Here I am again!

When I was originally writing this (which was immediately after I posted last chapter), it actually stretched into 3,660 or so words and I thought of how annoying it is when chapters are so long. I don't know about you, but I always zone out halfway through in a superlong story...even a superlong paragraph. So many words at once, I can't handle it! And what's the point of posting if nobody can stay awake long enough to read? So I divided the work I did into 2 chapters, though it was originally one.

Also, thanks for the reviews I got.

Don't own.

Chapter 8 (shall I say part one?) Hinata's eyebrows shot up behind her thick bangs.

Sakura's house was beyond clean. Hinata had only been in her room and up and down the stairs. Past the stairs and down a hallway, where Sakura was escorting the group, there was a tidy living room, spotless kitchen… it was all blank and white and smelled a little like lemons.

"Help yourself, Choji." She rolled her eyes at the red-haired boy who was grabbing a bag of potato chips off the unsoiled counter.

"S-Sakura, it's really… um… c-clean in here. W-won't your parents get mad if we mess it u-up?"

Hinata seemed to be the only person concerned.

"They sure would." Sakura agreed. She smirked. "Furious. But we're not going to."

"Then wh-where –" she was always afraid something chaotic would happen.

"Just wait," there was a small trace of annoyance in Sakura's voice. Hinata sensed it and bit her lip.

Sakura showed them out the back door to a small backyard. She lead them up a steel ladder that came out at a flat spot above the garage. There was a picnic table and a window by the side of the house, and she mounted the table and used the window as a second step up to get higher. Then she gripped the edge of the gutter and scraped her white tennis shoes against the brick wall. Finally, she rolled onto the roof and stood.

"Ta-da!"

Everybody stared at her, as if climbing up onto the roof had attracted aliens with multiple heads that were going to eat them all. Naruto even took a wary step back.

"C'mon! I've done this a million times! The roof isn't even that slanted," she jumped around to confirm her statement. "The hardest part is getting up here. And if you fall – which you won't!" she added, bringing her hand to her mouth like she was taken aback at the very idea, " there are bushes on either side to break your landing."

Ino grinned mischievously and jumped onto the table, stuck her foot in the window, clutched the edge of the gutter, and clambered onto the roof after Sakura.

Shikamaru folded his arms across his chest and sighed heavily. "Can't you just stay down here? You girls are so troublesome…"

Naruto came up next, snickering all the way. While standing in the window, he started wobbling. His arms thrashed wildly and he screamed and cursed, his performance far over the top.

Hinata's heart lurched when she saw Sakura lean down and seize his hand. And his other hand. She dragged him up and a strong surge of jealousy swept over Hinata. Suddenly, she had to be up there with them, with him.

So she set her purse on the table and joined the three already on the roof. What's more, she had absolutely no trouble getting to the top. It was quite easy. Hinata questioned if Naruto only executed that little dilemma so Sakura would be able to grab his hands and "pull him to safety".

She cleared her mind of the thought at once, as Kiba followed her up with the same athletic smoothness, and after him came Shino. Hinata couldn't even tell if he wanted to or not, but he was up anyway.

Hinata sat down and admired the scenery. It was a cool, clear night. She liked to think that the wind in the air had pushed all the clouds away all from them for them, so they could see the shining stars and crescent moon.

"Just you and Choji," Ino cupped her hands around her mouth to highlight the distance between her and Shikamaru. He shook his head stubbornly and sat on a lawn chair, stargazing.

"Hey, Choji, there's more food up here!" Choji, who had already eaten half the bag of potato chips, turned his attention to Sakura.

The pink-haired girl was walking over to the far side of the roof by the chimney. Near the edge, there was a trapdoor under the shingles.

"You keep stuff on the roof?" Naruto seemed amazed and impressed.

"Yeah, I told you. I go up here all the time," Sakura dug around the hole in the roof to pull out a bag of chips, "Most of the food I have up here is crap like junk food."

Hinata was intrigued by the way the trapdoor blended in so well with the actual roof.

"How did you get that up here?" Kiba asked, as if he had been reading her thoughts.

"It's always been here. I think the people who had this house before us installed it. My parents don't know about it, though,"

She opened her mouth to say something more, but was stopped by Ino.

"Welcome up, Choji!" Ino was still sitting at the other side of the roof with her legs dangling over the rim, swinging back and forth. The denim on her jeans flapped. She glared at Shikamaru. "C'mon," she stretched the last syllable with a whiney tone.

"For me?" Though she had batted her eyelids one time too many and her voice was over-coated with sugar, Shikamaru sighed and stood up.

After getting up onto the roof – and taking his sweet time at that – Ino beamed and gave him a cute peck on the cheek.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Shikamaru grunted and looked away. Safe bet he was blushing. Hinata giggled at them.

