18 years old

Her hand was already in the slot of the mailbox when she retreated it again. Ruefully she looked at the blue colored envelope which she couldn't part with. The rain fell soundlessly against her umbrella. It was that type of weightless rain that floated in the air like dust and seemed to be everywhere but on the ground. Yet, the small droplets were enough to wetten the ink of Naruto's name, thickening the letters.

Hinata stared at the envelope. She imagined what Naruto would be doing right now. Somehow, those imaginations of him were always soundless, like in some kind of dream. She could see him talking and laughing but she couldn't hear it.

Maybe he had found time to bake, his gaze continuously switching from his messy sketchbook to the table with the utensils he would use. Far away, in his own world, maybe he was content right now, smiling at his creation or finding someone to taste whatever he had made. Or maybe he was together with some friends right now. She wouldn't know how they looked like so she only saw blank faces that surrounded him, attracted to the light that was Naruto.

She pressed the envelope against her chest and sighed. She could nearly feel it through her jacket and on her skin. A piece of writing shouldn't have this much power. The air smelled like fall, like moist earth and dried up leaves, like something faintly sweet in the distance. She sensed a dampness on her legs that wasn't even there and a cold shiver on her back. Hinata shook her head and put the letter back into her bag, feeling its weight when she shouldered it and pressed it against her body. Then she walked away from the mailbox.

24 years old

His shoulders were wider and he was taller, so much taller than her now. The closer she walked up to him the more aware she became of that. The physical proof that he had become an adult astonished her for some reason. He tried to smile at her, appear somehow at ease but he could feel his mouth stiffen. Suddenly he became oddly conscious of his hands and where he should put them.

Even though he had been aware that he would see her when he came here, even though he had planned looks and poses and dialogues for the moment he would be face to face with her again, none of it seemed to have ever existed the moment she walked up to him.

She was beautiful, her hair falling just over one of her shoulders and her face more slender than it was in his memory. He couldn't remember ever seeing her in a dress as fancy as the one she was wearing right now. She looked up at him beneath hooded lashes, not yet daring to face him completely. Her lips were pressed together and he wished for her to smile at him.

"Hey," he said almost breathlessly and regretted the greeting the moment it had rolled over his lips. Something so short and meaningless didn't feel like it was enough for this moment. Hinata deserved something that was meaning and yearning and elation. But was there even a phrase out there that would suffice for the years they hadn't seen each other?

She looked at him in an astonished manner as if she still couldn't make any sense of him suddenly being in front of her. She then replied in the same manner, with the same short and meaningless greeting. At least, he could finally hear her voice again. They felt the bridal couple's expectant eyes on them as they fell into a short yet heavy silence.

"What are you doing here?" Hinata's question sounded harsher than she had intended it to be but Naruto didn't seem to take it negatively. Instead, he smiled at her when he answered and there was this fleeting moment where the gaze in his eyes became soft as he examined her face.

"I'm moving back here."

He said more after that. She could see his lips moving, explaining to them that he had thought about it for a while. She could see him turning his head between the three that were present but also lingering at her while he talked, waiting for a certain reaction but she couldn't hear anything further he explained. There was a buzz in her head that made everything else fade into silence and that one sentence swirled around in her mind like a carousel. I'm moving back here.

Tenten rejoiced in a little jump and told Naruto that she had heard quite a lot about him and was happy to finally get to know him, while Neji regarded his cousin and brushed Hinata's arm.

"So, you're staying here for good?" Hinata asked.

"Well, yes. That's the plan," he replied almost as if he had been caught doing something wrong.

Hinata could feel a tickling in her hands and Naruto watched her move another step in his direction. There was something in the way they looked at each other that made electricity rush through their veins; something only meant for each other, a glint of past memories flashing in front of them.

"How did you know to come here?" Tenten asked. "Neji and I had no idea that you would be coming."

"Oh, it was a coincidence. I met Iruka a few months back and he asked whether I would be going to Neji's wedding." Naruto chuckled quietly on his own as it was still odd to hear that one of his childhood friends had gotten married.

Hinata's expression had fallen. "So you were here in town a few months ago?"

"Eh, yeah. I was." Naruto was caught even though he had tried to keep his motive for coming back hidden. This was not the way he had planned to tell her. Not while standing next to Neji and his new bride, who both watched them so expectantly; not while he had to raise his voice because the band had started to play again and they were too close to the stage; not while standing in this dim light that kept him from regarding her face as carefully as he intended to.

But Hinata was already frowning at him in this way that reminded him of the time when he hadn't waited for her after school because some of his classmates had crudely teased him about her being his girlfriend. The look of betrayal she had carried was far worse than any teasing he could imagine.

