Narutobanged ficlets
So what was I doing instead of something useful, like, say packing for Prague or looking for my diploma (how does one manage to misplace a piece of paper it took thousands of dollars to get, I ask?)?
Oh. That's right. I worked on narutobanged memes instead. lol. Here they are:
Title: You Call That a Pick Up Line?
Characters: Naruto, Ino, Shikamaru
Prompt: Sugar mama
"Naruto, go pick that woman up."
"What? No way, dattebayo! She's older than Tsunade-obachan!"
"Naruto!"
Ino whipped around, ponytail smacking into Shikamaru's face. He wished for second he had the Yamanaka clan's abilities, so maybe he could warn his friend to keep his damn mouth shut and do as he was told. Then again, you'd think seeing someone get whipped in the head with hair would be warning enough to shut your trap around the hair-owner.
Instead, Naruto decided at that moment to live up his school-days nickname of Dead Last.
"Ino" he said seriously. "Lighten up. You're scaring off all the cute chicks!"
So much for developing spontaneous telepathy. Or, in Naruto's case, a brain. Shikamaru sighed and ordered another round of drinks for all three of them. More alcohol was definitely going to be needed tonight. They needed to get Naruto that sugar mama. That top-government-offical, secret-keeping sugar mama. Somehow, this goal seemed a little too optimistic, even if Tsunade did threaten them that Naruto must pass this mission. Why did they have to proctor Naruto's jounin exam? The man was hopeless.
"That woman," Ino hissed, yanking Naruot forward by his collar. "Is a top advisor in the government's legeslative branch. She is a high-powered, but incredibly lonely woman with the secrets we need and a taste for young, dumb arm candy. Get. Your. Butt. Over. There. Order her a drink. Bat your eyes. Let her take you home, have sex and then ram sack the place for the papers we need. I want to get on the road home tonight."
"Shit, Ino! I'm not going to-" Naruto paused, as if possibly embarrassed, then lowered his voice and leaned in closer so that the two were nose to nose. Shikamaru was going to have to break up their little love-fest soon. They were attracting too much attention for an undercover job. "I'm not going to go sleep with some chick for secrets. Especially not one old enough to be my mom!"
Shikamaru glanced back over at the woman. Not being into cougars he could get, everyone had their own tastes, but that woman was sooo not "mom" material. Ino released Naruto's collar, making a show of wiping her hands on a napkin while the bartender set down drinks. She stirred hers, suddenly all at ease as she turned to Shikamaru.
"See, Shikamrau? This is exactly what your mom and I were talking about last Sunday- school reform. As kunoichi, we've been taught since we were seven that we could be called on to do... well, all sorts of dangerous and what I would dare say Naruto might term as "disgusting" things in the line of duty. This lady looks nice, not even the type to be into kinky stuff. Watch my things. I'll go to the bathroom and get into disguise. Seems like I gotta do everything myself."
"Ino," Shikamaru said tiredly. Really? She thought Naruto was going to fall for that? But he got no farther because she cut him off.
"Sorry sweetie. I think you might look too...manly. Not the boyish type she goes gaga for, you know?"
And then she kissed him on the cheek before practically skipping down the hall. He rubbed his cheek where her lips had been. Why did she always do that? Even more important, why did it always work? It was just a kiss on the cheek, damnnit!
He got so distracted arguing with himself over the dangers of a too-pretty-teammate that Naruto's mid-sentence by the time he notices he's being spoken to.
"Hey! Hey, man. What did she mean, they always know about this stuff?"
"Who knows what?"
"The girls do..." Naruto waved his hand over towards the woman. "They do stuff?"
He sighed. Three years training on your own with a Toad Sage really does keep you sheltered about what real missions require you to do. Then again, jounin exams were always suppose to be the type of missions you were worst at. His own was horrifically similar.
"Everybody does stuff, Naruto. Look, that lady wants to be a sugar mama. You go, make her happy for a night. She'll call you pretty and buy you drinks. You have some so-so sex, most likely but, you get the goods. Its just the job. That's all, just the job."
