AN-

I wrote some of this in school…

Enjoy anyway.

"Miss Duncan, it's one of your first days back and you are already starting fights!" lectured the school principal, Mr. Vright. He was a short, squat man with these bright blue eyes that reminded me of Jack's, only this guys' wasn't as light as Jack's, his were more of Deidara's color, but brighter.

"I didn't start it, I ended it." I stated while crossing my arms under my chest and leaning back slightly.

"Whatever way you see it, Miss Duncan, you still fought, and it wasn't your first! I am going to have to call your parents, and I will expect both your mother and your father, not your brothers to come and pick you up and have a talk with me." Mr. Vright huffed as he picked up the black phone on his desk, "Are they home?"

Well, my brothers were at work, and the school wasn't told about my living circumstances, if they were I'd have to talk to a psychologist everyday during free time so they knew if the 'split' was wreaking emotional turmoil in my brain. I didn't want to do that, so I kept it a secret. I planned to keep it that way.

"They are, but they probably won't answer the phone." I replied nonchalantly as I put my right leg over my left and I leaned back even more, looking very relaxed. I was relaxed; the new pacifist teacher would learn eventually it was pointless to break up the fights around school so next time I wouldn't be dragged here as fast. Although if he hadn't been over six feet tall and weighed most likely three times my weight I'm sure I could have avoided being pinned down after he tackled me to the ground.

"We will see." sniffed Mr. Vright as he started dialing, knowing my number by heart. I sighed and looked up at the ceiling. I just had to hope that none of my morons picked up the phone, and if one of them did, I hoped for my sake that it was an intelligent one. Preferably Sasori, Konan, Kakuzu, Itachi, or Pein. I'd be fine with Zetsu and Kisame too, but Kisame was a joker, and Zetsu spoke in two different tones with two different personalities.

"Ah, hello, this is the school calling for Miss Itami Duncan, is this her father?" I almost groaned. Who picked the phone up? I sighed again... I hoped it was someone smart. I prayed to Jashin, and Pein, and God that it was someone smart.

3RD PERSON POV

The phone started ringing, waking up the Akatsuki members who had gone back to sleep after Jack and Chris both hurried out of the room, saying something about work. Most of the Akatsuki felt like they just didn't want to add on to the subject of Itami's…. problem.

"Shut the fucking thing up!" Hidan yelled from his spot on the air mattress. Pein looked over to the phone on the bedside table and his eyes narrowed at the caller ID.

'Rosehallow High School' thought Pein, 'Itami's school.' Pein picked up the phone and held it to his ear.

"Hello?" Pein questioned into the phone as Konan and Kakuzu gave him a curious look.

"Ah, hello, this is the school calling for Miss Itami Duncan, is this her father?" Pein heard an older man's voice ask.

"This is him," Pein replied dismissively, ignoring the look Konan and Kakuzu shared, "Why are you calling for Itami?" Pein's eyes narrowed when he heard a sigh on the other end.

"I'm afraid Itami has been in yet another fight, quite frankly her behavior is vicious and atrocious-" Pein's eyes narrowed even more when in the background he could hear a familiar female voice say, "Screw you old man!", however the man continued after a short pause, "-albeit her grades are fine. It's her attitude I'm worried about. Would you, and possibly Itami's mother please come to meet with me and the school psychologist today? Itami will be receiving a three day suspension from school as well, so you will need to pick her up."

"We will be there in twenty minutes." Pein calmly replied into the phone.

"Of course, thank you and I am pleased to finally meet you Mr Duncan." With that Pein hung up and looked at Konan.

"We will be going to pick Itami up from school, she got into a fight." he informed Konan. The Akatsuki members who had accumulated in the doorway upon hearing Pein answer the phone, all went to leave. However Deidara didn't.

"Can I come, un?" he asked.

"No, I wanna fucking come!" shouted Hidan. Pein sighed and lifted a hand to his forehead.

"Sasori, you will come, Hidan, Deidara, you two will stay. Kakuzu, you watch them." ordered Pein. Kakuzu responded with a brief nod. Pein led Konan and Sasori out of the room and out to the front porch.

"Do you remember the way to the school?" inquired Konan.

"Yes, when we were in the car with Itami she briefly pointed it out to us." Pein answered as he started walking down the driveway. She and Sasori exchanged a brief look.

"Do you think he's going to scold Itami?" asked Sasori.

"Most likely." sighed Konan as they moved to catch up to Pein, who was already halfway down the block.

