Author's Note: Hey, I'm back. After a hiatus of several years, I've returned...to write in a completely different fandom than the ones I was working on. Even worse, this isn't even a recent story. I wrote it years and years ago and am only posting it because I didn't want my old work to collect dust on my hard drive. I have no shame.
Hinata should have felt happier. She should have been nearly delirious with bliss, giggling nonstop, sprinting around the room and letting out whoops of joy. She should have been vibrating, overflowing, positively buzzing with excitement. That's how everyone else reacted when they made chuunin rank.
Hinata blamed it on her upbringing: she'd simply had manners so ingrained into her that her body wouldn't let her break out of her stoic, shy smile. Hinata was happy though: as she chatted with all of the friends who had come to celebrate Hinata's making chuunin, she kept finding herself grinning, even during small talk about the weather and D-rank missions. By the time all of the guests had arrived, Hinata's cheeks were already sore from smiling so much.
And it really was a nice party. Hinata looked around the apartment Kurenai had lent her for the evening. The yellow walls were smothered in streamers, and there were four different kinds of confetti on the wood floor. Someone, probably Sakura, had turned on the radio, and a quick, peppy song about summer love hummed softly over the conversations. Her sensei's apartment was just big enough that she could walk between the clusters of conversations without bumping into anyone. Though since she was technically the star of the party, Hinata got caught up in five different conversations before she finally made it to the bathroom.
She closed the door and leaned against the sink, laughing softly to herself. It was so bizarre, being the center of attention. Three years ago, most of these people wouldn't have given her a second glance. She'd been a pathologically shy child who could barely look anyone in the eye, much less hold a conversation. Hinata had spent most of her school days huddled in a corner, watching other kids trade lunches or laugh at each other's jokes, wishing she was interesting enough to make friends.
Even now, when people outside the door were almost fighting for her attention, she wondered if maybe they'd mistaken her for someone witty and attractive. Or maybe they were just talking to her to pass the time…
Hinata shook her head and looked in the mirror. That was how the old Hinata would think. The new Hinata knew that her friends liked her perfectly fine. If they really thought she was boring, then they wouldn't have come to the party, even for free cake. As caring as most of her friends were, Hinata knew people like Shikamaru or Ino did what they pleased. They want to be here, she reminded herself.
One of Kurenai's lessons from long ago echoed in Hinata's head. Sadly, most people don't bother to look past appearances. It's a rare person indeed who searches for the truth, let alone sees it. That's why most genjutsu are so effective. The benefit to this is that if you present yourself as strong, most people will assume you are strong and treat you as such. Unless you go out of your way to prove them wrong, eventually the illusion will become reality…
The idea of pretending that she had confidence had been revolutionary. At first, young Hinata had been hesitant to take her sensei's advice. Pretending that she didn't feel faint and queasy when making small talk with her neighbor or looking her cousin's teammates in the eye…well, it had felt like lying. As if she were tricking them into thinking she was someone who knew what she was doing. But it had worked. The more Hinata talked to people, the less she stuttered and flinched. Eventually holding conversations became so easy that she actually enjoyed having them.
Hinata splashed some water in her face and combed her hair in her fingers, so that when she went back outside people would think she had left to freshen up, rather than because all of the attention made her nervous. As much as she hated to admit it, the old, weak Hinata was still nestled deep inside of her, and Hinata was still waiting for the day when she'd become that talented, intelligent girl she'd tricked everyone into thinking she was.
The cake was ugly. If Shino had known anything about cooking, he would have baked Hinata's cake himself. It might not have been very appetizing, but at least it wouldn't have been tacky. The frosting looked like cracked plaster, and the yellow gunk spelling out Hinata's name was so bunched together that he could hardly read it. Worst of all, it was sprinkled with beaded candy butterflies, made with the kind of sugar that Shino knew would seep into the frosting and make the entire cake taste like chalk.
Despite being a great lover of insects, Shino had never been too fond of butterflies. It was quite odd, really, since they were the only bug that people outside of the Aburame clan seemed to appreciate. Perhaps it was because butterflies were so popular, when their merits were so few, that Shino had grown a marked distaste towards them. Everyone marveled at how gorgeous butterflies looked once they emerged from their chrysalis, but honestly, they didn't look that different from other insects. They had an exoskeleton, a thorax, compound eyes, antenna…all things that, when found in, say, a beetle, elicit cringing disgust rather than admiration.
Really, all things considered, the butterfly was the same insect as the caterpillar that had crawled into the chrysalis. Same memories, same internal organs, same genetic material. The only major difference was how people reacted to it.
