family affair

nineteen:

i'm gone

The door squeaked shut when it closed behind him, and a sad-sounding bell alerted the late-night staff that someone had entered. The shop smelled the same as it did three years ago: like mothballs left in your grandparent's basement for years and years on end. The overhead lighting hadn't improved either––which was odd, considering it was an erotic literature store.

Sighing, the Uchiha pulled the cloth mask he was wearing further up his nose, pleased when the store attendant––a balding man chewing on tapioca pearls at the checkout counter––ignored him in favor of his phone, his thumb scrolling through an infinity's-worth of content. Sasuke remembered the aisle like he remembered the back of his hand, looking away from the piles and piles of brightly-colored, lewd covers that winked at him in the dim orange light.

A radiator hummed on. It was stark cold outside, the temperature dipping below freezing for the first time that season. Last night, he snuck into Hinata's room and held her body close to his, secretly terrified that he would not get to have that moment again. She curled into his body, kissed his cheeks, and smiled at him. When her alarm rang that morning, it was hard to let her go.

He passed the entire day in various states of anxiety. He hadn't heard from Sakura through their usual channels and he was worried. He paced the Estate with all emotion wiped from his face: he could not let anything slip, else he'd make everything worse.

Finally, Sasuke reached the section he needed. He did a quick scan of the books, his eyes glazing over the more raunchy covers that featured vulgar drawings of women with their breasts out, their hardened nipples poking through the sheer mesh, aprons, or other garments of the sort. He was grateful that Icha Icha Paradise had a less provocative cover, the one he chose featuring a woman in a red dress running away from a man in a button-down shirt. Both of their mouths were open.

Impatiently, he flipped through the book until a small piece of paper fluttered out of it. Something quieted inside of him, and he paused for a long time before he bent to retrieve it. He had been right about coming here, but that only meant that something was deeply, truly wrong.

Dog had established this place as an off-the-record rendezvous point for their team when they had first started getting to know each other. "ANBU is an organization," he said as the four of them slunk through the long aisles, blushing bashfully when they saw a raunchy cover of a woman bent over. "But you all? You're a team, and that's a real and tangible thing. If ever you need anything off record, come here. And I mean anything."

"Why would we need to come here?" Naruto said, wrinkling his nose as Kakashi started pulling books. "When we could meet at ANBU?"

"You don't understand what off the record means, dobe?" Sasuke remembered saying.

Kakashi just crinkled his visible eye, "Trust me. A time will come."

The note that had fallen from Icha Icha Paradise was written hastily on a piece of torn notebook paper, quite unlike the scratchings that had been engraved into the yen Sasuke had received what felt like years ago. No, the four of them had come up with their own secret code that was fairly easy to understand, made up of geometric symbols and lines that made for some short-hand phrases. Sasuke didn't need to think too hard to figure out what Sakura had written and left for him.

"Hey, you goin' to buy anything, man? I'm trying to close here!" The balding man called from the front of the door, his scrolling forgotten. "You better not be jerkin' off back there, you sick fuck––I call police!"

Sasuke grabbed Icha Icha Paradise and walked smoothly to the front of the store, hoping but not very confidently, that Sakura had left other clues within it. He'd be a fool to leave it behind here. He ignored the clerk's inane comment as he slid a bill across the greasy, green-speckled countertop, raising an eyebrow. He'd never been called a sick fuck before.

"You're the one who's sick. You work here," Sasuke said in a smooth tone, not letting any sort of emotion convey any sort of thing. The clerk jerked awkwardly as he handed Sasuke his change. Sasuke let it drop on the counter. "Consider that a tip."

When he exited back into the cold darkness, winter's chill was a hand around his throat. He repeated Sakura's message over and over again in his mind as he raced back to his apartment: ANBU no good. Leave now. I'm gone. ANBU no good. Leave now. I'm gone. ANBU no good. Leave now. I'm gone. ANBU no good. Leave now. I'm gone. ANBU no good. Leave now. I'm gone. ANBU no good. Leave now. I'm gone.

-:-

The next day had started strangely.

Sasuke unwound himself from her body, kissed her forehead, and slipped out of her room. He left behind a wall of darkness. Hinata remembered looking at her phone, wincing at the light of it, and falling back asleep. When she woke, she couldn't remember the time exactly, just that it had been the early hours of the day. There was no Sasuke beside her.

Her body felt heavy when she did finally find her way out of bed, her limbs like weights, and she had a terrible headache. As she gulped down water and checked her phone for messages from Sasuke, she wondered if she was getting a cold. No new messages.

At breakfast, her throat felt tight. Hanabi was humming along to a commercial jingle, which made Hinata's brain feel like it was being splintered. Ino came over shortly after Hinata finished eating and offered her drugs. She declined.