"Its the off-the-job stuff that counts, right manly-man?" Naruto said, reaching out to rub his knuckles against where Ino had kissed. Then he threw back his shot and looked Shikamaru right in the eye.
"Alright. Here I go!!"
And ten minutes later, when Ino sauntered out of the bathroom looking more or less the same as when she went in, she leaned over, kissed his ear and said, "Looks like we'll be welcoming another one to the ranks."
Title:Laundry
Character:Shikamaru/Ino
Prompt: Laundry
This was something they didn't tell you about when you signed up to be a ninja. Makes sense they don't tell you; what five year old would willingly want to do laundry in frigid-cold rivers? What adult would willingly want to do laundry in a frigid-cold river? Besides bloody and stinking ninjas, of course. At least, they were only the latter, Shikamaru reasoned, and not former. Still, this was a lot more work than he liked to do, and the chore was doubly annoying with Ino along, he thought, when the girl went down with a scream.
"Its freezing!"
Shikamaru rolled his eyes.
"Of course its freezing when you decide to dunk yourself in as well as the clothes, Ino."
"Its not my fault! The rocks were slipperier than they looked!"
He bit his lip determined not to say anything. The sooner they got this done, the sooner he could go back to cloud watching. At least Chouji and Asuma-sensei were taking care of dinner in exchange for this chore. Chouji was a good cook.
"Look at this! I'm soaked, and all my other clothes are wet too. Stupid laundry! Stupid river!"
Finally glancing up, he could see Ino was right. The shirt she was wearing was just as wet as what was in his hand, only what was on her body clung oddly in places, curving out just a bit, and then there were these hard, little-
Oh, gods. His insides started, turning all funny. Look away. Look away.
Hair stuck to her cheek. Recently cut from the chuunin exams, Shikamaru had thought the short hair made her look younger, but suddenly he was the one feeling like a little boy. What would she do if he just reached out and pushed it back? If then he ran his hand down her face and neck, if he touched those?
Where had those even come from? When did that happen?
"Ah!" Ino whined. She also bit her lip. He felt himself twitch.That was bad. Or...? No. Bad. She didn't seem to notice him staring though. That was good. "Now I'm going to have re-bandage everything when I get back to camp too! Do you have any idea how long that takes?"
And then she began taking them off, unwinding the bandages sopping wet twist by sopping wet twist. Shikamaru paled, felt all that blood draining somewhere...else, and turned his eyes back to his work, scrubbing harder than ever. Trust Ino to be annoying even when... wet. That somewhere else ached, and Shikamaru moved out into deeper water.
Don't think about it. Just. Don't. Think.
Its better to just try to get this chore done before an annoying Ino grew eyes and turned into a deadly Ino.
"Hey! Wait up!"
A splash and then he only had time to register his own back getting soaked before Ino jumped on top of him and dunked him under. It could have been the water burning his eyes, the mouthful of pond weed that somehow got lodged down his mouth and practically half way down his lungs, or it could be Ino's breasts sliding up against his back, but he suddenly thought, death by laundry? There could be worse ways to go.
Title: Curtains
Characters: Neji/Hinta, Tenten, Lee
Prompt:Curtains
Hinata had to be honest. Her father had more say in what her room looked like than she did. She knew nothing about interior decorating beyond the required kuinichi class basics, like how to arrange flowers to suit a room. But still, Hinata couldn't help thinking Neji's apartment looked a little... naked without any curtains. They'd grown up where anyone could look in on you, almost couldn't help it, but it made them all spies in their homes without meaning it. Then you had here, away from the Hyuuga Compound where not everyone could see in, so why make it easier for them to look at you?
