Title: Science Lab
Author: Isiri
Rating: K
Summary: Naruto + a Science Lab + a Bottle of Mercury. Oh my. Poor, poor, Sakura. NaruSaku Friendship.
Dedication: La-chan, cause you is amazing and beta'd this thing for me, despite the mountains of homework you had.
A/N: I wrote this on the second or so day of school in gr.10 while my science teacher started talking about Mercury while going over the lab safety rules. Then I thought about how funny it would be for Naruto to be in a science room and how amusing it would be to watch Sakura suffer as his partner. Then this was born.
Disclaimer: Naruto and all related characters and logos belong to Kishimoto-sensei.
Science Lab
They were all lined up in a row in alphabetical order, not one glass container out of place. That was exactly the way she liked things: ordered, precise, neat, perfect. That was just the way she was. "Hey, Sakura-chan, look at this thing, isn't it cool? Every time I shake the glass the colour changes from red to brown and back again!"
"Naruto, put that back right now!" A pale hand snapped out and grabbed the glass container, returning it back to its rightful alphabeticalized place. "And why don't you have your lab coat on? You know it's standard procedure to wear a lab coat and goggles when dealing with chemicals. So why are you still here, Naruto? Get your safety equipment now!"
"Alright, Sakura-chan!" Without another word Uzumaki Naruto ran to other side of the classroom, doing exactly as his lab partner had instructed. Haruno Sakura sighed. Nothing may ever change her way of doing things, but as long as Naruto remained her science lab partner, she knew that nothing she did would ever be ordered or precise again. 'Why me?' she begged silently.
The only response she received was the return of her partner. It was official: the Gods hated her. "Stupid school, stupid science lab, stupid Gods," she mumbled into her hands.
"Hey, Sakura-chan, are you okay?" Turning to him, she nodded, and then her face took on a serious look. "Alright, let's get this stupid thing over and done with!" With that she continued copying down the procedure for the experiment the two had been assigned.
Two minutes later, Naruto decided it was too quiet. "What's this thing?"
Glancing up briefly from her paper, she answered, "Bottled carbon monoxide."
The boy twirled the bottle around with nimble fingers. "I don't get it, though. There's nothing in it, so how do you know?"
"I know because, firstly, if you actually look at the little label on the bottle, that's exactly what it says it is, and secondly, carbon monoxide is a gas--a clear gas--so of course you're not going to be able to see it. Now stop twirling it and put it down before you drop it."
"Oh, wow, this stuff's shiny! What is it, Sakura-chan?"
She sighed and put her pencil down before answering him. "Mercury, Naruto. Why don't you ever pay attention in science class?"
He shrugged. "It's boring."
Sakura could have killed him for using such simple logic. Slowly, she massaged her temples. "Well, I know science class isn't exactly the most exciting thing in the world (I mean, even I don't enjoy it all that much,) but still--" She looked back up at the blond and stopped, anything she was about to say wiped clean from her mind with shock.
"Naruto?"
"Yeah?"
"Why is the Mercury bottle empty?"
"Uh, hehe, funny thing you should mention that."
"Oh?" she cut him off. "Well now, did you by any chance, say, open the bottle, Naruto-kun?" The blond's face drained of all colour, turning a stark white. Sakura only ever added that suffix to the end of his name when she was really, really mad. "Did you? No, of course you didn't, because you and I both know that it's against the lab safety rules, right?"
"Um. . ."
"Just like I know that you didn't spill it on the floor because you know that it would scatter all throughout the classroom."
"Well, I--"
"Just like I know that you know that Mercury is a poisonous gas and that it evaporates into the air because you pay attention in class and are not a clumsy, irresponsible, brainless idiot. Right, Naruto-kun?"
By now the thirteen year-old was cowering in his seat. "I re-really didn't mean to--ah, that is, I mean, Sakura-chan, please p-put the beaker down. Y-you don't r-really want t-to hit me w-with that, r-right?"
Sakura's figure loomed over him, a fiery aura surrounding her entire body and an insanely strong killer intent rolling off of her in waves.
". . . Right . . .?"
"NAAAAAAAAARUTOOOOOO!!"
