Your Favorite To The Extreme Quote: That! That! - Dude looks like a lady!! (-Aerosmith)
Sasuke's breath was warm in my ear. We were jammed so tightly – the regular sardines in a can – that our shoulders overlapped. There was no leg space.
I didn't twitch. Our lives practically depended on being silent. One word, one noise and I knew we'd suffer the dire consequences. His chin dug deep into my shoulder blade. I sent him a look, forgetting we were in almost-complete darkness.
Think that it's crowded in a backseat with three people?
Try cramming yourself in a minuscule closet with another person.
Then the worst thing happened.
I started to sweat.
Most Uncomfortable Moment: Don't remind me. Just don't.
Chapter Eight
He's the Nazi
The wound on my hand was fully healed a week into school. My right index finger always convulsed, though, when there would be a drop in the temperature. I felt more like an old lady each passing day as December progressed.
I told this to Sasuke at the lunch table one cold day, who smirked affably. Naruto, sitting beside him, heard nothing over the voice of his ramen.
(Oh, yes. Ramen does indeed talk. It has a life, also, according to Naruto. The measure of its lifetime depends on its singular length. Also according to him, ramen reproduce by mitosis.)
He usually didn't sit here. Normally he sat next to Chouji or Sakura one table away. However, there was a history test today. And naturally, as Naruto was one to procrastinate, he was making Sasuke help him cram.
Who was getting increasingly fed up.
"Are you finished yet?" he snapped. His temper was never long-suffering these days.
"Yea…(sounds of slurping)…almost done."
The slurps became gradually louder. I figured Naruto wasn't one for etiquette. (But etiquette didn't matter for an honest to good person.)
"Are you done?"
"Nooo…" He was obviously doing it on purpose now, taking each drawn-out mouthful.
"Are you done now?"
"(slurp)"
"Well, hurry up." Sasuke glared away pointedly, as if Naruto was too ugly to be seen.
"(sluuurrrrrp)"
If looks could kill –
"(slurp.)"
"Do that again and I'll – " His eyes flashed dangerously. "I'll – "
"(Sluuuuuuuuuuurp. –uurp.)"
XxxxxXxxxxxX
Two minutes later, Naruto was behaving nicely, history textbook out and taking notes. Sasuke was still twitching with irritation, but now teaching.
The ramen was stuck in Naruto's hair. And clothes. And shoes. And eyelashes.
The ramen bowl was on the floor, broken into a million pieces.
Anyway.
"Uhm, so this goes like that and…whoop-deee-doo! - But history is so STUPID! It's so boring and you learn nothing! Argh! That's stupid!"
The history book was slammed shut with gusto.
"Naruto…" A warning.
"I don't want to learn this anymore," Naruto whined. "I want to go home and eat ramen!"
Sasuke opened the book again.
"This chapter. Read. Now," he growled, stabbing the page.
"(sigh.)"
"Now."
"(siiiiiigh.)"
"You really don't want to go through that again, do you?"
Naruto shut up.
Sasuke made an effort to control his voice. "So. Chapter 16 review. The Iberian Peninsula – "
Naruto tapped his head to one side. "The lunch-man is a Nazi, that's what."
"What?"
"Seriously!" Naruto's eyes opened up all chibi-like and shiny. "I swear, he's like, a Nazi!"
"Naruto," I cut in, feeling that this conversation was getting a little out of hand, "um, do you even know what a Nazi is?"
"Of course I do!" he insisted. "Nazis were the women who gave birth to Jesus."
Sasuke bit his lip down hard to control his laughter. I kicked him.
"Uhm, I don't think so," I said patiently. "They were the Germans who murdered – "
"Oh, I knew that," he broke in hastily. "I meant to say that Nazis were the ones who murdered Abraham Lincoln."
Sasuke's shoulders started to shake.
"Naruto, the Nazis didn't murder Abraham Lincoln – "
"Yea – George Washington did!"
He was getting excited all over nothing.
"Nazis killed Jews," Sasuke stipulated.
Naruto blinked. "Jews? Who are they?"
This time my eyes teared up and I was the one who got kicked.
