Disclaimer: Chick, I don't need to own Naruto to write fanfiction.
Penname: LiveLoveLaugh
FanFiction Story: Teenage Rhapsody
Summary: AU She was new at Konoha High. But she didn't have a dark secret. She wasn't social. She wasn't very attractive. She wasn't very popular or very geeky. Hell, she was always alone. Now that Sakura became a senior, things start to mix up a bit.
AN: About the hat thing, I don't want to say anything about it. It'll just ruin the whole point of even writing the story. And the whole 'revenge' thing nearly everyone's talking about, it seems too early to do anything about it and I don't exactly like to call it 'revenge' because it's not. Right now, I'm playing the field. The pairings, I will say it again, I don't want to say anything. If you had read my ending notes in the last chapter, you probably would get my drift. Ah, don't keep harassing me about the updating, I know and I get the point.
Get funky. Okay, that's about it.
Chapter Ten
Comic Relief
The afternoon was slightly gloomy with flowing white-gray clouds that covered the blinding rays of the sun like a large weather tourniquet. The grass was moist and still slightly muddy from the difficulties of the sprinklers that a certain masked custodian had forgot to fix, again, thus getting the sophomore cheerleaders and the mascot wet and screaming in mortification across the large mowed lawns.
With only a bit of sunlight, most of the students of Konoha High had decided to sit inside the school cafeteria, rampaging food into their mouths and dribbling gossip that had always made it around the hallways in its daily toll. Rumors of many things: like who were making out at this guy's house party, who won yesterday's street race with his new car parts, if there were really sex noises coming out of the principal's office, and what had happened in the science classroom when the fire alarms alerted nearly everyone to run out of the building because of a devastating candy-exploding project.
And of course, the certain not-so secretive relationship between a redhead and the new girl.
"Oi, Tayuya, you never told us you had a cousin," Kidoumaru remarked, biting into his bologna lettuce and tomato sandwich while fixing his headband around his curly dark hair. The girl sitting across from him frowned gently, before roughly pounding a fist on edge of the blue cafeteria table.
And within that was the clear message that she didn't want to talk about it.
Well, at least, not now.
This loud crash caused nearby tables uneasiness and most of them had tried to ignore the sound of damaged school properties, while the rest of her tablemates had laughed and swore off over their lunch trays and slurps of milk and crunches of salty potato chips. Around the grumpy beanie-wearing girl were her male friends and companions, her comrades, her gang, or a much more crude term: her bitches.
Each boy was either gorgeous or ugly, loud or quiet, moronic or intellectual. Flirty or cold fish. Twin or not twin. Mean or meaner. Tall or taller. Dark or light. Jock or punk. Which ever it was, Tayuya had known these boys since her first year in high school when her famous name had reached the ears and eyes of the idiots who attended Konoha, who were all her junior and senior, who groveled at her mighty ugly power that she would wield with an iron fist. And a couple of swear words.
Okay, on gloomy days like these when the near whole population of high schoolers had been located in the cafeteria, this is how the usual seating charts go:
Near front door; Front row: Historian Heads, Lab Losers, Theoretical Ticks, and Environmental-conscious Hippies.
Middle of the room; Second row: Mathematicians, the Freshmen, Class Presidents, School Officials, Neat Freaks, Teacher Assistants, and Ass-kissers.
Near lunch line; Third Row: Anime Geeks, Band Members, Dorks, Sophomores, Artists, Archery Group, Bookworms, and Honors Kids.
Cash register and trash cans; Fourth Row: Alcoholics, Coke Heads, Pranksters, School Bullies, Druggies, Diet Doers, Goths, Dark Poets Clan, Gang Members, and people who are in between.
Near the windows; Fifth Row: Popular people, Good-looking people, Seniors, some lucky Juniors, Cheerleaders, Jocks, Fashion Addicts, Flirts, and Playboys.
