Warnings: shyness, klutziness, and hopeless musings.
Disclaimer: I really don't own Naruto.

Summary: Hinata muses about Naruto.

Author's note: who says I can't write het stuff?

Title: Fallen for you
Narrator: Hinata.
Rating: PG-13 for mature concepts and sadness.
Author: Taes
Pairings: implied Sasuke and Naruto
Status: complete as it gets, I believe...unless the idea swallows me.
Date written Sunday, August 21, 2005 6:16:00 AM
What I wrote it for: I wanted to write a baby fic. This is the prelude for a Naruto-Hinata relationship. Eventually a baby is born...I dunno if I'll ever finish the idea, though...

Fallen for you...byTaes

I clenched my hands together—briefly—it's so certain….that he won't even see me in here. My cousin eyes me wearily, angrily, even. I bite my lip and look at my thumbs.

I can tell he's annoyed. Even I can tell that…he's watching me, yes, but watching him, too.

A voice tugged at my senses. I turned. "—just so we know that there's a whole business world out there, outside of our own walls—" the strong, deep voice the woman commanded had me envious and forlorn, all at once.

If I were as self-assured, as dominating and driven as she, surely he'd—

—surely he'd…

…notice…

They make the whole place seem too crowded, my feelings for him…it makes the whole place unbearable, really.

"Hinata," my cousin's eyes are commanding. As a senior member of our family—a senior to me, anyways, and a senior in high school—father expects him to look after me…it's been that way since I began elementary school. And so during recess or after school, I'd never been apart from my protector. At first, he played with me—tag or hide-and-seek, and once in a while, House, but then…

He changed.

He stopped smiling at my father, he stopped treating me like a playmate.

His Daddy—my uncle, and twin to my father—had died in car that father was supposed to have taken…it was a car bomb…

…no one knows why, but…Neji's never trusted my father, after that.

No friend could be polite enough, no elder safe enough, not good enough to play with…Neji was nice, to protect me…

All those years. And yet, it was the year he started middle school that I finally got to meet him.

My first love.

My…Naruto.

He moved into my class from out of district, all smiles and laughter to join a family that'd lost their child…an older mom and dad, yes but it was okay…he could walk me to school—even though he rant he whole way and left me a good way behind without a word—and we played sometimes…

Not really a game. It went kind of like this…

Naruto would smile goofily at me, and I'd smile back.

"Hey, Hee-knat!" he'd laugh. He couldn't remember my real name; he always called me 'Hee-knat' as a sort of…um…affectionate nickname, I guess.

And I'd twiddle my thumbs, blush, and look away quickly.

Sometimes, I'd even get out a reply before he bounced away, something like, "Hey, Na-Naruto…" or "H-hello…" even.

I didn't like to say, "Goodbye." It sounds so terribly final, and I don't ever want it to be that way, with him…I'd miss his sweet smiles, and his gently laughing eyes….

As I lurch for a cup of warm tea—tea with milk, as Neji wants, for I'm much too dainty as it is…calcium should build me stronger, but it doesn't—he looks this way.

He's not small in the least…no, he's tall and beautiful, blond of hair and blue of eye, he's an American God in the prime of life…a dream that laughs. Smiles.

...crash! The sound of the falling dish makes me jump too high, makes my cousin frown. I whirl around, and see my dream-in-human-guise rubbing his head. Smiling sheepishly and trying to talk a worker out of a bill.

A smile pulls on my lips. My dream breaks dishes.

It's enough to make a girl giggle, really.

My dearest dream…