Apology
People are quick to make assumptions.
They were quick to put together a picture of him.
His collected demeanor and undeniable talent, as well as the distance he kept from others, made him stand out as a mature, self-controlled prodigy whom little could set off. Those who didn't know him, as well as some who did, would probably never guess what had been boiling behind that stern face of his.
For that reason, many incidental observers received a shock at the Chuunin preliminaries – when the stoic Hyuuga boy abruptly snapped and, for apparently little reason, brutally attacked his younger cousin.
Later, the witnesses said the animosity could have felt miles away, but that wasn't true. Nothing could give out the inner turmoil and prepare for what was about to happen - nothing except perhaps the heiress's growing uneasiness and a slightly quickened pace the prodigy spoke in. His voice was quiet and seemingly calm and many couldn't connect the sentences to their meanings, completely unaware of the source of hidden rage seething through his words.
The blast was unexpected. It was inapprehensible.
Surprises didn't stop at that.
The next unanticipated incident occured at the final rounds of the contemporary exam – when the Hyuuga genius, the most promising of the Konoha young, suffered defeat at the hand of Uzumaki Naruto – the generally acknowledged castaway.
It may be that those who witnessed both of these events felt something crumbling – a discrepancy between what they had expected and what they had seen – but with the most of Konoha residents the view on Hyuuga Neji didn't alter.
Because people are also slow to change prejudices they had built.
Hyuuga Neji was marked as skilful and composed, a solid character, and although they could feel something stirring below the surface, they either didn't care enough or had no reason to try to decipher the oddities. Hyuuga affairs were Hyuuga affairs. Neji was left to deal with himself by himself.
After all, his following reconciliation with the main branch only proved the expected:
all turned out well for the Hyuuga household in the end.
All was right, once more.
Except it wasn't.
He, for starters, wasn't alright.
He didn't feel calm, or particularly composed, and while his shinobi abilities weren't affected by the inner discomfort one bit, his psyche was. Not that it showed. To the outsiders, at least.
Tenten might have known he wasn't quite himself, if not the reason behind it. Lee and Gai could have noticed. He wasn't sure that he liked the fact, but he couldn't deny it: a year spent together as a team sharpened their sense for one another.
Still, they hadn't said a word – maybe waiting for him to speak up first. If it was so, they wouldn't live up to it. Something was different about him, true, since the Chuunin exam, but not enough to make him start pouring his heart out randomly.
The reasons behind his discontent were vaguely known to him and him alone. Although he thought he knew where the thorn lay, he wasn't exactly sure how to approach it. Or, rather, whether he had enough courage to bother.
Because…
His uncle's apology was sincere, and so was his forgiveness. The resentment he had tended so frowardly and bitterly didn't vanish over night – but he made efforts. They were small steps: short visits, awkward attempts at conversation, family dinners, even brief but intense sparring sessions with some of the clan's best fighters, even with uncle himself.
As the weeks and months passed, he felt the familiar ever-pricking sense of hate fading – to such level that allowed him to consent moving back to the Hyuuga estate.
Seemingly, the situation couldn't have been developing in a better direction, but Neji wouldn't agree. He felt most clearly that he had missed a step. A crucial one.
For time flew and he still hadn't settled things down with Hinata… They barely shared a word.
Immediately after the Chuunin exam, he intended to make a formal amend, but simply didn't catch the right moment. Maybe didn't try hard enough.
As he allowed his feelings towards the main branch to soften, he started realising and remembering things he could have done without. Disregards, ignoring, glares, harsh words, deliberately inflicted mental wounds began to gain weight in his mind and Neji couldn't even make himself think about the preliminaries (the downright murder attempt) without a burning, fist-clenching sensation he at last recognized as guilt.
He couldn't look at her and not want to rush away and she, on her part, surely did everything in her power not to cross paths more than necessarily needed.
If the two were forced to stay in the same room, Neji would grow unbreakably silent, and Hinata's own voice would become inaudibly quiet, her fingers fidgety and her eyes suddenly consumed with floor patterns.
Hiashi didn't push the subject.
