notes: Okay, so, my lovely friend Fatimah (rvkemeadows on tumblr) and I began working on this AU a little over a year ago. You'd think that with two people working on one fic we'd have it published sooner, but as y'all can see that's clearly not the case. There are hidden references from canon here and there, so kudos to those of you that spot them. I hope you enjoy this as much as we enjoyed writing it, and ask that you please leave a comment! We'd appreciate it greatly!

With only one more year left of high school, Hinata finally decides that it's high time she buckles down and confess to Naruto Uzumaki.

The thought has filtered through her mind, on-and-off like a firefly in the night, every day since she was twelve-years-old, and though she's tried on numerous occasions to work up the courage to tell him how she feels, it's the first time since she fell in love with him that she decides to actually do it. After she finishes preparing for the following school day, hanging her uniform and packing her bag, she lies in bed that night and irons out the list of possible methods she could take to convey her feelings.

The direct approach seems like a good option at first, until Hinata remembers that she can barely hold a conversation with Naruto without blushing and stammering like a fool. The thought itself, of saying 'I like you,' is more than enough to send her fleeing beneath the covers. It's far too embarrassing; she couldn't stomach it even if she tried.

She considers the indirect approach, like baking him chocolates for Valentine's Day or sending him a text message, but in the end she tosses these options, too. Not only is Valentine's Day too far away, but Hinata recalls four years worth of honmei chocolate gone to waste, and there's simply no way she could sum up her feelings in something as cheap and cowardly as a text message. Besides, she thinks, Naruto doesn't even have a cell phone.

She groans in frustration, not at all liking where this is going. Why is this so hard? Naruto has always had an easygoing disposition about himself. He has a smile that could light up the world. He's nice and warm and welcoming, like the sun. He makes everything fun, and he's easy to talk to.

Well, in her case, maybe not. But the fact still stands that he rolls with things much too easily for confessing to him to be this hard.

Hinata stares up at the ceiling, wondering if maybe there is an easier way to do this, wherein she could be both direct and indirect without all the unnecessary drama. Something with the right amounts of obvious and subtle put together. Lost in thought, she lays awake, mulling over her options until she finally starts to drift off to sleep. It's only when she closes her eyes that it hits her.

She throws the covers back and practically hops out of bed, brimming with newfound determination. The restlessness in her heart fades away within an instant, and Hinata suppresses a bubbling giggle. It all makes so much sense now; she doesn't know why she didn't think of it sooner. Rummaging inside her school bag, Hinata picks out a pen and a piece of paper, then sits purposefully at her desk and turns on the lamplight. A smile crosses her lips as she clicks the pen. Yes, this is what she'll do—

—She'll write a love letter.

It takes her a million tries, but after a long, sleepless night, Hinata succeeds. She keeps the letter carefully concealed deep within the folds of her bag, in between her English and Japanese History notebooks, and, to be on the safe side, she even leaves for school just a tad bit earlier than usual.

Unfortunately, this doesn't go unnoticed.

Neji eyes her with far more scrutiny than what she's used to when she enters his line of vision. His position as student council president requires him to be at school earlier than the average student, so it shouldn't come as a surprise when she sees him seated at the kitchen table at six in the morning, eating breakfast.

"Good morning, Hinata-sama."

"Good morning, Neji-nii-san."

"You're up early today," he says, after downing the rest of his tea.

Despite herself, she stutters. "A-ah, well, I couldn't sleep." She isn't lying, she reasons. She really couldn't sleep.

"I see. I'll walk you to school, then," is all he says, short and blunt as always, but Hinata has never been a fool when it comes to cryptic speech.

She tries her best not to blush.

Hinata doesn't realize how long she's been standing in front of Naruto's locker, but if the slow trickle of students filtering through the school's gate is anything to go by, then she knows she's been here for quite some time, now.

Neji has long since bid her goodbye as he has business of his own to take care of, but Hinata remains rooted firmly in place. The corners of her letter crumple in her grip, and she feels her knees tremble with each passing second. What has happened to that sudden burst of confidence she felt, not even twenty-four hours ago? Where is it now, and how is she going to live through this if she can't bring herself to summon it?

