Okay, it might take me a bit to write it but I'll post it here once I finish (and hopefully others will join in and participate too)! ^^
But for now I'll give you a dare to write a drabble with the theme... autumn!
In the mean time I'll still take a truth! ^^
Alright, here we go! I ended up getting a little carried away with this one (probably more a oneshot than a drabble at this point, but oh well! 
). Sorry!
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The Autumn Festival
"Just . . . a few more", Sakura huffed.
It was a late autumn afternoon and the medical ninja was high up in a massive apple tree out at a local farm. With a basket in one of her hands, she was carefully picking green apples one by one. She didn't pick just any apples however. Instead, she inspected each and every one with the utmost attention to detail---solely choosing the ones of the best quality. Just as her basket was nearly full, however . . .
"Sakura-chan!", an approaching cheerful voice drew near.
Sakura had been so focused on inspecting the apples that hearing her name called out all of the sudden startled her for a brief moment. So much so that in a cartoon-like fashion, she was on the verge of losing her balance and falling out from the tree entirely. She stumbled for a few moments before securing her footing with her flawless and impeccable sense of chakra control. She then glanced down towards her apple basket, sighing in relief upon making certain that none had fallen out. "Geez, Naruto. Don't sneak up on me like that!"
Naruto was standing on the ground below, both hands behind his head and with his usual bright and sunny smile. "I got all the ingredients just like you asked!"
"The pie dough?", she asked with her arms crossed.
"Got it”, Naruto nodded.
'The sugar?"
"Yep"
"Butter?"
"Uh-huh"
"The cinnamon?"
"Yeah-huh."
"The eggs?"
"Got the ones on sale just like you asked."
“The brown sorrel?”
“Got the very last pack”
"And the nutmeg?"
"N-n-nutmeg?", he stammered, beads of sweat suddenly appearing on his brow.
Sakura swiftly winced her eyes in disapproval. "Tell me you didn't forget the nutmeg."
Naruto looked around the immediate area, glancing desperately for a distraction of some sort "Um . . . hey what's that over there?!?!" He erratically pointed at something higher up in the tree.
"What? Where?", Sakura responded, gazing up upon the branches and leaves above her. "I don't . . . see anything."
Naruto let out a nervous laugh. "Huh. Must've been my imagination."
To which Sakura answered with a tone of passive aggression. "Yeah. It couldn't have been you making a shadow clone while I wasn't looking just so you could have it run back to market and get the nutmeg before we got home."
"Yep! Definitely wasn't that!", he said with another nervous chuckle.
"Right. And a shadow clone definitely isn't hiding in the bushes right THERE!" Sakura pitched one of her spare apples like a baseball and ferociously threw it at the bush in her sights. And within a flash, what had been a bush a moment ago was now the remains of a bush within a miniature crater.
"Yikes!", Naruto fretted, taking a few steps back. "Take it easy, Sakura-chan."
The medical ninja, of course, looked rather surprised. Usually, shadow-clones briefly poofed away upon being destroyed, but there was no sign of a poof just then, much less a shadow clone. "Huh. Well I'll be . . .", she said before sporting a cheerful smile of her own while rubbing the back of her head. "I guess I owe you an apology."
"You do? Er-uh-um-I mean . . . yeah, it's no big deal!"
"Remind me to make it up to you after we win the couples bake-off tomorrow", she affectionately blushed while averting her gaze.
To which Naruto grinned from ear to ear as a blush of his own appeared on his cheeks, but only until the significance of three little words had occurred to him ". . . after we win?"
"Well we ARE going to win this time!", Sakura boasted.
"Um . . . Sakura-chan, do we have to enter the bake-off again?"
“What’s that supposed to mean?”, she asked before leaping down to the ground and looking the young jinchuriki in the eye.
“N-n-nothing”, Naruto stammered, acting as if he were walking on egg shells. “It’s just that the autumn festival's got other couples events this year. I bet if we did the three-legged race---"
“You don’t think we can beat Ino and Chouji. Just say it already!”
“It’s not that I don’t think we can beat Ino and Chouji . . .”, he again stammered, parsing his words as carefully as he could. “I mean I know we’ve lost to them again and again---“
“We were cheated!”, she interrupted, openly fuming in a typical tsundere fashion. “There’s no way Ino could ever beat me in a bakeoff! She must’ve read my mind to steal my recipes or something!”
“Sakura-chan, all I’m saying is that you tend to get a little carried away when we lose, so maybe we should---“
“Since when do I get carried away?!?!”, she growled, smacking her free hand into the apple tree out of frustration.
A loud rumble could suddenly be heard from above. And before Naruto and Sakura could identify the source of this rumbling, they were quickly buried by a sizable pile of apples and leaves.
“Damn it!”,Sakura muttered before poking her head free. She frantically sorted through the apples through the apples she was sitting in, cursing under breathe as she did. “This can’t be happening.”
Naruto poked his head free as well. “What’s wrong?”
