The Right Perspective

AN: I really like high school AUs, so I wanted to try one. There are no true pairings, because my experience in high school taught me that there aren't any definite pairings there either.

Chapter One: The First Meeting

Never before had an entrance held an intimidation factor like the door in front of her now. There was such a strong aura of foreboding and terror that she half expected to see some sort of odd, ethereal light source radiating from behind it in a grim silhouette. She slowly and nervously licked her lips, looking down at the crumpled paper that she held in her hands. She read the number tidily scrawled on it, looked up, read the number on the door, looked down, and repeated the process for about the thousandth time in the last five minutes. No good, it matched. Of course it matched. It was too much to hope that she was given the wrong information, and could have therefore sidestepped this entire odd ordeal.

She sighed under her breath sadly, how did she allow herself to get wrangled into these awkward situations?

Oh yeah, Ino.

She mentally growled while her hand gripped the doorknob. Sometimes she really hated her best friend. Who else would sign up for an art club because they had a crush on a member, have to inconveniently work at the same time as the first meeting, and then beg/force their best friend to go in their place to snoop? This was made especially worse by the fact that said best friend had some severe confidence issues with meeting new people due to an entire childhood of bullying.

Sakura exhaled and pressed forward on the door. Ino owed her. Like doing her math homework for a year, owed her.

As mentally prepped as she was going to get, Sakura steeled her will and cautiously entered the classroom.

She was somewhat, okay very, relieved to discover that aside from herself there were only two other occupants in the room. The first that she saw was a boy she didn't recognize with tousled red hair and a blank expression who was sitting towards the middle. He sent her a bored stare before returning to a hardcover book that was opened on his desk.

The other occupant of the room sat by herself at the farthest table away. She was older, probably an upperclassman, with a stern expression and shockingly blue hair that Sakura was positive went against the dress code. She absently fingered her pink locks. The strange girl didn't even bother to glance up from a notebook that she was absently flipping through.

Sakura almost smiled in glee when she noticed that her supposed 'target', a cute but emotionally bizarre painter named Sai, was absent from the room. No Sai, no Ino. No Ino, no art club. She was ready to sprint for the door already. Finally locating a neutral spot- a desk not too close to either the bored boy or the cold girl- Sakura sat down and observed the room.

It was a typical classroom, a few pictures displayed on the wall proudly by the more exemplary students at Namikaze Academy, but the careful characters written on the chalkboard were what held Sakura's attention.

Welcome to the Akatsuki Club.

She pursed her lips, finding the name a bit too theatrical for her tastes. She then felt eyes on her, and when she looked up she noticed that the bored boy was staring at her placidly. Blushing for no reason, she desperately tried to look as if she were doing something. Her fingers scrambled to pull out a textbook from her bag, and she forced herself to look completely enthralled with a chapter on converse convection. After a few seconds' more of scrutiny, she felt the stare leave her and she inwardly sighed with relief.

Just then, there was the loud sound of the door slamming open and Sakura felt her head instinctively jerk up to view the newcomer. She was a bit taken a back at what she saw.

He was tall, lanky, and with hair far nicer than even Ino's. There was a laid-back, almost lazy gait to his walk and his school uniform appeared to be stained with dirt and irreversibly wrinkled. Sakura unintentionally shirked back a bit when she noticed that the boy had some sort of rambunctious aura to him as well.

He didn't even spare her a glance as he casually strode over to the table where the bored boy was, pulling out the chair and gracelessly sliding into it. The red head stared at him in aggravation.

"You're late," it was somewhat monotone, but still managed to come off as accusatory.

The blond winced, "Not my fault, danna, got held up by that crazy son of-" his feeble explanation drifted short when his eyes scanned over the room, thankfully passing right over Sakura's head, "Where's Leader-sama, un?"

Sakura noticed that the boy had geared the question specifically towards the girl in the corner, who stared back at him with detachment.

"Preoccupied," was all she said smoothly, taking the notebook she had previously been flipping through and walking over towards the boys' table after eying the clock. She placed the notebook quietly down. "Sign."

