Friends Forever

By LadyTofu

Chapter 1

"You're such a great friend!" shouted Uzumaki Naruto, grinning broadly. "Let's be friends forever!"

Hinata stopped bandaging his scratched and bleeding arm to smile at him. For once, she looked up to meet Naruto's eyes without a trace of blush staining her cheeks. Softly she replied, "Yes Naruto-kun, let's be friends forever..."

And that's how it started. Hinata, seventeen, determined that very day (that very moment, in fact) that she would change herself. She would change her life. "Let's be friends forever," he'd said. Well, they would be friends forever then. She had known it from the beginning, she supposed. How could someone like her, small and ugly, compare to girls like Sakura and Ino? Those girls were like flowers, bright and cheerful and vibrant with life. She was nothing but a mushroom, small and pale and living in shadows.

Sighing, Hinata stretched her arms and legs, feeling the grass under her tickle at exposed skin. There had always been that lingering hope, she supposed, closing her eyes against the bright sunlight. A little ray of light that had kept her heart running toward Naruto and Naruto alone since she had met him during their Academy years. But, even Hinata had her limit. She couldn't take it anymore.

She just couldn't! The days spent in each others' company, talking and laughing, only to have him call her the next day to wax on about how beautiful Sakura had looked or how absolutely brilliant Sakura was.

No, that moment it had all dawned on her; what a big fool she had been. All those times that he had helped her, protected her, complimented her, and showered her with kindess... that hadn't been love, or even his interest. It had simply been Naruto being Naruto: helpful, compassionate, kind Naruto.

He was so easy to love. That was why it was so hard to stop. But, no, Hinata knew the truth now. She had to stop. She had to. She wasn't the same shy, silent, stuttering little girl she had been when she and Naruto first met. She was a woman now, and a jounin in her own right. Albeit, she would never achieve the levels that Naruto, Sasuke, and her cousin Neji worked at, but she was still a great kunoichi. She could be confident in her skills at least, Hinata thought to herself determinedly.

She was also the Hyuuga heir, something that she and her family had come to terms with over the years. Especially since her cousin had started to train her, Hinata had grown in her Byakugan. Even her father acknowledged her skill, a fact that had let her confidence flower into one worthy of a noble Konoha bloodline. If she would never have Neji's arrogance or Sasuke's chill disdain, she was still strong, like a steel bar wrapped in silk and fluff.

"Hinata-sama," came a muted tenor voice from somewhere above her head. She did not need to open her eyes to know it was Neji. Although many called her that epitaph now, only he said it with such brotherly affection. They had grown close over the years, as they had been once in a long forgotten childhood, thanks in particular to Naruto.

"Hinata-sama. I am going to go train by the river with Sasuke-kun in a little while. It could be very useful for you to join us."

Hinata opened her eyes and smiled her consent at Neji. She knew her cousin too well to take offense at the seemingly callous tone of his words. He meant well, inviting her to train with him and Sasuke, if nothing else. Although, lately, she got the distinct feeling that her cousin definitely had an 'else' planned.

Ah well, Hinata thought, feeling Neji's presence disappear into the distance. She supposed it was her own fault for suggesting that the Byakugan-master and the Sharingan-heir would be a good training team. Now her cousin was convinced that a Sharingan/Byakugan bloodline cross would be immensely useful to Konoha. In fact, Hinata was fairly certain that he would have tried conceiving such a child already had he been a girl. Or Sasuke had been a girl.

She laughed to herself at the thought of the great Anbu-captain Sasuke as a girl. He had never quite grown out of his handsome (if slightly feminine) features, a trait that still made most of the girls between the ages of 2 and 70 (and a good chunk of the boys) lust after him despite the fact that he was surly enough to kill them in a hundred different ways for it. Not that she could really blame the villagers. Sasuke had grown quite tall, topping his old sensei Kakashi by a good three inches, on par with Naruto in fact, and combined with the lithe, cut frame of a trained ninja, he was quite stunning even in plain jounin uniforms. In muscle-hugging Anbu-black, he was absolutely breathtaking. It was no wonder Sakura was still persistent in her Sasuke-obsession.

That girl would turn Neji into a feathered piñata if he ever found a way to impregnated Sasuke, Hinata mused. She felt laughter bubble out of her at the ridiculous mental picture of her somber cousin hanging upside-down with bright green and yellow feathers sticking out all over. Then, Ten-Ten would probably have the first go at breaking him open. Hinata's laugh got louder as her mental Neji's eyes grew wide with fear at the weapon-filled hands of his lover. Of course, it would never happen. Neji and Ten-Ten were quite taken with one another still, and Hinata quite envied them. She knew as well as everyone else in Leaf, that the two of them were a pairing that would last for as long as fate allowed.

Not like Sasuke and Neji. That pairing resembled two glaciers crashing more than anything in the realm of human companionship. Which was, probably, why Neji and Sasuke made great sparring partners. They constantly pushed each other to greater battle feats without the complication of any actual relationship. Then again, Hinata wondered sometimes. There were times when she could have sworn that the pair understood each other in ways no one else did. Not a friendship, of course. There was probably much to be friends with as far as Uchiha Sasuke went. Her cousin might have been impassively cold on the outside, but Hinata was sure that Sasuke was ice all the way through.

Naruto had constantly told her otherwise, but Naruto was given to generosity. That had been one of the reasons she had fallen in love with him, after all…that inability of his to make an outcast out of anyone.

Well, she had seen enough of Sasuke to know that he was the complete opposite. He made an outcast out of everyone, shooting down even simple kindness with cold contemptuous stares. Rejecting girl after girl after girl after boy after boy after girl without a hint of pity, because apparently no one was good enough for his royal highness.

Hinata did not like to think badly of people, but Sasuke had rubbed her the wrong way one too many times. He was not like Naruto at all. She wondered, not for the first time, how such polar opposites had survived as a team. Even now, after all the years and trials, Team 7 remained close. But, then, Naruto had an effect on people. Just his presence…

No, Hinata mentally shouted. Flipping onto her feet, Hinata shook her head to stop her train of thought as well as to get bits of grass out of her hair. She wore it long now, nearly touching her waist, and it always seemed to be collecting things when it was down. Well, that was easily enough mended. Grabbing locks of her soft black mane, Hinata swiftly braided them into three tails, then piled the tail onto her head in a complex weaving pattern. With lightning speed, she took out senbon needles from her wrist sheathe and carefully inserted used them to secure the mass in place. Her cousin and the Uchiha boy would probably start their practice soon, and she wasn't rude enough to refuse her cousin's invitation…even if it did involve Uchiha Sasuke.

Besides, she had spent enough time meditating. It was time to prove her different self, to act as she had promised herself to act: to focus on her training and her life. and to forget about Naruto.