Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.
Special Thanks: goes out to Danish78, Neverfearthedark, wolf-enzeru, Sachiko Heiwajima, Tamani, mariawalker112, Fanfiction Bard, AraelDranoth, CrimsonNight41, mangetsu no hime, DivineGlory, Break Blade, SahelTheWaltzingDinosaur, SasukexhinataxOC, Guest, WarFlower, and NeverInUrWildestDreams for all your reviews! Also thanks to everyone who's added this to their favorites and follows lists!
Author's Note: I love Hinata's POV in this chapter, but I particularly love Sasuke's. I've been there more times than I can count. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy!
*~Chapter XXXII~*
~Connections~
They reached the Indiana hotel Sasuke had booked a little after eleven that night. Thanks to a wreck on the interstate right before they turned south away from Chicago, the bumper-to-bumper crawling traffic delayed them over an hour. If not for that, they would have gotten there earlier than Sasuke anticipated.
After checking in at the concierge desk, they swung past a little nook with vending machines to grab a drink and a snack apiece before wishing each other good night and going to their separate rooms. Hinata used her key card to enter hers, then stopped just inside the doorway and marveled at the king-sized bed, comfortable leather chair and HD television. It was a pity they wouldn't be staying longer than just one night so she could really enjoy the room.
Hinata dropped her bags at the foot of the bed before collapsing on the chair. Kicking off her sandals, she ate her bag of potato chips while she texted her sister.
At hotel in Indiana. Wreck on interstate delayed us. So tired, going to sleep. Love you, night.
She drained the last of her bottle of water and tried to work up the energy to leave her spot, change into her pajamas, and go to bed. To delay longer, she went ahead and set her phone alarm for seven-thirty, a little before the time she and Sasuke had agreed to meet for breakfast. After they ate, they would check out and hopefully be on the road again by nine.
At least, that was the plan. Hinata's phone chirped, and she read the response from Hanabi before dragging herself out of the chair and into the bathroom. After using the facilities, washing her face, brushing her teeth, and changing into her nightclothes, Hinata flipped off all the lights in the room and crawled into bed.
But as soon as her head hit the pillow, Hinata's eyes refused to close. She rolled onto her left side and stared in the direction of her purse, where the journal her mother had translated rested. While Sasuke drove the last leg of the day's journey, Hinata had finished reading it right before daylight faded away.
It had been quite the tale. Hyuuga Harumi had been one of the empress's closest handmaidens, trusted beyond question with secrets which could have been disastrous had they fallen into the wrong hands. She'd even put her life in danger for her mistress, which had been a rather heart-pounding part of the book.
But what caught Hinata's attention the most had been the man Harumi fell in love with when she was nineteen. A samurai who served as the emperor's closest bodyguard, Uchiha Seiji had caught the young handmaiden's attention from the first. Though relationships between members of the staff - especially those closest to the imperial family - were severely frowned upon, they met each other in secret as often as they could.
Hinata closed her eyes and thought back to the most breathtaking part of the book: when they had sneaked out and, under the light of the full moon, declared themselves married. It vaguely reminded Hinata of a story she'd read long ago, about an American businessman and the geisha he loved, but it had struck her as all the more powerful since it was true. And, even more so, involved one of her own ancestors.
The story, however, did not have the happy ending she'd hoped for. Though Harumi did give birth to a daughter - after a pregnancy she had dangerously yet successfully hidden from her mistress for the six months she was showing - she had to give the child to her childless brother and his wife, mourning their inability to conceive a child of their own, until after she was dismissed from service. Harumi and Seiji had such grand plans for after their service to the imperial family had ended, but they had all come to an end when the samurai saved the emperor's life at the cost of his own during an assassination attempt. Harumi kept silent about the story until close to the end of her life, when she wrote the whole story down for her daughter (whom she had pretended for years was her niece, for the benefit of her brother and sister-in-law's happiness) when she knew she was dying.
Though the story had touched Hinata in so many ways, what lingered most in her mind was the samurai. It might have been just a coincidence his last name was Uchiha, but with the friendship between her own mother and Sasuke's, and her mother's excitement about the journal, she had to wonder.
The story had been kept silent, forgotten in a rolled-up scroll in her family's attic for who knew how many generations. A chill shivered down her spine at the thought of finding it now, when she was growing close to an Uchiha. Hinata, unlike her cousin, did not believe in fate, but this had to be one of the most incredible coincidences in the history of the world.
