Title: Snapshot Negatives
Genre: Romance/Drama
Pairings: SasuNaru, ItaSasu, (pre-ItaSasu)
General Warnings: yaoi/homosexuality, sexual situations, budding incest
Chapter Warnings: nothing explicit to report yet
Summary: One click of his camera, Naruto landed himself a boyfriend. Another click, he wound up with a secret lover. Choosing just one is never as complicated as when the choices are Uchiha Sasuke and Itachi.
Comments: This is a prequel to two other stories of mine, White Noise and its sequel Mute Whispers, which are up on FanFiction.Net. I will be posting them up here sometime soon. For those curious, they're NeGaa stories that eventually mentions and later tackle Naruto's side story with the Uchiha brothers. This story is his looking back, by the way, so the events are told from his memory.

He’d forgotten about it. The roll of film had been in the very back of the bottommost drawer of his study table in his bedroom, buried underneath dozens of other odds and ends that he’d simply just tossed in there over the last two years. His room wasn’t as big a dump as his dad kept saying it used to be before he’d moved to the dorm near NUHK, but he never had found time to sort through the things in that bottom drawer. Now, he was regretting having opened it today at all.

When he’d found the lone roll of film in its plain black canister half-hidden by a tissue-wrapped statue of a green frog and the bag of buttons he’d never asked his dad to help him sew back onto whatever shirts or jackets they’d come from, he’d been confused. Ever since he’d taken up photography, he’d made a practice of developing each roll of film immediately after he’d finished with it. What was the little canister doing in there? He hadn’t even thought that it could be empty or that it was unusable anymore.

Four hours ago, he’d been excited to be back in his basement darkroom. (Funny name, since he’d helped his dad paint the walls white himself, helped him install the red safelights all around the room too.) He hadn’t worked with film in a while, not since he’d gotten those three new lenses for his DSLR on his birthday last year. He was a klutz on normal occasions, rash and accident-prone too. But that was everywhere and anywhere but in his darkroom. He worked quietly in there, as slowly and carefully as possible. In his darkroom, he was serious and calm. He had to be.

That calm was on the verge of shattering now, though. It had taken him two years to heal after what had happened. Two years to get over the two of them. And now, in the last four hours and twenty minutes, the memories had started trickling back to the surface. He should have looked at exactly what those negatives were of when he’d taken the film roll out of the processing tank and unwound it from the reel. He should have stopped dead in his tracks when he’d finished developing his contact proof sheet. But again, he hadn’t. He’d gone on and fiddled with his enlarger. He’d prepared the individual negatives. And now –

Stupid roll of film. Why did it have to contain so many memories?

And yet, why didn’t he simply not print these? After all, doing this all by hand, in the red light and the shadows of his darkroom, he could see the images come up slowly into view in the developer tray. They’d be hanging to dry on the clotheslines above his head and it would be several hours before he could take them down. Could he just shut them up in the dark until then? But that meant when he came back to take them down, he’d have to see them all over again, hanging in rows, each one a reminder of something he might have seen coming, but had made himself too blind and happily oblivious to see.

He could just throw all the negatives now. He didn’t have to spend another hour or so in here, exposing and developing each individual enlarged print, making himself feel even more miserable than he already did. Did he?

“Guess I’m not taking the easy way out,” he sighed to himself tiredly. No point stopping now, when he knew that the knowledge would keep banging around in the back of his head until he finally caved and finished what he’d started. Hours, days, weeks, or even months – he’d be compelled to come back eventually.

He felt blindly for the handle of his paper-safe, pulling it open and touching the edge of – an envelope?

Wrong drawer. But maybe it was just his luck.

With a bittersweet laugh, he stepped close to the nearest safelight and tugged out what would, under the normal glare of any other light source, be a bright orange envelope. In a childish fit two years ago, he’d drawn a nuclear warning sign in black marker on the flap. Just as well, the sentiment applied even now.

There were only two sheets in the envelope, eight-by-ten inches each. Inside the envelope should have been smaller-size duplicates of both of these prints, as well two other images – but those were all long gone and he never expected to see them again. They’d probably been tossed in the trash a long time ago.

Uzumaki-Namikaze Naruto smiled an uncharacteristic thin and sad smile and pulled out one of the two still-remaining prints. He stared down at the photograph that had, two years ago, been the beginning of everything.

-

Of all the universities Naruto had written down on his – admittedly short – list of possible colleges to apply to, the National University of Hi no Kuni was both the most obvious one to consider and the most mind-numbingly difficult and prissy and picky and demanding when it came to requirements and deadlines for application. His past grades (that transcript thingy), his results on the all three of the different college admissions tests in the country, a medical record, five recommendation letters from past teachers, as well as one from his school counselor, and a truckload of his sample works and projects. And the submission of requirements came in two parts. He didn’t even want to know what the second set he’d have to submit would be. Assuming he qualified in the first screening round, that was.

“You’re forgetting that we have to pass those requirements by July, not October or later, like at other places!”

Blue eyes as bright as the summer skies widened and scrunched closed with an accompanying whine. When seventeen-year-old Naruto opened them again, he puffed his cheeks and glared at the bored, bland face of one Inuzuka Kiba. “Damn it! Don’t remind me… It’s going to be hell getting all the requirements done on time. And the assessment test results don’t get in until May!”

“Keh!” snorted Kiba, rolling his dark eyes and running a hand through his chocolate-colored spiked mop of hair. “We’ve got plenty of time. And since when are you worried about grades and school and shit?”

Blond, blue-eyed, and lightly tanned, with a boisterous laugh and a clumsy streak half a mile wide, Naruto got more than his fair share of jibes and stereotypical snipes. Unfortunate or not, it was really just part of who he was. He was short and spry, and loved getting in trouble, something that his friends alternately liked and hated about him. He wasn’t a genius by any stretch of the word, but it was in all honesty one of the best things about him. Naruto could take anything and dish out as good as he got in whatever situation he was confronted with. He just didn’t give up on anything.

But all that didn’t mean that he was somehow exempted from the consternation of every single person in his batch at school.

“Give me some more credit here!” he glared at the boy lounging idly on his bed. “You don’t have to go submit any extra requirements. Just those stupid tests and letters and stuff. I still need to fix up a portfolio to send.” With a groan, Naruto flopped back into his study chair and threw back his head to look at the ceiling. “I’m doomed!”

“Now do you wanna rethink your course choices, flash bulb brain?”

“Not a chance, dog-boy!”

What followed was an argument that degenerated into a wrestling match on the bed.

The two friends were in Naruto’s bedroom at the blond’s house in Toad Sage Heights, a suburb of the city of Konoha. They were looking over the spread of pamphlets and requirement lists for their respective university choices. They were both Juniors at Sarutobi High School, survivors of the first half of what they both dubbed their murder-by-suffocation year, and finding out that it wasn’t a joke that they had to go through hell and back to apply at the national university was putting a damper on what was supposed to be a relaxing Saturday morning.

