I'm so, so, so, so, SOOOOOOOOO sorry for the long wait between updates. A lot of stuff has happened and kept me super busy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and this story has no beta. There are probably a few spelling & grammatical errors.

Read and review, please. Reviews legitimately give me motivation to continue this story, as petty as that may sound. I really do want to complete this story, but it is a lot easier when it seems like people are actually reading it lol.

AN: Just to clarify, this begins slightly before the end of last chapter but from Hinata's POV.

Chapter 10

Hinata patiently waited while Haku gathered his thoughts. She could tell that what he wanted to say was extremely important to him, so she remained silent, staring at the top of his head that was angled towards her while he stared down at his feet. She wondered what could possibly be so important and so private that he couldn't speak freely in front of the others.

"Hinata," he finally spoke, tilting his head up with his body still positioned with his left foot forward and his torso bent at the hip so that he could look directly in her face and accommodate their difference in height.

She had always thought that Haku was beautiful. His long hair and soft features often caused confusion among strangers about whether he was a girl or boy when they were younger. As they grew up, his features had matured and become slightly more angular, though he could still pass for a beautiful girl. But right now, as the sunset cast its last rays over the horizon, it caused shadows at sharp angles to form over his face and Hinata was suddenly acutely aware that her soft, gentle Haku was no longer that beautiful, quiet, shadow that had always been a comfortable childhood friend. He had suddenly become an adult― a handsome man who was currently staring at her as if she was the only thing in the universe that mattered to him right now.

The way he looked at her was the way she so desperately wanted Naruto to look at her. It was an expression that she imagined grooms would look at their brides the moment they first see them in their wedding dresses walking down the aisle. It was a look that was so saturated with love that there was no way that Hinata, as dense as she usually was, could mistake it for anything else. It was a look that told her that Haku felt for her the same way she felt about Naruto. It was a look that everyone would want from the person they love. But she didn't love him in the same way.

Hinata felt pain erupt in her chest as her heart began to break knowing that she had to break his. She didn't want to hurt him, but she knew that it would be cruel of her to not give him a definitive, concrete answer. She knew that she would hurt him more if she dragged on the inevitable, causing him to have a sliver of hope that she would reciprocate his feelings. She knew because she went to bed everyday disappointed and hurt because of her feelings for Naruto. And she knew that it wasn't Naruto's fault. She had never been upfront with her feelings for him so she couldn't expect him to give her an answer if he didn't know that she was in love with him. But she didn't want Haku to go through the same thing that she was going through. It would be better for him to hurt all at once, instead of hurting every single day for who knew how long just because she didn't want to hurt his feelings now. She knew what she had to do. So, she opened her mouth to speak, but instead of her voice coming out, she felt her body being pushed backwards until her back hit the wall and she felt soft lips against hers.

Haku knew that he had surprised her and although there was the chance that she would be upset with him, he didn't really care right now as he moved his lips against hers, pinning her to the wall with his body while his hands gently held her face angled up towards his. She had frozen in place and while she wasn't reciprocating his kiss, she wasn't pushing him away right now either. The kiss was rather chaste, as he had never kissed a girl before and didn't really know what he was doing. What he did know, was that her lips were much softer than he had imagined. He wanted to taste her more. He wanted to let his tongue invade her mouth, which he knew was slightly open right now because of her surprise, but he didn't want her to become repulsed by him and so he held back as much as he could.

He didn't even realize that his hands had left her face and were now at her hips, his fingers inching under her shirt, ghosting over her skin, until she snapped out of her shock and pushed him away. His fingertips were tingling and his lips could still feel the pressure of hers against his. If he had been a lesser man, he might have ignored her clear sign of protest and kissed her again, but he loved her too much to do that.

He forced himself to stay where he was with every fibre of self-control he had as he stared at Hinata, standing there so vulnerable and what could almost be mistaken for pity emoting from her eyes. He knew what it really was. It was empathy, sorrow, and non-romantic love for him. This was one of the reasons he loved her so much. She should be furious at him, and yet she wasn't. She loved him so much that it was hurting her to hurt him.

