#nejicho

“Super happy! Sakura handed my ass to me in trainingyesterday, gave me a concussion and everything!”

He blinked, frowned and then blinked again. “And that’s… agood thing?”

The blond chuckled, awkwardly rubbing his neck. “Well notthe getting injured bit, that hurt,but after she healed me she got really panicky – even though I’m fine! – andforbade me from training and missions for at least three days, doctors’ ordersso Kakashi-sensei can’t complain.” Suddenly an arm was draped across hisshoulders, pulling him into Naruto’s side. “Sooo, I figured that since I’ve gotthe day off anyway I should spend it having some fun, so whaddya say, wannahang out? All day, just you and me?”

His warm, friendly grin was as inviting as always and helooked so genuinely excited at the prospect, even waggling his eyebrows at him,which made what Chouji had to say next all the more difficult.

“Sorry Naruto, I’ve got stuff to take care of today-” blueeyes started to look far too watery for his liking, so he rushed to comfort him“-but we should totally do something soon! Maybe get lunch tomorrow?”

The grin was instantly back on his face. “Really?”

Chouji smiled and clapped a hand on his shoulder as hedisentangled himself and started walking backwards down the street.“Definitely,” he called out as the distance between them grew wider, “we shouldinvite Ino and Shikamaru too! And your team, let’s get everyone together!”

Whatever Naruto’s reply was, it got lost to the breeze asChouji jogged into town to make up lost time. He was already looking forwardsto tomorrow, it was always nice to hang out with friends.

---

When he got there, the market crowds were at the perfectdensity; not so tightly packed that you couldn’t move without touching sevenother people, but not so empty as to feel vaguely creepy. He always lovedcoming here on days like these, just to take the time to casually browse thestores, maybe pick out things to tell his friends and family about the nexttime he saw them, but today he had a packed schedule, so he headed to the foodstalls with determined steps.

The shopkeeper called a greeting the second he steppedinside, as he always did for his regular customers, before ducking into thestore-room with the promise of returning with some produce he’d kept backespecially for him.

As he waited for the elderly man to return, Chouji glancedaround the shop, planning to pick up a few vegetables, when he noticed afamiliar head of dark hair.

“Hinata!” he said cheerfully, as he stepped up beside her,apparently catching her off guard with how high he jumped. “Sorry, didn’t meanto scare you, how are you doing?”

She quickly caught her breath, though it took her a fewmoments to stop staring at him with wide eyes. “O-oh, I’m fine, thank you,” shesaid, stumbling over her words until she dropped her head to focus on herfingers twisting along the handles of her shopping basket, “how are you?”

“I’m great thanks, you out doing a little shopping?” heasked, more to give her a gentle opening to a real conversation than out of anyactual doubt.

Her long, straight hair bobbed up and down with her slightnod, before she nervously glanced up at him from under her fringe. “A-a-a-” herlips pulled into a thin line at the word stubbornly sticking in her throat, buthe just smiled encouragingly and waited for her to collect herself; she hatedwhen people tried to guess what she wanted to say. “…You also?”

He grinned at her, turning to look through the displays,picking up onions and giving them a critical inspection “Yup, Ino and Shikamaruare coming over for dinner and I feel like making something I’ve never triedbefore, Karui sent me some Kumo recipes I’ve been itching to try out!”

She smiled softly at him, though didn’t make eye contact.“That sounds lovely.”

“If there’s any leftovers I’ll remember to bring you sometomorrow so you can try it out too,” he said, finally deciding which was themost delicious-looking vegetable. He handed it to his friend and took thesecond-best one for himself.

Neck snapping, she turned to him with wide eyes and wavinghands. “O-o-oh, n-no, that’s n-ot, n-n-n-”

“It’s no problem, I’m happy to share!” The creak of a dooropening drew his attention back to the grocer trundling back in with a cratepacked full of bright greens and reds and yellows, he gave the man a thumbs-upbefore turning back to Hinata, ready to quickly say their goodbyes when henoticed something off. Leaning down to get a better look at her face, hefrowned. “You’re looking a little red, are you feeling ok?”

“I-I-I-”

He pressed a hand to her burning forehead. “It’s pretty hottoday, maybe you should sit down for a while-”

“I will be fine thank you!” Having practically screamed inhis face, she stiffly turned around, flew to the checkout counter, dropped ahandful of coins and ran out of the store before Chouji could even think tostop her.

Walking over to the shopkeeper, he gave him a sheepish grin.“Sorry, I think the weather must be getting to her.”

The man shook his head, idly poking at the coins on thecounter. “Well, next time you see her tell her she’s got over five-hundred ryōin change waiting for her.”

---

Finished with the markets and all his shopping carefullypacked away in a sealing scroll, his next destination was the academy.

