It just struck me...that I have no idea where my original idea went. And that I absolutely cannot believe that after all the shit they put us through, now that we finally see what Sasuke looks like, he's the SAME. Honestly.

And I am having a poll for a hikago fiction: do you prefer wayahika or mitanihika? Now, don't just say waya because he appears most; think how cute mitani is and how little we see of him. I mean, they made a big deal out of him and when hikaru moved on, he wasn't important! See, that was the real reason he was mad at Hikaru for becoming an insei!

Wayahika: 1 (from the one person on aarinfantasy who reviewed...cries)

Mitanihika: CERO!

Keep in mind that the fic is...angsty and minorly graphic. Because I suck at lemon.

Disclaimer: Since when have I owned anything...nay, not even the clothes on my own back...

Chapter 14: A Tweezing Adventure (I can't believe I made a whole chapter about this...it's long, too.)

"U-umino-kun..." Lee whimpered.

"Nani?" Naruto answered innocently.

"I-I..." Lee whimpered again.

"Hmm?"

"I...dun..."

"Don't what? Come on, already!" Naruto chuckled angelically. The light of the rising sun, courtesy of that Saturday morning, shone on his head.

Lee's breath would have caught, if he weren't suffering from so many different forms of anxiety.

Sasuke took his hand out of his pocket, and stuck it back in for effect. "What the hell's with you? This is what you wanted, isn't it?"

"W, well, won't they laugh at me in the salon, though?" Lee lowered his head shamefully. The light caught on the straight filaments, creating a halo.

"You really do have beautiful hair, Lee-kun." Naruto commented offhandedly. "But you're right. They will."

Sasuke glared at the blonde. "You're not helping this end any faster, Umino."

Naruto glared back. "Since I can understand why you wouldn't want to be laughed at, Lee-kun," he enunciated, "We can go to my house. I'm sure we have tweezers there; that'll take care of the eyebrows, and then we can go to a stylist to take care of the hair because..." he broke off meaningfully.

Sasuke bristled. "What!"

"Well, I've never cut hair before, Iruka-niisan takes me to a stylist too, so we'll go there. We can see from here what a haircut from Sasuke would look like. Rooster-butt. Way worse than helmet-hair." Naruto coolly shot.

"Huh?" Sasuke dropped his jaw, but the joke took effect; Lee giggled.

"Ok, Umino-kun!"

"...stop calling me Umino-kun. That's for people you don't know, and we're friends now, Lee-kun. It sounds dorky." Naruto reprimanded.

"Naruto," Lee rolled the name on his tongue.

"Gooood job. Come on, we'll have to walk for at least twenty minutes to get to my apartment." Naruto began to lead his troop of rooster and turtle.

-

"Have you ever done this before?" Sasuke looked on critically.

"Of course not!" Naruto pinched the tweezers experimentally. "I'm blonde, why would I need to?"

"So they're Umino-san's?" Sasuke raised an aristocratic eyebrow.

Naruto sweated. "Well, actually, no, I don't think he's ever had an eyebrow problem..."

"Then who's are they?" Lee chimed in curiously.

"..." Naruto pondered. "I don't know."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "I can only hope they're not diseased. But they're not touching me, so I don't really care."

"Yosh!" Naruto clicked the tweezers, and Lee had second thoughts...again.

-

"I-TAI!" Lee wailed.

"What are you yelling for? I only did one!" Naruto yelled over Lee's wailing.

"It huuuurts!" Lee cried. "You try it!"

"Thanks but no..."

"Dobe. I'll get some ice. Or drugs." Sasuke walked towards the kitchen. Maybe he would get both. Alcohol?

"Naruto, I don't think I should take sleeping pills just for this..." Lee half-heartedly protested, and Sasuke took the opportunity to pin the bowl-cut down while Naruto poured a liberal amount down Lee's throat.

"Don't try this at home, kids!" he cheered.

"Naruto, I don't think that'll work right away..." Lee gagged.

"Ya-tta!" Naruto chopped the back of Lee's neck with the side of his hand. Lee dropped backwards, unconscious, a few stray pills spilling out the side of his mouth.

"Sasu-chan, get the icepack and aloe, it's time to tweeze!"

