I can't believe I'm taking a detour, because I'd been planning on starting this epic Rachel/Kurt/Sam/Quinn thing for EVER, but I wanted to make something in tribute to two very important people, so I'm trying one of those random word drabbles things for us. J These characters are being used to represent others, so even though they will be THE characters, if they're a little OOC it is for a purpose. I also realized, very early on in writing them, that keeping them at 100 words would be impossible. I found an alternate, looser definition where they just had to be under 1000 words. I know that's not "technical" but it's what I used.

For the Idek Trio. Temari is a Cat, Kabuto is a Star, and Sakura is a Rose. ((A VERY inside comment.))

Disclaimer: I own nothing

1. Leading

Three different classes had been gathered for this project. Temari was used to being the leader- she was the one her brother Gaara ever considered listening to. The middle child Kankuro tried to defy her. It didn't take much to make him do what she wanted. Anything mom wanted done, would be given to her and then she'd be trusted to get the younger ones to listen.

Still, she wasn't entirely sure how she was supposed to keep the hotheaded pink sophomore and infamous gray-haired senior under raps. "Sorry, hon… someone had to work with them."

2. Ha

"It really isn't that funny." Kabuto insisted curtly, tossing two kunai up and down rhythmically.

"It is if it really happened how Sakura says it happened," Temari managed, through her giggles.

"Oh, it did. I swear, he should have expected it- Shino had been IN THE ROOM for several minutes, but when that cockroach showed up under his chair-" there was a loud thunk as one of the aforementioned kunai knives delved itself deep into the wall, right next to Sakura's head. She stuck her tongue out at the gray-haired boy.

"Don't be such a spoil sport, you know it's hilarious," Temari started, then froze. A snake was coiled in the center of the bedroom. Both girls were standing on their chairs and screaming within seconds. Kabuto just smirked, while they begged him to kill it. He chucked his kunai at it, and manage to catch it's tail with the point, rather than any part of the snake that would have done the job. Hissing louder in pain, the snake attempted to lunge at the girls. Though the knife held it in place, they screamed. Kabuto was laughing too hard to finish the creature off.

3. Cursor

"I said enter the PRIMARY values! And Deira-nii, I want those gifs to SPARKLE! What is so complicated here?" Haruno-san boomed across the office.

"That you expect any of us to work while you yell at us like that," Kiba murmured. Yakushi-san gave him a sharp wack in the bag of the head with a rolled up stack of papers.

"Shut it, Inuzuka. You haven't been pulling your weight anymore than those lackluster monkeys you hired for us. And what's that?" Aggravated, the co-manager reached around Kiba, swung the cursor to his previous sentence, and corrected three glaring grammatical errors.

Haruno-san pinched the bridge of her nose. At least she had some help who set their standards as highly as she did. Or someone with as bad a temper as she had.

4. Lodge

It wasn't that the lodge wasn't open for Sakura. In fact, she was one of its most frequent visitors. She often came there to think alone, or play Sing It with Temari (though Temari always won by a landslide), or prank Kabuto till her reservoir was empty.

But if she knew Kabuto and Temari had both arrived before her, she would never open the door. She remembered the first time she'd left them alone after all- and what she'd come back to hadn't been worth the Pocky she'd ran to the grocery for, or the therapy she'd had to undergo afterwards.

"I knew they had tension, okay? I'm not blind," she murmured to Tenten as they walked Konohagakure's streets the day after. "But couldn't they have like, tied a scarf to the doorknob or something?"

5. Written

Temari loved her friend, she really did. But did the pink-haired kunoichi really have to take out that stupid notebook at EVERY dry moment in conversation?

Sometimes, Kabuto snatched the paper right out from under her pen, leaving a large stripe of purple ink to ruin whatever she'd been doing. "No… I don't CARE what you were doing… Oh, his class? Really? Hmm… he's strict… but no, I don't CARE. You are playing darts with Tem and I now, before I decide to let my aim slip and slice off some of that pretty hair."

Temari would hold the girl back, just before her strangling could make him turn an even MORE disturbing color, and murmur something about how she was on her side and don't worry Kabuto just hadn't taken his medicine that day. Then, when Sakura had moved to the corner to calm down a bit, Temari held the small journal up between her thumb and forefinger, and looked at it as if it smelled bad.

"Fire jutsu isn't my thing. Would you mind?" She waved the booklet in front of the former Sound Ninja's face. He smiled.

Sakura didn't talk to them again till the following month.

6. Bump

Temari and Kabuto both started when their room's door was knocked on, rather loudly.

Kabuto hopped off the bed in the small room, and went to open the door while Temari straightened the pillows and blankets. They'd only been in the middle of a light make-out, but still.

