Author's Note: I wanted to say this story showed up out of nowhere one day and I just had to put it on paper. Hinata has always been one of my favorite characters and I personally find it unfortunate how easy it is for her to simply fall through the cracks. This story started as a one-shot but it grew too large. I divided it up and I expect it will be around three to five chapters in length. Also, I want to thank my betareaders who did an amazing job fine-tuning this piece.
Summary: Life is a balance between what we want and what we need. And Hinata wants what she can never have. Naruto/Hinata.
Betareaders: Maerchen Freunde, Perpetual159, and eternalshiva.
Little Ironies:
Chapter One
Hinata was on border patrol when the letter came.
A young chunin, no more than fourteen, made the delivery. Hinata stared at his white eyes and the tattoo of the caged bird that stubbornly peeked out below his headband. No doubt he was specifically chosen by her father to give a full report of the encounter when he returned to Konoha. Her spine automatically straightened and her chin rose up a notch. It had been hard enough to earn a patrol away from home and out of her family's hands; Hinata couldn't afford to appear weak now.
She took the letter from him and nodded her dismissal. She turned to look at Shikamaru who was leading the mission. Intuitive as always, the lazy ninja waved her off, letting her know in his own way that she was relieved from duty.
Grateful, Hinata nodded and headed to her tent to read the letter in private. Sitting on her unfurled sleeping bag, the quiet Hyuuga allowed— although begrudgingly—the feeling of dread she had been ignoring from the moment she laid eyes on the branch member to wash over her. She knew the letter couldn't be good. Her family never bothered to contact her despite the semi-regular reports she'd send them. The fact they went out of their way to send a chunin from within the family meant that the clan had a message for her they didn't want other shinobi seeing.
The official Hyuuga seal stared at her and she struggled to still the faint trembling of her hands as she carefully opened it. It took a moment for her to decipher the elegant script and careful wording; the calligraphic loops and curves were a far cry from Kiba's careless scrawl and Shino's tiny writing, but eventually she understood the significance of the letter in her hands and the directive behind it.
And she wanted to cry.
Hinata reread the directive over and over again, hoping she was imagining things, hoping she'd read wrong, but the words hadn't changed. Anger enveloped her, and for the very first time in her life, Hinata felt like breaking something... or... or hitting someone, even.
She was ordered to return home effective immediately. She, Hinata Hyuuga, was now officially engaged. Her eyes followed the name of this man and the words etched themselves inside her mind. The wedding to Ryu Takahashi would take place in less than two months.
In a fit of frustration, the letter crumpled in her hands and fell to the ground, discarded. Tears began to pool in her eyes and she wiped them away angrily. Then her shoulders sagged and she shook her head.
Taking a deep breath, Hinata knelt in the middle of her tent and began to pack her bags with quiet efficiency. Her heart ached and her hands shook as they carried out the chore. In truth, Hinata had always known that this day would come, but, knowing the inevitable and facing her destiny were two different matters altogether.
Despite that, she wished that she had more time.
She wanted a few more missions. She longed for a few more evenings around the campfire. She hoped for a few more days dripping in sweat from blistering heat. Anything would be better than returning home to her family, or more specifically, returning home to be wed to a stranger.
However, she knew that even with more time, it wouldn't make leaving any easier.
She paused before opening the flap of her tent. It had been her home for the past five months.
She couldn't help but grieve a little at the thought of her sudden departure. The weeklong trip back to Konoha would plague her with memories. While some may dislike living outdoors in tents for extended periods, it never bothered Hinata. The people had been friendly, appreciative of her gift to see beyond the forest's edge. The food may not have been made by a team of professional chefs, but it came with smiles and stories while the group camped around a small fire.
She imagined that it was what a home felt like.
"Hyuuga-sama?"
She looked at the young chunin who waited to lead her back home. No doubt his presence was to ensure that she wouldn't do something so disgraceful like running away. Her family would be forever shamed if she dared to indulge in such an outrageous scandal.
Hinata looked into the chunin's eyes and in the milky reflection, she saw the eyes of her father, her cousin, and the clan elders. Generations of Hyuuga looked back at her and Hinata shuddered at the thought of those scornful eyes fixating on her.
"Hyuuga-sama," he called again, "I have made the necessary arrangements and notified your mission captain of our departure."
Hinata was careful to keep her expression stoic as the chunin waited for her reply.
