AN: Thank you all for your support, favourites and follows! really enjoying writing this fic and hope to write some more once this one is done. thank you to all for your reviews. Enjoy the new chapter!

Chapter 4

After the Cab Event, Hinata was moderately certain that Naruto held additional kinder feelings than anger and resentment towards her, this knowledge released Hinata from a desperate compulsion for distraction from her thoughts and feelings, and by association she felt less tense and anxious. Her much more relaxed attitude showed in her visage and in her work ethic. She would be her usual professional, efficient self, but her fingers were no longer knotted from typing well into the evening, her shoulders were not aiming for her skull anymore and she would leave to go home at the contracted hour rather than wait for the nightingale's song. Kiba noticed enough to stop feeling concerned about his friend, though he didn't believe that she wasn't hiding something important.

This easier state Hinata found herself in enabled her to encounter Naruto during the few times they crossed paths with tolerable composure, the air between them was no longer tort with tension, though it still remained full of tedious discomfort. They never spoke to one another voluntarily, and when necessary it was done with strict economy of words. And even though Naruto remained playful and flirtatious with her two cubicle neighbors and appeared to barely acknowledge Hinata's presence, she thought he may have looked her way once or twice.

Feeling more sensible within herself, Hinata was encouraged to attend the weekly lunchtime gatherings the team would take and she felt comfortable enough to consent. She meant to take her usual seat at the polar opposite from Naruto, but instead found that she had been seated before he emerged, leaving her at the mercy of his seating decision, which he took about two places away from her. As usual he had Ino and Sakura fluttering with the privilege of sitting on either side of him. Hinata tried to block out their conversation, but the proximity made it difficult and the topic made it impossible for her not to pay attention as it transitioned from guessing how often Naruto worked out, to his previous relationships.

"Say Naruto, aren't I prettier than the other girls you've been with?" Said Ino, twirling the end of her hair in her finger.

"Psht, I'm the one with the better figure, don't you think so Naruto?" Retaliated Sakura, arching her neck back suggestively.

Hinata, on the pretense of reaching for some salt, couldn't help casting a quick glance his way to assess his reaction to such questions, "Can't really answer that."

"Why? Do you have a secret girlfriend that might get upset at your answer?"

"No"

"Could it be about having previous relationships then?" Ino asked in a jestingly rhetorically way.

Naruto just shrugged his shoulders, "Yeah."

The entire table hushed suddenly, and Hinata didn't know if she felt grateful for the clear access to listen, or annoyed she had no escape.

"Yeah, as in you've had relationships or yeah as in you've not?" Clarified Ino,

"The last one."

"But… but you're so good looking!" Declared Sakura as though that explained everything, "you're lying! You must have had relationships, what girl would turn down a guy like you?" Hinata forced herself to stare at her plate of forgotten food.

"I'm only interested in a relationship with someone I can see myself marrying. I'm old fashioned like that." Hinata wondered if she saw him from the corner of her eye glance her way, or if it was just light bouncing off a fork, "I just haven't found the right woman yet." She couldn't help blushing.

"So you've never…" Hinata could imagine the wheels in Ino's head moving, "never been with a woman?"

Naruto frowned "well, yeah, didn't I just say that?"

"No, as in… you've never… you know… been with a woman" elaborated Ino, she seemed to be blushing herself, not to Hinata's proportions though.

"Beans?" Asked Naruto in complete and utter confusion, "I don't know if I've ever eaten beans with a woman."

"No no no!" Snapped Ino, her flirty side vanishing in favor of a more temperamental angle. "Not beans. Have you… you know…." She tried to explain herself with incomprehensible hand movements.

Naruto's eyebrows rose as he managed to decipher her meaning "Oh you mean sex?" The whole table seemed to have been rendered into a state of shock and discomfort that Naruto appeared impervious to. "Nope." He said contentedly, his visage remaining its usual colour and not a shade redder.

"Woah woah, dude… you're a virgin?" Asked Kiba, who had had the bad sense to sit next to Hinata, making Naruto turn their way to answer and forcing her into his path of sight, making her stare at her lap because anywhere else would be too difficult.

"Yeah" he answered simply

"And… you're okay with that?" He questioned again.

"Yeah." Naruto followed his answer with a nod. Through the haze and torturous embarrassment, Hinata could only wonder at his confidence, he hadn't lost an ounce of it.

Kiba seemed to be the one thrown off, as though his whole worldview had just been thrown into a compost heap. "But but…" Kiba was struggling for words, looking around him as though to make sure this was reality, "How…. How do you cope?"

Naruto just shrugged his shoulders before saying "We're all different." And Hinata gave a soft smile to herself, she loved his ability to express wisdom in small ways.

"Well, you're not likely to get a girl now." Snickered someone from the other end of the table.

