Disclaimer: Don’t own Naruto or any of the places or characters.
Authoresses’ note: The story will take a while to get into Sasunaru/Narusasu, so be patient. Hey, this chapter doesn’t even have Sasuke in it, it’s more of a prologue, so don’t be angry that it’s not like “instant!lemon”
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“Get OUT Uzumaki! You’re not welcome! You’ve trashed my store for the LAST time!” And with a deafening clang, he shut the door on my foot. Giving the door another slam to emphasize his point, my former employer clicked the five locks on the door shut and stalked into the rear of the store, leaving me clutching my soiled uniform on the store’s front step.
“Way to go Naruto,” I muttered to myself as I descended the narrow stairs.
Being fired and violently dismissed from a job was nothing new to me. However, this one was the last one in my neighborhood that I could easily travel to. I needed a job close to home so I didn’t have to spend what little money I had on bus fares. And me being my clumsy self, I had knocked over my ninth pot of soup in that store, which had lead to the shopkeeper turning an alarming shade of red, grabbing me by the scruff of the neck and brutally throwing me out the door.
At least he let me keep the uniform… I examined the garment, looking for ways I could salvage the soiled article of clothing. Since what little money I made went to buying ramen and other food, I never really had enough left over to buy proper clothes.
Turning back in the direction of the store, I stuck my tongue out at the shopkeeper standing in the window. Starting to giggle after seeing him turn a brilliant shade of purple, I turned heel and walked off in the direction of my small but cozy apartment.
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“Needed: secretary for a large law firm, must have computer skills. Ha. Well I know how to surf the web for porn, but I don’t think that’s what they’re looking for huh?” Talking to my chopsticks didn’t do much to alleviate my loneliness and boredom, but they were my faithful companions who seemed to share my joy for ramen. At least if using them to eat made them joyful, then they must like ramen, ‘cause that’s all I shoveled in my mouth in my spare time.
“Wanted: short order cook for the Soup Shoppe. Jeez, they wasted no time in posting an ad eh?” I dunked my chopsticks back into my cup of instant ramen and shoveled a tangle of noodles into my mouth.
“Wanted: Website designer for a large corporation. Skills needed… Ahh, I don’t have them anyways.” I slurped silently for a while, contemplating the newspaper which had tons of job postings; none of which had any need for me.
Throwing down the now empty carton, I folded up the half read newspaper. Standing up and shaking off my legs, I took one measly step across my kitchen to get to my fridge.
“Why is my apartment so small again?” I asked myself as I rummaged the shelves in hopes of finding the elusive milk. Throwing the fridge door closed, I leaned back against it dramatically and answered myself. “Oh yes, I never have a decent job, and whenever I do get one, I always get fired within the month.” Leaning my head back, I chugged half the carton of milk in one gulp. Wiping my mouth on my sleeve, I looked at the clock on my ratty microwave which stood proudly on a shelf over the fridge. Kami I needed more space.
1:30 pm. Enough time to talk with other various household appliances. If they were willing to listen that is.
Pushing in my chair, I shuffled out of the kitchen, knocking over a vase of dandelions. Dandelions only because I had decided I needed some color in my apartment and I had no money for real flowers. So I had given the kid that lived below me 50 cents (1) if he could creep over into the neighbor’s yard to pick his weeds. Not that the neighbor minded much.
I flumped myself down into the thread-bare paisley loveseat I had found outside in someone’s garbage, and I continued looking through the newspaper for jobs. The phone rang loudly, reminding me that I actually have a phone, and that some of my very few friends might want to reach me.
“It’s one thirty. My friends know I work during the day.” I moaned out loud to my living room/kitchen. It couldn’t be anything good. Picking myself off the lumpy loveseat, I shambled over to the phone and answered with a drawn-out “Heell-ooo?”
“Uzumaki?” I knew that voice from somewhere. It was the sound of an unhappy man, and I had the feeling I knew who it was.
“Yes sir.” I answered politely, not giving the man any more reason to be upset with me.
Satisfied that it was me he was speaking to (who else could it have been?), the voice continued. “Your rent is overdue. This is the third time this has happened Uzumaki. Do you remember the conversation we had when you first came here?”
Vividly. My landlord is a large, beefy man with onion-y breath. The first time we met, he was wearing ketchup stained overalls that stretched threateningly over his wide stomach, and he loomed over me to lecture me about paying the bills on time or suffer the consequences. Certain consequences I wasn’t sure were that much worse than being breathed on by my landlord.
“Yes sir.” I had to stop myself from telling him exactly what I thought of him when we first met. “I will get it to you momentarily.”
“I want it tomorrow morning. You hear me Uzumaki?”
“Loud and clear sir. Loud and clear.” He gave and angry huff and hung up the phone, leaving me to slump down on my floor with my head in my hands. Kami, when did my life get so bad. Oh yes, it’s always been like this.
Not wanting to waste anymore time in unneeded misery, I jumped up to pursue the job listings in the newspaper. As I flattened it out on my living room table, a notice jumped out at me immediately, almost as if it were meant for me to get that job.
Perfect.
