Chapter Seven

"So what did you do?" Sabaku Temari asked. Her voice was completely saturated with mirth. Hinata had just finished recounting the week's events (the interesting parts anyway) and it had made Temari's day just like it always did.

Hinata had such an exciting life

"What do you think I did?" Hinata replied letting her face fall into an open palm.

She thought back to that completely humiliating morning she spent in Itachi's office.

She looked up in surprise as Itachi grabbed her wrist and stopped what she was doing.

"But Itachi-kun, it's still wet."

"Itachi-sama, it's time for your eleven o'clock." The reception stuck her head in and said the same time that Itachi said. "I can explain."

She winced slightly as Itachi tightened his grip. "Don't move your hand." He said between clenched teeth when she rolled her wrist to try and get out of his grasp.

Confused, she did as she was told and sat perfectly still.

"Nanako, I'll be right out." Itachi said. He waited until the woman had closed the door behind him to say what he said next. "We would have had a bigger mess on our hands."

Hinata couldn't believe her eyes when a cheeky smile spread across his normally stoic face, it was such a rare treat. It shouldn't have, but it made her breath catch. Itachi seemed like he was afraid to smile. A small one here and there, but a full blown smile just like the one he was wearing was so infrequent that before this moment she wondered if it was at all possible for him.

His dark eyes glittered, not from the lights overhead. It seemed to come from some internal source. Hinata once again found herself admiring his long lashes. They were so thick and they curled up naturally from the constant contact with his high cheekbones.

It wasn't a surprise that he was so popular among the fairer sex. He had the perfect facial structure, and a complexion that rivaled her own.

He was so...

"Beautiful."

"No man likes being called beautiful" Itachi said softly.

She unconsciously moved her hand to hit herself. Had she really said that out loud?

"I don't think you should do that again." The beautiful man said, his long fingers were more tightly wrapped around hers. .

Curious, she let her gaze trace the length of her forearm, then wrist. Her small hand was nearly enveloped by his bigger one, but that wasn't what bothered her. If anything it gave her a measure of comfort. No, what bothered her was the slight bulge at the apex of his limbs. The horror she felt must have been obvious because a small amused smirk made its way across his lips.

"You can keep going if you want." He said quietly, carefully watching her face for a reaction. He released his firm grip on her wrist and sat back to see what she would do next.

She fought every urge to snap her violated arm back. It wouldn't do to see how much what just conspired affected her. Instead she gave him a couple more dabs and then withdrew the appendage. "I'm okay, I uh think we've done enough today."

Geez Hinata, you make it sound like you just slept with the guy, the blushing brunette thought. She mentally kicked herself as she tried to figure out what to do next. She took her time throwing out the wet napkins, careful not to meet his gaze.

He was still watching her

She could feel it

What does he think when he's watching me like this? She wondered. Did he see her the same way everyone else saw her?

Was she a disappointment to him too?

She absolutely refused to let herself go continue on that train of thought. Now wasn't the time to wallow in low self-esteem and self-pity. Instead she focused on the task at hand. When she was done cleaning up she grabbed her purse and stood to leave.

"I have to go." Hinata said, her cheeks still a magnificent shade of red. "Enjoy your lunch."

"But we didn't finish." Itachi stood as she did and she felt horrible at the look of distress on his face.

She felt herself getting a tad light-headed as she took in the more perverted meaning behind what he said.

God, when did she become such a pervert?

She didn't bother replying to his completely innocent observation. She couldn't bring herself to look him in the face without giving away what her thoughts were. So she gave a low bow and was out of the room.

She didn't stop running until she reached the elevator doors.

.

"I ran, what else could I have done?"

"You could have said "Mind closing the door? We're in the middle of something."" Hinata's best friend replied. She could just picture her, sprawled over one of her oversized arm chairs, glass of brandy in one hand, phone in the other.

"Temari-chan! I could never do that!"

"I know, just saying. You could have." She drawled. Hinata could hear the smile in her voice. "It would have made this conversation a tad more interesting."

"I don't know whether or not to take that as an insult." The brunette muttered. She picked up a picture frame of her and her best friend and fingered the head of blonde hair beside hers. The picture was taken last December. She had wanted to escape from Konoha's harsh winter and decided that the desert would be the best place. There was a mischievous glint that shone through in Temari's rather large teal eyes. The blonde had her lips puckered up against Hinata's cheek, her blue eyes trained on the camera out of the corner of her eyes. Blond hair tied back with a simple band. No elaborate jewelry, no body guards around every corner.

No one would have guess that she was a princess. For a brief moment, Hinata wondered if marrying Gaara, the king of Suna and Temari's younger brother, would have worked out.

Definitely not, she didn't want to be a princess

"You're not being very nice to me Temari-hime." Hinata pouted.

"It's because I miss you so much."

