"Nguuuuuhh...."

Naruto Uzumaki opened his eyes which reflected the ceiling of his room.

The first thing he noticed rather blandly was that his head hurt... badly. His vision took a while to focus on a crack on the white plaster before he groggily turned his head to face the window. It was late morning.

He tried to sit up, but he felt heavy aches and sores around his body, making him wince unintentionally. Damn it, what was he doing here?

"Drinking this special elixir is meant to make you stronger."

'Oh yeah!'

Naruto remembered with a grimace,

'Now I remember. Stupid Shikamaru... telling me lies...'

Shikamaru had told Naruto about a certain elixir inside a bottle that was in the one of the Leaf village's hokage's drawers. Apparently, it had been taken from the spring of strength - one of the seven springs of the south - and it had extraordinary powers to strengthen one's chakra to an extent sufficient enough to surpass Sasuke easily.

Naruto had been snagged by the hook just like that; the same evening, he had run off to the hokage's home, knocked down the old geezer with a 'Sexy no Jutsu' and had taken the bottle. He drank its contents - which he remembered tasted really weird - and had promptly blacked out.

Yeah, some strengthening elixir.

'Shikamaru, you are soooo dead...'

Grumbling to himself, he tried to ease himself up, wondering who had taken him there, when he noticed something was on his blanket that was restricting him from getting up properly. He sighed, turning to shove the obstruction off - but saw a dark-haired person instead. A few blinks and a closer look later confirmed that it was Hinata.

'Hinata? What's she doing here?'

Hinata was gently resting her cheek against her arms, leaning onto the side of his bed. He tilted his head to one side as he wondered, and noticed how the sunlight spilt on her skin in a way that made it white, her usually navy-blue hair quite light. She stirred, and her lids fluttered open, her milk-white orbs settling on Naruto.

She started, getting up in a hurry and looking flustered.

"N-Naruto-kun! You're awake! Ano, I should go tell Kakashi-sensei..."

She started to hurry out of the room when Naruto called out,

"Wait, Hinata!"

His head throbbed and he winced as she turned.

"Is something wrong?"

She asked.

Now, that would be an understatement.

He nodded vigorously, although this caused the sensation of apples bouncing around the confines of his skull, and said,

"Explain what's going on, please!"

Hinata paused, hesitating, and Naruto pouted. She looked at him in surprise before speaking again, and Naruto noticed that her cheeks were pink. She seems the type to blush an awful lot, he noted.

"You were unconcious for two days,"

She said softly,

"after drinking Hokage-sama's special rice tea..."

Naruto fell off his bed.

"Naruto-kun?! Daijobu??"

Hinata cried worriedly, helping the dizzy ninja to his feet, and he leant against his bed in with a sigh.

"Rice tea?"

He repeated dejectedly, and Hinata nodded, still casting a concerned glance at him,

"Yes... he prepared it with a special elixir from the seven springs of the south, so you fainted after you drank it."

So it wasn't just rice tea!!

"Aaah!! Damn it,"

He scrunched his blond hair between his fingers as he grit his teeth and screwed his eyes shut,

"I wasn't strong enough to take it? That's why I fainted?"

Hinata looked at him with a bit of a sweatdrop as she said,

"But Naruto-kun, only elders can drink waters from the seven springs of the south... you didn't know? It's specially made to strengthen old people, like Hokage-sama..."

Naruto's head met the floor with a heavy clunk.

'What the hell, Shikamaru?!!'

Then again, he hadn't listened to the end of what Shikamaru had to say - he had run off right after hearing what he'd considered 'useful'...

"Daijobu?"

She looked closely at Naruto in deep worry. Naruto's head felt numb from pain, so he managed a weak grin and a laugh.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Don't go to Kakashi, he'll just lecture me and stuff."

His nose crinkled.

"I don't mind if I get lectured later, but not now... my head hurts..."

Hinata's eyes widened as she looked around.

"Oh, does your head hurt? I've got some medicine somewhere, so please hang on..."

She fumbled around as Naruto pressed the back of his hand to his forehead. He had a high fever from the feel of it. Man, his head felt empty without anything swathed around it! But it definitely didn't need the weight or pressure now - his temple was starting to pound.

Hinata found some sort of packet, her face brightening with relief as she turned to Naruto, then looked as though something had struck her. She got up from the floor.

"Naruto-kun, you need to eat something before this medicine... so I'll get you some congee or something, okay?"

"Uh, Hinata..."

He scratched the back of his head, wondering how to phrase this,

"Don't take this the wrong way, but... what are you doing here?"

She flared red, her hands lifting to have her fingers poke at each other as she blushed. Naruto watched her blankly before she managed to say,

"A-ano... Kakashi-sensei told me to take care of you until you got better, Naruto-kun... because it's meant to help my medical studies..."

