Konoha Hair and Nail salon

--by Flightangel

-o-o-o-o-

3

-o-o-o-o-

A group of Japanese, haggard and tired, scuttled across the airport lobby, heads bowed, gray and anxiously wishing to detract attention from themselves. One adult, presumably their father or some other family relative, rounding up three children—one sleeping on his back and the other two tightly holding hands. Bustling Americans ignored these newfound immigrants, and the Japanese did not mind, either.

They squatted together at the baggage claim, jittery, nervous—as if afraid that someone had followed them to this new country. As quick as they can, they lugged their worn and faded luggage out into the rainy streets. The adult stood contemplating outside, child still draped over his back.

Briefly, he peered back to the airport, the planes, the only real connection now to his home country, miles and miles away. There was still a chance to go back—back to Japan. Perhaps it had been a bad idea after all. Did he really need to flee so far? It might have been a better idea to move to a different island, maybe to Okinawa or Shikoku or something.

A sudden car speeded past them, spraying water across their faces, as if spitting. Welcome to our country, foreigners.

One of the standing children began to cry.

No, he couldn't go back. Not now. Not after going so far. The visas had already been made; the company was expecting him in a week, no more, and he couldn't delay. Wouldn't delay.

Carefully, the man led the children across the safety path into the parking lot, never to turn back to Japan ever again.

-o-o-o-o-

Naruto laid on his back, sprawled across his couch with a foot in the lamp shade and his head lolling off the armrest, speaking rapidly on the phone. Thankfully, unlike many ventilation systems across the city, his heater was up and running and he was warm enough to be caught wearing a thin long-sleeve and some black rolled-up pants.

His apartment was small and cramped and full of junk, though not uncomfortable or impossible to live in. A bedroom plastered with posters of his favorite models—and their well-done hairdos—crammed with a small twin-bed covered in clothes, vanity table complete with a mannequin and an assortment of wigs, more clothes stuffed in the closet, and some magazines and comics books lying about the floor. A small dirty kitchen with some half-cleaned dishes and ramen bowls sat close to a tiny living room area, room enough for only a single couch and television. The bathroom wasn't even worth mentioning.

"—and, no, I didn't know it was Sasuke, okay?" the hairstylist groaned at whoever it was on the other line, left hand on his temple. "Of course I didn't recognize him! I haven't seen him since middle school! Back then he was two heads shorter and three inches fatter around his waistline and… stuff. And there was blood. I was freaking out!"

"Look, Sasuke isn't very appreciative of you crashing into—"

"It was him who crashed into me!"

Iruka, on the other end, sighed, hoisting the wireless phone to his shoulder as he effortlessly curled an old regular's hair. "—okay, okay, whatever you say, Naruto. Anyway, he isn't appreciative of it and neither is Kakashi—you do know who Kakashi is right?"

"The pervert."

"Right, the per—Naruto!"

"What?"

"Don't 'what' me!" Another audible sigh came through the connection, tickling the blond's conscience. Naruto winced and withdrew his foot from the lamp shade, seeing as the bulb was beginning to burn away his skin. "Anyway, Kakashi had to drag up some of his old favors to secure Sasuke's spot in a photo shoot uptown and he's not happy about it. He doesn't like begging."

"So?"

"So, Mister 'Oh my god I am a murderer', I think that a little visit to our victim—hn! He was the one hurt here, so he is the victim, regardless of who hit who or who bashed into who, you understand? God, it's been almost ten years since you've seen each other face-to-face, and you're still so high-hackled about him. Anyway, I think you should pay him a little visit. Apologize or something."

"Apologize? I told you already, it was him—"

"Naruto, you're twenty-four! You're old enough to know that regardless of who is to blame, one should always apologize! Remember Golden Rule Number Seven!"

Naruto growled deep in his throat, flipping his hair as he lolled his head on the arm rest. He hated the damn Golden Rules. Hated. A pot filled with ramen was gurgling, calling for attention, but the hairstylist was in no mood to get up from his position on the couch.

He gave the pot the finger.

"Naruto… Naruto, are you there?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm here." The man sat up, blonde hair flat and mussed against his head, scowl etched onto his face. "So you'll stop bugging me if I go and apologize? Look, I don't even know where the guy lives. It's been ten years. Ten years. He probably won't recognize me."

"If that makes you go and apologize, good! I mean… well, that's not the point. Just go and be a man—I know you two had this horrendous fight at graduation, but it has been a decade—a decade! Treat him like a stranger if it makes you feel better." Though under normal circumstances the professor would have opposed such looseness, Iruka sounded worn—faded. Naruto would've spent a moment feeling guilty if the pot didn't begin boiling over.

