The fountain of youth can be found in many places; sometimes, it just takes a journey.
.:|:.
Maito Gai woke up, a giant grin spreading over his face like that of the sun over its wonderful world.
Yes, Maito Gai lived in a wonderful world.
He had three, talented students, one of which he was especially proud of, one of whom had adopted his ways nearly to the dot. It was touching, really. Yes, it was.
Sure, one had an unhealthy preference to weapons over normal 'Flower of Konoha' stuff...
And, sure, one lacked so much youth power, he was like a sucking black hole, draining away at the power imbued into his person and his little Green Beast; that demanded they always kick their sometimes seen as insane unorthrodox antics up a notch.
Back to the world and its wonder.
He had a steady, strong string of contests going with the renowned Copy Ninja.
Let's not brag now, but...
Gai was kicking Kakashi's butt winning.
Gai had shinier hair than Kakashi.
Gai obviously got the looks of the two. Heck yeah.
So, this in mind, Gai hopped (literally) out of bed and did a little happy stretch. Soon, he was on the path to success; actually, he was just doing a hundred around Konoha, as usual, but...close enough.
.:|:.
"MY YOUTHFUL STUDENTS!!" blared through the training grounds designated for Team Gai specifically.
There were many tones and volumes of replies.
"Good morning, Gai-sensei!" A cheerful reply.
"GAI-SENSEI!!!" A deafening reply with eye sparkle action.
"Gai-sensei." The most lifeless reply you'll ever hear.
"I can feel it! Today is the day our youth will EXPLODE!!"
Neji's 'That's what he said yesterday' speech got drowned out by Lee's 'YOSH, GAI-SENSEI!!' You know, with waterfalls crashing and seagulls providing background music. It continued on much like this for ages it seemed to Neji, Tenten watching with a complacent smile that which one would offer to a familiar, adorable family member.
Suddenly, all the jovial celebrating of the joyful-to-be day was stopped as Neji's keen eyes focused on one hair out of place. Literally, one hair out of place.
"Gai-sensei, is that a gray hair?"
*jaw unhinges and falls to ground*
Neji! You inconsiderate jerk!
NO! It cannot be!
Tenten stared at Neji with a look in incredulity. She had expected Neji Hyuuga to be a genius and keep that perturbing comment to himself.
Lee looked shocked and did a double take, gaping openly at a single, shiny hair between black and white on his beloved, most revered sensei's bowl-shaped head.
Gai looked most surprised, and refused to believe it for himself. Neji was probably making another jab statement about his questionable sanity. Surely, he was! But, nonetheless, Gai was a shinobi, and as such, would not back down from even the most monstrous of monstrosities. Immediately, he gripped the handle of Tenten's favorite kodachi and slide the blade into the open; Tenten protested at the manhandling of her precious weapons, of course.
In the glassy, polished surface, he saw it.
"MY-MY-"
"Neji!" hissed Tenten, concern evident on her face at the apparent lack of motor and oral control Gai-sensei was displaying at the moment.
"What?"
Tenten just shook her head sadly, like Neji failed in something. That 'something' was called mercy.
Gai collasped onto the grass and dirt, clutching his head in agony.
"What have you done, Neji?!" shrieked Lee, absolute horror seen in his wide eyes.
"No, Neji is a true shinobi, not to deny what is fact, Lee. He is right. It is, indeed, a gray hair," Gai said weakly.
"Gai-sensei, it's not a big deal...really..." Tenten amended, scratching the back of her head.
It was lie. Hell, if she got a fricking gray hair, she would just die. But let's not tell Gai that.
"I have lost an immortal part of myself!"
"Gai-sensei, it's only hair." Psh. Like Neji's one to talk.
"Lee, it's up to you now to carry on the legacy of youth."
"Gai-sensei! You cannot give up!" Lee told him, eyes starting to tear.
"Yeah, we can just dye it or something," Tenten said helpfully.
"DYE IT?!! AND CHEAT DEATH ITSELF?!!" Gai exclaimed horrifically.
