BH: So, it felt more refreshing to do this chapter like Hinata's version of Ch8. Sorry, but more downer feels in here. Mainly backstory and stuff, so y'know. I don't know if Toneri is ever coming back lol. I'm leaning more towards someone else atm. But if I do that, then things will really get plotty and there won't be room for all the smut, so I'm 50/50 about this new plot thread I've discovered. :B
BTW, mxmtoon is an angel! I listened to all her songs and I was like 'Damn, I wanna use all of them!' So I used 5! LOL
Lyrics excerpted in order: Prom Dress, Please Don't, Please Don't (again), Prom Dress (again), Feelings Are Fatal, Idea of You, Suffice.
21 Days
Chapter Seventeen, Always For You And Never For Me
"Affecting others is the last thing I would do,
I keep to myself though I want to break through,
I hold so many small regrets,
And what-ifs down inside my head,
Some confidence it couldn't hurt me,
My demeanor is often misread,"
She shouldn't have agreed to their invitation.
She should've stayed in her lane.
She's ten and she's rooted to the sidewalk as if the cement had reverted to its liquid state and swallowed her up to her ankles.
Haruno Sakura and Yamanaka Ino spoke to her earlier during lunch. It was sudden, a complete shock, until she caught the supervisory gaze of that blue-eyed Naruto. He had flashed her a grin and a thumbs up, and she had swallowed her nerves and agreed to their 'girls' day'.
What she didn't know was that they would be getting picked up.
What she didn't know was that Ino's father drove a massive, black SUV.
It might as well have been a hearse for giants the way it made her uneasy.
"I can't." She whispered, earning confused glances from the two, vibrant flowers.
To be in their presence would be to emphasize her role in this life as a patch of soil. Plain, forgettable, a little cold but otherwise nurturing. Their beauty and their vitality hides her from the sun, but it's okay, because she doesn't need it as much as they do.
"T,Tell Naruto-kun I'm sorry… i,if he asks…" She concludes, and they look at each other in mild surprise, then they nod and climb into the SUV, leaving her behind on the sidewalk outside their elementary school.
Every minute that passes as she makes her way home, from sidewalk to station, through the turnstiles and onto the train line home, each minute hammers her loneliness into her body like a metal spike.
Because she spends those minutes wondering and regretting, agonizing and inwardly raging, because she doesn't understand her feelings, she doesn't understand her lack of direction, her inability to smile as others do.
If she didn't exist, if no one noticed her, then everything would be fine.
She wouldn't disappoint those who are nice to her, she wouldn't let down those who want to get to know her.
And she wouldn't have to feel bad about making others feel bad. She wouldn't have to cry over loss and the way it tends to pile up.
Even if no one else is keeping score, she is. She has a list of personal demerits, and she foresees how they will accumulate, and she foresees how it will all look.
Arriving on the grounds of her residence, Hinata makes her way into the foyer then towards her bedroom.
And it's there she finds a thin book sitting on the floor in front of her door. There's a pressed chamomile preserved inside a clear sheet of plastic. A bookmark.
Bending down, she runs her fingers along the bookmark, then checks left of the hallway where Hanabi-chan's bedroom is. Nope, not from her. Hinata checks the right, and she finds Neji poking his head out from his bedroom.
She hugs her new items to her chest and the warmth filling her lifts the corners of her lips.
Neji ducks back inside his bedroom and she laughs to herself.
She relies on him. In a way that she is unable to rely on anyone else.
The world is full of sentient mirrors, reflecting back things about herself that she does not wish to see nor know.
With Neji, he's a smooth wall. Sometimes he's lustrous marble, other times he's stainless steel.
And she can talk to him and cry and complain without embarrassment, without judgment. He doesn't reflect her imperfections back at her, from her faulty thinking and false beliefs, nor the way darkness escapes from her mouth like wisps of smoke.
And in those moments, he laces his fingers in hers. And it's like he's sealing back the darkness, wrangling it back into inside its jar.
Hinata is eleven when she realizes the way Neji's finger secure around hers gives her a floaty, ticklish feeling in her tummy, sending warm drafts up her body, into her face. The building heat has nowhere else to go but her ears.
It's better than the other times her ears burn.
Usually her eyes burn too, and she wants to sink into a hole or reverse time and avoid the situation that causes her such discomfort and shame.
