Chapter One
. . .
'It's a cold walk this morning' Naruto thought as he trudged to school. He nestled into his orange scarf and continued down the sidewalk. 'Finally' he thought as the school came into view.
There was a hoard of girls clustered around something or someone⦠"Sasuke" Naruto said as if cursing under his breath. His number one rival. He burrowed further into his scarf hoping to be invisible as he walked past the hoard. He was. He always was. No matter what he did he was always invisible to everyone except a few teachers.
He walked to his first class early so that he could sit and rest as heat returned to his body. "Good morning, Naruto," Iruka-sensei said as he placed his books and teaching materials on his desk.
"Good morning, Iruka-sensei," Naruto said with his usual smile. Today Iruka could sense that something was not quite right with Naruto.
"Is everything okay?" Iruka asked knowing he would not get a truthful response.
"Everything is great!" Naruto said with a thumbs up and a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Good to hear," Iruka said with his usual smile, "as long as you know you can talk to me."
"Thank you, Iruka-sensei," Naruto said bowing his head.
The rest of the class started to file in. There was a pause after the last person walked in and then a cluster of girls who were squealing got stuck in the frame of the door.
'Sasukeā¦' Naruto thought, 'you are not as cool as you think you are.' Naruto scoffed as he watched Sasuke sit down. He acted completely oblivious to the girls who were fighting amongst themselves to sit next to him. Naruto's head quickly snapped to the front of the room as Sasuke's eyes scanned the room and met his. Naruto could feel his face flush from the embarrassment of being caught looking. 'Damn Sasuke.'
As the class began, Naruto settled in for what he knew would be a long hour of English.
. . .
"Lunch time!" Naruto said quietly seconds before the bell rang for lunch.
"Hold on, just one more minute..."Kakashi-sensei said as everyone was mid-stand. "I have posted the list of lab partners near the exit so please have a look as you're leaving. We will meet in the lab tomorrow."
'Which Sasuke fan girl will I be stuck with this time?' As if I frog dissection wasn't bad enough... he would have to do it himself. Same as always.
Looking at the list as he walked up to it, he easily found his name near the bottom:
Uzumaki, Naruto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Uchiha, Sasuke
'WHAT?! This isn't happening. No. Please. No.' "Kakashi-sensei..." Naruto said walking over, "Please switch my lab partner."
"There are many people who want to partner with Sasuke, I thought you would be pleased. He is top of the class and the help couldn't hurt." Kakashi said scratching the back of his head as he did when he was uncomfortable.
"I can't work with him. This is crazy. If I can find someone to switch with me would you accept that?"
"No. You won't always like who you work with. While unpleasant, it is a valuable skill." Kakashi said sighing and turning away. At this point, Naruto was resigned to his assigned partner. "Oh... and if you don't show up for class tomorrow I won't be able to give you a passing grade in my class," he added.
"Understood, Sensei," Naruto said numbly and turned around to see the back of Sasuke's head apparently reading the list of partners. Which was completely unnecessary as he had obviously just heard the whole conversation. 'Damn it,' Naruto thought, 'I don't need another reason to be hated.' Sasuke looked so tense, Naruto could barely breathe as the waves of hatred coming off Sasuke were tangible in the air.
"Don't worry," Sasuke said in an icy voice while he turned around and met Naruto's eyes, "I won't make this any harder than it has to be."
Naruto broke the eye contact with Sasuke and walked out of the room. Naruto could've sworn that he saw pain in Sasuke's eyes for just a moment before it turned to anger. With a determined expression set on his face, he continued to march past the wall of girls that had accumulated outside of the classroom and were chattering excitedly among themselves. His head held high as he walked straight out of the building to his usual lunch spot.
. . .
