Alright, so this is kind of a replacement for "A Helping Hand" and I am really pleased about how this is going. I added a little more originality to this one, subtracted some of the drama, added some humor, changed the plot around, gave my OC a makeover and a new name, and PRESTO! I hope you guys like it. It's not really the same as "A Helping Hand", and I personally like this one better. It still has a bit of the original in it, like the fact that Gaara is still a child of abuse. Well, that's enough of my ranting. I hope you all enjoy.
Disclaimer: I'm only gonna say this once. I do not own Naruto and I never will! :(
Chapter 1: The Start of a New School Year and the English Journal
Gaara stood at his bus stop, looking down at his feet in boredom. The sun was slowly rising over the woods behind him. If only the sun were rising in a different direction, Gaara would be able to clearly see the beautiful sunrise that was hidden by the trees behind him.
Gaara was wearing a pair of black jeans with blood red stitching, and a black colored t-shirt with a dark grey skull printed on the front of it. He kind of wished that he was wearing a jacket as well. It wasn't because he was cold, but because he wanted to hide the nasty bruise on his arm. Since it was a little too warm for a jacket, he would just have to deal with it.
Lying on the ground next to him was his dark red backpack, which was filled with brand new school supplies.
When the bus finally pulled up, Gaara picked up his backpack and slung it over his shoulder. He slowly entered the bus and took a seat next to an enthusiastic blonde. As soon as he sat down, the hyperactive boy began bouncing up and down with excitement. Gaara hissed in pain as the boy accidentally hit his bruise. Naruto immediately stopped and looked at his arm with a frown.
"Did your dad do that, Gaara?" he asked, his voice on the soft side. Gaara closed his eyes and nodded. "I'm really sorry," he apologized. The redhead nodded again, keeping his eyes shut.
"Why are you always so hyper?" Gaara asked. His voice had a naturally soft, melancholy tone. It was sometimes hard to understand what he was saying, especially in big crowds, but Naruto had learned to manage.
"I don't know," Naruto answered truthfully. He grinned at his friend, even though he knew Gaara couldn't see him through closed eyes. "I'm so excited about the musical this year. You're coming to the tech crew meeting after school, right?" Gaara nodded.
"I still can't believe that we're doing Beauty and the Beast," the pale teen groaned. Naruto chuckled and nodded.
"Don't be too disappointed. I heard that it's supposed to be a lot of fun to put on." Gaara just shrugged his shoulders, not really caring. The only reason he did tech crew was so he wouldn't have to go home where his father would be waiting. But it was also a bit of a plus since he liked building and painting the set.
When the bus stopped in front of their school, the two boys got off and went their separate ways. Gaara went to his locker and quickly opened it. He shoved everything into it, except for his pencil bag and the things he would need for his next two classes.
Gaara entered his first period class and sat down in a desk right next to Naruto. The blonde smiled at him and leaned over to talk to him.
"Did you notice?" he asked, giving Gaara a curious look. The red-haired boy just stared blankly at the other teen. Naruto smirked and rolled his eyes. "There's a new student again this year." Gaara still stared at him, not really knowing what he was getting at. The perky teen rolled his eyes at him again just as the bell rang.
The teacher didn't show up until 5 minutes later. He had white hair that kind of stood up like a flame. He wore a shirt that covered the lower half of his mouth and a weird headband that covered his left eye. In the teacher's arms was a stack of composition notebooks.
"I'm sorry I'm late, students," he told them, placing the large pile on his desk. "Let's get started right away. My name is Kakashi Hatake. You can either call me Mr. Hatake or Kakashi-sensei. I won't tolerate anything other than those two names I just mentioned. Now, when I call your name, please come up and grab a notebook." The teacher began calling names in alphabetical order, Naruto being the last person called.
"Why am I always called last?" Naruto grumbled as he sat back down in his chair. "I'm picked last for sports and on role-call!" Gaara just flipped through the blank pages of the journal, tuning out his friend's complaints.
"Alright," Kakashi began. "Your first assignment won't be due until the end of the year. You are to keep a journal. I don't care how often you write, just so long as you have all 200 pages filled up by the end of the year. You can write about whatever you want. Poems, stories, or even what happened that day. I'll even let you draw pictures, just so long as you provide a paragraph with it." Kakashi picked his attendance list back up and quickly skimmed it over. "Now, I'm going to assign you all partners for tomorrow's in-class assignment."
The whole class groaned, which made the teacher smirk behind his shirt. He began reading out the pairings. "Pair number one will be Hinata Hyuuga and Naruto Uzumaki. Pair number two will be Sasuke Uchiha and Layla Koji. Pair number three is Danielle Miyakazi and Gaara Sabaku." He kept continued reading several more pairs off the list before setting the piece of parchment down on his desk.
"I don't really have anything else planned for today," Kakashi told them, rubbing the back of his neck in a sheepish manner. "I suppose that if you all are quiet, you may chat with one another."
Everyone immediately took the man on the offer. Naruto chattered on and on to Gaara about his summer. The redhead just listened, although he only caught about half of what the other boy was saying. Naruto was talking at such a rapid pace that Gaara honestly couldn't see how he wasn't suffocating.
About a half hour quickly went by. Everyone got up from their seats, the crowd bustling out the door. Gaara and Naruto walked out of the class, following the flow of bodies down the hall and to their History class.
"I can't believe I'm paired with Hinata!" Naruto exclaimed, grinning. "We're going to get an "A" for sure!"
"I'm not really sure who my partner is," Gaara sighed. Naruto nodded.
"I didn't recognize her name," Naruto replied, lightly scratching at his cheek as he thought. "She's probably the new kid." Gaara nodded and sat down in his chair.
