Konoha Hair and Nail salon
--by Flightangel
-o-o-o-o-
2
-o-o-o-o-
Itachi didn't like to be distracted.
The stoic, perhaps sadistic man was not one who was often bothered; instead, he spent time lounging on couches thinking of all the ways he couldn't be bothered. Triple locks on all doors, windows and cars; a bodyguard whose only job was to keep the paparazzi away; a cell-phone whose number he'd hand to fan-girls and always have securely turned off.
The list went on and on.
Even his manager, an even more mysterious and stoic man, wondered if such isolation was healthy for lead singer. Hell, he sometimes wondered if the man had any feelings at all, especially when Itachi's only cellphone rang during a recording and the—only slightly embarrassed—Uchiha was forced to go and pick it up.
"Yes?" the singer said softly—menacingly—carefully pulling back a loose strand of hair so that he wouldn't smear his outrageously done makeup. "What?" A little narrowing of the eyes, slight flare in the nostrils. "Is that it?"
He snapped his cellphone and threw it in his purse—er, bag. Uchihas don't carry purses.
"Uchiha-san?" Kisame, one of the sound producers, raised a concerned brow at the fuming star, who had again rearranged his hair and tugged at his shirt and went back into the stage. He had the manner of someone who was irritated at being unnecessarily bothered, as if he was just informed of something laughingly trivial. "What was that?"
"My little brother's in the hospital." he stated. After a brief paused, he couldn't help but mutter, under his breath: "Foolish Little Brother."
"That phrase should be patented, un," Deidara, another singer under the manager's care, whispered. Kisame sighed, as if he's been strained through this type of behavior multiple times, and turned around, silently asking the manager if he should reset the song. The manager, however, was too busy wondering what kind of man would nonchalantly dismiss a hospital call as trivial.
An insane man perhaps. Hell, Itachi had already picked out his funeral casket.
The guy was off his rocker.
-o-o-o-o-
Sasuke woke up to the whiff of bleach and detergent and dead people, a rather peculiar odor. Eyes fluttering open—it took almost all his effort to firmly detach his upper lid from his lower lid—he winced a bit at the blinding light streaming in from the window, attacking his retinas and, seemingly, relishing in his discomfort.
Seeing as everything within his eye's view was white, clean, swabbed and locally disinfected, he needed no amount of wagering to know exactly where he was lying, what he was doing here, and who the hell he was going to give a piece of his mind to when he got up.
If he could get up.
He experimentally tried to lift his head and was immediately brought back down to earth when a piercing shock of pain from somewhere behind his left ear left him gasping. After a few yoga-like breaths, he resisted his urge to try again and turned to considering exactly what he was going to do to that—that—stupid blond.
He clenched his jaw, thinking back to what exactly had happened and provided the circumstances for The Moment of Impact (the instant now deserved capital letters, he noted to himself).
Angry at Kakashi's stupidity. No good hairdressers. He went walking down the sidewalk, shoving his way through crowds of loud, raucous Californians and swearing in Japanese, muttering things to himself as he tried to shield his face from the chilly winter cold. The grounds were clear of snow and the sun was shining bright, but the bitter cold was relentless and dug into every bit of exposed skin it could find on Sasuke's body.
As he spent more time buffeted by the wind, however, he found that his anger began to slowly subside. Instead, his thoughts were replaced by the image of heading into a warm, cozy café where nice, polite Japanese women would serve him green tea and mochi and maybe some zaru soba, with the little dipping sauce and seaweed he oh-so-loved… among other things. Just the image provided the fuel for him to walk down to the Konoha Shopping District, the official Japanese marketplace where everything and everyone seemed to be—or were required to be, either way—bilingual.
In fact, he was walking so fast against the cold that he was momentarily blinded by the dry gusts blowing into his eyeballs, and had to momentarily duck his head down to rub his eyes—when the moment of impact happened.
It was a sudden, split moment, in which his forehead came to meet another's with a sickening crack, and surprised him so much that he fell over onto the sidewalk. The concrete sidewalk.
Loss of consciousness was inevitable.
He hadn't a good look at his attacker (he didn't think once of blaming himself) but he knew the kid was blond and male and had immediately started shrieking when he'd finally saw the collapsed Uchiha on the ground.
He had awakened from consciousness a few times to—very blurrily—catch a glimpse of an odd, emo-looking redhead; two impossibly large breasts (girls and their breasts… even half-dead, they still tried to shove them into his face); a pink-haired lady; and two doctors who insisted on asking him stupid questions like: "Son, what's your name? What date is it? Do you know if you're a boy or girl?"
