a/n wow, holy cow, I didn't think this would be such a hit! I don't think I've ever gotten so many fav's and subscriptions for a first chapter. Thanks! Your reviews were also super sweet; guess all the SasuHina fans are coming out of the woodwork:)
Special thanks to Ninjakittee, my beta extraordinaire. Without her, you would have to deal with some spelling mistakes:) If you haven't checked out her fic, "Angel Clan," 'tis a yummy fic:)
Onwards to the 2nd chapter; will do my best to update again next weekend:) xoxoxo!
Tea's Tea and The Stalker's Stalker
Hinata is drinking tea; the hot liquid is thick, and smokey, and pure luxury after traveling on foot for over a week, with little to drink besides tepid water from her canteen and instant coffee. Today is the day of her interview, and Hinata is uneasy. She can't help it; being a nervous Nellie is her nature. Will she be accepted as a Vestal virgin? Lord knows she has the virgin part down pat. What if they didn't like her? What then?
What on earth is she doing in this provincial, back-water border town?
Hinata shakes her head and drains her cup of tea; the waiter, an attractive man with red hair, brings her a refill on her expensive, imported-directly-from-the-Tea-Country, top-o'-the-line, Lapsang Souchong tea. He is hitting on her, Hinata realizes, as she takes the cup with a stuttering t-t-thank you. But she doesn't encourage him to stay. Finally, he leaves, saying he can't stand the sight of a pretty young girl being sad, and the tea is on the house.
Ha. Pretty young girl indeed. Hinata stares at her reflection in the dark cup, all wide eyes and trembling lips. She takes a deep breath of the pine scented, full bodied tea, and it steadies her nerves. She takes the first sip, and it is bliss; it is chocolate and smoked meat and a dark, hoppy beer all at once. It is hot; the steam envelops her face as she drinks, and she thinks this, this divine nectar otherwise known as tea, is the reason why the Tea Country is so aptly named. Happiness in the form of a ephemeral drink is hers. When she is finishes, the waiter pours her more. He says it brings him joy to put a smile on her face, and she stutters a garbled, unintelligible reply.
Left alone with her beverage, she inhales the fragrant steam once more; the undertones of pine make her think of her teammates. Shino, Kiba and Kurenai had caught up with her shortly after she had left the gates; she knew they would. They walked with her in silence for a long while. Even Kiba, who was usually an open-mouth-insert-foot kind of guy, was laconic. Surprisingly, it was Shino who broke the silence: "We understand, Hinata. Why? Because we are your friends."
Hinata stopped walking at that point; she stood stock still in the middle of the path, the three members of her surrogate family standing just behind her. Kiba put a hand on her shoulder. "Please let us know where you're going, Hinata-chan!" Akamaru barked an affirmative, and Kiba continued, softly, "We're worried about you."
Soon, her teammates circled around her, their eyes soft with understanding. They had seen her deteriorate over the past five years: at first, Hinata had channelled her disgruntled, disappointed energy into training. The department of accounting docked her pay many times for damage done to training posts; once, she had pummeled an entire rock-face of a nearby cliff into oblivion, and the boulders rolled onto a training field, destroying it. Perhaps it had been a silent invocation: See, Naruto-kun? She's not the only one who can punch the earth until her hands bleed and the ground fractures. But her pay had merely been docked, and nothing further on the matter had been said.
Eventually, destroying inanimate objects wasn't enough; but she had to get stronger, stronger, stronger, didn't she? Or else, what was she doing with herself? Who was she becoming stronger for? It was especially bad after the Hokage's lavish wedding. The whole town had been invited, and Hinata had stood amongst the drunk and careening guests with a tight smile and a dead look in her eyes, as if she were a taxidermic animal with its mouth pinned back in a feral grin.
After that, Naruto's face had been carved on the Hokage monument. It loomed large; his eyes always seemed to follow her, asking her silent questions she did not know the answers to. For a while, Hinata resolved to die in the line of duty while protecting Naruto; but since it was peace time, she never got to live out that dream, despite her fortuitous placement on ANBU. She felt like there was a song inside of her body that was trapped in her throat; she felt the fire in her heart die like a snuffed candle.
At night, she would idly finger the scar on her chest, where Pein had stabbed her: it was right over her heart. A centimeter lower, Sakura had said, and Hinata would have been dead.
She wished, sometimes, that Pein had been so kind; damn Rinnegan, should have been more accurate, could have at least aimed appropriately. That was the problem with ocular jutsu: you thought you could see everything, see through things and know things; but looks were deceiving. Seeing was believing but believing didn't imply veracity. She would silently curse that scar as she drifted off to sleep, and in the morning, she would contemplate the Hokage's huge head, looming over her like a grinning blimp, and the only thought that would ring in her head was why why why?
All these thoughts and memories echoed in Hinata's mind as she looked at her teammates, and in their eyes, she found understanding; it was like bathing in cool water on a hot day. She was soothed. She gave them all an impromptu group hug and whispered that she was taking a vacation in the Tea Country, and no, she didn't know when she would be back, but she would write. She promised.
It was mostly true, but it was the closest thing to a lie Hinata had ever told them. She didn't want anyone to know her whereabouts, not even her teammates. It felt better that way, she insisted to herself, though her stomach twisted as the white lies left her lips.
They had stood a while in the clearing, drinking in each other's presences, until Hinata insisted that they leave, before the goodbye broke her resolve. They flitted away like shadows, like fragments of memory. As Hinata walked on, free of the omnipresent gaze of the Hokage monument, she breathed a little easier. The silence was filled only with birdsong and the sunlight filtering in through the trees; Hinata thought about her new direction in life, and for the first time in years, she was satisfied. Not happy—she had given up on that—but satisfied.
