Crescendo
Sasuke wasn't a poetic man.
Then he met Hinata, and the sky became his paragon.
The clouds, with their trailing tails, twirled in cursive words that were stuck in his head. The plush blue was his paper, flawless and forever. When he felt lost, he'd look up, and verse would stretch across the horizon and fill his mouth with the words he so desperately wanted to say.
"I love you."
He could smell the roses on his own breath, like his lungs were bushes and his tongue was a bouquet. He had to be careful, for there were still thorns and still roots that climbed up his throat and stole his voice at a moment's notice; but Sasuke was learning. He could work with the roses.
"Hinata."
And the moon was still a rock in the sky — that part didn't change at all. But it reminded him of something about her, of how she basked in the glow and light of others, how even in the dark, she did not leave you alone to fend for yourself. Sasuke kind of thought the moon was like her; somehow, in some ways.
"Hinata . . . ."
Sasuke used to not be a very poetic man.
But even he had his moments
...
Part VIII - Their Crescendo
...
"I want to get better."
Sasuke had thought long and hard about it. Not about changing. Not about getting better. It took him less than a second to figure that much out. But last night, as Naruto snored next to him and the snow piled along the window, Sasuke thought that if he wanted to change — and he did. Really. He did.
But if he wanted to change, then there would have to be some sort of plan. A number of things to tackle. A list.
Which sucked, really; because Uchihas were not good at making proper, successful lists. It was more in their style to throw caution in the wind and barge forward. But Sasuke didn't want to do that. He wanted to work through this carefully.
Hinata was a kind, careful person.
And she was —
Well, maybe she didn't want to be his girlfriend anymore. Maybe she hadn't even been his girlfriend in the first place. But she loved him. He knew that much. So she'd help him if he asked.
So with only ten minutes of sleep barely keeping his drowsy mind awake, he plodded down to her room, straightened his shoulders with resolve, and when she opened the door, he told her he wanted to change, and she smiled first, then peeked around the frame of the door to look down the hallway.
"What?"
"Is Naruto here again?"
His face went hot with embarrassment first, then frustration. "No," he muttered. "I came here on my own."
"Sasuke," Hinata mused with a low, smooth laugh, "I know. What I mean is — I was so happy, I almost just dragged you in here." His attention turned to the quaint room behind her. Empty. No one but her. Swallow got stuck in his throat, and the heat on his face turned back into the embarrassed kind. "If he was here, I'd be embarrassed if he saw that. And I know you wouldn't want to deal with it."
It was true, but it stung a little.
He wanted to be the kind of person who wasn't afraid to say he was with his girlfriend, that he was in her room with just her and it didn't make him feel weird or nervous or strange. If Naruto asked "What did you and Hinata do today?", he'd want to not answer — not because it made him feel bothered and uncomfortable — but because it was something just between him and her, because it was special time passed between them, so it didn't pertain to anyone outside of their duo.
He wanted to work to be that version of Sasuke Uchiha, so he asked Hinata, "Will you help me?"
Not a beat passed.
"Of course, Sasuke."
...
On the tip of her tongue was an invitation for him to come inside, but she must have seen some sort of look on his face, for she excused herself for a moment, only to return with two pillows, a notebook, and a pen.
They sat in the doorway of her dorm room, him in the hallway, her in her room, but their knees almost touching, and the notebook sat perfectly between them.
"What are your thoughts on seeing a therapist?"
Sasuke frowned, and Hinata took it the wrong way.
"I can come with you, if that helps. Or Naruto. I'm sure Ino or Shino or Kiba wouldn't mind —"
"That's not it." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I can't afford it. And my parents . . . ."
Understanding, Hinata nodded and clicked her pen on her thigh.
"Then let's make a list of all the things you want to strive towards," she said, already writing a title at the top of one of her blank pieces of paper. "This way, we can construct the plan around these goals."
His stomach twisted a tad, for — as stated prior — Uchihas and lists did not mix.
But he'd go along with it.
She looked cute when she had that determined look about her.
"I want to talk better, I guess." He squinted to the side, running his tongue against the backs of his teeth. "I mean . . . I want to say what's on my mind in a . . . better way."
Hinata nodded and scribbled it down in her neat handwriting.
"I want to get out more and not feel like I have to close myself off in the dorms all day."
She hummed and moved down a line.
Sasuke leaned his head back to think. "I want to take you on dates," he said, "and not totally screw them up."
Hinata laughed. "We'll work on that."
"I want to be a better listener."
"Mhm."
"I want to not beat myself up over past mistakes."
"Good."
"I want to hold your hand." The thought made the skin on his palms itch, but he ignored it. "I want to hold you like Naruto holds you. I want to sleep in the same bed as you. I want to be okay with supporting you and being supported by you." The scratching of pen on paper paused, but Sasuke kept going. "I want to kiss you and not feel sick afterwards."
Oh.
Wait —
His head snapped down, and Hinata blinked, startled.
"You felt sick when I kissed you?"
He looked down at the list, at the very first thing she had written down.
Shit!
"Not bad sick," he tried to explain. The back of his neck felt cold when the AC blew air across the forming layer of sweat. "Shaky sick. Like I can't sit down. Like I don't know what to do after that. Like I might fall over and die —"
"You feel like you'll die when I kiss you?"
Damn it all! "Hin . . . ata . . . ."
He pressed his hands against his face, feeling like a total asshole, but Hinata only smiled and laughed and continued her writing.
"Don't worry, Sasuke," she said, "we'll work on that, too."
…
Hinata took her time writing two versions of the list; a copy for her and a copy for him. He watched her pin it to a board over her desk before she returned to the doorway, held her hand out, expecting something from him. He stared at it. He thought about #6 on the list, about how long it will take him to reach that, about how he's pretty sure it will take him a year for each point on that list — which means it will take him six years before he's good enough to hold her hand. But her palm was out there, waiting. The lines were small and patient. They did not grow with aggitation as the seconds passed.
