So, I'm unsure of how good this thing is and I'm terribly sorry about that. And also, I'm pretty sure that this is a real crappy birthday present, considering that it's all about how and why Jiraiya and Tsunade could have never been a couple. Not that I dislike the pairing or anything, I just always wanted to express my views on their relationship. Don't feel bad, Tsunade. It's not you. I don't think Jiraiya could EVER love just ONE woman. I also like this because it has Good!Orochimaru. I sometimes wish that we'd get to see more of Orochi-chi when he's not crazy and psychotic.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. If I did, the already thin line between action-packed Shonen and emotion-filled Shoujo would be blurred even further. And that would be some feet! Considering there's already a shit load of feelings in Naruto! XD
Important: Dedicated to Tsunade for her birthday. Sorry this is a little late. And that it's kind of depressing XP.
Orochimaru sighed heavily as the loud yells and whines of his fellow teammates finally pierced through his last lines of tolerance and sanity, causing his attention to be pulled away from his reading to stare up at the young girl and boy as yet another one of their infamous fights started up yet again. His less than enthusiastic glare did nothing to stop either of the two young shinobi, so he settled for yet another sigh and hoped that the fight would die down eventually. Preferably before his head began to ache for all the yelling.
"I've never known anyone as stupid and as useless as you, Jiraiya!" the young blonde yelled as she placed her hands on her hips, making her posture show that she felt superior to the white-haired boy standing in front of her. "You can't do anything right! And on top of that, you are, by far, the most annoying person I have ever met in my life!"
"Then obviously you've never been introduced to yourself!" Jiraiya retorted back. "All you ever do is just nag, nag, and nag! All day long! I can't even breathe without being scolded by you about how I'm doing it wrong!"
"Well maybe if you actually did something right for a change, I wouldn't have to correct you!" Orochimaru felt that this fight was far from being over at this point in time, judging by the rising volume in both of their voices. If the pale boy did not know any better, he would have assumed that his teammates decided on who was the victor of their arguments by who could yell the loudest. And if that was the case, he would have to say that it was fairly even at this point in time.
Jiraiya scoffed at the blonde's statement. "You're just upset because you're flat-chested!"
"That has nothing to do with our argument!" Tsunade shouted back, her anger obviously increasing now that the white-haired boy had touched upon a sensitive subject.
"Of course it does! You yell at everyone else because you don't think that you can measure up to anyone else with your inability to grow any boobs!" Jiraiya began to laugh at the blonde's skin faded from a pale peach to an intense shade of red, signifying that he was currently winning their argument and getting to the usually unflustered and never-phased female member of their four-man cell.
"You despicable pervert!" Tsunade yelled, throwing her fist up into the air as if she was about to strike the young boy, before a hand reached out and stopped the young girl from harming anyone. Tsunade and Jiraiya both turned their attention to the one whom had stopped their fight and suddenly both fell silent as they feared for the worse. Noting the sudden silence, Orochimaru looked back up at the previously fighting pair and noticed a new arrival to their group and thanked said person for showing up when they did.
"Fighting again?" Sarutobi, their teacher and leader of their four-man cell, asked in astonishment as his eyes gazed back and forth between the flustered blonde, whom arms he still held, and the scared boy standing a few feet away from her. "Honestly! Can't you two get along for even a minute?"
Tsunade pulled her arm free of her teacher as she felt his grip loosen and held the appendage to her chest, almost as if afraid that her teacher would try to take her hand away from her if she did not guard it safely to her chest. "Jiraiya started it, master!" she said as her honey eyes glanced back at the annoying boy for a moment before she glanced back at her teacher.
"Did not!" Jiraiya spat back. "You did! You just had to open your big, fat mouth so that you could tell me how much of a failure I am at everything!"
"It' not my fault if it happens to be true!" And once again, they were yelling at the top of lungs at one another. Sarutobi closed his eyes and groaned in frustration as his pupil started up the fight yet again before he decided to end their stupid argument once and for all.
"Will both of you please be quiet?!" he also yelled, gaining the attention of his three students yet again. "You guys are supposed to be learning how to work together, not trying to rip each other's heads off. Have all my lessons about team work just fallen on deaf ears."
