Realised that I actually used the wrong document when I first published this. It's all fixed now! :)
Prompt request on Tumblr. Please enjoy!
When Konohamaru declared himself Naruto's rival, it took everyone a long time to realise that he was serious. But for Team 7, their moment came when he openly declared his love for Haruno Sakura.
The boys of the team weren't jealous; really, they weren't.
They just…had the urge to hunt Konohamaru down, tear him into a thousand shreds and drink his vanquished tears of defeat from little china tea cups over his decomposing body while Sakura watched.
But they weren't jealous. They seriously weren't.
Naruto was assigned the morning duty. He would turn up at Sakura's doorstep much earlier than was socially acceptable, and would loudly exclaim to the entire apartment complex that he was treating her to ramen, or whatever she demanded if she was feeling healthy.
Usually, his morning calls earned him a fierce whack to the head, but other instances, she simply sighed and went along with it. If she refused, he would enter the apartment anyway and begin treating himself to whatever he found in her cupboard.
One day, she tried to question him about it.
She leaned against the wall of her kitchen; arms crossed firmly over her stomach and a frown of confusion where there was usually a scowl at this stage. A loose gown was draped over her shoulders and shielded her body from view due to the unsightly hour in which she had been interrupted from rest.
"Why do you do this every morning?" Sakura asked with raised eyebrows as she watched the blonde boy devour the entire box of her cereal that she had been planning to save for when she had relatives with young children around.
He paused, and took a large gulp to emphasize the fact that he was eating very heavily, but the pinkette noted that he was just obviously wasting time in order to think of an acceptable response.
She waited in silence, mildly curious as to what excuse he planned to use.
"Well, you see, Sakura-chan," Naruto finally answered, though he still managed to have some food left over in his teeth. Sakura had a suspicion that he had overslept this morning, and in an effort to arrive on time, had forgotten to brush his teeth. "I'm worried about you; all alone here in this apartment. Plus, I heard there's a creeper going around here."
Her eyebrows rose dangerously high up her forehead as she approached the table with a steadily increasing irritated aura.
"And you don't think I could handle myself against a creeper?" Sakura asked lowly, as her hip hit the side of her table and she glared down at Naruto. "Cause you're certainly acting like one yourself."
The blonde cringed in fear and turned his head to face her with a sheepish grin on his face and drips of sweat began to gather at the nape of his neck.
"What, me?" He asked in a too-high-pitched voice as he visibly shrunk in his seat. "But you'd…hit a creeper…"
She smiled, and reached over to take the carton of milk from beside him. For a moment, Naruto thought that he was in the clear.
Until she whacked him firmly over the head with the carton.
Morning duty: Mission Failure.
Sasuke was given afternoon duty. He would invite Sakura along with him to petty things, and drag her to meetings with Ino in the flower shop.
Usually, it would be just after their training sessions that he would grip the arm of the pinkette and demand that she accompany him on his afternoon activities. He had assumed that it would be an easy task; Sakura loved him and would do anything for him, right?
Wrong.
"Sorry, Sasuke, not today," she said one day after an exceptionally gruelling day. The Uchiha was indeed trying very hard to keep focused on her face when she wore her vest that had a tendency to cling to her figure when she was sweating. "It's the Matsuri festival; I'm going home to set up my dolls."
She flashed him a smile and picked up her drink bottle in preparation for leaving, while Sasuke frowned at the predicament he was in. No doubt the little brat was waiting in anticipation for Sakura in town and was planning to intercept en route to her apartment, so he needed to intervene before that could happen.
"I seemed to have misplaced my emperor doll," Sasuke called out, taking two firm strides to catch up to her. "Would you please help me purchase another?"
She frowned in confusion, and turned to face him with an expression akin to utter disbelief at his words.
"How do you lose your emperor doll?" She rolled her eyes, and gave a sigh of irritation. "Just…come on, then."
Naturally, Sasuke dragged her around with him for the entire afternoon. Finally, it appeared that she was getting irritated.
Probably because it was sunset, the festival was already beginning and she was still dressed in her training gear.
"Okay, enough!" She hissed, pulling away from her teammate and turning around in the opposite direction. "You all do this every day!"
Sasuke watched her with a tinge of alarm, and he immediately started surveying the immediate area. The little bug could be anywhere.
"Where are you going?" He called out to his friend, carting the bags of unnecessary purchases that he had made in order to keep her around that afternoon.
"I'm going home!" Sakura replied airily, waving a hand above her to emphasise her point. "I guess I'll be seeing you tomorrow afternoon again, huh?"
