Hinata looked at the sleeping face with a smile and stretched. She was always warm and comfortable when she woke up next to him, sometimes too warm but sharing body heat would do that. She yawned, wiggling out from him, and tucking him back in, so he didn't lose any of the heat.
She wondered at what point he started sleeping in like this. It wasn't something that he used to do when they were young. She never saw him much, but she could certainly hear him training the next set over. She, too, was always up early though it never seemed to make much of a difference. Did he give that up when he was gone, or was that something that happened after his downward spiral? She could probably safely guess that, but she wished she was wrong.
She closed the bedroom door behind her to make sure he couldn't hear her making noise in the kitchen, she did this every morning, but this morning the bedroom door caught her eye. The nursery. She sighed, looking at it with a pout to her lip. It wasn't something she wanted to think about all day. She waved a hand at it pushing it out of her head as she went toward the kitchen to make breakfast.
Sasuke woke up smelling vegetables and bread cooking and wandered toward the kitchen but found no Hinata. He scratched the back of his head. She didn't leave a note. Just as he started to panic, he heard a heavy thump from the hall.
"Ow." She whimpered.
He looked back to the nursery. What was she doing in there? He headed to the door peeking in. She had dropped something from the closet crudely placed on top of a box that she was trying to get down from the top shelf of the closet. She rubbed her forehead, looking annoyed at the offending book.
"You know you could avoid that by looking first. You see through things." He reminded her.
She turned quickly, putting her hands behind her like she had been caught doing something she shouldn't have been doing. "Sorry!" She squeaked.
"For what?" He wondered, heading into the room.
"I shouldn't be snooping." She brushed his hand down on her apron.
"It's your stuff." He reached over her pulling down the box, and holding it out to her. She hesitated to take it. "You can get into anything in this house. I'm confused why you would think otherwise."
"Well, there might be something you find private, or that was our that you aren't ready to show me yet." She mumbled, looking down at the box.
"All my memories in this house belong to you." He promised.
He watched her face darken in color.
"You want to look through it after we eat? Maybe we'll find something interesting." She nodded.
Hinata held up a stone she didn't recognize. It was flat, round, and smooth, but other than that, it didn't look like it had any meaning to it, just a river rock. Had it got tossed in here by accident?
Sasuke looked up as she had stopped talking. "Oh god, don't tell me you kept that."
She shrugged. She certainly wasn't going to remember.
He grumbled under his breath. "I guess to my embarrassment, that is a story you would enjoy on one of the lighter days of our relationship where no one made any jabs, or someone didn't spit in my face."
Hinata walked along the river, her skirt waving around her ankles as she picked up stones and brushed them off, and then tossed them in the river with no real reason. "What the hell are you doing?"
"I'm trying to skip stones. I've never really done it before." She explained finding another flat rock and tossing it, but it just sank.
"Oh, I guess I've seen Naruto do that." He watched her pick up another.
"Are you any good at it?" She wondered, tossing her stone.
"Well, it can't be that hard." He looked at the stones around him, picking up one he tossed like he had seen only to sink it.
"You have to have a flat one and angle it to skim the water." She explained, handing him a smooth rock.
He grumbled and tried again, and there splash and sink. She giggled at the face of annoyance he made. He growled, looking for another rock.
"We spent the rest of the day there until the sun went down because I was too stubborn to give up." Hinata smiled at the frown on his face at the smooth rock. "You eventually got a couple to do it, which didn't help."
Hinata gagged and turned the rock over in her hand. "It has a date on it." She held it up, along with the date it held the words 'It's the river's fault.'
His frown dropped further, and she covered her lips to hide the laugh that threatened to spill. "You're cruel."
"I didn't write it." She laughed.
"Yeah, you did, don't hide behind not remembering." He nudged her over with his foot. Her crossed legs had no balance and toppled her back, making her giggle. He crawled over to her, taking the rock and tossing it back into the box.
"Want to go skip rocks?" She asked with a hidden smile.
"No." He let his arm go and flopped down on her laying his head on her chest. She giggled and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "What do you want to do today?" He wandered into her collar bone.
She laid her head back in thought. "I don't wanna pick."
He raised his head and looked at her with an eyebrow cocked. "What?"
