Hey there. My first fanfic i've ever posted! The first chapter gives you a taste for some character stylings and my writing style. Oh and if Sakura's different personality annoys I'm really sorry - - ' I did it for dramatic irony as you'll see later. Anyway… I hope you enjoy it and forgive my n00bness…. As for the title, it is named as such because a bite from the world's most deadly snake kills in 40 minutes.
1 – Lethargy
Uchiha Academy's first school day of the New Year was a brilliant one for the chairman's heir – it marked Uchiha Itachi's first day of being able to gloat to his little brother about not having to go to school ever again, for the rest of his life. And it also marked his first day in training as the heir to inheriting the academy and other family assets. However, for his younger brother, Uchiha Sasuke, another school year meant never ending trouble. So as Itachi pulled up by the school with a smirk pasted on his face, Sasuke opened the door slowly and grabbed his suddenly very heavy bag and slung it over his shoulder with a deep sigh.
"Another two whole years of high school, ay then little brother?"
"Shut up."
Itachi was smiling so much it was disturbing – Uchihas weren't really known for smiles. "Go on. The screaming fan girls are waiting."
Sasuke sniggered. "What, you think that just because you're out of school, they're gone for good? Too bad for you."
"Off you go to class, Sasuke! You're making me late for my extremely important work."
He raised an eyebrow. "I don't think I've ever seen you so happy… ever." His brother laughed as he pulled himself out of the car and pushed the door closed. Itachi blew him a kiss before revving the engine loudly and roaring off down the street. "No," he muttered, "I really haven't seen him so excited before."
"Sasuke-kun!" came a sweet, girly sounding voice. He felt surge of annoyance, whipping around with a dark glare. An attractive girl with pink hair and green eyes dashed towards him with a smile on her lips. She ran straight up to him, shattering his glare defences.
"What do you want?" He snapped, irritated that this unknown girl had used his first name. Her smile wavered at his icy temper, but she quickly recovered.
"I just wanted to ask you to thank your father for such a warm welcome to Uchiha Academy." She said, fiddling with a strand of her hair. Sasuke took a discreet breath of relief. But the relief quickly dissipated as her eyes met his and a light blush dusted her cheeks. "I… I've just transferred here from Hokkaido. Actually, we're in the same class this year, Sasuke."
Sasuke huffed. "Who the heck are you?" he said with a sneer.
She blushed deeply. "Gomen nasai, Sasuke-kun – my name is Haruno Sakura." She said quickly.
"Well thanks, Haruno. I'll be sure to pass that message on to father." He said flatly, before roughly brushing past the girl (who was several centimetres shorter than him) and disappearing around the corner of the school's gates.
"Wow…" Sakura whispered, watching him leave. "So much for a warm welcome." Though in her head she couldn't decide whether it had actually been a cold welcome, or a really, really hot one. Her friends from Uchiha Academy had told her that the chairman's sons were both absolute heartthrobs – but damn… seeing one of them in person was mind-blowing! His dark eyes seemed like they could've sucked her in, and his pale skin looked as soft as fresh snow. And his hair! Well it was nothing short of amazing – his blue-black bangs framing his face, and his hair spiking coolly up at the back. It was no great surprise that a guy like him had to build a wall of ice around him. The chicks in the school probably wouldn't give him a moment's peace. "And I won't be any different," she muttered to herself. But Sakura had an advantage besides appearance and character that gave her the one up against other girls.
By the time Sasuke had fought his way through the writhing swarm of reunited friend groups and fresh faces Haruno had disappeared from his mind. Pretty much every single girl he'd ever met seemed to lust after him. As irritating as it was, it stopped meaning much to him a long time ago. Luckily for him, his fan base was so vast that it lost meaning to them as well, so despite being attracted to him, there was only a small number of people who actually actively went after him. One of the worst was Yamanaka Ino – someone Sasuke was quickly learning to hate – and she was advancing on him with blatant agenda and frightening determination. He shot her a glare, but she didn't burst into flames like the indirect types. Like Haruno, she walked through it with only a little hesitation.
"Hey, Sasuke-kun. How were your holidays?"
