My One In A Million

Chapter Fourteen:

Why was it that a stubbed tow hurt more than a broken arm?

He could tell it was going to be a bad day the minute he woke up to find himself in a pink bed with pink pillows, everything was a blur when he slipped off the high mattress only to be reminded of the current condition of his back.

He must have slept in an awkward position for a very long time for it to feel this sore; like the base of his spine was a ball of needles that pricked the nerves of his legs with every move. His neck was stiff on one side, the tap in the bathroom coughed and gurgled without actually allowing him access to hot water and he had no idea how to use an electric stove to set up a kettle.

One of his eyes reacted to the light by setting everything on eternal flame while the other saw everything as a blur of colors. It was one thing to see really poorly and another to be completely blind, he decided to cover the aggressive one momentarily until he saw a doctor on his rehab session for today.

It felt like he was coming down with fever, too. His stomach whined it's emptiness and his arm complained the tiny strain he put on it to open the tea container.

"I need a slave." He said to the empty apartment, knowing that nobody was listening.

He was sure there was a machine to make tea being developed somewhere in the world, one that didn't require him to twist open heavy glass containers.

Alright, maybe he had underestimated the things the princess did for him. He didn't need her per se, but if she was here she'd at least make him tea without laughing too openly about his weak wrist.

The shower did very little to help his condition, if anything, what little light he could see through his blurry eye was nearly extinguished with the shock of having cold water on his feverish skin.

It took half as long to get his clothes and sandals on, and thrice as long to get to the hospital because he would get really exhausted really often. Shizune was his designated doctor in Tsunade's absence and wasted no time with introductions. "Where's Hinata?"

"We're not attached at the hip." He snapped and eased himself into the chair in the examination room.

"You came here alone? You can see?"

"Well enough." Not really, he bumped into more than five things and his ankle was only starting to act up because he hit it on what felt like a sprinkler.

"That's progress." She pulled the skin under his eyes and flashed the light into them, then had to order another pen light because hers had caught fire. It annoyed him that medics had to touch him to figure out what was wrong, couldn't they at least warm their hands?

After looking at his ears, mouth, arms, legs, and listening to his heart; she decided he was fit enough for rehab.

Or so he thought; turns out he was only allowed stretches and ten minutes on the treadmill every day. He wondered if his thirty-minute walk to get to the hospital was put into account with the rest of the leg exercises. He compensated by spending every afternoon and evening stretching and meditating and eventually growing strong enough for warm ups and sit ups. Now that his chakra had returned to its rightful owner and was settling back in all the right places, he found himself recovering faster than the painfully slow first few weeks he spent blind at the hospital.

His muscles were recovering nicely, but everything irritated him to a ridiculous extent; the tape that held the square of gauze to his eye annoyed him, the flap of the jacket brushed against his neck at the wrong times and his hair had grown too long for comfort.

He hated how difficult his life had become by simply allowing himself the leisure of depending on another, somehow it had slipped his mind that hardships were what made him stronger. Now his vision began to clear as it adjusted to being used in new, harsher surroundings, allowing him to judge distances better and stub his toes less. He'd spent the night on the couch in the living room because the bed was too mushy and pink, his back didn't agree with the soft cushions but at least the living room was less bright as long as the ceiling lights were turned off. He didn't want to admit it, but he felt undeniably comfortable in the darkness.

Eventually he discovered candles in one of the kitchen drawers labeled with misleading pictures of flowers, cinnamon and a donut. Lighting them with the assumption that it was an advertising solution based on wax color was a new experience; they lit up just like any other candle and the illumination they offered was easier on the eyes which he appreciated. Slowly, it dawned on him that the purpose of the packaging was a forewarning that the whole apartment was going to smell like a bakery shop.

