Summary: They wronged her in life. Now they'll come together for it. "Hinata was like a monarch butterfly; like pinwheel spokes in a harsh breeze. Too fast- too fleeting- to keep." 5 people- Ino, Sakura, Naruto, Neji, Sasuke- remember her after her death.

Notes: Hinata, Ino, and Sakura are 16 -17 years old and in grade 11. Naruto, Neji and Sasuke are one grade above, 12, and 17 - 18 years old.

In class they tell us she's dead.

I write in an 8 instead of a 9 on my homework. I hear a pencil drop.

Why do girls have to die?

::S P O K E S::

::2::

::Haruno Sakura::

1::

She sat next to me in English class last year, and I marveled at her handwriting.

Hinata's handwriting was neat and beautiful. Perfect Catholic school cursive. And I was always sort of jealous of her - but of course I had difficulty admitting this even to myself, because she was lost in the social fray and was not the type to be envied. Yet in her own way, she was special. Different.

We never really spoke that much. I'm not sure why exactly. But I know now that maybe it was because some strange and unreasonable dislike for her was always lingering in my chest whenever she stared at me with those ugly pale eyes...

But Hinata's not ugly anymore. She's beautiful. Even as a corpse.

2::

I went to the wake because Ino forced me to go. I'm not sure why I didn't put up a fight. I could have refused to go, but because I am in the drama club and the drama club voted on going "as a group", I wasn't exempt from this whole affair. Because Hinata was in drama club. We had lost one of our own.

Everyone knew Hinata was asked to help sew costumes, yet no one took much notice of her. She helped mend gowns for Renaissance women when we put on A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. We saw her add glitter to fairy wings, and sequins to fancy flapper dresses. Yet we hardly ever asked her to attend our after parties to celebrate finishing our shows, because Hinata was always so polite that she'd refuse anyway.

(Was she really that transparent?)

We were told to dress in head to toe black - and it was so ridiculous, so over-the-top-macabre I almost laughed. Yet I found myself spending a half an hour digging through my winter clothes bin to find a black shirt to wear.

The day of the wake, I got up fifteen minutes late. I squeezed too much Crest out of the toothpaste tube. I tripped on my untied shoelaces and almost fell down the stairs. At eight-ten my doorbell rang and I answered it with bags beneath my eyes because that previous night I stayed up watching old, bad horror movies on TV.

There was Ino and the rest of the club standing around my porch – 10 in all. We have a lot of kids involved in drama club, as sound stage and scenery and script editing help put our productions totally together. But only the real "actors" of this past show bothered to arrive at my doorstep to escort me to a funeral home.

For eight blocks we paraded as a throng of wanna-be actresses and actors, some with piercings, others with dyed hair (like me). We got a few odd looks from women crossing the street with strollers and glamorous jocks running alongside their golden retrievers. I contemplated if it was possible for me to casually make a right at the next street corner without Ino noticing.

Ino has been my friend since grade nine. In fact, it was her idea for me to join the drama club - in other words, she dragged me down with her because, irrationally enough, she hates doing things like that alone. As we approached the funeral home, Ino took out a tissue from a flowered pack of Kleenex and wiped her eyes. This got on my nerves.

"Why are you crying?" I whispered as we walked in together. Because you didn't even like her.

I remember she looked offended, almost appalled. "Because Sakura - this is a tragedy, OK? God."

Her words stuck to my skin for the rest of the day, ringing out in my mind whenever I felt myself becoming detached during the service.

Because I realized: this all was a tragedy.

3::

We all ended up standing together simply as a group of kids dressed in black clothing too hot for the weather, leather pants and sweaters, at KONOHA FUNERAL HOME.

Some girls from our school were talking to some boys from our school who were forced to go because of their parents, and I wondered why half of these kids even bothered to show. I saw Naruto standing off to the side, looking pale, like hell. I was glued to the spot. Couldn't even say his name.

The family stood near the coffin, giving hugs and consoling the ones who cried; then one by one everyone lined up to view the body, to sit before it and kneel, to pray.

I felt bile rise in my throat. A soft, melancholy song played in the room, from somewhere I couldn't see. There was a collage of pictures from Hinata's life near an enormous bouquet of flowers. All I could think over and over again, like a mantra, was I am going to throw up.

Standing there, wringing my hands, I remembered going to my great-aunt's funeral. I was chewing on hard candies I found in a dish at the front of the funeral home where we held the viewing. I bit down on a peppermint and nearly cracked my tooth when I got too close to the casket.

Too close to the body. Just a body, all dressed up. That was how it was then and now.

