XxpuppetmasterxX and LilMzSunshine
Chapter 10: The Plan
A/N: I'm sorry this is so late. I really love this story. Out of all the fics I've written, this is my favorite, and I would have liked to get this chapter out on time. Also, I split this last chapter up into two separate parts and an epilogue. This helps with the Writer's Block.
Love is blind, and marriage is a real eye-opener.
The next morning, the entire Hyuuga household, as well as some of the nearby neighbors, were awakened to the sound of Hinata shrieking in terror.
"AIIIIIEEEEE!"
Kankuro felt his eardrums bursting. "SHUT THE HELL UP!" he shrieked back, shrinking away from the girl screaming into his ear.
"AIIIIEEEE!"
Kankuro reached up and clamped a hand over her mouth. "What on earth is wrong with you? Why are you screaming?"
Hinata bit his hand.
"Ouch!"
"I have every right to be screaming! You try waking up with a face full of man-chest! Why are we in bed together? Why are we touching?"
Yesterday, Kankuro would have gotten angry with her, but today her attitude only made him depressed. It took him a moment to remember why. Oh, yeah, that's right. He was in love with her.
Hinata's mother knocked on the door. "Hinata? Your father wants to know if you're dying."
Hinata glared at Kankuro for a second. "I'm not dying, Mama."
"Good. Now shut the hell up. Do you have any idea what time it is?"
"I should have told her you were trying to rape me," Hinata muttered after her mother staggered back to bed.
"Rape you?!" Kankuro exclaimed. "Look, I'm sorry that you have some horrible hang-up about physical contact, but please. You're the one who felt like crawling into bed with me last night, so don't go around telling people that I'm the one molesting people in their sleep!"
"I di-didn't crawl into bed with you," Hinata said with a shudder.
"Are you implying that I dragged you into bed last night so I could cuddle with you or something?" Kankuro asked. "What kind of freak do you take me for?"
Hinata turned red and looked away. "Well... I- I didn't get here on my own, so... y-you must have."
"Are you crazy? I'm not some psycho like my brother, you know. I don't have some fetish for watching people sleep," Although you do look really peaceful and beautiful and I'm not saying that I have a problem with watching you sleep, Kankuro shook himself off. "I don't like watching people sleep."
"Yeah... you just said that," Hinata said, her instinct to be polite clashing with how distressed she was, for an unusually sarcastic effect. "But it doesn't explain why I'm here."
"I don't even know when you went to sleep last night! I was totally out of it. In case you forgot, we spent yesterday talking to the cops!"
Someone knocked on the door.
"Oh, what is it?" Hinata and Kankuro snapped.
"If you guys keep arguing you're going to end up like your parents," Neji informed them. "Hinata's, I mean. Not Kankuro's. Now that would be something to worry about."
"Neji!" Hinata yelled towards the door. "Kankuro tried to rape me!"
"I did not!"
"Then why did I wake up next to you?"
Neji opened the door a little. "What? Oh, for the love of— I stuck you there to get you out of my bed so I could sleep."
"You were sleeping with your brother?!" Kankuro gasped.
"Cousin," Neji corrected him tiredly. "And we weren't sleeping together."
"I wanted to," Hinata said, "But no, you won't sleep with married women, so you dump me with Kankuro."
Neji sighed again and looked over at Hinata. "Sleeping in this case is a euphemism for having sex, dear. I was telling him that we are not having sex. So, last night, I put you in bed with Kankuro, no, he was not trying to rape you, and no, I am not sleeping with Hinata. Now will you two kiss and make up already? I'm trying to sleep." He slammed the door shut and walked away.
Kankuro smiled a little at the suggestion. Kiss and make up... Kiss and...
Hinata got to her feet, interrupting Kankuro's daydream, yanked a blanket off of the bed, and curled up on the floor.
"I love you, too," Kankuro muttered, reaching for his shirt. He didn't usually drink coffee, but it seemed like a good time for it.
LilMzSunshine,
The following review has been submitted to: Matchmaker, Matchmaker Chapter: 6: Dark Deeds.
From XxpuppetmasterxX
Wow, Sunny, Youko's got a pretty wild night life. XD
The return chapter might be a little late... It'll take me a while to work this in.
Hinata stared at the review in despair. It just seemed so unenthusiastic, and he hadn't even replied to her email. She wrote back asking if he was ok with adding a little more action in the story. Maybe he preferred drama? It was something akin to romance, and romance was something akin to XxpuppetmasterxX's specialty.
