AN: Not that anyone reads this, but this chapter was postponed because last week I had Streetpainting Festival on Saturday, and on Sunday I worked on artwork due that week for maybe 8 hours straight.
Beta: Kim and Madi
Review Reply:
Tig Jones: I want you to know that while I think your analysis was wonderful, you're still missing a piece of the puzzle. :smile: You'll see, but not this chapter.
saturnova: Let's just say she wants to confirm her suspicions.
Happy List: Tig Jones, Dead Fairytales, Ah-choo, saturnova, and Hell Devil
Koi – Ornamental fish usually kept in ponds. They come in a wide variety of colors.
Soba – Japanese buckwheat noodle.
Chapter 6 – Portraits of the Past
"Who are they, Hinata?"
Hinata pulled away and stared at Akina, mortified. She was asking. She was actually asking…
"Why did you take it?" Hinata mourned aloud, feeling lost. "It's…that's…"
"It was really important," Akina urgently annunciated, taking a step forward to make up for Hinata's step back.
"I don't want to talk about this," Hinata replied, stopping her hand before it could touch the paper in the sun. It was only a doodle, right? She started to walk away.
"Wait-" Akina gasped, grabbing a hold on the back of Hinata's school jacket, yanking it to turn her around. Hinata leaned into the force of the spin and easily knocked off the offending arm with one palm. Then she stopped moving and curled inwards.
It wasn't just that. It was everything. There's no place like home.
"Don't touch me," Hinata cried, sliding onto the grass and bringing her hands up to cradle her face. Akina stood there for a moment before she wilted and drooped onto the grass as well.
"It's okay, everything's going to be okay," she tried, digging out a tissue and pressing it to Hinata's fingers. Hinata sniffled sadly into it. When one of Hinata's hands dropped, she placed the sketch paper into it. There was quiet now, a kind of intense silence brought on by two people trying to fit into a too-small space.
"I shouldn't have done this," Akina admitted. She made to leave, as though would somehow fix things, but Hinata's voice stopped her.
"This…This…This is Nariko-chan, here and here," she pointed out in a petal-soft tone, her finger on the paper. Akina froze, instantly hypnotized. "Her favorite things are the swing set in the garden and the koi in the pond. She loves soba and wants to be a bird when she grows up."
Hinata paused, and her fingertips brushed another face. "This is Neji-kun. He doesn't talk much, but he brings me flowers back from his missions sometimes. And this…this is…"
"Naruto," Akina breathed, savoring the memory renewed. Hinata slowly raised her head and met with Akina's eyes. Akina extended her hand and gripped Hinata's.
"We haven't been properly introduced," she explained. "My name is Uzumaki Sakura."
oo
Akina leapt onto the phone before the first ring even ended and whipped it up to her ear.
"Hinata?" she prompted.
"No," the voice on the other end of the line replied, sounding hesitant. "This is your mother. Akina-listen-"
Akina replaced the phone on its hook. When it started to ring again, she let Kado pick it up.
"Hello?...Mom. She did? I'll talk to her about it…right," Kado said, glancing at Akina through the doorway. "I know, I know…okay. Love you. Bye."
Akina rolled over onto her bed to glare at her brother as he shuffled in and plopped down next to her.
"She loves you, you know," he sighed. "She hasn't seen you in a year and a half and you still won't talk to her."
"She's not my mother anymore," Akina retaliated.
"She'll always be our mom," Kado said. He dragged his fingers through his hair and huffed in frustration. "It's not like she killed Dad, Akina."
"She may as well have," Akina snapped. "Just shut up, Kado. Get the hell out of my room."
"It's my apartment," he replied coolly. "And if you tell me to shut up again, you're going home."
He left anyway and returned to his own room. Sounds of tapping on the keyboard resumed a minute later. The phone rang again. This time, Akina slowly stretched out and plucked the phone from its cradle.
"May I please speak to Akina-san?" Hinata's voice asked nicely.
"You can call me Akina-chan or Sakura-chan if you like," Akina answered, feeling a rush of warmth for the bond they now shared. She could almost feel Hinata's hopeful smile over the phone.
"Okay, Sakura-chan."
