I really should be doing my government homework, but...hehe.
Disclaimer: Does Masashi Kishimoto have government homework?
Right. I have no inspiration for this chapter. Seriously, I hated writing it. So if it sucks, deal with it. A new kid from my harem!
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Ranma ½.
Chapter Eight: Arrival of...! No, It's Not Naruto.
"Iruka-kun, I'm baaaaaaack!" Naruto walked in to the high-end apartment and slammed the door. Loudly.
He stopped when he didn't hear a reply, and noticed the extra pairs of shoes by the door.
One big pair; a guest.
One medium pair; Iruka's (Naruto recognized the shoes anyway.)
One tiny pair; a guest as well. A child. Or a midget. Don't discount that possibility.
What a weirdo, walking in so loudly.
"What a freak, being so loud when he comes in," A muffled and unfamiliar voice came from the sitting room.
"SH! Don't be so rude!" An adult voice chastised the child-voice. It sounded...rather familiar, Naruto thought.
Well, duh, you did talk to him before, didn't you?
Sh, don't be so rude.
Naruto cautiously stepped into the sitting room. "Iruka?" He turned his head and looked. In addition to his foster-brother, there was a boy-child (who was wearing a scarf that must have been twice as long as the boy was tall,) and that old man from the other night. Sarutobi-san. It was surprising; Iruka-kun hadn't seemed to like Sarutobi-san very much, so why was he here?
"Naruto," Iruka said formally, "Sarutobi-san decided that he wanted to come and visit. He brought his grandson." There was an undertone of warning; say anything rude and I'll fuck you up good.
"Hello, Naruto. This is my grandson, Konohamaru. I hope you two will grow to be like brothers," Sarutobi stated in his rough vocals, a statement much to be said much more softly. Konohamaru stuck out his lower lip and looked away. He was much to cool to hang out with a loser like that. He didn't need his grandfather interfering and finding friends for him.
A silence ensued. The uncomfortable, bone-grinding silence that makes you feel like you just said something really, really stupid. Sarutobi coughed and grumbled. And elbowed his grandson in the side.
His most-honored grandson jolted and scowled. "What!" he said, like he had been accused. Sarutobi glared.
"..."
Konohamaru's scowl deepened even more. "Hi." he said, even though it was clear that he really hadn't wanted to greet Naruto.
"...yo..." Naruto was dumbstruck. Well, not really, but he was acting like he was until he could think of a way out of small-talking with married-to-a-old-man-lady and grouchy-preteen-brat. So he ended up emulating Hatake-san.
"Naruto was at a friend's house. Which is why it is inconvenient for you to show up unannounced." Iruka could've turned his guests into stone. Medusa-like. Turn you to a statue just by lookin' atcha. Bam.
"Really? Whose?" Sarutobi merely brushed off the last comment and oh-so-nosily butted into business that wasn't his.
"..." Naruto grumbled. That old man was so weird...
"When did that become any of your business!" Iruka screeched. "Of all the mother fucking nerve!"
"You talk to your elders that way!" Sarutobi screamed back.
Naruto backed away. So did Konohamaru, who tripped over his scarf. Those two guys looked like they would burst a blood vessel or something. Before the shouting match could escalate further, Naruto grabbed Konohamaru's (what a lame name) arm and pulled him out side. (Don't get the wrong idea. He remembered the shoes.)
Konohamaru stood and stared numbly at the door. Because he was still a child and children are helpless like that. He could still hear the yelling even though he was in the hall.
"...we might as well leave. They'll be like that for a while." Naruto tested the atmosphere.
Konohamaru (again, a stupid name. Leaf-maru!) consented. "Whatever." He plopped down on the ground and pulled his shoes from the older boy's hands.
"...You hungry? We could get something to eat." Naruto prodded again. This kid gave out less information than he did. The only difference was that when Naruto told a person absolutely nothing, they didn't notice. It was his death-defying good looks that distracted them.
Right. You are pretty sexy, aren't you.
You know it. Perverted freak.
"Hnnm." The brat mumbled around his scarf.
"Dammit, yes or no! Fucking decide already!" The little boy started and bumped in the wall.
"Waah!" He began to cry until he stopped himself. "What the hel-heck! is wrong with you!"
Children should obey their elders. I should just leave you with Iruka and grandpa, I don't want to deal with you. Konohamaru mimicked what would be said next.
"I asked you a question. You know, I could just leave you by yourself."
"By myself..." He murmured, accidentally out loud.
Naruto deigned to look down at Konohamaru. "Yeah, you're what, ten?" "Twelve!" "Whatever. You're twelve, you can look after yourself for an hour. I was just offering."
