Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Shikotsumyaku ❯ Awkward Turnabout ( Chapter 8 )

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any characters therein. They are all owned by Kishimoto Masashi.

 

Author Note: AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGH! T_T I'm so sorry my writer's block got so freaking bad all of a sudden! I didn't lose interest or anything, I just couldn't think of what would happen next. You know how sometimes stories write themselves? Most of mine do, so it's BAD JUJU when I can't hear it telling me what to write. But, YAAAA- your reviews have, once again, spurred me on to greater feats of anti-writer-block-ism-ness…thing!
Putting that to one side; HERE IT IS, at long last!

 

 

Kimimaro strolled through the more commercially-oriented part of Konoha at a leisurely pace. This particular area was most notable for the number of stalls lining the street, most of which were doomed enterprises along the lines of “these are Soldier Pills! Definitely not cracked pepper and chocolate this time!” or otherwise intended only to remain open until stock ran out. The stalls that did have a life-expectancy exceeding one month tended to sell hot food with identifiable ingredients, books, or novelty items that -against all odds- remained popular for longer than they should have.

A useful skill to have when operating a small shop front was the ability to attract customers that weren't at all interested in the products you were offering, and then convince them that it was their lucky day for passing by. Kimimaro certainly hadn't come down the street with the intention of picking up a copy of Icha Icha Paradise, a soft and fluffy shuriken, takoyaki or manju, but somehow he had been swept up in the flurry of commerce, and ended up buying all of them.

He left the street with the book stowed safely in a pouch at his waist, the fluffy shuriken tucked snuggly behind his forehead protector (which he was still comfortably wearing as a sash), a skewer full of takoyaki in one hand and a skewer full of manju in the other. He stopped walking as what had just happened dawned on him. He slowly looked over his shoulder to check if it had been some kind of dream -which he concluded it had not, in fact, been- before tentatively sampling one of the takoyaki. Apart from being extremely hot, it was very good. The manju were…less so.

He managed to get rid of the takoyaki by eating them, the manju and fluffy shuriken by means of a group of passing children, and decided to keep the book. You never know when you're holding a really good book until you open it up and have a read.

A few dozen pages into the book he had to reconsider that thought. Sometimes you could tell a book by its cover- or title, for argument's sake.

A sudden urge to put the book down had quickly evaporated when he came across something unusually…familiar inside. The early part of the book reminded him quite a lot of what had happened last night. If he was the main character, and Ino was…wow.

Very, very slowly he was beginning to understand why Ino had left at the point of tears when he had repeatedly failed to understand her intentions. His throat felt very dry all of a sudden.

It was going to be…awkward to try and talk to Ino for a while.

 

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It was incredibly difficult to concentrate on the log. His mind kept running through the book -and last night- and the more he did so, the more he started making connections between what Ino had done and what a character in Icha Icha Paradise had done. Since he didn't know about the book, he couldn't have possibly known what he was supposed to do. Right?

Although, if it had followed the storyline…

For a moment his mind went completely blank, and he subsequently missed hitting the log where he had been planning to, and instead scraped his knuckles across the scarred wood. The brief, but sharp pain was enough to bring him back to his senses. The book had presented some concepts (or emotions, as other people would call them) which he was having trouble understanding completely.

`A-are you alright, Kaguya-san?' Kimimaro looked around and his eyes fell upon Hinata. He had forgotten she was there. Hey eyes were fixed on his injured hand, and she was fumbling around in her hip pouch for something.

`I'm fine,' he said, waving a hand vaguely. It was true that his skin healed very easily, since breaking it was a precursor to fighting because of his bloodline; it wouldn't be very helpful if pulling out bones made him bleed profusely.

`Are you sure?' Kimimaro looked at her face carefully, and mistook her worried expression to be doubtful. He held up his now healed hand as evidence and flexed his fingers. Hinata turned her gaze downwards and nodded.

It was at about this time that a thought struck him. It must have been a fairly large thought, or else moving very fast, because it seemed to stun him. He froze is place for a few seconds, his eyes wide.

