So, my friend wanted me to write a NaruHina one-shot, which I finally got off my ass and did. I have more I want to work on but this is the first one I actually finished. Not my greatest piece of work, but good enough for me to be content. Anyway, please read and review.

Jealousy

Naruto didn't even know when the change had started to happen. It seemed that one day he was absolutely head-over-heels for Sakura and then the next day...he wasn't. Mental images of short pink hair had been replaced with those of long, lustrous indigo locks. Visions of pale lavender eyes replaced green eyes. He could almost feel her petite fingers accidentally brushing against his, and he could picture the way she nervously bit her lower lip in embarrassment as she stammered an apology. She only seemed to stammer around him, which he found cute. Adorable, actually. And even if Uzumaki Naruto wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box, there was one thing that he did know; Hinata was now the object of his desire.

The sixteen year-old blond male still couldn't figure out when exactly his feelings had changed for Sakura. Maybe he was tired of her constant rejections? Or maybe it was the fact that she always smacked him for the dumbest reasons, most of which he felt were undeserved. In comparison, Hinata was the polar opposite of the pinkette, despite the two of them being friends. Whereas Sakura was loud and out-going, Hinata was quiet and introverted. Sakura had tendencies to nag and insult Naruto whenever she felt as though he was acting like an idiot. Hinata never voiced such insults, even when Naruto was, in fact, being a total moron. Instead, she would simply give him a shy smile and and some words of encouragement, albeit in a stuttered manner. And the more he'd thought about it, the more Naruto wondered why he had been so oblivious to everything. Sakura clearly showed her disinterest in him, going above and beyond to prove to him that she only had eyes for Sasuke. In turn, Sasuke didn't really respond to her advances, but had never actually told her that he didn't like her. So whatever was going on between them was something that Naruto didn't feel like trying to figure out. It was too complicated and made his head ache. Wait...his head actually was hurting.

"Naruto, pay attention!" Sakura snapped quietly from her desk. She'd given him a smack upside the head when she'd noticed that he had been daydreaming in class yet again. "You're never going to pass if you don't actually pay attention in school."

"Oww, Sakura... That hurt," he complained as he rubbed his sore noggin.

The pinkette scowled at him. "Well, then stop lazing off and I won't have to. I'm not going to let you copy off of my notes anymore if you keep doing that. It's not my responsibility to make sure you don't fail." With that, she returned to her work, scribbling some stuff down in her notebook.

Naruto glanced over to see the teacher, Kakashi-sensei, sitting at his desk as he lazily read from his book. It wasn't a secret that the man was a fan of erotica novels, and he put no effort into hiding it from his students.

"Make sure you take plenty of notes from that chapter we just reviewed," Kakashi carelessly reminded the class without looking up from his book. "There will be a test this Friday, so be prepared."

"Test?" Naruto felt sick as he uttered that dreaded word. In all reality, there were several words that made him nauseous. They included 'quiz', 'essay', 'report', 'assignment', 'homework', and of course, 'test'. "I forget what chapter we were on," he groaned to himself. It was then that he felt a soft poke against the back of his shoulder, causing her to turn his head.

Hinata, who sat behind him, had been the one to get his attention. "Umm, w-we were o-on the tenth ch-chapter, N-Naruto-kun," she nervously informed him, then dropped her gaze down to her notebook. "Y-You can copy f-from my notes i-if you'd like..." A light blush covered her cheeks as she shyly glanced back up at him.

"Oh, thanks, Hinata. That would be awesome," he responded with a wide smile. "You wouldn't mind?"

The fifteen year-old girl shook her head and picked up her notebook to hand it to him. "N-No, not at all. I, um, I a-a-already finished writing the material d-down."

Naruto spun around a bit to take the notebook from her, his fingers lightly brushing against hers in the process. He'd make sure to purposely touch her, getting the reaction she typically made whenever they had any physical contact. The blush covered Hinata's entire face now, and if Naruto hadn't grabbed the notebook already, she surely would've dropped it.

"S-Sorry," she squeaked out, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

The male chuckled softly. "It's okay. No need to apologize. I'm not diseased or anything."

