written for naruto femslash week 2018! Day 1 (August 27): Modern AU

There's nothing wrong with being gay. Hinata knows that. A lot of people know that. Even her father knows that. "There's nothing wrong with being gay," he says to her. She stays sitting, back straight. He's leaning a little on the couch, eyes on the television and not on her. The only thing they ever really watch is the news. Hinata nods in agreement but she can't find it in herself to speak. She can so so rarely speak around him. After dinner Hinata and Hanabi are expected to engage in "family time" for at least an hour or so before bed. Usually this time consists of Hinata failing to make small talk and Hanabi snarking until she gets sent to her room early.

"There's nothing wrong with being gay," Father says again, "but I don't understand why they need to get married."

"Yeah, Father," Hanabi drawls out. "We know. You've said it before."

"I just don't understand it," he says. "Isn't it enough to get tax benefits? Why do they have to get married, too?"

The reason people get married has always seemed obvious to Hinata. They fall in love. Hinata shifts in her seat. "M-maybe," she starts, carefully, so carefully, "it's the same reason you wanted to marry Mother?"

Father's eyes go over to her and when he stares at her flat on she feels like she's melting, sinking, drowning. "Never say that about your mother again," he says, very slowly, very quietly. Dangerously, even. She feels like she's freezing, falling, dying.

"Yes," she says hurriedly. "Yes, yes. I'm sorry."

"They don't respect marriage," he continues, turning away from her—thank god—and looking back towards the television. He drums his fingers on the couch. Even now, with Mother dead, Father still wears his wedding band. It likely cost more than all four years of Hinata's college tuition.

There's nothing wrong with being gay, except maybe everything.

.

Hinata's never taken the bus before, but she's not leaving home, and university's too far away for her to walk, so she goes bravely down to the bus stop, backpack on and straps clenched tight in her hands. She doesn't want to go. There's too much pressure for it to be amazing and fulfilling. She'd had to beg just to get Father to cosign her loan. A little over half million yen is nothing to her father, but it wouldn't be very disciplined to take his money.

She doesn't want to go and her nerves feel overwhelming, but when she gets on and shows her bus pass she only shakes a little. Hyuuga Hinata is eighteen and, by all technicalities, an heiress, and she leaps into the first open seat she sees. The entire bus shakes when it moves and her backpack bounces in her lap with each bump. She tries not to look at anyone else on it—Hinata stares out the window and locks her hands together to keep from playing with her hair. She pretends the stopping and starting and shaking is soothing and meditative, calming instead of inducing panic, but then the bus comes to another abrupt stop and someone taps her shoulder.

Hinata starts so badly she bangs her head on the window.

Some blond girl's the culprit, unimpressed stare pushing into Hinata until she wishes she could crawl out the window instead of just bump against it. She's got long hair pulled into a ponytail and eyes so blue Hinata can't look for long. "You're in the seat reserved for pregnant women," the blond girl says. She adjusts her grip on her bookbag. She's carrying it, strap in hand, her knuckles resting on her shoulder and the bag hanging over. With her free hand, she picks some lint off her shirt absently. Hinata's eyes follow the motion and she pulls her focus right back up after she realizes she's kind of staring at a stranger's chest. "You know that, right?"

Hinata had not known that. "Oh! I didn't know! D-do you need it?"

The blond girl's face, if possible, goes even flatter. "You saying I look pregnant?" She scoffs, rolls her eyes. "Just wanted to let you know you're being rude." She turns and starts towards the back, taking up a spot by reaching for one of the bars to steady herself. Hinata leaps to her feet, takes one step towards her, and—

And then the bus starts moving again and she really didn't think this through. She closes her eyes tightly, prepared to fall on her butt in front of a load of strangers, but a hand catches her wrist. When Hinata opens her eyes again she's being held against the blond girl's body, the hand easily going from wrist to waist and holding her tight. She feels too aware of the body heat between them, too aware of the girl's arm around her back.

"You can't get up on a moving bus, you idiot," the blond girl says. Hinata acknowledges this. She looks down, away from those blue blue eyes, but this is a mistake, too, because the blond girl is all legs, with her feet in probably stylish sneakers. She searches for something to look at that isn't smooth skin and her eyes find the girl's bag, on the floor at her feet. She must've thrown it aside to grab Hinata instead.