Tsunade and Jiraiya looked away from their teacher, ashamed that they had failed to listen to the older man and ignored his words of wisdom. When his students did not answer him, the older man just let out another sigh before he continued to speak to the three young children.
"No matter how strong a ninja is on his own, when on a mission, the most important thing is not strength, nor skill. It' team work. Without it, the entire cell falls apart and the mission if failed before it even began." The two shinobi nodded their heads in understanding, still unable to look their teacher in the eye. "Now it's obvious that the strain of your recent missions has been wearing on your minds and bodies so let's just skip training for today." The older man left the three students as he disappeared in a cloud of smoke, knowing that this day off would be good for both his pupils and himself (who had also been worn down lately by Tsunade and Jiraiya's constant fighting).
When their teacher was gone, Tsunade and Jiraiya looked at one another and then scowled before walking away in opposite directions of one another. Jiraiya headed off toward the village while Tsunade opted for sitting next to her other teammate.
The blonde huffed as she sat down next to the pale boy and then tucked her knees so that her head was able to rest on them as she continued to silent pout, her honey eyes sneaking glances over at her teammate in hopes that he would stop his reading for a second to speak with her. Unfortunately, as it began aware to Tsunade after a short while, that the raven-haired boy beside her was not going to tear his focus away from his scroll as easily as she had hoped. Tsunade let out another loud huff, even louder than the first, thinking that if she just tried hard enough that Orochimaru would acknowledge her sooner or later.
She was wrong.
When she sighed for the fifth time, she knew that if she wanted to speak with her mostly silent teammate, she would have to be the one to initiate the conversation instead of wait for him to do so. She let her honey eyes glance over at the pale boy momentarily before she decided that he was not going to speak and just let whatever was on her troubled mind out.
"I like him." She said softly, though loud enough for the boy next to her to hear it clearly.
"Like who?" Orochimaru asked, surprising Tsunade somewhat. She had just thought that since the raven had not spoken up beforehand that she would be in a more one-sided conversation.
"…" she paused for a moment, suddenly unsure if she should reveal such a secret to her teammate. But with a deep breath, she regained her composure and replied back to the pale boy. "J-Jiraiya." She stuttered out. "I like Jiraiya."
"I would have never honestly guessed. With the way you two interact." Orochimaru answered back, his golden eyes never leaving the writing on his scroll for an instant.
"Well, it's not like I want to be constantly fighting with Jiraiya." The blonde answered back truthfully. "It's just, every time I try to help him with something, he usually thinks I'm telling him that he's a failure and trying to mock him instead of help him. It's so frustrating!"
"Have you tried telling him how you feel?" he asked simply.
"Confess?! To Jiraiya?! No way in Hell!!"
"Why is that?" the pale boy asked, sounding genuinely interested in the conversation for the first time.
"B-Because!" was Tsunade's articulate response. She paused for a second, trying to collect her real thoughts on the subject before she answered back honestly to her teammate. "He… He would never take it seriously. I mean, this is Jiraiya we're talking about. He hates me. He would never even think about giving me a chance. Besides," she added on solemnly. "He likes girls with big chests." Her honey orbs glared down at her flat chest, cursing her body for not taking to puberty as quickly as she had hoped.
"You never know until you try."
Tsunade was silent for a good, long while.
So long, in fact, that the pale boy beside her had thought that she was completely done talking about the subject and returned his full attention once again to his scroll. But after a few more moments of awkward silence (on Tsunade's part that is), the blonde-haired girl spoke up once again, her knees falling away from her face as it turned to face the raven fully.
"Well, I still can't tell him." She said, sounding very final in the matter. "But… thanks for listening away, Orochimaru. I felt good to finally tell someone."
"…" the boy was silent for a moment, appearing to have not heard the blonde's words of gratitude at all. "I'm glad." He replied back after what seemed like forever.
Tsunade smiled at her teammate, her honey eyes closing happily as she soaked in the nice feeling that she got from the pale boy's response, knowing that was the closest he would get to showing actual emotion towards her or anyone else for that matter. She then rose to her feet and without even saying goodbye, knowing that Orochimaru would not reply back anyway, Tsunade left her teammate to be alone once again.
