Ain't That a Kick in The Head?

(Bug-infested) Shithole

In total, his interview consisted of one hundred and sixty five questions, answered over a course of eight million years.

In reality, it was about three and a half hours.

At the end of it, he'd asked if he'd passed or not, and if he'd finally get to see the Hokage. The chuunin had merely let out a breathy exhale through her nostrils, pushed her glasses up, and told him that the Naturalization committee needed to deliberate over his application. Only after they approved it would it be passed on to the higher ups. Sasuke was about ready to burn the building down.

"In the meantime," the chuunin had said, "you will be allowed to stay at a nearby inn until your citizenship application is processed."

"And then can I–"

"And only as a citizen of the Leaf can you meet with the Hokage." And not as a missing nin as you are now , was left unsaid. He understood that much. Sasuke reluctantly complied. Ghost Itachi would be pissed if he didn't.

The proctor had escorted him to the inn after the end of the interview. It was only about a street from the Naturalization department. Before he left, he informed him he's allowed to leave the inn with limitations.

Meaning he's constricted to the street the inn's on.

Not to mention he totally has a squad of ANBU babysitters, even if they're not telling him he has a squad of ANBU babysitters.

The inn is a total rattrap. He counts no less than five cockroaches that skitter away immediately after he turns the lights on. It's small, consisting only of a bed, a boxy TV atop of a short olive green dresser with the paint peeling off in long flecks, and a small closet and a bathroom, both by the door. The closet is about the same size as the bathroom. It has no kitchen, just an old microwave on top of a dinged-up wood table by the bed. Which is just a mattress on the floor, no frame.

He opens the door to the bathroom. Several more cockroaches scurry past his feet and escape through the open door.

"Charming," Sasuke says aloud to the room. He decides to keep his sandals on.

The pale blue tile floor is covered in dust and  other questionable sticky substances. Its grout is colored black with mold in some places, and is a pristine white in others. The brown shower curtain is in tatters, and the toilet looks like it hasn't been cleaned in weeks. There are mysterious white stains all over the porcelain countertop that he suspects might not be toothpaste.

Sasuke shuts the bathroom door but keeps the light on to ward off the cockroaches. He briefly wonders if they gave him a shitty room on purpose, as some sort of passive-aggressive way to get back at him for leaving their dumb village.

The wood floor creaks with every step he takes and he feels the crumbs even underneath his sandals. Sasuke walks over to the TV dresser and opens up one of the drawers. There's a half-eaten bag of chips inside, that seems to be sustaining a small family of rats. Disgusted, he slams the drawer shut. Sasuke opts to seal his things into a scroll that he places in his weapons pouch for safekeeping.

The light of the moon and of the bustling streets below stream in through the room's sole window. It's obscured slightly by a translucent yellow curtain that flutters in the wind, due to the window being cracked. The bed is made, somewhat neatly. Though from what Sasuke has seen from this room, he's not going to sleep under the covers. He'd end up getting typhus.

The red face of the clock beside the bed glares at him to go to bed; it's past midnight. Pretending to be back is more emotionally taxing than he thought it would be. He collapses onto the bed and quickly falls into a dreamless sleep.