Sakura's Boarding School Cliché: An Akatsuki x Sakura Fanfiction AU
[Chapter 5]

Disclaimer: I own NOTHING other than the plot!

We exited the school building. Deidara and I found ourselves racing against each other to the elevator that led to our apartment. We were neck-and-neck (and both exhausted, but we wouldn't succumb or back down just because of that) until we ran into a large group of students in the lobby.

They had apparently just gotten out, like us, and were waiting for the elevator to get back so that they'd be able to return to their rooms and unwind from the school day.

Being the smaller of the two of us, I slunk through the mess of students, and I decidedly made my way to the evil stairway that I begrudgingly had to make acquaintance with three times yesterday. All thirteen flights of the damned thing. It was no wonder that no one wanted to take the stairs and would rather wait for the elevator.

I looked over my shoulder and saw that Deidara was looking around, probably for me, and I ran my tired ass up the stairs hoping to beat Deidara to our room. I was four flights up when I heard a voice behind me. It was Dei.

"I'll get you, yeah, and don't even think you have a chance of getting there before me, uhn!" I heard his quick footsteps.

You know that feeling you got when you were a kid, playing tag at the playground, running away from whoever was 'it', and they were so close to catching you? You know that burst of adrenalin and that feeling that made you want to squeal and run faster when that happened? It was just like that, and a huge, happy grin splayed across my face as I got my second wind and felt that desperate need to escape the pursuer.

If it was even possible, I ran faster, and when I finally made it to the thirteenth floor, I looked over my shoulder for a second time. I saw Dei only one flight of stairs away from reaching me.

I ran around the corner with the key card in my hand for the room whilst I ran down the hall. I made it to the door, and managed to get it open and scurry in, just as Deidara made it to the entrance. Now inside the room, I turned and just as I was about to slam the door behind me, Dei stuck his foot in.

He was trying to push his way in, while I had my back to the door trying to lock him out. I laughed out loud at our childish antics; he was cross between laughing and giving up because he really wanted to get inside the apartment due to exhaustion.

All of the sudden, I had a brilliant idea.

He was about to make a huge effort to dislodge me and the door from his path. He stepped back and slammed all of his weight against the door. However, just as he was about to make contact, I stepped away from the door, letting him barge in and nearly fell onto his face. I couldn't contain the laughter that was flowing throughout me, and doubled over with hysterics.

He got up from falling over and had his murderous aura around him with a crazy grin plastered onto his face, and an evil gleam in his eyes.

'Oh crap.'

'Run, Bitch! Run!'

I ran past him, and into the bedroom, where I was trying to make it to the bathroom, so I could lock the door behind me, and get away from his evil clutches. Unfortunately, my plan wasn't fool-proof. Once I was successful with that plan, Dei made me realize something.

"You can't stay in there forever, hmm." His voice was right next to the door.

"Oh shit, I didn't think about that. Damn you and your mean and evil self!"

I paced around the bathroom a number of times with my 'thinking face' on. My pink eyebrows furrowed, my nose scrunched, while the tip of my tongue was sticking out of my mouth to the left side without my noticing most of the time. I also had my arms crossed in front of me, but I had made a fist with my right hand so I could rest my chin on my knuckles. That was my thinking face. Weird right?

I decided that I was going to wait until I was sure that he was gone, and go from there. Eventually, I heard the shuffling of fabric growing fainter and fainter and as soon as I was sure that he was at least not right at the door, I acted.

It was really quiet outside the door, so I unlocked it, and twisted the knob ever so silently as I looked through the crack in the doorway. The coast was clear, so I snuck out like a ninja, and started to tiptoe towards the kitchen because, honey, I was starving. However, as my luck would have it, something grabbed me from behind.

Of course, I had fallen for his trap, and he must have waited in the huge walk-in closet to the right of the bathroom. I felt him wrap his arms around me, keeping my arms trapped to my sides, and he had his chin on my shoulder.

"Ahahaa.. You were only in there for about eight minutes, uhn. I can't even believe that you fell for that whole 'the coast is clear' thing, yeah!" I could feel him laugh as he made us trudge towards the kitchen. It was as if he had read my thoughts from earlier.

"I thought I was so quiet too!" I pouted.

"No. You just think out loud sometimes, so much for being a ninja, hmm."

He chuckled and poked me in the side. I flinched, not expecting the poke of doom in the same bruised spot that he poked me earlier this morning when he woke me up.

"Oww. You're just such a jerk sometimes. You know that?" I stepped on his foot jokingly.

"Yeah. I know, but so are you, uhn."

"'Too true, dude. Can we walk faster? I'm starving."

"Nope; you can suffer another two point five seconds of torture, hmm."

