My One In A Million

Sasuke was not amused.

Not many things amused him anymore, but in this precise moment he was especially displeased.

His eyes shot towards the far tree to the west; two Anbu members. The building to the east, four or more, some twenty feet behind him was another one.

That wasn't the worst of it; he'd gotten used to their presence around him all the time.

What got on his nerves were the many Narutos.

The Konoha rebuilding team was recieving unlimited help with their work because of the collective strength of the clones; occasionally they would all pop out and disappear because the real one ran out of energy, hungry.

What a joke.

Sasuke wasn't in charge of any actual labor, but Tsunade wouldn't let him stay at home and not work.

Frankly, the rebuilding of the village was the last thing on his priority list. He'd come back with Naruto when the war ended; out of loyalty and friendship to the orange-haired boy, nothing more. Of course, he was old enough to have his own place; it was an old apartment in the part of town that hadn't gotten destroyed but whose owner died in the war. Really weird people lived in the other apartments because they couldn't -or wouldn't- help, but none of them dared look him in the eye; so all was well.

Naruto was walking towards him with a 'aw man this sucks' expression on his face; Sasuke knew it was time to abandon his post in the tool shed and get dragged to that awful ramen shop once more. "Nee nee, Sasuke." The boy drawled in a whiny voice. "I'm hungry. Let's go eat."

Sasuke sighed and didn't hide his annoyance. "You don't need a chaperone."

The blonde grinned. "Ahahaha! But today is different!" he totally dodged Sasuke's excuse. "The restoration team's got a kitchen set up between this district and the one on the other side, so we get free food now!"

The Uchiha rolled his eyes. "I'll pass." He didn't like over greasy, tasteless noodles; but he absolutely would not put something in his mouth that had gotten tossed around a makeshift kitchen with hairy old ladies for cooks.

"Eh? Aren't you hungry?" He narrowed his eyes. "I was with you since breakfast and it's almost afternoon now, you're probably starving, right? Come on, let's go!" He threw his arm over the reluctant, albeit hungry young man, and dragged him across the street.

People gave them weird looks; no one understood why the strong, heroic Uzumaki Naruto would care for the piece of filth, the murderous, heartless traitor that was Uchiha Sasuke. Some people still openly glare at him, but none dared say what was on their minds; they didn't need to as he can guess.

The Anbu around town weren't to guard the rebuilding team in Konoha's weak days from sudden outsider attacks; they where there to restrain him if he made any wrong move.

He'd done a lot of arguing and fighting when he first got back; the interrogation team had a field day with him and even the Council had trouble accepting that he wasn't going to kill them in their sleep. The recent buildings were nearly leveled to the ground again when he and Naruto had a big argument over him leaving, Sasuke insisted that the village wasn't worth staying at anymore, while Naruto argued the walls can always be rebuilt a thousand times as long as there are people to build it. Egos were hurt, so were noses, in the end Tsunade told them to stop in return of giving Sasuke some training time to let off some steam.

He was allowed two hours a day of training with Naruto only, in the wasteland that had once been the Uchiha District; even then Anbu squads would be surrounding them to watch and probably interfere when things got dangerous.

He could never really understand the concept of having them around; it was like ants pretending to keep an eagle in check; he could crush all of them at once but he just couldn't be bothered to. Let them pretend to have the upper hand, let them pretend to be stronger than him; it kept them busy and made others fear interacting with him and decide not to get in his business, so all was good.

"You know," Naruto started happily, letting go of Sasuke's neck and shoving his hands into his pockets. "Sakura chan is on cooking duty today! Did you know that?"

Sasuke didn't even bother to hide the eye roll.

"It's not why we're going! It's not!" the boy blushed. "I'm just hungry, ok? Look there it is!" He dashed towards a relatively large building made of wood, the chimney at the top was lazily spewing smoke indicating that there was activity inside. The sky was cloudy and lighting shook the mountains in the distance, the thick clouds threatened to rain, but the ground was dry for now.

The building was relatively small, but it managed to serve as a small restaurant with an open kitchen and several tables to sit at while having one's meal. The smell was making his stomach do an uncomfortable twist and he realized he'd been without food for far too long. He followed the bellowing idiot across the empty table space and into the kitchen area. He scanned the faces of the few ladies in there; Sakura was there doing more talk than work, two older ladies he didn't know or care to meet stood around chatting; and then there was the quiet Hyuuga girl with the long hair washing dishes and listening to Sakura.

Her bland name escaped him, but he remembers her from the pack that set off to grab him from Madara's side. She'd gotten injured during the fight along with almost everyone, looks like she's assigned cooking duty because of that injury.

"Sakura chaaaan~" Naruto sang and sauntered in like he owned the place. The older ladies groaned and shooed him out, but he ignored them. "Hinata chan! What's for lunch?"

"Lunch is over! There's only leftovers!" Sakura grabbed a frying pan threateningly before her eye caught the quiet Uchiha pour himself a cup of tea behind the counter. "O- Oh, Sasuke kun. Are you guys hungry?"

"You bet! What's there to eat?"

Sakura glanced at Sasuke for a minute before smiling at Naruto. "Nikujaga and rice; it's kinda cooled down now though."

"Meat and potato soup! I don't care if it's iced over! I'm starving!"

