Sorry, as usual, for the long delay - I was away on holiday, and since getting back I've been ill T_T I have a cold and a permanent headache and neck-ache, and I can't talk or eat without my throat feeling like sandpaper. PITY MEEEE! Or, don't pity me and forgive me for taking so long to upload instead ^.^ Whichever you decide to do, I really hope you enjoy this chapter. It's one I've been looking forward to... make of that what you will!
Disclaimer:
I don't own Naruto. Desafortunadamente. (Spanish for unfortunately - great word, right?!)
Study In Contrasts
The next morning was a little grim.
I was woken up by my alarm clock at seven in the morning. Seven! I'd only gotten to sleep at three o'clock the night before! But seven was the latest I could risk – I'd have to seriously rush in order to get ready for school in half an hour, and since I had to be in my first lesson by half eight I needed to leave by seven thirty at the latest.
I dragged myself out of bed and across the room to turn off the alarm – putting it on my dressing table several feet away from the bed is the only way to stop myself from just whacking the snooze button and going back to sleep – before shuffling out of my room and across the hall.
Showers are an amazing invention, don't you think?
Ten minutes and I was back in my room pulling on the skirt, the shirt, the jumper, the socks, the shoes. Today I was wearing some plain old black flats, I didn't have the energy to rebel with my footwear!
I ran downstairs and into the kitchen, fetching myself a bowl of coco pops in record time.
I was halfway through eating when mum came in and put the kettle on for coffee.
"Morning, mum."
She smiled at me and sat down across the table, "Good morning. How are you feeling?"
I shrugged, "Not great, but I have been worse. Luckily I've never really got hangovers."
"You get that from me," she said with a grin, "your hair looks lovely by the way."
My hand flicked up to check it instinctively. I'd put it up in a quick bun to avoid it getting wet in the shower, and I hadn't yet had time to undo it. But maybe it would be easier to just leave it up for the day?
I glanced at the clock above the kitchen sink and had to stifle a groan. 7:25. If I didn't know better, I'd think that the damn thing was mocking me.
I scooped up the last of my cereal and flung the empty bowl into the sink.
"Having time issues?"
Deciding against wasting time on answering that question, I sprinted back upstairs to slap some makeup on and grab my bag. I checked my hair briefly in the mirror, mum was right – it did look nice up like that.
On my way out of the door, I couldn't stop myself from checking the time again.
7:32. Take that, kitchen clock.
/\/\/\
Students were still milling around outside when I arrived, and I stood around for a minute trying to search the crowd for one of the people I knew while also looking like I was perfectly sure of myself. A difficult feat.
The first bell rang within moments, putting an end to all the fun I was having. Unfortunately, that meant that I had to find my way to my first lesson.
English literature. I wracked my brain in an attempt to remember where that classroom had been in relation to all the other classrooms Sakura had shown me yesterday.
I peered down the corridor I was standing in, checking both directions for some clue.
"Ino?"
I turned around to check out the origins of the familiar sounding voice, and sure enough...
"Hinata!" I grabbed her in a hug, "please please pretty please could you tell me how to get to English lit?"
The poor girl looked slightly taken aback, but she managed to completely avoid looking at me like I was a lunatic.
"Yes, of course I can" she smiled shyly at me, "That's my first lesson as well."
"Oh? Do you have the same teacher as me?"
"Orochimaru?"
I nodded grimly, "Is it just me or is he mega creepy? I mean, like, zombie-creepy. Maybe even vampire-creepy."
Hinata giggled and started heading off down the hallway, leaving me to follow on.
/\/\/\/\
"Here we have a clear example of alliteration, or more accurately...?"
Orochimaru tailed off and looked expectantly at the class, waiting for somebody to finish his sentence. So far I had him pegged as one of those teachers who likes the sound of their own voice too much to actually ask a question – that would imply that the students need to actually come up with an answer! Instead he'd occasionally test our knowledge with a kind of verbal 'fill in the blanks'.
"Sibilance?" inquired Hinata from the far corner of the room. Orochimaru ignored her.
"Come now class," He said with a disturbing hiss on the last word, "Somebody in here must know the particular type of alliteration we're looking at in this example. This is GCSE work, is it not?"
"Sir? Is it sibilance?" Hinata asked again. And again, Orochimaru pretended not to hear her.
Under most circumstances I like to keep my head down at school. Better not to get a reputation in class – that way the teachers take longer to notice when you don't show up. But, Hinata being as sweet and defenseless as she was, I couldn't resist stepping in.
I put my hand up.
Orochimaru noticed almost right away, leering at me as he nodded in what I think was supposed to be an encouraging way.
"Ah, Miss Yamanaka. Have you identified this particular-"
"No." I interrupted, "I haven't really been listening to be honest. But Hinata seems to have figured it out."