So the first time Neji invites her to see his new home Hinata isn’t blind and she isn’t dumb either, even if, she’s embarrassed to admit, she remains too often mute when she should speak. She knows Neji’s invited to her to his new apartment because Team Eight asked him to, that they hope it spurs her into a moment of bravery where she might tell her father she was moving out. Kiba hates her father, has called him, at last count, 27 separate bad names, and even Shino, the most silent man she’s ever known, has said she needs to speak up more, especially to her father. So she tries. Practicing assertion with Neji is maybe cheating a little bit, because he’s told her many times he really does want to know what she thinks. But when Neji asks how she likes it, she goes for the truth, telling him how little "home"-feeling his first apartment really is.
"Oh," Neji says eyes flicking over and away from the window, which likely hadn't been washed since he moved in. "If you think so, Hinata-sama, why don't you pick out some curtains for me? I'm bad at that you know."
Such an easy admission, it makes her worry. Neji doesn't think much about the little things, the things that make a difference in whether you are a friend to someone or just friendly, in whether it is a house or a home. She tells herself, it makes sense for her to choose some curtains. Still, like a scab you won't stop picking, this worry wouldn't go away.
Why her?
This feeling only intensifies when she meets up with Team Gai for lunch a few weeks later, the curtains finally purchased and in a bag. It’s been weeks since she's seen Neji, though she has seen his place again. "Apartment-sitting," he'd called it. More Team Eight butting into her personal life, she's sure. The only thing she can't figure out is how they convinced Neji to join their side of the argument.
"Ah! Hinata-san! Your Radiant Youth is as beautiful as ever! Every Hyuuga must be so proud these days!"
Hinata smiles over at Lee and Tenten, who have just walked in the door. Once it might have been embarrassing to have such compliments screamed across an eatery at her, but these days its like a self-confidence boost. Tenten's greetings are much more subdued than her teammate who she whacks cheerful on the back of the head when the compliments get too flowery.
"If you say that sort of stuff all the time it's gonna mean less, Lee. I've told you before."
"But, Tenten-san. Every time I say you are a perfect specimen of the Womanly Fighting Spirit I DO mean it! You are as much the emblem of the Fighting Spirit as my dear Sakura-san!"
"She's not yours, yet lover-boy, so don't let her catch you saying things like that about her either," Tenten points out before turning back to Hinata. "Sorry Hinata-chan! Neji-san and Gai-sensei... well, let's just say the mission was a bit messier than expected. They went to change after giving the report. Just us for now!"
Her heart sinks a little at that, and she blushes, realizing she's so disappointed.
"What's in the bag, Hinata-chan?" Tenten asks, sliding in beside her, smiling. "I never get to sit next to you!"
"J-just curtains," she answers blushing even more. What's wrong with her? She'd gotten better with blushing since Naruto, she'd thought!
"Oh!" Lee flashes her a thumbs up. "You decided to make a bold move away from the Stern-But-Surely-Still-Loving Guidance of your father into an abode of your own, a place of Youthful Freedom?"
Hinata repressed a sigh. Now Neji's team was in on the act.
"N-no... these are for Neji-nisan's apartment. H-he said I could pick out some things, you know."
"Red check?" Tenten asks peeking in the bag. It wasn't exactly Neji's style, Hinata knew, but-
"It seemed cheerful, somehow. I always thought a kitchen with red checked curtains would be nice to cook in everyday."
Tenten smiles, "Are you suuure this wasn't for you? At least a little?"
"N-no, I-"
But just as she thinking Oh, Kami, please stop it with the blushing! Neji's voice interrupts.
"Well, I like it, so that's all that needs be said. Right, Tenten-san?"
Tenten, for whatever reason, blushes. It is only then that Hinata realizes it sounded, just a bit, just a little, like she had been picturing herself in Neji's home, a part of Neji's home even. With Neji listening in. She ducks her head down, so maybe no one else will notice the excessive blush that thought just created.
Neji, and Gai-senei beside him, exchange greetings with the group and it is only the scrapping of chairs that brings her head back up. Neji has changed spots with Tenten in order to get a better look at her purchases for his home. Turning her head, they are almost cheek to cheek.
