A/N: Hey guys, decided to write this fic based on some events that actually happened to me, cause according to my friend, the entire thing was like watching one big Korean drama unfold. So I figured, why not? Also, I'm totally into the Ino x Tayuya pairing because of Shycadet, check out her stories. Hope you enjoy!
I do not own Naruto.
"Hey, Sarutobi." I smiled and greeted him as I walked through the door.
"Hey." My teacher replied back without looking up at me.
It was pretty much like this all the time, nothing new went on, and all I cared about was getting through the day. I grabbed a stool and sat down at the same table I did every day, leaving my backpack on the floor as I went to grab my project from the cabinet.
Considering how old the school is, it's not very surprising that the classrooms are just as old, and they sure as hell showed it too. My sculpture class was a fairly large room, but with all the space the tables and cabinets take up, the room felt cramped.
Old clay dust and dried up acrylic paints covered the floors and were smeared all over the two long rows of large tables that sat in the middle of the room, the countertops that ran alongside two sides of the walls directly across from each other and the wooden cabinets lined up on the wall by the front door.
The back door had led outside, to a small patio where my teacher left clay throwing wheels, and there an empty area that sat next to the patio. The entire area behind the classroom was fenced off by aged white bricks covered in graffiti drawn on by students from previous years.
Despite the smell of dust and how gross the room looked, it was very much remained to be my favorite period of the day. It's the only class where I have a good number of friends sitting with me, where I can chat with them all period, and of course, let my creativity flow.
Ever since I was it a kid I'd spend my days drawing pictures and building toys out of lego blocks, dedicating much of my time to art. I even ended up taking 2 art classes this year.
I had taken sculpture 1 my junior year, and since there isn't enough people for a single sculpture 2 class, we're mixed in the same period. I heard a familiar voice near me while opening the cabinet closest to the door.
"What's up Ino!" my friend Naruto flashed a smile at me. He continued walking towards his seat while I was still gathering my project and tools.
"Hey Naruto! How you doing today?" I returned the gesture.
I walked back to our table, placing my project down in front of me.
"Doing good! Ordered a new Game Boy last night. This one's real nice, it's gold with red trimmings and red buttons, and I got it for only $75 how freakin' awesome is that! It'll be here in 2 days." (1) He stood to get his project while we went on with our conversation.
More students began pouring into the room, including our friends. Once Naruto came back, we both heard some girls talking behind me at the other long row of tables by the front door.
"Are you a new student?" one of the girls asked.
"Yeah."
Naruto shifted to look past the people at our table. I turned around in my seat and saw a girl across the room I had never seen before.
She had shoulder length red hair, tucked under a dark gray beanie that fit snug on her head. A long red bang stuck out from under her beanie, laying comfortably on the girl's face between her eyes. Her eyes, though, were the most beautiful shades of brown. She wore navy blue glasses that could easily be mistaken for black, and her glasses only made her eyes look all the more gorgeous from where I was sitting.
The girl's complexion was amazing, her skin looked flawless, her cheeks just a light shade of pink. I practically started drooling over her but Naruto caught my attention as he started talking to me again.
"Hey, is that girl new here?" Before I could even say anything, Naruto continued. "Let's go welcome her! Time to do my job as a LINK leader!" (2) Naruto pointed proudly at his LINK shirt.
The girl sat down at an empty seat next to the girls we had seen her talking to. Naruto hopped off his stool and made his way over to the new student while I followed behind him. While it wasn't necessary for me to talk to her, I figured I should at least say hello.
"Hey there! Welcome to our school!" He greeted her.
"Hi, I'm Ino, nice to meet you!" I smiled.
The girl grinned back at us.
"Hey." She replied simply.
"Are you new here, or did you just transfer into this class?" I asked.
"Just moved here. I'm from Iwagakure."
Naruto and I exchanged glances for a second.
"Uh, where is that?" I questioned.
"It's a little farther up north, about an hour from here. It's not really well known."
"Oh. Well which school did you come from?" Naruto asked.
"Iwagakure High School." She answered.
"So what grade are you in?" I said, curious to know.
"I'm a junior. What about you guys?"
"We're both seniors." I replied.
The second bell went off, signalling that class was about to begin, cutting our conversation short with the new girl.
