Hey guys. Hope you all like this chapter. I tried to add some humor, so if you don't like Shino and Kiba acting like a comedy duo, turn back now. (Or should I say Akamaru and Kiba?)

Hope you all get the whole metaphor with the cupcake at the end.

Oh. And I also added in some NejiTen in here. At least one-sided. Not sure if I'll make them official in this story or anything. What about Shikamaru, you say? I'll get there eventually. Right now, I just want to write some Neji in here. Since I hate him, but like how much of an ass he is. He's probably one of the only ones I like less than Orochimaru. Sad to say I like Orochimaru more than Neji. Sorry, Neji. xD I'd apologize about Sasuke, but he needs no apologies. He's a dick. (If you didn't know, Sasuke's last on my list of people I like. And when I say people I like, I mean he's top on the list of people I hate in that show.)

Anyone else notice how much of a Mary-Sue Sasuke turned into in the Time-Skip? Yeah, all the characters got better...except for Sauce-gay, naturally. He had to become even more of a prick. After all, the series is called Naruto, not Sasuke. So when they decided to talk more about Sasuke in the Time-Skip, they had to make him the bad guy so as not to ruin everyone's faithfulness to Naruto. (I even like Sasuke's new teammates more than him! How sad is that? They're all even more loyal to Orochimaru than Sasuke was and I like them more! Same with the Song village peeps, like Dosu.)

Sorry for ranting. Just forget about it and enjoy the chapter. (I really have room to talk since I refuse to watch the show and yet read the Time-Skip arc of the manga.)

His Favorite Food
Part Four -- "The Cupcake of Forgiveness"

She sighed, looking up at the ceiling, rolling over in her futon. She didn't want to get up. Not if it risked seeing Chouji. What would she say to him? She couldn't just say sorry. And she didn't know of anything particularly fancy to make him to make it up to him, and it wasn't like–

She gasped, sitting up out of bed. It looked like– She turned to the window, nearly screaming when she saw it was almost time for lunch. She'd have to hurry to make something–it didn't matter what!

She scrambled into the kitchen, struggling to find something to make. What would be easiest? What would be something that would show how sorry she was? And that was when she saw it–instant cake mix.

A giant lemon cupcake. That was perfect!

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An hour later, she was carrying a small box with the cupcake inside. It was burnt; she'd left it in too long. And to make things worse, she'd accidentally mixed salt into the icing mix instead of sugar, so it tasted really, really bad, but maybe that was a good thing. Maybe he'd realize how upset and sorry she was and forgive her…

"Heyyy, Hinata-chan! I see you've made something again! Are you going to give it to Naruto?? You probably shouldn't; it smells burnt."

She turned to see Kiba walking next to her, swinging his arms absentmindedly. Akamaru was perched on his head, sniffing in her direction disdainfully. Shino was beside him, looking skulky as usual.

"I-It's for…" She turned red. "It's for Chouji-kun, because I called him fat…"

Kiba burst out laughing, and Akamaru began howling, as if understanding the joke. Shino was shaking, and it looked like he was trying so hard not to burst into tears in his attempt to not laugh. She sighed, stopping her walk and turning to them. "I…I mean it… He…He looked so s-sad, and I feel bad…"

"Shino, did you hear that?" Kiba wiped a tear from his eye and elbowed Shino, who immediately started to wheeze as the laughter trickled out of his mouth, pushed out of his lungs by that nudge. Kiba quirked a brow and turned back to Hinata, trying his hardest to ignore how creepy and old Shino was starting to sound. "Hinata, Chouji's used to people calling him fat. Now he just beats us up when we call him a fatass. I'm sure Shikamaru made him feel better. You don't have to do anything to make up for it."

Her cheeks flared and she felt something stir in her, an anger she couldn't quite place. "H-He shouldn't be used to it! He's too nice to have people s-step on him like that! N-Naruto wouldn't be okay with it!"

Shino then stopped laughing, turning serious again. "Yeah, well, not everyone's like Naruto, Hinata. It's about time you realized that not everyone's as perfect as you think Naruto is. So, you should stop making Chouji into Naruto."

She turned red, feeling even more terrible. "I…I know…but…"

Kiba broke in. "Yeah, Hinata. Naruto's the guy you should be trying to cook food for. So why don't you start trying to cook something for Naruto?"

