I'm glad people are enjoying the story. It makes me happy!
This chapter, I would say, is more like filler to the story, but it is there to show interaction between the characters to make them familiar.
I hope you enjoy it.

"You know, y-years from now we'll p-probably be laughing at this so hard that our ribs will hurt, d-don't you think?... Ahaha…" Hinata said nervously as she could see the growing frown on my face.

What did I just get myself into?

We had just informed the station at the next stop for the train to take out Hinata's luggage and keep it secured in the office until we could pick it up.

I decided to take out some more cash from my account if I was going to take Hinata to her home. Staring at the ATM inside the train station, my heart was slowly sinking, and my frown growing. It was as if I just remembered that I got fired not too long ago. How am I going to afford this? I'm not earning any money and my savings are limited. The trip to Suna is at least a few days long by road.

I'm really regretting this decision right now.

"Hey, if money is the issue, then don't worry. As soon as we get to my home in Suna I'll pay you back for all the expenses," said Hinata with a smile while standing right behind me.

"Are you staring at my bank account over my shoulder?" I raised an eyebrow as I asked.

"N-no! I just didn't want to b-burden you too much since you are helping me."

Honestly, it would be wise to take her offer since I shouldn't be spending so much money, but my stubborn pride could not let me seem weak, even in front of a stranger.

"No, I don't need your money," I said as I placed some cash from the ATM in my wallet. "Let's go. It's too late, and we need a place to stay so we can catch up on some sleep before we go to the next station.

Hinata nodded at this and followed me out of the station. In the parking lot I could still see the taxi where I had parked it earlier when we first got here.

"Maybe we can ask that driver. He might be willing to help us again," I said to Hinata as I pointed my head towards the taxi.

"Yeah, you're right. He did seem nice."

We made our way towards the taxi. I could see the driver sitting inside making some kind of a prayer to a picture on his dashboard. As soon as he looked up, he saw us walking towards him. Hinata waved at him with a smile to catch his attention but instead the driver started the car, backed out of his parking spot and quickly drove off as Hinata yelled at him.

"HEY! STOP!" she yelled. "That jerk!"

"You probably scared him off," I said casually. To be honest, I saw that coming. The driver was pretty shaken when we left him.

"Me!? How could I have scared him? It was probably your stupid speeding that scared him. He was so worried about his car the entire time."

"Well, if I hadn't done that then we wouldn't have made it here on time. But I guess that didn't matter in the end since you decided to miss the train for 25 cents," I shrugged my shoulders.

"Why do you have to bring that up?" pouted Hinata as she blushed from embarrassment.

I took a deep breath before letting it out to clear my head.

"I don't see anymore taxis around here so we will have to walk to find a hotel or a lodge to stay in," I said to Hinata who was lazily kicking some rocks at her feet. She looked at me and nodded at what I said.

Soon we were walking along the road to find someplace to stay for the night. It was 4am and almost everything was closed.

We had been walking for about 20 minutes and it seemed that we were getting closer to some questionable areas.

"Oh look, Sasuke! There's a hotel there," she pointed at a place across the street almost a block away.

I looked at what she was pointing at and winced.

"Lovely Hotel," I said as I read its name that was shining brightly in pink neon lights.

"Yeah, that one. Let's go check it out," Hinata began walking towards it while I was still hesitant but in the end I followed. We didn't have much of a choice anyway.

"Hello! We would like to book a room here for one night, please," said Hinata to the man who was standing at the front desk.

This place was screaming 'shady business going on here.' Even the guy looked suspicious.

"Welcome to Lovely Hotel. It will be $50 for one night," he said before lowering his voice to ask," Or, uhm… would you like to be charged by the hour?"

I threw the money on the counter and pointed at him. "Don't even think about it. Just do what you're told," I said with a glare while Hinata began tapping her chin.

"Wait, Sasuke, wouldn't it be better if we pay by the hour?" I turned my glare to her as she continued, " It's already so late and we're not going to be here that long anyway," she said with a smile as if she came up with a brilliant idea.