An incredulous snort came from Sakura, though she didn't look up from her work. "No, but you're still like a plague."

"Now that's just mean," Naruto whined. "Why would you call me that?"

"Because plagues don't go away," the pinkette replied, giving him a brief glance.

Before he could respond, the bell rang, indicating that the period was over. The students quickly gathered up their stuff and rushed out of the room to head to their final class of the day. As Naruto grudgingly crammed everything into his backpack, Hinata got up and gave him a quick wave.

"S-See you later, N-Naruto-kun," she murmured. "I h-hope those notes help." Hinata was wearing the standard girls' uniform, though Naruto couldn't help but recently have dirty thoughts whenever he saw her wearing it. It consisted of a simple short-sleeved white button-up blouse, and a short pleated tan skirt. She wore white knee-high socks, leaving the upper part of her legs without coverage, and black flats. Due to her sizable bust, the top two or three buttons on her top never remained fastened for the poor girl, and Naruto found her constantly trying to close them. He'd once overheard her talking to Sakura and Ino, explaining that she'd tried on larger shirts to help with the problem, but all of them had been too big on her otherwise petite frame. Naruto was secretly glad about that factor.

He rose to his feet, slinging his backpack on. His outfit was the male variation of hers, consisting of pants instead of a skirt and a red tie around his neck, as well as a pair of black shoes. "They'll probably keep me from failing," he replied with a laugh, taking a step closer to her. Standing so closer to her reminded him just how much shorter she was than him. "I'll give these back to you by the end of the day."

"O-Okay. Umm, well...bye." Hinata rushed out of the room before Naruto could say anything else, her face cherry red.

The blond chuckled softly to himself, then headed to the door. "See ya, Sensei."

"Yup, see you tomorrow." Kakashi was still engrossed in his novel, and judging by how intently he was staring at the passage, it was obvious that he'd come across a particularly smutty part. "...Wow..."

Naruto spent his last period pestering Sasuke with questions that the raven-haired boy seemed not to care about. Since it was a free study period, Naruto messily jotted down notes into his own notebook as he copied Hinata's. Unlike Hinata's perfectly delicate handwriting, his was in the form of chicken scratch that only he could decipher.

"I mean, what do you think about it?" Naruto asked his bored friend.

"About what?" Sasuke was busying himself by completing some of his homework.

Naruto growled in annoyance. "About everything that I just told you."

"And you assumed I was listening?"

"Bastard..."

Sasuke gave him a quick glance. "Actually, my parents were married when I was conceived. So, no, I am not a bastard..."

"No, just a smartass," the blond snapped.

"Better than a dumbass such as yourself," Sasuke replied.

Naruto rolled his eyes, continuing his near-readable notes. "Very funny. Anyway, I was talking about how I, you know, don't really like Sakura that way anymore. What do you think of it?"

"Why would I care? I mean, I suppose it's good that you realized that she'll probably never come around and want to date you, so now you don't have to keep following her like a lost puppy," the dark-haired teen replied. "And now she won't keep complaining to me about how much you bug her."

"She really complained to you about me?" Naruto quirked an eyebrow. "Ugh, whatever. Not like it matters anymore." He finished up a few more sentences, then shut his notebook once he was done.

Sasuke glanced at him. "It is probably for the best that you got over her anyway. I won't deny that she doesn't really treat you the greatest. Sure, you're annoying as hell, but you don't really deserve all the abuse from her."

"Yeah, I don't think my head can take any more from her," the blond muttered, rubbing his head as he remembered her smack from earlier. Hinata has never hit me, he thought to himself.

"Even though I was tuning out most of the stuff that you were yammering on about, I did remember you mentioning that you've started to like Hinata now, right?" Sasuke spoke up. "She's definitely more tolerant of you than Sakura is. So that's a start."

"Well, what do you think of Hinata?" Naruto asked him. "What is your honest opinion of her?"

Sasuke didn't look up from his homework. "Why do you care what I think of her? If you're the one who likes her, it doesn't matter other people's opinions are."

The blond teenager frowned. "Do you not like her or something?"

