So... been really busy lately. I felt that I should finish this chapter, though, just because it's been half-finished for a couple of weeks. Sorry. Both of my senior major works are due in in the next two months, so I might be MIA for a while. Don't worry, I have too many good ideas for this story to abandon it now.
You may have noticed that I changed the first few chapters to accommodate for some changed I made in the time scene. Now, high school for the kids ends in two months instead of two weeks. Thanks heaps to Tasogare-no-Raikou, my fellow KH fanfic writer, for her incomparable help in the set-up for the coming chapters. She's American, and I'm Australian... she's been a huge help with my understanding of high school over there. CURSES I SHOULD HAVE SET IT IN A COUNTRY WHERE I COULD MAKE UP MY OWN EDUCATION SCHEME!
I've also changed my writer tag name. This is because some unmentioned people from my high school somehow tracked down my page and, in the interests of surviving the next few months without being unnecessarily ridiculed for the fact that I write homosexual fiction, I changed the name to preserve my privacy.
Without any more waffle to cloud your brains, on with the show!
Sasuke stumbled into Gym at exactly ten o'clock, still mulling over the earlier events. He had chosen the class instead of an introduction to religion, and Suigetsu had taken it too because he didn't hold much store in religion. It was one of the few classes that the two of them didn't have with Karin, who, for some crazy reason, had chosen religion.
His silver-haired friend was already changed into his gym clothes, but a completely inactive form in the bleachers. Sasuke pulled a face at the slumped person and entered the locker room.
It was empty. Sasuke opened his locker and grabbed his sneakers, shorts and T-shirt, changed quickly, shoved his school clothes back into the locker, and walked back out.
His class was slowly trickling through the gym doors and migrating towards the locker rooms. Sasuke stepped out of the way, and walked over to where Suigetsu was piled in a heap.
"Oi."
"Grargh," Suigetsu growled. "Go away, neutral person."
"You are hungover!"
"Funny how it only kicks in when I need it least," Suigetsu replied, rubbing his face in his hands. "Oh well. If Gai still hates me as much as he did yesterday, I may as well get up and face the music."
"That's the spirit," Sasuke grinned, turning back towards the gym centre and the bowl-haired man who had just entered from the lobby.
Gai, whose last name was not known nor desired, was the most brutal, sickeningly happy, abhorrently fit and obliviously cruel man Sasuke had ever met. This was merely made worse by the fact that his nephew, Lee, was in senior year and merely intensified the previous adjectives in Sasuke's daily life.
The rest of the class was gathering loosely around Gai, who was beaming out at all of them. Sasuke gulped involuntarily.
"All right, kids, you know what time it is..."
A collective groan rose up from the assembled students.
"Go on, you lazy children, run! RUUUUUNNNNN!" Gai shrieked.
"Holy fuck," Suigetsu groaned. Sasuke agreed half-heartedly as they started to run.
They ran around the gym twice before the flies started to drop off. Kids from the class began to veer off to the side, looking green, and then rush to the bathroom. Soon, there were just two left – Sasuke and Suigetsu.
Sasuke stopped running, and turned to his best friend. "So you're not that hungover after all, huh?"
Suigetsu grinned, also coming to a halt. "Nope! I feel fantas – urghhh..." He doubled over, his hands over his mouth.
"Bathroom, now," Gai ordered from behind them. Suigetsu nodded and staggered away.
"Big party last night?"
Sasuke turned his attention back to the gym teacher. "Uh, yeah."
"You didn't drink?"
"Um... no, I don't think so." One beer didn't really count as drinking, anyway. Sasuke found it slightly weird that Gai, as opinionated as he was in the lives of his students, didn't have a problem with underage drinking.
"Good, good... now, the last game. Eight weeks."
Sasuke nodded. The last game of basketball was a big deal for the whole school. The girls played first, followed by the guys. As a dedicated member of the team, Sasuke had a lot of pressure on him.
Konoha High set a lot of store in their basketball teams, and it was well known that their students got into extremely prodigious colleges as a result of the superior schooling and co-curricular activities they offered.
The other students were stumbling out of the bathroom now. Suigetsu was amongst them, looking slightly green still but relatively healthy compared to a few other people.
"I feel terrible, man," the silver-haired teen groaned. "This feels like the worst morning ever."
"There was that one time last year…"
"Don't you dare even bring that up!"
"It wasn't my fault that you woke up in a gutter and missed the math exam!"
"Holy shit, that was embarrassing! Don't ever bring it up again! EVERRRR!"