"Hn," he muttered, brushing past her.
Ino folded her arms before marching up the stairway to the school entrance behind him. "Where are you going?"
God, just leave me the fuck alone! He thought to himself, turning around and trying to personify this thought into a glare as best he could. "It's none of your business," he snarled.
Ino snorted, making Sasuke glare harder. "Fine. I'll just talk to you when you're in a better mood," she said, turning away. But she was kidding herself; he would never be in a better mood towards her. It was only the imaginary man with his face that Ino could ever hope to have treated her kindly. Sasuke was not only filled with hate. There was a lot of it in there – there, in his heart. There was a lot of other stuff too. He had love, respect, courage, fear, insecurity, satisfaction and so on. In fact the youngest Uchiha contemplated emotion a lot. But Sasuke was intensely conservative and couldn't stand himself if he showed much emotion, other than disapproval, approval or disgust. Anything cool, but nothing weak.
He strolled down the corridor, attracting several glances, before making a quick right-handed turn into an unused classroom. His eyes quickly surveyed the layout. Not much had changed since the year before – the broken desks were still piled up in the northern corner of the room. The same musty smell filled his nose that came from the case of out-of-date textbooks sitting against the wall. The walls were slightly different – some of the old works done by first years had been taken down, and also a whole lot more white paint had peeled and flaked off. The white board was covered in the remnants of years of notes, equations and diagrams. The teacher's desk had long since lost its gloss and was covered in initials, hearts and genitalia. Sasuke shut the door with a faint click.
"I almost began to miss this little shithole," he said, turning to grin at Shikamaru and Gaara who were sitting on the book cabinet, their bags slumped against the wall.
Shikamaru raised a casual hand. "Sasuke, my man! How was Australia?"
Dropping his bag with the others, he went and pulled himself up onto the cabinet next to Gaara. "It was full of things meant to kill you, which I wasn't too keen on."
Gaara blinked. "I thought that the Uchihas would have liked all the snakes."
For a second, Sasuke wasn't sure whether he was being serious. "The snakes were okay. It was the sharks and spiders and crocodiles and jellyfish and swimming chainsaws that got to me."
Gaara leaned back and locked eyes with Sasuke's. "But you enjoyed it, right? I've always wanted to go there."
Shikamaru snorted. "You'd love it, Sandman. But don't bother asking Sasuke. He doesn't enjoy anything."
The door clicked and their eyes flicked up as Kiba, Shino and Hinata walked in. Kiba and Shino were chattering loudly, with Hinata occasionally chuckling. Sasuke groaned and rolled his eyes. The lame thing about finding an awesome abandoned classroom was other people finding out about it. Normally there were two groups who hung out in that classroom – Sasuke and his friends, and Uzumaki Naruto and his friends. The problem was, their group was really big and normally a whole lot noisier than just Shikamaru, Gaara and Sasuke. Fortunately, there was a sort of treaty in the classroom – firstly, the only girl allowed in the room was Hinata, because no one was evil enough to ask her to leave and because she wasn't an obvious or offensive flirt to anyone anyway (which was the reason the rule existed). Secondly, there was to be no rivalry or competition between the groups. But it was still shitty having to share, even if there wasn't conflict. The group had been hoping that they'd found somewhere else, but apparently not. A couple of minutes later, the door flew open and Naruto, the boy with spikey blond hair, insanely blue eyes, whisker-like birthmarks and some weird obsession for the colour orange, burst into the room with his best friends – Deidara, Sasori and Tobi.
"And then he was like, 'I'll show you fat-ass, you jerk,' and then I was like 'Well, you could at least take me out to dinner first,' and then I clocked the see-you-next-Tuesday right in the face!" he was reciting to his friends, with bright eyes and excessive enthusiasm.
Sasori and Tobi were laughing, but Deidara nudged him, saying, "with your cock, right?"
"Fuck off," he groaned. "You're not funny – go and sit in the corner, Deidara."
Deidara did puppy dog eyes before dancing over to the corner and whimpering, trying to appeal to his friend with his cute.
