To my pulchritudinous (haha, there's a word you don't see every day) reviewers;
thank you so much.
ImCutePoison: Props to you for reading it in one breath! That's an undertaking. I want them to come together, too, haha!
chocoGONEsushi: Hey, you're back, too ;) Thanks for being my reviewer once more. It's just like olden times.
tiny.coco.chan: You liked the description of the ravine? Yayz! I usually think that my description is not up to par. It's difficult to not sound cliche when describing something, especially dialogue or another person. I love that Sasuke changed, too. One of the best things as an author is that even when your previous chapters sucked, you can still see your characters changing. Maybe they change as the author changes? :)
zabobinator: Yes, I agree! - that I am Hinata Hyuuga was incredibly rushed. I think I wanted a million things to happen...a million cliche things, that is, in that story. Thank you so much for saying my writing has improved.
FullStop: Eep, the directions he gave her were pretty funny. I wrote them on a whim. Thanks!
RunningBarefootAtMidnight: Thank you for your vote of confidence, so much. Heehee, I like how he says her last name, too.
Goodbye to You ~ Michelle Branch
goodbye to you,
goodbye to everything I thought I knew...
you were the one I lo-oved,
the one thing that I tried to hold on to...
--
Chapter 9
Coxcomb Plant
--
Nighttime
I jumped from the last step almost like a child, and opened my mouth, clean as a cat's, and yawned. The air itself, soft to the touch, clung to my hair and skin like silk.
The clouds were low hanging and bulging with condensation and the moon was shying away in the haze, but it was beautiful. It was beautiful, and secretive, and I breathed a part of the magic in and I closed my eyes and I must have smiled. I believe I smiled.
Capture your own happiness, Hinata. Please capture your own happiness.
--
--
next morning
"Good job," I beamed at Sakura.
"Thank you," she returned, a mite noncommittally. Agilely she pushed her paddle and executed a swift hit to the left. "You're not too bad yourself."
All around us were the noises of delirious campers – delirious about being outside, delirious about playing paddleball. Me, this was my first time playing. So far it had wielded a total of the following: a bruised wrist, several cringing mortifying moments, and results rather far from excellent. It was all too fast and coordinated for me.
But the campers loved it; they were having the times of their lives. I was lucky because I got to see Ruu cutely challenge a girl to playing a game, with the two bickering continuously. Ruu won. Little kids.
My – Sakura and mine – opponent, though, was Kiba, and he was trying hard. Trying hard for show (bark) rather than actual skill (bite). All his strokes were performed with such complexity; with twists and long, drawn-out swings and a few loud yells for good effect. I found it very amusing when he, in due course, got hit full in the face. He was trying for one of the more garish moves – spinning the ball counter-clockwise with a sharp flick of the wrist – and he wound up missing entirely, the ball ricocheting off his face.
"Ouch," I wished on his behalf.
"I'm fine!" said Kiba hastily, and he pulled his hand away. A medium-sized bump emerged where he had been hit.
"Ouch," I said again.
Sakura took charge. "Why don't you – here," she said, handing me her paddle. She motioned to Kiba. "Come to the bench. I'll get you some salve."
He muttered something akin to thanks but with more tone of an embarrassed, trampled-on ego. He was like a dog himself, tail between legs. What they say about owners turning into their pets, and pets into owners, it's true.
Left sans partner and opponent, I wandered off after placing the paddle in the hanger off the net. I wandered into a little alcove of tree – about thirty trees were planted near the entrance of the park; otherwise the land was bare and sandy.
The sun was hot. I sat on a little mesh where moss and swirls of fern had grown. It was all rather peaceful – shadows slanting off my face and hands, creating bands of black against colors – until a skittering noise alerted me.
I looked up; then down, to the right, and saw an enormous, hairy spider crawling under my leg. I swore it could tell which best way to frighten to crap out of me – it lifted two ghastly legs and made as if to bound up onto my calves. I screamed all the way to high heaven and pushed off the ground as if it had turned into a burning coal, and I leapt up, scattering leaves and lichen and moss. The spider's million gimlet eyes, like endless beads or eggs, stared at me.
Pumped with adrenaline, I flew out of the forest as if there were hunting dogs snapping at my heels.
It seemed so logical right then to shout, give warning; "Spider! There's a spider running amok in the forest!"
It was to my great credit I didn't. Later I'd be heartened to know this, at least, I did not do. It would shred away the last fabric of dignity I held.
The campers who were bird-watching were closest to the forest, though only one or two saw me. A little girl with a small snub nose, huge eyes, and floppy twin ponytails gaped.
"You screamed," she said, wide-eyed.
"Shh," I said, inwardly grinning at my blunders. Self-deprecation. Outwardly, I maintained a grim face. "It was me, but don't tell!"
"Oh – okay," she agreed immediately. Like most little kids she could forget easily. She was obviously not one of the few little kids who, on the other hand, remembered everything and brought things up at the most inopportune times.
"What's your name?" I said to her, bending down.
"Keito. It means coxcomb plant. What's…yours?"
"Hinata. It means sun."
"I like that name," she said wistfully. "Maybe I should change mine."
