Notes: I have no excuse for this. It was another one of those random, "oh hell I'll just write it for the lulz" kinda deals. And yeah, I stole one of Neji's lines (and the scene that inspired it, more or less) from the very goofy, incredibly adorable "Meet the Robinsons" movie. If you're familiar with that movie, you'll know it when you see it.
Goals: Eh.
Warnings: A surplus of children. A distinct lack of plot.
Playing With The Big Kids
"Oh come on, Bug Face," Kiba poked at his teammate's shoulder. "Don't be such a stick-in-the-ass. It's just a picnic, and everyone's gonna be there. It's a freakin' beautiful day, and we've been training for hours."
"I told Naruto and Sakura I would meet them," Hinata said softly. "And Neji will be there."
"There, see?" Kiba spread his arms wide. "That means his team will be there too, and you know Rock Lee always brings a monster-ton of food to stuff like this. How could you turn down free food? You couldn't, that's how."
"Hm," Shino replied, watching an antlion pick its way daintily down a rotten log.
"Right, let's get over there then," Kiba whooped, signaling to Akamaru. The enormous dog bounded over, tongue flopping in big, happy pants as Kiba swung himself up on Akamaru's broad back. "Race you!"
Training ground four, set aside today for the celebration of the blossoming cherry trees, was packed with shinobi, blankets, and of course, baskets of food. Kiba found Rock Lee immediately, and the cheerful taijutsu warrior was indeed seated besides several bulging baskets of food. Without ceremony, Kiba and Akamaru plopped themselves down and grabbed the plate Lee offered them.
"Hey," Lee's teammate smiled up at them, scooting over to make room. Shino nodded his greeting to Tenten and took the open spot as Hinata blushed and waved to Naruto sitting on the next blanket.
"Oy, Hinata, come and eat with us!" Naruto hollered. "Sakura made these great little rice thingies with fruit in them!"
Tenten handed Shino a plate of food, which he had to admit looked fairly delicious. As he did in all things, Rock Lee had applied himself very rigorously to cooking lessons, and he made some of the best food in Konoha. And always, as Kiba pointed out happily, in mass quantities. "It's all pretty good today, but don't eat the blue dumplings," Tenten warned him under her breath. "They're the 'healthy' ones."
"Ah," Shino murmured in understanding.
Tenten giggled, and then reached up a hand and casually caught the bright red ball that had flown directly at her face. "Hey, Mina, is this yours?" she asked the little girl who came panting up to her.
"No, Tenten" the child said. "'s my brother's."
"Hmm. Well, it was a pretty good throw," Tenten smiled at her. "Here." The little girl took it, but stayed where she was standing, staring at them. "What is it, Mina?" Tenten asked gently.
"I wanna ride," the little girl said promptly. "Piggy back ride," she added, in case they were too slow to understand.
"Of course!" Lee flashed his best Nice Guy Pose. "I, little lady, will happily carry you to wherever you wish – "
"Nu uh," the little girl shook her head violently. "Him." She jabbed a chubby little finger past Lee, to the quiet man sitting almost hidden by the bulging food baskets.
Neji choked on his sandwich.
"Ah, I see," Lee recovered quickest, though Tenten managed to wipe the laugh from her face admirably quickly. Kiba, however, did not, and barely avoided spraying the entire party with crumbs as he snorted in laughter. "Well, then, Neji, it seems you have a duty to this small damsel," Lee reached down and grabbed Neji's sleeve.
"I most certainly do not," the Hyuuga replied, pulling his arm back.
"Uh, Neji," Tenten jerked her head towards the little girl, who's lip was quivering.
"No," Neji said, but Shino, calmly eating his own sandwich, heard the faintest hint of a sulk in his tone. He's already lost this one, Shino thought to himself, sipping some water and glancing at Tenten's face. And he knows it, though I suppose it was less damaging to his pride to at least pretend to resist.
