Skyla Tribal's

--Lessons in Friendship--

Sum: Sabaku Gaara is the class loner and insomniac with dreadful, violent tendencies. Rock Lee is one of the first to stand up to him without fear. They become friends, and so much more.

Warning: This is yaoi, boy love, a male/male pairing. If you don't like this kind of fan fiction then please don't read it. Don't just flame it cos you don't like the yaoi or the couple. That's rude, not to mention immature.

LESSON 1

A Lesson Interrupted

It was hopeless. These teachers wouldn't know a decent lesson from their own ass, and damn if Gaara were in the mood to listen in on this next half-baked lecture. Once the morning sun reared its ugly face over the trees, down went Gaara's head, and he slept.

The desks were about as comfortable as being punched in in the face, but if a desk was a punch in the face, then his bed at home was being run through by a thousand spikes. Sabaku Gaara was just one of those students that didn't sleep at night. He simply never slept at night. He saved his sleep for class. No matter what the teachers suggested (rather demanded, holy righteous bunch of bigots they could be) there was simply nothing Gaara could, or was willing, to do to correct this flaw. As far as he was concerned, he was just fine.

He couldn't be moved down to any of the lower classes, seeing as his grades were exceptional, well, maybe not his class participation grades, but he always handed in his homework, and his grades on tests and quizzes were always among the highest. That was to be expected from the brother of Sabaku Temari, said to be the first girl genius to graduate from Sarutobi Academy. She was the first female valedictorian, too! She smacked quite a good label on the school, especially for the ladies, but for the most part her youngest brother couldn't be bothered to follow in her footsteps.

Yuuhi Kurenai was the Math teacher for class 12-A. She was also most insistent on getting Gaara to rise from his slumber and become involved with the rest of the class, rather than wasting perfectly good grades because he was the least active when it came to in-class work. She had no clue what his problem was. He simply slept through his every class. He'd even admitted to attending class simply so he wouldn't be thrown out of school, and if you asked her, she'd tell you that it was a pretty sad excuse. Sad in that it was pathetic, but true. The boy obviously didn't sleep at night, but why was that? What could she do to change that?

Not letting him sleep in her class was a good start, but he slept like the dead. She tried shaking him, slamming a book upon his desk, and even going as far as to lift him by the collar of his shirt and stick him right in front of the white board! His cheek just slid on down the board until his body hit the floor, and even then he managed to stay asleep. None of Kurenai's methods worked thus far. None of the students would volunteer to sit beside him and keep him awake either, not since the incident with Dosu. In one attempt to keep Gaara awake, Dosu somehow ended up in the hospital. This was while Asuma, the Science teacher, was in charge of the class. He never went into any detail, but apparently it was bad. Gaara couldn't be penalized because he wasn't conscious at the time. He must have had a darn good lawyer to get away with that one. That was why most teachers and students didn't bother with him anymore, and allowed the sleeping to persist. The students didn't question or comment on it any longer, so it was obviously no hindrance to them. At least he didn't snore, the rest of the faculty reasoned.

There was just something inherently WRONG with allowing a student to just sit there and... and... SLEEP while she was trying to give a lecture, though. Then seeing all the wonderful grades he scored on tests and on his homework. It was fishy, but he appeared in no way to be cheating. No way could she figure out. She'd always eyed his body for notes and scribbles, but found none. She watched him especially to make sure his eyes didn't wander from the test of another student's paper in the room, not that that'd be easy, seeing as he sat right up front and near nobody. Not only was the seat next to him empty, but so were the two seats behind him. That spoke volumes for the amount of friends Gaara had.

It was just strange, and it made Kurenai uneasy. Poor little Hinata--who sat directly opposite of Gaara in the front row--struggled like you wouldn't believe. She also had a genius in her family, so Kurenai thought she and Gaara ought to have been in the same boat. Not in the slightest. Where Hinata bent over backwards to get scores her father wouldn't completely disown her for, Gaara did absolutely nothing and got better scores! Those kinds of natural geniuses belonged elsewhere, but Gaara wasn't heading anywhere with his class participation grades so low. It was like the abyss in an otherwise level plane of high scores. Something needed to be done about this.

