Edit: May 7, 2016
See? I told you that updates would be completely inconsistent.
So the explanation for this little absence is that for the longest while, I was debating what I was going to do for the school chapter. That has always been my intention - to add in a school chapter. And again, I will make sure to move all the important information over. That was the other problem - if I made a school chapter and inserted it, I would need to move everything over again. And as much as I tried, the school thing came out a lot longer than I intended it to. So this might mean another shove of the original chapters. But that's okay, because eventually I will assimilate all of those old chapters into the new ones.
Now that that's out of the way, let me continue with the disclaimer.
Disclaimer: ฉัน ไม่ได้เป็นเจ้าของ นารูโตะ (Phonetic pronounciation: C̄hạn mị̀ dị̂ pĕn cêāk̄hxng nā rū toa) (Thai)
"Tenten, where's my shirt?!"
"Chill, girl, chill. Which shirt do you mean?" A pair of sweatpants landed in Ino's lap, on top of the magazine the blonde was trying to read.
"The blue and white one, with the vest sewn onto it!" A single boot came flying and slammed into Sakura's stomach, making the rosette grunt.
"Jeez, Miharu, I don't know! Where the heck did you leave it?" Tenten stood up and barely dodged an airborne sweater, letting it land on Temari's head. Said girl groaned and sat up, taking the sweater off only to rub her eyes.
"I can't remember!" Miharu was flying around the girls' shared bedroom in an absolute panic, apparently looking for one of her shirts. Tenten was also in a tizzy, throwing her books out of her bag in a scramble to find something. Ino, Sakura, and Temari watched them both for a second or two, letting them go crazy together, as they took in the disastrous state of their room.
Miharu had thrown clothes everywhere, leaving them strewn any place she could without letting them end up on the floor. Jeans were half in and half out of their drawer, the tee-shirt drawer was taken out completely and dumped on Hinata's bed, and the closet doors were wide open, with nicer dress shirts and dresses still on hangers flung across Tenten's bed.
Tenten, meanwhile, had turned her bookbag upside-down on Miharu's bed, and was flipping frantically through the few folders that the girls owned. Papers flew across the bed – sheet music and school announcements alike.
The two girls themselves were no better. Miharu's hair was wild, random strands sticking up at odd angles, and she only had on her jeans and a tank top. She looked as though she had been up for the past three days (which was not true – it was only for 36 hours, not a full 72), with dark rings under her bloodshot eyes. Tenten looked no better, hair frazzled and pulled into two lopsided buns. Her bangs were dripping into her eyes, and she kept looking through the same folder that she had checked at least three times already.
Temari, Sakura, and Ino just watched in silence, the former two because they were half asleep, the latter because she had gone back to reading her magazine.
"Miharu, your blue and white shirt is folded and sitting on the night table between Sakura and Ino, and Tenten, sweetie, you left your song notebook in the kitchen last night, remember?"
Everyone froze and looked at the door, where Hinata was standing, fully dressed and pretty as ever, with her arms crossed over her chest and a small smile on her face. She handed the missing shirt to Miharu, who promptly started pulling it on, and sat Tenten down on one of the cleaner beds to fix the girl's buns and dry off her bangs. By the time she had finished that, Miharu was dressed, and Hinata immediately turned and sat her down to apply some light makeup and comb out the other girl's hair while Tenten raced to pack her bag back up.
"Now come on, you two, breakfast is ready. Saku-chan, Tema-chan, Piggy-chan, your breakfasts are all covered and waiting for whenever you want to eat it, m'kay? We'll be off to school in about – "she glanced at her watch – "twenty minutes. We'll be back by 5 o'clock tonight, so make sure that you guys continue to work on the suits, okay? Ciao!" And with that, Hinata pushed the other two girls out the bedroom door and into the kitchen to eat some food.
Temari looked at Sakura. "Are we that crazy in the morning?" the sandy blonde asked, to which the pinkette shrugged.
"Yes, yes you are that crazy in the morning, Tema-chan. You too, Sakura. And so am I, only I've realized it much sooner than you two have," Ino lazily replied as she flipped a page in her magazine, grateful for the quiet she was waiting for.
