Chapter 124: Bad Glass

Later that week, Ren was preparing to leave the estate when Sasuke abandoned the wooden blocks he had been stacking with Naruto and stared at the belt pouch around Ren’s waist.

He knew what that meant.

“Big Brother. Go?”

“Yes,” Ren said.

Sasuke nodded, turned around, and started digging through the floor cushions for his wooden practice kunai.

Naruto heard the exchange. He dropped his blocks, trotted across the room, and wrapped both arms firmly around Ren’s knee.

Ren looked down. “No.”

Naruto tightened his grip. “Go.”

Kushina came in from the hallway, took one look at Naruto wrapped around Ren’s leg, and sighed. She peeled him off and scooped him up under one arm.

Mikoto appeared from the hallway just as Sasuke finally located his wooden kunai. She caught his wrist before he could march toward the front door.

“You can have it back after lunch,” Mikoto told him, prying the carved wood from his fingers.

Sasuke stared at Mikoto.

Ren left them to handle it and stepped out the front door. He was halfway across the courtyard when he heard Naruto shouting from the open window.

“Big Brother!”

Ren kept walking.

His carriage took him out of the Uchiha district and across Konoha to the Intimacy & Wellness production building. Lavender, medicinal herbs, and alcohol hit him the moment he stepped inside.

Workers moved between long packing tables, sorting glass containers and cloth bundles. The general hygiene supplies and perfumed oils occupied the main floor, while the private adult products were handled and stored in a separate, partitioned section near the back.

Kakuzu was already there.

Ren found him standing near the loading doors, arguing with a shift manager over a stack of crushed packaging boxes. Kakuzu didn’t bother offering a greeting when Ren approached. He simply pointed at the ruined cardboard.

“You’re paying for those.”

“I own the company,” Ren said.

“Exactly.” Kakuzu dismissed the manager with a wave of his hand and handed Ren the morning production ledger.

Tsunade and Shizune arrived a few minutes later to review the medical side of the newest products. They walked through the aisles of skin-safe massage oils, recovery balms, and contraceptive supplies.

Tsunade picked up a dark glass bottle, read the label, and looked at Ren.

“Wellness?”

“It sells better,” Ren said.

Shizune tried not to laugh. Tsunade did not share her amusement. She unscrewed the cap and sniffed the contents, her brow furrowing.

“What are you using as the base for this?” Tsunade asked.

Ren called over the woman supervising the mixing tables and handed her the bottle. She answered Tsunade’s questions about the mixture while Ren listened.

Tsunade nodded her approval and handed the bottle back.

They moved into the partitioned adult section. Shizune checked the seals on the latest batch of intimate oils, marked something on her paperwork, and moved to the next table.

Near the packing line, the shift manager called Kakuzu over to a stack of leaking crates.

A new batch of massage oil had already been bottled, but several of the bottle necks had been cut badly enough that the caps wouldn’t seal.

Tsunade picked up one of the leaking bottles and rubbed a little oil between her fingers.

“The oil is fine. The bottles aren’t.”

Shizune looked over the remaining crates. “If the oil itself is fine, we could rebottle the unopened stock.”

“No,” Ren said. “Hold the entire shipment. Scrap the defective glass and order a replacement batch from a different supplier.”

Kakuzu stared at the leaking crates.

“Two weeks,” he muttered.

Ren looked at him.

Kakuzu’s expression soured further. “Change the supplier. Replacing returned stock will cost more.”

By the time they finished walking the floor, it was well past noon.

Ren, Tsunade, Shizune, and Kakuzu ended up eating lunch around the small desk in the upstairs manager’s office because none of them wanted to leave the building and come back.

Kakuzu ate with one hand while holding a stack of shipping manifests in the other, his elbow dangerously close to Tsunade’s food. Tsunade eventually reached over and pulled the paperwork completely out of his hand.

Kakuzu looked personally offended. He opened his mouth to argue, but a worker knocked on the open door to tell him the replacement glass supplier was demanding payment terms downstairs. Kakuzu stood up, snatched his manifests back from Tsunade, and walked out.

Tsunade finished her food, pushed her chair back, and casually propped her boots directly in Ren’s lap. Shizune didn’t even blink. She simply moved her empty plate out of the way before Tsunade could knock it off the desk.

Tsunade reached across the wood and picked up one of the sample bottles of massage oil someone had left on the desk. She spun it slowly between her fingers.