Apparently, it didn't quite appreciate getting flicked at.

"Ho—shit!"

"Naruto?"

The blond fumbled with the phone. "I'll call you back later, 'kay? My dinner's come to life!"

Before the teacher could say anything smart—"Naruto? What do you mean it's come to life? Have you been watching too much Veggie Tales?"—the phone was tossed carelessly onto the carpet and the stylist let fly a stream of raucous cursing, hand scalded when he tried to turn the stove off through a stream of boiling water. Throwing the injured appendage into the water, he eyed the soupy mess-of-a-ramen sulkily.

Maybe he should've just ordered take-out.

-o-o-o-o-

Temari didn't quite like to be up at four thirty in the morning, but it wasn't as if she had a choice.

The air outside was a deep shade of violet and chilling, seeping through cracks in the window, ghosting walls, and scaring plants stiff and white. An unwisely hung clothesline between the apartments sat abandoned, panties and shirts hanging stiffly on the frozen cord.

No birds dared perch in the winter chill and, instead, huddled in nests in dead and lifeless trees, eagerly anticipating a far-away spring. Many other life forms were hidden, under the snow—hibernating. If only humans were allowed to hibernate, too.

The blonde woman buried herself in her large blankets, snuggling into her bed. Nooo…. Damn clock. Don't wanna get up yet. The heater had broken, had been broken, and it was cold, colder than snow inside the house. She would've drifted off if the not-so-quiet patter of feet in the halls had not come ringing down from the left and down into the kitchen, awakening her in the process.

Gah. I'm going to kill him. Stupid Kankuro and his big stupid feet.

By four forty-five, all members of the Sabaku household were mandated to be awake and running, regardless of circumstances. If not, Yashamaru made you hold pails of water outside in the cold with nothing but your pajamas on. If you still refused to awaken, he'd get out his swat.

"Ohayo," the aforementioned uncle said quietly whilst sitting in a kitchen chair, vying to eat on the counter than on the table. This may have been because he was in a hurry, but, seeing how the other members of the family were also sitting in various places on the counter, it was most likely the result of the various folders and magazines and junk spilling over the table.

"Ohayo," a bulky brown-haired man responded with a yawn. Only Japanese was spoken between the family members, at all times, anywhere, whatever the circumstances. A bowl of cereal tipped treacherously in his hands as sleepiness teased his mind, resulting in a sort of sub-conscious loll.

His slumped posture suggested a slightly beefy body type, face dominated by a prominent nose and fierce knitted eyebrows. His appearance often gave people the impression of a mostly educated but still powerful man—but, like most people, he didn't quite look his best in the morning. He just looked… droopy.

Temari stared at the swiveling spoon with a pucker between her eyebrows. He better not spill that. She wasn't going to get the mop and bucket out this time.

"Kankuro, hurry up eating, we have to leave in ten minutes. Don't just sit there. Gaara, do you have your bag ready? Gaara?" The redhead was nowhere to be seen. Yashamaru raised his voice, "Gaara, you're going to have to do Temari's hair on the car, so get ready. Kankuro, wake up, wake up, your milk's spilling." In the Sabaku household, morning was a quick affair.

Temari cleaned her bowl and quickly threw it in the sink, washing her hands in the orange-ish water before running to find her purse.

The apartment was a royal mess—with Gaara off at his work or flat and the rest of the family being carted around by Temari's photo-shoots and advertisement filming, there was little time for someone to actually come in and mop the place up. The dishes were dirty; laundry was scattered about the couches, tables, beds and floor; the heater and sink were broken; there were cracks in the windows and mildew in the bathroom—Temari didn't even dare look in the closets. The mold might eat her.

Using her remaining milliseconds left to stuff a granola bar into her mouth, Temari glared daggers at Kankuro, who was still eating his cereal and taking his precious time. Didn't he understand that she had to get to work by six? Six?

Thankfully, Yashamaru saved them some effort by sharply knocking on the counter, calling the man's attention back from la-la land. Kankuro gave out a low, guttural groan before slurping up the last of the soggy granola and flinging the bowl in the pile of dirty dishes. He pulled his hoodie over his head, as if the darkness of the cloth would sooth his morning daze.

The stars were still out, twinkling at them madly. As if they were laughing. Temari threw the finger up at the sky before wrapping her coat around her figure tightly, sucking in breath. Kami-sama, it was cold. Her franticness to get in the damn car was momentarily quelled by the freeze.

Gaara, dressed in a black t-shirt over a white long-sleeve, had a bag slung across his shoulders and effortlessly walked out, unaffected. The blonde wasn't convinced by the little "cool" charade, however.

