A/N: My first fic, please tell me what you think! The next chapter will be up soon!!

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Masahashi Kishimoto

Bed of Roses

The summer sunset shown past beyond the glittering sandy tropical beach littered with thousands of tiny white seashells and a few little orange starfishes washed up from the sea and the large green palm trees, bathing the scene in a warm, dusky glow outline that resembles a picture perfect paradise. The warm scent of ripe plump peaches, berries, and other summer fruits being sold in the downtown street markets mixed with the coolness of the white foams of crashing waves and the fresh coconuts bathed the afternoon in a soft, relaxing atmosphere.

The afternoon was quiet and peaceful since most of the beach goers had gone home for the day and the tide was soon to rise.

But the peacefulness didn't last long.

"OI, Sasuke-teme!! Quit hoggin' all the drink!" yelled a spiky blond-haired young man trying his hardest to sprint through the beach to catch up with his best friend-- who wasn't paying attention to the loud hollering in the least-- as fast as he can while holding onto a basketball, his flipflops kicking up dust clouds behind him. "Now hurry up and hand it over! The stupid heat's making my tongue dry up!!"

"Shut up, dobe. It's not the heat that's doing it, it's you choking on your own tongue while running your mouth off." Retorted the raven-haired boy, he held the bubble tea out of Naruto's reach and raised the plastic green coiled straw to his lips with a hint of a smirk.

Instincts stepping in at the last second, Sasuke ducked as a large seashell flew over his head.

One hand to hold the drink, he sipped it slooowly, while the other blocking Naruto's wild grabs with the other.

"Hey I paid for that!"

"Hn."

"Aaarghh!!!! You're such a dick sometimes." grumbled Naruto, wiping his brow. Reaching out, he made another attempt at grabbing the bubble tea from Sasuke's hand and ended up accidently dropping the basketball on his foot and tripping on it.

"Oww..." The blonde sat up rubbing his foot.

"And that surprizes you, baka?" smirked Sasuke as he walked pass.

"S-SHUT UP-"

"Naruto-kun! Sasuke-kun!!"

Both Naruto and Sasuke stopped in the middle of annoying the other and turned.

Sasuke eyes widened with panic and a grin broke out on Naruto's face as he gleefully began to count down from three mentally with rehearsed practice. And right on time, he snatched the drink from the raven-haired boy's hand before Haruno Sakura jumped onto her boyfriend to give him a bone-crushing bear hug with the speed of a charging rhino and sending him flying onto his back with the air knocked out of his lungs.

"Sasuke-kun!! I missed you today!" giggled the pink-haired girl happily, sitting on top of him with heavy boutique shopping bags weighing on her arms.

A wide grin appeared in a flash on Naruto's face as he watched Sasuke gulping for air like a fish on land with Sakura's arms still latched around his middle in an iron grip hug before he fell back laughing at the sight.

"Sheesh Forehead, a bit too much today? We're still outside in public, geez."

Sakura's face reddened before she quickly let Sasuke wormed his way out of her embrace, flushing.

"Just can't wait can huh? You should save all that till you get to the hotel." said Ino slyly, looking mischievious at the look on her friend's face. Behind her trailed three more girls laughing and gossiping, back from a full day of their shopping spree for their girls' day out. Tenten and Temari both glanced at both flushed faced Sakura and Sasuke and Naruto beside on his back and grabbing his side cracking up before continuing their chatting as if they'd never saw anything.

Sakura shot up and whirled at Ino, jabbing a finger indignantly towards the blond.

"Shut up Ino-Pig! It wasn't like that I was just giving him a hug!"

"Tch, right."

"You're just jealous that you haven't jumped one yet!"

Temari sighed, rolling her eyes.

"Why you-!"

"Um, hello Naruto-kun. Are you alright?" asked Hinata, smiling shyly at him at him on the ground from behind the group. And the spiky blond stopped himself from laughing long enough to take a breather and glanced up, giving her a cute boyish grin.

"Oh hey, Hinata-chan!"

The dark haired girl blushed and occupied herself by playing with the handles of small shopping bag and looking uncertain for a moment before extending a hand to help him up. Naruto blinked in surprise before smiling cheekily and accepting her hand and pulled himself up. "Thanks."

