A/N: Hello, people! COVER ART BY: Niyuu_Trickster_Kat!
I don't own Naruto.
I have no beta.
ENJOY!
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TAGS for this Chapter: SWEARING, mentions of future SASUNARU, and things associated with PUBERTY.
-I'm writing Ch. 24 right now.
Shino sighed and adjusted his glasses. No matter how much he crossed his fingers, it seemed he was never put on a group project with Yuuki. He didn't want o just come out and ask for it, but he'd like to be in her group at least once!
Today was the assignment of another sort of exercise to prepare them for shinobi life and he just knew that they wouldn't be on the same team! Like usual! It wasn't often that he would get this emotional over something, but was it too much ask the forces of the universe to help him out just a little bit?
"Alright class, we have a special exercise today," said Iruka-sensei the moment he walked into the room. "We're going to slap some seals on you guys, tie you up in groups of two, and then have you do an obstacle course."
That didn't sound so bad.
"Nerve seals will be added to one of your legs. In doing so, any pressure put on that leg won't be registered in your mind and it will interrupt your balance and natural flow. The sealed legs will then be tied together and you'll have to rely on your other leg, and your partner's other leg, to get going."
Okay, that sounded far worse.
"Aburame Shino and Yuuki are Team #1."
THE UNIVERSE WAS WORKING IN HIS FAVOR!
His comrades buzzed excitedly in response to his sudden leap in emotions, but he couldn't help himself. All he had to do was complain and what he wanted would happen? This was great!
"Hey," Yuuki said once she was close enough, looking like the epitome of magnanimity. "Let's do our best to not suck."
"Noted," he replied, feeling somewhat short of breath.
"And I'll endeavor to not use my Katon Chakra around you so your bugs don't burn up."
"Much appreciated."
She even cared enough for the well-being of his comrades. Shino didn't care if she had feelings of the Nara Heir, he could prove himself to be more interesting in the long run. He just had to be patient and pray that his rival in love remained neutral long enough.
It was the beginning of their Fifth and last year at the Academy. For the most part at least. A lot of time had gone by and Yuuki could honestly say she felt prepared for shinobi life. As there was no way Genin would be shoved into super dangerous situations early on in the days where there was no war, she would have enough time to acclimate herself to the lifestyle once out of school.
Loudmouth was even louder than normal. She hadn't thought it was possible but he ascended through the octaves as his voice matured.
Turned out he'd tried to pass the Graduation Exam twice already as he qualified to take them for the past two years. He failed both times. But he wasn't giving up which was admirable in a sense. His failure was only because of the Bunshin. His chakra was too much for it. Why no one suggested he learn a different kind of Bunshin, she'll never know, but she took one for the team and told him one afternoon during their training that maybe a different clone would be better for him.
And for some reason the words, 'Kage Bunshin' popped into her head as well as an explanation of splitting the chakra evenly to make a replica of oneself that was solid.
The blond stared her down for a few seconds, before making the hand seal she showed him, and splitting his chakra in half, into a mold exactly like him. Immediately, a look alike of him popped into existence in a cloud of smoke. It looked pretty close, if a bit off in color, and it fell over like it had fainted. However, unlike his Bunshin that kind of deflated like balloons, it remained solid. And when they poked it, it was actually solid and held shape and their fingers didn't just go through it.
"Where'd you learn that?" he asked her in awe. It was the closest he'd gotten to a real success in any kind of Bunshin after all.
She shrugged. "I guess I saw someone do it once? I know I didn't make it up."
How to explain that she got weird dreams and visions and auditory hallucinations that were very helpful half of the time? It didn't sound like something a sane person would say and she didn't want any possible drama that came from it.
"I'm gonna work super hard on this! -ttebayo!" the boy exclaimed, deafening her even further.
"You got one school year left to do it so if you want to graduate with the rest of us, get to steppin'."
It happened unexpectedly, which was why she didn't dodge in time. It came from behind, and it wasn't an attack per se, so she hadn't felt the urge to move out of the way. There was no onset of pressing palpitations that made her feel unsafe and wary either.
Puppy had been rushing down the stairs between the desks, someone must have bumped into him as he wasn't a klutz by nature, and the juice box he'd been drinking went flying, landing on Yuuki. Her hair, neck, and sweatshirt were all soaked with red and she'd be lucky if she could get the stain out later on. She would have been be all sticky and gross for the rest of the day if she didn't take care of it pronto!
"Sensei, can I please go emergency treat this? I don't want to have to buy a new one if I can avoid it."
