Chapter 9

I figured out the different characters of the men pretty quickly. I did not have to watch the group for very long until I caught onto their jargon either.

Hidan. He was the alcoholic of the group. He drank more than anyone else I had ever met and it did not even appear to be affecting him. Apparently, he was the kind of person who acted drunk no matter if he was or not. I wondered if he suffered from ADHD?

He was also pretty keen on the ladies, but only the prettiest of them and for some reason they actually liked him back. Sure, he was not bad looking and he knew that you had to play hard to get, but not too hard. You had to raise yourself above them and make yourself appear interesting. You had to be polite, but cocky at the same time. Of course, every girl did not fall for that kind of guy, but many girls did. Buying them a drink was definitely his favorite way of getting their attention, which was probably why he was such a big sponger. He used all his money on women and let the others pay for his own tremendous consumption. What a nice guy, huh?

Hidan's complete opposite was Zabuza. This guy was a bit of a choleric person. If something was wrong, he made sure that everyone knew that he was displeased. The only thing Hidan and he had in common was that he too was pretty loud. He was just not loud for the same reasons. Hidan was loud all the time, especially if he got excited while Zabuza only yelled when Hidan was being a pest to him, which had happened quite often, considering the small amount of time we had been there.

Actually, it was pretty entertaining to watch those two interact with each other. It seemed like Zabuza was constantly suppressing his desire to punch in Hidan's teeth. He slowly build momentum with every one of Hidan's annoying actions or comments. It began with glares, then he started answering back before physically launching out at Hidan and then finally exploding with rage. It amazed me that the bouncers had not thrown them out a long time ago. On the other side, those guys appeared to be regular customers so maybe they were just very patient with them? They probably put a big amount of money into this place every weekend. You could not throw someone like that out, could you?

If you looked past Hidan and Zabuza's most striking personally traits, they were actually a pair of pretty nice guys – as long as you kept them apart.

Asuma was nothing like those two. He was the one who resembled Kakashi the most. He was laid back and knew how to control both his temper and excitement level. He was not quiet, but spoke in a tone that was acceptable for everyone. If I had to put a finger on something, it would have to be that he was a pretty easy victim and everyone seemed to be aware of that and taking advantage of it, which meant he ended up paying for most of the drinks.

Asuma sat next to the most remarkable guy of the group, Itachi. He did not say much, unlike the rest of the group. When he spoke, it was always some wise statement coming from him and the other men never really seemed to understand what he was saying, even though it was not that complex. He did not drink nearly as much as any of the others and it looked like he was just sitting in his own little world most of the time. His long, distant stares sometimes made me want to be able to crawl inside his head and find out what was going on in that intricate mind of his. I bet he was the smartest one at the table.

And then there was Kakashi. But you know him already, right? He was the smart, positive, relaxed, polite, party loving guy who was probably the reason why that group stuck together. Oh, and do you know what he had done? He had actually put on two masks that night! When he was smoking or drinking, he pulled down the thickest mask that covered the thinner mask underneath it and then he smoked/drank through a small hole, which I assumed he had cut himself. He never seized to amaze. What was it that was so important for him to hide? Well, regardless of what his reasons were, he always remembered to pull the second mask back up when he was done.

If I had to do some social psychology and divide them into roles within the group, Kakashi would without a doubt be the leader of it. Everyone seemed to like him, maybe even look up to him? He knew how to handle the group and it was easy for him to calm Zabuza down when Hidan had crossed the line and it was not a problem for him to make Hidan stop bugging Zabuza for a couple of minutes. He was the only one who really listened when Itachi talked and who seemed to understand it better than the others. Other than that, Asuma and him appeared to be on the same level concerning most things, besides the fact that Kakashi could sweet talk anybody, including Asuma. To take a wild guess, I would say Asuma was Kakashi's closest friend and the other way around.

This makes Asuma an "active" member of the group so he would be placed right under Kakashi. If something should be discussed within the group, hypothetically, it would be Kakashi who was doing the work and talking, while Asuma would be helping him and give constructive criticism to whatever Kakashi or the others had to say. In this situation, Zabuza and Hidan would probably be the yes-men. They would just go along with whatever the ones with a higher status said. Though, as an outlying role, Zabuza would be the grumbler and seen through his eyes Hidan would be the scapegoat, but seen with the groups eyes overall, Hidan would just be the clown.

As weird as it might sound, I would say Zabuza and Hidan were the best friends within the group. I based that on the fact that they probably would be bored to death if they did not have each other. Also, it was the only two interacting as much with each other as they did. I figured that they had this love and hate relationship, if you understand what I'm getting at?