"Neji?" she asks, and it is a long moment before he looks up from the curtains in the bag. A sudden flash of fear has her hoping she remembered to keep the receipt, but he’s smiling at her.
"I know you don't think as heir you can get a place of your own, but... I hope... you will consider my apartment as a home too... I mean, Hinata-"
But she can feel the others' turning their heads towards them at that moment, in the same way a person could feel a lull in the conversation right before it happens. She reaches out to squeeze his hand where it held the bag, silencing him without saying a word.
She thinks she knows what he's saying, even still, and later, when making plans to hang the curtains together, she finds she can't wait.
Title:This is How it Begins: The Story of an End
Characters: Sakura, Ino, Sasuke
Prompt:scent
It takes Ino three days from hearing of Sasuke's defection to get up the courage it takes to tell her one-time best friend a story. Sakura is Ino's one-time best friend because Sakura loved the same boy Ino did, loved him more than she loved Ino, fact. Or thought she did. But that is not why Ino knocks on Sakura's door and follows Sakura's mom down the hallway into a bedroom that feels stuffy and without air.
When Sakura looks up from her place on the bed, eyes red rimmed and a mountain of medical scrolls around her, Ino begins to talk without waiting for a greeting. This is how she starts:
The scent Ino has always assocaited with Sasuke is fire. She thinks a lot of girls in his fan club would say this. Who didn't know of the impressive coming-of-age jitsu the Uchiha clan once performed? But its not that kind of fire.
Skin and bone leave a scent that can linger for days, especially when a lot of them burn. Over a hundred pyres burned one week, a Uchiha in each one. Later Ino learned another clan, the Hyuuga, did many of the funeral rituals for Sasuke who was after all, only a boy, only one small boy on the morning the city woke and found the rest of his clan dead. The Hyuuga did not do all though, and Ino herself attended several places where she was required to pick up chopsticks and hunt for bone.
And then, when she had passed bone around chop stick to chop stick for the better part of a week, her father had dressed her up in black and they had gone to meet Sasuke.
No. That's not right. If she's going to tell the story at all she needs to tell it straight.
They go to the Uchiha funeral and she sees, for the first time, someone who is truly all alone. Growing up it was just her and her father at Ino's house, but there is a big difference between one person and none. Ino remembers wanting to brush fingers across Sasuke's small-boy face, but not what his face looked like that day. She remembers hearing murmurs as he spoke to the priest after the ceremony had been done, but those words never carried across the crowd over her way. She does remember fire though. The scent of something gone.
This is what she tells Sakura, whose still crying for loss. Sasuke has always had the scent of leaving saturated right through his skin. So every time you are alone, you are closer than you've ever been to him.
Title:untitled
Characters: Sasukes, Sakura
Prompt: course paper
Sometimes, she feels, that even though Sasuke’s here, even though Sakura could reach out and physically touch him, it is more like-
Like reading correspondence.
That’s what its like instead of talking to someone right there.
She relies on faces so much thorugh out the day. That smallest smile or a glim in the eyes that speak to her, but not him. He is always staring at nothing, blind in both literal and non-literal ways. She’s heard that people are more confessional and open in letters. That people in letters are, in some way, always talking to themselves as much as anybody else. For herself, that’s never been the case. There’s always an inner-editor thinking say this, don’t mention that. Is the grammar right? This is especially true when writing to her mother, whose no shinobi. You write only what you want someone to hear.
Sasuke is also familiar with the habit of acting a part. He’s nothing but words that mean nothing some days, some months even. Entire months have gone by since he-
Since he was welcomed back into Konoha and resigned as a ninja (she refuses to think of it any other way, even if the Hokage is her teacher, damnit.). One day, she thinks, she will be trusted enough again, loved enough again to touch him. And when that day comes she half-imagines it will be enough only for the Small- fingers sliding against each other but never grabbing hold, shoulders bumping, nothing more, nothing further than that- and she will feel against her own skin, not other skin, but paper. Course, rough paper and a thousand words unsaid.