Gaara hated the cold.

Even now, Temari was close enough to see the goose bumps on his arms, and it almost made her giggle. In fact, she did giggle. Gaara narrowed his eyes at her and promptly stalked through the garden and into the car, shoulders hunched up. As if showing Temari how just because it was thirty degrees outside it didn't mean the family could slow down.

Kankuro lumbered after his sister, bag of formal clothes slung over his shoulder, followed by their dear uncle, who smartly snapped the door behind them all and chased them all inside the van, regardless of the cold.

Life in the car was a frantic mess.

"Temari, sit straight, don't move." Yashamaru called from the front of the car before flipping on his cellphone to immediately begin confirming Temari's day plans with various producers, switching to English. Though he was usually a very patient man, his stick-up-his-ass side tended to appear whenever he was speaking to what he considered "difficult Americans". Not that he was being the one difficult. Oh, no. It was always them.

Temari sat completely still, eyes unblinking as Kankuro dusted on blush, applied lipstick, swabbed eye shadow. Gaara, behind her, kept spraying something on her mussed hair in short little spurts. It was quite annoying.

"No, no, I know I planned her viewing to be at three in the afternoon, not three thirty. No? No openings? Okay, okay, maybe I'll get in her in by two thirty, how about that? Is that any better?"

"Gaara, what are you doing?"

No response—just more spraying, and a comb. Right, like she really was expecting her brother to say something. She wriggled her nose when the older of her younger brothers accidentally dusted blush up her nostrils, and flared them to emphasis her discomfort. Kankuro bowed his head, partially in apology but mostly in defiance, as if he was saying, hey, give me a break, it's five in the fucking morning. Temari huffed.

"You have those photos, yes? The ones from Friday's photo session down in that dratted photo place, what was it called…? Anyway, I have to have them in by tomorrow morning, so please, please put them on my station desk before five this afternoon, thank you, thank you, arigatou gozaimasu. Wait, I have another person on the other line—" A quick fumble. "—Iruka? Umino Iruka? Yes, yes, of course I remember—how long has it been?"

Gaara was done long before Kankuro and sat in the backseat flipping through some of the beauty magazines he'd brought with him from the apartment, to add to his collection at the salon. Pausing on a particular page, he blankly stared at the model looking at him from the plastic before turning it around and showing it to Kankuro, who had redone Temari's lips twice because of the bumpy car ride.

Kankuro squinted at the image, his own lips pursing as he tried, for the third time, to perfectly "enhance" the natural perkiness of his sister's lips. Damn gloss kept smudging.

"Nah, doesn't fit your face." Gaara retrieved the page and continued to stare at it. He self-consciously brought his own pale hand to his hair a few times, furrowed brows creating dark shadows over exhausted eyes. The bags troubled Kankuro greatly; Gaara had been getting adequate sleep for weeks until the day before last Tuesday, when his sleeping fits started again.

"Here, Gaara, come over here, I'll put some concealer on you."

The redhead escaped as far as he could from the Styrofoam stick the brother had waved in front of his face, eying the thing with wide green eyes. Kankuro sighed. Oh, right. His little brother believed that foundation and makeup gave you cancer.

"Well, it'll be hard to convince him, you know. After that Schmitz incident two years ago, Gaara hasn't been upstage at all, except for doing Temari's hair, but she's his sister. You don't know what happened?" Yashamaru had long switched back to Japanese and swerved as a crazy jaywalker tried to kill himself in front of his car. Damn crazy Californians. "Well, long story short—this was just six months after he graduated, remember—Gaara did some guy's hair, the guy went to a modeling session, the guy's hair got caught in the ventilation, he had to go the hospital, he sued Gaara—"

Temari's impatient hands signaled her brother to hand her a mirror—which he tossed at her and "accidentally" hit her in the chest—and she stared at her reflection critically, turning her face this way and that.

"—sure, he lost, but Gaara was just so angry at the fact that someone had dared accuse him of wrongdoing he just left. Quit his job at that Beverly Hills salon, what was it called? Juan Juan? Yeah, he quit and didn't go back. I know, I know, I've tried to convincing him, but Gaara's like—" he lowered his voice, "—like a child sometimes, he's so stubborn—"

"Gaara, what's this?" she pointed at a lump of blonde frizz at the back of head, left side. Her wide, make-up emphasized eyes stared at the lump angrily. The redhead the blonde model no mind, continuing to flip through his magazine. When his sister made a move to fix it, however, his hand slapped hers away abruptly.

"Leave it."

"Gaara!"

