And I'm back! Kinda. Thank you again to everyone who has either followed or favorited this story! This chapter gave me quite a headache to write and I'm honestly pretty disappointed in it but what can ya do? Again thank you for reading and if you enjoyed please leave a review to let me know! Any ideas that you would like to contribute to the story are always welcomed!

S Lyubov'yu,

Casper

Sakura woke with a start the minute her phone decided it was time to get out of bed and get ready for school. She had to resist the urge to smash the innocent device into a million pieces and go back to sleep, but alas that wasn't an option. After the events that had occurred outside to Deidara's apartment the night before she'd found it exceedingly difficult to fall asleep the night before. Not only had she shown more emotion in ten minutes than she had in the last month, but she'd actually decked a dude twice her size and not gotten the crap beaten out of her in return. And what was more confusing was the fact that it had been Sasuke's ever missing brother that she had had the gall to hit. Without a legit reason, she reminded herself.

Deciding it was too early to think back on such things, the pink haired teen reached across her pillow and grabbed her phone before turning off the obnoxious alarm. Slowly stretching, she couldn't help but sigh when she felt her back pop. She quickly threw her blankets off her body before making her way towards her bathroom for a quick shower. She was lucky, she didn't like taking longer than needed showers. Just a quick soak, suds up, rinse, condition and wash body, rinse once more, and get your ass out of the tub. She quickly rid herself of her pajamas and turned the shower on and waited until the water heated to a near scalding temperature, the last thing she wanted this morning was to get sprayed with near freezing water. It was quite an unpleasant feeling, she'd learned from experience.

Once she was satisfied that her body was clean, she shut the water off and reached for the towel she had placed on the back of the toilet and wrapped it around her midsection before exiting her bathroom and heading back toward her bedroom. After quickly drying her body she quickly grabbed a clean pair of undergarments and slid them on before using her towel to dry her hair. With one hand keeping the towel in place on her head, Sakura walked over to her closet and stared into its confines to figure out what she was going to wear on her first day. Deciding that she wanted to draw as little attention to herself as possible, she settled for a plain black cotton shirt and a pair of skinny blue jeans. With there being nothing special about her outfit, people were sure to leave her alone. She just wanted to get through her final year of high school and be done with the whole ordeal. After quickly dressing herself and combing her hair she decided it was time to get some breakfast into her system before it was time for her to head towards her school.

After settling for a boring breakfast of buttered toast and a glass of orange juice, Sakura grabbed her backpack and her keys and slid her feet into a pair of purple high topped shoes and stepped out into the hallway of her apartment building. The hallway was pretty quiet but she figured that most people wouldn't be up at seven in the morning unless they absolutely had to be. After quickly locking her front door and placing her keys into her pocket, she made her way down the hallway, down the stairs, and out of her apartment building. If memory served, her new high school was only about a ten minute walk from her building, in the opposite direction of the park she had found recently. Deciding that it was time to get this over with, Sakura steeled her nerves and began her short walk towards her new school.

After an uneventful walk to school, Sakura couldn't help but be a bit intimidated by the sheer size of the place. She couldn't help but figured that she could fit at least four of her old high schools into the building. She was sure she was going to get lost at least once before the final bell of the day rang. She quickly made her way up the stairs leading the the entrance and made a beeline in the general direction that she suspected the main office would be. After about five minutes of walking, she easily found her way to the doors of the office. She was surprised that in her short walk through the school that she hadn't run into a single student, sure she was early but she didn't think she was early enough to be the only student in the building. Shrugging her shoulders, she decided it wasn't her problem if people wanted to come at the last minute. Realizing that she was just standing outside the door to the office, she sighed and opened the door and stepped inside.

She couldn't help but notice how utterly typical the office looked, main desk right in front of her, what seemed like a conference room to her right, and a door the her left that was obviously the principals office. The plaque on the door to her left read "Tsunade", she could only assume that the principal of this school preferred to be called by their first name rather than their last. Good, that was less that she had to remember. She quietly walked up the the secretaries desk in front of her and waited for the black haired woman to stop typing and look up from her computer. What did secretaries even do on their computers, she wondered. Probably played a lot of Mine Sweeper, not that anyone actually knew how the damn game was played.

