Get out of my head and let go of my heart!

Naruto should have never left his dorm.

On a day like this, it should have been obvious to him. The blonde was not the brightest crayon in the box, but he did have enough common sense to keep himself alive. Usually he knew better than to test fate, but today he had been feeling particularly rebellious. It was Friday the 13th, which should have been enough to tip him off. Everyone and their mother knew that Friday the 13th was not a day to be trifled with.

When Naruto Uzumaki woke up that morning, for a small moment, he was completely free from the dangerous implications this day was bound to bring. He was totally ignorant of the forthcoming onslaught of pain, that would be brought mercilessly upon him. Until bright turquoise eyes met with the glaring numbers. They were circled and crossed out with red, on his Northern Kentucky University calendar. The moment of glee that had been brought out by the thoughts of his two days off - without boring lectures and long essays - was struck down by the strong meaning of this particular Friday.

His eyes jumped to the black haired boy that was laying perfectly still, on a bed exactly like his. Uncomfortable. It was shoved into the far corner of the room, but the boy on it was so still that the blond doubted his hearing accuracy. Then he heard the grunting again.

Upon closer inspection he noticed the boy’s eyes were shut tightly in pain and his body was drenched in sweat. Obviously he as having another one of his nightmares. These night terrors seemed to frequent his stoic roommate, though the blonde had never found the need to inquire into the boy’s life enough to ask about them.

Briefly tossing around the idea of waking the other boy, he was saved from the pain of decision making, by the clanging of his own alarm clock. Jumping into the air and barely registering his feet touching the ground, he hit the large snooze button at the top of the frogs head. When the painful ringing ceased, Naruto let out a relieved sigh.

“It’s not normal for an adult to have a frog alarm clock. I mean, it’s no wonder your still a virgin.” A grumpy but slightly amused voice commented.

Why in the world did Naruto ever consider waking that prick up? He should have left him in that nightmare world for all eternity. The blonde made a show of jumping out of his bed and marching over to his closet, to grab a clean pair of pants and a shirt.

“Go back to sleep asshole. I can’t take your shit this early in the morning.” was his retort.

To Naruto’s dismay he was only able to find a pair of plain jeans and a blue shirt. None of the neon orange articles of clothing that usually dominated his wardrobe, seemed to be in any shape to be worn. He really should have done his laundry last night, instead of playing Guitar Hero 2.

“I think I will, dumbass, considering all my classes for today were cancelled.”

Naruto growled as he jerked his head around, to see the other boy snuggle into his covers and sigh happily. In retrospect, Naruto knew he should have seen it coming. The one day of the year that usually brought heaps and heaps of bad luck onto normal human beings, would of course bring nothing but truckloads of good onto Mr. Perfect.

The only indication to his rage was the ticking of his eyebrow, as he pulled on his clothes in a rushed manner. Classes were not so much of a priority to him as getting the hell away from his roommate was. As soon as he was fully clothed he began a mad scramble to find his English and History books. Throwing them violently into his bag, he had the door open and was just stepping out, when he realized that his feet were completely bare.

Snarling, he stepped back inside and threw the book bag onto his bed. While digging through the huge pile of clean and dirty clothes that seemed to be growing at the end of his bed, the blonde heard a snort from the other occupant of the room. Gripping a sock fiercely in his hand he decided to ignore the other man, find the companion to this sock, and get as far away from the black haired boy as possible.

After finally covering his feet with socks and donning his black and orange sneakers, he ran out the door and slammed it in his wake. Grumbling as he walked down the hallway of his dorm building, down the stairs and out the front door, he avoided every person who called his name or even caught his eye. Outside the air was slightly colder than he had thought it would be, but nothing he couldn’t handle.

The summer before he transfered up here, he had heard nothing, but of how cold, and windy Northern Kentucky was. His adoptive father had made it clear how he was going to freeze his Southern Kentucky ass off. Still Naruto wasn here, in Northern Kentucky, just below the border of Ohio. He had a tan most girl would envy and a voice that stood
out for miles.

The first stop for the day was his English class, which luckily was not starting for another twenty minutes. He had just enough time to stop and get a pop, before leisurely walking in to claim his seat in the back of the room. Usually around this time he was making a mad dash for his class, holding onto his pants and backpack, and ignoring his growling stomach. Maybe today wouldn’t be so bad after all?

==@+@==


“You should have known better,” said Naruto’s not so compassionate friend Garra.

Naruto growled at him but received only a blank stare in return, as the teacher walked in late for his own History class. The short and skinny old man gave a warm smile to the class and laid his bag down on his podium, starting his lecture about the Peloponnesian wars.

Though the blonde would never admit this out loud, his friend definitely had a point. Why he even let himself think this day would not begin and end in complete turmoil was beyond him. On the way to his English class he had tripped over a discarded book and dived head first into the concrete sidewalk. Forgoing the idea of Pre-class Caffeine Pick-me-up, he was forced to run to the nearest bathroom and wash the blood off his face.

After he showed up late for his English class, avoided a few questions and giggles at his face and torn jacket, and bombed a quiz, he ran to his History class. While riding the elevator up to the fourth floor, the elevator had gotten stuck between the second and third floor.

Naruto was trapped for almost ten minutes by himself before it started to work again. Once he had been set free on the fourth floor, he met a concerned Gaara. After explaining what had happened and after Gaara congratulated him on not having one of his famous panic attacks, they headed off to class.

