…And so this was how Naruto found himself, three days later, sitting on a barstool in one of the nicer parts of town, disguised as a girl, waiting for Neji to show up. The plan was pretty simple. Shikamaru had invited Neji to the bar on the pretext of 'wanting to talk about something', but Shikamaru wasn't going to show, and that would give Naruto a chance to bump into Neji and start chatting, while Neji waited.
It was still about ten minutes to the time Shikamaru had set. Naruto had gotten into place early. The instructions TenTen, Ino, Sakura and Hinata had pounded into him had been specific. Everyone, Naruto thought, had really gotten a kick out of giving him instructions on how to be a girl.
The first step had been to modify the sexy jutsu into something a little more realistic. Actually the boys had been more involved in this step than the girls. The whole process had mainly involved Naruto performing the jutsu over and over again, slightly modifying it each time. They had found a quiet training site on the edge of town to do this part of the work.
"Bigger boobs!" Kiba remarked.
"No, don't be stupid," Sakura elbowed him. "They're too big already. No girl actually has boobs that big. That's like," she gestured in the air, trying to estimate the size, "a triple-D. Naruto, go down to a C."
The naked blond bombshell in front of them looked down at her chest doubtfully. "Ok, Sakura, but what size is a C?"
"No, go even smaller than that," TenTen instructed. "Do like a big B-cup. I think Neji likes smaller girls. He likes girls who are slender, and not – uh – too bulky."
Naruto sighed. With a poof he returned to his own body. "Can you, uh, draw a picture of something?"
Kiba and TenTen hunched over a piece of paper. Shikamaru looked on while they drew.
Finally Kiba held up the finished product. "Like this!" He said proudly.
Naruto looked at the figure they had drawn, which was basically a stick figure with boobs and a little bit of an ass. His eyes narrowed. "Like that, huh?"
"No, that's ridiculous", Shikamaru said. "Naruto, take the sexy no jutsu, shave about three inches off her height, make the boobs – oh, the size of Ino's...and the butt... like Hinata's… and the legs… like Kurenai-sensei's.
"And the face more like the Rokudaime's…" Kiba interrupted, which earned him an odd look from everyone.
"And the skin like Sasuke's," Chouji said, which earned him an even odder look. "I'm just saying…" he mumbled.
"No, that's true, Sasuke does have very good skin," Ino said, authoritatively. "Naruto, try to make the face kind of like Sasuke's."
"No," said Shikamaru, who had somehow become the expert. "Keep the face like you have it, but just get rid of those damn whiskers."
Naruto looked carefully at Hinata's ass and Ino's rack for a moment, "Ok, I think I've got it!" He said, and concentrated.
Poof! A very plausible, hot chick stood naked before them. Big boobs, but not over the top, a nice curvy figure, long blond hair and blue eyes, skin a shade lighter than Naruto's. All the guys gawked for an instant, and then started congratulating each other.
"We did it!"
"He's perfect!"
"Neji will totally fall for it!"
"Now all we have to do," Shikamaru said, rubbing his chin sagely, "is find some clothes."
"Come on, guys!" Shouted Kiba.
Ino, Sakura, Hinata, and TenTen were left behind momentarily. Ino had crossed her arms over her check, and Hinata was worriedly trying to peer over her shoulder.
"Does anyone else feel a little grossed out?" Asked Ino. All four girls nodded. "Well, we better help them anyway," TenTen said. "Otherwise they'll dress him up like a dime-store hooker." They nodded and started following after the guys. Only Sakura stood behind.
"Hey," she called. "Hey, how come they didn't want to use any of my body parts? Hey! Guys…?" She jogged to catch up with the group.
And so, there Naruto sat, by himself at the bar, sipping lemonade (drinking alcohol would just take away his edge) and waiting for Neji to show up so that he could test out his flirting skills. The outfit that he was wearing had ultimately ended up owing more to the girls than the boys, who, after all, knew a lot more about fashion in the first place. TenTen said that Neji liked girls who were feminine, demure, and a little old-fashioned ("he likes girls that will gaze up at him with adoring eyes", had been her exact words") and so the girls had gone with an outfit that was girly and cute: a dress with a pink flower pattern, that ended just above her knees ("We want you to look like a good girl, but not too good", Ino explained) and a short fuzzy pink sweater type thing that made his neck itch, and a pair of white strappy sandals.
