A Day in the Life

November 24th

Right now, life is good. As it happens, it is also full of hilarity and happiness.

About forty minutes after I rounded up my last entry, the boss woke up and went into the kitchen to make some tea. He immediately clocked his reflection in the glass front of the oven door, spotted the braids, and ended up chasing me around the living room with a cushion, demanding that I untangle his hair. I eluded him for a good few minutes, dancing around the coffee-table and sniggering like a maniac, until he pouted and threw himself down on the sofa in a sulk. Eventually, I took pity and spent about an hour undoing all my hard work in front of the TV.

A little while later, in order to celebrate our new "official" status, I was kissed into the bedroom by the boss. No sex was had, however, because in the middle of a particularly heavy, steamy fumble the boss did something with his tongue which made me giggle. He looked up at me, grinned, and then he started giggling. The next thing we knew, we were both lying on the bed, tangled in the sheets, and crying with laughter for no real reason. We tried to start over, but it lasted all of five minutes before the giggle-fit descended upon us once again with a vengeance, so we gave up and went back through to the sitting room to decide what we were going to do the next day.

I told the boss that the Otogakure gang were planning on doing touristy stuff while in Konoha, and, surprisingly, he seemed really keen on the idea, informing me that "it would be nice to get to know my employees a little better". Thus, when the boss had phoned round and sent out a general notice, the Otogakure Enterprises Big Day Out to Hokage Mountain was born (with a few stragglers from Konoha-Suna Corp tagging along for good measure). While I was in bed reading a book and sipping on a cup of Fair Trade hot chocolate (it had mini marshmallows and whipped cream in it - I almost died and went to heaven), I heard him talking to Jiraiya. By the tone of his voice, something wasn't right, and when he came into the bedroom, I inquired as to whether everything was well on planet Jiraiya. The boss grimaced and shook his head, saying that I didn't want to know.

Naturally, since I am a suspicious sort, this fobbing me off with such a poor excuse only made me want to know more, so I pestered him repeatedly until he caved. Jiraiya, it turned out, had a new girlfriend and wanted to bring her along. The boss isn't too happy about it because he has had years of experience in dealing with Jiraiya's girlfriends, but because Jiraiya is his best friend, he can't exactly force him to exclude his latest significant other from any trips out.

I asked the boss what was so bad about that. "After all," I said, "Jiraiya has put up with a considerable amount of shit in the name of our relationship."

"That's different," the boss replied, waving a hand irritatedly. "Completely different. I could hear her in the background when I was on the phone. Just wait until tomorrow, Sasuke-kun," he added, turning over and switching off the light, "and you'll see what I'm talking about."

We were up bright and early this morning, and after having had some nice sex (the giggles had just about dissipated) followed by some nice breakfast, we wandered down to the lobby to meet everyone else. Suigetsu, Karin, Amachi and Gen'yumaru were already there. Kabuto was also with them and was lying stretched out along one of the big, squashy sofas with a copy of Women's Own draped over his face. It seemed that now he was no longer psychotically obsessed with the boss, he had been reinstated in his former position in the gang. Each and every one of them was reeking of booze, thus it was no surprise to me when Suigetsu tittered and whispered in my ear that they'd only just got back from Club Fun Fun about an hour before.

While the boss sat down at Kabuto's head and inquired after his health, I had a peek outside to see whether anyone was hanging around there. I found Naruto, Sakura and Kakashi waiting impatiently for Tsunade to finish her fifth cigarette of the morning. We ended up chatting, and just as Tsunade was regaling us with a rather hilarious reminiscence involving herself, the boss, Jiraiya, a massive pair of Y-fronts and a wheel-trim, Jiraiya pulled up in his BMW. As soon as his girlfriend emerged from the passenger seat, I knew what the boss was talking about. Everyone present just sort of stared. We couldn't help it. It was train wreck material, I swear to god.

Bedecked with at least twenty plastic bracelets of varying colours on each arm, Jiraiya's latest squeeze stood at about five foot two inches tall. Blonde and tanned with a pair of perky breasts squeezed into a tight pink top upon which the word "PRINCESS" was emblazoned in a silver, glittery bubble font, she stared at us with her huge, blue eyes - framed, as it happened, by a little too much eyeliner. She looked as though she was hardly out of school (I was later to learn that she was sixteen and still, in fact, at school).

Jiraiya grinned, wrapped his arm around her waist and introduced her as Kiku. We nodded vaguely and said hello, and after blowing a massive, pink bubble with her gum, Kiku answered, "Yah, hi," and said to Jiraiya, "So, babe, are these, like, your friends?"

