I thought i'd be able to take a break from writing, but this idea called me and i decided i didn't want to take a break. i've spent the last few days writing a plan and the first few chapters beforehand, so i'll be prepared, and im very excited about this.

BTW i know they aren't related irl, but having the sand siblings as Sasori's younger cousins is a MASSIVE convenience and a hell of a lot easier than making three 2D OC's.

Disclaimer: I Own Nothing except the plot.

The first day of school is always, without fail, the worst.

Because you've got to get up early, after a full two months of sleeping in, and you have to run around the house for about an hour trying to get your things together, and then you have to spend eight hours in a building full of people you hate and learning things that have no real world application, when you could be out making money and supporting your family.

Although I guess that last part really only applies to people like me.

When I wake up on the first day of school, it's not after a long relaxing holiday filled with days of waking up in the afternoon, and entire weeks of doing nothing. Unfortunately, not all of us have the luxury of consistent parents who pay for everything you need to have an awesome, cushy life. Hell, some people are lucky to even have one parent who is still alive and visits them sometimes.

Both of my parents died a long time ago, and up until three years ago, I was living with my uncle. But, after his youngest kid turned eight, he just sort of freaked out and left us with nothing.

So now, I live in a crappy one bedroom apartment which is literally right next to the train tracks, with my three younger cousins. Somehow we've gotten used to the way the whole building shakes when a train rushes past. And we're on the sixth floor, so we do get a pretty good view of the industrial side of town across from the tracks, and whenever you open the windows you get that awesome smell of factory smoke, which really isn't good for the kids.

During my holidays, I have to work three part time jobs just to be able to make ends meet.

My oldest cousin Temari offered to help out sometimes, but I never accepted it. If nothing else, I wanted to be a good provider for those kids; they deserved their chance at a good life.

On the first day of school, I not only have to put myself together, but three children as well, aged ten, thirteen and fifteen.

I had them all up by six, dressed by fifteen past, and finishing breakfast by six thirty. It was still dark outside, but already our part of the city was moving.

Temari was starting high school today, which led me back to the fact that I had no plans for these kids futures. Part of being a substitute parent, would be providing money for them to go to college, right? and Temari was a smart kid, so I knew she'd be going somewhere expensive. But at least I didn't have to worry about that for the other two, at least not for a while – or maybe ever, with the second oldest, Kankuro, who was a bit of a dumbass.

Kankuro was starting middle school today, which meant my youngest cousin Gaara, would be in primary school all by himself. Usually for a ten year old, that wouldn't be much of a concern, but he could be a little… strange sometimes.

By the time I had them all on the train – since we lived pretty far from the school district – I was halfway down the list of things he shouldn't, under any circumstances, do. We'd already covered things like don't talk to strangers, and come straight home, and were now onto don't pick fights with kids who are bigger than you, and at least try to make some friends.

"Quit worrying about him, he'll be fine," Temari had always been the kind of girl to overestimate people's capabilities. Especially her youngest brother's.

But I was too exhausted to care. I just couldn't believe that I had to go through all of this again. I could only take comfort in the fact that I only had two years of this left.

"Okay then, but if he gets himself into a fight," which he probably would, "then it's on you."

"Fine with me," Temari said. She smiled over at Gaara who just stared blankly back. "I have faith in him."

Misguided faith.

Out of all of them, I think Gaara was affected most by his father's abandonment of them, not to mention their mothers death shortly after his own birth. And as such, I was routinely called down to his school to deal with him. They had even suggested a few times that we put him into the emotionally disturbed class, but he's a bright kid, despite his screwed up personality, so we always refused.

After a while, the train stopped at a small station outside the hospital. It was as close to the primary school as the train would get and the high school and middle school were both on separate sides of town.

I made Kankuro go with Gaara, not so that he wouldn't get lost but so he wouldn't get into trouble this early in the morning.

Once they both got off it was just another ten minutes before we would reach our stop.

"They'll be fine," Temari assured me. She was watching me stare out the window at the retreating figures of her little brothers. "You should spend less time worrying about them and more time thinking about yourself."

"Easier said than done," I replied.

"Honestly, I'd be more worried about how we're going to keep a roof over our heads this year. There aren't a lot of part-time jobs suitable for students, available anymore."

Temari was only two years younger than me, so she had always taken it upon herself to share some of the concern. She'd given up a lot over the years to help out with the kids, it was pretty useful to have her to watch the kids when I wasn't around, but I still liked to think of her as a child who needed protection from the harshness of the real world.

"Something will come up," I assured her, "something always does; we'll get through this year just like we got through the last."

And if not, there was always the last resort option. But none of us wanted to go that far.