ETA: FOUND DIPLOMA! It was in a safe place. Of course.
Oh. That's right. I worked on narutobanged memes instead. lol. Here they are:
Title: You Call That a Pick Up Line?
Characters: Naruto, Ino, Shikamaru
Prompt: Sugar mama
"Naruto, go pick that woman up."
"What? No way, dattebayo! She's older than Tsunade-obachan!"
"Naruto!"
Ino whipped around, ponytail smacking into Shikamaru's face. He wished for second he had the Yamanaka clan's abilities, so maybe he could warn his friend to keep his damn mouth shut and do as he was told. Then again, you'd think seeing someone get whipped in the head with hair would be warning enough to shut your trap around the hair-owner.
Instead, Naruto decided at that moment to live up his school-days nickname of Dead Last.
"Ino" he said seriously. "Lighten up. You're scaring off all the cute chicks!"
So much for developing spontaneous telepathy. Or, in Naruto's case, a brain. Shikamaru sighed and ordered another round of drinks for all three of them. More alcohol was definitely going to be needed tonight. They needed to get Naruto that sugar mama. That top-government-offical, secret-keeping sugar mama. Somehow, this goal seemed a little too optimistic, even if Tsunade did threaten them that Naruto must pass this mission. Why did they have to proctor Naruto's jounin exam? The man was hopeless.
"That woman," Ino hissed, yanking Naruot forward by his collar. "Is a top advisor in the government's legeslative branch. She is a high-powered, but incredibly lonely woman with the secrets we need and a taste for young, dumb arm candy. Get. Your. Butt. Over. There. Order her a drink. Bat your eyes. Let her take you home, have sex and then ram sack the place for the papers we need. I want to get on the road home tonight."
"Shit, Ino! I'm not going to-" Naruto paused, as if possibly embarrassed, then lowered his voice and leaned in closer so that the two were nose to nose. Shikamaru was going to have to break up their little love-fest soon. They were attracting too much attention for an undercover job. "I'm not going to go sleep with some chick for secrets. Especially not one old enough to be my mom!"
Shikamaru glanced back over at the woman. Not being into cougars he could get, everyone had their own tastes, but that woman was sooo not "mom" material. Ino released Naruto's collar, making a show of wiping her hands on a napkin while the bartender set down drinks. She stirred hers, suddenly all at ease as she turned to Shikamaru.
"See, Shikamrau? This is exactly what your mom and I were talking about last Sunday- school reform. As kunoichi, we've been taught since we were seven that we could be called on to do... well, all sorts of dangerous and what I would dare say Naruto might term as "disgusting" things in the line of duty. This lady looks nice, not even the type to be into kinky stuff. Watch my things. I'll go to the bathroom and get into disguise. Seems like I gotta do everything myself."
"Ino," Shikamaru said tiredly. Really? She thought Naruto was going to fall for that? But he got no farther because she cut him off.
"Sorry sweetie. I think you might look too...manly. Not the boyish type she goes gaga for, you know?"
And then she kissed him on the cheek before practically skipping down the hall. He rubbed his cheek where her lips had been. Why did she always do that? Even more important, why did it always work? It was just a kiss on the cheek, damnnit!
He got so distracted arguing with himself over the dangers of a too-pretty-teammate that Naruto's mid-sentence by the time he notices he's being spoken to.
"Hey! Hey, man. What did she mean, they always know about this stuff?"
"Who knows what?"
"The girls do..." Naruto waved his hand over towards the woman. "They do stuff?"
He sighed. Three years training on your own with a Toad Sage really does keep you sheltered about what real missions require you to do. Then again, jounin exams were always suppose to be the type of missions you were worst at. His own was horrifically similar.
"Everybody does stuff, Naruto. Look, that lady wants to be a sugar mama. You go, make her happy for a night. She'll call you pretty and buy you drinks. You have some so-so sex, most likely but, you get the goods. Its just the job. That's all, just the job."
