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Chapter 5: In Which There is a Dark Room
AN: Whoot for 5 chapters! Thank you to vivdlight.c om for the darkroom info. Oh! The music I have Neji listening to here is Portishead (the live CD), because that's what I was listening too, and it's very cool. Big thanks to Joelle for lending it to me. I really doubt you've ever heard them, but I love them, and their lyrics are beautiful.
Disclaimer: I have no rights to Naruto or its characters.
OooOo
The clock ticked noisily, the small red hand moving rhythmically around. Gaara glanced at it, then looked back to his math sheet. The seconds seemed to get longer as they progressed, an everlasting sea of ticking. He looked at his pen, tilting it back and forth between his fingers. He could simply throw it, so it stuck into the clock, and the ticking would stop. Though a rather tempting idea, Gaara declined.
He glanced around, though it was a little difficult, as most of the people were a few inches taller than he was, which slightly obscured his veiw. To his left was the pink-haired girl, who had finished also, and was looking out the window. In front of her was a short blonde-haired boy, who glared at his sheet as if it were a demon, while he scribbled away. So hard, in fact, that his pencil broke.
"Oi," the boy whispered rather noisily, leaning backwards to talk to the pink-haired girl, "Can I borrow your pencil sharpener?"
She looked up at him, rather annoyed.
"...please, Sakura-chan?"
"Fine." The girl got her pencil case out of her desk, and began looking through it. Meanwhile, the blonde boy was leaning back further... and further... and
"Aiie!"
CRASH!
He ended up sprawled on the floor, Sakura standing over him (she'd managed to jump away before being flattened by her deak). He smiled up at her goofily.
"Find it?"
"Use someone elses, Naruto," she muttered bitterly, righting her desk. The boy sighed and pushed himself back up, avoiding the glare he was being given by the teacher. A shy cough came from his right, the girl sitting in front of Gaara.
"Y-you can use my p-pencil, Naruto," she smiled softly, as he took it, nodding once before going back to his vehement scribblings.
To Gaara's right, smirking at the incidence, was the black-eyed boy, who was somehow managing to blare death-metal through his head-phones without getting caught. And across the room, reading a rather thick book, was Neji, sitting closest to the door. His long black hair fell down his back, caught in a white tie. Rather irregular, but what really was regular? Just about everyone in his class could be part of the freak show if they wanted.
Finally the bell rang, and the room was immeidiately filled with chatter and movement. Some students sprinted for the door, while others leisurely took their time. Gaara simply took his own pace. As he looked up, he noticed Neji had already left, and was a little glad. It was becoming a little unnerving... being around people so much. As if he were being opened up, and people were looking at him. It was rather unpleasant. But Gaara didn't mind all that much with Neji. Usually, he would.
And indeed, these things confused him. Though he wasn't one to so easily admit it.
OooOo
Bag slung over his shoulder, Gaara moved through the halls like a shadow. Everyone was clearing to the cafeteria, or getting ready to walk over to a restaurant to eat (which was probably a good idea, seeing as the cafeteria was questionabley edible, and people weren't just joking when they said that). Gaara, however, was heading in the opposite direction of the cafeteria - to the art room.
It wasn't as if he had anywhere better to go. And it would be pretty much quiet in there, he guessed, unlike the extremely loud cafeteria.
He found the door, half-open, the lights on. A single figure sat at the desk, looking through a pile of sketches. The teacher glanced up at Gaara, who had taken to leaning against the doorframe.
"Oh, hi... Gaara, isn't it?"
The boy nodded, looking hesitantly around. "Is Neji here?"
"Oh yeah, he's in the back." The art teacher went back to his marking, and Gaara headed towards the door at the end of the room, ignoring the not-so-school-appropriate novels that were piled on the edge of said teacher's desk. Music could be heard from behind the door, distorted guitar, and a strong female voice, wailing.
Gaara opened the door, slowly, and stepped inside, finding himself in a cramped room lit with only dimmed light. A figure he presumed was Neji looked at him from the sink, where he was setting up.
"You cabe," or "You came," without the accent added by Neji's cold.
Gaara nodded, ignoring the horrible obviousness of the statement. People have habits of telling you what you already know, often in greeting. He leaned against the door observing Neji, who had slightly turned down the music blaring from the stereo. It was calm that way for a while, Neji going about his work, and Gaara watching, quiet. Eventually, Neji glanced over at Gaara, confused.
"Dod't you hab a ludch?"
Gaara shook his head. Due to his lateness that morning, and Mariko's absence, there had not been time to make a decent lunch, or a lunch at all. Gaara did, however, have a Ziploc bag filled with cookies. He suspected Temari was the one who put them in there, as some attempt to cheer him up. In any case, he decided he'd rather not explain to Neji why he didn't have a lunch, and left it at that.
"You cad hab sob of mide," Neji said, rifling through the bag sitting on the counter.
"No thanks."
