cp4

Chapter 4: Woes of Having Indecently Happy Friends

When I first saw you, I fell in love. Well, not love love, but you smelled nice."

Fortunately for Yori, Komushi, with his grey eyes and wooden arm, was nowhere in sight the next day, nor the day after that. She, even though she had sworn off human interaction for her entire lifetime, couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed.

She was sweeping the floor as she realised that she had wantedKomushi to invade her personal bubble and force her out of her comfort zone.

She froze, eyes wide, blinking at the broom handle in abject horror.

Great going Yori! One day and already you're attached…this is what happened last time, and it got you killed! She sighed despondently, and then went back to sweeping.

It truly wasn't fair.

And by it, she meant life.

And by life, she meant her heart.

And by heart, she meant her stupidity.

Nae toddled into the room they were cleaning with a look of amusement on her face and a pile of laundry that needed folding in her arms. Yori felt a sense of foreboding, and it wasn't just because Nae couldn't fold to save her life and Yori would inevitably have to do her young(er) partners' share of work.

"Guess who volunteered to help with Rasa-sama's room?" Nae sang with an evil lilt to her voice, although that might just have been Yori, who could practically see Satan, stirring his hell-broth with Nae's expression, looming in front of her.

Her baby blue eyes widened. "No…please not…"

A woman with brightly painted nails and glossy lipstick stepped into the room, her wavy mahogany hair cut in a fashionable bob and bright eyes lidded in sensuality. She locked eyes with Yori and, inside her, Rose was banging the metaphorical gong and screaming war cries.

Her full lips twisted into a smirk. "Ah, my big-breasted sister! It has been far too long!" she exclaimed, running over and hugging Yori, smooshing the girl's face into her voluptuous…assets.

Yori let out a muffled sigh. Shingi (ironically meaning fidelity) was her senpai, so to speak, in the Kazekage household, being seven years older than Yori. Rose had never been friends with anyone as good-looking and popular as Shingi, and even if she had been, there was no one quite as colourful a character as Shingi of the Bouncy Bust.

She was one of those people that enjoyed sex more than was healthy, although that was just inexperienced Yori's opinion. Shingi had decided, quite out of the blue when Yori was but five years old and might as well have been mute with how many words she knew, that Yori was someone actually worth her attention.

No, Yori still hasn't figured out what, although the snark in her is firmly of the opinion that it doesn't matter whatsoever. Shingi would invariably be the death of her.

"We saw each other three weeks ago…" Yori muttered, knowing perfectly well that Shingi didn't count this morning where they had made brief eye-contact, when someone—not naming any names but it was so totally Nae—let all the captive scorpions out of their cages and the female population of the Kazekage household abandoned all semblance of decorum and squealed their way to the main living room.

Many a valiant mousetraps were lost, many a husband wounded, many a Shin's not significantly stung…No, Yori didn't appreciate her Papa's "courageous" efforts of hiding behind her and making shooing noises at the oncoming stinging minion of Beelzebub.

"Three weeks too long away from you, my Yori-tan!" she whined in a sultry manner. Yori's left eye twitched, before she tried to weakly detach herself from the forced hug.

Why Shingi continued calling her name with that childish honorific was beyond Yori, but she had firmly decided she just didn't need to know.

"You're going to help us with Rasa-sama's room?" Yori asked pointedly, trying very hard to loosen the manicured pincer-grip Shingi had on her head. It sucked being short.

"Anything for my big-breasted sister!" she cooed, stroking Yori's ponytail 'soothingly'.

Yori gave up the struggle with a sigh. It just wasn't worth it.

"C..c-an..t—bre…ee..the…"

Shingi blinked in confusion before her bright eyes widened in comical horror. "Yori-tan? Yori-tan!? Wake up!"

She began swinging Yori back and forth in her arms as though she were a ragdoll. Nae could barely suppress her laughter.

