Hey everyone! xD Chapter five is (finally) up! Enjoy.

Chapter 5 – Lost

Hinata's heart thumped erratically as she tried to think of something to say to calm him down. BREATHE. BBBRREEEAAATTTHHHHEEEE. Ok, the fact that his face was like literally a centimetre away from her face did not help.

"Answer me!" he said harshly.

Hinata tried to talk but her words seemed to have choked up in her throat. She tried to swallow but she seemed to have just frozen. Why on earth was his eyes so hypnotizing??! It was like staring into a deep pool of cerulean blue…NO HINATA!! NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO BE HAVING THOUGHTS LIKE THAT!!

"I-I…"

His eyes narrowed dangerously and he leaned in even closer to make out her words.

She started sweating. She could feel his hot breath breathing hard onto her skin. She could see that he was topless. She could…OHMYGOD…

It became too much for her. So she did the only thing that she could think of.

She fainted.

------------------------------

Hinata woke up to faint murmurings. Blinking her eyes she saw that Kiba and Sasuke were looming over her with a curious look in their eyes. She quickly sat up, startling the two males. It took her a few moments to remember what exactly had happened before. She groaned inwardly...this was going to be one nasty problem to deal with.

"Errr…Hinata, are you alright? You've been out for about two hours…"

She looked up to stare at Kiba with her wide pale eyes. Two hours?? She quickly scanned the room and saw that Naruto was missing from sight. Wait…how did she get here on the couch in the first place?

"Where's Naruto?"

Sasuke and Kiba exchanged a quick glance before Kiba cleared his throat.

"He err…carried you downstairs before he locked himself up in his room"

Hinata's mind went reeling. Naruto had actually carried her downstairs?? The thought of her actually being so…close to him made her blush. But…god, he must be so pissed off at her right now.

"So…what…happened between you guys…upstairs?" asked Sasuke hesitantly.

Hinata looked at him with a confused face. "Eh?"

Kiba and Sasuke started to get flustered for some reason. "Well, errr…we understand if you guys want uum…personal…space…"

Hinata felt her face growing hotter and hotter until she felt like she had been stuffed into an oven.

"NANI?????!!!!"

After that…Sasuke and Kiba both vowed that they would never jump to any sort of conclusions with Hinata.

---------------------------------

Hinata hesitated as she stood in front of Naruto's bedroom door. What should she say to him?? That she was sorry? What if he just slammed the door in her face?? Argh…she felt like tearing out all her hair. Except that wouldn't exactly be advisable and not to mention how embarrassing it would be if she walked around with a bald….FOCUS HINATA!!!!!!! Shaking her head to clear her thoughts she took a deep breath before she timidly knocked on Naruto's door.

No answer.

She knocked again, harder this time.

Still no answer.

Hinata felt her temper starting to rise. This time she knocked with all her strength (which meant practically knocking down the door). Still no one answered. AARRGGHH!! She was about to knock and yell out his name when he finally swung open the door.

This caused Hinata to totter off balance (she was planning to really smash down the door this time) and she landed on top of something…or someone.

Hinata blinked her eyes for a few times before she realized what kind of awkward position she was in. She was lying on top of Naruto with her cheek pressed onto his…well…bare chest.

"Get off me" he hissed.

Eyes widening she quickly scrambled off him and stood up.

Was it possible to DIE from someone's killer glares?? Because that was how she was feeling right now.

Naruto's eyes were a dangerous slit and his normally warm eyes were cold. Hinata felt her heart starting to pick up pace and she felt cold sweat starting to break out.

"I-I'm sor-"

"What are you doing in here?" he said angrily, cutting her off.

Hinata felt her anger starting to rise. Ok, maybe she had accidentally stumbled across something private but still, he DOES not need to treat her like shit.

"Well! Answer me, or are you going to faint again?" he said with a faint smirk playing across his lips.

Hinata felt like she was about to snap. This wasn't the Naruto she knew, he was delirious right now!

