Title: Still I Rise -- #22: crumble
Characters/Pairings: Neji, Hinata, Naruto
Rating: K
Notes: In which Neji is not very happy.
Neji has been planning the evening ever since Hinata had first sent out her manuscript.
The morning that Hinata receives a summons to the main office of the Sanin Publishing house, he knows her chance has come. So he wastes no time: he makes reservations and buys two tickets to The Damnation of Faust because Hinata had said that she would like to see it—a celebratory evening, of sorts, and certainly not a date. (Not, he says again, more firmly, not, not, not a date.)
He places the tickets in his desk and waits for Hinata to come home, whiling the time away by grading lab reports and glancing at the clock much more than he is accustomed.
She does come home, happy and flushed and more beautiful than ever, but, apparently, with a boyfriend. She regales him with her story of the afternoon: She talks of her book deal ("Can you believe it? Me! Published!") with wide eyes and hushed tones, as though she can scarcely believe it; he smiles at this.
He has trouble smiling genuinely when she tells him about the man she met, though. An entirely new sort of expression steals over her face, complete with half-smiles and vividly pink cheeks and perfect teeth that sink into damnably red lips as she says, "I think I like him." Her eyes genuflect to the side, sweeping over the low coffee table and finally resting somewhere in the vicinity of his knees. "R-really like him, I mean."
There is a distinct roaring in his ears as his plans crumble. He listens and nods and encourages woodenly, but she is too wrapped up in this Naruto to take notice.
He cancels the reservations and the tickets gather dust in his desk.
She is happy, he knows, as he watches her sweep out for her dates and return looking absent-minded and humming songs to herself.
She is happy, and he will have to make do with that.