Backslide-Blackkat

Chapter 6

The first attempt of the day is a bucket of water rigged precariously over his door.

Perched in the hallway window, having just returned from a pre-dawn (and unsupervised, because Kakashi apparently can no longer be bothered to drag himself out of bed and the ANBU are nowhere to be found) training session, Kurama eyes the bucket with amusement. He studies his door for a moment, and then affably slides right back out to enter through the balcony.

His stalker isn't quite bold enough to curse, but judging by the waves of frustration coming from the far end of the hall it's a very near thing.

The next attempt comes that afternoon, when Kurama arrives back at his apartment from his shift at the Missions Assignment Desk. He leaps from the rooftop across the way in an easy bound, going slow enough to spot the suspicious sheen on his balcony railing from a good distance away.

Entirely amused, with a large helping of nostalgia on the side, Kurama flips neatly in the air, careful not to let even a single garnet hair touch the glue-covered railing, and lands easily in the doorway. He eyes the doorknob for a brief moment and then shrugs, pushes it open, and casually catches the flowerpot that tumbles down. It's a pretty little indigo-violet chrysanthemum, and Kurama caresses the petals with a smile before setting it safely aside and going to eat his dinner.

The next morning, the water has been upgraded to paint. Thankfully, Kurama's stalker still can't seem to tell when he's in the apartment, so it's easy enough to avoid.

Then there's the minefield of banana peels that gives Kurama pause, if only to wonder what happened to all the bananas.

After that, the front door's knob is laced with itching powder.

A glitter bomb.

A stink bomb.

An eraser trap.

A poorly aimed mud-ball in the middle of the street.

Kurama, very well aware of how stubborn he himself can be—as well as the fact that he has actually mellowed since childhood—evades them all with ease.

When he slides through the Hokage's window, frustrated chakra seething behind him, and gives the old man a bright smile, he gets an aggrieved shake of the man's head in return.

"This will not end well," Sarutobi warns him gravely, though there's a glimmer of reluctant amusement in his eyes. "Do you intend to hold out forever, Kurama-kun?"

Kurama simply chuckles. "Hardly, Hokage-sama," he answers cheerfully. "Little boys tend to have short attention spans. And from Kakashi's increasingly frequent complaints, I assume the Academy graduation is soon. That will be distraction enough, I think."

Sarutobi concedes the point with an inclination of his head, and his expression grows somber. Kurama suspects he's remembering Naruto's failing grades in the class, and his position as dead last. "Yes," he murmurs, trailing off distractedly, but Kurama leaves him to his thoughts for the moment.

Appearances can be deceiving.

Kurama knows that better than anyone.

The Jounin Standby Station is sparsely populated when Kurama slips through the door, having evaded his stalker for the moment. He's carrying a mission scroll from the Hokage, his first as a Konoha jounin, and is entirely cheerful about the prospect of getting out of the village and actually doing something. Not that training isn't productive or distracting, but Kurama's been hunting Akatsuki members for the past year, which is rather more tense than katas.

He pauses inside the doorway, giving himself seven seconds to assess the occupants. They're familiar to him, for the most part, all jounin he knew and fought with in another time. Hayato is by one wall, along with Yugao, speaking in hushed murmurs with their heads bent together. Shikaku has staked out one of the low tables to set up his shogi board, and is searching his surroundings for anyone who looks foolish enough to agree to a game. Inuzuka Tsume is wrestling with Kuromaru, everyone else giving them a wide berth, and several lower-level jounin are playing what looks suspiciously like strip poker in the corner.