Naruto just laughed, finding himself a seat with his other friends. Hinata placed her fingers on her lips, her cheeks turning pink.
Sasuke subconsciously found himself glaring at her, so he quickly diverted his gaze to Gaara, who was regarding him quietly with a raised eyebrow. "What?" he barked, feeling his cheeks turning red.
"I can't believe you're still in love with that ass," he muttered, to which he received a snort.
Shikamaru sniggered. "Sasuke can't help it if he'd rather tap ass – in both senses,"
Sasuke shot him an acidic glare, which apparently caused no effect. Gaara just rolled his eyes. Then he blinked and suddenly twisted around and peered down the back of the cabinet. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Shikamaru frowned at his friend before peering down as well.
"I heard squeaking and scuffling. Like a rat or something." It was when Gaara said these words when Sasuke, who had returned his focus to Naruto and Deidara, saw movement in the corner of his eye.
"What the..?" He said, as a small white mouse scarpered across the room before disappearing under the door. He turned to his friends with a bewildered look on his face. "I think it was a mouse, not a rat."
"What? Did you see it?"
"Yeah. A mouse just darted across the room." He shook his head.
The mouse ran down the corridors as quickly as its little legs could carry it, its tiny heart beating rapidly in its chest. The school bell was about to sound now, and the hall became crowded with legs threatening to crush the small mammal as it wound its way and wiggled into the girl's changing rooms. It slid across the moist linoleum, its feet losing traction as it skidded into an open cubicle. For a second or two, it seemed stunned as it stared at the wall it almost crashed into. Then it quickly retraced its steps to the mouth of the cubicle and quickly glanced around the room before retreating back into the corner. Suddenly, its pink nose began to twitch and its shape began to waver. Its limbs seemed to stretch out as its body expanded – and more, its pigment faded from white and filled with pink. Five seconds later, the morphing animal was five foot seven, with pink flowing hair sprouting from its head, and its pink eyes had changed to green. In fact, it was no longer a mouse at all, and not only was it now humanoid – it also closely resembled the Haruno Sakura whom Sasuke had only just met earlier that day. The girl's face seemed unfazed by the transformation she had just undergone, but her emerald eyes were wide as she pensively held her chin.
"Well…" she mumbled. "I guess that puts any of us girls out of the running." Her eyes flicked up suddenly as the bell began to sound.
"Finally, we get to go to damn homeroom!" Shikamaru said, throwing up his hands.
"It still sucks you're not in our class, though." Gaara said, sliding off the cabinet and slipping his satchel over his shoulder.
He smirked at his friend. "Yeah, but it doesn't suck that I'm in Tenten's class. Though I wouldn't expect a couple of homos like you to understand the implications of that," he said, seemingly satisfied with the annoyed reactions of his friends.
"What about Temari?" Sasuke asked.
"What about Temari?" Shikamaru snapped back.
Gaara was quickly turning red. "Come on you two – let's go already."
They sighed and followed their friend's example as they filed out of the room. The other group hadn't even got up yet – they never seemed to care about tardiness. Sasuke glanced back quickly before shutting the door to get another glimpse at the group, letting the butterflies fill his stomach. Noticing this, Shikamaru sighed. "You're too good for him, you know," he muttered.
"Shikamaru…" he sighed, not in the mood for an argument, "fuck off."
His friend snorted in reply, before peeling off down another corridor with a wave. "See you guys at break."
"Hn," he said. Gaara didn't say anything, but waved back.
"Why does he have to be so loud about it?"
"Hn."
Gaara rolled his eyes, before gently shunting his friend. Even though he knew Sasuke was an Uchiha and he accepted this, there were times when he found the guys affirmations quite obnoxious. "Well, Sasuke, I'm sure you only want to be ostracized as much as I do. And by that I mean you really wouldn't want that." Sasuke didn't reply. His eyes were fixed to the floor. Gaara sighed, figuring that his best mate really wasn't in the mood to talk at all, if he couldn't even talk to him.
They rolled up to homeroom at the same time as the weird guy Rock Lee was going in as well. The boys exchanged an exasperated glance. So the weirdo and a fresh girly girl fan girl were in their homeroom. Fantastic.
