It was three in the morning and Hinata was outside her apartment in her pajamas.
It was a cool Sunday night (or Monday morning, if you asked someone who wasn't her, because she definitely wasn't ready to say it was a new day yet), the ground was damp from a soft rain that had fallen sometime between when she'd gone to bed and now, and the entirety of Clamshell Place had spilled out onto the street to watch as their landlord (clad in a checkered robe and rainboots) nervously explained what was going on to a fireman and two policemen.
She should've known something like this would happen sooner or later in this building. She hated seafood. It had been a sign.
She was one of the lucky ones, as she'd been sleeping in long pants and a tank top, and always kept a robe in her room to ease the transition between her bed and the rest of the world in the morning. Her slippers weren't doing a good job of keeping out the wetness and her feet were getting quite cold, but the rest of her was...well, it wasn't feeling the nighttime breeze as much as some others were, at least.
One notable Other was standing just to the left of her in nothing but a T-shirt, boxers dotted with little ramen bowls and sandals, and clutching a laptop and charger to his chest like a lifeline while glaring daggers at the apartment building, the landlord, the sky...anything, really, seemed to make him angry.
"Stupid...effing...Dr. Perv…"
She raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything.
"Who effing makes something due at eight in the morning?" her neighbor mumbled to himself, awkwardly coiling the charger around his hand and then looking for a place to put it, but then realizing he had no pockets.
"Procrastination?" she ventured.
"Yeah," he turned to her, some of the ire melting off his face. She blinked. Actually...he was pretty attractive. Now that he was looking at her, the streetlights were shining onto his face and giving her a good view of a head full of tousled, blond hair, blue eyes and three lines, like whiskers, on each cheek.
Had she taken all her makeup off before she'd gone to bed? Yes? Was that a good or a bad thing?
"This stinks for you, then." She said, turning away to face the flashing lights of the police cars and shaking her bangs into her face to better hide it.
"Ah...screw it." He backed up so he was on the grass, then sat down and opened his laptop. "Oh, sweet - WiFi's only down a bar!"
She stared. Who just…?
"This thing's, like, a third of the grade," he said in explanation, blinking bloodshot eyes up at her, "And it's due in five hours."
College students. College students just.
Honestly, she was thankful for the added competition her cousin and sister gave her in academics, because it had honed in her an anxiety that killed procrastination like nothing else. Ergo, she was asleep in the middle of the night and not rueing everything that had lead up to that moment.
"...At least don't sit on the bare ground. It's wet." She untied her robe and spread it out next to him like a blanket, sitting down on the corner that wasn't closest to him.
"Won't you be cold?" He frowned at her as he shifted over to the other corner of the robe; she awkwardly pulled her knees towards her to better hide the effect of the breeze on her bra-less self.
"I'm wearing pants," she giggled.
"Okay, how was I supposed to know someone would pull the fire alarm?!" he said loudly, almost knocking his laptop into the grass, "I will have you know, my apartment is a very warm place and this is completely acceptable attire for home in the middle of the night!" But he was smiling.
"Okay," she yawned and lay back on the robe, then stuck an arm through the sleeve near her and rolled inwards towards him (Tenten had had the forethought to get her one a few sizes larger than she needed and it was great). Almost like a blanket, except there were probably bugs crawling into her hair.
Nonono stop thinking about that.
After listening to him type for a few minutes, she ventured, "What class?"
"Hm? Ah, British Writers."
"What's the paper?"
"Mine's about how you can see Romanticism in Frankenstein."
She scooted a little closer and wrapped the makeshift blanket around herself more. When she opened her eyes, she saw the band of his boxers just a handsbreadth or so away from her face and immediately felt her cheeks heat up.
The tension in her form must've alerted him, because he nudged her leg, "What?"
"Um!: Say something! "You're including the 'sublime' stuff right?"
"Oh, crap…" The sound of keys being pressed. "Wait...wasn't that Coleridge?"
"Most Romantic authors had a bit of it. If no-where else, then throw it in when you're talking about the arctic."
"Ugh, don't remind me. I haaaate cold!" he whined.
Impulsively, she abandoned her sleeve to scoot closer and curl around him, her head actually ending up on his other side, while her belly hugged his back and her pajama pants pressed against his goosebumb-covered thigh. Then she tried to toss the robe over herself again. It sort of worked.
He shuddered, "Thanks."
"Mhmm." If it came back to bite her later, she could blame it on sleepiness. Hopefully. Deep breaths. In and out.
It seemed like just a few minutes of lying there, listening to the hum of his computer and his fingers hitting keys (sometimes aggressively), but pretty soon her shoulder was being shaken and his blue eyes were boring into hers.
A very lazy 'what' might've come out of her mouth, but she wasn't completely lucid so she couldn't be sure.
"They're letting us go back in now."
"Oh." She got up slowly, taking the hand he offered her, and groaning when she realized that her entire left side had dampened.
He snickered, "Yeah, my butt got wet, too. But most of me was warm, thanks to you." He gave her a thumbs up and she quickly began picking her robe off the ground to hide her blush.
"Hey, so…" he awkwardly fell into step beside her, "Um. Thanks for the tip. About the sublime."
"Oh, s-sure." Impossibly, he looked even more attractive under the fluorescent lights of their lobby. She was having a hard time comprehending that on a weird level, she'd spooned him.
Well, his butt. She'd spooned his butt.
...She hated her brain at three in the morning.
"Uh...I'm Naruto. Apartment ten." He stuck a hand out.
"H-Hinata. Twenty-four."
"Cool." He smiled, "Really cool. Um...tomorrow - or, today, I guess - probably isn't the best time, but...what if we, uh...got something to eat, sometime?"
Now her face was definitely red. "Yeah. That s-sounds good."
His smile got bigger, "Great. Well, uh...you know where to find me, now."
"Good luck with the paper!"
"Hey, thanks!"
Hinata slowly began walking back upstairs, heart beating like she'd been running. When she got back to her place, she collapsed onto the couch in her living room and just stared uncomprehendingly at the bowl of candy she kept on her coffee table. Did that...actually just happen? Everything that just…
She rubbed her eyes and let out a long groan. What was she even going to do now that she knew where he lived? It wasn't like she was the type to initiate these sorts of things.
She should probably shower. God knew what sorts of things had crawled into her hair while she was lying on the ground. But she was just too tired.
She pulled off the damp shirt and pants and tugged the blanket she kept on her sofa over herself, then fell asleep.
Six hours later, she was late for her internship, wearing granny panties under a pencil skirt (praise long, button-down sweaters for the secrets they kept hidden!), and almost stepped on the little boxed cinnamon roll that had been outside her door. Underneath it was a note.
Don't forget. Apartment ten.
PS: You talk in your sleep.
A caricature of a bowl of noodles with a little fish cake in it, dancing on a hem over a goosebumpy thigh came to mind and she giggled to herself.
So maybe she couldn't initiate, but she could reciprocate!
On the way home, she stopped at Ichiraku's and got takeout.
…
…
A/N: long sweaters are so big because they're full of secrets.