Kumo No Naka Ni Atama

You Win Some You Lose Some

Hey everybody!!! Thanks for reviewing, and thanks once again to the people who've stuck with this story for so long. I bet you guys thought I was going to make you wait a year for another chapter right?...lol No, I won't do that to you guys. Besides the story's about to get juicy. Side note: this chapter contains flashbacks which will be denoted with a '^^^' symbol and the entire flashback will be in italics. So with that clarified, here we go!!

***

"I told him maybe, after midterms and everything. I didn't make any guarantees. Besides why do you care?" I rolled my eyes for what was probably the eighth time since I had gotten on the phone with Shika.

"Because he blew my phone up last night with like fifteen texts asking me different shit about you. It's fucking weird," came the smart assed reply from the other end.

"He just wants take me out to eat or something. He said something about coming over to smoke," I was sitting on my bed pulling up one of my uniform's stockings.

"Do you want to?" he asked.

"I don't know. Maybe a dinner but I don't really know if I feel comfortable smoking with him," I slipped my shoes on.

He sighed, "Besides what would you even talk about? The guy's got like four brain cells."

"I never really thought about us spending much time talking," I trailed off.

"I'll see you at the front gate," was all I heard before a 'click' signaled him hanging up.

'Heh heh heh' I laughed at him being uncomfortable. Served him right for freaking out about the situation. He didn't necessarily need to know that I didn't plan on throwing myself at Kiba. I knew the reputation he had, and I wanted to see how serious he actually was about being with me. Besides if I wanted an easy "good time" I could always just find someone at Kanpai that I didn'thave to see everyday at school.

I grabbed my school bag and slung it over my shoulder before leaving my house and heading down to meet Ino.

***

"I'm not ready for this! There's no way I'm gonna pass," Ino screeched from my left. We were approaching the gate of the school. I could see Choji and Shika up ahead. Shika was finishing a cigarette right outside of the entrance, probably so Mr. Shimura didn't give his ass detention.

"Did you imagine a cute boy reciting flash cards to you like I told you?" I reminded her of the study aid I came up with to help her concentrate. To be honest it sounded like something she'd come up with.

"Yeah, but then I imagined him talking about taking me on a European cruise so...." she held her cheeks in embarrassment.

I thought my eyes were going to roll all the way to the back of my head. Leave it to Ino to sabotage herself. As we walked up to the guys, Choji crumpled up his now empty chip bag and Shikamaru stepped on his cigarette butt before putting it in his pocket. We exchanged 'hellos' and began walking inside towards our classroom. As Choji and Ino swapped complaints Shikamaru and I traded pensive glances. As we entered the classroom we didn't escape each other's presence, our seats were right beside each other.

***

Our English midterm was the first one scheduled for this week. I alternated between staring at the '3B' sign over the door and looking back down to the paper where I had translated most of a paragraph into English. I had breezed through the grammar portion and the section where you read passages and answers questions on each. I listened to a lot of American music and honestly in some weird way I think it helped me understand some of the words and sentence structure. This was the last section of the exam and I only had about five sentences left.