Disclaimer- If I owned Naruto, it would be all nice and SasuGaa-y, but alas, I do not, so there is only fanfiction.

Ah yes, on more thing, Sasuke, he is…OOC. He's too talkative. And Kabuto's probably OOC too, I don't know his character very well and haven't read many Kabuto centric fics so…yeah.

Predictable

Chapter Three- Lunch

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Gaara scowled as he looked over his book.

"Uchiha, I have already told you that I will not participate in whatever joke you're trying to pull on me. Now please, go away."

A few tables away, Neji and Kabuto stifled laughter as they looked on. Sasuke smiled at Gaara and hoped that it didn't look as forced as it felt.

"And I already told you that I'm not joking, I really like you." Hard jade eyes looked up to meet onyx.

"Yeah, sure you do. Will you please stop bothering me?" Exasperation and just a hint of desperation could be heard in his voice.

The Uchiha pursed his lips briefly. "Fine. I'll stop bothering you." He sat down across from Gaara, who glared at him. "What? I'm just sitting down, that doesn't bother you does it?" Sasuke asked innocently. Gaara didn't answer and continued to read his book. As long as Sasuke was quiet, what did he care if he sat with him? After all, it wasn't his reputation that would be on the line. And this would be a chance to work on his 'ignoring people skills' as Kankurou called them.

Despite that the only noise Sasuke made was when he chewed his food, Gaara couldn't concentrate. Eventually all the words on the page he was trying to read would blur together. Sighing, he closed his book and decided he'd have to watch people instead.

On the other side of the cafeteria, he could see his brother, Kiba, and Shino. Kiba was most certainly talking loudly, but all Gaara could see were the movements of his mouth, the words were lost in the drone of a hundred other voices.

Temari had a different lunch period, but he saw a few of her friends sitting nearby. Then there was the table that consisted of Sakura, Ino, and the rest of the Sasuke fanclub, plus Hinata and Naruto, who were having a whispered conversation between themselves.

A few tables away from that table, was where Sasuke usually sat, but since he wasn't there, it was only Neji and Kabuto who would occasionally look over at Gaara and Sasuke when they thought the two weren't looking and laugh quietly until they noticed Gaara glaring at them. Their laugher only added further evidence that Sasuke was attempting to pull some sort of a sick joke on him. Like in Carrie, he thought absentmindedly, he'll get me to say yes and then do something awful to me.

(A/N: For anyone who doesn't know, Carrie is a book by Stephen King (there's also a movie adaptation of it) where this girl gets asked to the prom by this one guy, but then these other people pour pig's blood on her and then she completely loses it and destroys nearly the whole town with her telekinesis. That or something close to it, I'm only about halfway through the book.)

Sasuke waved his hand in front of Gaara's blank face.

"Hello? Are you still breathing over there?" The red head blinked a few times before shaking his head.

"Huh? Oh um, yeah."

"What were you thinking about anyway?" Gaara glared.

"That's none of your business." He really didn't want to explain to Sasuke that he was comparing himself to a girl in a movie, especially a girl who went psycho and killed a whole bunch of people, because saying that would scare Sasuke away. But that was what he wanted, wasn't it? For Sasuke to leave him alone? He wasn't quite sure at the moment.

Sasuke sighed inwardly, Gaara was being so difficult; he talked even less than he did when he was around Itachi, or close to it at least. What a pain in the neck this was turning out to be, as Shikamaru would say, it was troublesome. Not only did he have to be seen around Gaara, but said boy was about as fun to talk to as a brick wall. And he'd thought he was a bad conversationalist.

The rest of the lunch period was spent uneventfully, with Gaara glaring into space or at Sasuke, and with Sasuke trying to ignore the stares he was getting from the people at surrounding tables.

"Bye." He tried when lunch ended and people started pouring out of the cafeteria. Gaara didn't answer. Sasuke briefly considered following after him, but decided against it. He would not sink so low as to follow around some insane loser like a lost puppy, he'd just have to talk to him again in class the next day.

"Things seem to be going well over there for Sasuke." Kabuto grinned.

"Oh yes," Neji said sarcastically. "He must be having the conversation of his life over there." They both laughed until they noticed Gaara glaring at them and turned around.

"He's creepy."

"Well duh, we knew that much." Neji rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, I know, but…he seems, I don't know, creepier today than usual. Eviler."

"Eviler? Is that even a word?"