"If you have nothing to say, then you better get out right now"

Hinata snapped.

"FINE I'LL GET OUT BUT DON'T THINK YOU'LL EVER HEAR SORRY FROM ME…EVER!!"

Breathing hard she quickly ran out of the room. Idiotic asshole!!! She thought angrilyShe heard a smash from Naruto's room but she didn't give a damn. I'll never speak to him again!

-----------------------

Naruto smashed his fist into the wall, ignoring the throbbing pain. That was not how he should have handled it. He dropped onto his bed and buried his face into his hands. He knew that Hinata hadn't meant it but…seeing that photo again stirred up so many emotions; emotions that he had buried deep down inside him for a long long time. Memories that he had hoped that in time he would forget.

And seeing the photo in the hands of another person made him unbelievably pissed.

Naruto rolled over so that he could stare blankly outside the window.

What was he going to do…?

Hinata and Naruto refused to talk to each other and tried to avoid all sorts of contact for the rest of the week. It was starting to get on everyone's nerves until during one lunchtime Temari finally snapped.

"LOOK, I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN YOU GUYS BUT STOP ACTING SO CHILDISH AND JUST TALK IT OUT ALREADY!!!"

The whole table went silent and all eyes were glued onto Naruto and Hinata…who were sitting at opposite ends of the table.

There was silence for another five minutes until Lee (stupidly) broke it.

"My friends!! Be youthful and talk! I'm sure whatever problem it is, we will be able to solve together!!"

Naruto froze before slamming his fork down onto the table. "You should tell her tospeak; after all, she was the one who-"

"ME?! You were the one who left the stupid box-"

"YOU were the one who went into my room without an invi-"

"YOU were the one who kept threatening me with that stupid photo!!!"

The fight went on, with both sides yelling at each other. The whole cafeteria had gone silent by now to watch the fight going on. Meanwhile the table were trying to Hinata and Naruto down…unsuccessfully.

"YOU'RE A BIG…IDIOTIC ASSHOLE AND I'M NEVER GOING TO FREAKING TALK TO YOU AGAIN!!!!" yelled Hinata.

"FINE!!" yelled back Naruto.

"FINE!!!!"

And with that Hinata stormed out of the cafeteria. Naruto dropped onto his seat again and took a long gulp of his water. He felt eyes watching him so he looked up to see the whole table shaking their heads at him.

"What??!!" he said angrily before returning to his lunch.

But…he couldn't help but feel just a tiny bit bad.

-------------------------------------

Hinata stomped up the corridor in a huff, muttering certain words to describe Naruto. She angrily slid the art room door open, not caring about the huge BANG that it made. Walking in, she was oblivious that a certain rather startled red head was staring at her.

Bringing out a piece of canvas she started to paint rather viciously, using sharp strokes and jabs. Stupid, STUPID jerk…

"…you're going to destroy that paintbrush at this rate…."

Hinata jumped at the sound of the voice.

Looking up she saw Gaara staring at her with a rather amused look on his face.

She started to blush…oh god…he SAW her laughing maniacally whilst jabbing a paintbrush onto a canvas???? (she was imagining that the canvas was Naruto's head). Looking down at her paintbrush she saw that the end was all split and ruined.

Sighing she chucked the paintbrush in the bin and rummaged through her bag to get another one.

"Sorry…" she mumbled.

Gaara felt confused. "…sorry about what..?"

Hinata paused from her painting. What was she sorry for? For ruining her own paintbrush?? For scaring Gaara every time she saw him?? Sorry for being mad at Naruto??

She didn't know.

Suddenly the bell rang for the end of lunch and people started to file in. Conversations started and Tenten had started to try and persuade Hinata to talk to Naruto again; making Hinata totally forget about Gaara and his unanswered question.

