Haircut
By: ShaJen, Sha's fic
Sha: Okay, this fic came out of, literally, nowhere.
Jen: Well, yeah, Sha. It came out of your head. That's as close to nowhere as you can get.
Sha: SHUT UP! bops Jen on the head with frying pan Now, on with the fic!
Disclaimer Neither of us own Naruto…as much as we hate to admit it…
Once again, we have no idea how to make lines on our computer…HELP!
"You need a haircut," Lee told Neji spontaneously one afternoon. The comment caught Neji completely by surprise and all he could do for a moment was blink.
"What?" he finally asked in monotone.
"You need a haircut," Lee repeated.
"No," Neji stated flatly.
"Oh, come on!" Lee pressed. "You've had the same hairdo since…well…since I met you! Probably before! Time for a change!"
"No," Neji said again. Tenten came to his aid, then.
"I think Neji-san's hair looks good like that," she announced. Neji did not look at her, or even acknowledge that he had heard her.
"Tenten-chan, think!" Lee argued. "Neji-san needs to change! He's been the same way since Naruto-kun kicked his ass in the Chuunin exams!" A glare from Neji was the only reaction given.
"I still don't think Neji-san's hair would look good short," Tenten sighed. She thought about possible styles. Lee's style; Kiba's; Naruto's; Sasuke's; Shikamaru's; Chouji's; Shino's; even Gaara's. None of them seemed to really fit. Finally, Tenten gave up. Lee, however, did not.
"Tenten-chan, if we found the perfect style that looked really good, would you want him to cut it?" he demanded. Tenten gave up arguing and sighed again.
"I suppose if we found a good one, sure," she agreed. "But I don't think we can. It's pretty hard to find something that fits Neji-san besides his current style."
"I'll bet we can!" Lee declared. "In fact, if I cannot find a shorter hair-style to suit Neji-san, I shall do five-hundred push-ups and four-hundred laps around the village on one leg!" With that, he zipped off down the street, leaving Tenten and Neji absolutely silent.
"For once," Tenten told Neji, "I'm afraid of what Lee might come up with."
Neji gave a quiet snort. He slouched and strode away from her. Tenten sighed before turning down her own street. She wondered where Lee would look to find hairstyles.
In a bookstore, twelve blocks away
Lee threw yet another magazine over his shoulder. He had found nothing to fit Neji. He'd already been through half the shelves, and the bookstore was now a shredded mess. The store-owner was shooting murderous glances at him every now and then, but Lee was oblivious to anything other than his search.
He leafed through another magazine, looking at ever y picture of men on every page. This would take forever! It was hopeless! He'd never find a haircut for Neji…
That's when he picked up the last magazine on the shelf. Randomly, he flipped to a page…and he saw it. The most hair cut that could ever be found! It was perfect; Neji-approved; awesome-fied; fantasicized; PERFECT!
After he had paid for the magazine and hurriedly stuffed the others back on their shelves, he rushed off in search of Tenten.
Tenten's house, fifteen minutes later
Tenten ran down the stairs, wondering who in the world could pound a door that hard. She thought she knew, and she hoped she was wrong…
She wasn't. Lee was at her door, panting as if he'd just run halfway around the world at top speed. Grinning from ear to ear, he shoved something in her face.
"I found it!" he declared triumphantly, striking a pose. His teeth 'pinged' irritatingly. The corner of Tenten's eye twitched slightly. "THAT IS THE HAIR STYLE WE SHALL GIVE OUR BELOVED NEJI-SAN!"
Tenten raised an eyebrow and looked at the picture. Her jaw dropped. Lee looked extremely pleased with himself. Tenten imagined the cut on Neji and had to swoon dangerously. A moment later she was falling…
"Tenten-chan, you must not sleep now!" Lee's voice informed her, setting her back on her feet. "We must find Neji-san and convince him to let us cut his hair!"
Tenten froze. Neji would never allow them to get near his head with a pair of scissors. They would have to do it when he was not aware of them. He had to be asleep! But Tenten knew from experience that the Hyuuga was a light sleeper, and with the Byakugan, he would be able to see what they were doing with his eyes shut. The two of them would never be able to get the cut started before Neji woke up…
Tenten smiled. She had a solution. It had to work. Quick as a flash, she dashed to her mother's shinobi cabinet. It contained every manner of poisons, antidotes, potions, and most importantly, sedatives. One of the more powerful ones would put Neji to sleep in moments. All Tenten and Lee had to do was put it in his drink.
"Let's go, Lee-san!" she commanded. Lee saluted sharply, then dashed off into town. Tenten sighed and followed at a slower pace, slipping the sedative into her kunai case.
At Itchiraku Ramen, two hours later
"Are you sure you don't want to get your hair cut?" Tenten asked him for the millionth time. "It would look so cool…"
"No," Neji repeated. He sipped his tea. "I don't want to."
