Bozenjishitsu
Wow! 18th chapter! This is.... really really long... And scary long, too...
Kyuubi: There's a child molester nearby! Stick close!
...Not THAT kind of scary...
Kyuubi.... Stick close anyway! I'm cold!
(Kyuubi and SNG glomp each other and start shivvering)
Chapter Twenty: D-Date?
"Hey, Neji!" Naruto cried, looking slightly embarrassed. "What are you doing here?"
"I live here," Neji snapped, as if the blond were dense. He glared at them. "What do you want?"
"Is your cousin here?" Sakura asked sweetly.
"Which one?" Neji asked coldly.
"Hinata?"
Neji glared down at them. "Wait here." He then proceeded to close the door in their face.
Sakura raised an eyebrow.
"What crawled up his butt and died?" Sasuke asked, raising an eyebrow as well, joining them on the porch. (A/N: Copied from ErikKoekkoek, only cuz it was so funny to think of Sasuke saying it. Sorry, Erik-k-k! If you want me to change it, I will... but I shall be sad.)
Sakura shrugged as the door opened a crack. "Hey, Hinata!"
"Konnichia wa, Sakura-chan," Hinata said softly, opening the door wider. "Please, come in."
Sakura smiled at her friend, dragging Naruto into the hallway, Sasuke following slowly. The hall Hinata led them down was very elaborate, with several watercolor paintings hung on the walls. Sakura paused, looking at one in particular, a very detailed painting of a pond surrounded by trees, with a very life-like bird painted so that, were it a camera photograph, the feathered creature would have been just a few inches away from the lens. The feathers were incredibly detailed, each stroke of the brush precise and well done. It had obviously taken the artist a great deal of time. "Who did this one?"
Hinata smiled shyly, turning to look. "Do you like it?"
Sakura nodded, still examining the artwork. "Did you do it?"
Hinata shook her head, blushing slightly. "No, I can't do something like that. It was Neji."
Naruto's eyeballs popped. "Neji can paint?"
Hinata nodded, her blush increasing due to that fact that Naruto-kun had addressed her.
"He doesn't seem like the sort of person who would be interested in art," Sasuke said sullenly.
Hinata smiled apologetically. "Please forgive him. You interrupted him while he was..." She stopped, looking as if she had said too much about some forbidden secret.
"While he was what?" Sakura asked, tearing her eyes away from the painting to look at Hinata.
"Come on, Hinata, you can tell us!" Naruto cried, grinning.
Hinata blushed fully, looking over-joyed for a split second. "Well... you see, Neji truly likes his... um..."
"His what?" Sakura asked.
"His waffles," Hinata said finally.
Naruto starred at her for a moment, then attempted to contain his laughter. "Waffles?!"
Hinata nodded, looking at the carpet. "You interrupted him while he was eating his breakfast."
Sasuke raised an eyebrow (that poor eyebrow is so over-worked.) "Neji... likes... waffles?"
Hinata nodded. "Please do not make fun of him." (A/N: THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!!! I've had this chapter done since August, and I wrote the waffle thing FIRST! H-R just got her chapter out before me! Very, very, very important!)
Naruto, however, was already on the floor, laughing his head off.
Until Sakura kicked him in the head, of course.
"Shut up!" she hissed.
"Please follow me," Hinata said shyly, leading them further down the hallway, which showed several more of Neji's paintings.
Hinata ended up leading them to a very large kitchen, with a long table, several appliances and an island in the middle of it. Neji was seated on a stool at said island, with a sketchbook and a plate piled high with waffles before him. He glared at them when they entered the room.
"Hey, Neji, long time, no see!" Naruto cried, plopping down next to his friend/one-sided rival.
Neji grunted to show he acknowledged Naruto's existence, and continued drawing in his sketchbook, shoveling a bite of waffle in his mouth every now and then.
Sakura seated herself across the island from Neji while Hinata made tea. Sasuke remained standing, leaned up against the counter behind Sakura. "Can I see your drawings?" Sakura asked politely of the older Hyuuga.
