Naruto was getting a tad upset with his new tutor. Well, more than a tad, he was very tempted to walk around the desk and rip Kakashi's throat out, probably not something that is often thought about when on a first name basis with a teacher. Fang was still upset that he had to call him Mr. Hatake, and did so with a malice that sent tingles up Naruto's spine.

And not in a good way.

Another thing that made Naruto want to kill Kakashi was that the blind old man would just meander in, talking about all the sights that Naruto was missing out in. The scents, the food.

He wasn't really sure how he had done it, but Kakashi had found out that Naruto was incredibly fond of ramen, and proceeded to ramble on about all of his favorite places to have the dish. Again, Naruto was going to rip Kakashi's head off.

To make it worse, not that it was possible -in Naruto's opinion, anyway- Kakashi had assigned them a paper. An actual paper, the old man said that it would count for the majority of their grade and gave them a topic, something that Naruto had no knowledge about.

"-The history of math, any math subject"

Kakashi had said that it would cover all the bases of their tutoring, English, Mathematics, and History; which was pretty much a brief list of all the things Naruto hated about school. He wanted to draw, or work with his hands in ways that didn't include pencils. It was just awful. Kakashi was torturing them.

On purpose.

Fang didn't seem to mind too much, seeing as how he never really spoke to Kakashi -Mr. Hatake- unless he had to, which was only when he had a question, or when Kakashi -Mr. Hatake- decided to give him a deliberately difficult question since he had not been paying attention.

They even had to read a book. Not even a 'History of Math' book, but a book book. One that was not filled with numbers, but words, boring endless streamers of words that Naruto had no choice but to bolster through.

He wanted nothing to do with this book. It was awful, boring, and possibly the worst book ever written, only because it had been written, not that was anything wrong with wanted to go fishing with an old man, but to make an entire novel about it was just absurd.

Naruto mostly skimmed through it, ignoring the boring parts, which meant most of every page, while he was in class, and didn't bother to pick it up once he left Kakashi's self-proclaimed throne. Fang had no problems with picking it up, his narrowed eyes darted across each page in a slow rhythmic pattern that left Naruto jealous.

Kakashi also read in class, though not a book about old men and boys and fish, but one of...

"Must you read that in here?" Fang asked, staring at his own book pointedly, and looking all for the world as if he hadn't stopped reading, but Naruto noticed that his eyes weren't moving in their sockets and that they were staring off into the blankness of a margin.

"What's wrong with good literature?" Kakashi -Mr. Hatake- retaliated, also not looking up from his book, only because he didn't have to. His fingers danced over the mundane little dots that Naruto could never understand. He turned his face in the location of Fang's voice and proceeded to explain why his book was the best piece of literature in the new age.

Naruto caught the name of the book when Kakashi threw his hands in the air, he wasn't really sure how a book could be dedicated to Make-Out Tactics, but he'd imagined that it delved further than such topics.

He continued fake-reading his book, hoping that Kakashi had some self-control. He suppressed a shudder, but Fang looked at him intensely and it seems that the other boy was thinking the same thing by the look on his face.

Days past uneventfully, very uneventfully. Fang refused to let him leave, well, leave through the front door anyway. Naruto sneaked out when he felt like it, having mastered the art of lowering the skylight as quietly as possible.

Today, however, was the first time that Naruto had been contemplating climbing on the roof during the day, usually he wouldn't risk such a move, when people could just push through the door and notice that he was up here.

There was too much stress for him to handle, otherwise he wouldn't have thought about going, but with Kakashi all but breathing down his neck about all of his assignments, there were too many for him to handle, and normally he could get his assignments done in class when in his real school, but with Kakashi there was something different done each day.

Fang didn't seem to be having any problems, unfortunately - not as unfortunate as Naruto liked to make it sound- he would congratulate his were-dog companion, but Fang seemed to be nothing but a bundle of worker bee.

Naruto, did however, enjoy how worked up Fang got over the History of Math paper, they couldn't exactly leave the house, and Naruto had the only computer, no matter ancient it was. Naruto often locked himself in his room for extended periods of time, for no real reason. Whenever he pushed one of the large pieces of furniture against the wall, he remembered how he'd felt when the first night. Fang and him running, his dad being taken.

There wasn't any contact for him from Gato, probably because his phone was dead and he'd left his charger when he had ran away, along with all of his clothes. He was lucky enough that the attic had a box filled with old business clothes, even more fortunate when less than half of them turned out to be women's clothes - not that there was much of a difference in his opinion. He still had the clothes from that night, stored under his bed just in case the same situation arose, they didn't arose much suspicion if someone was to look under the mattress, but to him, they were a keepsake of what he had lost.