In fact, the questions had been so stupid that, at one point, he had to be sedated because he'd attempted to strangle one of the doctors when he moved into to try and insert an IV into his arm. Thus, him waking up here. Lovely.
A nurse bustled in primly, hair tucked in a neat bun behind her head and dressed in one of those idiotic-looking paper blue-things that Sasuke didn't like because they tore. They were also unfashionable.
As one knew, Sasuke (and his brother Itachi, now that one thinks of it) didn't appreciate things that were unfashionable.
"Ooh, so the darling's awake." she cooed, absent-mindedly patting his hand, "how are you feeling, sweetie?"
God. One of these kinds of nurses. He would have slapped her cold, lotioned hand away if he'd had the energy. Rather upsettingly for the young pop star, he didn't.
Instead, he resorted to boring deep, dark holes into her skull with his dark, black-eyed glare… of which his family was oh-so famous for. The nurse paid no mind and cheerily inserted something in his IV, sending chills down the Uchiha's spine when he felt something rush into the vein of his arm. In fact, the sensation was so creepy that he couldn't help but jolt. The nurse patted his arm again.
"Look, sweetie, I need for you to be good and stay still so I can give you your medicine, okay? It'll help the pain go away." Again, a pulse of cold liquid swam sluggishly into his arm, and Sasuke felt momentarily horrified and even a bit disgusted. He's never been on an IV before. Never.
Having stuff being inserted through his arm was creepy.
Thankfully, he was quickly distracted from the said creepiness by a concerned, familiar voice.
"Sasuke, are you alright?"
If Sasuke was anyone less than the Uchiha Sasuke, rising pop star and aspiring model, he would've cried out in joy and reached for the anxious man who had appeared in the doorway—if he could've reached his arms. Instead, he resorted to staring at the brunette with his eyes, as he did with the nurse, but with a slightly… less murderous glint in his pupils. This man was an angel.
He quietly discussed Sasuke's personal space issues with the nurse, who cheerily left after some persuasion, before turning to the aforementioned model with his soft brown eyes.
When Sasuke was little—no more than four or five at the beginning—he had often been baby-sat by Kakashi, who, at the time, was still in college studying business and finance and needed some money to pay for that damn car he'd been eying since senior year in high school. Sasuke knew that he'd been a murderous little child, taking every chance to bite and scratch the gray-haired man, insisting on running around with no pants and throwing the middle finger at his caretaker, a bad habit he'd picked up from his Kisame, his old baby-sitter.
In fact, it was because of this bad habit that Kisame had been fired. Itachi went on strike and hid in his room for days.
It wasn't until months of endless torture and scratch marks covering both arms when Kakashi finally decided that he couldn't sit around in boredom and in fear of being scratched any longer. In fact, he was determined to have some fun whilst baby-sitting, even if it meant tweaking the rules a bit.
Sasuke had stared intently when Kakashi decided to bring his boyfriend over.
"Sasuke," Kakashi said firmly, earning a sour look from the youngster, "this is Iruka. Iruka is my boyfriend. Be nice to him."
"Hello, Sasuke," Iruka said with a bright glow in his eyes (it frightened Sasuke, actually), smiling confidently before bowing his head. Sasuke yanked his ponytail and ran shrieking upstairs when Kakashi got a hold of one of the kitchen knives.
Despite early misgivings, however, Sasuke found himself more inclined towards Iruka's more soothing, more confident manner than Kakashi's bored and lazy way of handling things. Perhaps it was Iruka's stronger connection with his feminine side; perhaps it was because Iruka had taken Early Childhood classes in high school and just knew how to handle children. Either way, the Uchiha would often hide behind the brunette whenever he seemed to ignite Kakashi's anger—rip up his porn, sing off-key while he was trying to do homework, purposely turning the whole bathroom into a pool—and the brunette was an effective shield.
Excluding the tugging-hair incident, he never did anything else that physically harmed the college freshman, though he continued to bite and scratch and kick Kakashi to his heart's content. The growling student was positive that the boy was out to get him.
Seeing Iruka after a moment of crisis was, to Sasuke, like an angel being sent from God. Except that Kakashi was far from being like God in any way possible. Oh, well.
"Kakashi was talking to me when he got a call from the hospital that an 'Uchiha Sasuke' had just been rushed in from a head collision and I just had to get here right away." Iruka explained evenly and clearly in his best informative voice, a tone he had long honed teaching as a professor at a beauty school, as if he was completely calm.
Though his slightly shaking hands and wide eyes told a slightly different tale.