"Let's go, then," she said quietly, turning away from the campsite and leapt into the trees. She didn't want to say goodbye. It would only make leaving even harder.
As she flew from tree to tree, she realized that perhaps that was what she would miss most about the camp was the sense of familiarity they shared with her— hearing people call her Hinata. Soon, she wouldn't even be able to call herself a Hyuuga, and the emptiness this realization created in her crushed her heart. The last bit of her identity would be stripped away forever. After she was married, she would be known as the wife of Ryu Takahashi, nothing more.
In the few days following her return to Konoha, Hinata began to learn more about her appointed fiancé.
Surrounded by the clan elders, Hinata carefully looked over the report about her future husband provided to her in a thick folder.
According to the information gathered by the Hyuuga Council, Ryu Takahashi was a fair man. His household was run strictly but not unjustly. He made his fortune as a merchant located in Iwagakure. Within a few short years, his shrewd business mind gained him enough profits to double his house. A couple of years after that, said growing profits enabled him to buy a different place entirely. She'd be marrying a decent, though not benevolent, man.
She could survive there, she told herself. She was strong; she could make it work.
When she noticed a photo of Takahashi tucked between the pages near the back, she was stunned.
It wasn't the cold apathy of his expression that took her by surprise, but the sight of his eyes. Unlike their distant cousin, the Uchiha, the Hyuuga bloodline limit relied on possessing light colored eyes in order to decrease the interference with their kekkei genkai. The paler the iris, the greater the chances of passing down a stronger Byakugan to the next generation. Yet, Takahashi's were blacker than coal.
Hinata didn't want to admit it, but it would seem that she was such a disgrace to her family that not only did she not deserve to carry the family name, but she was unworthy of passing the Byakugan to her offspring. She never imagined that they would go so far as taking measures to ensure she would never give birth to child with the Byakugan.
Still, she bowed her head in acceptance. This was the future she had been preparing for since she was a child. She knew as a daughter of the main family that her marriage would be arranged. She was fortunate that they had waited as long as they did. Most arranged marriages in her family were set at age sixteen and carried out before the child hit twenty. Hinata was twenty-two.
Just before the meeting was dismissed, the Hyuuga council had one last thing to say. One last tiny bit of information that made her heart squeeze and her lungs run out of oxygen. The soon to be appointed sixth Hokage would preside over the wedding ceremony.
Naruto would be the one to give her away to someone else.
It would appear life was not without its little ironies.
"How wonderful," Hinata murmured.
She met her fiancé in person one month before the wedding. The elders had called them together to discus the betrothal and make final wedding arrangements. He was of decent height, just an inch shorter than her father, but what she found most interesting was that he was quite pale— much more than her and the rest of her family.
Yet, his eyes were what held her attention. She couldn't help but to notice how the darkness in them was all the more piercing in person than they had been in his picture. They reminded her of something she had wanted to forget— the first person she killed as a ninja.
It happened years ago, long before she had perfected her Hakkeshou Kaiten. She could still see him, the young shinobi from Kumogakure. She could still smell his sweat and desperation when he exploited her weakness and managed to break through her defenses. Chakra depleted, his large hands latched themselves around her throat like a vice and squeezed. She felt the air restricting and she grew desperate. Adrenaline rushed through her body and within moments she summoned a surge of chakra to her hands and slammed a fist against his rib. She felt his body move against its will— the sound of bones cracking and succumbing to the force of her fist. She felt a splash of blood and the taste of copper momentarily poisoned her senses. When he dropped to the ground, she realized, with horror, that his stomach had exploded.
For weeks after it happened, Hinata swore she could still feel his hands gripping her throat, suffocating her.
She felt that way now, but a shinobi of Konoha did not show fear. Instead, she knew to keep her head held high. She smiled politely and played her part. In the end, the fact that she avoided looking at her future husband was something no one would care about, anyway.
The meeting went smoothly and Hinata paid attention only peripherally.
Ryu would be required to live in the Hyuuga compound for a period of a year, after which he could return to Iwagakure with his new wife. Additionally, the elders told her that they expected children in no more than two years.
Hinata looked at Ryu's hands—softened by his merchant ways—and tried to imagine them on her skin.
She shuddered slightly and closed her eyes momentarily.
If only his hands were rough, she thought.
If only his face were tanned by the sun.
If only his eyes were blue.
The next day she received a summons ordering her to report to the Hokage's office. It was then she realized that no matter how bad things got, they could always get worse.