The situation was turning so uncomfortable for Neji he felt his irritation with his cousin awakening once more. He found her presence so peace-disturbing he would almost wind up in a fresh round of sharply-aimed anger if he hadn't known it was completely unjustified.
The guilt was, of course, entirely on him.
He kept on wasting his chances, letting the distance rise.
Sometimes, (more and more frequently, actually) childhood sights and scenes would invade Neji's memory and he would remember the times when things weren't so damn bothering and the two of them lived blissfully at ease. He wished it were if only half that way – Hinata didn't need to acknowledge him as her new best friend and confide in him, but she should at least be able to say a word or two without emitting massive tension.
He wanted her to know he wouldn't bite.
He wanted it badly, but didn't know how to achieve it.
The opportunity revealed itself abruptly and unexpectedly. He wasn't prepared at all and thought about skipping it as usual – if it weren't for the heavy and grueling feeling of total tire the moment his eyes fell upon her small, distant form and ruined his otherwise good day.
It was impossible to continue living like this, impossible - so he took up all disposable strength of will and – not completely consciously, as it gets with abstracted, mentally self-racking people – jumped in. No tactfully considered approach, no premeditated speeches.
With a sensibly quickened pace of heart, he reached his cousin.
Hinata had been practising. Although sweat trickled down her flushed cheeks, she wouldn't pause for a second and continued kicking a training chuck with gentle, bruised fists. Her breath was ragged, and Neji got a distinctive uneasy feeling that his own Gentle Fist had much to do with the heiress's evident stamina problems.
She was so engrossed with her training she didn't even feel his presence (again, a poor presentation of her shinobi skills). Neji simply stood behind her back, stricken with an anxious wish to get this finally over with as soon as possible. But the words weren't coming. His mind urged to say something, say something, say anything!
"Your stance is wrong", he deadpanned.
The girl squeaked and jumped. Wide eyes stared (poor, poor presentation). "Neji-nii…!"
Neji suddenly got washed upon with a wish to bite his noncompliant tongue off. Fortright criticizing wasn't exactly the best possible way of carrying this mission out.
"Your feet stand too close, so it's harder for you to keep balance, thus easier for the opponent to knock you down."
Her mouth meekly quivered in an attempt to respond. "A-alright…"
"Also, your movements are predictable." It was like he couldn't stop himself. His inner-self protested strongly and yelled out to fallback and redeploy, but a feverish sensation took over, and Neji – fully aware that this reconciliation attempt was heading in a bad direction – went on.
"And your aim is off." He knew his internal fret didn't show on the outside – he could feel his stern and tense face muscles and hear no emotions in his voice – but it didn't make him feel relief. It made it worse.
It sounded and looked as if, all of a sudden, he decided to wreak his annoyance on her some more. No solemn apologies, no sincere sorry. No all those things he craved for her to know.
"It isn't accurate enough, so an enemy wouldn't have a hard time avoiding it."
Forgive me, Hinata-sama. Please know I overcame my rage.
"This way you're making an easy target."
I'm trully sorry for all the wrong I did you, and I'd like to amend, although I don't know how.
"Shinobi must be prepared in all situations, and a minute ago you didn't even hear me coming. That's a characteristic of inadequate."
Please note that you can speak to me and I won't go rampant.
"And your face shows too much emotion." Having said that, Neji found himself at the loss of words at last and, not knowing what to do, after a few moments of self-conscious staring, he stepped away and proceeded in a slightly quickened pace.
That was it. He fixated it this time. He ruined the final chance of making peace and Hinata is going to avoid him, if not for the rest of her life, then for quite some time surely.
Hinata's white eyes looked after Neji-niisan's removing back. That sure startled her.
She absently gazed at her scraped knuckles.
Unexpectedly, a small, quizzical smile broke upon her lips, for Hinata might have not possessed all of the abilites that made shinobi 'adequate', but was more than good at recieving messages.
Feeling an appreciable amount of burden lifting off her own chest, she turned to the wooden chuck once more, this time adjusting her stance.
AN – You know how some people, after a fight, feel too ashamed to apologize properly so they awkwardly walk up to the person they argued with and start talking about the weather or some other nonsense that pops into mind – just to check if the person is still willing to talk to them? :)