Remains of the Day
Prologue:
She looks up, and observes with grotesque fascination at what technically qualifies as a ghost, sitting across from her; becoming more and more alive than any corpse should ever be. He keeps rotating the small cup between his fingers, and she just stares. Flesh and skin (or what she thinks is flesh and skin) has nearly finished regenerating around what had been grey bones. This wasn't a normal healing jutsu, or else she wouldn't feel this sick. It was like watching an old VCR tape on rewind, flashing film footage of meat rotting in reverse. The only spot of incomplete epidermis she can find are the areas above his collarbone, by the base of his neck, the sides of his wrists. There are still probably other areas still in recovery, where ivory skin slowly crept over gaping flesh, like life in a meadow, halting at an edge of a receding cliff made of blood and muscle.
Hinata feels almost like a witch, or doctor Frankenstein. Mostly, she was too tired to feel anything at all. Finally, he rests his hand, and tests his automotive control by slowly flexing his fingers. His long fingers recoil back into a lax fist before his arm drops calmly back onto his side. You wouldn't even guess he's been dead. Twice.
He doesn't want this. Even if he had died young…living and dying and living and dying again eventually loses it charm…it if even ever had any. She wants to tell him that she's sorry, but it will only do more good on her conscience than good on his soul. So Hinata doesn't; but she promises herself (and him, regardless of what he thought) that she'll repay him back, somehow. Right now, it's the moment of truth.
In a low and a surprisingly soft voice, he says, "Explain."
For the first time since she illegally smuggled his carcass from the graveyard and hauled it back up to her dingy one-room apartment that technically wasn't even hers, she peers into his eyes, cryptic and bright, like spilt gasoline on black pavement.
"I-I could be crazy," Hinata confess, looking away so it was clear she wasn't joking (and hopefully not serious enough for him to think she was a lunatic, but she wouldn't blame him, wouldn't blame him for anything) "But I don't think so, t-there is a genjutsu…"
Please, please…PLEASE believe me.
"A-And I think you're the only one who can break it."
Konoha air in the dead of summer was suffocating. The cloudy humidity always covers your skin in a perpetual sheen of sweat. It makes a person drowsy and uncomfortable, and the only reliefs were brief and usually very intense rainfalls. This summer was no exception; the officials even proclaimed last week that this year was going to be the hottest of them all.
Luckily Hinata didn't mind the weather too much. It wasn't majorly inconveniencing her in any way. But now with the war long ended, the pressure of being heiress taken from her shoulders, and Naruto gone again…Hinata, to say the least, has been leading a very, lackadaisical life.
It's really inexplicable how hard it is to redirect your life's purpose when what you had anticipated since childhood never ends up becoming, what they say, 'the rest of your life'. At the moment, Hinata didn't have many goals, even though many things have changed. You would think… Well, she still trained with her teammates, but it wasn't any longer at the level that was once required of her. Mostly she finds herself helping out at the lab by the Hokage tower, they say her byakugan comes in handy; She wouldn't know. Hinata's even took the liberty to move out from the compound, something she never thought she would. She liked her new place. Was this the taste of freedom they've all told her about, this incredible lightness of being? Whatever it was, it made her sigh more, as it she would feel more grounded if she breathed out more air. Kind of like a balloon. Only Hinata wasn't a balloon, so it really didn't work.
It was like being stuck in limbo, no beginnings, and no ends. The only productive thing she's accomplished yesterday was that she changed all the soil in her potted plants. A day before that, it was walking down to the town's market for groceries. There wasn't anything making her unhappy. Maybe she wanted change, but for the first time in her life she felt no motivation. Life had an impossible trance like quality these days, neither fantastical nor significant; but a oneness, like being half emerged in water; not fully conscious, just floating in between heavy and weightless, like an inflated ball drifting down a river.
One night, after the tiny physical exertion by washing the few dishes she used during dinner, Hinata suddenly hoped with a desperate intensity that something was to be bound to change. Of course, it doesn't occur to her until much later that there are reasons why people tell you be careful about what you wish for.
Exactly three days later, Kiba will show up at her door, telling her they were going to get a new member in their team.
"Ah…a new teammate?"
"Yeah, Hinatsu-chan."
"Hin…Hinatsu-chan?"
"Sounds a lot like your name eh, Hinata-chan? Summer day. She's a girl with a man's name, pretty cool right? You'll meet her soon."
She had no idea prior that they were going to get a new teammate. It made some sense though. Kurenai no longer accompanied them to their missions and she herself was stuck at the Hokage tower. Considering Kiba's eagerness to tell her about it, she can tell their new teammate left a good impression on him.
Their names did sound really similar though; Hinata almost thought Kiba called her the wrong name.
Hi-na-ta, Hi-na-tsu.
"Ah, of course. That sounds good."