Okay, so sorry about taking so long with this chapter!
To be perfectly honest, I had this written up weeks ago, but due to serious issues with mine and my Beta's email (like, mine just imploded one day, t'was awesome), posting this chapter has gotten delayed. And while I'm being honest, I will confess that this chapter is completely unedited as my Beta is busy. However, sometime in the future, I may replace this chapter with a properly grammar-ized one.
Sorry again for the wait!
Chapter three should be up sometime tomorrow or the next day. Depends on my study plans.
Disclaimer: I don't own 'Naruto' or any 'Naruto' characters. I ain't that cool.
"Sakuraaaa," Tenten whined, kicking my bed. "Get up!"
I flapped a hand in her general direction.
"G'way" I slurred, tucking myself deeper into the nest of bedsheets I'd created for myself. During the night, I must have kicked the duvet off, but I was still pleasantly warm.
"Fine, I'll just go!" Tenten said, sniffing. A moment later, I heard the door open and muffled voices.
"Saki, Kakashi says he's gonna pour water on you if you don't get up now." Tenten said, padding back into my room.
"Pssh," I muttered, rubbing my nose across my pillow. "Suure."
"No seriously- He has a bucket!" Tenten insisted, clattering around in my room.
Rolling onto my back, I spread my limbs into a starfish. My father would never pour water over me, he was just planning some ridiculous scheme to get me out of bed and he'd enlisted Tenten to help. Confident in my logic, I rolled my shoulders, digging them into the mattress.
Then what felt like an ocean of water hit me in the face. I screeched, thrashing, cut off when I choked on water. The deluge finally stopped and I sat up, pushing soaked hair from my eyes. My father leaned over my, already dressed in his suit, bucket in hand.
He waved at me. "Morning blossom. Sleep well?"
"No!" I exploded. I sat up quickly and swatted at my chuckling father.
Tenten roared with laughter behind my father, clutching my desk for support. I chucked a pillow at my father's retreating back, and one at her. It bounced off her head and she laughed even harder, holding her sides.
"Tenten!"
"Hey! Hey! I warned you!" She spluttered between laughs. She kept chortling, ignoring me as I shook my head angrily, splattering her with water.
Huffing, I snatched my towel off my chair. "You're so mean." I said as I walked from the room. I passed my father who eye was crinkled into a smile. I glared at him.
"Hey, at least you don't have to have a shower now!" Tenten called after me.
I flipped off the general direction of her voice.
"Well, good morning Sakura, how are we this morning?" My father teased from where he was stacking the dishwasher. Tenten snorted into her toast.
I pouted at my father, sliding into the seat next to Tenten and taking the other half of her toast. She smacked my hand.
"Ow-"
"Tha's mine." She said through a mouthful of food. I shrugged, shoving the piece into my mouth.
"Kakashi! Tell your daughter to stop eating my food!" Tenten cried, throwing her hands up dramatically.
"Sakura, stop stealing Tenten's food."
I swallowed, slamming my hand down on the table. "The injustice! I'm hungry and she has like seventy other pieces of toast!" I said dramatically, sniffing.
"Who cares about injustice, I'm hungry too!"
"You can live without one piece of toast."
"Um no. Now gimme!"
I held the toast above my head, leaning away from Tenten's grabbing hands. "Noooo!" I wailed. "It's mine!"
Tenten made a roaring noise. "Give it back!" She whined, slapping at my arms playfully.
The toast was tugged out of my hand and I heard a crunch. Pausing in our usual morning antics, Tenten and I looked up, and found my father eating the toast, a wide eyed look of innocence on his face.
"Dad!"
"Kakashi!"
"Well it was getting cold." He said, shrugging. "Now, we need to speak about last night."
"I thought you said after school…" I said meekly. Tenten slid back into her chair, eyes wide, mouth clamped shut.
"I know, I know, but I did some thinking and I realized that if this boy is the super-star that they claim on T.V. then you might be the victim of some harsh comments today, Sakura. And you too Tenten."
"But I didn't slap anyone!"
