Title: In Your Eyes
Genre: Romance / Humor
Rating: K
Pairing: Shino x Hinata
Spoilers: N/A
Summary: We are all fools in love.
Word Count: 2,043
Warnings: Set some time during Naruto's training. 5x1
Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine. Summary is a quote from Pride & Prejudice.
A/N: Shino doesn't get enough love.
1.
The first time Shino had noticed Hyuuga Hinata was his first day at the Academy. Everyone was so loud and energetic, running and yelling and striving to make new friends and show off their small, childish skills. Only four people in the room were quietly observing. Uchiha Sasuke, Nara Shikamaru, himself…
… and Hinata.
She was the only girl not clamoring for attention or making a fuss. She was just standing off to the side, her wide, lavender eyes focused on Uzumaki Naruto with the rapt attention only a five year old can have.
Shino wondered what he would have to do to get her to look at him like that. He tries to speak to her, to make himself be noticed. But when he tries to cross the room to where she is standing off to the side, looking uncertain and scared, he trips over his coat and falls to the floor.
It is weeks before he can bring himself to look at her again.
2.
It turns out that that fates decide to make them teammates and Shino thinks that now, surely, he'll be able to garner up enough courage to at least speak to Hinata without the buffer of his collar in the way. But no, he's too settled in his ways, too unsure about small talk and the art of conversation, too drowned out by Kiba's loud barking. And Hinata is too shy, too perfect, too in love with Naruto. Whatever the blond had done to deserve that. Maybe it was the simple fact that he didn't have bugs crawling through his veins. For some people, most people, that was enough.
So the years pass, exams and missions whiz by in a blur. And all Shino manages to do is fall more and more in love.
He loves the way she's so delicate with everything she touches. A handful of flowers in her hands is braided into a crown without a single petal falling. Young fledglings fallen from their nests are returned unruffled and calm, the mother birds even perching on Hinata's shoulder as she helps. She holds a kunai as artfully as an artist holds a paintbrush, all long fingers and supple wrists.
He loves the way she smiles, soft and unsure, oftentimes surprised by their own depth of friendship with her teammates. He loves watching it grow on her face like a bud blooming, until it lights up everything and her eyes crinkle closed in happiness.
He loves her laugh, as bright and ringing as a bell. He loves her midnight hair and her porcelain skin. He loves her kindness: kind to friends, to family, to strangers, to stray dogs, to anyone. There's not a person in the world Hinata couldn't win over with her kind heart and pure spirit.
And he loves her eyes. Those pools of swirling milk. Even without her Bloodline trait, he knows that she could see right through him, if she tried.
But Hinata, who is so many things that Shino idolizes and worships and loves, but she is also naïve. She loves Naruto, loves him in the brilliant, fierce way that Sakura loves Sasuke. And, at times, Shino can even see why. Naruto s brimming with life and laughter and fortitude. He's everything the spirit of fire embodies in human form. He holds no grudges, holds his friends closer to his chest than his own heart. But sweet, naïve Hinata can't see Shino, who is right beside her every day. Shino, who notices Hinata even when Naruto does not, because Naruto is too busy chasing Sakura. Naruto is too caught up in the popular girl to notice the treasure that is trailing after him.
Once, after graduation to Chounin, he congratulates her. He tries to emulate so many of the other people his age who are already cool and suave: Sasuke and Neji. Kiba and Naruto with their rakish grins. Shikamaru with his lazy arrogance. But instead he stumbles and stutters over his words, until he's drowned out by Kiba loudly offering her his own compliments and pulling all off her focus towards him.
3.
It is just after Naruto leaves that Shino finally asks Hinata question he'd been wanting to ask her for almost a decade.
"Would you like to get lunch?"
She blinks her doe eyes at him, as always, surprised when he speaks since he is so few and far between with his words. But her expression is soon a heartfelt smile. "Of course!"
But Shino is an idiot. He had wanted to take her mind off of Naruto vanishing in a puff of smoke and righteousness, wanted to wipe the sadness off of her face and out of her eyes. He wanted her to see that there were good things right here in Konoha if only she would look around.
What Shino does is bring her to Ichiraku Ramen and watches as she promptly bursts into tears in the middle of the street.
4.
A month goes by, then two, then five, eight. Then it's been a year and Hinata is starting to forget a little about Naruto in the way that distance makes you do. She's started to grow out her dark hair and Shino can only imagine what it will look like as a beautiful waterfall of liquid ink in a few years. Her chin is held higher. She doesn't always tremble and tear up at the mention of Naruto's name. For the first time, she's starting to come into herself, starting to become her own person.
It makes her… sexy.
