Author's Note: If I have any grammatical errors, could you please point them out to me? And if you have any questions, feel free to ask.
Oh, to add a note here, they do have chakra and they can use jutsus and stuff, but it's not a big thing inside of this story. I may use it at times, but not very much because, for the most part, only the advanced, advanced students know how to use it in the story. Think of chakra and jutsus as an amazing, extreme level physical ability just for now. You know, a skill some people worked extremely hard at to gain.
Replies and thank yous:
Blood Drenched Scorpion - Do you really think so? Thank you so much for your review, I didn't think of it that way, but I'll try to live up to the potential. Sasori is fourteen-year-old freshman in high school, as are most of the other characters, including Deidara. I'll point out who's not a freshman when they get introduced, otherwise, just assume they're freshman.
Deidara2216 - I'll keep on writing because you guys inspire me to. ^_^ Thank you for all your favorites.
Thank you to the people who added this story to their alert. (You know who you are.)
I thank all of you for your support. I'm doing this to entertain myself, you, and improve myself. Again, Thank you for reading, reviewing and/or favoriting this, it means a lot!
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The bell rang, to Sasori's relief. For the past hour he had been subjected to listening to listening to his third period teacher unanimatedly lecture on a few algebraic formulas that they needed to know and memorize in order to pass the Geometry class he taught. Sasori had memorized those formulas two years ago and had used them for the whole duration of the year after. The lesson was very boring and very basic, considering it was the first day of the second week. It was also to his regret that he skipped out on his first period because it had been woodshop. When he stood outside of his second period, he didn't consider it, but he might have needed that little bit of fun to get through the day better.
He stretched his stiff limbs and followed after the last of his classmates. The layout of the school was imprinted in his mind, however, for some reason, he couldn't remember what was his fourth period class. Sasori pulled his schedule out of his back pocket, ignoring the looks of the people who wanted to sneak a glance. What he saw didn't please him at all, rather, it annoyed him to no end.
Choir? Since when did I sign up for Choir? he thought. That was when he remembered (in the student handbook) how the school system's many ways of eliminating unwanted students and making space for others worked. For one, if a student were absent the first day, they are put on probation to be booted to make room for other students. The second day absent they are given a phone warning and on the third absence, they are moved into another class that needed more students. It looked to Sasori that the art class he had signed up for booted him out.
He groaned and hurried to the Choir classroom, which was on the far end of the campus from where he had just exited his class. He made it into the classroom while is was still mostly empty. Among the students that arrived before him, there was only one friendly face he recognized that he found on the farthest seat to the right of the classroom. (The entrance was on the left.)
"Hey, Sasori!" Hidan hollared, waving at his friend.
Hidan was a very old friend of Sasori's. They had known each other ever since his grandmother had died. He lived just a couple blocks down from the redhead and they often talked over the internet chatrooms.
"Hey, dumbass. What kind of flunky actions caused you to be placed in this class?" Sasori replied, sitting next to the albino. "A complete fail?"
Hidan grinned and laughed, "Hey, how'd you know?"
"I can tell just by guessing."
"I only failed because instead of shooting the targets, I started killing animals in Archery."
"For sacrifice?"
"You know it," he said. "But you know, I'm not that bad at archery. I mean, I shot them in the face or chest every time, you know?"
A small smile tugged at the ends of his lips as rolled his eyes and exchanged their "handshake." (1)
"So what are you doing in here?" Hidan asked.
"What, you mean you didn't notice?" Sasori asked in return. "I was gone for a whole week."
"Oh, really? Then that explains a lot. You weren't on IM for the past week," the Jashinist replied. "Well, anyways, it's a good thing you're in here cause I was being driven insane. These two girls that sit behind me-" he jerked his thumb to a set of empty chairs behind himself, "-won't leave me alone! And their voices are so damn high pitched even though they're altos, it's pissing me off, but now I have somebody to distract me from them, right?"
"Glad to be of service."
They sat there, chatting and Hidan named all the other students he knew that came into the gradually filling classroom. The two girls that Hidan had mentioned earlier didn't talk to him today and instead, they whispered to each other while looking at and possibly discussing Sasori.
"Don't talk to them 'cause they're going to annoy the shit out of you," the albino explained, happy that the girls didn't annoy him. "That's the mistake I made on the first day."
"Okay... I'll take care not to," Sasori agreed. "Is that all of the students?"
"Nah, there's still Deidara and her friend whats-her-face," Hidan said.
"Deidara?"
"Yeah, there she is now."