The blond scoffed before taking a pen out from behind his ear and messily scribbling his name onto the attendance roster. The red head followed suit, but with a much more measured and dignified pace. The girl seemed to notice Sakura for the first time, and she eyed her critically. For Sakura, the intimidation factor was palpable, but it dissolved almost as quickly when the girl took the notebook and placed it in front of her. Nervously looking at the reserved girl, Sakura quickly and neatly wrote down her name without much thought. The girl evaluated her throughout the entire process before nodding, apparently satisfied.

"I'm leaving," she muttered, taking the notebook and tucking it under her arm before exiting the classroom with no further elaboration.

Sakura watched her go with a bit of confusion, why would she stick around just to get a roster? Wasn't she a club member? Gathering her nerve, Sakura cleared her throat, "What exactly do we do in here?"

There was silence, and she tensed, believing she had been ignored.

"The purpose of Akatsuki is the creation of art," came a drawl, and Sakura turned to see that the red head was staring straight at her again with the same listless expression.

The blond next to him seemed to notice that she was there, before he scoffed, stood up abruptly, and stalked over towards the supply closet of the art room. The red head dropped his stare and went to the back, where there was a small supply of lumber. Sakura's eyebrows furrowed- wasn't there supposed to be a teacher in charge? A mentor? Something?

The blond boy returned with his hands full of sculpting clay. Without preamble, he sat back down in his seat and began to mold the dough into a shape. Sakura watched as the red head sat down with a piece of wood, a sanding block in his grip. They ignored her presence as they set to work.

Sakura sighed and glanced up at the clock that hung on the wall. She had only been there a grand total of five minutes, and the after hours bus wasn't going to be arriving anytime soon. She glanced again at the two boys, noticing that they were completely engaged in their work. She stared at the textbook on her desk. The room was quiet, and she did have a lot of homework to catch up on…

Resigned, Sakura flipped to the correct chapter and began to skim through the reading assignment. The only other sound in the room being the gentle scritch of the sanding block against the wood as she idly completed her assignment.

After a few moments, she looked up and was startled to discover that the blond boy had disappeared while she was engrossed in her homework. She had no idea why this unnerved her but it did, and she found her eyes absently looking over the room for him.

"He went to use the kiln," came the drawl of the red head again, and Sakura felt rather taken aback by both his uncanny perception and his statement.

"I thought students weren't allowed to use the kiln," she muttered.

"They aren't." He mumbled, finishing up on whatever it was he was constructing as he began cleanup.

Her eyes widened slightly, suddenly fearing for her safety.

The blond decided to reenter then, and Sakura felt her breath catch when she looked at what was in his hands. Sakura was no art critic, in fact when it came to art she basically lacked even primitive capabilities like color coordination, but she could tell that his project was highly skilled. A ceramic vase was in his hands, detailed and perfectly symmetrical.

The blond caught her staring and smirked, walking over to where she sat. He picked up her textbook, and set the vase in its place. "Like it?" He asked, and there seemed to be pride in his voice.

Sakura swallowed, a little uncomfortable by his proximity and annoyed with how he just grabbed her book without asking, "It's very good," she answered truthfully after some hesitation.

He mulled this over, and nodded, apparently deep in thought.

She let out a startled yelp when the ornate ceramic vase was suddenly smashed into a thousand pieces by her heavy textbook, and her widened green eyes darted up to meet a playful blue stare. Powder and shards were all over the floor and Sakura desperately attempted to reclaim her heart that had appeared to jump down into her stomach for safe cover.

"Why did you do that?" She stammered incredulously as she looked at the blond who had destroyed the piece he had spent the entire hour and a half working on.

He smirked, and it was obvious that he was restraining laughter. To his side, the red haired boy gave an exasperated sigh. "Katsu," he said simply.

"Katsu." She echoed stupidly, still getting over the adrenaline rush the surprise had caused her.

He nodded and his smirk grew into a smile as he casually pulled off his school tie and made a beeline for the classroom exit. The red haired boy stared at the shattered remnants of the vase before shaking his head and leaving after the blond.

She felt her jaw drop slightly and she just had to wonder what the hell she- no, Ino- had gotten her into.