"I'm sorry," he flinched slightly at the sound of his own voice which came out rougher and lower than usual, almost like a growl, and looked down at his feet in apology.

"Haku," she said his name in that soft, melodic way that always forced him to look her way.

Guilt flooded him completely when he saw her eyes glistening with unshed tears and he stepped closer to her, pulling her body into a tight embrace as he whispered his apologies over and over.

"No," she interrupted and stepped away from him just a little so that she was still held in his arms, but she had enough room to look up at him and hold his flushed and burning face in her cool hands. "No, Haku, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, but I don't feel the same way about you," the tip of her nose was turning slightly red as her tears escaped her eyes and ran down her smooth, porcelain cheeks. "I don't want to hurt you, but I need to be honest with you."

"I know," he smiled even as his vision blurred slightly with the tears that were welling up in his eyes.

"What?" her hands dropped from his face and rested on his chest as she tilted her head slightly to one side.

He couldn't hold back a chuckle at her confused expression. "I am in love with you, Hinata. I also know that even though you love me, you're not in love with me. That's okay. I don't really expect you to suddenly reciprocate my feelings just because I confessed to you. I just needed you to know how I felt because hiding my feelings for you is just exhausting. It felt like I was lying and living a double life by pretending my feelings were less than they are. I can't change the way you feel, and I can't change the way I feel about you. Trust me, I've tried that and I can't. So, I just want to be honest and lay everything out on the table. I love you and from now on, I'm not going to hide my feelings."

"I'm sorry," she said again as Haku gingerly wiped her tears.

"I didn't tell you so that you could apologize for something you can't control," he sighed and smiled.

"You're too good for me. I don't deserve you," she gave a slightly shaky smile as she fought to keep more tears from joining the ones that had already escaped her eyes.

"Don't ever say that ever again," Haku said, his voice steady and firm. He held her face and made sure that she was focused on him before he continued. "Listen closely, because I'm going to tell you what kind of person you deserve. You deserve someone who will love you more than he loves himself. You deserve someone who could never even dream about cheating on you because his thoughts and fantasies are all saturated with you. You deserve someone who knows that you can protect yourself, and that sometimes you'll need to, but will still want to protect you because the thought of you getting hurt in any way, be that physical, emotional, or mental, would be devastating to him. You deserve someone who wouldn't make you cry, because he knows that there is nothing more beautiful than your smile and seeing you cry would break his heart. You deserve someone who couldn't live without you because you are his everything. You deserve love like that. You may not feel this way about me, but this is just a small portion of how I feel about you, and even if it takes a lifetime, my feelings for you won't change and I'll always be waiting for you because when you love someone the way that I love you, it's forever regardless of whether that person loves you back or not. My feelings for you aren't dependent on your feelings for me."

He hadn't intended on making her cry, but when she suddenly began to sob into his chest at his heartfelt words, he was taken aback. He had just told her that he wouldn't make her cry, but his words had done exactly that.

"Why are you crying?" he asked as he rubbed his hand soothingly over her back.

"I don't know," she mumbled. "My heart is just overflowing with conflicting emotions and the only way to release it is crying. I'm so moved by your feelings for me and I've never felt more loved before, but I feel so sad and sorry that I can't love you the same way."

"I already told you, you don't have to feel sorry for the way you feel. You might not be in love with me right now, but maybe in five, ten, twenty, or fifty years, maybe one day you'll fall for me. Until then, I can wait because you're worth waiting this lifetime and next for. Just promise you won't alienate me because you know how I feel now."

He couldn't help letting out a laugh when she began to cry harder. "Don't be stupid. You'll find someone more amazing than me, and I would never alienate you. How could you even think that I might," she smacked his chest before wiping her tears with the back of her hand. "We should probably get back inside before it gets dark. Do I look disgusting?"

