Ignoring the incredulous look of shock and the warning hiss coming from Shikamaru on his left side, Naruto continued, yelling.
"What the fuck?" He said in English. "What the hell is wrong with you asshole? What exactly did I do to make you say shit like that? Answer me!"
Sasuke simply turned his head towards Fugaku, speaking in Japanese, annoyed. "See? He's also an uneducated, savage and rude idiot to boot. Clearly, they misinformed you about this person, otou-san."
"Don't ignore me!" Naruto quickly shifted to retort in Japanese. "I can't comprehend the sudden aggressiveness towards me! Explain the reason why you would offend me out of nowhere!"
"Whoa, Naruto, calm down." Shikamaru intervened in between, placing an arm in front of them. "It's probably…some kind of misunderstanding…"
"Well, it's not going to be a fucking misunderstanding when I fucking bash his face in! I'm gonna punch him so hard he'll have a hole in his face, this freaky icicle lodged in his asshole, bastard!"
"Naruto-kun!" Sarutobi exclaimed, reprimanding his employee. "Watch your language!"
Sasuke observed as the blond deflated at once and looked sheepishly towards his superior, scratching his whiskered cheek. "I'm sorry Sarutobi-jiichan." Naruto spoke in Japanese.
"You shouldn't only apologize to me, but to everybody in this room. Begin with the young man that you just offended."
Naruto stiffened at Sarutobi's command, his hands balling into a fist, clearly showing his dissatisfaction. The blond scowled under his breath. He was the innocent victim of this situation but he was the one paying for the crimes. This is so unfair!
"Well, Naruto-kun?" Sarutobi repeated the order.
In an instant, Naruto spun around and Sasuke saw thunderous cobalt eyes glowering straight towards his eyes, snarling with barely contained rage.
"I a. po. lo. gi. ze. for. my. be. ha. vi. or." Each syllable was bitten out from gritted teeth, Shikamaru not-so-subtly elbow-jabbed his friend. Naruto rolled his eyes. "Sir." The last word brimmed with disdainful sarcasm.
"I guess." Sasuke replied in English. "There's an interesting idiom from your language that can describe your apology. I believe it's called 'fled cowardly with the tail between your legs.'"
"That's it—" Naruto stalked menacingly with his arms raised ready to choke the pale throat.
"Sasuke." An intimidating voice broke off the impending chaos and Fugaku stepped forward, blocking Sasuke from Naruto. "That is enough. I'd have never expected for you to show such misconduct of behavior. Apologize to the young man."
However, the sour look on Sasuke's face showed that the brunet also wholeheartedly disagreed in giving any kind of concession towards Naruto. Fugaku cleared his throat, pressuring the issue.
"Hn." Sasuke grunted, staring apathetically towards Naruto's smug eyes. "My bad." He spoke in Japanese.
Naruto snarled. "What? That's not exactly an apolo—Uuf!" He coughed when he felt Shikamaru's fist jabbing lightly behind him.
"Well!" Sarutobi intervened speaking louder than usual. "Since I guess, you both have already…made acquaintance to each other, I should also let you know that he's Fugaku's youngest son…"
"Uchiha Sasuke." The brunet answered dryly, not even bothering to raise either of his arms for a handshake.
Shikamaru just sighed, also not attempting to offer his own hand since he found everything just too troublesome while Naruto simply crossed his arms, not wanting to move a finger because he didn't want to be contaminated by bastard germs.
Suddenly, as if Naruto reached clarity, he smirked. "Your name means 'fan'? Not much creativity in there." The blond knew how someone's name was ordered in the oriental way, but he needed to push some of Sasuke's buttons.
The brunet responded, completely unphased. "It's still better than having your surname mean 'spiral'. And your first name is after a japanese noodles condiment. Still, I'd expect that tiny little brain of yours would know that Japanese inverts the order of names, idiot." Sasuke smirked.
"Well, fuck you!" Naruto bristled. "You're now in America; you should follow our rules and obey our customs!" Behind him, Shikamaru was clearing his throat in attempt to gain his attention.
"I do not see why I should bend myself to an un-civilized, disordered and uncultured country like yours." Sasuke answered in Japanese.
"An uptight asshole like you would always be the arrogant fucker that can't respect other countries besides your own." Naruto spoke in English.
