*author's note! Hello =) thank you for reading my story! I love getting to read all of your comments and reactions! So, this chapter is a little different, it's a bit of a filler mostly because I wrote it a while ago and I haven't had time to continue the actual story because of school. but I do have a short little throwback for you guys and hopefully more of them if you like it. don't worry the story will continue! I have a lot of plans and outlines that I want to write down. Thanks again for reading and leaving comments!*
Hidan felt his eyes growing heavy. Sociology was pretty interesting but his professor was boring as hell. There was ten minutes left in class and then he could sleep and skate and whatever he wanted. He checked his phone; nine minutes.
He let his mind wander, he thought about Anko. She was cute. Actually, she was really pretty and it felt amazing when they hung out. She seemed really chill and it looked like she thought his friends were cool, which was really important. Of course, his friends weren't exactly the hardest to get along with: Oro and Itachi pretty much would only do school work and read. A little boring, he thought.
"Don't forget that your annotated bibliographies are due next class." His professor finished up.
He jumped up and shoved a notebook and pen into his bag, grabbed his board, and almost sprinted for the door. Sweet freedom at last! As soon as he stepped out of the building he threw down his board and pushed off heading for his favorite spot: the old abandoned parking lot. Sometimes Itachi or Oro would be there, there was a good chance they would be today since the weather was so nice.
Hidan hit the "play" button on his phone and sped up. He rounded a corner and looked up a little too late. He saw a foot, then a leg, and before he knew what was happening he slammed full speed into another person.
Hidan felt himself fly through the air momentarily then hit the ground and slide across the pavement. "Ah shit." He swore. His phone was a few feet away. He quickly took stock of himself: scraped hands and a hole in the knee of his left pant leg. It could be worse.
He heard a groan and remembered that he'd hit someone, "dude are you ok? I'm so sorry! I didn't see you coming." He scrambled up and ran over to a guy with longish gray hair and glasses who lay sprawled on the ground.
"I'm fine," he said, picking himself up, "nothing that hasn't happened before." He laughed as he grabbed his backpack that was on the ground nearby.
Hidan felt bad, "are you sure? I can get you some band aids if you want?" He saw the guy had scrapes on the palms of his hands.
"Nah, I'll be fine," He picked up Hidan's phone and tossed it to him, "Just keep your head up."
"Yeah," Hidan laughed. Then he noticed the shoulder of the guy's shirt was torn, "ah bro, sorry about your shirt, that is a sick tattoo though."
"Hm?" the guy looked at his shoulder, "oh, thanks and don't worry about the shirt, its fine."
"Ok, if you say so." Hidan replied. He picked up his board, "well, I gotta go. Sorry again!" he said, then continued down the path, walking this time, just in case.
He neared his skate spot and saw that no one else was there, ah well, he thought it's just as good to listen to music. So he threw in headphones and started to do teach himself a new flat ground trick.
After about thirty minutes of doing this, he felt the strange sensation that someone was watching him. He froze and took out his headphones and looked around. Then he saw a person sitting under a tree furiously writing in a notebook. He squinted and the figure came into focus, a smile spread across his face. "Itachi! Hey!"
Itachi looked up surprised, then waved. He stood and picked up his bag then walked over. "Hey. Sorry if I creeped you out…I didn't want to bother you."
"Nah, its fine! Are you done for today?"
"Yeah, I'm supposed to be meeting Oro here and then getting food, but he's running late."
"What were you writing?" Hidan asked, sitting in the grass next to his bag.
"I was drawing." Itachi replied, sitting next to Hidan.
"Will you ever show anyone?"
"Probably not."
Hidan shrugged, "up to you. Anko just texted, if we hang out here a little longer, then all four of us can grab food together."
Itachi nodded. He stared into space for a few minutes, breathing in the warm early October air.
"How's class going?" Hidan asked.
Itachi shrugged, "pretty good, starting to pick up assignment-wise. Getting swamped with papers mostly."
"Hey, I have a question for you."
"Ok."
