Author's Note:
"Congratulations, Neji-san." Author applauds the pale, disinterested Hyuuga boy. "You are really popular with the beautiful people who read this fic!"
Neji ignores author's presence completely, looking around for Naruto.
"Er, Neji-san…" Author fidgets. She is really embarrassed that her lack of control over the cast of her own fic has become evident to everyone. "Could you, um, say thank you to the reviewers? Please?"
Neji smirks in annoyance and gives author a pointed look which reads clearly, 'Go away if you like to breathe.'
Author sighs. "Well, then, I guess I'll just have to throw this away!" She blandishes a Naruto plushie – her last resort – from behind her back.
Neji's pale eyes glint at the sight of the plushie.
Author is smug at her damn good idea. "If you thank the reviewers, I'll – "
Neji suddenly flashes forward at lightening speed and snatches the Naruto plushie out of her hands without waiting for her to finish speaking. Author's mouth drops open as she stares at Neji triumphantly running off with the plushie and sighs as she finishes her now unnecessary sentence, " – give this to you…"
Well, um, everyone. Thanks for reading! And I know that deep down, Neji's thankful that you are reading too.
Here's chapter eleven! Enjoy!
THE ULTIMATE UKE SYNDROME
by rosesareblue
Chapter Eleven
"WAIT! SAKURA, WAIT!!"
Sakura whirled around to see a pretty blonde rushing towards her.
"Ino!"
"Hah hah…" Trying to catch her breath, the blonde girl greeted, "Phew, hello, Sakura-chan!"
"Heh?" The pink-haired girl asked, immediately suspicious (for a very good reason) that her rival had so urgently came after her. "What do you want?"
"Can't a girl talk to her best friend?" Ino asked, her eyes huge in an obviously fake look of innocence.
"What do you want?" Sakura demanded, a little scared now of her rival's intensions.
The pink haired girl was blatantly backing away… Ino realized that her cheerful cover was a total bust and dropped the smile on her face. Now serious, the blonde girl stated, "Sakura-chan. It's about Sasuke-kun."
Her fear instantly forgotten at her beloved's name, Sakura's green eyes grew round as she cried, "Oh no! Is something wrong?"
Instead of answering, Ino started to rummage around the pocket of her (Shikamaru's) Konoha jersey.
"What about Sasuke-kun?" Sakura urged, clutching the other girl's shoulders and all but strangling her. "Ino! What happened to Sasuke-kun?"
"Stop shaking me first." Ino ordered. Sakura immediately dropped her hands and the blonde pulled out a picture from her pocket. She thrust it into the pink haired girl's hand, declaring, "Exhibit A!"
Sakura looked at the picture. A small, shirtless blonde boy was unbuckling his belt in a locker room. She couldn't see very well in the dimming evening light – which was good because the boy was really really cute and she might have – had her view not been so shaded – drooled over a picture of a guy that wasn't Sasuke-kun.
"What's this!" Sakura asked, looking up at her friend. Suddenly startled, Sakura gasped, "Is this a new perverted hobby? How does this have to do with Sasuke-kun?"
"Huh?" Ino asked, now her turn to be confused.
"IS THIS SOME SORT OF WARNING YOU ARE GIVING ME?" Sakura wailed, calculating one and one and getting three. "YOU ARE GOING TO STALK AND TAKE PICTURES OF SASUKE-KUN?"
"What? NO!" Ino roared, grabbing an overreacting Sakura's wrist. Ino ripped the picture from Sakura's hand and push it up close in front of her friend's eyes. "This is what happened to Sasuke-kun!"
Silence.
"Sasuke-kun's shirtless somewhere?" Sakura finally asked, getting lightheaded and nearly swooning at just the thought of it. An erotic Sasuke-kun…? Mmmmmnnn… Sakura half-closed her eyes as fan service images popped up plentifully above her head in pink thought bubbles.
Ino almost nose bled at the images that were floating above her rival's wide forehead. Luckily, the blonde snapped out of it just in time.
"Sakura-chan." Ino tried to clarify. "Uzumaki Naruto happened to Sasuke-kun!"
Sakura stopped dancing with her shirtless Sasuke-kun illusions.
"Uzumaki Naruto?"
Ino nodded, flapping the picture pinched in between her fingers.
Sakura felt as though her mind had been cleared of all logic. She tried to puzzle what Ino was saying out: Uzumaki Naruto… that was the beautiful blonde she'd met… who wasn't Sasuke-kun's girlfriend… still somehow really close to Sasuke-kun… but this had to do with some shirtless boy… and it happened to Sasuke-kun… had to do with Uzumaki Naruto… shirtless boy… Sasuke-kun… Uzumaki Naruto… Sasuke-kun… shirtless boy!
