Naruto POV

I run my hand up the inside of Gaara's leg. My friend moans theatrically and pulls me closer to him, Gaara has always been good at acting his face is like a mask; it never shows anything unless he wants it too. I, however, am terrible at drama and I have to lower my head to suck on Gaara's neck to hide my laughter. When I have my face under control I sneak a peek over Gaara's shoulder at my other friends. I see the normal reaction: Ino and Tenten are staring unashamedly at our antics mouths slightly open and heads to the side and Kiba is bright red in the face and attempting to distract himself by staring intensely at Ino's boobs!

Kiba's latest strategy is too much for me and I double over with laughter, leaning on Gaara who gives a small smile; even Gaara enjoys our little games with Kiba! Ino and Tenten love it, of course, because they get to see real live yaoi! Apparently Kiba is the only one uncomfortable with it, but that's what makes it fun!

"Naruto!" Gaara scolds, though he's still smiling slightly, "You always start bloody laughing!"

"Well sorry if not all of us are emotionless!"

"I'm not emotionless!" He hits me lightly.

"Yeah I know you're EEEEEEMO!" That earns me a harder hit, but it's true so I'm not taking it back.

It's lunchtime and we're all sitting at our usual bench round the side of the art rooms. Everyone knows this is our bench, but just in case, we covered it in graffiti (a lot of it was Gaara's doing 'cause he's the artist of our group)!

"I wish you guys wouldn't do that!" Moans Kiba, "You know the whole school thinks you're a couple!"

"Why should we give a shit what everyone else thinks?!" I really couldn't care less, they're all assholes anyway!

"Whatever! But the last girlfriend I had kept asking me for details on you two!"

"Kiba! Seriously man is there a girl in this school you haven't dated?" Asks Ino reproachfully.

"Yeah! You two,"

"Thanks!" Says Tenten.

"And Sakura,"

"Yeah it doesn't look like you'll get a chance there! Since she has Neji now she obviously doesn't need us losers!" Puts in Ino.

"And a whole load of that prissy lot."

"So everyone who doesn't follow Hyuuga?"

"Not everyone! Jeez you make me out like I have a different girl every week."

"Pretty much!" Snorts Gaara.

"You can't really judge you frigid gay!"

Gaara glares at Kiba and pulls a black marker from inside one of his arm-warmers (he always keeps it there) and next second there is a very offensive sketch being added to the bench.

"Okay enough!" I search for a change of subject, "Anyone know what I got next?"

"English." Says Tenten.

Great! Wish I hadn't asked now! I groan and lie flat out along the table top.

"Oi!" Shouts Tenten pulling her book out from underneath me.

Ino sighs and strokes my hair, she's nice like that! "Don't worry babe, just keep your head down and do as your told."

"It doesn't help; the guy really hates me! It's not my fault I suck at English!"

"I know he's hard on you but Ebisu-sensei is a good teacher so just try and listen."

I nod along but doubt her words. Ino's fine; Ebisu's always nice to the girls, the pervert! I let Tenten rest her book on my belly as she reads.

Whilst I may not get along with a lot of the teachers (with the exception of Iruka my adopted dad) I do quite like our school. It has all the typical high school cliques, the populars, the school council, the real geeks, the drama club and then there's those who don't fit in anywhere, that's us. Most of us choose to be our own group, like Gaara for example: he's great at drama and the drama club has asked him to join countless times, but he always turns them down, and Ino; she could easily be a popular, so could Kiba. It's okay for them but people like me and Tenten didn't have a choice! The drama club may not care if Gaara's gay but the rest of the school does and they hate me for it! Well fuck them! I don't need to be classed as 'popular', personally I think I have the best group of friends a guy could ask for! Tenten didn't have much of a choice either, the people who remember when she joined our junior school made sure of that. She used to live on the streets until Ino's parent's took her in. She's pretty smart now and well-mannered when need be but back then she was pretty rough; nearly didn't make it to high school when she pulled a knife on some girl from the year above who, in my opinion, was asking for it!

But the best thing about our school is the dress code; it's really lax. You got to wear some form of black bottoms, white shirt and black jacket but we can wear it anyway and with anything we want! Like me, I wear an orange t-shirt and my shirt open, I actually look pretty scruffy, 'cause I have rips all over my black jeans and the left leg is open up to my knee on the inside, but no one really cares!

Tenten wears her baggy old black jeans which are full of pockets and she cut the sleeves off her shirt. Ino's outfit always brightens up my day, literally; she wears those really short shorts with a different brightly coloured pair of tights everyday! Seriously, there's like pink, green, fluorescent yellow, leopard skin, my favourite are the orange ones! I like Ino's style she wears all that big plastic jewellery, Sakura used to wear that stuff too (before she abdicated).