“Yeowch!” Naruto yelped, crashing to the floor with Kiba’s full weight on top of him. “Get off me, mutt!”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you’re built like a butter blob and I’m not!” the other boy grumbled, struggling to get to his feet and sit back on the bed. He didn’t bother helping Naruto up. “And I happen to like the whole science thing. I wanna be a vet, like Hana and Kaasan, so it looks like taking up biology as a course will be easy enough. And not all of us can afford to go around just clicking cameras all day!”

“I like taking pictures, and Oyaji said he could use what I do in his ads and whatever,” Naruto retorted with a huff, lying back on the floor and propping himself up by his elbows. “I just don’t wanna take up all that business crap. He didn’t need it, so neither do I!”

Kiba just snorted made himself more comfortable on the bed, amidst the half-crumpled piles of brochures and pamphlets. “Whatever you say…”

Naruto’s father, Namikaze Minato, was the owner of a small city-wide delivery and transport service, Yellow Flash. It wasn’t an ambitious wannabe corporation or anything, but since he’d put up the business in his early twenties, profits had steadily risen, and it had gotten to the point that he was considering expanding to other cities – just for the challenge that posed. On more than one occasion, he’d asked his son if he was in any way interested in helping out a bit with the advertising campaign if and when he started on his new project.

“Hey, photography is an art!” Naruto insisted indignantly, getting to his feet and snatching up the thick brochure from NUHK. “It takes a lot of work to make pictures look great enough to actually put up in galleries and all that!” He snickered and smirked down mischievously at his friend. “Besides, girls like the artsy types,” his smirk widened, “not that you’d care about that anymore…”

“Naruto…” Kiba growled warningly, eyes narrowing as he sat up.

The boy in question just snickered. “Don’t you mean Shino?”

“That’s it!”

The halted wrestling match continued without preamble at that point. The two friends rolled and tumbled around on the bed, their sneakers hitting the headboard once or twice, their limbs flailing out here and there and scattering papers and pillows onto the floor. Kiba had Naruto’s left leg and right arm in his arms and was trying to stuff his face into one of the pillows on the bed when the door swung open. There was a mini stampede of footsteps and the pair was hastily pulled apart.

“Whoa, boys! You’re too old to be hearing this from me already, but – play nice in here!”

A forty-year-old version of Naruto, slightly narrower around the eyes, gazed down in sheepish confusion at the red-faced duo. “Do I even want to know what happened in here?” Minato asked, gesturing both at the two culprits and the disaster area they’d created around them.

“He started it!” came the childish declaration from both of the amateur wrestlers. Kiba’s face was still bright red in an embarrassed scowl, and Naruto just looked smugly satisfied with himself, if not a little out of breath from nearly being suffocated in his own bed.

“...Troublesome, leaving you two alone for any length of time,” murmured one of the referees, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. Nara Shikamaru was, if nothing else, king of stating the obvious. Probably because he thought it was too troublesome to say more than that – even if, with a brain like his, he probably thought quite a lot about the situations his friends always got into. As it was, he just swept a stray lock of his dark hair back, tucking it into his high ponytail.

“Not our fault you took so long getting here,” Naruto retorted, slapping a hand on Shikamaru’s shoulder and gesturing grandly around his whirlwind-ravaged domain. “Kiba and I were just having a little fun.”

“You would call it that!” the offended friend snapped out, huffing and throwing himself on the bed and stuffing a pillow over his head.

The sound of a foil bag being crumpled into a ball and a half-garbled voice cut in before any more arguments could start up. “So, does this mean we’re getting food in NUHK’s cafeteria instead of ordering something here?” Akimichi Chouji, the gentle giant of the little group, asked. Like his best friend, Shikamaru, he was not that easily perturbed by anything. He squinted his already tiny eyes at his watch. “It’s almost noon.”

“You’ll get food later,” the last member of the group, Aburame Shino, promised. He went to sit on the bed and prod Kiba into sitting up. With a firm yank on the pillow, he shook the prone figure lightly and leaned down close enough for his little round sunglasses to reflect a close-up of the side of Kiba’s face. “Hey, we have to go now.”

“Oi, Kiba,” Naruto plopped down on the other side of the bed. “Shino said get up already!” he insisted, the slightest hint of teasing in his voice.

That was all it took. “Shut up, you moron!” Kiba half-launched himself at Naruto, only held in check by Shino’s hands on his shoulders. “Argh!” He looked around, finally casting a sheepish, reluctant look at the father of his too-mischievous friend. “…Sorry about that, Minato-san. Er, we can go now. Drama over.”

“Glad to hear!” Naruto’s father just laughed, leaning on the door frame. He glanced at his son and the chaotic mess of the room again. “Well, unless you all plan on spending the next hour doing relief operations in Naruto’s bedroom, we should get going now. I told my professor friend there that I’d be bringing you boys over before twelve-thirty.”

“Eh? Sakura-chan and Ino aren’t coming?” Naruto asked, grabbing a jacket off the handle of his closet.

Minato shook his head as he stepped back from the door to make room for the boys to exit. “Ino’s dad called and said he’d drop both girls off himself. We’ll meet them on-campus already.”

“Aw!” Naruto huffed, squirming his way into his jacket and grabbing his gloves and scarf of the chair. “They’ll be an hour late at the rate Ino gets ready for anything! If it were just Sakura-chan…”

The two of them were the only ones left in the room, so Minato crossed to ruffle his son’s hair. “I thought you were over Sakura already?” he teased.

“Oyaji!” A bright pink blush spread up Naruto’s cheeks and he coughed uncomfortably. No way was he going to think of that awkward mess again. It had been a mistake to try dating one of his friends, let alone the way he’d done it. It had been a nightmare he’d sworn never to repeat. “I told you before, I am! Sakura-chan’s like my best girl friend or something like that. After – you know – that dating thing not working out…” he shrugged, both physically and mentally, “I really just mean she’s really organized and punctual and stuff! Not like Ino. Taking forever all the time!”

“Girls, remember?” his father reminded with a mock-solemn nod. The look was spoiled by the mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “Anyway, we better head down now. If we take any longer, Chouji will raid the pantry, and I just did the grocery yesterday, remember?”

“The guys won’t let him,” Naruto disagreed. “They’re as excited to see the campus as I am. It’s like an unofficial early tour!”

“Let’s get going!” Minato laughed. “I’ll race you down to the car!” He started towards the door, then stopped. “Oh, wait – Naruto, bring one of your digi-cams.”

“Huh?” the younger blond blinked. “What for?”

