A/N: I do not own Naruto, Kishimoto owns the series.


I finally enter the library after eating two foot-long sub sandwiches because let's be honest now, one of those sandwiches does not fill you up; you need to eat two just to feel full and satisfied! If it wasn't for the fact that University of Konoha was so far from Ichirakus' Ramen shop, I wouldn't eat those subs; instead I would be munching at Ichirakus'! Well to make matters worse, I don't have my car with me or else I would take a five minute drive down there. However it takes about twenty to thirty minutes just to walk over there! And my next class is in an hour. I want to enjoy my dinner and not be rushing just to make it in time for class to begin, what was that phrase Shikamaru always says again? Oh right, it's troublesome.

I take the stairs to the second floor which has a great view of the quad and I find a few of the library's most comfortable chairs; like if you're really tired and you had a friend you could really trust, you could fall asleep on that chair. Usually it would be hard to find an open seat earlier in the day, but now that most of the students are gone, there's a ton of free comfortable seats open. I take one that's close to an electrical outlet to charge my phone. Even though it's probably on like forty-five percent, enough to last my next class (considering I don't use it), but I wouldn't mind gaining a decent amount of juice back into my phone's battery.

I take out my phone's charger and plug into the outlet. Then I plug in the mini-USB into my phone and a second later my phones shows that it's getting recharged. That's good. I look for my headphones in my backpack and plug them into my phone so I can listen to shuffled play-list of all my songs. Just sit back and relax for the next fifty minutes, then walk for less than five minutes to my next class. Good enough for me. "Um, excuse me?" I'm able to hear someone ask a question directed at me because my volume level is around forty percent and my headphones are cheap so I hear everything in my surrounding when I'm supposed to be listening to my music. I digress. I turn to face the sound source and it's a blonde girl with a portion of her bang covering her right eye (maybe a tad bit lighter than my hair color), maybe shorter than me (if I were to stand up) with her hair reaching her lower back, and wearing a purple jacket with blue jeans that wrap around her legs well. I unplug my headphones from my phone and my music stops playing, "Aren't you in one of my classes? I swear I've seen you before."

At the mention of being in one of her classes, it makes my head go through a discount double check of the last few days to see if I remember her in any of my previous classes. My memory seems to be telling that she is in one of my classes, "Are you in Itachi's Literature 200 class?"

She snaps her fingers, "That's where I remember you from!"

"I do sit in the front after all so it would reason that you would recognize me." I smile at me being such a super-student.

"True." She agreed, "Is anyone sitting here?" Pointing to the next seat on my left, which is one of the rare comfy chairs scattered in the library.

I shake my head sideways, "No, not really."

"Yes!" She posed in a victory stance then she took the seat. "I always see people sitting on these and I never get the chance to sit on it."

"Well in the afternoon, these chairs are always gone and you have to hunt for an open seat." I respond.

She smiles and nods, liking the idea of taking this seat another time, "Now I see why every student tries to take one of these seats."

"Comfortable, right?" I sound a bit excited.

A comfortable silence passes by us and I plug my headphones back into my phone and I take it out to resume playing my music. Maybe a song or two passes when I feel light tap on my left shoulder, "If you want, you can fall asleep; I'll watch over your stuff."

"Nah, I can't fall asleep, not in here."

"Why?"

"I don't know you well enough to trust you and I don't trust other people." I admit.

Her reaction is a mixture of confusion, hurtfulness, and anger, "Then why are you talking to me?"

I put my hand underneath my chin, "I don't know, to be honest."

"You don't have an answer to why you'll talk to me but you don't trust me enough to watch over your stuff while you sleep?"

"Well, you have to earn my trust, that's the way it works with me."

"We've only began knowing each other since like fifteen minutes ago and how the hell am I supposed to gain your trust?"

I shrug my shoulders, "Maybe if we would've talked to each other in class, maybe I would trust you more."

She raised an eyebrow, "So what if you needed help with your car and there's only person to help you out?"

