If the brain is not accustomed to being used regularly, it can come to funny conclusions when left to its own devices. But also a brilliant mind's thoughts may go astray if the genius spends too much time in the sun with someone with a more humble brain activity and capacity.
On this particular afternoon, two heads were definitely not better than one. Lounging lazily in the grass, the blond boy and his pink-haired companion tried to move as little as possible under the scorching sun. For days the monstrous heat plagued the village Konoha and every since training sessions were canceled, much to their dismay. But even the most stubborn person had to realize that it'd be their death if they trained.
So now, with too much time on his hands to handle, Naruto had forced Sakura to meet with him every day now to kill time. He knew this shady place not far from a small river, though this did not much to help them.
"Hey Sakura, could you convince Sasuke to come with us next time?" called Naruto, not bothering to open his eyes. The girl tilted her head slightly and her expression turned sour. "What makes you think he would listen to me? Besides, I already tried..." Sensing she wasn't comfortable with talking about their dark-haired friend, he dropped the topic and remained lying in the grass and relished in every breeze, be it a hardly noticeable one or a stronger gust of wind.
Sakura felt as if her brain was melting already. A dull ache in her head told her that if she didn't move somewhere with air conditioning, a heat stroke was inevitable, something she truly wanted to avoid. With slow movements, she rose to her feet and stumbled over to her friend and awoke him from his nap by kicking him against the shin. The kunoichi cut his wailing off by commanding "Naruto, you will stand up now and we'll go to a butcher."
Naruto didn't dare to object as he saw her apple green eyes glaring at him and did as he was told.
Now, here they were, hidden inside the local butcher's cold storage and sighing in content at the refreshment.
It didn't take long for Naruto to start babbling. And for a change, Sakura actually listened to him, nodding every once in a while, not able to remember what was being said. It was official, her brain had suffered a meltdown and the remains were beginning to freeze.
The man behind the counter looked quite perplexed as he watched two pre-teens storming out of his cold storage.
Back at their little sanctuary at the river, they sat down on two of the few rocks underneath an oak. "Woah, look...I think there was something moving in the grass" laughed Naruto and commented on how the sun kept smiling at him. His teammate giggled and suggested that he should get some ramen-popsicle because he was seriously starting to see things.
Ah, it was so much fun. Sakura had abandoned common sense a while ago in exchange for this blissful feeling. Her head seemed to weight so little that it might as well float away any second now.
While his companion's head was currently a little hallow, wheels that hadn't moved in ages were reeling inside his head. He could actually hear the sound echoing through his otherwise rather empty skull. Or he thought he did. Apparently the heat had managed to reach this region deep down in his brain that was not dead yet and the metal of the brain-wheels was expanding because of that, finally meshing with each other again after years of separation. Alone the fact that he all of a sudden knew that metal expanded when heated was proof of that. A flood of logical and highly intellectual thoughts, mixed with the same old mess that usually reins his mind, rushed through his brain.
Maybe the sky above him wasn't really blue and he only thought so because the particles in the air refracted the light of the sun in a way that made the color blue of the spectrum reach his eyes.
Maybe Sakura was actually a fairy from another dimension.
Maybe Kakashi only wore a mask because he was ashamed of his appearance because he wasn't as pretty as Gai and his teeth weren't quite as sparkly.
Maybe Tenten didn't like him because he once mistook her for a boy.
Come to think of it, Tenten wasn't all that manly. Only when she was with that prick Neji, all that femininity was practically...sucked out of her. Because Neji was like...like a sponge, a vacuum cleaner, sucking out all bits of femininity of people around him and absorbing it. Sort of. The wheels in his head were kind of disagreeing with that logic but they simply couldn't distinguish stupidity from cleverness.
Naruto's mind remained with the two members of Team Gai that probably looked more horrid in green than their teammates. This was probably because the colors brown and green clashed a little. Especially Tenten with her chocolate brown hair and eyes must have it hard.
Chocolate...What he wouldn't give to have some right now. His newfound intelligence chose that moment to intervene and point something out for him. The intelligence didn't seem content with his former believes. So now chocolate was no longer made of brown paint, tamed rainbows and compressed happiness.
Happiness.
Wide-eyed, the blonde jumped to his feet, euphoric about his discovery. It was a miracle he hadn't realized this earlier. He was already making his way towards Sakura while he was still swaying from standing up and moving too fast.
"Huh?" The girl's eyes fluttered open and stared up to her friend. Under normal circumstances, the big grin on his tanned face would've unnerved her. But this was different. Now his smile was stirring a sense of anticipation in her, as if his smile promised of great things to come.
"Sakura, I just had an epiphany."
Surely this could only be good!
This time they fled into an aisle in a barely air-conditioned book store. The pink-haired kunoichi held up an orange book and studied the cover. A man and a woman were shown on it, the male chasing his companion. Above it the words "Icha Icha Paradise" were written. It was the first time she saw it up-close and now she was sort of curious about this mysterious novel's content.
Her hand moved to turn the first page, yet a gloved hand appeared out of nowhere, preventing further movement. As predicted. For some reason, their sensei was rather keen on keeping "Icha Icha Paradise" away from them as if it could possibly damage their fragile minds, which shouldn't be the case seeing as the word Paradise was in the title.
Blinking innocently, she met Kakashi's frowning face, or what was uncovered of it. Later she would wonder how she and the dobe managed to come up with a plan in their state of mind.
With a battle cry that alerted the store's owner, the Uzumaki (hidden behind the shelf up until now) flung himself at his teacher's back, pinning him to the ground. So much for 'respect the elders'.
