Summary: Uzumaki Naruto – Eye color: Blue. Height: 5'3. Age: 14. Rank: ANBU Elite. Status: retired. Considered extremely dangerous.

Naruto was perfectly content to live out the rest of his long and peaceful life on the little nest egg he'd built for himself on a very profitable career. Unfortunately, life is a kick in the balls and nothing quite pans out. "Old friends are more trouble than they're worth."

A challenge fic I posed to myself.

Chapter One?

Retired

It was two p.m. and Ichiraku's Ramen was doing an unusual amount of business for the hour. People bustled in and out - some stayed longer than others, and some never seemed to leave at all. For those who were observing such things, they found that particular happenstance rather odd and did their best to ignore it if possible.

In a less-than-adequately lit section of the stall near the front bar sat a teenaged boy dressed in a neon orange jumpsuit that was partially to blame for the poor lighting. The corner was strangely dimly lit because of its close proximity to the front bar, where shop owners usually preferred very bright corners to show how modern they were.

The boy was very troubled by this, and often brooded over his lunch how he could make that final push and banish the light forever. The problem was with his clothes. Although outrageously fashionable, the one-piece was also responsible for the brightness he'd spent years carefully pushing away. Because of his inability to completely remove the light, people often came over to tell him how much his jumpsuit hurt their eyes when they gazed directly at him. It wasn't that their comfort was very important to him; he just didn't like being looked at.

The teen, Naruto, was rather well known in the stall and surrounding communities. He had shown up out of the blue a couple of years previous and had quickly established himself as a bit of a loner. He'd even become an honorary, if wholly unwilling, member of 'Rockos Ramblers' Ichiraku's long-standing group of people who had nothing better to do than hang around the stall for untold hours and chat away what was left of their lives while eating. Note: a popular past time that coincidentally consisted almost entirely of people over the age of seventy.

While his frustratingly bright clothes were an inconvenience to those around him, those people comforted themselves with the fact that they could recognize him should he ever suffer a fit of sanity and change his clothes into something more reasonable. He had bright blond hair stood out amongst a sea of black, brown, white, and the occasional purple. He also had three birthmarks on each cheek that gave the vague impression that he had foxlike whiskers. Not a very fashionable statement to be making, given the times and events of the past involving a certain nine-tailed demon fox that had cause some amount of discontent a decade and a half ago.

At the moment, Naruto had a very sour expression on his face as he carefully used his chopsticks to poke a foreign object that had somehow ended up on his meal.

"Ayame, what's this?" He asked in a high and suspicious voice that could, in a certain light, have been taken as a whine.

The brown-haired female cook at the register spared him a quick glance before returning to making change for a man with a hat so large that it could double as a tent if the occasion warranted.

"It's a vegetable, Naruto." She responded in a very put-upon voice.

Naruto narrowed his eyes at the green thing bobbing up and down in his broth as if it had any right to be there.

"What's it doing in my Ramen?" He hissed archly, giving it another good poke.

"Probably trying to save you from malnutrition or whatever topical thing you young people like to drop dead of these days." Ayame said under her breath.

Naruto considered this a rather unfair statement to make considering Ayame was only a few years older than himself. But he shrugged it off with the practice of his age and carefully set about segregating the offending foreign object and the rest of its ilk with a small wall of sturdy noodles. He didn't want to risk a prison break. He'd seen one in a movie once and it had not ended well for he prison's keepers. In this case, that was him.

"You don't have to worry about me dropping dead." Naruto said, sulking. "Although your attempts to poison me with these things has been noted and will show in my tip."

"That's nice." Ayame said, not paying very much attention to the blond and instead was concerning herself with the unimportant task of preparing someone else's meal at the stove. Besides, they both knew that her generous tip was assured no matter what she did. Even if it was attempted murder.

Disaster master avoided, Naruto upended his bowl and downed the broth in one go. Setting the cup of noodles back on the table, he reached into his pocket and withdrew a flask. With a contented smile, he poured the pungent contents into the bowl and tucked in.

"Naruto," Said Ayame, annoyance straining in her voice as the acrid scents of sake wafted across her nostrils. "What have I told you about drinking so early in the morning?"

