A/N: Midnight: And so we begin off another chapter. I'd like to dedicate this one to the Spill Canvas and large thinking noises. "HMMMM."
Whispers: Which happens to be both of our large thinking noises! Yup, yup! Meh, I wish I had a friend like how I'm making Sasuke to Naruto — that would be Midnight, but yeah. Opposite sides of the country. Yay. Totally not dedicated to For Your Entertainment (Adam Lambert, GAY FTW) and Michiyuki (GAY ANIME OPENING FTW) which continuously distracted me.
I tried really hard not to be too anxious when I woke up the next morning. All of yesterday I had tried to concentrate on my homework, and it was a serious struggle not to check my mail every five minutes. I had to keep reminding myself that not everyone was a computer freak like me. She probably hadn't even thought about me again.
"Yo, what's up with you? You acting jumpy, and you normally always still."
"It's nothing, Sasuke. What's today, Wednesday?" I asked.
"Yup, Gym first," Sasuke replied.
"Damn, we didn't have to do all our homework yesterday, then! Hayate's always calling in sick, and when he's actually there, he's too sick to make us do anything."
"Shut up and answer the question. You think I don't know you?" he said, interrupting what would have been a very intelligent and intellectual speech.
"Well damn, hoe, no need to be pissed. Is it your time of month already?" Seeing him glare at me, I laughed and continued. "Alright, so there's this girl on FP. She reviewed me, so then I reviewed her, and then she PMed me, and then I replied to her, and it's like for some reason I just really want to hear from her."
"So…when did you reply to her?" Sasuke replied.
"Last night."
"So check if she replied," he told me, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"No! 'Cause if she didn't, I'mma feel all bad and shit! Not everyone spends their life on the computer, like me!"
"But what if she did reply, and then you're wasting both of your time being paranoid?" I stopped for a second, deliberating.
"But if she didn't, it'll be worse than if she did!"
"Then stop complaining."
"Sasuke, you're being useless!"
"Shut up." He took out his Blackberry and began playing around with it. I took that as a sign he was done talking, and I was supposed to get ready for school. Of course, he was already fully ready, the bastard.
"She did reply," he said suddenly, just as I was about to tell him I was ready.
"Huh?"
"She did reply," he repeated.
"What?! How do you know?" He held out his phone, and showed me my e-mail.
"Dude, how do you know my password?"
"Like I said- you think I don't know you? Anyway, that's not the point. This chick you keep going on about replied at 12:18 yesterday. So you were freaking over absolutely nothing."
"Shut up and give me the phone," I said and grabbed it out of his hand. Sure enough, I had a PM reply, sent six minutes after I sent mine. Well, shit.
"Thinking about how much of an ass you are?"
"Pretty much, yeah," I muttered, clicking on it.
September 05th 1:18 PM
Subject: Re: Review Reply
Actually, I had just gotten home and checked my email. Didn't really know you had just sent it, haha! =P I was doing homework when I got your PM, and it was pretty fast. Only about five minutes into my pile of homework. I have to admit I forgot I had reviewed your story until I went back to my favorites list. I knew the penname sounded familiar!
Lavender Kiss
Quickly, I typed up a reply.
September 06th 6:48
Subject: Re: Review Reply
Ah, I'm sorry I didn't reply. Let's just say I was having a spaz out. This is gonna sound stalker-like, but I really like talking to you. By the way, I noticed you're a beta. Would you beta my stuff too?
xx-chikenrawmen
"What'd she say?" Sasuke asked me. I read it off to him.
"That's it? I'm here thinking you were having internet sex or something." I gave him a look. "Yes, you were freaking that badly."
"Shut up, faggot."
"Don't let Shik hear you say that," he said, knowing I was joking. I rolled my eyes in response.
"No shit. You think I'd really be that insensitive?"
"Yes."
"Anyway, let's go," I said. We trooped downstairs.
"Later, Dad!"
"Goodbye, Minato." We spoke in English, 'cause Dad's more comfortable using his first language. As for his name—which is very much Japanese, although he is very much American—he had changed his name a bit before he and Mom got married. Don't ask me why. I don't know.
"Bye, kids. I'll tell Kushina you left when she gets up," he replied. "No work for me today, for once." My dad's a CEO—so is Sasuke's dad, for a partner label—so most days he has to work. Mom, however, doesn't work. Dad brings in quite enough for the three of us.
We nodded vaguely as we left the house with bagels in hand. Dad was still muttering to himself.
"Hey, watch it!" some random person shrieked annoyingly. I stuck my tongue out at them like a child. Sheesh, I was just walking to train station; what did they have against me? I don't have a car, because it's totally unnecessary. I go to school in Manhattan—though I live in Brooklyn—so there'd be no parking. At all. Ever.
