Archive of Our Own

On any given day, Naruto is a fairly constant fixture around the streets of Konoha. He can almost always be found at Ichiraku right before the lunch rush, or striding down Main Street towards the Tower, ready to pick up another mission report. Sometimes, he sunbathes on rooftops, just soaking in the rays, hands folded beneath his golden head. Mostly, though, he frequents the training grounds. None of this is unusual.

What is unusual, though, is how often Hinata starts seeing him.

He’s not difficult to spot, especially for her; if the boisterous thrill of his laughter doesn’t draw her attention, the flash of yellow in her periphery certainly will.

But usually she has a respite from him, in which she can wander the streets and not have to worry about losing her focus because she hears him, or feeling her heart race heavily in her chest at the sight of him. Usually she’s safe.

Now, he’s everywhere she looks.

She wonders if it’s some poignant twist of fate, that she suddenly can’t seem to go anywhere without Naruto in her sights, only two weeks after she’s finally decided to move on. She starts to question that after the tenth or so random appearance, and her thoughts shift from fate to reason: is he doing this intentionally?

It’s a ridiculous thought, just a breeze flickering light and airy through the dense intricacies of her mind, and she lets it go just as easily as the sensation on her skin. It doesn’t blow away, though. It sits in the back of her mind and nestles in, growing roots and taking form, a tiny yet sturdy stalk of wonder and suspicion.

The first time she starts to doubt the chance of his appearances before her, she’s shopping for weapons with Sakura.

“Sakura-san,” Hinata asks, raising a brow at her friend. “Remind me again why you want such an intricate weapon?”

Sakura slides a fingertip carelessly over the crescent-edged surface of an elaborate kunai, glancing up to grin casually over at Hinata. She doesn’t have to look to see the blood beading on Sakura’s fingertip, or the way she easily heals and seals it away. Hinata has half a mind to chide her for contaminating merchandise she has no true intention of purchasing, but then Sakura huffs, drawing her attention from that line of thought.

“Sometimes it’s fun to surprise my sparring partners with more than my fists,” she explains, with a smile that promises wicked retribution. Hinata frowns, worrying immediately for Uchiha Sasuke’s future well being. She knows it’s a little ridiculous to worry about him, considering, but Sakura is a force to be reckoned with. The concern feels warranted.

“I highly doubt,” Hinata begins, tone just this side of chiding and right on the verge of reprimanding. She reaches up and traces the flat edge of a kunai dangling from the ceiling from a single line of steel wire, watching the way the iron glistens in the indwelling sunlight. “That you need any more surprises up your sleeve.”

“I like to be prepared for anything, including the unexpected.” Sakura explains haughtily, flipping her hair over her shoulder. Ino had convinced her to grow it past her shoulders, more a challenge than a suggestion, and Sakura had accepted it readily. Hinata glances over at her and studies the silken shine of it and smiles, knowing that the herbal remedy she’d gifted Sakura has been working just as well as she’d planned.

Sakura moves around her as if to get to the barrel full of sale items by the front entrance, and hesitates in a way that almost catches Hinata’s attention—if not for the tip of what might be a very interesting scroll having caught her eye instead. She moves for it immediately, kneeling to finger the edge of the tattered parchment. She hears Sakura’s movement continue after her brief pause, and she says, “You should probably work on that, too.”

“Hmm?” Hinata hums, distracted with the information unraveling before her eyes. She’d been in the market for intermediate sealing techniques, but finding the specific kinds of sealing she was interested in necessitated more craftiness than simple bargain shopping. As such, this particular scroll is an even scarcer find than she’d been expecting, and with just a cursory glance over the content she rolls it up and tucks it under her arm. An easy purchase.

“The unexpected,” Sakura says cryptically, with an audible sigh that finally succeeds in drawing Hinata’s full attention. She straightens to her full height and blinks when an islet of sunlight pierces through the vertically dangling kunai and into her vision. She moves away from it easily, casting a brief glance back to watch dust particles float daintily through the golden light, and heads for the bins Sakura is currently elbow-deep in.

She makes it only a few steps closer when her eyes are drawn to an entirely new stream of sunlight in the doorway, wearing Uzumaki Naruto’s muted grin.

“Naruto-kun,” she breathes, stuttering to a stop in all of her surprise. Her first instinct is to smile, to greet him and ask how he’s been, to ignore completely the way she thinks she might not be able to get a word out at all for how breathless she suddenly is. It’s so easy to fall back into the splendor of his ignited character, the way he beams without even trying.

“Hinata,” he says, and his smile kicks up at the edges while Hinata’s heart responds with a rhythm that belongs entirely to him. It’s a striking reminder of her reality, and of her decision, and so with great effort Hinata chooses to ignore the impulsive heaviness in her chest.

She forces herself to look away from him and find Sakura pointedly not looking their way. It’s so blatant, in fact, that Hinata’s suspicion recoils and rebuilds anew, and she starts to fit puzzle pieces together without even having to think about it. Her eyes glance back and forth between Sakura’s back, her deceptively unaffected shoulders, and Naruto’s gentle smile.

She grips the scroll under her arm a little tighter and thinks they’re up to something, and it’s frustrating that she doesn’t know what. A prank? She doubts it sincerely, considering how protective Sakura is of her. She doesn’t even let Ino pull pranks on Hinata, and Ino is Sakura’s light and joy.

She feels abruptly trapped, here in this tiny shop, surrounded by weapons of iron and steel and breathing sunlight. She doesn’t retreat, not in the single step back she’d love to take or the pointed avoidance of her gaze. She looks back at Naruto and doesn’t flinch at the heavy affection she can read in his expression, the softness of his stare.

“What brings you here, Naruto-kun?” She asks temperately, steely in her determination to be nothing if not normal.

Naruto’s lips part around a response but Sakura’s is the voice that lifts and locates, sounding equal parts underhanded and exasperated. It’s her tone that seals Hinata’s suspicion away as valid, and it’s Sakura’s blasé interference, unnecessary but offered, that completes Hinata’s understanding—that whatever this is she’s stepped in, Sakura and Naruto both have knowledge she isn’t privy to, but aren’t necessarily in accord.

“Yeah Naruto,” she says mordantly, “What are you doing here?”

Naruto glances away from Hinata for the first time to study Sakura’s shoulders before she straightens, turning to face him with an armful of used kunai. Naruto doesn’t even flinch, which Hinata won’t admit she finds admirable. An empty-handed Haruno Sakura is frightening enough—a Haruno Sakura loaded down with weapons is something of nightmares. Wiser persons than Naruto might have fled. Or perhaps just anyone with a shred of self-preservation.

“I was around the area,” he explains loftily, glancing between them. “I thought I saw you two come in here, thought I’d say hi.”

“Hi,” Sakura responds blandly. “See you later.”

Naruto frowns at her, pursing his lips. Something about his expression and the idle way he taps his fingers against his thigh catches Hinata’s attention and holds. He seems almost unsure of himself, which baffles her. What about this situation could cause Naruto to doubt himself?

“Aw, don’t be mean,” he whines. Sakura merely rolls her eyes, jostling her armful of weapons in order to come over and stand beside Hinata. She takes Hinata’s scroll from under her arm and bumps shoulders with her lightly, her smile a slip of an apology.

“I’m going to purchase these,” she explains, “Don’t argue, okay? You can buy me lunch.”

Hinata gives her a look, but she can’t help but to smile through it. “Okay. Thank you.”

Sakura’s smile is a small, fractured thing. She says, “Wait for me.”

“Of course,” Hinata responds, frowning after her as she heads to the counter at the back of the store. She wonders at the apology in the subtle twist of Sakura’s lips; had it been for leaving her here alone with Naruto, knowing of Hinata’s recent decision to move on? Or had it been for something else—a devious hand in Naruto’s sudden appearance here, in a shop Hinata is fairly certain he’s never visited before.

Either way, she turns back to Naruto with genuine openness. She doesn’t have it in her to respond to him with anything but genuine kindness, even if it’s difficult to hold back still-rampant feelings of affection.

Naruto’s stare is watchful, flickering over her features.

“You look well,” he says, and Hinata can’t stop the physiological response to his attention. Her cheeks heat and she glances down at her fidgeting hands, a shy smile crawling over her expression.

“I’m doing okay,” she replies, looking back up at him from under her eyelashes. Her eyes trail over him curiously, seeking injuries and noticeable discomforts. “Are you well?”

“Yup!” He exclaims, hands coming up to rest on his hips. “I’m gonna spar with the bastard in a little bit.”

Hinata can’t help but smile. “The usual spot?”

Naruto’s eyes light with something of joy, slowly burning, as if her general knowledge of this preference of his—that he has a spot for team 7’s sparring sessions—is something he can be proud of.

“Of course!” He chirps, and Hinata nods with a simple laugh, pressing her fingertips together. Her heart is a bastion in her chest, something she hasn’t yet been able to tame. It’s only been a few weeks, she reminds herself, she still has the rest of her life to train herself out of loving Naruto.

“Well,” she says, with heavy thoughts like falling stones in her mind, “Good luck.”

She watches the brightened shades of Naruto’s expression go muted in tones, falling in sections, eyebrows—gleaming eyes—smile, and she aches.

“Ah,” he laughs, with no apparent humor. The sound of it is so dry and false it actually, physically pains Hinata to hear it, to know that she made it that way. She hears feet scuffing behind her and knows that Sakura does it on purpose, to alert them both to her sudden presence. She stops at Hinata’s shoulder, slightly in front of her, intentionally putting herself between the two of them. Her protectiveness warms Hinata where Naruto’s fallen joy had chilled her, and she soldiers through a small smile.

“Thanks,” Naruto says belatedly, eyes never leaving Hinata. She watches them flicker back and forth between her eyes, searching, searching, and she wonders what he finds. Has she had enough time to change the way her eyes only ever look at him with blaring affection? She wonders.

“We’ve got places to be,” Sakura says, tone resolute. “I’ll meet you and Sasuke-kun at the fields.”

“Sure,” Naruto nods, bobbing his head and reaching up to rub idly at the back of his neck. He moves to the side, out of the way of the entrance, and Sakura entwines her free arm through Hinata’s. They move past Naruto without even looking at him.

By the time they step out into the fresh sunlight, Hinata can barely even feel the heat of it against her skin. This doesn’t surprise her.

She left her warmth behind.

✧

Six weeks after Hinata makes her decision, she agrees to a date.

She seeks Sakura and Ino immediately for help, wondering what she should wear, do to her hair, if she should paint her lips. She’s shaking by the time she answers her door and Sakura and Ino barge into her space, fluttering like joyous hens. Sakura’s is a double-edged kind of joy, though, even when she tries to hide it. Hinata knows she’s in a difficult position, wanting what’s best for both her brother and her friend. She knows that ideally, Sakura wants Naruto to realize what he’s been missing and pursue Hinata the way she had pursued him all these years.

Ideally.

“I think I want to wear my hair up?” Hinata says, tone lilting to make it open for suggestions. Sakura nods immediately, and after a moment, Ino grins.

“I’ve got just the thing!” She exclaims, clapping her hands together. She rises from the couch she’d been perched on, slipping her arms back through her jacket sleeves and heading for the door. Sakura and Hinata both watch her questioningly as she unlatches the lock and slides the door open to the morning air, grinning in the sunlight.

“I’ll be back before you know it! Don’t lead her astray, forehead. You have questionable fashion sense.”

“That’s not really something you should tell your girlfriend,” Sakura grunts attractively, flipping Ino the bird and then blowing a kiss from the tip of it. Ino laughs heartily, closing the door with a quick parting wink. Sakura turns back to Hinata and rolls her eyes, saying, “She’s insane.”

Hinata laughs behind her hand, cheeks rosy with joy simply from watching her two best friends interact. The love between them is nearly palpable, even amongst the teasing and the badgering.

“Well,” Sakura starts with a clap of her hands, “Let’s work on your outfit. What have you laid out?”

So Hinata shows her the applicable options, or at least those she thinks are acceptable, and Sakura judges them with a critical eye. She crosses her arms over her chest and strokes her chin idly, approving and disapproving where she deems necessary.

Hinata ends up in black thigh-high socks, a black skirt, and a modest floral top tucked in at the waist. She forgoes anything beyond mascara and lip balm, and has just finished tying her hair up in a high ponytail when Ino crashes back through the door.

“I’m late, I know,” she calls breathlessly, carelessly throwing her jacket across the room. “But I brought the thing!”

 Sakura runs her fingers through Hinata’s hair and rolls her eyes over her shoulder, so Hinata can see her exasperation in the mirror.

“The thing,” she scoffs, and Hinata snorts.

Ino lumbers down the hall and appears in the doorway to Hinata’s little bathroom, holding a tiny little bent wire with flowers stitched around it in her hands. She holds it up like a crowning tiara and says, “Ta-da! A spring accessory for our darling.”

“She’s not our kid,” Sakura complains, shooting Hinata an apologetic look that only manages to make Hinata laugh. “She’s our friend.”

“Of course,” Ino clucks her tongue, gesturing for Hinata to tilt her head slightly while Ino secures the wire around the hair band securing her ponytail. “But she’s our darling friend.”

“True,” Sakura agrees easily, shrugging her shoulders. She settles her hands on her hips and moves around behind Ino, waiting while she nitpicks at the fresh flowers that Ino must’ve just picked to make such an accessory. When she deems Hinata’s hairstyle totally acceptable, she tucks one tuft of fringe away behind Hinata’s ear and backs up beside Sakura. She steps on her toe, too, and Sakura pinches her waist before allowing her hand to slide around her hips, pulling Ino in close to her side. Ino hisses with the pinch but relents easily, molding to Sakura’s side.

“You look so cute,” Ino sighs affectionately, eyes heavy with emotion.

“Beautiful,” Sakura agrees, nodding. “Who is this guy again? Name and home address?”

Hinata rolls her eyes. “You’re not going to kill him.”

Ino opens her mouth and Hinata points threateningly at her, cutting her off to add, “And you’re not going to interrogate him. He will survive the night—”

Sakura opens her mouth and Hinata moves her pointing finger in her direction, saying, “Without mental or physical injury!”

Ino scowls at her, pursing her lips and squinting. Sakura has a similar expression on her face, with far less disdain and far more amusement scrunched in.

“You’re no fun,” Ino complains, before flapping her hand. “But you’re all set!”

Sakura says, “If he does anything unsavory…” and lets the threat hang. Ino ruins it completely, however, by wriggling her eyebrows and whispering, “Get it girl.”

Hinata snorts and rolls her eyes, as well. “Thanks for helping make me pretty. I’ll let you know how it goes?”

She can actually see the way they want to argue her former statement but decide against it, with much restraint. They both nod and walk her to the door, and Hinata feels bizarrely like they kind of are her parents. She supposes the feelings fits, if only because they’re far more experienced in the world of dating and romance.

She waves from the porch and waits until the door clinches shut behind her—her door, where Ino and Sakura stay behind, she realizes amusedly—before she allows herself to take a deep breath.

She hasn’t been on a date since she was fourteen, when a kind boy visiting from Sand complimented her defensive stance on the training fields, and asked if she’d like to see a sand trick. She’s nervous, certainly, but she feels excited, too. This is proof that she is moving on, that she’s not going to be the chaser her entire life. She’s twenty years old, and she’s growing every day. She’s more comfortable with herself and more confident, too, and she’s going to be okay.

There has to be someone out there that wants to be close to her in the same way she has always wanted to be close to him.

She walks through the crowded streets of Konoha with her head in the clouds, mind tripping endlessly over the possibilities of what this date might constitute, and what it could possibly lead to. She’s so distracted that she doesn’t even notice the glint of the sun off of something metallic overhead, on the roof of the building she’s just about to pass. She jostles through the crowds, another cog in the busy machine that is Konoha and its rebuilding economy.

She doesn’t even stop to question the sudden tension in the nape of her neck, her one true blind spot, until Naruto has leapt from the roof and she feels a presence encroaching upon her from above. She leaps backwards unconsciously, already defensive, only to find Naruto landing a few feet in front of her, as bright and welcoming as morning.

She exhales shakily, frowning at him.

“You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that,” she scolds immediately, without even considering that this is Naruto she’s reprimanding. The realization comes quickly thereafter, however, coupled with the wide-eyed, amused surprised on his face. She flushes embarrassedly but holds her ground, though her frown certainly diminishes. She can’t help but to smile at him and the brightness of his oceanic eyes, depthless and unblinking as he gazes down at her. He rubs carelessly at the back of his neck, a habit.

“Sorry, sorry,” he says, explaining, “I was on my way to Ichiraku.”

This explanation fits in Hinata’s mind, considering that Ichiraku is in fact just a few rooftops down from where he had been. She nods her head and glances in that direction, as if she could see the ramen stand without her Byakugan activated. When she turns back to Naruto, she finds him looking carefully at her, eyes trailing over her form. His expression is serious for only a moment, before it cracks open into something unusually tense, but ostensibly curious.

“You look great,” he laughs, eyes crinkling shut. “You going shopping?”

“Ah,” Hinata hums, flushing every shade of sunrise. “Thank you. Actually, I have plans.”

Naruto’s eyes open slowly, glancing over her outfit and her hair once more, studying the flowers there especially.

There’s a sudden fragility to his expression that comes in waves, before it overwhelms the usual carefree joy of him. Hinata watches it curiously, and with concern. He’s not good at hiding his emotions—never has been—but if Hinata were to guess what his expression would look like if he were trying to? This is what she would imagine.

“Oh, for dinner?” He asks blithely, and Hinata flinches. After a moment of pause, in which she debates how to go about this at all, she nods. He watches the gesture with sharp eyes, and that same false smile.

What could he be hiding, and why? There’s something cautious about him, too, she notices. The more she studies him the more she recognizes in him that shaky support, as though he wants to be happy for her just as much as he wants to stop her. It’s bewildering, and a little difficult to believe—Hinata is incredibly perceptive but Naruto isn’t usually so introspective. Thoughts usually have short half-lives in his mind, considering how attuned and partial to action he is. She can’t think of a single reason that he might suddenly be struggling with action, in favor of being cautious and thoughtful.

After a long moment, everything about him shifts and changes, becomes nothing of the self-conscious tension and uncertainty and becomes the Naruto she knows, bright and cheery and confident. He shifts on his feet, shrugging his heavy shoulders as if to clear an invisible weight, and he smiles at her like she’s everything he’s been waiting for. It shakes her in a way only he has ever been able to, and she doesn’t quite resent it, even while it knocks her back into loving him.

And then, in typical Naruto fashion, he asks, “Have you had lunch?” And completely blows her away yet again. Her heart has been racing beneath her focus since he came falling from the sky, but it beats an insistent rhythm now, calling to be noticed. She almost lifts a hand to press against it, wanting to soothe and settle it down. She doesn’t, though, and clenches her hand into a fist instead, trying to anchor herself to the present. She has a date to get to, a man that is kind and waiting, and Uzumaki Naruto asked her to lunch. Just her.

It’s perhaps the most difficult answer she’s ever given when she says, “I have, but thank you for asking.” She watches the way it moves through Naruto, muting the brightness of his unabashed joy only marginally. He’s nothing if not persistent, however, and he shakes off her rejection with nothing more than a nod.

“Bummer,” he says, “Maybe next time?”

And Hinata, for the life of her, can do nothing but nod. This brings a smile to his face, too, one that is softer but greater in that it reaches his eyes and makes them fall heavily, almost affectionately as he gazes at her.

He shuffles his feet and she dips her head, unable to continue to stare up at him and remember all the reasons why she’s loved him all these years. She doesn’t want to remember his kindness or his joy, his loneliness and his drive. She doesn’t want to look at him and continue to see everything in the world she’s ever wanted to know and hold close, but she does. She does.

She glances up and whispers, “I think I should get going, I don’t want to be late.”

And Naruto grins, reaching out to tuck some of the hair that had fallen into her face back and away behind her ear, his fingertips leaving stripes of heat behind along the crest of her cheekbone. She holds her breath the entire time, and her heart pushes heat into every surface of her, or maybe it’s the spring sun, or maybe it’s Naruto like it’s always been Naruto like it will always be Naruto.

He says, “See you around, Hinata,” and she moves around him, never once looking back.

She doesn’t know if it was intentional or not. She doesn’t know, but.

She thinks about him for the entirety of the evening, through her date and late into the night.

And she wonders.

✧

Hinata goes on several dates after that; some with different people, and the last several consistently with a man named Sawamura Ken. He’s a Jonin she’d met in the library, when she’d had a day off from all things work and had been researching sealing techniques. He’s something of a specialist in sealing jutsu, and not many people actively seek out information about the topic, so finding her sprawled at a table and surrounded with sealing texts had been more than enough incentive, apparently, for him to come talk to her.

Ask him, though, and he’ll say it was the curious pursing of her lips when she’s frustrated with information she can’t quite understand; as sweet and amusing as that is, Hinata denies it at every turn.

He also has a specialty for fire jutsu, which Hinata would later find out on their third date, when he let her take him to the training grounds for a spar. Her favorite jacket had barely survived the encounter, and he’d innocently suggested she lose it altogether.

She has fun with Ken, mostly because he’s kind and hilarious and gentle with her, even when he doesn’t need to be. He looks how stormy nights feel, dark and mysterious but soothing in the way that only raindrops on windowpanes can be. He lets her take his hair out of its usual sloppy bun and run her fingers through it when they’re just relaxing together, and she lets him do the same.

She hasn’t introduced him to Kiba and Shino, because she’s not certain about their relationship yet. She doesn’t even really know if they’re in a relationship, or just dating. She’d introduced him to Ino and Sakura after a few first dates, and they were both carefully neutral about him, though Ino was all for his olive skin and striking hazel eyes.

“He’s fuckin’ gorgeous,” Ino retorts, when Sakura says something cross about his defensive stance on the battlefield. “And Hinata isn’t dating him for his fighting form.”

Sakura rolls her eyes, glancing over to gauge Hinata’s expression.

“You really like this guy?”

“Ken,” she reminds her politely, smiling even as she shakes her head in reprimand. Sakura knows his name, but for some reason refuses to ever use it unless sarcastically. “And I do like him.”

Sakura turns away from her, back to the weapons in front of her. She continues to sharpen them across from Ino, who merely perches her chin on her bent knee and watches.

“She doesn’t sound too enthusiastic to me,” Sakura says, and Hinata rolls her eyes from behind them, where she’s stretching her hamstrings. They’re sprawled over one of the closest training grounds, waiting for Ken to arrive so they can all spar. Hinata shifts from one leg to the other, hair hanging down and mingling in the dirt.

“I do like him,” she says calmly, even as the steady, unchanging pace of her heart becomes a glaringly obvious call for her attention she suddenly can’t ignore. She thinks about Ken and it doesn’t shift out of pace, not once, not at all, and she tries not to think about what that means. “I just don’t love him. Yet.”

“Yeah,” Ino says supportively, smiling at Hinata over Sakura’s shoulder. “Give her a break. They’re a new thing still. How long did it take you to get over duck butt?”

“Ages,” Sakura grudgingly admits, sitting up with her freshly sharpened blade and setting it aside. She allows herself to plop down onto the grass, sprawled out like a starfish, and glances upside down at Hinata as she balances on one leg and continues to stretch her hamstrings.

“You’re really focusing on your legs today,” Sakura notices, voice curious. Hinata nods, shooting a conspiratorial grin her way.

“Ken is fast,” she explains proudly, a gleam in her eyes. “Really fast.”

Sakura scowls, scoffing, “Can’t be quicker than Sasuke-kun, and I whoop his ass on the daily.”

Ino snorts from behind her, a stripe of pride flashing clearly across her eyes, too.

“We’ll see,” Hinata answers vaguely, even as she mentally compares what she knows of Sasuke’s speed to what she knows of Ken’s. She’s fairly certain that Sakura is correct—Sasuke is the fastest shinobi Hinata has ever seen or fought, but she’s not entirely certain Ken is far slower. She’s also not certain if he’s slowed down for her at all, though the thought grinds against her nerves a bit. He’s kind in a way that she thinks he might have, and she can’t really be mad at him for that, though she does intend to change it.

“Lover boy is late,” Ino finally says, admitting what all of them have undoubtedly been thinking. Hinata frowns, glancing towards the village. She checks the angle of the sun in the sky and nods, wondering what might have slowed him down.

Sakura sits up abruptly, a moment before the ground beneath them quakes. There’s a specific feeling to an earthquake that makes it distinguishable from something human-borne, and all three of them know immediately that this is the latter.

“What the hell,” Ino grumbles, crawling to her feet and looking around as if to locate the source. Sakura leaps to her feet and takes a few unconscious steps towards the north, as if she’s certain that’s where the boom had come from. Hinata lifts her nose to the air and smells smoke, the kind that builds from wildfires, and instantly activates her Byakugan. She expands her vision as far as she can, searching in every direction even as the ground beneath them quakes, thrice more jaggedly than it previously had. Hinata’s vision swims with the movement, her footing unsteady.

She finds the cause at the very edge of her sight, and it takes her breath away.

“What, Hinata?” Sakura asks, jaw clenched. Ino comes up beside her and asks, “What do you see?”

“Ken,” she breathes, and flames clash with clones in her vision. “And Naruto-kun.”

“Naruto?” Ino asks, stuttering to a stop from where she’d been heading in the direction Hinata faced. She glances to Sakura, gauging her expression to this news, and Hinata watches Ino frown. Sakura turns to Hinata and sighs, but none of the tension in her tight shoulders dissipates.

She says, “Lead the way.”

And Hinata does, swiftly, because she’s reasonably worried that if they don’t get there soon someone might be gravely injured by the time they do. She doesn’t explain a thing as they race towards the smoke and the shattering of the earth, but she doesn’t have to. They crest a rising hill and once atop it, are able to see hundreds of Naruto fighting a single Ken, surrounded in flame.

There are trees scattered and torn asunder, as though a hurricane had blown through just moments prior. They’ve all seen this too many times before to be bewildered by it, however, and Ino voices their equal recognition.

“Rasengan.”

