Naruto hesitated, leaning against the rails in his favorite spot on the school's roof, the one that had a view of the forest and the road snaking through it, far away from this shitty town. He had class soon, but he did not want to go.
He missed today's shift, but at least he made it to school. However, the teachers didn't appreciate his coming, and he did not want to think how the boss would react when he discovered he had ditched.
He clenched his fists and tried not to think about how he might die tonight.
The teachers barked at him, so Naruto sat in the back and said nothing. He wrote down his notes almost absentmindedly, too troubled by the torn edges clinging to the notebook's cover. It reminded him of yesterday. It reminded him of the men at his door and that liking boys was wrong.
If the dog wasn't there, they might have…
"Smoking, are you?"
Naruto's ears burned. "I don't smoke, Iruka."
The man leaned next to him. "Oh, come on. I know kids at your age like to be cool."
"I'm not a liar."
Iruka seemed to have jumped at his tone. Still, he sniffed. "Well, good," he managed. "It's a bad habit, you know."
"Which I don't have," Naruto repeated. "You always assume the worst about me."
Iruka turned to look at him, but Naruto did not return the courtesy. "Naruto, you know I'm always looking out for you – "
"I've got to go," Naruto cut him off. "Math class." He picked up his bag and left.
He was looking after himself just fine. He didn't need anyone to look after him. He had the dog. And that was it.
Naruto was five minutes late when he got to class. He knocked on the door and prepared an excuse. "Sorry, Sensei, I was held up – "
The teacher already held a textbook open. "That's quite all right, Uzumaki. Take a seat. You can turn in your homework after class."
Naruto blinked, scowled, and slunk to the back. The man didn't even look at him.
Mr. Hatake explained the basics of derivatives briefly, then shifted to more complex topics.
Naruto quickly forgot his anger. The teacher explained well – much better than any other teacher he had before – and Naruto found himself entranced by his intelligent eye and dry intonation. Every example was clear and direct and sharp, and every principle was elaborated on using basic theorems and proofs. Everything made sense.
Naruto could not look away.
"Sensei," cried Ino. "Nothing you said made sense."
Mr. Hatake blinked. "Oh. Really?" He gazed at the board, which was already filled with his perfect handwriting. "Which part?"
"All of it!"
The man stifled a sigh. "Could've said earlier, you know."
"I didn't get anything, either," added Sakura. "Could you explain a little slower?"
Mr. Hatake stared at the class. "Are all of you feeling this way?"
The class mumbled an agreement.
Naruto scowled. When the teacher looked at him, he promptly looked away.
Sasuke also looked annoyed. He rolled his eyes and glared.
"All right," the teacher consented. "How about we take a mental break before reviewing this material again?"
The class agreed excitedly.
"Yes, yes, settle down." Mr. Hatake sighed and took out a stack of papers. "Your pop quizzes, with my commentary attached. Haruno, Yamanaka, please pass those around."
The two girls did as they were told. Naruto dug deeper into his seat. He would not have been surprised if they called out his score out loud, just to mock him. He gritted his teeth.
"So, to recap, I gave you this quiz to review how you think. And it's a good thing I did. All of you," he paused for drama, probably, "failed."
The entire class fell silent, and then – "Eh?! No way! You're lying! It's not fair – "
Mr. Hatake raised his hand and the class, once again, quieted down.
The oddly dressed man, with his tired eye and disinterested gaze, had a strange hold on them. "All of you, but two. Uchiha and Uzumaki. Congratulations."
Every eye – every single eye in the class turned to stare in his direction. No one stared at Sasuke; they all expected that. They did not expect him.
"Uzumaki?! He clearly cheated, Sensei! There's no way – "
"Inuzuka, wasn't it?" Sensei cut him off. His eye stared him down, opaque and sharp and unimpressed. "Since you don't seem to learn by example, I will tell you explicitly. The one thing I do not and will not tolerate in my class is bullying." He turned to glare at the entire class. "The next time I hear anyone degrading a classmate, that person will be sent outside until the end of class and will forfeit his right for a review session that week."
Neither his posture nor his expression changed, but something about the hint of a threat in his voice set the entire class on edge.
Naruto felt his ears burn. No one, let alone a teacher, had ever defended him like that before. He pulled up his backpack and hid his face with the weathered fabric. His cheeks burned too.
