"Shit."
An outside observer could have come to several conclusions as to why the blond had chosen to swear at that particular moment. The first thing to grab their attention would most likely have been the dropped cardboard box. Water-damaged with faded lettering and the distinct smell of mildew, the box had definitely seen better days. After the nice drop ending in a solemn thud, the cardboard had spilt with a sound not unlike the final gasp of a dying man (now, obviously, dead). A spill of magazines with names like Barely Legal and Twins, twins, twins filled the dorm hallway. This could easily be a cause for swearing.
Another simpler reason for the use of the word, "Shit." might have been the blond's clothing and appearance. Dust, grimy dorm substances, and (in the words of Jiraiya) God-know's-what else streaked the blonde's bright orange and blue getup. Ranging from charcoal to a lovely blue-green, the youth's tanned skin was liberally spotted, as well. However, considering what most of the smudges consisted of, pe rhaps, the use of the word, "Gross." or, "Disgusting." might have been more appropriate.
A brief note on grimy dorm substances, no one truly knows how they are produced. If one chose to examine them under a microscope, you would just see that splash of color. Using more and more power would only produce greater and greater splashes of color. No cells have ever been found, indicating that it is not alive. However, other tests have shown that it can move under its own power, affixing itself only to substances that appear to be enjoyed by people. In this case, Naruto enjoyed this particular T-shirt quite a lot. Broken in but not yet faded, soft from too many washes, it had been perfect. Although the dorm substances appear to discern between valuable and non-valuable, scientists are relatively certain that they aren't intelligent. I believe a direct statement consisted of something along the lines of this:
"We can't seem to find anything making these substances up. No molecules. No atoms. No matter how far we proceed down the structural ladder. Even though all that is seen is pure color, we know they aren't made up of light. Because light isn't that dreadfully hard to wash out of one's favorite pants. And mine were recently ruined by these substances during experimentation. Though they seem intelligent and impossible to defeat, there is no need to worry. We are taking precautions."
No one yet knows what precautions are being taken. But, we can and should all take solace in the fact that they are. Back to the story.
There is one last possible cause of the blond's invective, and it is the right one. The real reason behind, "Shit." is seven letters and a punctuation mark long.
UCHIHA S.
Sasuke was many things to Naruto, including opponent, best friend, pseudo-sibling, and chief tormentor. But, mostly, Sasuke was only a memory, or Naruto had thought that was the only role the angsty youth would be playing.
"There are just some things you can't understand, no matter how hard you try, Naruto."
"And one of those things is this trip, I assume. What do you think is going to happen when you find your brother, huh? Huh? Friggin' slow motion hugs, forgiveness, and love? My ass. I understand what's going to happen. I understand your situation. I even understand your need to see your idiot brother and the mess he's made of his life, but I can't understand why you're going through with it, when you know it can't end or even go well. Just try and tell me, maybe I..."
Shoving a paper in the blonde's face, "Fine, you idiot, you want to know why I need to go? You really want to know?" Anger darkened the brunette's features.
" I'm only 17. The death of my parents left me with just enough money to live and a small," he sneers, "allowance, But, Itachi controls the estate, and I don't have the kind of money needed to go to college."
Face beginning to burn in empathetic embarrassment, Naruto was realizing why Sasuke hadn't told him anything before. Mr. Self-Sufficient needed permission to go to college. As if, Sasuke was some ten year old who needed a signature to go on a class field trip to the zoo. The paper hiding Naruto's face was a bank slip.
"That fucking bastard would probably have drained the estate's account by now with his 'habits', but my parents knew how to invest. I need to go to college, Naruto. Knowledge IS power. With that power I can take the Uchiha estate from Itachi and the money that comes with it," placing his face in his hands, Sasuke vomited truth. Long, thin fingers curled into claws, tearing midnight hair.
" I can rebuild my family. I can bring honor back to the Uchiha name. You, you never really had a family, and you can never understand why I need this back. Need, Naruto, need.
"But, Itachi, the drugs, the sex, what if he..."
"What? Sells me for a fix?" mockery suffused the Uchiha boy's features, "We don't live in a crime drama, I can fucking protect myself."
"I'm never going to see you again," the blonde's eyes held an ocean of pain, threatening to sweep away the youth, "you're my best friend." He pauses, "You're my only friend."
The black-haired Sasuke sighed, bags in hand. Then, a look of resignation is replaced by one of the utmost cruelty, a mask of cruelty.
"Is that what you thought? Heh. Idiot."
Naruto's face warmed to a brilliant red, a red of embarrassment, a red of anger, a red of a breath too long held.
"That's how you feel? Then go, just fucking get out of my life. You, bastard.."
