Err... hi...?

So I didn't really write anything in the first chapter... figured you guys would want to actually read the story a bit first. Basically this is my first SasuHina fic... so please be nice lol.

Enjoy xx

Hikage and Tsukikage. Sunshine and Moonlight.

Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha.

I've already explained Naruto—what with his shining looks and gleaming personality. Now, I suppose, it's Sasuke's turn.

If Naruto was the sun, then Sasuke would definitely be the moon. All you had to do was look at the two of them to gauge their personalities. Whereas Naruto was tanned brown from the sun, Sasuke's skin was pale to the point it gleamed white. Naruto's hair was blonde and messy, but Sasuke's was black, long and silky. And while Naruto's eye's sparkled gorgeous blue, Sasuke's were a strange onyx—so dark that unless you squinted, you couldn't see where the irises ended and the pupils began.

But their differences didn't end with their looks. Their personalities were like chalk and cheese—completely and utterly unalike. Naruto, I had always thought, was a kind of prince charming. He was the hero; always there to pick you up when you were down and set a smile on your face whatever the situation.

Sasuke was the handsome dark stranger, I suppose. His fangirls seemed to think of him as some kind of romancer who would seduce you with his suave voice and charming smirk.

That's what they thought, anyway.

I, on the other hand, thought he looked like the kind of guy who would drag you into a dark alleyway and pummel you if you tried to talk to him. Then he'd probably leave you for dead; just walking away with the same nonchalant expression he always wore.

So you can probably see why I wasn't looking forward to this project.

I rose from my seat and slowly made my way to the front of the room to collect my beakers and other utensils. Although I kept my eyes trained carefully on the equipment in front of me, I couldn't help but feel the weight of the stare of every girl in that classroom. It was enough to make me feel queasy.

Almost all of the girls in this Chemistry class had signed up so that they could be closer to Sasuke. They were all Tsukikage fangirls. They would kill to have the position as Sasuke's lab partner. The fact that I, a timid little freak of a girl with all the beauty of a mouldy sponge, had gained that position was like being thrown a blood-covered animal's carcass while in the midst of a group of savage, hungry lions.

I swallowed. There was no way I was getting out of this alive.

Sasuke was already standing at a lab bench against one of the walls, leaning against it casually with one foot propped against it, his hands in his pockets. Even through the pressure of all the girls' glares, his was the worst. It seemed to burn through my skull with all the painful force of a red-hot poker. I nearly dropped the beaker I was holding; I was that scared.

I didn't talk to him and he certainly had no wish of talking to me, so I silently began the assignment on my own. I looked down at the task sheet Deidara-sensei had passed around and carefully read the instructions. I couldn't mess up; not now, with Sasuke glaring holes into the back of my head and practically every girl in the class waiting for me to make the slightest mistake so they could mock me.

According to the instructions, the beaker I held contained three different solids—sand, salt and iron filings. Our job (or my job, I suppose, as Sasuke wasn't actually doing anything) was to go through the process of extracting each solid and placing it in its own smaller beaker for us (by that I mean me) to weigh.

I took a glance across the room at Ino, who made no method to hide her exasperation with her American partner. Apparently he thought that his Japanese was good enough for him to attend lessons without a translator.

According to Ino's expression, he was wrong.

Deidara-sensei had hinted that we would have to remove the iron filings first, so I looked amongst my gathered utensils for something that would serve to extract them. The small rectangular magnet immediately caught my eye.

I was feeling a little elated, really; for I actually had the feeling that I could pass on this project. Considering how bad I was at Chemistry, that was definitely a good thing.

"You're not going to just put the magnet in like that, are you?"

It was Sasuke who spoke, and his voice startled me so much I nearly dropped the magnet into the solution. Disapproval and malice dripped from every word like poison. It was the same scornful voice my father used when I made a mistake.

I hated that tone.