The white haired teen pointed to the doorway where there was a very shy looking girl who was pale with nearly-white violet eyes. She came in slightly flushed and out of breath next to an also flushed and out of breath, familiar looking blonde... Sasori's breath hitched as he unconsciously held it. Hidan gave him a strange look that soon became a wickedly strange smile. He leaned very close to his friend's ear and whispered as low as he could so that there was no chance that nobody else could hear.
"I see you've taken an interest..."
Sasori flinched away from Hidan in surprise at him being so close and at his statement. The strange smile turned into a small smirk and the Jashinist's expression turned into a knowing one.
"Which one is it?" he asked.
"Which one is it? What kind of question is that?" Sasori asked. He had no idea why, but he was unnerved by how Hidan was acting, as if Hidan knew something that he didn't. "I've taken an interest in what?
"Deidara's the blonde one, by the way."
Deidara sat down and happened to see Sasori. Both of them averted their gazes from each other. Hidan chuckled evilly, annoying Sasori more than he was. The red head didn't think that the response was an appropriate answer.
"Oho... I see!" he whispered playfully. "You like Deidara~!"
He leaned backwards and raised a hand to slap Sasori on the shoulder, but the red head immediately twisted his torso so that his arm would be out of range of the swing.
"Hey! You remember what happened last time? Think!"
"Oh yeah." Hidan grinned sheepishly. "But you do like her, right?"
"I don't. I don't even know what 'like' you're talking about, but if I did, I doubt my answer would be 'yes.'"
Shrugging, his friend his sat back in his chair with the smirk back on his face.
"Say what you like."
"Besides, I don't even know her. I had barely crashed into her this morning."
"So you do know what 'like' I'm talking about?"
"..."
Hidan ignored his silent reply and continued, "Well, you exchanged a few words, right?"
"Yeah..."
"And you know her name now, right?"
"I guess."
"So you'll get to know her soon enough!"
Sasori was about to argue back, but after all the students were seated, a red haired woman wearing the strangest outfit Sasori had ever seen came out of an office like room within the classroom and immediately the class became hushed. She wore a short sleeved robe that came down to her knees with a long-sleeved, black undershirt. Her shins and feet were bandaged as if she were some kind of martial artist, though she did wear a normal-looking pair of black, ankle-high boots.
The teacher scanned the students, then smiled.
"Glad to see that you're all behaving today," she said. She then walked up to the piano centered at the front of the room and took attendance on the laptop that sat on it. "Akasuna Sasori! That kid's never he-"
"I'm right here, miss," Sasori said, raising his hand.
"Oh hey, you're here," she said with a bit of surprise. "Well, it's about time we got another boy in here. Nice to meet you, my name is Tayuya and I am the director of the choral and instrumental departments here, so that basically means the whole music department."
"Nice to meet you too."
"I assume you're a bass, since you're sitting there, right?" the music teacher asked.
"Bass? I don't know."
Sasori knew what bass was and a surprisingly advanced amount of music, but he had not an idea of how to tell if he was a bass singer or not.
"Yeah, just sit there and sing with the other guys there," Tayuya explained. "I'll ask you about it later. Let's get started."
With that being said, she continued with attendance. When she finished, she shut the computer, put it away, and immediately got on the piano to play a simple "warm up" tune.
"Okay, for you guys who haven't been here before," she said, tossing a glance at Sasori, "pick a note in the chord that you're comfortable with," she played the beginning chord, broke it down, and played it again, "and stay on that note. It doesn't matter what I play, just keep singing 'ah' until I tell you to breathe, then go to the next note in the next chord I play. And don't you dare breathe until I say so!"
Tayuya broke down the chord again, played it again, and raised her unoccupied hand in the air. All the students breathed in, so Sasori did the same. He subconsciously memorized the tone of the lowest note in the chord so that when she brought down her hand, he sang it back to her on the vowel "ah." He was happy to know that he blended in with the rest of the guys around him. But even though they were all on the same note, he could pick out Hidan's voice from them.
It's so strange how we can blend and still be heard individually like that... he thought.
Tayuya moved the chord up a note and immediately rose her hand up again while shouting "Breathe!" over the singing. Right away, the class took in a breath and sang the next note they had in the chord. The actions repeated until the girls on the far left were close to breaking glass (though they somehow still sounded good). They all looked flushed, including Sasori, who had some difficulty reaching the last note, even though he could. He was quite proud of himself and grinned slightly, not noticing where his eyes trailed until it was too late. His eyes, yet again, crossed paths with Deidara's and she immediately averted her gaze. However, Sasori didn't turn his away, and instead risked watching her with growing interest until Hidan slapped him on the back.
"You got it in you!" he shouted, laughing.
"Thanks?"
"Who knew you were going to be so good at choir?"
"Same to you."
"HIDAN!"