Sasuke scoffed. "I know that this is just an excuse to hide the fact that you can't understand such complex language like Japanese."
"I can so!" Naruto immediately counterattacked in Japanese. "And I understood every word you have said in the past few minutes, I just didn't bother myself to answer in Japanese. As if you would also understand everything I've said in English."
"Please. Between grunts and shouts, obviously I wouldn't understand everything that a moron like you would bark." Sasuke scoffed, ignoring the heavy stare his father was directing to him. "After all, I'm not versed with dog language." He spoke haughtily, raising his chin.
Naruto just gaped for some brief seconds, the insult still ringing his ears, not believing that someone he barely knew for over five minutes would say such offensive words. When it finally clicked, with a guttural roar, Naruto launched towards Sasuke, disregarding any table, chair, anything in his way.
"No wait, Naruto!" Shikamaru quickly grabbed the blond from behind, trying to avoid the looming tragedy.
"Let me go Shika! Just let me punch—" -Naruto grunted, attempting to step forward. "This frikkin' girly face—Baaaaaaaastaaaaaaaard—"
However, when you'd expect anyone with considerable sanity would take careful steps back, Sasuke just stood undaunted, his arrogant smirk hitching higher. "Have I touched a nerve? Too truthful for you to admit moron?"
Naruto suddenly freed himself from Shikamaru, fisting Sasuke's expensive suit and growled in Japanese. "What exactly have I done wrong to receive this mistreatment? Why are you acting so awfully towards me?"
Continuing his diatribe in Japanese, the blond inhaled deeply and released his breath in one shout. "YOU IMPOLITE PERSON!"
Everyone stood stock still, in an attempt to filter and comprehend Naruto's abnormal choice of words. Shikamaru; not Sasuke, was the first one who broke the silence with a snort:
"Naruto, that's not exactly how you'd normally insult someone."
"Uuuuuuuuugh…" Face flaming red from embarrassment, the blond had allowed his friend to disentangle his fingers from Sasuke's suit.
Fugaku, seeing the ideal opportunity to end the situation before it'd got heated once again, turned towards Sarutobi. "Well, for now the introductory presentations will be enough. Next time we'll begin reviewing the initial plans."
The eldest Uchiha offered his hand to Sarutobi and shook it. "Once again, it is my pleasure to meet you after many years, Hiruizen-san."
"Oh, likewise." Sarutobi smiled, accepting the handshake as Sasuke repeated the same motion afterwards together with a polite bow.
Fugaku quickly approached the young architects, pausing for a moment in appraisal. Both young men grew a little bit apprehensive under such scrutiny when, also raising his hand, Fugaku declared. "I'm looking forward to seeing the project."
He first offered to shake hands with Shikamaru. "Nara Shikamaru." The young brunet acknowledged with a nod.
And with another long pause staring towards the blond, Fugaku shook Naruto's hand. "Uzumaki Naruto."
"Ah…thank you very much." Naruto muttered timidly, attempting very hard to not fall into his longtime habit of scratching the back of his head.
Sasuke just finished shaking Shikamaru's hand and was walking towards the door when his father called. "Shake hands with Uzumaki-kun too."
For everybody inside the conference room, Fugaku's suggestion appeared to be a very bad idea, as everyone stared at the duo with growing apprehension.
"Well, Sasuke?" Fugaku repeated with an apparent unruffled tone; however, his narrowed eyes told otherwise.
Sasuke acquiesced and took the few steps ahead and raised his hand.
Naruto glared at the offered hand for a couple of seconds and before he accepted it, squeezed the hand with all his worth. "It was a pleasure…to meet you. Sasuke." Naruto grinned in triumph towards the seething onyx eyes. "Uchiha."
Sasuke frowned before giving his own copyrighted smirk. "Likewise. Uzumaki. Naruto." The beam quickly vanished from the whiskered cheek as the blond tried to match, as much as possible, Sasuke's glare with his own.
The apparent friendly handshake continued on as Naruto and Sasuke increased their strength in their hands, the electricity created from the traded glares was enough to supply a whole city. Shikamaru simply rolled his eyes, opening the door for Fugaku and Sarutobi as they slowly walked towards the exit.
