Melting Spring
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p0g0stick
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Aww thanks you guys for the reviews. (: (:
I decided to continue the fic, mostly due to the reviews and I got a plot going in my head. So...let's see how it goes, eh?
The rating might rise from T to M around chapter 5 or 6, only because there will be a lot of cursing...eh, but that's no biggy, right?
There's also going to be a bit of confusion in this chapter and the next one, but just hang on, because by chapter four it should all come pretty clear. I'll explain the majority of this at the end of this chapter.Thanks again for the reviews, you guys are awesome. :D
XXX
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Naruto, or the lyrics I put in the summary (they belong to The Raconteurs). I do, however, own this plot/idea.
XXX
Uchiha Sasuke always was told he was much wiser than his appearance gave belief to.
He didn't take it as a compliment, truly, because he didn't believe it.
Staring into his bathroom mirror, he ran his hand through his messy hair, tugging at tangles with his fingers.
Then he traced the deep bruise-colored circles below each eye.
What ten year old had circles underneath his eyes? Surely he wasn't the only prepubescent child that had them…
Screw that.
He wasn't just any 'child'.
In fact, he wasn't even a child; he seemed to have skipped that time period. Somewhere in between toddling through his mother's garden at two years old and the five 'leisure' miles he had run this morning…Uchiha Sasuke had grown up.
Just how, when, and where…he couldn't exactly pinpoint.
Maybe it had been when the…thing…had occurred, that's what everyone else in the village would say. It wasn't like they didn't talk about it anyway.
Most of the time he pretended that he didn't hear them when he walked by, but he did. He heard every single word that was murmured, muttered and whispered. Sometimes, he'd get irritated, but usually he just became embarrassed.
But he wouldn't admit to that, because he wasn't a child, he was a man (in some weird sense) and wasn't going to be embarrassed by the smallest bit of idle town gossip.
Every now and then he'd glare at passer-by's when they made excruciatingly heated comments, upon which he could not accept.
The towns people did not realize how much it was for a single child to take, all of the rumors that were spread, the dirty words written on bathroom walls at his Academy…and the way that people looked at him, that 'look' of sympathy on their faces…
"Hm," he pushed his bangs back. He hadn't had a shower in two days…maybe it'd be wise to have one, his hair was beginning to become oily, and the sweat from the two runs he had taken earlier weren't helping. The young boy's clothes were also full of liquid and dirt from the slush leftover from the winter.
Had his mother still been here she would have drawn him a bath twice each of those days, including this one, and made him wash every single crevice on his body, even the sensitive area behind his ears. Then, she would have collected his clothes and washed them too in warm water with jasmine scented suds.
But his mother wasn't here, and as far as Uchiha Sasuke was concerned he didn't need anyone to tell him what to do, or do things for him.
Plus, he took showers now, and not baths.
Baths were for children.
He coughed.
"I thought…that I coulda sweat it out," he groaned, and gave into the raw feeling in his throat, coughing bitterly another three times.
I shouldn't have stayed up so late…he thought, stripping himself of his high-collared shirt, shorts, and then his under garments.
It wasn't his fault that it had begun to snow in the early morning, he thought that the snow would be ceasing. It was a few months away from spring, after all…
Stepping into the tub, he pulled the shower curtain across and reached for the nozzle, giving a brief cough before turning it.
He wondered if the Hyuuga girl had gotten home alright. She was probably going to be feverish for the next couple of days, have a pretty bad cough, but maybe then that would keep her away from his bench.
Too lost in thought, Uchiha Sasuke didn't realize that he had turned the nozzle too far to the right, and gave a loud yelp as scalding hot water burnt his skin.
XXX
"My throat hurts so much!" the young Hyuuga Hinata moaned, rolling herself into a ball on her bed, the sheets bunching together with her form.
"You've seen how the weather has been, Hinata-chan," the curtains were pulled away from the window, revealing a soft morning light, "it was foolish to go out on one of your little trips last night."
The maid busied herself collecting Hinata's hamper and taking the clothes from it to be soaked and washed.
