2 or 3 months later...
Standing on the edge of her new campus, she eyed the various large buildings spread out in front of her. Her pearl eyes then found the many university students, her new schoolmates, chatting with friends on the large lawn between buildings, or walking in and out of doors to attend or leave class.
Her left hand lightly clenched the bottom of her white collared shirt. She looked down, feeling so alone, and quite nervous on her first day as a university student. She knew already that she missed her friends. She squeezed her eyes closed.
In her right hand, she held her schedule. Opening her eyes and taking a deep breath, she looked at her agenda. Her first class was in a building not too far away, just to her right. She made her way toward the building.
The first door she saw, she believed was the side entrance. She tried to open, but it was locked. She looked to her right, and found another door that was already open just a few feet away. When she made her way over, just before entering, she peered inside to find a classroom with a few students waiting in their seats. A couple students locked eyes with hers. She quickly pulled her head back and covered her face with her schedule. After taking a couple of breaths to remove her embarrassment, she decided to walk around the building to find the main entrance.
She began to study her schedule while following the small cement trail that lead around the structure. As she was about to turn the corner, she had her head in her schedule.
Suddenly, she bumped into something. She squeaked as the paper in her hand crinkled in her face. She stumbled back, her left hand holding her pained nose carefully. She thought she had accidently turned too early and bumped into a wall. She looked in front of her to find a dark blue shirt standing before her. She bumped into a man!
Comprehending her mistake, she let go of her nose and stuttered an apology, bowing 90-degrees.
When the man remained silent, Hinata cautiously looked up.
Her soft, pearly eyes met familiar cold, onyx ones. "Sasuke…" she said barely audible, bending back up. After a summer apart, she felt she accidentally called him too familiarly. She tried to correct herself, "I mean! Uchi-"
She was cut off when Sasuke's hand abruptly covered her mouth. Her eyes widened in surprise.
"Hinata," he greeted.
She lightly placed both hands on his wrist, pulling his hand down and off her mouth. From what she could remember, he wasn't going to be attending the same school as her. But she asked anyway, "What…? D-do you go here too?"
"No," he stated flatly, eyeing the university and its students from over her head.
"So then…b-but, doesn't your school start?"
"Not until next week." He paused, before continuing, "I'm…looking for someone." His eyes met hers.
"Oh," she said softly, her head tilting down slightly. Realizing her hands were still holding his wrist, she quickly let go, blushed and apologized. She took a step back to give distance to their close proximity.
He only continued to watch her, then he put his hands in his pockets. He started strolling past her.
She turned to watch him leave. But something in her, made her feel like their conversation wasn't over. Perhaps it was because she knew he wasn't walking fast so she could follow.
She quickly caught up to him. They started to walk through the large lawn Hinata had faced when she arrived. After a moment of walking side by side in silence, Hinata asked, "Can…I help?"
He shrugged, "I guess."
"What d-does...the person l-look like?"
"Hm," he started, his eyes tilted down. Then he turned to look at her.
Hinata, who was previously looking at his face, could not hold his gaze. She ended up losing to her timid nature and looked down in front of her.
Sasuke continued, "She has long, dark hair." As he said this, he softly took a chunk of Hinata's silky strands and played with it between his fingers, "And white eyes."
Feeling him touch her made Hinata blush crimson.
"She's very shy, so she's most likely alone."
By now, Hinata knew he was talking about her. She knew by the tone of his voice that he was toying with her.
"Her stupid cousin wouldn't tell me her class-"
"You spoke to Neji nii-san?" She stopped walking and looked up at him. It was one thing to look for Hinata, but it was another thing to ask her cousin for help in looking for Hinata. Neji wasn't very forthcoming on information when it regarded his cousin.
He grunted in response, turning his body to face her and – still holding pieces of her hair – rested his arm on her shoulder. Finding her response amusing, he smirked as he lowered his face to her level.
They were quite close in proximity once more. To Hinata, it reminded her all over again of the incident during the last day of classes for seniors in high school just a few months ago. That memory still felt fresh in her mind, making her smile uncontrollably whenever it decided to place itself in her thoughts.