That leaves Itachi, who is a pretty easy one to place. He is the passive guy. He does not say or do much and does not contribute with as much to the group in proportion to the others. And he did not seem to favor anyone, which made him appear like a loner. If I had to compare myself to anyone of those men, it would have to be Itachi. Especially now that I was "the new guy."

I did not expect my seat at the table to be permanent, but it was okay to hope, right? Of course, if I could choose myself, I would rather be Asuma. I would be close to Kakashi, his adviser – kind of. His most trusted friend and I would not be a zero. I would be someone.

Finally, I looked up from the spot on the table that I had been staring at for at least the last 10 minutes. That was when I discovered that everyone was staring at me. They all started laughing at my puzzled look.

"Damn, you spaced out for good!" Asuma chuckled and pushed my shoulder with his, gently and friendly.

"Yeah, you and Itachi would make a cute couple!" Hidan laughed and everybody looked at Itachi, who did not notice what was going on around him at all, he was just staring up at the ceiling, "See what I mean?"

I could not stop myself from blushing and I looked back down at the table, but only until Kakashi spoke, "There's nothing wrong with spacing out. I like to do that myself sometimes. You should try it, Hidan," he spoke in a mocking tone of voice and smirked at Hidan who pouted and looked at him angrily.

"What is that supposed to mean?" he protested loudly, but then I stopped listening to their conversation.

I giggled nervously to myself and scratched the scar over my nose. I had not done that in a long time. This whole situation; it was so different from what I was used to now. This was nice, but the memories... They all came rushing back to me and it felt like someone was piercing my brain with a wide and sharp needle.

"Yeah, you are such an idiot," Zabuza stated before clouting Hidan on the head. Hidan did not look too pleased after that and hit out at Zabuza who managed to lean back just enough for Hidan not to touch him. Instead, he bumped into Itachi. This did not disturb Zabuza and Hidan's newest fight at all, but Itachi's flow of thoughts seemed to be ruined. At least, that was what I thought until he scooted a bit over towards Asuma, leaned his head back and began staring at the ceiling once again. Zabuza's push would have ruined everything for me if I was in Itachi's place, but Itachi just drifted back into his own world right after it like nothing had ever happened. In a way, he was kind of creepy.

"Bear kills friend - bear gets killed," no one had expected Itachi to say anything. He always chose the weirdest moments to blurt out those Indian sounding sentences. Zabuza and Hidan stopped fighting and most of the group looked at him like he was some kind of freak. Itachi lifted his head from the neck rest and took something out from his left jacket pocket. It was the one facing away from me so I could not see what it was yet.

"What the hell are you talking about?" asked Hidan and sat up straight.

"I think he's telling you to stop fighting, right Itachi?" Kakashi looked over at Itachi who just shrugged and placed a lighter, some white paper and a small box on the table in front of himself.

"Didn't you have enough at Zabuza's? I really think you should quit, you smoke too much nowadays," Asuma advised Itachi who finally revealed what was inside that small metal box. I should have guessed he was a pot-head. The spacing out and the weird things he said, it was so obvious, was it not? Damn, my analyzing skills had failed me. Now I could not place him anywhere in the group since I did not know how he acted when he was not stoned. But judging by Asuma's advise, I would say he did not have a higher rank than I had already shot him to have.

"How much more of that do you have left?" Kakashi asked, but did not seem concerned about Itachi's behavior or actions.

"Enough to make two," he replied and tapped the box with one fingernail. Kakashi stuck his hand into his pocket and threw some money onto the table.

"Can I buy one for the table?" Itachi looked up at him and nodded before collecting the money.

This was so weird. I had not expected any of the things, I had just witnessed, to happen. Especially not the part where Kakashi revealed that Itachi was not the only one at the table who was smoking weed. This group of people sure was a bunch of eccentrics, but I kind of liked them already, was that wrong of me?

I knew the club owner did not mind people smoking any weird stuff or taking any other kind of drugs while being inside his club - as long as they were not a big nuisance to any of the other guests. Poor guy, he would not have any customers if he did not let them in since they were pretty much the only kind of people who went out to party in this village. If you did not like drugs and did not want to get involved in any of the business going on during nighttime, you kept the parties private. It was the only safe way to stay out of it.

Itachi prepared two joints and passed it on to Kakashi who took the first drag. It did not seem like Itachi was going to share that other joint of his. Pretty hardcore.

All of a sudden, Kakashi looked more relaxed than ever and he leaned back in his seat, taking a second drag of it, but only a short one this time. He then passed it to Hidan and it continued like that right until it was passed on to me.

"No thank you," I said, shaking my head and putting my hand up between the joint Asuma held and my face. I was a pushover and I had always been that. I too was pretty quick at getting hooked on things – anything – but this time I would not. I had to set a limit somewhere, "I'm just drinking tonight."