He tried to extract all of the negative thoughts from his head as he waited for a search engine to load, and couldn't hold back a snigger when he thought of how upset Fang would be when he turned in a finished assignment and Fang did not.

Then again, he could have asked Rose to get a book over it. The blond leaned back in his seat, silently contemplating what Rose would say, she would most likely say yes, since it was for an assignment, but then again, she did seem like that type that stayed in the comfort zone as much as possible, which also meant less walking, which could mean that she wasn't going.

Naruto worked through the remainder of the paper, wishing that he had a printer so he could just copy and paste it, but since Kakashi couldn't read it, that would mean that they would have to read it out loud, which meant that if Naruto used a word that he didn't know, Kakashi would know - unless that rumor about blind people being able to smell lies was wrong- he would probably mispronounce it, he could always say that he looked up words that would make him sound smarter. Not something he would do, but Kakashi didn't know that.

Unless he could smell the lie when Naruto told him such a thing.

...

Naruto read through each entry on the webpage that he was reading and settled for dumbing it down for himself, if only for the sake of believability. He settled for the History of Algebra, something he hated through his freshmen and sophomore years of school, he scribbled down notes and dates and ended up filling both sides of his parchment before his hand started to ache.

He left it alone, letting the words settle down from his mind and into their physical form, it was better than poetry, he guessed, but it wasn't exactly the most exciting thing that he's ever done.

The paper was then shoved to the side as Naruto decided to have some fun time, ergo stalking some of his old classmates to see if they had forgotten about him, which was a likely possibility considering that nobody was incredibly fond of him.

His Facebook page held nothing but dull colors and no notifications. Naruto leaned back and closed the window, listening to the hum of the fan as it spun slowly in its container.

Naruto pushed himself to his feet and padded over until he was under the skylight, the string was in his hand before he had realize what he was doing. He didn't object any as he pulled on the old shoelace and settled the ladder on the hardwood.

The breeze from the foreign altitude hit him like a truck, it was quicker, stronger than usual, and held a distasteful odor; the scent wasn't of anything in particular, but it made his nose lurch in a way it hadn't before. Perhaps it was all of the carbon from the cars that was rising into the atmosphere, it was a logical conclusion after all, Naruto started to breath through his mouth and moved over to one of the chairs that was positioned near that edge.

To anyone that was looking at Naruto, it would look like he was contemplating jumping off of the roof, and was just waiting for the right moment. He had certainly thought of the idea, a life without his family was no life at all, but then someone would just clean his body off of the sidewalk, and that would just be a bother on everyone involved. Fang and Rose would get questioned, probably Kakashi as well, and they all seemed like people who did not like to be in front of cameras.

Naruto pulled out a small journal from under the chair, and flipped open to the gap in the pages where his pen was marking his progress. He wasn't that far into the journal, maybe a few pages in and could have easily flipped to the page where his writing had ended, but that seemed like a waste of time, and genius doesn't wait for anyone.

He clicked his pen several times out of habit, and stared at the page in his lap, a list of small scenarios were bulleted down the lines.

1. Fang kills people for a living and is hiding from the police by acting casual by taking in a stranger, read the first item.

2. Fang is a government man who's trying to take down Gato... That one made Naruto's blood boil, Fang would obviously deny that accusation if he ever found out about Naruto's suspicions.

3. Fang is just a nice guy, who lives with a Jamacian- Jamaiican- Person from Jamaica who is also his housekeeper/Mother figure. That one just made Naruto wonder where Fang's mother was, he was fairly certain that he'd mentioned something about his mom, leaving or dying maybe, but her house was still here, and furnished, so where was she?

He really tried to avoid snooping into Fang's life, but it was best for everyone -everyone being Naruto in this case- that they knew the deal with Fang. Speaking of Fang...

Multiple sets of feet, or what Naruto thought were feet padded noisily up the staircase, and Naruto thought about trying to hide, but no such luck, the feet were approaching the roof too quickly for Naruto to really find a place to hide.

Fang trotted up the stairs, Fang Fang, the beast, werewolf looking dog-beast, Naruto had assumed that would happen sometime, but didn't expect it to be at such a random occurrence, and during the day time. His guess would be the distance between them, since he hadn't really seen Fang during his late night escapades, so the dog-boy wouldn't really be awake during his transformations.