"A-ah…g-gomen nasai, Misa-san," Hinata murmured. It wasn't like the maid would have heard her anyway; she was halfway down the hall by now.
Even if Hinata was sick, she would still have to go to her lessons today. Her governess, Nakamura Inoue waited for no one, no exceptions.
The young girl felt as if her throat was constricting, like she had just swallowed a box of nails and they had each scraped her esophagus as they made their descent to her stomach.
It was pain, in its purest form.
Not to mention one second she felt incredibly hot and then the next, she felt as if she was being tossed into an ice-bath.
"I don't want to get up," the young girl sighed, flinging the covers off of her to feel the soft air of the morning, streaked with a wind chill of low degrees.
She stared up into the blue of the sky, and saw the moon hanging by a single string, still just a thin crescent.
And then Hyuuga Hinata drifted back to sleep.
XXX
The Academy halls were the same as they were every day. Filled with students, age's seven to twelve, all continuously chattering and bickering, yelling and then whispering in hushed tones. It never changed.
Every single day Uchiha Sasuke had walked through those halls, nothing. Had. Changed.
There were still the girls, who made beelines towards him, the boys, who glared at him, and then there were the rest who just shrunk away from him, fearful, disgusted, or just plain uncaring.
He felt as if the streets with their vendors and shoppers, quietly murmuring amongst themselves was better than this school.
And for the 47th time that day the young boy decided to ask himself why exactly he was inside this hell hole when he could just be running circles around this city, working a sweat, pushing his limit…
But instead he had chosen to dress in clean clothes after his shower, brush his hair, and walk to the Ninja Academy just in time before class began.
Despite his young age, Uchiha Sasuke inwardly wished that he could just keep running. But running wasn't the answer to everything.
XXX
A veil of cobalt cloaked the sleeping town, and Hyuuga Hinata sipped her tea and honey sagely (as sagely as an eight year old could be) staring outside, watching the sky contort and metamorphose from day to night.
She finished and stared at the cup. It had swirling patterns drawn on its sides with thin blue ink.
Inside, remnants of tea leaves gathered in damp clumps along the inner rim at the bottom, and she fingered them with her index finger.
"Another cup, Hinata-chan?" the elderly maid leaned behind the young girl picking up the teacup gently.
"N-no th-thank-you, Misa-san, demo…" Hinata swallowed, gulping down the thick scratchy feeling in her throat. It hurt so much, and the honey had only slightly numbed it. The remedy that had been prepared in the town hospital was due to arrive by hand delivery soon, but it was slowly becoming unbearable.
The young girl sniffed, and sucked on her bottom lip, trying to desperately hold back the sobs.
"…d-demo, I a-a-am going to r-re-retire to my room," on two shaky legs, she rose and began to clumsily walk towards the hallway entrance.
"Alright, Hinata-chan," Misa continued picking up after the little girl.
Once the maid knew that the young heiress was well out of earshot she sighed,
"She's going to end up just like her mother."
Snow began to fall.
XXX
Uchiha Sasuke sipped the chicken broth, and it stung his tongue, making him withdraw from the bowl as he hissed in displeasure.
"Ah! It's so hot! Stupid broth," he grumbled and shoved the bowl back onto the bar; digging into his pocket and retrieving crumpled currency and coins, slamming them onto the counter.
For the better half of his health, the young boy had shrugged on a dark jacket and zipped it up as he left the food stand. He never usually cared about what he wore, but he figured that had his mother been alive she would have forced it onto him, then given him matching mittens, a hat and a scarf.
But there were a few things wrong with that.
One, as he had stated before, he didn't need anyone to do anything to him, mittens were for children, and he didn't look good in hats.
His tongue stung.
A lot.
He had probably just burnt it and would have to suffer for a good twenty four hours until it healed itself.
Sasuke picked up a wad of freshly fallen snow and shoved it into his mouth.
Not the most hygienic thing to do, but unlike many other continents and countries, such as Rain Country, the snow was not polluted and when freshly fallen completely safe to put inside ones mouth.