Sasuke immediately realized that Iruka was still in his work clothes: apron, white button-down shirt, black pants; seeing the teacher's slightly haggard face and slight panting, he—very guiltily—knew that "getting here right away" hadn't been an exaggeration. The brunette had probably driven top speed the entire half-an-hour drive from San Francisco just to see how he was doing.
It was a little heart-warming, the Uchiha had to admit.
"Sasuke, what happened? They said you collapsed in front of a beauty salon and was than carted over here with a crack in your skull—" Seeing Sasuke's frantic look, Iruka immediately reassured him: "No, no, you don't need surgery. You just had to get some stitches done, that's all."
The singer relaxed a bit before tensing, hissing in slight pain. He breathed out slowly. "Some dumbass blond crashed into me and knocked me on the sidewalk." Whom I'll find and kill once I can move.
Sasuke tried to radiate what Kakashi called the model's "reassuring grin" ("Eyes soft, eyebrows up, smile sincere—no, no, don't snarl, Sasuke!"), but ended up with something that resembled a self-possessed smirk instead. "I'm fine, Iruka. Where's that bastard, Kakashi?"
The beautician sighed, haggard. In the light, the slight indentions of eye bags were painfully clear. Sasuke felt a slight pang—now that he thought of it, both Iruka and Kakashi were growing old… well, to him, anyway. In fact, now that he thought of it, Kakashi was turning forty-two this year, wasn't he?
"He's trying to drag your ass out of being dumped for the Calvin Klein model photo shoot since you can't make it on account of your injury. Be lucky he's got connections."
Sasuke snorted. "Connections, connections. Some connections. He can't even find me a decent hairstylist." The brunette would have used the moment to twirl his hair around his pale, ivory fingers, but was stopped by ringing, painful reminders of his recent accident.
Iruka laughed good-heartedly. He crouched down so that he was at eye-level with Sasuke's bed—if one could call it a bed—before looking quite thoughtful.
"Sasuke," he addressed the singer hesitantly, fingers coming to his chin in deliberating thought. "Sasuke, I've been working as a beauty college professor for more than ten years. In fact, I have plenty of students that graduated who I know are quite successful nowadays. If you like, maybe I can help set you up with one nearby…?"
Okay, erase whatever Sasuke had thought about Iruka being an angel before. Iruka wasn't an angel.
Iruka was a god.
-o-o-o-o-
The shop was in uproar. Even Gaara abandoned his patron to rush outside, not to see the injured party, but to try and stop Naruto from flailing his arms and potentially wounding a customer. The blond was hysterical: "Oh my god! Oh my god! Kami-sama, forgive me!"
"Naruto!" Tsunade barged her way through the crowd of curious, horrified and annoyed people, hair mussed and various strands of blonde sticking out everywhere, "Naruto, shut up, he isn't dead! I called the ambulance, they're on their way—everyone! Everyone, back away!"
Naruto slumped, still shocked, and allowed Gaara to limply drag him back a bit as their manager bent down to affirm her hunch. Indeed, the ebony-haired stranger was alive, though the injury to the head was worrisome. Tsunade unbuttoned her poncho and threw it over him to protect the body from the relentless wind, which blew and howled and forced everyone to flee to warmth indoors.
Evidently, the winds thought the it was all a good joke.
"Naruto," Gaara said tonelessly over Naruto's blubbering, "Naruto, calm down. What happened?"
"He bumped into me," the addressed blond mumbled, leaning in a bit too close for Gaara's comfort. In fact, the hairstylist had—subconsciously of course, as he definitely was not aware of what he was doing—put his head on the redhead's shoulder and had an iron grip on the hairstylist's upper arm. "He… bumped into me. Oh my god, I'm a murderer!"
Here we go again… Gaara thought to himself, though let no emotion seep into his face, even when Naruto tried to snuggle (the redhead instinctively stiffened and nudged him away with a hand). Naruto, the drama king.
"Coming through! Medical Student coming through—Naruto, get your ass out of the way!" Sakura, who had found the first-aid kit from underneath the desk, came running out in flip-flops and shorts and let out a short squeal at the first contact of cold. A tad embarrassed, she shot an angry glare at those who dared to stare at her before bending down to check the brunette's wound, falling into a heated discussion with Tsunade in hushed tones.
The blond was still frantic. "I killed someone!"
Gaara, in an authoritative tone: "Naruto, calm down."
The piercing wail of a siren came screeching down the corner, startling the staff and customers who had remained outside and, more importantly, awaking the brunette laying on the sidewalk momentarily. Tsunade and Sakura immediately pinned the man down on either side when he tried to move, earning a string of mumbled curses—in Japanese—from the injured party.
"Please, sir, don't move, we're getting you to safety as soon as we can."
"I'm disinfecting the wound!"