"I don't know about that," said Sakura, reinjecting herself into the conversation and licking her lips, "I think it's very attractive." Hinata quietly inhaled and exhaled slowly to herself, she had to agree.

To Sakura, the attraction resided in the irresistible power she would feel in teaching, directing and honing a sexual relationship with someone inexperienced. To Hinata, she felt a traitorous hope that Naruto's celibacy meant he believed in similar attitudes of connection, love and intimacy as she did. For she too was just as inexperienced, her love never fading and her soul vowing to honor her feelings until they changed, meant that she remained repulsed at the idea of another man. Her humanity couldn't deny the sinuous grip in her pelvis, or the elevation in her skin that ached for a man's touch, and she didn't think ill of others who gladly traded their bodies it's one another in the pursuit of pleasure. But to her, pleasure without connection would leave her feeling discontent and alone. Connection with pleasure would be her goal, she glanced at Naruto again, who was busy eating his food with gusto.

If only her heart would move on.

But she knew, it was written within the nucleus of her soul, that her heart, along with the rest of her body, would have no other man.

Naruto chose that moment to look up from his plate and noticed her looking at him, suddenly they were both very aware of one another looking at each other, which was fast approaching staring. This made Hinata blush and plan for an emergency exit to the bathroom. She stood up quickly, scraping her chair loudly against the tiled floor and made quick work of the distance to the toilets.

"Wait a minute Hinata!" Cried kakashi, making her stop in her tracks and turn her head around to look at him. "Are you coming to the onsen trip this year?"

"Onsen trip?" She was very confused, why talk about that among colleagues?

"Every year we get some funding for a team building get away trip. We usually go to the Onsen for a week, will you be joining us?"

An automatic negative was ready and practiced on her lips, when Kiba, and surprisingly a few others encouraged her to attend. "I'll think about it Kakashi-san." She quickly said and continued on her escape.

Locked safely away in her toilet cubicle she let herself flounder in her thoughts. At first she was compelled to agree with Sakura and believe Naruto lying, how could a man like him remain single, for all this time? It was such a waste for the female population to have been denied his companionship, kindness and warmth. Perhaps there had been women who he wouldn't want to discuss, especially in front of all his colleagues, many of whom were junior to him. But when the vestiges of initial astonishment had worn off, she was reminded that it was not in Naruto's nature to lie, and he had answered with such an amalgamation of candidness and confidence that lying appeared very much beneath him and simply futile. His confidence, she reflected with a smile, had only amplified in the distances between them, and she found it not only inspiring as it always had, but magnetically sensual. His disregard for the thoughts of others on his personal beliefs and attitudes garnered her respect as it always had, but this new knowledge of his celibacy raised her esteem of him even more because it was such a contentious topic used to measure the value of a man, and he simply did not care. How was it possible not to feel attracted to that, let alone not fall in love with him?

A second small thought lit in her mind like a wisp of a flame, had he remained single for her? No sooner had she thought it than she cancelled the notion entirely. His evident anger and resentment that had lasted a decade towards her would have made any attachments he might have felt for her near impossible to survive. No, any love for her must have denatured with time and rejection. It must be as he described, that he had just not found a woman he wanted to settle down with. But with his knowledge, confidence and experience, the question remained, why? Shaking her head a little, knowing that she wasn't going to get an answer, she exhaled slowly, calming her nerves, willing her blushing head to recede to a reasonable shade and made her way back to the table.

When Hinata was returning from the bathroom, Naruto's warm voice carried to her, and wanting to delay sitting close to him again, she dawdled a little until she felt safe to move again.

"Is the onsen the one south of here?" Someone responded that it was, "that's great, maybe we could go see some friends of mine down there, they're really great, they wouldn't mind a few extra faces." Sakura responded by commenting on how wonderfully kind Naruto was and how his friends must be too. He reciprocated by inquiring how many attendees were present the previous year and if it was generally felt to be a favorable experience. Ino and Sakura took it in turns to answer him, both ensuring that they would be present to keep him company. He then asked if the same faces would be present this year as the last.

"Probably, unless someone goes sick, or if they're new to the team, like you. I'll be definitely be able to make sure your trip is the most pleasurable one you have." Replied Sakura with a suggestive wink.

Naruto smiled, but said nothing for a moment before asking with what appeared to be delicacy. "How come Huuga Hinata didn't know about the onsen trip?" Hinata's eyes widened in surprise to hear him utter her name.

"Oh thats probably because she started about eight or nine months ago, so she wouldn't have known it's something we do every year."

"Oh."

And unable to resist an opportunity for gossip, Sakura continued "you know, she moved here from her father's company, she was there for ages, was practically part of the furniture there." Here Sakura paused for breath, Hinata couldn't hear or see if Naruto had reacted, but his silence probably meant he was intrigued at the very least, "Then someone tried setting her up with this rich heir guy from a different company, her dad really wanted them to get hitched but rumor has it she said no." Three seconds of silence later and Hinata wondered if Naruto had even heard what she had heard standing two meters away.

