Author's Opening Rant-
WOW! I dunno why, but I'm super inspired today! I think I'm just anxious to get Sasuke-kun back into the story! n.n
Again, as always, a big ARIGATO (Thank you!) to all my readers and reviewers! I seriously couldn't do it without you!
BTW-the title of this chapter is basically due to a shortage of intelligence on my part. It's mostly about Temari (Who uses a fan) And UCHIHA (That means fan!) Sasuke, so...yeah.
Chapter Six- Fanning OutAkimichi Chouji was a man on a mission. A mission to find a girl. Any girl! Just so long as she was willing to spend the entire last night of the festival attached to his rather portly arm. He walked up and down the streets, eyes wandering back and forth for a woman suited to his needs. It was by complete chance that he happened to come across the still formally dressed Temari of the sand, all by herself. Chouji paused in his tracks, stunned at his good luck.
Temari's pale orbs were also wandering, searching through the massive crowd for something. She didn't even notice the chubby shinobi until he came striding right up to her.
"Temari, right?" Chouji smiled up at her, "Do you wanna go to the Festival dance with me?"
There was a shocked silence between them both, Temari's eyes practically burning right through Chouji's head. The Sand kunoichi quickly turned on her heels and started to walk away, all the while laughing so loudly that many of the villagers on the street turned to see what was so funny.
Chouji groaned to himself, shoulders slumping forward. Strike two for the Akimichi heir.
Uchiha Sasuke, who had become something of a hermit since the festival began yesterday, was sitting on the roof of his house for a little fresh air. Dead onyx eyes surveyed the scene below him. Villagers were laughing at seemingly nothing, buying each other gifts as children zigzagged between their legs in play. It wasn't fair. Why was he the only one with such painful memories about everything? The very mention of the Leaf festival used to light up his father's whole face, and the entire day before it began, he would help his father and Itachi hang paper lanterns with the Uchiha symbol on them. His mother would always set up a booth by their house and sell her home-made baked goods—which, of course, was pilfered more than once by a younger Naruto. And at the end of the whole thing, Sasuke used to watch the bonfire on his mother's lap, while his father introduced Itachi to every influential person he could find. Such happy times; but Itachi certainly put an end to that, didn't he? Subconsciously, Sasuke reached a hand back to pat the Uchiha symbol on the backside of his shirt. Damn...stupid...festival.
While the raven-haired Uchiha was lost to his thoughts, and clearly off-guard, Tenten went silently creeping up the side of his house. She used a pair of her kunai to climb up, smirking wickedly to herself, "Sakura, you brat! Let's see how you like it when someone takes away YOUR boy!" Cautiously, Tenten poked her head over the edge of the roof. Chestnut eyes stared at Sasuke's back for a while, wondering why on earth he was even up here. Tenten eventually stopped obsessing over what could make the infamous Uchiha so gloomy and decided to employ her own plot, "Hey there, Sasuke-kun!" Sasuke slowly turned to face her as if in a daze. Tenten fluttered her eyelashes a little, resting an elbow on the roof shingles as she spoke, "I noticed no one asked you to the dance yet. Wanna go? I promise you it won't be a boring night!"
Sasuke looked her over for a moment. Obviously, nobody had told her about how badly he had exploded at Shino and Hinata for mentioning the festival to him. Lucky for Tenten, he was in no mood to pick a fight. Sasuke turned back around, letting his eyes fall back on the crowd, "Get lost."
The weapons master's face twisted into a pout. Not that she really wanted to go with him—although, even she had to admit that he was pretty cute! --But it was the easiest way she could think of to pry Sakura's attention away from Neji. And he could have been a little nicer about it! Tenten began making her way back down off of Sasuke's roof. She stopped as her foot came into contact with something soft, and glancing down, she realized someone had followed her up.
Chouji met Tenten's gaze, "Hey, Tenten? Will you please go to the festival dance with me?"
It took all the willpower she had not to shout down at him, "What!? No way! I'm going with Neji, you got that? NE-JI!" Although she was talking directly to Chouji, something in her sentence was more directed at Sakura...who...was nowhere to be found at the moment. Tenten huffed and hopped off of the roof, wondering if Sakura and Neji had met up like they said.
Chouji sighed loudly, still clinging to the side of the Uchiha house like a fly. Strike three.
Off in his favorite cloud watching spot, Shikamaru was taking a break from women. First Ino punches him, then shoves him in a river, then his mother had to chew him out for ruining his clothes. Mendokuse na! But watching the clouds float lazily by always made him feel a little better. Clouds never seemed to have girl problems! A soft exhale as the shadow shinobi reached over for a bag of fried food he had bought at the festival. He popped a piece into his mouth, resting his hands behind his head as he vacantly stared up.
