Kittens
Naruto feels crushed. Hinata went on a solo mission two weeks ago and now she's in the hospital and severely brain damaged.
She can't remember anything. Except for the fact that Naruto reminds her of kittens. Sakura thinks that Naruto could help Hinata recover.
NaruHina therapy.
+ AU-ish. Just think of it as a world where Sasuke never joined Orichimaru, no Madara or Akatsuki either.
+ Hinata is twenty-two, Naruto twenty-one. Hinata is a very good tracker, and is a tokubetsu jonin.
+ Hinata is someone who Naruto is secretly a bit fond of. Hinata's interest for Naruto will be explained as the story goes on.
+ Some of this will be told from Hinata's view, so if anything is beyond mindfuck confusing, it's
because Hinata is suffering from severe brain damage so everything is whacked up in her head.
Chapter 1 : Questions
( Hinata )
She can't remember anything, only gets flashes of trees and leaves and somebody turning around to look at her in slow motion.
The painful thing is that she can't remember her own name.
please listen to this song :) www()youtube()com/watch?v=ukLJ84jEofE
The cover the tree provides is ideal — thick fat leaves a rich green colour, blooming in the sun. Summer is always the best season to hunt in — low perspiration, good foliage to hide in, tracks easy to find in the fresh earth, little darkness for the target to escape in, the wild food that grows in case she runs out of supplies, the confusing plethora of scents to mask herself in as she creeps closer to her target-
She's always been good at smelling, sniffing out the differences in the air and being able to confirm it with her sharp eyes.
She's about to let the knife in her hand, aimed at the back of the knee of her target /prey/, fly and imbed itself in warm flesh, where it would sink into tired muscles and the tendons will fly off and snap like rubber bands, but she feels a tingle of warning flash up her spine. She hesitates.
The target turns slowly, sunlight dappled through swaying trees rippling over his back and
the wind direction has changed. That's important.
Why is that important? She's good at smelling.
What's she doing ag— ?
Something hurts. It's unpleasant.
Why does it hurt?
The leaves are dancing and someone in a white kimono is walking past her and smiles and waves at her. The sky is bright and it feels like a big blue eye is blinking at her. It starts singing songs to her but she can't understand anything because the ground is swallowing her up and it feels like she's somersaulting through time and space and millions of galaxies until stars explode behind her eyelids and she starts singing that song too and there are shutter images, white flashes of explosions and cloth and things are shutting down, going dark and very painful, the somersaults are making her sick and now she's lying on the ground in puddles of leaves and stardust —
She wakes up and it feels like her body is made of cotton, limbs kitten weak and eyesight fuzzy. She blinks rapidly, wants to rub at her eyes with her knuckles but her arms don't want to — they're on vacation and so are her knees, but at least her toes wriggle and say hello to her.
There are these warm white things covering her body and there are some walls and a window and a shadowy ghost near her. Something tells her that she's lying in bed.
There's another creature near her and it looks like it tastes like bubblegum. She doesn't know why but she's convinced that it wants to annoy her.
Her nose itches. She wants to scratch it.
"Hey Hinata, do you know where you are?" The bubblegum creature asks her.
At first she feels annoyed because the thing is talking so slowly that it feels like the thing is trying to provoke her, but then she thinks about the thing's question and realises that she doesn't really know.
She tries figuring it out.
She's laying on a bed.
"My bedroom?" she rasps.
Why does her throat hurt? The thing stops her from scratching her nose. Puts her arm back on the bed. She didn't even realise that her arms had come back from their holiday.
The thing shakes its head. "We're in a hospital Hinata." Then, "Do you remember anything?"
She thinks about it. Remembers cotton fuzz and her mind like water through a civ. There are green leaves, she's good at—
"Smelling."
The ghost — she doesn't remember it being there. It laughs, coughs almost, like it's raspy like her.
"I'm good at smelling things."
The bubblegum thing tilts its head. Is it smiling? It looks at the ghost shadow, says something faster than she can really catch; "— have to ask Kiba or Shino later ..."
She wants to scratch her nose.
"Why does my nose hurt?" she asks, and the bubblegum thing — it looks pink — twitches like it's uncomfortable. The pink thing doesn't answer and the ghost shifts too. "What are you?" she asks instead.
The pink thing seems surprised. "What do you think I am?" The thing's voice quivers slightly. The ghost hovers. She tries remembering, really tries to think up of something that is like the creature in front of her but all that she can think of is a blank haze and water running, ships trapped in a bottle and a sugary cotton that is rosy red.
"Pink?" she says, then nods her head in conviction. "Bubblegum thing."
"What do you think my name is?" it asks.
"I don't know. Pinky?"
The ghost laughs, but it's a bit cut off, like a whimper. She can remember a whimper from something but she doesn't know from where. Her head is too full of dandy fluff and cotton, finds it difficult to sift through to get the knowledge.
