Disclaimer: I do no own Naruto.

7 Days, Come What May

Chapter IX: Birthday Party (and presents)!

Naruto looked in his mirror, observing himself. 'Eh, no, hair needs a bit more energy.' He grabbed the gel bottle on the table and put some gel on his hair. Observing himself one more time, he let out a satisfied grin.

"Ah, there. No one better than the birthday boy," he grinned cheerily.

He turned to look at the clock on the wall. It read 12:10. 'Yea, time to go.' With that, Naruto made his way out of his room and down the stairs of the building. Strangely, everything was quiet in the hallway. Naruto couldn't spot any of his friends, just a few of the other guests who had come stay at the Konoha Hot Springs.

'Hmm…where could they be?' Naruto thought, furrowing his brow.

Seeing Aunt Midori at the counter, he walked up to her.

"Ohayou, Auntie! Have you seen any of my friends?"

"Oh, yes dear. They're all in the back yard," the old lady said pleasantly. "That door over there."

"Thanks, Auntie!" Naruto cried cheerfully, running towards the door that the old lady had just pointed to.

Naruto walked down the path that led to the back yard. Everything was still quiet, just like a normal day. However, when he turned the last corner, a big sound erupted.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY NARUTO-KUN!"

Naruto's eyes widened in excitement at the sight of all of his friends wishing happy birthday to him. A big sign hung above all of them, with the words "Happy Birthday, Naruto!" People even had party hats on them, with the exception of Sasuke and Neji. Sakura started to run over to him.

"Hey, Naruto-kun! Happy birthday! Here's your party hat!" the pink-haired girl cried cheerfully while placing the party hat on his head.

"Yea, thanks, Sakura-chan! Thanks, you guys!" Naruto smiled.

"Yea, man! One year older!" Shikamaru patted him friendly on the back.

"Heeyyyyyyyy people! Birthday party's staarrrrrrtting! Ladies and gennnntlemen! Please take your seats!" Kiba cried out into the microphone.

Shikamaru slapped himself in the forehead. "Gosh, he's been 'king of the microphone' all afternoon. How troublesome."

Naruto laughed.

"Hahaha, well, anyways, let's do what the 'king of the microphone' says."

So, everyone did as the 'king' ordered. As Naruto sat down, he saw Ino, Sakura, Temari, and Hinata coming towards all of them with bowls of…Naruto's eyes widened. 'Ramen. Ramen. Ramen!' Sure enough, it was ramen.

"Annnnnnnnnnnd, our first course isssss…RAMEN!" Kiba's voice boomed into the microphone.

Kiba then bent down to let Akamaru have a say in it.

"WOOF!" Akamaru's woof sounded loudly through the microphone.

"Yay, my favorite!" Naruto cried out in pure bliss and began gulping the stuff down.

Hinata smiled shyly, mainly because she'd made that ramen. Sakura giggled.

"Yea, of course. We knew you liked ramen so that's what the party food is!" Sakura laughed.

Over in Gaara's side of the table, he was just staring at the food.

"Uh, brother, it's not very polite to sit there and just…stare," Kankurou said hushedly to his brother.

"Oh. I see," Gaara then picked up his chopsticks.

"Go on, try it, Gaara," Temari, who was next to him, encouraged.

Gaara nodded and put some of the ramen in his mouth. Kankurou and Temari looked expectantly at his face. Gaara's opinion of the food didn't show in his face at all. His face expression was the same as always, but the red head just continued eating the food.

"Must mean he likes it," Kankurou whispered to Temari.

She nodded, somewhat hesitantly. "Yea, I would think so too."

On Naruto's side of the table, he was fully enjoying his time. Hinata was curiously seated next to him (he had dragged her there to sit with him). Now, everyone was starting to finish the ramen. Sasuke was seated across from Naruto, finishing the ramen but with the usual gloomy look on his face.

"Hey, man! Why so gloomy? My birthday, man!" Naruto said cheerfully after gulping down his ramen.

"Whatever," Sasuke replied, not looking up and continuing to eat.

"Whoa, that was SO polite for Sasuke, ne, Hinata-chan?" Naruto chose to ignore Sasuke and turned to Hinata.

Surprisingly, she was not seated there next to him anymore.