Tenten had no response for that, not sure what to say.
"Gai-sensei! I have an idea!" Lee blurted.
Neji and Tenten's eyes widened considerably.
Whenever Lee had an idea, people would get maimed, choose a life of nunnery or end up drinking spinach smoothies through a straw for the rest of their life.
"Neji. What. Have. You. Done." Tenten glared daggers at her teammate, and would not mind at all if she really could glare daggers.
"YES, LEE! THAT IS A BRILLIANT IDEA!! SO THE QUEST TO RETURN THE BLOSSOM OF YOUTH TO ITS FORMER GLORY BEGINS!!!"
Good job, Neji.
.:|:.
"Are we all equipped with the proper gear?" inquired Gai-sensei.
"YES!"
"Unfortunately," Neji grumbled.
Everyone had, strapped to their back, a far-too-small, childhood backpack. Lee had a singing squirrel emblazoned on his, incorrectly named Chad the Chipmunk. Tenten had a Tina the Tween Trailblazer backpack; it was purple. Neji carried, on his back, an acursed pink, Rapunzel backpack. The straps were too short and forced Neji into a vunerable, gorilla-like posture, arms held up in a strange angle.
"Initiate Youth Rebirthing Process!"
In awe-inspiring synchronization, they tore the backpacks off and unzipped them, unfolding the neat sheet inside and let it aflutter to the ground.
Within mere seconds, they were all sound asleep on their respective blankies. An afternoon nap on the carpet of Gai's apartment.
.:|:.
"Higher, Lee!" Gai commanded, soaring in the air, eyes glittering with vigor.
"Yes, Gai-sensei!" Lee replied obediently. Lee pushed Gai higher on the playground swing, until Gai was but a green blur horizontal to the ground.
Neji actually was a green blur on the merry-go-round. He. Was. Going. To. Fucking. Vomit.
Tenten chased small children back and forth, trying to coax them into returning her valued weapons back. Little brutes, pickpocketing from a highly-trained kunoichi. Oh, she'd show them.
The bolts of the swing were giving away, and, yet, Gai was still at it.
Until he broke the swing with a resounding slap of his butt on earth.
.:|:.
"Can anyone tell me the velocity of a windmill shuriken heading for a target sixty degrees and forty feet away from initial release point with the average chakra generated in a clone jutsu?" directed Iruka to his class of Academy students.
"Is that with or without wind interference?" asked Umeko, raising her hand.
"With."
A hand shot up.
"Yes?"
The chosen student began to regurgitate the complete and correct answer.
"Erm... Correct, Gai..." Iruka said, sweatdropping.
Lee beamed.
Neji wanted to slam his head repeatedly into the wooden desks.
Tenten patted Neji on the back sympathetically.
.:|:.
"Go, Lee, go!" Tenten cheered, fist in the air zealously.
Neji wanted to melt into the ground.
"Yeah, Gai-sensei, ride 'em!" Tenten continued to shout.
Neji wanted to rip off Tenten's lips and dump them into a doll shop.
Then, it was over.
Neji thanked Fate over and over again.
"Neji, you want to ride her?" Lee asked, blinking smilingly.
Neji cursed Fate over and over again.
"No, I do not wish to indulge in cheap, plastic, animatronic pony rides before a KonohaMart."
"That's what's great about it, Neji!" Tenten enthused. "It's only twenty-five cents!"
Bullshit. She only wanted to see the Hyuuga genius humilated on a stupid, pink pony ride.
"NO."
Five seconds later, Neji was sitting on the worn gray saddle of the crummy machine, staring straight in front of him with a glazed look. A lethargic look.
Tenten was cracking up behind the scenes. She she needed to 'get something'. Once again, bullshit.
She came back, wet with happy tears, cheeks flushed from laughing 'getting something'.
Thank Fate it stopped. Neji got off slowly, just barely managing to refrain from giving the grinning, unnaturally colored horse a good whack.