"U-u-umm…" I stuttered, unsure of how to answer. I had actually planned to do exactly what he suggested—simply dropping the magnet into the solution to retrieve the iron filings. I had felt so proud of myself before. Now I felt like a failure again.

Sasuke muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a profanity before swiftly reaching out and snatching the magnet from my trembling fingers.

"I… I'm s-sorry…" I murmured.

There was no reply. When I took a glance in his direction I realised that he was already gone.

Please, tell me no one saw that… I begged. But of course, all of Sasuke's fangirls just had. I could hear the couple nearest to me sniggering and a few more were whispering to each other; saying nothing good, I could only assume.

"No!" Ino shouted suddenly, "Beaker! Bee-kerr… not magnet!"

I sighed. At least I wasn't the only one suffering.

Sasuke returned with a reasonable-sized piece of gladwrap and twisted it once around the magnet. Then he carefully lowered it into the beaker, allowing the small flakes of iron to stick themselves to the gladwrap. When a large amount of filings had been collected he gently tapped the magnet against the beaker to get rid of any sand or salt clinging to the iron and transferred it to a smaller beaker. With one easy movement the gladwrap was off and the filings dropped into the beaker, leaving the gladwrap and magnet free of iron.

I watched him repeat the process, unsure of what to do, when he turned and fixed her with his cold glare.

"You might as well make yourself useful. Set up the retort stand and go and get some filter paper."

"Okay…" I mumbled as I hastily obeyed. Setting up filter paper was something I could actually do, thank goodness. I grabbed a circular piece and, folding it carefully, placed it in the plastic funnel Deidara-sensei had issued us with; adding a couple of drops of distilled water to make the paper stick.

By the time I had finished, Sasuke had removed all of the iron filings and was waiting for me, looking less than pleased. He made no move to appreciate my efforts of trying to be helpful; not that I had expected him to. Instead he shoved the beaker of iron filings into my hands and pointed in the direction of the scales. Wordlessly I did as I was 'told', if you could call it that.

The lesson continued in much the same way. Sasuke poured distilled water into the remaining solution and then tipped the entire solution into the filter paper, where the water and dissolved salt dripped into a beaker underneath the suspended retort stand while the sand remained in the filter paper. The process took a very long time where both of us had nothing to do, so rather than standing near the proclaimed Tsukikage and risking evoking his wrath, I went to my own seat and wrote out the experiment.

Sasuke and I weren't really strangers. Our parents both ran two of the most important businesses in the world. Our families were rivals, to some extent; although in the business world, as I had found out, everyone was a rival to be respected and even feared.

Since both of our family businesses were of an equal balance, our families attended the same meetings and parties. Still, we hardly talked at all. Usually it was a polite nod of the head, a short greeting, and then we would head off in our different directions. We always seemed to be on the opposite sides of the room during such events.

Our mixture was still filtering by the end of lesson, so I placed our retort stand and beaker inside the equipment room with our names written on a piece of paper beside it. A girl tried to trip me up on the way in and I stumbled, nearly tripping and spilling our experiment all over the floor. Then I felt a warm hand grabbing at my arm; keeping me upright. Somehow, I managed to keep the experiment upright.

"S-sorry…" the girl stuttered before running from the room. I blinked in surprise, then slowly turned to give my thanks to whoever has saved me…

…Only to be greeted by the frosty eyes of Sasuke Uchiha.

"T-t-thanks." I stammered, immediately turning my gaze away from his eyes and onto the floor.

Sasuke only grunted and took the project from my trembling fingers, placing it himself in the equipment room himself.

"Try not to ruin this project," he told me in a low, threatening voice, "Because if my grades go down because of some rat like you, I will make your pathetic life all the more miserable."

Then he walked back out into the classroom, leaving me shaking like a leaf with cold shivers running up and down my spine.

-

-

"Hey, Hinata!" Ino greeted with her usual cheeriness after class.

"Hey." I mumbled in reply.