"GYAH!" Sakura shrieked jerking the picture out of Ino's hand to zoom under the nearest streetlight to get a better look at it. In the bright light, the picture now clearly reflected in the pink-haired girl's green eyes and she could make out the details of the shirtless blonde's features. And it was like a heavy weight had dropped on her head.
"Uzumaki Naruto's cheating on Sasuke-kun with…" Sakura shrieked, forking the picture above her head to show the world, "HER TWIN BROTHER!"
Naruto sneezed. Rubbing his nose with the back of his hand, he turned and said brightly to the long-haired boy stripping out of his shirt and pulling on his night shirt besides him.
"Neji! I'll give you a back massage!"
Neji jerked around to face an eager blonde as the Konoha boy's dorm room grew deathly quiet at Naruto's suggestion. Everyone had been getting ready for bed. Chouji had been eating an imported super size bag of Ultra Cheesy Doritos. Kiba had just returned from walking Akamaru. Shikamaru had been looking over the records of how today's plays had run. Shino had been watching a spider weave her web outside their window. Lee had been wringing out his really soggy gym suit – courtesy of a need-to-be-comforted Ten Ten.
But all this stopped as all eyes watched a hyperactive blonde jump up and down on his mat, eagerly.
"I'm serious!" Naruto continued. "I've been reading this!"
The small blonde blandished a huge book with the title "A Tensai Manager's Guide to Making his Team Perform at its Very Best."
Shikamaru took the book from the blonde and opened to the first page. The picture showed a leggy girl manager straddling a very happy jock in an extremely lewd position. Shikamaru flipped to the cover again. Just as he expected. The author was none other then…
Shikamaru started to speak up when suddenly he was interrupted by Neji.
"Okay. Naruto." The dark-haired boy replied slowly, his face betraying nothing. "Give me a back massage."
The blonde beamed as the other members of the Konoha team raised surprised eyebrows.
"You won't regret it, Neji." The blonde indicated towards the blankets. "Lie down on your stomach and get ready to receive the best back massage you ever had!"
Neji obeyed quickly. He was relieved that he could hide his now reddening face in the folds of a pillow. Naruto crawled on top of the Hyuuga and sat on the older boy's hips. Cracking his knuckles as the rest of the Konoha team continued to stare curiously, Naruto paused for a moment to gently swipe Neji's hair off his back. Then, the blonde rested his hands just below the bigger boy's shoulder blades.
"Here goes!" Naruto declared before pressing firmly down on the older boy's back with his thumbs.
Ino stalked over to her rival and slapped her hard on the back of her very round pink head. And Sakura was supposed to be a brain! Honestly!
"No silly!" Ino demanded, "What are you ranting about?"
"I…"
"NO!" Ino interrupted, slapping a hand over Sakura's mouth. "I don't even want to know. Just listen to me for a sec, 'kay?"
Sakura nodded obediently – it wasn't as if she could do anything else with Ino's firm hold of her.
"This is a picture of Uzumaki Naruto." Ino explained.
Sakura jerked out of Ino's grasp. "EH!"
"You know Naruto?" Ino asked, surprised.
"EH!" Sakura repeated, not hearing Ino at all.
It was apparent Sakura had not outstripped her shock. Ino guessed that the pink-haired girl had probably thought Uzumaki Naruto was a girl – a very common mistake. Ino watched her rival say "EH!" repeatedly in regular intervals and thought how Sakura's reaction mirrored Ino's when she herself had first found out that the too-pretty-for-his-own-damn-good blonde was actually a boy.
Push. Push.
"Ah! Ah!"
Press. Press.
"A little bit higher..."
"Here?"
"Hmm…"
Rub. Rub.
"Hah…hah…"
"Does that feel nice, Neji?"
"…em…yeah…"
Push. Push.
"….ah…ah!"
A light pound.
"Oh!"
"Hee, hee. I told you I was good!"
"…"
Press. Press.
"There. Nn, there!"
Pound. Pound.
Shiver.
Push. Push.
"…unnnn….nunnneee…."
Press. Press.
"Down."
PUSH!
"Nmmmm…ah!"
Poke. Poke…
(Author's Note: Children, let your imaginations be free!)
Ino waited for a good ten minutes for the information of Naruto's being a guy to sink in before interrupting the other girl's "EH!"s.
"Sakura-chan?"
"Y-yes?" Sakura managed to reply though her brain still tried to comprehend how a boy could be so pretty.
"Sasuke-kun is…" Ino hoped that her next words wouldn't bring mental trauma on the pink-haired girl and impair her for life. "…sorta… of course, really, really slightly! (here, Ino laughed nervously as she desperately thought of the least intense word that would still convey her observations) – interested Uzumaki Naruto."
Sakura froze and Ino tensed – praying to kami-sama that Sakura's outburst wouldn't cause an explosion that'd endanger their lives. Much to Ino's (great, great, great, great, great…) surprise, Sakura just nodded painfully.
