MTLNOVEL Chapter 4: Soapy Fun and Breakfast 2
Naruko was skipping on her way, swinging a basket around as she went on her way. While she did so, she was humming a merry tune to herself. Trailing behind her, at a more sedate and controlled pace, were her teammates, Uchiha Satsuki and Haruno Sakura, the latter of which seemed to be seething and the former pointedly staring at the ground.
"Naruko, could you stop doing that?" Asked Sakura, looking at the twirling blonde with an abominable expression, trying her hardest to literally glare daggers at her. She had to content herself with just metaphorically glaring daggers at the object of her current rage.
"Doing what, Sakura-chan?" Asked Naruko, turning around and leaning forward, clasping her hands behind her back, using both to hold the basket in place.
"Jumping around. Your skirt is so short that every time you jump your panties show!" Explained the pinkette, crossing her arms and growling out her words.
Naruko unclasped her hands and brought her left index finger to her lower lip, falling into thought. "But I like moving around like this!" she said, pouting at Sakura.
Sakura groaned at the full frontal cuteness assault. "If you're going to do that, then you need to stop wearing a skirt. It's not a good idea to wear a skirt without a pair of shorts unless you want to show your underwear to everyone." The pinkette explained.
"But it's comfortable…" Naruko said, her pout intensified.
"It's distracting, Naruko." Ground out Satsuki, still glaring at the ground.
Her gaze travelled to where Naruko's feet lay. The sandals that covered her feet did nothing to hide her long black and orange striped thigh high socks. Or maybe they were stockings? She didn't want to know. She forced her gaze away from the small strip of skin shown between Naruko's rather short skirt and the stockings, travelling up. Her only ninja-task worthy piece of clothing she wore was the black and orange jacket she wore. Indeed, her choice of dress was quite distracting for her teammates. "I know!" she said, a cheerful smile stretching her whiskered cheeks and her eyes closed, giving her the appearance of a fox kit.
Both Satsuki and Sakura groaned but said nothing about it.
"Why do you have a picnic basket with you?" Asked Sakura, finally managing to pull the question that had been on her mind since the two had picked her up. First, she looked at Satsuki, who merely shrugged as she hadn't even asked, then she looked directly at the blonde, who had been about to begin skipping down the path to training ground three once again. "Sensei told us not to eat breakfast." She said.
Naruko blushed and rubbed the back of her neck with her free hand. "I thought that Sensei might be late today too, so I thought about it and decided we could have our breakfast as a picnic this morning!" She said, smiling at both of her teammates in a sheepish manner, which coupled with her blush out of embarrassment had them both thinking that she'd actually just made that up and she'd actually forgotten that their sensei had told them not to eat breakfast.
"How do you know that the training ground will even be conducive to having a picnic?" Asked Sakura, raising one eyebrow and managing to sound calm despite her irritation. "Now you'll have to carry that the whole day. And even if Sensei did come in late, there's still the fact that this could be a heavy training session and we would end up vomiting our breakfasts like he said." Talking about vomit was not how she envisioned her kunoichi days, but you take what you can. "You really should think these things through."
Naruko merely giggled as if that would somehow fix the problem.
Satsuki sighed and shook her head. "She may be right. If Sensei is as late as he was yesterday, then we'd have enough time for the food to settle in our stomachs before he gets there. We wouldn't be at risk of losing our breakfast then." She said, looking ahead, ignoring the eyes of everyone in the kunoichi trio. She knew they were an odd sight, as the classic formation for genin teams was two males and a female, but their class had been special, having more than the norm of females.
"If you think so…" Sakura said, biting her lower lip and keeping her remarks back.
It did not take long for the potential Team 7 to arrive at their teacher's chosen destination. The training ground he'd chosen for them was a wide open space with rather short grass and forest removing it from clear view by the village proper. It was not gigantic, but it was still one of the bigger training grounds in Konoha, and it made all three of them worry about what kind of test their sensei would put them through.
Naruko smirked and then opened her basket, pulling out a blanket that she'd used not too long ago. It was still clean enough, despite a few spots here and there, marks of its not inconsiderable age. With a flourish, she spread it on the grass, putting the basket in a corner and beginning to take out wrapped packages from within it.
Each and every one of them was quickly unwrapped to reveal many different kinds of sandwiches within them. "I didn't know what Sakura-chan liked, so I made a whole bunch of everything!" She explained, a wide smile on her face as she gestured to the incredible amount of food she'd spread on the blanket. "Please, dig in!"
Satsuki blinked, then sat in one of the two free corners. Naruko gestured to one of the plastic plates she'd set up with no less than twelve of the triangular treats.
"All of those have tomatoes in them, Satchan, I would've made more, but the youngest ones weren't ripe so I had to work with what I had." Explained the blonde. "Though I'm not sure which combinations you would like and which you wouldn't so…"
Satsuki shook her head. Naruko might not have been present, but ninja were taught to eliminate, or at least minimize, the list of the food that they didn't like. There was always the chance you'd have to eat things you usually wouldn't during missions, after all, or you could be asked to impersonate someone whose favorite food might be one you dislike.
It was just paranoia to most, but it was still useful at times to be capable of eating food regardless of its taste. A complicated art, to be sure, but a rewarding one. "It's weird that there's no instant ramen…" Satsuki muttered, having once been witness to the veritable mountains of empty ramen cups that Naruko threw out at a time. If she had to guess, she'd say that the blonde was keeping the industry alive on her lonesome.
"I wanted to bring some ramen cups, but since I no longer get the orphan's stipend, my ramen budget is a bit tight." Admitted Naruko, digging onto a random sandwich she picked up. "Eat up, Sakura-chan! You need to eat a lot so you will grow up nice and big!" the whiskered girl said, her eyes trailing down Sakura's rather androgynous body. Indeed, being twelve, she had yet to begin undergoing puberty and as such, could be confused with a boy except for her long hair.
And so, Team Seven spent their early morning amicably eating their picnic breakfast, chatting about inconsequential things that almost invariably ended up being sidetracked by a perverted comment coming from the blonde.
"Anyway, what happened this morning? You two came together…"
"Well, it's a long story, but I guess we have time." Naruko said, shrugging. "It all began when I went to pick up Satchan…" And such a very long tale that explained in thorough detail each and every one of the actions Naruko had performed, up to and including the bath she'd taken, was told to an increasingly redder Sakura.
Not to be left behind, Satsuki sported a luminescent blush, being reduced to dumb nodding whenever Sakura asked for confirmation.
Sakura groaned. "You're BOTH perverts…" She muttered.
"Aw, Sakura-chan is jealous! Next time, we should all take a bath together! I have a large enough furo in my apartment we can use! No, wait, I've got a better idea! We should go to the hot springs!"
Against her better judgment, Sakura shrugged. "Sure, why not?" She said.