Hinata is the first to race forward, but then, she has arguably the most emotional stake ingrained in this fight. She doesn’t know how it happened or why they’d fight—she’s fairly certain that Naruto doesn’t even know who Ken is, but that does nothing for the fact that they are fighting, and she is going to stop it.

She races headlong into the battle, spinning to initiate her own version of Neji’s Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven to deflect three of Naruto’s clones encroaching upon Ken, and a powerful blast of fire spouting from the tip of Ken’s fingertip. The clones pop resoundingly around her, and she stops spinning when she feels the heat dissipate.

She dashes forward until her hand locks around Ken’s raised wrist, and the fingers of her free hand rest gently over the pressure point in his neck. With such easy force she could incapacitate him completely, and he knows it.

“Enough,” she says, and her voice shakes with anger. She stares hard at Naruto across the field, the real Naruto, and she waits until he dispels all of his shadow clones before allowing her Byakugan to recede. Sakura lands at Naruto’s side, threatening and restraining both, without even having to hold a stance. Ino stands off to the side, fingers poised for her mind swap jutsu, aimed at Ken. Hinata doesn’t blame her.

Ken relaxes against her, even as his chest heaves and his muscles shake. He’s cut up to hell and he smells like ash and smoke, charred and cracked even without burns to show for it. Naruto is in a similar state of disarray, though he shows definite signs of burns. His wounds heal, though, quicker than Ken could ever hope to. Hinata glares at him in question, and when she speaks, it’s Naruto she addresses.

“What are you doing?”

“Sparring,” he returns neutrally, offering nothing else.

“This passed the stage of sparring long ago,” Hinata says, and this time she looks at Ken. “Can I back off?”

“Yeah,” he says, and he nods. She can feel the weight of Naruto’s stare on her heavily, with every movement she makes. She steps away from Ken but stays close enough that she can feel the heat coming off of him, and she studies his expression. He’s hiding things, too, and Hinata is tired of being lied to.

“I don’t know what this was about,” she starts, and Ken turns to her with an apologetic expression.

He intercedes, saying, “It was just sparring at first. It got out of hand.”

Hinata looks over and sees the confused anger on Ino’s face. She doesn’t know why they’d fight, but it’s enough that Hinata being caught in the middle would set her off. Sakura seems along the same lines, though with a strange kind of melancholic disappointment she keeps looking at Naruto with.

“It won’t happen again,” Naruto calls, and even though Sakura is right there next to him, every line of her poised to knock his head off, he moves forward anyways. He comes to Hinata without hesitation, doesn’t even take his eyes off of her to glance at Ken, who flicks his gaze back and forth between Hinata and Naruto skeptically.

Sakura follows behind Naruto, jaw clenching.

Hinata asks, “What caused this? How do you even know each other?”

“I caused this,” Naruto admits, before Ken can even open his mouth. This doesn’t seem to shock him, though, and Hinata takes that to mean that in this at least Naruto is being honest. “It’s my bad.”

“Idiot,” Sakura hisses from behind him, low enough so as to barely even be heard.

Hinata glances between Naruto and Ken and sighs, her eyes remaining on Naruto and the cut quickly healing on his cheek. He watches her carefully, and it’s sudden the way she realizes that he’s hiding nothing from her. Her eyes widen, flickering over his expression and the naked truth of the emotions there, and it’s so clear she has to deny it. She has to.

“You’re both injured,” she whispers, and she looks away from him. It’s difficult and it hurts but she reaches out for Ken instead, and this is difficult too, because she still loves Naruto. She still loves him, and it’s not fair to Ken. She’s already planning ahead, even as he reaches out and takes her hand, fingers intertwining with hers. She’s going to have to explain to him about Naruto, about her feelings and how she’s been trying to move on, and see where that takes them.

Naruto makes to step towards her; she sees his hand reach for her out of the corner of her eyes and some part of her, distant and muted, wants to reach back. Instead, she merely whispers, “Please don’t,” and he hesitates, before his hand falls away. She doesn’t look to see his expression, but Sakura does, and it’s enough to encourage her to reach out and grasp Naruto’s hand with a gentle comforting squeeze.

Hinata turns with Ken at her side and can see in the skepticism of his expression that he has questions to go with the explanations she has in store for him. It makes her smile, if only a little, and that seems to lessen his tension just a bit. Over her shoulder she says, “Sorry Sakura-san, Ino-san. We’ll spar next time?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ino calls immediately, coming forward to shadow Naruto on his other side. She glances between he and Ken for a moment, and Sakura shakes her head.

“Take care, Hinata,” Sakura calls, and her voice shakes a little, in a way that almost makes Hinata turn back. She wonders how difficult this must be for Sakura; it became clear only moments before that Naruto is anything but unaffected by Hinata. Sakura must be caught in-between them, wanting them together but wanting what’s best for them, too.

Hinata thinks they’d be best together, but she’s always thought that.

And she’s always been the only one.

✧

Sawamura Ken heals beautifully, and without much complaint. He responds in kind to her exposed secrets and her uncertainties, which she is grateful for.

“I understand,” he tells her a week later, reaching out to touch the corner of her jaw, light enough to barely be felt. His eyes gleam with genuine affection, and it warms her. “I appreciate you telling me.”

Hinata smiles, a shy and uncertain thing. “Did you still want to get dinner? Or, maybe not anymore, now…”

Ken scoffs, rolling his eyes and pulling her in towards him, right under his shoulder. Hinata is only tense for a moment before she settles in against him and returns his hug.

“You can’t get rid of me that easily. I’ll see you at seven.”

He lets her go a moment later, chucking her lightly on the chin before shoving his hands in his pockets and heading off for an appointment with the Hokage about which Hinata is not privy to.

Everything is simple with Ken—to the point where Hinata spends several nights wishing for her heart to change, to detach from the golden sphere that is Naruto and his untouchable heart, where she could never manage to find purchase. Ken is an incredible person, and Hinata would be lucky to know him intimately.

But she can’t stop thinking of Naruto, even after everything that happened. The openness of his expression, the clarity of affection she’d seen him looking at her with, it…humbled her. It changed her.

She had expected to run into him shortly thereafter, possibly the next day, or maybe the day after that, but Naruto was nowhere to be seen. It was striking, the sudden emptiness his absence left behind. She’d grown so used to seeing him on her daily trips around the village, or even at the front gates when she returned home from missions. His blatant absence is loud and distracting, and it unsettles her enough that everything he’d been doing sort of falls right into place at her feet.

Had he been doing that on purpose? If the clarity of his feelings had been true, and she honestly thinks that they had—Naruto is not skilled in the way of hiding his emotions—then Naruto feels something for her. If his feelings had been true, then, had he been purposely planting himself randomly in her life?

Had he removed himself with that same consideration?

Hinata had already decided after discharging Ken that she would seek Naruto out and start a discussion with him, too. And the timing has never been better than now, she thinks, so she heads for his apartment. She doesn’t find Naruto there, but rather Iruka with a broom in one hand and a duster in the other. He sighs exasperatedly as he sees her, rolling his eyes affectionately and gesturing back to Naruto’s place, which he is apparently cleaning and airing out.

“Don’t ask,” he prompts, and then adds, “He’s at the training grounds on the south side.”

So she makes her way there, all the while wondering what she even wants to say. By the time she makes it to the grounds, she hasn’t come up with much more than the fact that her hands won’t stop shaking and her heart is pumping his rhythm, heavy but comforting in her chest. She finds him lying on his back with his hands tucked beneath his head, eyes shut and sunlight kissing every inch of him. He looks beautiful, she thinks.

He must sense her presence, because he turns to her and peers up at her with one eye. When he realizes it’s her, he sits up immediately, blinking at her approach. She hesitates only for a moment before sitting down beside him, drawing her knees up to her chest. She wraps her arms around her legs and watches him watch her, his stare so unwavering it brings chills up her spine.

“Hey,” he says at last, clearing his throat. “What’s up?”

“Haven’t seen you around in a while,” she says, and she sees the way his tanned cheeks tinge pink, just barely noticeable in direct sunlight. And all the sudden she wants to laugh, because that response is the answer to every question she hadn’t really known how to voice. They come a little easier now, too.

“Were you following me, Naruto-kun?”

He doesn’t even pretend to misunderstand. “Not really following,” he hedges, “More like just popping in?”

Hinata laughs, and before she asks the big question, she studies his expression searchingly. She watches the playful turn of his blue eyes, shifting from light to shadow depending on how he moves his head, and the sunken scars on his cheeks. They crinkle with his smile, and she wants desperately to reach out and touch them, to trace them.

She doesn’t.

She asks, “Why did you do it?”

“It drove me nuts,” he answers, “Seeing you with him. And then I was at the fields and Sasuke was running super late and all the sudden there the guy was, just walking by. I just thought, maybe this guy’s strong. Maybe that’s why. So I asked if he wanted to spar, and he said yes.”

It takes Hinata a moment to realize which question Naruto is answering, not the one she’d intended, but one she’d planned to ask eventually. Naruto crosses his legs and leans his elbows on his thighs, bringing himself a little closer into her space. He watches her carefully.

“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” he whispers, and she can see the shame in him, the fear. She knows what’s inside of him, the power and the creature, and she doesn’t shy away from it. She doesn’t let him pass easily, though, because what he’d done was dangerous.

“Ken is fine,” she says, and Naruto blinks. He nods his head and says, “I’m really glad, believe it. Doesn’t make what happened any less shitty, though.”

“No,” Hinata agrees, tilting her head at him. She rubs inattentively at her own knuckles and asks, “Naruto-kun, why him? Why does it matter at all how strong he is?”

And this time, Naruto hesitates. She can see the thoughts rolling around behind his eyes, the way he tries to tie them down and find purchase on something solid. Ultimately, though, he seems to do what he always has: he goes with his gut.

“I like you,” he admits, and Hinata’s heart gives an extra heavy thud, right up against her ribcage. “I was jealous. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I thought if I just proved I was stronger, then it meant I was better for you. Because then I could protect you better than he could.”

“You know that I don’t need—”

“I know,” Naruto interjects quietly, his expression softening. “I know you can take care of yourself. I know you’re strong. But that doesn’t mean you won’t need protecting, sometimes. That doesn’t mean I can’t want to take care of you. And I want whoever is closest to you to be the strongest, you know?”

Hinata almost feels faint; this conversation is one she had never imagined or prepared for, something she hadn’t even considered facing. That Naruto would come right out and admit to having feelings for her, that he had been jealous and acted impulsively in her honor, well. It’s a lot to take in, and a lot to filter when all she wants to do is reciprocate. But she thinks of Ken, too, who she has promised to have dinner with this same night, and she reins her emotions in.

“Naruto-kun,” she breathes, resting her chin on her knees. And then they simply watch each other, equal parts curious and admiring, and it’s easy. It’s easy in a way Hinata never knew it could be, with Naruto. Easy in a way that feels real.

“Sakura-chan explained to me,” Naruto says, after a long moment of silence between them, in which only the trees and the bugs speak, aided with the passage of wind and time. “That what I did was selfish. I get it. I didn’t then, though, okay? In my head, I thought, ‘she deserves the strongest, and if I want to be hers, I have to be the strongest.’ But Ken seemed strong, too, and you laughed with him all the time, and I was so mad.”

She watches emotion play over his features like a reflecting campfire, shadows and light vying for dominance. Naruto seems most frustrated with himself, and the way that his thought processes don’t always quite match his intentions. He thinks very differently than others, Hinata knows, and that must be frustrating when his meaning gets misconstrued simply because he doesn’t know how to adequately show it or verbalize it.

She understands now that that’s exactly what he had been trying to do a week ago, when he had challenged Ken to a fight.

“I understand,” she whispers, lips turning up at the corners. Naruto’s eyes brighten under her comprehension, and he says, “For real?”

“For real,” Hinata laughs, feeling lighter than she has in years. She closes her eyes and rests against her knees, allowing herself to exist in the brevity of clarity that this moment has given her. The breeze flickers over them, bringing chills up on her arms. The sun whispers against their skin, delicate warm kisses pressed against every pore.

Silence bathes them in comforting heat, much like the sun, for a long time before either of them speaks again.

“Hey, Hinata?” Naruto asks quietly, uncharacteristically aware of his own volume. Hinata blinks her eyes open slowly, refocusing on the bright pools of his eyes and the wonder that dances like flames on the surface. “I’m not going to do that again.”

Her expression shifts into something of speculation, and he must read enough of the question in it to know to respond. His expression stalks into something serious and unflinching, hiding nothing away but in the shadows that suddenly dance through his irises.

“I’m not going to challenge him again,” he reiterates clearly. “I’m not going to fight him.”

“Oh,” Hinata nods, and she sighs. Tension she hadn’t quite kept track of leeches out of her in that single breath, settling her nerves. “I’m glad.”

“I’m not going to stop fighting for you, though,” Naruto continues on, as brazen as always. Hinata feels heat in her ears, her cheeks, her throat. She doesn’t say anything to that; how can she trust this? She has never been anything but a platonic friend to Naruto, and yet now at his word and his uncharacteristic actions she’s supposed to glean that he suddenly has feelings for her?

She hopes. She won’t deny if only to herself that she hopes that his feelings are true, and that this isn’t just something borne entirely of jealousy. But a part of her hopes, instead, that Naruto might have come to notice her wayward attention and ended up feeling the absence of it starkly.

If so…if so, he has such incredibly bizarre timing.

Even as Hinata lets herself hope, she knows she must also protect herself, too. She had confessed to him years ago, and hung onto those feelings all the while. She doesn’t know what’s going on with his feelings or what his intentions are or what he’s thinking, but she knows that to protect herself, she will not allow herself to be careless with her own emotions.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Naruto whispers, and when Hinata glances back up to gauge his expression she finds him studying hers intently. His smile is a shy welcoming when their eyes meet, and every bit of him is as honest as his name. “You don’t. I’m just letting you know.”

And she wants so desperately to believe him, to trust him in this as she’s trusted him in all else.

But for now, she focuses on protecting her newly freed heart, open and so delicate and fragile. She says, “I have to go,” and lifts herself back to her feet.

She doesn’t look back as she heads away from him, but she feels his gaze starkly between her shoulder blades, and chills race over her.

✧

Usually, when Hinata has questions that involve Naruto, she goes straight to Sakura.

But this entire situation between Hinata and Naruto has slowly been chipping away at Sakura, and Hinata refuses to participate in doing so further. She will not add to the tension or the exhaustion Sakura feels when trying to fit herself somewhere between the two of them, and as such, Hinata goes instead to what she knows best.

To who she knows best.

“You’ve been what?” Kiba exclaims, his fingers pausing in the act of braiding her hair. “With who?”

“His name is Sawamura Ken,” she responds calmly, blinking over to gauge Shino’s response. He doesn’t hesitate, but the sun gleams across his sunglasses in just the right way to key Hinata in to his curiosity. He pushes his fingers through the soil of Kurenai’s garden and rests them there, in the coolness of the earth. Hinata knows without having to look that there are bugs there, and that he’s soothing them with his chakra.

Kiba continues braiding her hair, slowly and carefully, making sure nothing is out of place. Hinata’s glances back down at the bundle in her lap and reaches out until her fingertips slide through Mirai’s hair, softer than anything Hinata has ever felt. The baby coos, gurgles, and a moment afterwards, farts.

“Nice,” Kiba compliments, fingertips sliding idly over Hinata’s nape, making her shiver. “But seriously Hinata, how could you not tell us right away?”

“I wasn’t certain if it was serious quite yet,” she explains honestly. “I didn’t want to bring him home unless I knew something between us could last.”

There’s a long moment of silence, in which Shino continues to rest with his fingers in the soil, Kiba continues to braid her hair, and Mirai continues to play with the zipper of Hinata’s jacket. Hinata can sense Kurenai moving around in the house, preparing dinner for them and fussing over something in the oven.

Finally, Kiba breaks the silence.

“So?” He asks, “Could you two last?”

Hinata allows herself a moment to truly think about that. She thinks about the way Ken wraps his arm around her so easily whenever they’re together, and the way he shields her from crowds when they shop in the market. She thinks about the way he presses his lips so carefully to hers, and the way he pulls back to smile at her with such gentleness.

“We could,” she admits, but with a heavy sigh she adds, “But…”

“Naruto.” Kiba answers for her, and she can hear the harmless exasperation of his tone. She glances over to Shino and watches him lean back on his heels a little, turning in their direction to show that he’s engaged in the conversation.

“Naruto-kun.” Hinata agrees.

“No judgment,” Kiba prefaces, before asking, “But I thought you were trying to move on from that idiot?”

She notices a crease in Shino’s expression and the way he glances over and aims it at Kiba. The message is obvious, and both Kiba and Hinata get it loud and clear.

You know better than that.

Hinata flushes every shade of sunset because of course her boys know how deep her love for Naruto runs, and how she won’t ever be able to completely bleach him from her system. Embarrassing as her feelings are, she speaks blithely, brazen in front of her boys. She admits, “I still think about him every day.”

“Think about him how?” Shino suddenly asks, and Kiba cuts in before she can say a word.

“If it’s dirty please spare me. A brother can only hear so much about—”

“Grow up,” Shino adds almost offhandedly, and Kiba growls. There’s no malice in it, though, and Hinata can’t help but to grin.

“I just,” Hinata starts, trying to find some way to explain to them clearly how Naruto invades her headspace so frequently, and so easily. “I’m reminded of him everywhere I look. Even when I’m with Ken, a lot of the time I’m comparing him to Naruto. I don’t even mean to, it just happens and I have to put a stop to it. I know that’s unfair to him.”

Shino sits back, fingers pulling from the earth, and lifts himself to stand. Hinata waits for him to come over to them, to sit beside her and reach out to place a single ladybug on the tip of Mirai’s nose. The baby stares cross-eyed at it for a moment in abject wonder, then lifts her hand to touch it. Shino intervenes before she can accidentally harm the creature, and encourages it back onto his finger.

“Gentle,” he tells her solemnly, and Mirai blinks at him and responds, “Shee.”

Hinata watches wrinkles form under the rims of Shino’s sunglasses and knows they’re from his smile. Kiba grunts from behind Hinata, running his fingers back through her hair to pull her braid completely undone. He starts over at her crown, fingers pooling in her hair.

“Can’t believe she learned Shino’s name first.” He complains lowly, and Hinata laughs, lightly bouncing Mirai in her lap.

“Your thoughts,” Shino starts up again, calling Hinata to attention. “Are they easy?”

“Yes,” Hinata responds, automatically understanding his meaning. Which is why she elaborates by adding, “But there’s more to them. They come easily, yes, but they don’t leave easily. I think that counts for something, right?”

Shino hums, and it’s a concession.

“So like,” Kiba starts, “Doesn’t that just mean you care about Naruto more? You’ve known him a lot longer, too.”

“That’s true,” Hinata allows, but Shino looks unconvinced.

“You feel powerfully,” he says, watching her expression shift. “But for Sawamura-san, not so much?”

It hurts her a little to admit it, because she had been trying so diligently to break herself away from Naruto and her boundless love for him, but.

She thinks about Ken, and the way he can barely hold space in her mind compared to Naruto, and how he probably can’t hold space in her heart like Naruto does, either. It isn’t quite fair, but love never is.

“Not so much,” she whispers, and Shino nods his head as if coming to a conclusion.

Kiba seems to be feeling along the same lines, because he poses his next question as a statement; “So you don’t love Ken, and you don’t think you can love him the way you love the idiot.”

Hinata bites her lip. “Yes.”

“Do you still want to be this guy’s friend?”

“Yes,” she answers immediately, already thinking about the man in question and not wanting to lose him or the bond they’ve built. She doesn’t know if she’ll be allowed to, however, when she finally tells him that she can’t reciprocate his feelings.

And it’s surprising, how easily she’s come to this conclusion where before she hadn’t been certain. She smiles shyly over at Shino, who has a finger poked obstinately into Mirai’s stomach and is jostling with ear-piercing laughter. Kiba’s fingers plate Hinata’s hair without fail, and he yawns from over her shoulder.

Hinata turns a moment later to the horizon, just as a bounding white figure crests the hill and comes quickly towards them. She can hear the smile in his voice when Kiba calls, “Welcome home buddy! What’d ya find?”

Akamaru senses Mirai a moment before he would have leapt into the air to tackle Kiba to the ground, and instead circles them excitedly. He rubs his fur against all of them and drops a torn up octopus toy into Kiba’s lap, to which Kiba responds, “Lord I hope you didn’t steal this from a child,” before smacking Shino in the face with his tail and laying himself down beside Hinata’s thigh. He moves his muzzle to replace Shino’s hand against Mirai’s stomach, and the baby squeals even more excitedly at his presence.

Hinata obliges her immediately, lifting her from her lap to set her against Akamaru and his soft fur. She grabs at him and stands unsteadily on her feet, turning over her shoulder to look at Shino and coo for approval. Shino only nods with that same crinkled expression hidden almost completely away, and says, “Good girl.”

“Shee!”

“I think I should tell Ken.”

“Yeah,” Kiba agrees, and Shino nods. “That’s gonna suck.”

Hinata sighs, shoulders heaving. “Yeah.”

“Well, I mean, not for nothing but at least you understand your feelings again.”

Hinata pauses, turns over her shoulder and casts Kiba a curious glance. He blinks at her, fingers still tangled in the wealth of her hair, and explains himself.

“Well, we kind of noticed it’s been tough on you these past few months.” He gestures to Shino with his chin and continues on, saying, “Not knowing your feelings for certain. I mean before this Ken guy, you knew exactly how you felt and why. You’ve loved Naruto for so freakin’ long, and even though I do not see the appeal—”

“Get back on track,” Shino interjects, and just that easily Kiba listens.

“You’ve always known why. What do you always tell us about him when we ask? That it’s easy?”

“Yeah,” Hinata smiles, and her heart is so touched by the returned sentiment that she almost feels tears forming. “He’s easy to love.”

Kiba sighs, says, “And clearly he’s not easy to forget.”

Shino reaches out calmly and flicks Kiba on the neck, leaving a reddened mark behind. Hinata faces forward again with a smile, ignoring her boys as Shino tells Kiba, “Don’t be insensitive,” and Kiba’s hackles rise and he grits, “I’m being blunt.”

“Tactless.”

“Listen, mister shade,” Kiba starts, and Hinata reaches a hand back to lightly squeeze his knee with one hand, and Shino’s with the other.

“It’s okay.”

“This isn’t going to be as simple as you think it is,” Kiba admits, unflinchingly truthful. After a moment of quiet, through which only the birds in the nearby canopies dared to break the silence, Hinata nods.

Kiba says, “You’re going to choose Naruto.”

And Hinata only hesitates long enough to hear and feel the answer her heart gives: a single bounding pulse, a heavy acceptance.

She thinks, I will always choose Naruto.

“Yes,” she says instead, knowing that both of her boys can her the unspoken words regardless.

“When will you tell him?” Shino asks, levelheaded as always.

“I’m going to tell Ken when I see him tomorrow,” she explains, “That I can be nothing more than his friend.”

Silence curls back around them, each of them contemplating and moving idly. Kiba secures Hinata’s hair in a thickly plated braid that falls to her tailbone, and Shino watches the ladybug travel casually across his knuckles. Akamaru snuggles Mirai, who continues to push and pull at his fur without losing any sort of interest. She wipes her drool against him and he casts Hinata a familiar, doting glance in response.

Finally, Shino asks, “And Naruto?”

And that’s the big decision right there. When should she tell Naruto that she still loves him, that she’s willing to believe in the feelings he has admitted to having for her? When should she allow herself to turn back to the way she’s felt all these years, yearning and hoping and not quite believing that she might one day be the one for him?

Hinata has never been anything but open and receptive to Naruto, her feelings consistently and blatantly worn on her sleeve. Back then, if Naruto had felt for her in the same way that she has always felt for him, there would have been no hesitation in her reciprocating. She would’ve accepted him easily, wholeheartedly, and with great wonder.

It’s strange, she thinks, how time changes everything.

Now, it feels too sudden for her to open herself back up to him. Her feelings are as real and true as they always have been, and still just as present, but there’s a sensation of emotional whiplash there in the corner of her mind. What irony, for her to decide to move on from him at the exact time that he realizes he has feelings for her.

Hinata thinks about the possibility of him truly caring for her as someone more than just one of many, many friends, and it makes her heart swell. But there’s insecurity there, even still so many years after she had worked purposefully in destroying it.

There’s no denying that his feelings are new, and untested. He has not had to sit with them and try to understand them, to test the boundaries of how far they reach.

Hinata has had a lifetime of chasing Naruto, in feeling and in faith.

There are no limits to her love for him. She knows this in just the same way she knows the sun will rise molten and heated over the horizon each day.

There’s a colossal difference in depth of feeling between them, and Hinata feels vulnerable and exposed in a way that isn’t yet safe for her. Love doesn’t always have to be a wager, but it almost always feels like one. Hinata doesn’t want to be a coward, doesn’t want to run from something that could be incredible just because it’s also frightening. She is one of the strongest kunoichi in the entire village system; she will not shy away from something she fears.

But love isn’t a mission.

And Hinata loves herself enough to know that her hesitance isn’t cowardice, but protectiveness, and that she deserves however much time she needs before she feels ready to open herself back up again for love and all that comes with it.

Even from Naruto.

“I need time,” she says, glancing up at Shino and Kiba both. “I wasn’t lying when I said I was going to try to move on from him. I meant it.”

“Yeah,” Kiba says, and Shino nods. “We know.”

Hinata nods, too. “It’s easy to love him, to fall back into that. But I don’t even know if he really likes me or if he’s just unused to my attention aimed somewhere else.”

Hinata steadies herself, straightens her shoulders and looks her boys in the eyes.

“I don’t want to get hurt,” she admits in a quiet voice, her lips curling towards the end in a self-conscious smile. She has to remind herself, this is not cowardice. “I need some time.”

Kiba reaches out instantly and pulls her into his chest, before reaching out to Shino and pulling him in, too.

“Take all the time you need,” Kiba says, “We’re always gonna be here for you.”

Shino senses the fragility of her words and reinforces her thoughts by telling her, “You have to protect yourself, Hinata.”