Realizing how unnecessarily fretful she's being, Hinata shuts her eyes and takes in a deep breath. After furling and unfurling her fingers from the fists they've inevitably created around her letter, she opens her eyes again and stares at the metal door in front of her, with the number clearly marked: 723.

It's just like delivering mail, right?

At least that's what she tries to tell herself.

Shakily, Hinata raises her letter and watches as its wrinkled edges dance against the smooth surface of Naruto's locker. This is it, she thinks. There's no turning back after this. For a second, she imagines Naruto's contagious, ear-splitting grin, empowering her, encouraging her to move forward; she imagines his hand, large and warm, engulfing her own and tugging her along; she imagines his loud, booming voice, cheering her on from above; and she feels the corners of her mouth lifting.

Hinata shuts her eyes once more, takes in a deep breath, ignores the jitters coursing through her veins, and shoves her letter through the small opening. She hears it flutter down to the bottom, and although there isn't anything else keeping her there, her feet refuse to remove themselves from the spot. A sense of dread keeps her rooted, and with her heart beating at a pace that is hardly healthy, she waits for Naruto to appear.

Sasuke is never quite in a good mood. He mulls perpetually in a state of grief, anger, and dejectedness combined, and deviations from the normal path of his day usually do nothing more than pull him further into it. Of course, he doesn't mean to be this way. In fact, around his best friend, Naruto, he can actually muster acting somewhat jovially.

But for the most part, Sasuke can't help but react violently to the rest of the world. It's come to him as a natural response ever since he can remember, which in essence means ever since his parents died. If he approaches people more frostily than he should, then it's only a sign that he's acting normal. After having lived in this town for almost seventeen years, most everyone should understand that.

With this thought in mind, Sasuke enters Konoha High's main hall. He starts to slip his shoes off of his feet when he glimpses someone, a girl with raven hair that drops down past her waist, standing directly in front of his locker, pulling at her fingers and glancing around nervously.

Upon closer inspection, he realizes that it's none other than the heiress to one of Konoha's most acclaimed families. Hinata Hyuuga is the older of two sisters, and the prettier one at that. Half of the boys in school have pined after her at some point in their lives. Not that he cares or anything.

"Is there a reason you're standing in front of my locker, Hyuuga?" he asks, and she startles. Although her presence should do nothing but irritate him, the way she blushes from the tip of her nose all the way to the edges of her cheeks intrigues him a little. He opens his locker and dumps his shoes from home before getting the ones for school, and almost immediately, a strangled gasp escapes her throat.

Hinata starts to blubber incoherently, and he turns to pierce her with an annoyed stare. A few seconds later, she concludes shakily with, "Th-this is y-your locker?"

"Have you ever seen anyone else open it?" he shoots back. To his surprise, she replies just as fast.

"Y-yes!" Hinata exclaims, blushing now even more furiously. "Naruto-kun comes here every morning and afternoon! I've seen him!"

This leaves Sasuke stumped. Naruto, idiot that he is, refuses to use his own goddamn locker because, because. . . . why does he not use his own locker, again? Sasuke is sure that he's asked the question before, but knowing his best friend, the answer he got was probably more equivocal than anything. He sighs and pinches his brow, wondering how to respond to the Hyuuga heiress, when the thought hits him:

Why does she care that it's his locker?

Hinata startles again when he moves a little closer to her, his scrutinizing eyes locking onto and holding her gaze. "Why do you care?" he murmurs, and although Sasuke makes himself sound as edgy and annoyed as possible, inside his mind, he knows that he is nothing but intrigued. He and Hinata Hyuuga have never quite crossed paths before, and despite him being Naruto's best friend, there is reason to wonder why they'd enter each other's line of vision now, of all times.

It's as if she's been struck by a lightning bolt. Instantly, the color fades from her face, and her lips press into a thin line. Tartly, Hinata replies, "That's none of your business."