Hinata had assured him that Neji would not be able to see through this trick unless he activated his byakugan, which he should have no good reason to do. Besides, even if Neji could tell that it was an illusion, it wouldn't be like anyone else on the street could.
Naruto turned around his barstool and surveyed the room. From behind a curtain in the back Kiba gave him a thumbs-up sign. Don't get caught, you guys, Naruto thought. It didn't seem like Neji still hadn't shown up yet… sighing, Naruto swung back around to the bar.
"Hey, little lady," said a voice next to him. What? Naruto looked at the guy next to him. An ugly guy with a bad haircut was leaning over, looking at him with concern. "Are you all right? You look upset."
What in world? Naruto thought, before it hit him. Is this guy trying to hit on me?… he felt the bile rising in his throat. "No, I'm fine," he said, shortly.
"Oh, hey, don't be like that. You keep looking for someone, right? Did you get stood up?"
Naruto leveled a more serious look at the guy. He looked kind of unusual: one of those nin's who had sacrificed the normalcy of their bodies for some kind of increased power: the man's skin was mottled, gray, and covered in hard warts or calluses of some kind. Around his face the skin was smoother, as the warts gave way to scabby bumps that resembled, more than anything, a case of bad acne. Should I whack him, or something? Naruto wondered. I don't want this guy to be buzzing around when Neji… out of the corner of his eye, he saw of swish of black hair, and white eyes. Neji had just entered the bar. Wait… Naruto thought, maybe I can get Neji to rescue me from this loser… that would be a pretty good set-up…
Turning his eyes back to the guy, he tried to work up tears in the corner of his eyes. "Yes…" he said, doing his best to look weak and pathetic. "My boyfriend just broke up with me… I asked him to come here and meet me… but it looks like he couldn't even be bothered to do that for me…"
"What kind of a guy would do that?" The guy sounded affronted. "Who could ever break up with a girl as pretty as you?" His breath smelled pretty boozy, Naruto noted. "Let me buy you a drink."
"Oh, no thank you," Naruto said, daintily, now trying desperately to catch Neji's eye… "I'm not much of a drinker…"
"Oh, just one… you'll feel better…" The man motioned to the bartender… "My name is Akito, by the way…"
"Ummm, Akito-san, I don't know how to say this, but…" Naruto's mind was working fast. I want to get into a fight with him, or something, he thought. If this Akito guy gets violent with a girl in a bar, Neji'll definitely come to the rescue. He bowed his head. "I'm sorry, Akito-san. I'm not interested in… ugly guys like you."
Akito looked stunned for a moment. Did it work? Naruto wondered. Is he gonna get pissed off now? Just for good measure, he threw in, "You know, your face looks like it's been through a blender, and what's with that hair, anyway?" Unconciously he started using that tone of voice Sakura always slipped into when she was at her cruelest. Naruto slid another side glance over at where Neji was sitting. Come rescue me, idiot…
Instead of getting upset, though, the guy called Akito seemed to have decided to overlook the comment. He slapped his hand on his knee and threw his head back laughing. "You're a feisty one, aren't you? What's your name, anyway?"
"Kumiko… Honda Kumiko…" he muttered, falling back on the fake name Sakura and Ino had prepared.
"Ne… Kumiko-chan… you want to know a secret?" Akito brought his face close her hers.
"No… thank you…" The temptation to break this guy's face was getting stronger and stronger, but Naruto knew for a fact that Neji hated violent girls, and so he definitely had to keep up the shrinking violet act. He put his hands in front of his chest to hold Akito back a little bit. Wow, he thought. Being a girl actually can suck… He could be a little rude, but only if Neji couldn't overhear.
"I'm a spy…" Akito drawled.
"Well… that's nice... but keep in mind that this is a Ninja Village."
Akito looked blank.
"We're all spies, moron."
To his surprise, Akito laughed again. "Nope, Kumiko… mind if I call you Kumiko… see, I'm spying on the spies." He puffed up. "Pretty impressive, huh? I bet you wanna date me now…"
If Naruto couldn't beat Akito up, he thought, maybe he could beat himself up. Bang his head against the counter of the bar so that he wouldn't have to listen to this anymore. He looked over Akito's shoulder and saw Kiba gesturing frantically at him, some sort of sign that meant, 'what are you doing, idiot?' When he turned, he saw that Neji was getting up to go. "Damn, couldn't you at least have ordered one drink, idiot?" he growled.