"Actually, I was-"

"Naruto!" A hand gave his shoulder a powerful swat. "Dude, is that really you?" Kiba grinned at him, his hand remaining on Naruto's arm and his face a little too close to his.

For a moment Naruto's eyes flashed over his old friend's face, a youthful grin spread across it, and realized how little had changed in his appearance. Naruto grinned back at him and they did a half-hug where they patted each other's backs loud enough to momentarily drown the music.

"No one told me you were coming." Kiba stepped away from him but stood close enough for their arms to brush as he swayed to the rhythm of the music.

"'Cause no one knew really." Naruto awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

"Geez, how long has it been since you left? Five? Six years?"

"It's been over seven years," came Hinata's voice and even though she had corrected Kiba's miscalculations she was looking at Naruto, who felt like something sharp was piercing through him.

"Right." Kiba laughed uneasily and Tenten joined him, trying to appease the tension that had emerged. "Time surely flies."

"You should meet the others too," Neji suggested. "We could get you a chair from somewhere so that you can join them." He was searching the hall, trying to see over the crowd that had accumulated in the middle of the dance floor.

"Thanks." All of sudden Naruto felt misplaced. He had already apologized that he wasn't dressed properly for the occasion even though he could have sworn that he had taken a suit with him to wear at the wedding. As he stood there, poorly attired in the only white shirt he could find, and looked at these people he hadn't seen in a very long time, he felt like making excuses for appearing without saying anything beforehand. "Don't worry, I'll find a place to sit."

A beat passed before Kiba grabbed him by the shoulder and ushered him to his table as Naruto continued to look back at Tenten, who snaked her arm around Neji's to pull him closer to her and say something into his ear, and at Hinata, who didn't follow them yet, staring at their figures disappearing from her view.


Naruto had been wandering around the hall when he found Neji sitting by himself at and empty table. He followed his gaze and discovered that he was watching his wife, which made Naruto smile.

"I can't believe you're married now." He lowered himself on the chair next to him and gave the groom a light jab into the side. Naruto too started to follow the movements of the bride, who seemed to glide over the parquet with such an ease that it made her look divine.

Neji chuckled and leaned back in his seat, eyeing Naruto's profile now.

"Makes me realize again how much time really passed," Naruto mumbled in a melancholy tone. Neji noticed the hardening of his expression, only there for a moment, before he broke into a grin and turned toward him. "Who would have known that I would be attending your wedding one day, considering how much you used to hate me."

Neji was aware that Naruto wanted to cast off the thought that had flashed before him just then to talk about something pleasant instead. Neji wrinkled his nose and shook his head a little. "I didn't hate you."

"Come on, of course, you did." Naruto laughed. "Whenever you were at her place and I called Hinata out to play you tried to find some weird excuses to convince her to stay at home because you refused to do anything with me." He remembered Neji holding one of Hinata's arms to keep her from going out the front door telling her that she should play with Hanabi instead or that she had homework to do or that she had forgotten to water the plants. Naruto had arched a brow at him, holding onto her other arm. Yet thanks to Naruto's persistent character those excuses rarely worked.

"Sometimes those were very legitimate reasons." Neji had his arms crossed over his chest, convinced that his nine-year-old self couldn't have been as ludicrous as Naruto painted him out to be.

"You even punched me once."

"But that was an accident so it doesn't count and you punched me right back."

The fight had involved a rather heated baseball game on a crisp afternoon in spring and a misunderstanding leading to a brawl, that Kiba and Shikamaru had to get in between of.

Naruto and Neji started laughing, those days seemed like a lifetime ago.

"After that, Hinata did everything she could to make us friends." For some reason, she had been convinced that they would become friends if they just began to do more things together. Naruto hadn't believed her back then but now he was sitting together with Neji on his wedding day.

Coincidentally both found Hinata talking together with Tenten at her table. And while the bride glanced at the men now and them, Hinata didn't.

"Yes, she can be quite stubborn," Neji said.

8 years old

Naruto and Neji stared at each other as if they were in some kind of contest and the first one to look away would lose. They were sitting across from each other; Naruto on the sofa, its leathery surface made noises whenever he moved, and Neji in the big chair that seemed to swallow him with its massiveness. The cartoon on the tv was left unattained after they had fought over what to watch. The voices of the characters on the screen were muffled by the rain hitting against the windows and the thunder in the distance yet no one wanted to be the one to move and use the remote.

