Chapter contains much randomness, and some NejiTen, so hooray.

And…sorry for updating late

Chapter 9: Of Liberty and Spandex


I walked into art class, very much tired from the night before. That was the only thing bad about coming back from the trip early; we were supposed to get back on Friday night, but instead came back on Thursday night. This led to having to go to school and being very, very tried from getting back to the academy at about 3 in the morning.

I yawned, and took my usual art seat in-between Kiba and Lee. At the beginning of the semester, I'd been sitting with Tenten and Jin, but Gai-sensei had decided that sitting with people you were going to talk with through his youthful speeches wasn't very good for you, so he'd moved us. Although if his purpose of moving us had been to make us mad, the only people in the class that were actually mad about it were Shitahe and Sage, who had ended up sitting together.

"YOSH! Today we'll be drawing with our special 2B pencils that are softer than HB pencils which makes them better to draw pretty pictures with!" Gai gave a gigantic flashy grin to the class, and proceeded in jumping onto his desk, and striking a pose like the one superman did in his first movie.

Someone threw a pencil case at him, and he toppled over onto the floor, landing in a disgruntled heap, only to jump back up again in two seconds to blind us again with his teeth.

Jin smashed her head against the desk several times, "Why? Why did I take art over everything else I could have chosen! WHY!"

Hinata patted her sympathetically on the back, and grabbed a pencil from the cart that Sage was pushing around.

I looked at the blank paper before me, pondering what to draw. I sighed, and looked around me. In less than two seconds, everyone else in the class was getting to work, pencils to paper, drawing whatever the heck they were…except for Shitahe. She just sat there, feet on her desk, blowing bubbles with her gum, reading the latest issue of Orange Hill Celeb Craze. Gai gave her several warning looks, a vein popping in his forehead before giving up.

He got up quietly from his desk so she wouldn't notice, and crept over to her, close to the floor, being as silent as he could in the silent class. He got closer and closer, although an oblivious Shitahe didn't even notice that he was gone from his desk and creeping up to her.

Now, he was right in front of her desk, parallel to the floor. An evil grin (that still pinged, mind you) formed on his face, as he crouched in front of an unsuspecting Shitahe.

"THAT LOOKS LIKE AN INTERESTING MAGAZINE, MISS SUZUME!"

"HOLYSHIT! " Shitahe cursed, loosing her perfectly balanced act with legs extended on her desk and only two of her chair legs on the floor. She gave a shriek and fell backwards out of her chair, landing on her head, legs up in the air, giving everyone in front of her a rather nice view of her underwear.

Kiba turned a snort into a laugh, and covered his face with a hand when Shitahe turned to glare at him, face a violent shade of crimson. I looked over at Lee, who was sitting there, a shocked look on his face, mouth open in a silent "O".

The lavender-haired teen sat up indignantly, cheeks still quite red, and teeth gritted, a murderous look on her face. Gai gave her a flashy smile, and walked back to his desk, tossing the magazine he'd confiscated in his hand and catching it several times before he sat down.

I snickered, and turned back to my paper, which was still blank. I tried to think of something to draw, but nothing came into my mind still. I gave up, and leaned back in my chair.

"Lee, what are you drawing?" I turned to the spandex-clad teen, bored, looking at his paper.

"Gai-sensei's face!" he said proudly, holding the picture up in the air for me and everyone else around us to see.

"OMFGWTFBBQ?" Kiba screeched and recoiled as far as he could from the drawing.

"GAI-SENSEI! LEE DREW A PICTURE OF A FETUS!"

Gai, who was in the middle of tossing the magazine up into the air again dropped it on the floor and stood up, bracing himself with his hands on the desk before him. "Lee! Why are you drawing a picture of a fetus in my art class?"

"I'm not! Lee protested, holding the sketch up higher.

"Then what is it!"

"Your face!"

"…"

"…"

"Lee…"

"…yes Sensei?"

"Lee! I'm so proud of you!" Gai beamed and jumped over rows and rows of desks in one giant leap.

The light of a blood-red sunset streamed into the classroom as Gai beamed down proudly at his tearing student with streaming eyes. I heard several thunking noises as several heads in various places around the classroom met with the wood of a desk…quite hard.

"LEE!"

"GAI-SENSEI!"

"LEEE!"

"GAI-SENSEI!"

"SHUTUP YOU STUPID MORONS!" Shitahe screeched. She stood up, slammed her hands on her desk and grabbed a chair, hurling it at two spandex-clad males in one swift, fluid motion.

The chair flew through the air in slow motion, spinning slightly. Lee dove to protect his fetus. Gai dove to protect Lee.

CRUNCH.

The chair met contact…with Gaara's head.

