Konoha high
       by
Sir Drake Chester Is'hyperalot


   Chapter 21: "What am I supposed to call you now?!"




   "Yes! Full house!" Sakura called out. Sakura was down to her pink underwear and her red tank top.
   "Ah, ah, ah, Sakura-chan. I've got a four of a kind." Naruto told Sakura. He was down to his boxers.
   "What?! Damnit, Naruto!"
   "Umm..." Hinata laid down her cards and everyone stared in shock. Hinata, so far, only lost her sweater and top shirt.
   "What?! A straight flush? How'd you get that?!" Ino yelled in surprise. She was down to her purple boy shorts and purple and black bra. Sasuke grunted and laid down his cards. He'd had a full house as well and was down to just his pants. Hiyori sighed and laid down her hand. She'd had a flush with spades. She was down to the cyan short-shorts and the black tank top. She was smart enough to keep the hoodie on when they mentioned strip poker.
   Kiba sighed and laid down his hand. He hadn't lost much, either, just his shirt. In his hand, he'd had a three of a kind. Temari folded a long time ago right after she lost her top shirt when found that she wasn't so lucky that night. Shikamaru was down to his pants and was having trouble with the poker game.
   Neji was down to his pants and white muscle shirt. He laid down his hand and sighed. He'd had a flush of diamonds. TenTen had folded about the same time as Temari.
   Sai put on a smile and laid down his hand. Everyone turned and glared at him in shock.
   "Th-that can't be..." Hiyori started.
   "That's practically impossible!" Sakura called out.
   "How the hell did you get that?!" Kiba asked.
   "No way!" Naruto cried out.
   "I can't believe it... a royal straight flush!" Hiyori finally finished. Sai smiled. He was down to his pants.
   "Aw... at least I was beating Sasuke-teme..." Naruto said putting his hands behind his head.
   "In case you haven't noticed, dobe... I've still got my pants." Sasuke told him.
   Naruto looked at his green boxers, then at Sasuke's black pants. He grunted. "I was going easy on you." Sasuke just looked down at his cards that Temari was passing out. Everyone checked their hands.
   Hiyori slapped her head on the table. "I'm out."
   Sasuke sighed and put his cards face down. "I'd hate to say it, but I fold, too." Naruto looked triumphant at Sasuke.
   Hiyori leaned over to Naruto and whispered in his ear. "If you don't want your picture taken when you lose your boxers, I'd suggest you fold." Naruto looked at Hiyori, then at his hand, then back at Hiyori, then at Sasuke. Finally, he made up his mind and placed his cards faced down with a sigh.
   Temari passed out the next card. Ino sighed. "I fold."
   "Me too." Sakura said, placing her cards down.
   Neji was debating against folding or not. He sighed. "Yeah, I can't go on much longer."
   "It's alright, Neji." TenTen put a hand on Neji's shoulder.
   Sai smiled his normal fake smile. Then he sighed. "I give up."
   "Tsk. How troublesome. I'm out." Shikamaru stated.
   Kiba closed his eyes and sighed. "Yeah, I give up."
   Hinata looked around at everyone. Everyone suspected her to win this round, so they didn't bother with trying to see if they'd won or not. Hinata smiled and laid down her cards for everyone to see. Everyone stared down dumbly at them.
   "I..." Kiba started.
   "Can't...." Neji said afterwards.
   "Believe it..." Naruto said through teary eyes.
   "It was just a high card..." Sasuke sighed.
   Hiyori dropped her hand on the table, making it jump a little. "Damn it! I could've won, too!" She leaned back and laid on her back with her arms behind her head. "Man..."
   Sasuke sighed and did the same. Soon, everyone was just laying back with their arms behind their heads. Hiyori sneezed.
   "Oi, you OK?" Naruto asked her.
   "Yeah, someone's just probably talking behind my back." Hiyori replied rubbing the bottom of her nose. 'This would be great if we could watch the stars...' She thought. Just then, she got up and grabbed her clothes from everyone's piles. She put them on and headed for the back door.
   "Hey, where are you going?" Neji asked.
   Hiyori thought for a moment. "I'm not sure... I'll be back in a minute, though. I'm just gonna' look up at the stars real quick." Neji nodded and noticed Kiba watching her leave.
   Neji smirked at him when Hiyori shut the door. "You like her? Or are you just remembering her shorts?"
   Kiba's face got red. "B-baka! I don't like that weirdo!"
   Naruto laughed. "Talk about weirdo, huh Kiba?"
   "What's that supossed to mean?" Kiba asked, his face still red. Naruto laughed and shrugged. Hinata poked her fingers together nervously, picturing how Kiba and Hiyori would look together. Sakura thought about this, too. She laughed out loud.
