Do you remember my name?
Never had he heard such a prolific symphony of alarm clocks.
It was certainly not what Minato was used to, but he liked to look at things in a positive light; in this new apartment that he had recently moved into, he would never have to worry about sleeping in (even if he was a natural morning person to begin with). Instead, he could just take advantage of the clashing alarms that carried through thin walls.
So if by the rarest chance he was still in bed at 8:30 in the morning, he would not have any trouble waking up thanks to his neighbor's abundant collection of clocks.
The clamor continued while he showered after his daily morning workout, throughout the time it took him to pull on his clothes, and then during his breakfast as well. After an hour and a half of enduring the buzzing, beeping and ringing, he became plain worried for the wellbeing of his neighbor, who seemed frighteningly immune to the cacophony.
He walked out of his apartment and knocked on the door to the left.
A blue-eyed young man with his blond hair tied in a ponytail answered, "Oh hey, Namikaze. What's up?"
"Good morning Yamanaka-kun. Um…" Minato blinked in confusion, unsure of whether he should inquire about the alarm clocks, considering that his fellow college basketball teammate seemed completely unfazed by the noise blasting from behind him. "…Is everything okay?"
"Okay?" Inoichi Yamanaka looked at him quizzically before realizing what his new neighbor was referring to, "Oh right. You don't know about Shikaku's hibernation habits."
"Hibernation?"
"Well, 'hibernation' is kind of misleading, since this is a daily thing." The matter-of-fact way in which he replied left Minato confused as to whether he should laugh at the blatant joke or worry about the serious situation, "Anyways, want to come in?"
"Sure. Excuse me—
"Oh, don't bother taking off your shoes. Actually, it's probably safer if you don't."
Minato understood what his basketball teammate meant once he followed him into the apartment room filled with weeklong, unwashed (from what he could smell) basketball jerseys and other unkempt laundry items strewn across the floor. Unused to the relentless ring of the alarm clocks beating against his eardrum, he covered his ears. Lying on the couch with a gaming console still in his hand was Shikaku, who was miraculously sleeping through the army of clocks that surrounded him.
"Who is it?" A voice called out through the din from behind a wall of empty beer cans.
"It's just Namikaze. He got woken up by Shikaku's goddamned clocks."
"Oh, it wasn't a bother, really. I was already up—
"Oh Namikaze!" Akamichi Chouza, the hefty power forward of the basketball team, peeked his head up from behind the beer can fortress on one end of the room. "Good timing. He can be the judge of our laundry war."
"Huh? Are you guys in a fi—
"Excellent. That way you can stop accusing me of cheating all the time. Could you do that for us, Namikaze?"
Somewhat lost in the pace of their conversation, Minato found himself saying, "Um. Sure. But wait, what am I supposed to do—
"Awesome."
With that, Inoichi dove behind another wall of beer cans on the opposite end of the room and grabbed what appeared to be a dirty sock tied into a ball by a rubber band—the nearest one out of all the rolled up, unwashed articles of clothing scattered recklessly throughout the place. He placed the sock on a make-shift see-saw-like contraption consisting of a soup ladle and other kitchen ware. Without warning, the sock ball was sent flying over the couch Shikaku was still sleeping on and into Chouza's wall on the other side.
"Damn it, Shikaku." Chouza growled at the fallen section of his fort and catapulted a pair of boxers back, "You're either really lucky or clearly cheating."
Minato could only stare, bewildered and overwhelmed by the behavior of his friends. Clearly he was missing something about this miniature battle, in which Inoichi and Chouza continued to launch dirty laundry back and forth at each other with such intensity that the fact that Shikaku was obliviously caught in between the crossfire could've almost been forgotten (had it not been for the persistent ringing of his clocks).
"Do you guys do this every day too?" Minato yelled over the ringing, his hands still covered over his ears.
