"Keep your foot still."

"I am!"

"No, you are moving it because you are getting restless. You are a terrible model."

"I've never modeled before! Quit being such an ass!"

"I am the painter. I can be as much of an ass I want. Now sit still for one goddamn minute will you?"

Sakura sighed miserably and returned to her rigid pose. Neji continued painting the basic shapes, keeping an eye on the proportions and foreshortening. How he had begun to loathe painting hyper-realistically. Not a single bird wing in sight. Neji wrinkled his nose at the canvas in disgust.

Then, "Sasuke would at least think up a way to make me feel better." Neji tried not to roll his eyes at the little girl before him. If he wasn't careful he might end up painting her as a five-year-old.

"Sasuke is a prat who doesn't like to see how distorted your face becomes when you sob into his expensive shirts. Plus, I am not Sasuke and thus I am not obligated to consider your feelings." Neji didn't bother leaning over to see Sakura's face. She'll probably have her mouth opened like a gaping flounder and will have shifted her posture again. It will completely ruin his focus, and Neji wanted to get the entire project over with as quickly as possible. He stood up on the sturdy metal stool before him, cursing at the obscene girth of the canvas he was being forced to work on. If it fell over it could crush a small innocent bunny. Or his sisters.

"Tenten was so wrong when she described you!"

Oh, that was interesting. "Tenten deemed you worthy of intellectual communication?" He would have to congratulate her for whatever torture she might have endured.

A squeaky huff. "Of course! I had to make sure you weren't some creep, so I asked your roommate! She told me you were polite, courteous, and well-mannered. But obviously she was wrong!"

Neji tried to suppress a smirk as he heard such words being used to categorize him. Tenten simply could not simplify anything into just three words. She obviously bullshitted it to give Sakura a good impression of him. "I am polite, courteous, and well-mannered to Tenten because she has earned my respect. All you have earned is my ire."

"That's it!" the sound of movement could be heard. Neji dropped his paintbrush onto the table with his other brushes and water jug. "I'm out of here! Daddy needs to find another artist because I won't put up with this!" Sakura stomped past Neji, lace ribbons of ivory and flowing silk dress and all. Even when she was angry she was beautiful, much to Neji's contempt. He watched her rush past him, taking one glance over at what he had accomplished in the agonizing few hours they had to be with each other.

Her eyes widened momentarily, a look of awe washing over her smooth face before she fled and was out of the room.

Neji silently began cleaning up, knowing she'll be back. And he'll hate every minute of it.

Alabaster pedestal. Check. Doves. Check. Model? Pending.

Tenten didn't know when her life had become so entangled with Neji's. It was all his fault.

She chewed on another piece of orange chicken, uncaring if she resembled a T-rex digging into the unfortunate corpse of a gutted triceratops. Lee watched her from across their small kitchen table, eyes filled with fear and admiration. Tenten ignored him though, intent on engulfing her meal at a rate even Naruto Uzumaki would be find appalling.

It wasn't like she missed Neji! Of course not, he could roll around in a nest of fire ants and she wouldn't give a damn! Well… maybe if he was eaten alive and his bones picked clean… but he would deserve it for being so pig-headed! (Denial is such a gorgeous veil.)

Nope. Tenten was so not angry at the fact that Neji had dropped all of his projects to take on a commission to paint Sakura. She was not absolutely livid that Neji would be spending his afternoons scrutinizing the skin cells on the pink-haired girl's elbows like he would do her. And she would never be jealous on the prospect of Neji going for someone so level-headed, smart, diligent, beautiful, and talented over a rough-housing, miser, cantankerous, fat, and unskilled little miss nobody like her.

Finished with her meal, and Neji still not back from his 'painting session' with Haruno (which should have been done fifteen minutes ago!), Tenten reached over for the take-out box containing the food she and Lee had bought for the white-eyed male. Lee sucked in his breath at her actions, their eyes meeting in some awkward pseudo-sibling understanding.

Tenten's fingers inched forwards, but then fell back lethargically. She sighed, utterly miserable.

