A/N: I was actually a little sick of the metaphor myself. In anycase, more (subtle) Neji/Hina...can't get enough of em!
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Disclaimer: Nothing's mine.
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As Hyuga Neji got older, he couldn't understand why it was so necessary to label people (never mind that he had done it so much himself).
He had grown tired of the bird-in-a-cage and bird-in-the-air metaphors that had been applied to himself and Hinata all their lives.
As if life as a Hyuga wasn't bad enough. Do they have to categorize you into what kind of life as a Hyuga you had as well?
Sometimes, people didn't even have the decency to whisper it out of earshot and it would only cause his cousin to give him a fleeting glance and then suddenly look away, embarrassed and—if one looked closely enough—angry. Unfortunately, it took him years to see the latter.
It was an overused metaphor and—although he'd have agreed with it not too long ago—mostly just wrong.
Time changed people and made them see a lot more than they ever could have seen before.
The bird in the air had a cage also,except her cage moved with her everywhere she went. Moreover, it was invisible, to everyone else but herself, and only recently had the boy started to see it for himself.
Eyes that could see everything had failed him for too long.
Now, however, those eyes saw it all and told him all, including what was to come. It wasn't all sunshine and glory and happy endings, very little of it actually was.
However, there was some sunshine, and a gentle breeze.
Despite her own cage, she would free him, he knew. With her eyes and with her smile.
In truth, she was very close to having done it too, perhaps entirely subconsciously. In any case, he awaited it, and not just for himself
Because afterwards, and only afterwards—for he knew it would take more to free Hinata than a swift glance which was in truth, full of feeling, and a smirk disguised as an honest smile—he would do the same for her.
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free me and I'll free you back
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Fin.