NaruHina: High School, Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Meeting strangers... and a dear one.


As the blond boy walked through his homeroom door, he immediately heard the chatter. 'So Kakashi hasn't arrived yet?' he thought. Then he looked at the clock on the wall and his eyes widened. 'The lesson's almost over! That MUST be a new record!'

"HEY KNUCKLEHEAD!" shouted a loudly girl voice. Naruto, because he knew it was him she meant, turned his head to look at a pink haired girl. She wore a pink t-shirt and green jeans, her hair sat up with a red hair band. Naruto began to run towards her through the classroom. It wasn't hard; those others instinctively pulled away from him because of his reputation. Mostly, the chatter will stop until he had passed, so Naruto often got the feeling it was him they talked about. "What took you so long? I mean longer than normal..." Sakura said as he showed up in front of her.

"I just happen to bump into a new student," he said and grinned while thinking about it.

"So what?" asked Sakura, while sitting back to her chair.

Tamari, another blonde with four ponytails who sat in front of Sakura, turned around to her and smiled a suspicious smile. "Come on, Sakura! I bet it was another slut since he's smiling like that."

Naruto got hurt by this. Even his friends partly believed the meaningless rumours someone had thrown on him right after he entered this school. They said he was a typical bad-boy; that kind who has sex with every girl he meets, always ends up fighting in the schoolyard and kill random people at night. That was his reputation so almost everyone back away from him.

He looked around and saw really few of his gang here. "Where are the others?"

Sakura shrugged. "Anywhere and everywhere, I guess... Sasuke still hasn't come back, nobody has seen Gaara today and Lee has his extra physic class right now."

As she finished speaking, the door got slammed open. The blonde one turned and saw his masked teacher standing in the hallway. 'Man... I mean it, this must be the record,' he thought and sighed before joining the others, shouting: "YOU'RE LATE, KAKASHI-SENSEI!"

He just smiled under his mask. "Sorry, but I had to pick up a-"

"YOU'RE LYING!" the class interrupted him.

He shook his head. "No. I had to get the new student before..." he looked at the wall-clock. "Oh. The class is almost over..."

Naruto stepped forward. "New student?" 'Could it be...? No, I don't think so. New students are arriving almost every day...' His hopes landed on the floor.

The teacher face-palmed himself and stepped aside, revealing the dark-haired girl Naruto had bumped into only minutes ago. She looked nervously at the ground while playing with her fingers, her glance at the floor. Everyone looked curious at her.


Hinata felt her cheeks heathen up as she slowly raised her head. Her eyes widened and she took a sudden breath as she saw how many it was. She was used to five at the most, but here it was at least thirty! Her body began to shake lightly as she heard some of them whisper to each other. Then a voice called for her: "Hinata!"

Her head popped up in the direction of the familiar voice. More people began to whisper as she saw someone make a way though the crowd. "Naruto?" Hinata asked aloud. She straightened up to get a better look and caught sight of spiky blond hair moving towards her.

The teacher sighed beside her and began to leave the room. "The lesson's over. Naruto, please show miss Hinata to her next class since you obviously know her." With that he was gone and Naruto stood next to Hinata with two girls trailing after him.

Naruto grinned at her. "Are you starting in my class?" His blue eyes melted like blue lava as she looked at him. She shook away her dizziness that began to overwhelm her.

"Obviously, yes," Hinata said and smiled to him. Naruto then turned his head to his left, as if someone had called for him. When he looked back at her, it was like most of his enthusiasm had left his face and he had a partly hurt look in his beautiful eyes.

But then he turned her around, grabbed her shoulders and began to shove her out the door. The two girls, one pink haired and a blonde one, followed them to the corridor. It was a lot of students there all ready, but the corridor was huge enough to still have much space left. Naruto stopped shoving her when they came across one of the big windows no one else seemed to find interesting. Hinata turned to face him with a somewhat confused expression as he leaned onto the window. The yellow morning light made his hair sparkle as his blue eyes were fixed on the sky with the same colour. Hinata decided to sit in the window while waiting for Naruto to explain.

The pink haired girl found them and gave Naruto a frustrated look. "Naruto, what the heck was that about?! She just started here two minutes ago!"

Naruto sighed. "Hinata is used to it." Naruto winked at Hinata before closing his eyes.

"Huh?" said the girl. She looked confused from Naruto to Hinata, but Hinata nodded to her. She snorted like it was something like this everyday. "Hey, I'm Sakura. Nice to meet you!" She shook Hinata's hand and leaned in to her, her green eyes fixed on Hinata's face. "He doesn't usually do that to the newcomers," she whispered to her, knowing Naruto could hear her.

The dark haired girl smiled at her new friend. "I didn't think so either. But why did you push me out here?" she asked, turning to Naruto.

Naruto's eyes, as if he thought about something painful. "The others began to... talk."

It made no sense to Hinata, but Sakura seemed to understand right away since she patted his arm. "Even so Naruto, I don't think shoving her out and away from the others will help it," she told him.

Hinata was even more confused now. "Help what?" But then the other girl, the blond one, appeared and grabbed Hinata's arm gently.

As she dragged her along to the right end of the corridor she said: "I'm Tamari! Now, we got to get to the cafeteria. The others are waiting!" Hinata wasn't sure if she talked to her anymore. Naruto and Sakura followed and together they squeezed themselves through the crowd who gathered in front of the cafeteria doors. Naruto took Hinata's hand to not lose her among the other students. ...or she lose him.

When it was some space to move inside the enormous hall, a voice called out in disbelief: "Lady Hinata?!"

She stopped moving, which caused Naruto who was right behind her, to crash into her. But right then, Hinata couldn't care less. Naruto mumbled confused about the 'Lady' thing as Hinata turned her head to her right. Her heart lost some beats. Standing ten meters away was a boy she knew well. He had long brown hair and the same eyes as Hinata. He wore something simple as he used to do before; a brown t-shirt and jeans.

Hinata's lips moved but no sound could be heard from the girl. Sakura, Naruto and Tamari were confused as they looked from the boy to Hinata. Then Hinata found her voice again. "N-Neji?" she asked him, her voice shocked and a little sad.

Neji didn't need to do much but get a soft expression. That was enough for Hinata drop her bag as she charged towards him, dodging students, food and tables with such professional skills it stunned the three friends behind her. Hinata didn't know she cried before she finally embraced him. Neji locked his arms around her, holding her tight to his chest. Then he whispered to her: "What are you doing here, Lady Hinata? Something happen at the estate or with the company?"

"No, not really" she whispered back to him. She slowly began to realise the previous loud cafeteria had turned silent, like everyone watched them. Like Neji had never embraced a girl before and this was the biggest thing that had happen today.

He lowered his head. "Then what are you doing here?"

Hinata's eyes shot up and she carefully took a step back from him. Her bangs covered her eyes as she told him, aloud this time: "I just made a deal with him... like you did." She mumbled the last part, but Neji heard her clear enough. As his eyes widened in realisation, Naruto decided to join the conversation. He, like everyone else, hadn't heard their silent whispering.

"So... you know Neji, Hinata?" Naruto asked her and looked sad again as he came up beside them. She didn't pay much attention to his question because right after, Neji grabbed her arm and forced her to look at him. She almost got afraid of how intense he narrowed his eyes at hers.

His voice shook as he asked her: "What... what did you trade?"

'Only my free mind and freedom, Neji' she thought silent.



To be continued...