He studied her face carefully. Her eyes were slightly swollen, her nose was still red, and her eyes were still a bit glassy. It would be obvious with anyone with eyes that she had cried. "You look perfect," he smiled as he gently caressed her cheek.

Sasuke had been washing the dishes when Hinata and Haku returned. He frowned when he saw that Hinata had been crying and shifted his gaze to study Haku, but since he couldn't sense any tension between the two, he decided to ignore it. It was none of his business what they had talked about anyways.

"Sorry, it was my turn to do the dishes wasn't it?" Haku apologized as Sasuke finished rinsing the last plate.

"It's not a big deal. Just do the dishes for me tomorrow," Sasuke shrugged.

"Naruto," Sasuke and Haku both turned their attention to the door when they heard Hinata breathe out his name.

"Good, you guys are all here," Naruto gave an awkward and tensed smile.

"Are you okay?" Hinata asked, stepping closer to him, placing a hand on his arm.

Naruto let out an obviously forced laugh, "I should be asking you that."

"You should have asked her a lot sooner, asshole. What the hell's going on with you?" Sasuke asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"I know," Naruto looked down, shame clearly written over his face. "Can we sit and talk for a bit?"

They all silently sat around the table waiting for Naruto to break his silence and begin to explain his out of character behaviour for the past week. Sasuke felt his typically stoic face morph into a slight scowl when he saw Hinata reach out to Naruto again, taking his hand to offer some comfort and confidence as she unconsciously rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand. Sasuke forced his eyes away from their joined hands and wiped his displeased expression off his face as he remembered the way her small, cold hand had felt in his just a little while earlier.

"First, I want to apologize to all of you guys," Naruto finally began to speak. "I've spent some time really thinking about my behaviour and you were right, Sasuke. I did let my feelings for Sakura impact my judgement and our entire last mission was completely my fault. I put our entire team in danger and because of my stupid decision," Naruto's voice broke and he took a moment to gain control again, "because of me Itsuki died and we almost lost you, Hinata."

Hinata immediately wrapped her arms around Naruto and pulled his head into the crook of her shoulder so that he could cry into it.

"And then I couldn't accept that it was my fault and became so defensive when Sasuke called me out. I needed time to think about everything, but the more I thought about everything, the more ashamed and guilty I felt. I felt like I didn't have the right to check up on you when I was the reason why you had almost died, and then the longer I stayed away, the less I felt I deserved to be forgiven."

"Hey, idiot," Sasuke called out, causing Naruto to pull away from Hinata and look at him. "We get it. You're sorry."

"I'm trying to apologize properly," Naruto looked at Sasuke incredulously.

"Well it's obvious that Hinata's already forgiven you. She's the one you wronged the most. What right do either of us have to not forgive you if Hinata has?" Haku smiled.

"I still think you're a dipshit and moron, but you're my brother. I'll get over it after I beat you up. You already apologized so shut up and end this pity party. We need to remember why we're even here. We all need to keep our heads in the game if we're going to figure out what's in that book and protect Hinata from her psycho cousin," Sasuke reminded.

"It's not your fault I was hurt," Hinata smiled at Naruto. "I need to get stronger."

"I'm sorry," Naruto hung his head in shame again.

"If you're sorry, then make it up to us by not bringing the mood down," Sasuke grunted.

"Thanks guys," Naruto finally broke a smile.

"I missed you," Hinata said as she hugged him again.

"Yeah, me too."

"Enough of this, I want to beat some sense into you. Let's go train," Sasuke said to Naruto as he stood up.

"Oh good, you've all made up," Itachi's voice cut in. "Took you guys long enough. I wanted to give this to you before I forgot. I'm curious about what's in the book. Let me know once you guys get it open," Itachi said, holding the key that had cost them so much out to Hinata.

"Thank you," Hinata stood up and took the key from him, looking down at the small, delicate, discoloured silver key in the palm of her hand before she placed it in her pocket.

