Disclaimer: the characters below belong to masashi kishimoto, not me, i receive no profit from writing this.


Naruto walked down the street, a pair of black headphones attached to each ear. He calmly strode past the entrance of his school, uncaring of the 'no iPod' policy. The teen would just tell them to fuck off, as per usual. His usually shockingly blue eyes were dull as his head bobbed with the rhythm of walking and to the music thumping too loudly in his ears. He didn't even really know what he was listening to (sounded a little like Maroon 5 but he could be wrong) and he really didn't care so long as it was loud enough to hurt, to make his eardrums vibrate almost to the point of exploding.

He is a masochist; he loves pain. Society had shaped him that way and then told him it was wrong, made him suppress it so he wouldn't disgust everyone.

Naruto didn't look up as someone tapped his shoulder, he didn't care about…

The smack of his earphone upon his ear made him glare up at the person who had dared to touch him in this new school. Didn't people know how to leave others alone?

"What?" he snapped, his eyes narrow, his whole body defensive. Every time he had to change schools, every time someone thought they could pick on him because he was short, small, weak looking, it meant he would have to make an example of him.

The other teen hesitated for a moment, the triangle tattoos on his cheeks a bright red, "Well, uh, um…" he was unnerved by Naruto's glare, that was good.

"Is there something important you need to tell me?"

"Well, you're the new kid, right?" Naruto nodded his head slowly, "Cool, my name's Inuzuka Kiba," he smiled nervously. "I think I'm supposed to show some new kid around…"

"Naruto."

"You got a last name?" the brown-eyed boys nerves had evaporated in an instant and he was suddenly all buddy-buddy with Naruto, which disturbed him.

"Yeah," there was an awkward silence in which Naruto and Kiba stared each other down in an almost hostile manner. Kiba seemed to have mood swings much like Naruto's old self.

"Yo, Kiba," a chubby boy holding a bag of beef jerky—hopefully beef and not deer—waddled up with a smile on his thick face, his eyes small in his large face.

"Chouji," Kiba breathed, his eyes crinkling with happiness, companionship.

Naruto felt bile rise in his throat, his head spinning with disgust, companionship was something he was unfamiliar with, something he envied, something he had desired since…but he couldn't think of that: it hurt way too much. The blonde tried to sneak off, sure the imbeciles were too distracted with each other to notice the new kid slipping away, but he was wrong.

"Uff," a male taller than Naruto had been ready to ambush him with a hug and did so with gusto after Naruto bumped into him. "Hello new friend!" he yelled in Naruto's ear, his voice strange and so very loud.

"Let go of me!" Naruto cried, feeling his old self slip out and show his face for a moment when the teen's enthusiasm reached his ears. That was why it was strange; people in his first high school hadn't known what the word enthusiasm meant.

The male let him go and Naruto spun around angrily to glare at the being. He gaped suddenly, his eyes wide when he noticed the very form fitting green suit and red weight belt-thing around the teen's waist. His body was cut, in tip-top shape: he could probably crush Naruto if he wanted to without really trying. But his muscles were subtle, their power only so sure in Naruto's eyes because he knew what lean muscles could do. His fingers instantly went up to the scar just above his heart, a dull ache flaring to life with the thought. He didn't like looking at this kid anymore, he hadn't even from the start, but he reminded Naruto of him so he defiantly turned to his left.

Why was he surrounded? Was this an ambush or something? There was yet another boy there (of course it was a guy, this was an all boy academy) who had medium length spiky hair in a high ponytail and a bored look on his face. His eyes were dull but Naruto—back in his defensive mind-set curtsy of him—could see the immense inelegance behind their dull luster; not someone to mess with intellectually.

"Troublesome," the ponytail sporting teen mumbled as he looked at the group surrounding Naruto, he could see the flicker of affection and annoyance in his brown eyes and Naruto felt his old self come back, aching to have that connection with someone again.

I can't, he berated harshly, people are only out to hurt me. My past is too horrific and I know it. The harsh thoughts never helped but they locked his old self (his happy self) back away.

"Who are you calling trou…?"

"Calm down, he says that to everyone and about everything."

Naruto about lost his freaking mind. Yet another boy had joined their circle, his hair very long and a muddy brown while his eyes were soft and so pale (and pupil-less) that they looked almost white. He was pretty, like a girl. Thankfully Naruto wasn't into brunettes.

