A/N: Yup, that's right, I'm back :D
This is the last of the 'Customer Service' series for those of you begging for a threequel. To be honest, I didn't think it'd be that popular. I mean, over thirty reviews for a sequel of a oneshot is really good for me!
I decided to finish it because I'm catching up with the Naruto manga again and seeing Sasuke in the latest chapters of the manga made me happy, because I like it when Shippuden Sasuke shows emotion. Anyway, that inspired me to finish this threquel.
I've been sooooo busy lately, you wouldn't believe it! It's study, study, study and I haven't even watched any anime since school's started up again!
At the moment, I'm working on a NaruIno oneshot, a KakaHina oneshot and another chapter of my Ouran fic. Those are my priorities basically and I'll get onto other stuff later on.
I really hope all you lovely, lovely readers enjoy this. It's a lot longer than the other parts of the 'Customer service' series but I think it needs the length.
ENJOYYYYYYY :3
Disclaimer: I wish I could say I owned all the characters in this story, but I don't :( They all belong to Masashi Kishimoto, even the perverted old man.
"How are you supposed to ask out a girl who doesn't acknowledge you as a...potential partner?"
The entire table of rowdy boys fell silent as Kiba, Shikamaru and Choji all turned their heads to gawk at Sasuke in disbelief. Naruto simply grinned wolfishly and Shino continued chewing quietly on his sandwich, completely un-phased by his stoic friend's out of character inquiry.
Sasuke frowned, averting his eyes away from the group in embarrassment.
"Hypothetically of course," He added, which caused Naruto's grin to grow wider and Shikamaru to quirk an eyebrow at him.
As more moments of silence passed, Sasuke glared at his group of friends in frustration.
It was a warm Thursday afternoon at Konoha high school and Sasuke, Naruto, Shikamaru, Choji, Kiba and Shino were all sprawled out in the grass of the soccer fields at lunch break. Usually they'd eat at the Cafeteria but they wanted to take advantage of being bathed in the sun before summer would come to an abrupt end and plunge into autumn.
Unfortunately, Sasuke couldn't eat with ease because of a certain Hyuga girl.
Every time Hinata had came to visit him at the Supermarket he'd made various attempts to hint to Hinata that he desired more than friendship from her. All of which had failed.
The girl was oblivious. Completely and utterly oblivious. Well, it was either that or Hinata was secretly amused by his fumbled flirting attempts and had decided to pretend to not catch onto to the hints he was dropping. Though, he couldn't bring himself to believe the innocent Hyuuga would be that sadistic. Besides, it felt more like unintentional torture.
As Sasuke had watched his group of friends scornfully as they gobbled down their food whilst ogling the Cheerleaders who were having practice nearby, that's when the thought occurred to him to see if his friends knew what to do in his situation. It had made sense at the time. Shikamaru had been extremely close friends with Temari, an exchange student from Suna and was now dating her, so obviously he would be familiar with his current situation. Naruto and Kiba were still single but had written a whole book on how to pick up girls at parties. Judging by the amount of girls phone numbers both Kiba and Naruto usually came out of the party with, their strategies worked. Choji and Shino knew hardly anything about females but occasionally they'd surprise him. Sasuke was hoping to be pleasantly surprised.
However, as all five boys locked their eyes on his face (He assumed Shino had his eyes locked on him, since he couldn't be sure with those dark glasses of his) Sasuke began to regret asking the question aloud. Shikamaru, Kiba and Choji were looking at him as if he'd just started chewing at the grass like a cow.
"What? You morons ask stupid questions like this all the time, I think it's about time you returned the favour!" He growled before narrowing his charcoal eyes expectantly at the group. "Well?"
"Dude...I never thought you had feelings..." Choji remarked, crunching a potato chip between his teeth. "You're actually...thinking about getting a girlfriend?" Kiba pondered this idea and wore an expression that looked like he didn't know whether to laugh or take Sasuke to the nurse's office.
The raven-haired boy folded his arms across his chest stubbornly.
"I said it was a hypothetical question." He stated firmly.
