This is a side chapter to xCry13x's 'Land of Claw' story, which is an OC project he himself is still adding chapters to every wednesday. If you read this please read his too ;3!
Linkage -V 8D
u/4054723/xCry13x
Enjoy! :3 x3
-The Claw team's Temporarey room in Konoha-
Michiyo and Asamoya sat there at the table of the room provided for them by the leaf village. Asamoya was deep in thought while sifting through the papers that contained the information on the recruits they had tested the day earlier. Michiyo sat at the seat across from her sipping hibiscus tea, watching her team mate's movements out of sheer boredom and noticing Asamoya's actions were in reutine format. The cute, white haired girl occasionally leaned her forehead in her hand as if trying to make a tough discision, and then would cut her eyes back down to the paper to write something, followed by a bite of the sweet, ripe pear she had sitting next to the papers, then began falling into deep thought again. It was quiet in the room, which for these girls, was unusual. However, Asamoya was too busy to talk, and frankly, Michiyo was too bored to do anything besides stare at her friend and occasionaly take a loud sip from her tea, which aggravated Asamoya, who's eyes quickly darted up from the paper she was studying to the tall, gloomy looking girl across the table from her.
"What are you looking at?" She snapped. Any other time the staring wouldn't have bothered her, but now wasn't one of those times.
"You." Michiyo smiled, leaning her chin in her hand and batting her eyes at Asamoya, irritating the shorter, and by all means tougher female greatly.
"Why?" Asamoya groaned, narrowing her eyes and cocking her head slightly to the side.
"I'm just bor-" Michiyo started to answer, but seemed to lose her train of thought and ask another, completely different question. "Where's Kokugan?"
"Well stop it-" Asamoya started to command Michiyo, but lost her own train of thought as her friend did. "I don't know, he's been gone since before I got up. Is that anything new?"
"No not really." Michiyo sighed before leaning up to take a look at the papers, which Asamoya quickly snatched away as if trying to hide something, causing Michiyo to giggle. "Hiding something?"
"No. Go away." Asamoya groaned, clutching the papers against her chest and glaring at the girl leaning across the table.
"No! Let me see!" Michiyo reached to grab the papers from her hand. "I need to see something about that Uzumaki kid."
"No!"
"Why?!"
"Because!"
"Just give me the paper!"
The two girls began wrestling over the papers that contained the information on the Konoha recruits, causing a ruckus and knocking over the table, sending Asamoya's half-eaten pear falling to the floor with a thud and Michiyo's teacup shattered on the floor.
"No!"
"Just Lemme see the Uzumaki kid's paper!" Michiyo groaned while stradling Asamoya's stomach, both girls were clutching opposite sides of the papers until the both pulled and ripped them in two.
"Ughh..Now look what you did.." Asamoya growled at Michiyo.
"Hello! What do we have, here?" Michiyo giggled as she quickly scavenged the papers off the floor before a stunned Asamoya had time to react. "Hmm...Nara Shikamaru...heart Kumo Asamoya?!" Michiyo let out a maniacal laugh of amusement among noticing Asamoya wasn't putting effort into carefully choosing the recruits like Kokugan and herself had initially thought, but instead had been gazing at Shikamaru's recruit paper, dreaming about him and doodling little love signs on it all morning. "Ya' know, Asamoya." Michiyo giggled which caught an embarressed Asamoya's attention, "If you like Shikamaru, you should talk to him." Michiyo continued as she rose to her feet, brushed the wood debris and dust off her robe and looked over Naruto's paper.
"What would you know about boys?" Asamoya snapped, her face red as an apple, she slowly looked down at the floor she was sitting on and brushed her unkept, white bangs behind her ear and hugged her knees. "The only boy you even talk to is Kokugan, and I know he isn't a normal boy."
"Hmm..."Michiyo's face went blank for a minute, ignoring what Asamoya had just asked as she looked over Naruto's recruit form.
"Hrmph..Just as I thought...You chose to think of a stupid recruit rather than honestly admit that you don't know anything about boys." Asamoya grumbled. "Shikamaru's never gonna notice me."
"Ah he will. You just have to keep that sand chick out of the picture for a little while so you can work your charms on him." Michiyo carelessly dropped the paper on the floor amongst the rest of the debris caused from their wrestling match and leaned down at Asamoya as if she were wise. "I can distract her for you."
"You would do that for me?" Asamoya batted her shining eyes at Michiyo with question.
