SUMMARY
First day of school after the summer break and Kakashi is not feeling too enthusiastic about his job. That, and Sai is a world class prick. As usual.
The crowd was wild with chants of 'Naruto!' 'Naruto!' 'Naruto!' as the famous blond stepped on stage. He grinned as his fans' screams reached his ears. 'I love you Naruto!' 'I want to have your babies!' 'You're so hot, Naruto!'
"Wow." The MC who strangely looked a lot like Kakashi-sensei, breathed into his microphone. "Look at how crazy he's making the girls! Ladies and gentlemen, this is Uzumaki Naruto and he would be singing to win the grand prize which is a lifetime supply of ramen and free coupons to ramen shops all around the Fire Nation!"
Naruto was certainly psyched! A lifetime supply of ramen?! There was no way he could ever refuse to enter when he saw the grand prize of the competition. He had come a long way, defeating Sasuke and Gaara until he reached the final stage where he had to battle Choji with his voice for the ramen.
There was no way chubs was winning this though, even if he was his greatest rival in this competition. I mean, look at the crowd! They loved NARUTO!
"He would be singing Leopard Eyes by TRIGGER for us. Oooh, that's a pretty captivating song. Let's hear how he capture our hearts again tonight. Give it up for Uzumaki Naruto!"
The beat started and Naruto danced, making girls swoon and boys jealous. Look at his godlike body...so hot! And then he started to sing. "BEEEP!"
The crowd went silent then broke into murmurs. Naruto was miffed. That wasn't his voice dattebayo! He cleared his throat to sing again but the only thing he could get out was:
"BEEP! BEEP! BEEEEEEP!"
"Ahre?! What's going on?" The Kakashi lookalike MC asked in puzzlement. "Has Naruto-kun lost his voice?! Impossible. This means that the grand prize would automatically belongs to Choji-kun!"
"No! I can sing dattebayo, see?" Naruto panicked. "BEEEEEEPPPP! No that's not what I meant to sing, I meant BEEEEEEPPP! WHAT IS GOING ON?!" He screamed in frustration. Every time he tried to sing only that stupid beeping nonsense came out! This was a disaster!
"What a let down. To think the amazing Naruto-kun lost his voice and a chance of winning ramen." Kakashi wannabe was saying.
"Boo! Booooo! Boooooo!" The crowd was booing.
"Muah ha ha ha! The ramen is mine!" Choji was laughing in an evilly triumphant way.
"Noooooooooo!" Naruto was screaming in despair as the world collapsed around him.
"Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh!" Naruto sprang up from underneath his covers, picked up the source of the beeping noise from his bedstand and threw his alarm clock against the wall. The poor thing broke immediately. Wait a minute, he didn't even set the alarm! Who did? Oh right.
"IRUKA-SENSEI! I WAS HAVING A GOOD DREAM DATTEBAYO!"
Iruka, already used to Naruto's childish whines, just poked his head into the room with a smile way too bright for seven o'clock in the morning. "Good morning to you too sunshine, now get ready for school."
"School?" It took a while for Naruto to process the information but when he did, he picked up his phone and took a commemorative selfie. It was a new school year and needless to say, he was hyped which was weird coming from him of all people but there was a reason for it.
He spent the rest of his summer holiday cooped up at Iruka's place after his press conference to avoid the media and for safety purposes so he was bored out of his mind. The only good thing about his lockdown was his sudden growth spurt. He didn't notice it until Iruka pointed it out but get this– he was growing a beard!
It is literally one blond hair sticking out of his chin like a sore thumb and it was mostly invisible because of the light colour but who cares?! It was a beard! Not to mention his new height– he gained a few inches over the holiday so he wasn't one of the shortest in the class anymore! (sorry Gaara, he outgrew you).
He was also following this workout routine that built up his abs so yeah, the age had come when he would strip off his shirt at any given opportunity. The only problem was that he didn't have as many followers on Instagram as his narcissistic self wished. He just created an account recently though, so it was okay.
