Chapter 1: That's Life

Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto

"Here, the game you guys wanted," I told the two guys standing in front of me while showing them the game that I had stolen from the electronics store my dad owned. Luckily, I hadn't been caught on tape, or if I had been, then my dad was just too ashamed to actually do anything about it. The two looked at the game, and Sasuke thanked me by grabbing me by my jacket collar and pinning me up against the cold, brick wall of the school that was vandalized by graffiti of all kinds.

"We told you to get the limited edition, not some regular copy that we could get at the damn toy store," he growled, his face almost touching mine, so close I could actually feel his warm breath on my face. I grimaced as his breath enters my mouth, trying not to gag.

"Nothing, I'm not grimacing at anything," I quickly stammered, not wanting to be hit again. But the gods weren't with me today; they never seem to be. He hit me hard, but across the face this time, and with the back of his hand.

"You liar," he hissed through his clenched teeth. He then pushed my head up against the wall hard, and I could actually feel the abrasive grains of brick against my hair and flesh. "I fucking hate people like you. You're a good for nothing idiot who can't get even the simplest of instructions right." He then dropped me, thank god, and I slid down against the wall, the bricks grated against my skin through my pink Chinese-style shirt and I fell on to the unforgiving asphalt. I ended up looking up into the faces of the people that I call my friends and them staring back at me coldly, as if I'm a lesser being than they are; as if I don't deserve them.

"Now we want the right game this time, do you hear me? If you don't get the right thing, we'll make sure that you regret it," Sasuke threatened as the two of them walked off, taking the game I had taken earlier with them despite saying it was trash and left me alone to drown in a sea of people coming to school. My other friend, Gaara, had not said a word, yet somehow I was even more scared of him than I was of Sasuke; something about his eyes, yeah, that's it. How he stared right through me, as if every shield I set up was suddenly shattered by that one glance.

I'm used to this kind of shit though, ever since I was little people picked on me for apparently no reason at all. It's sad really, that I have to put up with this every single day of my life while other people, like Gaara and Sasuke, get to be happy for no reason at all. Maybe someone up there hates me because of what happened to my mom, and is taking their anger out on me in the worst ways possible. That's life, I guess.

I didn't even bother getting up; the second I did the pounding feeling in my head was gonna make me get back down. Instead I merely watched the shadows of my classmates as they walked, or rather, to use a more accurate term, were herded, past me, disregarding me as trash. I can't exactly blame them though; I'm ugly, I'm neck deep in failure, and I live in a broken home. What is there about me that isn't garbage?

I never would have expected that someone would approach me, but I was wrong. I could see his shadow growing ever closer to mine, and I didn't even bother to look up to see who it is. But I couldn't help but flinch as he starts to move his arm towards me. But there's no pain, no harmful blow to feel; instead the arm just hung there in midair in front of my eyes, as if it was waiting for something. I looked up merely to identify the sole person that would approach me, but I couldn't recognize who it was at all.

"Hello; my name is Haku, and I'm a new student here," the person announced as he, or dshe, I can't really tell, smiles at me.

"Good for you Haku," I grumble as I tried to get up on to my feet, but the pain from Sasuke's blow was still pounding, like a horrible migraine, so I leaned completely against the wall to lessen the pain.

"Do you need assistance?" he asked; his mouth still twisted into a smile. For some reason this Haku person just pisses me off; it's that damn smile. That's it; that stupid smile pisses me off so bad I just want to slap him, hard.

"No Haku I'm fine," I snapped at him as I tried to get on to my feet. This time, I made sure that I actually stayed up on my feet so that I didn't have to deal with this guy, or girl. "See," I say as I battle the pain in my body. "Just fine."

"Okay then, I hope to see you soon," Haku said as he began to walk away, thank god. But then, much to my dismay, he turned back to face me, an embarrassed expression on his face. "Hey, can you tell me where the reception office is?"

I sighed in frustration as I give instructions on how to reach the main office.

"Thank you…" Haku began to say, but then stopped. "If you don't mind me asking, what's your name?" he asked as I pull my backpack up on to my shoulder, wincing as the pain in my heaed began to intensify.

"The name's Tenten Uzumaki," I said as I began to walk to the school, allowing myself to be herded along with the others.

"Thank you Tenten; I hope to see you later today!" he called as he finally merged into the large crowd of students filing into the school. I never thought that someone being nice would turn me off to them, but damn, Haku is, well, something else.

In fact, he reminds me, kind of Naruto really; well, besides the androgynous appearance. They smile the same way; overly nice and kind. Damn it, I can't get him out of my head…stupid androgynous bastard, invading my thoughts like this. Alright, I thought, getting this piece of crap locker to open will get him out of my head.