He wouldn't have cared because the smell of one's house tended to go unnoticed the longer one lived there, but just like every other sense he had his nose refused to let anything slip by unnoticed. A whole week now, and it's still as noticeable as the first minute he set foot in it. if the human body had a reset button somewhere, his would be right in the nose. The moment he opened the front door, the smell of flowers, cinnamon and her was so overwhelming that he has to physically stop himself in the doorway and backtrack to whatever previous line of thought he had been pursing before being interrupted.

The clothes Hinata's friend got him were probably picked up by a homeless person where he dropped them in the dumpster, because the minute his kimono vendor finished adjusting his yukata to his liking, he wore very little else. The more his vision cleared the better he liked the embroidery on the back: a bold red and white Uchiha clan symbol.

Sometimes it felt like he was the only one in the village who wore traditional clothes anymore, it didn't matter as long as he didn't have to wear anything snug. If and when it started snowing he could always wear standard issue turtlenecks and pants.

Even in sleep he much preferred the traditional aspects of a bedroom: flat pillows, a blanket not too thick or not too thin, a firm futon which offered better support for the back on the floor where it wasn't too dangerous to roll over whenever he pleased.

Who needed five pillows, anyway?

He hated walking around the house in slippers, too. Being comfortable in his own place meant going barefoot, but since his floors were of polished wood while absolutely hating socks left him little to no choice. The doors were noisy and settled into being halfway open if left alone, which caused him to stub his toe on them almost every day. The windows were impossible to open without a sharp thundering sound ripping through his ears, the bathtub was too narrow for comfort and the ceiling lights buzzed noisily if he left them on for long.

Basically, accepting this apartment was a mistake.

He hated this place; he wanted to stay somewhere else, anywhere else.

A whole week of waking up, going to rehab and then crashing back on the couch all day allowed him more time to eat and sleep, his body was improving but it was boring him to tears. There wasn't anything to watch on TV, nothing to amuse himself with but the wallpaper and old newspapers in the storage room. Even his voice was growing scratchy from lack of use.

So he walked. He let his feet take him wherever they wanted, to familiarize himself with the new neighborhoods and strengthen his flabby muscles. He'd walked up and down the village yet still not found a good enough apartment. They were always be too small, too big, too modern, too crowded, or sometimes just not to his taste. He had no idea what finding the 'right' place was supposed to feel like as he'd never seriously considered any place as a permanent residence. It wasn't this hard to come to terms with his old, dirty apartment… Maybe because he always had Naruto to be with and spent minimum time thinking about it as a home. It served its purpose while it lasted; upon pulling the old complex down the rebuilding team had Inuzuka dogs scout the apartments for salvageable things –codename for enemy explosive seals- and they managed to extract some abandoned items. They'd found his stash of sealed scrolls and spare change, and handed it to him when he visited the Hokage tower to reactivate his finance deposit. His weapons and katana had gone into storage when he was admitted to the hospital were delivered safe and sound, he never thought he'd feel this glad to have them back when he did.

Tonight he allowed himself the time off to watch the last light of day disappear beyond the cloudy horizon, the view of the river below the bridge in the shopping district was refreshing as the last time he'd seen it was when it was still frozen solid. He had just finished a long jog when his back flared up and he had to support himself against the stone railing to give the pressure time to ease out. The bottle of water in his hand refused to finish as it tasted terrible. For some reason his body was being difficult with what he introduced to it, even water. It was unusual for water to taste much of anything but there was very little he could do about the sensitivity of his mouth as of late.

He'd tried changing the material of the cup and tried drinking from a different tap and even bought bottles of fresh-mountain-water from the store. Admittedly, he learned that water from the glass tasted slightly sharper than if he'd poured it into a plastic cup, and a metal cup reduced the temperature slightly than if it was a paper cup. Tap water tasted earthier than store-bought bottles, the one thing that never seemed to change was that they were all bitter in the back of his throat.

As if the overwhelming sensitivity of his mouth hadn't been enough, his nose got all worked up over a scent he couldn't locate.

Flowers.

Disgustingly sweet with a hint of sour fruit.