"I didn't say that, you moron," Sasuke remarked with an exasperated sigh. "I'm only saying that it shouldn't matter what I think if you're going to be the one who might potentially go out with her. But if you're going to pester me, then I'll answer you just to shut you up." He turned the page in his book to get to the next set of problems. "Hinata is definitely more mature than most of the girls in our school, for one thing. She's intelligent, and any idiot can see that she's attractive. Plus, she has all the patience of a saint seeing how she can put up with your endless stupidity."

"You sound just like Sakura. Always so mean to me," Naruto deadpanned. "Hinata never calls me names."

"Stop whining like a six year-old," Sasuke muttered. "Are you going to ask her out then?" The raven-haired male asked. "If you like her that much, then you might as well go for it."

Naruto smirked. "I'm going to ask her as soon as I see her. I have to return her notes to her, so I'll do it then."

"You might want to find her soon, then. This is the last class of the day, so you may want to find her as soon as it's over," Sasuke said.

The rest of the period consisted of Naruto thinking of ways on how he should approach Hinata and ask her out. Every time he asked for Sasuke's opinion, his friend would either tell him to shut up and let him do his work, or just flat-out ignore him. To Sasuke's relief, the bell finally rang, freeing him of the blond's annoying ramblings. Or so he thought.

"You need to come with me!" Naruto grabbed his arm and began to drag the reluctant Uchiha along as he began his frenzied search for Hinata.

"Let me go, you idiot!" Sasuke snapped, surprisingly having trouble escaping from the blond's iron grip. "Why do I have to come with you!?"

"Because!" Naruto nearly crashed into a wall. "Where is she?" By now the halls were filled with other students, all of them heading towards the main lobby to exit the school.

Sasuke growled, still unable to yank free. "How should I know? I'm not her keeper! Let go of me already!"

Ignoring his friend's protests, Naruto continued to drag him along as he looked everywhere for the indigo-haired girl. "I don't see her..."

"Alright, I'll come with you, just let go of my damn arm!" Sasuke exclaimed, finally managing to wrench himself out of Naruto's grasp. "Why don't you ask someone if they know where she is? Might make your job a lot easier."

"Maybe she went that way!" The oblivious blond pointed out.

Sasuke sweat-dropped and sighed in exasperation. "You are hopeless..."

The two of them exited the building and looked around to see if they could spot Hinata anywhere. Although they didn't find her, they did happen to see Sakura and Ino.

"Hey, why don't we ask Sakura and Ino if they've seen her," Naruto suggested. "It might make our job a lot easier."

Sasuke's eye twitched briefly and he resisted the urge to smack Naruto. However, he managed to restrain himself and instead calmly walked over to the girls with his usual stoic expression.

"Hey, Sakura! Ino! Have either of you seen Hinata?"

Sakura glared at him. "We're right next to you! You don't have to yell!"

"Then why are you yelling?" Ino asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Because I can't help it when Naruto's being stupid," the pinkette responded, then took notice of Sasuke. "Oh, hi, Sasuke-kun!"

"So...I take it as you haven't seen her then," Naruto mumbled, not surprised that Sakura was, as usual, brushing him aside.

Sakura thought for a moment, contemplating. "Actually...I did see her in the courtyard a few minutes ago. She might still be there, but you'd better hurry. But anyway, how are you doing today, Sasuke-kun?"

Before the Uchiha could answer, Naruto grabbed him and began to drag him along once again, much to his chagrin. "Hey, knock it off!"

About another minute or so, they reached the courtyard, where dozens of students were casually roaming around. After scanning the area for a few seconds, Naruto finally spotted Hinata at the other end. However, to his confusion, she wasn't alone. Hinata was speaking with a tall and well-built silver-haired male, who looked to be a few years older. He was obviously a student as well, since he was wearing the school uniform, though he wore no tie and had the top few buttons of his shirt unfastened. Not only that, but the guy was standing close to her, with his arm around her shoulders and a huge smirk on his face. Even worse, the bastard was leaning down and whispering something into her ear, causing the girl to blush profusely.

Naruto felt himself overcome with a jealous rage, and he unwittingly squeezed Sasuke's arm so viciously that it caused the Uchiha to hiss in pain. "Sasuke...who is that?"