Of course why one would want to do so was unfathomable, especially with numb fingers and the wind chill nearing the 5 degree mark.
The young boy slowly sucked on the mound of flakes, and they melted quickly and easily within a few seconds.
That'll do for now.
Slowly, pedestrian traffic was beginning to slow as people gathered their new purchases, took their children by the hands and left the streets, it getting too dark to be too sure if it was safe or not.
Before he had decided to come to the bench, Uchiha Sasuke had gone to Konohagakure Hospital (KoHo as many of his rather witty classmates had nicknamed it) and bought aspirin. He was developing a rather bad head cold.
His feet shivered in the boots he had instead worn, as they collided against the inside material, which was growing cold as muddy slush and freshly fallen snow stuck to the outside.
Right now the streets had mostly cleared and were mainly littered with jounin and chunin returning home from small missions, deciding to hit up sake bars before they signed in with the Hokage.
And of course, as usual, the regular thugs, drunks and beggars emerged in the alleyways, but they never bothered him.
They had better not.
Moonlight shone and guided him over to the bench, allowing it to glimmer with an iridescent glow.
And no young girl to invade in his personal space.
Maybe this was a sign that it was good to come early?
It was a good 6 hours earlier than last time and she wasn't here.
He sat on the wet bench, letting his jacket mop up the majority of the liquid and still semi-solid snow.
Staring up at the night sky, he watched as a set of yellow balloons glided overhead.
Then the weight of the bench shifted, and the young boy groaned, deeply perturbed by this intrusion.
"Why are you back?" He licked his dry lips.
She didn't answer right away, and for a split second he was worried it wasn't her and someone else, that would be very embarassing...
"B-b-because, Uchiha-san, th-this b-b-bench doesn't b-b-belong to you-u." She sniffled as a thin dribble of snot exited her nostril.
Ugh, the Uchiha grimaced, she was such a child.
He wondered if Hyuuga Neji had been like her. Sniveling, stuttering…
There was a slim chance.
But that Hyuuga had at least proven to be rather intelligent, he doubted that this one, Hyuuga ancestry and all, was smart…
Plus, she was a girl. Girls weren't smart.
It would throw off the universal balance and send the world out of whack.
"Well, pass me a knife and I'll carve my name into it. Better?" He never took his eyes off of the balloons.
"A-ah, d-d-demo, Uchiha-san…that's not a nice thing to d-d-do,"
"Don't."
"D-d-don't what?"
"Don't say my name, look...just go, alright? Leave, please, there are tons more benches on this stupid strip."
She didn't speak for a while and a deadly silence consumed them.
He hadn't felt the bench shift…had she actually left, though? Maybe a peek wouldn't hurt…
Out of the corner of his eye he watched as she, dressed in a nightgown with a jacket obviously too large for her petite frame, and rather big galoshes, stared down at the ground.
She sniffled and hiccupped.
Was she crying again?
Another hiccup, guess so.
"Look, I didn't mean to make you cry—"
"N-n-no Uchiha-san, I…I, it's not you, it's just…"She cradled her small face in her even smaller hands.
Oh, so now he'd have to comfort the answer out of her? Sympathize with her?
"It's what?" He grumbled, staring up at the sky as fresh snow began to flutter downwards.
"I…m-my throat hurts a-a-a lot-t-t…" she broke down into sobs.
"Well, you're from a branch of the Hyuuga household, aren't you? Go get some decent medicine."
"I…I a-am..."
"Then go get it," He coughed.
"I don't…I w-w-wouldn't want to…I d-d-don't want th-them to know how sick I-I am..."
"Why not?" Gods she was getting on his nerves.
"B-b-because I...I d-d-don't want to t-trouble...p-people with my problems..."
"Then why the hell are you still talking to me? Because if you hadn't noticed…"
"Y-you're cruel." She snivelled.
"And you shouldn't be outside in this weather, go home. I bet your parents are worried about you."
"My d-dad isn't," she rubbed the sleeve of her jacket across her nose and eyes, smearing the liquid.
