"It is better to be beautiful than to be good, but it is better to be good than to be ugly."


Ugly


So, there's this scenario. With a girl. Naturally, there's also a boy involved. Yep. And he is really attractive. Like…ugh, he is just delicious on a freaking stick. And he is also right by me. Perfect vantage point. Yes. Keep on being super sexy. Uh-huh.

He turned and looked at me, eyes narrowing dangerously. I froze, looking robotically away from Sasuke and at this packet on my desk, remembering what I was talking about earlier.

So, on with this scenario.


CAST

(In order of appearance)

Haruno Sakura: A teenaged girl between the ages of roughly sixteen and seventeen with naturally pink locks and emerald eyes that promise a punch.

Uchiha Sasuke: Konoha heartthrob teenager around seventeen who also works as the pizza deliveryman of his best friend, Uzumaki Naruto, who owns it with his family.


We're all taking a test in Room 207G—the math wing. I tapped my pencil to the beat of a song currently plastered into my brain, eyeing the clock with unconcerned concern. Fifteen more minutes and the period would be complete. Most everyone was done at this point, amazingly. For some reason I thought AP tests would give people some problems. People have been sitting, done, picking their noses, for almost forty-five minutes.

I sent my viridian eyes downward then, glancing through the fifteen page final packet. Nothing. Just my name on the top of each page. One answer on some Pre-Algebra level question. I must be the class idiot. Grumbling, I leaned deeper into my seat, feeling all of the sudden at a crossroads. To cheat, or not to cheat. The smartest person in the class sat next to me, and, I'm sure that he wouldn't mind, nor notice. He slept as a freaking log with his test finished and flipped over.


Nara Shikamaru: Resident lazy-ass though proclaimed and proven genius. Dark hair eternally stretched into a high ponytail. Aged seventeen.

Yamanaka Ino: Blonde cheer captain known for her mysterious attachment to those housed on lower ends of the social food chain. Secret has it she was once best friends with the lot of them. Two-faced bitch. 17.


I bit my lip, a surge of morals waving over me. I didn't want to cheat on this test, but I wasn't motivated to fail so blatantly either. Staying in these classes were both a curse and a blessing. Making it into them was the blessing, being booted out…

I raked a hand through my hair. I shouldn't even be in this stupid situation right now. I know what I'm doing. This is easy. It is math. I sat through each class with pen readily scribbling each word the Professor spoke. I knew what I was doing, and I should know now. What's the difference? Wording?

Reading the first question, I discovered that it wasn't the words. I've completely fooled myself.

The only reason why I'm in here is to look at Sasuke longingly every so often, sketch a picture of him into my notebook from varying angles, and pretend that I had been writing notes.


Hatake Kakashi: Late-twenties. Perverted boarding school professor known for both his tardiness and gravity defying silver hair, along with a certain book series he is always reading. He has a mask that covers most of his face, except for one lonely gray eye.


Suddenly, a piece of light pink paper plodded onto my desk, folded in the shape of a tiny paper crane, neat and crisply folded. A tiny heart was in the corner of one wing. The noise, so loud to my own ears, had me tense in anticipation. Half of the class must have heard it as well. My eyes scanned the room. Pencils scratched on the white paper, erasers eliminated all means of mistake, and buttons on calculators were furiously punched.
My shoulders slumped some in relaxation, turning in the general direction of which the paper derived. The tanned skin of a certain Yamanaka Ino seemed to glow, her eyes shifting over to mine in knowing. One fair eyebrow quirked upward before she returned to her own test. I sighed before turning back around, only to see that my little crane had disappeared.

Odd, I thought, looking for the pink sheet.

Eventually, I decided that it must've been a mistake that the note was passed onto my desk.


