Hundreds of lanterns lit the night sky, turning the pink blossoms red, the red blossoms white, the white blossoms purple. Warm winds tugged at their clothes and the air was a heady mixture of flower fragrance, perfume, and sake.
Ino raised a third cup to her mouth, face flushed, a sparkle in her eyes. The liquid sloshed up against the rim, threatening to spill out.
"To Forehead and her hospital!"
"To Sakura!" their little group chorused, clinking their glasses together. Ino downed hers in one gulp, beaming ecstatically, like she'd asked for the moon and been rewarded with the whole universe.
"Did you have to call me Forehead in a toast? Really, Ino?" But she laughed and slung her arm around her best friend's shoulder. "You didn't have to do this, you know. You've been so busy helping with the barrier team, I know you don't have time to even breathe."
"Of course I did, I needed to throw Sakura a birthday party – "
"Under the sakura," she grumbled. "This is all my dad's fault. My mom wanted to name me Keiko. But nooooo, he had to be all, 'She has pink hair and was born during hanami week. She HAS to be Sakura. Haruno Sakura. Think of the puns, Mebuki!' And you know what? She agreed with him! She let him do this to me!"
Sakura reached out, plucked an anpan from the picnic basket, and chewed it with ferocity.
"That's troublesome. My family has this tradition that all of us have to be named after deer. After our clans' boar-deer-butterfly combo. Theme names suck." Shikamaru moved to light a cigarette, but Ino snatched it out of his hands.
"Oh, like you won't name your future kid Shikadai or something," she snapped. "And no smoking at birthday parties."
"Now, now, let's not fight," Chouji said pleasantly. "It's bad luck to fight at birthday parties."
Hinata smiled and took the smallest sip of sake. Her cheeks hurt from smiling. The first time in a long time.
It was nice of Ino to do this. She really was the greatest friend.
"Hinata. You are a sweetheart." Suddenly Ino's arm was slung around her shoulder. "Thank you. Someone here who appreciates me wholeheartedly!"
"H-huh?" Hinata blinked. "Did...did I say that out loud?"
"Hinata, you are such a lightweight!" Sakura refilled her half-empty cup. "And I thought Sasuke-kun was bad."
"Sasuke-kun, a bad drinker?" Ino narrowed her eyes. "I refuse to believe it, Sakura. Sasuke-kun is a prodigy, accomplishing all tasks effortlessly."
"He's a sappy drunk," Sakura said smugly. "He smiles a lot when he's had a bit too much."
"You sure lucked out, Sakura," Tenten said, stirring a straw in her drink. "On my team, when someone gets drunk..." She glanced at Lee, who was busy plucking some poor cherry tree bare, amassing a gargantuan amount of flowers.
She shuddered and went back to her food.
"What is he up to anyway?" Ino asked.
"He wants to pluck ten thousand cherry blossoms and give them to Sakura for ten thousand years of life. The usual youth-springtime-hot-bloodedness-whatever."
Sakura beamed at this. "That's so over-the-top but oddly sweet. I think you're the one who lucked out, Tenten-san."
"Nah. If anything..." Ino looked past Hinata, eyes landing on the other members of Team 8, busy scarfing down half the contents of the basket. "I bet Shino and Kiba bribed Iruka-sensei to put Hinata with them. They're obviously the luckiest."
Kiba looked up from his barbeque as everyone pointedly stared at him. "Uh, yeah? What is it? Did you need something?"
"They are accusing us of nefarious activities to bring Hinata onto our team."
"Nefarious? What's that mean? Can't you use smaller words, Shino? Words that don't make you sound like a walking dictionary?"
"Nefarious is not a complicated word. You are simply a fool," Shino said.
Hinata's cheeks burned.
What was this conversation?
"Oh come on, everyone knows that Hinata was the biggest catch of all our classmates!" Ino waved her hand dismissively at her unfortunate friends. "Shikamaru and Chouji are too lazy – "
"Hey!"
"Ugh. Whatever."
"Lee-san is...Lee-san, and Tenten-san is...not much better – "
"What's that supposed to mean?" Tenten cried.
