Chapter Nine

Time just seemed to stop. I don't know how many days it has been since I left my house, or even got up from the safety and solitude of my bed. That first day after, I was afraid to go back to the hospital, because I was terrified that I had lost Neji. My only saving grace was the fact that there have been no calls from the hospital. But I couldn't go back there. I couldn't relive the nightmare of seeing Neji with all of those wires and metal posts sticking out of him. I couldn't bear it.

You're so weak.

The phone has been ringing every hour for the past few days, and I recognize most of the voices that the answering machine recorded. Naruto has been calling constantly, every hour on the hour, and he finally filled up the memory on my answering machine.

I was rattled with so much guilt over the deaths of my parents and the physical instability of my cousin's current state that I couldn't bring myself to talk to him. I didn't want to talk to anybody.

Lee called, not quite as frequently, but he sounded concerned when he would leave messages. The same went for the rest of the guys on the basketball team.

Sakura, too would call frequently, leaving messages telling me to call her back, or at least do something so she knew that I was alright.

So I did nothing, because I was not alright. Physically, I was in constant agony, and the ripping sensation of my heart and flesh would not cease. Mentally, I was a guilty wreck. Emotionally, I was about as unstable as Neji's body.

I cried most of the time, and I slept in the darkness of my room. All of the curtains in my house were pulled shut, because I didn't want anybody intruding on my sadness. I didn't want company. I didn't want people to come here and tell me that it was going to be alright. I didn't want to hear those disgusting lies. It was not okay; my parents were just killed in a terrible accident.

And it's all your fault.

All I wanted was to be left alone to wallow in my pain. I had to pay for what I had done, and still, I was not suffering enough. Greed was a terrible sin.

I lay, enwrapped in the thick blanket that covered my bed, completely swaddled in its warmth, and I slammed my face into my pillow, screaming.

I couldn't take it, the physical skewering of my heart, the stabbing of needles into my flesh and nerves. My body felt as though it would break apart any minute now, and I, too, would be dead. It was incredible, the amount of anxiety the human body could take before it withered away.

I don't know how many days passed by like this, but the pain never ceased, and my guilt was never released from my conscience.

Some days, I could hear people banging on my back door, and I could hear them talking. Sometimes, there was more than one person, and other times, there was one in their own solitude. A lot of the time, I could hear Naruto's voice from the outside of my house, and due to my room being directly above that door, his voice was crystal clear.

"Hinata!" he would call my name, and I couldn't find the strength to answer. Rather, I curled my knees to my chest and cried again. "I know you're in there." That's when the banging would stop, and his voice would get quiet, but I could still hear him. "Please..." He usually stopped talking then, but sometimes he would stay out there for hours.

It was typically the same routine over and over.

Other days, I would hear Sakura beating on my door, and Sasuke talking to her.

"Hinata," Sakura would beg in the same manner as Naruto; sometimes forcefully, and other times in a consoling voice. "I need to know that you're okay."

"Sakura," Sasuke would then talk to her, taking my side, and comprehending the distress that was cast upon my body. "Maybe we need to give her some space. She needs time to heal, and with us constantly bugging her, that action may be delayed."

Thank you, Sasuke.

More hours passed, and those hours of agony seemed to weave together to form days, and by this time, I had no idea what day it was. For all I knew, Thanksgiving could have already come and passed.

I gasped as I struggled to breathe. My fingers curled into vicious fists and I slammed them against my bed, wailing in agony. I couldn't keep up such physical activity; I had barely been out of bed since returning to my house from the hospital that night. I could feel my muscles growing weak from lack of use, and for a few moments, I began to wonder if the ripping sensation I felt across my body as a whole was actually tearing apart my muscles.

I only had a few fits of rage and guilt, otherwise, I was a vegetable, sleeping my life away. When I wasn't sleeping, I was bawling my eyes out, and when I wasn't crying, my body knocked me into unconsciousness.

The phone continued to ring multiple times a day, blasting the noise throughout the house and into my sensitive ears. But it could only ring now; I could no longer hear the voices that used to be recorded.

Pain and darkness consumed me, and I drowned in my sorrow. I couldn't stop imagining the brutality of the accident, and my mind went wild thinking about it. Even when I slept, the nightmares continued to haunt me. Each dream was different, and I never really realized how many ways there was to die in a vehicular accident.

When I wasn't obsessing over the details of how my parents were taken from me, my brain would remind me of Neji, who lay unconscious and in a coma in a strange place that reeked of bleach. All of those metal rods that jutted out of his body made me want to vomit, and sometimes, I did, even though there was nothing but acid in my stomach to throw up.

