Naruto woke up to the sound of howling. Blinking his eyes open, he turned his head slightly to see his froggie clock.
6:34 AM
He heard another howl. See, after a while of Naruto always waking up late and being tardy, Kyuubi had it would be a great idea for him to help out. And so started his tradition of howling every morning at a deafening volume until Naruto got his ass out of bed.
WAIT. Do foxes even howl? Maybe it's because he's a demon fox with nine tails...? Oh well. Not important.
Naruto was startled out of his thoughts by another howl.
"Alright, alright, I hear you!"
"Then get up."
"Do I have to?" Naruto whined, while attempting puppy eyes on the beast that leveled Konoha. As if that would actually do anything.
"Yes."
"Why? Can't I just skip one day?"
"No."
"Why the hell not?"
"Because, Kit, today is the day you take the graduation exam."
"Oh."
That's right, today was the day. After years of suffering through boring lectures, and only managing to survive by pulling pranks and training with Kyuubi in his mind, Naruto would finally be free. Of course he'd still have to go on those stupid D-rank missions, and maybe some C-rank ones, but at least he'd be doing SOMETHING.
"Kit, you're spacing out."
"Right, right. Thanks, Kyuu."
Naruto pulled (more like dragged, actually) himself out of bed and went into the bathroom to take get ready. He undressed, carefully avoiding jostling a particularly bad injury that still had yet to heal, and climbed into the shower to rinse off. At this point he didn't have time for a full shower, so he just rinsed off whilst brushing his teeth so as to save time. While he was drying off, he paused upon catching his reflection in the mirror. Sometimes it was so easy to forget how many scars covered his body when he covered them up all the time.
The most noticeable was easily his right arm, which had been partially blown off in the explosion that had nearly taken his life all those years ago. That had been when he had first met Kyuu—he'd had no idea that when Kyuu said he was healing him that included quite literally regrowing his right arm from the bicep down. While his arm was back and good as new, there was still visible scarring where it had been blown off, and if you were to compare the skin from one arm to the other, you'd notice a pretty obvious difference in tone.
"Kit... You're spacing out again."
"Heh, sorry about that. Just really distracted today..."
Leaving the bathroom he grabbed an orange jumpsuit and a mesh shirt from his closet and quickly dressed.
"You're still wearing that?"
"Hm? Ah, yeah. Just one more day, I'll stop wearing it once I'm a genin."
"Y'know, I still don't get the point. Why do you wear that piece of crap again?"
"Because I like the color orange. It reminds me of you."
Kyuu choked from where he lay on Naruto's couch. "Ch-che."
Naruto smiled. "Also...because it annoys the hell out of people."
"Hmpth, that makes more sense."
"An eyesore, they call it."
Kyuubi stared. "You couldn't get it in your actual size?"
Naruto paused putting his shoes on and glanced at Kyuu, then back down at what he was wearing. "I've told you this, Kyuu-nii. If I wore anything too formfitting people might get suspicious. Now that I have a job as an ANBU I'm well-fed and have muscle definition, but before that I was malnourished and skinny as a twig. If anyone noticed that I'm not anymore, they might get suspicious, hence the over-sized clothing to make me look more like the twig I used to be."
"Hmpth. Whatever."
Naruto sighed and went back to putting on his sandals. He glanced at his goggles before deciding to forgo them them—it's not like he was going to be able to wear them anymore anyway, now that he was getting his official hitai-ate (while he has been at jonin level for a while now, officially he has only been an academy student and an ANBU, and ANBU don't wear forehead protectors, so he's never had one before).
Going through his usual routine, he grabbed everything he's need to defend himself in a bind—scrolls for kunai, shuriken, protein bars, and various medical supplies such as ointments and bandages, a fake summoning scroll for Kyuu, a real summoning scroll for the fox contract (which he had thanks to Kyuubi), one more scroll to store his ANBU uniform in case of an emergency (it's happened before), and finally his wallet and house keys.
Locking the door and dispelling Kyuu's clone, he began making his way to school via the rooftops.
When he finally got there, he was surprised to see that the classroom was still mostly empty. Now, don't get him wrong—it certainly wasn't uncommon for it to be this deserted this early in the morning, but this wasn't just any old school—it's the day of the graduation exam. He didn't dwell on it long though—they had probably just stayed up late cramming and overslept.
Looking around, he checked to see who was actually here and saw only about five people that he had more than a passing acquaintance with. First was Sasuke I'm-so-cool Uchiha brooding in the corner, perfectly on time as always. Next was Kiba, on the other side of the room, entertaining himself by letting his partner Akamaru chase Shino's bugs around, Shino having taken the seat next to him. Then there was Shikamaru and Chouji, together as usual; Shikamaru was sleeping, of course, while Chouji was eating chips, of course—
...flavored grape. What. The. Fuck. Okay, not that he was really one to talk, especially considering his daily diet essentially consisted of ramen, ramen, Ichiraku's ramen, and more ramen, but. But. There was a line. And grape? Grape? Grape was fucking crossing that line. Grape. Flavored. Chips. Yeah, no. Sorry, Chouji, but that just sounded outright disgusting.
"Deep breathes, kit."
Taking a deep breath, Naruto turned away from that monstrosity to examine the rest of the class and saw that there was no one else he really knew. Then, just as he was moving to take a seat next to the brooding avenger (because annoying Sasuke nobody-understands-my-pain Uchiha was honestly one of the highlights of his day), two pink and purple blurs barged through the doorway, only to get stuck partway through and start shoving each other back, each trying to get in before the other.
Naruto of course proceeded to completely ignore them and and continued sitting down. When he did so, he noticed the self-proclaimed avenger's eyebrow twitch the slightest amount, and he considered that a win. Making Sasuke break his stoic front even the slightest bit was always a victory in Naruto's opinion, as no one else seemed able to do it except him.