Everybody, except Kakashi, looked at me with widened eyes. Especially Itachi so this was actually the first real reaction he had given me since we met. I guess he did not think it was alright for me to pass up on his goods, "Are you sure?" Asuma tempted, waving the joint back and forth. I just nodded and took one of my shots and held it up in front of him.

"Cheers," I tried to send him a confident smile. I did not know how well it turned out, but it made Hidan hoot and everyone took a shot with me. Hopefully, they had not noticed that I was behind with 3 shots.

Asuma stretched his hand over the table to give Kakashi the joint, but he shook his head, "I think I've had enough. I'll follow Iruka-san's example and drink the rest of the time," Asuma just nodded approvingly and gave it to Hidan who eagerly took a long drag of it.

"Yeah baby, that's what I'm talking about!" he yelled, throwing the lit joint into Zabuza's lap as he jumped away from his seat, not caring that Zabuza got burned and was cursing at him, "Come, Iruka-san. We are going to find some girls to do body shots on!" he took my arm and dragged me to my feet. This was not what I really wanted to do, but I followed him anyway, since I thought this was my shot at getting closer to the group and with that closer to Kakashi. I prayed to Kami, though, that I would not have to do any of the flirting.

Hidan directed us towards two girls who were standing at the bar. I figured he chose them because they showed a lot of skin and he probably thought of them as slutty. They did not fall into my taste at all, but Hidan did not seem to have a problem with it.

"Hey ladies, wanna do my friend and me a favor?" he gave them a charming yet cocky smile that almost made me turn gay – I'm kidding, but this guy really knew what he was doing. The girls blinked a couple of times, but then it looked like he had won their full attention. One of them nodded, which made him go on, "Iruka-san and I are really thirsty and we made a bet against those guys over there that we could drink our next shot off of your smokin' bodies."

I was overwhelmed by his honesty. Or? Actually, he was lying, but if we had made a bet like that, we would never tell them, right? I mean, that would not work? Now I was really curious to see if it would in fact work on them.

"And what do we get out of it?" the tallest girl asked with a raised eyebrow. It did not look like she rejected the idea entirely since she stepped closer and slightly touched Hidan's bare arm.

"How does free drinks for the rest of the night sound?" he grinned and stared into the girl's eyes. It was kind of gross watching them stand there and smile all perversely at each other. But there was not anything wrong with his tactics, apparently. I figured he had purposely chosen those two girls and used that technique to win them over because he knew it was gonna work on girls like them. Damn, this was guy was a chameleon. It was one thing that he was good at flirting, but he had great analytic skills too? I never imagined someone like Hidan to be smart enough to do anything like that. Maybe I had underestimated him and the others too.

It then hit me, had he just promised one of those girls that I would pay for her drinks for the rest of the night? He had not, had he? What could be even worse was if he was going to dump the entire bill on me! I was not in any position to complain, though, so I kept my opinion to myself.

"Sounds fair, where do you want us?" she asked and stepped away from him. The deal had been sealed so quickly that I had not even had the time to get nervous about it. I made a mental note to myself: remember to bring Hidan the next time you are on a girls hunt. Not that it was going to happen, but it would not hurt to remind myself of that.

"Here's fine by me. Hey bartender? Can we borrow your desk for a minute? I'll give you a show worth watching if you let me," Hidan looked towards the bartender who shrugged and made a face that said something like be my guest, "Ready, Iruka-san?"

I stared at him, blankly. How could I be ready? He did not give me a chance to prepare! At least I had gotten something to drink before this. I did not even want to imagine how it would have been like if I had not.

The girls laid down at the bar and Hidan got the preparations ready with the help of the bartender. When the girl in front of me asked me to get started, I looked over my shoulder and saw that the others were watching us while drinking one shot after another. It kind of looked like they were having a race and I noticed that my shots had been emptied as well – at least I had not payed for them myself.

"Hey," she exclaimed and snapped her fingers in front of my face. She did not sit straight, but was supporting her upper body with one of her arms on the bar.

"Uhm, s-sorry," now was not the time to be stammering. I had to do this, there was no way out. I would rather not, but on the other side, was this not going to score me some cheap points with the group and perhaps with Kakashi? It was worth the try and besides, Hidan had gone through the trouble of getting me this girl – not that it was actually any trouble for him – but it would be rude to reject her now.

Nervously, I licked her stomach and spread the salt over the wet spot so that it would stick to her. She put the lime in her mouth herself, probably because she was really tired of waiting. I glanced over at Hidan and it looked like he had finished a long time ago because he was busy making out with the girl now.

Quickly, I found the shot of tequila Hidan had gotten me and I grabbed it. With one fast lick, I took as much salt from her stomach as I could. It tasted bitter and it was not just the salt. That girl had probably washed herself in all kinds of toxic chemicals in order to smell good.

