The Boy with Twenty Faces

A Misunderstanding

I remember my middle school, friend, Shikamaru-kun. I miss him. He would always sleep in class and eat his lunch early. He would often eat it in Kurenai-sensei's class. He would stand a notebook in front of him and would hold his bento box close so that Kurenai-sensei would not see him. Then he would give me a small bite and say:

"You girls are so troublesome, you never eat. That's why we have to practically feed you so that you don't starve yourselves to death."

I miss Shikamaru-kun. He was spiky like a pineapple and he was stingy like an old man. I miss –"Shikamaru-kun~!"

"No, it's Uzumaki," I heard the high pitch correction of my beloved class president. I opened my eyes in surprise and glared at the ceiling, blue? The ceiling was white and the ceiling doesn't have pupils and the ceilings pupils don't dilate into big black circles.

"U-Uzumaki-kun!" I gasped while straitening up into a sitting position, striking my head into Uzumaki-kun's sunshine locks in the process.

"Hinata-san are you okay?" he asked while rubbing at his sore head resentfully.

"Of course she's not okay. She fainted idiot!" I heard a second voice say, this husky voice that I knew so well then asked me in an indignant tone, "Why did you faint idiot?"

"Huh, Sasuke-senpai, Uzumaki-kun what are you doing here, where's Shikamaru-kun?" I think I must have looked drunk or something because both of them looked at me as if I had just told them I had married to my dog in Vegas.

"Hinata-san don't you remember what happened… before you fainted?" Uzumaki-kun asked worriedly, his eyebrows arched into two opposite slopes.

"Hinata, you don't remember?" Sasuke-senpai on the other hand looked plain terrified.

"See what you did you stupid! You broke her!" Uzumaki-kun said, his voice betraying him from the tension.

"No I didn't, it was all your fault, you're the one who dropped her on our way here!" Sasuke-senpai retorted hotheadedly.

"I-itaii…" I said nervously. My head was throbbing and I was starting to think if dropping me was all that had happened.

"Hinata!" They yelled in unison, running to my side as if I was paying them to do so.

"Hinata, are you okay?" Sasuke-senpai now said.

"Of course she isn't teme!" Uzumaki-kun said know, they were so opposite and hotheaded that it could almost be said that they had chemistry.

"Shut up already!" they were yelling so loud over me – literally one on each side of the bed yelling and trying to pinch each other –that it was frustrating just to be there. I pulled the blue covers over myself and whimpered unhappily.

"W-what happened?" I asked hesitantly. I even tilted my head.

They both turned in my direction and I was suddenly torn in between two pairs of eyes, both pulling me forward, inviting me to see what was beyond. "I saved your life Hinata-san," Uzumaki-kun said bluntly, "from this monster. He pointed at Sasuke-senpai, like a child pointing at the kid who had hit him in the playground.

"Don't believe him Hinata, he was trying to kiss you while you were sleeping!" he puffed his cheeks and pouted , it was a surprise he didn't have a teddy bear hugging to him and his hands over his chest in protest.

I looked from one to the other as they continued to argue hotly. Then it all came back, the cold lips against mine and the inky locks that where falling over my apple cheeks. His arms that had slithered to my waist as if they were ropes tied to a swing. My eyes widened and I felt my gray pupils dilate to an infinitesimally small size, making my eyes look almost entirely lavender. I felt the blood flush to my cheeks and my neck go hot, my jugular going crazy from the blood that was streaming through it.

"You!" I wailed pointing at Sasuke-senpai as I crouched behind Uzumaki-kun.

"Hinata, I swear it wasn't my intention," he was trying to excuse himself from a thing this big. He had stolen my precious. My first. He had stolen my first kiss. I know this is cliché but he had taken it deliberately as if it was a freebie at a store.

"What! You, you k-k-k-kissed –" I felt like a fresh baked pie: hot and smoking and I couldn't bring myself to finish the sentence.

"He kissed you Hinata-san," Uzumaki-kun said as if he was telling me that the weather was nice today. But this wasn't weather, this was bigger than that. This was bigger than life.

I held tight to Uzumaki-kun's blazer, so tight as if my life depended on it, and in some way it did. Uzumaki-kun twitched when I held my small hand over his back but he didn't move away. This resulted comforting. It was as if he was saying 'I will protect you my princess' I hissed like a cat from behind Uzumaki-kun glaring at Sasuke-senpai, like a child who had just gotten her candy stolen by an old lunatic of a grandpa.

