Night of Crimson Encounter
Summary: Hinata liked being with Sasuke-senpai though he was strange at times. Yet she never expected that one late visit to him would lead her to two secrets; the secret he shared with the other Night Class Students of Cross Academy and the secret of his heart.
Disclaimer: A big thanks to Masashi Kishimoto and Matsuri Hino for their interesting characters we base our stories on.
'The secret I cannot tell keeps for me your sweet smile.'
Vesper
(Evening)
On that particular evening, Hinata confirmed that Sasuke-senpai never really slept in the stables.
She had been brushing the horses. Or trying to brush them, for the new brushes were a tad too big for her little hands. When one of those heavy wooden things fell with a thud to the ground again, Hinata could not help hearing the slight grunt coming at once from Sasuke's corner.
"Senpai…?" She immediately turned her narrowed eyes at the supposedly sleeping figure of the older boy.
At first glance, Sasuke did look fairly deep in sleep. Head still pillowed on his hands, he remained motionless under her accusing eyes. And attractive as usual, much like other Night Class students. Even with his dark eyes closed, his chiseled features remained mesmerizing. In the weakening rays, his fair skin which seemed paler against the golden straw had not hurt his looks any. His slightly ruffled white uniform, unbuttoned at the collar which exposed part of his well-built body, only make him looked all the more good-looking; it was no wonder that he had a pretty large group of admirers of his own like Kaname-senpai, Aidou-senpai, Kain-senpai and Shiki-senpai all had.
Yet under the unruly black hair falling over his forehead, it was rather hard to tell whether he was sleeping. However, by now Hinata seriously doubted that Sasuke-senpai had not peeked through his long eyelashes from time to time in all the months they spent together.
No, there were far too many 'by chances' for that. And then there was the grunt which she pretty sure was actually a muffled chuckle…
"Perhaps an experiment would tell me the truth," she muttered under her breath. Eyes twinkling mischeviosly, she slowly knelt and reached for one of those large brushes.
"The largest would be good for the head." With her fingers getting a hold on the smooth wood, Hinata started counting softly.
"One, two…"
Sasuke opened one eye just as she was about to let the brush fly.
"So even Hinata-chan had a mean streak in her huh?" He raised an eyebrow in his otherwise stoic face, his voice smooth and indifferent, even cold to a certain extent. "I've finally seen the true colors of our 'sweet Hyuuga girl'."
Five months ago Hinata would have winced, but now she only rolled her eyes. "See Kuri, Sasuke-senpai simply cannot take his eyes off you," she said in return as she turned back to Kuri. Brush in hand, Hinata started to brush the chestnut again calmly as if nothing had happened though she could not resist another comment.
"Speaking of true colors, someone had just been caught pretending to be asleep...wonder what would he had in mind then huh, Kuri?" She gave the horse a casual pat before cocking her head in feigned thoughtfulness while waiting for a response.
A grunt came from Sasuke's direction again, and Hinata chuckled as the shifting sounds that followed told her that Sasuke-senpai had probably turned his back towards her.
"I just don't want my favorite horse killed." came the reply. "And some clumsy girl woke me up with those falling brushes. Juniors were getting worse these days…Hmph."
Hinata could just picture Sasuke shaking his head towards the wall, his dark eyes filled with fake disappointment. Like he always did when he lent a hand when he noticed that the bags of feed were too bulky, the pails of water were too heavy 'by chance'.
"These were new; they only came yesterday," she protested with a smile as she continued with her work. "You know I had been doing a good job nowadays with the horses. And I don't think you're even sleeping in the first place either, you may have never actually slept before…"
This time a rather gruff and louder "Hmph." was the only reply she got, but Hinata only smiled and shook her head at Sasuke's silent confession.
"Senpai…"
**************
Behind Hinata, Sasuke Uchiha smiled in spite of himself towards the wall. Only Hinata Hyuuga would have taken five long months to be sure of that, that clumsy little thing. He would have used the word 'innocent', but then innocence did not include all that brush-dropping and lousy observation, even after all his looking out for her.
But then, she was Hinata Hyuuga; the girl who feared him rather than adored him at first sight, the girl who constantly seemed to find the horses more interesting than guys. She had shrunk back so much at the sight of him the first time they met, and he never recalled a day when she spoke more to him than to Kuri.
Nevertheless, she was always a pretty sight. Of course he could not help peeking since the first day they met; ever since Hinata set foot in the stables, he could not remember ever keeping his eyes off her.
