Chapter 3: First impressions

"This food sucks!" Naruto yelled in protest.

"Oh come on it's not that bad" a nurse countered.

"Ok then you eat it, if it's not that bad." Naruto challenged.

"I don't have to eat it, you're the one in the hospital not me" the nurse retorted.

"I'm not eating it and that's final." Naruto says while crossing his arms.

"Ok then your body will remain weak and you will never get out of here." The nurse stated.

Naruto perked his head up with interest. "You're telling me if I eat this slop I will recover faster?"

The nurse nodded. "That's exactly what I'm saying."

"You should have told me that before." Naruto then proceeded to devour the food on his tray.

"Now that's better I will return in a few minutes to collect your tray." The nurse says as she turned on her heels and walked towards the door.

"Done" Naruto shouts stopping the nurse in her tracks.

"Done that's not possible." She says while turning around and gawking when she saw the completely empty tray. "H-how did you finish so fast?"

Naruto shrugged "I'm a fast eater."

"That was a little more than fast, now it makes sense how you ended up in the hospital." She says as she takes his tray from him. "I'll return in a few hours to bring you lunch, take it easy until then." She added.

"Sure thing, but one question."

The nurse raised her eyebrow. "What is it?"

"When will she be awake" Naruto says while pointing to the still sleeping Hinata.

"Well we expected her to be awake this morning, but it looks like she was far more exhausted then we thought. But she should surely be awake by noon."

"Wow she must have been training pretty hard to end up in the hospital." Naruto's eyes were gleaming at the thought of training that hard.

"Maybe so, but don't you go getting any ideas." The nurse scolded. "The last thing you should want is to end up back in the hospital. Besides Chakra exhaustion is a series matter some have died from it so don't take it lightly."

"Do you have kids" Naruto says out of the blue "because you would make a good mother?"

The Nurse had a small blush "what makes you think I would be a good mother?"'

"Well because you sound like my mother when she's scolding me or my brother. Mostly me tho cause Shino doesn't really do anything wrong." Naruto replied casually.

The nurses' eyebrow ticked. "Is that a fact?" The nurse says as she storms out of the room.

"What did I do wrong" Naruto asked aloud honestly confused. He lied back down contemplating what to do. 'Man I'm bored lets see what can I do to keep myself occupied?...I got it, now's the perfect time to practice my info gathering.' Naruto lifted his arm and one beetle crawled from a hole in his arm and walked to his index finger. "Alright you know what to do." The insect took flight and disappeared out the open window. "

Naruto closed his eyes satisfied with his cunningness. Then his eyes shoot open "what do you mean I sent him to his death." Naruto said aloud, "There's no way he will get caught." If anyone saw Naruto they would believe he was talking to himself, but in fact he was talking with his queen insect. "I'm sorry if we lose him, but you have to agree with me we need the practice." A few seconds of silence went by "so you do agree with me, you just think I should have chosen an easier target."

"But who could give us better spying experience then practicing on the Hokage himself?" a moment later "yeah that's right no one. If we can successfully spy on the villages most powerful ninja then anyone else would be child's play."

Naruto and his queen's bickering were interrupted by the sound of his roommate stirring.

Hinata slowly opened her eyes but do to the overwhelming light had to shut them. She tried for round two and this time her eyes slowly adjusted to the light. "w-where a-am I?" she says in a tired quite voice.

"You're in the hospital" Naruto answered.

"H-hospital b-but why am I in the hospital?"

Naruto shrugged. "Beats me all I know is it had something to do with chakra exhaustion. My guess would be you over did it in your training."

"T-training yes now I r-remember, I was t-training with father."

"So your own father pushed you that far. That hardly sounds responsible of him." Naruto replied plainly.

Hinata shook her head "No it wasn't l-like that you d-don't understand. I'm the h-heir to the Hyuga c-clan he only w-wants me to be s-strong enough to l-lead the clan."

Naruto looked anything but convinced anyone willing to put their own child in the hospital had to be a jerk. But for the girls sake he decided not to press the matter any further. "Sorry you're right I didn't know the full story, I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions."

Hinata eased up and finally turned her head to look at who she was talking too. He had blond spiky hair and a pair of dark blue sunglasses and was dressed in a hospital robe. "W-why t-the s-sunglasses?"

"Oh sorry family tradition I guess" Naruto says while taking off the sunglasses.

Hinata was taken aback by what she saw. His eyes were the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen, deep sapphire blue eyes.

Naruto looked at Hinata curiously. "Uh are you feeling well?" Naruto asked Hinata.

"Y-yes w-why do y-you ask?"

"Well your face is kind of red I thought you might have had a fever or something." Naruto answered casually.

Hinata didn't even notice that her face had turned slightly pink. And Naruto pointing it out only made it worse.