Shikamaru rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but we all know it wasn't."
Naruto slung an arm around Sasuke's shoulders and smiled proudly.
"Teme has finally found a girl he likes." He announced as Sasuke elbowed him in the ribs.
"I have not." He denied.
"Who's the girl?" Kiba asked, looking at Naruto curiously.
"She goes to Konoha private school, Hinata Hyuga, heard of her?" Naruto asked and Kiba nodded.
"Oh yeah, the one with white-ish purple eyes?"
The blonde nodded. "That's the one."
Kiba chuckled. "I talked to her once at that Tenten chick's birthday party last year. I tried to get her to make-out with me in one of the bedrooms but we ended up playing scrabble...I have no idea how that happened or where she got that freaking scrabble board from but we played until the party was over. It was actually kind of fun."
Sasuke rolled his eyes. That definitely sounded like Hinata. The Uchiha coughed, he didn't want to talk about Hinata, and he wanted answers to his question.
"Enough about her. How are you supposed to get a girl to recognise you as someone more than a friend?" He asked again, once again averting his eyes from their faces.
"Aaah, so the girl-magnet is trapped in the friend-zone? I never would have imagined," Shikamaru commented, smirking at Sasuke. Naruto winced. "I remember when Sakura put me there..Not a good place to be. I'm glad I'm done with that."
"Yeah, I'm lucky I managed to wriggle out before Temari trapped me there permanently. That would've been horrible." The pineapple head responded, sighing with relief.
Sasuke scowled. "Yes, we've established that it's a not a good position to be in. Now how do I escape from the friend zone?"
Shino shook his head. "There is no way to escape from the friend zone." He replied bluntly.
The raven-haired teen flicked his eyes over to his bug-obsessed class-mate and blinked at him in surprise. He didn't expect him to answer.
"Not even a fire exit?" Sasuke asked sceptically.
"If there's a fire you can put it out with your tears."
Kiba rolled his eyes at Shino who seemed to be allowing a small army of ants to climb up his arm.
"Don't listen to Shino. He's had bad experiences being in the friend zone but there is a way to escape." The shaggy-haired brunette told Sasuke, patting him on the shoulder.
"How?" He asked.
"The girl has the key to the door of the friend zone, so basically all you have to do is ask her to unlock the door. Simple."
Sasuke quirked an eyebrow at Kiba. "That's it? I just tell her outright that I want out of the friend-zone? Can't I trick her into giving me the key first?"
"You can't trick a girl into giving you the key, you have to ask for it otherwise they won't give it to you. And make sure to ask in a nice way otherwise she'll lock you out of her life completely."
The Uchiha sighed and massaged his temples. "Okay enough with the zone-metaphor thing already; it's giving me a headache."
"But you know what you'll have to do, right?" Kiba asked as he chomped on a treat that looked suspiciously like a dog biscuit.
"Yeah, yeah, I know."
Sasuke allowed a deep frown to set on his features as he trudged towards his car.
It was a sleek black Holden commodore; he treated it like his child. After his parents had passed away they'd left a generous amount of money behind, all on which he spent on the car. Sure, it meant he had to get a part time job at the supermarket to pay the bills and supply food for himself and such but damn, was it worth it.
However, not even his sexy car could make his mouth twitch upwards like it usually did.
School had ended and that meant he had to head straight to the supermarket. Which meant seeing Hinata. Which meant confessing. Which meant possibly making a complete fool out of himself and having to quit his job in order to never see her face again. Ugh, he needed a distraction.
The raven haired boy growled in annoyance as his eyes peered through the back window of his car to see a ramen stain on the seat. It was kind of smudged. This told him that the offender had probably tried rubbing it so he wouldn't notice but only ended up making it worse. Typical Naruto, how many times had he told him not to eat in the back seat of his freaking car! How hard was that?
Sasuke inhaled deeply, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. He couldn't afford to get stressed out, he had to stay cool headed otherwise he'd up doing something stupid and...Naruto-ish.
"Sasuke-kuuun! Can I have a ride home? Pleeeeaaassse?"
