Because She Loved Him

By: K-promises-fall

Note: I have never done something like this before, and to tell the truth I wrote this when I was bored and I didn't have any of my other stories to write in. This is only a oneshot, so don't expect anything other than this one chapter.

Also, in an odd and very rare occurrence Hinata is not the main character for this story gasp I know, shocking, but true. The story is indirectly related to Hinata but its mostly about Shino. Just one of those "what if" scenarios. So without further adieu here it is.

Disclaimer: It's actually an anime, so I obviously don't own it and never created it. T-T

WARNING: It's pretty rough (as in some part don't really flow as I would like it to) and to people who really focus on it, it might seem poorly developed (at least it does to me) so I apologize for that. But as I said, I was bored, I wasn't really thinking about what to write so much as that I just WANTED to write something. So once again, I'm sorry.

OOO

Hinata loved Naruto. It was really that simple. Anytime someone came to him and asked why things went so wrong, he would answer them with, "Because she loved Naruto." Of course they never understood what he meant.

He would watch and listen with growing discontent as they misread his answers. "Oh I get it," they would say, "She must have been so heartbroken over Naruto's engagement to Sakura. But really, what did she expect? It was obvious that they would eventually end up together." Blah, blah, blah… It wasn't really Shino's style but he'd tune them out after that, much preferring to listen to the internal buzz of his bugs as he mentally shook his head. They had it so wrong; so backward.

Every day someone would come up to him and ask him what he thought about the demise of the elder Hyuuga heir. At first, he would not answer. Then he answered them simply from annoyance "Because she loved Naruto…" But now… now he answered every time, possibly because he wanted to find someone – just one person, at least – who understands what he means when he says that. Each time, each person; they always got it wrong and he would grow more and more frustrated. Calm on the outside, with his eyes burning furiously behind his glasses. "Why don't you understand?" he wanted to ask them. "What is so complicated that you cannot grasp it in your minds?"

Not even Kiba truly understood. "Why would she even do that Shino!" His teammate's – his friend's – voice ran through his head, not a question so much as a statement. "Why the hell would she leave us for him!" Shino had said something then, perhaps that she had her own reasons. "Fuck that!" Kiba had yelled, loud and clear – a few passing (citizens, tourists?) girls looked at him stunned then quickly walked away. Shino noticed them. He didn't' think Kiba did. "It was Itachi, Itachi! She… she ran to him Shino," here Kiba's voice started to crack though his eyes remained bright and fiery. "She ran to him like a broken, lost puppy. Like she needed him-"

The flashback stopped there, for that was when Shino held up his hand and told Kiba to stop or else he'd slap sense into him. It was not so much the fact that Kiba was not even trying to comprehend that Hinata had, for once, done what might have been best for her for a change, but that Kiba was raving around merely because he was jealous. Here was their teammate, a friend and little sister to him at least, lying lifeless on an autopsy table ready and waiting to be cut open and studied – experimented on – and Kiba was jealous!

He had to admit though; Hinata had brought it on herself. But it was as he had told everyone who had asked him the extra special question; she loved Naruto, and it had brought her to her doom.

---------------------------------

Shino nodded gratefully as the waiter set down the small cup of tea on the table before him. The man bowed slightly before turning and disappearing behind a sliding door in the back of the room

Shino sat there with his legs crossed underneath him, his back to the door separating him from the rest of the restaurant, waiting for the tea to cool so that it the sudden rise in heat would not be an issue to his bugs. He was interrupted (from what exactly, he was not sure) by the sound of chimes as the door behind him was opened. There was a brief, hushed exchange of words then came the sounds of – sense as he could not really hear them – footfalls heading towards him. The sense of movement stopped almost immediately behind him. "May I join you?"

Shino looked around at the person, got to his feet and bowed in respect. "Hyuuga-sama, it would be an honour." Hyuuga Hanabi, now the official heiress of the Hyuuga clan, nodded back at him and knelt on the opposite side of the low table. Once she was comfortable, Shino followed suit and reclaimed his original position, this time gazing thoughtfully, if not a little curiously, at Hanabi.