"Naruto, Sasuke, Haku, I'm trusting you guys to keep this one safe. I don't want to hear that she got that close to dying ever again. I won't always show up in time to be the hero so make sure you guys are fully prepared next time."

"Don't worry, we won't make the same mistake again," Naruto nodded.

"Kakashi and I are going to head out now. We wanted to wait until tomorrow, but we need to leave now. Kakashi's drawing a gate right now. I thought we should officially say goodbye before just disappearing."

The group nodded and followed Itachi out of the kitchen to the gym where Kakashi was just finishing up drawing a complex set of symbols, forming a gate to wherever their next mission awaited them.

"Thank you for everything. Please be careful," Hinata said, wrapping her arms around Itachi, letting her worry leak into her voice as her brow furrowed and she rested her head on his chest.

"I'm always careful," he smiled, taking a step back, placing a gentle, feather light kiss on her forehead before he waved with a simple flick of his wrist to the others. "Take care of her," he reminded once more.

"Be safe, Kakashi," Hinata said as she waved goodbye to him.

"You guys too," Kakashi nodded.

As soon as Kakashi drew the final line, a bright light started to emit from the ground and he jumped into it, disappearing into the ground. Itachi took one last look over his shoulder as he smiled at his brothers, jumping in after Kakashi. The gateway stayed open for only another couple seconds before the light and all of the symbols vanished.

"Let's spar," Sasuke said, turning away and heading to the ring with Naruto right behind him.

"Sakura?"

Sakura flinched at the sound of Hinata's soft voice breaking through the silence that had surrounded her for however long it had been since the last time Hinata had tried to comfort her.

"You need to eat something," Hinata pleaded.

Sakura remained silent as she sat with her knees drawn up, arms crossing over her knees and her head resting on her arms so that her face was hidden.

"Sakura, please," she could hear Hinata sit down beside her. "Please talk to me. I'm worried about you. Let me help you."

"And how exactly can you help me?" Sakura finally looked up, her voice raspy from lack of use and her expression showing exactly how guilty and broken she was. "I'm the reason why Itsuki died! I'm the reason my brother, the last of my family died. I killed him!" she began to sob while Hinata held her.

"I don't understand how you can be here comforting me right now when you almost died because of me too," Sakura said when she finally got her sobbing and breathing under control again. "You must hate me so much and I wouldn't blame you. I deserve it. I deserve to be hated by all of you guys."

"We made mistakes too," Hinata replied as she continued to hold Sakura and pat her back.

"I think I can understand now why Sasuke loves you and why I'll never measure up," she sniffed.

"We're not like that," Hinata shook her head. "But that's not what's important. Itsuki wouldn't want you to be sitting here punishing yourself. He would want you to learn and survive."

"I can't," Sakura shook her head.

"You asked me how exactly I could help, right? I could take away your guilt."

"What? How?"

"It's one of the abilities I've been trained to do as an Empath. If you trust and allow me to, I could lessen your feelings of guilt," Hinata didn't break her eye contact with Sakura.

"No, I don't want to forget how horrible it feels. What if I forget how much this guilt hurt and I do something stupid like that again?"

"It's not like you would forget how much it hurt until now. I'm just taking the guilt you feel now, not the guilt you felt before."

"I should have to carry this guilt for the rest of my life," Sakura shook her head and looked away.

"If you don't want me to take it away completely, at least let me take away just a little, so that you won't starve yourself to death. Just enough for you to take that first step to living again." Hinata cupped Sakura's face in her hands and made her look at her again, "Please, let me do this for Itsuki."

"Okay," Sakura whispered.

"Thank you," Hinata smiled. "Just relax and trust me," Hinata said gently as she pulled Sakura into a gentle hug.