The Uchiha reluctantly turned on his heel to see a blonde girl, bouncing on her feet and pressing her palms together pleadingly. "I have work. Ask Shikamaru or something." He replied blandly as Ino's face fell. Suddenly another unpleasantly familiar girl barged past Ino and fluttered her apple green eyes at Sasuke. "I'd loveto have a ride in that gorgeous car of yours, Sas-uke." Sakura drawled. Sasuke winced. He hated it when she stretched out his name like that. It made it sound like Sas-gay. And since when did she start using his name without honorifics? Hinata still called him 'Sasuke-san'. Hell, if she'd known his surname first then she'd probably still be calling him 'Uchiha-san'.
"I'm sure you would." He answered as he plugged his key into the lock, twisting it with a satisfying click. At that moment, he had no patience for fan girls and couldn't be bothered being polite.
"Shame forehead, you just re-jec-ted." Ino cackled and Sakura glared at her murderously.
"You got rejected too!"
"No, I didn't!"
"Oh, yes you did!"
Ino scowled at Sakura and yanked at a lock of her hair.
"Hey, what was that for?"
"For being a total big-foreheaded cow!"
"What did you just call me?"
"You heard me!"
Both girls launched into yet another massive argument and began wrestling towards the bus stop. Both Ino's and Sakura's plan b to get home just in case Sasuke couldn't drive them.
Sasuke was about to swing himself into his car and take off down the street away from Sakura and Ino before he heard a voice.
"Sasuke-san!" A soft voice called from across the street. Sasuke tilted his head upwards to see none other than Hinata Hyuga waving at him from the other side of the road in her Konoha private-school uniform next to a long, shiny limousine.
Sasuke looked at her, then at the limo which took up two parking spots. Did she ride around in that thing all the time? And he thought his car was fancy.
The indigo-haired girl cautiously crossed the road and made it over to Sasuke, a relieved smile evident on her lips. "I'm glad I caught you before you left! Kō wanted me to tell you that you don't have to go into work today, he's rearranged the shifts completely since it's hardly busy on Thursdays."
Sasuke nodded before sending the Hyuga a quizzical look.
"Why didn't he just call me, why did he send you?"
Hinata pressed her index fingers together and lowered her gaze from his eyes to his nose.
"Well...Um, I offered because I wanted to say hello to you since I wouldn't be seeing you in the supermarket today..."
Sasuke blinked at her in surprise. He had no idea how to respond to that.
"Okay then. Hello." He said awkwardly.
"Hello." She replied before shuffling her feet nervously.
After a few moments of silence that seemed to stretch on forever, the lilac-eyed girl coughed.
"Okay, I guess I'll see you later?"
Sasuke nodded. "I guess you will."
Hinata smiled at him before turning and stopping at the curb to wait to cross again. She seemed a lot more fidgety than normal, kind of like the first day they met at the supermarket. It was probably the unfamiliar surroundings. Being in such a crowded place full of students staring at you would be nerve-inducing.
The onyx-eyed teen frowned to himself. If he was going to confess to Hinata today then he'd have to do it now. It seemed kind of strange, being the one to confess instead of the one being confessed to. Being in this position made him understand why girls would always wring their hands out and blush furiously whenever they were about to confess to him. Maybe he shouldn't have been so harsh.
Shaking these thoughts out of his head he latched onto Hinata's wrist and pulled her back onto the foot-path.
The girl widened her eyes at him expectantly and he opened his mouth to talk. Unfortunately, his brain chose that exact moment to go blank. It was as if he was too focused on how sweaty his palms were and how stupid his face probably looked at that moment. Actually, all of him looked pretty damn stupid since he had a firm grasp on her wrist and his mouth was hanging open.
"Don't go yet, I have something to tell you." He managed to say. He'd already grabbed her wrist. No way was he backing out now. Uchiha's never chickened out, no matter how much they wanted to run and hide in a barn...or whatever chickens did when they were scared.
Hinata blinked at him curiously. After a few more moments of silence she spoke.
