Iruka flipped open his roll book, rising from his desk. The chatter in the room died down immediately, and Iruka almost smiled. Today would be a good day with the class, then. Of course, this was just his homeroom, so it only made for twenty minutes at the start of the day. Still, they could be annoying as hell when they wanted to be, even with their limited time span. They were like his kids though, so he still loved them like his own.

"Shino?" A hand rose silently in the middle of the class, over by the window, its owner staring intently at the wasp buzzing just outside the glassy barrier. Shino Aburame was a strange one, Iruka would admit, but he was a good kid.

"Choji?" A muffled "here" was his response, emitted from the only slightly chubby boy in the front of the class. Husky would probably be the best word, since he'd lost most of his fat when he'd hit that last growth spurt. He was already shoving another handful of chips in his mouth. Not that that was a surprise. Choji Akimichi was always munching on something.

Sitting in front of him was their resident nice-girl, Sakura. "Sakura?" he called, but he was looking right out her. It was required that he went through the whole roll, so he did. He had, however, already marked her down as present before her crystal clear "here" or the hand raise caught his attention. She did, after all, stand out, having straight pink hair. She was a genuinely nice personality, always helpful, and always a hard worker. She did have a certain enmity towards one of his students, but he figured that that was just teenage rivalry.

"Hinata?" The pale-eyed girl gave a bit of a squeak in response, and went back to picking at her sweater. Hinata Hyuuga was probably the shiest person Iruka had ever met.

"Neji?" Another hand rose without a word, and if ever a hand raise could look self-assured, that one did. For two people with similar blood, the two were completely and utterly different. Co-captain of the Shogi club, Captain of three martial arts clubs, and second ranked on test scores in the class, the silver-eyed teen was well aware of the fact that he was impressive. He didn't flaunt it, to his credit…well, not too much anyway. He was mostly just quiet, and it seemed like the only one that ever had a surefire bet of bringing him out of his shell was their very own lazy genius.

Moving down the roll, Iruka looked up. "Kiba?"

"Here," the brown-haired kid said. Well, at least, Iruka thought he had brown hair. He couldn't really remember. He always had something over it, mostly his hood, and even if Iruka tried to make him take it off, he'd just put it right back on as soon as Iruka turned his back. That was sixteen year olds for you though. Stubborn and to a fault. Of course, Kiba was exceptionally so, but it was sometimes a good thing.

"Lee?"

A hand shot into the air, along with the rest of the teen. "I am here, Iruka-sensei!" the bushy-browed teen exclaimed, his abnormally circular eyes wide and earnest.

Iruka couldn't help but chuckle as he nodded. "Thank you, Lee," he said. It wasn't like that wasn't the same exact thing he got from Rock Lee every day of the week, but still, he didn't want to discourage him.

When he finally sat back down, Iruka shifted his attention to the next name in his roll book. This one happened to belong to a teen with considerably less drive to please. "Shikamaru?"

The spiky haired genius gave a light flick of two fingers, raised slightly in the air. It was as if raising his hand completely would expend too much energy. He was, indeed, the laziest person Shikamaru had ever met. Maybe even more than Kakashi-sensei, the school's freakishly intelligent, freakishly talented, freakishly attractive, freakishly well sculpted…

Stop, Iruka. No! Iruka scolded himself, shaking his head lightly. Back to roll call…

"Gaara?"

"Hn." Yeah, that was about par for the course as far as Gaara went. The child didn't just didn't speak, and when he did, it was usually something serious, cynical, or otherwise depressing. That is, unless a certain Rock Lee happened to be around. Then his face would suddenly turn about the shade of his crimson hair, and he'd manage to join the conversation with something at least a little more lighthearted.

"Tenten?" A girl with twin buns in her hair raised her hand, and then went back to twirling her pen in her fingers. Tenten was probably the school's biggest tomboy, and as captain of the Archery club, she was impressive in her own right. And, Iruka thought with a laugh, if you doubted that, you could always just ask the last child that was dumb enough to doubt her. No charges had been filed officially, but it had apparently taken hours for doctors to extract the arrow from his ass.

Of course, if it had been the next kid on the list the boy had bothered, Iruka doubted that an arrow would have been the worst of his problems. "Sasuke?" The black haired boy looked up from his glaring match with the boy next to him, and then went right back to it. Iruka just rolled his eyes.

"And Naruto." It wasn't a question like the others. Naruto was obviously there, being the one that was death glaring Sasuke. It really was amusing how the two could hate each other so much, and still sit right next to each other every day, defend the other one without fail, and do pretty much everything together.

In fact, there were a lot of pairs like that in his class. They probably didn't think he noticed, but Iruka liked to think he was good at reading people. For instance, while Gaara pretended to be put out by every single other person in the class, he seemed to light up whenever people were around, especially a certain bowl-cut equipped martial arts student. Of course, it didn't hurt that said bushy-browed student hung all over him any chance he got, grinning and smiling like a maniac.

Or Shikamaru and Neji always seemed to be the only one that the other could be inconvenienced for. Of course, they were pretty much out in the open about it, what with the time Shikamaru laid one on the pale teen right in the middle of the match. Apparently, it had been part of his "strategy." A strategy for what, exactly, Iruka wasn't sure he wanted to guess.

Then there was always Kiba and Shino. The two in the class most obsessed with everything outdoors. It never ceased to amaze Iruka how the most reserved person in the class could have such impressive outbursts whenever Kiba decided to sprawl across his desk in the middle of homeroom, steal his glasses for no reason, and just generally antagonize the poor guy. Teenage boys were known for expressing their feelings in strange ways though, and Kiba surely didn't disappoint. Iruka noticed, though, that he never went so far as to threaten one of Shino's precious insects. He figured it was for the best, since one, the insects were sacred to Shino, and two, it would probably end with some form of homicide.

And last but not least, there were Sasuke and Naruto. Iruka didn't even have to point out any specifics on that one. It was just so obvious. Iruka was even willing to bet that Sasuke (maybe not Naruto, because he could be surprisingly thick sometimes) knew.

But hey, what could you expect? This was high school.