“You sell a lot of things you expect other people to test,” Tsunade noted.

“We have professional testers,” Ren said, resting a hand on her ankle.

“And you aren’t one of them?”

Shizune laughed and reached across the desk to take the bottle from Tsunade. When she stood and came around the desk, Tsunade watched her with a growing grin.

Shizune walked around the desk. She unscrewed the cap, poured a pool of the fragrant oil into her palm, and set the bottle down. She pushed Ren’s chair back slightly, unfastened his belt, and reached inside his trousers.

Ren’s breath hitched as her oiled fingers wrapped around his erection.

Shizune stroked him with a steady, practiced rhythm. She leaned forward and took him into her mouth. The wet suction made Ren’s hips jerk.

Tsunade laughed softly, stepping closer. She pulled her boots out of Ren’s lap, stood up, and pushed Shizune to her knees. Tsunade straddled Ren’s lap a moment later, her breasts spilling out of her loose top as she kissed him hard.

Ren slid his hands up Tsunade’s waist, pushing her top completely off her shoulders. He caught her breasts, kneading the soft flesh and rolling her stiff nipples between his thumbs while Shizune worked her mouth over him below.

Tsunade broke the kiss, gasping for air. She reached down, tangling her fingers in Shizune’s short dark hair.

“My turn,” Tsunade ordered softly.

Shizune pulled her mouth away. She looked up, her chin slick, and didn’t back down. When Tsunade reached down to pull her closer, Shizune caught Tsunade’s hips and dragged her face directly between Tsunade’s spread thighs.

Tsunade groaned, rocking against Shizune’s mouth through the cotton of her panties. Ren watched them, his hands gripping Tsunade’s waist to hold her steady.

Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs.

Someone knocked sharply on the closed office door.

The knock stopped everything.

Tsunade bit her lip, burying her face in the crook of Ren’s neck to stifle a breathless laugh. Shizune glared up at Ren from her knees, her cheeks flushed bright red.

Ren kept one hand firmly on Tsunade’s bare waist and raised his voice. “Leave the paperwork on the table outside. I’ll sign it in a minute.”

“Understood,” the manager called back. The footsteps retreated down the stairs.

Shizune let her head drop against Tsunade’s thigh with a quiet groan.

None of them made any move toward the paperwork outside the door.

Later that afternoon, they returned to the production floor.

Kakuzu had already found another glass supplier. The revised figures were waiting for Ren when he came downstairs. Ren signed the authorization forms. Tsunade reviewed the medical paperwork while Shizune went through the hygiene reports.

Cartons from the unaffected product lines were already moving down the packing line. Ren watched one of the sealed boxes join the rest of the outgoing shipment.

“When does the next run start?” Kakuzu demanded, already moving toward the loading doors.

Near the exit, two workers were sealing the last crates.

“You going to those evening classes?” one asked.

The other nodded. “Tomorrow. Accounting.”

Ren heard them as he passed and kept walking.

Ren reached the estate later than expected. The evening air had already cooled by the time he walked into the sitting room.

Kushina and Mikoto were still there, and both boys had finally run themselves tired. Naruto and Sasuke sat together on the floor cushions with their toys scattered around them.

Sasuke saw him first. “Big Brother.”

Naruto immediately looked up. “Big Brother.”

Ren took his coat off and sat down on the low sofa.

Sasuke picked himself up, walked over, and proudly presented his wooden practice kunai. Naruto scrambled up a second later, grabbed a completely unrelated wooden block from the floor, and held that out to Ren too.

Ren took both pieces of wood and set them on the table.

Sasuke sat down on the cushion beside Ren’s leg and slowly attempted to form one of the hand seals Itachi had shown him.

Naruto sat beside him and copied the gesture.

“Wrong,” Sasuke said.

“No.”

Ren didn’t correct either of them this time. He leaned back against the sofa and watched them argue over the tangled mess of their fingers.

From somewhere down the hallway, Kushina’s voice echoed through the estate. “We’re leaving!”

Neither boy moved.

“Naruto!” Kushina called again.

Naruto kept his eyes firmly on his hands.

Sasuke looked at Naruto, then went back to staring at his own hands.

Ren looked toward the hallway. “Your mothers are calling you.”

Naruto shook his head. “No.”

Sasuke didn’t even look up from his hands. “No.”

Kushina appeared in the doorway a moment later, stopping with her hands on her hips as she looked at all three of them.