The_ramen_way .
(Insert a picture of Naruto with a bed head)
Liked by you and HH_whiskers
Good morning! It's a new school year and I'm excited! There's also this nervousness beneath all that but I hope this school year would be fun!
Just a few moments later, a notification text arrived at his phone and Naruto couldn't help his smile. It was from his first follower ever. They were always the first to like his pictures but this was the first time they were commenting on it.
HH _Whiskers:
Your bed hair is so cute! Good luck with your school. I hope you have lots of fun!
"Hehehe." Naruto giggled as he liked and replied the comment. He didn't know who HH_whiskers was but they were his biggest fan, that was something consistent about them. Naruto already liked this online friend.
The_ramen_way liked your comment.
The_ramen_way replied your comment.
Hinata clicked on the notification with a bated breath. She woke very early that morning to take a sneak peek at her Instagram, something she had been doing a lot ever since she discovered that Naruto was on Instagram, and was very delighted to see that he had posted a picture.
The picture immediately went to her gallery and made her wallpaper. It was so cute! Hinata wasn't usually this active on IG after she created an account (courtesy of Ino and Karin's pushy influences) but when Naruto joined during the summer, she dedicated herself to always being the first to like his pictures.
She didn't think Naruto knew she was the one but it was good that way. She could get over her shyness and speak to him like this. If she actually had the courage to DM him that is. Hinata didn't know why she even commented but she didn't regret it. Naruto replied her!
The_ramen_way:
You finally commented! You're awesome dattebayo!
A hole burnt through Hinata's covers due to the intense heat radiating from her face. Naruto. Replied. Her. Not to mention that he was apparently keeping tabs on her! Yiiiii! 'Naruto-kun thinks I'm awesome.' She gushed as she prepared for school.
Nothing could ruin her mood that morning, not Hanabi's taunts and pleas to know why she was smiling, not the suspicious looks Neji kept shooting her, not even her father's day by day cranky lecture. She was on cloud nine!
Shikamaru and Choji were the first set of classmates Naruto saw when he arrived at school that morning. The blond yelled their names and ran over to them when they paused walking to regard him. Choji, as usual, was holding a bag of consommé flavoured potato chips and Shikamaru's hands lied lazily in his pockets.
The lazy teen had placed first in the singing sector of the ST which was expected but still made Naruto sort of envious. He placed third after Sasuke and Kidomaru from Sound High but Naruto swore to take the grand gold during the Winter Finals.
"What a drag." Shikamaru drawled lazily. It was obvious that he would rather be in bed than in this godforsaken school but then his momma would skewer him and donate his body parts to hospitalized recipients on the list.
"You've gotten taller." Choji meant that as a simple observation but he just served to stoke Naruto's ego. The blond preened and puffed up like a peacock but a loud yell interjected him before he could brag about it.
"Oi Naruto!"
It was Kiba and Akamaru who was trailing beside the dog lover as usual in his service jacket which was strange because Akamaru didn't often wear his service jacket. Perhaps something was wrong with Kiba? Nobody knew why he had a service dog in the first instance and everybody just assumed Kiba lied about Akamaru being a service dog to keep his pet around.
Kiba gave his sharp toothed smile as he waved and ran towards the blond. Who would believe that they were enemies when they first met? "Kiba!" Naruto yelled back with a hearty wave.
"You guys are too energetic for an early Monday morning." Shikamaru groaned at their loudness and resumed his journey to the second year block.
Naruto had noticed it when they last met but Kiba had started growing a goatee. His hair was also a tad longer than it was before, like he was growing it out. It was weird seeing him look so mature and act stupid at the same time but who was he to talk?
Engrossed in a half hearted group discussion, the boys didn't realise that somebody was waiting at the entrance of the block for them until he spoke.
"The old sayings are never wrong. Birds of a feather flock together."
The voice belonged to a very pale boy with dark hair and eyes. He stood taller than all of them but not enough to tower above them like a giant. Nevertheless, his presence caused the boys to frown.
