Chapter III
A sigh. "Hello, my name is Sasuke and I'll be your server this morning. Can I start you off with something to drink?" he said, head down, not even having looked up when he arrived at the table.
Which proved to be a fairly stupid move.
"Sasuke? You work here?" an incredulous voice sounded, causing the boy to snap his head up. Great, now his morning was just perfect.
"Haruno… Uzumaki," he said in obvious fake politeness, shock worn off, and a forced nod to each. He brought his pad and pen up, looking expectantly.
"You really work here?" Sakura echoed her friend, obviously as incredulous as he was, only more polite.
Another sigh, only much more exasperated. "I think we've established that yes, I do work here. Now can I get you drinks or take your orders if you're ready?"
The two seated shared a look then ordered their drinks, but declaring that they still needed time to decide what they wanted to eat. Sasuke left to get the drinks and when he was out of sight and in the kitchen, he chucked a rag and pushed himself onto the counter, head in hands.
He looked up at the ceiling incredulously. "Do you hate me or something? Like watching me suffer?"
The cook, Suigetsu, having caught the rag thrown at his head, grinned and said, "Of course!"
Sasuke dragged his eyes slowly over and gave the cook a look that would have dehydrated him if he didn't already have so much water in his system.
"Want to switch shifts? I'll do the cooking is you take my tables; I'll even let you keep my tips?"
Suigetsu blinked for a moment, then let loose great hacking coughs, clutching his sides and barely able to remain upright. "Yeah right! The last time you were left in the kitchen alone to cook, we had to close down for a week because the fire department made us because of smoke damage!"
Sasuke scowled at the reminder and handed over the drink order, because obviously Suigetsu wasn't busy. "Slow morning?"
Sasuke just nodded; he'd been working for over three hours now and only two tables. He was handed the chocolate and strawberry milk with a smirk and shove, so he tripped and fell out the door, resulting in a very smooth save, not spilling a drop of liquid.
He glared at the doorway and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "Damn that fucking fish-face…" He was still mumbling curse words as he walked to the table his three favourite people in the world were sitting at. Wait… three?
"Kakashi," he all but growled at the masked man smirking at him. He changed tactics when the smug look never left his face. "How's the wrist?"
Those seemed to be the right words because the man's smirk dropped; being replaced by an ashen faced grimace. It was a small threat in the guise of concern, but anyone with half a brain could tell the concern was as fake as the soliciting smile he gave the customers.
"What'd I do? Can I not visit my favourite, moody, antisocial, annoying…" he trailed off, suddenly perplexed. "I'm sorry, but I forgot how I started my sentence," he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.
Sasuke retaliated by a quick but light jab, directly where he had given the man a bruise the day before, to the solar plexus. With the man wheezing, he turned to the two other occupants of the booth, just remembering they were there. "Can I get either of you something to eat?" he said through clenched teeth; he really didn't want to be there.
After he got their orders, he gave one final warning look to Kakashi, a 'he'd better keep his mouth shut if he knew what was good for him' look. Sasuke gave the orders to Suigetsu and because he didn't feel like talking to him anymore, as he'd used up his quota for the day with words, he left the kitchen.
He sat, back to the door and on the counter, so that he could still be watching for customers and watch over the ones who were already there, without actually conversing. He snapped open his chemistry book and read through the material, making sticky notes on the important information. He tapped his teeth lightly with a fingernail as he stifled another yawn.
Sasuke got up and poured himself a mug of coffee, then returned to pouring over his book. Though technically employees weren't supposed to eat or drink the food while on the clock, none listened to that rule. And it was just Suigetsu and him working, so that meant that he was in charge.
A call from the kitchen made him once again drop his book with a sigh. "Order up!"
He stopped dead and stared at the boy over the counter in full disbelief. "What?" the cook said defensively. "I've always wanted to say that!"
Sasuke just rolled his eyes and grabbed the orders. He placed them in front of their respective owners and asked if they needed anything else.
"Actually, I would like to know when you get off work? Or when you can take a break?" Kakashi asked pleasantly.
"Why?"
"Because," he said with cheerfulness that would make a cheerleader jealous. "You and Naruto here need to figure out when you'll do your project! And since it's due in two weeks, you'll have to ask for time off."