Well, except for the first day. He smiled again in his recollection of their first encounter. He had never told her that even in his very brief and hostile glimpse of her, he had noticed how the light fell ever so lightly on her little porcelain face, how it dye those fine features, those flushed cheeks a very, very light crimson. And how those eyes—wide with shock then—seemed to shine, clear and warm. Nor did he tell her that from then on, no matter how hard Sasuke tried his eyes would stray at once to the stable doors when she arrived. No matter how much he tried to sleep, he would find his eyes following the young girl as she patted, stroked and brushed every horse of the stables.
Then when she struggled with those buckets of water, those sacks of feed—especially those stored somewhere in the loft on one certain day—he just had to move.
Now, he just enjoyed looking at the light smile which seemed to tug at her lips every day. Sasuke always thought that her smile seemed to be brighter under the sun; and though he would never admit it to anyone else other than himself, it always seemed to own the power of lightening his mood anytime, any day. Just like how her presence did.
And just like her name, Sasuke mused. 'A sunny smile from a Hyuuga, a daughter of the sun...'
Her slender yet full frame would also be in a light orange. For someone who seemed to be always dropping things, she could actually move ever so gracefully from horse to horse in her black Day Class uniform with a whisper now and then to the horses. Her long dark purplish black hair would just stream and swing some inches over her shoulders as she moved; sleek and smooth over her fair neck which no longer stuck upward like a stiff puppet-like extension like it did when they first met.
'Now it would felt so much softer, don't you think?'
"What?" Sasuke's half-closed eyes sprung open in shock, but the voice went on before he could react more.
'So much more…tempting now, wasn't it?'
"Stop!" He flinched, yet the damage was started. Almost immediately, the light which started out as a flicker in his eyes exploded into a thick cloud which shrouded his dark eyes and Sasuke could feel something else speeding through his body as the ghostly whisper continued to taunt him.
'To think, all that awkwardness of a first encounter would have caused one to overlook something so enticing then, to neglect such temptation even until time to time now...'
As if on cue, his breath quickened. His hands, which were folded some way ahead of his chest clenched into hard fists as in his struggle to push away the hateful voice.
'You let it sleep, even as the girl came closer and closer; the sweet, sweet girl…'
In a flash images which started to bombard his mind in a whir of colors and sensations. He tried to dodge the glimpses of the creamy skin, the smooth and creamy skin that would feel so soft, so soft under his fingers. Yet his breath grew ragged as more came, hacking away at the last portion of his crumbling defenses.
'Won't you wanna know how Her neck felt?'
To his horror, he found himself thinking 'Yes, Sasuke wanted so much to know, Sasuke wanted so much to feel for himself.'
"No, no, no, no, NO!" Sasuke gasped in desperation, but he knew he was fighting a losing fight. His tongue had already run over his pale red lips before his teeth sunk into his bottom lip. They stabbed hard into its soft surface; he could almost taste the blood. And he could not stop the one hand reaching out and grazing the wall in front of him, tracing circles as he begin to imagine his fingers dancing along the skin. When the first spots of red appeared on his lips, he licked them away without thinking.
Cliché, but the last was the best: 'And it was only inches away… Hinata Hyuuga's neck…'
The whisper came so quietly as usual that Sasuke failed to recognize that it came from his heart. Nor did he notice his own hoarse whisper as he stirred from where he laid.
At the moment, only one thing was on his mind. And the unearthly light in his eyes became twin suns; suns of desire.
"Hinata…"
**************
As she set away the brushes, Hinata remembered how awkward things were at first, when she had unknowingly stumbled upon Sasuke-senpai in the Cross Academy's stables on her first day of duty. She had been so excited at working with the horses that she had not noticed Sasuke by Kuri's box, but he must have heard her; his upper body flipped upwards so strongly from the straw that Hinata jumped. When her eyes fell on his face, she had not noticed the attractiveness until months later.
The dark aura around him then had overshadowed his beauty.
Sasuke-senpai merely glanced at her before turning his back, yet Hinata felt that his onyx eyes pierced through her entire body. The hostility was so strong that she almost turned and ran; only the thought of Chairman Cross's 'embrace of comfort for dear Hinata-chan'—which even his daughter Yuuki-chan would dodge—had stopped her in her tracks.