"—It's been a year and a half already, and he's got to learn that pro's deal with lawsuits all the time. Actually, now that I think of it, I don't even know why Gaara cares. I don't even think it's about the lawsuit anymore, really. But, alright, I'll let you talk to him—wait a moment, Gaara." Yashamaru slowed the car down so he could spare the time to look back at his youngest nephew, who was angrily pushing back Temari's frantic hands. Apparently, he felt quite strong about leaving his "works-of-art" as they were. "Gaara, it's Iruka, he wants to talk to you."

The redheaded hairstylist regarded his uncle blankly, hands locking his sister's in an iron hold. Kankuro sat hunched over next to Temari with his hoodie back on, as if hiding in the darkness would detract attention away from the spasmatic redheaded devil-of-a-hair-tugger. "Who's Iruka?"

"Iruka! Your beauty college professor, don't you remember? Brown-haired man, tannish skin, scar over his nose…? Oh, right, he wasn't your direct professor, that was Baki, but you knew him, because I met him during orientation, you see? Here, talk to him, he has a job offer to give you."

"Job offer?" Gaara repeated questionably, though his face was passive. Again, he didn't seem to care, though his surrounding family did, evidently. Temari paused in her struggles to fix her hair and Kankuro turned around, face through his hoodie attentive. Of all the three, it was fact to say that Gaara made the least out of all of them, though seeing as they all lived together, it didn't make much of a difference. Actually, that wasn't quite true.

Gaara had a small flat up the street from his current workplace at the Konoha Hair and Nail Salon, which he bunked at when he worked too late or was angry at his siblings, a rare incident. Even though he did make the least out of three, he was the only one who had to pay two sets of water and electricity bills every month and to buy food for himself and Kankuro's ravenous pit-of-a-stomach. It wasn't as if he never received job offers. Temari got gracious compliments on her hair all the time.

The aforementioned redhead easily caught the cellphone tossed at him and put it up to his ear. His voice was neutral.

"My uncle said something about a job offer...?"

-o-o-o-o-

Iruka never knew why or how Sasuke and Naruto had, as Kakashi kindly put it, "split up".

To him, it seemed like in one minute the two went from cheerily playing with each other to disregarding the other's presence. The cold air between the two was terrifying.

The professor had, from years of musing, pinpointed the central turn in relations to graduation day, right after the ceremony. The two had briefly disappeared behind the building when Naruto insisted on chasing a crow who'd stolen his graduation hat, Sasuke reluctantly following him. After a while, Iruka and Itachi—who had stood off to the side looking bored with the world—heard raised voices and shouts before a clearly upset Naruto ran behind Iruka and urged him to leave early.

Sasuke had an even darker cloud about him when he reappeared, lip bloody. Evidently, there had been a fist fight, too.

After that, everything was just like… puuuuuft. Sasuke was angry at Naruto and Naruto was angry at Sasuke and no matter what anyone said, the two wouldn't reconcile. Not even with the prodding of Iruka and Kakashi and even Itachi (on one level) would the two even speak to one another. The distance grew wider and wider as the two entered high school and college—Sasuke, anyway; Naruto didn't go to college—and eventually it became a taboo subject.

You just didn't speak about the other in the presence of one of the two men. It just wasn't done.

-o-o-o-o-

"Screw you, Uchiha! Screw you!!"

A hairbrush was thrown into the air and valiantly collided with the door of a small cottage surrounded by cold and stiff and lifeless trees, staring quite blankly at its attacker. If the below freezing winds hadn't made itself so prevalent today, the blond would have added "car door" and "hairspray" to the list of objects he was trying to vandalize his middle-school buddy's house with—vandalize, with little success.

That cottage door was damn strong.

Roaring, the man bent down and hauled a large piece of snow-mud-ice off the edge of the brunette's lawn, grunting as he tried to shoulder a good grip. Waddling up the porch, he proudly used the quickly crumbling piece to attempt entry into the house, with no avail. What the hell was this door made of?

Uzamaki "Umino" Naruto wasn't tardy to work often, despite a notorious record of tardiness in his high school years. In fact, he tried to remain steadily on time and ready, to avoid contact with the manager's brutal fists and sharp tongue. He didn't like getting jabbed at.

Thus, it was a rare occasion for Naruto to be late, and, as the blond was currently gnashing his teeth about at the moment, for no good reason.

The damn Uchiha wasn't even home.

"Screw you! Screw you! I hope you go to effing hell!" Naruto screamed as loud as he could, giving up his intrusion effort and throwing the chunks of snow-mud-ice onto the ground, effectively dirtying up the once spotless porch. Ha. Ha. Ha. The blond fervently wished the brunette would have to clean that up himself.

