The Legend of Konoha's Shooting Star

Intruders!?

April popped one of her homemade frozen breakfast burritos in the oven while she mixed herself a smoothie of spinach, blueberries, and green tea for a boost of energy. Her hair was still damp from the shower she took after her morning run, but it should be dry by the time she was done eating.

She and Naruto finished getting ready for the day and emerged from their apartments at about the same time. Once they finished locking up, their eyes met, and they grinned.

"Yaay!!! I'm going to kick ass on today's mission!!!" Naruto shouted as they took off, racing to the meeting spot. "Uwaa!!!! Mach 5!!!!!" he yelled as he tried to catch up to April, who quickly gained the lead.

"Haha! Victory!!" April cheered as she reached the others first, throwing her hands up in the air.

"I see you two are energetic as always..." Sakura remarked wryly. Where did they get the energy to be this excited so early in the morning?

"Good morning!!! Sakura-chan!!!" Naruto greeted her enthusiastically. "!" he said, stopping short and furrowing his brow when his eyes landed on Sasuke.

"!" Sasuke said, narrowing his eyes as they glared at each other.

"Hmph!" both boys huffed as they abruptly broke eye contact and turned away at the same time, snubbing each other.

"..." the girls sweat-dropped as they watched.

'Not again...' April thought, chagrined. 'Aside from that time when we tried to see Kakashi-sensei's face, their relationship with each other has been steadily worsening...'

'These two have been weird since returning from the Land of Waves...' Sakura thought, also chagrined. It was too early for this kind of tension. It was starting to get awkward... 'Cha! Kakashi-sensei!! Hurry!!!' Inner Sakura cried.

"Alrighty, then!" April said suddenly, breaking the silence, as she dropped into position to do some pushups. She was so glad to have that cast off! "Boom! Boom! Boom! Clap!—" She clapped as she pushed up and quickly caught herself, transitioning flawlessly into another pushup. "—You're picture perfect blue—CLAP—Sunbathing on a moon—CLAP—Stars shining as your bones illuminate—"

"Uh... What are you doing?" Sasuke asked, furrowing his brow as all three of her teammates stared at her. What did she think she was doing in the middle of the road? Sakura was glad April had managed to break the tension between the boys, but now things were kind of weird for another reason...

"Singing-clap pushups," April answered, as if it should have been obvious. Instead of counting reps with numbers as she went, she preferred to just workout to the rhythm of her favorite songs and calculate her rate reps per song ahead of time in order to keep track of how many she was doing. That way she could have fun working out instead of having to focus on trying to remember what number she was on. It was easier for her to remember words than numbers, and the words never changed, so she immediately knew where she had left off in her workout if she had to pause for some reason. "They're fun. Want to give it a try?"

"Fun!?" Sakura asked, flinching in surprise. It looked ridiculously hard! April was making it seem easy, but doing so many things at once obviously involved a lot of hand-eye coordination and strength in the muscles and lungs... Not to mention the mental fortitude required in order to be able belt out lyrics to what was obviously some sort of love song in public... She wasn't even that good of a singer.

"No," Sasuke refused bluntly. She had a lot of guts to do that when she couldn't even stay in tune. Her breathing was steady, but her voice was all over the place.

"April..." Naruto said, sweat-dropping. This wasn't his first time witnessing her perform this particular exercise, but they were usually secluded in the woods where no one else could hear. Out here in the open, it was kind of embarrassing. "It's fine if you want to do pushups or something while we wait, but your singing is a little..."