Hinata looked up nervously, and saw Kimimaro looking, apparently with rapt attention, at a remarkably boring patch of sky. `Kaguya-san?'

Without looking away from the sky, he reached out and gently took hold of Hinata's shoulders. When she was secure, he looked her straight in the eye. Being acutely aware of how strong he was, Hinata chose to freeze on the spot. Although it was doubtful that her arms and legs would have listened to her anyway.

`Hinata.' Kimimaro had an intense look in his eye that she hadn't seen before. She blushed heavily, but he took no notice. `Do you…' he paused and seemed to search for an unfamiliar word. `…Do you have someone that you…like?' It was a question on its own, but the way he said to word “like” made it sound like he wasn't sure it meant what he thought. Hinata didn't pay this detail a great deal of attention, however. She had other things on her mind at that moment.

She squirmed slightly out of pure embarrassment as images of Naruto flitted through her mind, seeming to clash for a moment with an image of the person currently obscuring her vision. `A-ah-um…w-well…y-yes?'

`How do you…feel when that person is around?'

She squirmed again, and turned a further few shades of red. `Well-um…I-I, er…I get nervous!' she squeaked desperately. `And, um- I, um, my heart beats fast!' She was starting to panic, but Kimimaro was still fixing her with a powerful stare, and his grip on her shoulders was steady. `I-I…I, ah, I-um, I want to look at him, b-but I'm afraid he will notice!' To her relief, Kimimaro interrupted at this point.

`Does everyone feel that way?'

`U-um, not everyone!' Kimimaro looked at the ground, and fell silent, his expression unreadable. Hinata tried to get herself under control enough to speak again. `Umm…Kaguya-san?' Kimimaro blinked and realized he was still holding onto Hinata. He released his grip silently, but kept his gaze fixed on the ground in thoughtful contemplation.

 

-----

 

`…'

`…'

`How about you try smiling?'

Kimimaro tried.

`Er…maybe forget about smiling, yeah?'

`…'

`Alright, say “cheese.”'

`Cheese?' P-shink. The flash from the camera subjected a piece of film to Kimimaro's slightly perplexed expression. The cameraman was not convinced he would be able to escape vengeance resulting from a bad photo, so he chose to act as thought nothing much had happened.

`Ok, one more…here we go…' P-shink. The next photo was better- Kimimaro merely looked wary and bored. More accustomed to this variety of photo, the cameraman took it as a job well-done.

Once developed, the photo was put on an official document with his personal details and new identification number, which Sakura was scrutinizing with interest.

`Good photo,' she said slowly after a while. `Very “you”, but why is the “Date of Birth” blank?'

`I don't know what it is.'

`Really?' Kimimaro toyed with the idea of reminding her about his childhood, but not for long.

`Really.' Sakura went back to scanning the document, with more than a little pride that Kimimaro would have never come this far without her help. Probably. But Kimimaro was not so happy. Sure, he was happy about not being strapped to a bed, or being dissected by ANBU medical-nins, but he desperately wanted to keep a conversation going. At the moment, it was the only way to stop himself from thinking about what Hinata had told him- which, in turn, led him to draw some troubling conclusions about himself.

`Do you think I should have it retaken?'

`Hmm?'

`The photo.'

`No, no, it's really good.'

`Really?'

`Really.' To make the conversation just that bit more final, their orders of Ramen were served up quietly. And eating meant not talking. And talking meant thinking about what Hinata had…damn.

`Are you alright?'

No! `Yes.' I don't know what to do! `I'm fine.' What does this mean?! `Completely fine.'

Sakura stared at him, a mouthful of forgotten noodles protruding from her mouth slightly. What he had said made it seem like everything was anything but fine. He didn't usually talk like that. No, he didn't ever talk like that- she mentally underlined the word.

`Fhugya i…' she remembered the Ramen, and hastily swallowed it. `Something is wrong, isn't it?'

