family affair

twenty-one:

liminal space

One week later

Hinata woke up to the sun streaming through the window, the light from it so bright she brought her blanket up over her head to cover her eyes. She was incredibly uncomfortable, but she kept that to herself as she heard footsteps pad down the stairs and enter the room. She heard the sounds of morning fill the small one-bedroom apartment: the refrigerator opening and closing, the coffee pot turned on, a dish being pulled out of a dishwasher.

"Sorry if I woke you," a quiet voice called over to her, where she had been sleeping on the couch. It wasn't the most comfortable couch in the world, but she did enjoy how her body sunk into it like she was being claimed by it. "Want a cup of joe?"

"Please," she nodded immediately, throwing her hair out of her face. She stared out of the window to her right––a large, floor-to-ceiling window with a view of the city and the mountains behind it––before turning to Shino with a small––fake––smile. "What are you doing today?"

She was in Iwa. She had been sleeping on her dear friend, Shino's, couch for a week. She told him that she was fleeing her ex-boyfriend and she had bruises all over the left side of her body to prove it.

When she arrived at an Iwa train station a week ago and locked herself in a private bathroom to look over her sore body, she hadn't expected to find that half her torso had gone purple and yellow. She pressed her fingers into the bruises and winced. Damn. She didn't think Sasuke would throw her that hard.

She guessed he really loved her.

Dark humor snuck around her, but sadness was her keeper. It made her lie––a domestic abuse situation––seem more convincing. Shino was a dear friend from her days in high school. They were both outcasts, but they enjoyed each other's presence. They spent hours hiding out at Shino's mother's home. There, Hinata got to pretend to be normal and Shino learned to tattoo from her in exchange.

He moved to Iwa for college, then dropped out after his mother died. After months of grief and a brief stint working retail, he finally made the decision to open his own tattoo shop with money from his mother's life insurance. He did well in Iwa. Hinata was almost jealous of his stylishly-decorated one-bedroom loft in a trendy part of town, his beautiful tattoo studio a few blocks over, and the French bulldog named ShiShi who drooled onto Shino's hardwood floor. It was a life she had once dreamed for herself, a long time ago.

ShiShi hopped on the couch when she saw Hinata was awake, and put her head under her palm, greedy for attention. Shino was looking at her expectantly, and Hinata realized he had asked her a question.

"Oh," Hinata blushed. "S-sorry, I zoned out."

"It's okay, Hinata," Shino said patiently. He was one of her kindest friends. He also thought she was traumatized which, well, she kind of was. Just not for reasons he thought. "I said I have a tattoo today and asked if you wanted to join me at the studio. I don't think you've been down since I opened it."

"Oh," Hinata said again, feeling foolish. "Y-yes I'd love that! Do you mind if I shower first?"

"Of course," Shino said. He pointed to the bathroom, though it had already been a week and Hinata knew well where it was. "I'm making rice and eggs for breakfast. How do you want yours?"

"Fried please," she said and slipped out of the room.

-:-

Shino had a high-pressured shower that beat on her bruises, but Hinata liked it that way. She used his shampoo––some bougie type that was "Geranium and snow mushroom" scented that smelled like the Earth after a rainshower––and scrubbed it into her scalp. In the shower, like clockwork, she thought about what happened after Sasuke pulled off in her G-Wagon. She couldn't stop thinking about it.

She was winded after she hit the ground, the snow meeting her face, her side suddenly inflamed. It was a struggle to bring air into her lungs.

Meanwhile, Sasuke was pulling out and back onto the road––the lights of her car were a bright flash, and then he was gone.

Neji picked up his assault rifle and aimed it, but Hinata managed to pull her body up, despite the pain, and put it between Neji and her car. She did so until she watched the lights blink out of sight and Neji stopped trying to fight her.

Then, Neji pushed her too, surprising them both. It wasn't a strong push, and she did not fall. She stared at her cousin in disbelief, Neji, in turn, held the same expression. It was fair.

"What the fuck are you doing, Hinata?"

She couldn't answer. She had no answer.

