AN: I'm pretty pissed off at right now, mostly because if you search for my pen name, it says I don't exist. Also, it says this story doesn't exist if you look through the Naruto section. I think the second problem will be fixed with this update, but still… argh.

This chapter contains some fluff. Be satisfied.

Beta: Kim and Madi

Happy List: Quile and Princess Krystal01

Chapter 3 – Echo and Bloom

Kanaye blamed it on Hinata when he had to rush to the bathroom to puke in the toilet that morning. After all, she was the one with the mental issues.

The real question was why Sorano had suddenly decided to become "Hinata." Kanaye woozily wandered around the apartment, miserably anticipating the moment when the Advil would kick in. Where was "Hinata," anyway? And where was his mom?

-

Midori's was not a well-known restaurant, but it was cheap, and the food was okay.

Nikkou Hanako, illustrious mother of Kanaye and hardworking nurse, leaned back in the squeaky plastic seat and thoughtfully studied the chestnut-haired girl across from her. Hinata was certainly not Sorano – not this girl who dusted the dressers, cooked up curry, and flinched with the feeling of eyes on her.

'I wonder if Sorano has multiple personality disorder?' Hanako mused internally. 'I've never heard of a kind of amnesia that replaces one personality with another, though.'

"Hmmm," Hanako murmured, and smiled brightly at Hinata's attempts to melt into the floor.

"U-um," Hinata stuttered.

"Did Kanaye do anything? To you?" Hanako asked, raising an eyebrow and brushing her long hair behind her shoulders.

"No," Hinata replied truthfully.

"Oh good," was Hanako's cheery response. "So you're not friends with benefits."

At this, Hinata choked and glanced up into Hanako's half-closed eyes. Hanako laughed like a mouse, her face all scrunched up. If she had whiskers, they would be twitching.

"You're so cute," Hanako giggled.

Hinata wanted to say something, but she couldn't think. She hadn't been called cute since she was five years old, and even then only by her mother. As she stared at Hanako a gradual change overcame the older woman, and the easy grin dropped into a straight line.

"I'll be honest, Hinata-chan. I didn't drag you in here just to chat with an old lady. I have a business proposition."

-

Somewhere else, someone dreamed.

"Hinata likes me," he said, feet swinging precariously over the edge of the cliff, right over the stone head of the 4th Hokage. "She told me today. Then she ran away before I could say anything."

Sakura briefly pondered where Hinata had gotten the courage. Maybe the buildup of all those unrequited years finally broke the dam.

"She's afraid of rejection," Sakura replied unthinkingly. She haphazardly lay back and looked at the sky.

"Why?" Naruto asked. "I like Hinata."

Ever the innocent. Still, Sakura couldn't help but feel a little irritated. Sasuke hadn't been so open.

Rather, maybe she just wished Sasuke hadn't been so open.

Sakura remembered the day he'd asked her. It was cloudy, without rain, and they were returning from a tough two-member mission. On that day, she had been limping, and Inner Sakura had dearly hoped that Sasuke, despite his appearance of health, was in just as much agony as she. Misery and fraternity forever.

He had stopped walking, and turned around to face her. He glanced back and forth, shifting weight imperceptibly from foot to foot.

"Sakura."

She had stared at him, her comrade and traitor, her love and regret. His eyes were like the dark glass of volcanoes.

"Do…do you remember the pledge I made all those years ago?" he asked haltingly, as if trying to breach a difficult subject.

"Yes. 'To kill a certain man,'" Sakura deadpanned. Her eyes had been half closed, she was tired of fighting off the weariness. She was almost asleep.

"I…made a second pledge as well," he added, rousing Sakura out of her numb state. "I pledged…to restore my clan. I would have you…help me."

Somehow, this didn't live up to the fossilized fragments of kisses she had tucked away in her heart. And it hurt for it to be this way. She sniffled roughly and pawed at swollen red eyes, wondering why her face was so wet. It was her leg wound, she told herself, it ached horribly.

She had asked him to let her think on it, and they had left it at that.

"So should I…ask Hinata out? Like on a date?" Naruto asked her, shaking Sakura out of her reverie. "Isn't that what you're supposed to do?"

"It has to be what you want to do," Sakura softly explained. "You don't have to."

His eyes were the sky and the wind made the ends of his headband and hair like black and yellow feathers. She almost smiled, because he was a bird: he flew free of many of the brambles of society on the wings of a dream, all because society wanted no part of him. And she, with her green, secret earth eyes, envied him just a little for it.

"Would I have to kiss her?" Naruto queried cautiously. "I don't think I'd be any good; I haven't practiced. The only one I ever kissed was Sasuke, and he doesn't count."

"If she lets you," Sakura shrugged, sitting up and searching the panorama spread out before them for the real question. It was springtime.

"What's with you?" Naruto grumbled, shifting side to side with studied tension. "All quiet and stuff. You got gas or something?"

Sakura laughed and laughed, because he was so ridiculous, and she felt giddy with a budding feeling, and she said –

"You're such a! You're an idiot – you're so stupid, Naruto – I could just – "

He tasted warm when she kissed him.

Cherry blossoms bloom in the spring.

-

Hinata slumped in her seat, transfixed on what Nikkou-san was saying.

"I'll let you live with us, and I'll even support your education," Nikkou Hanako firmly proposed. "The catch is that you cook and clean. And, if you suddenly turn back into Sorano, I reserve the right to kick you out."

Well, it wasn't as if there were any other options. When Hanako stuck out her hand, Hinata took it.

"Now for my part of the bargain," Hanako said. "We're going to the orphanage to pick up your transcript and enroll you in Kanaye's school, alright?"

"Thank you," was Hinata's timid response.

-

A dream continued, the echo of a past.

"And then! And then!" Naruto exclaimed, loudly enough for people in the street to turn and glare at the misfit duo. He was tall and lithe and deft with his hands as he swept them through a demonstration of his latest victory with wildly punctuating fingertips. Sakura reached only to his shoulder, berating him in an equally loud, if not equally obnoxious, tone of voice as he almost bumped into wall after wall of people.

He still walked backwards right into somebody. But today that wasn't what pissed off Uchiha Sasuke, Sakura belatedly realized. Despite Naruto's inherent clumsiness around other people and its tendency to get him in trouble, Sakura sensed that Sasuke was angry because she and Naruto were holding hands. He said nothing, but a shadow of madness darkened his black eyes and he stood like an anchor against the sea of people. This was what made Naruto understand, coupled with his longtime association with the Uchiha heir.

Sasuke disappeared without even a puff of smoke, leaving Naruto and Sakura in stunned silence. They grew quiet amid the bustle of the crowd, stranded in a precarious new situation. It felt a bit like looking over the cliff into the abyss – to Sakura, anyway.

Naruto walked Sakura home. They treaded alone together, through the uncomfortable quiet. He left her on her doorstep and stooped to kiss her goodbye. She stopped him with a finger.

"Don't fight him," she warned.

"Okay," Naruto agreed.

A few of her fears eased, Sakura drew him down to her parted lips.

The next day, Naruto dropped by, bruises and band-aids decorating him, his arm carefully arranged in a sling, his eye swollen, and his lip split, complete with an easy grin ready for her.

"We worked things out," he explained.

"He broke your arm!" was Sakura's heated reply.

"That's nothing," Naruto said. "I broke his nose."