Hinata's father had smiled at her. Well, he might have just been relaxing his face (even with Byakugan, he'd sat so far into the crowd that it was difficult to read his expression perfectly), but he definitely hadn't been glaring or scowling. He might have even been proud of her performance, though Hinata knew better than to hope for that.
She shook her head. Now was not the time to worry about her father's reaction. Now was a time to relax with her friends as they gathered around to eat cake. Hinata brought her attention back to the real world just in time to grab the plate of cake Ino shoved into her hands. "Here we go. First slice for the new chuunin!" Ino cried. "Like it? I decorated it myself."
"You did not," said Sakura. The pink haired girl turned to Hinata and half-whispered, "She bought it from the bakery yesterday."
Ino scowled. "I still gave them the design. I might not have been the one to put the frosting on there, but it's still my decoration-"
"Stupid, that doesn't count," said Sakura. "If you say you decorated it yourself, you have to actually decorate it yourself."
"Ahem," Hinata interrupted before Ino and Sakura could start spitting insults at each other. "I-it's very cute. Thank you, Ino."
"Yeah, and it fits too!" said Kiba, ruffling his teammate's hair. "I remember when Hinata and I were put on the same genin team. She was so shy that every time she injured me during sparring, she started apologizing. For a while there I was worried she was too nice to be a ninja." Everyone laughed, Hinata included. "But now…pew pew, fwish, fwaaa!" Kiba cried, doing a poor imitation of Hinata's jyuuken and miming her opponent's collapse. "She's a master!" Kiba turned to his other teammate standing next to him. "Hinata really is just like Team 8's little butterfly, right, Shino?"
Shino, his face impassive as always, said, "Not especially."
Kiba's eyes widened, but he didn't say anything. He glanced at Hinata, but she didn't know how to react either. Her sharp eyes noticed that every one of her friends had tensed up ever so slightly. The radio, oblivious to the rising hostility, crooned "And to you I will always be true, so tell me, do you still feel the way I do-"
Sakura's face stretched into a wide grin. "Shino's right. We shouldn't compare Hinata to something ugly like a bug," she said, sending a heated glare Shino's way. "We should call her something nice, like a princess, or a swan."
Ino caught on quickly. "She's got the hair for it." She trotted over to Hinata and began weaving her fingers through Hinata's hair. "Hinata, you have got to tell me how you keep your hair so smooth. I've tried to style Sakura's hair for the party, but in this weather the poor girl's locks get so frizzy that they're just impossible to work with."
"They're easier to work with than you are," muttered Sakura a little louder than necessary.
Sakura and Ino's half-hearted bickering managed to kickstart the party again, and suddenly everyone found that they had something very interesting to talk about with the person next to them. Hinata wanted to ask Shino what he'd meant, but her teammate had sat down by himself on the couch across the room. Sakura and Ino kept peppering her with so many questions about loose ends and shampoo brands that she could barely focus on what Shino had said, much less excuse herself to go talk to him.
Shino hadn't meant to say what he did. He'd meant it, true, but he hadn't intended to say it out loud. One didn't have to be a social genius to realize that Kiba's question had been rhetorical, and that the correct answer would have been a simple nod or "yes". Unfortunately, honesty was a stronger instinct within the Aburame clan than tact, and the thought of comparing Hinata to a butterfly was such an absurd concept that Shino's true thoughts slipped out before he could reign in his tongue.
Now, when he should have been standing proud with Kiba behind his teammate, Shino sat in the farthest corner of the room, ashamed to even look anyone in the eye. He stared into his plastic cup of strawberry punch. Shino's reflection shimmered on the bright pink surface, and staring at him with disapproval.
He should have lied. His answer had come out as disappointed and bitter, when really it was anything but. For though Shino thought of butterflies with a sort of spiteful condescension, the same could never be true of Hinata.
True, she was not the strongest shinobi in their group. However, considering that Neji was mastering chuunin-level jutsus fresh out of Academy and Naruto had a chakra level on par with the kages', that was a rather unfair metric. Hinata had gotten to chuunin level at age 16, mastered over half of her clan's current techniques, and invented her own jutsu. Had she been born at a different time, she would likely have been considered gifted.
Granted, her skills had been on the low side of average when she graduated. Yet she'd trained hard and gave every mission her full attention, which was more than Shino could have said for any of his peers at the time. Furthermore, she was one of the few people in the village, adults included, who did not hold a bizarre phobia of Shino's kikaichu. She didn't wretch at the sight of them or shy away from their touch. Instead, she treated them much like she did Akamaru: as allies rather than pests. Because of these things, Hinata had earned Shino's respect long before so-called geniuses like Shikamaru and Sasuke.
