Naruto awoke the next morning, his alarm clock going off and the room empty. Sasuke had left. His uniform and bag were gone off the floor, and his bed was neatly made. Naruto let out a sigh, sitting up and turning off his alarm clock. The conversation he'd had the night before with Sasuke seemed more like a dream than anything, and with Sasuke not there now it somehow seemed like even more of a dream. Although, Naruto couldn't figure out how his mind could make up something like the conversation they'd had. But he figured that either was the day was going to be awkward, and he wasn't looking forward to spending it with Sasuke in his classes.
Naruto got out of bed, and got dressed quickly. He headed out of his dorm room and went straight to get his free breakfast, then went to look for his friends. He found his friends where they'd sat the last few times they ate together, and he took a seat beside Hinata with his small fruit salad and cereal. Hinata looked at what he had to eat, and then looked at her own breakfast of pancakes and a slightly bigger bowl of fruit salad. "You know, we really wouldn't mind buying you meals, Naruto," she told him. Naruto shook his head as he finished off his cereal and began to pick at his fruit with a fork.
"It's not like we'll make you owe us something for it," Kiba told him as he ate his bacon, eggs, and sausage. Naruto shook his head again. He really didn't like having other people buy things for him, and he was perfectly fine with the food the school gave for free. It was just enough to fill a person up until their next meal anyways. "Fine, suit yourself," Kiba said, moving his plate so Naruto had an easier view of it. Naruto gave Kiba a slight glare and turned so he was facing away from Kiba, so he could finish his bowl of fruit without wishing for something better.
Morning classes went by slowly and painfully for Naruto. Science was another class of note taking, and then a homework assignment to do during the last fifteen minutes. It was a few questions at the end of the section and was supposed to be done in their partners, but after getting the assignment, and seeing no sign from Sasuke to want to work with him, Naruto chose to just go through the homework himself, finishing it right before class ended. When the bell for class to end rang Naruto jumped to his feet, stuffing his books in his bag, and went quickly to the door. He headed down the stairs and outside going straight to his Math class, which he hopped would be a little more fun with Kiba there. But it turned out it wasn't. The first thing they got when they walked into the room was a pop quiz on the section they'd done the day before. After that they did notes quietly. Their teacher seemed to be in a much worse mood than the day before, and would yell or give angry looks at anyone who even attempted to talk to the person next to them. At the end of class they were given a worksheet and questions out of the text to do, without any time before the bell rang.
Kiba and Naruto spent their lunch hour working on their Math homework in Shikamaru and Choji's room. They had gone there straight after class, Kiba taking Akamaru out to the bathroom quickly before sitting down with Akamaru in his lap, at the table, while he did his work. Naruto and Kiba worked together on the homework, each taking half the questions to do so they could just copy each other's work later, not even bothering to go get anything for lunch.
Kiba's cell phone rang more than a few times within the first half hour of them working. And when Naruto had finally had enough of the ringing he grabbed the phone off the table and answered it for Kiba. "Hello?" he asked, as Kiba to take the phone away from Naruto. But Naruto turned and stood up, walking away from Kiba.
"Kiba?" asked the voice of a confused girl, which Naruto guessed was Hinata.
"No, it's Naruto. Kiba didn't seem to want to answer his damn phone, and it was getting annoying, so I answered for him," he told her.
"That jerk, where are you guys? We've been waiting for you," she told him, sounding a little annoyed.
"We're in Shikamaru and Choji's room, we got a bunch of math work that we didn't want to leave for tonight."
"Did you eat anything?"
"No."
"Ok, we're coming to see you guys. We'll be there in a few minutes. See you." The phone line went dead.
Naruto walked back over to Kiba, where he was glaring at him slightly but not wanting to move because of Akamaru, and put his phone back on the table as he sat down. "Your girlfriend's mad at you," Naruto told him, picking up his pencil and going back to working on his math.
"Well I wasn't going to answer my phone while we were busy working," Kiba told him a little annoyed.
"Yeah, because letting it ring for half an hour is much less distracting than actually answering it," he said sarcastically, finishing off the last two questions on his half of the work and leaning back in his chair, pulling out his own phone from his pocket. He'd actually decided to bring it with him today, but he hadn't turned it on.
When he pressed the power button on his phone and waited a few seconds Naruto got a few things come in. First were a missed call and a voicemail that turned out to be from Hinata. Naruto guessed Kiba had given her his number, and he added hers into his phone. Next Naruto checked his text's and found two from Gaara, one from the night before and one from the morning. Naruto answered the texts telling Gaara he was sorry for not answering, but he'd become busy with homework, and then checked the last message. It was from Kiba a few minutes before the end of first block just saying how much he hated his gym teacher. Naruto deleted it.
Shikamaru and Choji's dorm room door opened a few minutes later, just as Kiba and Naruto had switched papers and were copying each other answers. The two boys looked up to see Choji holding the door open for Shikamaru and Hinata while they brought in a few plates of food. They placed them down on the table in front of Naruto and Kiba and told them to eat. "By the way Kiba, you owe me thirty dollars," Hinata said as she sat down and helped unwrap the food.