"Are you ready for another one?" Akito asked helpfully.
"Oh… tee hee… no…."
"Anyway, my mission's pretty important… I'm gathering information about the hidden leaf to take back to my leaders… it's all pretty complicated, political stuff…"
"Wow, that's… uh… great…" Naruto was edging off the barstool when Akito grabbed his arm. It was wide, Naruto noted, and the grip was strong, and it was covered in some sort of… warts…
"I can get your number, right?"
Neji was gone. He had missed him. Damn. "Fine, fine," Naruto mumbled. He looked around for a pen and scrawled his number on bar napkin Akito handed him. "I just have to go, ok?"
Once he had the number, Akito seemed satisfied. He waved cheerfully as Naruto backed out of the bar.
"Don't worry, Kumiko-chan!" He shouted. "I'll definitely make you forget about your worthless ex!"
As the door closed behind him, Naruto breathed a huge sigh of relief. Then he hastily looked up and down the street. No good, Neji was totally gone.
"Naruto! You moron! What were you doing in there?" Kiba, Shikamaru, Ino and Sakura came out.
"You don't understand…" Naruto whined… "I couldn't get away… that guy was like… a giant parasite." He shuddered. "He was awful."
"You couldn't just push him off?" Kiba said. Ino started giggling.
"He totally was all over you. Poor Naruto. We just made you too pretty for your own good."
"I guess our prank failed, then."
Shikamaru shrugged. "We'll think up something else, some other time."
"If its not too troublesome?" Ino teased.
"Its too troublesome." He replied.
That was on Friday night. Shikamaru and the gang had opted to go grab a drink somewhere, but Naruto, who was tired, pissed-off, and whose feet were getting sore in the flats, opted to go home instead. Cross-dressing, he decided, was definitely NOT his thing. No way would he get talked into some kind of dumb stunt like that again. He walked down the street towards his apartment slowly. They had opted for a high-end bar with Neji, and unfortunately his place was on the complete opposite side of town. Worse, he had to maintain the illusion until he got back, unless he wanted to do the walk as a guy in girl's clothing.
"Dobe."
"Sasuke?" Damn. He must really be spacing out if he hadn't even noticed his teammate approaching. "Why are you here?"
"On my way home." Sasuke looked him up and down, and smirked.
"Yeah, I know, I know!" Naruto said. "Don't even say it. It was a bad idea, I admit." He paused. "How could you tell it was me, though?"
Instead of answering, Sasuke briefly activated his sharingan.
Since returning to Leaf half a year before, Sasuke was… still strange. Too serious, too quiet. Naruto had tried being friendly with him, had tried picking fights with him, had tried every method of irritating the Uchiha he could think of, just to get a reaction… but Sasuke after years with Orochimaru apparently couldn't even be bothered to rise to these kinds of childish taunts. Naruto wasn't used to spending time with another person without interacting with them at all – not talking, not doing things together, just sharing space – but this was all it seemed possible to do with Sasuke.
He knew, because of events right after Sasuke had returned, that Sasuke considered Naruto his best friend, and was grateful. Sasuke had managed to say those things to him, just once. It was just that Sasuke wasn't able to be much of a friend to anyone these days.
They mostly just spent time together on missions, during which they worked well together – surprisingly well, because working with Naruto rarely lent itself to smooth operations, but with Sasuke it did. Sometimes Naruto and Sakura managed to talk him into lunch, sometimes they dragged him to social events. He didn't really seem to enjoy them, but Sakura and Naruto had talked, and they felt that the only thing they could really offer was to make themselves available.
Sakura had waited… hoped for a long time… that Sasuke would choose her. Years. Therefore, Naruto had been shocked, when, not long before Sasuke had returned, she finally announced that she was dating Lee. Naruto had regarded it as a kind of betrayal – everyone was moving on, he felt, forgetting about Sasuke, even Sakura. They had fought about it, angrily, desperately, late at night outside of Ino's flower shop.
