Chapter 1: Friends

“Stupid Iruka-sensei, giving me a week of detention...it’s not fair...” Naruto had been mumbling this for over half his lunch period. Of course he stopped every once and a while to shove food in his mouth.

“Naruto would you shut up already?!” came a voice across the table, drawing Naruto’s attention away from his quiet ranting.

Naruto glared at his friend. Sitting at his lunch table were his two closest friends, Inuzuka Kiba, the person who had just yelled at Naruto, and Nara Shikamaru. Usually there were more people sitting at the table but, unfortunately for Naruto, they all had class now, so he was stuck with an annoying as hell dog lover, and an unsympathetic lazy ass.

“But I mean a week?! A week of detention!! It was just one little mistake!!” The blond shot back, still trying to prove his point that the world was unfair and that Iruka was overreacting.

“That was the 8th time in less than 3 weeks that you’ve fallen asleep in Iruka-sensei’s class. And that’s only counting his class. You’re lucky that you’re free after school for the next 2 months.” Shikamaru said shutting up Naruto’s never ending rant.

“Yeah, you’ve been fallin asleep in classes on a regular basis lately and it’s not just a light nap either, that water today was a last resort. Is anything wrong?” Kiba asked looking concerned.

“Well, I’ve been having to pull longer shifts at work, causing me to come home even later than I use to...plus I haven’t been sleeping well for the past month...” The blond said quietly

“Naruto!! I thought you said that you weren’t going to have to take on longer shifts! You told us; no you promised us that you wouldn’t!! Especially when you already get out of work at such an unreasonable fucking hour!!” Kiba said angrily. Shikamaru was now staring directly at Naruto, which was a sign that he agreed with everything Kiba had just said.

Naruto winced at the harsh tone. He had expected this reaction, which is way he had been avoiding the time when he would have to tell his friends. Naruto knew they were just worried about him, but it still made him uncomfortable when he was scolded like this. He shivered the reaction he was going to get from Ino when she found out. She wasn’t going to stop at scolding; she was going to fucking kill him. Then bring him back to life only to yell at him some more. God that was going to suck.

“Why do you need to pull the extra shifts Naruto?” Shikamaru asked calmly, well at least compared to Kiba who was still having a fit.

Naruto looked down at his half eaten meal. “I need the money.” He said quietly.

“You what?” Shikamaru asked again still staring at Naruto. Naruto hated when Shikamaru paid this much attention to him, it was weird. For a guy that was bored out of his mind most of the time, and very rarely put the amount of concentration, attention and dedication that he was showing now. In fact, Naruto was the only one that could get this reaction out of the lazy genius. All of his friends worried about him in one way or another, mainly because Naruto refused to allow anybody's help. Because of this, the only thing that his friends could do was just watch and hope that the blond was going to smile the next day and force him to make promises that were to help him keep that smile, because who knows what they would do without it.

“I need the money.” Naruto repeated again. “My landlord raised the rent again and I still have to pay to come to this hell hole everyday...I mean I have a scholarship and everything, but it doesn’t cover everything...I need those extra hours...” The blond said, still looking down at his meal.

“Naruto...” his friends didn’t know what to say. They knew this was a delicate topic, Naruto’s financial problems, and they knew this was the one topic that they would not be able to help him with.

“But its ok, I mean I know I can do it, and you know me, once I decide to do something I follow through no matter what!” Naruto said looking up at his friends smiling.

“Well just remember, we’re always here to help you. Don’t forget that.” Kiba said trying to do his part in comforting the blond.

“Yeah, I know. Thanks guys.”

“Hey Naruto,” Shikamaru interrupted

“Yeah?”

“What did you mean that you haven’t been sleeping well lately?”

“Oh, I’ve just been having really weird dreams lately.”

“What kind of dreams?” Kiba asked, apparently he had followed Naruto’s example and had abandoned his lunch, distracted by the conversation.

Remembering the dream he had had earlier Naruto started blushing so much that his ears became red. “Oh…you know…weird ass dreams…”Naruto said suddenly very interested in a mark on the table in front of him.

“Oh, Just a weird ass dream?” Kiba asked, a smirk appearing on his face. “What kind of weird ass dream?”

“Th-that’s none of your buis-ah! Kiba st-stop.. haha…that tickles!” Naruto started laughing as tickling his side. He had been so caught up with trying (and failing) to hide his embarrassed that he had not noticed that Kiba had jumped over the table and had begun tickling his most ticklish spot— the points right under his ribs on his sides. Kiba had found out that he was ticklish a few years ago and, unfortunately for him, used it to his full advantage to get info out of him.