"Gaara, please come up to the board and do this equation," she said, knowing that if she announced it to the class, she was somehow going to make it happen. It was her obligation as an educator and a body of power.

But she was only met with silence. Even the students were too tense to breathe, let alone speak. How could one measly little red-head invoke so much fear into an entire classroom?

"Gaara!"

"That's not going to work, sensei! He's pretty much dead right now," said Naruto with a chuckle. He was one of those class clowns in the back of the room that no one laughed with. An idiot, basically. Oh well, he did have a great smile and a great loud voice. She thought of placing him beside Gaara multiple times, but Asuma advised against it. The Dosu incident was still tugging on everyone's minds. Still, Naruto might just be brave (or dumb) enough.

No, because she'd hear it from Asuma later. Crap.

"Don't speak out of turn, Naruto. Would you like me to send you to the principal again?"

She heard him mutter something about hideous old hags, and boy would he get it if it were her he was talking about! He most likely meant Tsunade, though. She and he became real good acquaintances since his enrollment.

"I'll do the problem, Kurenai-sensei," said Sakura, the brightest bulb in the class. She'd have some competition against Gaara for top-of-the-class if he'd just wake up! There were times where she just up and let Sakura do it because it was quicker that way. This class fell behind often, because where it did have its share of intelligent students, it also had its share of morons. Not that Kurenai would ever admit that out loud. Still, she couldn't always have Sakura picking up the slack for her.

"Not today, Sakura, but thank you," said Kurenai with a smile. She then turned to Gaara, noticing that his shoulders were quivering the slightest bit. Well, the weather was getting a bit brisk, and he sat beside the open window. He must have been cold.

Ah-ha! The change in temperature may rouse him. Okay, maybe not, but it was worth a shot. She shut the window, happy that it made the most ear-splitting squeak on the way down. Most of the students were groaning and clutching their ears. Chouji even fell out of his chair, making the floor tremble with his colossal weight. Perfect. Excellent. They really ought to replace those windows sometime, but not as long as Gaara was sitting in her class. There's no way he could have slept through that.

For a moment, she thought she was right! His shoulders were squirming all right, as was his head. By golly she would get him to drag his ass off that chair for ONE MEASLY quadratic equation! Then it'd be safe to say that he had participated at least once. She could see herself bragging about it in the teacher's lounge already.

After a few moments he'd risen a bit, and he was groaning. It wasn't a kind of "what the hell was THAT!" kind of groan, but rather one that was far away, distressed. The groaning became louder, loud enough to catch the eyes of the whole class. He then clutched the right side of his face and screamed. A few of the students got up and ran to the back of the room, but Kurenai thought nothing of it. Her hands were clutching each of his shoulders, and she began to shake him. He stopped screaming for a moment, pressed his fingers harder into the fringe of his bright, red hair, and screamed even louder. He was leaning into her shoulder this time, and when rubbing his back to comfort him wasn't working out, she shoved him back and slapped the hysterical boy across the face as hard as she could. That, and the chorus of gasps from all over the room, did it.

His black-rimmed eyes cracked and blinked their way open, and she thought that no hung-over drunkard in the world could possibly match eyes so perfectly bloodshot. They were so red you almost couldn't see any traces of white, and it clashed horribly with the sea green color of his irises. This boy wasn't lazy, he was sick. He needed help immediately.

"Let go of me," said Gaara in his quiet, albeit firm voice. He had that power about him, and Kurenai did exactly that. She was no longer looking at an under-motivated boy bursting with potential, but someone who was horribly, horribly ill. If only she'd let him be, if...

No, she did the right thing. Now the question was what to do about this?

"Gaara... are feeling all right?"

"Fine, except for a headache. You should have let me sleep," he said, devilish eyes narrowing with a complimentary frown.

"Why were you screaming?" asked Kurenai, deciding there was no use in beating around the bush. She had a class to teach, and damn if she wasn't going to teach it! They had a test scheduled for next week, and falling behind wouldn't be fair for anyone, most especially students like Hinata, who struggled in her little corner, and Sakura, who sat attentive, albeit bored and exasperated in the back of the room. Hopefully this was just some prank, and she could send Gaara off to Tsunade to get a good vocal lashing.