"Fuck him, I am so hungry right now," Tenten griped as she picked up the food to go put it in the fridge instead. And when she was doing so, she most definitely did not make him a little post-it note telling him to eat more because she doesn't like to see him appear so haggard and bony.

Nope. No siree.

Rain is falling, looks like love (and still in toil, it takes heart to love the rose)

Today is shitty. Yesterday was shitty. By order of generalization, that meant tomorrow will also be shitty. If not shittier.

"Geez, you're so impatient. I think I'm going to have a heart attack."

"Shut up, you're too lazy to get a heart attack."

"… what a drag…."

Tenten drove past another red-light, swerving out of the way of a truck full of chickens at the last second. Shikamaru clutched onto the bag of fertilizer in his lap nervously. "But seriously, you're going to kill us." Tenten didn't hear him as she bypassed a car going too slow for her liking. She careened them into the other lane, only returning to the original lane right as another car going the opposite direction nearly smashed into them. Shikamaru pulled out a sharpie to begin writing his will on the bag of fertilizer.

"Why would my attempt to end our lives be a reason to panic?" Tenten demand sourly.

Shikamaru sighed, and wished that the farm where Tenten's grandmother and cousin lived wasn't so close to the deer preserve his parents owned. "I'm just pointing out the fact that lately you've been really impulsive. You haven't been thinking anything through and I've noticed. In our English class all you wrote was a very short, albeit very descriptive, essay on how you were going to devour some orange chicken in your refrigerator. Thank the heavens Mr. Sarutobi didn't make you read it out loud; you write eating like how people write piranhas ripping apart their victims on the nature channel."

The car sped down a dirt road recklessly. Plains full of grazing cattle passed them by, the sound of mooing and stench of cowpaddies in the air. No wonder Ino always refused to go with them.

"Whatever. I've been stressed lately," Tenten snarled between clenched teeth.

"You're always stressed," Shikamaru pointed out, beginning to utilize his basic understanding of psychology from 9th grade. "Usually it's eustress, which is good for you because you have a Type A personality: hard-working, good time-managing, and a workaholic. Only now, you're not stressed about your work. You're stressed about something else." He slid his gaze over to the bun-haired girl. "Or should I say, someone else?"

The way the car nearly ran into a sign about the steep limit ten feet from the road was enough confirmation.

"Say his name and I swear I will plow this thing into the nearest bovine."

Shikamaru leaned his arm against the window, fertilizer sack for his grandmother's garden settled happily in the crook of his arm. "I need a drag."

Don't think I'll be crushed, just do it with lovelovelove

Leaving two men together to fend for themselves can be disastrous. Either the men realize they cannot live without women and revert back into savage apes, or they do the unthinkable and learn the methodical women-work for themselves.

Neji and Lee are a tricksy combination of the two stereotypes. For one, only Neji cannot live without Tenten but is perfectly capable of basic human function. Lee on the other hand doesn't need a woman but works on everything but basic human function.

"Get out of the kitchen."

Lee turned, facing the admonishing glare of his white-eyed roommate. Tenten and Shikamaru had only set off for the countryside yesterday night but already Lee was trying to 'assert his domestic side'. Last time Lee wanted to do such, his scrambled eggs sent Neji to the Upchuck Clinic at the end of Uncontrollable Vomiting and Wheezing Avenue. Neji had fixed this problem by resolving to never let Lee cook even at the expense of starving until Tenten came back.

"I promise I will not explode the refrigerator like last time, my youthful roommate!" Lee vowed, itching closer to the cooking utensils only females seemed to know and remember the names of.

Women were truly supernatural creatures.

Had Neji been less susceptible to Tenten's cooking he would have allowed for Lee to turn their shared kitchen into aftermath of a Mongolian warzone, but he also remembered how the explosion from the last fridge caused a ceramic sculpture he had made to fall off of its shelf and shatter across his floor. He had woken up deliriously and stomped all over the 26 razor-edged pieces, forced to miss one of Tenten's dance performances because he was having the remains of his obliterated crane picked out at the ER.

