"Okay, Number Three, it's your turn," Ino said with relish. She was enjoying her role as king way, way too much, and when Ino got carried away with party games, she really got carried away with party games.
"Number Three is me," Naruto chirped, waving his strip of paper around excitedly. He was acting as if he'd never been to a party before in his entire life, and knowing what everyone did about his lonely childhood, it would not have been surprising. "Can I change the dare?"
"No." Ino's voice was cold, unforgiving, and to no one's surprise, filled with sadistic glee.
"But it's unhygienic. I don't wanna – "
"Too bad, it's the rules of the game. Everyone has to do whatever I say for the next hour." Shikamaru sighed and muttered something about someone being troublesome. Ino ignored him. "And besides, I could have made you both do the dare at the same time, but I went easy on you. Naruto. Do it. Now."
Naruto groaned and ate the rest of Hinata's pocky stick. The stick that had been in her mouth just a few moments ago. Hinata turned a brilliant maroon that was the same shade as Gaara's hair. If possible, Ino's smile became even more gleeful.
She really got too carried away with party games.
"Hinata? Are you okay? Do you have a fever?" Naruto asked, his forehead pinched in a frown. "See Ino, Hinata's allergic to pocky and you made her eat it. Now she's going into sugar shock and – "
Ino slammed her hand to her forehead. "She's not allergic to pocky, you moron! And that's not how sugar shock works."
Neji twitched next to Tenten, but besides this slight movement, Tenten could not figure out exactly what he thought of Ino's blatant attempts to pair off his cousin and Naruto. Or how she even knew that Naruto was Number Three and Hinata was Number One. There was no way for her to have figured that out. At least, that was what she thought.
Ino scowled and moved on to her next victim. "Go do ten laps around Konoha in the rain right now...Number Five."
Apparently, Number Five was Shikamaru.
There was no way Ino could possibly know who got which number. How was this happening? How was she tailoring each dare so perfectly to each victim, like custom-designed clothes?
"Do I have to?" Shikamaru grumbled. "Why are you so troublesome, Ino?"
"Can I switch with Shikamaru-kun, Ino-san?" Lee asked, already jumping to his feet and pumping his arms up and down.
"No, no, and no," Ino said, crossing her arms smugly. "Shikamaru, get off your ass and do it. I will know if you've skimped out on the laps or not. And if you do, I'll tell Te – "
"Fine, fine," Shikamaru muttered, languidly leaving the couch and walking slowly, extremely, extremely slowly to Ino's front door and into the pouring rain.
The door slammed shut and Ino cracked her knuckles. Tenten found herself gulping.
Ino was scarily into these party games.
The next few dares were weird as hell, and somehow Ino was supernaturally assigning the most hilarious ones to the most fitting people.
"Number Four, smile widely! And show your whole face. No obstructions!"
"Number Two, eat only low-fat yogurt and carrots for dinner!"
"Number Six, uhh...tell someone in this group your honest opinion of them!" (Ino regretted this one a wall punch and ominously creaking ceiling later.)
"Number Eight, eat Akamaru's dog biscuits!" (No prizes for guessing who this one was, in Tenten's opinion.)
Just as Ino was readying herself to move on to her next victim, the door creaked open again and a little bit of the rain outside made its way into Ino's house.
Shikamaru stood there, dripping water all over the entryway, his clothes stuck to his skin, his soaked hair plastered to his forehead. Tenten at first didn't understand how that was possible, given that he usually tied it back, but then she did a double-take as her mind finally caught up with her eyes.
Whoa. Shikamaru with his hair down. And making a mess on the handsome wooden flooring.
"Well, that sucked," he said, slouching over like a sloth and plonking his wet self down onto the (now sopping) couch again, ignoring Ino's indignant, "Hey, dry off!" and a punch to the arm.
But Ino recovered quickly from her troublesome teammate's actions, and fixed Shikamaru and...Neji, oddly, with a sneaky glare.
Tenten had a funny feeling about this.
"Number Ten..." Ino sang. "Who has the nicest hair? Neji or Shikamaru?"
Tenten sighed in relief. And here she thought Ino would make her eat fireworks or something. This, though, was a no-brainer. "Neji, obviously."
Neji shot her a deer-in-headlights look, at odds with his usual calm, stoic expression. Shikamaru was taking a nap. Apparently he didn't care about this at all.
"Oh, really?" Ino's smile had reached its gleeful sadistic peak for the night. Tenten didn't know how or why, but she could always elaborate on the wonders of Neji's hair! Ladies and gentlemen, all needed to know. What a great platform Ino had provided her.
"I mean, doesn't it look so smooth and silky?" Tenten continued, not noticing Neji turning a shade quite reminiscent of Hinata's. "He should advertise for a hairstylist..." Here Neji choked, and here Tenten still didn't notice this, nor the fact that everyone except herself, Ino, and Neji had tuned out of the conversation.
"Sometimes it's pitch-black, and other times it's a really nice chocolatey brown. His hair smells good too. It's like...aloe vera!" Tenten snapped her fingers and Neji buried his face in his hands. If only Tenten had noticed, she would have been awestruck at how surprisingly easy it was to make this impassive genius fluster.
Just by talking about his hair. His lustrous, gorgeous hair.
"And don't kill me for this, Ino, but my teammate is smarter than yours. No offense."
Ino's grin was like a coyote's. Just like with the Naruto and Hinata dare.
Odd.
"None taken," Ino guffawed.
"Anyway, if that's all for my turn, you can move on to the next...Neji, are you okay? Don't keep muttering like that, people will think your screws are loose...Neji?"
A/N: Written for Day 22: Truth or Dare.
The king game (王様ゲーム) is a popular Japanese party game. Each participant draws lots and the person who draws the "king" gets to order the others to do whatever they want. Fun. Or...not fun. Ha ha. :)
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