"Are you going to tell me?" She asked, a hint of amusement in her voice.
Sasuke's cheeks began to turn red in frustration and anger (because Uchiha's NEVER blushed) as he clenched his fists. As more silence poured out of his mouth, Hinata tipped her head to the side to think about what Sasuke might want to tell her.
"Is it that they stopped selling those jelly beans I like at the supermarket? I already know that they stopped stocking those, I think my cousin had something to do with that. You see, Neji-nii hates me eating sugary food but those jelly beans were just so good. You didn't get to try them, right, Sasuke-san? I think they sell them at the candy store down the road, next to Ichiraku ramen. I could buy a packet for you so you could try them, I'm sure you'll love them, nobody could resist them," The indigo-haired girl rambled softly as Sasuke began to wonder when she started being so talkative. Although he never seemed to tune her out like the rest of them, she always had something interesting to say, even if it was pointless.
"If I try the jelly beans, will you go out with me?"
Hinata's lilac eyes widened at him questionably.
Sasuke coughed awkwardly and moved his eyes to the concrete.
"I'm just kidding...I hate anything sugary so I don't actually want to try the jelly beans."
The indigo-haired girl was speechless. She wrung her hands out and bit her lip nervously.
"Um, S-Sasuke-san..You're joking right? If you are...it's not funny." She asked and Sasuke froze.
Joking? She thought he was joking?
"What do you mean by joking? Of course I'm not joking!" He hissed, narrowing his eyes at her. Yeah, he was angry at her. But he was more angry at himself, for feeling so hurt over a few words from a girl. A girl that dragged him in then spat him out again.
"Sasuke-san, I-I didn't-"
"Forget it. Just forget it. "
He climbed into the driver's seat and zoomed away from her, leaving her standing on the sidewalk. Glancing into the side-view mirror, he saw she had a devastated look on her face and for a moment, Sasuke felt guilty.
Shrugging off the uneasy feeling in his gut he felt from her devastation, he clutched the steering wheel tighter. He didn't want to care.
Hinata power-walked down the drive way of the next house, quickly leaping up the steps before mashing the door bell and attempting to peer through the window. The curtains were drawn and all she couldn't see anything through the tiny crack.
"Please be his house, please be his house," The indigo-haired girl mumbled to herself as she heard someone padding towards the door. Unfortunately, when the door opened, instead of seeing a tall, well-built raven-haired teenager, her eyes laid upon a man in his fifties with white hair, a wart on his nose and a perverted smile on his face.
He leant against the door frame and scanned her up and down.
"Why, hello there young lady. How may I help you?" The man drawled, waggling his eyebrows at her.
"By any chance does a boy called Sasuke Uchiha live here?" She asked, trying to peek over his shoulder just in case Sasuke had been hiding behind him. All she could catch a glimpse of was an enormous frog statue and a pile of books.
The man shook his head.
"Nobody by the name of Sasuke lives here. I don't think there's anyone called Sasuke in this entire neighbourhood. Since you probably won't find him anywhere around here, why don't you come in for a cup of tea. Do you like tea?"
Hinata frowned. "No thank you. I think I should continue looking for him."
The man pouted and pointed to his face.
"I'm famous you know! Ever heard of Icha Icha paradise? Yeah, I wrote those!"
The indigo-haired girl shook her head. "I have to get going now. Good luck publishing your books." She said before heading back down the drive way.
"They're already published! I just told you, I'm famous!" The man called after her when she'd reached the mailbox.
Hinata frowned to herself as she walked across the pavement. She'd been searching for his house for about an hour now, knocking on every door of the street in the hope to see Sasuke open the door.
She'd been to his house about a month ago but she could only remember the street name. She couldn't remember what number his house was or what his house looked like.
At the time, Hinata hadn't thought it would be very vital for the future to take in her surroundings. Besides, she was absorbed in the presence of the Uchiha; he had a way of filling up her view. She could have asked her father to find her address but she didn't want him involved.
She didn't care that the wart-nosed man had told her nobody by the name of Sasuke lived in this neighbourhood; she was going to knock on every door until her knuckles bled.
