An Unexpected Homerun
By: S.Lee723
Chapter 2I'm not sure how I ended up shopping not only with Tenten but Ino and Sakura, too. Actually, Ino's presence has been explained by Tenten (We need her fashion acumen Hinata!), but Sakura's presence has yet to be explained by anybody. Although I don't mind shopping with Ino, Sakura's presence irks me. I know for a fact Sakura doesn't like me because she thinks I'm a spoiled rich princess, but I don't care because I also dislike her. I mean, what did she do to deserve Naruto's love and attention?
I watch in amazement as a random shopper snaps through the various dresses on the rack in Betsy Johnson. The way the fingers adroitly flicked and snapped through the hangers mesmerized me. Flick. Snap. Flick. Snap. Flick…
"Hinata!" I look up and see Tenten squealing excitedly over a dress Ino is holding up and Ino waving me over. "Try this on. This dress is perfect for you! Try it on in the dressing room and show us it once you've tried it on!"
Feeling insecure I try to get myself out of this awkward situation. "Umm… I'm not sure if that dressing room is open, and I think… you have to ask the assistant before you go in and try dresses on." I feel proud of my quick thinking, but I look up and am quickly disillusioned by Tenten's expression, which clearly read "you don't expect me to believe that lame excuse, do you?".
Ino, no picking up on my lame attempt at escaping (or just choosing to ignore it because it was so pathetic), giggles at me and says in what I think is her "prim and proper" voice, "Well then, I will go and ascertain whether the dressing room may or may not be used by you, Hinata Hime."
Marching off with a purpose, Ino approaches the store assistant from behind and taps her shoulder asking if the afore-mentioned dressing room was open for me to use. To my dismay, the assistant nods "yes" and leads me to the dressing room to change. I couldn't help but have a displeasing disposition towards the assistant because it is due to her willingness to help that my pathetic attempts at astuteness have failed. Next time, I will be sure to be circumspect with my plans to ensure their success.
By now, I have put the dress on and am amazed with who I see in the mirror. This cannot be me…because this person is hawt! The dress came up to just above my knee and was strapless. Hugging my curves perfectly, the bright pink sash on my ribcage only served to accentuate my bust, and the black sequences made me sparkle and feel like a star.
Suddenly feeling a spark of confidence, I step out behind the curtain separating the dressing room from the store. Tenten and Ino are staring at me leading me to think I had the wrong idea, and in reality, I looked hideous. Just when I started to look down and wrap my arms around myself as an act of insecurity, Tenten and Ino started squeeling and gushing about how cute I looked. Whew, what a relief!
Of course, just to ruin the mood Sakura has to nastily point out with a smug smile—"It doesn't matter if she looks good in it. She has nowhere to go in it."
Realizing the truth in her words, I felt upset no one but Ino, Tenten, Sakura, and the other people in the store will see me in this (not Naruto!). Suddenly, Ino remembers the "Clans' Ball". A Ball thrown by the head of the predominant clans of Konoha and all shinobi, ninja and kunoichi, of the Fire Nation are invited (that means Naruto)!
The situation couldn't be any more perfect! I can just imagine me showing up and the crowd disseminating as I see Naruto standing on a veranda reaching his hand out to me about to ask me to –"Umph!"
I faintly hear Tenten scream a "Watch out!" too late.
Jerking out of my daydream (quite literally), I look up to see that I bumped into—Sasuke. What's he doing in Betsy Johnson? Looking around I realize that in my subconscious I must have changed back to my original clothes and followed Ino, Tenten, and Sakura out of the store.
Realizing the compromising position I was in (I was straddling his lap!), I hurriedly scramble to my feet and start to profusely apologize. It only served to make me feel more awkward when Sakura came seemingly from nowhere to push me out of the way back onto the ground to fuss about "her Sasuke's" well being and rant about the "stupid clumsy Hinata".
Before I could become enraged enough to snap at Sakura and tell her who the stupid one was, Tenten and Ino dragged me away to shop and continue my makeover. I willingly followed. I told myself that there was no hesitation in me following because I had much more erudition of fashion to learn so that I could fully ensnare Naruto's eye and heart, but I was actually starting to like this makeover business. It felt good to feel pretty!
Too caught up in her inner thoughts, Hinata didn't sense a certain dark-haired Uchiha glaring at her back as she skipped away with her friends and he struggled to shrug off an annoying pink-haired kunoichi, who seemed to think it was absolutely necessary to hang off his shoulder to survive.
Uploaded May 5, 2008A/N: Hoorah! I finished the second chapter and Sasuke has entered the picture. As you can see there is going to be some Sakura bashing. Don't flame me about the Sakura bashing. I used seven SAT vocab words. Woot! Review, onegai!
