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Chapter One
Naruto Starts a Band
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“Well, fuck.”
Naruto realized somewhere around the middle of his cunning plan that his teammates were absolutely hopeless and not in the least skilled in preparation before a difficult mission like this.
He frowned. “You guys suck. Really,” he grumbled, slumping to the floor.
Shino gave Naruto a long, hard, stare before speaking. “If you recall, I didn’t want any part of this idiocy when you asked me yesterday.”
“Then why are you here?” Neji asked bluntly. “You at least had the option of refusing.”
“Because…” Shino paused, turning to Neji. “I forget. But never mind. What’s done is done.”
Rock Lee struck a nice guy pose and flashed a dazzling smile. “I don’t see a problem! So we have more than we planned… it is no big deal!” He struck another pose. “We will just have to make do with what we have!”
Naruto let out a load groan of disapproval and slumped even more into a messy pile of ninja and clothing on the floor. This was hopeless.
Suddenly, there came a knock on Naruto’s apartment door before Shikamaru tentatively entered with a black acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder.
Naruto practically cried in agony at the sight. “You guys!” he wailed, on the verge of tearing his bright blonde hair out. “You can’t all bring guitars!”
“Everybody else brought guitars?” Shikamaru asked, raising his eyebrows just a little. He sighed. “This is certainly troublesome…”
“I did not bring a guitar,” Rock Lee interjected, holding up a pair of cymbals.
Naruto’s restrain on his self-control looked like it might combust at any moment. “I'm the lead guitarist! Didn’t I say that?”
“No,” Neji and Shino responded simultaneously. Shino had brought a rather beat up looking white fender-strat that was currently sitting in the middle of the floor underneath Neji’s strapless acoustic.
Naruto stomped his foot. “Well, whatever!” he cried. “It should have been obvious! Starting this band was my idea, and besides, everyone knows the coolest member gets to play the guitar.”
Rock Lee was off in his own world, and everybody was ignoring him. “Maybe one day we can play for Gai-sensei… he will be so proud…”
Neji gave Naruto a skeptical look. “Fine. Let’s work things out if we’re going to do this. We need instruments other than just guitars… and cymbals.”
“Drums,” Shhikamaru suggested. “Somebody needs to keep a beat.”
“You can do that,” Naruto suggested, rubbing his nose. Things were going a little better. Just a little.
Shikamaru was shocked. “Me? Play the drums? I can barely play the guitar!” he protested weakly.
…And now everything was going down the toilet again. Naruto growled. “Why did you bring a guitar then, if you can’t play it?”
“It’s the only instrument I own.”
“Why did you even agree to join my band?”
Shikamaru paused. “Well… it didn’t seem as troublesome at the time…”
Naruto turned to Neji and Shino, opened his mouth to say something, and then promptly closed it again, shaking his head and thinking about something else. “How about we just try playing a song? See how four guitars and a pair of cymbals sound together…” Naruto shrugged and shouldered his own bright red guitar. “Who knows? Maybe it’ll be the next best thing since sliced bread. Yeah, we don’t need drums. Who needs drums?”
Everyone prepared their instruments, nodded their readiness at each other with intense looks on their faces… and then came a stagnant pause during which time nobody dared move a muscle.
“What’s wrong?” Naruto asked after a moment, looking agitated again. “Can’t you play either?”
Shino looked at Naruto, staring for a few seconds before replying. “We didn’t choose a song to play,” he said simply, and focused on tuning his guitar.
Neji gave a sharp nod and watched Naruto expectantly.
Naruto, it seemed, couldn’t think of a song off the top of his head, so he kept opening and closing his mouth like a fish. However, Rock Lee’s hand shot into the air like he was a child trying to gain his sensei’s attention. “Oh! Oh!” cried Lee. “I have the perfect song for us!”
“What is it, Lee?”
“Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata!”
“Lee…” A vein in Neji’s temple pulsated dangerously -- he was either irritated or he was activating the byakugan little by little. “Pick a song that actually has at least one guitar in it.”
“Right. Sorry. How about Elvis?”
“Okay, but which song?”
Another pause. Naruto was getting extremely agitated now.
Shino cleared his throat and the rest of the band looked at him. “We could do… that hound dog song.”
Naruto shrugged. “Fine. Perfect. Everybody knows it, right?”
They all nodded. Okay, now things were bound to get better.
“A-one, two, a-one two three four…!”
What came next was arguably the best rendition of the popular Elvis song – or the worst rendition, depending on who tells the story. Mostly it just sounded like a bunch of jumbled up chords with the occasional cymbal crash resonating loudly in the background. Naruto stopped it after about five seconds.
“What – don’t tell me none of you can play any instrument!” Naruto snapped, looking dangerously close to splintering his guitar with his bare hands.
Shino stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was playing the song we decided on.”
“No you weren’t! Maybe you got confused about the song.”
“No, it’s the one that goes, ‘you ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog’, right?”
“Yeah…”
“That’s exactly what I was playing.”
“No it wasn’t! You sounded like you were strangling a kitten with your guitar strings! Guitar strings otherwise known as denial, jerk!”