Hinata rolled onto her right side and squeezed her eyes shut. Another thought she couldn't shake was the need to share the journal with Sasuke. If she was right and Uchiha Seiji was some distant relative of his (separated by who knew how many generations), he would want to read the journal and experience his ancestor's story himself. Perhaps tomorrow during one of her turns driving, she would give the journal to him and give him the choice of reading it. Perhaps he wouldn't even want to; after all, though Hinata strongly suspected there was a familial tie, however distant, between Sasuke and Seiji, she didn't know for sure. There had been nothing in the book about research her mother did to tie Seiji to Sasuke and his family, though the mere fact the journal was in the Hyuuga clan's possession meant Harumi was an ancestor of Hinata's.
Rolling onto her stomach, Hinata pulled the extra pillow over her head and squeezed her eyes shut. She would make those important decisions in the morning, after she'd gotten some much-needed sleep. For now, she would fall into dreamland for a few blissful hours and try not to think about much of anything at all.
After a fairly good night's sleep, Sasuke met Hinata for the hotel's complimentary breakfast. He was glad they'd decided to start at nine instead of earlier since they'd gotten in so late the night before; he couldn't imagine getting up even half an hour before he did and trying to drive two-thirds of the day. Hinata looked well-rested, though a shadow lurked in her eyes, as if she were worried about something. Sasuke considered asking her about it, but decided he shouldn't pry. If she wanted to talk about it, she would. Pushing her would only cause problems they didn't need this far from home, when they still had two days in a van with only each other and his dog for company.
Sasuke pulled the van out of the hotel's parking lot at eight-fifty-eight on the dot - not bad, considering. While Hinata happily went about asking him questions about various things to see and do in New York, Sumi and Soichiro nattered on in the back of his mind, demanding attention. If he had been at home, their insistence would have gotten him out of bed and downstairs to his computer. But right now, he had to focus on the road and what Hinata was saying. He couldn't devote any of his time or attention to his characters, no matter how loud they were.
After only an hour on the road, Hinata smiled and said out of nowhere, "You need to write, don't you?"
"What?" Sasuke glanced at her, his mind lagging slightly in processing her words. When he did, he felt a blush heat his cheeks. "What gave you that idea?"
"You've been making the vaguest of noises at me for the past twenty minutes solid. And when I told you that Hanabi texted me last night to say she and Konohamaru had run off to Bora Bora to elope, you said, 'What a plot.' And while I'm interested to hear you think matrimony between my sister and her boyfriend is worthy book material, I really do think you would have had a far more - ah, shall we say enthusiastic reaction to the news." Hinata arched her eyebrows at him.
"They got married last night?" Sasuke had thought things were serious between the two, but he didn't think it was that serious. Besides, didn't kids that age need a parent's permission to get passports or something?
Hinata laughed. "No, I just said that to see if you were paying attention. Seriously, though, if you want to get off at the next exit and switch drivers, that's fine." She reached down to scratch behind Ninja's ears when he pointedly rested his head on the console between the front seats.
"It's not fair for you to start driving this early," Sasuke objected, albeit weakly. "We already decided I'd take the driving shift between breakfast and lunch, you between lunch and dinner, and then I'd take over again. And we'd only switch if one of us got tired, or sick, or something."
"I think this qualifies under the heading of 'or something,'" Hinata pointed out dryly. "Honestly, Sasuke, I don't mind driving. You're an author, and you need to write when you need to write. I won't say I understand it, but I respect it. I'm not going to ask you to ignore it just because we made a really flexible agreement two weeks ago."
Relieved, Sasuke pulled off the interstate at the next exit and obligingly switched seats with Hinata. By the time she navigated to the on-ramp and pointed them in the right direction again, he already had his computer booted up, the correct file open, and started his fingers flying across the keys.
Sasuke was vaguely aware when Hinata asked him if he was hungry. He muttered something about "just some fries" and went back to work. He barely tasted the fries Hinata kept periodically tapping against his arm until he took them and put them in his mouth. His fingers felt wet every now and then, and he dimly realized he must have been reacting to Hinata handing him a cup. He wasn't particularly thirsty, so apparently he took drinks.
The van stopped, and he heard the driver's door open, then the back door. A little while later, both closed, and the vehicle started moving again. Sasuke tried to tear his attention away from his screen to see what was going on, but his thoughts were bombarding him too quickly. He needed to focus on his book, otherwise crucial ideas and plot details would be lost.
When Sasuke - hands cramping, eyes burning, and head pounding - finally looked up from his screen, he was shocked at what he saw. "The Pennsylvania Turnpike?" He nearly choked as he snapped his gaze down to the clock on the dash. "Five-thirty in the afternoon? Hinata, why didn't you get me to take over?"
