Ahh yes, Chapter 3 is here. By the way, I should've said this way earlier, but I have no Internet at my house so my updates will be slow at best, but that depends on what I get done in my free time at home before going over to friend's place with Internet access. I try to go at least every 3 weeks or so, but I'm hoping that I can go to my bestest best friend's house for the summer so the updates will probably be quicker after I get there. So yeah, enjoy.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. And to quell my sadness at this fact, I'm going sit my butt in this chair with my tired eyes open and rock out to Gackt on my iPod. *10 second pause* It doesn't fill the void!!
Chapter 3: Detention + Naruto = An Angry Sakura
"You did what?!" Sakura yelled at Naruto from across the lunchroom table they were occupying.
Naruto just sat quietly in his chair, instead choosing to nibble solemnly on the chocolate chip cookie that Hinata had given him a few minutes prior. He was happy that all his friends had the same lunch period as him, but that happiness didn't last long because of Ino's tendency to be a really big blabbermouth. By the time he had sat down and gotten himself mildly together, Sakura was already on his ass about what had happened in Art class. He was already getting a minor headache from all of the noise of the lunchroom, but this was almost like pouring salt on an open wound.
"Come on, Sakura-chan. It wasn't his fault…at least I don't think it was," Hinata said rather unsurely.
"Normally, I would believe you, but since this involved Sasuke, I'm having a hard time accepting it," Sakura said with a slight grimace.
"Well, I can't help it if he pissed me off," Naruto said, finally breaking out of his previous quietness.
"Oh really? And just how did he manage to do that?"
"Uhhhh."
There was definitely bad blood between Naruto and Sasuke ever since their break-up last year and everyone in Naruto's friend circle, not to mention a good majority of the student body, knew of it all to well. Or at least that was Naruto's side of the exchange anyway. Besides still being interested in him, Sasuke did get annoyed with Naruto's actions and behavior every now and again, but it otherwise didn't deter him in the least when it came to wanting the blonde back in his clutches. Naruto thought he made it pretty clear when he broke up with Sasuke that he didn't want anything to do with the Uchiha, but like a determined dog that really wanted a specific bone out of a bunch of otherwise unsuitable ones, Sasuke kept a moderately subtle approach, only striking when he felt the opportunity was just right for the taking.
But now that he was thinking about it, Naruto felt that what he did in the Art room wasn't exactly the best idea of the century when it came down to it. He didn't regret it in anyway possible, but now that Sasuke knew that Naruto was going after a potential new piece of eye-candy, he figured that Sasuke was going to come after him twice as hard for it and maybe even try to interfere in Naruto and Gaara's relationship that was still balancing itself on a thin string, ready to snap itself in half at any given moment.
Needless to say, Naruto was practically the king of the phrase 'It sounded like a good idea at the time'.
Sighing in an exasperated fashion, Sakura asked, "Was it one of the 'Sasuke looks' that ticked you off or something?"
"You could say that was apart of it," Naruto grumbled back, finishing off his cookie.
To Naruto, the infamous 'Sasuke looks' were always annoying and deserved a good retaliation, if not a full, completely blown out of proportion fight. Something about them just got under his skin and plucked heavily at his nerves, which, at the end of the day, ended up being one of the numerous ignition keys that caused their previous romantic relationship to drastically blow up in their faces and leave them on volatile terms.
"Look, I know you don't like Sasuke, but did you really have to go so far as to pick a fight with him?"
"Not to mention get a detention for yourself and the rest of us that had nothing to do with it," Neji sighed.
"Well, how was I supposed to know that Kurenai-sensei was in the hallway?" Naruto asked.
"I'll give you that one, but you had better be glad that I'm not the type to rat out a friend. Otherwise, I would not even thought about earning myself a trip to detention on the first day of school by deciding to not be a tattletale."
"And that's another thing I'm mad about," Sakura started, "This is the first day of school for God's sake. I mean, if you were going to pick a fight with him, couldn't you have at least waited until later?"