"Hey! Where's Hinata-chan?" Naruto looked around.

However, a few minutes later, Naruto spotted Hinata coming towards their table with a big, three-layer cake in her hand. A chocolate three layer cake. Naruto's eyes practically popped out of its sockets.

"Woohoo! There comes mah cake!" he shouted in delight.

"Annnnnnnnnd….the CAKE! THE SUPREME CAKE! WELCOME THE CAKE!..." Kiba's voice exploded through the microphone again.

Hinata smiled sheepishly and set the cake on the table while the maids of the Konoha Hot Springs began to collect the ramen bowls. Soon enough, everyone began to crowd around where Naruto was seated and began to sing him 'happy birthday'. Even though everyone was singing, you could only hear Kiba's (and Akamaru's) voice because he was practically yelling over the microphone. Unexpectantly, Kiba's voice wasn't all that bad (although it was annoying, in Shikamaru's terms).

Now, skipping all of the detailed birthday moments that happened (like Kiba refusing to share his cake with Akamaru because chocolate was poisonous to dogs and Sakura and Ino giving Sasuke the 'silent treatment'), soon, it was time for the presents ("Tiiiiiiiiiiiiime for presents! WOOF!" goes Kiba and Akamaru).

"Yay! I'm so excited, guys! Wonder what I'll get!" Naruto exclaimed, rubbing his hands together enthusiastically. "Now, who's present is first?"

"Mine, Naruto, minnne!"

It was Lee who had spoken, setting a big, green, and elaborately wrapped box in front of Naruto. The golden box was ridiculously big, but elegant in girl terms. Again, everyone crowded in to see. Naruto shook the box, a confused expression on his face.

"Hmm…what is it?"

"Open it and you'll find out, Naruto!" Sakura said, impatient but excited.

"Yea…" Naruto tugged at the bow on top of the box.

When Naruto lifted the lid off, he saw (yes, you guessed it) a green jumpsuit just like Lee's! The blonde fox-boy was speechless.

"W-Whoa!" Naruto spoke at last. "Thanks, Lee!"

"Yea, your welcome, man!" Lee flashed Naruto his trademark smile. "Welcome to the green-suit gang."

In the background, Sasuke snickered (without Lee or Naruto seeing). However, his rude gesture was not ignored by either Sakura or Ino. First, Ino gave Sasuke a disgusted look and turned to Sakura, whispering something into the pink-shinobi's ear. Sakura briefly glanced over at Sasuke and tried to imitate Ino's 'disgusted' look (even though she really had to force herself to do that).

"He's SO rude," Ino pretended to whisper loudly so that the Uchiha would hear.

"Yea, I know," Sakura replied in the same 'exasperated' tone.

And Sasuke pretended not to hear. Anyway, after that, it was Kankurou's turn to give his present. The gift was contained in an ancient looking wooden box, which opened to reveal an astonishing set of animal puppets laid on silky red cloth. There were toad puppets, snail puppets, dog puppets, and even snake puppets.

"Aww…that's so cute!" Sakura cried. "Especially the baby snake one!"

"Wow, I really like it, Kankurou, thanks, man!" Naruto remarked, smiling happily.

"Yea, well, it was nothing," the normally rude puppet master appeared to be blushing slightly.

Next, Chouji gave Naruto ten gift vouchers for the ramen stand back home (which was replied with a maniacally happy Naruto shouting his head off). Ten Ten's present coordinated nicely with Chouji's, for it was ten pairs of Chinese chopsticks ("For eating your ramen!" Ten Ten had said). Neji and Hinata gave one gift for both of them. It was a big, furry jacket, identical to the one that Hinata almost always wore, but instead, it was black.

"Oooooh, I love this!" Naruto said for like, the hundredth time that evening. "Thanks! Now I can be a matching pair with Hinata-chan!"

Naruto turned to give Hinata a cute smile (making Hinata blush, of course) and unexpectantly hugged the girl.

"Thanks, Hinata-chan," Naruto repeated again.

However, the blonde was unaware of the dangerous aura on the other side of him, coming from none other than Hyuuga Neji.

"Uhh…Naruto…" Ten Ten tried to warn Naruto, her other hand holding Neji's shoulder, so the Hyuuga won't do anything bad to Naruto.