Ino blinked. Sakura…knew…? How?
The blonde looked at her depressed friend. It didn't matter how. She knew and she was hurt… That was why this plan was so important…
"C'mon, Sakura-chan. You need to do this as much as me..." Ino continued in her most gentle voice.
Sakura peered up as her rival withdrew a second picture from her pocket slowly. This time, Ino identified the person before pushing the picture into her friend's hands.
"Exhibit B: Gaara."
Sakura gasped, staring into the picture.
"He's hot, huh?"
"On fire!" Sakura exclaimed, her cheeks growing pink.
The boy in the picture emitted a raw sexiness that nearly paralleled Sasuke-kun's. His white skin contrasted starkly with the dark rim of his light green eyes – such beautiful eyes – and the tattoo on his forehead – doomed to be ridiculous on everyone else – was dangerously sexy on the redhead. The way his smooth lips were twisted into a slightly annoyed frown and the way a light frown faintly wrinkled his smooth brow displayed that this boy was fully aware of the intent masculinity that demanded everyone to obey his wishes that he was emitting.
Sakura admired the redhead's broad manly shoulders and just as suddenly, frowned. The rest of the boy's lean, muscular frame was interrupted by what looked like blurred leaves. It was curious… as if this picture was taken with a camera with a super-zoom capability from inside a thick bush…
Sakura stared at Ino. Ino took this picture in a bush after taking the first in a boy's locker room? When'd Yanamaka Ino become a stalker?
Kiba looked with surprise at Shikamaru.
"I'd say Naruto's actually really good at back massaging."
"Yeah." An equally surprised Shikamaru agreed, watching Neji continue to make happy sounds from beneath an intense Naruto who was professionally thumbing the exact places where the back muscles were likely to get strained.
Chouji had stopped chomping down on his imported super-sized bag of Ultra Cheesy Doritos. Licking his fingers, the chubby boy remarked, "That looks pretty relaxing."
"Guess that book's better than it looks." Kiba stated, taking the book from Shikamaru to get a closer look.
"No. Naruto's good despite that messed up book." Shikamaru corrected, taking it back and tossing the hentai book by a hentai author to the side.
"Uzumaki's muscle control is perfect and all instinctive." Shino agreed. "And he also knows precisely how to relieve the tension from the muscles."
"Neji seems to like it." Lee observed, as the usually calm boy groaned as Naruto inched his hands down the older boys back.
And all four boys noted how their own shoulders were aching from a hard day's practice…
"Er, Ino-chan?" Sakura asked, looking strangely at her rival.
"What is it now?"
"Where did you get these pictures?"
Ino blushed. She'd hoped that Sakura wouldn't ask that…
"Er, the second one I took, um, in, um, from the far, far sidelines of where, um, the Sand team was practicing…"
"In a bush?" Sakura asked incredulously.
"Actually, I took that one on top of a small tree." Ino confessed.
At her friend's degrading look, Ino blurted, "Well, Gaara's not exactly a person that I can walk up to ask for a picture!"
Sakura let that one go. The redhead really didn't look like a person that one could easily accost… And that wasn't the problematic picture…
"And the first picture…?"
"That one I bought." Ino replied quickly, dismissing Sakura's worst fears.
"Bought?" Sakura wondered out loud.
"Yup." Ino said. "From the president of Uzumaki Naruto's fan club."
"Fan club?"
"Yeah. It's an, um, all boy's fan club at our school…" Ino explained. "I needed a picture to show you and um…since it's impossible because of a certain guy – cough, cough, Hyuuga Neji, cough – to take pictures of Naruto using the bush/tree method, I had to buy it to show you."
"Oh?" Sakura breathed.
"It cost me sixteen hundred yen too! Even though it's a goddamn copy..." Ino grumbled.
"How did the president of Uzumaki Naruto's fan club get a picture if there's that…um…certain guy guarding Naruto?" Sakura wanted to know.
"Not only did I have to pay lots of money, I had to bike all the way to the hospital." Ino continued to explain.
"Hospital?" The pink-haired girl quipped, startled.
"Because the president of Naruto's fan club's been in a full-body cast ever since Neji found out how he'd been 'taking advantage' of being in the same gym class as Naruto." Ino told her rival.
Sakura blinked. She wondered just what this Hyuuga Neji's relationship with Uzumaki Naruto was…
"I'm all done, Neji." Naruto said, crawling off the Hyuuga's back.
Neji didn't reply; his face still buried in the pillow. The dark-haired boy knew that staying down was not exactly a natural action – but he couldn't really think of anything else at the moment except that he wanted Naruto to crawl back on his back again. His face instantly heated up in appall at his inappropriate thoughts. Neji buried his face even deeper into the pillow.