In the corner of his eye, Naruto saw the glass of juice Hinata had brought him earlier and his mind was playing with the idea of taking a sip. But he didn't want to give Neji the satisfaction of winning this silent war they were having that no one, in particular, had declared.

He had sensed that something fishy was going on the moment Neji had opened the door for him. Hinata never really invited him to her place, they usually played at the bakery or outside when the weather was good. But this time Hinata had been so adamant in inviting him over that there wouldn't have been a chance to decline. Right now he wished he would have as Hinata had purposely left him alone with Neji. She continued to leave the room at one point even stopping to give them reasons why she would have to. It was obvious that she wanted them to talk and maybe bond over whatever was on tv.

She still hadn't returned from her last trip and he had to stay here at least until his parents picked him up after they closed the shop. A sudden bolt of lightning illuminated the room in an eerie glow of blue and made both boys wince right before the thunder rolled and the room fell into complete darkness. Everything went silent as even their breaths hitched in their throats.

Naruto could see Neji's eyes slightly sparkling in the distance as he stood up from where he had been seated.

"What's going on?" Naruto asked, still holding onto the sofa with one hand like it was some kind of safe haven. They heard footsteps in the hallway and Hiashi rushed into the room, trying to spot the children in the darkness.

"Don't worry, everything is going to be alright," he spoke with the calmness his voice commonly carried. "You three don't move and wait here together, I will see if I can get the power back on." He disappeared again into the darkness and mumbled something under his breath on his way out.

Naruto was so occupied with rediscovering the shapes and forms of the living room that he only now realized again that Hinata wasn't with them. He immediately called out for her but the only thing he could hear in response was Neji's breathing next to him.

"Let's go find her," Neji said in a low voice. "You stay behind me." He was already taking careful steps toward the exit of the room when Naruto exclaimed.

"Why do I have to walk behind you?" He grabbed his arm but bumped his shin against one leg of the coffee table. He drew in his breath through his teeth and rubbed the place on his leg that ached.

"That's the reason," Neji responded, calm as ever not caring whether his companion was in pain. "It's dark and I know this place better than you do. So follow me."

Naruto gave in after a long pause of grumbling. He followed Neji's shadow into the hallway, which was momentarily lightened up by another flash. They called Hinata's name into the abyss, their voices competing against the growling of thunder. They searched one room after the other, their hands constantly wielding through the air, occasionally hitting each other. Naruto stumbled into several pieces of furniture and he was about to accuse Neji of purposely leading him into them when he heard a whimpering in the huge wardrobe soaring at the end of the hallway. The piece of furniture was enormous enough for him to notice it when he stepped into the apartment, as he had wondered how someone could carry something so huge up the stairs.

"Wait," Naruto whispered and stepped in front of Neji. He closed in on the wardrobe that Neji knew only had one single coat of his uncle hanging in it.

"Hinata?" Naruto groped the surface of the wood to find the handles to open the wardrobe. He sensed Neji behind him when he opened its doors and the muffled whimpering became clearer.

"Hinata, are you alright?" Naruto found Hinata's foot, which jerked away the moment he touched it. The darkness was so much more bleak now that they were in the confines of furniture.

He heard Neji moving to Hinata's other side and scan the interior of the wardrobe. Naruto did the same and, after ensuring that there was enough room for him, sat down next to her. "Don't worry your dad is going to fix the lights," Naruto said in an encouraging voice and when his hand accidentally brushed against hers, he took a hold of it. She squeezed it when another bold of lightning struck and made odd noises behind pressed lips.

"Are you afraid of the storm?" Neji asked, "Is that why you didn't come back again?"

Naruto's sight adjusted to his surroundings and he could make out how Hinata nodded her head, the back of it rubbing against the coat behind them.

"The storm got louder and I didn't want to bother you." Even though she was sitting next to him it seemed as if her shaky voice was somewhere far in the distance, which was the reason why he shifted closer to her.

Neji told her that being afraid was fine and that they would wait with her until the storm was over. Naruto felt her hand loosening in his but enclosed him firmly again whenever the storm made itself present.

"Storms aren't that bad," he began. "My mom once said that even when it looks like the clouds are fighting, they always make up in the end." He smiled at her despite the fact that she surely wouldn't be able to see it. He continued with suggesting her to imagine the lightning and thunder being something else. That the lightning was just someone taking photos of her but that she couldn't care less because her stomach was growling so loudly, which was the thunder. He heard Neji laugh at that but not in a mocking way.

A game started where both of them described places they could be instead right now; a time machine to meet a real dinosaur or a space ship to see the stars up close. They giggled, one shoulder pressed to another, not realizing the storm fading away slowly. And when the lights came on again their imaginary world dissolved in the air. They remained seated and for a moment just didn't say anything and Naruto saw that Neji was holding Hinata's other hand.