"You're so immature," Sasuke noted, rolling his eyes at me.
"Well, fuck you, too, then."
"Sorry, I don't roll that way. You could ask Shik, though." I started laughing at that just as we swiped our train passes. Shikamaru stood off to the side, hands behind his head as he leaned on a pillar and stared up at the sky.
"Shik! What up?" I called. He sighed and got off the wall, raising a lone hand to acknowledge our existence.
"Hey Shik," Sasuke said when he reached him.
"Hey Sasuke, Naruto."
"Why so formal, yo?" I asked, pulling them both into a hug.
"Get off of me, you troublesome idiot!" Shikamaru said, irritated.
"You have to kiss me first," I replied mischievously. He rolled his eyes and groaned, before leaning over and kissing me on the mouth.
"There. Fucking satisfied?"
"Dude, what the fuck?!"
"What, you forgot I'm gay?"
"No, but I didn't think—"
"No, you didn't," Sasuke interrupted. "Now let's go, our train's here."
I complained all the way to the train and into our normal seats—that bench right on the end of the last car that's just big enough to fit the three of us; we live nearby the first stop (or last stop) so we always get it—but by the time we were sitting, the three of us were laughing about it.
I pulled out my phone and checked my e-mail, disappointed when there wasn't a reply from Lavender.
"What's he doing?" I heard Shikamaru ask.
"Checking for a reply from some chick he met online," Sasuke answered.
"Internet sex?"
"He says it's not."
"Shut up, yo," I said. "Ya'll really believe I'd do that crap?"
"Yes," they answered in unison.
"I so wouldn't."
"Anyway," Shikamaru said. "What is she lives halfway around the world or something? It could be two in the morning where she is."
"Ah! You're right! Thanks Shik!" I screeched.
"I'm surrounded by idiots…" Sasuke mumbled. I cheerfully punched him in the head.
--
"Naruto!"
"Huh? Oh, hey Carter," I said, taking back out my phone—which was really just a bootleg Blackberry from MetroPCS; I didn't mind though. I knew my parents had money, but that didn't mean I had to use it. I had thought the AP had randomly decided to check on us. It was eighth period study hall now, and I hadn't checked my e-mail since this morning on the train. I was pretty freakin' proud of myself for resisting the temptation for so long. Sure 'nough, I had a reply, sent not even 2 minutes ago. I ignored all my other mail and opened that bitch up.
September 06th 2:34
Subject: Re: Review Reply
Oh, wow, really? Nobody's ever asked me to beta them before! Sure, I'd love to! =D It isn't every day you get to beta for a favorite story, haha!
You don't sound stalker-ish, lol. You just sound like a nice person who has similar likes.
Lavender Kiss
"Naruto!"
"What? I mean, what happened?" I said, accidentally switching over to Japanese in my excitement.
"Homeroom teacher," Carter told me, nodding towards the back door. Kakashi stood concealed at the door. I nodded at him in thanks and put the phone in the desk to text the reply. Carter was really nice, a little on the big side, but I'd never gotten along with him like I did with Shikamaru and Sasuke. Maybe it was partially because I'm a bit of a loner. Personally, I think he's just too nice, and easily offended. I couldn't joke around with him like I did with them.
September 06th 2:37
Lol, glad that you think I'm that good. You're way better though, definitely. Uh, yeah, I'm kinda knew to FP, though, so could you tell me what I'm supposed to do? Like, how do I send the chapter to you?
Glad I'm not sounding like that to you. Both of my friends think I'm being a pervert—I thought they'd have more faith in me! *sob*
xx-chikenrawmen
Hinata
I was starting to feel anxious. I had messaged him back at around 2 yesterday, right when I got the message. It was around 10 now, and I was going to bed, but I couldn't sleep. I really wanted a reply — it was just eating at me.
"He's probably just asleep already," I told myself. "He could live in England or something. Just go to sleep and wait for a reply tomorrow."
And that sort of helped me. Sort of, being the keyword. I was still anxious, and was on-off sleeping all night. Once during the night I had to go to the bathroom and TenTen threw a pillow at me as I walked by her room. When I looked into her doorway she growled at me, telling me to "get my ass to bed".
"Yes, ma'am," I mumbled sarcastically. I could feel her glaring at me as I walked back from the bathroom, probably annoyed at the sound of the toilet flushing. I walked just a little quicker to my room (TenTen's glare was like…death).
I was tired and frustrated when my alarm went off in the morning. I glared at it with sleepy eyes, now tired from a night of insomnia. I slammed my hand on the Snooze button and sat up, running a hand through my hair.
