It was a chilly evening and the ballet class was waiting outside the building for entry. Three women stood near the sidewalk to smoke while looking for their teacher. Today they were going to get new training partners since a few new people signed up.

Sakura and Ino started jumping from foot to foot so they wouldn't get too cold. They were fairly certain one of them would be granted to partner up with Sasuke, the rising star in the world of ballet. Obviously Ino was the best choice, being the better dancer and all, but their teacher Orochimaru was unpredictable, favoring the growth of his male students over the females. She hated him, he was creepy, but his was the class that got the best recommendations and she'd been learning a lot. This time she was finally going to get the partner she deserved, she could feel it.

"What do you think the new girls are like?" Sakura's question forced her attention back to the present.

Ino stopped hopping for a moment, as she looked around to check if she overlooked any new faces and then resumed their little exercise, "No idea, really. I heard Kabuto say at least one of the new girls is a guy, though. With no experience," she added with a telling glance. They both knew what that meant. One poor girl was going to suffer for this guy's incompetence. "Hopefully the girls are nice."

The women next to the sidewalk moved to stomp their cigarettes with finality, indicating that they spotted Orochimaru. All students grabbed their bags from the pavement. Their teacher was followed by Sasuke, Kabuto and three new girls. And one blond man who looked like he didn't want to be here.

"Great," Ino whispered to Sakura, "Not only doesn't he have no experience but he looks like he doesn't even care about ballet."

"I'll punch him in the nose if he bothers anyone," she whispered back and Ino grinned in response.

Without any comments Orochimaru unlocked the doors to let them and they hurried inside to the changing rooms. As they changed, two of the new girls turned out to be very shy and new to ballet. They reminded Ino of her friend Hinata in a way, but ever since she took up break-dancing she was like a new person. Maybe dancing helped these two as well. The third one was cocky and most of the more experienced dancers seemed to be hellbent on knocking her on her butt. Nobody had ever seen the blond guy and a few called him cute while Ino and Sakura shot each other glances.

As everyone was warming up in the practice room and the experienced girls purposefully folded themselves into pretzels to show off in front of the cocky new girl, Orochimaru entered and halfheartedly introduced the new students and began to pair up the dancers.

Sakura was the first one to get her partner. It was Sasuke. Ino congratulated her with a big smile, but couldn't help feeling that she deserved that spot just as much as she did. She sighed as Sakura turned around and walked to Sasuke. Ino just wanted to dance with someone who was equal to her in skill, and now she had to settle for someone else.

Orochimaru apparently hated her today. He partnered her up with the new guy. At first she was so shocked that she couldn't do anything but stare at him and then the new guy who was called Deidara.

"Are you kidding me?" she shrieked in a high pitched tone and a few heads turned to check where the outburst came from.

"Beg your pardon?" Orochimaru said monotonously.

"You can't just pair me up with that guy. I'm one of your best dancers, he's got no experience, does he?" she asked slightly panicked.

The Deidara guy just shrugged, grinned and said, "Nope." Apparently he found new purpose in this place by being an absolute pest to her and she hated him already. The only thing that stopped her from snapping was the sound of Sakura cracking her knuckles.

The teacher looked sinister, if not unimpressed and slowly said, "If you are such a good dancer it shouldn't be a problem for you to help him reach your level, should it?"

Ino squinted at him. This kind of discussion happened every time he teamed up a newbie with someone. "That is what you are paid to do. It isn't my job and you know that, sir."

This time he shrugged. "If you aren't satisfied, you are free to leave this class, Miss Yamanaka."

She crossed her arms over her chest and gave Orochimaru a serious stink eye before signaling the new guy to come over to her so they could start. She hadn't seen him warming up so she wanted to instruct him how to do it properly since their teacher apparently had no interest in teaching them.

To her surprise he even followed her unspoken order to approach her. "What's your name?" His voice was notably deep and he followed up his question with some kind of grunting noise. She really hoped this wasn't a habit of his.

She looked him over before answering. Skinny. His hair was a gold blond, a few shades darker than hers. He had striking blue eyes and could apparently handle eyeliner surprisingly well, maybe he could give her some pointers later. What invoked her curiosity most, however, was scar tissue all around his right elbow and right above his left one. She studied medicine and could barely hold back invasive questions, so she snapped out of her assessing him and concentrated on the conversation he began.

"Ino. Ino Yamanaka. You are Deidara, yes?"

"Yes." Annoying grunting noise.

"Do you have a last name?"

"That is a very good question," grunting noise. "And none of your business."

"Man, I really hope you don't like your nose," she mumbled mainly to herself. As he shot her a puzzled look she just shook her head in a dismissively. "Have you ever danced anything in your life?"

"No, but how hard can it be, right?" He gave her a toothy grin as he said that. "It's just some hopping around and looking dumb." There was his grunting habit again.

Ignoring his comments she asked him the next question. "Can you touch your toes?" To be fair, he looked very skinny so he could be exercising in his free time.

That question made him visibly uncomfortable. "Uh, no. But I can do crunches."

"Try touching your toes."

To his credit, he did try to comply to her orders. He just wasn't very good at it, his hands were dangling just below his knees, as he worked every hard to touch his own feet. Since he annoyed her so much she made a dismissive noise to agitate him. "Oh yeah?" He reacted immediately to provocation, that was good to know. "Let me see you do better!" he said and stood up and crossed his arms.

"With pleasure," Ino said with her sweetest, most sugarcoated smile, as she fixed her long ponytail into a bun and basically folded herself in half. She had no problems with that exercise and when she got back up he regarded her with a shocked expression that clearly said he thought she was a witch. "Want to see me do a split next?" and without waiting for a response, she dropped down. Having not finished her warming up routine, she knew she was going to regret doing this for the sole purpose of showing off. But, damn, it was so worth it, seeing Deidara's smug grin drop into a terrified frown.

"Oh, come on, Deidara! How hard can it be?"

"I hate you."

I wrote this a while back, for a Tumblr writing meme. This Ballet AU is one of my favorites and if people are interested enough I'd totally take up writing more for it.

Or any other of my AU's, really. You can check it out on Tumblr. enecola. tumblr. com post/155403807176