Title: Another Kind of Pre-Exam

Author: Eeevee

Genre/rating: stupidity (parody/humor)/T

Challenge fic: "Hungry Eyes" from the movie Dirty Dancing. #12 of 13 – I think?

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Again, if I did, I would have a lot of fangirls sending me death threats, with Dori heading the pack!

Dedicated to Fyyrrose, for getting me my songs (you'll regret that, I'm sure), helping me keep my sanity with Bob, and a discussion about roaches for inspiration. Also, to celebrate CN's English version making it to the Chuunin Exams! (yes, I watch it and find it infinately amusing).

I could feel it, and it was making my flesh creep and crawl with disgust and paranoia. It is that feeling you get that makes your hair stand up on the back of your neck and makes you look over you shoulder, seeking your stalker. You know what feeling I am talking about, I am sure. The one where you know you are being watched. Except this was more than that… the stare was… hungry, ravenous.

I am used to being stared at. Hell, I am used to being glared at as well, and sparkled at, and squealed at to boot, and that is just from my teammates. I guess I would say I am the second most popular teenage guy after Sasuke. For which, I do not get why girls go nuts over him anyway. His hair looks like a blackbird died on his head and melted into his scalp. I bet he does not even wash it half the time and it looks like it has never been lovingly combed through.

"Neji!"

I pretended not to hear Tenten practically screaming in my ear. She, like Lee and Gai-sensei, was much too high-strung for my tastes, although I had come to the conclusion that Naruto was much more hyper and possibly with a lower IQ.

"Neji, hurry up or we'll be late."

Doubtful. I am never late. Ever. That is simply not fitting nor was it acceptable to be late.

However, being early is also unacceptable. It makes you look over-eager.

"Neji…"

Why did I ever get stuck on this team? What god up above hated me so much as to inflict these people as ones I had to associate with on a daily basis and for long hours?

My skin was now pretending to be an inchworm and working its way far from where it belonged. I would be really vexed if this gave me wrinkles. I wondered which annoying, screaming, obsessive fan girl it was this time.

Usually Tenten managed to beat and/or scare them into submission. Either that, or Lee freaked them out so much they ran away. The few brave enough to face my rather strange and possessive teammates were the ones that got the pleasure of being shot down with my perfected sociopath glare.

But I could not practice my glare on invisible targets. And all that watching was starting to irritate me. It was not like I had time to deal with it. I needed my focus to be on passing this exam and making it to the fights. Then I could show my worth, not as a member of the Branch family, as an oppressed slave of traditions, but as my father's son.

Fate might have had plans for me, but even the best lay went awry.

When we got the scroll I was torn. Obviously, I was the most qualified to take charge of it. However, it was obvious to the other teams that I was obviously the most qualified and if they were at least semi-intelligent they would target me for the scroll. Which would not work if I did not have the scroll. But then that meant I did not have the scroll, in which case a billion things could happen to it in Lee's care. In the end, I decided Tenten should have the scroll and hide it with her weapon scrolls.

As goofy and excitable as my teammates were, I would be the first to say I trained them well. After all the long hours of sharing sweat, punches, and frustration, the three of us worked damn near flawlessly together. It was a priceless advantage over those other lackeys. Honestly, what were their teachers thinking, sending them into the exam without any training under their belts? They were practically babies… untalented babies might I add.

I half expected the fat one to pull out a pacifier when he ran out of food to shove in his mouth… that was if he ever ran out of food. I could not fathom where all those bags of salty, greasy chips were coming from. Man, I would hate to feed his fat face every single day. His parents must be rather poor. I would not know anyway.

"Hey, hey, hey!"

I glanced towards the source of the noise and was unsurprised to see Naruto jumping around, squawking about something or other. Oh yeah, I would trust him with the scroll. As annoying as Lee could get, at least he knew I was better than him. It pissed him off (he should take up his grievances with his parents, not me. It is not my fault he was born looking like an ass' rear and with no talent or bloodline.) That I would always be better. But that was like being angry with your older sibling for the simple reason that they were born first, and therefore, would always be older. It is not something you can change that easily.

Sasuke, apparently, had not gotten through to the noisy heathen that he would always be a loser. Tch, if it were I, I would have already straightened the cretin out.

