And here's to the most anticipated continuation of With Shaking hands! *drumroll please* Not. I'm not sure how many people were really anticipating chapter three, but for all of you that were *cheers*
IT WAS SATURDAY MORNING, and Deidara was busy taking a shower down the hall in the communal bathroom, giving Itachi much appreciated time to himself without being distracted by his roommate's various antics.
"So what's it like where you came from, yeah?" Deidara would ask, or "what was your high school like? Did you take any AP classes, yeah? Wait, you probably only took AP classes, didn't you?" And when Itachi didn't answer, Deidara would talk about his own life. "It's really boring where I came from, yeah. There's not much to do back home, but this is this gas station where my friends and I would all hang out late at night!" He'd laugh. "Those were the days, yeah." And then he'd turn to Itachi with sparking eyes and say "You should come and visit me back home sometime, yeah! And I could bring you to the gas station where me and my friends always hang out! It'll be a blast!"
"No offense, but I'm not sure I want to drive three hours—"
"It's only 2 hours from here, yeah." Deidara corrected him.
Itachi bit back the unkind words he could've said in response to Deidara's comment, and instead, reiterated his statement as if he hadn't said anything. "I'm not sure I want to drive three hours from my house to visit you at a gas station."
"Oh." He mumbled and lowered his head, causing his long blonde locks to hide his facial expression. In less than ten seconds, however, his head snapped up, his hair wildly spreading around his face and said "there's other fun things to do, yeah! We don't have to hang out at the gas station if you don't want to!"
Itachi's only peace could be found at three times: whenever Deidara was in class, taking a shower, or sleeping. That was it. One would assume that he'd find peace whenever the blonde was studying, but even then Deidara was either listening to music loud enough for Itachi to hear it through Deidara's earbuds or he was talking himself through his homework problems.
Even when he was reading, he wasn't silent. He'd be silent for only a few paragraphs before gaining Itachi's attention to tell him about something funny he and his friends did back home or about something interesting he saw on campus that day.
Itachi glanced at the clock on his phone. Deidara had been gone for only five minutes, and it usually took him fifteen or twenty to finish his showers. Why it took so long, Itachi didn't care to know. All he knew was that he had ten to fifteen minutes of solitude to burn, and he was going to spend it reading as much of his required reading for Tuesday as he possibly could.
A notion which was shattered the moment his phone rang. He picked it up and sighed when he saw who was calling him.
"Hello, mom." He said, closing his marketing essentials text.
"Hi sweetheart! How's your first week of school been going so far?" She asked him.
He glanced forlornly at his abandoned textbook and responded. "Good, I suppose. I haven't done much of anything besides homework all week."
"You have this much homework already?! It's the first week of school!" She whined.
"Mom, I'm in not in high school anymore, I'm in college. I've gotten a homework assignment the first day of each of my classes, and a syllabus detailing the homework I'll have for the rest of the semester that I could be working on." He explained to her, although he really shouldn't have had to explain anything at all in the first place. Mikoto went to college. This wasn't anything new to her.
"I know, but still. It's the first week of your freshmen year, you should be enjoying yourself." She said. "Have you made any friends yet?"
Itachi knew that this question would come up during the course of this conversation. He just didn't know when. "No, I haven't yet. But I have lunch and dinner with Deidara on occasion, and I've ran into Shisui a couple of times."
"You haven't made any friends yet, honey?"
"I heard my name, yeah?" Deidara asked when he came in, absently running a hand through his hair.
Itachi glanced at the phone in his hand to indicate for Deidara to be quiet. Taking the hint, he nodded and mouthed "okay" before putting his toiletries away. "No, not yet, but I haven't had the time so far—" Itachi continued, only to be cut off by his concerned mother.
"Itachi, I know that you don't like making friends,"
Not true, Itachi thought.
"but maybe you can reach out to your classmates so that when midterms and finals come around, you have someone to study with." Mikoto suggested.
"Mom, I'll be fine. Besides, I prefer to study alone anyways." He said, rubbing his eyes.
"Join a club! Maybe you'll meet some new friends there!" She insisted. "Don't they have a club fair sometime soon?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Itachi watched Deidara sprint across the room and hurriedly shift through a stack of orientation papers that were laying on his desk. Itachi ignored him (as best as can be expected when Deidara almost knocks his lamp off the desk) and focused on the conversation he was having with his mother. "Maybe. I don't know when though—"
"There's one today, yeah!" Deidara exclaimed, holding a piece of paper in the air as if it were the Holy Grail. He ran over to where Itachi was sitting on his bed and held the paper an inch away from his face.
"Hold on, mom." Itachi said, and held the phone away from his mouth. "What's today?" He asked.
"The club fair! It's today!" Of course he was eavesdropping on Itachi's conversation. "I wanted to go, but I forgot and now I remembered!" More like, you forgot until my mother mentioned it. "Wanna come with?"
"There you go, Itachi! Go to the club fair with Deidara and make some new friends!" Mikoto said before Itachi could decline.