Ino was gorgeous. There was no other way to describe it. Everywhere she went, there was always at least one pair of male eyes following her down the halls. It was a little creepy, really; but that was the price she paid for being beautiful. What with all that beauty, pride and confidence; she was my exact opposite.

"I can't believe I got paired with Eric Turnbull," she continued, her hands balled into fists at her sides. "Honestly, what was Deidara-sensei thinking?! I bet that homo gets kicks out of making us suffer!"

By that time Ino's voice had risen considerably and people were beginning to stare at us. I blushed and kept my eyes trained on the floor.

"Ino, you're making a scene…" I told her softly.

"Oh… oops." Ino looked around sheepishly, her cheeks turning a faint pink. Ino had a way of looking stylish, even in the midst of great embarrassment. She could recover quickly too, like she did now; slinging one arm over my shoulder with a grin that showed off her perfect white teeth.

"Anyway, enough about me. How was it being paired up with the hottest guy in school?" she teased.

At the mention of Sasuke my face turned hot and I looked away, focusing on the small crease in my sleeve. I could still hear those cold words echoing in my head; each like a small stone being thrown again and again against my skull.

Ino had once been one of Sasuke's fangirls. She had followed him relentlessly during lunch breaks, had taped photos of him inside her locker, had written 'Mrs. Ino Uchiha' over and over again inside her exercise books. Ino and I hadn't been friends at that stage and I had often kept well out of her way; terribly afraid of inflicting her wrath.

Then, during the holidays, she met Shikamaru Nara.

Shikamaru was the laziest person I knew. We sat together during our lunch breaks and often enough about 5 minutes into the break he would be asleep, his head resting on the cafeteria table. He was renowned for his pineapple-shaped hair, which stood in a black mass of spikes almost perfectly straight in the air. You wouldn't know it from looking at him, but he was also the smartest person in our grade. Shikamaru was a genius. If you had a problem, whether it was to do with homework or a social crisis, he could always be trusted to come up with a logical solution—providing he stayed awake, of course.

I'm not sure how he managed to capture Ino's heart, but they somehow went from being in completely opposite cliques and having nothing to do with each other to being practically inseparable. I'm not saying they didn't fight—Ino was the kind of person who could find an argument in everything—but they always made up afterwards, and they never held grudges against one another.

It was strange to think about how much she had changed. If I had been lab partners with Sasuke a year ago she wouldn't have been glaring at me like those other fangirls. She would have been cornering me in a dark alley on my way home; threatening me with a knife or something along those lines.

"It was… okay." I told her lamely. "It could have been worse."

"Which means that it could have been better."

I gave a small shrug and blushed. There wasn't any point in denying it. Ino would have probably been more suspicious if I told her working with Sasuke had been nice. Yes… that would have definitely made her suspicious.

"Well, whatever. Tenten and I are going out for pizza after school… do you want to come?"

I hesitated. If there was one thing I hated, it was the guilt I felt when I looked into those hopeful blue eyes only to decline her request. Why did she even bother any more? I mean, it wasn't as though she actually wanted me to go. I was just someone who she asked out of pity. Neji and Tenten had done the same thing when they first started dating—always inviting me along, always with that same barely concealed hope in their eyes. It wasn't hope that I would agree to join them. It was hope that I wouldn't; that I would decline and leave them with their privacy. And so I always gave the same excuse, as I did now for Ino.

"Ino, I can't. My father is so strict… he would never approve."

Ino's eyes narrowed and she blew her bangs from her eyes in an obvious show of frustration. "Honestly, Hinata! Is your dad trying to keep you caged up? Because he's succeeding! How are you supposed to have fun?"

I stayed silent. It was the best choice for someone like me, whose mouth had trouble forming coherent sentences properly. Besides, sometimes Ino just needed to get all of the complaints out of her system.

"…And I don't get why you obey him all the time! I mean, isn't this supposed to be a free country? Everyone has their rights and all that stuff? Whatever happened to that?! You can't treat women like dirt any more! It's just not on!"