Something like a conspiratorial smile crossed his father’s face. “Iruka told me that there’s going to be an open art exhibit in the Fine Arts gallery at the end of the month. It’s supposed to be a student-only thing, but since he’s part of the faculty, if you can show him some good stuff, he’ll get a few of your prints displayed!”

Naruto let out a nervous laugh. “Eh…Oyaji, I don’t exactly have any new pictures,” he hedged. How was he going to tell his father that he was inexplicably nervous about having people judge his work? It was weird, since he liked showing off the pictures he took all the time – ‘But what if they’re not good enough?’ the tiny insecure voice in the back of his head asked. “…You’re not trying to pimp me out early, are you?” he asked, forcing away the thought with a half-accusation. It wasn’t like his dad to slide around rules – cheat – like that. “It’s only January! I have six months till I have to submit stuff.”

“Hah! No!” Minato just laughed again. “Well, it could look like that, but Iruka swore letting you exhibit your work is harmless. You’ll still have to submit a whole portfolio with all the other requirements in July. This is just practice – and a good way to see what people think of your work and how you can improve it. I just wanted you to bring your camera along, since the only photos allowed for the exhibit are shots of the campus. It’s some sort of commemoration or something.”

“Uh…” That damnable little voice in the back of Naruto’s head was nagging him.

“Just for fun, son. What do you say?” Minato was excited. It was obvious on his face and it was obvious in his voice. He really wanted his son to do this. How was Naruto to say no?

“Hell yeah!” Naruto chirped, gamely jabbing his father on the shoulder with a friendly fist. “I’ll take the most kick-ass photos ever, and they’ll have to give me a whole room to show my stuff!”

“That’s the spirit!” With a spirited slap on the back, the older man started for the door again. “Well, I’ll head down and start the van already. Pick out a camera and I’ll see you there.” With a jaunty wave, he stepped out of the room and out of sight.

Naruto was left alone in his bedroom, his game grin fading into a serious frown. He looked down at the brochure lying at his feet. Ironically, it was the NUHK one, and it had fallen open on the page headed College of Fine Arts. Funny, photography wasn’t like acting or singing or painting, but it had somehow ended up in that cluster anyway. He let out an odd little determined sigh.

A chance to practice and get some commentary on his photography, huh? Why not?

He went to his table and grabbed the DSLR off one of the low shelves and heaved his lens bag over his shoulder. His dad spoiled him, of that, there was no doubt. He had a lot of the equipment for pro photography. It wasn’t like all his shots were defocused or got exposed wrong in printing!

Why not, indeed? He could do this!

-

He placed the print face-down on the table. As luck would have it, that’s how he had managed to pull it out of the envelope. He couldn’t recall how it had happened, but when he’d stuffed the envelope, he’d managed to press the fronts of the two prints facing each other. Of course, since there was never anything on top of the envelope, the prints hadn’t gotten stuck together, but it was sort of funny, in a sad sort of way. But – no. He wouldn’t think of it that way – yet. If he was going to be forced to go through his memories, he wouldn’t be jumping ahead of the story.

Maybe it was a good thing to just let things play out as they had happened. Maybe he’d feel better afterwards. Who knew?

Whatever.

He flipped the photo over and stared down at still-so-familiar dark eyes.

-

Naruto had been to the university town of NUHK before, more than a couple of times over the years, actually. But this was the first time he’d actually explored the campus. And he was a guest of one of the professors there too, so it was completely legal! Or at least, semi-official. Which was the same thing to him.

Click! Click! And the photos he got to take were definitely going to turn out awesome! He didn’t even have to check the LED display to know that.

They’d waited for Sakura and Ino in one of the cafés across the street from the main library, Lounge 28. After nearly an hour, Sakura had sent Naruto a text that she and her friend wouldn’t be able to come at all. There had been some sort of emergency they had to deal with at Ino’s family flower shop. The rest of the group had gone on and met with Minato’s professor friend without them.

‘Guess everyone’s gonna be applying here for sure,’ the amateur photographer thought to himself after a while, jogging up the stairs near what’ he’d been told was the cafeteria. It was a long uphill climb, and he was willing to bet his fisheye lens that the view was fantastic from up there.

How could his gang not want to go to NUHK. It had a big campus, with twelve different colleges and faculties, each with its own main building, and depending on which one it was, other annexes too. There were a lot of covered walkways and pavilions, a couple of miniature gardens. So what if it was winter? Seeing the campus as it was now, it just meant it’d look more awesome when spring and summer hit! The architecture was a crazily ‘just right’ mix of what Professor Umino, their guide and Minato’s faculty friend, said had existed since the school was built over two hundred years ago and that same ergonomic ultra modern design found all over Konoha’s business district. Shino, Kiba, and Shikamaru had gone off with another guide to visit some of the labs. Chouji had gone with them too, since that was where the Faculty of Hotel and Restaurant Management and Culinary Arts – a freakishly long name to even say – was located too. Or at least somewhere in that direction. Either way, that left Naruto alone with his dad and their original guide. And that simply meant that the curious boy pretty much ran ahead of them, snapping photos at will.

“I’m going to run out of space on my memory card at this rate!” he exclaimed, coming to a stop at the top step and snapping a picture his dad and Professor Umino as they followed him up.

“Slow down, Naruto!” Minato laughed, catching up to his son and clapping him on the shoulder warmly. “I said a few photos, not a picture catalogue of everything you see here!”

“At least he’s inspired,” Professor Umino said, coming to stand beside them. “That’s always a good thing for incoming freshmen. Takes the edge off being in a new environment. He can take pictures of whatever he wants; buildings, students, anything. The exhibit’s not that strict. The photos just have to be taken on-campus.” He smiled down at Naruto. “Too bad it’ll be three years before I have you in one of my classes. You might liven things up a bit in the room!”

“What do you teach again, Umino-sensei?” Naruto asked, looking up from his viewfinder for a moment. There was a small crowd blocking his view of the garden he was trying to focus on, anyway. “…Something about – eh, I forgot.”

That earned him a small wince from the teacher. “Art History, mainly. And I offer a few electives on contemporary art culture and wartime artworks every few semesters. Not everyone finds it interesting.”

That did sound a bit on the boring side. But even Naruto knew not to say that. “…Er, right. Cool!”

Professor Umino laughed. “Nice try,” he grinned. “But, really. It’s not so bad. And you’ll have to graduate high school and then get through the general subjects in your Freshman year here before you have to deal with my class come Sophomore year. You have time to get used to the idea.”

“Eheheh…Sorry?” It was all the boy could say. He fiddled with his camera nervously. He was just the tiniest bit embarrassed.

“Got to hand it to you, Iruka, the tour’s been great,” Minato spoke up, steering the conversation to safer waters. “The other boys are enjoying themselves,” he glanced down at his watch, “if their being gone this long is any indication.”

