Hinata felt her stomach cry with joy when the bell rang for her lunch. Kiba let out a whoop as he raced out the door, Hinata in tow.

Kiba sped to the front, but despite the fact that she was being pulled along by one of the most athletic (and loud) boys in the school, Hinata soon lost Kiba in the crowds of people.

"Ah! Kiba!" she called, but to no avail.

He was presumably at the front of the lunch line.

Hinata was pushed and jostled and squeezed along as people in the back tried to wiggle their way to the front.

Before she knew it, she was shoved into a boy, pinning them both to the wall. The multitudes of people were like an ocean current; refusing to let anyone enter or leave.

She felt incredibly awkward as her chest was being pressed against the boy she barely knew. Hinata looked up and could have died from embarrassment.

He was drop-dead gorgeous.

With spiky blonde hair and glowing skin, Hinata was in awe of his handsome-ness. And he was so tall! She only reached the middle of his neck.

For some reason unknown to her, he brought his arms around behind her and pulled her closer to him; almost as if he was protecting her. His hands pushed the side of her head against his chest.

And almost as soon as it had started, the herd of hungry students was gone.

"Hey, are you okay?"

Hinata looked up at him again.

He was staring down at her with some of the happiest, bluest eyes she had ever seen.

She turned away and blushed madly. "I-I…I'm fine," she stuttered. "T-thank you."

The boy laughed. "No problem." He held out his hand. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto. What's your name?"

Hinata stared at his hand for a moment before hesitantly taking it. "Hyuuga Hinata."

Naruto's face lit up. "Hey, I think you're in my Science class! How cool is that?"

She smiled a little. "V-very cool."

They started walking down the empty, silent hall towards the cafeteria.

"Hey, do you know Sabaku no Gaara?"

"Y-yes, why?"

"Well, 'cause he's my best friend in the whole world, that's why!"

Hinata giggled to herself.

"I b-believe my friend has a class with him now."

"That's awesome! If Gaara learns how to be social, we could all be like, best buddies!"

Naruto brushed some of his bangs out of his face.

"Hey, who do you sit with for lunch?"

"My friend Inuzuka Kiba…"

"You should invite him over so he can sit with me and my friends Lee and Choji!"

"That sounds like fun."

X X X X X X X X

Hinata sat shyly down next to Naruto. At the table already were sitting two young men; one seeming older than the other.

There was a dark-haired boy with a shiny bowl cut and big, friendly, beetle-black eyes. He was skinny, but had a lean, muscular look about him.

The other was the younger of the two, with unkempt strawberry blonde hair. His round cheeks were speckled with crumbs and filled with chips. He was seemingly the opposite of his counterpart, with tanner skin, no self-control concerning his stomach and no motivation to move what-so-ever.

The blonde bombshell smiled brightly and said, "Hey guys, this is Hyuuga Hinata. Hinata, this is Rock Lee," he addressed the slim, dark-haired fellow, "and Akimichi Choji." He pointed to the rotund boy.

She smiled politely and mumbled a hello. Lee grinned at her. "Well hello there!" he said. "I don't think I've seen you here before."

"This is Hinata's first year here," Naruto told him. "She used to go to a private school. Hey Choji, Hinata's in our Science class with Gaara. Isn't that cool?"

Choji didn't say a word. He just stopped eating from his bag of chips and looked up at Hinata, eyeing her closely. After a moment of silence, he offered his bag to her. "Want a chip?" he asked.

Both Naruto and Lee chuckled gleefully. Hinata took one small potato chip and ate it silently, listening to every crunch it made in her mouth.

"What was all that about?" Hinata whispered to Naruto, who still seemed excited.

"Well," he explained. "We've found that Choji is an EXCELLENT judge of character. He doesn't talk much, but we know his way of saying that he approves of someone is by offering them a chip. And it took him like five seconds to figure it out for you! That's probably the fastest he's ever offered it to anyone, eh Lee?"

Lee nodded. "Yeah, I'll say. Hey Naruto, do you remember when he let you have a chip, and you took the whole bag? Oh that was one of the funniest moments I've ever witnessed in all my youth…ah…"

Naruto laughed. "Uh-huh, and then he like, attacked me!"

Choji seemed to be pleased with the mention of his defensive maneuvers.

"Oh hey," Lee said as he looked up. "Here comes TenTen, our Beautiful Flower of Youth!"

"Happy noon tidings!" Naruto called out.

Hinata glanced up.

A girl about a year older than herself was walking towards the table with a confident stride and gorgeous long legs. She had dark brown hair, held up in a traditional Chinese double-bun style, and sweet brown eyes. Her skin was not as pale as Hinata or Rikku's, but it was lighter than Naruto and Choji's.

"Hello everyone!" she said. "Sorry I'm late. That lunch line took FOREVER!" She laughed at her incompetence.

That's when she noticed Hinata.

"Hi, are you new? Gosh, I'm such an idiot. My name's TenTen. What's yours? Hm, you look really familiar. Are you sure we haven't met?"

Hinata was silent for a moment before she began to laugh.

"This is Hyuuga Hinata. I met her today and offered our table to her services!" Naruto explained while Hinata was incapable of answering.

"Wait…" TenTen said thoughtfully. "Hyuuga…as in, 'related-to-Neji' Hyuuga?"

The pale-eyed sophomore stopped laughing immediately.

"U-um…y-y-yes. He's my c-cousin."

