FALL FOR ME?
SUMMARY: Hinata wanted Naruto. Naruto wanted Sakura. Sakura wanted envy and admiration. Sasuke thought he wanted Hinata. Hinata opted to join the game. A game of deception. Of who falls first, and who pretends better. "Would you fall for me?" AU&OOC.
Disclaimer: You know the drill.
CHAPTER 1: PROLOGUE
Naruto Uzumaki was all she could see.
Figuratively… and quite literally.
Her eyes blinked repeatedly, and a scent of pine needles and (was that mud?) washed over her. Blue eyes met lilac ones, their faces barely inches apart, and her heartbeat became quicker by each second passing by.
"Ack! Sorry!" He hastily got off her, and off the ground, leaving her red as a tomato and the air knocked out of her lungs.
"Are you fine? Did I hurt you?" he asked the seemingly unresponsive girl.
He panicked for a moment, "Oh god, I don't think she's breathing! I need to do CPR!"
The blood rushed to her head, and she quickly got up, "I-I'm f-f-fine!"
"Whew, really? Why didn't you say so?" he laughed, "I'm sorry, I was kinda running away from cleaning du– I mean, I was running home, 'cuz it's late and stuff, and you just happened to be there, and well…" he scratched the back of his head.
Hyuuga Hinata was still dizzy from everything happening. This boy… the boy she admired since her junior high days, the boy who was 80% of the reason why she chose to enter Konoha High, was actually talking to her.
He was in front of her, looking at her. Smiling at her. Gazing at her. Naruto freakin' Uzumaki was here, with her!
"Uhh, hello?" he waved his hand in front of her face, and she cursed herself for just opening her mouth and gaping at him like a fish.
"…" 'I need to calm down. Kami-sama, please help me calm down.'
"I feel like I've seen you before. Could you be…"
"…" 'Hinata! It's me, Hinata! We've been classmates for three years at junior high!'
"Ah! Aren't you Hinata? Hinata Hyuuga, right? Yeah, how's it going, Hinata-chan? You sure have changed a lot since junior high!" he good-naturedly put a hand on her shoulder in acknowledgement, but that seemed to just freeze up the girl more.
'I… I think I'm gonna faint…'
"Um, are you sure you're fine?"
"…" 'I have lost my voice. That doesn't seem possible, but I've lost my voice!'
"You seem a bit red. Do you need someone to walk you home?"
"…"
"Or to the clinic?"
She vigorously shook her head no, and then wanted the ground to literally open and swallow her whole because 'Ahhhh, what have I done?! I take it back, I take it back! Walk me home!'
"Okaaay, then. I'll be seeing you around. Jaa ne, Hinata!"
'Hinata Hyuuga, why are you such a failure?'
She laid back down on the ground, gazing at the yellowing sky. Great start to a great school year, she thought.
All her life she had admired the goofy blonde-haired kid. She wondered if it was possible for them to be friends… to get to know each other… to hang out… and maybe be something more?
She blushed at the thought and covered her beet-red face with both her hands.
'That's impossible. This is impossible. I'm impossible.'
Unknowingly to her, someone had witnessed the entire scene altogether. That 'someone' innocently approached the girl lying down on the ground, and her green eyes shone brightly.
"Yo." She cheerfully stated, causing Hinata to peek through her fingers and stare at pink locks blowing in the wind. "What're you doing down there?"
She stooped down and smiled brightly, "My name's Haruno Sakura. I think we're from the same class. Would you like to be friends?"
And thus, it all began.
"Ne, Hinata-chan, do you happen to like someone?"
Pink blossoms fell around their surroundings.
"W-why would you ask that, Sakura-chan?"
Along with the oncoming breeze of cold air, Hyuuga Hinata thought how lucky she was to have someone like Haruno Sakura befriend her. So far, she was everything she wasn't, and wanted to be.
Kind, sweet, innocent, cheerful, beautiful, popular; Haruno Sakura was everyone's definition of perfection.
Her green eyes twinkled with mirth, "Oh, come on. Do you think I wouldn't notice you staring at a certain blonde-haired boy?" she slapped her shoulder a little bit harder than she meant, sending Hinata three steps forward with the impact.
"Oh my gosh, I'm sorry, are you fine? Did I hurt you?"
Hinata thinks an ugly blue stain might be marking her shoulder right now; but she doesn't mention it anyway.
"I-I'm fine, Haruno-san,"
Sakura corrected her, "Not Haruno-san; 'Sakura.' Sa-ku-ra."
Hinata smiled shyly, slightly nodding her head.
Sakura started to walk again, and looked at her from her peripheral view, "You should learn to be more subtle by the way, lest you let the whole school know."
Hinata blushed, "I w-was that o-obvious? D-do you think he noticed then?"
"Hmm…" she turned to look back at the shy girl who was hiding her face behind her fringe, "Nah, don't worry; I don't think so. He seems to be more dense than he looks. Come on, I'll treat you to some cake and you tell me all about him, 'kay?"
Hinata smiled and nodded enthusiastically.
She was so thankful to have Haruno Sakura befriend her.
Haruno Sakura had everything.
And still… she wanted more.