"Why hello there, I assume you are Miss Haruno the new transfer student?", the secretary asked, not looking up from whatever she was doing at her computer.

"Yes, that's me. I was wondering if I could get my schedule and my locker number and combo?", Sakura responded quietly.

A few clicks and the hum of the printer behind her later, the secretary handed Sakura the papers she had requested. Sakura quickly scanned over her schedule, committing her classes to memory and easily memorizing her lockers combination. How hard could 5-2-13 be to remember? Murmuring a soft thank you, the pink haired teen turned around and exited the office to begin her search for her locker. She had apparently been in there a lot longer than it had seemed since there was now a bunch of students wandering the hallways and depositing things in their lockers. She looked down at the papers in her hand and figured her locker should be just down the hall from her.

After a short walk and a few instances of dodging random bodies of people who weren't paying attention to their surroundings later, Sakura found her locker and quickly deposited everything she wouldn't need for her first class into the confines of the metal prison. She shut the door to her locker quietly and turned to head to her first class when she felt herself run into a body. Slowly she lifted her head so she could apologize profusely, she was greeted with a sight that she could have sworn she'd seen before. Bright red unruly hair, brown eyes, a bored expression, where had she seen him before.

"I'm sorry!", she squeaked.

"It's quite alright, little girl.", the red head responded, smirking slightly at her fidgeting. Twice in one week she had run into him, sadly she didn't seem to recognize him.

"I'm no little girl! You're hardly taller than me!", she frowned.

She was about to rip into him further but the telltale ring of the morning bell signaled her that it was time for her to head towards the classroom. After sidestepping around the redhead, she quickly made her way down the hall towards her first class of the day.

Math, the biggest asshole of all educational institutions. Ninety percent of what she was going to learn in this class wasn't anything she was even going to use in everyday life. What the hell was knowing how to find the diameter of a circle going to further her future as a doctor? Exactly, it wasn't. But, she wasn't about to skip her first class on her first day at her new school. Wouldn't that just be a beautiful impression on her new teachers and fellow students? Sighing, she pushed open the door to the classroom and took the furthest seat from the front, in the way back right next to the window. Not that there was much to look at sadly, but it was better than having to stare at the backs of the heads of a bunch of people she didn't know. And a part of her didn't even want to know them. She wanted her friends back home, but they'd yet to contact her since she moved to Iwa. Maybe a few new friends wouldn't hurt? She inwardly sighed at the thought.

She was broken out of her thoughts by the bell ringing once again, signaling the students that it was time for class to begin. Oh joy, here we go! She could hear students jumping off of desks and taking their seats as the teacher walked into the classroom. She spared him a quick glance and couldn't help but quirk an eyebrow at his appearance. He had gravity defying silver hair, wore a strange mask that hid most of his face, and wore a black eye patch over his left eye. What struck her as odd more than anything was the fact that he was carrying around a popular smut series book in his hand. You didn't have to be an adult to know what the cover of an Icha Icha book looked like. How the hell did he think that bringing such a book to a classroom full of hormonal teenagers was a good idea? Oh well, wasn't her problem in the slightest. With a shrug of her shoulders, she returned her gaze out the window and waited for him to notice her. She kind of hoped he wouldn't.

"Wow Sensei, you aren't late for once.", a student with blond hair commented, a few other students chuckled with amusement.

"Ahh well, I didn't want to make too bad of an impression on our new students you see.", the teacher replied, his eye crinkling in what could be assume was caused by him smiling.

"You mean there's more than one?", another student spoke up.

Sakura tried to shrink herself down in her seat, maybe if she slid down far enough the teacher wouldn't notice her.

"We have two new students actually. It would seem one is already in here. I couldn't say where the other one is though...", the silver haired man replied.

Before anybody else could wonder where the other transfer student was, the door to the classroom opened and Sakura was greeted with the sight of the red head that she had run into before she had gotten to class. Just her luck.

"My apologies for being late, I seem to have lost my way while heading to the classroom", the red head said, his bored look never wavering.

"No problem at all, the school is quite easy to get lost in. While you are up here why don't you introduce yourself before I have the other newbie introduce herself.", Sensei replied.

