Author's Note: Hello, Everyone

Title: Religion and Music

Chapter 2: When I Saw Her

Almost as soon as I got to my apartment, my phone rang. I threw my backpack on the floor and trudged over to my nightstand, picking up the old-fashioned phone without looking at the ID.

"Hello?" I greeted dully. "Who is this?"

"There's a meeting tonight," the voice on the other end said. I immediately recognized it as Itachi. I could tell anyway, because the jerk never introduced himself over the phone for fear of wiretaps or something. The guy was seriously paranoid. "Tobi's apartment at eight." Without another word, the line went dead.

I kept the phone to my ear for a moment. If there was a gang meeting, why hadn't Pein, Konan, or Kakuzu said something to me while we were at school? It wasn't as if we would have gotten in trouble; everyone at school was so damn scared of us that they didn't dare question us or what we were doing. Selfish bastards, my friends were.

I could understand the art brothers not telling me though. After all, they had been a little preoccupied this morning.

I set the phone back down in its place and sat on my bed. Looking down at my feet, I realized I had forgotten to take my shoes off. Whatever. It wasn't as though my apartment was super high class or that I had people I needed to impress. There was nothing like that. The apartment was located in one of the cheapest parts of town, and it showed. The place was an absolute mess for the most part, with all sorts of crap lying around and miscellaneous things cluttering the floor. I can't tell you how many damn times I've cursed myself for being this messy, especially whenever I think about how OCD I am about my appearance.

Speaking of which, I hadn't checked my hair in a long time. I got up and walked into the bathroom only to stare, horrified, at my reflection. All the work I had done for Asuma-sensei had left my hair parted in the middle and falling onto the sides of my face. My eyes were wide. "SHIT!!" I suddenly cried, grabbing the comb out of my back pocket. I raided my medicine cabinet for the hair gel and quickly slicked the substance through the silver strands. "That bastard!!" I continued as I worked feverishly. "It's all because of him!!"

As soon as I was done, I slammed the comb down on the counter and looked at myself. Okay, the hair was better, that was a start. How about the rest of me? I took off my uniform shirt and examined the skin on my chest. Yes, it was all perfectly pale without any marks or bruises. Good, especially after Kakuzu had thrown me into the wall. That asshole…

I was just about to head back into my bedroom when something on my neck caught my eye. There was a bruise on my neck. A BRUISE. A FRIGGIN' BRUISE. For a few long, silent moments, I just stood there, staring. Someone had managed to mar my skin. Who would dare?!

"What the hell?!" I asked myself. "How did THAT get there?!" I thought back to the beginning of my day. Yeah, Kakuzu had thrown me into the bathroom wall, but he had only grabbed my collar. And, if anything, my uniform shirt had been buttoned down, so if he had made any wounds on my skin, they would have appeared on my chest.

And suddenly, it hit me. Tayuya. The psycho, pink-haired, flute-playing, I'm-going-to-kick-your-ass chick had hurt me when she had grabbed my collar! She had grabbed me closer to my neck than my chest, so it would only make sense that she would have hurt me.

"THAT BITCH!!" I screamed, throwing my uniform shirt to the floor. "THAT DAMN BITCH!!" I seriously wanted to kill someone or something right then and there. Anything would have made me feel better.

However, sadly, there was nothing to kill in my apartment at the time. I considered going out and buying something, but it would have been a waste. Wait, let me curse and slap myself. That was totally out of character for me; I sounded like Kakuzu, that money-grubbing bastard.

Actually, he was the first one I called. He could put up with my whining.

I dialed his number on my home phone; it only took two rings for him to pick up his cell.

"What do you want, Hidan?" he spat. "I'm at work. Unless you're looking to order something, I suggest you hang up."

"Do you know a girl named Tayuya?"

"What? No, I don't. What's this about?"

"The bitch bruised my neck!"

"Dude, you didn't tell me you had a girlfriend!"

"SHE'S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!! THE BITCH HURT MY NECK!!"

There was a long silence. I heard the background noise of the bar where Kakuzu worked, but I didn't hear my friend for a few good minutes. I also couldn't image the look on his face. Was he shocked? Sympathetic? Neutral?

"So why are you complaining to me?" he finally asked. "If this Tayuya chick pissed you off so much, why don't you just hunt her down and beat the crap out of her? Don't tell me you've suddenly adopted a code of chivalry, okay? You've never had a second thought about beating up a girl; you've done it more times than I can count."

"Don't you GET IT?!" I exploded. "The girl HURT MY NECK. There is A BRUISE on my fucking neck! I look like an IDIOT!!"

