Hinata pulled out her laptop, and a slip of paper slid to the floor. She bent to pick it up and unfold it. Sasuke managed to get another one in her bag. 'Don't work too hard.' It wasn't an overly cute note. It was practical, but Sasuke knew that it would make her heart flutter more than an empty compliment.
Hinata opened her laptop and blinked at the sticky note in the center of her screen. 'You're still cute.' How did he manage to get that one in there without her noticing? Her face twisted to a frown. She just gave him credit for not giving her empty compliments. She unstuck the note and found it was two thick. The second one was behind the first. 'Don't make that face.'
"Then stop calling me that," Hinata told the note as she stuck the sticky notes on the folded note and slid both into the drawer where she kept all the others he had been hiding in her things.
Hinata wanted to be cynical and think about the fact that this was still just something he was doing to make her feel loved, not because he loved her, but because she came to the conclusion that at the end of the day, he was still thinking about her enough to write her all these silly notes.
Hinata was warming up to that being enough for her to stop constantly thinking about it. As long as Sasuke kept trying to make her feel loved, maybe she could just suspend her belief to live in the fantasy that it was real.
Hinata's face lit up. "Oh, that is so cute."
"Hmm?" Sasuke wondered, peeking over her shoulder.
Hinata held up a picture in her messaging app. "Look what Kiba-kun just sent me." It was an oversized sweater with little cinnamon roll swirls in a pattern.
"You would look cute in that." Hinata always looked cutest in oversized sweaters and big jackets. She always looked her happiest in something she could swim in. And she couldn't be
Hinata turned the phone back to grin at it. She didn't even scold him this time. He was either grinding her down, or she wasn't really paying attention to what he said. "I want one."
Sasuke leaned his head on her shoulder to keep watching her phone. Hinata ignored him while she typed back to Kiba. Maybe he didn't have any effect on her when she wasn't overthinking everything. She was getting used to him.
That's good.
Sasuke closed his eyes.
Kiba's head slammed down on his books, making Hinata flinch. "I quit. I am just going to drop out and join a fishing boat."
Shino rolled his eyes and marked his own notes. "Not the rice field this time?"
Kiba's head rolled to the side and squished against the book. Final exam prep was getting to him. "I don't even deserve dry land."
"I don't think you are doing that bad." Hinata rubbed his shoulder.
"You were in the top ten class rating in school. I don't want to hear from you." Kiba covered his head.
"Top five." Shino correct.
Hinata gave him a look he wasn't helping. Kiba whimpered under his pile of study misery.
Naruto pointed at her screen and squinted. "I feel like this should be down here."
"You think so?" Hinata looked at the outline they finished.
"Because this point leads better to this one even though the data is from this set." Naruto held out his notes.
Hinata took a moment to read his chicken scratch, and he was right. Logically, the data made sense in this order, but the wording they were going to use flowed better his way. She moved the line down on the document. "Anything else?"
"Dinner?" Naruto wondered, rubbing his eyes.
"Not with you." Right on time. Hinata smiled up at Sasuke as he helped her collect her things.
"Aw, come on, you can't hog her." Naruto flung his arms around her shoulders.
Hinata froze up. How was Naruto so open still after her confession? She shouldn't be surprised. It was just how he was, after all. It was something she liked about him.
Sasuke pushed him off and pulled her up and under his arm. "I can, and I will."
Naruto stuck his tongue out as they left.
Once they got out of the library, Sasuke held up a bag she didn't notice he had with him into her face. Hinata took it, looked inside, and giggled. "Really?"
"You said you wanted one." Sasuke shrugged.
"That wasn't a prompt to go out and get one." Hinata looked into the bag. "How do you know my size?"
"Shino knows everything down to your bra size." Sasuke made a face. "Which I am not going to look too far into."
Hinata held the bag up to hide her blush. "He's had to buy me clothes to go home in when I got soaked. I can't believe he kept that information."
"You can wear it out with me." Sasuke teased to keep the blush on her face. "I thought you would look cute in it."
"Enough." Hinata waved him off.
"I was being serious." With the grin he was giving her, it was hard if he was flirting or teasing her.
Both were making her feel light-headed.
Sasuke opened a snack bag and picked out a piece holding out to Hinata's face. "Open."
Hinata obediently opened her mouth to accept the snack but didn't look up from her notes. Sasuke was bored. Hinata was in buckle-down studying mode, and he had already looked at everything that he thought he needed to. He couldn't even just leave her be and go bug Naruto because, honestly, Naruto didn't need any distractions if he was going to pass his classes.
So here he was, a snack jockey.
Hinata scrunched her nose while she focused and rubbed her fingers on the page. All the micro-movements were endlessly cute, but he told her she might hit with her book.
Sasuke wasn't going to be happy about this.
It was the main thought that was going through Hinata's head as she stepped through the hospital room door. Itachi laid back on the crisp white hospital bed in his sea of tubes spanning out to the machines. Calling her here at this time was deliberate. Itachi wanted her to see him like this, showing the severity of the situation he was in. If he knew that this was the reason her and Sasuke's relationship started, maybe he wouldn't be pushing so hard. He was only making it clearer to her that Sasuke needed the help.
Hinata placed her bag on the bedside table and pulled out some fruit she bought on the way. She wasn't sure he could eat it now, but she felt bad coming empty-handed.
Itachi side-eyed it as she sat down. "You don't know when to give up."
It was hard for her to see this spiteful side of him. So many of Hinata's memories of Itachi were so kind, always so supportive, but she had never come between him and Sasuke before. "No." Itachi snapped his eyes back up to her. Did he not want an answer? Hinata felt sick as her anger built, but that was the point. Itachi was using his illness against her because he thought she was too kind and proper to argue with a sickly man in a hospital bed. He was wrong. "Do you think that isolating me is going to make this easier for you?"
Itachi raised an eyebrow. "Is Sasuke's temper rubbing off on you?"
"No, I just get enough manipulation at home. I am not taking it from you, too." That and she wasn't angry for her. She was angry for Sasuke. If he was just being awful to her, she could deal with that. This wasn't about her.
"I don't know what you mean." Itachi turned his head away.
Hinata felt her face get hot as she battled her temper. "I told you before. If you want to talk to someone about Sasuke-san and I's relationship, it should be him. You are doing yourself no favors shutting him out."
"I tried to talk to him. I went wonderfully." Itachi tilted his head sarcastically.
"I am sure didn't just antagonize him." Hinata countered.
Itachi eyes turned to her hands, making fists in her sweater. "I know you don't want to cause more problems for him. Breaking his heart earlier will be better."
Hinata took a deep breath. She hated his approach to telling her that this was wrong. No logical reasons, just playing on her emotions, trying to use Sasuke against her to make her feel like she was a burden. He knew what would hurt the most, and he planned to abuse it. She could do that, too. "I am going to support him even if you won't. I have the time." Itachi's eyebrows twitch together in a moment of his mask breaking. "Not supporting him right now is just going to make him resent you more, and you're wasting the time you have with him making a big deal out of something we already decided we are prepared to handle. You are the one who doesn't know when to give up."
Itachi eyes seared into her. Hinata got up, collected her bag, and bowed her head as she left. She needed to get out of there before she said something she regretted.