Title: Good Friend Chouji
Pairings: undecided (main pairing MIGHT be yaoi)
Warnings: nothing too extreme. I might have more adult themes later on, like child abuse, self mutilation, bullying, references to sex/sexual acts, and possible rape. Maybe.
Author: Drinking Acid
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If you hadn't figure it out until now, I seriously pity you.
School hallways had the annoying habit of being loud. Very, very loud. All those kids storming down the stone-tiled floors, talking with blaring voices and obnoxious shouts. It was like walking through a sea of howler monkeys. Shikamaru was sure that if an atomic bomb went off in the Second building hallway, no one would've heard a thing. They'd all be dead of course, but that wasn't the point.
His next class was history, one of the few classes he had with Chouji. History didn't have any sort of AP class except Government, which only seniors could take if they'd passed American Government in their junior year. It was one of the few classes Asuma hadn't bent the rules to get him into. Not that he minded of course; it was nice to have a class he could just blow off and spend sitting next to Chouji, who'd have smuggled in some sort of snack and would be munching contentedly away at throughout the entire lesson.
Even a genius needs a brake.
Opening the door, he stepping into the history classroom, noting that the teacher was, predictably, late. It still baffled him as to why Kakashi hadn't been fired yet with his attendance record, especially since he wasn't even that good of a teacher. He had a hunch as to what the teacher was doing (which involved the very dirty book, Icha Icha Paradise, that never seemed to leave the man's hands, even while teaching), though he had no proof to back it up. Even if he did have evidence of his theory, he wouldn't have complained about it to the school board. Too troublesome.
Several of the students were already spread about in class, one of which was Chouji, who was sitting in the second-to-last row and second column from the windows. His friend was snacking away on a bag of mini chocolate chip cookies (where he got it, he had no idea. Food just seemed to appear around Chouji) and his note book sat open and ready to be written in, a pencil sitting patiently atop it, should the occasion ever arise that notes needed to be taken. This was a vain attempt, seeing as it'd be twenty or so minutes before Kakashi ever showed up, if it were a "good" day. But that was Chouji for you; he never was one to doubt others.
Since this wasn't an AP class, the students were all freshmen and thus far more immature, and took to vandalizing the class in the period of time Kakashi decided to remain elusively absent. While he never took part in this, several other students did, most of them throwing around paper airplanes or spit wads, as well as scribbling chicken scratch on the chalk board and fiddling with the TV hanging in the corner wall. The ringleader of this rowdy brigade was a blonde, blue-eyed, ball of energy by the name of Naruto Uzumaki.
Shikamaru had only recently met Naruto, but already he had come to realize three things about the blonde: 1) He didn't like sitting still quietly for periods of time lasting more than eight seconds, 2) he liked to eat repulsive quantities of ramen in disturbingly short amounts of time, and 3) he made a habit of going up to new people and asking to be friends. That was how they'd met, actually. When he'd first stepped foot on campus with Chouji, the blonde had immediately come up to them, first to talk with Chouji and then to chatter incessantly at Shikamaru. Totally taken off guard, it never occurred to him to just tell the blonde to shove off and his lack of argument seemed to tell the bubbling chatterbox that they were friends. He had yet to attribute these inane qualities to the boy's actual nature or to his blondness (those dumb blonde jokes had to have some basis in fact, even if it was blown unrealistically out of proportion).
Also in this class were Kiba Inuzuka, Hinata Hyuuga, Sakura Haruno, Ino Yamanaka, and Shino Aburame, along with a bunch of other no-name kids. Hinata and Shino were seated in the back row, just to the right of Chouji, and Sakura and Ino were giggling with a clump of preppy girls in the middle of the room. Kiba was bounding wildly around with Naruto, trading playful jibs and insults with one another, the dark-haired boy grinning widely to show sharp canine teeth (sometimes he wondered if he boy was half dog). Several other boys and girls were clustered around, talking with each other about various different things, some of them either watching or joining in with Naruto's spastic movements as he started booby trapping the room (i.e., taking all the ink out of the pens on Kakashi's desk, lining the desk drawers with glue so they'd stick shut, constructing a "card" castle out of text books, etc.)
A perfectly normal day.
For now.
