The trip continues, I guess..
"What's this?"
We'd been on the road for about four hours. I dared a look over at Sasuke who seemed to be a completely different person that what I'd always known him to be. The entire time, I thought, Why is he in my car? Why didn't I just kick him out? Why isn't this as horrible as I would imagine it would be?
The thing is, I never, ever thought about this kind of situation. No contact has ever been between Sasuke and I besides the few times we'd spoken during one of our classes. Other than those handful of times, he was a total stranger.
Yet he's in my freaking car looking at my freaking Cds with this look on his face that tells me he doesn't like what he sees in the disc case. I looked back onto the road quickly, not caring. He can hate my Cds if he wants to.
"What do you mean?" I asked it slowly because I was still wondering how I got into this situation.
"Hn, nothing." I hear him close the case and return it to its place below the passenger seat.
Of course. What else did I expect him to answer me with?
My stomach rumbled. I could feel his eyes on me instantly. I looked for any kind of sign that there was a stop somewhere down the road we were on, but there was nothing but forest on each side of us.
No signs. No people. Nothing.
Instantly, a thought of crazed hill people and being tied up and tortured flashed through my head. Visibly shuddering, I gripped the steering wheel tighter.
"The whites on your knuckles are showing."
I didn't loosen my grip or even glance at him. There's no way I'm stopping at any place around here. I don't care how hungry I am.
"Loosen your grip before you wreck and kill us both." He said it louder than his last sentence. Then I heard him sigh. "Idiot."
"Shut up." He reminded me of my sister when he'd said that. She always had some smart comment to shoot back at me when I got on her nerves. I blame it on early teenage years making things confusing and probably hard on her. Always telling her to just shut up seems to do the trick when she annoys me, but Sasuke's different. He's not a young teenage girl.
"You can't drive can you?"
The audacity of this guy. "Obviously I can."
"You're timid, Hinata. That's why it was easy for me to just get in your car and not be kicked out onto the curb. I expected you to freak out more, but I guess I was off. . . Either way, this timidness makes you a bad driver. I can tell. You get nervous about oncoming traffic, avoid having someone tailgating us by going above the speed limit, and don't think I don't notice how you close your eyes every time we pass by a car. I'm going to hate seeing you drive at night." His response was either previously thought out, or he's just a really great guesser. Either way, it hit the nail on the head.
That's the most I've ever heard him say. Ever. I thought for a moment. Then what he said begin to sink in completely. At night. . ? I thought about how bad my driving already was. I thought about how I'd never driven at night before for that very reason. "No."
"Hn?"
"I'm not driving at night." For some reason, my voice was tight.
"So we're stopping."
"No. There is no way I'm stopping anywhere around this terrifying place." My stomach growled as if it disagreed.
"It's either one or the other, Hinata," he said, tapping his finger on the window in a bored manner. My stomach growled again. "Heh. I think we should stop."
"You want to get raped, be my guest. I'll just drop you off at the next stop, and you can be kidnapped by the hill people, dragged to their ramshackle home in the middle of the forest, and be sodomized by. . . candlesticks or something. I've seen the movies. I know what goes on." My voice was really high now, and I could feel my heart beating ten times faster than normal.
He didn't say anything for a very long time. The thought occurred to me that maybe he'd fallen asleep, but then he let out a small chuckle.
"Hinata."
Waiting for him to continue, I nodded once.
He said nothing.
"What, Sasuke?"
Nothing.
I glanced over at him quickly, trying not to veer off the road. He was looking out the window, a smirk on his face.
"Let's stop in the next town, get gasoline, eat, and I'll drive tonight."
You're not my boss, I thought, but I knew he was right. And it seemed nice of him to drive for me. . . I guess. No one's ever driven my car but me. And he's pretty much some stranger.
But I wasn't staying in any small town in the forest for longer than it takes to eat and get some fuel so I nodded my head in agreement.
By the time we reached the next stop, it was pitch black outside and Sasuke's stomach was growling, too. We got out of the car at a pizza place that seemed pretty decent, and eating there wasn't anything special. The waitress commented on how Sasuke was so young and good-looking. I rolled my eyes, enjoyed the food, and we each payed for our own half. It was sort of like going out to eat with Neji because he always, always had some waitress or waiter tell me that my dining partner was "so devastatingly handsome". Bleh, yeah sure.
I was filling up my car after we'd left there, and I heard a freaky noise coming from the dark woods near the gas station we were at. Sasuke was in the car. Not another person in sight. Looking around carefully, I noticed nothing. I went inside to pay for the gas, and as soon as I exited the inside, I heard the noise again. This time, I immediately ran to my car.
Gripping the handle on the driver's side, I flung the door open and flung myself inside.
Locking all the doors with the master lock button on my door panel, I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. My eyes closed, and my hand over my heart, I leaned back, relaxing into the seat. Then I felt his eyes on me. Quickly, my head snapped toward him.
"What?" I asked, my eyebrows raised.
He shrugged, deciding to pull out my case of Cds again.
"Nothing happened," I told him, my voice a pitch higher than normal.
"Hn." Flipping through my Cds again, this time more thoughtfully, he only nodded at what I was saying.
I let out a puff of air, looking out my window at the station. The woman behind the counter was staring at us through the station window. It gave me the creeps. Then she began to wave. I leaned away as if she were right in front of me. Does she think she knows me from somewhere or something. . ?
"My turn to drive." I heard Sasuke mumble before hearing a lock being flipped up and his door being opened. I crawled into the passenger seat like a little kid would, placing the Cd case in my lap. I slammed the door shut, re-locking it.
When Sasuke reached the driver's door, he pulled the handle in vain. I'd forgotten to unlock it. With a slight smile, I leaned over to unlock it for him. He got in while giving me a complete look of annoyance. "Give me that." He grabbed the case from me before I realized what he'd wanted.
Choosing a Cd, he tossed the case back at me before putting it in. "If I'm driving, we're going to have music. I like this band, so it'll have to do."
I put the case back, raising a question to him. "Why don't we just listen to the radio?"
"I don't feel like wasting time turning through the channels, do you?" Before I could reply, he added. "You'd be an idiot if you do, so I don't want to hear it."
Without buckling up, he started the car and pulled out of the station. I looked back once more at the woman inside behind the counter. She'd disappeared. I shuddered once again and buckled myself in. Sasuke received a long look from me. What, does he think he's cool not wearing a seat belt or something? I don't care. And I didn't.
Staring out the window into the night was comforting in its own way.
Thanks for reading this mess..
