A/N: Second installment. I appreciate any and all readers/reviewers, even if there aren't a lot. Any criticisms are also appreciated, and if there's something bothering you about the story, please let me know. Since I forgot the disclaimer last chapter, I think I'll do it here.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
LAST CHAPTER
The group followed the hallway until they came upon the room Temari was looking for, room S671. Keeping down the nervousness in her stomach, Temari reached for the door handle, grasped the bronze object, and turned it. The door slid open easily, and as it widened, they all peered in to see who her roommates were.
Chapter Two: Roommates
Temari blinked once, twice, and then let out an odd, strangled noise as the two boys in the dorm room turned their heads at the intruder. Three sets of eyes widened as one of the room's occupants jumped to his feet, an accusatory finger pointing at the girl-dressed-as-a-boy.
"Tema—" But before the boy could finish, Temari had jumped into action and clamped a hand over his mouth, glaring at him for all she was worth. He whimpered under the pressure, and zipped his mouth as the girls and Kiba stared, bewildered.
"You guys know each other?" Kiba asked, breaking the ice. Temari and the boy glanced at each other before turning back to the brunette.
"We're related," they said in unison, both of their tones obvious in their lamentation.
"Oh, and him, too," the boy Temari had pounced on said, pointing over at his redheaded associate and, apparently, brother. The girls' eyes widened in realization at who these two boys were, and they had to grin at the pure irony of having Temari land in a dorm room with her two brothers, both of whom were already well-aware that she was female. It seemed like an odd stroke of luck, not having one of their group members hiding her identity within the confines of her room, and even better, she had already lived with both of her brothers for as long as she could remember.
"Well, uh, guys, this is Kankurou," Temari gestured towards the boy with messy brown hair and odd, purple face paint, "and this is Gaara." She pointed over at the redhead, who chose wisely to ignore the attention that was being sent his way. He made a small, grunting noise of consent and acknowledgement. "They're my brothers."
"Yeah, what sh—he said." Temari glared at Kankurou, a look that made him shrink back in fear. Kiba and the others stood awkwardly at the door as the siblings began to bicker about nothing in particular.
"Uh, well, I'll leave you guys to get comfortable, we're gonna continue on, 'kay?" Kiba called hopelessly to the arguing siblings. He shook his head before sighing, corralling the others away from the door, which he shut quietly behind him.
"What the hell, Temari? Why're you here?" Kankurou growled at his annoyed sister. "This is an all boys school! Last I checked, you're not a boy!" Temari crossed her arms over her chest, frowning at her brother.
"You would check, wouldn't you?" She sneered at him, causing him to take on a mortified expression at the implications. "Besides, what does it matter that I'm here?"
"It matters a lot! There's a reason we decided to go to this hell hole, Temari!" Temari looked absolutely affronted.
"Are you implying that I'm a problem?"
"Yes!" Temari, now growling back at him, decided at that moment to jump him and attempt at landing a fist to his face. He quickly put up his arms to block her hit, trying unsuccessfully to kick her off of him so he could retaliate, only lifting her high enough off of his body to give her a clear opening for a punch to his gut. He groaned in pain as she pummeled at his abdomen and face, but he found some satisfaction in the fact that some of his own punches were landing. He honestly didn't feel bad about hitting his sister, something he knew came from years of constant teasing and nagging from her. He also knew, however, that if they were going to be rooming with one another, they couldn't get into a fight every single time they met up. Temari seemed to get this idea, too, because she ceased in her blows to his body and rolled off, taking in shallow breaths. They both breathed in and out for a long while, catching their breaths and making sure they were calm before exchanging any words. Kankurou was the first to speak.
"I don't take back what I said." Temari could only grin at the statement. Leave it to Kankurou to not admit anything.
"Yeah, whatever." A few moments passed in silence as they lay there, just breathing. Suddenly, Gaara broke the ice.
"Are you two done yet?" Both heads turned towards the cold voice of their youngest sibling. Temari rolled her eyes at him.
"Glad to see you, too, Gaara."
"Anybody else on this floor?" Kiba asked, looking around at the new faces. They all shook their head, no. "So, where to next?" Sakura quickly pulled out her own slip, grinning.