"My name is Sasori, a pleasure I'm sure.", Sasori said before sitting in an empty desk two seats away from Sakura, leaving an empty seat in between them. It seemed the other students tried to avoid sitting in the back of the class if they could avoid it. Sasori didn't seem too bothered by that.

"Now then, would our other new student like to stand up and introduce themselves?", Sensei asked.

Sighing, Sakura stood up, her eyes never leaving the window," My name is Sakura Haruno, a pleasure." She sat back down in her desk and propped her chin in the palm of her hand.

"Pleasure to meet the two of you and welcome to Iwa. I'm Kakashi Hatake. Either call me Kakashi or Sensei, I don't really care which.", Kakashi stated.,"Now if everyone will open their text books to page 394 we can begin."

Her classes seemed to blue together, after four more classes it was finally time for lunch. Not that she was really all that hungry but everybody could use a break after sitting on their ass for five hours. The only time she'd really moved around was either between classes when she had to, or when her teachers wanted her to stand up and introduce herself yet again to basically all the same people. It all seemed a bit pointless to her, but she wasn't about to tell her teacher that. She didn't need everybody thinking she was a bitch or too good for them. Especially on her first day, if they wanted to think of her like that in the future, they could go right ahead. But on her first day? That would be just annoying.

Deciding that sitting outside would be nice and quite, Sakura made her way towards the courtyard to find herself a nice shady tree to sit against. She reached into her backpack and pulled out a book and flipped it to the page she had left off on. She had a thirty minute lunch period so she might as well catch up on some reading while she had the chance, considering with the sheer amount of homework she had been assigned already there was no way she was going to get any reading done when she got home later.

She couldn't help but sigh when she heard foot steps crunching through the grass and started to look up when she saw a pair of legs stop about a foot away from where she was sitting. She quickly marked her page, so much for reading. She looked up and raised an eyebrow when she realized that her visitor was none other than Sasori.

"Something I can help you with, Sasori?", she asked with a small smile.

"Mind if I sit? It would seem I've attracted a fan club and they are beginning to try my patience.", he smirked.

"Sure, why not, it isn't like I own the tree or anything. You don't have to ask.", the pinkette returned his smirk.

Sasori let out a soft chuckle before taking a seat next to Sakura. He couldn't help but find the pink haired girl interesting. She was kind and polite but hadn't spoken to anybody but the teachers all day. Except for himself when she had bumped into him this morning. It wasn't like people hadn't tried to talk to her either, many of the boys in class had tried to get her attention but she hadn't given them so much as a glance. Girls had tried to gossip with her but had been greeted with the same result. Not even so much as a glance. But when he spoke to her, she actually looked at him and responded. Score one for Sasori, random ass kids zero.

"So, how's your day so far Sakura? I see you haven't spoken to much of anyone all day. There a reason for that?", Sasori asked, he had to ask.

"It's fine. The only reason I haven't talked to anybody, aside from you and the teachers, is because I can tell that the males only want one thing from me. And I'm sorry, but they're better off looking somewhere else if they want some easy girl to sleep with. And as for the girls, I could really care less about who is dating who or who did what. I don't know them, nor do I care to, so why would I even offer a response. You know?", Sakura responded with a smile.

"How do you know I am not like the other boys and want such a thing from you?," he smirked.

Sakura rolled her eyes,"Really? You don't look like the kind of guy who would even want to put in that kind of effort with anybody."

"True indeed.", he chuckled.

The two fell into a comfortable silence. Sakura pulled her book back out and continued reading where she had left off. Sasori on the other hand, reached into his own bag and pulled out a sketchbook and began to draw. Few words were exchanged and neither of the two were bothered. Sadly their peaceful quiet had to end and the bell signaling that lunch was over rang. Both let out a sigh and put their books back in their bags before standing up.

"What class do you have next, Sasori?", Sakura asked, so far she had only had once class with him and that was math.

"Physical Education, but I was entertaining the thought of ditching that class.", Sasori answered.

"Ugh, me too. Come to class so I don't have to suffer alone", Sakura groaned.

"Fine, fine, only because you asked so nicely.", he chuckled.