Jiraiya confirmed that her insightful observation was true and when we had each been introduced to Kiku in turn, we made our way into the lobby. The boss looked up and blanched when he saw Kiku. Unfortunately for him, Jiraiya was intent upon having them meet, and while I was sitting talking to Naruto and Sakura, I could hear her saying to the boss, "Like, wow, your hair's beautiful! What conditioner do you use? It's, like, really long and soft! Can I touch it?"

Now, I had to do something about that because, since we are Official, no one except me is allowed to touch the boss's hair. Therefore, I excused myself from the conversation with Naruto and Sakura and stalked over and sat down next to the boss and gave him a small squeeze to let Kiku know that the boss's hair was my territory and that if she dared touch it, I'd have to pin her to the floor in a fit of jealous rage and bite her fingers off. She blinked and said, "Oh, yah, I totally forgot. You guys are going steady, aren't you?"

We informed her that this was indeed the case.

Then she tilted her head to one side, observed us and for some reason felt the need to say to the boss, while masticating vigorously on her chewing gum, "That's cool. I'm totally down with that. But he's way too cute for you, you know."

In the manner of an unstoppable, unavoidable avalanche of blithe tactlessness - totally heedless of the fact that the boss's eye had begun to twitch slightly - Kiku then went on to suggest to the boss that he lay off the purple eye make-up because, although it was a "bitchin" shade, it clashed with his eyes. And after sneaking a quick, critical look at his arse, she also offered the boss a discount at the gym she worked at part-time (where, apparently, she met Jiraiya) because - and get this - she felt that he needed to lose a few around there.

By this time, the boss was almost incandescent with rage, and I was just sitting there with my mouth open, unable to say a word. Luckily, the cars arrived and Jiraiya came over and scooped up Kiku in one arm and escorted her away. For the whole of the car journey up to Hokage Mountain, the boss seethed and ranted about how much he hated Kiku. "She is the worst yet, Sasuke-kun!" he said. "How dare she? The utter nerve of her! Saying I have a— a— How incredibly rude!"

He was becoming quite agitated, so I had to console him and reassure him that, no, I did not think he had a fat arse and also that I found his eye make-up quite attractive. He calmed down a little after that, but when we all met up again in the car-park, he didn't look at or say a word to either Jiraiya or Kiku and stormed off on his own in a bad mood.

I had to track him down before we got in the cable-cars (I found him in the gift shop), and I arranged it so that there was absolutely no possibility of us having to share with Kiku. We ended up cramming in one car with Kabuto, Sakura, Tsunade and Naruto. It turns out that Kiku had also managed to offend Tsunade irretrievably, so she had the boss had a lot to talk about. Kabuto was still feeling a bit rough and he couldn't stop yawning the whole way up. It would have been mind-numbingly dull had the revelation of Sakura's almost crippling fear of heights not come about through the help of Naruto's retarded antics.

About halfway up the mountain, Naruto announced to all those present in the cable-car that we were really high up. "Really, really, really high up!" For a few minutes, he waxed lyrical on the smallness of the general population of Konoha far below at sea-level, before grinning and moving on to give the car a gentle shake by pushing it side to side. Up until this point, Sakura had been strangely quiet, appearing to be content to stare fixedly at the durbar pattered steel floor rather than looking out at the wonderful view. As her knuckles were white from clutching at the edge of her seat, I realised that something was wrong, and I inquired as to whether she was well. "I'm fine, Sasuke," she replied with a faint smile. "I'm just a little afraid of heights, is all. Once I'm up there, I should be okay."

But at that moment, Naruto decided to up the ante in his inane cable-car shaking game and when the whole car was swaying dangerously on the line, Kabuto opened his eyes and casually said, "You know, Naruto-kun, if you build up any more momentum the whole thing will come off the cable and each of us will plummet to an untimely and messy demise."

I think that titbit of information pushed Sakura over the edge, as her hand suddenly shot out and grabbed Naruto really quite hard by the arm. "Naruto," she said hoarsely, as she dragged him towards her and looked him squarely in the eye, "if you do that one more time, I will break both your legs. Do you understand?"

Naruto nodded, made a noise that sounded like "meep", and he was released from Sakura's vice-like grip. Shortly after, we arrived at the summit of Hokage mountain and group photos were taken. A random, passing tourist was roped into taking the photograph on five different digital cameras belonging to various members of the group. It took us ten minutes to get some decent pictures because Suigetsu blinked in one, the boss was talking to Tsunade in another, Kakashi and Naruto both flipped off the camera in a later attempt, and in one particularly lewd shot, Jiraiya was caught in the midst of a full-on and deliberate Kiku boob-grope.

