Disclaimer: Nope! Not mine!
This chapter has drama enough to be worthy of an episode in a telenovela. Beware! You have been forewarned!
When Hinata musters up enough courage, it is a sunny Sunday afternoon. She is pushing a half-filled cart; colorful packets and cartons of instant ramen and fresh milk (she's checked the expiry dates twice and made sure they are far enough to be consumed without spoiling) stacked patiently with a housewife's grace, sway softly to the rhythm of her steps.
She stops. She sees pink hair and an all too short skirt she personally believes is distasteful. It frightens her how spiteful she sounds inside her mind and bites her tongue before the venom seeps out.
Sakura breaks the awkward silence Hinata had been wallowing in for the last ten seconds. She's only just realized that the white-eyed girl had been standing in limbo further down the aisle. She readily waves and greets the new comer. Hinata remembers to breathe.
"Good morning, Hinata-chan" Sakura calls amicably when Hinata's cart pulls to a stop just inches from her own. She stops her perusal of the shelves and faces the quiet girl with a ready grin, her hand slyly placing her newly chosen product behind a box of cereals in her cart. Hinata's eyes follow her hand silently but says nothing. When she sees Hinata's purchases, the medic nin raises an eyebrow in mock sarcasm and proceeds to tease.
"Shopping for Konoha's number one loudmouth again, I see." Sakura smiles again.
Hinata feels like she's been blinded. She wants Sakura to stop smiling the way she's doing, so readily and carefree, and loath though she may admit it, so very prettily indeed. There is an unnatural feeling inside her hoping sorrow and disaster on the unknowing girl. Again, she bites her tongue.
Sakura reads the flash of distaste and anonymity easily enough though from her companion's milky eyes. She wonders when Hinata will finally learn the art of hiding her emotions properly. She's a little too old in this lifestyle to be making the same mistakes.
Sakura decides to cut her some slack. "Funny thing, us meeting here of all places. I haven't congratulated you yet, have I?" She takes the few steps and is beside Hinata all of a sudden. Sakura hides her smirk at how startled Hinata seems at the sudden intrusion. She can see the girl's hand twitching by her side, probably looking for a kunai pouch where there is nothing but air and a flowery summer skirt now. Sakura's own pouch is still strapped readily on her thigh.
"Ah-yes," Hinata stutters, realizing her rude behavior a little too late. She takes Sakura's proffered hand and shakes it, straining to keep her grip light and friendly. She knows that Sakura is stronger than her in any case. It would be stupidity to provoke the Gondaime's apprentice, especially when she is being a gracious loser. That last thought brings a smile to her face.
Sakura grins in response, although she has some idea as to what Hinata's thinking. She decides to play dumb instead and continues the conversation. "So, it's Uzumaki-san now, isn't it? I'm sorry I wasn't able to attend the ceremony. My mission was extended and I was unable to return in time. I heard from Ino-chan though that it was a very beautiful wedding."
Hinata smirks but mellows it out into an accommodating smile before Sakura notices the shift. She nods in understanding and puts a reassuring hand over Sakura's. When she speaks, it is soft, polite and graceful, the way the old unimposing Hinata used to be.
"It was beautiful, yes. I'm only sorry that you had not been able to attend. Naruto-kun had been looking forward to sharing his happiest day with his teammate but neither of us can fault you for doing what is expected of you. You are indeed a loyal kunoichi of Konoha."
She feels Sakura's grip tighten a millisecond before the girl retrieves her hand from her own and lets it dangle loosely at her side.
"Yes, well, when duty calls, I answer," Sakura replies with an airy tone. She brushes her hand through her hair, now long and lustrous, as it had been in her younger days, and Hinata eyes her with a certain degree of grudging envy as the fingers glide easily through pink silken strands. Naruto had said something about those strands. Those fingers as well. Hinata wants nothing more than to chop both off. Instead, she seethes silently.
A discomfited pause blooms between them, Sakura with her hand toying through her hair, Hinata with her eyes willing the girl in front her to die and disappear. Suddenly, Hinata feels the world compressing, shelves upon shelves of women's products standing as condemning witnesses to her irrational jealousy. She wants to move away but Sakura is eyeing her with that questioning gaze as if she knows Hinata has not yet said her peace. "She's waiting," Hinata thinks, "She knows and she's waiting."
