Chapter Eight – English Assignment
I dropped into a random desk in one of the middle rows of my English classroom on Monday morning, rubbing my eyes and yawning tiredly. I slumped forward and buried my head in my arms to warm my cheeks a little. It was unusually cool this morning, and my cheeks and fingertips were colder than usual. I looked up from the warmth of my arms at the sound of somebody sitting down next to me at the end of the row I was sitting in. I raised my eyebrow when I noticed that it was one Sasuke Uchiha taking the seat next to me.
I watched as he set his bag on the desk in front of him and leaned back into his chair, letting his arms hang lax at his sides. He looked over at me after a moment and raised an eyebrow of his own in my direction. I mock-glared at him.
"What?" I mumbled questioningly, burying my face back in my arms.
"Get enough sleep last night?" He asked with what almost sounded like amusement in his voice. I looked back up again to give him another mock-glare.
"As a matter of fact, no. My brother decided that last night was a good night to eat all the sweets he had in his possession, on top of three cups of coffee." Sasuke's smirk could've almost been a smile. I swear I even heard a chuckle.
"Does he do that often?"
I simply groaned in response, and definitely heard a chuckle this time. It was then that my brother walked into the classroom and sat down on my other side. "Good morning." He said cheerfully. Sasuke nodded his acknowledgement, and I groaned louder. Kira blinked in surprise and looked down at me.
"What? What'd I do?"
I looked up at my brother and glared at him. "Think, genius. What'd you do last night?" My brother looked up at the ceiling in thought for a few moments. He looked back at me, a completely innocent look on his face.
"I drank coffee." I sharpened my glare at him.
"You also ate enough sweets to make you sugar-high and kept me awake half the night." Kira blinked again.
"I did?"
"Ugh!" I thumped my head down onto the desk.
"Alright class! Settle down please!" The teacher called as he walked into the classroom. He had silvery-grey hair similar to Kakashi-sensei's, only longer and tied back in a pony tail at the nape of his neck. He also wore glasses. He looked at my brother and I for a moment as he made his way to the front of the room. I slowly sat up, leaving my arms crossed on the desk in front of me.
"For those of you who don't know me or don't remember, my name is Kabuto, and I'm your English teacher. Now, you should all have your copies of 'Much Ado about Nothing' and 'Twelfth Night' with you today. Let's start with 'Much Ado About Nothing'..."
The lesson itself went on relatively uneventfully, at least until the last ten minutes of the lesson. Kabuto-sensei closed his book and leaned against his desk at the front of the room.
"Now, as most of you know, you all have an assignment due for this class soon. What most of you don't know, is that this assignment is a partner project." Some murmurs started up among the classroom, the loudest comments belonging to Naruto, who was sitting on Kira's other side. Kabuto-sensei waited for quiet before continuing his explanation. "Now, to make things, hopefully, easier on all of you, the person you're currently sitting next to will be your partner for this assignment. Do I make myself clear, Sakura and Karin?" I looked over my shoulder to see that the aforementioned duo were glaring at my back again. I turned back to the front of the room and rolled my eyes. It was pretty easy to figure out why they were glaring at me specifically. Because Naruto was next to my brother, and I was next to Sasuke. "As for the assignment itself, I want you in your pairs to write an essay comparing two of Shakespeare's plays. One of them has to be either 'Much Ado' or 'Twelfth Night', and you and your partner will have to pick out another play of your choice. I don't want this assignment being about one of his plays and one of his sonnets. I don't want to see any sonnets in your assignments. Two plays, no exceptions. I hope I'm making myself clear on that." Kabuto-sensei picked up a stack of papers sitting on the desk next to him and sat them on the front row of desks closest to him.
"I want one person from each pair to come out and grab one of these before the end of the class and go through and highlight some potential relevant information for your assignment. You have until the end of the lesson to get started, than after that it's up to you and your partner to get the assignment finished. You have until next Friday to get everything finished and handed in." Here a chorus of groans sounded. I raised an eyebrow at that. Groaning over an English assignment? Bunch of sooks. I sighed and pushed out of my seat to go and grab a handout.
Back in my seat, I pulled a highlighter and pen out of my pencil case, and flipped the stapled together papers over between myself and Sasuke. I tapped my pen against my lips for a moment, before scribbling down names of Shakespearean plays I could remember.
"'Hamlet', 'Midsummer Night's Dream', 'Macbeth', 'Romeo & Juliet', 'The Taming of The Shrew', 'The Merchant of Venice', 'Othello'." I mumbled as I scrawled the titles down on the back of the handout. Sasuke leaned closer and looked at the list of titles.
"There's also 'King Lear', 'Antony and Cleopatra', 'Pericles', and 'Julius Caesar'." Sasuke murmured. I nodded and wrote those titles down as well.