"Who the hell are you?" Naruto forwarded and Shikamaru sighed. He was planning to ignore the pale boy until Naruto talked.
"Just observing." The boy gave a close eyed smile that made Naruto tremble for a reason. If fake was a thing, then it was this boy's smile dripping with saccharine sweetness. "I'm just observing how a bunch of losers interact. I have to say that's it's not educative at all."
Kiba bristled at the insult and Akamaru growled in response with his master's foul mood. If the pale boy noticed Akamaru's imposing presence, he either didn't care about it or didn't fear the dog because he only continued throwing creative insults, much so that even Choji got angry.
Naruto was already on his last thread of patience and was about to strike a blow at the pale jerk. Fortunately before he could act on his explosive anger, Sasuke arrived behind the lot with his dark commanding aura and diffused the bad air.
"Get out of my way, idiots."
"If it isn't Uchiha Sasuke." The pale boy smirked and Sasuke must've been creeped out by their stark resemblance because he stiffened when he saw him. The Uchiha soon got over his surprise though and leveled the pale boy with a glare.
"Hn. Got a problem with that?" He demanded. There was silence between them for a brief moment before,
"Nothing." And the pale boy turned around and left.
"What is his problem? He made me angry." Choji commented.
"If he made you angry Choji, then Naruto must be super annoyed. Just forget about him buddy." Shikamaru patted his friend's shoulder and led him to their new class.
"I'm off to the pet centre, see you in class later!" Kiba went to drop Akamaru off, leaving Sasuke alone with Naruto.
"Hn, usuratonkachi."
"Che." Naruto clicked his tongue at Sasuke's bad attempt at cheering him up. He was bad at it but it still worked because Naruto was back to his loud, cheerful self.
They had to migrate to the assembly hall for the new students' orientation service and general announcements. Principal Tsunade had a grand announcement to make but for some reason it seemed like everyone knew about it. Everybody other than Naruto that is.
"What on earth is going on?" He had to ask the closest person to him which happened to be Hinata. The ravenette stiffened and began to turn dark red. She always did for some reason around him. Was his face scary to her? He guessed his birthmarks made him look scary because he had been told once or twice.
"U-uhm...I-I guess it's because of the launching of t-the new boarding school...uhhhh...sorry I gotta go!" Hinata stumbled upon her words and ultimately ran away before she could embarrass herself by passing out in front of Naruto. Today was her lucky day! Naruto actually talked to her twice in a day!!!
Naruto on the other hand was oblivious to the real reason Hinata ran away and scratched the back of his head in confusion. She kept doing that around him– turning red, stuttering and eventually running away or passing out. Was she that scared of him? Was she sick?
"She's so weird." Naruto concluded.
All the students of Konoha School of Arts were assembled in the meeting hall for another yearly orientation service. It was just a repeat of the school's rules and regulations so Naruto wasn't listening until during the last minutes of Tsunade's speech.
"I am glad to announce that the newly renovated dormitory has been reopened..."
"Wait. KSA has a dorm?!" Naruto gasped in surprise. Sure he heard about something like that from Hinata but he thought that they just built the dorms. He didn't think that KSA had dorms before. How come he had never seen it before?
"Of course it does, idiot! Why else do you think students who come from other towns like Karin-chan can enroll here?" Sakura scolded Naruto for his poor perception skills. She was seated next to him simply because Sasuke was sitting next to the blond.
When they moved into the hall Sasuke had chosen the end seat as quick as possible in order to evade his three biggest fan girls, Sakura, Ino and Karin, and ducked his head as if doing that would somehow make him disappear.
Unfortunately for him though, Naruto found him and the exuberant one decided immediately to sit next to him. Automatically because of the dumbass he called his best friend, Sakura and Ino eventually found him and sat with them.
