.

Schizophrenia

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I suppose I should have expected it.

It was a rainy morning, though not quite raining yet; I could smell the change in weather coming. The clouds were gray and heavy, low to the ground. Every once in a while, a drop or two would splatter onto the pavement with a fancy splash, drops tapping the white leather of my black canvas Converse. High top, if you were to ask what type they were, All Stars. My feet would take turns alternating, right in front, right in back, left in front, left in back, right in front, and so on and so forth, sometimes my shoulder would lean a little in one direction with the added weight of my backpack. I tried to tell myself that it was not consciously that I was trying to look like I was struggling with the weight of the AP and College level course books.

Itachi side glanced at me before I turned the final corner to the bus stop. He was laughing, pointing and laughing, ridiculing me, poking my forehead until my brain rattled in my head, until my eyes crossed and burned. He was mocking me, asking me why I was still thinking about him, why I was so profusely, so extremely agitated right now, foolish little brother. My jaw clenched at that point until blood dared to exit, hands finding their way into bunched fists in my pockets.

I reached the red octagonal sign just as the bus pulled up, slowly lurching to a halt, old wrinkly wrinkling rubber of the tire screeching against the fresh black tar of the street. The silver on the rims was rusting brown, the detailing that would have normally read Goodyear faded to a sickly dirty off-white with etched out areas.

Everyone was looking at me looking at the tire of the bus until it stopped and the double doors opened.

Before they could finish squeaking, I was at the back of the bus away from all the lingering stares, though one remained, one that would always be there.

Chapter One

Reflections stared back at me from the mirror, reflections of the painted white bricks on the opposite walls. A window was in the top right corner, high above any normal window, used primarily as a light source instead of a vantage point for viewing the nature that included maple, oak, and fir trees. The sky was emotionless, though, a bleak gray overcastted day, clouds hanging low and heavy. It was supposed to storm today, I knew, yes, but I did not believe—fall rainstorms were those of sprinkles and mists. This, the black inky colors hidden in the east of the sky, revealed a scarier natural occurrence than a few droplets.

A sink was in front of me, a bag of makeup unzipped and resting lackadaisically on the edge, it was dripping every so often, echoing in the silence. The COLD knob was turned no more than an inch inward, closer to the faucet. Dark hair was tangled in a knot and sat disgustingly centimeters from the drain, caught half way between going down and staying in the water rusted white plaster sink. A puddle with swirling soap bubbles, ignored by the last user to have washed her hands, stayed prettily on the opposite corner of the makeup bag.

I was leaning against the outermost red bathroom stall, covering up a crudely drawn heart with a phone number written in dainty letters inside of it in black Sharpie marker. The message was for a teen named Seiji, and I would not be surprised if it was the the same Seiji from the graduating class of last year, the star quarterback of the football team. Every girl had wanted him; every boy had wanted to be him. I even found myself having a short-term crush on the athlete—as long as my right mind had allowed me, that is.

I looked with dry eyes at the girl beside me, pulling her bottom eyelid down as she tried to stick a clear, transparent, and small bowl shaped object into her eye. Her mouth was open in concentration, fair blonde eyebrows inching closer to each other at her forehead. Two creases appeared there, two very familiar creases that always wrinkled when the admitted beauty was in such heavy concentration, under such stress. I was one of the few people she allowed to see herself in such a state other than bliss.

She groaned, backing away from the reflecting glass, reaching for her contact lens cleaner, preparing for another try. After a failed attempt toward getting the white plastic squeeze bottle, she moaned, mumbling, "Ah, Sakura-chan, could you…" her request trailed as I placed the small bottle in her barely open palm. Slightly taken aback, she smiled warily. "Thanks, Forehead. I don't know what I would do without you, girl."

I grinned back, although she was back in the mirror, getting the small contact in and working steadfastly on now her eyeliner. My manners did not stop me from whispering my quiet, "Thank you," looking down at my chipped and bitten nails with critical observance. I eyed the pink nail file sticking out of Ino's black leather makeup bag, almost reaching for it, but then defiantly deciding against it.

Looking out of the window that was not really made to be looked out of, I sighed. What was Ino's was never meant to be mine, in the first place.

The warning bell to the beginning of classes didn't ring until another half hour after which Ino finally got her eye makeup finished, and with an emergency trip to her locker to pick up a shade of lip-gloss that she had conveniently forgotten to put in the makeup bag, I had calculated that I was going to be late to my first period class. I was trying to persuade Ino to walk and talk a little faster by speeding up my own steps, but every so often she would grab me at my elbow and point at some new sign that wasn't up yesterday, saying, "Hm. Looks interesting, ne, Sakura-chan? We should go out for it together, you think?"

It did not help any that my locker was on the third floor and hers was on the first, or that I would have to walk to the North building and we were still in the South. I considered asking if it was going to be okay for me to just leave, if she would be okay with her if I left without her to go to my class and not receive my third tardy, which would otherwise be translated into an hour detention with the teacher of the class. I have no hatred toward Kakashi-sama; I just have a preference that leans toward not spending a possible hour alone with the old eccentric pervert.