"I…I don't know… I just…" Her face got redder and redder, and soon she felt like she was going to fall over, until she saw him. She glanced over, noticing Chouji duck behind a building when he saw her. Without thinking, she darted off in the direction he went.

Kiba held out his hand. "W-Wait…Hinata-chan…" He scratched his head, turning back to Shino. "See her get all red like that? She usually does that around Naruto… Oh! Yeah, I was talking to Naruto the other day, and he said she was crying so he tried to comfort her."

Shino nodded. "And? Did he end up having to carry her off somewhere so she could come to?"

"No. She just walked off!" Akamaru barked in agreement, and Kiba glanced up at his pal. "Yeah! I know it's peculiar!" He turned back to Shino. "Usually she'd faint, right?"

For a minute they stood there, lost in thought, until finally Shino smiled, looking at his teammate. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Kiba shot him a sly smile, snickering. "Hell yes I am! But where are we going to find a giant mouse trap this time of year?"

"…What? N-No! No, I mean about the whole Chouji issue. She suddenly started turning red when she talked about him, and now all of a sudden she starts cooking him food. Not to mention that she stopped fainting every time Naruto was anywhere near her or acknowledging her in any way."

"Oh… Yeah, I can't wait to see how this whole Chouji thing will turn out! Ten bucks Chouji rejects the whole thing!"

Shino just shook his head. "To think, someone like you would bet against their friend, Kiba…"

"What? No, I'm betting against that food of hers! It reeked like…like…" Akamaru barked, and Kiba snapped his fingers together, looking up and pointing at his pup-pal. "Yeah, it reeked like lemon-scented ass! Talk about gross!"

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Asuma sighed, taking a drag from his cigarette. Shikamaru coughed overdramatically and slurped a little bit on the noodles Asuma had taken them out for. Their team captain and teacher just rolled his eyes. "One day when you're older, you'll understand why I smoke, Shikamaru."

"Yeah, like I'd want lung cancer. I'd never smoke, Asuma-sensei."

Asuma chuckled, giving him a bright smile. "Ah, so it's because you're concerned about my health? You look up to me that much, Shikamaru? Better watch out. One of these days you'll find yourself smoking to follow in my footsteps."

Shikamaru laughed. "Yeah right…"

Beside them, Ino grumbled. "God! Where's Chouji!? He's the whole reason you took us out, Asuma-sensei; him and that dumb experiment of yours!"

Chouji stumbled in the door of the restaurant, breathing heavily. He looked weak, and as he slid into the spot beside Shikamaru, it was apparent his face was stuck between paling and flushing scarlet. "S-S-Sorry… I got caught up with…er…something…" He turned even more red and glanced at Shikamaru. "I didn't eat breakfast this morning. I couldn't even stomach my mom's specialty…" His stomach growled, and Shikamaru slid his bowl over to his friend.

Asuma stopped, grabbing the bowl and pushing towards the edge of the table, balancing it perfectly, just enough so that if Chouji reached for it, it'd most likely spill all over the ground. He cleared his throat, reaching a hand over and grabbing Chouji's cheeks. "Not so fast. I need to see how this experiment went."

Chouji blinked. "H-Huh?"

"What have you eaten since that talk I had with you?" He pinched the boy's cheeks, taking his temperature. He frowned. "You seem cooler than normal, Chouji."

Shikamaru couldn't help but snicker. "Geez, Chouji. Asuma-sensei told you to cut back on the food, not turn into Ino."

Ino glared. "You take that back, Prongs-head!" She smiled, a bit pleased with her retort, but Shikamaru just gave her a bored look, twiddling his thumbs idly and glancing up towards the ceiling, his eyes turning toward the hair pulled up at the top of his head.

"Oh, ha ha. Prongs-head? You called me that last week. Try to come up with something new, Miss Piggie. And it's obvious you're starving yourself since you brag about how much less you eat than Sakura while your boobs are still bigger than hers."

She glared at him. "Miss Piggie? Now who looks like they're running out of material?? And I'll have you know–" She put a hand to her chest, looking proud of herself. "–that I don't starve myself."

"Maybe you should."

She gasped, offended and hurt, but Asuma held up his hand, silencing the two. He turned to Chouji, serious. "Chouji, you were eating relatively normal yesterday, weren't you?"

Chouji's eyes wandered around the room. "Uh…well…I got upset at lunch and never ate…and I ate very little at dinner… I skipped the chips throughout the day. That's what you wanted, right?"

