Chapter Eleven

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"I'll give them a week before they come knocking on the door and asking about the USJ." Shikamaru told Naruto as he took a drag from his cigarette. They both stood outside of their apartment complex, sharing a cigarette to celebrate Naruto's discharge from the hospital.

"You underestimate them Shikamaru. If it doesn't happen in class, it will probably take three days at most before they come knocking on the door." Naruto told him, laughing lightly before taking the cigarette from Shikamaru and raising it to his lips.

"Looser buys the other one dinner." Shikamaru said, turning to look at Naruto, completely serious about the conditions for their bet.

"You're on!" Naruto told him. Shikamaru then took his cigarette back from Naruto, and laid his arm across Naruto's shoulders, content to stay like that for a couple more minutes.

____

"Hey, did you watch the news last night? Did you see how everyone was on-screen for a second?" Naruto could hear his invisible classmate saying this as he stood outside his closed classroom door. This would be his first time seeing everyone since the USJ incident. And not having any of his classmates numbers, he hadn't spoken to any of them at all. He knew that Izuku and his mom had stopped by the other day, but he hadn't been discharged yet and there was no time to visit them before school was starting back up.

Naruto was still debating on how to enter the classroom when he heard his classmate continue.

"I didn't stand out at all..." She said, sighing to herself.

"It's hard to stand out looking like that, huh?" Naruto heard Ojiro say in response. Rather than continue to stand outside the classroom, Naruto decided that now was the best time to enter the classroom. Pushing the door completely open, Naruto said,

"Be glad you guys got any screen time. They didn't even have footage of my presence there! I was in the hospital and no news network even talked about me in passing! And there wasn't one news article about me!"

"Naruto!" Ochako exclaimed, jumping out of her seat with her hands on her desk. Naruto's head turned to where she was as he flinched where he was standing, startled from his classmates outburst.

"Yes?" He asked her.

"You're okay! They only told us about your condition the day of the attack which wasn't the best news. After that they refused to tell anyone anything about your condition. We were really beginning to worry..." Ochako said, her gaze falling towards the end of her statement.

"Hey, hey, hey now there's no reason to worry! I'm alright I'm standing right here! There was no reason. To worry! There's no way I'm dying before I become a pro hero! I didn't run in to help with the intention of dying and I didn't, so wipe the frown off your face!" Naruto told Ochako as he walked over to her and pulled her into a brief side hug.

"She's not wrong Naruto, you had a lot of us worried. I tried to stop by a couple times with my mom but Shikamaru didn't have time to talk, or no one was there. We all started to fear for the worst." Izuku told Naruto, happy to see his friend but a bit hurt that he didn't know anything before his classmates.

"Yeah Shikamaru told me that. I was going to stop by yesterday to let you know I was okay, but I didn't get discharged until pretty late in the afternoon. When I got home I just kinda passed out and I didn't see you this morning on the way to school. Sorry about that." Naruto said apologetically, throwing Izuku a sheepish smile as he starched the back of his neck.

"It's fine, but I'll have to give you my number later. Just in case anything like this ever happens again it will be easier to check on you."

Naruto nodded to Izuku before making his way to his seat and sitting down. He turned to his classmates sitting by him to begin a conversation, but he wasn't able to as fast footsteps could be heard from the hall making their way to 1-A's classroom.

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