"There you are." Temari's voice sent a horrible wave of shivers down Shikamaru's back. The lazy ninja twisted his head around until he caught sight of her, standing there in her violet yukata with such a wicked look on her face that it sent another shiver down his spine, "I was looking all through the village for you, Nara. You're...a troublesome one to keep track of." Her smirk increased, and for a fleeting moment, Shikamaru pondered running away like a screaming child.
He quickly choked down the food in his mouth, "Ahh...what do you want?"
Temari was never one for stupid small talk, so she got straight to the point, "You are taking me to this dance thing, right?"
"Ugghh! Damned Festival!" Shikamaru marveled at his internal impression of Sasuke. He turned over onto his side, letting his eyes close. Maybe she'd leave him alone if she thought he had just fallen asleep?
Temari was also never one to be ignored. She hovered over the 'sleeping' Shikamaru, bending at her waist and speaking even louder, "I said, you ARE taking me to this dance thing! Right?!" His continued disregard of her earned him a few swift kicks into his spine.
When it became clear that she wasn't going away, Shikamaru uncurled himself with a groan. He stared up at her hovering over his prone form, eyes still trying to catch some sign of submission from the lazy leaf ninja. Maybe there was another way to get out of this. Maybe this girl was more rational than Ino. "I...I can't. There's this one girl who wants to go with me, and...she's pretty insistent. And violent. You understand?" Temari gave him a look that dripped with death. Shikamaru diverted his gaze to the side, trying to remember what Chouji was telling him yesterday, "Its...like, a tradition. We go every year."
Temari very abruptly took a seat on the sprawled Shikamaru's stomach, knocking the wind right out of him, "Oh well. You'll just have to tell her your skipping a year!"
Shikamaru winced. Hadn't he TRIED that already?! All it earned him was a dip in the river. Troublesome women... "Hey. It's hard to breathe like this."
The sand kunoichi leaned over ever so slightly, locking her eyes on his, "You. Are taking me. To this dance thing." There was something very coy about her smirk all of a sudden, and Shikamaru couldn't help but fluster a little, "See you there, Shikamaru." With a wink, Temari lifted herself from his stomach and headed off to find her brothers.
If he weren't such a man, Shikamaru would have started sobbing right then and there, "What a mess!!!"
While the cat's away, the mice shall play, or so the saying goes. The Jounin were enjoying their week free of missions and free of crazed Gennin. Kakashi, Gai and Asuma were relaxing under a shady tree at the festival grounds, enjoying some of the food they had purchased.
"My rival!" Gai had finished off his food and, balling up a fist, turned towards Kakashi, "I have eaten all of my food before you! I win this round!"
"...right." Kakashi hadn't even removed his mask to eat. He was just reclined comfortably against the tree, letting his meal grow cold at his side as he took in more of his favorite reading material.
Gai continued, "Further more, I will dance better than you could ever imagine at the festival's end! What do you say to that?!"
Asuma plucked a cigarette from his pouch and brought it up to his lips, "Give it a rest, Gai." Gai smiled triumphantly at nothing in particular as Asuma lit his cigarette. After a few puffs, the Jounin spoke again, "Speaking of the dance, Kakashi."
"Mmm?" Kakashi looked up from his book.
"I hear you're trying to ask Shizune this year." Asuma smirked to himself. He had pried the information out of Shikamaru during one of their many Go matches. "That's pretty gutsy. I never thought you'd go after her."
The white-haired Jounin smiled under his mask, "Can you blame me? Although...you have your eyes elsewhere, don't you Asuma?"
"Don't." Asuma lifted a hand into the air to stop him, "She already said no."
"Too bad. You two make a cute couple!" Kakashi endured the dirty look his fellow Jounin trained on him, then turned his eye back onto the words on the page, "But yeah. I'm taking my time to ask her. Don't want to seem too pushy." Asuma and Gai nodded a few times in agreement. "And...what about you, Teach?" Kakashi addressed the man who had wandered nearby over the course of their conversation and taken a seat very close to the Jounin's shady spot—Iruka.
Iruka-sensei looked up from grading papers, a little surprised at being dragged into the conversation, "Me?"
"Yes, you." Kakashi turned the page of Icha Icha Paradise, "Which girl is a handsome young man like yourself thinking of taking?"
