Hey everyone! it's me again! Hope you like this new chapter! Special thanks to the four of you that reviewed: Curlybear, Juntomatsu, Silveraqueen, and EmiRay

Also, just a note to those of you who are just kind ofpassing by, I have enabled anonymous reviews (at least I think I did) so that should work now if you just want to leve a sentence or two about your thoughts or comments. As with any writer, critique is welcome, and encouraged!


No One Else But Me

Shadow

Chapter 2: Betrayed, But Not Forgotten

The door slammed shut hard, sending a few small splinters of wood from the doorframe airborne. As the splinters danced on the floor before coming to rest, Hinata jogged over to her bed and threw herself upon it. She immersed her face in the pillow, to try and hide from the guilt and self loathing, but they were inescapable. She found herself trapped, cornered by them now. All the way home she had run from the guilt and she had run from the self loathing, but now there was no where left to run to.

The sound of heavy, sporadic sobs echoed down the hallways. Soon, her sobs gave way to tears, and her tears to all out bawling. Within moments, her pillow was saturated with the moisture of her tears.

A million thoughts raced through her head and none of them gave her any comfort. 'I had so many chances, how could I have wasted them?' 'Why couldn't I have been brave enough before?' 'I'm a failure' 'Naruto's gone…'

Neji stood poised outside her door, hand raised, knuckles loose, ready to knock and see if she was okay. He already knew that she wasn't from the sound of the loud sobs, but he felt that it was his duty as her cousin, and as the only family member she fully trusted, to try and comfort her.

On the other side of the door, he could hear her pause for a breath, and then she began to wail again. His strength waned, and he lowered his arm. He decided it would be better to give her some time alone first, to sort things out and make sense of whatever it was that happened this time. Plus, he had never been very good at showing sympathy, much less any other emotion. If he tried to make it better, his stone solid emotions might only end up making it much worse overall. Quietly, Neji walked away.

Hinata did not need alone time though, right now what she needed more than anything was to have someone there with her, someone to hold her and tell her that everything would be okay. She had secretly wished that Neji would come in and save the day as he had done for her so many times in the past, but this time he was nowhere to be found. Hinata was truly alone.


The next morning as dawn broke, Naruto found himself sitting on the roof of his apartment building, with a bowl of ramen in his hand. He had never really taken the time to watch the sunrise before, and was usually too impatient to do so, but with his upcoming date with Sakura, he knew he knew he would need to practice sitting still and behaving. Surprisingly enough, he found that sitting up here watching the sun rise was not as bad as he had imagined it. The pinks reminded him of Sakura's hair, and the streaks of orange reminded him of the old jackets he had worn as a little kid. The way they blended together in the middle seemed to impress him the most.

Naruto scraped against the bottom of the bowl, searching for any remaining noodles, but found nothing but broth. He quickly drank this and set the now empty bowl off to the side.

Naruto sat quietly for a few seconds longer, before his restless gaze shifted from the sunrise back to his empty bowl. As he began to get up he looked back at the sunrise. 'That's enough for one day' he thought, as he carefully scooped up his empty bowl to hurry back inside for seconds.


Once inside, Naruto scurried over to the cabinet and stated digging for a new bowl of his favorite Ramen. Finding the cupboard to be empty, he immediately dashed to the next one, knocking over a stack of dirty bowls in the process. A dozen of them crashed to the ground, shattering into a thousand pieces. Locked into his present task of finding some noodles to cook, Naruto just ignored them for the time being. His bare feet danced on the cold floor, as he desperately reached into the back of the pantry and pulled out his last remaining package of Ramen Noodles. He made a mental note to pick up some more at the market later.

He then found the pot he typically used to boil his noodles in. It was dirty, but he was going to be cooking the same thing in it as he had the past six times, so it was of no concern to him.

Now he got to do his favorite part of making Ramen. He impatiently leaned against the table as it scooted slightly. He debated on whether he should get dressed or not, because he was a little chilly with the early morning breeze entering through the window. 'No one is coming by this morning' he thought to himself, 'plus, the breeze is actually kind of refreshing.' Without taking his eyes off the pot of water and noodles, he reached to his left and plucked the carton of milk off the table. He took a small swig of it and immediately sat it down with a look of disgust. It wasn't so much the taste that had bothered him, as it was the fact that he had to chew it. All at once his memories of the early days of Team seven came flooding back to him. "Kuso…" (Dammit) This day was going to be hell and he knew it.

