Naruto subconsciously rubbed the back of his head, "Are you sure? I mean I can just cook up some ramen…"
"No," Naruto was cut off by Shino's indifferent tone, "I'll cook".
Kiba was the only one who really knew Shino and understood his intentions.
"Just give him a try," Kiba said, "It'll save the trouble for all of us in the kitchen at the same time and you wont waste as much water and ramen."
Naruto doubted the wasting ramen part, but the idea of everyone jamming into his little kitchen didn't give off a pleasant feeling. "Fine", he grumpily agreed, waving his hand, indicating Shino to enter the kitchen.
Kiba could clearly see that Shino was very happy at this opportunity, but no one else did.
"YOOOOOSSHHA!", cried Chouji, fireballs in his eyes, "THIS PARTY GETS SOME REAL FOOD WITH REAL COOKING!"
"Nuh-uh-uuuhhh Chouji-kun," replied Kankurou, shaking his finger as if correcting a lower-class subordinate, "Did you forget our little dare? No food for the rest of the night."
Chouji looked as if he was about to cry, but held back because his reputation was at stake. He tried his hardest not to stammer while speaking to the much older shinobi, "N-no! I-I didn't forg-get! I'll make it through!" He crossed his arms stubbornly.
But Kankurou teased him even more. "Are you sure? I mean it looks like there wasn't a time in your life where you even paused at eating! Just look how FAT you are!"
Chouji snapped. He was just called fat and it echoed in his head. Chouji launched himself at Kankurou and started acting well, un-Chouji-like!
While they continued fighting with Naruto and Kiba placing bets on who would win, Gaara went over to sit on the windowsill, looking out at Konoha's forests.
"What are you looking at?", came a voice from behind. Gaara turned to discover it was Lee, eyes full of curiosity.
"Just your village's forest." he replied with that indifferent tone, "Sunagakure doesn't have lush like this."
"What's it like, over in the deserts?" asked Lee, placing himself surprisingly close to Gaara.
"Its hot in the morning, and freezing at night. Not exactly a perfect place for a forest to grow like here in Konoha," the sand ninja replied, slightly uncomfortable at the closeness. Hasn't he ever heard of personal space? His sand defense was starting to inch closer and closer to him, just in case something happened, but he called it back.
"How do you feel about our forests, our village?" Lee kept urging Gaara on. Where was this older boy going at?
"I think it's nice. The leaves are so smooth and green and supply shade on hot days and it's just nice to look at. Peaceful. And your village, I think it's quite…interesting." Gaara added with a smirk.
"Gaara-kun, I'm sorry about before."
"I heard you say that already, it's okay."
"W-well, um, Gaa-Gaara-kun?"
"Yes?" It wasn't like Lee to stammer.
"How did you feel? Y'know, when I kissed you?" Lee's whole face was crimson again.
"My stomach and heart were doing the Macarena."
Lee just gave him one of those chibi dead-looking stares; Gaara saw and tried to explain.
"W-well, I mean, it was a weird feeling, I never really felt it before. How is it supposed to feel? How did YOU feel?" Now it was Lee's turn to wonder why Gaara was stammering.
"Um, uh, well…I guess I could say I feel the same as you…." Gaara didn't think it was possible to get any redder, but for Lee, it was.
But he took a deep breath and said with great confidence, "Gaara, I like y—"
"YO! SHINO'S DONE, EVERYONE!" Kiba voice rang through the apartment.
Kankurou and Chouji stopped their fighting and raced over to the dining room, but Kankurou bonked him on the head and reminded him of their dare. Naruto just raced on over screaming at the top of his voice, "Food! Food! FOOD!"
Lee was crestfallen. But immediately brightened up again, afraid of Gaara seeing him sad. "Let us go eat, Gaara-kun!", he said happily, grabbing Gaara by the hand and pulling him to the dining room. Gaara turned pink again at the sudden contact.
"WHAT IN THE NAME OF KAZEKAGE IS THIS SHIT?" Kankurou's voice rang and shook the whole floor. Uh-oh, something's wrong.
Everyone ran on over and their jaw hung open so very wide. Except for Gaara who was still focused on Lee's hand on his.
Shino's "cooking" was just courses of big globs of goo and other assorted "meals". Naruto came over and poked a green lump.
"Uuuuhhh…Shino?"
"Yes, Naruto?"
"What the fuck IS this?"