Their eyes scanned the room as they entered. Haruno was already there, sitting near the front next to… Sasuke groaned.
"Sasuke-kun!" Ino cried, blushing a little. He shot her a glare before looking to see who else had invaded his homeroom. The only faces that he could put names to were Hyuga Neji and Akimichi Choji, though he didn't know either of them very well.
Kazekage Gaara looked equally disappointed with his classmates, his eyes even seeming to harden as he watched Rock Lee pulling up a seat right up close to the front of the class. "Ugh… Let's sit at the back."
"Hn…" Sasuke muttered with a slight growl. They walked to the back of the class and sat down in the pair of desks at the left hand end of the classroom – as far away from Rock Lee as possible. Perhaps it was kind of mean, but Lee had plenty of friends who would sit with him, so they didn't feel so bad about finding him really creepy.
Suddenly, a voice filled Sasuke's ears. It wasn't close but it stood out to him like it was on a whole other frequency. He glanced at Gaara, who had a slight smile spread across his lips. "You should see your face," he said, his eyes fixed on Deidara and Naruto as they made their way into the room.
Trying to seem as though it didn't mean a thing to him, Sasuke smirked and let his eyes fall on Naruto. Deidara was nudging him and pointing to some desks near the middle of the room. "Hey, we should sit near Neji, un."
"I think not," came a harsh voice. The two latecomers whipped around to see a woman with large breasts (huge breasts actually) smiling at them with her soft lips and hard brown eyes. "When you've stopped staring at my breasts, you can use this layout to sort out where you'll be sitting – I'm too lazy to learn names so it'll be easier to have a seating plan for a while. And also, hopefully you'll be able to make some new friends."
The class seemed to groan, but Sasuke groaned the loudest. Gaara was the only person in the whole class he wanted to sit with. "It better not be in…" he began to mutter as the teacher taped a large piece of paper on the white board. "Ah… fuck – it's in alphabetical order."
A thoughtful look spread across Gaara's face as he stood up with his bag and made his way to the middle of the room to sit between Rock Lee and a bored looking girl with large brown eyes and freckles. Sasuke himself slowly began to rise from his seat when he froze. Naruto was pounding up the aisle towards him with a grin on his face. A sick feeling rose to his stomach and his heart picked up speed, although his expression revealed nothing, as always. He just stared back with his deep stare. "Sasuke-kun! Looks like we're sitting together at the back,"
"Yeah." His felt his breath catch in his throat a little as Naruto smiled at him. Something told him that the fox's smile was a fake. "Well this is awkward," he said, still not moving his facial muscles in any revealing way.
"Nah, it's all good y'know," he said, but his fake smile wavered and he diverted his gaze away.
Sasuke moved to where Gaara had been sitting and made way for Naruto to sit down too. The blond plonked down and dropped his bag on the floor with a thud. His normally soft and smiling face was hard and dark as he focused away from Uchiha. Sasuke took a deep breath. "Naruto – I know you had a rough time in primary and intermediate."
Naruto shook his head and flashed another fake smile his way. "No really, Sasuke-kun. It's all good. I'm over it, y'know."
"No you aren't. You haven't talked to anyone from the old days," Sasuke said.
"I said it's all good," Naruto bit out, slamming his new books onto the desk. The raven-haired boy's eyes grew dark and he fell silent. The two sat together, both unwilling to cross into the other's threshold, as the others bustled around. After what seemed like a very long time, everyone had found his or her seats. Gaara was too far away to chat – Naruto plus a row of desks plus Rock Lee severed all communication. It wasn't great for Naruto either – Deidara was on the opposite end of the room with Neji.