Does she not know?

"No, we're not going to do that."

"But why not? It'll save so much money."

"Hinata, you don't understand what he's saying."

"I completely understand. He's saying that we can save some money if we go by the hour. Maybe you don't understand," scoffed Hinata, while I just stared at her.

She really doesn't get it.

"Fine, how many hours do you think we need?" I asked with a smirk.

"Oh, umm… three hours?" I raised an eyebrow in response, "Ok, fine, Four hours? That should be enough."

The man behind the counter raised both his eyebrows at us.

"He seems like he can last that long, but can you last that long, miss?" he asked Hinata.

"What do you mean?" she said.

"Just give us the room for four hours," I said.

"Ok, here's the key," Hinata took the key and began walking towards the room while I paid.

"Hey man, where'd you find this one?" he asked as he looked at Hinata over his shoulder.

I leaned in with an elbow on the counter.

"On the train," I smirked.

"No way…" said the guy as I walked away from him with a chuckle.

"What were you guys whispering about?" asked Hinata as I walked into the room. She was sitting on the bed with her arms wrapped around her legs to her chest while eyeing me suspiciously.

"Nothing. Just… guy stuff."

"I know Tae Kwando," she said abruptly.

"Ok…"

"Yeah, so don't even try anything on me."

"I... wasn't going to," I said as if it was obvious.

"Good, because even if you did you wouldn't get far without a broken nose and some other parts." I raised an eyebrow but then just shook my head.

This girl was interesting.

It was quiet for a few minutes while we had a little staring contest until Hinata spoke again.

"So what's going on with you, Sasuke?"

"What do you mean?" I frowned.

"Well… anybody would find it weird that a guy gets on a train and doesn't even know where he's going… Then he just randomly gets off and starts wandering around in the middle of the night."

"Oh, so you think you can help me since you have me all figured out?" I asked, as I stood straighter in front of her with my hand fisted at my sides. Why was I becoming so defensive?

"I don't have you figured out, that's why I'm asking. I only want to help because I'm worried," she said, as she also stood up from the bed.

"Why would you worry over a stranger?" I asked, honestly confused by her concern.

"I saw how you were leaning out of the train earlier, when the conductor came around. If I hadn't caught your shirt, you would've fallen out of a moving train." Her eyes were wide and I could see her worry in them. "Sasuke, if you're contemplating suicide –"

"I'm not," I cut her off, "I was just…distracted." I couldn't look her in the eye knowing that she saw me in such a delusive and weak state.

"Tell me what's wrong," she said softly as she placed a hand on my shoulder to urge me to look at her. It was so tempting to just talk to someone, especially her, since I could see her promise to not judge and just listen. Even though I wanted to, my pride would not allow me to pour my heart out like some kind of a hormonal teenage girl who had just been dumped. I certainly felt like one.

I don't even know when was the last time I actually cried.

"Is it about a girl?" my eyes widened a bit at her question but I hid it hoping she wouldn't see the slight shock on my face. "It is, right?" Shit, she saw through me.

I sighed and let my shoulders drop a little as I leaned against the nightstand.

"Yes," I relented in the end because it would be easier to talk about this than have her keep annoying me until she finds out about what my brother did. "When we were younger… she always used to ask me out and say that she loved me, so I decided to go out with her.

"I thought we were doing well. I even told her that I loved her, which I've never said to anyone before… But in the end she left me to go be with my best friend." I moved to sit on a couch as I said this.

I said more than I thought I would say. Oh god, I probably sounded like some lovesick guy still hung up on his ex.

"Do you have a picture of her?" she asked while squatting next to the couch I was on.

"Why?"

"Just tell me if you have a picture of her or not."

I rolled my eyes at her persistence but remembered that Sakura had hidden a picture of her in my wallet while we were still together. She had said that it was for whenever I missed her. I never found the picture because I never really go through my wallet so extensively. Knowing her, she must have hidden it somewhere I wouldn't find it easily because she knew I would've taken it out.