Chapter One

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly


The bells rang loudly and with them, I saw my life flushing down the toilets of success. So much for all the 4.0 GPA perfect years, goodbye to the twenty-dollar bills that came with the 100 percents on tests, quizzes, assessments. Forever I will remember the day when the rewards of lavish items such as money, clothes, shoes, and money left me because I received no more than a five percent—as in five points earned out of a possible 100—on an AP entry exam for my senior year in high school. I wanted to walk over to a corner and bang my head against the dry wall repeatedly until either I fell out or blood dripped from my forehead, soaked into my bangs, turning my cherry hair strawberry red. Both seemed equally enjoyable.

"How'd you do, Strawberry Shortcake?"


Yukabushi TenTen: A cheery new girl from Taiwan, who is always sporting twin buns on either side of her head, and always has changing pet names for every one of her friends. Seventeen.


I imagined myself looking as if I just gave birth, a cold sweat damp on my face, eyes tired, limbs limp, and mind disoriented as I awaited my baby. Seeing as I'm not getting a baby—and if that test was any sort of twisted metaphorical baby it is mentally and physically retarded, missing ten toes and one eyeball is where the nose should be, and the nose is at the belly button—I just looked ridiculous in my mind's eye.
TenTen's face, a disgusted pout, assured me of my appearance. She plopped a hand on my head and shook it. "That bad, huh?"

The girl was from Taiwan and whenever she got upset her eyes did a weird thing wherein they looked like almonds—which all Taiwanese eyes resemble, ultimately—and someone who didn't really know how to crack them open has crushed them into nonentity. She looked like she was trying to suppress laughter, vomit, smugness, and pity for how horribly my face showed I had done with just a look. Her eyes erased all the conflicting emotion with a blink, as she seemed to decide on pity, for the time being.

She pouts her lip again and says ruefully, "I passed. But, I mean, who care that I passed, Sakura-chan? This is about you…and I mean," she gave me another once over and sighed, ruffling my hair again. "Maybe you shouldn't have skipped out on studying last night."

So this is what it feels like to be a lost cause idiot child. I knocked her hand away with a light slap, crossing my arms as I made a sharp turn toward the doorway.

"Maybe I shouldn't have signed up for the class just to stare at Uchiha Sasuke longingly," I allow, gesturing for her to follow as we make our way through the hallway traffic. Hundreds of students—or so it seems—mill around, talk while leaning against lockers, gossip, or just form groups in the middle of the walkway to annoy people who are actually trying to get places. "Excuse me," I grumble, elbowing a hefty looking football player, judging by the fancy letters on his jacket (or even the out-of-code, non-uniform, letterman jacket and the fact that he's standing next to a security guard and not being asked to remove it, save it for Friday, son) and he sneers at me.

I sneer back, far too pissed for pleasantries. "Excuse me," I repeat, venom laced in each syllable.

TenTen squeals from behind me and grasps my arm, pulling me back. Reluctantly, I let her pull me, and I take in the feeling of adrenaline flushing out of me. Anger still boils in my veins, but considering the security personnel now suddenly interested in me, I give it up. The blood still boils, but I shake my head and pull myself out of TenTen's grasp. I stalk up to the meat chunk, who honestly thinks he has won, and decide that spitting on the dick-face's shoe will change his mind. He exaggerates shock and pulls into his jock friends, exclaiming about how those were expensive and new. Blah, blah, blah…go get a tissue and wipe it off.

Despite the plethora of powerful, prideful emotion—of which I was sure would never return after that sad excuse of a test—I beeline toward the lifts before he decides to wipe me off the face of the Earth.

"Okay," TenTen says, trying to catch up with me as I storm toward the elevators. She just reaches the doors as they begin to close and slides in narrowly. I slump down against the wall of the elevator, more than happy that it's just me and my roommate inhabiting the square box. I work off my uniform shoes and start pulling off long knee-high socks. "What was that about?" She asks.

I fish through my purse and pull out a pair of jeans. "Would you hit our floor, please?"