Neji threw down the rifle and Hinata watched it disappear into the snow. Before she knew it, Neji was grabbing the collar of her jacket, shaking her, spit flying. "I asked you a question, Hinata! What the fuck are you doing?"

"I––I don't know," her voice felt frozen in the back of her throat. With Sasuke out of immediate harm's way, the adrenalin from earlier had faded to nothing. "I––"

"Goddamit," Neji swore, unlike himself. But Hinata supposed that she was being unlike herself, too. So they were even. She and Neji were always even. "I don't even know what to fucking do with you, Hinata. I thought––I thought I had imagined it."

"Im-imagined what?" Hinata ventured.

"Your love for the Uchiha––do you think I'm stupid?"

Hinata just blinked at him. No, she thought to herself. It is you who thinks I am stupid. Perhaps Neji was right.

Neji huffed and turned around, the darkness swallowing his figure as he took a long route back to his car. Hinata followed closely behind him, swallowing what felt like lard, down her throat. "Neji––"

Neji got to his car. He'd taken one of the all-terrain jeeps that they kept on the Estate. The lights flashed. "I'm assuming you're not going to tell me where he went."

"I––I don't know where he went, Neji. I was fucking being held hostage." This was true. She didn't know where he was going. Only that he had a flight to catch the next day.

Neji stared at her, then shook his head. He hopped into the jeep, leaving the rifle behind, and flickered off the lights, leaving her in the dark bush. "Okay," he said placidly, like he didn't believe her. Like he wasn't willing to listen to anything he was saying. "I hope it was worth it."

"Wh––what are you talking about, Neji?" Hinata found her way to the driver's side, where Neji was staring down at her, disgust curling his features. She could tell he was nervous though, because he was fixing his ponytail, which he did when he could not make a decision.

"Hinata," his voice changed and he sighed. He sounded deeply sad. "You know––you know I love you? I love you, you're one of the closest family members I have. But––after tonight, you can't come home, you know that don't you?"

Alarm thrummed against her ribcage. Yes, some part of her knew that, but she didn't think it would get to be that way. Stupidly, Hinata stared up at him, her eyes welling with tears.

"Tell me you know," Neji said.

"I know," Hinata replied obediently, frowning. She forgot that Neji now outranked her.

"Good," Neji sighed. Then, he did something unexpected: he unlocked the door. "C'mon, I'll drive you to the train station. You know what you have to do to come back home."

"Thanks," Hinata said, but she had grown cold. She wasn't allowed to come home. Her dear cousin would not vouch for her. And she had sent a man that did not love her, not the way she needed to, away with her money and her car. She felt like the biggest fool in the universe.

She took the first train to Iwa that morning.

-:-

"So you missed your flight a week ago, Rōnin," Uchiha Itachi said. "What now?"

"I told you not to call me that," Sasuke grumbled, feeling more and more like the bratty younger brother he was the longer he stayed with Itachi on his houseboat. He'd spent most of the week drinking Itachi's shitty beer and sleeping on the tiny futon that was installed next to the kitchenette. Privacy did not exist, but at least he wouldn't be found. Apparently, this part of Kumozuhongocho was Akatsuki territory. Itachi refused to tell him why.

He'd last seen Hinata a week ago, when he pushed her into the ground and drove her car into the night. He abandoned it once he reached city limits, taking the money, his passport, and his pride upon his back and shouldering it until he'd walked deep into the countryside. His feet began to ache but he continued on, and the sun began to warm his skin. After about five hours of walking through dense forest, he stumbled on a small town where he hot-wired a car and drove it halfway to Kumozuhongcho. He abandoned that one too and took the bus as a stranger the rest of the way, easily blending into the sleepy crowd of the fishing town with a traveler's pack on his back.

Before he got to Itachi's houseboat, he bought a bottle of sake from the supermarket and burned his plane ticket on top of a patch of snow. He was being pretty dramatic.

"I don't know what's next," he found himself saying to his older brother. After a week together on a houseboat, after years of not speaking to each other, their relationship was more or less exactly the same. Itachi was challenging and patient. Sasuke was annoyed and impatient. "I just––I can't leave. There's too much unfinished business."