"I see you have nothing in your hands," Neji hissed. Two pairs of eyes were directed at the kunoichi's empty hands.
She grinned.
xD Neji on a pink pony ride. Sexy. *bursts out in fit of laughter*
Chad the Chipmunk. We luff you, Rockie!!
Neji=Rapunzel. You're so cruel. xD
"Oh my! Look, Neji, look! A sale on canned items!" Tenten squealed, eyes dancing with a hungry flame. She pointed down one of the aisles of KonohaMart.
No, it hadn't just ended there on the heinously atrocious ride in front of the store, but rather extended inside the sinful grocer's territory.
Tenten dashed off in the direction of her treasure. Her meal for the next week. Lee and Gai had ditched him earlier on, having spotted an amiable employee they could harass speak with in polite conversation.
"NEJI!" Tenten nearly screamed; she came up with something silver, something resembling-
"A can-opener?" Neji asked skeptically.
Tenten looked hurt. "It's not just a 'can-opener'. It's a triple-deluxe-silver-edition can-opener with quad-swivel action!"
Neji cocked one of his graceful brows.
"Quad-swivel action, Neji! Quad!"
"Don't you already have a can-opener?" The one he gave her for her birthday.
"I lost it."Neji had to admit he was kind of shot down.
"We're getting this." She threw it into the metal shopping cart.
"NEJI!!!" a pair of green-spandex-donned men guys boys children kids weirdos shouted, footsteps pounding on the waxed floor as they sped towards him with armloads of food.
"No, we're not getting that," Neji scolded. "It'll rot your teeth."
"Aww..." Lee groaned, dropping the head-sized, rainbow lolipop. Either way, Gai unloaded a vast selection of power shakes into the cart and cups of yogurt with strawberry chunks and sprinkles.
At the checkout, Neji, Tenten and Lee helped place Team Gai's groceries onto the conveyor belt. Gai stepped forward, producing his dark brown wallet from his flak vest.
"Hmm... That's strange," Gai noted, shaking his wallet upside down. Tenten and Lee looked up, blinking, not yet registering what was going on; Neji inwardly groaned and hoped that Gai-sensei was not about to say-
"I seem to have spent all my money on the pony ride."
"Neji?" they asked, turning to him with something of a puppy look.
"NO."
"I can't believe you guys swindled me out of my money," Neji muttered later, carrying a bag of groceries in each hand.
.:|:.
"Welcome to Chunky Cheddar's," greeted an overweight, underpaid middle-aged man in monotone. He was dressed in poor, clashing orange and green uniform of the popular arcade where small children liked to congregate on the weekends.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa there, buddy. How old are you?" asked the employee to Gai, blinking innocently still. Gai wordlessly took two pink hairties and made two, odd pigtails in his short, black hair.
"Ten," came the answer in a sickeningly high-pitched voice.
"Oh, ok." He let Gai in.
Neji wondered again why he let himself get dragged into this.
"What about you, boy?"
"Ten!" answered Lee, after Gai's example.
"Go on in. What about you?" he asked Neji.
"Thirteen," he said blankly.
"Sorry, kid, too old. The limit is eleven."
"He means we're both eleven!" Tenten blurted.
The meet-and-greet man stared after them. What, were they giving kids growth hormones now?
"I hate you, Tenten."
"Aww, I love you too, Neji."
"Over here, Neji, Tenten!" Lee cried, waving his arms enthusiastically at the front counter.
Gai seemed to have miraculously produced a twenty from his wallet in exhange for tokens.
Two minutes later, each of them were wearing an inexpensive, paper mouse hat. Neji couldn't get the eleven-year-old-head-sized cap to fit on his large-ego-enhanced-genius-thirteen-year-old head. Besides, he didn't want to mess up his hair.
But somehow Gai forced him into it, first saying it was for the good of his draining youth to see his student exhibit good humor and physically painfully slapping it on his silky head of hair as Tenten stared on in amusement.