"Yes, but you did flip off national T.V."
"I didn't know it was gonna be broadcast…" She said resentfully, folding her arms.
My father looked at me and poked me in the forehead. "So, Sakura, I want you to be very careful who you talk to today, and where you go. Because you were all over T.V. last night, people will be rude to you, and your hair is… well rather recognizable."
I touched the messy pink strands. "Yeah…"
My father narrowed his lone eye. "I'm serious you two, until the hubbub about this dies down, be very careful and stay with each other at all times. I don't want a call saying that either of you two have poked another girl's eye out or something."
"Dad, please, I'm not gonna poke someone's eye out."
"Just be careful, go straight to school, and come straight home. No buying food from the shop today girls."
"But, but, but…" Tenten whined.
With his speech done, my father crinkled his eye at us, ruffled our hair, eliciting angry responses from both Tenten and I, and left the room.
I looked at Tenten who was eating her toast with gusto.
"It won't be that bad will it?" I asked, taking the piece she offered me.
Tenten shrugged. "Depends on how many girls in Konoha have pink hair, and if anyone recognized you last night."
"So probably not that bad."
"Yeah, I bet people won't even care. They'll probably think it was some other girl."
"Cool. Oi, gimme more toast."
"No! You're eating all my food- Hey!"
"So… I'm thinking they recognized you."
"More than somewhat…" I said glumly, staring down at my uniform, which was now stained with every food under the sun. I had coffee, cream and- was that custard?! I made a face, head flopping forward. Something slimy slithered down my face.
Oh that's right… I raked my fingers through my hair experimentally. My fingers came away coated in sticky fluid, a limp noodle clinging to my palm. I had noodles in my hair. Noodles. I scowled, flicking my hand at the sink. The noodle hit the porcelain with a wet 'splat'.
Tenten wrinkled her nose. "Well at least they didn't put stuff down your shirt, right?"
"Yeah… But I smell like a rubbish bin."
"Kinda look like one too."
I pulled a face at her. "Thank you, that's just what I needed."
"No probs." Tenten leaned against the bathroom counter, having barricaded the door with the heavy metal rubbish bin that came standard in our school. "Temari's bringing your sports uniform."
"The senior?"
"Yeah, she texted me, asking how you were. I didn't even know she had my number."
"Weird."
Tenten shrugged, pulling stray noodles off my shoulders. "Come on; let's get this stuff outta your hair." She said, pushing my head under the sink tap and running cold water through my hair. "Or else you'll smell like Ramen for the rest of the day."
Tenten raked gentle fingers through my hair, turning my head this way and that.
There was a knock at the door. I flinched, half rising. Tenten paused. "Who is it?" She called.
"Temari. I have Sakura's uniform." Was the muffled response.
Tenten skipped over to the door, shoving the bin aside with her hip. I stood up, grabbing paper towels from the dispenser and started squeezing my hair dry.
Temari's angular face appeared in the door. She grinned at my dishevelled appearance. "Hey guys. I got you a spare uniform, Sakura."
I smiled at her. "Thanks, you're a lifesaver."
"No worries, oh and I think you slapping him was really brave." And with that, Temari was gone. Tenten shoved the bin back in place, throwing the neatly folded uniform at me.
"Go get changed," she said, giggling. "You smell like a rubbish bin."
I glared at her, flouncing into a stall and locked it behind me. Stripping off quickly, I dropped my ruined uniform on the ground, tugging the white and green polo shirt over my head and pulling the green netball skirt over the mandatory leggings.
Bundling the other uniform up, I unlocked the door and let myself out. "Do you have a plastic bag or something?" I asked, holding the dirty uniform up.
Tenten paused what she was doing on her phone, probably playing Angry Birds or something. She slipped it into her pocket. "I don't carry plastic bags with me…"
I dropped the uniform in the sink and ran the water hard against it. Hoping I could get the worst of the stains out of the shirt, I rubbed at the thin material furiously.
