I've been working on this since like... the beginning of the school year... so I'm sorry if the bores you to tears! I promise that the next few chapters will be better! But since I have been working on this for so long, I gave you guys a 4 part update. I'll try my best to get chapter 5 up soon, which shouldn't be too hard seeing how I'm almost half way done with it. But enough of my rambling, and onto the story.

Disclaimer: You would all know if I owned Naruto, because it would suck.

Could It Be Jealousy?

By TheLextacyBlossom

Ino

Chapter One: Starting Out Friends

It had started out like any other day for me. I got up, ate breakfast (though it could hardly be called such) and headed off to school. Nothing special there. The first half of a minute was normal. Sakura was being her know-it-all self, Naruto was being his I-don't-know-anything self, so on and so forth. And, as always, when I said, "Morning, Sasuke." the shady figure said no reply. A completely normal day.

But then something abnormal happened. Neji walked into the room. I was indifferent for a while, but after a few minutes of him talking to Iruka, I started getting suspicious. And then, without any warning, he turned and walked in my direction. Not that I meant it to, but my mouth popped open slightly. It closed, though, when he sat down in the empty seat in front of me. That didn't stop me from gawking.

"Why is Neji here? I thought he graduated last year…" I said to no one in particular, but Hinata, who was taking her normal seat next to me, must have assumed I was talking to her since she looked up at me, then at Neji, then back again. There was a puzzled expression on her face.

"Honestly, I have no clue. He never said anything about it at dinner…" she sounded genuinely dumbfounded, but I was still disappointed. She should've known, he being her cousin. But I let it drop as she turned her attention back to emptying out her backpack.

I had thought about asking him myself. Then I chuckled. C'mon. I thought. We all know I wouldn't do that. I'd be too embarrassed! Not that anyone knew, but I actually had a thing for Neji, and not for Sasuke; Sasuke was just some snobby brat who acted like the coolest, sexiest guy on the planet. But, he wasn't, and I only pretended to like him so no one would figure out I like Neji (although I'm fairly certain Sakura already knows… she often peeps through my diary, and she just kind of knows me a little too well.) and loathe Sasuke.

Sadly, I knew for a fact that Neji isn't interested. He's supposed to like TenTen, which is just stupid if you ask me. I mean, she's a nice girl and all, but she's not really, you know, available. TenTen is dating Rock Lee, which makes less sense than Neji liking her. Rock Lee is just plain creepy.

But then class began and I had to pull myself away from my thoughts. Not that I really did. How could I when the love of my life was sitting not three feet in front of me? So… I just basically spent the class period staring at the back of Neji's head (which isn't much of a sight since I love his eyes the most) and doodling a bunch of random kids from school (I was mostly trying to draw Neji, but had to make sure Hinata didn't get suspicious!) on the back of my notebook.

And then, without any warning, Iruka dismissed the class. Every kid started empting out into the halls. Including Neji. I had to kick myself to keep myself from pouting as he got up and left. It wasn't enough to keep me from sighing, but I didn't mind since no one else was around. I packed up my things, and then walked over to the door. Taking one last wistful glance at where he had sat, I walked out of the room and headed to my next class.

(()) (()) (())

Next thing I knew, I was standing outside the doorway to the gym staring blankly at where Neji had stood not two second previously. How many classes does he have of mine now? I asked myself, shocked at how I sounded annoyed, almost angry. I should be jumping for joy right about now. I scolded myself. I shook my head, trying to clear it, when I heard someone shout out.

"Oiy! Ino! Aren't you going to change?" I looked in the direction of where it was coming from and saw a pink haired girl. Sakura was the one who was yelling at me. What an outgoing goof. I said silently in my head. Sakura really doesn't have the word 'timid' in her vocabulary. She was all mouth, and, when someone talked back, all fists.

"Yeah, I guess. Give me a sec, okay?" I told her. She shrugged and went back into the locker room. I breathed for a second, looked once more at where he had stood (Is this going to become a thing with me? Looking where ever he stood?) and headed to join the other girls in the locker room.

A few minutes later, every boy and girl was dressed for gym and sorted into teams for volleyball, which happened to be my best/favorite sport. I smiled. This was the most perfect chance to prove myself to Neji.

The game went by in a blaze. I never really noticed anything other than Neji and where the ball was headed. Then again, those were the only things I really cared about, which is probably why I Sakura got hurt (I wasn't paying attention to the other team and spiked the ball over the net right into her face) and had to sit out for the rest of the period with a bloody nose. I wondered if she was mad. Never the less, I still blushed like mad when I helped her off the floor. I guess my spikes got better since the beginning of the year, because back then she barely even noticed me hitting the ball into her, which I did quite often back then.

While I was helping her, I stole a glance at Neji. He was looking at me, too. When I saw his beautiful eyes looking me over, my blush deepened. I swore he saw right through me, but still couldn't help but be flattered he was even looking in my direction. Someone as cool as him would never notice someone as plain as me.

After we got all that cleared up, everyone went back to the game. I made sure I paid more attention, just in case Hinata ended up looking like Sakura. I noticed Neji rarely looked away from me, except when the ball was coming directly at him. I don't think my blush died down at all the entire period. And even after my screw up, my team won 26 to 17 by the end of class.

