Summary: They wronged her in life. Now they'll come together for it. "Hinata was like a monarch butterfly; like pinwheel spokes in a harsh breeze. Too fast- too fleeting- to keep." 5 people- Ino, Sakura, Naruto, Neji, Sasuke- remember her after her death.

!A/N!: the wonderful Queroli on LiveJournal drew a fanart for "Spokes" as part of the Naruto Bang 2010 challenge. Much love and thanks! She's an amazing artist. I love her style. Please check it out on her post if you have the time. The link is on my home page. 愛.

It was September and I was finally a senior.

King of the school - of my own stupid, important little world.

Could you really blame me?

::SPOKES::

::3::

::Uzumaki Naruto::

1::

It was a Wednesday.

(Two weeks before it happened.)

It was only October; the start of my senior year.

(And I felt like no one could touch me.)

She told me she loved me.

(I laughed.)

2::

What was so special about Hinata Hyuuga? No - where had I even seen her before?

I tried to remember.

I thought back to the previous year when I was a Junior. As a newly instated Senior I thought I'd feel like I was on top of the world. But as usual, I was wrong. Because right now, as one of the Seniors, "Mr. Slick," I'm not untouchable. I never actually was.

As a junior I was an Underachiever. I had Chemistry with a trampy blonde named Ino, Gym with my ninth grade crush Sakura. I didn't care too much about history because the teacher was a real bore, and my electives were either a pain in the ass or a waste of my time.

I couldn't recall Hinata being in any of them - my classes, I mean.

Maybe Ino distracted me from Hinata. Ino and I always end up taking a course together. Our last names both fall near the end of the alphabet. But I don't really know how the placement systems work. Anyway. Ino always wears flashy tops to show off her belly button piercing (like she's proud from having some needle and cork shoved through her stomach). She really is distracting. Guess I've always liked blondes.

Then again, that's not true. Because for as long as I can remember, well, since grade nine, I've been over the moon for this pink haired girl named Sakura. Maybe you've heard of her – she does theatre sometimes, and last year she actually got a chance to be in the play when she filled in as some chick's understudy? She had a pretty major part. Still – that hair is unmistakable.

But Sakura's more than just pink hair. She's the girl who sat beside me in homeroom, and let me copy her history notes just that once when I really needed them; who made me fall in love with her just by throwing a half-smile my way, or saying 'hey!' to me (or maybe it was my group of friends) in the hall. I'm still secretly pining. Thinking back to Gym class with her, she was always so into the game. Naturally I always jumped for a chance to be on her team.

The girls in History and my electives? If you're wondering about them...don't, because I didn't bother with them. I mean, I was never serious about all the girls who flirted with me or gave me looks in "Western Studies" or Cooking. And Ino is like something encased behind glass in an exhibit: look but don't touch, boys (and girls).

But Hinata...

I couldn't remember how I knew her in Junior year until I later told one of my friends, Uchiha 'I'm-So-Tortured-By-My-Own-Accidental-Popularity' Sasuke, at lunch a day after it happened.
For some reason what she'd said was really on my mind. It was messing me up. It made me late for gym and look like a total moron in Kakashi-sensei's class. I knew I'd seen her somewhere, and was close to remembering where exactly, but I just couldn't put my finger on it.

(I couldn't wipe that look she gave me out of my head.)

"Sasuke. You know Hinata?" I asked. "Did I like, have any classes with her last year, or something?"

And like the jerk-off that he is, Sasuke replied, "She was your lab partner. Moron." And finally, I remembered her.

3::

OK. Let's flash back.

The time: last year, junior year. The place: Ebizu's chemistry class.

Ebizu isn't a bad guy, but he's strange because he's a chemistry freak. And hell, it's only what, the second week of school and he's shoving these atomic bonding theories down your throat? It's gonna be a rough year.

But your schedule isn't that bad, and a couple Honors classes means no extra schoolwork, and you're going to finally get a date with Sakura, and you're one step closer to School's Out Forever! so you'll get over it.

You plan to blow this off; a mediocre grade, C+, won't be too bad. Not bad enough for guidance counselors to get on your case or anything. College still seems far away. You're still kind of dumb.

You're getting assigned lab partners for the year because Ebizu's so thrilled to start experiments. You hope you'll get paired with one of the brainier guys, but then someone pulls out a slip of paper and your name is called, so it's already too late to wish.

For the next two marking periods, till Ebizu switches things again, you will be lab partners with this shy, timid girl. Hinata. Whose name you will forget on multiple occasions, who will lend you the neatest study guides you have ever seen, who won't mind giving you the answers on a few impossible homework problems. Who will, for whatever reason, come to really like you.

Who you won't get a chance to like back.

4::

Time went by, and I started to really, really hate myself.

No, I mean, I really DESPISED myself. I loathed myself. I was a jerk. Loser. Prick.

Moron.

Just like Sasuke said. Man, is he ever wrong? The answer is, obviously he isn't. Then again it doesn't take a genius (though he is one) to figure that out. How careless I was, I mean.
And when she died, my guilt tripled.

I just couldn't erase Hinata's face from my thoughts. And in my morbidity after her death, I couldn't stop picturing her dead in so many different ways. And in my dramatic, romantic fantasies, I scared the hell out of myself by questioning: did she kill herself over me?

