Chapter Two
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They served it in blue and red cups.
It was a vile poison. Staring down at the white liquid he cringed his nose, a repulsion danced in the tip of his tongue as he forced the whole thing and gulped it down. The irritation stuck in his throat. He began to cough in the middle of the whole damn table.
Neji's cup froze mid-way before he could take a sip. Sakura played dumb and tried not to choke on the rice she was chewing, as she contained her chuckle. Helplessly he began to hit his chest to pass the warm milk. He made things even worst, the whole damn cult was watching him choke.
Some snickered, others might as well prayed for him to die right there. His mannerisms of the table didn't went unnoticed by a large figure that sat in the big chair that was on the other side of the table. Her spoon never reached her plump lips. Her green eyes pierced him, as if she had to squeeze the annoying fly that interrupted dinner.
Placing her spoon back in place she began to speak with that dulcet tone that many would praise, and at the same time she held a elegance in the way she spoke. It wasn't surprising to him knowing that she was the damn leader.
"I take our food isn't to your liking? Young Nara."
More like it was just the type to make him vomit. A last cough escaped his mouth just in time for more humiliation. The burning taste that passed his mouth as he finally drank the liquid down made him force a tight smile to make his disgust unnoticeable.
"No. It's just my throat was sore since last night." What a big lie.
"It's expected after all." She began playing with the tip of her spoon, her clean and sharp fingernails pointing her utensil in his direction."Men. Lack that which we women posses."
Yeah. They possessed the power to play innocent and get a free pass when things got hard. Flicker your eyelashes and boom! Your saved. Shikamaru begged to differ.
"Oh, yeah?" His smile was a clear mockery to her statement. But he played it smooth. "Like what?"
"We care."
He blinked dumbfounded.
"We adapt to our suffering and maintain unity in a more peaceful manner than man." She placed her hand in the table and arrogantly watched how Shikamaru became irritated. "Men contain power by dictation of fear. Forcing power instead of nourishing it to their people."
What a way to bring up her matriarchal ideals.
A pleasant smile painted her lips as she took the drink on her left side. Slowly drinking the whole thing with a graceful gulp. An adult lecturing the brat on class. The way she used Young every time to refer to him really hit a nerve. A brat he might be by the age of seventeen, but not a damn infant that needed a lecture from a crazy hag.
"Next time you lie to me. Try to remember women read lies like a book."
He smiled in defeat. Damn woman. She got in his nerves.
Hyūga gave him a warning to stop by hitting his shoulder slightly. Shikamaru ignored it.
"You caught me. I hate girly drinks." He drew a better punch. It was his turn to get on her nerves.
The silence hung heavy when he finally finished his response. No one dared to talk. He expected a royal fuck up. His damn ego had gotten the better of him. It wasn't like him to be the loud-mouth comrade, usually that tittle went to Naruto.
Shit. She is going to chew my ass.
He expected to be insulted back or kicked out of the table. But, instead the woman laughed. The young faces of the girls blinked in confusion, and so did he even more.
"You better be thankful that I find the way you respond amusing. Young Nara." She looked distant and smiled. As if a past memory crossed her mind. "Reminds me of an old friend."
He blinked and dared to talk even after his fuck up.
"Let me guess..." he paused dramatically giving more spice to his final sentence. "A man."
A girl got up irritated. Smashing her food with the sharp fork she held on her hands, gazing daggers at the insolence of the Nara.
"You disrespectful-!" She went silent as soon as the leader raised her palm to shush her.
"Since the Young Nara hates girly things. I might expect that you will find the accommodations inside the camp rather distasteful. So why don't you and your group remain on the east side of our territory. The cattle is rather friendly, even to men."
Again with the young. He knew that a society ran by women was his ultimate nightmare. Someone in the universe was having a great laugh at his expense.
"Yeah. We'll take the east side."
Later on he would regret those words.
"Then might you enjoy your stay."
It was colder than the darkest sea. The night was silent but freezing.
Not even a bull. Just cows, talk about hating all species of male creations. That was some malevolence that not even Ino possessed.
They were sleeping in a fucking barn. And it still looked like some five-year old girl had decorated the whole place. The cows were eating freaking flowers. Way to punish him for his sexist comments.
"Mental torture,huh? She is good."
Girly flower-camp, girly drinks, girly animals. It all screamed troublesome.
