To everything, there is a season.
-Ecclesiastes 3
Naruto's pretty sure the universe hated him for some reason.
He had parted ways with Neji in good spirits, with more confidence that he ought to have; but the excess energy caused him to open the door with more force than necessary, and he was met with every pair of eyes in the room.
Smile, Neji's voice rang in his head.
He cracked a nervous grin and scanned the room, when he saw a flash of pink. In that split second, his world came crumbling down once again.
Of course. He just had to be classmates with Sakura.
Feet like lead, Naruto slunk his way over to the back of the classroom and sank into the seat next to the window. He could hear the blood pounding in his ears.
"Hey, pretty boy."
Naruto paused. Someone was talking to him. He slowly raised his head.
"Never seen you before, blondie. You must be new."
Naruto tried to work his jaw past the shock of having someone strike a conversation... and the shock of seeing a person with tattoos on their goddamned face.
"…pretty boy?" he croaked instead.
"He speaks!" The boy dropped heavily into the seat across him. He was tall and heavily built, as if he had spent his lifetime eating meat with the intention of becoming a wrestler. He smelled of sun and, to Naruto's slight horror, a little bit of dog. "What's your name?"
"Who are you calling pretty?" Naruto scowled. "Who are you?"
The boy frowned at him. "I asked you first. Didn't your mother ever teach you manners?"
Naruto felt himself go white and then red-hot as the boy's words hit a familiar nerve.
He doesn't have a mother!
Why don't you go crying to your mommy?
Oh wait-you don't have one!
Or-phan. Or-phan. Naruto's an or-phan.
"I wouldn't bother talking to him." A familiar voice spoke up from the center of the room. Naruto whipped a glare towards Sakura, who was looking casually at her nails. "Guys like him, so ill-mannered, so… uncultured. You can guess what kind of family he is from. Or, well… isn't from."
The entire room had now fallen silent, watching the two new-comers drama.
Naruto clutched at his pants, nails digging painfully into his palms to stifle the cry of rage and despair that was trying to claw its way out of his mouth. She was doing it again. She was ruining his life.
"Oi."
There was a small cry of alarm and a flurry of movement as a dark figure parted the crowd like the red sea. Naruto kept his eyes pinned on the table, humiliation and anger raging inside him, barely controlled. A dark shadow falling over his desk finally forced him to look up. He was met with a murderous expression and a shock of blood-red hair.
"Move," The pale boy muttered, voice like sand-paper.
At that, Naruto physically felt his temper snapping.
"Who the hell are you?" He said rudely.
The boy—the other boy, the one who smelled of dog—had long since vacated his seat and backed away, eyeing the red-head warily.
"This is my seat." Came the cold reply, blood-shot eyes staring him down. "Move."
"I don't see your fucking name on it." Naruto crossed his arms defiantly. "I got here first. This is my seat. Deal with it."
"Blondie." The dog-boy slowly said, eyes sliding between the two figures locked in a staring contest. "Give Sabaku the goddamn seat for god's sakes."
"No." Naruto replied stubbornly.
The other boy narrowed his eyes dangerously, and Naruto tensed, his body instinctively reacting in fight-or-flight. The blood was roaring in his ears again. He had dealt with a lifetime of bullies. This was just another one.
"Good morning."
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief as the tension broke upon the arrival of their teacher, who took one look at the scene and waved a placating hand.
"Making friends with the new kid? Good, good. I see you've met Gaara. Make nice now, he's gonna be your new seatmate for the semester. Isn't that great?"
Naruto scowled back at Gaara's death glare and tossed his head as the red-head stiffly took the seat next to him.
"I'll kill you." Gaara murmured softly.
"You can try." Naruto muttered back, sinking lower into his seat. "I'll haunt you to your grave, you bastard."
They spent the rest of the class in utter silence, which was totally fine with Naruto, since he had no intention of picking fights if he could help it. He took this time to study his new classmates, making a mental note that Sakura seemed to have found herself a new group, and that the blond-ponytail was her new best friend. The dog-boy, who now sat with his back to Naruto, was resolutely not looking at him. Naruto tried not to take it personally.
After all, he should have known this would happen.
Naruto was having a nightmare.
He dreamt that he was in a classroom in a new school in the city, and that he was in the same class as Sakura. He felt the crippling sensation one only got in nightmares, and he was helpless to watch her slowly poison the well. Eyes—cold, hard, merciless eyes. He could feel them like brands on his skin.
"Hey."
Naruto tried to sink deeper into himself. No. He didn't want to listen to any more abuse. Hadn't he had enough for a lifetime? He'd rather spend the rest of his high school being ignored.
"Hey, blondie."
Naruto slowly opened his eyes. Wooden desk. Unfamiliar face. Tattoos. That's right. It wasn't a dream. The nightmare was real.
"Are you okay?" The dog-boy whispered. "You don't look so good. You're sweating a lot."
Naruto didn't feel very good either, but that was probably the left-over nausea from the over-all shittiness of his life. He barely noticed the classroom door opening and the explosion of excited whispers in the room.
"Uchiha." Their teacher—Kakashi—sighed. "You're late."
"I'm sorry. The council meeting took longer than expected."
"What were you even doing in the council meeting?"
Naruto glanced up just as a dark-haired boy stepped into the classroom with a careless shrug. The dog-boy made a tetchy sound under his breath.
"Damn. Uchiha's in our class. Goodbye, peaceful days of youth."
But Naruto was too busy realizing that the nausea wasn't simply a psychological one anymore.
"Sensei…" Naruto rose shakily from his seat. The room began to tilt sideways. "T-toilet…"
"Blondie!"
"Oi!"
Naruto registered a sense of vertigo, jet-black hair and pale, moonlight skin, before darkness enveloped him with whisper of wings and a vague sense of birds in mid-flight.