"Nope," Naruto answered.
"This isn't the first time he's gotten in trouble at school because Sasuke pissed him off. You would think that people would've realized that by now," Kiba said though it was just to put in his two cents.
"I know that! But it doesn't mean I'm not mad about it. This has been going on for months now and I would really like it if it came to an end and soon," Sakura said before taking a bite out of her sandwich.
"She does have a point, Naruto-kun. When is this whole feud thing with Sasuke going to stop anyway?" Hinata asked while eating forkfuls of her salad.
"When we're both dead and buried, but at this point, I'd rather he be in the ground first," Naruto answered.
The rest of the group gave a collective sigh, knowing that it could very well last that long if given the chance. It was amazing how something as beautiful as love could turn into something as ugly as hate in such a relatively short time span.
"You know, if you and Sasuke were the only ones who got detention, I would've let it go already. But since you managed to take four other people down with you, it's gonna be a while before I let it slide," Sakura said.
"Yeah yeah, I know. You can bust my balls all you like, but it's not like I'm going to apologize now that it's already over and done with," Naruto replied, his forehead resting on the slightly cool lunch table.
"But Sakura. You're giving him hell about getting detention, but he hasn't really said why he got it in the first place," Ino said, fixing her make-up in the process of talking.
"Oh yeah. So besides a 'Sasuke look', was there any other reason why you got yourself into trouble?"
"Well…"
Now that was a pretty touchy subject. It wasn't entirely because of the fact that Sasuke had passed out one of his looks, but that he had directed it at Gaara when the redhead hadn't done anything wrong in the first place. Besides being in Naruto's space of course. Sasuke had a real jealous bone when it came to that sort of thing. But Naruto wasn't exactly sure what Sakura's response would be if he had told her that it was because Sasuke had looked at his crush the wrong way. He had only just met Gaara a few hours and to even began to explain that his affections had started to run that deep was pretty embarrassing to the blonde.
"Ummm Naruto?"
The whole group looked at the origin of the voice to find that Gaara was standing off to Naruto's side. Naruto sat up somewhat from his initial position and looked up at Gaara.
"Yeah?"
"C-Can I umm…talk to you for a m-minute?" Gaara asked, looking more than a bit uneasy.
"I don't see why not," Naruto said with a smile, getting up from his chair and leading Gaara to another table.
Giving another sigh, Sakura said, "Ok then. So can any of you tell me why?"
Making sure they were at least a few tables away from his friends first, Naruto decided to set down with Gaara at one of the empty tables in the back of the lunchroom. As far as he could tell, the only reason why anybody sat at the tables in the back was so they could be alone, which was why he was relieved at the fact that Sasuke was nowhere to be seen at that moment in time or even in the large room at all. But it would certainly sent some signals to the other students and it was only a matter of time before the rumors kicked into high gear. In moments like these, Naruto would wonder why he had put up with all these gossiping people for so long. It was like the entire school was full of them, which, as a result, made it nearly impossible to have some 'private time' with someone without incessant chatter about it being all over the school in a matter of hours, if not minutes what with the power of text messaging at nearly everybody's deposal.
"So what is you wanna talk about?" Naruto asked, taking a seat next to Gaara.
"I-I was wondering why you got so mad at that boy, b-but you don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Gaara said, surprised at himself because he had hardly stuttered at all.
Naruto also caught that and he couldn't help but smile. It was a either a sign that Gaara was trying to keep himself together and failing slightly at it or that the redhead was getting used to being around Naruto. The latter was the more plausible reason, not to mention better sounding in Naruto's mind.
"Oh he and I have been at each other's throat for months now. It's no big deal."
"I see, but--"
"I should probably just go ahead say this now."
Gaara gave him a funny look, showing that he wasn't sure what the blonde was trying to convey to him.