Funny, everyone crowding him had some shade of brown hair…

Naruto slipped the headphone that Dog-Breath (AKA Kiba) had knocked from his ear and slipped away, his music thrumming loudly in his ears once more. The group didn't stop him this time (the girly one seemed against the idea of grabbing him in the first place) so the bell must have rung or something.

The blonde haired blue-eyed boy rushed up the large steps leading into the expensive school, wishing, not for the first time, that his grandfather, Jiraiya wasn't so rich. He wouldn't have to deal with all the snobby people that came with money if he was poor. Then again he wouldn't have an awesome iPod, plenty of money for his gigantic appetite, or his 1969 olds Cutlass 442, nicknamed Kit because of the way Naruto and his grandpa had tricked it out.

He was caught in a tumult of moving bodies that all knew exactly where they were going the moment he walked through the large double doors. He didn't. Of course. New kids were assigned guides but he had ditched his without a second thought. Naruto was much better finding his way around on his own anyway.

The blonde looked up at the numbers that signaled which class was which and he figured he was on the wrong side of the building for his homeroom, remembering where it was because of Open House. He pushed his way through the thronging bodies, his tan skin so dark compared to the traditional Japanese pale all around him.

Did anyone go out in the sun here? Everyone back in his old home was almost always outside, locked out of their houses by annoyed parents who had better things to do then deal with their troublesome and spoiled children. The majority had been dark to tan like Naruto and the pale ones stood out, flushing to white like him.

Naruto paused; hand over the scar again until he was shoved roughly from behind by the bully he had been expecting since he had first stepped foot onto the large campus. Every time school had started over at his old school (which had been the boondocks of rich-kids) a guy got it into his head that the scrawny kid with big, vulnerable eyes was easy to pick on.

"Watch it, nerd." He jeered as if Naruto had run into him, his friends laughed too hard at his joke as they decided to surround Naruto, not even giving him time to try to walk away from the brewing fight like the pussy-bullies at his old school had. These guys seemed serious enough to give him trouble, which was something he was unaccustomed to.

Naruto sighed, turning to look upon the tall guy who had dared to taunt him. He had really orange hair and a fat body, his thick legs were long and his arms huge with muscle, but mostly fat. He reeked too.

"Leave him alone, Jirobo," a calm voice demanded from behind the huge figure.

The other three around Naruto frowned, their fun gone with that simple sentence. Twins stood to beside each other, hands gently touching, their skin pale, their lips died a bright green, one had a look of annoyance on his face while the other smiled gleefully. There was also a tan guy (darker than Naruto even) who had boring brown hair and eyes. Compared to the rest of the group he was plain.

Naruto pushed past the one called Jirobo and saw the older teen that had spoken. He had white hair, cropped just above his shoulders with two clumps bound with beads on either side of his head and his part was in small zigzags down the middle of his head. His eyes were a shocking green lined with red and his skin was very pale, almost sickly so.

He was gorgeous.

The blonde blinked a couple of times before shaking his head and walking off, certain that he never wanted to see his lovely face again. It had been frighteningly familiar in expression to him—before he had turned so cold, before he had stopped loving Naruto—and he just couldn't handle falling for someone like that again. He wouldn't be able to live through that kind of heartbreak a second time.

Naruto would honestly much rather die.

Naruto wanted to walk right out of his homeroom the moment he saw the teen in the bright green leotard waving wildly at him, the genius kid from before sitting beside him looking very bored and about ready to pass out.

The blonde ignored the two, settling for someone in the corner of the room with black hair (cut dangerously close to a bowl-style like the leotard idiot) and dark black eyes. They almost reminded Naruto of him but they were too blank, the glint missing that marked his eyes.

He could deal with the copy if it meant avoiding the two weirdoes.


Naruto followed the guy to his next class, finding it lucky that Sai had the same class as him after homeroom. Turns out that the thing in the leotard had a name (shocking I know), and it was Rock Lee while the genius (who really is a genius with an IQ of two-freaking-hundred) was named Nara Shikamaru. They had weight training together and Naruto was a little shocked that Sai (with his tallness and smallness all rolled into one) had actually volunteered for the class that was basically P.E on steroids. A lot of steroids; many, many more steroids than his old school's weight training, but we'll get back to that later.

Naruto pulled off his button-up shirt and tossed it into his borrowed locker before shoving a dark red t-shirt over his torso. He jumped when he noticed that Sai was watching him.