Asuma sighed, putting his face down and handing him the bowl. "No, I wanted you to just stop eating the chips and see what happened, but it's obvious that your sudden change in not eating messed up your body pretty badly. Usually you have no problems running here, but you were out of breath when you walked in. Your temperature is colder than normal and you look weaker than I've ever seen you." He watched him eat, slurping at his noodles slowly, a bit more lackluster than was usual for him.

"Chouji, what happened at lunch the other day?"

Chouji turned red, looking back toward his teacher. He turned to Ino, then looked to Shikamaru for advice. Shikamaru glanced at Ino, but nodded his head anyway. Chouji sighed, slurping up a noodle and stuttering. "W-Well…a girl…called me fat."

Ino burst into hysterics and clapped her hands, looking like some kind of chimpanzee. She died down after a while, still excited. "It was Sakura, wasn't it!? That girl is so mean!" Her teammates shot her a look, as did Asuma, but they said nothing.

Chouji gulped, hoping she wouldn't assume something was going on, or that he liked the girl he was about to mention. "Well…it was…Hinata…"

Ino's smile faded and she actually looked concerned. "Oh my gosh, d-did she really call you fat, Chouji? That's terrible! Hinata's so quiet and polite… I don't see why she'd suddenly call you fat like that… No wonder you're upset. I'd be upset, too…" She pondered over it for a moment, then held out her finger. "Oh! That's it! Maybe you weren't so much hurt as you were shocked! I'd be shocked, too! She's so quiet, and you'd never take her for one to say something mean like that, so perhaps you got so shocked you found you couldn't eat!"

Shikamaru gave her a side-glance; he would've considered her an idiot had he not remembered they hadn't filled her in on how much Chouji liked the girl. Asuma just shook his head. "I doubt that's the case, but that's in the past, Chouji. Just be sure you eat. You didn't replenish your strength after training the other day, and now your body's worn out from the lower levels of chakra…"

Chouji nodded, burying himself in his noodles.

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She looked around, finding herself completely lost. Where had he gone?? He'd ducked behind a building, and when she followed him, he wasn't anywhere to be found! She grew even more flustered, the more she looked. Finally, she ran into the square to see TenTen and Neji eating together.

"I can't believe Lee hasn't showed up yet. Usually he's so punctual…" TenTen exclaimed.

Neji just shrugged, muttering. "He's probably off with Gai-sensei. You know how crazy those two are. Maybe it's best he didn't show up…"

TenTen shrugged. "You're probably right about that. So, I forgot to ask how your training's going. Didn't you say you were training on Fridays now?"

Neji smiled a little. "Actually, it's going–" His face froze when he saw Hinata tottering up, and his eyes narrowed. "Oh God, I can't believe this… What's she doing? She's going to ruin everything!"

TenTen quirked a brow in Neji's direction and looked over to see what was up just as Hinata waved pleasantly, albeit a bit flustered, in their direction. "H-Hi Neji-kun; H-Hi Ten-chan…"

She smiled, glancing at Neji. "Oh, it's your cousin, Neji."

"You don't have to remind me…"

She just laughed, turning to Hinata. "What's up, Hinata? You going somewhere?"

The Hyuuga panted a bit, out of breath, which made Neji roll his eyes. "Uh…actually, I was looking for Ch-Chouji… I w-w-wanted to give him something…"

Neji sat up straighter, suddenly smiling smugly. "That's what the Byakugan is for, Hinata. Maybe you should use that instead of running around all over the place…"

TenTen shot him a glare, but ignored it. Instead, she turned back to Hinata, standing up. "Actually, I can help you look for him. Neji's being a stick-in-the-mud anyway. Come on, it's lunch time, so he'd most likely be somewhere eating, and there's not too many restaurants around. It should be easy."

Neji started digging a nail into the bench they'd been sharing, casting a look of pure hatred in his cousin's direction. Just like he suspected–Hinata had to come over and ruin everything again. It would take forever for him to convince Lee that he didn't have to eat with them in the future…

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"Wow, you're hardly eating anything, Chouji. Are you sure Hinata's comment didn't completely shatter you?"

Shikamaru smiled, turning to her. "No, you think?"

"Be quiet, Shikamaru. I'm being serious."

"So am I."

