A/N: Yay! Over 100, as Chocochip Haruka noted. Thank you so much everybody!
Yay to all the people who are lovers of algebra, (you don't get too many of those) and those who take band. I play flute and tenor saxophone of current, and I used to play piano, (like most kids, I whined until my mom let me stop, lol.) But I can't sing to save my life…xD
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Day 12
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Tenten now realized that she had always been quite, quite sure that she did not like Ino.
At all.
This fact was only enforced when Ino made them go out shopping with her one day, with absolutely no explanation at all. Tenten, looking back, could not quite pinpoint the reason that she had agreed to go at all. Of course, she regretted it.
Once out, Ino had happily explained that if they were going to go to a party, then they might as well go in the right clothes. Sakura had rolled her eyes. Tenten had blanched in horror. Hinata had shrugged submissively, and decided to hand herself over quietly.
It turned out that Ino was in her zone at the shopping mall, (gee, who knew?). Even the bored-looking clerks behind the counters seemed to try a smile as she came up to check out. Or maybe Tenten was letting her imagination go. It wasn't so much a girl's afternoon out as it was Ino shopping and the rest of them trailing uncertainly after her.
The blonde was a shopping whirlwind.
After an entire afternoon out shopping, they sat down to rest their blisters in the food court. Ino was the only one who bought food: takoyaki dripping sauce and a cup of suspicious-looking wasabi. Tenten had brought a squished PB&J. Hinata had a pack of crackers and a bottle of water. Sakura came up empty-handed.
"You done yet?" Tenten asked tiredly, inclining her head towards the pile of bags next to Ino. She had to yell, however, to be heard above the noise. Ino smiled and nodded happily.
"Good God, woman," Sakura rolled her eyes, and turned to rest her head on her chin and people watch. It was more the other way around: all the passing people were throwing her wary glances. A few of the guys raised their eyebrows and winked at her. Sakura threw the same bored expression back at all of them.
The other three ate in a sullen silence, as they couldn't really make themselves heard anyways above the din. Ino was the only one who seemed to be truly enjoying herself, and though they might complain as they would, the girls all kept their mouths shut. After all, they were the ones who had volunteered to go to this party with Ino.
Tenten officially decided that once her mother was back, Aki was going to make all of Tenten's decisions for her. Why? Because, Tenten thought wryly, she didn't seem to be making many smart choices herself.
O0O
"Tenten."
Somewhere in the back of her fuzzy, still-asleep mind, Tenten realized that somebody was calling her name, and that she should probably answer them. However, this part of her mind was very, very small at the moment, so she just rolled over and pulled the blanket over her head.
"Tenten." More urgent now. She sighed, and cracked open her eye, ungluing her eyelashes from the night's eye gunk.
"What?" she moaned.
"Shut up!" hissed the voice. Sakura's face cleared once Tenten blinked some more. She realized that it was still pitch dark, and that it had to be before the crack of dawn.
"What time is it?" she moaned again, but this time more softly, trying to see past Sakura at the clock. Sakura shifted so that she blocked Tenten's view precisely.
"Okay, look," she whisper-hissed. "When that party comes around, we're going to get that Shikamaru boy and Ino hooked up."
"What?" said Tenten, surprised and now completely awake. "How? Why? What about Temari?"
"I know, I know," Sakura said impatiently. "I'll deal with Temari." She grinned, seeming to relish this idea. "I have my…ways. But rest assured, Ino's going to be with Shikamaru before you can plan their wedding." She paused for dramatic effect. "And you're going to help me."
"Me? Why me?!"
"Because, Hinata would never agree to it. And Ino's sort of the object of the plan. She has to stay oblivious to it. It works best that way."
"And you're choosing now to tell me all about this because…?"
"Well…" For the first time, Sakura sounded a little embarrassed. "I didn't want to risk being overheard. And. Well. This is the best time for talking when you don't want people eavesdropping on you."
Tenten sighed and snuggled in deeper under her blanket. "Right. Well. Goodnight."
"Yeah."
"Hey…wait a minute," she said slowly. Sakura turned back slightly in question. "Why are you so anxious to do this for Ino? I was always under the impression that you two hated each other." Sakura paused, seemingly to consider.
"I feel it's my duty to ensure that at least one of us gets a happy ever after. My chance went by, and I'm not getting a second one."
Tenten watched her with an odd expression of confusion. "Oh. Okay."
"Goodnight."
O0O
Saturday dawned as a cold sort of day.
The sky was a depressing shade of gray, crisscrossed by wisps of drearier pale black clouds: not thick enough for rain, but the air was unusually frigid and humid at the same time. Moisture was so thick that you could almost see it, and most definitely feel it.