She had a hunch it wasn't going to be that simple, though.

"Screaming?" Gaara asked.

"You were screaming at the top of your lungs. You're telling me you don't remember that?" said Kurenai, her worry growing exponentially by the minute.

Gaara said nothing, choosing to stare at her as if she had a fist-sized wart growing on the side of her face. He was like that, ever so secretive. Counselors, advisors, and the like have never been able to get through to him, which is why every teacher in Class 12-A just didn't bother with him anymore. That wasn't right. Teachers should never give up on their students! It appeared Gaara could learn and comprehend all of the material, but there was a deep problem that slept in there as he slept in class. She wouldn't be doing her job if she didn't do absolutely everything she could for him.

"Would you like to go to the infirmary, Gaara?"

He just shrugged and stood, heading toward the door all by himself. It was more like dragging himself, which lead her to think that he was going to faint on his way there. She couldn't leave this class even for a second, not with clowns like Naruto who liked to carve obscenities into desks and hide her lesson plans in the cheap ceiling tiles, but she couldn't let Gaara go alone.

"Wait," she said. Gaara's hand had just reached the door handle. He had "make it quick" written all over his face. She was sorely tempted to slap him again just for being a jerk, but that conduct wasn't professional. The slap from earlier was a tap dance on thin ice as it was, but Tsunade would have done the same, so she wasn't too worried.

"Would someone please assist Gaara on his way to the infirmary?"

"Don't need it," said Gaara. No one seemed to argue with that, so he threw the door open and walked out.

Just then, one brave soul spoke up. "I'll catch up with him, Kurenai-sensei!" shouted Rock Lee from the backmost corner of the room all of a sudden. Every set of eyes in the room met him with awe, especially hers. It was like the heavens went and plopped a whole new student into her class. From the way it looked, Lee was terribly unpopular, and usually spent his time in back where he couldn't really be seen, taking good notes and doing the best he could on the material. Basically, the exact opposite of Gaara.

He was a student of less than average skill in mathematics, and yet he had done exceptionally well in other subjects. He was one of the only three students his age still crawling through this particular math level, and he wasn't enthusiastic about this subject, whereas his other teachers made him out to be that one hyper-goal oriented kid who couldn't shut up. Gai-sensei, the Public Speaking teacher, even claimed that Lee was the most splendid student that had ever been his fortune to know, and obviously the feeling was mutual. Lee sported the same hideous bowl cut as his sensei, and kids all over snickered at him, but that didn't seem to bug him in the slightest. He was an odd child, that Lee.

This one burst of enthusiasm, this one commitment, made Kurenai open her eyes to him for the first time. It couldn't have come at a better time, either.

"Thank you, Lee."

"The infirmary isn't that way," said Lee, stopping Gaara in his tracks. The two of them stood in silence on opposite ends of the hall for a few moments, and then Gaara just kept heading forward in the direction he was going. This wasn't the kind of treatment Lee found tolerable. After all, Kurenai-sensei did her best to get the best out of all of her students, and Lee, in turn, always did his best for her, although his best wasn't nearly as good as he'd like for it to be. Ohh, if he couldn't study quadratic equations for four hours this evening, he'd do two hundred laps around the block in his underpants. The tightest pair of briefs he owned, to boot!

But first, his first favor and obligation to Kurenai-sensei was to lead Gaara to the infirmary. Maybe Gaara simply didn't know where it was and was weary of accepting help from others. Maybe he had to use the bathroom first. Maybe...

"Quit following me," Gaara said, and headed for the staircase. Now, everyone had to have known that the infirmary was on the main floor, if nothing else. Gaara was heading up stairs, and Lee was still hot on his tail. He wasn't going to let this go until his classmate was safely in the hands of the nurses.

Lee made a dash up the stairwell and placed himself in front of Gaara, arms spread and eyes firm. That's as far as he would go, if Lee could help it. This seemed like a fairly simple case, though. Gaara may have looked fierce. He may have even shown that horrible bully Dosu's what's what in an unconscious state. But looks weren't everything, and neither was putting petty bullies in their place. Lee wasn't going to lose to this guy.

"Kurenai-sensei wants you to go to the infirmary. You're going in the wrong direction."