However, Gaara hadn't forgotten about it. In fact, he was staring rather dumbly at his painting, hoping that the vivid red and black colours would bring some sort of answer to him. He looked up to stare at Hinata, who had resumed to slashing at her painting and then only to get paint splattered on her face.

He felt himself raise an almost non-existent eyebrow in a slightly amused manner.

The girl was weird….

Hinata sighed as she stretched herself out onto the couch. It had been one hell of a long day and frankly she was beginning to get tired of continuously avoiding Naruto like this. Suddenly her stomach emitted a loud grumbling noise. Hinata sweat dropped…looks like she'll have to grab some food.

Pulling herself up from the couch she made her way to the kitchen to open the fridge…her mouth dropped open. The fridge was empty. Save for the random cucumber sitting there. They had decided to not hire any maids before since they could hardly pay the rent….

"Aawww…man, we're out of food??!"

Hinata turned to see Kiba looking hungrily inside the fridge from behind her. She sighed, "We'll have to go out to buy some groceries"

Kiba wrinkled his nose before yelling out to Sasuke who was flicking through channels on the T.V.

"Oi, Sasuke!! Me and Hinata are gonna go out and buy some stuff for dinner! We'll be back soon"

Sasuke appeared from behind them with a slight scowl on his face.

"No way am I going to be here alone with him in that crappy mood"

Kiba rolled his eyes in an exasperated manner.

"He's STILL sulking?? I'll go up to get him"

Hinata felt her eyes widen and she started protesting. God, she did not want to go through yet another screaming match with Naruto. But Sasuke and Kiba had already gone upstairs to drag Naruto down with them.

Hinata started to panic. Maybe she should just stay at home. The guys could manage by themselves can't they??? She started to slink off to her room…

"Hinata! Where do you think you're going?"

Damn.

She turned around slowly and saw Kiba and Sasuke with a smug grin on their faces and trailing behind them was a sulking Naruto. How on earth had they managed to get him downstairs??

As if reading her thoughts, Kiba mouthed the word 'ramen' to her.

Hinata felt the corners of her mouth turn up slightly…just slightly.

Stupid idiot.

---------------------------------

Hinata felt like she was going to die.

She had been threading her way in and out of the crowded mall, only just managing to keep Kiba, Sasuke and Naruto in sight. She had opted to trail just behind the three males for two reasons:

One- she wanted to avoid Naruto at all costs

Two- she did NOT want to be surrounded by three hot guys, I mean god, what would people think if they saw an ugly girl with THREE majorly cute guys??

Sighing she shook her head to clear her thoughts and hurried her pace to catch up with the guys. Suddenly she stopped by a window.

She pressed her hand against the window and stared at the wooden case of paints enviously. It was the paint set that she had wanted for years!! Her father had refused to buy it for her since he had deemed art as 'useless' and with the savings she had it will take her years to be able to save up to buy it.

Her eyes darted to the price tag and she felt her heart sink.

$627…

She sighed…no matter how many times she had seen the price of the thing it still pained her heart to see the ridiculously high price.

Wrenching her eyes from the beautiful paint set she started to catch up with the guys again.

She stopped in her tracks.

Oh crap.

Her eyes swept desperately through the crowd and she still couldn't find a familiar face.

It was then when reality hit her.

She was lost.

----------------------------------

Where were they??????

Hinata's legs felt like they ere going to drop. She had been looking for a whole hour and she still couldn't find them. She had gone to the supermarket, looked through every aisle, corner and still could not find them.

She couldn't take it anymore. So she found the nearest seat and sat down.

The mall was becoming rather deserted as it was getting rather late, save for the random cleaners and a few stray late-night shoppers.

She wished she knew how to go home. If she did she would have gone back herself straight away. She had never gone out to a mall until now. She had always been afraid of being with such a big crowd of people. That and it brang back a bad memory.

FLASHBACK

A ten year old Hinata clutched at her fathers hand tightly as they pushed themselves the mass of people at the shopping centre. Her father looked down at her coldly and removed his hands from Hinata's grip.