"Well, then your mother is, so stop making her worry." He was getting tired of seeing his breath as he blew it out.
"I d-d-don't…my, my mother…" She sniffled again.
Oh dear God.
"Well then wherever she really is now, I bet she wants you to go home and get better."
This must have struck a chord with the young girl, because she stopped snivelling, coughing, moaning and what have you.
A slight tug on his own jacket alerted him that she was still present.
"What?"
"Uchiha-san…may…can you; may you take me h-h-home?"
He stared at the little girl, seated beside him, her nose and cheeks an unhealthily bright pink against pallid skin, her light lavender eyes bloodshot around the iris from her tears, making the colourful undertones stand out eerily.
"Why would I do that?"
"B-b-because…you offered to last night," She took a deep breath and winced, "a-a-and…I don't think I c-c-could wa-walk…" Her bottom lip began quivering, and she closed her eyes, gulping, trying to rid herself of the thick viscous feeling in her throat.
You see, for Uchiha Sasuke, the answer for this was simple.
"No."
See? Simple.
But, for Hyuuga Hinata…
"F-f-fine!" She sniffled, "you're so w-w-weak, I bet you couldn't do it anyway!"
Uchiha Sasuke bristled at the mention of weakness directed towards him.
"WHAT! AM NOT!" He growled, glaring menacingly at the younger girl, "Take it back!"
"I d-d-don't wanna!" she sneezed.
"Take. It. Back." Now he was getting angry. No one called Uchiha Sasuke weak.
No. One.
"No!" She cried, folding her arms stubbornly across her chest.
"Well if I'm so weak, why are you asking me to take you home!" He coughed bitterly.
"I d-don't see anyone else around…" She sighed, rubbing her forehead.
Maybe…maybe taking her home couldn't hurt, right? After all, he did want her out and off of his bench, and this would keep her away for a while especially if she was extremely unwell
With shaking hands, he locked his arms around her waist and lifted her up, stumbling slightly because despite her petite frame she was still heavy, even for him.
"A-ah…Uchiha-san?"
"What?"
"Th-this is un-uncomfortable…" Cough.
He sighed.
Only because it was.
So, he placed her back down on the bench, and instead kneeled down.
"Climb on my back."
"O-okay."
Once the young boy felt her weight atop his shoulder blades and her feet wrap around his lower torso, he took her hands and made them hold onto each other below his collarbone.
"Don't let go or else you'll fall and I won't come back for you, 'kay?"
She sneezed in approval.
As the streetlights began to dim, and the snow began to fall softly again, the duo walked, breaking the physical wall that had been built between them.
XXX
At the Hyuuga compound, Uchiha Sasuke placed the younger girl onto the slick sidewalk, iced over by the cold weather.
"Wake up," he shook her lightly. When her eyes dully opened, he continued, "Where is your room?"
"I…It…a-ah…it's th-through the third window on th-the le-left, down the hall and…the third room on the left." She rubbed her sleeve across her nose and appeared to be nodding back to sleep.
"Hyuu—Hyuuga!" he shook the young girl again, only this time more fiercely.
"Ye-yeah?" She blindly acknowledged him.
"Is that the ONLY way to get to it?"
"Without…wi-without waking my d-d-dad…"
Snore.
Well, at least he got to use his ninja skills.
Lifting the young girl again the way he had earlier, he walked towards the window and gazed up at it.
Now, Sasuke had not reached puberty yet and was a small four foot eleven, and this window was up. High up, possibly at six feet...and the Hyuuga was even shorter than him! How the hell was she able to reach it?
"There's a l-ladder..." she murmured into his ear, her hot breath causing him to shiver.
"W-where is it?"
"Behind the tree..."
Another blast of warm breath.
At least it thawed out the shell of his ear, he was sure if he tugged at it, as frozen as it was, it would break off.
The young boy sat the girl on the snow-dusted grass and went behind the tree, pawing around the trunk for a ladder.
When he had retrieved it, Uchiha Sasuke set it against the wall, and lifted the young girl again, this time putting her on his back again and making her secure herself.