"Mhm. He seems like the type of person that is passionate about the world around him. I'm sure he'll love you." Sadly the Shikamaru Michiyo explained was the complete opposite of the Shikamaru in reality, who wasn't really passionate about anything, or particularely care about anything for that matter. Michiyo batted her eyes back at Asamoya, and the two girls sat there batting their eyes excitedly at each other for a few minutes while subconsciously trying to figure out a plan to get Asamoya's love's attention.
-X-
-Outside Ichiraku Ramen-
"Temari! Shikmaru!" A loud and playful voice echod in the streets as the two claw kunoichi ran towards the two konoha ninja, whom were standing outside of the ramen shop talking to each other, Shikamaru clad in his konoha flak jacket attire, and Temari in her black kimono. The two quickly stopped mid-conversation to each other and focused their attention on the two girls running towards them.
"What do they want?" Temari put her hand in front of her mouth and leaned in so only Shikamaru could hear.
"Whatever it is..I'm not interested." Shikamaru groaned, placing his hands in his pockets and looking at Asamoya and Michiyo with his lazy, careless expression as the two girls made their way to them and stopped dead in their tracks, blowing a cloud of dust around the four's feet.
"Hi guys!" Michiyo greeted, gripping her wrist behind her back.
"Hi Shikamaru! And...Temari.." Asamoya hung her head while bashfully looking at Shikamaru while ignoring Temari as best as she could, gripping her left wrist with her right hand in front of her stomach.
"Hey." Temari answered, bracing herself on her fan, which was standing up next to her, with familiarity.
"...What's up?" Shikamaru sighed, lazily trying to make himself seemed interested, which wasn't very convincing.
"Temari! I was wondering if you would give me a tour of town? I'm looking for a nice present for Kokugan to present to him when we get back to our village.." Michiyo asked enthusiastically.
"Um...I guess so." Temari answered, somewhat shocked that Michiyo had chose her, a sand kunoichi, to give her a tour of the leaf village.
"Great!" Michiyo giggled, quickly locking arms with Temari, who wasn't sure what to say, and started walking down the street, jibbering about nonsense as usual and doing broad hand gestures with the hand she wasn't using to hold Temari with her. Her voice echod until it faded into the distance in the street while Shikamaru and Asamoya were left standing awkwardly in front of the ramen shop unsure of what to say.
"Well, see ya." Shikamaru turned to walk off, his hands still in his pockets, seeing no point in staying since his parter had left with that claw lunatic.
"Wait!" Asamoya finally spoke up with her nervous yet joyous tone and gripped Shikamaru's shoulder, unintentionally gripping it with enough force to almost break it out of nervousness, which got his attention.
"Ughh." Shikamaru turned to meet eyes with the short, but cute girl, lazily standing there with his hands still in his pockets. "Did you need something?"
"I..Um...Yeah..I mean no...I mean yeah!" Asamoya babble nervously, "Are you hungry? Wanna get some ramen?" Her nervous voice was bouncing here and there and she gave him a sweet smile, hoping he wouldn't say no.
'Ugh..what a drag...first I let this girl win our fight, now she asks me to eat with her, what's next?' Shikamari thought to himself with his lazy expression until his stomach growled loudly enough for Asamoya to hear, and he realized he hadn't eaten all day.
'His stomachs growling! He's hungry...' Asamoya thought to herself with an excited but nervous expression, aswell as a large, sweet grin that covered both of her rosey cheeks. 'Please say yes..Please say yes!'
'Ugh..She heard that..I guess it would be wrong to lie to her.' Shikamaru thought to himself. "Ehh..I guess it wouldn't hurt." He answered, and lazily sighed and turned towards the door and started towards it.
"Oh...Ok..Wait really?! Ok!" She excitedly jumped once out of joy behind his back and quickly paced up beside him, and they walked into the ramen shop side-by-side.
-X-
-Antique shop-
"Oh my God it's perfect! You know, back in the claw village-" Michiyo babbled excitedly while looking at a boat paddle setting on the shelf in the store, she was talking too fast for Temari to actually understand what she was saying.
"And I turned the fruit stand over by accident-"
Babble.
"The old man was sooo mad!"
More babble.
"And Asamoya slapped me through a wall."
Yet another load of babble.
At that point Temari just stood there behind Michiyo, unsure of what she was actually saying but the last sentence sounded like "And his wife had a baboon's ass."
