The rec-room was the only place in the entire building that had a TV. A huge building like this, with three floors full of hardworking elite shinobi, and there was only one television set. And it was a tiny one too. Then again, the rec-room wasn't precisely large either; there was a bunch of couches clustered around the TV, a rather battered pool table just off the side, a small library on the other side, full of rather pulpy romances and suspiciously sticky magazines. So, alright, it was understandable that there wasn't a bigger TV screen. But oh, Kotetsu wanted one.

Anyway, he slunk into the rec-room, and mercifully no one was using the TV.

Some shinobi were rather possessive of the remote, and watched such Boring things.

Kotetsu was all set to collapse on the couch directly in front of the TV when he noticed that one, there was someone else lying there; two, that person was drooling; and three, he recognised the face, but didn't remember the face. ]

"Hey," he nudged the guy's leg, "You're drooling."

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Yuzuya may have been sprawled ungracefully on a fake leather couch, but he still had a shinobi's reflexes no matter how exhausted he was. He jerked awake, one hand going to his hip pocket for a kunai. "Wha? What." Seeing the rec room and a rookie and no imminent danger, his eyes threatened to close again. Yuzu struggled to keep them open long enough to check who the rookie was, and make sure he had no snakes. He remembered meeting Anko only too well.

No snakes. It was that mop-haired kid who'd joined a while ago. What was his name again? Yuzu rubbed his eyes under his glasses. "Hey," he nodded at his awakener. "Sorry."

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Kotetsu's immediate reaction to jerking-awake was to leap back - all the more to avoid kunai and senbon - and crunch heel first into the sprawl of plastic by the couch. A quick glance told him it used to hold something that had been chocolate iced, possibly cake or donuts.

Mm, donuts.

"Hey," Kotetsu said, perching on the arm-rest of the couch. "I don't mind the drooling, but I thought you might."

After all, which guy wanted to be caught drooling? It was bad enough when Tensei found him doing it. Of course, drooling wasn't as bad as being caught half naked in the hallway by a girl, but it was a blow to the image no ANBU wanted to weather.

That and he wasn't going to sit in that particular spot for a while, and snigger when other people did.

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Yuzuya turned onto his back. It was only now that Kotetsu's first words registered. "I am?" One hand went to his mouth, and yeah, sure enough, his cheek was wet. He pushed himself up a bit and blinked sleepy eyes. There was a pretty admirable puddle right where his head had been. Yuzu blinked sternly at the puddle, then removed his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his mouth. His cheeks grew hot. "Ahem," he began, clearing his throat. He dabbed at the drool on the couch with his handkerchief.

Yuzuya shifted his gaze to the dark-haired boy perched on the armrest of the couch. The rookie looked back at him, his face unreadable. Either the kid was very simple, Yuzu decided, or he had a great poker face. There was a long silence.

That was when Yuzu reached for his wallet. "All right. How much will it take to keep this a secret?"

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There was a secret to getting things out of others.

One, have a very good poker face. Two, know when to shut up and just look mysterious. Or unreadable. Either worked.

Kotetsu had learned that a long silence can speak for itself in many circumstances, and when someone had something to hide, the silence could be very accusing. Much better than he could manage with words.

He hit jackpot when the other agent - just where had he met him? Oh yeah, possibly at some of the weekend party things where he sidled in for donuts and to hope for a glimpse of Ginta before sneaking out again - reached for his wallet.

Bingo!

"How much for a bigger TV?" Kotetsu gestured to the old crappy tiny one, half a grin on his face showing it was a joke.

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Yuzuya checked his wallet and frowned at the contents. "Haven't got that much, sorry. Would you settle for a beer? Or perhaps food? I was going to have don--" his words trailed off as he noticed that Kotetsu had apparently stepped on his chocolate-covered dinner. He blinked, his shoulders slumped a bit in disappointment. "I was gonna have donuts, but that's... out of the question now." He picked up his can of beer only to find that it was a little more than half empty and now warm. Yuck.

"How about a cold one, um..." What was his name again? Yuzuya racked his brains for what the dark-haired youngster's name could have been. His brain replied that it was still trying to sleep. "Ha-something, right?"

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If Kotetsu had the ears of a puppy, they would have perked forward at the mention of food. He instead winced at the other man's gaze. Oops. "I could get you donuts," he offered, "if you buy dinner."

Which it definitely was time for, his stomach enthusiastically agreed. "I know where there's a really good bakery that's open now. And they're almost always fresh."

He tucked his guilty foot behind the other, and curled his fingers on the armrest, rubbing his thumbs on the rough fabric of the couch. "Hagane Kotetsu. And you?" He couldn't protest about the other guy forgetting his name when he himself couldn't even remember the first syllable of the other's name, family or given.

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Which part of I don't drink beer did the guy not get? It puzzled Kotetsu, and he was rather glad he wasn't staring slack-jawed at the senior agent because that was just not the way to make a good impression.