Iruka sent her a look filled with sympathy and nodded toward the door. "I'll put the heater on and you can place it on the heater to dry it faster when you come back."
"Thanks, sensei." Awesome man. Her ride or die.
Yuuki turned to the rest of the class, ignoring Puppy's stuttered apologies, to ask, "Can someone lend me their coat for the rest of the day?" As in, the one day she didn't wear clothes under her sweatshirt would be the day in which she couldn't wear her sweatshirt? What the fuck?
And she hadn't done it deliberately or anything! It just happened! The prior night was laundry day. She'd ended up training with Naruto again, and got a little too tired since he was a stamina fiend and she wasn't. Waking up an hour and a half before school started and realizing she had no clean clothes to wear, was a bummer.
She'd attempted a speed wash in the bathroom sink of a pair of underwear, a sports bra, one of the mesh armor suits, and her usual shorts/shirt combo. The smaller items were wrung out and successfully air-dried on a hanger in the shower, but the rest was just too much fabric. And she'd had the stray thought of using her Katon Chakra to fix the issue. Heat against damp cloth would help dry it out and get rid of the excess liquid faster. It was a no-brainer! She'd located her chakra nature better than most in the class so it should have been easy!
But it was not meant to be.
Yuuki burned her damp clothes instead, because she put too much oomf into the chakra technique. So yeah, no clean clothes, and she wouldn't wear dirty ones because they all smelled really bad and would be noticeable to various shinobi-in-training. And since no one would ever notice if she didn't wear clothes under her sweatshirt or not, she'd decided just put on the armor, underwear, and bra and act like nothing was different!
How was she to know that this would be the day she'd get fucked over? It had all been going so well! She'd made it past lunch! Only a couple of hours were left!
No one offered up their clothing when she asked for some assistance, and she huffed. "Nobody? No one wants to be my hero? No one at all? I see how it is." 'Top 10 Anime Betrayals of all Time!' came to mind immediately.
She stomped from the room. She'd have to rinse her hair off as well. It was still short, only touching her ears if she was lucky, but it was very spiky and kind of defied gravity a bit. And there was enough juice for it to be gross as hell once it dried. The sugary liquid trickled down the back of her ear and made her shiver.
Gross.
When she stepped into the girl's room, a bunch of girls gaped in front of the mirror and began falling over themselves to grab their possessions and tell her to get out. Like she gave two shits about their beauty needs. She had a fucking crisis on hand!
"No. Now move."
She shrugged out of her sweatshirt, leaving herself clad in her mesh armor bodysuit and the black sports bra and panties she'd worn beneath it. The girls gaped as they scrambled to get out of the way. So her breasts were bigger than theirs were. It wasn't that big of a deal. She had just turned twelve in May and had been growing for quite some time already. And the blobs of fat grew like no one's business! They were heavy and annoying and they hurt her back half the time. And she even had stretchmarks already! Twelve and already had stretchmarks from doing nothing!
A liberal amount of the world's cheapest and most watery hand soap was poured over the red stain on her poor sweatshirt and then cold water was used to scrub it out as best as possible. Thankfully it was off-white and bleach might be able to fix it later on but she'd raise hell if it didn't. If the bleach turned it a pure white she didn't care so long as the terrible stain marring her favorite piece of clothing was gone.
Cold water was useful when trying to get most food and beverages out of clothing if they weren't tomato-based. It was a fact that many remained unaware of for some reason. And at least the school had good water pressure unlike her apartment. Speed-washing had taken so long that morning because they had no heat in the complex and the water pressure sucked most of the time.
While the sweatshirt soaked, she used another sink to dunk her head and rinse off her neck, using that same, watery soap to clean the mess off. The stickiness of the juice was nasty and it was a shame that she couldn't take a shower to get totally clean. When she got home she'd take the longest shower ever. Hot water. Body wash. A scrubby that would be used until she was red raw.
The girls still hadn't left yet, she noted, watching her with veiled levels of horror. "Don't you have classes to get to?" she asked in irritation.
As one, they turned to leave, pushing and shoving each other until Yuuki was the only one left in the room.
The emergency treatment proved to work for the most part. The stain was reduced to a light pink which was much better than the glaring red that it had been before. She squeezed the excess water out and left the room. Thank goodness there wasn't an actual dress code beyond 'don't come naked'. A glaring issue on the Academy's part but not her problem. Since no one had offered their coat when she asked so very nicely for someone to be her hero, no one could blame her for this!
When she stepped back into class, the entire room turned to her and went dead silent. Everyone was staring, much like the girls in the bathroom had while she went to lay her sweatshirt on the heater so it could dry.