Konohamaru blinked. No one had ever said that to him before. It was always, Oh, Sarutobi's most-honored grandson! Smother, smother him! Don't leave him alone, interference, he could hurt himself! Easy-street! Get this, do that, all for him, because he will be powerful when he grows up!
But this...older boy had just cussed him out, threatened to leave him by himself, acknowledged that Konohamaru could do things just like every other boy his age.
Aishiteru, Naruto! Konohamaru stood and gazed at Naruto. Who got creeped out by the short kid staring at him with big shiny eyes.
Told ya you were sexy. Look what you did, turned the brat gay already.
That's a little weird, doncha think? He was normal just a few minutes ago. Well, sort of.
It's you, weirdy weirdy weirdy pheromones! You have them, you do dodododododo!
It pulls them in like bugs! Bugs icky ucky bugs to follow you, flies around your head!
I don't do that to you, that's why you like me.
It's always been like this and I Saaaveeeddd yeeeeeewwwww.
"You gonna go or what..." Naruto didn't really want to push the subject, but...it was a little odd to have a person stare at you like that. Foreboding, almost. It made you want to sink into the ground or melt.
"Uh-huh," Konohamaru mumbled. Almost like a little kid. Stupid stupid stupid, you sounded so stupid! Uh-huh, can't you think of anything better! Like, Sure in that cool deep voice. He's in high school, what would he want to do with a middle school kid like you!
"Ok then. Let's go." Naruto began to walk towards the elevator in long strides. "We'll come back in a few hours. Maybe they'll have calmed down by then," he said, nodding towards the apartment where the two older men were still duking it out. "Aah, it's eleven. You want lunch? Or breakfast? Or just a snack?" Naruto conscientiously asked.
"I'll have whatever you're having," Konohamaru hesitated, "Er, I mean, I don't really care."
"Nah? I just ate an hour ago at a friends so I'm still hungry. Just a snack then?"
Who's this friend of his?...Konohamaru frowned. He would have to be friends with Naruto's friends if he wanted to get close to him. "Yeah."
"There's a café near here. The Cat Café. Have you eaten there before?" Naruto continued chatting it up. God, he loathed small talking to a kid. It was as bad as to an adult. Kids never said anything interesting. (AN: No. I do not own the Nekohanten. Oh I wish...no.)
"...why?" Why did Naruto care if Konohamaru had eaten at some kitten restaurant anyway?
"It would be kinda rude to take you somewhere you hate. But if you haven't been there before, it's where we're going." Like it isn't rude to say that unless you really hate a place, you're stuck going there because I'm not changing my plans for you.
"Oh. I haven't." Konohamaru announced.
Hasn't opened up a bit. I bet he's afraid of saying something stupid. Naruto pressed the down button on the elevator keypad, and the doors opened after three seconds. The two stepped in. And the doors closed.
After Naruto pressed the button for the ground floor, he stuck his arms behind his back. Konohamaru stood and stared shyly at the ground. After a few moments, Naruto started to whistle.
Floor Seven. More whistling.
Floor Six. Pause for breath.
Floor Four. Go blue in the face in an attempt to whistle without stopping for a breath.
Floor Three. Gasp loudly from lack of air and try to cover it up as a yawn.
Floor Two. Stop whistling. It was annoying, anyway.
Floor One. Shift around uncomfortably. Elevators always make everything so awkward.
Ground floor. As soon as the doors start to open, leap and pull them open. Hear a screeching noise because elevator doors just weren't meant to open that quickly.
"Whew!" That elevator takes entirely too long to reach the ground floor. Naruto fell, gasping, onto the shiny marble floor of the lobby and shivered because when he fell, his shirt had rode up. Marble was really cold.
Konohamaru blushed in embarrassment at Naruto's skinny form spread over the nice clean floor.
His blush deepened when a woman who was sitting in a leather recliner commented behind her magazine to a friend who was sitting on a leather loveseat, "Doesn't he usually take the stairs anyway?" But Konohamaru didn't hear what the friend said back because he was helping his brand-new crush (crush...that sounded weird to Konohamaru. He had never had one before,) "What's a little boy doing with a freak like him? Do his parents know?"
"Are you alright?" Konohamaru asked nervously. The entire episode had been pretty ill-sorted.
"Who, me? I'm fine, just slipped, you know, people do that sometimes." Naruto babbled. How embarrassing to fall like that, in front of people who were always watching for him to slip up.
Konohamaru just stared skeptically (a better kind of stare than that of the love-struck.)