"What are you looking at?" he asked, hands on his pants button, ready to pull it out and then his zipper down.

"I'm just checking to make sure you actually have a penis."

Naruto felt his eye twitch, his body dropping about three degrees in temperature; it was dangerous to insult Naruto's manhood. "You what?"

Sai opened his mouth to repeat what he said when the weight training teacher burst into the locker room, his black eyes round, shinny black hair in a perfectly straight bowl cut, and green leotard (red belt included, holding twenty pound weights) form fitting.

In other words a larger version of Rock Lee…

"Yosh!" he cried as he did his 'good guy pose', something Naruto was already familiar with which made him want to groan. Not even knowing the man for ten minutes he could already tell what some of his strange quirks were.

Something told him that there would be many more where his 'good guy pose' came from.

"What is taking my youthful students so long to get ready?!" Naruto looked around and noticed that he and Sai were the only ones left in the locker room. The others (having been in forms of this class) had changed in record time to avoid whatever torture Naruto and Sai were about to endure for their slowness.

What Naruto didn't know was that Sai was very familiar with this man's way of teaching, he had just decided to be slow for a perfectly good reason (in his mind). Which was to see if Naruto had a penis…

"Uh," Naruto couldn't take his eyes off of the formfitting leotard, unable to understand how the teacher could get away with such a blatant scoff at dress code much like his mini clone.

"I was antagonizing poor Naruto-kun here, sensei. We will be out shortly."

Gai-sensei frowned at them, "You will have to make up for your laziness, Sai. Fourteen laps around the track in five minutes or else it doubles, starting the moment you leave this room!" and with that Gai bounced out of the room, his tight ass clenched constantly.

"You took the heat all by yourself," Naruto mumbled, shocked.

"You should feel lucky that I even talk to you," Sai smiled one of his obviously fake smiles as he pulled on his knee-length shorts. "Next time sensei won't be so easy on you."

"Well…thanks…" it almost hurt Naruto to say that tiny word but it was the least he could do.


By the time Naruto dragged himself out of weight training his muscles were screaming at him. At his old school it hadn't been nearly that horrid, they had just run a little more and just did a little bit more than in regular class. But Gai's class had been insanely freaking difficult. Naruto had ended up getting assigned to run five laps around the mile long track with twenty pound weights on each ankle and a forty-pound weight on his shoulders. Every time he walked for more than ten seconds he'd had to run another lap, which had tacked up his total laps to twenty.

He would have to finish them tomorrow.

Gai had a unique system of torture. He would assign a (impossible) task to each of his students with different amounts of challenge depending on how they looked physically and would have a whole list (maybe ten long for the whole semester) for them: when they complete a task they move on to the next one that was a little bit harder than the first which was like skipping level ten (with a character from the beginning of a game) to level fifteen in a video game.

Impossible.

Most people didn't even finish and would have to take his class until they did get done with their list. Sai (like most victims) hadn't known about his cruelties when he had signed up and this was currently his third time taking the class.

Naruto was so utterly and wonderfully blessed that he hadn't been put in Gai's fourth block class. Which had been so mind-boggling that Sai had had to repeat himself three times before he would almost believe it and even then it hadn't sunk in completely. The first year Gai had begun teaching at Kishou High the teachers had complained about their students being too tired to do anything in the class and so he let all blocks off easy except the last one. Easy! Naruto couldn't imagine how he could make it any harder.

The exhausted teen trudged dutifully to his next class; sighing at how he would be forced to use his brain in whatever math he was taking (probably basic Algebra) this time. When he walked in he immediately noticed a silver haired teacher sitting behind the desk, half his face hidden by a flat black mask that ended somewhere beneath his teacher-issue shirt. His visible eye was serene and reading a manga that Naruto instantly recognized.

"So," he said a he strode up, his old self rolling out of him in tumbles, now that Naruto was able to forget about him in short bursts. "You like my grandfather's work?" the only thing Jiraiya had done with his life was write a cheesy pornographic manga series that became so utterly famous that he hadn't needed to do anything else to earn a living. But the old fart had gotten bored one day and had invented the electric can opener. Bastard…

So Naruto's granddad was stinking rich and him along with the old fart, especially if he were to die since he was the sole beneficiary of the grotesque fortune.

The teacher raised his head from his book and regarded Naruto for about one second before recognition shined in his visible eye. "Uzumaki Naruto?"

