The director offered Hinata his arm when they arrived. When they were met with flashing cameras at the door, he stopped and introduced her to the press, then again to people of interest inside as they walked around the room.
It almost felt more like she was a guest he brought than a member of staff that was working. It was nice to be thought of, but she hoped it didn't come with consequences. She wondered if the change was because of their newfound connection through her mother or just the lack of a wall between them because of her father. She would guess the former, the previous assistant didn't have this relationship with him.
Hinata glanced around the room and quickly turned back to whisper. "Sir, your ex-wife is heading this way."
He could see the smile physically fall from his face. "Sharpen your tongue."
Hinata hoped he was just joking.
Mikoto smiled widely, prospering her wine glass up. "Oh, Fugaku, you still have the Hyuga charity case on staff."
"Mikoto, looking old as ever." The director fired back.
Mikoto's smile tightened. "I doubt it." Her eyes flickered up to the side as she postured her face. "I could get you, my surgeon dear."
Hinata felt like the insult would have been better placed if she wasn't the same age as one of her sons.
"I doubt she'll need it. Hyuga women age gracefully." Fugaku fired back.
"Or die young." Mikoto grinned as she sipped her wine.
Hinata could feel the waves of annoyance come off the director, but she knew that he was going to make an express effort to not start another scene with her. After all, this was Sasuke's first big work event.
Hinata glanced around the room, catching a direct look from Lee from over the crowd. Her eyebrows knitted together as he looked down, she got a message on her phone, and she glanced at it. She turned to the director. "I have to handle something, sir."
The director nodded, but as she walked away, she didn't miss his ex-wife's comment. "Keep an eye on her. You don't want her handling the wrong investor's son."
Sasuke was a little more than annoyed, he was trying to keep his cool for the event, but it was getting on his nerves to watch his father parade his assistant around like it was her event.
"Why don't you ask her to dance?" Itachi leaned down to ask.
Sasuke's eyes darted over to his brother. "What are you talking about?"
"You've been staring at her all night." Itachi nudged him. "She looks great, doesn't she?"
Sasuke clenched his teeth together. "She looks fine."
"Look, you have a chance." Itachi pointed as Hinata walked away from his father.
Sasuke's eyes narrowed on her as she walked over to Lee. He opened the back curtain for her. Sasuke rounded the ballroom with another word to his brother and headed behind the curtain, finding her crouching over the audio equipment.
Hinata picked up a microphone. "What do you think you are doing?"
Hinata stared at him bewildered. "There is a problem with the main mic." A man came round the corner holding a box. She hesitantly handed him the mic. "I was having it replaced before you went on stage. I had Lee-san have the equipment checked before you went on to ensure it went smoothly."
Sasuke stared at her for another moment. His nose twitched, but with nothing to say to her, he just turned to leave, rubbing his temples on the way out. The stress was getting to him. He headed back to his brother and his lopsided grin. "What did she say?"
"What?" Sasuke snapped, tugging down on his suit jacket.
"What did she say when you asked her to dance?" Itachi asked, waving his hand in the direction Hinata came out of it. She glanced at the two of them hesitantly before she went back to his father.
Sasuke looked at him ludicrously. "I didn't ask."
Itachi pouted and huffed. Sasuke hoped he didn't get any bright ideas.
Hinata clapped with the crowd. With the correction of the new microphone, the presentation had gone off wonderfully. The director gushed to her about it for the next hour. She only hoped he would be able to tell his son how much he enjoyed it.
She felt a hand slide across her back and settle at her waist. "You smell like a wine cellar," Hinata told Itachi as she looked up at him.
Itachi was a lot friendlier after a bottle of wine, and she wasn't sure that was all he had had so far. He had been drinking since he came in and saw his mother was early.
"My mother found me." Itachi nudged his head toward his mother. The woman's eyes were cold as ice and staring directly at Itachi's hand on her waist.