The two sat there for a while, neither speaking up save for when Hanabi ordered tea, which was brought in decidedly quicker that Shino's was, and by the time Hanabi took her fist sip, Shino's tea was cool. He picked up the cup but refrained from drinking, looking intently at Hanabi in that way that people knew of him only being capable of. Hanabi's eyes were closed as she took short, silent sips from the steaming cup. Finally, Shino gave in. "How may I be of assistance?"

Hanabi stopped drinking and looked at him calmly – there was a glint in her eye that Shino found curious and not entirely unexpected. After what seemed like ages to any normal civilian, she put her half-empty cup down and smiled politely at him. She was silent a few seconds more, gathering her thoughts before she said, "Everyone already knew how much Hinata loved Naruto." Shino raised and eyebrow, amused but yet again, not surprised – if ever such a state existed for him. Hanabi continued, ignoring Shino's expression if she saw it. "Why then, would you go around telling people the obvious? Surely you knew they would not understand." The word "surely" was stressed slightly with a silent emotion the traditional Hyuuga façade did not allow.

"It was the only answer I could give." True enough; it was. If he told anyone exactly what happened and why, scant few – if any – would believe him. Even then, the Hokage would surely punish him severely, if the Hyuuga Head did not get to him first, for giving out classified information so easily. Saying that she loved Naruto was true, and it was one of the reasons for why Hinata did what she had; it was not the most easily understandable of answers, but it was the safest, the only, answer that would not cost him his life.

Hanabi nodded at his answer, knowing its truth. She took another, longer sip of her tea before she spoke again. "I will never claim to fully comprehend what went through my sister's head at times in both our lives, but I will admit to being curious." She closed her eyes again and let out a long breath that was deceivingly close to being a sigh. "You seem to be the only person who is willing enough to tell others the truth and are quite possibly the only person who knows the truth."

"Why are you so interested in knowing? I was under the impression that you had all deemed Hinata a worthless cause."

Hanabi's lips quirked up a little at the sides. "She was clumsy and had foolish thoughts and dreams – that I' won't deny – but she was never stupid. I already know most of the story; bits and pieces. Itachi offered her strength, Naruto broke her heart, she left, she trained, she came back and fought, and she lost." She paused as if considering if she should add or discard what she said next. "Haruno told me that she was in pain though it all, because she never stopped loving her fiancé." She said Haruno and fiancé with almost inaudible distaste. Shino caught it immediately.

Finally, Shino took up his cup and drank, when he put it back down it was empty. He considered whether or not he should disobey orders and tell someone else what he knew; the full truth. It was a battle that he found embarrassingly easy to lose; his desire for someone to understand had been fed too many disappointments and had, for now, grown too strong for him to push aside. "She spat in his face."

Hanabi's cold mask broke completely for all of a millisecond. "Pardon?"

"When they last fought – in the battle where she was killed by Itachi – Hinata spat in Naruto's face and told him to go to hell." He said all of this with all the emotion of someone who was being forced to talk to their overbearing aunt (emotion = 0). Hanabi said nothing, was possibly too shocked to speak, and so he continued, his bugs calm for the moment and no longer buzzing. "It was Itachi's sword through her chest, and Itachi who had left her behind, but in the end she spat in Naruto's face and damned him to hell as he tried to bring her back to Konoha for healing, and then bit her own tongue off and bled to death… gomen, choked on her own blood is what I should say, when Sakura managed to heal her enough to last the trip to the hospital. We never noticed anything until the blood started to leak from her lips." And the choking gargle reached their ears, but Hanabi did not need to know about the oddly acute gargle of a drowning person, nor about how clearly it had passed through their minds.