Not noticing her dark blush at that, the blonde took a long sip of his bubble tea then, pausing, he smiled and handed it to her.

"Wanna sip?"

Hinata's eyes widened in surprised before smiling and accepting it, though she didn't try to drink it.

"Thank you, Naruto-kun."

Tenten turned and clapped her hands together and awwed at that. Even Temari gave a small warm-hearted smile.

Brushing sand from his shorts, Sasuke picked up his basketball and shot a glare at Naruto, who was now grinning innocently at him and crossing his arms behind his head.

"Okay, c'mon already, we gotta get to the hotel since my arms are starting to feel like lead carrying these bags around all day." Said Tenten, strolling past them towards the direction of the huge and apparently fancy glass inn they're staying at. And since most of the girls felt the same (except Hinata, who only has a small plastic bag with her), everyone dragged their beach bags and shopping bags and basketball with them (Sakura and Ino piled most of their stuff on Naruto while Sasuke held the basketball and Sakura's not-that-heavy sized beach bag).

"Boy, I wonder if they serve ramen in there," muttered Naruto, arms heavy. "Every good hotel's gotta have good noodles there or else there's nothing special 'bout it."

Temari palmed her face, shaking her head. Holding her bags of new clothes and beach-day items, Temari eagerly looked forward to a long soak in the hot tubs and some food when they get back to the hotel.

After another long, agonizing year of college, homework, and studying, a long vacation's really what I needed, Temari thought blissfully, daydreaming about naps on the beach, delicious buffets, time to read her books and relax, getting some spa and massage time at last…

"Psssst!! Hinata!" hissed Tenten, elbowing the meek girl gently on the side.

"Oh, yes, Tenten-chan?"

"Why don't you ask him to eat dinner with you at one of the restaurants tonigh?" Whispered the brunette, smiling mischievously and ready to play a role as matchmaker. "It's only been a day since we got here, now's your chance to make a move."

Temari raised a brow at Hinata, who looked absolutely terrified at the suggestion, and then at Naruto, who was carrying bags while daydreaming or something since he soon tripped and bumped into Sasuke, which caused him to drop some of the bags. She sighed remorsefully. Poor girl, what do you see in that idiot?

After seeing how he had been able to befriend her youngest brother in highschool had her secretly thanking him after that. Temari smiled softly at that memory when Gaara had actually been truly happy in years when he first became friends with Uzumaki. Heh, if you can look past the clown suit, there's a lot more to be found deep inside.

"I-um, I couldn't possibly- um- N-Naruto-kun might be busy." Hinata stuttered helplessly, avoiding Tenten's gaze.

"Tch, yeah right," scoffed Tenten, rolling her eyes, "Busy stuffing his mouth."

"Well, uh…"

Tenten bit her lip softly, looking thoughtful. Suddenly, she brightened with a lightbulb above her head and smirked at Naruto's back. "Don't worry Hinata, leave everything to me."

"W-what?!!"

"Huh? You alright there, Hinata-chan?"

"…J-just fine, Naruto-kun…"

xXx

Temari pushed open the big, beautifully carved doors to her hotel suite opened and walked in her beautiful suite. There was more than enough room for an elegant silky queen sized bed with lots of frilled pillows, as well as a dresser, armoire, shoji screen divider and a bookcase. A number of tall potted plants lined themselves by the doorway and the purple silk curtained window, creating a small jungle effect. The bathroom contained an oval mirror and a massive white bathtub that could easily fit two people. Since she was not one to leave her room messy, it looked almost the same as when she first came, sans a luggage or two.

After they had reached the second floor of the inn, Ino had joined Sakura in her suite for their own slumber party with some important discussions about their boyfriends' bad habits or something, Tenten had eagerly told Naruto that Hinata will be joining him, then she had somehow managed to convince the extremely nervous Hinata to go to with him and not to faint from hypervating while she helped pick out a dress for her.

Naruto, however, didn't know that it was supposedly a 'date', and so screwed up Tenten's plans of having Hinata dine alone with him by dragging along a very irritated Sasuke ("They're not gonna special serve ramen for dinner, you dolt!") to the hotel restaurant for an eating contest, threatening to hide his hair gel again if he didn't come.