"Please?" Tenten asked, making pouting lips and puss-in-boots eyes at him. Neji felt his mouth twitch in mild amusement.
"No," Neji growled. Lee was about to say something when Neji decided he needed to visit the bathroom. He got up without a word and stalked away from the table. His teammates were going nuts! Next, they would be asking if he wanted to get breast implants or have a bikini wax! Why couldn't they just let him keep his hair the way he liked it!
A few minutes later, he returned to the table. Someone had ordered a refill on his tea. He was grateful for that because he felt a migraine coming on. Both his teammates looked anxious about something. What? Neji mentally shrugged and took a gulp of his tea. A moment later, his vision was blurry and he felt his face go numb. Had he had too much tea tonight? Were the tea leaves bad? Or was there another possibility?
He didn't have time to answer his questions. His world went black, and he felt his head hit the table.
Tenten let loose a sigh of relief. Her plan had worked. Neji was sound asleep on the table, snoring lightly. All they had to do now was get him back to the Hyuuga mansion and cut his hair before he woke up.
Tenten helped Lee load Neji onto his back. They raced to Neji's home as fast as they could, which wasn't nearly as fast as they had run earlier. Despite Neji's good looks, the Hyuuga was strangely heavy. Lee was bent over almost double.
"Hurry up!" Tenten urged. "I don't know how long that sedative will last. We still have to get past the rest of the Hyuuga family.
"I am trying, Tenten-chan!" Lee assured her. "Who could have thought that Neji-san weighed as much as Naruto and Kiba combined!"
"Less talking, more moving!" Tenten muttered. "Look! Here's the Hyuuga mansion! Let's go!"
Everybody seemed to be asleep. There were no lights on in any rooms, and only a soft glow in the halls. Lee and Tenten crept through the mansion, getting lost at least eight times before they finally reached Neji's room. Tenten opened the door and hauled Lee inside.
After much debate, it was decided that Lee would do the cutting, even though Tenten was a master at wielding sharp objects. Since they didn't want to wake anybody up by turning on a light, they were forced to work in the dark.
Another problem was that Tenten had gone with Lee straight after her daily training, so all her kunai were slightly dull. She tried to determine which was sharpest, and finally chose one. And so, they commenced with trimming Neji's hair.
Two hours and many mishaps later, they finished. It was still dark, and neither of them could see very well, but all in all, they thought that they had done a fairly good job. Both of them left –after cleaning up the scraps of Neji's hair-- feeling satisfied.
Tenten went home and got ready for bed. It wasn't until she turned out the light that she stopped to consider the Hyuuga's reaction when he woke up…
The next morning, at the Hyuuga mansion
Neji woke up, head pounding like a drum. What had happened last night? Had somebody put sake in his tea? It hadn't tasted any different, but after that much sake, nothing really tasted like it should…but had he really been drunk?
With a shrug, Neji rolled out of bed. He opened his door and stepped out into the hall. Hopefully, the bathroom wasn't in use quite yet. He felt that he needed a shower very badly.
Even though he had a migraine and couldn't see as well as he normally could, he began to notice his family members looking at him oddly. He figured that it was probably because he looked like he had just gone through hell and back, and dismissed it. After people began to whisper, though, he got worried.
"Did he decide that he needed a change?" someone asked.
"Whoever did that is a dead man."
"Did they do that in the dark?"
Neji had almost started to seriously worry when he reached the bathroom. Quickly, he darted inside. He stopped, leaning against the closed door. Drawing a deep breath, he tried to calm himself down. He reached up to run his fingers through his hair…
His hair. It was gone. Horrified, Neji dashed to the mirror and stared at himself.
Konoha Village, just after Neji woke up
Konoha was quiet that morning. Everyone was going about their business, preparing for another day's work. Tenten was just finishing her breakfast. She had almost forgotten about what she and Lee had done the previous night.
Just as she was taking another sip of her morning tea, a terrified scream penetrated air, causing Tenten to splutter into her cup, spraying tea everywhere. All across Konoha, people stopped whatever they were doing and stared. Nobody had expected such a scream to come from the Hyuuga mansion.
Tenten knew exactly whose scream that was in a moment. She got up, not bothering to clean up the mess she'd made, and bolted out the door. She had to reach her team's meeting spot. Lee would be there, with Gai-sensei, and one of them would know what to do.
A half hour later, she skidded to a halt in the clearing Gai-sensei had set as a meeting point. Lee and Gai-sensei were sparring, and Tenten couldn't tell which was which.
"Sensei! Lee-san!" she cried, panting. "We've got a problem!"
"What problem, Tenten-chan?" Lee wanted to know, not pausing in his exercise.