"Neji? Did you fall asleep?" Naruto asked, leaning his head down close to the pale boy's hidden face. "Neji?"
When the older boy didn't reply – busy restraining extremely improper, pheromone-affected (or so the Hyuuga thought) urges – Naruto shrugged. Turning back to his other patiently waiting teammates, the blonde smiled.
"Does anyone else want a back massage?"
At the blonde's offer, four boys answered at once.
"Yeah, sure… it doesn't look too troublesome…"
"…" (A silent yes from Shino.)
"Gah! After all those free throws, my back is killing me!"
"Can I eat while you massage?"
"Yosh! Getting a back massage sounds like an activity for the YOUTH!"
Naruto grinned, happy that his teammates recognized his tensai manager skills. "Okay! I'll do it! Who wants a back massage first? Heh?"
Naruto blinked as he suddenly saw his teammates blanch. He was so busy looking at one pale face to the next that he didn't realize that there was a looming dark shadow of one very pissed off Hyuuga who'd near transformed into a shinegami right behind him…
"Nah, never mind. It actually looks too troublesome."
"…" (A silent (and very potent) no from Shino.)
"Gah! After all those free throws, I'm dead tired. Better turn in right away!"
"I don't think I can eat while you massage!"
"Getting a back massage is definitely not for the YOUTH! Yosh! I'll not get a back massage!"
"What the...?" A disappointed Naruto asked, as his once eager teammates scattered to busy themselves with other things. Thwarted, the blonde turned around and saw that Neji had woken up and was sitting up on his mat, giving Naruto a kind, sympathetic look.
"WAHHH!" The blonde dobe cried, flying into Neji's arms. "Only Neji loves me!"
Neji soothingly stroked the blonde's quaking back, as the pouting blonde stuck a tongue out at his teammates and announced, "I'm never gonna offer ta give any of ya back massages – ever!"
Neji successfully ignored poisoned looks from his other teammates as he patted the blonde's head.
"Ino-chan?" Sakura asked. "What does Gaara have to do with…"
Sakura choked out the painful words. "Sasuke-kun taking interest in Uzumaki Naruto?"
"Good question, now I can finally show you the long waited exhibit C!"
Ino eagerly pulled out a badge sponsoring huge block letters from her pocket and gave it to Sakura. Sakura frowned as she read the blackened words.
"What does this mean?" The pink-haired girl asked her rival.
"It means the answer to our problems!" Ino winked, wagging a sly finger in front of the other girl's face.
"Answer to our problems?" Sakura echoed.
Ino nodded vigorously. "Uzumaki Naruto has a thing for Gaara – it's like, obvious."
"I don't blame him." Sakura replied seriously. "If you pass him!" Sakura flashed the photo of the redhead. "On the street and you didn't look back to stare, you would not qualify as a human being. Unless, of course, you were blind, deaf and were so dry that you bristled."
Ino twitched at the Sakura's somehow familiar reaction. But the blonde willed herself to continue and explain. "If we get Uzumaki Naruto and Gaara to love-love, then Sasuke-kun would stop being 'distracted' and…"
A silent, pregnant moment passed as both girls arrived at the same glorious conclusion.
"…come to me!" Both girls finished together, clutching their own hands together in like classic-Shoujo-heroine-rapture poses. Each was too worked up in her own happy ending that they did not argue over the fact that their fantasies conflicted with each other's…
Sakura hastily bent to pin the badge Ino had given her on as Ino mirrored her rival's actions, pulling out another badge from her pocket (Ino made a mental note to thank Shikamaru later on; his jersey's pockets were really deep and could conveniently hold a whole bunch of shit). When both girls straightened, their chests sponsored sparkly badges engraved with the bold proud letters:
GAANARU.
Author's Note:
Author finishes posting the new chapter on and is about to switch off her computer when an angry Uchiha enters, pointing out the window. "Explain!"
The author looks out to see a very happy Hyuuga clutching a Naruto plushie and smirking at an annoyed Gaara who's looking with evident jealousy at the Naruto plushie.
"Er…well…that's…"
"I hope that isn't your way of subtly suggesting this is going to be a NejiNaru fic." Sasuke's eyes narrow dangerously.
"There's a perfectly logical reason behind – "
The author is interrupted by Sasuke's demanding, "Well if it's not, I want a Naruto plushie too! Now!"
Few minutes later…
A happy Sasuke exits the room with a Naruto plushie as author sinks into her chair after taking two aspirins. She tries to look on the bright side. At least, she was still alive. Yeah, that was good… The sun will come up tomorrow, right?
At that moment, an angry Gaara enters the room and spits out, "Explain!" jerking one thumb out the window.
Author silently curses Annie in her mind.
Well, everybody! We are on chapter eleven already! Thanks for the reviews and I hope to see you in the next chapter too! As always, feel free to send me any suggestions for the fic.