XD
Standard disclaimers applied.
Mie-chan: Aha, we're back! We thank you for the lovely reviews! cries in happiness And now we present to you a new chappie! dances around
Aki-chan: …
Mie-chan: looks at readers awkwardly Okay! Hope you guys enjoy! And we recommend you guys to download this song before reading: http/ (minus the ) or put on Goo Goo Dolls's 'Iris' by the end of the fic (omg chappie spoiler!). Seriously, it gets in da mood of the whole thing! XD Don't be fooled by the chappie title though! Gomen nasai for grammatical and/or spelling mistakes!
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Chappie 2: River? Hell, Cry Me a Freakin' Ocean! Part 1
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I'm dreaming. I'm in a horrible dream and I'm gonna wake up soon, and I'm gonna find myself on my bed, in my house, and the sun will be up and shining.
Naruto kept his eyes shut. Nonetheless, a slick wet tongue teasing his earlobe was not helping him out of his misery. That made his head jerk out in shock, and he was forced to snap his eyes open and face his gruesome nightmare. Okay, the sudden groping on one of his butt cheeks finally woke him up very rudely, like someone was yelling in his inner eardrums: This is reality, dammit! (A group of little Narutos circled together and patted a little Naruto on the back)
Neji was straddling on top of Naruto, practically molesting the blond in front of a public food stall, and witnessed by a huge crowd of Kohonagure citizens surrounding them. Screams, yells and cheers kept roaring throughout the packed street; some passed out because of the raw obscenity, few were swimming in their own pool of blood from massive nosebleeds, some merely kyaaa-ed and swooned over the live act (Ten Ten included), and somewhere a group of girls were capturing the scene on video, which was to be distributed on the Internet much later.
Horrified, Naruto squirmed and twisted for all it was worth to save his last milimetre of his pride. As the Hyuuga was so tightly pressed on top of him, he grabbed Neji's back with both hands and tried to yank him off—unfortunately the pale teen was too strong and surprisingly heavy—the blond then tried to push him off by the sides of his torso.
"God—how I longed for this moment, Naruto…"
"Mmnff! G-Gerroff Neji! W-whatta you doing? Urghh, c-can we talk about t-this? I—nyaaaahh! I—people are looking, y-you bastard! Just—Just get off!"
Said Hyuuga didn't even move a budge and continued attacking the blonde's slender neck, nuzzling and nipping all the while ignoring Naruto's frantic actions to be freed from his clutches. Just as Naruto was about to give up his dignity by flailing his arms and yelling for help—
"Oi, usuratonkachi. I see you're doing well."
If the whole of Konohagure could freeze right over with sheets of ice, it just did. Right in front of the frozen-shock members of Neji's musical band, stood Uchiha Sasuke in the flesh, wearing a smooth black leather jacket with a fishnet shirt underneath, exposing most of his chest and toned abs of his pale torso. Completing his oh-so-sexy-it-makes-you-drop-dead look, the Uchiha wore a scrumptious low-cut black leather pants to match, and a shiny silver belt which looked disturbingly like smaller-sized handcuffs joined together to form a chain around his slim hips. A few smaller chains were joined on the left side of his pants, and if all that wasn't drool-worthy enough—he also wore a dark leather choker around his fair neck, cut-off fishnet glove on his right hand, and a leather wristband with protruded spikes on the other. Sexily outta-this-world dressed to kill, definitely.
Neji's first appearance may caused a deafening roar from the turned-crazy crowd in the street, but what happened next was definitely mind-blowing. Screams and shrieks thundered and shook the whole street that was connected to Ichiraku's place; the sheer monstrous sounds echoed throughout the whole village that things were falling off on high places, windows of the nearby houses shattered in instant blasts, cats were scared out of their furs, children stuffed their ears with their toys, straight men clutched their already bleeding ears and hearts like second life—everything just went crazier than nuts (or madder than insane? Whatever, it went totally lunatic). However, none of the fanatics got a little too close to the Uchiha—his deadly glare was enough to cause death, reincarnation and death again—twice.
Neji, after recovering from being temporarily stunned, directed his glare straight towards Sasuke, feeling rather miffed as his 'business' was offensively disturbed. He sat up on Naruto's waist and funnily the blond didn't protest, somehow Naruto had forgotten that he was still lying on the ground; he was busy gaping (for the second time of the day) at Sasuke with mouth wide open and bulging eyeballs threatening to burst out of his skull. Then, as though waking up from a trance, Naruto shook his head violently, pushed Neji off him with a firm shove (the startled Hyuuga stumbled over with an "Oof!"), stood up and pointed a slightly trembling finger towards the Uchiha. Naruto began to splutter terribly—his mind just couldn't register what the hell was happening now.