“Yeah,” Kiba agrees, petting her hair and pulling back so he and Shino can gauge her expression. She offers a small, shaky grin and they return it tenfold. “It’s totally okay to protect yourself. That’s gotta be like shinobi rule number one, right? Protect yourself? I don’t even remember and man, that’s probably not great. It’s rule number fuckin one, and I can’t remember it? How many rules are there even? Do they have little cheater booklets for this? I need one.”

“Kiba,” Shino says, and the shut up is so heavily implied that Kiba casts a glare Shino’s way and says, “Woah, don’t be rude,” as if he’d heard it anyways.

Hinata laughs, pulling them in again until they each hear the backdoor to the house slide open. When they turn and see Kurenai standing there with a bright smile, Kiba’s stomach instantly growls.

“Come on,” she calls, “Dinner’s ready. Akamaru, remember to wipe your paws before coming into the house, please. You too, Kiba.”

Hinata bursts into laughter once more just as Kurenai smirks and moves back into the house, and Shino lifts a hand to conspicuously adjust his glasses in good humor.

Kiba rolls his eyes and the three of them stand to their feet as Akamaru heaves Mirai onto his mighty shoulders and steadies her, trotting carefully over to the house to wipe his paws and push through the entryway. Kiba and Shino flank Hinata as the three of them wipe off stray grass and dirt from their rears and head for the house. Before they make it there completely, however, Shino reaches out and caps a hand on Hinata’s shoulder.

“You’re okay?” He asks, and Hinata smiles up at him. She tilts onto the tips of her toes and he instantly bends for her, closing the distance between his cheek and her lips.

“You both were a great help,” she says honestly, “I’m much better than okay.”

“Hey,” Kiba complains, pouting. “Where’s my thanks?”

Hinata turns to him with chiming laughter and lifts herself to kiss his cheek, too. She places a hand on each of their backs and guides them towards Kurenai’s house and feels lighter than she has in weeks, now that she knows what she needs to do.

It’s strange, in a beautiful and baffling way, how family can make everything that had once felt dire and uncertain feel easy, and within reach. Just a day before Hinata had been sitting in her apartment wallowing and aimless, unsure of what she should do.

Should she stick with this new greening leaf she’s been trying to turn and see if she and Ken have a future? Or turn back to the sun-crisped and golden leaf she’s lived on, with the inexplicable reality of Naruto’s feelings a blooming possibility of sudden reciprocation ahead of her?

A single day in the presence of her family—the warmth of Kurenai’s home and Mirai’s guileless innocence, of Shino’s neutral calm and openness and Kiba’s ceaseless curiosity for answers—and suddenly she had her decision.

And it feels easy, and right, and as though it had been there all along just waiting for her to grasp it.

So she grasps it, blinks and pictures that golden leaf, and she guides her boys into their mentor’s home to the fresh smell of baked goods and Kiba’s favorite dish sitting on the stove.

✧

Hinata comes to find that keeping her physical and emotional distance from Naruto is easier said than done, especially because his habit of appearing randomly but consistently in her life returns tenfold.

She knows well enough that to underestimate Naruto in a fight or a challenge is to swiftly give up every inkling of an advantage that one has against him.

She only wishes that she had known the same applied with his feelings—otherwise she would’ve never allowed herself to be caught so completely off-guard by him immediately after deciding she needed time from him.

He finds her on the training grounds, working herself tirelessly to strengthen already sore muscles. She pauses when she senses his chakra on the far side of the field, and stands to her full height to receive him when he blurs and appears just a few steps before her. He’s wearing his standard jonin uniform, black long sleeves tattered and perfectly shaped to his form. His jonin vest is decidedly absent, probably since he’s not on mission and isn’t expected to be any time soon. His hair is long enough near his temples to graze the tip of his nose, to tickle the bow of his lips. He smiles almost bashfully, lifting a hand to rub at the nape of his neck.

“Hey Hinata,” he greets, and Hinata works on steadying her breath. She can’t help but to smile, studying Naruto’s guileless expression and thinking inexplicably of Mirai.

“Naruto-kun,” she greets in return, flushing when she realizes how out of sorts she must look. She’d discarded her jacket some time ago when the sun’s heat became too much, and her rhythmic training regimen called for more cardio. Now she stands before him sweating and out of breath, her hair a mess and her hands shaking from exertion and nerves. Naruto’s eyes drop over her once and that only makes her temperature soar, and the desire to fidget arises swiftly.

“You working on some new techniques?” He asks, and he moves easily into her personal space. Before she can even respond, he has one hand wrapped around her wrist, pulling her hand up closer to his face so he can see clearly the charka burns there. He frowns, glancing up at her in disapproval, and moves to her other hand to see the same results.

“Yes,” she responds warily, blinking down at the sight of his hands on hers.

“Doesn’t this hurt?” He asks, and when he glances back up at her the concern in his eyes is nearly palpable. Hinata shakes her head, ignoring the heat of her cheeks. She forces herself to pull her hands away from his and immediately misses the heat of his grip.

She watches him tuck his hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders a bit. He’s grown tall over the years, and broader of shoulder and waist than she remembers.

“It doesn’t hurt,” She fibs, because the pain isn’t bad. Naruto gives her a look like he knows exactly what she means, but he doesn’t press. He glances around at the early morning skies, the birds flying overhead and the sway of the leaves in the breeze. When he turns his attention back to her just a moment later, there’s a spark of an idea in his eyes.

He asks, “Hey, wanna spar?”

Hinata has sparred with Naruto before—his offer isn’t novel or even all that surprising. Hinata still hesitates, though, because her entire plan consisted of her avoiding Naruto for a little while to let her feelings settle back in so she could catch back up.

Sparring with him directly contradicts that plan.

And yet, Hinata feels herself grinning, and it’s just this edge of challenging. Naruto senses the barbed spirit in it immediately and his smile reflects hers completely, lifting his entire expression into one of open joy.

“Sure,” she says, before she can even think of the consequences of her rash decision. “What are the rules?”

“No weapons,” Naruto says immediately, taking a few steps back while his smile shifts into more of a smirk, self-assured and overconfident. “Just us.”

Hinata swallows, says, “Okay.”

She backs up, too, and Naruto blurs as he heads across the training ground to place an acceptable distance between them. Hinata tucks her hair behind her ears and settles into a defensive stance, hands coming up and knees bent. She hesitates for a moment before activating her Byakugan, thinking that it certainly counts as a part of her. Naruto doesn’t negate the use of it either, and immediately lifts his hands into the formation from which his clones will soon be created.

Hinata blinks, a subtle and heavy fall of her lashes, and it’s a curtain being pulled away from a stage; announcing the beginning of the first act.

There’s just Naruto, as bright and beautiful as she’s ever seen him, smirking at her from several meters away; the wind plays gaily with the longer strands of his hair, curling daintily around his tall form. Clouds sail across the sea of the sky but evade the sun, almost unwilling to hinder the shine it casts down upon them. Hinata can hear her heart pounding in her chest, can feel it pulsing in her fingertips. She can see hundreds of creatures around them, cast in shades of stark blacks and whites, some in muted grays. There’s a squirrel in the brush just over Naruto’s shoulder, and it pauses in its scurrying to glance at him.

Naruto’s lips move and Hinata finds herself surrounded on all sides by that same wry twist of lips, smug and excited with eyes that gleam with expectations she’s not entirely certain how to meet. She twists into Hakkeshou Kaiten before she can even plan, knowing Naruto’s not one to be patient for long, or at all.

She hears the telltale deflections of fists and bodies being grazed and knocked away, impacting only the air around her enough so that she can feel their vibrations. She exits her spin seamlessly and immediately ducks low and left, pushing from the ground into a low somersault. Naruto is there instantly, clones as well as his real self, and Hinata focuses entirely on him with her Byakugan eyes. Every other version of him is a sidestep and a chop to the neck she performs nearly without blinking, though Naruto does somehow manage to get a few good punches through her defenses.

One of which finds her right cheekbone and knocks her momentum off just enough for her to stumble. She takes two clones down in a puff of smoke with her, fingers still elegantly unbent, hands simultaneously rising to deflect hits and falling to cradle her landing. She flips herself immediately to her feet before she can crash into the grass, a smile breaking through because she can’t help but to appreciate her own ability to adapt to such an overwhelming situation.

The smile doesn’t last long, and becomes twisted into something of distress when she feels Naruto’s true hand slide over the nape of her neck.

Neji had been an excellent teacher, taking to her style and not trying to change it but to transform it, to add to it in ways she not only understood but also enjoyed; ways that she could achieve.

She can still hear his voice whenever she trains, telling her the same thing, emphasizing the same lesson over and over until Hinata could recite it word for word without premise or preamble.

You’re only as strong as your speed, he’d say, before shifting into position just before showing her exactly how valuable speed is to a Hyuuga.

If you can’t keep up with what you see, what good is seeing it?

It’s a lesson that Hinata won’t ever forget. Can’t forget. But it’s also a lesson she’s still learning, still trying to achieve. Her teacher was taken from her and the world too early—her speed has yet to match her eyesight, and she still hasn’t figured out just the way that he had always been able to seamlessly train his body to match it.

It is this exact weakness that Naruto unknowingly takes complete advantage of, and slips right through her perfect three hundred and sixty degree defenses. His fingers touch her skin, and she sucks in a deep breath, anticipating the feeling of being pushed to the ground under a steady and strong hand.

It doesn’t come, however, and instead she finds his lips so close to her ear she wonders for only a trivial moment if this is a different sparring tactic he’s designed just for her.

“Caught ya,” he says, and it’s a laugh and a whisper that curls right over the heat of her skin, the delicate shell of her ear. Emotions bubble inside of her, tumultuous and disarrayed, a thriving combination of excitement, uncertainty, and frustration that has her kicking her right leg back as quickly as she can, trying to clip his leg and take him to the ground.

He flickers out of reach just as her leg passes over the material of his pants, the unforgiving leather of his ninsandals. She turns on her heel and her temples pulse with heat, her Byakugan intensifying as she focuses back in on the real Naruto while still retaining awareness of the other hundred or so of him surrounding her. None of them move and that frustrates Hinata even more, but she holds her tongue and only flickers into a blur of movement, utilizing her hard-earned top speed in order to get back in close to him and not let him go.

She appears in his arm span and he turns immediately with a grin, teeth gritted but undoubtedly tilted in joy. She channels needle-like chakra poles from her fingertips and extends them just enough to have a slightly improved chance of reaching him, though not enough yet to exhaust her. It’s no easy feat to shape and mold chakra in one’s hands, as evidenced by the toll it takes on Naruto when he uses Rasengan, or Hatake Kakashi when he uses Chidori. But Hinata’s is one step further in the way of difficulty and straining the body, considering that she not only molds chakra in her hands, but she shapes it into something fine and highly accurate even as she moves through offensive maneuvers.

Her hands are a blur that even Naruto’s eyes probably can’t track well, but he deflects her at every turn, and it’s his speed that defeats her.

Speed, she thinks, is the root of her troubles.

She doesn’t retreat, rather she moves in closer, constantly pacing his every step backwards and away. She leaps into the air and twists horizontally when his clones get too close and try to wound her, and she knocks them into the air and out of existence with well-aimed and momentum-packed kicks. She doesn’t allow herself to lose track of the real Naruto again, keeps him within her reach the entire time and continues to try to strike him.

She watches the way he grins when she gets in close, and the way he laughs, actually laughs, an outpouring of surprise and joy when she manages to absolutely destroy the chakra center leading to his left arm. He puts on an extra burst of speed and twenty of his clones blot the space between them, hindering her onslaught of gentle fist techniques. She sees him starkly through the crowds of his clones—it would be impossible for any Hyuuga to ever miss him, with his unconquerable chakra capacities.

His arm hangs limply at his side, and he smiles.

Hinata performs another seamless charka-infused spin and knocks away half of the battalion of clones he’d set upon her in one go. She comes out of it speaking even as she’s still spinning, her voice corded with steel.

“Stop going easy on me,” she calls out, eyes centering on him even as her Byakugan never once loses sight of him. “I can tell that you are.”

She watches him poke at his limp arm and then look back up at her through the crowd of clones still attacking her, and she sees him bite his lip to hold back another grin.

His clones back off immediately, but only long enough for them to bring their hands together and form a familiar hand sign that has Hinata’s eyes widening, and her mind instantly recalibrating her position and her tactics. She loses track of how many Rasengans suddenly surround her, but the count isn’t what’s important.

Creating a field of wayward detonations, however, is.

She flickers and blurs between them, and it’s almost easy to reach out and propel them in the real Naruto’s direction with a single chakra-infused palm pushed lightning-quick and perfectly aimed on their spines. Many of them twist and turn in her grasp or just outside of it, bringing their Rasengans towards her abdomen without slowing.

She manages to twist within their reach and get a good enough grip on their wrists to fling them at Naruto again, and he’s forced to dodge them or disband his clones lest he be attacked with his own power move. He’ll think twice about setting so many Rasengans into place so close to his own position next time, Hinata thinks, just as one slips past her defenses and rams the powerful orb of energy straight into her abdomen.

It throws her farther than she imagined it would, and it hurts worse, too. It’s more than just a powerful twist against the skin that knocks someone around, nearly pushes through them—it works with twists, spins against her and through her and every bit of her insides feel as though they’re twisting, too.

And that’s not even mentioning the heat of it, and the way the skin of her abdomen feels like it’s hanging in tatters once she peels herself out of the tree trunk she’d been thrown into. She lifts a hand to wipe at a bead of blood running over her lip and blinks to clear her vision, though she needn’t have with the Byakugan still functional. She pants and limps a few feet back onto the training grounds and is pleased to see that he’s down to only twelve clones surrounding him.

Her tailbone aches but she heals it without even having to think about it, knowing that this is an injury she can afford to use chakra to mend. Without her base of support, this sparring session would be over.

Naruto watches her for a long moment, and she watches him in turn, still trying to figure out the best way to get closest to him without expending too much chakra. Then he has his clones bring their hands back up in front of their chests and Hinata moves, unwilling to allow him to create a hundred more obstacles for her to waste her chakra on. She’s quick enough to make it in time, to even startle a surprised breath out of him as he leaps away and she makes short work of his remaining clones, before any of them can summon more of him.

She’s starting to tire, though, and as such she takes more of a beating from his last few clones than she otherwise might have. There’s a burning in her thighs she knows is from exertion, and a burning in her right bicep she knows isn’t. She’s fairly certain that she has a broken toe somewhere on her left foot, but it’s a minimal distraction compared to the rising frustration of Naruto not coming at her with his all.

“Come on,” she calls, when the last of his clones finally disperses on the edge of her palm, which she brings back in close to her center of gravity. Her every movement is as elegant as is expected of a Hyuuga-borne prodigy, and she controls her breathing with strength of will alone. Naruto’s arm is still limp, and Hinata isn’t sure how long that will last, considering she has no idea what his immeasurable chakra capabilities can do. She’s fairly certain he can’t reopen his own chakra centers once she has so deftly silenced them, but he’s a wildcard, unpredictable at the best of times.

She frowns, watching him square her up.

“Naruto-kun,” she says, tone steady. “Come on.”

And he does. His speed is commendable, but Hinata has been sparring with Uchiha Sasuke for years and there isn’t a person on Earth who can best him, except for Hatake Kakashi on a really, really good day.

She takes the punch to her side in favor of deflecting the one aimed for her face, and slides under his extended arm to hit him with a powerful, unflinching chakra-infused palm straight to his abdomen. It sends him flying, not quite so far as his Rasengan had sent her, but he lands heavily on his back for a few moments before getting himself back onto his feet. When he does, the expression on his face brings chills up along Hinata’s spine.

Something of pride, and of exhilaration roils in the beautiful blues of his eyes, and Hinata feels accomplished in an embarrassing way.

“Ow,” he complains, dusting his rear off and checking his pants for any rips. Hinata thinks to move in on him, to slide her legs between his and knock him back off his feet in just the same way that he had, but then she notices something that distracts her entirely.

His left arm—he moves it.

Unpredictable, she thinks, as Naruto seems to realize the same thing, flexing that arm and slowly working it back into full functionality. He looks back up at her with a self-satisfied sneer, and flickers before her eyes. She tracks the way he weaves towards her and she settles more solidly in a defensive position, turning at the last second to deflect his incoming attacks. He divots a moment before she adjusts, switching directions, and flies low by her waist, almost passing her by. His hands find purchase on her hips, however, and he throws her sideways to the ground, causing her body to roll.

She bends her knees and plants her feet, hands coming down at her hips to try to push herself back up into a standing position, but her movements are ultimately futile.

Naruto’s knees settle alongside her waist, the weight of him settling heavily over her hips and pelvis. His hands grasp her wrists and pin them to the dirt, his fingers holding tight yet not enough to hurt. His bangs dangle between them, grazing the skin of her forehead, and Hinata blinks up into the exultation of his victorious smile.

“I win,” he whispers, and he smiles with too many teeth. Hinata tries to catch her breath and focus on anything but the comfortable weight of him on top of her, and the way she craves it. She can’t look away from him, though, and he’s so close they’re sharing every breath. She’s bleeding in several places, and he’s bruised in several others, and they’re both covered in dirt and grime, but there’s something unmistakably intimate about it all.

About them, here together and pressed so close, gasping for breath and overexerted from time well spent training. It’s sudden and brazen, the way Hinata wants so desperately to lean up that last little bit and press her lips to his, to pull him down completely until there’s no reaching between them, only grasping.

But her heart is a chattering anchor in her chest and it’s heavy, so heavy she can’t make herself move. Naruto doesn’t move either, and she wonders if it’s the lightness of his heart, the way it flies too close to the sun, that keeps him still and prevents him from moving down closer to her.

“You win,” she concedes, the words a breath the wind easily steals away. Naruto glances down at her, and she’s close enough to see the subtle, dusky brown freckles framing his pupils. Hinata thinks of the ocean, and where it meets the sand; she thinks of the fluidity and the absorption and the endless, endless abyss.

His eyes move to her lips, and it’s so thwarting but he just stares, and it’s his brazen lack of embarrassment that steadies Hinata’s resolve. She turns away from him, allowing her cheek to rest in the dirt. Naruto’s hands are still pinning her down, and he doesn’t move even after she’s turned away from him, not for several moments.

Finally, he releases her. He sits up and his full weight rests against her pelvis, and Hinata feels heat race into the blood vessels of her cheeks, down her throat.

“Ah,” he says, and he lifts himself at last. He offers her a hand, which she hesitantly takes, and he watches her with wide, curious eyes as she dusts herself off. She doesn’t look at him as she reaches for his arm, curious and worried as she checks his chakra centers. They’d creaked open, not entirely fixed but not shut off like she’d initially locked them. She glances up at him in wonder and he just smiles, a small and subtle lift of the corners of his lips, not quite enough to show teeth. It’s startlingly timid, for him. It makes Hinata swallow.

“You’re not going to take my arm like you’d tried to earlier, right?”

Hinata rolls her eyes, laughing lightly. “I wasn’t trying to take your arm. And I’m definitely not going to take it now.”

“Sure felt like it,” he laughs, and he ducks his head over his shoulder a bit, right up close to where her head is bowed. She can feel his bangs on her skin, he’s so close, and she wonders for a moment if he’s letting his hair grow out like that because his father had, too.

“Sorry,” she says sincerely, before glancing up at him from under her eyelashes. Her tone becomes playful as she says, “That Rasengan didn’t feel too great either.”

“Hey!” He says, jerking back immediately to point a finger up at her. “You said don’t go easy on you!”

“That’s right,” she agrees, as she presses her hand to his side and immediately starts to heal the skin she’d bruised there. He grabs the hem of his shirt and lifts it, exposing the skin and the already purpling bruise for her. He doesn’t move her hand there himself, but he waits until she moves it from the cloth of his shirt to his actual skin before looking satisfied. “And yet, you still went easy on me.”

Naruto squirms, and Hinata gives him a break by not staring at him. She focuses on his wounds and heals each one in turn as he pointedly tries and fails to make excuses. She’s not actually mad at him, but she likes the way he tries so valiantly to come up with something she’d believe, only to finally sigh and just explain, “I don’t like hurting you. I really don’t like it. I don’t ever want to do that.”

Hinata glances up at him, wide-eyed and biting on her lip. Naruto’s eyes trace her features and soften in response, and his resulting smile is calm and sincere.

“Not ever,” he repeats, and he tilts his head to catch her eyes and hold them. “I won’t ever hurt you.”

And she knows, realistically, that everyone hurts everyone sometime. She knows that family and loved ones can hurt you the most, even and usually unintentionally. But she also knows that Naruto means it, that he truly, truly does.

I stand by what I say.

And besides, she thinks fondly before glancing back up to him with heavy eyes and a smile that says too much, it’s nice to hear.

“Wanna spar again this weekend?” She asks, and after a moment of pause Naruto’s expression lights up in varying shades of anticipation and promise.

✧

They spar with each other more and more after that, and Hinata slowly starts to pick up speed. Just when she’s starting to capitalize on this, Naruto gets sent on a long-term mission. He comes to her immediately after he’s given his orders, and he shows up on her doorstep in full jonin regalia, jonin vest included this time.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back,” he says, and at the time Hinata doesn’t think much of it. They go on long-term missions frequently, and no one mission mirrors another in just the same way. She and her boys could be gone for months on end before returning back home, and other times she could be sent out for just a few weeks. It all depends on the mission, the state of the village and the level of threats it receives, and if there’s a war on.

Or there’s about to be.

Hinata frowns but wishes Naruto good luck, tells him to be safe and to return home as soon as he can. She feels off even as she’s saying goodbye to him, but she doesn’t understand the feeling well enough to pause for it. She thinks it sadness, at his leaving for a long-term mission; nothing more than the fact that she’s going to miss him.

Concern becomes an inkling of discomfort in her belly when Naruto only watches her carefully, in a way that makes her think he’s committing her to memory. His eyes trail over her expression and it’s only when he takes in a deep breath and moves forward to press his lips to her forehead that worry begins to course heavily through her veins.

“Be safe,” he says, lips against her skin. He pulls back and his smile falls short of its usual sincere luster, eyes flickering back and forth between hers. “Be good.”

Hinata lifts a hand to wave goodbye, and he’s gone before the words fall from her lips.

“You too,” she says, and the words are a ghost’s whisper, unheard and unfelt.

She lifts her fingertips to the skin of her forehead and searches for proof of the ghost of a kiss he’d left behind.

✧

Hinata had expected Naruto’s mission to be, at most, around five months.

At most.

So when that marker comes and goes and Hinata still hasn’t seen or heard from him, she really starts to worry. She asks their friends about it, and no one has much information other than the previous Hokage herself, and she won’t speak a word about it. Hatake Kakashi is also nowhere to be found, undoubtedly because he’s avoiding everyone who wants to know where his student is. As current Hokage, he would be one of the very few actually privy to Naruto's whereabouts.

The high-level secrecy of it has Hinata’s concerns escalating even further, and she finds that for most days, she can’t help but to have a mind consumed with the possibilities of where Naruto is, and what he’s doing. Something tells her it has to do with the rising hostility along the Mist borders, but she truly hope otherwise. That kind of enmity, long-standing and relentless, is the kind that brings about war.

By the sixth month, Hinata has taught herself how to focus on her own life and to stop constantly worrying about Naruto’s. She knows how strong he is, how determined, and how well he can move people with just his will. She knows he can take care of himself—but that’s not what’s difficult. She knows that he can, and that he probably will, but that doesn’t change the fact that she cares for him too. And because of that, she worries.

She focuses on her own missions, and those that require the combined, unique skills of Konoha’s Team 8. It’s a refreshing reprieve from her constant worries and uncertainties, to just spend time doing what she and her boys do best: reconnaissance. They have nearly the highest average mission success rates as a team, and Hinata never fails to grow in both her shinobi skills and personal character when she’s around Kiba and Shino.

They return home from a weeklong mission in the thick of River Country and, after reporting another successful mission of gathering the necessitated information, they head their separate ways with heads held high.

The following morning, Hinata has the day off.

She spends it in much the same way that she spends many of her free days: volunteering. Konoha is still a work in progress, though it has come far from being the crater that Pain had once left it, more Sand than Leaf. Now, greenery grows vividly on every corner, trees expedited to middle ages by Konoha’s own Yamato.

Konoha prospers in-between the leaves, and Hinata would never let herself sit idly by while other villagers worked without wages to continue to improve their home. She wears her oldest training clothes, ignores the rips along her wrists and ankles, and heads out into the morning air. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, lets the sun bathe the backs of her eyelids in subtle heat.

She moves through the streets of Konoha with casual purpose, welcoming those who greet her, and smiling kindly at those who don’t. She ties her hair into a high tail and sweeps her bangs off her forehead, only to have them fall right back into place. She has to travel through a maze of side streets—some of which are so small she can reach each side at once while walking through them—to get to her zone.

By the time she gets there, Sakura is already knee-deep in loose dirt. She’s carrying five bags of soil as if they’re bags of feathers, and a young girl directs her where to set them.

“’Bout time you showed up,” she calls over her shoulder as she heaves the bags down onto the ground, ignoring the massive dust cloud that arises, and only cringing slightly when the young girl next to her starts coughing because of it.

“I’m early,” Hinata responds, grinning. She moves forward immediately, not having to be told what to do with the soil. She and Sakura had only submitted applications to be volunteers, and had not specified where they’d like to be; their intentions being that they wanted to be the most help they could, wherever the most help was needed. They’d begun in the underground sectors working in private, given their high-level clearance and shinobi status. After they did what they could there, they were moved to help with infrastructure.

It was the young girl that called them away from that task after only a few months of helping out there, with a valiant argument for the importance of new trees.

“Baby trees!” She emphasized, cradling two palms full of seeds in her hands. At the time, she hadn’t had any other reason than wanting new trees in the dryer parts of Konoha, but Sakura and Hinata quickly realized that this young girl wasn’t the only one with such intentions.

