Disclaimer: All I want for Christmas is Naruto! Naruto! Naruto!
When Hinata was only a little girl, she had dreamt of sunny fields ablaze with bright flowers. She would run in the greenest fields her mind could conjure up and look up at the bluest of skies.
In her mind, there had been no dull whites, blacks, or grays. Everything had been painfully bright and colorful and she had often wondered if such intensities could ever survive beyond the nourishing love of her created world.
It had never rained in her private paradise. She saw to it that whatever pains she had acquired in her real world would not be carried into her perfect imaginary one.
When Hinata was 10 and studying her family's techniques, her colorful world slowly dulled into pastels. She wasn't sure why it had happened. Some part of her felt that it had been the Byakugan's fault. Her reasoning had been a little sketchy, but she thought that because she could see everything so clearly with her family's bloodlimit, her world no longer required the intensity it once had before. It was too bad that she couldn't use her Byakugan inside her mind. She had missed the blaring intensity of her now watered-down fields and sky.
She had told her little sister, Hanabi about her dilemma, and because Hanabi was still too young to scoff at her older sister, but old enough to have a far too rational mind as was common in all Hyuugas (except Hinata perhaps, who still had imaginary friends and dreams of becoming a fairy princess when she got older) she told her sister that it was perhaps the side-effects of shinobi life. After all, nothing toned down life's brightness more than the brutal truth that it could very easily be snuffed up in an instant.
Hinata rolled the idea in her mind for quite some time and later decided that it made more sense than what she had originally thought. She smiled and thanked her sister for her help.
When Hinata was 12 and training at the academy, she saw the brightest gold she had ever seen riding atop a head gifted with the bluest eyes. She smiled and thanked the heavens that such colors did not simply reside in the memories of her once rainbow-like world.
It had taken her many an hours hovering just beyond the boy's peripheral vision before she finally learned of his name and his remarkable dream of being Hokage, and just as equally remarkable enthusiasm for ramen. Hinata decided, then and there, her gifted eyes focused unto a moving pillar of brightness and color that she had fallen in love.
In the strangest of moments, she found her imaginary world with the brightest of sunshine and the bluest of skies, even more so than what she remembered when she was young.
But her fields and flowers were still watered-down and she could find no way to restore their former glory. She found it sad and decided to stop visiting the fields altogether. After all, her real world was now home to the blazing image of Naruto and his golden spikes and sky blue eyes.
When Hinata was 13 and the three-man teams were being chosen, she inched a little closer to that bundle of brightness that was Naruto in the hopes that providence would put them together. When her name was called, along with two classmates she knew weren't her blonde-haired aspiration, she felt herself recoil inwards, silently seeking those perfect skies she had momentarily disregarded. She feared that those skies would be all she ever had of Naruto and his brightness.
When Hinata was 13 and training with her new teammates, she saw her Naruto (for she had taken to claiming him for herself inside her mind) joking around with his pink-haired companion, obviously uncaring of her irritated glares and snide comments. Hinata noted that despite the angry look on Sakura's face, the girl was admittedly pretty and slightly—noticeable only by Hinata's all-seeing eyes—amused with her rowdy teammate's antics.
That night, Hinata dreamed of blue skies and lush green fields filled to the brim with pink wildflowers of all shades. She woke up screaming and crying in her bed, fearing for once, that spring had finally come.
When Hinata was 15 and finally gaining her clan's approval, she looked with guarded satisfaction at the struggling pink-haired wannabe medic who passed by her training grounds on way to the Hokage's tower. She knew that Sakura was slowly wilting away, constantly burdened by the heavy downpours that Sasuke's shadow caused, and the lack of sunshine that Naruto's absence had brought about. By herself, Hinata knew that Sakura would never amount to much. The flowers were dying inside her mind and from time to time, despite the absence of the bright sunshine she so greatly missed, Hinata would lovingly pick the dying blooms and crush them in between her palms.