Swim class is the worst, for example.
She stands on the side amongst all the other kids, with her arms diligently crossed around her chest.
She can't help but glower in Sakura-san's direction. Not because she's still flat as the day she was born, but because her trouble area isn't erotic at all. (Or maybe it is?) Either way, she's been proudly showing off her forehead for years now, invalidating the teasing of her bullies over time.
Hinata can't do anything like that.
Eventually the girls will hate her for her budding assets.
A pair of sky blue eyes demands her attention. She gives him a sidelong glance and he straightens up and looks away.
As if he wasn't staring at her all.
Hinata crosses her arms tighter, shame slouching her spine.
He was always so sweet and innocent. To think he's the first among her male peers to leer at her causes her ears to burn.
And she can't figure out if she wants to cry and hide or bask in his curious gaze further.
She doesn't like these mixed feelings.
Everything's so much better when she's with Neji.
"You're the only person that I've ever trusted,
Never forcing me to talk until I'm adjusted,"
She and Neji both enjoy reading books for their meditative purposes. They don't enjoy the same genres, however, but they read side to side or back to back and it's soothing.
Hanabi isn't like them. She has her dolls and at other times she steals their mother's makeup and hair brushes because she wants to play 'beautician' with her.
Hinata lets her.
Hinata squeals at a painful tug on her scalp.
"Hanabi-chan, stop, stop, stop!"
Her little sister makes panicked noises.
Neji gets up and reaches around Hinata's head, a deep frown setting in.
"It's stuck."
"It's stuck?" With shaky hands she reaches back to the obstruction lodged in her hair, but Neji moves her hands away.
Hanabi starts crying.
Neji suggests they go to the kitchen.
"Let's try oil."
With an uneven breath, she nods in resolve.
The olive oil in the pantry didn't work. Neither did the sunflower, sesame or coconut. Not even ghee did anything. It only made a huge mess and made the hair stylist's job that much harder.
They had to cut the back of her hair. From the nape of her neck upwards. It was at an uncute high angle that fanned out into points behind her ears.
The first face she saw after her haircut was Neji's, because she didn't want to look up into her mother's beauty and be reminded of how awful she looks in comparison.
When they're in the car, they're side by side in the backseat, with Kou at the wheel and her mother in the passenger.
"I look like a boy." She whimpered. She can picture the looks she'll get. The things her bullies will say. She knows. And it doesn't help. No amount of brooding will mentally prepare her for the worst.
But then Neji reached out and laced his fingers in hers, and she looked at him.
"You look like Hinata." He smiled.
He stopped smiling when their grandfather passed away in his sleep. He was three days shy of thirteen.
Those two had a fight. The contents of which she had pointedly ignored. And she knows that these hard feelings he harbors will never be resolved.
But it confuses her somewhat; neither of them liked their grandfather. Not even with the arbitrary obligation that he was their blood, that he was responsible for their being alive, healthy and secure.
He was no more a grandfather than a benefactor. He was the house they lived in, but he wasn't their home.
They don't talk about it when they are together. It's part of their upbringing. Her stuff was never spoken of again, and his aren't either.
But their bridge has grown brittle.
She knows this when she comes home upset like the crybaby she is.
It hits her hard in the chest when he tells her straight to her face: "I'm not interested. Come to me with a problem worth my attention."
She stood there in the hallway, staring at his closed bedroom door.
Did that mean he would still listen to her?
Did she really need to have worse insecurities and stories than usual?
She pondered this atop her bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering what this all meant for her in the future.
If the quality of her life or her emotional health worsened, then he will stay by her side.
If everything gets better and she gets better, he will abandon her.
Which would she rather have?
She did something she shouldn't have.
She didn't ignore her bullies as was her usual objective in life.
She turned around and faced them, then presented them with her middle finger. Because the only way she knows how to express herself is through her body.
She's a terrible speaker.
So she went tumbling down the stairs between school floors, each hard edge jabbing awkward angles into her body, the aches settling in like she'd taken a ride inside a dryer drum.
And then, from the moment she rolled into the wall at the end of the landing, the orange embodiment of justice and rage came flying up those stairs, screaming his blonde little head off.
"YOU GUYS ARE DEAD!"
There were shoes squeaking like a dozen frantic rats, angry shouting punctuated by grunts and yelps.