Naruto ignored her with the expert grace of someone used to be chided and couldn't be bothered to retread old ground. So he carried on eating his sake miso ramen.

It was then that a white-haired man in a black mask that covered the lower half of his face seated himself in the dusty chair across from him without asking for permission.

Naruto gave the man a flat look one might expect from a person who'd recently had a brick dropped right in front of their foot.

The man was Hatake Kakashi, a twenty-something year old man who dressed like the recalcitrant Jounin he was – that is, he wore a aged green flak jacket, metal headband slung casually over his right eye, black undershirt and matching trousers. Although now he had some silk bandages tied securely around his left leg just above the knee.

Kakashi had led a rousingly successful career during - and after - the Second Great War, distinguishing himself above his peers and making Jounin by the tender, blood-soaked age of thirteen.

"Yo." Kakashi said in a lazy tone of voice.

Naruto continued to stare, his blue eyes drilling into Kakashi with stern disapproval learned from the other members of Rockos Ramblers.

Quite unperturbed in the face of the teen's mood, Kakashi plowed on as though he were welcome.

"Nice day we're having." He said, lamely.

"Yes." Naruto said shortly, his tone screaming in no uncertain tones that this was a perfect place to end the conversation.

"Fancy meeting you here." Kakashi said, unrelentingly. The man had, at some point, figured out how to use voice inflections and his single visible eye to convey emotions in lue of his hidden mouth. Right now, he had one of those insufferable friendly smirks layered in his voice and his eye upturned in a smile.

"Indeed." Naruto said as Ayame dropped another bowl of miso ramen in front of him, giving Kakashi a winning smile at the same time.

Naruto wasted no time in giving this bowl of the same treatment as the last, alcohol and all.

"You know you're supposed to eat the vegetables." Kakashi pointed out, obviously trying to appear casual and easy-going, which was ironically much easier when you weren't actually trying to be casual and easy-going.

"And you're not supposed to bother the retired." Naruto shot back.

Kakashi shrugged. "I've never been very good at following rules." He said in an off-handed manner.

"Tell that to your younger self."

Kakashi's hidden smile vanished faster than wind through the trees.

"I'm sorry." Naruto apologized. "That was backhanded." He buried himself in his meal, signaling he wanted another.

"How many of those have you had?" Kakashi asked, somewhat stiffly, observing the red tinge creeping into the blond's cheeks.

"I dunno." Naruto slurped. "Lost track after ten."

"And how long ago was that?"

"An hour or so." Naruto replied, distractedly. He was beginning to suffer from the same affliction that always bothered him when he was around people he used to know. Memories.

In Naruto's opinion, they were over rated and could use a good kick out the door.

"Oh…" Kakashi floundered, "anyways, I didn't come here to talk to you about…" he foundered again, "whatever it was we were discussing."

"I thought you happened to run into me." Naruto deadpanned in between mouthfuls of sake-infused noodles.

Kakashi snorted, not falling for the boy's deflection. "As you may have heard, I took on a genin team a while back."

Naruto choked on his noodles, eyes going wide in astonishment. "You what?!" he spluttered.

Kakashi's expression didn't change from one of polite interest, but in his eye you could see the glint of triumph gained from a successfully delivered bit of gossip Naruto, as a civilian, wouldn't have been privy too.

Kakashi waited until Naruto had recovered from his fit until he spoke again. "Yes, team seven."

This time Naruto didn't bother waiting for another bowl of ramen and simply drank from the flask directly and didn't stop until he'd emptied the whole thing.

"Here I was delu-delu-stupidly thinking that no team was ever going to p-pass your little bell test. You prize those bells as much as you do a another certain pair of balls." Naruto said, smacking his lips together and pulling a face as the hard liquor went down. "Who did you get settled with?" He asked, cocking his head at the white-haired ninja slightly, the red tinge blooming into a full on red-face.

"Duo, actually." Kakashi corrected. "I didn't let the other one pass."

"Wait a minute," Naruto interjected drunkenly, "I thought that you needed three people on a team. I'm drunk, were you?" Naruto hiccupped slightly.