Grumbling, he stalked down the porch steps and back up again, eyebrows furrowed and lips stretched taunt in annoyance. He had the childish urge to graffiti the front of the man's house with some age-old orange spray paint he'd stolen years before, but he resisted. Graffiti would just get him arrested, and doing jail time wasn't going to quell his anger.

Squatting down on the steps—carefully, there was still snow spattered about—he irritably brushed specks of dead grass root off of his black pants, eying the now dirty piece of clothing mournfully. He liked these pants. Screw the Uchiha. This was his fault, too.

Maybe he should leave a note behind. Maybe a phone number… no, not a phone number, he didn't even want to hear the guy's voice. Just a note, stuck near his door, a quick apology. When Iruka told him to apologize, he didn't exclude written apologies, right?

Feeling the cold through his now wet gloves, he tore the articles off and threw them in to his car, leaning in through the opened window to rummage through his glove box. The little compartment was filthy—filled with old gum, gum wrappers, cup ramen (how'd that get in there?), instruction manuals, unfinished water bottles… oh, yes, notepad.

Hands now stiff and shaking from the cold, he unsteadily wrote, using a dull pencil he'd managed to fish out of his coat pocket, using the hood of his car as a prop:

Sorry for crashing into you yesterday. Hope you feel better.

Short, anonymous and apologetic. Perfect.

The blond refused to admit that he just truly feared coming face-to-face with the other man—for so long, he's thought of Sasuke as that mildly good-looking middle school kid, and never revised his image though he knew he'd grown. Grown so much, in fact, that Naruto didn't even recognize him even after screaming over the guy's body for ten minutes or so.

Throwing his hands up to his mouth, he warmed up the chilled digits a moment before, still clutching the notes, stalking up to the door and looking for an area to stick the note in. He found the perfect container in the crack of the door, which he promptly stuck then note through and looked at viciously. Stay.

A quiet, mischievous breeze flew from the heavens, lazily brushing up against stiff and unmoving branches; blond, recently cleaned locks of hair; a white slip of paper caught between a door and wall. It tickled a certain hairdresser's hands, which pulsed in an urgent plea to be warm again.

Naruto liked his hands. Tucking them underneath his overcoat, he hurriedly shuffled back into his car and started the engine.

The sooner he could get into the car, the sooner he'd get to work, and the sooner he'd get to work, the sooner he'd get to gossip and have fun and stare at Gaara as much as he liked—no, correction, work with Gaara as much as he liked.

The man would probably slit his throat if he'd even so much as guessed what sort of off-the-wall disturbing thoughts the blond rolled about his brain in his free time. Not that he'd ever tell him what was going on his mind.

Oh, no. He liked his throat.

-o-o-o-o-

"Pivot your head a bit, pivot your head—ah, yes, there we go."

Sasuke, lying down in a black shirt and pants, tossed his head back, attempting to give his image some flair. The photographer pursed his lips, eyes invisible behind too-big sunglasses and a mess of curly hair that fell over his face, all pulled together in a ski cap. Kakashi, dressed in a gray striped suit and boots, peered at the images being pulled together on the camera and gave Sasuke the thumbs up, though the photographer's winced look didn't seem at all positive to the model.

"Sasuke—Sasuke, look at me, darling, I need you to be sexy. Not good looking. Not cool. Sexy." He motioned for the man to profile his torso more. "There we go, now stay there—"

I am sexy, Sasuke thought to himself irritatingly, Uchihas are always sexy. Even, so he tried to twist his body, showing off more elegant cheekbone. He felt like—very simply—a slut. Extravagant makeup clustered around his eyes and cheeks and lips and it made him feel much like some vampire-esque porn star. All white skin and black hair and crazy, suggestive posing.

Damn you Kakashi. He hated modeling for these wild theatrical designer lines. They were not only small and unpopular but unfashionable, too, but it was work and work is money. If only he'd finished recording his third album… perhaps Sasuke could be rid of these stupid low-grade bad photographer type shoots for a while.

"Down! Twirl your hair! Give more energy in your legs! Furrow your brows! Yes! Yes! Good!"

Kakashi gave a small clap of his hands and very pointedly looked at his watch, giving the photographer a reminder of the Uchiha's busy time schedule. The kid had the decency to scowl at the agent before signaling the lighting maintenance to switch off.

"Good, good, Uchiha, very nice. Thank you for your hard work! Bobby, go get me some water."

