Title: Stop and Stare
Author: AppleL0V3R
Beta-reader: SymphoniaFreak
Fandom: Naruto
Pairing: Inuzuka, Kiba and Hyuuga, Hinata
Rating: T
Type: One-shot – Complete
Summary: She has such out of the ordinary, beautiful eyes that he couldn't help but stop and stare.
Theme: 30 Heartbeats LJ challenge (#26 – Eyes)
Word Count: 2,275
Disclaimer: If you've heard of it before, then it's obviously not mine.
Note: Sorry this turned out so suffocating fluffy, it wasn't intended to. Also I am aware Hinata has something of a stutter, I switched them for pauses because in this story she's mostly out of that stage.
Edited on: October 10, 2011
Kiba and Naruto were arguing again and if the brunette was to be perfectly honest with himself, he'd already lost track of what it was about. At this point it was pretty much denying whatever the blonde loudmouth said. And it wasn't because he wasn't interested; more like something else was more distracting.
Like a pair of eyes. He'd seen the eyes countless times but he couldn't help but always be caught by them even when they weren't looking at him. Of course one of his best friend's had almost exactly the same color eyes, but hers were different. Not like Neji's hard, typically blank eyes at all. In fact, they were the exact opposite. And every time he saw those expressive beautiful eyes his heart stuttered and he wanted to see how much more expressive he could make them.
Her eyes were a pretty lavender, so light that they were almost a purple tinted, off-white. And strangely enough, her pupils were the exact same color. That or she didn't have any because he couldn't tell where the iris ended and the pupils began. But they were colored enough for him to tell where her retinas were against the white background of the rest of her eyes.
He came back to reality when the whole table erupted into laughter; Naruto's being the loudest as he literally fell out of his seat.
"What?" Kiba demanded loudly, aware that he'd just denied something he probably shouldn't have. Knowing Naruto it would something he'd never live down. The last time this had happened he'd denied being on top with the girl he was dating which had led to quite a bit of hell for him even by his own sister and mother.
The blonde was still laughing his ass off, and what made it worse was the girl with mesmerizing eyes was looking this way. He forced himself not to look at her.
Shikamaru was the first to calm down enough to tell him what he'd denied. "What do you mean 'what'? You just told the whole school you're not a guy."
Kiba froze. He was going to kill Naruto for this, murder him in the most painful way possible and then bring him back to repeat the process over and over again.
"I did not." He protested, knowing full well he did. Great now she'd just seen him make a complete and utter fool of himself. How the hell was going to talk to her now? Never mind the majority of the school and he knew from experience it would spread and haunt him for the rest of his life.
Damn Naruto. Damn the blonde idiot to the worst circle of hell and beyond.
Sasuke snorted, "Like hell you didn't."
Neji's eyebrow rose and he saw the unholy gleam in them; Kiba almost gulped. When Neji gets devious it never bodes well for anyone involved, especially not the target. "Unless, of course, you were too busy staring at a girl to notice…"
Crap. How was he supposed to get out of this with his dignity intact now? Neji had just made it a whole lot worse. Kiba wasn't an idiot, the fact that the girl he'd been staring at had the exact same abnormal eyes as Neji's meant there was a very good chance they were related. Not to mention the fact that all of the Hyuuga's he'd ever met had them…
There was simply no hope for him. If he said the girl he was thinking about – which he would if he went down this road – then there was the possibility he would end up six feet under courtesy of a Hyuuga, possibly even Neji himself. If he denied Neji's accusation then he'd have no good reason why he'd just said he wasn't a guy. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Apparently he'd taken too long to say something and the increased glint in the Hyuuga's normal blank eyes told him that Neji thought he was right. "Thought so."
Naruto had regained his bearings enough to stand, putting most of his weight on the hand he'd placed on the table, "Figures. So who's the unfortunate girl who is hot enough to distract you into saying something like that huh?"
He wondered if they'd chosen to push him towards the rock or the hard place. He guessed he'd find out sooner or later. For now he'd have to wing it and at least get some of his pride back. "Not your business."
"So it is a girl." Shikamaru put in. The whole cafeteria was still paying attention to them; they were basically the kings of the school after all.
"So?" He countered.
"Question is who." He knew it, he knew someone would bring that up and of course it was Neji. Sometimes he swore Neji intentionally started things and sat back to watch with amusement, only putting his input in when he felt like it wasn't going where he wanted it to. And granted it was easy to do that with Naruto and Kiba had to admit he'd been a victim of that more than once. But Shikamaru and Sasuke weren't as easy to push in any one direction, in fact he was pretty sure the two genii were aware and went along with for either amusement – on Sasuke's part – or because they didn't feel like bothering to go against it – Shikamaru.
Which was how he usually ended up in these situations. Don't get him wrong, Kiba loved the four like the brothers they might as well be – they'd certainly been around each other long enough – but in times like these he wanted to invent the best way possible to kill all of them, one by one. It would get better, become a joke for later use when they were ganging up on someone else in the group, but right now he was the center.
"None. Of. Your. Business." He seethed, not ready to chance the wrath of a Hyuuga any time soon because they always found out when it had something to do with another Hyuuga.
