Gaara sat in a desk beside Naruto, watching with nervous eyes as the classroom began to slowly fill with bodies. Naruto watched him with slight interest. He could understand if his friend was jittery over it being the first day of school, but that wasn't the case. The only reason he was so jumpy was because there were so many people.
"You know there's really nothing to be nervous about," Naruto told him, sounding a little annoyed. Gaara glared at him for a moment before averting his eyes to the ground.
"You have no idea what I've been through," he grumbled. The blonde rolled his eyes at him.
"That's only because you won't tell me anything, so don't go blaming me." The two of them have been slightly bitter with each other for the past week, but they've been learning to deal with it. Gaara dealt with it because he didn't really care about little things like that. Naruto had already been used to the cold remarks since he had friends that were already like that.
A raven-haired boy walked down their isle and took a seat at the desk in front of Naruto. The hyper-active pre-teen almost fell out of his chair with happiness, which earned a weird look from the pale skinned boy. Naruto grinned and chuckled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment.
"How was the rest of your summer, Sasuke?" Emotionless onyx eyes stared at his friend for a few moments.
"What's it to you?" he asked coldly. Naruto frowned at this response and folded his arms over his chest angrily. Sasuke ignored this and averted his eyes to the red-haired kid sitting diagonal from him. "Who's your new friend?"
"What's it to you?" Naruto replied in the same cold manner. His friend narrowed his eyes at him. "If you want to know who he is, why don't you just ask him yourself instead of being so anti-social?" Gaara thought that that comment was just going to tick Sasuke off more, but surprisingly it didn't. The pre-teen smirked and turned all the way around in his chair.
"Wow, Naruto, you're a real bitch this morning." Naruto laughed and shrugged.
"Unlike you, since you're a bitch every morning."
"So are you going to introduce me or not?" The blue-eyed boy heaved a deep sigh and nodded.
"But you owe me later, Sasuke Uchiha."
"We'll see about that," he chuckled.
"Sasuke, this is Gaara. Gaara, this is my best friend Sasuke." Gaara nodded in acknowledgement and Sasuke held his hand up in greeting.
"So who did you two get as your school tour leader?" Sasuke asked curiously. Naruto groaned upon recalling the day in question.
"It was green-jumpsuit man!"
"You mean Lee?" Naruto nodded.
"Who did you get?"
"Tenten," he grumbled. The blonde looked thoughtful for a moment, running the name through the long list in his mind. Finally, he sighed and looked up at his friend whom already knew what he was about to ask.
"She's the one that socked you for giving Neji that right hook last year."
"Oh! I know who you're talking about." Sasuke rolled his eyes at his "slow" friend and looked at Gaara thoughtfully. He noticed that the pre-teen was rather quiet, which was a bit of a relief since Naruto was noisy enough for several people.
The three boys looked up as two females raced into the room, pushing against each other and arguing loudly.
"Ha! I beat you, Ino-pig!" the pink haired girl exclaimed, sticking her tongue out at her bleach-blonde "friend." "That means I get to sit next to Sasuke." The raven-haired boy made a sour face at the mention of his name, shrinking back in his seat.
"I don't think so, forehead girl!" Ino spat, obviously angry.
"I really don't want either of them to sit next to me," Sasuke grumbled. "They're so annoying."
"Sakura's not annoying," Naruto growled at his friend. Gaara gave his friend a weird look but was ignored for the time being.
"You only think that because you're not the one being stalked by her and her crazy friends. Come to think of it, you'd probably like that." Naruto's face turned a bright red color, partially from embarrassment and partially from anger. Sasuke noticed the confused look on Gaara's face and smirked slightly at him.
"Naruto has a big crush on Sakura," he explained. "Only thing is Sakura's too obsessed with me to even notice him."
"Sasuke, I'm going to kill you!" The boy's onyx eyes widened as Naruto suddenly lunged at him, gaining a direct hit and knocking him out of his chair. He fell to the floor and glared at his friend angrily, but before he could even do anything else, Sakura and Ino had already made their way over and were pummeling Naruto.
Gaara watched the fight through slightly amused eyes, but looked up as two others entered the room. A very feminine looking boy with long brown hair led bleach-blonde female by the arm. The boy smiled sweetly at Gaara as they passed and took the girl to a seat and sat down in the one beside her. The girl was wearing a pair of glasses and had a deep crimson ribbon tied in her long hair. The young boy sitting next to her talked to her and she listened, occasionally adding in a few words here and there. From what Gaara observed, though, she was a fairly taciturn.
