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Scene X: "The love not poison that do need poison."
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"Lee!"
He turned around to see Tenten running up to him.
"What are you doing?" she gasped out, catching her breath.
"I believe I am going to school, Tenten," he heard himself say.
'That was strange,' he thought. 'I was able to answer her as I had before I had developed any romantic feelings for her.'
"Are you okay to go back to school?" Her voice drenched with concern. "Your accident only happened three days ago, and your head is still all wrapped-"
"I asure you, Tenten, that I am as strong as ever. As long as I am in my-"
"Springtime of youth," she finished for him. "Yeah, I know Lee. As long as you have that, you'll be fine right?"
Lee stared at the girl in bewilderment before breaking into a wide smile.
"Yes!" he laughed. "Yes! That is right, Tenten! That is most indefinelty right!"
Tenten gave a small chuckle. "Well, it's not that hard to guess, Lee. It's only your most common phrase. Come on, I'll walk to school with you."
'She likes me,' Lee thought as he walked with her, listening happily to her chatter away. 'She must, she knows me so well.'
xxx
Lee was able to get out of Stats at the ten minute bell. He hurried to the third floor where Tenten's locker would be.
When he reached her locker he opened his backpack and pulled out a green envelope with a wax seal. He slid the item into one of the locker slots. He smiled brightly as he heard the envelope land on something inside softly.
As quietly as he had approached, he slinked away.
xxx
Tenten opened her locker to get her lunch. Reaching for her bento, she noticed a green envelope sitting ontop of the lucnch box. Curiously, she reached for it and looked it over. It was a standard envelope despite the abnormal color. There was a wax seal keeping it shut. White, with the design of a flower.
She slipped her finger underneath the flap and slid it across, breaking the seal in two. Opening it, she lifted out an unlined cream colored piece of paper folded in half. She flipped it open and read the contents. It read:
"Doubt that the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.
I have not art to reckon my groans. But that I love thee best, of, most best, believe it. Adieu. Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him."
Tenten looked up from the note with a flushed face.
'A love note!' she thought happily. 'From Kiba? It could be! No one signed it.'
She looked to her left where she saw the boy of her dreams open his own locker to put his items away. She continued to watch him until he felt her eyes on him. He turned his head and saw her looking his way. He casually waved a hello to her and she in turn returned it. Kiba closed his locker and walked away. Tenten stood in front of her own locker, still watching his figure as it left her sight.
'He didn't do anything... what if he's embarrased? Yeah, I guess he could be. Should I bring it up?'
Suddenly, a thought flashed through her mind. She stuffed the letter back in the envelope and put into one of her binders. She picked up her bento and slammed her locker shut.
'What if it isn't from him though?!'
She turned her head in all directions, inspecting everyone around her, finding nothing out of the ordinary.
'This might take some investigating.'
xxx
"Ino-pig, you're going to get in trouble."
The blonde looked at her pink haired friend from across the table.
"What do you mean, Forehead?" she asked.
"You," said Sakura. "If you keep missing practice just to come home with me, you're going to get into truoble."
Ino slammed her hand on the table surface, snapping her pencil in half with the force of the impact.
"Well, dammit, Sakura! If you would just fucking tell me what's wrong, I wouldn't have to worry about you!" she yelled.
"There's nothing wrong with me!" Sakura yelled back.
"Right, because it's just completely normal to find someone about to hang themselves out of the blue!"
"Shut up!" hissed Sakura. She got up from her seat and stood in the kitchen doorway, making sure that her mother didn't hear any of the yelling. She listened intently, hearing nothing from upstairs, she went back to her seat.
"You don't know anything about that," she said softly.
"Exactly!" Ino concurred. "Why don't I know anything about that?"
"Because it's nothing for you to worry about. I'm fine."
"You're not fine. I've known you for ages, Sakura, and I've never seen you like that."
Sakura shook her head in disbelief. "No."
Ino looked at her with confussed eyes. "No what?"
"Just no, alright, just no."
"No what?" Ino pressed.
"I don't know, Ino! I don't know!" She threw her head into her hands and took in a gulp of breath. She looked up and said, "Please, can't we just forget about it?"
Ino looked at through analyzing eyes. She shook her head. "No."
"Why not?"
"Because, Sakura, I just want to help you."
Ino reached across the table for Sakura's hand. Sakura snatched her hand away.
"I'm fine," she said sternly.
Sakura turned back to her notebook and continued with her Physics homework. She wasn't more than halfway done and wanted to complete it before beginning anything else.
Ino regarded her friend sadly. She softly massaged her temples and gave a deafeated sigh. Some way or another, she was determined to get Sakura to talk to her.
xxx
Chouji was finally "cleaning" his room up. Note the quotations around the cleaning. Although his mother was under the impression that her son was dutifully making his sleeping quarters spotless, Chouji, like any other person of the younger generation would do, was throwing random items into his closet, under his bed, etc., etc...
During the process, he had picked up his jacket and went through the pockets. Mostly out of habit and also to check if there was any spare money. He pulled out the straw packet Kankuro had given him last week.
