Disclaimer: I own nothing

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Chapter One: Lead Angel

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Two hundred twenty-five days, six hours, forty-three minutes, seventeen seconds left to the end of the school year.

And Neji Hyuuga could not wait. He sighed and looked back at the clock.

Forty-two minutes.

Neji's eyes drifted away from the clock and landed on the teacher, watching him move back and forth across the front of the classroom, lecturing on a formula Neji had already mastered. He let his mind drift as he pretended to pay attention and play the studious teenager.

Normally, Neji did not mind school at all; in fact he had enjoyed it in the past. He loved learning and achieving high grades, a testament to his genius and hard work. For some reason this year, though, it was not the same. He felt…lethargic almost when it came to his work, and he still did it, but not with the gusto and drive he felt before. He hated to admit it, but he had even procrastinated on some projects already. That was almost unheard of for him.

His lack of work ethic could also be attributed to where he had been seated in the class, in both of his Math classes, actually. Both were in the same classroom. How that had happened he still did not know, and both were made of essentially the same people. Neji had different teachers for each, but both had put the class in alphabetical order.

As the strange and eerie coincidences continued, Neji was put in the same seat in both classes, the very back right hand corner. What the Hell were the chances of that happening to anyone but Neji?

Neji knew that sitting in the back should not bother him half as much as it did, but he just could not stand it. At home he was always forced to the back, put behind the heir to the company, Hinata, and he was only born to the company's owner Hiashi's brother, Hizashi.

Neji's father died when Neji was a child, and he was put under the care of his uncle, Hiashi, who led the Hyuuga Corp., a major computer company. His daughter, Hinata, was the heir, but she was totally unsuited for the job, whereas Neji was perfect for it. He had the brains, mind set and demeanor to be the perfect CEO, but at best he would only be vice president.

At home he was always put in the back in the family pictures when there was a reunion; he sat at the end of the table at dinner…

But here in a Math class where he excelled and felt comfortable, he wanted to be in the front, where he deserved to be. And yet he still was not.

Neji knew that he was being melodramatic, but he could not help it. He hated not getting the recognition he deserved, though he grew used to it in a way, after living with it his whole life.

Neji stopped watching the teacher and gave up all pretenses of paying attention. His hand strayed over the desk listlessly. He had thought that Advanced Calculus would challenge him even a little but that was not the case. His hand reached the edge of the faux wood desk when his eye caught a glimpse of something drawn there.

He leaned over and saw that someone from another class had drawn a surprisingly detailed sketch of an angel with tattered wings holding a sword. It was very well done; this person had to be in art classes. The angel was proud, but at the same time, there was a certain sadness to his expression, a loneliness. Neji liked it.

He was surprised he had not seen it before, being in here twice a day. He grabbed his pencil from inside his binder and drew an arrow to the picture. He wrote below it, Nice sketch. You take Art?

Normally Neji would not be so inclined to graffiti but seeing as he had nothing better to do and the drawing was well done, he could make an exception this once. He had class here again after Biology, Discreet this time, so maybe the mystery person would have responded and he would not be so bored in that class. Unlikely, but there was a chance.

Neji looked at the clock one more time. Twenty-nine minutes.

He sighed.

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Gaara walked into his third period class and slumped down in his seat. Data Management, joy of joys. He had cursed this class since the first day of school and he had yet to figure out why he had taken it in the first place. Not only did they learn absolutely nothing, but the people in his class pissed him off to no extent. There was that popular guy, the loud one, that shy girl, some pink haired chick who always called him out on his clothes, and then some others that he could not bother to remember. Those were just the ones he hated the most.

But that was the story for all of Gaara's classes. They were boring and filled with useless assholes. Like he didn't get it enough at home, he needed to be teased mercilessly here too? It wasn't even like he did anything to anyone; he just kept to himself and wore strange clothes. No biggie.

Well, today was not that bad for him—he just had a pair of black jeans, a dark red shirt that matched his hair and high boots. Well, and the accessories, but he could never go without those. Still, nothing he should stand out for.

But still they found ways to get at him, mainly about his tattoo, which they would never let him live down. Seriously, he'd had it for how many years now? It wasn't coming off, get over it.

Gaara sighed and grabbed a book out of his messenger bag. He read until the bell rang only a few minutes later and people began filling in to the class. Why they could never be on time was beyond him. The teacher always had to reduce to yelling at people to get seated so they could start. Waste of time.

Gaara could feel the looks he got from the other students as they noticed him and then lowered themselves from their great pedestals of loveliness to deign to look at him. He just ignored them and, amazingly, got the same in return. Everyone took their seats and he was left alone in the back row in the right hand corner.

The teacher managed to get everyone to shut up and the class began. Gaara kept reading. This teacher had nothing to offer him.

"Sabaku, get rid of the book." Well, there went that. Gaara looked up to find that the teacher had stopped the lesson and everyone was looking back at him. He put the book back in his bag and crossed his arms, looking at the teacher and waiting for him to start again.

"Would you please at least open your notebook and look like you're paying attention?" This teacher really was pathetic. Gaara flipped his notebook to a blank page and sat back once again. The teacher sighed and just returned to the lesson. Everyone eventually stopped caring.

It wasn't like Gaara didn't do his work. He just preferred to learn on his own, not with someone lecturing him. It had worked until now, so he just kept at it. He grabbed a pencil and decided to waste the period by continuing with his angel picture from a couple days before.

He leaned across to the edge of the desk and would have drawn more, but someone had written right in the middle of his canvas. Son of a…how thoughtless could you be? He was obviously going to continue, why would they just cut through?

But then he read what had been written there. Nice sketch. No one had ever complimented his work before, not even the Art teachers. They just looked at it and usually made some complaint about how morbid or depressing it was. Or they just ignored it all together. And this person asked him a question. Well, he might as well answer them.

Yes.

There, that was enough, now the person would erase it and stop so he could eventually cover the whole desk, for that was his goal for the semester. He started a border that curved around the angel and carried down the right side of the desk. A productive Math class.

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Well, that's the beginning. Neji and Gaara are going to strike up a correspondence on their desk, and then go from there. The chapters will get longer, I promise.