Which was just fine with the raven-haired boy anyway.
--
A faint blush spread over the white-haired teenager's cheeks as he continued to peek through the almost invisible hole in the wooden walls of the women's bath house. He could not help the soft chuckle that escaped his lips as he continued to look at the wondrous sights from behind the wooden wall.
Orochimaru sighed from his spot beside the horny teenager, noting silently to himself that over the many years that they had spent as teammates the only thing to change about Jiraiya was that his pervert nature only seemed to get worse with each passing day. The raven glanced over at the squatting white-haired young man and wondered how long it was going to be before he got caught peeping this time. He also began to wonder why he still hung out with the lecherous teen.
"If you don't stop soon, Tsunade will catch you." The pale young man said softly, knowing full well that any mention of the blonde and her super strength (when enraged) would be more than enough to scare his friend and teammate away from his peeping.
Jiraiya suddenly froze and looked up desperately at the scrawnier teen beside him. "Don't say things like that! You're just asking for something unlucky like that to happen." He then resumed in his pervert escapades, ignoring his friend's warning all together.
"I just don't see why you insist on peeping on other women when you're also trying to win Tsunade over." Orochimaru sighed as he readjusted his shoulders before he leaned back against the wooden wall of the bath house.
"Just because I like Tsunade, doesn't mean that I can't enjoy the beauty of other females." Jiraiya replied back with a large grin plastered over his face, his attention never wavering from the glorious scene that took place just behind the wooden wall. "Besides, it's not like Tsunade would ever date me anyways. She's hates my guts!"
"It's what you deserve for calling her flat-chested for all those years." The pale teen muttered mostly to himself, but it did not slipped past Jiraiya's keen hearing.
"How was I supposed to know that one day Tsunade would go from flat as a board to having the biggest chest in all of Konohagakure?!" the white-haired teenager yelled back at his friend. "I tell you, the irony in this is almost too much for me to handle! It's just so unfair. Had I known, I definitely would not have called her that to her face."
The raven rolled his eyes at his friend as he crossed his arms over his chest. "What a few years and a couple of growth spurt will do to one's opinions."
"Just 'cause you've got the sex drive of a lamp, doesn't mean you have to take it out on me." The other shinobi quickly tossed back at his friend without breaking his attention away from his more important task of studying and observing the female form.
"Lamps are inanimate objects, you moron. They don't have sex drives."
"Exactly!" Jiraiya smiled up at his friend, before his attention went straight back to peering through the small hole in the wall. The pale teenager glared down at the guy his unfortunately call his friend, ready and willing to expose him to the poor woman won which he was currently peeping, but his attention was pulled away from the white-haired teen when he noticed another person's presence. Orochimaru smiled wickedly before he casually began to speak once again to his friend, keeping silence so that the new arrival would go unnoticed by Jiraiya.
"Maybe you should stop peaking in on the women's bath house before someone sees you." The pale young man's eyes glinted as the drifted in between the white-haired teen and the person standing before the two of them.
"If you haven't realized yet, we're ninja, Orochimaru." Jiraiya scoffed, not taking his eyes off the bathing beauties. "Like anyone can catch us."
The pale shinobi just continued to smirk as his head shook back and forth at his friend's ignorance. "Well… what if Tsunade-hime would just happen to wonder by and see you sneaking a peek at those poor, unsuspecting ladies in the bath?"
"Ha!" Jiraiya laughed as he turned his head to face the raven. "I can hear Tsunade and her fury coming from a mile away! The way she stomps around, shaking the very earth beneath her when she's angry, I'm sure anyone can hear her too!" The white-haired teen bellowed with amusement as he nudged his pale friend in his leg, egging him on to join in on his good time. When the raven just smirk down knowingly at him instead of scolding or ignoring him like he normally did when he joked around, Jiraiya knew something was up with his friend.
"Jiraiya." Said a low growling voice from behind the two males. Jiraiya slowly turned his head around to see Tsunade herself standing no more than a few feet away from the white-haired ninja, her fists curled tightly into fists and her face contorted into an expression of rage and utter loathing. Jiraiya tried to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat, but no matter what he did he could not seem to find the courage to speak. Suddenly, he turned his attention over to his "friend" and glared daggers at the pale young man, to which Orochimaru just continued to smirk.