The rest of the way to school, we just spoke about things maybe normal people would talk about. Like how different high school would be from middle school, and what classes she'd have to take, stuff like that, right until the train stopped across from the Uni-tech building. The computer teachers would go to their graves defending the Uni-tech, but most of us knew that was where the dropouts and mature students went to get an easy diploma.

We took a shortcut through the park to get to the high school, where people were already beginning to flood in. I could see scared little flocks of new students, sticking closely together so as not to let the rest of the student body get near them, and tired, worn out seniors dragging themselves up the steps, still half asleep, ready to fake their way through one last year.

Temari and I went separate ways once we got into the building. She got to hang out with her pretty much normal friends, and unfortunately, I had to spend time with the people I'd been avoiding all summer.

"Hey dickhead, who's that hot blonde you were just with?"

First off was Hidan. He was my age but had been held back a year on account of that fact that he was a complete dumbass. He was one of those people who would likely drop out and go to that Uni-tech place by the station. Either that or he'd end up a criminal. Right now it could go either way.

"Hidan we've been through this before. And if you even talk to any of my cousins, people will be finding your scattered pieces all over the football field for the next month," I said, not missing a beat.

Hidan was a relatively good guy, so I knew he wouldn't actually do anything, but it made me feel better to threaten him like that from time to time.

"You think I'm scared of you? I'm fucking immortal!" he cackled.

Yeah, that was a thing. He had this theory that he was immortal, which was thus far, unproven. Though there were many times where we'd almost found out whether it was true or not, but somebody always got in the way before Hidan could be placed in a truly life threatening situation.

"And besides, you're too poor to afford a lawyer for your defence! You'd go to jail straight away!"

"Yeah, and what makes you think I'm not willing to make that sacrifice? Prison can't be any worse than where I already live."

"Right, I forgot you lived in a shithole."

He also conveniently happened to forget the fact that he lived in one as well. Hidan's parents were drug-addicted religion fanatics. I know, it's a weird combination, but life is what it is.

My next, unfortunately unavoidable friend was Kakuzu, also the same age as me, but he was taking mostly senior classes, since he hated everything about this city and wanted to get out as quickly as possible. He'd probably end up going to college abroad – if he could scrape up enough money to do so – and never come back.

We caught up with him outside one of the B block computer lab, where he'd been getting his timetable fixed.

"Those idiots had the entire summer to figure this shit out and they're only getting around to it now," he muttered as he left the room, having not yet noticed us.

"Well if you didn't insist on taking all those advanced classes, this wouldn't be a problem, dumbass!" Hidan exclaimed.

On a regular day I would've taken this chance to escape, but with all the confused younger students running around and trying to get things done before school started, I wouldn't have had a chance.

"As opposed to what, flunking all my classes so that I spend forever in high school like a damn loser?"

"Who're you calling a loser, asshole?"

These were the almost dangerous situations I mentioned earlier. Because none of us doubted, that, were they alone, Kakuzu wouldn't hesitate to test out Hidan's theory of immortality. But then, there's the distraction I mentioned.

"Girls, girls, you're both pretty," Konan, who was my only female friend, sang as she made her way over to us, dragging Pein along with her. "So you can quit this pointless fight 'cause you know how I hate violence."

If either of us was just a little less smart, we'd probably point out that her method of stopping violence from happening was to be violent herself.

She and Pein were both seniors. Konan lacked the general un-enthusiasm that the rest of the kids her age had, which was just as well because Pein had enough of it for everyone. They were both orphans and were relying on high grades to get them into college, rather than rich parents or government assistance – as people like Hidan would be forced to rely on.

We caught up with my last three friends – against my will of course, I was just dragged along by the slowly building crowd of people I hated to be around – out in the quad. They were sitting and watching a bunch of idiots tossing a ball around where they were likely to either hit someone or break a window.

Tobi and Itachi were two of my less annoying friends. they were cousins, both a year younger than me, but both would probably be put into junior classes halfway through the year anyway. They were the richest people I knew; their family was one of the biggest, most important families in town.

Itachi had a little brother the same age as Gaara, but as a general precaution, they weren't friends.

As for Tobi he was an only child. After Tobi was born, his parents hadn't wanted to risk having another kids just like him in case there was a problem with their genetics.

They were stubbornly convinced that every success Tobi faced was because of Itachi but at this point they were content to let him slide by on that.

Then last, but not least, was Kisame. He was my year, a mediocre at best student who would probably ride by on a sports scholarship or something, if he was even panning to do anything with his life. It was more likely that he'd drop everything and mindlessly follow Itachi, since that was what he already did anyway. We didn't know a lot about his real family but we knew he lived with a bunch of super successful criminals who weren't related to him at all.

