Hinata bowed her head as she left the meeting room and headed back to her office.
"Miss Hyuga!" Hinata stopped and turned her head as the clerk from the front desk caught up to her with a gift-wrapped box. "This arrived for you."
Hinata's face fell. "Don't open it. Send it to security. Along with any other package that comes for me."
The clerk looked at the book with confusion and then fear as she held it further away from her body.
It wasn't the first suspicious package to come her way, and Hinata only had to open one and find something horrific to never want to open another gift ever again. She received gifts from investors and other companies to show their appreciation for working with them, but now she couldn't feel that small blip of approval and kindness even when the package was cleared because she was worried about what the next might be.
Hinata continued to her office to find Neji sitting turned toward the TV, watching the news. He turned it off the moment she opened the door. "It's fine." She waved her hand.
"Business deals fall through all the time." Neji sighed. "This reaction is ridiculous."
"Not all failed deals cause hundreds to lose their jobs." Hinata reminded him. This wasn't the first time they had this conversation, but there wasn't much else to say, and it felt better to repeat their thoughts than suffer in silence. "I sent another package to security."
Neji's head popped up with concern on his face. "Did you touch it?"
"No, but we need to send more emails to the front desk so everyone knows not to touch them. I don't want anyone getting hurt." Hinata sat down in her chair and looked at the time. "I have to be back across town in an hour."
"You should take a lighter load with all this going on." Neji waved his hand at the blank television.
"That would be showing them weakness." Hinata parroted. Neji's face twisted in annoyance. He didn't like it when she quoted her father. "If I start canceling meetings, it will scare investors. If I am not keeping a brave face during all this, then I am not doing my job."
Neji sighed and got up. "Just… go out the back."
Hinata turned her chair to look out the window. She was too many floors up to see the protesters, but they had been outside the building for days, and they showed no sign of stopping. On one hand, they had a right to be upset. They thought canceling a deal as far into negotiations as they were was going back on promises made. They thought that the Hyuga company didn't care about them, and to be fair, it didn't.
Because they weren't Hyuga's employees, technically, they had no obligation to them or their jobs. Deals got dropped for all kinds of reasons, most of them to do with money, but it was rare that it was shown loud and clear what happened when someone else was banking on that deal being their lifeline.
Hinata's heart went out to them, and she felt guilt even if she hadn't done anything. She wasn't even in any of the meetings with Kumo, but she understood why her father stopped the deal. Business that didn't benefit them as much as it cost them wasn't worth the time.
Maybe it was a good thing that she would never sit in her father's position because she didn't have the heart to do the things he did for the betterment of the company. She couldn't do things that benefited herself half the time.
Hinata sighed and got up. She had work to do.
Kisame punched in a date and time on his calendar. He was getting a lot of work with people refusing to work at events that the Hyuga appeared at. Personally, he couldn't expend the energy to care. Nothing he was going to do was going to make a corporation give a shit. Loyalty wasn't in their vocabulary.
"Damn it." Itachi cursed, pulling his hand away from his spilled drink. His hand held a slight tremble that probably was what knocked the drink over.
"I got it." Kisame dumped some napkins on the table. "We need to get you a sippy cup."
"Hilarious." Itachi spat back, twisting his hand into a fist to stop the shaking.
"Laugh then." Kisame countered, swiping the wet mess onto one of the empty plates.
Itachi sighed. "I need to go anyway. Apparently, I am being shipped out of the country this week to get a new experimental treatment."
"Off to be a human pin cushion?" Kisame joked.
Itachi rolled his eyes. "Yes. If it keeps my mother happy."
"I guess you should be happy they care to try." Kisame shrugged. Honestly, there was an entirely different conversation that could be had that his family had the money to try.
Itachi picked at the last on the plates. "Sometimes it seems more like they are just trying to prolong the inevitable."
"You're depressing." Kisame frowned at him.
"I am realistic." Itachi waved his hand.
Kisame had to admit it was probably hard to see past the hospitals. He could barely see past his next job. If you didn't look past what you had now, you didn't get as hung up on what you didn't have.
Hinata stood with her head up but her eyes down, next to her father as he did his usual song and dance of playing up her sister's achievements while ignoring her existence, standing in his shadow like a good daughter. Quiet unless spoken to, patiently waiting for permission, expected to anticipate his reaction, but accepting of punishment if she anticipated incorrectly.
Hanabi deserved her praise, but was it arrogant or selfish to want to hear it for herself as well? Hinata wished she could believe that he just wasn't praising her while she was there, but she knew full well he talked about Hanabi's achievements in front of her. There was no reason to suspect that he was ever talking about her positively unless forced to.
She turned her head to skim the party.
Events like this had themes or 'purposes,' but really, it was just to network. Putting something on the schedules of the busiest people and using something like the lore charity or awards for their egos or taxes so that they would have more reason to attend. If they had enough high-ticket attendees, the rest would follow with the bait that they may get to organically get into their circle.
