thanks for the lovely reviews, people.
[6 out of 15]
Tenten liked living in the dorms. Being a year older than her roommates meant that they went to her for advice and thought she was more mature than they were. (Tenten knew how mature she really was, but was fine with letting people think what they wanted for as long as she could fool them.) It also meant she could put off deciding whether or not she really wanted to live in an apartment with Lee and Neji. (Did she really want to deal with Lee's boundless energy every day? And Neji's constant need to have everything clean? And what if they made her cook?)
But the one downside to dorm life was one hated, but necessary, chore: doing laundry.
One Saturday morning, Tenten found herself lugging two laundry baskets down the stairs to the laundry room, followed by Hinata with another hamper of clothing. Ino had won jan-ken-pon and was kicking back in their room, straightening her hair and smugly watching American soap operas.
"This is so unfair," grumbled Tenten, balancing the baskets against her hip as she pushed the door open to the laundry room. "Ino's a neuroscience major. She can see into our minds and cheat!"
Hinata followed her in, putting detergent on top of the washer and setting down the hamper. "It's all right. A servant always did my laundry for me at the Hyuuga mansion, so I feel like it's about time I did some work on my own."
Tenten started to throw clothes willy-nilly into the washing machine. "You should tell that to your cousin." When Hinata gave her a questioning look, she explained, "Sometimes he pays me fifteen hundred yen to do his laundry for him."
The two girls stayed in the laundry room for the next hour or so, chatting and waiting for the first batch of laundry to finish (Ino's clothes merited a whole second load of their own). Hinata had to take a call just as the dryer finished up, so she went into the hall while Tenten began to remove the clean clothes from the machine, putting each in their respective basket.
Poofy lavender jacket: Hinata's. White sports bra: hers. Modest grey V-neck: Hinata's. Maroon boy shorts: hers. Blue sundress: Hinata's. Black leggings: hers. Boxers: some guy's. Wait, what?
She stared down at the utterly confusing article of clothing, decorated all over with little red and white fans.
What were Uchiha Sasuke's boxers doing in their laundry?
Ding. A lightbulb went off in Tenten's head. Oh jeez, Sasuke and Hinata were dating, and they'd already gotten farther than Naruto had with Sakura in three months!
"Tenten, Kiba just told me they're giving away tickets to – oh!"
Hinata dropped her phone, hand flying to her mouth in shock as she looked down at Tenten, crouched on the floor and clutching the pair of Sasuke's boxers.
There was a long silence as both girls stared at one other.
"Hinata," said Tenten.
"Yes," Hinata whispered, mortified.
"I demand to know how you pulled this off." The brunette paused. "Literally and figuratively."
"Tenten!"
Tenten threw the boxers at her flustered face. "You little minx, you!"
[7 out of 15]
Sai sometimes surprised himself with how content he was in university. He hadn't expected much out of it in the first place, but it was turning into more fun than he could express (in a literal sense).
He had to admit that his roommates were a large part of why he liked college. Naruto told bad jokes, never cleaned up after himself, and had an irrepressible smile. Sasuke always had the perfect rebuttal to Naruto's idiocy, did the vacuuming, and was quite dependable. They complemented each other perfectly and kept things interesting with their constant bickering.
What was even better was when Naruto got a girlfriend. Since Sai lived with him, he got to observe as the blonde went through all stages of romance, from joy to sulking to utterly confused to happily dazed. It didn't hurt that Naruto tended to wear his heart on his sleeve, either.
But Sasuke was really quite different. He typically was just neutral, his most expressed emotion being disdain. He never checked out girls, which had led Sai to ask him whether he swung a certain way or not. This had earned him nothing more than an incredulous stare and Sai was forced to re-assess whether using Naruto as the model of a typical boy was the best idea.
All in all, Sasuke was one of the hardest people to read Sai had ever met, so something he did one day surprised the artist.