"No. Monthly. We do it to determine who does the laundry." Chouza said as he quickly ducked one of Inoichi's undershirts, "Whoever has his wall completely knocked over or gets hit first loses and has to do the cleaning."
Minato wondered whether his friends had ever considered it more convenient to do the laundry more often. But he kept that thought in the back of his mind and instead asked, "Why do you guys have so many beer cans?"
"From drinking it all."
"All of it?"
"We save those up over the course of a month for this too. Shikaku consumes 59% of it among the three of us though." Inoichi replied.
Although Minato had no experience with drinking, he was pretty sure that the copious amount of empty beer cans with which Chouza and Inoichi were using as war fortresses was not healthy.
"Yeah. Last night he drank a whole pack." Chouza added.
"Oh. What were you guys celebrating?" Minato innocently asked.
"Nothing." Chouza answered, shortly after cussing at yet another fallen can.
Inoichi casually said, "We just had a raging party and paid 10 hookers to come over—
"Okay, okay. You can stop there." Embarrassed at the idea, Minato's face turned red.
"He's kidding, Namikaze. Shikaku was too lazy to try meeting some girls with us last night so he spent the entire night playing video games and drank by himself. Don't listen to Inoichi. He's just a pathological liar who loves screwing with people's minds." Chouza reassured his neighbor.
"I won't argue against that. It's so easy with Namikaze though. He's so damn gullible." Inoichi watched his jersey miss Chouza's wall by a centimeter, "But honestly, Namikaze, the three of us combined don't even have the money to afford that kind of entertainment. And if we did, we would've invited you—
"No thank you!" Minato clamped his ears shut even tighter as Inoichi laughed. He changed the subject, "Anyways, shouldn't we wake Nara-kun up?"
"It's okay. Don't bother."
"But doesn't he have class?"
"Yeah. Principles of Ecology 401. It's at…well, was at, eight." Chouza replied, still unfazed.
"If we wake him now he can still make it!" Minato insisted.
"Nah, no thanks. The three of us are in a bet to see how long Shikaku can last in his morning classes before falling out for tardiness." Inoichi answered, "I give him one month but Chouza's a bit more generous; he has his bet on two months."
"Who's the third person?"
"Shikaku."
Seeing Minato's confused expression, Chouza explained, "Well, technically he doesn't know he's in the bet. We placed the bet for him, so Shikaku's giving himself four months."
"Which basically means he's going to be coughing up 2000 yen to one of us." Inoichi continued the thought, "We didn't want him to feel excluded."
"Plus, we figured that he might as well start paying up, because it's not long before the neighbors' complaints will finally convince the landlady to boot us out. Then this lazy ass over here has to pay full rent for the three of us."
"But it's been practically two hours. Are you sure we shouldn't maybe take him to a doctor?..."
His question trailed off when he saw one of the sock-weapons land right into Shikaku's unflattering, open mouth.
"Uh...can he choke on that?" Chouza asked.
"Maybe. Let's find out." Inoichi replied, observing from behind his wall.
While Minato struggled to step through the crowd of clocks without breaking one, it didn't take long for the other two's curiosity to be answered. Shikaku's chest jerked violently before the young man sat up and spat the browned sock out of his mouth. He rolled off the couch and crashed on top of one of his clocks, silencing it with a crack.
"OUCH! FUCK, MY ASS!" The black haired man howled, leaping up to an ungraceful stand. Minato winced at the crude language.
"No thanks." Inoichi said.
"Oh, shut the hell up Inoichi." Shikaku grumbled, all while gripping his head from a hangover. He noticed the sock at his feet, "Wait…was that just a Chouza's sock in my mouth? God—you assholes! Didn't I tell you to stop having your laundry wars with me in the middle?!"
Trying to maintain a pleasant atmosphere, Minato smiled and greeted, "Good morning, Nara-kun."
Shikaku squinted through his headache, "What is Namikaze doing here at this ungodly hour?"