   Kiba turned to her, his face going back to its normal color. "What are you laughing at?"
   "Oh, oh nothing. I just had a random thought come into my head." Sakura said, not wanting to inform everyone on her thought. Hinata figured that Sakura was thinking the same thing she was and started to chuckle to herself. Just then, Hiyori walked in smiling to herself and humming the song that she danced to during cheerleading tryouts. That was also the day she met her rival again.
   TenTen listened to the beat and tried to figure out who sang that song. "Hey, Hiyori, who sings that song your humming? What is it even called?"
   Hiyori stopped humming and smiled. "It's called 'I'll Never Forget the Moonlight'. Wanna' listen to it? I have the CD with me."
   All the girls- plus Kiba and Naruto- nodded. Hiyori laughed a bit and ran up the stairs to get the CD. Hinata went into a hallway closet and pulled out a CD player. Hiyori came down and popped the CD in. "Hey, if you want, I could show you the other songs on here. I like them, they're probably the best ones we got."
   The girls nodded again. Hiyori pressed play and sat down next to the CD player, messing with the volume. Sasuke looked at her curiously. "Oi, Hiyori... did you download that music onto that CD?"
   Hiyori shook her head slightly. "No, I'll tell you why it's like this in a minute- but right now, you gotta' tell me how it sounds." Just then, a burst of music filled the room with various instruments from the shimasen to the trumpet. There was a slow rock beat coming from the drums as the trumpets sang a chorus of scales and other various things along with the drum's pulse. The shimasen gave off a complicated rhythm variating the trumpets. A male's voice start echoing through everything and crescendoed up to a sudden scream. The female started to sing.
   Hiyori smiled. "This song is called 'Dancing with Souls'. Do you girls recognize the male singer?"
   Temari's eyes opened a bit. "Could it be Raitakuji Masatake?" Hiyori nodded and let the music carry on. The female singer and Masatake started to scream out the last chorus.
  "Dancing with the souls of the dead!
How can I escape this dread?
Why won't you come and save me?" Then they whispered softly and slowed down as all the instruments stopped. "Why don't you come with me?"
   They all nodded, notifying that they enjoyed the song. Even Sasuke nodded slightly. Hiyori smiled and let another song play. "This song is 'Over the Blood Stained Rainbow'. This one talks about a girls' suicidal attempt to escape the pains of this world and go to a better place. This one was written by the bands' lead guitarist, Karamorita Tamaki. That's a girl, by the way." They all nodded and listened. This song started out with a different male singer and he whispered something almost inaudible for about 6 measures. All of a sudden, the song took on a faster tempo and an amazing guitar solo took the spotlight. "That's Tamaki-san playing right there." Hiyori said, pointing to the CD player.
   After about an 8-measure solo from Tamaki, she went into the steady rhythm and decrescendoed to let the other male singer come through. Hiyori smiled sweetly at the music. "That's Tamaki-san's brother, Wakaki. He's another guitar player, but he also plays the shamisen, the violin, the bass, and a bit of the keyboard. The one doing the background effects is Shimanouchi Yoritomo-san. He's the DJ, basically. He learned from his dad, who owns a DJ business over in Suna." Hiyori received odd stares. She rubbed the back of her head nervously.
   The song ended with a drum solo. She stopped it from going to the next song, knowing that she was going to get questions. Just then, TenTen broke the awkward silence as the others tried to process the music that had just been played. "Umm... Hiyori? How do you know so much about that band? What's its name, anyways?"
   Hiyori giggled. "Well, the bands' name is the 'Moonlit Streams Project'. You wanna' know who the lead singer is?" Everyone nodded. Hiyori giggled and pointed at herself. "Me." She said in a cheery tone. Everyones jaws dropped.
   "You're lying!" Ino exclaimed. Hiyori laughed and thought for a moment. Then she opened her mouth and sang the chorus to 'Dancing with Souls'. Everyones jaw dropped again as it sounded just like the female singer. They weren't completely convinced, still. So Hiyori held up one finger and ran up to Hinata's room. She ran back down with a laptop in her arms and she quickly turned it on and punched in the password to go to her user account. After about a minute, she searched through her hundreds of documents and found the picture files. She went down to the file called 'Moonlit Streams Project' and opened it. She went down to their bands' first professional picture. She was at the front in a black leather jacket with black capris on. She sat on a blue sports motorcycle, one that she actually rode before, and she had on a black cap that sat on her head backwards. Masatake was on her right with a helmet in his right arm and the same leather jacket on, but he had a gray shirt under it and faded jeans. Tamaki was sitting down on her feet to Hiyori's left with Wakaki above her with his arms crossed. They both wore the same thing- black leather jacket with dark jeans. The drummer, Ikina Jo, peeked out from behind Hiyori's right shoulder and crossed his drum sticks just below his head. Yoritomo was peeking from behind Hiyori's left shoulder and held three CDs in one hand. There was one more person laying in front of Hiyori. His name was Hisamatsu Ben and he was the bands' other singer.