“So, what kind of dream did you have again?”

“It was.. haha… not. .ahaha.. import-hahaha…” Naruto was laughing so hard that he couldn’t form complete sentences, let alone breath.

“Naruto you might as well confess. Kiba can do this all day, plus there’s about 20 minuets left till next period, enough time for you do die from lack of air.” Shikamaru painfully reminded the blond.

“Fine! Fine! I’ll tell you just get the hell off me!!” Naruto yelled giving in to the two boys. It was times like these that made him wonder why he chose these two as his best friends. They were the perfect team when it came to things like this. Kiba tickled, annoyed, chased, molested (don’t ask) him while Shikamaru reminded him how long Kiba could do and be entertained by torturing him by doing those things, and what might happen if he didn’t give in, for example dieing from lack of air.

“Okay then, let’s hear it then.”

I’m going to kill him Naruto glared at Kiba, finally he sighed and started to explain his dreams.

“It starts by me walking through school after hours. I’m looking for somebody; I don’t know who it is, just that it was important that I find this person. I then walk into an empty classroom, still looking around hoping that the person I’m looking for is there. As I walk into the center of the room someone starts to speak to me. He insults me, and makes fun of me but… it’s different from the way everyone else does it. I don’t know how to describe it, the only thing I can think of was that he sounded like he was just trying to get a rise out of me, not hurt me, like in some way he cared about if he went to far…I feel like I know the voice; that it’s someone I’m familiar with, but I can never figure out who it is.”

“Wow, that’s some deep shit.” Kiba said after Naruto finished explaining his dream.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t explain why you were embarrassed before. What aren’t you telling us?” Shikamaru asked.

Why does he have to be so interested in this conversation??? Kiba’s bad enough but I just had to attract Shikamaru’s attention as well. The prices I pay for having a genius as a best friend…

“The only person I’m telling that to is Ino.”

“What?! Why can’t you tell us?!” Kiba shouted.

“Please Kiba, lower your decibel count. The reason I’m not telling you is because you Kiba have a big mouth yo-”

“I don’t have a big mouth!!”

“Oh? Seventh grade, you told everyone that I had a crush on Sakura, which by the way never happened you misunderstood what I was saying to Shikamaru because you came in to the conversation late. Thanks to that Sakura stopped talking to me and was on edge around me until someone cleared up the misunderstanding.”

“Well that was-”

“Fifth grade, you told everyone that I was afraid of the dark which led to me being made fun of. Again this was a misunderstanding.”

“But-”

“Beginning of ninth grade, you just happened to let it slip that I thought that a certain Uchiha was a stuck up asshole that thinks he’s so great when he’s just passing by on his looks, this lead to me becoming an enemy to not only him, but to more than half the schools female population. This resulted in me getting nasty looks from his stupid fan club, which again contains most of the schools female population, getting an extremely long and annoying lecture from Sakura, and confirming the fact that me and the ass are enemies thus resulting in me getting detention regularly for the fights we get into, causing me to miss precious time in which I could be doing more productive things than sitting in a room with said asshole everyday after school!”

“Um…”

“And let’s not forget the incident in which you happened to mention an important piece of private information to our lovely English class last year. Yes, you WANTED to tell just one person, but of course, you just happen to let the entire class know that I like guys!!!”

“…sorry?” Kiba said in a small voice.

“I remember that, Kiba had to stay home for a week because of his injuries.” Shikamaru recalled. “But that whole thing with Uchiha wasn’t his fault, people already knew that you two had issues with one another, it was to be expected that you would insult him.”

“He told one of Sasuke’s fan girls.”

“Oh, so that explains why everyone thought that Sasuke was the victim in your relationship and that it was unjustified that he got in trouble when they felt that it was your fault in the first place that a fight started Leading to you getting tons of glares in the hallway and having various other unfortunate things happen to you which caused your hatred for Uchiha to grow even more.”

“Yep, and that is why I will not say a word to Kiba about the rest of my dream.”

“Okay…I get why you won’t tell me, but what about Shikamaru here?” asked Kiba.

“Shika, would you like to answer that?” Naruto asked, once again turning back to his forgotten meal.