"Next stop is on the seventh floor." Kiba and Shino shared an odd look. Kiba hesitated for a moment, wondering whether or not he should ask. He decided he might as well.
"Um, can I see what room you have?" Sakura looked at him oddly, but finally gave in and passed her form over to him. He scanned the form, going straight to the location of the room number. His eyes widened and he tried to stifle a laugh. Shino, who had the gist of what Kiba was grinning about, could only shake his head disapprovingly. Nobody noticed, though.
"What is it? Is there something wrong with the room I have?" Sakura asked worriedly, retrieving her form from Kiba's hands. He snorted, then broke into laughter. He attempted to relieve the new arrivals' worried faces by waving his hand in a gesture saying that they had nothing to worry about, but it seemed less than effective. Shino decided to step in, sure that Kiba wasn't about to stop laughing any time soon.
"Dorm room 775 is most well-known for its abundance of sexual tension between its occupants. It is best to steer clear of them."
"Who's them?" Tenten asked, although she was inwardly giggling at Sakura's luck.
"Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto," Kiba answered, his laughing now down to only a few small outbursts every now and then. "The school's biggest playboy and the class clown. The whole damn academy believes they're both probably gay for each other, but nobody wants to say it out loud. I gotta wish you the best of luck, Haruno, because you're gonna need it. And lots of it. They create a warpath wherever they go together, and it pisses the hell out of the teachers and the headmistress. You'll probably be held responsible for keeping them in check, now that you're their unofficial legal guardian from this point onwards." Sakura looked appalled at the sudden responsibility placed into her supposedly capable hands.
"Are you serious?" She managed to choke out, the idea of having to take care of two high school students, both of whom might even be older than her, not at all appealing. Kiba just grinned wolfishly.
"Hey, be lucky you're not a girl. If they decide they can't take out the sexual frustration on each other, or figure it out manually—" A few of the girls flushed slightly at the thought, "—then they'll decide to take it out on the closest thing to them with pheromones that they can just dump later, and since you don't leak pheromones like girls, they won't get you." Oh, the irony of the situation was almost too much for Sakura to bear. She groaned into her waiting hands, a few of her friends patting her on the back in sympathy.
"Wait a second. I thought nobody was allowed to leave dorm grounds during the school year. How would they even find a girl to release sexual tension on when they need it?" Tenten asked, realizing the discrepancy. Kiba just jerked his thumb behind him to a window at the end of the hall, facing out towards the lake he had mentioned earlier during their tour of the campus.
"I told'ja about the girl's camp across the lake, right? The one we're gonna sneak out to tomorrow? They go over there. Trust me, they're more than willing, if ya know what I mean," Kiba purred, which came out as more of a disgruntled sound than anything. The girls gave a collective groan, though not without the decency to blush at the implications. Shino decided to save them from delving on the topic.
"If you would like, you may stay with one of your friends for a while. There is no rule about staying in other rooms, as long as it is only for a period of time less than three months. During that time, you will have the chance to get acquainted with them through classes, should you share any with them," came Shino's stoic voice. Sakura only gave a meek noise from behind her hands, considering the idea. Kiba stopped laughing for the moment, finally deciding that they had to get a move on.
"So…skip?" There was a chorus of agreement as the next person to lift their form was none other than Hinata. Kiba gave his signature grin.
"So, Hyuuga, what floor are you on?"
"Um…floor eight." As if by magic, the brunette's eyes lit up, and he swiped the form in his excitement. Hinata flinched when he made the grab, but tried her best to keep herself from letting out even a tiny sound of surprise. At the girls' old school, Hinata's girlish noises were always more recognizable than most, and were sometimes found to be cute in a high-pitched, girly way.
"Awesome! You get to share a room with me and Shino!" Kiba exclaimed, his mood radiating off of him in waves. Hinata wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing, but smiled for the brunette's sake.
"Then…p-please take care of me," she said quietly, bowing her head slightly out of politeness. She was jerked out of her bow when Kiba wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. She tried to hide her three shades of red under the hat's shadow.
