Standard disclaimer applies.
888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
It was Friday and Hyuuga Hinata had nowhere to go.
She glanced at her wristwatch, frowning slightly as the seconds rushed by. She HATED Friday afternoons. She hated how everybody came so distracted all of the sudden, how they all were so excited, how they stared longingly at their watches, urging them to go faster and free them from this prison.
It seemed as if the only person who had no plans this afternoon was the heiress herself. How ironic, how utterly ironic.
Why it was ironic was another question.
"Keep on working," her sensei ordered. "We have ten minutes until we leave."
She cringed. Secretly, she wished that there was training everyday, just so that she would keep herself busy. On weekends and breaks, it was unbearably boring. He had nobody to talk to, except on the odd moments when Hanabi wasn't training. She had no friends—everybody was merely friendly to her. Even her teammates were somewhat distant to her, only rushing to finish missions.
"ALL RIGHT!!" crowed Inuzuka Kiba, his face aglow with euphoria. "Can't wait." He directed his attentions to his giant of a dog, Akamaru. "We have to get you some more meat, hn? You seem hungrier than usual!"
She shielded her eyes, looking away form the affectionate pair. Sometimes she wished that she had a companion like Akamaru. That way she could never be lonely. But her clan was fiercely independent and only focused on individual skills and talent. A real Hyuuga could succeed even without other help or resources.
She began, almost mechanically her work on shuriken and precision. It wasn't a mind-consuming task and she wondered about more pleasant things.
Namely Uzumaki Naruto.
Naruto-kun…even the mere mention of his name brought Hinata to a violent blush. He had such a hard life, but he always kept on trying…she closed her eyes and blushed harder than ever, imagining the two hugging, and Naruto-kun telling her….
A shuriken found its way near Akamaru, lodging deeply into the ground near Akamaru's paw.
""Hey, watch it!" Kiba cried, slightly irritated.
"G-gomen, ano—" she stumbled to the shuriken stood, stuttering as was her habit.
"Sure, sure. It's okay." It was amazing how easily Kiba could change his moods. Unnerving. "After all, Akamaru did dodge it, huh?" He laughed carelessly. "Just be more careful, huh, Hinata?"
"You need to really work on accuracy, Hinata," Kurenai-sensei muttered, retrieving the shuriken with such ease that Hinata stared at the ground ashamedly. "Or maybe just concentration. But the speed and the strength have improved. You can practice accuracy and concentration on Monday. This is about the end of training."
Hinata turned her head, trying to shield her eyes from the grinning Kiba and a much-relieved Shino.
"Let's all go for ramen!" Kiba announced suddenly.
"I have something else to do," Shino muttered at once.
"Hinata?" looking eagerly for somebody to surely back up his plans, to put his idea into motion—
"Gomen, demo…" she searched fruitlessly for something, anything to excuse herself from his plans, but found nothing. Before anyone else opened their mouths to enquire further, she swept out of the area in a blur of speed and lilac.
She had nothing, no reason to refuse. So why did she? This could have very well been her chance, her chance to increase bonds with her teammates, to make friends. Why was she so damn shy? So painfully awkward? How could she be so hypocritical, yearning for friends, yet passing up chances to make them?
She scowled and aimed a blow at a nearby tree with all her strength, and blinked in surprise when it teetered for a moment and fell.
She needed to escape herself, and the only way to do that was to see Naruto-kun.
She made no stop in her pace as she swept deeper and deeper into the forests, her eyes open and alert. With Naruto-kun in her presence, it was as if there was hope; hope for a better future, hope in reach if she just tried to grab it. And there was also his adorable face, and his mind-blowing grin…
Okay, she liked him. It was hard not to. He was nice to her and determined and so likable. So it was perfectly understandable that she fainted whenever he spoke to her. Or made eye-contact with her.
Of course.
She teetered to a halt and leapt gracefully from a large tree. She could feel four distinct chakras ad one of them was Naruto's. She stopped by a line of bushes and watched silently as a slightly bored Kakashi stopped training and called it a day.
She made no move as Naruto's five hundred clones ran around cheering, or when Sakura finally located the real one and punched the living daylights out of him. Her eyes took in the scenes hungrily, milking all the affection and familiarity and made no effort to jump in, to ruin the perfect moment. She crouched there for hours, watching as Naruto finally packed up and went with Sakura and Sasuke to Ichiraku's.
Even as they left, she remained where she was, still drinking in this new happy memory that she wished belonged to her. It was nice here, alone in the forest, staring at nothing in particular. Her hand wordlessly brushed the grass by her feet and she ignored the cold Hyuuga mansion she would have to come home to. There was no need to ruin the perfect moment.
Something leapt at her and she gave a short, surprised gasp. She was pinned down on the ground, her body squashed under another's, her eyes wide and scared.
