Warnings: Er… A bit OOC? I tried to keep in character as much as possible thought… It's an AU fic…An idea I had for a while, then had to stop because it took me forever to figure out what to write next. Unedited and unbetaed. Don't kill me!

Disclaimer: All I own is a Sasuke plushie which I am NOT giving up.

I realize that I posted the first part of this a very long time ago and I had a bunch of really, really nice reviewers and I meant to reply to them… But I have the memory of a goldfish. We'll just started the review owes from scratch, ne?

~*~Present Day~*~

A girl with light pink hair was weaving her way through the crowd of the hallways, clutching a flyer close to her chest as she ran. Her hair flew out behind her and there was a light flush on her cheeks as she ran. She had some important news and she couldn't wait to tell her friend all about it. Finally spotting a familiar head of blue-black hair, she called out a name to try and get their attention.

"Ne! Sasuke-kun!"

A boy of about 15 years stiffened, then heaved a deep sigh as he turned around to look at the person who had called his name. He had this bored look of mild suffering on his face, but he stopped nonetheless. When the girl with pink hair got close enough, he spoke to her in a dull tone that wasn't mean, but it wasn't exactly very warm either.

"What do you want Sakura?"

His tone of voice did nothing to deter the girl as she had known him for years and was used to this. She held up the flyer excitedly in front of him and proudly exclaimed; "Sasuke-kun! Look at this! Shinboi Naito-kurabu* is having a contest!"

Sasuke grabbed the flyer away from Sakura so that he could read it properly. The pink haired girl, in her excitement, had thrush the flyer way too close for him to read. Backing it away from his face, Sasuke quickly scanned the flyer and an eyebrow rose in question.

"Sakura, what makes you think that I would be interested in something like this?"

"Because the contest is an open mic contest!" Sakura gushed. "Which means that anyone can enter. And the winners get a grand prize of $5,000!" Sasuke frowned. That still didn't answer his question, nor did it explain the girl excitement.

"Like I said, why would I be interested in something like that?" Sakura huffed and put her arms on her hips. She may have had a crush on Sasuke in the past, mostly due to the other teen's looks and mysterious aura, but with the appearance of her boyfriend, she realized that it was just that, a crush. Because of that, she had no qualms about chewing out and explaining to the boy what she was trying to get at in a slightly, less than friendly tone.

"Well, we're you the one who was saying that you band needed more publicity?" she questioned. At Sasuke's slight nod, she continued. "What better way to show off then to enter this contest? Lee-kun said that this would be a great opportunity to show off all your hard work."

Now it all made sense. Sakura loved her boyfriend to no ends and any chance that she could prove him right, she would. But at the same time, the points that Sakura's boyfriend brought up at times could be very useful and could prove rather beneficial as well. So it wasn't exactly a good idea to just dismiss what the girl was talking about altogether. "Lee said that? All right then, and exactly how much time do we have before the deadline?"
Sakura clapped gleefully and pointed at the bottom of the flyer. Sasuke's eyes immediately followed the girl's finger and read what was under it. Sakura read it aloud as Sasuke scanned the information. "It says that all participants must register by next week Friday. The contest will be held two months after that. That's plenty of time for you and the others to finish any work you have to do on your songs, thought I don't know what else you need to work on. They sound great as they are."

"Hm. I'll think about it," was all that Sasuke would say on that matter. Sakura's opinion on most things was correct and she could normally be counted on to think logically, but when music was concerned, Sasuke knew to trust his own ear rather than the pink haired girl's. And with that, the dark-haired boy turned on his heel and walked off without a word of thanks. He still had the flyer though. Giving it one last look over, Sasuke stuffed it into the front part of his pocket. He would talk it over with the others when he saw them later. Then he would make the final decision about whether or not to sign-up for this contest that Sakura was talking about or not.

"What do you guys think we should do? Should we listen to Sakura and try for the contest or skip it?" Sasuke asked his band-mates, whom were all sitting in various spots around him. Neiji just continued to stare out the window like he hadn't heard, but that wasn't the situation, and the others knew it. Shikamaru was leaning on the desk with one hand cupping his chin with an incredibly bored look on his face, and Kiba was trying to finish up some last minute class-work he had for another class. This was the only class Sasuke had with all of them at the same time, since they were all of various levels in the school. Sasuke was a sophomore, as was Shikamaru and Kiba, but Shikamaru was typically put in all the advance level classes because his parents had had him tested when he was younger to find out his IQ. Naturally, when they found out their son was what some would call a genius; they immediately enrolled him in all the upper level classes. Sasuke was enrolled in a few himself, but not nearly as many as Shikamaru was. Neiji was a junior, but he had been held back a year due to excessive absences.

