Naruto glances from Choji to Kiba, blue eyes scanning his friends' cheeks, and the marks they hold. He briefly touches his own face, feeling the slight dents his whiskers make in his skin. Then he turns to Shikamaru, adjusting his goggles before making a declaration.
"You need marks!" Shikamaru gave his friend a slightly puzzled look, raising one of his thin eyebrows to show his confusion. "Yeah!" Kiba yelled after a second. "That way we all match!" He yipped happily, as if he thought of it himself. "Well, I could give him spirals like mine." Choji said, tapping a thick finger to his chin. "No way! He should have whiskers." Kiba scoffed at that. "No way, he should have fangs like me." He stuck up his and and made a little rawr for emphasis. Naruto huffed in mock-amusement. "Those aren't fangs, Kiba, they're just dumb red triangles." He said, crossing his arms, the brunette growled. "You're just mad because the marks on Choji and my cheeks means we have families!" He shouted, and the whole room seemed to freeze. Shikamaru, who had previously been trying to sneak away in the argument, now stared horrified at his two loudmouth friends. Choji was the first to move.
"Naru-" he tried reaching out a hand to his smallest friend but was cut off when he ran from the room, pushing Kiba on his way by. Choji crossed his arms, looking at his friend with a face of disappointment that both the other boys in the room knew well. "Kiba, you promised to stop bullying Naruto, we all pinky promised to be friends." He said sadly, making Kiba look down at his sandals.
Shikamaru thought for a moment before blushing a little. "I have an idea to make it up to him."
The next day, Naruto came in just as the first bell rang. He scanned the room, Iruka didn't acknowledge his presence at all, busy writing on the board. He turned to his friends. Shikamaru had his head down on the desk, nestled in his arms, Choji was scanning the back of a large bag of chips, one that easily hid his entire torso, and Kiba was turned around and talking to the two said boys behind him. He noticed the free seat next to Kiba and quietly sat down, and none of his friends even seemed to notice. He scanned the room one last time, seeing that the only person that noticed him was Sakura. Sakura glared at the blonde, as if daring him to compliment her and ask her out like he did any other morning. He slouched in his chair and put his head on his desk.
Naruto couldn't help but mumble "so Kiba was right." Lowly to himself.
"S-Sorry about yesterday." He suddenly heard Kiba mumble, he whipped around and saw that the brunette's cheeks were turning the same colour as his 'fangs', but above that, there were six shakily drawn whiskers. Naruto's eyes widened significantly at the whiskers, and he turned to look at he other two friends, only to see they wore small blushes and big grins, more neatly drawn whiskers on their own faces. "Naruto." He heard a familiar voice call, he turned and saw neatly drawn whiskers on his teacher. "You don't need a biological family to have a family, we're all your family." Naruto's whole face went hot and he felt his eyes begin to prickles with happy tears. He felt Kiba wrap his arm around his neck and a Nara put his hand on Naruto's shoulder. Naruto then got unceremoniously scooped into a group hug with Choji's bear strength. He smiled, because he had never felt that loved before.