Thank you for the lovely reviews! I really appreciate it, and I'll work harder to improve my writing. However, I now feel the pressure of writing a good story...I hope I won't disappoint you too much. As always, constructive criticism is always welcomed and appreciated.
Second Encounter
Hinata's uncle has an apologetic expression on his face as he slides open the door of his shop. "Good morning, Hinata-chan. I'm sorry that you had to wake up so early during your summer vacation."
With a shake of her head, she cheerfully greets her uncle a good morning. "No, no," she protests. Her uncle's frown deepens when he hears this. "Please don't apologize. I love waking up in the early morning."
Ever since she could remember, she would naturally wake up around sunrise. She often wakes up to the sight of soft rays of sunlight penetrating through her window curtains. Upon this wondrous sight, she would walk downstairs and sit down on the porch, watching the sun.
The town is silent, almost as if everyone is asleep. Hinata cherishes this moment because the town is rarely quiet, and one has to wake up very early in the morning to achieve this type of peacefulness. The sun is gently shining against the roof of the shop, and in just a few minutes, the streets will be bustling with excitement as people awaken.
As she walks into the shop and sets her bag on the ground near her table, her uncle does not retreat into the backroom as he always does. There are two chairs at her table today, and he sits down next to her.
He shifts the chair slightly and gestures to the teapot in the middle of the table. There is still an apologetic frown on his face. "If you would like, you could come around an hour later," he suggests. "In all my years, I have never seen a customer walk in this early in the morning during the summertime."
The two seem to be thinking of the same thing without even uttering a word, for the shop rarely has customers at all in the summertime. The beach is too much of a temptation, and no one would even be able to see the shop with the splendor of the sand, water, and the sun.
With a small nod, she stands up and pours a cup of tea for her uncle and herself with shaking hands. "No, it's fine. I like waking up in the morning and knowing that I have somewhere to be," she says softly.
Her uncle shakes his head with a small smile, but it is no longer apologetic. He seems to be intentionally not looking at Hinata as he tells her, "You're more like your father than you think."
He takes a long sip of tea and stands up. He intentionally does not look at Hinata, but there is a trace of a soft smile on his face. "You know where to find me," he says as he pulls open the backdoor.
Hinata's tote bag is considerably bigger than the previous day. Instead of the contents resembling a mini section of the library, there are only two novels that she wants to complete before the end of the day. More strangely and noticeably, there is a small rice cooker securely resting on the bottom of her bag.
Her mother had instilled the importance of fresh food into Hinata's mind as a small child, and even now, she tries to have her food as fresh as possible. Of course, no meal is complete without a bowl of rice, and on a whim, she packed the rice cooker in the morning.
However, due to the lack of cooking appliances, she could not make miso soup even if she had the ingredients, so she had poured the soup into a thermos. With a relieved sigh, she takes out the bag of (uncrushed) cherry tomatoes that she had purchased in the morning because they were on sale.
As she lays the rice cooker on the edge of the table next to the outlet, she takes out several white bowls and plates as she waits for the rice to warm up. She is setting the chopsticks on her handkerchief when the door slides open, revealing Sasuke Uchiha.
"W—welcome!" Hinata stutters immediately. "I'm sorry, but the—the clock isn't repaired yet."
Even around eight o' clock in the morning, Sasuke Uchiha looks like he could be a member of a boy band. His dark hair looks more messy than usual, like he had just arisen from bed, but Hinata is aware that would merely increase the affection of most girls. With his left hand shoved into his white shorts that cut off right above the knees, he barely seems to notice the girl (who is still holding the chopsticks) and says, "I know. I'm here to pick up an hourglass."
"Please wait just a—a moment, I'll tell my uncle," she quickly mumbles, deciding to try out the method to saying everything as quickly as possible in order not to seem like a gaping idiot with an inability to speak. She finally realizes that she is holding onto the chopsticks and tries to nonchalantly set them down.
"Should you be leaving the shop unattended?"
He certainly has a way of surprising her. She contemplates this for a few seconds and replies, "You would never steal, Uchiha-san."
And she hadn't stuttered.
