"Your eyes, which know loneliness well,
blink, and that color is reflected.
I'll fly into the sky and become a crescent moon;
those mint-colored stars must be shards of tears."
Tabi no Tochuu – Spice and Wolf OST.
6. Kuchiki.
As she trained and learned the ways of the Shinigami, a year has passed and Hinata is graduating much faster than most students do.
Captain Kuchiki's sister, Kuchiki Rukia-taichou, and the 10th Division Hitsugaya-taichou have also offered seated positions, but Hinata is a person who honors her words, and she has already accepted Kuchiki-taichou's offer, so she had to politely decline others. When she was a Kunoichi and a member of the Hyuga Clan Hinata often felt unwanted, weak, a nuisance. It was strange but it also felt good that people saw her as talented and an addition to the Shinigami forces now.
"You've never been a nuisance, my dear." Fuyu no Tsuki told her.
"It's all because I have you with me, Fuyu no Tsuki."
Hinata still wonders how her family and friends are doing in the Shinobi world. She died because of the sister who she loved, and her only regret is leaving Naruto behind.
But as days pass by, the heartache starts to fade away, and it becomes just a memory from a time when she was a different person. Truth be told, Hinata has still to figure out what her place in the Seireitei is, but her love, just as her previous hopes and dreams, have stayed behind. She has done all she could when she was alive.
All things considered, once she joins the 6th Division, Hinata decides that being a Shinigami is also good.
Lieutenant Abarai is nice, like everybody she encounters in the division (it does not occur to Hinata that everybody is nice to her, that she's even gained a new nickname around, or that many in their barracks talk about the "Moon Princess" beauty.
Of course she wonders. What are their friends and family in Konoha doing? Are they all well? Has Sasuke returned to Konoha? Has Sakura's dream finally come true? Even if she still longs to see them, as impossible as that wish is, but Hinata is content with her life as a Shinigami.
After a year, she feels comfortable there, as if she's actually part of something. As if she belongs.
Because Lieutenant Abarai is mostly busy training other new graduates, Hinata helps with his paperwork, as the responsible 3rd Officer she is.
It will still be awhile, apparently, until she goes again to the living world in a mission.
And then one day, Captain Kuchiki informs her that Lieutenant Abarai has been promoted to Captain.
"I've also proposed you as his replacement. You are the new Lieutenant, Hyuga."
Captain Kuchiki is not a man of many words, and everything he says and everything he does holds a great meaning. Since the very beginning, she's looked up to him. For this person to consider her worthy enough to become his Lieutenant, Hinata can't help but feel her heart beating faster because of the emotion.
"Thank you, taichou. I promise to not disappoint you!"
He nods.
"I don't see why you would."
He is a kind person.
But even when Hinata thinks that becoming his Lieutenant will help her getting to know him more, she doesn't quite expect the events that unfold later on that week (and all that will come later as a result)
It happens that she's just made tea and is taking the teapot to her office, when steps out of his and his eyes wander to her tea.
He doesn't say anything, of course, but she sees the glint in his eyes (like a child who struggles to not ask for something he wants)
It would hurt his pride if she prepared tea for him immediately after that, he'll know he's been caught.
The day after that, however, she takes the teapot to his office.
Hinata only intended to leave it there for him to enjoy.
The two of them end up sitting in front of the other and drinking their tea silently, and the silence is comfortable.