Happy Birthday, Luke!
Chapter Three
The days pass slowly. The room she woke up in has been officially given to her for the duration of her stay. Hinata sighs, thinking about it. Like anyone knows how long that will be.
The sun has just begun to glare in through her window. It can't be later than six. She wonders if she was a morning person in her past life, as she's begun to think of it. Did she rise with the sun every morning? Or would this be considered a rare occurrence?
Hinata swings her feet to the floor and tiptoes across her bedroom floor. She closes her door just as quietly. She makes her way into the kitchen, still trying to be as quiet as possible. While she may not be as sure of herself, she's learned that no one else in this house is a morning person.
Tsunade and Jiraiya, her host and hostess, have a habit of staying up late, and they rarely go to bed sober. While Naruto didn't seem to be much of a morning person either, he always rose with the sun. She knew he was out in the woods now, training tirelessly.
He was gone for most of the day, and while he seemed to have taken a general interest in her well-being, she rarely saw him when he was home. He spent that much time by himself, training. She wondered how he dealt with all the solitude. Because when he was home she could see that he was really a quite sociable person.
She's found that no one in this house is much of a cook, and the empty take-out containers that line the sink are a testament to that. And after quite a few failed attempts at making her own meals, she has found that she isn't particularly gifted in the culinary arts either. She wonders who made her meals for school in the morning? Did she go to school? Naruto doesn't, but it would be pretty hard to enroll either of them as they aren't the subjects of either kingdom.
The way Tsunade's explained it, there are two kingdoms. One to the north of here, and one to the west. Each is run by a powerful family. The north kingdom belongs to the Hyuga family, and the west to the Uchiha. Tsunade and Jiraiya used to belong to the Uchiha kingdom, but haven't seen either of the royal families for quite some time. According to Jiraiya, there was a time when the two kingdoms were constantly in the midst of terrible wars, but they'd been at peace for a while. He guessed at least for the past fifteen years or so.
Hinata stoops down to open the cabinet beneath the sink. She pulls out a bowl of cereal, avoiding the packets of instant ramen that fill the rest of the cupboard. She smiles to herself. Even having only lived here for about a week, she's noticed that ramen is about all Naruto ever eats.
Speak of the devil… Just as she sits down to eat her breakfast Naruto rushes through the door. He moves to get his own breakfast but doesn't notice her until he straightens up from the cupboard, ramen packet clutched in his hand.
"Oh! Hey, Hinata-chan."
She giggles. "Good morning, Naruto-kun. How was your training?"
Living out in the middle of the woods, she's figured the chance of accidentally running into any old friends from her past life would be pretty rare, but she doesn't see why she shouldn't make new friends if she can. And Naruto seems like a good place to start. He's a bit naïve, but never purposefully rude. He's confident, but never full of himself. And he's always so happy. It's like nothing in the world can bring him down.
"Pretty good," he replies, sitting down across from him. "I'm thinking of going into town today." He begins to slurp down his ramen.
"Really? Are you meeting with Iruka-san today?" He nods through his mouthful of food.
Hinata learned right away that Naruto wished to be part of the Uchiha family's royal guard. He told her straight out that he plans to climb straight to the top of the line, and that's what he's always out training for. Everyone who dreams to do so is assigned a trainer-one of the lower class guards. Hinata had never met Iruka Umino, but Naruto spoke highly of him.
"I wonder if my parents are a part of the Uchiha kingdom…" she wasn't sure if she'd meant to say it out loud, but she had, and Naruto stopped eating to look at her.
"My parents were," he said quietly.
"Yeah?" She was a bit surprised. As much as she'd heard about Naruto himself, she could count on one hand the number of time she'd heard his parents mentioned: once, when Tsunade and Jiraiya told her that Naruto's father had been their son.
"Well, my dad was." The ghost of a smile brushes past his face. "My dad was top of the royal guard, just like I'm going to be. His job was to guard the king. My mom was the local village outcast. According to Grandma Tsunade, she was pretty wild. I guess my dad was the first person who really listened to her, and they fell in love. The night I was born, my dad died from complications to a wound he got protecting the king. The palace had been ambushed that night."