Sasuke felt his heart burning a little in his chest. He had been in the same class as Naruto all through primary and intermediate – but this was the first time they'd been in homeroom together in high school. Back when they were little right up until when they were ten Sasuke and Naruto had a weird friendship. They were supposed to be best friends, but there was a time where Sasuke taunted the blue-eyed boy and tortured him. At first it was harmless banter. But then came the lies. Uchiha found the venom his family was so famous for and he poisoned Uzumaki's childhood with it. By the time Sasuke came to and realised he had injured someone he cared for, it was too late. The lies gave reason for everyone in the school to despise him. He would come home with black eyes and covered in blood sometimes. What was worse was the alienation. It nearly tore him apart – him being a nine year old kid. It took a year for the dark-eyed boy to work up the guts to find his friend who he cared for with every cell in his body and beg him for forgiveness – but he was greeted with a beating. Since then the two hadn't spoken. But they had both come out as different people. Unwary of the others' actions, both decided that going to a totally new school with new people was the best chance to rebuild themselves, and as a result they ended up in the same place. Sasuke became completely withdrawn – more so than ever before, afraid that if he didn't keep as low a profile as possible he would only hurt more people he loved. And Naruto, well he found new friends and was able to completely come out of his shell and express his jovial and happy nature.
But while that was the end of the story for the blue-eyed boy, Sasuke couldn't let Naruto go. Though it took a while for the boy to realise that he was actually deeply in love with him, he always had a strong determination to fix things between them. In self-hatred, Sasuke had transformed himself from an unconscious bully to being so protective that Gaara called him paranoid. Realising this, he promised himself that he could fix everything between him and Naruto. All of it. While Naruto didn't openly hate at Sasuke, Sasuke was fairly sure that inside he did – though the blue eyes always did their best to be kind. Some people would be content that he hid the hatred where no one could see it, but not only did Sasuke want to crush it – he wanted to fill Naruto's heart with the bond that made them best friends in the first place. And if he could, perhaps he could make Naruto fall in love with him too.
"You must hate me so much…" Sasuke whispered, a veil of sadness suddenly falling over him.
Naruto scratched at a spot on the desk. "Yeah."
"Naruto… I –"
"Do me a favour and don't talk to me, okay?" he said casually, still poking at the spot. "It's taken a lot of energy not to spread shit about you up till now. Don't push it."
"Is it that bad?"
Naruto shot him a glare that matched Sasuke's own abilities, making him shudder. "Oh yeah, it's that bad," he hissed.
"But… we hang out in the same place."
"Believe me, if it were up to me we'd go somewhere else. But it would blow your cover, because if I voiced how against being in the same room as you I am, they probably would've noticed your bastardation."
Sasuke snorted. "My what?"
"Are we all settled?" the harsh voice rang out again. "That's great. So now I can welcome you all to class 3-TE. My name is Tsunade, but you can all call me Tsunade." The room slowly began to tune out as the woman with the large dowries paced up and down the room. "The first thing I want to talk to you about is this year's exams…"
Haruno was the first to leap up when the school bell rang, and to Sasuke's dismay she immediately ran up to his desk and pinned him to his seat with an intense stare.
He glared at her a little, but was too surprised to raise his full battlements. "What do you want?" he asked her with a sneer at the corner of his lips.
"Just wait," she replied mysteriously, glancing at the befuddled looking Naruto. The boy with the spiky blond hair shook his head, shouldered his bag and got up to leave, brushing roughly past Sasuke and smiling sweetly at Sakura.
To be honest, Sasuke was a bit impressed with Sakura's lack of fear of him. Maybe he didn't like her after all. Maybe she was a lesbian (because if a girl didn't fancy him she was automatically a lesbian). "What is it?" he asked again when all except Gaara had left the room.
"Are you in love with that guy you were just sitting with?"
Suddenly, Gaara's eyes flashed as his friend went from cool and calm to bright red and fuming. "Wh… What?" he spluttered, staring up at the girl with pink hair and a very blunt manner of speaking.
A look of satisfaction spread across the girl's face. "I thought so."
Sasuke simply gaped at her, unsure of whether he should deny everything or beg her to keep her mouth shut. He chose the latter. He sprang up with one seat and in one fell swoop had Sakura pinned by her shoulders up against the wall. "If you tell anyone… that'd be bad. Okay?" The raven's mind flicked to his father's face if he ever knew.
She laughed nervously, pulling his hands away. "I wasn't going to tell anyone. I was just curious."