Hinata ignored him as she put down the window and retrieved their ticket stub. She tucked it onto the dash, then calmly returned the van to gear and navigated past the raised arm which had been previously blocking their way. "You were busy," she said serenely. "And traffic hasn't been bad at all. It was enough of a fight to get you to eat and drink something; I didn't want to disturb you any more to have you take hours away from your writing, instead of only a few seconds. I figure the food was good for your health, which you need to maintain for your writing, so I didn't feel badly pulling you away for that." She glanced in the rearview mirror, then her side one, before smoothly changing lanes. "As for pulling you away so you could drive? I thought that would be detrimental to your sanity, not to mention your story. And besides, who am I to deprive your adoring fans from the next Uchiha Sasuke thriller novel?"
"But I-" Sasuke began to protest weakly.
She lifted one hand off the wheel to throw it briskly up between them. "Don't argue," she said. "What's done is done, and we're in Pennsylvania now. We can stop for dinner soon, and then, if you're still so determined, you can take over driving."
Sasuke wished he could crawl into the back with Ninja and hide under the dog's blanket. How in the world could he have let time get away from him so badly he left Hinata to drive seven and a half hours, with only a break to eat and another to let the dog have a chance to do his business? Plus, undoubtedly, to fuel up, which she undoubtedly paid for out of her own pocket since she couldn't get his attention to get his credit card from him. What kind of man was he?
Not to mention the fact he missed most of Indiana and all of Ohio, plus a sliver of West Virginia, thanks to his preoccupation. Three states they'd been through, and he hadn't noticed even so much as a single road sign in any of them. He was the most despicable sort of man, he really was.
When they stopped at another fast food place so Ninja could eat at an outdoor table with them (Sasuke would be glad when they got to New York and could finally eat at an indoor restaurant), Hinata dug some Ibuprofen out of her purse for his headache. Between those and the caffeine in his drink, by the time he climbed into the driver's seat, he was feeling more human, though no less a cad.
"I am so sorry, Hinata," he apologized again once they were back on the turnpike. "I feel like such a despicable-"
"Don't." She laughed at his half-guilty, half-shocked expression. "Sasuke, do you really think I haven't gotten involved in something and completely lost track of time even once in my life? I've read books so good I've stayed up till six o'clock in the morning to read them - and I had to get up at seven to get ready for work. When you're really into something, it's easy to lose track of time. And please believe me: if I had needed you to take over, I would have pulled you out of your creative haze. But I was fine driving, and you were fine in your book world, and we're still right on schedule. There was no harm done to either party."
Well, when Hinata put it that way... "All right," Sasuke relented. "But seriously, no more writing for me until we're in New York. I was a little behind because of getting ready for the trip, but that binge just more than made up for it. So I'll do my share of driving for the rest of the trip, okay?"
Hinata put up her hands and graciously agreed, then they both lapsed into silence for a while as the miles slipped by on the seemingly endless black ribbon of road beneath them. As darkness encroached outside, she began to hum along with the music playing on his mp3 player. They'd both agreed at the start whoever was driving got to choose the music, and to their surprise, they found out they had similar tastes, so neither drove the other crazy.
They arrived at their hotel in Somerset, Pennsylvania ten minutes ahead of schedule, thanks to the surprisingly light traffic they'd encountered. The man at the desk kept darting nervous glances at Ninja, whose return regard was contemptuous, as if the little man weren't worth his lordly purebred shepherd attention. Sasuke heard Hinata giggle quietly behind him, where she stood back a ways standing guard over their luggage. Sasuke couldn't help a quiet chuckle himself as he accepted the keycards for his and Hinata's rooms.
After a quick goodnight at the side-by-side doors to their rooms, they separated. While Ninja went about becoming well-acquainted with the room via his nose, Sasuke put down his laptop case on the desk, his suitcase on the chair in the corner, and shed his shoes right before collapsing, fully clothed, atop the still-made bed, arms spread wide to either side. For a moment he stared up at the ceiling, wondering if it would be too much effort to change clothes and pull down the covers, but his buzzing phone (sitting next to his laptop case) answered the question for him.
Opening the text, Sasuke found a message from Hinata. Turn on channel 4 on the TV!
Scrambling for the remote, Sasuke turned on the flat-screen HD television across from the bed and changed the channel.
On screen, a woman with pouty red-painted lips and sleek blonde hair was speaking into the camera. Above her left shoulder, a picture of Sasuke's back cover photo hovered with his name just beneath it. "-happy to report," the woman was saying, "Uchiha Sasuke's agent confirmed today he will be coming to the New York premiere of the newest movie based one of his books, Head Shot. Akira?"
