Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine.
When Kakashi offered to take Naruto out to eat, the boy was surprised, but didn't decline. After all, there was no sense in turning down a free meal, no matter how suspicious the circumstances were. But that didn't stop him from being curious.
Ever since they had finished the second task of the Chūnin exam, Kakashi had been too busy training Sasuke to talk to Naruto. Of course, Naruto had wanted Kakashi to train him, but he had ended up with Ero-sennin instead. He would show them, though. Naruto was determined to make Ero-sennin teach him something that not even Kakashi could top.
Jutsus aside, however, Naruto had to wonder why Kakashi suddenly wanted to talk to him after ignoring him for the last three weeks.
"So," asked Naruto, as he separated his chopsticks and scowled at the steaming bowl of ramen in front of him. "Why did you invite me out, if you're not going to even eat?"
Kakashi chuckled. "You don't miss a thing. I'm experimenting with a new diet. No ramen, sorry."
Naruto raised an eyebrow, obviously not buying Kakashi's excuse, but his mouth was already stuffed with noodles, effectively silencing him.
"To tell you the truth, the Hokage wanted me to talk to you."
Naruto swallowed. "Huh?"
"Hmm," murmured Kakashi. "How do I phrase this?" He thought for a moment. "You like Sakura, don't you?"
His words caused Naruto's hand to freeze half-way to his mouth. A fine blush crept across his cheeks and he lowered his eyes, suddenly very keen on scrutinizing his bowl of ramen.
"I suppose," he said, shyly.
"Do you ever imagine... doing anything with her?" asked Kakashi. "Do you ever think about her... naked, when you're alone?"
Naruto felt his face burning beneath the stare of his teacher's grey eyes.
"No!" he shouted. "I don't like her like that!"
It was Kakashi's turn to look surprised. "Didn't you just say you liked her?"
A funny feeling had crept into Naruto's stomach, and suddenly he wasn't hungry anymore.
"Yeah," said Naruto, staring at the clear broth in his bowl of ramen. "I like her because she's pretty and nice, at least most of the time, but... she likes Sasuke."
His face darkened for an instant, but Kakashi barely had time to digest this new information before the kid was smiling again.
"It's okay, though. She's still my friend."
"Is there someone else you think about, then?" asked Kakashi. "A guy, perhaps?"
He had suddenly found himself on unfamiliar terrain without a map. Talking to Naruto about sex had been the Hokage's idea; as the Hokage had put it, Naruto was an outgoing guy, and one that attracted just as many people as Sasuke did. Unlike Sasuke, however, Naruto's probability of acting on his attractions was much, much higher. Adolescent ninjas had enough problems on their plate, without having to worry about accidently getting their girlfriends pregnant and fathering an illegitimate child.
"No!" exclaimed Naruto. "I mean... I think about people--girls, sometimes. But nobody in particular."
Kakashi smiled beneath his mask and ruffled Naruto's hair. Naruto looked up at him, blue eyes wide with surprise.
"Don't worry," Kakashi reassured him. "One day you'll find your particular person and you'll understand what I mean."
Naruto grinned and picked up his chopsticks. He finished his bowl of ramen in one gulp and turned to Kakashi.
"Can I have seconds?" he asked.
"Sure," agreed Kakashi. "I still have a few things to talk to you about, anyway."
Naruto couldn't sleep that night. Everything that Kakashi had talked about was floating around his head. His particular person, certain desires, safety precautions; it was overwhelmingly complicated.
Naruto rolled over and buried his face in his pillow, but the thoughts continued to haunt him. Eventually, he came to the conclusion that sleep was impossible, and he might as well take a walk.
Maybe he would go up to the training ground. It would be deserted at this hour, of course, but that only meant that Naruto wouldn't even have to change out of his pajamas. All he wanted to do anyway was stretch his legs and get some fresh area.
Naruto climbed out of bed and walked over to the door. He slipped his feet into a pair of sandals, yawned once, made sure the door was locked behind him and dropped the house key in his pocket.
To his surprise, the training ground wasn't deserted.
"Hinata?" he asked, when he saw the dim shadow of the girl practicing at one of the thick posts.
She spun around, wild-eyed. When she saw Naruto standing there, in his panda sleeping hat she blushed and giggled.
Her laugh, soft and gentle, took Naruto by surprise. He was used to her being so quiet. Naruto felt foolish for forgetting to take his night cap off, but he grinned and pretended it was a joke.
"I didn't expect anyone to come here this late," said Hinata.
"It's my fault," Naruto said. "I didn't mean to interrupt your training." He turned to leave.
"Wait!" Hinata slapped her hand over her mouth, surprised that she had cried outloud. "You don't have to go," she said, softly.
Naruto's eyes widened and he stopped in his tracks.
"You sure?" he asked, hesitantly. Hinata had been practicing so earnestly before he had interrupted her. Part of him felt that she would get more done if he declined, but a bigger part of him wanted to stay.