I felt nauseous a lot, and most of the time, I ended up curled over the only toilet in my house, dry heaving violently. The knot that settled in my stomach that first day when the news had been broken to me and the police officer had driven me to the hospital, was still there, tightening its grasp on my insides. It twisted, as if it were trying to compress my organs completely.

I choked up a whole lot of nothing, typically spitting air and saliva into the toilet, and then I collapsed in my bathroom. My entire body clenched and contracted, forcing me into a fetal position on the floor. Gasping in excruciating pain, I constricted my arms around my stomach and squeezed my eyes shut so tightly that I thought my eyelids would tear in half.

Sometime, I found enough strength to pull myself off of the bathroom floor and practically crawl back to my room, where I sheathed myself back in the comforter on my bed. I flopped on the mattress and smothered my face into my pillow and I let unconsciousness take over once again.

Later on, I wasn't sure if it was a few hours or a few days, but later, I was woken up by pounding on my door. My body coiled on my bed, and I opened my eyes slightly to see my dark violet wall before me. I knew, that just beyond that wall and about fifteen feet down, someone was trying to get my attention.

"Hinata!" It was Naruto's voice again.

Please, my mind begged, go away.

I perceived two other voices, and quickly made them out to be his parents. The two of them had accompanied Naruto this time. However, no matter how many people he brought with him, I wasn't getting up. I couldn't.

"Please, Hinata! You have to come out!" Naruto plead. "I need to see you."

"What if she's not even in there?" I heard Kushina ponder out loud, and I could vividly imagine her touching her index finger to her bottom lip.

"Where else would she be?" Minato chimed in, siding with his son.

"That's it." I heard Naruto say, and I wasn't entirely sure what he was going to do. I figured that maybe he finally gave up in his attempt to get me to come outside, and a part of me was so sad to have abandoned him. The other part was almost content to think of him as moving on.

Instead, I heard a tiny click come from downstairs, and the back door opened. I listened as heavy footsteps came into my house and moved through it quickly. The person downstairs didn't seem to know where everything was, but they seemed to find the stairs quickly. On the hardwood floor, the sound of sneakers trotted up to the acme and continued to move without taking the time to look around.

My house wasn't big, so the invader found me quite easily.

"Hinata..." I listened as Naruto whispered from inside my black room, and I couldn't help but cry again. I knew that he could hear me sniffling and trying to catch my breath, and his footsteps proceeded onward, coming closer and closer to my bed.

As if a hand reached out from inside my wall, my heart was once again being torn from my chest, being lacerated from the rest of my body.

What I did not expect was gentle hands to come along and press it back into me tenderly. Naruto laid down on my bed, balancing on his side, and he constricted his arms around me. I could feel his body twist in the same shape as mine - in a half-fetal position. Holding me close, Naruto contracted his muscles, and there was no space in between our bodies.

I continued to weep, and I was shocked when I heard him sniff.

Naruto...

His forehead pressed against the back of my head, and we lay in united pieces, huddled in the company of one another.

Why are you crying? I wanted to ask, but I couldn't bring myself to speak. I was dumbfounded that Naruto was so determined to find me, that he would pick the lock on my back door and search my house.

We cried for so long, and I wasn't even sure I had enough strength left in me to cry anymore. Naruto never left my side, and his grip on my body never faltered.

"I'm so sorry, Hinata." His figure compressed, causing mine to to the same. The tears that pooled out of his sapphire eyes stained the back of my neck and dampened my hair. He gasped in a trembling deep breath, so desperate to pull himself together. "I'm so sorry."

It was then that I fell, once again, into slumber. This time, my dreams were not possessed by the deaths of my parents, or the gruesome reality of Neji's coma and physical condition. Rather, I did not experience any dreams. I simply slept.

OoO

Naruto was still cuddled around me when I woke up, and he snored soundly. My senses were invigorated by both the aroma of his cologne and the wafting scent of food coming from the kitchen downstairs.

It was only then that I realized my curtains were yanked open, and sunlight glittered through my room majestically. The light blinded me, and I shielded my eyes with my hand. Nobody was in the room besides myself and Naruto, but there were definitely people downstairs in the kitchen.

I had no idea what day it was, and knew that there was only one way to find out. Sitting up stiffly, Naruto's arms fell off of me, and I stretched my arms high above my head.

No longer were the needles pricking my skin constantly, and they were not ripping through my nerves as if they weren't even there. Of course, there was still a terrible ache in my chest, but that was natural; my poor heart was just the victim of tug-of-war.

A small moan came from Naruto's throat, and I glanced down at the man who had dove into the darkness to find me. He was brave; he rescued me from drowning.