And then he saw her, her bright hair up in a ponytail with her arms full of bouquets and baskets overflowing with flowers.

Yamanaka Ino.

The moment his mind pinpointed her name and matched it with the visual image, a bittersweet cocktail of memories poured itself down his throat. She had been foolishly in love with him when he left –did she still love him?- she'd been small, curious and naive, always favoring him with chocolates at valentine's day disregarding the fact that he hated sweets. Her name brought forth images of her father probing painfully and persistently into his mind, trying to look into the secrets guarded in there; pain and humiliation went hand in hand whenever it was 'time to talk to Yamanaka' in intelligence. Pain was something he knew how to deal with, the things the old man touched upon can never be unseen and for that he despised him.

She was older now, her body matured into a figure fit for bearing healthy children and she knew it. The clothes she chose to wear hugged her breasts and hips snugly, the colors didn't match and there was dirt on the rolled up sleeves, but no man could look at her without noticing how beautifully she'd blossomed. The way she styled hair was boring, though, she parted it at the same angle without change since grade school. It spoke of a person who refused change and clung to a certain comfort zone no matter the circumstances.

At least Sakura and Hinata wear their hair differently from when they were schoolchildren.

Their eyes met and she smiled warily, unsure of how she should react to him staring at her.

His chest expanded with a quiet sigh, he didn't want to talk to her, but she had already made up her mind to opening her mouth and approaching with a firmer smile. "Good evening, Sasuke kun!" Her voice hiccupped at the very end, she hoped he hadn't noticed. "I'm glad to see you out and about again!"

"Mm." He didn't care about her fake sentiments; if she really cared she should have visited. "Still a slave to your parents, I see."

She glanced down at the flowers in her hands and laughed. "Aah! But now I get paid to do it, so it's fine! And having your parents as your boss has it's quirks." She winked, he rolled his eyes. "Hey, could you help me with these? They're getting kind of heavy."

He didn't want to help and considered refusing, but if he walked away now he'd go back to his boring apartment and have nothing to do for the rest of the night. It was good training to talk to someone with Jutsu geared towards mental abilities, right? If he's lucky, he could even copy a technique or two like he did her father's.

Sasuke reached for the basket and hauled it over his shoulder, expertly hiding how pain zipped down his leg at the sudden motion.

Let's see how much her mind matured since fifth grade. "You've gotten taller."

"I know right! I almost don't want to wear heels!" Almost instantly, Ino beamed and walked leisurely, as if she wasn't in a hurry to get the flowers to the shop anymore. "How's life been treating you?"

It's just small talk, he reminded himself, she's not really asking about how he's been. "All's fine."

"Great, I'm really glad you're okay now. So what did the doctors say? You know, I've heard bits and pieces but I don't know what really happened. Why did you go into a coma? What woke you wake up?"

He was suddenly irritated with his hair sticking to his forehead. "They don't know either." And he didn't want to talk about it with the town's gossip girl. "Did anyone die recently that I should know of?"

"Um, a lot died during the war. I don't know all of them. Oh, you mean recently?" Her voice went down a notch, "The rookies are all fine, if that's what you're asking." Not everyone was completely whole -or completely sane- but almost all of them survived. "I see."

"Some of them got engaged, though!" She giggled and brought up her hand to cover her mouth, not coincidentally, a glittering ring caught his eye on her ring finger. "Guess who?"

"I'm not interested."

"Aw come on, you'll never guess! Or are you jealous?" She bumped his shoulder jokingly.

He didn't like mind games of this sort; at least offer a hint or two! "I'm not interested in your personal life, Yamanaka."

She looked as if someone had slapped her on the face with a wet towel. "Oh, right, I forgot; you've got a mysterious image to protect. I know without you, the village would have been taken over by Madara, But you know you could at least put in some effort! I remember a time when you were the sweetest thing, accepted a girl's chocolates and listened to their confessions, even joined us on school trips once or twice. I actually had a crush on you for the longest time but I never actually said it." She stopped walking, he regarded her with an irritated expression. "I think I'm smart enough to understand that I probably fell for how cool you were back then, I mean… You never really talked about yourself to anyone, so why did I- we like you so much?"

