Note from the Author: Thank you for loving me while my self-esteem was low. . It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside – It also makes me not want to abandon this story, because you all seem to be enjoying it.

Kawaii-Aikurushii-Kitsune: I'm glad he got beat up too. .

Split Persona: I'm sorry! I'll try to update more while you're around … although I don't know when that is. Maybe you could give me a schedule? .

Kichou: A Naruto-Neji tag team has always seemed really cool to me (although Neji kicks all sorts of ass on his own). So it's like, "I write fan fiction! Let's do it!" .

The Naruto Whore: Your pen name makes me laugh because I call myself a Hyuuga Whore. . I'm glad you're enjoying the story.

It's not my greatest care ...

Her roses were dying.

Hinata heaved a sigh, clipping off a wilting flower. She needed to spend more time on her garden – but lately, people were more important to her than plants and, while she loved the feeling of being needed, she missed this time to herself.

It had been a week since she and Neji had started alternately staying at Sasuke's. Itachi hadn't been back at all, and Naruto was still a nervous wreck.

"Hinata."

She flinched as the lovely loneliness fell away, but smiled when she saw who it was. "Hi, Kiba-kun." She held up a clipper. "Are you staying long? You could cut while I pull weeds."

"Reverse that." He knelt beside her. "Don't tell me you forgot what happened last time you gave me those."

She winced, recalling the trip to the emergency room, and giggled. "Oh, yeah. I forgot."

They soaked in the comfortable silence that comes with knowing someone well, Hinata taking care of her roses and Kiba attacking the weeds around their base.

"Hinata?" He dropped the parasitic plants onto the pile he'd made in the grass, swiped the back of his hand across his forehead. "I actually came over to talk to you about something."

She sat back on her heels, white eyes turning to his face. "You can tell me anything, Kiba-kun."

He fidgeted, standing to stretch his legs. "Well, I'm in love."

She smiled. "I'm happy for you, Kiba-kun."

He startled, staring at her. "That's it?"

She blinked, confused. "What?"

"You're not going to ask who it is or anything?"

She laughed. "It's Shino-kun."

His jaw dropped. "How did you know?"

"It's a combination of knowing you well and picking up Neji-nii-san's talent of reading people." She explained, examining a thorn prick on her thumb. "Kiba-kun, you're the most shameless person I know – next to maybe Naruto-kun. You will say or do anything and not be embarrassed. But if Shino-kun so much as looks at you, you blush like crazy."

He grumbled under his breath, pouting, as Akamaru, who was always nearby when Kiba was, barked up at him. "Man, I had it planned out – how this conversation was going to go and everything."

"Maybe you should plan out how you're going to tell Shino-kun."

"How do you know I haven't?"

She tried to suppress the giggle welling up in her throat. "You wouldn't be here telling me if you've already talked to him." She brushed her hair away from her face, unknowingly smearing dirt across her cheek. "You should do that. You'll feel better if he knows."

Kiba closed his eyes, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Yeah, I know. That's what Naruto said too."

Her eyebrows shot up. "You told Naruto-kun?"

"Well, kind of," his shoulder lifted in a shrug, "it was right after he and Sasuke-kun broke up." His brow furrowed. "Hey, what's up with them?"

She shook her head, standing and gathering the dead blooms from the grass, as well as the offending plants. "Nothing right now. Sasuke-kun had … an incident, that it's not my place to tell you about. He's trying to recover right now." They walked toward the shed that housed the garbage cans. "But they love each other. And I think they're kind of like magnets. They'll come back together eventually, because that's where they belong."

Kiba leaned against the outside wall of the shed, waiting for her to come out. "It's weird hanging out without Sasuke-kun but with Naruto. The two've been attached at the hip for as long as I can remember." He paused and smirked as she came out and shut the door, nodding toward the house. "Speak of the devil."

Hinata spun around. "Sasuke-kun! Where's Neji-nii-san?"

"Collecting sodas from your mom, I think." He looked around. "She ambushed him and wouldn't let me help."

"Why are you here?"

"I was going crazy in my own place. So Neji said we could come see you."

Kiba studied him. He looked undoubtedly like Sasuke in the way his expression was smugly superior, but his hair hung limp, had lost its sheen; his eyes were empty, sad; and he seemed so frail Kiba felt like he'd fracture his arm if he touched it. He didn't know what had happened, but it must have been pretty awful.

Neji ran out then. He looked tired, but humanly so, like he hadn't slept well the night before. He handed out Cokes, brow furrowing at the sight of Kiba and his dog. "What're you doing here?"

The younger boy's eyes narrowed. "I came to see my best friend – got a problem?"

"Stop it." Hinata said pointedly, tossing one of those looks at Neji that only he could read and the same kind of gaze – but different – at Kiba. "Why do boys always have to compete?"

Kiba rubbed his head into the crook of her neck in a dog-like gesture of affection. "Just over you, Hinata."

