Water Logic: Friends and Teammates
by
ISMA
"Long distance relationships suck." Lee proclaimed in uncharacteristic depression as he slumped down next to Neji and Tenten as on a bench they waited for Gai-sensei's arrival. His teammates gave worried looks, both wondering what sort of drug Lee was on to make him less than enthusiastic about anything and what sort of drug someone else had to be on to go out with him. Lee didn't notice their odd looks, simply letting himself slump back against the bench with a sigh.
"Ummm... Are you ok Lee-kun?" Tenten leaned over to see Lee's dejected face with a slightly more worried look than before. Where was the declarations of determination and exuberance, where was Lee's unfailing good nature. Where the fuck was Gai-sensei?
"I think I'm going home." Lee said softly, as if his first statement had merely been in his own mind. "Tell Gai-sensei I'm sick." He departed just a quickly as he had appeared, his departure quickly followed by an uninterested grunt from Neji. Tenten frowned. Something was wrong with Lee, and if there was something wrong with Lee there was something wrong with the team. She cast a glimpse at Neji, who looked so uninterested he was about to fall into a snoring pile of goo (he had been up drinking the night before) and stood to follow her other teammate without a word. Neji just let his eyes blink slowly as he desperately wished for a cup of coffee.
"What's up with you Lee?" Tenten whispered to herself as she watched her chunin friend climb the steps to his apartment like they were the steps to the gallows. Through his bedroom window she could see him pulling out various papers and reading them at fantastic speeds before placing each one carefully in a pile next to him. She could see him surrounded by piles of crumpled paper as well. Every now and then he would scribble something on the pad before him before ripping it out and throwing the crumpled piece of paper on the floor with it's comrades.
Was Lee.. really in love with someone? The idea itself seemed to strange in Tenten's mind that she almost rejected it all together. Yet Lee was displaying all symptoms of just that. Tenten paused a moment while her world view shifted dangerously. Tenten felt vaugely sick at even the thought of a date with Lee-kun much less something more... Not that she didn't like him, it was just... Ew.
However, nothing would change the fact that Lee was...Ew. She couldn't even finish the though! Tenten sighed and headed towards the tree near his window to get a better view. As she pulled herself up on a branch she could see Lee fling himself down on the carpeted floor of his room. She chuckled despite herself, at the very idea that Lee would be suffering from love sickness. Her mind began spinning, wondering who would even consider going out with the green beast. Surely none of the girls she knew. Not Ino, not Hinata, definitely not Sakura. That meant it wasn't someone she knew, maybe someone from another village entirely.
They hadn't been to any other villaiges recently, but Lee had gone on that one solo mission to... Sunagakure. Just a week ago, Tenten remembered it clearly because it had been so very sudden. There had been something about the Kazekage requesting his presence specifically...
And suddenly, just like that, Tenten knew. She jumped from the tree and raced back to where Neji waited with a pounding headache to spread the new.
The Hyuuga was in the exact position she had left him in, and their Sensei appeared to have pulled a Kakashi. Tenten raced up to him with all the speed her small body could manage (which was quite a lot considering she trained with Lee on a regular basis). She shook Neji awake, waving away his pained moans with less than her usual care.
"Neji!" She squealed, causing her teammate to wince, "Its terrible."
"Whuh?" Neji muttered, for once not acting like he usual Ice-prince self. He squinted up at the kunoichi, wishing dreadfully that he hadn't gotten out of bed that morning.
"Its about Lee." She hissed in a voice that he would have recognized from teenage girls all over the world, had he not been hallucinating.
"'s he dead?" He asked in monotone.
"He's in love." Tenten told him, acting more girly that he had ever seen her. The one sentance took a while to get through Neji's muddled brain, but when it did he became as sober as an elephant (and elephants are pretty sober).
"Thats..." he said, about to congradulate thier teammate on finally getting someone else to annoy, suddenly his mind presented him with the image of Rock Lee and an unknown female making out voraciously in the dark corner of the club he had patronized the night before. It was a terrible image. Especially since it had been a gay club, and the image of Lee and an unknown female were surrounded by gyrating and half-naked male bodies.
"...Ew."
"What?" Said Naruto, who only possessed ninja stealth skills when you least expected it, stepping out from behind the bench as if he had been there all along (which may very well have been the case).
"Lee's in love." Neji told him flatly. The Lee and the girl in his head had been joined by a sweating male stripper wearing leather, and Neji didn't know whether to be disgusted or aroused.
"..." Naruto spent a minute pondering this new development before turning to his own teammates, also possessing the amazingly fleeting ninja stealth skills, and raised an eyebrow questioningly in their direction.
"...Ew." Proclaimed Sasuke. Sakura agreed heartily, nodding for all she was worth.
"Who is it?" Naruto asked, seemingly less disturbed than those around him.
"Its..." Tenten began, her voice low and sending out gossip-waves to all nearby, "...Someone from the Sand Village..."
"Who!" Demanded Naruto, sucked deeply into the pit that was the suspenseful distribution of Konohagure's biggest story.
"...Someone high up..." She continued.
