Something To Remember Me By

chapter 5 (year 17)

If you don't think you can fucking handle this, you better get the fuck out. We don't take kindly to pussies in these parts. This isn't a game, Naruto. This isn't- Wait, look at me, don't laugh, this isn't a game ."

It was hard not to crack up, when Sakura was a mere three inches from his face, eyes blown, hissing through her teeth. Naruto had fallen down while pretending he was getting choked by his vest to make Choji laugh, and now Team Leader Sakura was leaning over him where he laid, like the grim reaper stealing a soul.

"I get it, I'm just kidding." She seemed unconvinced. "Stop yelling, Sakura, you spit on my face."

"Call me Captain Haruno."

Naruto rolled his eyes. "You spit on my face, Captain Haruno."

Sakura held out her hand to him and pulled him from the floor. She'd been kidding. Mostly. Laser tag seemed to be a pretty big deal in Oceanview.

Naruto had never been to the Lazer Fun Zone before with all his friends, but he had played it before. They rode their bikes down into town, kicking up dust, and right on the corner of 14th and Palm was a building that Naruto had never noticed before.

It gave him the sense of a building that used to be hard to miss, but the wind was always heavy with salt and sand, and that would dull down even the most obnoxious paint jobs. The bright red exterior was now maroon, and the Z in Lazer was a lightning bolt, that used to be a blinding yellow. Most of that had been chipped away. It reminded Naruto of the ring toss booth.

The inside, though, lived up to the cheesy name. It was, admittedly, a fun zone. The front portion was all arcade games, in long lines of machines each trying to be heard above the other. The windows were covered up with thick fabric, and the orange and green checkered carpet glowed under the blacklight.

It was a mini Oceanview Carnival, a bite-sized one to tide him over while he was waiting hungrily for the real one.

The real reason they were there, though, was to play easily the most high stakes laser tag game of his life.

He pulled the straps on his vest tight, the sensors on his chest blinking. It was a game he enjoyed, because it was like entering a video game. Naruto tended to be wired anyway. He hadn't grown out of it, even now, at age 17. No actual caffeine was needed for Naruto to act like it had been injected straight into his bloodstream. In fact, he was banned from drinking coffee.

"I'd call him a ping pong ball for how much he bounces off the walls," said Ino earlier, "but I wouldn't want to insult the ball's intelligence." He'd beaned her in the head with a frisbee later that day, so they were even.

"I'm glad we can finally play," Sakura said to him, adjusting her own vest, plastic gun hanging from a bungee cord, bumping her leg. "When we had five, no way, but now with six, we can have two teams of three!"

And that brought Naruto to the one thing that wasn't excited about this evening. Sai.

Naruto depended on Oceanview. He got through some of the most difficult pinches of the year, whether academically or socially, by thinking about the one week when all that shit would magically disappear from his track record. He depended on it because it was predictable. He'd see the same people, do the same things. Only one wild card was allowed, and that spot was reserved for Sasuke.

And the summer had seemed like it was going to be reliable. Iruka dropped him off, worried like always, stalling in the driveway, making sure Naruto had everything he needed. Then, once his dad's old car had rattled away into the distance, Naruto ignored all his warnings about wearing a helmet and hopped on his bike.