Because it's Better in Suna
Ch.1: December 23
Yoshino glared at her son. "You're what?"
Shikamaru shifted nervously. "…Leaving…"
Her lips pressed together tightly, leaving only a thin line visible. "You are spending Christmas with strangers?!"
Shikamaru rubbed the back of his head, "Temari and her brothers aren't—"
"YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO SPEND CHRISTMAS WITH FAMILY!!"
Shikamaru tried backing away from his furious mother. "Well, I…"
"I knew that vile brute of a woman would—"
"Yoshino, maybe you should…" Shikaku began but halted as the woman turned her venomous gaze onto her husband. "Ano…"
"Mom—" Shikamaru began.
"Don't you 'mom' me! I raised you, fed you, cared for you, and you can't as much—"
"It's just Christmas, mom, I—"
"DON'T TALK BACK TO ME, BOY."
Shikamaru grimaced. He should've snuck out the window. Better yet, he shouldn't be going to Suna at all.
He just couldn't say 'no' to Temari. Scratch that, he could say 'no'. Very well, in fact; she just wouldn't let him say 'no'.
She had been sitting before the shogi board, her nice pink tongue licking a candy cane she'd nicked from his mother's precious Christmas tree. The blonde loved peppermint candies. Her left hand was propping up her head, elbow on the table. It was supposed to be her move, but she was too busy scrutinizing him with her sharp eyes. "How can you not like Christmas?"
Shikamaru was leaning back, his palms on the floor supporting him; he was starting up at the roof, but his eyes kept drifting down to the blonde involuntarily. "It's troublesome."
She scowled. "Is not. Christmas is fun and-and cool and-and NOT troublesome."
He looked at her flustered figure calmly and raised an eyebrow. He knew that irritated her.
"It is!" she protested.
"Maybe for you."
She scowled.
"Your move, Temari." He yawned.
"Spend Christmas in Suna." She demanded as she carelessly moved a piece across the board.
"What?" He asked momentarily losing his composure, his hands slipping so he almost fell back. He straightened up and stared at her. She had to be insane.
"I guarantee you'll like Christmas if you spend it with me and my brothers."
"No fucking way, Temari." He moved his piece; not even thinking about what he was doing, not even noting where he placed it.
His desert blonde scowled prettily. The fingers propping up her head tapped against in her cheek in thought. But she didn't seem to be thinking of the game, but of their current conversation. "I'll make you a deal." Her free hand roamed over the board, deciding on a move. "If I beat you, you'll spend Christmas with me."
"No, Temari." He said firmly.
She smirked. "What? Afraid you'll lose? You? The genius?"
He never lost against her. Okay, hardly ever. Her cocky attitude really irked him sometimes. "Fine. If you beat me, I'll spend Christmas in Suna."
She grinned widely; that gorgeous, self-righteous, pleased grin that he'd come to know signified victory for her. Not a bad sight when you were on her team; still not a bad sight when you weren't on her team, but if you weren't on her team and you saw it, you know you'd lost – and terribly. Her fingers closed around a piece and moved it forward. "Checkmate."
Shikamaru wanted to hang himself. He really should avoid making any sort of bet with Temari. When he usually did such a thing he was too distracted with looking at her to realize it was a bad option.
Damn woman.
"Shikamaru!"
He blinked, as his mother snapped her fingers in his face.
"You weren't even listening were you!?" Her hand drew up to her face and she sighed in irritation. "What am I to do with you? You know what? Get out, leave to Suna; let that insufferable woman deal with you. At least this Christmas I won't have to deal with two lazy good-for-nothings." Shikamaru chose not to reply. "Go on, get! One Christmas with that woman and you'll probably avoid her for the rest of your life. Hah!"
The funny thing was, Shikamaru was actually afraid his mother might be right. He didn't like Christmas. Nothing would change that, and Temari trying might make him HATE it.
xXx
Shikamaru leant against the wall waiting for someone inside to open the door. He could hear yelling and crashing and all around unbelievable ruckus going on inside.
"OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!" That one was definitely Temari.
"YOU OPEN THE DOOR, HAG!" Kankurou, probably.
Then a loud, shattering crash.
Shikamaru yawned.
"Dammit, Temari! You broke the tree." That one was Gaara.
Then laughter. Kankurou, Shikamaru presumed.
Lots of swearing.
Finally the door opened. Gaara stood at the door looking back into the house. He looked at him a frown on his face, "The tree broke."
"IT DID NOT BREAK, GAARA, IT JUST FELL!
"FELL? YOU TOPPLED IT DOWN!" Kankurou laughed.
"It broke." Gaara affirmed for him. "This is the first time it's broken."
Somehow Shikamaru had trouble believing that.