"'M gonna get 'zat guy… gonna get him…" The flailing brunette twisted and turned and gnawed before, finally, seizing his struggles and resolving to lay limp on the sidewalk, eyes unfocused and hazy. Gaara, who had finally given up on closing the blond's mouth and had decided to carefully shove the younger hairstylist inside, stood contemplating over the man's face.
Elegantly curved eyebrows; long lashes; pale, ivory skin; sharp, noble-like nose and set, stubborn lips—his face looked unnervingly familiar. Before the quiet man could pinpoint the exact source of nostalgia, however, the ambulance had come into view.
A cream-white truck decorated with an assortment of red emergency symbols cautiously parked as close as it could to the walkway, before two doctors—presumably; no one except Sakura knew their official title—carried out a board and carefully lifted the injured brunette onto it. A third doctor stood by the sidelines questioning Tsunade about the circumstances.
Within a few minutes—and a salute from on of the doctors—the anonymous man was carted into the ambulance and gone. It was if the incident never happened.
There was a momentary pause among those who were still left standing; even Sakura, who was shivering in her shorts, took a minute to think. Finally, Tsunade broke the ice and gathered back her poncho.
"Someone clean up this blood," she snapped, whirling on her heels and click-clacking back into the store, "Nothing to see! Everybody, move!"
"Uchiha Sasuke." Gaara said suddenly, startling a certain pink-haired secretary-slash-medical-student beside him. Even standing in a t-shirt and jeans, he didn't appear to be even moderately affected by the cold—his face was as blank as ever. He turned towards the secretary sharply.
"Uchiha Sasuke, pop star. He's released two albums so far, with the second album being an immediate hit. He is also a model, I suppose. I've seen his face in magazines."
"Magazines? Gaara, you read magazines?" Sakura couldn't help but feel skeptical. Gaara? Reading magazines? Like a normal human being?
"Beauty magazines." The man replied, before regarding her strangely. "Because of my job."
"Beauty magazines," Sakura repeated, before deciding to go inside.
New gossip to tell to the ladies, she says to herself.
-o-o-o-o-
Order quickly resumed after Naruto was given a good speaking-to from Tsunade herself—dragged into the back room by the ear while still blubbering about being a murderer was enough to catch even the attention of Neji, who had, after a while, carefully chosen to ignore the commotion so that he wouldn't possibly drag the Hyuuga Company into the mess.
"I can't believe that happened!"
"Naruto, shut up, it's not cute anymore!"
"What if he sues me?"
"Stop being so melodramatic, you're drawing too much attention to yourself!"
"When I was in elementary school I accidentally knocked down my teacher, what if—"
"Naruto!"
A wise choice on the Hyuuga's part—the newspaper had come within an hour, along with Hinata's frantic, blubbering journalist-of-a-husband whose first priority was to make sure that this so-called "murderer who attacked a passerby by head butting the other man" didn't harm his little coochy-coo.
No doubt that his original intentions were probably to kiss and hug and do other what Neji labeled "nasty" things. The threatening snarl Neji threw the quivering journalist was enough to scald him, however, and he just ended up patting Hinata's hand soothingly before running off to interview the "murderer".
Said "murderer" was still babbling in the backroom—at least, until Tsunade smacked him across the face and threatened to dump paper-mache on him. Just the prospect of being covered head-to-toe in what seemed to be Gaara's favorite art medium quelled his whimpering, and he managed to stay silent while the blonde bubblegum-chewing manager click-clacked her away back and forth in front of him, angrily reprimanding him.
"The hell were you doing? Waving your stupid arms up and down—look, Naruto, I've put up with your—your—well, your lack of professional expertise until now, but this is just unacceptable! Look at it out there!" she dragged Naruto to the door and let him peer at the mess of journalists interviewing the patrons before pulling him back, "I've put up with your drama and your jokes and your 'breaks' and I'm not saying it's bad but—but—"
She growled. "Look."
Tsunade cracked her knuckles before placing her hands on her hips, looking up at the ceiling and then down to her high-heeled shoes, as if the words were hard to roll off her tongue. "I just need you to… clean up your act, Naruto."
Ouch. Naruto said nothing…not that he wasn't paying attention. He just had nothing formidable to say in return.
Though his eyes were a bit downcast, the hairstylist shook his head and pulled on one of almost patented grins, giving Tsunade an affirmative nod. The woman regarded him strangely—heels clicking the floor and lips pursed togetherbefore leading her employee out of the backroom.
Immediately, the two were surrounded by journalists and a cameraman, and other bizarre people who just wanted to see what the commotion was all about.
