A Day in the Life
October 29th
The boss is in jail. Jiraiya has had to raid his bank account to come up with the cash for the bail money because the police wouldn't take plastic. He's counting out the cash right now, and he doesn't look too happy. I don't know why he's so irritated. The boss will pay him back later - and it's not as though neither of them can afford it. Then again, maybe it's because Orochimaru gave him a black eye earlier. The bruise is blooming nicely now. His eye is all red and puffy. I would laugh, but technically it's my fault. Actually, I might just laugh anyway because if he hadn't given me away, this wouldn't have happened in the first place.
Naruto has handed me a cup of coffee from a nearby vending machine. I've just had a sip and it tastes like liquid chipboard. Lovely. Naruto doesn't seem too keen on it either, as he's just screwed up his face and tipped the contents into a nearby plant pot. The plant is looking rather sad and yellow. It's probably been poisoned by all the cups of ground chipboard coffee that have been poured into it.
I suppose I should explain why I'm in the Konoha Police Station waiting room with Naruto and Jiraiya still wearing only my boxers and an old, musty blanket.
Well, to put it concisely, it is because no one - and I mean no one - can kick up a fuss quite like the boss. When he does go off on one, guaranteed, you will know about it. The reasons as to why he ended up in jail, however, requires a more lengthy elucidation.
Okay. Here goes...
About ten minutes after I rounded up my last entry, the doorbell rang and Jiraiya went to answer it. I was still in Jiraiya's house, sitting in front of the fire and shivering with fear in my boxers with the aforementioned musty blanket draped round my shoulders (provided by Jiraiya). Naruto had offered to lend me moral support and he was sitting next to me, looking defiant. He was also shivering, but that was more to do with the fact that Jiraiya had no clothes to fit him, so he was still stuck with the damp towel - though he, too, had a blanket. His was decidedly less musty. It's clear who was the favourite...
I could hear voices out in the hallway. It was Jiraiya talking to the boss, evidently trying to calm him down by making soothing, conciliatory noises. Orochimaru was having none of it, though. He stormed into the room with fire in his eyes, looking incredibly unkempt. His hair was flying all over his face and it seemed that he hadn't even bothered to put on his purple eye make-up. Naruto swallowed and placed his hand on my shoulder as a gesture of solidarity.
That was the wrong thing to do.
It only took a second for Orochimaru's eyes to take in the scene before him, ensuring that he got the wrong end of the stick: Naruto and I both sitting together beside the fire, one of us naked, one of us almost there, with Naruto laying his hand on my shoulder and staring up at him defiantly.
He just stood there for a moment with an odd smile on his face, not looking at either of us. Then, without a word or any sort of gesture to indicate to us what he was about to do, he totally went for Naruto.
It was terrifying. One minute he was on the other side of the room, the next he was dragging Naruto to the floor by the hair and attempting to beat seven shades out of him. The boss was screaming incoherently, though a few rather telling phrases soon revealed to me his motives. Dotted intermittently among left and right hooks, a selection of these choice phrases were:
"Never, ever touch my Sasuke-kun again, you brainless, blonde piece of—"
"He is mine... MINE!! Do you understand?"
"If you go near him again, I swear I'll—"
"— rip your dick off and show it to you!!"
"—beat the living shit out of you, you nasty, little—"
Needless to say, when the boss took it upon himself to smash Naruto's face into a glass cabinet, I stepped in. Taking it at a run, I howled and leapt onto the boss's back. He wasn't expecting it, so I managed to use my weight and momentum against him, toppling him to the floor. He went "oof" when he landed and he rolled around a bit, clutching his chest and gasping for breath. I may have been a little overzealous in restraining him. This gave Naruto time to stagger to his feet and, without thinking, I went over to him to see if he was okay because the cut on his face was bleeding copiously.
Orochimaru gasped from his prostrate position, "So you are with him, then? Why, you lying, deceitful, little— I knew it. I knew it!"
I started yelling at the boss, saying that he had totally misunderstood the whole situation and that I was most definitely not with Naruto. The boss laughed scornfully and said that he wouldn't fall for my lies a second time. I tried my best to explain what had happened, but the boss wouldn't hear of it. My temper started to fray at this point and I called him an idiot, among other more colourful names. Needless to say, Orochimaru didn't take this kindly and he started yelling at me. Then Naruto staggered to his feet and joined in the shouting match, feeling the need to inform Orochimaru that "Sasuke doesn't belong to you, you creep! He belongs to no one but himself!" which did nothing to help and only made the boss's rage meter go off the scale. He snarled and went for Naruto again, but at this point Jiraiya came into the room with a tray and four cups of tea. His jaw dropped and the tray and the tea went crashing to the floor with reckless abandon as he rushed to Naruto's aid.