"Hinata, you are NINE already. You should be able to fend for yourself."

Hinata stared at him with wide pale eyes. Why was he being so mean?

She gave a soft yelp when she was roughly pushed aside by another shopper and landed painfully on the ground. No one stopped to help the young girl. Trembling slightly, she pushed herself up and looked for her father.

He was no where in sight.

She started to panic and ran forwards to try and catch up with him. She couldn't find him.

An hour later she collapsed onto a seat and she felt tears starting to form in her eyes. The shop was rapidly becoming empty and Hinata had never felt so scared. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat and she waited.

And waited.

But her father never came.

That was when she started to let the tears fall.

Why wasn't anyone coming? Why did everyone leave her all alone?

Hinata had no idea how long she had waited. Two hours? Three?

Finally she heard footsteps coming towards and she quickly looked up in hope.

"Otou-s-"

She stopped. It was Hinata's maid.

"Hinata-sama! Where have you been? Your father had came back home ages ago!"

Hinata felt her heart stop and she let her head drop to the ground, hiding the tears that were forming in her eyes again.

So…her own father had forgotten about her?

----------------------------

Hinata felt tears sliding down her cheeks and she drew her knees up to her chest.

Was that going to happen again?

Was she going to be left all alone again?

The tears came down faster and she hurriedly brushed them away. No she wasn't meant to cry. She had promised herself she wouldn't cry ever again, and certainly not about this matter. But she couldn't help it. She hated feeling so useless. Okaa-san…

"…Hinata?"

She quickly looked up, her face still wet from tears.

She saw Naruto looking at her curiously and with a hint of worry.

She quickly wiped her tears away from her face. She didn't want him to see her like this. Not like this.

At the same time…she couldn't stop that flood of happiness that was starting to fill her.

"W-what…?" she asked, hiccuping.

Naruto's face softened. "Hey, you alright?"

Hinata glared at him. "I'm fine"

Naruto grinned amusedly. "Yeah…and you're crying your eyes out…?"

Hinata dropped her head and let her hair cover her face.

She heard Naruto sigh. "Come on, let's go"

Someone came.

The tears started falling again.

Someone came.

"Hinata??! What's wrong?"

Her petite frame started to shake from her sobs. No she wasn't supposed to cry. She had promised herself not to cry.

Suddenly she felt a warm hand on her wet cheek and she found herself staring at those hypnotizing deep blue eyes again. She could feel a blush starting to form across her face at the contact.

"Hey, we didn't mean to leave you okay?? It was so crowded today…Sasuke and Kiba went back to check if you had gone back yourself"

She remained silent. They were looking for her?

She heard Naruto sigh and he removed his hand from her face. She missed the warmth of his hand.

Suddenly she was hoisted up and she let out a soft 'eep' in surprise. Naruto grinned and he started to lead her out of the now deserted shops.

Her hand safely tucked away inside his hand.

Hinata blushed slightly. His hands were so warm and big, his fingers slightly calloused from playing guitar.

Hinata felt herself relax.

She felt safe.

They walked out of the shops, hand in hand, and onto the lamp lit street in silence until Hinata broke it.

"N-naruto…"

He turned around to look at her.

"Yea?"

She looked down before whispering,

"I'm sorry"

There was silence between them for another 5 minutes and Hinata thought that he hadn't heard.

"…I'm sorry too…I shouldn't have acted like such a jerk"

He turned around to smile at her ruefully.

Hinata ducked her head down for a few moments before she said hesitantly,

"…so…friends?" she asked like a five year old.

Naruto grinned at her.

"Friends" he replied before turning back around…

…failing to notice the small smile that had crept across Hinata's face.

Whew! Quite a long chapter and a lot of naruhina fluff at the end xD Hope you guys liked it! BTW the 'TALK' between naruto and Hinata will come later…I want to put in more naruhina interaction before that xD

Until next time, s2. everlasting.rainbow