Tenten just gave up on the rest of the 'romantic' evening when Naruto won the contest and ended up barfing afterwards and deciding to set them up on another day, instead told Temari to meet her at the spa room later after doing whatever she was going to do.

That left Temari some time alone to read one of her mystery novels and grab a quick smoothie at one of the small restaurants. It's been a while since she actually got a chance to slack off and read for a few dazing hours.

Temari yawned and stretched, kicking off her sandals by the door and tossed her beach bag, novel, and room keys onto the vanity table. After a long humid summer day of running around shopping downtown, a relaxing soak in the spa room sounds like heaven right now.

Turning to the clock on her nightstand, her eyes widened when she saw how late it already was.

8:42 p.m. Shit! I was supposed to meet Tenten there more than an hour ago!

The blonde sighed and face palmed, shaking her head in dismay. Knowing the brunette's spicy temper, Tenten's not going to let her off so easily.

Pulling out a new towel, set of clothing, and a bottle of lilac lotion, Temari grabbed her room key while holding onto the bundle and hastily stumbled out her door.

Running as fast as she could down the hall, she made a quick run turn pass the corner, realizing too late before colliding right into something hard and warm.

"Ahh!!"

"Oww… THE HELL?!"

Temari's eyes flashed open in shock when she felt that she was on top of someone... and her face flushed hot crimson when she was realized that her hands were touching bare skin, and also that the pale skinned man beneath her was wearing absolutely nothing on but a white towel around his waist.

"Oh I-I'm so sorry!!" Temari hurriedly got off him and tried to help him up with trembling hands. "Are you okay?"

The man's pure violet orbs looked up questionably at her with a slick pale brow raised, as the blonde forced herself to cool her burning face before accepting her hand and picked himself up. "Yeah, thanks."

The man's platinum silver hair was carefully sleeked back and around his neck is a beaded rosary with a strange silver pendant that seemed to glow magically on his lean muscled chest. But what her eyes were really drawing to, she noticed with renewed shock, is the towel wrapped around waist is riding a bit low, and she meant dangerously low on his hips, revealing perfect, pale, toned abs, almost...

To save herself from further embarressment as her face glowed red all over again, Temari quickly dropped down onto the decorated carpet floor to pick up her things--which, due to the the collision--were everywhere on the ground.

"Watch where you're going next time, Blondie. Sheesh, clumsy." He muttered, running a hand through his hair.

To her great surprise and irritation, his lips quirked into an amused smirked and extended a hand to help her up. The same superior type look of a pretty boy. It's the same look of all the arrogant jerks that she had to deal with at work and school, some wasting her time with nonsense, others trying to hit on her and ended up bleeding, and some of the same type had also tried to hurt her brothers before...

Faint memories of two older senior boys, a blond and a redhead, beating her brothers while she was outraged, screaming and trying to fight off the teachers that held her back while some of her friends tried to help her brothers came rushing into her mind.

Temari's eyes narrowed angrily in distaste.

"Look, I said I was sorry!" she snarled at him. Slapping away his hand, Temari snatched up her things and jumped to her feet, glaring daggers at him.

"Geez, don't go looking like you're gonna eat my guts or something, seriously." He said, dropping his hand and looking a bit fazed.

"I wouldn't if you weren't being rude to me!" she glowered at him.

"Well bitch, if you'd actually watch where you were going in the first place then I wouldn't be, now would I?" he said, his voice growing louder and angrier.

"Shut up! That doesn't give you the right to-" With a sigh, she clenched her hands hard on her things, knowing that spending her time just standing there yelling at some half naked hot guy in the middle of the hall will soon attract attention, and squeezing her lotion bottle in her fist too tight might result in a big mess later on. "Whatever, just leave me alone!"

Quickly turning tails, Temari ran towards the spa room as fast as she could.

"Hey wait, Blondie!"

Gritting her teeth, she scowled and turned at a corner to the elevator and disappeared without another word.

xXx

"HEY BLONDIE!"