It was very cold that morning, so they sat in the sitting room, staring into the television set as they flipped through channels. Hinata thought of Sasuke in loops. She stared at her phone. Her stomach felt knotted, and she couldn't figure out why. She felt like a teenager, not a grownup, with grownup things to do and worry about. She sent him another message. It didn't go through.

At a little past two o'clock, Ino and Hinata climbed into Hinata's G Wagon to retrieve Shenji from the hospital. The ride was anything but silent as Hinata would have liked because Ino was talking about her camping trip plans. She and Shikamaru would be road-tripping to the mountains. "In the winter?" Hinata had asked, skeptically, as she turned into the sparsely populated parking lot.

"It's warmer where we're going," Ino said.

When they got to the check-in counter, a nurse with giant red glasses blinked at them in confusion, her eyes drifting from the screen to their wanting faces. "Can you repeat the patient's name again, darling?"

"Oh yes," Hinata mumbled. She told the nurse Shenji's name again. The nurse smiled embarrassedly. A gust of heavy wind hit the windows. All day had been gray.

Under her feet, the linoleum was checkered tan. The nurse clicked her tongue, gazing at the Hyuga with a frown. "I'm sorry miss...it looks like your friend checked himself out last night."

"L-last night?" Hinata stammered, confused. "E-excuse me ma'am, but how is that possible? I was told he wouldn't be ready until today."

The nurse was wearing lipstick the color of dried blood, and it contrasted with her bright glasses. She simply blinked at them, "Well, darling, things change."

"I thought patients weren't allowed to sign themselves out," Ino's tone was confrontational, a gust of wind in an otherwise quiet lobby. The nurse loudly typed on her keyboard, no longer listening. She rolled her eyes and told them that she wasn't on duty when their friend left their facility.

"He signed out, okay? There's nothing else I can do."

Hinata told Ino to come on, and they braced against the cold together, their lips pressed into thin lines. Hinata felt the dread inside of her grow. She texted Sasuke again, but again she went unanswered. Still, she typed Are you okay? Is Shenji with you? He's missing.

What she wanted to say was that seeds of suspicion were growing inside of her, and while her intentions were pure, her father's would not be.

Ino asked to drive and took them through a drive-through where she popped her gum and asked Hinata if she wanted anything to eat. Hinata said "no."

-:-

"Hinata," Neji said, as soon as he saw Ino and Hinata walk through the front door. He grabbed Hinata's arm and led her away from Ino without another word.

"––Neji?" Hinata exclaimed in surprise, her other hand coming to her chest as Ino watched them part from the doorway, her mouth slightly open as she held her styrofoam cup of soda to her chest. "You don't have to grab me s-so hard, Neji. When did you even get back?"

For the better part of the last two weeks, Neji had been away organizing and holding meetings with other parts of the Syndicate, going as far as the island Families to update them on the situation in Konoha. It was his first solo trip working directly as an Uncle and second-of-command to Hiashi. Tenten had gone with him. It was unusual for Hinata to have forgotten about such a huge trip for Neji, but things had not stopped happening enough for her to get her bearings.

She was grateful, then, that Neji would not have noticed her behavior around Sasuke like Kiba had. If Kiba had noticed...it meant that they had not been very cautious at all.

"A few hours ago," Neji said as they both went into the study. It was a little room near the front of the Estate with bookshelf-covered walls and a small desk, loveseat, and fireplace. Neji sat at the desk chair, and Hinata sat on the loveseat, looking at him expectantly. "But that doesn't matter. I wanted to talk to you about the Uchiha."

Alarm slid down her spine. Hinata sat bone-straight before relaxing, letting her posture fit into a more casual state. She let her expression settle naturally on her features, letting confusion be her guiding force throughout this conversation. If she behaved too tightly or too cold, she would give herself away. Especially around Neji. "W-what about him?"

Neji fixed his alabaster gaze on her. His hair was pulled away from his face, leaving his expression open. He'd even let a hint of worry slip through, pitching his eyebrows together as he looked at her. He gave a sharp shake of his head then cleared his throat, "I've just heard..."

Then he pivoted completely, switching gears as he sat back against the chair. He flicked his wrist to look at his watch. Hinata watched him, a frown beginning to stretch her lips downward. A burst of wind hit the windows, making her jump.

"Where's Shenji?" Neji asked then, looking up sharply. "Uncle told me you and Ino were picking him up."

"Right..." Hinata said slowly. Her heart was thundering in her chest as more alarm bells started going off. Something was not right at all. "He...he um wasn't there when we arrived. The nurse s-said he checked himself out early. I w-was just going to tell Father when you––"

"Dammit!" Neji sprang up suddenly, his ponytail like a viper at his back. Hinata jumped back when he rushed from the room, leaving his question in the air like a vex. He yanked the glass study door open, looking back at Hinata with his mouth pressed into a thin line. "If you hear from that Uchiha, let me know. Hinata––"

He broke off. Swallowed. He looked at her and looked away––and that look told her everything. He was aware of her tanglings with the Uchiha prodigy, but something, clearly, had become undone.