The ping of a button pushed in and the jerking of the elevator shocking itself to life assure me of the elevator's movement. Nobody else is getting in; I would just close the door before anyone else on any other floor tried to get in. We wait for elevator music to start in silence, too charged—well, I know I'm too charged—with emotion. I thought about what it'd be like telling my parents that I know I failed a test today during the nightly call. They would assure me that I was just psyching myself out; I always do well and there's no way I could fail a test so important, I'm too hard of a worker, determined. Then I would tell them that I only filled out my name on all the pages and wrote the number six down on problem one which asked for the sum of two numbers less than five, two apart, and adding to a number four more than the lesser. Well, that one's right, at least.

I only manage to stick one leg in my jeans before TenTen asks again. "Are you sure you're okay with the test?"

I groan. "Of course I'm not, TenTen. You know my parents will send me to their idea of what will shock me into reality, and you know where I'm from." The thought that she is the only one who knows that floats heavily yet silently in the elevator, and with a clearing of my throat, it disappears. "I can't screw up and be sent to a public school from my hometown; I just can't, not my senior year."

The girl opens her mouth to reply but the resounding ding interrupting the usual instrumental jazz of elevator music sends both of our heads toward the doors. I laugh, "I guess I should put my pants on and get off the ground, shouldn't I?"

She giggles, offering a hand to help me stand. I take it quickly, and straighten myself just as the doors slide apart. "So then I was like, omigod, why do you have to be such an idiot?" I say, putting on my best 'I Attend This School Because Daddy Paid for Me' voice. For extra effect, I flip my hair and pop my hip, "She's such an idiot."

TenTen's eyebrow furrows slightly, but she takes a short glance at the person entering the lifts and catches on in record speed. "I know right, like," she scoffs, "I wish she would go to the guy who banged her brain out last week and take it back." Just when I think that the girl has finally caught grasp on how people gossip in Konoha, and what they say—particularly how they say the words—she spits out something utterly…deserving of a slap.

I fight the need to do just that once the intruder of our elevator party of two takes interest in our conversation. "Oh, are you talking about Ami?"


Karin: Redheaded gossip queen who loves the spill and takes it like a pill with every new dish about anyone. However, with that, her downfall is being known to have two personalities. Thick framed black glasses; seventeen years old.


"Yeah," I said emptily, nodding my head while twirling my long pink hair with my index finger. I sent my green eyes toward TenTen sharply, reprimanding the girl for examining her fingernails. I snapped my fingers, "Aren't we talking about Ami, TenTen?"

The girl raised a brow and met my eye, then looked across the elevator toward the vermillion eyes of Karin, studying her actions carefully. "Who's Ami?" She whispered, earning her a harsh look. I tightened my lips and grumbled lowly. She slapped her hands to her cheeks in sudden realization. "Oh," she exclaimed with a wide mouth. "Yeah, totally, we're talking about Ami! The one with the weird colored hair that's totally unnatural?"

My hair is bubblegum pink.

Karin's is fire truck red.

TenTen seems to notice this misstep and scratches the side of one of her buns, "Oops."

Both Karin and I grunt in repugnance. We share a glance, shocked that we did that together at the same time, and consider the fact that we never really associated before. I see her scratching her brain as to way she's even talking to me now, since all obvious factors—bright green eyes, maybe, perhaps my large forehead, or that I'm the only girl with naturally pink hair attending the school—point to me being that kid in her World History class in the front row, studiously taking notes and only speaking to ask the sensei a question.

She scoots up her glasses to break the tension, giving up on the fight in her mind between talking to a nerd and getting the gossip. When she asks, "So, what'd you hear?" I know that she decided getting the latest was more important than talking to the losers. TenTen and I release a held breath and I smile, ready to get what I need.

"Well…I heard that she—,"

"Sakura! She said that you shouldn't—,"

"I know, TenTen, but, she asked, and it's not like Ami will necessarily know we were the ones who told."

"True, but we still told her we wouldn't."