"Well, let's go, that falling made me kind of hungry," Naruto cheerily altered the focus of the conversation.
"If you say so." Yeah, that's right Konohamaru, nice and cool, just try to be a little less mean or he'll want to beat you up.
Staggering, Naruto made his way to the glass doors.
He hated those stuck up people that sat around in the lobby because they didn't have as nice furniture in their flats.
Naruto could see their pores oozing vileness and he loathed it like he loathed the way sand stuck between his toes even after his feet were dry; even though he knew that he was a million times below them.
-
WARNING: RANMA ½ CAMEOS! AND I DEFEND MY RIGHT TO AUTHORISTIC LICENSE! As in...some character names slipped my mind...
"Xian Pu no know how old perverted man come inside!" A busty purple-haired girl tottered by with a platter of elephant ears. (The pastries...)
Konohamaru quirked his eyebrows. What kind of café was this, anyway? There had to be some sort of restrictions against having a bra size that large. Of course, Konohamaru was only mentally quoting something he had seen on TV. He didn't know what a bra was, (and the girls in his class certainly didn't need them quite yet), but he guessed it had something to do with their chests. His mom had walked around complaining about it often enough. (Female exploitation and all that.)
Meanwhile, an old man who looked remarkably like a cockroach indiscreetly latched onto her chest received an earful of swirly confections. He peeled away like paper and fluttered into the plate of a much larger man garbed in a business suit.
"And that, my student, is how you feel up cute foreign girls," the roach declared to the giant. The giant clapped and bowed.
"Yes, sensei! I will obey your most perverted teachings always!"
"In a few hundred years you will be as skilled as I, devoted disciple!"
"I love you, sensei!"
The roachy little man preened. "Jiraya, you truly are worthy of my training."
"Happosai-sensei!"
"Jiraya!"
"Sensei!"
The two old men embraced, and the emotion filling the air was palpable, visible. Visible, as in sparkles and roses surrounded the two.
Naruto simply strolled past the pair like it was normal. "Yeah," He announced loudly to Konohamaru, "They're pretty weird. But harmless if you're a guy."
Jiraya and Happosai broke apart abruptly. "Naruto, back again!" they turned towards each other and huddled. "He must want our training! I can sense it! He's as perverted as we are!" "Godlike!"
The blonde laughed raucously. The pervs were always great to be around. Too bad Konohamaru was too young to hang with them. Naruto might be immune to their corruption from his own, but the innocent boy was not. "Let's sit down over there." Naruto strolled over to a round table by the window and sat.
After following, Konohamaru took a minute to have a good look around. The place looked pretty normal, if you ignored to foreigners running the place and the duck wearing glasses. And the perverts. And the odd menu.
"Yeah, they serve a lot of stuff here. Waddya want? Ramen? They serve pastries from Europe." Naruto said informatively. Konohamaru just looked at him, completely baffled.
"...ramen, then." Naruto deadpanned. Stupid kid. He flagged down a waitress. Busty as usual; but this girl was japanese and a redhead, unlike Xian Pu.
"Order?" She posed mannishly. A tomboy.
"Miso. And beef ramen. Por favor." Naruto grinned wolfishly. Mmm. Miso.
"You tryin' ta hit on me!" The girl glowered.
"Ranko, you know he wouldn't do that." Happosai and Jiraya squeed in the background.
"Whatever." The girl loped off to the kitchen to deliver the order
Konohamaru was still awestruck. He didn't just...just...flirt...! Grrrrrrrrrrruuuutooo! A chilling aura surrounded him with a purply darkness dotted by snowflakes. Naruto leaned back in his chair amusedly. Weird kid. Lucky he wasn't as weird as him, though. That would really suck.
And just like that, two bowls of ramen appeared before them. "Thanks, Ranko!" Naruto cheered.
Misfit palace. Everyone here was weird. Bad. Sick. Just like him. But not everyone knew it. They didn't know that he knew.
"...What the? That was weird." Konohamaru finally deigned to open his mouth and speak.
"Heh. This place is run by a bunch of super cool martial artists. They don't need to come to the table to deliver. Cool, huh?" Naruto beamed, accomplished. He didn't even notice the looming presence right outside.
-
Neji stood on the other side of the window and looked. Only looked; no harm in looking, after all.
The cutely androgynous boy twirled his chopsticks and stuck several noodles into his mouth. Neji couldn't see that well, but he surmised the gaki had a satisfied expression coating his face.
A much smaller child stood on his chair and leaned over to Naruto. A child? Why was he there?