The class they were currently in was one that was required to graduate, but when it was taken was up to the students, thus, it was a mixed class where the students came from all the grades and levels.

"Whatever you guys want," Shikamaru answered lazily. "It's all really pointless anyway. I don't even see why we're still bothering with this. It's not like we're going to go anywhere with our music anyway."

Kiba looked up from his work and growled deep in his throat at the other boy.

"Well, I'm up for a challenge," he stated. "Who knows? Maybe it'll provide us with some entertainment."

"I agree with Shikamaru that the contest is pointless, but we should enter it anyway," Neiji declared, not turning his head from the window. He had finally spotted something worth watching and wasn't about to turn around just yet.

At this, Sasuke raised an eyebrow and eyed the other boy warily. "And why do you think we should enter?"
Here, Neiji smirked and a somewhat cruel smile formed on his face. "To put all the wanna-be talent out there in their proper place. Some people shouldn't try to change what they can't and we're the ones who have to tell them that."

Sasuke smirked as Kiba growled in agreement. Shikamaru's expression didn't change, so it was hard to tell how he felt about that statement, but the others knew that he agreed somewhat. That sort of mindset was something that the four of them had in common somewhat, and that was the reason why their band had broken up just yet. They liked showing people that they were better than them. Particularly people who thought they knew better.

"If we've all reached a conclusion, then I'm going to sign us up tomorrow," Sasuke said, leaning back in his chair. "We'll start practicing next week. Your place Kiba."

"Why mine?" the boy asked, annoyed that the decision had been thrust upon him like that.

"Because that's the closest place we can all get to with all our equipment," Sasuke explained. "Plus, your parents don't mind it if we also store our stuff there while we practice either."

"Fine," Kiba muttered. It wasn't that he minded, it was just the nature of their group to argue like this.

They weren't what one would consider friends, but they certainly weren't enemies either. They had all, more or less, known of each other, but it took teacher with a slightly different mindset to get them to actually consider working together on something. The teacher had created a group assignment where groups of four were supposed to work together, find a common interest, and then create something from that common interest. It was a beginning of the school year, 'get to know your classmates' project, and the four of them were put into the same group.

At first, the four of them had fought and hadn't been able to work together, but considering that they needed to pass, eventually, they got their act together and did the assignment. Imagine their surprise when they realized that the common interest they all shared was music. Ideas had been tossed around and eventually they had come up with an impromptu musical act that had earned them all A's.

As for why they were still together even after the assignment was over? None of them could actually answer that question, when pressed. Something just held them together and kept their little band going until they started to have regular practices and had come up with a few songs that some actual effort had been put into creating. They started actually showing off their music due to the suggestions of a few friends that said they might as well take this music thing to the next step if they were putting so much effort into it already. The extra bonus of showing up other bands was just a plus.

"You guys can use my place for the practice, but you have to let Akamaru stay the whole time," Kiba stated, glaring at the others to try and see if they would disagree.

"Hn."

"Whatever."

"…"

"You guys have been at it for over two hours over what you said you were going to now," a teen with black hair cut in the shape of a bowl stated. "Even I can't see how much more good practicing would do you."

Those words, coming from this certain teen, weighed a lot more than it would have coming from anyone else's mouth. While he wasn't the most attractive looking teen in the bunch, there was no one who could claim that they worked harder than he did at what he set his mind to do. His name was Rock Lee, and he was Sakura's boyfriend. He attended as many of their practices as he could, giving his help whenever he felt he could. Lee was also, in a vague sense of the word, their manager, mostly due to his mutual acquaintance with all four boys.

"Well, that's because you have no ear for music Lee-san," Neiji stated plainly, resting his hands on the keys of his keyboard. They were ready to start playing once more, but relaxed at the same time. "Even a child would be able to tell you that there's something off about our music."

The group was trying out a song that Sasuke, while skipping one of his classes, had come up while staring out into the distance. The teen didn't usually come up with all their songs; rather, the songs were some that Sasuke had found laying around on his guardians' desk. It seemed that one of them had an ear for prose, something that didn't really surprise Sasuke all that much. So it was a bit of a shocker when the band had been presented with a song that Sasuke had written himself.

