I thank my friend LexKixAss for letting me abscond her twins for my story. As always Naruto belongs to Kishimoto. Please review.
"Hinata! Hinata! Wait up!"
A hand grabbed her arm and Hinata staggered to keep her balance as Naruto skidded to a stop using her as a pivoting point. The whole room seemed to keep spinning a few moments more even though she could feel the wall beneath her hand stabilizing her.
"Naruto-kun?" she called a little woozy.
"Hey, Hinata, I got a favor to ask ya."
Hinata blinked a few times to make the spinning stop, then a few more to keep her head from doing too many cartwheels at how close his face was to hers or the way his hand remained curled tightly over her fingers. She never understood it, but the way he looked at her, staring so intensely with those strange blue eyes, she could never catch her breath. He didn't look at her the way the Hyuugas did, scrutinizing and detecting each movement and glace to see try to see what she was thinking. Yet, somehow, she always felt like he saw her just as deeply. Maybe even something more than the Hyuugas saw –her true self– reflected back in those clear blue eyes.
Since she no longer walked to and from the academy with Neji, the only real thing she looked forward to was seeing Naruto. Classes were getting uncomfortable, with all the emphasis on the genin exam at the end of the year. The more everyone else got excited about it, the less Hinata wanted to be there. She hated the nasty feeling that swirled inside her when she thought about having to return to the compound when everyone else got to go off and experience adventures outside the confines of the village. But since Iruka didn't seem to care that she and Naruto were friends anymore, it was easier for them to talk during their free time. Naruto just made the days so much better. She was going to miss the chance to see him every day once he became a genin.
Naruto leaned in so no one in the busy hall could overhear. "Hinata, can you find out what Sakura-chan likes for me?"
"Sa–sakura-chan?" she stuttered back. For some reason her voice didn't want to leave her throat.
"Yeah, you're a girl so you can talk to her and find out what she likes, right? Please, for me."
Hinata's whole body felt as if it were teetering on a precipice and behind her the torrent raged closer and closer. "Yo–you like Sa–saku–ra-chan?"
Naruto scratched his nose and looked away embarrassed. "Well, sorta."
And the torrent pushed her off. She was falling, and as the inevitable ground rushed at her a moment of calm spread throughout her body. She forced her numb face to move and smiled. "Sure."
"Really, Hinata," Naruto burst, throwing his arms around her in a huge hug. "Thanks, you're the best."
She couldn't breathe, she couldn't think, the pain choked all the joy she'd ever felt in seeing his smiling face away into a feeling that threatened to break her in two. "I have to get home!" Hinata cried and ran out of his hold before he could see the tears in her eyes. She ran with all her might, until her legs burned and screamed enough to dull the pain tearing her heart to shreds so small she didn't believe it could beat again.
Just get home, she repeated over and over, wiping the endless tears from her eyes only to have them cloud with new sobs. The world had never been so alien to her, so frightening. She just wanted to be alone, before anyone –everyone– hurt her again. Somewhere safe, where no one could be taken from her or abandon her or betray her.
The walls of the compound came into her fogged sight and cry of despair burst from her abused lungs. Two identical faces, brimming with worry the closer she ran, watched her from the gate. She didn't want them to see her, to read through her tears the truth burning inside so fiercely she couldn't hold it in. She didn't want their pity.
Hinata bolted for the wall even as Isamu ran to meet her in the street, and she vaulted over with sheer panic strengthening her. Behind her she could hear them calling for her, but she didn't look back. She just ran and ran and kept running until the only solace she felt in the sorrow-dipped world was before her. Hinata dropped to her knees in front of the small garden, lush and green and ready for the late summer harvest, and wept with her whole body. If only she could have melted into the ground beneath her and been forgotten forever. Anything had to be better than feeling this pain.
"Hinata," her aunt's soft voice plied cautiously behind her. Hinata curled tighter into herself, wishing she could disappear, anything to keep people from seeing her so weak.
"I've got her," Naomi called to someone else and Hinata heard footsteps reluctantly retreat. Slowly, as if she'd spook her, Naomi knelt beside her and pulled Hinata into her embrace. Hinata hadn't wanted anyone, she'd wanted to be alone, but once in the mothering arms of her aunt, Hinata clung to her with all her might and wept unabashed into her chest.
"It's all right, Hinata. I'm here for you," Naomi whispered, gently smoothing back her hair in maternal affection. "Just tell me what happened."