The group had situated themselves everyday at the same table near the windows by the giant mural, which was one of the few best tables only reserved for the popular classes and elite seniors of the school. And if you're lucky enough to be picked into a basketball team or had drunk twice your weight in schnapps, you might just have a chance to sit next to the silent albino Kimimaro, the hot-tempered twins Ukon and Sakon, or even next to the playboy Kidoumaru. But you would probably want to steer away from that table anyway, because, uh, well, you know who else sits there. For better chances in surviving the awful unfair separatism of high schools, you can just sit to the sluts at table five.
Just not at that table. I mean it.
I really, really mean it.
Because everyday, if you were to sit there, you would have to hear this every afternoon at lunch—
"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!" Tayuya screamed, standing up abruptly with all craziness of a banshee and a sore finger. She had cut herself against a sharp corner of an aluminum foil when she was unwrapping her mother's micro-waved homemade pizza leftovers. She suckled at the small wound, tasting the raw metallic flavor on her sharp tongue while the males around the table looked disgruntled when she had interrupted their lunch, again.
"Tayuya, why can't you just act like a lady for at least five minutes?" Jiroubou whispered, scolding lightly at her, "I mean, it's hard enough hearing you talk like a man, when…you're clearly not one…"
"Oh, you and your almighty fatass-iness, can shut the hell up," Tayuya growled through her finger.
"Hey ladies!" Kidoumaru cried out, waving at table five like a 'handful' he was.
The girls had giggled.
Kimimaro was smart enough not to say anything, like he always does, while Ukon and Sakon continued in one of their freaky twin thing conversations where they both have polar opposite discussions about people, clothes, the society, and the pursues of happiness, cigarettes, and women.
"No, a chick with a huge rack is NOT attractive," Sakon argued back, tossing back his gray-violet hair.
"What kind of green have you been smoking?" Ukon laughed in his much deeper voice, "It's obvious that I rather squeeze the hell out of two giant jugs than some broad with a flat chest, it'll be like doing it with a dude." His hands groped the air gruffly in a disgusting gesture that would have had the pastor of a church throw holy water on his head. Kidoumaru snorted.
"A woman with big breasts would only emphasize the size of her ass and the waist length," Sakon explained, being the smarter of the two, since both were intelligent and got satisfying grades in school, "It'll be giving more of an image to how fat she is."
"Well, I veto your idea in petite women," Ukon dangerously muttered, being the crazier of the two, "Curvy women are hot. If their breasts are small enough for me to wrap my arms around them, they're obviously not for me."
The men in the table laughed hysterically. Kimimaro quietly drank his bottle of water, roving his eyes around for his brother Kabuto in the other tables.
But Tayuya did not find that at all amusing.
"Ukon, you stupid fuck! Shut up!" She slapped him upside the head, earning a growl from the latter. Jiroubou groaned again, getting up from the table before he could hear any more swearing from a girl. The others didn't seem to mind, since this was what the big guy had always done for the past three and a half years. When he exited the cafeteria, the noise from the same table could be heard around the room if you had really listened.
"Tch, an answer from a typical ginger," the older twin rolled his eyes, "Not my fault that you like to date guys with the build and brains of a semi-truck. Because I totally understand that they're not sexist."
"Well, I'm SO sorry that I don't date girls with a personality of a broken-down bicycle," the redhead slapped him on the head again, "If only you still had your Mohawk, I would have crushed your stupid skull easily without the damn girl hair in the way."
Ukon just ignored her. It was so easy to do.
Sakon smirked, muttered sarcastically, "I hear little miss here has a cousin somewhere in this shithole. Or am I just imagining that Tayuya could possibly be part of the human species?" Kidoumaru grinned sloppily. He liked to hear there was another girl he can play with.
Tayuya glared at the playboy, "Don't even fucking think about it. She's off-limits."
The six-armed guy looked disappointed, "What gives you the right to tell who or who not to date?"
"Oh, because I'll rip off your balls."
That was enough to convince for a guy who thought constantly about sex.
