Konoha: Daily Life - by Tiggs Panther
Chapter 2: Shopping in the Hidden Village
Disclaimer:
Naruto ain't mine. Any familiar characters are similarly not mine. They, and the Hidden Village of Konoha, are the creation of Masashi Kishimoto. Anyone new is my fault. The ideas are, too. (I doubt anyone else would want to admit to them).
Major thanks must go out to my friend Fiona, with whom I regularly exchange ideas that we bounce off each other. She also heavily influenced some of this chapter. It's also her fault I'm writing more of this, as she keeps telling me to write more. ;)
When asked to identify the major buildings in Konoha most people (even those who aren't ninja) would point out the obvious. The Academy. The Hokage's residence. The main clan compounds. The hospital. The Hokage Faces Monument.
The last one isn't even technically a building, but it still gets a mention.
People never seem to mention the shops, though. After all, it's a ninja village. People don't think of the shops unless prompted. Now if you do ask about the shops then the answers are different. There are many places that people mention, and today they were all busy.
The queues by the Ichiraku Ramen stand were pretty long. It was a popular place anyway, but today it seemed to be busier than ever. It wasn't exactly surprising, though. Not only was it lunchtime but most of the Genin teams were all actually in the village between missions.
The waitress sighed, picked up three more large bowls of ramen and turned to face the customers. She cursed whichever gods had decreed that both Uzumaki Naruto and Akimichi Chouji would show up at the same moment. She hadn't stopped serving for ten minutes straight, and she hadn't started on the rest of the queue yet.
Walking past the Yamanaka flower shop could be amusing at times. Every so often you would get a confused looking customer come out wondering exactly why they ended up buying more than they'd intended. And today was no exception.
The blonde young Yamanaka daughter was minding the shop between missions again, as she did on occasion. It probably didn't help that she was practicing using her feminine wiles to influence the male customers. Now although she'd never admit it out loud Ino did privately acknowledge that she currently lacked the sex-appeal that the older kunoichi could use. She did, however, have "cute" down to an aggressive artform. Very few could resist her in that mode.
And where that failed, the family's preferred techniques prevailed.
We won't dwell on a certain bookstore where a certain Jounin was picking up his latest order.
The other main shop would be the second-hand charity stall. It was a sad fact of life in a ninja village that you get people selling clothing that their owner would never wear again, and that you get the widowed or orphaned needing to buy clothes on a severe budget.
You also get the occasional orphan selling clothing.
"Cleaned out another house, Uchiha-san?" asked the stall owner of the young man half hidden behind a large box of clothing. There was no verbal reply, so he just carried on with his next question. "Have you removed the fan emblems yourself this time?"
"What do you think?" came the reply, as Sasuke held up a pair of needle-scratched hands.
The only drawback to this sort of stall in Konoha was that, except for those who wore standard vest and leggings, most of the ninja tended towards very individual clothing. It could be very hard at times to find anyone who'd want to wear some of the stuff that came in.
Take, for example, one of today's earlier donations. It was a godawful ensemble in bright clashing colours that nobody in their right mind would ever wear.
On second thoughts.
"Oh, young Naruto. Could I interest you in..."
I definitely have more places I want to take this fic, I just have to remember to actually write them. ;)
And to anyone doubting that Naruto gets second-hand clothes, answer me this:
Why else would a ninja wear something that conspicuous that needs its arms and legs rolling up? (That and how could he afford to shop anywhere else?)