[A/N] Confession: I'm actually a huge NejiHina fangirl (^-^;) But I like NaruHina too. XD No NejiHina in this fic, worry not.
Thank you for all your love! Shelter's reached 200+ story alert and favorites. This is really unexpected progress for me ヽ(*・ω・)ﾉ I'm really grateful for the support. So, please enjoy the next chapter of Shelter! The theme this time is "distance"—its presence or the lack thereof.
Happy reading~
P.S. I PROMISE WE WILL GET BACK TO SASUSAKU SOON.
Shelter from the Rain
a vampire fic
21} distance
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my fingers reach for you, but is your skin even tangible?
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Run. Little brother… Just run. You can't… defeat me.
Shut up—SHUT UP—SHUT THE HELL UP! Fuck you, Itachi! Otou-san and Okaa-san—I'll avenge them with my own hands… I'LL KILL YOU.
Because getting hurt by the ones you love—that is more painful than death.
So cut yourself away.
Destroy those bonds.
Keep yourself from getting hurt any longer.
Because in the end, you can't trust anybody.
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not even your own family
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"Sakura-chan!" He was running, laughing, spiked blond hair shaking as he hurried over to her.
Wearing such a happy expression—where did all the melancholy disappear to that had weighed him down at the funeral anniversary?
"Hey, Naruto." Sakura avoided his tackle by stepping lightly behind Sasuke.
"Don't use me as a shield," the vampire muttered in Sakura's ear as he pushed the blond off himself.
Naruto thumped his best friend's chest with a tanned fist. "G'morning, bastard."
Sasuke caught the fist and held it in the air. "Shut up, Useless."
"I see you're in a good mood."
"Speak for yourself. Did you jerk off this morning or something?"
"Hmm? Naw." Naruto didn't react violently; he chuckled. Sakura and Sasuke exchanged glances. "Well, time for class, huh? I don't really wanna go, though…" He pulled his hand out of Sasuke's and began heading to the building. When his friends didn't follow, he turned around with expectant blue eyes.
He was wearing a smile that was just too happy, and it creeped Sakura out.
"Coming?" Naruto asked.
Sakura took a step back, somehow… afraid. Afraid of this fake Naruto.
He was acting strangelyly, and she didn't know how to handle the situation.
Her vampire consort, just a few paces in front of her, paused, and looked back. "…Yeah. C'mon, Sakura. We'll be late if we don't go now."
That dark gaze was all too clear in its message: Relax.
Sakura gazed at him for a moment. Sasuke-kun just knew her too well, didn't he?
But her feelings didn't matter right now. Naruto's feelings… Something happened, Sakura thought. Something happened yesterday at the funeral anniversary.
But… what could have happened?
It wasn't as if Hinata could have said something to hurt him so badly.
Maybe he'd remembered something painful?
"Then… Let's go," she said.
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and let's begin
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"Uzumaki? Damn, that guy's so happy it's weird."
Hyuuga Hinata glanced over to see a group of her fellow new middle school first years standing together by the classroom door. She didn't recognize most of them. She walked over and passed them, needing to leave through the door, and tried not to listen, but their loud voices reached her ears even as she was walking down the hallway.
She had no idea who this Uzumaki was, so it didn't really matter, right?
Still, she didn't like that they were talking about him behind his back.
"What do you think, Sasuke?"
This voice was deeper and sounded a bit crueler than the others'. "Me? I hate him."
"So like you."
A few of the guys chuckled.
"You guys fight all the time. What punishment did the principal give you this time? It's the fifth time in two days."
Hinata sped up her pace slightly and turned the corner at the end of the hall, hoping not to get noticed. Unfortunately, that was just what happened. "Hey, Hinata-chan!"
She flushed and kept walking, trying to pretend she hadn't heard her name get called and ignore the fact she could hear his footsteps behind her. A few of the boys at this middle school were establishing themselves as players, and it was only the first week. This kind of thing had never happened at any of her other schools, all private and well-established institutions.
