddenly, he had a flash back to his training under the super pervert, Jiraya.
"Naruto! It's time for your payment!" Jiraya shouted, looking around for the boy. He was sitting cross legged on a rock in the middle of a lake, and as soon as he heard this he winced.
"Again? I paid you last night!" He whined. "Besides, that's soooo perverted, I don't even want to think about it!"
"Do I have to go over this again!" Jiraya said, slapping a hand to his head. "Ok, look. It's easy, it doesn't cost you a dime, and its training!"
Naruto looked at him suspiciously. "Training, huh? That's a new one. How does this count for training?" he said, leaping off his rock and landing beside Jiraya with a soft thunk.
"It teaches you, not only to maintain a large number of kage bunshins at one, but also to maintain them longer, in difficult conditions, and to make them more durable!" he said, pausing between each reason as he thought about it.
Naruto sighed, clasped his hands together, and said, "Kage Bunshin no jutsu…" in a slightly defeated voice. Instantly, two copies of Naruto appeared next to him. They brought up their hands in another seal, and instantly transformed into two naked girls, who flocked to Jiraya's side.
The pervert sennin coughed slightly. "A large number of clones…" Naruto sighed and repeated himself. Jiraya looked pretty happy, surrounded by four naked women acting seductive. He led them to the tent, and Naruto sat in a tree a ways away.
Five minutes later, the tent was shaking and shadows were playing havoc on the side, suggestive poses enlarged on the wall. Various sounds could be heard from within, and cried of 'oh yeah' and 'oh my god' were common. Naruto sat, facing the other direction, facing the other direction, hands clapped over his ears and a look of concentration on his face.
"LALALALALALALALALALA I'M NOT LISTENING! LALALALALA JIRAYA, I'M GETTING TIRED!" he shouted, trying desperately to keep his clones together while not thinking of his teacher having sex with his clones.
He slapped a hand to his forehead. "I can't believe something Jiraya did would actually help me, never mind that it's probably my least favorite part of the whole experience."
He walked back to his bar, walked inside and gasped. It looked like a whole new place, and a lot nicer than it had been. The floor, now free of god only knows what that black goop was turned out to be a beautiful dark rose wood, slick and glossy. The tables were of the same material, the tops lighter with a dark trim. The leather would have to be replaced, but it was still a nice place.
"Holy shit…" he said, walking in and admiring the handiwork. "You guys must have working really hard…"
"No…shit…" Tae wheezed from the corner, leaning on a mop. Her thin blond hair was frazzled, and she was sweating.
"Yeah…do we…get paid…for this?" the woman next to her said. She had dark, cropped hair and comfortable work clothes, and like Tae was sweating hard.
"No, but thanks anyway. What's your name, by the way?" Naruto asked, realizing that he didn't actually know. At first he was too much of a kid to want to deal with them, and then he left them along out of habit.
"I'm… Motoko…" she wheezed. She was a tall, voluptuous woman of around 20, with light brown hair pulled back into a long ponytail.
"Motoko, right, nice to meet ya." Naruto said, shaking her hand slightly. "Well, either way this place looks great."
Both women mumbled thanks. The door bell sounded, and the girl he had sent to the casino walked in, looking flushed but very happy with herself. Before Naruto could say anything, she grabbed his hand, forced a wad of cash into it, and flopped down at one of the booths. "Told you I could do it!" she said proudly.
Naruto counted it up, and sure enough, she did it. She had just doubled what he had. "All in poker?" he asked, and she nodded vaguely. "Ok, then do you have any objections to starting a poker table in the corner over there?" He gestured to a side of the room, and she shook her head. She looked very tired.
"And your name is…?" Naruto asked slowly.
"Ikadeku Mitsune. And it's Naruto, right?"
"Yeah, nice to meet you. Ok everyone, we're opening tomorrow night, and we seem to be done here for tonight. See you all tomorrow, rest up, and try and get some publicity along the way." He said, clapping his hands together. As everyone left, he locked the door behind him and headed to his room in the back. Tomorrow was going to be one hell of a day.