Home? Already?
Sasuke checked the time quickly, and realised that perhaps he had kept her a little bit too late. It didn't matter though, he was only trying to look out for her.
"Home?" He stepped forward, trying to think of something that would change her mind. "But…but there's a creeper out there," he finished pathetically, taking a page out of Naruto's book without realising that it hadn't exactly worked for the blonde.
"Good!" Sakura growled pulling up her sleeves as she stalked down the lit street. "It'll give me someone to hit!"
Afternoon duty: Mission Failure
Kakashi was given night duty. He would invite himself along to Sakura's gatherings with the girls, and would prey on her need to help others with his constant pretences of drunkenness.
He had heard of both Sasuke's and Naruto's disastrous attempts to keep Sakura close during the surveillance and it hadn't taken him long to pinpoint where exactly they had gone wrong. Due to their mistakes, he had managed to examine his own game plan and decide what he needed to change in order to make it more effective.
His plan was foolproof.
And so it was that Sakura found herself holding up the staggering body of Kakashi.
"Sahhkuuuraah-chan," the jounin slurred out as they continued down the street. The pinkette, who had been quite enjoying her stalker-free evening, was obviously quite irritated to be bombarding by one of her followers yet again.
Really, they actually thought that they were being subtle.
"Kakashi-sensei, I'm a medic," Sakura sighed as they made their way to a particularly beautiful stall of dolls. "I can tell you're not actually drunk."
The silver-haired man cursed to himself at his lack of insight.
I thought of everything, he hissed inside his head, everything but this.
She was not impressed to say the least, as she untangled herself from underneath his arms and left him to support himself; which he was actually capable of doing as it turned out. With a whirl of pink hair and skirts, Sakura began to leave him in favour of the ramen bar.
"But wait, Sakura!" Kakashi called out, all pretence of inebriation mysteriously gone, "There are creepers out there!"
"The only creepers in my life are you three!" Sakura hissed, obviously mentioning her other teammates. "I can take care of myself, you know?"
He blinked and then leaned against the wall he was besides as the pinkette glared at him in her anger. It took a few moments to calm down, but once she had, a sigh escaped her lips.
"Tell the others, if it helps," Sakura muttered as she prepared to leave, "But I don't have any intention of returning Konohamaru's feelings."
With that said, she left her recovered teacher beside the stall on his own and left to be by herself.
Night duty: Mission…success?
Sai was overlooked. Nobody thought Sai cared.
Nobody realised that Sai was just as jealous as the rest of them. While they were guarding Sakura, he was guarding her as well.
They thought that they had done so well to keep her from Konohamaru's way, but they didn't realise that he was the one who had been doing all of the hard work.
When Konohamaru had arrived in the morning to Sakura's apartment complex with a pile of daffodils in hand- he'd heard a rumour that she favoured them- it wasn't Naruto who had stopped him.
Sai had been there, 'apparently' merely bumping into him. The daffodils were scattered onto the ground, and had accidentally been repeatedly trampled on by the former Root Agent. Accidentally.
"It's probably for the best," Sai had said with a fake smile of apology to the distraught teen, "Sakura prefers white lilies, anyway."
Sakura was allergic to white lilies.
When Konohamaru had been carrying a Bento box filled with yakiniku meat through the marketplace in a beeline to where Sakura had been shopping beside Sasuke, it wasn't the Uchiha who had stopped him.
It was Sai, who had conveniently placed multiple traps throughout the street in case this very situation had arisen. It had taken a mere flick of his finger, and the contraption unleashed the tripwire that sent the young boy sprawling onto the ground in humiliation.
The Bento box went flying; the paper wrapping tearing on the rough stones of the ground and the contents scattering on the floor and accidentally being trampled on by the former Root Agent. Accidentally.
"Ah, I'm sorry," Sai had said with a 'sheepish' grin, "I didn't see this here." He'd gave the boy a once-over. "I've heard Sakura actually likes salads, anyway."
Sakura was like her teacher; she adored her meat.
When Konohamaru was fetchingly dressed in his finest kimono on the night of the Ohina Matsuri festival and carting around the present of an empress doll with suspiciously pink hair, it was Sai who intervened. He wasn't as planned out this time, and simply settled with walking up to the boy and slapping the present out of his hands and stepping all over them unabashedly.
As he finished his little act and the young boy was looking at him with a mortified expression on his face, the Root Agent merely shrugged his shoulders.
"She doesn't like you and she never will," Sai bluntly told him, before going to walk away. "Besides, she already has an empress doll."
Unofficial Duty: Mission Success
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