"Hm, well you have a folder." Tenten said, rummaging through my bad. "We could just rip one of the sleeves out and you could shove it in there."
"Its gonna stink up my bag." I said, contemplating whether I should put the hand soap in the sink with my dirty uniform.
"Well you're gonna stink up the school first, so…"
I flicked water at Tenten. "I don't smell that bad."
She wrinkled her nose delicately. "Oh yes you do, m'dear."
I pulled a face, turning back to the sink. The formerly white shirt floating in the sink looked stained beyond repair. I sighed, wringing it out. Looks like I was gonna have to scrounge out another sixty bucks for a new one. And by scrounge, I mean mooch off my father, because I was broke from buying that stupid concert ticket.
Stupid boy bands.
"And you two are late… Why?" Miss Yuhi raised an eyebrow, tapping her pen against the desk.
I kept my head down, fidgeting with my skirt, the red hot stares from my incensed class mates boring holes into me. Tenten rattled off a half assed excused, standing between me and the rest of the class, acting like a human shield.
Miss Yuhi shrugged. "Sit down girls, we're doing our assigned reading. Pages 45-48 please." She flicked her marking pen towards the classroom and Tenten dragged me down the aisle.
I stepped over an outstretched foot, shooting an incredulous look at the blonde girl. She pursed her lips at me and turned back to her book. "Bitch." She muttered.
"Are you-" Tenten pulled me into a seat, cutting off my complaint.
She grinned at me, flipping someone off over my shoulder. "Ew," she said, "Shakespearean language. It's like trying to wake you up in the morning."
I gave her a flat look, opening the battered text book. "That's not funny."
She flapped her hand at me. "It is, it really is. Anyway, they're all like 'doth love is like a dove-eth… Who even speaks like that?!"
"I don't think dove-eth is a word…" I said, propping the book up, and opening my workbook.
"Um, neither is doth, but viola, it's in there, just mocking me with its doth-i-ness!" Tenten said, slamming a hand down on the book. "Who even came up with this stupid language?!"
"Shakespearean or English?"
"Shakespearean you nut. Why would I have a beef with English?" Tenten huffed, scrawling across the top of her page.
"Um… Shakespearean is in English…"
Tenten said something, but I missed it when a balled up wad of paper smacked me in the forehead. I recoiled in shock.
"-What the Hell?"
Tenten stopped rambling, looking at me curiously. "Wha's that?" She said.
I smoothed out the crumpled sheet. On it, was a stick figure with a knife sticking out of its chest, a mop of messily scrawled hair drawn on its head. Underneath the drawing, it said it capital letters, underlined so hard that it tore the paper; you're dead meat, pinky.
I looked up, scanning the classroom until I found Karin turned around in her seat, burgundy eyes narrowed in my direction. She huffed, flipped her hair and turned back to face the front.
"Oh that's a terrible picture of you." Tenten said, reading the note over my shoulder, half out of her seat.
I screwed up the paper again, shoving it into my pencil case, which was spilling stationary and old pencil shavings onto the desk. "My hair doesn't really look like that does it?"
"Only when you wake up," Tenten said, rocking back into her seat. "And sometimes when it gets windy."
I shrugged, chewing my pen and propping my head up with my fist. "Ten," I said through the pen lid, "I'm going to be murdered before I can graduate."
As if to emphasize my point, another hate note hit me in the side of the head.
"This closet smells weird."
"Shut up, Sakura, it's the best I could do on short notice, okay?" Tenten said, rummaging around in her bag for food. "Where'd you put my lunch anyway?"
"When did I make lunch?" I asked, leaning against an old box. It sent up a puff of dust that had me wrinkling my nose against the tickling sensation. "I was planning on buying food from the shop."
Tenten threw her hands up, toppling sideways dramatically. "Noo," she whined, "we has no food! What shall we do for sustenance? We won't survive the winter!"
I dug around in the bottom of my bag, eventually finding my lunchbox from Thursday. Inside, there was a half-eaten muesli bar. I stared at it, wondering if I was hungry enough to eat it.