"Are you trying to make her worse?" Hinata whispered.
"I don't know what you mean, but this should make her pretty mad." Itachi started tugging her away. Hinata snapped her fingers to get Lee's attention and pointed to the director. He gave her a thumbs up and a smile.
Itachi pulled her to him on the dance floor. "Aren't you glad I sent him your away?"
"Lee-san's help has been invaluable." Hinata agreed.
"What did Sasuke catch you for earlier," Itachi asked with a grin.
Hinata wasn't sure why he was smiling about it, but she was also not going to tell him about the confrontation she had had with the younger heir. "Uhm, he didn't say much." Hinata pressed her lips together. Itachi's grin got wider. She felt her face get red. She didn't like being under this pressure, and she wasn't good at lying. She wasn't sure what he thought happened.
At this point, she realized he had danced her across the room. "Can you step in for me?" Itachi asked over her shoulder, then gave her a spin right into someone. She hit their chest, and she was face to face with a man her height in heels.
Hinata looked at Sasuke. Sasuke narrowed his eyes on his brother.
Itachi had had enough to drink.
Itachi held her hand out to him. Sasuke glared into his brother's eyes and took it only not to be outwardly rude. Hinata hesitantly replaced her hand she braced herself with on his shoulder where it had been on Itachi's. Itachi then disappeared, leaving the two of them in awkward and tense silence.
Sasuke did his best not to look at her, but like his brother, he, as a gentleman, wasn't going to be rude.
It was uncomfortable for both of them, his hand was too high on her back, but she wasn't going to mention it. Her hand was too low on his shoulder, but she wasn't going to move it either. They were too close from the position Itachi had forced them into, but neither of them seemed to want to budge and let on to the other that they were aware of the incorrect position.
Hinata glanced her eyes down and pressed her lips together. She wanted to look anywhere but his flat but disgruntled expression. Her eyes scanned the crowd to distract herself, but all she received was another dirty look from Mikoto and a death glare from Sasuke's assistant. When the song ended, he disappeared before she could speak. Leaving her in the middle of the dance floor as silently as they had danced. Hinata took a moment to glance around, twirling the diamond necklace the director had given her between her fingers. When she found him, she crossed the room to settle back at his side.
The director gave her a nod acknowledging her reappearance with a smile. "My boys giving you a hard time?"
She forced a smile and wished just one of these events would be less eventful.
"Sasuke, she really can't be that bad." Naruto rolled his eyes.
"Look at her, she's hand on him," Sasuke growled at Hinata's hand in the crook of his father's arm. She gave a false smile to the conversation and a polite nod.
Naruto made a face of disbelief. "Sasuke, you really need to let it go. If I spent this much time on every woman my father brought home, I wouldn't have time to breathe."
"You had three step-moms before grade school." Sasuke snapped back.
"You get used to it." Naruto shrugged. "But I honestly don't think she wasn't to be your new stepmother."
"I didn't think she did." Sasuke huffed. "She wants to be daddy's little girl or something. I don't know her angle, but she has one."
Naruto gave another shrug and shoved a piece of food in his mouth. Sasuke didn't know what help he thought he was going to be. Naruto's father was known for his divorces after his first wife passed away.
"Look, let's just go see. Maybe if you see it up close, you can see." Sasuke made a struggle as Naruto pulled him across the room toward both their fathers. There was only so much struggling he could do without making a scene.
"There's our boys." Uzumaki waved his hand, signaling their arrival.
His father raised his hand. "Naruto, I don't think you have met Hinata yet."
Hinata bowed her head.
"She has a thing for sweets." Naruto's father added with a large grin.
Her face turned red, it worsened when Naruto held out his plate piled with deserts. She held her hand up to politely declined.
Hinata met Sasuke's eyes. She glanced off to the side, signaling to him something. His eyebrows twitched, not understanding.