Neji growled, pulling her away from him. "You're an asshole, Kiba."

Kiba snickered and Hinata defended him. "Neji-nii-san, he's done that since we were little. It's like a hug."

He wrapped an arm around her. "Don't know how I feel about him hugging you either."

"Hey, where's Shino?" Sasuke asked suddenly, reminding them he was there.

Kiba blushed, and Hinata hurried to answer to draw attention away from it. "He'll probably be over later. Why do you ask?"

"Well, Naruto had a point." he shrugged. "You three are like a package deal. There's never two of you without the third being nearby."

Once again, like he was being cued, Shino appeared from around the house. Unexpectedly – to Sasuke and Neji anyway – Kiba pushed himself off the wall and ran over, hugging him tightly. Shino, surprised, stumbled backwards, his face unchanging, but Hinata knew him well enough to notice the ghost of a smile.

Neji blinked. "Are they together?"

"I think they will be in a second." Hinata smiled excitedly. "Kiba-kun was here telling me how he felt about him." There was a brief awkward kiss between her two best friend, and she squealed, running to them and throwing an arm around both of their necks.

Neji shook his head, chuckling, and turned to Sasuke, whose face was closed in a nostalgic dejection, and he immediately felt awful. "Sasuke?"

"I'm okay." He forced a smile. "I … miss Naruto a little, I guess, or maybe I just miss that moment, when everyone found out about us as an us. Maybe I just miss being an us. I don't know."

"Maybe you can -"

"Let's face it, Neji." Sasuke turned miserable dark eyes on him. "We'll never be what we used to. We both have too much baggage."

The Hyuuga shrugged, pulling his hair back and tying it so the wind didn't blow it into his face. "We have to learn to carry that baggage and be happy at the same time. Naruto's always going to love you – you don't get to decide that for him. And you love him too. Someday, you two'll be together again."

Sasuke watched Akamaru bounce excitedly among the three best friends, not sure what was going on, but happy that they all had smiles on their faces. "I liked you better when you were a cynic."

He smirked. "It's hard to be anywhere near cynical around a girl with as much hope in her as Hinata-sama has."

"Wonder if she'd share some of that with me."

"Sasuke-kun, Neji-nii-san!" she spun toward them as if she could sense they were talking about her. "Everyone's staying the night to celebrate!"

"I like how she didn't ask if we wanted to," Sasuke murmured, sarcasm staining his voice.

"You're just saying that because you wanted to spend alone time with me." Neji gave him a cheeky smile.

Sasuke scowled, stalking over to the younger Hyuuga. "I'd love to stay." He said in his politest voice, eyes narrowed pointedly at Neji.

Hinata looked from one to the other, wondering what Neji said to make him angry. "O … okay." She managed a smile, scratching her cheek, and blinked at the dirt that came off on her fingertips. "I need to take a shower. You guys can entertain yourself for half an hour, right?"

Kiba, Neji, and Sasuke had already formed a circle of death glares.

Hinata sighed, turned to Shino. "Will you make sure they don't kill each other?"

"Shouldn't be too hard." He reached out and grabbed Kiba's collar, pulling him away from the others so that it became just a two-person match. "You would be the first to lose it and hit someone." He explained when his as-of-now boyfriend protested the action.

Kiba huffed. "I don't know if I like you anymore."

"You don't have to." Shino said in the monotone they knew him for. "You love me."

Kiba flushed darkly at the statement, opting to grumble under his breath rather than deny what was true.

Hinata smiled. It didn't seem like their relationship as a couple was going to be any different than them being friends – except maybe a few perks. She blushed at the thought and ran toward the house, wondering how she could even think something like that.

0

Hinata rolled her eyes, leaving the bathroom to run into her room and dress. She could hear the boys in the den, yelling over who got to used to GameCube next. She rubbed a towel over her wet hair, jumping slightly when the phone rang on her desk, and picked it up. "Hello?"

"Hinata?"

"Hi, Naruto-kun." She stood in front of the mirror, running a brush through her hair. "How are you?"

"I'm fine. I called to ask about Sasuke."

She hesitated, not wanting to tell him he was at her house. "Sasuke-kun is fine. He's doing much better. He was crying himself to sleep for a while, but he hasn't since Friday."

"Friday? What was Friday?"

"Neji-nii-san took him bowling." She giggled, remembering. "Sasuke-kun didn't want to back out of the challenge."

"I wish I could have seen that." Naruto's voice was thick with longing.

She sighed, tapping her brush lightly on the edge of her dresser. "He talks about you a lot, you know." She admitted, her voice quiet. "Remembering things you did together, missing you a lot."

"It's good to know." He whispered. "I don't want us to fall apart because of this."

"I think you've already fallen apart." She replied honestly. "I think you each need to put yourselves back together before you can be together again."

There was silence on the other end of the line. Hinata almost thought he'd hung up until he spoke up softly. "Tell him I love him, will you?"

She smiled gently. "I don't need to. He already knows."