After History, the two friends went their separate ways again. Gaara headed towards the gymnasium and sat down on the bleachers next to Rock Lee. It seemed as if all the boys were on one side of the bleachers and all the girls were on the other.
"Alright, maggots!" the gym teacher shouted. "I'm Anko, and I am going to be your gym teacher. I am going to each of you a uniform, and assign a locker to and a lock to each of you as well. You are to go back to the locker room and get changed. Once you are done, you are to come out here and start playing one of the activities we have out on the floor. Tomorrow we will be starting flag football outside."
Everyone waited to be called up. Once Gaara's name was called, he walked up to the woman and collected his things. He then went into the locker room and got changed. His regular clothes were neatly folded and placed inside the locker, the lock being latched into place after he was certain everything was in order.
Gaara left the locker room and stood around the gym area, not really knowing what to do.
"Hey, Gaara!" Tenten called. "Would you like to throw a Frisbee around with me?" Gaara looked up at brunette with bored eyes and nodded. Anything was better than standing around and doing nothing.
Tenten and Gaara tossed the disc back and forth for about 10 minutes, keeping it well under control for the first portion. After a few minutes, Tenten started to get creative with her tosses. She would toss it from between her legs, she'd use her non-dominate hand, and she'd throw the disc in such a way that it would ricochet off the ground and towards Gaara. The redhead felt a little insecure that some girl was showing him up just by throwing a Frisbee.
Then, out of nowhere, Tenten threw the disc harder and higher than anticipated. It flew right over top Gaara's outstretched hand and connected with the back of another girl's head. Tenten ran over to the girl, Gaara slowly following behind her.
"I'm sooo sorry!" the older girl apologized. The black haired girl smiled and nodded.
"Don't worry about it," she told replied with a smirk, handing the disc back to Tenten. "No harm done."
The brunette grinned and quickly bowed before taking the Frisbee back and heading over to where Gaara was.
After another twenty minutes of gym, all the students went back into the locker rooms and changed back into the regular clothes. The bell rang a few minutes later and everyone exited the gym.
Several classes went by uneventfully. Before Gaara knew it, he was sitting down in his sixth bell class. It was study hall and, having no homework or books to read, he had no idea what to do with himself.
"Class, I don't care what you do, as long as you're doing something and you're not preventing others from getting their work done," Mrs. Okita told them.
"Can we play hangman on the chalkboard?" one of the female students asked. The teacher nodded. Gaara looked at the girl who had asked the question. He was surprised to find that it was the same girl Tenten had hit in the back of the head with the Frisbee.
"Do you guys want to play?" the girl asked some of the students. A few of them nodded and she grinned. "Okay, I play a weird version, but it works the same way." Gaara watched as she made blank lines on the board.
It was kind of like this:
X X X X X / X X X X X / X X X
"I will give you two hints. Hint number one is that he is an author. Hint number two is that this person had a very twisted and morbid mind."
"Is there an A?" someone asked. She smiled and nodded.
X X X A X / A X X X X / X X X
"Is there an S?" The girl's smirk grew even wider. She drew wavy lines that were supposed to resemble water. Everyone looked at her in confusion.
"Just keep guessing," she told them.
"Does it have a T?" someone asked. The girl wrote "S" and "T" in the wrong letter portion of the board. She then drew little dots in the water.
"Is there an E?"
E X X A X / A X X E X / X X E
About five minutes later, the board looked like this:
E D X A R / A X X E N / X X E
Gaara smirked, thinking that he knew the answer. He was also amused at the death picture the girl had drawn on the board. It was a picture of salt water. Floating on top of the salt water was a leaf. On the leaf was a little snail. Above the snail was a storm.
"All I need to draw is a tidal wave before your snail dies a horrible death!" the pale skinned girl declared, giggling all the while.
"How did you come up with this?" Sakura asked.
"I read it in The Scarlet Letter last year. This little girl named Pearl makes a boat out of a leaf and puts a snail on it. Then she sends the poor snail out to sea where it would inevitably face its doom."
"That's horrible!" Sakura screeched.
"If you think that's horrible, you've seen nothing. The things this person writes about is much more horrible."
The students seemed to debate amongst themselves. Gaara casually stood up and walked towards the board, gazing at the letters through perceptive eyes. The class watched as he picked up the chalk and filled in the blanks.
EDGAR / ALLEN / POE
"Is that right?" he asked, turning to the girl with a slight smirk gracing his lips. She grinned and nodded before erasing the game and going back to her seat. Gaara returned to his seat as well and stared off into space for the remainder of the bell.
After school, Gaara got on the school bus to go home. Once he entered his house, he hurried up to his room and locked the door behind him. He dropped his backpack by the door and took out his journal. Normally, he didn't like English but this assignment sparked his interest. He wrote the date on top of the page and started to draw a picture beneath it. It was a picture of a body with a bunch of holes through it, laying dead on the ground surrounded by blood. Gaara then wrote a description beneath it.
This is how I feel. I feel this way almost every day. I have a friend now, and it helps a little. Even so, I still have pieces missing. If I knew what was missing, maybe I could plug up the holes, but I don't know what's causing them. Maybe someday, I'll find a way to be whole again.
Authors Note:
Just to point out to those who might have been confused, those "x"s nearing the end of the story are what the hangman game kind of looked like. I wasn't able to use under scores, so I used X's instead. They are NOT signaling a break in the story. My story break lines look like this: XOOOOOX Just wanted to clarify for those who were confused.
Well, there's chapter 1. This should set the story up for later. Keep reading because you'll meet the OC in the next chapter! Before I forget, I have to thank someone who has been helping me out with this. Thanks a bunch NeferNeferi!! You've helped me out so much, the least I could do is put a thank you note on this page.