Feeling shaky, the boy grabbed his bag with a huff and began to march out of the room behind Gaara, with Sakura in hot pursuit. When they were just out the door, he whipped around to face her, his face still more revealing than he would've liked. "How in the shit did you know that?" The girl simply shrugged. "Come on. You must have found out somehow. Someone must've told you something… or you must've…" Suddenly his eyes widened as a smirk slipped across her lips.
"You were the mouse," Gaara stated, reading his friend's thoughts.
Now it was Haruno's turn to turn red. "What… what mouse?"
The boy with the blood red hair folded his arms, his stern expression unwavering. "I thought so."
All of a sudden, Sasuke couldn't help but snigger at the naivety of the girl. "A mouse. That's… ironic." Gaara seemed to smirk as well, as they walked off, leaving her behind in the wake of their laughter.
It was hilarious to think that whole stunt just pulled off by Sakura was meant to impress them. She probably figured that she had a gift that she could show off to them, but without realising that no, actually she's not the only one in the world that could transform into an animal. In fact there were five people in his year that Sasuke knew for a fact had that ability. Gaara, for starters, could change into a lizard. Deidara, Naruto's friend, had the ability to become a golden ferret. Shikamaru could choose at any time to turn into a black dog. Sasuke himself could transform his shape into an inky black snake (as could the rest of the males in his family). And it was through this ability that he was able to bond so well with Naruto, whose power was to morph into a fox. And that list doesn't include Itachi's animal buddies and these people's families. Sakura clearly wasn't expecting Sasuke to know people could change into animals, but she was wrong – he was an expert.
"Wait," Shikamaru said, shaking his head and tapping his pencil on the desk, "what did you say her name was?"
"Haruno Sakura. She was probably spying on us when we casually brought up the fact that… well you know." Sasuke had a boyish grin on his face; his mind still on the way Sakura had reacted when they had shot her down. Both Sasuke and Shikamaru had put down Creative Writing in their list of subjects for their last year of school – it was super easy and they basically got to muck around most of the time. And their teacher, Kakashi, was pretty laid back. In fact, this period they'd spent the entire time just chatting because the teacher was hungover. And it's not like anyone was going to nark on him – even the goody-good kids kept their mouths shut because most of them didn't like getting told how to write anyway.
Shikamaru gave his friend a sharp look. "You are poisonous."
"No, I'm venomous." The boy with the killer eyes broadened his nasty grin. "Get it right, Shikamaru."
"Well, what I'm saying is…" he began, though he kept biting his lip as though he didn't really know what he was saying. "Okay well… you could cut her some slack. I mean, I didn't know there was anyone else like us until I met you and Gaara," he said, his voice fading.
"Are you suggesting we hang out with her?" he asked, although it was unclear in his expression as to whether he thought Nara Shikamaru's idea was a good one or a bad one.
"To be honest, yeah," the brunet said, his eyes going dark. "This may sound nasty, but since she knows and since she's one of us… it'll be good to have her on our side – there are plenty of people who can't stand us and would do anything for some dirt on an Uchiha."
Sasuke shrugged. "Yeah. You're right. It'd probably be best to try and get to know her." He wanted to smile again to show that he really did agree with Shikamaru, but he couldn't summon it. Naruto had spoken to him for the first time since their brawl seven years ago. And truth be told, it wasn't great. He placed a tired hand on his chilled cheek, wondering what that kitsune would do for some dirt on him. His eyes snapped back to Shikamaru as he realised that the wily looking boy was shaking his shoulder.
"Hey. Were you listening to me?"
"No… I'm sorry." Shikamaru rolled his eyes.
"Of course you weren't. I was saying we could invite her to come with us – you, Gaara and me – to Choji's party on Friday night," he finished.
Suddenly, Sasuke leaned right up close to Shikamaru's face, making him blush in surprise when he received the force of the boy's intense stare. "If I ever hook up with a man I met in a toilet, I want you to shoot me."
He sighed, forcing away Sasuke's face with his hand. "You still aren't listening, you hopeless, lonely, prick."