After that, we headed round the forest trail, and I spent most of the time, surprisingly, with Kabuto. When he's not being a plotting, scheming wanker, he is actually rather likeable, and I found myself enjoying his sensible company as he filled me in on last night's Club Fun Fun shenanigans. Apparently, despite swearing that he wouldn't, he got absolutely plastered and ended up entering in for, and winning, the Fun Fun Fun Clubber of the Month competition. I asked what that involved and he shook his head and said, "You don't want to know."

Why does everyone assume that I don't want to know? Really. Is there some sort of grand conspiracy to keep me in the dark about things? Let it be known, world, that I do, in fact, want to know. Knowingly not knowing makes me paranoid and brings me out in a rash.

Anyway, I kept at Kabuto until he revealed the sordid details of his triumph. There were several rounds the entrants had to go through, and the last man or woman standing was the winner. Suigetsu and Amachi entered too, but they were knocked out in the dildo-swallowing round. Kabuto had to emerge victorious through a gauntlet of gruelling trials, including, but not limited to: the dildo-swallowing contest (rather like sword-swallowing, but with a unique Club Fun Fun spin), licking the most peanut butter in the fastest time from a line of assembled arse-cracks, downing a yard of diesel, eating a raw egg without puking, and, perhaps the worst, drinking half a glass of DJ Chris's warm piss.

I marvelled at Kabuto's iron stomach and wondered aloud as to how he was still standing. Kabuto said that as soon as the contest was over and he had been presented with his trophy and sash in front of the cheering crowd, he had run to the toilet and had spewed his guts out. I laughed and said that that explained things, and the rest of the walk round the forest was spent chatting idly. At one point, Suigetsu made the boss laugh rather loudly and I heard him saying "Shhh, he'll hear you," clearly referring to me. No doubt my co-worker was regaling the boss with dirty stories concerning myself. Oh well. That was alright. As long as he didn't mention the Tayuya and the twins episode. That one could be embarrassing...

We lost Jiraiya and Kiku about three-quarters of the way round. Naruto and Kakashi were sent to find them. The whole group would have accompanied them, but Tsunade and the boss vetoed it. Half an hour later, Naruto and Kakashi had returned empty-handed and the boss huffed and rolled his eyes and sent a rather terse text to Jiraiya to let him know we'd be down at the Kaiseki restaurant just outside the hotel - if he felt like joining us.

The descent was uneventful, bar my chancing to look up and see Suigetsu and Naruto mooning us from the next cable car, and we arrived at the restaurant in good time, though we had to wait fifteen minutes before starting, because the boss sent Naruto home to change into something more suitable. I asked him what Kiku would do if she turned up with Jiraiya, but the boss didn't answer me. He just smiled in a nasty way and sat down.

Eventually, Jiraiya turned up with Kiku halfway through the tea ceremony. This was no surprise to anyone because we could hear Jiraiya yelling at the front of house staff, accusing them of snobbery. When they finally appeared, Kiku was blissfully unaware of all the trouble she'd caused and sat down with a jingle of plastic bangles, stealing one of Tsunade's napkins so she could spit her gum into it. Jiraiya's face was like thunder, however, and through gritted teeth, he asked the boss if he could have a word with him.

The boss smiled and obliged, and he was taken round the back of a bamboo screen. Now, personally, I didn't much see the point of that because I could hear every single word of their ferociously whispered conversation anyway.

Jiraiya: "You did that on purpose, Oro."
The boss: "Excuse me?"
Jiraiya: "I know it. You did that on purpose just to humiliate us!"
The boss: "And how exactly have you arrived at that illogical conclusion? I had someone book the table last night. You had ample time to inform her. How was I to know your little harridan would turn up in jeans and a t-shirt?"
Jiraiya: "Don't call her that! You know nothing about her!"
The boss: "I know enough."
Jiraiya: "You know what, you think you're so fucking clever, Oro, you really do. I've had it up to here with you right now, so just shut up and don't talk to me."