That's...really nice. Of her.

"Thank you," Hinata tries to say but the words come out like a whisper, hushed and quiet and nervous.

"What?" the girl asks. They're close enough that their noses are almost touching. Hinata goes red.

"Thank you," she says again, louder, enunciating.

The bus comes to a stop. The girl releases Hinata and reclaims her bag from the floor. "Yeah, yeah," she says. "This is my stop, so see 'ya."

"Bye," Hinata says, a bit dumbly. Then she realizes she's reached out and grabbed the girl's hand and her voice goes, "I'm Hyuuga Hinata. What's your name?" but it can't be her voice because Hinata's got her hand in a girl's hand and their fingers are linking together and she must have swallowed her own tongue.

"Ino," the girl says. She squeezes once and then pulls away and gets off the bus. It takes a few minutes of Hinata staring stupidly after her to realize Ino'd got off at the university. We go to the same school, Hinata thought reverently. We go to the same school! We might have classes together!

It takes a few minutes after that for Hinata to think, still dumbly, slowly, Oh. I missed my stop.

.

It turns out they do have a class together. It's sociology. The lecture hall's so big Hinata doubts she would recognize her own sister in there but after she walks out on her first day—everyone else's second day, but nobody seems to have noticed—she gets stopped by a yank on her wrist and a flash of blond hair. "Since when do you go here?" Ino demands and Hinata opens her mouth to speak before she realizes she can't formulate a response. Ino has her hair down today, her shoulders exposed in an off the shoulder shirt. Hinata finds herself fixated on that shirt. It's white. Ino's skin looks so soft.

Ino huffs. "Well?"

She hadn't been on the bus this morning. Maybe she has a class earlier than ten on Tuesdays? "I just missed my stop yesterday," Hinata manages to say. There. A full sentence. She didn't stutter.

Ino rolls her eyes, flips her shiny glossy beautiful hair. "How could you? I literally got off there."

Hinata opens her mouth and closes it again. She can't find the words to explain that this is why she missed it.

"Whatever," Ino dismisses, tapping one foot. She's wearing dark burgundy flats today and not sneakers. She has the same bag, but it's over her shoulder on a strap instead of in her hand. "Do you have any more classes today?"

Hinata really doesn't want to pull her hand out of Ino's but she does, slipping from the other girl's grip and then unzipping her backpack. "Uh, precalc, I think?"

Ino takes the schedule right out of her hands. "Precalc at noon..." She looks over Hinata suspiciously. "I'm in that class too." It takes a desperate internal struggle, a scramble of thoughts and several bites of the tongue for Hinata to even get to the thought of asking Ino what she plans to do for the next hour, before the start of class. It takes a desperate rush, a couple planned and then immediately discarded starter sentences, and then Ino goes, "Wanna hang out?"

Wanna hang out?

Ino shifts on her feet a little. "We could do our sociology homework, or get coffee, or something—"

"Yes!" Hinata blurts out. She goes red. "Yes, of course!"

Ino eyes her. "... Kay."

.

She and Ino are friends for so long she forgets to be worried about something going wrong.

Things start breaking slowly, carefully, almost too subtle for her to really notice anything's breaking down at all. She and Ino are getting lunch after class—"I'm so hungry! I can't believe it's one and we haven't eaten! Hinata, we're going out!"—and Hinata's halfway through her fettuccine alfredo, feeling full already but completely unwilling to stop, when she realizes abruptly that her cousin's sitting just across the room, eating lunch with one of his friends. Lee, she thinks? Hinata can't remember.

(Of course she can't remember. Typical selfish Hinata, typical floozy Hinata. Of course she can't remember. Typical unreliable Hinata.)

"Ino," she says, slow and quiet, no sudden movements. Ino makes a noise through her pasta. There's marinara sauce on the corner of her lips. If this weren't such a war zone, she'd wipe her friend's face. "Ino, we have to leave."

"Leave?" Ino asks, but she's still chewing, so it comes out more like, "Loaf?" Ino swallows. Hinata watches the movement of her throat and looks down at the table when Ino sets her fork down. "But we already paid."