"Nothing happened!" Tsunade roared over the questions and prodding and the click, click, click of the camera, causing several journalists who were a bit too close to jump back hurriedly. "There was no foul play involved, so go back to your little dusting cubbies, alright, boys? It was just an accident! Shoo! Shoo!"
"Ms. Sannin!" Hinata's husband held a thick notepad in his arms, "Ms. Sannin, is it true that after beating up Mr.… Uchiha, I think—Shino, it was Uchiha right? Right—after beating up Mr. Uchiha, Mr. Uzamaki came in and threatened your patrons?"
"I already told you, there was NO FOUL PLAY INVOLVED," The woman screeched before physically shoving the group of what she considered too-bored Japanese newspaper staff out the door and into the streets, "Good bye! Good riddance! And if I catch you printing any crap in that damn newspaper of yours, I'll personally hunt down every man on your team and break every last bone in their body understand? You understand me?"
The group had already—wisely—fled down the streets, dropping a pen or notebook or two in their scramble. Tsunade slammed the door shut behind her, startling a certain manicurist who had chosen to hide under his desk the moment Naruto had burst in covered in—covered in—blood. Haku, a quiet Japanese immigrant who spoke little English, was often peaceful and kind and generally brave, so it was odd for him to be hiding. Though not that odd.
Haku seemed to have only three fears: too much English, loud noises, and blood. All of which had been present in the commotion. Sakura blew a reassuring kiss at the older man, mouthing: "It's okay, nothing bad happened" in Japanese.
As mentioned before, order quickly resumed. After a scathing glare from the woman to all the employees—Gaara, who had just come back from outside, pointedly ignored her; Sakura, who had immediately picked up the phone to gossip with her other friends, put down the receiver with a pout; Naruto, who had returned to his work station and acted as if nothing had happened, looked at her questionably; and Haku, who was… who was still hiding behind his desk… continued to hide behind his desk—the woman returned to her work station.
"I need some more sake," she growled at no one in particular, hand itching to close around the neck of a wine bottle, "and I'm still hungry, dammit! Naruto—no, wait. Better not send the blond idiot out with those newspaper folks on the loose. Sakura!" The pink-haired medical student looked up from her "accounting" (more than likely she was sneaking games of solitaire, Tsunade knew), alert.
"Yes?"
"Go get us some lunch. Kami-sama, what time is it?" She sorted through a mess of bubble-gum wrappers, old shoes and an assortment of rubber bands and receipts before finding and squinting at her Hello Kitty digital alarm clock. She swore. "Go now, it's ten minutes until lunch time ends! Go, go, go!"
The secretary sighed, but thought better than to question her superior. Tugging on a huge faux fur overcoat which Gaara had stared at with large, green eyes when she'd brought it in that morning, she left the store with a little click from her boots and peace returned to the store.
Relative peace.
Just clean up your act, Naruto.
Tsunade drummed her nails on her desk, peering at the blond anxiously. It seemed that he'd quickly bounced back—he was back to his schoolboy tricks and antics and was laughing just like before, but she couldn't help but feel that she had been a bit harsh. That, and Naruto was an expert and hiding his feelings, so damn her if she could figure out what he was really thinking.
Jiraiya had always teased that she was too soft on the blond—and he was right. It didn't feel good to dampen his mood, even if he didn't act like anything was wrong.
The said blond was, at the moment, making great sport of ticking the back of Hinata's neck and cracking mirror jokes. The store was once again filled with shouts of: "Whaaaaat? Hinata-chan, shame, shame!" and "Gaaaaaara, what are you doing? Eeeew, disinfectant. What are you trying to do, pick up some girls? All the way, man!"
Naruto finally finished up the woman's cut and, after tugging the little safety-bib off and giving her a mirror, gave her a princely bow.
"My queen." he murmured jokingly, kissing her fingers, and Hinata had the decency to giggle and blush.
"Naruto, my cousin is a married woman." Neji said pointedly, again waiting. Gaara was off obsessively disinfecting his hands; if he had been in the room at the moment, the redhead would have given the blond a delicate frown, something Naruto would have interpreted as "Stop being so unprofessional."
Though it didn't quite occur to Naruto that the older man only seemed to frown like that whenever the blond was flirting with his female—and sometimes male—customers.
"Oh, come oooooon, Neji, you know I'm joking!" Naruto flung his hands up innocently, large grin stretched across his face. Despite his self-proclaimed chastity, however, he made a great show of peering at the woman's behind and winking when Hinata turned to leave. Neji gave him a dirty look—brows furrowed, nose flared—and scoffed, evidently deciding that he was above Naruto's jokes.