Near the exits; Sixth Row: Normies
(Normal people, people who don't get enough attention but should.)
He dreamt of twinkling lights, beautiful glimmers of gold and white that sparkled against the sprays of translucent water that danced in happy ripples over tiled floors and shiny coins. It was such a beauty, it took his breath away. Every now and then, he would have this dream. A dream of prettiness. A dream of infinite purity encrusted within the fine artwork he was yet to see.
To soon make. To soon finish.
The water sprouts was beautiful to the ears and the eyes as the dim skylights had showered over like a rain of loveliness and suddenly—
"HAKU!"
Suddenly his mind was erased by the instant squawk of a female primate.
He popped open one brown eye and was faced immediately with a reddish flushed face of a blond girl.
She stood over him with a disapproving expression, folding her arms tightly over her chest. Her light blue eyes were near furious and annoyed, while she looked away and began to orderly stack the spoon and fork and empty milk carton in her lunch tray. And it had just occurred to the absentminded student that nearly half a dozen pairs of eyes were staring at his sheepish form from across the cafeteria table.
Haku rubbed his tired face with the pads of his fingers, which strangely, were not manicured.
"You fell asleep again!" Ino complained, irritatingly, "I was saying something important, you know!"
He/she smiled charmingly, "I'm just tired, Ino-kun. My bad."
"Well! Don't do it again! It's very annoying!" she cried, rolling her eyes, "You can be such a—"
"Oh! Sakura-kun! You're wearing another hat today!" His eyes had long drifted to the other tablemates.
Ino gaped while he praised the snow-white color of the winter cap that hid half of the green-eyed teenager's face, "It looks so good on you! It really compliments your skin tone and eyes. I can totally let you wear my new sunglasses tomorrow! You would look so good at school, Sakura-kun! Did I mention I can sing? Yup! Singing is for me! Oh, I can totally do rap and pop, especially sing in really, really low tones like what the guys do in doo wop—"
Sakura smiled politely, a little bit shaky with the girl-boy's outlandish personality when she felt the upset neglected behavior that of Ino. She gripped her backpack straps in her hands tightly before nodding along with Haku, then stopping him/her abruptly.
"T-Thank you, Haku," Sakura managed to smile, glancing at Ino, "Can you repeat what you had said earlier, Ino-san?" The platinum blonde looked utmost flattered and flustered when everyone looked back at her. Even Haku begun to listen, turning his clean, makeup-free face at her.
"Yes, well," Ino cleared her throat, "I think know who's going to be in the science groups with whom."
"YOU KNOW?" Naruto and Kiba cried excitedly, while Hinata gasped squeakily.
Tenten shushed them angrily, "Let her speak!"
Kiba growled, striking an accusing finger at the brunette, "Not with you here!"
"What are you talking about? I won't spill the beans!"
"Spill the beans? No, you'd throw secrets away like chucking eggs!"
Sakura looked confused, while everyone at the table nodded in acknowledgement. Ino groaned, tiredly.
"It's not going to be a secret in the next two hours anyway," she grumbled.
"Where did you get the juicy details?" the mustard-haired boy whispered immediately, everyone leaned in.
"Well, I was in the secretary's office after school turning in a file for Hana like I promised her, when Shizume-sensei came in," Ino blinked a few times, "She looked pretty angry though, I don't know why," she didn't seem to be bothered by it, and continued speaking, "She just placed her manila folders in her file drawer and she didn't lock it when she left. Kanaye-sensei needed to go to the restroom first, so I had wait a while. But I wouldn't resist so I snuck a look, and saw the names."
The three boys exclaimed in heated joy, pumping up their fists, "BANZAI!"
"Shut up!" Temari screamed, and punched all of them on the head.
And it was then Ino told them the names.
This had ended in another 'banzai'.
And another ass-kicking.
After lunch had ended, Kiba was complaining loudly. He liked being one of the only people to know, but to let in a school-wide gossip into it was over the top. Tenten looked victimized and tried to retort, but the dog-boy wouldn't hear of it when he cradled Akamaru on top of his messy hair.