She blushed at his sparkling, handsome features before her. He had to be toying with her. He had surely been toying with her then, so he must be toying with her now. After all, he didn't even contact her during summer vacation.
But she had to know. She really wondered. Why did he come for her? No doubt he was describing Hinata. But, just because they had become arguably close the last month or so of their senior year, why did he try to find her in her university?
She was going to voice her inquiries when he suddenly broke their silence.
"Know where I can find her?" He straightened himself and continued to look at her, continued to watch her.
"Uh," her lips parted, confused. "E-Excuse me?" She stared at his chest, wrapping her mind around his question. Wasn't he describing her?
So that she couldn't see the rising color in his cheeks because of her cute, confused expression, Sasuke finally let go of her hair and instead ruffled the top of her head. "You're too gullible," he said, letting go and looking away. His voice almost sounded annoyed, if just to hide his annoyance at his uncontrollable feelings for her.
She would never know that he had missed her. And that his pride had kept him from calling her during summer vacation. She will never know that he just wanted to see her again. And she certainly doesn't realize how relieved he was when he found her. After all, her university is huge. And he didn't know where to start looking for a small, quiet wallflower like her.
As she tried combing her hair back to normal with her fingers, she could have sworn she saw a hint of color on Sasuke's pale features. It was hard to tell though, as she only had a glimpse through her disheveled strands.
When she was satisfied with fixing her hair, she took hold of a chunk with her hands. She finally asked what she was wondering, "W-why…are you looking for me?" She was happy realizing he came to see her, but she braced herself for the reason behind it She hoped he would reveal his true intentions so that she could understand without having to guess, but she knew Sasuke wasn't the type to be open like that. Her heart beat rapidly within her chest. She looked down. Still, she hoped.
Looking back at Hinata, and seeing her hide behind her hair, Sasuke answered simply, "Why not?" It was a stupid reply sure, but he wasn't in the mood to answer her question truthfully. It would probably turn out to sound cheesy and he wasn't cheesy. Cheesy was Naruto's job.
Just as Hinata feared, his reason for seeing her was not what she had secretly hoped for. Feeling her emotions get the better of her, she realized her feelings for him had not left her during the past few months, even though she told herself throughout that it was for the better that they do not contact each other anymore. After all, they both were attending different universities. They were bound to lose touch. And the train to get to either of their universities – if ever they did want to stay in touch – would take around two hours. She didn't believe Sasuke would waste his time for a burdensome reason as simply "visiting a friend". And yet, here he was. She had to be grateful for that.
He felt she was unsatisfied with his answer. What more does she want from him? Doesn't she know he came all the way over just to see her? He sighed. "Hinata," he began, but he couldn't find his words anymore when he saw a tear fall from her face.
She was trying hard to hold back her tears. Why did she always feel like crying in front of him? Whether it was because she was happy or not, her feelings were uncontrollable whenever she was around him. She didn't remember her emotions being this unsteady when she was in love with Naruto. She wiped at her eyes, but could not hold back her sobs. "I-I'm sorry," she said.
He stayed quiet. Questions of why she would be crying and how he could comfort her were trying to be answered in his mind.
She continued to explain herself in between sobs, "I-It's just that…I…I'm happy…that you c-came, and I-I…I um…missed you-"
With that, Sasuke could control himself no longer. He grabbed her wrists where her hands were struggling to hold back her tears. When she still refused to look back at him, he leaned forward and softly kissed her lips. When she seemed to respond to him, he kissed her more passionately. It was as if he had wanted to do this the entire time.
Her arms, still being held by him, slowly fell to her sides. Her tears had begun to cease as her sobs were lessening. When he finally parted with her lips for air, she let out the last of her sniffles, unable to look at him as her cheeks felt flushed once more. He pushed the hair covering her face behind her ear.
Without the security of her long dark strands, she finally decided to look up at him. His face was blank as was usual. But his eyes. His eyes were warm. It was not often she would see his eyes look at her like that, his eyes that made her feel comfortable.