"Didn't you hear that scream!" Tenten demanded, waving her arms frantically. It was then that both her teacher and her teammate stopped to look at her.
"WHAT IS THE MATTER, TENTEN-CHAN?" Gai-sensei bellowed. "IT IS NOT LIKE YOU TO LOSE YOUR CALM!"
"Sensei, that was Neji-san that screamed a while ago!" Tenten told them. "He's not happy! Lee-san, we have to get out of here!"
"Why, Tenten-chan?" Lee wanted to know, a look of total confusion on his face.
"This is why," a calm, very cold and angry voice snarled. Both Tenten and Lee froze in their tracks. Tenten's eyes widened as she slowly turned around, already knowing what she would see.
Sure enough, it was Neji. The only difference was that his entire head was under a hat. His forehead protector hung around his neck, thrown haphazardly on. Neji looked extremely angry, the Byakugan making him look even more frightening.
"You did this?" he asked quietly. Tenten couldn't do anything except stare. Lee, however, bounded forward.
"Did what, Neji-san?" he asked innocently. Tenten wanted to know just what he thought he was doing, baiting Neji like that.
"You know exactly what!" the Hyuuga stated, his voice getting louder. "You did…did…this!"
He swept the hat off his head to reveal his newly cut hair. Tenten's eyes widened even further, if that was possible. It was then she realized just how dark it had been. Neji's hair, once long and beautiful, now stuck up in uneven spikes and jutted out of his head. Tenten cursed herself for letting Lee do the cutting!
"NEJI-KUN, WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOUR HEAD?" Gai-sensei wanted to know. Neji's eyes narrowed darkly.
"They cut it!" he roared, all control lost. "They cut my hair! My hair!"
"WHO?" Gai-sensei asked with a smile.
Neji pointed with a hand that shook with fury. He pointed at Lee and Tenten. Both of them stared at him, wondering what he would do next. They exchanged glances, and in that instant, decided on their next move.
"RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!" Tenten yelled, bolting into the forest. Lee was half a step behind her. They ran like mad back into town, yelling bloody murder. Neji gave chase, threatening to do the worst when he caught them. For that entire day, all Tenten and Lee did was run from Neji. They discovered that it was very hard to hide from somebody who could see through buildings.
The next day, neither Tenten nor Lee showed up for training. They weren't there the day after that, or the one after that either. Neji showed signs of increasing rage. He was ready to blow. Even Naruto left him alone for fear of the furious Hyuuga's wrath.
A week later, another scream shattered the morning air, but this time, it did not come from the Hyuuga mansion. Tenten had woken up to find that her hair, which was normally kept in buns, had been chopped off. Half her head had been shaved and patterned with intricate squiggles. The rest was short and looked exactly as Neji's had a week before. She looked like some punk rocker!
Tenten felt safe enough to go to training that day, but not before she had arranged a bandana over her head to hide the hack-job somebody had performed. The only people whom she could think of who would do something like this were Naruto and Neji, although the latter was probably correct.
She trudged into camp, nearly crying. Neji was there already, a smug, satisfied smile on his face. Gai-sensei struck a pose as she approached and his teeth 'pinged' pointlessly.
"GOOD MORNING, TENTEN-CHAN!" he shouted. "HOW ARE YOU ON THIS FINE MORNING?"
"Gah," Tenten muttered darkly. Neji chuckled almost sinisterly. It was then that Lee waltzed into the clearing. Tenten wouldn't look at him, sure that he had noticed the bandana instead of her normal twin bun style.
Apparently, he hadn't. He said hello, and then Tenten heard Neji snort loudly. Lee looked at him strangely.
"What is funny, Neji-kun?" he wanted to know.
"LEE-KUN! WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOUR EYEBROW?" Gai-sensei asked loudly, staring at Lee in shock.
"Nothing," Lee said with a frown. "Why? Are they crooked?" Tenten looked at him and held in a choking snort. One of Lee's eyebrows was gone. Someone had shaved it off.
"Here," Tenten whispered, handing him a pocket mirror she kept. "Look at your face."
Lee did so. His overly-large eyes went as wide as they could go and his jaw fell to the dirt. A strangled warble was issued from his throat, and Tenten couldn't help but laugh. When she started, Neji pulled her bandana off her head, exposing her scalp. Tenten yelped and covered her head, glaring daggers at Neji. The Hyuuga dangled it teasingly, but Tenten couldn't get it unless she wanted everybody to see her head.
"WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING TO EACH OTHER, MY STUDENTS!" Gai-sensei roared, his nice-guy pose gone. All three of them stopped, and glanced at each other.
"Nothing," they said in unison. Tenten and Lee shared a look. They would get Neji soon enough…
Sha: There you have it! My random idea for a one-shot! Hope you enjoyed! Now click the bluish-purple button that says 'Review' on it, and REVIEW!
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