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Later that day I stood in front of the grungy desk of an even grungier man watching him pick at his teeth and looking over my resume. The resume that had over a dozen jobs on it, with some of the dates only a month apart from each other. I was extremely confident that I would get the job, and if I didn’t, then I would bemoan the usage of the money I had spent on speedily getting a bus to this guy’s office.
“Yes, yes…” The man nodded to himself, finally seeming to get the crud out of his teeth that had been bothering him. He wiped the tooth gunk on his pants and peered appraisingly at me over his glasses.
“You seem fit. And suitable for this job. May I inquire as to…” Oh jeez. This was the painful part where I had to explain why I had been fired from all my other jobs. Most of the prospective employers just nodded sympathetically at me when I explained my clumsiness and then told me that they would “call you later.” They never did.
“…why you want this job?” Oh, well that is different. I guess they’re really desperate.
The job was one that I would have never considered before if I had not urgently needed the money. When I had opened the newspaper about two hours ago, a dull green advertisement popped out at me, proclaiming a job offer at “Konoha Cleaners.” They were the company contracted by the city to service the streets and collect the undesirabl- ok, I was being hired for the position of a garbage man.
“Well, it’s ideal for me because I like to work with large machinery and…” This was utter bullshit. Every potential employer knew that the people responding to the ads just wanted the money. Why waste time on explaining why you really want to be a convenience store clerk because you “love people” and you “want to do good things for your community.” The guy hiring me, Ebisu I think his name was, wasn’t even listening. He was just looking blankly at me and nodding a lot as I made a bunch of stuff up about me liking to drive big trucks. He was probably thinking about naked women or something; I started to see the beginnings of a nose bleed.
“…and I want to help out my favorite city!” I ended my long ramble with a flourish. Favorite city. Barf. Nothing good has ever come out of being born and raised in Konoha. It was just a place where thieves, drug addicts, womanizers and closet perverts thrived. And I’m pretty sure Ebisu was a closet pervert after seeing the guilty look spread across his face as he dabbed his nose with a kleenex.
Ebisu threw the used kleenex into the overflowing waste basket beside his desk and held out his hand, which I reluctantly took. He pumped his hand up and down once in a limp handshake and let go just as quickly.
“You’ve got the job sonny! And you start tomorrow. Here’s the map of your neighborhood, so have a seat there, look over it quickly and tell me if there’s anything wrong with it.”
I tentatively took a seat in the corner of his office, (if you could call it that, it was more of a closet) making sure to avoid the smears of what looked like vomit. Glancing down at the map he had handed me, I let out an “urk!” of surprise.
“Is there anything wrong…” He looked over at my resume, “Naruto?”
Holding up the map, I uttered, “This is the Chrimata District. (2)”
Ebisu squinted at me and nodded, “Yes it is sonny. Our previous man on the job got in, um, a little bit of trouble, and had to, um, go.”
“You mean he got arrested or something?”
“Uh, that’s right. So, is something wrong with it? It’s our last area, so if you’re not pleased with it…” He trailed off, his meaning fully implied.
The Chrimata District was just about the wealthiest section of Konoha. Konoha is roughly two million people, and the population of that district is only one hundred people. It houses the most famous citizens in the entire city, and I was just assigned to collect their garbage.
“I’m fine with it sir. Just one question.” It made me cringe to call Ebisu sir, but he had just given me the chance to look through celebrity’s garbage and perhaps pick up a new sofa that the voluptuous mayor Tsunade might have sat on.
“What is it?” Ebisu glared at me through his glasses. As if he could in fact see through the remarkable thick shaded lenses that he wore.
“Who is going to be my partner for this?” You know, one to drive, and one to pick up the stuff and throw it in the truck.
“You’re not going to have one.” Ebisu shuffled his papers seemingly hoping to make me think that I was interrupting something important. (I wasn’t.)
“Excuse me? I can’t do everything by myself!” I sputtered, making Ebisu shake his head condescendingly.
“The Chrimata District is different. Since the people that live there are the highest wage earners in the city, they are quite paranoid. They assume that one man will distract them, while another one breaks into their homes.” He coughed nervously, “I mean that’s only happened… once,” cough, “But they demanded that only one man service them, and that’s what you’ll do.”
“But I,”
“No comments. I’ll see you tomorrow at seven o’clock for your training.” He motioned towards the door as a sign of dismissal.
“Mr. Ebisu sir,” He looked up with a glare at the ready. “I was wondering if I could get an advance… I need to pay the bills.”
There was a pause in which I thought he was going to deny me. I saw his eye twitch for a moment, and then he looked back down at his papers with a huff.
“Go ask Wally at the front desk. Now go, I have work to do.”
I practically skipped out the door. Happier than I had been for a while, I ran up to the skinny man known as Wally and asked for my advance. He gave it to me with a slight smile and bade me on my way. Being a garbage man was never one of my career choices, but it’ll pay the ramen and the bills. Hey, I get to help out my community too!
Overkill Naruto, overkill.
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Please, please review! :D
(1) I’m Canadian, so I’m just going to use dollars and shtuff.
(2) Chrimata is Greek for money… I looked it up.
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