After a quick run to their respective lockers, the duo made their way towards the locker rooms to change into their gym cloths. Again, Sakura thanked the gods that there wasn't a standard uniform for this class. She inwardly shuttered at the thought of having to wear anything remotely close to her old schools gym uniform. Those godforsaken uniforms had left little to the imagination and were horribly uncomfortable. After switching out her regular clothing for a plain white t-shirt and a black pair of basketball shorts she made her way out of the locker room.

She hid her surprise when she saw that Sasori had waited outside the locker room for her instead of heading off towards to gym without her. Nodding her thanks the two made their way to the gym and started their stretches together, away from all of the other students. She didn't know why, but she felt more comfortable with Sasori than she had with anybody else in quite some time. But rather than question it, she accepted it. Yes, nobody could replace the friends she had back home but perhaps having a friend or two at school couldn't hurt. After all, Sasori wasn't douche-y like the other boys that had tried to talk to her since she got to school. He was calm and soft spoken, he didn't make unneeded comments and didn't ask her stupid questions. He was the complete opposite from all the other boys she had encountered today.

It seemed as if the gods had taken mercy on their souls since the gym teacher, a rather eccentric man with a black bowl cut and a green jump suit, declared that they should all show off their 'youthfullness' by having a free day in the gym. Both asked themselves if 'youthfullness' was even a word but were grateful nonetheless. Deciding that they were going to take advantage of the free day, the duo quickly made their way to the bleachers and parked their asses on them for the duration of the period. The watched the other students and quietly laughed like children every time someone was either nailed in the head with a ball or when someone tripped over their shoelaces and face planted. The two didn't exchange any words but their silence wasn't an uncomfortable one. Like during lunch, it was quite peaceful.

They both resisted the urge to praise the gods when the bell signaling the end of the period rang. Though they didn't do anything but sit on the bleachers and laugh at other students ridiculous antics, the class wasn't exactly something they wanted to sit in all day. They both rose from their seats and they quickly made their way back to the locker rooms to change back into their regular cloths. Both not bothering to bring their gym cloths home to wash, considering all they did was sit in them for an hour.

"There's only one class left for the day, what do you have next?", Sasori asked, secretly hoping she'd have his last class with him. He had noticed that when she was with him his annoying little fan club left him alone.

"Art is my last class of the day, please tell me you'll be joining me.", Sakura groaned, she really didn't want to be in that class with all the other students. Plus after secretly peeking at his sketch book earlier, she really wanted to see just how artistic her new red headed friend was.

"Looks like we have the same class next, I won't lie. I was really hoping I wouldn't be stuck in that class alone.", the red head chuckled.

Sakura nodded in agreement and the two quickly made their way towards the art room.

The duo found the art room with little difficulty and made their way to the back of the classroom and sat at one of the tables next to each other. Both were eternally grateful that nobody took the two seats in front of them. They weren't going to complain about having the entire table to themselves. When the bell rang once again, the two opened their respective sketchbooks and began drawing whatever seemed ideal at that moment. While Sakura herself wasn't much of an artist, she wasn't terrible either. Sasori on the other hand, she had to resist the urge to gape at the beauty of his drawings.

"Alright class, your assignment today is to draw your table partner. If the table is full, figure out yourselves who is going to draw who. I want your rough sketches by the end of the period.", the art teacher, Asuma said before looking over the previous periods works.

"Alright, do you want to draw me first or do you want to go first? I'll warn you, I'm not that great at drawing", Sakura mumbled, slightly embarrassed that she was going to have to attempt to draw her new friend.

"I'm sure it'll be fine but if it makes you feel better, I'll go first", Sasori offered, he couldn't help but be slightly amused by her embarrassment. She couldn't be as bad as one of his old friends, now that brat was terrible at drawing, he should stick to his clay.

"If you don't mind. Just don't laugh at my end result when it's my turn, alright?", she mumbled. If she was going to draw Sasori she was really going to need to mentally prepare herself. She couldn't decide if drawing the outline of his unruly hair was going to be more difficult than drawing his seemingly ever present bored look. She'd just have to grit her teeth and deal with it.