I stopped him, however, by whirling round and screaming at him to "CALL THE POLICE, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!!" I must have looked really quite frightening because Jiraiya nodded and sprinted out of the room. Within minutes, he was back with the police, and when he tried to tear Naruto and the boss apart, the boss hissed alarmingly and planted a spectacular left-hook on his right eye. Jiraiya started yelling and cursing and turning the air blue and he ended up going for the boss. As the police told Naruto and I to stand outside while they "neutralised the situation", we didn't get to see the rest of the drama unfolding, but we could hear vague, muffled roars and things being thrown and broken.
A kindly police-woman tended to Naruto's wound and while she did so, I tried to explain to Naruto why Orochimaru assaulted him. At first, I was a little embarrassed, so I used a fair few euphemisms and was rather circumlocutory in my explanation. Naruto, it must be said, however, is not one for subtlety. Instead, I had to resort to no-frills, straightforward and nasty. I said, "Naruto, I think he thought that I'd ran away to have sex with you."
Naruto's brow furrowed in puzzlement.
"But Sasuke..." he said. "Why would I want to have sex with you?"
I sighed. "You don't," I explained patiently. "But Orochimaru doesn't know that. Remember the time in the hotel at Jiraiya's party when he saw the both of us together in my room - he accused me of cheating then, too."
Naruto still looked confused. I stared at him impatiently until realisation dawned.
"Oh!" Naruto said, a huge grin suddenly creeping over his face. "Your boss is jealous of me, right Sasuke?"
It was strange to think of it that way, but yes, that was basically it. I informed Naruto that he was thinking along the right lines and he started giggling hysterically. Personally, I didn't think it was very funny, so I smacked him over the back of the head and the police-woman gave me a warning look that said: "Don't you dare start anything out here." So I didn't, and settled for glaring at Naruto, who was choking trying to hold back a fit of the sniggers.
A few minutes later, Orochimaru emerged and was bundled into the back of a police car, handcuffed. While all of this was happening, I was hiding behind Naruto because I didn't want the boss to see me. We watched Jiraiya receiving a stern telling-off from three policemen before he was free to go. When Jiraiya spotted me, he stormed over towards me and said, pointing to the freshly blooming bruise on his eye, "This is all your fault, Uchiha! You're coming up to the police station with me right now and you're going to tell Oro the truth!"
Still with no proper clothing, (my protests fell upon deaf ears) I ended up speeding towards the police station with Naruto in the back of Jiraiya's BMW. Jiraiya strode purposefully up to reception to arrange the bail and I was shown in to Orochimaru's cell by a smirking police-officer, whom I silenced with the iciest of Uchiha glares I could muster. When he had backed off and left me alone, I suddenly felt a shiver down my spine.
The boss was sitting at the far end of his cell and his face was obscured by darkness. I could tell he was looking at me, though. The hairs on the back of my neck were tingling. It was like Silence of the Lambs, only I was playing the part of Clarice Starling and the boss was Hannibal Lecter. I was half-expecting him to say, "Hello, Clarice..." in an intensely creepy voice, but instead he said, "It's you. What the hell do you want?"
I said, "Maybe now that it's come to this, you'll actually listen to me and believe me when I say that I have not, nor will I ever, like Naruto in that way."
The boss descended into a petulant silence for a moment, before countering with, "If you think I'll fall for that again, Sasuke-kun, then you are sorely, sorely mistaken. Why did I see you running down the street - away from me - with Naruto? Why were you only in your underwear? Why was he only wearing a towel?"
The boss was getting agitated again, so I had to explain to him why I ended up in that situation in the first place. Of course, it meant bringing up the cause of the whole debacle: the SHAGGER incident. When I had finished doing what I thought was reminding him about why he was going to fire me originally, to my horror, he looked at me as if I'd gone completely daft and said, "What?"
Feeling slightly faint, I said, "You didn't know that I drew all over your staff photo picture?"
He said, "No."
"So you weren't going to fire me at all?" I asked.
"No, Sasuke-kun," was the boss's impatient reply. "All I remember is ordering you out of my bed, and the next thing I knew you were calling in sick, handing in your notice and leaving Otogakure to stay at the home of an individual with whom I found you romping around in your underwear not long before."
I corrected Orochimaru by informing him that Naruto and I were most definitely not "romping" (who says that nowadays, anyway? The boss definitely showed his age there) and I also stressed that Naruto is a very good friend, who was supporting me during a time of personal crisis.
There was a long, awkward silence in which neither of us spoke. Then the boss looked up and said, bluntly, "You are an imbecile, Sasuke-kun."
Indignant, I countered by pointing out the salient fact that he was the one in jail, not I, therefore I could be considered a great deal less imbecilic.
"You are an imbecile, Sasuke-kun," he said again, glaring at me through the bars with such force that I thought it best just to leave it there.
For a while, I stood looking at the ground, the shame of my stupidity beginning to catch up on me. I think the boss was working along the same lines because neither of us could look each other in the eye. Before I left, I told him that Jiraiya was paying up for his bail and that Naruto wasn't going to press charges. He didn't say anything, so I signalled the prison guard to let me out and I went back out to the waiting room.