The camera cut to a man with shaggy dark hair and slightly wild, fanatic dark eyes. "Yes, Chiharu, that's right. The elusive thriller novelist, who hasn't made a public appearance since the premiere of his last movie, Metronome, two years ago, is coming back to New York for Head Shot. The red carpet coverage starts right here at seven o'clock, with myself and Chiharu getting you up-close-and-personal interviews with the director, cast, and perhaps even the legendary novelist himself."
A split screen appeared, with Chiharu in the studio on the right. "And what do you think of the rumor going around that he's actually going to bring a date with him this time, Akira?"
Shrugging, Akira offered his audience a roguish half-grin. "At the moment it's just that, Chiharu, a rumor. But I for one would like to see this daring woman who has brought Sasuke out of his remote mansion and back into the spotlight."
Chiharu laughed, a deep and raspy noise which made Sasuke wince. "Perhaps we'll get lucky and see the author and his mysterious date around the city before the premiere. But either way, we'll be right here with coverage about this highly-anticipated event right up to the red carpet waltz on Thursday night. Head Shot is rated PG-13 for violence, scary images, and-"
Sasuke flipped off the TV with a groan and reached for his phone. It rang only once before Hinata picked up on the other end, and he didn't even wait for her to get all the way through her greeting before he spoke. "Did you watch the whole thing?" he demanded.
"Yes." He heard a slight chattering sound, then Hinata whispered, "Do - do you think Jiraiya told them?"
"I don't know." Sasuke had told his agent to keep Hinata's presence at the red-carpet event strictly hush-hush, but if Jiraiya had seen an opportunity to help stir up the hype for the movie, Sasuke had no doubt the man would take it. Though Jiraiya mostly did what he could to keep his authors happy, he was a savvy businessman and willing to go to great lengths to keep his clients in the spotlight (even if it was a metaphorical one, in Sasuke's case). "If he is the leak, though, at least he kept your name out of it."
"But we'll never be able to go anywhere in New York now," Hinata moaned. "With the papparazzi on the hunt for any sign of us, we'll be stuck in the hotel until Thursday."
"I doubt that," Sasuke told her reassuringly. "Think about it, Hinata. They have no idea what you look like, and I like to think I only vaguely resemble the man on the back cover of my books. As long as we walk everywhere, acting like we belong, or drive ourselves everywhere - perhaps we can risk a taxi now and then, but definitely no limo rides till the premiere - we should be fine. Even if Jiraiya did let it slip I'm bringing a date to this year's premiere, he won't breathe a word about where we're staying or what our itinerary is the rest of our stay. Especially since he has only the vaguest idea of where we're going and what we're doing, anyway." As a matter of fact, the only thing Jiraiya knew for sure was the Broadway play, and then only becuase he was the one to secure Sasuke and Hinata tickets. "It's going to be okay, Hinata. Everything will be fine."
Hinata drew in a deep, shuddering breath. "You're sure?" she queried uncertainly.
With a bravery he didn't feel, Sasuke assured her, "Absolutely."
By the time they hung up a few minutes later, even Sasuke was starting to believe it. After all, Temari's other brother Kankuro was an actor (not a major star, but he'd been in a handful of movies and was a regular on a prime time TV show), and he'd spent half the wedding reception giving Sasuke tips on how to disguise his appearance. "You know," Kankuro had said, "if you ever wanted to go out in public and not be recognized. I do it all the time."
The most Sasuke had ever done was wear a hat, sunglasses, and baggy clothes (which had worked, up to a certain point). But he still remembered Kankuro's tips, and would certainly keep them as a handy option, just in case.
Because, after all, Sasuke was not in New York to make headlines. He was only going to show Hinata a good time. And when they returned to Konoha, it would be as the same vaguely interesting people they were when they left.
Sasuke would make certain of it.
*~To Be Continued~*
Author's Ending Notes: I really loved Hinata's POV in this chapter, but I really understood Sasuke's. I've been there more times than I can count. Seriously, when I really get into the writing groove, everything around me just vanishes. I've had people have to shout my name several times to get my attention (and then they're annoyed at me, but the feeling's mutual!), throw something at me, etc. It's some of my favorite times to write, because I'm so sucked into my story's world that I'm there, and that immersive experience makes the words flow, and I get so much done in one sitting, even though I pay for it afterwards because I'm so tired. But it's worth it. And can I just mention how glad I am I finally got to share the contents of the book Hinata found? Finally! Aiyee, they've been mentioned on TV! (Mostly Sasuke, but still...) It makes me even more excited for the premiere night. I'm so excited for everything I'm bringing to you on their trip, really. There are maybe one or two parts I can point to and say "this is what I'm most excited about," but as for the rest, I'm so equally excited I can't pick a second, third, etc., favorite. So until next time, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, thank you so much for reading, and I hope to see you again for next week's update!