"Actually, it's nine." Inoichi pointed out, "And our new neighbor here is now very much aware of your morning habits, like all the others."
"Come to think of it, the only person that hasn't complained now is the one who lives by the staircase." Chouza mentioned.
"Doesn't count. That person's probably some shut-in, if anyone lives in there at all."
The black haired, 20-year-old struggled to take off his undershirt as he staggered in a circle to silence each of the 17 alarms. Then he picked up the one he broke.
"Great. Now I have to buy a new one."
Chouza looked at the television, which was switched to the local news channel, "Well good luck with that, because it looks like there's some sort of traffic jam in the direction of the book store.
As it turned out, the disturbance at the intersection nearby the shopping district was caused by a middle aged man and a certain red haired woman.
Uzumaki Kushina straddled her bicycle in the middle of the street, becoming the target of impatient honks as she yelled at the driver in front of her. Completely oblivious to the increasing number of onlookers, she slammed a fist on the hood of the car, hardly intimidated by the fact that her bicycle was much more fragile (especially now that it was broken) than the vehicle that the older man was in.
"Are you crazy, woman?! It was my light!"
"With all due respect, old man, that's bullshit."
"I'm 100% certain that I had the green light!"
"Unless color you saw was the same color as the blood coming out of my ass right now, the light was fucking red."
At this time, Minato and Shikaku were close enough to the crowd of spectators to hear what caused the scandalized looks on their faces. The aggressive tone and the fiery hair were all too recognizable for him. Minato turned red immediately when the implication of her words registered in his mind; Shikaku whistled, both impressed and amused.
"Well, now we know when to stay off the roads."
She ignored the bewildered expression of shock mixed in with disgust slapped on his face and continued, "Yeah, that's right. I'm practically pissing blood. But not as much blood as you once I'm through here."
The man backed off slightly, somewhat daunted by the eccentric threat. "Alright, let's keep this civil. I'm sure my insurance will cover for some of the damages, so I'll send you a reduced check—
"Hah?! You think I'm actually going to pay for a tiny scratch on your fucking Mercedes when I'm stuck on a shitty bike?"
"Well, yes you did ruin the paint job—
"Oh cry me a lake or ocean or whatever the fuck it's supposed to be. The only thing I'd ever be willing to pay for you is an eye doctor, since you're clearly blind as shit. Here's what's going to happen. You, old man, are going to pay me for one, the job interview I just missed. Two, the broken gears on my bike. And three, the tampons I can no longer afford to buy since I just lost weeks' worth of paycheck…"
"We better keep walking before you die of second-hand embarrassment at the mention of menstruation." Shikaku smirked, nudging at Minato. "I might sleep in a lot, but hey, now you know that it could be worse. I mean, you could have her as a neighbor."
Although her vulgarity surprised him, his eyes stayed on her for a moment—just in case she would noticed him or call out his name—before breaking away to walk away from the scene. Still, the sight of her flashing teal eyes and her defiant hair let completely free lingered in his mind.
"Welcome—oh, it's just you."
"Yo, Takemori." Shikaku sarcastically replied, casually raising a hand in greeting to the young woman at the counter of the ramen restaurant, "Have I ever told you how enthusiastic you always sound? Honestly, every time I come here I just feel so welcome."
"My pleasure." She continued the cynical banter and called out behind her to the bustling kitchen, "One seafood ramen and—oh wait, where are your idiots?"
"Inoichi and Chouza decided that they would rather continue their laundry war than accompany me to the book store." Shikaku sat directly across from the girl with her dark brown hair tied in a modest ponytail.
She seemed to consider the first part of Shikaku's sentence before deciding that it was most likely too dumb for her comprehension. Instead she asked, all too knowingly, "Another alarm clock?"
"Yeah."
"I wonder what would happen if—oh, I don't know, let's just say—someone just decides one day to take all the batteries from your alarms. Would you just sleep forever?"