"Aw, no need to be so formal, Hyuuga! If you're gonna dorm with us, you've gotta get comfortable with us. It's cool, we don't bite or anything. I save the biting for girls only," Kiba finished, winking at her. "If you catch my drift, that is." Hinata could only nod numbly, fully aware of the slightly horrified looks on the other girls' faces. "Oh, and our room's kinda messy, so…" From behind him, Shino cleared his throat and coughed into his fist.
"Correction, Kiba: your side of the room is messy. If you found the time to clean it, we would have been prepared for another roommate." Kiba pouted at that.
"Yeah, well, I offered for us to clean the room together because you kept on nagging me to clean it, and you kept saying no!" Shino coolly returned his hands to his jacket pockets.
"My answer will continue to be no. Why? Because I wished for you to clean your side, not for me to join you in cleaning your side. There are certain things lost in your room's state of disarray that I do not wish to bear witness."
"Tch, you're an ass, you know that? I bet'cha Hyuuga's up for helping me clean my room, right? You're better than that bastard Shino anyway," Kiba said, turning to Hinata. The grin on his face made it difficult for the girl to say no, but the fact that Kiba's slightly creepy, mysterious roommate didn't even want to set foot into the boy's supposedly messy side of the dorm room made the experience seem much scarier than she knew it probably was. She gulped, but found herself nodding at the request against her will. Kiba let out a cry of victory, heckling at the ever-calm Shino.
"See that, Shino? Hyuuga could teach ya a few things about being a good friend and dormmate." Shino simply folded his arms across his chest.
"Hiashi-san is simply unaware of the magnitude of natural disaster that would have had to occur in order for your side of the room to be in its current state." Tenten, Sakura, and Ino snickered at Kiba's expense, causing the boy to whine pitifully. Trying to evade his own inevitable defeat in the argument, Kiba turned back to the girls-disguised-as-boys, a gleeful smile on his face.
"So, who's after Hyuuga? Actually, is it cool if I call ya Hiashi? We're roommates now, so we'll be the best of buddies starting now!" Hinata merely nodded shyly, but inside, she felt a giddy feeling rise into her chest and a small swarm of butterflies in her stomach. Although she was disguised, Hinata had never been good friends with the opposite sex. Half of the time, at Konoha High, boys were teasing her or trying to make her lose her bearings just to see her become nervous and stutter beyond all belief. The other half of the time was spent ignoring her because she had been easily overlooked, and for good reason. Not only that, but these two would be the only other friends she had made without the help of her girlfriends. She could only hope that, when they one day figured out her identity, they would want to stay friends with her…granted they got along well to begin with.
"That's me!" Ino called, waving her form in the air above her head. "I hope I don't land crazies like you, Billboard Brow." Sakura just groaned even more in her hands, for once letting the insult slide in exchange for her already swelling grief and anguish.
"What floor are ya on?"
"Mm…floor ten, room 1021," she hummed, looking at her form. Kiba chuckled.
"You might not get 'crazies,'" Kiba said, air-quoting with his fingers, "but you get the lazyass Shikamaru—that guy we passed in the hallway—and the chubby Chouji. I'll just let ya in on a warning: Shikamaru thinks everything's troublesome, so don't be surprised if he says that a lot. Also, I already warned you about Chouji; never call him fat. Or anything that means even slightly the same as fat. Our dorm can only take so many holes in it before it decides to finally collapse on us." Now it was Ino's turn to groan in frustration. She had had second thoughts before the whole ordeal, but now, those thoughts were beginning to solidify themselves. It was too bad that turning back was no longer an option. "What about you, Tenshi? What do you have?"
"Floor eleven, room G507. Do I get interesting roommates, too?" Tenten asked, feeling more anxious to know who she would be spending her afterschool hours with. Kiba's throat formed a strange noise that fell between choking and growling. He made a small "Hmph!" before turning away, his arms crossed defiantly across his chest. Shino decided to pick up on where he had yet to start off.
"Residing in room G507 are Neji Hyuuga and Rock Lee." Hinata's ears perked up at the mention of the familiar name. "Kiba, though he has no problems with Lee, is not on the best of terms with Neji. They simply hate each other's guts."