She leaned forward to tell him directly, but before she could, Hinata screeched in surprise, and it was followed by the sound of glass shattering. They all stepped back, and it was clear what happened. Sasuke's own assistant had a not-so-sorry sorry look on her face until she saw who got the brunt of her stunt.
Sasuke was covered in red wine. He wiped his face, flicked his hands, and let out a cough. It was in his nostrils.
"I'm so sorry!" His assistant squeaked. At least now, she sounded genuine.
"Get her out of here." His father growled.
Hinata set into action, grabbing a napkin from a nearby table and holding it up to his face. "Lee-san, have someone clean this up."
Hinata quickly ushered him toward a bathroom.
Sasuke squinted and ducked his face into the sink and splashed his face clean. He felt her dabbing at his shirt. "I'm fine. Get out."
"You're not the only one that got hit," Hinata told him in a sigh.
He scrolled down her. Her white dress was clean. Hinata wet a towel and kneeled down to her feet where she had a cut across the top of her foot. "I just finished healing from the last incident."
"We should have insurance on you," Sasuke grumbled as he pulled off his tie.
Hinata made a noise, but he couldn't tell if it was amused or annoyed. She dabbed her cut, but it wasn't doing her much good.
Sasuke sighed outwardly and pulled her up, and lifted her to sit on the bathroom counter. He then lifted her foot into the light. "This isn't a paper cut. You aren't going to be able to just hope it stops bleeding."
Sasuke unlatched her shoe and tossed it on the counter next to her, and held the towel to the cut. "Have you always been this accident-prone?"
"I wouldn't call myself particularly graceful, but I don't think it was my accident that caused this." She frowned at him as he held pressure over the cut.
"This wasn't an accident. She threw it." Sasuke clarified. "And she's fired Monday morning."
"I tried to warn you she was coming," Hinata told him as he turned her foot, looking for other cuts on her leg. "But I don't understand why she would do this."
"Because Itachi thought it was a bright idea to make us dance together." Sasuke leaned out the door and caught a staff member to grab a first aid kit. "And it's bad enough you danced with one of the Uchiha bachelors you danced with two. You were asking to be doused."
The staff member handed in the first aid kit, and Sasuke started digging inside. "I didn't think high-class women would be so low."
"They would. Don't think they won't do worse." He pulled out a few supplies and set to work. Hinata winced. "Be happy I am not taking you back to the hospital tonight or picking you up from the bottom of another flight of stairs."
"I guess it's a good thing you're covered in wine and not blood this time." Hinata sighed.
"Hm." He mumbled as he finished with a tap of a bandage.
"Don't think I could just hide it with makeup, do you?" Hinata pouted.
"You need to stop trying so hard for perfection." Sasuke tossed away the trash and closed the kit.
"I'm not. The director just doesn't like imperfections." Hinata's eyes cast down as she realized that wasn't a very good case for herself. "I avoid them when possible." She added in a mumble.
She took her shoe and tried to put it back on but was trying to without raising her leg and skirt too high. Sasuke snatched the shoe out of her hand and stretched her leg back out. "And you make sure even his sons are perfect?" He asked as he put her shoe back on, tucking in the edges of the bandages.
Hinata looked at him for a moment of surprise, and then it was almost like she forced her face to change. "Is that a thank you for handling problems for you?"
Sasuke's face twitched in anger. "I don't need your meddling."
"Clearly." Hinata snapped back. Pulling herself off the counter. She grabbed his tie and started running it under the tap.
Itachi seemed to be watching for them because as soon as they stepped out, he was b-lining for them.
Hinata stumbled, and Sasuke caught her arm. He told her to sit down, and she nodded, moving over to a seat where she signaled to Lee.
Itachi joined him as he moved back toward Naruto. "Is she okay?"
"I'm fine, thanks," Sasuke grumbled.
"I mean it, is she okay?" Itachi narrowed his eyes on him.
"She's fine, wine in her shoes," Sasuke told him.