Of course she didn't. She wouldn't have. They told us it was illness. That made it worse. When was she ever "ill"? How do things like this, just happen?

Hyuuga Hinata. She was quiet. "Shy". Never bothered anybody. Content to stay in the background. But she was nice.

She cared about people, 'cause she did all this charity stuff. I even asked– back when a few days after she died, like a madman, when I was so confused and lost I was barely aware of what I was even saying to people – and found out Hinata was in Drama club too. Something to do with stage crew, or art, or whatever. I'm sure she had some friends. I'm sure of that. But she deserved more from me.

5::

My laughter was her knife and she was unable to hide how badly it hurt.

I stopped laughing. My breath caught in my throat, and my head felt a little dizzy.

I mean, a girl comes up to you after lacrosse practice and confesses her love to you? Actually, if you think it's uncommon, it isn't.

Before...everything happened, for Senior year we ended up not sharing a single class together - besides art. I was forced to pick art as an elective. All the "good ones" had filled up: slacker classes where teachers don't care if you get a C- or how good your bunt cakes or sewing projects are, were picked early. The art teacher is a freaking fanatic. Mr. Sasori is one helluva guy. Lucky me.

Hinata sat near my art table every art class, seventh period. The same day she confessed, Hinata offered to write down my assignment for me when I had to leave early for practice. She was always doing things like that: offering to take notes for absent students or copy down homework or whatever for them. Some guys in the lockerrooms joked that she was like, Mother Teresa, "probably a virgin". I never actually said anything about her.

By two-thirty, there she was, giving those notes to me. Like I said: art teacher = fanatic, especially with art history exams. She actually remembered. Sometimes, when people say they'll take down notes for you, they might actually do it and forget to give them to you, or just blow it off completely.

(Hinata wasn't like that.)

I remember: I smiled almost mechanically, and as I slipped them in my notebook I took in her slightly flushed face, her downcast eyes, her hunched-up shoulders.

Then, she said: "I don't know if you...remember me. But I – It's just...I really was wondering if you – It's kind of hard to explain -"

And here, she cut herself off mid sentence, breathed and started again:

"So I wanted to tell you. Just – J-just tell you, because it's been driving me crazy, and I think telling you will make it...go away. I think."

I raised an eyebrow. "Tell me what?" I asked, curious. Hinata briefly met my eyes, and turned two shades redder. Her voice was soft. Like she was about to break.

"I've known you since I started high school, and, and I reallythinkI..loveyou – and it'sokayif...youdon'tfeelthesame...Naruto..."

Pause – I can barely think, like I didn't even hear her right.

Then Play, and it all sinks in -

Then Stop because I ruin everything.

I laugh.

I swallow hard as I remember my own laugh. That confused, dazed, clueless laugh, slightly breathless. A laugh born from my own surprise and disbelief. The laugh of a meathead. I know, despite how much I don't want it to be true – what I was thinking after she said that.

Who is this girl? Is she for real? Seriously? Have we like, even dated or anything? It's a joke. Gotta be...

Hinata's face crumpled. Her hands were shaking. She clapsed them tight.

I took the liberty to stop laughing because I wasn't even doing it out of humor. No of course it wasn't funny. It was just...what? I couldn't explain.

I smoothed back my hair. I needed to head back to the Gym for practice. It was too much for me – a love confession? I didn't think of myself as any Romeo. As we stood there, neither of us able to move, I was trying to recall if I did or said anything to lead her on, while it all just seemed so ridiculous.

"I'm really sorry...I mean, it's nothing personal - "

(No, of course it wasn't personal, you didn't care.)

" - I don't think we really even...know each other that well. I mean - you don't know me. But I'm flattered you, y'know - you, uh, like me."

(Hinata's face – still fallen, right?)

"It's just...I really don't know what to say. But I guess – thanks for taking those notes. Thanks a lot. And uh...I would talk but my coach, see, he's really impatient and I really have to run. Look, I'm sorry, OK?"

(You didn't have to say any more. You didn't do anything.)

After that Hinata left. She walked past me and said loudly enough for me to hear her, "See you tomorrow. Sorry about that."

These simple words. Her stiff posture. Her strange placidity. It was kinda...shaking. "Bye," I managed. Bye.

Two weeks later when I'm in first period math, I'm told that Hinata Hyuuga died. Over the weekend. Passed away from being sick. She was on vacation in the mountains at the time. In October, in the mountains, it snowed.

6::

I went to Hinata's wake. It was Saturday and a few friends of hers were going. Drama club went too. I'm sure I saw Sakura there, but I felt like we hadn't even met. Kind of like we were strangers.

I was going because I felt like I just had to. Like Hinata would have wanted me there. Maybe for me to suffer from remembering, or guilt, or something.

I deserved to feel completely like hell over her just – just dying. Out of the clear blue sky. In a way I felt responsible for ruining some of her hopes, or messing her up in some kind of way beyond fixing. I'd forgotten how we'd talked, sat next to each other for those months – forgot.

Throughout the wake I kept thinking, over and over: why couldn't somebody have just put me in my place?

The counselor, Tsunade, she's already gone over how to cope with death. There's check-lists for that kind of stuff. Now she's curious to hear how I knew Hinata.

So I speak with truthfully. (Regretfully.)

"I didn't."

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