"Obviously," The three girls chorused under their breaths, facing the aforementioned boy.
"It is mere conjecture, but Neji Hyuuga is, perhaps, related to Hiashi-san?"
"U-um, yes. He's my cousin. I haven't seen him s-since…" Hinata felt a lump grow in her throat, and she found that, though her mouth moved, they did not form vocalized words. A few of the others caught on to her discomfort around the subject.
"You do not need to delve in to the history or nature of your relationship. I simply wished to know if you were related." Hinata nodded at that, though she hung her head in shame at her almost-rambling. Kiba, having gotten over his disgust at the Hyuuga boy's name, turned and gripped at Shino's wrist, pulling up his sleeve to stare at the watch on his wrist. His eyes widened at the time, and turned to the remains of the group.
"It's kinda late, so you guys might wanna go find your rooms and get rested up. It'll be easy once you're on the right floor, the hallways just kinda go straight down. They don't branch off or anything. Haruno, you can take the stairs, it ain't too far of a climb. Unless you're gonna stay with one of your friends. If you are, then we'll just take the stairs to our floor. If not, we'll take the elevator with Yamanaka and Tenshi to our floor, and then we can meet up tomorrow if ya need help getting around the Academy building, 'kay?" They all nodded. Sakura had decided to stay with Ino that night, so Kiba, Shino, and Hinata separated from the group heading towards the elevator. Once the metal box closed its doors, the three residents of the eighth floor made for the stairway.
"So, whaddya think?" Tenten asked, turning to the two other disguised members of their group. The blonde and the pinkette let out a loud groan, and Tenten had to let a giggle slide from her lips at their despair.
"This is gonna be a long school year," Sakura finally said. Ino had to nod in agreement to that, but her face suddenly took on a determined mask. She clenched her fists and let out a small noise of excitement.
"It looks kinda hopeless, but I bet'cha it won't be that bad once we get to really know these guys!" Ino cried out, attempting to lighten the mood in their cramped space. Sakura quickly caught on, clasping hands with the now-joyful blonde and staring at each other with adamant determination set. Tenten smiled at their enthusiasm, her own already having been flared on their arrival to the school campus.
"For once, Ino-Pig's right! We can get through this together, and we'll have the time of our lives! Besides, if we have trouble with our roommates, we'll just stay with someone else in the group. That way, we can look out for each other in case someone slips up," Sakura contributed, joining the chorus of agreements. Suddenly, Tenten grew worried.
"Guys, I know she suggested it and all, but do you think Hinata's gonna be all right? I mean, that Kiba guy seems like a real player, you know? And there's his creepy roommate, too. I know Hinata's pretty strong and all, but do you think she can handle it? If they figure out she's a girl, there's no telling what'll happen then." Sakura and Ino shared a look, before glancing over at the worried girl.
"None of us are really secure here, except maybe Temari-chan, and there's no telling how these boys would act if they knew there were girls here, but we're already in too deep to back out now. All we can really do is try to protect her, and have faith. She's a strong girl, I'm sure she'll be fine."
The elevator shook to a stop on the tenth floor.
"So, Hiashi, how do ya like the school so far? It's okay if you don't like it, nobody here really likes to be at school, ya know?" Kiba asked, attempting to make conversation. Hinata shook her head frantically, looking slightly harried.
"I-I actually kind of like school…I get to meet n-nice people and learn new things…" Kiba stared at her in disbelief.
"Dude, no way. The only other person I know who enjoys (and here he shuddered) school is Shino, and he's already weird beyond all belief. Besides, he's a nerd. No offense, buddy." Shino ignored Kiba's comments on his person and continued to stay neutral in the conversation by not making a peep. Just then, Kiba leaned in close to Hinata's face, as if examining her for the first time. His eyes became narrow slits, then widened, and then narrowed again, as if he were scrutinizing her.
"Ya know, you look kinda like a girl." Hinata mistakenly eep'd at his sudden intrusion of her personal space, and couldn't cover her mouth in time to stop it. Kiba snickered, and Shino just stared at her as usual in his own calculating way. "You even make girly noises."