Sasuke was very surprised when Karin just waved at Ino and Sakura and went to sit beside Juugo and Suigestsu. Normally Karin would have wanted to sit next to him and tried her hardest to get her cousin (Naruto) to move. Then a fight would break among the three with Sasuke being on the unfortunate receiving end.
To everybody else his surprise was just his plain scowly face but along with it came a slight relief. Whatever possessed Karin to ignore him, he hoped it never left her again.
"That's right Naru-chan." Haku butted into the conversation from where he was seated behind them. "People like me, Gaara-chan, Juu-chan et al the people that come from neighbouring towns used to stay at KSA boarding school before it went under construction. During that period we stayed with a teacher. Now that the dormitory has been renovated, we can move back in! Yay!"
Haku always talked in this cheery sort of way that made the other person he was talking to feel like a kid but it did the trick for Naruto's confusion.
"Oh." The blond said. "Why did it go under construction though?"
"There was a really big fire. It was all over the news, didn't you see it?" Ino replied.
"Isn't it obvious?" Naruto pegged her with a dry look.
"There was a fire but thankfully there were no casualties and now the dorm's been rebuilt! Everyone's happy!" Haku said cheerfully. "I hope my room's window faces the garden..." He sighed wistfully.
"Now that things have been explained to the dobe, can you all keep quiet? I'm trying to listen here." Sasuke scolded the lot of them.
"Sorry Sasuke-kun." Sakura apologized first and then kept quiet to get on her crush's good graces.
"Sorry." Ino also apologized.
"Don't be a spoil sport, Sasu-chan." Haku grumbled but kept quiet otherwise.
"Hmph, teme." Naruto huffed at the raven's prissy-ness and tried to focus on what Tsunade was still saying but it was not possible anymore. He had been distracted and now it was difficult to get his attention back on point.
Fortunately for him he didn't need to try regaining his attention for too long because the newcomers orientation service was already over. They all moved to their new classes in waiting for their new homeroom teachers.
It felt pretty nostalgic to see one another again after a while even though it was just a short one. In that short while everybody had changed a bit from how they were before.
Ten minutes had passed since the beginning of the first period but their new homeroom teacher was nowhere to be found. Everyone had a pretty good guess who their teacher was already but when twenty solid minutes passed and no class teacher, they became very sure who it was.
"I have a pretty good idea who our new class teacher is..." Karui broke the relative silence of the class with the obvious observation.
"Don't we all?" Tenten chuckled.
A sly grin began to form on Naruto's face. Kiba immediately recognised the smile. "I know that smile. You have a prank brewing in your head." The brunette said knowingly.
"That, I do. Hee hee hee!" The cheeky blond got up and picked up the board duster. It was an old prank but it would be such gold watching their teacher's reaction when he opens the door and the duster falls on his head. With an impish gaggle, Naruto wedged the board duster in between the door and the wall and returned to his seat with high expectations.
"You're such a kid." Shikamaru groused but he was actually sort of curious how their homeroom teacher would take the prank.
"He's right. You should put something bigger than a board duster that would actually give him a bump." Kiba opinionated which earned him a couple of eye rolls.
"Then it won't stay wedged idiot, it would just keep falling because it is too heavy." Tamaki debunked him. Kiba wanted to argue but thinking about it, what she said was right so he kept mute. That and there was somebody at the door.
Three minutes later their unsuspecting teacher walked into the classroom only for him to be hit on the head by the falling board duster. There was a moment of silence until Naruto burst out laughing at the teacher's wide eyed reaction. Then everybody followed because Naruto's laughter was the most contagious thing ever.
"You should have seen your face Kakashi-sensei, you looked like a horse that had its nuts kicked!"
The comment only made all of them laugh harder. Kakashi silently walked into the classroom and placed his teaching material and icha icha paradise book on the teacher's desk. That was when they all stopped laughing, when they noticed that he didn't take too well with their prank.
"Hmm, my first impression of this class is...I hate you all." Kakashi sighed. Naruto even got the ever zealous Lee into his prank for crying out loud! He was expecting worse to come. However despite having said that he didn't actually hate them.