"Fine," he said, then to the blonde, "I get off in," he looked up at the clock, "a half hour."
The blonde smiled, so wide it seemed to take over his face, and said, "No."
"What? Why can't you wait?" Kakashi said, afraid for the sake of his ingenious plans.
Sasuke, however, could care less, so he just muttered a quick, "Whatever," and went to greet the new customers.
Less than ten minutes later he was cleaning the table where Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi were sitting at, them finally being out of his hair. He sighed and popped back to his book, waiting for his shift to be over. And as luck would have it, Karin walked in soon after, and told him she'd clock out for him, letting him leave almost ten minutes early.
He just nodded his thanks and grabbed his books, shouldering his way out of the door. He was very thankful for the girl, because when he'd agreed to take that shift, he'd forgotten that he was already working at Java Sounds. So he had less than a half-hour to stop by his apartment to drop off his books before his shift.
But as he was walking, he heard his name being called from behind him and inadvertently cringed. The blonde was back.
"Oi Sasuke!" he called, trying to catch his breath. "Jeez, you walk fast!"
Sasuke gave him an angry look, mentally conveying for him to get on with it. "Was there something you needed?"
"Alright!" he said, then under his breath, "Bastard." Back to his normal tone, he continued, "About this project…? I need to get a good grade on this, so I did some research last night," he ignored Sasuke's snort and continued. "And I found out we have to take an auxiliary course first. I was thinking we should do that this weekend, and hopefully able to complete the hours this weekend if we try. Is that cool?"
Sasuke thought about it. He made most of his money on the weekends, so he would need to work extra hours the next week. But schoolwork did need to come first, so he nodded. "I'll try; if I can find someone to cover one or two of my shifts."
He ran his fingers through his hair, agitated that he wasn't going to be making any money this weekend. 'Well,' he mused, 'There's nothing that says I have to eat.'
Unbeknownst to him, he looked stressed, a face that Naruto seemed to catch with grace. But before he could do anything about seeing ol' "Ice Heart" showing some semblance of normal human emotion, it was gone and in it's place was the blank stare of "emotionless-ness". "Anything else you wanted?"
"Ah, yeah," he started. "Uh-" he trailed off because the boy in front of him was acting almost fidgety. "Am I holding you up or something?" he asked after the second time Sasuke had checked his watch.
"Are you trying to?" Sasuke countered, not meaning to sound quite so harsh. But if Uzumaki kept holding him up stuttering, then he would just have to leave.
"Jeez! I was just trying to be nice! You know, your such a bastard sometimes, I don't know why I'm even bothering!" Naruto continued to rant to loud to hear the quiet comment made by the "bastard" in front of him.
"I don't know what you bother either," he said in a not sad, but resigned voice. He was resigned to his fate as a "bastard" as it stung less than any other comment that could be directed at him.
Sasuke blinked, in apparent awe of how many words that boy could say in five minutes, not even stopping to catch his breath. His mask cracked a little as he interrupted, almost amused, "You can sure talk a lot, can't you?"
Naruto stopped in pure shock. Had Sasuke, the Sasuke Uchiha just almost joke? Sasuke also seemed to notice his comment was out of the norm, as he ratified it by erasing the amusement from his eyes and glaring.
"Ha!" Naruto said, pointing a finger at the now composed Uchiha. "You have a sense of humour!" Quieter, "Granted, not a very good one…" He paused then literally shook the nonsense thoughts from his mind. "You have an emotion other than anger and… Bastardry?"
Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Nice butcher of the English language, idiot. 'Bastardry?' Really?"
Naruto just glared. Then he blinked, confused. "Wait a second. What were we talking about in the first place?"
If Sasuke were any less of a person, he'd have a nice, big red mark on his forehead from bashing it about the stupidity of man. This man to be exact. Was he serious? "You were going to ask me something…?" he prompted, but rolled his eyes at his own geniousness; it was like saying he'd actually answer it.
"I did?" He thought for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. "I guess it wasn't that important."
Sasuke felt the sudden urge to choke. Was he serious? He thought about it and decided that he didn't care, not even a little.
So instead of answering, he checked his watch and gawked. He had less than five minutes to run two miles. Two miles! He'd never make it in time!
"Shit! I'm late!" he said, and took off like a bullet. He was a few hundred feet away before the blonde even noticed that he was gone.