"Naruto, for your information," Shino started, clearly offended, "these are meals passed down throughout the Aburame clan for ages. We only eat it on special occasions, sharing it with friends. That lump you're poking is Bug Blox, made of gelatin and dry-roasted crickets."
"But I thought you're friends with bugs," came Sasuke's question before Naruto could say any ruder comments.
"Not all of them." Shino answered quite bubbly, "My Kikai Bugs feed on my chakra as well as other bugs too. The cricket is one of them along with grasshoppers, ants…"
"Ugh! Just shush already! I'm losing what's left of my appetite!" complained Kankurou, clearly disgusted. He glanced at Gaara and opened his mouth to speak to him until it hung wider when he saw Lee. He was holding hands with his brother with bright pink faces.
"OI, LEE! YOU CAN LET GO OF MY BROTHER ANY MINUTE NOW!" He was furious now.
Lee looked down and saw Gaara's pink face and his hand on the smaller boy's. He quickly recoiled and stared at the ground in embarrassment and, secretly, disappointment.
"Hey, HEY! It tastes better than it looks y'know!" Kiba was very offended by his friends' remarks. "Here, I'll try it first okay?"
"You're really going to eat…that?" for the first time he's shown it, Sasuke was surprised.
"Of course! Here," he picked made himself a bowl of rice and got his chopsticks to plunge into the foreign food. He slowly, slowly, brought it to his lips. He placed it in his mouth and slowly chewed. Then his face brightened up and he put more in his mouth along with rice. Everyone looked confused.
"C'mon efweywun!" he said through a mouthful of green lump and rice, "I can't eash all uf thish myshelf!" he dug in even deeper while Shino was grinning. Naruto took the plunge as well.
"Wow! This is good! What about this?" he pointed his chopsticks at the soup floating with a variety of bugs. Without waiting for Shino's reply, he added that to his collection in his bowl as well.
Then, slowly, Sasuke joined them as well, not showing much emotion though, but was clearly content with the food. "Oi, dobe," he called to Naruto, "close your mouth while you're eating."
"This is my house and I don't need too", he stuck out his tongue.
"Someone might just close it for you. It's just not polite," Sasuke continued, slowly chewing on his fried spiders.
"Mfffhmmm", was Naruto's reply.
Lee dug in as well and was so overwhelmed he jumped and screamed, "THE POWER OF YOUTH MAY BE UPON YOU SHINO-KUN!" and continued his obsessive eating. Kankurou just said, "Disgusting," but joined in the eating as well. Gaara was the only one left out of the fight over who gets first dibs on the fried bees.
"Gaara-kun", asked Lee, turning around, "Why will you not join us in this shower of bug youth?"
"Um…", said Gaara looking down.
"Are you scared of it? There is nothing wrong with it! It just looks repulsive."
He shook his head quickly no. Gaara once had an accident in eating a delicacy of Sunagakure, scorpions fried in oil, at age 4. The cook forgot the cut off the poisonous part of the scorpion's tail and Gaara ate it. Luckily, he survived, but was left with a huge phobia of bugs.
"If you wont eat the bugs…" Lee picked up a piece of rice and placed it in his mouth. After chewing it a while, he placed the rest on Gaara's bottom lip. Quickly recovering from the shock, he chewed the given food slowly, looking directly at Lee's eyes.
"You might as well eat the bug-free rice." Lee finished in a whisper.
Gaara stared hungrily at Lee's soft lips, slowly closing the distance between them. He was going to kiss Lee again and this time, it wont be because of a stupid da—
"We're back." Everyone turned towards the window, including Gaara and Lee awakened from their daze again, to see Shikamaru and Neji on the windowsill.
"And we have it," Neji said. He hopped down from the window and closed the curtains. After making sure no one else is there, he took out the little orange pocket book with a giant stop sign on the back and a man chasing a woman on the front.
Sasuke gazed at the book. He can barely hide his excitement, but Naruto unleashed it for him.
"YOSHA! K'kashi-sensei's dirty book! Give it to me!" Sasuke just smirked at the boy's excitement. Neji reluctantly gave it to him, but still had a hold.
Kiba was dumbstruck. "It isn't even 20 minutes since you left and you came back unscathed without any police chasing you! How'd you do it? What happened?" Kiba was eager to know.
Neji was busy playing a game of tug-a-war with the book, so Shikamaru told everyone else what and how it happened along with a sigh and a mumbled, "This is going to be so troublesome…."