The boy let his face sink into his exercise book. "Fine…" he mumbled through the paper. "I'll invite her to come along. You take Gaara as your one guest and I'll take Sakura as mine."
The boy with the quick eyes smirked, thinking how ironic everything was. "Well break starts in five minutes – do you know where she might be?"
"What am I, her stalker or something? How the fuck should I know?" he snapped.
"I was just asking, you gay fuck." Shikamaru dug his elbow into the back of Sasuke's neck, making him growl. "So we need to go looking for her, don't we?"
Face still pinned to his desk by Shikamaru, he crossed his arms with a muffled huff. "What about Gaara?"
Shikamaru picked up a textbook with his free hand and balanced it on the back of his friend's head. "He's in the class next door, idiot," he sighed, adding his workbook and pencil case to the pile.
"Mmf…"
Suddenly, Deidara who had been sitting just in front of them turned in his chair and leant forward, resting his chin on the desk in front of Sasuke. He had a devilish look on his face, as though he was going sit quietly and wait for Sasuke to notice him, rather than just mention that he was there instead.
Shikamaru sniggered. "What the fuck are you doing?"
"I don't know…" Sasuke muttered.
"Not you. Him."
Sasuke shot up, sending the pile of stuff in all directions. He frowned slightly at Deidara, ignoring Shikamaru who was cursing and picking up his equipment off the floor. "Hokuto Deidara?"
The blond raised an eyebrow, still not lifting his chin off the desk. "Sasuke, we were in homeroom together last year too. You hurt my feelings, snake-boy."
Sasuke sneered. "Is there something you need?" He didn't enjoy venturing from his small group of friends.
He sat up, the devilish grin still whacked across his face. "No. But there's something you need, right? You wanna find Sakura."
Shikamaru leant back in his chair with hard eyes. "It's more like we're obliged to. Why? Do you know where she'll be?"
Deidara shrugged. "Maybe."
"There is no maybe. You either do or you don't." Sasuke hissed, his eyes narrowing.
"Well," the blond began, propping up his chin on his elbow, "Kiba asked me to memorise Haruno's timetable, because he likes her but he isn't in any of her classes."
"Care to tell us where we can find her in… two minutes?" Shikamaru asked, quickly glancing at the wall clock.
"Again, maybe." His eyes turned sly as he shifted his gaze to Sasuke. "First I want to know… How come Naruto always freezes up when your name is mentioned?" Sasuke froze up. "I mean, until today I hadn't even seen you two talk to one another," he continued, "and then when he came out of homeroom he looked really angry, but he wouldn't tell me why." He flicked his hair out of his face, showing two eyes brimming with curiosity. "I was thinking that you could tell me, Sasuke."
Shikamaru stared at his friend, whose face had turned to the iciest, darkest, most poisonous glare that he had ever seen him pull off.
Sasuke felt his fists shaking under the table. It was taking every ounce of his energy not to smash the smirk off Deidara's face. "Uzumaki is a happy-go-lucky fuckwit. I don't know about his issues, and you know what? I don't give a shit. They've got nothing to do with me. I can't help it if I hate him so much that just being near me makes him conduct my deep repugnance."
Deidara's eyes fell dark as his hair flopped back over the left half of his face again. "Wow, Uchiha. You're everything people say about you. And more. What the fuck sort of a lie was that? You don't know him apparently, but somehow you hate him. Why can't you just tell me so I can help you?"
Sasuke leapt to his feet as the bell sounded, his face an absolute mask. "Like hell I'd make any kind of deal with you! I'll find her myself. You can take that inquiry and shove up your ass."
"Prick." The blond muttered, his smile now a mere whisper.
Shikamaru rose to his feet. "I suggest you stop there," he warned Deidara gently, his face somewhat apologetic. "Even I don't know what it's about. And I gave up asking a long time ago."
Deidara raised his eyebrows at Sasuke, who looked ready to grab him and rip his ponytail out of his scalp. "She's just had netball training. She'll be around the changing rooms."
"Hn." The dark-eyed boy muttered, still glaring at the offender.
"Thanks a lot," Shikamaru said to him, trying to move Sasuke along. "Come on."
