VVVVVV
Temari stalked into the Sand bunkhouse, took one whiff and exclaimed, "Yoko must have had border duty before me. I hate his cologne." She then tossed her pack onto the bed, whipped out a can of air freshener and began to spray it generously upon everything that stood still long enough in her immediate vicinity.
Today was, Temari reflected angrily, not her day.
She had successfully avoided border duty for months by way of various nefarious means (up to and including lewd acts with squadron leaders). But some insufferable do-gooder somewhere in the Suna administration had pointed out to the Kazekage that not having his sister do border duty looked something like favouritism and that was really unacceptable to everyone, including the insufferable do-gooder (whose border duty was, incidentally, supposed to start on this particular day). Needless to say, when Temari found out who the do-gooder was she was going to be laying some iron fan smackdown on his do-gooding ass.
So. Here Temari was, spitting nails because she had missed what would have been a fun mission to Mist which everyone knew was going to degenerate into a week-long bar-hopping spree because the ninja land's new motto was "make love, not kunai-embedded corpses". And how was it fair that she had to do freaking border duty when Mist was opening a new club specializing in blue-skinned male dancers in buttless chaps? Whatever!
Temari proceeded to take stock of her entertainment inventory for the next three weeks – three weeks which seemed unbearably long, considering that only twelve seconds had elapsed and four paragraphs had been produced within that brief time-span – and so she inverted her bag onto the bed and shook it vigorously.
In theory, one was not supposed to bring distractions while on border duty, because border duty entailed actual patrolling and surveying the area and things, you know – but in practice, most ninja brought along something other than spare undies.
Out of Temari's pack tumbled some bland foodstuffs, a few paperbacks, the newest edition of Killer Kunoichi ("The Only Magazine for the Serious Female Ninja"), and some other girly magazines that she would never admit to reading, much less owning, much less subscribing to.
Out tumbled also her fan maintenance supplies which consisted of one (1) jar of polish, one (1) steel wool scrubber, anti-rust spray, various protective coatings in their squishy tubes, a screwdriver with 15 different heads, a crowbar, nuts and bolts, a sharpener for maintaining that razor edge and a trio of polishing rags she called Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. All yours for the low low price of 19.95 plus shipping and handling!
Temari scooped up all of the items not strictly related to ninja-ing and dumped them under a loose floorboard which had seen far worse than cheap paperbacks and girly mags. This floorboard had seen a two-page spread of Tsunade in the June 1977 edition of Playboy for chrissakes. So anyway, under the floorboard went the non-essentials and on the shelves went the bland foodstuffs and the fan maintenance paraphernalia.
Temari presently snatched her fan and wandered back outside to at least pretend to be watching the road for a while – fifteen minutes would do. Well okay, ten. Maybe five.
Once outside, Temari hitched up her skirt and scrambled onto a conveniently-placed boulder from where she had a fine view of the road as it curved its way into the dense Konoha forest, and an equally fine view of the far more spectacular – in her opinion – Suna side of endless desert and the hard line of the horizon pressing against a perpetually blue sky.
Temari also had a fine view of the Leaf bunkhouse on the other side of the road but it couldn't possibly hold her any interest for her: she had other more important concerns to address, such as staring into the distance and thinking about buttless chaps.
Buttless chaps could only occupy her for so long, however, and once Temari had determined to buy enough buttless chaps for her all-male Suna squadron and reflected on the difficulty of saying "buttless chaps" ten times quickly under her breath and decided that The Buttless Chaps made a very witty name for a rock band assuming they were British so they wouldn't sound stupid saying 'right-o, chaps,' which would totally be their catchphrase, her attention drifted back to the Leaf bunkhouse whose door happened to be opening at precisely that instant.
Out stepped some Leaf chick in a white outfit with a dark skirt thing around her waist and long black hair. Temari spared her a quick look then tossed her head and reflected that the chick had nothing on her fab style – white kimono pyjamas or fishnet? You be the judge – plus the chick was like, totally flat-chested.
Temari gave the girl a patronizing smile from her boulder and turned to concentrate on the road in a way that said, "this desolate, dusty, empty stretch of road is infinitely more interesting to stare at than you are".