Not wanting to give up the competition but inwardly admitting that his hand was beginning to feel a little bit sore, Naruto started to pry open his fingers when suddenly, before he could react, Sasuke pulled the blond closer to himself and whispered in his ear:
"Next time we meet do try to improve your vocabulary. Usuratonkachi." The brunet quickly released his hand and turned around to follow his father.
Naruto snarled. Now he had to find out what the fuck usuratonkachi meant! The bastard!
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After his usual obligatory nap that Shikamaru took after every lunch, he strolled inside the office in sluggish steps, ready to refill his coffee. Naruto's work table was in the way of the kitchen, so he always paid a small visit to chat with his bubbly blond friend.
However, instead of seeing the usual sight of Naruto researching something from books or using his Wacom Cintiq, the blond was furiously typing something on the computer, inside the google translate website.
As Shikamaru approached his friend for a closer inspection, he saw the typed word "Fuck you" displayed on the monitor, following by the provided translation in Japanese.
"Um. Naruto. What are you doing?" Shikamaru quirked an eyebrow.
Naruto wrinkled his nose. "I'm looking for curse words in Japanese, can't you see?" He answered while he typed the word 'asshole' this time.
"Oh yes." Shikamaru looked at his empty cup and continued. "Why?"
His friend made a frustrated groan and replied. "Because I don't know any curse words in Japanese. Or anything rude for that matter. In the Japanese school that I attended, they only taught me the polite way to say stuff and whenever I talked with the Japanese clients I also spoke politely."
"I see. Hence, the failed insult towards Mr. Sasuke Uchiha." Shikamaru smirked.
"Way to rub the salt in my wounds Shika." Naruto grumbled. Shikamaru simply shrugged. "But next time, I'll be prepared." The blond now stared at the extensive list of translated words he pasted to Microsoft Word and smirked.
"So which words do you already know in Japanese?" Shikamaru asked.
"Well, I already know 'bastard', 'idiot', 'stupid', 'asshole', 'fuck you', 'damn' and I have to remember more." Naruto counted with his fingers.
"Congratulations." The brunet said dryly.
"Thanks!" Unfortunately, Shikamaru's sarcasm flew straight through Naruto's ears, the blond completely oblivious about the remark. "I'm also finding another type of speech. You know that there are tons of different versions of 'you' in Japanese, but there's one version where I can call him and insult him at the same time!"
"Oh? And which one would that be? Shikamaru muttered.
Naruto crossed his arms and inflated his chest in satisfaction as a wicked grin slowly hitched one side of his lip. "Teme."
Shikamaru rolled his eyes, too used to the blond's overactive nature to feel any kind of exasperation. "I don't understand why you would hold such strong grudge over someone, anyways."
"You think I know?" Naruto whipped his head towards his friend. "The fucker was the one who started all this! You heard it! He was the one who insulted me first!"
"And yet, I never saw you getting so riled up, especially in front of Sarutobi." Shikamaru retorted with a tone of disapproval towards his friend.
That made Naruto deflate a little, feeling guilty for placing his kindhearted boss into a possible delicate situation. "Yeah, I know I shouldn't have done that." He lightly rubbed the back of his neck before knitting his eyebrows in indignation. "But that Bastard sure got on my nerves; he's such an arrogant, inconsiderate, mother fucker Satan's spawn raised from hell!" He blinked twice before returning to his keyboard. "Gotta know how to say that in Japanese…"
Shikamaru refrained from the urge to plant his palm on his face and muttered. "You should have simply ignored him, Naruto."
"Yeah, but he kept taunting me the whole time dammit!" Naruto shouted, his rage returning full-blown. "All the time! The bastard! And he also kept talking that whole conceited shit on and on and on…Seriously, what the hell is his problem? I never met such an arrogant asshole like him in my entire life! I bet his ego could cover the entire state of Texas, no, the entire country of the United States! And he had to show off his stupid superiority everywhere, and I had to hear all this crap!"
Naruto continued his enraged gibberish but at this point Shikamaru had already tuned out all the exclamations and promises of murder. With someone with excess stamina like Naruto, he'd rather wait until this almost unlimited source of energy wore down. In this way, he could slowly subdue the strong display of emotions. Shikamaru nodded nonchalantly while Naruto chatted non-stop, then excused himself for some seconds to refill his coffee and upon returning, glanced as the blond took some minutes to recover his breath.