She's made a few friends at college, but nobody like Ino. Ino's brave and loud and she says what she thinks without caring how anyone else might feel about it. Ino's beautiful, with long shiny blond hair and long smooth tanned legs, and big blue eyes with long eyelashes. Ino talks with her mouth full and climbs trees and jumps off the swings and when she talks, people listen. Hinata's never been allowed to be friends with someone like Ino before. She would never be allowed to be anyone like Ino.

But she wants to be. And sometimes, with Ino, she thinks she can be.

"That's my cousin over there," Hinata says, still in that quiet secretive tone. It's like she's a spy or a ninja, creeping through enemy territory. They've only been friends half a year, but Hinata suspects Ino isn't much for sneaking. "We have to leave before he sees us."

"Your cousin?" Ino parrots, and then she twists around in her seat, looking wildly around the room. "Where?"

Hinata reaches over the table and grabs Ino's hand. "Don't look," she whispers in something like a hiss. "Ino, seriously!"

"What, you embarrassed or something?" Ino asks, pulling her hand back. "Of what? Me? Or your cousin?" Ino scoffs. She settles back in her chair, arms crossing. "Between the two of us, I would guess it isn't your rich cousin."

"M-my—"

"Oh, c'mon. I googled you." When Hinata gapes, Ino's expression turns even more indignant. "What? You didn't google me?"

"I-I don't even know your last name," Hinata says and when she says it, when the words fight their way out even though she's never been a fighter, she realizes it's true. Ino frowns at her.

"Not like you asked," she says and the words feel like a betrayal. It's too late anyway. When Hinata glances over at Neji he's watching her. He hates her and he hates her father, but he would love to be the heir to the Hyuuga empire. Nothing incriminating's happened and nothing's going to happen, either, because Ino's beautiful but they're friends, too, and Hinata knows she wouldn't say anything to Neji that could hurt her, but—

"C-can we just—can we just go?" Hinata pleads, because her heart races when Ino looks at her too long and when Hinata tries to make jokes Ino laughs like she's funny and no one has ever thought Hinata was funny and sometimes she still thinks about the first day, body flush against Ino's and so close their noses touched. She's never had a friend like Ino and she can't let her family ruin that.

"Yeah." Ino stands, brushes herself off. She glances over at Neji and she looks like a queen. When she turns back to Hinata and holds out a hand to help her up she's more like a conqueror.

"Thanks," Hinata whispers. She looks at the hand a second longer than feels natural and then she takes it, Ino's smooth slim fingers linking together with her own. She doesn't turn to look, doesn't glance back to see if Neji's watching, if he's saying anything to his friend—Lee? or maybe something more exotic, Lucas, or something? Maybe Li?—about her, if she would meet his eyes if she turned back to see. She doesn't turn back, just squeezes Ino's hand.

It feels like he's watching, though.

.

The latest poll on the news shows fifty one percent of Japan is in support of legalizing same-sex marriage. Father is disgusted. "There's nothing wrong with being gay," he says. "But this? This is wrong."

Hinata nods mutely. Hanabi sighs loudly.

"Hinata," Father says. "You asked me if I thought they wanted to get married for the same reasons I married your mother."

"Yes," Hinata says. The word comes out like a movement of air, silent and shapeless.

"It's different," Father says. "Your mother... I loved her." Hinata leans forward in her ramrod straight spot on the straight backed, overly expensive couch.

"I know," Hinata offers tentatively.

"No," Father says. "You can't know." He looks over at her, looking down at her, patronizing. He always looks at her that way. As though she's stupid. Like he knows things she never will. "You've never been in love," he says. Hinata says nothing. He looks away again, eyes going somewhere distant, somewhere far beyond the tatami mat he's staring at. "There's a reason I never remarried. I have a responsibility to your mother, to honor her."

She's dead, Hinata thinks. She does not say this.

"Without your mother," he says, "the world was grey. Dull." His eyes glance over to them, to where even Hanabi is sitting at attention. "I'm sorry you never got to know her."

"Was she beautiful?" Hanabi asks, quietly, delicately. The moment's a bridge between them built from toothpicks and it is stuttering under their weight.