She knocks on the backdoor once and slips in. She navigates her way seamlessly through the trail of clocks and the occasional toolbox on the ground until she sees the long hair of her uncle. "Oji-san, Uchiha-san is—is here to pick up an—an hourglass."
Her uncle places down one of his tools and looks at Hinata with surprise. "He's a bit early. I'm waiting for a shipment and at the earliest, it isn't supposed to come until eleven o' clock. He knows that."
Hinata doesn't know how to reply, so she settles for the standard, "Oh, is that so…"
She knows her uncle frequently forgets to eat his meals and it worries her father immensely, so before he could pick up his tool again, she blurts out, "Would you like to—to have breakfast with me, oji-san?" She looks down at her fingers nervously and adds, "It's only—only rice and miso soup, and—and it's not as fresh as I'd like it to be, and—and I also have onigiri, but—"
She stops when she hears a throaty chuckle. With a closed fist on his chin, her uncle reaches down to pat Hinata on the head. "Thank you for offering, but I already had breakfast."
"O—oh…"
She turns to leave, but then her uncle calls out, "But I'll take an onigiri for lunch when I'm hungry."
"Y-yes!" Hinata exclaims, covering her smile with the sleeves of her cardigan as she rushes back.
Before Hinata could open her mouth as she closes the backdoor, she hears Sasuke say, "Itachi lied. He said that the hourglass would be available when the shop opened."
Hinata thinks back to the time she had seen the older Uchiha brother pick up Sasuke around third grade. It had only been one time, but she remembers the smile on Sasuke's face when they walked out the classroom and Itachi had been waiting for him by the tree.
Sasuke had been trying to pretend that he wasn't happy to see Itachi and protested that he didn't need to be chaperoned home, but Itachi simply had placed his hand on his little brother's head with an affectionate smile and said, "Let's go home."
Although Hinata had never interacted with Itachi, she had heard many things about him. He is well-known for being a genius, and at twenty years old, he is a respected doctor in the medical field. Whenever the official Hyuuga doctor isn't in town, Hinata would bring Hanabi to Itachi's office because he was the only "competent doctor other than the Hyuuga doctor" according to her father.
"May—maybe your brother really thought that the hourglass—"
Sasuke cuts her off. "He doesn't make mistakes."
Something occurs to Hinata, and she asks, "How did you—you know that the hourglass wasn't available?"
Sasuke dangles his phone from the tips of his index finger and thumb with a disgusted expression. "He sent me a message consisting of an insecure apology about how he had somehow had mistaken eleven o' clock for eight o' clock. As if someone could make that kind of mistake..."
Hinata has to stop herself from laughing at his disgusted expression. Although he is obviously annoyed at his older brother, she knows that Sasuke is not truly mad at his older brother. In fact, she feels that Sasuke himself must feel a bit amused at his older brother's antics.
At school, Sasuke mostly had an indifferent expression and she couldn't blame him. Sometimes she had wondered if he would have been more interested in his classes if he had skipped a year, but he seems to be content sharing a class with Naruto. (At least, that is the impression she had formed whenever she had seen Sasuke discreetly scoff at his blonde friend.) The only times Sasuke had changed his expression at school was when he was with Naruto, but Hinata found it amusing how quickly Sasuke's expression would change from indifference to annoyance.
Still, she couldn't even wrap her head around the fact that she was conversing with Sasuke after years of attending the same schools, having some of the same classes together, and sitting behind him. He must be very bored, she thinks to herself, or perhaps he simply is too lazy to leave.
Her growling stomach interrupts her thoughts and she blushes. She gestures to the table, avoiding his eyes, and invites him to join her for breakfast. She finds herself making the same excuses that she gave her uncle.
"I—I know it isn't much, and I only have r—rice, and—and onigiri, and the miso soup is—is in a thermos, and I still haven't washed the cherry tomatoes—"
When she looks up, she sees him sliding into the chair across from her.
Hinata returns with clean cherry tomatoes and a bucket of water. "I—I felt bad for using the hose in the back and I didn't want—want to waste water, so I washed it—it on top of a buck—bucket…"
She has to admit, she always feels stupid whenever Sasuke is around. She couldn't think of one useful thing to do with the bucket, but maybe she could keep it with her in case there is a fire.