“Chouji’s probably just holding them up in the cafeteria or something,” Naruto snickered.

All three of them laughed at that one. It was a full minute before the professor could clear his throat properly to speak.

“Well, it’s one of the best times of the year to come and visit, never mind the cold. It’s just after the Christmas holidays and midterm exams are over, so you don’t get a sneak-peak of the cramming that goes on when there are tests,” here Professor Umino winked mock-conspiratorially, “and it’s basketball season. There’s a game today, so everyone who you’d usually see milling around in this area are all the way at the sports center in Konoha proper, or they’re at their dorms and apartments, watching from there. That, or they’re holed up by the big screens in the auditorium and main cafeteria.”

“Bleh!” Naruto winced, crunching up his face. He snickered. “Bet that’s why there aren’t any cute girls hanging around. All too busy screaming their lungs out at a bunch of beanpoles chasing a ball around.”

“Careful with the comments,” Professor Umino cautioned with a small smile. “Even people who don’t really like the game over here, they particularly like the players.” He turned to Minato. “You know which ones. Those boys Kakashi likes to keep tabs on.”

“How is he, anyway?” Naruto’s father inquired. “Haven’t heard from him in a while, not since he attended that seminar on creative management I lectured at last month.”

“Oh, he’s fine. He had to sleep at his apartment in the city yesterday, though. His meeting at the office ended late, so I won’t be seeing him till tonight…”

Naruto tuned out the conversation. He had no business listening to the rest of their conversation, about stuff he probably didn’t understand, anyway. They wouldn’t be leaving campus until about five o’clock, and it was only four, now. Since he technically wasn’t not allowed to go off on his own – between staying and exploring, it wasn’t really a choice. His dad could just call him when it was time to go – or he could track down Kiba and the rest and hang out with them. Whatever. For now, it was photo time!

He walked off down the pathway and through another one of the gardens. He had to admit, really, he was looking forward to being a student here. His aptitude scores couldn’t be that bad, could they? And he had half a year to come up with enough decent pictures to submit for his portfolio.

‘I can do this!’ he cheered himself on, flopping onto the nearest bench and turning on his camera. The LED display blinked to life.

Almost all of his pictures had something wrong with them. This was why he never bothered check when he was actively taking shots. A defocused image here, a blurry background there, and half the time, there was just something off about the angle. He’d been practicing photography ever since he was fourteen, and he was still, regrettably, not as good as he’d hoped to be when he’d first started.

“Inspiration,” he muttered to himself. That was what he needed, he supposed. From experience, he knew he took his best shots when he was particularly happy or something just struck him. Otherwise, crappy photographs – it was just his luck.

He walked a little further, until he came close to one of the iron fences that separated the actual campus from the road and the rest of the university town. He backpedalled a bit and came to the start of a tree-lined pathway, probably the campus equivalent of a lover’s lane in a park. Not that he really knew anything about that.

An idea struck. He hadn’t climbed a tree in a while. And from one of the higher branches, he could get better shots of the campus. He would have liked to go into one of the buildings and climb onto the roof but that might be pushing it. A tree would have to do.

‘Which lens to use?’ He’d had enough accidents in the past to know that he shouldn’t do any climbing with a bag full of camera lenses. The one time he’d actually broken one of them because of his antics – his dad was a very liberal and tolerant man, but there were times when he did find it necessary to give lectures. And punishments.

He’d leave his bag at the bottom of the tree and just climb up with his camera and only one lens. Wide-angle or a zoom? If he was going to try and get a shot of the whole school, maybe the former wouldn’t be such a good idea – or would it? He squinted his eyes at the two choices, weighing the lenses as if his hands were a pair of scales. One of his zooms or the wide-angle? After one more agonizingly long moment of indecision, he slid the latter back into his bag. He could always switch later, if he didn’t like the shots he got.

The tree he’d chosen wasn’t particularly high, but the branches almost to the top looked pretty sturdy. He wanted to do this right, and the first step to that was making sure he didn’t do something stupid before he even took his first shot. By the time he got halfway up, he had to admit, the view was pretty impressive. Just as he settled himself comfortably against the trunk and popped off his lens’ cap, a large red-and-white bus slowed to a stop about fifty meters away. From Naruto’s perch, he could just barely make out the leaf-and-blade symbol of NUHK on the side. When the doors opened and red-and-black-clad students started pouring out, he realized that it must be a bus that had just come from the basketball game Professor Umino had mentioned.

Basketball. It wasn’t really his thing. Kiba watched the college games sometimes – would have been watching today, probably, if he hadn’t been invited along on the tour of the campus – but it wasn’t really something that was all that exciting. Maybe it was different in college, maybe it was different if one’s team was playing; Naruto didn’t know and didn’t really care. But from the looks of it, what with the way everyone was jumping around and cheering, NUHK’s team had won today.

‘Hey! That’s something special,’ Naruto thought to himself. Professor Umino had said he could take pictures of anything related to the school. The varsity team definitely counted!

The regular-looking students and the cheerleaders had all filed out, and now came the triumphant players themselves. Naruto imagined they were all immensely pleased with themselves. He shook the thoughts aside. That stuff didn’t matter, really. Angling his camera and peering into the viewfinder, he steadied his hand and waited for the right moment. How he was going to find that, he didn’t know. Maybe when almost all the players were out, he’d take a shot of everyone standing beside the bus. In retrospect, he could have just kept clicking away and taken a continuous stream of shots, or even set the camera to automatically do that for him. But he just sat there in the tree and waited. Waited for the right moment. Waited for –

Three things happened almost simultaneously.

A strong gust of cold wintery air blew a speck of dust into Naruto’s eye.

He reached up a hand to rub away the dirt and resultant tears.

As he wobbled and fell off the tree, his index finger clicked the shutter release.

“OUCH!” he yelped as he landed on his left shoulder. Sharp pain shot from the point of contact to the rest of his body and he bit his bottom lip to keep from crying out again. His right eye was still teary from whatever dirt had gotten in there earlier, and – he couldn’t stop thinking it – his shoulder hurt like a bitch, but otherwise, he didn’t think he’d broken anything. There wasn’t any grass to cushion his fall, but at least with his jacket on, the little rocks on the hard earth didn’t add too much to his discomfort. Groaning as he tried to sit up, internally cursing whatever god had been out to get him this time, another note of panic struck in his head.

His camera!

A brief look down caused him to sigh in relief. It was fine. Even on closer inspection of the main body and the lens, everything was fine. Some bizarre instinct had made him curl his body protectively around the thing, his aching shoulder absorbing most of the impact.