Hinata let herself smile, that was why she loved Temari. Underneath her fierce amazon-ish exterior, she was really just a big softy.

"I miss you to. I'll come visit you as soon as I can."

"You better." The blonde replied.

Hinata thought about her hectic schedule. Somewhere in between now and the next two and a half months she had to whisk her fiancé off somewhere to marry him.

Suna would be a good a place as any

"Hey Hinata?" Temari called through the phone, interrupting her train of thought.

"Hm?"

"So…how big was he?"

.

.

"What do you mean you invited Itachi and his fiancée over for dinner?" Sasuke demanded, his fists clenched childishly at his side. He had yet to meet the woman who would be his sister-in-law and to be quite honest, he had no intention of ever doing so. His wife's unchecked actions obviously put a dent in that plan. "Who said you could do that?"

His wife merely raised an eyebrow, her brown eyes glinting a sinister glean. "Are you trying to tell me that I have to ask for your permission to invite people over to our home?"

"Yes!"

Tenten let the cleaver fall into the chicken with a loud thunk before throwing a "Care to rephrase that answer?" over her shoulder.

There was a few beats of silence before Sasuke turned around and let out a frustrated scream. Hands gripping bundles of black hair in aggravation "Why are you so pregnant?"

"Excuse me?"

"Why are you all hormonal and crazy and shit?" The man ran a hand through his hair again and fought the urge to rip it out. "You weren't like this before!"

"Yes because you knew me oh-so-well! What part of the eighteen hours you were with me before this happened gave you the idea that I wasn't some batshit crazy person?" She gestured to herself.

"I don't know. You were hot."

Tenten rolled her eyes, not at all taking that as a compliment. "You didn't have to marry me." She said softly. "I would have been fine on my own."

"Fine? Yeah okay." Sasuke muttered. "I don't call crawling back to Hyuuga, fine. Pathetic is more like it."

Sasuke barely caught a glimpse of the giant knife as it sliced the air beside his head. The only evidence of the precarious deed was a strand of hair, cut clean, resting on his hand. He vaguely registered the cleaver caught somewhere in the wall behind him.

"Next time I'm not going to miss."

"What the hell was that?" He screamed. He dropped his hair onto the floor and inched away from the woman as inconspicuously as possible. "You're fucking psychotic!" He cursed.

"Yeah and you're a fucking douche!" She screamed back. "I should have gone crawling back to him, that way I wouldn't be in the stupid situation!"

Sasuke ignored the pang in his chest as he continued creating space between them. "Yeah well, why don't you go? No one's stopping you."

He saw a flash of movement as his wife reached for another knife. He decided that he didn't want to wait around to see if she would stay true to her threat.

Before the blade even left her hand, he was out the door.

Crazy bitch

.

.

"You do realize that this is all your fault?" Sasuke said to Hinata who sat awkwardly in the back seat of Itachi's car.

Hinata leaned her forehead against the window, the coolness of the glass felt good against her skin. What he said wasn't anything new. He'd been saying the same thing over and over again like a broken record for the past four hours and she stopped feeling bad after the first thirty times.

She flinched when whatever Sasuke threw to the back seat bounced off her shoulders. There was no doubt in her mind that she lucked out by proposing to the older Uchiha. She didn't know how she'd deal with being married to the immature brat that was to be her brother-in-law.

A ball of paper hit her in the face and fell into her lap. For a brief moment she contemplated throwing it back at him, but decided against it. While she was raised not to let such antics bother her, she certainly did not want to encourage it. She didn't know how much longer the car ride would be. Even another ten minutes of getting balls of crumpled of paper tossed in her face was too much.

Before she met Sasuke, she believed herself to be a person with an overabundance of patience.

Now she wasn't quite sure.

She hoped that her children would take after Itachi's mild temper.

Hinata froze.

Children

God, at some point they were going to bring children into this whole mess.

She chewed her lip and found herself wondering yet again if she was doing the right thing. Was it really okay to start a family when there was no love?

Now is not the time to think about this, she thought. She shook her head free of any troublesome thought and went back to the issue at hand.

Against her better judgment she opened up the crumbled up paper and held it up to the orange gleam of the street lamps and instantly regretted humoring him.

Your fucking fault, was scrawled across the lined paper.

She let out a soft groan and wondered how her day had gone so wrong.

.

.

It started off when Itachi called and asked if it would be okay to go to dinner at his brother's house instead of going to the museum like they had planned.

That should have been the first clue.

But if there was anything Hinata's mother taught her before passing away, it was to be polite.

So she agreed. Five o'clock at his place. She'd be there

At four forty-five she rang the doorbell of Itachi's house and waited patiently for thirteen minutes at the door step.

She heard yelling and slamming and tried not to flinch.

All that ruckus should have been the second clue, she should have just turned around and left while she had the chance.