Pinky points to the ghost. "Who do you think that is?" She turns her head slightly, feels a sudden stab of pain that has her wincing, wanting to clutch her head but Pinky stops her before she can reach up. "Don't move too much Hinata, or you'll hurt yourself even more." Pinky warns.
The ghost is looking at her. Big blue eye in the sky. "Blue eye," she says, tries looking at the ghost better, but it doesn't seem to gain a real form like Pinky does. Maybe she should give it a name? "I can't see it so well."
"You can't?" There's something like disbelief in Pinky's voice. She shakes her head, no.
"Who do you think that is?" Pinky asks again.
The ghost moves closer, "A ghost, but I can't really see — oh."
The ghost's formless grey shape moves closer, and now she can see blue eyes and sunlight on its head and kitten whiskers, she mewls because the ghost suddenly has a name, but also because it's wearing orange and also black and she's never been so happy to see a rainbow of colours before. Something associates the orange colour with happiness and warmth, unlike Pinky, where she thinks of irritation.
"Orange? Kitten?"
The ghost looks concerned, and draws a little closer so that it ends up near her face. The ghost comes into better focus.
"Blue ey— Naruto?"
Naruto gasps, blue eyes twinkling like water, glittering prettily. He looks like he wants to cry, which she thinks is weird. She still wonders why they're all in her bedroom and why her nose and head and throat hurt.
Pinky moves over to Naruto's side. "You remember Naruto?"
Naruto seems to tremble, like a cord struck, vibrating his feelings all through the room. His hands, shaking slightly, rest on her bed and grip the cloths near her arm. She wants him to hold her hand but she thinks that Pinky won't let her.
"You recognise me?" he says, awe in his voice, cord struck within him again. It sounds like a little tinkling bell.
She wants to nod, but doesn't because she doesn't want to feel the pain again. "Yes." She says. She remembers orange flashes, sunlit days, smiles coming easy like breathing, a field full of green grass and some wooden poles. "You said that I was weird."
Naruto flinches. He looks like he doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Pinky turns its head to look at Naruto as if he was being weird himself. Pinky then turns back to her, and now she can make out some other things because Pinky is standing closer now. Pink, red, something green that is probably Pinky's eyes. She can see Pinky now, but it's all fuzzy, like all she needs is to squint her eyes some more and then the puzzle pieces will connect and she'll be able to really see what's there.
"Do you know who I am now?" Pinky asks next to Naruto.
"No. Pink."
Pinky continues asking questions. As she looks, butterflies start fluttering near her toes and there's a leaf stuck in Naruto's hair and Pinky seems to zoom in and out of focus.
"Do you remember where you are?"
No. Make a guess.
"My bedroom. Why?"
"You're in hospital. You were hurt." Naruto looks pained as Pinky says that. It confuses her.
Suddenly Naruto starts, interrupts Pinky's questions. Asks his own.
"What's your name?"
Oh.
In the background, fuzzy and dampened, Pinky is punishing Naruto for interrupting it, saying stuff like "Jesus Naruto don't interrupt me, I ask the questions." "Well sorry Sakura but she's high as a fucking kite and you're still asking her questions you've already asked!" "Do you want to ask her next why she's good at smelling things then?" But all of that is said too fast, too complicated for her to pick up and tiredly decipher. All she can think about is what is your name and finding no answer to that question.
She doesn't know who she is, and that feels like a crushing weight over her chest, feels a block form in her throat and her eyes hurt. The butterfly by her toes bursts and vanishes and the leaf in Naruto's hair is gone too and she's imagining something else now. It feels different, less heavy in a way. Light and quick and sharp. Metallic. The deft way she holds the sharpness in one hand and looks as somebody turns around to look at fat green leaves, feels a chocking sensation and the fleeting images of someone skipping along her in a white dress, sings a song — it hurts.
Her face feels wet. She paws at her face before Pinky can stop her. Realises that she's hiccupping. Naruto looks shocked, blue eyes wide, mouth gaping at her. Pinky is equally shocked, but its features are still blocked.
"I— … I don't know."
Her face burns and talking hurts with the block over her chest and in her throat.
"I don't know who I am."
Please don't expect me to update this quickly, as I've got exams at the moment and this is a form of sinful, self-harming procrastination.
I was watching an episode of 24 Hours in A&E (Accident & Emergency) when this young girl arrived. She'd fallen asleep at her desk during class and when the teacher woke her up she was really confused and was hallucinating. The nurse at the hospital asked her where she was and she said she was in her bedroom. She was seriously trippy. That was sort of my inspiration for writing a trippy brain damaged NaruHina with memory loss. xP
Anyway, you can encourage me by reviewing! ;P