Hidan walked over to spot farther down the hall by the side of the wall picked up a tiny metal glint is that Temari had missed in her hurry. "Uh…you dropped your key?"

A second later, the door behind him opened and a tan skinned man with shoulder-length dark hair stood by through the doorway.

"What the hell happened Hidan? I thought I heard something- " Kakuzu turned his head around to see Hidan standing there in only a towel and clutching something with a blank look of surprise towards the empty space in front of him.

"Again?" The dark haired man shook his head remorsefully, sighing and going back into his suite. "This is the third time this week you walked to the showers half naked like this."

Hidan whirled at his roommate through the doorway. "Shut the hell up, Kakuzu! You're the cheap bastard that rented rooms without any bathrooms!"

"Sheesh, do you even care if people see you?" The dark haired man settled himself back onto the expensieve leather armchair and continue to watch his program. Kakuzu can already guess the answer. As a famous male model for about two years, he was pretty sure Hidan was already used to having ordinary people oogling him at him whenever they were out hanging with their gang or going somewhere in public.

"Tch. Hell no, I've been through too much of that shit at work to even care anymore, it's the same every damn time: We either dress in whatever shit's in or strip, then pose for five fucking hours for the damn photographers. And geez," Hidan grimaced slightly, "they don't even let me have any sugar anymore. Now that is one big-ass sin, seriously."

"Get used to it, these jobs have a very good pay." Kakuzu sighed, annoyed and rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"Yeah, yeah, like I give a--"

The other man turned the TV's volume up higher, drowning out whatever vulgar curse he had to throw at him. Kakuzu had past experiences and had learned that if he could ignore Hidan's ramblings for long enough without going crazy, the other man would get frustrated and leave him alone. And normally, he wouldn't even be here, seeing as how the cost of his room would probably cost him too of his precious hard earned money, but his manager, as well Hidan's, had sent the two male models on a vacation due to Hidan's threats that he was going to 'beat the crap out of that fucking manager if he doesn't get some time off to go to church and eat some cake'. So supposedly, he had Hidan to thank for getting some time off from his job.

"KAKUZU!! ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?!" Knowing that he won't get a response back from the miser, Hidan scowled and stomped back to his room and slamming his door shut before anyone could come out to inspect where the loud yellings are coming from.

He should probably find that bitch, she might need her key back. Glancing at the small silver key on his bedside table again, Hidan smirked as he put on a pair of form fitting black jeans and a new shirt. Heh, this one's different from the rest, huh?

Usually, whenever he was out, Hidan always had to try to avoid being bombarded by hoards of fans and most importantly, having his hair touched. But this girl, what the hell was all that for? The look on her pretty face had changed quickly from being apologetic to blushing and to being pissed off just like that. Then she was looking at him like he was fuckin' shit or something.

In a sort of weird way, Blondie was indeed different than most of the annoying bimbos he and Kakuzu were used to dating. Hidan unbuttoned the first three buttons of his shirt to make sure his rosary was cleary shown against his bare chest and slicked back the few strands of silver hair out of his eyes.

Now, to give Blondie her key back.

xXx

The door to the women's locker room bust open with a loud thud and Temari rushed in through the spa room, not caring about a few stares she received for her slightly disheveled appearance.

Feeling really relieved, Temari sighed and went to an empty locker when she caught sight of a familiar brunette. Tenten was halfway done dressing; her face tinted a rosy pink from the steam, and her hair still down and damp instead of up in her usual buns, and apparently done with her bath, having gotten here earlier.

"Tenten?" she asked, going to an empty locker and dropping her stuff on a bench. "Sorry I'm late."

"Huh? Temari? What the heck took you so long? I've been waiting for fifteen minutes!"

"Long story."Temari sighed.

She bit her lip in dismay when she felt a blush threatening to rise at the memory of the touch of his chest on her palms, occupying herself by facing the other way and pulling out her four pigtails.

"It'd better be a good reason."

Temari groaned half heartedly.

Tenten chuckled, and stuffed her own bathing suit into her bag, "So was is it a guy?"

"No." answered Temari tartly, as she started peeling off her clothes off, bundling them up and stiffened slightly when she smelled a familiar musky male scent still lingering on them before stuffing the bundle into a locker with her lotion and clean set of clothes. "Just something stupid."

