Dear god. Less than a month between updates? I haven't done that well since I started.
For Nanathakon. Because she is the awesome. And because I said I would. We call this plot device self insertion. For ironic effect. I quite like it. Still nowhere close to owning anything. Really. Supposedly, it's better this way. Let's see, aside from the standard Naruto, I think there's a bit of Eddie and some Monty Python, and of course the oh so quotable me mixed in.
Someone make college go away.
Descent into Rapture Chapter 28: To Entangle
"I should write a book."
"Please don't."
"It'd be a good book. It wouldn't even be about me. Drama, romance, realistic characters… well… maybe not."
"Just no."
"I could write myself in for ironic effect! Dea ex machina, if you will. It'd be brilliant. I would be famous. More famous."
"Someone save me."
"Well see if I give you an interesting role. You can be character support. One of those brunette extras."
"You're only this annoying when you're worried."
"Shut up, princess."
"I will if you will, Hanabi."
"'Cause that's an effective threat. It takes how long to get three syllables out of you? Would it help if I were blonde?"
"I should have just left you to rot in the Club."
"Slick ponytail, by the way. Shame she wasn't around to see it."
"I'm far too nice to my cousins."
"It could just be a character flaw. Or something missing in your diet. You ought to talk to someone about that."
It was probably a healthy thing that you couldn't mutilate your forehead while you were driving. It had the potential to end very badly.
"Is she home yet?" were the first words out of Hanabi's mouth.
"She has her own apartment."
Hanabi flashed a sharp toothed smile. "But she'll come back here. Snow's not expected in the Seven Circles for at least a month."
"What did you say to your sister?" Surely this was backwards. Didn't most mothers have to worry about the elder picking on the younger?
"You don't think she loves us enough to come back? She hasn't lived in her apartment for days."
"Your youngest reminded her sister that if she didn't come back and tell her all about it, she would assume the worst, and it wouldn't be murder."
"Didn't see you there, Daddy. I didn't think you were listening this morning. You were only on your second cup."
"Experience has taught all of us paying extra attention is warranted when dealing with you, little firecracker."
Any and all retorts died with the sound of the door opening
"I'm home, and… so is everyone else."
"Did you bring your date?"
"No." she said simply, and left it at that. Hinata didn't look like she was going to start baking bread, so Hanabi breathed a little easier. Of course, she made up for her anxiety by being as well… herself as she could.
"Soo…. how did it go?" The innocent intonation set Neji's teeth on edge, but Hanabi's direct family seemed well acquainted enough with the saccharine drawl to not mind.
"It was… nice."
"You're missing a lot of vocabulary today."
"It was illuminating." Hinata suddenly found the kitchen pilasters absolutely fascinating. "If you don't mind, I feel like I've hidden in my parents' room long enough. I'm going to… go back in the morning."
"Of course, it's why you bought it, isn't it?" Scooting Hanabi out of the way, and hopefully out of trouble, the queen mother took control of the situation. "I doubt you even had time to clean your fridge before you left. Hanabi will help me make you a boxed lunch, right?"
"Yes mother. Anything for my sister."
It was a good thing Hinata didn't know, or if she did she didn't mind, that every now and then Hanabi snuck into her old room, just to remember. Most of the closet space had been converted to temporary storage for seasonal 'stuff'. Light summer clothes and some of Hinata's old things filled the closets in ordered piles. There was a space heater that took up residence under the bed during the summer. But many things, bits and pieces of Hinata's childhood were left in their respective places, almost as a testament to her existence. Framed pictures, a jar that still rattled with spare change, sturdy glass prisms strung above a wind chime that hadn't sung in years. After Hinata had moved out, Hanabi had done a thorough exploration of the room. If you had asked at the time, she would have mumbled something about trying to find book or a skirt or an umbrella she had once lent her sister with an expression akin to having her hand in the cookie jar.
There had been a shoebox full of still remembered memories hidden behind a half empty rack of shoes just a little too childish, a little too worn to be seen by the camera's sharp eye or the columnist's sharper tongue. In it were memories Hinata had chosen to forget about, or had simply forgotten to take with her. Starting and finishing college early had meant she was still in that phase of chick flick romance, no matter how sensible a person she actually was.
Hanabi had kidnapped the box years ago, knowing that no parent should see their child giving away pieces of their heart, even if the same child had long since recovered from self inflicted and self healed wounds.
Shino had been an unusual boy. Hanabi realized this was hardly unexpected. It was almost a prerequisite. Shino had believed in writing letters, with pens that somehow spattered ink in an attractive manner on heavier paper that obviously had not come from the school's printer trays. He believed in sending small mementos, and wearing collared shirts, in keeping his nails in decent shape, and in metaphors. Hanabi had found in that shoebox a veritable garden of paper blossoms. More poking yielded the first letter, the one that compared her sister to an origami flower. Every fold made precisely, complex in simplicity, labor hidden behind skill. Delicate in its way, but certain to last longer than any hothouse bloom if treated with neither hesitation nor disrespect.
Hanabi had never voiced her opinion that Hinata's first (only) real boyfriend sounded like a literature teacher with a penchant for the uninteresting and easily dissectible. But maybe it was the gesturing that had mattered. He had obviously put some effort into the relationship; there was a shoebox full of it, after all. Perhaps she ought to have a 'talk' with the Uchiha prince.
She picked up her phone with what could have been termed a sinister smile.
"Hello?"
"Zabuza? I'm looking for Haku."
"Hanabi, darling. What can I do for you?"
"I'll leave you two to your destruction."