The dog approached, looking somewhat wary, and distinctly annoyed. His shoulders were straight, as straight as a dog's could go, course black fur trailed down his thick straight spine and down to his large paws, were lighter patches of fur were located. Fang sat across from Naruto, about a yard away and just stared over the edge.

"Sit" Naruto mused, giggling as the canine actually moved to follow the command. Fang glared at him, as much as a dog-wolf-hybrid could anyway. "Sorry 'bout that, just had to clear my head" Naruto explained, gesturing to the fresh air that was blowing around them. Sure, it was a little cold, but it helped him think sometimes, which was probably why he always started to fail his classes during the summer, and probably why he wasn't doing that well in Kakashi's tutoring.

Fang scooted under him and Naruto closed his notebook and dropped it on the ledge in case Fang decided to be nosy and he could just throw them both off of the roof.

"Your fur looks different." Naruto observed, running his hands through the course fur that covered his friends back. It was strange, it seemed a lot more dark back when they had first met. It might have been the light, but it looked like there were veins of black running over the dog's back. Naruto hmph'd and released his grasp on Fang's fur. It looked like Fang was mildly upset about being released, but Naruto figured he was just seeing things.

The beast scooted closer, his face rubbing against the back of Naruto's leg, the burn of the canine's warm flesh was surprisingly soothing, if not a little frightening. The person Fang was never as touchy-feely as his animal counter-part.

The sun set quickly that night, and Fang was still in his animal form. Naruto hoped that he wouldn't be that long, not that he didn't like animals, it was just his feet were getting sweaty from the dog sitting on them all afternoon.

Orange streaks receded into the distance, followed by a wave of pink and other similarly warm colors, leaving Naruto empty for warmth. The cold had set in once the sun had reached the horizon, but now was the perfect time, a perfect moment of tranquility, in which it was dark, but the hum of the city was swirling around them.

The street lights had yet to turn on and Naruto looked to his far left, as far as he could see until it faded into the slope of uptown. The farthest lamp seemed so small from a distance, the bulb enshrouded in shadows. Naruto waited, glancing where the sun had set to make sure the sun was actually gone and not playing a trick on him.

"One" Naruto counted, looking back at the right time to notice the lamp turning on. He counted beats under his breath, and moved his head to peer out a lamp that was a few blocks closer. "Two" He repeated the pattern until he got to the lamp that was right across the street.

"Six" A distant voice hummed, startling Naruto out of his little mantra. "Fang!" Naruto gasped, holding onto his tightened chest. "Jesus!" He added later. Fang looked distinctly amused and Naruto made a mental note to get revenge, something that he was suddenly looking forward to.

Naruto continued to stare at Fang, noting the way the other male looked a little paler than his usual bronze turned ivory skin tone. When Fang spoke again, it didn't startle him as bad and Naruto looked away from Fang to look down the street. "Eight" they said in unison, Naruto joining back in and together they counted each light until the entire street was preserved in dim city lights.

Fang rushed down the staircase, Naruto stared at his retreating form, just noticing his companion's nudity, luckily he had only caught a glimpse of Fang's scarred back before he disappeared all together.

The teen's awaited return was met with more desirable results, he didn't scare Naruto nor was he naked and certainly not a dog.

"Time to go" Fang announced, moving over to fire escape, Naruto was confused, wasn't it Fang's idea to stay here and never see the light of day again? "What?" Naruto asked brilliantly, "You can stay here," Fang offered, looking over at the blonde, who was still trying to wrap his head around the other boy breaking the rules. "Where are we going?" Naruto asked instead, he used we very loosely, but he wasn't sure if Fang could tell considering how much his face had lit up.

Fang's eye held a mischievous look in them when he told Naruto, "Out" the blonde rolled his eyes and quickly followed after the scarred teen since he had lowered himself down before he could ask Fang to elaborate.

"Where's out?" Naruto asked once they had both descended to ground lever, the blonde adjusted his hair, moving it out of his field of vision so he could see if there were any drug lords around. "Surprise" Kiba responded, his smile curled into something cruel and Naruto groaned.

"Where?" the blonde asked again, he thought his own voice sounded whiney, but he didn't care. He wanted to know where the other was leading him. "Somewhere special" the scarred teen stated evasively. Naruto bristled, he didn't like being in the dark when his life was at stake. Gato could be anywhere.

Watching.

