Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the other characters. If I did, there would be a lot of happy fangirls. XD
Chapter 1: The Assignment
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Naruto threw his pencil down in frustration. He crumpled up the over-erased sheet of lined paper and leaned back in his chair to throw the umpteenth piece of paper into the trash. A pile was beginning to form around the waste bin where he had missed.
"Stupid Iruka-sensei…" he muttered then sighed, taking out a new sheet of paper and tapping his pencil against the table in deep thought.
"Now for your next assignment, I'm going to put you into groups of three. You are going to evaluate your partners, not just in class, but in their every day life." The young teacher announced.
"Isn't that called stalking?" A smart mouthed brunette questioned his sensei's judgment with a smirked.
"I highly doubt your partners would appreciate you stalking them, Inuzaka-san." Iruka sighed with a little frustration. "Obviously you won't be following them around every minute of every day, but pay closer attention to them than you normally would."
"So we're not going to be partnered with people we're familiar with then?" a pretty pink haired female questioned the teacher more politely.
"Exactly. I put you all specifically in these groups based on your personalities and your familiarity with each other." The scarred teacher smiled at his student's intelligence. "Now, I will announce your groups. First group: Inuzaka Kiba, Aburame Shino and Hyuuga Hinata."
"I'm stuck with bug guy?!"
"Kiba-san!" Iruka warned the dog-faced student sternly.
"Heheh, sucks to be you." Naruto laughed out at his friend teasingly.
"Hmph. At least Hinata isn't freaky too." Kiba shrugged, Hinata blushed.
"Next group: Nara Shikamaru, Yamanaka Ino, and Akimichi Chouji" Iruka announced
"Huugh?" a brown haired student drowsily joined the conversation "did someone say my name?"
"Yeah you lazy ass, you're in my group!" Ino shrieked. "Honestly, can't I get someone more interesting in my group? Like Sasuke-kun?!" she blushed toward the stoic Uchiha, who paid absolutely no attention to the blonde.
"Group? Group for what?" The Nara teen asked his new partner.
"Ugh, honestly!" Ino cried out again.
"Guys! Settle down! All groups are final!" Iruka rubbed his temples in frustration. He loved kids, he really did, but there were times he wished it was legal to duct-tape their mouths shut, bind them to their chairs and instill a little fear into them so they would just be quiet for once.
He had gotten to the last group when he was interrupted with a typical Naruto outburst. "IRUKA SENSEI!"
"…yes Naruto?"
"Only me, Sakura and Sasuke are left!"
"Way to go, captain obvious." Kiba snickered.
"Shut up!" he snapped at the dog boy then turned back to the teacher, "There's must be a mistake! There's no way I'm working with Sasuke!" the blonde pointed at the raven-haired Uchiha, who now looked a little annoyed himself.
Sakura sighed, "Naruto, just be quiet! He already told us our partners were final!"
"You only say that because you want to work with Sasuke-kun." Ino glared at her former friend.
"Whatever. You're just jealous that you don't get to, Ino-pig." Sakura smirked, rubbing the fact that she had the object of both girls' fancy in her group, and topping the cake by calling her old friend by her most dreaded nickname.
"What did you just say?!"
"Are you deaf?"
"That's it!"
"Iruka-sensei, I'm NOT working with Sasuke!" Naruto proclaimed
"Well if he doesn't have to work with Sasuke, I shouldn't have to work with Shino!" Kiba added
"Ino-Pig!"
"Bilboard Brow!"
"Ino-Pig!"
"EVERYBODY QUIET. NOW!" Everyone was startled as Iruka slammed his book down on the desk with a loud "thwack!" Nobody dared move, "These are the partners you will be observing and I will NOT be changing ANYONE. Now if you'd be so kind as to let me finish the explanation, I might be able to let you out to lunch early."
That got everyone's attention.
"For this assignment, you already know you will be observing your partners. You will then decide on something that symbolizes that person to you. For example, I might symbolize Inuzaka-san with hm…a rooster. Then I will go on to write a two paged paper, double spaced, about why I chose this for him."
"A rooster? Why a rooster?"
"You're loud and boisterous, like a rooster." Iruka smirked at the teen, who seemed to be processing this all very slowly. "The whole point of this is to see your partners in a new light. You'll be looking at their personality, not their appearance or their likes/dislikes. Anything obvious, such as Naruto being symbolized as a clown will result in an automatic failure."
"Hey!" Naruto crossed his arms.
"When is it due?" a much more calm Sakura asked.
"Two weeks from now. I want you to have plenty of opportunities to really observe your partners and try to get past the obvious. Sometimes people hide their feelings and put on a front for everyone. If you don't take time to look for it, you don't notice it." Iruka began to pass out papers as a reminder of the instructions for the project. "You will be presenting these in front of the class on the 17th. Oh, and one more thing!"
"What now?" Kiba whined like a depressed puppy.
