Another Time
A Naruto commemorative of my very first "series"
By
EvilFuzzy9
Drip. Drip.
Drip.
It was lightly raining, a slow but steady trickle of water falling down from heaven to earth.
Drip. Drip.
Drip.
A young, orange-clad blonde barreled, terrified, blindly, through the light drizzle. He was running, fleeing from something truly terrible. Something terrible, furious, and pink.
"NA-RU-TOOOOO!" roared Sakura Haruno, pursuing her dumbass teammate through the gentle spring rain.
You would really think that he would have learned by now. You would assume, that after all this time on a team with the girl, he would have figured out that some things just SHOULD NOT be said.
Like.
Asking if the curtains matched the drapes.
That was very inappropriate. Honestly, that kind of talk would be sufficient grounds to threaten a sexual harassment suit in any modern workplace.
And Naruto probably would have preferred a lawsuit to this.
Sakura was VERY scary when she was mad. And he would know, because he was truly gifted in regards to making the (perfectly natural) pinkette want to bash his skull in and watch his brains splatter out all over the sidewalk.
...Figuratively speaking.
Sakura was pretty Naruto didn't actually have any gray matter in that skull of his. It was probably just cotton, or dryer lint. Or maybe it was ramen.
That would explain an awful lot.
But whatever the case, one thing she could be clear on was the fact that Naruto's head was completely devoid of anything even remotely resembling a normally functioning brain. If nothing else, it seemed like the blond had to be at least mildly retarded.
Which, actually, probably made it kind of bad that Sakura was so eager to beat on him, but as far she was concerned that was his own damn fault. Like the fact that she was hurling practice shuriken at his back. If that moron would just learn to keep his mouth shut, then she wouldn't need to hurt him all the time. She just had to keep pounding on him until he learned.
It was how her mom had gotten dad to marry her, after all.
...Although that had involved a very DIFFERENT kind of pounding, as a traumatized, eight-year old Sakura had learned from a heavily inebriated Uncle Frank during a very awkward family reunion.
Shuddering, the girl immediately repressed those memories back to the deepest, darkest depths of her psyche. She did NOT need to know about all the numerous obscene and borderline-illegal ways in which her mother had gotten it through dad's head that she was interested in him.
...although that did give her some ideas for winning over Sasuke-kun...
...but one problem at a time.
First, she had a blond knucklehead in need of a serious pounding.
And not that kind, you pervert. The lemons will be in the next fic.
...as well as all of the other ones I currently have going. But that is neither here nor there.
Naruto just needed to be clobbered.
Unfortunately, the blond seemed to strongly disagree with this sentiment, if the way he bobbed and weaved through the crowds in an attempt to evade his murderous pursuer was any indication. So Sakura was having an annoyingly hard time getting Naruto to stand still and take his medicine. And this annoyance, of course, only increased the boy's need of a serious ass-kicking.
...or was it Sakura's desire to give the boy an ass-kicking that increased? She always got those two things confused. But either way, the problem was usually quite easily solved by punching Naruto in the face.
Fortunately for the blond, however, Sakura Haruno did not have much in the way of stamina. Even righteous female fury could only carry her so far. All of that dieting nonsense was quite detrimental to developing a good, strong body.
She fainted dead away in the middle of the street. And Naruto, seeing this, sighed in relief.
"Uwaaaah..." he murmured, panting a little bit. "...I actually got out of that without a beating... Lucky!" He laughed cheerfully, jumping up into the air and raising his hands up high above his head. "Hehe! Score one for the next hokage!" Landing, he made a V-shaped peace sign. "Believe it!"
A beat.
Naruto's stomach loudly rumbled.
The blond sweatdropped, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly.
"Ahh... Sounds like it's lunchtime," he muttered.
And so that was how everyone's favorite jinchuuriki...
...no, not Gaara.
...or Bee...
...or Yugito, Yagura, Roshi, Han, Utakata, Fuu, Kushina, Mito, Obito, Hagoromo...
...oh come on, I'm talking about Naruto. Don't troll me, hypothetical readers who probably exist only with the boundaries of my deranged imagination. It's Naruto. Okay?
But, anyways, that was how Naruto came to be at Ichiraku Ramen on that particular day, at that particular time. Even if, yes, he probably would have gone there anyways, because it was lunchtime and he still had some cash left over from his last mission. So, in hindsight, that whole first sequence was really probably pointless to the whole plot of this, and certainly won't become relevant again at the end of this.
Still, the reason it was so notable that Naruto was coming here was that today also happened to be the thirteenth birthday of prospective Hyuuga heiress and thumb-twiddling moe-blob Hinata. And she and her family and friends were celebrating this at Ichiraku's.