It was evident that Hinata needed to figure out what the fuck was going on before it got out of hand. She lept from her sitting position like it caught fire, reaching out to grasp Neji's sleeve. He was moving far too quickly, and so when he ripped his arm from hers, her body went crashing into the floor.

The desperation of her movements startled them both. For a moment they both paused to take stock of the situation: Neji with his body angled out of the door, Hinata sitting on her butt on the floor, her arm outreached. Neither of them moved, they simply stared at one another until Hinata, her mouth feeling full and underwater, politely asked Neji to tell her what was going on.

"I deserve to know, Neji," Hinata said, voice pleading. "I sit on those steps at the Affair too. I need to––" she broke off, thinking of Shenji missing from his hospital bed, and her lover not answering her texts. "I need to know what's going on. Those were my..."

Friends.

"Don't say it," Neji said, his voice the sharp edge of a knife. He eased the door shut slowly and Hinata watched him take a deep breath like he was calming himself down. He was still wearing his travel clothes: a dark sweater and dark jeans, and he had bags under his eyes. He took a slow and heavy seat back in the desk chair, rubbing his forehead. "You know I wasn't supposed to be back so early?"

"Don't c-change the subject," Hinata challenged as she too eased her way back to the loveseat. It was lavender, with tiny embroidered stitches of flowers. Aoki used to read her stories on this couch.

"I'm not," Neji grunted, casting his gaze far away, out the window, where snow began to fall. "I was called back to the Estate for an emergency. We got an anonymous tip, Hinata."

Hinata stared at him incredulously, "A-about what?"

Neji sighed as if he did not want to be having this conversation, and he closed his eyes. It took a few beats for him to open them again, and when he did, he pulled out his phone. "About the Uchiha. They're saying...they're saying he's a spy with an organization called ANBU––and they work with the feds, sometimes. He was assigned here to infiltrate the Syndicate and likely steal the Byakugan file––unsuccessful, I might add," here Neji looked at her with some significance, as if he was proud that she hadn't given that away.

But Hinata could not live in his prideful gaze when her world had brightened so suddenly and then closed around her like a fist. Wordlessly, she took Neji's phone and looked at the evidence: photo after photo of Sasuke with the pink-haired girl she remembered from the club, images of Sasuke wearing a crow-shaped mask as he walked out of a building downtown, and picture of him logging information about the Syndicate on a laptop while he sat in his car, alone, at his apartment.

Hinata handed Neji his phone back quietly. Her hands did not shake. She made no expression at all. She looked at Neji and said, "Why are you t-telling me this?"

Neji took stock of her expression, nodded hard, then gave her a tight-lipped smile. "You're a Hyuga daughter. It's your job to know."

-:-

A sort of buzzing filled her ears as Hinata made her way to her bedroom. She remembered a couple of days ago when she and Sasuke drove to the beach and watched the water lap at the shore, each brush with land like a caress. The sun was rising and pink light spilled across the sky.

"My mother used to take me to this beach actually," Sasuke said, unusually sentimental. Hinata even heard the pitch of his voice change with the effort of emotion. He pointed towards the small lighthouse and the path that went out on the water. "We'd walked up there at weird hours. Really early in the morning like this, or late at night. Super late. I think," he laughed, "she actually had an Uchiha member with her for protection at night, but I just never knew about it. We'd watch falling stars and make all kinds of wishes."

"What did you wish for?" Hinata remembered asking.

Sasuke looked at her, a smile forming, "All sorts of things kids want. Rocket ships and pets. I think once I asked for a boa constrictor––that didn't go well. But my mother's wishes are what I remember the most."

Hinata pressed him to say more. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, nudging her closer, their warmth an entire season––summer––between their bodies as they walked on a concrete path far from the sand, but close enough for them to see the waves.

"She usually wished things for me. Success, you know? Safety. Happiness. For me to always feel comfortable. Coming here...I realize that perhaps those wishes actually came true."

Hinata poked his side coyly. "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean," Sasuke said, rolling his eyes. "I think those wishes led me to you."

Hinata turned red, her face flushing pleasantly as she repeated what Sasuke was saying to her over and over in her head until Sasuke had to nudge her to get her to say something. She buried her face in his arm, smiling from ear to ear, and muttered quietly. So quiet, she could barely hear herself through her joy and her surprise: "I-I like you so much, Sasuke."

"What?" Sasuke put a hand on each of her shoulders and forced her back. "Speak up, Hyuga."

"I said," Hinata cleared her throat. "I like you so much, Sasuke!"