She had an entire class full of students who were stationed around Konoha, laying soil and planting seeds, all for the sake of having trees to grow alongside with. Hinata and Sakura were weak to their heartfelt ideals, and had since been working with them in places all over Konoha for the past three months.

“Yeah, well,” Sakura grumbles, heading back in the direction she came, presumably to get more soil. “I’ve been here long enough to be sassed. Twice.”

Hinata laughs at that, turning over her shoulder to glance down the long line of laid out soil bags to find the young girl inspecting one with a critical eye.

“She certainly speaks her mind,” Hinata agrees, and Sakura harrumphs, as if that was the biggest understatement she’d ever heard.

“If that’s what you call it,” Sakura calls, and then before turning the corner out of sight, she looks over her shoulder at Hinata and grins. “Sounds familiar, though, ne?”

Hinata grins as she disappears from view, and kneels back into the dirt, tearing open the next bag of soil and starting to lay it out. She spreads it evenly, glancing every now and again down the line to see what the young girl is keeping herself busy with. It’s a small volunteering operation, this little girl and her army, but she’d managed to get even more than just Hinata and Sakura to join her cause.

Hinata knows with certainty that Shino helps out on the weekdays when he’s free, even though many of the kids find him creepy. Sawamura Ken almost got roped into volunteering here when he made the mistake of showing up for one of Hinata’s shifts with her, and their fearless little leader developed a crush. Luckily for him, however, he was already dedicated to infrastructure reconstruction.

Rock Lee often stops by every station in a single day when he has the time, making it a challenge to his training regimen as well as ensuring that the youth of Konoha achieve even the smallest of their dreams.

She’s not certain, but Hinata suspects that even Sasuke comes by sometimes to water the soil. He was unofficially appointed in Hatake Kakashi’s stead, after their noble Hokage decided to water the soil with a particularly tumultuous water jutsu that made more of a mess than anything else. Kakashi was soon after banned from the operation, which Hinata is absolutely certain was his initial intention. It was only a bonus in his mind that Sasuke was his replacement.

The soil is cold under Hinata’s fingertips. She slides her hands deep and presses it flat along the dirt, before getting up and coming back to it with a simple farmhand’s rake. Sakura comes back around the corner with five more bags of soil in her hands and lays them exactly where she’s instructed by their young leader. She returns close to Hinata’s area a few moments afterwards and gets started on her own segments, ripping into bags and spreading the mulch as far as she can get it.

“So,” she says, as Hinata brings her shoulder up to rub at an itch on her cheek. “I still haven’t heard anything.”

Hinata glances over at her friend curiously, out of focus and bleary-eyed from focusing too long on the stark difference of her skin tone compared to the mulch. Realization dawns on her, and she blinks, trying to hide her disappointment. It’s there reflected in Sakura’s expression, too, though she hides it far better than Hinata can.

Hinata does not have to repeat the sentiment of her worry to Sakura, now or ever. Sakura knows just as well as Kiba and Shino know, that Hinata is not okay. That she is worried, and that she wants to act on that worry and go looking for him. How long does one have to wait before a fellow shinobi is considered missing? How long does she have to wait before she can approach the Hokage and request a rescue mission? And if she did, would it pass?

Sakura shakes her head and looks back to the soil, saying, “Kakashi-sensei definitely knows something, but all I’ve been able to get out of him is that Naruto is not in Fire Country, which isn’t saying much. He didn’t say it explicitly, but from what I gathered from all of his vague inconsistencies and metaphors, the dumbass, is that Naruto has been in negotiations with someone. Someone big.”

Hinata worries her lower lip.

“Is Naruto our usual spokesperson for things like that?” Hinata asks, though she already knows the answer.

“No,” Sakura agrees, and she casts a particular look Hinata’s way because of that. “He definitely isn’t. I mean, since he saved the village, he’s had a lot more pull. A lot more power. The nations know of him and for the most part, even if they hate the Leaf, they can respect what he’s done. But he’s never had enough influence to actually be a part of the discussion.”

“He doesn’t like formal talks,” Hinata agrees pensively, eyebrows pursed. “Perhaps he has improved?”

Sakura’s eyes turn, silver over green in a single swipe of sunlight, and it’s as mischievous an expression shift as it is contemplative. To anyone who doesn’t know Sakura well, it might look threatening, the premise to an unheeded aggression.

But Hinata recognizes it easily, as exactly what it is: Sakura’s gossiping expression.

“I think,” she starts ominously, spreading her hands out dramatically. “That he might’ve been requested.”

Hinata’s eyebrows jump up in surprised curiosity, and she settles back on her heels, fingertips only barely touching the soil. It’s not a poor assumption, and from the smug look on Sakura’s face, she knows it. Hinata wonders how many people she’s run this by, other than Ino, of course.

“That would make the most sense,” Hinata agrees slowly, “Which actually makes no sense.”

“Right?” Sakura laughs, nodding her head and going back to tending her next bag of soil. She reaches into her pouch and pulls out a few packets of seeds, and places them just as their young leader instructed them, in a weaving but elegant formation of spirals. “Who would request that idiot for negotiations?”

“Who from Konoha would let him?” Hinata adds, blinking down at her hands, her scratched knees. It wouldn’t surprise Hinata too much to find that Naruto might be surprisingly good at negotiation simply because he has the kind of personality and strength of will that allows him to naturally want what’s best for both parties, so long as everyone remains safe. But Hinata can’t picture any of the current Konoha leaders accepting such a demand, or even sending him purposefully to discuss something so important to the village’s welfare. He’s an untested talent of negotiation; no one knows yet how effective he is.

Her thoughts circle one main point that remains hidden to her for several hours after the fact, until a shadow creeps over her and she turns over her shoulder to see Senju Tsunade standing over her.

Hinata smiles, dusting her hands off on her thighs before standing. She turns to face their previous Hokage and offers a respectful bow, which only makes Tsunade scowl. Sakura smiles over her shoulder, moving to mirror the exact same gesture.

“Shishou,” she greets, and there’s so much open warmth in her gaze that Hinata has to hide a small smile behind pursed lips. Sakura is one of the most independent and self-assured women that Hinata has ever known, but the moment that her Shishou is within arms reach she transitions into a little kid again, just bubbling over with admiration and affection. Hinata admires the bond between them; she shares a similar bond with Kurenai.

“Do you have a shift today?” Tsunade asks, almost offhandedly.

“Not today,” Sakura answers. “Tomorrow.”

Tsunade hums, nodding her head.

Hinata allows the silence for only so long as it seems viable before asking, “Is there anything we can do for you, Hokage-sama?”

Tsunade turns her shrewd gaze back to Hinata and studies her expression, blinking once. Hinata wonders if she has the energy to reprimand Hinata once more for calling her by her previous title, now held by one Hatake Kakashi. Hinata can’t help the title slipping from her lips, however; she really looks up to the woman strong enough to have been named the first lady Hokage.

“Nothing in particular,” Tsunade deflects, though she’s still just as watchful of Hinata’s expression. Hinata has the unique feeling of being a bug pinned to a board under a microscope, any change in being enough to have another pin driven through her. It’s a silly thought, considering that Tsunade has never been anything but brusquely civil with her. Hinata supposes it’s just her no-nonsense stare, and her impatience with misguidance.

After another long moment, Tsunade finally breaks her stare to glance over at Sakura. Sakura tilts her head curiously, and Tsunade sighs.

“That little idiot will be coming home in a few days,” she starts off, and Hinata’s heart immediately starts to race, her nape growing hot with flush. She sees Sakura straighten from the corner of her eyes, but she doesn’t take them off of Tsunade. She may not be the present Hokage anymore, but she’s clearly still deeply ingrained in the loop of information that only Kakashi is supposed to be privy to. Hinata hones in on her expression, her tone of voice, every little nuance that could give her a clue as to how Naruto is and how he’s been doing and what he’s been doing. But Tsunade is a closed book, locked and sealed, and when she turns back to Hinata with a considering look, she says, “He won’t be able to tell you much. I’m not telling you much. But he’s fine.”

Relief washes through Hinata, waves coursing against an unsteady and shifting shore. She sags slightly, impolite in front of someone so esteemed, but she can’t help the way her legs and hands suddenly start to tremble. Emotion courses through her and to her utter embarrassment, her eyes start to water. When she gets herself back under control she straightens back up, shoulders strung tight like a bowstring, and she stares unflinchingly back at Tsunade, even with tears in her eyes.

Tsunade does not judge her for it, which is equal parts surprising and confusing. Sakura doesn’t seem surprised by it, however, and only sighs in relief.

“Anyways,” Tsunade finally sniffs, turning away from them in a flare of sandy hair and evergreen robes. She only pauses long enough to speak over her shoulder to Sakura, sharp parting words. “Don’t be late.”

“I never am!” Sakura chirps, grinning widely as her Shishou heads back into the streets of Konoha, for who knows what reason. Hinata is nearly breathless with joy, with relief, and when she turns to Sakura she finds her reflection nearly mirrored there. Sakura comes to her immediately, wrapping her arms around her and rocking them together with a loud sigh.

“Oh,” Hinata breathes against her, gripping the back of her shirt. “I’m so glad, Sakura-san.”

“Me too,” Sakura replies gaily, pulling away to rest her fists on her hips, glancing up into the sky. She closes her eyes in just the same way that Hinata had when she’d stepped out of her apartment, allowing the sun to press delicate kisses of warmth against her face. When she opens her eyes again, they’re brighter than Hinata remembers.

“He’s such an idiot,” she laughs, “Always making us worry!”

Hinata nods, because she can’t deny that. She lifts a hand to wipe at her wet eyes, shaking her head and turning back to the soil. Sakura follows suit, and when they’re both kneeling before their sections again Hinata glances over at her and says, “I wonder what he can tell us."

Sakura grins, and mischief stands out starkly in the bright green of her eyes. “I wonder what he’s going to.”

And with that, Hinata knows that the moment Naruto falls into Sakura’s hands he’s going to spill like a cracked time turner, one valuable grain of sand at a time.

Usually, she’d feel more sympathetic towards his plight. But it’s been over half a year since she’s seen him, and she hasn’t had a single bit of news about him, not even about his health. So she allows herself this moment of clarity, of joy in knowing that he’s almost home, and that even if he has to suffer a little at Sakura’s dangerously curious mind, then it’ll be worth it.

Because he’ll be home, and she’ll know he’s safe.

✧

Naruto’s impending return reminds Hinata of why she had wanted some space between them in the first place, though she hadn’t wanted it like this—with his safety in question and no way of knowing if he would ever make it back to her.

No, she’d never wanted anything like this. She’d imagined days where she might see him once, maybe twice by accident. Days where they sparred together in the morning and then said their goodbyes, where Hinata tried to see what it was like to be apart physically and emotionally.

But she could never quite manage that separation, not even when she tried. She spent a lot of time with her friends, including Sawamura Ken, who now understood that she had feelings for someone else, and that she was actively working on them. She’d long since made sure that he understood that even as she tried to work her feelings out for Naruto, she just didn’t think that they were right for each other. While disappointed, he seemed to handle the separation better than Hinata could have ever hoped.

He has a way of moving into her personal space without even realizing it, though, and Hinata notices every time. It doesn’t make her uncomfortable; she grew up with Kiba, who doesn’t know the meaning of personal space. The only time she really recognizes it as potentially out of the ordinary is when Ino brings it up once, asking if she and Ken were trying to test the waters again.

It was simple enough to explain that Ken is just someone who expresses himself mostly through touch, and who doesn’t even seem to realize he’s doing it. And since Hinata doesn’t mind it, and she knows that Ken doesn’t feel like she’s leading him on, she allows it.

So with a few days left before Naruto is set to return to Konoha, Hinata has to admit to herself that all of this running around trying to deny her own feelings is just messy and, if she’s honest, uncomfortable. It’s easy and it’s natural for her to love him, to want to take care of him and be close to him. To try to deliberately and forcefully push herself in the other direction is difficult and discomfiting, like trying to force pieces of a puzzle into places they just don’t fit.

And while Hinata acknowledges that she had been trying all of this in order to protect herself, she now admits that some of it had been because she was afraid. Naruto’s feelings are novel, untested and unproved, and she wasn’t certain if they were real or if he had suddenly noticed the absence of her attention, and wanted it back for familiarity’s sake.

She still isn’t certain—how could she be? She hasn’t had the time to test it, to ask Naruto about his feelings for her, to give him a chance. They haven’t had the time together.

But now, they will.

Hinata has a chance, a slim opportunity in her mind for her to experience Naruto’s reciprocation of her feelings. It’s incredible, lightens the weight of her shoulders and her chest, her heart a feather-light bastion working hard behind the cage of her ribs. Breathlessness, upon the thought of Naruto’s heart within reach.

Naruto’s love is insurmountable; she’s seen it for Sakura and Sasuke, for his teammates, his friends, his village. She’s seen the power of it, the way it leads him to lead an entire village without even a title to back him up. She’s seen the way it moves people that had never been moved before.

It’s frightening; everything about love is frightening, but this especially. The possibility of it with Naruto, a possibility she never actually allowed herself to actualize, because it was so far out of her reach she never could have dreamed it would be real.

But it’s real. She wants to believe that it’s real. And she’s going to have to work for it, to overcome her fears and just love.

That’s what she’s always done, and it’s been easy. To love.

Soft thoughts, she thinks in amusement, before heavy training. She pushes her sleeves up to her elbows and glances across the field at Uchiha Sasuke, who waits patiently for her to prepare herself. Outside of her own team, he is her most frequent sparring partner.

Initially, she had approached him for help to improve her speed. After half of a session, however, she realized that she was far too slow to even present a challenge to him, and she apologized and promised to return to him an able student. She spent several weeks with Rock Lee as a training partner, and her speed grew steadily until she was able to adequately block him with his weights on. And several weeks more to be a challenge for him without them.

She still spars with Lee regularly, and he still beats her in speed competitions every time, but now she’s a challenge. She found herself on Sasuke’s doorstep in the Uchiha compound not long after, and since then they’ve sparred three to four times a week. She’s still no match for his speed—he moves like thunder and he strikes like lightning, and she can barely breathe let alone stop him—but she’s fast enough now that he seems to enjoy their sessions.

She glances up from her hands, smooth and yet unmarred, and meets his gaze from across the field. Her temples burn, and veins rise up from under her skin. Her vision perfects itself, and she blinks to steady it, then watches Sasuke’s eyes bleed red in response. Hinata’s heart rate picks up in just the same way it always does whenever she sees his eyes change. The chills that race down her arms are a combination of excitement, that she poses enough of a challenge that Sasuke feels he has to use his kekkei genkai, and trepidation, that Sasuke’s eyes won’t miss a thing, and he has the speed to match that power.

Neji would’ve been a near perfect opponent for him.

Hinata hopes that she’s a quarter of that, at least.

She tilts her head up in a single, engaging nod, and Sasuke disappears.

If Hinata had to explain to someone without the Byakugan how quick Sasuke is, she would lay it out like this: when her Byakugan is activated she can see countless kilometers away, in every direction, in absolute perfect clarity. She can see the ladybug scaling a single blade of grass just behind her heel, the three-spotted deer bounding quickly through the brush nine kilometers to the north on the edge of a clearing, it’s eyes every shade of amber. She can see every individual drop of the waterfall twelve kilometers south from her position, and she can see every bending blade of light that slices through the sky when lightning strikes, almost as though seeing it in slow motion, every ignited detail; she can see it all.

And in comparison, Uchiha Sasuke is a trail of black light no larger than the width of a scroll, flickering in and out of existence before her all-seeing eyes.

Hinata can’t see which way he’ll approach so she has to plan, to guess, and if she’s wrong she has to have a countermeasure already in action by the time he strikes. Training with Sasuke isn’t entirely about speed of body; it’s about speed of mind. There isn’t a person alive other than Naruto and Kakashi who can stop him, reach him, but Hinata has a sharp mind and when she uses it, sometimes she gains enough ground on Sasuke to land a blow.

She guesses he’ll come from the left, so of course he comes from the right. She bends around the impact of his hand chopping into her side, and darts her hand out to try to catch his wrist. It’s foolish, they both know it, but Hinata has a plan for when she finally can catch his wrist, because she will, one day, and he is not going to like it.

She leaps out of the way a second before she feels heat, and then an inferno flares right in front of her eyes, charring everything it touches into ash. She flickers and appears behind him, knowing that he has allowed it, and sweeps her leg towards his feet. If he were anyone else, she’d watch for the telltale flex of muscles in his thighs and use that to her advantage to dig her swinging heel to a stop into the dirt, using the momentum it helped her gain to swing her left leg up and over to reach her opponent’s waist after they’ve jumped. It’s complicated but it works seamlessly, as Hinata has performed with Sakura and Rock Lee both.

Sasuke, however, is Sasuke. And he moves so damn fast that Hinata misses entirely the flex of his muscles under his all black ensemble, and instead finds the thigh she’d been watching so intently being rammed into her side to send her flying. She rolls a few times before sliding back up into a standing position, immediately racing back towards him with hands poised for gentle damage and veins raised starkly against her skin. She watches the way he flits around her, a trail of shadowed lightning, and she draws him in by leaving her right side open again.

She knows that he’ll know it’s a faint, even if she’s only left it open just enough for him and his quick hands to get through, but she has a plan. She factors in his confidence and the way that he’ll know for certain even if it’s a trap, he’s quicker than her reactions and he’ll still be able to land the hit and evade without breaking a sweat. She plans on it.

He follows her thought process seamlessly, and he’s even quicker than she’d dreamed because she almost doesn’t get him.

Almost.

Hinata shapes chakra in her hands and knows he can see it, knows that he’ll be watching out for it. She lets the chakra sit over her palms in undulating clouds of energy, slightly more aggressively presented than her normal gentle fists. His hand slides through the gap and the edge of his palm slices into her waist for a fraction of a second before he’s already moving away. She misses his wrist again with her left hand, but her right hand is closer to him anyways, and in an instant she shapes the chakra into a senbon blade that she flicks after his retreat.

Sasuke doesn’t hiss or groan, doesn’t even flinch, but Hinata knows that she’s made him bleed. Not because she can see it, Sasuke never stays still long enough under her eyes for her to see much. But she knows she got him because in the next moment she feels herself flying through the air until her back hits the dirt, and Sasuke’s hand wraps carefully around her throat. She can feel his legs on either side of her, and the gentle flex of his fingers over her throat as she blinks up at him, seeing him clearly for the first time since she had initiated their match.

Submission is the only time that Hinata gets to see Sasuke when they’re in the middle of training. Submission, and the rare moments where Sasuke will pause and teach her something wordlessly, shaping her attacks with his own hands, explaining quietly the path of muscles and how they need to flex and when they need to flex to be quicker. He has an incredible intelligence for battle, for fighting, and Hinata soaks in every bit of it that he shares with her.

He stares unblinkingly down at her now, and she can’t help but to smile up at him, even as she nearly chokes on the breaths she’s trying to catch. Her chest heaves, and Sasuke doesn’t move his hands from her throat. The dust settles around them and Hinata takes the time to study the channels of chakra fueling him, running through his lithe frame. Every bit of him burns like midnight fire, streaking through a starless night. Hinata wonders briefly if this is why all the kids had been in love with him at the Academy, before she remembers that only she and Neji had had the ability to see this.

“You win, Sasuke-san,” she laughs, smiling enough for crinkles to appear beside her eyes. She lets her tensed hands fall into the dirt beside her head from where they’d been holding onto his thighs—an automatic survival response, her fingers ready to push chakra deep into his body, all because his fingers had been around her throat. “Again.”

Sasuke doesn’t say a word, but he releases her throat, fingers sliding away over her skin. He continues to stare down at her before he tilts his head, almost curiously, and Hinata watches him lean back and pull up the hem of his shirt to expose unspeakably perfect abs and the fine cut of his hip, before his pointer finger guides her line of sight to a single spot on his waist. Hinata doesn’t need the guidance, and she doesn’t need him to pull his shirt away from the area to know exactly what he’s pointing at, and exactly why.

When he glances back to her with something like pride in his heavy eyes, already fading to black, she points to the veins beside her eyes.

“I can see the damage already,” she says, and she can’t help but to sound a little smug. It must be that tone, so rarely self-assured coming from her, but something in her words or her expression makes Sasuke smile, a shy frail thing that Hinata cherishes at all for having been able to see. Sasuke’s run of the mill smile is actually a smirk, but sometimes he lets those closest to him see these tiny little smiles, the most sincere forms of happiness she thinks he feels, and it’s always a joy to know that he feels them at all. Their generation holds a lot of resentment for him, but they’re also somehow terrifyingly protective of him. She understands that quite well, actually.

“Well done today,” he says quietly, settling his shirt back into place and moving off of her hips. He offers her a hand and she takes it, stretching her sides a little before moving closer to him.

“Thank you,” she says, as she lifts a hand towards his abdomen. “May I?”

Sasuke nods, and Hinata moves in to heal the tissues that she had ruptured with her single strand of chakra. She flushes when she realizes that it had only gone through a few layers of muscle, nowhere near enough to even be dangerous, and Sasuke catches her expression and trail of thought easily.

He attempts to comfort her, saying, “It was on its way to my liver.”

“If I keep working hard,” she says, smiling to lighten the unintended threat of the words. “One day it might make it.”

Sasuke studies her expression as she pulls away and lifts her hands to her sides, healing the bruising there.

“We’ll see,” he says, and Hinata shakes her head with a fond smile, a challenge and a promise in her eyes. She flushes, though, when she realizes she has a fractured rib and tells Sasuke about it with open amusement. The difference between their abilities is astronomical, but the fact that Sasuke still takes time out of his day to train with her, to help her grow, means the world to her.

She finishes healing her rib and stretches a little to help her sore muscles, and turns to Sasuke with another quiet smile. She’s just about to ask him what his plans for the rest of the day are when she catches sight of something on the very outskirts of her vision, heading in the direction of Konoha’s front gate. She stops short, breathless and shaken, and Sasuke turns a moment later in the exact direction that Hinata can see Naruto approaching the village.

“Naruto-kun,” she breathes, and she turns unconsciously in his direction, unblinking and studying every detail of his form that she can manage. He’s really pushing the boundaries of her vision, so far down the main road that the front gate isn’t going to appear before him for another few kilometers. Sasuke tucks his hands into his pockets and after a moment through which Hinata wonders if he can feel Naruto’s chakra signature from this distance, he turns back to her and studies her expression unabashedly. She doesn’t have the sense of attention to mind at the moment, considering that she can’t take her focus off of Naruto.

He looks good, unharmed and steady.

Different, though.

Worn down.

Hinata frowns, and her temples throb. She blinks and begrudgingly allows her kekkei genkai to recede, focusing back in on Sasuke and his blank expression. The light breeze around them plays with the ends of his bangs and hers, and she can’t help but to keep looking back in the direction Naruto is coming. She reminds herself that she doesn’t have to force herself to feel a certain way, that all she has to do is be herself.

Feel what she feels, and do what she wants to do.

She wants to give him time, but she wants to see him, too.

She wants to know that he’s safe.

Sasuke watches her worry her lower lip and says, “He’s going to come here.”

Hinata turns back to him confusedly, shaking her head a little. “He’ll have to go to Hokage-sama first.”

Sasuke shakes his head, slow and pointed. He says again, “He’s going to come here.”

Hinata almost doesn’t believe him, except that in a way it makes sense that Sasuke would be the first person that Naruto would want to see when returning back to the village after so long spent away from it.

“He’ll wish Sakura was here too, then,” Hinata surmises, and when she looks back to Sasuke to gauge what he thinks of that, she finds herself staring at a new expression she hasn’t yet seen Sasuke point in her direction. He frowns at her, and he almost appears disapproving.

His lips part as if he plans to say something, but a moment later he just sighs and slouches a little more, turning towards the tree line. Hinata feels Naruto’s chakra signature a moment later, just on the edge of her range, and she turns in his direction, too. She frowns, contemplating that look on Sasuke’s face with the words she’d spoken. She’d considered the possibilities, one of which was that if Naruto did come to them first, she could be one of the reasons.

But compared to Sasuke, who has been Naruto’s best friend for nearly his entire life, how could she compare? She’s always just been a friend, a close friend most recently, but nothing more than that. An admirer, but that was one-sided.

It seems bizarre to her that Naruto would ever choose her over Sasuke, until the moment he comes through the trees and doesn’t even look at Sasuke once after an initial cursory glance. He picks up the pace a bit and heads right for them, eyes never leaving her even as he stops in front of her. Hinata’s hands tremble at her sides, and she studies the sharp angles of his face, the gauntness of his cheeks. There are lines of strain under his eyes and his hair has grown a little longer, more and more like his father’s every time she sees him. His jonin kit looks exactly the same as it had when he left, except for a single new addition starkly opposed to the tattered and torn remnants of his uniform: a single gleaming pin in the shape of a cloud on his vest.

And engraved into it, the sign of the Mizukage.

“Naruto-kun,” Hinata breathes, and at the sound of her voice Naruto smiles for the first time, eyelids falling heavily over his bright but exhausted gaze.

“Hinata,” he greets, and his body lilts forward almost as if he’d wanted to move in closer to her, maybe wrap his arms around her, but for once he was unsure. Hinata takes a deep breath and steps into his personal space, uncaring of their apathetic observer, and wraps her arms around his neck.

“Welcome back,” she says into the collar of his vest, closing her eyes tight when she feels his arms come up to wrap tightly around her.

“It’s good to be back,” he says, and when Hinata pulls away from him his smile appears easier, closer to his normal easy joy. He studies her expression, her own version of exhaustion after a long bout of training, and his eyebrows purse in worry.

He asks, “How are you? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she laughs, and Naruto glances over to Sasuke for the first time since the tree line, scowling playfully.

“What are you doing here?”

Sasuke rolls his eyes. “Training.”

Naruto glances back and forth between Sasuke and Hinata as if trying to figure out a difficult riddle, before Hinata answers his unvoiced question.

“We were training together,” she explains, and when he tilts his head at her she blushes. “I’m not a challenge yet, really, but I will be soon.”

