A/N I've had a story in the works for awhile now that I keep adding to and rewriting, so while I organize it into something publishable, I've decided to write this to fill time. It will have quick but short updates. Also, just a heads up, who is a student and who is a teacher/faculty member/adult is completely random! For example, all of the Akatsuki are students except Kakuzu, and the Jonin (Kakashi/Gai/Asuma/Kurenai etc) are in school at the same time as the rookies. I hope you enjoy :3

Once again the heat of summer had cooled to a breezy fall. The first leaves changed color around the parkway as Sakura gazed out the passenger seat window. This fall would be different. This was her first year of high school.

All her middle school teachers had talked high school up. "In high school your teachers will expect" fill in the blank, "in high school you will have to" blah blah blah. There will be more and more difficult classes. Hours of homework each night. Reistration for college.

Sakura pushed those warnings to the back of her mind. All she could think about was what she had observed.

For one, everything was massive. The school was divided into two buildings, one for academics and the other for arts and athletics. The school possessed multiple fields and a track, and a gentle slope led down to a river that the crew team used for practice. Crew team... If she wasn't so invested in lacrosse, Sakura would try out. The people she met from that club at the open house seemed wonderful.

The main school building was far more vertical than she was used to; stairs ascending to a fifth floor as opposed to her middle school's measly two. More space for the fields, she figured. The challenge of climbing stairs all day long didn't scare her much, but the fear of finding herself in unfamiliar hals did haunt the back of her mind.

Third of all, she didn't know how much of her classes would be her classmates from middle school and how many would be new. She felt apprehension at both options: if all her peers were new, would she be able to make friends? And if they were all her old peers, she would just be dealing with the same people as usual, but she may be forced to watch as they all changed and grew apart. It may be better to leave them ain the past, she thought. She will have already ripped the bandage off.

Sakura had found something out about herself during the summer. She learned the phrase compulsive heterosexuality, and in a startling few days, realized her whole life she had been compulsively heterosexual. Until then she had thought the way she felt when Ino leaned in close to apply her makeup, or when Hinata slept peacefully next to her during their first sleepover together, or when Tenten squeezed her shoulder and smiled at her after a hard game, were different and much better than anything she ever felt for Sasuke, or any other man for that matter.

Their car pulled up around the drop off. Sakura climbed out and so did her mother, to take a photo of her in her uniform and backpack in front of the school's boundless opulence. When they finally left Sakura stepped back to wait for Ino.

She made use of her extra time taking in her surroundings. Two trees flanked the main entrance, turning colors from top to bottom in a beautiful display. Hedges and some kind of ground cover plant grew in raised beds with rims a few students used as seats, no doubt in a similar situation to herself. A sandwich board stood at the bottom of the stairs, reading "Look for THIS" with a drawing of a stylized drawing of a red cloud "for directions!" In case there was any confusion as to what that meant, two students wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the cloud stood at the top of the stairs loudly announcing they would help people find their classes. Sakura appreciated the thought from the imposing school.

Right when it started becoming uncomfortable to stand around and people-watch, Ino rounded the corner. She looked as lovely as ever. They embraced in a flurry of squeals and how-are-yous.

"I'm great!" Ino chirped. "I had a hard time sleeping last night, but Mom took me to Starbucks before school so I'm hyped up."

"I had a hard time sleeping too, coffee was a good call. Wish I had thought of that."

"They might be serving some in the cafeteria. Ooh, or in a vending machine. Let's go look!" She started bounding up the stairs, leaving Sakura to watch her ponytail swing behind her.

"Wait," Sakura said. Ino looked back, and Sakura steeled herself to continue. "Come here, there's something I have to tell you. I...I won't be competing with you for Sasuke any more."

Ino smiled up to her eyes. "What? Where did this come from?"

"A lot of introspection. I've found my type, and he's not it."

"Your type?" Ino exclaimed. "What's this revelation about your type? I need to know!"

"It's girls."

The statement took Ino just a moment to process before a smile lit up her face again. "Really? I'm happy for you, not just about the Sasuke thing. If you see any girls you like tell me, I'll totally be your wingman."

Sakura smiled through the residual shaky uncertainty she felt. "Thanks but no thanks. You're too pretty, they'll fall for you first."

"Oh nonsense. We can revisit this later. Let's go get you some caffeine."

***

Sakura was still shaking when the bell rang for first period. She and Ino separated, and with the help of the red cloud folks, she found her way to World History. A seating chart projected on the chalkboard. Ugh. Not only was she seated in the front, she was next to...

"Hey Sakura!" Naruto called, waving like she couldn't see him five feet away from her.

"Hey Naruto," she replied, taking her seat. She used to have a lot more of a problem with him before he befriended Sasuke (how that happened, she couldn't venture a guess.) He very clearly had a crush on her back then, and even now, but he was less obnoxious about it than he had been when they were twelve. The only problem with sitting next to him was that he was not a very good learner, and with Kiba arriving to sit to his other side, she saw an annoying year on the horizon.

The three of them chatted for a short while before the second bell rang, indicating class should start.

A tall man took his place in front of the room. He seemed to be middle aged, dressed like a scholar but with the intimidating frame of an athlete. His long black hair hung in a ponytail flat against his back. Strangely, he wore a black surgical mask with the same red cloud emblem the greeters had.

