She was twenty-six.
He was the hokage.
And she was going to marry him.
To her, he had never been more than the sensei of her beloved crush of many years.
She was aware he had a dark past. That he was intelligent. An excellent shinobi. Good at, it seemed like, everything - teaching, leading, fighting. She had trusted him whenever he leaded Team 8 on missions and she had felt safe. That he was handsome, maybe. But she was never into older men.
At first Hinata felt nothing. Surprise, perhaps a little. (Him? Of all people.) Mostly just numb. The age difference was appalling, but then her clan was indifferent about that. It was about the status and control. She was, after all, nothing but a name now.
She would not have been the first to realize her sweetness had turned a little bitter after the war. After Neji had died for her, after her admiration for Naruto had dimmed. Her soft edges had hardened and so had her smile, traces of her old tenderness reserved in flashes for Mirai or Hanabi and with her old team. Gone was the blush from her girlhood, the stutter of her naivety.
Just like many others in her village, she also tried to rebuild, though she tried to from within her clan. Her father only sighed. "Daughter. All hope for the Hyuuga was lost long ago," he said tiredly, as if he was explaining to a petulant child. "What would you have us do? You are unsealed. Be grateful."
And he had brushed her away like he had so many times before. Because what could Hinata do? Naruto hadn't even as much glanced her way after the memorial service. She saw the way he had done nothing to absolve Sasuke and his fallen clan. She saw the way her own clan picked up where it had left off and she saw every three year old from the branch clan with a fresh seal on their forehead. Without Neji, she was spared hardly a glance by the elders, and the future of the clan was placed in Hanabi. She loved Hanabi. But poor, sweet Hanabi was too influenced by the clan, by her father, to know anything else, to believe in a new future.
And she had had enough.
She had refused jounin status and the offer to lead a new generation of genin, like most of the rest of her classmates, and instead joined an almost nonexistent ANBU scouting and surveillance force, where she would spend the least amount of time at home. With Shino and his interests in becoming a teacher at the academy and Kiba with his in a certain cat girl, their team was all but disbanded. And with her mask, she concealed the girl and became a woman in all matters of heart and head. As her job required her to be callous, she became one with it. She often went months, sometimes years, without word from home. This, she presumed, was her life sentence and yet, a sort of freedom.
And yet again, it was being taken away.
Hinata was perched in a tree, foot propping up an almost half-dead shinobi when she received the scroll from her father, care of the hokage, to return home. She was miles from any hidden village, dried, crusted blood and dirty grime probably half an inch thick on her skin. She fingered the edges of the scroll, deep in thought before she pocketed it, finishing up whittling at an apple. After a bite to the apple, she wiped her mouth, the juices dripping off her chin, and tossed it out, ears listening carefully to the moment it hit the ground to calculate just how high up she and her captured companion were.
"Bye, bye, Konoha bitch."
She grinned, but he couldn't see it. She had blocked his tenketsu points, and the experienced shinobi knew at once she was Hyuuga, knew she was being summoned. Bye, bye indeed, she thought to herself, running the kunai into the middle of his chest. He gurgled, his screams muffled in the blood pouring out of his throat, as she dragged the kunai up in a straight line up his chest, up his neck, up his throat in an agonizingly slow fashion. She released her foot and nudged him, allowing him to drop down, down, down, landing with a sickening thud, and she wiped her kunai on the side of her pants, flipping it expertly and returning it to her pouch, and disappearing with a series of hand seals.
But he was right.
Because no matter how long she refused to return, she still belonged to the Hyuuga. She still belonged to Konoha.
And then the Hokage summoned her to his office alone, after she had barely stepped foot a minute in the village.
"I'm sure you received the news," he started abruptly after she had knelt and bowed her head in attention. "Rise."
She stood at ease with her hands at her side. She nodded, grateful for the owl mask hiding her face. He seemed a bit older, that she could see, but then again, so was she.
He had already dismissed the other ANBU lurking at his side and other staff that usually hovered over him, and they were truly alone. He was sitting forward with his chin on his hands, fingers brushing his mask at the edge of his jaw in deep thought.