Normally Sasuke would've yelled at Naruto for what he'd just done, but the icy tone in the blond's voice made him decide otherwise. Instead, he sighed and calmly pulled his arm free. "That's Hidan. He's friends with my brother, though I don't know why Itachi would associate with someone like him. He's loud and obnoxious like you, but he's an arrogant jerk on top of it. I can't stand him."

"Why is he talking to Hinata?" Naruto growled, his eyes narrowing. "And why are they standing so close together? And how come he's got his arm around her? And what the hell is he saying to her!?"

"How should I know the answer to any of those?" Sasuke muttered, rolling his eyes. "So now what are you going to do? Are you still going to ask her out?"

The blond male smirked. "Well, now that I know that I might have some competition, I'm sure as hell not going to back down." Luckily for him, Hidan let go of Hinata, whom was clearly flustered by whatever he had whispered to her. Her face was still covered in a deep blush, and Naruto couldn't help but wonder what the hell that guy had said to her. Hidan began to walk away from Hinata, but not before reaching over to tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear, pissing Naruto off even further. Once he was gone, Hinata began to look around the area, as if she was searching for someone. Was she waiting for someone else?

"Now's my chance," Naruto remarked excitedly. "I'm going to go over there and ask her out. Just you watch." With that, he quickly headed over to the girl while Sasuke waited and watched from where he was. He didn't even notice that Sakura and Ino had joined him until he glanced over to see them standing beside him. The three of them quietly observed as Naruto rushed over to Hinata, the blond squeezing his way past the other students.

"So he's going to do it, huh? This should be good," Ino said in a hushed tone, earning a nod from Sasuke and Sakura.

Naruto was close now, but Hinata hadn't noticed him approaching, as she'd dropped her gaze the ground.

"Hey, Hinata!" Naruto called to her, causing her to look up to see him.

Hinata smiled and began to walk forward to meet him. "N-Naruto-kun!"

However, just as they were about to reach each other, Naruto was accidentally shoved forward, courtesy of some idiots horsing around nearby. One of them had bumped into him by mistake, causing him to pitch forward. Hinata gasped and tried to keep him from falling over by wrapping her arms around him. Unfortunately, due to her light weight and petite stature, she was unable to prevent it and instead toppled backwards

"Shit!" Naruto quickly placed his hand behind Hinata's head as they both fell, trying to at least keep her from slamming her skull against the pavement.

The indigo-haired girl landed on her back with Naruto lying on top of her, their foreheads touching. The wind had been knocked out of her from the impact, but other than that, nothing else had been injured.

Hinata gazed up at Naruto with wide, lavender eyes, unable to breathe. Her face turned bright red, and Naruto could feel heat radiating onto his forehead from hers. Unable to speak, Hinata merely whimpered softly, the back of her head cupped in the male's hand. Naruto gazed down at her for a few seconds, before realizing their position.

"Oh, crap! Sorry!" He quickly got off of her, then carefully helped Hinata sit up. "Are you okay, Hinata? I'm so sorry about that."

Hinata was still blushing, though she'd managed to catch her breath. "I-It's okay, N-Naruto-kun. It's m-my fault anyway..."

"How is it your fault? You tried to keep me from falling, but my fat ass caused you to fall over, too," Naruto joked, trying to lighten the situation.

The girl shook her head, shyly tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. "Y-You're not fat a-at all. You have a v-very nice body-" She cut herself off, getting more embarrassed once she'd uttered those words. He was still holding her and she shuddered lightly when he brushed her cheek with the pad of his thumb.

Naruto chuckled softly, amused by her bashfulness. It really was cute. He let go of her and stood up, then reached down and took her hand to help her up.

"Th-thank you," Hinata murmured quietly, unable to hold his gaze. She poked her fingers together nervously. "Umm..."

"Oh, I have your notebook. You're a really good note-taker, you know that? There's no way I'm gonna fail the test tomorrow, thanks to you," the blond male remarked with a laugh as he quickly rummaged through his backpack to retrieve it.

Hinata smiled a bit, and glanced up at him as he handed it to her. "I'm glad y-you found them to be helpful."

