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Naruto was good at filing taxes.
Like, very good.
To 3/4th of Team 7, this came as a profound surprise. To Naruto, this alleged surprise was a slap in the face.
“What the hell do you mean unexpected?” Naruto said with his most melodramatic gasp. He made sure his face looked absolutely wounded. He even held his hand up just a bit over his heart — to protect it, of course — from this lack of faith.
“You have to admit, Naruto.” Kakashi explained. “Sasuke-kun has a point. He hasn’t been up to speed on the breadth and width of your talents in this arena.”
“But I’ve been doing you guy’s returns for years?”
“And we’re so grateful for that!” Sakura was quick to reply. “But you can understand how it could be jarring for Sasuke. He didn’t need to file taxes while he was off being an asshole, so this is new information.”
Judging from the way both Naruto and Sasuke glared at this response she wasn’t winning over the audience.
“I’m just saying it’s a surprising talent, is all.” She relented, looking to Kakashi and Sasuke because they were a team and they needed to start coming up with equally believable excuses because that’s what teamwork meant.
Naruto frowned.
“Yeah, but I don’t get how. How is this surprising?” He pressed and crossed his arms. Kakashi gave one of those smiles where both his eyes were almost closed.
“Naruto-kun.” He added, civilly. “It’s really very simple. Before you showed us your…talents…in this area, we had never seen you express an interest in this type of activity.”
Sakura nodded in agreement, albeit maybe a little too quickly. “Up until a few years ago, we didn’t realize that this was something that you could do.”
“That I could do?” Naruto squinted, visibly confused. At least that made four of them. “You mean taxes? What part of that did you guys think I couldn’t do?”
“Basic math.” Sasuke deadpanned, earning himself a death glare from the blond and a pointed glare from Sakura.
“What Sauske means,” she followed as Sasuke tried to look like the elbow to the gut he had just taken didn’t hurt. “Is that we’re just surprised this is a passion for you. It’s an…”
“Acquired taste?” Kakashi offered his favorite student. She nodded fervently.
“Exactly.” She agreed. “Filing taxes isn’t exactly a task for everyone.”
Naruto made an unimpressed noise.
“Everybody has to file their taxes, Sakura-chan.”
Sakura inhaled deeply. Totally because she needed to and not because she was furiously calculating a way out of this hole.
“But not everybody likes filing their taxes, Naruto.”
“Normal people,” Sasuke added, helpfully. “Do not.”
“You saying I’m not normal?!?”
In a way, Sakura was relived because the fisticuffs that nearly broke out did successfully derail the conversation for at least ten minutes. After Kakashi dragged the idiots — the literal strongest shinobi on the planet, she had to remind herself — apart before they destroyed the very village they were currently residing in. Sasuke went back to his brooding corner. Naruto returned to what had been the catalyst to this entire discussion.
Auditing Team 7’s tax filings before they returned to the village.
“Yo, Sakura-chan.” Naruto called. He’d been silently (honestly, the first warning something was wrong) scowling at the same page for nearly four minutes. Tilting his head in a very un-Naruto way and making this incessant tapping noise with the end of his pencil. He used it like a pointer, directing her eyes to section 3, subsection d.
“Here,” he pointed. “That A rank we did last month? You forgot to add in the specific itemization for our hotels.”
Sakura blinked.
“We have to do that?” She replied, head tilted and more than a little confused “But I included the standard rate? Shouldn’t that have gone across all the days?”
“Well, kind-of-but-not-really.” Naruto clarified alongside a click of his tongue. “What you’re describing works, but only if we pay the same rate for every day we’re out.”
Naruto points to the third day of their mission. The hotel price was nearly triple when compared to day two.
“The problem is that we went on this mission smack in the middle of the Kusa River festival. Food was killer, but those hotels knew people were coming in and they weren’t going to let that go without them getting a bigger piece of the pie.”
Naruto paused and gave this little laugh like it was just a bit funny. Sakura failed to see the joke.
“So, what do these asshats do? They up the prices only on certain days. Call it surge pricing. Extortion is more like it. But, as if that weren’t enough, those fat cats in the city are all like ‘Hur-dur, I’m a big dumb politician and if the hotel owners are making more money, I want to make more money, too!”