The bell to signal the start of first period can be heard off in the distance, and with a trembling breath, she turns on her heel and marches away from him as if nothing has happened. Sasuke is left to stare after her, dumbfounded by the fact that a) for the first time in his life, he didn't have the last word, and b) Hinata Hyuuga, heiress with no substance to her backbone, is the one who did. The very thought of it astounds him, and so as Naruto finally enters the main hall, fashionably late as always, Sasuke rips open his locker and starts to empty it of every last thing it has.

"Oy, Sasuke," says the blond, "first's already started. You're gonna be late."

"Not my priority right now."

Naruto looks at his friend skeptically, but chooses not to comment. Sasuke is notorious for plunging himself into inexplicable moods characterized by the wildest of actions, and by now, Naruto is all but used to it. He shrugs, shoulders his book bag, and turns in the direction of the west wing. "Whatever. See you at lunch."

Sasuke doesn't even flinch from what he's doing to say goodbye.

The floor underneath him becomes littered with shoes, clothing, and other useless paraphernalia. Sasuke catalogues each item that comes out as something familiar to him, and he's just about decided to give up on the futile effort when an envelope, curled and crinkled, falls into his hands.

The color of it is something between lilac and lavender, but he decides on the latter when he detects the faint smell of the small, tufted flower. None other than Naruto's name is penciled in elegant kanji on the front, and like puzzle pieces falling into place, the encounter of a few minutes ago becomes instantaneously clear to him. The weight of the envelope multiplies in Sasuke's hands with the realization, and he almost throws the letter away for fear of confronting the truth of it. He has never been one to face his emotions, so the thought of someone so supposedly fragile doing it before him sends shockwaves through his system.

Should he read it? he wonders. It is addressed to his best friend, to whom he has a certain right. That and the oblivious buffoon probably wouldn't understand the weight of Hinata's words anyway. Looking at it this way, Sasuke could read over her confession and make an attempt to explain it to Naruto, who unfortunately could not recognize romantic love even if it were to hit him smack dab in the face. (Not that Sasuke is known for his expertise in these kinds of affairs.)

It looks like the most logical option to take, although there is always the thought that he is intruding on apparently-not-so-bird-boned Hinata Hyuuga's privacy. Before today, he wouldn't have thought it much of a problem; he probably could've talked her down, for all he cared. But as of approximately 8:15 a.m., Sasuke has to admit his perceptions of the school's most infamous heiress have drastically changed.

For not the first time in his life, he finds himself hesitating.

His finger pokes at the end of the envelope's flap, nudging it away from the glue that's been holding it down. A small tear runs through the lavender-scented paper as a result. Sasuke figures that any attempts at making it look like no one has yet opened the envelope are futile now, and so with a derisive snort, he tears the flap open the rest of the way and pulls out what he knows is undoubtedly a love letter.

Like those on the envelope, the kanji that make up Hinata's confession are prettily penned onto the paper in purple ink. Sasuke immediately starts to skim his way through the letter, eyes catching only the more important words like "love" and "feelings" and "admiration." Though he didn't tear into the letter with the most serious of intentions, he admits that its contents are worthy of respect. Confessing to someone, he imagines, is difficult, but then again, he wouldn't know what that feels like.

Penned at the very end of the letter is a request for Naruto to make an appearance on the roof at lunchtime. Sasuke curses softly under his breath. Of course she would want for Naruto to tell her if the feeling is mutual; he doesn't know why he didn't think of that sooner.

And now the question stands: should he meet her? Does he have the gall to tell her that he read her love letter without her permission—although to be fair, it was in his locker—and that all worthy efforts aside, it is unfortunately going to take much more than just words to make Naruto realize that she has those kinds of feelings for him?

Truth be told, he just doesn't know, but rather than dwell on it, Sasuke slams his locker shut and pockets Hinata's love letter. Naruto's belongings remain on the floor, like a pile of trash, but it's nothing the janitors can't take care of. Besides, Sasuke thinks, this whole mess is the idiot's fault anyway. Like hell he's going to clean up after him.

As he makes his way to class, he decides he'll take things as they come. He can't predict what will happen when—if—he faces Hinata on the roof, and there's no way in hell that he can predict whether Naruto will actually act upon her feelings if he happens to read the letter. But frankly speaking, he doesn't think that he cares. Sasuke has his own myriad of problems to deal with.

