Two: C Block.
The classroom was bleak and dull. Its walls were painted a washed out white that seemed to be turning grey all by itself. A few posters had been stuck at irritatingly wonky angles in an attempt to brighten the place up a bit. There were four rows and four columns of doubled up, grey desks – most of them covered in permanent graffiti to the point where they had become neglected and uncared for – as well as two seats per desk. The chairs were dark blue and plastic, with bars attached to the bottoms of them to stop students from leaning back on their chairs and breaking them.
Sasuke scored his usual favourite seat at the back of the classroom beside the wall, the darkest corner of the class where nobody would dare to disturb him whether he chose to do the work set or not. He folded his arms and rested his head on top of them, closing his impossibly heavy eyelids and waiting for whoever was supposed to be teaching today to appear. He heard the scrape of chair legs beside him and his eyes shot open.
He had been expecting Naruto's form to drop silently into the seat beside him, but he wasn't surprised to find that it wasn't Naruto who had decided to irritate him, but that the tiny person slotting themselves silently into the seat beside him was in fact, Sakura. He stared at her for a long moment.
The girl just folded her arms comfortably onto the desk and stared straight ahead. After another long moment of silence and Sasuke's staring blankly at her, the side of her lip quirked up. Sasuke smirked, folding his arms and twisting his body in his seat to give her the full force of his piercing gaze before asking, "What are you doing?"
Sakura paused before turning and smiling in a patronizingly friendly way, "Who, me? I'm just sitting here, waiting for Kurenai to show up."
Sasuke face stayed completely blank, but his tone was clipped as he asked, "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why here?"
Sakura snorted, "…Oh, I do apologize, I didn't realize that the desk had your name on it—"
"Actually," Sasuke cut in, "If you look at the side, my name's etched into the plastic. So you see, your sarcasm is flawed." With this, the Uchiha rested his elbow against the table and turned his head to the side, a smug look present where his thin lips curled against each other.
The pink haired girl rolled her eyes at him before sinking further into her chair, her bright green eyes focussed now on the prisoner's head in front of her and a sour pout forming on her lips. "I'm not moving."
Sasuke grunted. Truth be told, he didn't really care if she moved or not. As long as she didn't attempt to talk to him while he worked (or slept, he hadn't really decided what he would do this lesson. If worst came to worst, he probably would pass out, but he doubted that he would.) then it would all be fine. He didn't generally mind Sakura's company either, she was… fairly intelligent and she, unlike the majority of the girls – the people – in the joint, seemed to respect the idea of personal space.
He looked at her now. Her small form was hunched right on the edge of her seat. Despite all of her confidence around him, she still seemed faintly shy when it came to… him. Or something. Sasuke didn't really know.
Before he was put into prison, Sasuke wasn't a very social young man. He preferred to be on his own a lot of the time; he liked to listen to music, play video games and smoke – just like any teenage boy. But the idea of having to socialize merged with the mind-numbing boredom that came with prison time and he had been forced to surround himself with people like Sakura just to keep him sane.
One would have thought that after a month of watching troubled teenagers interact with each other that Sasuke might have grasped the concept of how people behaved, but he was in fact still trying to figure himself out: his emotions, his thoughts… he wasn't used to them. Since Itachi had left for university, Sasuke had seen no need to pay attention to things like them. He didn't need them. He didn't need school either, filled with the hundreds of mindless fan girls and bitches – not being able to focus on work because his brain was so fucked from smoking so much dope, even before classes! He had to pull himself out of his self-absorption to mind the other teenagers in the institution. He could no longer be selfish and silent – people took it badly, they got offended, they got shouty, fights broke out…
Kakashi had explained all of this to him when he was yanked out of one of his classes for unimaginatively cracking a boy in the mouth for calling him a 'fucking pyromaniac'. Sasuke… supposed that Kakashi was one of the guards that he didn't mind. Kakashi seemed to like Sasuke too; and Sasuke always went to him if he needed something… like a new lighter, for example.
Kurenai marched into the classroom, her uniform was immaculate: a dark grey pencil skirt with pale stockings and professional, shiny heels along with a dark grey blazer to match her skirt, a white, button up blouse and a red ribbon pulling her long, curly hair back whilst she taught. She wasn't a bad teacher at all, and she seemed to have the patience of two-hundred women, in Sasuke's opinion. Not that he cared. Tch.