Naruto’s politician voice was, Sakura noted, the same voice he used when he was re-enacting any message relayed from Sasuke. The glare they both received from the Uchiha glowering in the corner was confirmation she was not the only one to make the connection. Naruto continued, unbothered.
“These fuckers say to themselves if the price of the room is going up, then the price of the tax should go up, too. Pricey rooms means pricy room taxes!” He continued. “So, instead of you just getting to do the really nice, super simple nightly charges you’ve been doing before, now you’ve got to itemize not just the new room rate but the new room tax rate, too.
Naruto leaned back with that dark laugh. Like if he wasn’t so disgusted, he’d almost be impressed.
“It’s always something with these people, ya know?”
Sakura stared because while she had followed every word said and it made perfect sense, she got the feeling that she really, in her core, didn’t know. But that was okay, because Naruto did. Trust her teammates, after all, right?
She nodded.
“Got it.” She said, trying not to feel guilty at the way the blond beamed. “So, I have to do that every time?”
Naruto’s face scrunched, something between empathy and frustration.
“I keep telling that old bat!” he said and Sakura knew — she knew — he wasn’t referring to the active Hokage, Tsunade-sama like that. “Every time we talk about this, if she would just stop being stubborn and listen. Every time this comes up, I’m telling her that a standard per diem would be easier and cost effective for anything above a C rank mission. It’s not like I’m saying all missions, just the ones statistically likely to incur a multi-day duration. Just pay us a flat fee, and then even though those bastards keep charging those fucking rates, we don’t have to deal with all this itemizing bullshit.”
Sakura understood this second rant even less than the first. She did, however, know disrespect when she heard it.
“I’m sure Lady Tsunade,” she replied, putting extra emphasis on the lady part to remind Naruto just how thin the ice was under his feet. “Has a perfectly good reason for not heeding your advice.”
The blond barked out a laugh.
“Hah, as if. She’s just all pissy because she doesn’t like the idea that I’m an actual financial genius and she might just be wrong.”
Sakura leaned forward, an overlarge smile stretched across her cheeks. She rested a hand on Naruto’s desk, and the wood crackled and groaned under the pressure.
“Have you considered,” Sakura said, sweetly. Naruto suddenly felt very, very hot. “That you should re-organize your proposal and deliver it in a more respectful manner.”
The desk was splintering. Little spiderwebs arcing from the point where her grip was on the wood. Naruto became acutely aware of the way Sakura’s other hand found the back of his neck.
“Uh, no, Sakura-chan.” His back went just a little more rigid. “I have not considered giving baa-chan…”
“Tsunade-sama.”
“Tsunade-sama!” His voice totally didn’t come out as a squeak when he felt fingers tighten in his hair. Totally.
“Hokage-sama, even, a more formalized proposal for my per diem plan.”
Sakura leaned in, her green eyes bright and absolutely not threatening to rip his spine out from the back.
“Would you like,” she offered. “For me to help you prepare a proposal for her when we get back to Konoha?”
Naruto nodded so furiously his vision wobbled.
“Y-yes ma’am!” He replied. Sakura smiled like Kakashi, so big her eyes were closed. The chill that sent down Naruto’s spine haunted his memories for days after.
“Now,” the medic continued, as though nothing had just happened. “If I fix the things you’ve mentioned, I should be good to submit?”
Naruto was all too happy to return to his work, moving down the pages with renewed vigor that may or may not have been tied to the fact that Sakura had released her clasp on his neck. After a few more minutes and a few more marks, he handed her a completed stack of sheets.
“Well, you’ll need to fix the hotel thing, for sure.” He added another sheet. Two became four. Four became a small pile. The pile became a stack. “…and this, triple sign here. Move the figure from 16a to 21c, then copy it into 54a, b, and f. Two signatures, then initials.”
Sakura stared at the small novel she now held in her hands. She tried to give a weak smile, but it got weaker every time she noticed another of the blonde’s red circles on her form.
“I have to fix…” She ran a finger down the list. It kept increasing.
Naruto gave a nervous laugh that said don’t shoot the messenger.
“Ah, it can be a little tedious, for sure.” He added but was sure to flash her his most reassuring smile at the end. “But once it’s done, you know it’s done right!”
After a thought, Naruto swiveled in his chair to level a pencil at his teacher.
“You should do what she’s doing, pervy-sensei.” He added. “You messed it up, last time, and it’s basically the same thing.”
