Suzu: thank you SO much to my reviewers. You guys are wonderful, and I appreciate and laugh along with your remarks. :)


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Surprise, surprise.

Sarada doesn't resemble anything truly offensive by the time she's done.

(Since Boruto counts his blessings like a good boy, he adds this to the list. The tally of good things for this terrible-horrible-rotten day is now a solid foundation of 1. Good start. There's no UST explosion action in the tiny bathroom promised by all those foreign rom-com movies they're importing nowadays, but he supposes that's for the best. Baby steps, baby steps.)

"Looks good?"

Sarada has smoothed the blonde locks into clumpy spikes, and while she looks a bit too much like a member of a boy band when she poses in the mirror with a serious Uchiha RBF (Uchiha-resting-brood-face), Boruto is secure enough in his post-pubescent coolness to let it go.

Her (err, his) blue eyes search for confirmation, and Boruto has to stop feeling weirded out by the fact that he has to look up at her (in his body) now.

Boruto takes in one last eyeful.

"Pass. Stop looking constipated and we're set."

Sarada uses her newfound height to tower over him a bit, giving her best in-command lecture, which would be more annoyingly effective if she squeaked less with his voice.

"I'm trying to look like your distant relative, jerk. We're gonna use this to sneak in. I can't help it if your facial expression is stupid."

Yeah, she does look like a distant relative, but not just that... he can't quite shake the feeling that she looks a different kind of familiar. Distracted, he pouts. "Watch it. Those're the Hokage's genes you're dissing."

"Wasted on you," she quips, turning the doorknob of the bathroom.

A veritable explosion of radiating energy greets the two. The source of which pronounces:

"HEY, you two."

Two bright eyes stare up at Sarada as tufts of light chestnut hair bounce near her chin.

"What is going on here, Sarada? Hm?" The Akimichi's eyes are a bit too bright, and her pigtails nearly quivering with excitement as the girl's mouth does a dishonest dance between stern-serious-friend and gawd-I-am-SO-happy-that-my-favorite-drama-bomb-is-finally-exploding.

"Chouchou! I can expla—" Sarada starts, only to be unceremoniously barreled aside.

"Move it. Wasn't talking to you, Boruto."

Ow. Well. There's that.

A very perturbed looking Sarada (Boruto) is cornered and practically tractor-ed back into the bathroom. The door clicks and locks again.

Yikes. That's not good.

No longer smarting about the ruins of her beautiful friendship with Chouchou, Sarada jumps to tug on the knob, praying as she simultaneously shoves her ear against the door to try to evaluate the trauma she would need to tiptoe around in her future missions with Boruto.

Was that cackling? Oh kami, was that cackling?

Before she gets any grand ideas of trying her hand at Boruto's signature Rasengan to see if she could blow the door down and simultaneously give both people inside therapeutic amnesia, a hand claps Sarada sympathetically on the shoulder, and pulls her away from the door.

"Weird hair, Boruto. Are you going for punk rock spikes? Because those were out of style ages ago."

"Shikadai…" Sarada blesses the name and tries to feel a bit better. Maybe the Nara can think of something to help.

Her frenzied look must have been enough to reveal her thoughts.

"Give it a rest, man. Chouchou's, ah… educating on the 'finer things of life', whatever that crap means." Shikadai smirks at her with bored eyes, trying—and failing—to hide a look of interest twinkling behind them.

About to consider flailing against the door in despair, Sarada turns to her other shoulder, where Inojin is looking politely worried.

"Boruto, I know it's been hard on you since puberty. My dad gave me these psychoanalysis books, and they say copulating is quite effective in relieving stress," the pale boy explains, much to Sarada's growing horror. "But, you know, there are preferred methods of safe interc—"

"Stop, Inojin. Look, man, are ya doin' the dirty with Sarada or not?" Shikadai interrupts oh so delicately.

Dirty?

No.

She would be doing the 'ache'y to the Nara soon enough, though.

"Uh," Sarada says intelligently.

"Because it's okay, y'know. No shame. We all have intractable, base urges."

So she was just an intractable, base urge? Boruto's vocabulary may not have covered this veiled insult, but her's did.

"Yeah! And Sarada's pretty okay, as they go," Inojin smiles. "She's got a nice… a nice… hmm, well, I guess she's pretty good at reminding you to do stuff."

"Fuh…" said girl in boy's body comments, because normally her Sharingan would have switched on and probably somehow bled black fire at these guys already.

Her dad never told her how Mangekyou got unlocked, but this is probably it.

Exactly two seconds before she decides to just make a run for it before she massacres anyone (logical behavior be damned) a slam of the bathroom door makes everyone collectively wince as an empty shell of a body is deposited neatly at Sarada's feet.

Sarada blinks a few times as she watches Boruto in her body crumple and attach himself to the floor of the grease-stained restaurant as if it were some life support.

Is it alive?

She gives it a prod with her foot.

Well, shit.

"Wow," Inojin murmurs.

Then Shikadai sharply elbows his companion, who looks nervously around, before deciding the trouble isn't worth it and resolutely keeps his mouth shut, his wide eyes glued a few inches to the right of a beatific Chouchou.

Radiant as the sun, the Akimichi claps Sarada (in Boruto's body) a few times. If Sarada isn't presently so concerned with her body's welfare, she would have run at first contact. Really.

"NOW GO FORTH, YOUNG ONE. PROCREATE WITH YOUR LOVE AND FILL THIS GOOD EARTH," Chouchou pronounced, her expression reminiscent of some benign Bodhisattva. "YOUR LOVE IS GOOD AND READY."

Inojin looks troubled.

Shikadai looks disturbed.

And Boruto, still curled on the floor… well, he's still curled on the floor.

A few restaurant goers turn around too. The place is relatively empty this time of day, but some familiar faces turn with interest to find out who exactly is getting married on the same day as the Hokage's tenth anniversary. Surely that's quite auspicious! Maybe the Hokage would give his blessings!

Inojin takes out his pen, the one that he uses for his jutsu. He glows with something like sympathy. Maybe. It's hard to tell given his next words.

"Do you want me to write the name of the psychoanalysis book for you, Boruto? Or maybe another one that's better for procreation tips?"

Sarada decides this is as good a time as any for a tactical retreat.

Yes.

Before any of them reach any more enlightenment about the finer things in life.

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tbc


Suzu: this will probably be short, sort of crack-y fic. I'm guessing around 15 chapters or so?