Although it would makes things a lot simpler if all the houses didn't look so similar...
"Sasuke. Are you going to eat any of that or are you just planning on staring at that bowl of fruit loops all day?"
Sasuke looked up to see his older brother leaning over him, his eyebrow twitched up slightly in a look of moderate concern.
Sasuke glared up at the older raven-haired Uchiha.
"Of course I'm not going to eat them. I hate these things, they're all sugary and full of chemicals and shit. They don't even taste like fruit, why the hell are they even called fruit loops?"! He growled before slouching back into the couch and shifting his glare back to the untouched bowl of fruit loops in his lap.
Itachi frowned back at him. Usually he knew exactly why his brother was PMS-ing but he couldn't think of any reasons for him to be so upset at the moment. He also had no idea how someone could be so angry at a cereal. Itachi knew Sasuke hated sugary cereal but he'd never had gone so far as to make a bowl of it and scowl at it for two hours straight.
With an exasperated sigh, Itachi pressed his fingers to Sasuke's forehead, only to have Sasuke push his hand away. "You really are in a bad mood today..." Itachi commented only to have Sasuke send another murderous glare his way. "You think?"
"Why aren't you at work?" Itachi asked.
"I called in sick."
"You don't look very sick to me."
"Go away. Unless you go down to the road and get me some tomato-flavoured ice cream then I don't want to talk to you." Sasuke said irritably as Itachi furrowed his eyebrows together in puzzlement.
"They make tomato-flavoured ice cream now? Do they have cabbage flavoured?" The older raven-haired boy questioned.
"I don't know! Why don't you go check!"
Itachi raised his arms in defeat. "Okay, okay, I'll go up the road. You better be in a less grouchy mood when I get back." The older Uchiha said, strolling towards the front door.
"I'M NOT GROUCHY!" Sasuke shouted, hurling his spoon in the direction of his brother's head, only to have Itachi swiftly duck out of the way. How his brother managed to avoid flying objects without even seeing them coming was unknown to Sasuke.
"I love you too, my delightful younger brother," Itachi replied sarcastically as he calmly opened the front door, only to see a girl slightly younger than him. Her knuckles seemed to be at the ready to knock on the door and she looked vaguely familiar.
"Sasuke, your little friend is here to see you," He called back into the house.
Sasuke's eye twitched. "Tell Naruto if he wants to copy my math homework, he can go to hell!"
"No, not the blonde one. The Hyuga girl,"
"I don't want to see her either."
Itachi turned to Hinata, who surprisingly didn't seem perturbed by his younger brother's words.
The light switched on in his brain. Oh, so the Hyuga girl seemed to be the cause of Sasuke's mood. So...Sasuke wasn't actually in an angry mood...he was just sulking over something?
Meh, he'd leave them both to work it out.
"Go right in, Hinata-san. Sasuke's in the living room."
The indigo-haired girl gave him a polite smile. "Thank you, Itachi-san."
The older raven-haired brother nodded in response and casually walked down the steps and down the drive way to go collect his brother's ice cream, which hopefully he wouldn't need when he returned.
Hinata inhaled deeply and stepped into the house. She recognised it now. The framed photo of a beautiful raven-haired woman that greatly resembled Sasuke smiling happily next to a slightly more stoic man with creases in his face, similar to Itachi's, the large Uchiha fan pinned proudly above the entrance to the living room. The wallpaper was cream coloured and the carpet was navy, soft yet firm under her feet.
She cautiously made her way into the living room where Sasuke was sprawled out on the leather couch, an untouched bowl of fruit loops set down on the coffee table.
His eyes flicked to her, then back to the coffee table again. She looked tired and slightly sweaty. Had she walked all the way here?
There was a dragging silence as Hinata wracked her brain. Words were building up in her brain like Tetris blocks but none of them wanted to spill out of her mouth.
Hinata's lilac eyes switched to the bowl of fruit loops. Funny, that was what she had eaten last time she was at Sasuke's house.
