Disclaimer - if I owned Naruto, would I really have killed off the best characters?
Morning broke across the horizon, spilling creamy orange hues across the stark, bare landscape. The grass surrounding the building was thin and forlorn, much like many of the students within the building. Deidara groaned. Turning and pulling the pillow across his eyes to block the oncoming sunshine, the blond attempted to ignore the complaints of his alarm clock until he could stand no more of the high pitched sound. Rolling over to face the bed across from his, Deidara panicked. Sasori wasn't there.
Almost expecting the subject of his nightmares to be leaning over his bed complete with pitch fork and fire in hand, Deidara shot from the duvet, tripped haphazardly over and fell face first onto the floor boards. Groaning and rubbing his temples, he glanced about the room. Sasori must have been up pretty damn early. He wasn't in the dormitory at all. Apparently he had left in a hurry this morning. Deidara suspected it was due to his presence, and not an old habit of the red heads.
Shrugging it off and finally able to relax due to the unexpected absence of his room mate, Deidara faced is alarm and froze; 9:37. Class began at quarter to ten. Standing upright in military speed, Deidara collected the first clothes in his still packed suitcase and hurried to ready himself for his first day.
Deidara ended up throwing on a plain black shirt, skinny denim jeans and a worn out pair of sneakers. He wasn't 'dressed to impressed' - who was there to impress anyway in this dump? Deidara figured that if there was anyone worth paying attention too, they wouldn't give a damn about his appearance. The only part of himself well groomed was his hair. Tied in half a ponytail, the blond stuffed a brush in his bag, along side his timetable, and hurried from the dormitory room. There were no locks on the doors, but Deidara didn't give it a second thought as he rushed down the stairs and through the crowded corridors below. He didn't really have much of value.
It was like a maze. Deciding - or rather, being forced to - wait until the crowds died down before making further attempts to find his class room, Deidara slumped against a wall. The defeated blond closed his eyes and groaned. "Where the hell is it, un?" He muttered to himself.
"Where are you off too?"
Deidara turned, surprised to hear the feminine voice coming his way. He turned, eyes settling upon a tall girl, around his own age, with a lip piercing and neon blue hair. She was smiling, though faintly, towards him.
"Chemistry." He replied, his surprise at being helped evident in both his voice and his features.
Nodding, the girl glanced sideways towards her companion. The russet coloured hair of the older boy was startling at first - Deidara saw the colour and instantly remembered his nightmares - yet this boy was much taller than Sasori, and his hair was lighter. With a face full of piercings and stone grey eyes, Pein gave of a similar amount of welcoming as Sasori had before turning and striding away.
"I'm Konan. Dont mind Pein, he really isn't as unfriendly as he seems."
Thank god for Konan. His class room had been literally miles from where he had been stranded, and Deidara knew that without her aid he would never have found the place - at least, not on time, anyway. Deidara found chemistry rather amusing. Though the facts and letters for each individual element always confused him, he enjoyed the experiments held within the stark, white room. He had never liked facts or information, but neither had he ever enjoyed any lesson other than art before. Back in his old school, chemistry was strict and only their sensei would use the chemicals. But now, here, Deidara found it entertaining enough to keep his attention fixed.
The coloured liquids and frequent tiny explosions were like little fragments of art work - each lasting only a second before vanishing, lost forever in a midst of smoke. Of course, all things had to come to an end, and all too soon he was past chemistry and into biology. Biology, in one word, was crap. Deidara detested it - why on earth would anyone want to know about the insides of a humans body? What was the fun in that? Luckily for Deidara, the hour passed pretty quickly.
The cafeteria, Deidara found, was pretty damn large, but what he also found was that as it took ten minutes to find it, there was also nowhere to sit. Standing, tray of food firmly in his grasp, the blond scanned the square confines for somewhere - anywhere - to sit.
A flash of blue was what initially caught his eye, and the wave that followed forced him towards her, but there was also something that held him back. Not only was Konan sitting besides the guy from earlier - Pein, was it? - but she was also sitting besides a certain brown eyed boy.
Turning, Deidara stole the the nearest seat available at, despite it being full of people at the time. Squashed at the end of the narrow bench, he first managed to avoid the groups attention, until he ruined it for himself. Chocking on a mouthful of food, Deidara spluttered until he managed to swallow it. His face scarlet, Deidara glanced sheepishly at the group. Most of them ignored him, but one guy was smirking.
"Avoid the mash - the lumps are troublesome."
Deidara grinned back. The conversation that followed between him and long haired brunette was rather pointless. The guy, who introduced himself as Shikamaru, was not someone Deidara could easily be around, yet he was nice enough, though he did finally become more amusing when he mentioned the blue haired girl.
"You know Konan?" Deidara asked, mouth half full (though he refused to touch the mash).
"I'd stay away if I were you, unless you like that sort of person. That whole groups pretty weird. They aren't like the rest of us. We've all done some crappy things to end up in this dump, but...." Deidara threw a questioning look towards the brunette and Shikamaru continued. "No one really knows for sure, but the rumours are that they've done some pretty awful things in their pasts. Not your usual teenage crimes, that's for sure. Some of the teachers are scared of them, as are most of the students."
No wonder- Deidara thought with a nod. He didn't like the look of any of them. Glancing over his shoulder, Deidara eyed the group. There were six in total. There was Konan, Pein and Sasori, whom Deidara had met already, but there were three others who looked just as - or if possible more - intimidating than the others.