"...dobe..."

"Don't you 'dobe' me, Sasu-teme! My special concoction of aloe and ice always works!"

"...but I thought you'd never done this before..." Sasuke deadpanned. Not that he cared; it wasn't his eyebrows.

"Past lives, my friend, previous incarnations." Naruto smirked mysteriously.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. Again. Maybe...cocked, his eyebrow, was a better way to say it. To go along with his rooster-butt hair. "And these incarnations are proficient enough at plucking eyebrows to not make Lee hate you forever?"

Naruto paused in slathering aloe along Lee's eyebrows. "No. But I figure I won't make them really fine, like ours. Just thin enough that someone else can perfect them without laughing. Or being grossed out." He positioned the icepack directly above Lee's brow and let it sit for a few minutes before beginning to tweeze.

Sasuke looked on in morbid interest. There was going to be quite a pile of hair on the washcloth...

Naruto lowered the tweezers to Lee's brow once again and pinched. Slowly, he pulled. No reaction. Lee's expression didn't change in the slightest.

Naruto pulled harder. Bon! A cluster of short black hairs came out, leaving a small patch of red on Lee's fine skin. Lee's face twitched a little, and smoothed.

"I can't believe it. They actually weren't glued on." Sasuke commented sardonically.

Naruto shot a dirty look at Sasuke. "That wasn't necessary."

Sasuke che'd and looked away. But he always looked back. The procedure was too sordidly interesting.

He felt smugly glad that Shikamaru had housework, courtesy of his mother.

-

Lee blinked slowly. The sun was shining in his eyes; it hurt. Well, not hurt exactly, but it was bothersome.

It wasn't so bothersome as the discovery that his face was numb, though. And that it had gauze taped to it.

"Hyaa!" Lee shrieked. "Naruto-kun! Naruto-kuuun!" He shot off the toilet (they had been in the bathroom) and ran to the living room. Naruto and Sasuke were kneeling on the floor, drinking tea.

"Nani, Lee?" Naruto asked quizzically as Lee skidded to a halt before them.

"Why is this on my face! Did you-did you- mess up?" Lee breathed harshly.

"Geez. Dobe, both of you. You wanted him to do it instead of a professional, and now you have the nerve to complain?" Sasuke reprimanded.

"I-I..." Lee mouthed. Then it had gone badly?

"Shut up, Sasu-chan. They turned out fine, and you're just angry because of it." Naruto glared and sipped his tea.

Turning to Lee, he said, "They're not thin, but I figured if I got rid of the worst of it, a professional could take care of the rest. And they look fine, I just put aloe and gauze on because they're red. If I didn't it would hurt more."

Lee's round eyes opened comically. "Oh."

"You should wait an hour or so before taking it off. The redness should be gone by then and we can move on." Naruto ordered offhandedly.

"How...long was I asleep?" Lee asked.

"Three or four hours. We gave you a lot of sleeping pills, it's actually kind of amazing you woke up," Sasuke supplied.

"Hn, wait, you don't want to go out in that, do you, Lee? Your shirt's so...green." Naruto suddenly commented.

"Etou..."

"Yeah, why are your street clothes green too? You don't see Gai-sensei outside of school, do you?" Sasuke wondered.

Lee blushed. "Well, normally, no, and my normal clothes are...well, pretty normal, but Gai-sensei made a house call one time and searched my closet. And stole everything that wasn't green.

"So then he bought me a lot of green clothes, wreaked havoc, and now my parents won't let my buy anything else so Gai-sensei won't have an excuse to come over." Lee sobbed.

Naruto and Sasuke looked sick for a moment. "That's sick."

"Yeah..." Sasuke agreed.

"But anyway, I'll fix that problem for you too, Lee!" Naruto grinned ferally. "Being hot isn't just about looks! You can't have annoying people hanging offa you!"

"Oh...can I take the bandage off now, then? And we can go?"

Naruto looked at the wall clock. "Hnn...I guess they can come off now...but..." His brow furrowed. "Just a sec...you look like you're Iruka-nii's size, about. A little smaller, but that's ok, baggy is still kinda cool, I guess...and..."

