Ch.2: Sharing-bento
The next day Sasuke rushed after school towards the spot where he had slept previously.
The boy tried to remember the path he had taken last time as the numerous houses passed in a blur. After a while the buildings started fading as he neared the forest. It was then that the Uchiha ran before the space where Naruto had been the day before, and he found himself feeling a tinge of disappointment originated by the blonde's absence. Sasuke shook his head as if trying to wipe those thoughts away. He should be happy by that annoying boy's absence –'should' being the keyword. Locking those thoughts on the back of his mind, he successfully finally found the clearing.
Sasuke sat under the tree where they had fallen asleep and only had to wait about five minutes for Neji to finally appear. She was wearing her usual attire and was holding a small plastic bag in one hand.
"Hi." He greeted her awkwardly, not really knowing how to act around someone like her. She gave him in response a curt nod. Sasuke wasn't much of a conversation kind of guy but right now he had an idea of how annoying it could be to people for him to answer constantly with curt nods and 'Hn's'.
"And…how old are you?" Sasuke asked in an attempt to start a conversation after a minute of dead silence.
Neji, who was tying bullseyes on the trees turned around, facing him with a stoic expression rather unusual for a 10-year-old stamped on her face.
"I'm 10 and…I assume you are 9, right?" she questioned the Uchiha arching a brow, finally locking him with her gaze.
"Yes, I am." Sasuke had a good idea of what they would be doing since he had already seen –Itachi- someone doing it, but anyways he asked. "Are we going to practice shuriken?"
"Something like that." Neji responded smirking. "You'll try to hit the bullseye and I'm going to try to block them with the chakra on my hands…" she reached for a brown blindfold "while my eyes are blindfolded."
Sasuke was surprised and honestly wondered how she could stop the shuriken with chakra, that statement surprising him more than the fact that she was about to tie a blindfold around her eyes.
"Neji." He called her attention. She finished tying the blindfold and faced him. "Yes?"
"How are you going to block the shuriken?" Sasuke asked grabbing some from his ninja pouch, his own eye staring back at him from the shuriken's blade.
He finally seemed to have mentioned a pleasant subject since she actually smiled.
"You know what us Hyugas have?" she asked him back, positioning herself in the middle of the clearing.
Sasuke tried to remember what his father had told him about Konoha's clans. The Inuzukas' had dogs –that was quite easy, it was prety much self-explanatory-, the Naras had shadows, and he couldn't remember very well the other clans, but he did remember that the Hyugas' had the Byakugan. it had particularly stuck with him since they had a Doujutsu just like the Uchihas, yet he didn't have a precise idea of what that Byakugan could actually do.
"You have the Byakugan."
"And do you know what it does?"
"No." he answered plainly before throwing a shuriken towards the bullseye placed the furthest away from the girl's reach. Neji's smile accentuated, morphing into a smirk. She extended her palm and when the shuriken was inches away from piercing her hand's skin it suddenly was pushed away by a seemingly invisible force, falling on the ground.
"The Byakugan allows us to see through the chakra network at a more intricate level than the Sharingan." She began explaining, her stance relaxed waiting for Sasuke's next attempt.
Sasuke grabbed this time two shuriken, throwing them at a considerable long distance between themselves, seriously doubting her words regarding the Byakugan's superiority.
The girl, with her palm, easily deflected the one closer to her but with the other one she almost failed. Her aloof movements were surprisingly swift for someone with their eyes blindfolded. Sasuke started wondering how good she really was.
"It also facilitates chakra control which comes as normal as breathing for us Hyugas, therefore I can expel chakra from the tenketsu on my hands. That's how I can deflect the shuriken without touching them." She finished explaining to a bewildered Sasuke.
Sasuke was amazed. When they met each other, he had obviously known she was strong, yet not that strong to actually being at his level or even surpass him. He hadn't noticed until that moment that they were quite similar in some ways. They had a rather aloof attitude and did not like wasting words –as well as they both were orphans seeking revenge.
"Can all Hyugas do that?" Sasuke asked mildly amused while throwing four shuriken, each one quiet apart from each other. This time she missed one, the shuriken hitting the bullseye's center. Even after missing one, her smirk accentuated.
"Yes. Every Hyuga over 14 years." She answered him, a tinge of arrogance in her voice.
This time Sasuke smirked.
"So you're a genius." He stated after adding one more shuriken. Sasuke himself was considered a genius, not like Itachi, but still a genius. Again, she missed one, but her smirk did not falter.
"I've been called that, but you are also one." Neji commented.
"I guess." They both dropped into their respective stances and continued training, a small smile playing on their lips.
The evening continued that way until Sasuke could throw ten shuriken at once aiming for dead center –or awfully close to it, and Neji could stop almost every one of them.
Neji was sitting crossed legged in the shade of the tree, sipping from her water bottle when Sasuke wondered if the feeling he was having in his chest was how it must feel having a friend. He sat beside her, finding himself admiring the long and thick lashes which were fluttering while the Hyuga was drinking water. The Uchiha touched his own lashes noticing they were long too. He remembered his mother's lashes were long as well, but the longest he'd ever seen were Shisui's and…Itachi's.