"Speaking of cheating," the teacher continued, his voice as tired and detached as before, "this quiz was built to make cheating impossible. It was composed of six questions – three of no consequence, simply written to get to know you, one about the material you've already learned, one about something you were not taught, and one that was impossible. Each student received a quiz with a different order and different givens. Not that it stopped you from trying to copy Hyuga's answers, Inuzuka," the teacher added offhandedly. "You could have at least tried to match the answer to the question."
The class huffed.
Kiba blushed. "I-I didn't – "
"Question four on your quiz asked you to find the limit of a trigonometric function. You answered, 'blue.'"
The class outright laughed.
Naruto peeked and glanced in Kiba's direction.
The boy snarled and glared out the window.
Mr. Hatake looked as tired as he did before. "Well, never mind. The only question of relevance for all of you was the limit question. If you got that right, you automatically got 100% on your summer vacation homework." Some of the class breathed in relief; the others tensed. "If you did not, you will be graded based on that homework package. And if you had yet to turn that in… well, you have a week to do it, but each day that passes, you lose a point."
"Sensei?" asked Sakura. "I don't get the other two questions, then. The impossible one and the one we were not taught."
"Ah," Hatake picked up the two quizzes still left on his desk. "Those questions have value only to those who solved them, so Uchiha, Uzumaki, I must ask both of you to stay here after class."
"How'd they solve them?" demanded Sakura. She blushed when the man focused his one eye on her. "The math questions. How were they solved? Teach it to us!"
Mr. Hatake picked up the two papers. "Hmm. Let's see. Both solved the limit question correctly. Uchiha solved each step with perfect logic and excellent penmanship. You saw the solution before you started solving, didn't you?" Mr. Hatake glanced at Sasuke, who hmphed.
Naruto tightened his fists and gritted his teeth. Obviously, Sasuke would get it right so very easily. Excellent penmanship, my ass.
"Uzumaki, on the other hand, skipped several steps and drew a…. A tree? I believe?" Mr. Hatake scrutinized the answer, trying to decipher it. "On top of one of his calculations, but got the answer right as well. Two digits more specific than Uchiha, in fact."
The class was both stupefied into silence and buzzing with whispers.
Naruto clenched his fists and tried to weather it in silence. He was better than Sasuke. He was better. He was better –
"In any case, this is last year's material, so I'm not going to spend my time teaching that," he dismissed it. "Moving on to the next question, the one about the material you did not learn… hmm… this question is taught during the last semester of first year of math studies in college – "
"Then how were we supposed to get it?" burst Ino. She blushed and added, "Sensei," when the man raised his eye to glance at her.
"Well, because of the nature of this question," Mr. Hatake said simply. "It can be solved using the simplest of tools; in fact, it is our reliance on theories and tricks that blind us to its simplicity. For example, Uchiha solved this using a theorem. That answer is so precise, it should be taught in textbooks." Mr. Hatake scanned the answer. "It is not something I can teach you now. You need three more years of math to grasp this theorem. I imagine you worked quite hard to master it yourself, Uchiha." He smiled at the boy.
For a moment, it seemed Sasuke looked up, then glared away. Naruto frowned. That was an unusual reaction to a compliment from a teacher, at least from him. Sasuke always brushed compliments away.
Sakura scoffed. "Sasuke doesn't need to learn anything, Sensei! He's a genius!"
"Don't dismiss his hard work just because he has a capacity for learning," Mr. Hatake contradicted her. "Now, Uzumaki, would you like to explain how you answered the question?"
Again, all eyes turned on him. Even Sensei's eye focused on him. Naruto's mouth dried. "I used…." He forgot what he wanted to say. The words jumbled before his eyes. "Triangles," he blurted.
The class burst out in laughter. "Classic Naruto," Ino laughed with a snide.
He knew it. He shouldn't have come to class. This sensei was a dick, just like everyone else. He made fun of him. He –
"Why are you laughing?"
The entire class froze.
Mr. Hatake was smiling, but his eye was ice.
"He isn't joking, you know. The man who wrote the question – that was his answer. Triangles."
Again, the entire class turned to stare at him, but Naruto could not take his eyes off Sensei. He didn't fuck up. He didn't – he didn't do something wrong.
The man flicked the paper. "I have a hunch that you are not familiar with the Theory of Triangles?"
Naruto shook his head. His heart raced again. He leaned forward, just a little bit, and drank every word the man said.