Hinata pushed up off the floor.
She watched her blonde savior take a kick to the stomach.
He went down.
They started to stomp on him. They're shouting 'Swirly' over and over again. He's not even shielding himself or curling up into a ball, and she doesn't understand why.
He's making it worse for himself.
She's sitting on a loveseat and Neji's on the sofa adjacent to her, studying with a book on his lap.
This is one of the few times they're in the same room together without even trying.
In fact, he doesn't agree to do anything with her anymore, so there is no more trying between them.
She received several bruises and a sprained wrist from what happened.
Her parents could sue, but they won't. She'll be fine, they say, and dragging out three lower-middle class families into a battle they won't win is not something they're interested in.
'The law will catch up to these boys in time,' Her father had said. 'Their parents will realize they have only themselves to blame.'
And that was the end of that.
Except it wasn't.
Not for her.
Neji never said a thing to her at the hospital. He neither frowned nor smiled, never attempted to ask how she felt or even offered his hand.
He never said a thing once they got home. And he refused to say anything to her now.
She reached for a new book within the pile at her side. Using the wrist that doesn't work, she emitted a strangled whimper of pain.
Neji began to pack up his things. He slid off the sofa and vacated the family room.
Her head slumped forward, her face burning in shame.
It's not the severity of her problems that are judged worthy of his attention.
It's her.
"So I just wanted to thank you,
I know I can be difficult,
I know I can be sad,
But for some reason you're still here,
Standing by my side,"
And yet, she can't forget what he's always meant to her.
If she forgets, then she'll truly be adrift.
He's her tether and she refuses to let their bond snap.
So she's standing in front of her bookshelf, visually highlighting the various titles which hold so many meaningful messages to her.
She pulls them out one by one, then arranges them all along her bedroom floor.
She skims for quotes and excerpts and writes them down.
She's arranging a love letter of sorts, even if he is her cousin.
Because she loves him in some wholehearted, full-bodied way that she cannot describe. That is, at least, not without the help of literature.
It's the dead of night.
Her bedroom door opens with a creak.
Her mind switches on, her heart shoots out of her chest. Adrenaline floods her veins icy-hot and she freezes up.
Their footsteps are light, steadfast approaching.
She locks her gaze onto the ceiling.
She thinks she can melt away from existence if she lies… completely… still… so still… like a corpse… maybe they won't even bother if they think she is already dead?
The fuzzy blue moonlight that outlines her bedroom is suddenly blocked out.
There's a soft pressure atop her face.
But then it's not soft anymore. It's firm and unyielding and she can't breathe. She can't see and she can't breathe!
She screams.
The object loosens from her face.
She jackknifes from the mattress.
A pillow rolls onto her lap.
A thin body no bigger than herself sprints out into the hallway.
She told herself it was a bad dream.
"Closed doors,
Locked in, no keys,
Keepin' my feelings hidden,
There is no ease,
I need it to stop,
And I want to be able,
To open up but,
My feelings are fatal,"
Neji's gone to a private school for the gifted.
That's what they told her, at least.
He never said goodbye. She never saw him pack up his things.
Something like that takes a while.
She doesn't know what became of her letter.
But then she finds it sitting neatly atop the pillow on her bed.
And she understands.
She has no right to complain anymore.
She knows she only has herself to blame.
"I can't help the fact I like to be alone,
It might sound kinda sad,
but that's just what I seem to know,
I tend to handle things usually by myself,
And I can't ever seem to try and ask for help,"
Hinata is sitting on the sidelines of the gymnasium as her classmates play basketball.
She's complained of cramps today.
It's partially true, the only lie being the severity.
She watches as Naruto fouls the ball.
His team boos and groans. They forcibly switch him out because he's been klutzing it up all half hour and they're not having fun anymore.
She doesn't quite understand how competition feels fun, but his slouching posture tells her he was having a lot of fun, despite messing up all the time.
He sits down next to her.
There's a foot of space between them.
He's jogging his left leg in place like he still a surplus of energy to expend.
He turns to her, those sweet blue eyes pulling her in.
"You do a lot of watching, huh, Hinata-chan?"
She shrugs.
"I dunno if I'd be alright with better coordination. I'm still the shortest guy here," He sighs as he hangs his head. "Tell me honestly: Is there any sport I'm remotely good at?"