For the rest of the afternoon, neither of them spoke to one another, and because it was made silently but explicitly clear that Tsunade had sided with the boss, Jiraiya spent the duration of the meal in sullen silence. Everyone else, however, was fairly perky, and I ended up chatting to Kiku about her schoolwork. Despite the boss having it in for her in a big way, she wasn't as loathsome or as idiotic as I had originally thought. Though she does tend to use phrases such as: "yah", "duh", and "like", a little too frequently, apparently, her grades are quite impressive and she's going to sit her final exams soon with hope to either get a job at Konoha-Suna Corp. in Jiraiya's department or to apply for a place at the University of Konoha (to do sports science). I learned that her favourite colours are pink and baby blue, that her favourite bands are The Lost Prophets and Streetlight Manifesto and that her favourite drink is Pepsi. She should get on famously with Itachi. I also learned that she also wasn't allowed to be out late because she had a paper to finish for her language project tomorrow. I said that that was quite understandable, and offered my help should she ever need it for future projects.

I can't make up my mind yet whether she's going out with Jiraiya for the money and the fun, or because she genuinely likes him. Maybe it's too early to tell. I tried broaching the subject with the boss earlier on when we had arrived back at the hotel and he had come out the shower in a haze of steam with a towel wrapped round his head. His bias against, her, I am afraid to say, rather clouded his judgement.

"She's a nasty, little gold-digger who's more trouble than she's worth, Sasuke-kun," was his curt reply. "Don't be taken in."

Right now, he's on the phone to Tsunade ranting about Kiku. She's on speaker-phone and I can hear them both through the wall. I must confess, I am astounded. I had no idea Tsunade could be so bitchy. I expected it from the boss, of course, but Tsunade? God knows what she says about me behind my back.

Poor, little Kiku. She really has no clue what she's managed to get herself into...

Hello guys! Thanks for the well-wishes and stuff for the jaunt down to London. The gig was fantastic and I'm rather glad I went. It was Muse at Wembley stadium in case you were wondering.

I think it's that time again, though. Yes! Time for the thanks, because without you guys, this story really wouldn't be as fun to write.

Thanks must go out to: qwertumz (I agree. Seeing Hidan and Kabuto duking it out would be so fantastic, I think I might weep just thinking about it. Kabuto would sooooo win), Voltra the Lively (Yay! Sasuke has got off scot-free, though he still needs official confirmation from Chiyo. I think I might join you in your electric slide routine. Whee! -), eerabbit (thankye for the gig wishes. It was a jaw-dropping spectacle, truly. Muse do love to go all-out in their live shows. And the "pederast" line - you have no idea how long I'd been waiting to write that one down... XD), fiore777 (you are far too observant - though part of me squees when you pick up on all the little things I like too. Yes, there was a bit of pathos in the Kabuto moment, but fear not! He's going to play a much greater part in the story from now on. Watch this space!), missyserena214 (thanks for the London well-wishes! I had a great time. Yeah, I'd been waiting a long, long time to write out that Hidan scene. I kept laughing when I was writing it - it was most distracting! XD), SlythCommand (Yay! It's so nice to see you kicking around fanfiction dot net again. :-) Glad you liked the "pederast" and the Hidan moments - I swear those scenes have been filed away in the back of my head for ages and the wait I had to endure to use them was almost unbearable. XD), danni quinn (thanks for the gig well-wishes, it was seriously fantastic and I enjoyed it muchly. Lol! I'm totally agreeing with you. I hope Hidan never makes it to where I live. There would be carnage, and I don't think I could deal with that. XD), The Cloaked Schemer (I apologise for killing your brain. There was supposed to be some sort of fund available for the paying of medical bills for comedy fic-induced injuries, but I don't think that materialised. Please, don't sue, and I'll love you forever!), ChibiKeimei (Lol, I love that image too, of Oro dancing up and down the opposite aisle trying to get away from being pounded into a stain on the floor by Itachi. And "pederast"... ahhh... it was so long in the making, but finally I've managed to get the scene out of my brain and onto the page. It is a much underused word. People should inject it more into everyday conversation), RaspedraTwilight (Ahhh, fear not, for Itachi isn't quite out of the picture yet. Sasuke and Oro were lucky that Hidan interrupted the trial. Bear in mind that it's close to a particular time of year when seeing family is somewhat unavoidable ;-)), Niver (Lol, thanks for the compliment. I think I have a bit of a way to go yet before I reach godly status - though my 200 line clearing Tetris victory should see me well on the way! XD), and the delightful ArilianaFireQueen (you have your adjective because you are hella cool and damn well deserve it. I just hope that Oro and Azula never meet. There may be an explosion of sorts. Isn't it annoying when your characters own the hell out of you?)

Once again, thanks for the review. You guys rock immensely. If you're looking for another good read, fiore777's sannin fics and drabbles are pretty fantastic, and they deserve reviews and such, too. :-)