To Temari's dismay, the girl did not wander over to dispute this but sat on a large log as equally conveniently placed as Temari's boulder and turned to look down the Suna side of the road in a way that said "I am too cool and collected to react to your petty provocations."
This infuriated Temari, but she nevertheless – very good-naturedly, she thought – resisted the urge to inform the Leaf chick that she walked like a man.
After an hour of silence during which absolutely nothing happened, Temari was desperate to fetch some reading material but she did not want to be the first to break down and leave her post – that had now become a matter of personal honour because chicky on the other side was being all holier-than-thou and actually doing her job for some reason. "Typical Leaf nerd!" thought Temari.
To occupy herself, Temari began to open and close her fan to make sure its hinges were in good working order.
This exercise had the added benefit of making a highly irritating repetitive sound, which could never be a bad thing when some goody-goody Leaf was sitting across the road, staring at it like it was incredibly fascinating when everyone knew she was actually bored out of her mind and just trying to look hardcore.
Temari accordingly snapped her fan open and closed.
Click – snap.
Click – snap.
Click – snap.
The sound resonated delightfully in the still air.
Click – snap.
Click – squeak – snap.
"Oho," thought Temari. Some maintenance was required here.
Click – squeak – snap.
Yes, definitely a squeak. Third hinge down?
Click – squeak – snap.
Nope, not third hinge. Second?
Click – squeak – snap.
No! It was not the second hinge at all but one of the bolts!
Click – squeak – snap.
One of the bolts! Horrors!
Click – squeak – snap.
Click – squeak – snap.
Yep, one of the bolts.
Click – squeak –
"Excuse me."
Temari stopped her mechanical movements and looked around for the man who had spoken.
"I'm here."
Temari followed the sound of the voice and found, to her horror, that it was emerging from the vocal chords of the long-haired skirt-wearing Leaf girl across the road.
"Oh my god!" thought Temari, "a transvestite ninja! And it's coming this way!"
Temari bravely held her ground and closed her fan with a final snap while The Man-thing stepped towards her.
"I would really appreciate it," it said, "if you would stop making that noise." Then it turned and walked back towards its log.
"Oh," said Temari. "I didn't realize it was disturbing you."
"I also did not realize that you are a man," she added when The Man-thing said nothing.
The Man-thing turned and looked at Temari and Temari realized to her even greater horror that it had no pupils.
"I also did not realize that you are blind," Temari said kindly after it stared at her for some time. "I forgive you for ignoring me."
"I am not blind," it said, and hanging at the end of that statement was an unspoken addition: "you imbecilic nincompoop."
Temari was stung by this unspoken and uncalled for remark. "Whatever. So what do they call you, besides The Man-thing?" she asked in the most cordial tones she could muster.
"…Neji." It said in a very cool and collected way before returning to its log in a cool and collected fashion.
Temari watched it – well, ok, him – sit back down. "I'm Temari, since you asked."
Since she had ascertained that this was indeed a specimen of the male gender, Temari gave this Neji guy a Once Over, one intense look from the polished Leaf headband to the sandaled feet during which she quickly calculated his shoulder-width to hip ratio, gauged his Manliness, and estimated his endurance level, his muscle mass, his BMI and his aptitude at poker.
Temari narrowed her eyes and made the Once Over a Twice Over by scanning him back up from the sandaled feet to the headband. There was something familiar about the guy, too, but she couldn't quite place him. In any case, she found this Neji fellow to be quite satisfactory in all categories except for Manliness; he was quite masculine in build now that she looked at him properly but there was something vaguely androgynous about his fine features and that too-silky hair.
"Well," Temari said to herself, "I'll pass him with an A minus since his voice is a pleasing baritone."
Unbeknownst to her, Temari was herself the object of a Once Over far more penetrating than that she had subjected Neji to because the Once Over Neji was giving her told him exactly what she had had for breakfast (that is, an egg salad sandwich and two double-stuff oreos) as well as her hip-to-waist ratio, the shape of her legs, her bone density, her risk of anaemia, her cup size, the health of her chakra system and the fact that she had had her appendix removed three years ago. Happily, Temari passed in all categories, though Neji found her to be too bold-faced in front of himself, the heir apparent of an extravagantly rich clan with a killer bloodline and fabulous good looks. Also, what was up with the hair?