I raise my hand in defense, "That's a different scenario."

"What's the difference, you won't trust him to help you with your car." She retorts. I pause trying to think about the next words to come out and yeah, she's let me speechless. "Cat got your tongue?"

"No lie, you caught me off guard." I giggle at her victory.

Suddenly a man, who's out of breath asks us, "Doyouhavewater?"

I didn't catch that one, "What?" I ask.

He took a deep breath, "Do you have any water? I just got out of weight training and I forgot to bring my water."

I'm pretty sure I have water somewhere in my backpack, so I search for one, and I find that I have two water bottles. Do I really need one of those two water bottles? I'm probably not going to be drinking my water that much anyways; I'm too busy either listening to notes or paying attention to one of Itachi's fabulous, fantastic life stories. I grab a water bottle, "Here." I twist the cap open for him.

"Thank you!" He says and walks away.

My classmate starts to snicker at me, "It's funny that you completely trusted that guy and gave him a water."

I shrug, "This isn't a case of trusting someone but a case of me helping out another person. It's in my nature to help. Even though one side of me doesn't trust another person with my life, however I'm more optimistic about humans." I state.

"Very interesting." She said. "It's almost funny how you are talking to me about trust and wouldn't one of the first steps of trust come from knowing the other person's name?"

I chuckle, "Yeah, you're right. My name is Naruto Uzumaki."

She extends out her hand, "Ino Yamanaka."

We lightly shake hands, "The funny part was that I was thinking the exact same thing."

"So, am I gaining your trust, then?" We lightly laugh at her joke.

I nod my head, "Yeah, you are, but I usually don't sleep until midnight anyways so that way I can just sleep in tomorrow morning. You gotta steal sleep while you can." I chuckled.

"You're a very interesting person, Naurto." She smiles then she looks at her wrist watch, and she lightly taps my shoulder, "We better get going to Itachi's class; we have ten minutes to get there."

I put away my phone charger and I grab my backpack, and we head out for class.

*Three Hours Later*

We walk out of Itachi's class, still laughing our asses off from one of his stories, "Ah shit. My side is still hurting me!" I tell Ino.

"I feel bad for his little brother but that story was funny as hell!" She puts her hands over her sides.

"Sasuke is never going to hear the end of it from me!" I laughed.

She looks at me a little confused, "You know his little brother?"

"Yeah, he's my best friend, hell he's practically my brother." I admit.

She raises her eyebrow, "So that's how Itachi knows you!"

"But Itachi doesn't give me special treatments; why do you think we turn in our papers with our school IDs and not our first and last names."

"Now that you say that, it does make sense. Since he knows you, he doesn't want to special privileges."

"Yup, why do you think he changed the syllabus the second week class."

"Wow." She's left speechless. We exit out of two hundred building and we're immediately met by the cold air. "So where are you parked?"

"I live in the dorms a few blocks from campus. It's in walking distance for me, it usually takes me about ten minutes to walk home."

She nods, "Well I'm parked on the other side of campus."

I raise my eyebrow, "Would you like me to walk you to your car?"

She nods, "Yeah, I would like that." She leads the way. After walking through the quad, I realize how cold it is tonight. And I had to forget my jacket in my dorm room. I sigh, "You alright?"

I hold myself and start to rub my arms, "A little cold." I think I saw my breath and she gives me the oh yeah look. "Okay, maybe I'm more than a little cold and I'm really hoping that Ichirakus' is opened right now! Their ramen will warm me up." I chuckle.

Ino ponders for a moment, "It's on Hiruzen Drive, right?"

"Yeah." I respond.

"I'm feeling a little hungry myself, so I'll take us over there, but you're paying."

"Okay. I don't mind." I reply. A ramen run before someone sleeps never killed them.

After crossing three streets, Ino presses a button on her car keys, and her car's lights flicker. Possibly meaning that she's unlocked it. "Hurry up, Naruto, now I'm really craving ramen now and our walk has made my stomach roar!" I giggled and entered in her vehicle through the passenger side with my backpack in front of my legs.