Kabuto shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, does that even matter? And even if it does, doesn't Gaara look just a little bit freakier today than usual?" Neji glanced over to where Gaara and Sasuke were sitting. Kabuto was right, he decided, Gaara did look a bit more frightening than usual. His glare was more…intense and his eyes were blazing and the color of them just a hint darker than normally.

"Well, yeah but….what's your point?"

"I don't know, I guess I don't really have one…I'm just a little worried about Sasuke. Gaara's not exactly stable you know, he might snap and hurt him or something." He sighed and ran a hand through his silver locks of hair, a sign of stress, Neji knew.

"He'll be okay. We make tease Gaara all the time and he's never hurt us, and besides that, he's practically skin and bones, if he tries anything, Sasuke can take him easily."

"But…yeah, I guess you're right." He sighed again, defeated.

"But what? You were going to say something."

"It's nothing."

"Come on, you can tell me." Neji prodded.

"It's just…like you said, we tease Gaara all the time, and he hasn't tried anything but… They never do right away. You read about it in the newspaper, it takes months and months, or years even, and then something else happens and they just, you know snap. There, I said it, happy now?"

"Yes, but I don't get what this has to do with Sasuke." Neji set down the apple he was eating to give his full attention to his friend.

"Neji, Sasuke could be that final thing, the thing that makes Gaara snap. He'll find out eventually and it'll all go downhill from there." Neji frowned, Kabuto could be right, and the last thing he wanted was Sasuke getting hurt, or worse, killed, because of a stupid bet that he had thought up. He looked over to where Sasuke was sitting again, suddenly afraid that Sasuke wouldn't be there anymore, that he'd be lying on the floor in a puddle of his own blood.

But Sasuke was fine. He looked bored as anything, but he was alive, and Gaara, Gaara wasn't even looking at Sasuke, he seemed to be glaring at a wall. Relieved, Neji turned his head back to Kabuto.

"Look, we'll just keep an eye on him okay? We'll watch him when he's around Gaara, from a distance of course, and we'll lay off Gaara in class. Sasuke will be fine as long as we're looking out for him." He nodded, reassuring himself as well. Kabuto nodded too, and the rest of their lunch was spent in relative silence with both of them continuously stealing glances at Sasuke and Gaara or having small, pointless conversations about nothing.

"So, how did things go with Gaara today?" Kabuto asked Sasuke as when they caught up to him after lunch, knowing full well things had not gone as Sasuke had surely planned. He and Neji had decided not to let Sasuke know that they were worried about him and were pretty much going to stalk him when he was with Gaara. Sasuke hated it when people worried about him and tried to take care of him. A few years before, he'd been out of class for a week with a terrible flu, and when they came to visit him, he'd mumbled angrily to himself about being 'too weak' and forced them to go home.

"Just fine," Sasuke muttered, "Fine and dandy, I could have a better conversation with a doorknob then I could with him."

"I'll take that as a 'no' then?"

"Yes, he's smarter than I thought, that or just paranoid. He knows, he knows I'm lying to him, that I'm tricking him." He sighed, sounding defeated and closed his eyes briefly as the three of them walked down the hallway together.

"You sound tired, Sasuke. Don't tell me you're giving up already now." The Hyuuga smirked playfully as Sasuke glared at him.

"I don't give up Neji. I will win this bet, just you wait and see." He clenched his fists, fingernails digging deep into his palms.

"Hey, hey, calm down, Neji was just joking, right?" It was difficult to see Kabuto's eyes, the fluorescent lighting was creating a glare on his glasses, but Neji could tell there was an almost pleading look in his eyes.

"Of course I was. We all know you wouldn't back down from a bet Sasuke, don't worry."

"I'm not worrying, there's nothing for me to worry about." Sasuke's eyes flashed irritably and he strode faster. "I have to get to class, I'll see you guys later."

His two friends blinked.

"Well someone's in a good mood today." Neji muttered sarcastically.

Gaara pulled his binder away from the edge of his desk when he saw Neji and Kabuto walk through the doorway. Neji sat directly behind him and had a habit of 'accidentally' knocking it over whenever he went by.

"Good afternoon, Kabuto-kun, Neji-kun."

"Good afternoon, Orochimaru-sensei." They answered in unison before dropping their things off at their desks and going to sit in the back of the room before class started. Gaara waited for them to saunter over to him like they so often did and start taunting him, every day it was the same routine: Neji and Kabuto would make his sixth period as miserable as possible by taunting him, or doing things like tripping him or shooting spitwads at him. And of course, Orochimaru would act as if he didn't see or hear his precious 'pets' and chastise him for being clumsy. Gaara really hated him, out of all his teachers, Orochimaru had to be the worst.

