A/N: Well, while I'm trying to overcome the writer's block I've hit in Better Know A Nobody, I'm going to work on this fic!
Demyx: Hey Crow, guess what?
Crow: What?
Demyx: School starts tomorrow.
Crow: What!?!? Nooooo! –stares despairingly at the sky-
Demyx: -snickers- I've been doing that all day. It's hilarious.
Crow: Yeah, school starts for me on the 3rd (I started working on this on the 2nd)
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto in any way, shape, or form.
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The Lake Incident . . . . . Neji Hyuuga had not been having a good day . . .
I frowned at my pack as Tenten left the room. . . . Oh, so now it's my turn for the authoress to torture me? Very well, then.
As the little blurb states above, I have not been having a good day. Or a good week, for that matter. Dare I go far enough to say I've had a bad month, or maybe year?
For one thing, I'm stuck in the mountain cabin for two weeks with all of these . . . shinobi. Most of them being very noisy and annoying. For another thing, lately every time I've been around Tenten I've felt an odd stirring in my stomach, tension and happiness all rolled into one. For a third thing, we're going swimming at the lake. I do not like large quantities of still water. I'm fine with rivers, and I'm fine with fighting people in large quantities of water, but when I'm only there to "play" I get a little testy.
After fighting my way into one of the bathrooms, I changed quickly and moved into the main room to wait. Tenten, Sakura, and Sasuke were already there. I felt the odd stirring in my stomach as I sat down in one of the chairs.
"Hey, Neji!" Tenten said cheerfully before turning back to her conversation with Sakura. It was then that I noticed something completely and utterly odd. Sakura wasn't fighting to gain Sasuke's attention at all. Although I don't know them well, I know the two well enough to know that Sakura will try to impress Sasuke and the Uchiha will ignore her.
It seems that something has changed. Sakura is chatting animatedly with Tenten, completely ignoring Sasuke. Sasuke was glaring in their direction angrily. I smirked on the inside when I realized that Sasuke had come to enjoy getting all that attention.
A loud, tumbling cloud of dust and flailing limbs signaled the entrance of Temari and Ino. Those two have a cat-and-dog relationship, I must say. Shikamaru and Nari followed them, one looking exasperated and the other gleeful. I'll let you decide who is who.
Nari came over to Tenten and Sakura and lounged over an ottoman with her upper body, entering the conversation. I edged a little closer so that I could hear what they were saying.
"And then I'll pull out some kunai and throw them at Kiba," Tenten was saying. "I'll be standing next to Naruto, so he'll think Naruto did it. Then he'll attack Naruto, and with a few more moves we can cause chaos!"
The three girls were laughing and giggling as easily as if they were talking about makeup or some such thing, but they were actually discussing pulling a prank! I never knew those three would be the ones to pull a prank; that was usually Naruto's thing.
Within the next fifteen minutes, everyone had arrived. Surprisingly, (coughSARCASMcough) Kakashi had decided not to swim, and was wearing his typical clothes. Kurenai and Asuma were wearing their clothes over their swimsuits, as many of the others had done. Gai was wearing – ugh – I'm not even going to say it. Let's just say you should be grateful you weren't there.
"Let's move out!" Kurenai ordered.
"Yes! Let us run with the power of Youth to the Youthful Lake!" Gai exclaimed.
"Yes!" Lee agreed, jumping up with fire in his eyes. "If I cannot make it to the lake within three minutes, then I must swim around the lake fifty times!"
The two of them ran off in little mini-clouds of dust, leaving everyone's mouths hanging open. Except for Tenten and I, who are of course accustomed to the two's oddities.
Hinata was humming under her breath as everyone left the cabin. Of course, I had noticed when she started taking confidence lessons, but I hadn't noticed how affective they had been until she plucked up the courage to talk with Naruto on the way to the cabin.
"Hey, Hinata!" Ugh, that blond-haired boy, sticking his nose in again. I watched as Hinata blushed and began talking with Naruto.
"Someone's a little overprotective." The teasing voice came from my right. I turned and looked into Tenten's amused eyes.
"I am not," I told her, ignoring the strong surging sensation in the pit of my stomach. I wasn't getting sick, was I? I didn't feel sick. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I felt wonderful, like I could take on the world with Tenten right next to me . . . ??? Where did that thought come from? I shook my head in the hopes that it would clear my head.
"Well then, what do you call death-glaring at Naruto?" Tenten continued in the same teasing voice. I couldn't help admiring how she could hide the plan she had made earlier so well. You couldn't even tell that she was planning to wreak havoc when we reached the lake.
