HI GUYYYYYYYYYYZZZZ! I'm BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACCCKKK! Didja miss me? Didja? Didja?
Anyhow...this chappie previews the lemon...so any anti-lemoners shouldn't read the next few chappies...I know...I'm so perverted...(wails)...music camp was great, BTW...
Chapter 25: Lazy Days
So preoccupied in his thoughts was Neji that he failed to notice his surroundings and walked right into a smirking blond waiting outside the study doors. Naruto managed to hold in his mirth for a total of three seconds before he burst out into silent giggles, his body wracked with hysterics.
"What?" The blond still snickered, his body doubled over. Neji, knowing better, decided to wait out the giggles; they would subside soon enough.
"I-It's just th-that you sounded s-so damn FUNNY!" Naruto mimicked a phrase the Hyuuga had said earlier.
"But uncle dear, I've been having these extremely strange dreams, not exactly unpleasant, and when I wake UP, I always find a LARGE, WET SPLOTCH on my bedspread." The blond wailed the phrase in a high, mocking falsetto before dissolving once more into another round of giggles, rolling helplessly on the floor. Neji blushed lightly.
"You saw that?" Naruto nodded, still snorting out guffaws.
"More like heard, you mean. Your voice was so girly and high and LOUD…" This sent the blond into more hysterics, laughing about something like "worse than Sakura". Neji scowled.
"I'm not that much of a stick in the mud; you can't blame me for wanting a bit of fun, and besides, I had to find a way to piss Hiashi off." Naruto nodded, still snickering.
"I know, I know. I heard. Perhaps if you two screamed just a tad bid louder, some poor old biddy with a hearing aid in America might have been able to hear." Neji clouted the blond a good one on the head. Naruto drew back, rubbing his head in chagrin.
"Hey, I was only teasing." Neji sniffed and stalked away in an overly arrogant, aristocratic manner. Naruto picked himself off the floor and scuttled over the Hyuuga, bobbing alongside him. Neji brushed him off irritably, quickening his pace.
"Nae-jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" The Hyuuga turned, a mock scowl on his face.
"Oh sure. Whine my name. That will do you a lot of good."
To his surprise, Naruto smirked, a sultry, seductive smirk. Drawing himself up to his full height, he reached up and kissed the corner of Neji's ear and his jaw, sliding his tongue briefly over the earlobe before running his lips back and forth the Hyuuga's jawline. Neji stiffened in spite of himself. Naruto slowed down as he got closer to Neji's ear, then bent and nuzzled his neck, nipping it affectionately before hovering over his ear once more.
"NAE-JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" The Hyuuga jumped back, clasping a hand over his poor, smoking ear, an utterly shocked expression on his face. He could feel his eardrum collapse…
"Naruto, goddammit, that was right next to my ear!" The blond grinned.
"That's the point." He skipped away, dodging the fist that came barreling toward him, slinking up behind the Hyuuga and wrapping his arms around his waist.
"You need to relax, Neji. And I know just the thing to do it."
Suddenly businesslike, Naruto spun around, Neji in tow, and whirled down the stairs, striding straight for Neji's room, flinging open the door and depositing the poor, ruffled Hyuuga right smack on his lush, red-maroon carpeting.
"Sit. Stay."
He'd learned a lot by working with Kiba in the kennels, the Hyuuga mused. A lot indeed. Naruto dashed impatiently out of the room, returning half a second later with a large basket filled with assorted varieties of leaves, lotions, creams, and other paraphernalia. Waltzing into the bathroom, he slammed the door shut in such a way that indicated he didn't want the Hyuuga to follow. Neji smiled slightly as he heard the water running, his smile widening even more as he heard the blond bustling around in the bathroom. After ten minutes, the door burst open and Naruto windmilled outside, snatching the poor Hyuuga up off the floor by his hair like some sort of maladjusted caveman and flinging him unceremoniously into the bathroom. As Neji steadied himself, he heard a word he'd never expect to hear before uttered by the blond.
"Strip."