"Medical studies?"

Naruto echoed confusedly.

"Y-yes... I study medicine, so it's to improve my skills in making them, and also taking care of patients..."

He looked at her incredulously.

"Have you been looking after me for the past two days?!"

"Yes..."

She said embarrassedly, pressing a palm to her cheek. He brightened.

"Wow! That's amazing. You must have a lot of patience, Hinata! I don't have any!"

Naruto said cheerfully -- then his head gave a spin and he let out an involuntary groan of pain. Hinata sweatdropped, although she was still blushing madly.

"Congee, Naruto-kun?"

"Nooooo,"

He whined,

"I hate congee!! It tastes like congealed snot or something. I want ramen."

"So I'll cook some ramen?"

He looked at Hinata with raised eyebrows.

"Can you cook instant ramen? Not cup ramen?"

He asked eagerly, and Hinata looked slightly confused as she nodded. He whooped, jumping up in excitement before collapsing onto his bed as a severe nausea wave hit him.

"Naruto-kun!!"

"I'm okay,"

He said weakly, still sporting a grin,

"but can you really cook instant ramen? Really not just cup ramen?"

"Uhm... yes,"

She said with a continued sweatdrop, and then proceeded to pull the blanket over Naruto.

"Please don't over-exert yourself, you need lots of rest to get better quickly,"

"Aww, I'm okay..."

Naruto saw the extreme blush in her cheeks and wondered how she got so embarrassed around people. Maybe it was his absurd questioning. He couldn't help it though; he'd hardly had the chance to eat real(?) instant ramen because he was busy self-training jutsu to himself, thus contenting himself with cup ramen.

She tucked the blanket over his chin and hurried off, leaving Naruto to suffer from the pains in his head.



Hinata was amazed - Naruto should have woken up three days later, as according to Hokage-sama! She pulled out the paraffin stove she'd discovered with her eyes when looking around before, and lit it so that the lilac flame flickered into life.

Putting a pot of water over it, she let it boil as she opened a packet of instant ramen.

She felt a blush at her cheeks as she remembered the previous night. She hadn't meant to stay the night at Naruto's bedside at all - in fact, she was supposed to go home, but she had somehow ended up sleeping at Naruto's side.

Hinata probed her memory, and she remembered crushing out some medicinal powder by the table, planning to go home when she'd finished when Naruto had started to give small noises of discomfort. She'd immediately rushed to him, wondering what was going on, when she found him burning with a high fever, whimpering in pain.

Hinata had taken up a towel and a bowl of cool water, setting herself to the task of wiping his sweating forehead, neck and wrists with cool appliances as she had been taught. When he had calmed down from his fit of discomfort, she had been gently dabbing at his brow with the wet cloth when she noticed his birthmarks.

The way the marks were etched across his cheeks in a whisker-like form made him look rather animal-like. Hinata, purely curious, ran her fingertips over his cheek and along the marks, to find nothing protuding or engraved but only marked.

They look just like... whiskers.

Intrigued, her fingers traced his hairline before brushing his blond strands back. Then she drew her hand back suddenly, her face ablaze with scarlet embarrassment. What the hell had she been doing??

She had decided to go then, stumbling back a little and starting to pick up her things, when Naruto had let out a very low sound that sounded curiously like a whine. She looked back at him in surprise, and he'd let it out again, his face unhappy. She'd walked back, and sat by his side again, disconcerted by the whines Naruto started to make. She reached a hand up to touch his forehead, wondering if the fever had reached a new level - but he calmed down at her touch, and let out a soft sigh of relief.

Surprised, Hinata blushed heavily again when she retracted her hand and Naruto started whining again! Hesitant as she was, though, she let her patient feel comforted as she stroked his forehead with her hand, continually brushing his hair back from sticking to his forehead, and he calmed completely at her soothing touch and fell into a deeper sleep than usual. When Hinata finally removed her hand, he continued to sleep peacefully, and after that, Hinata had been unable to go. She sat there and watched his face intently, smiling at his innocent features while he was asleep, and... well, had drifted off to sleep herself.

Shaking her head in an attempt to get rid of her beet-root expression, she poured the pot's contents into a bowl, propping chopsticks along the top. She was debating with herself whether she should force Naruto out of bed and to the table (one she didn't really want to do but knew Naruto would prefer) or bring the ramen to his bed on a tray (one she opted for as Naruto wouldn't have to move but she didn't know how he'd react). She was busy thinking about it when he stumbled out, looking dazed, but perked up at the sight of the ramen.

"Ramen!! Hinata, you really made some!! Itadakimasu!"

He hopped over and plopped himself onto a chair, cracked the wooden chopsticks apart (Hinata hadn't wanted to snoop around to find his own) and started to dig in happily when he realised there was only one bowl.