“Great, just great.” It took a bit longer to figure out that he hadn’t dislocated anything. His shoulder would likely hurt like a bitch the next day, but there was no help for that. And when he looked back at the bus, there was hardly anyone there anymore. Just a few people walking away from it, already too far to see. The basketball players themselves were too far to snap shots of, too. Naruto’s shoulder still ached a bit too much for him to change lenses quick enough to snap their retreating backs.

Just his luck.

With a frustrated sigh, he scooted back until he was leaning against the tree, right beside his bag.

Had he even managed to take a shot of anything? If he had, there was no way it could have come out right. In the time it had taken him to fall off the tree and check the rest of the camera over, the LCD screen had gone into sleep mode. He pressed the display button to turn it back on.

Just as he’d expected, the image frozen on-screen was a mess. It was nothing but a long motion-blur of red, white, black, and bits of some peachy shade. All that hard work, getting up the tree and then falling and hurting himself – all for nothing.

But what could he expect. It was simply just his bad luck.

His phone beeped. A text message from Kiba had just come in. ‘Going back to Lounge 28. U and ur dad done? Meet u there.’

Time to go. Naruto rolled his painful shoulder back experimentally. It wasn’t so bad anymore. Maybe he wouldn’t be in pain at all after a while. And, on the exhibit thing, he could ask his dad to take him back to the campus later in the week to take a few more shots. Or, with some luck, a few of what he had already taken would be good enough to send Professor Umino.

One last look. Maybe there was something worth printing out. Naruto hit the arrow key to go back through the past photos.

Blue eyes widened in surprise. How many times had he actually hit the shutter release when he’d been falling off the tree? And just when had he twisted the zoom ring? He couldn’t believe it. On the LED display was a photo he definitely didn’t remember taking. At least, not consciously or intentionally.

He’d gotten a close-up shot of some guy. One single guy who looked like he was one of the basketball players. In-frame was his face and most of his torso, all the way to just about his waist. He was wearing a dark gray sweater of sorts, V-necked, with what looked like a white T-shirt peeping out from the collar. He was frozen in the act of flinging off his black-and-red varsity jacket from his shoulders, one hand raised to push it off completely. His other hand was beyond the frame, probably holding onto a bag or in his pocket or something. But that wasn’t what drew Naruto’s attention, really. The player’s face had been perfectly captured, clear, crisp, and sharp – not defocused or blurred! And he looked – good – very good. Jet-black bangs blew softly along the side of his face, his short locks tousled slightly by the wind. There was something artful (Naruto couldn’t think of another word for it) in the way his hair was cut, something – whatever it was – accentuated by the cold breeze.

The guy had pale skin and a sharp-angled face accentuated by high cheekbones and a softly pointed chin. He had a straight, tall nose, and peach-pale lips that should have been girly, if not for their thinness and that – well, sensuous – little dip in the upper portion. And then Naruto’s gaze was locked onto his eyes. The guy, the basketball player, he had eyes shaped like almonds, sharper than they should be, thanks to his high, thin brows. And his eyes themselves – they were almost black. Coal. Jet. Some dark gray shade he couldn’t identify. If all of this weren’t enough, there was his expression. It was caught between haughtiness and challenge. His gaze was directed at something or someone beyond the camera’s view, just off to the viewer’s right. He wasn’t quite smiling, but the right corner of his lips was quirked up in what unmistakably a ghost of a smirk. He looked cool and composed in a quietly arrogant sort of way. Those eyes – there was a fierce intelligence and humor in them, like something about what was going on around him made him want to laugh, as if because of some private joke. Maybe there was a joke. Maybe it was a joke he was sharing with whoever he was looking at, at that moment. Whatever the case, whoever the basketball player was, he was simply strikingly – handsome.

Naruto felt something nastily like a mix of jealousy and some sort of appreciation in his chest. The guy in the photo looked just about perfect. A perfect guy in a perfect world, probably riding the high of a perfect win in a perfect game. It sent the photographer’s mind spinning.

And then the single, most important fact of what he was seeing finally hit him.

By sheer accident, what he had before him was the perfect shot. It didn’t take a genius to know it would look even better once he printed it.

Naruto started laughing, softly at first, then louder and louder until he didn’t think that he could stop.

Lady Luck sure had a wicked sense of humor. “Great. Just great.”

-

Until now, his sentiments remained the same. It was the original print of that selfsame photo he was now looking down at. He didn’t need to turn on the regular lights in the room to appreciate what was almost completely engraved inside his skull, anyway. The red glow of the safelights was more than enough. It was a perfect shot. He hadn’t had to do any editing at all. Just a quick hook-up to the large-format printer just outside the darkroom, and less than two minutes later, out came the glossy final print.

It was with this picture that everything had begun for him. His rollercoaster ride through the impossible; none of it would have happened if he hadn’t accidentally clicked the shutter release that day. Maybe the wind had been a better photographer than him back then. Maybe it was still better than him right now. But as matters stood, the shot had been taken, and what had happened next – well, it was now in the past, and the consequences were utterly irreversible.

No matter how much he wished, on occasion, that it were otherwise.

-

He still couldn’t believe he’d done it. He was brash and he had the gall to do a lot of things. Kiba sometimes called him a crazy moron when he was drunk. Crazy stunts and unintended ones that came about because of other accidents, those were regular occurrences in his life.

But there were just some things that he couldn’t believe he did.

One of which was his, in a moment of borderline panic, he’d slipped that piece into the envelope of prints for Professor Umino to look over and use in the NUHK Fine Arts photography exhibit.

It was now three weeks after the campus tour, and he was standing by the main entrance of the Fine Arts gallery at the NUHK campus, heart hammering away in his chest as he scanned the crowd of milling college students and teachers for Professor Umino’s familiar face. It figured that he’d have to go through this alone. The gang couldn’t go, had other things to do – family, school work to cram, all sorts of things. They wouldn’t be meeting up as a group till later that afternoon. Even Naruto’s dad was stuck dealing with trouble at work. No way for him to do more than drop his son off at the campus before zipping off again.

The exhibit hall was fairly large, about two thirds the size of the gym at his high school. It had huge stained glass windows high above the front doors in wide arches along either side of the building. The roof was glass, too, combined with stonework to create an old-fashioned skylight. There were murals and paintings along the walls, and arched doorways that led off to other parts of the building. There was a little refreshment stand off to one side, where students milled about the platters of cheese and crackers, and there were even two large containers at an end filled with what looked like hot chocolate and coffee. There were eight-foot panel boards arranged in two rows of broken pentagons, one outside the other. Each had about three or four prints framed and hung on them. It was more professional than Naruto had expected it to be.

“This is so cool!” the blond boy exclaimed to himself, stepping into the hall.

“Naruto, there you are!” Just when it looked like he’d be on his own, Professor Umino came striding over, looking more frazzled than last time. The exhaustion was plain on his face. He hustled Naruto further into the room with almost mothering hands. “Your dad called a while ago and said you were here already. I thought you’d gotten lost or something.”