"S-S-Sasuke?"
"Of course it's me, dobe; what do you think—the Easter bunny?"
Of course, that came out so wrong from the Uchiha's mouth. It was as if time had instantly stopped moving; the incredibly ear-splitting sounds from all around came to an abrupt silence as the whole of Konoha stared at the raven-haired teen with a raised brow and a questioned look that clearly said "The hell—?". The sudden awkward atmosphere was then interrupted by sounds of crickets chirping out of nowhere. Said teen looked around him with a bored look in reply as if what he said was the most natural thing an Uchiha could say.
"What? Like you get that when you hang around with a snake guy a little too long."
After a moment of realisation, the people of Konoha broke out with mutters of agreement; some nodded with understanding, others shook their heads with a tad of sympathy, some just plainly got the picture with occasional "Oh yeah," "You got that right", "I should have known," and "Yep, I told ya snake guy is gay".
Naruto however, he just couldn't accept this—this—
"W-Wait a minute… Lemme get this straight, Sasuke—"
—utter preposterousness. The blond was desperately trying to make sense of yet another weird current situation without bursting a Naruto tantrum, his tanned nose flaring due to his controlled emotions.
"—you went power-crazy and you left Konohagure; sent a group of us to take you back and most of us almost died; and then you tried to kill me to chase that snake-bastard; and now you just came back like ya wanna deliver ramen or somethin'? Whatta heck is wrong with you, teme?"
Sasuke pondered for a bit with his head cocked to the side and slightly pursed his lips, causing instant uproar in the crowd as the Uchiha's hardcore female fans squealed and collapsed in unity. Most males shook their heads, picking up their respective acquaintances/partners and cursing a certain snake guy under their breaths. Way back in his dark lair, Orochimaru was sneezing nonstop.
"Answer to your first question: Yeah. I brought you ramen from Sound. As much as I'm reluctant to say, they're kinda good. Second question: I'm getting there, Naruto. You should know that patience is a virtue."
Naruto threw his arms up in exasperation before realising he was acting like a girl and quickly folded his arms on his chest with a huff, pouted and scrunched up his bright blue eyes.
He couldn't believe this. He just couldn't believe this.
"Okay, gimme the ramen and let me think first. And get ready to explain yourself while I'm at it!"
The Uchiha prodigy smirked and handed him a bundle containing a bento box, which Naruto snatched with lightning speed and seated himself back on the Ichiraku's stool. Sasuke on the other hand, had something else in mind. Something so perfectly planned out that only Uchiha Sasuke could come up with this perfect, perfect scheme.
"DA FUCCKKK? Is that even a reason why you're here? Hell no, I'm outta this! I had enough for cryin' out loud!"
Sasuke merely pick his left ear just to make sure he didn't turn deaf from Kiba's wild outburst. The rest of the band members nonetheless, had different reactions.
"What is this world coming to…" An obvious statement from Shikamaru, who scratched at the back of his non-itchy head with one of his drum stick.
"Oh come on, since we're a band now I don't think it hurts to play just another song! Besides, I personally think it's a great song to sing!" Ten Ten concluded her band mates with sparkles in her eyes. The boys turned towards her sharply and glared, even Choji screwed up his eyes with dislike of the horrible idea. Ino sighed and ran her hand through her hair; of course she was thrilled to the heavens that her beloved idol had returned (dressed like a S&M toy boy—she could barely contain the overflowing blood from shooting out of her nose), but changed her mind within a second when the raven-haired god of hers mentioned 'Easter bunny' and 'snake guy'. Well, mainly the Easter bunny part. She gave herself a few moments of self-pity by facing towards the sky, eyes brimming with tears and silently thought: Why, why do guys I like just happen to be sissies…
Okay, so enough of that. If Ino were to cheer herself up to overcome this cruel reality, she might as well just play the damn song. She cleared her throat and sneered back at a furious Kiba.
"If your puny doggy brain has the ability to realise, dog-boy, this song we're talking about happens to be your girlfriend's favourite!"
"I-Ino!"
"It-It is…?" With cheeks turning hot, Kiba directed his gaze at Hinata, who was blushing deep red as an overly-riped tomato. The dog-lover then straightened his sweatshirt and, cool as ice, gave a fake cough and folded his arms.