The cows liked Neji. Liked him so much that one of them had trapped the Hyūga's sleeve and was devouring it.
"I bet that stimulates them. Having the handsome prodigy of Konoha in their presence." He paused and began to imitate the cow's call on the smooch part. "why don't you smooo-ch them. Hyūga. It will make it less troublesome for you and might even let you go."
"Shut it, Nara."
Sakura seemed to be happy with the horrible accommodations. She began to play with the ears of a black spotted cow and had already placed her bag on the dirty grass. Better than sleep around the harpies.
"She ain't complaining."
The Hyūga tried to free his white sleeve from the strong teeth of the animal. He watched the Nara laugh.
"Need help?"
"As if..."
Sakura approached the cow that was slowly chewing the Hyūga's clothes. She rubbed behind the ears. Then the cow freed the Hyuga's sleeve leaving wet saliva in the fabric. Captured by the caresses that Sakura gently provided.
The Hyūga has lost badly to the hoofed mammal.
"I bet if it was a bull I would domesticated too."
Sakura snorted.
"You know, we women do have a special power when it comes to nurture." Her words made him think back of the awkward dinner party.
"Hn. That troublesome hag is obsessed with nurturing, as if that was the only role that will provide good results. Doesn't explain the part of her hating people with testicles so much that she would exclude them from her crazy cycle of fanatics."
Sakura blinked. Remembering the conversation of Shikamaru and.
"So. That's why you provoked her." She smiled. "Using your manhood to see what was inside her head. She still made you lose. She sent you to sleep in a freaking farm."
"Nah. Nothing beats the fury of the Hyūga."
Neji arched an eyebrow. His comment made Sakura kneel to the floor laughing.
"It looked more like you liked being handled by her. I didn't know you had those tendencies, Nara."
Shikamaru grunted. The damn Hyūga was having his payback after the Nara had humiliated him with his constant comments of Neji being the bait for the women.
"Real smooth, Hyūga. For your information I don't like being handled by women."
Shikamaru arched an eyebrow. Sakura hissed and laughed at the same time, her cheeks burning by the sharp strength she had used as she laughed. She placed her weight over the confused animal and continued her happy chorus.
"So you rather be handled by a male?"
Sakura began to cry and laugh louder. Shikamaru began to grunt even more.
"Man. Shut up troublesome Hyūga."
Out of nowhere a whole pack of three cows began to circle the Hyūga. Shikamaru watched close narrowing his eyes when he saw how the cows began to smell the same sleeve that the first one had chewed. The Hyūga tried to shoo them away with her palms. But they were persistent.
Without warning he walked towards Neji. Took hold of his sleeve and lifted to his face.
Neji raised an eyebrow.
"What are you doing,Nara?"
Sakura was cleaning her eyes as small chuckles constantly escaped her mouth.
"Guess he does want to be handled by a man after all." She said, but the Nara never broke his concentration off the wet fabric. Sakura blinked and got closer to take a look at the cloth. Leaving her humor be replaced by curiosity.
There was a strange smell.
"Neji. What did you spill on your sleeve?" Shikamaru asked as he took out a kunai to tear off the fabric. He felt it. A familiar disgust taking hold of his stomach, remembering the disgusting taste of the warm milk they had served them.
He blinked and watched Neji.
"Did you finish your drink?"
" I barely took a sip."
He furrowed his eyes.
"It smells of something besides milk. You can barely tell, but the scent is different from the drink I had." A strange feeling prickled his skin. He began to search for a test subject. "Sorry buddy."
He offered the wet fabric to a cow. It was chewing but no devouring it. More like.
"Is not eating it. Weird. So that's why the other cow left so much saliva." Sakura observed closely how the cow became more and more impatient to consume the liquid off the fabric. "Is sucking it...like a baby."
Shikamaru pulled the fabric, but watched as the cow desperately attached itself. Then as he finally took it away the cow began to moan and persuaded him. He noticed something in the cow's mouth.
"Sakura. Open her mouth."
Without questioning much she began to calm the animal by repeating the massages behind the ears. She forced the cow to open her mouth.
The tongue of the animal looked dry. The saliva of the animal was non existent. The animal began to cry once more. Searching for the liquid that had dried somehow her cavities.
