Repitition. Repitition. Repitition. Stop.

Train. Train. Distract himself from thoughts about Hinata. Train. Deny to himself that his Father has a right to tease him about masturbation. Train. Train. Train. Eat dinner. Train. Sleep. That had, roughly, been Shino's day-to-day schedual for the last week. And now, once again, it was Friday.

Lets see... I'm miserable. My training isn't going well. I'm miserable. I can't stop thinking about Hinata. I'm miserable. I have this huge urge to kill that girl - Kaede. I'm miserable. I've been drinking coffee, and I hate coffee... oh, and I'm miserable.

"I've got to stop repeating myself..." Shino groaned alloud. He was pacing the kitchen back and forth, following the same old lines again, and again, and again, and again... He was getting sick of it. But if he didn't do it, he thought too much. And if he thought too much, he thought of Hinata. And if he thought of Hinata, he became miserable; and he didn't want to be miserable.

This same cycle had been happening all week. Ever since he told Neji to give Hinata that Kimono.

"Well," he forced himself to stop pacing the only way he knew how: he sat down. Right in the middle of the kitchen floor. His kikai bugs, rather annoyed with him, crawled out from under his skin to venture out and explore the kitchen for the millionth time that day. He welcomed the small release. "In the very least, I got my glasses back." Right... great compromise. Lose the only girl you have ever dreamed about, and get your glasses back.

He stood up again, and continued pacing.

He kept glancing up at the clock. Tick... tick... tick... the seconds would tick by too slowly, and he'd have to look down for awhile; not much time ever past between then, and when he looked up again. Sixty seconds soon turned into a minute, and the seconds hand began another revolution around the clock. It did this sixty times before turning into an hour... but that wasn't happening fast enough.

Pausing his pacing, he chewed on his bottom lip in concentration. I'm not really waiting for anything... am I? He went through everything he did on Fridays, trying to figure out what was different from yesterday. I'll end up training... then probably training with Kiba. Then lunch, before going back to training with Kiba... then he'll go home, and I'll train with myself for awhile. More training... more training... more training... eventually I'll come home and eat dinner... might train for a few more hours before I go to sleep. That's it... right?

Wrong. Today was Friday: Market Day.

It all clicked in in a flash, and he groaned again. This time he sat down at the table. "Friday... market... I haven't eaten decently in a week, and that's because last Friday I wanted to 'repect Hinata's wishes' and didn't want to chance seeing herin the market..."

He hit his head on the table lightly, then again harder. This is stupid... it's stupid the way I'm acting, because she was only ever supposed to be a friend. And it's stupider that neither of us are talking to each other... we don't hate each other, that's for certain. Half the time we don't know if we like each other.

"Damn it!" He scowled, hitting his head against the table a third time. "I'm the one who always preaches about teamwork and friendships... and here I am just waiting out everything. Gotta stop being a hypocrite."

... He'd said those words many times in the past week. Not once had it ended with him confronted Hinata.

------

She repeated the movements again, as fast as she could; but never fast enough. The defence failed, and she was hit in the chest with the on-coming weapon... a water ballon. Sitting down with her lips pursed, she pulled her knees to her chest, working through the movements in her mind. You weren't concentraiting hard enough... you should be able to at least immobilize the ballon... I wish I were training with Shino...

Neji sat beside her, but didn't say a word; her Father's shadow fell over both of them. "Would you like to take a break, Hinata?" She only nodded, not trusting her voice.

... It was my decision to give up. It was my decision not to see him. It should be easy to stop thinking about him then! ... but I can't. And it's that asses' fault for giving me that kimono...

She'd put it on every night now, before she went to sleep. She'd tie the knott carefully, her fingers trembling, then close her eyes and loose herself in memories... and that's the only way she could stay sane during the day; she found that out the hard way. (The second night she called herself silly and didn't do it, spending the entire night instead listening to the tick of a distant clock). But while still dressed in that beautiful white Kimono, she could fool her silly little heart in believing that she was happy. And it was enough... almost.

Now she flopped down on her back; her Father walked away, probably to tell a housekeeper to get some food for lunch, and Neji stayed seated where he was. She could feel his worried eyes on her. She didn't care, and just scanned the skies for any sort of comfort that would come her way... and believe it or not, one came. One that made her bite down on her tongue to stop a sudden onslaught of tears. "N-Neji-kun...?"

"Hinata-sama," he replied softly, not moving from where he was.

"I..." a small, light shadow danced across her vision, before it's owner came down to land on the hand she raised up to the heavens; it was a butterfly. "I... I m-miss him..."

"I know you do." She reached up with her other hand slowly, catching the butterfly between her palms... "So why don't you just go and see him?"

"It would n-never work, N-Neji-kun..." one, single tear fell down her cheek. "No matter h-how much I want it to... it never would. I-it's... it's gone b-beyond just b-being stubborn and and s-stupid like you s-s-say we are, N-Neji-kun. It w-won't work anymore; Father's made sure of it."