The next one hour and a half was spent in her sudden realization of how interesting the stable floors were. Even so, Hinata was incredibly fast in her work that day and she practically ran when everything was done, just in time to see him with other Night Class students on their way to their classes; she had kept her eyes so much on the ground that she had not even noticed when he was gone.
Only when the girls beside her screamed "Sasuke-senpai!" at the top of their voices did she knew that she had just crossed paths with the famous Sasuke, the member from the Uchiha clan who was among the top Night Class students.
Over the first few weeks she steeled herself mentally against his occasional glances which seem to bore again and again into her, all the while breathing out in relief everyday when he left the stables. There was no exchange of conversation; she hardly even dared to breath in his overwhelming presence. And apparently Sasuke would have nothing to do with her. For the entire first month none spoke to the other.
Yet after the loft incident on the first day of the second month, they were actually quite comfortable in each other's company just fine. And Hinata's cheeks still burnt at the memory of what happened, of what would have been the time senpai saved her life.
Now he would just linger; 'asleep' yet somehow capable of coming to from time to time. There were many times when he even stayed there till after sunset…
She remembered to look up then, and her mouth dropped open. Amidst the rapidly disappearing rays, Hinata called out at once towards Sasuke who was still by the stable walls.
"Sasuke-senpai, it's time!"
**************
Her call gave him just the control he needed.
Sasuke snapped violently out of his thoughts immediately at Hinata's voice with a jolt of his body. 'Get out of my head!' With a sudden burst of determination triggered in a flash, he summoned the remnants of his own willpower to shove the images, the taste, the smell, and the feelings which had been so enjoyable a few seconds ago roughly to the back of his head.
"OUT!"
With a few last, choking words, the whisper died away as Sasuke regained himself. The light in his eyes faded at once, replaced with a mixture of guilt and relief seeping deep into the core of his heart. His hand went to his forehead; Sasuke could feel his mind throbbing, no banging now against his skull as he took in deep, deep breaths of air to clear his former much-occupied mind.
'Breathe in, breathe out; in and out, in and out…' It repeated itself like a mantra.
Still panting, he flipped over on the ground and stared right up towards the tall wooden ceiling. His chest heaved up and down as he stared at the wooden beams without seeing them. Disgust rose in him as the taste of blood at the edge of his lips, metallic and bitter, reminded him of the sin he had nearly committed in his fit, of what might happen if Hinata had not called out.
Weak, he was weak. Only Hinata's voice—clear, innocent and devoid of any ill thoughts—was able to board the sinful sensations to where they should stay: in that dark and deep corner of his heart, where they should always remained and where no one should venture. He had no power over it, no power at all. No power even over his own body, his own bloody mind.
At the sound of approaching footsteps, his heart immediately started protesting, 'Not so near, Hinata…don't…'
Yet his body did not want to move away, not even when Hinata's delicate face came into view. It took almost all of his will for Sasuke to force himself look away from her concerned eyes as she looked down at his pale, ashen sweating form.
"Sen…senpai? Are..are you okay?" The guilt ate deeper into him; Hinata only stuttered when she was nervous or worried.
'Hinata-chan, you won't want to know,' Sasuke thought to himself with increasing disgust at his straying to those dangerous thoughts, for letting himself succumbing to the attack. He would not have Hinata to have anything to do with this. He should not. Never ever.
No, not Hinata.
"Daijyobu." He said coldly—a little too coldly—in reply as he hastily leapt to his feet, sending Hinata stumbling a few steps behind. His eyes resumed their mask of indifference to cover up the turmoil they had just gone through, all the while trying not to see the pain and confusion in Hinata's eyes as she shied further away in bewilderment.
'That's right, stay away.' In spite of the dull ache of his heart, Sasuke heaved a silent sigh of relief. 'It's for your own good, Hinata-chan.'
"Janeh." He turned to leave, all the while fighting the desire to turn to Hinata, to take in the smile she still had on her lips in all the uneasiness thick in the air.
Her smile…if she knew what happened, would he still be allowed to keep her smile?
He turned bitterly from the thought and forced himself instead to focus on the battle, the battle in him which he won again—but only because of Hinata. As much as he tried, he could not ignore the last words of the ghostly whisper before it faded away.
It lingered in his mind, latching itself in his head like a haunt that refused to leave.
'Not this time, Uchiha. But how much more can you take? How much more, my boy?'
Author's Note: My 1st Naruto-Vampire Knight Crossover. Please RXR! Thank you =)
Translation: Kuri=chestnut, Daijyobu=Never mind, Janeh=Goodbye