Yet no one else in the entire village, even her so-called friends at the party, had considered her "talented" back when she was the timid, stuttering girl in the corner of the classroom. Not Tenten and Choji chatting next to the refreshments, not Ino and Sakura fussing over her hair, not even Lee by the radio: They'd all been too involved in their own affairs to spare any time on Hinata. Perhaps Shino was easily provoked into jealousy, but it seemed unfair that these people could earn Hinata's friendship when they only bothered talking to her after her talent became noticeable.
Then again, it was these same people who were comforting her after Shino's foolish comment. Though Shino hadn't looked up from his punch since the party restarted, he could feel his fellow guests giving him the evil eye when they passed by, as if he were a threat, rather than someone who had been her best friend for the past three years.
Well, he liked to think he was her best friend. She certainly was his, though Shino wouldn't be surprised if that changed after tonight. For a moment Shino considered leaving: the air was filled nauseatingly sweet air-freshener, the music hurt his ears, and it was clear that no one wanted him around. But when he tried to stand up, he accidentally caught Hinata's eye.
Shino sat back down. In spite of the fact that he almost ruined her party, Shino knew that if he left now, Hinata would notice his absence and worry about him for the rest of the night. And so he decided to wait out the party on the couch, with the hopes that if he stayed still and didn't talk to anyone, perhaps he wouldn't jeopardize Hinata's celebration any further.
After Hinata finally detached herself from Sakura and Ino's debate about shampoo brands, she managed to walk two steps before a thick, hairy arm wrapped itself around her shoulders. "Hey, Hinata! You like the party?"
Hinata forced herself to relax her shoulders. After three years, she still hadn't gotten used to Kiba's sense of personal space…or rather, the lack thereof. "Yes, Kiba. It's excellent. I think all the guests are really enjoying themselves."
Her shaggy teammate rolled his eyes. "I don't want know about them. I want to know about you! Are you having fun?"
Out of the corner of her eye, Hinata saw something move by the couch. She moved her head reflexively, looking at Shino just in time to catch him staring at her. Was he angry with her? Disappointed? Or something else entirely? He'd acted so out of character earlier that it was hard to tell what he was thinking anymore. Hinata forced herself to look away. "Y-yes. I…I'm having a g-good time." Darn it. Why did her stuttering have to pop up at the worst times?
Kiba glanced at their other teammate and frowned. "Hey listen, Hinata. You shouldn't pay attention to what Shino said." He flashed Hinata a quick grin. "You know how logical he gets. He probably thought I was actually comparing you to a bug."
"Y-you mean literal?"
"Yeah, that too. Point is, I'm sure he would have said yes if he'd understood what I was actually asking." Kiba patted her roughly on the shoulder. "You did a great job in those exams. And I'm not just saying that because you won. When you flipped over that guy's shuriken and sealed his last tenkutsu point, even Shino was cheering."
"Really? He was cheering? For me?" Hinata vaguely remembered hearing Kiba lead a cheer at some point. She tried imagining Shino chanting her name and shouting catcalls at her opponent, but the image was so out of character for her calm friend that she couldn't picture it.
He shrugged. "Well, okay, technically he was just clapping in time with the rest of us. But come on, considering that this is a guy who won't raise his voice even when he's stabbed in the leg, that's a lot coming from him."
She giggled. "All right, Kiba. If you say so."
Kiba smiled so wide that his fangs caught the light and gleamed. "There we go! That's the kind of face I wanna see!" He ruffled her hair. "Tell you what. I'm going to go over and change that stupid radio to some real music. When I get back, I want to see that same smile on your face, got that?"
She nodded and watched her teammate weave his way through the crowd. When she was confident that he couldn't see her anymore, she sighed. Kiba was kind, but honestly, her chuunin battle hadn't been anything special. She hadn't won through a one-hit knock out like her cousin Neji, or an elaborate three-hour strategy like Shikamaru. She'd just used low-level Hyuuga techniques, and even then she barely managed to eke out a victory. Everyone else's battles had been much more decisive.
Everyone else's…Hinata felt a shiver run down her spine. She looked around the room and realized that she had been to the graduation parties of every single one of her guests. Out of all her friends, she'd been the last to make chuunin.
A dull weight settled in her stomach. She had a bloodline limit. She'd been trained by her father, one of the most powerful men in Konoha. With her advantages, Hinata should have been among the first to move up in rank. Instead, she'd been promoted a year after her peers. Hinata braced herself against a chair and looked out at the crowd of her friends. Why were they celebrating this? Didn't they realize it was shameful for a clan heir to graduate so late? Or were they pretending to be impressed out of pity?
