It's not my fault the update was late! -uncontrolable sobbing-
Well…apparently the lack of interest in the last chapter is trying to tell me something… It's saying, "Citreeeeee, you should go and jump of a rooooooofffffff."
Think not? Review…please? -puppy face- if not, I might be tempted to stop writing this fic…like the last one I was working on and delete everything, or like take a never-ending hiatus or something.
And thank you to Rachel (for reviewing and beta-ing) and Kurenai Chinoumi for reviewing the last chapter. I really appreciated it. –glomps you-
Things in italics can mean both inner Sakura, and enunciated words, so watch out, and try not to mix them up :p
Chapter 7: Flight of the Curry
"Lee. What the hell was that!" Neji repeated, his normally pure white eyes dyed red from the reflection of the fire that we'd just started back up.
"My special recipe!" Lee screeched at the Hyuugaquite proudly from where he sat in the sand, defending his masterpiece, "I made it together with Ranmaru!"
Whoever this 'Ranmaru' person was, I wasn't so sure, but the only thing that mentioning the name did for Lee was make Neji scowl more.
"What the heck did you do to it! I've tasted the stuff the Ranmaru cooks, and it never tasted near as disgusting as whatever this is! At least the stuff he makes is edible!" Neji yelled at the defiant teen across the fire from him. Bathed in the glow from the still crimson flames, to me he looked like some kind of evil demon out to kill. Lee noticed it, and shrank back again, a hand behind his head. He tried to smile, but it was forced; more of a grimace you'd make when in a great deal of pain than a grin.
Lee took his hand away from his head, and waved it with his other hand in front of him, "Well it's not my fault!"
"What's not your fault! You're the one that made it!" Neji growled at the green spandex-clad boy.
"Well there wasn't any curry powder, so I had to use a lot of salt and pepper, and Anko lent me some of her special sauce." Lee's eyes widened, and he ducked. Neji's plate, still full of food came sailing across the scarlet flames, narrowly missing his shiny bowl-cut head.
I exchanged horrified looks with Naruto. Both of us having known the scary consequences of trying Anko's sauce, we were glad to have Neji freak out before we could take a big gulp of the 'curry' Lee had made. I felt sorry for Neji, but for me, it was better for him to earn a burning mouth than me.
My eyes moved over to Sage, who was still calmly sitting down, somehow managing to eat everything on her plate without so much as a watery eye. She gave me a blank look, as if she was trying to blend in with the sand she sat on or something. I looked away, rolling my eyes. Neji might have had a big freak-out at Lee's horrendous cooking skills, but Sage, with the emotional range of almost less that Shino simply sat there, quietly chewing away at the blob of…whatever it was one her plate.
Tenten stood up, her hands on her hips like someone's angry mother, "You got anything else to say to Lee? It's not his fault he hasn't got Ranmaru's cooking skills you know!"
"Yeah!" Neji scowled again at Lee, "Never to become a chef!"
It was Lee's turn to scowl, but before he had the chance to say anything, he was interrupted by a loud,
"Okay! Light's out everyone!" Anko had pulled a megaphone from nowhere and deafened us all. I think she scared the crap out of Hinata, because she was paler than usual, and her eyes were twice the size they normally were from shock.
"Lights? What lights?" I heard Naruto's voice, and turned around just in time to see him receive a hard whack on the head from Anko's megaphone. "OUCH!" Naruto rubbed his head, and scowled at the evilly grinning teacher standing beside him.
"What do you think light's out means, you dobe!" Sasuke bopped him on the head in the exact same spot as Anko, and walked off, hands in his pockets. I laughed along with Tenten as Naruto clutched both of his hands to his head, eyes narrowed at the Uchiha walking away from him. Hinata walked over, an ice pack in her hand from somewhere. She turned red, handed it to him and ran in the other direction.
"And be sure to pack up people, it's gonna rain tomorrow, so we'll have to leave tomorrow night. We're sorry," she gestured to the rest of the teachers gathered around her, "But we'd rather not get sick in the rain and be ill for the rest of the week." She turned to go, but then whipped back around to add something else, "And don't forget! Before we leave is the actually dance part of this whole thing, so…don't forget about it!"
"Aww…that's not fair!" Naruto's voice called again at the fact that we had to leave early, and if by impulse so did the resounding sound of a large object hitting him on the head.
Ino laughed so only I could hear, "It's a good thing his head is so hard!"
I snickered as Naruto clutched the ice-pack Hinata had given him to soothe his head once again.
We stood up, and walked over to the change rooms.
The night was warm…too warm. I hadn't noticed the heat during the day because of all the swimming, but it was boiling right now. I pulled on a t-shirt, and a pair of air-knit shorts instead of the fleece pajamas I'd had on the night before. I didn't bother waiting for Ino—she'd be out soon enough, so I walked out into the warm sea breezes.
