An Unexpected Friendship - Part #2

"Go away! We don't want you at this orphanage!"1

"Yeah! This place is crowded enough as it is!"2

The boy was silent, letting their words wash over him without much effect. He was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to get inside. Okhirre had been trying to force the door open for quite some time now, but apparently whoever was in there was able to hold him back. The man was finally able to break through the line of defence, knocking a group of angry children across the room in the process. And they were inside the room. 3

It was much bigger than it had looked from the outside. Lined against the walls were eighteen little beds, each with something plopped on top of it to show that it was already taken. There was a window on one side, which looked out over a garden. Backed against a wall was a wooden bookshelf stacked with books, most with the covers ripped off and the pages scribbled on. Sasuke gave a start of surprise when several of the children stared at him with wide eyes and charged like madmen. His arms flew up in defense, but it was to no avail. Soon they had rushed upon him...4

"Ack!!!" Sasuke gasped, eyes bugging out. "GET...OFF!! Why...are you freaks...~hugging~ me!?!?" He was practically buried in a mountain of children around his age who, from what he could observe, had no respect for things such as personal boundaries.5

"Aww, he's so cute!" a tiny girl with a black ponytail squealed, jumping on top of him. "Hi, I'm Tola!" She was so little that it was hard to believe she could produce such a loud sound.6

Okhirre harrumphed pompously, deciding it was time for him to leave Sasuke to his fate. "Well...er...I'll be going now... If you need me, you can call me or drop me an e-mail," he said, slipping an index card with his contact information into one of Sasuke's suitcases. "Ta-ta!"7

"Hey, wait! Can't you tell them to get off?" Sasuke yelled, trying to escape from being smothered in a sea of human bodies.8

"Whatever for? They'd probably just latch on again once I left!" With that, Okhirre had disappeared out the door.9

Sasuke groaned; it was going to be a long day. "Um...where do I sleep?" He found out a second later that he really shouldn't have asked. "...I'm not sharing a bed! I'd rather sleep on the floor...FREAKS!"10

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The children of Room K2 filed in through the doorway to the dining hall, where they were to have a lunch of pasta and salad.12

"Sasu-kun! Sit next to me!" Tola ordered, grabbing two chairs.13

"No, me!"14

"He likes ~me~, right, Sasu-kun?"15

"I don't like any of you," he snapped, and quickly dragged a chair away from the table into a corner. Soon more than half the table was missing chairs, which were moved by his admirers to surround the victim of their attentions.16

Sasuke banged his head against the wall. Could he have been assigned to a worse room? He sincerely doubted it. Before the annihilation of his clan, he had hated not getting enough attention. His dad was always busy working, and seemed only to care about Itachi. He had always been trapped in Itachi's shadow, following less deftly in Itachi's footsteps, never his own person. His mom had time for him sometimes, but she also had a lot of things to do, and anyways, he couldn't expect her to understand how he felt. Itachi was the one he had always thought he could count on to understand him. His older brother had stood up for him a couple times, but he was always so cold and distant. No, Itachi had never had time for him either, and was always flicking him on the forehead, saying maybe some other time. Of course, killing the clan had been the worst thing that teme had done...so far.17

Well, he knew better now. Not getting any attention was bliss compared to getting too much. Here, his every move was watched, and he couldn't go anywhere without being surrounded by blundering idiots. Sasu-kun this and Sasu-kun that...he was getting fed up with their incessant babbling.18

"Sasu-kun--"19

"SHUT UP!" he growled, glaring daggers at the lot of them. "My name's not 'Sasu-kun'! That's it...I can't take this anymore! I want to transfer to a new room!" He abruptly left, only to be trailed by a cluster of stalkers. "Stop following me!" Of course, no one listened to him.20

He managed to lose them by jumping down the staircases, which was an easy feat for him, but caused those of them who tried it to fall down the steps and knock themselves out. Once he reached the corridor he'd gone through last time, he threw open the door and ran in.21

The receptionist looked up at him from reading her book, which she quickly shoved under a stack of papers, though not quickly enough to keep him from seeing the title: Icha Icha Paradise. "Oh, hello again," she said, smiling her plastic smile again. "I didn't expect you to come back so soon...what do you want?"22

"Please," Sasuke begged, making puppy eyes that would have made any decent fangirl either pass out or squeal loud enough to deafen everyone within a two mile radius, most likely the latter. "You have to transfer me to a different room." 23

"Why?" Ranfiten demanded, her smile vanishing as she glared at him. "I hope, for your sake, that you're not wasting my time, ~Mr.~ Uchiha."24

"There's--there's--stalkers!" he burst out, unable to hold it in any longer. "I have to get away from them, please! Fangirls and fanboys and...freaks!"25

"Oh my," she said dryly, not concerned in the least. "Have they attempted to cause your death?"26

"Well...no...but..."27

"Not that I accept bribes, but... do you have money?"28

"No..."29

"Sorry then, no can do. Once we assign you a room, we stick to it. If we let you switch rooms for no good reason, everyone else would want to switch rooms, too. Now, we can't have that, can we? So if you have a problem with the people in your room, deal with it. Find some way to work it out. Thank you, have a nice day..." She gestured towards the door. "NEXT!"30

Sasuke glowered, his eyes smoldering darkly. "This bites," he muttered as he left her office, his shoulder colliding with the next person who had come to see her. Trying to be inconspicuous and blend in with the crowd, he headed off to find some place of refuge where he could hide. He breathed in relief after managing to narrowly avoid several close shaves with his stalker fangirls.31

If he never saw one of those fangirls again, it would still be too soon. Of course, hard as it was to believe, there was such a thing as ~worse~ than a fangirl. And that was a fanboy. His fanboys were just as intelligent and intent on stalking him as his fangirls, but they could follow him where the fangirls could not: into the boys' bathroom. He shuddered at the memory.32

"It's Sasu-kun!" someone screamed, pointing, and instantly the peaceful crowd transformed into a stampede of maniacs who displayed no signs of sanity. So it wasn't just his room, after all - there were far too many of them. Some looked old enough to have their own jobs already, actually. He was just a little kid; what were they, child molesters?33

Cursing his having inherited the Uchihas' legendary good looks, Sasuke ran like all Hell was at his heels. And, perhaps, it was.