"What the hell-"
It was nauseating when he remembered the dinner. They had served Neji a red cup and to others a blue one. Most of the women had drank the same liquid as the cow.
"The fuck is she doing to those women?"
Sakura looked his way. Confused.
"What are you talking about."
He blinked in worry. Had Sakura drank from a red cup?
"Sakura what color was the cup of your drink?"
She looked up at the sky trying to force her brain to remember.
"It was blue. Why?"
Neji went rigid when he finally understood. He met Shikamaru's angry orbs.
"Why would she feed them this?"
Because she was using it somehow to fuck their minds even more. No wonder all of them looked petite and in need of more meat.
"She is malnourishing them. Why the fuck would she." He felt disgusted at another realization. "But, they know about it. They know she is giving them this shit and fucking up their digestive system. And they are willingly drinking it."
Talk about being a hypocrite. That old hag was lecturing him about feeding the world with motherly love. And here she was doing the contrary. Drying up her own what pissed him more was that she had fed that shit to Neji on purpose.
They were after all the only two males around. But, why hadn't she feed him the same thing?
"That-" he paused to meet pale orbs in worry. Sakura was present but he gave little thought to his dignity. His awkward consternation was shown as he asked the Hyūga for his present state. "Are you ok?"
Neji blinked twice. Taken by surprise. In a soft whisper he gave the Nara a reassuring smile.
"I'm alive."
He couldn't agree more.
"Yeah. You are troublesome Hyūga."
Hell, they were facing more than one complication. He sighed. He looked at the Hyūga. Shit, he needed to circle the Hyūga more.
"I need a nap." Sakura agreed. "Ready to sleep with the cows, Neji?"
They needed a distraction. All the craziness had already consumed their minds, only to leave them unsure of what else those women were hiding. Besides their fucked up customs.
He needed to clear his mind from the nasty stuff.
Shikamaru gave up and found a sweet spot near a cow. The grass was taller and more comfortable. Sakura somehow thought that sleeping around farm animals was nice, she had fallen sleep on top of a cow. He had shaken her to wake her up and tell her that there were better sleeping spots. But she just groaned at him. He gave up way too fast.
A loud and large yawn escaped his mouth. He began to stretch and to close his eyes. The familiarity of falling in a deep slumber made him happy.
His paradise didn't last. Something stabbed his left cheek. The heel of the Hyūga's sandals.
"You better have a good excuse to interrupt my sleep."
Neji crossed his arms.
"Pay your debt, Nara."
Suddenly he felt the need to run and actually move his lazy ass. Heat began to burn in his lower belly.
"Yeah...not now."
"Yes. Now."
He had the perfect escape route.
"Sakura is here. So you can't."
"You think I didn't notice that?"
Shikamaru smartassed his way thru.
"What? That Sakura is here and you can't torture me?"
Neji looked pissed as he threw what looked like a small metallic object.
"You need to stop. I'm not gonna disappear."
Shikamaru shrugged and shook his head.
"Yeah...I won't stop."
Neji knew. Even if the Nara tried to hide it. He cared. Cared too much.
"And you say that these women act like crazy mothers. You put one in Sakura too."
"Yeah..." he said shamelessly.
The Hyūga sighed.
"Why?"
He looked away.
"You're important."
Simple and easy as that. The Hyūga felt a strange sensation on his chest.
"We won't die."
"Yeah...Asuma said the same thing."
There was that old scar that he couldn't vanish.
They could say whatever about him being a man with not conviction whatsoever even when possessing such talent as his intellect. But, the way he cared for others was irrefutable.
"She is wrong you know. That woman." Neji's digit began to get closer. "You're a good man, Shikamaru."
Shikamaru let a chuckle escape. Unsure of how to react.
"Praising me now, eh Hyūga?"
"Hnnn. Maybe..."
Shikamaru was about to retort a smart response, but was silenced by a fierce kiss that lasted for mere seconds. His lips were left burning.
The Hyūga was walking away before he could even speak a word back.
"Tch. That's not fair game, Hyūga."
"Says the tricky bastard."
Shikamaru snickered.
"Good thing you aren't a woman."
Neji turned back to look at him straight into the Nara's eyes.
"Night. Nara."
"Night, troublesome Hyūga."
Thank you for reading. I might rate it M for later chapters. Not gonna spoil it. But, thanks for your support.
Good night. Apologies for typos and grammatical errors.