Hinata raises her cup to her lips and smiles, thinking about the seven day long journey to this tiny town on the edge of Tea; here, with her black contact lenses covering her bleached eyes, she can almost feel like a normal human being. She is going to let her old life float away, like the evanescent steam in her tea cup, and she will find her fire again. Still smiling, she takes a long sip of tea, lowering the mug when she feels a presence sitting down beside her; she thinks it is probably the waiter, come to flirt with her again—
But it is not.
Hinata peers over the rim of her porcelain tea cup, and, startled, spits out hot tea onto his shirt: she stares, tea dripping down her face like drool—very, very expensive and tasty drool. Part of her mind remembers that it is impolite to stare, just like it is impolite to spit tea all over an acquaintance, but the rest of her brain is concerned with the fact that the man sitting across from her is dead. Or at least, he was dead?
She had seen him die with her own, two, irrefutable, Byakugan-enhanced eyes in the last war. His blood and guts and flesh had been shredded by Naruto's rasen-shuriken; he had exploded, and an instant later, Sakura had crumbled the earth below his feet, so that all the little itty bitty bits of Uchiha Sasuke had been buried under an avalanche of rock.
But now, sitting across from her, is Sasuke, replete with pale skin, dark hair, cool, cold eyes…though the dark rings under his eyes are new. He looks like a more sallow and haunted version of the man she had seen die on the battlefield, all those many years ago.
"You look like you've just seen a ghost," he smirks; she remembers now, he used to smirk all the time, back at the academy; the action is familiar and unnerving at the same time. The awkwardness increases as Hinata realizes that this is the first time Sasuke has ever actually spoken to her. Which is funny, because they have known each other their whole lives, but had simply never interacted, not even to say: "Hello," or, "Nice weather, isn't it?"
"I-I-I…" Hinata stutters. Somehow, she manages to rest her cup on the polished maple table without breaking the exquisite blue-patterned porcelain, though she does tremble; she spills some of the dark tea on the counter.
It can't be him. Can it? What if it isn't him? But then again, what if it is? Suddenly, she blurts out, "I left white peonies on your grave, every year!" She doesn't know why she says this, but it is true.
Sasuke looks at her as if she is insane, and then barks with laughter; the sound scares her. "Peonies? Tch. That's what they have at weddings."
Hinata feels her cheeks flaming; but she is not a shy, push-over any more, despite her undying propensity for stuttering. She has faced down Akatsuki members and zombies by the scores; she convinces herself that one, theoretically dead Uchiha does not scare her. "I p-picked them b-because they s-s-symbolize c-compassion." She gulps audibly before adding, "And n-nobility." Hinata looks down at the table top and taps her finger idly in a puddle of cold tea.
"Hn." The Uchiha leans forward on his elbows and rests his chin in his hands; for some reason, the gesture reminds Hinata of a panther waiting to pounce, and a cold sweat breaks out along her back. "Listen Hinata," Sasuke begins in a droll voice, the humor of the situation—how they are arguing over which flower arrangement she has left on his grave marker for the past five years— has put him in a strange mood. He snaps, "I didn't just come here to talk about fucking flowers."
Unbidden, Hinata reaches out slowly, slowly, and touches his skin; it is cool, but it is not stone cold. So. He is not a zombie. Just to be sure, Hinata activates her Byakugan, and indeed, it really is Sasuke, with his lightening-like chakra and a palpable darkness hovering around him like a cloak. She retracts her hand and sits back down, slowly, slowly. "You're really alive?" She means it to sound like a statement, but it comes out as a question.
Sasuke ignores her. "That temple you want to apply to: it's a cult run by some crazy old man. They sacrifice a virgin every year to the so-called 'goddess.'" He looks at her piercingly before adding, "They draw lots."
"Lots?" she asks, confused.
"For who is going to be sacrificed," he says, as if explaining something obvious to an especially stupid child.
"Oh," Hinata responds, still in shell-shock. And then: "Wait. How do you…?"
It's an unfinished question, but he understands. "I've been following you," he responds simply, as if it is the most ordinary thing in the world. He goes on to explain how, for the past year, he's been lurking around Konoha, just watching people go about their daily lives: Naruto and Sakura's pink-headed children, the ANBU winking in and out of sight, the new Hokage head carved into the mountainside. He says Naruto's head isn't a fair facsimile; it doesn't look idiotic enough for it to be true to life, and Hinata chuckles nervously.
"You see," he continues, "I found a way to elude Naruto's sensory technique. I simply hide my chakra signature behind yours. The dobe is so busy avoiding you—ignoring how you are feeling— that you're like a safe buffer zone between me and the Toad Moron."
Hinata blinks; the sick sad truth is becoming clear. "So you've been shadowing me? So no one can sense you?" she squeaks. It sounds insane. A dead man has been stalking her while she stalks Naruto so that Naruto will not pick up on Sasuke's presence.
Sasuke nods. "But enough of that," he counters, as if that were nothing out of the ordinary.
He wants to tell her something important, but she breaks in, "For how long?" Her voice trembles; she is appalled, and she feels sick to her stomach.
"For a year." He shrugs. "I never watched anything inappropriate, like when you changed your clothes or showered—unlike someone I know." He blinks in a suggestive fashion at this, and Hinata blushes red, fire-fucking-engine red, because he definitely knows that she's watched Naruto undress, and more than a few times.
"Oh!" she cheeps, at a lack for words.
"Anyway, Hyuga, I have a proposition for you." The undead Uchiha holds out his hand to her, and Hinata, stunned by the events of the last five minutes, meekly puts her hand in his. "I have a job for you. Something a lot better than becoming a sacrificial lamb for some religious cult," he sneers. "I need you to kill me."
a/n lol, guess this is what they call dark humor:)
In exchange for your reviews, I offer my undying love and affection! xoxoxo!