"Fine, I'll do it, but I'm doin' it for someone else and hell not you, Uchiha." Said teen averted his onyx eyes from Kiba to Hinata with a like-I-give-a-damn look.
"Whatever, let's just all agree and I'll double of what Neji has to offer to all of you."
Kiba raised his eyebrow at that. Chouji happily took the short opportunity to dance over the clouds before setting up his percussions (if he needed them) and gave a nudge at Shikamaru's ribs. It was a good thing they knew each other well enough that the lazy teen didn't topple off his stool and fell like a bumbling idiot. Shikamaru sighed in defeat and rubbed his torso. "Let's then."
Unfortunately for Neji, he was too busy saving himself from the evil clutches of deranged devil-in-disguise fangirls trying to molest him themselves. Writhing and pushing his way out from drowning in the ocean of screaming female lunatics, the Hyuuga could barely take a glimpse to see what the Uchiha-bastard was doing but—being a genius that he was—knew exactly what the raven-haired 'asshole' had in mind.
The fuck? He's fuckin' copying my absolutely brilliant plan!
Take note that when a Hyuuga began using offensive words in his thoughts, what would happen next ain't gonna be a pretty picture. Or so the Hyuuga prodigy presumed. Because he definitely underestimated the power of deranged fangirls, and paid dearly for it.
"UCHIHAAAAA…….!"
Sasuke sneezed and rubbed his nose. He faintly heard his name being called somewhere, but shrugged it off and smirked to himself as he adjusted the microphone stand in front of him. Nothing could stop him now; he would kill than to let anything interrupt this crucial moment.
Grabbing the microphone and bending his head low, the Uchiha raised his right hand as to give a cue to the rest of the band mates—then followed by Shikamaru's signal with his drum sticks—the perfect song began. And the whole crowd roared in ear-splitting cheers and screams that thundered even the outside forests surrounding Konohagure, causing various species of birds and animals to fly/ran off in severe cases of trauma.
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"Uh Hokage-sama, if you haven't noticed, this building is shaking." Sakura eyed the wall beside her worriedly as a few cracks began to form from the corner of the ceiling. Even the floor she was currently standing was moving—she wondered if Konohagure was facing another village attack, something which gave her perpetual nightmares for weeks (and the outcome of it…let's not go there). No, it couldn't be… But where on earth was the unspeakably piercing screams coming from? Were the people in danger?
"Hokage-sama!"
"Sigh… Haven't you heard?" Tsunade was checking scrolls and books as though nothing was happening, occasionally picking up a few scrolls that fell off her desk as her whole office was still quaking at an alarming rate.
"I think I heard enough, Hokage-sama, but I still don't understand what you're trying to say." Sakura almost wished she had huge mass of cotton to stuff her ears—anything to block the awful sounds that were triggering an uninvited splitting headache.
"Sasuke's back. And the boy is making a huge riot at the Ichiraku's. Be careful of the—"
A blur of pink dashed out of the Hokage's office before said leader could raise her head and finish her warning.
"—mentally-unstabled females…" Of course, things were going to get more interesting after this. Tsunade could only smirk in amusement.
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Sasuke… He's back…
Pushing her way out of the insanely huge (and freakishly loud) crowd, Sakura's heart was thumping with such brutality in her throat at the thought of meeting her precious person once again—after all the agony, the depression and angst, the desperate waiting to finally meet him again…
Never, ever in her life had she expected to see her only idol singing in hotter-than-hell clothes, much less singing in front of a dumbfounded Naruto, sprawling on the ground with his back against a stool in a peculiar angle, arms weak by his sides, face white as paper and blue eyes wider than dinner plates. Bits of ramen hung from his hair and the rest were splattered in a mess next to him; it seemed the poor blond had fallen off his seat again along with his food as a result to Sasuke's unexpected performance. Sakura could only gape at the sight with jaws falling on her shoes, completely shocked beyond belief.
"And I'd give up forever to
touch you
Coz I know that you feel me somehow
You're the
closest to heaven that I'll ever be
And I don't want to go home
right now..."
"And all I can taste is this
moment
And all I can breathe is your life
Coz sooner or later
it's over
I just don't want to miss you tonight..."
The noise died slowly as the people around were stunned by the sweetness of the song that Sasuke was singing, mainly because he was performing with such intensity and such passion that most of the female population were starting to break down in wrecked sniffs and sobs. A few die-hard fangirls were crying so uncontrollably that a few medical nins were called for comforting, and also to prevent them from collapsing and be trampled by the rest of the crowd.