"You a big fan then?" Naruto chuckled, Jiraiya loved meeting people in random everyday places as perverted as him so that he might have an idea for new material. Jiraiya rubbed off on Naruto so much that theories were already running through his head. Something about a student-teacher secret relationship…

"Of course, ask anyone who knows me, or sees me everyday. I'm always reading one novel or two…"

"I'll tell him about you," Naruto smiled when the man gaped at him, "Yup, I'm not lying. Have done it a hundred times and Jiraiya hasn't gotten mad yet."

"Really?" the man was leaning toward Naruto, his eye glowing with an intensity Naruto hadn't seen before. Maybe this was Jiraiya's biggest (except for the loon that had tried to cut off his hair) fan.

Naruto nodded his head before he went and found a seat in the room. His body still ached and he was so tired…maybe taking a nap in this class wouldn't hurt. He was right; it wasn't hard to pass out in this class. His sensei was almost constantly submerged in his book and he only spoke whenever the class got too rowdy. It was probably this slow because it was the first day of the new-year but it didn't really make a difference to Naruto.

His other two classes were Science of some kind and Honors Lit. that Naruto found very ironic: he would never believe that Naruto could have gotten into an honors class. In whatever Science class he had Kiba and the girly teen had been in it and Naruto had learned that the one with long hair actually had a name, and it was Hyuuga Neji who was from a rich (duh, poor people didn't go to prestigious high schools) and very traditional family. In his Lit. class Naruto knew a guy named Aburame Shino (who, it turns out was in his homeroom) and Kimimaro was in there as well, with his bright green eyes and smooth pale skin.

Did everyone that seemed sane have to look like him in some way or another? Or was it that Naruto was just looking for him, needing to see him one last time? Things had never really been resolved between the two of them…

"Oi, Naruto-kun," a deep voice cried, smooth and subtle yet demanding in a strange way.

The teen didn't turn; he hadn't heard the cry over his music as he strode leisurely to his baby. Kit started up when he got within the two-meter zone and idled, waiting. The kids that had gathered around his car jumped, not expecting it to start on its own. The blonde reached out to open the driver's side door when it was opened for him, a pale hand upon the beer bottle brown door.

He pulled a headphone free from his ear, "Yeah, Kimimaro-sempai?"

"This is a very nice car."

"Thank you," Kit chirped happily, his voice reverberating from the stereo as he registered what Kimimaro said.

"Way cool," whispered a guy in awe who was apparently a car fanatic.

Naruto stared at Kimimaro who stared back, "Do you know why I stopped Jirobo?" it seemed like Kit talking hadn't even phased Kimimaro which was very weird, Naruto's genius (many would disagree) grandfather had invented the system that Kit worked on so no one else but Naruto had a car this smart, not even Jiraiya. The old fart hadn't been able to make another work just like Naruto's, all smart and funny. His other cars had turned into snobs…

"No," Naruto said as he took a step closer, trying to get into his car. A hand snapped out and wrapped around his waist, pulling his hips flush with Kimimaro's.

"Because you are ethereal," he breathed before letting Naruto go rather abruptly.

Naruto was unfazed—used to worse random (and hot) moments from him—as he stepped into his car, the hand stitched leather hugging his body in a relaxing embrace. Kimimaro closed his door and Naruto drove out of the parking lot, speeding almost the entire way home.

He loved going fast.

"Naruto-kun," the car said, turning down the commercials on the radio rather than finding a different station that Naruto liked. "How was your first day?"

"Boring," Naruto sighed, knowing that Jiraiya would probably be too busy to ask him about his day so he would unload on his car…partially.

"Anyone make the list?" Back in the day—when his heartache had been out of control—he had gone on a rampage and anyone that pissed him off in the least would be found dead the next day, never a trace of the killer somehow. Did I mention that Naruto loves all of the CSI-type shows?

Naruto thought about it; had anyone pissed him off enough that they no longer deserved to live? "Not yet, I'm giving them more of a chance to prove themselves."

Sometimes Naruto believed that Kit knew him too well. "Is the decrease in list due to being happy or just being away from…?"

"Don't say his name!" Naruto snapped, gripping the steering wheel too hard, his knuckles turning white with pressure.
The car was unfazed, as per usual; "I would not do that to you, Naruto-kun."

The rest of the ride home was silent.