Birthday Disaster

Chapter 5

"Stupid dobe." Sasuke muttered. He had been staring at the entrance of Konoha for a couple of minutes ignoring the conversation that Lee was trying to have with him.

"Huh? What does that have to do with the youthfulness of this day?" Lee asked. "What has our youthful friend been doing for the last week?"

"He had a party." Sasuke muttered off hand, when would Lee realize he didn't want to talk to him?

"Naruto's birthday party right?" Sasuke looked up and stared at the tights clad ninja. "It was too bad I got called on that last minute mission with Neji and Hinata. It looked to be a great show of youthfulness!"

How in world did this spandex wearing, over eyebrow-ed, chakra-less...loser know about Naruto's birthday? All that the stupid invitation card had said was there was a party, not what it was for. So how? How could he have known? When Sasuke heard his name called he bit out a response. "Don't know. I didn't go."

"Oh. Well then Sakura-chan must have went! My angel of the flowers is blossoming with youth and had to of gone to spread the joy by celebrating with Naruto." Lee exclaimed. When Sasuke looked at him and shook his head Lee began to frown. "Kiba? Chouji? Shikamaru?" As each name was called and a simple shake of the head no Lee's frown got deeper. "Didn't anybody go? I would have thought you would have at least gone Sasuke-kun."

"Don't you get it? No one went!" Sasuke snapped. Honestly with the way people were carrying on it was his fault that Naruto's birthday party was a failure. "All the adults that would have remembered were gone! Ino threw a kyuubi party and everyone went!"

"Even you?" Lee asked.

"Yes!" Sasuke threw his hands up in the air.

"Poor Naruto." Lee looked back up at Sasuke with an almost pleading face. "You at least got him a gift right?"

Sasuke didn't even give that a response. Instead he turned around leaving a confused and somewhat disappointed Lee. "Don't you have to report in?"

"Ah!" Lee shouted. "I forgot! In this conversation of unyouthfulness I neglected my duties. I'll talk to you later Sasuke."

What was it with the dobe and making the most obnoxious friends possible? Sasuke sighed, heading back to the Uchiha compound. "So what am I going to do now?" It was a normal occurrence that when team 7 had down time he and Naruto would be off training, fighting, eating ramen or a combination of the three. Sasuke during this time would pray that he would have some quiet time away from the blonde idiot. Now he just wanted the eyesore back. "He hasn't even been gone thirty minutes yet." Sasuke muttered to himself. "I'll just have to keep myself busy. This is the perfect time to learn practice that new jutsu I read about I just need to practice it out on-" Sasuke stopped and considered what he was saying. The jutsu was a strong one and one that he had modified to work especially against Naruto. He couldn't practice a jutsu for Naruto if said dobe wasn't there to practice with. Shit. Sasuke entered the compound and looked around. When had his life become so centered around Naruto that a little time away from him affected his whole life? Sasuke sighed. "I guess I can fix up the compound."

"I don't understand what the big deal is. It was just a stupid last minute party" Sakura picked up her drink and took a sip from the straw. "Naruto really should get over it."

Ino frowned at her friend. "Sakura it was his birthday and it was clear he had planned it for months in advance! You should have gone!"

Sakura looked over at her blonde friend. If you really could call them friends. All right so they hung out together and told each other their problems when it didn't have anything to do with Sasuke-kun. It was more like Sakura was using Ino so that she wouldn't be such a loser. "What about you? You knew about his party and still had your own."

"My situation is different from yours Sakura. You're his teammate and that is put above your popularity standing. I have been planning my party for about six months and my parents wouldn't let me cancel at the last minute. I tried to have everything changed around but nothing could be changed. I still got him a present though it won't go into affect until today. Two whole month's of all you can eat ramen at Ichiraku's." Ino exclaimed happily at this. It had taken her about five missions to cover the cost but it had been worth it. She had gone to Naruto's apartment to ask him to Ichiraku's when she had found out that Naruto had a mission. "You should have gone."

"You're just saying that because you wanted Sasuke all to yourself." Sakura snapped. Pushing her drink aside she stood up. "I'm not going to stay here and be told I was wrong for such a silly reason. Goodbye Ino-pig."

"You're going to have to wake up and face the reality!" Ino shouted out to Sakura's backside. Sighing Ino turned back to her own drink and barely looked up when a familiar presence sat down next to her. "You heard?"

"As troublesome as it was, yes." Shikamaru sighed.

"She's just going to have to face the reality that Naruto-kun means more to Sasuke-kun than she does." Ino commented. "Sakura's just making matters worse by making Naruto-kun out to be nothing worth caring over."

"One thing is for certain this is going to become very ugly." Shikamaru turned to face the blonde. "I guess I had better go back to the office and inform Lady Tsunade what papers and missions I accepted during my replacement duties."

"Why she chose you to be the stand in Hokage I will never understand." Ino laughed. "Naruto-kun will never let her get away with this. After all it is his dream to become Hokage."

"It's all very troublesome." Shikamaru waved and walked out of the small drink stall his mind full of the information he had picked up from the earlier conversation. From what he understood Sakura and Sasuke had not known about Naruto's birthday. On Sasuke's part it was a little understandable since he had been a missing nin up until last year to only be put under house arrest with no outside contact. His mail was still being searched and he had anbu that practically had their own room at the Uchiha compound he was watched so closely. Sakura on the other hand had no excuse and Shikamaru had a feeling she was going to have that pointed out to her on a silver platter later on today when she went to Lady Tsunade for medical training.

Sakura entered the medical training facility located near the hospital trying to fix her hair. Stupid Ino-pig had made her slightly late which had made her run causing her hair to mess up. "I'm sorry I'm late Lady Tsunade but Ino wanted to meet with me before her shift started at the flower shop."

"Sakura what is the basics of being a good medical ninja?" Tsunade asked calmly.

"Being able to help those that are injured while not getting in the way or injured in the process." Sakura quickly recited. What was Tsunade getting at? This was something you would ask a beginning medical ninja student, not her! She had already progressed beyond the beginner level unlike Ino-pig. This question was one of her level.

"Yes that is the standard answer but a truly good medical ninja pays attention to everything around her and her patient. Whether in the field or in the safety of the hospital a medical ninja must know everything about the situation including information about her patient." Tsunade turned and pinned Sakura with a look.

Sakura stiffened. She knew that look and it never meant anything good. "What is this about Lady Tsunade?"

"I just thought that since I had been away for such a long time you may not have gotten the amount of training in as you should have. So, you will be going to the nursing home, helping those there with all their complaints and I do mean all of their complaints." Tsunade said turning to walk back up the stairs that lead to the Hokage office. "After you are done with that you will need to go to the academy and help in the nurses office, then go and gather the ingredients for some medicines that are starting to become low, after that you are going to have to sterilize all the equipment in the hospital and restock their stores. You will also have to help the nurses and doctors with anything that they deem necessary. Finally after all of this please come back and we will have some taijutsu training afterwards." Tsunade reached the doorway to the stairs before turning back to face the shocked pink haired kunoichi. "Oh and Sakura? Maybe next time you will consider things before hurting the Hokage's little brother?" Laughing the Hokage walked up the stairs. Oh this was going to be the best and worse month ever. Best for her and the worst for certain pink and raven haired ninjas. While she was at it she should consider what to do with all the others that did not attend her brother's birthday party.

Once the laughter faded from Sakura's ears she screamed and stomped her foot on the ground. How dare she! Using her Hokage powers like that to punish Sakura like she was some badly behaving child! "Naruto is always ruining everything! Oh the next time that I see him I'm going to cause him so much pain! That stupid idiot!"

TBC