"She said no?" His voice held a contained emotion but she couldn't make out what it was, her own emotions were rendering her incapable of clear judgement.

"Yeah, and apparently her dad didn't like that she did. Which is why I think she left to work with us."

"Any idea why she rejected him?"

"No, maybe he was ugly" he hadn't been, "but it's such a shame, Hinata is a sweet person but she's always shy and tense, she could definitely use a bit of loving in her life." A heartbeat later and he spoke again.

"Isn't she seeing anyone?"

"Not that I know of, she's never mentioned a boyfriend, and I think she lives with her family. Boy that must be awkward."

"What about Inuzuka Kiba?"

Sakura gave a girlish laugh, "Kiba is seeing Karin from the second floor, he's besotted too, he's always finding an excuse to visit here there."

"Oh." A pause, and then, "I just saw them talking a lot."

"He's Hinata-san's friend, which is good, she's really quiet so she doesn't have many. But didn't you know that from working with her before?"

"People change." Was all his reply. Hinata then decided to use that moment to sit back down at her seat, though she felt far from safe doing so.

The conversations at the Lunch Event had Hinata reflecting with confusion and curiosity for many hours. It was clear Naruto had noticed her camaraderie with Kiba, which was generally surprising to her as she was convinced he took no notice of her at all, but she concluded the attention pertained to his status as her workplace senior and no other role. The events had resumed a bashfulness in Hinata she had thought she overcame, which rendered her occasionally stuttering in her polite morning greeting to Naruto, but always with blushing cheeks, and though she considered herself to have mastered a tolerable composure around him, she suddenly felt it a Herculean effort to meet his eyes. She saw him the same frequency she always had, which remained a few times a week, and though he continued his attentions with both Ino and Sakura, to the point that their colleagues were now placing bets on who he would choose, Hinata felt that something instinctive had changed in their non verbal dynamic. She just couldn't define it, and despite feeling certain nothing would come to arise between them, she couldn't help but feel very aware of him whenever he was in the vicinity, the question now was when she would recover from these haunting sensations.

It was with these thoughts that she made her way to the team meeting room in anticipation of seeing Naruto again, and she was deciding how best to manage her feelings when she entered the room to find him there already concretely present, and alone. Both startled in shock to find themselves with only themselves, and after sharing a momentary agitated look between them, both desperately averted their eyes to gaze upon anything else in the sparse room.

Silence was threatening to heighten the acute discomfort, hence Hinata, even more shockingly, found the strength to speak first "I thought the meeting had already started." She said in a small voice.

"I think we're still a few minutes early" his earthy voice returned. "The rest should be coming soon" she didn't know whether to feel grieved that he seemed to not want to be in her presence, or grateful that this anxious episode would end soon.

Instead she nodded in response, and in a desperate attempt to occupy herself stumbled towards the opposite side of the room to sit at the table. However, she had overestimated her coordination skills while feeling extremely uncomfortable because she had instead accidentally mis-stepped on her own feet and fell clumsily onto the wall. The impact had been great enough to begin the fall of a large indoor plant, which was fast approaching Hinata in its trajectory. She braced for the impact and closed her eyes shut. One heartbeat, a second and a third passed, and still no impact landed, she opened her eyes to find the houseplant was being restrained by Naruto's strong arm, which was directly to the left of her shoulder and coming from behind her. She gasped in a kind of pleasured paralysis, he was so close. He was so close she could smell his cinnamon scent in the charged air between them. Close enough to touch. He was so close she didn't know what to do, so encompassed in her astonishment and thoughts she thought she may have been standing there in an awkward crumple by the wall for an eternity.

"Can you step to the side please?" Came his warm voice a few inches behind her ear, which she thought shook with some form of restraint. She could feel the moisture from his breath on the shell of her earlobe. Involuntarily, she shuddered, and immediately hoped he hadn't noticed. She collected herself as much as she could and shakily did as he asked, which required her to duck her body underneath and then around his arm. The gyration felt like a dance. Consequently, much needed space grew between them and he was able to replace the plant. Her mortification made her want to run out of the room and to the safety of her toilet cubicle, but she had to turn around to take a seat at the meeting table, this enabled her a view of her savior's face, and she stood further shocked to see him staring out the window, his hands clasped behind his back and his cheeks tinged with slight colour.

Before she could contemplate the meaning of such an uncharacteristic expression, the door suddenly opened, bursting the tension in the room with noise and reality. Hinata welcomed the relief of her colleagues' presence, but was utterly astonished to see a non-employee enter the room instead. Naruto noticed too, and his face turned grave with a set anger almost immediately.

"Aunt Kurenai?!" Exclaimed Hinata.