Chapter 8 – Shikamaru's Chapter

"Did you hear what happened yesterday at school?" Choji asked me between bites of his first morning bag of chips.

"I don't care about school gossip, Choji," I yawned. Man, I wish I were back in bed. Why did Mom have to be so damn loud every morning?

"Aren't you even curious?" Choji munched away.

"Just tell me," I knew he wanted to tell me. He swallowed his chips.

"Sasuke Uchiha got kicked off the baseball team." This was surprising news.

"What? Why?"

"Apparently, he punched and broke Idate Morino's nose at Friday's practice. He got kicked off the team and is to go to detention every Saturday for the next two months," Choji informed me.

"What a drag." I'd hate to have detention for the next two months.

"Yeah."

"What was the argument about?" I admit I was curious.

"Beats me but I know Idate won't be smelling right for a while," Choji returned to his eating. What would make Sasuke snap? He was a rather chill guy. Not as chill as me but he was never in a skirmish.

We made it to school and everyone was talking about the Sasuke incident. I heard different stories of what happened. One story was that Idate was going to replace him at short stop. But I doubt Sasuke would break a guy's nose over being replaced. Another one was that Idate was tampering with Sasuke's stuff and Sasuke taught him a lesson. Idate was not that kind of guy. The most popular tale was the varying one that Sasuke was defending the honor of a girl. Which girl always changed with each girl that told it. Those were obvious lies. When I wasn't napping I did my best to hear what the baseball players said about the incident. I overheard Iyashi (baseball player) talking about it with Hosei (a non-player).

"I don't know what happened. Sasuke's been irritable all week and then Friday he and Idate were talking. I don't know what about but Idate had that dumb mocking look he gets and Sasuke just got madder and madder. Sasuke started saying something that only made Idate laugh then Bam! Sasuke punched him in the face!" Iyashi described.

"I wonder what they were actually talking about," Hosei wondered.

"Who knows. Idate is always trying to stir up trouble," Iyashi shrugged. He was completely useless to attaining in more detail. What a drag. If I wanted to know anything I'd have to go the source. Idate would be a less threatening source.

As I walked towards Idate at lunch I noticed that he looked irritated. I sat across from him which made him look up at me.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"What happened?" I asked straightforward. He groaned and rolled his eyes.

"I was being an asshole, okay? That's all I'm saying."

I left Idate and went to sit with Choji. As Choji ate both of our lunches I observed Sasuke. He sat at his usual table and Naruto sat across from him. I could see Naruto was trying to talk to Sasuke but he was ignored. I knew Sasuke would not want to talk about the incident. I respected Sasuke's wanting to keep his privacy but curiousity gnawed at me like everyone else.

After school Choji and I started walking home only to see Sasuke and Sakura infront of us. It was weird seeing them walking down together since Sasuke was usually at baseball practice and Tenten would be with Sakura. However Tenten was sick and Sasuke was now off the team. They did not talk but Sakura walked very close to him and smiled like all the girls did around him. They stopped when they reached Might Gai's dojo.

"Thanks for walking me here, Sasuke-kun. Do you want to come inside and watch? I don't think Gai-sensei would mind," She offered. He shook his head making her smile falter for a second.

"I guess I'll see you when you pick me up then."

"Hn." He walked away and she went into the dojo.

"Wanna follow Sasuke," Choji suggested.

"Why not?" I replied. We tried to be stealthy and it seemed to work because he did not notice us. Sasuke led us to a batting cage. We had to pay to get in actually had to rent stuff. What a waste of money. Choji couldn't hit a single ball and I barely did any better. But Sasuke hit every ball and ignore anyone who came up to him.

Eventually he left and so we did too. We followed him from a distance till Choji begged to get some ice cream at the shop across from the dojo. As we ate ice cream, we saw Sasuke had returned there and was standing outside the big window and looked inside.

The dojo people looked finished and ready to go. However, some weird looking guy was talking to Sakura. Most of his body language suggested he liked her while hers indicated that she did not. I saw Sasuke's body tense? He entered the dojo and barely opened his mouth. Sakura lit up and ran to him. They exited the dojo and began walking. Sasuke suddenly shot us a glare. Had he known we followed him the whole time? We had failed but the question did not fail to taunt me for the rest of the week.