"Yea?" Naruto turned to Ten Ten's voice but was faced with Neji and his dangerous aura.

"Even if it's your birthday, that doesn't mean you can shamelessly flirt with Hinata-sama," Neji's voice was dangerously low.

"Eh…yea. Gotcha," Naruto quickly released Hinata, giving the male Hyuuga a sheepish smile (and all this time, Hinata is, of course, still reddening).

And so, the gift-giving went on, with Shino giving Naruto some sunglasses (earning another snicker from Sasuke and another set of 'disgusted looks' from Sakura and Ino) and Temari giving Naruto a fan decorated with a beautiful picture of the Konoha view ("…Believe me, you'll find this useful someday," the sand shinobi had said; while now, it was Shikamaru's turn to snicker).

Unfortunately, Temari was not the kind to just ignore it when someone had just snickered at her.

"Why, what's wrong, genius? You got anything better than my present?" Temari glared at the Nara while speaking, her hands on her hips.

'How troublesome.'

"Yea, I believe so," Shikamaru ventured, replying with a lazy stare.

"Show me then."

The Nara brought out his present from where it was behind his back. It was a big, flat, rectangular box. It was wrapped.

"Ohh, I know what that is," Chouji said immediately when he saw the box.

Naruto opened the curiously flat but big box to reveal a Go board, complete with all the black and white stones and the instructions (A/N: For those of you who don't know what Go is, it's a kind of board game originated in ancient China).

"Urm…what's this?" Naruto picked up the bag of white stones from the set and shook it.

"It's a Go board. It's a board game," Shikamaru replied, looking triumphantly over at Temari. "What do you think?"

"Great! I'll try to learn how to play it!" Naruto answered, although the question was directed more towards Temari.

"Huh. I still think my gift is better than some useless board game," Temari was still glaring at Shikamaru.

Normally, Shikamaru wouldn't have argued if it was concerning some other business. But this, this was concerning Go, his possibly favorite game in the whole wide world. Chouji's eyes widened. Chouji knew what it was like when someone insulted the Nara's revered game.

"Go is NOT a useless game, woman!" for the first time, Temari heard Shikamaru raise his voice above the normal level. "It's a game of strategy, logic…"

Somehow, Temari didn't feel like arguing. She found that she didn't particularly like it when she argued with the Nara. Although the vain sand shinobi would never admit it, she liked it a lot better when they got along. But, there were some times when arguing was amusing. Now, however, Temari realized that she'd crossed the line between 'amusing' and 'annoying'.

"Fine," Temari huffed, cutting Shikamaru off.

Shikamaru was a bit surprised. He thought that Temari would argue back. He had just made up a whole list of 'Why-Go-is-the-Most-Brilliant-Game-in-the-World' to present to her.

'Heh. Quite smart, isn't she. Knows when to stop. 'Cause she'll lose if she argues with me on this topic.'

So, Shikamaru just answered with a simple, "Good, then."

All this while, Naruto and the others were looking to and fro between Shikamaru and Temari. When the victims realized that they were being stared at, both of them suspiciously reddened.

"What the heck are you staring at, huh?" Temari said hotly. "Stop staring! Or I'll kill you!"

"Yea, let's see who's next!" Shikamaru said a little too loudly, causing Sakura and Ino to raise their eyebrows and look at each other.

"I think they'll make a great couple," Sakura whispered to Ino.

Ino nodded. Fortunately, Shikamaru and Temari didn't witness any of the talking behind their backs.

"Yay! I'm the happiest guy in da world!" Naruto stretched. "Any more presents?"

Then, Kankurou tapped Naruto lightly on the back.

"Hmm?" Naruto asked.

"Umm…Gaara wants to give you something."

Apparently, Gaara, for all his bravery in fighting, couldn't gather up enough courage to give what he was about to give to Naruto.

Joyce: Yay, guys, thanks for all your reviews! Yea, and I'm sorry if I don't put in enough romance in these later chapters; I know a lot of you have been waiting for it...I'll really, really try to put in more romance! I'm normally not a romance writer...I'm a humor writer so...hehehehe :S bear with me, please. :D I love all of you! You give me so much encouragement! Again, thanks:)