So his lover had just turned into Sir Monosyllabic. How inconvenient. Much to his dismay, the word contained no sort of sexual persuasion whatsoever, instead being a harsh, rather sharp command. Sighing, he rid himself of his shirt and fumbled with the belt of his pants, a light flush already spreading across his cheeks. If Naruto had chosen this moment to ogle, this would be a perfect opportunity. Sliding the sleek, black slacks down his legs, he deposited his clothes in a neat pile on the counter and hesitated uncertainly at the edge of the bath.Water the color of fresh sewer water usually didn't bode well for the being unlucky enough to step into it. Naruto smiled reassuringly, deliberately not looking at any part of Neji save his eyes. This wouldn't be a time to lose control, he told himself. This would be a mental test to see if he'd collapse in any way.
"Don't worry, the color's just from herbal stuff."
Neji nodded warily, secretly disappointed the blond wasn't groping him with his eyes. Placing one limber foot in the bath, Neji slid all the way in, sighing as the warmth of the liquid induced a rather soporific effect on the Hyuuga. It was like lying in a vast cup of tea. He tilted his head back and sighed, sinking lower into the soothing essence, submerging all but his eyes into the fragrant liquid. Naruto was nowhere to be found, but he suspected the blond had gone to bathe in his own bathroom down in the servant's quarters. Swimming a few laps in the vast tub (it was an immensely large tub indeed, large enough to rival some of Japan's top jacuzzis), he turned over and simply floated on top of the water, his hair billowing around his head making him resemble a mermaid.
Rising suddenly, the bile-colored water slaking off of his body in random rivulets of liquid, Neji stood and stepped delicately out of the bath, snatching a nearby towel, drying himself off. Wringing out the several yards of hair he possessed, he simply let it hang down his back, slipping a silken dark-red robe over his shoulders.
White fingers grasped a nearby hairbrush and the Hyuuga slid it through his tresses with ease before placing it neatly on the counter and retiring to bed. Naruto was nowhere to be found in the room; it was to be expected, Neji thought, for it was high time for all the servants to turn in, but he was a little disappointed that his little Uzumaki hadn't decided to spend the night with him. It would've been such a gift, that it would; he was quite stressed from the day's events, and having a wispy slip of a blond sharing his bed would help him take his mind off of things. He draped one arm over his forehead and sighed, silvery-gray eyes staring up at the ceiling in deep thought. Perhaps…perhaps some other night.
The Next Morning
Kiba looked up, mouth full of toast as a very-obviously-fresh-out-of-bed Naruto stumbled sleepily into the breakfast room, his wheat-hued hair mussed and piled on one side of his head in a rather frowzy manner. Wiping the eye snot from the corners of his beautiful sapphire-chips that posed as his eyes, the blond gave a monstrous yawn, the crack his jaw made reverberating around the room before sitting down and promptly falling off his chair. The Inuzuka chuckled slightly at Naruto's behavior.
"Have a rough night?"
"Huzbgh…" The sound that came out of Naruto's mouth didn't sound like a word whatsoever. It sounded like the kind of noise a nine-month-old baby would make. With another yawn, the blond fell face-first right smack into the tapioca, unaware of the pale yellow goop that smeared across his face. A light buzzing sound emitted from his throat, and Naruto purred, snuggling deeper into the tureen of pudding. Kiba was positively crying from the profound effort it took not to burst out laughing at the sleeping blond. Deciding he hadn't the heart to leave the blond lying so blissfully unaware that he was sleeping in his breakfast, Kiba wrenched Naruto up by a tuft of blond hair, shaking him playfully.
"You're sleeping in the breakfast, moron." Naruto let out a contented sigh and latched on to Kiba, much to the Inuzuka's dismay. Kiba tried in vain to disengage himself, tripping over a chair and sending them both sprawling on the floor.
"Oi, Naruto! Get up!"
"Mmmmphrah…."
"NARUTO!"