Two had sleek black hair and were sitting as far apart as possible, it seemed. One had a stone cold face, showing no emotion across his features. The other was pale and his green, serpentine eyes flickered between the faced of the raven haired male and Sasori, as if choosing his prey. The last had bleached white hair, slicked back by what looked like mountains of hair gel. Topless, to the distaste of several passing teachers, the white haired teen was wearing little but a pair of baggy, black pants and a silver chain with some sort of triangle symbol upon the end. His arms were littered with what looked like scars, though Deidara couldn't tell from so far away.
No - Deidara didn't like the look of them at all.
As he stared, he found himself looking more and more towards the red haired boy, until finally, Sasori looked up. The eye contact was worse than it had been the day before. His eyes seemed so dark, so lethal, that the blond forced his own away and remained silent for the remainder of lunch.
What was the matter with him? Last night, the sudden appearance of that blue eyed creature had been enough to chase him from his own room. Sasori had tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep, and was feeling the aftermath of the events. Tired beyond belief, he found himself poking his food without any appetite. He was so tired he found himself distancing himself from the rest of the conversation, so much so that the room became a little hazy as his eyes began to close....
"...Deidara..." He turned, snapping to attention. His eyes locked onto Konan, yet she had changed the subject onto lessons. Deidara. That was that brats name, wasn't it? Sasori looked up, ready to search the lunch room for the blond, but he didn't need too. The ceruleon eyes of the taller teen were pinned upon him from across the hall.
Narrowing his eyes, feeling that same odd emotion curling within his gut - the feeling that had so annoyingly kept him up all night - Sasori gritted his fists. The others didn't seem to notice the tension within his body - except Orochimaru, of course. Giving his companion a confused glance. Sasori shook his head and shrugged. Concerned but knowing when to give up, the serpent shrugged alongside him and turned away, indifferent.
This school was so much more different than he had first imagined. In his old school, art had been the only lesson worth attending, and then they very rarely used anything more elaborate than paper and pencils. Here, Deidara had found himself in a class room full of so many different materials it was impossible to differentiate between each box.
He was sat besides Konan, who shared his art class and sat besides him silently. She didn't talk much, which Deidara didn't mind, though he preferred pointless conversations than absolutely nothing. Their sensei explained to him that they were working with a single media and creating pieces inspired by nature. The media? Students chose one, whatever they wanted, and used the material for every piece. Most students chose easy things such as paper and paint to make up their projects. Not Deidara.
Moulding the clay with delicate fingers, and at the same time glancing towards Konan's odd art form - she was creating shapes from paper, and using nothing but the plain white sheets to create delicate sculptures - Deidara found himself enjoying the lesson more than even chemistry was earlier. He failed to notice the late student who was forced to take the seat besides him, until he heard a low chuckle besides him. Head snapping around, Deidara found himself face to face with Sasori.
"Clay? Seriously? What an... unusual choice." The red head mused, mostly to himself.
"What are you using, un?" Deidara asked, trying to hide his irritation and failing miserably. Sasori chuckled again. That same sadistic laugh. Deidara grimaced, finding it rather awkward sitting besides him. Sasori was being overly critical, it annoyed him to no end. Gritting his teeth but staying quite, Deidara continued with his project.
Though something bugged him; hadn't Sasori hated him enough to say nothing all night and run away before Deidara even woke up? He threw the thoughts aside, telling himself he must have misinterpreted it. But still, Sasori didn't seem very friendly, even when he was actually speaking to him. In fact, he seemed down right cold.
In answer to the question, Sasori lifted the lock of bare wood slightly before beginning to carve out an unidentifiable object from the mass.
"Wood, un? That seems more unusual than clay, yeah." scoffed, turning away from Sasori and concentrating on the white clay he was rubbing between his palms. "Besides, none of this is really art, unn." He muttered, adding the last part mostly to himself, still picturing the tiny explosions from chemistry.
"Whats real art then?"
"Easy - something beautiful and fleeting. Like fireworks, or an explosion."
Sasori laughed, louder than before, yet his laughter had a cruel edge to it. It wasn't like a normal persons laugh - yet did Deidara really see him as a normal guy? Normal guys didn't take an instant hatred to someone, then put on an obviously fake facade the next day.
Deidara sighed - why was this guy even bothering? Boredom, probably, mused Deidara. But he himself didnt have anyone else to talk to - Konan's concentration was intense, Deidara doubted she could easily be torn from her paper figures - so Sasori had to do.
"Art is eternal, not fleeting. You've got it all wrong," the scorpion explained. "Its something beautiful, that lasts forever. What would be the point in art, if it was only for a second?"
Deidara turned away, stubborn enough to ignore Sasori and instead focus on the bird he was moulding.
Sasori smirked to himself, watching the blonds hands dart across the smooth white clay. He seemed to have won the debate, but he doubted Deidara accepted his views. It was amusing, really, to see someone maintain their own beliefs so seriously. But then again, didn't he already hang around with people like that? He nodded inwardly to himself, mirroring the former and returning to his art. His mind wandered as he did so, though, and soon enough, the head he had sculpted bore an annoyingly similar resemblance to a certain blond. Grunting to imself, he threw the decapitated skull into a box marked with his name and started again on a piece of pine. It was going to be a long year wth this guy in his class, huh? He didn't know how he would cope. He just had to...somehow.