Don't own Naruto, as usual. Still don't want it though Nya~
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Chapter 1 – Off to School
Itachi groaned at the loud beeping sound that had woke him from his slumber. He pressed the off button, yawning and stretching, deciding to destroy the alarm clock the next time it went off.
Stumbling out of bed, Itachi did his normal daily routine: shower, dress, food, brush teeth. It usually took him over 30 minutes to get ready for anything; then again, he didn't usually sleep at all during the night. It seemed 2 hours of sleep could save him over 20 minutes in the long run. Itachi inwardly decided to try to sleep more often.
He wandered around the house, cleaning up here and there to pass the time. He went to the kitchen to make breakfast, being sure to make some for the both of them – the other person being, of course, his otouto (little brother). It was only when he was sitting on the couch, done for the time being, that he heard the sounds upstairs of someone else getting out of bed.
He rolled his eyes as his otouto, Sasuke, stumbled downstairs.
"Good morning, Sasuke," Itachi said pleasantly. Sasuke's retort was a death glare that Hitler would run from. Itachi simply smiled in return. "I made breakfast; it is still warm. Your plate is on the table." Sasuke's response was typical for him. "Hn."
Sasuke took his time eating, as usual, and returned upstairs to gather his stuff. Itachi just waited patiently, deciding not to mess with him, even if it was taking him an eternity to get ready. After all, it was Sasuke's first official day of being a sophomore.
Itachi sighed, closing his eyes and relaxing into the sofa. He just couldn't believe it. Sasuke, his little brother, was 15… 15! He had grown so much, too…
Six years…and Sasuke had changed so much. No matter what his former feelings had been, Itachi was sure their father would have been so proud of Sasuke. He had never once made below an A+ in any of his classes, was at the top of most of them, excelled in any sport he committed himself to, and was a very intelligent individual. If only their father could see him now…
"Are we leaving? Ever?" Itachi opened his eyes, waking from his deep thoughts. Sasuke just stood there, staring at him expectantly. Itachi sighed, getting up from the sofa, wishing inwardly to be in his bed at that moment, and not about to go back to that dreadful place where he had to go to get an 'education'. Where there not other places to do this?
"Yeah, we should probably leave now. We do not want to be late our first day back, now do we?" Itachi didn't wait for an answer – he was pretty sure it would have either been another glare or a "Hn" – walking outside towards his car.
The drive to school was silent, as usual, except for Itachi's futile attempts at polite conversation, which was always followed by Sasuke's trademark "Hn" for an answer.
"You really should learn how to say something other than 'Hn', Sasuke." Itachi pulled into the school parking lot, stopping a row away from the school. He managed to catch Sasuke's death glare in his peripheral, but he ignored it, smiling slightly to himself at his otouto's attempt at looking intimidating. Sadly for little Sasuke, he could never be intimidating to a person he used to curl up to from fright of thunder storms in the middle of the night.
They got out of the car slowly, both dreading the day to come, and made their way to the 'crowded' cafeteria. The table they always sat at was at the very end of the cafeteria, yet they could hear their friends all the way at the front of the school. (It was rather odd for them to have such loud friends, since they themselves were always so quiet. Then again, they do say that opposites attract, do they not?)
Well, Itachi had friend there, anyway. He sat down next to Kisame Hoshigaki, a really pale guy with blue hair, who immediately starting going on about guppies.
Kisame had been Itachi's friend for a few years, so Itachi knew him pretty well. He greatly enjoyed other people's pain, often inflicting it upon them – other than Itachi or Sasuke, of course. Almost everyone at that school knew better than to mess with either of those two – and was one of the only people there that managed to tower over the elder brother. (He had also been born with some disease that turned his skin a pale blue-ish color, and was born with rather sharp teeth, which is why he earned his titles 'Predator' and 'Shark Man'… That, and the fact that he really did enjoy torturing people…)
Sasuke sighed rather unhappily, greatly unpleased with his life. Due to Itachi sitting next to Kisame – which had, unfortunately, not been next to another empty seat – Sasuke had only one seat to choose from that would allow him access to conversation with his aniki (He really hated to admit it, but he rather enjoyed talking with his 'nii-san'). He sat down, glaring at nothing in particular rather evilly, and decided that today was already a rather horrible day for him.