A door clicks shut.
A door clicks shut.
"Hey...dobe."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Hey...dobe"
"Hel...oh, hey, Temari."
Turning back to a tilting tower of CDs, Gaara continued to stack them, one after the other. Occassionally, he would squeeze a little glue onto the back of a case, before placing it on top of the next. As the curvy blonde edged her way into the room, the redheaded boy began to loop lights around his lopsided tower.
"You know, that thing is going to fall over, and all of your cases are going to get ruined."
"Glued them."
"How are you going to get the CDs out, when you want to listen to them?"
The redhead just held up a giant CD booklet, in response. Liner notes and handwritten comments were sticking out from nearly every sheaf. There had to be over 300 CDs in the overflowing case.
"Ahhh, so why did you decide to..."
"It looks good doesn't it?"
"Well, yeah, but..."
"I needed something to occupy my head and hands. I was getting a little anxious."
"Sorry Kankuro couldn't be here. He had practice...you know, he really wants you to come to his show this weekend...he even got you tickets. You know, in case, you make a friend your first week here."
An Andy Warhol print of a banana in one hand and a can of spray paint in the other, Gaara stared blankly at the blonde stranger, who was his sister. Obviously uncomfortable by his lack of response, Temari sighed and shifted her feet. Quickly, she placed the tickets on top of a nearby desk.
"Well, I will just leave them here. He, I mean, we really hope you will come. We haven't got to see you a lot since we left home. We should have come back more often, but...well, yeah."
With another sigh and a look somewhere between disappointment and uneasiness, Temari made her way to the door.
"Bye, little brother."
"Hm."
For a second, the only sound in the room was the hiss of the aerosol can as it sprayed a violent red onto Warhol's work. The sound of steady spray becomes staccato.
Clack-clack-click-clack
Hands shook.
Can dropped.
Memories flooded.
Breathe in and out, Gaara, in and out. You don't need tears. You don't need to bleed. You just need to breathe. Pick up the can. If you need to bleed, bleed the emotions onto the canvas. Pick up the can. They can't know what happened, when they left. They can't know, and expect you to be able to look them in the eyes again. Pick up the can. What if they do know? What if they just feel sorry for me? What if they know and are disgusted by me? They hate me. I know it. They were the only ones I had left and now they, and now they, and now they...
"Pick up the fucking can!"
"Um, ok...here you go," muttered a voice that brought to mind honey and warm, fuzzy blankets on cold winter nights. Gaara was so startled by this second intrusion into his thoughts, all he could think was that the voice made him feel woozy, and the last thing in the world he wanted to do was turn around and confront the speaker.
Delicate, long-fingered hands wrapped around the words Vauxhall came into the petrified redhead's view.
Piano hands, thought Gaara.
"Thanks, um..." mumbled the redhead, still facing his improved Warhol. Noone had heard him panic like that in years. The small hope that Sakura and Lee had stoked in his chest, the hope that he might be able to be accepted, even have friends, was drenched in reality. It was going out.
My only chance, and I blow it in the first day.
"No worries. It's my own fault for barging into your room. I was just looking for an old friend, who is your roommate, I guess."
No response.
"I apologize for disturbing you. I'll just leave now, I guess."
A combination of curiosity, startlement, and a burst of spontaneous insanity forced Gaara to break out of his "deer in the headlights" freeze. He turned around.
"I...umm, erm."
Beauty, harsh, terrible, almond, pout.
Lilacs, thought Gaara.
"It isn't your fault," Gaara cleared his throat, "I was caught in tortured artist mode. It wasn't you that I was yelling at...thanks for the help though." It would have been difficult to say who was more surprised with Gaara's response, the boy in the doorway or himself.
He looks like someone hit him over the head with a two-by-four, mused Gaara.
"My name is Gaara," and I didn't even stutter.
As if a mad scientist threw the right switch, the boy in the doorway came to life. Extending one of his piano hands, he took one of Gaara's in greeting.
"Hello, Gaara. The name is Neji. So, you're an artist, huh?"
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"Nara Shikamaru," said the steely-eyed woman over a beige folder, bursting with IQ tests, psychological exams, but a distinct lack of recommendations. The office surrounding the duo was a combination of mess and function. A battered wooden desk seperated the dark youth from the head of the department of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. Scattered with papers, half-eaten candy bars, and countless coffee cups. it looked kind of like a NY alleyway: dark, dirty, and dangerous to traverse at night. Actually, making one's way through it was probably dangerous at any time of the day.
Leaning back in a chair as dilapidated as the desk, the woman began, "Nara, huh? With three majors and none of them in the medical field? Strange." Looking up from the mess, Mitarashi Anko stared at her young protege.