Hinata was pushed out of her thoughts when Sasuke took her schedule out from her hand. She had forgotten she had been carrying the paper the entire time she was with him.
He eyed the contents briefly then turned to face her. He leaned forward once more. Hinata thought he was going to kiss her again, so she closed her eyes. Instead he brought his lips to her ear, a playful smirk crossing his features, "You're going to be late."
Hinata's eyes opened as she gasped at what he meant. She hastily rubbed the tear streaks from her face and grabbed the schedule from his hand, "Oh no! I-I must-" She turned to walk back toward the building her first class was in, but stopped when she realized she would be leaving Sasuke behind. She turned back to face him. She found him watching her. His eyes showed a hint of amusement before it changed, his usual frown reappearing.
He didn't know how else to respond to her regretting gaze but to outstretch his hand.
In return, she grabbed it. For a moment, they were both silent and simply holding the other's hand. Hinata's head had dipped. She didn't want to say goodbye. She looked back up at him. His face looked solemn, but his eyes were melancholic.
Hinata felt the strong urge to embrace him, so in this rare occasion, she acted upon her feelings. Encircling her arms around his waist, she dug her face in the crook of his neck. He slowly responded to her by holding her back, one arm wrapped around her. He breathed in her scent, content with her lavender aroma.
When Hinata let go, she looked up at him. Standing on her tippy toes, she carefully leaned closer to him, a tinge of pink crossing her cheeks as she did so. Sasuke closed the gap between them with a kiss.
This kiss lasted for only a brief moment before Hinata let go and leaned back. She then proceeded to take hold of one of his hands, placing her schedule in the open palm.
He looked from her schedule in his hand to her face.
With her eyes closed, she smiled softly up at him. Then she reopened her eyes, looked away and bit her lip, thinking of what else she might need to say. She tried to think of anything, as long as it wasn't goodbye.
Sasuke ended up speaking for her, "We'll talk later." He bent the paper in half before tucking it away in his pocket. "I'll be here," he told her.
She glanced back at his onyx eyes. Grinning brightly, she didn't know what possessed her to say, "Promise?"
"Yeah," he replied.
And with that, Hinata felt sure she would not be saying goodbye to him any time soon.
A/N:
Wow. I didn't think I would write a follow-up chapter for this. Really, my Senior Celebration was just supposed to be a one-shot. But a few reviews made me realize I sort of ended it on a sad note. After all, after they graduate, how will they keep in touch? Well even though I didn't go into too much detail as to how they will in this chapter, I hope it completes you in that you know, well, that they will keep in touch.
By the way, it is 6:18AM right now. I'm quite scared because I have a paper due today and I still need to finish the paper and take a shower and be ready by 8:30AM. I'm a slow worker so I'm scared. But when I start something, I like to see it through. So when this idea popped into my head, I had to write it out all the way. Here I am, posting a better, happier ending. Because I like happy endings.
Additionally, some parts of the description of Hinata's university, and one of her actions were based off of my university and what I did. For instance, my first day (as I do every new school year) I was holding my class schedule. A door I wanted to get into to enter a building was locked. I did look inside a door that I thought was a hallway inside the building, but turned out to be a classroom, with few students scattered, a couple people seeing me peer in. Anyway, you get the point. :)
One more thing, I'm not good at writing kiss scenes. So… I'm sorry if it was unsatisfactory. I tried.
Thank you to all my reviewers! Let me know what you think!
EDIT 131011:
I've been working on my other story, Staying on Top, and so I'm sorry for leaving this on-going for over a year! I sincerely apologize!
EDIT 140619:
After coming up with the idea for the second chapter of this fic, I had said I was going to make this story a three-shot. Unfortunately, due to prioritizing my other stories, I haven't been able to sit down and think about a great chapter three. Therefore, I have currently placed this story as complete. I do have notes written down for a possible third chapter, but that is all it has been and will be for now. I apologize for this. I do not wish for my notes to go to waste, so when motivation hits, I'm on it. Till then, check out my profile for any additional info.!