I was exhausted from the day's events, and not even the filling dinner (missing its vegetables) had done my any good. I yawned, gazing sleepily at the dying fire. Apparently it had taken as much as it could bear, even after being relit from blowing up. It slowly dimmed down until onto glowing coals and bits of ash were left.
I glanced at the watch beside me. It was only 9 o'clock, but I was tired from the day's activities. I stretched, and lay back, looking at the stars again. It would have been nice to talk to Sasuke again, but by the looks of things, he was already asleep, sprawled out on the sand. I closed my eyes, not bothering to cover myself, as I would end up throwing my sleeping bag off again in a minute because of the heat.
xXx
A chilly breeze ran over me, sending shivers down my spine. Maybe putting my sleeping bag on last night would have been a good idea…but then I would have thrown it off. I lay there, eyes closed, contradicting myself until something drew my attention to the real world outside my head.
I was in the middle of rolling onto my side, trying to fall asleep again when someone put their hand on my chest.
SLAP!
An unsuspecting and rudely awakened Sasuke was blasted several feet away on the sand, clutching a stinging cheek. "Oh shit," I muttered, while my inner self simply cried out, Smart one, Miss Braniac. You just bitch slapped the Uchiha prodigy.
"Ohmigod! I'm sorry!" I squeaked and ran over to him.
He looked at me warily; afraid I would slap him again or something.
"Sorry!" I helped him stand, while Ino and Tenten gave me strange looks.
"It's okay…" he said, looking sort of blanked out, a red hand-print on his pale cheek standing out more than I would have liked it to. He probably didn't even know what had happened, having been awakened up so rudely and out of the blue.
"What happened?" A sleepy Kakashi walked over, half of his head and one of his eyes covered by a sleeping cap with the school logo on it.
"No clue, sensei…I just sort of woke up and saw Sasuke go flying, and then Sakura went over to help him stand up." Ino yawned, eyes half closed.
Tenten simply rolled over, and somehow managed to get off of her sleeping bag, swallowing a mouthful of sand. "EEEWWW!" She coughed and ran off to the bathrooms to wash out her mouth. Ino sat there, watching her run, zoned out and half asleep.
"Sasuke! Will you teach me this technique by which you blush on one half of your face?" A disgustingly wide awake Lee sat up on the sand, his hair almost completely covered in sand. "I think it wou—"
"Shut up, bowl-head." Sasuke threw a pillow at his head, knocking him over. Lee, flushing in both cheeks threw it back, but missed, and hit Ino squarely in the face.
"Why you little…" she glared at the green-clad teen in front of her, and grabbed the nearest object to her, sending it zooming straight towards his head. Unfortunately for Lee, and the people on either side of him, (which happened to be Kiba, Shino, Jin and Sage) a large bowl of leftover food from last night's dinner, complete with the horrendous curry came flying across to his Lee in the face, splattering onto everyone around him. Lee grabbed bits of the food, and threw them back at Ino.
Neji took one look at the red-faced blonde and stood up to sit beside me and Sasuke. He'd probably learned long ago that fighting with an enraged Ino was not going to end prettily.
A scarlet-faced Jin splattered with food, flaming hair standing on end pulled out a box from somewhere and whipped it at the blonde girl's head. But thankfully for Ino, Jin's anger had taken away her aim, and it whistled through the air to bounce of Shikamaru's head…too bad for him he was still trying to sleep. The lazy brown-haired teen sat up, probably asking himself why the sky was throwing wooden boxes and food at his head. She scowled at Ino, and grabbed around for something else to throw at her.
"Okay people! Cut it out!" Kakashi waded into the mess of teen, sleeping bags and food, only to get hit in the head by something unidentifiable thrown by Kiba, who was trying to hit Ino. I think it was a gift from Akamaru…but I wasn't really sure.
The grey-topped sensei stood there for a moment, visible eye staring blankly out to sea, the goop on his head, sliding down his drop onto his pristine white pajama top. Or should I say the top that was a pristine white… he didn't even look at Kiba before walking back over to the teacher's circle, face emotionless.
"Oh look, Kiba, now you've done it." Ino taunted, tossing a bombardment of carrots at his head. Several of them bounced off and hit Naruto squarely in the face.
He sat up with a start, asking a rock beside him why it had told the snowmen to throw their noses at him. He had opened his mouth to ask it something else, when the rain of carrots sent over by Ino bulleted inside his mouth. Hinata woke up finding her self staring at Naruto, whose mouth was packed to the brim with carrots, forcing into a half-smile, half-grimace-of-pain sort of face.
Tenten, who had recovered from her unpleasant mouthful of ground up rocks stood beside me and Sasuke, watching our classmates throw food and other close by objects at each other with vengeance. Some, like Ino and Kiba, were directly in the middle of it all, dodging and throwing at the same time, which others, like Shikamaru and Sage, simply sat there, the odd carrot or pepper hitting them.