24 years old

"Somehow I feel like she isn't even happy to see me again," Naruto spoke quiet enough for Neji to question whether his words were meant for him to hear or rather kept for himself. His gaze remained fixed on Hinata, who was now sitting alone and eyeing her uneaten piece of the cake that was distributed earlier.

"That's impossible," Neji declared calm and sure of his words. "I still remember her making lists of the things she wanted to talk with you about and crying when she couldn't reach you on your birthday."

Naruto's eyes moved away from Hinata to his folded hands in his lap. He imagined piles of sticky notes with endless lists of topics to update him on life in Konoha, collected meticulously in a drawer of her desk because she was the type of person that kept those kinds of things. Notes that told him that Kiba had managed to get into police academy and worked as an officer now. That his dog, Akamaru, who had never liked Naruto very much but adored Hinata all the more, was old but still alive. That Shino was a professor of entomology at a university a little far from Konoha. That Sakura had graduated from medical school best of her class like she had dreamed when she was still in middle school. That Shikamaru was working an office job in government and even met his girlfriend there. All these things he had only found out about today.

He imagined her covering herself under her blanket to cry, since she used to hide whenever she was upset, because he wouldn't celebrate his birthday after his parents had died. As she remembered that one time when they were ten and he told his parents that he was fine with them delaying his birthday party for a week because them congratulating him was enough for him.

"Just give her some time to adjust," Neji added and brought him back from the blurred imaginations in his mind. The music changed into a melodic song with a slow beat and before the singer stroke the first tone, Tenten was standing in front of them and taking Neji's hand. She led him onto the dance floor when the streamers were dimmed and small lights with different colors washed over the crowd.

Hinata watched her cousin dancing together with Tenten, their figures only visible whenever they swayed between the other couples dancing slowly around them. She sighed and regarded her cake again, which she was starting to poke at with her fork. Tenten had asked her earlier why she was being so weird around Naruto and she had answered that she wasn't sure of what to do.

Right when Hinata lifted her gaze, she saw Naruto standing up from where he had sat and walked in her direction. He was looking right at her and she was unsure of what would happen once he had reached her. Her heart was beating faster with the rush of an impending conversation with him. It wouldn't even have to be a conversation, just being near him would be enough to make her nervous.

But when he had crossed half of the distance between them, her father stopped him from going further. She saw him smile at him and great him with a pat on his upper arm, probably telling him how tall he had grown to be. Hinata took this opportunity her father had provided her and shuffled away from her table. Naruto glanced at her distancing herself further and further. Hiashi told him that he was glad to hear that he would be moving back into town and Naruto tried to answer as good as the circumstances allowed him to. He saw Hinata disappearing in the crowd of couples, shades of blue and yellow dancing on her figure.

"I'm leaving." Hinata's head jerked up from the cup in her hands. She had sensed that something was going on when Naruto had asked her to take a walk together. After his parents had died Hinata had given him the space he wanted. She had been undecided whether distance or closeness was the best support she could offer him, so she had let him decide.

They had proceeded their walk in silence, the warm breeze blowing into their faces as they passed the familiar streets at random. Naruto had asked whether she was thirsty and she had agreed for him to buy her something only so that she had a distraction at hand.

Whenever she had side-eyed him, he appeared to be in deep thought, like he was preassembling sentences in his mind. So she had waited and when he suggested that they sat down on the steps of a closed clothing store, she knew that all the thinking he had done until now was for this moment.

"What?" She stared at his profile as Naruto focused at a spot on the pavement.

"I'm going to move in with Jiraiya. You know, he lives a little far from here," he explained. It wasn't a little far, it was on the other side of the country.

She looked away. "How do you feel about that?" Her voice had become a whisper now. She could already feel her throat hurting.

"Fine," he said. "Actually, it was my idea."

No matter how much she tried not to, Hinata disliked hearing that. For some reason it made her feel irrelevant in his equation of where to go from here.

"That's a good thing then." Later she would wonder how she had managed to say that. She was utterly devastated but the importance of Naruto's wellbeing had given her the strength she needed to smile at him. Genuinely. "When will you be leaving?"

"Soon. So that I won't miss too many school days." His voice sounded hollow somehow. As if he had been completely emptied of everything he had carried inside of him. "I can't be here when they are not." This was the moment he looked up at her and she could see his eyes glazing over again. She didn't want to see him cry anymore and held his hand. She nodded, to show him that she understood and to make it seem like she was okay.