I glanced at Neji (and blushed when he glanced back) and headed for the locker room. I had hoped that Sakura would be back from the nurse by then, but she wasn't. Wave after wave of guilt hit me the whole time we were changing. I felt horrible about hurting her. It made me have to sit down and breathe (Lets face it. I was trying not to cry, okay?) for a while, which made me take longer. I got out like three minutes later than normal.

And, in some twisted, morbid way, I was glad I had felt guilty and took longer to get out. Because right as I left the locker room, I spotted Neji walking across the gym floor. He saw me too, and stopped walking. For a while he stood there. I guess he was waiting for me. So I walked over to him.

Everybody had evacuated the gym floor. No one was here but us. I felt the butterflies take flight in my stomach. We were completely alone! My face lifted up into a small grin as he closed the last two feet between us.

"That was a nice spike earlier. What's your name?" he asked me. I blushed deeply.

"My name… I'm… Yamanaka Ino…" I stuttered. My blush darkened when he chuckled. I looked down.

"Ino, huh? You don't mind me calling you that, do you?"

I shook my head and he chuckled again. "What class you have next?"

I looked at him for a second. He looked so handsome. I couldn't believe he was talking to me. I think I felt my mouth slightly open. Say something! I screamed inside my mind. "I have biology next… Ms. Chiaki's class." Geez! What's wrong with you? You're never this shy! I scolded myself.

He grinned. "Awesome. So do I. Want to walk together?"

My heart stopped. I couldn't breathe. He really wants to walk with me! This is so awesome! I yelled silently inside of me.

"Sure!"

"Great. But we'd better get going, or else we're going to get in trouble, and I'd hate for you to get chastised because of me."

I blushed. He laughed again and grabbed my hand, pulling me out of the gym. His hand was cool against mine; his skin was soft and smooth.

In less than a minute we had just barely made it to class before the teacher closed the doors. She's one of the only teachers in the entire school that I actually hate. Thankfully, everyone else did too. Except for Neji, who never had her before. He walked in looking kind of happy-peppy and everyone stared at him and I, who were still holding hands. I was so close to pouting when he pulled his out of mine. But we were both blushing, so…

"Miss Yamanaka, would you care to take a seat? And your boyfriend is going to have to leave and go to his own classroom; I'm sure his teacher is missing him." The rest of the class laughed loudly.

"One, he's not my boyfriend," – I cried inside – "…and two, he's in the right class, Ms. Chiaki." I glared at her. This is probably the only class that I'm all badass to a teacher. "Got a problem with that?"

She returned my glare. She's the one teacher who won't be badass back. Or so I thought. "No, no, there's nothing wrong with him being in this class. But…" She said in an evil tone. "If he isn't your boyfriend, why is it you two were holding hands?" Her mouth formed a menacing grin.

I sighed. "Give it up. You know just as well as I do that I'm going to win this argument. So why don't you just go back to writing shit on the board?" I said cruelly. I think I heard Hinata gasp somewhere near the back of the room.

I felt Neji's eyes on the back of my head. I felt kind of bad, and I wasn't sure why, but I did. I hoped he would still like me by the time we got to our seats. I blushed.

"What ever." The evil Ms. Chiaki turned to the chalkboard and picked up her piece of chalk. Both Neji and I sighed, though maybe not for the same reason. I walked over to a set of open seats and he followed. I took one and he took the other. If Neji was mad at me, he didn't show it.

"Hey, um, Ino?" he asked me quietly when the teacher was writing on the board.

"Mhm?"

"I'm not very good at volleyball, and I was wondering –" He broke off and looked around. "– If you wouldn't mind coaching me sometime after school."

I blushed but smiled. "Yeah, sure. When's good for you?" I asked. He said anytime would work. "Okay, I'll talk to the gym teacher tomorrow. But take notice I'm not going to go easy on you!" I almost said 'because I think you're gorgeous' but I barely caught myself. That would've been awkward.

He grinned a crooked grin that broke my heart just by looking at it. "Awesome! And I never said I wanted to be taken lightly. I just said I wanted help."

"Okay." We both grinned. "Just letting you know."

(()) (()) (())

One after the other, I found out Neji had every class with me. It made me so happy. We walked together to every single one. We talked feverently the whole day. It was like we were the only two people on earth. We very well could've been; no one else talked to us, or even looked at us (from what I could see, but hell, I don't know. I was focused on Neji the whole day!) By the end of the day we felt like we'd been friends since the beginning of time.

Then school ended and we were probably the only people in the entire building who felt sad about that. Teachers were smiling (I so didn't know they could do that!) as they erased their most previous lesson, and everyone else we sighing with relief. Not us. We stuck out our lips in a pout when the bell struck. It meant we'd have to part company. The very thought of that was sad. I enjoyed being with Neji so much, and not just because I had the hots for him; I really liked him for who he was.

We have our lockers on the opposite sides of the building, so we said goodbye to each other. He turned around and started walking away, but I stood there looking wistfully at him. I took a step backward, as if to remind myself I had to get going, then turned away from him.

I felt a stare on the back of my head. I turned to look back one last time and saw Neji half facing me, turning back to look away from me again. My eyes lighted up as I hurried to my locker.