Sasuke very eagerly tossed off the ridiculous shirt and tie and pants he had been dragged into and took a warm and wet towel, wiping off makeup left and right. Kakashi waited patiently outside the door as the man pulled on a black suit and hat and some more manly accessories, giving the reflection in the mirror a hard squint before quickly leaving the area as fast as he could.

"Do not tell me we have another shoot or filming or walk within the next hour." he growled in the direction of his agent, who was busy trying to avoid looking at the brunette's face.

Kakashi winced. "We don't have a shoot or filming or walk but—" Oh no, Sasuke hated the 'buts'. "—we're hustling you in to a model pick for a walk next week—don't look at me like that, it'll be good. You'll get to look at some nice ladies."

The Uchiha responded by throwing his bottle cap at the man and taking a swig out of his water bottle. Damn agent. Couldn't give him some consideration for once in his twisted psychotic life. Before he could pout or whine or do anything remotely prissy, however, the silver-haired man was already reciting the events of the next hour in fast forward, swiveling the car down the more remote alleyways of the city.

"So we're going to get you in for the model choosing session in about twenty minutes, which is the time I need to drive—after that, I've booked you an hour with a sound producer from your brother's band—don't look at me like that! He's a freaking sound producer, not the antichrist! Anyway, you're going to have some wonderful tea with him—fun, fun—before going to a photo shoot preview uptown. That's right—the Calvin Klein photo shoot I begged my ass in for you to get in."

Sasuke gave no response, just continued to chug water and look at his manicured nails. Kakashi moaned.

"At least look a little pleased! You know how hard it is to get the clients to allow a low-level model into the big labels? Nil! Zero! Impossible! But I got you in! At least be proud of me, just a little."

"I'm proud of you, Kakashi," Sasuke responded in a deadpan voice, frowning at himself in a handheld mirror he'd pulled out of the seat pocket, "I'm proud that you got me into a shoot which does not at all guarantee my face to appear in an advertisement, and probably only accepted me because of my singing career. I'm proud that you couldn't find a stable hairstylist for me to use whenever the companies do not provide hairstylist referrals. I'm proud of you for screwing up my schedule."

Kakashi sighed piteously, smoothing his tie as he drove. It would be too much to expect the singer to compliment him graciously. It was a chilly day, like so many others the days before—the type where breath became snowy and one wanted to pull on all the jackets in one's wardrobe or hide in the covers.

Sasuke was moody, he reasoned, because he was being self-conscious about that little bald patch behind his left ear. The man had been dispatched from the hospital shortly after Iruka's visit and had spent hours staring at the little bald spot the doctors had to create to stitch his head closed. Even now, the brunette was fluffing up the hair covering the spot, fluffing it back down, and frowning at it angrily. The spot hurt too.

Stupid blond kid.

If only he'd gotten a better look at him or the store he'd been carted from, he'd go back and give the guy a piece of his mind.

"Any word of a stable hairdresser?" the Uchiha asked, trying not to sound so hopeful. Big labels usually provided hairstylists for models or salon referrals, true, but with the small companies he'd been to or even the larger lines, hairstylists were assigned or not even provided for him. He didn't quite like having his hair put the hands of someone he didn't even trust.

"Oh, yes, Iruka got back in touch with me," Kakashi hummed, voice chipper again. It frightened the brunette—a chipper tone usually meant the agent's sadistic streak was surfacing again. Though not all the time. Hopefully not. "He says he's got one of his old students to give you a test run, see if the two of you click—" though at the rate we're going at, nothing, seems to click with you, "—but I don't know when he's coming in. He'll just pop up so keep your eye up for him."

"Like a jack-in-the-box?" the singer snarled sarcastically, though he was probably more annoyed by his bald patch than anything. It hurt! It itched! It was embarrassing, seeing that he was in the prime of his life—twenty-four was pretty good, yes?—and he had a bald spot. Bald spot. He continued to prod at it with a delicately trimmed finger, mirror becoming his next best friend.

Kakashi sighed, again, though with a smile tugging at his lips. He caught every movement of his charge through his rearview mirror: the squirming, the pursed lips, wrinkled nose. Everything.

He wondered briefly if Sasuke knew how entertaining he was. No, better not tell him. It was one of the—very few—perks of the job.

He enjoyed seeing Sasuke's pained face as he performed a body-flaunting catwalk down a wood-paneled room, ogled at by fashion designers attempting to select their muses. He enjoyed giving people a mysterious wiggle-of-the-eyebrow, the dark see-you-later look, and edge of something hopeful. He enjoyed driving Sasuke batty. He enjoyed seeing the man squirm when trying to go over his newest recording with a rival sound producer.

Ooh, that was fun.

