Disclaimer (I'm strangely starting to doubt my spelling a lot...forgive mispellings, please...): don't own Naruto.
Hidden Hero
Freefell
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"Hinata-chan, what are you doing there?" Naruto called, spotting Hinata behind a pole.
She immediately turned pink to red to puce, then blanched. Nearly fainting, but she clung onto the pole for dear life.
"N-N-N-Naruto-kun!"
Naruto looked at her peculiarly.
"I-I was just...cleaning the pole!" Hinata nervously plucked out a handkerchief from her pocket and started wiping the dirty spoltches off, avoiding all eye contact. Surely she couldn't tell Naruto that she was stalking him.
She couldn't just go, Oh Naruto-kun, I was doing my daily Naruto-Stalking activity, but--ahaha!--you caught me!
One word: Awkward...
"Right...Hinata-chan..." Naruto started walking away, not even trying to make any sense of what the Hyuuga said.
As Hinata watched Naruto's back disappear off in the distance, she slid to her knees and sighed in relief. That was close.
Hinata was said to be the most timid in Konoha. It wasn't an opinion.
It was a dead-serious fact.
She avoided eye contact, twiddled her thumb, hid expertly behind scenery, stuttered like there was no tomorrow, and blushed madly at conversation.
She was brave. That wasn't a fact. That was an opinion.
During the course of her life, she never had a power trip--that is, screamed and yelled in anger. She was a respectable opponent to the worst enemy, Anger. She was its worst nightmare. Hinata was the ultimate champion (whereas Naruto was the ultimate loser).
And timidity was never an easy attribute to master. It was far more difficult than one would know.
Normally, timidity was lost through the course of experience and the like, but Hinata managed to tame it from running free. In that aspect, she trampled all adversity relating to that.
Unlike others who doubted, insulted, and mocked Naruto, Hinata, from the very start, always believed in Naruto. She was always silently cheering him on. For her, she didn't need tangible proof that Naruto was ninja-worthy, she just knew. She just always had faith in him.
Hinata respected Naruto before he was respectable.
She loved him before he was lovable.
She acknowledged him before he acknowledged her own existence.
She knew him before he knew her.
Hinata smiled at him before he ever knew how to smile.
After Naruto gained friends and respect of others, Hinata remained unknown to him. She was like the pole: hardly ever noticed, yet it was always, always there.
It was obviously unfair to Hinata that after all her years of cheering Naruto on, that he should walk by her without recognizing her. But she never complained. She never, ever wished for more. Gratitude was always beside her.
Hinata was, for a lack of a better word, a natural champion at all things.
Hinata was the conquering hero behind the scenes.
Just, no one knew.
"Hinata-chan? What are you doing on the ground sitting? I thought you said you were clean--Hinata-chan!"
The championed Hyuuga lied fainted on the ground.
It's strange that no one knows how great Hinata is...
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Hiiiiiiiinaaaaaataaa x)