Fate had the nasty habit of making things more difficult than they had to be. Like stair climbing. If they had elevators, what was the point of having stairs? It just didn't make sense.
"Hey Shikamaru!" called Chouji in greeting, his face split with a wide smile. He couldn't help but grin back, making his way to the desk beside Chouji's and dumping his bag on the ground beside his seat. His friend offered the bag to him, asking without asking if he wanted any. Shikamaru took a few, munching thoughtfully on them as they watched Naruto and Kiba suddenly convert from giddy troublemakers to arguing foghorns.
"—Jeeze, Naruto! I was just sayin'—!"
"Take it back!"
"No!"
"Dammit, Kiba, take. It. Back!"
"No way, ya whisker-faced wakadoo!"
"What the hell's that s'pposed to mean?"
"Exactly what it sounds like, blondie!" Naruto snarled, clenching his fists at his sides. Beside him, Chouji ate faster, his eyes squinting in worry. Shikamaru couldn't find anything to worry about. They did this every day.
In fact, this was about the time that—
"Back off, Baka-inu."
—Gaara shows up.
The dark, dangerous teen was standing behind Kiba with his arms crossed, annoyance painfully clear on his face. Gaara Sabaku was the school's unanimous "scary guy" and had rightfully earned his title: he had short, blood red hair, wore dark, baggy clothes (mostly black), had pierced ears, a red tattoo of the Japanese character "ai" (love) on his forehead, and, above all else, his eyes were always lined with a thick band of black eyeliner, emphasizing already frighteningly pale green eyes. There were rumors that he carried a switchblade in his pocket so that he could murder people he didn't like, but Shikamaru never found any proof of it, and for the time he'd known him, the boy had been fairly tame, though cold and a bit sarcastic (okay, a LOT sarcastic). It probably had a lot to do with him and Naruto being best friends since elementary school, but it was difficult to tell with the way they bickered sometimes. Far too troublesome. Either way, Gaara was bluntly over-protective of his energetic friend and picking a fight with Naruto meant picking a fight with Gaara, which was, quite possibly, the dumbest thing to do in one's entire life.
Seriously.
Kiba leapt away from Naruto, shooting Gaara an uneasy look. Even the canine-obsessed teen knew he was in a bad position, and opted to play the safe game and not aggravate possibly the most dangerous boy in school. Kiba scurried to his seat beside Shino and silence filled the room for a moment, before the bell starting second hour rang and the usual babble returned, leaving Naruto and Gaara alone at the front of the room.
Said blonde whirled on his friend, his face curled into a frown.
"I could've handled that!"
Gaara just rolled his eyes in mocking, earning a furious look from the blonde. The blood-haired teen stalked away, siting down a seat away from Shikamaru. Naruto followed after, grumbling at Gaara's interference in his fight, sulkily placing himself backwards in his seat so as to rest his elbows on Shikamaru's desk. He raised an eye brow at the blonde, deftly reaching for more cookies.
"What were you and Kiba fighting about, Naruto?" asked Chouji after swallowing, angling the bag so as to let Shikamaru get more cookies. Naruto growled, glaring grumpily at the desk's surface.
"He was just being a bastard. Damn dog-boy!" Gaara rolled his eyes again, having turned around to face his friend.
"He asked if you and Sasuke were going out, right?"
Naruto's face went bright red and he whirled around to glare haughtily at the green-eyed boy, who simply smirked at him. Shikamaru laughed and leaned farther back in his seat as he took a bite of his cookie.
"No he did NOT! Th-that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!"
"Then you obviously have never heard yourself talk."
"I'm not dumb! You're dumb!"
"Yo kettle? This is the pot: you're black."
"What does that MEAN? Everyone keeps saying it, but I don't know what the freak it means!"
". . . Freak?"
"Huh? Oh, well, I was going to say fuck, but that came out instead."
"Jeeze, blondie, is your brain broken again?"
"Oi! There's nothing wrong with my head, raccoon-eyes!"
"I bet if I hit your skull, there'd be an echo."
"Ah-HA! I've already tried that, and it doesn't echo!"
". . . Why would you hit your head?"
"I didn't do it on purpose, I just ran into a wall."