Sakura delivered the fresh bag of chips to Choji, then skipped back to her "Secret Compartment" in the roof. Hinata analyzed at her pink tennis shoes. Were there magnets in the soles? Was the roof made out of metal? Or maybe her shoes had suction cups on them. She waked around with such incredible ease, whilst Hinata was afraid to stand up. Especially in the dark.

She took a deep breath and carefully rose to her feet. Right when she was standing steadily, loud music started playing, coming from Sakura's direction.

Hinata felt herself losing her footing, the music had surprised her. She purposely fell back into a sitting position so she wouldn't look stupid flailing her arms around and falling off the roof. Maybe she could crawl around on the shingles all night….

Scratch that.

"Hey, guys! Come over here!" Sakura called over the music. She must keep a boom box up there, too. With no consideration to the neighbors. Hinata smiled at the thought of Sakura dancing on her roof to the earsplitting music playing. That had to be fun. To be in Sakura's place, for sure, free to do whatever without any worries. Hakuna Matata all the way.

Hinata tried standing up again, more familiar with the pounding music, and walked with her arms out spread wide, like she was a tight-rope walker over the ocean.

The eight sat in a circle by the chimney. Hinata silently wondered why Kiba chose to sit next to her.

"Have it, Shino?" Sakura asked, her tone of voice 100 percent "nudge-nudge-wink-wink-eh"?

Shino sighed and was probably rolling his eyes.

From the folds of his extremely large jacket, he pulled two short bottles of… sake.

It wasn't much of a shock to Hinata. She knew it would happen, saw it coming from a mile away. She was pretty glad, though, that Shino had only brought two.

"Hmm…" Sakura tapped her finger over her nonexistent goatee and said quietly, "Looks like we're gonna have to share." Then she shrugged and stashed the bottles in her Secret Compartment so they wouldn't fall into the bushes.

"What now?" Ino asked, leaning forward onto her hands.

Sakura's shrugged again and smiled calmly. "Dunno. Guess I was so excited I didn't really plan anything."

"Then can I suggest something?"

"It's either truth-or-dare or spin-the-bottle, I swear," whispered Shikamaru to Choji.

Ino pouted. "Is there something you'd rather do?"

This time it was Shikamaru who shrugged. Choji not-so-quietly chomped down on another potato chip.

"Then which one do you guys prefer?" Ino asked the rest of the group, as though everybody had heard Shikamaru's comment.

"Let's have a vote!" Naruto punched the sky with much gusto.

"I was supposed to say that!" Sakura punched Naruto with even more gusto. "Let's have a vote!" she repeated louder and more defined, her fist reaching an inch farther than Naruto's had.

"All for truth-or-dare," all the boys plus Sakura had their hands high into the night air. Hinata was just confused. She sort of wanted to play truth-or-dare, because that was what Naruto wanted, but she sort of wanted to get a chance to kiss him by playing spin the bottle. What's more, she didn't know what people would make her say or do in truth-or-dare.

"C'mon, the night's still young," protested Ino, "We can play both, can't we?"

First Sakura glanced up into the stars, like she was trying to prove that the night wasn't as young anymore. Then she laughed and nodded.

"Cool. Hey, guess what!" she turned around and pulled the bottle of sake back from her "Secret Compartment". "One for each game? Maybe we'll have extra!"

"Truth-or-dare it is!" Naruto declared.

The entire time, Hinata was looking around the circle, studying everyone's reactions. Naruto was clearly stimulated by this activity of choosing activities. Shikamaru looked bored. Then again, Shikamaru always looked bored. Choji was eating. Shino was unsurprisingly unreadable. And when she got to Kiba… she didn't get to see. When she had looked over at him, he had been looking at her the same time. Hinata had pried her eyes away within a second.

"Oh! Rules." Sakura said abruptly.

"Rules?" asked Naruto.

Sakura sighed. "Rule number one… keep it close here. Nobody jump off the roof." Easy enough. "Rule number two…whoever is first will choose what the dare or truth will be, after they say the question or dare they wait 2 people before doing another. Rule number three… this is confidential, whatever we say, if we say anything interesting," she stopped, "Um… that's all I got. Anybody else have any ideas?"

They were all was silent. It was only truth-or-dare, not much left to cover.

"Kay, then who wants to start?"

Nobody spoke. Hinata presumed Sakura would want to go first.

"How'bout you, Hinata?" Sakura's bright voice had totally caught Hinata off guard.

"M-Me?"

"Yeah. You've hardly said anything all evening. Now, truth or dare?"

So there's part one.

FYI, I have never had sake or anything... and you have to keep in mind they're only teenagers who just want to have fun & do whatever.

- jiao !