"Your mother was so much more than beautiful," Father says. Hinata can barely hear him. There's something about the look in his eyes that she thinks she's seen before, that she thinks she's seen somewhere before. "She was kind. She was good." The softness in his always so hard eyes—she's seen it somewhere she's seen it—

Oh. Oh, she knows where she's seen that look. She last saw it in the mirror. Before that she's pretty sure she saw it on Ino. The things he's saying—she's heard them before. She's thought them. About Ino.

Oh.

"And gay people can't feel that?" she asks.

He looks at her. "No," he says. "They can't."

.

Ino's been on another failed date and she's shouting so madly about it she's spilled her coffee a few times. "He was a dog person," Ino says, scandalized. "I hate dogs! We all know that! Tenten knew that!" Hinata privately thinks this would be a minor issues in a relationship, but she doesn't say that. "And, anyway, he's fucking dumb, okay? I would never be into an idiot. I can't believe Tenten, having the nerve to try to set me up with some dumbass—"

Hinata makes a noise of agreement. She's looking at her feet to keep from tripping. Whenever she looks up she gets dizzy. When she looks up her head feels scrambled, disconnected, lost. When she looks up she trips. Ino doesn't seem to have noticed.

"Can you believe her? Saying some bullshit about how nice he is. Nice! Ha! You think girls like me care about nice? What I care about is if he picks up the tab! I mean—"

Hinata nods some more. This makes sense to her. Those priorities seem straight.

"—it's bad enough he's a guy at all. Tenten knows I don't like guys, but she just kept saying he was perfect for me, and then I get that? And then he tries to touch my hair? Get fucked! No! Grimy hands on my hair? Hinata, I barely even let you touch my hair, and I love you."

Bad enough he's a guy at all.

Hinata stops walking. It's so sudden Ino bumps into her, shoulder to shoulder, nearly knocking her over.

And gay people can't feel that?

No. They can't.

"What's up with you?" Ino snaps. Hinata keeps staring at her feet, at her shiny black shoes and her clean white socks. She twists her fingers into the soft, silken, heavy fabric of her skirt, watches the ends of it swish in sky blue flicks over her calves. She clenches one fist in the expensive fabric of her skirt, tangles her other hand into the bottom of her expensive blouse. She can't look up. She stares down at herself, at all the money heavy clothing touching at her skin, all the things her father bought for her.

—barely even let you touch my hair, and I love you.

"What do you mean you love me," Hinata says. She is staring at her shoes. They're shining, catching the sharp noon sunlight. She is staring at her shoes, the light bouncing off them stinging her eyes.

"What are you talking about?" Ino says. She puts a hand on Hinata's shoulder, warm and comforting, moving closer and Hinata can feel her body heat. "Girl, are you okay?"

"What do you mean," Hinata says again, "when you say you love me?"

"Hinata," Ino says, all quiet and hushed and delicate, voice only a tiny tap but still enough to make her feel she's shattering like glass. Hinata's shoes aren't blurry. They aren't obscured by tears. This is worse. Her shoes are shiny and expensive and a little bit scuffed on the toe. "I mean that I love you." Hinata jerks her head up and her eyes find Ino's. Ino's leaning in close, the corners of her mouth turned down just a bit in concern. Hinata's eyes drop to Ino's lips and it's only half accidental. Something in Ino's eyes is too much. It's—

(It's the same look. The same look Hinata has seen in the mirror and the same look she sees on Father. It's the same and that's too much.)

Hinata's never kissed anyone but Ino's lips are pink and glossy. There are places near the center that have been bitten, skin pulled back and chewed away. Hinata's never kissed anyone but Ino says she loves her and Hinata really, really loves Ino. Ino says what she thinks and fights for what she wants and saved her from falling on the bus floor even though Hinata was being rude. Ino has blond hair that sparkles and eyes that shine too and she loves her.

Ino's hand comes up to Hinata's cheek, thumb rubbing gently at the very edge of Hinata's mouth. "I love you," she says again. "You know that, right?"

Hinata's never kissed anyone before and when she leans in, slants her mouth against Ino's, pulls her partly bitten bottom lip into her mouth, butterflies turn to wildfires in her stomach and lace up and down her veins.