Sasuke snorts, presumably at the word soon. Hinata glances over to him with amusement clear in her eyes, and Naruto watches them again carefully. He reaches out and pushes playfully at Sasuke’s shoulder, jarring him enough to make him take a step back.

“Go away, bastard. I didn’t want to have to see your ugly mug on my very first day back.”

“Idiot.” Sasuke merely turns on his heel and starts to head back towards the village, unaffected. He pauses only once, glancing over his shoulder.

“Thursday morning, Hinata?”

Hinata smiles. “Yes.”

Sasuke nods once and resumes his walk back into the village and Naruto watches him go with a critical eye. Once he deems him far enough out of earshot, he turns back to Hinata and life folds back into him in waves as he talks to her.

“Since when do you spar with the bastard? Does he hurt you? Have you hurt him? Damn, I’ve missed so much while I was gone.”

Hinata laughs at the bombardment of questions, and shakes her head. “Several months now, I think. He has valuable lessons I can learn from.”

“Valuable lessons,” Naruto mutters, shaking his head. “Like what? Brooding? Pouting? Please.”

Even with the taunting, Hinata can see the fondness in his eyes as he talks about Sasuke, and the way that he can’t help but to let his smile shine through. He lifts a hand and runs it through his hair absentmindedly, eyes dropping to take in more than just her expression.

“You’re okay though, right?” He asks again, and Hinata can only nod.

“Are you okay?” She asks in turn, and Naruto’s response is uncharacteristically muted. He nods his head as well, but his eyebrows purse, lips turning down into a frown.

“I’m fine,” he says, “I’m just exhausted. It’s been a long…well, few months.”

“More than half a year,” Hinata says quietly, barely a whisper. Naruto catches it, though, and his eyes trace the smooth features of her expression.

“Yeah,” he says, “And hey, listen. I want to tell you about it. As much as I can. I know you probably have questions.”

“About a million,” she agrees, laughing lightly. Crow’s feet appear beside Naruto’s eyes when he smiles down at her, and they charm Hinata to her core. She feels heat in every part of her, a slow curling wave of it in her chest. The breeze lifts some of her hair and blows it across her face, and before she can lift a hand to tuck it back and away, Naruto beats her to it. It’s easy, almost casual, when he reaches out and tucks her hair behind her ear. He lets his fingertips trail over her cheekbone, lingering, and he’s never touched her like this before, but it feels familiar. Hinata sucks in a breath and watches the way he watches his fingers leave her skin, before jumping back to gauge her expression.

This is the Naruto she knows, who acts first and thinks later; who didn’t even really seem to think about reaching out to tuck her hair behind her ear, or trail his fingers so intimately across her cheek. He doesn’t blush or falter, completely unabashed and genuine. This is the Naruto she loves.

Hinata swallows, says, “If I have a million questions, you can bet Sakura-san has a million more.”

Naruto cringes, and the mood between them lightens right back up in just the way Hinata knew that it would. He scratches at a sideburn and groans, throwing his head back to stare blankly up at the blue sky.

“She’s going to grill me,” he pouts, “I’m too tired for that.”

When he straightens back up and meets Hinata’s gaze again, she can almost see the way an idea lifts into his thoughts and takes hold, a certain kind of shine taking place in the apex of his eyes.

“Hey,” he says, sounding excited and just this side of hopeful. “Do you still live in that apartment across the street from that pet store?”

Hinata’s heart trips up a little in her chest and it’s ridiculous, that him remembering something like this would affect her so greatly, but it does.

“I do.”

“Awesome,” he says, and then in the next breath, “Can I come over tonight?”

Hinata has to take a moment to remember how to breathe, before she barely manages a nod. Naruto’s eyes light up, skies on fire, and he pumps his fist a little tiredly.

Hinata can’t help but warn him. “Once Sakura knows you’re home, she’ll look for you.”

“Yeah,” Naruto agrees, ruffling the back of his hair into disarray. “I’m gonna keep it lowkey today.”

Hinata snorts. “I’m fairly certain that’s impossible, Naruto-kun. At least for you.”

“Eh?” He blinks, and Hinata playfully rolls her eyes.

“You’re pretty hard to miss,” she explains, blushing profusely. “And everyone knows you.”

Naruto hums, swaying back and forth a little on his feet, partly from exhaustion and partly because he’s fidgety. “Maybe, but I have my ways.”

“We’ll see,” she says, and he smiles convincingly at her, buffing a fist against his chest. It brings attention back to the pin, and Hinata’s curiosity simmers under the surface.

“But I’ll make it to your place tonight no matter what, with no one tailing me! Believe it!” He exclaims, before quickly wilting. “I do have to go run by Kakashi-sensei’s office, though.”

Hinata shakes her head in amusement, says, “You probably should’ve done that immediately.”

“I was going to,” he explains easily, “But then I felt you, and with the bastard of all people. It was an easy choice to make, then.”

Hinata flushes every shade of sunrise and bows her head in sudden embarrassment, both at the fact that Sasuke had been so right, as well as how unashamed of his own feelings and intentions Naruto is. When she gathers enough of her courage to look back up at him, there’s a fondness hanging off of his expression, an affection that has her bringing her hands up to fidget.

“Well,” he says at last, “You’re done training, right? Wanna come to the Hokage tower with me?”

Hinata imagines how that would go, Kakashi knowing with certainty that Naruto had not come to him first to report, and shakes her head in negation.

“I’m going to train a little bit longer on my own,” she explains, and Naruto nods, mouth falling open into an understanding oh.

“Okay,” he says, starting to move around her before twisting on his heel to walk backwards away from her, keeping her in sight for several steps. “I’ll see you tonight! Want me to bring dinner? You won’t believe the cravings I was having out there!”

Hinata laughs behind her hand, quiet and fond. “Ichiraku sounds wonderful.”

Naruto’s eyes ignite swift and surefire, and he throws a thumbs up even as he turns and shouts a whooping “Awesome!” over his shoulder. He starts towards the Hokage tower at a run, and Hinata turns away to continue working on her stamina now that Sasuke has gone.

As Hinata begins to fall back into her individual routine of speed-based movements, she notices that they feel just that bit easier to perform than before.

She thinks it has something to do with how light she suddenly feels.

✧

“So it’s all pretty under wraps,” Naruto starts, toeing off his sandals at her door and ducking through the entryway with a quiet announcement. “Kakashi-sensei is being really stingy about it, so I really can’t say much. But I guess things are just really going to change for me.”

Hinata pauses in the motion of shutting the door behind him, blinking. Leave it to Naruto to explain something so crucial in so few words, with such a carefree lack of reaction. She presses the door shut, allowing her fingertips to linger on the pane of wood. When she turns to him, she leans back against the door and tilts her head, curious and concerned despite herself.

“Change?” She asks, with poorly suppressed restraint. She has so many questions, but she stills them on her tongue, passes them around through her own teeth, and swallows them silent.

Naruto doesn’t look back at her, merely settles the bags of food he’d brought in on her living room table. He starts sorting them accordingly, precisely, and Hinata watches the fine movements of his wrists with irrepressible heat in her cheeks.

“Yeah,” he says unflappably, sitting back on his heels. It’s then that he glances over at her, lifting a hand to beckon her towards the table to join him. She abides easily enough, settling adjacent to him and surveying the cartons he’d brought with him. A smile twitches over her expression when she sees a pastry tucked near her side of the table, glazed and perfectly spun.

“Thank you for the meal,” Hinata says, hands pressed together. It’s aimed partially at Naruto, who mirrors her and swiftly digs into the food. He speaks in-between bites rather than with his mouth full, as he once would have, and Hinata wonders if that’s Iruka’s doing.

“So,” Naruto says, swallowing. “I can tell you that I’ve been on the borders of Mist, and that I was…a part of some discussions there.”

Negotiating, Hinata thinks, chewing carefully. So Sakura had been correct about him having a hand in some sort of political agenda. But why? For what purpose, and to what end?

“Discussions?” She asks, hoping that he’ll be able to give her something more than that. He casts a knowing glance her way, one tinged with regret.

“Sorry,” he apologizes, “Can’t say. It wasn’t, like. The most important stuff in the world but it was definitely…something.”

Hinata stares at him, and a slow smile curves over her lips. Amusement runs in peals of heat along her cheeks, and she says, “Alright.”

Naruto groans, leaning back against her couch with his legs outstretched in front of him. He runs a hand messily through his already disordered hair, right over his nape, and then lets his head fall back onto her cushions.

“This secrecy stuff is no fun at all,” he groans.

“It’s not the first secret you’ve kept, though.” Hinata makes it a statement.

Naruto glances back up at her and nods, his gaze thoughtful as he takes in her features. There’s something muted about him, Hinata notices; ever since he’d walked through the door he’d seemed off. Not so much that Hinata feels she should be actively worried, but enough to set her slightly on edge. He’d seemed far less guarded earlier when they’d met on the training fields, with his fatigue a noticeable buffer between them.

But that had been the only major factor of change in him—every line of him had dropped in exhaustion, but his smile had still been easy, bright and charming. Hinata glances up through her eyelashes and studies the angles constructed in his eyes, and the way they seem almost as sharp as they are dull. A conundrum of exhaustion and some weight bearing down on him, with a fine layer of determination only seen in the steady line of his shoulders.

Naruto sighs again, and Hinata thinks, jaded.

That’s the word she was looking for.

“No, not the first.” He agrees, leaning forward again to bring his chopsticks back up to his lips. He chews sloppily for a long moment, swallows just as noisily, and sighs, “And surely not the last, either. But this one’s heavier than many of the rest, ya know? This is one I can’t even share with my friends.”

Naruto’s eyes cut over to her for just a moment, quick and thoughtful, and then return easily to his food. “With my loved ones.”

Hinata ignores the insinuation there with difficulty, and focuses in on the weight of this secret, and how Naruto is faring underneath it.

“This secret,” she hedges, wary of the lines she can and cannot cross with him. “It’s going to change things.” Again, she voices this as a statement.

Naruto nods, watching her warily. He sets his chopsticks down and rests an arm over his stomach, and the other over his bent thigh.

“For all of us,” she assumes, eyes flickering between his. “And for you, especially.”

“Yeah,” he answers, shrugging his shoulders lightly, as if it’s not a big deal. But Hinata has impeccable eyes, and she reads people better than anyone else she knows. She studies the fractured lines of his expression, the bags under his eyes; she flicks her gaze to the absentminded way he’s drumming his fingers against his stomach, almost nervously.

Naruto. Nervous.

Hinata frowns, eyes shrewd.

“Are you in danger?”

Naruto nearly rolls his eyes, which surprises her. He shakes his head, teeth clenching once.

“It’s not me,” he starts, then starts over. “It won’t be focused on me. It’s so much bigger than that.”

Hinata takes that in, swishes it around in her mind. Bigger picture, she thinks.

“Konoha,” she guesses, and Naruto’s eyes shoot to hers immediately, just for a second, and dart right away. A hit, she thinks. “You’re worried.”

“Well yeah,” he says, running his fingers through his hair. The movement knocks his forehead protector out of place, but he doesn’t move to fix it. He just lets it sit askew, tilted and crooked, hair sticking up. “There’s a lot at stake because of this thing. I never considered it before but, it’s never been…this close before. I’ve never had to look at it like this.”

Hinata frowns, mulling over his words.

“How long have you known about it?”

“Only recently. I didn’t know about it when I left.” Naruto’s expression hardens slightly, a downward shifting of features into something of confusion. When he looks back to her, there’s something in his eyes he shapes, molds, tries to appeal to her with.

He says, “I told you I was a part of some discussions.”

Hinata only nods, not wanting to interrupt him.

“Well, they were important. And they were my mission.”

Hinata startles at that, only slightly, a jump in her brows. She fists her hands in her lap and straightens a little more, her entire body shifting in his direction.

“You weren’t sent as…”

“As backup? To fight?” He finishes for her, the slight humorless curl of his lips a distraction that comes and goes in a quiet moment. “No, not to fight. To talk.”

Hinata sits back, and tries to let that sink in. She and Sakura had surmised that he’d been a part of the discussion, maybe even a key part, but it hadn’t occurred to either of them that it would be the sole reason for his travel—for his mission.

Naruto is strong enough to often be placed on missions requiring him to protect important people. He’s traveled far and wide just to do so, watching over daimyos and clan leaders alike; escorting them, protecting them, and ensuring that their secrets unbeknownst to him, remained safe.

He has never before been sent on a mission to garner secrets of the village, or to discuss anything of high level political standing.

Until now.

Hinata muses over it for several long moments while a comfortable silence falls between them, broken only by Naruto’s rhythmic breaths, heavy with fatigue, and the slow tinkering of rain drops against Hinata’s windows. It doesn’t make sense, no matter how many different ways she approaches it. Why would Kakashi send Naruto to be a part of discussions with the Mist? Who had he even been in discussions with? How high up the chain of command had Naruto moved, since having saved the entire village and simultaneously uniting several nations?

Putting it that way, Hinata has to believe that he’s pretty damn high up.

“You can’t tell me what was discussed,” Hinata assumes, and Naruto’s subtle nod is answer enough. “Can you tell me who you spoke with?”

Naruto frowns, shakes his head. His expression pinches in frustration, and he worries his lips, as though he wants to tell her, but truly knows that he can’t. Forbidden intelligence that he cannot share with a jonin or a friend.

Hinata bites softly on the corner of her lip.

“Naruto-kun, I mean no offense, but why did Hokage-sama choose you for this mission?”

Naruto cringes, and at first, Hinata thinks that despite her buffering, he has taken offense. Her heart clenches tightly in her chest for a sharp moment of regret before he dispels her worry with a shake of his head, and a pointed groan. He sits forward and bows his head, lifting both hands to ruffle his hair with distinctly frustrated roughness.

“I can’t tell you,” he sighs, hands falling back into his lap and sections of his hair standing out to all sides. His bangs fall in his face and he blows them back off to the side, glancing up at her from the shadow of his expression.

“I can’t tell you why I was chosen, I can’t tell you who I spoke to and why, and I can’t tell you what all of this about.”

“What can you tell me?”

Naruto looks on at her with a quiet receptiveness that makes her heart race, her fingers fidget. There’s something soft there, gentle and accepting, and it moves through her in waves.

“I can tell you that I understand how frustrating this must be to hear. I think I know exactly how it feels, actually. When I was sent on this mission, I was only told that it was important. For me, and for the village.”

Hinata tilts her head, and Naruto’s next quiet laugh is empty.

“Which meant absolutely nothing to me, right? Because every mission is important. For me, and for the village. Different kinds of important, yeah, but. All important. So I just did my thing, went wherever I was sent and did what I had to do. And this time I had to talk. To discuss. A…a different kind of protection.”

Naruto avoids Hinata’s shrewd stare after his hesitation, swallowing and carrying on as if he hadn’t left something monumentally significant inside of that gap.

“They didn’t tell me anything. Not a damn thing. Sent me in there blind and then when I got back, it was like, congratulations. We had this whole thing planned out for you and if you would’ve fucked up, we wouldn’t have told you anyways. But since you actually didn’t, here’s all this information that would’ve really helped out ages ago. Oh, and by the way, you can’t tell anyone.”

Naruto rolls his eyes. Hinata listens carefully, afraid that if she poses one of the hundred or so questions brimming against her mind that she’ll accidentally stay his tongue, and lose the vital yet vague information that his rambling is feeding her.

He pauses for a long time, shaking his head and playing with a tear in his pants. When he speaks again, his tone is flippant.

“I can tell you that when I was just a little dude, I never imagined any of this.” Hinata startles at the mention of Naruto as a child, someone who she remembers so strongly as a beacon of dreams and determination. A young boy with no friends who proclaimed constantly that he wasn’t only going to be the biggest and the strongest, he was going to be Hokage. His greatest proclaimed dream, and no easy one at that. But he’d never feared it, never shied away from the laughs and the ridicule, those who doubted him and disbelieved. His was a strength that Hinata had never seen before in anyone else, not then and even still, not now. Not ever before. And at that time, he had only been a young boy.

He continues after a moment of contemplation, the past flickering over his features in his downcast eyes, bright with the reflection of the overhead light, and the wry twist to his lips.

“I should have, though. Shinobi are always tested, like, literally always. We’ve been sent on so many freakin missions where the whole point was to see how we respond, how we adapt, and that’s the whole point. But this one, man, I don’t know. This one was like that, but different. A test that I somehow passed. But it was so much bigger than an exam. So much heavier than deciding whether or not I was ready to become a jonin.”

Hinata can’t help herself, she interjects quietly, asks, “A test?”

Naruto glances back over at her, not like he’d forgotten she was there, but in a way that seemed appreciative of her attention.

“Yeah,” he agrees, nodding. “A big one.”

Hinata hesitates, then poses: “A lot at stake?”

“So much,” Naruto agrees, closing his eyes. “It’s incredible how much of this I never thought of before. It’s like when you know something’s going to be hard, you prepare for it as best as you can. Sakura-chan always tells me there’s a moment when you just have to take a step back and acknowledge that you’ve done all you can do. That you’re ready for it. The bastard always tells me it’s better to be too prepared. But it’s weird. I feel prepared. Ready.”

For what, Hinata wants so desperately to ask, but she remains as silent as the secret coiled so tightly around Naruto’s frame.

“But this mission wasn’t easy.” He laughs, as if that were an understatement. “I don’t even really know how I passed. I don’t usually pass tests the first time around. Or, well. The first few times around.”

Hinata bows her head, hiding the amused curl of her lips for only a moment before she glances back up at him and allows him to see it. He grins, and it’s so close to his usual carefree smiles that it almost hurts.

“So, you passed.” Hinata says, and her smile itself is a congratulations of sorts. “What next?”

Naruto watches her watching him, and doesn’t say anything for a long time.

Finally, he says, “I don’t know.”

Hinata blinks. “You don’t know?”

Naruto shakes his head, rueful. “They’ve only told me that this was the first of many tests. They haven’t told me what’s next. I mean, shit. They haven’t even told me why this mission was so important for me.”

Naruto gives Hinata another apologetic look, and she knows immediately that it means he can’t give her much on this topic. But his tone carries added emphasis that is designed to catch her attention, and she hones in on it, as astute a student as Naruto will ever get.

“And they really emphasized that. That it was really important. For me.”

It’s a slow change, the way Hinata’s throat grows tight with emotion. Her heart pumps and pumps and her mind sorts through the clues, the emphasis, and something blossoms and blooms behind the cage of her chest, wrapped so tightly around her heart she can barely believe she’s found it.

She can’t say it. She doesn’t want to get Naruto into trouble, doesn’t want anyone thinking that he told her any of his secrets—because he hadn’t. He’d edged wonderfully around them, careful in a way that Hinata can’t remember Naruto ever having been before. She has to attribute her possible understanding to her gift for reading in-between the lines better than anyone she knows.

It’s the only reason she feels so confident in the possibility.

“When do you meet with them again?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

So soon, Hinata thinks, thoughts racing.

“You’re going to do great,” she says at last, blinking up at him with a slow-growing but sincere smile that shows far too much in the way of her feelings for him. There’s a healthy dose of fear curled right along with his secret, wrapped around her heart, and she doesn’t want to feed it.

But if she’s right, if what she’s deduced turns out to be Naruto’s well-kept secret, then—

Change is certainly the word to use here, and Hinata knows that she and the village are ready for it.

She knows that Naruto is, too, despite his novel doubts.

She just hopes that the other nations are receptive to the looming change, as well.

So many lives depend on it.

✧

With Naruto back within the walls of Konoha, Hinata feels somehow more comfortable in her own skin. The uncertainty of her feelings a thing of the recent but definite past, she continues on with her life as though her mind is not constantly riddled with the goings-on of one Uzumaki Naruto.

She does fairly well on her own, but the moment she’s even within range of any of her friends, she’s a target for teasing.

“Oh,” Ino sighs dramatically, “The air is suddenly so sweet. So pure. I wonder why.”

“The sun is shining so brightly,” Sakura agrees, twining their fingers together. Hinata, a few paces behind them, blushes. Kiba bypasses her in a few steps and walks bravely—or stupidly, depending on opinion—through Sakura and Ino’s linked hands.

“Don’t be assholes,” he says, but he turns over his shoulder with a toothy grin.

Ino hums, says, “Okay, rude.” Sakura merely reaches back for Ino’s hand and pulls her close enough to rest against her side, so that no one else can walk between them. Hinata grins, glancing over at Shino who tilts his head amusedly in her direction.

“Yes, yes,” She sighs, watching as Ino and Sakura both slow down to walk on her other side, grinning over at her evily. “I’m in a good mood.”

“You’re in a wonderful mood,” Sakura says cheerily, smirking. “And I don’t blame you.”

“Babe,” Ino says suddenly, lifting a finger up to her chin. “Weren’t you talking about how you were going to punish our little Hinata for not telling you immediately that somebody was back in town?”

Sakura starts, as though she truly had forgotten. Then she smiles, a slow and precarious thing, and Hinata inches a little closer into Shino’s side. He allows it without hesitation.

“Oh, that’s right,” Sakura agrees, nearly purring. “You’re so smart, Ino pig. That’s why I keep you around.”

“Oh right, yeah, of course. That’s why,” Ino laughs, shaking her head. Sakura ignores her and stares pointedly down their little line at Hinata, even as they move steadily through the streets. Hinata had been at Kiba’s place gardening with Shino when Sakura and Ino had dropped in, literally dropped right from the treetops overhead. They’d stuck around long enough for Kiba to announce that it was time to pick up Akamaru from the local pet center, right across the street from Hinata’s place.

“My dear Hinata, you’ve been keeping secrets,” Sakura accuses, and Hinata blinks at her.

“Well,” she stalls, touching her fingertips together. “I did warn him that you’d be upset.”

Sakura hums, testing that answer, weighing it against her playful forgiveness.

“Ah,” she says at last, “It seems your good mood has rubbed off on me. I forgive you.”

Hinata grins, and should’ve known it was too easy and early a victory.

Sakura adds, almost offhandedly, “Isn’t today our training day?”

Ino’s laughter is a heavenly peal, appreciative of the vindictive tone of Sakura’s words and the way they make Hinata swallow. Shino bumps lightly against her, a comfort and a humor of his own, and she smiles up at him, conciliatory.

Kiba turns with a leap and walks ahead of them while facing them, his clawed hands shoved deep in his pockets. Hinata frowns, knowing how many of his pants she ends up having to sew because he constantly pierces through them. A habit he can’t seem to break, regardless of how often he needs material repairs because of it.

“You guys walk so freaking slow,” he groans.

“Why is the pup even at the pet store today anyways?” Ino asks, loudly popping her bubblegum. “I thought you did all of his grooming on your own?”

“I do,” Kiba agrees, still walking backwards and somehow not running into anyone in the street. It’s skillful and deliberate, too; the sun is almost directly overhead and the streets are thriving with townspeople readying for lunchtime. “But they had a puppy training session today and they really take to him, so I lend him out from time to time.”

Ino chokes on a laugh, and Sakura immediately voices her amusement.

“Akamaru, ninken of a jonin, is pulling stints at the local puppy parlor?”

Kiba doesn’t mind the teasing, and in fact shrugs his shoulders in open fondness.

“He’s really good with the puppies.”

“Precious,” Sakura decides, and Hinata seconds that with a steady nod. Ino continues to chuckle under her breath, and Hinata hears her say something that sounds suspiciously like, what would Kuromaru say!

“Puppy discourse,” Hinata says, and Sakura bursts out laughing. Ino grins down the line at her, eyes shining mischievously. Hinata even sees the corner of Shino’s lips curl over his collar, and that makes her feel lighter, too.

They turn onto the street of the pet shop and Hinata is the first to lift a hand and wave at Sawamura Ken, who steps out of said store with a bird on his shoulder. He brightens when he sees her, his eyes dancing to each of her friends in turn, all of whom he has met before.

“Sawamura-san,” she greets, and he reaches out to rest a hand fondly on her shoulder, if only for a moment. Hinata is used to his easy touches, but the raised eyebrow and smirk that Ino sends her way still manages to make her flush.

“Hinata!” He greets, before turning to her friends and greeting them as well. “What’s up? You guys heading into the shop?” He gestures over his free shoulder with a pointed thumb, and his little bird chirps in response. He immediately lifts his fingers to her beak, allowing her to toddle into his hand. She’s small enough to fit in his nearly-closed fist, and Hinata loves her instantly.

“Yeah,” she says, still eyeing the bird. Before she can explain anything further, Ken laughs and adds, “Might want to wait it out a bit. Some dog knocked over three shelves in there, quite a big mess.”

Hinata straightens, eyeing Ken with raised brows. “Three shelves?” She asks.

Kiba says, “Shit.” He wastes no time in running directly into the shop, where Akamaru and three downed shelves apparently await him.

Ino clucks her tongue and says, “Good with puppies. Bad with tight spaces.”

Sakura shakes her head, amusedly forlorn. Her eyes trail over to Ken and her tone is fairly neutral when she asks, “New bird?”

Ken turns to her with a winning smile, and Hinata can’t help but to smile in turn. No matter how many times Sakura tries to intimidate him, he never takes the bait. His bright personality is relentless, even in the face of her sometimes frightening ability to make grown men shiver with a single look. Especially with her girlfriend right over her shoulder, heavy-eyed with boredom but actively seeking her next target for prodding. She blows another bubble and her eyes catch on Ken, and Hinata sends up a silent prayer that his buoyancy lasts.

“Yes!” He says, holding the bird up a little before hesitating. “Are you okay with birds, Haruno-san?”

“I don’t mind them,” she says, and Hinata can tell that it irritates her that Ken was polite enough to not just thrust the tiny chirping creature into her face. Sakura glances over his shoulder and catches Hinata’s smug grin, and shakes her head with resignation. She reaches out with her pointer finger, and the bird hesitates for only a moment before trailing over to her. She brings it in close to her face and says, “Silly little thing, isn’t it?”

The bird shrinks away from her voice, however quiet she’d posed it, but then bobs forward just enough to touch her beak to the tip of Sakura’s nose. She doesn’t bite, just a single gentle touch and she’s flapping back over to Ken’s outstretched finger.