“They’re bruised”, Sakura sighed, her eyes glancing upon all of the apples around her. “They’re all bruised now.”
“I don’t see the big deal. We’re just making a pie. As long as we wash them off, they should be as good as new”
“I’m afraid not. My mom’s recipe calls for them all to be as ripe as possible. That’s why I waited until today to pick them and that’s why I so careful about which apples I picked.”
Suddenly, a chuckling young woman could be heard approaching nearby. “Well well well. What do we have here?”
Sakura shifted her gaze towards the direction these chuckles were coming from, only to grit her teeth. “Ino.”
Ino was there, standing rather smugly, alongside Chouji, who by contrast only seemed interested in the bag of barbecue potato chips he had with him.
Sakura narrowed her eyes in frustration towards her rival. “What are you doing here?”
“I saw Naruto running around the market like a headless chicken earlier and figured I’d come see for myself what lame harebrained recipe you hatched this time”, Ino replied, smirking boastfully.
“Yeah?”, Sakura responded. “Well for your information, I’ve got a recipe that will send you home crying this year!”
“Funny. I recall you saying something similar the last four years as well.” Ino couldn’t help but bellow with laughter. “If smushed and bruised apples is your big secret recipe, it’s no wonder Naruto manages to stay so bone-thin all the time unlike my Chouji here. I guess there’s a reason he’s always down at Ichiraku’s. Can’t say I blame him.”
“Ouch”, Chouji nonchalantly remarked before continuing to munch on his chips.
Sakura, of course, didn’t have a retort for once. Just one look at her sudden flustered cheeks made her embarrassment pretty apparent and that perhaps she herself felt there was a ring of truth in that last part of what her rival had just said; a ring of truth that would perhaps explain why she was so gung-ho to keep entering these competitions in the first place.
Naruto’s reaction, on the other hand, was the complete opposite “Sakura-chan doesn’t need to win some stupid baking contest to prove she’s a great cook! She proves it to me 7 days a week, 365 days a year! Way better than any slop you could ever put on the table! Just make sure to have Chouji bring a box of tissues as she sends your sorry ass home crying tomorrow!”
“Hmph. We’ll just see about that!”, Ino huffed before turning around. “Lets get out of here, Chouji. Gotta make room for this year’s trophy above the fireplace.”
“Keep dreaming!”, Naruto barked as the two of them walked away.
“Naruto . . .”, Sakura said, with a gentle smile forming on her lips. “Did you really mean all of that?”
To which Naruto replied with a puzzled expression. “Well yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”
Sakura searched his eyes for any hint of pity or effort to simply make her feel better, but there was none to be found. If anything, he was oblivious to the effect Ino’s comment had had on her just then. Without even thinking about it, she gently leaned in and pecked him on the cheek.
“What was that for?”, Naruto asked, lightly blushing all of the sudden.
“Oh . . . just for being you”, Sakura answered before leaning her head on his shoulder.
Naruto quickly retained a jovial grin as a thought had occurred to him. “If being a knucklehead like me is enough to be with you, Sakura-chan, then I’m truly the luckiest man alive.”
“Whaddaya say we forget the whole autumn festival and stay home tomorrow---just the two of us?”, she said while placing her arm around his waist.
Naruto scratched his head, uncertain of the medical ninja’s sudden change of heart. “But don’t you want to beat Ino and Chouji in the couple’s bakeoff?”
“What for? I already have my trophy. A piece of tin just doesn’t compare to the one I cook for 7 days a week, 365 days of the year.”
“After what Ino said about you, I really want to see her eat her words.”
“You sure? With all of these bruised apples, we’ve kind of messed up the recipe.”
To which Naruto answered boastfully, “We’ll think of something even if takes us all night! Heaven and earth, remember?”
“Alright then”, Sakura said with a cheerful giggle. “We’ll give it a shot.”
Out of the corner of his eyes, Naruto noticed one of his shadow clones in the distance giving a thumbs up sign before heading back towards the village. Apparently, the clone had not been hiding in the bush Sakura suspected, but instead behind a rock a little further yonder. Seeing the success of his ploy caused the real Naruto to sigh in relief.
Oblivious to what had just occurred, Sakura nonetheless remarked, “It’s a good thing you managed to get all of those ingredients in time.”
The young jinchuriki began rubbing his chin, puzzled by those last two words “In time?”
“Well yeah. Weren’t you listening when I gave you the list of ingredients earlier? The market is supposed to close early today and be closed all day tomorrow in celebration of the autumn festival. I’m just glad you really didn’t try something as stupid as sending a shadow clone back to the market to get the nutmeg before we got home. I can’t imagine the kind of tight spot we’d be in right now.”
“Yeah”, Naruto replied, following a few nervous chuckles. “Me neither!”
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As to myself, I pick truth!
Edited by ThroughWithLove, 30 October 2017 - 02:50 AM.
The Gold Saints