Of course, he didn't make it obvious what he was doing and instead just continued to smile his signature dopey smile as if he were none the wiser. He knew it annoyed the hell out of the Uchiha, especially when he thought Naruto wasn't doing it on purpose. It was nothing if not a major blow to his pride, and Naruto enjoyed every minute of it. Kyuu did, too, honestly. He also knew that the Uchiha wouldn't dare ask him to move or change seats, not when Naruto essentially served as a human-shield against those ravenous fangirls of his.
Suddenly he was pulled out of his thoughts by a pink, screaming banshee—oh, no, wait, that's Sakura. Oops, my bad...
"NARUTO! MOVE! I WANNA SIT NEXT TO MY SASUKE-KUN! MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!"
'What a bitch...' "Eh...h-hey, Sakura-cha—"
"MOVE IT!"
Then, without warning, Sakura tried to shove him out of the chair, and it was so sudden, and he was so out of it today, that he, on instinct, blocked her "attack" instead of just letting her hit him like he usually did. Mentally cursing, Naruto quickly tried to cover it up, but it was a little difficult considering just how tightly he was gripping her arm. Thankfully, he didn't have to do much.
Suprised at first, Sakura quickly let it go, completely dismissing the idea that might be anything other than a small fluke—I mean, come on, this is Naruto after all, the dead-last dobe. What else could it be other than a fluke?
Naruto quickly let go of her hand, and moving on with record speed, Sakura then proceeded to yell his name and slap Naruto across the head with her other hand before stomping away.
The rest of the day went by pretty quickly after that. Naruto passed the test, Mizuki got pissed and attacked him, Mizuki was arrested, Iruka bought Naruto eighteen bowls of ramen, he went shopping for some new clothes—nothing interesting.
The next day started much the same way—Naruto once again awoke to howling thanks to the ever-so-helpful Kyuubi no Kitsune, took a shower, brushed his teeth, and packed his supplies. The only difference is this time he finally decided to forgo the butt-ugly jumpsuit.
He'd stopped by a clothes store yesterday in disguise, and bought multiple pairs of the same outfit. Nothing special, it was essentially the standard shinobi uniform but in black, with the long-sleeved turtleneck to hide the worst of his scars (as well as his ANBU tattoo), the shinobi pants with the leg wrappings, and the standard open-toed sandals. The only difference was the lack of a chuunin jacket, but give it time.
The very last addition to his outfit was a orange-red scarf that Iruka-sensei had given him yesterday at Ichiraku Ramen as a gift to celebrate his graduation.
With his new outfit finally complete, Naruto grabbed his keys and wallet and was about to head out when he seemed to remember something. Turning back around, he dug through some of his drawers until he found his ANBU gloves and quickly added them to his outfit—the less of his arms showing, the better. And with that, he finally headed off.
(Sorry for the crappy art—it's been a while since I've drawn anything really and all I had with me were some yellow index cards, two orange pens, a red pen, a black pen, a pencil, and a yellow highlighter—but this is basically what his outfit looks like.)
When he finally got there he noticed that, unlike yesterday, just about everyone seemed to be here on time. Seeing this, he barely stopped himself from laughing out loud—the poor fools probably thought they had nothing to worry about, and had gotten a good night's sleep thinking that everything was going to go smoothly from here on out.
"Careful, your sadism is showing..."
'Hush, you.'
Taking his usual seat next to the Uchiha, Naruto patiently settled in to wait for the rest of the students to arrive, with Kyuu in his mind for company and entertainment while he waits.
...
...rumble...
...RUMBLE...
'The hell?'
Right now just about every person in the classroom (and within a fifty mile radius if we're being honest) were all wondering the same thing... 'Is that an earthquake?'
"I'M FIRST!" two voices yelled simultaneously.
'Oh, great..."
"Love the sarcasm, Kit."
'Shut up...'
Today Naruto let Sakura hit him and everything happened the way it was supposed to. Nobody ever directly questioned his outfit, but he caught people staring more times than he could count (even Sasuke raised a brow at it).
"Not bad for a kid."
'I don't know whether to be insulted or disturbed.'
"It was a compliment, gaki."
'...disturbed, definitely disturbed.'
"Che. Ungrateful brat."
Okay, so maybe the fox wasn't too far off. Compared to the other kids his age, Naruto honestly rivaled Sasuke in looks (when he wasn't dressed like a walking traffic cone). If he stopped acting like a doofus he'd probably get some fangirls of his own.
"Does this mean you're gunna stop acting like an idiot?"
'No.'
"Che."
'Bleh.'
"...did you just mentally stick your tongue at me?"
Naruto scoffed and turned away, blushing faintly. This earned him some strange looks from those who were still staring at him.
While the girls argued about who got to sit next to Sasuke (completely ignoring the fact that Naruto was already sitting there), Naruto climbed up onto Sasuke's desk, crouched in front of him, and stared. And stared. Ignoring Sakura and company's protests for him to "stop glaring at their precious Sasuke-kun," Naruto continued with his dead-stare, Sasuke glaring back with equal intensity—there was no way he was going to back down now, it's be a total loss to his pride to lose something as petty and childish as a staring contest with the dobe. So, he kept staring. And staring. And staring...suddenly, Naruto felt something knock into him from behind causing him to stumble and fall forward. He felt his lips connect with...something...and suddenly his eyes widened to saucers, as did Sasuke's.
He just kissed Sasuke Uchiha.
He just KISSED Sasuke Uchiha.
He could already feel the glares...
Holy FUCK.
He was so dead.
\(O/_\O)/
To be continued...
End of Chapter 2.
Ja ne!
\(O/_\O)/
EDITED AND REVISED AS OF 1/31/2018.