The faster she can forget about the whole thing the better.

"By the way, did you drop your stuff or something? They look kinda messy."

"Gee, thanks."

"Well, did you?"

"Sorta, I was running here and I tripped and fell."

The brunette didn't look so convinced but let it drop at that.

"Well, I'm gonna go help Hinata plan a new date and grab some food," said Tenten, slipping on her white flip flops. "And Ino had started planning on us going swimming at the beach tomorrow."

"Already?" Though Temari wasn't really that surprised. When it comes to shopping, gossip, and parties, Ino is always fast on track at planning everything out to the last details.

"Yup. Well see ya." Grabbing her stuff, Tenten waved and turned to leave, but not before she rolled her eyes playfully at the smirking intendment in her tones before she disappeared out the doorway. "Don't wait up on your guy."

She quickly ducked and ran before Temari's sandal hit the closed door.

Feeling glad that she could finally have some time alone to relax, Temari wrapped her white towel around her body and made her way to the women's hot tub. Sliding a foggy glass door to the side reveals a huge ivory tub with decorative stones and seashells littered around it. A few drawf palm trees in big pots were left in each corner of the room and a tall wooden shelf nearby held bars of soap, hand towels, and bath beads. Steam was everywhere, as well as a big painting of mermaids and a few small bags of incense clogging up the room with the smell of honeysuckle.

Dropping her towel, Temari slipped blissfully into the hot water, settling herself on a flat stone neck deep underwater and letting the bubbling water massage her back.

xXx

"Gaah!!" Temari startled awake when hot water went up her nose and the side of her face, nearly soaking her whole head. Realizing she had dozed off and ended up slipping into the water where she was sitting on the smooth bathing stones in the tub, Temari hastily got up and wrapped her towel around her.

Fully awakened after that, Temari wondered how long she had been in the hot tub when she turned at the clock hanging on the wall. 9:19 pm. Just great.

"Are you alright, miss?" a middle aged woman asked, handing her an extra towel to wipe her face.

"Uh, I'm fine, thanks." Temari gratefully accepted the cloth, wiping her face and getting out of the huge tub. Suddenly feeling like heavy lead when her body left the water, she sighed and dragged her wet self to the locker rooms, drying her hair on the way. The warm steam from the hot tub and the whole day out shopping and in the sun made her want to just grab a cup of hot cocoa and sleep off the rest of the night.

Drying the rest of herself at her locker and deciding to leave her damp hair down to dry, Temari coated her skin in a creamy layer of lotion before changing into a lavender skirt and a tank top and of course, she smiled to herself, her favorite trademark fishnets and mesh.

Temari picked up her things, checking through them at the same time to make sure she has all her old clothes, lotion, towel and… Where's my key?

Shaking her dirty clothes out in case the key was in one of the pockets, she looked around on the ground to make sure if it had fallen somewhere, and felt her hands through the clothes she's currently wearing, trying to feel for it.

No such luck.

Temari vaguely remembered grabbing the key, along with her bathing stuff out with her when she left her room, and after that confrontation with that stupid sexy white-haired bastard and dropping her things, Temari had picked all her stuff and ran off as fast as she…wait, hadn't she picked everything up? What had happened after that? Did she drop it or something?

After the fifth time of turning out her things, Temari sulked out of the locker room angrily while other people around the main spa room backed off fearfully and tried to avoid getting in her way and getting in danger of being a target. She groaned tiredly.

There's no problem with asking the receptionist for a new one, but the old key she had also has the room number imprinted on it so if anyone were to find it, they can easily get access to her room at any time if they weren't the nice type of people who would just turn it in at the main desk. Great, now she might not even be able to go to the beach tomorrow with her friends because of this stupid situation…

Walking out to the main spa room and sitting on one of the couches by the main door, Temari sat back and closed her eyes, massaging her temple. Damn, of all the stupid, annoying little things that can happen on her vacation, this had to happen.

The blond sighed tiredly. What else can happen now?

Temari's eyes snapped open and all the sleepiness left immediately when she heard the familiar voice coming from right next to her ear.

"Hey Blondie, lose something?"