Shikamaru walked in, a little uncertain of what he'd find.
Both Temari and Kankurou were covered in shiny silver tinsel. It was actually a funny sight.
Temari sat cross-legged on the floor a slight scowl on her lips as Kankurou used his chakra string to raise the tree back up. The aluminum spheres on the tree were cracked and so were some of the lights. The branches were sort-of bent. It was interesting looking tree.
It looked nothing like his mother's. His mom usually set up a tree that matched. Silver and red spheres, white and red lights, silver tinsel, white star, peppermint candy canes, a few red paper flowers… This tree looked like the rainbow had exploded on it. The lights were every color he could think of: blue, red, green, yellow, white, purple, even orange. The metallic spheres on top of being every color of the rainbow, where doodled on. Some of the designs of the spheres looked like a three year-old had designed them and some looked rather professional, and some were blank. The candy canes varied in color and flavor, and oddly enough there seemed to be cookies hanging from the tree. Cookies with faces on them. Shikamaru could swear one of those cookies looked uncannily like him.
Kankurou looked the tree up and down. "It looks like we tried to kill it."
"I told you the tree was broken." Gaara said impassively.
"It is NOT." Temari.
Kankurou stretched. "Nara, would you say the tree is broken?"
Temari turned to glare at him.
Shikamaru blinked. "Well, it still stands…"
Temari stuck out her tongue at her youngest brother. "Hah!"
Gaara shrugged and collapsed backward on the couch. His legs resting against the back of the chair and head dropping over the seat. "Is wrapping a person allowed, Temari?"
Temari quirked up an eyebrow. "…Why?"
"It would be fun."
Kankurou grinned. "You can wrap Shikamaru up for Temari. I'm sure our big sister would enjoy that."
Shikamaru shifted nervously. He wasn't sure if they actually would try to wrap him.
Temari sighed. "People wrapping is not allowed."
It was then that Shikamaru realized there were a large amount of boxes and decorations strewn about the floor. Decorations that did not entirely seem to belong to the beat-up tree. "Are you barely decorating everything?"
"Temari's insane idea." Kankurou explained. "She's decided we should decorate EVERYTHING on the twenty-third and not a day earlier."
"Why?" he asked.
Kankurou shrugged. "We're stupid like that?"
"It's more fun that way." Temari protested.
"I wanna do the roof!" Gaara said.
"Oh yeah." Temari brightened. "We're not finished." She stood up. "Okay, Gaara you can do the roof. Kankurou you do the front yard. I'll finish inside. And Shikamaru you can help Kankurou with the yard."
He shifted. "Okay…"
What did he get himself into?
xXx
The other houses in sand village were sparsely decorated. Those that were decorated were done in that 'elegant' manner his mother was so infinitely fond of. He remembered hating decorating when he was younger (in fact he still hated decorating now) because his mother insisted he place every light in the perfect area. Every decoration matching its surroundings, every little thing in the absolute best place possible. It drove him mad.
The manner in which Gaara and Kankurou seemed to be decorating was just as sporadic and…insane as they decorated the tree. The lights Gaara was stringing on the roof had no particular pattern. They weren't being placed neatly around the edges or in a horizontal pattern, they were just…weird. They kinda of zigged that way, and zagged back and hang so low from the roof in some places that it touched the floor, in others it didn't get near the edge at all.
"What're you standing there for?" Kankurou complained. He tossed him a box. "Here, put these up."
Shikamaru looked into the box. "There were some lights, plastic candy canes, what looked like an inflatable Santa Claus, and little plastic reindeer. "Where do I put them?"
Kankurou shrugged as he draped some shiny garland on the fence. "Wherever the hell you want. No one really cares."
Looking at the miniature plastic elves that were hanging from an alcove in the house by their legs, Shikamaru was quite sure they decorated in a manner his mother would be despised by. He was almost sure some of the neighbors were also appalled at their source of decoration. Shikamaru pulled out the strand of lights.
Well…what to do with 'em…?
He connected the wires to the outlet and started draping them nonsensically across the sand floor. He got bored and decided to spell out his name. Then he spelled Temari's. Then Gaara's. Then Kankurou's. And then he ran out of lights. He ruffled through the box and pulled out the plastic candy canes. He dug them into the ground in random shapes. Circles. Squares. Triangles. Each with two mini reindeers in the middle.
This was actually kind of…fun.
As he noticed his box was empty he looked around to see what everything looked like.
Yup, this was definitely the craziest decorating he'd EVER seen.
Gaara was now sitting on the floor moving the sand about so it shaped the form of…a snowman?
Kankurou was giving the sculpture things Gaara was building faces with rocks he picked up from the floor.
"What are you doing?" He asked.
"Sandmen." Gaara stated happily.
"…Sand…men?"