His gaze turned ice cold. In that moment he reminded me of a snake even more than usual. But he recovered quickly, listening to and acknowledging Hinata's answer for the first time.
The rest of the lesson passed fairly smoothly, although I caught him staring at me more than once before the hour long class was over. Can anyone say 'creep'?
As we filed out of the room Hinata came up behind me.
"Thank you very much for helping me."
I grinned at her, "No problem Hinata. It was fun having a reason to piss him off!"
She shot me an admiring look as we headed upstairs and I put on my best bragging voice.
"Seriously, that's nothing compared to how I was at my old school."
Hinata shook her head, "I just... don't know how you're brave enough to... talk like that to teachers."
"It's all a matter of attitude," I said philosophically, "You just have to get yourself into the mindset of 'what's the worst they can do to me?', and as soon as you realize that the answer's 'not a lot'..." I shrugged, trying to laugh it off, but I couldn't avoid the slight pang I felt as Hinata looked away from me.
'She's shy,' I told myself, 'it's not that she doesn't like me.'
But I hadn't missed the hesitation that had crept back into her voice. And just after it had looked like things were going so well.
We came to the sixth form common room, still in silence, and I stopped at the door to let Hinata get in front. She paused for a moment before walking through and heading over to a group of beanbags near the middle of the room.
I followed with a certain amount of trepidation – I only recognized Lee and Naruto from yesterday, the other boy there had his back to me and I was pretty sure I hadn't seen him before.
As we approached the three guys Hinata cleared her throat to get their attention. Naruto sprung up with a face splitting grin, "Hey! Hinata! Ino! Great to see you guys!" he yelled.
I opened my mouth to tell Naruto to keep his voice down, but Lee started off on a monologue before I got the chance.
"Good morning my youthful friends! I see, Ino, that you also have a free period at this time. Allow me to move up to give the two of you ample space to lay bean bags – I would be honored if you would sit next to me. That way we can engage in youthful and mentally stimulating conversation until it is time to move on to our next lesson!"
I stood there, mildly shell shocked, until Hinata pulled up two beanbags into the space that Lee had just created. We exchanged a brief grin as we both flopped into the bags almost simultaneously, and I was surprised at how happy I was to get that moment of connection with the shy girl.
My phone picked that super convenient moment to start buzzing.
I fished it out of my pocket and checked the screen – 'one new message'.
'Hey Ino, how 'bout coming to the cinema after lunch? We can pick you up at two. Whaddya say?
-Kiba'
I'm not sure how long I looked at that text, eyes narrowed and a frown on my face, before the boy next to me spoke up.
"Bad news?" His words had a drawn out quality, as if he couldn't be bothered to give them any more shape than absolutely necessary for people to understand him.
I looked at him for the first time and noticed two things immediately.
1 – I had, in fact, seen him before. He was the skinny guy I'd seen from the office on my first day, walking with his fatter friend. Who, now I thought about it, was obviously Choji from yesterday.
2 – he was gorgeous.
His eyes were closed, his head tilted back so that it was leaning on the sofa behind us, and I stared at him openly for almost half a minute before he opened his eyes and peered at me in irritation.
"Well? What's got you so worried?"
It took me a moment to remember that he'd asked me about the text message.
"Oh. A friend wants to know if..." I hesitated, remembering what my tales of dramatic school rebellion had done to a conversation with Hinata who already liked me "if I'm free after school." I finished lamely.
His eyes slid shut again, face relaxing into impassive relaxation again. For a moment I thought I'd managed to kill the conversation – despite my blatant lie!
"Why were you so stressed about it?"
Okay, maybe not.
"Well, it's not a friend I get on with particularly well." I invented as quickly as I could, typing a reply to Kiba:
'Soz, not today, talk later =]
-Ino'
"By the way," I said while giving the guy a nudge with my foot, "I'm Ino. New as of, like, yesterday."
"I know."
There was a pause, and then I laughed.
"Right, and you are...?"
He sighed, "I'm Shikamaru. Happy?"
Very, very, very happy as a matter of fact.
"Come on, talking won't kill you!" I teased, but he just muttered in response. "What was that?"
"Troublesome." He answered decisively.
"Was that what you said before or your response to me wanting to know what you said?"
He opened his eyes a tiny fraction to give me a mild glare.
"Both."
I watched as he closed his eyes again and relaxed completely into the beanbag.
Oh my. Talk about lust at first sight! I had a quick glance round at the people around, but thankfully Hinata, Lee and Naruto were engaged in a pretty animated discussion and weren't paying the slightest attention to me!
Well, Lee and Naruto were discussing. Hinata was staring mostly at her knees.
But the point was that nobody was looking in my direction. So I could go back to studying Shikamaru!
He wasn't the type of guy I'd normally gone for. My normal type being blond, athletic, tall, rugged etc. Shikamaru was tall, yes. But skinny, languid, with long dark hair pulled back into a spiky ponytail. He even had his ears pierced! A small silver hoop in each.