Hinata would usually mingle away from her father if she could help it. Getting caught into awkward conversations with some investor who wanted to have a chance to pitch to her or a lengthy tell-all in one of the socialite wife's gossip circles were preferable excuses not to stand with her father and be excluded from a conversation that she couldn't use today. She had a direct order to stay at his side, so she couldn't be asked the hard questions everyone was too afraid to ask her father.
Unfortunately, she was too numb to be affected by the distrust he had to think she would do if unsupervised, like she didn't know what damage she would cause, even making an unofficial statement to the public hellscape that was happening right now. Maybe she could be delusional and believe that her father was just 'protecting her.'
She couldn't even make that work in her imagination.
Hinata zoned back in as her father suddenly took a step back. She looked back to see why and shrieked as she was doused. Security snagged up the man who threw the full glass of wine. He yelled profanity at her father as he took out his handkerchief to wipe off any of the blast that got past her.
Hinata couldn't make a better analogy for what she was to her father if she wanted to.
Neji appeared with his suit jacket off and around her shoulders but waited for her father to nod his head to tell them they were allowed to leave.
Even her most loyal supporters asked her father for permission.
Neji led her out the back door and handed her his handkerchief so she could pat herself dry. Hinata reeked of alcohol. It could be worse. It could have been red wine.
"I'll be back with something better to dry off." Neji disappeared back into the building.
Hinata wasn't that worried about it. It wasn't going to come out completely. She was going to feel sticky no matter what.
She pulled the suit jacket closer around her and trailed by the door, waiting for their car. Hopefully, this day would end with a nice bath and getting to bed before her father could make this her fault.
Glitz and glamour. Rich and famous. Champagne and cakes that were stupidly small. Another snob event, another decent paycheck for basically being muscle to lift around speakers and crates, and being the occasion backup security if someone needed to be literally lifted out of the room.
Kisame knew it was a good gig for the pay, but he saw the looks he got. Staff uniforms or not, people didn't think he belonged there, especially with these events where the people could drop their entire year's expenses and not feel it worth bending down to pick up.
"You want one?" A cigarette was held out to him. He didn't usually smoke, but that one lady who passed the kitchen door as he was walking by that looked at him like he was a bear had pissed him off.
Kisame took the light and leaned on the side wall. Smoke billowed out of gills as he exhaled, looking toward the lavish party through the back door. Staring back at him was a small, pretty face standing outside the door from the party. Her head dipped away when he caught her staring.
Go ahead and look. He wasn't moving until his break was done.
She took another look in his direction before taking tiny steps back and forth, clicking her heels to the side of the door as she waited.
Kisame huffed, dropping the butt and stepping on it, and turning to go inside when her heel clicking stopped, and she screeched. Her cry for help was muffled by a hand, and before he really thought about what he was doing, he was barreling for them.
One man was trying to pull her into a car, and another was in the car. Kisame shoved her attacker off and pulled her to stumble behind him. He turned to ask her if she was okay and flinched as he felt something sink into the side.
Kisame clamped his hand down on the knife and the hand that held it.
This piece of shit was not getting away from him now.
He only stopped throwing punches when security pulled him back, and by that point, the car and the driver had abandoned his partner.
"Let him go, he's defending me!" The girl shoved on the security, who took a moment to register who she was talking about as she balled up the suit jacket she was wearing to hold under his rib cage. "Call an ambulance." She frantically called.
"I'm fine." Kisame tried, but she forced him to sit down and hold the jacket, keeping her hands over his to make sure it was being pressed in place, at which point he was feeling light-headed. Okay, maybe he was not fine.
"Hinata-sama, come inside." Her companion tried to pull her up.
"I'm taking him to the hospital." Hinata pushed him away with her free, blood-soaked hand.
Her companion let go but continued to demand at her. "Hinata-sama. This is the threats becoming attempts. You need to get to safety."
"Get him water." Hinata snapped at him, but he didn't budge. "Stop looking at me like that, and go!" Despite her demands, her eyes were filled with tears.
Kisame felt like if anyone would end up stabbed sitting on the curb waiting for an ambulance, it would be him. He just didn't picture the girl in the evening gown blubbering. Maybe she was drunk. She smelled like a wine cellar.
Hinata tried to wipe the tears from her face but stopped when she realized she would smear blood from the back of her hand across. "I'm Hinata Hyuga." She introduced herself as she tried to wipe her face on her shoulder. "Tell me if you feel like you need to lie down."
Hyuga… that explained this. Kisame didn't pay much attention to cooperation scandals on the news, but people had been complaining about the Hyuga-Kumo business deal that Hyuga pulled out of, bankrupting the smaller company, and now hundreds of people employed by Kumo were suddenly out of a job. Kumo claimed it wasn't the end of the company, but it was hard to come back from something like that. He had friends who had made his ear bleed with their complaints about what Hyuga did. He couldn't be surprised that there were crazy people who were making treats, but the attempted kidnap seemed a bit far for even people really trying to make a point. "Kisame Hoshigaki."
"You are going to be okay." Hinata breathed, but in her state, it seemed more like she was convincing herself.