"And don't get me started on Neji-san. Shino is creepy with all those bugs – "
"That is hurtful. Why? Because – "
"Sakura here had a whole split Inner Sakura personality thing going on, and the less said about Kiba, the better," Ino said blithely in the wake of Kiba's angry growls and the sound of several shattered hearts. "That leaves Hinata."
Everyone's eyes were trained on her.
Sweat dripped down her forehead.
"Ahaha, I think you're mistaken, Ino-san." She smiled nervously. "Clearly all of you are great teammates to have. I would have been honored to be on any of your teams."
Ino slammed her hand on her knee. "See! That's exactly what I mean. Always saying the kindest things. And you mean them. Could you imagine the bliss of having Hinata as a teammate? Full offense to all of you."
"Offense taken," Shikamaru said dryly.
Hinata's ears prickled with something funny. She desperately wished that Neji nii-san were here to defuse the situation, but Kakashi-sensei had sent him and Sai off to get sealing supplies from a nearby village. "I...ah...Iruka-sensei did not take any bribes, though. He just thought Team 8 would be a good tracking team."
"Awww, Hinata, you need to learn how take a compliment." Sakura patted Hinata's knee affectionately. "You haven't touched your glass. Drink up!"
At a loss of what to do, she downed her glass entirely.
Sakura was right. She didn't know how to take compliments. Because she didn't deserve them.
And besides, there was no way Iruka-sensei had accepted any bribes from anyone. She remembered the team match-ups as clear as day. And her stomach had plummeted when she hadn't been paired with Naruto.
Maybe it was a good thing she hadn't been on his team.
She was sure that she would have failed him when it mattered the most.
The night wore on and on forever, just like the days. Lee presented ten thousand cherry blossoms to Sakura, Akamaru sneezed on the food, and then a full-on brawl broke out between Kiba and Chouji. Shikamaru curled up against a tree and passed out.
Shino sensibly stayed away from alcohol, though, pleading the negative effects on his kikaichuu. Unfortunately, Sakura and Ino had somehow gotten into a drunken arm-wrestling contest, as if to make up for it.
Hinata was a sensible person too, like Shino, consuming only as much as was polite. But she was such a lightweight, just as Sakura had said, and by the time one o'clock rolled around and she said her goodbyes, her mouth was uncomfortably dry, and her head was pounding something fierce.
"Hinata...hic...need any help walking home?" Sakura asked, looking up from her death grip on Ino's knuckles. "I...hic...it's...it's dark...hic...you shouldn't go alone."
"I-I'm not d-drunk, S-sakura-sannnn," she slurred most unconvincingly. "I'll be j-just fine. Now...good night."
She rose to her feet, swaying like a leaf in a strong wind, and did her best to bow. Everyone laughed at that, but she thought she did a good job, despite the way her head throbbed and the world pitched forward.
It had been a mistake, drinking. The ground under her feet trembled like an earthquake had struck. Sweat drenched her palms. She'd somehow found herself in a well-lit residential area far from home, lined with boxy brick apartments and the bright lights of convenience stores.
Maybe I should have taken Sakura-san up on her offer.
She reached her hand out, hoping to find something solid, scowling as she came up with empty space.
Someone off in the distance laughed, a high-pitched monkeylike screeching that set her head ringing like a gong.
It was too similar to that day, the incessant, head-splitting hum. She clapped her hands over her ears to make it stop.
"That's so stupid, that you think the current Hokage-sama could ever defeat Naruto-san."
She jerked her head up, regretting it immediately when the blood rushed all the way to her head. She pitched forward, hands finally finding the railing of an apartment's outer staircase, a hair's breadth away from three raucous partygoers, on their way back home from seeing the yozakura.
Hinata could never escape his name and presence, could she? Ever.
Naruto had changed the world. Defeated monsters and goddesses alike. She found herself nodding in agreement, the sake catching up to her brain. Naruto could defeat Kakashi-sensei in a fight (she never had any doubt about that). No offense to sensei.
"And I keep telling you, you keep selling that fox boy too much. Rokudaime-sama is a genius ninja who got promoted to jounin when most of his peers were genin. That boy Naruto was a loser who failed the Academy's graduation exam three times in a row."