Sakura’s cheeks are pink, and she’s a little flustered when she says, “I think I love that bird.”

Hinata grins as she hears Ino say, “We are not getting a bird,” in the background, just as she turns to Ken and says, “I noticed she’s not tagged.”

“No,” Ken agrees, eyes bright and fond as he transfers the creature back to his shoulder. She crouches closer to him until she’s settled just against his neck, and Hinata can’t help but to smile at her. “I’ve actually been coming here for a few weeks now, getting to know her. Letting her get to know me. She’s a special breed. When they find someone they love, they’re very partial to them. They don’t fly off or away. I know! It’s hard to believe, but we’ve been experimenting for weeks and even when she gets startled, she sticks close.”

“Ah,” Hinata says, cooing lightly. She watches the bird step out and away from Ken’s neck and flutter over to land in Shino’s hair, settling herself comfortably. Shino doesn’t even flinch. “She has good taste.”

Ken’s eyes crinkle when he smiles. “She sure does.”

“Hey,” Ino calls, and Hinata and Ken both turn to look at the dynamic duo. Shino tilts marginally, moving carefully with the bird still nestled in his wild hair. That makes Hinata smile. “We’re going inside. Feel free to wander without us. We’re arguing.”

“Stop being so dramatic,” Sakura says, flapping a hand. “We’re not arguing. We’re deciding.”

“You’ve known a bird for two seconds!” Ino sputters, as they head for the pet shop. “And now you want one forever?”

“I’ve known birds,” Sakura disputes, face scrunching up. When Ino makes a noise, Sakura repeats herself more sternly. “Ino, I’ve known birds.”

“Sure you have,” Ino says as they disappear, hand-in-hand, inside the pet store. Hinata can’t help but to laugh, hiding her amusement behind her hand. Shino turns back to Ken and says, “Nice bird.”

“Thanks,” Ken says, watching as the bird perks up and responds to his voice. She flaps her wings and takes off from Shino’s hair, landing right back on Ken’s shoulder.

“That must be her favorite spot.” Hinata says, tone turned more towards a question.

“Yeah, it’s kind of her home. She always returns right to it.” Ken’s expression shifts, then, as if remembering something that makes him feel a little uncomfortable. He shifts, lifting a hand to his bird so she can touch her beak to his skin just once. Hinata wonders if that’s a nervous habit he’s already developed. “Speaking of returning home; have you heard the news? About Naruto?”

“Yes,” Hinata answers, her smile falling slightly. Ken nods his head almost knowingly, mutters, “Of course you do, yeah.” It’s not sardonic, just a simple remark.

He takes a moment, the words stuck in his chest, but Hinata knows he can’t help but to voice them. He says, “You seen him yet? Naruto?”

“I have,” she answers honestly, a gentle curl to her lips.

“Ah,” he laughs, low and embarrassed. He rubs his hand under his nose as if to scratch an itch he cannot reach, and when he looks back at her there’s no trace of awkwardness left on his expression. He says, “That’s good. I’m sure he appreciated getting to see you after so long away.”

“It was good to see him,” she returns, automatically thinking how much of an understatement that is. Ken studies her expression with kind eyes for a moment longer before a smile breaks out on his face, and he glances between her and Shino.

“Well, I better get going. It’s almost lunchtime and Kiki still gets a little anxious around crowds.” He smiles up at his little companion, petting her with a finger. “We’re working on it.”

“It was nice seeing you,” Shino says, and Hinata glances up at him with a smile, pleased that he approves of her friendship with Ken.

“Don’t be a stranger,” Hinata enforces sternly, pointing at him. She allows her expression to soften and grins, says, “Come hang out more. You can bring Kiki if you’d like. Akamaru is gentle.”

“Not with shelves, apparently,” Shino mutters, turning back to glance into the shop. Hinata elbows him lightly, a playful reprimand, but she can’t help but laugh as well. Ken laughs, too, a quiet thing. He lifts a hand to wave goodbye, and turns with one last parting smile in Hinata’s direction.

“Good person,” Shino muses quietly, and Hinata nods.

“He is,” she agrees quietly, watching him walk off through the slowly crowding streets.

After Ken has disappeared from their view, Shino and Hinata move over into the shade of some nearby trees. They rest back against some posts, Shino with one leg bent up against them and Hinata with both hands clasped in front of her.

“Are you going to see him today?” Shino asks, after a reasonably long moment of silence between the two of them. Nowhere near them is silent, however; the streets are in full swing of the shopping crowds turned towards lunch, and children scuffle by frequently with high-pitched shouts and bubbling laughter. The wind picks up just enough to bring the dust to rise, only enough to be seen, but not enough to blink away from.

“I hope so,” Hinata answers quietly, feeling her cheeks heat. Even though it’s just Shino, someone she tells just about everything to, she still gets embarrassed talking about her feelings. Especially for Naruto, since her feelings for him are more than just feelings.

They’re powerful in the same way that dreams are, encouraging and insightful.

She thinks back to their conversation several nights before, to his rambles and his uncertainties. To the possibility she can almost grasp.

“Shino-kun,” Hinata begins, almost hesitant. Shino has a sharp mind and a keen eye for conversational clues—something that certainly comes from being more inclined to listening than to speaking, a lifetime of having such an advantage in conversations. Not entirely by choice, since most people found him creepy, but he gained from the experiences nonetheless. “What do you think of Naruto-kun’s growth?”

Shino angles his body in her direction, receptive to her question.

“Long-term?” He asks.

Hinata shakes her head, negating. “Of late.”

Shino pauses, contemplative. “Confident,” he begins with certainty, tone unwavering. “Careful. Settled.”

Hinata’s eyebrows jump with the latter, and she glances up at Shino to gauge what she can of his expression. She’s been at his side for over a decade; she’s long since learned how to read his emotions through all of his covers. It’s all in his body language, the tilt of his head. The gleam of his sunglasses, even.

At the moment, he seems thoughtful with just the slightest edge of surprise. There’s almost an appreciative air to his words, and Hinata attributes the surprise there.

“Settled,” she repeats, and he offers her a single steady nod. “I agree. There’s certainly a maturity to him that’s hard to miss.”

“Still impatient,” Shino comments, and Hinata feels a smile winding over her expression. Shino tilts his head in her direction and she knows without looking that he’s smiling, too. It’s almost funny, how she knows the exact twist to a smile she can’t even see—she knows with certainty that Shino is teasing her, even before he says, “He’s gone for more than half a year, and yet he couldn’t wait an hour before coming to you.”

Hinata allows herself this, in a breathless whisper: “He wasn’t even in the village yet.”

“Impatient.” Shino repeats, and the smile in his tone wraps carefully around her heart, a beam of support.

Hinata chews gently on her lower lip, right at the corner.

“Shino-kun,” she says, then hesitates. Shino elbows her gently enough she could very well have imagined the gesture, encouraging her to go on. She swallows, toeing another line, and asks, “Would you follow him?”

There’s a longer silence between them, this time. Shino turns away from her and together they turn to the streets, to the villagers walking by, the bright blue sky, nearly cloudless at midday. The leaves overhead twist and flutter in the breeze, and a line of ants travel determinedly up the post just beside Hinata’s right arm.

Hinata watches a small pack of kids, too young to yet be Genin, tumble through the street just ahead of them. One turns back to the others and Hinata is surprised enough to stop breathing when she sees her move her hands into the sign that Naruto uses so frequently to create an army of shadow clones. Hinata’s heart races suddenly, all at once, and her bright eyes trace the girl’s lips as she yells, “Shadow clones go!”

And nothing happens but for the young girl to stumble while trying to walk backwards, and fall right onto her rear. Her friends laugh, but it’s not cruel, and Hinata’s heart slows back to a pace that doesn’t leave her breathless. She smiles after them, watching the young girl get up and forgo dusting herself off to put her hands back into the proper position and chase after her friends.

“You guys have to pretend,” she groans, running to meet their strides. “You’re the shadow clones, remember?”

Hinata is still looking after them when Shino finally speaks, his voice low and fixed.

“I would,” he says, waiting for Hinata as she turns back to him with wide, surprised eyes. She blinks up at him as he explains, “He has grown; thinks before he acts, considers all sides to a situation.”

“He has,” Hinata whispers, agreeing completely. Her opinion will always be biased, where Naruto is concerned, but Shino knows better than most that she’s not the kind of woman to let even the man she loves walk all over her. If her significant other is wrong, she’ll let them know, and they’ll work through it.

“Strong heart,” Shino adds, almost offhandedly. “Sound mind.”

“Bright spirit,” Hinata adds, so quietly it’s a whisper along the wind.

“Brash, though.” Shino comments, reaching up to rub idly at his chin. There’s a commotion over by the pet store entrance, and Hinata can hear Ino, Sakura, and Kiba before she sees them. “Stubborn. Still impulsive, at times.”

“Yes,” Hinata agrees, closing her eyes for a moment. Shino reaches out and gently pulls at a free strand of her hair, only enough to catch her attention.

“A natural leader, that one,” he admits, almost reluctantly. “Needs a lot of work, much room to grow. But he will do well.”

Hinata startles, eyes tracking to Shino’s behind his sunglasses immediately. Does he know? Had she somehow given it away? But Shino says nothing more, and turns completely to face their friends as they return valiantly from the pet store. Hinata, still shocked and a little off kilter, does manage to notice that Sakura does not have a bird.

As if reading her expression clear as thoughts, Sakura sighs. “As it turns out, I may or may not know nothing about birds. I don’t want to be a bad pet owner. I’m going to research.”

Ino snuggles into Sakura’s side, resting her nose in the curve of her neck, smiling and blatantly pleased that she’d won.

Kiba stands behind them with one hand in Kiba’s fur, his own hair in even more disarray than usual. Akamaru looks decidedly humiliated.

“How did it go?” She asks, eyeing Akamaru. “Much damage?”

“Not too bad, easy enough to fix.” Kiba explains, patting Akamaru consolingly. “His pride is a little damaged, though.”

“All those puppies,” Ino sighs, clicking her tongue. “They saw it all. Their grand leader is so clumsy.”

Akamaru keens, an embarrassed groan of a noise. Hinata moves off the posts and kneels in front of him, petting his cheeks and his ears. She talks lowly to him, whispering words of encouragement and support, and when she stands back to her full height Akamaru has a little more spring back in his step. Kiba casts an appreciative glance her way, mouthing thank you.

Hinata nods, grinning. She turns back to her friends as they all switch tempos and try to decide where they should go to eat. Kiba wants something spicy and Sakura contemplates that for a moment before something like recognition flickers over her expression. She glances over at Hinata and very pointedly says, “Actually, I want something light. I’ve got a sparring session this evening, after all.”

Hinata groans, quiet as a mouse, but the smile that rises upon her lips is a challenge in and of itself—one that has Sakura raising her eyebrows, her resulting grin a slow unfurling of teeth.

Ino sighs, saying, “I wish today was my day.”

Sakura turns and plants a kiss right on her lips, quick and chaste, and says, “It still could be.”

And Hinata turns away from their easy intimacy with a flush on her cheeks and a smile on her face, grateful for the ease of friendship.

She puts thoughts of Naruto out of her mind as best as she can, and focuses first on where they should eat lunch.

And then she prepares herself for a training session with Tsunade’s apprentice.

✧

The next time they meet, it’s Hinata who finds Naruto.

She’s exhausted, just having finished training with Tenten over in the weapons field. She never walks away from training with Tenten without a smile and some severely sore muscles that she can already feel, in every step.

Even still, she takes the long way home, enjoying the evening air. The moon has already risen far into the night sky, a blanket of silver glow interspersed with the colorless spaces between stars. Hinata closes her eyes and feels the gentle breeze stirring around her, the quiet music of leaves chattering with late night whispers. And then, the undeniable clash of energies, and the resounding wave that moves through her like an electric shock.

Hinata turns towards the feeling, even as the hairs on her arms begin to stand up. She reaches back to her pouch and the zipper shocks her, a tiny sizzle against her fingertip. She glances up and finds the cause, as Uchiha Sasuke flits through the air with hands electrified, every strike lethal.

Naruto fields them well, nearly perfectly, and leaps out of the fray with a shout anyone in the village would recognize. Rhythmic pops crackle through the air, hundreds of clones already blurring to meet Sasuke’s electric offense. The clones perform the seals for the Rasengan seamlessly, far more quickly than Hinata remembers from her own most recent spar with Naruto less than half a year ago. She thinks back to not to fight, to talk and wonders if that hadn’t been entirely truthful.

Hinata watches with wide eyes, lips parted in surprise as the real Naruto flits in and out of his own clones, swirling and leaping over every arm of Sasuke’s lightning. Hinata doesn’t have a name for that technique, far quieter than Chidori but dangerously longer in reach. It flickers through Naruto’s clones and makes short work of them, so much so that Hinata finds herself breathless and glad to be outside of Sasuke’s range—at least, she assumes that she is.

Naruto and Sasuke must know that she’s there, even if her chakra is so drained she’s swaying on her feet, but neither of them hesitate. They continue to clash, different hues of blue energy bursting between them, Sasuke his usual dark blur and Naruto a surprisingly matching flicker of material, difficult for her to track. She doesn’t really have the energy, but curiosity wins out and Hinata encourages heat to flow in her temples.

She watches their chakra twist and roil, Sasuke’s a steel blue storm ignited and Naruto’s a wildfire raging over the land, bright, bright red. They come together and tear apart, seamless and yet jagged, and Hinata feels her breath leave her when Naruto’s punch lands and Sasuke is sent flying. When was the last time she’d seen anyone land such a solid hit on Sasuke? Hatake Kakashi, perhaps, several months ago. Sakura, maybe, just over a year ago.

Sasuke rights himself in the air without effort, a perfect acrobat, and lands like a cat on his feet. He pushes from the ground with force and a crater the size of a small home is left in his wake, his speed literally tearing veins out from the earth. Naruto is ready for him, however, unattainable speed and all. He twists when Sasuke pulls, fakes, and slices, and somehow Naruto finds himself at Sasuke’s back, so close to landing another beautiful hit. Sasuke moves so quickly Hinata loses track of him in that same frustrating way she always does, and when she tracks him again he’s racing towards Naruto’s thrown body, slicing through clone after clone.

The battle wages on, and neither of them looks close to ending it. It’s too even—and too powerful. They don’t even seem to be slowing, and the more Hinata watches the more breathless she feels.

Sometimes, when she spars with Sasuke, she thinks she has a chance to become truly strong—strong in the way of legends, carving her way into history.

But then she sees this, and she’s reminded that Naruto and Sasuke are cut from a different cloth. Special in a way that she can never be, and that’s okay.

Hinata lowers herself to the grass and pulls her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs. She rests her chin there, and watches Naruto and Sasuke spar—train—fight, and it seems like they’ll never stop.

She doesn’t remember when her Byakugan faded away so that all she was watching was two shadowed blurs and the flicker of blue energy in their palms, their fists. From the headache pounding against her skull, she thinks it must’ve been some time ago. She doesn’t have the energy to heal the ache, which is a shame, but she’s pleased that she lasts long enough to see their battle finally come to an impossible end.

A tie; both of them panting, a hand on one anothers’ throat.

And it’s Sasuke who releases Naruto first, takes a few steps back and tries to control his labored breathing. Hinata has never in her life seen Sasuke so out of breath, and it startles her.

She watches Naruto back off, too, and lean over with his hands on his thighs, trying to catch his breath. It’s then that the hair on the nape of her neck stands up, and she turns back to see Sasuke staring in her direction, blinking heavily. She’s far enough out that it’s a little surprising that he could locate her so aptly, but she’s long since understood that to underestimate Sasuke in any regard is foolish.

She lifts her hand into a ridiculous little wave, and watches Sasuke react not at all. Naruto glances over his shoulder, though, and his eyes find her quick enough for her to know that he, too, had known her exact position the entire time. Instead of ignoring her welcome completely as Sasuke had, he lifts a finger into the air, as if to say be with you in a moment.

It brings a puff of laughter out of her, and a single accepting nod. It’s when the two of them start walking towards her that Hinata remembers her low levels of chakra, and the possibility of them needing healing. Her heart instantly reaches for them, the priority, but before she can even attempt to come to them, Naruto’s shaking his head and Sasuke’s expression is disapproving.

“We’re fine,” Naruto says, his breathing finally under control as she comes to stand.

“Dangerously low levels,” Sasuke actually reprimands her, and she has the decency to duck her head for just a moment. She looks back up at them with wide eyes, though, and a breathless sort of excitement.

“Training with Tenten will do that to you,” she explains offhandedly, flicking her gaze between the two of them. “You two are incredible.”

“Not good enough,” they both say in unison. Naruto glances over at him with an exhausted smirk, and Sasuke returns it with a sardonic sneer. Hinata can barely believe that after all that work they’re even standing, while she teeters helplessly an hour after having sat to rest and watch them train.

“Ah,” she adds, an afterthought. “Sorry if you didn’t want an audience. I felt your energy and I couldn’t really look away, once I found you.”

“We don’t mind,” Naruto says immediately, and Sasuke gives him a look, not appreciative of having been spoken for. Naruto ignores him completely.

Hinata glances between them, her eyes falling on Naruto when she finally says, “Naruto-kun, you were definitely going easy on me last time we trained.”

Naruto bows his head a little, sheepish. Hinata doesn’t actually mind, though, not anymore. After what she’d just seen, asking Naruto to go all out against her would be a death sentence. She’d put him in a tough spot.

“Who knows,” Sasuke speaks up, crossing his arms over his chest. Hinata can’t even imagine having the strength to lift her arms at all, after what she’d seen them do. “That was so long ago. Maybe he really hadn’t been holding back.”

The veiled insult makes Hinata blink, though she’s rather used to Sasuke’s acerbic personality. Naruto merely smacks his arm and calls him a bastard, before looking guiltily in Hinata’s direction. “It was definitely not my best.”

She smiles to show she isn’t bothered by it, and Naruto seems to relax a little.

“Well, I’m sorry to keep you.” Hinata begins, taking a step back, albeit a little wobbly. Naruto reaches out to her instantly, and Hinata blushes under his touch. He holds her arm gently, bringing it around his neck to help her support her weight. Sasuke uncrosses his arms and lets his hands drop to his sides, then tucks them into his pockets. He waits a moment, almost as if ensuring that Naruto has enough strength in him to help Hinata back to her place, before he moves ahead of them. He offers a cursory, “See you tomorrow evening, Hinata,” before he flickers and disappears completely.

“Show off,” Naruto grunts, sliding an arm around Hinata’s waist to support her. Hinata’s cheeks are a stark difference in temperature from the cool night air, and she tries desperately to wrangle her heart into an acceptable rhythm.

“I’m surprised either of you can even move right now.”

“That was a pretty regular spar for us,” Naruto admits, though his tone was humble. “It’s been better.”

“Better,” Hinata laughs, shaking her head as they begin to head back into the village together, leaning on one another. It occurs to her that she hasn’t been this close to Naruto before, with his arm around her and their sides pressed close. It doesn’t help her current risen temperature, or her previously calm state of mind. “Of course.”

Naruto is quiet for just a moment, before almost casually asking, “You guys training tomorrow?”

“Yes,” she answers, glad for the distraction. She thinks about what Sasuke probably has in store for her, and wonders briefly if he’s going to be sore tomorrow. That would give her an advantage, though with it being Sasuke, not much of one. “Not on these grounds, though.”

“You talk him into a different field?” Naruto asks, sounding pleasantly surprised.

“I wouldn’t say I talked him into it,” Hinata hedges, “But we do train in the clearing in Nara forest.”

“Ah,” Naruto laughs, as their steps echo quietly over the bridge. “How’d you manage that?”

“I may have bribed him,” Hinata admits, with only minimal shame. Naruto bursts out into laughter, and before he can even ask, she says, “I make a wonderful tomato soup. My own recipe."

Naruto’s laughter has her heart racing again, at almost the same excited pace it had found while watching him perform incredible, dangerous things against one of his closest friends.

He says, “Oh man, that’s perfect.” And Hinata smiles, complacent.

Being so close to him, close enough to smell the sweat and the citrus of him, she remembers their conversation the evening he’d returned. She has thought about it countless days, and many more nights, trying desperately to think of any possibility that could be the possibility. It’s a puzzle left unsolved, and one that she desperately wishes to see finished.

“Oh,” she breathes, remembering what he’d last told her that night. She glances up at him, studying his tired but curious expression, brows lifted. “How was your meeting?”

To her surprise, she watches as Naruto’s expression sharpens, and becomes far sterner. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and she can practically see the cogs turning in his mind as he tries to find the right words to say.

When he finally turns to her, he merely asks, “Can I come over? This weekend maybe?”

Hinata’s heart pounds, and she’s already nodding when she says, “Of course.”

Naruto’s grin is a fracture of his usual carefree joy, even as he says, “I’ll bring dinner.”

He says it like he needs to have a reason to be allowed into her apartment, her personal space, and Hinata doesn’t have the strength in her currently to muster up the courage to tell him that he’s welcome in her home with nothing more than just himself. Always.

“No,” she says, “I’ll make dinner.”

Naruto’s eyebrows jump up in surprise, and he smiles down at her as they turn onto her street, still moving slowly, carefully. “You sure it’s okay?”

She says, “I’d love to make you dinner.”

She blushes after the words slip out, and Naruto watches her carefully, almost surprised by the words and the care behind them. That hurts her, to think that such a simple kindness might have been denied him long enough for him to never even expect it.

“Okay,” he breathes, pulling her in a little closer to the heat of him.

“I’ll explain then. About the meeting,” he adds, almost as an afterthought. Then, with regret, “Well, what I’m allowed to explain. So many freakin’ secrets.”

Hinata grins, nodding easily. She’ll take what she can get.

It feels too soon when they make it to her apartment, the closer of the two. Naruto unfurls slowly from around her, almost reluctantly. Hinata stretches her sore muscles and wishes them less sore, just so that she could have more time with him before needing to head inside and rest. But every part of her aches, and her muscles are closer to giving out now than to wobbling.

She turns to Naruto with words of farewell on her lips, but they stutter and fall away at the expression on his face. His eyes are bright, catching hold of the moonlight, tender and illuminating; he smiles just enough for a glimpse of teeth to show, and before Hinata can remind herself to take a normal breath, he reaches out and tucks some of her hair behind her ear, his touch lingering.

“Goodnight, Hinata,” he says softly. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Goodnight,” she returns shakily, startled by his gentleness. She has to force herself to turn away, to head for her apartment lest she collapse on the street outside of it. Exhaustion and Naruto’s gentleness are not a good combination for her dignity, as it seems. She moves through her doorway and turns just in time to see Naruto disappear with the breeze, a shadow flickering through shadows.

Hinata slides her door closed and presses her forehead to the cool wood paneling, and can almost feel where his hand had rested along her waist.

She smiles.

✧

“These are good for salves,” Hinata points to the plants at her feet, kneeling down to carefully trace the edges of their leaves. Iruka comes over to her, curious despite himself, and scribbles something in his notepad. Once he’s finished with that, he sighs greatly and slides the notepad back into his pocket. He stretches bodily, yawning.

“Well,” He says, shaking himself a little. “Today was great, Hinata. I’m sorry to cut it short.”

“I enjoyed it too,” Hinata smiles, rising back up and gesturing back along the path, where Konoha lies. “It was interesting being the teacher, this time.”

“Yes,” Iruka grins, eyes gleaming. “You have quite the knack for teaching. I would know.”

Hinata laughs under her breath, shaking her head as they start back down the path towards Konoha’s front gates.

“What?” Iruka laughs, watching her. “I’m not flattering you—trust me, if you were awful, I would let you know.”

“Politely,” Hinata laughs, turning to him with bright eyes. “And in so many words.”

“Of course,” he returns, smiling. It had been his idea to have Hinata show him around her favorite natural gardens, to teach him about those that are poisonous and those that are medicinal. It seems he’s been thinking about integrating some information along those lines into his daily teaching, after some of his students encountered a dangerous strain of wild berries. Hinata had only been too happy to help, especially with her vast knowledge of plants and roots.

They chatter idly along the path, just the two of them and the trees on either side of them. The sun is a proud beacon in the center of the sky, and it sends heat down in waves against their napes and shoulders. Hinata feels a bead of sweat slip down into the collar of her undershirt and ignores it, as Iruka smoothly transitions into explaining a silly little argument he’d had with Kakashi just the day before.

“He’s insufferable!” Iruka fumes, sighing. “It’s a wonder the other nations can stand him at all.”

Hinata smiles, hides it by turning to her left to scan through the trees. It’s no secret that one Academy teacher has been dating their Hokage for years, and that their relationship was the most poorly kept secret in all of Konoha. Hinata was privy to their actual secrets more often than most, considering how close she and Iruka had grown once she’d made jonin and begun volunteering around the village. Iruka operates in similar circles, and often uses her ear to vent about his stubborn boyfriend.

“He’s certainly something else,” Hinata agrees, and Iruka shakes his head, blowing air out through his nose.

“He’s a disaster. Don’t know why I love him.” Iruka falls quiet for just a moment, and Hinata gets distracted by a bird trailing overhead; it’s tail feathers dangle on the edge of the breeze, far out from it’s body. “It must be a leader thing.”

Hinata refocuses on the conversation with lips pursed in staid confusion. “A leader thing?”

Iruka lifts a hand to stroke at his chin, nodding. “Totally. It’s the stubbornness. I wonder if that’s what makes them good leaders, or if they’re stubborn because they’re good leaders.”

Hinata puffs a quiet laugh, startled and amused with his circular logic. “Iruka-sensei?”

He sighs, sensing his own point getting backed into a corner. For a moment she thinks that he’ll drop it and move onto another topic, but then he straightens, and the look on his face when he glances over to her is as mischievous as she’s ever seen it.

“Well,” he draws the word out, “You surely know what I mean, don’t you Hinata?”

Hinata blinks. Was he calling her stubborn? “Sensei?”

Iruka tucks his hands into his back pockets and walks with an added skip to his step, so much so that Hinata has to pick up her own pace to keep up with him. He grins and says, “Naruto has always been a stubborn boy.”

