The person who smiles when things go wrong has found someone to blame it on.
Dresden Cruor smiled as he pocketed his wand and glanced idly around the corridor. His pale features were angelic in the dim light of the torches. Slim fingers reached into another pocket and pulled out a small metalic object. It was flipped open with a click to reveal an ornate pocket watch with odd symbols in place of numbers and far too many hands. He smiled at it as he stopped before a clear stretch of wall and ran a hand lovingly across it.
With a sigh, he leaned against it to wait. And it didn t take long. Within moments, a fellow classman came up the portraitless hall at a jog.
"Cruor!"
"Yes, Matthews?"
The other boy leaned on his knees for a minute or so as he panted.
"Elric was finally found, edge of the Forbidden Forest. Strangled."
"Really?" Dresden replied with a horrified expression. "I mean, I know Sheridan was threatening to ring his neck, but I didn t think he meant it literally!"
The other boy paled.
"Did he really say that?"
"Yes. You can ask McKensie. She was quite annoyed with his grumbling in class."
The other boy s face drew together in a mixture of dawning understanding and tiredness.
"You'd best come with me. We need to inform the Headmaster of this."
Dresden nodded sharply, keeping up the facade of horror. Matthews turned away to lead the way back down the hall. Dresden eyed the thick chain of his pocket watch for a moment before wandlessly transfiguring it to a more delicate pattern. He would put it back come summer. No need to make it look suspicious after all.
Even if the voices aren't real, they have some good ideas.
"You know, I think she d look better as a red head."
Jak twitched at the rough voice that invaded his thoughts. If his therapist noticed, she said nothing. She was accustomed to him twitching from time to time, hearing things no one else did. He frowned at that, but ignored the first voice.
"I agree, but I would have to say Crimson."
The second voice was smoother, like silk. Slightly entrancing. Without knowing why, Jak found himself turning to look at the therapist. She was a blond this time, with green eyes, somewhere between grass and emerald. The blond didn t go well with the eyes, or the freckles and pale skin.
"You should dye your hair red."
The therapist looked up with a raised brow. She eyed him a few moments before setting her writing pad on the table between them. She considered his statement before speaking.
"Why red?"
"Why not?"
She frowned.
"Mr. Blake, I m the one asking questions." She spoke with a hint of derision. She was looking down on him like there was something wrong with him. Like he was a freak.
He didn t know quite what happened after that. When he came to, he was seated by her head. His hands were coated in blood. The pen was laying in the blood pooling from her throat. His hands were currently dragging the substance through the last few strands of her hair. Darkening it to crimson. He eyed the color for a moment.
Not bad. She really did look better as a red head.
Keep smiling; it makes people wonder what you're up to.
Many of the people of Konoha assumed that Naruto smiled because he was a generally happy person. That he adored anything and everything he came across. That he always had a nice thought, or a sweet thing to say.
The reality wasn t quite so altruistic.
Naruto had learned early on that smiling made people pay attention. It was the icing on the cake of his greatest prank to date. It was an ongoing one, and not even Jiijii knew of it.
Everyone paid attention when he smiled. From the lowly merchants, to the highly trained shinobi. If they saw him smiling, they wondered what he was up to. He didn t even need to be up to something. They would stop what they were doing to watch. To try and see. It was really the only neutral attention he got most days.
It helped that it amused him.