Hinata giggled as Kisame stretched and laid out under the tree in the courtyard. He put his arms behind his head. "I'm done studying."
"We just started." Hinata poked his ribs. Kisame retaliated by pulling her down with him. Hinata squeaked, pushing her skirt down to make sure it didn't fly up but giggled once she was down on his shoulder.
"Get a room," Hidan grumbled. Sasori only momentarily looked up from his notebook to give Hidan a look.
Deidara kicked Kisame and pointed up at the window where her cousin had steam coming out of his ears. Kisame wrapped his arm around Hinata's back and stuck his tongue out.
"If you keep provoking him, he's going to insist on chaperoning," Sasori commented.
"He's welcome to try." Kisame closed his eyes.
Hinata was too comfortable. She would deal with Neji later. She reached back for her notes. She could study from down here.
It was nice to have the three of them back together. Itachi couldn't go back to school, but he was able to spend the weekend with them. They looked silly together in street clothes with their matching Akatsuki jackets. Someone passing by might think they were an oddly matched bowling team.
"Oh, this is a cute store." Itachi pointed inside.
Hinata peaked inside the store filled to the brim with stuffed animals and decor shaped like sweet things like flowers and food and blinked at him. Itachi raised an eyebrow and challenged her to ask while Kisame shifted behind her.
Hinata followed him in as her eyes glittered on the cute things that littered the shelves, particularly a rather larger shark with an angry look on its face. She held it up next to her, and it was nearly her size as she giggled. Kisame sighed, jokingly offended.
"I don't need one this big." Hinata fought with it to put it back in its place and picked up a similar one, only squat, about the size of her head but still had an angry face. She held it up to her face and scrunched her nose at it, and hugged it to her chest while she continued to look around.
Itachi chuckled as Kisame grumbled something about being replaced. This was his idea. Kisame complained that she didn't have a single thing in her room. He was the one who insisted that Itachi get her into the store. Now he was upset that she was finding things.
Kisame reached up and held out a mouse plush to force it back into her face, but if he wanted her to be annoyed with him, he failed. Her face lit up, and she pressed the nose of the two plushies together as Kisame turned purple. These two were too cute together.
Itachi wandered off to see what the store had and knelled down to some keychains that were hung on the wall. Before long, he was joined with a click of an umbrella and a sheet of dark hair towering over him to see what he found.
"Oh." Hinata looked down at her bag and then up at the wall brushing her hand along it to see past the ones in the front. Itachi pointed to a charm, and Hinata pulled a few off to get to it. "Can we find another to match?" Itachi helped Hinata dig through the mess of keychains to find a suitable set.
"Here." Itachi pulled one out.
Hinata held them up together with a smile. "Cute. Do you think I can make Kisame-san carry one?"
Itachi raised an eyebrow. "He's walking around with a shark and mouse plush under each arm."
Hinata giggled. "Here, hide them. I'll surprise him."
Kisame rounded to them with the store's pink basket of things that Hinata found in the store, but his mouse plush was still tucked under his other arm. "There is a mirror over there that looks like a cloud threw up on it."
Itachi needed to see that.
Kisame struggled to get his rice ball keychain onto his keys. Hinata finally took pity on him and offered her help. She gave it back to him once it was on. "I need to give Sasuke-san this one back." Hinata pulled her bag onto her lap and set to work, taking the bunny off.
"Should I be offended that you had a matching keychain with another boy?" Kisame made a face like he wasn't sure.
"If you didn't think about it before now, then it didn't bother you," Itachi commented.
"I'm sorry I forgot about it." Hinata put the new matching rice ball on. "There, I didn't find you a rice ball apron, but we have these."
"Rice ball apron?" Itachi wondered.
Kisame looked off to the side and refused to answer. Maybe she would have to make him one. "I saw another store on the way to the food. We should take a look."
Hinata figured out what was happening at this point. They were looking for things for her. She thought that it was odd that they were only going into cute stores, but after Kisame pointed out bedding, it was clear that they were shopping from her room. Did her room bother him that much?