Karin follows our banter like a moth drawn to a flame, a mouse hungry for cheese, walking right into the trap. She tucks her hair behind her ears and looks around the elevator, supposedly for cameras. After declaring the area clear of anything she is about to say, she releases a short breath that made her face deflate like a balloon being popped quickly. "What do I have to tell you to get you to tell me what you got?"

The elevator reaches our floor with a ding just as the light bulbs above me and my best friend's heads go off. I grin.

Hook line and sinker.


Uzumaki Naruto: Blonde energy shell wrapped in an orange coating of sugary excited happiness, loud and somewhat obnoxious. His blue eyes highlight youthfulness though he is almost seventeen. Pizza deliveryman with his best friend, Uchiha Sasuke


A certain Uzumaki Naruto stared at his computer screen in utter confusion. What did they mean he used all of his login attempts and couldn't sign into the school social network until the next three days? He couldn't grasp the idea. Three days? Three days without seeing what everyone was doing, posting what he was doing, and creeping on people pages without their knowledge? What would he do with his life!

He slurped a forkful of ramen, eyes still trained on the home page. Basic school announcements lined one side while events lined the other. Normally, everything that was school related would be smashed into one corner while all the events he was invited to filled the rest of his page, friend requests taking over the rest of his wall. Now, stupid reminders about final exams and book returns needing to be turned in before the last day of school were highlighted and capitalized.

Naruto swallowed thickly, enjoying the broth, and as the warmth of the deliciously flavored liquid slid down his esophagus, the information registered. Today was the last day of school, and examining his desk; all seven of his classroom books lay stacked unevenly and with papers crammed into the pages. "Ah, crap," he muttered, slamming his laptop closed and running past the dorm room mirrored closet to his bed to get his jacket, slung over the headboard. He reached for the jacket, and from the corner of his eye, he caught his reflection in the mirror.

Pajamas—he was wearing his orange and blue plaid pant pajamas with a gray school baseball practice t-shirt that he mostly forgot to take off before jumping in his bed in exhaustion. He raised his arm and risked a sniff. His nose burned immediately. Definitely forgot to shower, too, he thought, scrunching his nose. Naruto dumped his jacket on his desk again and paced toward the bathroom. Sasuke always had a new bottle of Axe that he always had in his bathroom drawer. It remained unused because, Naruto liked to think, nothing could mask the smell of bastard. There was no point of spraying the Emergency Smell Good in a bottle for him.

The blond teen cruised into the bathroom, cool tile sending shivers up his spine, and moseyed comfortably to the drawer closest to the shower, opening it as if it were his own. The organization of the drawer always amazed him, and left him staring at the organized row of toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, razor—as if the bastard needed that—and…Axe. Naruto grabbed the small container and freely sprayed himself with the forest-like scent across the chest. For fun, he lifted the cologne above his head, made a halo and let the mist fall all around him, it settling in the air. "I smell like a Tarzan," he observed, looking at the name of the scent for further knowledge. "I like it."

He considered changing his pants but decided against it, eyeing his watch. The Student Resource Center would be closing in forty-five minutes and, even though his father was once the principal of the school, he got no excuses or freebies. If he didn't pay his student bill for lunches he never paid for or return library books in time, he could expect a rather large sum to pay at the end of the year. With his jacket now swung around his shoulders and moccasins adorning his feet, he prepared himself for gripping all of his class books.

His biceps bulged and lungs tightened at the sudden unexpected weight, but he adjusted quickly, striding the small distance from his desk to the front door of the dorm. Naruto surveyed his full hands and the necessary tool of hand to twist the handle open. "Are you serious?" He grumbled. Not wanting to have to bend down and drop the books, which would probably make him tip over anyway, he bit his lip in concentration and balanced himself on one foot, lifting the other toward the door handle. The moment his foot made contact with the cool metal, the wood slung open rammed into his groin.

"Oi!" He screamed, falling to the ground quickly, clutching his manhood. All of his books, homework, assignments, and essays went flying. He felt tears swell in his eyes but held them back with determination as he looked up toward the untimely enterer. "I hate you, Sasuke-teme," he growled.