"Are you sure you're not sick?" Naruto got up from his bed and walked to Hinata's and placed his hand on her forehead. "Hm you're a little warm maybe I should call the nurse, to see if she could give you an ice pack or something."

Hinata had turned from light pink to crimson red, in the matter of a second. Her eyes closed and she fell back down into her pillow. Unknown to Naruto that this will be the first of many.

"Uh H-Hinata are you alright?" There was no reply Naruto looked at the beet red girl and panicked. "Oh no what did I do what happened the Hyugas will kill me for this." He ran from her side and dived under the sheets on his bed. "Perfect I'll just pretend like I was asleep the whole time, then that way they can't blame me." Five minutes later he poked his head up over the sheets just in time to see Hinata waking up. He was relived she was ok and the Hyugas would have no reason to kill him.

"He hopped up from his bed and ran to her side. "Are you okay what happened your not hurt are you?" Naruto was throwing questions back and fourth at her in a frantic voice.

"W-what's going on what happened?" Hinata asked Naruto.

"You don't remember? You passed out." Naruto says while eyeing Hinata carefully.

"P-passed o-out" Hinata then remembered why she had passed out, and a light blush showed on her face.

Naruto noticed her blush and took a step back. "I'm glad you're okay you had me worried."

"I-I'm sorry I made you worry." Hinata says apologetically.

"Don't worry about it, just promise not to scare me like that again deal?" Naruto says while extending his hand out for Hinata to shake it.

Hinata timidly extends her hand to shake his "d-deal."

"Good now that we got that out of the way how about I introduce myself. "The name is Naruto Aburame."

"S-so you're f-from a ninja clan too the i-insect wilding clan c-correct?"

Naruto nodded his head up and down. "Yep that's the one" Naruto says with pride evident in his tone.

"M-my name is H-Hinata of the H-Hyuga clan, it's an h-honor to meet you N-Naruto-san."

"Hey you don't have to be so formal with me, just call me Naruto."

"S-sorry N-Naruto." Hinata apologized softly.

"Oh yeah and stop apologizing all the time, you have nothing to apologize for."

"S-sorr…. I mean ok."

Naruto just sighed this girl was nice alright, maybe too nice if anything.

"So uh N-Naruto w-why are you in the h-hosptial?" Hinata asked curious to why this seemingly healthy boy was in the hospital.

Naruto rubbed his head bashfully. "Well it's kind of embarrassing, let's just say I bit off more than I could chew." Naruto says with a huge grin.

"Oh uh t-that's unfortunate."

"Tell me about it, since I can't eat solid foods right now they make me eat this soupy slop it's disgusting."

Hinata had to stifle a laugh, but Naruto had caught it.

"Hey you don't have to hide your laugh from me, to tell you the truth I like hearing others laugh. I don't hear it nearly enough at the Aburame mansion. Hardly anyone laughs there everyone's so serious all the time." Even the kids younger than me will only laugh every once in a while, we Aburame's are supposed to be prime examples of self control. But I've always lacked in that department."

"I-I too live in a home were l-laughter is s-solemnly heard. Everyone's so bitter all the time."

"Yeah I kind of figured that when I saw your father this morning."

"My f-father w-was h-here?"

Naruto nodded. "Yeah he came in really early before I even had breakfast. He didn't say much, I tried to say hello but he just stared at me then he asked the nurse how long you would be in for. After that he just left without saying anything."

"I'm s-sorry for my f-fathers rudeness."

"Hey don't sweat it, your fathers the head of the Hyuga clan. I'm sure he has better stuff to do then make small talk with me."

"N-no t-that doesn't e-excuse his a-actions; I-if he had time to s-stare then he had time to s-speak." Hinata retorted.

Naruto was about to say something when he noticed one his insects fly in. "Sorry Hinata looks like my spy has come back, hold on this will only take a sec." Naruto extended his hand and the tiny beetle landed on his index finger. "Well tell me how'd it go?" Naruto asked his insect.

Hinata was watching curiously she knew the Aburame's could communicate with their insects but how was the question. She watched as Naruto just stared at the insect occasionally giving a nod to the bug.

After about a minute Naruto tells the insect "good work." The insect then recedes back into Naruto through a hole in his arm. "It seems the Hokage was doing nothing of importance, just sitting in his chair looking at books with pictures of woman without their clothes on."

Hinata had a deep blush on but it took Naruto a minute to process the information. "The Hokage is a pervert!" Naruto shouts aloud when he finally realizes what happened. "Man I would have never pictured the leaf's strongest ninja to be a perv."

"N-Naruto how d-do you t-talk w-with y-your insects? I didn't hear a-anything when your i-insect was r-reporting back." Hinata asked curiously.