Her voice, deep and controlled rang out across the room. This class was for the faster learning prisoners; it was called First Set, there were three others: Second Set, Third Set and Fourth Set, each varying the speed and difficulty of the work set. Sasuke's eyes didn't find Naruto when they subtly surveyed the classroom and he remembered him explaining that he wasn't very good with words when Sasuke had explained arson to him the evening before. That was fair enough.
"Good morning guys." Kurenai didn't wait for a response, "Okay, we're going to get straight back to what we were doing yesterday, page sixty-two on interquartile range, everybody got that?"
A collective groan came from the class. Sasuke smirked. He knew all of this stuff already. This was such a waste of time. He'd rather be back in his cell than re-learning it all. Besides that, who the fuck wanted to know about interquartile ranges and the like? When would they ever be needed in life? And more importantly – when would they ever be needed in prison? God.
Sasuke returned to face planting his folded arms and attempted mentally to block out the sound from the classroom. It was fairly surprising how well behaved they were. It seemed that almost everybody in the First Set was motivated for working – it gave them something to do, Sasuke supposed. Or maybe they were just naturally good people who got into bad patches. Like him… a straight A student gone bad. Meh. Who knew?
"Sasuke, head up please," Kurenai's voice called.
"No." Sasuke called back, purposely putting a sleepy slur into his speech so that she would let him off and let him continue with his do-nothing approach to the next two hours.
For once, she was persistent, "Sasuke, please get on with the work."
"I already know all of this." He responded, bringing his head up for the last time, glaring hideously at her for having dared disturbing him.
She stepped over to his desk, she folded her arms and stared at him, her scarlet eyes narrowed and thoughtful. She wasn't glaring hatefully or anything, it just seemed that she was troubled, as though she had no idea what to do with him.
It was true, most of the inmates were uneducated; there were only a small minority that were intelligent enough to have been placed in the First Set, even though there were hundreds of kids inside the prison.
"Is there anything you're actually interested in, Sasuke?" The red-eyed woman asked, "Because you can't just sit here and do nothing every lesson. It's such a waste of time."
The Uchiha smirked, "A waste of time?" He repeated, "Learning the same work over? I did it all in school. There's nothing that I can think of that strikes me as interesting either. Jail's a waste of time." He said with finality.
Kurenai sighed before reaching above him and dropping a history book onto his desk which sounded with a loud thud causing a few of the students on surrounding desks to glance over. Sasuke shot them all a glare suggesting that they fuck off and they returned to their work. "If you do nothing else today, at least have a look at some of the stuff in here. I think you'll like some of the things in there."
"I don't like anything." He muttered in response as Kurenai turned on her heel and stalked off to help someone on the other side of the room. "Tch." Sasuke hissed through his teeth.
"I find it ironic how she's giving you books to read." Sakura commented lightly. Sasuke shot the pink haired girl a sideways glance. Of course she was talking about the infamous tale of his setting three school libraries on fire. Sasuke shrugged. He didn't ever react to when people asked or talked to him about those incidents. It had been a selfish thing to do… but he still didn't care. At least it had gotten him out of that house.
The Uchiha family were wealthy; Sasuke's father was the head of law and order in Konoha. A judge. He had worked himself up from the police force and had dedicated his life to serving the citizens of Konoha. Sasuke's older brother, Itachi, had been tipped to follow in the footsteps of his father. He was studying Law in university right now, actually.
And whenever Sasuke thought about that, he stopped thinking, because thinking about that made him feel utterly worthless because Itachi was such a god-send to his famous family whereas he was sitting in a youth institution in Oto with nothing to do but simmer in these repetitive, cycling thoughts.
"Sasuke," Sakura's voice brought him rushing back to reality and he realized that he'd been staring at her hand for the past minute or so, "what's on your mind?" She asked him gently.
The Uchiha boy calmly returned his gaze to the book that Kurenai had dropped onto his desk and he shook his head, "Nothing." He answered quietly.