Silence fell upon the class, and a look of impending doom glued itself to Shitahe's face. Lee frantically scrambled to make sure his fetus was alright before framing it with a glue stick and plastic chopsticks he pulled out of his spandex suit, completely oblivious to the fact that Gaara was glaring quite menacingly at the three of them.

There are always things to ponder in my life. One, may be where people keep their chopsticks in skin tight spandex suits…or even before that, why they were carrying plastic chopsticks on themselves in the first place. Perhaps there would be another rainy day or car-ride where I could contemplate life again.

The doomed look on Shitahe's face remained there. Perhaps it had been stuck like that with Krazy glue, because that stuff can honestly glue your hands together, and you'll have to rip skin off to get them apart. One of those intelligent males at my old school had been pimp enough to try.

Gaara's bottomless aqua eyes turned towards Shitahe. She gulped and bolted out of the classroom, Gaara's eyes drilling a hole into the back of her skull.

Gai wiped wet glue off of his jump-suit, probably from the open bottle on Lee's desk, and walked over to a wall, pinning Lee's fetus on a blackboard with a hideous homemade magnet that had his face on it. Above the board read "Wall of Fame" in messy calligraphy. But for all the world, it should have read "Wall of Spandex", as the only pictures on it seemed to be of Gai, Lee, or both of them together, and not surprisingly, the only artists were…you guess it, Gai and Lee.

xXx

"So…" Anko paced back and forth in front of her normally only girl's self defense class. It had swelled over twice its size when all of the guys had been added, and there were people in every desk except the one directly in front of her. (I'd heard from Ino that the last person sitting there got hearing problems.)

"So…" Anko repeated, scanning her eyes over the stuffed classroom.

"S—" Anko was about to repeat herself for the third time when Jin interrupted.

"So what?" The redheaded teen placed her head on both of her hands, staring intently at the teacher as if waiting for her to blurt out something that was going to change the face of history forever.

"Well…" Anko sighed, as if tired, rubbing the heel of her left hand into her eye. "I bet you're all wondering why we're having this class together, huh?"

Almost everyone in the class nodded, except for a few people in the back, who were talking and not paying any attention to anything…although their lack of incompetence didn't really seem to bother Anko much.

"Well," she repeated again. Jin's eyebrows curved down into a frown over her eyes, and Anko hurriedly began talking again without repeating, "It was the headmaster's decision to make this class a combined one." She sat down at her desk, and propped her head on her hands. "Normally this year, and for every other year that this school has been running, this particular portion of this class was taken separate. Even at the time when I was in school. Apparently he thinks it's time for a change, and that everyone should get to know things…"

I frowned. Things! Maybe Bob-sama's brain had gone for a little vacation or something again.

"And to help me with all of this, since the class is so big, we'll be having Kakashi-sensei in until this unit is done and over with."

As if on queue, the mask-wearing teacher walked out of a door somewhere behind Anko. A black bandana with the kanji symbols for music, life and joy on it covered his left eye. It replaced the plain navy one that was usually there. Maybe teaching something other than geography had given him such a joyful feeling that he'd decided to change it…either way, I'd never know.

He sat down in a chair beside Anko, and proceeded in opening up a book and reading. Anko rolled her eyes at him, and turned back to the class. For all the world, Kakashi might as well not have been there. "So, does anyone have any ideas on what this unit will be about, while we're on the subject?"

No one put their hand up like an enthusiastic two-year-old, so Anko simply chose someone at random…which turned out to be Naruto.

"Um…" Naruto frowned, racking his memory, his face wrinkling up with concentration. "It's something like…Pu. Pub. Purty. No…that's no it…" he ran a hand through spiky blonde locks. "It's something with an 'erty' at the end, right?"

Anko slouched in her seat, nodding slowly, and zonked out expression on her normally evilly-grinning face.

"LIBERTY!" Naruto half stood up, placing both of his hands on his desk, as if to end his outburst with oomph.

Anko's head slipped off of her hands, and hit the wood of her desk. Sasuke whacked Naruto on the head with his textbook, and a muttered insult of, "Dobe…"

Kakashi rolled his visible eye, and pulled down an overhead curtain from out of nowhere. He pulled an overhead out from underneath someone's des, and flicked the lights off.

"Today, class, we'll be watching a video on the marvelous thing that we all know as puberty. Aside from Naruto, of course. He'll be learning about liberty instead." The gray-haired teacher threw a magazine with a picture of the Statue of Liberty on the cover at the blonde's head before attaching a laptop to the overhead screen with some kind of fancy USB cord.

"Hello boys and girls, today we'll be learning about growing up!" an overly cheery woman came onto the screen, talking out of the TV like we were all some sort of two year olds.

