"Very well," the teacher said to Kakashi after a long moment of indecisiveness. "You may take my students one at a time, but please try not to interrupt my class while you're at it. I do have to teach the students that are still here."
"I have no intention of interrupting your class any more than necessary," Kakashi replied with a calming smile that could barely be seen through his medical mask, "and I will make sure to try to take only the students that I need to speak with." Then he turned to the students and, with the same smile, he said, "Now I would like to speak to whoever knew Naruto the best first."
No one even moved to stand up. They all just stared at each other and whispered amongst one another. Kakashi could barely hear what they were saying, but some of it he knew was echoed in his own thoughts. Did Naruto even have friends? Everywhere that he went Naruto seemed to be shunned and he had done not once seen anyone really claim to be one of Naruto's friends. Some people had tried in one of the previous schools in a hope to get more attention from their peers, but then a quick questioning of them told him that they didn't really know Naruto at all. Pretty much the only things that they said were based on the random facts that kids make up so that they can make fun of the random kid that they have all chosen to make fun of.
Finally, after the students had fallen silent while waiting and hoping for someone to claim a friendship with Naruto, a student that none of them expected stood from his seat. It was Sasuke Uchiha, their star football player. None of them had ever seen him go anywhere near Naruto and they were all shocked when he stood up as the person who knew the most about him.
"You barely even talked to him," one of them pointed accusingly at him. How dare he think that he can get all the credit for being the one good guy in all of the school?
Sasuke's only response was to glare at the idiot who dared to accuse him of anything before walking out of the classroom with Kakashi on his heals. Neither of them spoke until Sasuke took them outside to the tree that Naruto had tried to commit suicide under. There was still blood staining the grass and Sasuke had to look away from it before he threw up just like he did after Naruto had been wheeled away from him.
"So you knew Naruto?" Kakashi asked in the hopes of actually starting a conversation. Sasuke had always been a rather quiet child when he was younger as a result of his father's cruel treatment of him and Kakashi didn't know if that had changed at all. The only thing that he had really found out on his random Internet searches of the boy was that he was the school's star football player and got the best scores in his class, but that he was rather reclusive even while he played with a team.
"Don't speak about him in the past tense," Sasuke growled. "He's not dead."
"Of course," Kakashi nodded. He hadn't even realized that he was speaking of Naruto in the past tense. It had only become a habit because he was so used to interviewing people about the boy after he had already left with no intention of coming back. There was still a possibility that he might be able to return to this school and Kakashi hoped, for both Naruto's and Sasuke's sake, that he would be able to make this happen.
"I don't actually know him that well," Sasuke admitted after a moment of awkward silence. "We never really talked actually, but he was always hurt and I wondered."
"You noticed that he was being abused," Kakashi's eyes widened as he realized this. Of course someone who had already been abused would see the signs of another being abused, but then that same person would have the same fears of reporting it. It must have been so painful for Sasuke to be stuck in that position.
Sasuke punched the tree in a sudden bout of anger against himself, but then he softened and allowed his hand to press against the tree so that it would help him stand upright. "Not at first," Sasuke shook his head. "I thought that he really was just getting into fight like he said he was. He always had the best stories about how he had fought off random muggers and saved the damsels in distress, he could always account for all of his wounds, but then I noticed that he gave up on telling the stories because nobody ever listened to him. He still said that he got into a fight, but it always seemed like it was just one of those excuses. That's when I realized what was really going on."
"What happened Sasuke?" Kakashi pressed. He didn't want to put this boy through more than he had already been through, but he knew that Sasuke was probably the only one who would be able to put himself into Naruto's shoes and figure out what had been going on.
"It seemed to get worse as time went on," Sasuke continued. "Not only his wounds, but also himself. Naruto has bad days, I noticed. Every now and again he has these really bad days where he's just depressed all the time. It usually doesn't last longer than a day and it came on so rarely that I tried to ignore it, but it's been getting worse. They've been coming more recently and they've been staying longer. And the people who made fun of him at this school weren't helping anything. I didn't know what to do. I tried to get them to stop making fun of him and hurting him, but they never listened to me and I was afraid of telling the authorities."
"It's alright Sasuke," Kakashi put his hand on Sasuke's shoulder and allowed the boy to cry tears that they would both deny in the future into his shirt. "At least you tried to help him. You've done more for him than anyone else has in years."
"I should have at least called you," Sasuke shook his head.
"Don't worry about it," Kakashi said. "I'm here now and maybe together we can save Naruto from his brother."
"It's too late now," Sasuke mumbled. "Naruto tried to kill himself."
"It's not too late," Kakashi denied. "It's never too late. We just have to try our best to save him. Can you help me with that?"
Sasuke nodded. No matter what, he wanted to be able to save Naruto. Even if it meant enduring the wrath of his father once again, he wanted to save Naruto. He wasn't going to be afraid anymore. He had to be strong for Naruto. He could do that.