Chapter 7

Kei stuck her head under the running facet and drank. She had been practicing with the team for three hours. She was currently glad she had decided to wear exercise shorts and an old shirt. But her feet killed slightly with lack of sneakers. Instead she had worn flip-flops, and then had gone barefoot during the exercises.

"I could get you a glass. Would hate for you to drown yourself after how awesome you were today"

She removed herself long enough to reply, "No, I have to shower anyways. Besides, I always wanted to do this!" Ino rolled her eyes but let Kei do as she wanted. Kei drank a while longer before deciding she could unpack some before her shower.

After unloading her bag full of decorations, paints, papers, pens, markers, crayons, pencils, and even some stuffed animals, she had organized the room to the point that all she needed was the rest of her stuff, such as her bed spread, pillows, the rest of her animals, her easel, her entire wardrobe, her kitchen supplies, and her books. At this time, it was almost five.

An hour till she had to meet her two-possibly very hot-study partners.

After exclaiming a certain string of words, she ran to the bathroom and was half undressed before she dashed back out and screamed Ino's name.

"What?"

"I need shampoo and conditioner and lotion and a towel and body soap and a comb and a hand mirror and I don't know what to do with my hair and I have nothing to do with my hair and the only clothes I have are the gross ones I have on and-"

"Almost have on."

Kei had been pacing back and forth in her rant, and was surprised by the interruption. She hadn't realized she had been saying so much.

"Ah, right…" She looked down at herself and saw she was missing her shorts and one sock, her shirt half off and over one arm.

"So where is all of this stuff?" Ino raised an eyebrow and placed a hand on her hip.

"It's…on its way here."

"When will it be here, Kei? Stop being coy."

Kei hung her head in defeat, tired already of the day. "This weekend, with the rest of my stuff."

"And your study date is…"

"In an hour. I don't even know where the building is," Kei spoke with realization.

"Did your sister tell you where?"

"I…wouldn't even remember if she had. But I remember it was for my shop class."

Dramatically, Ino slowly placed a hand on her forehead and sighed slowly. "I just might have to give up on you. But not yet." Again, dramatically, she threw her face-covering hand up and pointed it in the air, then on her chin, eyes closed as if about to lecture Kei. "Let me think, shop…wood and stuff, so nice greens or browns for colors."

"I was thinking more of a yellow and red," Kei pointed out quietly.

"Oh, you're right, that could work, too. Well, lets get you clean, and I'll have an outfit for you, we are pretty close in size." She 'shoo'-ed Kei to the bathroom and pointed out how to work it and what containers were what.

After Kei came out - dressed in distressed light jeans, a red button-up and yellow lace tank underneath - it was half till, and Ino decided Kei needed makeup and her hair done. "I could do this myself," Kei began to protest, but Ino bopped her on the nose.

"No protesting." After which Kei was silent, but Ino did do good work. She had used a curler to give her short hair small ringlets and pinned some to the side. Her makeup was simple, with the basic eyeliner and mascara, with gold sparkly eyeliner on top of the basic black. Seeing her nails were un-painted, Ino threw on a not-rushed-looking coat of red on with a gold-yellow crackle in top.

When thrown in front of the mirror, Kei nodded approvingly. Glancing at a smiling Ino in the mirror, Kei said, "Next date's my turn."

"Okay, after the square of purple and blue flowers, take a left."

Kei was gracefully –she told herself – speed walking while listening to Ino do her best to say where the shop building was. She had already taken three wrong turns at similar looking flower beds, though with the waning light even her eyes were giving her trouble. She had been doing this for almost ten minutes. All she had seen was what might have been a quarter of the landscape based on the size of the school, around thirty trees, and no shop building.

She had tried calling Mai four times, but her phone was off. Was probably having her music time.

"Are you sure its even on the school property," Kei cried, seeing she only had about two minutes.

"I swear it is. I've never been there but Sakura talked about how Kankuro took her there once when they were dating. She never told me what she did, she would always just giggle, but I'm sure-"

"EW! No! Bad Ino! Stop there, I don't want that image being in my mind, especially if I haven't even seen this guy. All I have in my mind is this gross old man per- Oh, I think I see it! There are lights on and I see a pile of wood and sawdust right next to the door!"

"Right, good luck! See you when you're done, just to the dorm room. Have fun~" then a dial tone.

Kei pocketed her phone then knocked once on the door before opening it. At first all she could see was the same goldish light that had shown through the three windows on the side she had come through. The light came from basic hanging lights with the wide cone and little chain on the side to turn them on. Then was two rows of eight tables, all the same type with shelves under the table. One light hung over each table. Diagonal of the door, in the far corner of the room was an office separated by a wall of glass. The floor was covered by basic 'tile' linoleum.

Two tables were covered with stuff, the others almost sparkling clean. She recognized most of the items, the names coming to her as she saw them in physical form. There's a band saw and chisel and drill and sander and a can of stain and a can of finish.

"It's about time you got here, Kankuro." The voice came from behind a tall shelf, followed by crimson red hair and blue sea glass eyes.

*Blocks face with arms* Please! Hear me out before you start throwing things at me! I had this horrible writers block, especially with Kei being the main character for a bit. I'm not used to characters like her, mine are normally more self efficient. Anyways, I hoped you enjoyed this. I have half of chapter 8 done now as we speak, but im taking the day off to spend with my mama, since its her birthday! I should be back to my weekly schedule now that I have the WRITERS FLAME back. So read, enjoy, review, and stay tuned for the GAARA SCENE, all you gaara lovers , like me ^^