Hinata stiffened.
It was definitely a foolish idea, doing this when she was drunk and possibly ill. Her chakra control was not stellar during such times. She could have hurt herself.
But then, he always made her feel brave.
Her veins popped and crackled as she activated her Byakugan and laid eyes upon the scrawny man who insulted Naruto.
Nervous laughter broke out from the other man – Hinata did not care to observe him too closely, eyes fixed on his so-called friend. "You know, Toshio, Naruto-san saved the world. Show some respect."
"Bullshit. Haven't you forgotten what that fox demon put us through? My mom's uncle never recovered from the loss of his teammate."
The ringing, the ringing wouldn't stop.
Sour stomach acid rose up in her throat.
Suddenly she was twelve years old again, poking her fingers together, eyes darting to the nearest escape route. Neji nii-san's cold eyes bored into her, piercing into the depths of her soul.
Failure. Loser.
You can't change.
To her everlasting gratitude, Toshio's friend leapt to Naruto's defense.
"That wasn't him. Naruto-san – "
"He destroyed the village. He painted a target on our backs. Those Akatsuki would have passed us by if it weren't for him."
Hinata strained her Byakugan as she hadn't since the day Pain stabbed Naruto's hands with sharp black rods. She vaguely registered the ominous bursting of several blood vessels.
"Toshio – "
"Hero of the Hidden Leaf, my ass." He let out that monkeylike screeching laugh again, the one that sounded like chalk scraping against a board.
She caught his crinkling eye.
Her caught hers.
She turned away to hide a smile.
"Naruto-kun, did I change...a little?"
That forever that she used to anticipate with sweaty palms and racing heart. Him and her and a bowl of miso ramen, extra large, with a helping of naruto.
He'd thrown away that forever.
For this.
"They always order wakame and nori and – and menma. Can you believe that? Menma, Hinata, menma."
She staggered towards him, hands raised in a wobbly stance, a steady stream of chakra building in her fingers, Byakugan activated but somehow still not seeing anything clearly.
Maybe she should have used Juuho Soushiken. Or Hakke Rokujuuyonsho. She'd spent years trying to scrape her fingers against the sky that Neji nii-san had grasped effortlessly.
But those were moves that she'd used against Pain and Juubi. When she'd looked death in the face, smiled, and charged ahead with unstoppable determination.
Because he never failed to make her feel brave.
But four simple, sharp strikes to the abdomen, and Toshio had passed out, eyes wide, not even having time to gasp in pain. His friends' screams barely registered in her mind. The ringing in her ears was too much.
Hinata fell to her knees, stomach seizing uncontrollably. Painful spasms shook her body.
She was at Ichiraku with him, waiting for her order. He was scowling, cheeks puffed up, looking for all the world like an enraged cat. Because naruto was always at the bottom of the menu. She'd been so grateful for the steam of that broth, the way it hid her face. But she should have lifted up her chin, tilted her head, and gazed directly at him, looking straight ahead, just like he always did.
Too late.
Foul-smelling vomit spewed from her mouth and splattered onto the ground. Yellowish-green again. She didn't know when – possibly after the moment she raised her hands to attack – but her Byakugan had turned off and she had to squint through a curtain of tears to make out what she had just thrown up.
Her mouth suddenly tasted like ash.
Four pretty petals, just like the sun, just like his hair, just like the sunflowers she had lain on his grave.
Footsteps thudded against the sidewalk, slow and heavy.
"Hinata? Are you all right? Hinata!"
The milky white stars of the night sky spun dangerously and Hinata blacked out.
A/N: Yes, finally one of her friends sees her puking up flowers! It only took me...four chapters...to get here. Sorry. Next chapter will definitely move the plot forward!
Hinata's got survivor's guilt here. She blames herself, quite irrationally, for Naruto's death. Everyone kind of knows it and is going out of their way to help her. Hope I conveyed that in the chapter (this was somewhat inspired by the party in "Consolation Prize: Through Her Distorted Mirror" by mysterious intentions, which is my favorite NH fanfic ever).
Please tell me what you think! :)