Yes! `No.' Why can't I just say it? `Nothing.'

She was beginning to notice- yes there was definitely a hint of forlornness on his face. He really had changed a lot, hadn't he?

`Kimimaro,' she removed the chopsticks from his unresisting fingers and lay them on the bench. Kimimaro was still staring into his Ramen, determined not to make eye contact. Sakura sighed and reached out slowly. She adopted her most soothing demeanor (it was the bedside manner all doctors need for telling a patient, in the most comforting way possible, that they are about to die. It could probably make a homicidal maniac pause, think about what he had done, and maybe even calm down). As with the chopsticks, Kimimaro didn't resist at all when she turned his head towards her.

`What's wrong?' Her voice dripped with anesthetic, chicken soup and honey tea. It made Kimimaro totally lower his guard. He would have told her straight up what was bothering him, if her voice hadn't made his mind go curiously blank.

`Eeehhhr…wrong?' The moment of defenselessness passed, and Kimimaro's face hardened a little. `Nothing.'

`…'

`Don't glare at me like that.' Sakura let go of his face, and turned back to her Ramen, more than a little annoyed by his attitude.

Somewhere in Kimimaro's abdomen, he felt a pang of guilt.

 

-----

 

`I'm not hiding anything.'

`Yes you are.'

`What is it then?'

Sakura growled at him, she didn't usually get angry at him, but he was strongly resisting all attempts to bypass his defenses. And she had been so close at one point too…

They had finished their Ramen, and were taking a walk through the village. They were passing the village gates, and there were a lot less people around than usual. Because of this, the only people who saw Kimimaro stop dead in his tracks with a look of shock on his face were Sakura, two shinobi guarding the huge green gates, and a small ANBU squad, who made it their business to see everything he did.

And, just by seeing this, how could they have known he was about to sprint out of the village?

 

`Shit!'

Hearing the yell, one of the gate guards turned to see what the problem was, and was surprised when a black and white blur shot past him, heading out of the village. Before he could quite come to terms with what he had seen, four more -equally blurry- black shapes rocketed past him, presumably in pursuit of the first blur. And then they were gone.

The guard blinked slowly and looked around. The other guard seemed quite as surprised as he was. And the only other person nearby was a girl with pink hair, and a look on her face that the guard could only describe as “disbelief.”

 

-----

 

Kimimaro whipped past the trees, scarcely aware that ANBU were gaining on him, albeit extremely slowly. He was very fast, after all. But something like four, or fifty ANBU members pursuing him couldn't have interested him less at that moment. Someone had come. He didn't know how he was so sure of it, but he knew that a shinobi from Otogakure was nearby. And it didn't matter why they were there. All that was important that they were there.

Almost…Almost…they're so close…

Trees, traps, wild animals, nothing was going to get in his way now. He had heard the chime of a tiny bell, yes, that's how he knew. One of them was carrying bells, and their attempts to silence them had apparently failed. He was so close now, he could feel it. He could almost see Orochimaru-sama…

And then, he saw them. Three shinobi dressed in the black, white and grey of Otogakure. And they saw him… And they looked terrified for a moment.

Orochimaru-sama… how long had it been since that name last passed across his mind? Weeks?

The three shinobi made to draw their weapons instinctively, but changed their minds and turned to run.

Weeks without thinking of Orochimaru-sama...

Maybe the shinobi were surprised to see Kimimaro, alive and well and heading towards them at high speed. Maybe they thought he was an enemy, disguised at him. Maybe they had spotted ANBU hot on his tail.

But Orochimaru-sama- no, Orochimaru had abandoned him. He wasn't necessary, since he had the Uchiha now. He wasn't of use to Orochimaru anymore…

Maybe they had just panicked at being discovered deep in enemy territory. Maybe they just wanted an excuse to pull out.

But Konohagakure, they had almost accepted him. Like Sakura had.

Maybe, if they hadn't decided to run (for whatever reason), Kimimaro wouldn't have decided to kill them.