Pairing: Mostly just cousinly love...or lack of it depending on how you view it, with a smidge of NejiHina.
Dedication: To my best friend Kelsi, who adores NejiHina (even in such small dosages as this) and always supports my writing.
Disclaimer: I do not and never will own Naruto because I am not and never will be Kishimoto (that's the name of the creator of Naruto, right?) although I suppose in another life there's always the possibility...heh.
Type: One shot.
Rating: Yet another T for depressing themes! (Mostly I just really don't want to put this up as a K though..)
Notes: Enjoy and review!
Your soul tells you when it's time to move on.
Oprah Winfrey
Her hand trails the length of the wired fence.
There's been a barrier between them for a long time.
Neji, blank stares, long limbs, cold aura has never been a close person. Always he has pushed Hinata away and she lets herself be pushed.
Now there is real distance between them. Neji is to die (because he's stupid and Kami-sama knowshowmuchthishurts) and she will never have mended the hurt between them.
Once there was a time when, back before The Drama (as Tenten had so helpfully named it) happened, everything was smiles and laughs and hand games in the park. Harsh words were kept behind closed doors and mistake dealt with firmly.
Hinata had retained her innocence, while Neji had grown hard and bitter.
Life before all the damn drama (as Sakura fondly called it).
Before and after.
Then and now.
She remembered holding his hand when she broke the family vase, cowering behind him during those horrid "family meetings".
When Neji's smiles weren't grimaces and her eyes weren't always sparkly with unshed tears.
When Neji still liked her, as a cousin, a sister...a someone. Before she was filed away as weak and he was classified The Prodigy.
Hinata wasn't one to curse Kami-sama or blame life on destiny, unlike Neji. But now, as she stood on the other side of the glass window and didn't meet his eye, she wished that nothing stood between them, physically or emotionally.
She wished Hizashi Hyuuga had never died.
She wished they had never been paired against each other at their first Genin Exams.
She wished it and cursed the truth.
He sat, eyes duller than ever, hair greasy and stuck to his face which was hollow with malnourishment.
She sat, bags under lily eyes and hair past tousled, more like tangled. Her mouth aches from faking smiles and she is just as beat down as the young man before her, though he is jailed and she is free.
It's funny (ironic, sadistic, cruel) because neither of them have been free since they were 3, when the beginning of the fight to-be-a-Hyuuga began.
She has been in the race, running to get stronger and be better at it than Hanabi, faster at it than Neji. Her confidence stripped away and her stature crumbled; that is what she has gained.
He has been scrambling to establish himself yet stay in hsi place, to bow to the will of the Main Branch and protest only to the moon.
They are both lonely, sad Hyuugas.
Two different branches.
Two different fates.
Could be intertwined, could have saved each other, could have, should have, would have.
It's over now, she muses as she takes her leave of the room, where Neji will stay.
It is their last meeting.