He isn't about to bury himself in someone else's.

"Hello, earth to Hinata!"

The loud outburst makes her jump and Hinata blinks once, twice, in an effort to regain her focus. Her pencil slips out of her hand and lands on the floor with a soft thud, but it may as well have been a herd of elephants stampeding across the classroom. All around, her classmates stare between her and their teacher, some even snicker at her expense, and almost immediately, she flushes red.

Iruka-sensei hovers over her with an admonishing look, his textbook in hand. "Pay attention," he says sternly.

"I'm sorry," she mutters, clutching the rim of her desk for stability. "I didn't hear you earlier."

He nods his head in return and continues on with the lesson, leaving Hinata to duck behind her textbook in a futile attempt to hide her burning cheeks. From her right, Shino spares her a glance. She's known him long enough to understand that behind those pitch black glasses of his lies concern, so she offers him a small smile in return.

"Is everything alright, Hinata?" he asks softly, turning back to face their teacher.

She nods her head after bending down to retrieve her pencil from the floor. "I'm okay, Shino-kun. I-I just dozed off, is all."

"Alright." It's all he says for the rest of the class period, but Kiba more than makes up for it with his not-at-all-quiet whispers.

"Oy, Hinata."

"What?"

"You okay?"

She almost bangs her head on her desk, but fortunately she remembers that doing so would only attract more attention. "I'm fine," she whines, just about ready to self-combust.

Kiba gives her a weird look but decides to leave it at that. Within seconds, he's immersed himself in the intricate workings of his ballpoint pen, and Hinata is left once more to wallow in her puddle of worry.

In all honesty, she really didn't mean to doze off in the middle of class like that. It's just that this morning's encounter with Sasuke has left her feeling incredibly anxious. There's no doubt in her mind that he's found her letter—after all, she did put it in his locker—but while it's embarrassing to know that she's somehow given her letter to the wrong person, it's another thing entirely to know that said person has found and read it.

Of course, Hinata has never pegged Sasuke as the nosy type, given his stony, uncaring attitude and all, but it still stands to question: will he read it? Naruto is Sasuke's best friend. They're practically brothers, so why wouldn't he? A part of Hinata is offended by that prospect. Sure, he's rude and mean and conceited—the exact opposite of Naruto, now that she thinks about it—but with walls built as high as his, it's hard to imagine him invading her, or anyone else's, privacy.

Besides, what would Sasuke Uchiha stand to gain from reading a love letter that's not even addressed to him in the first place? Hinata's sure that he gets at least a dozen or so a week from his fan club, and he probably hasn't even read all of them. The thought of him wanting to add one more love letter to his steadily increasing stack seems highly unlikely. Although, she supposes it's always possible that he'd want to read about someone other than himself for a change. . .

She tries not to think about it.

Hinata spends the rest of her classes doing two things: trying to act as calm and collected as possible, and warding off any thoughts of Sasuke Uchiha from her head. The latter proves difficult to accomplish, but by the time fourth period is over, she's convinced herself that he's a decent enough human being not to meddle in other people's affairs. That, and he probably doesn't care about them anyway.

When she walks out into the hallway, Kiba and Shino barricade her from either side. Kiba hounds her about eating lunch with them, and though Shino doesn't say much of anything, she's sure his sentiments are much the same. It takes her a few minutes to ward the two off, but true to expectation, her childhood friends respect her enough to know that she'd like to be alone for a while, and they promise her a froyo date after school.

As she makes a beeline for the stairwell leading towards the school's roof, Hinata looks every which way to ensure that neither Kiba nor Shino has decided to walk back on their promise. The two tend to act more concerned than is necessary when it comes to her, and although there are times she's grateful for that, right now, the last thing she wants is for them to be hanging over her shoulder asking personal questions.

Hinata comes to a stop in front of the stairs and stares up at the first flight. All of the signs are there: the heat slowly warming her face, the squeamish coiling of her stomach, the erratic beating of her heart. She looks over her shoulders once more, swallows the butterflies that threaten to fly from her mouth, and makes her way towards the roof, timid footsteps bouncing silently against the stairsteps.

