Two artists |Araya x Inojin/Shikajin|

11

They were sitting in a large, beautiful garden. Inojin was impressed with what it looked like. He hadn't expected such beautiful views in the Sunagakure. After all, this village was characterized by unfavorable conditions for the plants. He wanted to capture this view on paper, but for some reason he gave it up. He wasn't in a mood. Being in the company of two boys for whom he felt something more overwhelmed him. Moreover, he couldn't even specify these feelings. He liked both of them very much, but it's impossible to fall in love with two people at the same time, right? Perhaps it was nothing more than a pure friendship? In that case, would he feel butterflies in his stomach every time he looked at both of them? Shinki was right, he was pathetic. The problem was that he didn't know tow to get rid of that.

"Are you alright?" Araya asked, sitting down next to the blonde, who gave him a weak smile in a response. He didn't want to show anything, but it was inevitable. Brunet saw this and grimaced under the mask. "You don't look very well," he said, looking at him closely, making the lower one blush.

Since when is he so confident? What happened to that shy and nervous boy?

"Inojin caught a cold," Shikadai reported, sitting on the other side of him, as if he was guarding him.

Yamanaka put now red face in his hands. He could not bear their closeness. It was too much.  Even though he was glad to finally see the masked boy again, he wanted to go home. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to visit them. Not now. Not when he doesn't know what he's feeling.

"And that's why your belly is exposed?"  Shinki asked with one eyebrow raised. "Let me guess. You were hoping that Araya will take care of you, weren't you?"

"S-shinki!"  The masked boy stuttered with an embarrassment.

This guy should shut up. Nobody got on his nerves like he did. Inojin shouldn't care about that, but it wasn't that easy. This time he didn't give up.  He smirked and raised his head to look at him.

"Honestly... I thought you would take care of me," he laughed, crossing his legs.

This ashamed him. The boy didn't know what to say and turned his back to him. They are unlikely to become friends. Brunet's embarrassment increased when he heard Yodo's laugh.

"He clearly didn't expect that," she said amused and walked over to her friend. "Do not run away."

"Leave me alone. Are you gonna sit here like this, or are we going to do something useful?"  he asked, peering at the rest of them out of the corner of his eye.

"For example? What do you mean?"  Shikadai raised an eyebrow.

"Duel," he replied shortly.

"Did that offend you so much?"  he laughed, looking at the blonde.  "He's always like that. You'll get used to it," he said, then got up and approached him.  "Besides, we don't have a chance against your team. We're only the two of us. That would be unfair."

"Araya and I against you two."

They had a little chance against them.  After all, Inojin and Shikadai don't specialize in a direct combat. They both focus on intelligence and strategic tasks. This duel made no sense. Apparently, Shinki took pleasure in humiliating other's.

"So you want to fight the intelligence squad?" Inojin stood up and rested his hand on his hip. "Boldly."

"I've heard about your mission. You dealt with them. What are you afraid of?"  He asked.

"Shinki, stop. You know very well what Lord Kazekage said. You should be more polite and not make problems. I'm not going to look at that. You're going to hurt yourself," the blonde interjected, looking at him seriously.