Previously on Chicharong Flower…
Neji and Hiashi meet; however, the older Hyuuga seems to be more interested with Tenten than Ino! And at the climax of the previous chapter, Neji called his uncle an impostor!
Does Hiashi have an evil twin brother? Then won't that mean Neji's daddy was adopted? Or were they actually triplets, except Kishimoto didn't know that?
Before we complicate Naruto's storyline even further, let's continue with the chapter…
……………………………………………………………………..
Hyuuga Hiashi stood up, a look of disbelief on his wrinkled face. "How could you, my nephew? How could you think of me as a feke (1)?"
"Fake," corrected Ino wanly.
"Feke!!!" screamed Hiashi and Naruto.
"I give up," sighed Shikamaru, who sat near the chair to take a nap, like he usually does whenever Ino's favorite TV soaps were on.
Neji shook his head "We all know the truth—"
"I don't!" Tenten answered, confusion visible on her face.
"—so stop your pretending and take off that disguise." Neji crossed his arms in front of his chest. "You are…"
"Gasp!" Tenten.
Naruto grabbed the face of Hyuuga Hiashi then gave it a pull, revealing the self-confessed Most Handsome Guy on the Face of a Faceless Wall.
Everyone was shocked. "William Hung?!!"
The idol smiled sweetly and combed his dark mop.
Neji glared at his cousin's husband. "I thought you said—"
Naruto winced. "You example of a son of a gun! You are already exposed, and yet you still try to hide your true colors!" He yanked for the second time the mask hiding the face of Hinata's mysterious father. "Show yourself—Ricky Martin?!!!" Another yank at the mask. "Larry King?!" And another mask fell off. "Tom Cruise?!!" And another one. "Bill Gates?!!" And yet another one. "Elvis Presley?!! I knew it, you're still alive! My movie idol couldn't have died so easily!"
Hinata pulled her fanatical husband back, and then smiled at the pretender gently. "You can reveal yourself already, Sir Gai."
"Sir Gai?!!" Tenten said, forehead creased. Who the hell was that?
"Oh my vegetable!" The King of Rock n' Roll sighed before removing the mask. "I would have succeeded, if not for you meddling kids."
"What are you doing here, Gai?" Neji asked, frowning. He didn't like the idea of him being toyed by his former teacher, nor did he like the idea of his secretly cherished singing idol speaking in Gai-English. Well, he did suspect something was wrong when Hiashi-sama's English was worse than before… a lot worse than Naruto's.
"Who's Gai?" insisted Tenten.
"He was Kuya Neji's former teacher in taijutsu, kung fu, karate, judo, a-and…" explained Hinata, immediately looking at her dark-faced cousin.
"Ballroom dancing!! Hahaha!!!" Maito Gai's grinning face was finally revealed. "Well, student of mine, I've heard about your problem. Your cousin-in-law here called up my office—"
"Office?!" Neji was stunned. "What office?"
"Oh, you don't know? I work as a professional hair stylist in Hollywood!"
"What?!" Neji secretly prayed that Gai's hands hadn't touched Steven Seagull's hair yet. Seagull was also his idol, right up to the latter's suave ponytail.
"Anyway, your cousin-in-law called me up, telling me that you're too bugnutin (2), and that you need a lovelife so that you won't be bugnutin anymore. But since you will not listen to me, I don't know why you won't anyway, I decided to be a feke!" explained Gai cheerfully. "And since Hiashi is dead, I hope he didn't mind that I used his identity! Haha!"
Hinata sighed, praying his father wouldn't haunt this being. "But Sir Gai, I wish you considered that you couldn't deceive my Kuya Neji. He promised on my father's grave before that he'll be my guardian."
"That was your father's grave?" Neji replied, then winced. "Oh right, I forgot."
"Well, nevertheless, I have succeeded, right?" said Gai, very proud of his accomplishment. "I was able to serve my purpose—to give Neji the initiative to fall in love!"
"I do NOT need an initiative!" snapped Neji. "I'm old enough to decide for myself what I need and don't."
"You know it alright, but you don't accept it." Gai shook his head. "You know, ever since you were little, your pride and your heart had always find it difficult to reconcile with each other. They keep on banging and banging on each other, like cymbals in the music bands. This led to your psychological disorder called bugnutin."