I groaned and went limp. I'm way too stubborn for my own good sometimes, and I make things harder on people if I don't get my way. So, to do just that, I pretended that I was a limp, overcooked noodle, and he got stuck dragging me to the kitchen by my ankles. He dropped my legs when we made it to the kitchen and he looked like a disappointed five-year-old and was pouting.

I raised my arms straight up into the air, demanding that he help me up. He scuffled over to me, put a foot on either side of my waist, and hoisted me up. I almost fell over once I was up again and tripped on the flat surface of the floor when I walked over to the fridge. He snorted at me all amused-like and did that thing where he flicked his head to the right to get his blonde bangs out of his eyes, only to have it fall back into his face again.

"Walk much, dumbass, yeah?"

"It was a victory dance."

"You tripped, I saw it, and that was the stupidest lie I've ever heard in my life, uhn."

"Hey! It takes skill to trip on a flat surface! "

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, Sak."

I rolled my eyes at him and stared into the fridge. There was a problem though; it was empty. Well, save for some leftovers in a Styrofoam box, butter, a twelve pack of Pepsi, and an apple juice box. I looked at him giving him a look that said 'Where is food? I need food. There must be food.'

My eye twitched, and I marched over to the pantry seeing nothing but a box of bow tie pasta, a bag of popcorn, some cereal, a few cans of soups and vegetables.

There were a few other things, but the place was pretty much barren otherwise. I was going to have to get pretty damn creative with dinner if there was going to be one. I turned on my heel facing Deidara and put my serious face on.

"Get out of here. Now."

"Excuse me, yeah?"

"You're excused. Now leave the kitchen. I'm making dinner, and I only have so much energy and food to work with. Scram."

"Ugh. Fine, yeah. You're no fun anyways."

He left and I heard the T.V. switch on, and he flopped onto the couch. I turned to the stainless-steel fridge and the large pantry. Time to get serious.

I grabbed the Styrofoam box and snuck a peek at it but was revolted to see what I thought was green chicken or hairy spinach. I chucked that into the trash can and grabbed the butter and shut the door. I went over to the pantry and grabbed a can of chicken broth and bow tie pasta. I set all of the items on the granite counter and looked in each of the cabinets. I found the spices, and grabbed the garlic salt, garlic powder, dried parsley, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

First thing's first. I got a large pot, filled it with water, put a drizzle of olive oil into it, and set it on the stovetop that was set on high. As I waited for it to boil, I walked over to Charlotte's terrarium, and slid the lid off. I picked up Char, and she sat still in my palm. I walked over to the couch and plopped down next to Dei. I saw that he had on Spongebob, and that was perfectly fine with me.

The next thing I know, I heard a not so manly scream, and had a blonde crawling away from me like his life depended on it.

"What's your problem? "

"What the fuck is on your shoulder, yeah?" He looked terrified.

I looked to my shoulder, and saw Charlotte was perched there. I guess I was too preoccupied with Patrick Star yelling "Finland!" to notice her crawl up my arm and onto my shoulder. I smiled at her and raised my hand to her. She crawled forward onto my hand like the good girl she was.

"Hi, Char-baby. You hungry too, girl?"

I looked at Dei and smirked at him.

"You haven't met Charlotte, have you? She's my baby, and if you hurt her, I'll kill you. Comprende?"

"You're insane, hmm. Fine, I won't hurt the little bugger as long as it won't bite me."

"Hun, she couldn't hurt you at all. Well, unless you're allergic to bees because her venom is almost one in the same. Anyways even if you were, she wouldn't bite unless her life was threatened or you were food, man."

I chuckled, and he nodded looking like he wanted to slam his head into the nearest wall. I looked down at Charlotte, who was climbing back up my arm.

"Can I pet her?" I looked up somewhat surprised and nodded.

"If you squish her, I-"

"I won't hurt her, uhn."

Setting her on his palm, he studied her carefully as if she would go crazy at any moment's notice. He finally relaxed, and I heard the timer go off to let me know that the water was boiling.

I ran over to the sink to wash my hands thoroughly. Grabbing the box of Bow-tie pasta, dumping it into the boiling water, and setting the timer again to tell when the noodles would soften, I grabbed a colander that I would be using to strain the noodles, and set it in the sink for when the noodles were done.

After I walked back into the living room and could have died from happiness. Dei was watching Spongebob with Char on his shoulder. It was freaking adorable, but I had to get a grip, or I'd lose all respect for myself because I've queened out way too much today.

I flopped onto the couch and was totally vegging out while watching Spongebob face his evil drawing (Doodle) that looked exactly like him. Good episode, I've got to say. Once that episode ended, and the next one began with the ever so familiar theme song and title sequence, the timer went off again, so I headed to the kitchen.

