Control

The Struggle

Huffing in annoyance you glared down at your written test. Twenty minutes had passed since the start of the exam and you had yet to answer a single question.

'Why are these questions so confusing?!' You frowned glancing around the room to see how the other people were fairing.

As you looked around a familiar head full of red hair caught your eye. Squinting your eyes you watched Gaara closely as he raised a hand to one of his eyes and covered it.

'What's he doing?' You thought curiously as you continued to watch him with interest. For a second you thought he might of just had something in his eye and was trying to get it out but the longer you watched the more you doubted that assumption.

'Is he using some kind of jutsu?' You tilted your head noticing another person not too far away rubbing their eyes as they mumbled something about sand being in their eyes. As they did this Gaara began calmly writing down answers to his once blank test.

'Is he...cheating?' You thought in confusion as your eyes flickered between Gaara and the boy. You couldn't really tell but you suddenly stiffened as Gaara turned his head in your direction, his emotionless eyes connecting with your curious (EC) one's.

You gulped a bit as the two of you stared at each other, Gaara's gaze intensifying the longer he stared at you. Growing intimidated by his gaze you turned your head back around and stared down at your test. Even though you were no longer looking at Gaara you could still feel his eyes lingering on your form.

'That was...intense...and I'm pretty sure he was cheating. Come to think of it I'm pretty sure most people are cheating...I mean the test is so hard that that seems like the only way to pass.' You frowned in thought before your eyes widened in realization.

'Maybe that's the purpose of the test then...to cheat without getting caught...that must be why Ibiki said what he did about cheating.' You thought before feeling something brush against your leg. Looking to the side you made eye contact with Kiba who had hit your leg with his own. He casually pointed his pencil to the side of his test where he had lightly written something down.

'Have you figured it out?' Was written on the side of the paper.

Raising your eyebrow at this you gave Kiba a confused look. Sighing a bit Kiba erased what he wrote and wrote something else down.

'The test. Have you figured out the actual purpose of it?' Was what he wrote down.

Nodding at this you wrote something down on the side of your test that was nearest to Kiba.

'Yea, it's to cheat without getting caught right?'

Kiba smirked at this while writing something else on his paper.

'Yea that's it. Just making sure you figured it out.'

You slightly frowned erasing what you previously wrote and putting something else down.

'You didn't think I would figure it out did you...'

'Eh kind of. It could go either way with you.' Kiba wrote down.

'Wow...thanks for having faith in me.' You quickly wrote back with a frown.

'Relax, I'm just messing with you, lil' bird.' Kiba wrote back, including his nickname for you at the end.

Shaking your head at this you chose to ignore the nickname and erased all the stuff you wrote on your paper. Catching onto this Kiba did the same before going back to working on his test. Sighing a bit you did the same, knowing that you didn't have much time left to complete the test.