Deidara's smile slowly returned as Shikamaru and Sasuke disappeared out of the door. "Well… that endeavour wasn't a complete failure," he said to Kobayashi Sasori who had been eavesdropping next to him. "Now we know that whatever this weird issue is, it isn't just one way."
Sasori sighed, resting his cheek on the desk and smiling sadly at his friend. "I wish we didn't have to investigate… It'd be so much nicer if Naruto just told us what is wrong."
The blond slipped his arm over the redhead's shoulder and kissed him on the cheek. "He will."
Gaara, Shikamaru and Sasuke found Sakura standing outside the changing rooms, still in her white and pink netball gear, chatting to Hinata, who ducked away to change when she saw them approaching. The jovial expression that had been on the cherry blossom's face before evaporated like dry ice in the desert as she turned to face the bastards who had been so nasty to her earlier. Gaara and Shikamaru stopped walking, but Sasuke continued right up towards her, his face as cold and emotionless as ever. Sakura shot him a reproachful look. "What do you want, Uchiha, to mock the new girl some more?"
He smirked as some of his dark hair fell across one of his eyes. "Actually, I was going to ask you out." Sakura blushed, but she didn't let down her defensive stance. Sasuke pushed some hair out his eyes. "Well you were right about my sexuality, so I meant we could go out as friends."
She sneered. "Why? You're just an asshole anyway."
"True, but Gaara and Shikamaru put up with me." He dropped his smirk, realising he was only making things worse. "Listen, I'm sorry. It was uncalled for to be so nasty to you earlier. And we thought about it. I mean, you seem pretty nice and what we're saying is… we'd like to make up for being mean, and we'd like to start over. See if we can be friends."
Sakura narrowed her eyes, taking a step away from him. "You venomous little prat. You can't have me dancing like you do with so many other girls that you have on strings."
Sasuke licked his lips, trying to rethink his strategy. "Don't. I'm not like that."
"Then why do you want to get close to me?" she bit out. "You don't expect me to believe that it's something simple like 'I just want to be friends'."
This time he couldn't stop himself from glaring. "Are you suggesting I have ulterior motives?"
"I know you have ulterior motives," she replied coolly.
"Fine! I'd get close to you to convince you not to tell my secret. And Shikamaru feels a bond towards you because he can identify with not initially realising that there were other people like us," he finally admitted, glaring furiously at the lockers to his left.
Gaara let out an exasperated groan. "You weren't supposed to tell her that."
Sakura stared at the redhead, before her flaming eyes shot back to Sasuke. "Firstly, you moron, I wasn't going to tell anyone your secret. I'm not a bitch. And secondly, what do you mean people like us?"
She was about to have her ears abused by Sasuke's frustrated explanation, but Shikamaru stepped forward and stopped him before he started. "You're a mouse, he's a poisonous, horrible little snake, Gaara's a lizard, I'm a dog, Deidara's a ferret, Naruto's a fox," he said, calmly clarifying 'people like us'.
"Thanks," she said, with a loud and grateful sigh. "Gee, Sasuke. Could you try being more vague next time? I got really confused." She let her body relax and she stood up from her defensive pose. "Well… they seem like perfectly fair reasons to try out friendship." She gave another loud sigh, before looking back to Sasuke with a big grin. "So, you were asking me out?"
Sasuke suppressed a groan as a few girls in the surrounding area turned to them with open mouths. "Yeah. There's a party at Choji's on Friday, and I was thinking we could go as friends." A few of the surrounding girls took a breath of relief.
Sakura shrugged, still grinning. "Sure, I don't see why not."
Finally, he thought. "Okay, well here's my number." He handed her a piece of paper with his cell phone number scrawled in loopy writing on it. Before turning to leave, he shot the girl a look. "Don't you dare let anyone see that," he warned menacingly.
She smirked. "Get out of my sight, you bastard. I gotta go change."
He smirked back. Perhaps she wasn't so bad after all.
OMG chapter 1! Warning: chapter 2 – the party is vague. It was kind of just a device for the setting and for getting Sakura more into the group. There was probably a better way to do it but whatever :P