“Eh, me? Lost?” Naruto let out a loud, scoffing laugh, shaking his head. Some people turned to look at him. Slightly embarrassed, he cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “Er, hehehe…No. I was kinda just looking for you, Umino-sensei.”

“Sorry about that,” the teacher said, shaking his head. “Akasuna Sasori, one of the senior professors – well, he got called away for a meeting with the dean this morning. I got left in charge for a while. Forgot the time and everything. And please, your dad’s an old friend and he used to teach my boyfriend. You can just call me Iruka – unless you sign up for my class, and we’re actually in the classroom for lectures, that is. But anywhere else, just Iruka is fine.”

“Sure!” Naruto chirped. Somehow, that took a little tension away – although it was weird thinking of his dad being old enough to teach someone who Naruto already considered an adult. And it was weird that he was technically making friends with someone who was going to – hopefully – be his teacher in a few years. That the man had just technically admitted that he was gay, well, it just wasn’t that surprising anymore, hanging around Kiba – there was that guy in the photograph. He shoved the thoughts aside and gave Professor Umino – no, Iruka, his brightest grin. “So, Iruka-sensei, this is it, huh? All of these are works by your students?”

“No, only a few are,” Iruka corrected with glance around the room. “These are mostly the works of the photography Freshmen, so they haven’t gotten to my class yet. And I’m not the only Art History teacher here.” He shrugged, looking around and waving at a passing student. When he turned back to Naruto, he smiled. “Would you like to see which of your photos we picked? A few of them were rather good. And you left quite a good impression on a couple of the students because of one of your, er, subjects.”

Naruto tried his best not to shift uncomfortably at that. He shrugged out of his orange jacket and his scarf. It was a little too warm inside, and his heart was racing even faster now. “Really?”

Iruka laughed. “It’s not every day someone makes a commemorative photo of the season’s MVP even before he’s been declared. And the team just won the Championship last Saturday, so your photo’s a hit!”

Needless to say, Naruto was lost. It took a moment longer for him to connect the pieces. MVP. Most something – Season. Championships. Basketball. The guy in the photograph. He grabbed the teacher by the shoulders, eyes wide as saucers. “Shit! You used that picture? The one with – but the guy – I didn’t mean to–”

He had not expected – no, he had expected that photo to be good, but if they displayed it – Naruto didn’t know why, but the idea made him uncomfortable.

“You don’t know who he is?” A peculiar amused look came over the art teacher’s face. The start of another smile quirked up the side of his lip and he was about to explain when running footsteps announced the arrival of what looked like another professor – or a student – Naruto couldn’t tell which.

“Iruka!” the newcomer, a lanky blond with long hair and bangs obscuring the left side of his face, “Sasori-dana came back with the dean in tow. They’re both looking for you, yeah!” Another professor then. Well, it was more than likely now.

“Deidara, just a moment,” the suddenly-frowning older teacher started. “Can I just–”

But the man called Deidara wasn’t hearing any excuses. He just wheeled on Naruto and waved a hand in his face. “Hi, bye, I have to drag Iruka off now! Enjoy the gallery and he’ll come find you again later, yeah!” So saying, he grabbed Iruka by the arm and dragged him off through the gallery.

So where did that leave Naruto? He wasn’t exactly in a particular hurry to find out where his prints where hanging. Instead, he tried milling around, walking past groups of students also viewing the photographs in the gallery. Once or twice, he caught sight of that familiar varsity jacket, but always turned out to be someone else.

He wondered about the guy he’d taken the photo of. Iruka had said the basketball team had just won their final game a few days ago. That meant that the season hadn’t been over yet when Naruto had taken the picture. No wonder basketball boy – as he dubbed the unnamed player – hadn’t been as wildly happy as the rest. Was the reason he’d been about to smirk in the photo because he knew the celebration was premature? Well, that still made him arrogant and sure of himself, but at least he wasn’t – likely – the brash boasting type.

Those dark eyes flashed in Naruto’s mind. It felt very weird thinking about them.

“Heh! Stupid thoughts!” Naruto muttered to himself, shaking his head and turning to look at one of the prints on the panel boards.

He had to admit, the photographs were good. All of them. He could tell what kinds of lenses were used in most, and when he saw a whole set of library photos taken using soft-focus lenses, he practically drooled. That was definitely making its way onto his birthday wish list. Too bad that was months away. Maybe if he got good grades at the end of the school year, he could get his dad to get him one of those. It would be fantastic – cool – amazing! He could just imagine what he could do with that. He wouldn’t have to use a photo editor to get that out-of-focus look anymore.

By the time he rounded a corner to start on the next row of prints, he was grinning widely. He’d forgotten about being nervous and was genuinely having a good time. He walked over to the refreshment table and filled himself a cup of hot chocolate. He was practically humming when he walked back towards the displays. He hadn’t gotten a look at the innermost panels yet. It was when he stepped around the end of one row of panels and into the center of the hall that he saw him.

Basketball boy. He was standing not more than three meters to Naruto’s left. Even with his back turned, the high school student could tell it was him. He was wearing that varsity jacket again, NUHK Shinobis printed in bold white letters with the team logo in the background. He wasn’t alone this time, though. There was another guy with him, about the same height, with long dark brown hair in a thick low ponytail obscuring the logo on his own jacket. The pair stood in front of one of the prints, obviously in close conversation. Suddenly, long-hair pulled a phone out of his pocket and turned away. It looked like he was leaving. Another moment passed and they were parting ways. Basketball boy was left standing alone by the photo panel. And now that his friend was gone, Naruto could see what he was looking at.

It was the photo from three weeks ago.

And just at the exact moment Naruto realized that, basketball boy turned. Naruto was frozen to the spot by those burning dark eyes. He nearly dropped his drink.

‘Oh shit. Shit. ShitshitshitshitshitSHIT!’ the mantra repeated itself over and over in Naruto’s head. ‘I’m screwed.’

Thinking rationally, it was probably a coincidence that basketball boy had looked his way. It just wasn’t possible that he knew Naruto had taken his picture. He hadn’t even been looking in Naruto’s direction that day!

So why was he still staring? Why didn’t he look away?

Naruto’s mouth went dry. He’d only just noticed, the guy was a head taller than him, maybe more. A part of him felt intimidated. Another just felt – weird. “Er…hey there?”

Basketball boy regarded him for a while longer. It was as if he was still deciding if he would speak or not. In that silence, Naruto stared at him more closely. This time, he was wearing a dark blue sweater instead of a gray one, matched with faded gray jeans that clung snugly to his hips. From the looks of it, he was probably a graduating Senior already. His face was even paler in reality than it was on print. He was twice as striking in person, those eye shark and alive with an assessing – something. Even his hair was more curious up close. It really hadn’t just been the wind that day. He did have long bangs, long enough to frame his cheeks, but the rest of his hair grew to an inch or three below his ears, spiked here and there in a curious way at the back. It would have looked funny on anyone else – but basketball boy wasn’t just anyone else.