Then I got hit with a pillow. WTH?
I turned to glare at who I thought would be TenTen, seeing as she was the pillow-throwing master in this house, but it wasn't; instead, it was my brother, Neji.
"Why did you throw a pillow at me?" I asked, looking at him with a Have you been possessed? type look.
"TenTen does it all the time," he said, shrugging. "I figured it might be fun."
I smirked at Neji and eyed him knowingly. "Oh, I get now. Still head over heels for her?"
"Shut up." He glared at me, but that didn't wash away the tiny flush of pink on his cheeks.
"You know, if you don't tell her soon, she'll find someone else," I told him softly.
"Yeah, yeah, I know." He walked off, but I threw the pillow back at him anyway. He caught it — damn it — and walked back to his own room.
Neji had pretty much been in love with TenTen ever since she moved in. Before, he had only had a minor crush on her, seeing as he only knew her from when she came over. But after she started living with us, he really started to like her. I didn't know the full scope because, well, really — why would he tell me, his sister, all of these things? Especially when I could tell her? Neji knew I wouldn't tell her, because I just wasn't that kind of person, but he was careful, regardless. He had some idiot friends who would tell, if they knew.
Which brings us to how he is a secretive person.
What was our point again?
--
--
It was Neji's turn to drive us all to school in his oh, so pretty Mitsubishi Eclipse. The only reason he got it was because he was older — I was stuck with my stupid Altima. It wasn't that I didn't like my Altima and it's gas mileage (which, really, was fantastic), it was just that…his Eclipse was an Eclipse. It would forever own the "Pretty Car of the World" award.
"Oh, Hinata!"
I could sort of tell it was Mr. Sanchez because of his effort to sound Japanese when he said my name.
"Yes, Mr. Sanchez?"
"Are you going to be coming to the Julius Caesar play at Mesa Art Center with us?" he asked, and I saw the tip of a pack of Kool King cigarettes in his shirt pocket.
"It's next week, right?" I would go if it was next week. Next week was supposed to be really mellow for some reason I wasn't sure of. If it were tonight, though, I would have to decline. I was too anxious to get a reply from chikenrawmen.
"Yes," he responded. "Thursday, at six-thirty."
Mr. Sanchez was the IB Coordinator at THS. He was our cool, yet dorky English teacher for most of the day, and taught Spanish during 4th and 5th period. The cool thing about him was that he was actually from Spain. He did a lot of fun things after school for IB kids; like once, we had a mock bull fighting.
"I'll be there," I told him.
After I was done talking to Mr. Sanchez, we wandered over to our usual spot hang out during the morning, seeing as we got here half an hour early. It was sort of just this long, stone bench type thing that had sort of just became ours over the years. We had to get over here early to make sure no ill-informed freshman had taken it.
TenTen ended up curling up on the bench, super-tired — I could see the secret glare she sent at me from my midnight endeavors — and used Neji's lap as a pillow. I raised my eyebrows at Neji suggestively, and he narrowed his eyes at me with a Shut the hell up look.
I saw Iris and Sara coming by from the left, and as I turned my head, they greeted me with a wave, jogging over here. Their group names were Ino and Sakura, and they were one of the few names that had a story. Sakura got hers because sakura means cherry blossom, and she had this crazy pink hair-do. And Ino got hers because since she had a nickname for Sakura — forehead girl — Sakura gave her the name of pig.
"Hey, Ino, Sak," I greeted, hugging them each.
Usually, Ino and Sakura were here before us, because they had to get up early for cheerleading practice, anyway. Yes, they were cheerleaders, and though shunned by their teammates for hanging out with the white dorks — even though they were themselves — but nonetheless group members. Besides, they were fuckawesome cheerleaders, so who really cared?
They plopped down on the bench and groaned.
"My thighs are burning!"
"My boobs are non-existent from all this exercise!"
"Oh, please! Your boobs were non-existent before!"
Well, we cared when they were whiny bitches.
--
--
Classes that day bored me out of my mind. First period was Symphony Orchestra, and we were just learning some new pieces so we were going bit by bit at when I clearly wanted to go faster. I already knew this song and had printed out the sheet music myself and played it for my own enjoyment.
Therefore, this just bored me.
English was kind of okay. There was a sub since our regular teacher was on maternal leave, and he let us read, stating the fact that English was "Reading". We ended up passing funny as hell notes then lying and saying it was something in the book that made us giggle.
"…The assassination of John F. Kennedy made you giggle?"
"No. The fact that he had a thing for Marilyn Monroe did."
The gullible-ness of subs is always what makes my day better.
Then we had Gym, of course, and we ran laps. Lots and lots of laps.
