Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, Kisame would be a bishie.
After cutting my feelings that grew, I regret. After realizing that, after all, I'm just a mediocrity, I cry.
"Will you stop crying?"
He's desperate to stop me. He's desperate to shut me up—to make me be silent, or I'll wake everyone up. But the tears keep coming, and I keep sobbing loudly, choking and coughing occasionally. His hands are on my shoulders, grasping me tightly, trying to make me look up at his desperate face. I resist and fix my eyes on a rock to the right, still sobbing.
"Please, be quiet!"
His voice is merely hiss now. Suddenly, someone nearby us shifts in their sleeping bag, mumbling something. He quickly has his hand over my mouth, trying to muffle me. I can feel my hot, sticky tears streaming down my flushed cheeks onto his rough hand. Frustrated, I attempt to shake my head and break free from his strong grip.
"Stop, please—you'll wake everyone up!"
Is he so oblivious that he can't notice that I can't stop? A rather loud hiccup escapes my mouth, momentarily silencing me and his grip weakens for a moment—he's trying to think of what to do with me, I can tell.. Suddenly, I feel a jerking motion—he's pulling me to my feet and attempting to move me away from everyone.
"Well, at least come over here!"
He's frustrated, I can tell. As he drags me with him, I continue hiccupping, which is really starting to hurt my chest. Once we're at least twenty feet from the campground, he stops and lets me sit down on a rock. He kneels down in front of me, and I can't help but notice the fact that, even kneeling down while I'm sitting above him, he's still about my height.
He sighs and runs his hand through his hair, which, until now, I haven't noticed is down, reaching a bit past his shoulder. He mumbles something I can't hear, which is undoubtedly something rude, and then sighs again. After what seems to be an eternity, he finally looks me in the eye wearily.
"Why are you crying?"
At first, I just want to smack him for treating me the way he did moments ago. But that feeling subsides when I look him in the eye. I open my mouth, but all that escapes is another loud hiccup. I flush even more and shake my head.
"Please, tell me why you're crying…"
Finally, I'm able to choke a few words out and form them into a sentence, and when I do, they sound teary and strangled. "…Y-you just w-w-want t-to shut m-me up, d-don't you?"
He inhales deeply, as if he's losing his patience with me—which he most likely is. He rubs his temple slightly, and I can tell he's probably thinking why god is making him deal with a teary teenage girl at two o'clock in the morning. "No, I—Well, yes, I do. But I'm also concerned about you." He's tired, I can tell—his voice is very raspy.
"N-no you're not. Stop l-lying." Damn—I sound so pathetic, like some pitiful sob story. It's hard for me to breath, granted, but I still want to sound like I normally do in front of him—brave, loud, and outgoing. Yet, here I am, crying in front of him while he holds me steady in his hands.
He merely grips my shoulders tighter. "…Please… Tell me what's wrong." I'm avoiding his face at all costs, looking at anything I can see besides him—a moth, flitting around the almost dead campfire, the grass swaying in the wind, or maybe even a sleeping comrade or two. I can't look at his face. Must avoid. Must avoid—
"Please."
Dammit.
I shift my green eyes to him and instantly regret doing so. He actually looks concerned, despite the fact that he must be dead tired. I hate it. I hate looking at him when he looks like that, even if it isn't directed at me.
It makes me want to spill my guts out—everything that went wrong in my life since I was two years old—like the time when my doll was stolen, or the first time I tried wielding a weapon and ended up with a huge gash on my leg.
"I-I'm so s-stupid."
Did I really just say that?
His face morphs to one of utter confusion. I can tell he's trying to make sense of what I just said and is failing spectacularly. The puzzled look on his face is completely and totally adorable—it makes me want to laugh, but I can't. Instead, a rather loud and involuntary wail just comes from my mouth as I begin to cry harder.
"Ssh! Ssh! Please, stop, stop!" Someone at the campground rolls over and he begins to panic. "Please! Why do you think you're stupid!"