Why the Hyuuga, basically the most prestigious not-almost-extinct clan in the Leaf, would celebrate the thirteenth anniversary of their probable future leader's birth at a ramen stand of all places is something best left unexplored, because plot holes.
But, anyways, Hinata was seated at the counter, a bowl of ramen with lit candles floating in it placed before her.
Neji looked critically at the dish.
"You know," he said, "Aside from the obvious questions of possible health violations and safety hazards involved in putting wax candles in a bowl of steaming hot ramen, isn't this kind of strange? I mean, why are we celebrating Hinata-sama's birthday at such a cheap, shabby..."
He trailed off, then. Ayame was holding a very lethal-looking wooden spoon, smacking it periodically into the open palm of her free hand. She was glaring pointedly at Neji, eyes flashing with ill-concealed malice. This pretty, brown-haired civilian was radiating killing intent like a demon from Hell, or else like Tsunade confronted with a peeping Jiraiya.
Neji promptly zipped his mouth with weak, pitiful, "Meep."
Ayame smiled, malevolent aura immediately vanishing.
"Thank you for your patronage, Hyuuga-san~" she said in a cheerfully saccharine tone. "We here at Ichiraku Ramen greatly value the continued support of our loyal customers~"
Hiashi gave a relieved sigh. "About time someone shut that boy up..." he muttered, slurping unenthusiastically at a deluxe shrimp ramen of his own.
That was when one of the Branch family Hyuuga (let's say... Ko) first noticed something.
"Ah!" said Ko. "Lady Hinata has blown out her candles... We didn't get to sing Happy Birthday to her!" he mourned.
Hinata smiled softly. She did not like being the center of everyone's attention like that.
"Oh no," said Hiashi blandly. "What a shame." Under his breath, he muttered, "One more year I don't have to pay those outrageous royalties just to embarrass myself singing some inane gaijin jingle."
Out loud, however, Hiashi said with uncharacteristic sweetness, "Well, daughter dearest? Did you make a wish?" His smile looked painfully forced, obviously a very poor attempt at this 'parenting' thing he'd heard so much talk about.
Under his breath, again, he added a little more bitterly, "Like maybe that those damnable, thrice-accursed clan elders would just hurry up and die so they'll stop pestering me about your seeming utter lack of anything resemblance real marital talent?"
This went unheard by everyone except the Inuzuka, who proceeded to nervously scoot themselves a few inches away from the Hyuuga clan head.
Hinata blushed a little, though, at her father's question.
"Yes," she said shyly. "I did, father."
Tenten's eyes gleamed with a nigh-mischievous curiosity, and she gave the Hyuuga girl a distinctly knowing look.
"Sooooo?" she asked gleefully, scootching up and leaning in close to Hinata over the counter, a delightfully sly grin on her face. "What did you wish for, hmmm?"
The pseudo-China girl's eyes twinkled mischievously. Her parents, Tian Ling and Daisuke Daichi, beamed cheerfully behind their daughter. They appeared to be at least mildly intoxicated.
Hinata's little sister, the (fanonically) precociously haughty Hanabi Hyuuga, laughed. "Do you even need to ask?" she said. "CLEARLY she wished that she could be even half as strong and beautiful as I am."
Neji scoffed.
"Don't delude yourself," he said haughtily. "No doubt Hinata-sama wished for hair as smooth, silky, and manageable as mine."
"Manageable? HA!" laughed Kiba. "That's funny. According to Hinata, you spend half an hour brushing it every morning. That don't sound manageable to me."
Neji glowered darkly at the Inuzuka, who had somehow managed to get his ramen everywhere. Even on the seat of his pants.
Somehow.
But Neji was saved the effort of actually retaliating against the younger genin, because Kiba's mom and older sister, Tsume and Hana, promptly stepped in and smacked the boy on the back of the head.
"Don't make fun a woman's hygiene practices," said Hana, terse.
"Aye, aye," said Tsume gruffly. "I doubt that Neji-chan here has ever needed to take a flea bath."
Kiba blushed furiously. And Neji, for his part, became an interesting shade of puce. His lips were drawn tightly into a very thin line, and one of his eyes were twitching.
"I am a man," said the Hyuuga prodigy peevishly.
Tsume and Hana blinked. Turning, they stared at the Hyuuga.
"No foolin'?" said the headstrong, rough-and-tumble jonin kunoichi. She looked him up and down, as though half-expecting to find some sign of boobs on the boy. After a few seconds of this, she softly frowned, thoughtful. "Huh. Well, I'll be damned."
"I guess it was an honest mistake," said Hana, looking rather more abashed than her distinctly tactless mother.
Neji simply scowled.