"I'm not going to the infirmary," said Gaara, as if it were a simple fact of life. His expression was so indifferent it was almost as if Lee were speaking to a statue. Gaara attempted to walk past Lee, but he was continuously blocked off. Was this guy for real?

"You're going," said Lee, another simple fact of life. Well, that sunk that expressionless demeanor into one of clear, unadulterated annoyance. Gaara pushed himself forward, underneath Lee's outstretched arm and made it to the top of that flight of stairs. Before he could attempt the next, Lee had him by the arm, and forced Gaara to turn and look at him.

If that's how it was going to be, thought Gaara clutching his fist, then maybe this guy needed to be taught a lesson. He aimed for the ugly kid's nose with his best punch and hoped to be on his way from there.

To Gaara's surprise, Lee was able to block his punch with practiced ease. His eyes quivered in a momentary fit of shock, then melted back into that cold gaze he normally held. Lee had caught a glimpse or two of this boy throughout the school year. They'd been classmates for about a month now. In paying very close attention to Kurenai-sensei and her admirable efforts at keeping Math interesting and productive, Lee had come to know Gaara, rather, what he was like during class. This wasn't the first day Kurenai-sensei tried to rouse Gaara from sleep in an effort to get him to work, but it was the first day she had successfully awoken him. What a horrible, tortured scream, too, almost as if someone were trying to kill him. Any teacher ought to be worried sick after such a display, which was why he wasn't going to fail. He was getting Gaara to the infirmary no matter what. Heck, if that was his best punch then Lee wasn't going to have any problems.

"How did you...?"

"Follow me to the infirmary and I'll tell you," said Lee, grinning. Oh, Gai-sensei would be so proud of him, arranging such clever schemes, helping a classmate in need. He couldn't wait to tell him all about it, and tell Gaara all about...

"Forget it," said Gaara, ruining his moment of glee before it could even start. "And let go of my hand."

"Forget it," said Lee, mimicking Gaara in an effort to bring him down. In order to succeed, he would have to stay on top here. He was a man on a mission! "I may have to drag you to the infirmary this way, and will if you make me resort to that."

"What I do is none of your concern, bowl cut. Don't make me hurt you."

"You won't." Lee still had one wrist in one hand, and a clenched fist in another. Both had Gaara in a grip that the smaller boy wasn't going to be able to wrench himself from. He would struggle, but was too exhausted to think anymore. Right about now he'd be lying on the roof, sleeping the rest of Math away. Science would be next, and Asuma-sensei wouldn't bother with him at all. Not after Dosu, whom he'd apparently marred in some way. Gaara wished he could have remembered it. He hated that kid.

One attempt to yank himself from Lee's clenched fists lead to him being propelled forward into the other boy's chest. It must have been made of steel or something, because Gaara had a huge nose bleed afterward. Fine, so much for sleep. Going to the infirmary because of a nose bleed would garner far less questions than another sleeping incident. He agreed to go with Lee, on the condition that he left the moment they got there. Lee offered him a hanky for the nose bleed and told him to feel better.

Once Lee was out of sight, Gaara eyed the direction toward the stairwell, but walked into the infirmary anyway. An agreement was an agreement, so whatever.

Still, Gaara was now aware of that bowl cut kid who sat in back of the class. A kid he would have otherwise overlooked if he had not initiated an argument with Sabaku Gaara.

Not just initiated it, but won it! The nurses were calling his sister to come pick him up as he mulled over this. She wouldn't be too happy about that. She was likely trying to recover from some 50-page term paper she was bitching about earlier in the month. Somehow, word got to them that this wasn't just a matter of walking into a door and getting a nose bleed, but another sleep-related problem, or maybe they could just see it in his eyes. It was why he hadn't wanted to come here. His attendance was poor, and his participation (or lack thereof) was astounding. He couldn't afford to be sent home again because he'd fallen asleep.

Bowl cut was going to pay for this somehow.

to be continued...

A/N: My first shot at writing yaoi. If you would have told me a year ago that I would be writing this story then I would have looked at you funny and hunted for good NaruSaku stories. I hope you all like it so far, but remember this fic will have a homosexual relationship in it. Don't say I didn't warn you.