Conversion

A/N: OKAY. I finally fixed the big block of text issue. I hope you all enjoy!

This IS the same 'Conversion' that I had posted before. I decided to re-upload it before I finished writing it because I had a lot of people asking about it, and just because I missed having it up and hearing you guys' feedback. ♥ This prologue and chapter one were posted at the same time. I currently have this story finished up to chapter 11. When I finish chapter 12, I will post chapter two. When I finish chapter 13, I will post chapter three, etc etc. You get the picture. If I feel like I'm taking too long to finish a chapter, I already have the next one to give you guys so you won't be waiting forever and ever for updates this time! Hopefully I'll finish the story before I run out of grace chapters. XD

Key:

thoughts

-:- time pass or scene change

*** POV change

Prologue: The Sky Darkens

 

"Change means that what was before was not perfect. People want things to be better."

Esther Dyson

A tan hand lazily fumbled around on the night stand next to the bed, groping at nothing for a good thirty seconds before the fingers finally found their target: the snooze button. Once the alarm was silenced the hand retracted, disappearing beneath the warm sheets as its owner rolled over and curled into the fetal position. The young boy in the bed shivered, but tried to push the unusually cold temperature out of his mind in favor of a few more minutes of sleep. Just as the blond felt himself beginning to drift back into blissful unconsciousness, the annoying buzzing beep of the alarm clock broke through his sleepy haze. The boy sighed, sat up, and turned the alarm off rather than just hitting snooze. Mondays were never fun.

Uzumaki Naruto pushed the covers away and swiveled his body so that his legs were hanging over the edge of his twin-sized bed. The boy stretched, one arm raising above his head and the other stopping at his face, a sluggish hand rubbing sleep out of his eyes as he yawned. He stood from the bed and shuffled his way over to the dresser, where he grabbed the first clean pair of boxers he saw, along with a random pair of jeans that didn't smell too bad and a shirt that was just barely wrinkled. He bundled the clothes up in a ball and stuck them under his left arm, his right hand unabashedly scratching a butt cheek through his pajama pants as he headed for the bathroom. The sixteen year old boy relieved his bladder, brushed his teeth, and showered quickly. All the while the medium-sized apartment where he lived was completely silent.

Once he was dressed for school, Naruto enjoyed an ever so healthy breakfast of ramen noodles and Mountain Dew. He left his bowl in the empty sink and tossed the soda can into the recycle bin as he left the building. "I'm leaving," he called into the empty apartment, leaving before anyone would have had a chance to respond. As he walked down the hallway of his apartment building, headed toward the elevator, the boy fished his iPod Touch and ear buds out of his backpack. He stuck the MP3 player in his pocket and concentrated on untangling the headphone wires on the elevator ride down to the bottom floor. By the time he walked out the front door, Naruto had the entire world blocked out by means of music.

Naruto made the twenty minute walk to his high school alone and silent, as he did every day. When he saw the school gates approaching in front of him, he paused his music and took the ear buds out of his ears. Instantly his mind was assaulted with the sounds of public high school: laughing, yelling, talking, running. He made an unpleasant face at his peers, until he saw one of them running toward him. Inuzuka Kiba was one of the biggest jocks their high school had ever seen. He played almost every sport known to man, and played them all quite well. He was on the school's varsity football and wrestling teams, and would have been on more if his two favorites didn't take up pretty much all of his time. Somehow big, buff, popular Kiba had picked one of the smallest, scrawniest, least popular students in high school to be his best friend.

That small, scrawny, unpopular boy was Uzumaki Naruto.

As the blond saw his friend approaching he cleared the unpleasant expression from his face and instead painted on a nice, big, smiling mask. He waved at the other boy, a false grin spreading from ear to ear. "Hey!" he greeted when his friend was close enough to hear him. "How was your weekend?"

"Awesome!" the brunette grinned, then stopped himself. "Well, I mean, it sucked that you couldn't go to the movies with me and Shino." It didn't bother Naruto anymore when he lied to Kiba, because Kiba lied to him too. "It would have been more fun if you were with us." Kiba smiled at his blond friend. Yeah, right, Naruto thought. You probably had a blast without me.