Tenten was the first one awake, though this was nothing unusual. She immediately noticed that her toes were stiff, clammy, and probably about to fall off from frostbite. Shivering, her teeth chattering, she pulled the blanket tighter, and stuck out an arm to root for a pair of socks from under her bed, in the duffel. She found a pair of wool ones that she had knitted herself, (they looked a bit more like a lump of tangled yarn that real socks), and jammed her feet gratefully into them.
It was odd weather for summer, but Tenten didn't stop to ponder over it for long. She left the other three to their dreams, and happily had first dibs to use the bathroom. She hummed while she pulled her brown hair into the everyday buns. There was a tight ball of excitement building in her stomach.
Strangely enough, Tenten was actually looking forward to going to Ino's party. However much she tried to deny it, somewhere deep down she knew that she had formed a sort of bond, (or at least, an alliance), with Ino, Sakura, and Hinata. They were at a sort of universal, unspoken truce point.
She might have even called them "friends".
Nah.
In any case, today, she and Sakura shared a common goal for once. The idea of making Ino happy was not exactly revolting to Tenten, but it was not as appealing as making Ino miserable. However, she wasn't one to pass up a chance to make some mischief. Even if it meant stealing Shikamaru from his girlfriend for Ino's sake.
She shuddered, as suddenly images of everything that could go wrong flashed through her head. She had a moment where she skeptically considered why she had agreed to this in the first place. She would never have guessed that she would be doing this kind of thing over the summer.
And yet, here she was.
Tenten sighed, and finished tying her right bun into a tight knot, straightening her oversized pajama shirt a little. She stared at herself in the slightly dirty mirror. So average. It was perfect: there could be nobody on earth more invisible than Tenten was now.
In the other room, the annoying sounds of the alarm clock getting itself worked up penetrated the silence. Sakura swore loudly, Ino groaned, and Hinata hit the snooze button, as usual. Tenten found herself smiling as she waltzed back into the bedroom to get her party clothes.
This was going to get interesting, fast.
Ino blinked at her blearily, her blue eyes bloodshot as she pushed herself out of the bed. "You're up early," she sighed, yawning. Tenten nodded.
"Hey, it's your party," she reminded Ino when the blonde lay back down into the bed.
"It's not mine, it's Temari's," Ino moaned into her pillow. Tenten rolled her eyes and yanked off the blanket. Ino screeched loud enough to put banshees to shame and hugged her knees to her chest.
"It's cold enough to freeze a polar bear in here," she chattered.
"Exactly," Tenten said smugly. "Now get up."
Ino gave her a very hairy eyeball, and sat up, still shivering, reaching for her jacket that hung on the bedpost at a rather dejected looking angle. Hinata watched them with curious and humorous eyes. Sakura looked ready to throw something for being woken up at this ungodly time of the morning, her pink hair frizzing around her head.
She opened her mouth and growled for them to go do something very rude.
"You know, you volunteered to go with me," Ino said primly.
Sakura sighed. "Yeah. Unfortunately, I'm a person who keeps her promises." She climbed down from her bunk, and began rummaging through her trunk. Hinata quietly got up and stuck her feet into a pair of the complimentary type of hotel slippers, and slithered into the bathroom without any noise at all. Tenten was impressed. She knew for a fact that the third floorboard from the bathroom floor creaked if you so much as brushed it with your toe.
"Well?" Ino's impatient inquiry brought her back to earth.
"Huh?" she said intelligently.
"Aren't you going to get dressed?" Ino said, as if Tenten had lost her mind, (this might have been quite true). "We are going to a par-ty, in case you don't know what that means, and you're hardly going to look presentable in your…are those even pajamas?" Ino wrinkled her nose at Tenten's baggy T-shirt and sweats. Tenten promptly turned around and ignored the blonde.
"What are you doing now?" Ino complained.
"Getting my clothes," Tenten said, grabbing the said items up and going to wait by the bathroom door for Hinata to finish.
Ino sighed as if her life were over, (it probably was, as she was bringing Sakura, Tenten, and Hinata to a party, and all of the three mentioned above were frequent large- party-goers).
"You could still back out," Sakura muttered .Ino shook her head.
"Not for the world. Now that I've started this, I have got to see what you three will look like dancing under a disco ball." Sakura smirked, and Ino was again struck by how much that upturned lip, the cynical glint in her eyes, reminded her of Uchiha Sasuke.
"Suit yourself. You're not going to see anything pretty," said the pink-haired girl.
O0O
They biked.
That is to say, the four of them got on mountain bikes, did not bother to strap on helmets, and rode in the very, very cold six O' clock weather down the freeway in their party clothes.
Tenten was not exactly flabby, and she was pretty in-shape. In-shape people usually had some kind of weird immunes to the cold, but Tenten had somehow missed that part of the package. She shivered and chattered even after her leg muscles ached with protest. She should have warmed up long ago from the exercise, but Tenten's body just didn't work that way when she needed it to.