Sasuke looked downward at the mess of pajama, t-shirt, and messy hair and snorted, stepping over him. "I'd be concerned if you felt the opposite way, dobe," he mumbled, crawling into his perfectly made bed. The television clicked on seconds later, blaring the sounds and music of a sports station.

Naruto tumbled up from the ground. "How come you didn't wake me up? Today was finals and you knew it."

Smokey eyes glazed over his friend, "Oh, so that's why you're still in your pajamas." His nose crunched seconds later. "Why do you smell like forest dung?"

"No reason," the boy answered quickly, beginning to pick up his books in order to hide his face, which was, in no doubt, going to give him away. He could feel the lying tell of a smile begging to spread across his tanned face. "But you do know if I have to stay during the break to test you're going to have to stay so I'm not alone in the dorm building."

The dark-haired teen had no reason to look toward Naruto to see his slightly pouty face, begging him to stay with him. Though Sasuke knew Naruto knew that he wouldn't truly be alone—plenty of people preferred to skip finals day and get extra studying time, only needing to pay a fee for some adult to sit in the room and watch them take the test—he had a feeling that it was more to Naruto than being alone. It was being alone in the school that his father once owned, by yourself, with no one who honestly meant anything to you, to stop you from wallowing in thoughts you'd rather avoid. Sasuke understood that all too well. He breathed an, "Aa," before focusing his attention back at the television.

Naruto did a little celebratory dance across the room, landing at his bed. Sasuke smirked lightly, watching the completely uncoordinated, sporadic movements with light humor.

"So how were the tests anyway? I heard Math was an ass," he said absently, plopping his books into a spare athletic bag he found underneath his bed. He forced the drawstrings apart so the bag drew closer at the top, sealing the bag. Sasuke turned up the volume of the television, ignoring Naruto. "Well, you're an ass. I'm going to return my books."

Sasuke snorted. "Try not to come back."

"Try to grow some balls, you might need them, you gay, asexual piece of crap!"


TenTen and I sat against the dusty shelves of the library, the ridges of books providing an interesting surface for our backs. My legs were tucked to my chest as a book balanced atop my knees. "Who do you think A is?" I ask TenTen.

Rather than be immersed in the television series like the majority of the student population, we stayed safe with The Pretty Little Liar series of books. When time for answering lasted longer than usual, I glanced up from my page and saw her turned around, back twisted, peering through a whole in the books, where a novel once lived. Surely, her honey brown eyes were widened in fascination at whatever had caught her attention this time, and I slapped my book closed, stacking it atop the others that I had gathered.

"What is it?" I asked her, shouldering her softly. She made a small noise before scooting over some, allowing my green eye to fill the small rectangle of space along with hers. Her voice lowered to a volume something almost foreign to her, even in the library. "It's a 'who', Cherry Stem. He's sitting at the table closest to the door."

Almost wanting to tap her head into the bookcases for calling me a cherry stem—of all things—I became distracted with the two letters forming the short word 'he' that followed the annoying name. I was instantly interested and scanned all the circular, rectangular, and markedly empty tables. I scanned the small area nearest the entrance of the library three times. A few people read and studied for final exams they had yet to taken, though the only test that professors scheduled during after regular school hours was, like, Insect Study or something odd like that. Based on the stragglers in the library, I could see…my mouth dropped upon landing upon a particular reader.

I whip TenTen away from her staring. "That's Hyuuga Neji!" I yell whisper, my green eyes wide. Neji was not only one of—if not the—finest specimen in our grade level. Seniors wanted him, Freshmen had dreams about getting him, and Sophomores, those frisky little devilish things, actually had tried. None had success in their endeavors, and some could say that the prodigy's parents had something to do with it, if not his intimidating beauty. The only who rivaled his attractiveness was none other than Uchiha Sasuke—insert swoon—and the situation was all but the same.