From the nearby wall, Hatake Kakashi leafed through his stack of expense reports. He enjoyed reading them significantly less than Icha Icha, but it was unfortunate that buying Icha Icha required and income. Incomes required paying taxes to the state. He wasn’t thrilled with the cavalier way his precious pupil threw around new titles, but priorities were important. No taxes meant no novels.
No novels was not an option.
“It shall be done, my surprise savant!” He replied, eyes all smiles. “And I’ve even taken a learning from last time and taken the liberty of adding your comments on our full team itemizations.”
It was almost impossible to tell behind the mask, but Kakashi looked like he was beaming.
“You’ll be pleased to hear you were right to advise the expensing of not just our hotels, but in the transportation fees for the ferry in Kiri. All told, I’m noting at least a 4% increase in our claimable exemptions.”
Naruto leaned back in his chair so much he almost toppled over, but it didn’t stop his thunderous whoop.
“Fuck yes!” He raised a fist in celebration as he clambered back to his seat. “See? I freaking knew we could squeeze more out of that mission. Those ferry tickets were robbery and those stupid mission parameters kept us from just running across.”
The blond bit the edge of his pencil, using his fingers to round his mental math.
“4% more exemptions should be around 2.22ish percent more returns once we include it with the bunch.” His eyes sparkled in tangible excitement. “That’s 2.22% more ramen!”
“Our returns cannot go exclusively to ramen, Naruto.” Sakura corrected, which was such a buzzkill to hear. “We do actually need savings. We also need some additional money to fix the property damage you and Sasuke caused to that man’s melon cart in in Iwa.”
Naruto murmured darkly to himself and crossed his arms. That guy had been such an asshole. Who leaves a melon cart in the middle of a busy commercial street, anyway?
“At least 1.5%?” He reached. Sakura returned a level stare.
“We will discuss 1% more ramen.” She sniffed. “Or, maybe you can think about using the money to take Hinata-chan somewhere nice, like a good boyfriend.”
This, it seemed, was an angle Naruto had not yet considered. He wasn’t thrilled with the implication that ramen wasn’t nice, but he did love taking Hina-chan to new restaurants…
Naruto made a face but eventually nodded. Compromise was lame, but he could live with net positives. He opened his mouth to agree, but was instead stopped as Sasuke stepped forward, arm extended. With a grunt, a piece of paper smacked into Naruto’s chest.
“The hell?”
Sasuke scowled.
“It’s finished.” He said, seemingly trying to glare at both Naruto and the piece of paper, simultaneously. “Check the work.”
“Oh, it’s done?” Naruto sneered, snatching the paper and peering through the details. Almost immediately, his finger found a mark. “Just as I thought, bastard. You messed up the report, again.”
Sasuke did that thing where he tossed his hair back with his only remaining arm and managed to, somehow, belittle everyone in his presence. Really, it was like a superpower.
“I didn’t mess up anything, dead last.”
“Oh yeah?” Naruto challenged. “Then why am I looking at a ‘request for auxiliary compensation’ form when I should be looking at a ‘request for accidental incidentals’ form, huh?”
Naruto leaned forward, smug as a cat and twice as mocking.
“You know, since it was your fire jutsu blew up the warehouse and all.” The blond added.
“You want blown up?” The sharingan flared to life as Sasuke pointed a finger to the blonde’s own stack of papers. “How about you take a look at your over inflated food budget?”
“There is nothing overinflated about my food budget!”
“It’s 80% ramen!”
“Food should be 100% ramen!”
The only thing that de-escalated the situation was the growing lump on both boy’s heads as Sakura sniffed, hands returning to her sides.
“Will you two idiots knock it off.” She snapped. “If you two burn the paperwork before we get the chance to turn it in, I’ll make you wish we’d filed a missing teammate report.”
To accentuate her point, Sakura made a gesture to the many, many sheets of corrections she and Kakashi had worked her way through. It was a smaller pile than the list of remaining sheets they still needed to address, but Sasuke sulked away with a scoff.
“…I don’t understand why they can’t just send us a bill.”
“Because you’d probably find a way to much that up, too.” Naruto called in response. Sasuke whirled, a warning flaring in his sharingan eye, but the way Sakura’s pencil cracked sent both men back to their corners. While Naruto continued his audit, Sasuke made his way over to where Sakura and Kakashi were hard at filing.