He plunked down on the ground nearby and leaned back against the post next to the one Hinata had been practicing with earlier.
"Why are you out here so late, anyway?" he asked, casually. "Aren't you afraid of anyone attacking you?"
"I-I hadn't really thought about it," said Hinata, as she stared at her fingers. "I don't want to be a disappointment anymore," she said, quietly. "I want to become stronger... for everyone."
She looked up at Naruto and he found her watching him with a gaze he had only seen in battle: one of pure determination.
"Of course you do," said Naruto, grinning. "But you still shouldn't be out this late alone."
"I suppose..."
"If you'd like, I'll keep you company out here. Maybe even help you train," offered Naruto.
"You would?" asked Hinata, sounding amazed.
"Sure."
Even as he said it, Naruto felt sleep inevitably stealing over his body. The urge to yawn overpowered him.
"It's getting kind of late, though. Why don't we start tomorrow?"
"Oh. Okay."
Naruto got to his feet.
"N-Naruto? Can I ask you a question?"
"Okay."
"Why did you come out here tonight?"
"I couldn't sleep."
"Oh."
Hinata smiled, and Naruto found himself thinking she looked nicer when she wasn't blushing.
The next day, Naruto practiced until he was nearly falling over with exhaustion. If Ero-sennin was surprised with his vigor, he didn't show it. He spent the majority of the day researching for his third novel, and fell asleep sometime around mid-afternoon.
By the time the sun had sunk so low that only the tip of its rays were visible over the horizon, Naruto was sick of trying to summon a frog and more than ready to stop for the evening. He paused for a moment, debating about whether he should wake Ero-sennin up or not. Eventually he decided he didn't owe the man anything, so he left him sleeping in the shade of a tree and headed towards the training ground.
Hinata was already there by the time Naruto arrived. He grinned and waved at her as he approached the training ground. She gave him a soft smile in return.
"Hey, Hinata!" called Naruto.
"Naruto..."
"Ready to start training?"
Hinata nodded.
"Great!" said Naruto. He examined Hinata for a second, his eyes flickering from the top of her dark hair to the tip of her sandals. "Hmm. You were practicing your handwork on the post last night... How 'bout you do that again, and show me what you've got?"
"Okay." Hinata moved into position, well aware of Naruto's eyes watching her.
As Naruto brushed his teeth that night, he found himself thinking about Hinata. He was used to writing her off subconsciously as a quiet girl without much going on. The preliminaries opened his eyes, of course, but actually practicing with Hinata was made him realize exactly how wrong about her he had been.
Fighting did not come naturally to Hinata. She moved awkwardly, as if she wasn't quite sure of herself. It was if she never knew where her foot would fall next, or when her opponent was a fraction of an inch outside of her range. But Naruto knew that didn't matter. After all, Lee had proven that anyone could become a ninja if they worked hard enough.
She would always be nothing compared to Neji, granted, but Naruto knew she had the potential to become something else entirely.
The next day, Hinata had a surprise for Naruto.
"I hope you'll expect this," she said, thrusting a shopping bag into his arms.
"What is it?" he asked, taking the shopping bag and examining it.
"I made you rice balls," said Hinata. "To thank you for helping me."
Naruto grinned. "Thank you!"
He found that he didn't even mind when Hinata blushed this time.
During the next week, Naruto's life was a blur.
After he nearly died summoning Gamabunta, he fell into a three-day coma. When he woke, the first thing that went through his mind was Hinata. He knew he should find her immediately and apologize for missing the last three days of her training, but before he could do anything Shikamaru started telling him about Chouji and how he ended up in the hospital, and Naruto forgot all about Hinata waiting for him at the training ground.
Naruto caught a glimpse of Hinata in the stands during the third task, but he didn't have time to say apologize then, either. Everyone was so confused, and then Kakashi ordered him to go with Sakura, Shikamaru and Pakkun to retrieve Sasuke. Naruto was torn between leaving and going, but Sasuke was his teammate and he remembered what Kakashi had told him the very first day they had met: a ninja who break rules and regulations is trash... but a ninja who doesn't care about his companions is even worse than trash. As much as he wished he could stay and protect Hinata, Naruto knew that Sasuke was his first priority at the moment.
Besides, thought Naruto as he looked at Kakashi once more before following the others out of the whole in the stadium's wall, Kakashi and the other ninjas could handle the situation.
The next time Naruto saw Hinata was at the third Hokage's funeral, under a vastly different set of circumstances. She was standing near the edge of the crowd gathered around the Hokage's picture, with her head bowed in prayer. He was in the thick of the crowd, shaking slightly, although whether it was from self-righteous anger or the cold, he didn't know.
And it was cold, bitterly so.
As the day wore on, the crowd thinned and dispersed throughout the city. The damage to the city was tremendous, but no one felt very enthusiastic about working with the Hokage so recently laid to rest. He had been more than just the leader of the village, he had been its heart.
