Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine.

Hinata sat alone in her room, a cup of tea in front of her. She stirred the tea and drank the content slowly. It was amazing how a cup of warm green tea mixed with lime flavored honey affected her. She used to drink it every time she need to relax, usually after a nasty day of training and a cup of green tea in the afternoon was enough to heal her sore muscles, but today she had different reason, she just got back from a mission today, in which, she was pretty proud of her self, she didn't screw. It wasn't a typical mission with her teammates, in that mission she was working with Naruto and Chouji. The Hokage said that in the mission several unique abilities are required so that was why she chooses those three. But she knew better, the reason why the Hokage put them together because there was no other ninja available at that moment. Shino and his dad was away on a mission, Kiba couldn't go because Akamaru's leg was injured in their last mission. As for Chouji, he was left out by his teammates because he was sick so he couldn't join the mission with his teammates.

A mission with Naruto was not her choice, not after her confession to him, at least not this soon. But it was the Hokage's order and she did have nothing to do, except for her private training with Neji. With Naruto being so close to her for days she couldn't help but feeling rather uneasy, awkward, and nervous around him. But Naruto was actually nice to her, and treat her just like nothing was happen between them, but then again there was never been anything between them. She was glad that Naruto still want to be friends with her. She couldn't deny that she still felt something for him, but her logic keep reminding her that the closest relationship she could have with him is to be his friend. Except that she found it so hard to pretend that she wanted to be just his friend.

She still had so many things to think about without Naruto added to the list. Her training was getting much, so much difficult and hard than before. When she recall, this had been going on for weeks now. Sometimes it was just so boring working for the same technique over and over again and yet she hadn't mastered it. Lack of confidence, her cousin once said. The question was how she could be more confident with herself. She was always been the shy, stuttering Hyuuga Hinata. She didn't have the flamboyant nature of the Hyuuga, couldn't speak her feeling audaciously. She couldn't quite understand it, she grew up in the luxury as the Hyuuga heir, and everyone treated her respectfully, bow their head so low when they met her, asking her if she, in any way, need their help. As long as she remembered, she always felt uncomfortable with that kind of treatment toward her. She thought that she didn't deserve that, for she hasn't done anything substantial for the clan. But they said that just how it was supposed to be.

Her mind wandered to her training again. She had to do something to perfect her technique. Confident, like every other Hyuuga would ever be. Her father, her sister, and her cousin were all self assured person. If that was the case she just had to be confident like them, right? But again, how she supposed to do that, if being confident mean that she has to be like one of them, then that was a hard thing to do. His father was such a formal person, civil, never had he done anything clumsy. Her sister, though she was a few years younger than herself, had shown elegance of a Hyuuga. Her cousin, well, the genius. He was the role model for most of her younger cousins. She overheard some of her younger cousins saying about wanting to be strong like Neji a few days ago. Actually she heard that kind of talk more than once. Neji was strong, reliable, and sort of nice too (sometimes), yet he was still kind of haughty, or maybe haughtiness was a Hyuuga-thing.

And of course Naruto, he was a confident person too, but he was also nice with everyone else. He always made people around him happy. She smiled on the thoughts of their missions, how he never wanted to be only the second best. Like in their 'Treasure Hunting' mission when they were 12 years old, he didn't want to follow Kiba's direction and preferred to have his own way, it was full of twists and turns and although Kiba had more logical way of thinking, she was walking another way with Naruto, because she wanted to be around him all the time. Yeah, Naruto was such a confident person, friendly, he really cared for his friends, loud, but she liked the loud and genki Naruto. Whenever he was around, she always felt so happy that she couldn't speak to him without the entire stutter and nervous. She was shy, yes, but it doubled with Naruto near. Everything about him made her madly in love with him.

He would be a good role model for her to boost her self-confident, but no… She need to stay away from Naruto for the time being.

Thanks for her weeks of training most of her time was spent inside the Hyuuga compound, she had a something else to think instead of her heartbreaking. A nice full week to just lay in bed and do nothing, that would do her good actually, time to think it over again, but she couldn't simply do something like that, because her family would start asking and annoy if it wasn't out of worry.

On the way to the kitchen, she spotted her cousin on the training ground, doing some new stance, she had never seen before. She looked at him in mild incredulity for some time, he was indeed live up to the name of the Hyuuga genius. His moves were precise. He told her that he didn't have much time to supervise her training all the time. She had no objection about training on her own for some time, maybe it was a good change. She could be more relaxed and be less nervous without him around criticizing the wrong moves. Although their relationship had gotten better since the chuunin exam three years ago, she was still found him scary. But not in a complete bad way, it's just being near him was so unnerving for her. She continued to watch him every so often on her way to the kitchen. The way he moved his body to train his punches and kick. He was so compatible for being an excellent ninja.

She was so lost in thoughts that she didn't know that he had noticed her and asked her or rather yelled something at her.

"I'm sorry, Neji-niisan. I didn't hear you," she was startled she was thinking about him just then and now here he is asking her things and she wasn't aware of his presence until he had spoken to her which she didn't know also what it was. "My mind was elsewhere." Hinata added timidly, managed to keep her voice steady somehow.

He walked to where she was standing, in the hallway. "I was just saying, I have to, yet again, cancel our training. I have to go to Wave Country tomorrow, the Hokage want me there for about a month to be her envoy."

"Oh…sure it's alright. I can train on my own, Neji-niisan. You have given me the basic moves and… um… don't worry, I'll do my best to accomplish it." She tried to give her most convincing smile to him but then lowered her head when she felt it falter. She always seemed to find something fascinating to stare at on the ground whenever he was around.

Can she really do it without him, without his guidance? But you wanted to change, right, to do something on your own. So this was something she could do to impress him, so Neji would know that she, Hinata, can do something great too or she was going to disappoint him if she didn't true to her words. No…no…no…don't think about the negatives now. You can do it… you can do it… you can do it… That's better.

"Hinata-sama, are you okay?" he saw her spacing out again. Did she have something troubling her mind?

"I'm sorry…"

"Is something wrong?" he asked her, was that concern emanated in his voice. No, surely she heard him wrong.

"No… it's nothing, I just… I will do my best, Neji-niisan." she bowed her head respectfully.

"Hinata-sama, please don't do that. I can't have the heir of the clan bow her head to me. It's inappropriate." he said sternly.

"But, Neji-niisan is also my sensei. Certainly I have to respect you. Thank you, Neji-niisan." she smiled warmly at him, her nervousness was somehow lessened seeing Neji's anxious face.

He returned the gesture and curved his lips, not quite a smile but it was not an unfriendly smirk.

"I was on my way to the kitchen to return this," she showed the lime flavored honey and the tea, "If you want, I still have some in my room."

"Thanks, but I still have some more moves to do." he nodded his head and went back to the ground to resume his training.

She watched him doing all of his super powerful technique, wondering was that the one thing she didn't have to be the heir everyone in the clan expected. The delicacy of his moves entranced her. Neji-niisan was so confident in his every move, the way he speak make people listen, really listen to him. He was able to master Kaiten on his own, despite the fact that the technique was to be taught to the main house members only. The more she thought his cousin achievement, the more she realized that she had found the role model for her 'be more confident action'.

tbc

A/N: Here's chapter 3, I hope you like it!! The missions part was inspired by the actual anime series, where Naruto, Hinata and Chouji went on a mission together, but I forget the title ;

Enjoy and please review!