Itami's POV

I tapped my fingers on the desk in the psychologist's office with a bored expression evident on my face. The psychologist, Mr. Harpers, was watching my every move. Mr. Harpers was a middle aged man with long brown hair and dreadlocks; he always wore tie-dye and black sunglasses. He reminded me of a hippie... he was one, too.

"So Tami, can I call you Tami?" Mr. Harpers decided to start before Mr. Vright and my 'parents' got here.

"Whatever, can't say I'll respond to it though." I replied shortly. His eyes traveled me again until they rested on the black wristband my sleeve had risen to show off. In all honesty, I forgot I had put it on. It was my Akatsuki cloud one.

"You watch Naruto? In that case, I need to call you Tami-chan." he decided with a large grin. I blinked to hide my surprised look. This hippie watched Naruto? Interesting.

"You watch Naruto?" I questioned, "Shippuden or just Naruto?" Mr. Harpers smiled, happy to be getting a conversation out of me.

"Just the first few episodes of Shippuden, I see you're a fan of the Akatsuki. I only know of a few members, who's your favorite?" he inquired. I thought about it. I had no idea who was coming, so I had no idea who to say.

"Tobi." I finally decided, he was the one who was least likely to come, due to wearing a mask. Mr. Harpers wrote something down; he was using my favorite show to evaluate me? I felt my fingers twitch at the thought, however I ignored it.

"Why is he your favorite?" he continued his interrogation. I shrugged.

"I suppose I like the mysterious air around him, and it's funny when Deidara tries to kill him." I replied with another shrug.

"Hm… what are your parents like?" questioned Mr. Harpers. I shrugged.

"They're my parents, what else for me to think?" I looked away. I wasn't sure who was coming, for all I knew Pein and Kakuzu were coming.

"What is your opinion on them? Tough? Busy? Fun? Careless?" asked Mr. Harpers. Luckily, I was saved by the door opening and the school secretary coming in with…. Konan, Sasori, and Pein.

"Hello, cousin." Sasori greeted, with a faked smile. So that meant Konan and Pein were my parents, I'm quite curious to see how this plays out.

"I'm the school psychologist." greeted Mr. Harpers, not letting his eyes leave Pein's. Moments later Mr. Vright walked in, and he froze when he saw my 'parents'.

"Ah hello Mr. and Mrs. Duncan." he smiled largely, and somewhat falsely as he held out his hand for Pein to shake. Pein shook his hand, and from Mr. Vright's face I could tell that Pein wasn't gentle in the slightest. I held in a snicker as Mr. Vright gestured to the chairs on the sides of me as he took a seat next to Mr. Harpers. Konan and Pein took a seat on either side of me, and Sasori dragged a chair up behind me.

"So, we're here to discuss Itami's behavior." started Mr. Vright. I groaned, gaining all attention.

"Listen, it's my personality, deal with it, I'm mean, I'm sarcastic, I'm temperamental, leave me alone and go after the school sluts and see them for psychology. They'll be more interesting." I snapped. Mr. Harpers jotted something down on his notepad. My eyes stayed on his pen as it moved, however he concealed what he was writing from my view. My eye twitched at this.

"Oh, I think that you're quite interesting Itami. You don't find many girls like you…" trailed Mr. Harpers as Mr. Vright cleared his throat. He gave us all a dirty look as he continued.

"Now, what I was going to say was that I believe Itami needs anger management to help settle things, and we would also like to learn why Itami is so…. temperamental." Mr. Vright explained.

"It's called personality, something you lack." I answered starkly, receiving disapproving looks from Pein and Konan.

"Itami, behave." ordered Pein. I gave him a dead look.

"Yes father." I replied with a stoic expression. I looked over at Konan to see she was holding back giggles and a smirk.

"How are things at home?" Mr. Harpers questioned, looking directly at me. I avoided his gaze and instead exchanged looks with Konan.

"Good, my brothers have jobs and I'm back to how I was before my accident." I answered with a stony expression. Mr. Harpers wrote something else down and I felt my arm twitch slightly, I hated not knowing what he was thinking. This guy was good. He had his glasses, so I had no idea what he was thinking, and he kept a loose smile on the entire time.