"I c-couldn't do anything f-for them! All I could d-do was s-stand b-back and watch while m-my b-brothers were suffering! While t-they were fighting to p-protect S-Suna, where was I? I—I w-was in freaking K-Konoha, arranging things f-for the s-stupid CHUUNIN EXAM!" My last two words come out as a yell without me even noticing it.
"Shh! Geez!" In an instant, his hand is back on my mouth, muffling my wails. He's terrified now—of me, or of the idea of waking up any irritable jounin and chuunin with weapon holsters on them containing kunai and shuriken, I can't tell.
"And you! Why do you care anyway!" I seem to have finally regained my ability to move as I shove his hand off of me rather angrily. "You're just some lazy, goddamn, freaking IDIOT!" Okay, I know he has an IQ of 200, but I'm not really paying attention to what I'm saying. All I know is that I'm spewing my thoughts.
"Temari."
"You don't understand, you're an only child, you don't have younger siblings, how could you ever understand? You're constantly whining about things that are nothing compared to my life—you don't have a brother who was once a homicidal freak or a brother who is constantly biting off more than he can chew!"
"Temari!"
"What the hell is your problem anyway! 'Troublesome this,' and 'troublesome that'! You never stop complaining! Nothing is good enough for you! Anything I do to try and help out with the exam isn't good enough! Just because you're some type of a GENIUS doesn't mean I have to put up with your smartass behaviour, you… you… SMARTASS!"
"TEMARI!"
I stop abruptly and look up at him. I don't know if he's realized that he just screamed louder than I was yelling. His face is contorted—it's frustrated now, as if he's fighting a battle with me and losing. I can feel my anger subsiding as I look into his desperate black eyes. He's gripping my shoulders again—tighter than last time, as if he doesn't want to let go.
"Will—you—shut—up!" He hisses quietly.
I scoff. "You're the one who screamed."
"Because you were yelling."
"Why does that make a difference!"
"I had to stop you!"
"Well, you were louder than I was!"
"But I got you to shut up!"
"SMARTASS!"
"TROUBLESOME WOMAN!"
There's a long pause, and then, I feel a large bubble rising in my chest. More tears? No, my nose isn't stinging. This is a new feeling—I can't quite seem to identify it. He's shaking with what seems to be anger, but I'm not. I'm shaking, all right, but not with anger. I suddenly begin to laugh. Laugh? When was the last time I laughed? I grin, sure, and I make snippy remarks… But laughter?
He twitches slightly. "…Temari?"
I can't stop. I'm giggling loudly in his arms. One look at his face and I start to laugh even louder. He looks so confused, so bluntly adorably as he eyes me curiously, wondering if I've been on drugs or drinking or something of the like.
"Temari, what the hell…?"
I try to stop myself, and manage to speak inbetween giggles. "Your—face!"
"What about it?" He arches his eyebrow.
"It's—funny—looking!"
He frowns. "…The hell?"
"You—look—so—cute—Shikamaru!" His hold on me is released and I fall off the rock he set me on, giggling in the grass. A slight pink hue crosses his cheeks as he stares at me strangely, as if I'm an alien. And then he leans down and pulls me up, hoisting my shaking arm around his shoulder.
"C'mon, Temari… You need to go to bed…"
I just laugh as he sets me down on my sleeping bag and giggle quietly as I wrap myself up in the comfortable blanket. A few minutes pass—he and I shift in our sleeping bags a few times—and then he speaks.
"Temari?"
"Yeah?"
"You're troublesome."
I feel heat rise to my face—I can tell I'm blushing. Luckily, he can't see me in the dark. A few silent minutes pass and then I hear him snoring away lightly in his sleeping bag. I smirk and then turn over, closing my puffy, red eyes slowly and thinking one last thought before I drift off into a much needed slumber.
Troublesome.
For now, I'll take that as a compliment.
And then I'll kick his ass tomorrow.
So, yeah, there you have it. Laugh, cry, flame, whatever. This is my first Naruto fanfiction and I know it sucks. I wrote this at 3 AM out of boredom, so sue me.
…SHIKATEMA PWNS JOO.
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