Chapter 1 - Snapping Dragons
He sits there on the wall surrounding the Uchiha estate — absolutely, under no circumstances, spying — because he is Hyuuga Neji, and spying is beneath him.
Rather, Neji is more prone to say that he's examining the area, and there is a noteworthy twinge to his eye at what he sees. Really, there's nothing impressive about what he sees. The southern wall is almost completely toppled, rubble covers most of the yard, and everything is gray and bleak and sad. The signs of war are fresh in the estate. It is a phantom of tragedy that does not leave the broken windchimes, the chipped wood of the engawa, the dusty paper of the sliding doors. He takes it all in, and all he can think about when he stares down upon the rubble is Hinata — because he is Hyuuga Neji, and the idea that his cousin will have to live in a place like this brings him to the brink of rage.
His shoulders roll back, and he readies himself to hop down from the wall. The image of Hinata standing by that toppled wall, the gray of it all stealing the color from her face, makes his stomach flip upside down, and he feels almost ill. He will have to return home, to where his cousin sits daintily by a table, posed by the Hyuuga. The sight will make him sick, as well, but at least it's not sulfur and war there.
Just before he's about to leave the wall, however, Neji catches sight of a man.
Of course, it's not just any man.
This is the bastard that has been ruining Neji's moods for the past few days.
"Ah. There you are."
Uchiha Sasuke stares at him from the ground, looking like the very estate he lives in — a complete, utter catastrophe. He's covered in grime, his pants caked in dry mud, and there's a sheet of sweat down the side of his neck. Neji doesn't think he's ever seen the Uchiha as anything but that perfect, straight-faced brat who regards everyone like it's a chore -— disregarding the first word of news that came to the Uchiha step days ago, of course. But that's neither here nor there, and Neji supposes anyone would be distraught in such circumstances.
But right now, there's no messenger at his gate, no letter that signs his future away. Sasuke is just a mess for mess's sake. And Neji's not sure if he should be smug or disgusted at the sight of him.
Quietly, Sasuke steps up onto the engawa behind him, and he yanks off his gloves so that his clean hands pull back a sliding door. He reaches in, pulls something out, and shuts the door before sitting himself down, feet barely touching the ground beneath him.
He places a plate of cold chicken next to him, and Neji's twisted stomach suddenly unknots itself at the smell of it.
Damn it. Damn him.
He hesitates — only for a moment before he hops down to dig in — because he is Hyuuga Neji, and he wouldn't be so rude as to refuse a meal, even from this Uchiha brat.
As he eats the chicken, Sasuke fits his gloves back on his hands.
"I asked Kakashi about it," he murmured. Neji inwardly snorts at the idea of asking that guy for any help, nor does he doubt his Pakkun was very keen about it. "He suggested chicken. I got a few more pieces for you. Just in case."
His hospitality doesn't spoil the taste of the chicken, but Neji is stuck between being thankful and irritated.
I eat fine, with or without you, he thinks to himself.
After a pause, Sasuke stands once more. The heavy push of his gaze on Neji's back makes him lift his head to meet the Uchiha's gaze, and Neji feels his spine arch. Sasuke towers over him, looking down his nose at him, and that — really — is what pisses Neji off the most about all of this.
Because he is Hyuuga Neji, protegee and genius!
"Ah. Did I say something? Your fur is standing."
But he is also Hyuuga Neji, the cat.
*** Neji Hyuuga - Cat Man ***
With a belly full of chicken, Neji goes to that alleyway between a bank and an upscale sushi restaurant, and he ducks behind a tower of boxes before he focuses. He takes note of his channels full of his chakra, and with a push, it expands from his little, furry body — and suddenly, he's back to being that Hyuuga Neji that everyone knows.
He checks himself — because, mind you, this is all still relatively new to him.
All five fingers. Regular ears. No tail.
Next to him, the cat stretches its paws in front of it, and it licks its chops, happy from the meal so graciously bestowed to them by Uchiha Sasuke.
At least one of them is happy about this.
"I don't know how you stand it," Neji mutters, squatting down so he does not tower over it like a certain Uchiha tends to do. "Being looked down on by people — especially by that cretin."
The cat just blinks its eyes made of parts of the sky, and Neji realizes that — of course the cat wouldn't understand what he means by that. It lives its whole life being stared down by others.