Sakura coughs and the aisle in nothing more but an aisle of grocery products once more. "Well, are you looking for any particular product?" Sakura says, moving back towards her own cart.
Hinata perks up at the question. She answers readily and with a certain amount of pride she had never had, even after mastering the Kaiten just last spring. "Yes. I'm in need of a pregnancy test, actually. It's a bit early to check with the byakuugan but I've been having symptoms as of late. I'm too excited to wait though, so here I am."
Sakura's eyes widen for a moment but her features melt into one of easy and genuine happiness at the news. Hinata is shocked and a little off-balanced. She had thought the news would press Sakura's loss more deeply than the wedding had. She had thought Sakura would stop smiling at last.
"I'm glad," Sakura says, though her voice is somewhat soft and cautious. She swallows the tears without effort but keeps her solemn tone. "Naruto deserves it, I mean, you both do. He needs a family. You have my congratulations, Hinata-chan. Really, I am happy for the both of you."
Hinata almost chokes. She can feel the sadness rolling off of Sakura in waves and yet she cannot bring herself to be happy about it. There is a familiar longing there she had been too used to as a child and a selfless love that she had long ago forgotten. Sakura was genuinely happy for them. Just as surely as she is willingly killing herself inside at this moment.
Guilt claws tightly at her chest and the aisle begins to pulse inward once again, as if condemning her for the girl's plight. But Hinata refuses to buckle and instead clings on to the one sure feeling she has in regards to Sakura—anger.
"And you," she seethes, pent-up venom finally oozing out through her crisp polite words, "I see you're here for a reason as well. Although I doubt it's the same as mine." Hinata eyes her with condescending eyes so much sharper than Neji's had ever been.
Sakura stares at her, mildly shocked, but nods embarrassedly in answer. "Ran out of a few herbs. I suppose there's nothing wrong with the way civilians do it, though." Her laugh is strained but she struggles to keep the mood light and un-confrontational. She'd really rather just turn tail and run but Hinata is glaring daggers at her for some apparent reason. She doesn't want a fight, most certainly, but she'd rather the two of them got rid of the bad blood hovering between them before it affects someone else.
Sakura keeps still, her knuckles growing white at the tightness of her grip on her cart's handle bar. She's resolved to hold down the fort until she's weathered Hinata's storm.
"How many now, Sakura-san? I don't mean to be rude but the rumor mill has been spinning and Naruto-kun is more than disturbed by them. I'd rather he got the actual count from the horse's mouth, just so there's no doubting his precious teammate's innocence."
Green eyes narrow in barely contained rage. Beneath Sakura's fingers, the handle has cracked. "Not to be rude as well but I believe it is none of your business, neither yours nor Naruto's." Sakura's resolve had been flushed down with her patience. She didn't think Hinata could go so low. "My personal life has nothing to do with you."
Sakura turns her cart in sharp jerky motions and walks away, the sharp clacking of her heels punctuating the indignant anger she feels. Hinata's voice stops her before she can turn the corner and breathe safely again.
Hinata's gaze is locked unto Sakura's tense shoulders, digging holes with sheer will. She isn't through yet. "It has everything to do with me, Sakura-san," she hisses, her voice low and menacing and Sakura cannot help but cringe at how accusing it sounds, "especially when my husband murmurs your name in his sleep, screams it reverently when he comes inside me, recites it like a prayer even in the most mundane situations."
Hinata's voice rises to a shrill scream, her biting words boring down on Sakura like an inescapable rain of senbon needles. "Do you know how that feels? To know that the man you love only clings to you because the one he loves has shun him for the sake of casual sex with random men she picks up from the streets? What kind of painful humiliation I go through whenever he tells me he loves me but his eyes flicker towards your form over my shoulder? What kind of hell it is to devote everything I have to him and still be unable to surmount all that you are in his eyes?"