"Kakashi, you are a dead man," the singer breathed down his back as they left the café, though the agent was alert enough to catch beads of sweat gripping precariously on the younger man's skin. Fun, fun. Kakashi applauded himself.

He knew he was doing a good job if he was making Sasuke sweat.

"God, I'm sticky. Hey, pull over to my apartment a bit, I want to take a shower." Sasuke laid on his back, suit and hat tossed aside, despite the chill. Kakashi showed Sasuke his watch—Rolex, quite expensive, Kakashi—waggling his eyebrows. It made Sasuke feel queasy.

The waggling, not the watch.

"We've got to get to the photo shoot soon, Sasuke-chan."

A glare. "Screw the stupid photo shoot, I need a shower, a towel, anything."

"My shirt?" Kakashi asked suggestively, and earned a scathing glare from his client. He gave a short laugh before finally deciding to give the now sulking singer a break from his sadistic teasing. "I'm sure some of the more experienced models will help you out once we get there, alright? Just wait a bit." The man even dared to roll down the windows, allowing bursts of chilling January air into the car, as if the damn cold would help dry his skin.

It did help dry his skin, actually. It was just cold.

"Do all the newbies have blue lips? Oh, don't glare at me like that, I know who you are." A model hustled him inside the backroom, dressed in a satin halter top and heels and hair still in the middle of curling, evidently busy. The inside of the room was clean, actually, as opposed to the littered gum-plastered hellholes Sasuke had grudgingly grown used to—very professional.

There were many unfamiliar faces scuttling about the linoleum floors, either trying on or being measured for clothes, though Sasuke immediately recognized two women already finished and allowing makeup-artists to put on the finishing touches.

Tayuya was not someone Sasuke had gotten along with in previous shoots, though personal preferences were obviously irrelevant in the professional world. She was crude, foul-mouthed, arrogant, short and scraped upon her neighbor's nerves like sandpaper against porcelain glass. In fact, she had been one of the other models in the Orochimaru production and had spent the majority of her time with the brunette making insulting remarks about his hair.

Not that having to have horns plastered on your head was embarrassing. Oh no. Sasuke had bit his lip keeping back a rhinoceros comment and attempted to ignore her for the rest of the shoot.

Sabaku Temari, on the other hand, the brunette respected. Despite the fact he'd only met her once in person, he dabbled into Japanese gossip enough to know that Temari was probably the only Japanese model who'd managed to get her face printed for top notch labels and top notch magazines and had connections enough to make even some American-born actresses turn green.

The brief moment he'd shared with the woman during a fashion-related party had given him the impression of a proud and self-assured model with no tolerance for too-dominating men—very set in her own beliefs and styles and personality, obviously.

Despite her occasional sassiness, however, all would be forgiven because of her legs.

She had drop-dead gorgeous legs.

Even Kakashi raised a brow at them before quickly striding over to the director or manager or whoever ran these things to discuss Sasuke's part in the production. The man—European? Certainly not American, with his elegant accent and posture—stroked his moustache a moment before, scanning about the room of half-dressed men and women, barking: "Sabaku! Come here!"

Temari sauntered over, bare-footed and licking her lips as she exchanged glances between the manager and this newbie-of-a-model. "Yes?"

"Teach the kid how to walk, okay? He better have it down within ten minutes, 'cause that's when the shoot starts, so get to it."

The blonde quickly narrowed her eyes, mascara accenting her sudden deep-sea glower. Throwing a scowl at the back of the European man, she turned to the Uchiha and immediately recognized him from a CD album Gaara had once brought home. In fact, she stood and stared at him for quiet some time before speaking.

"Walk!" Her coarse, sharp voice jolted the brunette, who hadn't been expecting being ordered around. He blinked, hands slipped firmly in his pocket in an attempt to warm himself up.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me! Walk! Move those manly arms of yours or something. Let's see what I have to work with." As if to emphasize her point, the blonde gave a cool runway walk down the middle of the dressing room and back, back straight and every movement revealing that great flow of leg. Flipping her hair over her shoulder, she looked at the brunette expectantly.

Sasuke, unused to being shouted at or ordered around in such a manner, remained hunched up near the entrance of the room. A skeptical look had crept upon his face. "What does walking have to do with a photo shoot? Don't I just have to stand around?"

"That is not the point!" The blonde responded, arms crossed in front of her chest. "The walk is the most fundamental modeling skill and skills you use in the walk influence your performance while standing still. Most importantly, the walk teaches you how to hold your core—different for everybody—so you can amplify that in the photos, understand?" She stepped back and pointed down the room. "Now walk."