Gaara finally returned from the bathroom, crimson hair a bit mussed and eyes looking a bit more worn than usual. His hands reeked of disinfectant and hand-sanitizer, the only indication of Gaara's franticness of ridding himself of the smell and sight of blood.
Seeing as Sakura had immediately run indoors due to the cold, Naruto was blubbering, Haku was hiding behind his desk and Tsunade had been off drinking elixir, the redhead was the only one who had been responsible enough to kindly clean up the blood on the pavement, even if he was probably the most hemaphobic of the five staff members.
Oh, that was just like Gaara. That man had an odd suspiciousness of blood, just like Haku, something that Naruto couldn't help but giggle over a bit. It was quite funny to think that it had probably been a courageous feat on the redhead's part. The non-human Sabaku Gaara. Cleaning up blood from the pavement was just so horrifying, it seemed.
The redhead threw the still laughing blond scathing glare, wiping his hand on a washcloth and tossing back a strand of fluttering hair that had been caught in his eye. The look effectively quieted Naruto, and suddenly he knew that Gaara knew. He knew what Tsunade had been discussing with the blond in the backroom, and he easily looked past all of the stylist's charades.
Those bluish-green eyes silently accusing him were unsettling.
Gaara continued to organize his work space in a meticulous, slightly mechanical manner, and Neji was content to let the clacking sounds of brushes being put away and bottles being taken out to lull him, until the redhead asked him quietly a question.
"Are you alright?"
Neji flinched, startled.
Sabaku Gaara rarely displayed any amount of emotion for anything—or anyone, for that matter—mostly keeping to himself and moving about in an odd routinely fashion, and, truth be told, the Hyuuga was horrified.
Realizing that he'd reacted—in a very unprofessional way, the Hyuuga added to himself—he attempted to cover up and coughed. "What do you mean?"
"When you came in," Gaara whispered, in a slow and steady voice, eyes not blinking, "you had a bad air surrounding you. You are often cold and aloof, yet today you seemed downcast. This is not normal. It is the job of a hairstylist to make sure his or her patron leaves happy, and you are not happy and will probably still not be happy once I am done. Thus, it is of my concern." It would have been a bit touching, if the redhead wasn't so boringly monotone.
What was this guy, a hippy? No, erase that thought. Gaara had always been peculiar.
He didn't often commute with his customers, and, if he did, it must be extremely important. Neji had the heart to at least feel a tad flattered.
Even so…
"Y-yes, I'm fine. I'm just having a bit of a bad day, after all." The brunette raised his chin up stiffly, eyes defiant. The redhead paused, face blank, before skillfully tugging off the towel-turban and pulling out a spray bottle, blow-dryer and a pair of glinting, menacing scissors.
Neji eyed these tools suspiciously.
"Those are…?"
"To cut your hair."
The businessman looked at the incredulous objects scathingly. "…those aren't what you usually use to cut my hair."
Gaara experimentally ruffled through Neji's curls (they evidently curled when wet), letting wet locks fly wherever. He narrowed his eyes, contemplating, in the mirror. "I'm not giving you your usual haircut."
Neji whirled as far as he could go with someone's hand in his hair, eyes wide. He clenched his jaw. "Excuse me?"
"I'm not giving you your usual haircut."
"I did not ask for a different haircut."
Gaara narrowed his eyes, furrowed brow creating dark shadows on his face. "I'm not giving you your usual haircut."
The two bore holes in each other's heads for a good moment; Neji quaking slightly as if entirely shocked by Gaara's "unprofessional" demand (though, in some respects, Gaara was not being unprofessional at all), while Gaara remained passive and emotionless. His eyes, though, were a different matter entirely.
Finally, the Hyuuga gave an infuriated huff and turned away from the mirror. If Gaara thought giving him a new haircut would fix his problems, fine. Whatever.
He was the professional here, not Neji. Neji was just some stupid businessman who dealt with interstate finance and didn't know the proper dynamics of hair. Anyway, he could always sue later if he didn't like whatever the stylist was doing to his hair. Or, at least, demand a refund.
Neji found great consolation in these two options.
-o-o-o-o-
Naruto, who was done with his clients until the evening rush and had unconventionally thrown off his shirt from underneath his apron—despite his reprimanding from Tsunade; in fact, the blond acted as if the whole event had seriously not occurred— spun around in one of the salon chairs with a brilliant smile as he watched those deft hands at work.
Carefully gathering back some of that brownish black hair between his fingers, he swiftly and expertly cut the ends, released, gathered more hair, cut. At times, he'd back away, see his work, then resume, brows furrowing deeply over greenish-blue eyes.