She never noticed the large solid tree that had planted its roots firmly into the browning grass.
When Hinata was 16 and news of Sasuke's demise came, she waited with baited breath, along with many of Konoha's inhabitants, at the wide gates for Naruto's return. She smiled, for the first time in the past three years since Naruto's absence, as she caught his weary eyes with her own. She saw shadows and darkness in the once clear orbs; so much hidden pain and unshed tears clouding her summer blue skies, but somehow she didn't mind. Being older then, wiser to the realities of life and death, of pain, suffering, and sadness, she knew that gray was a more natural color than the bright blues, pinks, and greens in her mind.
But then she had come along, even before Hinata could pull herself away from the crowd and take Naruto into her loving embrace—one that she had been saving up all her courage for to give. Sakura was there; her pink hair hacked to an impossibly short length, body thin and ragged, and eyes so green they were breathtaking. And she knew she had gasped, just as Naruto had gasped as he looked into those eyes and found something he had never thought could possibly exist. He found her lush green fields inside those eyes; large, flowerless fields that were shadowed by dark clouds and gigantic paper fans. She was there, waiting for the sun just as surely as she was waiting for the rain, not really caring if both came at the same time. She was there, weathering out whatever season came her way.
Hinata saw all these with her talented eyes and she wondered why Naruto could not find those same fields in her. She had forgotten that her fields were brown and littered with the crushed petals she had meticulously killed, one by one. Hinata's world was gray because she had let it so.
Still, she did not see the solid tree planted firmly in her barren fields, branches reaching out to the sky with something akin to familiarity. On its branches, small buds awaited their moment to bloom.
When Hinata was 23 and lying in Naruto's arms, her nose buried deep in his golden mane she smiled and told him she loved him for the umpteenth time since their relationship began. He looked at her and said the same; said he loved her too for the umpteenth time since their relationship began but his eyes held things that had never, and will never be said.
In his eyes, she saw her world reflected; her barren fields and overcast skies all washed down in the natural gray that had become her character. And for the first time since the first seed was sown, she finally noticed the large solid tree towering above and apart from her gray world, bark gnarled and far from perfect but strong and pulsating with hidden life, branches reaching far beyond her rainy clouds into the brightness of the waiting sun.
Above everything gray and water-washed, a sea of pink blossoms danced with the melancholic rhythm of the wind. They sparkled like crystals as the sunlight caressed each petal with such love that one could not bear to see them separated. And although the sun shone brightly beyond what normal summer days could ever experience, she noticed that the sky was a sad bluish-gray, the way it always was when it was about to rain.
"You love her," she said, tears finding their way into her useless eyes—useless for they had failed to see what was so blatantly displayed before them.
He nodded and brought his arms around her until there was no distinction between his body and hers. He said nothing as he kept her close, riding out her sorrowful sobs and cries.
When Hinata was 23 and crying in her love's arms, she realized she had never owned him, never had him, never will. She was living in the wrong world; one filled with sunny fields ablaze with bright flowers, with colors and intensities too beautiful to be real.
And she cried and cried as the rain clouds finally poured out. Soon, she knew, after the storm had ceased and the rain had ended, that majestic tree in her fields would grow and touch the sky and the sun would welcome it with readiness and anticipation. Because the tree needed the rain in order to grow, just as much as it needed the sun, and there was nothing it could do but wait and accept each at their own time.
Sakura was waiting.
Naruto was waiting.
Even Sasuke, covered in his rain clouds and blazing thunder, was waiting.
And Hinata knew they were all waiting for her to let go.
But the gray had seeped too deep and she feared she never would.
Author's notes: Yeah, I didn't get this one too. It's really weird and I have no idea what I want to say. But it seemed so promising when I was writing it down. Darn!
As always, I urge, no beg, plead, pray with the utmost fervency, that you guys review! Please!
Also, for those who did, thanks a lot! It's very very appreciated! Love you! Muwah! (I get sappy when I don't get reviews!)