Chapter 1 - Chapter one

Three Cheers for Romance


Disclaimer: don't own Naruto... somebody shoot me...

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"Damn it Kiba, stop shooting me!"

"Ha ha; make me loser!" Kiba said as he fired several more bullets into Naruto's back.

"Fine! Take this!"

"Oh, shoot!" Kiba swore as he unsuccessfully tried to run from a missal fired from Naruto.

So far Kiba had killed Naruto twice and Naruto had repaid Kiba the favor four times now.

"Hey, aren't we suposto be meeting Sasuke right now?" Kiba asked while he began tracking down Naruto.

"Ya, but Shikamaru's suppose to meet us here first." Naruto said while placing mines along a hallway.

"How much longer do you think it's going to be? Crap! That's just cheep Naruto!" Kiba whined as he steeped on one of Naruto's many mines.

"Duno, not much longer, hopefully. And deal with it." Naruto said while watching Kiba; he was trapped in a room by Naruto's explosives.

Kiba smirked as he moved against the wall and shot at the mines in front of one of the doorways; they went off, making a clear path for Kiba. Kiba smirked again and made his way through the doorway. But his victory was cut short as Naruto pressed a button and a bomb detonated right under Kiba's feet.

"Do you have the whole fricken house rigged!?" Kiba growled as he was killed by another mine seconds after the last one. Naruto chuckled.

"Just about." He looked around as Akamaru started barking. "What's that mutt yapping about now?"

"Shikamaru's here." Kiba said before stepping on a tripwire, which activated a bomb. Naruto raised an eyebrow, but sure enough, moments later someone knocked on the door. Naruto stood up and went to the door to let Shikamaru in.

"Hey Naruto, what's with Kiba?" Shikamaru asked as their brown haired friend let out a howl.

"He's just mad cuz I covered the entire house with mines and explosives and he keeps killing himself." Shikamaru grinned and sat down on Naruto's bed and scratched Akamaru behind the ears. Naruto sat down on the floor in front of the TV and watched as Kiba exploded for tenth time that day.

"Tell me if I'm wrong, but isn't the point of that game to kill zombies or something like that?" Shikamaru questioned as he watched Naruto set up even more explosives.

"Ya, but we thought it would be more fun to kill each other." Naruto said.

"Speak for yourself. I kill you one time, and you cover the whole fricken house in explosives! I can't take two steps without getting blown up!" Kiba said as he blew up.

"You killed me twice." Naruto corrected.

"What ever!"

Shikamaru stood and made his way over to the Xbox and pushed the power button with his foot, causing the screen to go static.

"Hey!" Naruto and Kiba shouted in unison.

"We got to get over to Sasuke's and you guys would be here all day if I didn't stop you." Shikamaru said. Naruto turned off the TV, stopping the annoying white noise.

"He's right" Kiba said, looking at a clock. "We have to be there five minuets ago."

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Sasuke sat on the couch and changed the channel on a large plasma TV. Nothing was on, or at least nothing he wanted to watch. He was waiting for the arrival of Naruto, Shikamaru, and Kiba. They were running late, but that came as no surprise.

After several more minuets he got sick of channel flipping and decided to wait outside for his friends to arrive. After ten minuets of waiting, his friends finally arrived.

"Bout time you guys got here."

"Ah, shut up and be grateful we showed up at all." Kiba said jokingly.

"Do you guys want to walk?" Sasuke asked.

"The malls only about two and a half miles from here right? I say we walk." Kiba said. Akamaru barked.

"Man, I can't wait till we're old enough to get our drivers licenses." Shikamaru said as they started walking.

"It's only one more year. And besides, until then, if we want to go anywhere we can just take on of the limos." Sasuke said.

"Easy for you to say, you have limos!" Naruto shouted.

After some fifteen minuets of walking and arguing, mainly between Naruto and Kiba, the group passed a public basketball court. Noticing a dozen some girls and several guys on the sidelines cheering, they decided to stop and see what was going on.

"Wonder who's playing?" Naruto questioned.

"Probably Neji or Shino." Shikamaru answered.

As they drew closer, they discovered that it was actually both Neji and Shino and four others that none of them recognized.

"Hey guys." A girl with two buns on the top of her head greeted them.

"Oh, hey Tenten."

Tenten was one year older then them and attended an all girls school on the other side of the village. She was often seen tagging along behind Neji but none of them were sure what kind of relationship the two of them had. Neji didn't talk much about that sort of thing.