"You mentioned a while back that you used to do martial arts stuff for exercise, and I was wandering, if you had time, if you would want to spar?' it's been ages since I've had someone who is actually a challenge to fight with."
Itachi looked at the ground, "I don't know… I don't really do it much anymore. I wouldn't be much of a challenge for you." He started pulling up grass around where he was sitting.
"Ok," Hidan shrugged, "but you'd probably be fine."
Itachi half smiled, "I might, but I kind of stopped a while back, personal reasons I guess."
"Pacifist?"
"More like I would rather I didn't know how to hurt people." Itachi answered quietly.
They were quiet for a few more minutes. Hidan sighed, Itachi was odd. There was something about him that made him look like he could drop everything and beat the crap out of someone, but he was so quiet and gentle even.
His thoughts were interrupted by laughter drifting down the hill. A smile played at he corners of his mouth. He couldn't help it, every time he saw Anko he got really happy. He twisted around and saw Anko and Orochimaru coming down the path and he waved in their direction. Anko looked over and waved back, jogging over with Orochimaru closely behind.
"Hey guys!" She said, breathing heavily.
"Hey," Hidan said and Itachi waved.
"Hey Itachi," Orochimaru said, then threw his stuff down on the ground and sat next to him.
"It's so hot today I can't stand it." Anko announced, picking up Hidan's skateboard and bringing it over to the pavement. "We should do something."
"Like what?" Orochimaru asked, he had pulled a book out of his bag and was scribbling on sticky notes and marking off pages.
"Not study for one." Anko said back.
"Oro, Hidan, and I have a Biology quiz tomorrow, so whatever you want to do can't take up a lot of time." Itachi said, pulling up more grass.
"Let me think about it." Anko replied, then stepped off the board, "I'm hungry, let's get food."
They all got up and started walking back up the path, Anko choosing to walk next to Hidan and Orochimaru and Itachi following behind. As they walked past the pond in the center of campus, Anko leaned over and whispered something in Hidan's ear. He smiled, then stopped walking. Orochimaru didn't notice and walked right into Hidan's back making his book come up and hit him in the face.
"Geez Hidan, you could at least keep moving." He frowned, slightly annoyed.
Hidan turned around grinning and Anko had an odd smile on her face, "I think we should sit here for a while," Anko said innocently.
"I thought you were hungry?" Orochimaru raised an eyebrow.
"I changed my mind."
Itachi and Orochimaru exchanged looks then sighed and followed Hidan and Anko to a large rock on the edge of the pond and sat down.
"Ok," Hidan started, "we are going to play a game and if you lose you have to take a swim." Hidan pulled a deck of cards out of his bag.
"Are we allowed to do that?" Itachi asked, nervously looking around to see if anyone was watching.
"I don't know." Anko shrugged, "the game is 'go fish'. It's pretty simple and thematically appropriate." As she said this she cracked her knuckles.
Orochimaru rolled his eyes, "I don't have time for this." And he turned to go but Hidan held on to the back of his backpack and pulled him back.
"Nope."
Itachi and Orochimaru exchanged yet another look then joined Anko and Hidan on the rock. This just sounded like a crazy scheme.
The game started out pretty casual, but then as soon as Anko had one card left, the others started to get nervous.
"Hidan, you didn't say that three people could lose at once…" Orochimaru whimpered.
"Well only one person can win, so it makes logical sense." He said, giving Itachi, who had the most cards left, a sideways glance. "Have any kings?"
"Nope." Itachi shook his head. Hidan nervously picked a card from the top of the deck. He furrowed his brow in frustration and added the card to his hand.
Itachi turned to Anko, "have any threes?" he asked.
"Go fish!" Anko smiled.
Itachi groaned and added yet another card to his already large collection.
Anko turned to Orochimaru, "alright Oro, give me your ten." She had a smug look on her face. Orochimaru looked at his cards and sighed, then handed one over to Anko. "Well gentlemen," she said standing up, "I don't have a preference about who should go first, so you can decide that amongst yourselves."
Hidan sighed and put his cards down, "I vote Oro goes first."