"Its the off-the-job stuff that counts, right manly-man?" Naruto said, reaching out to rub his knuckles against where Ino had kissed. Then he threw back his shot and looked Shikamaru right in the eye.
"Alright. Here I go!!"
And ten minutes later, when Ino sauntered out of the bathroom looking more or less the same as when she went in, she leaned over, kissed his ear and said, "Looks like we'll be welcoming another one to the ranks."
Title:Laundry
Character:Shikamaru/Ino
Prompt: Laundry
This was something they didn't tell you about when you signed up to be a ninja. Makes sense they don't tell you; what five year old would willingly want to do laundry in frigid-cold rivers? What adult would willingly want to do laundry in a frigid-cold river? Besides bloody and stinking ninjas, of course. At least, they were only the latter, Shikamaru reasoned, and not former. Still, this was a lot more work than he liked to do, and the chore was doubly annoying with Ino along, he thought, when the girl went down with a scream.
"Its freezing!"
Shikamaru rolled his eyes.
"Of course its freezing when you decide to dunk yourself in as well as the clothes, Ino."
"Its not my fault! The rocks were slipperier than they looked!"
He bit his lip determined not to say anything. The sooner they got this done, the sooner he could go back to cloud watching. At least Chouji and Asuma-sensei were taking care of dinner in exchange for this chore. Chouji was a good cook.
"Look at this! I'm soaked, and all my other clothes are wet too. Stupid laundry! Stupid river!"
Finally glancing up, he could see Ino was right. The shirt she was wearing was just as wet as what was in his hand, only what was on her body clung oddly in places, curving out just a bit, and then there were these hard, little-
Oh, gods. His insides started, turning all funny. Look away. Look away.
Hair stuck to her cheek. Recently cut from the chuunin exams, Shikamaru had thought the short hair made her look younger, but suddenly he was the one feeling like a little boy. What would she do if he just reached out and pushed it back? If then he ran his hand down her face and neck, if he touched those?
Where had those even come from? When did that happen?
"Ah!" Ino whined. She also bit her lip. He felt himself twitch.That was bad. Or...? No. Bad. She didn't seem to notice him staring though. That was good. "Now I'm going to have re-bandage everything when I get back to camp too! Do you have any idea how long that takes?"
And then she began taking them off, unwinding the bandages sopping wet twist by sopping wet twist. Shikamaru paled, felt all that blood draining somewhere...else, and turned his eyes back to his work, scrubbing harder than ever. Trust Ino to be annoying even when... wet. That somewhere else ached, and Shikamaru moved out into deeper water.
Don't think about it. Just. Don't. Think.
Its better to just try to get this chore done before an annoying Ino grew eyes and turned into a deadly Ino.
"Hey! Wait up!"
A splash and then he only had time to register his own back getting soaked before Ino jumped on top of him and dunked him under. It could have been the water burning his eyes, the mouthful of pond weed that somehow got lodged down his mouth and practically half way down his lungs, or it could be Ino's breasts sliding up against his back, but he suddenly thought, death by laundry? There could be worse ways to go.
Title: Curtains
Characters: Neji/Hinta, Tenten, Lee
Prompt:Curtains
Hinata had to be honest. Her father had more say in what her room looked like than she did. She knew nothing about interior decorating beyond the required kuinichi class basics, like how to arrange flowers to suit a room. But still, Hinata couldn't help thinking Neji's apartment looked a little... naked without any curtains. They'd grown up where anyone could look in on you, almost couldn't help it, but it made them all spies in their homes without meaning it. Then you had here, away from the Hyuuga Compound where not everyone could see in, so why make it easier for them to look at you?
