Intoxication
A/N: I'm updating this story after abandoning it for seven years! *smiling while wearing sunglasses emoji* Don't expect another update for another ten years.
It was the talk of the town: Naruto was back. He had arrived in the dead of night last night with a squadron of him and five other ninja. They returned battered and bruised—some worse than others—but they were safe and alive still and that was all that mattered.
The news had spread around town so that by morning everyone knew. When Kiba heard, he insisted that this called for a special session of the "Testosterone Fest", even though it wasn't Friday and even though Shikamaru swore he was still hungover from their previous Fest three days ago. When they mentioned it to the man of honor, Naruto wholeheartedly acceded as long as they agreed to stop for his favorite bowl of ramen first.
Naruto and his teammates had stayed in the infirmary overnight to undergo their obligatory monitoring. The nurses and, if necessary, doctors would treat any injuries the squadron had incurred. Naruto followed the protocol because he had to, but he thought it was excessive. He knew he was fine and not suffering from some incurable jungle fever that made him bleed from every orifice. He just wanted a change of clothing and the chance to take a hot shower. So after a night of being wired up and tested and overly doted on, he was itching to get out of there.
"Sakura, please hurry up," he told her that morning while slightly kicking his legs up and down on the hospital bed as if he had restless leg syndrome. He swore he couldn't stop fidgeting even if he tried. Not that he actually tried.
Sakura narrowed her eyes at the clipboard held in front of her but continued working at the same slow pace as before, saying nothing.
"C'mon, you can work faster than that," he whined as Sakura wrote down his vitals on the clipboard, then seemed to stop for a second to double-check that they were correct.
She paused only to shoot him a glare before going back to her clipboard scribbles. When she finished with the transcription, she set the clipboard down on the nearby table with a loud clank!
"What are you gonna do now?" Naruto asked her as she started to roll up the sleeve of his gown next. She reached to undo the wrappings located near his elbow junction.
"Ow Sakura, that hurts!" Naruto yelped as she unexpectedly pulled the butterfly needle out of his arm with a twist that seemed wholly unnecessary. She slapped his hand away, which was trying to cover the red pin prick on his arm, and covered the spot with new gauze and tape.
"You'll survive," she said flatly.
"Wow, what's eating you?" Naruto rubbed at the spot on his arm, this time over the gauze and tape, as if it still hurt. Meanwhile Sakura was busy pulling out the remaining monitor systems and wires attached to his body. These were just attached with adhesives.
She stepped back to look at him incredulously, her hands at her hips. She looked beyond exasperated. "When are you going to realize that people care about you?" she snapped at him.
At this, Naruto straightened up a few inches on the bed, his expression sobering slightly. He looked down at the floor around her instead of at her eyes. "What're you talking about?" he said quietly.
"You extended the mission for way too long! Against the recommendation of your superiors! Half of your team came back mildly delirious from dehydration!"
One side of Naruto's mouth pulled down in a frown.
"It just—happened," he finished lamely, turning his head away from her.
"You have people who care about you here, Naruto. And were waiting for you to return safely."
"I know," he mumbled.
Sakura tutted disapprovingly while she yanked the last heart rate monitor off his chest. "Some people never learn. Anyway, you're free."
He grabbed her arm lightly before she could finish pulling away. "Sakura, . . . thank you."
When Sakura returned to the main lobby after her second round of check-ins, she saw Naruto idling, and quite conspicuously at that, by the entrance's information desk.
"What are you still doing here? I thought you were dying to get out?" she asked him as she neared.
"Ah, Sakura." He perked up when he saw her. "I was looking for you."
She stared at him blankly.
He cleared his throat, again rather oddly and conspicuously. "Do you know if—ah . . . all of team 8 is still in Konoha right now—by any chance?"
The randomness of the question, coupled with the weirdness with which he said it, threw her for a loop. She continued staring at him blankly. Naruto in turn smiled back at her with a cheeky grin but it faltered after a few seconds. When her silent judgment ensued for a few beats longer, he started rubbing at the back of his neck, suddenly uneasy under the directness of her gaze.
"Are you delirious from dehydration too?" she asked him suddenly, reaching up her backhand to his forehead to see if she had overlooked some fever he might've gotten.
He backed away from her hand and lightly touched her arm to stop her. "I'm serious."
She set her hand back by her side without stopping her quizzical look at him. "Yes . . . they're all here for now . . . why do you ask?"
Naruto smiled, and this time the lightness of it genuinely reached his eyes. "I was just wondering."
Neji saw the red glow of the floor in front of the ramen shop long before he could make out the writing on the signs of the restaurant. The closer he got to the shop, the more he slowed down his walking. He really didn't want to be there. Of course, that's how he felt about almost every "Testosterone Fest", but this time it was different. His nerves had been rattled three days ago and that rattling never went away. Instead, it kept mutating itself into different forms in order to survive. He didn't know how to properly explain it or how to get rid of it. At times, it manifested itself as a buzzing sound in his ears that would appear for no reason; at other times, he felt the paranoia of being enclosed in a small space even if he was outside in the open air.
When he finally stood in front of the ramen shop's open entryway, his eyes soon found Naruto seated with Shikamaru, Shino, and Kiba. He was keeled over the table laughing at something that probably wasn't that funny, his eyes looking almost closed at how much he was squeezing them in mirth. When he finally straightened, Naruto looked taller than when Neji last saw him, which was obvious even while he was seated. And he somehow looked more mature too, probably something to do with his jawline being more pronounced and the fact that he had literally aged a little since they'd last seen each other.
Tonight, Neji noticed wryly, the rattling was going to manifest itself as a kink in his neck.
A/N: Aaand, I'm cutting the chapter short 'cause I don't want to write anymore! and I want to post...!