(A warm Monday morning at the academy.)

"I need to go wipe my asshole. I've been farting so much I think I shit my pants."

(Nine-thirty. Outside - chirping birds and an ocean of rustling leaves. Spring in all its glory beaming down through curling white clouds)

Iruka said "This is why I don't answer your questions anymore."

"And that is why you fail. Me. In class. Like, my grades. Do you get it?"

"Sit down."

"What part of 'I shit my pants' do you not understand? You're playing with fire, Iruka-sanchẽ. The most dangerous kind of fire – butt fire."

Iruka did that thing where he pictured a paycheck in his hand like that somehow made everything worthwhile. "Fine. Ok. Go."

Naruto exhaled explosively. "Finally! Geeze, you have to count your vaginas? Wait, guys. Guys look at me." No one looked at him. Iruka actively avoided eye contact. "Seriously, guys? Don't touch my box." Naruto gestured to the brown packing box on his desk. On its side 'danger?' was scribbled out in red crayon, along with, simply, 'NO.' "Don't. Okay? I'm serious. No one touch my box."

"No one wants to touch your shitty box" Sasuke snapped, "Now go. Forever."

"Climb up your own asshole Sasuke." With that parting morsel of wit Naruto billowed out, and it was as if he cast a sea-witch spell as he left, because as the door swung shut not even Iruka made a sound, instead everyone tossed looks, sharing shrugs or meaningful eyebrow-raises with whoever's eyes they met.

Kiba was the first to speak. "So we're gonna touch his box right?"

"Not inside here you're not." Iruka returned. "We can only replace these desks so many times until they break out shipping crates for chairs and burnt logs for pencils."

"That literally sounds amazing. Like an awesome campfire adventure."

Sasuke added in a quick "Kiba stop talking."

Kiba returned "you'd be the uncle that gets drunk and shouts at deer. Would you like that? Would you like to shout at some deer?"

Sasuke shot him a nasty look. "Don't tempt me." Amidst their turmoil Shikamaru lowered his head to his desk and Ino raised her hand.

"I'm putting it to vote" she said, and then again when no one paid her attention. "Guys?"

"Picking up where we left off-" began Iruka loudly, trying and failing to wrest attention to the front of the class with volume alone. He figured maybe if he kept talking loudly things would work themselves out, but instead what happened was his students kept tossing surreptitious glances at Naruto's mystery-box and also Iruka gave his loudest lecture to-date.

Naruto phased through the door and returned to his seat, announcing loudly and in direct competition with Iruka, "False alarm guys! Anyways last night I farted so hard I ripped my asshole, but I still had to fart so every time I farted a cloud of blood shot out my ass. Started a business painting houses – made a cool ten mil. Now I know what you're thinking, 'Naruto, who would let you paint their house like that?' Nobody that's who - did it pro-bono, I networked, that's how you make money, people, you get your brand out there, you let them come to you."

"This is called a variable!" Iruka borderline-shouted. "It-"

"I need to poop!" without pause or consent Naruto drunkenly levitated out of the room.

Kiba stood. "I'm opening it. There could be literally anything in there. Literally."

"Or scorpions." Sasuke snapped. "Maybe it's full of fucking scorpions."

Smoke billowed in through the vents, coalescing in the center of the room, and Naruto's visage appeared there in the cloud. It spoke in a great booming voice: "Guys are you touching my box? Don't touch my box."

Kiba said "Okay."

"Okay." The cloud sucked back into the vent.

"So anyways back to opening that box aaaaand it's full of scorpions."

The maw of the universe split open, the distance between the bathroom and Naruto's desk shrinking to zero, and this was the distance that Naruto traversed – approaching infinite speed and tripping over a desk in the process, reducing it to its constituent atoms and potentially blinding Shikamaru. "The fuck man?!"

"Why do you have a box of scorpions Naruto."

"I was gonna start a fucking bracelet business you jackass. I was training them to like, hold onto your wrist so you'd walk around with a fucking scorpion on your wrist like a total badass – the test groups really liked them but then the neurotoxin kicked in and long story short I'm throwing that box into the river."

"I accept that explanation." Kiba closed the box. "Also you're really gross today."

"Fuck you."

END

an: read between the lines and you may notice a carefully hidden subplot about a mystery-box. Where the fuck is my Emmy.