"Hell no," said Neji resolutely. And that was the end of that.

Heartbroken, Lee sniffled and limped back to his room as if Neji's words had physically injured him. The white-eyed male smirked at his friend's sadness.

It felt good to be in control of his life again.

I want Miss Independent but Miss Independent don't want me

Ring Ring Ring! (10: 26 a.m.)

"Hello? Neji? Hey it's Tente- shit. I'm playing a game, I can't concentrate on what you're saying."

"Yes, asshole, the countryside does get internet. I'm teaching Ranmaru how to - goddammnit Ran, you have to shoot them in the face! In the face, right between their eyes!"

"Stop crying Ran, they're not real people and you are not a real murderer."

"I'm going to have to call you back Neji..."

Ring Ring Ring! (12: 19 p.m.)

"I'm a little busy here, Neji. Shikamaru and I are - fucking pumpkin guts! Shika, put that shit down right now, I know you can't lift more than thirty pounds without your arms snapping off!"

"What? No, Shikamaru and I are not fucking. Damn does this place has really bad reception."

"I said we're not fucking!"

"What? What? You're breaking up on me Neji! It must be the miles of deer shit everywhere... What? No I don't prefer deer over hawks why would you consider that? Hello? HELLO?"

Ring Ring Ring! (1: 57 p.m.)

"Hello? Neji?"

"Sasuke? How the hell did you get a hold of Neji's cellphone... you know, without pulling it out of his backpocket like an enormous creeper."

"Threw it at Naruto in a fit of jealous rage?"

"Hold on a second - GRANNY, I'll be down in a minute! Just hush, will ya? - Excuse me you were saying? Something about Shikamaru and I being together in the countryside with a child?"

"Ran, I'm on the phone with my friend's pretentious arch-rival, I can't talk to ... Shikamaru did what? With my what? That lazy sack of horse manure is going down." Click.

Ring Ring Ring! (3: 04 p.m.)

"Get your phone back I see? Did you really have to nerd-fight with Sasuke in front of the entire campus? Now everyone thinks you can actually fight."

"Ha ha, it's actually nice to get a call from you now. The whole day's been hectic. I taught Ran how to play Silent Hill, I trekked through deer poop for an hour, and I spent another wrestling with the butter churner Granny insists we use. Did you know that if you go too fast the entire thing explodes?"

"Oh, ew you pervert. Not like that."

"Where am I? Dozing on a haystack with Shikamaru. He's too damn lazy to walk back to the house and get in bed, so I'm practically sitting on him. I bet a hurricane could swoop us both up and send us to the Land of Oz and he'd be asleep throughout the entire thing. I'd have to get the Tinman, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion all by myself, dragging his useless ass across the yellow brick road like some scrawny, unmotivated Toto."

"You? Well, you'd be a scrawny, incredibly die-hard Toto. You'd take those ruby slippers and strut your pale white ass right up to the Wizard and threaten him with your x-acto knife until he sends us home. You'd probably use the Tinman for scrap and set the Scarecrow on fire stuffed with fireworks, and if you didn't shave the Cowardly Lion for a fur pelt I bet you'd give him to your little cousin Hanabi for her birthday. You'd be an awesome Toto."

"Yeah, it really is peaceful in the countryside. I wish you weren't such a stick in the mud and come with Shika and I sometime. Even Lee - hell, even Ino - has agreed to go with us at least once. There's just something about watching the clouds, knowing that all of your materialistic possessions and obligations don't mean jack right now."

"Pfft, of fucking course I'm still coming back. I got a dance rehearsal in five days, and you totally owe me some orange chicken, if not sesame dumplings."

"... oh, you have to go? Well that's cool. Oh... you're painting Sakura again? ... She really is beautiful, isn't she? I can't think of anyone better except maybe Ino or Hinata... yeah, you better make sure she's a deity, got it? I better wake Shika up now. Bet I could break his ribs with my ass... okay... bye. Talk to you later..."

Click

"Fucking Haruno..."