"I love you, too," she says when she pulls away. She hadn't been crying before, looking at her expensive shoes, but now, staring into Ino's face, at the flush to her cheeks and the barest hint of bruising her lips are starting to show, tears go spilling all over her face. Right there in the street, Ino leans forward, kisses them away.

.

Hinata gets home. Neji saw. Neji knows. Neji tells. Hinata is never allowed to go home again.

.

She shows up at Ino's apartment at four in the morning, a duffle bag flopped on the floor beside her and her face messy from tear tracks, stained from them. She's cold and Father hadn't hit her but he'd come close.

(His eyes all sharp his jaw so hard he's screaming and for a second she thinks he's gonna kill her. She was going to die. He was going to kill her. He didn't. Instead he gave Hinata half an hour to grab everything she could and then he kicked her out.

She left behind her shiny back shoes.)

She's raw and aching and he hadn't hit her but he'd wanted to. She's barefoot and her throat feels tight. There's something inside her chest, something leaking into her lungs and filling them up wet with each breath. She still feels she's inches minutes moments liters from shattering like glass. Hinata's always been that way, been glass. A weak little porcelain girl.

(He's screaming and she's spent her entire life being screamed at. He was screaming and Hinata clenched her fists and she grabbed the family portrait off the wall and her fingers turned to claws while she ripped it up. "Shut up!" she'd been howling and Hinata had never kissed anyone had never said words like this a year ago. "I hate you! I hate you!"

He hit her.)

Porcelain girls don't kiss pretty girls in the street. Porcelain girls don't scream back. Porcelain girls don't smash things and fling their shiny shiny shoes in their father's face.

Ino opens the door and her hair is long and messy, face soft and sleepy. "What d'ya want," she murmurs, rubbing her eyes, still all dulled and gentle. Hinata looks at her mouth and the tiny little tears in skin from Ino biting her lip and she starts to cry again.

That wakes Ino up fast. "Hinata? What happened?" she demands, tugging Hinata inside and pulling her into a hug. Hinata sniffles against Ino's collarbone. Ino's running her hands through her dark hair, tiny little delicate pulls that make Hinata feel an emotion she can't explain. It makes her cry harder.

Later Hinata's sitting at Ino's coffee table with her hands wrapped around a cup of hot black tea. I don't have any herbal tea, Ino had said apologetically. Hinata doesn't mind. She isn't going to drink it. She's just staring at the swirling water, the tea leaves collecting at the bottom. Her bare feet are dirty but Ino doesn't seem to mind so she has them flat on the carpet. Her bare feet are dirty because she'd left her shiny black shoes at home with her Father.

"I can't go h-home," Hinata says. She wills herself not to cry. Father's stolen so many tears from her. Ino's jaw is clenched so tight she's probably damaging her teeth. "I'm sorry. I didn't know where else to go."

"You said you don't know my last name," Ino says. Her fists are clenched. She's got mascara smudged under her eyes and her hair has been pulled into a hasty bun. Hinata takes a sip of her tea when her throat feels dry, sets the mug down when she's done. Ino's nail polish is a little bit chipped. She's beautiful. "It's Yamanaka. I'm Yamanaka Ino."

Hinata chokes on her mouthful of tea.

Ino scoffs. "You aren't the only one who's rich, Hinata." She sits down, leans forward, takes Hinata's hands in her own. Ino's hands are soft and warm and hers.

"The Yamanaka Enterprise is in America," Hinata says softly. Quietly. She's looking at their clasped hands.

"Well," Ino says. "Looks like we're gonna get on a plane."

Porcelain girls don't get on planes to foreign countries on a whim but Hinata isn't a porcelain girl anymore.

.

They're halfway around the world and on a train with two duffle bags at their feets. Ino took the window seat, her cheek pushed against the glass, hair all messy and eyes only barely open against the threat of sleep. She's known this girl for a year and already she knows she wouldn't recognize herself without her. Hinata's hand is linked with hers. She glances down at her shoes, at the secondhand sneakers Ino had given her. They're stained and scuffed and a little too big.

"You know," Ino mumbles, her voice rough and lazy, "we should get married. We're already running away together."

Hinata has never been more terrified or more exhilarated or more intoxicated or more in love.

"Sure," she says. "Let's stop in Vegas."