Kankurou placed a small stone for a nose on one of the sandmen. "It doesn't snow here, so we make sandmen instead of snowmen."
Shikamaru shrugged and helped them give the sandmen faces.
xXx
Temari stood hands on her hips as she analyzed the sandmen. "What exactly are they doing?"
Gaara pointed at the two on the left. "Those are dying." He pointed to the third to the left which had a twig in its hand. "That one killed them."
Temari's lips twitched. She seemed to be trying not to smile. "That's a very…festive message we're giving out."
"It's very festive." Gaara nodded. "It's a message to that freak in the red suit. He better not steal my presents."
Shikamaru choked on his laughter. "Isn't 'the freak in the red suit' supposed to bring you presents?"
"He never gave me presents. Kankurou said he stole mine."
"Yeah…stolen…"
Shikamaru laughed.
Temari smiled, "That's why Gaara keeps watch all night on Christmas Eve."
xXx
Temari handed him a metal sphere and some markers.
Shikamaru raised an eyebrow. "What am I supposed to do with this?"
"Decorate it."
"…Decorate it?"
Gaara was sitting on the floor poking the presents under the tree with his sand and Kankurou was sitting next to him a candy cane in his mouth 'predicting' what each present had inside.
Kankurou pulled a blue candy cane from the tree and threw it at his head. "Yeah, decorate it. Like we decorated some of these."
"Why?"
Gaara shook a present. "Because it's fun. You should be glad there's any left, usually Kankurou breaks them all."
"Not ALL of them." The puppeteer protested.
Temari looked at him expectantly.
He shrugged and started doodling on the sphere.
After a few minutes, he handed it back to Temari.
Her body shook and then a giggle split from her lips.
Gaara turned to stare at his sister.
Kankurou dropped his candy cane. "Did you just giggle, Temari?"
"It's cute."
Gaara blinked. "Did you say 'cute'?"
"Oh, both of you shut up." She handed Gaara the sphere, "Look."
Gaara smiled slightly.
Kankurou stared at Shikamaru quizzically.
Shikamaru shrugged. "It's me, flattened by one of Santa Claus's murderous presents."
He doodled three others. One with a passed out Santa Claus twisted at the bottom of the fireplace. One with a toppled Christmas tree and Temari and Kankurou fighting on top of it. And one with him holding Temari's hand.
He blushed when Temari looked at it. And focused on staring at the floor when Gaara and Kankurou looked at it.
xXx
Gaara and Kankurou were now adding more candy canes to the tree as the candy canes it had held previously seemed to have disappeared. Temari was sitting at the foot of the tree wrapping.
Shikamaru stared at her as she opened the cupboard to the left of the tree and pulled out a box of macaroni. She started wrapping it.
"Ano…Temari, why are you wrapping…that?"
"So the tree can look nicer."
"So you…wrap macaroni boxes?"
"I wrap fake presents."
It looks cool. And wrapping is fun." She smirked at him as he raised an eyebrow at her statement. "What? You don't like wrapping either?"
"Frankly, no."
Gaara placed the last candy cane he had on the tree. "Are we wrapping weird stuff now?" He looked happy.
"Yup."
Gaara picked up one of the roles of wrapping paper and ambled off. Kankurou did the same.
Shikamaru raised an eyebrow.
"See? They think its fun."
"HOW, is it fun?"
"Because you can wrap stupid stuff and give pretend gifts."
"So…who is the macaroni for?"
She placed a bow on the box. "My sensei Baki."
He frowned. "So…you all wrap a bunch of fake gifts and give them to each other?"
"They all mean something."
"What does the macaroni mean?"
She placed the tag on the box and wrote down the 'to' and 'from' names. "He's like food to me. He's helped keep me from being weak, you know, training-wise. He's the one who's instilled the 'don't quit' mentality in me."
Shikamaru smiled in spite of himself.
She grinned. "You wanna do it now, don't you?"
He couldn't believe it, but he actually did. "Hand me that wrapping paper."
Even her green eyes were grinning. "Feel free to use anything you find lying around the house. It's not the object that matters or whose it is, but the meaning." She explained happily.
Okay, so her concept of Christmas was … rather odd and made no sense whatsoever, but it was certainly more fun that he'd ever had around Christmas in Konoha.
He was almost a little afraid and…anxious to see what would happen on Christmas Eve.
A/N: Yeah...I was...in a rather odd mood and I wrote this. I'm not even sure if I'll keep it up once I'm done with it... I'll update the next chapter (December 24) tomorrow and the final chapter (December 25) the day after that.
My mom wraps fake presents. They don't mean anything he just wraps them because she thinks it makes the christmas tree look nicer. I think it's cool.
Hope you guys are having a good christmas vacation!