I laughed at her naivety. Laughed, maybe, a little at her innocence. My laughter felt a little wistful itself.
"Thanks," I said. "I like Keito, too."
She wrinkled her nose. "Coxcomb is a weed!"
"It's still beautiful," I told her. "My sun will nurture it and make it grow."
--
"I hate it most," Karin declared, "when people say, 'It's all good.'"
We were sitting at a corner table in the lodge after dinner, and she was cleaning off the lens of her horn-rimmed glasses with her lime-green woolen sweatshirt. "Because, au contraire, madam, it is not all good. It is quite bad. The world will end in 2012 due to poverty and rape and suchlike."
"You're even more pessimistic than me in that issue," I laughed. "The apocalypse is so not going to come around in a mere two years."
She huffed ruefully. "Well, still. There's not much more you can hate than the bland, stupid words of, 'It's all good.'" She peered myopically at her glasses before putting them back on. She was really very pretty even with them on. "So what do you hate, Hinata? Think twice before answering!"
What I hated…
I could have mentioned several things on the spot: long lines, people who said things they didn't mean (Hikaru, former manager), people who boasted, snow, rain, sleet, hail…
…but most of all I hated regrets. I hated being so rude to people when I was younger, as if I had the world cradled in the palm of my hand and I could crush it on whim; I hated…I hated leaving Konoha.
But I did not express this aloud. Maybe because I was afraid Karin would reply, "Maybe you shouldn't have walked out of Konoha, then, without a second glance." I was afraid of all that.
That was why I replied with a concise, "I hate acting when I'm forced to."
I heard footsteps before I heard his voice; "I remember that," he said.
Without turning around or movement of any kind I felt my heart jump in my throat.
"Sasuke!" I heard Karin speak. "What a pleasant surprise. Come and sit down."
He did so; on the other side of me. Imperceptibly Karin, on the other side of me, pushed closer so it was uncomfortable, forcing me to move away, more to Sasuke's side.
Subtle, she is. Lovely person, she is not.
"Yeah…acting," I said, not quite making eye contact. "I don't really do that now."
"If I remember correctly you were acting to be Neji," he said. I could feel his eyes boring into mine. Or maybe it just felt like it because we were sitting so close. Like every girl I worried about how I looked…up close. Ugh, I thought. Awkward. Too much so.
"Yes," I agreed, biting my lip. "You hated me back then." Left unsaid was the similar statement, 'You hate me now, too.'
"No," he contradicted. "I don't hate you now, and I didn't hate you back then, either."
"So you didn't?" I said. "Good!" I stared at some twenty feet away, willing the walls to crash down around us to end this misery of mine.
"I was wondering, though," he said, almost gently, "if it's the other way around."
He thought I hated him. I could not have been more surprised if he had said, "Quite the opposite," instead, of hating me.
"I couldn't hate you," I said, and then I looked at him, which was stupid.
"That's right, dear Sasuke," said Karin's voice, floating on my other side. "Who could hate a wee bittle lovable thing like you?"
"Shut up," he said.
Karin had the audacity to look injured. Of course it was easier to look at her, or anything else, than his eyes. "Ack," she said. "The Bachelor of the Year has told me to shut my trap."
"And again," said Sasuke in a mock-pleasing tone. "Shut up."
Karin told me, "He's not usually like this. It's only because I decreased his ego with that lovable comment. Otherwise he couldn't say shut up to anyone."
"Karin – " said Sasuke. "I'm warning you – "
"Nah, he's more the type to send eye daggers, or actually have a dagger and kill that person. I mean, he's just not a verbal person, you know?" She jumped up and danced away from the table before he could retort with something else, and she glided to another table, lips grinning.
We were left in silence, of course, and before I could think of something profitless to say – how's the weather? or, what did you, perchance, have for breakfast this morning?, he had asked me, "Is it true?"
"Is what true?" My voice was faintly uneasy.
"That you do not hate me."
"Of course I don't hate you," I said automatically. "What on earth for? It's obviously more likely you would hate me; I was a bitch back then."
Saying a curse word made it seem more real. Suddenly I seemed to have more courage, by facing up to it. I was, though. It was all too true.
"You may have been," he acknowledged. "I don't think I was much better."
"But you don't understand," I said. Making eye contact seemed easy now, because this point was imperative to make. From the moment I had set foot into this camp, Arisa Voce had never crossed my conscious mind. It was like I was attempting to erase her, that part of me. It was exactly like the time when I was Arisa Voce and I was trying to forget the Hinata before that, the Hinata of Konoha boarding school.
And look how well that denial had turned out.
I needed to face the past, acknowledge it.
"You don't understand," I repeated. "I…I was Arisa Voce."
If you don't remember, Hinata met Sasuke when she was acting as Arisa Voce. It was in the middle of a party, and it seemed like he didn't recognize her due to her changes as an actress.
Though this chapter may not have been the most interesting, it does represents an important milestone. She meets Keito, whom I designed as sort of a "mini-Hinata," a Hinata portrayed when she was younger and more naïve. You'll see more of Keito and Ruu, heehee.
Can I burden you with another favor? If you haven't voted on my poll, please do. Hint: it's not just in fiction...
I love you love you love you :),
LuLu