As Hinata listens, the boy's unusually soft voice seems to transport her to a luxurious castle in the middle of the night.
"Anyway, that same night, my mom died 'cause of complications with the birth…" He lowers his voice and leans further across the table to whisper to her. "That's why Grandma Tsunade quit being a doctor. She couldn't save either of them… So she and the Pervy Sage took me and we've lived out here ever since."
"Oh…" It was a sad story and she could understand why it was rarely spoken of.
"Actually," he says, " I think you may be the first person she's really treated since she left."
Hinata looks down. So far she's remembered virtually nothing. Will she be Tsunade's next failed patient?
Hinata looks up to see that Naruto's abandoned the spot across from her. She spots him up on the counter, reaching for something on a shelf high above the sink.
"Um… Naruto-kun? What are you doing?"
He looks down at her and smirks. He leaps down from the counter and lands more smoothly than she would have imagined possible for someone normally so loud. He's holding a white bottle by its neck and his mischeivous smile grows wider.
"I've decided you need to get out a little more… You need a little excitement… And who says you can't get it even if you're refusing to leave the house?"
"I… I'm not refusing to leave the house…" But her protest is a feeble one as in the week she's spent here, she hasn't ventured past the front yard of the house. Tsunade's told her that the entire forest's her free domain, but she hasn't managed to muster up the courage to act on this knowledge. And no matter how much she pushes the thought down, she knows why. As much as she aches for her memories to return, she fears any sudden flashbacks of her attacks. After all, she was found in this exact forest. What if the sight of being surrounded by all these endless trees triggers something horrifying?
Hinata just barely shakes her head to bring herself back to the present. The present and Naruto holding Tsunade's spare sake bottle… She wonders how much she'll have to barter with Naruto to get out of this. Because she's certain he won't give up without a fight.
"What? You trying to get me drunk?" She accuses, subconsciously backing away from him. Not a move that'll help with her argument…
"Not at all," he replies smoothly, coming ever closer, "It's just… I've started to think of you as a friend, Hinata-chan. And I don't generally go around being friends with a chicken."
She's not sure what part of his explanation is the part that's stopped her in her tracks. Is it the little flare of indignance that popped up when he accused her of being a coward? Or was it that he's called her his friend… and that she desperately wants his friendship. Hinata takes a deep breath. It's just a sip, right?
She makes a big show of huffing and snatching the bottle away from him.
"Fine. But if I do this, you have to too. After all, I don't usually make friends with chickens either."
"You don't know who you make friends with," he pointed out. He doesn't say it to be mean. It's just one of his naïve blunt moments, and though she rolls her eyes, she doesn't really take it to heart.
"Exactly," she counters. "So I can make friends with whoever I want."
She tops off her dramatic ending with a swig from the bottle… which is much fuller than she'd expected. Most of it spills out over her sweatshirt, and she chokes a little, coughing and spluttering. The few drops that do slide down her throat leave a fiery path in their wake.
Naruto bursts out laughing at the sight of her doubled over, eyes watering.
"That's disgusting!" she exclaims, trying to recover at least a little of her shattered dignity. "What-"
"Are you two doing?" a menacing voice finishes for her. She turns to see Tsunade, in only a bathrobe, standing in the doorway. Naruto stops laughing immediately. Her burning throat is suddenly dull when compared to Tsunade's eyes. Naruto quickly sets the bottle down on the kitchen table.
"We were, uh…" he trail off.
Tsunade points to the door. "Go," she says. "Both of you. I'm sure you can find something better to do on this fine morning than break the law."
Naruto drags his feet, muttering something about, 'what would you know about morning, this is the first time you've gotten out of bed before ten in a month'. Hinata quickly follows him out, her head down, appropriately shamed.
Tsunade knows that she should probably be stricter on the two, but she finds herself smiling. Hinata's been quite contained since awakening. She wonders if Naruto will be the one to break her from her shell.
Absentmindedly, she picks up the sake bottle and takes a drink herself.
Review please!
I don't own Naruto.
And I just saw the Hunger Games! :D It was AMAZING!
I'm not sure when I'll get the next chapter up… but I slipped in a huge part to the future of this story in here… Did you catch it? ;)