Watching Gaara was always spastastic, as Naruto said (even though he'd been reprimanded more than once that "spastastic" wasn't a real word). Though Naruto himself knew he had quite a unique style in his work, he wasn't nearly as fast, as deft, or as sure as Gaara when it came to snipping the hair of people who were in a hurry.
The blonde needed a relaxed environment and a customer who was willing to sit still for an hour in order for his talent to shine through, which proved to be a rather crippling weakness. On some level, he, in a very light manner, envied the redhead.
Gaara would never have his ass dragged into the backroom so the manager would tell him to "clean up his act". Gaara's act was as damn clean as those weird disinfected hands of his, maybe even cleaner. As far as the blond was concerned, the redhead's career was spotless.
He wouldn't crash into strangers, freak out, become an utter nuisance, have no responsibility whatsoever, whine… damn, Naruto, stop thinking about it! You're going to get yourself depressed! Remember the rule! Remember the rule!
Don't sulk until you get home. Save your face for later, Uzamaki!
Despite the rule, however, the blond became suddenly and painfully self-conscious. Naruto couldn't help but let his eyes drift to two cuts on his forefinger and one on the thumb of his opposite hand. Rubbing them gingerly, he sighed, though kept the smile on his face. Again, he had rushed himself in order to catch up with his fellow stylist, and ended up almost snipping the appendages off of his hands.
His inability to work within a time constraint infuriated him at times.
His mistakes left angry red marks all over his palms, joining the rest of the scars he'd collected over the years, drawn all across his wrists and even lower arm. Discreetly, he peered at Gaara's hands as they worked and maneuvered their way through Neji's fine, Asian hair, suddenly noting how soft they looked. Lithe, and pale. No scars.
Damn that professional.
Now that he was actually observing the redhead himself, and not what he was doing, he couldn't help but let his eyes roam a bit: beautifully styled dark reddish hair, on the verge of a pale auburn; very Asian, very vivid eyes which straddled the line between blue and green; a pale, yellowish skin tone which further accented the eyeliner drawn around his eyes and contrasted sharply against his hair. The eyeliner was odd, but his hair was so pretty.
Naruto licked his lips.
Smooth maroon apron, white t-shirt, black Capri-pants that clung onto his legs. His eyes looked a bit sunken underneath his brow; his lips were chapped and white, and looked as if they'd been chewed.
Naruto wondered—briefly—what chewing Gaara's lips would be like.
Just the thought—and the implications—of the action made the blond feel suddenly light-headed.
Despite his allure, however, the blond worried over the older man. He was Very Skinny (as opposed to Medium Build). He had no eyebrows (though Naruto had convinced himself that he'd shaved them off, and it wasn't simply… natural). His skin tended to look a bit unhealthy at times, and he either blinked very rapidly or very slowly, as if he hadn't had enough sleep.
This then lead to Naruto wondering what would happen if he covered Gaara in a blanket and hugged him. Would his skin turn pinkish from the warmth? Would he stop blinking weirdly? Would he stop giving him weird looks whenever he got snuggly-snuggly with a customer? (Wait, so when did Naruto know that Gaara was giving him weird looks?)
The blond would have investigated further on this with his eyes, if the said eyes didn't eventually meet up with Gaara's own green-blue ones.
Gaara was staring straight at the other hairdresser, face still as expressionless as ever, yet mouth twitching upwards in an almost bemused expression. His hands had momentarily paused in handling his client's hair, caught in mid-cut.
"What is it?"
Naruto paused, working his mouth. His mind took a few precious moments to process the fact that he'd been caught.
He blushed violently, magenta flooding into his cheeks as he took a frantic step backwards: "No, I just… er, was wondering what you were, like, doing, 'cause, well you're kind of better than me so I wanted to see how you… um, no, actually you're much better than me, so I was looking at you 'cause, er, I wanted to learn… no… wait, actually, in all truth there's a—there's… something.. a stain, yeah—right there, see? No wait, the alcohol must have wiped it away, ahaha…"
And before he could make more of a fool of himself—even Neji was staring at him—he made some weird comment about needing to piss really badly ("Er, it feels like I'm going to go all fountain-y on you in a moment, so I'm gonna, like, go fountain elsewhere") and ran off to the bathroom so he could try and calm down his blush.
Gaara blinked very, very slowly. His arms were still frozen in the midst of cutting Neji's hair, and, though he looked rather stony on the outside, he was completely baffled within.
"Looks like someone's very interested," Neji murmured softly, and would have chuckled mysteriously if not for the growing anxiety rising in his chest about what Gaara was doing to his hair. What was all this tin foil? "Maybe you should go talk to him about it."