By the time she reaches her destination, Sasuke is the furthest thing from her mind. Instead, all she can focus on is the thought of Naruto, her longtime crush since primary school, bounding upstairs like the sun peeking over the horizon, his million-watt smile lighting everything in his path.

Hinata steadies herself by taking a deep breath, clutching her sweaty palms to her chest in a desperate attempt to calm her wildly beating heart, and mutters a silent prayer to the gods. She can do this; she will do this. She didn't spend countless hours writing letter upon letter, overrunning the garbage pail and littering the floor, just to run away.

Hinata has her back facing the stairwell, but she can hear the footsteps clearly as they get closer and closer. She takes another breath, shuts her eyes, and whirls around with as big a smile as she can muster.

"N-Naruto-ku-"

But the name dies on her lips, and all of the courage she's spent the past ten minutes building up, all of the determination and strength and conviction that she's fought to create, slowly come crashing down like an armored titan running through a great stone wall. The bright blue eyes and sunny smile she's pictured fade away into dark eyes and a sullen frown, and what was minutes ago a lucid dream now melts into a nightmare.

The last person she expected to see climbing those stairs faces her now, her love letter tucked in between his fingers. Hinata feels like she is about to faint, because here he is, contrary to all of her hopes and dreams:

The one and only Sasuke Uchiha.

The look Hinata has on her face as he makes his way up the stairs leaves Sasuke wondering whether he should have come at all. She stares at him in absolute disbelief as he surfaces on the roof, lavender love letter in hand. Despite their confrontation from earlier in the morning, it looks to him as if she did not expect him at all, hoping perhaps that he would be kind enough to forward the letter to his best friend.

Well, bygones will be bygones.

Sasuke doesn't say anything at first. He wants to see if she'll react as unconventionally as she did this morning, face heated and voice tart. Maybe this time, he'll actually be prepared enough to where she won't be the one walking out first. Hinata having the last word on him wasn't necessarily humiliating, just jarring. And if there is anything that Sasuke hates, it's something that's jarring.

Hinata still stands a few feet away, most likely boring her eyes into the wall before her out of pure shock. Her fingers have curled into fists at her side, and they tremble with something that's equal parts terror and anger. Sasuke's perception of her is changing so rapidly by the second that he touches the possibility of her actually getting physical. He's seen it all too many times before, only with girls who clearly don't have Hinata's sensibility or composure. Like Sakura, for instance.

But cool and collected aside, the Hyuuga family is also known for its expertise in taijutsu, and he doesn't doubt that if extremely perturbed, Hinata could land at least a few solid punches on him. Who knows? They might even hurt.

"Are we going to talk about this?" he says finally, realizing that she won't say a word if she can help it. Hinata turns slowly to look back at him, eyes narrowed ever judgmentally, and Sasuke decides that the only emotion she has left for him is anger and anger alone. Hinata is going to pummel him if she can, and it will all be Naruto's fault because not only is he a man of many charms, but he uses Sasuke's locker, too.

Sasuke shuts his eyes and breathes out a sigh; important or not, every little thing that the idiot has put into his locker will be gone by tomorrow. Of that he's sure.

"How could you read that?" Hinata whispers all of a sudden.

Sasuke blinks and lifts his head, reading her features. The blush that tinged her face a few minutes ago is gone, replaced with the pale skin that he's known to always mix with the crowd. If he didn't know any better, he might even say she looks like she wants to cry.

"How," she breathes, and as soon as he thought she was full of anger, a wave of terror floods into her face, "how could you?" Invincible though he is to emotion, the look that she gives him in that moment makes his stomach turn. Hinata's love letter almost falls from his fingers, but he grabs it in time to clutch it tightly within his fist.

"You put it in my locker," he murmurs back, unsure of how else to answer. Sasuke waits in anticipation of what she'll say next, but in all honesty, there really isn't anything that can prepare him for her comeback.

"Do I look like I'm in love with you?"

Sasuke bristles at the remark, the hairs on his arms standing rigidly to attention. He can't decide whether she's said this just to be low, or if the fact that he invaded her privacy really matters so much that she can blow away her kind exterior.