The noodles were ready, so I set the burner to low, and took the pot of boiling noodles to the sink After I strained the pasta, I put them back into the pot with an entire stick of butter. After that was melted and stirred, I put some of the garlic powder, garlic salt, dried parsley, salt, pepper, and I poured some of the chicken broth into it. I taste-tested it to see if it needed anything else.

It was heaven. Usually managing just by winging it, I was very resourceful when food depended on it. I grabbed a couple glossy, black ceramic bowls, and filled them up with the buttery pasta goodness, while grabbing two Pepsi cans, and set them on the coffee table in front of the couch. I managed to pry Charlotte from Deidara's shoulder, not without a fight from her though.

"Looks like you have a fan, Dei." I laughed, and he smirked.

"Whatever, hmm."

I walked over to the kitchen sink so I could wash my hands after setting Char-baby back in her 20 gallon cage and snapping the lid closed.

"You might want to wash your hands before you even touch your food. I always have to after I handle Char or else, we might get sick or something."

"Ugh. Fine."

He glared at me, and I just walked past, sat on the couch, and shoveled the food into my mouth like I hadn't eaten in days. I turned my attention to the T.V. which I had switched to Ren and Stimpy. That was my favorite show on the face of the planet.

When Dei got back, he all but ate the bowl of noodles whole, and the actual bowl with it.

"Hungry much?" I raised my left eyebrow at him.

"Whuth teh fuck thu hew phink, huhm?" Like this morning, he had spoken with food stuffed into his face.

"Sheesh. Mr. Manners over here, right? " I smirked.

"Shut up, yeah."

I laughed and downed my Pepsi.

By the end of the Ren and Stimpy episode, we were pretty much done with dinner, and didn't feel like we were on the brink of death anymore. I almost drifted off, but he reminded me that I was on KP duty.

"You suck!"

"I know, yeah." He handed me his bowl, and I wanted to chuck it at his stupid head, but Inner stopped me.

'Awww. Come on, Inner. It wouldn't kill him, maybe just injure his pride a little.'

'No, though it would be funny, we could just get this over with, rest, and we can get him back later.'

'Why do you get to be the killjoy today?'

'Because you're a pushover today.'

'Am not.'

'Shut up.'

'Okay.'

'See?'

'Shut up.'

'Make me.'

Breaking the mental link and returning to KP duty, I was glad that I wasn't a messy chef. I only had to put up a few spices, put the leftovers in a Ziplock Freezer bag, and put the one pot up along with the two bowls and silverware in the dishwasher. Once the kitchen was completely immaculate, and I went through every single cabinet, drawer, and even the fridge and pantry, throwing away all of the expired items, and reorganizing them completely. It took about an hour, and I saw that there was only about an hour and a half left of sunlight left.

We obviously had to go to the store for basically everything, so I got Dei up, and we both got ready. I had gotten a black wife-beater, baggy, black sweatpants, my eyeliner, eye shadow, and vanilla ChapStick on, after I changed out of my guy outfit and wraps for today. I also grabbed my car keys, and my small black purse that only had a short silver chain. I hated purses, so I got one that was hardly noticeable and not stupidly girly.

Dei just stayed in his clothes from earlier, but he hadn't bothered taking his car keys or anything other than his ratty black leather wallet. He didn't think twice about not taking his car because I swear he thinks my car is his car. This once he took it without me knowing, and I almost skinned him alive. So, he never took it again, but he never passed up a chance to be able to ride in it either.

Both of our families were pretty well off, so we were never really in a tough spot for money. His family died awhile back after being killed in their home, and was left with all of the money and estates. However he wouldn't be able to receive it unless he completed high school, completed at least one year in college, and turned eighteen. He did get a certain amount of money each month until he reach all of those qualifications, though.

The only living relatives I had was Tsunade, and some really distant family that I've never met, but I heard that they were snobby and only cared for themselves. I had no interest for fake or superficial relations, friendships, family, or anything to do with bullshit people. I only had Dei and Tsunade. That may have made me a bit reclusive and awkward, but they were all that I needed.

We finally walked out of our apartment and locked the door.

"And we're off like a herd of turtles!" I announced once we entered the now deserted elevators.

"Yeah, like a herd of turtles in a pond of molasses is more like it, yeah."

"Yeah whatever, so anyways, I'm driving."

"Awh, Come on, I want to drive, yeah."

"My car, my rules. You can drive next time though because I'm nice and awesome," I winked at him and grinned.

I ran out towards my Camaro, hopped in, buckled up, and started that puppy. Dei grumbled because he wanted to drive today, but he got in anyway. As I was checking my rear-view windows, and everything to make damn sure that nothing happens to my Camaro, I grabbed my phone before backing out and put on some music, cranking the volume, and drove to the nearest Walmart.

Surprisingly, Walmart wasn't packed, so we got a pretty decent spot up front.