When Neji made no response to what was, by Temari's standards, a very polite introductory conversation, Temari labelled him a hardass. No matter, she told herself. She knew how to deal with the hardass type: her little brother Gaara was, after all, not a hardass but the hardass, bitch, and it's Mr. Hardass to you.
Temari lifted herself off of her boulder – no sense in keeping up the personal honour fight now that the ice had been broken so skilfully by her smooth rhetoric and gentle manners – and made her way to her bunkhouse to find the latest issue of Killer Kunoichi.
Temari re-emerged a few moments later clutching Killer Kunoichi and sat reading with her back to the Neji twit, absorbed by the article entitled "Femme Fatale: Inaccessible Ideal Or Overused Stereotype?".
She was then engrossed by a personality quiz, "What Your Weapon of Choice Says About You" and found that her oversized metallic fan indicated that she was, quote, "an overbearing bitch of a kunoichi and frankly we're surprised nobody has killed you yet."
Temari shook with rage momentarily then took the test again and cheated so that her result was a far more pleasing "your weapon indicates that you are a shining example of womanly grace and feminine wiles." Granted, the weapon was "empty tampon box" but that was okay, feminine wiles, yeah! Sexy!
Temari paused to consider how exactly one would go about using an empty tampon box as a weapon and was just indulging in a delightful fantasy wherein she vigorously shoved tampon boxes into every available orifice of do-gooder Sand administrators when a sudden gust of wind lifted her magazine clean off of her knees and blew it until it flapped half-heartedly across the road into Leaf territory.
Temari gasped as she watched her meagre source of entertainment defect to enemy lines. Maybe it was mad at her for cheating on the quiz. In any case the fact remained that her magazine was now waving its glossy pages weakly in the Konoha breeze and not the Suna one.
"That," said Temari out loud, "is unacceptable."
The Neji twit was looking determinedly in the opposite direction and seemed to be pointedly ignoring Temari's dire situation, so Temari took matters into her own hands and walked briskly across the road to retrieve her property and perhaps hang it for treason.
"Don't take another step," came a voice when Temari's heel hovered one inch above Leaf ground. "That's Konoha territory."
"Um," said Temari to Neji's back, "how did you know I was here? Don't tell me you have creepy hyper-ears or something. Anyway, I just want to pick this up."
"I said, don't take another step," came Neji's voice again when Temari made to swing forwards.
"Fine!" Temari spat, "…uptight Leaf pouf with nothing better to do," and she reached over with her fan instead to drag the freakin' magazine towards her. She made a dangerous lean forward – the lean was dangerous not because she was at risk of falling but because anyone who was looking towards her would get a full view of her cleavage, no worries though, the guy was facing the other way – and scooped the magazine towards her with her fan after much vociferating and tearing of formerly glossy pages.
Meanwhile, thanks to his Byakugan, Neji got an eyeful and it made him rather hot and bothered.
When Temari finally had her prized magazine in her hands she found she had managed to severely damage most of the articles she hadn't yet read, which was absolutely unforgivable and someone was going to pay. Temari tried to salvage what she could but the one article she had really been anticipating, "The Long and Short of it: Kunai vs. Katana (in his pants)" was nigh-illegible.
Unbearably frustrated, Temari stalked across the road and returned to her boulder with vengeance on the brain.
After stewing in her anger for a few moments, Temari turned to look casually at the Neji to determine whether any of his personal effects would be at risk of blowing onto her side, at which point she would be sure to accidentally trample over them and smack them repeatedly with her fan, but he had nothing with him on his ugly log, the rule-abiding schnook.
Temari turned her back to Neji with a huff and started to do what she was supposed to have been doing since her arrival, that is to watch the road with a fierce concentration, which she did for approximately five seconds before she drifted into considerable concentration and then to reasonable concentration and then to limited concentration where she reached a plateau and remained, transfixed, for the next eight hours.
And there we will leave her for today.
