Despite what Naruto said about Women, Sai found that Naruto didn't know as much as he boasted about. All women were not the same, at least not the women Sai has met.
He found that little things could set each one of them off in different ways. Saying overly sexual things or flirting, could have Sakura knocking him through the wall, have Ino rubbing against him in a most uncomfortable manner and have Hinata blushing and dismissing herself. Through the social experiments he conducted, he found that Sakura and Ino would often change their reactions. Sometimes it was Ino throwing him through walls, sometimes Sakura would push back. Hinata was always the same, her face would turn that same shade of burning red, her eyes going wide whether it be compliment, insult or talking about the weather the same reaction would occur. Sai wished she'd react differently to his advances, push up against him, punch him through a wall, he wanted the physical contact from Hyuuga, but she was so reluctant to separate her hands and give him what he wanted. He'd let a Kunai cut him so she could heal him, but she'd shake her head and Sakura would immediately be sighing as she ran her hands over the wound. When Sakura would hit him afterwards, Sai would go to Hinata for comfort, she'd blush and Ino would heal his bruises. When Ino would sit on his lap, grinding into him a little to hard for his liking, he'd look to Hinata to find her back to him.
Naruto would pull Ino off Sai, letting Sakura and Ino scrap it out before saying, "Girls are strange."
"Indeed."
Hyuuga was different. Hyuuga was painful to watch and it made Sai cringe inwardly at her social awkwardness, a trait himself shared. Sai knew he wanted, above all, the see beneath the blush and so he set out to do just that.
******
002
A loud scraping of the chair across from him brought his attention away from the text and to Sakura who sat in front of him, piling off her own armload of books to the side.
"Some light reading?" She asked, leaning over the table to get an eyeful of the materiel Sai was so hungrily reading. He leaned forward himself, covering the book successfully with his body as he took his glasses off, setting them aside.
"I'd say heavy." He replied, tapping a pile he'd set off to the side. "Much like your..."
"ANYWAYS!" Sakura interrupted, reading down the spines of every book in the pile.
Clan history books, Hyuuga clan history books at that and Sakura bit her lip trying to make sense of it.
"Sai..." She started. "This isn't like the time you read the whole section on Uchiha... when you were trying to become friends with Sasuke because you know what happened then, right?"
Sai did, that was the second time he got Sharinganed from Sasuke and he cared not to have that done again, that's why he was doing ALL the reading.
Sai chuckled. "No body forgets their first sharingan." He humoured lightly as Sakura nodded knowingly.
"Or their second or third." Her eyes became glassy from the memory. "So why the Hyuuga clan?"
"They intrigue me." Sai replied simply, dog earing the page he was on and setting the book aside.
"You should talk to Neji..." Sai cut her off with a jerking motion of his hand.
"I'd rather go fully prepared." He replied, patting the pile next to him. "Before coming into contact with another blood line limit."
Sakura sighed, thumbed through her own book and began reading a dog eared page she'd left off on, glancing up to see Sai place the glasses on the bridge of his nose again, preparing to become immersed in the history of Hyuuga. A moment of silence, with a quite rustling of paper, then, a pale hand covering Sakura"s book caused her to glance up at Sai, whom had confusion contorting his features.
"It doesn't explain something I need to know." Sai stated, biting his lip and furrowing his brow futher as he drew his hand back to scratch at his cheek.
"What?" Sakura folded the corner of the page she had read down and closed the book.
Answering Sai's questions were usually long winded, depending it's nature and her own mental state during the questioning. With the deep crease in his brow, this would be one of those times.
"Why does she turn red?" Sai started, watching as Sakura rose a pink eyebrow at him. "Blush, I mean, at everything."
The book he was reading was now closed and off to the side. "At first I thought it might have been a condition, then I witnessed select moments when she'd turn redder. Around Naruto and the mention of male genitalia, she looks like she's choking, would the Heimlich be suitable for a time like that? She seems to stop breathing?"
Sakura suppressed a laugh and rubbed her temples. "Sai, you should just ask Hinata."
His blank stare went back to his book cover. "I did. I was met with stammering. I think Naruto might have given her a disease, or perhaps a curse seal much like Danzo did to me."
"No, no, no." Sakura shook her head with a smirk. "The former is a crush, the latter is embarrassment."
Sai blinked and tapped the book with his knuckles.
"People display emotions in different ways." Sakura explained, probing her brain for an example before balling a fist and hitting her open palm with it, watching Sai's posture straighten, eyes growing wide. "Like when you say inappropriate things to me in public places and I punch you really hard? It's like that when Hinata blushes towards your choice of words."
"Sounds painful." Sai began rubbing his cheek. "I feel sorry for her, maybe I should apologize."
Sakura shrugged. "It's mostly harmless. Not painful like having your jaw broken."
***
003
"You sit way to rigid." The smooth voice from beside her interrupted her concentration on the festival around them.
Hinata gawked over at Sai, dropping her gaze down to the book he had opened on his lap. A sketch pad, with light line's already traced onto it. He reached into his backpack, pulled out a heavy volume, bound in leather and flipped through the pages.
"Is that a..." Hinata read the title when he marked off the page he flipped and held up the title for her to read. "a "History of the Hyuuga Clan" text book?"
Hinata was a little baffled as Sai went back to page 234, paragraph 5 and began tracing his finger along the text as he read along. When his far sightedness allowed him to gather the information from the page, he looked up at Hinata again.
"...and so you do this every year?" Sai gestured to the scene around them.
Sai listened intently to the Hyuuga heiress leaning towards her. After all, she was very quite.