"Yakisoba would be great! We could go to that place by the other place... You know what I mean? That place where they do the one with the little shrimp. Not the big ones, but the little ones. What's that place called? You know it, right? Or am I thinking of the okonomiyaki place?" Ginta took the stairs two at a time, bouncing up them as if gravity were a law that applied to other people.

"You can call me Ginta, by the way. I'll be Sakamoto-san when I'm on the Village Council, but that's a loooooong way off yet." He flashed another grin. "And I'll use Hiro for you, because if I say 'Hey, Hyuuga!' in a crowd I'll get at least three sets of white eyes staring at me. Except here in ANBU, of course, but even here there's already another one of you."

The door at the top of the stairs banged open under Ginta's cheerful assault, and he sprinted out into the lobby. "Signing out to get some chow. Sakamoto Ginta and Hyuuga Hiro here," he told the sentry at the desk. "I'm on standby," he added for Hiro's benefit. "They told you about standby, right? There's always a few guys on call for urgent missions, and when you're up you gotta clock in and out." He gave the sentry another big smile. "If anyone comes looking for us, we've gone to get okonomiyaki. Or yakisoba? At that place with the shrimp." He glanced at Hiro, making sure the kid--he was definitely still a kid. Mid-teens maybe?--was still following. The sentry gave Ginta a long-suffering look, rolled his eyes, and shuffled through a stack of papers on a clipboard, marking a tick next to Ginta's name in a column marked 'in village'.

Ginta was already pushing open the lobby doors, stepping out into brilliant sunshine. "Let's take Canal Street; the cherry blossoms are starting to open. By the way, I have no idea why they'd relent and let another Hyuuga into the ranks, unless they're trying to get rid of you. Did you piss Hiashi-san off really badly or what?"