Sorry it took so long, but the next chapter is here!!!!!!!!!
ALSO I AM LOOKING FOR A BETA WHO WANTS TO HELP CORRECT MY GRAMMAR/HELP MY WRITING IN GENERAL! If you want to, just drop me a pm or a review. :D There's only so much editing I can do by myself.
Disclaimer: Until Naruto and Sasuke do more than just kiss, I don't own Naruto.
Naruto rolled over in his bed and yawned loudly as he stared out his window. He felt refreshed and calm after his first peaceful sleep in awhile. The sky was a bright blue with not a cloud in the sky. As he watched a bird flew by and landed on the tree branch outside his window. The bird cocked its head to the left and hopped closer to the nest on the branch. It was only then that Naruto realized that a worm dangled in the bird's beak. It's a parent, Naruto thought as a twinge went through his heart. He watched as its children fed hungrily from its beak. Sighing he sat up, looking about his illuminated room.
The room was sparsely decorated, due to the fact that Naruto didn't have much stuff. There was a desk in the corner next to the door, and a bookcase next to his bed. Opposite was his dresser and closet. His alarm clock blinked 7:41 from its resting spot on his dresser.
Naruto blinked. Seven forty-one? He bolted out of bed to check the clock in his kitchen.
"Fucking power." He swore. The clock read 8:21. School began at 8:35. Driving took twenty minutes but the walk took at least forty. And walk he would have to, because he couldn't afford a car, and he was banned from all forms of public transport.
As he struggled to get clothes together, he pondered what could've caused the power outage that knocked out his alarm clock. The weather had been fine the night before, and he hadn't heard of any construction on the street. Perhaps there were some faulty wires?
He shock his head as he burst out the door of his apartment. It didn't matter. All that matter was that he run and get to school as soon as possible.
Half an hour later Naruto walked into his classroom, and physically felt the attention shift to him. He shifted uncomfortably. His clothes were wrinkled and damp, his hair unmade and his body covered in a thin sweat. Now was not the time to get into a confrontation with the class.
He walked along the wall towards his seat, but the closer he got, the more uncomfortable he felt. Glares and words he was used to, hatred, distain and fear were all the usual for him. He was no stranger to attention. But today there was a new intensity to it.
The eyes, usually causing a sensation not unlike that of having spiders crawl on your back, now felt like daggers trying to dive into his soul. Classmates who would normally avoid his gaze, openly stared with disgust. He wouldn't lie to himself… He was creeped out.
And irritated. He'd slept in, missed breakfast, rushed like mad to get there, and this is what happened? The entire school was mad just because the new kid would rather sit in the back than by them. He counted to ten in his head and forced the anger back down. Keeping his head low he sat down at his seat, feeling the isolation more than ever before.
When he walked into the English classroom, he looked up only briefly to try to give an extra-wide berth to Sasuke, in the hope that it would appease the other students. Sasuke just sat in his seat, scowling at everyone, and giving off an aura that screamed 'fuck off!'. Naruto grabbed his desk (which had been moved up to join the rest of class) and had been about to drag it back to his corner, when it became caught on something. He stilled, eyes narrowing as he looked along the tile floor, before he spotted the black sneaker, conveniently caught before the leg of the desk. He sighed, head bowed in defeat. He knew who that foot belonged to; he didn't need to be a genius to guess who the only person in the class willing to stop him from moving away would be.
"Sit down." The boy spoke, voice soft despite the scowl on his face, he eyes locking with Naruto's.
"Are you insane?" The blonde asked irritably, yanking the desk in an unsuccessful attempt to get it to the corner. He couldn't use his full strength. He didn't want a broken ankle added to his list of 'things I caused'.
"If I say yes, will you sit down?" Sasuke's voice was exasperated, and obviously having been a world champion in glaring, and he turned his eyes on Naruto.
The blond only glared in return. "No. I won't." He bit out, his frustration exploding in his mind. Why could the world just leave him alone!? "Why don't you ask one of the girls to sit by you? I'm sure they'd love to! Unlike me!" He attempted to yank on his chair again, only to be met by solid resistance.
