Chapter 1 -
There were only a few sounds on that street at the moment, a relatively quiet, dark evening. You could hear a few cars driving in the distance, around the more crowded parts of the neighborhood, but right at this ally there was not much sound. A few street light gave the scene an ominous feeling, and if you listened really well, you would hear the quiet whimpers and soft sobs of a girl. However, they were so quiet and soft that you would ask yourself if you had only imagined the sounds.
If we approach the ally in question, the one where the imaginary sounds seem to erupt from, we would find a tight dark bundle, which upon closer inspection seem to be a girl. A girl curled up into a small ball, with her hair covering her, face hidden behind the arms connected to the hands holding her head.
The girl with midnight blue, almost black hair, lay face down on the ground, hands, as mentioned earlier, clutching her head and sometimes she made small whimpering noises. It was one of the few signs to show that she was actually alive, and actually a human being. She lay there absolutely still, not moving, for moving hurt her just more and she felt that if she just lay there, the pain might disappear.
She had no clue about how long she had been laying there, the pain had been disrupting her sense of time, and all she could think about was that she wanted to go home, realizing that it didn't matter how much she actually disliked it there, everything was better than this excruciating pain.
She now had let go of her head and was clutching her stomach instead, praying to Kami to get someone there to help her. She started thinking that she might be lucky for once in her miserable life when she heard footsteps approaching, but her hopes were crushed when she heard the footsteps move away again.
She let out a whimper in frustration and started trying to move some of her limbs, quickly realizing it was useless, her attacked didn't leave a job half-done, that much was for sure. Now for the first time she let her tears fall freely, oh no, don't mistake me, she cried when her attackers were well, attacking her. But that was mostly a few tears because of the surprising pain. It was completely different from what she was feeling right now. 'My father was right, I am a failure, I am hurt and all I can do is lie here and feel sorry for myself, and wish for mother. Oh how I wish she was here, crying is one thing, but I shouldn't feel sorry for myself.' Easier said then done, she added as an afterthought.
She heard another pair of footsteps, moving quickly, no one really liked to stand outside since it was a lonely neighborhood and a quiet evening. It usually wasn't even a dangerous part of town, actually it was one of the safest ones, since a lot of rich people lived there. And exactly because of that reason there was no one outside to find her. All the rich people had big mansions with a lot of land around it, the Hyuuga compound was no exception, actually it was one of the biggest ones, together with the Uchiha compound.
The footsteps she had heard earlier had passed by again, and once more she whimpered in despair, not willing to believe that she would have to lay there the entire night, until people would wake up and be on their way to school again, and someone surely must pass by her then.
"Shit, you are injured" she heard a dark voice mumble, as she felt a dark figure lean over her. Her white orbs looked up into the dark onyx ones. She wasn't scared, maybe she should be after what she had just gone through, but his dark eyes held comfort, and hadn't she just been praying for someone to find her?
The boy, or well, maybe he was a man (he looked a little older than her after all), stood up, and for a second she was afraid he would leave her there, she made a small, almost inaudible gasp. It made the man look down on her, and his indifferent face quickly turned into compassion, and he softly said: "I won't leave, I'm just getting my phone so I can call an ambulance, don't worry." When he saw her nod in acknowledgement he walked a few steps away, and true to his word he took out a phone.
She looked at the man, and somehow it made her think: "Haven't I seen him before, but where?" more she did not have time to think, for he came back.
He bent down to her level and gently stroke her hair, while moving some of the hairs out of the face. "They are coming" he said, she felt tired, and could barely remember who he was referring to, she felt her eyes close now that she felt she was in safe hands, in the background she heard sirens before everything turned dark, and the last coherent thought she had was how his hand on her head felt nice and soft.
Her eyes flickered open, they shut immediately. She was struggling, instead of trying to open her eyes again, she decided to focus on her other senses first. She focused on hearing, and first all she could hear was a loud beeping noise. She frowned, believing that her ears were not function properly, her thoughts were interrupted when she heard a loud inhaling noise. Figuring her senses weren't deceiving her, she tried once more to open her eyes. Upon the second try she succeeded.
She seemed to be in a white room, quickly she noticed that there was a big monitor next to her making the loud noise. She pulled her hand up to her face, to take away a few strands of hair, her hand felt heavier then normal, she realized that she must have slept in the hospital, not really remembering at the moment, exactly what had happened the day before.
She was waking up, her eyes feeling less tired as she turned her head towards the now open door, a doctor and a nurse came into the room, the nurse smiled at her when she realized that Hinata was now awake, and had a puzzled expression on her face.
"Good morning Hinata-san, do you remember how you got here?" The doctor spoke while the young nurse gave her a reassuring smile.
After a moment of silence Hinata opened her mouth to speak, but started coughing before she had the time to even speak a normal sentence. The nurse hurried to her bedside and gave her a glass of water.
After she drank the entire thing in one go, she let out a deep breath.
"ano, I r-remember a b-boy f-f-finding m-me." She stuttered even more then she usually did, and inwardly she cursed herself for seeming weak under the gaze of a stranger. Then she reminded herself of that she probably looked weak anyway, being beat up in a hospital and all.