Sakura felt Hinata's cool hand on the back of her neck as she rested her forehead against the crook of Hinata's neck. It didn't take long before Sakura could feel a strange sensation of something flowing out of her from the areas that Hinata's skin was touching her own. It wasn't necessarily a pleasant feeling, but she somehow knew that once it was done, she would feel much better. It was almost like throwing up in the way that when she felt ill, throwing up would make her feel better though the actually process of throwing up was not the best feeling. It was like her heart was vomiting the pain and guilt and she could feel tears escaping her closed eyes.

"Shh, relax," Hinata whispered. "It'll feel better in just a moment."

Sakura let out a sigh of relief when she began to feel acceptance and peace flow into her from Hinata. It was a different sensation, almost like drinking a cold glass of water after crossing a dessert. It felt so refreshing that Sakura didn't even realize that Hinata had stopped the process until a good minute afterwards.

"How do you feel now?" Hinata asked, releasing Sakura and pulling away to study Sakura's face.

"I feel," Sakura took a moment to think, unsure how she felt, "I feel like I can breathe again."

"Great," Hinata smiled, though Sakura could recognize the emotions that she had been feeling reflecting back at her in Hinata's eyes.

"When you said take it away, you didn't mean make it disappear. You meant trading. You traded your contentment for my pain. Thank you," Sakura sobbed again, throwing herself against Hinata and hugging her tightly. "And I'm so sorry I was so horrible to you. I was such a bitch."

"If you want to make it up to me, you can start by eating something," Hinata said, her voice a little weak.

"Yeah, I will. I'm going to take a shower and then I'll come out to eat. I should apologize to everyone else too."

"I'll leave you to get cleaned up then," Hinata said, pulling away and standing up slowly.

Haku looked over to the door when he saw Hinata exit the locker rooms. As soon as the door closed behind her, she dropped to her knees and clutched her chest, an expression of pain crossing her face.

He ran over without a word and placed a hand on her back as he peered at her face in concern.

"It's nothing," Hinata said, her voice sounding a bit fatigued and her expression wasn't as bright and content as usual. "I'm just a bit tired."

"What happened?"

"I took some of Sakura's guilt and pain. I'll be alright. I'm just tired feeling weighed down and tired from taking in extra negative emotions."

"You should have told me you were planning on doing that. I could have been there with you so that you wouldn't have to carry the extra load yourself. You could have split it between the two of us," Haku frowned.

"It's fine. I'm fine. I'm just feeling a bit weak because my body hasn't fully recovered yet," Hinata protested as he wrapped an arm around her back while hooking his other hand under her knees, picking her up so that she could rest her head on his shoulder while he carried her to the sofa.

"What's wrong?" Sasuke and Naruto stopped their spar and turned their attention when they caught sight of Haku carrying Hinata.

"It's nothing," Hinata smiled. "I'm just a bit tired and Haku is just being overprotective."

"Haku, what's wrong with Hinata?" Sasuke asked, his expression unconvinced with Hinata's answer to Naruto's question.

"She's tired from an adverse emotional transfusion," Haku answered.

"I've only heard about emotional transfusions. I didn't know you could do them. Does it always tire you out?" Naruto frowned slightly.

"No, if it's an equal or positive emotional transfusion then she would be fine, but it's because she took in extra bad emotions that it's physically tiring her. Basically, it depends on what feelings she takes in and puts out. If it's even, then there's no physically after effect. If she takes in more positive emotion than she puts out, than she would be energized," Haku shook his head.

"You did a transfusion with Sakura," Sasuke glowered.

"She was starving herself and the guilt would have led her to waste away to death. I insisted that I do it," Hinata replied before closing her eyes.

"Don't cause her more stress than is necessary," Haku warned Sasuke. "She's tired enough as it is without you weighing her down with your feelings."

"I'm fine," Hinata shook her head, but her eyes remained closed and her voice quiet.

"Take her to get some sleep," Naruto nodded his head.