Hanabi seemed to had found her voice by this time and asked, "Why?" hesitantly, Hyuuga coldness gone, leaving a small child – the younger sister of his late friend. "…Why choose Itachi over him?" As she continued, the gears in her mind started to spin and the words spilled from her mouth one after the next. "Why not curse Itachi instead, why would she go to such drastic measures to keep herself aligned to a criminal in the eyes of others. Did she…" Somewhere during her short rant her eyes had turned downwards, now they snapped back onto Shino, clear and dangerous; as all Hyuuga eyes were. "Did she… love him?"

Hanabi's eyes glared at him, ordering him to answer and Shino would, but not yet. First Hanabi needed to calm down. He beckoned with one hand towards the sliding door and a waiter came to him from behind it, asking what it was he and "the Lady" wanted. Shino asked for iced tea and looked inquiringly at Hanabi, who narrowed her eyes threateningly at him. "I will have the same as before," she told him, her eyes never leaving Shino's. The waiter might have bowed or might not have, neither of them would be able to tell if asked. When the waiter returned, Shino drank some of his tea calmly while Hanabi's steamed silently from the table, ignored.

"I can't tell if she loved him or not, and I don't think that it matters much. He acknowledged her existence."

Hanabi looked confused. "You mean to say… that Hinata loved Naruto but…" Shino smiled behind his high collar as he saw realization dawning in her eyes. "But Naruto never acknowledged her, once Sakura said 'yes' he didn't even know she existed, but Itachi gave her that acknowledgement; gave her more than that I would guess."

Shino nodded and finished his tea. "She was also with child when she died-"

"What!?" Shino barely finished his sentence before Hanabi's exclamation. All the mannerisms of the Hyuuga seemed to have vanished from Hanabi's mind, right now, she was as she should be; a little girl enthralled in the story of her one-chan. "H-how?"

""I'm not sure, but Tsunade-sama confirmed that it was Itachi's from his file."

"So…" Hanabi's gaze fell to her lap, "she really did love him, then."

"Perhaps." Hanabi did not look up, which worried Shino somewhat. Maybe he should have resisted the urge to divulge what he knew on the young girl, after all, she was – what? – 10, 12? "She might have just given herself to him merely because she finally felt needed, or he could have raped her…" Shino trailed off when he saw the tear fall to Hanabi's lap. Her shoulders were shaking and more tiny droplets fess to her lap. Shino was, for what was probably the first time in his life, at a loss. How does one comfort a crying Hyuuga? "Hanabi-sama?" Calling her name appeared to only make things worse as the soft sounds of her sobs met his ears.

Shino found himself unable to do anything other than sit rigidly with his shoulders stiff, wracking his brain for what he should do. It was unbecoming of a Hyuuga to cry in public, and although Hanabi's back was turned to the door of the private room they were in so that their personal waiters could not see her, should someone come in through the door behind Shino where the main room of the restaurant was…

Then it came to him in a clear sharp imagery, something that no doubt came from Hinata as it was something he himself would have been unable to think of. Shino turned the idea over in his head until he finally could no longer stand the young heiress' sobs. He stood up and walked around the small table, falling softly to his knees beside the crying girl, then froze, wondering what in the world he was thinking. It didn't matter as Hanabi all but threw herself onto him, her frame wracking with sobs, her face pressed into his coat, ,muffling her cries so that only the two of them could hear them. Underneath his high collar, Shino turned pink, then hesitantly – almost wary of the young girl – he hugged back.

Shino had the feeling that somehow, somewhere Hinata was watching them amused at what she had caused; she and her unborn child watching their lives with eccentric smiles that betrayed their mischief. It was a fleeting feeling that passed completely once he cast his gaze down at Hanabi, meeting her teary child-like eyes. He smiled at her with his eyes. "Are you sure that you want me to continue?" he heard himself say and he knew the answer forming on her lips before she had a chance to utter it.

"Everything."

-------------------End Story-------------------

I know, it kind of turned into a little Shinabi moment right there at the end, and no, it was not planned, it just happened.

Read, review, and criticize constructively. I hope you somewhat enjoyed it, and now I have to go back to working on the last chapter of When Good Girls Go Bad, so…

Ja ne ;)