"So what's going on here?" Kiba asked.

"Neji and Shino are playing against those four guys."

"Two against four? Isn't that a little unfair?" Naruto asked.

"You would think so, but their actually winning. By a lot."

None of the boys were surprised to hear this. Neji and Shino were on the school team, along with Sasuke, and each of them was very good; especially Neji.

"Woot! Go Neji!" Tenten cheered as Neji stole the ball, passed it to Shino, who passed it back as Neji went up for an easy lay up.

"First one to twenty wins; Neji and Shino are up to eighteen, the other guys are at six. I still don't get how Shino can play with sunglasses on. You would think they would fall off, or they would screw up his vision or something." Tenten said.

"We don't get it either. I've never seen him without them on. But leave it to Bug Freak to find a way to play basketball with sunglasses on." Kiba said, as he knew Shino better then the rest of them did.

The team of four had the ball now; one of them was about to shoot when out of nowhere, Shino jumped up in front of him and swatted the ball all the way to the other side of the court, where Neji promptly grabbed it and made the final basket. The loosing team sighed and Shino raised his arm and pointed at the one he had blocked moments ago.

"You got served."

Shino made his way off the court.

Tenten joined the other girls in cheering for Neji, who seemed to pay no attention to them.

"Man, I wish girls would do that for me." Kiba groaned.

"Be careful of what you wish for. You don't know how scary fangirls can be." Sasuke said; he had plenty of experiences with fangirls.

"You know, Shino would probably have some fangirls if it weren't for the whole bug thing." Shikamaru said while staring at the sky.

"Wish I could have fangirls." Kiba grumbled for the second time.

"Well you don't, so shut up about it!" Naruto yelled.

Neji made his way over to the four boys, mopping up the sweat on his face with a towel.

"Hey, didn't expect to you guys here, I thought you would be at Sasuke's."

"Actually we're on our way to the mall." Naruto said.

"The mall? Then why didn't you tell me?" asked the long haired Hyuga.

"We tried." Shikamaru started. "We tried calling you, but we just kept getting a busy signal. It's like that almost every time we call."

"That would my cousins' fault. Between the two of them, the phone lines are tied up all the time."

"You know something... I don't think we've ever seen your cousins." Sasuke said slowly.

"That's probably because it's a huge place, and we don't spend that much time there anyways. We mostly hang out at Sasuke's and occasionally Naruto's."

"Anyways," Shikamaru continued. "We also tried to IM you, but you're never on."

"You know I gave up on IM. Theses fangirls keep on finding out my screen name and then they won't stop messaging me." Neji explained.

"I have the same problem." said Sasuke.

"We didn't bother to try your cell though. You never have it on anyways." Shikamaru finished.

"Well, I'd come with you, but I can't exactly go to the mall when I'm this sweaty. How about I meet you guys there in about an hour? That should give me enough time to take a shower and change." Neji suggested.

"Ya, that'd be fine. We'll meet you in the food court." Sasuke said as the four of them started to walk away.

"See ya then Neji!" Kiba shouted. Akamaru, atop Kiba's head, barked in farewell.

"If his hair wasn't so long and girly, then it wouldn't take him so long to shower!" Naruto said when he thought Neji far away enough not to hear them. Moments later, a small rock hit the blond in the back of the head.

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Neji stood outside the bathroom door and tried to reason with the girl inside.

"Hinata, you're not even doing anything! You're just painting you toenails!"

"That's something isn't it? No, not you Sakura, I was talking to my cousin."

Neji was finally use to his cousin being so outspoken. Two summers ago, Hinata finally decided that it would be for the best if she went to some self help groups to try and work on her stuttering and how quiet she always was. They hadn't truly started to kick in until this summer. She was still the same sweet, kind, caring girl she had always been; now she was just louder about it.

It was defiantly helping her relationships with many people; she was closer to her friends, she wasn't as afraid of meeting new people, but most of all it had helped her relationships with her family. Neji had always criticized her whenever she spoke of changing herself. He had always thought that if you were born week, you stayed week; that you could not change. But Hinata had proved him wrong. She had shown him that she could change, and that she could become stronger.

In a way, she had changed Neji as well. He had stopped blaming things on fate and started putting more faith in others. He now felt bad for the way he had treated her. If he had been supportive of her, she might have been able to change herself sooner.

