Title: If Wishes Were...Foxes?
Author: embryonica
Rating: G ( K )
Month: February 2011
Challenge: Year of the Fox
Pairing: NaruHina
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At 22 years old, Hyūga Hinata was living on her own for the first time, and her studio apartment was sparsely furnished. Her father, the CEO of an international corporate empire, had expressed an ardent desire to see her living in a posh penthouse, wanting for nothing, but Hinata had decided to try starting from scratch, instead of being the pampered princess all her life.
To spruce up the decidedly dull décor, the young woman had visited a flea market that Saturday morning and picked up a garish orange lamp. Though Hinata was a lover of soothing pastel colors, she found the lamp's shape attractive and decided she would take it to her mother's art studio sometime soon and re-glaze it in a more pleasing hue.
Before that, though, she needed to clean it, as it had clearly been abandoned, uncovered, in a very musty, dusty place.
Standing at the serviceable kitchen sink, Hinata picked up a dishcloth and started rubbing away the accumulated grime of years in storage. She stopped abruptly, squeaking in alarm, when the lamp started glowing and shaking in her hands. Hastily depositing it in the sink, she backed away as the light grew brighter and the clattering in the metal sink grew louder. She had a crazed moment in which she wondered if she had activated some kind of bomb.
The incandescence became blinding for one moment, accompanied by a loud POP, which elicited a shriek of fright from Hinata.
More shocking than the light and noise was the sudden appearance of a tall, blond young man in long pajamas the same gaudy shade of orange as the lamp. Glimpsing him, Hinata screamed (as it had been drilled into her to do from a very young age in response to a strange male entering her vicinity), "Ah! A rapist!"
Glimpsing her in return, the blond youth screamed, "Ah! A ghost!"
Hinata had only a split-second to resent being mistaken for a ghost before she fainted dead away.
Awakening on the cheap linoleum floor was less than pleasant, but Hinata dusted herself off and looked around her. The orange lamp was in the sink and no strange young men were in sight. She was disconcerted by the waking nightmare she had experienced, but wrote it off and was just about to return to cleaning the lamp when she heard the toilet flush. She froze.
"Oh, hey, ghosty lady, what's up?" the rapist greeted her genially as he reentered the kitchen. "Are you gonna faint again?"
"I-I-I-I'm-I'm nnnnn-not a g-g-ghost," Hinata answered, internally surprised by her own response.
The blond snorted. "Coulda fooled me, with your black hair and white skin and white dress. You sure you're not a ghost?"
"Yes!" she exclaimed, a rich blush suffusing her cheeks.
Seeing this, the rapist grinned. "Ah, so you've got blood flow after all. Great! I don't think I'm allowed to serve ghosts."
"Ssss-ser-serve?" she echoed.
"Yep! You rubbed the lamp, so you're my mistress now," he informed her. "You get three wishes, yada yada, I'm sure you've heard the spiel before. So, what's it gonna be? Oh, and forget anything you might've heard about certain wishes being off-limits, 'cause rules don't apply to me. I'm definitely a cool rebel among my kind, totally James Dean-y." He struck a goofily brooding pose and then cut his bright blue eyes to her, expectant. "So? Come on, tell me your wish!"
Hinata had never encountered anyone so effervescent. She could barely muster a response. "W-w-what-what's your name?"
"Oh, hahaha! I completely forgot. I'm Naruto, the fox genie of the lamp!" So saying, two pointed, red-furred ears popped out from the top of his head while a long, puffy, red tail popped out from his behind. He grinned a foxy grin and stuck out his hand. "Nice ta meetcha!"
Hesitantly reaching out to grasp the proffered limb, she said, "Hyūga Hinata." As a human boy in pajamas, he was handsome. With the ears and tail he was unbearably cute.
Her blush returned full-force.
"Hey, you got a fever or something? You look like you're burning up," Naruto commented.
"Nnnnnn-no!" she warbled.
"That's good, then. Okay now, what're you gonna wish for? Eternal life?" he suggested.
Hinata frowned. "Th-th-that sounds horrible."
"Really? I thought lots of people wanted that. Some of my previous masters sure did," he answered.
"Iiiiit would be lllll-lo-lonely."
"Heh, you're smart, Hinata. It is lonely, and I'd know. My stupid previous masters wouldn't listen when I tried to tell them, though," he scowled, but his buoyant expression soon returned. "What else is there? Oh! Do you want someone to fall madly in love you?"
The blush made a terrific resurgence.
"Well, tha-that-that mmm-mi-might be nice ssss-so-someday," she murmured, pressing her index fingers together, a nervous habit she hadn't been able to break since childhood.
"Then wish for it!" he cheered, but his face fell when she looked aghast. "What?"
"No! If I mmm-made them ffff-fall in love, it wouldn't be rrrr-re-real!" she cried.