-

Lee sat apprehensively. Naruto had only been gone two minutes, but Sasuke was making no attempt to comfort him at all, and Naruto had said some very strange things.

"Yoshu! Here it is! Put these on, but don't take off the bandage yet!" Naruto stomped lightly into the sitting room, his arms laden with clothes and a pair of sunglasses.

"Eh? Is this really ok?" Lee asked as he took the proffered clothing.

"Yah, Iruka won't mind, and we'll wash them anyway. Go on, you can change in my room."

Lee walked hesitantly into the white bedroom. It was very clean, he noticed. Everything was put away in drawers, or hung in the closet. The sheets on the bed looked like the dustcatchers that people put over furniture in unused rooms. The only evidence that someone actually lived there was the keychain and cell phone on the mirrored bureau.

Lee closed the door with a sharp click and felt like the walls were looking at him.

Naruto had spent many hours staring at those walls, not that Lee knew.

Awkwardly, Lee took off his forest-green shirt and darker green shorts. He had at least tried to coordinate in toned-downed colors so he wouldn't be much of an embarrassment.

The clothes that Naruto had stolen from Iruka weren't what Lee had expected. He had always imagined the man in leather; some kind of rocker that raised the super-cute Naruto into a pampered lifestyle although he had really wanted a daughter.

But Naruto hadn't brought leather; he had brought black pants that were only a little loose on Lee (he supposed that when they fit properly, they were rather tight), a plain black t-shirt, and a white button-down shirt.

And somehow, the air the clothes gave off told Lee that their owner was stuffy rather than wild. And that the t-shirt was more casual than Iruka normally wore.

The shirt and button-down hung loosely as well; Iruka must be taller, Lee surmised, with broader shoulders. But that made sense, since Iruka was older.

Briefly, Lee fingered the bandage to make sure it was in place. He didn't want Naruto to think he had taken it off.

Naruto was standing when Lee stepped out of the room.

"Hey, I thought they would fit! Iruka hardly ever wears those pants, he likes pants with a normal fit, so I guess they fit that way on you. They look kinda cool," Naruto exclaimed.

"Really?" Lee blushed.

"Yanno, I wouldn't have wasted my breath lying to you. Comere', sit down." Naruto ordered, gesturing at the sofa.

Lee sat and Naruto quickly moved in.

"A-ah! What are you doing!" Lee stared in shock at Naruto's chest. It was still clothed; but Lee was a prude.

"I'm taking off the gauze. Sasuke, get the washcloth." Sasuke went and wetted the washcloth in the kitchen sink.

Painstakingly, Naruto peeled off the tape adhering the gauze to Lee's forehead.

"Eew," Lee whined. "That feels gross."

Naruto wrinkled his nose. "It's the aloe. Smells bad, too." The gauze made sticking noises, but Naruto could see that the skin was relatively clear.

Sasuke returned with the washcloth, and Naruto wiped away the remnants of the gel.

Sasuke hmph'ed. "Not bad."

Lee blinked. "Really? Let me see–"

Naruto put his hands on Lee's shoulders. "Nope, you don't get to see until you get a haircut." He picked up the sunglasses from the coffee table and slapped them on Lee's face.

"Be sure not to look in any mirrors, now. Not that you'd be able to see, anyway." Naruto chirped.

"U-un." Lee faintly acknowledged. That was unfair.

"Anyway," Naruto continued. "I called my own hairdresser and he'll be waiting for us. We should go. Don't worry, he won't laugh at the bowl-cut. I explained, and he's very understanding. I"ve known him since before I was adopted."

"If you say so...thanks, Naruto." Lee said gratefully.

TBC

Well, I wanted to post as soon as possible, since if I didn't now, I never would, because I have two projects to do ;) So, surprise character next chap! I'm going to try to move the plot along, too. By the dance, something exciting will happen, I promise. I decided what I'm going to do to finish up so I can finish my other story and then finish and post the hikago fic I'm working on!

So don't forget to vote! Wayahika or mitanihika!

Vote and review! Kill two birds with one stone!

(Coming to you unedited as usual) I absolutely apologize, I know the chapter numbers are off, but I just reposted a lot of crap, and I'm not sure if it's right anyway. I hope so, but if you have any questions, ask!