He’d only recently taken up teaching and he was still alittle overwhelmed by it at times, but he had to admit that he loved hisoccasional guest lessons, they were a good way to get in some practice dealingwith children before he got a genin team of his own one day; the most importantlesson he’d learned thus far being neverlet sticky-fingered kids chewing bubble gum play with his hair, no matter howbig and watery they could make their eyes go.

His head felt so naked with it cut short.

“Ah, Akimichi-sensei,” the receptionist said as he steppedthrough the academy doors, “your lesson starts in fifteen minutes, your TA isalready in classroom five-B waiting for you.”

He frowned, he was getting a teaching assistant? Since when?Walking the familiar halls, feet knowing the exact path to take even withouthis mind’s input. By the time he gingerly peaked through the door, he’d cookedup at least seven awful scenarios in his head, but they all flew out the windowonce he saw who it was in there.

“Neji?”

The other man started and turned to face him, giving one ofhis slight smiles when he saw him. “Hello Chouji, I was beginning to wonder ifyou were coming.”

“I try not to get here too early,” he said, walking fullyinto the room and marching over to the huge blackboard covering one wall, “lesstime to get anxious, y’know? What are you doing here anyway, when thereceptionist said there would be a TA, I kinda figured it would be someone toevaluate me or something…” He trailed off at a sudden horrible thought. “That’snot why you’re here, is it?”

Neji shook his head, observing closely as he started writingthe lesson-plan up on the board. “Nothing like that, it was just… suggested tome that I should take up teaching. To improve my people skills.”

He frowned, pausing his scribbling long enough to look overhis shoulder. “Suggested?”

“Tenten’s idea-” the man grimaced “-the busybody found outthat you were giving classes and thought it would be a good opportunity for me.”

Finishing off his sentence, Chouji nodded and grinned wideas he replied, “That’s awesome! It’s definitely a learning experience, but Ibet you’ll be great at it once you’ve spent some time with the kids, though I reallydon’t see how you’re bad at talking to people, you’re always so nice when wemeet up.”

“…I need to… find… someone, please excuse me.” Neji was outof the door before he’d even finished his sentence.

---

His class went well, even though his new assistant had spentmost of it standing in the furthest corner of the room staring at the walls.

Chouji never would’ve guessed the guy got stage-fright sobad.

The next port of call was the Hokage tower, where he wasexpected to assist with some new international treaties being worked out.Politics wasn’t exactly his area of expertise, but he’d made many friendsduring the war, from all over the five nations; at some point he’d become avaluable advisor to the Hokage, as he could offer insight into the way the commonfolk of other nations thought and how they might be affected by big policy changes.

He hadn’t been expecting to bump into the Kazekage and hissiblings on their way out.

Temari was the first to see him, waving and jogging over. “Heythere stranger, it’s been too long!” she said, grinning and giving him a tighthug.

“It has,” he agreed, returning the embrace before pullingback to smile at the two men wandering over, “what’re you guys doing here? Ihadn’t heard of any big diplomatic summits coming up.”

The younger brother nodded, giving him that same intensestare he always gave his closest friends – it was a little weird, but once he’dbeen assured that it was just him trying to be friendly in his own awkward wayhe’d found the attention mush easier to bear. “There aren’t, this is aninformal visit, to catch up with friends. Like you.”

He smiled, hiding a tiny blush beneath his hand. “Aww, that’snice of you to say, you must have a lot of people you want to see.”

Gaara’s stare didn’t waver in the slightest. “I suppose.”

A heavy hand clapped down onto his shoulder, Temari shookhim lightly. “Who’s got time for those other losers? You’re the best bit ofKonoha, everyone knows that!”

Several steps behind his siblings, Kankuro slapped a hand tohis face.

He laughed, nudging the tall blonde back. “You’re too kind.”

“No, she is correct, any time spent with you is a true pleasure,”Gaara said, face blank but voice earnest and as happy-sounding as he ever got.

Temari glared at him, her grip on Chouji’s shouldertightening slightly. “Yes, which is why I said it. First.”

In the background, Kankuro groaned.

The Kazekage sniffed, drawing himself up as high as he could– which wasn’t much, but he was trying his best. “Why don’t you go and trackdown Shikamaru, oneesan? I’m sure he’dlove to see you again.”

Nails were digging through his shirt. “Why don’t you go andfind Naruto, otouto?”

Kankuro had an expression of pure despair. “Guys, please,just stop.”

“Because Chouji is here now and I would like to spend timewith him.” Gaara’s glare was deadly enough to make him start to worry, just a little.

“And you think I don’t?”