"Neji," Tenten gave him a Look, and Lee grabbed his arms again and 'helped' him to his feet.
"Come, Neji; I bet I can carry four children on my back faster than you can escort little Miss Mina back to her family!" Lee bounded to his feet and announced, at the top of his lungs, "Who wants a piggyback ride?"
Immediately, a handful of children yelled back, climbing up Lee's arms and legs as he carefully situated six of them on his back and shoulders, and even tucked under his arms. Two more sat on his feet, one on each leg, and Lee waggled his eyebrows at Neji challengingly. "Eight!" He boomed happily.
Neji shot Tenten a look of his own, but she only smiled cheerily in response. Neji knelt in front of the little girl and allowed her to climb up on his back. When she was situated, she reached up a chubby hand and patted him on the head. "Good pony," she said condescendingly.
"I am not a horse," Neji grunted.
"Coulda fooled me!" Kiba called.
"Course not," the little girl replied in a talking-to-idiots-tone of voice. "You're a pony. Now, let's go…that way!"
Shino was forced to finish his sandwich with only one hand, since Tenten had collapsed against his other arm, laughing so hard he wondered if she could still breathe.
Several minutes later, Rock Lee waded back towards them with no less than eleven children clinging to him, and a thoroughly disgruntled Neji appeared behind him a moment later, the little girl still firmly on his back. "Ah hah!" Lee shouted, a little breathlessly. "I have beaten you this time, my eternal rival!"
"Only because she doesn't seem to know where she wants to go," Neji replied in exasperation. "I must have taken her to a dozen different families, and not one of them knew her."
"Of course not," Tenten told him matter of factly. "Mina lives next door to me, so I know her family. Her mom's on a mission right now, and her dad works day shift at the Hokage's office. She's probably here with her class from school."
Neji stared at her as the little girl giggled. "Then why have I been carrying her around this entire field?"
"Because you're a pony," the child said again, with great emphasis. "I gotta keep telling you!"
Neji set the child down next to Tenten, and walked back to his seat. Tenten looked at Shino and rolled her eyes a little. "Here, kiddo," Tenten handed the little girl a bento from one of Lee's baskets. "Eat up. But not that!" She snagged one of the medicinal blue dumplings from the girl's hands quickly. "That might cause some damage."
"Nonsense!" Lee boomed from a few feet away, finally kid-free again. "It is extremely healthy and wholesome! It will make her grow into a fine, strong shinobi."
"Or possibly destroy every tastebud she has," Tenten replied, shaking her head.
"Tenten, are you…" Lee lowered his ponderous eyebrows at her, "critiquing my food?"
The little girl gasped, putting her hands over her mouth and looking at Tenten with wide eyes. The kunoichi glanced at the child, then at her fellow shinobi. She met Shino's eyes, and then a positively wicked grin uncurled on her face.
"Here it comes," Neji muttered from his spot in the shade.
"Why, yes, Lee, I do believe I am," Tenten responded.
Lee gasped himself, clapping his hands to his cheeks in shock. "And are you then saying that my food is…unacceptable?"
"Why yes, Lee, I do believe I am."
Lee jumped to his feet, one hand behind his back and the other outstretched in challenge. "You do not dare!" He said, looking supremely offended. "You do not dare to demean the skills of the Beautiful Green Chef of Konoha!"
Tenten also rose to her feet, putting her hands on her hips and pursing her lips at him. "Oh, but I do dare, you so-called chef. I do dare indeed."
Neji sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Unacceptable!" Lee shouted gleefully. "Now we must fight!"
The little girl gasped again behind her hands, but she also giggled, and Shino could see that she was enjoying the spectacle enormously. Several of the other children (and nearby adults, though they hid it better) were also turning to watch. "Ha!" Tenten laughed derisively. "Your poor culinary skills are no match for me! For I am the Taste-Test Master!"
"Oho! I see that you are strong, my young friend," Lee stroked his chin wickedly, face pulled into a ridiculous parody of conniving. "But are you strong enough, I wonder?"
