High School, What a Drag (Naruto Fanfic)

Life's a drag

Knuckles rasped against the door, and the sound echoed out of the room. A deep voice from behind spoke up in a rather candid manner causing Temari's mouth to twist down in irritation. "He's not coming out."

The eldest of the three siblings turned her head towards Kankuro as her older brother leaned back in his chair at the table. The second oldest brother's feet were on the table, and he was balancing precariously on two chair legs. Her hand still remained hovered over the door to Gaara's room. "What do you mean he's not coming out?"

"Gaara's a hikikomori."

Kankuro leaned back just enough at that point to topple over backwards, allowing a firm smirk to spread across Temari's face. His comment labeling their younger brother as a shut in still stung. "Gaara's not a hikikomori. He does go out for walks."

"Yeah... the fact Gaara does go out for a couple hours a day doesn't change the fact he's a hikikomori Temari. No way..." A click indicating the youngest sibling's door was opening stopped Kankuro from pulling himself up, and instead his mouth twisted up into a frown.

Temari however turned around with a smile on her face. "I see you found the new school uniform I left out for you. I take it you're coming to the opening ceremony with us."

The look in Gaara's eyes said he really couldn't care, and he simply moved to the table to sit down and stare in Kankuros direction. A sigh escaped Temari's lips. Today was going to be a long day.

"What a drag." The fourteen year old shoved his hands into his pockets as his mouth twisted up into a scowl. "I've got to get up to early in the morning. I've then got to dress in this stupid uniform. Then I've got to wait for the stupid train in this energy draining crowd. Add to this the fact high school is simply more work, and more energy then middle school. I shouldn't have taken principle Tsunade's advice on skipping a grade."

Another quick thought darted through his mind after a moment of silent bliss. "That though would have required putting up an argument, and that would mean expending more energy then I needed to again. What a drag."

Shikamaru rubbed the back of his neck as his eyes darted around taking in everything. He could hear the sound of an approaching train, and the train which just left was the one that arrived before his. The teen let out a sigh knowing he would now have to get on the train. The underground train pulled to a stop with a piercing screech, and the teen stepped onto the train without removing his hands from his pockets, or changing his posture.

One hand did go up to grab onto one of the straps used to prevent the commuters from falling over when the train stopped and started when he found his spot, and he could see from the corner of his eye a couple of his future school mates. "Did you hear that yankee chick has another sibling attending the school this year? That means there's going to be three of them."

The fourteen year old's mouth twisted down. "Great. Another thing to make this a major drag. The school's got juvenile delinquents."

"You do realize the only reason Gaara skipped a grade is because dad didn't want to deal with him."

Kankuro's voice aggravated Temari as much as the idea of Gaara stepping on a crowded subway train did. Her lips pushed together as a tight unsettling feeling settled into her chest. "Let's see. He doesn't like being touched, he doesn't like loud sounds, and he hates being stared at. This is honestly a disaster waiting to happen."

Temari's hand reached up to tug on Kankuro's sleeve. "Do you think you can get in front of Gaara to make sure nobody bumps into him."

She watched as Kankuro's brown eyebrow jerked up. "You've got to be kidding me. Get in front of Gaara? What do you think I am, suicidal? He'll push me in front of the train and be quite happy having done so."

A deep breath escaped between Temari's lips as she tried erasing the awful image from her mind. "He wouldn't."

"You're to nice Temari. Just wait and see, he'll do something stupid before we get to the school. Bad enough people already think we're in some sort of street gang."

"Gaara won't. He absolutely won't go off on us." Temari felt her upper set of teeth rub against her bottom lip, and she sucked in on her cheek slightly. "Gaara will do something. He always does."

Getting onto the train thus didn't ease any of her anxiety, particularly when she knew being on the train was an even bigger aggravate for her youngest sibling. She watched as Gaara turned his head to look at another student from their school, and something of course came out of his mouth. The tone of voice carried Gaara's usual dislike of pretty much everything. "What are you looking at?"

"What are you looking at?"

Shikamaru blinked a couple of times upon hearing the comment directed at him. "What a drag. Trouble already." Instinct from having dealt with trouble since elementary school made him access the situation as well as the person in front of him. He stared for a few seconds more taking in the red hair, and the oddly colored eyes with bags underneath. There was also the scowl on their face, and the uniform the person wore. "Obviously he thinks I was staring at him."

His eyes moved slightly and noted the female from his school, and her blond hair pulled up into not two, but four pigtails. His eyes also took in the other male near the two who also scowled at him and under first impression would be the greater threat due to his body build. The young man didn't have the look of intelligence that the other two had, and Shikamaru finally let his eyes settle back on the red haired youth. "No, he's the greater threat. Unlike the other two he's hard to read."

"That's the third sibling?" The mutterings from behind honestly didn't help the tense situation to tone down. "That guys screwed."

Shikamaru simply reached up with his free hand. "What a drag. No, I wasn't looking at anything. I was simply zoning out."

The red haired youth's scowl remained, but his eyes blinked a couple of times in confusion. The older of the two males looked like he wanted to pummel Shikamaru, but the blond female simply looked at him with a completely bewildered look on her face. "Say what?"

The wheels of the train came to a stop, and the doors gushed open at the stop they needed to get off at for the high school. Shikamaru let go of the strap he used to hold himself up, and simply stepped backwards into the crowd so others were between him and the three siblings.