He chuckled. "You're a romantic, huh? That's cool. I think I probably am, too. Some of my stupid previous masters had no qualms about it, though, and made some poor girls fall for them. And some of them were so gross and fat and old and stuff! It was like something out of a nasty porn comic!" he yelped, making a face to clearly illustrate his disgust. Hinata couldn't stifle a giggle, and he smiled slyly when he caught her at it.
"Alrighty, no making someone fall in love with you. Um, is there anyone you'd like me to bring back from the dead? I should warn you, though, it's not some happy fluffy Jesus Christ affair—they're rotted and stuff, like zombies but without the limited vocabulary and hankering for brains. And if they've been cremated, you better just forget it. I'm powerful, but even I can't make a person come back from ashes. Also, once they get past a certain level of decay, it's just pointless, so whoever it is can't have been dead for a real long time, okay? Maybe a really well-preserved mummy, but I can't make any promises."
Hinata blinked owlishly at him before shuddering. The whole zombie reanimation sounded utterly distasteful. She made her refusal clear.
Naruto suggested she wish to be fabulously, disgustingly wealthy.
She told him her family already was.
He suggested worldwide fame.
She recounted hyperventilating just from giving a speech in front of her class in elementary school.
Would she like a pet, he asked.
The apartment landlord had a strict no-pets policy.
An awesome car?
She'd never gotten her driver's license, having been chauffeured everywhere her entire life.
An awesome bicycle, then?
There was no place to store it.
Naruto rattled off plenty more suggestions, but Hinata found a reason to shoot down every single one. Finally, Naruto exploded, "Hinata, you're killin' me! Just make a wish already!"
Taken aback by his vehemence, she flushed and asked, "What's your fffff-fa-favorite ff-food?"
"Huh? Whaddya wanna know that for?"
"P-p-please tell me."
"Well, alright. My favorite food? That's easy! A piping-hot bowl of Ichiraku ramen!" he enthused.
Hinata had never heard of that brand, but if Naruto was to be believed regarding the extent of his powers, such a matter was immaterial. She said, "I wish ffff-for one of mmmm-my-my mm-mother's homemade cinnamon buns, aaa-and-and a piping-hot bowl of Ichiraku rrrr-ra-ramen."
Naruto gaped at her but granted the wish. Hinata invited him to sit at the fold-up card table in the teeny dining area and they enjoyed the food together. She was more than happy to listen to him rant about former masters, though he had been fond of a few. A young teacher named Iruka had rubbed the lamp in the 1930s and was obviously a favorite. It seemed he had been planning to keep Naruto around as a platonic lifelong companion, but Iruka had been visiting Nagasaki on a certain day in 1945 and Naruto had been sucked back into the lamp without warning. He'd never known what had happened to Iruka until being summoned by his most recent master before Hinata, a carpenter named Yamato, in the '70s. The man had been kind enough, but he had made three simple wishes in a short timeframe and then bid farewell to Naruto without much fanfare.
Daylight had faded, and Naruto said, "Oh man, it's gotten so late! You could've told me, Hinata!"
"Sssss-sorry," she said, worried she had upset him.
"I'm not mad, it's just— well, you might be too nice. You just let me go on and on!"
"I lllll-liked lllll-li-listening to you."
For the first time she got to see him blush a bit, and it was sweet. Her heart tripped over itself.
He ushered her off to have a bath and get ready for bed, which she did after showing him how to work the flat-screen TV (one item her father simply would not let her leave home without).
After she was through and came into the living room, wearing lavender Hello Kitty pajamas, Naruto grinned and said goodnight. When he was about to go back into the lamp, Hinata stopped him in her polite, stuttering way and said it was no trouble to fix up the couch as a bed for him. Touched by her thoughtfulness, he accepted the offer and had a nice night's sleep.
The next morning Hinata fixed breakfast for the both of them, and Naruto expended lavish praise on her cooking skills. She blushed hard and happily.
They spent the day much like before, with Naruto doing a lot of talking about all the eras he had lived through and people he'd met. Today, though, he encouraged her to talk more about herself, so she told him about her family. He was quite incensed to learn she had spent her formative years ostracized for being a shrinking violet in a family of staunch sunflowers, but she reassured him several times that the relationships were vastly improved. Her father, especially, seemed to be trying to make up for lost time. When Hinata revealed that her uptight, stern father was currently on an aggressive campaign to get her to call him "Daddy," like she had as a toddler, Naruto nearly busted a gut laughing, and it was infectious. A few times it seemed to die down, but then they'd make eye contact and start all over again.
At the close of the day, Hinata told Naruto she had to go to work the next day, but that she would be home for dinner. She even fixed a sandwich for him to have for lunch while she was out.
"Are you gonna use your second wish, Hinata?" Naruto asked her.
Her limpid eyes drifted to the cramped couch and she answered, "I wish mmm-my couch was a nnnnnn-ni-nice fold-out so you can ssss-sleep comfortably."