Three minutes later we make it to the ramen shop and we placed our order in. We both ordered something small since we're not that much hungry; we get portions like a midnight snack, not too much to eat, but just a little to go back to sleep, "It feels so good in here." I talk about the warm temperatures inside.

"So much better than outside." She replies happily.

After waiting for two minutes, Teuchi places the bowls down, "I hope you enjoy!" He says.

Me and Ino grub on the food in a comfortable silence for a couple of minutes until we finish, "You know when the food's good, that no one talks while they're eating." Ino says.

I smile, "I had feeling about that. Sometimes when I eat lunch with Sasuke, we never talk while we eat, but once the food is done, we ramble on and on about whatever topic we were on before we started eating."

She nods, before she is about to speak, her phone rings. She looks at it and recognizes who is calling, "I gotta take this call."

"Yeah sure, go ahead." I say.

"Hello?" I block out the conversation that Ino's having with of her friends. I feel a light tap on my shoulder and I see Ino putting a hand over the microphone, "Yo, one of my friends is DJing a show not too far from here; do you want to go or do you have classes tomorrow?"

"I have an off day tomorrow."

"Alright, yo Kiba, I'm bring a really cool friend over." She pauses, "Okay. See there and good luck! Bye." She hangs up, "Before we go where my friend is playing at, do you need anything?"

"Yeah, just my jacket from my dorm room."

"Where's your dorm?"

"Go up Hiruzen and make a right on Senju and it'll be the first house of the right." I reply.

"Alright, let's get going." She stood up.

"Thank you." We tell Teuchi at the same time and we exit the ramen shop and enter her car.

*Minutes Later*

We arrive at my dorm, I exit out of the vehicle with my backpack in tow, "I'll be back in a few minutes."

"If you're not back in ten minutes, I'm leaving you here." Ino joked around.

I walk through the halls and into my room, I drop off my backpack, and I grab my black jacket. "Where are you going?" I nearly shit my pants.

I turn around to see Shikamaru resting on the couch, "What the hell!" I yell.

He smiles a bit, "I knew that reaction would happen, but seriously, where are you going?"

"I got invited to a party, you interested in tagging along?"

"Nah —"

"Too troublesome. I get it." I smile, "Aight, you're loss." I exit the dorm. It's one of those nights that I don't want my spend my night bored out of my mind. I return to Ino and I ask her, "So how much time do I have left?" I mockingly ask.

"What took so long princess? My hair could've grown to my waist already." She mocked.

"I thought your hair was already at your waist." We laugh, "So where's your friend playing at anyways?"

"He's playing at a house party not too far from, but don't worry, I'll make sure you don't get lost and end up not trusting any strangers getting you home." We chuckle at my trust issues.

"Don't forget to make sure that my drink hasn't been roofie'd." We laugh a little harder.

We arrive at a huge dorm with people occupying the front yard, looks like the party is just beginning. She parks a little over a block away and we step out. "Have you ever been to a party before?"

"Not like this." I admit.

"Alright, just follow me and you'll be surrounded by a bunch of my friends. It's honestly better than being by yourself, having no idea what to do." I nod at her and we make our way through the crowd of people, both inside and out. So far the house is well lit, but I don't know how long that's going to last. She eventually leads me to a section of the house that contains her friends. "Alright Naruto, these are my friends: the one with the buns in her hair is Ten Ten," said girl waves her hand, "the pinkette over there," I look at her, "yeah, the one with huge forehead." Well the pink hair was a dead give away, but I personally don't think she has a huge forehead. "That's Sakura."

"Ino." Sakura growled a bit. . . Yeah, I don't think I want to get on Sakura's bad side. Either that or she hasn't had a Snickers bar yet, and you're not you when you're hungry.

"Love ya!" She puts her hands in a heart shape, "Where was I?" Ino scans the room for anymore of her friends, "Oh yeah!" She snaps her fingers, "You see the guy with the long, brown hair?"