The noodles were just coming to a boil when he heard a soft knock at the door. 'Kuso!' He swore to himself again, just when the noodles were ready! Naruto gave a soft sigh and scurried off to answer the door.

Eyes half open, he unbolted the door and swung it wide. Immediately, he was wide awake.

Sakura stood in the doorway, apparently expecting to talk to him or something. Upon regaining his senses, Naruto realized that he was standing silently with a dumb look on his face, and only his boxers on his body.

"Heh…" was all he could manage, while he scratched the back of his neck.

Sakura only stared wide eyed at him.

'Please God, don't let her notice the mess'

'My God, this place is a mess!'

Sakura could only respond with an awkward, crooked smile. "Heh…" she muttered, as her right eye twitched.

"So, uh, Sakura….What, uh, brings you here?" 'This day can not get any worse than it already is' he thought.

"Well, I, uh, that is to say…yesterday you kind of ran off on me without giving me a time or place to meet you for our," she swallowed hard, "date."

"Well, eh heh, I have some important ninja thing in the afternoon, it's very important. Let me just check my calendar, Sakura" He hadn't gotten a new calendar since before he left. Hopefully she wouldn't notice.

'…I wonder if he knows that his calendar is three years old'

"Yeah, my important ninja thing is at three today, so how about we meet at five? My very important thing is at Hokage Tower, so how about we meet there, because you know, it's important, the ninja stuff, and so am I…"

Sakura cut him off, "Five is fine, I'll meet you at the Hokage Tower"

"Great! I'll see you at four then!"

"I thought you said five?"

"Is five better? Okay, five it is then" Naruto put a random scribble on a random date on the calendar. What date he put it on didn't matter, because the calendar wasn't set for the right month, let alone year.

Naruto started making his way back to the doorway where Sakura was. 'Well, I handled that pretty smoothly' He thought. But that was where everything started to go to hell. He stepped on one of the larger, and apparently sharper pieces of the broken bowls and cut his foot. Having caught him by surprise, he yelped in pain and leapt up in the air, landing gracefully on his other foot, on another broken shard. Again, he jumped up, but this time flailed his arms out, trying to get a hold of the table. When that started to slide away, his other arm stretched out, knocking the pot full of boiling water and noodles all down his bare back. Naruto screamed as the table slid out of his grasp, and he landed with his bare chest on the field of broken pieces of ceramic.

Naruto lay there on the floor for several seconds, moaning, bleeding and dripping, before Sakura was able to regain her composure enough to go help him out. Sure, she felt bad for laughing at him when it happened, but she had to admit, it was the funniest damn thing she had ever seen, especially given the awkwardness of the situation beforehand.


On the other side of the village, Hinata sat quietly in the garden, staring at the rising sun. She sat surrounded by the various flowers her family had accumulated for their garden over the year. Many of them had taken a beating due to the harsh summer, and were drooping, but none of them seemed to have taken as hard of a hit as the lilacs.

As she quietly sat among the dead and dying flowers, Hinata watched as the colors in the sky gently shifted colors. Her face was still streaked and stained from the tears she had shed, watching the shades of orange and pink intermingle in the sky, but as time had passed, so had her tears. Now what had once been a shade of light pink in the morning sky had shifted to a rich, bright red. She did not know why, but the blood red sky seemed to soothe her, and as the red began to drip onto the orange, she smiled contently.

'It won't be that bad…' she thought, 'somehow…somehow it will work its way out, and Naruto will be mine. It will work out, it always does…' A soft smile crossed Hinata's lips 'Somehow…it will all work out in the end'

Neji stood at the edge of the garden, watching Hinata silently. She was aware of his presence, he was certain of it. He still did not know how to go about comforting her. He had no experience in the love department, and only minimal experience in the consolation field.

Slowly, silently, he turned his back to her. "Love will find a way," he muttered, just loud enough for Hinata to hear it, "and if not, love will make a way."


Hey everyone, thanks for stoping by to review and read my work. If I souneded a bit harsh last time, I appologize. Hope this one was long enough for a standard chapter, because it is about the length I typicly go for. Thanks again for reading!

-Shadow