"Hm," Itachi made no response. He was at the stovetop warming a bowl of soup, a book in one hand, a cigarette, and a serving spoon in the other. "What about our unfinished business, little brother?"

"Enlighten me," Sasuke suggested, feeling his body recline deeper into the futon, shielding the sunlight with his forearm thrown over his head. His body felt impossibly old. He thought of Sakura and Naruto and hoped they were okay.

"You are aligned with the Hyugas," Itachi pointed with the spoon. He was making tomato soup the way their mother had taught them. He was impossibly endearing and terrifying at the same time. Sasuke had stopped playing along with his games days ago; exhausted. "And the Hyugas––you-––killed one of ours: Deidara. What would happen if one of them were to unexpectedly pay me a visit?"

"You'd be forced to vouch for me," Sasuke said haughtily. "Besides, we're even. Hyugas killed Deidara because Hidan killed Hizashi. Bastard deserved it, too. Besides, I've got some Hyuga secrets I'm not afraid to tell."

Itachi scoffed, dipping the spoon into the creamy red soup. The boat rocked to the side. "Your jaw tensing is your tell, little brother. You won't tell Hyuga secrets for the very same reason you've missed your flight. There is someone keeping you here." He put the lid over the soup and re-lit his cigarette on the stove. The boat smelled like tobacco and tomatoes. Sasuke leaned over and opened a window so he wouldn't puke.

"But you're right about one thing, Akatsuki and Hyugas? Consider us even. I have a feeling we'll have more to talk about on that front soon enough." Itachi said.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Sasuke asked. He was staring out at sea, where fishing crews led their boats into the distant gray. The sun had receded back behind its hiding place. Sasuke didn't know where to go from here. He could not go to Hinata, but he could not simply leave the country. He needed to find Sakura and Naruto. He needed to make sure that Gaara wasn't planning something catastrophic. He needed to make sure Hinata was safe.

"I've read this book before," Itachi said, blowing smoke at the ceiling.

"Whatever." Sasuke frowned and stood from his seat. He put on his coat and boots and pushed himself out of the houseboat and into the cold air. As he stepped onto the ground, Itachi followed him out, falling easily in step beside him.

"What?"

Itachi just looked at him, his figure stark against the blue of the sea. His expression was contemplative: peaceful. "You need to know that there is a big meeting here in a few days. If you are going to stay and I am going to vouch for you, you're going to have to give me a reason why."

Sasuke paused in step. They both knew what Itachi meant. He'd have to trade his secrets––at the very least––the Hyuga ones. That meant betraying Hinata in more ways than one. In more ways than he had already. His stomach knotted itself. "How long do I have?"

Itachi's mouth tightened minutely at the corners, his eyebrows drawing, "48 hours, little brother. These things are rarely decided in advance. I just got word."

His apologetic tone struck Sasuke as a kindness. Something warm and familiar curled inside the cold of Sasuke's heart, which had already thawed considerably because of Hinata. Itachi did not want to lose their tepid connection more than Sasuke wanted to find another place to go. He had nowhere. He was probably safest on Itachi's tiny houseboat, hidden away from the world, his body curled around itself. He was grieving. Perhaps, he and Itachi had been grieving together this whole time.

"I'll let you know," was all Sasuke said, his voice tight, a thin line in an open space. The ground was wet with hard snow. Everything was stark and gray. He and Itachi looked at each other and then looked away. "I'll decide by the morning."

"Hn," Itachi hummed, then swiftly turned, presumably back to his soup. Sasuke watched his form disappear into the gray of the day, before continuing forward, one foot in front of the other, a death march by his own design.

He needed to find his friends. He needed Hinata. He needed...he needed a fucking laptop. He walked to town and shivered until he found an internet cafe. He felt like the worst spy in the entire world.

-:-

Shino's tattoo studio reminded Hinata of a dream she'd once had. It was a dream from her teenage years when she was dating Gaara and things were good. It was in the weeks before Baki was murdered when Hinata started to come up with a plan for the two of them together. It involved undergraduate degrees, studio apartments, tattoos, and art making––all of this, away from the eyes of their families. She wanted to create a space where they could grow together.