He simply could not understand the reason Tsunade chose him to be the recuperative class teacher. He was lazy, offstandish, couldn't dumb his words down enough for normal kids to understand, much less recuperative class kids, and most of all he could absolutely not handle a bunch of hyperactive kids.
At least when he taught dance he could do the above but that was dance and dance was practical. Would they even listen to him when he talked beyond dance? They were already pranking him from the get go after all— that only proved his fears correct.
He wasn't like smiley Iruka whom everybody liked or energetic Maito Gai whom the students always wanted to listen to. He was not like Anko or Ibiki whose presence alone demanded that the students obey them or the lovely Kurenai whom everyone wanted to emulate.
Neither did they respect him like they did Asuma or like the way he explained things like they did Yamato and Genma. Even Jiraiya-san had more presence than he did and the man just arrived. They even listened to Orochimaru despite how creepy he acted and looked like.
The students always did their own thing whenever Kakashi taught even dance, as if what he said passed briefly through their heads and exited through their ears. Kakashi wasn't like all those teachers, he was just himself and being himself was not good enough to be able handle these kids.
The silver haired man sighed, broke away from his self deprecating thoughts and started the class. "Good morning everyone, it's quite nice to see you all in another grade. I might've forgotten who is who over the holiday so I'd like you to reintroduce yourselves. Tell us your name, hobby, likes, dislikes and what you do.
I'd go first. Mah, my name is Hatake Kakashi, your class teacher for the year. My hobbies are... I'm a dancer... I don't really like anything but I don't hate everything either. That's all about me."
"So we only got your name and what you do."
Somebody said from the back. Who it was, he did not know but he didn't want to bother to find out. Instead he beckoned on the first person to come out and reintroduce themselves.
He just brought up the idea to while time away because he didn't really have anything else to say. It turned out a good one though because it got the class going and he got to hear how much change they had undergone from their freshman year till now.
Kakashi would never come to believe that he would be a class teacher like Iruka was but he had no choice in the matter. Tsunade made him a class teacher and he had to do it. He was not going to lie to himself; this was the biggest challenge he would ever face and he wasn't sure how well he would do.
There are some teachers who are offstandish and what students would call weird. There are some teachers that students just never take seriously. There are teachers who don't even want to be teachers but situation called for it and they get frustrated. There are students who always bother teachers. And there are teachers with insecurities like Kakashi's.
Not only students face problems. Teachers, true teachers that is, have to come up with ways to ensure that all of the class is carried along when they teach. They prepare notes and speeches, try their hardest to explain and go through the stress of talking on repeat everyday.
Yet there are always issues. There's always a student at the back who doesn't think school's important, there's always a student who interrupts the class with "funny" remarks, there are students who just don't listen because they can, students with mental issues, students with slower learning capabilities, students that are just plain rude,
students that want to listen but can't because of their classmates, noisy students, pushy nerds that correct fault the teachers for every spotted mistake, students with bad behaviour that get away with it because their equally bad behaviour-ed parents come to yell at teachers for correcting them,
rich students that think they rule the school, bullies, the bullied, that hippie kid that always blows gum in class and puts their legs on the table, the "cool" guy that gives "roasting" remarks to teachers, the list goes on and on for ages.
Teachers actually go through a lot more than meets the eye. They suffer from depression too and their income is always mostly never enough. They deserve more respect than the hellish experience some students put them through.
Not all teachers can be Koro-sensei, they aren't super human. So students reading this book, if your conscience calls out to you please stop making it hard for teachers. I work as a sub when I am on holiday breaks so I know what it's like to be a teacher. It's not about the subject we teach but the kind of students we teach.
Of course we should understand where students come from but that understanding has to go two ways for it to really work. That's all life's always about– give and take. So once again if your conscience calls out to you please stop making it hard for teachers to teach.
Let that understanding go two ways. Let teachers understand you and you try to understand them, okay? I know you can do it.
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See you in the next chapter.
-Star.