"Ahh, sorry," he replied, instead of voicing his thoughts. "I had a lot of homework to catch up on, and I had to go over to my aunt's for some stupid family dinner. We were stuck there almost all night."

"That blows, man," Kiba apologized. "Why couldn't your parents just let you stay at my place instead?" Kiba didn't know that Naruto lived alone. No one knew about the blond's living arrangements except for his aunt and uncle - the ones who paid for said arrangements. Naruto merely shrugged in response. Off in the distance they heard the first bell ring, signaling that they had five minutes to get to their first period class.

"Shit, gotta go! See you at lunch?"

The brunette nodded as Naruto took off running, glad to get out of the awkward situation. He couldn't go much longer before his friend found out about his parents. It had always bugged Kiba that Naruto was allowed to do pretty much whatever he wanted without having to ask, but no one was ever allowed at his house.

"What kind of parents do you have?" Kiba had asked, not long ago. Naruto had merely shrugged, changing the subject as soon as possible. I don't know what kind of parents I had.

-:-

The bell that rang at 11:41 didn't just mark the end of the fifth period; it held a whole other meaning to the hundreds of eager students that had stared at the clock all morning long. The 11:41 bell said, "It's lunch time!"

When the lunch bell rang Naruto joined his classmates in celebration, the sounds of metal chair legs scraping against linoleum and footsteps running down the halls drowning out the teacher's shouts of, "It's just lunch! It comes at the same time every day!" The students didn't care. For a lot of them, lunch was the only time they could freely converse with their friends for more than a few minutes in between classes. Although Naruto agreed with his teacher's confusion, he had a part to play. He had to pretend he was just another fish in the mindless sea of puberty-stricken students, lest he be cast out even further than he already was.

Out in the hallway, Naruto met up with Kiba. They chatted and laughed as they raced other students to the cafeteria, no one wanting to wait in line for too long. Once they had their food the boys exited the cafeteria building and went to sit at the small table they always sat at out in the courtyard, with the rest of Kiba's friends. Although Naruto was allowed to sit at the table, he wasn't exactly welcome. No one spoke to him except Kiba, and occasionally Kiba's other best friend, Shino. Naruto knew that Kiba and Shino were the only reasons he didn't get bullied at the table, or straight up told to leave, and he was okay with that. When it comes to high school, hanging out with people who hate you is better than not hanging out with anyone at all.

At a month into his junior year, Naruto had gotten used to ignoring the hateful looks that everyone at the table sent him except for his two "friends." He replied when he was spoken to, laughed when someone said something funny, and ate his lunch when both Kiba and Shino were otherwise engaged. All the while, he remained observant. You see, although Naruto wasn't exactly the smartest teen in the world, he had an extremely attentive eye for detail. He knew all the teachers, even the ones he didn't have. He knew which ones were liked by the students and which ones weren't. He knew which ones were just as observant as he was and knew everything that went on in their school, and he knew which ones were just there to do their job and couldn't care less about the students' personal lives. He knew all the students, and he knew what all the students thought of him. He knew which ones didn't know who he was, which ones were indifferent to him, and which ones downright hated him. He knew the only students that actually liked him were Kiba and Shino.

When the bell rang at the end of lunch Naruto filed to the trash can nearest their table along with his peers. He bid goodbye to Kiba and promised that he'd ask his parents about going to the movies this coming weekend to make up for the one that had just passed, he nodded a farewell to Shino, and he ignored everyone else. He turned away from his so-called friends and let the plastered-on happy face fall off, leaving his naturally bland and contemplative expression take over. Every now and then Naruto would question his ability to keep up this charade. He would worry that someone just as observant as him would transfer into his life-long school system and see him for what he really is. He would worry that he would be exposed. But then his thoughts would stray, and he would be left wondering whether or not he would expose someone like himself. In all of his sixteen years, Naruto had never been able to come up with a concrete yes or no answer to that question.