He saw Sakura stare thoughtfully at him out of the corner of his eye, her bright green eyes were narrowed and calculating underneath dark pink eyelashes – wait, what? So… pink eyelashes? Was that her natural colour? Fuck no. Nobody's born with pink hair, tch.
"What about you?" He murmured after a long moment of silence as Sakura returned to her work. She glanced over at him, waiting for him to elaborate.
When he didn't respond, she questioned dryly, "What?"
"You've never told anyone what you're here for. Tell me." Sasuke said simply, as though the mere interest in his tone would bring the answer that everybody wanted. The pink haired girl's eyes widened faintly before she closed them and shook her head.
"You've never told anybody why you burnt those libraries down, why should I tell you what I'm in for?"
Sasuke's lips involuntarily quirked into a smirk, "Hn," he grunted, not continuing the conversation and resting his head back on the table, his eyes shut. He probably wouldn't be telling anyone about why he was locked up for setting libraries on fire – what his motive was – anytime soon. Truthfully, Sasuke wasn't really sure why he had done it himself.
He had mentally blamed it on the way that the teachers at school were so ignorant; he'd then blamed it on the fact that he didn't like the school. The last time, Sasuke decided to mentally admit to himself that he had done it because he wanted something – although he wasn't entirely sure what. He knew that he wanted his brother to come see him, but thinking back on everything, everything, over the past few weeks – what was the real point?
The two hours that followed passed dully. Sasuke managed to pass out twice from sheer exhaustion but was awoken each time that Kurenai came to see how Sakura was doing. The study period was such a bore. Sasuke wasn't really even sure why he attended classes at all anymore. His brain was so numbed from the endless routine that the hundreds of teenagers followed everyday that he couldn't really find any other way to pass the time.
He'd skipped classes before but found that it was the easiest way to be stalked by Orochimaru, the warden – and he didn't want that. Ew.
The teenagers pulled themselves heavily out of the ugly, faded grey door with the paint peeling from its wood and out into the fresh, but as always smothered with anger, depression, violence, hormones teen filled spirit air.
Sakura stepped in time with Sasuke; he was faintly surprised that the tiny girl could even keep up with his long strides but he was used to it by now. Sakura was a close… acquaintance of his in Oto. She had this weird way of calling him things and getting away with it. It was that, or he was just used to it. In front of people, she talked to him as though she were more than a friend, but when it was just the two of them, she simply called him Sasuke.
He suspected that her habit of calling him pet names meant that she liked him. It was something that he had noticed she'd do whenever in the presence of other females. And she was always close to him, possessive with him. Karin had been like that before, so had Ino. He'd only known Sakura for a short time though, and he wasn't particularly interested in her.
He just liked the way she dressed.
She followed Sasuke from the classroom, all the way to the dormitory hall and waited for him to grab his cigarettes before walking silently and swiftly with him onto the yard. Sasuke decided that he really needed to start bringing them with him down to breakfast – it would waste a lot less time than usual. Added to that, he probably wouldn't be so cranky each morning.
The Uchiha lit up his paper, taking a long drag and releasing it into the cool air. Sakura glanced up at him as they came to a stop in the middle of the yard. Their group was nowhere to be seen. Neji would have been in their last class, but he always went to find Tenten immediately. Karin also should have been in their last class, but she had been levelled down for disruptive behaviour (she kicked a boy in the head for mentioning her glasses. Sasuke had made a mental note to keep away from her during her insecure moments).
Sakura reached up and fiddled with the ends of her pink hair; she seemed a little lost and unsure of why she was here. Sasuke's mind felt as though it were racing with thoughts overtime as he tried to discover a subject worth talking about inside his head. He couldn't really find anything and so he said confidently and calmly, "My brother went away to university."
Sakura's head shot up so that she could survey his face and try to get a clue at what he was talking about. It appeared to hit her, "Oh, you've decided to answer my question from earlier?"
Sasuke took another slow drag, body swaying faintly on his feet before turning to face her properly. His darker-than-midnight hair fell across his forehead and made his obsidian eyes appear even darker than they were. His chapped lips parted for her as he continued his explanation, "My father's expectations of me rose. Being in school surrounded by fools was pressurizing so… I tried to get out." The Uchiha boy shrugged and brought the cigarette to his lips once more. Remembering the events before he had been put into the youth institution, Sasuke smirked. "My father was livid – broke a mirror in my honour, the glass was everywhere."