It took half a second to shut him up.

Somehow imminent danger shut up even the most obnoxious.

Unfortunately, his little brain only froze for a moment, and his mouth never did. He should be grateful the examiner bothered to save his sorry hide. Oh yeah, she struck me as the caring type after all. I would not be surprised if she was arrested and convicted of blackmail and extortion.

But I suppose she was a step up from the previous examiner.

I shivered again, wishing the feeling would go away. Maybe thinking of that crazy old shinobi was not the best idea to get rid of it. I would not put it past the paranoid veteran to put spies on the second examination for no other reason than to do it. I mean, he made up a whole exam on being paranoid. I understand that as a shinobi, you have to be sneaky. Well, duh, yeah. I think everyone got that… well, except Naruto, who was currently arguing with a brick wall. And he was too idiotic to realize it.

I bet you could actually switch Sasuke with a pile of bricks and no one would notice the difference.

"Neji…"

"I got it." I replied and strode to get the scroll.

Really, what would my team do without me? Imagine if they had… say… dog boy. Yeah, imagine having dog boy on the team instead of me. Okay, enough imagining, I am making myself nauseated. I would not do that to my teammates; I doubt they would suffer the trauma.

If intelligence were acquired through osmosis, my IQ would have dropped into retard range being surrounded by these people.

"Here, kid. Don't get yourself killed now." The little examiner-helper-guy leered. I pictured him as Santa's elf, complete with jingly bells and tights, and replied, "It was good that you graduated on an easy year. You should be saying 'don't kill anyone in there.' Oh, and tights do not suit you."

"What!"

By then I had the scroll and the satisfaction of cutting that riff-raff down to size.

"Okay, kiddies, have fun and don't let the bugs eat you!" The embezzler screeched at us, seeming to take fiendish glee in sending children into some killer forest. Sometimes I wondered how some of the jonin attained their rank.

I did wonder about Gai-sensei… who does not wonder about Gai-sensei?

At first glace, if he does not blind you with a smile, he scares you to death. And whatever he happens to be babbling about involves some pretty perverted things if you decode them right. Aside from that, he seemed to have no talent for weapons or spells. If he did not spout nonsensical poetry, you would think he was an uneducated brute who is all muscle and punches.

However, I have learned to respect him. He is a harsh teacher, is blatant about his favoritism, appears to have some sort of crush on Kakashi (yet I think a third of the eligible male population in the village has a crush on Kakashi—I do not know why exactly), and all-in-all does not give a flip about what other people think. Except when they criticize the jumpsuit. The tears I could do without. Otherwise I have learned to respect him. Mostly because he knows not to hit me in the face hard enough to bruise. I have become much faster avoiding the low, fast fists to the stomach.

"Neji…"

Is it too late in my life for a name-change, or would that cause an identity crisis?

"Here. Hide this." I hoped I did not have to tell her where, although as long as she did not try to stuff it down her shirt, any place was good.

The eyes were still on me, although no less intently than before, I had almost forgotten about them in giving my precise, idiot-proof instructions.

I moved to the left slightly, the eyes followed. I moved the other way, earning curious looks from my teammates, but the eyes still followed. However, when I turned to face them, they disappeared.

By then most of the teams were geared up and moving out. I had wanted to get an early start, but since my teammates had more stamina than speed, I changed my mind. We would certainly make it to the tower with little trouble.

"Neji, what are you doing?"

Without batting an eye, I replied drolly, "My muscle cramped from doing nothing but standing here. Let's go."

"Okay."

We had gone maybe three yards before Tenten made the most undignified sound I had ever heard. The sound was accompanied by a lot of dancing and pointing at my back. Then Lee had to join in, looking utterly mortified that there was something on my back.

I tried to turn my head to see, but that did not help at all.

It better not be another 'kick me' note. Or a note that said 'remove my stick.' At least he had not been the only one on the receiving end of that particular note. Brick wall had not been flattered.

"What."

Stay calm, do not break their arm, they may need it to remove the offending thing.

"A… a… bug!" Tenten shrieked and I blinked. A bug? I knew females tended to have issues with six legged insects and sometimes spiders as well, but Tenten had all manner of creepy-crawlies land on here during our worst D-rank missions. She had not even flinched. She even called the earthworm that was as long as my ponytail cute. "It's a bug!"