"Eh?" was the only
reply the Byakugan-using young man could muster
"And, when
you're bugnutin, you're not fun to be with anymore,"
added Naruto. "Your head is always hot, and you keep on shouting
and shouting even when the problem is only very small…"
"And when you're shouting and shouting, you disrupt the peace and order of your home," Hinata answered. "Aren't you worried about your nephew?" She touched her womb.
"Also, Neji—" Gai
began.
"That's enough!!!" the young man shouted. What is
this, an open forum about the public's grievances against him?
"Anyway, the point is," said Gai, immediately recovering. "When you started feeling this wondrous thing called love, you started to act less bugnutin. You started smiling more often, even if nothing is funny. Oh wait, is that good news, or another psychological disorder?"
"Kuya Neji, you were able to show your humanity ever since you met Ate Tenten," Hinata continued smiling.
Immediately, his pale eyes went to the chicharon vendor, who was also speechless. Humanity? Love? He doesn't understand those things. But he admits that his world did become lighter ever since meeting this young woman. If humanity meant learning to laugh at the little hassles in life…if love meant eating high cholesterol food just to appreciate the blushing cook…
His eyes softened. Yes, maybe Tenten was closer to his heart than he wants to admit.
Naruto nudged Hinata. "See that? That's how I looked at you the first time I realized I fell in love with my loyal stalker."
"Stalker?"
"Hehe. That's how I call you then."
Gai beamed approvingly. Finally, his student understood the value of acceptance. Now, if only the boy could understand the importance of his recommended hair conditioner, then his great mentor would be very happy and fulfilled with his career.
Shikamaru's head raised wearily. "Is it over? Can we go home now?"
…………………………………………………
"So in the end, all my efforts were wasted," Tenten commented while she and Neji were sitting on the roof, playing tong-its (3) while eating dried watermelon seeds and Boy Bawang (4).
Neji took a card from the stack. "Don't worry about it. I already paid Ino for her efforts."
"But she's still asking for your cell phone number," grumbled the chicharong flower cook, taking the King card that Neji dropped earlier, and then dropping two more Kings to complete a full house.
"Yes. They'll be the ones to provide the flowers when I finally kick the bucket," answered the Hyuuga, secretly berating himself. He should have dropped the Jack Spade instead.
"What now?" Tenten questioned, at the same time dropping the Queen Spade in the pile.
Neji eyed impatiently the King Spade on Tenten's house. He took another card from the stack. "What, what now?" He then remembered it. "Aaah. Yes, don't worry about your chicharon. I would still honor our agreement. Tomorrow, I'll send all of my pigs to the butcher."
"B-But…" That was not what the young lady wanted to ask. "W-What about us?" Her eyes shook in uncertainty. He kissed her, and even if he went silent when Hinata earlier suggested they suited each other, doesn't that automatically implied that he was interested with her?
"Us?" Neji looked puzzled. "Do we still need to go with the butcher? Let's just wait for the dead pigs here—" He was surprised when cards were suddenly thrown at his face. "W-wait, Tenten! What's the matter?"
"Go figure!" she yelled, grumpily jumping down from the roof to the second floor of the mansion.
"Tenten!"
She looked up at the roof, eyes crinkled in annoyance. "What?"
He pointed to the cards. "I won."
He nearly died with her glare.
As he watched the girl enter the hallway, he could only wonder silently, "What was that about…we were just playing cards earlier, then she just left. Women…"
He has another big problem though: the young woman might be angry at him, for whatever reasons he didn't know about. But that wouldn't help him, especially when he was so clueless as to how to tell the woman that he wants to make her a permanent part of his household, if not his wife.
…………………………………………….
The events are already clear, but there remains to be another dilemma between the in- denial lovers. Will Neji ever figure out the reason why Tenten threw her cards at him? Will Tenten ever know that the only reason he won in the game was because he took a peek at her cards?
These and other blazing questions will be answered in the final chapter of Chicharong Flower.
------------------ Omitot's Handy Pinoy Vocabs ----------------------
1. feke - fake in Filipino is peke, fot combined English and Filipino forms XD which is a quite common practice with slang
2. bugnutin - bugnutin I imagine is similar to being grumpy XD
3. tong-its - card game I'm not sure how to play it, so I couldn't explain how it works. Last time I played it there was someone behind me telling me which cards to drop and when to get a card from the pile… so basically, I was just holding the cards XD
4. Boy Bawang - a local brand of dried corn bits XD not sure XD it's been years since I last ate boy bawang XD bawang is garlic btw