The door swung open and an angry face glared at hers before shutting the door in her face. Hinata wasn't quite sure what to do at that point.

Was she supposed to leave now?

Just as she was about to step off the front step, the door opened again. Only just enough so that the angry man could reach out and grab the ribboned bottle of scotch in her hands.

Then he shut the door again

She could swear she heard him bolt it too

.

.

"Are you going to let me out of the bathroom?" Itachi asked calmly through the door. "We're going to be late. We wouldn't want to stress Tenten-san out more than she needs to be."

"Then you should have said no to the dinner, or better yet not tell your fiancée about it." Sasuke inched away from the door, expecting his brother to break free at any moment now. The key was still stuck in the keyhole but that would do nothing to deter his brother. "We would have more fun without her."

"Sasuke you're being childish." Itachi said. With a few jiggles of the door knob, the door swung open. "Was that Hinata at the door?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Itachi walked to the door as quickly as he could without revealing to his brother that he was fighting not to hurt him. His patience was beginning to wear rather thin and he didn't know how much longer he could hold himself back from clocking his brother in the face. He guessed that the next time he did something so inanely immature would be it.

He said a quick prayer to some god, even though he didn't believe in one, before opening the door. He hoped that she hadn't just left with the reception she received. It would put a rather heavy damper on his day.

"Hinata," he breathed in relief when he found her standing awkwardly on his doorstep. She looked up at him with those big doe eyes and he swore his heart skipped a beat. She looked so distraught and her shaky smile did nothing to reassure him.

"Sorry about that." He mumbled. He moved aside to let her in, all the while wracking his brain from something to say.

Anything to make this all better.

For all his intelligence, he couldn't come up with a single thing.

So he didn't bother

He gestured to the living room. "Have a seat, we'll be leaving in a little bit."

"At least the broad knows how to pick a good bottle of scotch." Sasuke called from the kitchen. He emerged taking a swig straight from the bottle.

"Sasuke you're being rude."

"Did you know that this is all you're fucking fault?" the younger man demanded flopping onto the couch. He didn't even bother looking her way as he accused her.

Itachi stood absolutely still for a moment, jaw clenched, fists tight and knuckles white at his side. Even though he was angry, there were no ripples on the surface to indicate such turmoil. He looked as he always did.

That made what he did next just a tad scary and a whole lot unexpected.

In a blur of movement he grabbed Sasuke by the ear and dragged him out of the room.

Hinata left all alone, briefly entertained the thought of leaving.

But that would be rude, and Hyuuga's were never rude.

.

.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow! Let me go you, jackass!" Sasuke yelped as his brother yanked his ear. He let out a pained cry when Itachi roughly released the appendage. Sasuke rubbed his now swollen ear as he mustered up his most hateful glare and set it on his brother. "What the hell is wrong with you! You didn't even give me a chance to grab the scotch."

"Would it kill you to be nice to her Sasuke?"

Sasuke's mouth opened as though he wanted to say something and then thought better of it. Perhaps it would be wise to keep his thoughts to himself this time around. "I am being nice to her."

"Sasuke." Itachi said in that tone.

Sasuke hated how some chick got between them. That Hyuuga bitch had just come out of no where and now she was going to marry his brother.

Once they got married, Sasuke wouldn't be allowed to come over anytime he wanted. Itachi would probably take away his set of keys.

He wouldn't need Sasuke anymore

The worst part was, Itachi was okay with it.

He clenched his fist in frustration, and struggled not to act out. Why couldn't his brother see that, marrying that woman would be the end of their relationship as they knew it?

The Hyuuga's were going to take his brother away.

Just like they were going to take his wife away

"Why her!" Sasuke growled. His arms crossed across his chest as he took on the stance of a pouting child.

Itachi was love struck and blind and it was so obvious.

Their relationship didn't make any sense.

When had they gotten the chance to get to know each other anyway?

"Why not her?" Itachi watched him for a silent moment. His intelligent gaze caught something amiss, but that was okay. He was going to get his brother to say whatever it was on his mind.

"No, you're not hearing me." Sasuke let out a frustrated cry and fought the urge to bang his head against the wall. "Why a fucking Hyuuga? What is it with you people and Hyuugas'?" He slammed his hands onto the marble counter of the breakfast bar.

What was it with the Hyuugas'? Why couldn't they just leave him alone? First Tenten and now his brother too. This was just getting to be too much. The younger Uchiha always had trouble containing his anger and now was no different as he turned around and punched a hole into Itachi's wall. "You can't marry her. I'm not letting you. I'll knock her up too if I have to." Sasuke snarled.

Itachi watched the unshed tears in his brother's eyes and wondered if he was doing the right thing after all.

Was he being selfish?

Yeah, he was.

"I'll talk to her after dinner." Itachi said softly. He didn't meet his brother's gaze, instead he turned around and went back into the living room.

His usually proud posture just a little slumped.