"Who!" Squealed Naruto, Sakura, and even Neji together. Neji wanted to know. He also wanted Lee and the unknown Sand female to stop doing pole-dances with the male stripper in his head.
"Its..." Tenten stalled, waiting for the opportune moment.
"Just say it already!" Shouted Sasuke. Tenten grinned. Objective complete.
"Temari!"
"..." Silence followed. Neju pretended he could hear crickets chirping over the pounding bass. Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura remained still and shocked.
"That's..." Naruto began.
"...Ew!" Sakura finished.
"It doesn't make sense." Neji agrees, wincing even more now that the unnamed female had turned into the frighteningly fierce sand-nin, "Are you sure you're not just obsessed with her." It would be nice if Tenten was obsessed with her, then it would be Tenten and Temari chaining a shirtless man to the wall.
"Sure it does!" She exclaimed.
"..." Her friends awaited an explanation.
"Well I mean..." She folded her arms and glared at them all, daring them to defeat her logic, "Maybe Lee's just a little more kinky than we previously believed."
There was once again silence among the five before Tenten was met with another resounding, "EW!"
"Well then." She huffed, "We're just going to have to prove it then aren't we." Nods followed all around, as each ninja tried to erase the mental images her statement inspired. Neji's fantasy had just gained an entirely new aspect.
The five ninja walked silently, although not quite quietly enough to warrant the name ninja stealth, towards Lee's apartment, where he had just retired for a good day of moping. They slipped through the window, for once glad of the fact that Lee would unconsciously ignore all threatening sounds in his apartment (and boy is there a long story behind that... with ninja stealth and squirrels).
Tenten proudly showed the piles of crumpled pieces of paper and the clean, although much read, letters bearing the seal of Sunagakure. Each one had been carefully refolded and placed back in it's perfectly preserved container, with as much care to preserving the letter as was possible.
"See." She said holding up an envelope, "I told you it was her."
"It could be some other Sand-nin." Neji growled, taking the letter from Tenten's hand. His mind was becoming a great big mass of Lees and Strippers and Temaris all wearing leather corsets. He needed someone to tell him it was all a dream, because if it was true... If it was true... Mind-Temari had just pulled out the whip.
"My love..." He began the letter. The girls, Naruto, and even Sasuke leaned in so they could hear better. Deep in the dark and angsty depths of his mind Sasuke wished for popcorn.
"...It has been very long since I saw you last, but you probably know that since you haven't seen my either." Neji read on, squinting past the terrible handwriting and the dark paper.
"I miss you. I also miss ramen and movie night. We do not have movie night in Sunagakure, so that makes me miss it even more." Neji was beginning to believe that this was indeed not Temari. Temari could have arranged her own movie night.
"Kankuro says that I should write something substantially romantic to you, but I can't think of anything to say. Come visit soon and I will show you how to make sand forts... Love..." Neji choked. His pure white eyes grew wider than they every had before. His fantasy just became more twisted.
"What!" Shouted the others. Even Sasuke, who had given up al pretenses.
"...Love..." Neji said again, "Sabaku no Gaara."
"..." A shocked silence fell on Konohagure, nothing stirred. Nothing moved for just a second before bother Sakura and Tenten burst out with a single, but fitting, exclamation.
"KAWAII!"
The three boys blinked. Unable to do anything but watch as thier previously mature femal compatriots melted into little piles of goo. Sasuke smirked, inwardly, and agreed. Neji merely blinked, wondering why Gaara would ever to that with a gourd and briefly considering the possibility that he was insane.
His eyes traveled down the the bottom of the page, where it read 'P.S. I also miss that thing you do with you're tounge.'
Neji wondered if he would ever be able to sleep again.
FIN!
A/N: I just wanted y'all to know that I'm sorry Neji is so out of character. I totally didn't mean it, it just happened.
MINI-DRABBLE: MOVIE NIGHT
"YAY!" Lee cried, pulling Gaara into his dimly lit apartment. There was a couch, much too big for the room, set up in front of his T.V. and covered in blankets with a huge bowl of popcorn resting on the arm. Lee dove for it, inadvertently dragging his boyfriend with him. And cuddled down into the fluffy pillows with a nice, warm, Gaara.
"?" Gaara grunted.
"Movie night!" Lee cried in answer, I usually to it with my team but I reserved today especially for you. What followed could only be described as the second coming of the good-guy-pose mixed with a bit of shining white teeth.
"We do not have movie night in Sunagakure." Gaara informed him, leaning in curiously as Lee inserted the tape, "What are we watching?
"Mulan." Lee said, almost purring the title.
"You haven't seen Mulan?" Lee cried in horror, clutching at his boyfriends chest as if begging him to 'say it isn't so'.
"Well!" Lee said, once again deciding to make the best of poor circumstances, "Mr. Gaara. Tonight..."
He leaned in, giving Gaara a surprising peck on the lips, "I'll make a man out of you."
FIN
Woah. So that sounded far more dirty than I meant it. NOTHING HAPPENED people. They just watched Mulan. Really. I mean it...