I took out my wallet and started taking all its contents out. When everything was out on the table I found what I was looking for. Inside one of the grooves for your cards was a small Polaroid picture of her. She looked different in it. She was smiling.

Before I could stare at it any longer, Hinata took the picture from my hand.

"She's pretty," she whispered before turning to go through all the drawers in the room.

"What are you doing?" I went after her.

"Where is it? Aha!" She said as she slammed the drawer. "Hold out your hand." I raised my eyebrow but did what she told me to.

In my hand, she placed Sakura's picture back, with a matchbox.

"What is this?" I asked hesitantly.

"What does it look like, a matchbox, of course," she rolled her eyes at how obvious it was. "You're going to burn her picture."

"W-what!?" my eyes widened. Is this girl crazy?

"You're going to burn her picture. She hurt you and you need to get over her."

She opened the matchbox and lit a match while urging me to hold out the picture to burn.

"This is crazy. I'm not doing this," I tried walking away but she held my arm as she blew out the match.

"Trust me! This will help you get over her." She held out the matchbox again. "Whenever I got dumped, I would just burn the guy's pictures to get over them. It's very cathartic!"

This girl is even crazier than I thought. She's a pyromaniac!

"I'm not going to let go until you do this," damn she had a death like grip on my arm, "I can see how much you're hurting. You need to get over them and let go of all the hate you're holding on to."

I stopped struggling at that. Have I been holding on for all this time? Is that really why it hurts whenever I think about them?

"Hey," she nudged my arm to get my attention, but I just frowned.

"I'm over them. You're stupid if you think they have any effect on me whatsoever. I'll prove it." I snatched the matchbox out of her hand and lit up a match. Slowly I hovered Sakura's picture over it until it caught fire. I watched as the flame engulfed her face in the picture.

Hinata pulled me to the restroom as I held the burning picture.

"Now flush it down the toilet," she said to which I just looked at her weirdly. "Flush her out of your life."

I stared at the picture one more time before dropping it in the toilet and flushing it.

"There you go! Now, how does it feel?" asked Hinata.

I just stared at the half burned picture as it disappeared into the toilet. Somehow my chest did feel lighter than it had been for the past few weeks. This really is cathartic.

I looked up at Hinata and smirked in response. She jumped up in excitement before someone started banging on our door.

"HURRY UP!" someone yelled from behind the door.

I opened it to find the man we had seen earlier at the front desk. He was panicking.

"You need to hurry up and get out of here. The police are on its way! It's a police raid!" he yelled as he went to knock and yell to the other rooms.

"What's going on?" asked Hinata as she walked up to the door.

"We need to leave," I went back in to grab my wallet and everything that I had taken out.

"But why?" Hinata was confused by my haste.

"No time to explain. Just trust me. We need to leave this place as soon as possible," I grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room. Everyone was coming out of their rooms and running down the hall. There's probably a back exit down there.

I pulled Hinata behind me as we ran. Most of the people running with us were half naked which made Hinata blush.

"Why are there so many couples? And why are they all half dressed?" Hinata whispered as she lowered her gaze.

This girl really is too naïve.

"Hurry up, Hinata." I pulled on her hand to make her run faster.

"Sasuke, why are we running? Why is everyone running? What's going on?" Hinata sounded scared but I didn't have time to explain to her right now. Instead I kept running until I found the door that led outside to the back of the hotel.

I took her out the back door to where the front desk guy was pointing. There were a few people running out to the other side of the street through the bushes that surrounded the hotel.

"There are some taxis over there. You can take them to get away from here," he said.

"But why isn't anybody telling me why we're running?!" yelled Hinata. I placed my hand over her mouth to keep her quiet.

"Lady, you are a piece of work… and if circumstances were different, I would've given anything to spend a night with you too. But alas, our fate isn't like that, so I'll just hope that we meet again. Maybe on a train," the guy winked and blew a kiss to Hinata as I pulled her away.

