I met Naruto Uzumaki in ninth grade, my freshman year at Konoha High. The two of us had third period French class together with Madame Yuuhi in room 108. I sat in the back corner of the white-painted classroom, distancing myself from the teacher and the rest of the students in my class.

Naruto sat two desks in front of me.

I remember when I first saw him, I was something akin to mesmerized. I thought he was so handsome with his scruffy blond hair, and that those bright blue eyes of his were just something to fall into. Better than all of that, his smile was just amazing.

He was like the class clown, often confused with what Madame Yuuhi had to say to us, ergo causing everyone to laugh with him when he laughed at himself.

It didn’t take me long to start crushing on him.

Naruto Uzumaki wasn’t perfect. He was silly, never took anything seriously, didn’t know how to tie his own tie—which note, was a part of our school uniform—his grades were dangerously low, and he was too obsessed with his skate boarding or playing sports.

The first time he spoke to me was about three weeks into the semester.

It was lunch, I remember, because I was starving. On my way to the cafeteria with Sakura and her boyfriend, he had stopped in front of us, awkwardly scratching his head. He was slouching slightly, with his other hand in his pocket, hidden by the hem of his un-tucked dress shirt.

“Hey,” he greeted slowly.

It wasn’t quite a rare occurrence for him to come up to the three of us and say hello. Naruto was best friends with Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura’s boyfriend, so it was natural that he stopped to give a greeting.

What was odd about this time was that his hello was directed to me.

“Uh, Hinata…”

I remember how my heart fluttered when he said my name and how a knot in my stomach tightened immensely. My cheeks grew slightly warmer and I smiled brighter than I ever had before.

All because he knew my name.

“Er, did you study for that French test next period?” he asked casually, bringing his hands together and fumbling with his thumbs.

I nodded in response. “Y—Yes.”

“Right.” He nodded his head back. “Of course you did. You’re really smart!”

“Hey!” Sakura then cleared her throat to gain our attention. “Hinata-chan, Sasuke-kun and I are gonna go get some lunch, okay?”

“Alright,” I replied, watching her put her arm around Sasuke’s and then walk away.

“Uh…” When they were gone, Naruto smiled at me awkwardly, shrugging to go with his apologetic expression. “Sorry about that,” he apologized, wincing slightly. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your lunch break or anything—”

“It’s okay,” I said hastily, cutting him off.

And it was.

“Right.” Naruto chuckled, seeming somewhat bashful. I didn’t know why he felt embarrassed. I knew why there was a pink tinge on my cheeks, but why was there some on his cheeks? “Well, uh, Hinata, I was wondering if you could help me with—”

“Naruto-kun!”

I think it was right then and there that the first crack in my heart appeared. It was a tiny sliver of brokenness, but it was there, and it wad almost painful. That giant, giddy smile I had from his remembrance of my name faded almost immediately, and the feeling in my stomach that started off as something nice turned into some bad.

It kind of hurt.

Right behind Naruto stood Ino Yamanaka, his girlfriend of a few months. I wanted to hate her when I found out that they were dating, from Sakura, but I just found that I couldn’t. She wasn’t exactly smart, just average or so, if not a small bit below, but she was beautiful. She participated in beauty pageants—and won, at that—and she did modeling.

Ino Yamanaka was liked by many in our school.

She long blond hair, and blue eyes and it was annoying to think of how well she fit with Naruto Uzumaki. She met Naruto through his best friend. It was during first semester at some party. When Sasuke was in the midst of shrugging her off at a party to go be with his girlfriend, he got Naruto to distract her so he could leave.

Then true love, perhaps, blossomed.

I’ve tried many, many times to make myself hate Ino Yamanaka.

I always wanted to think that she was just another pretty face but still a hollow shell. I told myself that she was shallow and thought better of herself and rude and annoying, but while Ino Yamanaka may have had her rude and annoying moments she was still a decent person.

And I couldn’t hate her.

“Naruto-kun!” she repeated, jogging over to us in his obviously rolled-up school kilt. She hugged one of his arms and smiled at him sweetly. “Let’s go get some lunch, Naruto-kun!”

He looked tempted to say yes, but he instead looked back at me before grinning down at her apologetically.

“Sorry, Ino, but I need to get some extra help for my French test, next period,” he said. Naruto paused for a moment and looked back at me with widened eyes. “Uh, that is, if you don’t mind—”

“I don’t mind,” I hastily answered, beaming at him slightly.

Ino looked passive when she stared at me for a good moment before shrugging and pecking Naruto on the cheek. She immediately left us and Naruto shrugged.

“Shall we go to the library?” I suggested quietly.

Naruto nodded and pulled me along with his jogging towards the destination.

It was on that day that I found myself in love with Naruto Uzumaki.