Sakura can feel the spikes in Hinata's chakra pattern, can feel the anger and contempt like the palpable heat, can hear the girl's harsh breathing and broken sobs. At that moment, it hits her without mercy.
She hadn't known. Oh god, she hadn't known. What could she say? She doesn't know anything at all.
Sakura turns slowly, her body laden with so much uncertainty and newfound mistakes that it hurts to even face Hinata's contemptuous stare. "I-I"
"Save your apologies, whore. It does none of us any good!"
Sakura's hackles rise and before she could stop herself, she had traversed the distance between them and had pushed Hinata up against one of the shelves. Hinata's chokes as she struggled for breath brings Sakura enough presence of mind to put the girl down carefully and take a step back. Hinata leans back on the shelves, winded, still gasping, but the anger in her eyes had not wavered at all.
Sakura is stunned into silence, Hinata goading her on with her glare. Sakura feels as though she were the one being choked and no amount of struggle could take the crushing fingers away from her throat. She stutters, stops, reaches out towards Hinata but recedes back to her space when her hand is slapped away. For the first time in so many years, she truly wants to cry.
"I don't know what to say," she begins, her voice cautious and her eyes lingering shamefully on her twisting fingers. She cannot meet Hinata's heated gaze. "I have nothing to say, to make it all right again. Tell me what you want me to do. I don't- no-I can't live like this knowing it's hurting you so much…"
Sakura sobs into her hands, pushes all the weakness in like she had done so many times in the past, but for some odd reason, the tears refuse to stop. "Please, Hinata. I need to make it right. What do you want me to do?"
Everything is bearing down on her and she finds it difficult to keep upright. Sakura falls, half-clinging unto Hinata's thin arms for strength the girl isn't willing to give, and slides down to her knees. She's sobbing silently, trying so desperately to hold everything in and keep herself whole but the breaking doesn't stop. She holds on tighter, uncaring if her fingers have dug half-moons into Hinata's skin, willing her to say something- anything to lessen the burden.
Hinata looks at her with a mixture of disgust and pity. She doesn't deign to push away from Sakura's bruising hold. Instead, she looks up, her milky eyes misting until the concrete ceiling of the grocery store is nothing more than a grayish haze. The tears fall and she lets everything fade away from her gaze.
"Tell me why. You can't possibly still love that traitor….and after everything Naruto's done for you," Hinata whispers after an eternity, her voice strangely peaceful despite her earlier outburst. She feels Sakura cringe against her but says nothing of it.
"You should know…," Sakura begins, her eyes locked unto the ground, "how I feel about him."
Hinata nods. She's known that for a while now but she knows she won't be satisfied until she forces the words out of Sakura herself. She needs to know she isn't the only one hurting in this haphazard relationship. But seeing her there; Naruto's perfect kunoichi sadly broken and fragile on her knees, she cannot find the consolation she had been so desperately searching for.
"Then why?"
"Between us, there's a hole that cannot be filled…like two sides of a puzzle, a lock cut at the center," Sakura looks up, her green eyes begging Hinata to see into her and understand.
Hinata shakes her head in reply. "No, I don't. I can't."
"I cannot make him happy!" Sakura screams, "I can't fill in that space between us! When we're together, the emptiness becomes so pronounce, like a gaping hole pulling us both in, encompassing everything we are. He will only get hurt! Oh gods, I love him too much to see him suffer silently every time we're together. Sasuke's there, haunting us both, condemning us for his betrayal as well as his own. Can't you see? I can kill him, just by being there, always a reminder of what we've lost, what could've been. I am his failure!"
Hinata pushes Sakura back, her eyes blazing with renewed indignation. She holds Sakura's arms in place and forces her tear-streaked eyes to meet her own. "And you think that justifies what you have done, pushing him away and replacing him with men that mean nothing to you, that cause you no pain?" Hinata shakes her; is somewhat surprised at the power in her arms but continues until she sees that Sakura has digested all she's said. "Because Naruto is your failure too, isn't he? He reminds you of everything wrong in your life just as surely as your remind him of his! The only difference is that he isn't a coward like you!"
"What do you want me to say to that?" Sakura replies, all the fight gone from her voice. "I am a coward. I don't deserve him."
