Notes: I've been wanting to write a NejiHina story with a modern AU setting for awhile, but I get scenes in my head that don't necessarily connect. So here's a drabble set! Hope you'll enjoy.

Two Sides

Hinata was crossing the campus quad after a lecture when she caught sight of a familiar figure seated on a bench. She paused a moment, just to look at him, unnoticed.

She liked to see him here, at the university. He was so much more relaxed here than in the family home. One arm was resting casually on the back of the bench, while the other flipped the pages of the book resting on his lap. She watched the movements of his long fingers and felt an odd quiver inside. She loved his hands: strong, elegant, and graceful. With half a sigh, she resumed her walk towards him.

"Neji-nii-san," she said softly. Why did she have to be nervous? It was ridiculous.

He looked up with the slight smile that was always her favorite welcome. "Hinata."

She smiled back, thought about asking for permission to sit, thought better of it, and simply sat down to his right on the bench. He nodded and turned back to his book. She opened her folklore text and took a few notes, then relaxed into people watching. Couples walked hand-in-hand, sat together in the grass eating lunch, joked and laughed on other benches. She stifled a sigh.

Neji shut his book and turned to her with his slight smile. Everything he did was graceful and purposeful - the modest inclination of his head, the direct movement of his eyes - there was perfect economy in his motions. "Hungry? Want to have lunch?"

That was the question she had been hoping for. Hinata smiled brightly and nodded in reply.

As they walked to the cafeteria, she fought the urge to grab his sleeve. Instead she gripped her books with both hands and tried to think of something witty to say. She loved it when he laughed: his eyes would crinkle at the corners and there would be a flash of white, even teeth. It happened so seldom that she tried to store up a collection of funny anecdotes just for the time they spent together.

She told him about how Hanabi had tied her hair in twin tails and put on lip gloss to go to a goukon after school the day before and was in such a hurry to get home before her curfew that she didn't remember to take her hair down on the train. Hinata described the scolding Hanabi got from Hiashi, and the face that Hanabi made behind his back. Neji's lips quirked wryly. Hinata told him how her sister came to her room later to complain, and how she drew a face on Hanabi's palm to remind her to take her hair down. She drew the face on a page of her notebook to show Neji - a face with two pigtails and a tongue sticking out - and was rewarded by an eye-crinkling chuckle from her older cousin. Gratified, she smiled up at him and took a mental picture of his face.

Neji walked onto the quad and eyed benches with deliberation. One in the sun, not the shade. One between the lecture hall from which Hinata would be leaving and the cafeteria, but on the west side, not the east side. He remembered with chagrin the time that he had been seated on the wrong side of the line of trees down the middle of the quad, and Hinata had walked right behind him. He had looked up from his book to see her back some ten meters ahead of him and had some pains to catch up casually.

He picked his bench and glanced at his watch. Ten minutes. Perfect. He relaxed and flipped to a case study in his textbook. Business Communications was a bore to Neji, but Uncle Hiashi insisted that technical knowledge alone was insufficient for an executive of the Hyuuga group, and an executive position was one of his ultimate goals.

Neji managed to absorb himself in the case study so that he had the appropriate air of non-expectation as Hinata's footsteps approached and her soft voice said his name. He looked up and smiled.

He was glad when she sat down so naturally. Sometimes he would imagine Hinata initiating an invitation to lunch, but that never happened. He tried not to indulge in the daydream of Hinata bringing a homemade lunch box for them to share.

As she opened her own book, his fingers felt twitchy. He ran a crisp page between his thumb and forefinger and turned it blindly. He listened to chattering voices around the quad and wished that he could think of something interesting to say. When Hinata laughed, her nose crinkled adorably and a dimple appeared in her right cheek. He warmed to the mind's eye image and turned another page abstractedly. His text was not bringing any topic of conversation to mind, however, so he shut the book. Maybe movement would help his stultified brain. "Hungry? Want to have lunch?"

She smiled and nodded. She was so agreeable; she hardly ever turned down an invitation. He was glad that she was attending his university and hardly any of her old high school classmates were here. Neji was always wary of that Inuzuka kid-he was always asking Hinata to join him in activities that were suspiciously like dates, though Hinata insisted that they were just friends. In university, that kind of naiveté was just dangerous.

As they stood and walked to the cafeteria, Neji slung his books under his left arm, so that the right one, on Hinata's side, was free. Of course she would never take his arm, but still. It was courteous. He thought of Hinata linking arms with her friend Yamanaka or Hanabi and suppressed a sigh.

Their thoughts seemed to be converging. Hinata started telling him a story about Hanabi and he smiled wryly. The girl was such a brat. Hinata showed him the face that she drew on Hanabi's hand and he laughed outright. Hinata's sense of humor was always surprising him. She was so gentle and sweet that the effect of her poking fun at anyone delivered an unexpected punch. "I want that drawing," he said. "Will you let me have it?" At her surprised look, he added, "she's always trying to get one over on me. I can use it for my counter offensive."

Hinata smiled and tore the page out of her notebook to hand to him. "Don't be too hard on her."

"No, no. For self-defense only," he replied, slipping the page into his textbook. He held the door to the cafeteria open for her and watched her dark hair flow ahead of him. Neji had a photo sleeve in his wallet: one side was for a photo of his father, mother, and himself as a baby; the other side, he and Hinata together on her third birthday. There was just space in between the two to tuck Hinata's drawing.