"Thank you, Owl-san, for your duties. I've watched you grow from a student, to a genin, to a capable shinobi, and I appreciate your time here in the ANBU ranks protecting me and the village as well. But... as the hokage's wife, you would normally be relieved of your duties."
She could hardly contain the gritting of her teeth, and she was positive he could see her defenses steeling up around her. "I understand."
"However," he continued, "I would hate to take away from you the last thing you were able to choose for yourself." Hinata was a taken aback by the sheer thoughtfulness of it. What did it mean, if she was going to marry him anyway? He cleared his throat as the silence grew, their thoughts the only noise inside their own heads. "Therefore, I have proposed to have you as my own ANBU here, directly at my side, instead. A sort of, compromise."
"A compromise," she heard herself echo.
He nodded. "Undoubtedly, it would consist of far less action, one would think, than being out in the field. Though from time to time, you would need to step out of your uniform and do whatever role the elders decide the hokage's wife needs to do at the time."
Hokage's wife's duties. What were those anyway? Sitting around to look pretty? She barely remembered ever seeing Hiruzen's wife as a child. What was there to do at a kage's side when the kage himself was more skilled than she was?
"Thank you," she bowed her head, wondering if she was really grateful to have even a shred of her own will in this decision. Somewhere in her mind, she knew this was his way of considering her and validating her as an individual, but then, maybe she was giving him too much of the benefit of the doubt. "Hokage-sama."
After a long silence, he had sighed and leaned back in his chair, sagging, almost melting into it. He had never looked as weary as he did at that moment. "I'm sorry," he murmured.
"Sorry?" She was a little surprised at his open behavior.
"What you can you get from an old man like me, eh?" He chuckled. "I know you loved someone else once upon a time, had other plans for your life. But politics...isn't as easy as it seems, as you know. There's the council of the elders, clan leaders, amongst other things." His eyes drifted to the window as he trailed off. He sighed another long sigh. "Trust me, I'm having a hard time wanting to accept this just as much as you."
She took a step forward, regretting that she sounded too ungrateful. "Kakashi-sensei —"
"Uh-uh," he wagged his finger at her, dark gray eyes dragging back to meet hers behind the mask. "Not 'sensei' anymore, Hinata. Just Kakashi."
"Kakashi…" she hesitated, raising her palm to her face, removing the mask. After years behind her mask, she felt naked without it. But as he had showed her his true feelings, she would hers - or as much as she had left at this point. He looked a little surprised to see how much she had changed. Her face was different than the innocent one he remembered of her youth, as his was with the lines of time beginning to wrinkle his skin. As much as she hated to think about it, in his own way, he was already attempting to include her in his life. He was already showing her that he would try his best, and so would she. That would be her new, and last, mission, she decided. "I pledge to make this union an honor to my family and to the village."
"Ah, spoken like a true kunoichi." He gave her a fond smile, eyes softening a little, but the weariness, never truly dissipating. "You may go, Hinata," Kakashi motioned with his hand towards the door. "The planning has already begun."
She hadn't worn civilian clothes in years, and the soft fabric felt foreign on her. The sight of her old friends should have been filled with happiness, yet the words of greeting felt hollow. She barely exchanged words with her father, and most of her belongings in her household had already been dumped, or sent to Kurenai's under Hanabi's direction. She did, however, accept the embraces freely from her former's sensei's child, in awe at how much she had grown and marveling at how the small chubby legs and arms of babyhood had lengthened into a sturdy, spitfire of a young girl.
"So, I heard we have a wedding to plan," Kurenai's red eyes sparkled with warmth, empathy, and love, and the familiarity cracked the wall she had carefully built over the last few years.
She allowed a tiny, hesitant smile. "So we do."
A/N: Wanted to try my hand at KakaHina. It was supposed to be a long one-shot, but I couldn't finish some parts of it, so I'll upload one chapter at a time. Maybe I'll get inspired as I go. Also, I have a thing for cold!Hinata, ruthless!Hinata, ANBU!Hinata, take-no-bullshit!Hinata.