"Hinata wait, you don't have to get mad, I just wanted Uzumaki to get away from you," Sasuke-senpai wanted Uzumaki-kun to get away? Why?

"Why?" at first I thought I had said this but it turned out my lips where sealed closed. Uzumaki-kun had asked this.

"Because I thought… you were trying to steal her from me," he said bashfully, trying not to look at me. I gasped and flushed even more.

"Well, that was pretty much obvious right?" Uzumaki-kun said while tilting his head at me and smiling liquid sunshine over me excitedly.

"Huh? You… Uzumaki-kun you –?" I stuttered anxiously.

"The thing is that you are some dense girl Hinata, you didn't even notice that I had started calling you by your first name," Uzumaki-kun said softly, so soft that I had to lean closer to hear what he had said.

"But you never, I thought –"

"That I was just being nice, I know. I'm not very good at this romance thing in case you haven't noticed."

"But you lost Uzumaki, because she likes me more," What? When had I said that? I didn't even know that Sasuke-senpai or Uzumaki-kun liked me until just five minutes ago.

"Is that true Hinata?" Uzumaki-kun asked me while taking hold of my hand, still resting on his shoulder.

"I-I don –" What was it with these people that never let me finish my sentences. I am sure I will sue the author of this for not giving me a say.

"She already said it," Sasuke-senpai looked so confident and sure of what he as saying.

"Well what did she say?" Uzumaki-kun glared perpetually at Sasuke-senpai while grasping my hand even tighter.

"S-she said that I made her heart race," Sasuke-senpai said, embarrassed and red like the passionate bra's that the girls would use under their white shirts so that everyone could see them from the see-through fabric.

"W-what? Hinata would never say that, she doesn't even know what makes a heart race, right Hinata," Uzumaki-kun stared at me waiting for the assurance that I hadn't said that.

"W-well I did say that," I said timidly, finally crawling out of Uzumaki-kun's reach.

Uzumaki-kun smiled painfully, it was a smile that didn't reach his beautiful, sea-blue eyes. It hurt me that he had such a pained smile, "Well I guess I lost."

I wanted to prove him wrong, to tell him that I didn't meant to say those things, but the only thing I could croak out was a weak "Aag."

"I'm sorry to have annoyed you," he stood up and started walking indolently to the door, suddenly my voice came back, and in that moment I had wished that my voice had never come.

"But I didn't mean it that way, I – I, what I meant to say was that Sasuke-senpai made me nervous b-because he always seemed to be m-mad at me," my voice broke into tiny, stuttered up pieces of sound and high pitches.

"What?" Sasuke-senpai looked devastated, as if he was a frog about to be dissected. In that moment I felt as if I wanted to comfort him and say that I liked him better, but I couldn't lie. I didn't even like someone yet.

Uzumaki-kun then turned around and grabbed my wrist, he locked arms with me and smiled as if he had just gotten a bucketful of ramen and another bucketful of ramen coupons that could last a lifetime, "Then I will officially declare myself as your rival Uchiha Sasuke!" and with that he kissed me lightly on the cheek. I blushed timidly and staggered away a few steps.

Switch. Sasuke-senpai flickered his eyes and once again his inner him –or one of his inner him's –started in my direction. I knew it was a switch because he looked blazed, like a robot, his eyes devoid of any light. He took hold of my wrist and pulled me to him, he then glowered in Uzumaki-kun's direction. He said the most serious thing in the most breathtaking voice that would have made hundreds of girls go into a war just to be the Hinata he was talking about, "No one will ever steal Hinata away from me, because she is the person I love."

I would have fainted again, had I not already have been lacking of enough energy to even faint. I felt a shiver prickle though my spine and for a moment I believed what he had said, but he was in one of his switches and I would never want to believe that what he said in his switches was true. Sasuke-senpai was never trustworthy in things like these. I lowered my head steadily, afraid that if I lifted it I would find myself locked in between the sun and the moon. I was blushing, not because of what Sasuke-senpai had said but because of the magnitude of the situation and qualms that it all provoked me.

"What makes you think you're the only one?" the high pitch, husky voice that belonged to the face of those stern eyes. Those stern, cerulean eyes that could capture a soul inside them and still mirror beauty. He must have been joking. No one would say those kinds of things without thinking it first and for all that I know he probably wasn't thinking this thoroughly enough. I blinked clumsily and smiled sheepishly. My heart was compressed into a big, over analyzing machine that could not trust the words of these ultimately good-looking guys because this was way too good to be true.