Tenten and Miharu were hurrying after Hinata, who was walking at a leisurely pace to the bus stop. Tenten was still re-arranging papers and such in her canvas messenger bag that was slung over her shoulder and across her chest. She grunted in annoyance as her scarf flew into her face with a strong gust of wind and angrily shoved it out of the way while struggling to snap the cover of her bag closed and walking at the same time.
Miharu was having her own problems, fussing with her coat. She had run out of the shop without putting it on, thinking that she could stand the a few short minutes in the cool autumn air. As it turned out, that 'cool autumn air' was more 'icy winter wind', and the long-haired brunette had practically frozen through within seconds of stepping outside. So now, she was juggling her small backpack full of art supplies and her coat, trying to put the former on without dropping the latter.
Hinata was completely composed, midnight hair perfectly braided in a waterfall, a fuzzy scarf around her neck, and warm coat on with her handbag slung on her shoulder. She turned for half a second and grabbed Miharu's compromising backpack while reaching over to do the final clasp of Tenten's messenger bag. Miharu finally got on her coat, and Hinata handed the girl back her backpack.
"Good grief, you are such a life-saver, Hinata," Tenten said as the three of them walked to the bus stop. Miharu nodded.
"Yeah, this morning was such a mess. I don't remember it ever being this bad before."
Hinata shrugged good-naturedly. "Well, we all slept late, because we all went to bed late last night. It's no big deal. Just don't make this level of crazy a habit, m'kay?"
Tenten laughed lightly and clutched her precious songbook closer. "Sure thing, Hinata. We owe you."
Miharu nodded and gave her phone a quick check. "Um, guys, the bus is like right around the corner." She gave the other two a look and ran ahead to flag down the bus, then made a big show of looking for her bus fare to give the other two a chance to catch up. All three girls made it on, giving the driver a smile and a cheery "good morning!" before sliding into a row of chairs.
"So quick question," Miharu began as the bus pulled off. The other two girls looked at her in question. "It's the third Thursday of the month. Don't we all normally have to go and volunteer this afternoon?"
"Oh, yeah," Tenten sat back in her seat with a small frown on her face. "Well, we might still be able to go, at least for a few hours. The suits are done, and we haven't gotten any more projects this week."
"I think her point, Tenten," Hinata cut in, "is that the other three are expecting us to come home this afternoon by 5, not go straight to the center. That was my fault, sorry!" she ended with a small blush on her cheeks. Miharu and Tenten both laughed at her.
"Well it looks like even you had an off morning, Hina-chan!" Miharu exclaimed, giving the younger girl a friendly shove.
The bus pulled up in front of the girls' school about ten minutes before class started. Kids of all grade levels were still scattered around the courtyard, waiting until the warning bell made them rush to their first classes.
Tenten gave the grounds a cursory look. The kids were all separated into their respective groups – the populars were coalesced by the large oak tree, standing around and inspecting everyone else, as if to see if they were worthy to be going to the same school as they were. The girls wore designer clothes that resembled the summer line, all of them showing way too much skin despite the frigid air, while the males wore expensive street clothing that honestly looked the same as the stuff that she saw on the discount rack at Sears or something. Tenten scoffed. Money made people do some weird things and make even weirder choices.
Miharu glanced a few feet away from the populars to the preps; a step down from the populars only because they were the ones who made up the student council and organized all of the student activities. They were the ones that sweet-talked the faculty into some pretty outrageous stuff; they managed to get each grade level three field trips out of Konoha each, alongside two other dances, and multiple showcases.
Sitting across from the preps, on the other side of the courtyard, were the jocks and sports kids. Miharu was sure that some of them were smart. She just hasn't seen it happen yet. The football players were throwing a football (duh) around, the basketball kids were running some of their drills, and the soccer stars were in the middle of a mini-game.
Hinata was staring at the steps that led into the school, where the nerds hung out with their knitted sweaters and stacks and stacks of books. Not exactly popular among the rest of the school population; they were teased because they studied and cared about their grades, yes, but none the less they had their own type of popularity. They were the ones that everyone – yes, even the populars – went to for homework help (read: paying them to copy answers and texting them in the middle of class to cheat). In all honesty, Hinata didn't understand why they allowed all of the cheating. If she was the one with all the answers, she sure as all get out was not letting someone else get the same grade as she got for absolutely none of the work.