“Why is it we do this?” Sasuke said, softly but not too softly. “How did this fool even become qualified to do taxes?”
“You’d be surprised, Sasuke-kun.” His teacher answered. “Even since before you were gone, Naruto-kun has always been quite good with money.”
The look Sasuke returned very clearly said I don’t believe you, but Kakashi nodded.
“I’m afraid it’s true!” Kakashi added. “In fact, he’s been doing our tax returns since shortly after you left.
Sasuke never enjoyed the reminders of his past. He particularly never enjoyed how cavalier his team was about reminding him.
“But why?” He pressed, eager to return to the matter at hand. “Naruto can barely sit up straight long enough to listen to a lecture on chakra control, but we’re so confident he’s accurately auditing our yearly incomes?”
Naruto didn’t even look up from his writing.
“It’s because money actually mattered to me, asshole.”
Sasuke snorted. “Matter to you?” He said. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
For a moment, Naruto took a breath. Long and even and like he was thinking about what he was about to say. It was jarring.
“I mean, it means exactly what it sounds like.” He decided.
“Ah, yes.” Sasuke’s answer positively dripped. “Well, that clears things up, then. Thank you for this elucidation.”
Naruto grimaced. He was trying to find his number Zen over here and this asshole…
“Do I have to spell it out for you?”
“I’d question your ability to spell anything.” Sasuke snapped back. “But I see nothing wrong with questioning the validity of your filings when you can’t even explain to us why you’re suddenly so gifted at…”
“What it means,” Naruto interrupted with an eyeroll. “Is that I’m good with money because I’m the only one of us who grew up poor, you ass.”
The whole room went still, and everything got real quiet real fast. Sakura’s eyes were closed and her hand was pinching the bridge of her nose so hard she looked ready to pop it off. Kakashi’s gaze was glued to the floor. Sasuke shuffled, both unguarded and unprepared for the response. Naruto, however, was unbothered.
“You know,” he said with a shrug. “On account of not having any family and living alone as an orphan.”
The temperature in the room plunged. Naruto blinked, looking up to find three pairs of eyes on him at varying levels of concern. He rolled his own.
“Oh, come on.” He sighed. “Don’t get weird, it’s the truth. You guys all had money, I didn’t. Kakashi-sensei has been doing A ranked missions since he was, like, six or something. Sakura-chan comes from a loving and stable home and you…” he rounded a lazy pencil on Sasuke to drive his point home. “You, you big douche, are the heir to the most famous clan in all of Konoha.”
Naruto leaned back in his chair and managed to look almost wistful.
“If the three of you mess up your taxes, it’s just a mistake you’ve got to fix.” He said, pointing his pencil towards his chest, right where his stomach sat.
“If I made a mistake, I didn’t eat.”
With that, the blond returned, like absolutely nothing had happened to reviewing the deductibles list for their string of latest B-ranked missions. This was always his least favorite part because deciding between just taking the standard deduction and itemizing could be thousands but man, was it not just a huge freaking pain!? Plus, if he messed anything up, he’d have to go back and…
Naruto blinked, realizing he was being watched.
“…what?”
“Was it really like that, Naruto?” Sakura said, but she was so quiet. “Were you really that…”
Naruto snorted, which he could tell was not really matching the vibe of the conversation but hey — it was his life, wasn’t it? He got to talk about it however he wanted.
“What?” He said dismissively. “Was I really what? Alone? Desperate? Yeah, I mean sometimes. But that’s what it’s like, you know.”
It was very evident that no, the rest of the room did not know. Naruto shrugged, finding himself with nothing more to say, and continued his work. Sakura turned, looking to Kakashi for guidance but found the future Hokage trying to shrink in on himself. He wore the look he had when he stood in front of the memorial stone. When he remembered all the parts of his past that put shadows under his eyes.
Instead, she looked towards Sasuke. She glared.
What? His face said. Sakura’s glare darkened.
Fix this? How? How was I supposed to know he’d answer that? Sasuke replied in the way he raised a single eyebrow. How could any of us have known that?
Sakura raised an eyebrow of her own. Sasuke squared his shoulders.
I will not.
Sakura raised a second, even more incredulous look. She added a crack of her knuckles. Sasuke was defiant.