I look at the guy with lavender eyes and a blue bandanna wrapped around his long, brown hair. "Yeah."

"That's Neji." She says. He's a guy? I don't think his face helps him but that might be his advantage with the ladies so I wouldn't be surprised if they would be throwing themselves at his feet. She continues to look for more of her friends, "Hey Neji, where's Kiba, Shino, and your cousin?"

At the mention of Shino, Neji winced, "Son of a bitch! I forgot about Sino." He smacked his forehead. "I knew I was forgetting someone! You know what, someone has to put a bell on him!" I have a feeling that people keep on forgetting about this Shino person.

Ino ignores Neji's mistake, "What about Kiba and your cousin?"

"Kiba is setting up his equipment and my cousin went to the restroom not too long ago." He tells us.

"In the interest of time," Ino begins, "Kiba has red fang marks on the side of his cheeks and Hinata has the eyes as Neji, but her hair is a different color, it's a dark blue color."

"It's nice that you're introducing us to your friend, Ino, but what's his name?" Sakura asks.

"My name is Naruto." I state.

"At least you have a name," Sakura starts, "you should've seen the last person Ino brought."

I'm totally interested in this story, "What was he like a machete wielding murderer?" I jokingly ask.

Neji looks at me seriously, "Well instead of wielding a machete, he used a paint brush, and he wasn't a murderer; at least to my knowledge." Ino has the urge to strike Neji, but Tenten nudges his side causing him to stop.

"And to top it all off, he didn't have a name." Sakura finishes Neji's comments about this mystery person.

"To be honest, I thought he was messing around when he said he didn't have a name." Ino defends herself.

"Then what is his name?" I ask.

"We gave him the name of Sai." Tenten answers.

"Why Sai?"

"Well he's a pretty good artist. You should see the painting he worked on for Ino, magnificent! Tenten commented.

I start to feel my mouth dry up, "Anyone need anything to drink because I'm getting thirsty." I motion to look for an ice chest.

Neji answers, "A water please."

"Anyone else?" I ask but no one else wants anything to drink. I leave the group and head for the coolers and I see someone with dark blue hair holding a red plastic cup. Her hair. . . Nah there has to be more people with that hair. As I reach the cooler, I look into that person's eyes, and they're the same as Neji's: lavender. "You're Hinata, Neji's cousin, right?" I ask.

She looks bewildered, "H-how do you know that about me?"

"My friends with Ino and she was introducing me to her friends and she noticed that you weren't there with them." Before she's about to talk, "Oh, I'm Naruto by the way." I tell her.

She nods, "So Ino invited you."

"Yeah once she heard that Kiba was DJing." I answer but I notice that she's not enjoying her time her, "You know that parties are supposed to help us college students relax and unwind, right?"

She looks away, "I know, but they're not my thing."

"Then why are you here?" Curiosity gets the better of me.

"My friend, Sakura, dragged me here." She admits.

"Maybe she wanted you to have fun?" I smile weakly.

"You might be right."

I grab a soda and a water, "C'mon, let's join the group." I smile and we walk back to Ino and her friends.

I give Neji the bottle of water, "I'm glad you met my cousin, Naruto." I nod and we open our drinks.

Music started playing suddenly and the moment that happened, it seemed like Ino and Sakura disappeared without a trace, followed by Neji and Tenten. Which leaves me with Hinata. I just hope I can hold a conversation with her.

The lights dimmer down a bit and the music starts to get louder. "Um, do you want to get away from the loud music, Hinata?"

"Yes." She walks through the crowd with me following closely behind her. We eventually get away from the loud noises, however a dance floor is within our sights, but it's a good distance away.

"So do you go UOK (University of Konoha)?" I get the small talk going.

"Yeah."

"Really? I don't see you around."

"Oh, I'm usually the in the cafeteria or walking around the quad." She laughs.

