I realize this type of story has probably been done a thousand times over, but I don't care. It is my God-given right to write these redundant plots, too! Teacher-student relations are always the best, no? Pairings… Sasunaru, of course.

No Engrish, Please!
Welcome to Japan.

...

"So," the pink-haired girl drawled as she watched her friend haphazardly toss clothing and random items into one suitcase.

"So," he mimicked, holding up two shirts, clearly debating between the two before tossing them both in.

"So," she began again. "You're really going, huh?"

Naruto paused in his ministrations to glance at his friend before gesturing to his suitcases laid out on the floor. "What do you think?" he finally questioned.

The girl laughed, "I couldn't tell, what with the way you're packing. You're not going to last a year with that kind of planning."

Receiving no response from the other, she watched for another few minutes, as item after item made its way into the suitcase, before the obsessive compulsive in her finally broke free. She shoved the unsuspecting boy aside with excessive strength, sending him flying across the room with a surprised cry - "Sakura!"- before bouncing painfully against the wall and crumpling to the ground.

"Ugh, you're driving me crazy!" Sakura cried, turning over one suitcase and dumping everything to the floor. She sat down, crossing her legs to get comfortable, and began the packing ritual from scratch, folding the clothes that had been crumpled into balls and categorizing the items that had been tossed in without any sort of discrepancy.

Behind her back, Naruto grinned mischievously. He'd savor this victory for as long as he could – it wouldn't take Sakura long to realize she'd been conned into packing his suitcases for him. And even when she finally figured it out, he knew the anal retentive girl would forgive him that just to finish what she started. The girl was nothing if not thorough.

Relaxing against the wall, Naruto watched the girl he wouldn't be seeing for at least a year, taking in the strong profile, the high forehead, the flutter of her eyelashes as she blinked. She was beautiful, even more so than when he'd first laid eyes on her, and had matured considerably since he'd first begun to crush on her. When he had heard of his acceptance into the program, he had debated confessing to her once more but realized the futility of it. Even if she said yes, there was no doubt their long-distance relationship wouldn't last. So he'd settled with spending whatever time he could with her, relishing in the friendship that had grown despite her resistance and his pestering.

"I know you did it on purpose," Sakura said, throwing a glance over her shoulder and smiling sweetly at the innocent face he pulled. She turned back to the clothes in her lap, pausing slightly before continuing, "But I'm really going to miss you."

Naruto nodded, small smile on his own face, "Me too."

Japan was hot.

Already, Naruto was regretting his decision to come. Leaving behind all the great friends he had managed to secure during his university years and the comfort of the familiar – all because he hadn't been able to secure a job back home – had been bad enough, but then he'd been stuck with the most irritating flight-mate known to man. The man would not shut up about how amazing Japan was – the beautiful women, the wonderful food, the gorgeous scenery. It had been even more unnerving when he revealed he had never even been to the country before.

Naruto's first impression of Japan as he stepped out of the airport and into the waiting bus was that it was a hot, blistering hell-hole that was waiting to swallow him completely. Taking a seat next a sweating businessman that reeked of sweat and bad cologne, Naruto let his head fall heavily onto his headrest. Just what had he gotten himself into?

With great flourish, Naruto introduced himself to the class of wide-eyed Japanese freshman seated rigidly in their chairs, taking in his blond hair and his blue eyes. Their expectations of him as an American had not been disappointed, as he fit their stereotypical mold perfectly – loud, obnoxious, bright.

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki. I look forward to being your language assistant teacher for this school year. Please treat me well."

He finished with the bow he was instructed accompanied most Japanese introductions. When he straightened, he smiled genuinely at the curiosity on the students' faces.

"Do you have any questions for me?"

When no questions came forth, the Japanese teacher – who had introduced herself as Hinata Hyuuga – translated the question and immediately a hand shot up.

"Yes," Naruto pointed the thin boy smiling gently at him.

"Hello," the boy began in heavily accented English. "Do you have penis?"

Naruto choked on his spit as the student continued to smile. A few of the students who understood giggled to themselves and after a brief murmuring during which the question had been translated to the confused students, the class broke into loud laughter.

With a flushed face, Naruto turned to the teacher he would be working with for the year, only to find her face flushed as well before she stuttered for the class to quiet down.

Naruto glared at the boy who had asked the question but the other only continued to smile. As his eyes roamed over the giggling class, his eyes landed on one boy, seated at the back of the class. There was nothing about him physically that made him stand apart from the others – dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin – but his mannerisms made him stick out like a sore thumb; he was the only one not laughing. And he was glaring at Naruto with what he could only describe as pure, unadulterated hate.

Who shit in his breakfast? Naruto wondered, tearing his eyes away as the teacher regained control of the class. He hesitated opening himself up for more questions, but the next ones were simple enough to answer – the standard, where did he come from, what was his favorite color, and so on. They were, apparently, (with the exception of the one boy and his unusual knowledge of the word "penis") the only things the students knew how to say in English.

