Dysfunctional - 2

"Where the hell is he?"

At first it hadn't seemed like such a difficult task: locating a strange, slothful, pocky-loving ninja and dragging him back to his team for a well-deserved beating. In his days at the Academy, Naruto had only known Sato as that type of person.

Now he wasn't so sure. Was he being evasive deliberately? Or was he simply that difficult to track? It was only a quarter past eight in the morning and Naruto was sure that Sato's interests didn't extend far beyond sweets, photo-worthy events and causing mischief.

Therefore he had searched many of the sweet shops around town, places that were related to media and photography, the Ninja Academy, hell...he had even checked around the girl's locker rooms, only to be chased off the premises violently.

After so many failures in such a short span of time he had deemed this errand ridiculous and even considered giving up.

But he had so nobly volunteered to find the bastard and even brought his vow of becoming Hokage into the matter...and what would Hinata-chan say if he let her down?

'She'd probably just say I did my best and that she doesn't mind...' His mind supplied wryly, 'But the point is I won't be doing my best! That's inexcusable! How can I become Hokage if I can't track some stupid guy down?' He frowned to himself, 'But if I keep looking, I'll be at this all day...'

He took a moment to consider his options from his perch on top of a high flagpole in the center of the village. After a few minutes of thought, he decided to continue on, but from a different approach.

'So...he's not at any of the places where he's supposed to be...' Naruto felt like Haku on a scavenger-hunt (i.e. unstoppable), 'If I was slacking off where would I be?'

His brain instantly supplied an answer.

The correct answer.

*

"This should be the place..." Naruto passed by an old weaponry forge and looked up at the small apartment building to the left of it. The place was fairly new, he supposed, but smaller than the building he, Gaara and Haku lived in.

The blonde decided to scale the building, rather than marching inside and promptly being thrown out by its residents. He moved quietly, watchfully, not wanting to overlook his target, 'Doesn't he live on the third floor? Second maybe?'

Cautiously, he peeked inside windows, looking for anything that resembled a ninja's abode. He did see one with a number of kunai strewn all over the floor, and went inside through the unlocked window.

"Is this it?" He asked himself uncertainly. Something was out of place. After a quick look around he realized that no one was home, and more importantly, it was a kunoichi's apartment. He noticed the feminine clothes lying around.

He left in a hurry, trying not to leave any evidence of his presence.

A few windows down he was finally successful. Grinning, he positioned himself on the ledge outside said window, trying to get a better look inside of the place, "Well, that took long enough!"

In the apartment his assumption had been proven correct as a bleary-eyed, barely-conscious ninja in red boxers stumbled around yawning, trying to prepare himself for the day. The silver hair was unmistakable.

'What a lazy ass! He's been sleeping all this time!'

Sato slowly entered a cramped bathroom and brushed his teeth, totally unaware of his being watched. Naruto rolled his eyes in boredom from his vantage point as the door closed and he heard the sound of a shower being turned on, as well as the loud, out of tune whistling that followed thereafter.

'This is gonna take forever...'

Approximately three minutes and forty-eight seconds later the water stopped running and the door opened abruptly. 'That was fast...awah-!' Naruto wasn't quite prepared for the nudity that met his eyes and he fell back from his perch, falling several feet and landed painfully on another rooftop on his back, 'Ugh my eyes! That guy is such a retard!'

After recovering from his fall Naruto stood up and brushed himself off, reasserting his sanity. He waited a minute or two before returning to his roost. By that time, thankfully, Sato was redressed and Naruto relaxed, but was still irked at the fact that he had been so caught off-guard. The silver haired nin strolled a few paces out of what appeared to be his bedroom and into a tiny kitchen, still whistling a preposterous tune.

It took Naruto a moment to realize he was making coffee, being that Sato's actions were so sporadic and unpredictable that he could have just as easily been playing hopscotch.

'Now I see why he annoys Hinata-chan's team so much...'

Almost normally, Sato poured coffee into a mug waiting on the counter and he didn't bother to fetch anything to fix it with. What caught Naruto off-guard again was when the silver haired ninja seemed to instantly forget about the cup he had poured himself and took a sip from the pot. Shortly afterwards he remembered the mug and finished it off.

'...weirdo...'

Afterwards he stretched his arms high over his head. Sato turned around for the next part of his morning, once again his usual perky old self. Naruto briefly wondered if the reason for his liveliness was his consumption of caffeine.

The silver haired boy bounced over to a cabinet and opened it, revealing organized, stacked boxes of... 'Pocky? Is that all he eats?'

Whistling a slightly more bearable tune, Sato placed the box of strawberry flavored pocky into a pouch without shuriken and moved on to a small desk obscured by papers, scrolls, numerous photographs and rolls of film.

Five minutes of arduous deliberation later, Sato selected two rolls of film and also placed them in a pouch reserved for 'not pointy' things.

"Alright!" He exclaimed and then nodded to himself.

He walked around in a small circle before ending his whistling and moved on, beyond Naruto's line of sight.

'What's he doing now? Sheesh, if he was on my team I definitely would have killed him by now...'

"Naruto?"

The blonde's head snapped left and right and saw only an endless sea of buildings. He was fairly certain he heard someone nearby call his name but one could never be too sure.

"Down here."

Naruto did look down and on a tiled rooftop adjacent to the building he had been peeking into was another lazy shinobi.

"Oh, it's just you Shikamaru." He commented pleasantly and then continued his spying.

"Naruto, what are you doing?"

Again, the blonde looked down at the Nara, a frown of concentration plastered to his face.

"I'm trying to figure out what the hell that lazy ass has been doing, so quit distracting me," He paused, "Uh...what are you doing?"

"Resting."

Obviously that's what it looked like; laying back leisurely and staring at the passing clouds. Naruto knew better by now.

"Pft, sure...you and Sato, both of you are good-for-nothing bums who lay around and don't bother helping their teams! I can't believe you're a shinobi!"

"...likewise."

Naruto gave him a well-measured glare before turning back to the window.

"Who'd you say you were looking for?"

"That other lazy idiot, Sato."

"You mean that guy down there?"

Naruto jumped and looked down at the street below where his target was turning a corner, once again whistling another absurd song, 'How'd he get passed me without me not noticing that heinous noise he's making?'

"Ah! I gotta go!" Naruto leapt onto a clothes line and raced along to another roof, knocking a few helpless garments into the air. Shikamaru only sighed and went back to his vigilant cloud watching.