Then she said, "Give me your list."
He realized he was on the verge of panicking, so he gave it to her and focused on how she folded it between her hands and pinched the creases, and as she did so, he tried to calm down and remind himself that even if it took six years, Hinata would wait.
He knew that much.
"There." When she handed it back, it was a small square, and her hands moved to rest on the door frame. "This way you can take it with you everywhere, just in case you need a reminder."
...
When he returned to the elevator to go back to his room, he practiced slipping the paper in and out of his pocket. He wanted to get used to the feeling of it there. He pushed it deep inside, then fished it out with his fingers. His thumb traced where Hinata pinched the corner, and then he unfolded it and read it and tried to make that neat handwriting print itself into the inside walls of his skull.
The elevator door opened. He folded it and pushed it deep down into his sweats, opened the door, and as he was in the doorway, listening to Naruto snore, he pulled it out and read it again.
...
He shared it with Naruto later that day, which was a mistake, because Naruto then shared it with everyone else in their group, and now the whole lot of them want to help him out.
Sasuke told himself the first day it was a mistake, that he would never tell Naruto anything ever again.
But that night, he pretended to be in the snow again. It melted as it fell on his forehead and dipped into his mind and cooled his hot, bouncing thoughts. The Sasuke Uchiha from before would say it was a mistake. He would push them away and lock himself in the dark, and then he would panic, because Sasuke Uchiha hates being locked into places. But he was trying to be someone beyond that Sasuke, so that morning, as Naruto groggily pours himself a steaming cup of tea, Sasuke thanked him.
Naruto looked at him like he was an alien first, then a doppelganger; then he spotted the folded list Sasuke tried to secretly slip out from under his pillow and into his pockets and grinned like a proud friend.
...
Ino Yamanaka told him it wasn't hard to say what's on one's mind.
"You have to be like an olympic swimmer," said Ino, who had been in swimming club since middle school, so of course she would use that analogy for something as mundane as talking. They were sitting in the cafeteria after she had spotted him from one of his classes and dragged him there. It had been a little more than a week since the list had been made, and it seemed it still played around in her mind, for they hadn't even begun to eat when she started talking about it. And Sasuke, bless him, listened. He really did. Even if it was embarrassing to have such a talk in such a place, Sasuke listened. "Think of the water being words. If you keep your head under the whole time, you'll drown. It's important to take a moment to breathe. That way, you can keep swimming."
Sasuke gave her a look, and Ino snorted.
"We can start practice now, since you clearly have something to say to me." What? He did not remember agreeing to any sort of practice with her. "Don't take that breath. Keep your head under the water. Just tell it to me straight."
He squinted, then said, "This is stupid."
Into pulled the wrapper off her fork and crumpled it into a small ball. "Okay, now let's pull your head out of the water. Don't force yourself into the words. Take a moment to breathe. Take advantage of the pause. Think. How will what you say affect the people around you? Is it really something you want to say? What tone will you use when saying it?"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"You're not breathing, Sasuke."
Ino leaned into her chair and hummed. Then a perky smile lit up her face as she pulled out her phone and began to tap away at it. There was a ding, and she nodded, satisfied, and put down her phone to begin to eat.
"I just texted Naruto," she said. "We're going swimming."
"What."
"He's bringing over your swimsuit now." Her eyes blinked down at his tray, which stayed untouched, as he was simply too stunned to even remember to eat. "Might wanna hurry up. We're leaving when he gets here."
Outside, it was just above freezing. The gym had an inside pool open to students, but that didn't exactly make things any better. But Sasuke could feel the almost non-existent list in the back pocket of his jeans, so he sighed and ate his lunch and grumbled to himself as he did so.
...
He's sure Ino wanted to kill him.
"Forty seconds under the water."
"Fuck that."
"If you don't, I'll help you myself and keep your head under."
As it was mid-afternoon on a Wednesday, the pool was not totally filled, but something about Ino being her normal, bossy self and Naruto screaming about each and every cannonball he did made Sasuke feel as though the entire pool was filled to the brim with people.
Ino had her legs swinging in the water, but she looked ready to jump in after him and force his head into the chlorine water. Sasuke shot her a glare before he swallowed a big breath and plunged deep into the pool. The water was clear and pushed against his face as Naruto jumped in for his seventh cannonball. His lungs began to burn at twenty-five seconds. They pounded against his chest at thirty-three seconds. When forty finally rang in his head, he pushed his feet against the floor and broke through the surface, gaping, gasping, feeling a little lightheaded.
Ino was still sitting on the side.
"Good," she said. "See how important it is to breathe? Take your time. Don't rush it before you dive back in." He rubbed the stinging chlorine out of his eyes, which must have messed up his vision somehow, for when he looked back at Ino, her smile was kind and patient. "This is when you think. How can I make my words sound better? In your head, you're thinking This is stupid. But right now, you're not talking. You don't have to say those words. You think about them. How can you change them to make them sound better?"
He pushed his dripping bangs out of his face and huffed. "I don't know."
"Don't rush it," Ino told him. "You have all the time in the world, Sasuke. Don't dive in yet."
His lips tasted like a chemistry textbook. His gaze was watery and a bit hazy. He swallowed the pool air that filled his lungs and let it mix with the beginnings of words thrumming along his vocal chords. His tongue rolled, trying to get him to speak, but he pushed it down and kept it patient and still.
He thought about saying those words — This is stupid. Ino would frown and spit like a snake; she may even jump in and drag him under the water. And then he realized that if she were so inclined to do so, it was most likely due to the fact that his words hurt her. This, Sasuke can understand. Lashing out at others because of pain — this was something Uchihas did on the regular. And he was trying to change that. He wanted to be an Uchiha who pulled away from the status quo, who waited and breathed in the pool air before unleashing the sharp, the poisonous, the hurtful from his mouth.