In the past, Hinata would have immediately left the bathroom and let Neji take a shower, and apologized to him. But now, she was sticking up for herself. Neji knew that it was a great improvement on her part, but that did not mean that it didn't get on his nerves when she did something like this.

"Why do you need to use this bathroom anyways? There are plenty of other ones you can use."

"This one has the best shower! And why can't you go paint your toenails somewhere else?"

"Because I was here first! I'm sorry that my cousin keeps interrupting us."

"That's okay Hinata." Sakura said, twirling the phone cord around her finger.

"He's not pounding on the door anymore; I think he's gone."

Sakura giggled on the other line.

"So are we still on for later?" Sakura asked.

"Ya, I'll get down there as soon as I finish my toenails. I'm meeting you inside the main entrance right? Where that little fountain is?"

"Yes, and don't forget, Ino will be there so make sure to speak sloooowly." Sakura said, dragging out the last word. Hinata giggle. A click was heard on both sides of the line and a voice that was defiantly not Hinata or Sakura spoke.

"Hinata, I'm in your room right now and I have your diary in my hand. Unless you get out of that bathroom right now, I'm going to start tearing pages out." Neji said in a monologue.

"Neji, don't you dare touch my diary! Get out of my room right now!" Hinata screamed into the phone.

"So thats what Hinata's cousin sounds like." Sakura thought to herself.

Hinata tore out of the bathroom as fast as she could with wet toenails; phone in hand. She ran down the hall and yelled at the phone, assuming Neji was still on it.

Neji set down the phone. He watched from around the corner as Hinata ran awkwardly down the hallway towards her room, trying not to smear her freshly applied toenail polish. He made his way into the bathroom, and locked the door behind him. He smirked.


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Hinata sat on the floor outside the bathroom waiting for her cousin to finish his shower, knowing it could be a long time; Neji was notorious for taking very long showers. He always had to have his hair perfect. In fact, Neji on average, spent more time in the shower then Hinata and Hanabi combined.

Hinata looked up when she heard footsteps to see her younger sister staring at her.

"Why are you sitting outside the bathroom, fanning your toes?" Hanabi asked.

"Neji tricked me out of there while I was painting my toes and now I need to wait for him to get out because my nail polish is still in there." Hinata said glumly while using a paper fan to dry her toes.

"What was the name of it?" Hanabi questioned.

"I don't remember."

"Would you remember it if your saw it?" Hinata nodded.

"Well we can look in my room to see if I have it too. If not, then you can always use something that's close. I doubt anyone would notice the difference." Hanabi suggested. Hinata beamed at her sister.

Twenty minuets later Hinata stepped out of her fathers limo, one block away from the mall; she may not stutter anymore, and she may speak her mind, but that did not mean she wanted lots of attention. She would much rather arrive without everyone staring at her because she showed up in a limo. She started walking down the sidewalk and hoped no one would notice that four of her toes were painted a slightly darker shade of blue then the other six.

The pale eyed Hyuga walked threw the crowed street outside the mall and somehow managed to get all the way inside without bumping into anyone. She looked around and a large spot of pink in her vision got her attention. She made her way over and stood behind Sakura and Ino who were sitting on the edge of the small fountain.

"Hello!" she said cheerfully, startling her two friends.

"Hinata, you shouldn't sneak up on people like that!" Sakura scolded while smiling.

"What kept you? We thought you would be here like ten minuets ago!" Ino questioned.

"Oh, sorry about that; troubles with Neji." Hinata explained.

"You two are a lot closer now aren't you?" Sakura asked.

"Ya, it's great." Hinata beamed.

"Um, I hate to break up all the happy feelings, but my moms picking up me in three hours and we don't have time to sit around and talk!" Ino said while standing up.

"As much as I hate to admit it, she's right. If you think about it, three hours isn't all that long." Sakura said while getting up to follow Ino. Hinata grabbed her purse and ran off after her friends before she lost sight of them in the crowd.

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End of chap one. Me originally planed to make this at least 3000 words, but decided to settle for 2500. hope no one minds. And yes, this will be a romance fic. The couples will be as follows; Naruto X Hinata, Sasuke X Sakura, Neji X Tenten, and me needs you to vote if you would prefer Shikamaru X Ino or Shikamaru X Temari. Which ever gets more votes is what me will decide on. No matter what there will be a little of both though. Pleazzz comment and tell me what you thought! also, if your reading this crap, then read my other crap. If your reading my other crap then read this crap.

With love,

~:~ me ~:~

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