"Hey, the hell is this?" Kiba peered at the portrait up on the hallway bulletin board, nose inches away from the paper. "He drew my hair weird. And my eyebrows are all wrong."
Shino looked at the picture. "…Kiba, that's a portrait of Akamaru."
"…Oh."
A little farther down the hall, Ino was examining Sakura's portrait, hand on her chin. "Wow, Sai really did a great job with this," she commented.
"Really?" the pink-haired girl put her head on Ino's shoulder to look. "Thanks!"
"He got your enormous forehead perfectly to scale and everything. – Ouch, don't pinch me – "
Later in the day, Sai and Sasuke returned from class and emerged from the elevator into the hallway. Sasuke immediately noticed the thirteen portraits pinned to the board, each an ink drawing of one of the floor inhabitants with their special Sai nicknames under them. ("Ugly," "Fatso," "Dickless," "Stoner," "Stick-up-Ass," to name a few.)
"Informal art gallery, Sai?" he asked, amused.
"Of sorts," the pale young man responded. "What do you think?"
Sasuke examined the portrait of Naruto thumbing his nose at the viewer, with a detached eye. "Pretty accurate."
"You can take yours, if you like."
Sasuke eyed his portrait, which was drawn in three-quarter view and labeled "Emo." He looked uninterested.
"Or someone else's," Sai added. He indicated a blank space between Lee and Ino. "Neji took Tenten's."
Sasuke ran his eyes down the lineup, arms crossed. Then, inexplicably, he plucked one off the wall and stuck it inside his notebook swiftly.
"Thanks," he muttered.
Sai stared in fascination. The Uchiha seemed – embarrassed! A quick glance over of the remaining portraits and which one was missing told him all he needed to know.
Ding.
The pretty Hyuuga girl's portrait had taken him longer than the others, but this was an unexpected prize for his hard work.
"So you're straight after all," he said teasingly.
Sasuke glared at him, but Sai couldn't stop smiling.
[8 out of 15]
Kiba liked to think of himself as instinctual rather than knowledgeable. Shino was inclined to agree, except perhaps he would replace "instinctual" with a less flattering adjective.
He wasn't too good with girls (except when it came to making out with them), so whenever he tried to figure out Hinata, he was pretty much lost. He more or less left that up to Shino to do.
Still, he had a damn good nose. And that was how he found out, in the end.
"Ino, let me copy your homework."
"No. Go to hell."
Kiba recoiled like she had stung him. "Oof, you're so harsh! Come onnnn, just this once."
Ino shook her head, typing away at her purple laptop. "You need to do some of your own work for once. I'm sick of you asking all the time."
Kiba gave up on the blonde and turned to Chōji, who was sitting next to him and highlighting a textbook. "Hey, Chōji man, lemme have a look at your math homework."
Ino shot Chōji a dangerous look over Kiba's head. Chōji winced. "Sorry, Kiba."
Sasuke and Sai walked into the lounge. Ino looked at them, raising her eyebrows. "This is unusual. What are you two doing here?"
"We've been sexiled," Sai explained, sitting down on the couch and flipping open his sketchbook.
Everyone took a moment to gag immaturely at the images of Sakura and Naruto in carnal embrace.
Sasuke walked past Ino, Kiba, and Chōji, towards the couch on the other side of the lounge. Kiba sniffed the air.
What was that? Why did the Uchiha smell…feminine? And familiar?
For the next two hours, Kiba deliberated over the scent. It had been faint, something like vanilla and - amber? It wasn't Ino – she wore floral scents exclusively. Tenten favored oriental scents, and Sakura always smelled like fresh fruits or disinfectant, depending on whether she'd just been at the hospital or not.
It hit Kiba eventually, when everyone had left the lounge except for Ino, who was still typing up her lab report.
Sasuke smelled like…Hinata.
It had been her perfume that Kiba had smelled on him.
Ding. A lightbulb violently went off in Kiba's head.
"Bitch!" he said aloud, to no one in particular.