"Who are you?" the ambusher demanded. Is voice was low and harsh. He tightened his hold on her hands, and they numbed instantly.
"A-ah," she breathed out. Struggle was futile; he was much too strong. Her eyes struggled in the dark to see his face…
"Why have you been spying on me?" The fury in his voice was uncontrollable. "Why are you all insistent in following me? You all are so weak and annoying."
She struggled for breath, berating herself for being so weak, for being so careless, for being a burden.
"Do you have shifts of watching over me? With your stupid "fan girl" club? Do you think you know who I am? Do you?"
She was terrified, her head shaking desperately, silently pleading for all this to end…
"I'll teach you a lesson," his voice frustrated and infused with sudden hate," and run to your club and report it. Maybe then they'll stop doing this annoying spying."
She could smell the strength and power in his chakra and she was afraid. She closed her eyes. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She deserved this happening to her. This was all her fault.
She felt a rough mouth over hers and froze. It was angry and harsh and she felt the sting of it and it hurt. She heard heavy breathing and heard stumbling and wondered when it would all end.
She was a failure, a shame to herself and to her family….
She suddenly thought longingly of her home, the familiarity, the feeling of safety. Even thought it was cold and harsh, it was still home…
"Hyuuga," she croaked. Maybe this was all just a nightmare and it would end school, and she would wake up to her dark, familiar room. Maybe she was just delirious an she was imagining this all.
He reeled back to her, and she felt the chakra tense in ever fiber of his being. Her eyes were still closed, but she felt his curiosity and impatience radiating from him.
"Hyuuga?" his voice was sharp. "What do you know about the Hyuuga family?" His voice was full of contempt. "I know them too, and you can't use their name to protect you."
"I know," she murmured, and suddenly she opened her eyes, and her Byakugan was activated and she rushed to her offensive position, focusing on the weak chakra points and zapping it all away. His hands grabbed hers and yanked them off his body, panting.
They looked at each other finally. Red Sharingan eyes met Byakugan white ones.
"Hyuuga Hinata," Uchiha Sasuke muttered.
"U-uchiha Sasuke." It seemed as if all her temper had gone out from her, and she slunk back, flushing. Had she really attacked Uchiha Sasuke? And had he actually kissed her? She shivered, goose bumps forming all over her skin, remembering the roughness, the harsh sting of his lips—
"Hn." The noise brought her back to reality and she blinked. He crossed his arms and turned away from her. "Didn't know you joined the club."
"What club?" The confusion dripping from every word.
She could sense his discomfort. "You know. The fan club."
Realization dawned on her and she blushed. "O-oh. Demo…ano…I'm not part of your…f-fan club. Gomen," she added quickly, as thought he idea of not being in his "fan club" would offend him.
He merely scowled again. "Then why are you stalking me?"
He had a point, she thought, and she struggled out of that barb. "Ano…I wasn't st-stalking. Well, I was just watching Team 7. Not just you. So…uh…don't take it personally?" She hated the way she sounded so uncertain, so insecure, so fragile. She elaborated, choosing her words with great care. "All of you just seem…so friendly. And happy," she added. "It's nice, watching happy people—"
"Who says I'm happy?" she snapped. She froze again and her eyes met his glowing red eyes, at once captivated and terrified.
She had no answer to that question. His Sharingan eyes were hypnotizing, and she stared unblinkingly at them, weak, obedient, willing.
"Answer me," he hissed, and she felt compelled to obey.
"It's just that…you're' with your friends. Aren't you happy with your friends?" She was utterly controlled. Now he could do whatever he wanted with her: with no question.
"Hn." The spell was broken as he turned way. His eyes blinked away all signs of the mechanical obedience, and she stared down at the round in silence. "Weak." She could almost hear the smirk in his voice.
She didn't deny the statement and he grinned wider, turning to her. "And you didn't even use Byakugan until the last moment. And you made no attempt to fight my Sharingan."
"Well, I thought that you wouldn't attack me," she muttered slightly defensively.
"You thought wrong. People strike at you when you're most vulnerable." His voice sounded odd, distant, and suddenly she remembered when, about eight years ago, her father told her about the night when almost the whole Uchiha clan had been brutally murdered by Itachi, Sasuke's older brother.
They stood in silence for a long time, peacefully, until Hinata broke the quiet yet dangerous atmosphere engulfing the two.
"A-ano…I'm sorry for bothering you," her voice ringing down shrilly over the silence. "Well, I probably have to go," she lied, her voice quieter. "You can carry on doing whatever you were doing."
He made no reply to her quasi-speech, and she breathed a sigh of relief, and deliberately and slowly picked her way out of the pathway.
"Hinata." Hearing his voice suddenly made her stumble on a stray rock and trip. Her face would have been eating dirt if it wasn't for Sasuke, who grabbed her waist in a flash.
She could hear his smirk.