The expression on the jock’s face was indifferent, if not slightly cold. “I was expecting the photographer to be a little… older.” His voice was much throatier than Naruto’s. From his tone, it was obvious that ‘older’ wasn’t what he’d really meant to say at all.

“What was that?” Naruto demanded immediately, blue eyes narrowing into a glare.

“You’re Uzumaki-Namikaze Naruto, aren’t you?” basketball boy asked. It was more of a statement than a question.

“H-how’d you know my name?” For a moment, the younger boy’s bubbling irritation was derailed by confusion. He blinked up at the dark-eyed jock’s face.

Eye contact broke. The university student cocked his head in the direction of the print on the wall. Right beside the frame was a small white card with a short title for the work – and Naruto’s name directly beneath. The high school boy had forgotten there was one of those beside all of the prints on display.

“But that doesn’t explain how’d you know it’s me,” he pointed out a second later, after he’d recovered. Petty triumph leapt up in his chest. ‘Hah! Take that!’

The jock just raised one thin, high-arched brow. “I saw you that day. That red light on your camera went off when you were falling off the tree. It wasn’t too hard to guess you were the one who took my picture.”

Unbelievable. Naruto wasn’t sure if the guy in front of him was that callously indifferent to the world or if he was just a complete and utter asshole not bothering with a disguise. He had a sudden and near-overwhelming urge to simply kick him – MVP of the basketball team or not! He didn’t even know what that meant! – where it would really hurt.

“Thanks for nothing, genius,” he ground out instead. “Why the hell didn’t you do anything? Were you too busy taking that stick out of your ass to move over and help?”

“You looked like you were doing fine on your own.” Basketball boy just shifted from one foot to the other and slipped a hand into the pocket of his jeans.

“That’s your excuse?” Naruto couldn’t believe it. So much for thinking that there was more to the bastard in front of him than what he looked like in the photograph. More likely than not, he was just a conceited asshole basking in self-reflected glory at the exact moment Naruto had hit his camera’s shutter release. “Bastard!” he growled venomously.

He wanted so badly to pick a fight. It wasn’t a good idea to cause trouble somewhere where he could get in really deep shit, but it would be so worth it to see that indifferent, arrogant face twisted into something other than smug superiority. Just one hard push – that’s all. Or he could throw his hot chocolate in the guy’s face. He’d be satisfied with that. He could walk out of there and not even look back. He could have his dad explain to Iruka later. He had enough cash on him to take a bus back home. Or if he couldn’t find one, he could simply find a place near the campus to wait for his dad to pick him up. He –

Basketball boy, who had been staring down at him moments ago, was now chuckling quietly.

“What’s so funny?” the younger boy asked, putting on his toughest voice. He’d just insulted the guy and instead of lashing out, he was laughing?

There was a smirk on the jock’s lips, an outright smirk, not at all like the faint ghost of an expression in the print on the wall behind him. In his eyes – he was amused? The dark gray sparkled with something new, some decisive humor in the situation. That coal gaze raked up and down Naruto’s body once. Not quickly. Not surreptitiously. It was a casual, blatant movement.

‘Is he – no – what the hell?’ Naruto’s thoughts were jammed. Was the older boy checking him out?

Before he could ask, basketball boy started to turn away. “Let’s get out of here.”

Naruto was sure he was hearing things. “Who are you?” he blurted out before he could stop himself.

The jacket-clad figure stopped, the pale face turned, and a faintly amused gaze beckoned him to follow.

“Uchiha Sasuke. Are you coming along or not?”

So I'm sitting in the middle of a Theology class taught in a language I can barely understand, admitting failure at listening and comprehending. Will just read the texts again later. Thank goodness they're in English!

I'm behind - again - on my writing. Go figure, with the holidays making everything so hectic now. Everyone's rushing things. Ew. No matter, will do two story updates come weekend. That, I can manage. I need to pay some attention here, but... just because I can, for those who see this post, here's a sneak peak at part of the next chapter of L''Honneur du Sang Real.

“Three months now, and you still haven’t come to terms with reality: you are to marry Lunedonné. There is no choice in the matter. We’ve had words about this before. What must anyone do to make you take this seriously?”

“Pardonnez-moi, Altesse Impériale et Royale, Altesse Impériale.”

It was the painter who approached them. He strode carefully, as one used to walking up to lords, but one who also know how to do so with the appropriate respect. He bowed low, noticeably lower than he had been bowing earlier, his eyes careful never to look the two royal siblings directly in the face.

“Speak,” Kankurou commanded imperiously. He had a more curious nature than Gaara did, but he had also been brought up to rule.

“I mean no disrespect,” Sai said, the smile on his face almost eerie in its unwaveringness. “Please know that I only mean to set Son Altesse Impériale at ease.” When neither archduke bade him stop, he continued. “I have known the Dauphin since we were mere children. However uneasy it may seem to be betrothed and wed to him, I swear to you,” he looked directly at Gaara and for one fleeting moment, the young archduke thought he looked into the face of the Duc de Sharingan, so uncannily similar were their features! – “You will find him a most accommodating and caring lord. He is not one to go back on his word.”

“How great is your reward for saying such thing?” Gaara demanded rudely, stepping close to the tall painter and looking him up in the eye. “Whatever you were promised, it is wasted. I know what is to be my part in the treaty and there was never a need to ply me with foolish words to change my disposition.”

LoL. I find Gaara so much fun to write! Oh well... Teehee.... back to forcing myself to listen in class. *Sigh*

Seriously. Damn them all to hell. No matter what I do, I can't post my stories here on LJ. The word count won't tolerate single-posts. Grrrr.... Cruel fate.

Right now, the best I can hope for is that the website I'm working on will make me feel better about the situation. Otherwise, well, dang!

I'm so behind on my e-mails, it's not funny. So many things IRL are killing me.... New profs, new classes, and the damn weather is murder! Hot one hour, rainy and cold the next. Small wonder we're not all sick here!

*tired, grumbles off before the internet dies again*

1.
Watching the "Ginger Snaps" trilogy has managed to make me all the more addicted to ItaSasu. The third movie, the alternate-reality one, "Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning," was the most moving. The first two were cool, but a huge way on the side of retarded. The third movie affirms a sort of fraternal (or whatever is the sisterly equivalent) bond that exists for me whenever I think of Itachi and his brother Sasuke.