"You know," I panted, out of breath as we started walking toward the changing rooms, "I think we should switch to Dance class soon. This is just insane."
TenTen nodded. "No shit."
Then it was Trig, the most dreadful subject of the day. Why was it so dreadful, you say? Because math was simply a devil incarnate, invented to rule over us with an iron fist so that one day it would end up being our God. Therefore: devil incarnate.
In Trig — no. What? No. I'm not writing about fucking Trig. Why not? It's TRIG. It's evil. …Right. That's what I thought.
Skipping to Lunch, seeing as a part of me just doesn't want to recall Trig…
I was first at our table and sitting down, waiting for the others to get there before I went to go get lunch, and I felt elbows on my shoulders, and then weight.
"Hey, Hina," Kiba said. "How's it goin'?"
"It would be going better if you got off of me," I replied.
He sat beside me and grinned, his weirdly wolfy canines looking all…wolfy-canine-y. Maybe it was just a Cambodian thing.
Kiba had been my sort-of boyfriend for a week or so. We went out on a couple of dates but I never really felt that spark. Him, on the other hand…
"Hey, Shane, man," Kiba said as another groupie sat down. He didn't respond, but that figured. Shane — also known as Shino — was one of the more silent emo's that didn't rant about their depression and cut themselves.
"…Why don't you ever talk to me?"
Kiba was truly a lost cause.
--
--
We had Study Hall next. It was pretty much the only class I had with Temari's brother, Gaara (whose real name was Garrett). He was cool, but kept to himself, which really wasn't all that bad. He had this really cool dark red hair — that was natural, too — and a tattoo of the Japanese kanji for love on his forehead. He had the punk/scene — whatever the hell you call it — look, so today he was dressed in black, ripped skinny jeans and a black jacket.
We sat next to each other, because we really didn't want to be disturbed by the loud, dumbasses that were in Study Hall the same period. Because usually, if Gaara was somewhere, others weren't, which was why it was nice to sit by him.
I decided to check my email, because though I — hopefully — hid it well, I was dying to get a reply from him.
chikenrawmen has sent you a message.
In my mind, I was doing a happy dance.
September 06th 7:48
Subject: Re: Review Reply
Ah, I'm sorry I didn't reply. Let's just say I was having a spaz out. This is gonna sound stalker-like, but I really like talking to you. By the way, I noticed you're a beta. Would you beta my stuff too?
xx-chikenrawmen
Holy shit. I was being asked to beta. I had never beta'd for anyone before — though I did have a beta profile on my regular one. I typed up a reply.
September 06th 2:34
Subject: Re: Review Reply
Oh, wow, really? Nobody's ever asked me to beta them before! Sure, I'd love to! =D It isn't every day you get to beta for a favorite story, haha!
You don't sound stalker-ish, lol. You just sound like a nice person who has similar likes.
Lavender Kiss
Did I sound too weird? Eh.
"What's that?" Gaara asked me. He was kind of looking at me funny.
"Oh, it's somebody I'm talking to online."
"Internet sex?"
I looked at him like he had grown a fourth head.
"What the hell? No! It's just somebody I met!"
"Sure…"
Gaara could have a sick mind.
A/N: Midnight: OMG. FINALLY. IT'S DONE. IT'S FUCKING DONE. Well, we have some reasons why this took so long. One, Whisper's computer crashed. Two, we had to wait a while for her to get a new harddrive. Third, we had a Twific Award site with nominations coming in. And Fourth, I was having a bit of a lacking inspiration. But we got it, lol.
PS: THE RICOCHET! AWARDS! THE FIRST NARUTO FANFICTION AWARD SITE. (www . ricochetawards . webs . com) We're still under construction, but we'll have everything up soon!
Also, we made some mistakes: the time. It was September and we put May in the time-stamp for the PM. Stupid. We've also switched over to a central time now, instead of our time-zones, which is just confusing. The kiss. This is not a ShikaNaru. This is a NaruHina. We just needed a way to introduce that Shika was gay.
Whispers: Yeah, lots of mistakes, we know. Just be glad we caught them. And yes, this is a NaruHina. Don't leave cause of that kiss, which was the result of me being high off pain meds.
PS: SECRET SHIKA PAIRING FTW.
PPS: Mr. Sanchez= Asuma, Carter= Choji
Oh yeah, and one, we know Neji is Hinata's cousin. We put in brother because brother Neji is smexy for some reason—though we're not into Hyuugacest. Plus, this central time is 2 hours after Midnight's time, and somehow it ended up being my time. And—last thing, I think—the underlining is in place of the italics. Since italics is Japanese, and bold italics is PM, we put underlines to show emphasis on a word. Get it?