"This is optional, but you may evaluate one more person, anybody else you want to, for extra credit. It doesn't have to be a classmate; it could be family, a close friend or your favorite English teacher." Iruka announced with a cheesy smile
"This is totally unbelievable…" Naruto muttered as he received a paper for himself, dismissing the idea of extra credit.
The bell rang.
"Don't leave until you get a paper!" Iruka shouted over the excited chatter and rustle of backpacks and feet. "and think about doing the extra credit!"
"So, Sasuke-kun, since we're in the same group, do you want to eat lunch together so we can get to know each other more?" Sakura asked the stoic ucuhiha sweetly before packing up.
"No." he stated bluntly before throwing his bag over his shoulders and walking away.
"Buurrrn…" Ino whispered in her ear as she walked past Sakura.
"Hmph." Sakura brushed off the insult. It was only every day the two females verbally beat each other up anyways.
"So Sakura-Chan!" Naruto approached the pink haired female, completely oblivious of what had just happened, "Y'know, I was thinking, well, since we're gonna be partners and all—"
"No way." She huffed and walked away from the blonde in a hurry.
"Ouch." Kiba laughed, stuffing the paper in his bag, which was more of a black hole of miscellaneous papers. "Come on, Chouji's probably waiting for us."
"Yeah, yeah." Naruto tossed his bag over his shoulder to walk out the English 11 class and get to lunch.
The library was lit in a soft orange glow with the light of the setting sun filtering through the windows. Rubbing his forehead in thought, Naruto finally threw his pencil down again.
Stupid, stupid Iruka. I can't think of anything! Oh well, I still have a week. But I have to work all next week and I got stuck with closing. Naruto sighed. He had barely made any headway on the "stupid project" that "Stupid Iruka-sensei" had assigned.
Deciding to call it quits, the blonde zipped up his backpack and swung it onto his back, walking out of the library. His stomach growled as he walked past his favorite restaurant, Ichiraku Ramen, the aroma of chicken, pork and of course, ramen reaching his nose and empty stomach.
Pulling out his frog wallet, he shrugged, deciding it wouldn't hurt his finances too badly to buy a meal out. Besides, being an employee and a loyal customer, the old man nearly gave him ramen for free. And of course, being a regular, the chef knew exactly what to get the blonde as soon as he entered.
After one last gulp, Naruto set down the bowl with a loud clank and a satisfied "ahhh!"
"Remember you're working next week, right Naruto-kun?"
"Hai!" The blonde paid for his meal and stood up. "Ja ne!"
He walked out of the small ramen shop onto the dark streets. The moon was just bright enough to light his path, but it also darkened the long, dark shadow behind him.
"And don't forget to consider the extra-credit! You can evaluate anyone close to you!" the voice of Iruka-sensei played over in Naruto's head as his goofy, carefree façade finally faded off his face for the day.
"But I don't have anyone close to me…" he muttered to himself quietly as he rounded a corner on the way to his apartment. Being 17 he was already on his own, fending for himself. His parents, having died in a car crash while he was only 3 had left him in a shelter to grow up with lonely, orphaned kids like himself.
By the time he was 15, he was given permission to live by himself with frequent check ups by KCPS and another adult. Though Naruto didn't admit it, and no one else knew, Iruka-sensei had been the one to volunteer to monitor the blonde's living arrangements and make sure he had enough to survive. Though many took him for a lazy, reckless kid, Naruto had proven to Iruka that he was quite responsible and capable when it mattered.
But aside from his English teacher, no one else saw this side, and Naruto wouldn't permit anyone to. He had never told anyone about his life in the shelter or how it felt to have nobody to go home to. There had been times when Kiba would complain about his mom being scary when she's mad and how she would ground him and stick him with all sorts of horrible chores—from cooking to cleaning. "Oh poor Kiba. It must be so horrible having parents that care about you." Naruto often felt like telling his dog-fanatic friend, but withheld. He didn't want anyone's pity. He just wanted someone to understand, and he knew everyone—Kiba, Shikamaru, Chouji, Lee— just wasn't capable of doing so.
Sticking the keys in his door, he pushed the cheap thing open, with doorframe creaking in its lonely, crotchety "welcome home". As he disappeared behind into the dark apartment, he locked the door to undetected familiar eyes that had been watching from the street below.
AN: As if that wasn't cheesy or anything…Anyways! I'm a little new to the Naruto section of , so I mind as well introduce myself. I'm RevengefulAddict, also known as Lightingstar-Icy, or just plain Icy.
I was a kinda inspired by Godofcontradiction's story, "This Way to the Stars" (very very good, by the way). I liked the whole AU, school theme and especially how he/she portrays Naruto as someone who is cheery for everyone, but uses that to hide the pain inside.
The whole assignment thing, however, was pretty random. I can't quite remember where it came from, it just popped in my head. I apologize that this chapter is quite short—it's about half of what I usually write for a chapter, but for an introduction, I felt it was appropriate to do it this way.
But anyways, I'll stop rambling and ask you kindly for your reviews n.n