"And Kokugan said I would be the death of the team one day because I can't sneak without talking." Michiyo continued. "Can you believe that? Me? Talking a lot? He must be insane." She layed the boat paddle in front of the shop owner and pulled out her wallet to pay for it. "Kokugan's gonna love this!"
-X-
-The Ramen Shop-
Asamoya and Shikamaru sat there in silence at the table across from each other waiting for their food to be served to them. Him with his cheek leaning in his arm as if about to fall asleep, and her sitting there twiddling her thumbs. "So Shikamaru..You're from the Nara clan?" Asamoya asked, trying to break the ice.
"..Mhm.." He answered lazily.
"Ah..I'm fom the Kumo clan." She told him, unsure of what to talk about. "Nice shop they got here, huh? Reminds me of this place we have back in the Claw village that Kokugan eats at a lot..except they don't serve just ramen, they serve everything. I could have sworn I saw Kokugan eating a goat's head once."
Shikamaru just lazily looked up at her, trying to seem interested but, again, wasn't very convincing.
The two sat there in silence again for a few moments until Ayame came with their bowls and set them down in front of the two. "Oh Shikamaru! Are you on a date?" She asked kindly, recongnising the Claw Kunoichi who had been in the shop the day before.
At first Shikamaru didn't say anything, exciting Asamoya to the point where her smile covered her cheeks again, and Ayame closed her eyes and gave a kind smile.
"..Nah.." Shikamaru broke the silence, dissappointing Asamoya, who's smile melted and she just sat there awkwardly looking at her pork ramen with miso, and Ayame chuckled and walked off to tend to other customers. Shikamaru then looked down at his food and lazily grabbed his chopsticks and began to eat.
"You know, Shikamaru.." Asamoya, who still hadn't touched her food, earning his attention, he looked up at her while still leaning his head on his hand, with noodles in his mouth, "There's something i want to tell you before I leave in a few days.."
Shikamaru didn't say anything, just sat there waiting for her to tell him whatever it was she wanted to. "..Hmm?"
"I...Um.." She hesitated, "I..really like-"
Swoop-Thump.
Much to Asamoya's dismay, a familiar, black robed, wraith-like figure lazily plopped down in the seat next to her, cutting off her love confession to Shikamaru. He didn't say anything, and Shikamaru didn't seem to care either way. Ayame quickly walked over to the young man as if she'd known him for years, "Well, if it isn't Kokugan! Will you have your usual?"
"Yeah." Kokugan answered, and didn't acknowledge Asamoya and Shikamaru, but he knew they knew he was there, and they knew he knew they were there, so that was acknowledgment enough in his book.
'How can he have a 'Usual'?' Asamoya thought, 'We've been here for two days!' Her facial expression went from happy, to shocked, to angry within a few seconds due to the mixed feelings of her knowing where Kokugan was, his sudden appearance out of nowhere(which was nothing new), and her chance at confessing to Shikamaru being blown by his appearence.
Kokugan looked up at her, his black-hole-like eyes peering out from behind his orange shades quickly focused their attention on her food. "You gonna eat that?" He asked while reaching for the bowl before she gave him an answer, earning a sigh from her she pushed the bowl towards him and leaned her cheek in her palm, cutting her eyes out the window she saw the sun was setting, which meant Michiyo and Temari were going to be back soon. "What a drag..." She whispered under her breath, but loud enough for Shikamaru to hear and look up at her with a somewhat shocked, but still lazy expression. Around that time, Ayame brought Kokugan his 6 varieties of ramen, all 6 bowls filled to the brim, which was just in time because he had finished Asamoya's ramen within seconds of recieving it and was beginning to get grumpy from hunger. Within moments the two claw ninja heard a familiar, loud voice coming from outside the window getting closer and closer.
"And then Asamoya shoved Kokugan out of the way and he hit the wall-"
Babble.
"And the lady said something about a diseased coconut or something?"
More babble getting closer to the door.
"But that was ok because Asamoya had already hit me with a large treebranch that day so it was all good."
The door flung open, causing everyone who was in the shop to turn their attention to Michiyo,who was still babbling walking through the door locking arms with Temari, who's eyes were wide and she had a somewhat demented expression.
"But that was around the time a boar chased me through the woods- Hey Kokugan!" Michiyo quickly converted her attention to her friend that had been missing all that day. "Where ya been?" Quickly Temari turned and walked out the door as if in a dazed state.
"Don't bother me." Kokugan commanded with a loud gulp, "I'm eating." He quickly pulled his last bowl of ramen to him and began to slurp it down.