Then she ran off the concrete, her feet plunging into the sand as she kicked it up with the impact of her feet. It was hard and dense from the cold but that didn't deter her. Sasuke was quick behind her, wrapping his arms around her middle in seconds and catapulting them both towards the hard sand. It hurt them both, but it didn't matter. They laughed.

"Fuck," Sasuke said, sitting up. He had taken most of the fall. "Shit," he said. He took her face in his hand, holding her there in place as if afraid she would disappear. "I think I like you too."

Everything was happening too fast for Hinata to grasp. In her bedroom, she felt her knees hit her chest as she collapsed once the door closed, a sob breaking out until she sucked it back in like a punch to her sternum. She gave herself two minutes to feel complete despair.

Then she straightened up and sprang into action. There were only so many things she could think about at once. Her heart was making an orchestra out of itself, and her hands shook when she grabbed her duffle bag and began to throw things inside of it.

She wanted to feel sick with betrayal. She wanted to lay down and die and think that's it. This is it. I will never love again. But those feelings never came. Instead, she felt a twisted sense of satisfaction: some part of her knew that Shenji and Sasuke were suspicious, and some part of her knew to watch them closely.

But that hadn't stopped her from falling in love with one of them like an idiot. She loved her family, she did, but she couldn't watch them destroy one of the best things that had ever happened to her! She may have to forget about him and pretend like their relationship had never happened for the rest of her life but––she did not want Uchiha Sasuke to die.

And there it was: her soft heart. She could not let him die. She refused it, rebuked it. She could be single for the rest of eternity, as long as Sasuke lived to tell the tale. Part of her felt guilty that she wasn't thinking about the betrayal of her family, but how could she when it seemed obvious that everything about the situation––an Uchiha orphan joining a rival Syndicate––seemed taboo in the first place?

She was also, perhaps, hysterical. Her hair went this way and that as she loaded the bag with yen from under her mattress, a first-aid kit from her walk-in closet, extra sweaters, and warm clothes. As she packed, she formulated a plan in her head. It would require more time than they had and would include forged documents but...that didn't matter. She couldn't think that far into the future.

She could only think about now and how the clock was ticking. Plans were being made without her as she shoved things into the duffle bag, and with Shenji gone...the anonymous tip had been easily proven. She didn't stop packing until there came a knock at her door, disrupting all thoughts as Hinata stared in fear at her own bedroom door.

"It's me," Ino called, easing the door open. She took in Hinata's discombobulated appearance: hair in a messy bun, tear-streaked face, shaking hands, her closet emptied upon her bed and took a deep breath. "You're not...running, are you?"

"No," Hinata said, alarmed. "No! It's uh...It's n-not for me."

"Okay good," Ino let out a sigh of relief so large that it seemed inappropriate given the situation. "Because I came to help and all, but I just couldn't support that. That would be fucking stupid."

Hinata felt her hands still on the bag, "You came to...help?"

Ino nodded like Hinata was stupid. Her hair was up in its usual ponytail and her eyes were painted with luxury, but her expression was serious. "Yes, Hina, I came to help. I don't know much about the situation and I'd like to keep it that way, but...we're best friends, right? Even if I can be in my own head sometimes...I can tell when you're in love."

The statement made Hinata want to break down and cry, but Ino kept her on task, helping her finish with the packing. Once they were done, Hinata threw her arms around Ino, sinking into her blue fuzzy tracksuit, and squeezing her hard. Ino smiled tightly back and looked at each other for a long minute until Hinata said, "Should we...should we go?"

Ino nodded, "Yes. I told Neji that you're staying with me tonight 'cause I wanted you to marathon The Bachelor with me," Ino rolled her eyes at the stupid lie she'd given. "I don't even fucking like that show, but what does Neji know? Anyway, Hinata––I'll drop you off where you need to go but if I don't hear from you by like 6 am the next morning I swear to fucking God––"

"Don't worry," Hinata assured, "I'm not g-going anywhere. And the d-documents guy?"

"I shoulda never told you about him," Ino muttered coarsely. Ino had hooked up with a man a few months before she and Shikamaru were official who knew how to make counterfeit copies of almost any legal document. The Hyuga had their own people for that, but Hinata needed someone who was completely unconnected. "But fine. I'll give you his number."

Hinata wanted to make a joke about her keeping his number despite being with Shikamaru now, but she couldn't manage it. She felt like she was going to vomit up her heart. Ino took one look at her and rolled her eyes. It was a bit unfair considering that Ino would never be in this situation, and thus shouldn't be allowed to feel exasperated.

Still, Ino held her hand as they left out her bedroom door, and gently brushed the hair from Hinata's eyes when they got in the car. When she turned on the engine, she let the silence between them be enough. And she didn't ask questions.

Twenty minutes later, the dark tall of Sasuke's apartment loomed above their heads. Hinata looked up and watched the snow fall. Then she smiled at Ino and walked away.