"You were idiots."

Her thin brows curved downwards, but the look in her eyes was guarded, as if she was still trying to figure him out. "Oh wow, here I am baring my soul out to you and you just joke about it!"

"Your crush wasn't exactly a secret."

"At least back then you were nice enough to let me pretend it was!"

"I'm not that boy anymore."

"Well, I liked him better! I cried my eyes out when they came up with the plan to treat you as a missing nin, do you know how hard it was for me and Sakura to come to terms with that! If I've known your heart had turned to stone by then…!"

He slowly put the basket down and breathed through the nose. "It's all about you, isn't it?" He smirked when she was startled. "If you really cared you wouldn't have let them go through with it in the first place. Couldn't you have thrown a tantrum like what you're doing now? Told them to find another way? Turn against the whole village for the one you love and all that romantic idealism?" She glared at the flowers in her arms. "Admit it. I was never important enough to fight for whether or not I was that boy you liked."

"I wasn't going to betray my family and friends for someone who left without even a goodbye!" the hurt was so plain in her eyes that he doubted she was still allowed to go on undercover missions. "It looks like I made a mistake interrupting whatever it is you were doing out here, so I'll leave you to it." She snatched the basket, hauled it over her shoulder as if it weighed nothing and flipped her hair as she turned away. "Have a nice day!"

"It's already night." He told her retreating figure.

"Have a great awesome wonderful night, then!"

"You ruined it when you talked to me." He called after her, enjoying his ability to put in so little effort but cause her so much anger.

"Then go cry in a corner!" She screamed as she stomped away, determined to have the last word.

Sasuke watched her leave, and rubbed the redness away from his palm where the threads of the basket dug into the skin. The small adrenaline rush cleared up some of the fog in his uncovered eye, he noticed the first star of the night glittering happily just over the mountain tops.

Another bridge burned…

What was he still doing in this village, exactly?

That water he drank must have gone bad or maybe it was wrong of him to skip dinner, because now his stomach was suffering a painful burn. It was time to buy a new dozen of rice pudding and maybe a packed dinner if there are any left.

Thankfully, a small store was only a few shops away so he stopped by. The packaged dinners shelf was completely empty, so he picked up some pudding, two rice balls and a large bottle of water.

The hair of the person before him in line danced with his sigh, the ends looked like they were recently trimmed. Suddenly, it hit him that this was hair that belonged to someone he knew well and had been trying to find.

He fought the urge to swallow. "Hyuuga."

First her shoulders squared, then her breath held and she turned her head to peek at him. Hinata blinked repeatedly when their eyes met and decided to nod politely before clearing her throat. "G- Good afternoon."

"Not really."

Her hair always managed to look clean and freshly-brushed, unlike her clothes which were ugly, to say the least. She was wearing gray pants as usual, chopped roughly below the knees allowing any observer to cotton-white legs that looked as squishy as a marshmallow. Her shoes were worn-out sandals that did nothing to add to her height, and her shirt might as well have been a potato sack; colorless and dull and hung limply over her arms like a wet carpet.

"How have you been?" She had to repeat it twice because the first time her voice was too quiet.

"Fine."

"R- Really? Are you eating well?"

"Well enough."

To his surprise, his usual answer didn't slip by unnoticed. "Just enough isn't good! Please take care of your body, its okay to eat more if you're recovering. It looks like the weather is getting colder so please stay warm as well. You're still covering your eye, is everything okay?"

"The light irritates it." He huffed, already annoyed that she was pretending everything was normal between them when she was the one carefully avoiding him. "I haven't paid you for the furniture yet." He told her, aware that if they skipped chitchat, she'd have nothing to say to him. He had little to do with her, too, but this was a matter of principle. He wasn't upset about not seeing her; he just wanted to pay for the furniture she'd left in his care. Why did she have to make it harder for him to find her and get things done?