Sasuke really missed his family, and he wanted a friend. Sure, he had fangirls who'd maim someone at the chance of being close to him, but all of them only liked the Uchiha because of their idea of him: a cool guy with good looks. He didn't want to feel alone anymore.
"Neji." He muttered suddenly. The girl opened her white eyes which bore into his and gave him a slow nod indicating him to continue.
"Are you…my friend?" he asked blushing a crimson slightly. Sasuke looked at the ground embarrassed. After spending one afternoon with her, he already knew she was a stoic girl of few words but that did not mean that he didn't wish for a friendship with her. In fact, she was the first person he wanted to be friends with, even though he was truly scared of rejection.
Neji was astonished and, if Sasuke had been looking, he would have seen an event seen once in a millennium. She was openly gaping at him, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly parted. She had never had a friend.
"You want to be my friend?" she asked in response, a surprised tone on her words. With her 'talk to me and you're dead'attitude no one had ever wanted to befriend her, or if they wanted to, they hadn't dared to do it.
Sasuke looked at her and nodded, his face emotionless as always but with a nice pink color tinging his cheeks.
"Well, then I suppose we are friends, but… I am going to be honest with you. I've never had a friend, so I don't know much of what friends are supposed do…" Neji muttered slightly ashamed for the first time of her lack of social skills.
"You're also my first friend." Sasuke interrupted smiling slightly. She watched him in astonishment.
"Why are you staring at me like that?" Sasuke asked, beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable by her bewildered stare. He had never appreciated people staring at him, but with all the fangirls –stalkers- he had learned to ignore it. However, when a pair of white pupilless eyes were staring right at him he couldn't help but feel a little unnerved.
The girl turned her head away, flustered.
"Well, it's just that since…you know, you're an Uchiha, I thought you'd be loaded with friends." She simply responded.
Sasuke shrugged.
"I've never been the 'social type'."
"Neither have I." the girl mused aloud.
Neji nodded and took out her bento. There was sashimi and two pieces of veggie tempura accompanied by some fried rice. She sat crossed legged and broke her chopsticks. Neji was about to begin eating when she noticed Sasuke staring hungrily –in a discrete manner- at her bento box.
"Where's your lunch?" the Hyuga girl asked a bit concerned by his lack of food.
"Well, I kind of forgot… you see, my mom was the one who used to prepare it for me…" Sasuke trailed off. Since last week when he had returned to school, he hadn't been bringing his lunch. The only thing he knew how to cook was rice and that was solely on what he had been feeding since his release from the hospital. His thoughts stopped abruptly when he noticed the bento box under his nose.
Sasuke stared at it surprised and then at Neji.
The girl handed him her unused chopsticks, encouraging him to eat.
"B-but it's your lunch…" Sasuke complained sheepishly pushing the bento away.
"I'm not that hungry, really. Besides, I'll have some dinner back in my compound." She said shaking her head and handing him again the food. Sasuke insisted. Neji shot him an annoyed look and set the bento on the floor for a moment.
"Listen," she began. "when I…lost my father, I was four." Neji paused for a second. "I didn't know back then how to feed myself and the first five months I spent alone I survived by what little the maids were assigned to give me. Then, for three months, I was feeding only on rice and eggs that I was ushered to learn how to cook since each member was busy with their own tasks and weren't that keen on taking care of a kid." Sasuke looked at Neji surprised at her for telling him something so personal, taking into consideration they had just met. Still, he felt some connection with her story. "Until I was five, I learned how to cook myself something decent, it was out of necessity." Her expression was blank, but when she turned at him her eyes were filled with longing behind an indifferent gaze.
"Just eat, okay?" she finished and shoved him the bento on his lap.
Sasuke stared at the bento for a long time before picking the chopsticks up, and hesitantly took a bite of a little bit of sashimi accompanied with rice. The flavors lingered on his tongue longer than necessary and he became aware of one, how hungry he was; and two, how much he missed even the simplest of flavors on the food. If only there was some tomato…
Sasuke finished the bento quicker than expected, for once, forgetting his Uchiha manners. When he was finished, the boy handed Neji the empty bento box and thanked her.
The newly befriended pair spared for a while until it was time to go back to their respective houses. Sasuke didn't have anyone waiting for him at home and dreaded going back but obliged himself to do it, just like he'd been doing it for days now. To that empty compound. Au contraire, Neji, like every child of the branch house, had a curfew though thankfully it only applied from Mondays to Thursdays.
Sasuke and Neji bid their goodbyes and left the clearing with a smile on their faces. 'I'll bring you tomorrow a basic cooking book I have, okay? And if we have spare time, I'll try to explain it.' had been Neji's words. He couldn't wait to learn how to cook food other than rice.
When Sasuke arrived at his empty house, he took a shower, dined –plain rice-, and laid on his bed recalling all the events of that day. If he had known that having a friend was such a pleasant experience, he would have had searched for one long ago.
When Neji arrived at the Bouke's residence at 9:00 sharp –her curfew- she was sporting a tiny –yet not invisible- smile. The guard on the gate greeted her, but when she actually returned the greeting sincerely and he noticed the grin, saying he was left astonished was an understatement.