Sasuke sighed, taking a quick glance at Kakashi. The gray-haired agent was standing aside, still discussing matters with the manager, blindly ignoring whatever the hell was going on behind him at the moment. Dammit.

Taking off his jacket, he squared back his shoulders and took a moment to think: how do you walk?

Before he could let discern creep onto his face, however, he plowed through and made a quick stride down the middle of the room, feeling like an idiot.

Temari evidently thought he looked like an idiot, too. "Fish legs!" She called out, startling him and gaining incredulous looks from a few other models, "What the hell are you doing? The limbo? Walk from the core! The core! Look natural." She took a small spin and landed on her toes, as if demonstrating to the brunette exactly what he didn't do.

Sasuke narrowed ebony-colored eyes, inwardly fuming. The woman held a large part of Sasuke's respect, but it didn't mean he had to like it when she was picking on him. Again, he strode down the room, this time walking normally—casual stride, back only slightly pulled back, face expressionless. He turned around on his heel, giving the blonde a look: "Now?"

"Better," the blonde muttered under her breath, cocking her head and crossing her arms as she, again, examined the amateur. "Walk's passable, physical features will look fine with makeup… only problem I see is…"

She reached out and, without shame, gave the singer a little smack on the butt. "Need a little more exercise," she winked.

Sasuke stared at her with wide, disbelieving eyes, as if absolutely shocked at what she'd just done. In fact, he was shocked. The only other person who'd ever managed to touch his butt was his brother, and that was just Itachi coolly making jabs at his "flab". The older Uchiha would rather be spending time touching Kisame's butt, but the Foolish Little Brother must learn.

Temari gave a bark of a laugh, bemused in some odd twisted way (in Sasuke's mind, at least): "Oh, come now, you better get used to people touching you. This is the modeling world! Try and feel complimented when someone reaches over and takes a pinch of ass, okay?"

Sasuke continued to stare, and would have kept on staring if Kakashi had not at that moment came slinking back from the manager. "Hey, Sasuke, it's about time get dressed and do your hair and makeup, so hustle over here for a minute." He gave a quick—almost apologetic?—nod to Temari, whose hands were on her hips, expecting thanks.

Kakashi scratched the back of his hair, sighing. What was with women and recognition?

"Oh, yes… thank you, Ms. Sabaku, you do wonders to our little Uchiha. We'll see on set." This seemed to satisfy the woman nicely and she returned to her station without a word. Kakashi scratched the back of his head again before rolling back suddenly aching shoulders and tucking his planner underneath his arm. Women. Though she did have nice legs.

"Hey, Sasuke, do you want to hear some good news?"

"Coming from you, it'd probably not that good." The Uchiha had seemingly recovered his dignity and was coolly crossing his arms, leaning on his right foot. Kakashi cocked his head teasingly—he knew his charge too well. With the slight goose-bumps on his arms and a quick darting of his eyes, Sasuke was far from cool. Disturbed, in fact.

"Mah, have some more faith in me, Sasuke. I promise it's good!" He hushed his voice using his planner, tone low. "Your hairstylist's come in! I just had a quick look at him, and he's already much better than your previous ones, so you'll probably be happy. Here, we'll meet him in the hallway."

Sasuke was much less enthusiastic. He trusted Iruka much more than perverted Kakashi, true, but his unrealistic expectations have already shot down even the most patient hairdressers, leading to a sense of… hopelessness. Shrugging back on his coat—much to the chagrin of one of the Calvin Keith designers who was attempting to select an outfit based on the Uchiha's body type—he coolly stepped outside.

And stopped. He slowly turned his head to examine a casually lounging man squatting on a bench, knees pulled up to his chest. The sitting man looked as if he was dozing.

Wow.

A pause. Sasuke paused, at least.

The only thing that popped out of his mouth first was: "I like your hair."

-o-o-o-o-

AN: I apologize that this chapter took so long to write... that, and this was mostly a transition chapter, anyway -is shot-. I promise more lovey-dovey stuff next chapter as well as the somewhat? conclusion of Neji and his hair. I love all of your reviews and can't help but share my thanks XD. No matter what reviews say, they all push me to finish writing the next chapter (not saying that I won't write the next chapter if you don't review, but doing so gives me confidence to go a little faster). Yes, there is brief scene with Gaara's family in this chapter, and a taste of how everyone and everything is connected in this fanfiction. This nameless Californian town must be pretty damn small if everyone that is remotely Japanese knows everything about each other. Anyway, thank you so much for reading! And I'd love it if you contiuned to leave reviews. Even if you just say "great. update soon " I'll cherish it with all my heart XD.