Perhaps the rumors she had heard from her fellow privileged classmates from previous years were right.
1. Public school kids are poor. You hardly have to pay anything to attend. (Well, the tuition was definitely cheap, but Hinata couldn't help but think that paying an exorbitant price to attend a private school probably sounded stupid to normal people.)
2. The uniforms are awful. Usually it's just a white shirt, tie, and skirt. (Personally, Hinata didn't much like designed and very specific uniform requirements of her past schools. They were expensive and the dress code guideline was very strict, so the dress code was easy to violate and consequently get punished for. This school was much more lenient.)
3. Public school boys can't keep it in their pants and flirt with everyone. (She'd turned a bright red upon hearing that one.)
4. The bathrooms always smell really bad. (This one was, unfortunately, quite true.)
5. People actually have sex in classrooms! (Hearing this one had made her faint.)
A brown-headed boy—his name was Iba or Inuzi or something, oh she just couldn't remember—slung his arm around her, effectively trapping her in the middle of the hallway. "You really should stop and listen when I say your name."
"Ah—um—I—Ika…?" she stuttered. Oh, boys had never touched her like this before! All her old schools had been all-girls'. Once boys from the neighboring all-boys' school had come to visit and either gender had sat on completely opposite sides of the room.
Never had a man—no, never had anybody ever slung his or her arm around her shoulders like this!
"In…Ik…" She struggled, trying to locate his name in the recesses of her mind.
"It's Kiba. Inuzuka Kiba." His breath was hot against her cheek as he spoke. "Remember it."
"I-Inuzuka-kun… I h-have to go home."
"What, do you have such a strict curfew you can't even hang out for a bit?"
"Y-yes." Hinata looked anywhere but him.
"Kiba, let her go," called one of the other boys. He laughed. "She looks terrified."
"Yeah, but…" He grinned. "I kinda like a shy girl."
"I-Inuzuka-kun, I—" She was really feeling quite faint…
"Oi, you idiot!" A sudden kick in the head threw Inuzuka Kiba to the ground.
"You fuckin' retard!" Kiba shouted, and tackled the body that had attacked him.
Hinata blinked a few times, taking in the image.
Her savior was a blond boy, somewhat short in stature. He was slender and wore an orange watch.
…He had amazingly blue eyes.
The two boys wrestled for a bit on the floor, but it quickly turned into a laughing fit.
"Oh, damn, get off me! You're fuckin' heavy!"
"Hey, hey, I'm smaller than you!"
"That's not a good thing, idiot!"
They eventually got up, helping each other.
The blond boy grinned at Hinata, who was still standing there, shocked and frozen. So public school boys were violent, too?
And then he spoke. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto! We're in the same class." His voice was nasally and a bit high-pitched but…
It was so friendly.
"I… I-I'm Hyuuga Hinata. P-pleased to m-m-make your acquaintance, U-Uzumaki-san!" She bowed her head.
"Uh… you're really formal." Naruto sounded both amused and surprised.
Hinata flushed and quickly stood up straight.
"Well, excuse this dog-boy here, he doesn't know what he's doing—Yowch! Kiba, don't hit my head! You'll crack all my brain cells and I need those! I get bad enough grades already!"
"As if Uchiha Sasuke hasn't already destroyed your brain?" Kiba said, laughing.
"Ugh, don't talk about that bastard! Hyuuga, don't listen to him. I'm actually pretty smart, you know. I mean, I passed the entrance exam, didn't I?"
He smiled at her, and it seemed to shift gravity.
That was the day Hinata first took notice of Uzumaki Naruto.
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he could convey his feelings in a way she never could
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She started noticing him every day after the Inuzuka incident.
He was so cheerful all the time, and yet so easily frustrated—especially when it came to matters of his rivalry with Uchiha Sasuke. The two's bitter competition gave class 1-B some excitement during the normal school day.
