Am I more than just the sum of every high and every low?
Remind me once again just who I am, because I need to know.
"Be true to yourself, Hinata. The rest will fall into place."
Shino's words follow her around for days, lingering in the back of her mind.
Be true to herself.
What a novel and terrifying idea.
She's not so unaware that she doesn't realize that she hasn't been honest. With herself. About herself. Not for a long time...maybe not ever.
She felt honest with Naruto.
She felt like the best version of herself with Naruto.
But she thinks that may have been more a reflection of him. Like the moon reflects the sun.
She had always loved him. From the very first moment she met him.
Well...okay, time for some of that honesty.
It wasn't love at first sight.
It was interest.
It was a little lust.
And a whole lot of admiration.
Naruto always had this sort of energy...a presence...and she was drawn to him. He was confident and cocky and smart and funny and no matter how much shit anyone gave him he brushed it off, stood back up, grinned defiantly and moved forward.
By the time he started spiraling she was already in love with him.
That had to have been one of the hardest times in her life.
Watching, from the sidelines, too afraid to step in...too afraid to say or do something wrong that all she could do was watch as he drifted further and further away from her, further away from himself, and the Naruto she loved so much.
He would fight, get drunk, get arrested, get drunk some more, get high, do anything to escape...except she knew then (as she knows now) there wasn't any escape for him.
And all the while Hinata watched.
Watched him getting destroyed by his own infatuation with Sasuke's girlfriend. Watched Sasuke become callous and mean and gloating in the face of Naruto's very evident want .
She watched.
Unable to do more than that; paralyzed by her own insecurities and fears and uncertainties...until...until it was almost too late.
Until Naruto had taken all he could take and decided that he just couldn't grin defiantly anymore.
Her bright sun nearly snuffed out.
She still can't think about that time. Not without crying so hard she vomits.
Still, she wonders if things would have been different if she'd confessed her feelings sooner? If she'd spoken up. If she'd been less a coward and more a friend.
She wonders…
And she doesn't like the answers.
Naruto never held her inaction against her. Of course, she's never actually told him what she was feeling because it wasn't about her. It was about him.
It was so easy to make everything about him.
He was her world.
And that wasn't his fault.
That was all her.
If she could take care of him, heal him, love him, then maybe...maybe...she wasn't so useless after all. Maybe she wasn't a complete failure. Maybe she was enough.
It was unfair, she realizes now, to hang her self-worth on his head.
"It's good that you recognize that," Inoichi tells her, his voice quiet and certain.
"I don't want to be that Hinata anymore," she says, equally quiet. "The one that is scared of everything, always thinking that I'm not enough. Not good enough, smart enough, not capable of...anything." She works the bracelet around her wrist so much that her skin feels raw. "I am so tired of being her."
"But?" Inoichi presses, gently, when she pauses.
She can feel the hot pressure of tears behind her eyes and her vision blurs. "But...that's the Hinata he fell in love with, and if I change…" She makes a little gasping sound, fingers pressing to her lips to stop their trembling. "If I change...Maybe he won't love me anymore."
Inoichi hands her a box of tissues and places a comforting hand on her knee. "I think that's his decision to make."
Not hers.
She couldn't decide whether or not Naruto loved her.
She could only decide to love herself.
Which was a lot harder than it sounded.