I rested the palm of my hand on Naruto's soft cheek, and I leaned down to press my forehead lightly to his left temple.

"Thank you," I whispered, and gradually made my way out of bed. I expected the floor to be cold against my feet, and when it wasn't, I turned my eyes downward. I was still wearing my lavender sneakers. It was only then that I realized that I had not changed clothes since that dreadful night. I was still dressed in the same grass green shirt with the poofy sleeves, and the same black jeans that I had been wearing the day I found out about the accident.

I glanced in the mirror, and I was a mess. My cheeks were raw, and my eyes were swollen and bloodshot. My hair was matted to my scalp, face, and neck, and was both greasy and damp with tears. My nose was running, as a result of becoming stuffy all those times that I cried.

I picked a tissue up off of my desk and blew my nose into it, my head spinning and bright flashing stars peppering my vision. The world around me began spinning, and I had to grab onto my desk in order to keep from falling flat on my backside.

The sense of vertigo quickly vanished as suddenly as it came.

With my nose now clear, I could distinctly pick out the smell of pancakes coming from the kitchen downstairs. Using my nostrils as guides, my feet began moving in the direction of the door, and I turned right, pacing weakly down the hallway. When I came to the acme of the stairs, I gripped the railing for dear life with both hands and began descending.

The scent only got greater with every step I took.

When I reached the base of the steps and turned right into the kitchen, I saw the spitting image of the man who lay sleeping in my bed. Minato was hovering over my kitchen table, arranging flowers in a vase in the center of the table. The flowers looked to me like white lilies and pink gladioli, but I couldn't say for sure.

Kushina stood in front of the stove, flipping pancakes and placing the finished products on a pile. I believe she noticed me out of her peripheral vision, because she turned in my direction and smiled warmly at me.

"Good morning, dear," she said to me with such maternal love - the love that I now lack. Minato turned immediately and mimed his wife's course of action by beaming brightly at me. I blinked once, still becoming used to the light pouring into my retinals.

"What day is it?" I asked softly, and Minato checked his watch.

"Sunday," he responded to me, and I nodded. So I had been in my house, alone, for three entire days. It seemed as though it had been much, much longer than that. I was thinking that Minato would have told me that we passed Thanksgiving and made it into December.

I glanced over on the floor and noticed the textbooks and my purse that I had left at school last Wednesday. Naruto must have retrieved them and brought them here.

Kushina handed me a plate, stacked with four chocolate chip pancakes.

"Eat up, sweetie," she said and continued to wear a giant grin. I knew that she was forcing the smile, just to keep me from crying, and I appreciated that.

"You should probably know something," Minato began as I sat down. He handed me the syrup that they had brought from their house; I know that we definitely didn't have syrup lying around in my cabinets. "Your cousin, Neji -"

I gulped, and suddenly felt sick.

"-has woken from his coma, and his condition has stabilized. He sleeps most of the time, and is typically incoherent when he is conscious, but he is going to recover."

It was too much. I slid my chair backwards and dropped to my knees, pressing my face onto the cold wood of the floor. More tears cascaded from my eyes and puddled on the floor.

Mom, Dad, I spoke to them inaudible, thank you.

I knew it was them; my parents were the ones who saved Neji. They answered my plea and guarded him from death.

Kushina squatted down and placed one hand on my shoulder, the other over my chest, and she forced my face to leave the floor. The compassion in her touch radiated throughout my entire entity, and it gave me the strength to push myself back to my feet, and find my place back on the kitchen chair.

However, as I thought of my parents, I had only one concern. I placed my hands in my lap and stared down at the table. My ankles crossed under my chair and I took in a deep breath, just as I heard Naruto bounding down the stairs.

He moved into the kitchen and stopped, watching me and I knew he was wondering how emotionally stable I was.

"Minato, Kushina," I said weakly, keeping my eyes glued to a spot on the edge of the table. Naruto's parents both turned their full and undivided attention to me as I sighed, preparing myself to say the words. I was still wondering if I even wanted to know the answer to my question, because once I knew, then I would have to let go of the dream that my parents would miraculously dance through the doors and take me within their embrace. I could feel three sets of eyes burning holes into separate parts of my body, but the holes were warm and filled with love.

When I didn't answer, Kushina touched my shoulder and leaned over, pressing her forehead to mine. The gesture was comforting, and I came to the realization that I was not going to be alone. I was not going to be forced to live without parents. Kushina and Minato, they were already taking the role of parents, and pouring all of their love into me.

And Naruto. He would never let me be alone to drown by myself again. I could feel it.

The three of them were the only reason I built both the strength and the voice to push out my terrifying question.

"When is the funeral?"