"Sasuke," Hinata called out as Haku carried her towards the infirmary, "she's learned her lesson. I may have taken on some of her guilt, but she still has so much. Please don't make her feel worse. She's learned her lesson so forgive her, please. Forgive her for Itsuki. If you can't do it for him, do it for me," Hinata said before she passed out from exhaustion.

Haku saw Sasuke scowl before he muttered, "That's unfair. You know I can't deny you anything."

"Do you love her?" Haku stopped beside the boxing ring, looking up at Sasuke. He wasn't an idiot, rather, he was probably the most observant of the four. Honestly, he already knew how Hinata felt about Naruto and how Sasuke felt about Hinata. He was just hoping against all odds that Sasuke had not yet realized his feelings.

"Of course he loves her. We all do," Naruto answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Haku studied Sasuke's expression searching for an answer to the actual question he asked. Haku felt a small shred of shame when he saw confusion etch itself onto Sasuke's features confirming his sliver of suspicion that Sasuke was unaware of who had his heart.

"I'm in love with her." Haku's expression mirrored Naruto's and Sasuke's shock. He had not intended on revealing his feelings to them, but the primitive and possessive part of his brain had acted first. He had vomited the words before the thought to had even fully formed in his mind.

"What?" Sasuke's voice cut him out of his internal panic.

"Let me put her in bed first," Haku said slowly.

Naruto nodded his head dumbly, "Yeah, sure."

"It's okay. You'd already decided to be more upfront with your feelings so they would have figured it out anyways. At least this way you're not leaving any room for misunderstanding," Haku told himself as he laid Hinata in bed, tucking her in before returning to the others.

"So, should we sit down?" Naruto gave an awkward grin.

"No, it's fine. I won't take much of your time." Haku cleared his throat, pausing to organize his thoughts before he looked up, his eyes locking with Sasuke's "I've been in love with Hinata since we were children. I spent most of my life trying to hide my feelings because I didn't think I deserved someone like her, and I didn't want her to feel awkward around me or burdened because of my feelings. You guys probably thought I treated her different from all the other girls because I felt about her the same way you guys feel about her, but I've never once thought of Hinata as a sister. She has always been the reason I live. Every morning when I wake up, she's the first thing I think of. Whenever I train, it's because I want to protect her. She's the last thing on my mind before I fall asleep. There isn't a single thing I do that isn't for her. I could never feel for someone else the way I feel about Hinata. She's my sun, my moon, my oxygen, my water, my happiness, my sorrow, she's my everything. I just thought that I should be honest with you guys."

"Wow," Naruto's expression went from dumbstruck to ecstatic. "That's amazing! You have my blessing!"

"Does she know?" Sasuke asked. Unlike his brother, his expression wasn't bright and congratulatory. In fact, Haku could see the veins in Sasuke's arms and neck bulging as he unconsciously clenched his fists and jaw.

"Yes."

"And?"

Haku gave a defeated smile, "She doesn't feel the same way."

"Oh," Naruto's smile faded. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I already knew she didn't feel the same way when I told her. I just didn't want to hide it any longer," Haku gave Naruto a sad smile. "I just hope that the person she loves would love her back. Honestly, all I want is for her to be happy, even if it's not with me. Her happiness is more important than mine."

"That's stupid," Sasuke scowled. "If I was in love with someone, I would go to the ends of the earth to be with her because nobody could make her as happy as I could."

"Don't get me wrong," Haku turned his gaze back to Sasuke, "I don't intend on giving up. I will do everything in my power to show her that I could make her happy, but if she should choose someone else, I won't be the reason she can't be happy."

"Well, I'm on your side," Haku could hear the smile and encouragement in Naruto's voice, but his eyes lingered on Sasuke's conflicted face.

AN: I'm not 100% satisfied with this chapter so I might end up re-writing it in the future. I know I promised at the end of the last chapter that this one would have some action, but I had to split it up because this chapter was getting too long. Sorry! Please forgive me! Hopefully the next chapter will be out sooner than later. I'll try to update more regularly.