But today, as he stared up at the darkening sky and saw a bolt of lightening flash across the clouds, Naruto decided that he could never do something like that to someone so much like himself. If he didn't have his acting, he didn't know what he would have. Pretending he was just another mindless teenager was the only way he could deal with all the mindless teenagers around him. Pretending he was happy was the only way he could be even remotely happy. If he worried so much about someone exposing him, then anyone else like him would probably worry about the same thing. If he didn't want anyone else to take his false happiness from him, what right did he have to take anyone else's false happiness away from them?

Naruto sat down in his assigned seat in his sixth period class and began pulling the needed materials out of his backpack. It wasn't until he had his notebook open to the next blank page and was flipping through his textbook that he realized he didn't remember the walk to the classroom. He blinked a few times, trying to remember anything before he sat down in his desk, but he simply couldn't. The blond had been too immersed in his thoughts to recall anything else. Before Naruto could dig any deeper into his mind he heard the bell ring, signaling the beginning of the sixth period. The teacher walked into the room and immediately began his lecture for the day. Naruto shook his head, clearing away everything except his memories of Friday's lecture. It was time for the act to begin again.

 

***

 

"Sasuke-kuuuuuun!"

A girl with short, light pink hair and bright green eyes bounced through the classroom, toward a boy sitting alone at the back of the room. The boy looked up when he heard her squeal, piercing dark gray eyes peeking out from behind blue-black bangs. When he saw who it was that was calling him, Uchiha Sasuke could barely stifle the sigh that threatened to escape his lips. Haruno Sakura had been flirting shamelessly with him for six years now, and she never seemed to get the hint that he wanted nothing to do with her.

"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura repeated when she reached her destination in front of Sasuke's desk. "I heard from Ino who heard from Chouji who heard from Shikamaru that Hinata heard Neji on the phone the other night with that beach resort that the seniors went to on their senior trip last year, saying that the juniors are going there on our junior trip this year?!"

Sasuke blinked, trying to decipher through the teenage girl gossip-talk to figure out what exactly she was asking him. "You know I can't give out any details on the end of year trips until the student council has everything figured out and set in stone. Nothing is definite yet, and the options that we're taking into consideration are still completely confidential."

"But  Sasuke-kuuunnn!" Sakura squealed in response. "Ino said that Chouji said tha-"

"I don't care what anyone said to anyone, Haruno." Sasuke's tone put a pout on Sakura's face. When he used that tone, she knew she wasn't going to get any further with him. "Forget about the rumors and stop trying to figure out where we're going. The trip is still eight months away. Just forget about it and let yourself be surprised when the announcement comes."

The bell rang to start the class, and Sakura huffed as she stomped back to her seat. Sasuke rolled his eyes. The student council was trying to get the same beach resort that the seniors went to last year for the juniors to visit this year. The seniors last year had loved it, and the seniors this year were extremely disappointed when they realized that the school had a policy against having the same senior trip destination two years in a row. If word got out that they were trying to get that resort to host them again, the student council would have to cross it off of the options list to stop the rumors from spreading. It was a stupid rule, but a rule nonetheless, and the last thing Sasuke wanted was for the council he helped run to disappoint his entire grade level just because one of his fellow council members talked too loudly on the phone.

I'll definitely have to have a talk with Neji, Sasuke thought to himself, dreading the moment that would happen. Hyuuga Neji was his greatest (and pretty much only) academic rival, not to mention one of the most arrogant pricks Sasuke had ever had the misfortune of meeting. The Uchiha and Hyuuga families were business rivals and had never gotten along, fueling their hatred for each other. They both hated working together on the school council, but the president and vice president of the junior class had to put up with each other for the sake of the greater good. Besides, as much as they hated working together they were both too proud to be the one to step down from their position.