"Would you be having some, Sasuke kun?" She asked uncertainly.

He shot her a glare that told her she had no right to ask that. Sakura couldn't hide her dismay when she grabbed a plate and pretended to chat with Naruto casually. He took another sip of the warm tea and directed his studying gaze to the others. His stomach begged to be filled up with something heavy and hot; he didn't want to get drowsy afterwards so he decided to take it slow. Naruto was already digging through his food right there without waiting to sit down, Sakura was trying to interrupt his excitement to tell him to get a table but he wouldn't stop to breathe let alone think; the Hyuuga girl was observing their interaction with a soft smile. Her white eyes suddenly turned to him, sensing his eyes on her, the smile faded away to an expression of polite curiosity.

He looked back, she didn't flinch away or talk; nothing. He wondered if she was even looking at him and not some kilometer's away into the distance. "Hyuuga." He said, everyone in the kitchen stopped talking and looked at him; Sakura even put down the ladle.

The girl simply blinked. "Hai?"

"Did you help make it?"

Her eyes wandered to the side- so she has been looking at him. "H- Hai." She nodded.

"She practically made it all, I was away and Haruno joined us later on." One of the older ladies said stiffly, as if to tell him to stay out of their business and leave the girl alone.

"Did you taste it?" He pressed.

Her white eyes met his, curious to where the conversation was going. "I did."

"Would you feed it to your father?" Everyone knew the Hyuuga Lord's prudent nature; the guy had his own chef who lived in his house.

He could sense the chakra around him pulsating, Naruto stopped wolfing down his food and chewed slowly, Sakura was nervous; they expected him to cause a scene, no doubt, the fools.

"I- I think I would." The girl said.

He put the tea cup down and slowly made his way to the pot, Sakura edged away and Naruto sighed; returned to his soup and rice but kept a watchful eye. Sasuke brought the ladle up and let the smell drift into his nose, he intended to bring it to his lips for a taste, but the girl with the long hair offered him a bowl.

"P- Please respect the others." She said to the bowl with furrowed brows. "D- Don't put that back in the pot, please."

He stopped, the soup just an inch away from his lips. He put it down and glared at her; he'd only looked at people with mild interest up until now, but now he was seeing red. "Excuse me?" He turned to her, she didn't look up. "What do you mean?"

"Sasuke." Naruto said in a low voice.

"Respect the others? Did they tell you I'm not supposed to eat from the same pot?" He towered over her, but she didn't step back. "It'll get filthy, wouldn't it?"

"Sasuke!" Naruto put his bowl down, but Hinata spoke before he got between them.

"Y- You wouldn't like it if Naruto kun did it, right?" She peeked up through long bangs and thick lashes. "M- My father wouldn't either. W- We don't taste directly, either, ne?" Her head tipped slightly to the side where the older ladies were nodding their heads. "It's not sanitary."

His anger was threatening to overflow, but he took a deep breath and gave it a moment to subside; it would be problematic if he let his temper get the best of him, not now, not ever. "Whatever." Nobody else dared look at him, but this girl was actually telling him to mind his manners.

It was interesting.

He'd always been the strong one, the person in command of the situation; the only reason he'd let someone have their way was if it was to his benefit, or if they were driving a kunai into his heart.

For the record, he's not dead yet.

"I'll… I'll bring you a tray." She said quietly to him, edging to the pot and filling the bowl carefully. He watched her closely; long hair, thin hands, obvious nervous habits.

Fragile.

"I'll be over there." He said finally, glancing at the pink-haired girl who was looking away, unknowingly leaning away from him and closer to Naruto. Sasuke paddled past them without a word and seated himself at a table in the farthest corner away from the door.

A part of him missed the days when he used to be just another boy in the circle of laughing friends, another part of him, the one that now dominated, was proud of his affect on people. Right now several Anbu were retreating- he could feel their chakra-suppressed aura, he also caught sight of a messenger hawk cross the cloudy skies through the window.

He smirked. With just one word, one footstep, he could spin a whole village on his fingertip.

"What's your name?" He asked the approaching girl.

"Hyuuga Hinata." She answered a little bit uncertainly. "Here's your, um, lunch." She gently placed a tray in front of him, the soup bowl was full to the brim and she was generous with the rice. "All this for me? It's because they're leftovers, isn't it?" His pride was protesting, but it was fun to the put the words in their mouths and watch them stumble all over themselves to deny their real thoughts, even though it only proves it further.

"I- I don't think it's healthy to say that about yourself." She interlaced her fingers tightly. "Y- You're our friend, and you work hard, you deserve good food. Please tomorrow come earlier before it gets cold." She nodded with a quick "Thank you for your hard work." And turned to disappear in the back towards the kitchens.

He didn't want to admit it, but this was probably the best meal he'd had since coming back, he didn't like food too hot, anyway.

He would have to come earlier tomorrow and try it while it's hot, and then complain.

Author's note: Whoa, long time away from the fandom and FFnet XD I kept thinking about Sasuhina after catching up with the latest manga issues, so i'll keep this as a dump for all the sasuhina ideas i get *_* i don't know if this will be an in-universe series of one shots or one long fanfic *shrugs* we'll see, i might not even continue it =_= ANYWAY, hope it was a good read XD