"Well we should get back to our seats. It was nice meeting you, I'm Naruto! If you have any questions about our school or want some help finding your classes, I'd be glad to help! I sit over there." Naruto pointed across the room to where his belongings sat on top of the table. He flashed another grin at her before walking off.
I smiled at the girl and she smiled back, but before I had a chance to say anything, our teacher came back and told everyone to go take their seats. I didn't even notice he left..I held up my hand at the girl for a second before returning to my seat.
As I sat down, Sarutobi made his way back into the room, standing in front of everyone to explain the class directions for the day before sitting down at his desk.
Sarutobi is basically the most laid-back teacher I have ever met. I had previously worked in the school office my junior year, where I saw him having casual conversations with the faculty very frequently. Even when it was 10 minutes into the period and he had a class waiting for him, he didn't really seem to care how long he left them.
His class rules were simple, don't throw clay, don't be too loud, continue working on projects as soon as you walk into class, and don't piss him off. Sarutobi is mellow and all, but he's not the kind of guy that anyone wants to see mad.
But he made it clear that if he's ever angry, it'd be easy to tell cause he would probably be carrying one of the art stools over his head about to fling it at a student, or throwing other things places. I've always had this feeling that he's quite an aggressive drunk. Even so, he's still my favorite teacher.
Throughout the rest of class, I worked on my project, having conversations with my friends who sat nearby. At one point I noticed the new girl talking with Sarutobi and showing him her class schedule. He didn't seem to care much and told her to just sit in whichever seat was empty.
She nodded and obliged, going back to where she sat earlier with the group of girls. I didn't care too much, but for some reason I still found myself thinking about the girl who sat at the table behind me.
Third period eventually came to an end; the bell had rang, and students quickly cleared out of the room, making space for the next group of people in fourth period. I stood at my table, waiting for my friend Karin to finish putting away her work. We walked together out of sculpture class every day even though we had different classes, I always took the longer route just so we'd have more time for our conversations.
After we said our goodbyes, I went into my next class taking my usual seat in the back of the room with my two friends, Hinata, who sat to my left, and Kiba who sat on the other side of her. They greeted me as they always did. Hinata and I began working on our next art project that Mrs. Mitarashi assigned to us a few days earlier.
Everyone worked in pairs, but because there was an odd number of students, Kiba ended up working by himself, which he didn't mind. Our friend Shino wasn't in this class like last year, when we all had the same art class with Mrs. Mitarashi.
Our assignment was to create an artwork with one continuous line, that we would eventually cut out with x-acto knives and paste on another piece of paper. I started drawing the outline, trying to perfectly replicate Hiroshi Yamauchi's face onto the paper while Hinata watched (3).
While I worked, I heard the heavy door of the classroom slam shut but I paid no attention to it, assuming someone had left to go to the bathroom. It wasn't until I heard Hinata speak beside me that I looked up.
"Who's that?" she asked.
Kiba and I simultaneously turned to look to the front of the room. And there it was again. The same crimson red hair caught my eye, the new girl talking to Mrs. Mitarashi. I turned back after a few seconds to continue my work.
"She's a new student. We're in the same sculpture class." I explained.
"What's her name?" Hinata asked.
"Uh.." I never got her name. "I'm not sure, we didn't get to talk much."
Out of the corner of my eye I could see both Hinata and Kiba silently nodding their heads. Mrs. Mitarashi walked towards us in the back of the room, the new girl following her. I couldn't hear what they were talking about until they came closer towards me and my group of friends.
"...working on a project right now." Mrs. Mitarashi gestured to Kiba.
"This is Kiba, he doesn't have a partner so you can work with him." Mrs. Mitarashi turned to face all of us.
"Would you guys mind explaining the project to _?" she asked us. The overlap of other students talking made it hard for me to hear what our teacher had said, I ended up missing her name. Damn people being noisy as hell..
"Sure." Kiba and Hinata replied in unison.
"I'll let you guys get to know each other." Mrs. Mitarashi said. She looked at the girl. "I think you'll like working with them." she smiled before returning to her desk.
The girl sat down at our table directly across from us.
"Hi again." I smiled at her. She returned my smile with a grin. Kiba spoke up besides us.