Orochimaru whipped around and scooted as far away from Anko as he could, "But you had the second least amount of cards! You should go first!"
"That means I should go last since I would have gotten second place, but if we are going to judge that way…" Hidan slowly turned, "I think we all know who goes first." All three of them stared at Itachi.
Itachi glanced to the side, trying to see an escape route. Maybe if I ran fast enough, he thought. "I…uh…" he desperately tried to think of an excuse as Anko started creeping closer.
Orochimaru stood back, unsure if he should try to help his friend or escape while the attention was diverted away from him.
Itachi sprinted, maybe it was a longshot, but he was healthy and he could definitely out run Hidan. There was a tug on the back of his sweatshirt and he glanced back; Hidan was faster than he thought.
"C'mon man, it's not gonna be that bad." Anko reassured Itachi, holding one of his arms.
"Yeah, it's probably not even that cold, we haven't had a frost yet!" Hidan added, holding onto Itachi's other arm.
"I don't know…we could get in trouble for this, we don't even know what goes in there…" he never got to finish his sentence. One second he was falling forward grasping at the air and the next he was engulfed by cold murky water.
A second later he stood up, the pond was pretty shallow and the water only came up to his waist, but he was soaked and started shivering. Almost as soon as he resurfaced he heard a splash a few feet to his side, probably Oro, he thought and started to walk in that direction.
Hidan stepped to the edge of the rock, "well, I'm afraid my time has come." He said, putting his hand over his heart, "would you grant a condemned man's final wish?" He smiled and stared into Anko's eyes.
Anko paused and considered this for a second, then smiled back, "Nope!" then pushed Hidan as hard as she could. Hidan guessed that was coming and right when Anko reached over to push him, he grabbed her hand and pulled her down with him. They both came up spluttering and laughing, "you asshole!" Anko laughed and splashed Hidan.
"Justice!" Hidan yelled and splashed back.
There fun was cut short when a campus security officer came over. Itachi was just stepping out of the pond with Orochimaru when they heard a man clear his throat, "You know there isn't any swimming allowed in the campus pond."
They all froze and stared at the officer, "n-now we do," Anko replied, trying very hard to suppress a giggle.
"This is a warning. If I find you here again the school will take disciplinary measures." The officer said, "Now get out and go get cleaned up." He watched them slosh out of the pond and collect their things, then went on his way.
Hidan and Anko started laughing as they walked toward the dorms, "you should have seen your face, Itachi!" Hidan said between fits of laughter.
Itachi was quiet and had his hands in his pockets, he hoped that a warning meant that it wouldn't go on his student record. He felt a shiver travel up his spine, he wasn't sure if was nervous or just cold.
"You could have gotten us in trouble!" Orochimaru sounded annoyed, "I can't have this affecting my reputation!"
"Lighten up!" Anko said, "It was only a warning! You'll be fine." They reached the dorm building and she went to the front stairs. "Text me when you guys are ready to get food!" she said then disappeared up the stairs.
Itachi and Orochimaru went to go towards the back stairs when they noticed Hidan hadn't moved, "Hey, Hidan!" Itachi stopped, "Hey!" he yelled.
"Hidan blinked then turned around, "what?" then noticed he'd been standing in the same place for a really long time, "sorry." He shook his head and followed them upstairs.
They reached Itachi and Orochimaru's room and they headed inside, but Hidan hovered in the doorway.
"Do you need something?" Itachi Asked.
"She's really awesome, don't you think?" Hidan asked.
"Who?" Orochimaru asked, turning towards Hidan after peeling off his drenched sweatshirt.
"Anko." Hidan replied, "She's cute too."
Orochimaru and Itachi glanced at each other, the Orochimaru turned to Hidan, "If you like her, then ask her out." Then he grabbed a towel.
Hidan sighed, "Maybe." Then walked back to his room. If only it was that easy. He really liked what they had and he didn't want to lose that by making it weird. He really liked her, and he would ask her out someday, hopefully soon. But just in case it didn't work, he wanted to enjoy this time for as long as possible.