Hinata's group had started meeting regularly on Fridays at Temari's small apartment to work on their project. It was the happiest Hinata had been in a long time. Shikamaru, surprisingly enough, had started to bring Temari groceries to cook for the entire group. Because he had offhandedly remarked that women were not domestic enough these days, Temari had forced him to help her cook most of the time. Despite his protests and loud sighs, he oddly seemed to enjoy her presence.
On a mild October day, Hinata was very much looking forward to the end of the day because she was going to give ramen to Naruto and Temari had offered to make chocolate vodka for everyone again. She had been hesitant to try it the first time, since it contained alcohol, but found that it did not burn her throat. Rather the pungency of the chocolate was absolute perfection. It was sweet and dark and tasted like her heart whenever she imagined herself dating Naruto.
During lunch, she shared a chocolate bar with Shino as usual and the two spent most of the break in comfortable silence. After fifth period gym ended, Hinata went to the lockers to change. Twenty more minutes until History with Naruto! As she was changing, however, dread washed over her as she heard two female voices.
"Tayu, why can't you come to the Pacific Place Mall today? Sasuke Uchiha might be there!"
"No shit, Sherlock. I'm broke as fuck. My sorry excuse for a father's suspending my allowance for two months because I crashed the Porsche. Stingy-ass bitch."
"Ugh, what? That's like so wrong. Hey, why don't you just get some money from that piggy bank?"
Hinata froze in terror. No. Leave me alone. Leave. Leave. Please leave. She scrambled to close her locker as she heard footsteps approach her. She quickly grabbed her book bag as the two girls walked close enough for her to see their shadow.
"Hey Porky, I need some money and I know you—wait, HEY!"
Hinata's feet had taken off before she could think clearly. She could see the sunlight emanating from the open door of the locker room. Almost there. I'm gonna make it. Yes! Something crossed her vision. A large trashcan tumbled across her path and she couldn't stop in time to avoid it. No.CRASH! As she lied on the floor and tried to collect her thoughts, she heard the clatter of two pairs of feet catching up to her.
"What a stupid fat cow."
"Bitch, don't fucking run away when I try to talk to you, got it?"
THWACK. Tayuya's toe connected with Hinata's brow. That might leave a mark. Hinata thought it was rather funny for no apparent reason that Tayuya's shoe had been in up her butt the first day of school. Now it was in her face. She unwittingly began to smirk.
"The fuck you smiling about, queer? Kin, get me her money."
"Ew, I don't wanna touch her shit," Kin grimaced but complied. "Oh my god, she has like 10 chocolate bars in here. No wonder she looks like that." Hinata felt tears welling up, but she prayed that they would not fall until after these two left. She inwardly cursed herself for not being able to do anything, for almost crying while Tayuya held her head down with her dirty foot.
"Found it! Ew, what kind of dork owns a Care Bears wallet?" Kin grabbed the cash and threw the wallet in the spilled trash that littered the floor.
Tayuya removed her foot, but now Hinata felt her hot breath against her ear. "Next time I talk to you, you stay and listen. Got it?"
Hinata slowly got up and searched for her wallet. She began to cry silently. Her breathing was still normal and slow, but tears had started to fall in a steady stream. She found her wallet, dusted it, and put it back in her backpack. As she walked to her history class, she dabbed eyes furiously with her handkerchief, not caring that the rest of her face was sweating bullets. Although her head didn't hurt from where Tayuya kicked it, she could taste her own pain. She was angry and ashamed. She was angry with herself for not doing anything. She ashamed of herself for being so afraid, so weak, so shy that those two had felt entitled to treat her like trash. Maybe her father was right. Maybe Neji was right. Maybe Hanabi was right. "Hinata can't do anything."She remembered her younger sister scoffing Hinata told her she'll attempt to go on a diet. "Hinata can't do anything."She remembered her father's reaction when her uncle suggested that Hinata should go to law school. "Hinata can't do anything."And Neji who had seen her dance once. "Hinata can't do anything".She opened up her backpack. Hinata can't do anything.. She walked to the nearest trashcan.Hinata can't do anything.She opened the middle compartment of her backpack, and held it upside down. Hinata can't do anything. And she shook it furiously. Hinata can't do anything.Her supply of chocolate bars fell into the trashcan.
When she entered the class, she kept her head down, hoping that Naruto wouldn't see her face. She was actually relieved when he only said hi, and continued to talk to Sakura. She sat down and began to take out her books. She lowered her head so that her bangs would hide her eyes from Naruto's view.
"Hey Hinata, are you looking forward to the choc—Wait, are you crying? Why is there a footprint on your face?"
"It's—it's nothing. It's nothing," Hinata forced a smile. She felt Naruto squeeze her hand.
"Will you tell me about it later?"
It was a pleasant surprise. She had expected him to pry and be overzealous in his attempts to cheer her up. "Yes." Naruto gave her a light smile and turned around.
Lecture had helped Hinata calm down significantly since she had always been at least mildly interested in the history of the Ottoman Empire. By the end of class her face showed no signs that she had been crying. Hours later, she met her friends at Temari's apartment. As Shikamaru helped Temari cook, Naruto pulled her aside. "Hey, now you promised you'd tell me." And Hinata did.
