Disclaimer: Naruto (c) Masashi Kishimoto
"Talking in English"
"Talking in Japanese"
Thinking, whatever language.
Naruto stood trembling, wide-eyed with panic. He was surrounded... Completely surrounded. There was no way out. He searched the eyes of those around him, finding blank stares in some and something akin to disgust in others. He backed up against a wall, staring at the crowd, stupefied.
HE WAS SURROUNDED BY ASIANS.
The dark-haired brown-eyed pale-skin slanty-eyed Japanese teenagers walking by or going to their lockers regarded him with distaste. It was probably the look on his face, but also the fact that he had bright yellow hair. And blue eyes! He stuck out like a sore thumb!
The 'wall' behind him opened, revealing itself to be, in fact, a door. The person trying to get through pushed the blonde aside to get out into the school's hallway, barely sparing him a second glance.
"Hey watch it, you idiot!"
The pale, dark-haired boy turned his head back with an expression of slight confusion on his handsome face, then continued walking, vanishing into the sea of black-haired students. Naruto growled. What a jerk! He could have at least responded! Asshole.
The shrill bell rang noisily, signaling the beginning of classes. Naruto pulled the folded paper out of his pocket and looked it over once more, just in case the Japanese characters had switched to his native English in the three minutes it had been in his uniform slacks. He sighed. Nope. It hadn't. He shoved the paper back into his pocket and started off down the hallway, not really knowing where the hell he was going. He couldn't read what his classes were, who the instructor, or even what room they were in. Damn it, even the room numbers were in Japanese! Couldn't they just use the standard "1, 2, 3" like everyone else?! Even French and Spanish and stuff use those! Naruto growled in frustration.
Stupid Japanese characters I can't make heads or tails of. Stupid Japan. Stupid school. Stupid uniform. Naruto yanked on the pristine white collar of his button-down white shirt. The rest of his uniform consisted of navy slacks, brown loafers, a navy blazer, and a navy tie. The blazer he had left at home. The tie he had forgone on principle. Naruto Uzumaki did not wear ties. Come to think of it, Naruto Uzumaki did not wear uniforms. He had never had to wear a uniform back in Los Angeles, California, in the United States. He felt a pang of homesickness. He wanted to go back to LA...
Stupid idiots at the Board of Education that made Iruka lose his job so they had to come here. His adoptive-father, Iruka, was a middle-school teacher back in LA. There were heavy budget cuts, so Iruka had to be "let go". While Naruto wanted to go and tear that Superintendent's head off for firing his adoptive-dad, Iruka forbade Naruto to be upset and chose to think of his loss of a job was an opportunity for change. Iruka decided to return to his birth-country Japan and introduce Naruto to the culture and society Iruka had grown in.
Naruto had whined and pleaded and kicked and screamed, saying that they had to stay in LA, there was no place like it in the world! Iruka only put up with his tantrums for a grand total of ten minutes before he yelled at Naruto to pack his bags because they were going whether he liked it or not!
So here he was.
In Japan.
And the only Japanese he knew was what Iruka had tried to cram into him on the fucking TWENTY HOUR PLANE RIDE over and last night, which was just plain mean of Iruka because he must have been able to tell that Naruto was jet-lagged as hell and felt like he had been run over by a steamroller.
Fucking great.
"Hello?"
Naruto turned. "Huh?" He turned to see a male Japanese student standing there, looking irritated. There was a gold badge pinned to the boy's blazer lapel, with a little green swirly pointy thing on it. Naruto recognized it as the logo of the high school. Weird. There were Japanese characters below the logo, but the blonde couldn't read what they said.
"You're supposed to be in class. Didn't you hear the bell?" The guy demanded. Naruto stared blankly.
"Hello? Are you an idiot?" The hall monitor was started to get angry at this idiot. He obviously didn't have two brain cells to rub together in that foreigner-brain of his. "Look, will you just get to class?"
Naruto felt like screaming. He couldn't understand a word this dude was saying, and it was obviously pissing the other guy off just as much as it was him. When he got home to the apartment Iruka had rented for them, he was going to lock himself in his room and never come out until Iruka wised up and took them back to LA or until he was fluent in Japanese. Because this was just crazy!
Taking a chance, Naruto pulled his illegible schedule out of his pocket and handed it to the other student, praying to any god that was listening- Oh yeah, Iruka had mentioned that Japanese called God "Kami". He prayed to this Kami guy that the student wouldn't think he was a complete nutcase and would help him find his classes.
Naruto peeked anxiously at the dark-haired student. He had pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and seemed to be contemplating Naruto's schedule. At last he nodded, gave a small smile, and pointed to a door at the end of the hall, second-to-last on the right. He handed Naruto back his schedule.
"That's where your class is. Ask your teacher to help you find your other classes, okay- Whoa!"
"Thank you thank you thank you!" Naruto pounced on him, hugging him enthusiastically, then letting go. He beamed and ran off to his class, leaving a frazzled hall monitor behind him.
"...Foreigners."
AN:
Believe it or not, some of this story is based on personal experience. I switched schools in the middle of my high school career and went from an all-white school to an 50percent-Asian-40percent-white-10percent-other school and it was like 'SO. MANY. ASIANS.' Unbelieveable. Now I'm completely used to it, but the inital shock left me speechless.
Send me title ideas! This story needs a title.