October 30th
I am at Jiraiya's. Naruto is here. The boss is, too. He got let off with a caution and when the police had let him go free, Jiraiya drove us all back to his place. It was a bit of a mess. I say "a bit of a mess", when what I really meant was that it looked like someone had dropped a shrapnel bomb in it. As punishment, we had to help clean up. It took us a good couple of hours. After that, Naruto and Orochimaru had a chat. I wasn't privy to the conversation, but it seemed to go well, as both of them emerged from the kitchen looking fairly happy. When that was over and done with, Jiraiya drove Naruto home and I was left alone with the boss.
He had been giving me the silent treatment all evening and it was killing me. I can handle anything except the silent treatment. It drives me crazy. I hate being ignored. Besides, I was ready to just cut my losses, as I was convinced that after the whole jail thing, he would be content never to see my face again. So when we were taking off our rubber gloves at the sink (cleaning - ugh) I apologised for being such an idiot, and asked whether it would be possible to pay for the laptop because I had formed an unnatural attachment to it (this is true - I cannot part with it).
He turned round and looked at me in incredulous disbelief.
"Sasuke-kun," he said, "if you think you're getting away after all the trouble I've went through, then you are labouring under a delusion - one which I will take great pains to dispel."
I asked if that meant I wasn't fired. Orochimaru pinched the bridge of his nose exasperatedly and replied that, yes, I was correct and that "perhaps being around Naruto had dulled the sharpness of my intellect". He then threw his rubber gloves down in that petulant manner of his before announcing that he would be flying back to Otogakure tomorrow morning - with me.
I can't decide whether I am incredibly lucky, or whether this is Orochimaru's sick, twisted way of punishing me for my transgressions.
Maybe it's a bit of both...
October 31st
I am on Orochimaru's private jet on an unchartered flight back to Otogakure. As of now, I am also on a quest to regain my dignity and get back into his good books. He hasn't spoken to me for the duration of the flight, but I know for certain that this won't last long. I know him too well. His raging libido will not allow it.
I'll have to turn on the charm.
LATER: He is not responding to the Uchiha charm. This is unfair and unprecedented. Everyone falls for me eventually, for god's sake, it's not like it's rocket science! He is sitting across from me, his legs curled up on the chair and determinedly reading a book. It appears to be a book on philosophy (I don't want to have to crane my neck to see the title and give myself away by seeming too eager). I might have to ask about it. It's my last resort.
LATER: Hah! Got through to him. I knew that knowledge was his weakness and I casually asked what the book was about. He replied that it was to do with nihilism and nihilistic movements. Since I have never studied philosophy, I subtly slipped in an innocent, "Oh, so what's nihilism?" question while tilting my head to one side and twirling a bit of hair round my finger (it never fails!) The boss couldn't resist and he ended up giving my a quick philosophy lesson, during which he warmed up to me considerably. He explained to me that nihilism is the philosophical position which argues that there is no evidence of a higher creator, and that, therefore, true 'morality' does not exist and secular ethics are impossible. Leading on from that, life can be said to have no truth and no action is preferable to any other. Essentially, according to nihilists, the world is without objective meaning, comprehensible truth, or essential value.
I said, "So basically that means the universe equals shit, so you can do whatever the hell you like?"
Orochimaru smiled (I am so good) and said that, yes, that was a good way of summarising things. I then asked the boss if he subscribed to that philosophy and he replied that he did. "Very much so", in fact. Partly out of genuine curiosity, I inquired as to whether, then, he believed in nothing at all, because it seemed like a massive paradox to me. At this point, he became quite animated and I knew I had him. He loves talking to me. I'm the only person in Otogakure he can have an intelligent conversation with. Well... I suppose there's Kabuto, but he actually talks back. I'm a good listener, and that's what the boss likes. He explained that being a nihilist does not necessarily mean you believe in nothing. Apparently, it's more like liberating oneself from creeds and practices like those of religious or political establishments which are justified by an appeal to supposed "objective values".
"And whose objective values are those who are liberated then to adopt?" I asked casually, leaning towards him slightly and executing my hair twirl of doom. "Those of the nihilists? It's a human compunction to form a collective consciousness."
I'm lying. I have totally studied philosophy. It was one of my favourite classes back at the Academy because I could argue with Iruka-sensei all afternoon if I wanted to - and I frequently did so. It seems that Orochimaru has a fondness for it, too, which can only be a good thing for me.
The boss smiled wryly and told me to be quiet, but not in an irritated way. He was smiling when he said it, which makes me think I've impressed him somehow.
I'll have to execute stage two of my plan...
LATER: I am armed with champagne and strawberries. Let's see him cold-shoulder his way out of this one.
Oro in jail - can I say lol? I think I can. Just picturing him being bundled into the back of a police car is almost too much...
Once again, you guys have been incredibly charitable and have left lots of lovely reviews. I'd especially like to thank Riana1, foreverloved, qwertumz, Eriisu-chan, danni quinn, Wolfkun, Ayatsuji, Simple-Minded-Idiot and missyserena214. You guys are all awesome. I'd also like to thank anyone who has reviews so far. It's a cool thing to do. I appreciate it.
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