"I'll still do everything – anything – to make him come back." Sakura had said. "My being with Lee doesn't change anything. My wanting Sasuke to come back shouldn't be about me wishing for some fairy-tale dream of romance with him. At least I can say for certain now. I want Sasuke to come back for himself. I don't want him to come back for selfish… reasons…"
She had broken down, crying, on the road. Naruto had knelt beside her, unsure what to do, unsure whether he accepted her logic or not. It didn't matter, he decided. Sakura was his friend, as much as Sasuke was, and he had to accept her as she was.
He had helped her walk home, and left her a block from her house because Sakura's parents still hated Naruto and didn't accept him.
"I thought you should know…" Sakura had said. She hadn't looked at him. "If it hadn't been… for Sasuke… for having Sasuke between us…" She had looked back at him, and tried to smile. "I would have chosen you. I mean, if we didn't have all this history… I don't think we could be happy if we were together and still thinking of Sasuke, still looking for him… it wouldn't worked out."
Naruto didn't tell her that he hadn't wanted to be with her for a long time. He had given her up, first because he thought that he was giving her up to Sasuke, and then because her friendship seemed like the only thing from the old days that was left, and he didn't want to tamper with it.
"Sakura…" he had said… and he had smiled, more genuinely that she could have, under the same circumstances. "Be happy."
Did she regret it, after Sasuke had come back? She didn't seem to. She never mentioned it. Naruto thought Sasuke seemed slightly relieved to realize that she didn't have any expectations left for him to fulfill, or disappoint. When he thought about it, really, a good portion of Sasuke's life had already been screwed up because of other people's expectations.
He glanced over at the black-haired boy, who was still walking beside him, not speaking. He must be dying with curiosity to know how I ended up dressed up like this, Naruto thought. How could he not? Even being an Uchiha, wanting to know would just be human nature.
"Hey, Sasuke" He said, and started to relate the whole story, from where Shikamaru and Kiba had come up with their brilliant idea to where the guy at the bar started hitting on him and wouldn't let him go.
Somewhere around the part where the guy asked for Naruto's number, Sasuke started laughing. Naruto had been startled, but tried not to show it, and went on with the story. By the time he lost Neji, Sasuke was doubled over, almost rolling in the road.
"Oh my God, Sasuke!" Naruto said. "I don't think I've ever seen you laugh so hard. Not even when you were a little kid in school."
"I know…" Sasuke said. "I know." And he laughed for a couple of minutes more.
"You wanna come up for a cup of ramen?" Naruto said, when they reached his apartment.
Sasuke nodded.
Naruto put on the water, and then went to his bedroom to take off his dress and makeup. He changed into his usual orange jumpsuit.
"Man!" He said, coming back into the kitchen and pouring the water over the instant noodles. "That feels so much better."
Sasuke just looked at him, and Naruto thought he saw the corners of Sasuke's mouth twitch.
"Don't start laughing again, teme!" He ordered.
It would take a while to say for sure, he thought, but slowly some kind of real friendship was reforming with Sasuke.
He let Sasuke sleep on the couch because it seemed like too much trouble for him to go back across town to his own place. Besides, they didn't have any mission tomorrow morning.
Since Sasuke was on the couch, he was closer to the phone, and it just happened that he was the one who picked up when someone called, very early, the following morning.
The voice on the other end was gruff, but nervousness tempered the gruffness a little. If Sasuke had been a little more awake, or a little less annoyed at being woken so early, it might have sounded familiar.
"Is… umm.. is Kumiko-chan there?" The person on the other end of the line asked.
"No." Said Sasuke, firmly, and hung up.
Twenty seconds later, the phone started ringing again. Sasuke glared at, considered not picking up, and then recalled that Naruto was still sleeping in the other room.
He picked up the receiver again.
"Kumiko-chan?" The voice said, hopefully.
"You have," said Sasuke, through gritted teeth, "the wrong number."
He hung up again.
The phone started ringing a third time. Somewhere on the other side of the village, the man named Akira was checking over each number on a cocktail napkin carefully, making sure he hadn't misread any digits.
Naruto wandered in from the bedroom just in time to hear Sasuke saying, into the receiver. "Oh, that Kumiko-chan. No, she can't come to the phone right now. She's too exhausted, because last night I fucked her silly."
Naruto felt his face pale a little bit. "Sasuke…" he asked presently. "Who were you talking to?"
"Oh, just some moron who had the wrong number. He called three times."
"Oh…" said Naruto.