Ino Yamanaka was going beyond herself to help him.
So when Sasuke dived back under the surface, he screamed, "I'm not used to this!"
When he came back up, Ino was nodding, and Naruto was next to her, still in the pool with his arms stretched back and relaxing against the side.
"That's better," she said.
"Sasuke," Naruto called, "you don't have to worry about me anymore. Focus on yourself."
His teeth ached with the throbbing want to just yell at him — You're too stupid to be left alone!
But that wasn't true. When Sasuke paused and thought about it, he would even go as far as to say it was, in fact, the farthest thing from the truth. Naruto was more cunning than a first glance would allow one to believe. He was far too aware of people; the only trick was that he never could understand how the equation would work if he added himself to it. Naruto knew how his friends worked: what they needed, how they functioned, the kind of people they were. He understood when Sasuke was in a mood or when Hinata was desperate for a bit of recharging. The only issue was that he did not know how to process the situation of him being with Sasuke during a mood, or him helping Hinata with recharging. That is when his brain fried up. That is when the idiot part of him showed up. But Naruto was not an idiot.
Naruto was an adult man.
Naruto could handle himself.
And if Naruto could tell that Sasuke spent too much energy on helicoptering him, then Sasuke was inclined to listen.
A pause. That was all it took.
He pushed his head into the water, and said, "I'm just worried about you. I don't want you to get hurt."
Ino was whispering his words into Naruto's ears, because it seemed only swimmers could hear the truth that filled the waters. His friend snorted, and though his grin was long, it was thin, and his eyes shimmered with thankfulness.
"I think you've protected me enough, bastard. I can take it from here."
Sasuke wiped the beads of water rolling down the back of his neck, squinting over at Naruto, wondering if he should believe him. And Naruto laughed and swiped his hand against the water to spray him, yelling at him to wipe that look off his face, that he had nothing to worry about, that he'll be fine.
This time, when Sasuke pushed his face into the water, he kept his mouth shut and forced Naruto's words to sink into his skin.
...
"Last one." Ino finally joined them both in the water, her hair tied high and tight. Sasuke tried to keep some distance between them, as he felt as though she could pounce and throw him under at any moment. But she only watched as Naruto pinched his nose and dived in, her eyes sparkling, before she turned back to him. "What are you going to tell Hinata when she tells you?"
She did not specify, and she did not have to.
They both knew what Hinata would say — what she always said.
Sasuke breathed in the chlorine air through his nose first, before the panic could settle. If he kept on his path, he knew he would say something stupid — or nothing at all. And if Hinata were there —
If . . .
If Hinata were there, she would be sitting on the edge of the pool, feet swishing through the water. It would just be them. Naruto and Ino would have left an hour ago to get dinner, and the pool would be closing in ten minutes. She would wait for him to finish his laps patiently because she knows he was only doing them to get the stress out, to burn the adrenaline, to use that anxiety as fuel to power his limbs. When he was finally done, when ten minutes until closing turns to seven, she would call to him in that voice that always grabbed his attention, that held it for the rest of the night, even when he wass sleeping and she was dancing in her dreams.
"Sasuke, I love you."
Sasuke breathed out from his mouth and let the crashing, moving water fill his ears.
If he ignored her, that would be painful.
If he shrugged her off, that would be horrible.
If he said any of the one-word replies that filled his Uchiha vocabulary — "Sure." "Fine." "Whatever." "Tch." — that would upset her, anger her, or both. Probably both.
And Sasuke did not want to hurt her anymore.
Sasuke wanted to tell her the truth. That was what Hinata deserved.
So he sucked in a deep breath, sunk down to the floor of the pool, and even in the privacy of the muffled, dark, underwater world, he covered his face with his hands as he murmured, "I love you, too."
...
He did not look at Ino when he broke the surface.
He kept his hands at his face, because it was hot, and Sasuke was scared the water would start evaporating around him.
...
That night, Hinata smelled the chlorine on his sweater when she came up to their room, and when she asked if he went swimming, Sasuke told her that he was practicing his breathing.
"Oh, yeah," Naruto, from the bathroom, a toothbrush stuck between his lips, said. "He wants to hold his breath niiice and long. Y'know. For activities and such."
And perhaps you would not believe this, but it took Sasuke quite a while to understand what Naruto was getting at. And he would be slightly embarrassed to admit that Hinata happened to understand far before his mind connected the pieces; and, perhaps, it was due to the slight flush to the tip of her nose when she gave him a quizzical look that really helped him get the memo.
"God, Sasuke — I mean you're practicing to make out longer!"
Long story short: to prevent him from strangling the dumbass, Hinata had to ask him multiple times if it was alright for her to join in on his swimming sessions.
...
When the weather was warming up and the sky was deciding to become less gray and sprinkle in some blue every now and then, Kiba Inuzuka approached him with a certain twist to his grin that made the list in Sasuke's pocket feel ten pounds heavier.
It was a Friday afternoon, and honestly, after the workload classes had been piling on him for the past few weeks, he was quite ready to spend all of his time in bed. But just one look at Kiba's face as he walked down the hallway towards him told Sasuke that it was very likely that a weekend in bed would not be happening.
"We're going out."
Sasuke had to pretend that the hallway was a pool for a moment. He consciously held his breath, paused, holding back the snarl that his tongue beat against the back of his teeth, and then blew out slowly when he had something more . . . kind to say. "Are we?"
"It's on your list, ain't it?" Kiba's smug face and smug tone and smug — everything — made Sasuke's efforts a bit strained. "You want to get out more, don'tcha? Well, I happen to be the guy to go to with these sorts of things."
Sasuke could only imagine.
Dread crept up the back of his neck. Bars. Clubs. Concerts. Before he knew it, he'd be dragged into a strip club, and there would be so many places he could not look and so many people he could not talk to without giving them that classic, Uchiha treatment that he so desperately wanted to avoid.
