But she wears high heels I wear sneakers

She's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers

Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find that what you're looking for has been here the whole time

It was the day after Naruto's birthday as he hurriedly dressed himself in his hastily chosen attire. Today it was his usual black-and-orange jacket over a plain black t-shirt and jeans, with his regular tennis shoes. He ran out the door to the house as he grabbed his hat from the door-knob to his bedroom, jamming it shut behind him. His shoes skimmed the hallway as he ran out the door, slamming it ungracefully behind him. He didn't stop until the cool late autumn air hit his face as he took a deep breath of the musty scents around him. Thankfully when Jiraiya had been helping him pick out a new apartment, a gift from Jiraiya for sixteenth birthday, the old perv had enough sense to talk him into buying something within a relatively short walk from the school. It had proved to be a wise decision as it had saved him from being tardy multiple times already.

At this point he had gained a fair distance between himself and the apartment complex where he lived, instead taking to eyeing the leaves swirling past him on the breeze. He closed his eyes as he ran over his usual mental checklist. He'd done most of his homework, and what was left could easily be accomplished during study hall, he hadn't forgotten his lunch…'That's right!' he remembered, 'I have to get ahead on all my work so Wednesday I can meet the old perv when he comes back to town for a few days!' Despite his obvious scorn for some of his godfather's 'habits' he still felt as though Jiraiya was one of the closest things to family he had besides his friends and a few other adults. Still Jiraiya was one of his precious people and even though he didn't show it he was eternally grateful to him for everything he'd done in Naruto's life.

Still smiling, well more or less so, he reached the front gates of the school. When you first took a look at the school most people thought it was a rich, fancy, private school from its appearance, though it was really a public school; albeit one of the best in the country. How he was still passing in a school like this was beyond him; probably just because he was the school's soccer star along with his other best friend, Sasuke Uchiha, or Sasuke-teme as he so affectionately phrased it. Still smiling to himself he climbed the steps of the school, his eyes scanning the masses of kids for his friends, or more particularly Hinata. He still felt bad about yesterday and desperately wanted to make things right with her again. He knew he couldn't get along normally without her for her for long. And it seemed she did too because the next moment he saw her waving him over enthusiastically. He raised his hand in return, about to call out to her when a familiar voice stopped him in his tracks.

"Naru-chan!" it squeaked shrilly before he felt her weight crashing into his arm.

"T-toshiko?" he grimaced more than asked as she held his arm in a death-grip.

"Oh, Naru-chan! I'm so sorry for being so rude to you on the phone yesterday, though it is your fault for hanging out with her after I asked you not to."

"Ano, Toshiko—"

"No, no. Let me finish," she scolded him, pressing a finger to his lips to silence him, "First of call me Toshi, Toshi-chan, or Toshi-koi," she stressed the last word so it sounded sickeningly sweet, "and second off, I've decided to give you a second chance."

"Ano, Toshi—"

"No need to thank me. You just need to work harder and be better boyfriend this time around, because there won't be a third chance. Like maybe tomorrow night you could take me to dinner," she fluttered her eyelashes at him.

"Toshik—"

"Toshi," she corrected him sharply.

He caught the reproachful gleam in her eyes as if she had known all along his intentions to apologize to Hinata. Knowing he was in dangerous waters at the moment he decided that he'd simply wait until physics to talk to Hinata instead of risking his girlfriend' anger. Taking his silence as a cue for her to talk Toshiko wasted no time in filling the empty space with her insistent voice. Inwardly Naruto sighed as he let himself be dragged along until Hinata's form was lost amongst a crowd of their classmates.

0

Hinata sighed dejectedly as she caught sight of Naruto being dragged to the school. She shifted her eyes to Ino as the blonde animatedly described her weekend endeavors. Hinata had been swept into them a few too many times for her liking. They always tended to result in something disastrous or so embarrassing that she'd be thinking about it for weeks. She stared in curiosity as she watched Ino scramble onto one of the stone blocks by the bottom of stares as she recounted this weekend's tale.

"Like that even happened, Ino-pig!" Sakura suddenly glared accusingly at Ino.

"It did too! You can even ask the mall cop, the entire store was flooded!" she defended, placing her hands on her hips.