'I forgot this was here...' He stared at the object and made his way to his bed, sitting down
As fate would have it, his stomach growled loudly.
'So if I take this, I'll lose weight? And I can stop at anytime? Because it's like all of those other over the counter stuff. And I'll be fine as long as I don't go overboard or anything.'
His stomach rumbled again and without a second thought, he ripped the minute packet open and poured the contents into his mouth.
He cringed at the bitter taste of the powdery substance as it ran over his tounge and down his throat. He scraped his tounge against the back of his teeth to make sure it was gone.
He waited.
Nothing.
Chouji sighed, "That was lame."
He sat in silence for a few minutes before deciding to go downstairs. He stood up and stepped forward. He gasped. Chouji looked down at his feet and took another step forward. It looked and felt as though is feet weren't even touching the floor. The hair on his arms and back of his neck stood on end. He felt an extreme cold sensation start from the base of his neck and spread downwards across his spine. He moved forward again, a bit too fast and spun around in a full circle heavily. The colors in his room glowed brighter, forcing his eyes to adjust to the swirl of semi-neon. He moved backwards unti the backs of his legs hit the bed, falling onto his back. He layed there, in stillness. He started laughing when he felt something tickling the bottoms of his feet.
Suddenly he jumped off from his bed and half-ran to his computer. He pressed own on the space bar waking it up from it's sleep state. As the computer started to form his desktop, he sat down and clicked onto his Language essay.
The rest of his night consisited of an unending stop of clicking and clacking as he typed ferociously. The only stop to his consistency was when his mother knocked on his bedroom door, telling him that breakfast was ready and to hurry up for school. Snapped out of his working phase, Chouji glanced out of his window, already seeing the light penetrate from beneath the blinds.
'What the hell happened to me?'
He read over the last few sentences he had written and saw that he was more or less, already finished it. He saved it and turned off the machinery. He got up and stretched, noticing the soreness in the muscles that were forced to stay in a sitting position for an entire night. He quickly readied for school and as he had finished he overheard his mother answering the door. No doubt it was Shikamaru. He came out of his room and went down the stairs greeting his friend who was still in the entry hall. Instead of turning to the kitchen for food, he headed directly for the door.
"You're not going to eat anything?" Shikamaru asked.
"Believe it or not," Chouji said. "I'm not hungry."
Shikamaru raised an eyebrow. "Chouji..."
"No, really," Chouji hurridely assured his friend. "Nothing dangerous I swear it! It's probably just lack of sleep that's making me not hungry."
"Lack of sleep?"
"Yeah, I sort of stayed up all night."
"Doing what?"
"I think my essay."
"You think?"
Chouji shrugged.
"Whatever. Well then, if you're not going to eat, let's get going."
The pair went off in the same direction they always have. The morning held nothing new for Chouji, he thought nothing about what he had down last night. Until he saw Kankuro go through the school's front doors with his siblings. Out of nowhere he felt his back pocket, making sure that his wallet was there.
'It wasn't making me hungry,' he thought. 'Maybe just one more...'
As soon as Shikamaru headed for his own homeroom, Chouji walked fast to catch up with Kankuro. He caugt up to him right outside of the other's homeroom class.
"What is it?" asked Kankuro.
"How much?"
xxx
It was already past 10 pm on Friday night when Ino and Sakura came out of a karaokee bar laughing.
"Thanks for the night out!" Ino called out to the man that they had accompanied.
"Yeah!" Sakura joined in. "We really had some fun!"
"Anytime girls," he called back at them.
The two girls walked down the street twoards their next destination.
"That wasn't so bad," said Sakura.
"No, it really wasn't," Ino agreed. She handed her one of the two bills. Their companion for the night had given them a total of twenty thousand yen.
"He wasn't even that old," Ino went on. "And here I thought that we would end up with some ancient pervert like Temari last week."
"I don't know, forty's still kind of ancient."
"Could be worse."
"True that."
Ino laughed out again. "Still, this beats the flower shop."
"I bet!"
They continued their mirthfull laugh and stopped in front of a small cafe looking shop.
"In here?" questioned Ino.
Sakura flipped her cell phone open and checked her e-mail. "Yeah, this is it. We're supposed to meet someone called the 'Toad Sage'."
Ino rolled her eyes. "Bet he looks like a toad."
"Eww, that'd be gross."
"Buuuut, it's another twenty for both of us," she pointed out.
"Exactly," laughed Sakura.
They linked arms and both entered at the same time. A strong smell of coffee hit their noses instanly. The cafe had a warm haze to it, almost making it difficult for them to breathe regularly after being out in the cold. They searched their way through the tables filled with other people laughing and chatting away.
Sakura checked her e-mail again. "He says that he has a really long ponytail."
"Yeah, that'll be easy to spot," Ino snorted. "Hair color?"
"White."
"Eww, so he is old."
"I guess, but hey, we could be stuck with a perv."
"Sakura, all these guys on these sites are pervs."
Sakura laughed again. "I guess so, huh?"