So the first time Neji invites her to see his new home Hinata isn’t blind and she isn’t dumb either, even if, she’s embarrassed to admit, she remains too often mute when she should speak. She knows Neji’s invited to her to his new apartment because Team Eight asked him to, that they hope it spurs her into a moment of bravery where she might tell her father she was moving out. Kiba hates her father, has called him, at last count, 27 separate bad names, and even Shino, the most silent man she’s ever known, has said she needs to speak up more, especially to her father. So she tries. Practicing assertion with Neji is maybe cheating a little bit, because he’s told her many times he really does want to know what she thinks. But when Neji asks how she likes it, she goes for the truth, telling him how little "home"-feeling his first apartment really is.
"Oh," Neji says eyes flicking over and away from the window, which likely hadn't been washed since he moved in. "If you think so, Hinata-sama, why don't you pick out some curtains for me? I'm bad at that you know."
Such an easy admission, it makes her worry. Neji doesn't think much about the little things, the things that make a difference in whether you are a friend to someone or just friendly, in whether it is a house or a home. She tells herself, it makes sense for her to choose some curtains. Still, like a scab you won't stop picking, this worry wouldn't go away.
Why her?
This feeling only intensifies when she meets up with Team Gai for lunch a few weeks later, the curtains finally purchased and in a bag. It’s been weeks since she's seen Neji, though she has seen his place again. "Apartment-sitting," he'd called it. More Team Eight butting into her personal life, she's sure. The only thing she can't figure out is how they convinced Neji to join their side of the argument.
"Ah! Hinata-san! Your Radiant Youth is as beautiful as ever! Every Hyuuga must be so proud these days!"
Hinata smiles over at Lee and Tenten, who have just walked in the door. Once it might have been embarrassing to have such compliments screamed across an eatery at her, but these days its like a self-confidence boost. Tenten's greetings are much more subdued than her teammate who she whacks cheerful on the back of the head when the compliments get too flowery.
"If you say that sort of stuff all the time it's gonna mean less, Lee. I've told you before."
"But, Tenten-san. Every time I say you are a perfect specimen of the Womanly Fighting Spirit I DO mean it! You are as much the emblem of the Fighting Spirit as my dear Sakura-san!"
"She's not yours, yet lover-boy, so don't let her catch you saying things like that about her either," Tenten points out before turning back to Hinata. "Sorry Hinata-chan! Neji-san and Gai-sensei... well, let's just say the mission was a bit messier than expected. They went to change after giving the report. Just us for now!"
Her heart sinks a little at that, and she blushes, realizing she's so disappointed.
"What's in the bag, Hinata-chan?" Tenten asks, sliding in beside her, smiling. "I never get to sit next to you!"
"J-just curtains," she answers blushing even more. What's wrong with her? She'd gotten better with blushing since Naruto, she'd thought!
"Oh!" Lee flashes her a thumbs up. "You decided to make a bold move away from the Stern-But-Surely-Still-Loving Guidance of your father into an abode of your own, a place of Youthful Freedom?"
Hinata repressed a sigh. Now Neji's team was in on the act.
"N-no... these are for Neji-nisan's apartment. H-he said I could pick out some things, you know."
"Red check?" Tenten asks peeking in the bag. It wasn't exactly Neji's style, Hinata knew, but-
"It seemed cheerful, somehow. I always thought a kitchen with red checked curtains would be nice to cook in everyday."
Tenten smiles, "Are you suuure this wasn't for you? At least a little?"
"N-no, I-"
But just as she thinking Oh, Kami, please stop it with the blushing! Neji's voice interrupts.
"Well, I like it, so that's all that needs be said. Right, Tenten-san?"
Tenten, for whatever reason, blushes. It is only then that Hinata realizes it sounded, just a bit, just a little, like she had been picturing herself in Neji's home, a part of Neji's home even. With Neji listening in. She ducks her head down, so maybe no one else will notice the excessive blush that thought just created.
Neji, and Gai-senei beside him, exchange greetings with the group and it is only the scrapping of chairs that brings her head back up. Neji has changed spots with Tenten in order to get a better look at her purchases for his home. Turning her head, they are almost cheek to cheek.
"Neji?" she asks, and it is a long moment before he looks up from the curtains in the bag. A sudden flash of fear has her hoping she remembered to keep the receipt, but he’s smiling at her.