"And you sound like one, too!" Kakuzu shouted. "Don't call me again until the meeting at Tobi's tonight! I don't want to hear anymore of your whining, complaining, or bullshit!"

"That's right!" I realized, slapping my palm on my bed. "If there was a meeting at Tobi's tonight, why didn't you tell me while we were at school?! No one would have cared, damn it!"

"Did you think to cover the bruise up?"

"DON'T SUDDENLY TALK LIKE YOU'RE CARING ABOUT ME!!"

With that, I slammed the phone down on its base. Two seconds later, I realized I had been tricked into hanging up.

Even today, I still spend a lot of my free time coming up with ways I can kill that damn bastard.

I groaned and let my head drop. I knew I should have skipped school today. I just knew it. If I had, I wouldn't have had to have witnessed the art brothers have sex in the bathroom, I wouldn't have had to work for Asuma-sensei, that jerk, and I my skin would still be perfect. Shit, I was totally having an emo moment.

I spent most of the afternoon lazing around my apartment, not doing much. At one point, I got up and had a snack, an ice cream bar in my mini fridge on the other side of the room. Strawberry-flavored, it was. The little bits of fruit reminded me of the color of blood, and the color of the cream matched my eyes. Wow, okay, that sounded gay, sorry. It was true though. My eyes were this bright pink color that I had always liked.

…Hey, real men wear pink, damn it.

Around five, I hauled my ass out of bed and sat down to do some homework. I figured that in order to survive this last school year, or, at the very least, geometry class, I had to put some effort into my work. I at least had to finish the assignment, and, actually, when I sat down to do it, I realized that there wasn't really much to it. Okay, so a right triangle had an angle at 90 degrees and one of those little boxes in the corner. That wasn't too hard. Don't be thinking that I suddenly loved geometry though. That was only one aspect of it that I understood. The rest was a total blur to me.

But, hey, I finished the assignment, and that was what was important, right?

When I looked at the clock again, it was only five-thirty. Perfect. I had some time to perform a ritual before I headed out towards Tobi's. I moved my bed back towards the wall to reveal a painted symbol on my floor: a triangle within a circle in a bright red color. In the center of the triangle was a mid-length scythe with three blades.

Now, how exactly do these rituals go? Well, I don't feel like explaining it. All you need to know is that they involve blood, a lot of blood. I pressed the blades down into my arm and made cuts that bled onto the floor. Part of the reason why the symbol on the floor was red was not just because of good paint; my blood was usually part of it.

It was a little past six when I was done. Slowly, I picked myself up and cleaned the blood on my skin off. My skin had already begun to heal, and I could see the beginning of new skin forming over the cuts. Okay, so that would keep Jashin-sama happy for a while. Now it was time to gather myself together for the meeting. Tobi's apartment was a good half-hour away, even on a motorcycle.

I spent the next hour eating some decent food before I headed out. The ice cream had digested by now, so I was hungry, and, even if I wasn't, it was probably a good idea to get something into my system after losing all that blood. I washed a single serving of rice and put it in the cooker, and while I waited for that, I heated up some leftover chicken and drizzled it in soy sauce. It sounds pathetic, I know. Shut up. If your parents had abandoned you at the tender age of seven, you would live poorly and dully, too. Now, seriously, shut the hell up.

Once everything was hot, I put it all together and shoved it in my mouth. Not too bad. Of course, I wasn't this expert cook or anything. If there was anyone in Akatsuki who could cook though, it was Konan. Working for an inn, the girl had to know about foods necessary for ceremonies. I had only eaten her food twice, but damn, it was awesome. Of course, she would only cook for Pein. The only reason I got to try it was because the rest of the gang had been over for meetings.

I finished dinner, threw my paper plate and disposable chopsticks out, donned my leather jacket, and headed out the door. On our way too meetings and during meetings, everyone had to wear this black leather jacket with a red cloud on the back to show our unity. It also just so happened that we all looked awesome in them. The best part was that I didn't need to wear a shirt underneath. No, I'm not a nudist, you perverts. I just don't like wearing shirts. Yes, I wear pants. I enjoy wearing pants. Get your minds out of the gutter.

I still had plenty of time to get to Tobi's house, so I figured I'd stop at the bar where Kakuzu worked for a drink. I had a fake ID, but he would always let me in anyway. That was the only thing the jackass was good for, or so I had always believed. I had my backpack with me, just in case, and there was a good possibility that Pein would have papers for us describing tasks we had to perform for the gang.

I hopped on my bike, put my helmet on, and let the baby go. Damn, I loved this bike. I loved this bike more than I had ever loved anything else before. It was so sleek and powerful. I loved the feeling of the hot, burning engine and the cold metal that would gradually get warmer with my body heat. I loved the handling and how fast the wheels could go. Whenever I was on this thing, oh man, it felt better than sacrificing those kittens to Jashin. This was bliss and I almost forgot about the bruise on my neck.

