He knows just the right place, and it's not Ichiraku!

Naruto figured he couldn't lead them to Ichiraku now. Even if he had to suffer two days without Ichiraku, he knew that he would get some of their ramen later on. But, he had in fact heard of a new place that was cheap but good. It was a place that offered Korean-styled barbeque, the kind of place where you have a grill built right into the table and you can grill the meat yourself. So, he lead the girls and Rock Lee there.

They seemed happy enough about the place, and they were in luck, as they got the last available table. Unfortunately, it was a little too big for a group of just five, but they would be okay with that.

Once they had taken their seats (Tenten of course sat right next to Naruto), a moment of awkward silence spread. Fortunately, Tenten came in with a save. "So, how about we introduce ourselves? I only know you, Sakura-san.", Tenten suggested, with a sly little look at Sakura that made the pinkette blush furiously. You could literally see the question marks popping up over Inos head. "I'm Tenten. Just Tenten.", the brunette said with a smile.

"Well, I'm Yamanaka Ino. My family owns the Yamanaka flower shop.", Ino went next.

"Oh yeah, I know of it. Neat, then I can get a discount on flowers if I want some?", Tenten asked with a friendly smile.

"Not a chance.", Ino replied in a similarly friendly tone, but the smile she had put on wasn't fooling anyone. It seemed like she had already taken an **** dislike to Tenten-chan.

Everyone had sweatdropped at Inos answer. Before the silence could spread though, Sakura jumped in. "Uh, well, I am Haruno Sakura. Nice to meet you guys.", she introduced herself.

Rock Lee, who had appeared awfully quiet up until now, suddenly began to jump into high gear. "Sakura-san. A fitting name for such a beauty. You know, the Lotus blooms twice in Konoha, but I will make it bloom a third time just for you.", he said. It sounded like some kind of old traditional poetry... wait, was that supposed to be a pick-up-line?

Evidently, Sakura also had no clue what to make of it. "Eh? Hehe, yeah, that's really nice, Lee-kun, but...", she began to say, intending to politely put him down.

However, Lee was really bad at picking up signals, so Sakura had to endure a lot of attempts of Lee to gain her favor, all to the endless amusement of Ino, who had a really hard time holding in her laughter the whole time.

They had spent about ten minutes there before a hooded boy passed by their table. A moment later, he came by again, walking backwards. He turned towards the group. Now Naruto finally recognized who it was.

It was Inuzuka Kiba, his classmate back in the academy. The two had gotten a little out of touch after they had become genin, but they used to be best buddies in school. Kiba hadn't forgotten this. "Hey man, how are you doing?", he greeted Naruto with his loud voice, while Akamaru, his dog, sat in the opening of his hoodie and also barked friendly at the group.

Narutos face lit up at the sight of his friend. "Kiba! I'm doing awesome, thanks. How 'bout you?", he replied.

"Doing just great, heh.", the dog boy replied with a feral grin. Then however, he noticed Tenten and the fact that she was still holding onto Narutos arm and was apparently not going to let it go anytime soon. "Hey, is that your girlfried there?"

"Huh? Tenten-chan? Well, I guess you could say that, yeah.", Naruto said and while Tenten squealed a little in joy, cold sweat started to appear on Narutos forehead. From both sides, he could feel murderous intent eminating from both Ino and Sakura.

"Not bad, dude, not bad! Heh, never thought you'd be the first one of our class to get a girl. And she's cute too.", he congratulated Naruto on his catch. Tenten giggled a little, enjoying the compliment as well.

"Hey, you guys have an awful lot of space left, mind if I get the guys and we crash here as well?", Kiba inquired.

Naruto shook his head. "Not at all. The more, the merrier.", he answered.

Kiba disappeared for a minute or so and then returned with his teammates, who turned out to be Nara Shikamaru and Uchiha Sasuke. Of course, Sakura and Ino began swooning over Sasuke the minute he said there with them (even though he wisely had chosen the spot right at the opposite end of the table), but not as much as Naruto had feared they would. Strange...

Shikamaru took the empty spot next to Naruto, and soon, their meat was delivered and conversations started to pop up all across the table. Although Sakura and Ino pretty much just had their eyes for Sasuke, the Uchiha remained rather silent.

Naruto wondered how their team was doing. After all, he knew Kiba had some good techniques, as did Shikamaru. Sasuke, even though he hated the guys guts, he had to admit that he was pretty good.

Since Shikamaru was to his right, and only Tenten to his left, he decided to ask Shikamaru a bit about his team. After all, Shikamaru was pretty reliable when it came to precise judgements. "So, how's your team, Shikamaru?", he asked his friend quietly.

Shikamaru groaned at that question. "This whole teams a hassle, I tell you. An irresponsible sensei, and... well, you know Sasuke and Kiba. Really, never a quiet minute with them around.", he answered.

Naruto laughed. Yup, sounded true indeed. But still, Shikamaru wasn't exactly what you'd call energetic too...

Then, a question came up from Tenten that made the others chats shut down immediately. "So, since you've already got a C-rank mission, you're going to participate in the Chuunin exams next month?", she asked.

"Eh? Chuunin exams?", Naruto asked dumbly. What was she getting at?

"Yup. Don't tell me you don't know about it!?", Tenten asked, eyes widen open, as if she couldn't believe that they wouldn't know about this.

She received a couple of shaking heads as response.

"Well, every six months, a Chuunin exam is held, this time in Konoha. To enter, a Genin team has to have completed at least one C-rank mission. Seriously, don't you guys know anything?", Shikamaru explained in her stead..

Naruto and the others had to admit, they hadn't really thought about advancing the ranks just yet. But Naruto knew, if he wanted to become Hokage, he eventually had to take this test. Maybe he would need to talk to Kurenai about this. He wondered if she would let them take the test just yet...

Tenten next to him groaned. "Our teacher had us train for an entire year, we did a whole year nothing but those blasted D-rank missions! Just so we have an edge compared to you guys.", Tenten groaned. So that was why she had been so excited about their mission.

"Heh, we'll see about that.", Sasuke said while giving Rock Lee a challenging glare.

"Uchiha-kun, isn't it? Nice to meet you, but I am afraid that you will be outmatched. We have a years worth of training under Gai-sensei already.", Lee commented.

"We'll see how much that is worth soon enough...", Sasuke replied, smiling smuggly at Lee.

The tension between Sasuke and Lee was beginning to stiffle the mood at the table a bit...