“This is so troublesome…” Shikamaru mumbled, then speaking louder said, “Naruto doesn’t have to tell me. Knowing him the reason that he’s going to go to Ino is because he needs help sorting certain things that I’m either not able to deal with or will find to troublesome to help him out with. It’s better to let Ino help him out because better with this sort of thing, based on Naruto’s reactions thus far. If it’s something that Ino believes that I need to know about she will tell me. And since I already have a good hunch about what’s going on, I think it’s better if she handles things.”

“Exactly.” Naruto agreed.

“But most importantly if Naruto told me about the dream, Kiba would annoy me to no end, which is much too troublesome to handle. It’s better to have Kiba want to annoy Ino; she can keep a secret no matter what. And if Kiba annoys her to much she’ll kill him.” Shikamaru said losing interest in the conversation.

“I don’t know who is worse, you Shika or Ino.” Kiba said after Shikamaru’s explanation. “Ino, for her mood swings, or your lazy ass for going out with her.”

“What about my mood swings Kiba?”

“She’s right behind me isn’t she?” Kiba asked, horror dripping from every word.

“Yep you’re screwed.” Naruto said, happy to see his friend.

Kiba turned around slowly to see a livid Ino cracking her knuckles.

“I’ll give you 5 seconds.” She said in a dark tone.

Not needing to hear anymore Kiba sprang up and ran towards the door, only to be hit by a well aimed textbook.

“Ouch…” Naruto winced in sympathy once again remembering his premature death that was going to occur when Ino found out about his recent increase in working hours.

“Ino was that really necessary?” Said another voice from behind the blond girl.

Naruto looked passed Ino, smiling when he spotted two more of his friends, Neji and Gaara.

“Hey Gaara, hey Neji!!” Naruto said as the two sat down next to Ino who now sat in the spot that Kiba recently vacated.

“Of course it was necessary!!” Ino responded, interrupting Naruto’s greeting, “I never pass an opportunity to hurt dog-boy there, I need to keep my skills sharp ya know. Plus he not only insulted me, but Shika to. The penalty for that is severe…” She finished grinning evilly.

“Ino-chan I sorta understand your whole punishment thing, but why do you need to sharpen your skill using ME as practice???” Kiba said as he came back to the table holding his head in one hand, the text book in the other.

“Because Kiba is Kiba. I could never use anyone else as a practice dummy as well as I use you!” Ino said happily.

“But WHY???”

“Oh, because I don’t feel guilty when I hurt you.” She said while grinning.

Naruto smile became bigger at that statement. People often gave Ino weird looks when they learned that she was the only girl in the group. But what they didn’t know was that behind her looks she was a tomboy at heart and could hold her own in a group made up of boys. She was a tough girl, but she had her girly moments, most of which involved Naruto, Shikamaru, or any of the others if they needed help in relationships, didn’t matter if it was trouble with a friend, foe or lover she would help. That was both her specialty and (unfortunately) her obsession.

“Oh! Neji, Gaara, I thought you were going to be busy this period, same with you to Ino.” Naruto asked tilting his head in confusion.

“Our Student Counsel meeting was canceled.” Ino stated, taking a sip of Shikamaru’s drink. “I got held up though because someone pulled me aside to talk about the culture festival that’s coming up. So annoying…”

“What about Neji and Gaara then?” Naruto asked turning to the two boys, taking in their disheveled appearances the first time since they arrived. Shirts were wrinkled and untucked, hair unkempt, ties undone... “Never mind, I don’t wanna know.” the blond said turning away from the two boys’, his cheeks slightly pink.

A wide smirk appeared on Gaara’s face.

“Okay then...why did your meeting get canceled?” Kiba said awkwardly, quickly changing the subject, it's not that he had anything against Gaara and Neji’s relationship, hell he had witnessed them going at it many times, effectively scaring him for life and giving him extremely detailed mental images whenever Gaara had that smirk on his face.

“Who knows?” Ino said while taking a bite out of her boyfriend’s lunch.

“Uchiha was the one who canceled it, maybe something happened to him.” Neji commented opening up a soda that he had brought with him.

“Hn, maybe he got trampled by his fan club.” Gaara muttered while stealing some of Naruto’s lunch.

“Hm, maybe...” Naruto said, not very interested in the subject, his mind going over the pervious conversation he had before his other friends showed up.

Naruto jumped about a foot in the air as the bell rung, signifying the end of the period.

“Man, Naruto are you alright?” asked Kiba.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just wasn’t paying attention.” Naruto replied rubbing the back of his neck, with a grin on his face. Naruto then began to strike up a conversation with the dog lover, oblivious to the worried looks that his friends were giving him.