"Excuse me!" said Ino, offended.
Kiba slapped his forehead and went off to gossip with Shino about it.
[9 out of 15]
Sakura never, in a million, billion years would have imagined she would be dating Uzumaki Naruto. Through preschool, elementary school, middle school, high school, he had chased after her and she had chased after Sasuke. But, inexplicably, they had all registered to the same college, and Naruto had somehow won her over. Or maybe she had just figured out that Sasuke would never be interested in her and it was time to stop being delusional.
It was, to be honest, surreal to think about. But more surreal revelations were on their way, apparently.
Sakura bounced on her heels as she made her way down to Naruto's room, humming. Hinata was also walking down from the other side of the hall, smiling and waving at the pink-haired girl.
Sakura came to a stop in front of Naruto's door and raised her hand to knock. Then she looked to the right and saw Hinata, poised to do exactly the same thing.
They stared at each other for a moment.
Ding. A lightbulb went off in Sakura's head.
Somewhere along the line, she and Hinata had switched places. And Hinata had done what she never could: win over Sasuke.
As she was absorbing all this, the door swung open and Naruto poked his head out.
"Heyyyy, Sakura babe," he said suggestively, before noticing Hinata. "Oh, hi Hinata! You here to see me, your future prime minister?"
Hinata flushed but at least maintained eye contact, which was quite the feat considering that a few months ago she couldn't even be within five feet of him. "Umm…no, Naruto."
"Sai, then?" Naruto continued obliviously, scratching his head.
"…No…"
Naruto cocked his head at her, puzzled. "Then…why are you here?"
Hinata opened her mouth, closed it, and fled down the hall back to her room stammering apologies. Sakura rolled her eyes and bopped Naruto on the head.
"Ow! What was that for?"
Sakura pushed him aside and walked in. "Naruto, you are so dense!"
[10 out of 15]
Chōji knew he could never be smart as his best friend, Shikamaru. Shikamaru outdid him in every area – chemistry, math, writing, history, government, physics, biology, philosophy, the list went on. Every area…except one.
"Hike!" Naruto yelled, throwing the football.
It bounced off Shikamaru's head, who had been dozing standing up.
"Oi!" Naruto jogged over to him, scooping up the ball from the ground. "Come on, Shikamaru! You said you would help me beat Sasuke bastard."
Shikamaru rubbed the side of his head where the ball had hit him, squinting. "Eh…I told you I'd help you win by strategizing. That didn't mean I would actually play. It's too much effort."
Lee came bounding over. "What is the delay, my friends? Would you like to call a timeout and engage in a comradely huddle?"
"No, no," Naruto said hastily. "Hey, Chōji, come over here and replace Shikamaru."
"Sure." The larger young man came over and slapped Shikamaru good-naturedly on the back. Shikamaru coughed from the force of the slap and sauntered off the field to sit on the sidelines.
"Hut, hut hike!" hollered Naruto, tossing the football widely.
On the other side of the field, Neji leaned over to Sasuke.
"Naruto has no idea how to play this game, does he."
Sasuke shook his head. "Nope."
After a few downs, Sasuke put up a hand, announcing he was taking a break. The boys continued to play without him, though Chōji found himself a little distracted as he couldn't help but watch Sasuke make his way over to the bleachers and take a seat next to Hinata, who was watching the game.
The pretty dark-haired girl handed him a towel, which he took and used to wipe his neck. He said something. Hinata smiled and shifted closer to him.
Chōji dodged Shino and caught the football automatically, running for the touchdown line but still looking to the right, at the two on the bleachers.
Sasuke dropped a kiss on Hinata's head.
Ding. A lightbulb went off in Chōji's head. Then he got tackled by Lee.
"Oof!"
Realized I kind of like writing Sai.
I apologize to any Kiba lovers out there. I sorta made him an idiot.
Also realized I don't know a thing about American football when I was writing this.
As for the boxers thing…it's college. Sexy things happen. Trust me.