"Naruto-kun, I hope you like egg..."

"Oh, I do, thanks for putting it in --"

He grinned at her -,

"-- but where's your bowl?"

She blushed. She'd forgotten about herself.

"I'm n-not really h-hungry,"

She stammered, when fate kicked in and a comic growl sounded from the general direction of her stomach. Naruto laughed as Hinata's blush deepened. He reached over the bowl to the side of the table, where a small pile of wooden chopsticks (compliments of the ramen store Naruto visited) lay, plucked one up and split it. He handed it to Hinata, who accepted with a questioning look, and then scooted over in his seat so he was only half-sitting on it.

"I've only got one chair,"

He explained at her inquisitive look,

"and we've only got one bowl of ramen."

She turned bright red. He couldn't be serious! However, he didn't look like he was going to eat until she sat down, so swallowing, she sat down on the same chair, holding her chopsticks awkwardly. Naruto turned at an angle and dug his chopsticks into the noodles, eating happily as Hinata couldn't help but conciously feel how close they were sitting right now, and how close their faces would be if she did lean over to eat.

Her stomach growled again.

'Aaah!! Stupid stomach,'

She moaned inwardly as Naruto drew his attention to her again, when he pressed a hand to her back and pushed her closer to the ramen.

"Come on! Eat at least a little. You made it, so you should, you know?"

Hinata took a deep breath. Okay, so they were very, very close to each other, but that didn't mean she had to think about that constantly. She took up a chopstick-ful of the noodles and ate it, doing her best to ignore the marked cheek only inches apart from hers.

"You know Hinata,"

Naruto said after a moment,

"This ramen tastes really good!! I like it better than the ramen Iruka-sensei buys me."

He smiled at her in a way that made Hinata blush hard, unable to move (or breath) properly for a few seconds.

In the end, she only ate three chopstick-fuls of the ramen, but that was enough for her. She got up quickly after finishing her last chopstick-ful, excused herself hurriedly and ran off to the packet of medicine for Naruto.

'Aa... it wasn't exactly a heart-wrenching experience but...'

She thought, her heart thudding loudly in her chest as she thought of his radiating warmth from his body almost pressed against hers. Shaking her head again, she came to the table where Naruto was polishing the ramen off, and emptied the packet of powder into a cup of water before swirling it. It dissolved to produce a greyish sort of medicine, and she handed it to Naruto. His first reaction was a twisted expression as he choked out,

"This tastes really gross!!"

Hinata couldn't help herself blushing.

"Na-Naruto-kun, you have to finish it if you want to get rid of your headache..."

"Maaaann...."

However, he finished the medicine and wiped his mouth as he set down his cup. Then he gave a smile.

"Well, Iruka-sensei said that the worse a medicine tastes the better it is."

He grinned insprirationally at Hinata, and she smiled gratefully back, yet another blush warming her cheeks.

To say she was always blushing around Naruto would be an understatement.

She picked up her bag, slipping the empty packet into one of the pockets, and hitched it over a shoulder. Naruto looked up at her in surprise.

"You're leaving?"

He asked. She nodded.

"You seem to be up and moving, Naruto-kun, so I will leave now and tell Kakashi-sensei..."

His expression drooped, and she laughed nervously before adding,

"...Tomorrow."

He brightened again. She smiled in relief, and she continued,

"I will be here again later to give you your next dose of medicine, so sleep until then, Naruto-kun."

She hated ordering him around, but she had no choice. He didn't seem to mind though; he smiled, and stood up, walking over to probably close the door. She waved, and turned to go, when she felt him tap at her shoulder. She turned around questioningly, wondering what else Naruto had to say, and was enveloped by a hug.

Her eyes widened considerably as she felt his chest pressed against her own, his heartbeat against hers, his arms around her waist, her eyes peeking just past his neck.

'N-n-nani?!!'

Even her thoughts were faltered by the unexpected and sudden action. His hug was warm and tight. Hinata's heart skipped more than just a beat. Then he gently pushed her back, his hands at her shoulders, and he grinned widely.

"Arigatou for taking care of me and for the ramen, Hinata!!"

Wordlessly, she nodded slowly, and walked backwards out of his home. Waving, he watched her turn and walk away before he shut his door. Hinata blushed furiously as she was sure she was going to be unable to look at Naruto properly now.

She was sure she'd seen a softness she'd never seen in his eyes before for just a brief moment when he'd pushed her back to smile at her. His eyes weren't even usually open! Her skin still tingled from his touch. It was just a friendly 'thank you' hug, but still...

Naruto-kun just hugged me!

Despite her embarrassment, she couldn't resist giving a little skip to her steps on the rest of the way home.

-OWARI-