Well, he absolutely will not stand for it.
He sighs, stands, and leaves for home.
...
Hinata is in her mother's garden, a white towel (pristine and flawless and nothing like that damn, crumpled wall in the Uchiha estate) wrapped securely around her head. Her eyes are covered, and there are no veins that signify she's using her byakugan, and this makes Neji pause before his feet can touch the stone pathway.
He's still blinking away the sharpness of cat focus from his eyes. It lingers in the sides of his eyes, making his eyes focus and unfocus at random times. But even still, with his eyesight blurring the moment Hinata's pale form comes into view, he reads the situation, he knows what's happening, and he does not like it.
She's preparing herself. She's preparing herself because they both know what happens to Hyuuga who marry out of their family. He knows because he's not the main branch, and she knows because more than a decade ago, when he was young and just a child, he had gone blind for a week because of the fresh brand on his forehead. He hadn't known anything about it back then; when she had asked about it all those years ago, he told her it felt like his head was full of knives and his eyes were dying stars, and she had been so scared that she hid in her room for the rest of the day.
That was not something he should have told her.
Neji knows that now.
But now Hinata knows the blindness that comes with the seal, and she's in her mother's garden, eyes covered, hands gently touching the leaves before her.
He's loud and purposeful with his steps. Her head lifts and turns his way as he sits across the miniature pond from her.
"Take it off," he tells her. "You won't be sealed."
They both know that's a lie.
Neji still has it in his head that he's a cat that can easily fool people, so the lie stings his ears by how obvious it is.
She only smiles, however, and goes back to touching the flowers in front of her.
"Roses," she whispers. "And next to them . . . marigolds."
He snorts. "You know this place well," he says. "Of course you can name them."
Her mouth twists just a bit, and then she stands, dusts her knees off, and begins to spin. She twirls herself along the stone, careful to place foot after foot on the path, never getting too close to the flowers that watch with held breaths. Her balance is perfect, and her flexibility matches her rank as a ninja. He stays on this note for just a moment. He lingers on how he's the only Hyuuga around watching this work of art; perhaps if the elders were here, there'd be no need to sell her off like some worthless item. They'd recognize the strength she's been building since the day he sent a wave a chakra through her chest — no, before that — since the day she became a ninja — since the day she was first bested by her sister — since the day she was born.
Neji is tired of being one of the few who sees it.
And he grits his teeth as she spins blind like it's the simplest thing in the world. He thinks about it, and then he stops.
With Hinata, sometimes, the ninja world melts away.
The smoke and smell of copper vanishes, and he settles forward into the world of color of flowers.
She looks like how she used to be — just for a moment, a glimmer through the clouds. Before the war, before Naruto. She's that free, glowing spirit, and Neji watches her. He almost wishes she'll never stop, because then she'll go back to that sad, blind Hyuuga that's being sent off to marry some — some —
Her ankle wobbles, and she laughs, dizzy. He jumps over the pond and helps steady her, and her fingers curl against his sleeve as she thanks him.
"What were you thinking," he sighs.
"Well," she hums, "I want to prove you wrong."
He nearly has the mind to slip that towel off her head, to tell her she has nothing to prove, when he hears the calls of guards. The gate opens, and in walks Uchiha Sasuke — that perfect one, dressed in a black kimono with no speck of grime or mud on him. No Hyuuga makes a move to prevent the Uchiha from coming further into the estate. Ever since the engagement between him and Hinata was announced, the council made sure that Sasuke had access to most places in the Hyuuga complex.
Nonetheless, some Hyuuga give him weary looks, and Neji steps closer to his cousin when those Uchiha eyes spot them both.
He approaches, taking special care to stay on the stone path, Sasuke doesn't say a word about the towel around Hinata's eyes. He stares at it in muffled confusion, but he keeps to himself.
Hinata, hearing the clacking of Sasuke's wooden sandals, tips her head.
"Who is it, Cousin?" she asks.
Neji catches Sasuke's eye and does not look away. "A dog."
That perfect face does not move. Of course it doesn't.
And that stir of fire and poison that Neji knows well reawakens in his gut.
"Hinata," Sasuke greets her, head bowing politely, though of course she does not see this.
His cousin's back straightens when she recognizes the voice.
"O-Oh." A slight flush takes over the back of her neck upon her stutter. "Mr. Uchiha. Hello."
