Almost
Was he important to her?
Did she not realize what a weight it was on him for her to say something like that?
She'd declared it so easily. That look in her eyes was too trusting. The way she handed him the onigiri she'd labored over was too kind. When smiled at him, as she had every single day for months, the urge to kiss her nearly overtook him.
The distance between them hadn't been nearly long enough for him to forget. Her smell still filled his nostrils. Her fingertips still ghosted over the back of his hand. The way she said his name, how it tumbled so sweetly from those lips he wanted to claim…
'You are an important person to me.'
Sasuke cursed under his breath as he took out his frustrations on the wooden training post. Splinters flew from the kicks he landed, and his chest burned from the exertion but he didn't stop. He'd become too soft. He'd spent too much time around her.
Everything about her was too much.
Hyuuga Hinata.
An odd woman who was strange and sweet and innocent and everything he knew that he could never have. He should have pulled away while he still had a chance all those months ago. When the sun set late and the humidity drove people to stay inside. Now the time had slipped by before his eyes. The last of the leaves had fallen and so it seemed had he.
Sasuke paused at the thought, sweat dripping down his brow. He'd fallen for Hinata. He liked her. He liked her in ways that he knew that he shouldn't. He liked her in the way Sakura had always wished for him to. He liked her in a way that would hurt Naruto irrevocably. He liked her enough that he almost didn't care. Almost.
'Dammit.' Sasuke cursed and charged headlong towards the wooden post.
Almost wasn't good enough. They'd been through too much for him to allow 'almost' to come between them. Even if it was Hinata...