"Sasuke! It's so good to see you again! I do hope you had a good summer," Sakura Haruno, a girl about Sasuke's age with pink hair, seated to Sasuke's left, spoke up. She was a little shorter than Sasuke, and had sworn her love to him when they were 10. Her high pitched voice had always grated on his nerves, and her green eyes sent shivers of disgust down his spine.
"I really hope we have a lot of classes together this year! Maybe we'll even hall all of them together!" Ino Yamanaka, a girl also Sasuke's age with long, blonde hair, seated to Sasuke's right, spoke up as well. She had also sworn her love to Sasuke, the same day Sakura had, and that had created a rivalry between the two fan girls. This 'justified' the reason Sakura glared at Ino after she spoke up to Sasuke.
"Like that will ever happen. Sasuke will have all of his classes with me!"
Ino rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right. I don't think he'd fit with your fat, ugly head in there!"
Sasuke glared harder, almost as if he was trying desperately to destroy the wall with his gaze. He wished with all of his might that it was possible to just walk away from this; sadly, he knew they would just follow him, like they always did. Their nasally, high pitched voices slammed into his brain, giving him another migraine. He was really finding it hard to ignore them, which annoyed him to no end; of course, there was never a time when he had found it easy…
He was absorbed in his concentration, rather close to glaring a hole into the wall adjacent him, when the person in front of him interrupted the process. The boy slammed his hands on the table, making Sasuke jump up and glance over in alarm.
"There is no way you're beating me this year, Sasuke, Believe It!"
"Naruto, shut up and leave Sasuke alone! He will so beat you!" Sakura stood up, glaring at Naruto Uzumaki, a blonde-haired guy about Sasuke's age.
Naruto had always been quick to pick a fight with anyone, and had always envied Sasuke – mostly because he was always besting him at everything, and a little because Naruto had a crush on Sakura. Because of all of this jealousy, Naruto had deemed Sasuke his rival, though secretly they both considered each other good friends. They tended to keep that part on the down low, of course…
"Naruto, you're on," Sasuke said calmly, the menace of rivalry in his gaze. Sasuke didn't plan on letting Naruto beat him; he hadn't last year, and he certainly wasn't going to this year. Besides, thinking of their rivalry always proved to be a nice distraction from his fans.
Itachi shook his head, watching his otouto get into a heated argument with Naruto – heated as in Naruto yelled at Sasuke a little, and Sasuke would throw out a "Hn" and very seldom an insult. He recalled that they had always fought like this; their after school Ishinryu class was just adding fuel to that fire. Then again, it seemed Sasuke would talk to Naruto about anything, though he wouldn't admit it. The elder brother chuckled, shaking his head at his otouto. 'Always pretending to be so cold, Sasuke.'
The bell rang then, making crowds of people all stand up at once, invading each other's personal space while reacting for their things. Itachi reached for his stuff, quite happy to be leaving the crowdedness of the cafeteria. But before anyone could leave, the intercom came on, telling them to remain in the cafeteria for the time being.
"Seniors, you may now come to the office to get your schedules."
Itachi saluted sarcastically at Sasuke, who, in return, glared blood-bathed daggers into the back of his aniki's head as he went to get his schedule. He looked around him at his fan girls and rival, the people who he had now been abandoned with, and decided that maybe suicide wasn't that bad of an idea after all.
Itachi made his way to the office, and then waited patiently for the principal, Tsunade, to call his name. Sadly, she was going in alphabetical order, so it would no doubt be a while.
"I wish she'd hurry up already. I have better things to do with my time than stand here all day." Itachi glanced up at Kisame.
"What would that be, exactly?" Kisame smirked, pulling off the menacing evil look rather well.
"There is a new batch of freshman this year." Itachi rolled his eyes at him.
"What will you do with your time when you are out of school? All you do now is torture the freshman." Itachi looked back up at him, awaiting an answer, and then looked away, ashamed of the fact that he actually called Kisame his friend. This so called "friend" had been too busy plotting to even notice Itachi had said anything at all.
