#85 – Chocolate

Valentine's Day. Konoha's tradition says that the girls are supposed to give the boys chocolate – either bonbons, cakes, brownies…, anything chocolaty. There are two kinds of chocolate a girl can give: giri-choko and honmei-choko. Giri-choko is the kind of chocolate a girl gives out of obligation – e.g., to a teacher, work colleagues or someone who did her a favor. Honmei-choko is the one that says a girl is romantically interested on a boy. One month later, at White Day, the boys should give back white chocolate to the girls whom they got chocolates from, regardless of the kind of chocolate they got.

If you follow the tradition, that is.

Every year, a certain Hyuuga Neji received tons of honmei-choko from his fan girls. Not that he liked it, I must say. Every time a girl gave him chocolate personally, he would politely deny it. But, sometimes, he would find chocolate inside his locker at ANBU quarters ('wasn't this a secure place?' he asked himself every time it happened); since he couldn't give them back, the white-eyed man always gave them to his cousin Hanabi. Needless to say, Neji never gave white chocolate back to his hopeless fan club. He didn't even dare touching the poor sweets, afraid that they could have some weird mind-twisting jutsu, or maybe trying not to raise the girls' hopes.

That year, it wasn't different. He turned down almost ten girls, and it wasn't lunch time yet! He was trying his best not to kill those nuisances with high-pitched voices, squealing 'Neji-kun, please take my chocolate!' all day long. But he was close to lose his self-control…

"Hey, Neji-san, I-"

As he heard that sing-song voice behind him, his blood boiled inside his veins. He slowly turned around, with the most ferocious face he could make (aka killer mode on). That fan girl would pay for all the annoyance he had to endure so far.

"Ooooh, so the big mean white-eyed man thinks he can scare me with that face?"

Huh? Neji shook his head slightly and saw a pair of green eyes staring at him amusedly. He blinked twice. "Sakura? What do you want?" he said in a much softer tone, yet a bit dry. At least he was safe, for he knew that the medic-nin wasn't a fan girl of his.

"Here" she handed him a thing wrapped in cellophane, smiling widely.

He widened his eyes. 'Could it be…?' That would be awkward. No matter how good of a company Sakura was, Neji never thought of her as a woman. Sure, she was cute, strong, smart, and never showed interest towards any men for years now – all of them being turn on's. Sometimes he heard other men talking about her; she was considered as some kind of unreachable goddess, and they said that the one she would eventually choose would be one of the luckiest men alive. 'Could it be that she chose me, over all men in the world?' He looked at the petite woman in front of him. Why would she do that? Did he deserve the exclusive attention of such a unique woman?

"Neji-san?" Sakura snapped her fingers in front of his face. That seemed to wake him up from his day dream. He looked down, suddenly very shy. "Don't panic. This is not honmei-choko, you baka!"

He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Then it is…" he trailed off, in a somewhat disappointed tone. Male pride…

"No. It's not giri-choko either. This year, I decided to bake a huge batch of chocolate muffins and give them to all of my male friends. For free! It means that you don't have to give me white chocolate next month. And don't worry; my muffins are healthy and, dare I say, so delicious!" she practically shoved the package into his hands, her lips curved in a beautiful smile. "Happy Valentine's Day, Neji-san! I have to go now. Bye!" Sakura turned around and left. But five seconds later, she looked at him again and winked charmingly. "I hope you like them!" with that, she left. He could only hear her voice in a faint 'Chouji! Come here!' from afar, and sighed deeply.

Neji then looked at the package in his hands. It contained three huge chocolate muffins, and they looked so yummy… Their chocolaty smell was sooooooo tempting… His fingers moved on their own, trying to untie the ribbon that kept him away from those highly appealing delicacies.

But even better than the muffins was the warm hug he got from her when, one month later, he appeared on her doorstep with a box full of white chocolates.