Yori showed great sneakiness as she used Shingi's looser grip to slither out of her embrace. Shingi realised a few seconds later that she was shaking air. When she looked up, Yori and Nae had already left the room, the pile of unfolded laundry left on the bed with a note saying, "Please fold these Shingi-san. Thanks for offering!"

Shingi looked around in confusion.

"Wait…I'm expected to do actual work?"

Her question was left unanswered.

"Nae-chan, that was really rude." Yori chided weakly.

The eight year old grinned cattily. "Nee-chan, you hate folding clothes as much as I do."

"Shirking responsibility isn't very nice." Yori retorted with considerably less heat than any other person would put into a retort.

Nae snorted with all the derision a prepubescent girl could muster. "It's called delegating Nee-chan."

Yori gave up, as per usual.

It was yet another bright and early start to the day, and Yori hated every minute of it.

For starters, Papa Shin was a moron.

For seconds, Nae was using her age to manipulate innocent old men into feeding her greedy pockets.

For thirds, Yori didn't have any tomatoes.

For fourths, as she left her room with her sandals unfastened to cook breakfast, Komushi-san was waiting for her.

No, honestly, just casually slouching on her table, talking to Papa Shin a mile a minute, who looked so dead on his feet that he must have been drinking heavily the night before. (Yori didn't know why, nor could she honestly bring herself to care for reason number seven hundred and twelve, and no, she wasn't counting. She genuinely just divined a number out of thin air.)

Yori squeaked, and the predator caught the sound instantly. He turned his head to the corridor and saw her short form, her mousy brown hair in their usual high ponytail and her baby blue eyes already watery from sleep, fear and the sun shining unforgivably in her eyes.

Komushi's one track mind started taking measurements for the wedding garments.

He waved cheerfully, completely ignoring her scaredy-cat-ness in favour of focussing on the slight easing of tension in her stance, correctly guessing that she had been worried that she'd been forgotten.

This also allowed him to forgive her for not showing up yesterday—it was entirely his fault that he hadn't specified a location or a time, as Sasori-kun had impatiently pointed out to him in the midst of reinstalling a doohicky in his thingamawhatsits.

Yes, Komushi helped with the puppets, but that hardly meant he understood any of it.

"Good morning Yori-chan! Let's have breakfast together today!"

Yori tried to stutter out anything, but all that came out was a soft whimper. Komushi took that as an enthusiastic agreement.

"Great! Let's go!" he said, and before Yori could blink, Komushi had gotten up from his seat, walked over to her, grabbed her hand, and started dragging her to the door cheerfully.

Thusly, he faced obstacle number one: Nae.

Her arms were crossed over her undeveloped chest, her small mouth was set into a frown, and her foot was tapping the ground impatiently.

"Where do you think you're taking Nee-chan? She has work to do! And breakfast to make!"

You tell her Nae-chan!thought Yori triumphantly. Of course, that was until Nae said, "You can have her for lunch at two! Not before then shinobi-san!"

Komushi accepted the terms and left after waving at Papa Shin, who was already dead to the world, with drool leaking out of his mouth. Komushi seemed to edit that out of his reality though, and continued on as normal.

Because he's an idiot.

"See you for lunch at Milky Monkey MunchYori-chan!"

Yori was about ready to quit with this day, and it had only been two minutes.

Kill me now…

Yori arrived at the Milky Monkey Munch with five minutes to spare. She didn't want to give them any more reason to kill her after all, and Sasori was definitely the impatient type, judging by the few sentences he'd spoken in her presence. Because of course Sasori was coming.

Who came up with Milky Monkey Munch and Gassy Goose anyway? Did they pay someone to do it? Were they high? Yori thought hysterically, trying to distract herself from her impending doom.

It wasn't working.

"Yori-chan!" called out Komushi's voice, and Yori was ready to strangle him. His voice was giving her PTSD, and it had only been a few days!

Straightening out her plain brown attire, complete with a plain brown head covering to protect her brain from the sun (although the usefulness of this stupid endeavour was debatable, considering she wasn't sure how much of a brain she possessed), Yori breathed a deep breath and turned to face her…whatever Komushi was to her.