My knees were shaking as I approached her coffin - hers, as if Hinata had ever wanted a coffin in the first place. It was a shiny tomb to be buried 10 feet under. I wondered how Hinata could rest while smothered by piles and piles of dirt. Maybe thinking of her alive would help me feel better.

But it didn't – all I could remember was how she ate cold spaghetti at lunch in the cafeteria, when she sometimes sat at the drama club table, and how I always wrinkled my nose at it.

Ino stood beside me as we waited in line together to say our farewells. Everyone was walking in what seemed to be pairs. I felt almost like the walls were falling down and closing in, because there was a dead body at the end of the room.

"It won't be bad," Ino whispered to me as she held my hand. I squeezed hers; she didn't seem to be faring too well either. One of our drama club members Tayuya, who wearing a black veil instead of her usual ski cap, slowly walked away from the coffin in tears, holding onto her boyfriend Sakon.

I breathed deeply and focused on the parents. Hinata's parents. A father, somber, and a mother, holding in tears to herself, head bowed, as relatives approached and offered condolences.

(The signs of the end to a life.)

Ino squeezed my hand as suddenly, it was our turn to view the body – Hinata.

Picturing Hinata eating the spaghetti at lunch – that was wrong of me, stupid of me. The pasta morphed into worms in my head, because soon she would be buried, and would she dirt clog her pores, and smother her one day?

My head felt thick. The air was uncomfortably cool. I heard someone behind us blow their nose.

We approached. And Hinata was lovely, in a loose-fitting, long sleeved dress, her legs in tights, feet not visible to me. Ino was crying to herself. We no longer held hands. Her shoulders shook. All I could hear was her stifled, quiet crying as we knelt together, my legs, damp, sticking to the bench, my head too light, floating -

Then suddenly I was drowning, drowning, unable to reach the surface again.

4::

I hadn't moved, hoping not to look at her close eyelids, her pale face caked with all that unneeded makeup, and decided then that it was her obliviousness that had bothered me the most.

All throughout high school, Hinata was not ugly. But she wasn't really stunning, either. Kids knew her because she helped with charity events and it was announced often that she got great grades in class, but Hinata was content to be Normal. She wore parka coats throughout the winter and lacked "sex appeal". If she wore makeup, it wasn't obvious. If she went to the mall, no one saw her there.

Basically, she was a wallflower who didn't raise her hand too much, who didn't go to school footballs games; someone who didn't appear on every other page in our yearbook. She acted so withdrawn. In drama club, she'd never stop stuttering, second-guessing herself. She bugged me. Why was she so content with Normal?

But...did her death haunt others as much as it did me?

We shared classes together, but only spoke to one another if I needed help with something on an elaborate costume in the Club.

We saw each other backstage where I would sometimes make small talk and say my hellos and goodbyes to her.

We never discussed anything or gossiped together, like the other girls did. We were never close.

(But I already had an answer, didn't I.)

I knew deep-down that I felt remorse. That Hinata getting killed wasn't like, some random kid in our class getting dying in a car accident or OD'ing on drugs. It was worse. And it did haunt me: or more specifically, the question did, The Question that dominated my daydreams and idle thoughts, all the way up to the viewing, maybe beyond: Did I purposely close myself off to her?

I've always been popular and social. Maybe I figured that we were too different to be friends. But I was never actually mean, was I?

(For someone smart, I was ignorant.)

Like a magnificent author whose worked was not known before they passed, Hinata became an instant celebrity in death.

::

October 15th, ordinary day, first period, 8:00 AM. I'm tired and almost hungover, because Naruto and I had stolen those beers from the minibar fridge and Hell, his dad is probably gonna kill him now.

Head-achey, too, I notice. Writing down equations already written on the board for a class that only the teacher actually liked. And I already know this stuff. It's easy.

And then Miss Yuhi comes into the class pale, silent, shutting the door softly behind her. She clears her throat, and we know to shut up.

"Class, I have some very terrible news. I was informed that your classmate – Hinata Hyuuga... she has passed away."

::

When I was kneeling there, beside Ino, despite willing myself to look away - pretend to look, pretendpretendpretend - my eyes met hers and it was as if Hinata had never even closed them.

(You were afraid, weren't you? Because anyone else's beauty - her purity, would make you dislike yourself...)

5::

Last year - no, almost two years ago - It was back when I first dyed my hair Cherry Blossom Blush; when Ino and I would giggle and laugh and do fake plies and pirouettes on the bleachers after school; when I'd cover her back when she was puking, when she'd cover mine when I was smoking, in the bathroom stalls.