Judging by the surprised look on her face, she didn't mean to say it. Hinata has her hands over her mouth in an instant, eyes wide and full of regret. It doesn't matter either way, because what Hinata says strikes a chord within him, releasing a plethora of thoughts, concerns, and anxieties that he's never bothered to face.

Annoyed, Sasuke barks back, "No, but you aren't exactly in love with someone who'll see it, either!"

He reasons that he'd intended to say this to her anyway, and that bringing it into their conversation a little earlier than planned surely shouldn't do too much harm. Although, the way she's looking at him now begs to differ. Her face has contorted itself into something beyond description, but maybe that's what pain does: render everything it touches incomprehensible.

Hinata whirls away from his gaze and holds her hands to either side of her head, mumbling under her breath as she paces in a small space of concrete. He doesn't know whether he's hurt her enough to have washed out her anger and will to stay, but something tells him that fragile though she is, she won't be leaving anytime soon. Already, she's proved to him how important the words in her letter are to her, and as low a blow as it was, his retort is more fuel to her fire than anything.

Sasuke snatches a glance at his watch; lunch is long gone, which means he'll have two tardies to account for by the end of the day. Not that this matters. He's been late to class plenty of times before, and his grades are stellar enough to where his teachers can turn a blind eye. Hinata, he's sure, rests in the same boat.

"Then help me," she says, breaking him out of his train of thought for—what, the third time today? Hinata turns back to face him completely now, hands curled at her sides with purpose and indignance. She narrows her eyes and zeros in on Sasuke, but he can't bother thinking about that when he's too busy deciphering what her words mean in the first place.

"What?"

Sasuke watches in bewilderment as she marches up to him until they stand mere inches apart. She's concentrated her motley of emotions from before into a seriousness that hits him head on, and as she takes her time in waiting to speak, Sasuke balls his hands into fists.

Without lowering her gaze, Hinata takes the love letter from his hand and pockets it, then murmurs as evenly as possible, "You said he won't see it. So help me."

Sasuke scoffs. "Please. You've dragged me into this bullshit enough as it is. Don't try to pull me in any further."

There goes the face change. Immediately flustered at his blunt refusal, Hinata stammers, "B-but you read my letter!" She looks so surprised, he almost scoffs a second time. As if the fact that he read her love letter is reason enough for him to help her woo the boy of her dreams.

"Because it was in my locker!"

"It didn't have your name on it!"

"He's my best friend! That's right enough!"

"To his feelings—but mine?!"

Sasuke opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Hinata's face has run red all over, and she looks at him expectantly, waiting. She has backed him into a corner that he can't crawl out of unless he apologizes, and this makes him scowl.

There's no way he'll apologize now. She's stabbed at his pride enough as it is. To apologize at this point would leave him without a definable trace of his ego. He knows it, she knows it.

"I'm done dealing with this shit," he mutters, and before she can say anything else, he makes for the stairs. What he's thought would go by with more or less of a breeze has turned out to be a hurricane of epic proportions, and Sasuke wants no part of it.

He's almost made his way to the head of the stairs when he feels her latch onto his wrist and say, "Uchiha-san, wait!"

It's interesting to hear her say his name, so he turns his head back and decides to listen. This, apparently, surprises her too, as she stares at him blankly for a good minute before releasing his wrist and clearing her throat. Her face doesn't quite flush red as she speaks, just a soft, carnation pink. Sasuke can barely catch the words in her murmur.

"I apologize for the mix-up. I should have been more attentive. A-also, about not being in love with you, I didn't. . ." Hinata's voice falters, but she lifts her head nonetheless, meeting his hard gaze with large, imploring eyes. Almost immediately, his conscience surfaces to life and starts attacking his insides with everything it has. Sasuke grimaces from the turbulence of the battle, trying to overcome the forces of good within him but failing miserably.