"I see, well here's my evaluation." announced Mr. Harpers, looking down at his notepad, "Itami is a smart girl, I had trouble analyzing her at first because she is good at keeping a poker face, but her eyes and expressions she couldn't hide were loud and clear. She is uncomfortable talking about home life, and her accident, and she also doesn't like that she can't see what I'm writing down about her. I can see this because her voice gets colder when speaking about home life and she tends to try and avoid the topic, she also twitched when she saw me writing down my evaluation."

"So, what's going on at home?" interrogated Mr. Vright, only to have Mr. Harpers swat him with his notepad. Mr. Harpers kept going.

"But I also noticed that Itami doesn't like talking about herself, she tried moving the topic to her brothers, and her favorite character was described by her as mysterious. She also seems to be rather temperamental, as was said, and I believe that this is partly from personality, but also from experiences she's had." Mr. Harpers finished.

"So?" questioned Konan.

"So, with reports from the nurse something tells me that you guys are hiding something, we won't pressure you into telling us, it's Itami's choice to tell us what she wants. If it's abuse, like the nurse believes, it doesn't seem to be you two, because Itami seems to be rather comfortable between you two. You also seem rather protective of Itami, as you sat on either side of her, rather than most parents who sit next to each other with the child on the side of one of the parents." Mr. Harpers explained, the smile not leaving his face.

I blinked. This guy was good. Too good, he was able to analyze me better than most people. Most people just said I was temperamental and that I wasn't very talkative. This, was a whole new playing field.

"My wife and I have an appointment," Pein's voice startled me, however I didn't show it and just turned to him, "So I request that we are able to leave now." Konan and Sasori nodded.

"Of course, you just need to sign Itami out." We all stood, Pein shook hands with Mr. Harpers and Mr. Vright, and we left to the main office.

"Oh, Tami-chan, if you ever need to talk, I'm here!" Mr. Harpers called as we walked down the hall, his voice echoing through the empty hall of closed doors. The secretaries stared at us as Pein signed me out in the main office. I watched him, and smirked slightly when I noticed all he did was scribble illegibly. Then we left.

"I'm disappointed you got into a fight Itami." Pein started to scold me as we walked through the parking lot.

"Yeah yeah, it's normal for me. Besides, she had it coming." I declared.

"Was it a good fight?" asked Sasori. I shrugged.

"Someone probably took a video of it, when we get back I'll check my phone for a video of me kicking the shit out of her." I looked up at the sky as I walked, ignoring them for now.

I didn't feel bad for kicking Sky's ass, she had it coming. I mean, I wasn't completely sure why she had changed. I suppose if I had a theory, she always was pressured to be great. Her sister was one of those preppy girls, and she had always tried to get Sky to do it. Then when her hair grew out, she got noticeably prettier. My real theory though is that she turned to the preps, wanting more friends because of my comatose state, insomnia. While I was in insomnia, Sky didn't really have anyone else except Josh, who followed Sky around like a lost puppy. Usually I was the ring leader of my friends, my friends and I were an interesting group.

Sky, as I explained, was pressured. Her sister had pressured her into being preppy, and her sister had always been a bit bitchy and never liked me. I suppose when she had been killed in that car accident, I was slightly glad. However Sky then told me of her new troubles at home, Sky's parents missed Crystal, Cry, and they pressured Sky too. Sky had to be perfect, pretty. But Sky wasn't those things at heart; I suppose now, that I think about it, saying those things probably tore away at her heart. But, Sky could have changed for all I know. Jashin knows I must have.

Next is Kayan, she's a bit much. She has a mental disorder, I can't tell you what it is because I was never told its name, but she told me that she had one. And I doubt she was lying, because she does take meds for it, and is homeschooled because of it. Anyway, Kayan has a shitty dad. He left them, her family of her, her mother, and her brother hanging, and he is her tormentor. Because of legal shit, she does have to see him, and like I said, he's a piece of shit like my own dad only he's more on a mental level. He wants his kids to be perfect, so he tells her to be perfect, tries to get her to be perfect. This is like Sky; only with this Kayan can't take it. I've only seen it once, but Kayan breaks down sometimes. She goes all out, and it isn't pretty. Kayan, although always happy and go-lucky, is truthfully quite a depressing person. Her meds, from what I've seen of them, are things I've never seen, or antidepressants or stress relievers. Kayan has it hard.