"You son of a—" Jiraiya hissed, but his attention was stolen away from his friend to be refocused on the sole female member of his team when she tried to aim her fist directly for the young man's head, but missed by a hair as the perverted teen moved his head just in the nick of time. Jiraiya then half crawled, half pranced out of the line of fire from the blonde-haired young woman and her rage.
Unfortunately for the white-haired male, Tsunade punched right through the wooden wall, causing the attention of all the women in the bath house to see the three teenagers and scream at the loss of their last line of protection from wicked eyes.
As the women screamed and ran around frantic, the three teammates suddenly realized their compromising position and began to hightail it out of there as fast as their legs could possibly carry them. Even in the thrill of the moment, Tsunade still found time to curse out the white-haired teen for the perverted and stupid ideas.
"Way to go, Jiraiya!" the blonde yelled as they continued to run. "Thanks to your perverted nature, you've gotten all of us into a fine predicament!"
"Well we wouldn't have gotten caught had it not been for someone's freakish strength!" the young man retorted back, never even taking the time to look back at the young woman in fear that tearing his gaze from his path would make him fumble and get left to suffer the wrath of the furious women and the other shinobi who were without doubt coming to punish the ones who were peeping.
"If you hadn't been making fun of me, I wouldn't have lost my temper!" Tsunade roared back at her fellow teammate. The pale teenager sighed as he watched his teammates come to a halt, deeming that arguing over who was to fault here was more important than running away from the scene of the crime and the inevitable horde of people that would more than likely try to track them down. Orochimaru sighed and stepped off to the side, not wanting to leave his friends, but at the same time not wanting to be called a pervert if he was caught with them.
Jiraiya crossed his arms in front of his chest and glared at the well-endowed young lady. "It's not my fault that saying anything that even slightly pisses you off, sends you on a wild rampage that you only satisfy by punching the living daylights out of me!"
"I wouldn't hit you if you didn't deserve it!"
"Um… guys?" Orochimaru said uneasily, hoping that he could get his teammates attention without having to yell himself.
"WHAT?!" the two of them yelled back in unison, both glaring at the pale teen as if all the anger the held for the other was instantly transferred over to the innocent member in this conversation.
"… I just wanted to tell you that we'd have a better chance of not being found if you two didn't yell quite so loudly." He said surprising calm considering the ferocity that the two of them sent his way in their unified yelling.
"Oh, I'm done yelling!" Jiraiya snapped back, his angry glared never leaving the blonde-haired lady for an instant. "I'm done with this entire argument!"
"Just run away from our conversation then!" Tsunade hissed back, turning her back on the white-haired shinobi and stormed off toward her other teammate. The blonde then quickly brought up her fist and suddenly thrust her hand deep into the nearest tree, shocking the pale young man since he was literally right beside the now destroyed tree and for the fact that he had never seen his teammate so angry before. Orochimaru jumped back slightly, so that he could avoid the splintering wood chips that flew in every direction, but stared intensely at the young woman's back, unsure of what see would destroy next or if she would even punch anything else.
But as the raven-haired teenager continued to glance over warily at his friend, he noticed just how badly her shoulders were shaking and how tightly her hands were curled into fists. He was sure that the blonde was close to drawing blood from the sheer force of her nails as they dug deeper into her skin. Suddenly, Tsunade let out a choked sob and then immediately pulled her hand up to wipe furiously at her face, making sure that the tears Orochimaru was sure were pouring from her eyes, would be completely erased.
Slowly, the young woman turned around, but did not bother to look her teammate in the eyes. "He's such an idiot."
"Personally I think you both are." Orochimaru spoke up honestly, causing the blonde kunoichi to glance up at him; her honey eyes red and puffy from both her crying and rubbing at them so feverishly. "Honestly. I've never known two people whom both have feelings for one another bicker and argue so often. Even going so far as to drive the other to tears." His golden eyes peered over at his fellow teammate, knowing full well that Tsunade would stubbornly try to dismiss the fact that she was crying despite how Orochimaru had just witnessed her in the act. "Not that I care about what either you or Jiraiya do in your lives, but why all this beating around the bush?" his tone of voice sounding more as if he was asking her about something as insignificant as the weather instead of sounding anywhere close to sympathetic.