"Why are you here?" Neji asks.
Sasuke, naturally, does not answer.
"I require your knowledge on something," he tells Hinata. "If you'll give it."
Hinata's hands fold at her lap. "It depends on what you need."
A perfect, Hyuuga answer. Neji almost grabs her hand in relief, and he tries not to think about how such a response might change when she becomes Uchiha.
"Well." Sasuke's gaze slides back to him for a mere moment, narrowing with slight annoyance — the kind that's small, but scorching. Neji knows he's unwanted, but he stays at his cousin's side and glares back. The Uchiha's mouth twists, and then he turns once again to Hinata. "I'm curious about the chakra points in the neck. I wonder if they connect to any nerves there."
The incline of Hinata's chin tells Neji her attention has been captured.
"Why do you ask?"
"I feel a strain when I try to meditate," he explains.
She hums low, pondering. After a moment, she says, "Yes, it's possible you may have strained it during a mission or training. What area hurts?"
Sasuke looks around the area, gaze never staying too long on one spot. Neji wonders if he's looking for any eavesdroppers.
"My lower neck," he says, like it's an afterthought. Something must have caught his attention, but Neji can't find what it could possibly be. "And around my shoulders."
Hinata thinks for a moment, murmuring the list of chakra points in the neck that they were forced to memorize at a young age.
"If you place your hand on your neck so that your index rests on your nape, then there's a point right at where your ring finger is." Her face turns slightly pink under her towel. Neji touches the back of her arm slightly, silently telling her she got it right, and she continues. "If you press a small bit of chakra there, that should do the trick."
Sasuke pulls his eyes back to her, like it's a chore. Neji feels his own neck burn with anger.
"Mn," he hums.
Hinata's hands squeeze together, and her face bows to the ground. She does not offer to help him, but Neji sees that it's there, on her tongue. She wants to. She bites her lips together, keeping the offer to herself.
Sasuke sees this, as well.
He steps back, leaving the colorful world of the garden. But before he leaves, his eyes dip down, and he says, "The flowers in front of you. What are they?"
Hinata tips her head. She slowly bends down and holds the petals of the flowers like they're faces. She cups them gently, lovingly. Sasuke is staring at her, and Neji's nose wrinkles.
"Snapdragons," she answers.
Sasuke does not say another word. He makes his way back to the gate.
When he's out of view, Neji activates his byakugan and notices, with a slant to his eyes, that Uchiha Sasuke had been lying.
"Cousin?" Hinata calls from below. "Is everything alright?"
He deactivates his byakugan and says nothing about it to her.
...
The next day, Neji is back to having four feet and a hunger for chicken.
It is not something he is actively pleased about, but the Uchiha's lie is stuck to the back of his throat, and Neji feels the need to investigate. It will be an unpleasant discovery, after all, if Hinata's betrothed is a habitual liar.
When he hops up on that Uchiha wall, he sees that it's still toppled in the back, seemingly abandoned by its owner.
Instead, Sasuke is near the front gates, on his knees with a shovel by his right leg. Neji smells the sweet scent of the snapdragons before he sees them, and when he hops down to gobble the chicken Sasuke had left for him on the engawa, that bitterness that he felt from the Uchiha's visit slowly slips away.
When Sasuke sees him, he stops for a moment to look at the flowers decorating his gate.
He's there, looking like a beggar. It is Neji's turn to look down at him from his spot on the engawa, and maybe it's the chicken or his sudden, pleased mood, but Neji takes no pleasure looking down at him. His tail curls around his hind legs.
Sasuke remains surrounded by snapdragons.
"She was able to tell what flower it was," he explains softly, "without even looking at it."
Ah, Neji thinks, licking the bottom of the now empty plate, so that's why he lied.
And, really, he can't help pity the poor, Uchiha fool.
Hinata is much more fond of lilies than snapdragons.
But between the war-ridden walls and the splintered engawa and the dark owner who lives with a stone face, there is a flash of color. The snapdragons are bright suns in the haze of the Uchiha estate.
Neji imagines his cousin.
She's there, at the gate; she sees the flowers, she cups them like they're her children, and she smiles with pure, Hinata genuinity.
And he thinks, perhaps, there's still a chance for Uchiha Sasuke.
Just maybe.
Chapter 1 - End