"And
I don't want the world to see me
Coz I don't think that they'd
understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you
to know who I am..."
She couldn't help it. Hot tears began to sting Sakura's olive eyes as she watched her most treasured man singing his heart out; his determined features, his softly closed eyes as though reaching into the depth of the song, his clenched hand as if to prove that he truly meant every words he sang… It didn't matter. The pink-haired girl reached out and wiped her tear-soaked face, emotionally touched by the whole lyrics.
"And
you can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth
in your lies
When everything feels like the movies
Yeah, you'd
bleed just to know you're alive..."
It didn't matter if the song wasn't meant for her. She didn't mind if the song was actually directed towards a guy—her own team mate even. Her sight shifted to Ino, who was playing an enticing tune from her violin. The blond had tears streaming down her fair cheeks. Haruno Sakura understood at last. And with that, Sakura pushed her way back into the crowd, leaving her only beloved behind her.
"And
I don't want the world to see me
Coz I don't think that they'd
understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you
to know who I am..."
The part of the solo guitar was beautifully played by Kiba, who—now wholeheartedly into the mood of the song—kicked up dust with his left foot and spun around, fingers strumming with such expertise. Behind an accoustic guitar was Chouji, plucking the strings with talent no one knew he had while bobbing his head in rhythm. Shikamaru was hammering his drums like he never did before in his life; it even surprised him for a moment before realising: hey, it's all because of the song.
Recuperating from his own shock, something finally ticked inside Naruto to move his limbs and get up on his ass. The blond lowered his head and upper torso in a bowing manner as he began to stand, arms hanging by his sides as though being revived right from the dead. The words of the lyrics passed through his ears and into his brain—then Sasuke's voice was magnified ten, twenty, thirty times until his head rang so hard it felt like bursting open there and then.
"And I don't want the world to see me
Coz
I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be
broken
I just want you to know who I am..."
Stop, Sasuke… Please stop…
"And I don't want the
world to see me
Coz I don't think that they'd understand
When
everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I
am..."
Trembling violently now, Naruto held himself like an insecure child and squatted down on his feet; he then placed his shaky hands to cover his ears as though trying to block out the Uchiha's voice that kept sweeping in and out of his ears over and over again.
Stop it… Please… Sasuke…
"I
just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am
I
just want you to know who I am..."
Something snapped somewhere within Naruto; and as the citizens of Konoha cheered and gave a huge round of applause (good-naturedly this time), the blond gradually rose on his feet, yet kept his head low with yellow bangs covering his eyes. Sasuke beamed with triumph, pleased with himself and the completion of his most important mission: to lure his favourite blond into accepting him back again. Not that he wasn't serious of the whole act; he was, and now with his heart thrashing like mad between his lungs, Sasuke took a deep breath and thoroughly gaze at his blond now (he closed his eyes almost throughout the song), unsure of what would happen next. Panic overtook his being the moment Sasuke laid his dark eyes onto the motionless blond before him.
"Naruto? Are you okay?"
Said blond lifted his head, and for a second Sasuke saw two glowering red eyes staring back with a dangerous glint that the Uchiha took a step backwards, somewhat surprised and suddenly terrified of what he had done.
"O-Oi, dobe—"
"…Cry me a river, Sasuke."
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Mie-chan: dodges rotten things being thrown by readers I'm sowee! O.o! Yeah, I know this was meant to be a parody fic, but there's a lil bit of angst tossed in the mix! And that's what makes this fic special! lame excuse Okay, so we gave Sakura some justice (personally at first I don't like her like most of us do, but all that kinda changed as I continued reading the manga !), I mean, it's all sad and stuff, but I believe she's a strong young woman! Still, will she be making a comeback in the fic? We'll see!
Special thanks to Laie for your review and enthusiasm for the fic! This chappie is dedicated to you! Keep on listening! XD
Keep those songs coming, including names of those who will sing them! We'll consider your ideas! XD
Aki-chan: setting up the stage for Naruto while fixing Neji's skirt
Mie-chan: Ano… ! Stay tuned for the next chappie: 'River? Hell, Cry Me a Freakin' Ocean! Part 2'!
Disclaimer 2: Goo Goo Dolls's 'Iris' belongs entirely to them and other respective companies. We just borrowed their lyrics for other ppl's amusement- including ourselves.