It all suddenly rushed back to me though, when I saw one of the last people on earth I wanted to see. Yeah, up ahead, Tayuya was walking down the street. She had changed out of her school uniform, but she was still wearing a skirt with a typical t-shirt. Her hands were in her skirt pockets, and her head was down. She walked slowly along the sidewalk, never once looking up.

Actually, she looked quite harmless like this.

Now, any normal guy would have just kept going, trying to forget about the music sheets in his backpack, but if you haven't figured it out by now, I'll explain it: I am NOWHERE near normal.

I stopped on the side of the road a few feet from where Tayuya was. I turned off the engine and slipped the helmet off, shaking my head to free it from the sweat. I didn't feel my hair fall out of place, so I was content. I reached into my backpack and pulled out the music sheets.

If you're wondering why I was performing this act of charity, it was simple. The sooner I returned the chick's music, the sooner I could forget about her.

"Tayuya," I said to get her attention. The pink-haired girl's head shot up, and her brown eyes widened. "You forgot your music sheets when we bumped into each other earlier today. The principal gave them to me to return to you. Could you just take them so we don't have to have anything more to do with each other? You don't even have to thank me. Just take them and leave."

I thought I was being quite reasonable, but this psycho apparently didn't agree. After a long moment of silence, she walked right up to me and punched me in the face.

I stood there, completely shocked, trying to comprehend what had just happened. I was being so…nice. Talk to Kakuzu! I'm never nice!!

"BITCH!!" I screamed once I had recovered. "What THE FUCK was THAT for?!"

Tayuya snatched the papers out of my hand and tore them to shreds. "I left them there on purpose, dumbass," she muttered, her gaze not meeting mine.

My eyes widened. "Why THE HELL would you do THAT?!" I gasped. "Aren't you a flute player? Don't you need that music to play your instrument? Hell, I don't know a damn thing about music, but aren't the notes the most important part of playing the instrument?"

"Not if they're all in your head," the girl whispered.

I was silent. The stuff on those papers had looked like pretty complicated shit.

"Do you mean to tell me that you had those sheets memorized?"

Tayuya shot me an angry glare. "Don't you DARE insult me!" she spat. "I don't need a shitty piece of paper to tell me what to play! All the musicians who wrote that trash are nothing!"

What the hell was this girl on?!

"I don't get you," I finally admitted.

"You don't need to," the psycho replied. "Just know that I don't need a piece of paper to tell me what the right note is. That's not how I play."

"Then how do you play?" I questioned.

"That's none of your damn business!"

This was going nowhere.

After another moment of silence, Tayuya's face turned red.

"BASTARD!!" she shouted. "Is that anyway to present yourself to a lady?!" She pointed to my bare chest. I almost laughed. The "I'm-going-to-kick-your-ass" chick was getting flustered because of a man's chest. I bet she had never even seen a man's chest before.

"You're right," I sighed. "It isn't a way to present myself to a lady." I paused. "However, you're not much of a lady with that dirty mouth of yours. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that you're obviously mind-molesting my chest, I wouldn't say you were female at all."

Tayuya's jaw dropped. "YOU FUCKER!!" she cried, swinging another punch at me. I knew that punch though, and I quickly dodged and punched her in the chest. Tayuya coughed and spat up some saliva as she fell backwards. I flexed my fingers. Damn, if she didn't have long, pink hair, an eye for a perfectly sculpted chest, and a skirt, I'd say she really WAS a man. She had the lack of a chest to prove it.

"Damn," I heard her gasp, "you're good." She smirked and stood, brushing her tan skirt off. "You're better than my brothers."

…WHAT? BROTHERS?!

"I think I may have found my new trainer," she snickered. "You could teach me a thing or two about kicking a jerk's ass. My brothers have NOTHING on that punch, and one of them is a pro wrestler. Hell, you could probably be HIS trainer!"

This chick had been testing me?

"Whatever," she continued. "I hope I run into you again, asshole."

With that, she turned, ran down the sidewalk, and immediately made another turn. I ran up to where she had gone but couldn't see her. What was up with that chick?! She didn't even seem human!

I looked at my watch and saw that I had about forty-five minutes to make it to Tobi's. Okay, that was enough. I walked back to my bike and got on. Before going anywhere though, I looked at the shredded papers on the ground. An interesting thought struck me.

"If she thinks that stuff is trash," I murmured to myself as I put my helmet on, "I'd like to hear what she plays."

I started the engine and made my way to the meeting.

TO BE CONTINUED