". . . Thus the mystery is explained."
"And what's THAT supposed to mean?"
It was always entertaining to listen to them talk, he realized, swallowing the rest of his cookie. They were a lot like brothers, the way they fought and joked with one another, and if it weren't for the fact that they looked absolutely nothing alike, he could've believed that. However, Naruto was the son of one of the teachers here (something Umino. He supposed he was adopted, or maybe Umino was divorced), and was just a step higher on the wealth chain that Shikamaru was. It was only because of his dad that he was even going to this school. No offense to the blonde, but he wasn't especially bright.
The Sabaku's, meanwhile, were one of the top four wealthiest families in the whole city, second only to the Hyuuga's in wealth and power. Even the Uchiha's were lower than them, only gaining their prestige from the police and law system, as well as some politics, while the Sabaku's were historically associated with the country's politics dating back over fifty years. The Haruno's worked only in manufacturing and businesses, giving them limited access to political say even if they made a lot of money and pretty much ran the job market. Only the Hyuuga's ruled in all the territories, but that had more to due with them having more family members than actually being better than the rest of them. No matter what they seemed to think.
Despite all that wealth, Gaara didn't flaunt his money around or bribe kids and teachers like some of the other students did. In fact, if Shikamaru met him on the street in some random act of chance, he would've never guessed the gothic teen lived in a huge mansion in the best part of Uptown.
"What do you mean I look like a cat?" roared Naruto suddenly, pointing an accusatory finger at his red-haired friend. Shikamaru blinked, suddenly aware of his surroundings as Gaara sighed in exasperation. Chouji was trying hard not to laugh too obviously.
Kakashi took that moment to appear at the door, halfway through a lame excuse for his lateness ("oh, a car got stuck in a tree and I just had to set it free" or "I was helping a goldfish cross the street" or even "there was a poker game and there was this lovely chocolate coin in the pool, so I just had to join" and other crap like that).
The one visible eye on Kakashi's face blinked and the silver-haired man appeared to be grinning under his mask.
"Well, you're too stupid to look like a fox, and Inuzuka already claimed dog, so there really wasn't any other choice, now was there?"
Everyone laughed at Kakashi's answer, as well as the shocked/furious/embarrassed/I'm-gonna-kill-you look on Naruto's face. He started shouting curses across the room at the teacher, who smiled and threatened detention, resulting in Naruto's quick, albeit grudging, retreat to his seat. Shikamaru sighed and laid his head on the desk.
Time for a nap.
P.E. sucked.
Scratch that. ALL physical activity that didn't involve breathing were worthless, annoying and so freakin' TROUBLESOME. P.E. was MADE of crap like that, the kind of crap that forced him to participate or else he'd fail and then he'd have Asuma on his case about getting him into the school only to get kicked out because he was too freakin' lazy. He actually felt like taking a spork and gorging his eyes out just to get out of the damned class.
But that would be too troublesome.
Besides, Chouji was in this class.
"Alright students, get over here so I can shout at you as a group!"
The P.E. teacher, Kureni, called out at them, blowing her whistle for emphasis. The bumbling mass of students, mostly freshmen, huddled around her, grumbling and groaning like the tired, lazy children they were. Not to say that Shikamaru wasn't one of them; hell, he was practically their freakin' mascot.
"Okay, so it's almost the end of the quarter and some of you aren't going to pass. So, to help you mediocre marshmallow heads out, I'm going to give you a chance to get some extra credit."
Oh joy. Work.
He sighed and rubbed his eyes. In his last class, Honors Trig., he'd napped through the whole hour without any disturbances. The desks weren't very good pillows and the hard, plastic chairs were far from comfortable, and, though his math teacher Hayate didn't care if he slept through class, there was no possible way to sleep through a P.E. class. He had to pay attention in this class, whether he wanted to or not, and it was far too troublesome to do so. If it weren't for that blasted bell, he'd have slept the whole day away. Alas, the building hated him.
And so here he stood, Chouji fidgeting nervously on one side and Naruto jumping giddily on the other, silently wishing for that spork.
"You can either walk ten times around the foot ball field to get full marks for today, or you can run five laps around it and get an extra day's worth of points. For every two laps you run after that, you can get another day's worth of extra credit. Got it? Good. Start walking."
