Previously…
"The gray one…," Sai answers. A second later, Shikamaru was ready to pound him but Kiba and Naruto pulled him away. "Koneko is anything but BORING you asshole! Say it again and see what happens!"
Meanwhile, the girls were relaxing on the other side of the wall dividing the large hot spring. They discussed over things that the other person missed out over the years and catching up. "And you've been training ever since then?" "Yeah, I'm hoping to become like Lady Tsunade. She's a really great fighter." "That's a great goal for you Sakura." "What about you? What are your goals?" Koneko takes a swig of her second sake bottle; her face is flushed from the alcohol and the heat of the water. "I just want to continue what I'm doing until I get married and have a lot of kids. That's what I want the most. I want, maybe, four to five children." Sakura smiles. "You would be a great mom. And Sasuke-kun would LOVE you if he heard that." "Sasuke? Uchiha?" Koneko laughed. "That's funny. Sorry but he's not my type." Sakura gasp dramatically. "What?! Of course he is! He's everyone's type!" Koneko shrugged her shoulders. "Not for me. I like a guy who'll keep me interested. He seems boring." " Then I'll help you find the perfect husband that will love you and protect your family." "Aww, thanks Sakura but I'm just not looking for one right away." "Well…" "Koneko is anything but BORING! Say it again and see what happens!" Shikamaru's voice cries out from the other side of the pool. "What is that about?" Sakura asks. "I don't know." Koneko jumps out of the pool and found a crack in the wall and peeked through it. Shikamaru was struggling against Naruto and Kiba, preventing him from hitting Sai. 'Was Sai the one who called me a boring? Jeez, he hardly even knows me and he's calling me THAT?' Koneko grimaced and returned to the pool. "What's wrong?" "Nothing Sakura. Hey I have an idea." "What is it?"
The guys simmered down after the fight and were quiet until they heard the familiar feminine voices. "Come on Sakura, it'll be fun!" "But…K-Koneko I can do it myself." "We used it do it all the time when we were kids!" "Yeah but still!" The guys looked at each other. What are they talking about? "If I do it to you, you can do it to me back, ok?" "Koneko, it'll tickle!" "That's the fun part. I promise you'll feel so good once I'm done." Noses began to bleed. Naruto and Kiba were the first to climb out of the tub to find a crack or a hole in the pool. "You guys, stop spying on them! You're going to get caught," Sasuke hisses. "Did you not just hear them?" Naruto hisses back, "They're going to do 'IT'." Sai turns to Neji. "What does he mean by 'IT'?" Neji just shook his head in annoyance and whispered to him what Naruto and Kiba mean. Black, beady eyes shot wide open. "Really? Interesting." All of a sudden, the guys heard Sakura scream. Naruto, Kiba, and now Shikamaru and Sai tried to climb over the wooden wall to catch a glimpse of the girls. "Koneko, not there!!! It tickles!" The four saw the pink haired kunoichi sitting at the edge of the hot spring with one foot sticking out with Koneko in the pool and scrubbing her friend's propped up foot. Sakura was squirming and giggling. "Koneko-chan! Please stop! Hahahahhahhaha *gasp* hahahaha." The guys could not believe they were fooled and they were SO bummed. Naruto groaned a little too loudly that Koneko heard him. The four guys jumped down back to their side of the pool but she saw them anyway. After creating a fist and unclenching it she conjured three little glowing orbs charged with electricity (think of Boomboom's bombs from X-Men Evolution) that she calls 'firefly bombs' and tossed them over to their side without Sakura knowing. The boys saw the three burning balls and Shikamaru knew what they were. "Move!" he yells before the pool exploded along with an electric charge. Sakura looks up with a bewildered look. "What happened?" Koneko smiles coyly. "Who knows? An accident maybe." 'That'll teach you boys to spy on us again,' she thought. After that the girls went back inside and went to have their body massage session.
The guys came out of the pool 'HOT RED' and shocked from the exploding hot water spraying all over them. Sasuke pounds Naruto's head and yells, "You idiot! Look what you did!" "It's not my fault! Kiba made me look with him!" "Bullshit, you were the first one to jump up the wall," Kiba argues. "Shut up! You're all nuts!" Shikamaru yells and went back to the room. The guys cooled off and followed behind.
After the girls were done with their wonderful massage session they returned back to their room and changed into their night clothes. "I'm going to take some tea to Sasuke and the others," Sakura remarks. "Oh, great, I'll come with you." Koneko takes a small pack with her containing specialized needles inside. The girls were welcomed inside the boys' suite. Shikamaru has already retired to his bed and Sai went to his room to finish a painting he has been working on so it was just Kiba, Naruto, Neji, and Sasuke with the girls. "We thought we would bring you some tea," the pinkette explains. "Thanks Sakura!" Naruto exclaims and takes his cup of lavender tea. "Which room is Shikamaru's?" Koneko asks. "It's over there. Why do you ask?" Kiba remarks. The girl smiles. "Just wondering. I'm going to surprise him." She showed him her pack and went to Shikamaru's room. For some reason, it infuriated Sasuke that she was going to see Shikamaru. Usually girls are hounding over HIM and bending over backwards for Sasuke's affection. So why isn't she fawning over him? Sasuke has noticed this since the day she came back to Konoha. Even as kids, she never paid him any attention. She was always with Shikamaru or Kiba. 'Forget her…she's not worth your time,' he tried to tell himself. Sasuke grabs Sakura's wrist and takes her to his room and locked the door.