"Like I'd take the time to ask someone who can't even remember the name of the mall to prove something like that!" the emerald-eyed girl snapped back.

"Forehead!" Ino countered, before leaping off the block and running behind Hinata.

"Ino-pig!" Sakura tried to reach her behind Hinata.

"Hinata, do you think it's true?" Temari suddenly spoke up as the upperclassmen arrived next to Tenten and Reiko.

Sakura and Ino paused in their war-fare to look at Hinata, whose expression had remained distant and forlorn throughout their exchange.

"A-ano, nani? Daijobuu ka? (A/N: did I spell that right?) Why are you guys staring at me?" she glanced around, suddenly noticing Ino clinging to her from behind.

"Hinata!" Ino whined as she detached herself, settling to sling an arm dramatically over Hinata's shoulder, "weren't you listening at all?"

"Ano, G-gomen," she blushed in embarrassment, shuffling her feet a bit.

An uncomfortable silence stretched between the six girls before it was abruptly ended by a loud far-off cheer.

"Ohayo, mina!" Hanako's happy voice distracted them as she could be seen dragging her younger sister, Sakiko in her wake.

"Ane-chan, I think you interrupted something important," Sakiko warned her sister as she pried her gray sweat-shirt from its previous death-grip.

"Hmm," Hanako surveyed the current situation with relative ease before crossing her arms and huffing, "Is Hina still upset over Naruto's birthday?"

"Nani!" Ino and Tenten exclaimed simultaneously, as they both turned Hinata toward them roughly, "What happened?"

"Yup!" Hanako informed the proudly, "this weekend I saw Hina crying to Naruto in the park while I was taking Sachi for a walk! They both looked kinda depressed at first but then—Daijobuu ka? Hina why are you all red? Oh no! Did Hana-chan say something she shouldn't have?"

"What!" Sakura practically yelled in indignation, "He made you cry! Teme-baka!"

"No! It wasn't like that. I just started crying and her felt bad so he was comforting me. That's all. Besides, we always spend his birthday together," she blurted out in defense.

"Comforted you?" Reiko raised an eyebrow suggestively as she leaned against the stone block, "how so?"

Hinata was flaming red as all seven girls seemed to thoroughly examine her with their eyes.

"Rei-onee-chan! You're embarrassing Hina!" Hanako leaped to her defense as she pushed past Ino to throw her arm over Hinata's shoulder.

"Ne, gomen Hinata, I didn't mean to embarrass you. But you still haven't told us what happened."

Suddenly the bell rang as the school doors opened, signaling to the girls that their usual morning rendezvous was over for the time being. Hinata visibly melted in relief as she slung her bag over her shoulder and rushed up the steps, Sakiko following silently beside her. Unbeknownst to Hinata Temari had purposefully remained quiet throughout the interrogation, instead sharing a meaningful glance Sakiko. She could already see the storm that was about to be unleashed.

If you could see that I'm the one who understands you

Been here all along so why can't you see you belong with me

You belong with me

Naruto still wore the continuing dejected expression on his face as filed into the guy's locker room with Sasuke. He had waited and kept watch for her all day, but he still couldn't find Hinata! He was starting to get agitated, and people were starting to notice. Well, Sasuke was anyways, and he was going to find out before Naruto started snapping at anyone who talked to him. If there was one thing that the Uchiha had learned about his friend was that an agitated of angry Naruto was definitely not something you wanted to be around. However, it seemed that Sasuke wasn't the only one noticing strange behaviors. His girlfriend, Sakura, had informed about the episode at the steps that morning with Hinata. Both of them were hiding something that had happened and their gloomy moods were beginning to annoy him. Shutting the door on the locker he was about to speak to the whiskered blonde when another voice interrupted him.

"Naruto-san," a deep voice addressed him.

"Hm?"

Sasuke glanced beside him to see Hiroshi's imposing presence standing cross-armed in front of them. Sasuke mentally groaned in exasperation. It was clear that Hanako was unable to refrain from sharing the latest gossip amongst their friends with her older and extremely protective brother. Naruto on the other hand, in his current state of mind, was unable to comprehend the dark promise lurking beneath Hiroshi's greeting. Hiroshi was a senior and although he treated them with respect he made it clear he was none too crazy about the idea of his little sister's having guys as their friends. As a result he felt the need to protect not only his siblings but their friends, namely Hinata, Sakura, Ino, Temari, and Tenten, from harm as well. Naruto had hung out with Hiroshi a couple of time before when he'd chosen to tag onto one of their group get-togethers. He was a relatively cool, albeit intimidating, guy who was someone you wanted in your corner.