Nodding his head in understanding, he reached for his pencil and began his drawing. Other than the occasional comment about her fidgeting, Sasori focused solely on the drawing before him. It only took him about fifteen minute to get her outlining done and another five to add her facial features. When he finished he slid his finished product over to the pink haired teen and couldn't help the smug smirk that graced his lips when she openly gaped at the drawing.

"Sasori, you being this good at drawing should be illegal, this only proves that I'm going to butcher my drawing of you.", she groaned.

"Just do your best Sakura, I promise I won't laugh.", he chuckled.

Sighing, she decided it was better to just get this over with. There was a half hour left of the period and if she was going to make an ass out of herself with her drawing skills, she was going to do it with dignity. After a moment of mental preparation, she set to work on her drawing. Surprisingly enough, his hair wasn't as difficult as she had thought it was going to be. After drawing the slant of his nose, she started his eyes, which she was again surprised to find that they didn't look half bad either. Instead of drawing his perpetual look of boredom, she decided that the smug bastard was going to sport that smirk of his. She herself smirked at the thought.

After another fifteen minutes, she deducted that it was good enough and slid it towards the red head. She waited nervously for him to start laughing at her skill, even though he had promised that he wouldn't. When no sound came from his lips, Sakura chanced a look at her partner and raised an eyebrow at him. The bastard was smirking at her drawing.

"I know it's terrible. Shut up.", she muttered.

"Actually, it's quite the opposite, sure it could be better but it's actually not that bad.", he complimented.

Sakura was sure she was hearing things, the artistic genius sitting next to her had complimented her art. What the hell? Did she hear him right?

Sasori chuckled softly at her confused expression before standing from his seat and went to hand their drawings into the teacher. When he came back, he reclined back in his chair and waited for the end of the day bell to ring. If memory served, it should be ringing any second now. He noticed that when he had gotten up to turn in their drawings, Sakura had pulled her book out and had started reading again. He closed his eyes and waited for the bell to ring.

About five minutes later the end of the day bell rang and every student quickly made their way out the door and rushed towards their lockers. It seemed Sakura and Sasori weren't the only ones eager to be freed from the confines of the school building.

"So, any plans after school?", Sakura asked.

"Going to go visit my grandmother and then get all this godforsaken homework done. After that, I don't have a clue. You?", he said, raising an eyebrow.

"Going to get all this homework done and then probably nothing. I just moved to town and so far the only people I know are you and my neighbor. And my neighbor is quite...interesting.", she smirked.

"Well, why don't we exchange phone numbers and if we feel like we're going to die of boredom we'll find something to do?", he suggested.

Nodding, Sakura reached inside her pocket and handed Sasori her phone with an open contact open. He gave her his phone as well and the duo set to work on putting their numbers into each others phones and picking their own ring and text tones. When both were satisfied that everything was perfect, they handed the phones back to the respective owners.

"Well, my place is that way", Sakura said, pointing to the right.

"And mine is that way.", Sasori responded, pointing to the left.

"Meet you at the gates in the morning?", she asked.

"Agreed.", he nodded.

Both exchanged quick goodbyes and parted towards their homes. Both were deep in thought, they both couldn't believe that within three hours the two had become friends. It felt like they had known each other for years, instead of a few hours. Neither teen was going to complain about that fact though, they quickly found that they enjoyed each others company. The silences were far from uncomfortable and they both found that the other was quite humorous in their own way.

Both couldn't help but think that maybe transferring to Iwa wasn't as bad as they had thought.

"Hey Deidara, you free tonight? Once I get all my homework done, I'm not going to have much of anything to do" Send.

Buzz buzz

"I'm free tonight, yeah. Come over whenever. Maybe I'll introduce you to my cute new neighbor, un." Send.

Buzz Buzz

"Sounds good, brat. I'll text you when I'm on my way over." Send.

Whooooo Another chapter done! This is by far the longest chapter I've ever written for anything. And I'm not even satisfied with it. But what is a girl to do? Oh well, as always. If you enjoyed, review, favorite, and follow! I don't have a beta for this story so if there are any mistakes that I missed I'm sorry! If there are mistakes, let me know so I can fix them, yeah?