The students sat in their desks, chatting quietly amongst themselves for a few minutes after the bell rang. It wasn't unusual for their teacher to be up to ten or even fifteen minutes late to class. Today the gray-haired young man strolled into the classroom about five minutes after class started, muttering some excuse about how a black cat had crossed his path on his way in and he had to take a different route. The students rolled their eyes at the excuse; they all knew that he was chronically late, but none of them said anything about it.

"Good morning, Kakashi-sensei!" they chanted instead.

Sasuke and the rest of the students pulled their textbooks and notebooks out of their backpacks, flipping to their weekend homework and getting ready to pass it forward and turn it in. At a month into the school year, they all knew the drill. The same thing, day in and day out, Sasuke thought. This school needs something to spice it up.

-:-

When the lunch bell rang at 11:58, Sasuke and the rest of his P.E. class were still in the locker rooms, changing out of their gym uniforms and back into their school uniforms. When they heard the bell ring the students began to pick up the pace; pulling on clothes haphazardly, zipping up zippers and buttoning buttons as they ran out of the locker room toward the cafeteria. Sasuke, on the other hand, continued dressing himself at the same speed. He saw no reason to rush; the cafeteria would be in the same spot when he finished changing. He heard a chuckle from a few lockers over and looked up to see Nara Shikamaru, the closest thing to a friend Sasuke had at his school, also readying himself at a slow and steady pace. The two shared a nod of understanding and a quiet laugh at the expense of their classmates. When the locker room was empty except for the two of them, they joined up and slowly exited the room together.

"I wonder who'll get caught with their zipper down this time?" Shikamaru said playfully.

"Or their shirt inside out," Sasuke replied.

The pair chuckled again, each remembering their favorite incident of redressing gone wrong, and continued toward the cafeteria in a comfortable silence. When they got close to the line where they would buy their lunches, the boys were instantly assaulted by Sasuke's many admiring fans. Girls giggled and gossiped with the pale boy, shoving his friend further and further away until Sasuke was completely surrounded by females. Shikamaru stood at the back of the small crowd, shaking his head at the spectacle. The girls closest to Sasuke made small talk, complimenting his looks and his brains, offering to pay for his lunch. The girls on the outside ring whispered among themselves about how cute he was, speculated as to why he never had a girlfriend that his adoring fans knew of, and threw dirty glances at the girls who had shoved their ways through to the front.

Sasuke ignored them as best he could, shoving his way away from the crowd and back into the lunch line. Once he was within the safety of the two parallel handrails designating the official lunch line, the girls couldn't get at him any longer. He made sure to pull Shikamaru into line behind him, boxing himself in and ensuring his safety at least until he got his lunch. When they got out of the lunch line the two friends went their separate ways, Shikamaru heading toward a table where the rest of his friends already sat as Sasuke made a stealthy dash to the table reserved for the student council. The Uchiha breathed a sigh of relief as he sat down between the senior class president and the sophomore class president, thanking whatever God was listening that he hadn't been attacked a second time.

Throughout the rest of lunch the student council spoke quietly amongst themselves, discussing fundraiser ideas for the end of year trips, upcoming events that needed to be planned for, and ongoing issues that the student body was starting to complain about excessively. Nothing was talked about very seriously or for very long, and no specifics were given. The details were saved for their weekly meetings, where no unwanted ears would be around to hear. Somewhere along the way Sasuke made an announcement about the importance of confidentiality and discretion, especially for those who had non-council students living in their household, and the other class presidents immediately and readily agreed with him. He made a point of holding eye contact with Neji throughout the announcement; there was no mistake about who exactly Sasuke was talking to.

When the bell rang at the end of lunch the senior class president reminded them about the meeting that would take place in the council lounge the next morning forty five minutes before first block started. They all nodded and promised they'd be there, then went their separate ways. As Sasuke made his way from the Cafeteria building to the Academic building where his last class of the day was, he couldn't help but notice the ominous, dark gray clouds that were rolling in over the school. A bright flash of white-blue lightening raced across the sky and Sasuke followed it with his eyes. Even as a boy, Sasuke had always been fascinated by lightening rather than frightened by it. He shook old memories out of his mind and focused on getting indoors before the downpour came.