Tenten couldn't fit the hat on her head because her hairbuns were in the way, and Neji got a painful smack for insinuating that she had no need for a mousey hat when she already had a mousey appearance.
They ate a greasy pizza. Spent all their tokens. Bought more. Spent them again. It would've gone on in a never-ending cycle, or at least until Gai ran out of money, but then came a green-and-orange-clad savior.
"Hi there, kids!"
Neji narrowed his eyes. Him? A kid? Must be blind or something.
"CHUNKY CHEDDAR!!!" squealed Lee and Gai girlishly in a manly tone.
Tenten stared mutely as a sad excuse for a rodent came trodding up in a gray costume.
"Let's take a picture together!" chuckled Chunky Cheddar.
"Yes! Let us! Capture the memories forever!" Gai wept.
Oh, this time, this time, Neji was not giving in.
"Come on in, kid!" Chunky Cheddar said cheerfully.
"No."
"Aww, c'mon, Neji," encouraged Tenten and Lee.
"NO."
"Neji-"
"No. I blatantly refuse to partake in this photographic activity."
Tenten sighed, shaking her head. Neji talked like a frigging robot.
"Neji, it's just one. Just to remember, ya know?" Tenten said.
"Yeah! I'm not gonna hurt ya! Get in here, kid!" Chunky Cheddar insisted with that solid grin on the bulbous rat head.
"I wouldn't do it for my life. Not with a greasy, balding, middle-aged man in a dull, flimsy, embarrassing suit meant to entertain the dim-witted children of this facility. Am I to assume you only accepted this minimum-wage job because you're that desparate?"
Chunky Cheddar went still, then limp, then stumbled away in tears.
"Geez, he's got a mouth on him, that one," said a couple of parents, pulling their daughters along by the wrists from the scene Neji manifested.
"Neji!" Tenten snapped.
"What?"
"It was just one picture! You didn't have unleash a violent tirade on him!"
"I was merely pointing out the facts."
"Well, those were the cruelest facts I've ever heard!"
"So Fate occassionally dictates cruel facts."
I hope Naruto beats the snot out of you, Tenten thought.
T-T
Since Neji got the previous Chunky Cheddar mascot to quit, another had to take his place.
"Hi there, kids! Let's take a picture together!" rambled the squeaky Chunky Cheddar.
"YOSH! Tenten, take the picture!" Lee exclaimed, tossing the disposable camera into her hands.
"Ok." Tenten motioned for Neji to get in, since he was still standing next to her like a statue.
"No."
"Neji," she sighed. "Remember what happened last time?"
"...Fine." Neji walked up and stood four feet away from the green and and orange company.
"Neji," Tenten began, peering through the eyeglass and back up. "Could you scoot in a little closer? You don't show."
Neji scooted a couple inches in.
"Closer."
More inches.
"Closer."
More inches.
"Neji, almost there. I got half of you right now..."
More inches.
"Perfect!"
flash
Neji's pearly eyes burned.
flash
I thought it was only one, thought Neji, still dazed.
"ARGGH!!"
flash
In the last picture, Gai and Lee had Chunky Cheddar and Neji in a deathhold.
The picture turned out perfect.
.:|:.
It was times like these that Neji hated the fact that Tenten had a hundred percent accuracy.
The beanbag flew in and out of Tenten's calloused hands as she stuck out her tongue in mock concentration. She aimed at the bull's eye next to the tub of dirty water, where Neji hung precariously on a sticky, wet chair.
A Dunk Tub.
Gai and Lee had wandered away somewhere to acquire some cotton candy; they were in a carnival, after all. The hot, melting sun burned at Neji's pale skin. The stupid bugs swarming around the scummy water below irritated him.
And he wondered again why he let himself get dragged into this.
Tenten threw.
Neji dropped.
Tenten got a big teddy bear.
Neji got a luxurious dip in brown water. (Let's not ask why it's brown.)
Tenten peered over the tub's edge, into the water that Neji fell in. Neji didn't even bother expending effort to get out. He just floated calmy to the surface, and said-
"I taste diaper."