Tenten dropped into a flamboyant fighting pose, balancing on one leg with her hands outstretched in tiger claws. "Oh, I think you will find me a worthy opponent, evil baker of stale bread!" She smirked and raised an eyebrow, mimicking Lee's exaggerated acting. "Fight me, if you dare!"
"You can do it, Tenten!" The little girl cheered, and several of the other kids started shouting, too, gleefully urging on the silly performance.
"Very well!" Lee threw back his head and laughed wickedly, in a passable imitation of a B-movie villain. "Let us see how you do against…" he abruptly brought his hand out from behind his back, revealing a large rubber slingshot. "The Dango Of DOOM!" The dozen kids now gathered around yelled, and a few feet away, Naruto stood up from where he sat with Hinata and Sakura and raised a fist at the green-clad shinobi.
"Foul! That's totally evil, man!" He yelled, shaking his clenched fist at them and jumping up and down. "Dango is way below the belt! I call foul! Boo! Boo!"
"Shut up, you idiot," Sakura socked him in the thigh, knocking his leg out from under him and sending him crashing to his butt in the dirt. "Stop kicking grass into my lunch!"
"Oof!" Naruto grunted as his butt connected with the hard ground. "Aw, but Sakura, Fuzzy-brows is totally the bad guy," he whined, looking up at her from the dirt. "We're supposed to boo him."
Lee flashed Naruto a sparkling smile, then immediately dropped back into character. With his free hand, he loaded a gooey ball of dango into the slingshot and flourished it menacingly at Tenten. "Let's see you dodge this, impudent upstart!"
"Oh no!" the little girl gasped, but the rest of them jeered. "Aw, that ain't nothing!" "Get 'im, Tenten!"
"Make him eat that dango, girl!" Kiba yelled, and Akamaru barked in agreement.
"Ha!" Tenten called. "I do not fear your fatty snack food, you scoundrel! Do your worst!"
With a yodel of evil, Lee released four balls of dango in rapid fire at Tenten. With an answering theatrical cry, she smashed them away, sending one arcing up into the air, two sailing into the shrieking crowd of thrilled kids, and the fourth shooting right back at Lee, who ducked at the last moment to avoid a dango to the eye.
"Ah, you are indeed a most excellent warrior," Lee announced, pulling such an amazingly comical expression of craftiness that Tenten's face turned pink with her effort not to laugh. "But are you truly prepared to face…" he put his hand behind his back again, and then pulled out a giant pink and green slingshot twice as big as the former. In his other hand were three large, pink cakes covered in powdered sugar. "The Mochi of Mortality!" Lee boomed, brandishing the fluffy pink treats at the crowd.
The kids erupted in laughter, as did most of the older, more reserved shinobi watching from nearby. Kiba and Akamaru were rolling on the ground, clutching their sides, and Shino saw Sakura snickering into her gloved hands. Tenten's face was almost red now as she held her breath to stop the laughter.
She pretended to gulp in fear, looking at the surrounding kids. "The Mochi of Mortality!" she repeated, as if horrified by the very thought.
"Don't worry, Tenten!" The little girl yelled, bouncing up and down and waving her arms frantically. "You're way stronger than him!"
"Yeah, Tenten!" Naruto shouted from behind Hinata. "Knock him on his ass!"
"Naruto! Watch your mouth!" Sakura yelled, shaking her fist at him. The blond yelped and ducked down behind Hinata, who giggled.
Across the crowd, Shino saw Tenten wink at him briefly, and then she smiled at the little girl, pretending to rally her spirits. "Did you hear that, oh loathsome maker of mochi?" she yelled to Lee. "I do not fear your wicked pastries, nor any other creation from your kitchen of Evil, oh unwholesome chef of vileness!"