"That's quite all right. Most of it was never published. What the theory of triangles says," he added, addressing the rest of the class, "is that everything in the universe can be broken down and calculated using triangles."
"What about squares?" challenged Kiba. "And circles?" he barked.
Sakura rolled her eyes. "Squares are made of triangles, silly. We learned it in fourth grade."
"And you can use incircle or excircle to calculate triangles," whispered Hinata.
"All true. Uzumaki's solution, basically, breaks down the question into the very basics of math and uses those foundations to prove his answer. Where Uchiha used high-level theorems understood by the very few, Uzumaki chose simplicity. It's an exquisite solution, actually," the man mumbled, "quite brilliant."
Once again, the class sat in stunned silence.
Naruto sat on the edge of his seat, gripping his chair and biting his lower lip to stop himself from yelling or talking or crying. Sensei called his solution exquisite. He called it brilliant.
Naruto, for one, rushed moment, could not breathe.
"As for the last, impossible question," Mr. Hatake said as he returned his gaze to the paper. "No point in teaching you that. Uchiha first wrote, 'impossible,' then erased it and wrote a cheeky explanation about why the question is wrong and how I'm an idiot, thinking I could tackle such complicated matters. Bratty, but not wrong." Mr. Hatake gazed at the boy, whose ears began to glow red. He smiled and looked at Naruto's answer. "Uzumaki was more succinct. He wrote, 'WTF' and drew a rather accurate frog flipping me off. Again, overly creative, but not incorrect."
The class laughed uneasily. The teacher was odd. It was hard to tell what would displease him and what wouldn't.
"Eh?!" cried Sakura. "You didn't teach us anything, Sensei!"
Mr. Hatake hummed. "Very astute of you to notice, Haruno."
The students mumbled and muttered. They read the notes the teacher wrote and glanced in his and Sasuke's direction.
Naruto hid behind his backpack and willed himself to breathe. He knew math. He always knew he knew math.
But that was the first time anyone else saw that.
Mr. Hatake called them to attention and began explaining – again and again and again – the same material from the beginning of class. He slowed down and expanded on basic principles he must have expected them to have.
At times, he looked positively puzzled by their ignorance.
Despite having already understood, Naruto listened. The teacher's precise and quick response was almost soothing. He wiped his eyes and listened and tried to calm his racing heart.
It's an exquisite solution, actually. He repeatedly replayed the man's words in his head, burning them into memory. Quite brilliant.
The bell rang, and the students packed up and left. Some thanked the teacher, some fled.
Naruto did not move. He kept hiding behind his backpack and waited for the teacher to explain why he asked them to stay behind.
He could hear his footsteps getting closer but refused to look up. His heart stumbled.
"So, what is it?" demanded Sasuke. His tone was impatient and rude and perhaps a little curious.
Naruto could smell the peanut butter. He could hear the scraping of the knife against the bread. He bit his arm and prayed that his stomach would not betray him this time.
"My, my, aren't you eager." The man did not sound hurried or bothered by Sasuke's tone. That was new.
"I'm busy," Sasuke scoffed. "You can make yourself a sandwich later."
Naruto glanced up. Sasuke glowered at the teacher, but the man seemed even more nonchalant than before.
"I'm not making it for me, Uchiha," the man replied. "You must be hungry, seeing how cantankerous you are."
Sasuke's glower flashed like lightning. "I don't need charity."
Naruto hunched and followed the exchange intently. Did Sasuke… was Sasuke, perhaps, just like him?
Did he also fail to say if he needed help?
His heart drummed, and his mouth watered. The smell of strawberry and fresh bread was just too fucking strong.
"It's not charity; it's compensation for asking you to stay after school." Mr. Hatake placed the plate on his desk, as well as a water bottle.
Naruto bit his arm as hard as he could. He refused to look at the food. He couldn't even glance. He knew – he knew that if he did, he'd devour it whole –
And he couldn't do that. He could not betray his hunger, not when Sasuke and the teacher were still there, watching.
"Putting lipstick on a pig," Sasuke countered. His eyes were furious.
"Do as you like," the teacher said. His voice was slightly colder than before. "But don't make Uzumaki uncomfortable."
Naruto burned red. He hid, again, behind his backpack. "M'not hungry," he mumbled.
He was starving.
"Just say what you want," demanded Sasuke.
