Title: Still I Rise -- #35: hunger
Characters/Pairings: Hinata, Neji
Rating: K, rather firmly.
Notes: My apologies for kind-of abandoning this story-thing for so long. I mean, school has been quite thoroughly ghastly these past few weeks and I'd gotten a new laptop for my birthday, so I had salvage my fics, among other important things, off of my old wreck of a hard drive before I could even think of moving on with this. I'll probably be writing things as stress relief, so expect things to be updated sporadically. Um. Reviews would be mightily appreciated.
Also, a slight poll, given as I haven't actually written the next part: When the inevitable Naruto/Sasuke/Hinata confrontation takes place, whose perspective would you like to read it from--Hinata, Naruto, or Sasuke? All three? I don't really know which way it will swing--as I tend to write by ear and don't ever really plan ahead in detail--but hearing from you all would be nice. Happy reading!
Hinata is inordinately glad that Neji is not at home when she stumbles into the apartment and readily bursts into very noisy tears in the foyer. She sinks into a crouch and cries into her brown suede purse. It is partly shock, partly anger, and mostly shame that cause her to spout tears like their leaky kitchen faucet. She is rattled enough to let them go.
There is no one here to tell her to smother them, no father who would clamp a hand on her shoulder and tell her, in steely, angry tones, to wipe her nose, to stop being a nuisance.
So she cries and cries and cries, because she could have taught herself to love Naruto. She could have slept peacefully in his arms and smiled at him in the mornings and run her hands through his hair.
She will not be able to do that now. What man in his right mind would want a woman who caused an ex-fiancé of hers to nearly beat him to death. It's over between them now. She feels this like the thudding finality of shutting her father's study door behind her.
She has the foresight to be out of sight and in bed when Neji makes his way home, though it is barely early evening. She hears the creak of the closet door and the clink of the hanger as he hangs his coat, the steady thumping of his feet as he makes his way into the kitchen for a cup of coffee.
He pauses at her door. Will he knock? She hopes against hope that he'll think better of it. Hinata needs time to bandage and dress and bind her pride so that it will not appear so pathetic and fragile and frayed. There is no way she can face him now, not with her blotchy face and red eyes.
Neji has sharp eyes. Even tomorrow morning, when she can be sure to look relatively normal, he will notice something is wrong. He will not ask, but he will worry, and she does not want him to worry, more than anything, not when he has been so kind.
So she needs time to gather whatever molecules of dignity she has left, time to worry and sort and fashion a mask with which she can face his questions.
The shadows of Neji's feet move past her door. She sighs and burrows into her sheets. She is asleep before she knows it.
Hinata tip-toes out of her room at half-passed three that night. Hunger has conquered even shame: she really, really needs something to eat. She makes sure to step lightly—Neji is a notoriously light sleeper and the last thing she needs is for him to worry about her creeping about.
She needn't have bothered, as he is reading on the couch and inadvertently looks up at her emergence. His gaze zeroes in on her with unerring accuracy, and sees all the offending things she did not want him to see: the red eyes, the droop to her mouth, the trembling of her legs. He simply studies her over the rims of his reading glasses before unfolding himself from the couch and ambling past her into the kitchen.
"N-Neji," she says, clutching the hem of her nightshirt. "I—I'm sorry I slept through dinner tonight."
He shrugs, his back to he while he rummages about in the fridge. "It's fine." He straightens with an armful of zuccini, tomatoes and onions. He shuts the fridge door with his heel and drops his loot into a bowl.
A beat of silence passes, in which Hinata stares in confusion as Neji washes vegetables, fishes a bag of pasta out of the pantry, and sets both a pasta pan and frying pan on the stove.
"What are you doing?"
He casts her a glance over his shoulder. "Cooking."
She presses her lips together once before asking, "I can tell, but why are you cooking?"
This time, he does not turn around. "I haven't eaten yet, and neither have you. No one does carry-out this late."
Inexplicably, the urge to cry wells up in her throat, but this time, she decides not to wallow in self-pity. "Why?" asks instead, voice only slightly husky. "Why didn't you eat dinner when you usually do?"
"I wasn't hungry." He turns around this time to frown at her disapprovingly over his shoulder. "Now we're both hungry, so are you planning on just standing there and letting me do all the work?"
She wipes her eyes quickly. So kind, Neji, you're so kind. She doesn't say this out loud, though, just like she doesn't point out that it is nearly four in the morning, and he has to be up by nine, and that he surely knows that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. He does her the courtesy of not asking, and, in his quiet, extraordinarily kind way, takes to sheltering her when she needs it. He will not pry, but will stand guard at her door and give her a cushion of silent comfort.
"Tell me what to do," she says as she deftly ties her hair back and steps up to the counter.
Just for tonight, she thinks, just for tonight, she will take advantage of his kindness. She will lean on him and let him spoil her.
Just, she thinks again, as she peels tomatoes and chops onions, for tonight, I will pretend that I am worth this and surely that will not be so terrible.