She glanced over at Shino. This must have been why he said she hadn't become a butterfly yet. He always did have high expectations of her. Of course he would be disappointed that she'd taken so long. Especially after all the nights he and Kiba sacrificed to train her.
She closed her eyes and silently thanked Shino for being so honest. She didn't know why, but he'd always taken her dream to be heir seriously. The fact that he was still here, even though she'd disappointed him…he truly was a good friend.
All in all, the party was a success. The food was delicious, everyone had fun, and she even got a few presents. Even so, Hinata was a bit glad when everyone left. Talking to so many people was exhausting. Compared to judging Lee and Tenten's "dancing duel" or keeping Akamaru away from the cake, clean up was going to be a breeze.
Hinata grabbed a trashbag and started pitching everyone's empty cups inside. Since Kurenai was nice enough to lend her the apartment, Hinata was going to make sure it was spotless when her sensei came back from her mission. Hinata was cramming the empty cake dish into the bag when she heard a door open
Shino was in the doorway to the bathroom with a trashbag dangling from his hands. Behind him, Hinata could see his kikaichu picking up each individual confetti piece and placing it in the bag. After an awkward silence, Shino adjusted his glasses. "Why am I here? Simple. Kurenai had asked me before she left to pick up the trash once the party was done."
Hinata smiled to herself. Shino always had a knack for asking the very questions she was thinking. "I-it's all right, Shino. I was the host, so it's my responsibility to clean up."
He shook his head. "You should not have to play janitor at your own celebration."
They stood their looking at each other. When it became clear that neither of them was going to leave, they began picking up trash again. Between the two of them, it only took about fifteen minutes. Shino then helped Hinata carry the trashbags out to the dumpster.
After Hinata tossed the last bag of confetti into the trash, she heard Shino cough. He had his back to her and was staring intently at Kurenai's second floor apartment. "About earlier…I apologize. I misspoke."
Hinata leaned against the dumpster. "No, you were right. I know I'm…not quite where I should be, especially after all the effort you and Kiba have made to t-t-train me-"
"No!" Hinata looked up. She'd never heard Shino yell outside of battle before. He was facing her now, and he seemed just as surprised at his outburst as she was. He adjusted his glasses and leaned against the dumpster beside her. "You've done a lot," he said quietly. "You have nothing to apologize for."
She leaned forward, trying to catch a glimpse of Shino's expression underneath his upturned collar. "So you're saying Kiba was right? I have changed?"
Shino stiffened. After a discouraging pause, he asked, "Hinata, what is a butterfly?"
Hinata waited for him to answer his own question. When she didn't, she said, "An insect." He stared at her. "An insect that is capable of metamorphosis?"
"Metaphorically, I mean."
"Oh. Um…" She tapped her fingers together as she thought. "Somebody who has…bloomed? As in they were originally…not that useful, but now are…" She struggled to find an appropriate word. Prettier? Stronger? "Better," she decided. "Someone who's better than they were before."
Shino nodded in approval of her definition. Then there was a small silence as he stared up at the night sky. "I dislike this metaphor. Why? Two reasons." He adjusted his glasses. "The first is that it is based on a faulty assumption. What is this assumption? That the caterpillar derives its worth solely from its potential to change into something else. This is incorrect. The caterpillar is a living organism and deserves as much reverence as it's more colorful counterpart.
Shino pushed himself off the dumpster. "The second reason I dislike this metaphor is that it implies that the caterpiller is an inferior being. It implies that a caterpillar is weak, and ugly, and useless, and…" He waved his hand around, searching for a way to reach his next point. When it became clear he couldn't find it, he turned to Hinata and murmured, "I never thought you were any of those things."
He stared at her for a moment. When Hinata didn't answer, he turned away, pressing his glasses against the bridge of his nose. "Forgive me. I did not intend to belabor you with this logical quibbling of mine. It was just something I was thinking about. Please forget I said anything." And with that, he hurried off into the dark street towards his compound.
Hinata let herself slide to the ground. She wanted to call Shino back to say she wasn't mad, but she couldn't bring herself to stop crying. It was odd – the small, weak Hinata inside of her was almost buzzing with happiness, but outer Hinata was overflowing with tears. Hinata began to giggle, and soon she found herself doing something in between laughing and sobbing.
This didn't change anything. Shino's opinion wouldn't affect her standing in the Hyuuga clan. It didn't improve her lonely childhood or her stuttering problem. It wouldn't even fix her late promotion to chuunin. But as much as the cold, logical voice in her head pointed these things out, Hinata couldn't help but feel that the last three years of trying to change herself had been a wonderful waste of time.
Author's Note: Here's hoping that made sense. Barring that, here's hoping it was entertaining. Whatever you thought about it, I always love reviews, so feel free to comment below.