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don’t dawdle, delilah
by: ohwhatsherface

1. details

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there will be no rules tonight, if there were, we’d break them

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“You really need to dress up like that more often,” Sakura said as she applied a vibrant red lipstick to her mouth. She popped her lips and smiled widely with her now cherry lips.

I’ve always thought that only certain people can pull off red lipstick. The general pink suits just about everyone, things near brown or maroon, maybe on older people, purples on those with darker skin, and red on the lucky few that could look nice with it.

Sakura was a part of that lucky few.

She looked beautiful that night with her light pink hair straightened yet still spiky looking at the ends, showing off the layers. She donned a strapless and lacy, black dress. The top part was a corset with cherry red, silk trimmings and with the same material as the ribbons, while the bottom was a skirt of chiffon, flowing out unevenly and in layers, yet somehow still looking elegant.

Her dress was another one of those things that only she could pull off because she was Sakura.

I watched as Sakura twisted open a tube of another color of lip gloss. It was a lighter shade of pink, something akin to the shade my lips are now. She smiled at me before pushing the brush onto my mouth and applying a coat.

“I totally hate you, Hinata,” she muttered as she looked at her reflection in the mirror with a frown, because like all girls, she was always able to find a flaw in herself with just one glance. “You are so lucky! You’re like, the only person who can really, really pull of a halter dress!”

I looked at my reflection beside her scowling one and I chewed on my lower lip.

The dress we chose was something that would cause me to have to dodge Neji-niisan whenever I saw him later on.

It was purple and black, made of some really soft material. There was a tie of purple silk that went below my breasts, causing them to stand out even more. From the tie down, the dressed flowed out looking nice. This dress made me think that I was able to pull something off, since these kinds of dresses always made certain people appear pregnant, but for me, it worked.

“Can I borrow a cardigan, or something?” I asked Sakura shyly, as I fiddled with the hem of my dress.

Sakura let out a small chuckle before walking towards her closet and pulling out a black cardigan and throwing it to me. It was a bit tight in a clingy sense, but it fit fine, with three-quarter sleeves working with me to show off the gold and black bangles Sakura made me put on.

“You look hot,” Sakura declared, nodding her head at me.

I blushed a little bit.

“Totally.”

She then went to her closet and took out a dark grey shoe box. She took out a pair of plain black high heels. They were rather plain, looking like any normal pair of high heels, only showing a bit of her freshly painted toes.

“Wanna go now?” Sakura asked, unplugging her gold Blackberry Pearl from its charger on her night stand. “I can call Sasuke to pick us up now…”

I took a glance at myself in the mirror and found myself frowning the way Sakura had been frowning only mere minutes ago as she complained about her cup size.

My hair was too dark, my skin was too pale, my eyes were too wide, my nose was too pointy, my lips were too thin—

The thoughts of my flaws all bombarded me faster than I could ever imagine and I found myself wanting to break the mirror or something. I settled for the or something and looked back at Sakura who was busy typing a text message away, maybe to Sasuke or to any of her other friends. Sakura had always been something of a little social butterfly, friends with most people.

“Uh, yeah, now sounds good,” I murmured, growing annoyed at the sticky feeling on my lips whenever I opened and closed them.

Sakura nodded and called Sasuke to tell him to come and pick us up so the three of us could to go to our school’s Semi Formal.

I looked back at the mirror and I flinched when my eyes came across a photograph of our tenth grade History class, stuck to the border of the mirror like many others.

There were some pictures from photo booths, most of them being Sakura and I, while some were with Sasuke, and there were even pictures of us as children.

There were some with her various step-fathers and one with her latest dad, and his son, our other classmate, Shikamaru Nara.

We took that picture of our tenth grade History class when before Christmas Break our teacher let us have a small party.

I thought back to the day that it was shot. Sasuke had been sitting with Sakura and I at our desk, having had pulled up a chair, and then Naruto came, and then Ino along with a few others crowded to our table. Eventually, we were all together and Sakura asked our teacher to take a picture of the class for her.

I frowned at the picture, noticing how wonderful Naruto Uzumaki and Ino Yamanaka looked together, and it didn’t quite faze me because it was easy to understand.

I didn’t stand a chance.

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That French class incident took place two years ago. Now we are in eleventh grade, just beginning second semester, and specifically at this moment, at our Semi Formal.

“So this is our table…” Sakura murmurs, circling the round table to read who we sat with while picking up all the name cards.

I pulled on the cardigan slightly, hoping it would do more to cover my chest. The dress was beautiful, but I didn’t feel very comfortable in it.