"Please," Hinata begins again, "you're his best friend. I-I've had a crush on him since we were in p-primary school. If I don't let him know now, I. . . I—"

"Exactly," he says with finality, "This problem is yours. I have no part in it." It's no more than a simple statement of fact, but Sasuke tries not to cringe when he sees the anguish flicker in Hinata's eyes. He turns away quickly before she can beg him any further, the quick steps of his shoes echoing loudly against the walls of the stairwell. The further he moves away from the windswept scene, the more the annoyance and anger of being pulled into this situation roils in his throat.

He's going to kill Naruto, if it's the last thing he does.

A small smattering of people have started to filter through the hallway as the end of lunch period approaches, and Sasuke chances one glance back up the stairwell. He's only made his way halfway down, and just in time to see Hinata scrub at the corners of her eyes. The heel of her hand catches one tear, then two, and Sasuke somehow stops himself in his descent, lips parted at the sight.

If Sakura were here, she would have chided him by now and rushed up the stairs to lend Hinata a comforting arm; dried the girl's tears with the sleeve of her shirt and spit some inspirational spiel about boys and how not all of them were completely hopeless. But Naruto? The goddamn jokester wouldn't have had a clue as to how he should comfort the girl, his overwhelming wish to do so aside.

Which is why, wonder of wonders, Naruto would have made sure to have resident-source-of-the-problem Sasuke Uchiha comfort her instead. He would make a joke out of it at first, "Oh, man, Sasuke, you seriously made Hinata cry?" And then he would drag his best friend by the collar and present him to her in all of his gloomy and unapologetic splendor, all while grinning his own ass off.

It would be as if the tears had never fallen in the first place.

An irritated groan tears itself from Sasuke's mouth, and he touches a hand to his face, eyes pulling shut as he tries to think.

Hinata startles when he trudges up the stairs and comes into view, hands falling to her sides as she tries to mask any semblance of tearing up. Sasuke catches sight of the love letter, one corner of its envelope barely sticking out from behind her back. The crumple of the paper sends another sharp stab of guilt to his conscience. He already knows the words of the letter by heart, and to think that this crinkled fate is what they've come to sparks something inside of him.

As he looks up to meet Hinata's red-rimmed eyes, a solitary thought surfaces.

Standing here before him is someone Naruto could learn to love, if only he were given the chance. As an orphan himself, there is no truth that Sasuke knows better than this.

So why, then, is he standing in opportunity's way?

"You know what?" he says, perturbed beyond belief. "Fine. Fine. I'll help you." It infuriates him how quickly his conscience seems to relax after that. The ugly, balled up feeling that had knotted itself in the pits of his stomach just a few minutes ago magically disappears with the statement, and as Hinata blinks her eyes and stares at him—once again—in disbelief, Sasuke just covers his eyes with a hand and grumbles.

"Thank you," she whispers, and for the first time since, well, since he's ever actually interacted with her, Hinata smiles. It's a warm gesture, untinged by all the nasty things his smiles are usually laced with. Sasuke almost forgets that only minutes ago, she looked like she was about to fall apart. His shoulders sag from the loss of tension, and he takes his hand away from his face.

"It means a lot to me," she murmurs, and her fingers barely graze the knuckles of his left hand.

A sensation starts to pool in his gut, but Sasuke pushes it and her fingers away quickly with a brash, "Yeah, whatever."

The bell for sixth period finally rings, and the unlikely pair turn to look to the stairs. It's a quiet moment before either of them say anything, but then Hinata smiles, looks back to him and asks, more confidently this time, "Shall we?"

The voices of their classmates filter up through the stairwell, and Sasuke is left a little unsure of what to do. Sensing this, Hinata makes the first move and starts to descend the stairs, her small feet slapping against each concrete step with a soft "tap, tap".

Sasuke follows a few seconds after, but by the time he's entered the main hallway, she's already disappeared into the throng of third-years. He finds himself standing awkwardly on his own, in contemplation of certain things, when Naruto barrels into him and asks, "Dude, where were you?"

Sasuke breathes out a sigh. He can already feel it coming on: the headache he's going to have for the rest of the day. As he and Naruto head off in the direction of their last class, he closes his eyes and thinks about all of the reasons the idiot next to him is responsible for this mess.

Begrudgingly, he mutters, "None of your business, dumbass."