However, my bedroom isn't that wild, so I guess Tummee should be fine. Although there are somethings innocent penguin eyes just should not see.

54 tower


Hanabi is annoyed, of course, at being the butt end of a joke, but it made her sister laugh. It didn't get much further beyond the tilt of her mouth, because laughing at your sister, who is a dangerous and awesome kunoichi sitting right next to you, is so not good form. But Hinata smiled. Not one of those sparkly bishoujo moment smiles, like goddess descended from heaven or compassion and love to the max. But a smile that's not pretty, that will show too much teeth and wrinkle your eyes because it was funny and you can't even laugh properly because of the oxygen deprivation.

Hanabi has only seen this once, because Shino said something witty when only Hinata could hear it, because it was at Kiba and Naruto's expense. Hinata has one of the pickiest senses of humor Hanabi has ever seen. Naruto's pranks and crude one-liners, just make her worried or embarrassed, because even if she is a ninja, she's still a lady and the crap he does is either dangerous or stupid or both, and no eighteen year old threat-to-the-world-as-we-know-it should find fart jokes so hilarious.

So he made her laugh. Score one for the Uchiha.


Kimoko's sleeve decorations catch against the tablecloth and the delicate wineglass tinkles musically into a hundred pieces. Hanabi kicks her lightly, but hard enough that the noble daughter's legs are pressed against the flat of the table, away from the shards scattering light and claret.

The waiters are on the spill in half a second, a sign for everyone to go back to their chitchat.

Hinata keeps sneaking glances over her shoulder anyway, eyes unreadable as they rest on jagged edges clawing the carpet. She doesn't like the idea that any of those splinters might escape notice and hurt someone is Hanabi's guess. Though why Sasuke is doing the same thing is a bit mystifying. Maybe he's counting splinters of fractured light. Maybe talking to Hinata really is that boring. Maybe he's having fun making the guy peering at Hinata's legs break into a cold sweat.

-vovov-

Dinner is dragging on and on and on, a droning hum like a bee's nest, but with less getting done. Hanabi thinks it'd be kind of useful to have a shishi odoshi in here, just so the clacking noise would interrupt the sticky flow of conversation, like waving at flies on a carcass, only for them resettle and buzz all the louder.

Stupidest water feature ever. Listening to it for too long lulls the senses, and in that split second when the bamboo hits the stone, all awareness focuses on the sound and not on anything that might be hiding in it.

Hanabi tested it once. The bamboo, heavy with water, sailed down, and rapped her knuckles, like maybe a mother would have done. But it didn't make any noise. The old uncles playing shogi actually looked up from their game in confusion and finally noticed the tea long gone cold next to them, the guy patrolling nearly missed a step and she got her feet wet.

The next week it took her about half an hour, moving only when the water was rushing out, to get her five year old self from one end of the corridor to the other, but she managed to steal one of the tower shaped pieces and stuff it in her mouth while blinking innocently up at the men who were surprised as all hell to see her there.

Those two were part of the deciding weight when Council ended up deciding nothing at all in terms of who would inherit. Hanabi's okay with it, since being important makes you go wrinkly faster, and she's never seen important people wearing yellow. And yellow is her favorite color.

Yellow is the sun is her sister. Yellow is the burning chrysanthemum petals of her fireworks. Yellow isn't dignified. Yellow clashes with the silver of her legacy. Yellow tastes like lemon and feels like flower hearts and shooting stars. Yellow's a good color. She likes yellow.

For some reason, when she starts paying attention again, her sister and her teammate are doing the polite conversation thing. Although it might lose the polite factor soon. Debating whether the fall of Amegakure contributed to the recent economic slump probably doesn't lend itself toward courtesy, especially when the participants are disagreeing.