edited 20/3/18: long story short: I'm back, I'm sorry for the long wait, I made some edits, I plan on finishing this...eventually

Long version: I'm not much of a writer, I seriously prefer to read stories instead. I started working on this for fun, just to try my hand at the whole writing thing and turns out it's like super hard. I appreciate all you authors out there so much more now. I never thought I would pick up this story every again. I abandoned it for 3 years and hadn't written anything since. Late last year I randomly wrote this little blurb of a fic, and for some reason I would periodically go back to it and add until it turned into a full blown story. It inspired me to start working on this one again. I went over the outline again, planned more things out because let me just be honest, I prefer planning things out to actually writing them. I also went back and edited the story. For the chapters I had already posted I just reworded some stuff to try and make it flow better. I didn't make any major changes, the story it pretty much the same. When I was originally working on this I wrote a total of 10 chapter despite only posting 5. This time around I want to see this through to the end. To anyone who happened to read my story before and actually cared that it wasn't updating, I apologize. I know how that feels. I shed a tear every time fics I like gets abandoned.

"So after a year and six months, no longer me that you want"

i.

"How do you feel about him?"

"W-who?" she asked softly, feigning ignorance. She avoided looking at him, but she could still feel his intense gaze on her. Rain gently fell from the sky, leaving the two of them damp and slowly darkening the pavement where they stood. Neither of them noticed.

"Naruto."

She knew this conversation would come eventually... she just wished it hadn't come so soon. She wasn't ready to answer this question. She wasn't sure if she ever would be.

"I-I-I… I don't know," she finally answered, her pale eyes settling at her feet. She could not bring herself to meet his eyes and see the pain she knew would be there. She was breaking his heart, and she hated every single drawn out second of it, but more than anything she hated herself for it. She was ruining everything…

"You still have feelings for him, don't you?" It sounded more like a statement than a question in his cold monotone voice.

"I-I-I..." She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence, but they both knew what she was going to say. Suddenly the rain was falling rapidly, quickly turning the gentle storm into a violent downpour. Hair clung to her face, and her clothes were quickly soaked all the way through. A shiver ran down her spine despite the warmth of the mid-summer rain.

"I-I-I'm so sorry," she whispered, the rain drowning out her soft apology and obscuring the tears falling down her flushed cheeks. She didn't look up as she heard the faint sounds of his resolute footsteps as he walked away.

i.

Hinata adjusted the rear view mirror so that it was once again facing the back of the car instead of Ino's face. The blonde stopped fidgeting with her hair and let out an indigent huff.

"I was still using that!" she pouted, giving Hinata a pointed looked before reaching into her purse and pulling out a small mirror and a tube of rosy pink lip gloss.

"Ino, putting on more make-up won't make you look like any less of a pig," Sakura half said half sang from the back seat of the car. She glanced up from her cellphone in time to catch Ino's piercing glare, responding with a saccharin grin which only served to further irritate the ice blonde beauty

"That has to be the fifteenth coat you've put on in the past ten minutes."

Hinata giggled softly to herself as her two friends began bickering. The day had barely begun and they were already at each other's throats. Amazingly enough, this time last year she had hardly exchanged five words with either of them outside of school assignments. Now here she was, happily on her way to school with them. Her smile faded as she turned into the school's parking lot. Things had really changed since then. Unbidden, memories of a rainy day quietly crept into her mind. Hinata had managed to avoid this train of thought pretty well until now, mostly because it never failed to ruin her mood. This was supposed to be a fresh start, a brand new school year. She couldn't properly experience her last year of high school if she was constantly stuck in the past. She sighed, catching Sakura and Ino's attention. The two immediately stopped their bickering.

"Are you thinking about him again?" Ino asked gently. The car gently pulled to a stop in a parking space not far from the school entrance. Stalling for time, Hinata slowly took the key out of the ignition before finally turning to address the concerned look on her friend's face.

"No... " Hinata paused, stalling once more as she slowly undid her seatbelt. Still looking down, she struggled to think of a reasonable excuse because a simple 'no' would never convince either of them. Not when it came to this.

"I-I-I was just thinking about..." her mind went blank as something other than the truth failed to pop into her head. She could say she thinking of a brand new start, after all it was partially true, but it also wasn't something that typically elicited a forlorn sigh.

Hinata didn't want to worry them, not about this. She couldn't be one of those girls whose entire world came to an end just because of a boy. She would move on. No, she corrected herself, she had already moved on. She was already much better now than she was a month ago when the break-up all but consumed her mind. All she could do was lie in bed, tangled in her comforters, mentally replaying all the ways she irreversibly ruined her first and only relationship. Sakura and Ino were by her side the entire time, doing anything and everything they could to cheer her up. They wouldn't let her waste away in her room. They forced her to go out with them when they went to the movies, the beach, or anywhere else they deemed a good enough place to put a smile of her face. On the days Sakura and Ino couldn't drag her out of her room, they brought over the cheesiest romantic comedies they could find. They would all sit at the foot of Hinata's bed eating tons of ice cream, Sakura and Ino comforting her as she cried. She appreciated everything they had done for her, and felt closer to them than she could have ever imagined possible...but she didn't want it to always be like that.

Hinata didn't want Sakura and Ino to think that every sigh that escaped her lips or that every regretful look that crossed her face was caused by thoughts of him, but of course Ino had to question her the first time in ages it had been caused by him. It was just a brief thought. His forlorn face barely registered in her mind before the thoughts fled back to the deepest recesses of her mind. It hadn't been much, but it would be more enough to gain their concern if they knew. Which, because of her inability to quickly think of a believable lie, they definitely did. Deceit just wasn't in her nature. She had been quiet for long enough, nothing she could say at this point would be believable anyway.