"Hey, I'm Kiba, nice to meet you." He started. Kiba's paper was blank, and honestly, he's my friend and all, but he seriously can't draw to save his life, which is really weird considering we're in art 2. Kiba pushed the sheet of paper and his pencil towards her and continued talking.
"Any chance you wanna draw this out…"
After a slight pause, she answered.
"Sure." The girl took the materials from him. "What's the assignment?" She asked.
"It's a papel picado. We have to pick a famous person who died within the last 10 years who made an influence in the art community. We just gotta draw the person and add stuff in the background that has to do with their work or whatever and it has to be drawn with one continuous line." I said. I never was great at explaining things..but I think she got my point. She looked at Kiba.
"Who did you pick?"
"Ray Bradbury." (4) He answered.
She pondered for a moment, staring at the blank sheet in front of her.
"Okay."
Hinata and I resumed work, I had only drawn out Hiroshi so far, but hadn't decided what else to include in the background with the limited space I had. I noticed the girl pulling out her phone and putting her earbuds in. She stared at her screen for a few minutes, typing, and scrolling through pages before she started working.
Mrs. Mitarashi occasionally walked around the room, checking to see if students were actually working. She's just about as laid back as Sarutobi, but she still didn't want students to be wasting too much class time. When Mrs. Mitarashi reached our corner of the room, the new girl turned to her.
"Hey Tay, how's it going so far?" she asked.
The girl held the paper to our teacher.
"I finished." she simply replied.
Mrs. Mitarashi took the paper from her hand and stared at it. She remained silent for a few seconds.
"...Wow." was all she could manage. Of course, she had caught the attention of our entire group. "This looks great. I'll let you guys get started on your bigger version right now if you want to. Just let me go get the paper." Mrs. Mitarashi gave the paper back to Tay and went to the back room where some of the supplies were kept.
"Can I see?" Kiba asked. Tay nodded and slid the paper across the table to him. We all took a peek at the paper and I couldn't believe what I saw. I looked up at the clock in the front of the room. It had barely been 30 minutes into class, and Tay had already drawn out an entire masterpiece.
A bust of Ray Bradbury was smack in the center, books drawn next to him on one side, a burning paper man in front of the pile of books. On the other side, a perfectly symmetrical rocket shooting off into the stars in the sky, the entire artwork surrounded by a border and Ray Bradbury's name, and years of his life span were smoothly written out in cursive at the bottom of the page.
Who the hell is this girl?
(1): I literally have a friend who collects Game Boys I kid you not. He's really into Nintendo and literally has 20 Game Boys all with different color schemes and whatnot. I don't judge though, I think it's cool he has a hobby he enjoys.
(2): My buddy's also a LINK leader. For those who don't know, it's a student leadership program in American schools (not really sure if this a thing in other countries). To be honest, I don't know much about it, but I do know that one of the duties they have as members is to help freshmen and new students adjust to the school and help them however they can.
(3): Hiroshi Yamauchi, former president of Nintendo. The papel picado thing was a legit assignment my teacher had us do. Little fun fact, my friend and I actually wanted to do our project on Walt Disney, but since he's been dead for more than 10 years it was a no from our teacher.
(4): Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451. It's a great book actually, kinda slow at first, but I really got into it later on in. I think he had some real talent as a writer.
A/N: So there you go, first chapter, kinda starting out slow so far. It'll start flowing more later once I have more time to write, school has been kicking my ass lately. I apologize, but it may be a week or so before an update.
Some side notes, basically this entire story is what actually happened with me and this new student I met a few months back. So I'm writing this in my view, or in this case, Ino's view. Since this was a while ago, I'm writing everything about as accurately as I can remember it. Lucky for me, I wrote about this to a friend of mine and I can peek at our old messages as reference. Hopefully this story isn't turning out to be too confusing so far. I'm not very good at descriptions and such but I did my best to describe things and I didn't edit this much so I'm sure there's errors all over the place but whatevs.
I've also been really into this song lately, especially while writing this. Break Away by Artist Vs Poet, totes recommend it.
Anyways, read, review, let me know in some way that people are interested in my fic.
Either way, I'll continue writing, but I enjoy some encouragement.
-Hashbrowns