Wallet? Taste bud Tantaliser? Grim Reaper? The Easter Bunny?

All musings were completely knocked out of her head (although the Easter Bunny theory was something I think we'd all like to see developed further) at the latest sighting of Akasuna no Sasori.

Yup, she was going to die.

She hadn't even said anything and he looked ready to kill the next person that so much as breathed too loudly.

Yori didn't stand a chance.

I guess I'm going to see Mama Haruka sooner than I thought…

"Good afternoon Yori-chan! I told you to wear somethin' pretty but yer wearing the same as usual! I'm disappointed!" Komushi went through six facial expressions before he settled into a cheerful sulk.

No, Yori didn't know how that worked either.

Sasori didn't even so much as glance at her.

He looked at Komushi in mild irritation. "You told me I wouldn't regret this." He paused. "I'm regretting it."

Komushi came out of his odd mood so quickly that Yori decided then and there that he wasn't really a human; he was just really good at pretending.

"No, wait! We haven' even really begun! At least stay till the main course is over!" he cried, a hairsbreadth away from latching onto Sasori's arm.

"The appetiser." said Sasori, and Yori would later learn that this was a compromise.

Komushi nodded with a pout before grabbing Yori's hand and leading (read: dragging) her into a spacious room decorated with picture frames of cows and monkeys.

Completely independent of each other, both Yori and Sasori took one look at the décor and glared at Komushi's back, simultaneously thinking, why do I even associate myself with this idiot?

"Let's go! Our table's that way!" he said cheerfully, the two others reluctantly following him to table number 5.

The table was large enough for six people, so obviously Komushi decided to seat Yori and Sasori directly across from each other while seating himself two chairs apart.

Every time she fidgeted, her leg brushed against Sasori's (Did the tables have to be so narrow?! Neither of us are very tall, and even then our legs—he's going to killme—), every time she glanced up, her scared blue eyes met his disinterested brown-grey, every time she looked away, he seemed to not care one way or the other.

The seconds ticked by, and then a waiter came up to them. He handed them the menu, and Yori had to give him props for only eyeing the seating arrangement weirdly and not asking questions.

Sasori flicked through the menu before letting his eyes wander in boredom—he never bothered with such fancy places, but Komushi was a dunce and it couldn't be helped.

Also, this entire thing reeked of Chiyo-baa-san's meddling, but Sasori was certain that pointing out that he knew would make no difference, so he silently let Komushi think his 'subtle' manipulation was working.

As it stood, he just didn't care.

His eyes wandered to the child sitting in front of him. Because yes, she was a child, no matter how much Komushi assured him she was the same age as Sasori.

Her eyes were baby blue and innocent, her mouth was small and her cheeks were chubby, and her sense of fashion was decidedly not aesthetically pleasing.

In short, not worth wasting breath over to have a conversation with.

Sasori passively noted that she looked baffled by the menu in front of her, and he idly wondered whether it was the prices that had her flabbergasted, or the absence of anything sensibly named on the list of delicacies.

Then he just decided that he didn't really care either way.

His half-lidded eyes lazily moved to Komushi and Sasori was mildly amused at his only friend's attempts at covertly spying on their reactions.

Sasori's eyes drifted back to the girl as she shifted the position of her hand on the menu, and his eyes stayed stuck there.

Her hands were really delicate looking, but even at her age, they were dry and cracked—washerwoman hands. Overexposure to harsh chemicals used for cleaning.

His eyes now catalogued the rest of her features, and noted that there were faint crowfeet near her eyes and imperceptible wrinkles on her forehead; her high cheekbones were also noted with the same concentration, along with her long eyelashes and small nose; the swell of her breasts and the curve of her waist were also noted, perhaps with a touch more indulgence than the rest of the features.

Sasori, against his better judgement, began to see Yori.

Kami-sama save the poor girl.

If only she'd invested in that moisturiser sooner, instead of for seeds to grow her own cocoa beans…

But she missed chocolate…