"Well, I'm sorry if I offend you or anything, but I cannot stand him! Urgh, he's such a jerk! He's the reason I took so long in the lunch line! You know, he…"

TenTen's voice was drowned by Hinata's thinking.

Someone hated Neji. A girl actually hated Neji. A girl hated Neji!

Hinata felt like she could scream with ecstasy.

"But you know Hinata; you don't seem a thing like him. The two of you are like, polar opposites! Other than the fact that neither of you talk much, but we can overlook that. I bet you're just shy while he's a fucking bastard!"

Naruto laughed. "That sounds a lot like my friend Gaara! He's so antisocial; I'd be surprised if he ever made a friend without my help!"

Gaara decided to let her sit with him. He said not to make it a habit; he was only doing this until she made other friends. He preferred being alone to listening to girls talk about unimportant things like their hair, cute boys, and their breast size. (He heard enough of the latter from both his siblings.)

Despite what he said, Rikku laughed. Gaara was the first friend she made without Hinata's help. Not that Hinata was a social butterfly…but it still made Rikku feel good about herself.

"You were really good today," she told him.

He looked up from the lunch he made.

"What?"

"You were really good. I thought you were really in character when you were playing the vampire." She smiled. "Not many guys I know can REALLY get in character that easily."

Gaara glanced down at his measly sandwich.

"Kankuro doesn't seem to think so."

Rikku groaned. "I thought we already discussed the fact that he's an asshole!"

"Who's an asshole?"

Kankuro dropped his food and sat down next to Gaara.

Rikku was so shocked that she nearly fell off her chair. "Gah! Where did you come from?" she asked.

Kankuro mussed up Gaara's hair. "Hey baby bro."

He turned to Rikku. "To answer your question, I came from my mother's womb. And to answer my question, who's an asshole?"

"Y-you?" Rikku stuttered, reminding herself of Hinata. "You're his brother?"

Kankuro shrugged. "Yeah, we're brothers. We have a sister too, but Temari's a senior. Isn't that right, baby Gaa?"

Gaara crossed his arms and slunk down in his seat. "Shut-up," he said menacingly.

Kankuro laughed. "Gaara hates it when I call him that," he told Rikku. "By the way, I never caught your name."

"You didn't catch my name, but you managed to catch a glimpse of my underwear. You're so charming." Rikku said sarcastically as she narrowed her eyes.

He laughed again. "Damn, sitting at this table sure makes me feel wanted. Oh hey, Itachi! Over here!"

A very tall boy with long, dark hair and blood red eyes walked over and high-fived Kankuro. They both laughed together at their nerdiness.

"Wow, we're going to sit with sophomores this year? I feel so old!" Itachi whined.

Kankuro grabbed Itachi's arm and shoved him into the seat next to him and across from Rikku.

Rikku could see why he felt old. He certainly LOOKED old from what she could see, in a mature, sexy kind of way. But she didn't like the bags under his eyes. There was no color in them, but the skin looked tired.

He grinned at her. "You're cute," he said, leaning his chin on his palm.

She smiled softly in return and twirled a strand of her dark hair. "Thanks," she replied.

Kankuro nudged Itachi with his elbow. "You think her face is cute, you should see her-."

Gaara reached for the apple in his lunch and threw it at Kankuro, pegging him in the face. "Leave Rikku alone," he said. His eyes narrowed dangerously at his brother.

Itachi and Kankuro looked at each other and chuckled to themselves.

Before Rikku knew it, another boy sat down.

Her eyes widened.

It was Sasuke! That boy from the other night!

He glared at Itachi and growled, "I don't know why you keep making me come here."

Itachi giggled and patted Sasuke on the head. "You silly boy! I'm you're older brother, so you have to do what I say! And besides, do you want those nasty girls to keep coming up to you if you sit by yourself?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes and nodded to Gaara. Gaara repeated the greeting.

"But Itachi," Sasuke said. "If you're going to make me sit with you, I get to bring a friend with me."

Itachi raised a perfect eyebrow. "Who did you have in mind?"

"Shino."

Itachi groaned. "Fiiiine, just make sure that Bug Boy knows not to touch me. I don't want to get infected with his weirdness."

Kankuro shrugged. "At least it's not Neji," he told Itachi.

Rikku felt any color she had drain out of her face. If Neji had this lunch, he might see her! And then their plot would be ruined!

Sasuke motioned to another table and Shino came over.

Shino immediately noticed Rikku, but didn't say anything.

She slunk down in her seat a little bit.

Oh, this was not good!

"Hey Blue, you got a name?" Itachi asked.

Rikku blinked before looking at Itachi.

"What?" she asked.

Kankuro raised an eyebrow. "What?" he asked.

It wasn't just Kankuro. Everyone looked to Itachi like he had just spoken Mongolian.

"Well," he explained. "Look at her eyes. They're like, this super pretty blue! That's why I called her Blue."

Sasuke cocked his head. "Hm…they are really blue."

"Yeah, I'll say." Kankuro nodded.

All five guys; Itachi, Kankuro, Gaara, Sasuke, and Shino; were scrutinizing her like she had an enormous zit on her nose or like she had a birthmark on her forehead that looked like Michael Jackson.

Rikku wasn't sure she liked sitting at Gaara's table if it was always going to be like this. She had never been used to being surrounded by this much testosterone before in her life, and now they were all examining her like a piece of art.

The moment the bell rang, Rikku shot off like a rocket on the Fourth of July for class.