Fourth period class was always Ino's favorite. It was the one subject she completely excelled in, the one class that enabled her to express her real self, that let her do anything she wanted to.

Yep, Lunch was most definitely her favorite subject in school.

Standing in line for the nasty cafeteria food she was forced to eat on a daily basis, her blue eyes scanned about the room, trying to find someone, anyone, to sit with. Not that she was lonely.

No, Ino was never lonely, always surrounded by her many friends. Who always surrounded around Uchiha Sasuke, yet that was another matter that didn't worry her at this moment.

"How was the test?" a horrible, taunting voice whispered into her ear. Recognizing the voice as the idiot's voice, her anger rose and she flicked her head over her shoulder, glaring at the Uzumaki boy and his group of lackeys.

"Shut up, idiot!" she yelled back to him in an angered tone, hoping that he didn't do any better on it.

"You looked so lost!" he taunted, looking over his shoulder at his giggling friends. "I thought you were going to go up in flames!"

Ino's face went red on accident, the blush taking over despite her best efforts. "Like you did any better, Uzumaki," she shot back, a violent scowl taking over her lips as she stared him down.

"I didn't!" A smile took over his scarred face, nearly mocking her with its brilliance, though his words only confirmed her suspicions. "I drew a dinosaur." He looked over his shoulder to his friends, then back to Ino, sticking his tongue out at her in an insulting way. "I'm still going to get a better mark than you, though! Because you didn't know anything!"

"I told you to shut up!" she cried out, raising her lunch tray and smacking him multiple times in the arm with it, its damage increasing with each "Rape!" Naruto energetically yelled out.

His friends were laughing, she was angry, Naruto only having the ability to laugh and scream out his one word over and over.

Eventually, someone interfered from the farther end of the cafeteria, ending their little debacle as quickly as it had begun.

"Shut the Hell up, Naruto!" Haruno Sakura screamed angrily, standing from her seat and holding up her fist in a threat. Ino quickly took her tray off from Naruto's reddening arm, turning forward and continuing in the cafeteria line. Naruto turned to Sakura, waved, then faced Ino's back again.

"That hurt, you know."

Ino sighed. Why was he still talking to her? Didn't he get it? Didn't he understand that he was nothing, too low of a being to be compared to her, a popular and beautiful girl? He was dumb and weird, someone who lowered your social standing just by speaking to them. So why was he still bugging her?

"Get lost, Naruto."

Why was she still talking to him...?

"Oh, c'mon, Ino!" he teased, hand landing on her shoulder, though she didn't turn around to face him. It was her turn at the front, and as she called out the things she wanted – a salad, to keep her figure – just as she did every day, Naruto continued to bug her. When she ordered a soft drink with no lid, he hadn't even thought about what was to happen.

"Naruto?" she said in a light tone, a smile grim on the painted pink lips of hers, her tray on the top of the counter and hand tight against the paper cup her orange soda resided in.

"Hm?" was the only thing he managed to get out of his mouth before he was soaked in an orange-colored waterfall, there and gone in a blink of an eye. For a moment he stood there, shocked out of his mind, brain racing to understand what just happened. As soon as it registered – she poured a drink over him in front of the whole student body! – he licked his lips and grinned stupidly. "Thank God it's orange crush!"

With one last glare from her, Ino turned on her heels and walked away as the cackling of Naruto's few friends echoed behind her, the rest of the cafeteria silent before they, too, broke out in laughter. Even though she succeeded in embarrassing the boy, she didn't feel any more accomplished; they weren't laughing at him. They were laughing with him. And for some reason, it made her even more angry as usual.

As she slammed out the doors of the cafeteria, her mind reeled and screamed curses at the stupid blond boy, the haze of red anger fading as the cold wind of the autumn air outdoors hit itself against her bare skin when she exited into the center courtyard of the school.

This was her sanctuary, the place she came to when she was too annoyed to face anyone, when she was too tired to speak without making a fool of herself, when she was too depressed to keep a straight face. The flowers that had once bloomed – all beautiful golds and oranges, reds and yellows – were comforting, just as they always were. She loved such delicate things, thought they were mirror images of herself – soft, beautiful, and dainty, easily broken by a rough hand.

It was a ruse, of course, but that's what she thought. Deep down, she knew she was nothing like those flowers. Perhaps she seemed so kind and soft on the outside, but inside she was a raging fire, so short tempered and easily annoyed that she often kicked the shadows on her walk home, cursing under her breath at all the wrong things that had gone on that day.

Thinking about the day so far, she began cursing profusely, not caring if the neighboring flowers thought she was crazy (they were plants, who the hell cared?), finally noticing that she left her salad on the counter. She could bet at least ten dollars that the stupid, most incompetent, foolish idiot Uzumaki Naruto was eating it right then. It was a selfish thought, maybe, but at that moment she wished that some terrible rat king had died in that salad – or had at least infected it with some deadly disease – and that Naruto found it there. A crazed smile came to her face as she thought of how he'd talk himself out of that strange situation. "What a strange rat! It looks just like Ino, huh?"

Her fists clenched tightly into themselves as she thought of all the many insults he would make up about her and the rat, oblivious to the fact that none of it was actually happening. It was so easy for her to get lost in her dream-world, where everything she wanted happened, where she was the prettiest girl on the face of the earth and Uchiha Sasuke was diving at her feet, dying to be within her vicinity. And in her dream, she denied him that honour; she wanted him to fight for her affection against the dozens of other needy boys like him.

She stayed outside with the wilting flowers for as long as time would let her, willing the dull and dying brilliance of the colours to ease her anger away. When the last bell rang for class, she realized that there would be no easing her discomforting emotion, and quickly bolted out of the courtyard. Next was fifth period: Phys. Ed.

Through her veins, something sinister like poison passed.

Yes, fifth period. With Naruto.

As soon as the shiver of anger passed through her body, it was replaced with a joyous one of pleasure as she realized the other good thing about fifth period. Ah, she sighed, content and pleased.

Yes, fifth period. With Sasuke.