Hinata left the compound dressed as the typical Hyuuga should. She wore the long white robes. She left her hair unadorned. She looked like the perfect daughter of the Hyuuga branch.
She walked quietly through the village. Occasionally, she greeted an old friend or comrade as she made her way. Yet her eyes stayed fixated on the tower before her as she braced herself for a meeting she did not want to have.
Soon enough, she found herself standing before her longtime childhood crush.
"Hey, Hinata-chan."
"Hello, Hokage-sama," she replied with a low bow.
Naruto scratched his head sheepishly. In that moment he looked more like the twelve-year-old kid she had a crush on than the twenty-two year old man she continued to love.
"You can just call me Naruto. I won't officially be the Hokage for another couple of weeks," he said genially.
She knew that.
In fact, his inauguration was the day before her wedding.
She wondered if her father had planned it that way, but she quickly dismissed the thought. Despite the fact that her feelings for the blond were never a secret to the village, she did everything within her power to not make it blatantly obvious to her family. Still, the timing was suspicious and made her worry that perhaps she hadn't acted as calmly as she thought when they announced who was presiding over the ceremony.
She shrugged away those thoughts and bowed again. "As you wish, Naruto-sama." The words felt strange and unfamiliar on her tongue. She prayed that Naruto wouldn't notice the change. At the same time, she hoped he would.
He didn't.
"So, you're getting married," he remarked, taking a seat on the corner of his desk and motioning for her to relax in one of the chairs. "Congratulations!"
"Thank you," she said with a polite smile and took a seat.
Her insides twisted painfully and her body felt stiff with tension. It felt as though a knife was plunged in the middle of her back and no matter how much she twisted and turned, she would never be able to remove it by herself.
"Have you guys met yet?" asked Naruto with a friendly smile.
"Yes," she replied dutifully, "just yesterday."
"Well?"
She looked at him confused.
He laughed, boyish amusement making his blue eyes twinkle.
Her heart leapt at the sight of those eyes that she hadn't seen in so long. Her stomach twisted painfully at the thought of never seeing them again.
"Do you like him?" he asked. The way his eyes gleamed playfully almost gave her the impression that they were children in school, gossiping over the newest crush.
Hinata thought of Ryu's cold black eyes and soft looking hands. She recalled the elders' watchful gaze as they observed the meeting.
"He will make a good husband," she said diplomatically.
Naruto smiled. "And?"
She looked at him confused once again. "A-and?" she parroted.
He shook his head in mock exasperation.
"Do you love him?"
The question was dropped on her without warning with enough force to send her mind reeling.
"Love has nothing to do with it." The words escaped her mouth by reflex, before she could even stop them. Yet, now that it was out in the open, she could only wait to hear his response.
"But, Hinata-chan," he protested with childlike eyes, so wide and innocent, "how can you marry someone you don't love?"
The question tore at her heart and attempted to tease the truth from her lips.
Because the one I love doesn't love me.
Instead, she thought of a suitable response. Pushing aside the pain, she recited the exact same words she had been given as a child. "Hyuugas have a responsibility to do what is best for the clan, not for themselves."
"I see," he said nodding gravely. With his trademark smile absent from his expression he leaned slightly towards her face. "But will that make you happy?"
A faint wry smile took hold of her lips as she repeated the rest of her father's words. "Happiness comes from serving the needs of the clan and not the wants of the individual."
"But what is it that what you want?" he insisted.
His persistency brought her back to the memory of a little blue-eyed boy with hair as golden as the sun and a stubbornness that could move mountains. She was reminded of the young ninja who told her to always believe in herself.
She thought about how the very man that stood before her could ask her such a question without knowing how much it would hurt her.
"Nothing," she said in a pained whisper he missed. Her eyes lowered to the floor, hiding the shame and despair she felt buried inside. "I want nothing but to serve the clan."
Her words were but whispers, shallow lies even she didn't believe. Naruto narrowed his eyes as he gazed at her. For a moment, she was sure he'd caught on to her lie and she felt a pang of hope he would confront her. But he merely nodded and Hinata felt the reality of her situation crushing her under his kind gaze.
Hinata left the Hokage's tower in a downtrodden daze. Normally seeing Naruto would brighten her mood for days; his joyful exuberance had always inspired an overwhelming feeling of hope in her. But seeing him today only made the ache in her heart feel a little deeper, the pain a little sharper. She loved him. And he would never know.
But maybe it was for the best.
Her future was set. And nothing could change it.