"No, there were… circumstances." Kakashi said

"Did the great farting sage join your team?" Naruto blustered.

"No, but we're getting away from the point."

"And what a dangerous and fic-fic-elusi-slusi," Naruto gave up, "What a point it is."

"I need your help." Kakashi said abruptly, his face and tone betraying nothing but honest sincerity.

Naruto froze, caught off balance. Honesty was a rare thing in Kakashi's line of work.

"I learned everything I know on my own, receiving only marginal help when I was placed on a team with the soon-to-be Hokage. I know nothing of teaching kids, having never been taught myself."

"And what do you think I know?" Naruto said bull-headedly. He was beginning to develop a headache from the surging memories and the alcohol was not working.

Kakashi was silent for a moment as he sized up the boy before him. Small, but compact, he didn't look any different from the rest of his age group. But that was the point, after all.

"I know." Kakashi eventually said.

This time it was Naruto who snorted. "I doubt it." He replied scathingly.

Kakashi sighed, leaning back in his chair and checking that they weren't being eaves dropped on. Once he was sure that they weren't, he said, "The bond between the people important to you ever since birth drove you. And those strings formed a web that connected to everyone you ever grew close to. Then, one day, your world was shattered and you couldn't take it."

Naruto growled, and for an instant, there wasn't a fourteen-year-old boy enjoying an alcoholic binge when his parents weren't looking. There was a disillusioned soldier with more blood on his hands than in his body.

"I need your help to train this team so they don't end up like you have. A C-ranked mission that went wrong showed me just how out of my depth I am when it comes to raising kids."

"Look," Naruto slurred. "I can't deal with this drunk. I need to sober up." Naruto winced and then straightened up a bit, adjusting the front of his jumpsuit needlessly.

Now sober, Naruto stared at the Jounin seated across from him as though hoping that simply by an effort of will the man might just vanish into thin air or explode. Naruto wasn't picky, he could go either way - and as a former ninja, that might just be possible. About three percent, he reckoned. It was worth a shot.

Kakashi didn't vanish or combust, but remained obstinately solid in his chair without so much as a spark.

Naruto closed his eyes in resignation.

"When?" He groaned
Kakashi's smile returned. "Nine." And he vanished in a swirl of leaves and a gust of wind, not giving Naruto a chance to back out.

The blond grunted, returning to his meal.

"Bastard got more greens in my lunch." He muttered under his breath, pulling the soggy leaves from his broth and flicking them onto the chair the Jounin had evacuated.

Line Break

Naruto was drunk. But not in the way he'd been that morning, then he'd been able to formulate coherent and full sentences. Now he was right and proper drunk, stumbling red-faced through the streets with all the grace of a pregnant yak.

"This is the end of all the places!" He sung to no one in particular. "I've lost control of all my senses." Somewhere nearby, a man in a purple cardigan agreed. "Think you can't take it…" Naruto didn't quite know where to go from there and so he settled on trying a cartwheel, which ended up as half headstand, half face-plant.

"I can't take it." Naruto slurred, rubbing his offended nose. He had a niggling feeling he was supposed to be preparing for something he'd agreed to do earlier. He just couldn't for the life of him remember what.

I could…sober up. Naruto thought with a tinge of horror. If he did that, the memories would be there, waiting like some horrible beast. Or I could do the smart thing and blow it off.

Naruto did what most humans do when faced with two options. That is, he chose the path of least resistance. With a grunt and a swear, he hoisted himself to his feet, took another swig from the bottle in his hand, and continued his merry way down the street, off to wherever his feet would take him.

As it happened, it was an open bar that didn't mind selling to minors. Naruto really loved his feet at times. They knew just what to give him.

End of Chapter One?

A/N: I find it odd that alcohol played such a role in this chapter. I've never touched the stuff. It's just strangely fun to write about at times. Question is, should I continue this story, or not. And if so, should Naruto's rampant alcoholism continue? Drop a review or P.M me to let me know. Otherwise I'll just continue on with 'In Search of a Namikaze'. Which I'm going to do anyway, it'll just be that this story will vanish.