Lee yodeled again, shoving all three mochi into the slingshot bed and, moving in deliberate slow motion, he shot them at Tenten. Tenten slammed a fist forward, knocking all three mochi back at Lee. This time the Beautiful Green Beast of Konoha simply looked aghast, melodramatically flailing his arms to block the missiles. "Noooooo!" he cried as they poofed into his face in three little puffs of powdered sugar. Still moving in slow motion, Lee fell back onto the grass, twitched once, and then lay still with a foolish, "dead" look on his face.
The kids cheered, and Naruto did a little victory dance. Tenten bowed to her audience, laughing. "Are meals always like this with your team?" Naruto asked Neji out of the side of his mouth.
"No," Neji said calmly, and then, without twitching a muscle, he added, "Yesterday we had noodles," and took a bite of his sandwich.
"Bored?" Tenten asked, and Shino glanced up at her.
"Have a good nap?" he asked, as the kunoichi stretched and sat up from where she'd been stretched out on the blanket beside him.
"Mm. It's always nice to sleep in the sunshine. You should try it."
Shino shrugged. "I was not tired. Why is that unsurprising? Because I did not fight the epic battle of the ages this afternoon."
Tenten laughed a little sheepishly. "Yeah, so we were total goofs, I know. But hey, when it's Lee, it's like it's allowed, you know?"
Shino nodded, looking back down at his hands. "So," Tenten said, following his gaze. "You just letting them run amok like that because you're bored or is there some sort of training going on underneath the randomness?"
Shino watched the kikkai scurrying in haphazard patterns across his palms and fingers, and shrugged again. "Control," he said, but before he could continue, a shout from the other side of the tree cut him off.
"Whoa!" Shino turned his head sharply and saw three small, mud-splattered boys, six or seven years old at most, staring at him with wide, adoring eyes. "Look at those bugs!" The littlest (and muddiest) one exclaimed, pointing at Shino's hand excitedly.
"Hey, mister," the second one demanded, coming closer. "Can you control bugs?"
"Yeah, he's weird like that," Kiba answered, stomping back over from where he'd been horsing around with Naruto. He grinned at the rugrats with all his teeth and plopped heavily down next to Shino. "Check it out, he can make spiders crawl on your hands."
Shino glared at his teammate, but all three boys immediately presented one grubby hand each, looking at Shino expectantly. Kiba barked a laughed and folded his arms triumphantly. Shino turned to Tenten for support, but she merely leaned forward and propped her chin in her hands, grinning at him.
"Hm," Shino grunted, but he molded a small amount of chakra and called. One of them answered immediately, a hairy tarantula dropping down from the branch overhead to land on the littlest one's palm. Two small trap-door spiders crept up along the tree trunk a moment later and then obediently leaped from the bark to the two remaining open hands. All three boys gasped, delighted smiles on their muddy faces, as they watched the trio of arachnids crawling around on their fingers.
"Oh, gross," the littlest one said, sounding absolutely thrilled. "I gotta tell Yuki about this, she'll totally freak."
"Can you control any bug?" one of his buddies asked, looking up at Shino with wide eyes.
Shino nodded.
"That's sweet," the boy told him seriously. "I wish I could. I would totally, like, make a thousand spiders crawl all over my sensei's desk and then we'd all get out of school early and it'd be way cool."
"I'd make a huge, 'normous buncha killer bees chase my stupid brother around the forest," the third boy said darkly. "Teach him not to swipe my game station."
"I'd beat up everybody who was mean to me," the littlest one announced solemnly. "And then put cockroaches on their heads." He thought about it for another moment, face screwed up seriously as he watched the tarantula sitting patiently on his palm. "Big, monster cockroaches," he added. "With super ninja strength, so you couldn't never knock 'em off."
"Well, maybe one day you'll learn your own special techniques," Tenten said, stepping in at last. Gently, she reached out a hand and took the two trap-door spiders from the boys, turning to set them on the tree trunk again. The littlest boy wouldn't let her take his tarantula, though. Instead, he walked over to Shino and held out his hand.