Everywhere was true; he had had to pick a rather large chunk of it out of the top of his arm, which hadn't been a pleasant experience to say the least. An ugly 'X' shaped mark marred his flesh there now which was sure to scar before it ever vanished.
Sakura whistled through her teeth, "Bit of a madman, your dad."
"No kidding."
"I'm still not telling you why I'm here," She grinned up at him teasingly, "I don't work your way, Sasuke."
The Uchiha stared passively at the girl, a faint hint of annoyance in his eyes, "What's your deal?" He asked.
"Hm?" She smiled lightly, turning her head around as she spun absent-mindedly on her feet, like a delicate little fairy, or a dandelion seed in the wind – only, a convicted one.
Sasuke stared with his eyes faintly narrowed, calculating, at her. His black eyes were locked with her bright green and after a moment he nodded, lips parted and a faint chuckle sliding from his mouth, "Tricky girl."
"I'll tell everyone when I feel ready to tell everyone; I'm still trying to come to terms with it myself." She added softly.
At this, Sasuke decided he had better drop the subject. Everybody had their secrets and the ones that people kept because their emotions had locked them away were not the kind of stories that Sasuke wished to hear. The majority of the girls in the prison were forced to act tough to defend themselves, so they locked everything away. Sasuke didn't even know the real names of some of them. They called themselves by nicknames and pretended lied about their crimes.
The reason he knew that they were lying? Because they came out with the absolute worst bullshit. Sasuke only really associated with Sakura, Karin, Ino, Hinata and Tenten because that was the group that the nine of them had created; they were sure they were the only group of non-bullshitting teenagers in B Block. They now had Naruto, though, and he was the tenth member – even though he'd only been here for a day, as Sasuke's cellmate, he was automatically in the group. That was just the way it was.
Sasuke dropped his cigarette to the ground and crushed its smoking remains with the sole of his foot. He then looked around the grounds, his eyes searching for the colourful array of hair that his "group" had. He couldn't find Karin's fiery red, or Ino or Naruto's fluorescent blondes, or Suigetsu's curious, insane looking white, or Kiba, Tenten and Neji's set of brunette, or Hinata's plum coloured hair.
He could only see Sakura's. He frowned. "Where is everybody?"
"I was wondering that too."
Sakura and his self both surveyed the groups of teenagers milling around the vast, flat, concrete yard. None of them could be seen. That wasn't really odd, they tended to separate during breaks, especially Neji and Tenten, they were always on their own, but…
"Sakura." Sasuke muttered, not looking at her. The words that were about to follow from his mouth sounded silly inside his head, he was afraid they'd sound even more peculiar once they'd passed his lips. Sakura waited, raising her head and looking at him with curiosity.
Sasuke supposed he was being weird or something. Perhaps he'd left the pause between his words and his thoughts too long, "Do you ever think that Oto's more than a prison?" He frowned; even he wasn't sure what he had meant by that.
Sakura shrugged, "I think I know what you're talking about but I don't want to say anything in case I'm not."
"Hn," Sasuke grunted dully, he wasn't sure how to continue, "A Block houses repetitively violent offenders, doesn't it?"
"Yes…"
"And B Block houses us; done in for crimes like physical offenses and property damage, you know, the more minor things."
"Correct…"
"But nobody knows what C Block houses." Sasuke murmured, "Kakashi wouldn't tell me; the warden told me to mind my own business when I asked."
Sakura grimaced at a thought inside her head, "Come to think of it, C Block is totally closed off – well, so is A Block, but C Block's like, completely walled away from us seeing it, isn't it?" The two turned to the great, grey brick margin that cut off what was known as C Block's courtyard from the rest of the world. "Maybe it's a creepy science lab, you know? Orochimaru's pretty famous for his 'reforms' of kids who come here. Maybe he experiments on the prisoners here and doses them so that they don't remember they were ever treated!"