Naruto sighed to himself, as the teacher took over and proceeded to have him do absolutely nothing for the rest of the period. Naruto sat, flipping through the student textbook and laughing at the silly conversations it had the students learn. Feeling a heavy gaze on him once more, he looked up to find the boy in the back staring at him once more.

With a roll of his eyes, Naruto stuck his tongue out at him from behind the teacher's back, and from the slight widening of the student's eyes, surprised him into turning his gaze back to the head of the class.

Naruto grinned to himself and returned to his crappy reading.

The boy turned out to be the quietest person he had ever known. Sasuke Uchiha was his name, and he never spoke unless directly spoken to. That, and he never spoke in English – ever. Naruto wondered if he was embarrassed of his accent, or didn't know anything to begin with. The Japanese school system was not adverse to passing their students into higher levels of English when they clearly didn't deserve to be there (as he'd learned from trying to converse with students who were supposed to know way more than they did).

But while the boy never said anything, there was something about him that grated on Naruto's nerves. Were all Japanese boys this annoying? Judging from that Sai kid's penis question (and his subsequent fascination with that part of his anatomy, which was expressed during any oral examination), he wouldn't assume they weren't.

So when he ran into the young Uchiha kid during a late run to the nearest supermarket, he was understandably surprised and in no mood for the boy's company. In a hurry to escape the other, who really wasn't doing anything but standing there in the aisle with him, Naruto dropped the carton of eggs he was holding. And, of course, with his luck, most of them broke, spilling into a gooey, coagulating mess on the tiled floor.

Sasuke smirked at him as the blond stared with slight irritation at the eggs that had dared break from their fall. The boy took one breath and opened his mouth and Naruto unconsciously prepared himself for what he knew would be the worst.

"Dobe."

Huh. So, it was Japanese. That much he expected, seeing as he was in Japan, where almost no one understood him and his abominable attempt at their language. He had no idea what the word meant, but he didn't need to, not with the smirk currently gracing the bratty kid's face.

"Excuse me?"

Sasuke cocked his head to the side at the query and Naruto blurted out one of the few words he'd managed to pick up during his few weeks in the country.

"Nani?" he grit out, not caring that he had probably butchered the pronunciation beyond recognizable.

Sasuke's smirk only widened and he tossed his hair – condescendingly, Naruto thought with fire in his eyes and smoke billowing from his ears – out of his eyes.

"Listen here, you punk," Naruto started, relishing in the fact the boy couldn't understand a word he was saying if the blank look on his face said anything. "I don't have time for little snot-faced, cocksuckers like yourself mocking me when I'm clearly the one in charge here. Keep it up and I'm going to make your life a living hell while I'm here."

Tantrum over, Naruto stalked away – quickly, before workers noticed that the spill had been his fault. He left the market angrily, stomping all the way to his apartment. He was distantly glad none of his neighbors saw him; he didn't want to give Americans a bad name, although he might have already done so with Sasuke...

Grimacing to himself, he regretted yelling at the kid in public. He wasn't normally this short-tempered… Okay, maybe he was. But he didn't normally react so strongly – oh, who was he kidding. He had remained completely in character, only agitated further and quicker from being in a foreign country with no one to turn to. Sasuke hadn't even done anything wrong, not really. But was it possible for someone nearly ten years his junior to be so arrogant and patronizing?

As he made his way to the kitchen, he paused, and then cursed loudly. He'd forgotten to buy any groceries in his haste to leave. Smacking himself on the forehead, Naruto settled himself in front of the computer instead. Hopefully, Sakura would be online so he could rant and rave about the annoying kids he had to teach. At least the teacher he worked with wasn't so bad, despite the fact she blushed profusely whenever he was in the same room as her…

Signing in, his eyes lit up as his pink haired friend back home messaged him.

-- Having a good time?

He rolled his eyes, thinking back to the smirking Sasuke Uchiha and the carton of eggs splattered across the floor.

-- you have no idea

It wasn't until a month later that Naruto had another run-in with the boy that would come to be the bane of his existence. Naruto had no idea what it was he had done to deserve this type of punishment.

Sasuke had not acknowledged Naruto during their classes any more or any less than he had before Naruto's explosion of fury. In return, Naruto treated him as he had before (that is, he ignored him). It was a comfortable setting that he had hoped would continue for the rest of the year.

But it was at the end of the day that Sasuke Uchiha finally spoke to him of his own accord. When the classrooms and halls had long been emptied, and when Naruto was thanking whatever deity was out there that the unusually brutal day was over – Sai had been unusually curious – and making his way out of the building, he came across a confidently standing boy, short enough to barely reach his shoulders.

The snotty freshman (or so Naruto had been thinking of him as), turned to his new assistant language teacher with the shittiest, shit-eating grin and said –

In perfect, accent-free English –

"Welcome to Japan, Sensei."