"...I was just thinking about all the school work we'll have to do."

Hinata ignored the knowing looks that her friends were sending her way and busied herself with gathering her things.

"Ano…" She trailed off, trying to think of something to change the subject and get rid of the heavy silence that filled the car, "Aren't Naruto-kun and Uchiha-san supposed to be back at school today?"

Sakura and Ino squealed, instantly ridding the car of the serious atmosphere with their excitement. Hinata was relieved when all concerns about her seemed to instantly vanish as her two friends began speaking animatedly about the much anticipated return of the Uchiha.

Naruto and Sasuke got into a devastating fight with each other at the end of their first year of high school. It's large and unprecedented destruction of school property coupled with the fact it sent both Naruto and Sasuke straight to the emergency room made it infamous at their school. The fight got the pair suspended from Konoha High for the entirety of the following school year. Their influential families and the various generous donations they made to school in the past were the only things that kept them from expulsion.

Unlike her two friends, she was looking forward to seeing Naruto more than she was his aloof dark haired friend. She had the hugest crush on the sunny blonde since primary school. As the years went by, her feelings only deepened. In Naruto's absence they had faded, but she was sure they would come rushing back the moment she saw him.

They had to.

It was something she had been thoroughly convincing herself of since she had first noticed that her feelings were ebbing away.

After the three girls finished gathering their things, they made their way towards to the school entrance. While walking, Hinata fruitlessly attempted to adjust her blue pleated uniform skirt, wondering for the hundredth time that day why she let Ino convince her to wear it this short. It barely reached the middle of her thighs.

As her two friends continued enthusiastically discussing the Uchiha, she nodded along pretending to listen. Hinata never quite understood what all the girls saw in him. She could acknowledge he was handsome, but so were other guys. Whatever It was outside of his looks that appealed to all the girls she just couldn't see. Maybe it was because she really didn't know much about him. With the amount of time Sakura, Ino, and just about every girl in school dedicated to talking about him, she really should know more but the Uchiha just never interested her. The few times she had caught sight of him he'd been with Naruto, and everything just seemed to fade into the background when she saw her long time crush.

"…Hina-chan, are you even listening?" Sakura asked quizzically, her perfectly shaped eye-brows rising in question. Hinata immediately snapped out of her thoughts, realizing that both her friends were staring at her questioningly. She wondered when they had reached the school entrance, only now noticing the buzz of conversations taking place all around her as the students and teachers milled around the entryway.

Taking in the blank look their dark haired friend was giving them, Sakura opened her mouth to repeat the question but whatever she was about to say got caught up in a high pitched scream. Startled, Hinata winced when the voice was joined by a chorus of others.

In a flash Ino's mirror was back in her hand as she frantically started applying yet another coat of lip gloss. Sakura dusted off the imaginary lint on her uniform while simultaneously readjusting a hair clip in her short pink locks. Perturbed by her friend's behaviour, Hinata looked both ways trying to find the cause of it, noticing similar behaviour among all the girls nearby. It didn't take long for her to spot Sasuke climbing out of the passenger seat of a black car. She froze in place as she turned her head a little more to see Naruto climbing out of the driver's side. Her breath caught in her throat as she waited for all the familiar feelings she always got when looking at him to flood back.

They didn't.

i.

Sasuke wanted to turn around, go home, and beg his parents to consider homeschooling him instead the moment he heard the high pitched squeals. Unfortunately, judging by the excited look on Naruto's face, it was too late to get his car key back. Sasuke wondered why he let Naruto convince him to drive his car. The idiot had nearly run over two people on their way to school. He really should stop agreeing to things while he was still half asleep.

Sasuke put his hands in his pockets, following behind his overly enthusiastic friend as they made their way to the school entrance. Before he was even halfway there a large group of girls had already surrounded him. If his usually sharp senses hadn't been dulled by a lack of sleep, he probably would have noticed them coming long before they managed to block his path.

The two girls nearest to him started speaking first, drowning out each other's words. The rest of the girls took that as a cue to start speaking as well and soon he was surrounded by a wall of high pitched squeals and mindless babbling. All he heard was "Sasuke this" and "Sasuke that," he didn't care enough to try and discern the rest of what they were trying to say. Why couldn't he just come to school, go to class, and go home without being harassed by every other girl that walked his way? He let out a long suffering sigh of irritation.

He briefly looked past the sea of fangirls to see Naruto animatedly speaking to one of the few girls still standing by the school's entrance. With his mind still foggy from sleep he couldn't recall her name, but she looked familiar. As Naruto began gesturing wildly in the air, the girl who remained his sole audience nodded along politely with an uncomfortable smile on her face. After a few more moments of starting blankly at the two, he realized that the familiarity laid in her eyes. They remind him of that stuck up, long haired bastard Hyuga Neji. She had to be a Hyuga he thought dismissively.

His focus returned to the mob of girls still vying for his attention. None of them seemed to have noticed he wasn't paying attention to a thing they were saying. He decided it was about time he made his way to class. He cleared a path to the entrance, ignoring the indignant protests of the girls he pushed out of his way. The protests caused by his sudden departure were silenced when the doors to school entrance closed behind him.

He was a bit surprised they hadn't all followed behind him, but he guessed they knew a losing battle when they saw one. Sasuke looked around as he started walking, not much had changed since he's last been here. It was only when he was halfway down the hallway that he realized he didn't know where his first class, or any of his classes for that matter, were located. All it took was him looking as lost as he felt for him to be surrounded by another mob of girls all too willing to help him find his way.

He groaned inwardly, it was going to be a long day.