He and Chouji started walking with the masses, the few, brave (more like insane), souls among them breaking out of the swarm to run around the healthy green football field. Naruto, unsurprisingly, was among them, shooting forward with a surge of energy quite unhuman, shouting over his shoulder at the other students trailing behind him with much gusto.
"Oi! I bet I can run twice as fast as you, Sasuke-bastard!"
Said bastard glowered at the bellowing boy, heaved a long-suffering sigh, and jogged forward.
Shikamaru and Gaara rolled their eyes in sync, and he couldn't help but mumble a, "troublesome."
Sasuke Uchiha was possibly the most anti-social, arrogant, cold-hearted jerk in the whole freakin' school. No, the whole city. All the girls fawned over him, the boys envied him, and he had enough money and connections to take over a small country (all he really had to do was bribe the football team, but that was beside the point). He also happened to be on the basketball and track team, and was taking a bunch of honors classes. Shikamaru was sure that kid had a stick up his ass.
Until he stepped within eyesight of Naruto.
Once those two were withing range of one another, he changed entirely. For some reason nobody could fathom, Naruto had deemed Sasuke his ultimate rival in life and thus took every opportunity to shove the Uchiha's face in the dirt, sometimes even literally. And every time, the black-haired boy would answer him and end up besting the blonde at his own game. No one was sure if Sasuke actually agreed with this setup (it wasn't like he'd tell anybody anyway. Anti-social bastard, remember?) so the reasons he went along with the blonde's continuous challenges and contests were totally unknown. Not that the student population hadn't tried to figure it out for themselves.
Adequately explaining Kiba's earlier comment.
"Oh, and Akimichi," called Kureni, "You're missing a day's participation. I suggest you start running. You too, Nara, or else I'll tell Asuma."
Chouji's face went unnaturally pale and he started to wring his hands again and bite his lips. Shikamaru sighed and rubbed his temples. Behind him, he heard Gaara chuckle, and he threw a glare over his shoulder at the shorter boy. Green eyes laughed at him. Then, without any warning at all, he was blown straight into Chouji as a green blur raced past them.
"Oi! Watch it, bowl head!" yelled a kid ahead of them yelled, Zaku something, who'd also gotten knocked aside.
"MY APOLOGIES, YOUTHS OF THE SCHOOL!"
Ah, of course. Lee.
Rock Lee thundered up the side of the field, easily over-taking Naruto and Sasuke (who was winning), leaving a trail of dust in his wake. While an absolute deadbeat when it came to fashion (he wore a green jumpsuit and orange legwarmers for crying out loud! Even Naruto wasn't that dense, and he wore an orange parka! Not to mention his bowl cut hair style and huge caterpillar eyebrows), the boy in question was a prodigy in the physical arts, excelling in just about every sport he tried out in, no matter how grueling it might be. This was the main reason that he was here at all (the other being that he had money), which was solely to glorify the Konoha High sports teams. Only for the ones that matter, of course, like football and basketball, because everything else wasn't good enough to raise the high status of the school. Not to say that Lee wasn't good at his "job," it was just that his task was . . . corrupted. Lee didn't seem to notice this, but Shikamaru did.
And it really, really bugged him.
For a second or two, before he let it go and focused on the present.
Sighing, he looked over at his friend. "Let's make like a tree and leaf." Chouji laughed, though he was still bitting his lips. "Come on, we'll go slow, okay?"
They spent the rest of the hour running slowly (it was more of a jog, really) around the football field. Several times, they'd stopped on the opposite side of the field, the farthest point possible away from Kureni, and caught their breath. Chouji had been pouring down sweat after the first lap and they were both panting heavily by the second. Neither of them were cut out for this kind of exercise, and they both felt like old jack-o'-lanterns that had sat out in the sun too long by the time they started their fourth lap.
Oh, Shikamaru LOATHED P.E.
Finally, finally, class ended and they were sent to the locker rooms to change and shower. After that, he and Chouji left before the bell ("But what if we get caught?" "We're not gonna get caught, Chouji."), stoping at their lockers to dump off their books, replace them with their other books, and then grab their lunch money before heading to the cafeteria.