The rest of the meeting with the doctor was just a check-up, she was informed that the police would have a few questions for her, but that it could wait until she was feeling slightly better.
She was also informed that her family had been notified, and that they were waiting in the waiting room, upon hearing this Hinata became a bit anxious, she did not want her father to see her in this state of all states, he already thought she was a useless girl, even though she was the top-student of her class, she was nothing like her cousin Neji, who had won awards for his intellectual skills.
When the doctors were done she was asked if she was up for visitors. Even though she wanted so desperately to say no, she just couldn't do it to her family, even though she never really wanted to go home to them, and her family situation was far from a perfect one, they had taken the time to come down there for her sake.
She gave a short nod of approval, and laid back and rested against her double pillow, suddenly feeling very tired again.
Her rest was short lived as a few seconds after the door had closed to let the doctor and nurse out, the door opened again to show her little sister, her cousin and her father standing there. They all had the same kind of expression, serious and somehow calm, like they were not just seeing their sister, cousin and daughter lying there severely injured from being beat up.
However, Hinata got the surprise of her life when her sister came running towards her and gave her a bonecrushing hug that actually physically hurt, her sister was never one for displaying any sort of afection, and especailly since they didn't have a very close relationship this came as a big surprise. The sister had made a point of to never show any kind of weakness infront of there harsh father, Hanabi had never had a problem with it, she was like that by nature but Hinata was another case. She was much more soft-hearted like her mother, who unfortunately had passed away when giving birth to her little sister.
"Hanabi, let your sister breath" Hiashi spoke sternly, upon hearing this Hanabi quickly let go, and wiped away the two tears that had wormed their way onto her face, she had a sad smile on her face, to show that she was happy her sister was alive, no more words were needed, the sister understood each other.
Neji came to Hinata's bedside and gave her a quick kiss on her forehead and whispered softly: "I'm happy you are alive hime." this comment gave Hinata a lot of encouragement and she started smiling, only to realise that it hurt.
"Neji and Hanabi, could you please give me and Hinata a moment?" Hiashi spoke, he still stood where he had been standing throughout the entire meeting, no emotions evident on his face.
Hinata tried to pleade with her eyes to Neji and Hanabi to not leave her alone with her father, it was quite well known in their family that she was scared of the head of the Hyuuga Corporation. No one was really surprised, he was an intimidating man and a small girl like herself stood no chance against him.
He never made it a secret that he was expecting a lot from her, so far she had not disappointed him with her grades, however according to him she was socially lacking, by not befriending enough of people in her school which could have been useful to use as connections later, as her school was a very prestigious school in Konoha, where all the big businesses leaders had children attending.
By now it was just Hinata and Hiashi in the room, her moved gracefully to take the chair next to her bed, she was surprised that he had not started speaking yet, Hiashi was not one to beat around the bush.
"Hinata..., I'm glad you are not more severely hurt, the doctor's say that since you were found in time, there will not be any lasting damage, and for that I'm grateful." Hinata could not believe her ears, her ather actually openly admitted he wanted her healthy, and here she thought that he always wanted Neji or Hanabi to inherit the company, and would be grateful to get rid of her, the shy and quiet Hyuuga who would hold everyone down, if she were ever to inherit the company.
"Outo-san..." Hinata softly whispered, this made Hiash look at her face.
"Aw come on now Hinata, do you really think that bad about me, to not be worried about my child if she is in the hospital? I may be hard, but I'd like to think that I am not completely unreasonable, I don't hold you responsible for what happened, and thus there is no reason for me to hold a grudge against you for this, ok?" He said, with a sad smile.
Hinata was stunned, her father was being nice, and showed some respect for her, she had been to hard on him, if they had just talked a bit more earlier, she wouldn't have been in this uncomfortable situation.
If she had just not been trying to delay her arrival at home, to avoid her father, then she wouldn't have been mugged, and she wouldn't have been laying in the hospital.
"Outo-san, arigatou, I am sorry for what I thought about you" Hinata averted her eyes as tears stared to form.
Hiashi gave her an awkward pat on her head, still not quite used to their now-changed relationship, it had been years since he lost his beloved wife, and he realised that at this point he had to actually take more responsibility in his children's lifes, he realised he couldn't always let it be about school and the company.
'I'm sorry hon, I let our children down, I hope I can still restore some of their faith in me' Hiashi thought, looking with a sad smile upon his eldest child, now hospitalisd because of a mugging.
"Now sleep Hinata" Hiashi said while standing up to allow her some rest, she returned his look with a grateful smile, and despite all the pain she had endured in her family for the past few years, and the horrible event she had just been through, she couldn't help but have a very happy dream for the first time in years, a dream of a better future comparing to the past, that night she slept with the smile still on her face, and it would stay until the sweet nurse came to wake her in the morning for breakfast.
Well what do you think? Is it good, is it worth continuing? I know it might be weird how I focused mainly on her connection with her family, I will focus more on the "man" who saved her in the next chapter, and I think we all know who that is ne??^^
Well only if I am making a next chapter, it depends on you, no reviews = no chapter..
I might be a bit slow with updates, I feel I need to focus on my other story as wel, but as school begins, my updates should come with regular intervals... I hope:P
Take care...
