Chapter 3
Chapter 3
A few days after the announcement that the annual festival would be held at the Hyuuga mansion, Hinata was walking through town.
She had already spoken to her best friends and told them about the ball that was one of the main components of the festival, which most ninja attended, and would be held at the Hyuuga mansion, and they had decided time to go shoe-and-dress shopping together. Of course waiting for Tenten to return from her mission.
It saddened Hinata a little bit that, now that she was jounin, all the girls had different schedules so they could rarely spend time together.
Sakura worked most of her time in the hospital, only going on rare missions, this was because she excelled at being a medic, and was only the average ninja, so the best use of her was in the hospital, where she was really needed.
Tenten on her turn, had many missions with the original team Gai, they had all made jounin at the same time, which is why they still stayed as their original team. All members on the team were also viewed as some of the people with most chance of becoming an ANBU within the following year, so none of them had time to slack off.
As we know, Hinata had become a jounin as well, but rarely had missions with Tenten for the above-named reasons, she however, was often teamed up with Shikamaru, Kakashi or Genma. Whom, to Hinata's delight, behaved like real gentlemen when on missions, and they treated her like a little sister, so she had grown close to the men very quickly in the past few months.
All this left Ino, whom still as a chuunin was teamed up with other people and sent on easier missions, and in her spare time she worked at the Yamanaka's flower shop.
So, combine all these things, they all led to that the girls saw each other less, and slowly started expanding their friend group, since they could not hang around together much.
Today was especially one of those days that Hinata missed her friends and her old teammates, she was, simply put... bored. Strolling through Konoha in hope of finding something to occupy her time with.
She passed Ichiraku's ramen shop, and quickly tried to find the loud-mouth blonde, but he wasn't there to keep her company, she thought she remembered him speaking about a mission with Chouji and Ino, which would also rule out going to the flower shop to find company with the blonde. Hey! If you can't get Ino to come to you, you've got to go to her right? Well that plan would obviously not work then.
So instead of just wasting the rest of her day searching company, she decided to go buy some ingredients to bake some brownies for later and also to bring to the sleepover the girls had planned for after the shopping (it was a tradition, that when they were all gathered together for shopping, they would sleepover at one of the girls' houses, and gossip all night long, it originated from the girls having so much pain in their feet after shopping that no one wanted to walk all the way back to their own houses, hence the sleepover.)
She hurried towards the market place, now after the dissappointing trip to town, she did not want to waste more time just wandering around. She passed many of the local shops she usually liked to take a look into, just not today.
She saw several faces she recognised from the mission room, but did not know personally. This made her thoughts once again wander back to her friends, causing her to not pay attention to where she is going.
"Omph!" She had knocked into someone, and fell on the groud. 'This is what you get for not paying attention Hinata' she thought to herself. While thinking this the person she had just walked into turned around and exclaimed a loud "Hinata!".
She turned her face upwards, to face the person she had walked into, when she saw who it was she quickly took the hand that was outstretched towards her, and gave the person a hug. "Kakashi-sensei, gomen nasai!"
Kakashi and her had gone on many missions together in the past few months, she had been on the team with him, Genma and Shikamaru several times, for the wonderful combination of their skills. Her byakugan was an excellent complementary to his nin-dogs. He had quickly warmed up to her, more than he ever had done towards his students, I mean, who wouldn't like the shy Hyuuga-heiress.
"Don't worry Hina-chan" Kakashi answered, using the regular nickname the group had started using for her whenever they saw her. To her he was like an uncle she never knew, while Genma was the overprotective brother, and Shikamaru was the passive brother who she knew she could relie upon no matter what.
"So, what are you doing here all alone Kakashi-sensei? Shouldn't you have Sasuke with you here?" She asked with a sly smirk, Kakashi knew that she was making fun of him, laughing at his misery of having to take care of a teenager, especially someone as stuboorn as Sasuke. But at the same time it made him happy to see how comfortable she had gotten around him. No more stuttering, and openly mocking, he knew that she did not do this with many people and it made him happy that she was more outgoing then before.
"Njae, Sasuke is being babysat by Sakura and Naruto, I just returned from a mission so that is why." Kakashi said with an evil smirk, he knew that Sasuke did not want to be stuck with Sakura and Naruto all day long, of course he had missed them a little bit, but it is always easier to forget the bad parts when you have been gone for a long time, and unfortunately for him, Sakura was still bugging him as much as she used to.
"Speaking of Sasuke" Kakashi continued, "Are you doing anything tomorrow night?" Kakashi asked with a pleading face. Hinata felt he looked so sad, so she just asked "why?". Kakashi was laughing a little on the inside, it was so easy to play Hinata, even though they both knew that he was playing her, she just played along, and kakashi would never ever make her do something she did not want to.
"Could you maybe babysit tomorrow? I've finally managed to get a date, but now I am stuck with Sasuke, but I really do not want to cancel, but you really do not have to?" He added that so she did not have to feel that it was an obligation. She did however see, how much he really wanted to go on a date, it had taken him a long time to get over his fright of getting close to people again since they all seemed to be leaving him right after. Obito, Rin, his father.
It really made them closer, the entire group shared their stories, ánd the rare thing is that neither really had a good background, well excluding Shikamaru, but he did not count. Genma had had an abusive father, Kakashi lost so many people he loved, and Hinata had the whole situation with being an heiress.
"Hey, Kakashi, do not tell me you are going to let Hinata alone with the last Uchiha? If anything, I'll come with her, we need to catch up anyway, and I am not crazy, I know how boys that age are!" Genma said, glaring a bit at Kakashi before giving a Hinata a friendly hug.
"Ano, Im sure I can handle it" Hinata said, while trying to sound as confident as she could, at the same time accepting the offer to go to babysit, even though she was quite sure she would not be that comfortable with the Uchiha around, she wanted to prove that she was a capable kunoichi and could handle such a simple task.
"Hinata, Genma has a point, even though you do not see it, I will not let you babysit alone, we don't know what he might do to such an innocent and sweet girl as yourself" This caused Hinata to blush and turn her head down.
"So, I'll see you two tomorrow at say, 7.00 at the apartment?" kakashi said, while walking away taking out his orange novel and reading while walking.
Genma took his leave soon after, saying something about meeting with Raidou at the gym, and catching up later.
With a sigh, and a smile gracing her lips, Hinata took off on her way home, not caring about the groceries, deciding that she could need some practice herself as well.
She headed home and started training, today's training consister of increasing spead, target practice and reading about preventing people to leave from a battle, basically everything needed for a guarding job, even though she believed that having Genma there would make it all easier, and honestly she did not think that Sasuke would be foolish enough to try and run.
'Well I guess I will have to see about that' she thought to herself, while throwing another shuriken in the middle of the target, without making a big effort.
I'm sorry this update is so late, a lot of things going on, i will try to update soon (with a longer chapter, I feel I owe you guys), but test week is coming up, so I will see what to do it then, soon in is Christmas holidays!! (5 weeks or something), and then ill be updating MUCH! But before then about 4 chapters I think, I hope, and I shall try
Until then....