The blonde sighed, he obviously wasn't going to get answers from Fang this way, so he was left to observe his surroundings and deduct where he was going; but Naruto was not Sherlock Holmes, and had no detailed memory of Konoha's streets. So he looked at street signs, hoping for an easy answer. "Donut shop?" Naruto asked, looking across the street from the corner that Fang had stopped at.

"Nope."

Fang sounded smug, obviously amused with the way that he was grating on Naruto's nerves. "Zoo?" he asked sometime later, looking down someway at a big sign that spelled out Konoha ZOO.

"Wrong."

Naruto groaned, and remained silent, following behind Fang closely. The blond glared at his friend, a term that he used loosely, of course. "Almost there" Fang orated, the smug tone ever present, Naruto could practically hear that stupid smirk that Fang had on.

Fang stopped in front of a tall, rather intimidating office building, taking Naruto by surprise, who ran into Fang's back. The event was strangely nostalgic and brought back the memory of their adventure to the doctor's office in the upper side of town. The memory of the creepy doctor sent shudders down Naruto's spine.

"Cold?" Fang had turned around and was staring at him, amusement mixing in with concern was evident on his face. Naruto shook his head, "Nah." Fang nodded and turned back around, and side-stepped to stand on the side of the door frame. Naruto saw Fang's hand disappear into his jacket and something was pulled out before slipping it into the door, he figured that it must have been a key of some sort.

An important question arose as they entered the ominous looking building, how did Fang relate to this place. He had a key, did he work here? Unlikely, Fang would have been fired, going months without talking to his boss.

"Fang" Naruto whispered, sparing a glance over his shoulder to make sure that nobody had followed them in. It was much too dark to be completely sure, but he was pretty sure there was nobody following them still. "What are we doing here?"

He looked back forward, Fang was further in the room than he had been before and was waiting in front of a familiar looking set of doors. Naruto rushed forward, not wanting to be alone any longer. "What are we doing here?" Naruto repeated, looking at the set of double doors, trying to figure out where he knew them from.

Fang said nothing, his foot was tapping on the ground rhythmically. A ding sent Naruto off again, making him attempt to jump out of his skin. Fang smirked but said nothing, Naruto looked back at the two doors, which had moved to either side of the door frame, allowing them entrance into a small room. An elevator, Naruto noted, finally connected the dots and figuring out where he knew the doors from. They were the same ones as inside of Fang's old house.

Probably not exactly the same, but they held the same color, which meant that they were identical enough for Naruto see the similarities between the two places, but of them felt alien to Naruto, despite being at one of the matching locations several times.

It wasn't a new feeling, being alien, being singled out until you no longer felt comfortable in any environment, he tried to avoid losing his footing in places like these, resisting the urge to curl in on himself and let his anxieties battle out until everyone ignored him once more.

He still resisted the urge, Fang was taping his foot impatiently on the elegant tile that covered the floor of the lift, he looked at Naruto impatiently, a shallow concern swam in his dark eyes. Naruto said nothing and joined the other male in the elevator, Fang pressed a button and they were lifted off of the ground floor with a ding!

All the way at the top is where they ended up, Kiba swiped his card key again, gaining them access into another room. Cubicles and desks took up most of the space, in the back was a large set of windows, well, not windows, but glass used as walls. Windows held a view someone would enjoy, Naruto doubted that a set of chairs and a desk were much of a view for anyone; but he followed Fang towards the back of the floor.

Another swipe gained them access to the glass-walled room, it wasn't much, but there was more furniture than previously assumed, including a rather large, shiny alcohol cabinet.

Naruto wasn't much of a drinker, mostly because he couldn't afford that sort of lifestyle, especially now that he couldn't even work without being threatened. It was a rather unfortunate circumstance considering how much Naruto enjoyed the taste of cool whiskey during a warm Summer night. It wasn't summer, but he could pretend it was and just sneak a sip of this stranger's.

Which brought Naruto back into reality, Why exactly, were they in a random office building?

"My dad works here," Kiba explained as if reading his mind, but his tone was distant, like he was just speaking his thoughts aloud. "I used to sneak in here all the time and steal his liquor." He added, looking at Naruto now. Naruto nodded, showing Fang that he was listening, he eyes darted back to the cabinet, and could practically hear glasses of wine or tumblers of whiskey being toasted, the pop and the sweet aroma of champagne.

Fang lost self-control before he did, Naruto was just about to get up and engulf the entire thing, but settled more comfortably in his claimed armchair when Fang walked over to it and pulled out a ornate looking glass bottle, the amber liquid inside promising a long and fun night.