I grabbed one of the carts and headed toward the produce. I thought of the list in my head.

Well, one shopping trip later. We got a shitload of groceries, and the cost went well over $300, and we both split the bill. Thank God we were well off in the cash department. We sure as hell won't need to be back to the store for a few weeks, and we won't have to resort to eating out. I had bought my shampoo and stuff for the rest of my disguise. What else was I supposed to get?

Oh yeah, we need to stop by the reptile slash exotic pets store and buy Charlotte her food. She usually eats a couple medium sized crickets every two to three days between feedings. I have to buy them at a store to make sure that they're not diseased or have consumed pesticides and whatnot. I also can't just give her too many because the crickets might bite her, and potentially hurt her.

As we reached the car, Dei was pestering me to drive the car, so I let him, but gave him directions to the small store that was at the corner of a strip-mall. We entered the store, and I ordered ten medium crickets, some cricket food, and a small container to keep the crickets in. I paid, and we finally got back to the apartment.

Let me just say that it took forever to get all of the groceries in and put away. The fridge and the pantry were now fully stocked and organized, which was a plus. Also, I put the smaller cage next to Char's, and put the cricket food in there, which afterwards I put a cricket in the larger cage, and Char was on that thing like the true predator she was finished with that one, I set another one in there to make sure she was full enough.

Dei was watching her devour the insect, and I was on my way to take a shower. I put up all of the deodorant, hair supplies, and other miscellaneous toiletries before turning the shower on, and entering the blistering hot water. I had no Idea how tense, and sore I was, but then I really reflected on how insanely event-filled day was.

It was my first day of boarding school, I dyed my hair, woke up at around 5:00 am, pretended to be a guy, I had a boxing match with my teacher and a painfully long workout in gym, I disected a frog, ran up thirteen flights of stairs, made dinner, cleaned the entire kitchen when I was on KP duty, I went to Wal-hell to get 50 million things, along with getting things for Charlotte at the pet store, and got harassed by my roommate.

Oh boy, I should get a medal or something. I lathered myself up with the new body wash, shampoo, and conditioner, and let the almost boiling water work its wonders on my shot to hell nerves and muscles. I noticed that some of the hair dye was coming out because there was pinkish red mixing with the lather that I was washing off, and began to freak out.

"Oh. My. God!"

I shrieked, afraid that my hair would either be ruined or faded.

I heard knocking on the door, and Dei's voice on the other side asking if everything was okay.

"No! Everything isn't okay because the color in my hair is washing out!"

He laughed. He freaking laughed.

"That's normal, dude! It's just the extra dye that didn't make it out the first time. It'll keep doing that for the next few days, yeah. Your hair will be fine, dork, hmm."

"Yaayy~." I said a little relieved, yet exhausted and shaky.

I stayed in the shower for another five minutes, just letting the heat soak into my refried nerves. When I finally got out, dried off, and got my dark grey basketball-type jersey on with my matching pajama pants on, I brushed my teeth, and let Dei have reign of the bathroom.

I sat on the couch, and watched an episode of George Lopez, and then after that I made my awesome, sweet iced ginger tea for tomorrow. I looked at my cell phone, and saw that Tsunade texted me asking how today went. I texted her the eventfulness and told her that I was off to bed. She couldn't believe it, and I didn't blame her. It was a ton of exhausting shit that I did today. She bid me goodnight, and said that I probably needed to go to bed early anyways.

I looked at my clock and saw that it was only 9:38 and shrugged.

I was beat and didn't care that it was two hours earlier than when I usually go to sleap, so I brushed my hair out before flopping onto the bed and burying myself with the covers.

Dei had apparently finished his forty-five-minute Hollywood shower and made his way to the side of the bed. He must have been just as beat as I was, so he flopped down on the small bed too, almost crushing me in the process. I scooted away from him as much as I could without falling off of the bed. I felt an arm wrap around my stomach, and he must have pulled me back over to him. I was too tired to care though, so I promptly fell asleep. I had forgotten to say goodnight though because I heard a quiet "Goodnight to you, too, uhn." before fully drifting off. I was almost excited about what tomorrow would be like. Maybe I'm just too tired to think straight though.

Please read the following, this is crucial:

~Don't you all worry about Sakura not really getting acquainted the others yet. This story progresses slowly, and it's just taking time, and is hopefully far from over. This is an AkaSaku harem fic. meaning eventual romance with EVERYONE in the Akatsuki. Not strictly a DeiSaku. I'm just making the relationships as believable and non-superficial as I can possibly can. ;)

I'm striving for opinions, and am becoming a better writer and artist because of it. I'm striving for you guys, and I take my work seriously. Please continue to keep me on my toes. ;)

Please comment. I'll even take flames.

I love you all and really appreciate the love y'all have given back,

~Neptunian Burial