"Kankuro-kun? Feeling ok?" Hanabi asked, displaying something that might have been sympathy as Kankuro picked at his eggs in the kitchen.
Kankuro smiled wanly. "I'm fine..." He couldn't eat. Hinata was on the computer, writing to him. He was jealous of himself. How dare that asshole online alter-ego of his turn his Sunshine against him? He couldn't stand this, couldn't live like this for long. "Hey, Hanabi, you want these eggs?"
Hanabi swallowed hard to keep from drooling. "Are... well, they're yours,"
"Nah," Kankuro pushed the plate towards her. "I'm not really hungry." He smiled as she scurried towards the food. "Your parents going to feed you or anything loving like that today?"
"After all they had to drink yesterday? I doubt they'll be out of bed."
"You know, Hanabi, your family always makes me feel better about being an orphan."
Hanabi looked up at him curiously. "But you're not an orphan, Kankuro-kun."
"No, I guess not," Kankuro sighed, taking a sip of coffee and grimacing.
"That looks absolutely disgusting," Neji said, peering over Kankuro's shoulder at the beverage he had been trying to choke down.
"It is," Kankuro assured him. "I don't know how to make coffee."
Neji shrugged. "Neither do I," he said, pouring himself a mug of the same gunk that Kankuro was drinking. He took a sip as though biting back his gag reflex.
"So... What are you doing up at this hour?" Kankuro asked after a moment.
"Well, some time around one o'clock this morning, I realized that if I stay in this house another second I'm going to go insane,"
"Won't be a long trip," Hanabi muttered.
Neji ignored her, but did set his mug down on her hand, causing her to yelp. "So I decided that I'm going over to Gai's for a few days. You can come if you want."
"Great, I'll get my stuff," Hanabi said, rubbing her burned hand.
"Not you! Kankuro. He needs reminding that there's still normal intelligent humans in Konoha, even if he hasn't talked to any of them recently."
"I thought you were going to Gai's," Hanabi said simply.
Neji blinked. "In my social circles, 'normal' is a relative term."
"Are you saying that Gai is more normal that we are?"
"In a word, yes. You coming, Kankuro? You can use the computer."
Kankuro shrugged. "Sure, why not?"
From XxpuppetmasterxX To: LilMzSunshine
Subject: RE: Everything ok, puppy?
Sunny,
Sorry, I'm fine with the direction the story is taking. Your writing style is superb, as always, and you turned it into an action story without any awkward transition.
And I'm glad you're ok after that attack... That must have been pretty traumatic for you.
The real reason I'm writing though, is that I'm thinking of spending more time getting to know my wife. I mean... I am married to her, and I'm probably going to be for a long time, too. I can't just hang out online and pretend that she doesn't exist. And, it's not like we've really given our spouses much of a chance. We both pretty much decided to hate them from the beginning, you know. I think Puppet Mistress might actually be pretty nice. So, I'm going to spend less time online from now on. Maybe you should try to do the same. I'm sure Mr. Sunshine has his good points.
Sorry, Sunny. I'll still be in touch and everything.
-Puppy
Kankuro took a deep breath and pressed "Send." It was the best way to go about this, really. It was. Without Puppetmaster to distract her, Hinata might stop thinking about everything she hated about Kankuro. And Kankuro had the advantage of being her friend; he knew what she thought about her husband, and what she really wanted. She would fall in love with him, the real him, and they could forget about their little online romances. It would work. It had to work.
Neji's cellphone rang a few minutes later.
"Hello... What's up?... I'm at Gai's... Yeah, we're in the middle of watching Densha Otoko... Yeah, I am enjoying it, so can this wait?... Give her a Midol or something... Oh, fine, I'll be right over." He hung up. "I've got to go, guys. Clan drama. God, I hate my family."
Tenten sighed disappointedly and paused the movie. "Neji, you don't have to live with them if you don't want to. It's not like they're forcing you."
"No, but I like to sleep in, and you can do that with them. With Gai, things start a lot earlier. Also my aunt, unlike Lee, occasionally buys groceries with nutrients in them. You coming, Kankuro, or do you want to stay here?"
Kankuro glanced from the TV screen to the computer to Neji. He had just started paying attention to the movie, so that wasn't a big concern. He just wasn't sure he was ready to face Hinata yet. But he also thought that if there really was a family emergency, it would probably be for the best that he showed up to be supportive. After all, family was important to LilMzSun-- to Hinata. Her other stories showed that clearly enough, even if Matchmaker Matchmaker made them out to be pretty awful. He supposed the whole story was just her venting a lot of frustration. "All right, let me find my shoes."