She quietly opened the door and saw the shadow possessor lying on his stomach and snoozing. All he was wearing was a pair of gray pants. Koneko smiles devilishly and sets the pack on the night stand next to the bed. She sits next him and whispers in his ear, "Hey sleepyhead." An onyx eye opens slightly to look at her and then the other eye opens and his head shifted to face her. "What's up?" "You look tense. Need help with that?" Shikamaru smiles. "Sure. But what were you meaning?" Koneko opens the pack and showed him the needles. "Acupuncture. I've learned how to do it during my training with my grandfather. He says it's an old art that kunoichi learned years and years ago. He believes it will come in handy someday." "Huh…really? Why not? I've never had this done before," Shikamaru comments. "Great. Just stay like that…and it might hurt a little but I promise it'll be worth it." Shikamaru relaxes as Koneko sits next to him and felt around his back to look for tense spots. She couldn't help but smile as old memories of her innocent childhood flashed in her head. "Wow…working hard much?" "Why do you ask?" "Too many tense points." He sighed. When he felt a prick on his shoulder he tenses up. "You're going to have to fight that and relax. It'll hurt even more if you keep doing that," she says. "Fine." The two were quiet for a while, enjoying the company of the other. "You've changed so much Shika-kun. You used to be so lazy and you didn't care about anything." His eyes closed, trying to block a memory but it was too late. The image of his former teacher's body imprinted in his head. "I guess part of it has to do with Asuma's death…" he murmurs. "Hm? Asuma?" "He was my former teacher when I graduated from the academy. Ino, Choji, and I were teamed up together." She didn't say anything but she really wanted to tell him how she feels. She's been through the same thing before. "We were fighting two members of the Akatsuki group. One of them killed him during the fight. It was about half a year ago when it happened. I remembered not attending the funeral because I didn't want to believe that he was dead and he wasn't going to come back….finally my Dad made me face the fact that he's gone for good. It hit me pretty hard. I saw Asuma as an idol, someone I could look up to and be like him." "….It's not your fault Shika-kun. If there's anything I learned, death is unavoidable; it is finite." "…that was something I had a hard time learning. Ever since then I trained hard every day so that no one will die under my watch." The pin-prick feelings stopped and Shikamaru pulls up on his elbow to look back. Koneko was smiling at him with sad eyes. She looked so vulnerable, not like the strong little girl he remembered when they were kids. "You've grown up Shika-kun and I'm proud of you." She carefully wraps her arms around his neck and held him close to her. Shikamaru smiles and hugs her back. "You've changed too Koneko…you're practically a woman. It's hard to believe you're the same kid I met that one crazy day." The girl giggles against him. "Nah, I'm still a kid. Sometimes I wish I had the power to turn back time and change things. But death is final. It is the end to everyone's fate…no matter what." There was a silence between the two for a moment. "Now let's finish up that back of yours." After about an hour, Koneko released all the tension from Shikamaru's back. He felt so relaxed he fell asleep before she could leave the room. Koneko couldn't help but laugh. 'Well, you haven't changed that habit of yours,' she thought. She leaves the room to find only Naruto, Kiba, and now Sai. "Where's Sakura?" Naruto glares at Sasuke's locked door. "She's with Sasuke. Don't bother waiting for her. She'll probably stay with him for the rest of the night." "Are they together?" she asks curiously. "In a way, I guess," Kiba comments. "What do you mean?" "Well…its just the sex," he adds. Koneko nods slowly with an 'I wish I didn't ask' look. "So who's next for acupuncture?" she asks. "Huh? Acupuncture?" Naruto asks with a bemused look. "Yeah, you'll feel really good. I just finished Shika-kun and he's out like a light." Kiba was scared of needles so he was out. Naruto wanted to try it but after the first prick he changed his mind and complained about the pain. "For crying out loud, it's just a little prickle!" "Yeah right. It felt like someone was stabbing me in the back!" Naruto argues. "Well, maybe you deserve it after spy on us poor girls at the hot spring." "Ah, no! I wasn't spying. You obviously don't know what you're talking about," Naruto lies with a sheepish look. "Naruto heard you two playing around together so he and Kiba thought it would be a good idea to spy," Sai snitches. "You're the one to talk Sai! You joined us too!" Naruto yells. "At least I have a dick." "That's it! I've had it with you!" Naruto was about to clobber Sai but Kiba and Koneko held him back. "You're lucky their holding me back!" "Yeah you sure look manly being held back by dog breath and miss psycho." A flash of anger flicked through Koneko's glittering light blue eyes. In a split second, she had Sai pinned on the ground and sitting on top of him with a senbon needle barely pricking his throat. Her face was calm although her eyes were everything BUT. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't stick this through your esophagus and let the poison slowly kill you," she simply said. Sai's eyes were big but he recovered and looked back at her with a blank stare. "Koneko! Don't hurt him! Sai …well, he doesn't have a lot of social experiences," Kiba explains. "What do you mean no social experiences?" she asks as she looks at the Inuzuka at the corner of her eye. "Sai has lived most of his life with no social interaction. He's still learning about having feelings," Naruto adds, "Although it pisses me off." Koneko turns her attention back at Sai for a few more seconds before slipping off of him and putting the needle away. "I'm tired. I'll see everyone in the morning," she said before leaving the room. She returned to their suite afterward and the whole group went to bed so they could get up early to return home.