I have a Sunday. Yes, a Sunday. It means that I have time. Oh fun. I didn't do homework I was supposed to finish. That's bad. I did enough of my research, however, to figure out that I'm not a Japanese mangaka with a twin brother.

Sakura and Temari stared up at the sky. The two girls had sprawled out on the sand because 'Oh-Em-Gee' they were tired and bored. Shikamaru was there too, but he was genuinely interested in the clouds.

"You know malaria isn't contagious, right?" Sakura asked.

"Man, I did my research. I use it as an excuse not to have anything to do with a pissy teenaged boy with some serious issues and a fever. I can't let him die, so I figure we all have to make sacrifices." She glanced up at the clouds. "Poor Uzumaki. Eh, the both of them need more friends than they have."

"So you're lying, cheating, and scamming the two of them into a situation where they have no hope of avoiding each other?"

"Damn right."

"You're brilliant."

"I know, aren't I? I am a woman of many talents, and I don't even need Shikamaru to tell me that eighty million times a day so I feel 'special' and don't wangst until I get waterlogged. Ah, feminism is tasty. Like eggplants in the summer. Or the winter. Or you know, not eggplants."

"Mangos."

"Mangos."

"Do you ever get the sensation that we're dreaming?"

Temari shrugged. "You know, I've stopped caring. It's a really long, sucky dream if it is a dream. Might as well enjoy the high points. Such as, for instance, staring up at the sky for two hours and avoiding any semblance of work. That's good. Very good."

"Cloud watching is nice," Shikamaru blurted suddenly. "It's calming."

"That's why we're doing it," Temari replied. "Otherwise we'd just give up and lose our minds and man, that would suck. Like, worse than it does. Hence, 'I think malaria is contagious and as such we must avoid Uchiha at all costs'. Does this make me a horrible person for manipulating Naruto?"

"Naw," Sakura said, "it's not that horrible. Sasuke's pretty docile when he's sick. In relation to how he usually acts, anyway."

Temari laughed. "That's not all that comforting."

Sakura shrugged. "Yeah, well…welcome to life."

Temari took a handful of sand and let it escape slowly from her long, bony fingers. "Welcome to life."

"No, welcome to a soap opera disguised as a life disguised as a soap opera."

"Ah, Shikamaru. You add so much to a conversation."

"I think I want me one of him."

"I think I have me one of him."

"Touché."

"You know what? You suck!"

"You suck more!"

"No you suck more…er…"

"Let's end this with 'the both of you suck' and the both of you are making my toes tingle in that special way the therapist talked about at the psych evaluation last year. Remember that? I didn't pass that." Gaara merely glowered at Kiba and Kankuro. "Honestly, the both of you are so amazingly immature, it's not funny."

"Nothing is funny to you."

"Pain is funny."

Kiba blinked. "Pain? Why is pain funny?"

"Clearly you've never see anything silent staring Charlie Chaplin. That man made pain hilarious." And with that, Gaara padded away, through the jungle. Kiba looked pissed because Gaara was allowed to go places without someone following him. It was the principle of the manner only, because Hinata was pretty cute.

And then it was circle time.

Kiba seriously wondered where the day had gone. Very odd that half of it was suddenly missing. Irrelevant, however, to the general idea of the real-time-god-is-what-you-make-him-existentialist-plot. Kiba blinked, unsure of whether that made any sense at all. He stopped thinking after a couple of minutes because honestly he didn't care: it was common for him to write 'lyke ths on teh int3rw3bs!!11!oeneleventyone!11!'.

He had been told time and time again that he was going to hell for that.

So grammar was really low on the list of priorities.

They sat inside the hut of campfire and watched each other with suspicion. "What are we all looking at each other like that for?" Naruto asked.

Temari shrugged across the fire. "You know what, hell if I know. I just, you know, make sure you guys don't randomly kill each other. Or me. Mostly me." She paused. "Um, why is everyone looking at each other like there's a murderer among us?"

"Lee is gone," Sakura sniffled. "I can't find him and it makes me so sad! I want to know who took him!"

Twenty-four eyes turned to look at Gaara.

"Gaara," Temari drawled. "What did you do with Sakura's lizard?"

Gaara rolled his eyes. "Why is it my fault? Pick on the psycho why don't you? Yes, let's blame me! I must have taken Sakura's lizard because I spend my days attempting to make little girls with pink hair cry. I have nothing better to do than plot my next attack on people's souls. It's not possible that the lizard ran off on it's own, is it?. It has to be me. You know what?" He narrowed his eyes. "Good day."

And Gaara left.

"What bit his butt?" Ino asked, raising an eyebrow. "Sakura, I'm sorry Lee is missing. We'll find him, I promise."

"Maybe Gaara is right. It's really possible that Lee just went back into the jungle. The island is pretty big and it isn't an domesticated lizard."

That was Sai talking.

"You know what? You suck." Sakura stuck her tongue out.

"Why do you have to be so mean, Sai?" Ino glared.

Neither Hinata nor Temari said anything. This was probably a smart move, because no one was shooting death glares in their direction and that meant less hostility aimed toward them.

"Gaara is being an angsty bitch," Kankuro muttered. "Because Neji won't sleep with him."

"Thanks Neji," Kiba murmured acidly.

"So it's my fault Sakura's lizard ran away?" Neji hissed.

"It's didn't run away! Gaara killed it!"

"No he didn't!"

"Shut the hell up!"

"This is not my fault! Gaara is a psycho! He needs to get laid."

"Then it's Neji's fault."

"It's not my fault!"

"Yes it is!"

"No, it's not!"

"Yes, it is!"

"I am above this."

"Like hell you are!"

"You guys all suck."

In the background, Hinata and Temari commenced to chat about the weather. Lovely this time of year, really. Such a good quality of light. Kind of a yellow-ish color. Tragedy at the lack of cameras.

Photographing fist fights too.

Wait…

"Try not to get anything bloody, laundry day isn't for a while."

Purrple Kat and I are pulling an all-nighter.

Wish me luck, lovlies.