Naruto wearily sat back down in his chair and laid his head down on the desk, mumbling angrily to himself. Sasuke just smirked at his friend, amused by what had happened to the unsuspecting blonde. Naruto looked over to where the boy had sat down a few minutes earlier and smirked.
"Why aren't you over there talking to your boyfriend, Sasuke?" he asked smugly. Once again, Sasuke narrowed his eyes at him.
"He's not my boyfriend," he said coolly.
"If you say so…"
Gaara sank back in his chair, feeling completely out of place between the two friends. In his mind, he shouldn't have even been there. There was no purpose of him being there and the only thing he was really doing was take up space.
"You are so lame," Sasuke finally commented. Naruto shrugged.
"Who gives a shit? I certainly don't." He looked at Gaara and smiled.
"We've freaked you out, haven't we." he teased. Gaara shrugged. He remained silent, just staring at Naruto with blank eyes. His friend stuck his tongue out at him and chuckled.
Just then the teacher walked in and the first day of school officially began.
"I apologize for being late," the teacher told the class smoothly. "My name is Mr. Hatake and I am your Language Arts teacher. Let's start by taking out a sheet of paper and something to write with." The white-haired teacher waited for the rustling of papers to die down before continuing with the instructions.
"Write you names at the top of paper and write a short paragraph about yourself. There won't be enough time to read them out loud today so that will have to wait until tomorrow." All the students began writing busily while the teacher sat at his desk, watching as the students worked on their papers.
The bell eventually rang and all the kids handed in their papers as they walked out of the classroom. Gaara was the last one out of the room, tagging along behind Sasuke and Naruto. He couldn't help but feel small and insignificant. They had probably forgotten about him a long time ago. He was an outsider after all, so it was only natural.
Gaara had to sit in the front of the classroom during history. A boy wearing tight black jeans and a form fitting t-shirt was sitting at the desk next to him. He watched as he doodled over the front of his notebook. A few moments later, the dark brown haired pre-teen looked up at him with blank eyes. Gaara quickly looked away, feeling slightly embarrassed for staring at him like that. He jumped slightly when he was tapped on the shoulder and then looked at the person standing beside him.
"What's your name?" he asked simply, smiling for no apparent reason.
"It's Gaara," he answered softly.
"I'm Sai. I'm guessing that you are new here." He nodded slightly, watching as the boy rested his cheek upon his hand and stared into emotionless green eyes.
"You have pretty eyes," he complimented, smiling again. Gaara blinked, giving Sai a weird look and not really sure of what he should say back.
"Quit flirting with him, Sai," a smooth voice warned. "He's not really your type anyway." The boy with the long brown hair from earlier sat down in the desk behind Sai and smiled tenderly. Gaara's eyes widened slightly upon realizing that these were the two that were making out against the locker during the school tour. The two boys saw this look but ignored it.
"Haku, this is Gaara," Sai introduced. "He says he's new here."
"Well, technically, we're all new to this school," Haku pointed out. Sai shrugged and Haku looked back at Gaara. "So how do you like living here so far?"
"It's been alright." Haku nodded and just as the bell rang and the teacher took her place in the front of the classroom.
Hey all. It's been a LONG time since my last update. I kinda cut the chapter short because I didn't want to have to keep you all waiting much longer for me to post again. School has been taking up A LOT of my time, and I'm sure that there are many of you whom can relate. Even once every other week is causing me to struggle. I will do my best to post as often as I can. Next weekend is Senior retreat so I won't be able to do any writing at all then. Also, I'm taking a college course English class and the amount of reading and other stuff we have to do in that class is merciless. I'm also taking honors physics and that class is relentless as well.
Anyway, I hope you guys liked the chapter. There was a hint of my original character again and I think I will either be completely introducing her into the story next chapter or the one after that. She is probably the hardest OC I have came up with, so please be patient with me.
I'd like to give a big thanks to the following people for reviewing:
Me and Gaara 4ever, Hinata11235, MidniteCurse4Eternity, Akasuna no Akane, AP-Rhapsody, Sorami-san, Natsuki Death, Cuzisme, Lighting Wings, kitkat kezia, pizzaslices, and Gaara-Frenzy.
I really appreciate all the support I have been receiving from you guys, as well as all of your suggestions. All of your support has been keeping me going, even though it has been rough. Thank you all so much for being patient and I promise that I will finish this to the best of my ability.
PLEASE REVIEW!!!!!! THANK YOU!!!