Day 16 Prompt: "The name you yell after a nightmare"
You know, I've been seeing you hanging out with Sasuke.
Yeah, I just think you should know that we used to date.
Remember how I told you he's the owner of my heart?
Hinata stares at Discord on her phone. The thread of text between her and Sasuke stares back at her. The last message was from her, and it's this cute little gif of a cat being put to bed, falling asleep. Before that is a message from him that simply reads "Sleep well." Often, Hinata will open up their messages and just reread them from the beginning some months ago. The very first ones of her being clueless about Discord, him guiding her through things like sending gifs and reacting to messages. They slowly evolve into pictures they send to each other of fun things they see in a day.
A particularly pretty flower. The sky full of big, fluffy clouds. An old video game being sold for a few bucks at a garage sale. A bowl of chicken noodle looking like it's straight out of a cookbook. A coffee stain on the counter that looks vaguely like Jesus.
Filled in with book recommendations, funny cat videos, discussion on the latest news. All things that just make her smile when she looks back on them.
Now, she lays in bed and can't even bring herself to swipe down to look at those older conversations. Karin's voice rings in her head. Asking her what she sees in Sasuke. Why she would bother pursuing someone that she claims treated her poorly. Telling her she's wasting her time. That Sasuke probably isn't actually interested in her because he's incapable of feeling.
She doesn't want to believe Karin, but she can't help but feel like there might be some underlying truth to what she's saying. Putting aside the fact that Karin claims Sasuke to be her first (and only true love) which complicates things, she wonders if he's actually interested in her. They don't kiss. He never responded to her note, much less sent her a return note. Whenever she excused herself early or came late to lunch, he never seemed bothered. Hasn't asked her out on another date.
It's hard to assume that he sees anything in her, and she's feeling kind of hurt, to be honest. She thought maybe that long hug at the end of their last date meant good things. Now she just wonders if it was out of sympathy.
Ino asked for her and Shino to come with her to the art supply store today, and she tried really, really hard to come up with an excuse not to go. That wasn't the unusual part. As she trailed behind Ino and Shino while they picked through decorations for Ino's office, Hinata probably looked far away, inside of her own head. There's no hiding things from them, but Ino was the type to get real up close and personal about it.
"Why are you quieter than normal? Is it that guy?"
Hinata tried (and failed) to convince Ino everything with her was fine. Ino let it go at the time, unbeknownst to Hinata that she had most certainly not forgotten, and would target her at a later time. She simply held up a canvas over a wood frame and excitedly told Shino and Hinata that they would be helping her paint it into some sort of calm, serene scene. Said she had read that art by amateurs had a calming effect. Hinata had no idea if that was true, but decided to go along with it anyway.
She ended up back in Ino's apartment, Shino having made an excuse to leave prematurely, and after feeling pretty good about what she had painted, that was when Ino trapped her.
"What's going on with him?"
Hinata spilled it all. There was no holding back the floodgates.
"I don't think he likes me. He won't kiss me, he doesn't ask me on dates. I was so stupid! I left him a note I thought would have been cute and he ignored it! He never brought it up and then…and then…"
Everything Karin told her, she told to Ino.
That's when Ino slapped her with a nice, cold reality check.
"We're talking about your crazy coworker that I am constantly saying needs psychiatric help? The one who calls in sick citing the stars not being in the right position the night before? The one who's constantly conning you into buying her lunch? The one who can't be on time to save her or anyone else's life? I don't say this lightly as a psychiatrist, Hinata.
"Karin is crazy."
Hinata doesn't like to call anyone crazy, but neither does Ino. Ino knows true crazy, so if she's saying it, Hinata tends to listen.
"You want him to kiss you, then kiss him. Hinata, listen to me. Kiss. Him."
Hinata lets out a shaky sigh as she clicks off her phone.
She thinks she's dug a hole for herself, to be totally honest.
Open heart, small mind.
All she wants to do is just go to sleep.
Rolls to her side and clutches the phone to her face, pressing her forehead against the glass screen. Emotional exhaustion is a real thing, and somehow, she's slumbering within moments, thinking about all of these things.
You never realize you're in a dream when it's happening unless you're one of those people that has amazing self-discipline to journal every time you wake up. Those people who are dead set on lucid dreaming, the first thing they do is reach for their composition notebook and get to work detailing the dream.
It starts off nice enough. A field of tall grass and some dandelions scattered. It's a little breezy, so the grass waves in a dance. It smells like morning dew as the sun creeps upward, faster than normal. All of the morning dew evaporates, and suddenly, it gets very sunny. Sunnier than can possibly be normal. And it's hot. The sun turns orange, and it starts to shrink in the distance, nowhere to be found. All that's left is the blue sky quickly turning grayer, and grayer until it's shrouded in clouds.
Rain. Panic. Headlights.
A scream and horns.
Metal on metal.
It's black.
Then, red, white, and blue lights flashing. The sound of metal being ripped apart. Crying and sobbing. Numbness.
A plea to God.
The smell of copper. The sight of blood. The feel of touching honey, right in her side. And a face.
"Sasuke—!"
Hinata gasps for air as she launches upward, hair matted to her forehead with sweat, tears already on her cheeks, everything feeling tight and terrible.
"It's okay."
It's what she says to herself when this happens.
"It's okay. You're okay," she gasps out, her throat wanting to close while her eyes strain to not let any more tears fall. "You're fine, you're okay, you're fine, you're okay."
She repeats it, over and over. Clutches her knees to her chest and just cries.
…
Can I see you?
His response comes within a minute.
Are you okay?
No.
…
Should I come to you?