   Hiyori turned the laptop to face everyone and some of them gasped. Hiyori pointed to Ben. "He's the singer you were listening to earlier, the other guy one besides Masatake. He also plays the trumpet. He helped Yoritomo with all the background music and stuff. This CD was actually just a test one- our 3rd one to be exact." She pointed to each member and told them their names. Everyone nodded, following along with amazed faces.
   Once she was done, Hiyori sighed. "It was so much fun playing with those guys. Here, I'll show you some more pictures of us. There's one of Yoritomo, Jo, Ben, and me all fighting over a donut. Jo won... but I stole the donut from him when he was about half-way finished and ate it myself. Man, he was so pissed at me for that! So he tackled me to the ground and sat on me... then Ben and Yoritomo started tickling me to death. I slapped them both in the face later and called them jerks. Then we went and put pink hair dye in Wakaki's shampoo bottle." Hiyori started laughing. "I have a picture of that, too. Even a video. Wanna' see it?" Everyone nodded, even Sasuke.
   Hiyori showed them the pictures of her and the band. There was a bunch of pictures of when they all went to a music camp together, an amusement park, and at a huge theater in some other country when they all got scholarships for one year at a music school. She got to the one where she was sneaking into Wakaki's bathroom wearing a black hoodie and black pants. She was tiptoeing into the bathroom and had the hair dye in one hand and the shampoo bottle with Wakaki's name on it in the other. Mayoko was also in the picture. It looked like she was rolling her eyes at Hiyori.
   Everyone burst out laughing at the next picture. It was of Hiyori pouring in the hair dye with a goofy look on her face. Jo was behind her and acting like he was eating her hair. Mayoko looked like she had died of a heart attack. The next picture was of Wakaki and the caption said "Before getting in the shower." The next picture had Wakaki yelling at everyone in a bath towel. His hair was about the same color as Sakura's, except that you could see random parts of brown in his hair. The caption said "After the shower. (Note: This is the Pink-Haired Murderer... beware, he's VERY intimidating.)"
   The next picture sent Naruto rolling on the ground and even Neji fell over. The picture was of Hiyori and Wakaki in a wrestling match on the ground. Hiyori had one hand on Wakaki's and her other was holding onto Wakaki's arm that was around her neck in a choke hold. They were yelling at each other and Hiyori seemed to be trying to kick Wakaki, since he was sitting on her back. Mayoko was on the ground next to them, seeming to be laughing at the scene.
   Shikamaru examined the picture further. "Hey, Hiyori-san, who is that cat?"
   Hiyori smiled. "That's Mayoko, my cat. She's a weirdo."
   "Hey, isn't that the one Naruto and I met?" Sasuke asked.
   Hiyori nodded. "Yup! And by the way, she IS laughing at us."
   Shikamaru's eyes widened. 'That's the one that spoke. So it's Hiyori's...' He looked over at the smiling girl, cursiousity and wonder in his gaze. 'How is that even possible?'
   Hiyori's smile faded and she stared at Shikamaru with a confused gaze. "What?"
   He shook his head. "Just a troublesome thought."
   She nodded and smiled again. "Alright." She turned back to everyone. "Wanna' see the video now?" Sakura, Ino, Hinata, Temari, and Naruto all nodded enthusiastically while Sasuke, Sai, and Neji waited patiently. Hiyori turned the laptop so it faced her and searched through the files. She looked down at the keyboard and clicked something quickly before looking back at the screen. "Damn eye sight," she muttered as she squinted at the screen.
   She turned the laptop back and clicked something. The whole screen was black except for a control panel at the bottom of it. Just then, a video started. It was blurry at first and had a lot of motion, but then it came into focus as it was turned to the guy who was holding it. It was Ben.
   He spoke in a hushed voice, but you could tell that he was somewhat older than you would have expected him to be. "Here, Yoritomo and I are following Bara-chan into Wakaki's bathroom." He turned the camera to a younger version of Hiyori with shoulder length hair. "Here is the suspect." Hiyori held out the pink hair dye. "And this is the possible weapon the suspect will use to harm the victim, Karamorita Wakaki. We believe that he will be taking a shower in T-minus... umm... 30 minutes, I think."
   You could hear Yoritomo laughing in the background. "Dude, what the hell? It should be something like 'T-minus thirty-four-point-twenty-something-point-blue' or something like that!"