"I know you don't think as heir you can get a place of your own, but... I hope... you will consider my apartment as a home too... I mean, Hinata-"
But she can feel the others' turning their heads towards them at that moment, in the same way a person could feel a lull in the conversation right before it happens. She reaches out to squeeze his hand where it held the bag, silencing him without saying a word.
She thinks she knows what he's saying, even still, and later, when making plans to hang the curtains together, she finds she can't wait.
Title:This is How it Begins: The Story of an End
Characters: Sakura, Ino, Sasuke
Prompt:scent
It takes Ino three days from hearing of Sasuke's defection to get up the courage it takes to tell her one-time best friend a story. Sakura is Ino's one-time best friend because Sakura loved the same boy Ino did, loved him more than she loved Ino, fact. Or thought she did. But that is not why Ino knocks on Sakura's door and follows Sakura's mom down the hallway into a bedroom that feels stuffy and without air.
When Sakura looks up from her place on the bed, eyes red rimmed and a mountain of medical scrolls around her, Ino begins to talk without waiting for a greeting. This is how she starts:
The scent Ino has always assocaited with Sasuke is fire. She thinks a lot of girls in his fan club would say this. Who didn't know of the impressive coming-of-age jitsu the Uchiha clan once performed? But its not that kind of fire.
Skin and bone leave a scent that can linger for days, especially when a lot of them burn. Over a hundred pyres burned one week, a Uchiha in each one. Later Ino learned another clan, the Hyuuga, did many of the funeral rituals for Sasuke who was after all, only a boy, only one small boy on the morning the city woke and found the rest of his clan dead. The Hyuuga did not do all though, and Ino herself attended several places where she was required to pick up chopsticks and hunt for bone.
And then, when she had passed bone around chop stick to chop stick for the better part of a week, her father had dressed her up in black and they had gone to meet Sasuke.
No. That's not right. If she's going to tell the story at all she needs to tell it straight.
They go to the Uchiha funeral and she sees, for the first time, someone who is truly all alone. Growing up it was just her and her father at Ino's house, but there is a big difference between one person and none. Ino remembers wanting to brush fingers across Sasuke's small-boy face, but not what his face looked like that day. She remembers hearing murmurs as he spoke to the priest after the ceremony had been done, but those words never carried across the crowd over her way. She does remember fire though. The scent of something gone.
This is what she tells Sakura, whose still crying for loss. Sasuke has always had the scent of leaving saturated right through his skin. So every time you are alone, you are closer than you've ever been to him.
Title:untitled
Characters: Sasukes, Sakura
Prompt: course paper
Sometimes, she feels, that even though Sasuke’s here, even though Sakura could reach out and physically touch him, it is more like-
Like reading correspondence.
That’s what its like instead of talking to someone right there.
She relies on faces so much thorugh out the day. That smallest smile or a glim in the eyes that speak to her, but not him. He is always staring at nothing, blind in both literal and non-literal ways. She’s heard that people are more confessional and open in letters. That people in letters are, in some way, always talking to themselves as much as anybody else. For herself, that’s never been the case. There’s always an inner-editor thinking say this, don’t mention that. Is the grammar right? This is especially true when writing to her mother, whose no shinobi. You write only what you want someone to hear.
Sasuke is also familiar with the habit of acting a part. He’s nothing but words that mean nothing some days, some months even. Entire months have gone by since he-
Since he was welcomed back into Konoha and resigned as a ninja (she refuses to think of it any other way, even if the Hokage is her teacher, damnit.). One day, she thinks, she will be trusted enough again, loved enough again to touch him. And when that day comes she half-imagines it will be enough only for the Small- fingers sliding against each other but never grabbing hold, shoulders bumping, nothing more, nothing further than that- and she will feel against her own skin, not other skin, but paper. Course, rough paper and a thousand words unsaid.
ETA: FOUND DIPLOMA! It was in a safe place. Of course.