"Hoshigaki, Kisame." Kisame snapped out of his fantasies of torture, realizing it was his turn. "Time to have some fun. I'm getting into this," Kisame smirked evilly, clearly not able to hold his enthusiasm in, got his schedule and left, leaving Itachi to wait alone.
"Keitaro, Amaya." Some girl Itachi didn't recognize walked up and got her schedule, bounding away to her first classroom. Itachi stared up into space, wishing he was elsewhere. Anywhere else would have been nice. Perhaps home… nah, to boring and usual. A theme park would have been nice. Some place he didn't go very often…
"Kururugi, Suzaku."
'Then again, Sasuke is not too fond of crowds… Or people, for that matter… Theme parks are out of the question…' Itachi sighed unhappily, remembering the last time he had taken his otouto to a theme park… It hadn't ended well for the poor little child who had insulted Sasuke. Of course, that had been about 5 years ago. Perhaps he could have fun going now…?
The thoughts of Sasuke made Itachi wonder briefly how he was faring against his fan girls. Then again, he did have Naruto to keep him company. 'There is no doubt in my mind now; he definitely wants to kill himself.' Itachi chuckled inwardly at that thought; he could just see his brother sitting there, Sakura and Naruto shouting on either side of him at each other. He almost wished he were back there, if only to keep him company…
"Miyuki, Ayame."
People shoved closer, making room in the hallway grow thinner and thinner. Impatience was thick in the air. Itachi was unsure of what the big hurry was. Once they got their schedule, it would just mean they would be off somewhere else. Everyone was going to end up in the same place; why worry about getting there before everyone else?
"Miyuki, Sosuke."
Itachi began to wander in his mind, pondering rather random things to pass the time. 'Why does Sasuke seldom talk in this day and age? What made him turn out so unsocial? He used to talk to everyone that he saw… Did someone bully him for talking too much or being too friendly? Did I not pay enough attention to him one day? Where does Uncle Toby get all of his money? Did he kill a millionaire, or did he just win the lottery one day? Or maybe he is the leader of a gang that puts hits out on wanted people, that also runs a whore house out in Ireland, steals cars from the poor to help the rich get more money, shots random people who walk by out of the sheer joy of watching people suffer, wears black cloaks with red clouds all over them, kidnaps movie stars to rape and murder them just to fall asleep to their delicious screaming.' Itachi stopped, horrified. '…Nah.' He shook his head, amazed at his incredible imagination.
"Nalane, Isuki."
'Why does Kisame go on about guppies?' …Itachi spent at least 5 minutes pondering the answer to this question, shook his head, and went on.
"Ryuka, Hajime."
'Why does that blonde Sasuke always hangs out with – Naruto, that is his name… Why does he always scream "Believe it!" at everything? Is there a point to his nonstop babbling, or does he just really enjoy the sound of his own voice? Why does Sasuke even hang around him to begin with? If I remember correctly, he does not seem to like him much, if any at all… For that matter, why does he hang around Sakura? I know he hates her, yet he sits next to her in the cafeteria… It makes no sense…'
"Sabanogi, Hidan."
Itachi vaguely heard Hidan mutter a prayer to Jashin as he went by. Itachi's eyes narrowed at him in curiosity, his thoughts quickly adjusting to his newly found target of thought. 'Why is Hidan so obsessed with Jashin? What started this crazy religion? …Has Hidan ever really sacrificed something to Jashin?' He reconsidered his question quickly. 'Has Hidan ever sacrificed someone to Jashin?' He shuddered, not doubting the answer to that one even a tiny bit.
"Uchiha, Itachi."
'Finally.' Itachi's patience was done being tested, so he walked forward and accepted his schedule happily, relieved to be able to go on with his life at last. He was walking down the hall towards his homeroom class, glancing over his schedule, when he saw it.
And froze.
"When… did I sign up for Psychology?"
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Things are getting a little more detailed, but the important stuff is still to come. _ Sorry for such a short chapter…
