Title: Rejoice, Rejoice!
Characters/Pairings: Hinata; One-sided Naruto/Hinata.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or any of its characters.
A/N: To anyone who feels or have ever felt trapped. A sorry to whoever's requests I am currently procrastinating on. Another one for what might be couple grammatical mistakes. A thanks to reviews!
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She is trapped, and all she'll ever be is trapped.
These six walls bind her, constrict her every move. There is no sleep to ease her fatigue, no food to quiet her stomach, no water to quench her thirst. There is only pale white for her to press her ear up against and listen for signs of the outside. There is only wall for her to look through to find you.
She finds little to put her feet on, the wall beneath them is white just like all the others and is twice as ugly. She cannot move properly on it without fear of crashing through (to what she is uncertain), nor can she stand still without it shaking from her weight. So she moves from wall to wall in hopes of change, but finds none.
The ceiling is not quite a ceiling, she's determined after all these years, because a ceiling would be something to keep the weather out, and all it does is keep the sunshine from coming in. She can feel the rain on her head and the snow on her tongue, and all the cold and heat through her thin dress, and thinks that this is no room to be in at all if it has no way of protection.
All there are are walls to trap her, and wish her ill when she is in need of help. The white walls in all directions would have driven her insane, if not for how thin they could be. Some days, she will press her petite ears up to the center of one for hours on end, listening and waiting. She's not sure what she's listening for, or what she's waiting for (considering all these years alone), because she's too busy finding another shallow part in the drywall before something stuffs it back up again. And stuffs her back up again.
But over the years she's come to recognize the faces and voices that come past her and her shackles.
There is a strong girl that you've come to grow fond of over the years, with pink hair and a much-teased-about large forehead. She is strong beyond belief, and delicate in few ways at all. But her heart is brittle, and twists around you. Every time you are rejected by her, she dies a little over your sadness, because she can feel it, just as you can feel it.
There is a troubled boy that you've befriended to the point of becoming brothers, with handsome features and a retired fanclub of rabid girls. He has since run off to a distant land with a distant purpose, and she grows lonesome when you are gone in your futile attempts at rescuing him from what very well might be himself. And when you return with failure on your weakened shoulders, she feels it, because you feel it too.
She does her best to cheer you up and on, from within her cell, she swears she does with all her might. But all she is to you, she knows by now, is a songbird. Something to entertain yourself with for a moment before moving on, with the same somber look. This makes her uncontrollably sad, and can only be comforted by the fact that you will bounce back soon with no real effort at all.
Trying to help has never really done well with her, because the walls will and have grown hands to restrict her. She will reach out her hands and kick her feet and cry her tears but all it has gotten her was an empathetic smile from you, and those few times she's achieved it she can't help but feel that she's failed again.
She would know.
Every time you go off to find the man that you once knew (and perhaps once were), she cheers for you. She shouts through the thin walls that you will find him this time, that you will be victorious. You tilt your head to the side at what seems to be simply noise, and return to your never-ending mission. Then is when her cheering ceases momentarily, before continuing at a thousand times the volume.
She is your faithful disciple, to learn and live through you as you have never done so yourself.
There are many things she wants to tell you. She wants you to listen, then, and truly absorb her words. She wishes to tell you to stop living in the past, that it will only bring about more emptiness in your fading eyes. She wishes to tell you that you are not, nor have you ever been, alone. She wishes to tell you that you are perfect, just the way you are.
She wishes to tell you that she has been watching all this time, but blushes at the mere thought of doing so.
So she continues to shout and cheer and clap from behind these six walls, and grows louder and louder by doing so. She wants to weaken these walls like they weaken her. As strong as she is, as strong as you'll never see she is, she is dying from the heart out. But she holds you above herself, and goes on about her devotion like a contented dog.
Oh, if only you would hear her.
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