"Hn," I replied, falling back on my trusty, one-syllable, not-even-a-word reply.
Tenten laughed, and I felt the stirring sensation rise from my stomach to my chest, spreading a tingling sensation in my limbs. What on earth was going on?
We made it to the lake within five minutes, and I saw Lee was already swimming in large laps around the lake. The lake itself was beautiful, with sparkling water that spoke of delightful depths, and a small, sandy island in the center held a large oak tree. It was so big and deep and inviting. I hated it.
Water, my inner self groaned. Lots and lots of deep, still water.
I heard a cry of pain from behind me and turned to see Kiba pulling a kunai out of his shirt. Tenten must have aimed it so it just barely nicked his skin, because there was no blood. I suppose that makes sense, because otherwise Nari would have never accepted the plan. She's grown extremely attached to that boy.
Kiba was looking around angrily, searching for the perpetrator. "Na-ru-to!" he screeched, fixing his eyes on the blond-haired prankster. He lunged for Naruto, his hands outstretched. Akamaru grabbed his partner by the scruff of his shirt, holding him back. Kiba snarled wordlessly.
"What did I do?" Naruto asked, eyes wide in surprise.
Akamaru shook his owner like a bone, and turned away from Naruto. Nobody else saw, but I caught the flickering shine of steel as Tenten launched a kunai at Akamaru.
Akamaru howled, shaking a kunai out of his fur. He turned and dropped Kiba, and the two of them simultaneously pounced on Naruto.
"Hey!" Naruto shouted, struggling beneath a writhing mass of fur and teeth. "Let go of me! Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Suddenly there were several Narutos, all of them fighting Akamaru and Kiba.
"Whoops, sorry!" one clone said as it accidentally hit Sakura.
"Naruto!" Sakura shouted, punching the clone in the head and making him vanish in a puff of smoke.
Akamaru accidentally tried to take a chunk out of Gaara. Gaara, of course, immediately retaliated, his sand hovering in the air like a small, brown tidal wave. The sand wave hit several other people, who acted in kind. Within seconds chaos had descended, with fire and sand and kunai and shuriken flying through the air like rain.
I had taken to a tree as soon as the fighting began, not wanting to get in the middle of an unnecessary fight. The only training that was necessary was when I sparred with Tenten.
"STOP!" The yell brought the chaos to a halt. Everyone turned and stared at Kurenai, who was glaring angrily at everyone at once, a feat that's hard to manage (I know, I've tried it). Kakashi was standing lazily behind her, kind of like back-up. Everyone knows that Kakashi's really powerful. But I could probably beat him in a fair match.
"You've got your jealous face on," a voice teased, two inches from my ear. I jumped nearly a foot in the air, but disguised it and turned to face the speaker. Tenten was smirking at me, her face only a few inches from my own.
"I do not," I told her, unconsciously scooting back slightly. Being that close to her did wild things to my heartbeat.
"Yes you do," she insisted. "You were looking at Kakashi-sensei with that glare on your face that says, 'Oh, I could take him.'" She twisted her face in a snarl and deepened her voice.
I almost laughed, but then I remembered that I am The Neji and do not laugh. "Well, do you think we'll still go to the lake?" Tenten asked, not noticing my difficulty of breathing when she was close by.
"Perhaps," I said, hoping to whatever lived up in the sky that we wouldn't.
Kurenai was glaring at only Naruto now, who had let his clones vanish. He let go of Kiba's shirt and looked down woefully.
Kurenai sighed. "Just go to the beach," she said, putting a hand to her forehead.
"Yes!" came the cry, from several people's throats. There was a mad rush as shinobi stripped off their shirts and outer clothes and ran, jumped, and walked into the lake.
"Are you coming?" Tenten asked, taking off her outer clothes as well. I froze for a moment, seeing her in the swimsuit . . . and then mentally shook myself firmly and nodded.
I took off my shirt and walked up to the edge of the lake. The water was just a few inches below the ground, but the spot I had walked up to was a hill, and the water was deep. I put a foot in the water, feeling very foolish.
Suddenly, I felt someone's hands on my shoulder blades, pushing me into the water. I pinwheeled, waving my arms wildly, before plummeting into the deep, still water (although it wasn't quite so still now).
I flailed about underwater before coming up for air, gasping and choking and spitting out water. I had just gotten the water out of my eyes when someone leapt into the lake next to me, sending water spraying all over my face. I spluttered as Tenten poked her head out of the water, grinning as she treaded water.
Which reminded me that I wasn't treading water, and would soon sink. I immediately began moving my arms and legs in circular motions, trying to stay afloat.