It's not like this is the first time she dodged meeting him, she'd done it before and it was only natural that it happens again.

The person in front of her at the register finished so she hastily told him "Y- You can keep it." and busied herself with extracting items from her basket. Four packaged dinners, several bottles of juice and some unhealthy snacks.

The thin muscle just beneath his eye twitched; he was having a bad day -and night- as it is. Her buying all the food in the store wasn't helping. "Going to a party, I assume."

"J- Just me and the team!" She squeaked and looked at him like it was supposed to be a secret, as if he was going to do something dangerous if he knew.

Such as inviting himself to their party, or something. "Whatever, just work out your busy schedule to see me in the next few days. I'm not taking your charity."

"It- it's not charity! I- I also don't have room for foreign furniture in our house, so…" She paid the curious clerk and rushed to slip her items into a bag, then left with a curt nod.

Sasuke dropped his basket on the counter and stormed after her before the doors had a chance to swing shut. It was a mystery how her elbow came to be in his hand, but there it was, warm and boney against the pad of his thumb.

Her eyes were wide and glossy under the storefront lights, startled and maybe just a little alarmed. She winced at the anger in his voice; "Don't walk away until the conversation is finished." Why was he so angry? Why did she irritate him so much when all she did was look at him? "I don't care what you do with them, and I don't have much on me right now or I would have given you all I had right away. I'm not staying there for free."

"Y- You don't hav-" She never finished the sentence; instead she quietly released her breath and pressed her lips together to keep from saying any further, looking at the hand taking her elbow captive.

He let her go slowly, aware that if he continued to hold her any longer she would have to do something about it. "You're either giving them to me as a gift, which is strange since we're not friends; or you're throwing them away as garbage to insult me. So give me a good reason why you're not asking for anything in return."

Her stiff posture relaxed and unlike Ino who rose up to match his anger, Hinata looked at him with the saddest look in her eyes. Waiting for her to answer did strange things to his stomach, or maybe he was just hungry… Once she made up her mind about what to say, she said it with confidence. "We are friends…"

No! He'd taken the option away from her, she was supposed to come up with something different! "I don't think so."

"I- I may not be one to you but- I really think of you as a friend."

"Just like your team? Like Inuzuka?" He scoffed.

She smiled. "Yes."

Lies! "And you always avoid your friends like the plague?"

"I didn't avoid-… I- I was at home with Hanabi all week, this is first time I leave the house."

"And the academy? They offered you to work full time, didn't they?"

"I didn't go. My temporary contract already expired and… I think I'll decline."

"How did you know your team was getting together?"

She didn't know why he was interrogating her. "W- We always get together every weekend to help Kurenai san with babysitting." She anxiously searched his blank expression for a hint of why he was upset. "Did I do something wrong?"

The beasts in his chest raged at her watertight alibis; how could she say these things to him in a friendly tone when she was obviously trying to get away? He'd thought kindness and childish innocence were the first things to be broken once a person pursued the way of the ninja, so then why couldn't he find a hit of deceit in her voice or eyes?

Maybe there was a secret to the Byakugan that made it possible to convince even the most experienced interrogators…?

Ino was easier to understand because she was open about whatever she had on her mind, Hinata was a puzzle he hadn't figured how to solve yet, and it frustrated him. So much that if she was something he could physically grab, he would throw it to the ground just to study how the fitted pieces separated upon impact. "I could kill you in an instant without even touching you."

The lack of context startled her but didn't frighten her. "I know."

Quietly, the breeze brushed through her long hair and tugged on his sleeves, with it the promise of rain and a cold night. Hinata chose not to look at him, but chose not to walk away either.

What did the world look like through those bright eyes? Did she see an unstable lunatic who had to be put on a leash? A traitor plotting to destroy the village while the blood of his family dripped from his fingers? A social reject clinging to the only person who would talk to him?