You can’t strong arm me into…
Sakura’s pencil hit her desk, gently but audibly, and Sasuke turned and made a tactical retreat.
“Naruto.” He said with a cough. Civility was hoarse on the throat. The blond made a grunting noise but never left his work.
“Yeah?” He answered. “Kind of busy, bastard.”
“I would like to…” He’d fought tailed beasts. A literal Demi-god. He’d lived with Orochimaru for at least a year. Why was this so hard?
“Ap…apologize.”
Naruto paused, just for a moment, and shook his head in disbelief.
“Man, come on.” He groaned. “That was pitiful. Pitiful! I mean, I’ve seen bad apologies over the years, but you make it look like saying ‘I’m sorry, Naruto, I was wrong you are right’ is physically going to kill you.”
Sasuke leveled a half-lidded glare. “I have my concerns.”
“Come on, say it. Try it.” Naruto leaned forward in his chair, hands coaxing the Uchiha forward. “We can do it together, even. One word at a time. I’m.”
“I’m.”
“Sorry.”
“Sorry.”
“Naruto.”
“This is outrageous.” Sasuke declared, turning on his heel to find Sakura standing. Arms crossed. The last Uchiha breathed. Deeply.
“Iamsorry,Naruto.”
Naruto leaned to the side so that Sakura could see the ‘can you believe this, bitch’ written all over his face. Sakura shrugged.
“It was an apology.” She quipped. Sasuke, the colossal prick, managed to look magnanimous at the praise. Naruto gaped, a melodramatic disbelief, before washing his hands of the matter.
“Feh.” He dismissed. “I guess it’s better than your last attempt. I had to give up my good arm to get that one out of you.”
Sasuke’s glower was undercut by the snickers from both his girlfriend and his teacher. Betrayal, it seemed, ran deep in Team 7’s psyche. As he stormed back to his brooding corner, Naruto shoved a form into his hands. It didn’t have a mark on it.”
“By the way,” the blond added, “Your taxes are fine, bastard.”
This time, it was Sakura’s turn to be outraged.
“What?” She demanded, storming forward and snatching the page out of Naruto’s hands. “There’s no way! He didn’t do even half the forms Kakashi and I had to file. How is his fine?”
“It probably has something to do with the fact that he’s a paroled felon who’s not legally allowed to claim an income from mission statements.” Naruto smiled bubble-gum sweet. The same face he made whenever he saw a pot that was just ripe for stirring.
“Good thing he’s a trust fund baby, or else I guess we know who’s paying on y’all’s next date night, ooooohh ah! Sakura-chan! Not the face, not the face!—”
In all her time collecting paperwork this…this was a first. Gently, she held the form up to the light, turning it.
“Is this…ketchup?” She asked. From across the table, Sakura gave an over-wide grin.
“I’m so sorry about that, auditor-san.” She said, yanking Naruto forward with clearly more than a little force. The Savior of the Shinobi world pouted, turning his head to the right to hide the tissue stuffed in his nose. Sakura gave an apologetic smile.
“My clumsy teammate got red ketchup all over our filings.”
“…red…ketchup?”
Sakura nodded solemnly. “I’m afraid so.”
The woman looked back to the form, then glanced at the much larger stack of forms next to it. Little flecks of red could be seen across the whole group.
“And these other ones?”
With another yank Sasuke Uchiha, former rogue ninja and other part of saving the entire world, was brought by his wrist to stand at Sakura’s side. The auditor noted several faint bruises and was that a bandage across his cheek?
“Wouldn’t you know it.” Sakura chuckled. “Two clumsy idiots on one team.”
She glanced over her shoulder, briefly, and soon-to-be Hokage Hatake Kakashi quickly laid his files at the chūnin’s desk. The girl gaped, and Kakashi gave her a full eyed smile.
“We hope it’s not an inconvenience, auditor-chan.” He said. “We’ll be sure to monitor their condiments before we do team paperwork, in the future.”
With that, the team gave a small bow before following Sakura as she marched the two strongest ninjas on the planet down the hallway and out of sight. Kakashi gave only a parting wave.
“Until next year, auditor-san!”
She looked back down at the paper. Back at the little crinkles and tears and that really didn’t look like ketchup. It looked a lot more like…
The auditor set the whole pile to the side and gave a warning look to the clock. This was definitely a problem for the next shift.