"... Not a joke," Kotetsu said finally. "If it makes you feel better, I can pay for it myself." It wasn't that he couldn't drink alcohol. Though Kotetsu wondered if he could fake allergy to it well enough so that people'd stop assuming he wanted it.

He'd thought that 'say what you think and feel' sort of thing was real, you know? Wasn't that the point of being honest?

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Yuzuya blinked, and then his cheeks pinkened just a bit. He scratched his cheek. "Oh. Sorry." What kind of seventeen year old boy didn't want a beer?! There must be some kind of personal or private reason-- maybe a disease in the family, who knew?-- and now Yuzu felt like a heel. "Tea is fine, it's fine. Um." A thought occured to him, and he shifted uncomfortably, and asked Kotetsu in a lowered voice, "Should I get tea, too?"

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Kotetsu blinked at him. He thought...?

And then he blinked again. "You can have whatever you want," he said, more than a little confused. "I just don't like beer or alcohol."

Was Yuzuya thinking...?

Oh. He thought he had a disease or was allergic to it or something. He wondered if it was entirely polite to laugh. "Really. I can have some, if it'd make you feel better." Which, he wouldn't really touch, but hey. He wasn't sniggering inside, really. Because Yuzuya was being nice, and laughing at him was totally not. Besides, Yuzuya was the first veteran ANBU he'd met and known the name of and wasn't laughing at him. Well, other than Ren, but Ren was he was going to avoid till he was sure she'd forgotten him utterly. Or just that incident. Either was fine with him.

"'Sides. If I was allergic or something, I'dda said. Much easier to say it that way. Come to think of it, maybe i should say I was. Easier, right? People wouldn't ask if I said I was going to bloat up and die if I had alcohol." He thought, musingly, that it might be a good idea, even if he wasn't that good a liar.

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To say that Yuzuya was relieved that he also was not required to abstain from alcohol would have been an understatement. He relaxed a bit in the bench seat, waving Kotetsu's comment away with one hand. "No, it's just unusual, is all. I haven't met many ANBU who didn't drink like there was no tomorrow. I think there was one once, but he said it was for religious reasons?" Yuzuya shrugged. "I don't recall. It's fine though, I guess, be yourself."

The waiter came to take their order, and Yuzuya waited until he had gone again before continuing. He looked away, a stern glare on his face. "Um. Sorry about the little girl comment."

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"... Apologies accepted," Kotetsu said, and didn't think about it.

Honestly, it didn't matter, and if the guy was big enough to apologise, Kotetsu could let it go. He fiddled with the chopsticks a bit, and shrugged. "I like my liver the way it is, anyway. So, what kinda job do you do in Intel? You're .... Intel, right? You said that."

Intel and Hunters - it was difficult to imagine anyone Doing anything not of the action-orientated. After all that there was the importance of Intel in missions, Kotetsu just couldn't comprehend it. Couldn't comprehend doing something like that at all.

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"I used to work Sabotage, when I first joined," Yuzuya said. He leaned back a bit and watched the chefs work behind the sushi counter across the room. "Strategical placement of explosive tags and traps. Now I'm maps and blueprints. Some of the work is done in the office, and some of it out in the field. I go out to collect information, or go with Sabotage if they need some support for a job that requires a little..." Yuzuya paused and glanced up at the ceiling, searching for the right word. "...finesse."

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If Yuzuya was Intel, he sure wasn't on the top of his game tonight, that was for sure. He cut his eyes at Kotetsu as though he were looking at someone playing for the opposite team. "Oh, so you're one of those."

Yuzu drained his beer and ordered another. "No problem. Yamashiro knows a lot of girls like that. He was trying to fix me up with some friend of his girl's that's available, and he mentioned she has a really cute butt. What was her name? K-something. Kanon? Kana? I dunno."

It was at this point that Yuzuya noticed the expression on Kotetsu's face twist just a bit. He blinked. "What's wrong?"

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Kotetsu had thought he was being fairly obvious about what he was. After all, when guys said they didn't like boobs, that was saying he didn't like girls.

After all, all girls had boobs.

He didn't quite quash the thought that maybe Yuzuya was dumb; while the guy might just be tired, after all, there was being open, and being so open the door was missing.

"I prefer asses that are trim. You know, hard. Like shinobi." Soon he might need to be proclaiming it to the restaurant.

He was just here for the sushi, dammit.

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Yuzuya had his new beer and was taking a big swig when Kotetsu's reply made him stop short. "Hard... ass? Now you're starting to sound like--" Then it dawned on him. "Oh." And then the sheer stupidity of his end of the whole conversation sunk in with terrible force. "Oh."

Yuzu put down his beer, at a loss for words. For his part, Kotetsu picked up his chopsticks with a slight frown and picked at the plate of sushi as if to say, end of story.

Yuzuya watched the younger man eat for a few moments. He felt about an inch tall. "Sorry," he began. "I didn't think." Now this was what he got for trying to be cordial. He ought to just stick to being a sourpuss jerk and be over and done with it.