Which is a horrible thing to think, but it's better to be safe and sound.
Or maybe she is just paranoid.
Sasuke merely raises an eyebrow when he sees her carrying the small bucket, but he doesn't say anything until she empties the bag of tomatoes onto a small plate, pours miso soup into a bowl, and gives him a bowl of rice.
"Itadakimasu."
The scene would seem peculiar to customers if they had walked in. Two silent teenagers are sitting across from each other, as if they are both trained to be quiet. They do not talk. They simply sip their miso soup from time to time, they simply reach for the plate of cherry tomatoes from time to time, and they simply use their chopsticks to scoop a small chunk of rice into their mouths.
Hinata notices that Sasuke really, really likes tomatoes. She doesn't say anything and continues to sip her soup. Whenever she does take a tomato, she bites into it with a satisfied smile. She can see why he likes them so much. A burst of succulent flavor practically explodes in her mouth before mellowing out into a pleasant taste.
"Gochisousama," Sasuke says as soon as there are no more tomatoes.
You really like tomatoes, don't you, Uchiha-san?
"Have you noticed that you don't stutter whenever you don't realize that you have spoken?"
Hinata chokes on her onigiri, and Sasuke hands her the handkerchief on the table. She coughs into her handkerchief for a few seconds before she drinks the remainder of her miso soup in one gulp. Somehow, she manages to make even this look simultaneously graceful and clumsy at the same time.
"And yes, I really do like tomatoes," he answers as the coughing subsides.
The backdoor opens and Hinata's uncle emerges with an hourglass delicately embedded with the Uchiha symbol. The red is faded compared to the symbol she has seen the Uchiha family wearing on occasion, but it is still stark in comparison to the white counterpart of the fan. Sasuke takes the hourglass into his hands and nods in thanks.
"Tell your brother to take good care of the hourglass, now. It takes quite a while to import those red grains of sand."
"Thanks, I will," Sasuke politely replies.
Hinata's uncle nods his head and crosses his arms with a satisfied look, and Hinata can't help but admire how many males could communicate by simply nodding. If only she could pull that off, her shyness would not be so painful and burdensome.
Hesitantly, she juts out her chin slightly. Maybe she could communicate with people like this and never again would she have to suffer while people had to listen to her awful stutter...
Feeling silly, she looks up to continue watching the exchange between her uncle and Sasuke. To her surprise, Sasuke had been watching her silly attempt at...nodding, of all things, and his lip is curved slightly to the side.
She resists the burning temptation to crawl under the table and forces herself to not look away from him.
He is holding the hourglass in the palm of his hand and he turns to look at the door. Hinata can't help but feel a stab of disappointment because she enjoys his company, but there is no reason for him to stay any longer.
She stares down at her sandals again, and she wishes to have courage. She wants to tell him to stay a little longer because she would like to get to know him, but he would surely have the wrong impression of her.
So she'll wait a little longer. If he returns again to the shop, she'll become a little braver.
Each and every time he walks through that door, she will become braver and braver, little by little.
And so, she almost misses his words while she makes up her mind.
"Thanks for the tomatoes."
She can only see his retreating back as he walks out that door, but why should she wait until the next time she sees him? What if he never returns to the shop? If that should happen, then she would be wasting her time waiting for him.
"Uchiha-san! I'll—I'll have tomatoes for you next—next time!" She calls out as loudly as she can, and she is momentarily scared that her efforts have gone to waste when she arrives at the door. She breathes a sigh of relief when she sees him just a step away from her, and she can tell that he had heard her because he had been waiting for her.
She is breathless, and already she knows she could never forget the sight of Sasuke looking at her as the sun illuminated his features in such a way that gave him a glow.
Holding the hourglass in his hand, he flips it over with a flick of his wrist.
"I'll be waiting then."
As he walks away, Hinata watches him until he disappears from her sight. With her hand clasped to her beating heart, she thinks to herself that although she could been imagining the smile on his face, she could have never imagined falling for him.