This was strangely exhilarating, and the Uchiha found him enthralled in his first 'official' mission—breaking and entering the Hyuuga Compound! What fun!
Once he had pushed the window's glass open and had lowered him and the young girl, he followed her previous directions down a hall and into the third room on the left. The whole house, from what he had seen, was basically the same. White walls with polished wooden floors, portraits painted with watery colors hung from walls alongside scrolls.
The young boy was amazed at how alike the Hyuuga compound was compared to the Uchiha one...only; the difference was that the Uchiha one now had dark brown stains on the walls, peeling paint, and the occasional loose nail or shard of glass.
He opened the door that the girl had told him, and encountered a wide, white room. A four-poster bed with frilly white doilies, white embroidered pillows with patterns of flowers.
So much white!
Obviously, Uchiha Sasuke decided to just lay the girl on her bed and get the hell out of there.
Placing her on the bed, he pulled the quilt and sheets over her form and instead of trying to climb back up the window they had entered in, he left through her own bedroom window which was lower and wider.
Why she didn't do out that way he'd never know, it seemed silly to go through all of the trouble of getting the ladder, putting it back, climbing to reach the high window...
The next morning, the Hyuuga gardener was perplexed at why his ladder wasn't where he had left it, and the Hyuuga housekeeper's were questioning the dirty shoe prints that had stained Hinata's bedroom wall.
XXX
NEWSFLASH!
Wow what a sucky-arse ending, eh?
(Is pelted with eggs from readers)
OWIE!
Okay, yeah, I'm sorry, that was a pretty awful chapter...
But since I love you guys SOO much...
CONTINUE READING.
:D
"You're early."
"No, you're just late," Hyuuga Hinata stared up at the owner of the voice. She was seated atop the paved sidewalk, poised with a novel in her hand.
The young girl had found a new interest in books, and was fascinated especially by young love stories.
Too bad that when you're only nine years old, you tend to get lost up in the whirlwind of kisses, hugs, flowers and teddy bears with felt hearts in their paws that read I WUV YOU, and don't consider the trials that lovers and soul mates have to endure.
"What're you reading this time?" the book was plucked from her fingertips as Uchiha Sasuke flipped through it.
"It's just a book—"
"Ophelia?" the young boy grimaced, contorting his face, "sounds boring."
"Is not!" the younger girl demanded, waving frantically to try and grab it from the Uchiha's grasp.
"Is to, I say it is, so it's boring," he grinned wickedly at how she tried to reach for it, "have it, I don't want it anyway." Finally, he gave it back to the girl, then sat next to her on the sidewalk.
"You wouldn't know what a good book is anyway, you don't even read! I bet you don't know how!"
"No way, I go to school! You don't." He leaned his elbows onto his kneecaps, "plus, you're a girl—what can girls do?"
"Anything boys can do." The young girl folded a crease on the page she was currently reading to save it for later.
"Yeah, right." He stared across the street, at papers blowing in the late autumn wind.
There was a small silence, one that wasn't awkward, they had gotten over that within the 11 month period that the duo had known each other.
Usually, and Uchiha Sasuke wouldn't admit this, but he actually looked forward to these small conversations they had while next to or on the bench. Hyuuga Hinata was the only girl he could actually tolerate—and she was younger than him! Imagine that, having to deal with a cry baby, and a decent conversationalist at the same time.
"So how is the Academy?" the young girl pondered poking at a crack in the sidewalk with a decaying twig.
"Boring, stupid, and I want to quit, but I have to get better so I guess I can't skip it," He watched as she traced swirling patterns in a patch of dirt next to the bench.
"'Course not, you gotta beat your brother," It was strange, how much she actually knew about him right now. They were only children, but their minds were so complex and sucked up things like sponges.
The elder boy nodded.
"You know, soon I won't be able to come and see you a lot," He began to whistle.
Tweet, tweet...
"Why?!" the young girl demanded, suddenly stopping her activities with the twig and dirt.
"I gotta go on bigger, important missions, become a chunin an' stuff." Tweet. Tweet. Tweet.