"That would explain it because I'm in my home away from home: the library."

"Do you sleep in there?"

"I would but they have a closing time."

We enter another of moment of silence and we remain this way for a while. I try to come up with something else to say to her but no words enter my brain nor exit my mouth. Sips of my soda here and there aren't helping our situation. Hell even cheesy lines will start any conversation. Unfortunately nothing comes to mind and we are in an awkward silence. Is there something on social media that I could use to spice up the conversation between us? But if I take out my phone, she'll think that I'm not interested in talking to her anymore, and that's the last thing I want to do.

Minutes pass by when I realize that Hinata is staring at the dance floor. The song selection suggests the kind of dancing that isnt' grinding. Son of a bitch, I'm not a good dancer, but I'll suck it up just for once! "Um, Hinata," I weakly grab her attention.

"Yes?"

"Do you want to dance?" I ask nervously.

"Yes, I would like that." She grabbed my hand and led me to the dance floor. I guess I'll let her lead us in the dancing department because she knows what she's doing.

When we reach the dance floor, she lifts the hand that she was holding to about my shoulder height, and her hand reaches my back and my hand goes to her waist. Here goes nothing.

Our hips start moving and I'm surprised at the fact I have so far avoided stepping on her delicate toes. So far, so good; I'm impressed that I haven't stepped on her toes and that I'm able to keep up with her and the music's tempo. This Kiba guy is pretty good when it comes to being a DJ. Midway through a random song, Hinata yells into ear, "You're a really good dancer!"

"I'm as surprised as you are."

Following our hour long dance, we decide to take a little break. We start fooling around, not really caring about what people thought of us. Eventually it gets to the point where we're just doing dares and bets.

Which leads me to taking out my wallet. I'll either be really lucky or I'll be really stupid for this one. I look in my wallet and discover that I have twenty bucks left. Now do I really want to go through the bet or do I want to eat elsewhere next week? I did buy two weeks worth of Teuchi's instant ramen, honestly that should last me for a while; thank goodness that I live in walking distant to the school, "Hey Hinata?"

"Yes?"

I pull out the money in my wallet and put my wallet back into my left pocket, "I bet you twenty bucks that I can kiss you without touching you." I can deal with lossing twenty dollars.

She raises her eyebrows in intrique, "Alright," was her nervous response. I tie my hands behind my back and I lean towards her body without touching it. My lips slowly approach hers and they lightly brush against hers; she eeps in response and jolts backwards away from me. She quickly, softly jabs my stomach. Should've seen that one coming, "You kissed me!" Her voice has a combination of anger and embarrassment.

As much as I want to respond with, 'that's the whole point,' it will probably end very badly for me. I scratch the back of my head and hand her the twenty dollars, "Here, I lost the bet." I admit defeat.

She accepts the twenty bucks and puts it in her pocket, it'll probably be a while before I even eat out. She stares at me with an unknown intent and I'm starting to get scared. . . Me and my brilliant ideas do get me into good spots. She walks closer to me and whispers in my ear, "If you weren't such a good dancing partner, I would have bet twenty dollars that my cousin, Neji, can kick your ass without touching you." She comments and I gulp. I overhear another song playing and I see her glancing at the dance floor, "Come on, let's dance." She grabs my hand and guides me to the dance floor. To be perfectly honest, it's better than getting my ass whooped; and besides, I really don't want to get dropped from any of my classes because I'm the hospital and that would be terrible.

After dancing to like twenty songs over the course of two hours, she has to go home, but before she leaves, "Naruto, what's your number?"

"Let me see you phone, it'll be easier if I type it in for you." I recommend to her and she hands me her phone with the new contact information ready for me to type in. Twenty seconds later, I give her back her phone and she stares at it for a while before she smiles, "Good, I'll text you next time there's a party." She giggles then kisses my cheek, "See you next time, dance buddy." She waves.

"See you later." I speak up and she disappears from my sight.

I just hope Ino hasn't left yet. . .