Violet, I suppose, has always been on her own. Her family has a ton of medical problems, I suppose she's the sport of the family because she's healthy, but everyone else in her family isn't. Her mom died giving her life, and her dad was put in the hospital when she was sixteen. She moved to be here with her grandma when he was put in the hospital and then we met on one of her first days here, I was a freshmen back then. Anyway, Violet, to stay healthy because her immune system is shit, takes vitamins, pills, shit like that. She's very paranoid, although she doesn't show it, she's afraid that her dad's going to die. She work stop send money to the hospital for his treatment since she is a senior in high school. Her grandma doesn't really do much but give her a house, so Violet really is mostly on her own.

Next was Kirai. Her father was strict. Beyond strict, he was a control freak. He was a perfectionist, he had OCD, and if anything fucks with his vision of his perfect little world, then he would get either very depressed, or very mad. He went to extremes fast. He couldn't deal well with Kirai, he already had problems because she was colorblind, and half blind as it was, so he had trouble with her missing labels in their house, or not putting things back right. He tried getting her manners to make her more ladylike, but that worked on her just as much as it did me. It did shit.

Finally, we have Evelyn, or Evie as I like calling her. Like all my other friends problems, her mother wants perfection. But not like that, she wants her daughter to live. She wants her daughter to have a perfect life, to live long and to have a family that's perfect. She tries too hard to keep Evie safe, she hated me and her other friends because we're apparently, and I quote 'diseased full wild animals that will kill her'. I think her mother is a bit too extreme with it all, but hey, I'm not a mother, so I can't tell you whether she's right or wrong. However from the teenager point of view, it's wrong.

So yeah, my friend's lives are shit. And it's all because everyone strives for perfection, and it's impossible to get. Humans aren't perfect, we're flawed. We can't do anything perfect, no matter what anyone says! Hell, I think perfection is what made my family life shit too.

My mother, a materialistic woman who wants perfection. She would have loved me to be a mini her, with no flaws such as my bi-colored eyes or strange red tipped hair. She had wanted a daughter who was like one of the Triple A's, what looks to be perfect, pretty, normal. Then my father, a man who waned normal. A man who wanted his family to be normal, and with normality, comes perfection for him. He wanted normal, Jack and Chris were normal, however then I came along. Sure I was cute at first, but then when I grew up to be not so normal, to today's standards anyway, my father was upset. TO make things worse, he was an alcoholic, so doubled with his need for me to be perfect, he decided that his way of dealing with things would work.

Perfection. Perfection. Perfection. PERFECTION.

Damn it all, I suppose that's what ruined my life. Perfection!

Perfection I suppose can never be achieved, never. There is no such thing as perfect because you can never stop going up, we never stop advancing. Technology keeps advancing, however nothing is perfect.

What is perfection anyway? If it can't be achieved, then how can there be such a thing? How can such a word exist, if it itself doesn't exist?

I don't know, and I suppose I'll never know. Because it's one of those things that can never be achieved. And it's too large of a topic for me to just debate with myself.

I'm such a depressing person, thinking of this. But what I say is true. To me anyway... I suppose it's an opinion. Perhaps perfection is an opinion? I don't really know, but either way I doubt perfection, true perfection, will ever be achieved.

AN

This chapter felt depressing to me. And I got to the end of the chapter, then I realized I never continued with Jack and Chris's talk from the day before. So I added in that they left, trying to avoid the subject.

Anyway, yesterday, I missed the kickball when it was pelted at me and the kid, this fucktard named Joe, said "Don't you know how to catch?" Next turn, I catch the kickball as its flying over my head. Next runner kicks it right at Joe, who misses it. The runner stops on my base, and since everyone cept out teacher heard him insult me, both he and I said at the same time "Don't you know how to catch, Joe?" If I didn't want to get into honors classes next year, I'd have kicked him in the face by now. Next year, if he's in a class of mine, he's getting a kick to the head. Or a punch in the face. My foots closer though, and it'll hurt more.

So, yeah….

A-I think Itami is a crazy, imperfect, somewhat Sue-ish OC who can be improved. I noticed, when I reread Insomnia (I cringed as I read), that her personality never seemed to be quite set. She was quite bipolar, ranging from depressing, to temperamental, to loud, to neutral. And I had a few people who agreed, so yes, Itami isn't perfect. I'[m trying to get her flaws to be used to perfection in these chapters of Wide Awake, as you can see Itami is debating the world. And as you can see, she isn't as mentally stable as she was in the past. I'm having fun writing Itami though; she's very fun to write because of her bipolar and unstable personality.

Q-Hm…. if you could do one thing to anyone in the Akatsuki what would it be?

Sayonara!