"What a weird guy," she said but I just shook my head.

We ran to the nearest taxi and frantically knocked on the window. The driver inside woke up and unlocked the doors. Hinata sat in the backseat while I sat in the front.

"Where to?" yawned the driver.

"It's you!" yelled Hinata.

The driver's eyes widened as he stared at Hinata through his rearview mirror. Then he gulped and turned his head to look at me while I gave him a smirk.

"Get out of this car!" he screamed, "Oh gods and goddesses, please have mercy on me! Please take me out of this nightmare!" the driver kept praying with his eyes closed. He opened one eye to look at me but shut it right back when he saw that I was still there.

"Look, we just need to go somewhere. You can go as slow as you want but just take us out of this shitty place," I said hoping that the driver would agree. "I'll pay you double."

"OK! Where w-would you l-like to g-g-go?" he asked as he tried to hide his panic.

"Just take us to the nearest bus station here," I told the driver.

Soon we were sitting inside a bus while I was looking over the bus tickets I had just bought.

"So we need to get your luggage from the Land of Waves first then go all the way to Suna." I was going over the plan in my head.

"Yup!" said Hinata. She was sitting in the seat that was towards the aisle while I sat in the seat right next to hers, by the window.

"The bus driver said that our bus will leave at 8 in the morning so we can stay in here until then. That's three hours from now. We should get some sleep since it's a long journey by road from here to the Land of Waves."

"Mhmm," said Hinata. She was being really quiet for the past 20 minutes. She didn't even ask about the run from the hotel anymore. Hopefully her attention span wasn't that long to remember it.

"Sasuke, what do you think about me?" she asked after a few minutes.

"Uh…why are you asking?" I said while opening the water bottle I had bought from a vending machine earlier.

"Just tell me. Do you like me?"

I almost choked over the water.

"What!?"

"I mean, do you like my personality, and all?" this didn't sound any better. "I'm just asking because I have a cousin who is just like me and I want to set you up with her!" she smiled.

Oh, I see. She's trying to play matchmaker since she thinks I have a broken heart. Fine, I'll play along.

"So you think your cousin is good enough for me?"

"Of course! If you like me then you will definitely like her!"

"But if I like you then why shouldn't I just get with you?"

"No, it has to be my cousin."

"Forget your cousin. You, and me get together and run off. That way we won't even have to go all the way to Suna."

"Tch, I'm being serious. It has to be my cousin. I can't be with you, because I already have someone I love," Hinata blushed.

I stared at her growing blush and shy smile as she thought about the person she loved. It was cute and endearing. But she'll eventually find out how stupid it is once she gets her heart broken.

"Ah, you already have someone?" she nodded, "Well too bad for me," I said with a smirk.

"No! You still have my cousin. She is just like me!" I just shook my head at her. This girl was weird.

"Idiot," I chuckled as I poked her forehead. "Stop trying to set me up. Now, go to sleep. We have a long journey ahead of us."

Hinata pouted but eventually settled in her seat to sleep.

I smiled one last time before I went to sleep as well.

In the morning, we travelled on the bus for about four hours until we reached the Land of Waves. There we got to the train station to pick up Hinata's luggage, and the first thing she did when she got them was change out of her pajamas. She was now dressed in a simple yellow t-shirt and a pair of light blue jeans.

"Ok, now off we go to Suna!" yelled Hinata as she pointed in some random direction.

"Yeah, well first we need to buy the tickets. The next train that leaves for Suna from here is in 3 hours."

"Oh, 3 hours? We have lots of time then. Why don't we roam around town here? I've never really been to the Land of Waves before." Just then Hinata's stomach made a rumbling noise.

"Was that your stomach?" I asked even though I knew it was.

"No, I didn't hear anything…" she tried avoiding eye contact. "We have so much time so why not move around a little. Maybe go to a restaurant, you know, eat some food or something." Her stomach rumbled again while her whole face went red with embarrassment. I just laughed at her. "Hey, stop laughing," She tried to punch my arm but failed as I easily dodged it.