"Why do I owe you thirty dollars? I didn't ask you to buy me all this," he told her. She frowned at him.
"I was just trying to do something nice," she told him in a hurt voice. "I knew you'd be hungry because Naruto said you guys didn't go to eat. And they were selling some good things today, but I didn't know what you wanted so I got a little bit of everything, just to make sure." And she did get a little bit of quite a few things. In fact, she'd gotten two of each thing she bought: Pizza, chicken burgers, fries and gravy, soup, doughnuts, fruit bowls, pierogis, rice balls, and two bottles of pop. Naruto and Kiba looked at the food, and then up at Hinata.
"Fine, I'll give you the thirty dollars. And thank you," Kiba said, pulling his wallet out of his pocket and handing her the money before finishing off what he was copying and then reaching for his half of the food.
"You don't have to pay me back, Naruto, you can just have your share," Hinata told Naruto with a smile. Naruto bit his lip slightly.
"I told you I don't want you buying me my meals," he told her a little hesitantly.
"But I wanted to do something nice, since you had to spend your lunch doing homework," she told him sadly.
"I just don't feel right about it," he told her.
"Well if you don't eat it it's a waste of my money, so please do. I bought it for you," she told him. Naruto sat there for a moment, trying to think of another way out of having to take Hinata's charity. But when he couldn't find a way he let out a sigh and brought the food towards him to eat.
Naruto spent his art class in silence. The teacher had told them that they could either work with their partner on their project, or they could start on their next assignment. Naruto chose to work on the next assignment. After what had happened the evening before while he and Sasuke were working on their project he didn't really want to work on it in public. Sasuke didn't seem to really care. He didn't even go to talk to Naruto about it. He just went and started on his own assignment.
Gym class went by quickly. The boys and girls classes weren't together this time, but even without Hinata to talk to Naruto had a good time. The boy's class played basketball while the girl's class went outside to play soccer. They'd set up the teams by splitting up the roommates, and Naruto's team had ended up losing. There had been a few arguments about people breaking the rules, and a fist fight had broken out between two of the boys, one accusing the other of shoving him, which ended up turning into a huge fight between the two teams. Naruto stayed out of this fight, as did two or three other boys, and just stood back a bit watching. In the end Guy hadn't really done much. He just watched for a few seconds before breaking up the fight saying something about that being enough youthful problem solving, and sent the two boys who'd started it off to the nurse. He then told the class that he was very tolerant about fights, but when other people start joining a battle that isn't theirs that's when it's gone too far. Naruto felt like he had to disagree about this. He always thought any kind of fist fight was going too far, but he wasn't going to express his opinion. And now he was almost completely sure that there'd be a lot more fights in his class.
The locker room slowly emptied and the showers slowly became free. Naruto waited until the locker room was close to empty again before going over to one of the showers and getting in. His encounter with Sasuke in the locker room the day before hadn't changed his mind in showering there instead of in the dorms. In fact his encounter had actually encouraged him a little bit to keep taking his showers there, and since the last time something had been telling Naruto to go again, just because of Sasuke.
Naruto got undressed and turned on the shower. He could still hear a few showers going and people talking and moving around the locker room. The noises died out quickly though with the sound of the locker room door closing, and soon it seemed like it was just Naruto in the room again. Except for the sound of another shower going. Naruto's heart skipped a beat as he listened to the sound of the two showers running, but he tried not to think that it might be Sasuke, or hope it was. He knew if he did and it wasn't that he'd be disappointed.
The second shower turned off and there was silence in the room, except for Naruto's shower running. After a few seconds a voice spoke and Naruto's stomach did a little leap. "I'm surprised you're not scared to stay in here this long, after yesterday," Sasuke said, and it sounded to Naruto as if he was coming closer.
"Well I don't like to shower in the dorm showers, and I don't want to be pushy about being first in these ones," Naruto told him, quite more easily than he'd thought he'd be able to speak.
"You know, I could walk into your shower right now, if I wanted," Sasuke told him in an almost casual tone.
"You won't," Naruto said, hoping it sounded more like a small threat than just at statement.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that if I were you," Sasuke told him as the shower curtain started to move. Naruto's stomach did a flip.
"You won't do it," Naruto said again, watching the curtain closely anyways. It moved back to where Naruto had had it.
"You're right," Sasuke told him. "Not in the gym locker room anyways." He gave a little chuckle, and Naruto could hear him moving towards the lockers. Naruto then began to shower a little faster.
When Naruto was done his shower and had gotten dressed Sasuke was already gone. Naruto let out a groan, thinking he might have gotten Sasuke to stay if he'd just kept him talking. But it was too late for that. He'd screwed up with the boy again and now he not only had to walk back to the dorms alone, but he'd lost another chance to try and get closer to Sasuke. Naruto tossed his towel in the towel bin, put on his socks and shoes, grabbed his bag, and left the locker room, pulling out his phone and heading in the direction of the boys dorms, so he could put his things away before supper.