Oh, he was screwed if he agreed to this!
". . . Yeah. Okay."
Fuck.
...
That night, he was too anxious to lay down despite his body begging him to, so he called up Hinata and met her at the pool.
"If I'm dead by Monday, will you come to my funeral?"
Believe it or not, this was his word choice after thinking about it for a good two minutes and a couple laps. If he had not thought it through, he would have been even more dramatic and pessimistic about what he had just gotten himself into.
Hinata pushed her bangs back to give him a look. "I don't understand."
"Kiba is going to kill me." He didn't think that one through, however.
The corner of her lips lifted in a smile she was trying hard to hide. "Oh my."
"He's going to drag me around to all these shady places for the next two days."
"Sounds frightening."
"I might get drugged. I might get stabbed in the knee. I might wake up in a bathtub with a kidney missing."
Hinata pretended to wipe the water off her face to keep a laugh in. "I wasn't aware Kiba was a part of that crowd."
"He might take me to a strip club." Sasuke pushed his feet against the tile floor to swim in front of her, hoping she'd see the seriousness in his face. "But I won't look. I promise. I — I'm not even interested in looking."
Hinata didn't have to say anything. She just smiled, and it all came crashing down on him — all this shit and nonsense he's been spewing.
He gulped, he dived in to save himself even a smidge of face, but even underwater, he could hear Hinata's laughter ringing through the building.
…
Truth be told, Kiba did not drag him to some club or bar or shadowy alleyway, but rather to a rather loud and . . . full house just thirty minutes out of town.
"Oi! You're late, Kiba! You said you'd be here by nine!"
There was a girl on the porch that looked like Kiba in a wig, but Sasuke barely paid that much attention. Instead, he was more focused on the . . . fourteen, fifteen . . . sixteen dogs running around in the front yard. Sasuke didn't know what kind of face he was making, but it made Kiba snort and slam a hand on his shoulder before he jumped out of his car to explain that it wasn't his fault for being late, that Sasuke slept in, that the car had to take a minute to start up.
...
As Kiba explained, apparently there was no other way to get yourself out there and into places and situation you've never been in than with some good, ol' fashion dog walking.
Sasuke wasn't exactly convinced until he learned that, yes, they would be walking all sixteen dogs. At once.
Perhaps he would have survived better if they really had gone out to neon clubs and back-alley bars.
...
It started with the biggest dog, Akamaru, dragging them through the garden of a neighbor, whom Sasuke quickly learned to be named Tsunade. Miss Tsunade had screeched at them before the door was even open, but upon seeing Kiba's jolly grin, quickly invited the both of them in as the dogs huddled around on the porch. She introduced them to choices of alcohol that Sasuke couldn't even begin to pronounce, and upon him mentioning it was barely even ten in the morning and thus far too early to start drinking, the woman had snapped one of her spoons in half.
Needless to say, both he and Kiba had a shot of almost everything in fear of becoming her next victim.
Afterwards, they then took a turn towards town, in which case one of the smaller dogs got loose and sent them on a chase through the park. They managed to find the bugger up in a tree, of all places, and of course Sasuke was the one who had to climb up and retrieve him, as Kiba was too busy emptying his stomach in a nearby trash bin. It took Sasuke a good ten minutes to even get up the tree, as the multitude of shots made his vision slightly wobbly and his hand-eye coordination mediocre at best.
Another seven minutes passed before they got the little dude down safely, and upon Sasuke almost breaking an ankle jumping down from the tree, they both decided it was best to stop by a corner café and get some water into their system. The dogs played under the table as they sat under an umbrella outside, and it didn't take neither of them too long to find out that the waitress was crushing hard on Kiba.
"I bet ya I can guess your number in three guesses," Kiba drawled out as she came by to fill up his water for the sixth time in the last twenty minutes. He kept pouring it down to the dogs when she wasn't looking so he could keep talking to her. And Sasuke, in his current state, thought that was absolutely genius. "Trust me. I'm good with these things. It's like a secret power."
At that, the girl stayed and let him take his three guesses. The first two, based off of her giggles, were far off, so she pulled out a pen from her apron and scribbled something on the back of his hand — and all of the sudden, boom! He guessed it right. Sasuke could hardly believe it.
When she walked away, Kiba pulled out his phone to punch it into his contacts, and he told Sasuke that she had invited the both of them over to her house later that night.
The buzz was starting to wear off by the time they walked the dogs back home, and Sasuke was beginning to fall back into his regular, "un-fun" personality, as Kiba so beautifully put it. The woman that Sasuke now knew was Kiba's sister Hana then asked them to pick up some things from the pet store, and as they drove over, Sasuke was slowly beginning to suspect Kiba dragged him out here just for the sake of making him do all of these chores.
They picked up bags of food and chew toys, and by the time they were back, it was getting late and approaching the time for them to start heading over to the waitress girl that Kiba magically guessed the number of.
"Hey," Kiba whispered to him as they got into the car once again. "Let's stop by Tsunade's again."
Sasuke thought that was a stupid idea, but he went along with it, telling himself the whole point of this was for him to get out of his comfort zone and experience new things. So they went back over, and Sasuke took a few more shots as Kiba poured something weird and fruity into a bottle for him to sip on later, and then they were off to the chick's house. Kiba swallowed down the whole thing the second they parked in her driveway, and Sasuke was already feeling that fuzzy, warm feeling by the time they were at the door.
The girl dragged Kiba in, and Sasuke trickled in afterwards, stunned to find that there were at least . . . fourteen, fifteen . . . sixteen cats inside.
But Kiba didn't seem to be complaining. There was a collection of alcohol on the dining table and a taste of something tart on the girl's lips.
...
There were other people there. It seemed to be a party of some sort, and Sasuke had no idea where to put himself.
There were people in the kitchen, so he went there and watched in awe at the amount of . . . making out, smooching, swapping spit . . . whatever you called it.