Maybe she shouldn't tell him that her room before she moved didn't have all that much character either. It might break his heart.
Hinata rubbed her finger over the rice ball charm. It was really cute.
Kisame brushed passed colorful bedding again, trying to convince her to pick something out.
"Maybe you need this." Hinata giggled at his reaction to the light blue bedding with blueberries smiling at him.
"It wouldn't be big enough," Itachi commented, pointing to the sizing label.
Hinata blinked at it. "But aren't most blankets the same length regardless of width?"
"Yeah, but the standard size is too short," Kisame explained. "But the biggest size is a little wider than it is tall, so I can manage with that."
"Do you not have a blanket that is big enough to fully stretch out in?" Hinata's bottom lip puffed out as she put the setback.
"He doesn't even fit on his futon." Kisame moved to elbow him, but Itachi dodged.
Hinata never really thought about what Kisame's living situation was. She knew that he lived alone because of his scholarship, but other than that, all she knew was that he didn't really cook for himself. He didn't have a guardian around to make sure that he was taken care of. What was his home like?
"Hey, mouse. Get that look off your face." Kisame held up the new favored mouse plush to her face to break her from her thoughts. "We're shopping for you today."
Hinata snagged his mouse and hugged it. Today, but that didn't mean she couldn't tomorrow.
Itachi sighed at home. He was tired, but it was nice to finally have a day out after spending all those weeks trapped in his apartment, and watching Kisame be routinely embarrassed by Hinata, who wasn't even trying, was a wonderful thing to watch.
Kisame worried him sometimes. Hinata was so completely relaxed in their relationship, but Kisame still hesitated when she took his hand or got close to his face. If someone told him that his big gruff friend that enjoyed the occasional fist fight was so completely brought to his knees by Hinata Hyuga, the girl he used to see cower behind curtains at galas… well, maybe he would have believed it.
Sasuke rounded the corner when he heard him come home. "Get anything?"
"Hinata wanted to return this." Itachi dug in his pocket for the keychain and dangled it up for him to see.
"Oh, I forgot." Sasuke took it without much expression on his face. "I still have mine on my bag too."
Itachi eyebrows twitched together. Was he over his crush, or did he just accept defeat the moment she was in a relationship? "Hinata thought you should replace it." Itachi dug through his bag of items to find a tomato keychain Hinata giggled at when he found it.
Sasuke took it and rolled it over in his hand. "This feels a little on the nose." Was he, not even a little bothered that Hinata picked it out?
Hizashi eyed the explosion of colorful items in her room as Hinata took off tags and packaging in the middle of the floor. "Did you have a crisis?"
Hinata giggled in a sea of plush. "I think it bothered Kisame-san that my room didn't have any personality."
Hizashi kneed down to pick up her round shark plush. "He seems like a nice boy."
Hinata pressed her lips together. "Should I wait for a but?"
Hiashi sighed and shook his head. "I know your father wouldn't approve, but that sort of makes him look better on paper."
"I really like him." Hinata unfurled her new blanket and pulled it to her chest. She always feared that, at some point, her uncle would stop being so supportive and turn to her with one of those cold faces that matched her father's.
"He seems to really like you." Hizashi agreed with a smile. "Though, I think I see a new bruise on him every time he is here. Does he wrestle or something?"
"He handles people roughly at work. He works the door at a bar." Hinata explained, pressing her lips together.
Realization spread across his face. "That's why he smelled vaguely of cigarettes. I was a little concerned about that."
"He doesn't smoke." Hinata wasn't going to volunteer that he used to.
"I wasn't worried you would start. I think you are too smart for that, but I didn't think it was good for him so young." Hizashi explained.
Hinata shook her head. "He doesn't like the smell either."
"Well, I will leave you to unpack your things." Hizashi put down the plush and got up. "I think it will look nicely put together."
Hinata smiled as her uncle left.