The following story is absolutely AU. I hope you will give it a try anyway.

Enjoy!

The first time he touched me, it was fairly innocent. It happened while we were at a party in town, celebrating our graduation, which at that point of time was still half of a year away – a pre-graduation party, so to say. Naruto was after me again, trying to get me to dance and drink with him. He was persistent, following me like a puppy, but after about half a year of him chasing after me it got old and annoying. I had told him about tem times already, even said it straight to his face that I did not feel anything towards him except for friendship.

But, well, as he proofed to me again at this party, he simply didn't care and tried to woo me nonetheless.

I don't remember what I was wearing, but I believe it was either my black or my dark-blue dress, which is not important, of course. The building we were celebrating in was directly in town and that was a pretty cool location but the neighbouring houses already called the police because it was too loud, so the music was turned down a little bit. The bass was still prominent, preventing all forms of real conversation with the tunes of the up-to-date music.

The dance floor was small and crowded and it was way to hot in there, considering it was already December and we were at least wearing tights underneath our short dresses. I was there with some friends – actually not with some friends but my best friends, but it is not important to mention their names because our friendship was already cracking at that point of time.

Now we hardly talk. We weren't arguing, but you could feel the tension, and annoyed by them and Naruto, I moved on through the crowed alone. I felt a hand touching me shoulder and turned around, my eyes connecting with the light ones of Hinata, a girl from my class. Next to her was Tenten, her best friend, together with her boyfriend, Neji. They were holding hands, and that was the first time I actually saw Neji.

He wasn't part of my school, nor part of my group of friends. Sure, I saw him once or twice, but always in the company of Tenten - inseparable, I always thought. They had been a couple for about one and a half years already and seemed to get along well. He smiled at me, nonetheless. He had a nice smile, I noticed. I don't remember what he was wearing, either. He's got this skater-surfer boy going though, and that is something I have come to like over the last months.

But anyway, as good girls usually do, we hugged each other and started small talk. They were funny, and a little bit drunk, just like me. We started dancing, not softly swinging to the music but actually doing crazy moves. Tequila started flowing – the easiest and cheapest way to get drunk. After some time, Naruto found me. I could smell the beer in his breath as he started to dance behind me, circling me with his arms and rubbing his pelvis clumsily against my backside.

I could already feel an erection starting – he was always easily excited, but according to his ex-girlfriends he still was lasting long in bed. Not that I cared, of course. I guess I made a grimace, mainly aimed at Hinata and Tenten, but they just smiled cheekily, not knowing about my relationship – or lack thereof – with Naruto.

The hand that expanded to me was the one of Neji. Gladly I took it, believing that he must have sensed my discomfort. I glanced to Tenten, waiting to catch her reaction and see if she approved of me holding hands with her boyfriend. She didn't even look at us but danced with one of her friends, Shino. She was rubbing up behind him, laughing while doing the typical drunk-dance style their group of friends created: the sandwich. Just about everybody would gather and start rubbing against each other. I have been part of that pretty often in the last months, and enjoyed it. I will tell you later on, why exactly.

Neji softly tugged me towards him, kind of hugging me. I could tell that they exchanged some kind of glance, felt Neji's chest vibrating underneath me cheek which told me said he had said something to Naruto which I wasn't able to understand, thanks to the loud music. Afterwards he pressed me closer to himself, while spinning me around, so that his back was facing Naruto. I don't remember clearly but I guess I had my arms around him, too. Not because I wanted to do anything to or with him – at that point of time he was only the boyfriend of a semi-friend and therefore of limits.

But I was grateful because he had rescued my from a very uncomfortable position with Naruto – and I was drunk, witch I only started to notice as a started tripping while Neji pulled me after him through the crowd.

He stopped, having noticed the tug my tripping created due to our still connected hands. Conversation was still futile and therefore he put his arms around me pretty much the same way Naruto had only a few minutes ago, but with him I felt strangely comfortable. He was warm, but not sweaty and had a flat, muscular chest which was nice to lean against. He urged me towards the exit and while glancing back I could see Naruto again, moving after us through the crowd, obviously wanting to get me to dance with him again.

I shuddered and tugged at Neji's arms that were circling my middle, just underneath my bosom – honestly I should have noticed how that was already farer than a normal boy in a happy relationship would go. I once read in a magazine that you could evaluate your relationship with your male friends by paying attention to where the hugged you or where the put their arms. When they hugged your shoulders, they were just buddies. When they circled your waist or your hips, they were interested.

But as I already stated, I was drunk. Therefore I didn't interpret anything in this gesture, nor did I believe it meant anything when we reached the exit and he still held me like that.

I believed it was to get rid of Naruto, which worked – well kind of, anyway. We just kept going through a little alley towards the main street. I did not know why, and I did not care. I started to feel cold – as I already mentioned it was December and heaps of dirty snow were lying next to the street we had reached.

There were a few other people, smoking cigarettes. And a girl was hovering over a gully cover, throwing up quite loudly while a friend was rubbing her back and keeping her bangs out of her face, while laughing at her and shouting something to a group of people standing at the other side of the street.

I started shivering – I guess I was wearing the black dress, which left my shoulders bare due to the tiny straps of black cotton. The blue one had short sleeves, and I remember vaguely how he rubbed my arms from my naked shoulders to my forearms to keep me warm.

It felt nice and I leaned into him, trusting him to steady me. His hands were big and warm, a bit rough. I learned later that he is party of a band and played the guitar, which explained the coarse skin.

Well, we were standing outside, not planning to move at all when Naruto showed up again, with Gaara and Sasuke trailing behind him, I stiffened in Neji's arms – they were my buddies, but also friends with Tenten.

And I didn't believe that she would have approved of this situation, so I quickly untangled myself from him. I felt kind of guilty, but nothing had happened, I told myself.

They urged us inside again, and I complied.

I went to the house of one of my old friends soon afterwards because she was wasted and needed help. I would have liked to stay and I guess Neji would have liked that too, because the hug he gave me while saying good bye was longer than necessary. That is pretty much everything I remember. This happened about half a year ago, after all.

As is stated at the beginning, the first encounter with Neji was indeed fairly innocent.

I didn't dwell on it, but I even complimented Tenten how nice her boyfriend was to help me with Naruto. I could tell that she was pleased – it is important to her to be popular and therefore she is a sucker for compliments.

I started to befriend Tenten and Hinata. They were nice and funny, not girly-girls but more the tomboy-type. They often say that they took me away from my other friends, which is not really true because I willingly change my group of friends. I knew that school would be over soon. I didn't "need" my old friends anymore, considering it was a quite shallow friendship from the start. It sounds mean, but that's the truth. After about three or four years of "Oh nooooo, I broke my nail!" or "How cuuuuute is that pink top?" I really had enough. Sounds corny and cliché, but is sadly true.

Well, anyway, I hung around with Tenten, Hinata, Neji and his best friend Lee pretty often after that. It took a few weeks to get comfortable with them, but I started to like them soon. I still had other friends, like my buddies Gaara, Kiba and Sasuke, as well as two other girls, Karin and Temari.

I did not believe that my friendship with Neji was any different than the one I had with my other male friends – I flirted with them and the threshold of friendship and something else was often blurry, which I enjoyed. I needed them and they were glad to have a female in their circle. A "buddy with boobs" they liked to call me. And boobs I have, I have to add with a wink.

But I was obviously wrong – the next party in Hinata's house would be the proof.