And he approached her. On his own. Smiling, laughing, warm.
He was like the sun.
"Hinata! I can call you that, right?"
He crouched by her desk, his arms and chin resting on the hard wooden surface, with his blue eyes looking up at her under long lashes.
"S-sure!" Hinata said, feeling her fingers tremble from the utter happiness. It was like a dream. He was looking up at her. Smiling. It was so different from the usual downcast grimaces she received.
"Then you can call me Naruto." He grinned.
Somehow it felt too good to be true.
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if it's a dream, then let me live in this fantasy
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"…He's really amazing."
The nanny looked up at the sudden outburst. "Hm? Did you say something, Hinata-sama?" she said helpfully, and rested her open book on her lap as she glanced over at the young girl gazing out the window, the slim fingers pressed against the glass.
"Uzumaki-kun." Hinata's expression had a subtle glow to it. "He seems to dance wherever he goes."
The nanny lazily craned her head to see a rather short, stupid-looking blond child about Hinata's age strolling on the street. She looked at the young girl blankly. "Your crush?" she asked.
The paleness of Hinata's visage morphed into an obscene red. "N-n-n-n-no…! Just a, um… a classmate."
The nanny shrugged and put her nose back into the orange romantic novel. "Well, okay then." She didn't really care much; she was more interested in the sexual adventures of the characters in the pages she held than of the timid development of this wealthy child left in her care.
Hinata turned back to the figure of her idol, the blond boy. His back was to her and he was walking away, his figure shrinking as it drew closer to the horizon line where the street met the sinking sun.
Suddenly, the boy turned.
Pale violet met intense blue.
He smiled, waved, acknowledged her, and Hinata stopped breathing.
Then he turned the corner and disappeared.
Hinata's trembling fingers dropped from the window. She fervently wished she could be on the opposite side of the glass. To cross this invisible barrier and stand by Uzumaki-kun's side.
Perhaps one day, she would be one to glance back and smile a toothy grin, instead of the one longingly gazing out, her small nose pressed against the glass of her own mental imprisonment.
Ah, but she could not hope that anybody else would ever have to suffer the feeling of being stuck behind a window—able to see out but never escape…
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trapped and pining away
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It was in wintertime that year that the Big Fight happened.
Naruto got angry easily. He was generally cheerful, but any insult directed towards his family or his friends would not go without at least a punch or two in retaliation.
"You bastard, why are you always like that?"
Sasuke, meanwhile, was generally stoic and cool. If Naruto was fire, he was ice. But when Naruto got too close—it sparked a change in state.
"What does my life, or anything about it, have to do with you?" Sasuke caught his classmate's thrown fist and the two met eyes. "Let me make this clear," he said, leaning in a little bit to the other boy's face. "You can't win!" He kicked Naruto in the chest, sending him flying into a desk.
The blond lost his breath for a moment, but he automatically began getting up. "Everybody's trying to get along with you, trying to get to know you better… trying and trying, even Shikamaru… What the hell are you thinking..?" Naruto got to his feet and charged. "You still don't acknowledge any of them!"
He knocked Sasuke to the floor, his fist grabbing the fabric of the Sasuke's uniform shirt.
Sasuke looked up at him from the floor, dark eyes unreadable. "You want me to acknowledge them? What will that do for me? Does it benefit me to act nice to them?" He spat. "Do you not get it? I don't care."
Naruto's reply was a well-executed punch to Sasuke's smooth white cheek.
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public school boys… are really violent
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"Why do you keep fighting even when you can hardly stand?" Sasuke brushed off the dirt from his mouth and spat the rest of it. Two male teachers had grabbed either arm of the young, beautiful boy. Sasuke didn't try to fend off their arms, but he still glared at them.
Naruto, held onto by two other teachers, did try to fight them off, yelling and kicking. "I never give up or run away!" he shouted. "That's the way I live."