After a few tries the stupid thing actually opened and the guy still wasn't out of my mind. I slowly retrieved the necessities for 1st period; a pencil case and a sketchbook. After all, Hatake wasn't gonna show up early enough to actually start class; he never does.

And so, after navigating through the horribly cramped hallways I found my way to Hatake's room, and threw open the door and stepped back and to the side; a trick I had learned earlier on in the year and proved itself to be very useful as a textbook fell down from the door frame and several pencils were thrown at where I would've been standing.

"Damn it!" one of the boys, Kiba, probably, shouted. "He dodged them all again!" I merely sighed and made my appearance, walking into the room of hell.

"Oh, it's only Tenten; let's set it up again!" the tattooed boy howled. I quietly made my way over to my usual seat; a nice window seat all the way in the back next to Gaara.

He merely spared me a glance as I sat down in what used to be the empty desk next to him.

"It is a good game, special edition or not, you know," I told him as I sank down into the chair and stared at the head of the guy sitting in front of me.

"I know," he answered, not even bothering to look at me. I just sighed and opened my sketchbook to where I left off yesterday, at the large throwing star. After about five minutes of painstakingly shading in the edges of the large weapon, something pokes me in the head, hard, causing me to drag the pencil across the page.

"Oh snap, sorry T," the guy apologized as he saw what he caused to happen. I merely looked up at him, trying my best not to get pissed.

"What is it Naruto?" I ask him calmly. He then rubbed the back of his head, embarrassed of himself, I think anyway, and flashed me one of his signature grins. You know, one of the ones that are impossibly huge?

"Do you mind if I borrow a pencil?" he asked. After that, there was a long lapse of silence between us, my eyes in a deadly stalemate with his innocent-looking blue ones. "And by the way," he added after a few seconds of that, "you should really let your hair down; it'd make you look prettier." At this I saw Gaara cock one of his eyebrows, which are practically invisible. I myself had to admit that his last statement was rather unnerving. Something just doesn't seem right about a guy telling her older sister how to look pretty.

"As if I would take fashion tips from my little brother," I shoot back, our eyes still locked in a silent battle. "Who wears an orange tracksuit," I added for emphasis. God, why the hell does he love that color so much; it's so bright and so ugly.

"Oh please stop hatin' T; you know that this is just so awesome," he retorted, his grin turning into a smirk. I shook my head and let out a small laugh as I hand him an unsharpened pencil; surrendering the unspoken staring contest.

"Thanks a bunch T," he said as he took the pencil. "And I'm winning by three now," he added, grinning. He just can't stop gloating about being able to beat his sister in a staring contest, can he?

"You're such a kid Naru," I teased. I even used his childhood nickname for emphasis.

"Damn right," he says over his shoulder as he begins rapidly writing something, probably last night's homework. "And don't forget it."

Then it happened; the door opened, again. Instantly everything in the room stopped as we all stared at the door, waiting to see whether Hatake would fall for the trap.

"Hold on; don't walk in yet," an older voice began to say as the trap began to fall into play. Instantly the same thought played out in all of our minds; it's not Hatake.

"Oh god please don't let it be Vice Prinicipal," Naruto prayed. I thought the exact same thing; for the wrath of Ms. Tsunade was a legend among the students in Konoha. Apparently, she had gone ballistic on a student who had left a bucket of water on top of her door on April Fool's Day. He was never seen again; or at least, that's how the legend goes.

However, everyone, well, excluding Gaara who was basically a living stone, openly gaped at what had become of the prank.

None of us really noticed the guy's face at first; we were all too astounded at what had happened. It was as if he had seen everything coming; in one hand was the heavy history textbook placed on the door and in the other was a pencil. All around him were the pencils that had been thrown; all deflected.

"Class, this is your new classmate, Haku Momochi," Hatake said as he walked out from behind Haku, his head buried in a book; erotica, no doubt. "Make nice," he instructed as he sat down at his desk and opened his class roster.

"Nice to meet you all," Haku said as he, she, smiled at us.

"Dude, T, is that guy a guy or a girl?" Naruto whispered to me rather loudly. I responded by whacking over his head with a pencil.

"Does it matter; did you see how he kicked ass?" Kiba responded from next to Naruto. "Yo, Momochi, come sit over here!" he yelled as he waved his hand frantically. Haku immediately took notice and followed Kiba's direction. "I'm Kiba by the way; Kiba Inuzuka," he introduced, grinning. "How the hell did you do that?" he asked, astounded.

I merely let my head fall on to my desk, hitting with a muffled thud. Of all of the classes in the entire school, Mr. Overly Nice Not Quite a Man Not Really a Woman had to choose mine to invade.

But that's life, I guess.

Pairings will either be:

HakuxNaruto

HakuxGaara

HakuxTenten

Give your opinion please.