I sometimes had trouble remember why these people weren't my friends in the first place. But then it was probably Kona's idea to pull us all together throughout the years. She'd probably spitted us all individually and decided we'd make the most amusing friends.

Now here I am stuck with these people.

"Morning!" Konan called, waving over at the other three. She weaved her way with the expertise of a senior, through the crowds of students and dodged a bunch of poorly aimed throws of the ball, to end up sitting herself down between the two Uchiha's. "I haven't seen you guys since last semester!"

"Yeah well there's a reason for that," Tobi muttered.

"Be nice Tobi," Itachi immediately reprimanded. "If you're not careful, somebody will hear you speaking in proper sentences."

With a huff, Tobi said nothing else on the subject.

"So how were your holidays? I bet you did something awesome and expensive, huh?" Konan pressed, her amber eyes sparkling.

"It depends on how you define the word," Itachi said, "but you all think everything my family does is expensive."

"We spent the whole damn summer socializing with rich people!" Tobi complained, "We were told it's supposed to help us make connections or whatever, but it was boring as hell!"

"Yes, it must be awful having a ton of money," Konan said.

"It isn't the money, it's the price," Itachi replied.

"Yeah, rich people are snobby jerks!"

"I don't know. It doesn't sound like too bad a deal to hang out somewhere that costs more than five dollars, with people who have manners and actually use them," Pein mused.

"Sounds better than sneaking out so the debt collectors don't find you," I agreed.

I had a bit of a problem with debt collectors.

"Sounds like a better time than hosing off your good for nothing drunken father an hour before he has to give a sermon at church."

Everyone took a moment to be thankful that, no matter how bad things got, at least we weren't in Hidan's position.

"Yeah, yeah, we get it. We shouldn't complain about being rich around you," Tobi said, "you fucking peasants don't understand our pain."

And right on cue, Hidan took the bait and started an argument which would only escalate as they each shared different, deeper problems which they faced due to their separate situations.

It was hard to say who was worse off, really. I mean, from a less objective point of view, I'd say I had it worse than Tobi did, but if I was just observing, it seemed pretty arguable. After all, rich or poor, we were all in cages. Certain things were expected of Tobi because he came from a respectable family, and certain things were kept out of Hidan's reach because of his father's terrible reputation, and the lack of resources at his disposal. So it was really hard to say who had it worse.

"Hey un, look out!"

As those words were called out, a ball soared towards us – unfortunately this was an everyday hazard at our school – with a vengeance.

Of course, before any of us could even think of flinching, Kisame had caught it. That was how things usually worked, since they always insisted on sitting in the quad.

A torrent of blonde hair and light blue gym clothes raced towards us.

"Nice catch un," the blonde smirked, looking our small group over before saying, "sorry about that un, I told those idiots we should've played on the field, but as far as they're concerned, they're the only ones out here."

"It's alright, I guess," Kisame said, "no harm done, right?"

He threw the ball back as soft as possible and the blonde caught it with ease.

"take your stupid game somewhere else, un!" the blonde yelled, kicking the ball down to the other side of the quad in a surprisingly high arch – another regular occurrence around here – before running after it.

"Well, she was hot," Hidan said.

Honestly, I had to agree with him – not an everyday occurrence – but before I could, Tobi began to giggle. Before long it turned into full blown laughter. Konan also looked slightly amused, and if you knew him as well as I did, you'd be able to tell that Itachi also found this very funny.

When Tobi calmed down from near hysterical laughter, he said, "This is why I don't hate you guys."

Hidan frowned, "what's your problem?" he growled.

"That was a boy" Itachi said.

I felt my mouth fall open in shocked horror.

"What?" Hidan asked, "But..!"

"His name's Deidara," Tobi continued for his cousin, "he was one of the rich jerks we were forced to get to know over the summer."

"Aw, he doesn't seem so bad," Konan said.

"Are you kidding, he was the worst one!" Tobi exclaimed, "He's just using his rich-guy charm offensive!"

"How come you don't have that?" I asked quickly, before he could continue his rant. I only received a glare as a reply.

Itachi cut in before anything else could be said. "He was recently expelled from private school for… unknown reasons, it must've been bad because his parents paid a lot of money to cover it up. His parents and my parents are good friends, so we'll probably be forced together a little more than I would like."

"But he looks like a chick!" Hidan exclaimed, apparently having not gotten over it yet.

"And you look like a dude, but we don't go on and on about it," Konan said.

It took five minutes and the bell for start of year assembly going off, for Hidan to realise that Konan had just insulted him.

Im really hoping this story is recieved well, because i would LOVE to continue it.