Title Behind the Shelf
Author: Tiamat's Child
Rating: G
Fandom: Naruto
Pairing/s, characters: Hinata, Naruto
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Hinata is bad with words.
Behind the Shelf
Hinata had once tried to explain to a boy, just a boy, just some boy on a randomly assigned team in the academy, how good it felt to be pressed hard, to be taught to stand up and do it again, faster and fiercer, to move and move and move until you couldn't anymore and the person (your father) training you stopped you and said, very solemnly, "You will do better tomorrow."
But of course Hinata was terrible with spoken words, which came of rarely using them, and tended to stammer, especially when it was important, and the whole thing had gone badly. Hinata had broken off midway through and apologized. The boy had stared at her, shrugged, and gone back to his complaint about his father, who was so stubborn and so hard on him.
Hinata wondered why she hadn't simply said, "I miss my father being hard on me."
She knew why, when she thought about it. It was far too much airing of family business to an outsider, for the start, and Hinata felt that taboo keenly. For another thing, it was too much of a complaint, too much of self pity, and while neither trait bothered her particularly in other people she despised them both in herself. For yet another, he hadn't been interested, and it was generally people's disinterest that made Hinata frightened and sad.
It was hard, being unimportant. It was hard, knowing you'd not done well enough to have your instruction kept up. It hurt.
The boy could not have understood. The boy was important – he was important to someone, to his parents. He always did well enough to get another chance.
Hinata thought, some days, when she saw Naruto laughing as he rolled out of the dust to try again, that Naruto understood. Or, rather, that he would understand, if she could tell him, which she knew she couldn't. But if she could, if she could be brave and daring, then he would understand.
Hinata thought to herself, when she was tired and did not want to stand and walk home, that if she asked Naruto he would go running with her. That would be easier. That would be good. He would tug her along when she slowed.
"You'll do better tomorrow," he would say, when her endurance gave out and she leaned on her knees and just breathed.
Naruto, for all his loudness, all his coarseness, was kinder than her father (her father was a good man, but a hard one) and she supposed he would put a hand on her shoulder too, a comfort and an affirmation.
Hinata thought he would understand how much she needed that.
She knew she could never say so. But there Naruto was, tending to his own wounds, waving away his failures, flying out of a misstep into another attempt, shining with private determination, and she loved to watch him.
Sometimes she even really believed she could do just the same.