She pouted. "There is a cafe in town I like, and if it's still there, I want to go."
"So what the problem." He hopped up on either side of her hips and pulled her straight up by her hand, and she giggled.
"You don't like going into town. We always cause a commotion, and we already went once this week." He pulled her forward, and she leaned on him as he pinned her hands with his behind her hips.
"What if I say, screw it and take you anyway?" He asked, leaning his face down, just barely touching his nose to hers.
She suddenly felt she wanted to stay home as she breathed out with heat in her face. "Well, I can't stop you, but I made breakfast."
"Well, I'm feeling like a selfish bastard. We can go for lunch." He grinned. "So, why don't you pick out your favorite dress, and I'll show you off."
She felt the heat in her body, face raising. "Do I have a favorite dress?" Her eyes lidded, and she stood on her toes, gravitating toward him.
"Yeah, I'll pull it out if you'll let me take it off later." She squeaked, eyes shooting open to be greeted by his knowing grin. He was teasing!
She didn't fight out his grip, just buried her face with force into his chest. "I don't want to go anymore." He curled his arms around her shoulder, releasing her hand, so she fisted them in the back of his shirt.
"I was just joking. Unless, of course, you would let me." She whined. "I was joking, but I meant it. Favorite dress, favorite cafe, you can have your cinnamon coffee cake and the latte with the coconut cream in it." He twisted her back and forth, rocking her in the hug before releasing her to look at her face.
"How did you know..." She took a moment to figure it out. "We've gone there before."
"Of course, do you think I was married to you for two years and never took you out to your favorite cafe." He wondered. She opened his mouth. "I don't hate the village so much you wouldn't get to go out."
She nodded. She didn't have a counter.
"Favorite dress." He released her, and she curiously followed him to the bedroom as he dug in the wardrobe, pulling out something she didn't recognize, but it was lovely.
She touched the seam, it wasn't expensive, but it was well made and a simple gray dress.
"Where did I find this?" She wondered. She wasn't a fan of shopping for clothing. Nothing ever fit her figure, and what she did was made for her body type but not her lifestyle.
"That was a good day."
Hinata had come home with a bag from a store he didn't recognize. He hadn't meant to think much of it, but the bright color caught his attention. "What did you get?"
She lit up excitedly. "I saw my sister in the market, and she insisted we sneak off to this store." She snatched up the bag.
He raised an eyebrow. Never once had his wife ever been excited about shopping. "And?"
"I found something that fit!" She reached in the bag pulling out what looked like a flat gray dress.
He made a face at it. It looks like a nice dress, but it was a square at the top and fanned out under the hip line. Hinata was very curvy, and she never wore anything that would fit close, and he was rather sure if she fits into it, would be bursting in a few places. "You sure?" He asked, skeptical. He wasn't going to break her heart. He didn't care what she wore as long as he could see her out of it as well.
"I'll show you!" She tore off to the bedroom to change.
He waited for a few moments, amused by her excitement but curious about what had started it.
She had surprised him. It looked great on her. The odd square top came to her neck and curved tastefully over her body, fitting her chest curve. The fabric fanned out at her hip line and fell around her knees. She gave a turn of excitement, showing the dress also followed the curve of her back. What turned him on was her confidence.
She was tastefully covered. It fit her without over-tightness in her chest or looseness at the waist, it was the length she was comfortable with, and she looked so happy.
"What do you think." She asked, approaching him with a beaming smile at his unmistakable approval.
"I think you should take it off." She blushed as his head came down to kiss her. He stopped short. "You know what, leave it on."
She squeaked. "Sasuke!"
Hinata's blush was radiant across her face, and she smirked down at her laying a peck to her forehead, placing the hanger in her hand as he headed past her so she could change.
"What if it doesn't fit anymore? I lost a little weight." She frowned, holding it back out.
He frowned as he saw the opposite of what he saw that day, skittish, unsure, worried she couldn't please him. She was living in her own shadow.
He wasn't having it. "Well, we could stay in you and could wear nothing?" He hummed, purposely taking the dress back.
She turned red and pouted up at him, snatching the dress back. That was better.
"You'll look great. Look at it. It's an odd shape. You make it look good." He gave her a heavy tap on the nose before making his way out.