Neji didn't respond; he was already relaxing to watch the show now that it was going where he wanted.
The young Inuzuka kicked a rock, still pissed off and humiliated by the whole situation even though it had been a few days ago. He'd been right about his friend's not letting him live either statement down. And on top of that the girl with the lavender eyes was looking at him more and he really didn't know what to do. For the first time, he didn't know how to approach a girl. By now he knew that her skin was almost pale but not really and her hair was long and always down, she wore a lot of purple and silver too.
He had to say, the colors fitted her well. He'd never been one to care about how the clothing looked on a girl as long as it was as revealing as was necessary to turn him on, but he couldn't help thinking that he didn't want to see her like that. He wanted to know that she was above that.
But what he couldn't deny was that she was starting to consume his thoughts, creeping up into everything he did and he hadn't even met her. What the hell was wrong with him? Making a fool of himself more than once over a pretty face. He didn't do that kind of crap, not for any girl. But apparently she was really just that special.
He kicked the rock again. This was his hormones fault. It had to be; otherwise he wouldn't be acting so out of character.
"Excuse me."
The voice was female but he wasn't in the mood to flirt with anyone, he hadn't been since he'd started paying more attention to the nameless girl.
He turned on his heel to her, and the words died on his lips when he realized he was looking right into the face of the girl that was screwing up his thoughts, not to mention his heartbeat. He opened his mouth to say something and when nothing came out he closed his mouth. He did this for several moments, belatedly noticing that he was beginning to look like an idiot in front of her again. And this time it was right to her face.
Again he wondered what was wrong with him; he was normally a natural with talking to girls.
Finally he just clicked his mouth shut and moved out her path.
She didn't step forward, though; instead she shook her head and bit her lip. Clearly she'd wanted to talk to him but didn't know quite what to say either, which in turn made him feel a little better and solidified his resolve to let her speak first. "Um…well…" she lapsed into silence again, looking away as if the sidewalk or street might have the right words written on them.
"Yeah?" He prompted.
Her voice was angelic, he realized. Probably something he could listen to every second of every day and never grow tired of. He wanted to hear more, wanted to know what she had to say.
She took a deep breath, "I noticed you've been…well…you've been…paying attention to me and…"
Shit. She had? He didn't think she'd even been looking at him. Now she was probably going to tell him to leave her alone or something.
"And you want me to quit?"
Again she shook her head, this time quicker. "No. I mean yes. I mean…" She sighed and it sounded almost frustrated. He wondered if she was irritated with him or herself.
This time he didn't press her because he didn't know what she meant, didn't even have the slightest guess.
She took another breath and this time she met his eyes with her own, her own unique and beautiful and mesmerizing eyes. Had he ever noticed any of his previous girlfriends' eyes as well as he noticed this girls. "I mean, would you like to…hang out sometime."
Nope, he definitely hadn't seen that one coming. But he smiled as charmingly as he could and nodded. "Are you kidding? Sure. Any ideas?"
Her cheeks pinked and he realized that it hadn't been artificial blush on her cheeks before when she'd gotten his attention, it been a natural blush. Again she shook her head, but she had a painfully shy yet clearly happy smile on her lips. "It doesn't really matter."
He paused, absorbing that. Nearly all the girls he'd ever gone out with had wanted to either shop or go out to a fancy restaurant, whether he'd asked or not. "How about we trade numbers and get it all figured out. In the mean time, care to join me?" He had to stop himself from blinking, noticing once more that she'd – unintentionally – screwed with how he did things. Formal? Gentlemanly? He didn't do that crap; at least he thought he didn't.
She smiled, "I'd love to, but I actually have a prior arrangement." She winced as if realizing what she was saying, "Sorry."
It was his turn to shake his head as he dug into his pocket for a cell phone. "Don't worry about it." After he'd fished it out he took a picture of her and got to the screen for her to enter the necessary information before handing it over to her.
She blinked and took the phone, quickly filling in the blanks before she too got her phone out and repeated what he'd done.
"Here." He handed back the small light purple device that he knew by sight wasn't on the expensive side, not what he'd expected from a Hyuuga. Maybe she wasn't one. She smiled and took it back, their hands brushing and again he found himself caught in her eyes.
Was this what puppy love felt like? Because he knew what lust was and he was pretty sure this wasn't it.
After a few moments she nodded and gave him a pretty smile almost as entrancing as her eyes. He wondered if the smile would be even more beautiful if it weren't so shy. Well, now he had the chance to figure out. And then she was hurrying past him in flurry of long raven-black hair and thin limbs and the smell of lilacs. It fitted her just as much as her apparel did, he decided. Turning to watch her go.
The grin on his face fell when she stopped next to a guy. Neji.
Shocked he quickly looked down and her name next to the picture of her glowed back up at him in white print. When he saw the characters, he looked back up to see Neji with a smirk and eyes that promised even more hell. Quickly he looked down again as Neji turned and followed the no longer nameless girl.
The little letters still spelled the same name.
Hinata Hyuuga.
He was sooo screwed.