The little boy wiped some stray broth off of Naruto's cheeks. Just who the hell was that brat!
Probably just a relative. No. Wait. Maybe Umino-san's. A family friend? Possibly.
Not enough to dispel the worries from Neji's mind. That Naruto, he was strong, but he was weak, Neji couldn't stand not knowing, not being able to protect him. So Neji decided.
-
Naruto laughed as Konohamaru tripped on his scarf and fell, with his hand landing in the bowl of ramen. Good clean fun, my man, that was what it was. Konohamaru raised the dirty one covered in broth to his face and attempted to wipe off the drops littering his nose and cheeks, and scowled when he only made the problem worse. The scowl deepened when the older boy continued to giggle.
"What the hell is so damn fu-!" Konohamaru fumed until Naruto reached across (with his much longer arms) and cleaned his face with a napkin. Konohamaru blushed and frowned. "Uuuhh..."
Naruto leaned his arms on the table. "I'm not the messy one, see?" He resisted the urge to chuckle.
Don't wanna make the kiddo more embarrassed.
Oh, yeah, that would be a real tragedy.
Shhhhh.
"Hmmph." Konohamaru crossed his arms. What a brat, he thought behind his scarf. Then he began to laugh. How stupid am I! Acting like such an ass when I want him to like me!
Naruto, not quite as clued in as he, laughed nervously. Just so as not to look weird.
After a few minutes, they stopped laughing, but not from self control, or because it just wasn't as funny anymore. Oh, no. It was because of the shadow looming over their table.
Creak. Creak.
SlowlyNaruto and Konohamaru turned their heads to the side and up. "Wha?" Konohamaru uttered. Surely it wasn't a waiter? At this place, they all seemed to be short, big-breasted and female. Big-breasted. Definitely not hulking.
Naruto squinted. That person. "Er...Neji? What are you doing here?"
Neji froze. It...hadn't occurred to him that he would need a reason for being there. And standing in front of Naruto's table. Like a freak. "..."
"Came to get some of the food here, right? Hah." Stupid stupid stupid. Why else would he come to a café? How dumb can you make yourself look, Naruto?
Neji, on the other hand, relaxed. Wheew. Glad I didn't actually have to, GOD FORBID! Say anything! He nodded in agreement. "Just wanted to say...hello." Yeah, that was cool. It was cool, right?
"Hey, wanna sit with us? We're just hiding out for a bit. Yanno?" Naruto's eyes glimmered with mischief.
"Sure." Neji glanced at Naruto's companion. The boy was exuding an extreme aura of anger. At him?
"Anou, you look really weird in street clothes, Neji-kun!" Naruto snickered.
Neji didn't respond, but glanced down at his clothes self-consciously.
"Hey, I don't mean it in a bad way, Neji! You look good in jeans! I've just never seen you out of school clothes!" Naruto amendedquickly. He didn't mean for it to come out like that...
Still dubious, Neji pulled over a chair from another table and sat. Xian Pu twirled over to the table and took his order for black tea.
The three sat for a while; Naruto chattering aimlessly, and Neji ignoring Konohamaru, who was glaring at him intensely.
One of these days, the window in that shop is going to break from Happosai and Jiraya's perversion. Not like usual, from bodies and fists.
To be continued when the hiatus takes a break. (Is it really a hiatus if I'm still writing occasionally?)
There, a longer chapter. We get loads of bishies, Naruto, Neji, Konohamaru! (Ok, I guess that last one would probably make most of you gag.) But I like him! Erm, that's shotacon, but not quite, I guess, since Naruto's underage too. Plus, Konohamaru's almost thirteen.
Ok, last time I respond to reviews in this fic, (unless they're anonymous!) so don't report me. I had these written before that whole messaging thing was put up, plus I'm not sure if it'll work on my lame computer. Seriously, it won't even let me post my new story! ShinoXNaruto! It's a crack fic, so it's short, but it won't let me post it! Rwaaar!
Reviews (That's right, I get those! Sometimes.)
Merkitten: I guess that if people can catch shrimp in their mouths at Hibachi (oh I wish I owned that) then Sasuke must be learned in the art of mouth to pancake catching. Danke! Anyway, new characters this chap! But unfortunately for you no Gaara-kun. Because he's currently still in my hot anime guy harem and isn't allowed out yet.
PrvertedGoofness: Erm, I already responded to you, my most favorite test subject!
Shadow Kitsune67: Heh. Thankies! See, even short reviews make me ridiculously happy! You like it enough to review! See, everyone should be like you! Heehee. That rhymed.