Hatake made his way to the front of the class. He still placed a plate and a water bottle on Sasuke's desk. "Very well. I took the liberty of scanning and submitting the question you solved – the one I did not expect any student here to solve – to Konoha University. You are both on the road to early acceptance there, as well as an impressive scholarship."
Naruto's head jumped up. He stared. "You're lying," he blurted.
Mr. Hatake glanced at him, and Naruto immediately remembered why he hid behind his backpack. The man's penetrating eye saw everything. "I assure you, I am not," the man said, his tone light and his eye undecipherable. "All you need to do is declare your major."
"And if we want to attend a different University?" Sasuke challenged.
"Then I can help you with that," Mr. Hatake said, now gazing at him. "Not many Universities offer a direct path for students who display aptitude beyond their years, but it is still an impressive feat to add to your application package."
Sasuke scowled.
"Where do you want to go?" the teacher asked.
Sasuke was silent for a long while before finally admitting, "Otogakure."
The man hmmed. "They are known for their cut-throat competitiveness."
"Their research is cutting edge," Sasuke countered. "I'm not afraid of competition."
"I see." The teacher hmmed again. "Well, I do know the dean. I can help you get there."
"I don't need your help," Sasuke interrupted. He crossed his arms and glared.
Naruto swallowed thickly. He followed the exchange, wondering which one would come on top. Sasuke never accepted authority. And the new teacher… the new teacher was not affected at all. He was entirely unbothered by Sasuke's rebuffs.
The teacher's eye focused on him, again. "What about you, Uzumaki?"
"Don't care," he admitted. "Anything to get out of here."
Sasuke turned to glare in his direction.
Naruto felt his ears burn and clenched his jaw. He scowled and looked away.
"Well, I can certainly help with that," the teacher said, almost gently. He hmmed. "That's all I wanted to say. Unless you have questions, you are dismissed."
Sasuke scoffed. He got up and turned to leave.
That was his chance. Naruto, quietly and unceremoniously, stuffed the paper plate with the sandwiches and the water bottle into his backpack.
"Uchiha."
The teacher stopped him with a word. He held out his quiz.
Sasuke accepted the paper with a scoff. He dropped it, quite dramatically, into his bag, and stopped by the door. "You coming?" he said curtly, glaring at him.
Naruto got up and hated himself for flushing red. Sasuke never talked to him – not unless he had to.
He most certainly never waited for him. He –
He left the food on the table.
"Yeah." Naruto took out his homework and walked casually toward the teacher. He refused to glance at the food. He stared at his sensei instead.
Mr. Hatake stared back.
Naruto scowled.
The man offered him his quiz. "Good job, Uzumaki," he said quietly.
Naruto nodded mechanically. He gave the man his homework, then stuffed the quiz into his backpack and closed it as soon as he could. "I liked it," he blurted.
The man blinked. "The quiz?"
Naruto's flush deepened. "No. Your teaching style." He shuffled his feet. "Wasn't boring." He dared a glance in the man's direction.
Mr. Hatake's one eye widened. "Ah. Thank you." He smiled. The gesture was tight-lipped and crooked, but…
Naruto clenched his fists and scowled. The man had a… a very pretty smile. Damn it.
Sasuke scoffed. "Didn't you sleep through the entire lesson?"
"I didn't," Naruto protested. He used the chance to flee from the man and join Sasuke. "I even listened to the stuff from last year."
Sasuke rolled his eyes. "I don't buy that. You always fall asleep."
"Because I get bored!"
"Because you're an idiot."
Naruto swallowed. "M'not. Got the question right, didn't I?" he mumbled.
Sasuke hmphed, but Naruto could feel Sensei's eye boring into his back. He lifted his hand, self-conscious, and waved goodbye.
He hoped Sensei saw it.
Notes:
Hey y'all!
I'll admit, I wasn't certain if I wanted Naruto to understand Kakashi's teachings or not, but I'm pretty sure that in the manga Naruto understood Kakashi the best out of all the teachers he had (maybe besides Jiraiya) so I decided to leave it as is. Also, this is my interpretation of "I never let my comrades die" - no bullying!
Or, y'know, the beginning of it. There is no magic fix for years of rotten conditioning (or teaching, since this is a high school AU haha)
But Kakashi is a man with a mission(s) and he's going to get it done =D
So... what'd you think? Not very heavy on the romance, this one, but Naruto got a friend now!
See ya next Friday!