   Hiyori's short laughter was heard as Ben turned the camera to a laughing boy with a short, brown mohawk. "You guys are so weird," Hiyori told them, drawing out the word "weird".
   Ben laughed. "Look who's talking, Ms. 'I think I'm going to die of food poisening 'cause your face is too damn ugly'."
   "What the hell? I never said THAT..." Hiyori said while laughing. "I SAID 'I think I'm going to get food poisening from staring at your face and all its surrounding'... I forgot what I said after that."
   Naruto laughed, although it wasn't a huge uproar, just a small chuckle. Hinata glanced at him, admiring his sense of humor.
   Ben turned the camera to Hiyori, who was up against a beige wall outside of a white door. It was fairly cramped in there, giving off the idea that they were in an apartment. Ben, Yoritomo, and Hiyori were all snickering as Hiyori was desperately trying to keep cool, even though she was intentionally making herself look bad. She clasped her hands around the hair-dye bottle and made it look like a gun. "I'm going in, boys... cover me." She said in a serious tone, although she was failing to hold in a smile.
   Ben and Yoritomo laughed. "OK, we got you, agent 14-0... blue... something."
   Hiyori breathed out heavily and started laughing silently while bending down and holding her stomach. Ben and Yoritomo were heard laughing in the background and saying things like "We could so be in an action movie."
   Hiyori got back up and took a deep breath. She turned the knob on the door and opened it a crack. "Watch my secret agent moves," she said. Then, she stepped back and kicked the door open. There was a loud WHACK as the door hit the door-stopper, but all you could see was Hiyori throwing her arms up in the air. "Oh! You like that, no?!" She yelled at the camera.
   Yoritomo laughed and stepped in front of the camera, walking towards Hiyori. "Yeah, yeah... just wait until next week's tournament, you won't be using those moves there, will you?"
   Hiyori snorted. "That's martial arts, not cool action moves like... umm... what was his name? That American guy? James somethin'..."
   Ben laughed. "James Bond, Bara-chan."
   "Psht... psht... pfft... pfffft... yeah... him... isn't he hot?" Hiyori asked while stepping into the bathroom, which made her voice echo a bit.
   The camera turned to Ben's somewhat red face. He shook his head and mouthed "No he's not, she's crazy" to the camera. He turned the camera back and stepped over to the bathroom door, looking in at Hiyori stepping into the shower directly ahead of him. Yoritomo was going through the drawers in the counters to the camera's right. Ben turned to the long mirror that was as long as the counters. The camera he was holding was somewhat small and a new type, also very expensive.
   Hiyori began to laugh. "Oh gosh... I forgot about the next part..."
   Sasuke looked at her with curiousity. Sakura was beginning to play with her fingers. 'Where have I seen them before?' She wondered frantically.
   She decided to ask. "Umm... Hiyori? Have we... uh... met before?"
   Hiyori turned to her and smiled. She nodded. "Yup!"
   Sasuke turned to Sakura. "That reminds me. Who's Mai?"
   Sakura's eyes widened and Hiyori paused the video when she was jumping out of the shower and into Yoritomo's arms. All eyes were on Sakura, who stared at Hiyori in disbelief. She pointed at her. "H-Hiyori... you?"
   Hiyori nodded. "Sorry, Sakura, I didn't think I'd look so different, considering you moved from Suna last year."
   Neji's head snapped to Hiyori. "You know about that?"
   Hiyori nodded and she looked at Sakura with a encouraging smile. "Do you wanna' tell them or should I?"
   Sakura sighed. "I guess it's best if we both do." She hesitated. "Are you still with him?"
   Hiyori looked taken aback. "W-what? Wh-who are you talking about, Sakura?"
   Sakura laughed a bit. "You know exactly who I'm talking about, Mai."
   Hiyori laughed. "Sakura, you know very well that there's not only an age difference, but we were never together and we will never be." She paused. "How's Sasori?"
   "Mai- err... Hiyori! Damnit! What am I supposed to call you now?!" Sakura yelled.
   "Hiyori is fine."
   All eyes went from Sakura to Hiyori. No one knew what was going on.
   Sasuke stared at Sakura mostly. "Sakura, how do you two know Sasori?"
   Sakura looked at Sasuke. Her eyes widened as she remembered his brother was in the famous gang, Akatsuki. She sighed and looked down. "Sasuke-kun... it's a long story."
   Hiyori looked over at Sasuke and smiled. "After you hear it, don't hate her or me for the past. It's all done and over with."
   Ino looked at Sakura. "Sakura... are you seriously going to tell them?"
   Sakura nodded and took in a deep breath. She looked at everyone in turn before speaking. "I guess I should finally talk about the past."
   Hiyori nodded. "Seriously, no?"