Hinata tightens up, because she's not used to this.
Not only is he asking for her opinion, but he's also asking for her emotional support.
The pressure to perform as a human being brings stinging heat to her eyes.
Why couldn't he just leave her alone?
Was he actually good at anything?
She internally shakes her head.
But she knows she can't tell him the truth.
So what can she say?
"I,I think… y,your best trait i,is… your t,tenacity. A,And your optimism. E,Even when the o,odds are against you… you pick yourself up a,and try harder."
His head lifts up. He's eyeing the rafters above, and a smile slowly blooms across his face.
"Then I guess I shouldn't try to change, huh?"
He said that, but his hunger to belong was always stronger.
Perhaps, his ability to adapt to any social circle should have been counted amongst his best traits.
She certainly couldn't do it.
"I wish that I could stand next to you,
But I'm too scared of what you may do,
Would rejection come and slam me down?
I can't help but frown at the thought that we'd be done,"
The pool side stares, the warm words of encouragement, his blood on her tongue when he's angry, the closeness of his attention and body when they're in the company of his true friends, they're all like silk strings tethering her down into a sun-soaked meadow.
But he's over there trying to make a taller girl laugh.
The taller girl gives him the cold shoulder.
And after a trip to the Infirmary and back, he's relaying a story to his guy friends about some pretty girl from another class saying 'hi' to him back.
And then during gym when they're sitting side by side, he's watching how Sakura aggressively moves along the court, how she fakes out her opponents and slips through their defenses like water.
And his eyes are glowing.
And his mouth is devoid of words.
She rarely initiates conversation.
She doesn't know how to earn his attention.
All he's ever done was answer the call of a hero, swoop in to her rescue, and then… and then what?
Hinata turns him down when he asks her to join their group movie night.
He smiles big and bright, even though she saw the way the gleam had disappeared from his eyes.
She exhales in relief when he's no longer in her orbit.
There's so much less pressure on her when she's alone.
And it's atop her bed, hugging the pillow Neji left behind in her bedroom two years ago, that she devotes time to study her feelings, and to study his intentions.
Wasn't Naruto just being nice by including her all the time?
Wasn't he, in fact, someone who valued social harmony?
It's not her he's trying to help, is it?
She's different. Like a scratch on a perfect face.
The truth is the way she is is inferior. The truth is he wants to erase her, and put a 'better' version in her place.
Hinata hides her face into the pillow in her arms and she tightens up, then sighs.
She shouldn't assume things.
She shouldn't be quick to dismiss what may be his best intentions.
He's genuinely good, is he not?
She feels the tears coming on because believing only the best in him turns her heart into glass inside her chest.
She can't handle the possibility that he will disappoint her.
She can't handle being reminded that she's not important, not even in the slightest.
So instead of dwelling and aching, she lets her mind wander into a meadow of daydreams.
And in that meadow is a bench that exists solely for the two of them.
Without him, she'd be adrift. She needs to remember that.
"Would my feelings go and scare you away?
I'd be so sorry for the things that I'd say,
So, I guess I'll just lay here instead,
Lying in my bed, pondering the things you do,"
Is it love when it feels like he's put the sun inside her chest?
Is it love when the sight of him makes her feel like flying?
Is it love when her ears warm and her hearing heightens at the sound of his voice?
It must be love when she knows she wants him to look at her the way he does other girls. Like she's worth something, like she's fascinating.
It must be love when she wants to pull him aside into a vacant classroom or behind the white curtains of the Infirmary beds to kiss him breathless and never let go.
Or maybe it's just puberty doing wonders on her perception.
Because it's not love when he only invites her to hang out in the company of others, and never to hang out as two people.
Because it cannot be love when he's only around after a bully incident and never around during the dry spells.
It cannot be love when he's puppy-dogging other girls around, even though she's right there and readily available.
But why should she be available?
Why?
No one's available for her, are they?
She can't get a word in edgewise anymore, let alone confide in him.
The stories he tells so loudly, she thinks: 'I don't want that to be me. Please don't ever talk about me.'
So she continues to keep to herself.
Revealing nothing is the best contingency plan she's got, and it's been working out just fine.
It's happening, though she wishes to not see it.
All her worst fears have come true.
She's counted nine times in the past two weeks where he has said 'It would be good for you' or some variation thereof.