All three girls' eyes swept over the perimeter of the courtyard, where the rest of the cliques were relegated to. The art kids were in their own little corner, easels and sketchpads strewn about, and the music kids were as close to the street as they could get. Faint melodies drifted from their direction, mixing with the murmurs from the drama group, who were rehearsing lines for auditions for heaven knew what. The dancers had the opposite corner closest to the street, an expanse of polished hardwood laid out over the lawn for all types of dance. The three girls frowned.
"Hey, Hina-chan," Miharu murmured to the pale-eyed girl. She got a soft "hmm?" in response. "No one here really feels happy. No one but them," she said, nodding slightly at the populars, preps and jocks, who were all doing whatever they did without the slightest care in the world.
"Yeah, I noticed it too. It's just gotten worse since the school year started," Hinata replied. Tenten said nothing, but nodded her agreement. Back at the beginning of the year, everyone kind of just mingled with everyone else. It didn't really matter who you talked to, because everyone had the same status, for the most part. But now, everyone got labeled as something and was expected to stay there. Which was a kind of problem for Tenten and the others. They were all good at a lot of things. They could easily sit with the nerds, because their marks were high, or they could sit with the preps, since they could also talk to and influence the faculty. They were all dancers and singers, and they all played instruments, so that would mean splitting up and bouncing between cliques and trying to remember what not to mention in front of certain people and-
"I couldn't imagine actually having to deal with all of this in-crowd, us-versus-them business," Tenten muttered as they carefully sidestepped the nerds and entered the school building. "It's way too confusing."
"Agreed."
"Totally."
The three girls walked through the hallways crowded with people getting ready for their day, heading up a flight of stairs and turning another corner before finally entering their first, and shortest, class of the day: homeroom. All three girls sat down in the first row and waited for the classroom to fill up, easily chatting amongst themselves. The final bell rang a few minutes later, and the final stragglers wandered in and took their seats. The homeroom teacher, Iruka Umino, walked in a moment later and immediately began roll call. He barely raised an eyebrow at the absence of the other three girls of their particular group, but frowned when his eyes fell on the whole row of empty desks in the back of the room.
"Okay, where are Karin, Suigetsu, Tayuya, -" he stopped as the missing kids walked in, chatting rather loudly and completely ignoring Iruka. Said man sighed loudly, and put a hand to his head in exasperation.
"All nine of you are late," he sighed. "That's the fifth time this month. Detention, all of you."
"Aw, no, come on Iruka!"
"We don't do detentions!"
"You have got to be kidding me."
Tenten, Miharu, and Hinata watched the entire exchange with identical bored faces as the accused began to beg and plead with Iruka to not give them the detention. This happened every single month, and every single time they would find a way to not go serve the detention, and it would probably happen all over again before the month was over.
"You would think that after getting six detentions for being late or skipping that they at least would have come up with an excuse by now," Miharu muttered with her head resting in the cradle of her hand.
"You can't expect them to change, Miharu," Tenten shrugged. "It's like talking to a rock. You could go on until you're blue in the face, and they still won't listen." Hinata gave the older brunette an easy swat on the arm as the bell rang for Homeroom to be over.
"Now Ten-chan, be nice. It's not their fault that they can't learn," she admonished before laughing along with her other two friends. They fell in step as they made their way down to Advanced Physical Science. They were all part of the Honors class, so they got more use of the new university-level state-of-the-art labs. But for right now, they were headed to the classroom, which in and of itself wasn't too bad.
A large smart board covered the front of the room, and the desks were on risers, just like in a college classroom. Again, all three girls sat in the front of the room, and Tenten dug around in her bag for a stack of index cards that she split with her two friends. Pens came out, and then three sets of eyes were scanning the problems on the board.
"Okay," Miharu began, "so we're still on forces and all that, right? Well, question three is weird, because the entire system is on an incline made of rubber, a high friction material…"
A/N: And that's part one of the girl's school day! I'm basing their school off of my own, so I at least have some reference.
Again, I like these chapters a lot more than my original ones. I always feel like I rushed the plot in the first place, so taking the time to slow it down and add in more details and develop their personalities makes me feel a lot better. As for the second half of the school experience, I'm working on it. Already have a general idea of where this is headed, so it shouldn't take too much to put it down in words.
Until next time, like, review, follow, and stay safe everyone!