Shino held out his own, and the boy very carefully deposited the spider on the jounin's palm. He looked up at Shino with big, brown eyes and set his small chin. He was short for his age, Shino saw, and thin. Underneath all the mud, his clothes were standard issue from the Konoha orphanage. He stood a little apart from the other two, and Shino knew instinctively that life had driven this child to become something of a loner at a very young age. Shino looked at the almost ridiculously small, smooth hand next to his much larger, rougher one and thought, but what will it drive you to become next?
The little boy looked at the tarantula in Shino's palm for a long moment, frowning in concentration, as if he were trying to memorize exactly what it looked like. And then, with great ceremony, he told Shino, "I like the hairy ones best."
Behind him, Tenten clapped her hands over her mouth as tears streamed down her cheeks, and Kiba burst into raucous laughter. Shino ignored them both. "Yes," he agreed. "They are my favorites too."
"I don't know what was funnier," Tenten hiccupped, swiping at her eyes. "Your little fan club or Neji's pony ride."
"Fan club," Shino repeated incredulously. "I would hardly call them that."
"That's exactly what they were," she said. "And that was just the newly-formed junior division. Sooner or later you're gonna have to deal with the original Aburame Shino Fan Club."
"I do not," Shino frowned at her, "have a fan club."
"Oh come on," she raised her eyebrows at him pointedly. "Do not tell me you didn't see them." She jabbed a thumb to the side, towards a group of teenaged girls clustered by a storefront. One of them saw Shino's face turned in their direction and nudged her closest friend, whispering something excitedly. As one, all six or seven girls looked around at him, then collectively burst into peals of high-pitched giggles. "See?" Tenten smirked at him. "They've been doing that all afternoon, too. No way you didn't notice."
"I see no conclusive proof that their behavior has anything to do with me," Shino insisted stubbornly.
Tenten rolled her eyes and held up a hand, palm out. "Gimme a kikkai," she demanded. Shino raised an eyebrow at her, but she pushed her hand closer and glared at him. With a mental shrug, he sent a single kikkai out to her hand. With a casual stretch, Tenten deposited the bug on her collar, just behind her neck. With a pointed look at Shino, she turned and strolled casually towards the teenagers.
"Excuse me," one of the girls called, and Tenten stopped, smiling politely. "Yes?"
"Um," the tallest of the girls giggled again, then jerked her head slightly towards Shino. "Is that Aburame Shino?"
Tenten pretended to look around and see him, as if for the first time. "Oh, him? Yeah, that's Shino."
As if this were the punchline of a great joke, all the girls burst into giggles again. Tenten glanced with her peripheral vision at Shino, and saw his eyebrows drawn down into a frown. He was probably wondering what the hell this proved, other than that these girls might be mildly deranged. Tenten's grin grew a little wider. "Do you know him?" she asked the girls innocently.
Another round of giggles, and then a shorter, stockier girl said, "No, but he's a total hottie, isn't he?"
"Hmm," Tenten tried not to laugh, just tilted her head and made her voice calm and assessing. "You think so?"
"Oh, yeah," another girl chimed in. "Is he looking for a girlfriend?"
"A girlfriend?" Tenten tapped her chin thoughtfully. "You mean his One True Love, right?"
More giggles, and this time when she turned her head she might have seen a faint blush spread across the exposed part of Shino's face. "Really?" one of the girl's breathed, and the others clustered around her, eyes wide. Tenten could practically see the little hearts and flowers blossoming in their minds. On her collar, she could also sense the kikkai she'd brought along skittering suddenly across the back of her shirt as if someone had lit its little buggy ass on fire. Oh, Shino was definitely listening in on this conversation, and he was sending her a warning.