"I don't want to sit by the girls," Sasuke growled, "So sit the hell down, dobe!" Just as Naruto opened his mouth to respond - probably something heavily laced with curse words, this just wasn't his damned morning! - the bell rang, and he could hear Iruka's shoes echo in the hallway.
With a snarl, he practically threw the desk back into its spot, startling Sasuke - along with everyone else in the classroom - and dropped his schoolbag harshly onto the ground, sitting down in the seat, glaring at his desk venomously. "Happy, you bastard?"
"Yep." He said, his lips curling into a smirk. Naruto just glared at his desk, trying to see if he could bore holes in it with his eyes.
He could feel their eyes on the both of them.
Sasuke surveyed the class. 'Let them look.' He thought. He glanced at his blond partner.
He had buried his face in his hands, his elbows propped on the smooth surface of the desk. He was certainly felling the stares. Sasukes mouth twitched. Maybe he shouldn't have pushed the blond to sit with him this early. The attention was probably bothering him more than he was letting on.
Sasuke looked up as Iruka walked into the room, stopping abruptly with the door half-way shut behind him. He noticed the blonds shoulders rise up a centimeter. He knew Iruka was confused. He had never seen Naruto sit with the others; Naruto had started his own brand of self-isolation years before Iruka had met him. Sasuke watched Iruka bite his lip, trying to decide whether or not to bring up the elephant in the room. He settled with smiling softly and closed the door before heading to his desk.
"Good morning class, I hope you are all well this morning?" He said as he fumbled around for the attendance slip. The reply, which was normally several decibels too loud for him, was subdued to say the least. Finding the sheet, he sighed and walked to the front of his desk, sitting on the edge. "Alright, you guys know the drill. Say 'here' when I call your name Amano Ami..."
"Uchiha Sasuke?" He didn't even bother to raise his hand. He knew Iruka knew he was there, and sure enough, he didn't even look up from his sheet of paper, before he marked a check in the box next to the boy's name. "Uzumaki Naruto?"
The blond startled and looked up. "Umm, here-"
"Ugh! Iruka-sensei, why are you letting him sit next to us? He's dangerous!" All eyes turned to the girl up front, the one who had originally been chosen for Sasuke to sit next to, before several voices spoke up in agreement.
Sasuke saw the blond move to stand up, and grabbed his bag, yanking him down. 'If we give up now,' he thought, 'We'll have to do it another day, and it'll be even harder since they know they can move us.'
"Shove it, Ami." He said angrily, "You're all the way at the front; this isn't your business."
She looked up self righteously, "But Sasuke-kun! He's dangerous!"
Sasukes eyes turned to ice. "There have been no accidents for the past two years. He has just as much of a right to sit here as you do."
Her eyes went wide with confusion. "But Sasuke-kun! I'm just trying to make sure no one gets hurt! Is it wrong to be concerned about my classmates?"
Murmurs of agreement once again filled the classroom, when Iruka spoke up. "Ami-san, Sasuke-san is right about this. There have been no accidents lately, and he has had excellent behavior. There is no reason for him to sit all the way at the back anymore. The rest of you will just have to be careful." He paused for a moment, "Many of you seem to have forgotten a very basic rule from when you were younger." He let his words sink in, their faces displaying various levels of confusion, before he turned around and grabbed a piece of chalk and began to write on the board.
Treat others how you want to be treated.
Iruka then turned, casting a wary glance at his students, before he sighed when he noticed their opinions seemed unchanged. He shook his head setting the paper down on his desk, before picking up another one. "Alright class, settle down. We'll pick up where we left off yesterday, so get your books open to page 60..."
Sasuke just glared. Didn't they ever learn? Stuff like this could cause kids to kill themselves. Everyone felt bad then, when they were too late to do anything about it. He scowled at everyone he could.
He noticed the ones closest to Naruto had stiff posture, leaning ever-so-slightly away. This was that girl Ami's fault. With luck the kids would've calmed down after the first half an hour, but with what she'd said fresh on their minds, they would be likely to stay like that for the rest of the day. Sasuke wanted to punch her in her pretty little face, but figured restorting the violence right then was not the best way to win the hearts of the students. He contented himself with imagining multiple ways to detach her head from her body, while glaring angrily.