She had put on a pair of black converse sneakers from home, jean capris, and a fitted black vest over a white button-up shirt that Ino had forced her into at the mall. Her buns were tied up with red ribbons. It was pretty nice clothing to ride in, but Tenten was resenting every moment of it.
She pitied Ino. Ino was in a pink miniskirt and a darker pink sequined tank top.
Temari's house was all the way on the other end of town, which meant five miles hard riding. They had nobody to drop them off, and anybody that might have done it, such as Ino's mother, would never consent to letting them go anyways. Therefore…they rode.
Sakura claimed that she had a driver's permit, but none of them were willing to test the truth of this statement. And there were no buses in a town like this, or taxis.
Ino said that there were a set of bike racks soon after they passed the five mile mark, and they turned into a darkened side alley gratefully. After locking up the bikes, they walked the remaining block. Tenten looked around at the surrounding houses curiously. They were all pretty good-sized: 3 stories, painted white, with prim looking rectangular windows and perfectly mowed green lawns.
It was obvious which one was Temari's. Many cars were blocking the street in front of the house, lights were all lit, and there was music pumping rhythms through the ground, and they felt the pulsing slightly beneath their feet.
Sakura whistled.
Temari's home was pretty large: much like all the other rich looking homes on the street, but grander somehow. Tenten immediately made the inference that Temari was pretty well off. At least, she was much better off than Tenten was.
Ino squared her shoulders and frogmarched up to the door. Her finger shook a little as she pressed the doorbell.
The music got louder as somebody opened the door.
The girl who stood in the doorway reminded Tenten a bit of Sakura. Her eyes were a slightly bluer shade than Sakura's shocking green: more of a hazel-blue, but they held the same mischievous, I-dare-you-to-come-any-closer glint. Her dirty blonde hair was pulled into four pigtails, all miraculously spiky at the tips, and a confident smirk was pasted on her slightly tanned face. Her hand rested relaxed on her hip, where she wore the shortest miniskirt Tenten had ever seen and a pair of fishnet stockings.
"Ino," she said, in a sort of voice that sounded like it was used to sarcasm. It sounded strangely pleasant, coming from this girl.
"Temari," Ino said stiffly. "Hi."
"Come in," Temari said, though not a trace of welcome leaked into her voice. She eyed Ino and her pink outfit, all the way down to her high-heeled pink sandals and the high ponytail with the pink ribbon. Tenten, all of a sudden, felt a strange sense of protectiveness towards the platinum blonde.
Then she looked past Ino, and her eyebrows raised in an expression that was a cross between surprise and amusement, mixed in with resignation. Tenten had to admit, she did not blame Temari for this one. There stood Sakura, pink hair and all, all tied up into two spiked pigtails not much unlike Temari's under a Nightmare-Before-Christmas beret. She had three rings in her right ear, one of which was the shark tooth earring. She had a pair of pumps, red plaid, tied with a ribbon at the ankle, a pair of ripped jeans, and a top she had made herself by cutting up Tenten's bathrobe, (though she had promised to pay for it later). Various bangles ran almost to the crease in her elbow on both arms.
Slightly behind Sakura stood Hinata, who looked rather alarmed. There was a white headband in her hair, wide, with silver roses protruding from it. She was wearing a plain, pale-blue sleeveless shirt and a pleated black skirt, both seemingly too formal for this kind of party. Her shoes were close-toed dark blue fake suede. She looked like a lost college student or tour guide, not a party-goer.
Temari's eyes fell on Tenten, and Tenten instinctively crossed her arms and felt her face reddening as Temari raised her eyebrows at the buns, (Tenten was rather fond of her hair buns). She shook her head and raised her eyebrow higher at Ino.
"Right. Well. Don't keep just standing there." She moved aside.
The four of them trailed into the room single file, where the music was playing and the lights were multicolored, playing over all of the dancing and heaving bodies. Ino smiled, Hinata looked about ready to have her knees give out, and Sakura rolled her eyes. Tenten decided that she was never doing a favor for Ino again. Parties weren't her thing.
"Ino!"
The blonde turned to see Shikamaru walking towards them, two glasses of punch in his hands. He seemed genuinely happy to see his friend, the silver hoops in his ears winking in the light. He handed her a glass of punch, and threw a slightly dismayed glance at the three others. Tenten fidgeted.
"Er…they weren't invited, you know," Shikamaru said. "You're so troublesome."
Ino shrugged. "The more the merrier. Temari didn't seem to mind that much."
Shikamaru sighed. "Aiya."
"Want to dance?" Ino suggested. Before he could answer, she had dragged him off and they disappeared into the dance floor. Tenten watched them go, feeling very, very lost.
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A/N: The party will continue in the next chapter! (Literally.)