"Oh my god! Hinata, you can't let them do this to you! You have to get your money back next time!"
"B—but how?"
"You have to fight back!"
"Nononono I'd rather not. It's not that even that much. Thank you, though, for your—"
"NO! Hinata, you HAVE to fight back! You're too good for this shit!"
Hinata blushed furiously. Naruto stood up. "Come on," he said, pulling Hinata up as well. He put his fists up.
"Hinata, hit me."
"Naruto, no!"
"I'm gonna teach you how to fight, so hit me."
Temari and Shikamaru had stopped their preparation to watch.
"Naruto, you're not thinking of hitting a girl are you?"
"No, but I'm gonna teach her how how to hit me."
"Oh then that's OK." Shikamaru felt a sharp pain in his side, and glared at Temari.
"You said it's OK."
"Troublesome bitch. OW!"
"Hey Temari, c'mere for a sec. Hinata, we'll show you how it's done."
Temari walked to the center of the small living room and put her dukes up. "Hinata, watch what she does." Temari beamed at Hinata. "Watch and learn, and maybe you can be undefeated like me." Temari started sending a series of quick, deadly looking punches to Naruto's face, which he blocked with his forearms. "See how she does it, Hinata? Jab, jab, hook. She's going easy on me. Jab jab, hook. Now," Naruto swiftly ducked to avoid an elbow hook to his head, "look at how she guards herself."
It was Naruto on offense this time. Hinata was surprised to see that his punches were even more deliberate—faster and harder. "See how she guards her face?" Temari was blocking her head with her forearms and decreasing the impact of Naruto's blows by slowly but constantly moving.
"Naruto, what kind of loser hits girls anyway?"
"Shut up, Shikamaru. Come here, Hinata."
"Um, what should I be doing?"
"I want you to hit Temari. Here, we'll go easy."
Naruto stood behind Hinata and held her wrists. Hinata turned beet red and she wished her hands were free so that the could wipe the sweat collecting on the back of her neck. Hopefully, Naruto can't smell her.
"You remember to put your thumbs outside your fingers." Naruto corrected Hinata's fists.
"This is called a jab." Naruto swung Hinata's left fist straight toward Temari.
"And this is a hook." He swung her right fist in a swift curve.
"Remember that most of the power isn't gonna come from your arm, but from your center," Naruto moved his left hand to her belly.
"Eep!"
"Naruto, stop molesting the poor girl."
"No it's OK, Shikamaru. This is helpful," said a tomato-faced Hinata. Shikamaru only smirked.
"So put your gut into it," continued Naruto, "when you punch your back should turn a little, too," he said moving Hinata's shoulders slightly clockwise as she swung her left fist.
"Good, you're starting to get it!"
Sakura and Ino took their evening walk on the 4 mile path surrounding Silver Lake. The two lightly clad young ladies attracted a lot of attention, much of which was unwanted, from joggers and dog walkers that happened to cross their path. Sakura pulled up her black polyester shorts, feeling just a tad bit restless since the passersby seemed to admire Ino more due to her significantly larger chest. Ino chattered on about how hard it was to convince Shikamaru to throw a Halloween party at his house.
"Hey, if he does throw the party, do you think Sasuke will come?"
"Sakura, that's like the point. It'll be a party with a bunch of hot guys, but we'll just conveniently forget to invite the bitches."
"Ino, there are only a handful of good looking guys at our school. I don't know who else you'd invite besides Sasuke."
"That's so not true! I mean, yeah, Sasuke's the cream of the crop, but there's also Kiba, Neji, that new Sai guy…"
"Hm OK, but most of these people probably won't come."
"Stop giving up so easily. You know we can make them come." The blonde smiled mischievously to herself.
"As long as Sasuke's there, I don't really care about the others."
"Oh so speaking of Sasuke, does he hate us or something? I mean, he's been telling us what to do for the project, but he never wants to meet with us."
Sakura furrowed her brows and thought for a moment. "Why don't we find out?"
"How?"
"We can pretend that we're both in love with him—not just crazy about him, but actually in love with him. We can see if he rejects either of us."Or if I'm lucky, he'll go out with me. The thought of being rejected by Sasuke was almost unbearable. But she had to find out if he would choose Ino over her. Ino was her best friend, and there's so much Sakura would do for her. But Ino can't have Sasuke.
"Yeah! And then if he hates me, he might talk to you about me and vice versa."
What Sakura didn't tell Ino was that she didn't have to pretend to be in love with Sasuke. Ino, however, had already suspected it. After all, she had known that Sakura would never come up with a half-assed plan like that if she didn't have something else in mind.
"You just got money from the pig, so why can't you come to Pacific Place?"
"Kin, I fucking told you I'm busy, so shut it. I'll see you tomorrow or something."
Tayuya drove her white '91 Accord across the bridge and into town. She parked near a run down convenience store and walked inside. A large overweight man with an orange mohawk was manning the counter.
"Hey, fatass, miss me much?"
"What do you want, tramp?" The man smiled.
"What time do you finish? You're having dinner with me. I'm paying."