"What do you want, teme?" the Yakushi hissed at Sakura. She stood in the doorway, and a small girl clutched her leg, looking in around her as if terrified.

"Don't be like that. What, did I disrupt your 'quality time'?" she rolled her eyes.

"You know very well I will shut this door in your face," he reminded her.

"You know Rin, right?" Sakura gestured to the girl peeking tentatively at him.

"Yeah, brat-" he stumbled, then coughed. "Kid who lives in the room next door."

"Yes, well- she's come to me the past few nights, scared like a bat out of Barbie's Wonderland. Her bed's up against the wall between your rooms- she says she's heard very disturbing noises," Kabuto flinched a bit, but Sakura didn't even blink. "She's been taught to be afraid of things that go bump in the night. I asked her what would make her feel better, and she said she'd feel better if she could stay in there with you and see what happens so she won't imagine scary things in her room. Kay?"

Kabuto looked at her incredulously. Was she really bringing this child to come and spend the night in he and his girlfriend's room?

"Aww! Of course she can stay! Come here sweety!" Temari yelled, obvious sisterly instincts kicking in. Rin raced around Kabuto's feet, and the man glared at the pink haired girl in his door.

"I hate you."

"Love you too," she smiled and walked back to her room in total peace of conscience.

7. Warming

"Okay, get us started," Temari ordered the gray-haired teen. He was the oldest, so he was supposed to be strongest, or heaviest, or something. The boy nodded and jumped, landing himself hard in the center of the trampoline, sending both Temari and Sakura into the air, giggling.

Of course, just because Kabuto was the beginning hit, doesn't mean the girls didn't contribute. Sakura had her monster strength in every muscle, including the ones in her legs, and Temari certainly wasn't out of shape either. The three went up higher and higher with each landing, till they flung themselves so high they may as well have been riding a monster coaster with no safety bars.

Of course it wasn't the most cautious thing they could have been doing. The older they got, the more they stretched the strength and weight limits, the higher they flew. The more often they'd jump particularly high, and end up thrown to the wind landing in various grassy patches around the thing. Sometimes, they'd even fly right into each other- midair or in rough landing, colliding heads or other limbs. They didn't care. This was Kabuto Yakushi, Sunagakure no Temari, and Sakura Haruno. The warmth of the sun was enough to make them feel better.

8. Inspiration

They weren't Sasori and Deidara, okay? They weren't nearly that obsessed. But Temari and Sakura were both artists in their own right, Temari with the sounds she made by the winds and her voice, Sakura by the things she wrote and the things she made. When Sasori and Deidara's original fight of Eternal vs. Bang circulated, both girls agreed that it was silly. They took different sides on which was more correct, but they knew it was silly.

As their opinions evolved to Relative vs. Sublime, things got a little more difficult.

Sakura was always the practical one, stating that though art was indeed beautiful and enjoyable, just Temari's term in general could mean different things in different people's eyes. Art was Relative, there was no doubt.

Temari, on the other hand, found no way anyone could find the pictures she spun through the air with a mixture of desert sand and wind less than entrancing. Plus, with Sakura's definition, that trashcan outside the house could be art. She was sure it would be beautiful to some street rat who needed the scavenges.

When eventually, Deidara and Sasori got wind of the knew debate on art crossing the country- Is it Relative or Sublime? they rolled their eyes. It was pointless and immature to fight about art like that.

When a little girl on the other side of the country piped up, saying, "Art is Inspiration!" everyone she told just agreed, talked about how smart and insightful she was, whether they were on team A or team B. No one would fight with this child, simply because no one could deny that face.

Until Temari and Sakura got a hold of her.

9. Steel

You called it strength, he called is preservation. He refused to acknowledge that no matter what they said, they were never that angry with him.

Whenever they were mad, they were upset or afraid. Tired or, admittedly just hormonal. The only ways they COULD send these emotions over, sounded and felt like anger.

Kabuto had been trained well. When his two best friends seemed peeved, his walls would immediately come up- stainless steel and impenetrable. And no matter how hard they'd try to get closer and figure out exactly what was going on, the walls would not come down. Sometimes it frustrated them, but in a sense, they understood it. After all, who were they to expect him to just open up for them like that?

He'd been through a lot of crap from a lot of people close to him about nothing- how was he supposed to know they weren't blowing up at him for the sake of blowing up at him? Their lives weren't a corny movie, and they weren't the heroines to appear from thin air and save him. Maybe they were just imagining it, and there was nothing left to save him from.

By the end of the night, the girls would have calmed down. By the next day, he usually would have as well. At least enough to talk to.

"What were we talking about last night anyway?"

"I don't even know."

Fin.