"May I help you?" Sasuke asked bitterly, gaze still fixed on the coffee table.
Hinata stood up straight. "I came to apologise, Sasuke-san..I said that, I was just so surprised-"
"You're forgiven. You can go now." He interrupted her, gesturing in the direction of the exit.
"But I-"
"Go. Now. " Sasuke ordered, and Hinata clenched her fists in frustration.
"I've knocked on every single house in the neighbourhood. A mean, old lady shouted at me, one guy didn't answer the door but let his dog out to chase me down the drive way and some perverted old man who claimed he was famous tried to invite me in. I think I deserve to talk to you, Sasuke."
Sasuke raised his eyebrows at her before standing up and fixing her a challenging stare.
"Why do you even care? Why did you have to come here and see me wallowing in my misery? Are you some kind of sadist? Do you get off on that or something?"
Hinata frowned. "Listen, I-"
"No, you listen! I don't want to hear you apologise for not liking me, because that's not your fault and it only makes me seem even more pathetic that I am at the moment! I don't need an apology, I just need to be alone!" He shouted and Hinata shook her head.
"I can't do that."
"Why not?"
Hinata blinked at him. "B-Be-cause I-I-"
"What?" He demanded
"L-Like you." She finished off, before taking a deep breath. "I like you."
Sasuke narrowed his eyes at her in puzzlement. "Pardon?"
"I like you, kind of...a lot." Hinata elaborated her cheeks tingeing red. "T-the way that you talk to me...You treat m-me like I'm a normal person. And I like that. I like being normal. I-I like you. Do I have to say it again?"
The raven-haired boy frowned, lifting himself off the couch and onto his feet.
"You're lying. I don't believe you." Lilac eyes met with cold onyx eyes.
"I-I'm not! You g-gave me a fright before! I never imagined in a zillion years that you'd end up liking me! You could have anyone! Everyone's always looking at you, even a lot of the guys! How am I supposed to compete with all those other girls? I'm just the clumsy, pale boss's daughter with the funny coloured hair!" A sigh escaped from her lips.
"I thought you were joking. Teasing me again. Like you always do. It's very annoying when you do that."
"If you think that's going to make me believe you, then think again." He told her, scowling at the floor. Hinata furrowed her eyebrows together for a few moments before taking a deep breath and a step towards Sasuke. She clasped his face in her hands and he jerked his head out of her gentle grip.
"What are you doing?" He hissed and she frowned as she reached to hold his chin in her hands again.
"Hold still, please." She said in a voice almost as soft as a whisper.
In a quick movement her lips softly planted themselves on his mouth briefly before she moved backwards, her cheeks blazing fire-y red.
"Is that enough p-proof for you?" She asked, trying to sound firm but failing miserably.
Sasuke simply gawked at her. "W-well?" She questioned. He kept gawking.
"F-fine, don't believe me, see if I care! In fact-Ahh!"
Suddenly he grabbed hold of both of her wrists and in one swift movement pinned her down against the couch. Hinata looked up at the raven-haired boy above her with wary eyes."W-what are you doing..? Sas-"
He silenced her with his mouth and his lips melted against hers in a soft yet forceful kiss.
Sasuke's tongue traced the entrance of her mouth and she blinked as she responded and slid her wrists out of his grasp so she could wind her arms around his neck. Unfortunately, she'd grabbed onto his neck with a bit too much force because it caused the raven-haired teen to come crashing down on top of her. With their limbs tangled together, Hinata couldn't hold back her laughter.
Sasuke frowned as he tried to prop himself up again. However , at that moment such a task was impossible without kneeing the indigo-haired girl in the stomach.
"I'm guessing you believe me now?" She asked, blowing her fringe out of her eyes.
He nodded . "And I'm guessing that I don't need to eat jelly beans to get you to go out with me?"
"Hmm, we'll see about that."
A/N: So, do you like how I ended it? I decided to stir it up a bit and add a bit of drama, even though I totally suck at drama.
Please review, tell me if you liked the ending, if you hated it. Critique is golden and so are compliments.
Thanks so much for reading :D