“I hate my life….”

Gaara blinked over at the blonde before diverting his full attention to the teacher. (Naruto slept with his eyes open) After class Naruto tried to talk Gaara into going and eating with him, but the redhead turned him down. All the way back to the dorms the blonde whined and pleaded with the other before finally having to stop in front of Norse Commons, one of the campus’s many cafeterias. Gaara was finally able to wave the blonde off, leaving in the direction of his dorm.

Naruto pouted the entire time he was eating. He hated eating alone. It felt like everyone in the room was watching him and judging him for being there by himself. He gorged his face as quickly as possible, grabbed his stuff and almost ran out of the cafeteria.

He returned to his room to take a shower and bandage up his face, only to find out that their floor’s bathroom was closed, due to a busted pipe. The blond could only glare at his roommate’s freshly washed hair before running off to see if he could use the shower in Gaara’s apartment-like dorm.

When he left his dorm building he noticed someone standing outside, trapped without a key, obviously waiting for a kind soul to allow him entrance. After a second he recognized it as Neji, one of Sasuke’s friends that lived off campus. Holding the door wide open he gave the glaring man a bright Naruto smile.

“Coming to see Uchiha?”

Neji merely snorted at him and walked inside without even a thank you. ‘Asshole.’ he thought. Still complaining about his roommate’s rude friend (albeit in his mind) he made his way down the hill to Gaara’s dorm building. The Woodcrest Apartments were run by the University, but were built just like apartments. The room Gaara resided in was usually made for two people, but within a week his roommate had left like a bat out of hell. Trying to get as far away as possible from the red headed, eyeliner wearing, Satan
worshiping freak. Not that Gaara was complaing. The building was beyond expensive, but Gaara’s rich businessman father would shell out any amount of cash to get his frightening son away from his house.

The money issue was always on Naruto’s mind when it came to college. He was here on a scholarship and one false move, would get his hick ass sent back home in a flash. His roomate Sasuke also came from a rich family. He had never really said what his parents did, and Naruto had never heard the other boy call them on the phone, but he knew that the black haired boy had enough money to buy the damn campus. Naruto had always wondered why Sasuke had decided to stay in the cheap Commonwealth dorms, or Comptonwealth as the
students tended to call them, though he had never gained the courage to ask.

Naruto smiled as the view of Gaara’s door came into view. He rapped the door twice with his knuckles, and was no where near surprised when he received no answer. Naruto merely pulled out the extra key, that had been made for him freshman year. Gaara’s RA, Hinata Hyuga, had quite a crush on the blonde and it wasn’t hard to talk her into making him a spare. She was a sweet girl but Naruto still thought it the right decision when he had to turned her down. The Uchiha bastard had tormented him about it for weeks.

Naruto slid the key in, and jiggled it around for a few seconds, knowing full well the stubbornness of Woodcrest locks. The loud creek of the door opening was the first sound the blonde heard, as his eyes peered into the empty living room. Opening his mouth to call his best friends name, he heard a squeal that definitely did not belong to the red haired man. There was a moment of scuffling before Gaara finally grunted.

“Uzumaki. Tell Lee it’s just you.”

Naruto’s eyes glazed over as they were want to do when he was preparing to be a prankster. He turned his voice high-pitched to model after the black haired Hyuga.

“Sabaku! Is that Mr. Rock in there with you?? I am going to have to report you this time! You know you can’t have people staying here besides yourself!” Naruto was positive he heard Lee begin to weep while Gaara merely grunted again.

“Lee. That is obviously Naruto.”

Knowing that he could never trick Gaara, and also knowing that Lee might actually begin his own ritual suicide, he shut the door and walked toward the closed bedroom door. As he had guessed Gaara was sitting up his bare chest above the sheets, with Lee curled up under them, still weeping.

“Lee. It was me, Naruto. You can stop crying now man. You’re not getting Gaara kicked out of his apartment."

Lee sat up and glared at the blond before covering himself completely under the covers. Gaara smiled warmly down at the black haired Chinese exchange student. Letting his eyes trail back up to Naruto, his smiled faded back into his usual expressionless mask. It made Naruto’s heart warm every time he saw his long time friends, stoic expression melt for the bushy-eyebrowed boy.

“What is it Uzumaki?” The blonde gave Gaara the sweetest smile he could muster.

“No.”

His smile quickly vanished.

“WHAT!? You don’t even know what you’re saying no to!!”

Gaara rolled his eyes as if to say ‘and your point is?’. Naruto pouted, quickly letting himself fall back into his grade school days.

“The shower on my floor is broken and I was wanting to know if I could borrow yours!” Gaara rolled his eyes again and waved his hand toward the shower before wrapping his arms around Lee’s waist and cuddling up to his back.

“Don’t jack off in there.” came his friends voice from under the covers.

Naruto’s face went red as he stomped into the tiny bathroom slamming the door shut. Even though the blond seemed to be used to Gaara’s habit of saying weird things at random times, even HE was still able to be caught unawares. Lee said it was part of Gaara’s charm. Naruto said it was proof that Gaara was the reincarnation of some kind of demon. Gaara thought they were both correct.

==@+@==

BETA'd: 05/20/07 by Chishio! <-- My favoritest person in the whole world!

For more information about Northern Kentucky's Campus visit www.nku.edu