Another Host- First Saga
Part 6
Sasuke slowly lifted the ramen noodles to his mouth. His thoughts drifted to earlier in the day.
Today, he had finally passed the test, and become a genin. Master Asuma had been extremely pleased that they had found the scroll so quickly. Sasuke felt grateful that none of his teammates had pointed out that it was an accident.
Asuma had also set the time of their first meeting, which was the day after tomorrow.
"What with the Academy test and now this," he had said, "You deserve some time off. So relax tomorrow. After that, we start our first ninja missions."
Sasuke liked Master Asuma. He was fair and knew how far to push them so that they could improve without giving up.
"There is one more task I have for you to do today, however."
Sasuke listened.
"You need to feel closer to your teammates. You'll be doing missions with them and much more, so you can't be unfriendly with each other."
Bond? With his teammates? Hinata seemed okay, but he didn't want to say a syllable more than he had to with Choji.
"So I'm taking you all out for ramen."
Oh. That didn't seem so bad.
So that was how he found himself here, between Hinata and Master Asuma. So far he had done exactly no bonding.
Master Asuma noticed this. "Come on, team. If you don't at least get a conversation started, I'm making all of you pay for the ramen."
This got Choji's interest, as he had had five bowls so far. Sasuke smirked as Choji sputtered around for something to start a conversation about.
Sasuke decided he might as well say something. "Choji, why do you eat so much anyway?"
Choji looked at Sasuke, half grateful for talking about something, half offended for being asked such a question.
"Um… cholesterol helps chakra."
Sasuke raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Really? I've never heard of that."
Choji smiled. "It's a family secret." He regarded Sasuke with a knowing eye. "But I don't think you're the kind to suddenly want to stuff yourself because you learned that."
Sasuke smiled. "No, I'm not. I'd rather gain chakra on my own power."
Choji shrugged. "Nothing wrong with that."
Asuma had seen this conversation and smiled. "Well, it seems that you and Choji have something to talk about," he said. "I'll leave you to it."
Was his assignment over? It seemed so. But he hadn't done any bonding with Hinata. She was just there in her corner…
But she wasn't.
"Hinata?"
Great. She was gone.
"Hey, Sasuke!"
Sasuke turned around. It was Naruto.
"What's up, Sasuke? Did you pass the exam? How was it?"
Sasuke sighed. Naruto had a habit of asking too many questions. Not that Sasuke blamed him for being curious, but he could have at least held off and asked one question at a time. He had tried to tell Naruto this many times before, but Naruto never got it.
"I'm eating, I passed, and it wasn't too bad."
Naruto tilted his head. "What's wrong?"
Sasuke was at least grateful that Naruto hadn't bragged about what he had done. "Hinata just disappeared, and I have to find her."
Naruto smirked. "Why are you so… concerned for her?"
Sasuke, unfortunately, got the hidden meaning. "Shut up. She's just my teammate, and I'm worried about what might happen to her."
Naruto gave another insufferable smirk. "Fine. Go get 'er, loverboy."
Not stopping to give Naruto a well-deserved "shut up", Sasuke disappeared.
Where was Hinata? Was she safe? In a village full of ninja, she might not be.
Sasuke stopped himself. Why do I care?, he thought. Hinata's a ninja. She's not helpless. She can take care of herself.
Was what Naruto said really true? Stop it. She's your teammate, that's all. Teammates look out for each other.
Most importantly, why was he spending so much time thinking about it? If he really didn't care, would he have analyzed his inner thoughts this much? Was he trying to deny something?
And there he went again, analyzing thoughts of analyzing. He decided to just forget it and look for Hinata.
He found Hinata two minutes later. She was running through the streets to the Hyuga manor.
He caught up and yelled "Hinata!"
Hinata turned around. "Sasuke?"
Sasuke got close to Hinata. "What'd you ditch us for like that?"
Hinata slumped her shoulders, unsure of what to say. She then started stammering. None of which was intelligible, but Sasuke decided to hazard a guess.
"You're nervous around other people?"
Hinata looked shocked, then slumped her shoulders again, then slowly, shakily nodded.
Sasuke sighed. He didn't quite know what to say. He had never consoled a person for being nervous before.
He decided to give it his best shot.
"Hinata, it's okay. You haven't got anything to be embarrassed about."
This aroused Hinata's interest. He continued.
"You're very smart, have good ninja skills, you work great with a team, you're generous and kind…"
There was only one more thing Sasuke could say, and it would embarrass him to no end to say it. But he had to. He needed something to end with, and there was nothing else.
"…and you're very pretty."
Which, of course, made Hinata stop and look at him. This was Hinata's equivalent of gasping and stepping back. She finally got up the courage to talk.
"D…do you really think so, Sasuke?"
"Of course." He meant it, too. Hinata was pretty. But he wasn't interested in her. He tried to get that across as clearly as possible.
"You haven't got anything to be embarrassed of. Get over being so shy. Talk a little. People would appreciate you more if you did."
It was the closest thing Sasuke could give to a heartwarming speech, but it seemed to have the desired effect on Hinata. She stopped twitching, at least.
She gave him a look that spewed gratefulness, and finally said simply, "T-thank you, Sasuke."
Sasuke smiled. "It's all right. That's what friends do."
Hinata looked unsure for a second, and then finally broke out into a smile. "Right, of course!" She held the smile for a moment, and then continued. "But it's getting late. I think I should go."
Sasuke was fixated on her smile. It was beautiful! Why didn't she smile more? Had he fixed that problem?
He realized she was waiting for him to reply. "Oh, okay. See ya."
She smiled that gorgeous smile of hers again and said "See you tomorrow!"
As Sasuke walked away, he had a hard time deciding whether he was more amazed by the smile or the fact that she had gone a full ten seconds without stammering.
Heh, heh… I'm not done with this series yet! I tried separating it with three asterisks, but my previous separators have not worked, so you might be reading this and think this is just another paragraph in the story. I'll level with you: It's not.
I planned to have this up earlier, but the amount of time it took me to write it was longer than expected. Probably due to the many requests for longer chapters. I'm trying my best to address the issue, but sometimes I just can't drag a lot out of a little. Granted, the story is a little longer this time, but it still didn't meet my goal.
P.S.: I stared a new fanfic! It's called Kingdom Hearts: Darkness and Light. So far it has two chapters up. The writing is a little more… sporadic, I think, but I still like it.