Shino liked rules. He liked them being there, he liked it when people all fit in to a singular pattern.
Recently, he had discovered an unwritten rule: In every team, there was a tough, silent, or serious guy, a girl, usually the peacemaker, and a hyperactive, rash, or argumentative guy. That was just the mixture, it was how it happened.
Ever since this combination was decided, the girl had fallen in love with the silent one. It was just how it was done, and as far as Shino could see, it had occurred.
Sakura liked Sasuke, Ino liked Shikamaru, and Tenten had a huge crush on Neji.
But for some reason, in his team, it didn't work out like that. There was an exception – Hinata. Hinata didn't have a crush on Shino, the silent one; hell, he wondered if she even liked him at times.
Hinata was strange, Shino decided. She was the only girl in all of Kohona who didn't have those feelings for anyone on her team. Instead, she had fallen in love with the loud, annoying, argumentative, infuriating Uzumaki Naruto!
Shino couldn't understand it.
It wasn't that he cared that she didn't like him, or anything. He was Shino, after all. Shino wasn't the kind of person so show emotion. He was just curious, that was all, he just wondered a little.
Why did she like Naruto? What was so appealing about him that Kiba and himself lacked? For what reason was he not the one she cared about. He was kind to her, he was strong, he actually noticed her presence. Naruto did none of these things, and yet she loved him.
It puzzled him, that was all.
Even Kiba would have been a better choice for her to become infatuated with, Kiba, who is exactly like Naruto in every way though perhaps (though Shino would never say this out loud) a little smarter, and unlike Naruto actually paid attention to the cute little Hyuuga.
To Shino, it just didn't make any sense.
Hinata was an exception to the rule. It always happened, Shino decided, as he looked over at his team, training without him. There was always something that didn't quite fit the rule, which forced it to change, to alter.
Hinata was this exception. She made the rule change, she, and only she, is the one who makes him change his unwritten rule, his hypothesis about how teams work.
He has to accept that he will never be the one in Hinata's heart. She will never care for him that way, and it's not that Shino cares, oh no, nothing like that…
He looked over at the girl, training with Kuranai-sensei.
It's just…he can't help but wonder…what was it about Naruto that made her want him so much?
And…what was it about him that made her stray so far from this rule?