"Babe, you can't even keep a secret to make Lee wear a tee shirt."
All through fifth period, Tenten had a hard time keeping such a little secret. Her small mouth was erupting in all sorts of chaotic ways, which had irritated the teacher for every squeak and pinch voices she kept making in the back of the room. People sitting around her desk looked at her weirdly. Both Neji and Lee raised their eyebrows at her before dismissing her awkwardness. The teacher up at the board grumbled under her breath and heatedly wrote down the lessons with a small stub of chalk, talking quite loudly for the class.
Suddenly the temptation was immensely troubling. The names that had soared through her mind were mocking. The platinum blonde's voice was kicking at her conscience. The tattooed teenager was right along. She damned him. The howls of laughter had filled her head. Each word, each syllable was so hard not to forget, that it made her want to scream it to everyone.
Even though she knew every gossip and face around school like the back of her hand, she had respected Naruto's group decision of Shizume-sensei's privacy.
Besides, it's something she had always liked about secrets.
The fact that she knew the secret, that is.
The brunette squint her eyes, like she needed glasses, up at the chalkboard trying to concentrate. Her face flushed in embarrassment and she tried to do her class work. But when her pencil accidentally slipped from her twitching fingers and landed loudly on the linoleum floor, the teacher threw up her hands.
"That's it! Girl, if you need some breather, just go and get it outside!"
"Y-Yes, sensei," Tenten got up and bowed to blind eyes, bringing her pale yellow canteen with her.
Outside in the hallway, the pooped brunette gulped down as much water as she could. The remarkable fact that she knew who in the same science group was absolutely laughable. It was no wonder that the boys in the sixth row couldn't stand having her there, because they knew she couldn't keep a secret to save her life. But she knew. Oh, she knew.
Enemy with enemy, rival with rival, innocence with evil, bully with the bullied, her best friend with—
"What are you guys doing out here?" She squealed, hushed. The corridors was dead quiet until the classroom door opened abruptly, two boys came out with shrugs.
"It's nothing we've never learned," Neji grunted, "Besides the woman is just the substitute."
"Yosh! You were looked troubled during lunch time!" Suddenly Lee looked a tad sad, "You don't even sit with us anymore."
Tenten smiled uneasily, "I know. I…I just really like those guys, that's all."
"Those idiots?" the Hyuuga barked, he had no respect for any of them.
She frowned, "Well, I like them. Ino and Temari also likes them. One of them is your cousin! Naruto, Kiba, and Haku are actually really nice and adorably weird. And they're not idiots."
"Well, if the shoe fits…" Neji trailed on, but Rock Lee had fortunately cut into the future argument with a loud and long speech about their youthfulness wasting to its core for bitching like old women over fish bargains, or whatever the hell he was talking about. They just pretended they didn't hear.
"Besides, Neji," Tenten said the last syllable of his name in a snarling tone, and began talking in her usual voice in which she tempted listeners to the little secrets she knew with polite greed in her eyes, "You would be wholesome happy next period, since I for one know for a fact that you're going to be paired up with more than three normies. And you, Lee, will be working side by side with guys who have giant sticks up their ass."
The two young men stared at her with confusion.
"What are you talking about?"
"Oh, nothing." Tenten felt guilt welling up in her. But technically, she didn't say the names.
She knew she couldn't tell anyone. Already seeing her blond guardian's face that had saddened when she stared at her abrupt entrance was enough for the new girl to know that, somehow, everything was unfair and that there will be another day where she wouldn't see her parents again. She felt that she was very fortunate to still have parents, good people who wanted to provide for her. But they were not like those parents who were always shown on the television or in the newspaper that was so full of them.
Their cruelty had lied in their absence.