"Listen, I'm sorry that I got you in detention on your first day. If I had known that was gonna happen, I might've not done it at all."
"It's okay. I don't mind."
"You know, I think you're the only person I know that would ever say something like that when it came to getting detention. Anyway, you were saying?"
"Well, you didn't do anything until he gave me that look."
"Damn, you saw that?"
Gaara give a short nod, looking a little embarrassed because he was still talking to Naruto, not to mention the fact that he had actually said more in the last couple of minutes than what little was said since he had met Naruto during first period.
"Anyway," Naruto started, "I already don't like Sasuke as it is, but I have a real problem when it comes to him treating my friends like crap. Especially by giving them one of those looks. You have no idea how much they piss me off."
Gaara gave him a nervous look before asking, "I…I'm one of your friends?"
"Yeah of course," Naruto answered, flashing the redhead a big grin, "Do you think I would have risked getting detention for a stranger? No way."
At this reply, Gaara blushed a just the tiniest bit, causing Naruto to give an even bigger smile. He had to admit, all this shy behavior was pretty endearing, but it also made him wonder why Gaara seemed so embarrassed about having regular social contact with other teenagers. A random person on the street would never be able to tell that he was the shy type just by looking at his choice of clothing. Out of the corner of his eye, Naruto saw Sakura waving him back over to their table. He squinted his eyes slightly in irritation, but he figured that he had better go back, lest he would make Sakura angrier than she already was.
"Listen, I have to get back to my other friends before I get dragged back by force. Do you want to come sit down with us, Gaara?" Naruto asked hopefully.
"…I-I can't. I have to go to the library."
Naruto made a disgusted sound at the word 'library' for one reason and one reason only. Books. He hated books, but it was mostly because he had more bad experiences with books than good. Sure he liked to read them from time to time, but after getting hit in the back of the head with them and having them dropped on his desk to wake him up if he had fallen asleep in class a few times, it was no surprise that he had found himself wanting to go all-out pyromaniac and burn them until only the ashes were left laying on the ground.
"Oh well, maybe some other time. See ya," Naruto said, getting up from his chair and walking off with a wave.
He resisted the urge to look back and see if Gaara had hauled his black pants wearing ass out of the lunchroom as quickly as he could. Naruto knew he was a huge pervert at heart, but he felt a little ashamed at himself for thinking dirty thoughts about what was under his newfound friend's clothes. One couldn't really make out a definite shape of anything below the waistline, thanks to the redhead's baggy pants so there was no real way of telling if he actually had an 'ass' to speak of, not counting taking off his pants of course. Naruto was about to slap himself in the face because of his perverted thoughts, but he then realized that he would look pretty stupid if he just slapped himself for no reason in the middle of the room. Instead, he opted to just eat some of his friend's food and hope that it would help to get rid of his thoughts. But he wouldn't have to steal it in the first place if he wasn't such a pervert and if he had remembered to bring some money with him when he was getting ready for school that morning.
"So is there any reason that made you wave me back over here?" Naruto asked in an almost irritable tone, steal a bread roll from Kiba's tray.
"What, are you upset because you had to stop talking to your man-crush?" Sakura asked jokingly.
"Hahahaha. Man-crush. You haven't used that one in a while, Sakura," Kiba snickered before taking a sip of his milk.
"Why don't you keep laughing, Kiba? Maybe that milk will come out of your nose. But seriously, did you just call me back over here to poke fun at me?" Naruto asked Sakura.
"As tempting as that sounds, that's not it. I just wanted to say that I think it's pretty sweet of you to defend the honor of someone you barely know yet have the hots for."
"Huh? Wait a min--"
"Hinata told me what happened."
Naruto shot a look at Hinata that basically said 'did you have to tell her?'. Like her cousin Neji, Hinata was a person who would tattle at the drop of a hat, but she would crack now and then if enough pressure just so happened to be applied to the right places. And since they had all been friends their early childhood days, it was no surprise that Sakura knew just where to apply that certain amount of pressure in order to make Hinata spill the beans.