Snores met his call. The dog-boy rolled his deep chestnut eyes to the heavens. Very well. If the blond was so nonresponsive, then perhaps he should step up his ways. He pondered devilishly on his choices. He could a) entice the blond to wake by threatening to dispose of all ramen packages in the mansion, if not, the whole of Japan if he had to, or b) knowing Neji was now officially Naruto's….boyfriend….he could tease a nerve by using that information against him. Yes, the latter of the two would certainly be good, though he did store the prospect of ramen back in his mind for further blackmail.
"Nah-rue-toe….I think I know why you're so goddamn sleepy this morning." He knew the blond was awake (though just barely) for his breathing was uneven, so he had no doubt whatsoever that Naruto was listening to his words. Leaning down so his lips brushed the blond's ear, he whispered mischievously.
"You were in bed with our master last night." He smirked triumphantly as Naruto yelped, all traces of former bleariness gone from his eyes only to be replaced by a scandalized look.
"How dare you suggest that, Inuzuka Kiba!"
The dog-boy snickered wildly, taking perverse pleasure at the flustered, sputtering blond, and the flush across the bridge of his nose. He put a finger to his chin in a mock thinking expression, rolling up his eyes innocently. Kiba let the boy squirm for a few more minutes before he continued.
"It's clearly obvious you have him wrapped completely around your little finger," Naruto turned a darker shade of red and stammered out a few garbled excuses. Kiba couldn't take it anymore and collapsed like a sack of bricks on the floor, howling with mirth.
"Oh…oh my…oh my GAWD, you should've SEEN your own FACE!"
The Inuzuka dissolved into hysterics, bawling on the growd in short spasms of laughter. Naruto scowled, grasped both handles of the tapioca tureen, and promptly dumped the whole kettle onto Kiba's howling form, extremely hot contents and all. He whooped and was off like a rocket before the dog-boy had time to register what had hit him. A few seconds later, as he whisked down the hall, he could hear Kiba's enraged shout echoing down the hall, calling for him to get his scrawny ass down to the kitchens and clean up the mess he'd made. Naruto hollered out a negative and slowed down to a trot, grinning victoriously as he made his way down the vast corridors of the Hyuuga mansion. Turning a corner, he ran headlong into Lee himself, knocking the eyebrowed boy to the ground. Naruto smiled an apology and picked up the servant, dusting him off.
"Sorry about that, Lee-kun." The eyebrowed one smiled, the morning sunlight glinting off his teeth.
"It is quite all right, Naruto-kun. You look troubled. Tell me what is bothering you." Naruto hesitated, unsure, then took one look at Lee's trusting face and felt his doubts crumble.
"A-Alright, but let's go down to the servant's quarters." Turning, he led the way down, Lee tagging along behind him.
"So what is it you wish to talk about, Naruto-kun?" Lee asked curiously as he peered into Naruto's smoky cobalt eyes. The blond fidgeted, playing with his fingers as a slow blush spread across his face.
"It's about Neji-san, isn't it?" Naruto's head whipped up in a liquid-mercury fast motion that would've made any pickpocket envy the speed.
"How…how did you…" His eyes slowly narrowed knowingly.
"Word gets around fast." Lee cocked his head to the side, a bemused smile on his face.
"No, I just happened to observe the way you two look at each other. You're thinking of how you can't produce an heir for Neji because you're a male, and that will somehow prevent him from inheriting the Hyuuga business, right?" Naruto rehinged his jaw after a period of ten full minutes.
"Damn Lee, you should apply to be a psychologist or something." Lee blushed and waved off the compliment.
"It's just that every single thought of yours goes waltzing across your face before you put it back in your head, that's all." Naruto's blush intensified.
"O-oh…well…." Lee smiled reassuringly.
"Don't worry. I won't tell anyone." Naruto nodded.
"Thanks, both for that and for listening." On an impulse, the blond reached over and hugged the other, squeezing him tightly. Lee balked in surprise before he hugged back, patting Naruto on the back before letting him go.
"Have a happy life, Naruto. That's all I want for my friends." Smiling gently, Lee stood and walked briskly from the room.
"Now if you will excuse me, I must run before I am missed." Winking, the eyebrowed one closed the door gently behind him.