I laid my head back and washed the bad taste away with the shot before leaning over her to take the lime from her mouth, but when I was just about to sink my teeth into it, she spit it out, grabbed me by the back of my neck and forced me into a kiss. I was surprised - to say the least. Completely caught off guard.

Hidan began whooping beside me and yes, it was me he was whooping at, I saw it from the corner of my eye. That idiot, did he have to make it even more embarrassing than it already was? I did not need anymore attention!

I tried not to look too frightened, but I had definitely gotten more than what I had bargained for. With all the power I could generate from my half-drunken body, I pushed myself away from her.

"Hey!" she said in a disappointed way, but I did not care. I turned around on my heels to leave; this was too much for me, I could not do this anymore. Somebody grabbed my arm and stopped me from walking any further. This was not a girl's hand, it was way too big to be that.

I looked over my shoulder and saw the man I had nearly faced off against earlier. It did not seem like he was going to let go and I did not even know why he was holding onto me in the first place, so I turned around and shouted, "What the hell do you think yo..."...

oOooOooOo

So, are you happy now, Mr. Nancy? Kakashi managed not to show his face once again and he was more creative this time, I guess xD

Okay, a person reviewed the story anonymously so I could not answer her, but she questioned a lot of the happenings and now I'm afraid that others are left with the same questions as her so I'm just gonna answer them here to clear everything up:

"it doesn't make sense for someone to still be earning minimum wage after 10 years on the job. Speaking of which, shouldn't he have been offered a promotion at one point? And don't you typically have to be 16 to work (though I'm sure that's not true for all)?" - 1) There is in fact people that work for minimum wage without ever getting promoted. That's just life. If you don't educate yourself, there's a strong possibility that you might end up working in a place like Iruka for rest of you life. I'm not saying that it happens to everyone, but the possibility certainly is there. If the budget doesn't allow someone to get a raise, you won't. It is as simple as that.
2) You can not get promoted when there isn't a higher position to be promoted to. If you read between the lines, it implies that the supermarket is a small one of its kind and that Tenzou is taking care of practically everything himself. That's what all the paperwork is about. Also it suggests that Iruka is already Tenzou's "right hand" and is doing everything that Tenzou does not have the time to do himself.
3) I didn't remember if I had actually checked the minimum working age in Japan so I might have gotten lucky 'cause I just checked and the minimum age is 15-years-old. So, thank you for the heads up^^ I would have changed it if I was wrong.

"I also would like to know why Kakashi would automatically assume Iruka smokes. You also might want to address how that guy went from being straight to suddenly lusting after a guy." - 1) Kakashi never assumed Iruka smoked, but merely offered him a cigarette out of sheer politeness. And like most other people would have thought, he assumed Iruka was smart enough to think for himself and pass on his offer if he wasn't a smoker. I don't see anything odd in this situation, it's a pretty common one in Denmark, at least. Here, most offer a cigarette even though they know the other one isn't a smoker. It's just something people do to be polite.
2) And about the last thing there. I never said that Iruka was gay? Do you have to be gay just because you admire someone of your own gender or simply because you want their acceptance? Even if he is lusting after Kakashi, who ever said he wasn't gay or bi sexual to begin with? You can date girls even though you are gay – for example to cover up the fact that you are in fact gay. It's a small village he's living in and people talk. Other than that, no one said I meant to reveal his reasons yet. With that being said, I'm not going to reveal what Iruka's true feelings towards Kakashi is yet. He could be in love with him, he cold just admire him? You'll have to be patient. And read the hints given. And don't worry, no matter what the case is, I'll make sure to let you all know what his feelings are based on^^ I don't hope you are offended by the fact that I posted this, who ever wrote this review. I did not do it to name and shame you. I simply did it because I thought this was relevant to everyone and that if someone was left with the same questions as you, I would rather try and explain the situation. If you want me to delete this, I will. Just say so ^^!

I'll encourage anyone who might have unanswered questions to just come out and ask me. I will gladly answer. And if my answer doesn't satisfy you or if I can't answer, I'll admit my mistakes and try to make up for them^^ So if you, anonymous reviewer, still don't think this was enough, please, just say so and I'll try to correct the things that are incorrect or incomplete.

I'm sorry about this. I just don't like to leave questions unanswered. That's just how I am. (wow, it nearly turned it to a novel, LOL! Sorry...)

Well, I hope you liked what I had to offer for you this time and I appreciate hearing whatever you have to say about it, regardless if it's good or bad^^! Hey, you won't get better if you are not aware of the fact that you are doing something wrong, right :)? A quick thank you to all my reviews, you are truly the best! The next chapter will lie in wait for you tomorrow ^^!