"You are such a baby!"
"Just because it's never happened to you!"
"Would you two shut up?" Neji Hyuuga roared, then winced as his consequent hangover headache came back in full force. Everyone around him groaned in discomfort.
"I'm never drinking again," Suigetsu declared, albeit quietly, to spare his throbbing head.
"Liar," Sasuke grinned.
Eventually, when the groaning had died down a little, Gai made them run drills and other horrible things that were his job to make them do. Needless to say, there were more sounds of anguish circulating by the end of the class.
"Stupid teacher," Suigetsu muttered when they finally left the gym. Sasuke grunted in agreement, but sighed in disappointment when he checked his timetable to discover that the next class was Literature, which was one of the only classes that he didn't have with Suigetsu.
"Well, this is where we part ways, friend," Sasuke commented, when they reached the corridor with their separate directions.
"Have a lovely time in your spiffy smart class, asshole," Suigetsu replied, the insult drowned by the goofy smile on his face.
"Oh, I will. Try not to drool all over the desk."
"I'll try. See you at lunch."
Sasuke waved a little with his fingers before turning left as Suigetsu turned right.
As he walked through the halls to his advanced literature class, someone grabbed Sasuke's arm and dragged him into an empty classroom. He was then seized roughly from behind, turned, and slammed into the wall. He shut his eyes instinctively, and his spiky hair slightly cushioned his skull from the jarring impact, but he couldn't help but let out a sharp cry.
The person holding him by the shoulders smelled of diesel oil, rubber, dirt and wet dog. When Sasuke opened his eyes and focused, Kiba came into view.
"What the fuck, Kiba?" Sasuke snarled, knocking the other boy's hands away and shoving him in the chest, sending him back a couple of steps.
"How much did you hear this morning?" The question was immediately interrogating, as if no resistance had been put up. Sasuke was instantly on guard.
"Huh?" As far as he knew, Kiba hadn't seen him.
"Sakura told me. So... how much did you hear before you left?"
"I didn't hear anything," Sasuke snapped. "I was too far away."
Kiba studied his face for any sign of deception, but he eventually shrugged and continued. "All right. One more question: how well do you know Naruto?"
"Um..." Sasuke knew Naruto, but not well. All he could remember in relation to any deeper memories was the bubbly thirteen year old blonde from his past, and his infatuation with him for the last few months.
"Not very well...?"
"That doesn't sound very convincing." Kiba's eyes were narrowing, his expression calculating, and Sasuke was very suddenly reminded of his brother when Itachi was trying to get something out of him.
"Look, we're just friends. What do you want from me?"
"I'm just suggesting that you two stay 'just friends'. Naruto is bad news in a big way. You're … you know, and Naruto's interested."
"Oh, you're trying to protect my virtue. I get it now," Sasuke smirked. "Well, I'm not a girl, and we're not friends, and if you're trying to keep me away from Naruto, then you can fuck off, because I can take care of myself."
At the same time, Sasuke was downright ecstatic. Naruto felt the same way about him? And it was so obvious that douchebags like Kiba managed to pick up on it but Sasuke didn't? What the freak?
Kiba's mouth slowly curved into a smirk. "Don't flatter yourself. You're just making a mistake, getting involved with him. Sakura put up with him for a long time, but they didn't really hang out together that much."
"You got together with Sakura less than five minutes after she and Naruto broke up," Sasuke retorted. "You're the very last person I need to give me relationship advice."
"It's pretty funny how you're so adamantly defending Naruto. Last I heard, you two weren't particularly close. Not since Orochimaru."
CRUNCH.
Sasuke's fist collided with Kiba's face milliseconds after the despised name left his lips. The brunette staggered backwards, holding onto a desk for some support as he glared up at the other boy.
"Don't you ever mention him around me again," Sasuke spat.
"Sensitive subject much?" Kiba taunted, rubbing his jaw with the back of his wrist.
"You know damn well that I don't like people talking about him to me."
"Whatever," Kiba muttered. "I just thought I'd warn you."
Sasuke glared at him. "Yeah, consider me warned."
With that, Sasuke shoved past Kiba and slammed his way out the door.
Blinded by rage, Sasuke stormed into the corridor and, just his luck, managed to run straight into someone as he rounded the corner.
Unfortunately, that one person happened to be a tall young man with yellow hair and tattoos. Sasuke flinched, and thought furiously, just when my day couldn't get any worse…
However, Naruto hadn't noticed that he had almost knocked someone over. In fact, he was already halfway down the hall, and Sasuke was so indignant over his being ignored that he made a small squeak-like noise in protest.