"I-I…um…"
"Aw, it's s'okay, Hiashi! I think it's cute. And don't take that the wrong way, I'm more of a chick-diggin' kinda guy. It's just a refresher from all the testosterone that floats around this god awful place. You'd make a real cute girl, though, just sayin'. Maybe you should consider it in the future."
"I-I…guess so," Hinata said, giggling slightly under her breath. Shino's eyebrow rose at Kiba's offhand comment, though he chose not to comment on it. They continued up the staircase in a somewhat awkward, but otherwise comfortable silence. As they were making the rounds to the final staircase leading to the eighth floor, Kiba jumped up as if struck by lightning.
"Shit! I forgot to feed Akamaru!" Akamaru? "I'll see you guys up there!" And in a split second, Kiba was up the stairs so fast, Hinata could see the faint trail of dust left behind him. There was the loud slamming of a metal door at the top of the stairs, cueing that Kiba had already gotten there and was well on his way back to the room. Hinata could only continuing walking at a leisurely pace with the mysterious boy, unable to find anything to make conversation with. However, she didn't have to, because he had already planned what he had been itching to say to her once they were out of the company of others.
"Why are you here?" He asked quietly, stopping right behind the large metal door leading into the eighth floor hallway. Hinata stopped in her tracks, noticing him not walking, and turned to him with a confused look on her face.
"Wh-what do you mean?" His glasses glinted, and she was not quite sure how it did so without the correct positioning of the light.
"Here. At this school." Something in Hinata's mind told her to try and turn the conversation away, that she was entering dangerous waters, but she paid no heed to the voices in her head and decided to satiate her curiosity instead.
"I'm here to l-learn…it is a school, a-after all," she responded, her tone slightly humorous. He caught it, but didn't seem in the mood for mood-lighteners. He took a confident step forward, sending her one step back in the process. After a few short moments, he took another step, and this continued until she was backed against the stairwell wall. Hinata had half-expected him to slam his hands on either side of her, effectively sealing her to the wall with his body, much like they did in movies and TV shows she had seen before. However, he made no motions to do so, and only stood there looking foreboding and imposing.
"That is not what I meant. You are well aware that this is a boys academy, and yet, you have the gall to enroll disguised as one. For what purpose does a female of your variety have to attend this school?" Hinata wasn't sure if it was the way he spoke, the sound of his deep voice, or the fact that he was at least a head taller than her, but she found herself unable to form coherent words to answer him, no matter how hard she tried. Maybe it was the shock of having been discovered so early on in her enrollment. Did Kiba know, too, and kept it to himself? What about Shikamaru, the guy they passed in the hallway? Hinata had to wonder, and all of the bad thoughts swirling in her mind caused her to become lightheaded. Shino must have noticed her obvious discomfort, because he took a tiny step back, out of her personal bubble to allow her to breathe.
"Do not be alarmed. I do not wish to interrogate you for shady purposes, only as a means to satisfy my curiosity. You do not need to answer as of this moment, but I do wish for an answer in the future. I will not blackmail you, nor use your identity against you."
"I…Is it b-bad for me to b-be here?" Hinata managed to whisper through her somewhat uncooperative throat. Shino's eyebrows rose, and Hinata felt the air around them become slightly more relaxed.
"Perhaps if you and your friends were to be caught. However, by no means is it a negative thing for you to be here. In fact, I would say that there is a lot of good that may come of it. The benefits of a group of girls being at this academy may outweigh the potential consequences by far." Hinata let out a breath of relief that she had no idea that she had been holding.
"Th-that's good…" Shino outstretched his hand to reach the door, and as he gripped at the handle, he turned to her. She couldn't quite make out his expression, but she noticed the ghost of the edges of his lips upturning, though she felt like she had just imagined it as a way to calm herself.
"And do not assume, based on my earlier questioning, that I find your presence at this school at all a bad thing." His face seemed stone-set, but the encouraging words made Hinata smile slightly. The metal door swung open, and from the air in front of her, Hinata saw only something large and white before she was knocked to the ground.