Kiba likes the casual style like me but Gaara really tests the limits! He chopped the arms off his shirt too, only he didn't do it neatly like Tenten, the left arm comes down to his elbow but the right is non-existent, he pinned a net sleeve to his right arm that comes all the way down to hook over his thumb! Then he adds the tightest pair of black jeans he could find and his ever-present red and black chequered arm-warmers.

What's really cool about our school uniform (if you can call it that) is that we were each given a patch with the Konoha High School logo on it, but we weren't told were we had to put it! So of course we all put it somewhere different! I honestly can't sew but I can use superglue so I glued it to the first place I thought of, which happened to be the inner side of my left shoe, which works out pretty well because what with the big rip up my leg it's actually more visible then I intended at the time.

The prissy school council lot, (now including Sakura) all wear their patches proudly on their chests but we, 'The Misfits', decided to be more interesting. Gaara used yet more safety pins to attach it to one of his scar-hiding-arm-warmers, Ino sewed it to the back of her shorts so if anyone asks to see it she can wave her bum in their face (I mean it's not like she's got anything to be ashamed of in that area), Kiba got Ino to sew his to the corner of his shirt and Tenten wears hers on the back of one of the fingerless gloves she's always wearing. We like to test the rules; it's more fun that way!

The bells rings and I groan dramatically refusing to get up so Ino has to drag me to English. The rest of the day goes pretty quick. Same old, same old; get picked on by Ebisu-sensei (not my fault he can't take a joke), get a particularly good case of the 'Neji Evils', you know; the ones he reserves especially for me, and then at the end of the day I couldn't get to my locker 'cause Gaara's big sister, Temari, and her latest boyfriend, Sai, were making out in front of it. By the time I finally get home I am too tired to go out so I text Ino to let her know I won't be meeting them down at the skate park like I usually do and instead slump on the sofa and grab the remote control.

I am still flicking through the channels when the door is pushed open and a pile of papers edge their way into the room. I get up and take half the pile to drop them on the kitchen table, as I do so the tanned face of Umino Iruka is revealed.

"Hi Naruto, good day?" My guardian asks.

I smile brightly despite my exhausted state. "A normal day of," I mimicked Ebisu's snotty voice, "'mediocre work'."

"Wind him up again did we?" Iruka attempts a stern look but I know him too well; Iruka doesn't like Ebisu anymore than I do, he just has to be civil because they're colleges.

"Who me?" I give him puppy dog eyes and Iruka sighs.

"Tsk, Naruto, you got to start taking life seriously, being mature. You're nearly 16!"

I don't know how many times he's used that one against me recently but it's getting old. I mean so what if I'm nearly 16? That's means fuck all! I'm still technically a kid, not allowed a car, not allowed to drink cough and besides I'm not really THAT immature, I just like to have a bit of fun in life! What's wrong with that?

"Yeah, yeah okay Iruka, I'll do my best." I say just to shut him up.

There's nothing on the TV and I have no desire to be lectured by Iruka so I drag my tired ass down the hall to my bedroom. I love my room. When we first moved here Iruka said I could paint it whatever colour I wanted, I think he regretted it when I chose orange! And it's not dark, burnt orange either, it's bright, vivid, REAL orange! I flop down on my big fluffy (orange) beanbag and reach over to turn on my lava lamp, it lights the room up with an orangey glow. I swear if I ever grow out of orange I will be totally fucked! But I don't think that'll ever happen so it's okay!

After some of Iruka's brilliant cooking I head back to my bed and bury under the orange and black spotty covers. I don't know why I'm so exhausted, it's not like I worked hard today or anything! As I watch the orange lava bubble inside the rocket shape lamp my thoughts drift back to my friends, they always do, my friends mean everything to me and I'd never want them to get hurt!

I think about hugging Gaara, teasing Kiba and getting a small smile from Sakura today. We still get along, me and her, we probably always will, it's just there's a distance there now that wasn't before. It's a shame because we used to be really good friends, I was even closer to her than I am to Ino, (but not as close as Gaara). When I noticed how she didn't laugh along with us or how she sometimes hung out with Neji, Hinata, Shikamaru and Shino after council meetings it was already too late. You know that saying: 'When you think you're losing somebody, they're already lost.'? Well that was exactly the case with Sakura. But I guess she's happy now and remember when I said I didn't want my friends getting hurt? Well the same goes for Sakura now! She's got a good thing going with Neji and I want her to be happy! With that thought in my head I allow slept to take me.

And wake up all too soon to the sound of Iruka's voice yelling at me that if I don't get up now I'll be late. I groan and reluctantly throw off warm bed covers. I trudge to the kitchen rubbing the sleep from my eyes to find a grinning Iruka holding a large chocolate cake. My eyes widen in shock. I completely forgot; today's my birthday!