I never got the chance, because a moment later, Tenten ripped the lunch box out of my hands and opened it.
"Oi, that's my lunchbox!"
"Yeah…" Tenten looked at the bar contemplatively. "But since you got half yesterday… I get the other half today!" With that, she shoved the bar into her mouth, chewing furiously. She grinned at me through a mouthful of muesli bar, wiggling her fingers.
"That's so gross."
She swallowed noisily. "Your face is gross."
"Your face is gross!" I shot back lamely, sticking my tongue out just to emphasize my point.
Tenten raised an eyebrow at me, then clapped her hands once, sitting up straighter. "We should have code-names! Then we can talk in code and no one will ever know what we're saying!"
"Codenames- what?"
"Ooh, ooh, I know, I'll be Panda-Bear, and you…" Tenten paused, stroking her chin. "Oh! You can be Pretty-Boy-Slapper!"
"Pretty-Boy-Slapper?!" I repeated incredulously.
"Mmhm… Cause you know, Sasuke's pretty and you slapped him!" Tenten cackled madly, throwing the empty muesli bar wrapper into the air.
"Tenten."
She held up a finger, "uh, uh, uh, Panda-Bear!"
"Panda-Bear, then."
"Yeeees, Pretty-Boy-Slapper?" Tenten said, clasping her hands in her lap and batting her eyelashes at me.
"Be glad you're not a pretty boy." I said, shoving her into a pile of old cleaning things.
The rest of the day passed without any more food throwing incidents, though I did get a large collection of hate notes, all of which told me that I was going to die or should die.
"Well at least its Saturday tomorrow," Tenten said cheerfully, swinging her arms as we walked home. "Then the only person who can throw food at you is me!"
"No more food fights, remember last time when you hit my dad in the face with an egg?"
"You weren't supposed to duck!"
"Well excuse me and my ninja like reflexes!" I said, smirking at her.
She punched me in the arm. "Who looked like a ragdoll getting thrown around on stage last night? Mmhm, you did."
"Shut up!" I whined, pushing open the gate that led up the short path to my front door. Tenten snorted, shoving me into the short hedge and bounced up the stairs.
"Last one inside gets to make dinner!" She said, flinging open the door and coming face to face with my father. "WHOA! Kakashi, hey!"
"Tenten, why are you crowing about dinner? Its only 3 o'clock."
I shoved Tenten past my father. "Dad, what are you doing home so early?"
"Your principle, Tsunade called, said something about you two and food?" He shut the door behind me and ushered us into the lounge. "Did you two start a food fight again?"
Tenten and I spluttered indignantly in unison. "No!" We chorused.
"We got to school, some random angry fangirls threw food at us and then we hid in a bathroom." I explained, picking up my dad's half eaten sandwich and biting into it.
Tenten grinned. "Yeah, Saki here looked ridiculous, covered head to toe in rubbish!"
My father tried to tug the sandwich from my mouth. "Sak- I was eating- Rubbish? They threw rubbish at you?"
I swallowed, batting his hands away. "Um… Coulda been, not really sure, I was too busy trying not to get hit by stuff."
"This is serious girls, you could have been injured!"
I shrugged, more interested in keeping Tenten from trying to eat my sandwich. "We're fine though, I bet'll die down by Monday- No, my sandwich!"
"Anyone would think you two don't get fed."
"We don't!" Tenten said, pouting when I shoved my hand in her face. "We didn't get lunch today!"
"You did! You ate my muesli bar!"
"We've been over this, Sakura, you got half yesterday, so it was only fair that I got half today!"
My father snorted, folding his arms. "We'll get take-out then, since you'll just raid the refrigerator if I try to make anything."
"Chinese!" Tenten and I said in unison.
My father crinkled an eye at us. "Stop fighting over a sandwich then, and I'll go order it." He said, walking out of the room.
"Get those dumplings with the pork in them!" I called after him.
"Saaaaaaaas-uuuuukeeeeeee!"