"Yuuki-san," Iruka coughed delicately, looking a bit embarrassed, "why aren't you wearing clothes?"
"Technically I am," she pointed out. The bodysuit counted as a full outfit on its own that just happened to show most of her skin. Some shinobi only wore mesh armor body suits. At least she had on her undies. "I passed out after training yesterday and didn't get to do my laundry, but I wasn't gonna wear dirty clothes to school 'cause that's gross and my speed-wash made the fabric too damp so when I tried to dry my clothes with my chakra, I burned them, so I just showered and tossed on what had managed to dry by then. It's not like you could tell it I was wearing clothes under the sweatshirt anyway, so I figured it wouldn't be a big deal and no one would ever know."
"Screw the clothes, you're a girl?!" Fangirl #4 yelled, looking shocked and mortified.
That was when she realized almost everyone was staring at her bust in obvious shock. Her boobs were bigger than even Hinata's were, but her sweatshirt usually hid it much like Hinata's coat did.
"You didn't know that I'm a girl?" she asked him, feeling unimpressed. Where was the vaunted observational skills of shinobi that they were all supposed to have? With all this training and they hadn't picked up on it? At all?
Fangirl #4's face went red instantly. "No one knew! You dress like a damn boy and act nothing like a proper girl does!" What the hell even was a 'proper girl'?
Looking around at all the shocked faces, Yuuki couldn't believe that the entire class honestly thought she was a boy. For nearly four years. "No one knew? Do I really look like a boy that much that no one knew?"
Buggy raised a hand and said, "I knew. Why? Because my Kikaichu told me when we met."
Puppy flushed and he and his ninken looked away. "Akamaru and I can smell your monthly visitor."
Hinata nodded along. "M-my Byakugan confirmed it. S-sorry. I didn't know if you were hiding it or not so I never said anything just in case it was supposed to be a secret."
So there she was, standing in the middle of her class, almost but not really naked, kind of cold but warming up thanks to the heater that was put on in the summer all for her benefit, and completely baffled over this news.
And then it hit her like a tidal wave and she whirled on Pineapple who was openly gaping in his own way, eyes very much fixed in the same place as the rest of the class. "That's why you said you weren't gay! You thought I was a boy when I confessed to you!" She couldn't help but point at him to get her meaning across better.
His face went red instantly and he buried his head in his folded arms and groaned.
For fuck sake. She didn't personally see how anything she did was remotely masculine according to society's weird insistence on what was masculine and what was feminine. Short hair and Resting Disinterested-Bitch Face was really enough to make people confused over her gender? Did her sweatshirt really hide her figure that much because it reached the mid-thigh now and not many boys wore short-shorts like she chose to. And she was 'thicc' too. Like somewhere between Shikamaru and Choji's sizes, not bone skinny like Pinky or Blondie were.
"Anyone wanna lend me their coat now or am I supposed to be half-naked all day long?" she asked, enjoying the varying shades of pink that filled her classmates' faces. They deserved this embarrassment for being so shit at basic observation.
Eventually, Iruka offered up his Chunin vest and since he was taller than her, it managed to cover her entire torso. And it smelled good too, what the hell?
Not as good as Pineapple did of course, but still pretty good.
Speaking of the bestest buddies of the class, Shikamaru and Choji couldn't look at her for the rest of the day, and she sighed in annoyance.
Gender reveal aside, was it really that big of a change? So she had boobs and was decently proportioned for a twelve year old who'd been going through puberty for four years and worked out somewhat weekly. So what?
Yuuki had hoped the situation would die down by the following morning.
Spoiler alert: it didn't.
Shikamaru could not believe that he hadn't noticed his seatmate was a girl. He supposed it was because she didn't act as any of the girls he knew of. Though Hinata could be excluded to an extent, but it was mostly her shyness that made her so quiet. She represented one type of woman and most of the women he knew, represented the other type.
From his mother, to his cousins, to his friends' mothers, to the girls in the Academy, he'd come to expect a certain attitude type from women in general. And Yuuki hadn't really displayed anything of the sort he'd come to expect.
She didn't nag. She didn't have long, flowing hair or care enough about it to manage it with hair care products. Her voice wasn't high-pitched. It was more raspy the entire time he'd known her, kind of like Naruto's was. She was kind of lazy in her own way and while she was take-charge in a sense, she wasn't controlling and rude about it. She never wore makeup like the other girls did. Even Hinata wore light lip gloss and painted her nails occasionally.
