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iii. Interesting
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This is another boring morning.
And there is nothing I can do to change it.
I sigh as I walk through the stairs.
So I'm a ninja. Big deal. You get to do missions, go away on some far country, fight, maybe kill some people on the way, and then return to where you started to report on what you've done. You listen to what is said. You do what you're commanded to do. You deliver what is expected of you. Che. It gets pretty boring when you've done it for so long. I'd rather be sleeping.
It's not like I'm slacking off a job. I've already done my part for today and if there are any new missions for me, well, I'm just delaying the time it takes for the message to be delivered to me by a bit. Heh, fine. You can call me lazy. As if I care.
The steps take me to an all too familiar doorway that leads to a rooftop. This is my favorite place in Konoha. It's cool and breezy here with the shade of the tall oak tree protecting me from sunlight, yet it still lets me see through it to view the clouds. I take my walk towards the shade… but, wait… Is somebody there? I quickly grab a shuriken from my leg pouch.
"Konnichiwa, Shika… maru-kun," a voice said in between yawns. It seems that my presence has awakened her.
I tilt my head a little to see who it was. Oh.
"Hinata-chan, what are you doing here?" I put back the shuriken.
"Training for today ended earlier than expected. I have nothing to do 'til a bit later." She stretches her arms and leans against a wall. "Do you mind if I stay a little bit… longer?" She asked, yawning on the last word.
I liked being alone but leaving and finding another spot to sleep in would be a tad too troublesome for me. And so will asking her to leave. I don't want that cousin of hers (and that dog boy and that other bug guy) challenging me and making me ask for forgiveness either. So I said, "It's okay, Hinata-chan" and took my usual resting position which was a few good feet away from her.
A few silent minutes pass.
"That," she pauses to point to the sky, "looks like an onigiri."
I look at the said cloud. "Yeah, it does."
I thought I was the only person in Konoha to give a damn how clouds look like. Til now. Here is Hyuuga Hinata, sitting beside me, seeing the same things I see in the sky.
"And that one over there looks like a teapot."
It would be rude not to reply. "Yeah."
She is fixated on the clouds and does not notice me glance at her.
I think this is the first time I've ever talked to her about something not about missions or techniques. Strangely enough, the topic of our conversation was about clouds.
A new image forms in my mind. I let Hinata know without thinking about it. "The one under the teapot looks like a ramen bowl, ne?"
"Um." I see her nod her head from the corners of my eyes.
She was unlike the brash girls of our batch. She never bragged about her bloodline or how well she was doing on creating jutsus in our academy days, even now. She never lost control, even when our classmates make fun of her snow-colored eyes. She was very soft-spoken and polite. She didn't go wild on trends. She never stuck her nose into other people's personal lives like Sakura or Ino did. She just keeps quiet and watches everything around her. She was never like them. In any way at all. She was better. In her own way. I think.
"Floating ebi tempura…" I hear her say.
It was my turn to nod. "Yeah."
I never did like girls. They were a species of life too troublesome for me to cope up with.
But… she was different. She was kind and gentle and never called attention upon herself. Why was it only now that I noticed? She was interesting.
"Hinata-chan, do…" My sentence was cut as I heard someone open the door that lead here. It was a rookie genin.
"Hyuuga-sensei, classes start in ten minutes," the rookie said.
Hinata stood up and dusted herself off. "Okay. Thanks for picking me up, Ise-kun." She walked towards the boy, leaving me where I sat.
Before she closed the door after her, she looked my way. "Ne, Shikamaru-kun, were you saying something?"
I was going to ask her out to eat since I noticed she saw nothing but images of food floating in the sky. It was simple logic that she was hungry. No use asking her that now.
I give her a smile to ease that look of query in her face. "Maybe we can go cloud-watching again?"
"Of course, Shikamaru-kun."
The door closes and I continue looking at the sky.
And I see her there.
The morning isn't so boring after all.
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tsuzuku…
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