"Hey, are you okay, Neji?" Tenten asked, looking at me with genuine concern. I almost choked again, and this time it wasn't because of the water.
"I . . . don't like large quantities of still water," I finally admitted, swallowing my pride. Tenten was perhaps the only person I would admit this to.
Tenten looked mortified. "And I just pushed you in . . . oh, I'm so sorry," she apologized profusely.
I shrugged, and nearly went under. "It's okay," I said once I had regained my tentative balance.
She put her hands on her hips, even underwater. "You know this means I'll have to teach you to swim," she said, smiling slightly.
I felt small alarm bells going off in my mind. "Swim . . .?" This wouldn't end well.
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(A/N: This ends Neji's p.o.v. The rest of the chapter will be 3rd person.)
Sakura floated in the shallows of the lake, surveying the rest of the shinobi. Their plan had worked very well, she decided. Nari was, oddly enough, not with Tenten as she usually was. Normally the two were attached at the hip, except for when Tenten and Neji were training. Sakura smirked. Neji had almost refused to come in the lake, until Tenten had coaxed him out. Sakura had watched Tenten push him in, and seen him flail about. She decided that Tenten and Neji would probably keep to themselves for a while, because Neji didn't want to be embarrassed for not knowing something, and Tenten knew that.
Sakura looked over at Nari. She was with Naruto and Kiba, who had decided to settle their differences with a splash-battle. Nari was helping Kiba, dousing Naruto with water and ducking under when he turned around. She smiled at the trio, happy that they were happy.
As Sakura looked at the rest of the lake's occupants, one boy was glaring at her from the lakeshore. Sasuke just didn't get girls sometimes. One day they're fawning all over you, and as soon as you get used to it, and maybe even grow to like them, they leave you in the rain.
He narrowed his eyes at Kiba. He'd had a strange feeling about that boy. And Naruto, he's always made it clear he likes Sakura. Sasuke scowled, as he brooded in the grass.
There was a noise, not quite a "hn" that Neji might make, but pretty close. Sasuke turned to see Gaara sitting down next to him. Sasuke raised his eyebrows but said nothing.
" . . . You should go to her," Gaara finally said. Sasuke turned to him questioningly. "Before it's too late," he clarified. He was looking at Nari slightly wistfully.
"Oh," Sasuke said, realizing something and feeling quite stupid. "Does . . . does she like you?" he asked hesitantly. He was inexperienced in this field, and didn't know what to say.
Gaara sighed. "She might have once, but probably not now." He shook his head, and Sasuke realized how naked he looked without the gourd on his back. Then Gaara looked Sasuke in the eye and smiled slightly. "But I'm moving on," he said, almost cheerful. "You'd better make your move, before someone else does." He stood up and walked away.
Sasuke stared after the red-haired boy, puzzled. Gaara had never spoken much, so why did he speak now? Then he began thinking about Gaara's words. He decided that Gaara was probably right, but what should he do?
"Giant snake!" The loud scream came from the other side of the lake. Shikamaru, Temari, Ino, Lee, and Gai were paddling frantically to shore. A large water snake was chasing them, its maw open wide.
"Orochimaru?" Sasuke hissed questioningly, standing into a crouch.
"I doubt it," Sakura remarked beside him. He jumped, not having realized how close she was. "What would he be doing here, anyway?" She grinned at him and jumped onto the lake, using her extreme chakra control to run across the surface towards the snake.
Sasuke ran after her, wondering why she was crazy enough to run at the snake. She could be hurt! Not, he reminded himself, that he cared. Well, maybe a little.
Sakura smiled to herself as she began fighting the snake. She had spent enough time around Sasuke to know his moods, and she had seen that brooding jealousy on his face when she was in the lake with Kiba, Naruto, and Nari. She had also seen the brief look of panic when she ran out on the lake. She smiled wider. Her plan was starting to work.
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A few minutes later, there were chunks of snake guts at the bottom of the lake, and several satisfied shinobi.
"Someone's going to have to clean that up, you know," Tenten commented to Nari.
Nari grinned wolfishly. "Maybe you should suggest to Lee that it would be a good exercise," she said slyly, and the two laughed.
Everyone was sitting on the side of the lake, drowsily resting off the adrenaline of the fight. All was peaceful, and we can't have that, can we?
"PERVERT!" a girl's voice shouted, followed by a resounding smack. Heads turned in a flurry of movement, and everyone watched Ino marching away with a towel around her body. Shino was staring after her as if she had grown two heads, wondering what on earth he had done to deserve such a fate.
Tenten and Sakura sweatdropped, and the girls all leaned back against the grass. It was going to be a long two weeks. . . .