Sasuke grunted, lifting his head from his pillow. "Eh- what?" He opened his eyes and found Naruto's face inches from his. "-What the Hell?!" He said, planting a hand on his best friends grinning face and shoving him away from the bed.
Naruto fell to the ground with a cry. "Ow!"
Sasuke heard raucous laughter and rolled onto his back, propping himself on his elbows. Kiba was sitting on his dresser, kicking his legs.
The brown haired singer waved at him. "Morning sunshine- or should I say afternoon? You're wasting a perfectly good Friday dude!"
"What the Hell are you two moron's doing my room?"
"Because Neji's being boring and Itachi locked his office again." Naruto said, crawling onto Sasuke's bed. "So we came to wake you up."
"Get off my bed you gay little- Hey!" Sasuke suddenly found himself squished between both Kiba and Naruto. "Get. Off. My-"
"So, we did a little digging around on that little cutie Sakura and her friend, Tenten," Kiba said, winking.
"I don't care about that stupid little-" Sasuke was cut off when Kiba bumped his jaw with his shoulder.
"Yeah, so we called up Shikamaru and asked him to find out about her- Of course, he swore at us for a while 'cause we woke him up-" Naruto babbled.
"And he was all like, 'stalking someone? That's weird even for you guys' and I was like 'but Sasu-cakes wants to know'" Kiba interrupted.
"And then I was like, 'yeah and he's getting pissy and you know how he is when he's pissy' and he was like 'oh, well lemme put my pants on'- I dunno why he wasn't wearing pants."
"It's Shikamaru, if he could, he'd probably live his whole life without pants."
"He is pretty weird- His girlfriend is hot though…"
Sasuke punched Kiba and Naruto in the heads simultaneously, "Why did you tell Shikamaru I wanted to know who that girl was? I don't care about her!" Sasuke growled, glaring at Naruto when he tried to climb under the covers with him. "Get out of my bed!"
Kiba pinched his cheek, grinning at him. "You're in denial so bad, Sasu-cakes. We all know its eating away at you."
Sasuke slapped his hand away. "Stop calling me that!"
Naruto slapped Sasuke's back. "You've stopped denying that you like her!"
"I do not like her. I don't even know her!"
"Yeah, but she was hot and then she slapped you, so for you that's pretty much love!" Kiba said.
"That does not mean I'm in love with her!" Sasuke roared.
"You're in love with who, Sasuke?" Asked an amused voice from the doorway. All three of the boys looked up to find Neji standing in the doorway.
"Get out. And take these idiots with you." Sasuke growled, glaring at Naruto again.
The blonde boy quailed under the stare. "Sasu-cakes, you're so mean to me!"
"Ah, have you finally admitted that the girl from last night intrigues you, Sasuke?"
"No! I don't like her!" Sasuke exploded, shoving Kiba when he started giggling. "Stop laughing and get out of my bed!"
Neji snorted. "Well, then shall I tell Shikamaru not to worry about sharing the full name of this girl with you then?"
Sasuke hesitated, allowing Naruto shove him flat on the mattress and crawl in with him.
"Naruto!" Sasuke cried, scrambling from the bed. "I swear to god, you're gay or something!"
Naruto folded his arms. "I wanted a hug Sasu-cakes."
"Are you guys always this gay? Or is it just when I'm around?" A bored voice interjected from the doorway.
"Shika-cakes!" Kiba cried, flapping towards the lazy boy.
"Eh- Get off-" Shikamaru choked, pushing at the boy latched onto his back. Neji snorted in amusement, leaning against the dresser.
Sasuke folded his arms across his chest. "You called Shikamaru here?" He growled at Neji, watching in slight amusement as Naruto and Kiba chased the lethargic genius around the room.
"I thought the information on your mystery girl was imperative, Sasuke." Neji said with a mischievous smile.
"She is not my mystery girl!" Sasuke insisted, kicking a stray t-shirt angrily.
"She-" Shikamaru shoved Naruto in Kiba, "is called Sakura Haruno and she lives in Konoha. In fact," he said, "she goes to school in the middle class suburbs. Gold Leaf High, years 8 to 12, all-girls school."