"Alright," I murmured, tilting my head up to look at him, tapping the covers of 'Twelfth Night' and 'Much Ado' in front of me. "I personally think that 'Much Ado' would be easier to work with for this since we only have until the end of next week. What about you?" Sasuke looked at the books and the other titles for a moment, before he tapped 'Midsummer Night's Dream' where the title was written down in my scrawl.
"If you think we should use 'Much Ado', I'm thinking that 'Midsummer Night's Dream' would be a good comparison for similarities," He shifted his finger and tapped 'Macbeth', "but if it's a contrast we should angle for, I think Macbeth would be a good idea." I nodded and hummed in agreement.
"I like the contrasting, personally. Comparing two plays about romance probably wouldn't get us quite as many marks as we can get." Sasuke nodded as I highlighted 'Macbeth' on our list before turning the handout back over and skimming through the pages for a moment before handing it and my highlighter over to Sasuke.
"If you find anything you think we could use, highlight it and we can go over things after school, yeah?" Sasuke nodded.
"I'll come to your place?" I smiled and nodded in agreement.
"Sure, then after we get some work done we can head over to yours for band practice. Sasuke nodded, then the bell rang to signal the end of class. I gathered my books and slipped the handout into my English notebook before shuffling out of the classroom behind Sasuke and on to my next class.
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"I'm leaving." He declared into the candle lit room, his stare blank and cold. "I won't be a part of this any longer."
Silence followed, and after what felt like an eternity, the leader replied gravely. "Are...you sure you want to do this? You know you cannot simply leave us."
Nodding, the teen pulled off his jacket, letting it drop to the floor at his feet. "I'm sure; I have my own life to lead. And I won't be your puppet anymore." With that, he turned with a swish of dark hair and left the room, his nearly inaudible footsteps fading down the corridor.
In the glow of the candlelight, the leader sat behind his desk, his chin resting on his interlocked fingers. Turning his eyes towards the shadows, one of his other subordinates made himself known in the darkened office. He stepped out from the corner of the room where he had been hiding, standing behind his boss, arms lax at his sides.
"I knew this day would come...I had hoped it would not be so soon, however. Make sure he keeps quiet. We can't have him saying anything."
The subordinate grinned manically.
"With pleasure, Boss."
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I pulled up in front of Kurenai's house, grabbed my bag from the passenger seat and walked into the house. I had enough time to raid the fridge for an apple and a couple bottles of water before Sasuke knocked on the door.
"Door's open!" I called, as I pulled the stem off the apple and bit into it. I scooped my bag off the floor and walked back into the hallway, where Sasuke was kicking off his shoes. When he straightened up, I motioned for him to follow me upstairs with my head, taking another bite out of my apple and tossing him the other bottle of water, which he caught easily as he followed me.
I nudged my bedroom door open with my foot and walked in, dropping my bag by my desk. I pulled out my swivel chair and sat down, turning to face Sasuke. "Welcome to my Hobbit Hole." I grinned at him laughingly before taking another bit out of my apple. Sasuke raised an eyebrow at me.
"Lord of the Rings fan?" He dropped his bag next to mine and sat down on my bed. I nodded.
"I'm a Star Wars fan too." He chuckled.
"Who isn't?"
"Sakura and Karin?"
Sasuke thought about that for a second, then snorted in amusement. "You're probably right there."
I swung back and forth slightly in my chair for a moment, before reaching for my bag and grabbing the hand-out from the notebook I'd stashed it in, and turned to face my desk. I pulled my laptop screen up and turned it on, opening a blank word document once it had logged in and booted up.
"Alright, 'Much Ado' and 'Macbeth'. Where's a good place to start?" I asked him, as he got off my bed and came over to stand behind me, looking over my shoulder at my screen as I opened Google Chrome.
"Try the Konoha City Library website first. If we can find any copies of Macbeth or some research journals we have a starting point." I nodded my head, but then pointed to my bookshelf.
"I have a copy of 'Macbeth' over there." Sasuke raised an eyebrow, but went to my bookshelf and quickly found my worn copy of the book. He turned it over in his hands, looking at the cover and flipping through the pages.
"How many times have you read 'Macbeth'?" He asked as he read through the first few lines in act one scene one. I shrugged as I started a database search on the library website.
"Twice, I think. It actually belonged to my Mum. It's one of the few things I have from her." Sasuke stayed silent for a while after that as I ran a search for journal articles related to Shakespeare, 'Macbeth', and 'Much Ado'.