Neji put down his pencil and pushed the sketchpad over to her, not looking up once from his plate of waffles. While Sakura looked through the older boy's pad, Naruto tried to take one of the waffles from Neji's plate.
Neji actually growled and stabbed Naruto's hand with his fork. "Don't... take... my... waffles!"
Naruto grinned nervously, withdrawing the hand. "Won't happen again."
"These are really good, Neji," Sakura commented, looking at the sketches one at a time. "Where did you learn how to draw like this?"
"I didn't," he said shortly.
"Then how did you?" she asked, looking up from a char-coal drawing of a girl surrounded by people walking in the opposite direction. At the bottom, Neji had written, in gothic calligraphy, "Going Against The Flow." (A/N: This is based on a sketch my sister did a while ago that I personally liked a lot. She's an awesome drawer.)
"I just did," he said dubiously. "I picked up a pencil and started drawing."
Sakura shrugged. "They're still very good."
Her comments allotted her an offer at the waffles.
"May I ask why you have come?" Hinata asked, setting a willow-designed tea set in the middle of the island.
"Naruto wants to ask you out," Sasuke said bluntly, coming forward to accept his cup of tea.
(A/N: The Kyuubi will now direct you to a wonderful scene of a koala licking it's paw, because even he cannot begin to describe the violence that issued.)
Sakura sighed. She took it upon herself to settle the peace. (How, you ask?) She picked up Neji's plate of waffles. "Neji, if you don't stop, I'll feed all your waffles to Lee-san."
Neji gave Sakura a look of betrayal, but put down the hose-attachment in the sink and sat down.
Naruto was pertified.
Sakura was amused.
Sasuke was thirsty.
Hinata was in mental shock.
Neji... well... he ate waffles.
"A d-date?" Hinata repeated, recovering her powers of speech.
Sakura nodded, grinning hugely. "He was too shy to come on his own, so we, his supportive teammates, agreed to come." (Here, Sasuke snorted into his tea.)
Hinata and Naruto both blushed from hair-line to collarbone.
And Kiba chose this point in time to enter the room (god knows how he got in.) "Ohayo, Hinata!"
"Woof!"
"H-Hello, Kiba-kun," Hinata stammered, still in shock.
Neji growled, his arm forming a perimeter around his plate of waffles, eyeballing Akamaru warily.
"Hanabi let me in," Kiba informed them, grinning (Oh... that's how.). To Hinata, he asked, unblushingly, "Hinata, do you wanna come with me to the arcade?"
"Uh..." Hinata looked uncomfortable, but was spared answering by Sakura.
"She can't, she has a date with Naruto," Sakura explained, grinning mischieviously.
Kiba was silent (for once), looking from Hinata, who looked embarrassed, to Naruto, who was now brimming with confidence.
Then, the darling dog boy exploded.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-breathe-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" he howled, running from the room, his puppy in hot pursuit.
Neji raised an eyebrow. "Well, that was interesting."
Naruto, having gained confidence, as said before, turned to Hinata and asked, "So, do you
wanna go get some ramen sometime?" He grinned hugely.
Inner-Sakura shouted, Oh, yeah, IDEAL DATE, MORON!
But Hinata just smiled happily. "Sure, N-Naruto-kun."
Sakura grinned on the outside, while Inner-Sakura brooded. "Why don't we turn it into a double-"
"No," Sasuke said at once.
"Aw, come on, Sasuke!" Naruto cried, taunting his teammate. Pulling Sasuke aside, he whispered, "You don't want me to beat you in dating, too, do you?"
"You've never beaten me," Sasuke growled under his breath.
"Well, that's about to change, because I am going to get my kiss before you ever do." Naruto
grinned a very foxy grin.
Sasuke glared. Turning to Sakura, he snapped, "It's a date."
Recap on events:
Naruto was victorious.
Hinata was unconscious.
Sasuke was battling with his rebuking inner self.
Sakura was in her happy place.
Kiba was dying.
Neji ate waffles.