"I'm really, really, super, seriously sorry, Sakura-chan. It was an accident, I swear! I'll never, ever do it again!" Naruto swore to his crush from his seat next to her on the park bench.
"I know you won't because you've gotten the both of us kicked out of science class. We're not aloud to enter the science lab ever again! You didn't just get yourself in trouble this time, oh no, you just had to go and drag me down with you!"
After Sakura's scream the teacher had come rushing over and restrained her from killing Naruto, but once he finally managed to understand from her screams that Naruto had spilled mercury, the entire class was rushed out of the science lab, forced to wait in the school's multi-purpose room, spend another hour detained and then tested by freaky looking guys in white protective suits. After the men in white gave the O.K everyone was released and Sakura and Naruto were suspended for the rest of the day by the principle.
So now here they were, sitting alone together on the first bench Sakura spotted in the park a few blocks from school grounds; the petite girl being too afraid to go home and face her mom once she found out her only daughter was suspended, and the blond boy having no one to go home too at all and deciding he'd rather spend his time with his favorite female.
"It's okay, Sakura-chan, you can always take grade nine science again next year."
Sakura turned on him so fast that for a split second, Naruto was worried she might have gotten whiplash. "We are the first students ever, in the history of Konoha High, to be kicked out of the grade nine science curriculum!"
Blue eyes blinked once, twice; three more times before Naruto's face split into his infamous grin. "You're right! Isn't that the coolest? This means we're famous now! People will be talking about what happened for a hundred--no--a thousand years from now!"
The young girl stared at Naruto disbelievingly while he continued to sit there and grin at her. "Don't worry about it, Sakura-chan! Everything's going to get better, just you wait; I talked to the old perv--err--I mean the principal," he hastily corrected, the last time he had called the principal an old pervert around Sakura still fresh in his mind. Unconsciously, Naruto winced and his hand moved to rest on his head protectively before he continued talking. "And he said that we could probably get someone to home-school us if you're alright with that. The principal said he could arrange it for us and everything."
The girl's distress lifted immensely. "Really, Naruto? Are you serious?"
"Yeah!" he replied with a bright smile. "I'm really glad you're feeling better now, Sakura-chan."
Sakura laughed lightly and a kind smile lit her face. "Thanks for cheering me up, idiot."
"Hey!" She giggled at his indignant shout, and from his smiling face she knew he understood that she was only joking. "It does suck that we got kicked out, though. I mean, it was our only class together. Well at least I get to be home-schooled with you, ne, Sakura-chan? Oh man, you… me... a teacher too, but mostly you and me . . ." slowly Uzumaki Naruto drifted off into a dream-like state.
This was probably why he didn't notice the suddenly pale face of Sakura and did not immediately try to help her. "What do you mean, "you, me and a teacher"?"
The blond blinked as he came out of his trance and told her, "The perv--the principal said that the school would only pay for a private science teacher if we were taught together because separately it'd be too expensive. He also said you would be able to "constrain" me, what ever that means," he grumbled, trying to figure out the meaning of the big word Jiraiya, the principal and his current guardian, had used.
'I bet it's an insult! Stupid old pervert, talking to me with stupid big words just because he knows English isn't my strong suit. Thinks he's sooo smart, ha! I'll show him, I'm not as dense as I look. Hehehe, I'll just ask Sakura-chan what it means!'
Determined, he turned around to look his crush straight in the eye. "Hey, hey, Sakura-chan, do you know . . . w-what . . . um, Sa-Sakura-chan, ah, are you okay? Why are you shaking? Are you upset again? I know you really wanted to get back into science class but look at the bright side: we get to be taught privately, just the two of us, together, for an entire year."
Haruno Sakura looked up at the blond who was gently rubbing circles on her back. His caring smile and simple gestures of affection were always what she needed when she was feeling down and, (though she'd never admit it to herself,) the thought of spending an entire year being privately taught with him may not have seemed as bad to her as when she had first met him, but now it made familiar emotions bubble up inside of her once more.
"Ahh, Sakura-chan, don't start crying again!"
E.N.D
A/N: So after putting off editing this thing for two years, I finally got it done and am posting it. One of my more... light-hearted, early works of Naruto fanfiction. I hope you all liked it.
Remember the three R's: Read, Ravish, and Review
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Next: "Only Fantastic"