"People who got killed by the Nazis," Sasuke answered pithily. "Anyway, the Iberian Peninsula – "
"No!" broke in Naruto. "Seriously. The lunch-man. See for yourself! He definitely looks like a – what – Nazi."
Sasuke kicked him under the table. "Hurry up, idiot," he snarled.
Naruto hastily complied, diving into his textbook with the eagerness of a shark.
The next day,
Naruto received his test back. He'd gotten an a hundred.
How, I have no idea whatsoever.
XxxxxXxxxxxX
A week later
"That idiot is back to his lunch table?" noted Sasuke. He glanced balefully over where Naruto was losing to Chouji in an eating contest. "Good."
"..." I said nothing, eyeing my gloppy lunch with a mixture of hate and pity. It was strange, actually. I was sitting with the very person whose nose I'd broke on the first day of school. And we weren't even threatening each other or anything, unlike those first few weeks.
We even managed tidbits of conversation. The comfortable silence kind, when a person can say something out of the blue and the conversation stems from there.
Not the prim and proper kind. I could picture it, though:
XxxxxXxxxxxX
British Sasuke: Darling, I am feeling a little randy tonight. RARWW!!
British Hinata: Oh, the bollocks!
British Sasuke: You arse.
British Hinata: You're just a wanker!
British Sasuke: Exactly. Right on point. Bang on, spot on, my pet.
British Hinata: Where is the lou?
British Sasuke: You old geezer.
British Hinata: Well, golly, you are a BLOKE. You bloke.
--
Oh, gosh. Oh, gosh. Come to think of it, that's a bit extreme, wouldn't you say? Especially considering the fact that his initials are BS. :D
--
"I've been reflecting," Sasuke broke into my disturbing one-on-one eulogy.
"Hnp? A-about what? You bloke."
His eyes skipped over mine strangely. I'll just ignore that, the two dark eyes judged.
I smiled widely, awkwardly. "Go on."
"The lunch man might actually be a Nazi." He said in a bad accent, "BjÖrn Lutgard Anois Mitzi."
"Huh?"
"That's his name on the name tag. And plus he might have a Nazi tattoo."
My eyes squinted. "And how would you know this, Sasuke?"
He shifted. "I've been...ah, doing a little research."
----"A - HA!~!~!~!~!~" suh-quealed the millions of girls in the lunchroom.----
Actually, only Sakura and Ino. But together, they were a cacophony.
Sakura bounded over with her lime green uggs and placed her two fists on the table. Ino followed suit, except her pinky accidentally overlapped Sakura's, and they ended up catfighting.
Sakura was the first to emerge, gasping for breath.
"I KNEW IT!" she howled. Tears were threatening to implode.
"I...You knew what?" The laconic Sasuke spoke with confusion.
"You - you ARE gay!" She burst into huge tears and fled away.
The silence between the lunchroom stretched like mosquito netting.
"Uhm..." said Sasuke to the millions of awaiting little girls and little boys. "What can I say? I am."
Everyone died. Like, seriously. People's head rolled. Literally. I figured suicide, but whatever.
Sasuke calmly took a sip of tea. (where did he get that?)
"That'll take care of them. Anyway," he continued, "The lunch man..."
He couldn't go on.
I think I was either laughing to death or crying of laughter to death.
"I always figured," I snickered.
He paled. "Don't say that. You knew it was just to get those zealots off of my back."
"Then how did you know...?"
"He told me himself."
Boooooooing. Silence again, except it only included our table.
When I unstuck my tongue, I queried, "He told you he was A NAZI?!!?!"
"No!"
"Then what?!"
"He told me he was very proud of his tattoo."
"Oh." I sat back, my head touching the vinyl seat. "Well, then," I said in my jolly old Santa Nicholas way, "that's not too bad, then."
He gripped his soda, swishing it around. "The truth is, though, I'm curious. But you know…"
"What? Curiosity killed the cat?"
"There is that." He hesitated. "But…sometimes, you just have to know something. You know that feeling."
"What I have to know is; what is it that you're getting at?"
He set the can down. "Well, I know while Naruto is seldom correct…very capricious, actually… but this time he might be veridical."
"Been practicing your SAT words again," I said.
He uncharacteristically turned his head away. If this wasn't Sasuke, I would have deemed him embarrassed.