"I'm sorry, Naruto-kun. She forced it out of me," Hinata said with an apologetic smile.
"It's okay. So, Sakura, does this mean you're still mad at me?"
"Not as much as before, but I'm still pretty upset with you."
"…I'll take you to the mall after school tomorrow if you let it go now."
"You read my mind."
This had become very a common thing between Naruto and Sakura in all their years of friendship. She would get mad at Naruto for something that he had done or caused and all Naruto had to do was offer to take her to the mall and it was water under the bridge within seconds. Jiraiya had made a pretty good living with his 'novels' so the occasional splurge at the mall in order to make Sakura happy was no big deal in the grand scheme of things. Besides, Naruto's weekly allowance was a hell of a lot more than most people with minimum wage jobs would ever see in six months of constant work.
"But you have to do something first before I even take you anywhere near the mall," Naruto said, a devious smile on his whiskered face.
"I had a feeling you would do this eventually. What do you want?"
"Get yourself a detention."
"What?!"
Sakura, being the almost perfect little girl that she is, never got into any serious trouble that didn't involve being caught texting a few times in class, much less receive a trip to the hell within hell that was detention. This challenge would be very hard, if not practically impossible for her to accomplish.
"It's either that or no mall."
Sakura puffed up a bit, but sighed and said, "Fine. How long do I have to get it?"
"Before the end of the day."
"But it's already half over!"
"Your point?"
"…I don't even no what day they do detention!"
"Monday."
"But that's today!"
"Once again, you point?"
"Oh come on, Sakura. It'll be a good experience for you. Besides, with all of us in detention, we can help fight off Sasuke if it comes to that. Plus, Naruto will have some quality time with Gaara," Kiba said, egging Sakura on.
"You got detention too, Kiba-kun?" Hinata asked.
Everyone in their little group had noticed that Hinata had started adding the '-kun' honorific to Kiba's name as of late. Naruto reckoned that she was starting to crush on Kiba, but she wasn't being overly obvious about it so it was difficult to tell exactly why she changed the previous honorific.
"Yup. Back talking to a teacher."
"Again?"
"Anyway," Naruto said, trying to get them back on track, "so what do you say, Sakura?"
"I'll do it, but I won't like it," Sakura said with a huff.
After that was said, the bell rang for the students to begin heading to their fourth and final class of the day, the loud sound making Neji jump a little bit because he was so into his book that he hadn't been paying any attention to anything else in particular.
"Bell catch you off-guard again, Neji?" Naruto teasingly asked.
"Shut up," Neji said before picking up his bag and proceeding to walk out of the lunchroom with the rest of the students.
Smirking to himself, Naruto got up from his chair, quickly making it out into the hallway and opening his locker. Upon opening the locker, he made a disappointed groan when he looked at his class schedule that was taped onto the blue locker door. In all of the chaos of the morning and part of the afternoon, he had forgotten what his fourth block class was.
Algebra. Math was always his worst subject since grade school and to say that he was not looking forward to it was an immense understatement.
"Dammit. This is just my luck."
Author's Notes: …Dammit! I shouldn't have put that Naruto was eating a cookie cuz now I want a cookie really badly! Really really badly… Hmph! *pouts* But I hafta say that found myself laughing pretty hard when I was typing that stuff about Naruto being a perv. I found it funny for some reason and it took me a little while to stifle my laughter so I could finish typing up the paragraph, not to mention the rest of the chapter. Hehehehe… Oh, and by the way, the whole 'eating food to get rid of perverted thoughts' thing, I'm not really sure if it works. I have yet to try. But now that I'm thinking about it, it's kind of like a reference to my KibaNaru story because I wrote something like that in the 3rd chapter, which was published weeks before this chapter even came into being mind you. Oh well, it works out in the end so whatever. On another note, please Review!!