"YOSH! LET YOUR SPRINGTIME OF YOUTH BURN IN THE VEGETABLES!"
I felt my eyes grow as big as saucers. A thumb stuck out, along with a blinding flash from shiny teeth to make bushy black caterpillar eyebrows and a bowl-cut stand out like a horribly horrible…whatever it was. A piece of something brown came and landed on the side of the newcomer's still stupidly grinning face.
His only response was to grin even wider, picking up a piece of food covered in sand and whip it at Kiba's head.
"GAI SENSEI!" Lee cried out, running over to the older replica of himself, rivers of tears flowing down his food-splattered cheeks, the ocean reflecting the pinks and oranges that a sunset gave off. I slapped a hand over my face, and shut my eyes. I was starting to see things…two sunsets in a row? This couldn't be a good sign.
The two bowl-cut, green-clad freaks dashed back into the fray, fists full of food and…something I couldn't identify.
"OI! OKAY GIRLIES, YOU CAN STOP CLAWING EACH OTHER'S EYES OUT NOW!" Genma walked over, a long piece of grass in his mouth, and an annoyed look on his face. He spat the plant onto Gai's hand when it reached towards another clump of food, and it recoiled back into its original position by his side.
"Hey! I didn't start this!"
"You did too!"
"My eye hurts…"
"Something's stuck in my ear!"
"Yeah? Well too bad!"
"GAI SENSEI!"
"This is troublesome…"
"Akamaru! Don't eat that!"
"LEE!"
"Kaida! Stop biting Lee's leg!"
"My leg!"
I exchanged looks with Sasuke, whose cheek was still a bright shade of red. Apparently Lee hadn't even noticed the angry little rodent attached to his leg until Jin had told Kaida to stop.
"OKAY PEOPLE! BREAK IT UP!" Anko yelled into her megaphone, which had once again appeared out of nowhere. And despite the fact that all three of us standing to the side of the battle field had seen her come, a loud voice at this early in the morning still made us jump.
But it was nothing compared to what everyone throwing their sanity away had done.
Jin refrained from bending Ino's arm further back out of its socket, eyes like bowling balls. Ino stopped struggling and gave her teacher a shocked look. Sage and Shikamaru still sat there, staring blankly, bits of food scattered around and on them. Bits of what looked like Sasuke's pillow covered Kiba and Akamaru from head to toe, while Jin's angry little ferret paused from chewing up Lee's leg. Gai himself sat in the middle of it all, like some big, deformed kid or something.
Naruto, who had poked his head out around the side of the rock when the sound of food being thrown had stopped, vanished from sight when he saw the megaphone in Anko's fist. He probably didn't want to get smacked in the head again because of one of his stupid comments or something.
Anko simply shook her head, motioned for everyone covered in food to clean themselves free of food. Picking her way through the disaster, she grabbed Gai by the ear, pulling him off towards the other teachers, who were sitting on the sand, still in their pajamas laughing. A fountain of tears streamed down Gai's face as a megaphone bearing Anko whacked him on the head.
xXx
"Well, now that we've all cleaned up," Anko gave a disapproving look to Gai and everyone else in on the disaster.
It had taken most of the day for everyone involved in the mess to clean up, and everything still reeked of curry and other food. The smell of dead fish also hung in the air, but I wasn't really sure what it was from.
"EAAAHHH! Ewewewewewwwwww get it away!"
"Ugh. You are like SO immature, Uzumaki."
"I AM NOT YOU CRAZY LADY!"
I covered my ears at the sudden outburst of noise, and walked around the side of a large rock to see a certain blonde being attacked by…Anko?
The sarcastic teacher stood with a basket of peppers and carrots in her arms, outstretched to Naruto. The blonde teen was staring, a horrified gaze on his face as his eyes looked from the offered basket to his teachers' face.
"Fine then! I'll take it!" Anko sniffed at Naruto, and walked off, leaving the vegetable-hating teen behind.
"Blaaaahhh!" Naruto stuck his tongue out at Anko's back.
She whipped around, cheeks flushed, and began taking carrots out of the basket, throwing them at his head like daggers. Naruto, trying to make a quick escape away from the vegetables flying towards him with deadly aim, dove behind a startled Hinata.
Anko stopped the bombardment of orange roots and went to check if the frozen-in-place Hyuuga heiress was alive and well. Naruto scampered off after checking on Hinata, giving Anko one of those you-know-you-shouldn't-have-done-that-and-now-you're-in-deep-shit faces.
Anko looked at him, a cynical yeah-right-you-wish face and marched off, a basket of veggies in one hand, and a stillfrozen-in-shock Hinata in the other.
Homigawdz done. Next chappeh is the last chappeh in the beach crap arc, so enjoy it while you can peeoplezzzzz….
Reviews are loved. You know I love them. They inspire me to write…so review please!
Citree