He doesn't genuinely care about who she is.
He never asks who she is. Never tries to get her alone unless it's to flirt with her shamelessly, because he's acting on his raging libido.
The only thing he cares about are the people who can make him feel good about himself in the moment.
The only thing he cares about is looks, whether it's the tapestry of his friendships, the unified cooperation of his classmates, or the slender face of a slender girl.
She can't allow her glass heart to shatter beneath the weight of her unshed tears. She can only reinforce it inside a shell of calcium and steel.
She cannot value love.
She's seen the way it knocks the other girls down far too many pegs.
She would have loved to approach Sakura, despite her own self-loathing, and told that bright, intelligent flower that she was too good for the ungrateful boy she desired.
But it wasn't her place to interfere, to make things worse or divert fate's intended course.
So she stays her lane.
And says nothing to nobody.
"'Cause, I have only loved without confession,
I'd rather settle for a never ending stream of self-questioning,
And you are just another,
That I'll lose because I didn't want to bother,"
Sports Festival.
That one arbitrary day of sweat and silliness, forcing grown teens to fall in the dirt like children.
And Naruto fell off the human pyramid. Again.
This is their final year of junior high together. They're fifteen.
She has ointment and bandages at the ready.
He's sitting down in front of her, his right knee scraped open from the fall. The flesh is spongy and red, but he's going to be okay.
Hinata gets the antiseptic spray and spritzes his wound with three full mists, and he recoils with a shout.
Hinata has learned to school her features, when normally in this situation she would be watery-eyed and asking if he was okay.
"Damn, that hurts."
As if he's not used to pain by now.
"Would you have rathered I lick it?" She mumbled beneath her breath.
Naruto chuckled nervously as she begins to wrap the gauze around his knee.
"Well, if you're offering..."
That's not funny.
He's not funny.
Her face is warm, but she isn't laughing.
"You're so gutter-minded." She tightens up the gauze and prepares to tie it off when his quiet voice stops her.
"You're still talking to me."
She dropped her head so he couldn't see her face.
"M,Maybe if you knew h,how to talk to girls, they'd still be talking to you, too."
He scoffs.
"I don't mind being a good-for-nothing if it means you'll still be there to accept me."
She removes her hands from his knee and cups her own, keeping her face down so he doesn't see what she really looks like when her walls have evaporated.
Is this good enough for her?
To be his final choice at the end of a long road of unsuccessful attempts?
Can she really be okay with this?
"I knew when you told me I was cute,
That I was dreaming,
So now I'll try and tell myself,
My feelings have no meaning,"
"... Am I… not even your last choice?"
His voice from that afternoon rises up to the forefront of her mind, resonating with her like an ominous echo.
"... This is the second time now that I've felt this way…" He murmurs.
They've been walking in silence for the past twenty minutes, walled up inside their thoughts as they wandered deeper into the city.
A timid glance in his direction, and she notes his fists in his pockets and his head held high. Not because he's feeling better about himself, but because he never allows himself to look down no matter what.
His eyes are blank and distant, his face pensive and unsure.
She's alienated him. She's done it before, little moments here and there where she put him off. But back then he always bounced back.
This time might be for good.
And her chest is breaking apart.
Because he's not used to loneliness like she is.
She's abandoned him, though she never intended to.
She wanted to save herself, no one could fault her for that.
But at his expense?
No, that was never supposed to happen.
He'll get used to it. It always hurts at first, but the world never truly ends just because of another person. It dims and loses luster but it's still the same.
She looks up and slows to a stop.
"Here." She says, standing before the red-painted wooden storefront of an Izakaya bar. It floated in the mouth of shadows thanks to the low, white lighting illuminating the front, the surrounding darkness around it.
He stared up at the signboard of the establishment, so silent and so still.
And she's truly beginning to wonder if she was the last straw of rejection he could take.
He walks up to the red door and slides it aside, stepping forth inside. A rousing greeting from the staff pours out and summons her to join him.
She hurries inside.
She's looking forward to the hard stuff now more than ever, second hangover be damned.
BH: I probably should have left to sit for a couple days and then gave it a good edit, but my update schedule seems to revolve solely around my days off lol.
Well, Naruto is the underdog as usual. Such a big damn sweetheart but still lacking all the same.