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"It's alright." How to make it better for the other man? Yuzuya looked embarrassed - Kotetsu understood that perfectly, especially since he had a tendency to walk into things and get it utterly and totally wrong. "Um... It's okay, really. you were just trying to help." He tried to smile reassuringly, but the atmosphere was just a tad uneasy.

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"Well, yeah, but the thing is, is I don't usually bother trying to help," Yuzuya admitted, dropping his gaze to the sushi on his plate. "So I'm not very good at it."

He paused and then shrugged it off. "Well, whatever. If you're after guys, then I guess you're in the right branch. There's lots of available guys in ANBU. Even if they... have no breasts. You know." Yuzu himself couldn't really comprehend how you couldn't like females-- women just came equipped with so many more... options.

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"You do help." Sort of. "And it's nice to have someone not call me rookie to my face." Kotetsu ate some more, and then decided to clean off a quarter of the platter. "Guys don't have breasts." In fact, that was pretty funny, if they did. A bit on the ick-side, but also funny. As long as they weren't permanent.

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Yuzuya polished off the rest of his beer, then rested back against the bench seat and folded his arms. "I don't know. Don't ask me, I'm not into guys. But if I were? I'd think drinking like a dollie at a tea party, definite turn off. Makes you think, still a baby, hands off." Being ANBU meant getting piss drunk on a regular basis to forget what you'd killed that day anyway. Wasn't that normal?

Yuzuya paused and considered this briefly, then adjusted his glasses. "I mean, even if you just try a little next time you're all hanging out and it gets your cheeks pink, that's kinda cute and endearing. Don't overdo it though. No need to puke on someone's sandals or anything. But at least show you have some balls." Cause balls were important. If you liked guys, then they would be doubly important. (For a total of four?) Or something like that, Yuzu was starting to feel a little buzzed from all the beer.

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Kotetsu wondered if looking stunned - or at least, wide-eyed - was making him look any younger and stupider.

"Seriously?" Because he hadn't thought about that, and Moriki had never mentioned anything like that. Of course, Moriki didn't drink either, and he had no clue if Ginta drank. There was the 'drink to forget', but Kotetsu didn't even like the taste of beer so that wasn't an option for himself. He regarded his tea again, and wondered if he should feel hurt. Probably not - Yuzuya was just trying to offer advice. Right? "It's that big a thing, for ANBU?" He hadn't encountered it with the normal rank and file.

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Yuzuya squinted, eyeing the last bit of ginger on his plate. "Hmm. I don't know. At the risk of sounding like a mother?" He pushed the bits of ginger into the soy sauce, thoughtfully. "Just be yourself and work? If he notices you he does, if he doesn't he doesn't? Not much you can really do about that."

Incidentally, as Yuzu sat there with the teenage boy's wide, dark eyes looking up at him, he felt the generation gap looming wide between them. When he was Kotetsu's seventeen years, he'd spent his time picking weapons off of rotting corspes, dodging land mines, crying himself to sleep in holes in the ground. Then he'd lost Kodachi and Aya both in one horrible day, both his firsts, and he hadn't had any sweet and happy lovey-love wishes after that, cause those sort of bonds you made could be so easily torn right out from inside of you. And you were left to go through your day with a silent scream issuing from somewhere inside your chest.

Such was life. Go figure. He didn't begin to assume that Kotetsu had led an easy life either.

"Some things you can't control." Yuzuya remarked, and he pushed the last maguro Kotetsu's way. "Finish this. I'm stuffed."

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"Yeah." Well, that had been his take on it, and Kotetsu dredged up a smile from somewhere and picked the last morsel from Yuzuya's plate. "Thanks."

Sometimes, he thought he was rather lucky. He was aware of shinobi just a few years older than himself having gone through something so terrible, so horrible that he knew he wouldn't be able to understand it unless he himself had gone through something just like that.

The sensei in the Academy hadn't been very much older then them, but with a missing leg he hadn't been able to go to the front lines. And while he was a kid just starting school, the graduates had disappeared once they were assigned jounin sensei - graduating had been a frightening yet much-craved goal, if only to see what would really happen.

But by the time Kotetsu had graduated, however, the war was over, the hardest of fighting and losses had happened, and kids weren't sent to the front lines. Not immediately.

From the detached look in Yuzuya's eyes, Intel or not, Kotetsu understood that the older ANBU had been from that time, when genin were packed off to the front lines with jounin-sensei who were more commanders than teachers, where the Academy teachers were war veterans who couldn't fight anymore but were too alive to throw away.

Sometimes, Kotetsu thought, chewing on delicately flavoured rice, he was really lucky.

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"Whatever. Well one thing is for sure," Yuzuya sighed, looking at the empty plates in front of them. A bit of a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. "You can at least eat like a man. If not drink like one. You get enough to eat? You want dessert?"

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Kotetsu shrugged cheerfully, shaking off his melancholy mood like so much dust. "I'm kinda full," if only because desert in a place like this was probably expensive, and he was already starting to feel just a tad bad. He could buy some dango from a stand on the way back or something. "Unless you want some."

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