She doesn't turn her face away from her little spying hole to reply to my outburst with an absent, "I don't care who he is as long as he isn't gay…"

"Well, at this point, some people are beginning to question that," I mutter, standing up.

TenTen shoots upward quickly, following me with concerned eyes. "What was that, Sakura-chan?"

I balance my array of books easily in the curve of my waist, and give my friend a grin far too innocent. "I'm just kidding, TenTen. He hasn't had a girlfriend since Ino declared in the third grade that he belonged to her and then dumped him when he refused to share his fruit snacks."

Recalling the memory brings a smile to my face, and surely lights it up, truly a distraction from the looming thought of my test. Book reading, gossip catching, and quarterback-shoe-spitting hardly worked as well as remembering the times when I could actually say that I knew the people that everyone else admired. I was probably friends with the lot of them not that that fact could find admittance without a noose and gun pointed toward them threateningly. I see TenTen raise a brow at my expression, but I wave it away as I put away the books I'd finished. "I'm sure you'd be able to hook him," I turn and look at her, smiling, "You're persistent enough."

Her face scrunches and she crosses her arms. "I don't like him, Red Beet," I pay no acknowledgement short of a grumble at that nickname; "I was just wondering what type of shampoo he uses."

We walk toward the checkout desk. I laugh lightly at her statement, "Sure, TenTen."

She jumps ahead of me and exclaims, "Surely as the sky is blue and that birds sing, too." She skips backwards, expertly maneuvering through the tables and small shelves. I laugh when she narrowly avoids a group of people, too busy in exchanging numbers for the summer to notice a crazy Taiwanese girl walking around backwards. Her ability to move so graceful and with such ease makes me wonder lightly what exactly she does in her free time, but I brush the idea away.

The child was heading straight into Neji's table, where his cup of coffee is way close to the edge of the table. I barely have the time to reach out for her hand before her butt bumps the table. A loud gasp from somewhere on the other side of the library seems to suck out all of the oxygen in the room, and I watch the small Starbucks cup slide off the mahogany furniture. The brunette girl turns with a ballerina's beauty on the ball of her feet, her hands slapping over her mouth in sheer shock as her widened as take in the sight.

Neji Hyuuga. Wearing the uniform stark white button down shirt. With a brown coffee stain decorating the midsection in a warm, mocha, steaming brown color.

"Oh my Kami, I am so sorry!"

TenTen's shout snaps time back into shape like an elastic band and I plop all of my books onto the prodigy's table, skittering over to the librarian. She seems oblivious—or uncaring—to the fact that half the empty library is now talking about Neji getting coffee knocked on him by some weird girl with twin buns skipping around backwards. In no time will the news reach the long line winding into the library from Student Resources, where people that actually care about things that happen to the Hyuuga are standing.

I grin at the woman. "Hi," I greet.

She stamps a book with a red LATE stamp. "What do you want," she says between chomps of gum. The librarian is a little more heavyset, a huge bee's nest of graying black hair sitting atop her head. Stereotypical pointed glasses sit at the bridge of her nose, beads colored to look like beads looped around her neck. If she chews the gum any harder, I'm sure her dentures will topple out of her mouth.

Feeling as if she'd return to her meticulous stamping if I don't stop my staring, I spit out, "I spilled some coffee. Well, my friend spilled some coffee—"

"There're paper towels in the bathroom."

I grin for the sake of being polite, though I think of choking her with her 'pearl' chain. "I know that, ma'am."

"Then why are you over here telling me you spilled?" The stamp pounds on another book. "Go handle it, you're a big girl."

My patience withers to nothing but a grain of sand. "My friend spilled freshly brewed coffee from Starbucks on some hot guy's chest and if he isn't burned, he is probably burning and said hot guy was wearing his uniform shirt so something more than those crappy excuses of paper towels that do nothing more than make your hands less damp when they're supposed to dry them all the way!"