"Good morning class, I hope you've had a good summer break, other teacher greetings. My name is Kakuzu, and you will refer to me as that. No 'mister' or 'professor'. Too many syllables."

"What's with the mask?" Kiba asked bluntly, making Sakura's hands ball into fists.

"I'm old and have an autoimmune disease. You all are germy. Next order of business, let's go through your syllabus."

He passed out blue packets of paper, and Kiba made some remark that made Naruto giggle. Sakura tried not to listen, but she caught the words "Vietnam War".

It wasn't bad, it wasn't bad at all, until Naruto thought he had something so important to tell Kiba it couldn't wait until Kakuzu wasn't finished speaking. She tried to ignore it, but found she couldn't focus when Kiba couldn't use his whispering voice to answer back.

"Can I move seats?" she blurted out, interrupting her brand new teacher and banging on her desk involuntarily. She froze in horror.

Kakuzu didn't make it easy to tell what he was feeling, but he needed to take a breath, whatever it was. "Yes, obviously I can see this isn't working. Can't go fifteen minutes without incident, can we." He referred to his notes as Sakura longed for the floor to swallow her whole.

"Naruto, switch places with Karui."

"Aw, what!?" he protested.

"You're being separated. Surely you've had this happen before. Shino, switch places with Kiba."

Kiba and Naruto both grumbled like they were the ones being done wrong. They wouldn't be able to see each other from their new vantage points, and five desks worth of people sat between them now.

"Now if I could continue on."

Sakura paid attention, but couldn't help glancing at her new seat mate. Karui had beautiful dark skin and pink hair braided in cornrows resting halfway down her back. Her strong frame made Sakura wonder if she was like her, but her face was so angular and feminine she made up her mind otherwise. She tried not to despair. Hinata was around here somewhere, she would not be the only trans girl at this school.

Karui took Sakura's syllabus and wrote something down before handing it back. "Pink haired solidarity," it read. Sakura smiled giddily. Inside her head, she shrieked in glee.

She took the other girl's paper and thought about what to write back. After a moment, she scribbled down two stick figures pointing at each other, resembling the Spider-Man meme. The other girl struggled to contain her giggles when she saw it.

Before they knew it, Kakuzu finished his lecture with a warning to bring a notebook to the next class. He gave permission to pack up, during which Karui and Sakura properly looked at each other (to Sakura's delight) and within seconds the next bell rang.

"Miss Haruno, will you stay behind a minute?"

Any joy Sakura had felt immediately evaporated into mist. Was she in trouble? How could she be in trouble when Naruto and Kiba weren't?

Kakuzu surprised her immediately by sitting atop a desk and meeting her eye level. He didn't look angry, although it was hard to tell how he looked. His green eyes were a shade more vibrant than hers, she noticed.

"I want to say that if I seemed angry it was not with you, and I'm sorry if it seemed otherwise. You did the right thing."

Sakura almost couldn't contain her shock. "I—Thank you for telling me."

"If I had known it would stress you out so much, I never would have put them next to you. Are you feeling better now?"

"Yes. I think I'll be fine going forward."

"That's good to hear." He took a deep, close-eyed breath before continuing. "You have me worried though, Sakura. This is the first hour of your first day, and you're already behaving like it's midterms season."

"I'm not—I'm sorry, I know those guys, they were just distracting me, and a lot of stuff happened this morning."

"I understand that. I'm glad you stood up for yourself. I would just like to inform you that if you need mental health services, someone to talk to when you get stressed, we have excellent guidance counsellors here." He scribbled a series of lines on a sheet of paper, the back of his seating chart in fact, labeling as he went. "I'm drawing you a map to get there. Your counsellor's name is Hashirama, and his office is on the ground floor."

He handed her the paper. It looked blessedly easy to interpret.

"Yahiko! Is that you out there?" Kakuzu shouted, making Sakura jump.

The red-head who had been greeting at the school's entrance popped his head in the room. "Yes Kakuzu?"

"Escort this young woman to her next class, please. I'll write you a note."

"Thank you, Kakuzu," Sakura said, trying to sound calm.

"No problem. The staff here is reliable. You can come to any one of us if you need anything."

She left trying to absorb that statement.

At the door, she handed the late slip to Yahiko.

He snickered. "Look at what he wrote." On the half-sheet of paper, in beautiful, looping cursive, were the words "He's late. Deal with it. -Kakuzu"

Yahiko made for pleasant company. He asked her how she was doing, and went on to explain the structure of the building. The top two floors were for the humanities: five for visual arts and English, four for history, prelaw and languages. Three had science and premed classes, two had math and technology, and the ground floor was mostly the auditorium, library, and offices. Below that were the locker rooms, book store and cafeteria. The other building contained the gym, performing arts, and physical education classes.

Once they were almost to her class, he plugged his club. "Clubs don't start for another couple of weeks, but when they do the Akatsuki meets in Kakuzu's room! We're the guys with the red clouds, by the way. We eat snacks and try to solve the world's problems."

"I'll give it a try," she promised. "Thank you."

"No problem! I'll leave you to it, see ya around!" With that, he left her at the open door to chemistry class.