Title: School Companions

Style: Oneshot

Characters: Sasuke, Hinata, Iruka (set in Part I)

The academic years for a certain Uchiha prodigy were more of a nightmare than educational time and having fun. Of course the Uchiha was not all up for fun. The young boy had had a burden heaved onto his shoulders at such a young age that it was emotionally impossible for him to deal with. To add to this burden was the thought of going to the academy everyday and deal with pesky fangirls flailing at his sight and going absolutely nuts.

Everything he seemed to do was considered amazing to them. Even when he tried to get out of their way and busy himself with nothing.

"Ohmigod! Sasuke looks so cool!"

He heard that shrill cry behind him when he was obviously sitting in class staring out in the window, trying to detach himself from the loud chatter, waiting for their sensei to arrive.

It baffled him how even the silliest of things would make him look cool (in their eyes of course).

He once thought that if the girls walked by an open door and saw him taking a shit in the toilet, they would even go bananas over that and probably save his shit in a tissue or something. Yes, he went there.

When the whole cootie stage was over, and the girls started taking notice of the guys, he was first somewhat flattered by all the attention. Had he known what it would get himself into, he would go back in time and punch himself where the sun don't shine. At least (so he thought) that pain was bareable.

Today was like any other day. Iruka-sensei was standing before the chalk board scribbling down some information about the five great shinobi nations' history, whilst the class were silently copying the work into their notepads, a loud ~~~scritch scritch scritch~~~ reverberating in the class from over fifteen pencils-to-paper.

And just like any other day, whenever Iruka-sensei spoke with his back turned to the class, the whispering would mount and he would hear his name thrown around and played tennis with. At this stage, he would immerse himself into the note-taking and block out the noise and gossip.

Finally, at the end of the day (as he always does) he picks up his satchel that was perched by his seat, fumbles with the zipper till he grabs firm hold of it, and sails it over the teeth. And with one fine sweep of the desk, he stuffs the scrolls and stationary into it, hauls the satchel over his shoulders, and calmly gets out of there before all hell would break loose.

Eyes could be felt boring into his back digging deep holes, as his classmates (the girls of course) followed his movements out the classroom. He felt relief when he was no longer under their scorching gazes, and made a run for it once he was situated in the halls.

Despite Sasuke's uncaring nature of what people thought about him, he most definitely did not want his reputation to go down as a little pansy that ran away from a few harmless girls. That was why he ran for his dear life when no one was watching. Hell, he didn't know how he was able to deal with this for a year and a half!

But today? Today was not like any other day. Today was the day that little burden would lift slightly off Sasuke's poor little shoulders.

Every end-of-the-day one pupil from each class takes their turn in helping their sensei tidy up, sliding the chairs back into place, rubbing the chalk off the board and stack books back into their shelves, and scrolls back into their cubby holes.

As Hinata started at the back row and combed the files of desks, clearing up balls of scrunched up rough paper, discarded utencils and the occasional used tissue, she noticed a scroll lying under a desk and moved to pick it up. She rolled the scroll around in her hand till the name of the owner peeked at her.

Uchiha Sasuke.

Her eyebrows flew up as she realised it was the History scroll. Iruka-sensei had assigned homework due tomorrow for the very topic, so she hastily pocketed the scroll, and swiftly cleaned up the rest of the classroom before bounding off to the outside grounds of the academy.

Nervously, she scanned the front yard of the school that branched off to residential areas and she bit her lip in thought. She didn't know where to start looking for him, and she most definitely did not want to be the reason he did not complete his History homework. So for the rest of the day, she made it her duty to return the scroll to its rightful owner.

Hinata dimissed the fact that activating her Byakugan might be considered as a bit of an invasion of privacy. So silently, she activated her occular ability and scanned the area around her. She was startled to find that Sasuke had not even left the grounds yet. Without making a move to turn around she spotted him, behind her, perched on a branch, congealed behind thick leaves.

She smoothed her jacket and tightened her grip on the scroll over the fabric of her trousers' pocket, and turned towards the tree and took tentative steps.

Sasuke peered through some leaves and tensed when he saw a girlish figure approaching his hide-out. He always triple-checked that he had subdued his chakra enough that the prowling girls would never find him in his hide-out. So far, for a year and a half, it had worked. Why was this girl approaching it, he did not know. For now though, he made no assumptions that she had seen him, and just let it go, thinking that she was just approaching the tree.

How wrong he was when she lifted her head and looked straight into his eyes. For some reason, it startled him and he shuffled backwards on the branch, till his back connected with the thick bark.

Every. Single. Girl. In. His. Class. Liked. Him.

Why should this girl be any different? Maybe she did not outwardly express her "love" for him like the other girls, maybe she was a little more reserved and tolerable than the rest, but he knew for a fact that she liked him. Did not once think that maybe it was in her nature to be shy and introverted. He would be finding that out now.

He felt her eyes lingering on his and couldn't shake off the feeling. Did she know he was there? He couldn't get over the feeling of being watched, so with a heavy and defeated sigh, he looked over and under the branch, and dropped his satchel on a pile of leaves, and dropped himself after it.

"I'm s-sorry for disturbing you," Hinata muttered, and spared him the embarrassment of pointing out his very obvious attempt of hiding.

She dug into her pocket and pulled out the green and red scroll and gingerly handed it to him.

"Y-you left this in c-class," she said after he took it from her.

"Uhh... thanks."

It was the first time in Sasuke's academic life (as of late) that he had ever exchanged words with a girl from his class.

At this point Sasuke was too shocked by Hinata. She had not blushed when their fingers brushed when he took the scroll, and she did not squeal like the girls would. He found the lack of attention she gave him weird, and before he could stop himself he spewed the words;

"Don't you like me like all the other girls?" at that moment, he wished he disappeared into thin air. Did he really want one more fangirl to add to the lot?

When she shook her head and began stuttering beyond belief, he hardly knew how he caught her words and understood what she had said. So she liked someone else was it? Not him? And from that, it dawned at him. She was the way she is because she was bashful. A shy girl. Much more subtle on the ears too.

He gave her a somewhat apologetic smile and turned to head on home, but then decided to ask her one final question.

"Say, how did you find me?"

When she bowed her head bashfully and pointed to her eyes, his brows furrowed, and she ran off before she could elaborate on the gesture.

That night, he spent a good half hour straining his eyes and trying to look through opaque objects, and through walls. And spent the next half hour feeling incredibly stupid and kept hitting his forehead with his palm. He was only eleven after all. He was allowed to be stupid every once in a whilst (well, between him and himself of course).

And the next day, when he exchanged a small smile (that did not go unnoticed) with Hinata as a friendly greeting, the girls went wild with jealousy and made it the worse day of his life, they even went to the extent of physically touching him and clinging onto him.

Sasuke came to understand Hinata's eyes more when she helped him hide using her eyes. It was then that he learned of the Byakugan and its abilities.

With everything good that comes out in life, it has to come with a heavy price. When the girls learned of Sasuke's new found friend, they stuck to him like glue and made his life a living hell. Funny how he thought it could not get any worse than before.

Oh well.

He was Uchiha Sasuke after all. The only surviving Uchiha, and one heck of a looker.

Author's Note: Well, this story was unexpected of me! Sasuke is one character I highly dislike, and yet I wrote a story worth over 1,650 words revolving around him! Well. I hope this gets appreciated! I thought this up at work. The idea just came to me and I had to get it all down. I jotted everything down on rough paper and came back home and wrote it all out :) Thanks for reading, and any comments/critiques are welcome! :D

EDIT (26/10/2010): Minor changes, nothing big XD