Oh, Hinata thinks, and she nearly stops walking. Instead, her lips part and she only blinks over at Iruka, who suddenly radiates complacency.

“Naruto-kun?”

“Oh yes,” he says, grinning. “Once that boy gets something in his head, he won’t let it go. It’s the same with his feelings. I don’t know a single person who trusts his feelings more than Naruto.”

Iruka pauses, cutting himself short. He turns to her and laughs, quietly and to himself, and says, “Actually, there is one other person I know.”

Hinata has absolutely no control over the blush that spills across her cheeks, all the way to the tips of her ears. Is he implying what she thinks he’s implying?

They don’t talk about she and Naruto often, but they have talked about them before. The possibility of them, that is. Usually, when the subject is broached, it’s more about Hinata’s feelings and how she’s handling an unreciprocated love, and how Iruka thinks his own kid is kind of an idiot.

Hinata glances away, a little shy. “I questioned my feelings recently.”

“So I had heard.”

Surprised, Hinata turns back to him at once, studying his expression. He smiles down at her kindly, gentle and appraising.

“I have dinner with Naruto quite frequently, you see.” Iruka ignores her freshly startled expression, and continues on.

“He certainly isn’t shy about his feelings. Not like you are—and that’s not a bad thing. But as such, I can tell you with certainty, Hinata, that Naruto is very aware of your feelings.” He pauses, letting Hinata soak those words in, and then adds almost casually, “And his.”

Hinata doesn’t even know where to begin, given a truth such as that, so she remains silent even as her heart races and pounds. Her mind is a torrent of inconsistencies, of doubts and the ever present hope that asks, what if?

“I don’t know what to say,” she says quietly, touching her fingertips together. “My feelings for him haven’t changed. They won’t change, and if I’m being completely honest? I don’t want them to. Not ever.”

Iruka watches her for a moment longer before he turns back to the path.

Iruka’s voice is low when next he speaks, cautious in a way only devoted teachers can sometimes be.

“You’re sure of your feelings,” he says. “Is it so hard to be sure of his?”

Hinata waits for him to glance over to her, to see the fear and the hope warring in her eyes, and she nods. Iruka mirrors the gesture, his head dipping once in understanding, his lips curling in one corner sympathetically.

“He follows his heart,” Iruka says, turning to look her straight in the eyes. “Wherever it takes him.”

Hinata allows her head to dip low, respectful and grateful, and Iruka reaches out to squeeze her shoulder just once, a sign of support and comfort. They don’t say much after that, as they continue back along the path, passing through the gates and greeting those guarding them. Konoha is nearly laid out before them, from this vantage point, and Hinata takes in the grand sight of it with a subtle smile that catches, and holds. She and Iruka take another step and it’s then that she feels it, feels them.

She stops walking and shifts, turning to her left towards the closest training grounds. Iruka pauses beside her, wonderingly, as Hinata activates her Byakugan.

She sees them exactly as she had felt them, clashing and blurring, violent energy coiled and released with ease and intent.

“Naruto-kun,” she breathes, and it’s concern that slips through her teeth. Iruka stills beside her, and she knows that he doesn’t understand, so she explains even as she watches Sasuke’s hand plunge through Naruto’s chest, before his chakra and his body evaporate into a cloud of dust. “He and Sasuke-san are sparring.” Again, she thinks, but differently.

“Ah,” Iruka sighs, and there’s resignation there that has Hinata’s curiosity peaking. What does he know about these sparring matches that would bring out something of troubled acceptance in him? How frequent are they? Just how dangerous do they get?

Hinata thinks back to Naruto’s explanation about the last match she’d witnessed between him and his best friend, and how he’d implied that they’re usually even more lethal than what she’d seen. She thinks about Sasuke’s blood red eyes, and the rage that boils up from Naruto’s veins and heats his chakra into whipping, writhing pools of heat, and she cannot even imagine.

But it’s this that concerns her most: why? Why do they go to such lengths just in training? There is a way to train with someone and still better yourself without risking your life. Any mature and dedicated shinobi knows this well and uses it to their advantage—Sakura is an even fight for Hinata, but they still manage to push each other and grow stronger against and for each other without every truly putting the life of the other in peril.

Sasuke and Naruto don’t seem to play by the same rules, and what’s worse, they don’t seem to want to. Hinata’s curiosity eats at her, picking and gnawing, and it’s almost a need for her to know which of the two pushes the sessions to this extent, or if it’s both of them—

She has a feeling; intuition points her steadily east, and she can’t accept it.

And yet, when she allows her Byakugan to fade and turns back to Iruka, the sadness in his eyes is answer enough.

“Why does he do this?” She can’t help but to ask, nearly begging. “There are other ways to get stronger.”

“Hinata,” Iruka sighs, reaching out for her wrist, his fingers gentle around her skin. His touch is a calming tool, rooting her to the spot, a tangible reminder of the need to remain calm. “He has been through a lot this past year. More than I know, actually. But enough that I know I can’t interfere.”

“There are other ways,” she repeats sternly, frowning at her teacher. She can’t understand how he, of all people, cannot agree with her side of this—he is Naruto’s father! Maybe not by blood or by right, but by choice, by experience and by love. He of all people should understand the fear coursing through her, and the need to make this stop.

“There are,” Iruka agrees, and his expression hardens to match hers. Maybe he senses her thoughts, and the doubt in them, because his next words are just this side of cross. “Don’t think that I approve, or that I haven’t tried to step in. This is his gambit, his choice. That’s not something I can override. That anyone can override.”

“For what purpose?” Hinata finally asks, breathless with frustration. “To what end?”

Iruka’s expression steels, barbed with edges. His fingers fall away from her wrist and he glances in the direction of the fight, and closes his eyes as if he can hear it. When he turns back to her, the anger and the frustration has been cleanly wiped away, and all that presents in their absence is grief.

“For what purpose does anyone push themselves so dangerously close to the edge?” He asks, so very quietly. “For dreams.”

✧

It’s strange, but after her walk with Iruka Hinata doesn’t see much of Naruto anywhere. It worries her, because of course it does—especially with her newfound knowledge of the fact that apparently he’s not only sparring with Sasuke to near-death finishes, but he’s doing it repeatedly.

Luckily for her, she’s assigned a mission that has her skirting the border of Amegakure for a few days, and which leaves her little to no free time to try to understand Naruto’s recent surge in death defying pastimes. Her mission isn’t particularly difficult, even when she encounters a small troop of Ame shinobi with whom she has a quiet disagreement that leaves them tied up and unconscious in front of the town’s local justice building. She gets her Intel and gets out of there as quickly as she can, just as instructed, and returns to Konoha bright and early.

After debriefing with Kakashi and receiving her next report for the following week along with a deeply sympathetic look she doesn’t even want to start dissecting, she finds herself with a spot of free time before her plans for the day are set to start. She’s on the cusp of the weekend, and she’s hyperaware that Naruto is going to show up someday soon for her to make dinner for the both of them, and for him to finally shed some light on his unexplained situation.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Kiba asks, when he comes out of his house and finds her lying curled up next to Akamaru in his backyard, bathing under the sun. She peers up at him as he approaches and offers him a feeble smile, saying, “I’m fine, Kiba-kun. Just a little tired. I have a lot on my mind.”

“You can tell us,” he says, and then corrects himself when she raises an eyebrow. “I mean, more than you’ve already told us. If there’s more.”

She laughs, a soft escape. “There really isn’t much more. I promise.”

And it’s the truth; she is not keeping many secrets from Kiba and Shino, or even Kurenai. She’s just a little exhausted from the constant worrying, the mental fatigue of having so many uncertainties playing through her mind. It’s tiring, and yes, she’s been through much, much worse for far longer on missions, but this holds a different kind of significance.

This is personal, and it wears on her personally.

She sits up and ignores the small grunt of dissent from Akamaru, though he doesn’t bother to move an inch regardless. She’s never met a dog that loves the sun more than Akamaru, and today there isn’t a cloud in sight.

Kiba watches her for only a moment as she examines a small bruise on her wrist before he sighs, perching his fists on his hips. “What’s on your agenda for today?”

Hinata hums, jumping up to her feet and stretching her waist a little just for something to do. “I’m sparring with Sasuke-san soon, and then Tenten this evening. What about you?”

“Today’s my day with Mirai-chan.”

Hinata beams, her excitement reflected perfectly in Kiba’s smiling expression.

“I know, I know,” he says, raising his hands up complacently. “I am definitely the luckier of the two.”

“Tell her I say hello, and that I love her,” Hinata says, very stern.

Kiba rolls his eyes. “Don’t give me that look, I tell her every time!”

“Don’t forget Shino, either.”

“How could I ever forget Shino.”

At just that moment, Kiba’s back door slams open a little harder than normal, startling the both of them. When they turn to see whose entrance was so gregariously announced, they’re both surprised to see Shino standing in the doorway, pouting.

Amusement curls through her while Kiba groans, calling out, “Oh come on man, you know I was just kidding. Come back!”

Hinata watches Shino walk back into the house with a sharp, dramatic twist of his cloak, not even bothering to shut the door. Kiba groans again and wishes Hinata a good day, and chases Shino back inside his house, where she’s fairly certain the two will wrestle until Kiba is forgiven.

Hinata sighs evenly, feeling calmer than she has in ages. Before she leaves to head for Nara forest, where Sasuke will undoubtedly already be waiting, she turns over her shoulder once more to see what the last member of Team 8 thinks of all the commotion.

Akamaru simply whuffles in his sleep, unmoved.

Hinata leans down with quiet laughter and presses a soft kiss to his snout, and promptly leaps over Kiba’s back gate, heading in the direction of Shikamaru’s home. She greets a few familiar faces along the way, and even stops briefly to discuss soup recipes with Choji’s mother while she passes through the market.

She arrives plenty early to hers and Sasuke’s sparring match, but isn’t surprised to find him already there, lounging against one of many monstrous tree trunks. He nods in response to her friendly greeting, and waits patiently while she stretches. He only deigns to move from the tree when she stands up and gestures to the space between them, and moves herself into a perfectly aligned defensive stance. With her left hand outstretched in front of her, she watches him coil into something of a new stance, still ostensibly offensive. Her temples tingle for a moment before everything sharpens and clears, and she can see the flare of his chakra behind his eyes, and the way it reacts almost independently of him, anticipatory like a sentient beast.

She twists her wrist until her palm faces the sky, curls her fingers at him to start their match, and watches him disappear.

All things considered, with Uchiha Sasuke as an opponent who frequently destroys her in their training sessions, Hinata does unusually well against him today. She still gets torn up to hell, contusions throbbing along the sides of her abdomen and a few lacerations opened across her shoulders. But she manages to land a solid hit on him deep into their session, and watches with unmitigated excitement as he falls to one knee for only a fraction of a moment, and his eyes gleam with jagged approval.

It doesn’t even damper her mood that in the next moment he came at her so hard and fast that she was left literally breathless, the wind knocked out of her and a few ribs creaking with every futile breath. These Nara trees aren’t as forgiving; bend less around bodies thrown through the air at speeds unimaginable. They hurt far more, and do much more damage.

Even still, Hinata appreciates being permitted to train here, with such wide-open fields surrounded with steady stalks of great redwood trees, tall enough to blot out the sky. The shadows can play tricks on the mind, if one lets them. Hinata has long since learned not to, and Sasuke experienced much more horrifying shadows when he was just a child.

Neither of them have much to worry about, in the way of forest shadows. Not anymore.

“You’ve improved,” Sasuke says, standing over her with not even a hair out of place. He isn’t even breathing heavily, but Hinata doesn’t let it get to her, even as she pants on the ground and tries desperately to reintroduce oxygen to her lungs, and her body.

She makes an amused sound, somewhere between an exhale and a coo, and blinks up at the hand he offers her. He does more lifting than she does standing, which is embarrassing, and doesn’t let go until she has her feet secure underneath her. When she glances up at him and finds just the slightest measure of concern hidden in the obsidian depths of his gaze, she shakes her head.

“I’m fine,” she appeases, smiling up at him even as she moves a hand to her ribs and lets it glow with healing chakra. “I appreciate that you don’t pull your hits. As much.”

Sasuke tilts his head at her, thoughtful for a moment before he says, “But you don’t approve of the same when Naruto is my opponent?”

Hinata freezes, the chakra around her hand flickering with distraction. It’s brief, just a sputter, but she knows that Sasuke sees it. When she glances up at him, her Byakugan slowly fading away all the while, she finds a mask of apathy staring back at her. There isn’t a discernable emotion on his face, every sharp feature carved into silence. His eyes are still pools of bottomless reflection, and Hinata edges towards them without conscious awareness.

“It’s not the same,” She says, at last. “You don’t pull your hits for him at all.”

“Neither does he.”

Hinata frowns. “That’s exactly the issue.”

Sasuke studies her expression, and she wonders briefly if he’s deliberately testing her.

“You’d rather he not practice at his full potential?”

“There are other ways to grow stronger,” Hinata hisses, deflecting.

“That’s not what I asked,” he says, and it’s almost silly how much more intimidating he becomes when he crosses his arms over his chest. It must be the closeness, and the palpable hiss of electricity she can still feel along her skin. Her hair stands on end, and chills race down her arms.

Hinata fists her hands at her sides, not backing down. “What if you seriously hurt each other? The way you spar, one of you could easily be killed.”

Sasuke shakes his head, a slow and knowing response. “We have fought without holding back since we were kids. Our strengths have always been…aligned.”

Hinata grits her teeth, frustrated. “And that makes it okay?”

“That’s the point,” Sasuke says; so unnervingly calm. He glances away from her, carelessly into the shadows of the forest around them. “It doesn’t have to be okay.”

Hinata hesitates, confused. “What?”

“That idiot doesn’t do half-measures. He won’t be satisfied unless he reaches his own goals.”

Hinata waits a moment, hoping for more clarification. When she gets none, she asks, “Goals? Are you saying he thinks this is the only way he can grow?”

Sasuke turns back to her and his stare is hard, unflinching.

He says, “It is the only way.”

And suddenly, Hinata understands. Naruto is an unstoppable force, and Sasuke the only capable immoveable object; without him there to push back against, Naruto would be aimless; self-destructive.

Sasuke watches understanding unfurl across her features with cool indifference, his stance completely unchanged. And Hinata tries to hold onto the frustration she’d felt so strongly, the aversion to this new kind of training that she only truly objects to because it so clearly puts Naruto in grave danger. She wouldn’t expect Sasuke to ever purposely try to kill Naruto, but with the way that those two let their emotions run them during fights, it’s not exactly a sure thing. At least, in her opinion.

And anything that brings Naruto anywhere in the vicinity of death’s doorstep is worlds too close for Hinata to be comfortable with.

But Hinata knows the value of autonomy better than most, having been raised in a clan that made just about her every decision for her. She knows that choice is the pinnacle of one’s strength, the ultimate avenue for freedom and growth.

And she has been unconsciously denying Naruto his choice in this. Her fears are valid and she isn’t ashamed to have voiced them, though not quite in so many words. But as she watches Sasuke watch her understand, she realizes that she had been wrong in this. That even though she has a right to fear for Naruto’s safety, to translate that fear into a righteous anger that lashes out at Naruto and those around him isn’t fair.

Especially when the only person he’s endangering is himself—but he won’t see it like that, and isn’t that the whole point of Sasuke’s cool gaze? That she can finally recognize that she’d approached this all wrong. That to understand meant looking through Naruto’s eyes, and seeing that true strength means besting the best and then moving forward even after that fact.

And no one alive has ever offered Naruto a challenge like Uchiha Sasuke.

“This is something he has to do,” she says cautiously, seeking answers in the pits of Sasuke’s unwavering eyes. He offers her a single, subtle nod in response.

“Yes,” he says.

Hinata purses her lips, but can’t hold the frustration in the tense lines of her expression for long. Everything settles, in just the way that understanding always allows. She doesn’t resent it—she’s not proud enough for that. Sasuke doesn’t lord it over her, either; he watches her carefully, his eyes seeing so much more than they seem to.

“He knows you’re concerned,” Sasuke admits, a quiet consolation. Hinata looks up at that, surprise parting her lips. Sasuke has his face turned, showing only his profile, but she watches his eyes flicker down to the base of the tree she’s still partially leaning on. A moment later, and his eyes trail back up to find hers in a moment of surprisingly open feeling—as though he wants her to understand more than just the words that he’s saying, but the meaning hidden beneath.

He says, “He recognizes your chakra signature before I do.”

And Hinata’s heart flutters, because this, too, she understands.

“Thank you,” she whispers earnestly. Sasuke doesn’t respond, his expression unchanging, but he does allow his chin to dip ever so slightly in acknowledgement. In the next moment, Hinata finds herself alone within the trees of the Nara forest, leaning back against a great red trunk with a drum’s pounding echo for a heartbeat.

She stands there for several minutes, enjoying the novelty of a mind not rampant with worries or considerations; a simple, peaceful quiet settles around her and within her. Wildlife shifts and howls around her; dust bowing against the clever fingers of the wind.

She slides down the bark until the giant roots overcome her, and her back rests against the sturdy trunk. She rests her head against the nearest roots, shoulder high and thicker than her thighs. The wind caresses her skin, pulls gently at the tendrils of her air, and soothes her into an easy rest.

Hinata doesn’t know how long she sleeps there, tucked away so carefully in the deepest recesses of Nara forest. It’s difficult to tell time within the shadows, without sight of the sun or the sky overhead. The forest canopy is the sky and the shadows the landscape, nothing but ruddy browns and ever greens to see in every direction.

Wildlife pushes up from the earth in bountiful bushes in every shade of fall, and Hinata blinks herself awake to find a hoofed creature with horns and a tail that falls several feet from it’s body to the earth in front of her. It moves slowly, unfazed with the breeze or shrieks of wildlife around them. Hinata shifts and the creature turns to her with steady eyes, bright amber and gleaming, before turning away in just the same moment.

It doesn’t startle when she rises, or backs around the tree to head towards town. It follows her with it’s eyes, though, a cautious understanding between them. Hinata smiles, and leaps her way through and out of Nara forest with quiet joy.

Her muscles are still a little resistant by the time she lands down in front of Tenten’s personal weapons field, sore from her match with Sasuke, but excitement begins to kindle renewed energy throughout her body. She finds Tenten outside of the enclosed fields, closer to the tree line.

“Hey,” she calls, and Hinata has to shake her head in amazement when she gets close enough to see the array of weapons Tenten holds in her hands, observing them in turn with a critical eye. She glances up when Hinata is a few feet away and grins, her bangs fluttering lightly. “I can’t pick a favorite,” she explains, and Hinata’s eyebrows jump in amusement.

“There’s much to choose from,” she agrees, watching Tenten cycle each weapon in-between her fingers as though they were each a simple coin. Her dexterity is equal parts captivating and intimidating, considering how easily she’s able to manipulate each weapon with lethal force. Tenten’s smile is a slow and dangerous curl, as though she knows exactly what Hinata’s thinking.

“Well,” she sighs, flicking her wrists and causing each weapon to align seamlessly in the palm of her dominant hand. “Luckily for me, I have plenty of time to test them all out and see which one I love the most, right?”

Hinata snorts, eyeing her next sparring partner warily. “Right.”

Tenten’s grin sharpens, and she asks, “Are you focused? I’m not going to hold back, even if you’ve got the whiskered menace on your mind.”

Hinata’s cheeks flare with heat and she frowns embarrassedly, turning sharply over her shoulder to playfully reprimand her friend. Tenten’s already laughing even as Hinata insists, “I’m focused!”

And she truly hadn’t been thinking about Naruto until Tenten mentioned his name, and now even as she tries to regain her focus she remembers her conversation with Sasuke, and wonders where Naruto might be. She’s fairly certain that he’s not on mission, though that could change swiftly enough. But, she realizes with faint surprise, it’s been a while since last she’d seen him outside of coming across him sparring with Sasuke. This feels particularly peculiar, considering how frequently she’d encountered him before his long-term mission had taken him out of range.

Still, Hinata knows that now isn’t the time to be wondering such things. She tries valiantly to put the image of his tired eyes, still bright with his voracious joy, out of her mind and focus in on the way Tenten seems to be eyeing her in an almost predatory way from across the field.

“Outdoors today?” Hinata asks, a little surprised. Tenten usually prefers to train within her own personal weapons arena, where her opponent is faintly trapped and at her disposal.

Tenten shrugs. “Not all enemies in the world will let me ensnare them so easily.”

“Ah,” Hinata laughs, “Of course.”

“Anything in particular you want to work on today?” Tenten asks, stretching her wrists and then her shoulders.

Hinata grins and jokes, “Surviving.”

Tenten’s laughter is a welcome reprieve; her stunning deep eyes alight with amusement.

“Then work hard,” she sings, and together they leap into motion.

And any lingering thoughts of Naruto are knocked out of Hinata’s mind while Tenten’s rapid and barbed enthusiasm rains down upon her. She focuses entirely on Tenten’s battle rage, the storm of weapons she presents and deftly manipulates, and the minimal gaps in her defenses that she leaves open for Hinata’s gentle prodding.

She grows so focused on Tenten, in fact, that she misses entirely the presence on the outskirts of her attention, just barely toeing the line of her concentration.

This is how Naruto manages to appear randomly in her life once more, right as she’s sparring with Tenten.

It’s no secret that Tenten has become her weapons trainer of sorts, ever since Neji—ever since the war. There’s a certain kind of protectiveness between them, one that runs equally strong and indomitably both ways. They both lost someone that made up large portions of their hearts, and because they can share that kind of devastation, so similar yet so different, they grow together.

“That’s right,” Tenten praises, as Hinata twirls a kunai in the palm of her dominant hand only to deceptively fling another from her left, so close to actually getting Tenten not even her barrage of shuriken are enough to knock the blade far from its course. It flies in an arc towards her liver and Tenten only manages to evade it by dislodging her battleaxe with a twist of her body, the flat edge of it covering her abdomen in the knick of time.

Hinata straightens, wide-eyed and panting, and Tenten looks up with a wide-eyed stare of her own.

“Holy shit,” she breathes, and Hinata can appreciate how contained her breathing is, even after heaving so many incredibly hefty weapons and scrolls around. “That was close. Nicely done.”

“You’re a great teacher,” Hinata returns genuinely, smiling around her insistent breaths. The sun beats down on them, heavy and oppressive, and Hinata lifts a finger to hold Tenten steady while she cords her hair into a thickly braided tail down her back. She tucks the fly-aways that don’t obey her restraint behind her ears, rubbing at her forehead and bangs with the back of her hand. Her bangs stick up in strange angles but she doesn’t pay them any mind, only refocuses in on Tenten with her Byakugan reactivating—it brings heat and pressure in waves, a living, pulsing creature she tames with self-control and determination.

She’s about to settle into a defensive stance when she sees him, the wildly burning chakra that races within him, and hesitates. It’s enough of an opening for Tenten, who cannot see or sense Naruto up in the canopy of a tree just on the edge of Hinata’s extended vision. This distraction nearly costs Hinata her arm.

Tenten’s thrown battleaxe is a feint even a distracted Hinata can dodge, but the following fuuma shuriken is not. She manages to tear her focus away from Naruto and the sudden spike in his charka (concern—fear—action) as the shuriken’s massive arc rises over her and pierces the skin of her forearm, driving her down until the blades pierce through flesh and bone and earth. Hinata screams through clenched teeth, eyes squinting shut as pain sears through the right side of her body.

For one bewildering moment, Hinata almost wants to laugh at how well today had been going before this—how carefree she had been, so happy to just be alive.

Tenten is at her side a moment before Naruto is, and Hinata opens her eyes right as Tenten seems to recognize his presence. She only spares him a moment to be shocked that he’s here, and then her hands are hovering over Hinata in concern.

“I’m so sorry,” she’s saying, and Hinata can see the genuine fear in her eyes. She knows without having to pry that Tenten is thinking about Neji, and about loss.

“My fault,” Naruto says through gritted teeth, hands already sliding underneath Hinata’s body. Her vision swims and she tries to shake her head but that just makes the world spin, too. “I surprised her.”

“You surprised her?” Tenten scoffs, hands shaking. “I pierced her with a fuuma shuriken.”

“Don’t lift me,” Hinata grits out, voice low. She gestures to the shuriken and says, “I’m pinned to the ground.”

Tenten makes a sound like a wheeze, something between regret and despair, and Hinata reaches out with her free hand to comfort her.

“Hey, it’s not so bad,” she promises, even while the pain leeches away at her consciousness. “I’ll live.”

“Yeah,” Tenten sniffs, and Hinata’s surprised to see glassy eyes. She’s only ever seen Tenten cry once, and that was when— “But that doesn’t mean this doesn’t hurt. That I didn’t hurt you.”

“It was an accident,” she soothes, even as her consciousness swims. She hears Naruto tell Tenten to grasp the shuriken and pull it enough to dislodge it from the earth, and wonders when her eyes had closed.

Tenten argues, saying, “If we remove it from her arm she could bleed out.”

Naruto doesn’t even hesitate.

“Remove the shuriken, Tenten,” he says, voice harder than Hinata has ever heard it. It reminds her of Sasuke, of his unyielding confidence and the exceptional, prodigious knowledge he had gained through tragedy. She hates hearing it in Naruto’s voice; she wonders why that tone even resides in him at all. What had he suffered through, and what kind of reward had been worth the pain?

His next words tell her everything she needs to know; she thinks of his dedicated training with Sasuke and how dangerous it is, of him fighting for his life every day, of him trying to better himself through exertion and exhaustion and endless pursuit.

He says, “I’ve gotten faster.”

✧

Hinata doesn’t mind the hospital, especially considering that she often works within it. It’s never fun being a patient, though, even with all of the concerned visitors and the precious gifts they bring along.

By the time the news spreads, Hinata’s side of the room is full of flowers in crystal vases, and silly cards with hand-drawn cartoons on every side. The wound in her arm heals seamlessly, though a jagged scar is sure to remain along the length of her forearm. Tenten can barely look at it without shutting down, still fragile, but she visits Hinata nonetheless.