"You should eat," Neji said again, a little more forcefully. He threw a container filled with carrots at Gaara, who caught and ate it, however releuctantly. Neji snacked on a sandwich, as he wasn't one to be accused of hypocritism. Betwen bites, his lips moved themselves to the lyrics of the song, movements a little slurred by the lilted rhythms. There were different groups of kids in the school, some jocks, the drama kids, the music kids, the art kids (mostly goths), the kids who actually liked school (heaven knows why), and then there were the kids who didn't really do anything. Neji didn't really fit into any category, despite having the ability to excel in any that he chose. Groups didn't suit him.
"My sister."
He looked over at Gaara, who sat on a box of storage materials, tracing the lines between the bricks of the wall with his forefinger.
"My sister's name is Temari... My brother is Kankurou..."
It seemed like a decent place to start.
His eyes met Neji's before looking back to the bricks. Not shy, of course. Just making sure his breath wasn't being wasted. His fingernail made high-pitched scratching noises against the cement as he continued tracing.
"We live with our care-taker."
The first day they were there, she introduced herself as Mariko, and told them, that if they wanted her to be their foster mother, she would be. But care-taker seemed to term best-fit, and she didn't mind. An agreeable person, but not to the point of being annoying, such as the pink-haired girl that sat beside Gaara in Math. She seemed to him a very annoying person.
He turned to Neji, giving him a questioning look. "What about you?"
The muscles on the dark-haired boy's back stiffened, his lips turning down.
"I live with family."
Gaara leaned his head against the wall, feeling the abrasive surface against his scalp through the mess of firey hairs. It was cool, though not icy. He snuck glances at Neji, not stares, but looks meant for keen observation. The way Neji's lips grew thinner when he concentrated harder. Or the way he held his hands, and how they moved, as he poured the chemicals, or as he reached up to turn up the fan that cleared the room of fumes.
"So, you're house is somewhere near that park, I guess?" Neji asked quietly. Gaara nodded.
"A few streets over."
"There are a lot of dogs around there. My cousin..." Neji's voice trailed off, "She was riding her bike once, and she was chased by one. She fell..." He sighed, wiping his hands off on a towel. "We live down the road from your subdivision. But I walk quite a bit. Then I can actually think... it's too big, the house, and... I just can't."
Gaara nodded. "My siblings are loud."
A smile crossed Neji's face, in near amusement.
"I bet they are."
Gaara and Neji left the darkroom a little before the bell rang, as not to get caught in the crowds. Their conversation had continued on and off, small and insignificant topics, until Neji was finished, and the pictures were hung on a line that stretched across the room to dry. Said boy paused in the doorway of the art room, letting Gaara go on without him.
"Kakashi-sensei, would you mind if-"
"If you used the darkroom after school again?" Kakashi glanced up from his novel, "No, as long as your out of there by five-thirty. And make sure you don't break anything, not that I think you will."
The adolescent bowed his head in thanks, then moved further out the door.
"Ah, Neji," Kakashi placed his hands pensively together, "I hope you're not using this as an excuse not to have to spend time at home."
Neji's eyebrows furrowed. "I wouldn't think of it."
OooOo
Temari's hands were stuffed deeply into her pockets as she made her way home, to keep the mid-October wind from nipping at them too hard. The air was crisp and bitter. Not cold, as the sky was sill visible, along with a large assortment of clouds, but chilly. And her ears felt the worst, as if they were about to fall off!
And it seemed different walking without Gaara...
She continued on down the sidewalk, staring straight ahead. Though maybe it would've been a better idea to have been looking at her feet, because it was as she walked over the lawn of the third house, the white one with black shutters that she tripped, landing face-first in the grass. And he rest of her body on someone else. She promptly pulled herself off, shrieking.
"Aiie! You pervert!"
The boy she'd tripped over rubbed his head, rather annoyed at having his head shoved between Temari's breasts (not that he minded all that much).
"What do you mean 'pervert'?" he asked, "You tripped over me. You should watch where you're going."
"Well, you shouldn't just lay on the lawn like that!" Temari protested further, "People could trip over you!"
"You were walking on my lawn!"
The fiesty girl crossed her arms, extremely frustrated. "Why were you lying on the ground anyways?"
"Cloud-watching."
Temari blinked in disbelief. "Cloud-watching?"
"Yep." With that, the boy lay back onto his lawn, soft blades of green crunching under him as he rested his head on his wrists. School had just gotten out 15 minutes ago, and he wasn't allowed peace, even then? What was the world coming too?
Temari brushed herself off, cursing as she found a few grass stains, and in a huff stalked off, heavy school bag in hand. The eyes of the boy drifted, from cloud, to cloud, to her receeding form. He snorted.
"How troublesome."
Then his eyes were focused on the sky once more, and the dark grey clouds moving steadily in from the west. He sighed.
"Looks like it's going to rain again."
End of Chapter 5