"Yes, Sasuke-san?" She gritted out. He smirked again. She felt the beginnings of annoyance come through her, and Hyuuga Hinata was NEVER annoyed.
"Teach me your move. The Protection of the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms."
There was ringing silence, in which her mind moved endlessly for an excuse, an escape route. He couldn't take her best move…not the one that she trained for so long…
"You can't," she heard herself saying. "You need Byakugan eyes. You need them."
"I don't need them." Smugness oozed from his voice. "With my instincts, I have 358 degrees vision."
"But you c-can't," she muttered, and she knew then that she was fighting a losing battle. "And even if you had Byakugan eyes, you would have to be part of our family, through either marriage or birth."
"That's easy. I'll marry you."
He said it in such an indifferent way that she didn't absorb the meaning of his statement for about thirty seconds.
It took another three seconds for her face to get impossibly red. "A-ano…Sasuke-san," she finally breathed out, "d-d-d-don't joke like that."
"Who said I was joking?"
Her face had exceeded the color red and now seemed to turn orange. "SASUKE-SAN!" She suddenly realized that he was still holding her waist.
It was hard to keep from fainting from embarrassment.
What if somebody saw? She must have looked as if she was—as if she was—
She couldn't stand it much longer. She HAD to go. Otherwise, he might manipulate her and make her embarrass herself again.
She ripped herself from him and ran off as quickly as she could.
As she took off to a full-out sprint, she vaguely wondered on what conditions they would meet again.
888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
She should have thought harder on that thought because she saw him again the day after The Incident.
After much hyperventilating, she had finally called over Shino and Kiba over to have ramen at Ichiraku's. She had figured that she should get to know them outside of training for a change. It was surprisingly easy and she forgot why she had been so worried of it.
"That was a good idea, Hinata," Kiba laughed. "I can't wait for ramen!" She couldn't help but smile at her overactive teammate.
"There it is," Shino murmured, as he stepped into the bar. "I've never eaten here before," he added. "I wonder how the ramen tastes."
"Great, I want that too—what?" Kiba halted and Hinata had to laugh at the dazed expression on his face. "What have you been doing your whole life?"
She caught a flash of bright yellow hair and she blushed. Naruto-kun….are you here?
"Uh-oh," Kiba muttered. "It's Naruto. Hinata's crush."
"W-what?" She whirled on him, her face the color of a tomato.
"Well…you always blush when you see him," Shino reasoned, as Kiba nodded, "So…we always just assumed…"
She seemed to shrink away.
"Aaw…don't' feel bad," Kiba said consolingly, and Akamaru barked his assent. "He's not alone, he's with Sasuke and Sakura, you can't feel too awkward."
SASUKE? SASUKE-SAN?? Her eyes widened and her blushed grew, if possible, even hotter. She had not forgotten what had happened to the two of them the day before.
She searched for a raven mop of hair next to Naruto's. And sure enough, there he was, eating his ramen.
She panicked.
"A-a-a-a-a-a-ano…"she grabbed the two shinobi back and they both looked back at her, shocked. "Let's go somewhere else. I k-k-k-know another place—"
"Aww…come on, Hinata!" The dog maniac grinned evilly as he dragged her forward to him. "This is the best place for ramen!"
She felt herself trembling as she let herself get pushed to him. It couldn't be that bad. He wouldn't be THAT angry. He wouldn't kill her or anything…after all…her teammates and Naruto and Sakura were here. They could protect her from him.
"Hey Naruto!" Kiba smirked—that was the only thing you could call it—and winked quite ostensibly at Hinata.
Naruto didn't even pay attention to them. He seemed too engrossed with his food to think or register spoken words.
Hinata breathed a sigh of relief. Sasuke more or less ignored Kiba, his eyes on the bar table. She was still safe…if she could just escape…
"Oh!" It was Sakura, her eyes wide. "Team Eight? Kiba? Shino? Hinata? What are you doing here?"
There was no hope, she thought wildly as Sasuke's eyes snapped up to hers almost immediately. There was no anger in his eyes, but that only meant that she would kill her silently, quickly and efficiently.
She was glad.
"H-hi." Her voice was tiny while she stared at Naruto's furiously eating figure, studiously ignoring his burning stares.
There was an awkward pause that only she seemed to notice.
"We're here for ramen!" crowed Kiba energetically, thankfully filling the silence. "Can you believe that Shino has NEVER been here before?"
"Really?" It was Sakura, her tone carefully polite and interested. It was clear that she had noticed the diminishing atmosphere and valiantly tried to save it.
"WOW!!" Naruto's loud voice attracted everyone's attention. "That was GREAT!!" A loud belch resounded through the place, and everybody simply stared at the fixture that was Naruto.
"N-naruto, you idiot…"
She had to admit, she mused, it was amusing. Seeing Naruto getting beat up. Somehow, she felt better as Sakura comically chased a terrified Naruto all over Ichiraku's.