Shino, quietly, in his usual near-whispered tone, said, "Perhaps Hinata wished for me to lay her. Why would she? Because I am, of course, the most handsome and non-offensively-pungent eligible male in her life. And I would gladly do it, too," he added. "Why would I? Because she has the finest—"
The rest of his sentence was cut of by childish sniggering from Kiba. He, Kurenai, and Shino's father were the only ones close enough to hear what the insect-user was saying. And while Kiba was having a fit of laughter, Kurenai looked scandalized and rather disappointed in her student(s).
Shibi, for his part, did not say a word, before he grabbed his son by the ear and dragged him off. It looked like they would need to have a very long and uncomfortable Talk back home.
Even if said "talk" would consist primarily of awkward, prolonged silences.
The others simply ignored the Aburame, as per the long-established status quo.
"Yosh!" exclaimed an exuberant-as-ever Rock Lee. "I believe Hinata wished for the courage to make the most of her youth's fair blossom while it lasts!"
Guy, standing in for the boy's questionably-extant parents/guardians, thrust a fist into the air. Manly tears were pouring down his strong, angular cheeks.
"Brilliantly said, Lee...!" he declared. "Truly, you understand the very essence of youth's tumultuous passions...!"
He gave his protege the patented nice guy pose.
"Love!" He declared. "Love is justice!"
"Justice!" proclaimed Lee. "Justice is law!"
"And the law is death!" shouted Guy intensely.
"And so love is death!" concluded Lee loudly enough to pop the eardrums of any unfortunate bystanders.
"Precisely!" exclaimed Guy. "These fleeting days of spring, of a man's burning youth, are so brief and quickly ended! Like the blossoms of the cherry tree, so beautiful, so fair, yet also so quick to pass away, to fall to the ground below and shrivel away into nothing, nothing but a memory of what once was fair and good! Just as youth! Just as love! That is death! That is fire! That is LIFE!"
The two green-clad love-freaks clenched their fists tightly, eyes squeezed shut.
"UWOOOOAAAH...!" roared Lee, like a shonen protagonist powering up his Ultimate Attack.
"UWOOOOAAAH...!" roared Guy, mirroring his student. You could almost imagine the flames enveloping them.
"I'M BURNING UP!" shouted Lee, snapping his eyes open. A fire was visible in them. "I CAN FEEL IT...! MY HOT BLOOD IS BOILING OVER!"
"YES!" shouted Guy, his eyes as flaming as his student's. "THIS IS THE HOTBLOODED PASSION OF YOUTH! CAN YOU FEEL IT, HINATA-KUN? CAN YOU FEEL THE BURNING PASSION... OF OUR MANLY SOULS?!"
Hinata stared at the pair, stunned mute. Weakly, she nodded, hoping this would satisfy these two crazy people.
"THEN GO, HINATA-KUN!" Lee exhorted. "GO AND LIVE YOUR YOUTH TO THE FULLEST! LET YOUR INNER FLAME BURN BRILLIANTLY!"
"YES!" shouted Guy. "FOR WHAT IS LOVE, IF NOT YOUTH? AND WHAT IS YOUTH, WITHOUT THE BEAUTIFUL MEMORIES OF SPRINGTIME BENEATH THE BLOOMING CHERRY BLOSSOMS...? GO, HINATA! GO, AND MAKE THOSE BEAUTIFUL MEMORIES! GO, AND LIVE, AS FEW MEN DARE TO DREAM!"
"UWOOOOAAAH!" roared Lee. "GUY-SENSEI... YOUR WORDS INFLAME THIS MANLY SPIRIT...!"
"UWOOOOAAAH!" roared Guy. "MY HEART FILLS WITH PRIDE IN YOU, LEE, MY STUDENT...!"
"GUY-SENSEI!" Lee cried, manly tears gushing down his cheeks.
"LEE!" rejoined Guy, proudly weeping in the heat of the moment.
"GUY-SENSEI...!" replied Lee, beginning to move forward.
"LEE...!" answered Guy, moving to meet his pupil.
"GUY-SENSEI!" shouted Lee, throwing his arms around his mentor.
"LEE!" exclaimed Guy, pulling his student into a manly embrace.
Beyond them, waves crashed on the beach. The sky was flared with brilliant hues of red and orange and yellow as the sun set slowly beyond the horizon.
Everyone present stared at the spectacle numbly, morbidly entranced by this mortifying spectacle.
"Ahhh... That reminds me of the good old days..." sighed Tenten's mother nostalgically.
Tsume laughed. "I know, right?"
Everyone else stared in abject horror. Hiashi, Hanabi, and Ko tried desperately to gouge their eyes out with their chopsticks, but Neji just shook his head wearily and deftly snatched the implements out of their shaking hands.