He unclenched his jaw and spoke without showing how much effort he put into controlling his voice. "I'll just consider myself crashing at your place, then. I'll tell you when I move out."

Those eyes stared at him unblinkingly for a long moment, and then she acknowledged his statement without really giving away what she thought of him for saying it. "Okay." When it seemed like the conversation was over, she offered gently. "Do you want to join us? There will be a child and it- it's pretty laid back…"

He turned around and walked away without dignifying it with an answer. His fists clenched tight at his sides and a voice nagging in the back of his mind screamed at him that he was walking away from something important.

Nothing was more important than his sanity right now, if he let anger and frustration take over for just an instant, he would regret every word and action.

How dare she show pity for him when he was a hundred times stronger and smarter?

She'd never seen him in battle, that's why!

She underestimates his ability to snuff out human life without remorse!

God, how much he wanted to do it, to just let go and send his beasts and snakes and eagles free to wreak havoc through the town while he watched; he'd fantasized about it every day once upon a time. To have the council beg him to make them stop, to show everyone that he'd always had the option to destroy them, to rub it in everyone's face that he didn't need permission to be Uchiha Sasuke, the war hero.

Ahh~ To have great power but never the chance to use it was a dangerous game to play, he was wise enough to acknowledge it, and loyal enough to Naruto to not seriously consider abusing it.

The hidden villages knew he was strong enough to be considered a weapon in himself, Konoha had been tiptoeing around him with the hopes that he wasn't aware of it yet, he allowed them to keep thinking that, simply because he wasn't going to give anyone the pleasure of knowing what went on in his mind. If he laid a hand on a single villager –civilian or not- the whole ninja world would turn against each other. Not because of treaties and friendship ties with Konoha, but because every village was antsy in its seat for a chance to use the unemployed warriors growing restless within their walls.

Weapon makers needed fighters to buy their goods, training academies needed a reason to keep graduating Genin and Chuunin, exams were a good season for hotel bookings and restaurants with all the visiting Genin from other villages, it pulled in reasonable revenue. Cancelling the exams meant overstocked merchants, unemployed Chuunin members and a drought in the economy, so the villages avoided canceling and postponing as much as possible.

This world relied on war and warriors far too much; it was only a matter of time that a new conflict arose and the death grinder started all over again. Until then, he would prolong this peace for as long as he possibly could, hopefully then people will learn that being a shinobi wasn't the only occupation available.

No matter how angry he became he would push it down and wait it out; Naruto depended on him too much to be the starter of a war, it was a promise he would keep even if it meant he was bursting at the seams because of a certain naive Hyuuga princess.

Strangely, he wasn't losing his mind over the desire to murder her; what confused him the most was that he couldn't plan a solid way to do it in the first place. Everyone had died in his mind at least a dozen times, even his own father; why was it hard to visualize her be destroyed in the most basic of situations?

If his reluctance to work out a plan to end her had applied to all the other villagers he would have assumed that human life was starting to mean something again; but it didn't, it applied to no one else…

It's not surprising as she hadn't annoyed him to the point of actively planning her murder; she wasn't annoying or malicious, she didn't try to appeal to him for her own desires or offer him her services with a payment in mind. He'd given her several chances to use his name and fame for her own benefit and she refused, she didn't want to be his wife or his lover, she didn't even want to rule her clan let alone his. She didn't expect him to fall in love with her sister or save her from an overprotective father. She'd held knives, syringes, and scissors in his presence when he was at his weakest, yet her hands only offered him affection.

She said no when every other member of the council said yes.

She was dangerous…

If she ever betrayed him –and if he'd learned anything in life, she will- he would have a hard time eliminating her because he knew too much. To a shinobi with many enemies, hesitation was a deadly emotion to have.

Sasuke went to bed hungry that night, because when he got home he realized that the nagging voice had been trying to remind him that he never took home his groceries. It didn't matter then but come morning; his stomach couldn't even handle a cup of green tea for breakfast.