Okay, big deal.

"Wow! That's a huge bug. I mean, what would Gai-sensei…" I tuned out the end of that particular sentence, as I had learned from day one that doing so was the only way to keep my sanity.

"Remove it." Noticing their zealous looks, I added flatly, "And do not touch my hair."

"But Neji, it's in your hair. I mean, it's like the bug is making a nest or something."

Oh hell no.

Stupid insect or not, nothing is to touch my hair without permission! And certainly not to make a nest in it!

It took precisely five and a half seconds to whip out the comb I had nestled with my knives. It took even less than that to run the teeth through my long hair. About half way down I the problem spot. I hit and yanked. It tore at me to abuse my hair so badly, and I dreaded the split ends, but drastic measures needed to be taken.

To my shock, the bug didn't move. No, it did not even twitch.

I glare at my goggling teammates and ground out, "Cockroach."

"No, no, Neji. It's not exactly a cockroach! It's a palmetto bug."

I twitched again, "A cockroach that can fly? Oh, that is upscale."

"Periplaneta Americana."

Tenten, momentarily distracted, asked, "Uh, come again?"

"You have a Periplaneta Americana in your hair." The genin was looking at us through dark shades. Or rather, he was staring at my back.

"You!"

Of course, you know a stalker when you meet one. It is just like, boom, instant recognition. And then I was not sure if I should be relieved or miffed that my stalker turned out to be turned on by a roach.

"Well, get it out!"

Even as those words left my lips, I cringed. I just gave permission for some bug-pervert to touch me with his buggy hands.

I shuddered slightly, imagining the bug's little hooked feet digging into my silk strands, and leaned back so he could get it. He could eat it too, for all I cared, as long as he got it out of my hair.

"He seems very comfortable." Bugman went on, making no move to get the thing out of my hair, "However, Periplaneta Americana is a very common species, and not the one I had hoped." And with that he walked off, taking the stalked feeling with him. However, he did not take the bug!

I gave another desperate yank, hoping to dislodge the disgusting thing.

"Ne, Lee, I heard that they can carry diseases! Do you think Neji will get sick if its guts get in his hair?"

Lee made a noise of horror and begged, "Neji, don't do it! Your springtime of youth has just started and you can't be sick! I, Rock Lee, will remove that dangerous pest from your hair with my bare hands!"

No bug guts were even touching my hair.

Ever.

"No. Lee, no!"

"But Neji…"

"No!"

"Neji, it's crawling up!" Tenten informed me, suddenly sounding suspiciously amused. I knew she should not be reading that manga; it gave her disturbing thoughts. My next team better be all male. Not that I would tell her that and give her even more ideas than she already had.

"It is probably trying to escape Lee." I informed her, sympathizing slightly with the bug. Not enough to stop trying to evict it however.

"Yosh! I got it! EECCKKKK!"

"Watch out Lee!" Tenten called from the sidelines. I was now wondering exactly how high her IQ was. She seemed to be managing to escape the creature's grasp entirely and finding it amusing to yell out updates. "It's flying around now! Ooo, duck!"

"I'll get it!"

After recovering from the initial assault on my hair, I turned to see a very disturbing sight: Lee piloting a giant flying cockroach on a leash of my beautiful, torn hair. And it seemed to be tying him up in the bargain.

"Let it go!" Tenten encouraged, "You've won!"

With a mighty effort, Lee sent the bug on a one-way flight to the moon. It's little, brown body spun crazily. And then it disappeared.

And I told them to move out.

I also made a mental note to call the exterminator when I got home. Just in case the bug had vengeful relatives.

A/N: And I could have spent my time writing lime for Mayfly Fantasy. How skewed my priorities are! Somehow, it went from a serious stalker fic to a spoof… damn you school!

Beta: )) Where's the love? Where's the psycho lovin' I was hopin' for? cries you're mean. But that was cute… Author: wtf? I don't know what you were expecting of my parody of Neji O.o okay, so I'm rusty. Sue me and take my… I don't know? Take my Kakashi pen or something (which you can't have because it's MINE-- along with the Gaara stickers).