Ino, shaking her head and already beginning to repress the memory of that spectacle, turned to look at Hinata and smile.
"Well, I bet I know what you wished for," said the Yamanaka slyly. "Might it have been that our sweet little Hinata wished for a B-O-Y-friend?" Her eyes glittered with the sincerely passionate curiosity of an inveterate gossip.
Hinata was silent. Her cheeks, though, chose that moment to turn as red as tomatoes.
Ino smirked.
Just then, Naruto came barreling towards the ramen stand. In his haste, he tripped over Guy and Lee. Momentum carried him straight through the air all the way to the counter, whilst the angle of his approach had him crash right into the counter, where Hinata was sitting. Then, when he collapsed from the force of the impact, he just so happened to come to a rest face-first in the Hyuuga heiress's lap.
"Eep!" squeaked Hinata, brain instantly overheating at the position she found herself in.
Luckily, before things could get too risque, Naruto popped right back up as energetic as ever. He plopped himself down in the stool next to Hinata (carelessly pushing off Neji, who had been sitting there first, much to the young prodigy's chagrin).
"One miso ramen, please!" he cheerfully, obliviously requested.
Ayame shook her head and sighed.
"Ah, can't he see it...?" she murmured wistfully, glancing with starry eyes between Hinata and Naruto. She giggled. Out loud she said, "You know your tab is due today, right, Naruto~?"
The blond blanched.
"Er... Yeah. R-right," Naruto said weakly. "I totally knew that. Yup!"
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his frog-shaped wallet, which was looking distinctly lean. Popping Gama-chan's mouth open, he chanced a glimpse inside at the contents.
He stared weakly.
A moment passed, an awkward silence bearing down heavily on those present.
"Um," said Naruto after a distinctly extended period of highly suspicious taciturnity. "W-would you take... an IOU...?" he asked weakly, sheepishly scratching the back of his neck.
The Spoon of Doom appeared once more, immediately, in Ayame's hands.
She smiled ominously.
"No❤"
Naruto gulped, instantly quailing beneath the frightening presence of this supposedly-harmless civilian.
But, just then, Hinata came to the blond's rescue.
"You can always share some of mine, Naruto-kun..." she said softly, cheeks faintly pink.
Guy and Lee's advice hadn't been wholly devoid of merit.
Naruto immediately perked up.
"Sure!" he said cheerfully.
Hinata smiled.
And if you've ever seen THAT ONE SCENE from Lady and the Tramp, then you probably know what ultimately happened.
Naruto's eyes practically bugged out of his head when he felt his lips suddenly mash against something soft, warm, and ramen-flavored. His baby blues bored blankly into Hinata's lipid pools of pale lavender.
Two faces immediately turned redder than a chili pepper.
Neji, Hiashi, Ko, and Hanabi all glared daggers at the lip-locked pair. Three of them focused their ire on Naruto. The last, on her own sister.
Envy could a scary thing.
"NA...!" hissed Neji.
"RU...!" growled Hiashi.
"TO...!" snarled Ko.
"I'M GONNA KILL YOU!"
The blond, seeing that he was no longer welcome, immediately and wisely bolted. The three Hyuuga men set off after him in hot pursuit.
Hanabi simply sat there, glaring cutely at her sister.
Hinata pouted.
Drip. Drip.
Drip.
It was lightly raining, a slow but steady trickle of water falling down from heaven to earth.
Drip. Drip.
Drip.
A young, orange-clad blonde barreled, terrified, blindly, through the light drizzle. He was running, fleeing from something truly terrible. Something terrible, furious, and ambiguously effeminate.
"I AM A MAN, CURSE YOU!"
Yyyuuup.
Just another average, ordinary day in the Village Hidden in the Leaves.
A/N: The next rewrite, and a small (but noteworthy to me) note is my OCs for Tenten's parents, who had not originally been conceived as such when the original version of this fic was written, have been included, however briefly. Also, I guess I've officially changed their names, because as my understanding of Japanese (and Chinese) conventions marginally improve over the years, I realize that the first names I had given weren't very good. Probably.
I dunno, "Daimaru Daishin," in hindsight, just doesn't seem like it's quite a real name. "Daisuke Daichi," in contrast, is a very real, and relatively common, name that still includes the double-Dai name concept I really liked because the kanji for big is just so simple and recognizable. "Tian Li" was changed less, in comparison, simply being altered to "Tian Ling" because "Ling" is a real, and fairly common, female-name in China.
Also, the end of this was changed considerably from the ending of the original version. I dunno. I must have really loved complete randomness or, back then, or something.
Chapter added: 12-20-13
TTFN and R&R!
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