Always one to up the ante, Tenten clasped her hands to her chest and said, in a slightly breathy tone, "Oh yes, he's one of the most romantic guys in the village, really. He wants to find that special girl, who will light up his sad, lonely life and bring – "
The kikkai scooted down the collar of her shirt and dropped onto the back of her neck. Tenten froze, fighting to control the urge to reach back and slap at her neck. " – bring light…into…his dark, mysterious life…" she continued, struggling to keep the sappy tone and expression as the bug suddenly scuttled down along her spine to the sensitive skin between her shoulder blades. "And one day," she gritted through her teeth as the kikkai started tracing little ticklish circles around her back, dancing on tiny insect legs back up to her neck. "One day he'll find…his dream princess…and she'll be his beautiful…" The kikkai, hidden from sight by her high collar, began to scuttle around her neck and up to the base of her throat. "Butterfly," Tenten managed to gasp, sweating a little as she fought the overpowering urge to scrub at her neck with both hands.
"Oh, wow," one of the teenagers sighed, and the others made various little murmurs and squeals of agreement.
"What's his favorite color?" One of them asked eagerly.
Tenten clenched her hands tightly. "Chartreuse," she said. The kikkai on her throat made a series of small, tight loops down along her collarbone, and that was the last straw. "Well, gotta go," she all but shouted at the girls. "Good luck, ladies! Go get 'im!" And then she practically ran around the corner, reaching desperately for her shirt collar.
It took three tries because the little bastard was quick, but she finally managed to scoop the kikkai away from her skin. She held it in the palm of her hand and shook it at the shadows in the alley. "That," she said sternly, "was a very low trick."
Shino materialized from the dark and stepped forward, a particularly smug look on his face. "I do not know what you mean," he said, as the kikkai drifted lazily from her hand to his coat.
She huffed at him, then smiled slyly. "So, see what I mean?"
Shino slumped a little further into the shadows of his hood. "No."
"Liar," Tenten shot out a hand before he could block and tugged the hood back off his head. He frowned at her, but she stuck a finger in his face and wiggled it admonishingly. "No way, Aburame. You heard them. You've got yourself some admirers. You watch, they'll be everywhere now, whispering and giggling and plotting," she stepped closer and tugged his collar down. "And thinking all sorts of terribly indecent things about you. Trust me, I've got lots of experience with Neji's fan club over the years. I know exactly what they're thinking. And it's bad, Shino. Oh, it's bad."
"Hm," he grunted. "Wonderful."
"Oh, don't be such a grump," she laughed, brushing the hand not entwined in his collar up the back of his neck and burying her fingers in his hair. He didn't so much as twitch, but that was the best clue that he was paying very close attention to what she was doing. It was the paradox of Shino, that he always kept the tightest control on himself whenever she was doing something that distracted him most. "It's not that bad."
"You were certainly no help," he told her shortly, as she dragged her fingertips back down his neck and drew a series of tight loops with her fingertip down his collarbone. He raised an eyebrow at her to let her know that he knew exactly what she was doing, but she simply smiled and leaned up to kiss his throat.
"I didn't know I was supposed to be helping," she murmured against his skin. "but do tell," she went on, as he finally caved and slid his own hands up her back to pull her in. "How was I failing to help?"
"When they asked you that question," he said. "You lied quite shamelessly."
"Well, I had to, Shino" she smirked, and slid her free hand down the length of his spine. "I don't know your favorite color."
He tilted his head and looked at her over the top of his shades. She withstood it for a full five seconds, and then sighed in a put-upon way. "Okay, okay, so I made up that romantic crap about the whole searching for your One True Love thing. But that's what they believe anyway, so what else could I have said?"
Shino slipped his hands under the hem of her shirt and ghosted his fingers along her midriff. "I am not," he said calmly, "searching for any such thing."
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Tenten giggled. "It was all a bunch of bullshit designed entirely to tease and possibly embarrass you." She pulled his head down and kissed him.
"But you have to admit," she said after a few moments. "It was pretty damn funny."
"Very amusing."
"So, all in all, worth it?"
"Yes," Shino smiled at her, enjoying the way her face lit up in response. "Worth it."