Generalizing an entire gender wasn't right and he knew that objectively, but it wasn't his fault that every female individual he'd ever met shared similar mindsets and could be lumped into two different groups. The only reason he believed older women weren't fangirls was because they were older and lost their childish interests. Besides, in older age they still fangirled, but not like how Sasuke's fangirls did.
It was more of planning marriages before their children were even toddlers, discussing the future attraction babies would have, and gossiping about attractive men despite being married already. Yes, he'd heard enough on his own to gather that it was just a common thing between women both civilian and kunoichi.
To have his preconceived notions completely shattered was difficult to come to terms with. Shikamaru had never made a mistake when judging someone's character before.
Perhaps he should take it as a lesson to never assume he had all the information and answers. Maybe he wasn't always the smartest person in the room around his age.
Turning away from his shock over being wrong for once, he focused on the fact that Yuuki was a girl! As in, he was an eleven year old slacker who put next to no effort in anything, and yet someone had actually looked at him, assessed him thoroughly, and decided that they had a crush on him. Then came to him and told him about it to his face as a sort of warning.
It sounded weird to think about. At eleven he didn't think he had anything to really offer anyone but apparently Yuuki didn't agree.
What was it that she saw in him because he certainly couldn't see it. She knew he was smart, and Choji also knew he was smart, but no one else in the class believed it. On the outside he was dull. Unimportant. Easy to overlook. Not someone any sane person would want to be on a team with because on the surface he seemed to contribute nothing. That was what he aimed for. Being underestimated was the best advantage he could have in life.
But still, someone had a crush on Nara Shikamaru.
Was he supposed to do something about it? Like, he wasn't gay, he knew that from a pretty young age. He'd taken the time to categorize his interests ages ago to determine what he wanted when he was older, and knew he was attracted to girls only so far, despite how many of them annoyed him. But now he had proof of a girl liking him and didn't know what to do!
And she didn't harass him for dates or touch him without consent. Meaning she probably didn't expect anything from him and didn't think anything would come of her crush.
He liked her well enough as a person. She didn't hate Choji, didn't bully Choji, and didn't make Shikamaru stay awake in class. Being paired with her for exercises had been simple and calm. She didn't badger him to do better in school either. She teased him a lot too but kept to herself and didn't barge into his business.
Shikamaru didn't want to be like Sasuke. Though if he thought about it objectively, it wasn't as if Sasuke was in the wrong with his attitude toward his fangirls.
Sasuke showed none of the girls who liked him any positive attention. Sometimes he was a big jerk in return. Then again, those same girls groped him without consent, followed him home a lot, and screamed in his ears. They also romanticized the slaughtering of his clan which was fucked up enough as it is. Even Ino did it which was shocking since her family cared so much about mental health and trauma.
In a way, if they couldn't even extend common decency to Sasuke by respecting his personal space or the trauma he went through, did Sasuke have to be nice to them? Shikamaru firmly believed in treating people how they deserved, based upon how they treated you.
The Uchiha was short with everyone, but he didn't bag on Choji's weight, didn't mock Shino for his clan's Hiden techniques, didn't attack Hinata for being shy unlike her pompous clan was. He riled up Kiba so they'd have good sparring matches and with Naruto he was basically a little boy pulling a girl's pigtails because he had a crush on the blond and didn't know how to deal with it since he had no one left to teach him how to be a better person. His crush was dead obvious at least to Shikamaru. Maybe even Shino too since the Aburame was very observant himself.
Today had been a troublesome day. Too much to think about. Too much to to worry about.
When he stepped foot in his house, his mother was the first to see him and immediately noted his demeanor. "What's wrong?" she asked, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. Her posture screamed, 'I will destroy the one who hurt you, just give me their name'.
"The boy who has a crush on me is actually a girl."
He didn't really know how else to phrase it and there was no point in hiding it either since he would probably be pretty distracted by it for a while.
"And how did you find this out?" his mother asked, looking amused.
"Kiba spilled his drink on her and because she had no clean laundry today, she had nothing on under her sweatshirt but a mesh armor bodysuit and... underclothes. And she does not look twelve under the sweatshirt." He felt very awkward in mentioning that but it wasn't his fault that she didn't look like the rest of the girls in their class and that the first thing that stuck out when her sweatshirt was gone was her... yeah. His face flushed as he remembered how she walked into the classroom.
Nara Yoshino snorted into her fist, eyes sparkling with mirth at his suffering.
"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up." Of course she wouldn't be any help to him.
A/N: Another chapter is done!
How was it? Let me know.
Ja ne! :D