*rolling on the ground in mirth*
"What a beautiful view..." breathed Tenten, staring over all of Konoha below.
"Tenten, we're stuck at the top of a ferris wheel. And we've been stuck on the top of a ferris wheel for two hours."
"I know," she said.
"Look, Gai-sensei!" Lee cried. "I can see my house from here!"
"Yes, Lee! Me too!"
"Look! And there's the Hokage's office!"
"Look! The dumpling stand!"
"There's Naruto at Ichiraku!"
"The Hokage monument!"
"Look! There's Tenten's favorite restaurant!"
"The Hyuuga complex! Look, Neji, look!"
"I can see it. I can see everything," Neji reminded them tonelessly.
Neji sighed, wondering how long this torture was going to take. Tenten already found a means of blocking the noisy world out; she was polishing her set of weapons again. Neji sat down, propping his head on his hand, eyes staring dully at the metal floor, littered with gum wrappers and boogery tissues.
.:|:.
"Tonight we'll sing karoke!!" Gai announced. Lee jumped with happiness. Tenten looked pained; singing was not her thing.
It had been of week of using this 'youth recovery program'. Didn't work. Gai still had a gray hair.
Neji was exasperated and abused in too many different ways, ways he never dreamed of, and certainly didn't want to sing.
"Gai-sensei," Neji said. "It's no use. You still have a gray hair."
"NEJI!" Lee and Tenten gasped, alarmed.
Gai's eyes began to water.
Sure, Neji felt a little guilty, but he'd had enough.
"Neji's...right. He always is..." Gai blubbered. "My youth has gone..."
And Gai forlornly trudged down the street, his team watching with pity. Except Lee was bawling.
*weeps with Rockie*
Gai was still a man. Maybe not a man of youth explosion, but still a man. He had to throw in the towel and admit to Kakashi that he just didn't have it in him to continue their high-spirited competition.
It would take guts.
Kakashi opened his apartment door. "Gai?" Kakashi was surprised. Gai was sagging and looked like a vunerable, little seal.
"Kakashi, I came here to request an honorable discharge from our rivalry."
"WHAT?" Kakashi never, in all his years, thought he would hear those words out of his mouth. Usually it was some type of nonsense that came dribbling out, not...logic...
"I-I-I-" Gai stuttered, turning away dramatically.
"Some incurable illness, Gai?"
"I HAVE A GRAY HAIR, KAKASHI!! GRAY!! MY YOUTH HAS FLED, AND I REMAIN AN EMPTY HUSK!!!"
"So?" Kakashi said, raising a silver brow.
Gai stared, and pointed. "KAKASHI! YOU HAVE GRAY HAIR!" Gai gaped.
"Do I now?" Kakashi asked in his usual calm tone. Yes, Kakashi does, indeed, have a fat cowlick of gray hair.
"That-that means!" Gai suddenly began to laugh, and laugh, and laugh, and Kakashi didn't get it.
"Gai, are you alright?"
"Of course, Kakashi! Those flourishing in the springtime of youth are always alright! I get it now... We must have been spending so much time together that we've rubbed off on each other!"
Kakashi still didn't get it.
"Ahh, I look forward to seeing you adopt my awesome hairstyle soon, Kakashi. Farewell." And Gai trotted off, the lively skip back in this step.
Kakashi sweatdropped.
He'd rather go bald.
A bald Kakashi, comical.
Ahh, all is well again.
Yay! Youth has returned! ^O^
Naruto squinted at his sensei.
"Kakashi-sensei? Is that a white hair?"
O.O
I'm sorry! I know it sucked! It's just begging for a revision!
They were OOC (out of character). I wouldn't be surprised if all the Naruto writers out there charbroiled me to a gizillion pieces. You know, weed out the low-quality writers before I do to too much damage.
>.< '
Feedback would be appreciated, but not necessary.
Muffins, muffins loves. *hands out green-spandex-adorned muffins*