As we turned the corner toward the swinging doors the revealed a downward staircase that lead to Ino's locker, I started to clear my throat and ask her if it would be cool for me to, with lacking for better word, ditch her so I won't be late. She beat me to it, though, sliding her lip-glossed lips apart to say with an airy tone, "You know what I heard, Forehead?"

I pushed my purse higher on my shoulder before proceeding to skip down the stairs. With a slight shrug, I replied, "What?"

"Guess."

She demanded blue eyes expectant and eerily cold. For a moment, I considered sneering and barking back 'no', but decided against it. There would be no gain or loss, a practical useless battle tactic. Battle tactic, my mind echoed for me, and then I realized what I had been doing. I was trying to get away from Ino, ignoring her bantering chatter about gossip on whom and what had conspired at whose party which I had not been invited to, speeding up in attempt to get to a class that I honestly couldn't care less about being late to. Those previous tardy markings were wholly of my doing, even if I had been with Ino minutes before.

What was I doing trying to get away from my best friend?

Ino seemed to have noticed the deterrence in my step that it had even come to a complete halt, and stared at me calculatingly, clutching her clutch purse firmly. Her arms crossed, and her jaw tightened.

Sheepishly, I grinned, giggling. "Sorry; I just thought about something that happened the other day—what were you saying, Ino-chan?"

The ice in her stare melted as she waved her hand across her as if she were swatting a fly. We started back to walking through the loitering students in the hall as she blared off the latest gossip.

"So," she sighed, "besides the rumors on that Hyuuga girl meg crushing on Namikaze-sama's son dying out for the thirteenth time this month—by the way, I certainly do not see why they just don't hook up already. They would look cute together from what I can tell. But, anyways, you know about that kid that came from Sound, right?"

My brother was a very good brother when I look back on things. He taught me how to tie my shoes and ride my bike, he spent countless hours with me in the coloring books, trying but utterly failing when attempting to make me color the skies blue and the grass green, to stay in the lines. He would swing me up into the sky, above mother's tall rosebushes, so high that I could imagine myself touching the fluffy white clouds while I giggled. He would catch me then, never let me fall onto the ground, the sidewalk, or the pavement. He would fall first if ever, and I would fall on top of him.

We would play hide and seek, catch, and mess with Mom and Dad until they took us to the candy store, of which we somehow always won. He would let me win in checkers and chess. He told me the secrets of his Tic-Tac-Toe victories, how he won whether he had X or O, how it does not matter if you start in the middle square or not. When I did not know why I was crying anymore or why Dad was yelling at me for still crying in timeout ("The sooner you stop, you little incessant child, the sooner you get out! Don't you understand?") He would sneak down the stairs without a creak and hand me a sucker, or a jolly rancher, a toy of which I had recently been banned from, then smile, tapping my forehead lightly.

I used to hate that.

The man to the left of me, his hand was rested lightly on my shoulder, though it was very heavy to my mind. I glanced at him sharply, warning him to remove his hand. He did, smoothly, acting as if I had not shocked him with my obvious disapprobation of contact, then grinned facing the classroom. The class was filled with normal looking students, grunge punks, fake punks, wannabe fake punks, preps, cheerleaders, jocks, rock stars, losers, nerds, video game addicts, those freaks that dyed their hair black—pitch black—to prove their more Goth than those with red—fire truck red—hair. There were the sporty girls seated near the left, closer to the window. They had soccer balls and Nike and Adidas bags in the color red resting beside their feet and on their desks. A girl with big green eyes was seated next to a brunette girl who had her hair tied in traditional Chinese buns and didn't have on fleece Northface pullover sweaters like the other girls, nor did she have any sort of sporting equipment. She was not even engaged in their conversation of 'Do you think today's game will be cancelled?' She was looking out the window, emerald green eyes tracing every slowly plopping raindrop that signified a coming storm.

The teacher had gravity defying silver hair and a humorous slate gray eye, the other covered by his mask. He looked like a creeper.

"Good morning class," He announced, breaking all the small chatter between the friends in the class. "Today we have a new student named Sasuke with us. Why don't you tell us something interesting about yourself, Sasuke?"

I flicked my eyes in his direction, nonverbally conveying that I did not and nor I would ever want any of the immature children in the class to know anything interesting about myself. I barely wanted them to know my name.

A few girls were giggling from the prep section when the man smiled apathetically at me. "Everyone had to do it at the beginning of the year," his eye held a certain shimmer that told me I had no choice, "So go ahead, now. I have a lesson to teach."

I turned forward fully, stuffing my hands into my pockets.

"Something interesting about myself," I mused, keeping my eyes low. The tiles on the ground were gray with black speckles, a false looking marble. They were probably linoleum, a darker variant. My eyes flicked upward as I smirked ruefully, "I've killed a man."

Silence waved over the class like a tsunami, and Kakashi-san—as the name written in black marker on the whiteboard deemed—stopped scribbling some grades in his grade book. All the eyes were wide, fearful, and speculative. A boy in the third row of four gulped before raising his hand.

I nodded toward him, grumbling. "What?"

He scratched his blonde spiky head, grinning like a fool. "You mean in video games, right? Like Modern Warfare and stuff."

"That too,"

They laughed.