After a brief yet awkward moment of silence, Naruto decided to say something to break the ice. He was having trouble getting up the nerve to ask her, but he didn't want her to walk away before he could. Instead, he decided to take a different approach. "So...who was that guy you were with just now?"

Hinata looked at him, perplexed. Was that a hint of jealousy she detected in his voice? "O-Oh, that was Hidan. I t-tutor him in math."

"Wait a minute, you tutor him? Isn't he, like, two years above us?" Naruto asked, remembering that Sasuke mentioned that Hidan was Itachi's friend, which meant that he was most likely a senior.

"He has a lot of trouble with math," Hinata explained with a bit of amusement.

"Oh, I see... So, uh...what were you two talking about?" He inquired not-so-casually. "I'm just curious because, you know, um, you were blushing pretty bad." Naruto was pretty bad at being discreet.

The girl giggled sheepishly. "He was telling me some, umm...dirty jokes. He does that a lot b-because he knows that I g-get embarrassed easily."

"You two aren't dating though, right?" Correction; Naruto didn't know how to be discreet.

"N-No, nothing l-like that. I just t-tutor him, that's all." She looked up at him, her head tilted slightly in confusion. "Why do y-you ask?"

Now! Do it now! "Shut up, I know," Naruto hissed to himself.

"What?"

"Nothing!"he exclaimed, then nervously through his hand. "Sorry, um, I meant to say uh...your birthday is coming up soon, right?"

"Y-Yes," she stammered, puzzled by his unusual behavior. It wasn't like Naruto to act so strangely. Then again...

Naruto swallowed, then forced himself to get it over and done with. "Would it be okay if I took you for a date? We can go get some ramen...or get something else if you don't like ramen. Or-"

"N-Naruto-kun," she quietly interrupted, her eyes locking with his as she smiled up at him. "Ramen s-sounds good. I, um...would love to go out with you," she stuttered out, her cheeks stained with a blush all over again.

Naruto grinned. "Good! You mind if I walk you home?"

"O-Okay," Hinata replied, her heartbeat quickening in anticipation. "Th-thank you, N-Naruto-kun..."

As they headed away from the school, Naruto couldn't help but sling his arm across her shoulders. If that Hidan bastard could get away with it, then why the hell shouldn't he?

Sasuke, Sakura and Ino watched the couple leave, surprised that Naruto had actually managed to pull it off, even though he'd fallen on the poor girl first.

"Well, that worked out better than we planned," Itachi suddenly remarked, causing the three teenagers to jump in surprise. "Wouldn't you say, Hidan?"

Hidan, who was standing nearby, smirked. "No fucking shit. But then again, our plans always work."

Sasuke shrugged. "I hate to say it, but those two were getting absolutely nowhere. It's no surprise that we had to intervene and stage a few things."

"Was Hinata in on it?" Sakura asked. "I mean, I told Naruto where to find her, but was she playing along with it, too?"

Itachi shook his head. "No, she didn't know that we did this. Knowing her, she wouldn't have gone along with it because she gets too nervous. It was better to keep both of them in the dark about the situation."

"Step one; lead Idiotic Blond Kid to courtyard," Hidan remarked with a snicker. "Step two; make sure Idiotic Blond Kid sees Hinata with another guy to piss him off. Step three; other guy gets close with her to piss Idiotic Blond Kid off even more. Step four; wait for Idiotic Blond Kid to make his fucking move."

"I'm surprised that you played along with it, too," Ino pointed out the silver-haired teen. "You don't seem like the type who'd care about getting involved in something like this."

Hidan shrugged. "Hinata is making sure I don't fucking fail math, so the least I can do is help make sure she gets her boy toy. All I did was flirt with her a bit. Not like it required that much effort," he added, rolling his eyes. "Good thing she's cute, or else I wouldn't have been able to make it as convincing."

Sasuke looked at him incredulously. "Does Hinata really tutor you in math? Because if she does, that's pretty pathetic, considering that you're two years above us..."

"Hey, shut the fuck up! Math is hard!"

I agree; math is hard. I mean, seriously, other than basic math, I find it to be mostly useless in every day life. Anyway, hope you found this story to be amusing to some degree and I'll have more one-shots in the future.