I really hate the series now, manga or otherwise, and I only get my info from my angstbiscuit now. I have resolved not to watch or read unless I ever do write a sequel to Synthetic Darkness. Unfortunately, with my attentions turning slowly towards the problems of employment after I graduate in a few months, I don't know if I ever will write that story. I'm swamped just doing the fanfictions I have uploaded but not yet finished as of, well, right now. It'll take a bit of time before I contemplate posting something new.

Such a pity that I can't simply transfer all that's in my head onto a Word file in an instant! That would solve my little dilemma. Alas! I'll just have to do what all other people do: budget time and prioritize.

2.
I suck at communication. It's possibly the one single reason I have trouble keeping track of people online. Real life is harder to escape, since cell phones were invented, oh, almost a decade ago and living in the same city as people you know is very... conducive to meetings.

I'm honest-to-goodness doomed to be murdered in my sleep by the constant threat of a little brother who can't sleep on his own yet. With the rentzzz and baby bro in my apartment, it's getting a little difficult to find alone time for myself. Oh, and my social life has to be censored and cut down. Damn, damn, damn!

Oh, well. Such is life. At least the rentzzz are forcing me to get a job. Perfect motivation!

3.
Have not drawn anything proper in the longest time. So, thanks to angstbiscuit, yeah, I've started something that I'm going to force myself to finish.

Sneak peak at the new madness:


Here's hoping I'm capable of finishing it within the month. Maybe I can convince my mother that the style I'm using now will be good for future projects. At least this way, I won't ever have to give up this sideline hobby of mine, and I can make it lucrative.

Oh, and, it'll give me an excuse to keep drawing, since my sorry sap self has not maintained my DA account properly in - forever!

4.
Fine. I give in. Searching for a bigger community here. Posting my Naruto-related works here on LJ - just because there might be more to this place than stalking fics. Maybe new stalkers will appear and maybe the critique will be more thorough. I really don't know. *shrugs*

5.
I'm tired of journal-writing for now, so, yeah... Heading off to continue working on a new story chapter.

Ciao queridos y queridas!

It's the state of NOT knowing whether or not you should be doing something, of knowing there's something to do but being unable to grasp it or find some tangible means of attaining your end.

I've been feeling odd lately, in a rut, because I can't seem to write. Rather, when I find time to sit down and write, the words don't seem to be coming the way I want them to. Utter bullshit hell. I can see the sequences in my mind but I can't make the words connect with them. It's torture, knowing I've been unable to do what I should for almost an entire month now. The wait must be killing readers, but it's tearing me up inside even more.

And on top of that, the real world is impossible to understand. I swear that it is. I mean, how exactly am I supposed to get around and do what I need to do if at every turn, there is something cock-blocking me to HELL? I feel more trapped now than I ever did before. It's as if I'm a million miles away from the rest of the world when in reality, it's just a series of small blocks that compound to create a larger, unfathomable whole one that drives me up the wall. I can't take it. I can't stand it anymore.

More than ever now, I feel that anxious restlessness that threatens to eat me inside out. I can't take it at all. I can't. I just can't.

Damn it.

I'm not meant to be so caged in.

How else am I to put it?

I feel utterly exhausted today because of the trials of - well - people. I wonder how many hours in a day would I actually save if I had no need to deal with the people around me? Would that I could trap all of them in bubbles and from there find means to walk through life without incident. It would be a nice change. I suppose. I cannot find contentment anywhere. It is all too confusing and painful. Ah, well. I don't give out facts, but this is my small, simple way of venting.

Silence is wonderful, and I would keep it as my only company if I did not so love the malls. But then, the malls bring all sorts of necessities too. I would have to dress and that would entail adhering to the latest fashions because I am just that sort of self-conscious person. And that would be another round of irritation, wouldn't it? The complications arise the more sociable people are.

Ah, me.... I shall have to stop this now. Reviewing is very tiresome, but it's good for me.

I think my new description of the hours in a day centers around hourglasses. Honestly. Digital clocks look like countdown timers, yes, but numbers are a whole arena altogether that I'd rather not get into. An hourglass on the other hand, you can tell just at a glance how much time is left without the split-second computation of numerical values. And it tends to seem faster, like a race, every time it's nearly been emptied.

I really think twenty-four hours in a day are not enough. I think that complacency is now my biggest.... vice. I wish I could (as I have wished many times before) clone myself so that I can accomplish more in the limited time I have everyday. Ah, but what I confounding mess that would be! I could hole up in the library with nothing to do but keep on writing, and I could attend to my everyday activities, too. Wishful thinking.

So I have to make do with what I have now.

I wonder, on occasion, if it's a part of being female that I am this inclined to displays of complete and utter madness such as shopping fever. Honestly, I woke up today completely at ease with myself, and now, not even an hour later, after glimpsing at an item in the magazine that I'd seen in a store window more than once before, I find my blood on fire with the need to possess. It's absurd, how quickly I went to my receipt folder and checked how much money I actually still have left in my credit card. Granted, my maximum is four times the amount I am really allowed to spend - with some minor overstretches on occasion - but it's always been difficult to resist temptation. I have a full closet, I just need to find new and diverse ways to jazz things up. Not too hard in the end, i suspect. There are places where I can get imitations of more expensive items at a lower value. I will have to explore the department stores soon, fabricating a reason for being out, of course.

Argh! So many difficulties. I need to calm down.

That or I could say that there's an icy chill in my chest.

I realize just now - finally - that I have only ten months - less - before I graduate and close the doors of university life behind me forever. And what do I have to show for it? Nothing I can measure just yet. But everything I - personally - have to measure. This is the last frontier wherein I can see in numbers the fruits of my labor, the consequences for my actions. In an office, or whatever fate befalls me upon graduation and entry into the real world, there won't be such a visible scale that I can check up on every few months or so. Sure, there will still be numbers - in the form of money coming from an ATM or perhaps, if I'm lucky, a credit card. But that's no real assurance. 

I'm scared. And I think that there is some small - miniscule - chance that I will be able to get myself a job as soon as I graduate. But that is nothing more than a chance. Luck. Lots of it.

So the grade - the class standing - matters more than a little in the end. Shit. I don't have a clue what I'm doing. I'm trying to relax, but I feel like all of me is spirally completely out of control.

Registration is tomorrow. So much for being at ease because I have a good number. I'll be pondering the meanings of this entire semester for the rest of the night.

Possibly one can't really decide what one is to do with one's life. In all honesty, one's greatest attribute - if it can be called such - is one's ability to understand oneself very well. It can sometimes be rather... disconcerting, at times, to look at one's life objectively, but there are more than few rewards to be had if one is of a sharp mind.

Funny.

Not everyone can do out-of-body inspection, and so are in the end trapped - rather, doomed - in a cage that is the too-emotional self. For once, I'm citing sci-fi. Vulcans got it right. Pure logic is so much less cluttered.