New Hobby
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto, or any of the characters affiliated with it, and this is merely a fan-based piece of work.
Hinata liked collecting things. She frequently liked collecting shells when she went to the beach, and different types of rocks when she went to the river in the middle of the Forest of Death sometimes, even though the place still managed to make her feel a little bit scared. Now, she wasn't a kunoichi that many would consider to be weird. (Well, asides from Naruto when he first met her, he thought she was a little...odd, but that had changed since they were friends. Though he was still quite oblivious to her feelings, it seemed). In fact, even though she was extremely shy, not really out-spoken and quite an introvert, she got along with everyone, and hardly said anything rash. She was polite, used correct suffixes in social situations, and tried her best to speak up a little bit more. But lately, she had turned to the solitude of her room, where nothing and no-one could attempt to harm the tiny pieces of her heart which were mending somewhat slowly from things that had happened recently.
She had a pet turtle.
A pet turtle, you ask? How strange! Ah, but she loved her pet turtle. She found him at the river one day, when she had been dipping her feet in the water – and his leg was trapped under a rock. Seeing the poor animal in pain, she picked him up and took him back to her home (with a bit of fuss from the cleaning-nin who saw her muddy footprints through the doorway), and managed to heal his leg with her healing-lotion, (just like the one she had shyly given Naruto in the midst of the Chunin Exams) and he was alright after that. She somehow managed to persuade her father to buy a tank for her turtle, though it was yet to be named, and he said she could buy one. So getting some rocks from a nearby stream, and some things from a nearby aquarium, she set about trying to make him happy as a turtle could be. Her new hobby, was keeping a turtle.
No-one would have guessed that this turtle helped her through many things, and cheered her up the most during the day, other than her encounters with Naruto and her friends.
And no-one would have guessed that someone had previously put the turtle in the river, wanting him to go to a better home; one where he'd be more comfy; a blonde boy whom she so admired.