I had earrings like that at home.
The bell rang then and Hinata looked up for the first time in about ten minutes.
"I suppose that... Sa-"
"OH YEAH!" Naruto yelled, "Sakura and Sasuke and Choji will be coming from drama now!"
Shikamaru murmered another 'troublesome' as I stood up to whack Naruto over the head.
"Hey, Hinata was in the middle of talking! Don't you know better than to interrupt people?"
Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.
"Apologize!"
He looked at Hinata, "I'm really sorry Hinata, honest, I didn't mean to..." he tailed off as Hinata turned slowly red before slumping in her seat.
"Hinata?" I crept up close to her and shook her lightly. She snapped back into a sitting position, eyes wide and face still decidedly tomato-like.
"I'm... I'm v-very sorry!" She stuttered abruptly, and I laughed at the mortified expression on her face.
"Chill, I was just getting Naruto to apologize for his rudeness," I sent a mock glare at the blond, "or did you catch that bit?"
Hinata nodded her head forcefully, then looked up.
"Sakura! And Sasuke!" She stood and waved in the direction of the door clearly grateful for the distraction, "We're over here!"
Sakura came right up to me and grinned, "Budge up Ino! I'm sure there's room for both of us on there."
I raised my eyebrows a little, I was finding it pretty difficult to understand the sudden and complete acceptance I'd found in this group and specifically with Sakura – given that we hadn't spoken in years, but moved over anyway.
There wasn't really enough space, and we both had to lean into each other a little to avoid falling off, but we settled ourselves into a comfortable position soon enough. Sasuke sat himself down on the floor in between Sakura and Hinata and before long they (meaning Sakura) were telling us all about the drama lesson they'd just had.
"What happened to Choji?" Shikamaru inquired. Sakura giggled and reached around me to poke him in the side.
"I didn't even notice you were here! Could you be any stiller?"
"Is that a word?" He asked completely deadpan, getting another laugh out of Sakura.
"I don't know. It is now though! Anyway, Choji stuck around to help Kurenai put the props away. He should be up in a minute."
I sat there, listening to this exchange and searching my brain for something funny to say. Needless to say, I got nothing.
It was so weird – normally I can flirt with guys no problem! Actually it's a bit of a talent of mine. But sitting next to Shikamaru, him with his lankiness and permanent bored expression, I couldn't come up with a single witty or suggestive comment. Seriously irritating.
Another shrill bell interrupted my train of thought, causing me to jump.
"Jeeez!" I gasped, and everyone turned to look at me. I turned almost as red as Hinata, "I just wasn't expecting that. I thought a bell went off a minute ago."
"Fifteen minutes actually," Sakura explained as she extricated herself from the beanbag, "that's all we get for this break. Now there are two more lessons, then we get an hour for lunch. Then one more lesson, then the library hour – but that isn't compulsory, you can go home if you like. There's nothing else on after that."
I tilted my head to one side as I took in the information, then turned to Hinata.
"What've you got next?"
"Economics. What do you have Ino?"
I scrabbled in the bottom of my bag for the timetable I'd been given, fishing it out from the mess of makeup, pens, notepaper and keys.
"Looks like... double art."
Hinata nodded sagely, "Would you like me to give you directions to the art corridor?"
"No need."
I looked around in surprise – the answer hadn't come from me – and found that Shikamaru had roused himself from his near-horizontal position and was hauling the strap of a bag onto his shoulder.
"I have art too," he explained "so I can make sure she gets there."
On the outside, I twitched an eyebrow in an enigmatic manner. On the inside I turned into a whooping fan-girl.
OH YES! I LURVE IT WHEN THE UNIVERSE WORKS TO MY ADVANTAGE! THANK YOU GOD! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!!! WHAHEY! YIPPEEE-
Ahem.
Moving on.
"Who's your teacher then?" I asked coolly.
"Kakashi. He'll be yours too, he's the only art teacher every day except Monday. Shizune teaches it then. And she covers for him when he's not in."
It was the longest sentence he'd ever directed at me, and I mentally examined it for something I could respond to.
"Shizune?"
Yes, it really was the best thing I could come up with. As it happened I probably would have been better off not saying anything – he looked at me like I was an idiot.
"Tsunade's assistant. You would've met her on your first day."
His voice didn't change its tone though. It stayed smooth and somehow effortless – not as in 'easy to pull off' but as in 'completely without effort'. So maybe that was the way he always looked at people?
We pretty much walked the rest of the way to the art room in silence.
/\/\/\/\
Half an hour into the art lesson I could see why they'd put two in a row.
I was sitting on the same table as Shikamaru but we hadn't said anything to each other since getting into the room. As soon as we'd gotten in he'd put his head down on the table and gone to sleep, so I'd pulled out some crumpled paper and a pencil and got to work sketching.