"Listen, Hinata-chan, I've been thinking…we need to find the others, right? And you can draw, right?"
"Yes."
"Well, apparently our school is hosting an art show. So the easiest way to find out if anyone else goes to our school is for you to enter a picture of someone we know. Who would you say was the most well-known Konoha shinobi? Tsunade-sama? Naruto?"
"I remember Naruto's face best," Hinata offered.
"Okay. Would you mind doing a portrait?"
"Not at all. I want…home. If this is the best way…"
"It should work," Akina mused. "Don't worry, Hinata. We'll find them."
oo
Hinata hung up the phone and hugged herself, bursting with newfound hope. Sakura had promised to help. She hummed to herself as she washed the dinner dishes.
The door banged open and Hinata jumped. Hanako stumbled in, a bottle of vodka clutched in one clammy hand, and started bawling out a sad love ballad in a nasal wail that would have made a banshee cringe. Hanako mournfully puddled into a kitchen chair and emptied most of the bottle into the glass Hinata had left out for her, pulling the full dinner plate (also courtesy of Hinata) towards her as she did so.
"C'mere, Hina'achan," she slurred. Hinata obediently sat down across from Kanaye's mother.
"Don't drink any more of that," Hinata pleaded. "You need a good night's sleep, and you're going to be sick in the morning already judging by how much of that bottle is empty. It's late, Nikkou-san."
"Lemme tell you a bedtime shtory," Hanako continued, immune to Hinata's logic. "Onceuponatime, inna galas-glala…place far, far, away, there was a beyoooutiful young nurse, fresh outta college. She fell in love wif a haaansome young doco-docot…surgeon."
Hanako stopped to nurse her glass of vodka and roll her head in her hands. Once she was sure her neck would indeed support her head, she remembered her story.
"Anyways, they fell in loooove…yeah….love – "
Hanako paused again to allow a dreamy smile to float across her face.
"Love?" Hinata wondered quietly, her own secret smile flitting across her lips through her worry.
"Love," Hanako reassured her. "An' everyfing was good for a while. But then-then – the surgeon told th' beyoooutiful nurse that his wife had foun' out – an' the nurse didn' evenknow tha' he had a wife. That bas'ard…asshole. He loved his wife more than her. An' the nurse – she had accidenally got pregnant by then an' – but she had him. The baby. An' the surgeon went away wif his wife an' lived happily ever after."
Hanako was weeping by now, dinner forgotten, bent into a strange, sad heap on her cracked kitchen chair.
"Happy Anniversary," she crooned, downing the rest of the glass. Then Hanako lost her balance and collapsed onto the tile, twisted and broken.
Hinata had gotten down to help Hanako to her bed when Kanaye materialized out of the hall shadows. He knelt next to his mother and softly smoothed her hair away from her face.
"I'm sorry," Hinata started nervously. "It was none of my business, I should've left – or something – and I'm sorry about your father – and – "
Kanaye stopped her with a look: the dark, protective, quiet kind.
"I don't have a dad," he said. "Just a mom."
Hinata helped him carry his mother to the master bedroom, where they tucked her into the sheets and let her sleep.
oo
Hinata looked up when the man with the white Anbu mask hopped in through the kitchen window. She and Sakura stopped their chat and left their jasmine tea to cool.
"Did Naruto leave already?" he asked.
"Yes," Sakura answered curiously. "An hour ago. Why?"
"I was told to relay a message to him," he replied. "But not to follow him if he'd already left, because that would be too dangerous."
Neji removed the mask and faced Hinata. "A messenger just arrived in the village – "
Hinata awoke to the sound of shoes clomping on linoleum tile. She rolled over and faced the kitchen, instantly alert, but it was only Kanaye. Her eyes fell on the clock. Wait…four in the morning?
She rolled back over, waiting for him to come badger her awake, or drop water on her head, but it never came. Puzzled, Hinata sat up when she heard the front door open and close.
Where was he going at this hour? Hinata began to fidget when she remembered all the news articles she'd been reading recently, the ones about people murdered in dark alleyways and kids caught in drive-by shootings. Then she got up, quickly dressed, and left the apartment to follow him.