"IT SHALL BE A MISSION!" The green clad boy announced to the world, throwing his fist in the air excitedly.
Even though no one was listening, he dramatically continued on with a explanation of what this 'mission' consisted of.
"This Youthful task will Test my ability to conceal myself from the target, track them, and to gather information from said target! since during the first task of the chunin exam, the goal was to test ones ability to gather information without being caught, and since I didn't really do that at all because of Tenten-sans youthful help, I shall make up for that with this mission!"
This mission was in fact what many people would call, S T A L K I N G.
Chunin exam test is to cheat
as
Lee's mission is to stalk.
"My mission will start NOW, GOODBYE MY YOUTHFUL FRIENDS!" and with that, he was gone, just before some random person could yell "SHUT UP LEE! YOU'RE A IDIOT!"
----
After departing to start the mission a quick look around the village market showed him where his target was. Sitting at the Ichiraku Ramen stand next to her orange clad companion, her beautiful pink hair barely grazing her shoulders as they moved up in down due to her sweet youthful laughter. Oh, how he wished he could make her laugh like that...Though, soon he snapped out of one of his frequent daydreams, remembering the mission, he glanced around suspiciously gently shielding his eyes from the sun with one hand. Out of all the people walking through the market place his eyes seemed to focus on someone who seemed to be oddly placed, therefore he further examined the suspect.
'Even though they are wearing slightly baggy cloths, I can tell from their shape and hair as well as a small frame that they are probably female...'
The raven haired girl he was observing was huddled behind the most cleverest hiding spot in the world - a telephone poll. She was gently peeking out from behind of it looking in the direction of the Ramen stand. Lee could not see her face due to her hair covering most of it and her bad slightly hunched over posture. Even so, He thought she looked familiar. The navy ninja forehead protector around her neck told him that she was definitely from this village so that was probably why he had seen her before.
He thought that she...definitely looked...Suspicious. Like a stalker or something! 'that is just wrong!' Lee thought to himself becoming slightly excited.
Here he was, stalking---er, gathering information, yeah, that's it. Gathering information, about Sakura-San, and it appears she already has someone gathering information about her! Why, it simply MUST be because of jealousy for Sakura's beauty. Lee's brow furrowed, he could not have Sakura be given a hard time by a selfish wannabe so he decided to go have a word with this pitiful girl wasting her precious youth with selfish things.
"Um...Excuse me.." he began, after swiftly moving behind the girl unnoticed "but, if you are being a stalker just because you are jealous that your beauty could never surpass Sakura's, then I suggest you stop because your attempts at getting attention will really not be amusing." he stated that quickly and matter-o-factly, being quite caught up in the moment because he wanted to protect his crush. The girl, however, was shaking pretty badly turning around to face him her nose pointed twords the floor, as she seemed quite keen on observing her shoes.
"I-I'm S-s-s-sor-ry! I d-didn't k-know I was o-offending a-any-one.."
"HA!" Lee shouted triumphantly "SO! Then, you DO admit to stalking her because you flail in comparison to her beauty?"
At that the girl looked up at him, her strange pearl colored eyes tearing up, and her features showing nothing but sadness and terror.
Lee recognized those eyes the moment he saw them, and then proceeded to feel horrible. Those were the same eyes his teammate Neji had, meaning this had to be Neji's shy almost sociophobic cousin Hinata. He had been so stupid, he should have known it was her, he had seen her countless times before as well as spoken to her a few times. He even watched her and Neji's fight in the chunin exams, so why had he not realized it was her?
"H-Hinata-san! I.." He gasped and stuttered much like Hinata did all the time.
Actually, from what Lee had seen, when someone so much as talked to her about the weather she would stutter and appear afraid they hated her. If she reacted like that just to normal conversation, he couldn't imagine how his insults on how she looked must had affected her. she seemed very self conscious as it was.
"L-Lee-san, I..I..." her face was very red, from crying and from blushing.
"I'm s-so sorry Hinata-san! I didn't know it was you! I thought you were some crazed sakura wannabe out to assassinate her!"
Hinata's expression changed slightly, she didn't look as afraid anymore.
"..O-oh..it's a-alright...I...am..s-sorry..that you t-thought..that.." she gave him a sheepish smile.
Lee couldn't help but smile alittle too. She was too kind and forgiving, witch reminded him of Gai-sensei.
"No! No, Its alright, you shouldn't be sorry, I'm the idiot" He said, nervously scratching the back of his head.
"I-Its r-really m-my fault, I-if I wasn't s-so u-ugly you w-wouldn't h-have thought that I w-was trying to h-hurt s-sakura out of j-jealousy.."
Lee felt like the biggest jerk in the world. He felt like a even bigger jerk then Neji used to be.
He opened his mouth to tell her that she was mistaken, but she began to speak first .
"B-besides, y-you were r-right! m-my attempts at g-getting a-attention will n-not work and e-even if they d-did, they w-would just be a b-burden.."
Hinata smiled sadly looking up at him with disappointment etched in her features, and if possible, Lee felt even worse.
"No, Hinata, don't say that! I said those things without getting a good look at you and without even knowing who you were or what you were doing. I jumped to conclusions because I was blinded by actually doing something useful to the people I like for once! I was being stupid, please forgive me!" He explained, bowing, witch made hinata go into a rant about how he shouldn't be worrying about her and that she would be fine. Halfway through the rant that lee wasn't really listening to, he realized that she looked very cute all flustered like that, and, he decided, she needed a hug. So, he hugged her.
Hinata gasped in surprise as her mind went racing to what this could mean, she wasn't exactly used to being touched, much less hugged. Then she recalled countless times when she was secretly watching Neji's team train and Lee would hug Gai-sensei passionately and they would rant about youth or something. She figured that Lee was just the hugging type.
After knowing that this was just a friendly gesture she felt a bit more bold and timidly wrapped her arms around him, returning the hug.