Serendipity

Chapter 2

Neji grudgingly trudged along the sunny streets of Konoha town square. Men, women, and children chattered happily around him. Restaurants smelling of ramen were spilling over with people who had just finished a long day of hard work. It was late in the afternoon, and academy students were already being dismissed from class.

Neji eyed a group of children leaping around, innocently laughing and pretending to be shinobi. A tingle of envy climbed up his spine, and he suddenly wished he were back at that age. Where the biggest of his childish worries was whether or not he would be accepted into ninja Academy.

A cool breeze fluttered over his hair before settling again into the hot summer sky. Neji neatly fixed his clothing in an obsessive perfectionist manner, and tightened the shinobi forehead protector around his head. Sadly, those days of innocence and insignificant worries would never return to him. Instead, here he was, nineteen years of age, hopelessly wandering the streets in search for a girl.

That sounded rather pathetic of him, and if it were ever discovered by anyone else, he would personally stab himself with a kunai.

Neji scowled at the remembrance of why he was here.

Two weeks! How in the world did they expect him to find the love-of-your-life-never-to-leave-you-till-death-due-us-part kind of girl in TWO BLOODY WEEKS! Things like that take time! And he definitely did not have the time for that right now.

Neji shoved his hands into his long sleeves in rage. It was as if his uncle expected some sort of love miracle to happen in fourteen days. Ridiculous would be a perfect word to describe his dilemma. It was absolutely impossible! And he knew from experience when things were possible or not. It came as naturally as his Byaakugan.

If it were as easy as picking any random girl, Neji would do it, don't get him wrong. He could. The problem was that Neji DIDN'T want to pick just any random girl. Contrary to what most believed, Neji wanted to have a family the right way. The way he'd seen it so many times before.

He'd used to scoff at the girls who giggled childishly while planning a future with the person of their dreams. Inwardly, he was just the same. Mind you, he was the same, minus the irritating giggles, flirtatious gestures, and elaborate dolls prancing around in wedding kimonos. Hyuuga Neji wanted a family just like them. He wanted to fall in love, get married, and have children, just like them.

But not now. And definitely not this method.

Neji's glare intensified.

His uncle was rushing him. Even worse, his uncle was threatening him. Learning the Hyuuga Succession technique meant a great deal to him at the moment, and being unable to discover it's secret because of disregarding a stupid family tradition pissed him off. Hyuuga Neji was NOT ready to spend the rest of his life with some bimbo he just picked off the streets. But no matter how he analyzed the situation, he couldn't determine another option. He wanted that technique. That bad.

Neji let out another frustrated sigh, the billionth one that day. If the saying that stress made hair turn white was true, then Neji's hair, at that moment, would be as white as his Byaakugan eyes.

The Hyuuga cleared his throat and shook off the unnecessary thoughts. He would concentrate. He would conjure up the perfect female his genius mind was capable of, and he would marry her. Simple as that.

Neji quickly began scanning through the crowd. Young ladies, old ladies, short ladies, tall ladies, skinny ladies, fat ladies… They all ranged in a vast variety. This overwhelmed the Hyuuga and he cursed under his breath. This strategy was not an efficient one. Even if a young lady had caught his attention, what would that make of him then? Shallow? And then what? He'd waste days attempting to get her attention, then more days getting to know her. It would waste too much time and he reminded himself that time was not a luxury he could afford.

Then a thought suddenly struck the genius in the head. These girls would not be suitable anyway, he thought. The Hyuuga family expects a strong kunoichi.

After moments of shaking imaginary fists at his uncle's instruction, the Hyuuga prodigy then reluctantly began skimming his memory of all the girls he knew in ninja academy. The first name he could think of was none other than his only female teammate. Tenten.

That option was immediately crossed out. As much as he cared for his female comrade, he could never imagine spending the rest of his life with her, nor think of her as any more than a simple fighting companion. She was far too aggressive for his liking, and he didn't think the elders would approve of his fiancée being the daughter of a weaponsmith. Besides, she had her eyes on the comedic Kiba, and he somewhat believed that the man had developed feelings for her as well.

That left Neji to continue the mental search. Scanning through names and faces, he stopped at the mental image of Temari of the Sand village. Now she was definitely crossed out. The woman had such masculine brute strength that it made Tenten look like a sissy. Her temper exploded with more firepower than his own, and her aggression showed that she would not so willingly surrender to the likes of any man. Plus, he had been hearing rumours that some chemistry had been sparking between herself and the brilliant strategist, Nara Shikamaru. The strategist could probably deal with her far better than I can…Neji thought, and proceeded.

Immediately, he remembered another blonde in his directory of Konoha kunoichis. Yamanaka Ino. Neji shuddered at the recollection of her trying to send flirtatious signals to him during their chuunin examination in Death Forest. Her mouth was a bombshell waiting to explode. The girl babbled about the strangest things like there was no tomorrow. Marrying her would mark the end of his sanity, and he was not ready for that yet.

Damn, he was running out of alternatives. He remembered thinking as a boy that girls should have been forbidden to join the academy to become ninjas. Now, for selfish purposes, he wished that more had entered.

Recalling all the kunoichis suddenly made him feel depressed. They had all, by now, found a special someone. In fact, most of the MALES he knew had found their counterpart. It made Neji feel isolated. Perhaps he was focusing a tad too hard on training. Even his timid and withdrawn cousin had blossomed into a relationship with the explosive Uzumaki Naruto.