There were a few, rather glaring, divergences from Hinata's daydream in Shino's studio. For one, it was painted slate green, with an almost scientific aesthetic with silver fluorescent overhead lights and carefully placed tattoo equipment spread out on trays. On the walls, Shino had framed illustrations of insects: the insides of a bumble bee, a detailed dragonfly wing, an investigation of a tarantula leg. It was evident that Shino's specialty was tattooing bugs. He could do almost anything, at this point in his career, but his flash was almost entirely composed of insects.

It was clear he was doing well for himself. Hinata sat in the waiting area, on a fluffy white loveseat, and watched Shino place the stencil on his client with ease. The client was getting some sort of water beetle, sized the shape of his palm, tattooed to his calf. Good for him, Hinata thought.

To be honest, life seemed unbearable at this point. She missed her family and the Estate. She missed her items. She missed Sasuke. She was restless after dinner, thinking about Gaara and what would happen at the Boys Club meeting, and who they would send in her place––if they would send anyone at all.

She and Shino had taken the subway to the studio. She never took the subway in Konoha, so she welcomed the bumps as they moved along the tracks, the stream of people that came and went, and the passing scenery like it was a movie. When a girl with brown hair sat across from them on the train, talking loudly on her phone, with a pang she was reminded of Hanabi. She had simultaneously been struck with the thought: They will send Hanabi in my absence.

What mattered was that a Hyuga woman went with the Suna. It didn't matter much which one. The thought made her heart sink, and the rest of the way to the studio Hinata chewed on her fingers, her anxiety crawling up her throat. She had to get back home, it was evident now. She couldn't let Hanabi take her place.

Everything had gotten so twisted so suddenly. Her hands knotted themselves in her lap as Shino set up his tattoo machine beside his workstation. He was talking to his client so he scarcely noticed her quickly building anxiety attack. Hinata could barely focus on what was going on around her, she thought in one long stream: I have to go back, I have to go back , I have to go––

Something bright pink passed by in the front display windows. It caught Hinata's eye, her mantra fading into nothing as the color danced away, the pink trailing into the crowd. It was hair, shaved back, and quickly stuffed into a skull cap, but it was hair nonetheless.

Hinata got up without speaking, already out of the front door, yelling to Shino: "Getting coffee! Text me what you want!" Before waiting for a reply. She slipped out into the stream of people––Shino's shop was on a busy stretch of business in a yuppie part of town––in search of the skullcap. The hat the hair had disappeared into was nondescript: black and otherwise unremarkable. Hinata's heart felt like it was in her throat.

She charged forward, going and going, until she spotted the hat––or what she thought was––turn a corner. They were walking fast, but Hinata could be faster. The street opened up to a market so suddenly Hinata staggered back. Sounds, colors, and smells assaulted her, rendering her confused. People bumped into her and she let her body be pushed as she searched, her eyes darting between heads, but she'd lost them.

But she wouldn't give up. She shouldered past the crowds, ducking between concession stands, tiny boutiques, and people trying to sell her odd perfumes. The farther and farther she went, the less she even knew what she was looking for. Reality started to crash heavily on her shoulders. What was she doing? Who was she looking for? And if it was the person she thought it was...What could they do to help her?

Desolation threatened to make her crumble right there, right in the middle of the afternoon market, but she kept moving so as not to be an easy target for muggers. She slunk to the outside of the market, walking past the edges of various stands, and using the brick of the surrounding buildings for support.

"What's wrong with you, Hinata?" she whispered to herself. "This isn't like you."

This continued for a couple of minutes until she decided to turn around and head back to Shino. She'd have to get the coffee she'd mentioned, so she ducked her head down to look at her phone for recommendations. In the split second between opening Google and typing in "coffee," she was being slammed against a wall, the back of her head hitting something hard. Sharp pain filtered as she slowly comprehended the situation as if played in slow motion. Her mouth dropped open as she groaned a soft swear.

The last thing she saw was a pair of green eyes glaring at her. Before she passed out she thought, thank god.