It was another after school rehersal. Backtage, I watched Ino bound around for our rendition of Grease. I was not talented enough to land a major role. I was an understudy/painter/good-for-nothing. Did this burn me up? Sort of. But I never said anything. I guess I just had sour grapes.

Our auditorium was different back then. We kept all of our costumes in a tiny sidestage area hidden by a few curtains, in boxes and bins, because we needed all the stage room we could get.
I watched Ino sing and recite lines with the others, like puppets on strings in a puppet show.

I knew I was only good for painting trees and bushes on sheets and cardboard. She complained about not getting the lead, but at least Ino got a part.

Then, I heard rustling.

Despite being needed to "read lines for our star", or give the lead actress Kin a line when she forgot what to say, I was bored and a little curious as to who was behind the curtains. I saw our instructor, Shizune, clapping loudly and critiquing someone's delivery; it was my chance to slip back there and see who was making that noise.

Quietly, I walked through the side stage and peeked in -

- and there I saw Hinata trying on the dress, the one I always wished I could steal to wear – it was Kin's dress, the very dress Hinata had helped sew and design for the scene where Sandy goes to the school dance. A silken princess's dress, a sparkling gauzy bow around the waist, with beautiful lace straps. Her back was turned to me, almost like a stranger.

It was almost ridiculous. Like, out of a movie. Because the dress Hinata tried on...it made her look more beautiful than she would ever realize, because she was meant to wear it and I never was.
How could I ever wear a dress like that and look so flawless without even trying? How could anybody? I scowled.

(Now I hate myself for my jealousy.)

I quickly walked back to my place backstage, back to my script, back to watching the practice. In that moment, Hinata Hyuuga was someone. More than Someone. She was the cheerleading captain who'd just won a cheer competition. A Miss Universe contestant who won for Evening Gown. A Homecoming queen. She was the true Star, a perfect Sandy with the wrong hair color, perfect for the show.

I should have been happy for her.

6::

My hands were shaking, my veins laden with ice, fiery pinpricks of fear, but I leaned close enough to feel that imaginary pulse beneath Hinata's skin and that imaginary heat radiate from her body, that was still incredibly alive, to whisper:

You were always prettier.

I'd fulfilled my own selfish wish to make myself feel better -

I fainted.

A strange pressure made me fall, right from my knees on the bench straight back to the floor. Ino and the others crowded around me; I didn't come to until someone threw water on my face and streaked my cheeks with mascara tears. I was back in minutes.

(Is that what dying is like?)

We didn't go to the mass or to the grave. That was private, meant for the family. I didn't get a chance to put a flower on Hinata's grave, or cry for her. But at least Hinata could take what I'd given to her. Some kind of truth, in what I'd thought I'd said.

Ino sat with me outside the funeral home. Why did I faint? I knew it was seeing her face, Hinata's face, caked with makeup...and the white-and-peach colored gown, that had made me remember the day I'd seen her with Sandy's dress...and God, I felt sick, I was going to puke.

I needed to breathe. Death crowds everything.

"I'm sorry," I said aloud, almost to myself. Ino still had her tissues in the pocket of her dressiest pants, the black Chinos we'd just recently bought together at the mall, just before our junior year began. Who knew we'd be buying them for this.

"Ino?" I half-whispered.

Her voice was shaky. "Yeah?"

"Did you even know Hinata?"

I heard her drawn in a sharp breath, like she couldn't breathe either. For some reason, when you go to funerals for people you're not even that close to – and you see someone crying hard, or you feel the sadness crashing like a tidal wave over the entire room - you can get overwhelmed, and suddenly you're sucked in and you're depressed too.

"In middle school, I..." Ino's eyes looked far away. She bit her lip and twirled the butterfly ring on her finger. "We were friends." Her simple whispered explanation, a confession, that made me feel pained.

Ino rubbed her eyes with her sleeve. I wasn't going to point out that she was smearing her mascara. We weren't in school now and we weren't on a double date. We were where things like that didn't – couldn't - matter in the least.

Before I could stop myself, I admitted it. "I didn't really know Hinata. But I haven't been able to stop thinking: I mean, I could've. But I... I was kind of jealous. Hinata was really pretty but acted all, I don't know – she was just so blind. It was so, impossible...annoying..."

There was a pause. And then I spoke, my voice shaking in disbelief. (Oh. God.)

"Wow. I really can't believe I just said that."

Ino sniffed. "Hinata was... just kind of lucky, y'know?"

Even though I didn't really understand what she fully meant by this, I never disagreed.

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