"Oh. Neji-nii-san has to do that too, I guess," She continued tracing patterns in dirt.
"Why aren't you?"
"Hyuuga Heiress' aren't allowed to go to school," she sighed, "everyone there's scary and would terrify me anyway..."
"Eh, they scare me too," Tweet.
"But you're brave..."
"I know I am," and he smiled smugly, pausing in his whistling.
"So why do they scare you?"
"No reason."
Another silence blanketed them, and instead the duo stared at the sky, watching as it turned a bright blue to a deep indigo. Silence was just fine for now.
XXX
1 Year, 9 Months Earlier...
February
After that time that Uchiha Sasuke had carried Hyuuga Hinata home, he was extremely surprised when she showed up on the bench the following evening. She was still as sick as ever, as was he, and coughing brutally.
Her nose was a sore red and her eyes were bloodshot.
"Go back home," he had said, "I'm not carrying you again, you're such a burden."
Instead she had ignored him, seated herself, and stared up at the sky.
He spent the better part of that night wondering why this stupid girl was so intent on spending time with him.
"Why do you keep coming here?"
"B-b-because...I like sp-spending time with you..." she trailed off.
It was true. Hinata was alone all the time, unless she got to see her cousin, Hyuuga Neji or her toddler sister. However, usually she was with her governess or Misa.
"But I prefer to be alone."
"I know, I used to t-too...but I'm never a-around anyone else outside of my family," she breathed in deeply, and ended up coughing a few more times, "I'm always alone...d-don't you get s-sick of it?"
The young boy had to think about this for a few minutes.
It was true; he got tired of the world revolving around little him, seeing him in the mirror, not having anyone to talk to other than the idiots at school.
"I guess," He sniffed, mostly because his nose was beginning to get stuffed up from his cold, "so why aren't you allowed to go to the Academy? Neji goes..."
"I'm a Hyuuga heiress...we aren't a-allowed."
Uchiha Sasuke let the words sink in.
She was a Hyuuga heiress!
So that explained a lot. The outfits she wore, why she never came here in the daytime, how she had to sneak in a different window other than her own...
Well, it just explained some stuff.
"Ah."
"Yes," and that was the end of that conversation.
"Well...I am the Uchiha heir—"
She cut him off,
"I-I...I know..."
Of course she knew.
Everyone inside this town, inside this continent, this country, even BEYOND...they KNEW.
It was irrevocable, and she was also a Hyuuga heiress so she probably knew quite a lot about the other clans in this country and the rest, probably had to memorize names of clan heads, branch houses, clan blood limits, deaths and births, everything...
"...yeah..." was the only thing he could say. Just 'yeah'. What else could he say? And he knew she wouldn't prod, despite her being a young child who would constantly want to know every sordid detail.
Just like the towns people, who probably knew more about it than he did.
The wind blew, and the street lights dimmed.
Snow hadn't fallen since last night, and surprisingly enough the sun had come out of hiding that day, and shone for a few good hours before disappearing again.
"I'll leave you...for now...I think..." the young girl spoke uncertainly, slowly edging off of the wide bench until her feet touched the ground, "good night, Uchiha-san."
He almost offered to take her home again, but paused and decided against it.
"Bye..." she began to toddle off down the sidewalk and instead he jumped off of the bench and ran to her.
"Wait, girl, what's your name?"
She looked up at him, eyes unblinking and confused.
Why did this boy want to know her name?
"Hyuuga Hinata,"
He let her continue on her journey, but constantly checking to make sure she was safe.
After that night, it became a sudden ritual for Uchiha Sasuke and Hyuuga Hinata to meet together every single night following on the bench.
XXX
1 Year, 9 Months Later...
November
"I hate your cousin, he's a know-it-all," Sasuke murmured, picking up a snail shell and throwing it across the street to see how far it sailed.
"A-ah...he's...h-he can b-be nice...Neji-nii-san is really smart..." Hyuuga Hinata had still not gotten used to Sasuke's little outbursts, despite knowing him for almost a year.