"Shut up, Takemori. Don't think about it."
"Just wondering. I mean, I'm sure the thought has already crossed other peoples' minds…" She propped an elbow on the table somewhat deviously and looked at the blond-haired man she wasn't familiar with.
"Hah. If you've met Namikaze before, you'd know that he's the last person in the world to do something like that to me. Right, man?"
Unsure of whether he should join in on the casual jest, Minato simply fell back on what he always did: an amiable smile. "Um…no I woudn't. I think Nara-kun has his qualities."
"Did you pay a stranger to say nice things to you?"
"No, I'm broke, remember?" Shikaku answered, desensitized to her insults, "Believe it or not, this guy's actually a friend."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Namikaze Minato." He bowed slightly in common courtesy.
"Takemori Yoshino." She responded and turned to Shikaku teasingly for a moment before asking, "So, Namikaze-kun. How does a put-together guy like you cross paths with a good-for-nothing sloth?"
"Ah ha ha…" He laughed politely, "Um, I'm his teammate on the basketball team and I just moved into the apartment next to his."
"Poor you. What do you study?"
"I'm a pre-med student. How about you, Takemori-san?"
"Biochemistry at Hanamichi Women's College. I take some joint classes at your college though."
"Do you have a class with Nara-kun?"
"Yeah. But that's not how we met. This idiot here got himself completely wasted—
"Hey, hey. Aren't you getting the story backwards?"
"How would you know? You were drunk—
"Takemori-chan, are you bullying our customers again?" A good natured man in an apron interrupted, appearing from the back kitchen.
A five year old girl popped her head up from underneath the counter next to Yoshino and chirped brightly, "No bullying, Yoshi-nee chan! Bullies are bad guys!"
"That's right, Ayame!" The man doted upon his daughter, picking her up in a big bear hug as she giggled, "You tell those two bullies."
"What? Oi, Teuchi, why am I being lumped in with the likes of Takemori? I'm a victim here…"
As always, Minato felt a sort of distance between himself and the others, who seemed to argue and laugh with ease. Somehow, he felt as if there was a wall that blocked him from joining them—a wall he wasn't sure he wanted to break. So he followed along with the chat in the back of his mind as his attention wandered throughout the cozy ramen joint. Outside of the window was a typical Saturday midday on the city streets, couples and groups of friends sharing grins.
What caught his eye was the young woman standing in front of restaurant window, glaring at what he saw was a poster of a ramen bowl once he opened the door. She seemed completely unaware her surroundings, biting the corner of her lower lip in a scowl.
He opened his mouth but found himself stuck in a sentence he had not even thought of yet. Would a 'hello' be too generic? He could ask if she was okay from the road accident, but noticing the large rip in her dark wash jeans and her bleeding knee, he decided that he already knew the answer to that. Or perhaps he could ask her what television show that was on her graphic t-shirt—or maybe that was too random.
Whatever option that came to his mind was immediately shut down. However he saw it, saying anything would probably be bother for her. They had crossed paths a few times over the past two weeks and not once did she show any signs of recognition. He had thought that perhaps their eyes had met yesterday when they happened to be on the same crosswalk, but perhaps not. After all, one one-sided argument and one conversation might not be considered friendship. For all he knew, they could be strangers. He wondered if she knew his name.
He was about to go back into the restaurant when he heard a loud grumble.
She frowned at her stomach and hissed, "Shut up!"
He tried stifling his laughter, but a chuckle escaped him, catching her attention. She looked up and was greeted by the impact of his blue eyes.
"Oh! Umikaze!" She greeted him.
"Haha…it's actually Namikaze…" He was almost hesitant to correct her—he could tell from the light in her teal eyes that she had been confident and proud that she had remembered his name correctly. But it was odd—he felt subtly disappointed in the fact that she didn't get his name correctly. He wasn't quite sure what he was hoping for in the first place.
"Damn. I was close too."