"It's troublesome, but I'm going to have to agree with Neiji on this one," Shikamaru agreed, twirling a drumstick idly between his fingers. "However, I don't think it's because of us. There's something different about this song, but we haven't figured out what it is just yet."

"At least we're still better than any of the competition out there," Kiba stated. "This song may be off, but we still have our others. They sound fine as they are. Isn't that enough?"

"Still, it's rather bothersome," Shikamaru stated. He looked over to where Sasuke was standing, taking long swallows from a water bottle. The practices were always harder on him than anyone else due to the fact that while the others were using instruments to create music, Sasuke was using his own voice. "What about you, Sasuke?"

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at the other teen and shrugged. He didn't care what the others did or thought, but he had to agree with them. Not that he would let them know that. "I'm going to go over the song later tonight, so it doesn't matter what happens now."

"And besides that, Sasuke has to come home and eat dinner now," a new, older male voice spoke up, cutting into the conversation. All heads turned towards the door of the garage to see the speaker that they knew would be standing there.

The speaker was an older looking male who has the appearance of great age due to his gray-silverish hair, but upon further examination, it was discovered that he was actually still rather young. His mouth and one eye were covered, the former by a piece of cloth and the latter by a headband, leaving only one eye to smile cheerfully at the boys.

"Kakashi," Sasuke said, by way of greeting. The man standing in the doorway was one of his guardians and if Kakashi had come to pick him up, then Iruka couldn't be too far away either. Unless Kakashi had somehow managed to convince the other male to stay behind while he picked up their charge himself. Sasuke snorted to himself. Like that would ever happen. Iruka didn't trust Kakashi's driving alone so he would be sure to come along.

Kakashi waved one hand lazily in reply and nodded to the other teens in the area. "Shouldn't you guys being getting home as well? Your parents are going to be worried about you if you guys stay out too late."

"So troublesome," Shikamaru muttered, but he still began packing up his equipment and readying his drum-set for the night. Neiji simply clicked the 'off' switch on his keyboard and picked up his stuff. Kiba removed his guitar from around his neck and put it away in its case. The boys made quick work of closing everything down for the night and were soon done.

"Are we going to practice tomorrow as well?" Kiba asked, going over to where Akumaru had been told to sit. The puppy, once ordered by his master, had obediently sat down and had not moved from that spot once during the entire time. But it was only Kiba that could make the puppy do anything such as that. Anyone else who tried was barked at and cheerfully ignored by the puppy.

Akumaru, sensing that it was allowed to move once more, sat up and began barking happily to his master. Kiba picked up the canine, smile instantly gracing his features as he did so.

"Why bother?" Neiji retorted. "We've already been practicing this for a month now. One day, more or less, isn't really going to do anything either way. Sides, I have plans for tomorrow."

"Then we might as well not even practice then," Shikamaru decided. "We'll practice again next week or sometime, when it's less of a chore."

"Whatever," Sasuke said. "Shouldn't we get going Kakashi? Or are you planning on making Iruka wait tonight?"

"We're actually going to go straight home tonight," Kakashi announced, turning and walking out the door. He knew his charge would follow him, so he didn't bother turning around to check. "I'm getting a little sore from sleeping on the couch all the time."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*As far as I can remember, that meant like 'night-club' or something close to it. Thought it would be a cute name play… Gomen!

Ah… DAMN YOU HIKARU!!!!! You're the one who made me write this much of the fiction over Spring Break. You and your words of encouragement… And if I can find more time, I'll try to update this as soon as possible, Hika Pika. *snickers*

Yesh… I finished typing this up at 1 in the morning on the last day of my Spring Break, so if it sounds a little, or a lot, crappy, please forgive me. I was trying to wrestle with the rest of the plot bunnies in my head. That, and drag my mind away from Prince of Tennis/Tennis no Ohjisama stuff. I blame the Purity Pair and Echizen for making me stuff on that anime. Them and Fuji.

Yes, Sasuke is an orphan in this fic, but he doesn't live alone. His guardian, as I mentioned, are Kakashi and Iruka. Yes, Kakashi and Iruka are together. Yes, I know Naruto hasn't made an appearance yet. Naruto will make his appearance in the next chapter, along with a few other names. Any other questions?

I really need something to freeze time so that I can just type my fingers dead to silence the plot bunnies… Or just stop teasing my Yuuta-chan so much. That would give me more time to type, but I just wuff her so much! Yuuta-chan!

Review and be like my friend up there whose words made me type this chapter up.