Chapter Two
" Ow! Get off of me!" An annoyed and decidedly male voice snapped.
" Huh?" Serena said looking down, relief still apparent in her voice. She found herself staring into deep black eyes shadowed by long black hair.
"Huh?" She repeated somewhat stupidly.
" Get. Off. Of. Me." The boy said as if she were incapable of processing words at a normal speed. And given her reply that shouldn't really have surprised her.
It was then that Serena realized she the reason her landing hadn't been more painful. She'd landed on the boy. Now she sat on his stomach, legs underneath her. The boy was attempting to get up but, because of her weight, had only managed to lean back on his elbows.
Staring down she was met by a fierce look. The boys face though. He looked so much like someone but she just couldn't place it. The resemblance was very, very strong but for some reason she just couldn't place him. He was defiantly very cute though. Why was he giving her the death glare again? Oh, yeah! She thought and rolled off to one side and stood up.
The boy took a deep breath and Serena wasn't sure whether to be offended or not. She wasn't that heavy. She wasn't totally Olympic athletic but she was in good shape and she was thin as well. Then again the fall could not have helped. Ouch.
Slowly the boy made it to his feet. Serena wanted to extend a hand and offer to help him up but something about him gave her the feeling he would only refuse her anyway. Thus she waited until he was in a standing position and glaring at her again though now it was mingled with curiosity. Serena suspected it, the curiosity, was only now showing up and that that had something to do with the sudden loss of a hundred and three pounds that had been on his stomach.
Serena had a million questions to ask him such as were she was, did he happen to see the hole and what she was doing there. All off them seemed to be good questions to her but somehow all she could say was " Who are you?"
" Is that really the kind of thing you ask someone right after falling on top of them?" The boy asked, evading the question.
Serena snapped into defense mode. " I didn't mean to! I might not be the one who got landed on but I did just fall down a huge hole into who knows where and-"
" Konoha." The boy said.
" -landed on…Huh?" Serena asked confused, realizing she had been spoken to. Her energy seemed to sap after being interrupted. What had the boy said? Konoha? Why did that name sound so familiar.
" Konoha. You're in Konoha." The boy said dismissively. Serena got the feeling he was wondering if there was any way she could have hit her head on the way down.
" Konoha…" Serena murmured. " Where did I hear that before…" She got the feeling she defiantly knew the name. Maybe she'd heard about it in Social Studies when they all did that unit on places around the world.
" Oh. Thanks." Serena said at last. At least now once she met up with someone she could ask for directions home from here without sounding like an idiot. She wondered if they would just give her a map. All she had in her pocket at the moment was two seventy-five for lunch. " By the way sorry for falling on you." Serena said as an afterthought.
The boy nodded in acknowledgement and headed off. Looking around Serena saw the path. It was worn and dirt. Not a good sign. Honestly what kind of modern society has unpaved roads? Maybe this was a park? Or this was Africa? No wait, probably not since the boy wasn't dark-skinned. But then, if she didn't know where she was…crap! " Hey! Please wait a second!" Serena yelled and took off running after the boy.
He stopped and turned to look at her. Slowing down she caught up with him. Up close his steady dark gaze was almost disconcerting. That and, of course, the fact that he was now standing up and looking pretty formidable. " What?" He asked calmly but Serena thought sure she detected a touch of derision.
" Well…" Serena trailed, just happy he wasn't going to leave and now unsure what to say. " If you haven't noticed I'm not from around here and other then feeling like I've heard the name before I'm not even sure where here, Konoha, is. I want to go home but the problem is I'm sort of not sure how I got here to begin with…" Serena sighed, she was rambling. " Would you mind if I stay with you? Not long just until I figure out more about how I got here and then how to get home."
The boy looked at her for a moment. " You don't know how you got ten feet up in the air?" He asked somewhat incredulously, again he had managed to avoid answering. Serena was beginning to think that must be a special talent of his.
Serena bit back a laugh. " No. I don't. Well, I mean, I know I came out of a hole and no I don't know how that got there either. And also in my defense it wasn't there before I started running so its not like I just ran into a hole. It sorta opened and…" Serena trailed off, even to her this was beginning to sound ridiculous and she'd been the one to follow a manga character. Plus she was pretty sure that he wouldn't let her stay if he thought she was a nut job. She wouldn't if it had been her. No matter how cute he was. Then again if someone had fallen on her from ten feet up and there was nothing they could have been climbing she might well have called the cops.
The boy looked at her for a long moment and finally shrugged. " Fine." He turned and started walking down the path again.
" Thanks!" Serena said, practically jogging to keep up with him. " Since I'm staying with you then would you mind telling me your name?"
" Sasuke Uchiha." The boy said. He never noticed Serena stop dead in her tracks and he continued forward without a backward glance, leaving a pair of wide blue eyes staring at his back.