Could you?
I'll be there soon.
Her fingers tighten around her phone, the hyperventilation still plaguing her lungs, but she still holds the phone to her face.
Really, she's not sure what will be accomplished by reaching out. All she knows is that Sasuke is the one person in her life that never questions her. Even now, he doesn't question why she needs to see him, why she's not okay, and why she wants him to come to her.
So, she thinks…
That, maybe with Sasuke…
Maybe…
She spends the next hour clutching her phone to her chest, trying to beat back dark thoughts. None of it is okay, and it feels like it never will be okay. But she doesn't know if she can ever make those thoughts go away forever. She's not optimistic.
Her phone vibrates. She pulls it up to her face.
I'm outside your door.
He doesn't knock and she's so, so incredibly grateful that he doesn't. A hard knock on her front door would probably spike all the bad feelings inside her up, and he seems to get that.
She rushes to her feet, clad in nothing but a tank top with no bra, and shorts with simple underwear. Shoves her feet into her house slippers and bolts to the door. Does her due diligence by looking out of the peephole and is greeted with Sasuke's dark hair. She unlocks the deadbolt, then the regular lock, and swings the door open.
They stand still in front of each other.
Both stunned.
Both unsure
Both so…out of their element.
Hinata falls first.
Right into him, and she cries.
Not just cute little sobs.
She ugly cries. Snot and tears, the works.
"I missed you."
His hand finds the back of her head, threads under her hair, and she can feel the pads of his fingers on her neck. He presses in while the other hand clutches onto her waist.
"I missed you, too."
It's right against her ear, quiet, but loud in her ears. She clutches tighter.
"I need you, I think."
A pause, and she questions herself, but something inside of her pushes back. Tells her to just be patient.
She feels him carefully scoot them inside of the apartment before he uses his foot to shut the door behind him. Then, he just stands there, holding her. His cheek presses against the top of her head as he readjusts his hold so that his arm comes all the way around her back. Their bodies fit together like they were meant to be, and she feels everything inside her loosen up and relax. The tears start to subside, the hiccupping slows, her nose dries up a little. Her heart keeps beating at the same rate it was before, but for different reasons now.
A few more quiet moments, and she finally pulls her face away from his chest. She sees the stains on his jacket, making some sort of ugly face from tears and the rest. She frowns, reaching up to clean it.
"I-I'm sorry," she whispers, trying to dry it off. He doesn't respond, and instead pulls his sleeve over his hand and starts wiping her face. She just looks up at his face, nothing but determination on his expression, while he wipes under her eyes, even her nose and cheeks. It makes her smile. She knows he's doing it to show how little he cares that his jacket's been soaked by her tears.
"I'm sorry it took me so long," he says in a quiet voice after he finishes drying her face, his hand popping out of the sleeve to hold her cheek in it. "Is this okay?"
It's more than okay, but she can't verbalize that right now, so she just nods.
"Do you want to sit?"
Hinata swallows hard and opens her mouth, but it's dry. She licks her lips, trying not to let silence sit too long, then forces it out. "Can you lay with me?"
It doesn't even seem like it's a question with the way he responds. She expects him to freeze up, to look at her questioningly, to doubt what comes out of her mouth. All he does is nod and look up, towards her bedroom. He's not overly eager, but he doesn't hesitate. He unzips his jacket and shrugs it off, hangs it up. Waits for her to take the lead, and she does. She hesitantly turns around, grasping his hand in hers as she does, leads him to the bedroom.
He doesn't resist at all, just follows. It takes everything in her body not to collapse onto the bed when she gets there. Instead, she stops and turns to him.
"I don't want to be sexual." It's more blunt than she envisioned, and she sees the Adam's apple in his throat bob with his swallow.
"I know," he responds, not moving a muscle.
She sits on the bed, still holding his hand. He bends over her as she slowly lays backwards, pulling him down with her. He follows easily, staring intently right at her. He uses his free hand to balance himself on the bed and lets her guide him to her side.
Now they're lying right next to each other. She's lying on her left side with her right hand still in his. He's on his right, cradling her hand with his left.
Quiet sits between them. She pulls his hand closer to herself.
"Thank you for coming."
He only takes a few seconds to collect his response, this time. "I couldn't not come."
"You could," she whispers, trying not to let tears threaten her again.
"I couldn't."
…
"I think I need you, too."
It's for different reasons tears sting her eyes again. She blinks rapidly, hoping to push them back. But the tremor in her voice gives her away. "I'm sorry I disappeared."
"I'm sorry you did, too."
A new sob, different from the one before, but he doesn't hug her into his chest this time. His hand just tightens around hers, letting her pull it further into her chest. She presses the backs of his knuckles into her forehead and makes these little gasps for breath, almost like hiccups. It makes her throat and lungs hurt.
Now, he takes her into his arms. He doesn't even hesitate, just pulls her in close, and her hand holding his instinctively wraps around his neck. Their bodies tangle together.
"I'm s-sorry I'm like this."
"Don't be." He whispers it against her hair, softly, and she feels a shiver creep down her spine. She's suddenly painfully aware of how underdressed she is.
"I'm practically naked," she breathes out, shaky. "I'm in no condition –"
"You're perfect."
Her breath catches in her throat, and his hold on her tightens, not allowing her to pull away and look up.
"I haven't slept well in a while." She wonders why he tells her this now of all times. "You're doing me a favor."
Intrinsically, she understands what's happening.
Hinata decides, today, she's going to take that at face value.
Her eyes flutter shut, and she rests her cheek against his arm.
Hinata lets Sasuke hold her like she wants to be held.