Then I understood, "I understand. I am very sorry but I am not your personal toy, for you to tease me whenever you please." Uzumaki-kun looked at me with a heartbroken expression and for a moment I considered taking my words back but I desisted. Meanwhile Sasuke-senpai had started to twist my ink black locks in his hands and scowl at Uzumaki-kun simultaneously.

"Hinata is the only person I have ever loved," Sasuke-senpai said to me in a nostalgic voice that could very much feel like rain hitting slowly on my umbrella, figuratively speaking of course. His words felt sincere, but so did Uzumaki-kun's and I really didn't know who to believe, or if I should believe anyone at all.

"No, Hinata you're wrong," and with that Uzumaki-kun turned and stormed out of the room. It had not been his leaving so rashly the reason of my conspicuous cloudiness of opinion, but the honest gaze full with grief that he had opened upon me. What had he meant with that? Did his feelings really aspire to love? Was he telling the truth? Or was I over-analyzing everything as I always tend to?

"Hinata, do you believe me?" Sasuke-senpai said while staring out to the place where Uzumaki-kun had been just seconds ago. I hesitated to answer and almost choked down tears when I responded.

"Of course," I patted him on the back the way people do when a relative dies or on the funeral or your deceased pet whom you had loved very much.

"You know why I like you so much Hinata?" Sasuke-senpai asked, and to this I swear I had no reasonable answer.

"Why?" I asked, more out of mere curiosity than out of anything else.

"Because you are true…" he smiled genuinely and took hold of my hand tenderly. I didn't know what he meant at the moment but I wasn't sure if I wanted to know. Just the fact that Uchiha Sasuke seemed to harbor some sort of non-platonic feelings towards me was enough to leave me flabbergasted. Now to discover that my class president and friend –if could be said –also seemed to either like to toy with my tiny, petite heart or actually liked me was more than enough to give me a tremendous heart attack.

"If you say so Sasuke-senpai," I grinned weakly and gripped at my sleeve for some kind of support.

"Hinata, I think you should start calling Uzumaki by his given name, we can both call him that," he smiled a bit cockily. He had seemed to gain some of the confidence that Naruto-kun had previously drained from him like a confidence-sucking vampire.

"Are you sure, I mean you seem to be very possessive for your own good, wouldn't that be a sort of a switcher," I didn't know why I was asking this to his switch mode, his devoid of any light switch mode.

"Of course I'm okay, I didn't switch right know did I?" I turned to him swiftly. He hadn't? I took hold of his cheeks with my cold hands and stared into the dark pools of black.

"Hey wha– " I felt the blood in his cheeks stream quickly and merrily, encouraged by the sudden jumpiness in his heart. His eyes… where shining, shining as if he had just won a tournament. Shining with confidence and triumph. Glittering was a better word.

"It's true Sasuke-senpai! You didn't switch!" so all that he had said was true? No! Did he say everything from the bottom of his heart? Was it true… that he l-lo-lov…. I mentally squashed the thought away into the depths of my subconscious. That was utterly impossible if not infinitely impossible. He grunted happily, I could sense the happiness that menaced from bursting out of every single pore in his body and start singing the Bohemian Rhapsody at the top of his lungs on the top of Tokyo Tower.

But I could not share his happiness to such an extent because I had just been captured in a terrible destiny that should have been that destiny of a strong willed shoujo manga heroine or of a cute, girly and timidly tolerable girl. I Hinata Hyuga was neither of those and yet I was caught in between believing and not believing and sometimes believing seemed less troublesome.

Sasuke-senpai and Naruto-kun they both like to play with a young maiden's heart. They like to twist it and turn it in their grasping, handsome hands. Scarring at the corners and ripping in the ends. Do not dare you believe what they say, for their words will only break you into millions of pieces and glue you into a totally different person. Mold you and screw with you until you are a totally unrecognizable soul.

Naruto-kun and Sasuke-senpai like to play with the wellbeing of this young wallflower of a girl. Useless as she is she seems to harbor a certain charm on these boys and it would not surprise me if for instance she were to be living the dream of a reverse harem. I just hope her name isn't Hyuga Hinata, because if that were the case, then we would be talking of me.

A/N: chapter five already! I seriously can't believe myself! To have come as far as chapter five is I dare say a great accomplishment from my part. I am full of relish happiness.

I hope you enjoy even though Sasuke-san did not actually switch into some random personality in this chapter I think the romance and twisted love triangle has come to some sort of defined picture.

I am trying to make everything understandable and I know I use very weird expressions but please bear with me.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed. Review if that is of your pleasure (here I go again with my political language).