Neji shook of his thoughts of doubt and contemplated harder. Kunoichi… kuniochi…There was someone he was missing…

The Hyuuga was drowned far too deep into his ocean of thoughts to even suspect anything in his way. The obstacle, in a hurried frenzy, skidded to a stop, unfortunately not quick enough to avoid impact.

Both came tumbling down with a crash.

White boxes flew everywhere and muscular limbs became entangled with delicate ones. Emerald eyes met white ones.

"Haruno?" he breathed, sounding more surprised than he would have liked. The eyes widened as a sheet of pink blanketed her face, complimenting her hair.

As the crowd around him shushed to an eerie mumbling, the Hyuuga realized why she was so flustered in embarrassment. There the two lay, the kunoichi on top of the shinobi, faces close, breathing heavy, in what looked to be a sudden passionate embrace.

Hyuuga Hiashi would have shot his own nephew if he had seen the indecent way the two were on top of each other.

The pink-haired kunoichi was the first to break the awkwardness. She bit her lip as she got up, and pressed her skirt down to retrieve what little dignity she had left.

"Sumimasen…" he heard her squeak, as she bowed in a respective manner.

Neji lay there, stunned like a deer in headlights, and unable to fully function for a few good moments. What had just happened was too quick for even his Byaakugan to catch. This was completely impossible! Hyuuga Neji never let his guard down! Hyuuga Neji never got distracted! And Hyuuga Neji most certainly did NOT knock over girls and just lie there DUMBFOUNDED!

Neji shook off his immobility and fought to get up. The longer he was on the ground, he felt, the more he would loose his decency as a Hyuuga prodigy. This was a complete embarrassment on both of their behalf, and now, half of Konoha had witnessed it. The fall of the all-powerful Hyuuga Neji.

That, was a REPULSIVE thought.

Neji immediately brushed off his shirt and turned to the girl who was now fidgeting everywhere, trying to collect the series of syringes that had scattered all over the place. Her hands trembled in panic at the raging fit her superior would go through once discovering that the medicinal supplies had been tainted with dirt.

Neji, despite his anger and irritation, did what any Hyuuga gentlemen would do, and began scanning the area with his Byaakugan for more syringes. In silence, he gathered the items and placed them gently in the box that the kunoichi was holding. She looked up in silent gratitude.

"God, I am such a cluts…" she muttered, indirectly apologizing for the commotion. Neji, at first, said nothing, but eventually realized that it was also his fault in the matter. As a man of integrity, he wasn't the type who would let the girl take all the blame and know that he had been just as guilty.

Neji placed what seemed to be the last syringe in the white box.

"No. It was my fault. I got distracted."

Now, the Hyuuga wanted to stone himself. He was supposed to tell her the necessary truth, not blurt out his whole life story! She did not need to know that he had been distracted because it was out of his known character to let the icy guard down.

The kunoichi, however, was far too busied with the clutter they both had made, to even think about the reasons for the Hyuuga's spaciness. Neji watched her as she accounted for all the syringes in the boxes. He followed her jade eyes as she moved from one box to another, tallying the total in her head. A human calculator. He remembered. She was the smart one of Team seven.

Neji silently observed the girl as her pink eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. She peered around her, to the left, then to the right. Something was obviously not right.

"What?" he spoke in aggression, to make up for the looking like a total idiot in front of Konoha civilians.

The girl pursed her lips to a side in thought.

"I'm missing one."

The two peered around them for a few moments longer before admitting defeat. The syringe was nowhere to be found.

"Crap." The kunoichi breathed while glancing at her watch. "I'm late."

Neji took that as a signal that he should be departing as well to tend to frustrating matters at the Hyuuga household, in which he strangely could not remember at the moment.

Dusting off his soiled pants, he stretched out a hand to help the girl up. He would have to explain to his rather strict uncle as to why his clothes were tainted like a little boy's, but that could wait till later. For now, his obligations were to the girl he had impolitely knocked down.

When the kunoichi took Neji's hand, he was a bit surprised at how bruised and calloused her petit hands were. It was a total contrast of her delicate appearance. What had she been doing?

As the pink-haired girl got up, she winced as her nurse white moccasins met the dirt.

"Ittai…" she hiccupped in a rather cute way.

As she lifted her foot, she noticed a small dot of blood forming on her cloth shoes, near the arc of her foot. Neji was preoccupied to notice a mortified look emerging on her face.

"The syringe." He said, picking it up from beneath her raised foot and placing it in one of her boxes. He noticed that she was still holding his hand as he did this. To his surprise, she did not let go. Instead, the grip tightened as she lost her balance and fell limply on his chest, an upright version of when they were on the ground.

Again, she apologized, but when she lightly tugged at his shirt and spoke in slurred words, he knew something was wrong.

With his piercing white eyes, he shot one look of Byaakugan at the white boxes. Taking one syringe, he held it in front of her face.

"What's in this?" he demanded, shouting this time.

His heart raced as her breathing staggered.

"Amplified Anesthetic…" she stuttered. "To the sixth power."

The last thing she remembered was eyes.

Gorgeous white eyes.

Author's note:

Ahh yes, that was a bit sloppy, but I wanted to explain his part of the love story first. I'll get to Sakura's later. Patience, little ones, patience.

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