"He asked me to find out what she liked!" The words burst from her mouth before she even knew how much she wanted to say it. She hadn't wanted anyone to know, but Naomi's arms were a place of safety as surely as the garden was. A mother's unconditional acceptance and love that could coax even the deepest secret forward with a single, gentle word.
"Oh, Hinata," Naomi cooed, slowly rocking Hinata back and forth to comfort her.
"I thought he saw me," she cried, "Why'd he pick her? He doesn't know her or talk to her. I'm his friend, so why'd he pick her? I thought . . . the way he looked at me . . . I . . ." The sobs choked off her voice and left her bawling into Naomi's now wet kimono.
"I know it hurts, Hinata," she whispered. "You go ahead and cry until there's no more tears to cry. There's not a person in the world who doesn't have the right to cry when their heart gets broken."
Hinata struggled to shove her cries down enough to talk. "Wh–why wasn't I . . . good enough?"
"Now you listen to me," Naomi snapped, not with malice, but enough intensity to shock back Hinata's sobbing momentarily as she looked up at her aunt. "You are every bit good enough, and if he doesn't see that then that's his fault and his loss, because you're so worthy of being loved. Don't you ever forget that, no matter what happens. Understand?"
Hinata's mouth quivered and tears fell freely down her raw face, but she nodded. Naomi wiped her flushed cheeks with her thumb and kissed Hinata atop her head.
"I know it hurts now, Hinata, and don't think you don't have the right to feel that hurt. Cry through it as much as you need to, but know it will get better." She rested Hinata's head against her chest and just held her.
"How?" Hinata coughed out. It didn't feel like any balm in existence would heal the pain consuming her.
"First loves are the sweetest when you have it, and the bitterest when it ends," Naomi answered. "But when there's no more tears to be cried and you take a deep breath, you'll find it's a little easier than before. And when you see him tomorrow you might need to cry all over again, but as time passes it will be easier. Everyone has a first love, and we all survive the heartache of them, too. I survived mine, and trust me I cried as much as you are when it was gone."
Hinata gazed up at her aunt, tears still escaping though the hysteria had calmed some. "You did?"
Naomi nodded. "He was an out-of-claner I knew from the academy. He had the most beautiful green eyes I'd ever seen, like hollyhock in spring. He was on your uncle's genin team, and he and your uncle and me and my best friend were together all the time. I was in love with him for years before I got up the courage to ask him out."
"What happened?" Hinata asked, sniffing back the fading cries still trying to sneak out.
"He told me he hung out with me because he wanted to go out with my best friend, not me." Naomi let out a deep sigh and a sweet melancholy washed over her eyes. "I cried for days after that, and each time my mother held me just like this and told me the same thing I'm telling you. It does get better, you just have to let yourself go through it and eventually the other side will appear. That and your uncle beat him so badly in training the next day it sent him to the hospital."
Hinata laughed despite the slowing tears. "Uncle Hizashi?"
"Oh yes," Naomi chuckled. "I also found out from that experience that your uncle had quite the crush on me. It took a long time to get over it, but eventually your uncle won me over. And though he'll never admit it, he's still jealous about it all. You never fully get over any love, but you learn to let them go."
Hinata settled back into Naomi's embrace and felt her body sink into an exhaustion worse than any training could produce. Her stomach ached, her chest burned, and her face was raw against the cool cotton of Naomi's kimono. Even so, she closed her eyes and let the gentle sway of her aunt's body console her.
"It still hurts," she whispered, the tears coming back to wet her red cheeks.
Naomi rubbed her arm and kissed her head again. "I know, Hinata. I know."
Hinata didn't want to go back to the academy the next morning. She'd begged Naomi to let her stay home, but her aunt refused. Naomi said she needed to go and face it. Hinata didn't want to face it. She blanched at the very idea of seeing Naruto, him expecting her to talk to Sakura on his behalf. She wasn't even sure she was capable of making it through the day without bursting into tears, let alone talk to Sakura. She didn't want to see any of them.
The academy came into slow view as she slugged her way down the road to the red-roofed building. What was the point of her being there anymore? She wasn't going to be a genin, Neji wasn't there, and now to talk to Naruto was to have a kunai twist inside her chest. So what was the point?
Hinata stopped in front of the academy courtyard and stared at the planked roof and white walls and the symbol of Kohoha painted proudly above the entrance.
What was the point?
She turned away and kept walking. Away from the academy and the pain and the futile instruction that would lead her nowhere.
There was no point anymore.