It was time, she decided. She smirked, leaning against the school's balcony and looking over the school grounds. She had everything perfectly timed; from the time the girl would arrive, to what she would be witnessing, to the time the boy would cross paths with her; it's going to be a spectacular show, and she's gonna live every moment of it.
She knew Hinata would stay late to help with cleaning duty, and she knew which route she would take to get to the front gate.
And now, all she had to do was wait.
Sakura saw him, the blonde-haired boy Hinata always talked about, busy with his phone and one hand in his pocket, going home from detention.
She didn't actually want the boy for herself, no. She didn't even care to remember his full name - the only thing that brought him to her attention was none other than Hyuuga Hinata.
The way she talked about him, of him, for him… too bad she's gotten more curious than she'd like. So she wants to find out if it's worth it. If he's worth it.
Sakura casually walked towards him, slowly, carefully, to the junction of the stairs where Hinata would be coming from, and then -
Hyuuga Hinata was so unlucky to have Haruno Sakura befriend her.
She scuffled her shoes against the gravel and looked at the scene unfolding right in front of her. She saw the two of them bump against each other, or rather, did Sakura intend to bump into him?
Hinata Hyuuga couldn't tell.
The phone fell from his hands onto the ground.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see you there." He said in that familiar voice of his, and scratched the back of his head.
Sakura reached down to pick it up. Green eyes slightly and briefly moving from where Hinata was hiding behind the shadows of a concrete wall, and back to him.
Hinata swore right then and there, Sakura just met her eyes.
"Same here, I was just kinda distracted, I guess." She replied in that soft, soft voice of hers.
Hinata saw how she handed his phone back, her fingers brushing against the palm of his hand – it was innocent, but daring and… longing?
'Yearning. Craving.'
Hinata Hyuuga couldn't tell.
She held his gaze. It felt like they had been staring at each other forever. Her heart ached.
"Ahaha, say, I get the feeling I've seen you from someplace else." He blushed.
"Well, you must've, dummy," Sakura lightly punched his right shoulder, almost, Hinata then dared to say, flirtingly, "We're from the same class. I'm Sakura. Haruno Sakura."
Hinata stilled her breath and flattened herself against the wall, unwilling to look but still hearing them talk.
"I'm Naruto Uzumaki." he hesitatingly stated, "I have to say I'm surprised I haven't noticed being classmates with someone as beautiful as you."
He was smiling. She could tell from how cheerful his voice sounded.
"Nice meeting you, Sakura-chan."
He was interested in Haruno Sakura. Not her, the girl who knew him first, the girl who loved him first, but Haruno Sakura; the girl he just met.
Hinata Hyuuga could tell.
She ran. And kept running, not caring where, not knowing where, though in the back her mind, something kept nagging her to go home and just screw it all.
She unsurprisingly ran into a wall.
She fell down; her eyesight was blurred, whether it was from the fall or from the tears, she couldn't tell.
And then the wall spoke; sounding rather irritated.
Uchiha Sasuke was a man of patience and composure; or so he'd like to think.
So when a girl, who was clearly running full speed, went and ahead and dared to bump into him, full force, like some rabid, attention-seeking fangirl he liked to avoid on empty corridors such as this, he said the first thing a man of patience and composure was supposed to say.
"What the hell?"
She blinked, and looked more clearly at the person she bumped into. Because walls are nice. And don't talk. People, on the other hand, are just plain rude.
The boy wondered whether the girl on the ground was supposed to be glaring. Her glare didn't look like a glare; it looked more like a... blank stare. And it didn't help that her eyes were so light in color, it looked white.
'Creepy.' He thought.
"S-sorry," she stuttered out.
He held out a hand to help her up, because 'Is she planning to stay that way all afternoon?' and Hinata forgot that people can be nice, too.
He had raven black hair, and matching black eyes. He was attractive.
She bet he got girls lining up to talk to him and wait to brush their fingers against his hand and sweep their hair shyly behind their ear while staring with eyes that clearly said 'Fuck me.'
She never took his hand.
"I'm s-sorry," she got up and brushed the dirt off her skirt.
"Stop saying you're sorry."
"O-okay, s-sorry."
She was kinda annoying him. Heck, he didn't know why he was still talking to a girl who couldn't even form a coherent sentence.
"Are you fine? Did I hurt you?" he asked, just to make sure it wasn't his fault she was a stuttering mess.
And with that, she burst into tears.
"W-why d-do you p-people keep asking m-me that?! I'm f-fine! No, y-you didn't hurt m-me! Isn't that quite o-obvious yet?!"
The boy slightly backed off and stared at the girl, now crying, thinking of a way to get the hell away from there. He was never good with girls. And crying. And crying girls.
"Okay. Bye." He started to briskly walk past her, until she grabbed onto his sleeve.
"What?" he exasperatingly sighed.
She held on for a second longer, but she didn't know either, so she let go.
"N-nothing. Sorry."
'The girl apologizes too much for her own good.'
She walked away, towards the opposite end of the corridor, and he stared at her retreating form until she turned left into the other side, away from him, but not his conscience.
A/N: I'm just getting back to writing after a loooooooong period of time.