Did she just say that? What had happened to her?
"Oy, Hinata." It was Kiba, and he smirked. "Uchiha has been staring at you for the past ten minutes." He was ridiculous, she reflected, his eyebrows wagging ludicrously. "Another shinobi fights for the attention of fair Hinata—"
She didn't blush, but she DID gape pointlessly at him, remembering the kiss and the marriage thing…
But he was teasing her, that was all, she told herself. Why did she have to take things so seriously?
"Shut up," she muttered half-heartedly.
Kiba dropped the kunai he was playing around with. Sakura had stopped bashing Naruto and stared, open-mouthed at her. Naruto gaped at her, his eyes full of surprise.
It took a couple of seconds to register what she had said. It hit her suddenly and she turned brick-red.
"Gomen. GOMEN! GOMENESAI!! I…I didn't mean it like that!" Her voice was irrationally desperate. "PLEASE FORGIVE ME! I—"
It is still, to this day, hard to describe what really happened. Some said that it was an illusion, some said it was a prank, while some few insist that this legend…this milestone in history actually happened.
Uchiha Sasuke LAUGHED.
All heads directed to Hinata came to him, their eyes bulging. First Hinata saying shut up, and now Sasuke laughing?
Naruto had gone faint and briefly wondered if this was Hell before passing out.
His laughs were long and his shoulders were shaking.
There was another drop and a couple of customers rushed towards an out-cold girl, Yamanaka Ino. Another casualty.
He finally winded down, his eyes on Hinata's still frozen figure. They all stared wordlessly at him and he finally let out a breath.
"Hn." It seemed as if this was the unspoken signal to get back to business. Crowds crowded over the poor victims of this unexpected charade.
Hinata shook her head over and over again. Why was she even here? And an even better question: what the hell happened?
She wanted to pinch herself but found no way to do that without anyone noticing.
"Hinata," Shino whispered, and she started, "Uchiha is staring at you. It's getting a lot of people mad."
This time she laughed a little herself, except her laugh was crazed and slightly hysterical.
"Don't be crazy, Shino. He wouldn't be staring at m—"
"Just warning you," he muttered under his coat. "You might be attacked by girls. I heard he has a fan club." He shrugged. "This is my first time her and I don't want it to be messy."
Hinata weakly nodded, and slowly turned her gaze to him. Oh god. He was staring at her alright. And his onyx eyes seemed to generate the same weak obedience that his Sharingan had.
And there were the girls.
For instance: Haruno Sakura and a recently revived Yamanaka Ino were now glaring heatedly at her. She gulped. She knew of both their dangerous and scary abilities in battle.
She gulped again, trying not to imagine what they would do to her.
It didn't help.
Especially when Naruto-kun finally came out of his faint to see a blatantly staring Sasuke, a blushing Hinata, and two very angry fan girls.
"Hinata? W-what did you do to Sasuke? A-are you the real Hinata? H-how?"
Even Naruto's voice didn't draw Hinata away from Sasuke's hypnotizing eyes. She gulped. Just say it…just tell him to leave you alone…
She opened her mouth.
Predictably, nothing came out of it.
There was a tap on her shoulder and she looked to find a little bug on her shoulder.
It was Shino's, she knew (they worked together in many missions before) and she looked automatically at him.
He was at the door, strolling slowly away, and at once she understood. He was saving her.
It was gratitude that filled her, and she practically sprinted towards Shino. Ah…good Shino. Silent but silently supportive.
She breathed a sigh as she reached the door to her free escape. Maybe once she stayed out of sight for a while, everybody would forget, and then, and then—
"Weak."
It was a phenomenon, people later reflected, how much of a drama it seemed to be, starring a stoic yet handsome, intense shinobi and blushing, modest young maiden. It seemed to take an eternity for her to turn.
She looked at him. He looked at her.
The silence was stifling.
She was not nervous because an odd sort of calmness stole her suddenly, like an out-of-body experience.
"What?" Her voice wasn't hers either.
"Weak." He dropped the word harshly, and even this New Hinata felt the sting of it.
She smiled. It was not a painful one, but it had a certain mocking, bitter tone to it that was not hers. Was that a smirk?
"Running away." His words were brisk and business-like, yet his eyes lingered on her in a different fashion. "Clinging onto friends." The word had a bitter, somewhat resentful tone to it. "Weak."
She knew he relished every word he bit out, and suddenly she had the right things to say and she smiled at him oddly and it was not a surprise when she asked,"How?"
His eyes flickered to her lips, and he looked away, gulping. When he met her gaze again, he had a pink tinge in his cheeks. "Train. With me. Every Friday afternoon."
At least, she reflected, she would have something to do on Friday afternoons.
888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
Thanks for reading! ) Please review. Constructive criticism is welcomed.