"You know you're the first person to ever ask me that question, you'd think people would want to know something like that. Anyway it's quite simple I couldn't actually hear my insect talking either. In truth he wasn't reporting back to me but reporting to my queen. The only insect I have that I can understand is my queen she can talk to me telepathically.

"R-really I had n-no I-idea, c-can she s-speak w-with a-any one?"

"Yeah she can but the queen kikai insect telepathic abilities can't reach very far. That's why she lives in here" Naruto says while taping his temple with his index finger.

"S-she l-lives i-in your b-brain?" Hinata says evidently shocked by the thought. (No pun intended)

"Yep for someone else to hear her they would need to be really close to my face. I mean really close like our faces would need to be touching."

"Hinata blushed at the thought of being that close to Naruto, but wouldn't dare ask him to let her try."

Naruto seemed to have read her mind. "You know we could try it if you want. But I'll warn you she's not much to talk too; I mean she is an insect after all. Only time she ever talks to me is during training or when she's translating the other kikai for me. If you try to talk with her she'll probably just give you a bunch of yes and no answers, nothing to complicated. I will admit one thing though she's pretty good at scolding me when she doesn't agree with my ways of doing things. So you want to try talking with her?"

Hinata wanted too but knew there was no way she could get that close to Naruto. "I uh w-well I d-don't uh I m-mean" Hinata couldn't even seem to form words she needed an excuse but couldn't find one.

Naruto could tell Hinata was fishing for an excuse, so he decided to put her out of her misery. "Hey maybe we could do it another day."

Hinata let out a small sigh of relief. "Y-yes a-another day sounds g-good."

"So you learned a few things about me, so what about you?" Naruto says trying to move on to a new subject.

"Uh w-well w-what would y-you l-like to know a-about me."

"My father once told me the Hyugas have a Kekkei Genkai some kind of eye technique. What was again byakana; no that doesn't sound right I got it the byakukan!"

Hinata let out a little chuckle "t-that w-was close its c-called the Byakugan."

"Byakugan, you think you could show me it?"

Hinata started poking her two index fingers together. "W-well uh y-you see I-I can't u-use it y-yet. That's why f-father trains me so h-hard; on a-average my clan s-should be a-able to use B-byakugan at age five six at the l-latest. I'm s-seven n-now and the h-heir to the c-clan. F-father s-says if my Byakugan doesn't awaken in t-three m-months he will n-name m-my younger s-sister the new heir."

Hiashi went up another notch on Naruto's shit o meter; the more he heard about this Hiashi the more he disliked him. "I'm sorry to hear that Hinata, I don't know anything about the Byakugan but I'd like to try and help."

Hinata was thankful Naruto wanted to help her, she didn't think there was anything he could do but it was still nice of him to offer. She simply nodded at Naruto to show her approval.

"First things first when your Byakugan awakens does it just happen or do you have to make it happen?" Naruto questions seeing if he could come up with anything.

"It can go b-both ways f-for most it just h-happens. B-but some t-truly gifted Hyuga have d-done it on t-there own l-like my c-cousin."

"Awesome that means there's still a chance, Hinata we will have your Byakugan awakened in no time at all trust me. We just got to figure out the key to unlocking it. Let's see maybe you could try concentrating chakra to your eyes."

"O-ok" Hinata made a hand sign and tried concentrating chakra to her eyes. A few veins on the sides of her face revealed themselves, and began to throb."

Naruto didn't exactly know what the Byakugan looked liked but he guessed protruding veins was a good sign. He started the cheer her on "yeah come on Hinata, you got it, just a little more."

Hinata looked like she was constipated; she was struggling to keep the chakra circulating to her eyes. It was finally too much and she lost her focus, the veins then reseeded back under the skin.

Naruto stopped his cheering and looked at the now panting Hinata. "Wow that was great Hinata you almost had it."

Hinata looked up at Naruto with a sad expression "thank you f-for your k-kind words, but close isn't g-good enough. N-Neji was right I-I'm nothing but a f-failure." Hinata covered her face with her hands and began to weep.

Naruto just stared at her for a few seconds; he didn't know how to deal with this. He still thought he should give it a try anyway. Naruto sat down on her bed next to her and started to rub her back with one hand. "Hey there's no need to cry I told you before you will get the hang of this. As for Neji when I see him I'm going to give him a peace of my mind. How dare he call you a failure I don't care who he is, no one has that right to decide if someone's a failure."

Hinata says in a chocked voice "you don't think I'm a failure?"

Naruto didn't even give it a second thought "of course not, and shame on anyone who does think that about you."

Hinata finally managed to stop her crying after hearing those words from Naruto. She looked up to see he was now just staring out the window still sitting next to her. "T-thank you Naruto-k-kun" she stifled out.

Naruto turned to look at her and tell her it was no problem, but he then noticed something. "H-Hinata your eyes" was all he managed to say.