Sasuke smirked. It wouldn't have surprised him if Sakura had been correct in hinting that Orochimaru experimented on his prisoners, the old man was obsessed with psychology and the minds of teenagers, especially the ones, like Sasuke and Naruto, who were driven to do bad things. It was a strange interest of his, and whenever Sasuke met with the aging creep, he was questioned on his thoughts, his sleeping patterns, his dreams – but Sasuke never told him the truth.
"I wouldn't put it past him." Sasuke replied, the smirk not leaving his lips. Sakura giggled, "But like I said, I think Oto's 'institution' is a little bit more than they say it is. That building – I believe that it's filled with criminally fucked teenage psychopaths."
Sakura stared at Sasuke for a long moment, her eyes were wide and she glanced from him to the huge, grey wall before returning and resting her gaze on him. "But— no way!"
"The only flaw with this idea is that, well, surely they wouldn't just call this place a juvenile institution; wouldn't it be an asylum as well?"
"…Maybe 'Oto Juvenile Institution and Asylum' wasn't a snappy enough name." Sakura suggested dully. Sasuke smirked again, faintly amused.
Sasuke dropped the subject then and there, but the thought stayed with him throughout the day. At lunch, when the group had brought themselves back together for a meal, Sasuke could hardly focus on the topic of conversation – it was about Naruto settling in fast, but Sasuke didn't really care – his eyes drifted to the immense glass windows that ran from the floor to the ceiling of the dining hall and looked out onto the B Block courtyard; to the right, C Block's gargantuan, grey wall continually caught his attention.
"Oi, Uchiha," Kiba tapped the space in front of Sasuke with his fork to get the dark haired boys' attention, "do you think if Naruto fought me, he'd win?"
The Uchiha stared dully at Kiba and then even more dully at Naruto before giving his verdict, "It's pretty evenly matched."
"I could take him!" The blonde boy squawked. He was joking, but threats of fights within the prison usually did lead to actual fights and Sasuke looked desperately to Sakura, hoping she'd change the subject.
She got the message and groaned loudly and deliberately, splaying her arms across the table and sounding incredibly mortified about something. Her hand flipped and grabbed onto the Uchiha teen's upper arm. Sasuke wasn't really expecting that. Sakura never touched him. He stared down at the top of her pink head whilst she whined into his arm.
"Ugh, I've got a therapy session with Orochimaaaaruuuu later, Sasuke, save meeee."
"Damn, you two are getting closer by the day, huh?" Ino grinned, placing her chin in the palm of her hand and smiling at Sasuke and the small pink ball of hair attached to his arm. Her eyelids were lowered suggestively.
Sasuke frowned, "Um, no." He said simply before nudging Sakura (gently) out of his personal space and jabbing the air that flowed in her general direction with a fork.
Sakura pouted. Sasuke smirked whilst artfully twisting the fork in his fingers and stabbing it into a vegetable floating in the mysterious soup he'd chosen to eat today. Ino cooed lightly, but was silenced when both Sasuke and Sakura shot her a hideous glare.
"Hinata… he won't bite." Karin was reasoning with her lilac eyed friend a couple of seats away. Naruto had gone to the bathroom and so the redhead now had a chance to pep-talk her little friend. Sasuke smirked. Match-making already.
"B-but… Karin, that's the thing! He… he just well might!" At this, Sasuke snorted. Hinata hung her head in shame, her long, plum coloured locks shielding her tinted pink cheeks. Karin sighed.
"Look, Hinata, if you just look at him, you'll see, he isn't that bad."
"Who…? N-Naruto?"
"Yes."
"Naruto's my cellmate, Hyuuga," Sasuke drawled lightly to her, his endlessly dark eyes almost magnetising with her own pale orbs. "He's almost in here by accident and wouldn't hurt a fly."
Hinata blushed even harder than before and began pressing the tips of her forefingers together awkwardly. "Y-you see, Sasuke, it isn't just… that stuff… it's… it's…" Sasuke frowned; she seemed to have so much trouble getting her words out.
"SHE THINKS HE'S REALLY CUTE." Tenten burst out from the other side of the table. Sasuke's head whipped around to see if she was telling the truth, which she probably was, since those girls barely kept a thing from each other. The brunette girl smiled and nodded, oblivious to Hinata's terrified face behind Sasuke's mess of spiky, midnight coloured hair. The Uchiha's eyes fell from Tenten's honey brown ones to Sakura's wide green ones. She seemed to have the same thought in mind as Sasuke and the pair of them leant in synchronised fashion towards Karin and Hinata.