As it turned out, Hanabi had called Neji up to deal with a situation which wasn't really the family-wide crisis as Neji had made it out to be.
"So, where is she?" he asked as he and Kankuro walked in. Hanabi pointed silently toward the couch.
"NEJI-NII-SAN!" the couch wailed. Hinata launched herself off of it and clung pitifully to Neji's neck. "Puppy just— he said—,"
Neji rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, feel free to just sob all over me every time that one of your little online friends sends you a cryptic message."
"But, Neji, you don't understand! He says he's not–," Hinata cried. "He said that—,"
Kankuro shuffled from one foot to the other. He didn't like to see LilMz— Hinata so upset over something that he said to her. "Should I make some tea, or–,"
Hinata jumped about a foot in the air, then shrunk behind Neji's back, staring at Kankuro accusingly. "Why's he here?" she whispered to Neji.
"Because he's married to you and he lives here," Neji said impatiently. Hinata shrunk down more, so Kankuro couldn't see her, but her hands, clutching Neji's shirt, clenched up angrily.
"We're going to the kitchen," Hanabi announced loudly, pulling Kankuro away.
Hinata sighed with relief when Kankuro left the room.
"All right, Hinata, what the hell is wrong with you this time, and why can't you talk to Kiba or Shino about it?"
"Kiba and Shino don't understand!" she whimpered. "They think Kankuro is so great, and they're always teasing me about my writing. They don't even know about Puppy."
Neji rolled his eyes as he patted her back. "All right, fine. What happened?"
"He broke up with me! He wants to connect with his slutty bitchy uptight snob of a wife. I don't understand... I thought we were... I thought we had something–,"
"Special?" Neji suggested, desperately trying to keep the boredom out of his voice.
"I wasn't going to say that. But, you know, I really thought that he loved me, and then suddenly it's like I'm completely dead to him! Did I say something wrong? Or was I just reading too much into our friendship? Was he leading me on?"
"You didn't even go through this crap when Naruto broke your heart."
"Well, I was worried about getting married... and anyway, he likes Sakura. He wasn't just ditching me for some girl he doesn't even like. And I wasn't... I mean, nothing ever happened between me and Naruto." Hinata gulped, then broke into another round of helpless sobbing. "Puppy and I were friends. More than friends. And he hates her, Neji! He really hates her! Why would he leave me for her?"
Neji didn't like drama, one of the reasons he opted to live with the ever-repressed Hyuugas rather than Team Gai. "Well, technically, he's been with her this whole time, and you're the home wrecker."
"That's not fair, Nii-san. It's not. You don't know! He's miserable with her! She's horrible! Absolutely horrible! He's too good for her."
"You don't even know her, Hinata."
"But–," Hinata looked up at her cousin piteously. "I need him..."
"You have me," Neji said matter-of-factly. "You have Kiba, and Shino, and Shikamaru, and Kurenai, and Sai and Ino and Chouji and Tenten and Lee, and we're all real. We all care about you, you know. We love you just as much, probably more, than any random guy that you met online. He's not the first one to realize how smart and adorable you are, and he's not going to be the last, or the best."
Hinata squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head wildly. "I don't know what to do without him! I can't live just stuck with- with- Kankuro the rest of my life. I can't do it!"
"At least try it," Neji suggested, hoping there was some aspirin in the medicine cabinet. He was going to need some by the time she was done with her little fit.
Kankuro had been waiting in the next room with some tea and his best supportive and not-intimidating face on, hoping to sweep Su– Hinata off her feet with his dashing chivalry, and he was glad Neji had created this opening for him.
"Um," he cleared his throat and stepped into view. "Do you want some tea, or I could make cookies, or–,"
Hinata pushed Neji away when she saw him and scuttled away, keeping her puffy, tearstained face out of sight as much as possible. "No th-thanks. I'm going to Shikamaru's... I probably won't be back for a while."
Kankuro watched helplessly as she made a break for the door, still holding the mug in one hand. XxpuppetmasterxX laughed at him inside his head. You screwed up, Kankuro. Just like you always do. When it comes to love, you are, in fact, made of suck.
Neji grabbed the cup of tea out of Kankuro's outstretched hand and left the Sand nin standing there, frozen in place, while he walked off, sipping tea and muttering about painkillers, soap opera dramas, and how he would give his right arm to have been born an Akamichi.