One of the girls, a pretty redhead, met his eyes as she was running her tongue down another guy's neck, and paused. "Can I help you with something, handsome?"
And as Sasuke was too caught up in the fuzzies, he didn't have the mind to stop and think about his words. "Yeah, actually."
Blinking, adjusting her glasses, the girl pushed away from the other guy and gave him a smoldering look. "I'm all ears, baby."
He leaned back against the fridge, resting his head against the cool door. "Can I watch you?"
The girl crossed her arms. "Excuse me?"
"I want to learn how to kiss someone."
That smoldering look came back tenfold, and she put a hand on his chest and fluttered her eyes at him. "They say things are best taught through action."
Sasuke frowned over her shoulder. "But Hinata's not here."
". . . Huh?"
"And even if she was, the whole point is that I learn before I kiss her again."
The girl's pink nails slowly slid off of the front of his shirt. "Hinata? Is that the name of your girlfriend?"
Sasuke's eyes widened, and then he glared off to the side. "Who knows."
"Ohh, I get it. Should've guessed you were taken." The girl sighed and hopped back to sit on the island across from him. Between them, two cats skittered by, chasing after one another. "You're lucky I'm not into stealing, gorgeous. So tell me again what you need my help with?"
He rubbed at his face, blinked, then said, "I want to watch you kiss someone."
She laughed, shaking your head. "What, you've never kissed someone before?"
"Once." He couldn't remember the exact number of times he kissed Hinata that night, so he went with the simplest number. And, honestly, it was a bit offensive she even had the gall to ask. "You think I'd ask to watch if I knew how to do it?"
"I dunno what you're into, beautiful."
His heart rang into his ears, and he twisted his hands into his pockets. "Hinata," he whispered. "I'm into Hinata."
The girl's laugh was louder, this time, and she leaned forward and rested her chin in her hand. "You didn't have to answer that, but I like your honesty."
Sasuke nodded, then gulped, then glared at her with the weakest, most pathetic Uchiha glare in all existence. "But don't tell her! You cannot. I have to be the . . . first . . . ."
"My lips are sealed."
"So will you help me?"
She hummed, sparing the guy she had been making out with a passing look, then turned back to Sasuke. "While I'm not the shy type, handsome, I don't think Miss Hinata will enjoy hearing about you watching other women kissing other men. I'll give you the rundown instead, alright?"
He nodded, and she tapped his shoulder and gestured for him to follow her out into the backyard, which was far less crowded and loud. There was a glowing, blue pool in the back, and Sasuke stared at it in fuzzy awe as the girl began to talk.
"Believe it or not, I've never given some guy a lesson on kissing, so you'll have to forgive me if I mess things up." She slipped off her sandals in the soft, trimmed grass and walked over to the pool, dipping her left foot in the water. "I guess it has to do with a lot of things. Timing. The mood. Height and angle and all that jazz."
She went on and on about it, about how to use your tongue and when it was okay to bite. She talked about how it helped to breathe through the nose and how long was too long, and she even gave some tips on kissing in other places besides the mouth, though Sasuke hardly paid attention to that part. He was too absorbed in the smell of chlorine, the sound of water twirling and dancing, calling for him, coaxing him. He thought about how Hinata's hair smelled like chlorine after they swam together, and that made his stomach clench and his heart jump, and he suddenly felt so lonely that it startled him.
So to distract himself, he jumped in.
"God — what —"
He jumped in, felt the refreshing touch of water against his skin, and when he broke the surface, he turned to the redhead girl who leaned over the edge of the pool, looking ready to jump in if he started drowning.
"Hey," he said, "what's your name?"
Her mouth fell open. " . . . Karin."
"Karin." His chest hurt so much, he had to press both hands against it. "Karin, I want to kiss Hinata." He hoped that saying it out loud would help expel the pain, but it only made it worse. "I want to kiss her. I want to do it right. I want to be good to her."
Her glasses reflected the shining water, and her lips turned into a smirk. "Look at you," she hummed. "You're terribly lucky I have such strong morals, handsome."
...
"Where's the guy you came with? I'm driving the both of you home."
Sasuke was dripping all over the carpet, despite being wrapped in three towels that Karin had fetched for him, and to be honest, everyone was starting to melt together and look the same, so he hadn't a clue where Kiba possibly was. "The girl who lives here," he managed in a slow, stumbling slur. "He's with her."
Karin told him to stay by the door, and a few minutes later, she was dragging him by the arm, and he had himself angled in such a way so that his mouth could still press pecks and short kisses against the waitress's mouth, who followed close behind. "Give me your keys, lover boy. I'm driving you and mister tall, dark, and soaking wet home."
Kiba stopped his shower of affection just long enough to spit out, "Chill out, lady. He's taken!"
Karin pressed her hands to her hips and sighed. "Trust me, I know."
...
The second Kiba stumbled into the back of his car, he was passed out, and Sasuke tried to keep his eyes open in the passenger's seat as Karin adjusted the mirrors and pulled the car into reverse.
"So where's home, handsome?"
He pulled out his Student ID, and she gave it a quick look.
"Oh. You go there?"
"I'm staying in the dorms."
Her eyes scanned it a second longer. "Sasuke Uchiha, huh?" He gave an airy hum, and she then looked at the piece of paper that he had accidentally slipped to her when handing her the ID. "What's this? A list?"
Sasuke closed his eyes and leaned his head back so that his face pointed towards the ceiling. "Yes. I need to get better for her."
Karin dropped the things in his lap and began to drive. "Seems you got a lot to work out."
"I'm not going to stop," he said. "Even if it takes me six years to hold her hand, I won't stop."
Karin whistled out the side of her mouth. "Six years to hold her hand. How long you think it'll take you to kiss her, then?"
That made Sasuke's eyes snap open, and he shot forward, stomach twisting in protest. "Oh, God," he muttered, running his hands down his face and through his damp bangs, "I didn't think of that."