Gaara's facial expression was blank, devoid of all emotion. It was almost like he didn't understand, but one never knew with the quiet redhead.
"Guys!" Sakura burst in, her face a brilliant shade of pale blue and framed with a ring of faux fur, "It's so cold outside! I've got the lunches! Here, Manager, I'll put them on the counter. Naru—hm?" The secretary blinked a while, "Where's Naruto?"
"Naruto," Gaara said tonelessly, "is… fountaining."
"…excuse me?"
-o-o-o-o-
Umino Iruka stood contemplating at his desk, peering through his years-old records of stylists, beauticians, makeup-artists and other such people that had passed under his scrutiny over the years of his teaching career. It was quite late at night, really, and the professor would have long gone to bed if he wasn't busy worrying over Sasuke's potential hairstylist.
That boy had always held a place in his heart—his age and isolation reminded him so of his adopted son, though it had become clear that their personalities were radically different.
Whatever the reason, Iruka had looked at records forced himself to remember faces, personalities, expertise. Kakashi had come home for the past week complaining of Sasuke's complaints, and Iruka carefully sorted these out as he contemplated over some potentials.
Truthfully, the brunette had to admit, the minute he'd heard that Sasuke was looking for a stylist, he'd first thought of pairing the man up with his adoptive son. It was wistful thinking—the two of them had gotten along quite well in elementary school, but then had their painful differences during middle school and, eventually, went to different high schools. Sasuke had a good musical career backing him up, majoring in Music Theory and minoring in computer sciences; his adoptive son, on the other hand… well…
Iruka never really had the heart to push Naruto to go to college if he didn't want to.
Though working with a professional model may just have been the motivation that blond needed to finally enroll in a beauty college and gain that air of professionalism true stylists demanded, he knew that Sasuke himself would only suffer from being dragged down by him. No, Iruka couldn't do that.
Most of the old students he'd at first considered for Sasuke had secure jobs in top-class beauty salons in Beverly Hills and Hollywood California, positions they'd likely not be willing to give up just to help some rising pop star… slash model. In fact, looking at the current status of the majority of his students, most were in good positions in society or at least made enough money for them to be reluctant to move. Seeing their skill, it only made sense.
Filing back his oldest students' files—they were all well off, as Iruka had wished them to be—he turned more to his newer graduates, starting from five years ago.
It was then that he hit jackpot.
He stared at the incredulous file disbelievingly, and then looked at his computer screen to check the stylist's current position. Amazing. Baffling. Iruka's top student four years ago—who, he knew, could have easily gotten in a Beverly Hill Salon or worked at Hollywood—held such a low position in comparison to the rest of his graduating class that Iruka's heart almost stopped.
It was almost too good to be true (no, Iruka was not happy that his student was relatively poor; he was happy at the fact that by matching him and Sasuke together, both of them could rise to success together).
Writing the name down in his plan-book, he finally shut the laptop and closed the lights. The flat seemed eerily silent—hollow—and the brown-haired man pattered quietly down carpeted halls and into the bedroom, door emitting a creak as he entered. Kakashi lay curled up on his side, long ago asleep, and the younger man observed the agent carefully with fondness.
He collapsed onto his side of the bed, hair spilling out in curls and onto the sheets. Removing his night robe so that he was in his pajamas, he slipped under the covers and lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling.
Looking back at his students and their status in current time, Iruka's felt so… old. Though at thirty-nine, it wasn't like he was walking on a cane. Kakashi was already forty and over and still looked good.
But that was because he was Kakashi. Kakashi always looked good.
"Sweet dreams." he murmured—for Kakashi or himself he didn't know. Either way, however, it made him feel better, and he let sleep cradle his mind and drag him into its watery depths, not to be returned until the bitter cold morning tomorrow.
-o-o-o-o-
AN: This chapter... was pulled through, like, six re-edittings, all because I was never satisified with a certain scene (I'm still not satisified but it's the best I can make it).
Anyway, I seriously appreciate your reviews! They make me blush, actually XD. However, I do want to say that if I accidentally "use" an idea you suggested in a review without creditting you in my story, I am not using your idea. More than likely, I already thought up that scene in my head and we just happened to conincide. I apologize beforehand if we have any disagreements! If I do use your idea, I'll credit you in the AN
As for the responses to reviews: I do tend to be a bit feminine when I write through characters... I apologize if that disturbs anyone. And the girl-bashing was Sasuke's inner thoughts, not mine XD. I'm glad that many of you liked my "Breaking the Music" story (written all last year DX. Guh). I hope you like this one, too, but that is just hope XD. I can't make you like it.
Thanks for reading!