Right after granting her wish, he fisted his hands on his hips in a classic scolding posture she suspected he might have learned from his friend Iruka. Naruto expostulated, "Hinata, quit wasting your wishes on me! They're for you! They're to make you happy!"
"This does mmmmm-ma-make me happy!" she responded, equally as fervent.
He plopped down on the newly transformed couch and sighed in blatant exasperation. "Well, your wish is my command and all that," he groused.
Hinata wondered why he was so against her doing things for him. She had always been happier in giving gifts than receiving them, in seeing faces fill with warmth and contentment once the contents of a box or bag were revealed.
Naruto had been glad enough for the ramen the previous evening, but there was no sign of that now as he stretched out on the couch and started flipping through channels. He mumbled a goodnight to her and she took it for the dismissal it was.
In her bedroom, she did everything she could to muffle the sobs that rang out of her throat. She bit her lip so hard, it bled.
Monday morning, Hinata saw neither hide nor hair of the fox genie, and deduced he had gone back into his lamp. She had a bowl of tasteless cereal and went to work, taking time before she left to remind Naruto of the sandwich and beverages in the refrigerator and that she would be home to make dinner.
Hinata was an assistant teacher at a preschool, and being around the children eased her aching heart a little, but Naruto was still foremost on her mind. She wondered if she had hurt him somehow, unknowingly, and he wanted to get away from her. He could only do that if she made her third wish, but she had no idea what to wish for.
Her solution was to ask her four-year-old charges. The answers ranged from "Lots of candy" to "A puppy" to "A new tricycle" to "A new baby sister" and beyond. It was all very cute, and also gave Kurenai, her direct superior, the inspiration for a new art project for the kids, but it didn't help Hinata very much.
"What if," she said, "I want to free the genie from the lamp? How do I wish for that?"
"You just say 'I wish the genie was free from the lamp,' duh!" exclaimed one bossy little girl.
Hinata pondered that. Could it be that easy?
When she arrived back home and started dinner preparations, Hinata noticed the sandwich was gone, which made her smile weakly, but Naruto did not come out to keep her company the way he had before.
She served two portions anyway and set the table for two. She said softly, sadly, "Please don't mmmm-make me use mmm-my-my third wish ffff-fo-for this."
Begrudgingly Naruto appeared. He sat down and they ate in silence. He thanked her for the food and would have vanished once more, but Hinata said, "NNN-Na-Naruto-kun, please don't go yet. I-I-I-I-I don't knnn-know what I did, b-b-but I'm ssss-so sss-so-sorry!"
Her face crumpled as her tears started flowing, and Naruto panicked, his ears and tail popping out. Crying women freaked him out. He grabbed her some tissues and awkwardly patted her back, trying to remember how the women on TV soothed their friends. "Um, there, there, honey, he didn't deserve you anyway. You're worth a million of that tramp he was with."
When he heard a tearful giggle, he knew he was on the right track. "We'll go out and get drunk and dance. Forget guys! We'll just have a girls' night out!"
She lifted her face out of her hands, hiding the bottom half of it with damp tissues. Her pale eyes were shiny and red-rimmed. Naruto's heart tripped over itself.
"Oh, Naruto-kun," Hinata whispered feelingly, "I wish you were human."
They locked eyes and gasped at the same time. The lamp fell off the kitchen counter and shattered on the floor.
Naruto remained where he was, though, in his loud pajamas, but his adorable ears and tail were absent, never to return.
The blond looked desolate. "What've you done, Hinata?" he questioned, sounding hopeless.
"D-d-d-do you hate mmmm-me-me?" she said, looking quite liable to burst into tears anew.
"No. I don't think that's even possible," he told her, smiling faintly.
"Then w-w-why did y-y-you avoid mmmmmm-me-me?"
He scratched the back of his head. "I was getting too comfortable, and you only had one wish left. Once you made it, our time would be up. I thought it was better not to get too attached. Why did you do this, Hinata?"
"Ssssss-so that you could ssssst-stay," she told him.
"Couldn't you have just wished for that?" he pointed out.
She replied that forcing him to stay was as bad as forcing someone to fall in love with her. She had wanted to give him the choice he'd never had before. As a human, unbound by the lamp or a master-servant relationship, he could decide for himself.
His expression evidenced his bewilderment. Hinata said, "Na-Naruto-kun, iiiif-if I were yyyy-yo-your genie, what wo-would you wi-wish fffff-fo-for?"
For long moments he considered the query. At last he smiled and said, "I would wish to be able to find someone like you to love me."
"You already have," she said meaningfully.
He laughed, beaming, and swept her off her feet into a tight embrace. He swung her in a few circles before noticing her lack of response. Loosening his hold, he examined her and realized she had passed out. He kissed her cheek and whispered, "Wake up soon, ghosty lady. I have so much to tell you."
-finis-