Karin snorted, and Sasuke leaned back into his chair and thought about the predicament for the rest of the ride.
...
"This is Hinata's room."
"I'm asking where your dorm is, Sasuke."
"I want to see Hinata."
"Oh my God . . . ."
He was knocking on the door without even thinking about the time or his state of person, or the fact that Kiba was practically being dragged around by Karin, groaning about a bed. All he knew was that this was Hinata's room, that he missed her, that there was a big hole in his chest that he desperately wanted to plug up. So he knocked, and there was light shuffling on the other side before it opened.
"Sasuke?" Hinata looked at him, first, then peeked out upon hearing the other, labored breathing to the side. Her eyes widened upon seeing Karin and Kiba in the hallway with him. "O-Oh dear."
...
Hinata, the kind soul, was quick to help escort Karin to Sasuke's room, and upon Naruto opening the door, he simply sighed at the sight of them all and let them inside without a complaint or an inch of surprise in his expression.
"Change him, first," Karin called to Hinata as she lead Sasuke over to his bed. "He went for a swim in his clothes."
Hinata gave him a concerned look. "Sasuke, what were you both up to?"
"Kiba met a girl," he said as she helped him to the bathroom. In the background, he could see Naruto and Karin make a makeshift bed for Kiba to sleep on.
"Ohh."
"We went to her house." She closed the door behind them, and he squinted at the bright light overhead. "There was alcohol."
"I can tell. Can you change?"
He peeled off his shirt as she unfolded a fresh pair of pajamas she fetched from his closet. Her eyes stayed on the floor, and Sasuke frowned and gently grabbed her elbow. "Hinata," he said, "look." He pressed her palm against his stomach, and she practically jumped halfway to the ceiling. "No stabbing. No gunshot. No one stole my organs. I guess I was wrong about Kiba."
Her face was blooming like a rose, and she laughed. "Just alcohol?"
"And a pool." He took off the rest of his clothes and put on the dry ones. "There were cats everywhere. And one of the dogs climbed up a tree. And . . . Karin saw the list."
Hinata fished that and his ID out of his pocket, noticing that both were ruined and drenched.
"That's fine," she said. "How did you meet her?"
"I asked for her help at the party."
Hinata opened the door and flipped off the bathroom light. "Help with what, Sasuke?"
The entirety of Karin's lecture spilled into his brain, and all he could think about was Hinata's mouth and her hands in his hair and the way her eyes glowed when he had kissed her from before. He said it would take him six years to hold her hands, and he was sure that meant it would take even longer to kiss her, but he didn't have that kind of time. He'd forget all Karin taught him if he waited too long, so he reached over, grabbed the door knob, and closed it, encasing them in darkness.
"Sasuke?"
He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. "Hinata," he murmured, "I missed you."
Her breath hitched and it smelled like chlorine and all the sound was muffled and washed. He leaned forward, he tilted his head, and he kissed her.
...
Strangely, her mouth was quite hard. And flat. And it tasted like paint.
". . . Sasuke. That's the wall."
...
When she took him to his bed, she sat next to him and brushed her hands through his hair and smiled down at him.
"Sasuke." Her lips brushed over his forehead, and he sighed into her neck. "I love you."
And when he fell asleep, he dreamed of her lips being warmer. They tasted like watermelon, and when he kissed her, she would glow with all the energy he poured into her.
...
It was two weeks into summer break when Shino decided to offer his helpful hand in aiding Sasuke on his mission to become a better person. The whole group decided to take a small vacation out to the mountains three hours away from town, and after a long stretch of time spent on packing up in cars and making sure everyone had everything for the trip, people began to split off into their designated cars.
Kiba was driving his girlfriend, Tamaki, and Ino was carrying Naruto and the latest addition to their group of dumbasses, Karin. And that left Sasuke to sit shotgun in Shino's sparkling, black car while Hinata struggled to stay awake in the back.
He saw it in the corner of Shino's eye the second he started up the engine and began to follow the other two cars out into the street. It was twenty minutes before dawn, the sky was dim and the world was dark, but Sasuke could still see that determination, that spark.
And unlike previous times, Sasuke was not even a little worried. Shino was not a blabbermouth like Ino or an idiot like Kiba, so his help was nothing short of appreciated, if he so chose to give it.
They turned on the highway. Hinata was fast asleep in the back, head leaning against the window. Sasuke made sure she was covered completely in the blanket she brought with her, and then he turned back into his seat and pulled out the list Hinata had re-written for him after he had ruined the first one in Tamaki's pool.
Shino's fingers drummed against the wheel, and then he said in a voice almost overwhelmed by the blow of the AC, "I don't think you have to wait six years."
Sasuke had gotten to the point where he no longer had to pretend to be in the pool to practice his pauses and breaths. It came automatically. His tongue no longer battled against him, instead slumbering against the bed of his mouth, patiently waiting to be of some use when the time was right. Sasuke had an awareness beyond him that was so very un-Uchiha, and that was perhaps the most exciting thing about it.
The checklist was getting shorter and shorter.
Throughout the months, Hinata would stop by for short lessons. They started with listening, and she would take him around and have him listen to Ino's rants or Kiba's wild tales. Sometimes, she'd talk about this or that, about her family or her studies, and he would learn the way of it all. He would sink into the current and let it pull him, and he would be entrapped by her voice. She taught him the difference between listening for the sake of answering and listening for the sake of listening, she taught him how listening also involved being aware of tone changes, body posture, eye contact — and she taught him that when he listened, the world would open up and begin to listen to him, too.
Then, slowly, they would talk on past mistakes, on guilt, on regret. This was when Hinata was the one listening, and Sasuke slowly and painfully worked through the errors of his ways. It stung terribly. It made him hiss and claw, but Hinata sat and listened, and it was her slow voice that helped him calm down.