Soon her confidence does the same to Shino that an adult's knowledge would do to him as a child: make him clam up and close in on himself. For the first time in years, he finds himself at a loss when it comes to her. Only Kiba on their team has ever been really free with his affection, but soon Hinata picks up that trait. She picks up the easy way Ino punches Shikamaru's shoulder or the way Tenten adjusts Neji's collar. They are small motions, built from years of closeness.
But the first time Hinata reaches out in the middle of a conversation to lightly, seemingly without a thought, to straighten his glasses, he rears back in surprise. His thumping heart can't cover the sound of Kiba positively roaring with laughter as the blush spreads across his entire face. Hinata frowns and smiles, but it is clearly a smile of confusion, she has no idea what she has done to him. From Kiba's continued chuckles, only he understands the full breadth of what that simple motion had caused.
5.
This is the year, Shino tells himself. This is the year that I'm going to tell her how I feel. It's a promise he's been making to himself every year, for years and years, but this time he means it. Every day is another day closer to the day Naruto could come back into Hinata's life like a whirlwind of blond hair and blue eyes, making her forget how hard it was for her when he left, making her forget that she had grown beyond him.
He psyches himself up for an entire day, giving himself never ending pep talks inside his head, convincing himself the way he's going to try and convince her. That it would be beyond anything in his wildest dream if she would give him a chance, if she could just give them a chance to see how good they could be together. Both shy and quiet and in the background, but strong and deadly underneath their pale, dark-haired exteriors.
"Hinata." He clears his throat when she turns to look at him, one brow arched in question at his blunt and strangled voice. "Hinata," he says again without the lump in his throat. "May I ask you something?" She nods, still confused, but trusting and patient. "I… I like you – "
He means to say more, but she's beaming at him and the words turn to sand in his mouth. "I like you, too, Shino!"
He feels the heat creeping up his cheeks. "You do?"
"Of course! You and Kiba are my best friends!"
The blush halts, his heart trips a strangling beat. "I – no." He's shaking his head and there's clear confusion in her eyes as her smile begins to waver. "No." He needs to say more, to explain his negative, but the words are caught in his throat and it's all he can do to deny what she's saying to him. "That is not what I mean."
"You – you don't like me?" Her voice wobbles on the end, the hint of tears visible.
"No!" At her wide-eyed look, he finally finds the words. "I mean, yes, I like you. Of course I do, but… not like that."
She blinks. "Then how – "
He leans closer, their height difference now so apparent as he crowds closer, making her tilt her head up and watch with wide eyes as his face inches closer and closer to hers. He can hear his blood roaring in his ears, his eyes see only her parted lips, her blushing cheeks, her wide eyes –
"Akamaru!"
The cry is the only warning they get before the horse-sized dogs barrels into them as he chases a cat around the corner, sending them sprawling, and effectively ruining the moment.
+1.
He gives up. Clearly some higher power has decided that it is not his fate to ever grow closer than teammates with Hyuuga Hinata. A frame of mind that is only reaffirmed with Naruto barrels back into everyone's lives. Shina waits for the inevitable: for Naruto to take one look at the grown up Hinata and realize he's loved her all along. How could he not? She's grown, both in appearance and in poise since he last saw and spoke to her. You'd have to be dead inside to not realize how perfect her was. He waits for Hinata's old feelings to come careening back, that childhood crush and innocent love bumbling to the surface again.
He sees in their smiles that he's right.
So he gives up.
"Shino?"
He turns at Hinata's soft voice. "Hn?"
"What are you doing up here?" He shrugs, turning his gaze back out over Konoha, feeling her walk up beside him. "I've been looking for you."
He blinks. "For me?" He finally turns to her, noting the absence of the orange shadow she's had for the past several days. "Where's Uzumaki?"
"Naruto?" Her brow is crinkled in confusion. "I'm not certain, but I think he's with Tsunade-sama and my cousin." It's her turn to shrug at his own confusion. "I think they're discussing the Hyuuga curse seal, but I'm not certain. Naruto had mentioned trying to surprise Neji with something big"
There's a beat of silence as he takes that in and tries to think of a response. "Did you need my assistance with something?"
"I… I haven't seen you very much lately." He's silent, unwilling to explain that his absence is due to the fact that it would kill him to see her happy with someone else. "I miss you." Her voice is so quiet, he almost misses it. He doesn't miss the smallest bloom of blush across her cheeks.
He opens his mouth to attempt some sort of reply, but she surprises him again when she reaches up to pull his collar down, leans up on her tiptoes at presses a quick, chaste kiss to his lips. She's gone by the time he thinks to respond, following after her mouth like a dog with a bone. The noise he makes is graceless and inarticulate, but she smiles at it.
"See you soon?" She doesn't wait for an answer, already turning and heading back towards the path that will lead her down to the village.
He knows that he's pressing his hand to his mouth like a girl with a crush. He knows that he's grinning like a fool. But he can't help it. He's too filled with happiness.