Before the last class of the morning, the wind by the window picked up.
The window paper puffed out softly, then stuck back in place. Sasuke sat by the window and reached out to press down a corner that had not been smoothed flat. He moved quickly, withdrawing his hand as soon as he was done, as if he did not want anyone to know he had done anything for that sheet of paper.
Che happened to see it.
He had been about to look away when Naruto called out first, "Sasuke, isn't it cold over by your window?"
Sasuke did not turn around. "No."
"Then why do you keep making that face?"
Someone in the classroom immediately laughed. Kiyo nearly laughed too, but halfway through, he glanced at Che, as if trying to confirm whether this was within the acceptable range of things to laugh at. Che gave him no signal. He did not know himself.
Sasuke lifted his eyes and looked at Naruto. "Noisy."
"How am I noisy?"
Shikamaru lay facedown on his desk, his voice muffled. "Right here."
"You didn't even lift your head!"
"I can hear you."
Naruto turned back angrily. Iruka had not arrived yet, and the classroom had grown a little more loosely noisy. East Corridor Group Two sat in borrowed seats. They were no longer as stiff as they had been during first period, but they had not truly relaxed either. Kiyo had begun daring to make quiet comments, Saori wrote very short sentences in the corners of her notebook, and Morita Yu occasionally exchanged half a sentence with the Konoha children beside him.
Che put the shortened end of his pencil into his pencil case. It was what remained after he had lent it to Naruto. The point was a little shorter,