The Hyuuga girl cowered in fear under the ruby, emerald and obsidian beams from the three seemingly sane teenagers as they grinned – and smirked – menacingly at her.
"Poor Hinata," Suigetsu chuckled from beside Karin. His face was held in his hands and his amethyst eyes were shut in amusement whilst his spiky canine stuck out of his mouth as he grinned, "even Sasuke's on to you."
The Uchiha suddenly realize how much of a creep he must have looked and slowly, coolly, lowered himself back into his seat, taking Sakura with him as his hip nudged hers. She glanced at him for a fraction of a second, but he pretended not to see. The touching was awkward enough. Sasuke looked over at Karin and noticed that behind her, in the distance, Naruto had entered the hall once again.
"Karin, move up." Sasuke hissed to the redhead as the blonde teenager approached. He had his hands in his pockets and smiled at the group as he sat down.
"You were all talking about me, weren't you?" He questioned bluntly after a short moment of silence. Everybody visibly shifted, and Hinata, opposite him, had turned bright scarlet. Sasuke knew what was coming but decided he had better not do anything to stop it, it would have been too awkward to explain. "Whoa, Hinata—are you okay?" The blonde asked, leaning closely across the table to get a glimpse of the little girl's face from underneath her curtain of dark hair.
The lilac eyed girl chanced a single glance up at Naruto before gracefully flopping forwards onto the table, but not before colliding foreheads with the blonde boy. Sasuke sighed and Sakura quietly got up to try and revive her friend. During incidents like this, which occurred regularly, the group preferred not to let any staff members know about Hinata's state. They'd always drag her off to the infirmary and it wasn't something the group liked to watch or wait for a response from.
"Dude—" Naruto began, Sasuke poised his hand, ready to clamp it over the blonde's face in the event of— "DUDE! OH HOLY SHMISHSMG—"
"Shut up idiot, it's nothing to freak out over." Sasuke hissed poisonously against the blonde's head. After a second, Naruto stopped wriggling and after another second, Sasuke released him, an ominous glare locked against the blonde's bright blue eyes to warn him not to start up again.
"She has high blood pressure," Sakura explained quickly, not taking her hand away from Hinata's face as she tried to fan her into consciousness, "you have to be very calm with her, understand?"
Sasuke watched Naruto carefully, looking for any signs of anything that Naruto may have felt towards Hinata at that moment in time. He studied the way that the blonde's eyebrows arched in a concerned way and he watched with his hand over his mouth as the little violet-haired girl began to stir.
It was then that Sasuke realized that he had a set of eyes on him, and his vision shot from the scarred, tanned face of Naruto Uzumaki to the perfectly pale, flawless flesh and glittering eyes belonging to Sakura. Her exotic appearance was still something that the Uchiha boy enjoyed to look at, even if he would never admit it. He admired the way that she was so ferocious for the most part, but always so gentle when it came to something she cared about.
"Is she alive?" Naruto asked Sakura.
The girl with the pink hair stared directly a him for a moment longer before she turned to Naruto, "What? Hinata? Yes, she is very much alive. Don't you worry, Naruto."
"Was it my fault that she fainted?"
"Not exactly… I suppose partially but it could also have been the influence of me and Karin and," she paused. It was for a heartbeat but Sasuke noticed it, "Sasuke."
"Why? What were you doing?" Naruto questioned.
"We were in a heated debate about sex okay." Karin intercepted as Sakura opened her mouth. "I wouldn't expect you to know anything about it, though, blondie. Perhaps you and Hinata could go sit away from us whenever we have these conversations. That way, she won't faint, and you won't have your pretty mind disturbed to such extremities."
"I," Naruto suddenly interrupted grandly, "know about sex." He drawled.
Sasuke planted his face in his hands out of utter amazement at how un-subtle the kid was. It was unbelievable. Perhaps he was just thick. But even Kiba would have understood something like that; the words that Karin had let rush from her lips up until the point where she had mentioned Naruto and Hinata sitting by themselves where she had murmured the words a lot more slowly and perceptively for Naruto to grasp before continuing – anyone could have taken that hint.