The bemused blonde looked at the empty space for almost ten seconds before squawking in outrage and versed his fist in derision at the fleeing back of the Uchiha. "What the Hell?! You stupid bastard!" he paused then continued, "See you at noon!"
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Silence. Then…
"Uchiha?" Expectant.
Flinch. And hesitantly, "Yes sir?"
"Do you know you are," a pause. "Ten minutes late?"
A reluctant nod.
"I see. Understand, Uchiha, that this is your final warning. Late once more and no matter how much I like you, I'll be forced to fire you."
Another nod and the tense atmosphere dissipated, along with the man. Sasuke restrained shaking off the ominous feeling, but only just barely.
"That was… fun," Gaara said with no inflection whatsoever in his voice. Though he would think it was fun, reveling in the tense atmosphere from moments before.
"Stuff it," Sasuke replied, running a tense hand through his hair. All the hair gel in the world couldn't cure him of the cowlick in the back, so he tried to just go with it and tried in vain not to care.
If Sasuke hadn't been annoyed with the blonde before, he was now. It was all his fault he was late, and Sasuke was stubbornly holding fast on that notion. He was… partially at fault, but was not yet ready to admit it.
He worked on autopilot for the remainder of his shift; his mind, if you knew him well, was completely gone and off thinking of things that also weren't able to hold his attention for long. And this was so out of character for him, as he normally had complete control over his thoughts and actions.
All too soon, he was clocking out and walking across campus to his class that was about to begin. He vaguely thought about skipping, as the stress of things was beginning to get to him, but not showing up to class was such a waste of money.
And Sasuke was definitely not one to waste money, not when he worked so hard to earn it, anyways.
Early evening, almost nine o'clock, he unlocked his door with a sigh. After classes, he went straight to the hospital, and after only an hour or two, Tsunade caught him and sent him home for a night of rest.
He wouldn't admit it to her, or anyone else but the silence of his apartment, that he was tired. But it was surprising, the amount of sleep he didn't need to function. He was actually so used to acquiring little to no sleep that he wasn't sure if he'd even be able to sleep for longer than six hours. It was a… "gift," this partial insomnia. It helped him get most of his work done, let him work more and such.
He looked around his tiny apartment, searching for and stock piling, all his course books onto his already overcrowded table.
Before he sat down to actually do all this work, as he would probably not have the time to do over the weekend, he made his way to the fridge and poked his head in. Having found nothing he shut it in disgust and rummaged the cabinets for the next few minuets, finding only stale cereal.
Resolved that the next morning he had to buy something with nutritional value, he poured the cereal into a cup and set it beside him. With no milk, the stale meal didn't taste the best, but it wasn't the worst thing he'd ever eaten, so he made do with what he had.
Later that evening, Sasuke leaned back from his perch of hovering over the books with a sigh. He tiredly rubbed the soreness of his eyes; staring at the books with tiny print for hours on end, barely blinking and with no breaks, could not be good for one's eyes.
But Sasuke didn't care, not much anyways. Not even when his bed/couch was beckoning so provocatively, just begging to lull him to sleep. And Sasuke didn't resist that urge for very long; he got up and put his dish in the sink, then stripped down to his boxers and carefully slid between the covers, mindful of the precarious piles of books placed sporadically around.
Before he closed his eyes though, he thought for a moment about the coming day. He knew that somehow and in someway, something was going to go wrong. It was a feeling he often got, an ominous feeling of foreboding, telling him something was astray and wasn't about to happen in the way that held originally planned or wanted it.
He shook off the feeling, however, and blamed it on upcoming bad weather. After all, what could possibly go wrong?
A/N: Please don't hate me! This took way too long to write, and in my opinion was a really crappy chapter, only because I couldn't seem to write it for very long, there were lots of starts and stops, making it seem choppy I guess? I dunno, but I've been really really busy with school, it being in the final weeks and teachers giving inordinate amounts of work. So only expect another update around the 12th, because that's just the week of finals and I won't have any work assigned then. Thanks for all those lovely reviews as well, they kept me motivated!
ALSO, FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN THE ITTLIG SEQUEL: I probably won't get the first chapter done by the first, only because of school and whatnot eating my soul. But it will be posted before my last day, the 16th I think. THANKS for being so patient for it!