Bruises & Bitemarks (SasuNaru)

38.

"How do you know about train-hopping?" Kiba asks Sasuke at the station as we stand around waiting for the subway to come.

"This dobe told me," he replies, raising an amused eyebrow at me.

"See, but once you've been hopping for long enough, you know the routes," says Neji. "If you take the subway a lot, you get to know where it stops. Yes, all the lines," he adds. "The trick is not to pay attention. We have to distract ourselves while on the subway, and get off whenever we remember to."

We distract ourselves by playing various stupid games, such as the game where you try not to think about penguins, or the "who's the least competitive" competition. They amuse us for long enough, although by the time we get off not a minute goes by without someone groaning in frustration and yelling "Penguins!", which of course gets us some pretty weird looks.

The first place we come to is the market. We spend nearly an hour looking at the cool stuff they have, then return to the subway. We hop to a little shopping district, the Museum of Technological Trinkets (I swear it's called that!), and the monument for the founder of Konoha that sits in the middle of a tight curve of the river. Then, finding we're close to Stoneheads, we decide to aim for it next.

As we approach the entrance, we spot some Konoha High students speeding out. One of them, a tall girl with a long ponytail of dead-straight black hair, stops when she sees us.

"Oh, Sasuke-kun, Naruto-kun!" She glances at the door as though expecting someone to burst out of it.

"What's the big rush?" I ask.

She looks around shiftily. "Uh... well, if you really wanna know... Tsunade-sensei's in there."

"What?" several voices shout around me.

"What's she doing?" I ask the girl, hoping against hope that it's not what I think it is.

"Has she found us out?" Kiba asks. "All us students, I mean."

"No, no, that's not it at all! She's—" The girl puts a hand to her mouth and giggles. "She's totally hammered."

I can sense the shock of everyone around me, but it's exactly what I was afraid of.

"Damn, Tsunade no baa-chan," I mutter. Louder I say, "Thanks for the info, uh..."

"Name's Takeda Sui," she says. "You're welcome." With a smile and a wave, she departs. I watch her go, her hair flying in the vicious wind.

"Man she's hot!" Kiba says with a grin. "Naruto, you are so lucky. I swear every girl in the school knows your name."

"Sucks for them I'm gay, then, huh?" I laugh.

"Yeah, but lucky for the rest of us," he smirks, nudging me lightly with his elbow. "Eh?"

I roll my eyes, amused. "I'm not gonna play matchmaker for you, Kiba. It's up to you to find a girl – or a guy, if that's the case – hey, don't blow up at me now, I'm just saying! It's up to you to find someone you like for who they are, not what they look like."

Sasuke's arms find their way around my waist. "Not that your opinion is any good, since you got both ends of the deal."

"Egotistic bastard," I grin, reaching back to screw up his hair.

"You know I'm sexy."

"Anyway," says Shikamaru loudly, "we can't go in there while the principal's there..."

"Why would she go to a dance club anyway?" Gaara asks, sounding sceptical. "There are other bars, and everyone knows the Stoneheads is mostly populated by youth."