Naruto was no exception; he wandered the streets aimlessly, with neither a purpose nor a direction. He barely noticed when it started to rain. Even when his shirt was soaked and stuck to his chest, even when the beads of water slipped down his forehead and down the smooth slope of his empty face, even when he accidentally stepped into a puddle and his shoes became waterlogged and heavy, he didn't stop walking. He might have kept walking forever down the endless paths of Konoha if he hadn't spotted Hinata sitting all alone at the base of an oak.
He trudged across the soggy ground, wet grass grazing the tips of his black dress shoes. Hinata didn't look up, even when he plopped down besides her.
"Hey," he said.
Hinata wrapped her fingers around a blade of grass near her leg and pulled it up. Dirt clung to its root, and Hinata scrutinized it for a minute. Then she tossed it aside and picked another blade from the ground.
"Are you..." began Naruto, but his usual confidence was nowhere to be seen. It rattled him that the Hokage was dead. "Are you... okay?"
Hinata looked up at him and he flinched. Her face was streaked with tears and her violet eyes were blood-shot. Her lower lip was trembling uncontrollably.
"I... I'm so sorry," she said. Her voice was as broken and raw as glass against stone.
Naruto was stunned. Not only had he never seen Hinata this emotional before, but he had no clue what she was apologizing for.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, reaching out and stroking her cheek sympathetically.
"I couldn't fight the Illusion off," explained Hinata, mumbling.
The word rolled around in Naruto's head and he struggled to make sense of Hinata's situation. Then it clicked.
"But you couldn't have-"
"You did," said Hinata quietly. She wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve and struggled to control her breathing.
"No," said Naruto, a faint pink tinge spreading across his face. "I didn't."
"But when I was woken..."
"Sakura woke me up.
"Oh."
"Don't let it bother you," said Naruto. "You couldn't have done anything." When he saw Hinata's face fall he hurried to explain. "No one could do anything, not even the ANBU. We were taken by surprise, like idiots." Naruto clenched his fist in frustration; if only we had seen it coming...
Hinata leaned forward quickly and planted a kiss on Naruto's lips. Her touch was as light and soft as the brush of a butterfly's wings against his skin, but it sent shivers down his spine anyway.
Naruto didn't even have time to think before he was kissing her back. His fingers rested on her jaw; her wet hair slipped between his fingertips and he tucked them behind her ear. He pressed his lips against hers tentatively and found Hinata's mouth open in surprise. Taking the initiative, Naruto deepened the kiss.
Naruto's decision to let Hinata come home with him was not so much a decision, but rather a spontaneous event that Naruto hadn't expected, but, when faced with such a predicament, accepted--albeit hesitantly. Not even Naruto with all his buoyant optimism could deny that the thought of inviting a girl over to his home for the first time was nerve-wracking.
He had turned to leave the training site after saying good-bye to Hinata, only to feel her tug on his sleeve. When he had turned, she had looked so sad, so alone that he had been unable to do anything except grab her hand and take her home with him.
By the time they had gotten to Naruto's house, the heat that their training had generated had all but disappeared, and the cool night air crept beneath the edges of their shirts, chilling them further. They crawled into Naruto's single bed with all their clothes on and pulled the sheet over them. Their breath was hot and damp, and heated up the little air between their bodies quickly.
They lay there for what seemed like an eternity, eyes wide and unblinking. Each was waiting for the other to give in, to claim mercy, to throw the sheet off their heads. They waited like that until they thought they were going to die, before Naruto clawed his way out from beneath the blanket and gasped in the cold night air. He felt it race down his throat and fill his lungs, burning every inch of flesh as it went, causing his heart to pound and his head to ache.
"I guess that means you win," he told Hinata. He laughed and looked sideways at her as they lay shoulder-to-shoulder on his narrow bed.
She rolled over onto her side and reached out and touched his blond hair. "I want to be just like you."
Naruto contemplated her silently for a moment. "I think I'd like you better as Hinata."
A few weeks later, when Jiraiya asked Naruto to accompany him on a trip in exchange for being taught a new jutsu, Naruto couldn't say no.
"I probably won't be gone for very long," said Naruto, after he had explained the situation to Hinata.
Hinata looked down at her feet. She scuffed her sandals quietly, kicking up dust and watching it settle again. Suddenly she looked up at Naruto, violet eyes filled with a fierce intensity.
"I'll miss you," she said, and threw her arms around him. Her embrace startled Naruto. Before he could hug her back she had already let go and was blushing shyly.
Naruto grinned and scratched the back of his head. "See you, Hinata!"
Hinata watched him walk down the road until he had turned the corner and disappeared from sight. She was sad to see him leave, but she knew that no matter what happened, everything would work out alright in the end; she would be waiting for Naruto when he returned.
After all, he had told her that she was his particular person.