"It starts at eleven, so we need to hurry up so that we make it there on time!"
"Well, Itachi, I'm going to get off the phone so that you and Deidara can go to the club fair. Be sure to let me know if you meet any new friends there, okay?" Mikoto asked.
"Sure." Itachi said, wondering how on earth he had gone from having fifteen minutes of solitude to being dragged on some sort of roommate bonding outing with Deidara.
The club fair was being held in the main room of the student community center where various clubs and organizations had set up tables and winged poster boards to advertise their clubs which ranged from language clubs, to nature clubs, clubs specific to majors like Teachers of Tomorrow for the education majors, to even sports.
"Join the swim team!" The swim team table was yelling from behind their table. The spokesman, a guy whom Itachi recognized as being from his philosophy class was wearing a track suit, much like the rest of the members of his team. "Like to swim? Join the swim team! Don't like to swim? Join us anyways! We'll teach you how!" He boomed.
"I thought that this was a club fair, not a recruitment fair." Itachi said to Deidara as they passed by the swim team table.
It took Deidara a moment to answer as he was undoubtedly checking out the guys on the swim team when he responded "I mean, isn't that what all these clubs are doing, yeah? Recruiting members?"
Itachi shrugged. "I suppose." He said, glancing back at the swim team members who were chatting up two girls wearing short shorts and tank tops that exposed their belly buttons. "But that's different. Being a part of a club doesn't take any special talent. Those guys on the swim team were advertising swimming lessons back there."
"I might just sign up in that case." Deidara murmured huskily.
Itachi ignored the comment and glanced around at the various tables and cringed when they passed by a table with a jar full of condoms and condom shaped bumper stickers. "Condom?" A short girl with frizzy hair and thick rimmed glasses asked him.
"No thanks." He politely declined and continued walking. It was a few seconds later that he realized that Deidara wasn't by his side anymore. "Deidara?" He asked, turning around.
At that moment, Deidara came bounding through the crowd of people, ducking and dodging to get to where Itachi was standing. "Sorry, yeah. I wanted to pick something up." He said.
"That's okay." Itachi said and turned around to continue walking.
"Condom?" Deidara asked.
Itachi blinked at the sight of a little square package that advertised a strawberry flavored condom for "an enhanced sexual experience." "No!" He said. His eyes widened when he noticed the bulge in Deidara's hoodie pocket and the colorful square packets protruding from inside. "How many did you grab?!" He asked.
Deidara looked confused. "What? You never know when you're gonna need 'em! Besides, there was so many to choose from, yeah! Besides, you'll be thanking me when the time comes and you wanna get it on with your—"
Itachi held his hands up to keep him from saying anymore. "Stop. Just, stop." He said and glanced at Deidara's overstuffed pocket. "Do something about that, people are going to think that we're lascivious."
"I don't know what that means, and I don't think a majority of the people here know what that means, so they probably won't of us that way, yeah."
"They'll think we're indecent." Itachi elaborated.
Deidara outstretched his hand and rested it upon Itachi's shoulder, giving him a knowing look. "Itachi, I'm gay, people already think that of me so I've got nothing to lose." He said, retracting his hand and stuffing it in his already overstuff pocket.
Except the rest of your dignity. Itachi thought in disgust. "Why did you even want to come to this thing so badly?"
"For that." Deidara said, nodding his head in the direction of what seemed to be some sort of art club.
"An art club?"
"Partially." Deidara answered. "Look closer, yeah."
Itachi did look closer and didn't see anything of interest. "A crash course in Photoshop?" He asked.
Deidara let out a sigh of frustration and ripped his hands from his pockets, spilling about three condom packets onto the floor. Itachi was about to reprimand him when Deidara put his hands on his face and turned his line of focus to a rather bored looking male with dyed red hair. "Do you see it now?"
"Him?" Itachi asked. Deidara nodded excitedly. "I don't get it, what's the big deal?"
"What's the big deal, yeah?" He nearly shouted and then lowered his voice. "Don't you see? He's hot as hell!"
Itachi spared a second glance at him. Tall, lean, couldn't-care-less punk style. Even though he knew that Deidara was referring to, he didn't see what Deidara saw in him. "And how did you know he would be here?"
"He's an upperclassmen in one of my art classes. He's an engineering major, but he recently declared a minor in art!" He squealed.
"Go talk to him, then." Itachi suggested.
Deidara didn't need to be told twice. Within thirty seconds, he had pushed his way through the crowd and was making conversation with the members of the club, talking about everything from computer design software to paper weights to bands of markers.
Itachi smiled, happy to see Deidara find a group of people who shared the same interests as he did. Hopefully that'll occupy him enough to give me a moment of peace and quiet. Itachi thought to himself and headed in the direction of the Accounting Association table. He may not have made any friends on his little excursion, but he certainly wouldn't without picking up a flyer or two.
I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Until next time~
~Sasori33-001