Suddenly, Ino pointed towards a back table. "Is that him?"
Sakura looked in the direction she was pointing towards. "Yeah, I think so."
They strolled up to the man sitting at the back table.
"Are you the 'Toad Sage'?" Ino asked first.
"Why, yes I am," the elderly man said. "You two must be Hana and Anita."
"That's right," Ino assured.
A thought came to Sakura.
"Aren't you that guy that lives across from Naruto?" she asked.
The elderly man looked at the two of them in shock.
"You two know Naruto?!"
"Kind of, I guess," Ino said.
"Yeah, he's like a friend," said Sakura.
The old man looked a little red in the face.
"Oh, well, I didn't know that you knew the brat," he said all at once. He got up from his seat and dropped some bills onto the table. "Excuse me, please, hate to be rude, but I must go."
He quickly rushed out of the shop leaving the two girls looking after him with a bemused expression.
"I think he was embarrased," Ino said to Sakura.
Sakura started to laugh again.
xxx
Tenten sat inside of the Italian restraunt with a man that was at least 40 years older than her. All in all though, she was having a very fun time.
"So what's your real name?" the old man named Kazuo asked her.
"Tenten," she answered simply, sipping from her drinking straw.
"Lovely. Does that symbolize you being a perfect ten?"
Tenten laughed at this. "Wouldn't that be great? I'm nowhere near perfect."
"No, you shouldn't say such a thing. You're young and very beautifull."
"Thank you very much, but still, I must digress."
"Well, I still believe you're a perfect ten," he pressed on, 'causing Tenten to laugh.
"Do you have a someone special in your life?" he asked.
Tenten laughed a little more sadly. "I wish," she confessed. "He doesn't even notice me."
Kazuo made a noise of offense. "Well then, he must not be very bright at all to not notice this lovely creature before me."
Tenten sighed. "It doesn't matter what I do though. He'll always be wrapped around Miss I Have Everything's finger."
"Is he that shallow?"
"Probably. What else could it be? I'm practically better, if not am, better than her in everything else. The only thing she has over me is money and all the designer shit she could possibly want."
"Is that all? Well, I could take care of that for you."
"What?"
"Yes, let's go shopping."
"Are you serious," she half laughed out.
"Of course," he said with a smile.
He stood up and left money on the table. He took up Tenten's hand and led her out of the restraunt and down the street into one of the clothing stores.
"Try on anything you like," he told her.
Tenten, more excited then suspicious, took off for the clothing racks grabbing garments left and right. She headed for the back of the store twoards the changing booths and Kazuo sat in front of the armchairs the store had placed in front of the dressing booths mirrors. After dressing herself in each outfit, Tenten would step out and model the outfit for the older man. Kazuo watched her with much interest, clapping and cheering her on when she would model. After awhile Kazuo had one of the store clerks come by and ring up the clothing Tenten had chosen.
Tenten had finished dressing herself in her own set of clothes and was about to come out of the booth when Kazuo peeked in.
"All clear?" he asked slyly.
Tenten jumped backwards. "Kazuo, you scared me. What are you doing?"
"I wanted to ask you sometihing," he replied, stepping into the booth himself and closing it behind him.
Tenten's heart started to beat faster. "W-what is it?"
Kazuo looked her straight in the eye. "Would you consider selling me your underwear?"
"Um... I-I don't know," she said uncertainly. "I mean, I've never... uh..."
"Come now," he pleaded. "You don't have to be shy. I'll even give you another ten thousand."
'Well,' she thought. 'It's not like I'm actually selling myself, and he did buy me all these clothes, and offering more money. I guess I'll just do it and get it over with.'
"Alright," she said. "I'll just go to the bathroom-"
"No, no, no," Kazuo told her. "Right here, just slip them off."
Tenten gasped. "I-I-I... right here?"
"Hurry," he told her. "Before someone comes looking for us."
'Just do it really quickly,' she told herself.
She pushed her hands beneath her skirt, revealing her underwear just a little bit. She pulled them down her legs and stepped out of them one leg at a time, making sure not to show herself off in anyway. She handed them over to Kazuo, who took them gently and as if it was nothing, folded them and put them inside his coat.
"Thank you very much," he said and let them both out.
The same store clerk that Kazuo had ring up the merchandise came back with some bags and his credit card.
"Here you are, sir," she said and handed him the items.
He thanked her and walked out of the store with a now silent and lightly blushing Tenten. Outside, Kazuo gave her the shopping bags and thanked her for the night. Tenten in turn, thanked him as well and waved goodbye to him, turning down a ride home and making her way back up the street back to the train station.
On the train back to the local district of Konoha, Tenten was lost in thought.
'I can't believe I did that. But I did get all this stuff, and more money then I thought I would get. It's not that bad I guess. An almost honest way to make some spare cash...'
She felt her cell phone vibrate through her jacket pocket. She flipped it open and saw that she had new mail. It was from another man off the dating site she had joined, asking her if she wanted to meet somewhere tomorrow night.
In an instant she responded back.
Where and what time?
XXX
TBC...
XXX