He laughed politely, "Are you hungry, Uzumaki-chan?"
"No I'm fine." She insisted and returned to staring down the two dimensional noodles with heavy determination, "I can just imagine myself eating and it'll be okay."
Her stomach growled again.
She looked down and glared, "Traitor!"
"I can buy you a bowl, if you'd like." He offered.
She grinned sheepishly, doubled over from hunger pains, "Could you?"
As she devoured her ramen, he noticed how much redder her hair seemed since the last time they had met. Underneath the light, he could see a strand of hair that was sticking out from the rest, like a sliver of fire burning in the air.
"What?" She asked with her mouthful, "Don't worry, I'll definitely pay you back."
"It's not that. I just noticed that your hair is red again."
"Oh yeah." She pulled a few strands forward, "The brown has been washing out. You were right, by the way. I like it better this way, even if I'm jobless now…and my bike's broken…and I can't afford to buy Shounen Jump anymore…" As she continued to list things off, she started to seem more and more depressed.
"But yeah, I'll pay you back for this, I promise." She reiterated.
"That's okay, you don't have to." He reassured her. In fact, he felt somewhat guilty that after causing her to lose her job and starve, he had offered her nothing else but than a simple bowl of noodles.
"No. I will. And for the coffee last time too. I hate owing people things." She paused, then abruptly slammed her hands down on the table while standing up.
Caught aback, he panicked slightly. He couldn't see her face since she was looking at the ground, but he was worried whether it was something he had said. She was definitely the kind of person that was hard to keep up with.
"U-um…Uzumaki…chan?"
"Goddamnit! I just remembered!" She sat back down and covered her head in frustration, messing up her hair. Her teal eyes peaked out of the scarlet tangle, "I have to pay my landlady by the end of this week or I'll lose my room. But I'm like, 3,000 yen short…"
"If you need a job, you could apply here." Yoshino mentioned as she approached their table to take away the dishes.
Kushina looked up in excitement, "Really? You guys are hiring?"
"I'm pretty sure we are now. There's a company party being held here tomorrow evening but we're short some employees since some part-timers were fired just last night. Right, boss?"
"Right!" The man called out from the back while cracking an egg over the pan, "Hey, young lady, you have the legal documents right?"
"Yes!"
"Then you can start here tomorrow afternoon! Just one rule: do anything that scars my precious Ayame and you're done!"
"Rumor has it that the boss's daughter found them in a huge orgy on top of the stoves." Yoshino whispered scandalously.
Minato jumped back in his seat; his ears turned dangerously red.
"Oi, one other thing you should know about Namikaze, Takemori: don't talk about anything related to sex, drugs, or swears. He can't handle that kind of stuff." Shikaku called out from the counter, noticing his friend's reaction to Yoshino's secretive gesture.
"T-that's not true!" Minato swung around and argued.
"Hey, thanks!" Kushina looked over to him with a huge grin.
The spark of delight in her blue-green eyes made him lose track of what he was indignant about to begin with. They almost made him forget to smile for a second.
"For what?"
"Well, it looks like I should hang out with you more. Good things always happen when you're around, Umikaze!"
"You're welcome, but um…" He tentatively started.
"Yeah, what's up?" She asked, genuinely oblivious to her mistake.
"It's Namikaze…"
The apartment complex at the edge of the city center was relatively quiet at five in the morning. Most of its residents were still supposedly asleep in their rooms, except for the three figures in the front courtyard.
"If only all my tenants could be like you, Namikaze-kun. You're such responsible young man, paying your rent a week in advance." The landlady, an elder woman with graying brown hair, sighed.
"It's really nothing, Sarutobi-san. It just happened to be convenient, that's all." The blond dressed in workout sweatpants and a pullover hoodie replied humbly.
"Hey. I pulled an all-nighter just to give this to you early in the morning. I should get some praise too here." Shikaku said grouchily, handing an envelope to the older woman as they accompanied her to her car.