I glanced at Sakura and watched as she rearranged all the name cards on the plates. She put herself between me and Sasuke. He didn’t quite care and neither did I, but he almost had a fit when she threatened to put Ino beside him if he didn’t fix his tie properly. Ino had long given up on Sasuke, but he still didn’t like her, and only tolerated her for Naruto despite how their relationship is an on and off thing.

The table ended up with Shino Aburame, then Shikamaru Nara, then his guest and girlfriend, Temari Sabaku, then Chouji Akimichi, then Ino, then Naruto, then Sasuke, then Sakura, then myself, then Kiba Inuzuka, with Shino on his other side.

I’ve known Kiba since we were in kindergarten. Among our table, the people who I’ve known since childhood are Sakura, Kiba and Shino, the four of us having had gone to the same elementary school before all of us met here at Konoha High. He had always been a good friend to me. While we didn’t have the relationship Sakura and I did, he was something of a big brother figure to me.

Before, I had a crush on him.

Back in seventh grade, when the two of us sat together, I thought he was very cute, and began to like him, but I knew I wouldn’t have a chance with someone as amazing as him so that crush slowly died down. Kiba Inuzuka, with his rugged, brown hair and dark eyes was something of an aspiring rock star, as he so often and eloquently put it.

When Kiba first entered his musical phase and he began seeing a variety of different girls, I was sure my crush was over. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him—he was still one of my oldest friends—it was just that we no longer had anything to really talk about.

“I really like your dress,” Kiba said to me, commencing small talk.

At first, I hadn’t quite processed his compliment, having been too busy subtly watching the happy couple that was Naruto and Ino.

Ino wore a lilac bubble dress, which frankly, in my opinion, did not work right on her, but since she was Ino Yamanaka, still seemed to appear fine. Her blonde hair was let back, cascading almost past her hips and ending with a small curl. Naruto looked quite adorable with his black slacks and dress shirt, and purple tie.

He should have matched Ino, but to my secret delight, with his shade of purple and black clothes, he matched me.

“Seriously, Hinata, you look way awesome tonight.”

I tilted my head back to smile politely at Kiba despite my reddened cheeks.

Kiba had always been taller than me, so when he was looking down, I had thought he was looking at my face, but I was most likely wrong.

“T—Thank you,” I replied quietly, once again pulling on my cardigan. “Uh… I like your jacket?”

He chuckled at my forced compliment. He moved his head back slightly as he smiled at me in an almost seductive fashion.

His smile caught me off guard and a familiar fluttering in my heart returned.

The feeling, though, went away after dessert had been served when Naruto and Ino went to dance together.

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It was two weeks after the dance that Kiba spoke to me again.

He and I never really spoke to each other once we got into high school. We didn’t have any classes together, and we didn’t have that many mutual friends, nor did we really hang out with the same major bunch of people, so we only gave each other small smiles in the hallways or short hellos.

Now it seemed different.

It was different.

“Hey, Hinata,” he greeted, sitting down beside me on the bench in the school foyer. From his jersey, I figured he had just finished basketball practice and was waiting for the bus to come, like I was doing. “So I saw some of the pictures Sakura put up on her online album from Semi. You looked really hot!”

I found myself blushing and giving him a tight nod while he seemed to be enjoying himself.

“I—I… Um… T—Thank you…”

Kiba laughed heartily at my reply and patted my shoulder before putting his hand down on the space between on the bench.

“No way,” he said jokingly. “I should be thanking you.” Kiba winked at me and I felt the fluttering again. “You were one hell of a sight!”

I didn’t know what to say, once more. Again, from his joking, I was speechless.

“We should go out some time,” Kiba suggested bluntly, looking at me with a completely serious expression.

I turned my head to look at him and I frowned slightly. I took in the sight of Kiba. His chocolate hair was as unruly as ever, if not even more messy from his few hours of basketball of practice. He was in his jersey and a pair of jogging pants with the school name on the side of one leg, and a matching sweater on his arms and unzipped. He had the slightest sheen of sweat on his golden skin that only made him look even better.

“I…”

“Seriously, Hinata,” Kiba said, nodding.

“Uh…” With my frown still on, I shook my head almost sadly. “I can’t.”

He raised one eyebrow at me, seeming to be a bit surprised at the rejection.

“I can’t,” I repeated, looking down at my school kilt, playing with the hem of it. “There’s someone…”

“You have a boyfriend?” he asked, sounding very surprised. “Really, I never knew that—”

“No!” I hastily corrected. “I don’t have a boyfriend! No, it’s just… I, um…”

Kiba noticed the red tinge on my cheeks and most likely got the picture of what I was trying to say. If I didn’t have a boyfriend to be keeping me from wanting me to go on a date with someone as great as Kiba Inuzuka, then that meant I had a crush on someone.

No, I didn’t have a crush on that someone.

I was in love with that someone.

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TBC

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I was aiming for something different from my usual.