Hinata, standing off to the side with the other students, suddenly felt something akin to an epiphany.
Sasuke just stared at him and then looked away.
They had fought but… something seemed to have changed in both of them.
The blue gaze was brighter than usual.
And the black gaze was softer than usual.
The damage in the classroom was incredible. A ruined student desk that had to hold the weight of a thrown boy, a broken chair that had been thrown and lay in splintered pieces on the floor, and three broken windows.
Hinata gazed at the windows, looking at the sharp glittering pieces and at the jagged bits still clinging to the square pane.
Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke fought violently, but somehow… they had connected. They had transcended their barriers.
She admired them.
As the teachers dragged the two boys to the principal, another making irritated phone calls to their parents, Hinata watched them timidly. Their feet dragged on the floor and Naruto continued struggling.
"Even if you escape, you're still in trouble!" one of the teachers snarled, and Naruto pouted.
Hinata couldn't help but giggle as she watched him pout, pulled by the arms.
Suddenly Naruto looked up at her, and met her eyes.
She blushed.
"Hinata!" he shouted over to her, as the distance between them increased as the teachers pulled him farther and farther away. "You look really cute when you smile!"
Her face turned an incredible red and suddenly she felt very, very dizzy.
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perhaps the happiness was getting to her
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"Hinata."
"Y-yes, Otou-san?"
The pale gaze narrowed just a tiny bit. Hinata knew her father hated her stammering, but though he had chastised her several times for it already, it just didn't go away.
"There was a fight at your middle school."
Hinata dropped her spoon, miso soup and all. "H-how d-did you kn…" Hinata stopped herself, and took a deep breath. How he'd found out nearly as much as the fact that he knew what had happened. "Yes, there was a f-fight."
"It's too dangerous for you to be at such a school, Hinata. If you got hurt…"
The rest of the family will look down on us, Hinata finished for him in her head. She put her hands in her lap and stared at her rice. "I-I've taken self-defense lessons. Remember? Y-you said I should t-take them to be safe. A-and it was only a l-little fight." She tried to sound confident, but the inevitable stammering and her lowered head did not give a strong impression.
Hyuuga Hiashi did not look satisfied with that answer. "I think you should transfer to the middle school that I discussed with you earlier."
"Otou-san, I… I t-told you m-m-my reasons for attending Konoha." If she went to her father's recommended Ki no Eda Middle School, it would be chock full of fellow Hyuuga children and her father's connections.
Full of people who hated her and knew her name.
Full of people who would judge her with those pale eyes.
She had enough of that everyday just by looking in the mirror.
But finally she had met some one who smiled at her.
"Konoha has no standing and it is too dangerous. Imagine if you were—"
"Otou-san!" Hinata was on her feet, her chair on its back on the floor and her fingers clutched the table cloth. She was shaking—from fear, and her own anger.
She turned her head and met the pale, vaguely wider than usual gaze of her father.
"This is my choice," she whispered. The soft words were clear in the silent room.
Hanabi, her little sister who sat opposite her at the rectangular table, chose the moment to take a sip of soup.
Hinata picked up the napkin that had fallen to the floor from her lap, folded it messily and placed it lightly on the table. "Please excuse me," she murmured, and headed for the doorway that connected the dining room to the hallway that led to the stairs.
Just as her feet crossed the threshold, her father said, "Neji will transfer to your school next month."
Hinata nodded without turning around, and then she fled, feeling a rush of happiness choke her and bring tears to her eyes.
For the first time in her life, her father had let her have her way.
She would be able to stay with Naruto-kun...!
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thank you, God, if you are watching me
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Hanabi watched her sister run up the stairs. "Onee-san… she yelled in such a loud voice."
Hiashi still looked shocked. "That was the first time she ever stood up to me like," he said, mostly to himself.
Hanabi wondered if that was a ghost of a proud smile on her father's lips, or if it was a trick of the light.
Well, whatever. Her miso soup was getting cold.