Neji raised his eyebrows. "That's quite a bit of information in one day, even for you, Shikamaru."
He shrugged. "Eh, I have my sources."
Naruto popped up, detangling himself from Kiba. "She's not like… twelve is she?"
"She's seventeen in March."
"Are you sure you're not a professional stalker?" Kiba said, walking around to stand next to Neji and shoving his hands into his pockets.
"Nah, he's too lazy to be professional."
"I agree," Neji said, smirk widening when Shikamaru punched him in the arm.
Naruto bounced over to Sasuke, slinging an arm around his neck. "Well, Sasu-cakes, whatcha gonna do now?"
"Go back to bed-"
Kiba flung an arm around his other shoulder. "But what about Sakura?" He said, "after all the trouble Shikamaru went to, to find her, shouldn't you at least, I dunno, friend her on Facebook?"
Sasuke struggled, shoving at their arms. "I don't like her-"
"Not now, but admit it, she interests you. I mean, she did slap you on national television. Any other girl would've killed to be kissed by you, but not her." Shikamaru said. "It's killing you inside."
Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "Sakura Haruno." he said slowly.
Shikamaru nodded, raising an eyebrow.
I sneezed, sending my wheelie chair careening into Tenten's. She squawked noisily, flailing her arms.
"You ruined his nose!" She wailed, shoving her art book into my face. I recoiled, blinking furiously
"It looks fine-"
"NO! It's got like a massive dink in it from your ginormous sneeze." Tenten pouted at me and rubbed the eraser over it gently.
I snorted at her. "No one but you will even notice it…" I said, turning back to my work and neatly penning out the equation.
"I will always know!" She crowed and I felt her pencil hit me in the back of the head.
I whipped around, snatching the pencil off the ground and held it above my head. "Whatcha gonna do now, Tennie?"
Tenten pulled another pencil from her pencil case. "Yeah… Fail."
I hung my head, sitting back down slowly and putting the pencil back on her desk. "Damn you," I joked, raising my fist in mock anger and turning back to my maths book.
My room was silent for a few minutes until my chair was yanked away from the desk.
"Ahhh!"
My chair was spun and I found myself face to face with Tenten. She grinned at me. "Hey, so guess what?"
"What?" I said, raising an eyebrow and pulling a face.
"Sasuke loves you."
I shoved her chair away from me with my foot. She hooted, rolling into the door.
"You're an idiot."
She shrugged at me. "So what are we doing tomorrow?"
I made a face at my maths book. "I have that damn maths assignment to finish-"
"YOLO."
"What?"
"You only live once! So forget the stupid maths assignment and come shopping for new Manga with me!"
"Um… After today at school, I don't think my dad'll let us out of the house."
Tenten sighed, "Why couldn't you just faint like the rest of us, Saki? Why'd you have to go and slap him?"
"We've been through this! I'm not gonna let some random pop-star just kiss me!"
"Speaking of kisses, what was it like?" Tenten said, leaning forward on her knees.
"I don't know!" I said, shaking my head at her incredulously. She had a one-track mind, honestly.
"But he kissed you, don't you remember?"
"Not really…"
"How can you not remember a kiss with that sex god?!" Tenten lamented, draping herself over me in mock horror.
"I was a bit busy-"
"With your lips!"
"Slapping him!"
Bit shorter than I'd like, but I had to cut it off here in order to keep it from extending to around 10,000 words.
As you can see, Sakura and Tenten don't meet Sasuke and the others in this chapter. I found, now that I'm older and hopefully wiser (LOL) that having the meeting postponed until later on was slightly more plausible.
Also, Sakura's inner voice is gone. People found it annoying. So please, kind readers, tell me what you thought about the changes, the chapter and how I can improve!
SHIKAMARU. Yes. He is now in the story. People told me I did him an injustice by leaving him out. Also, he's badass. And has an earring. Yup.
-Fangirls into a corner-
Review if you like! ^_^
Mini_Stack.