“I swear to-”

“No,” the redhead said, cutting off his brother and steppingcloser to glare up at his big sister, “I think that you monopolise his timeevery time we come here, oneesan and would like the opportunity to spend timewith my friends too.”

He risked a nervous cough, but no one seemed to notice. Was shestarting to break skin with her tight grip?

Temari scoffed, finally retracting her arm to cross themover her chest, leaning down to stare her little brother dead in the eye. “Areyou gonna stop me?”

Chouji coughed again, holding up a hand and weakly saying, “Excuseme,” but it made little-to-no impact.

“If you two don’t stop I’m disowning the pair of you.”Kankuro’s input went unnoticed too.

“No, because I am a good brother, who wouldn’t jeopardise mysiblings’ relationships for personal gain.”

The cold fury in Temari’s grin sent a chill down his spine. “Youlittle-”

“Oookay!” Chouji shouted, quickly sidestepping the argumentand pointing intently at the tower. “I’ve got a meeting to get to, it was, uh… funseeing you guys again!”

Kankuro’s loud cackle followed him, ever after the doorsslammed shut behind him.

He snickered to himself as he rushed to the meeting he wasprobably now late for; weird as they were, he was fond of the three and their intense,but ultimately affectionate bickering. It must be nice to have siblings.

---

It had been a long day for Chouji and it would be longer stillby the time he’d gotten home and prepared dinner for his teammates.

He decided to take a detour through the nearby park anyway,he’d always liked seeing the flowers.

They looked especially beautiful the evening, turned shadesof gold and red under the setting sun, a lone bee still roaming even with nightrapidly falling. And it was pleasantly quiet, most people home with theirfamilies by now – he felt like he had the entire park to himself.

A sharp crack to his left caught his attention, he turnedcautiously, but wasn’t expecting an actual enemy attack, not in the middle ofthe village.

When he saw who it was lurking in the shadows, he completelyrelaxed and waved a greeting. “Sasuke, how are you?”

The man muttered something under his breath, but he didn’tlook distressed, so Chouji decided that he was probably fine. “You out for a walk to?” he asked, slowly restartinghis walk, as his friend matched his pace. “It’s a lovely evening for it.”

“Yeah.”

Ok then, Sasuke didn’t feel like talking today – not surprising,he rarely did – but that was fine with him, it was just as nice to have someoneto quietly wander through the park with sometimes.

They walked together slowly, Chouji humming a song that hadbeen stuck in his head recently, his friend zigzagging as they followed thewinding paths, sometimes drifting close enough that their swinging arms couldalmost touch, before rapidly veering away until they could easily be mistaken fortwo strangers who just happened to be walking in the same direction. He alwaysended up closing the distance again after a few minutes though.

As the sky was beginning to turn purple above them, Choujisuddenly frowned and slowed to a halt, Sasuke following his lead a few steps later.

He stared back at him with a question in his dark eyes.

“Wait, isn’t your place back over that way?” Chouji said,pointing at when the path had branched in two directions several feet ago.

Sasuke looked a little surprised, though whether it was atChouji’s knowledge of where he lived or himself forgetting was unclear. “…Yeah.”

He smiled and started walking again, giving his friend ashort wave as he passed, saying, “Well, guess this is where we split up then,it was nice seeing you, hope you have a good evening!” before he finally turnedaway to rush to his own home; he’d spent a lot of the day dallying, now he hadto rush home and get ready to see his best friends!

---

“Damn, that was delicious, Karui really knows her food, huh?”

Ino scoffed, flipping her long hair dramatically inShikamaru’s face. “Of course she does, any girlfriend of mine must have impeccable taste.”

He grinned at his two friends childishly swatting at eachother as he gathered up the dishes and depositing them in the sink. He leftthem to soak in some hot water – Ino had drawn washing-up duty tonight andShikamaru would be in charge of drying and putting away – before returning tothe table and flopping back down in his chair, taking a long sip of his tea.

“Long day?” Shikamaru asked, finally disentangling himselffrom Ino’s long, crushing arms.

Chouji nodded. “Yup, though it’s weird, I ran into loads offriends today, but everyone was acting kinda… strange.”

Ino cocked a fine brow, asking, “Strange how?”

“All sorts of ways, Naruto wanted to hang out even though hewas injured, Hinata looked really feverish, Neji was all nervous about observingmy class, Temari and Gaara were bickering and Sasuke was being all spacy,” hesaid, shrugging his shoulders as he thought about it harder, “maybe the hotweather we’ve been having is just getting to people.”

There was a long, heavy silence, prompting him to glance upat his friends. They were sharing an unreadable look, identical crooked smirks ontheir faces as they rolled their eyes in perfect unison.

“Wait, do you two know something? Seriously- why are youlaughing, what’s so funny, is this some prank I’m not in on? Guys-”