The cafeteria was simply the upper level of the gym, accessed through the huge set of stairs at the back of the building or the elevator built into the wall. Windows were just about everywhere on the second story, rendering it pointless to install fluorescent lighting, making all the light that spilled into the insanely large room purely natural. It was big enough that the whole of second lunch (first lunch was after third hour, second lunch was after fourth) could not only get food from the built in kitchens, but seat themselves at the many, many round tables sprinkled randomly all throughout the room. If it should ever over fill (which was highly unlikely. It wasn't a very largely populated school), there was a set of stairs that led up to the roof where a few tables and a ramada had been put up. Locking the door that led up to the roof, though, completely defeated the purpose of having it, so the roof was pretty much off limits.
One look at the line and he sighed again. It was always so goddamn long. Chouji frowned, chewing his lip before turning to him.
"I'll buy lunch for us," he offered. Shikamaru shook his head slightly, steering them both to the end of the line.
"No. I'll wait in line too."
He almost wished he hadn't offered to stay. It took so freakin' long to get their damned lunch, it was a wonder there was any food left. They left the line as quickly as possible after paying for their meals, and Chouji immediately started to munch away as he walked. One look at the "food" on his tray and Shikamaru decided to let Chouji have his lunch as well.
All the cliques were separated within the cafeteria, assigning a table or two to each group respectively. While he never paid much attention to the finer points of how the groups were divided, he did know where the preppy girls were (the cloud of perfume that hung around them and their altered skirts that would make even a hooker blush where all too obvious), where the jocks were (only they could have that much muscle and so little brain), where the Goths were (the mass of black in the corner was a huge tip off), where the gangsters were (nothing but baggy pants and sideways baseball caps) and from there, the edges blurred until it was just a mass of people and colors that filled in the gaps.
"Oi! Shikamaru! Chouji! Over here!"
Naruto was waving his hands wildly, as if they couldn't have heard him shout at the top of his lungs three tables away and hadn't been going to the exact same table for the past six weeks. Rolling his eyes (he was doing that a lot today, wasn't he?), he led the way to Naruto's table, setting his tray down next to the ecstatic blonde's. Chouji sat on his other side, still eating, while placing his and Shikamaru's bags on the seat next to him.
Also seated at the table were Gaara (duh), Sasuke, Kiba, Shino, Lee, Hinata, a girly looking sophomore boy named Haku and his boyfriend Zabuza, Gaara's brother Kankuro, and Sai, an almost carbon copy of Sasuke. Most of them had also gotten food from the line, though Lee, Haku and Sai were sane enough (well, maybe not Lee) to bring edible food from home so as not to get food poisoning. Sasuke took one look at his food and then slid the tray down the table to Chouji who transferred the food onto his own tray almost automatically.
Haku and Zabuza were friends of Kankuro's, who had decided he wanted to eat lunch with his brother instead of eating with the drama troop (which both Haku and Zabuza were a part of) and Sai was Naruto's lab partner and neighbor. He had only just recently met these people, so they were utter mysteries to him, even if they were more than casual acquaintances. All of them got along well enough (despite Naruto and Sasuke's bickering and the rather oddly placed sweet talk that conspired between Haku and Zabuza) so there really wasn't much to complain about, really. Except maybe the noise.
He despised noise, even more than the city. Actually, that's probably why he didn't like the city to begin with.
"So, yeah, I was thinking about it, and you know what I realized?" said Naruto excitedly.
"You can think?"
"Shut up Sasuke-bastard!"
"What did you realize, Naruto?" asked Kankuro, his grin rather creepy with his kabuki make-up on.
"That you're a natural blonde?" deadpaned Gaara. Kiba laughed, almost spitting out his milk. Or maybe he just realized it was past its expiration date.
"Shut up! I was thinking about how Halloween was only two weeks away!"
There was a moment of silence before the sentence sunk in.
"Oh, yeah. It is."
"You can count?"
"Shut up, Sasuke-bastard!"
"What's so great about that?"
"Sai! How could you say such a thing?"
"Easy, I just open my mouth."
"IT IS YOUTHFUL TO TRICK OR TREAT!"
"Wow, I need to go buy some candy."
"I have to take my brother trick or treating!"