"Is that it? Is that all?"
"I had hoped-I had hoped that he would find happiness in you," Sakura admitted. "I knew you loved him…I thought it would be enough to fill his half of the emptiness. I thought you could save him."
The sting of Hinata's hand buzzes through her cheek like a bolt. Sakura falls on her haunches; staring in surprise at Hinata's heaving form, arm still raised at her side.
"Don't you dare put the blame on me! I have given him everything! Everything! I have forgiven him all his faults, even those concerning you! Do I not deserve happiness as well? Isn't that enough to win his love from you?"
Sakura's listless laugh startles them both and Hinata's anger deflates into nothingness. Suddenly she feels so tired, like she'd been fighting a losing battle and had finally lost, but at such a cost that she wished she had given up from the very beginning. She falls on her back and leans her head against stacks of sanitary napkins. Across from her, she sees a broken doll, too far gone to ever be mended again.
"When I sleep with other men, I imagine it's him." A sigh escapes from Sakura's lips and her voice becomes even softer, as if she were confessing her deepest secret. "For a few seconds, when I'm blind and deaf and senseless, I can't feel the emptiness and I imagine that it's him with me and for once…we are free from Sasuke."
Hinata watches dispassionately as Sakura hugs herself tightly, curling into herself as if to hide from the world. "I live for those few seconds now. What kind of an existence is that?" she confesses. She laughs again and everything falls silent and empty once more.
Hinata runs a hand through her own short locks, makes quick work of arranging them into place then proceeds to clean her face with a handkerchief. It doesn't take Sakura a second look to know it's Naruto's.
When she's done, she's composed herself enough to keep her voice and tone mostly flat; even slightly conversational, and Sakura's skin prickles at the sound. "He does the same with me. When he calls out your name, I imagine you're both in the same place."
Hinata's smile is sardonic yet oddly comforting to Sakura. "It's like he's cheating on me but not. He doesn't remember it though…..or maybe he's just gotten better at lying."
Sakura chuckles. "He can't lie," she replies outright and a silent agreement passes between them when Hinata laughs as well. They could at least agree on one thing. It is a welcome reprieve to them both.
"So," Sakura begins as she pushes herself off of the floor and steadies her footing. She makes a gesture towards the other girl but pushes down the urge and instead holds her hands to her sides. She knows Hinata won't take her help.
"What now?" she finishes lamely, her voice trailing off with the burden of uncertainty.
Hinata stands as well, though more gracefully and with a newfound resolve Sakura cannot help but admire. Hinata's eyes are solid and steadfast; Sakura's gaze wavers and settles on the girl's collarbone instead. A simple silver band held by a thin chain glints teasingly at her. An engagement ring. She can see Naruto's childish hand carving out the couple's names on the underside of the ring.
Her heart stops for a second. It is with dismay that she realizes she's still alive.
The creak of Hinata's cart brings Sakura back from her daze. She focuses to see Hinata slowly passing her, pushing her cart past her unmoving form. When they are side-by-side, Hinata pauses but doesn't look her in the eye. Silently, Sakura is thankful.
Hinata's voice is quiet but firm, the underlying threat ringing clearly in Sakura's sensitive ears. "Keep away from our family. I don't ever want to see you again."
And with that, Hinata leaves Sakura behind by the shelves. Vaguely, she realizes the girl has slumped down to the floor once but more she finds neither satisfaction nor pity in the thought.
Her bags filled with colorful packets and cartons of instant ramen and fresh milk, she steps out of the store and is blinded by warm light. Outside, it is a sunny Sunday afternoon.
Author's notes: This chapter sucks! I hate it! I really do! I just might hate it enough to actually bother editing it again, depending of course on your comments! So wink wink! R&R already! But seriously speaking, I hate it but it's a necessary evil. I think I needed to get the problem out in the open and as Hinata said, "It's better to get it straight from the horse's mouth!" Poor Sakura though. Don't like it when she's being weepy but again, a necessary evil! The pains of authorhood! Oh! Three guesses on what naughty Sakura was buying! Hehe!