I rolled my eyes, and leaned my head on the desk in front of me, not really willing to listen to some sort of freaky woman tell me how I was growing up when I was already sixteen years old. Music blared from the speakers as the extremely horrible actors droned on and on about the wonders of puberty. I slunk down into my chair as a overly happy song erupted out of no where.

"CHANGES KEEP FALLING…"

This was going to be a very, very, VERY long period.

xXx

"Sakura…wake up!" Jin prodded my shoulder with a finger.

I opened one eye and looked at her. "S'class over?"

She nodded, and waited for me to pack up my books.

"What was the movie like?" I asked, stuffing my binder and textbook into my tote bag.

"No clue…I was playing fetch with Kaida. He kept threatening to eat Lee's leg again, so I threw my eraser around the class so he had something to do."

"Oh… so like no one actually watched it?"

"Nope."

"…" I looked over towards the teacher's desk, where Anko was softly snoring away, her mouth open slightly. Kakashi was still seated beside her, reading something that looked suspiciously like porn. Actually cut that…I think it was porn.

I shook the thought from my head, and followed Jin and Tenten to the home economics class, sighing. The beach trip had been a little bit higher up on the scale than something I would consider normal for a field trip, but it wasn't nearly as odd as coming back to school seemed to be.

"I wonder what Genma-sensei will have planned for us today…" I muttered, hoisting my bag farther up on my shoulder so it didn't drag on the floor when we were walking up the stairs. Jin waved, and walked off to her next class, while I followed Tenten into the home economics class where Genma was seated, legs propped up on the desk, a knitting needle stuck in his mouth like some sort of gigantic toothpick.

I frowned at him and took my seat at the back of the classroom beside Sasame, a quiet girl I didn't know very well. Well…I guess I might get to know her if I talked to her a bit more, but every time I did, we always ended up in awkward silence. So I tried avoiding it as often as possible. She clearly also wasn't the type of person who enjoyed chatting away with people when you got the privilege of sitting at the back of the class.

Lee jumped into the classroom, clothed in a hideous green jumper that looked as though he'd made it himself…and he probably had for that matter.

"Is this good, Genma-sensei!" He screeched proudly, probably deafening half of the people around him.

"Hn." Genma answered, twirling the knitting needle around in his mouth.

Lee smile grew wider, waiting for Genma to say something.

"…"

Lee's mouth seemed to stretch beyond what completely normal humans were capable of.

"…"

Slightly disheartened, Lee's ear-to-ear smile now made him look like he was in a great deal of pain, although he struggled not to let it leave his face.

Genma gave up hoping that Lee would go and sit down, "It's very…green, Lee."

Lee gave a squeal and skipped over to his seat, beaming proudly.

Genma rolled his eyes and turned back to the rest of us, fingers intertwined with each other.

xXx

"Today's Friday, right?" I asked Tenten, walking along beside her on the way back to the dorms.

"Yup!" she grinned, "Tomorrow's the weekend!"

I gave a sigh of relief, and plopped myself down on my bed, staring at the ceiling.

Tenten muttered something, and I tilted my head up enough to see her go into the bathroom. School, however nice and happy it could be, was not something that I had ever been overly excited about. Why? Maybe simply because of the fact that it was school, and there's like one big gigantic stereotype that says everyone should hate school…or maybe there's simply one that says if you like school then you're a nerd…

I sighed, and turned on my side, staring at the blank wall beside me. I'd have to ask Tenten if there were any good poster shops around here, as staring at a black white wall every night when you try and sleep really isn't that nice.

I shut my eyes, trying to imagine what my side of the room could look like with a few posters and other things tacked up when knocking awoke me from my pre-weekend stupor.

"Sakura, is Tenten here?" Familiar lavender eyes peeked around the corner of my doorframe, looking around the room for a certain brown-haired girl. "I wanted to see if her arm was any better."

I yawned, pointing to the bathroom door from which I'd seen Tenten disappear behind.

He knocked.

No answer.

His knuckles bashed on the door for a second time and it swung open. For a second that seemed to pass by in slow motion, poor Neji simply stood there, normally large eyes stretched larger with shock. Blood spurted from his nose, and fainted over dead, a horrified Tenten clad in only a bra and underwear stared at him with as much shock as he'd stared at her with. Apparently she'd been running water for a bath or something, as the tub was full of water…probably the reason she hadn't heard him knock, I thought.

I glanced at the door Tenten had disappeared behind and rolled over again, staring at the wall as a flush-faced Tenten slammed the door. Neji lay on the floor in front of the bathroom, both eyes twitching. Because perverted Neji's so special, he has double-eye-twitching abilities.


Yeah, I know the update was late…please don't kill me! Exams are coming up, so i'm sorta stressed, but I promise i'll update more once they're over!

-Citree