"Yes. I suppose that is quite impressive for you, Nara-kun." She said in an unenthusiastic tone that contradicted her words. "Surprisingly enough, you're not the worst one when it comes to procrastination."
"I'm not?"
"The young woman in room 201 has yet to give me her check." She sighed, "I'd hate to do it, but if she doesn't find me by noon, I'll have to ask her to leave."
"Oh, so there is someone living in that room at the end of the hall." Shikaku mused.
"Are you going to go back and sleep?" Minato asked his friend once the woman drove off, noticing the bags underneath his dark eyes.
"I wish." He grumbled, "But I missed a lab that I need complete in order to pass the course. The professor couldn't reach me to reschedule so of course Takemori went ahead and told him that I could do it at six in the goddamned morning."
Minato gave him a sympathetic smile.
"What about you, Namikaze? You don't have a reason to be up this early."
"Oh, I'm always up by around this time. I like to take morning runs." He replied, oblivious to the bewildered disgust on Shikaku's face.
They were about to part ways from the parking lot when a cacophonous slam of a door sent birds on the telephone wires flying into the air.
"SHIT!"
Sprinting down the stairs and out into the courtyard was none other than Uzumaki Kushina, dressed in nothing but an oversized T-shirt that barely covered her boxer shorts. Her unbrushed carpet of hair flew behind her in wild red knots as she cursed at the top of her lungs.
She looked over at the two college students and quickly asked, "Which way did she drive?"
"Uh, that way." Shikaku pointed.
"SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT!"
She shoved a white envelope into her mouth, allowing her hands to unlock her bike from the rack in a frenzy. Kicking the rusty kickstand back without care for the bike's fragile state, she leapt onto the seat, and pushed on the pedal.
"GO YOU PIECE OF SHIT! MOVE BEFORE I THROW YOU OUT LIKE I'LL BE THROWN OUT OF MY APARTMENT!"
She yelled right before crashing to the ground and remembering that the gears were broken.
"Damn. She's been our neighbor this whole time?" Shikaku observed.
The first thing that actually came to mind was the question of whether or not she could remember his name correctly, but it was clearly not the time to ask that, or even say 'good morning'. Instead, Minato unlocked his bicycle and walked it over to the girl, who he suspected had already succeeded in waking up half the other residents.
"Um…Uzumaki-chan, do you need a ride?" He gestured, offering her the back seat.
"Yes!"
Before he could straddle the front seat, she snatched the front handles and ran right past him with the bicycle.
"Wait! Uzumaki-chan, I meant—
"I owe you!" She called back as she pedaled vigorously down the streets, almost crashing into a couple and a dog before narrowly swerving aside. Before she disappeared with his bike at the corner of the street, he heard her yell:
"Thanks, Namikaze!"
He continued to look in the direction of the empty intersection, somehow he couldn't stop smiling.
"Hey, Mr. Nice Guy. What you did was chivalrous and all, but you don't have a metro pass, do you?" Shikaku interrupted, looking at the pleased expression on his face.
"No."
"Well then, how do you plan on getting to class? It's an eleven mile walk for pedestrians, you know."
He had forgotten about that. With a sheepish smile on his face, he scratched his head and laughed, "Whoops."
"Wow, Namikaze. It looks like today you're going to be late to class for the first time in your life."
As you have probably predicted, all my characters are extremely secondary in the canon. But here's how my mindset works: there has to be some story with the parents otherwise the kids in Naruto we love so much wouldn't even exist XD. I also throw in some OCs eventually; so now that I've thrown that out there, leave now or forever hold your peace.
Anyways, as for the new names….
Takemori Yoshino: Takemori translates to bamboo forest
Hanamichi College: Hanamichi translates to "Flower Path".
I'm sorry for the long wait! Admittedly, I had been really busy and had reached a writer's block. But after a few inspirations, this is up and running again!
Thanks for reading!