“I was playing spectacularly!” Rock Lee cried, crashing his cymbals one more time, which everyone winced at.
Shikamaru said nothing; he’d already expressed his lack of talent earlier, and he wasn’t going to repeat himself. It would be too troublesome.
Neji just frowned. “It sounded fine to me…”
Naruto… exploded. Not literally. Figuratively. Although, a lot of spit did come flying out of his mouth when he began screaming, so maybe...
“Augh! I can’t believe this is happening!”
They’d never seen Naruto this worked up over something that had nothing to do with being a shinobi. The four exchanged looks while Naruto’s ranting turned into loud, incessant garbling.
“Naruto,” Shikamaru interrupted hastily. “Why don’t we work this out later?”
“Yes,” Shino agreed, laying his guitar down. “What else do we need to decide on?”
“Who sings?” Neji asked all of a sudden. “We need a singer.”
They looked around at each other. The more someone was being stared at, the more they looked increasingly nervous.
“Well, I can’t sing, unfortunately,” Neji said quickly, trying to look moderately ashamed but looking just plain relieved. “It’s just one of the few things I can’t do…”
“Along with playing a guitar,” Shino grumbled.
“Excuse me? I can play the guitar! If anyone in this room besides Shikamaru is having trouble figuring out chords, it’s you, Aburame.”
“I’ve had this guitar for years.”
“Yeah, it was probably dusting away in your father’s closet up until now.”
“Hyuuga… I’m warning you.”
Shikamaru cleared his throat. “Look, we said we’d leave it, so leave it.”
Rock Lee gave an indistinct cry. “I will sing! It is just one more thing I must work hard at in order to become a splendid ninja!”
Large droplets of sweat ran down everyone’s faces, including Naruto’s (whose face was red from screaming so much).
“Lee… I don’t know…” Naruto said tentatively, rubbing the back of his neck in a display of anxiety.
“What is not to know? I am the leaf village’s handsome devil! I am great at taijutsu, I can play the cymbals, and I can also make a delicious strawberry shortcake! Why should I not be able to sing as well?”
“Uh… fine,” Naruto caved, sighing. “We have four guitarists, three of them who can’t play, and a cymbalist who also sings – but we don’t have proof that he’s even that good… This is great.”
Rock Lee wasn’t paying attention. “What kind of music shall we play?” he asked.
“We could play… rock,” Shikamaru suggested. “What other kind of music has this many guitarists?”
Shino’s dark glasses glinted in the harsh light of the apartment. “Jazz,” he deadpanned, and refused to elaborate any further.
Neji tilted his head. “I’m not a fan of either. But we have two acoustic guitars, so… perhaps country music is our best option.”
“I dislike that music,” Shino replied, his eyebrows furrowing slightly.
“I’m not a country fan either,” Neji said. “But we have so many guitars…”
“Polka!” Rock Lee cried. “We should play polka!”
Naruto made a gurgling sound in the back of his throat. “Polka?” he echoed, and then shook himself out like a dog and came to his senses. “No! We are not playing polka!”
“But polka is all the rage now.”
Shino, Neji, and Shikamaru grew pale and shook their heads. “No polka,” the three of them stated simply. Rock Lee looked instantly dejected.
After a moment of silence, Rock Lee stood up. “Fine!” he cried, tucking his cymbals noisily under his arm. “I have decided that it is not worth my time to play in a band that dislikes polka! I am going to create my own band!”
“Nobody would join that band,” Shikamaru said reasonably. “Nobody likes polka.”
“Then I shall be my own band!”
The four ninja watched as Rock Lee left Naruto’s small apartment, his back straight and tall and his shoulders squared. When the door shut behind him, Naruto grumbled again. “Okay, fine…” Naruto muttered. “Now all we have are four guitarists, no singer, and no cymbalist.”
“Screw this,” Shikamaru said suddenly, standing up. “I can’t even play an instrument, so what the hell am I doing here? This is so troublesome…”
“No!” Naruto cried. “Don’t leave!”
“Why?” Shino got up as well, slinging his fender-strat over his shoulder. “Because if we leave, this band will become even more pathetic? Naruto… I don’t think there is going to be any band.”
Neji nodded his agreement. “Yes. If all of the members decide they don’t want to take part in such a trivial thing… then there is no band. Later, Naruto.”
Naruto tried to stop them. Really, he did. He did everything short of using kage bunshin no jutsu and crowding the doorway and windows. He watched sadly as the rest of his bandmates left the apartment and shut the door behind them.
After a moment, he stomped his foot. “Yeah? Well, I don’t need you guys either!” he cried to no one in particular. “I’ll just form a new band! Now… I wonder if Sakura-chan is at home…”
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Chapter notes: Yes, yes... I'm pretty new to Naruto fics, but I just thought I'd try my hand at a bit of crack. I hope my sense of humour matches your accordingly... In any case, all kinds of criticism welcome, as well as praise, so if you liked it, hated it, or just think I'm a loser, let me know!
All spelling and grammar mistakes are mine, if you find them.
Oh yeah. I was watching that Elvis movie today, in case you're curious.