"I don't trick or treat."
"Well, you will this year, Gaara."
"Tch, how troublesome."
He never did like holidays. Everyone got all excited over one day out of 365 of them and just had to become a bunch of ninnies to carry out a stupid, pointless tradition. Halloween had originally been started in harvest season, just as winter set in, so that the youths of a community would go to every house dressed up in terrifying costumes and scare malicious spirits away from their homes. Now of course, there was no need for it, and so the holiday had lost its purpose. Yet people still continued to get dressed up and visited houses to "scare the spirits" upon the assumption candy would be offered for a reward.
"Oi, oi, we should have a party!" insisted Naruto, jumping up and down in his seat.
"Where?" asked Kiba, already growing excited at the thought of getting to trash someone's house. Naruto looked thoughtful, carefully considering his options.
"A house!" The group collectively rolled their eyes. Leave it to Naruto to state the obvious.
"No freakin' duh," growled Sasuke, sending Naruto a glare. "He meant whose house are we going to."
"It has to be a place we can totally trash," said Haku sensibly. "With Naruto and Kiba there, a table or two are bound to get broken."
"Or a skull."
"Shut up, Sasuke-bastard!"
"Can't you think of something more creative than that, Dead Last?"
"Why you—!" snarled Naruto, jumping up to grab at the Uchiha's neck. Gaara gripped the back of his shirt and pulled him back down with a grunt.
"Don't make a fool of yourself, blondie."
"Haha! He called you blondie!"
"Shut up, Baka-inu." Kiba slunk back in his seat, scowling.
"We still need to figure out where to have this party of ours," cut in Sai. Kiba and Naruto sulked in their seats, sending glares at Gaara and Sasuke respectively. Both boys mentioned ignored the stares sent their way, opting to listen to the party debate.
"Sai's right. So, any suggestions?"
"I heard there's a party at Tenten's," said Haku thoughtfully. "Instead of organizing our own, why don't we just go there?"
"Trash Tenten's?" asked Kankuro excitedly. "Hell yeah, I'm in. Whose gonna go?"
"Out of all of us? Um . . . ."
"I'm going!"
"PARTIES ARE MOST YOUTHFUL!"
"Right on, Fuzzy-brows!"
"Gaara, Temari and I are all going."
"I never said I'd go."
"What? But raccoon-eyes! You have to!"
"I'm going. I want to spike the punch— I mean, party till the sun falls down! Yeah!"
"Th-then I-I'll guh-go too."
"Hn."
"Do I have to go?"
"Yes, Zabi."
" . . . Damn."
"I'm not going."
"What? Not you too, Shikamaru!"
"Why not?" Chouji looked at him imploringly, having halted in his eating to lock eyes with him. Shifting slightly, he frowned.
"I don't like parties."
"Aw, come on. It's fun! Trust me, you'll love it." Kankuro grinned reassuringly, holding two thumbs up. He just sighed.
"It's too troublesome."
"Everything is too troublesome to you," laughed Naruto. As true as that was, he felt himself bristle just a bit, as if he were offended or something. How unlike him.
"I-I kinda want to go," mumbled Chouji uncertainly. Well that shut down any arguments he might have had. He sighed again and pushed his tray on top of Chouji's empty ones.
"Fine." Naruto punched the air with joy, a wide grin spread across his face.
"Alright! Everyone's coming! We're gonna rock till the sugar high wears off!"
"I don't EVER want to see you on a sugar high."
"What? I'm not that bad!"
"No, trust me, you are."
"What do you know, raccoon-eyes?"
"Plenty more than you."
"Amen to that."
"Shut up, Sasuke-bastard!" Gaara had to pull a little harder to drag Naruto back to his seat as the blonde lunged across the table again. Sasuke looked highly amused, and just watched the other boy struggle to free himself from the Sabaku's death grip.
"Thanks," smiled Chouji in between bites, his eyes shining a little brighter than before. He just grunted, resting his chin on his fist and his elbow on the table. The steady sounds of Chouji eating and the joyful din of his table mates echoed in his ears as he frowned to himself.
Damn. Now he had to go to a party.
At least Chouji would be there.
"Shika, may I talk to you?"