It was a hard thing to forgive, especially one's self.
He could not completely forgive himself for what he had said and done to Naruto, what he had said and done to Hinata. But it did not break his body and leave him bent and awkward every time he thought about it. It did not keep him awake. It was now more fuel to change, to pull away from that Sasuke, to build himself into something new.
He was a kinder Sasuke who thought about his words, now.
He was adventurous and pushed himself beyond his bubble.
He listened carefully.
He forgave himself.
And now —
Now Shino was telling him to take the next step — a thing he did not think he would have to do for another six years.
". . . Are you sure?"
In the rearview mirror, he watched Hinata snooze, her breath fogging up the window.
Shino's face kept forward, focused on driving. "Do you want to wait that long?"
It wasn't so much that he wanted to, but rather that he felt like he had to, that he felt like it would take another six years before he was a good enough Sasuke for her. But Sasuke forced himself to remember how far he's come, how he is not that boy from before, that he can be good enough for her now. He exhaled softly and watched the sun crawl up the sky and said, "No. Not at all."
"I thought so," Shino mused. "What's stopping you?"
Sasuke paused to think, found his words, and answered, "I'm not Naruto."
And Shino understood, based off of the slight crinkle to his brow. Naruto was good with physical affection. He could spin Hinata around and surround her hands in his and lean into her body with no problem. Sasuke — he was no longer afraid of those things. He did not want to avoid them any longer. He did not want to run. Rather, he just didn't know . . . how to do them.
Like kissing. But Karin had already given him a lesson on that.
She wasn't here to give him a lesson on the other things.
"Well." Shino's head tipped a bit to the side. "Who said you had to do it Naruto's way?"
Sasuke blinked at him. "What do you mean?"
"There are a million way to hold someone. Find the way that's best for you."
In his hands, the list crinkled under the slight pressure of his thumbs. "What ways are there?"
Shino lifted a hand to adjust his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose. "Some female spiders curl their limbs around their developing eggs and cover them in a cocoon of silk to keep them protected."
"Oh?"
"The mantis will use its forelegs to pull its prey close to its mouth so that it can eat its food alive."
"Oh."
"And the common housefly has no jaw, so it uses its mouth like a sponge to absorb nutrients and liquid."
"Oh . . . ."
Perhaps Sasuke should be afraid.
...
That night, Sasuke Uchiha was a female spider.
He told himself he would not take Shino's advice. He'd simply throw it in the wind and figure things out himself!
But — damn it — he was a listener, now! A damn good one, too! And no matter how he tried to forget it, ignore it, push it out of his head, Shino's words stayed, and Sasuke was forced to comply.
So, that night, Sasuke was a female spider, and Hinata was his trembling, terribly cold litter of eggs.
"Let me warm you up."
"O-Oh. Thank you, Sasuke."
Everyone else was asleep, the trip having exhausted them thoroughly, but the cabin on the side of the mountain they were staying at was far too cold, despite it being the beginning of June. Hinata had her arms curled around her as she sat on the rug in the living room, and that was when Sasuke found his opportunity. He jogged up to his room he shared with Naruto and Kiba and Shino, tore the blankets off his bed, and tied them around her body before he situated himself between her and the sofa and wrapped both arms and both legs around her.
A small squeak left her mouth, so Sasuke tightened his grip around her. He could feel her body heat through the blankets, and that made the hair on the back of his neck stand.
"Is this . . . helping?"
Hinata shifted a tad closer to him. "Yes. Thank you, Sasuke."
And so he held her like a mother spider, protecting her, loving her.
...
The next day, Sasuke transformed into a mantis. A hungry, ravenous mantis who could snatch up his meal within a moment's notice.
They were hiking a few miles up the mountain, enjoying the scenery and fresh air. Wildlife danced and dashed about them, and about two hours into it, the whole group decided to take a break for lunch and sightseeing. Sasuke had followed Hinata out to a rock that overlooked the valley far down below, and this is where they sat and pulled out their sandwiches and juice boxes.
"I think you can see out cabin from up here."
"Hinata," he sighed, "the cabin is back there."
"No, really, I —"
She had been leaning over the edge of the rock, looking down, when her hand slipped, and suddenly she was falling forward. Now Sasuke knew well to grab her and pull her back — he wasn't about to just let her topple over.
But here's the thing.
Sasuke Uchiha was a mantis, and mantises grab their prey with their forelegs.
He did not have those.
So, instead, he wrapped his legs around her waist, crossed his ankles, and yanked her back. Hinata yelped and toppled into him, on top of him, but she was safe, and he was —
Well.
"O-Oh, I'm sorry."
He was hungry, to say the least.
"Are you okay, Sasuke? Did I hurt you?"
She was on top of him, hands curled against his chest, and Sasuke wanted nothing more than to eat her.
Woah, there.
He gulped hard and slowly pushed himself off his back, coaxing her to lean off of him.
Not the right time for that, Sasuke.
"I'm fine. Is your hand alright?"
His thumb brushed against her left wrist, and she giggled and grinned at him, and that made him so entirely starved that even scarfing down his food did nothing for his appetite.
...
Two days later, everyone was packing up to head back home, and Sasuke was fighting off the ways of a common housefly.
To put it simply: the housefly soaked up liquid like a sponge, and right at the moment, Hinata was drenched in rain.
The whole lot of them were running back in forth between cabin and car, stuffing luggage and bags into the trunks, all the while yelling and laughing as the rain got harder and colder. Whenever Hinata stopped by the front door, dripping, features glowing with rainwater, Sasuke had to remind her that it wasn't good to run around in rain, and he had to remind himself that he was no housefly — that he was a man who could control himself.
Definitely.
"Sasuke." But then she held out her hand to him, and he was startled. Startled because that panic he was so used to feeling wasn't there, instead replaced with a screaming, unyielding yearn to hold her, to hold that hand, to feel how small it was against his palm and watch her face brighten up as he recharged her. He took it, and she pulled him out into the rain, and she laughed at the heavy, unafraid look he gave her. "See? Things like this are okay, too."