"It's just not that simple." The blonde rubbed at her eyes one more time before she sat down and pulled her knees closed to her chest, finding it more difficult to lean her head against her legs than it did before she had gone through puberty. "Even if he says he likes me, he'll never stop being the giant pervert he is. If I accepted his feelings, then seeing him stare at other women would only hurt more. I'm smart enough at least to not put myself through that kind of torture."
"I think you're just making excuses for yourself."
Tsunade lifted her head from her knees and glared at the pale young man before her. "I didn't ask for your opinion." She snapped, thankful that her friend was not turned around for she knew that any intimidation that her voice carried would be thrown aside if her friend noticed how red her eyes were and just how miserable and pathetic the blonde looked as she sat there curled up on the ground.
"Sorry." The pale ninja said softly, not bothering to look over at his teammate. "I could have sworn that you stayed here to have a conversation with me. I apologize if I assumed too much." Tsunade scowled at the obvious mocking tone that his voice held, but held her tongue against that fact. The young man knew her far too well and knew that the only reason why she was eve here to begin with was in the slight hope that discussing her problems with the white-haired ninja would ease her nerves a bit.
She turned her face away, feeling both embarrassed and slightly guilty that she had shunned away the advice that Orochimaru was trying to give to her. When no reply came from the blonde, the pale teen sighed and turned around suddenly and began to walk over to his friend, stopping when he was right beside her and then suddenly sitting down. It was almost exactly like the scene from so many years ago. Sure they had grown older and the topic had morphed into something far more depressing than it was before, but it still brought back memories of the similar situation to the two shinobi.
"If it helps, I don't think you two would be good together either." Orochimaru said stoically, gaining the attention of the blonde beside him; her honey eyes were wide in shock from the bold and stunning truth that slipped from her friend's lips. "You two are far too alike and perfect for each other to ever have it work out. Only people who aren't right for each other ever seem to end up together."
"I think your logic is flawed." Tsunade sniffled as she wiped the remaining tears away from her eyes. "People who love each other end up together all the time."
"I never said that." The pale teen corrected his friend. "I merely said that most of the time people who seem to belong with one another are rarely ever able to be with one another. Life is just that ironically cruel that way."
"You're so cynical towards love." Tsunade forced a laugh hoping that it would lighten the mood between the two of them. Though the blonde was never, for the life of her, able to tell when the mood between anyone and Orochimaru was nothing more than awkward considering that her friend had never really been very social or sympathetic in all the time that she knew him.
"And you're standards for others are far too high." He retorted, though his voice did not sound bitter or angry in the least. Orochimaru then pushed himself off the ground and began to walk away from the blonde-haired kunoichi, leaving her to either wallow away in her sorrows or to try to push on with her life despite them. Tsunade gave one last sniffle before she too rose to her feet, her hands brushing off the dirt from her outfit as she did so, before she too began to walk away from the secluded place.
Somehow, even though her friend had given her nothing but negative advice and depressing thoughts, she felt oddly better after speaking with the pale ninja. It was almost as if instead of filling her up with false hope of a possible relationship blossoming between herself and Jiraiya, and obviously impossible feat, Orochimaru had given her a more sensible excuse instead of just using her fear of being hurt to stop her from moving their relationship further. He had known somehow that despite sounding cruel and hurtful that, in the end, she would reason through every optimistic piece of guidance and would be right back to her previous state, if not worse.
Tsunade mustered up the strength to smile somewhat as she headed back toward the village, ready and willing to give up all hopes she had on Jiraiya or to at least bury them deep within herself. For it was exactly how Orochimaru had said.
No matter how alike the two of them were, how ironically perfect they were for one another… It was just never going to happen.
Yay! Young Sannin! I've always wanted to write a story about them before they stopped being a team. And now here it is! Maybe I'll be able to do this again for Jiraiya and Orochi-chi's birthdays :D. :pauses: Maybe. We'll see.