"Thank you, cupcake."
"Haku, stop talking, you're ruining my mind. Calling your man 'cupcake' is like perversion and corruption of healthy minds everywhere. And I'm doing my nails."
"Didn't you need me to do something for you? Shouldn't you be being nice to me?"
"I don't do nice. And you're going to help me because you're a romantic busybody."
"Well, when you put it that way, what do you need?"
"You spend a large chunk of your time at the Club. Give me a ring when Uchiha Sasuke swaggers in. Keep him occupied 'til I get there if you want. He and I just need to have a little chat."
"A Spanish Inquisition?" Haku sounded almost too eager. Hanabi remembered why she had liked having him around.
"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. I will utilize both surprise and fear to get what I need."
"How about a Spanish Casual Chat?"
"Just say yes, and drag your ass out there at some point before noon."
"Well, what will you be doing?" The pout was audible through the landline.
"Practicing."
"Your scary face is perfectly fine as it is. You may need to work on the 'I will beat the information out of you' look in the mirror though."
"Shut up, queen. I have another interrogation scheduled for morning. So just… just keep him there until I can—"
"Sink your claws into him?"
"Yeah. Talk to you later."
"Bye, darling. I'll call you."
Hinata was being entirely too vague. And she was playing tricks that could have given Neji a run for his money, simply because he didn't expect his cousin to be using them. Hanabi was quite relieved when her phone rang. The Uchiha would be easier to deal with. If only because she refused to give his intelligence any credit. Hinata had been determined to say as little as possible. Hanabi didn't know if it was because the entire thing had been an ordeal, or because their mother had been right, and Sasuke was being sensitive and open and hero-esque and Hinata was being discreet. If she could just get her hands on him she'd pick up a few more clues. Or at least eliminate a few possibilities. And maybe smack him around. She did promise him she would, once upon a time.
"Feel like getting trounced by a midget?"
"What are you talking about, Momichi?"
"Well she seemed like she was out for the kill. What'd you do to her? Or should I say, her sister?"
"Oh. Since when did you become her whipping boy?" Sasuke paused in his abuse of the training equipment to give Haku a mocking look.
"Ever since I realized how very scary she is when she's pissed. Just thought I'd give you fair warning."
His only answer was the dulled thud of flesh and vinyl.
"I'd like to see a happy ending, Uchiha."
"Go rent a movie."
"So I hear you play a decent game of Go." Hanabi's blood red talons looked very out of place tapping against the aged wood.
"I've been told that."
"Up for a round?"
"May as well."
"So how was your date?"
"It was fine."
"You haven't seen each other much. Hinata's been a little busy lately."
"That's fine."
"I know I gave you a thesaurus. It's more than a paperweight, Uchiha."
"I must be a masochist." Dulled dark eyes stared at the fingers resting on the edge of the table. He knew a confrontation of some kind was guaranteed, he just wished it wasn't now, with her. Hinata could be perceptive without being a pain in the ass.
"Well, that wouldn't surprise me. Wonder how your family would take it."
"Shut up, Hyuuga."
"Aw, but we're going to be in-laws one way or another in seven months. You ought to be nicer to me than that."
"As if I care."
"I know you do."
Her words stopped him cold. She put down another black stone; pale eyes daring it to fail her.
"You do, Uchiha Sasuke. You care, and you want to hate yourself for it."
She could almost hear his jaw working as he held himself from biting out something he would regret. She looked at him closer, trying to decipher the instant repression of anything resembling human emotion. Maybe it was that feeble hope reappearing, but she wanted to believe that she had figured at least part of his reaction out.
"Not only do you care about the family, you care about—"
His hands slammed into the floor with enough force to rattle the table and send the stones skidding into each other.
"You know what, Hyuuga? Fuck family. Fuck the expectations, fuck the system. And fuck—" His next word seemed caught in his throat.
"Her? Ha. You couldn't even say it." The short laugh was coldly derisive. Tiny hands fisted forcefully in his shirt, pulling him down to force her glare into his eyes. "Haven't you figured out that it's the same damn thing? You turn this marriage of inconvenient convenience into one of love, you would essentially be flipping the entire system off. And you'd get your girl. Storybook ending. If you'd just…"
She pushed him away as violently as she could, hoping he hit his head on something sharp. "You're an idiot, Uchiha."
"What are you doing?" Sakura's voice was wavering between disbelief and scandal and unhealthy amounts of denial. Maybe that whole knocking thing wasn't such a bad idea.
"Having an affair, go away," spat the girl.
"You little... Dammit Sasuke!"
The door slammed as loudly as paper and light wood could.
"Say a word and you die," she continued in the same conversational tone. A conversation that involved death and toothpicks and twine and pain.
"Wouldn't dream of it, Hanabi." Somehow, seeing her lose her cool gave him back his.
"Glad to know you value your future children."
"Jumping the gun a bit, aren't you?"
"You gay?" she asked blandly.
"That's hardly a question for our first date."
"You know… I don't think anyone is going to miss you."
"You're not that good, Hyuuga."
"Want to find out?"
"And have my fiancée mad at me for beating up her sister? No, thank you."
"You arrogant jerk!" Her tapered fingers began plucking the scattered black stones off the glossy wood; quick, angry motions, like a bird tearing prey from its shelter.
"Egotistical bastard is what's on the stationary."
"I hope you weren't planning on a blood-free wedding."
"Wouldn't dream of excluding you."
"Hmph." Hanabi stood and left. She paused her angry stalking out the door only to fish a box and her lighter out of her bag.
At least someone's made up their mind.