He didn't understand until her two, small, warm hands wrapped around his one, big hand, and that was when it dawned on him. She had heard it all — everything Shino told him on their car ride here. She heard about female spiders and the mantis and houseflies, and she let him hold her and wrap around her with that knowledge wafting throughout her mind. And now, as she held his hand, she showed him different ways to hold her, to touch her, to recharge the both of them.
He might have been embarrassed if he weren't so totally smitten with everything she was.
"Sasuke," she said, again. Her mouth was pressed against his shoulder, and he wondered if she would suck all his energy out of him. Her lips were soft and wet. They would soak in all of him like a sponge. She would feast on him, and he would let her. "If you want to know how to hold me, come to me first."
He listened very closely because she taught him the importance of doing so. He listened to the drum of his heart and the rush of his nerves, and he nodded and pushed his hand further into hers.
...
On the drive home, he sat in the back with her, and her hand never left his as her slumbering body leaned into him.
...
For the rest of the summer, he did not see her.
He would hear her over the speakers of his phone. He would read her words late at night, just before bed; but he did not see her.
Instead, he worked.
He stayed at Naruto's, paying his part of the rent, and took on two jobs that sucked away his time and his energy. When he had free time, he would go swimming or exploring the town. Sometimes, he'd take the bus to the graveyard, hoping that by some chance of luck he would meet Hinata there. He never did, but he always stopped by to talk to Neji and Hanabi, leaving them with a message to relay to her if she ever stopped by after him. And then he would go back, he would cook and sleep and work, and they days would pass by slowly and sluggishly.
Sometimes, Itachi called him.
Sometimes, Sasuke would answer. He'd tell him he was staying with Naruto, that he was saving up money, that he was working himself to the bone and that he was tired. Tired, but not exhausted; not in the same way he used to be. And Itachi would hum and muse, but mostly listen, and Sasuke hoped that was a good sign, that life was treating him better, as well.
He told him, once, about Hinata.
"Father would hate her," he told Itachi, who laughed in return.
"Good," he said, "then she must be an amazing woman."
He told his brother he was counting down the days until classes started up again, that he's never been more anxious for summer to end, that when he sees her next, he will be right, he will be good, and he will be who she needs him to be.
Afterwards, he did not say another word about Hinata to his brother. If he ever asked, he would say, "I'll tell you when you meet her."
Twenty-three more days until classes start, and Sasuke did not stop counting the days.
...
The day they moved back into the dorms, Sasuke could hardly focus. He hung his shirts inside-out. He put his shampoo in the freezer. He kept messing around with the list, tracing her handwriting, looking at that final piece at the end, circled and highlighted and underlined until he could hardly read it. But he knew what it said.
"Good God," Naruto sighed, dropping a few bags on his bed before he turned to Sasuke, trying to keep his frown stern and exhausted — but, of course, it quickly bloomed into something bright and excited. "If you want to see her that bad, just leave, already! I'll finish things up."
Sasuke looked around at the slew of boxes around them. "I shouldn't —"
"Dude. Go. She's waiting for you, too, I bet."
All air left his lungs, and Sasuke jumped over the bed and slung one arm over Naruto's shoulder in a half-hug. His friend tensed, then laughed, then hammered a hand into his back before squeezing him to the brink of death.
"Now do that, but for Hinata."
Sasuke shoved his shoulder into Naruto's chest to escape the death grip. "She won't try to kill me like you do."
Naruto watched him yank his shoes on and smirked. "Oh, she will. Just in a different way."
...
Hinata's door was shut and greeted him with no signs of movement.
And if it were January, Sasuke would have backed away. He would have left. He would need an idiot around the corner to force him to lift a hand and knock.
But it was August, and Sasuke did not fear shut doors no longer.
...
He knocked, and her voice was quiet on the other side.
"Come in. It's unlocked."
...
Sasuke did not stray in the doorway. He did not huddle by the hallway.
When he saw her in the middle of her room, folding her sweaters like she folded pieces of paper full of lists, pinching the corners and tightening the seams, there was absolutely no way he could stand still and in place and just watch.
"Oh! Sasuke —"
So he grabbed her, he lifted her in his arms and spun her around and made her laugh and squeal, and then he pressed her against the wall and kissed her.
"I love you," he pushed against her mouth. "Hinata." Her name, he molded into her jaw, then again down her neck. "Hinata."
Her thumbs rubbed the sides of his face, her legs wrapped around him like a mantis, and she looked like she could sprout and tail at any moment. Her knuckles blushed as she combed her fingers down his skull. Her skin smelled like roses and bloomed like poppies, and she looked so thrilled and happy and completely full, completely charged.
And it was because he was Sasuke Uchiha.
He was the one who made her this way.
Him.
...
"Sasuke." She rubbed the back of her wrist against her eyes and grinned down at him. "I love you, too."
He lifted his chin and kissed her again and again, over and over. Her back slid down the wall, he crouched down to keep her comfortable, and his hands left her hips to hold her hands above her head.
...
They didn't stop for another fifteen minutes, until they were lightheaded and dizzy, but still hungry and buzzing.
It was like swimming. This was the pause; they broke the surface, they gasped and swallowed, and Hinata pulled out something from her pocket to fold between his fingers.
"This is for you," she whispered. "Use it as much as you want to."
The pause, Sasuke felt, was stretching on for entirely too long, so he dived back in and worked on trying to steal her lungs again.
...
When he returned to his room, he pulled out the list and let it rest on his desk, and then he traced the sharp, bronze sides of the gift Hinata had just given him.
A key.
He collapsed onto his bed, holding it to his chest, and waited for morning to come so he could go down two floors, walk down the hallway, and unlock her door.
Part VIII - End