"What I'm saying is, I think he's correct. The lunch man is..."
"A… - Nazi?" I supplied incredulously.
Sasuke nodded.
"S-so...you think he has a tattoo? - of a...N-nazi symbol? How are you going to prove this?"
"I don't know," he said thoughtfully. "But I'm going to find out."
In a flash he'd stood up and dumped his trash into the recycling bin, not bothering to sort through what was recyclable.
I saw TenTen across the room giving him a nasty look; she was a recycler through and through.
But she had changed so much in the last month I was surprised she still kept this whim. I realized then that she did not look happy these days, even alongside Kiba.
Sasuke returned shortly.
"Here's the deal," he murmured. "Once everyone is gone, I'm going to the men's bathroom. That door is very close to the kitchen's back exit. I know it's usually locked, but with a paperclip, it shouldn't be difficult. I've already tried it on another lock. When I'm gone, you're going to stand in a corner of the cafeteria, out of sight by other people, but in such a way you can still see the inside of the kitchen. The right corner, next to the trashcan, should be an ideal place. I want you to keep lookout. Very simple. Only if you see someone coming in my direction, give a shout. Do you understand?"
"Yes, but – "
"Okay. Good. The rest is straightforward. No, don't start talking. I'm going to maybe hide in a corner of the kitchen – or the small closet where the aprons are kept – and when he walks by, I'm going to check if he really is a Nazi. His tattoo. A Nazi tattoo is like an X with hooks on the end. It won't be hard to see. After that, I'll return the way I came from. If I get caught, I'll say I'm lost. If that happens, you are to report to your next period. Don't come near this place. Stay with your schedule. You won't be safe otherwise. Do you understand that?"
His eyes were shining darkly with excitement.
"But I don't understand," I protested unhappily. "Why would you stay in a closet? Why don't you just ask him, or something? It would be much more painless, and you wouldn't get into a mess. Why trouble yourself with this procedure?"
"Hinata," said Sasuke. "Dear Hinata, kind Hinata, clever Hinata, will you for the love of Heaven do what you're told without any questions?"
"No," I said flatly. "I won't. I don't get it. Why – "
But he was already gone.
In a few minutes the bell would ring.
I hesitated. This wouldn't do. I couldn't let him do this. (But of course, it was too late.)
I cursed my luck. Why hadn't I intervened earlier? Now there was something I'd learned about him – once he got an idea stuck in his head, there was absolutely no turning back. A wall would be more flexible.
As the students filed out, the regular horde of wildebeests, I decided. I wouldn't keep lookout. No, there just had to be a way to unconvince him of this – this idiocy. He was human. He could be dragged out of this.
I walked to the door of women's bathroom, next to the men's, keeping myself well in shadow.
Without warning, Sasuke slipped out a few moments later, his eyes intent on the cafeteria.
I shrank, my heart picking up its pace.
I never noticed how effortlessly he seemed to glide, as silent as a snake. In no time he had picked the lock, and had entered the kitchen's back door.
My heart now hammering, I crept around the corner, following him. I was understandably nervous – I had no idea if this was illegal, but it most certainly wouldn't be well received by Tsunade if we were caught.
Her wrath was famous – notorious, more like – around school. And if the rumors were true – that she was a reputed alcoholic – well, her supposed tantrum would be even worse. Suspension could be the least of it.
But if this attempt could make him turn back, it was well worthwhile.
The kitchen was surprisingly long, about the length of a small classroom. All the workers were up in front, cleaning the counters.
Sasuke was moving quickly, almost a sprint, cutting across the tiled floor. It was not until he reached the closet door did he finally stop short and turn around sharply.
"Oh, god!" he snarled. "No!"
"Sasuke, you can't – "
I stopped, heeding the footsteps of a worker. Sasuke took notice, too; he savagely pulled me down and, veering into the closet, closed the luckily well-oiled door.
The footsteps came alarmingly close; the floors gave a slight squeak.
And in the tiny, microscopic closet, I started to pray.
Updates will come faster. I promise. If it's not out by ten days, you can flame me until I burn into a crisp.
But until then, reviews equals earlier update! :D
A/N: Next chapter is slight Sasuke's point of view.