To be honest, I have no idea how I got from being angry with the librarian to being concerned about the likely possibility of Neji's burning chest and jumping toward my feelings that our school's paper towels dug up. "So, I would be very kind if you supply me with ice and a cloth. The nurse has already left, yes?"

I return less than ten minutes later, ice, washcloth, another school shirt and burn ointment—which I didn't even ask for!—in hand. My eyes glue themselves to the awe that is that boy's body for thirty seconds until I realize that the two I left behind to get the materials to handle a mess I didn't get into are arguing vehemently.

"I'm not going to buy you another coffee," TenTen grumbles, throwing her hands about like she does whenever she's too angry for any other thing to contain her extreme emotion.

Neji rolls his milky eyes, "You spilled it on me. Unless you want to be sued –"

"I should be the one suing you, jackass!"

"What'd you sue me for? You're idiocy?"

I can't help but turn my head back and forth, as spectators do in tennis matches, as the two volleyed with each other.

"You're the idiot who set your blazing hot coffee on the edge of a table!"

"Oh, and it's normal for people to skip around backwards in libraries?"

TenTen pauses shortly, and crosses her arms across her chest. She eyes him levelly, "Yes."

Before I can finish writing down both TenTen and our phone numbers, along with our dorm room address and telephone number, I'm dragging the girl away from Neji. If any fiber of me believed she would be nice to people she found attractive, she proved the idea ridiculous in fifteen straight minutes of her calling him some form of stupid in Taiwan's native language, English, Japanese, and Chinese. I leave Neji with the shirt, cloth, and ointment. "I'm sorry for her behavior," I apologize between yanking her clawing form away. "She's didn't take a nap."


She's still furious when I work my thin, credit card shaped door key into a slot allotted for it with all the books in my hand. I kick the door open and waddle to my desk. My arms seem to sigh of release when I finally release the novels. My mind has numbed to TenTen's voice but snips of "He's so arrogant", "Who does he think he is calling dumb?" and "I'll show that pretty boy!" still break through a shield I'd built.

I look at our clock before plopping lifelessly onto my bed. Any minute now, it'd be nine thirty and my parents would be asking how my day was, and how my tests were. Did I pass? What classes did I sign up for next year? Would I be aiming toward more AP level? The constant light flashing on the receiver haunts me. Did my parents already leave a message?

I grab the phone sharply and press the button to listen to messages.

"You have one unheard message," a beep precedes a voice that makes my heart drop. It's nobody but my English teacher reminding me I still had to return my Shakespeare book. I hang up the phone with a limp noodle of a hand. Dealing with my parents would've been easier to do if they already called. Now I have to either force myself to ignore the ringing until it stopped, or answer the telephone. Both were equally difficult. I rake a hand through my hair and groan. Just then I realize how loud my groan actually was, and break out of my haze sharply.

TenTen stands awkwardly in front of our TV. "You weren't listening to anything I was saying, were you?"

"Sorry," I shrug, scooting over on my twin bed, which sends me even closer to the edge. She sits cross-legged and stares anticipating a reason. "I just have a lot on my mind. Not undermining the hilarity in your stint with Hyuuga Neji."

She feigns disgust, making a face that made her look like she just smelled fresh manure. "Don't say his name. It's blasphemy."

My lips split into a smile at her animated antics. Seconds later, the annoying briiing of the telephone makes my grin fall so fast that my cheeks run through a fit of minor pain. TenTen notices my jump and offers to answer it. I must've nodded because the only thing I could vaguely register was the huge knot forming in my throat. I probably wouldn't even be able to talk if the call was for me. I pray to every god discussed in World History that my parents somehow forget to call me for the nightly.

"Hello?" TenTen answers in a chipper tone.

I send my eyes toward her and ask the silent question my voice keeps me from asking.

She grimaces and shakes her head.

My praying hands fall. Screw it.


A/N: So...let me know what you all think about this! I don't know if I should continue or not, and this story should be a summer project. Do you like the length of the chapters? Let me know.

Review Question For Cookies!: Where does Sasuke work?

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