"Will you shut up! I'm just concerned for my teammate, alright? If you're going to give me a hard time about it, I'll have to kick your butt!"

"I'm not giving you a hard time about that. I'm giving you a hard time on your stupidity. There's a big difference, Ino."

From the entrance to the restaurant, they heard TenTen's pitchy voice ring out. "Oh, there he is!"

Shikamaru's head shot up faster than he would've liked Ino to see, but Ino's head shot up just as fast, so she took no notice. There, at the entrance, was TenTen making her way over to the table. Hinata was close behind, holding something in her hands. Shikamaru grumbled.

"Oh great…"

TenTen ignored him, looking at Chouji. "You never said she was the one that called you fat, Chouji!" Both his and Hinata's faces fell, and she winced a little, turning to Asuma. "Hey, Asuma-san!"

Asuma smiled. "How's Gai doing?"

"Uh…crazy. As usual."

He nodded before turning to Hinata, more interested in her teacher by far. "How is Kurenai?"

Hinata smiled softly, nodding her head, her voice barely heard over the din in the restaurant. "Sh-She's fine…" Asuma nodded, and Hinata turned back to Chouji.

Chouji looked up at her, feeling like crap. His face turned bright red, but her's soon matched his. She bent down, her back almost at a 90º angle. Her arms outstretched, the box held out to him like an offering of peace. "I-I-I'm so sorry about the other day. P-Please forgive me for being so rude…"

Chouji took it, smiling. "Ah, it's okay, Hinata… I'm…I'm fine with it. You didn't have to do this…" He opened the package, and as the smell of burnt cupcake and salt filled the air, everyone in a two foot radius started to agree with him.

Ino finally decided to speak up. "Hinata, it's really no big deal. Everyone calls Chouji fat every once in a while; he was more shocked than anything else!"

Hinata's face turned red and she looked up, her face determined, her arms drawn to her chest, her hands clenched into fists. She opened her mouth to say something, but TenTen spoke first.

"Oh? And I suppose it's okay to just chock up his mood lately to shock, Ino? The only one who calls Chouji fat every once in a while is you. Everyone else has learned to hold their tongues and not say anything mean to someone's face, but it's just like you to have the awareness and consideration of a child."

Ino's gasp broke the tense silence that followed. "TenTen! I thought we were friends! How dare you say something like that to me!" She stood up, trying her best to get past Asuma, who was blocking her quite easily. Shikamaru snickered, and Chouji just turned even more red, wondering how on earth he became the topic of fights between people.

It was Hinata's voice next that caused everyone to fall silent again. Ino stopped trying to get past Asuma, Shikamaru's eyes widened and he turned to the Hyuuga girl, and Chouji's cheeks turned an even deeper shade of red.

"Ch-Chouji-kun's t-too nice to have people step on him like that… I just hope that one day people start to realize they shouldn't do that to people like him… A-And it's w-wrong to put the blame onto someone like I-Ino, because there's far worse people out there… I…I'm sorry. I don't have to right to say anything like that right now…" Her face went red before she bolted out the door.

It was Asuma who broke the silence. As his chuckle filled the room, he turned to Chouji. "You're lucky to have a girl like that stand up for you, Chouji. Perhaps you can leave early and go talk to her?" He gave a helpful suggestion, but Chouji couldn't hear anything at the moment. He was too busy staring at the cupcake in front of him, knowing she was truly sorry.

And she'd stuck up for him, too! And she'd stuck up for Ino, as well; she was just such a nice girl, and he felt so happy receiving anything from her. This cupcake was a symbol of forgiveness, a peace offering of sorts, and he wasn't about to let it go uneaten. He picked it up, much to everyone's disgust, and took a bite out of it. Through the bitter taste of charred cake and salt, in the very middle of the cupcake, he tasted that sweet taste of lemon and felt his spirits lift. He took a few more bites, finally eating the entire thing.

Hinata had put all of her heart into making it, into making it something worthy of his forgiveness, and her efforts did not go unnoticed by him.

He swallowed the last bite, feeling the bitter taste go down his throat. He waited a moment, and the sweet aftertaste of lemon came, overpowering everything else, and he felt at ease.

He turned to Asuma, giving him a bright smile. "Hey, Asuma-sensei, you're paying for lunch, right? I'm hungry." Asuma was too relieved he'd gotten his appetite back to care how little would be left in his coin purse by the end of the day.