"No," Sasuke said into his hands, "I don't think you know about anything, Naruto."
"WHAT—?" The blonde roared, half playful, half serious. Sasuke shrugged and returned his attention to Sakura as she pulled Hinata up and made her look dazedly at Naruto. The blonde boy calmed himself immediately, smiling awkwardly and rubbing the back of his neck with his hands, "Ehe, sorry if I scared you, Hinata!" He apologized cheerfully.
Sakura nodded her approval of his new approach once to Naruto from out of Hinata's line of vision.
Sasuke's thoughts drifted throughout lunch until the teenagers went back for their final hour of lessons before they'd split for their free time. The Uchiha, now fully awake after his, erm, nap in the past few hours actually attempted some work - although it wasn't anything like the rest of the class was doing, he was just sketching because he had nothing better to do.
Sakura babbled about anything that seemed to come to mind. She knew not to disturb Sasuke in the mornings, but now that he actually seemed calm - not glaring and spitting replies - she also relaxed. She was no longer on the edge of her seat, in fact, she had turned her chair slightly in his direction so as to face him. He listened to her chatter, occasionally grunting in response, but not really paying attention.
His mind was elsewhere, as usual. However for once, it was not focussed on things that caused him to get pissed off. It was lost somewhere with the image that was slowly appearing on the page. A softly smiling - almost laughing face with big, dark eyes and long strands of shiny hair. Sakura asked if it was his mother, but he ignored her. He didn't know why he'd drawn her. He supposed he just... missed her. Maybe. He definitely missed her home cooking. But each time she'd visited him, she'd cried and cried. She almost acted as if she were mourning the dead.
After Itachi, his mother, Mikoto, was the next person in the whole world that Sasuke ever felt close to. So... yeah... perhaps he did miss her. A little bit.
"Whoever she is, she's gorgeous." Sakura cooed quietly, "I mean, I thought she was your mom because she looks like you, sorry if I offended you or anything."
Sasuke smirked, "Gorgeous? Looks like me? Thanks, Sakura."
The pink haired Haruno gave him a small pout before realizing how he'd put two and two together and looked away, giggling shyly. "Yeah, right." She rolled her eyes, "You only wish I'd call you gorgeous."
"I don't wish it," Sasuke snorted, "I know you think it."
"Oh really?" The smaller girl raised an eyebrow, leaning closer and scrunching her nose up at him.
The Uchiha raised both brows before murmuring, "Yeah really."
"Well that's interesting, because I don't." Sakura breathed a laugh so close he felt the air against his throat.
"Sasuke, Sakura, break it up." Kurenai called. The pink haired girl almost fell out of her chair and snapped her neck at the speed she spun away from him, but he, more composed than she, simply brought a hand up to rest his chin on and turned his nose into the air.
The moment the teacher's back was turned, both Sasuke and Sakura glared daggers at the other gawking prisoners. Honestly, how long would it take for people to learn to fuck the fuck off?
But more importantly... what had just happened? He glanced down. She was on the edge of her seat again, not looking at him, not saying a word. Well, well. She really was the shy and embarrassed type. It was no wonder how she and Hinata got along so well.
Sasuke was a bitter person. He also liked to watch people squirm like ants under magnifying glasses, but he didn't apply this part of him to Sakura. She was, as previously mentioned, somewhat important to him and rather than make her feel uncomfortable and have her mind race, he distracted her with a question.
"So you're with Orochimaru later, huh?"
Sakura spared him a glance before returning to her work, "Yeah."
Sasuke stared at the ceiling thoughtfully. He didn't get the vibe that she wanted to talk about it. "Hn."
The silence that followed bode that they were both thinking the same thing. The topic from earlier was stuck in their minds. Sakura, however, was the one to actually say it. "It's... almost strange how the warden interviews us all personally. You'd think he'd have more important stuff to do, wouldn't you?"
Sasuke nodded once. "My thoughts exactly…"
notes: thanks for the reviews, you guys! and thanks for reading. so what are your thoughts on the mysterious c block? i'd like to hear your theories. c; c; if you read this, review! it'd be awesome to see who's actually here.