Once again Ino's voice was rising in volume. People were looking at us, but I didn't bother to shush her. That would only be adding fuel to the fire.

"Why don't you jump out your window or something? Seriously; you could come and hang out and your dad would never know! It's not like we're going to get drunk and start smoking pot or anything… it's just pizza!"

We had reached our lockers now and I tried to ask her what homework the teachers had given us while I was in the sick bay. Ino pretended not to hear me.

"Honestly Hinata, just do something for yourself once in a while. Don't let your father run your life. Just… rebel. You know?"

I nodded. Ino, seemingly satisfied, gave me a list of the subjects we had homework in and what pages I was to read in my text books. Then she bounced off to her home room.

-

-

Our house had never been the same since my mother's death. The cold aura of sorrow seemed permanently etched into the walls and if you stood too still for too long in one place, the eerie chill was enough to send shivers down your spine.

Yet despite the despair seeping from its core, I still preferred spending my time locked inside our house rather than out with friends.

It wasn't so much of a preference, I suppose. I just struggled to fit in with everyone else. When I was younger, I couldn't pronounce a single sentence without stammering. I was better now—only stammering when I had to talk to someone intimidating like Sasuke, or someone I felt strongly about, like Naruto. But even though I was better than before, my people skills were practically nothing compared to everyone else's.

Here, locked in my room, people skills meant nothing. It didn't matter that I was unpopular, or unable to talk to the boy I loved, or that my father hadn't held a proper conversation with me since I was nine. Here, I could just… let myself go.

For me, letting myself go meant retrieving my pencils and paper from my bag and drawing. It didn't matter what shapes were formed, or what I was creating. Just as long as I let it all out.

Everywhere I looked, sketches were scattered across every possible surface. There were ones of my father, my sister, my friends. There was one of my mother that I had drawn looking from an old photograph. Birds, hands, flowers, pianos and even teapots had been created and shoved into the crevices of my room—not forgotten, but not exactly remembered. Much like myself amongst my peers, I suppose.

Oh, the irony.

Toda however, when I extracted my pencils and paper from my school bag, a different face etched its way into my sketch pad. The strong jaw appeared first; closely followed by roughly drawn bangs falling softly at either side of the face. The lips were thin and taut in an expression of unmistakable disdain. But it wasn't until I finished shading the deep, empty eyes of obsidian that could only belong to one person that I realised who it was.

Sasuke Uchiha.

Tsukikage.

My lab partner.

The shock left me frozen for a while; unable to move or even think as I stared at the familiar yet altogether foreign black eyes. Even drawn on paper, they seemed to glare at me with the same amount of malice they held earlier during Chemistry.

I'm not sure how long I sat there; pencil still in hand, mind whirring with a thousand thoughts at once. I didn't know what to do. My first thought was to simply rip out the page and throw it in the bin. No one would know except, of course, for me and the memory would eventually fade into nothing. That would definitely be the smarter option.

But the thing is, I don't like throwing away pictures. That was why my room was overflowing with sketches—I simply didn't have the heart to get rid of them. Each and every one of them represented a different part of my life. Not all of them were happy memories, but they were all important. Or they were important to me, anyway.

Before I could make a decision there was a knock on the door and I hastily shoved the picture underneath my bed. "Come in!" I called out.

Hanabi opened the door; her sharp eyes piercing through me in a way that made me believe she could read my thoughts. The very idea made me blush with shame.

"Dinner is ready." She said coolly, oblivious to my inner guilt.

"Okay… I'll be down in a second."

I stood up and walked over to the door, hesitating as my hand grasped the knob. My eyes turned back to the paper, which seemed to glow like the brightest of beacons despite its hiding place underneath my bed.

I'll throw it out after dinner, I decided. Then I opened the door and left, allowing all of the day's events to simply drift from my mind like water from the bathroom tap.

Your thoughts so far...? :)