"Yeah, but he's stupid at the same time," Sasuke grumbled, leaning against the bench's back. They had both traded the sidewalk for the bench; Hinata still gripped her novel and every now and then would flip through it.
"How so?" The young girl questioned, watching leaves spin in the chilly autumn wind. It was now late November, and soon snow would come back, and then Hinata would finally turn ten years old...the age Sasuke had been when they had met.
"He's smart, but then he's stupid when it comes to things other than school and missions and stuff," Sasuke eyed his companion as she too had begun to lean back onto the bench, still fingering the novel.
Had she heard anything he'd said?
"Hyuuga," he nudged her with his elbow.
"Uchiha-san...when is your birthday?"
What kind of question was that?
Truth be told, some years Sasuke completely forgot his birthday, mostly because he never celebrated it. It was also in the summer, so the girls who mooned over him usually stayed away, too busy lounging by pools and lakes, having sleepovers, and god knows what else girls do in their spare time.
"July," He sucked in a deep breath and watched as he exhaled and it turned ghost-white in the dark air.
"How come you never told me?"
The young boy shrugged, shoving his hands into his pants pockets.
"Why? Not like it would have mattered. I forget about it sometimes anyway."
"B-but...it's your birthday! Don't you want presents and sweets and—"
"I don't like sweets," Sasuke countered, and tried not to laugh when he saw the look of dread on the younger girls face.
"How...how can you not?"
"How can you? They are so thick and sweet...sickening." He cringed thinking about it.
"B-but..." Hinata was going to try and think of a plausible point but came up with nothing, so she just left it there.
The young girl was never one to continually argue, especially now that she was beginning to enjoy the young boys company. Although she had argued a lot before, now she just found it silly.
"...when is yours?" Sasuke asked, trying to replace the conversation that had been lost amongst all of their others.
"D-December."
"Ah...how come you never told me when it was your birthday?"
"Because...you weren't at the bench that day..."
Oh. That's why.
He felt sort of guilty for an unknown reason; a stirring in his stomach began below at the pit.
"A-ah..." The streetlights started to go out.
This time there was more awkward silence surrounding them.
"You should go home now. It's really late. I'll walk you," Sasuke stood up too quickly, and pulled Hinata's hand to get her moving.
"It's still r-really early, Uchiha-san, I'll be fine..."
"No, come, I'll walk you."
"Alright."
It was only when they reached the compound that Sasuke had realized he had been tugging her down the road and holding her wrist the whole way.
He then promptly let it go and walked to his house, respectively.
XXX
NEWSFLASH!
AHHH, don't eat me please. I know, I didn't like this chapter too much either, but I have to build up the relationship if I want it to work.
Don't forget to review—PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE review if you read this, because I'm relying on reviews with this one fic.
While you're at it, hit up The Denial Twist because you love me so much. (;
Alright, now some explanations are in order; firstly I know there was a time jump. It started after the first part of the chapter, they jumped forward by a year and a few months. They had met in February a year before, then Hinata had been 8, now she was 9 and it was November meaning she'd be turning 10 soon. Sasuke was 10 and is now 12 already since his birthday is in July. Then they jumped back, I'm sorry, this fic will do that a lot, but it will totally satisfy in the end—I promise! (: (:
So basically if you can understand it, this is a fic about Sasuke and Hinata as childhood friends until we do MAJOR skip to when they are older, Hinata doesn't go to the Academy and is younger than the rest of the cast.
I tried to get this out before V-day was over (everyone groans at commercial holiday) (: but it's about 30 minutes too late according to my time zone.
Thanks again for the wonderful reviews so far, you guys rock! Constructive criticisms are totally welcome, but remember: flamers are lamers. (:
UPDATE: Alright so I made the timeskips waaayyy less confusing. Well I hope it does make it waaayyy less confusing, it does in my eyes (: I'm sorry about all that confusion guys, and since I put the blame on things and people, I'll put the blame on Pedro Paramo, which I'm reading for my IB English Thingy, An excellent book I'ver taken a liking to it BUT I DO NOT RECOMMEND IT.