The music teacher shot a white board marker at Hidan, making it fly and smacked him right on his forehead. Very painfully. The whole class had turned to him when Tayuya had shouted his name, and then the whole class laughed after he got hit with the marker and fell down from the force of it.
"How many times do I have to tell you to shut up before you stop talking between singing?" she yelled.
"Maybe a few more times and I'll get the message," the Jashinist replied, standing up. "I'm pretty slow."
Rolling her eyes and sighing, she continued with the class. The rest of the period was spent practicing other vocal warm ups and discussing "Choir Fees." Now that Sasori had seen what the musical director could do, he knew why the class had quieted and that he shouldn't cross paths with the brunt of her anger. When the bell rang, she dismissed the class for lunch. Sasori followed Hidan out, and as he did, he happened to walk near Deidara as he exited. He was going to let her pass, but she flinched away about two feet... Something inside his chest felt like it got stabbed at her action, but he disreguarded it. Hidan went to get his lunch and Sasori didn't like to eat at school, so he waited for him to get his lunch, and walked with him to the table he sat at.
"That marker must have really hurt to make you fall down like that," Sasori commented, seeing the mark. It was a nasty purple-blue color.
"Yeah... It hurt... a lot..." Hidan replied. He rubbed the spot, thinking it would be red, but winced when he felt the bruise. "Oww..."
"Does this happen a lot?"
"No, it's only happened one time before this and it was when I was telling those girls to shut up last Wednesday," the albino said with a sigh. "The only difference last time was that I was turned around, so she got the back of my head."
"Put your juice box on your face, it'll help."
"How?"
"Just do it."
Hidan shrugged and complied before continuing with their chat.
"Well, anyways, I sit with this group of guys that I know and you know them too, from near our neighborhood and from middle school," he said. "They're over there."
He jerked his head over to the table where Sasori indeed recognized most of their faces. When they came close, all of the boys sitting at the table greeted both of them. Sasori recognized from their neighborhood Zetsu (a junior) and Tobi, who were his neighbors, and Pein (a senior) and Kakuzu (a sophomore), who lived closer to Hidan. From middle school, he recognized Kisame and Itachi, but there was one person he didn't know. It was a girl that had hair with a startling shade of blue with slight purple undertones. She wore a paper rose in her hair, purple eyeshadow, and a piercing in her lower lip. He presumed that her red eyes were due to a pair of contacts, since she didn't seem to be an albino like Hidan.
"Hello," she greeted, smiling.
She seemed very friendly and moved over to make room for Hidan, while Sasori sat across from her next to Kisame.
"Hello," he said in reply. "Hey guys, long time no see."
Itachi "hn"-ed, Kisame exchanged with him the "handshake" before going back to devouring his food, Tobi said "HI!" with an energetic wave, Pein nodded in his direction with a smile, and the other two just returned the verbal greeting.
"So who's this lovely lady here?" asked Sasori, rather politely.
"My name is Konan," Konan said. "It's nice to meet you."
"She's my girlfriend," Pein added. "So be nice."
"I never would have guessed," he replied. He held a little sarcasm in his voice with good humor.
It was actually his first impression that Konan would be Pein's match. The fact both had wild hair colors, piercings, and out-of-the-ordinary contacts and sat right next to each other were a dead giveaway.
"Yeah, isn't she a doll?" Pein asked in the middle of a bite. A bit of meat flew out of his mouth, narrowly missing Sasori as he dodged it. "Sorry." He swallowed.
Sasori, after shifting his position to avoid any other bits of food, chanced to see a blonde ponytail and his eyes automatically were stuck in that direction. It wasn't Deidara, but the girl went to sit down at a table where the other blonde was. He watched as they chatted happily and laughed for a long while.
"Ahem."
The red head snapped back to attention and looked at Hidan, who was the one who cleared his throat. Everybody else had fallen into their own seperate conversations in the while he was staring at the blue-eyed girls across the room.
"Huh?" was Sasori's dull-minded answer. He felt strange, like his mind had melted during his time distracted and had put him in a slightly disoriented state, but he was quickly getting over it.
"You so like her."
1 - I don't know what it's called, but it's when guys in high school greet each other. They kind of hold out their right hand and do a sidewards five (or immediately go to the five) and then they touch knuckles. I think it's a universal, friendly, guy greeting and I do it sometimes too to my guy friends, but again, I have no idea what it's called or how exactly to describe it. If I ever make or find a video of it and you guys are still confused, I'll put it on my profile or something.
Please don't be disappointed if the next chapter isn't as long, I think this one took quite an extra bit of thought compared to the others to put together... I'll keep trying, but the future results might never be as lengthy.