Out of the corner of his eye Sasuke noticed Naruto lean over to reach for some paper from his bag. The boy next to him flinched violently, and the blonde recoiled as though hit. "Sorry… I-I was just getting paper..." He murmured quietly, staring at the ground, avoiding the glare he was receiving. The boy didn't respond, choosing instead to move his desk even farther away with a loud screech.
Iruka paused his lecture and looked up. "Kyo-san, please don't disrupt the class."
"Hai, Iruka-sensei." He muttered, casting a dark look at Naruto before turning back to his own book.
Sasuke watched as carefully Naruto grabbed the paper he needed and plopped it on the table. Sasuke saw how he held his pencil with trembling fingers. He saw Narutos eyes blur with tears than that threatened to fall but didn't.
And Sasuke felt pity.
The room's atmosphere was thick with unease, and Naruto's hands were clenched together in his lap. He stared at the clock. Two minutes to go. The other students were barely paying attention to the lesson, choosing instead to send him hostile glares whenever they could. He slouched in his desk, bangs shadowing his face. He had never wanted the world to open up and swallow him whole quite as bad as he did right now. So he chose the next best thing to help him cope.
He glared at Sasuke.
Who was ignoring him.
Bastard.
When the bell finally rang, Naruto heaved a relieved sigh, only to choke it back when he realized Sasuke was in his next classes as well. Damn! He watched as the other kids grabbed their bags and hurried out of the room, and the previously silent hallways filled with the chatter of hundreds of students filling them to the brim. He reached over and scooped his bag onto his shoulder and stood, freezing when blue eyes met with black.
Iruka was once again gone, most likely dragged away by fellow teachers to the lounge, where they spent their time when they didn't have a class to teach. Why does the universe hate me? It's like a broken record player, please tell me this isn't going to become a daily routine. He glared, and stood up straight.
"So are you happy, you bastard? Now do you see why I don't sit with the damn class?"
Sasuke didn't even have the decency to look ashamed, instead his eyes gleamed. "Hn." He grunted, and then turned, "Then sit in your corner and be lonely forever, dobe. Can't say I didn't try."
And then he was gone, rounding the corner to wherever it was he spent his lunch period. But instead he stood still, frowning at where Sasuke had last been, the words floating through his mind over and over, taunting him.
But why? Why the hell do you want a friend like me anyway? With my luck I'll probably predict your death, and then you get to know all the lovely details of how you'll be spending the last moments of your life.
"Then sit in your corner and be lonely forever, dobe."
When had he stopped wishing for someone to actually reach out? When had he become so pessimistic and suspicious? Hadn't he vowed to himself so many years ago, that he wouldn't become jaded and bitter, because that would be just like letting the world win? Hadn't he decided that he wasn't the world's plaything?
He sighed and ran a hand through the messy blond spikes, scratching absently. He walked slowly through the maze of desks, but turned right, and sat at a bench in the now deserted hallways, paying no mind to the shrill sounds coming from the cafeteria. Sunlight came in from the window and warmed his back, as he let his bag slip from his shoulder to between his legs, landing with a small echo at his feet. Tan hands gripped at the dark, rough material of the strap as he stared ahead at the other wall. He's such a bastard, but he's the only one who's ever tried to actually do something nice for me in a long time. A teacher passed by him, obviously too frightened of him to do anything to make him leave the hall, and he sneered after her, causing her to squeak and walk all that much faster. He looked away with a snort.
Pitiful. You let me push you around, and I'm only a kid. You're thirty-four, grow a spine already.
He stood, decision made.
...To make a decision tomorrow. Because right now all he wanted to do was go home and forget he'd ever set foot in this building.
And right now, he could hear the tempting siren, also known as Ramen, calling his name.
Bad ending, I know.
If you wanna beta, TELL ME!! And if you have any ideas for this story, I'd LOVE to hear them!
Love, Leh.