Naruto restarted his rant.
"And that Bastard called me usuratonkachi! That fucker! Usuratonkachi! Do you have any idea what usuratonkachi means in English?" Naruto howled in indignation.
Personally Shikamaru didn't give a damn about all this, but he figured that if he expressed his indifference, his blond friend would surely chew his ear until he'd get the appointed answer. So he only shook his head while he rolled his eyes inwardly.
"Total dumbass!" Naruto growled as if he just received the most fowl insult in his entire life. "I mean, what kind of asshole would call anyone he met for a grand total of half an hour total dumbass, huh? Huh? Only one Bastard that goes with the name of Sasuke Uchiha! The next time we meet, I swear that blood will be spilled, justice will be served or my name is not Naruto Uzumaki! Believe it!"
"I've heard that Makoto is a quite charming name, in any case you want to change it." Shikamaru replied, drinking his coffee in lazy gulps.
"Shika, you're not helping." Naruto glared towards his friend.
Shikamaru simply shrugged. "I'm just saying that you better be prepared with for those so-called 'battles'. After all, you're the one who's going to see him at every meeting regarding the project we're responsible for."
"…" For someone who practically spilled his soul a few moments ago, Naruto managed to lose his voice for a grand total of thirty seconds before hissing flabbergasted. "What?"
"Chief's order, not mine." Shikamaru took another sip.
This time the hiss turned into a shout. "What?"
"He said that after this display of immaturity, you'll be obligated to engage a more positive conversation with Mr. Sasuke Uchiha and smooth over this whole ugly mess that occurred today."
Naruto groaned. "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat…No. Fucking. Way…" Cerulean eyes stared unfocused towards the computer monitor until he curled another mischievous grin. "Well, at least I already know a bunch of curse words and will be ready to launch insults at that conceited bastard!"
"Whatever…" Shikamaru sighed.
Naruto beamed. "And now I know that 'retarded' means 'ahou' in Japanese!"
"Live and learn, I guess…" And once again, Shikamaru's sarcastic statement went unnoticed by Naruto, too enthralled to type more insulting words than to properly listen to his friend.
Shikamaru used this time to take a peek at his friend. Frankly, he was a little bit apprehensive about Naruto's outburst and hostile attitude towards the young Uchiha guy. Generally, whether he was on good or bad terms towards anyone, Naruto wasn't so fixated over them, obsessing or holding any kind of grudge. It looked like Sasuke managed to get under Naruto's skin, and now Shikamaru hoped their interaction wouldn't end up with many wounds and broken bones. The young brunet prepared to gulp down the cold coffee only to frown at the empty cup. He glanced at the agitated mop of golden hair to see Naruto rapidly typing 'douche bag', only to receive a negative answer in the google translate. With another roll of eyes, Shikamaru returned to stare at his empty mug, musing about the situation.
Actually…to tell the truth…the first few seconds he saw Naruto staring at Sasuke he thought…
Shikamaru frowned, a headache beginning to emerge inside his head. At least Naruto was simply acting antagonistic towards Sasuke, no other emotions whirling around. It was already troublesome as it was without adding any other possible feelings into the mix that would only result in a deadly explosion.
Unbeknownst to his friend's thoughts, Naruto cackled, his lips twitching into a very dark grin. Or well, it'd have been truly impressive, this display of evilness, if only he didn't contradict himself with childlike bliss glinting in his eyes, as if he was a kid looking at porn behind the mother's back.
"Hey hey hey, Shika, look at this! Do you want to know what 'son of a bitch' is in Japanese? It's—"
Shikamaru figured it was about time for him to refill his cup of coffee, turning around away from Naruto's babbling.
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Report 02: Introduce me to predictable problems.
AN: Lol, no, I don't know what's 'son of a bitch' in Japanese. Or better, I know, but I didn't ask any Japanese linguist to confirm it.
Neeways, I'm too lazy to put "codes" like italic would mean they are speaking in Japanese, underline in English…it's all too troublesome for me. I'll warn beforehand, but you guys already noticed that when Naruto speaks politely, he's using Japanese, when he's cursing and yelling everywhere, he's using English. Most times.