Summary:

The eyes of the Hyuuga are as cold and glittering as the iced-over snowflakes. Are their minds, their hearts, their souls any different? [AU] [Non-Chronological Linked Drabbles]

General Disclaimer For The Entire Story:

I don't own Naruto. If I did, I'd have given Deidara more screentime, because he is awesome and a pyromaniac and thus doubly awesome. In fact, he's 120% awesomer, you could say. Oh, and the cover picture isn't mine, either. Should I change it? (Does anybody actually read this disclaimer?)


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(you should all be very glad that hinata isn't in danger of snapping)

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[Age 12]

Hinata can't snap.

She can carry a tune, she can hum in-pitch, she can even whistle with a very thin margin of error.

Hinata can't snap.

This fact irritates her far more than she'd reluctantly admit.

Hinata can't snap.

No matter what she tries, no matter how many times Naruto tries to teach her, no matter how many times Sasuke glances at her with that thinly-veiled confusion (everything about Sasuke is thinly veiled, truly, because he is far too prone to losing his temper in fits of irrationally extreme emotion that Hinata does not understand completely), no matter how many times Kiba or Shino or Sakura demonstrate-

Hinata can't snap.

It is... frustrating, beyond merely mildly vexing, and more than a bit embarrassing, because she had so many plans and ideas about it, too, like a time-triggering jutsu that activates that a snap, or is set up with a snap, or is a simple distraction of flashy, dazzling elemental 'sparks', or a blinding jutsu based off of that.

Hinata can't snap.

She finds some measure of guilty solace in the fact that Hanabi can't snap, either, although that measure is often overrun by plain annoyance whenever Neji snaps, and at this point she is fairly certain that he does it on purpose.

Hinata can't snap.

Her team attempted to cheer her up after learning of her minor (very minor, she insists) fixation, pointing out that it isn't really important, confessing that it's reassuring to find she has flaws, saying that it makes her more human if she isn't accomplished in everywhere.

Hinata can't snap.

Those attempts simply aggravated her even further; what, was she not human before?

Hinata can't snap.

Also, it's easy for them to say that, those finger-snapping finger-snappers.

Hinata can't snap.

As most things do, her heat eventually cooled down, and she moved on, accepting her defeat in the art of snapping with as much dignified grace as she can muster.

Hinata can't snap.

That 'dignified grace' consists of her dropping the subject entirely, refusing to rise up to her team's quieries on the matter, and stonily staring at them blankly whenever Kiba persists gleefully (because only Kiba is that persistent on her team).

Hinata can't snap.

But when Team 7, 8, 9, and 10 all gathered for a group dinner at some trendy new Western-specializing place, at the behest of their conspiring instructors, and Neji raises his hand and effortlessly snaps his fingers to signal the waiter and smirks at her with that faint smirk, Hinata simmers and struggles to remain calm, glaring an iced-over nastily-poisoned artillery of figurative deadly-weaponry at him.

Hinata can't snap.

But she can pack a wallop of a punch, a skill she graciously demonstrates the next Wednesday during sparring, after Kiba brought up the incident as a battlefield taunt.

Hinata can't snap.

And Kiba couldn't either for a straight week afterwards, as Kurenai had forced him to let his hand heal naturally, as a lesson in not provoking enemies they can't defeat.

So Hinata is satisfied, Kiba is sulky, Kurenai is educational, and Shino is quietly smirking.

(On the inside, of course, because his female teammate had recently developed an alarming tendency of reacting violently to anyone smirking.

Ah, ninja puberty.

Alternatively known as, 'that period of time when shinobi are suddenly clumsy and two feet taller and even more socially awkward than usual, and when kunoichi are suddenly curvy and wildly emotional and even more aggressively dominant than usual, and when all Jounin-instructors clump together at the bar for discounted alcohol'.

Then again, Hinata was always curvier than the other girls in their age group, even when they were still Academy students-

Shino abruptly cut off that thought with horror.

Oh kami, snickering at his teammates' puberty issues was one thing, but experiencing them himself was another.)

(Off in the distance, Kurenai snickered at all of her adorable Genin brats' puberty issues.

It's so much funnier when it happens to someone else, although she knew she'd have to be the one dealing with them dealing with their issues soon.

Was Asuma still up with that offer for drinks?)

All this coming from Hinata's inability to snap.

She did, however, produce a chakra trick in the future that could replicate the sound of a finger-snap, and shamelessly spent the entire day snapping her fingers at all of her comrades-in-arms.


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This was referenced in 'Enthusiastic'.

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-Review.-