"As you know already, but I am going to repeat because I can and you have to listen, you are not the average student. I think, they want me to use the term, "special case", but since I don't think you appreciate the overtones of mental deficiency, let's just put it bluntly. You are extremely intelligent. Even if your past grades don't back that up. You ace tests but never bother with homework. Your IQ is off the charts, but emotionally you are stunted. Your entrance exams were, to be frank, frighteningly perfect.'
Pause. No movement.
Anko continues with a blink and a sigh.
"You have the ambitious goal of three majors in four years. This is made even more arduous by the extra responsibilities the college had placed on your shoulders, when we decided to accept your application. In addition to regular meetings with your advisor, Sarutobi Asuma, you will also attend weekly therapy sessions with Morino Ibiki, regular check-ups with me, and the meetings of an extracurricular organization of your choice. We want you to succeed. We want to help you do what you want with your life. I trust you won't disappoint us by choosing to sleep through college like you dazed through high school."
Small but fierce, thought Shikamaru.
"To be honest, I am only concerned with fulfilling my own expectations. But, I wouldn't worry," the brown youth smirked, "we seem to have similar paths, if not goals in mind."
Getting up from her desk and walking around the mess, Anko sat on the edge in front of Shikamaru. With a single finger, she lifted the boy's chin, so that their eyes would be on the same level and only inches apart.
"One more thing. You may be a little genius but your attitude is shit. You haven't done anything to deserve that kind of arrogance, Nara. All that you have lived so far is a life of dreams and masturbations. Until you earn that smirk, you better wipe it off your fucking face. Or somebody might just do it for you."
Turning back to her own personal Chernobyl, she picked up the rest of a Mars bar, taking a bite. Through all of the chocolately goodness, she mumbled, "And I would suggest making that extracurricular activity a defense class. You seem like the kind of kid that would need it. Next meeting with me is in four days. Now," tossing the wrapper casually towards a wastebasket and missing, Anko glanced back at Shikamaru, "get out of my office."
Quietly shutting the door behind him, Shikamaru leaned back against it.
I think my life is finally going to get interesting.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"So, a week ago, I came back home to the uncle, the girlfriend, and the future I never asked for."
Mounting Gaara's now-finished work of sprayed paint, Neji had been talking and hanging out in the dorm room for thirty-four minutes. Gaara was counting. Finishing up with a wipe of the hands and leaping from desk to floor, Neji stretched out on the bed across from Gaara. And with look of bemused chagrin,
"How did you did you do that?"
Tearing his attention away from the sketchobook in his lap, Gaara peered over at Neji with the look of a puppy that hasn't been toilet-trained and was left alone in the house too long. He knew he had done something wrong, but he couldn't say what.
"How did I do what?"
"Get me to tell you my entire life story...and bore the crap out of you for half an hour."
With a shrug of his slim shoulders, Gaara's face seemed to brighten. Good dog.
"I wasn't bored. Your life is like a fairy tale compared to...well, never mind."
Neji pushed himself up to a sitting position, leaning back on his hands. With a look of concern at Gaara's pause, "Compared to...what? Your life?"
Seeing the nearly imperceptible discomfort twinge the redhead's features, Neji's brow drew together in a concern. He couldn't tell you where the concern came from. Only that it was there.
"I have never met anyone like you. Most people I know are emotional exhibitionists. If you can believe it, I am the reserved one out of the bunch." Neji paused with a self-effacing grin.
That expression looks like its never been used before, thought Gaara.
"It is nice to meet somebody who doesn't vomit their feelings all over you. But I still hope to hear your story one day," embarassment disguised as haughtiness was creeping into the boy's voice. Staring at the tiny redhead, who was curled up, scratching up sketches, Neji threw off the reddening pride and became bemused for the second time that day. Muttering to himself, Neji whispered, "Who would have thought I would come up here looking for a few old acquaintances and would find a friend instead."
"But, anyways, I think we are about to have company..."
At that moment, pink hair and a bowl cut shuffled into the room.
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Next door.
"Hey...dobe."
Who knew two words could cause such a physical reaction.
There were so many emotions filling Naruto's body that he wondered why he wasn't exploding. With his back to the speaker, the blond was ready to burst, burst into tears, burst into laughter, burst into shouts. How dare you come back! How could you say those things and still think I would even condescend to speak to you! Anger, anxiety, and fear threatened to tear Naruto apart. So, he did the only thing he could, in this particular situation.
Naruto wrapped Sasuke in the tightest hug that he could manage over the broken box of pornography between them.
"Who do you think you are calling an idiot?"
Softly, almost too quietly for Naruto to hear, Sasuke whispered in relief, "My best friend."