"Hanako told me that you made Hinata-san cry. Is this true?"

"Nani? Where did you hear that?" Naruto was completely caught off guard. He'd expected for the upperclassmen to assign him some menial task; after all he was only a sophomore and most freshmen were usually kept busy.

"Hanako told me. She said she saw Hinata-san crying to you when she took Sachiko for a walk yesterday. Once more I'll ask you, did you make Hinata-san cry?" he stated, unfolding his arms slowly.

"No dammit! Why the hell would I do that!" he nearly yelled, nearly.

Unfortunately the noise was enough to catch the attention of Neji, who up till then was conversing with Kankuro and Rock Lee. Seeing Hiroshi staring down Naruto was enough for him to quickly and politely break off his conversation and make his way over to them.

"Excuse me, Gekko-senpai, but what seems to the problem," Neji calmly faced the looming upperclassmen.

Though he probably forgot or wouldn't admit to it later, but at that moment Naruto had regarded Neji as either a bigger baka then him, or the bravest person on the face of the earth. Must be the samurai blood. Even though they were evenly matched in height, Neji was still a junior so even for him this was a daring feat. Luckily for him though the Hyuuga were masters at concealing their emotions and channeling massive amounts of emotion to their eyes. It seemed that the clear challenge and intent in his eyes connected because a moment later, Hiroshi relaxed slightly, though his own dark eyes never left Naruto.

"I heard from Hanako today that Naruto-san seems to have upset Hinata-san greatly. Hanako saw her crying and I believe that Naruto may have been the cause of this."

"Really, because I heard a similar tale, though if you were aware of the current situation you may have interpreted things differently. I am pleased by your concern, but I am her cousin and if anything were wrong I would have taken action long ago."

"I see. I apologize Naruto-san," without so much as a backwards glance Hiroshi had disappeared into the neighboring aisle of lockers, though his presence seemed to linger behind.

Sasuke let out a breath of relief and even Neji seemed a little less tense. Naruto however was simply confused, and it showed on his face. What did Neji mean by "if you were aware of the current situation"? What was the situation? Was there ever one and when did it happen? In the end he just let out a frustrated groan and banged his head against his locker in defeat. He never knew what was happening anymore. What frustrated him the most was because he knew he was at fault for that. His noticeable how much less time he was spending with his friends at the requests of Toshiko; and he knew how it was affecting his friends as well. With many of them, mainly Kiba, Shino, Kankuro, and Choji, he was more distant than he ever was and it was beginning to bugg him. He was silent as he pulled his shirt over his head before stuffing in the locker along with his back-pack and books before pulling on his practice jersey instead. Impatiently he pulled off his shoes and socks before reaching for his shin-gaurds.

"Yo, Dobe," Sasuke suddenly spoke up as he began strapping on his own shin-gaurds, "if you want I can help you look for her?"

Naruto simply gave him a blank stare as he stopped mid-way into pulling on the second guard.

"Hinata," Sasuke spoke slowly, still focusing on his own equipment, "I'll help you look for her. I may not know exactly what's going on but you clearly have some apologizing to do and you're just going to sulk in the mean time."

Naruto was silent for a moment before he resumed his earlier work. His voice was low and hard to hear as he pulled his sock into place.

"Thanks, Sasuke,"

The Uchiha only smirked and shook his head.

Yay! Sorry it's been so long since my last update! I took a vacation and then school came out of nowhere to pummel me. I hate school. Anyways I hope you enjoy and I'll try to work harder against the never-ending flood of homework. Disclaimer time! I do not own Naruto, Hinata, Ino, Sakura, Tenten, Temari, Sasuke, Neji, Kankuro, or Rock Lee. The featured song is You Belong With Me by Taylor Swift. I DO own Toshiko (ugh, unfortunately), Hanako, Reiko, and Sakiko. Don't forget to review. Thanks for your support!