"Hey Asamoya!" She looked at her friend, who was leaning against the wall with no expression, "Did you get your man candy?" She giggled before noticing Shikamaru, who's eyes got wide among hearing the word 'Man candy', was still sitting there eating. "Oh...um...Hey Shikamaru!"
"..Hey." He answered her, still wondering what she meant by 'Man candy', he finished his last bites of food and stood up, "I'll see you all later I guess." And walked to talk to Ayame, then walked out.
"Well Asamoya, did you?" Michiyo questioned again dumbly.
"I might have...If jaws didn't come in and interupt it!" She grumbled while still leaning against the wall, irritated that Kokugan had interupted her, and surprised that it was him this time instead of Michiyo. Kokugan ignored what she said and signiled Ayame to bring him his second serving of his 'Usual'.
"I'm gonna pay my bill and get out of here." Asamoya, depressed got up and went to Ayame to pay the bill.
"You're all payed up. Shikamaru took care of both the bills." Ayame explained and then carried the large tray, covered with Kokugan's ramen bowls to him.
Asamoya, shocked, realizing this was a plan of Shikamaru's to see her again. 'By paying the bill...He knew I would go to thank him later, giving us an excuse to talk again! Aswell as him saying Thank you for a good time!' She thought to herself, suddenly her mood changed from depressed to ecstatic and she skipped out the door to head back to the room.
"Whats gotten into her?" Michiyo asked Kokugan, "You'd think having to pay a bill would have the opposite effect on people..
"Leave me alone." Kokugan warned. "I'm eating."
"That's a weird girl." Michiyo continued, ignoring his warning.
"Get lost."
"I wonder if Shikamaru liked her or did her goody-goody attitude aggravate him."
"I'm warning you. Get lost!"
"Hmm...I'ma have to think of another plan to-"
"Nightmare Gaze!" Kokugan yelled, quickly catching everyone at the shop's attention, aswell as Michiyo's, he stood of from his chair and went to grab Michiyo, who screamed and ran out the door before he could catch her. "Hrmph..Told you not to bother me when I'm eating." He sat down with everyones eyes on him, wondering what just happened, but he didn't care, he was eating.
-X-
-The Next Morning At The Training Ground-
Asamoya was out unusually early that morning. Her cute, unkept white hair swung with the movement of her petite body, and her long, girly eyelashes fluttered like butterflies over her orange eyes. Her pale skin was almost translucent in the morning mist as she passionately danced across the field during her taijutsu practice. Her silky, light blue kimono waved with her movements, mimicing the appearance of the rain, and the yellow cloud design on it was almost like lightning striking. She was in her own world, a world she drifted off to everyday during her practice until she heard a twig break in the woods, jarring her back to reality she quickly set her defensive stance, preparing herself for an intruder.
"Did I interupt?" Shikamaru stepped out of the shadows of the trees.
"I..Um..no." Asamoya giggled nervously, "I just wasn't expecting anyone to be up this early, that's all." She smiled warmly at him and placed her arms behind her back bashfully.
An awkward silence fell between them for a few moments.
"Oh..I wanted to thank you for paying the bill yesterday..Ya know at the ramen shop..Thanks!" She smiled, earning a lazy smile from Shikamaru in return.
"...about what you wanted to ask me.." Shikamaru hesitated.
"Oh..yeah...Before Kokugan came.." Asamoya hung her head shyly, "I was going to say.."
"I know." Shikamaru stated, "I knew as soon as you said you had something to tell me." He sighed.
Asamoya didn't say anything, just stood there with her head hanging until finally she had the courage to ask, "Do you...feel the same?"
He didn't say anything, just looked down at the ground carelessly.
"Oh...I'm..sorry for bothering you with it then.." She sighed, and turned to start her practice again.
"If I didn't feel anything for you, I wouldn't have let you win the other day during the test." He sighed, shocking Asamoya who turned to look at him questioningly.
-X-
-The Claw Ninja's Room-
Michiyo stumbled off her bed and into the kitchen, her eyes were sleepy and her hair was even wilder than it normally was. She stumbled over to the table to lean her head across it for a nap, and set her head down on a piece of paper, quickly she picked it up and read it.
"Michiyo,
Get your head off the table and wake up like a normal person.
-Asamoya."
Michiyo groaned and looked foreward with no expression.
Please note that Kokugan and Asamoya are xCry13x's OCs, Not mine. ;3