The bell signaling the start of classes rang, and a few stragglers scurried in and darted to their seats. Neji and Kabuto returned to their proper seats, and to Gaara's surprise, without saying something nasty to him. Orochimaru started a lecture about the Meiji era and Gaara tried to force himself to pay attention, but couldn't seem to. History was boring, especially since Orochimaru was teaching it and his mind kept wandering, always to…Sasuke.

Why though? He couldn't figure it out, he didn't want to be thinking about Sasuke, yet ended up doing so anyway. He kept seeing his face, kept hearing his voice. Frankly, it was pissing him off. He didn't care about Sasuke, Sasuke was just trying to play some sadistic joke on him, and he would not, refused, to let himself fall for it. He would not be taken for a fool.

It might not be a joke, a voice in his head persisted he could be serious

He didn't like that voice, that voice would get him into trouble if he listened to it, it would get him hurt.

He might really like you…

The words echoed in around in his mind, they wouldn't leave him alone.

"Gaara! Are you paying attention at all? I asked you a question, did you hear it?" Some one snapped at him, breaking him out of his thoughts.

He shook his head instead of answering.

Orochimaru sighed. "I should have known, you never pay attention do you?" Gaara didn't answer that either, but his cheeks flushed slightly at the harsh words. He cursed his fair skin for reddening so easily. "Of course you don't, but I'll ask you one more time: In what year did the Meiji era begin?"

"I-I don't remember." He was horrible at remembering years, and the pressure he had been put under wasn't helping, he could feel everyone's eyes watching him and the color on his cheeks deepened as a few people giggled and snickered.

"Neji, would you be so kind as to tell us the answer since Gaara so obviously doesn't know?"

"1868," Neji said smartly. "The Meiji era began in 1868."

"Thank you Neji-kun, I'm glad to see that some people are actually learning something here." Gaara grit his teeth. Why did he always do that? He'd call on Gaara all the time, even when other people had their hands raised. It was as if he was going out of his way to make him feel stupid and insecure. He spent the rest of the class glaring at Orochimaru when the man wasn't looking and silently wishing that looks could kill.

One more day until my school gets out for the summer, I'm very not-excited, but I will get to write more (hopefully).

Scapegoat- Hope this update was soon enough, I'm having exams this week so I've been getting lots of homework lately . But like I said, one more day until the end of school, so no homework for two and a half monthes, yay!

Chronic fever- I agree, Gaara's hair is sexy, my friend always calls it weird looking and…it makes me sad.

Fantastical Queen Ebony Black- Yes, it is indeed the quiet ones –nods- My friend and I have that conversation on the bus a lot. Dude, I completely forgot what D&D stood for, I don't think we have one of those groups at my school. Although I believe some of my friends play it and it sounds quite fun.

Junsui Kegasu- Indeed Sasuke will have a hard time, I laugh at him because I am evil like that. Hurray for Gaara abuse! -pokes- Have you been reading the new manga chapters? Gaara abuse is liek whoa.

YaoiloverS- Poor Sasuke indeed, I laugh at him and his silly arrogance.

TheFutureFreaksMeOut- Yes, we shall kill Sasuke if he dare hurts Gaara! Slowly and painfully….and then we'll scoop out his organs with rusty spoons. Aww…no threesome? Damn –pouts- lol. I need to write a threesome on day.

Thalia-chan- Hope I updated soon enough for you, school's been being mean lately, thanks for reviewing again!

Kokuei no Onchuu- I never liked the Uchiha parents much either they just seemed, I dunno, hollow. Even the minor characters are usually pretty well developed but they were just…meh.

Melodia04- Um, yes? No? Maybe? What's cruel intentions?

Littleanikaze- Yes, let us be perverts! –insert dirty X-rated thoughts here- Random is good….

nod nod-

Hurricane-rider- I will update it, I will! But first I'm rewriting the entire thing because it's pissing me off –sweatdrop-. I still kinda like Kabuto…I think he's trying to take Orochimaru down from the inside –nods-.

Dark Kaizer Ken-Wolf- Hope this was soon enough, hopefully the next one will be sooner. Love your story by the way, update it soon!

Tryster- The quality in most SasuGaa fics is quite sad…have you read Sick Little Suicide by TheFutureFreaksMeOut ? It's the best SasuGaa fic ever…the best fanfic ever.

Nanami Yatsumaki- It's fine, don't worry about it, I sometimes review things late too. Thank you for reviewing!