And slowly, just slowly, she felt she was growing up alone all over again. But she wasn't able to accept that piece of information yet. It was hard enough to know that she had parents who knew how to be good and loving, and yet was neglectful of their only child, that she could only worry about the smaller things first. She stopped writing down her notes from one of her teacher's long and boring lectures, her eyes hazy and her lips chapped.
Sakura fidgeted in her chair. She had many things to worry about. She didn't like what she heard over the lunch trays.
Especially to be paired up with—
"Nara Shikamaru!" Asuma-sensei yelled over the quiet classroom, quickly throwing a marker on his head.
The boy far back in the class woke up steadily, in such a pathetic state that he wiped drool from his mouth and swiped pieces of messy hair away from his face that were loosened from his feather duster when he slept tiredly on top of his desk. Every student's face turned around and watched the guy look up with slow eyes that looked and analyzed every face looking at him, every word on the board, and every book in the shelves next to him.
The new girl had a few traumatic rumors about this lazy guy, but she didn't whether or not it were true. Sure people say he was the only person in Asuma-sensei's history class who knew all the answers to his difficult mind-numbing questions and was still able to sleep peacefully, could ace all tests without doing them because he was too lazy to even pick up a pencil, was able to bombard all the intellectual grades in Konoha High school grade records but didn't feel like he wanted to, and to be accepted in all colleges and gifted schools but wasn't very conscious about his grades or about his future like she was.
"Lazy genius." Temari's smirk was still pictured in her mind.
But now, here was the proof to this remarkable theory.
His eyes barely scratched the surface of the long passages neat handwriting on the board, when he just nuzzled back to sleep on his desk. Asuma looked disgruntled, just whispering several birth and death dates of historical figures and other grilling short questions. The whole class watched them bite back and back at each other.
"Founder of Edo Shogunate," Asuma grumbled.
"Tokugawa Ieyasa," Shikamaru grumbled.
"1716 to 1783," Asuma muttered.
"Yosa Buson," Shikamaru muttered.
"1769 to 1821," Asuma whispered.
"Napoleon Bonaparte," Shikamaru whispered.
"Founder of Anglicanism," Asuma murmured.
"Henry VIII," Shikamaru murmured.
They had looked at each other deeply for what felt like hours, until the bearded and smoking teacher began to laugh and returned back to his lessons. Every student seemed to know this, sighed in relief and some had smirked and mentally applauded Shikamaru, before going back to take notes. Sakura stared aimlessly and stunned at the lazy genius when he went back to sleep.
At least he wasn't her teammate.
"Alright, class. Another morning, another day," Shizume smiled brightly to the class of bored and excited students. She lifted up a clipboard and began to read off the names of the selected teams, whose people were all anxious and yet annoyed but more eager than normal.
"Ino, Haku, Sakura, Neji, Shino, Kiba, and Kin."
"Sasuke, Kabuto, Zaku, Ukon, Dosu, and Rock Lee."
"Naruto, Hinata, Temari, Shikamaru, Tayuya, Sakon, and Yoroi."
"Kankuro, Gaara, Kidoumaru, Chouji, Sigure, Kimimaro, and Tenten."
"That will be your team members for the next thirty days. Seven people per team—no complaints, Tayuya, I already saw your hand in the air—teamwork and efforts will count in your lab presentation, a big part of your grade. Your project will be due at the end of next month. Make an experiment with 'candy' or any sweets. Ask me any questions, ask me for any help. Remember I'm your teacher, so prepare yourselves for a tough grading period."
She stared around the room. Everyone was hushed.
Shizume grinned, her black eyes twinkling, "Good luck."
To Be Continued
My story had been up for nine C2 communities? NINE?
377 hits for the last chapter? You got to be kidding!
Oh, you people make this writer a whole lot warmer.
The grouping was chosen randomly, I really don't have a problem with them. If the story can still expand, it's going to happen two more times anyway. I'm just writing as I write along, no need to remind of my missing plot holes in the story. I remember them.
Thank you for the recommendation, lostfreakfound. I enjoy Jay Chow very much.