A tinge of pity found its way into Sakura's brain at the sight of Kakashi being so easily crushed by his a little chubby student. The orange book returned to its place next to "Icha Icha Violence" and the young female ninja crouched down so her poor sensei would feel less humiliated and so that he couldn't claim he hadn't quite understood what she'd said later.
"Sensei Kakashi, we have a favor to ask" she began, emphasizing and pronouncing every word carefully. The visible eye of the grey-haired man narrowed in suspicion. She told him Naruto's genius master plan in detail despite the people passing by looking at the trio strangely and when she finished, she stood up and bit her lip. It would be soooo great if Kakashi could help them with this. Everything depended on his reply.
Running through the shinobi in question's mind were various thoughts. A great portion of his brain told him to say no and to scold the kids for spending too much time in the merciless sun, yet there was also that part of him that liked the idea, no matter how ridiculous it may seem. Wait, how long had he been outside? A couple of hours?
Naruto shifted his position on his teacher's back unconsciously, a nasty noise rung out and Kakashi found it very hard to breathe for some reason.
"Your answer?" asked his female student, arms crossed in front of her chest and eyes glaring at him with a frightening intensity.
A whole week went by until cooler days decided to return to Konohagakure no Sato and its population couldn't be more grateful. The sky was full of heavy clouds and the sun only peeked through from in between every once in a while.
One would think that everything would go back to normal, back to what it was like before the heat wave. Ah, but sadly, it wasn't.
The cooler temperatures had forced the wheels inside Naruto's brain to separate, the idea he'd gotten, however, refused to leave his mind. And while Sakura had resumed being the brilliant girl with a minority complex she was, the small silly streak she possessed was strong enough to keep her plan in her mind. She was suspecting her IQ had dropped a little anyway.
In a dark alley way, hushed words and muttered insults were exchanged and an observant passerby would've caught the blob of pink in the darkness. "So, you remember what I've told you?" Someone sighed. "We went over this at least four times. Remember that I'm only doing this because I'm such a nice person."
Then three figures left the alley and blended in with the crowd.
A little ways away, a boy with ebony hair and a pair of also dark eyes scanned the streets, searching for his teammates. The last weeks had been the weirdest days of his life and he couldn't wait to start training again. After all, there was still a goal to achieve.
He could very much do it all alone, he realized. It would be a little more effective he had company though... So that's why he was looking for those impossible people.
His stomach grumbled and because training without strengthening himself was as stupid as throwing a rock at Itachi and hoping he wouldn't kill you for it, he would have to eat.
The Uchiha returned to his apartment and collect a bento box he had prepared earlier. A little later, he settled down on a small brick wall where he spend a lot of his free afternoons and raised the lid of the box. The first Onigiri was half-way to his mouth, when the sound of a twig snapping reached his ears and before he could gulp down his meal or move or react at all, a pair of arms grabbed him from behind, lifted him of the wall and he found himself unable to free from his captor.
From his peripheral vision he could make out the familiar silver hair and the mask and he wondered why his sensei chose this moment to test him. Sasuke wanted to question Kakashi about it, when Sakura and Naruto emerged from the bushes with identical grins on their faces, obviously hiding something behind their backs. Naruto looked, if possible, even more retarded than usual and while Sakura was usually a very pretty girl, her current expression didn't make her all that pleasant to look at.
Oh god. He should've stayed in bed today.
"It took us a while to locate you..." the girl started, the grotesque smile growing with each word. "...but in the end we finally caught you. You see, we have a little present for you."
Both children retreated their hands from behind their backs, revealing the objects they'd been hiding.
Together, they were carrying at least fifteen chocolate bars.
A mischievous gleam entered the green and blue eyes as they painfully slowly started to unwrap the candy. "It's for your best..."
And with that, the first bits of chocolate were shoved into his mouth, choking him. The blond boy took hold of his jaw and forced him to chew the disgustingly sweet treat. The next few minutes were filled with this torture until he thought it would never end. His taste buds were already beginning to adjust to the sugar overload.
His body hung limp in his teacher's arms, the heaving of his chest the only sign that he was still alive and his torturers stepped back to inspect their handiwork. Seconds ticked away, and both pre-teens hoped their chocolate-therapy had worked on their stoic friend.
With seemingly a lot of effort, the Sharingan wielder craned his neck up, dark eyes trained on the other two Ge-nin. His breathing was still a little labored, but the ghost of a smile appeared on his face. This was everything they needed. Throwing any boundaries or privacy issues aside, they enveloped their sensei and Sasuke in a group hug. "It worked! It actually worked! Oh, I TOLD you it would!" repeated the Kyuubi vessel over and over again, sounding as if he was close to tears. As fast as the impulse for initiating body contact had appeared, the hug ended and with a worried glance at the more serious team members, Naruto and his partner-in-crime fled the scene, leaving a slightly worried and utterly confused Sasuke behind.
Naruto's well-hidden intelligence had informed him that chocolate did make happy because it caused endorphins, happiness hormones, to flood the blood.
And that changed his whole view, because it made him realize just why Sasuke was always depressed and moody like that. After all, never had he seen the boy even touching candy. So Sasuke was only always in a bad mood because he wasn't eating enough chocolate! (The idea that Sasuke just may not like sweets never occurred to him.)
Being the good friend he was, the Uzumaki had vowed to change that. It was for Sasuke's well-being!
Tenzou worked up the courage to question tentatively about the bandages that covered Kakashi's hands that evening when a few Jou-nin and ANBU met up and the older man quickly invented some outrageous story about how a wild dragon came out of nowhere and attacked him. After that, nobody asked for the cause of his burns again.
Do I need a social life? It seems so. That would prevent me from writing One-Shots like this.
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