Sakura is a stickler for the rules, and doesn’t allow Hinata any kind of early release. Part of Hinata thinks this is because Sakura enjoys everyone pampering Hinata and cooing over her every need, and so she allows it. Even though it is embarrassing.

“You slept for like, three days.” Kiba says, not for the first time. And just as he had the day before, Shino shakes his head and says, “A little over one day, Kiba.”

“Yeah,” Kiba rolls his eyes, “Ages.”

“It was a deep puncture,” Sakura says, brash without Tenten present. She’s usually not one to stifle her explanations, regardless of company, but Tenten’s scars are a well-protected secret amongst their generation. Sakura casts a skeptical glance Hinata’s way and admits, “She could have lost her hand.”

Hinata doesn’t let anyone linger on the possibility, and lifts said hand to wave away their worries with pointed proof. “It’s okay, I feel much better already.”

“That’s because your chakra control is out of this damn world,” Ino mutters over Sakura’s shoulder, tip-toeing to see Hinata. Sakura nods thoughtfully, saying, “That’s true. You somehow managed to flare chakra into your hand and keep the receptors alive even after your pathways were severed. Pretty remarkable. Tsunade was interested to hear about it.”

Hinata doesn’t take offense to Tsunade’s clinical interest, even as Kiba does. Quite verbally. Shino edges towards him and his presence calms him just enough to keep him civil, which everyone in the room seems to appreciate. They remain for a while longer, chattering indiscriminately about little things that Hinata has missed while being confined to the hospital. She enjoys the updates, not wanting to fall out of the loop of their group’s constant influx of novelty and intrigue.

Not long after she’s caught up, her friends begin to trickle back out into the world, leaving her alone for the evening. Kiba, Shino, and Kurenai are the last to leave her; the warmth of her mentor’s hand on her own remains for several moments after the door to her room slides shut.

Hinata takes a good long breath, relaxing a little further into her bed before turning to the darkest corner of her room, right next to the window. It’s not the steadily rising moon or the flickering of stars through the flame of sunset that catches her attention, but the young man who unfurls from the shadows he could never truly belong to.

“Hinata,” Naruto greets quietly, and there’s so much emotion packed into that one word, her name. She catches onto the sadness most easily, and shakes her head with pursed eyebrows.

“Naruto-kun,” she greets, “I’m fine.”

“My fault,” he argues, and she watches the anger flicker over his expression, right along the line that separates his face from light and shadow. He comes to stand beside her, pulling a chair and carefully perching upon it within her reach. His shoulders hunch forward, heavy and low, and Hinata wants desperately to reach out to him.

“This was not your fault,” she promises, and her tone leaves no room for rebuke. Naruto looks up at her like he’s going to try, though, until she shakes her head in sharp negation. Naruto swallows his disagreement and bows his head, gritting his teeth. He steeples his fingers in his lap and Hinata sees the whites of his knuckles, and immediately reaches out to place her hand over his. It takes him a moment, but eventually her touch soothes the tension out of him, and he relaxes his hands. Hinata does not remove hers.

Naruto had been the first person she saw when she opened her eyes in the hospital, and the last each night. He stayed with her for as long as he could, which was never quite long at all. Something was happening that he couldn’t refuse, even as it tore away at him, and every goodbye was tinged in regret. He was gone most of the day, though Hinata didn’t mind. She was rarely ever without visitors, perhaps the most ridiculous patient in the entire hospital, visited by friends and family as though she were about to pass, rather than recovering beautifully from a nearly severed arm.

But she did wonder what was so important that it could pull Naruto away from her, especially when he felt so personally responsible—regardless of how often she insists that he isn’t. Whatever it is, it takes him away from her early in the morning and has him returning late in the evening, shoulders bent and weary, lines of strain under his eyes. His usual luster tinted only minimally in exhaustion, and something of uncertainty that kindles Hinata’s voracious curiosity.

She tried to ask him about it, once, but he had deflected it shyly, almost embarrassed.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he’d said, “Totally.”

But she’d been watching his eyes even as he didn’t meet hers, and there was a subtle shyness to him that intrigued her. She’d let it pass, however, not wanting to harass him when he seemed so tired every time he returned to her.

He looks just as tired, now. She studies the sharp angle of his sturdy jaw, and the dryness of his lips. His eyes are downcast, blinking idly down at her hand covering both of his. Looking to brighten the solemn mood between them, Hinata finally says, “I suppose we’re going to have to postpone that dinner we planned.”

Naruto glances up at her in surprise, and there’s a newfound lightness to his expression that has Hinata nearly sighing in relief.

“Yeah,” he agrees, openly studying her expression.

“I was looking forward to it,” Hinata admits, “As well as the answers it might bring.”

Naruto blinks, and she’s surprised to see a blush rise over his cheeks, the lightly freckled bridge of his nose.

“Ah,” he says, his quiet laughter tinged in what Hinata would have said was nervousness had he been anyone else. He sits back and their hands slide apart, one of his lifting to rub idly at the hair just over his nape. A habit. “Yeah.”

It’s his skittishness that has her attention more so than anything else, and she can’t help but to draw attention to it. She asks, “Are you sure you’re okay, Naruto-kun?”

Naruto cringes slightly, though Hinata doesn’t understand why. He taps his leg insistently against the linoleum, restless, and Hinata merely blinks at him. He seems ready to jump out of his skin, nerves running hot. He isn’t looking at her much, which is greatly uncharacteristic of him. It’s not fear, or worry that seems to be riding him so hard. The more she studies him, the more she seems to read his edginess as a façade behind which he’s hiding something.

Something big.

Incredulously, Hinata wonders if he has new secrets to keep; dangerous secrets, of which he cannot even hint at.

“Sorry, yeah,” he laughs, shaking his head. “I’m fine, believe it.”

Hinata watches him, not meaning to stare but pinning him in place nonetheless.

Naruto fidgets, leg still bouncing.

“It’s just,” he starts, and Hinata’s eyebrows jump. He turns to her, finally meeting her gaze head on, and there’s heat in his cheeks. “Has anyone told you anything? About me? Lately?”

Hinata blinks. “Not really?”

“Right,” Naruto nods, sighing. “Right, yeah. Of course not.”

“Naruto-kun, really, I don’t understand what’s happening right now.”

Naruto cringes again, and nods his head in understanding.

“Yeah, it’s kind of. Something happened and I really want to tell you about it, but the timing is so fucked, you know? There’s a time and a place and this—you’re hurt, and we’re in the hospital.”

Hinata’s mind swirls ineffectually, grasping nothing. She doesn’t understand much of what he’d said, but she does know to reiterate once more what she’s been telling all of her worried friends: that she’s fine. “I’m being discharged tomorrow afternoon, Naruto-kun.”

His eyes widen, and he nods, saying, “Oh! Oh sweet, that’s awesome. You’ll probably be glad to get out of here, huh?”

Hinata is so confused that she just allows his rough change of topic with a gentle smile.

“It’ll be nice, yes.”

“We can reschedule that dinner, too,” he encourages, eyes bright. Hinata’s heart trips in her chest, and she feels herself nodding even before her expression softens.

She says, “I’d like that.”

Naruto’s smile builds upon the joy of his heart and settles, as sincere an expression of happiness as Hinata remembers seeing.

“Well, I’ll let you rest, then. I just have some stuff I can’t miss in the morning but I’ll stop by again tomorrow before you get discharged! Count on it!”

His returned enthusiasm is a balm to the tension of her frame, and the rapid flicker of her heartbeat. She laughs, smiling up at him with unwavering affection. It feels so suddenly ridiculous and wasteful to ever have tried to hide how much she loves him. She still blushes at the recognition that flashes across his face as he watches her, but she does not back down, does not shutter her affection.

Naruto gets up from his chair and scoots it aside before turning back to her with a heavy gaze, one side of his lips curled fondly. He leans in and Hinata’s breath leaves her in a single gust, as his lips press feather lightly against her forehead. She closes her eyes and tries to stay as still as possible, enamored that he lingers.

When she opens her eyes again, he’s nowhere to be seen, and the late night breeze trickles in through the opened window.

✧

Hinata can hear them talking outside of her door. She’s sitting on the side of her hospital bed, finally out of the gown and in her own clothing, waiting for them to decide to come in. Her sandals skim the floor and she smiles down at her painted toenails as she hears Sakura’s voice, and knows that she and the rest of her friends might truly think they’re being quiet.

“Do you think she’s heard?” Tenten muses, riddled with curiosity.

“She has to have heard, right?” Ino responds, and Hinata can picture the way she must be resting her chin between her thumb and forefinger.

“He visits her every night,” Kiba bites out, sullen and protective.

“Doesn’t mean he’s blabbed, though.”

“Has he ever held a secret for long without blabbing?”

“What do you call his recent long-termer? He hasn’t said a single damn thing about it, to anyone.”

“He visited Hinata the night he returned.” Hinata’s surprised to hear Shino adding his opinion, though unbothered that he seems to know that she knows more than she lets on.

“Perfect time to tell someone a secret,” Ino agrees.

The group falls quiet as steady footsteps approach, and a new voice asks: “What are we all doing standing out in the hall?”

Hinata glances up at the door with another smile, just as a knock resounds and the door slides open under Iruka’s hand. He moves through the doorway, still looking over his shoulder, and says, “Gossip doesn’t belong in the hallways.”

“Where does it belong, Iruka-sensei?” Ino inquires innocently, batting her eyelashes as the entire herd of them moves into her room. Iruka turns and catches Hinata’s eyes first, and lifts a hand in soft welcome.

“Hinata,” he greets, “I hope you’re feeling better?”

“Much,” she returns gladly, nodding her head.

“So,” Ino begins, pushing carefully through the group before coming to stand at the foot of Hinata’s bed, arms crossed over her chest. Hinata recognizes this posture as only a beginner’s stage of interrogation, and knows because of it that she has the advantage. “Have you heard anything interesting as of late?”

“Interesting?” Hinata asks, blinking.

Kiba pushes through the crowd, knocks Ino off balance, and almost loses his arm because of it. Tenten reaches out and settles a hand on Ino’s shoulder to calm her, however, and faintly saves Kiba from a world of hurt.

“Yeah, interesting,” he says, squinting at Hinata. “Like something about, I don’t know, Naruto?”

Ino elbows him in the side, maybe a little more sharply than she would have if he hadn’t rammed into her; a petty revenge. “Smooth,” she says mockingly, rolling her eyes. Kiba flips her off with a grin that shows too many jagged teeth, and Shino sighs from the back corner where Hinata can only really see the top of his fuzzy hair.

“Gossip?” Hinata asks innocently, pursing her lips.

“I mean, I guess it could be gossip.” Ino concedes, but flaps her hand as if the semantics of it don’t even matter. “But anything, really. I mean anything at all that has to do with your knight in shining, golden armor.”

Hinata’s cheeks overturn to every color of sunset, and she scowls lightheartedly at an unaffected Ino, who merely shrugs and says, “Work with me here.”

“Hinata,” Kiba butts in, before she can even say a word. “Have you heard any news about Naruto and, I don’t know, maybe, the village?”

Ino mumbles something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like fucking amateur before Hinata pretends to think his question over, even going so far as to tilt her head and look up at the ceiling for a moment.

She makes them wait a few precious moments, through which all of them seem to be toeing a ledge each and every one of them wants desperately to cross, but aren’t sure that they should. She understands completely; the secret they’re all hiding isn’t really theirs to tell, and they’ll probably sincerely want Naruto to tell her himself.

But little did they know that a certain someone stopped by her room just that morning and let slip a single bit of information, just enough for her to finally connect the dots and understand completely the reasoning behind all of Naruto’s recent behaviors.

“Oh,” she says at last, when she thinks that Ino is a moment away from cracking and just spilling the secret to the entire room. “You mean about Naruto-kun becoming the Seventh?”

Silence; had one of Ino’s hairpins fallen to the floor, the entire hospital floor could’ve heard it. And then, just as suddenly: chaos.

Ino roars, guttural and injured, like a downed animal. “Who told you?”

“How long have you known?”

“We have been walking on eggshells for days trying to keep this secret! And you knew?”

“Did Naruto tell you?” This last one was Shino, quiet but still heard over the chaos of her friends still gaping and conversing, almost as though going over strategies, looking at where they’d gone wrong. Ino clearly had wanted to be the one to divest the news, if Naruto had failed to do so, and was arguably the most wounded to realize she’d missed her chance. She wasn’t the most infamous gossip around Konoha for nothing, and she took the title with pride.

“He did not,” Hinata answered honestly, expression falling only slightly in worry. Would he be upset? He hadn’t been by to see her yet. There was still time for him to stop by, the afternoon was young and she still had some time before she was able to leave.

Ino’s eyes shifted like flames. “If Naruto didn’t tell you, then who?”

“So much commotion,” Iruka grumbles, jostled in his position between Kiba and Ino. He glances over at Hinata and asks her once more, “You doing okay?”

“She’s doing very well,” a new voice interrupts, before Hinata can say anything. They all glance over to see a pink head of hair moving into the room and through the chaos of the group, clipboard in hand and lab coat pristine. “Fit to be discharged shortly, in fact.”

“You,” Ino hisses, pointing at her girlfriend with eyes shaded in betrayal. “It was you!”

Sakura eyes her with open amusement. “What?”

“You work in the hospital, it all makes sense. You could have told her at any time and we would’ve never even known, you sneaky!”

“Way to go, Sakura,” Kiba sniffs, rubbing at his nose. “Ruining Naruto’s surprise.”

“She is Ino’s girlfriend,” Tenten adds, which makes both Sakura and Ino turn to her in unison, saying, “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“That she has a big mouth,” Tenten says easily, blinking innocently at them. Sakura gasps, aghast, and Ino can’t help but to laugh. Iruka sighs, and Hinata realizes she’s lost sight of him in the crowd. Somehow, he’d found himself in the middle of it all, though he’s yet to share much more of an opinion that his avid concern for her wellbeing.

“I hate to burst all these bubbles,” Sakura says primly, stomping her foot down with enough strength to accidentally crack the linoleum. “But I didn’t tell Hinata anything about Naruto during her stay here. Ask her yourself, if you don’t believe this big mouth.”

She directs the latter to Tenten with a vicious smile, promising retribution. Tenten smiles, too, but she definitely shifts a little closer into the pack, right up beside Iruka. Hinata almost bursts into laughter at the sight of him, long-time teacher and now, a jonin’s glorified scapegoat.

Everyone turns to Hinata, curious and anticipatory, and she shrugs. “Sakura-san is telling the truth. We did not discuss Naruto during my stay.”

“What in God’s name,” Ino hisses, eyes cutting to each person in the room with suspicion. Hinata does laugh quietly behind her hand at this, because Ino’s ambition of being the top gossip in the entire village has never before come into question. Now, with some hidden player on the board but shrouded in secrecy, she fumes like a wild animal already hell-bent on the hunt.

“Oh great. More drama.” Iruka’s voice suddenly drawls from the center of his past students. A second later and the sound of time bending crackles through the air, and a puff of smoke bursts close enough that a few of Hinata’s friends start coughing. The smoke dissipates and leaves Hatake Kakashi standing there with eyes crinkled shut in a wide mask-covered smile.

“Yo,” he greets, and several people groan. “Wow, not really the greeting you’d think an esteemed Hokage would receive, now is it?”

“Esteemed?” Someone snorts, before quickly tucking themselves further into the huddle. Hinata raises her brows; that had sounded suspiciously like her old teacher. Kakashi glares into the herd and says sarcastically, “I’m not sure we’re all here yet.”

Ino rolls her eyes and answers him seriously. “Lee and Gai-sensei are on a mission, and who knows where wonder boy is.”

Right after the words leave her mouth, her eyes brighten and she corrects herself while eyeing Kakashi like a fine piece of meat, saying, “Actually, there is one person who must definitely know where he is.”

Kakashi stares blankly at her for a long moment, saying nothing. In fact, he stays quiet so long that Hinata notices a vein standing out on Ino’s temple, and watches her grit her teeth.

Finally, he says, “Ah, yes, Naruto.”

Ino reaches out and has to hold herself up on Hinata’s bedpost, lest she do something drastic and highly illegal. “I don’t know how you did it,” she says, turning to her girlfriend.

“Actually,” Sakura muses, suddenly smug. She crosses her arms over her chest and eyes Kakashi knowingly. “You guys have a lot in common.”

“Oh?” Kakashi asks, eyes crinkling again. He seems genuinely amused.

Ino seems less amused. “I’m sorry?”

“Well, you’re both stubborn. Pretty. Definitely divas.” Hinata watches Kakashi’s eyebrows jump as he turns to Iruka and mouths, pretty, before Sakura’s eyes turn shrewd, her smile showing too many teeth. “Both of you also really enjoy your gossip.”

Ino’s confused expression is a world turning from shadows to the light of understanding, and she gasps.

“No,” she hisses, lifting a finger to point at Kakashi. He just blinks at her, utterly innocent. “You?”

“Me,” he says cheerily, then sighs, as if bored. “Iruka-sensei, we’re going to be late.”

A sigh, from the herd. Iruka shuffles his way out of his past students and turns to them with a sympathetic expression before Kakashi settles his hand on his shoulder possessively.

“We’re usually late to our own dinners,” Iruka says snippily, to the whole room. “And you’re always the reason.”

“You’re so cute when you’re bitter, sensei.”

Iruka lifts a hand to rub at his forehead and, if Hinata reads him correctly, it's intended to partially hide his face from them. He shakes his head and sighs long-sufferingly.

“Hokage-sama, you are insufferable.” He turns to Hinata a moment later and says, “I’m glad you’re well.”

“Thank you,” Hinata returns politely, beaming at him as he subtly moves a little closer to Kakashi.

Kakashi smiles, and hesitates before bringing his hands up to form the transportation sign.

“Ah,” he says, “Congratulations.”

Hinata blinks in confusion, but before anyone else can say anything else, they disappear in a flare of smoke.

And through the tendrils of smoke that remain, Hinata catches sight of Naruto standing sheepishly in her doorway. He rubs absentmindedly at the nape of his neck and says, “Better late than never.”

Their friends turn to him immediately and the silence breaks into a myriad of questions and accusations, until Sakura stomps her foot down again.

“So, you just let him steal your thunder, hm?”

“I was waiting for the right time,” Naruto groans, glancing shyly up through his eyelashes to gauge Hinata’s expression. He stills when his eyes meet hers, embarrassingly tearful.

She can’t prevent them from falling, can’t combat the bone-deep pride she feels for him and this incredible accomplishment that he has achieved. She wipes at her eyes with her knuckles and says, “Congratulations, Naruto-kun!”

The questions and accusations fall away, everyone taking after her example. A chorus of congratulations follows, and Naruto’s cheeks flare bright red under the tan of his skin, his eyes crinkling shut with pride and joy. Everyone goes to him, moths to the heat and luster of his flame—the very same flame that will be charged with protecting and igniting the wills of every person within the village Hidden in the Leaves.

Their soon-to-be Nanadaime Hokage.

Naruto allows their hugs, the slaps on his back, the kisses pressed to his cheeks. Sasuke stays against the wall, one leg bent and arms crossed over his chest, but he’s smiling as he watches Naruto become overwhelmed with the attention of their friends.

“It all feels like it’s happening so fast!” Tenten admits, bright-eyed and grinning.

“Ah, really?” Naruto says, scratching idly at a sideburn. “Well, if you think about it, they’ve been testing me for a few years now.”

Sakura nods, reaching out again to lightly touch her knuckles to his jaw, a painless and habitual faux punch. “Yeah, that’s true. They’ve really sent you through the ringer.”

“We just thought Hokage-sama was being an ass again,” Ino admitted glibly, flipping her hair over her shoulder and nearly hitting Kiba in the face with it.

“He sort of was,” Naruto agreed, still grinning. “But it was the counsel that enforced everything. He actually didn’t have much say in what I was told to do.”

“So the secrets,” Hinata speaks up, and all eyes turn to her with curiosity. There’s nothing but affection in Naruto’s watchful stare, however, as he turns to her with heavy eyes and a lazy smile. “They were all about this?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, and she can almost see his shoulders strengthen, relieved of the weight he’d bared for so long. “I mean, obviously no one is supposed to know who the next leader is going to be. It’s like, super important that no one knows. No one.”

He says this last with a furtive glance in Hinata’s direction that makes her blush, before he continues on.

“Kakashi-sensei broke the news early because he can, apparently.”

Sakura snorts. “And because he’s dramatic.”

“I still can’t believe it was him.” Ino snarls, ramming her fist into her open palm.

As she and Sakura begin to discuss the well-kept secret of Kakashi’s gossiping nature, Hinata focuses in on the racing of her heartbeat, and the recurring thought that all this time she had been right. She’d had so little information to go off of, but the hints Naruto had offered were the key all this time—his individual importance in every secret, the new and different kind of protection he’d been asked to offer, his past, his dreams.

It all led here.

Naruto steals away to Hinata’s side as the others discuss idle gossip about their current Hokage, and he hesitates just in front of her before reaching out and offering her his hand. She doesn’t need it to stand, nothing is wrong with her legs or her strength, but she puts her still-healing hand in his and allows him to pull her up to her feet.

“I told you I’d make it before you were discharged,” he brags, puffing his chest out a little. He’s wearing his jonin uniform, vest and all, and his hair tickles the edge of his jaw. “Though I do wish I’d told you before Kakashi-sensei got around to it. What a way to steal a guy’s thunder, right?”

“You don’t seem all that mad,” Hinata admits quietly, tilting her head.

Naruto ducks his head, almost shyly. “To be honest, I didn’t really know how to say it.”

Hinata laughs, startled.

“It’s easy. ’I’m going to be the Nanadaime,’” she says steadily, watching his wide eyes jump up to hers, flickering between her depthless gaze. “’I have made all of my dreams come true.’”

Naruto watches her long after she stops speaking, and reaches out to touch her cheek, to trail his fingertips over the smoothness of her rounded bone structure. Hinata notices faintly how Sakura ushers the rest of their friends out of the room, shushing them and sealing the door away behind them. Hinata will have to remember to thank her for that, later.

“That’s not true,” Naruto says, at last. “I didn’t get here by myself. And I still have dreams to chase.”

Hinata studies his expression with explicit fondness, openly adoring. The small quiver in her smile and the still drying tracks of tears on her cheeks are a vivid reminder that this moment is real, though she can barely believe it.

Naruto is going to be Hokage, and he’s touching her so gently her heart is breaking just to rebuild itself in his image, and he’s looking at her when he mentions his dreams.

“Naruto-kun,” she whispers, and closes her eyes when she feels his forehead press to hers, so carefully, the perfect kind of strength she’s always wanted.

“I think I’ve loved you forever,” he whispers, his hands coming up to thread through her hair, right above her temples.

Hinata knows a thing or two about having always loved someone. It recreates her in depths of happiness she has not yet known to hear the words, and to feel the reality of it, to recognize the feelings he’s offering to her as this: real.

“There has only ever been this,” she says quietly, reaching up to grasp the thick material of his vest, tilting her chin up marginally, just enough to let him feel the smoothed crest of her lower lip. She opens her eyes and finds him already watching her, pulling back just enough that she can see his pulse racing in the hollow of his throat. She flattens her hand over his heart, and pulls his hand down from her temple to rest over hers, too.

“There will never be another,” she breathes, “For me.”

Naruto breathes in, as though startled, and moves forward in that same breath until his lips press against hers and he’s able to pull her flush against him. His arms come around her, gripping her jacket with more strength than she ever could have expected. He kisses her like he’s been waiting, waiting, waiting; caged in uncertainty and freed with reciprocation.

So this is how it feels, Hinata thinks as she breathes into him, and he moves against her with a gentleness that frays her.

When love is true.

✧

“I still can’t believe it,” Naruto muses, and Hinata watches the sun catch in the pools of his eyes. “I was an ambassador for Konoha. And I didn’t even know it. And soon—soon I’m going to be Hokage.”

Hinata gazes down at him fondly, continuing to run her fingers slowly through his long hair, massaging as she goes. The sun shines relentlessly down upon them, bathing the entirety of the open field in golden waves of warmth. Konoha’s perpetual breeze flutters through, playing with Naruto’s hair and hers, and her heart trips in her chest when Naruto shifts his head on her lap, getting more comfortable. He’s strewn all the way out, pillowed on her thigh, fingers crossed on his chest, and she can hardly believe the easy intimacy of their newfound relationship.

Several weeks ago, Naruto’s news broke through the ranks. To no one’s surprise, the village hero was greeted with much more support than dissent, almost unanimously. He’s to accept the position, and the heavy responsibilities that come with it, in a few days’ time.

And he has never been so carefree.

Hinata’s fingers flow smoothly through his hair, and she finds that it’s softer than it looks. Not silky, like Neji’s had been. But soft.

Naruto looks up at her and his smile is every breath of fresh air she’s ever taken, every precious moment she’s ever held close to commit to memory.

“I had to negotiate with so many people before the Mizukage agreed to see me. I still can’t really even believe that she did, either. I’m not smart like you or Sakura, or even the bastard. I don’t usually do well with just talking. But she must’ve liked what I had to say. How else would she agree to me becoming a temporary intermediary for the border? Freakin insane. The weirdest months of my life, for sure.”

“She must’ve seen what we see in you,” Hinata responds quietly. “Honesty, strength, and determination. Strong will, brave heart.”

Naruto’s cheeks speckle with color, and Hinata’s close enough to see the way they throw his freckles into darker shades. “Ah, Hinata.”

“You did well on the border,” Hinata reminds him kindly, reaching down to run her thumb lightly over his lips. “You’re going to do so well, now. As our leader.”

Naruto gazes up at her, eyes wide and bright with admiration.

“Yeah?” He whispers, and Hinata nods. She has known this for years, without hesitation, without doubt. She knows exactly the right words to offer Naruto on the cusp of something so pivotal as achieving his greatest dream; he knows them well, and they’ve followed Hinata throughout her life, helping to build her strength and remind her what it is to have a will of fire.

She says, “Believe it.”

And she leans over him to press her lips against his forehead, their shared love the only light left in the world that can outshine the sun.