He stopped just as he passed Asuma's desk on his way out the door. The end bell for fifth hour had rung previously, allowing the students of the AP Chemistry class to leave for their sixth hour. What was it he wanted? Turning, he approached Asuma's desk and let his bag fall to the ground, his fingers curling loosely around the strap.
"Yeah?"
"I talked to Anko this morning. She said you came in late." Ah. So that's what he wanted to talk about. He shrugged.
"I came, didn't I?" Asuma smiled.
"Courtesy of Chouji, I presume?" He shrugged again.
"So?" The man laughed. If it weren't against school rules, he would've had a cigarette in his hand.
"You two are so predictable. You might as well be an old married couple for how well you know each other." An image of him and Chouji, old and withered, sitting in a park holding hands like old couples did on TV flashed through his head and he shivered. What a disturbing thought.
"That's disturbing." Asuma laughed again.
"Maybe, maybe," he paused and smiled shrewdly up at him. He had the slightest inkling that the man was thinking of something quite a bit more awful than the previous mental image that had invaded his head. That alone was more unsettling than it should have been.
"Look, Shika, just try to be on time more, okay?"
"Sure Asuma." He gave the younger boy a skeptical look, which he rolled his eyes at, before gesturing to the door.
"Go, or you'll be late." He slung his bag over his shoulder and as he passed the threshold of the door, he mumbled,
"Tch, so troublesome."
The drama class was located in the auditorium that was, surprisingly, able to fit itself at the end of the Second building, not too far from the science rooms. How they'd ever managed to fit the huge, slope-floored room in such a small portion of the Second building was beyond him, but he suspected that a good chunk of it went under ground. It could hold pretty much the whole school, though for performances they split them up by lunches, and the stage was big enough for the drama club to put on productions. There was even an orchestra pit, but it was only used for the really big plays that got written about in the newspaper.
Shikamaru really had no idea why he was in that class to begin with, but he had a suspicion that Asuma had given it to him as a joke (or maybe the building was messing with him again. The buildings all had it out for him, he knew it). All the other drama students were already there, spread out along the first three rows of the center section, with only the stages lights on to provide light. From his vantage point at the top of the sloping floor, he could easily pick out Kankuro's trademark kitty-ear hat and Shino's high collar, as well as the dyed electric blue hair of the Hotta twins, Ukon and Sakon. There were several other kids there as well, including Lee, Tenten (a volley ball player that wore her hair in buns), and a girl with bright red hair by the name Tayuya.
One person was absent however. Any moment now and he'd—
"HELLO STUDENTS! HOW ARE YOUR YOUTHFUL LIVES TODAY?"
Right on cue.
Gai came bounding onto the stage with a wide smile and huge (HUGE!) eyebrows that rivaled even Lee's. Much like Fuzzy-brow's, the man was dressed in a green jumpsuit and orange legwarmers, striking a rather disturbing pose that Lee mimicked before leaping up on the stage to stand beside their teacher.
"HOW ARE YOU TODAY, LEE?"
"I AM YOUTHFUL, GAI!"
"I'M SO GLAD! YOU MUST ALL ENJOY YOUR YOUTHFULNESS!"
"YOSH!" They hugged each other, yelling more nonsense about "youthfulness" and crap like that.
It was like a really bad comedy act. One that made him want to run the hell out before Gai ever saw him. Actually, that's exactly what he would do. He quietly tried to edge his way back out the door, casting a cautious look around him for any witnesses. Figures the Fates would hate him. Or maybe it was the building's minions at work again.
"NARA! COME DOWN AND JOIN OUR YOUTHFUL GROUP!" Gai and Lee both grinned up at him, holding out a thumbs up as their perfect teeth gleamed a brilliant white. They could've easily been mascots for a tooth paste commercial.
Sighing, he slunk down the runway to the front rows, and upon reaching it dumped his bag on the ground and slouched into the nearest chair. The Hotta twins leaned forward from their seats behind him and rested their arms on the backs of the seats to either side of Shikamaru. Identical sets of bright eyes glittered mischievously at him and suddenly he found himself seriously considering the stability of his sanity.
He had the uncany suspicion that he wouldn't have any left by the end of the day.
To be continued . . . .