Iruka chuckled at Kakashi's tone, catching the overly playfulness of his entire sentence, "Well, I wasn't really thinking of going to the dance. I was just going to enjoy the festival by myself."
Asuma shook his head, "Poor bastard." The other two Jounin couldn't help but snicker. Iruka grimaced; this had obviously become pick-on-the-Chuunin time for them. Iruka gathered up his papers and bag of festival food, hurrying off to find another spot as the three higher level ninjas shouted for girl's attention, "What do you say, ladies? He's a teacher! Very good with children! Won't you give to poor guy a break!?"
Haruno Sakura was returning from her meeting with Hyuuga Neji. It didn't take too long, really, and they had finally come up with a pretty simple plan. It was perfect. She couldn't wait for the night of the dance! Everything would work out, she was sure of it! That left one thing left to do. Sakura made her way down the busy, crowed streets, closer and closer to Sasuke's house.
As she passed the very edge of the crowd, a voice shouted at her, "Sakura-chan!" Naruto came bounding over to her, Gaara still close behind, and both with arms full of toys and food from the festival.
Sakura eyed them both, wondering if any of those things were actually purchased, "Naruto, And Gaara-san. Hi."
"Sakura-chan! Sakura-chan!" Naruto beamed at her, his eyes squinting happily as he spoke, "I think I've got this 'take someone to the festival' thing all figured out!"
"That's...good." A light sweat drop fell from her temple.
"So, Sakura-chan! Can I take you to the festival dance?" Naruto grinned, waiting for an answer. Sakura's fist quickly came down onto the top of his blonde, empty head, "Owwwww...Sakura-chan..."
"Baka." Sakura huffed, "You know I'm going with Sasuke-kun!"
Gaara remained silent, but his eyes sent a clear 'I told you so' over at Naruto.
"Awww, damn." Naruto pouted, freeing a hand from his pile of goodies to rub the now sore spot on his head, "Now I have to think of someone else to ask."
A strange little smile came over the pink-haired kunoichi's face, "Don't you worry about that." She received a clueless expression from Naruto in response, but didn't wait around for the question lurking behind those blue eyes, "Well, I've got to get going! See you boys later!" Sakura turned and took off running, leaving the two little monsters to their own business. Sasuke's house wasn't far, so she reached it in no time. Just before she was at the door, Sakura noticed her foot snag on something. It was too late to avoid it, and at the last instant she realized she had just tripped a trap wire. "What the-!?" Sakura's eyes widened as a flurry of shuriken came flying at her from some hidden trap. The Haruno girl quickly focused her chakra into the souls of her feet—which she'd gotten rather good at, by this point—and leapt away, avoiding a near-death strike at the last moment. She took a moment to catch her breath, then glared furiously at nothing in particular, "Tenten."
At the sound of her name, Tenten poked her head out from a neighbor's bushes, "I almost had you that time!"
Sakura jumped, not expecting the weapons master to still be close by. Her emerald orbs locked Tenten within a look of hatred, "Why are you at Sasuke-kun's house?!"
Tenten just chuckled darkly, hopping out of her hiding spot and taking off. That should give Sakura a little mental torture!
"Humph. Moron." Sakura just grimaced. She knew well enough that Sasuke would never agree to go with Tenten to the dance. In fact, it would be a small miracle if he agreed to go with ANYONE to the dance. This thought sobered Sakura out of her rage, reminding her just why she was here. She slowly turned back to the front door...and very nearly got smacked right in the face as the door swung open.
She was suddenly face-to-face with an equally surprised Sasuke. A slender eyebrow arched on the Uchiha's face, "Sakura? Was that you making all that noise?"
"Ahh...ahhh....Sasuke-kun?" Sakura managed a tiny smile up at her long-time beloved Sasuke, "Can...I talk with you for a while?"
Author's ending Rant-
That's right! I'm ending it there! KUKUKUKUKUKUUUUU!
Sorry for so much Sasuke-angst. But...I can't resist! He's just so...morose! n.n And you'll notice I'm very evasive about the "festival food"? That's becasue I'm not entirely sure WHAT they eat at festivals in Japan. I know they mention Octopus balls in Ranma 1/2 but...yuuuck!
Torturing Shikamaru is fun! I think Ino'll get another crack at him next time! And don't give up, Chouji!
One last thing—this might be my last update for a little while. I haven't...really...thought this far into the fic. V.V I require time to sort and assemble the rest of the pieces!
But yes, things will get angsty-fluffy for Sakura and Sasuke! MWA-HA-HA!
Ja, minna!
This is the Fox, signing off for today!