"Fine, we'll go eat something," I chuckled one last time as she pouted. It was so easy to tease her.

She rented one of the lockers at the station to place her luggage in while we went out to eat.

An hour after eating, we were walking on the road by the ocean when Hinata saw a carnival on the pier.

"Sasuke, lets go there!" she tugged on my sleeve as she pulled me behind her.

It was interesting seeing so many colors painted and dancing around in all the booths there. People were playing games or buying food from the vendors there.

As soon as we got to the carnival Hinata ran off like a kid and went to the first stall she could find. She bought herself some cotton candy and played a few games. She even won some prizes. I followed her just to make sure I didn't lose sight of her, but I kept an eye on my watch so we could make it to our train on time.

"Would you like to play something?" asked one of the vendors. I shook my head in response. "Come on! You can win something for the pretty lady with you. What better way to remember a date than a giant stuffed gorilla!"

"We're not on a date," I replied immediately but he didn't listen since Hinata got too excited about the gorilla.

She played that game for half an hour until she finally gave up.

"Sasuke, are you having fun?"

"Hn."

"I wish I could come here with Toneri," sighed Hinata. "He's been getting really busy with his new business, and I haven't seen him for six months!"

"Who's Toneri?" I asked before I could stop myself. I didn't really want to find out about her love life while mine was down the drain.

"Oh, he's my boyfriend," she blushed, "I met him at the university in Konoha when I was studying there. He's the sweetest guy ever! He's starting his new business in the Land of Tea right now so I haven't been able to see or talk to him much. But we promised each other that we will get married when his business is settled and stable," she smiled.

Listening to her makes me kind of sad since things didn't turn out so perfectly for me. But that's ok. She's too naïve to realize how the world actually works. Your world shouldn't rely on someone else's promises to you, and you hope for them. You can't always just put your faith in them, because eventually they will betray you, and break your heart. But she wouldn't understand that.

Hinata began daydreaming for a few minutes before she asked.

"Sasuke, why aren't you playing something?" She was heading to the goldfish-scooping booth now.

"I don't want to. We should probably head back to the train station now." Hinata nodded at that and got up to leave.

She was carrying a bag of cotton candy and two stuffed animals that she had won. She was eating her cotton candy on the way and offered me some, but I declined.

"I don't like sweets."

"Really? How come?"

"I just don't like how they taste," I shrugged.

"So you don't eat any sweets at all? Not even fruits?"

"Some fruits are okay, I guess."

"What's your favorite?"

"Tomatoes."

"Tomatoes?" She said in surprise, "But they're not even a fruit." I glared at her.

"I'm not going to have this argument with you," but that didn't stop her as she continued to argue with me on how tomatoes were a vegetable all the way to the train station.

We finally got to our train and took our seats when the train started moving. Hinata was taking a nap at this point while I just stared out the window, enjoying the view of the sunset outside.

The train was going to pass over a bridge in the Land of Waves called 'The Great Naruto' bridge, and looking at it now brought back a memory from when I came here as a child with Naruto and Sakura. Naruto had been constantly boasting to Sakura that he had a bridge named after him but Sakura had been so annoyed by his pestering that she threatened to throw him off his own namesake bridge. Thinking about it now made me laugh more than ever.

It was only yesterday when I felt so lost and despondent at how my life was going. I couldn't think about anyone in my life without feeling angry and depressed. But now nothing of the sort happened when I thought about Naruto and Sakura. It actually made me smile thinking about the time we spent together as friends. And, dare I say, I almost miss them.

When it started to get dark outside, Hinata mumbled something about a 'stupid toner' in her sleep. Is she dreaming about printers now? This girl was weird, but interesting. I wonder if her family is just the same or if she's the only insane one.

With that last thought, I decided to sleep as well.

In the morning, we were going to be in Suna. Hinata was going to be at her home soon. That meant that I would be done with my promise to take her home safely. I might never see her after that, and somehow I am unsettled by this.