And then I'd stared out the window for a while.
And then I'd spent a few minutes watching the clock.
And then I'd done a bit of people watching.
And then I'd observed Shikamaru sleeping.
And then I'd gone back to sketching for a bit.
Because it seems that the headteacher has put two art lessons next to each other to allow our teacher to walk in after forty minutes.
When he eventually did show up, still in his mask and eye-bandage-thing, he blinked at the room full of students as if he hadn't expected to see us there.
"Oh. Er, sorry I was late," his one visible eye crinkled up at the corner in an apologetic eye-grin, "I was on my way to school this morning when I saw an old lady trying to cross the motorway. Naturally I couldn't just go on without helping her-"
He broke off as kids started to chuck paintbrushes and crumpled up balls of paper at him.
"What a load of rubbish." Shikamaru muttered – without raising his head, of course.
"Anyway," Kakashi said sternly (as sternly as he could while batting away pencils), "Today we're going to start on the first of the four A level pieces." He looked over at me, "Ino, if you feel like you need to see the introductory work we've been doing for the last week then I'm sure someone'll fill you in. Our first stimulus is 'Depth'." He looked at our baffled faces and his eye crinkled up at the corner again. "I'm looking forward to seeing what you all come up with! Ok, when you're ready." He waved a hand at a pile of A3 sketchbooks in a corner of the room and settled down at his desk, pulling out a book.
I shook my head irritably – Mr Hyuuga was a thousand times better at teaching than this joker. And I could have gotten a really good mark in art as well!
As I got up to grab a sketchbook and start brainstorming I suddenly thought of Hinata. Maybe I could get some tutoring sessions with my old art teacher? I'd have to ask her to ask him for me. Maybe if I had the lessons at the Hyuuga complex I'd run into Neji, and then I could put in a good word for Ten Ten.
Just as I was considering that someone barged into me from behind causing me to completely lose my train of thought.
"Watch where you're walking, yeah!" Came a threatening voice. I whirled round, fixing the boy with my best glare.
"First off, that was a way over the top reaction. Secondly, you barged into me you jerk!"
He narrowed his eyes and for a moment he looked tempted to shove me again, but he seemed to think better of it. He chuckled sarcastically, "Temper temper, hn. I think that was as much your fault as mine, yeah."
I rolled my eyes, "Sure. I totally should have seen you coming. Maybe using the eyes in the back of my head? And you were the one getting over stressed."
He shook his head, but this time his grin was a little more sincere.
"Could you pass me one of those sketchbooks, un?"
"Yeah, maybe, if you say the magic word."
He frowned in mock confusion, "I thought 'or else' was still two words? Or is it hyphenated now, un?"
I laughed, turning around to the diminishing pile of sketch pads. I grabbed one for myself, then turned again to stick my tongue out at the guy who now looked completely surprised.
"Get your own damn sketchbook."
I sauntered past, but stopped with a yelp as he grabbed my arm.
"You're the new girl, right un?" His voice was low, but curious rather than antagonistic.
"Yup," I replied brightly, "Ino Yamanaka, not at your service."
"I'm Deidara, yeah. Not a pleasure to meet you."
He let go of my arm, and I walked back to my seat without looking back. Some people had waaay to high an opinion of themselves.
Shikamaru was sitting up when I got back.
"What a drag," he groaned, glaring halfheartedly at the blank piece of paper in front of him.
"Don't you like the planning stage?"
"Yeah I do, but whatever I plan I'll have to actually do later," he grumbled.
I laughed, opening my own book to its first page. "Think up something easy then," I suggested. But clearly he'd lost interest in the conversation – he just shrugged in response and went back to his staring contest with the paper.
I sighed quietly to myself. In my old school, my reputation had preceded me with every guy I'd tried to flirt with, which gave me an advantage. But then, you'd think that the shiny 'new girl' status would give me a boost here for at least a week!
I looked at Shikamaru, and felt a slight skip in my heart rate. Weird. Either his total disinterest was pulling me toward him, or – the unthinkable – I was actually attracted to him. I scrutinized him, looking for something that would tell me which reason was the right one. Skinny, dark hair, dark eyes, lazy, constantly bored/tired. And not interested in me.
Not a particularly flattering list, and yet...
He looked up at me unexpectedly, and I blushed like Hinata and lowered my gaze to the table in front of me.
Oh gawd. I wasn't just after this guy for the hell of it. I actually had a crush on him.
The only question was, now what?
Hehehe, and now... for my thank you speech! (lawl)
I would like to thank... my amazing beta-reader, Scarlet Ember. My reviewers, regular and one-offs. In particular, Devil'sLittleBabyGirl and OF COURSE the amazing Aiko of the Akatsuki, a constant inspiration both in her reviews and her fantastic story My Pain Is Yours. CHECK IT OUT!