Ring Ring Ring! (6: 34 p.m.)

"Yo, Jedi Prodigy. Got the force flowing within you yet?"

"... why are you calling me as you're painting Sakura?"

"Bored? Bored? Do you know what I'm doing? I'm created an ant civilization in Granny's backyard. That is how bored I am."

"... Actually, it's pretty neat. I took about fifty ants and box them in a plexiglass cage approximately five feet tall by five feet wide, where they must survive with the limited resources. Already they seem to have realized their predicament, and have assumed their Queen deceased or something. They've begun grouping into four factions, of which have all been named after the four great Khanates created by Genghis Khan's four sons."

"Holy shit, I think the Golden Horde just began attacking the Great Khan! This means war!"

"Now Chaghadai and the Persian Khanates are teaming up and pooling the breadcrumbs I'm laid out around them. This would have been a good idea if not for Chaghadai secretly funneling the Persian's breadcrumbs over to the Golden Horde. How will the they react to such a betrayal?"

"Fuck, this is better than my soap operas and your anime marathons."

"Yes, Neji. A lot of things are better than your anime marathons."

"Shouldn't you be painting Sakura? I think she's yelling at you. That, or a goose was let loose in your studio. Heh."

"Yeah, yeah, go paint those goddamn tertiary colors and stop bitching. I'll be sure to keep you updated on what happens."

Ring Ring Ring! (8: 22 p.m.)

"Thanks, you called right as I was about to take a shower. Pants are already off and everything."

"Yeah, yeah laugh it up... So, how was painting Sakura?"

"Well of course she's going to be skinny, she's obsessed with that vegetarian diet Ino's been telling me about. It must be such a culture shock not having to paint those muffin tops, huh?"

"I bet you saved a shitton of money on paint too, don't have to fill in all these rolls. Ino's also told me that my ass was voted most likely to smash a Nokia phone into pieces. I mean, should I take that as a compliment or an insult?"

"Nah, I think it'd be an insult, Nej. Remember that time I got stuck in Kiba's doggy door? That was embarrassing. I mean, even Chouji could get through by sucking in his gut, but you practically shoved your foot up my ass trying to push me through. By the way, I'm still mad at you for that whole 'let's sleep in the tiniest nook in the forest' thing. My rump was sore for a week, and everyone thought I had a weird fetish for being spanked."

"Okay I will forgive you if you promise to eat something today. Don't lie to me, I can hear your gastric juices crying out in despair. They are caterwauling for sustenance, which you are too dense to realize. What if you had a child? Will you let them cry for days on end when they were hungry?"

"What do you mean you'll never have a kid? You love those little trolls to shit. If you had it your way you'd adopt every single one of those boogers."

"You're waiting for the right wife? Nej, Nej, Nej, your wife is practically your oil paints. Just stick a ring on them in one of those drive-through marriage places in the South and you can go drive off with as many hungry African American children as you want."

"Fine. Don't marry paint. Fall in love with some sweet, sensible woman like a normal person. Or man."

"I'm joking. Don't get your goddamn thong in a twist."

"... that is also a joke because I am the one wearing the thong."

"Fine, be a prude. I won't tell you what color it is either - it's maroon. HAH. I wish I could see your face right now."

"Yeah I should go shower. You have fun waiting for that 'special someone', but keep waiting and she'll speed right past you faster than a blitzkrieg."

Ring Ring Ring! (11: 59 p.m.)

"YAWN. Nej, I'm actually about to go to bed at a reasonable time. What is it?"

"I'd love to go see that movie with you. But that's the day Shika and I were going to see the same movie. He recommended it to me a while back... Augh, I'm tired."

"We can all go, the three of us. How's that?"

"... Oh, you suddenly have an extra painting session with Sakura? That's fine too. Send her my... yawn... sleepy..."

"Bye Nej. Sleep well."

"Love you."

Click.

Note: I barely spell-checked any of this if you see something wrong please inform me. P.S. Several of the line breaks are really just song lyrics. I got lazy. Brownie Points if you find out which songs they are.