"Hikari, I-"
"If you're going to apologise, don't." I cut him off, and he looked at me with slightly wide eyes for a few seconds, then stayed silent after that, reading 'Macbeth' while I continued researching information for the assignment. At least that's what I thought he was doing. After about five minutes of silence, I looked up in surprise as a pair of warm, strong, pale arms wrapped around me, as a chin rested on my shoulder. I turned my head until I could see his face out of the corner of my eye. I sat still for a moment, before a small smile crossed my face, and reached up until one of my hands rested on one of his.
"Thanks, Sasuke." I murmured, leaning my head against his for a moment.
"Kari! Sasuke! HEEEEEEEY!" We both jumped, and Sasuke quickly let go of me. We both turned to look at the door as Naruto came bursting into my bedroom, with Kira following behind him. I raised an eyebrow at them, Sasuke just looked irritated.
"What is it, Naruto?" I asked bemusedly as Sasuke sat on my bed with his arms crossed over his chest.
"We need HEEEELLLLLLP!" Naruto whined childishly. I sighed, shaking my head and turning back to my search results, grabbing a little notepad I kept on my desk, as well as a pen, and started jotting down book titles, author initials and reference codes for the library.
"Sorry Naruto, but we haven't started writing our own essay yet. Besides that, we won't be able to help you overly much unless you're researching the same books we are." Naruto looked visibly deflated at that, and stood in the middle of my room, pouting with his arms crossed over his chest.
"You suck, Kari." He grumbled. I chuckled, and continued scribbling down information until I had enough references to put together a decent assignment. I turned to look at Sasuke and held the notepad up.
"Will we head for the library and see if we can find these?" Sasuke nodded and stood up, stretching for a moment before he grabbed his backpack and waited as I grabbed my things, including my laptop, and followed him downstairs to the front door. Kira and Naruto followed us to the door.
"KARIIIIIIIIII!" Naruto whined.
"See you at band practice Naruto." I called back, sliding into my car and leaning over to the passenger side to let Sasuke in.
"Won't you at least help me with the assignment?" Kira asked, pulling his innocent act again. I got Sasuke to roll down his window and leaned over him to get a better look at Kira. I raised an eyebrow at him.
"After the stunt you pulled last night? Not until the next millennium." Kira pouted, and we left both boys grumbling on Kurenai's front lawn to head to the library.
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It was just on dark as he made his way home from Konoha University. After confronting his 'boss', he'd had to go straight to his classes for the day. After class, he'd stayed in one of the computer labs to get some assignments finished in the relative silence of the computer lab building, which was why he was only just making his way home now. Looking at his watch, he decided to cut the corner of a block out of his walk and made his way into one of the barely lit alleyways between the university and his home.
As he started down the length of the alley, he couldn't help the apprehensive feeling that churned in his gut; the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up. He was almost to the other end of the alleyway when somebody stepped out from beneath a shadowy doorway. That somebody happened to be the man who, until earlier today, had been his 'partner'. He froze when he noticed the glinting knife blade in his ex-partner's hand. He watched as the man fiddled with the knife, twisting it this way and that between his fingers.
"What do you want?" He asked, sounding much bolder than he felt, and that was saying something considering his normally never fearless attitude. The other man chuckled, and stopped playing with the knife.
"Han't you worked it out yet? You should'a by now; ya suppose' ta be a prodigy after all." He chuckled again, as he stepped closer to the frozen teen. "Ya don't just tell da boss ya've had it 'n walk out. D'ere's only one way out." The other man had a maniacal grin on his face by this point. He couldn't move; his muscles were frozen. It was the first time he had ever felt true fear, and it was paralysing. It was also the one time that he wished that it hadn't happened. He watched warily as the other man stepped closer, and closer, until he was within striking distance of the teen.
"Dat way out?" He spoke again, bringing the knife up to the light for both of them to see. Then, his grin widened, as he grabbed the teen and lifted him from the ground by his shirt-front. "I's in a coffin!"
Then, blinding pain in his abdomen.
He had no idea how many times he was stabbed, but when he was finally thrown to the ground and the other man gone, he lay there for a moment, before painstakingly dragging himself by sheer strength of will to the mouth of the alley. If he could just make it that far, a passerby would see him, and then he could get help...
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Author's Note: I bet most of you have probably worked out who our stabbing victim is, huh? In any case, I shall give no details away until the next chapter, when all is revealed :3.
I would also like to take this time to apologise for my lack of updates, however, as I mentioned in my latest update of one of the earlier chapters of this fanfic, I am up to my ears in assignments, and the exam block isn't too far away either. That being said, I decided to at least get chapter 8 out of the factory before I immerse myself in the Aztecs, and Jekyll and Hyde, and behaviour management strategies. Thank you all for putting up with my erratic updates :). I look forward to writing chapter 9 for you all. I have a reprieve between my assignments and exam block, so I'll try and get chapter 9 pumped out then :)
Kudos,
Beta'd (My beta is FINALLY doing her job within a decent time frame again!)