Naruto stopped, but he didn't turn around. He seemed to deliberate for a moment, before, "Aren't you a bit late to class?"
"Aren't you?" Sasuke retorted immediately, before catching himself, recalling that Naruto's state of mind might be a little conflicted due to the events that had taken place the night before. "Um… how are you?"
That was when Naruto turned around. His expression was a few stops short of irate. Could it be that he was still pissed off from this morning? However, his face and eyes softened a little.
"My life would be a shit-ton better if Kakuzu was still around to keep his whelp of a brother in line. Other than that, I guess I'm okay. What about you?" He began to walk back.
"I'm better than Suigetsu," Sasuke answered, but his mind reeled. Where could he remember the name Kakuzu from?
"Sasuke, you okay?"
Sasuke felt a little bit sick to his stomach as he remembered.
Kakuzu Inuzuka. Tortured and torn apart, killed in such a horrific, unspeakable way that even Sasuke's father, hardened police chief as he was, was unable to face the case of his murder for long. A stupid mistake by one of Kakuzu's friends had led to his death. Sasuke remembered Kisame talking about him once upon a time, long ago.
By now, Naruto had reached him, but he was staring at Sasuke, worried.
"Sasuke?"
"Did you know him?"
"Huh?"
"Kakuzu Inuzuka! Did you know him?" Sasuke seized Naruto by the sides of his hoodie zippers.
Naruto's eyes narrowed. "Why?"
Sasuke didn't answer. He merely glared.
"He… He was a friend of my brother's."
Sasuke released the blonde. "Oh - okay. Sorry. Just… overreacted a little."
"Are you sure you're okay, Sasuke?"
"It's just that… my dad was really cut up after he took Kakuzu's case. Itachi, too. He didn't speak to anyone for days. Itachi, that is. It was like they were friends, but he never mentioned him."
"If you think your dad and your brother were affected by his death, imagine how his kid brother felt," Naruto muttered, leaning heavily against the wall of the corridor.
Sasuke had completely forgotten that he was meant to go to class. Talking to Naruto was far too interesting. He joined him on the wall, albeit several metres away.
Now, he cocked his head and asked, "You mean Kiba?" He almost spat out the name, still angry from before.
"Yeah. He went into the mode he's in now, furious and dangerous and easy to wind up, when the cops came round to his house and told his parents that Kakuzu was dead. He's been like that ever since, but no one can get through to him. I'm kind of worried about Sakura being with him, actually."
"You can't really do anything about it, though, Naruto," Sasuke reminded the blonde. "She's on her own, so to speak."
"I know. He's just unpredictable. Not that I was any different," he scoffed. "But still. There's a difference between being that guy and watching that guy."
"Well, he seems to be an all-round asshole. Don't worry about it." Sasuke pushed off the wall and began to walk away.
"Has he been harassing you?"
'Harass' was an interesting word to use. When Sasuke didn't reply, Naruto tried again, hastening after him and cutting in front of the brunette.
"What did he say to you?"
Now, there was finally a reaction. Sasuke's face burned with leftover rage, embarrassment, confusion and hesitation.
Naruto saw it all. "What's wrong?"
"Lots of stuff is wrong," Sasuke murmured. "I just want to go home and talk to my brother." He rubbed his temples with his fingertips, and then Naruto stepped a little bit closer and Sasuke remembered what had been bothering him, what he'd been thinking about for the last twelve hours.
"Hey… did you actually mean what you said last night?" I refuse to be shy about this, he thought to himself, assuming a confident composure.
"Which part?"
The air around them was, somehow, much lighter all of a sudden.
"The bit about you… and me." Do not stutter. Say it outright.
"What part of that part?"
"You're going to make me say it, aren't you?"
Okay, that was definitely a smirk. You're getting to him.
"Ask me the question again?" Sasuke queried.
Naruto drew a breath in. "Sasuke. Would you be interested in going out with me?"
And then Sasuke answered with his heart, not his head.
"Yes. I would."
Oooooohhh. Cliffhanger!
I will try. I WILL TRY VERY HARD TO WRITE ANOTHER CHAPTER IN THE NEXT LITTLE WHILE. I apologise in advance if it doesn't come out in the time space that you expect. I'm not going to make any promises regarding this, as, at the moment, my high school education and my consequent HSC marks are more important.
Much love,
SharZAM. (- I like this one better, tbh)