Kisame had to say if you were to get stabbed, do it for an heiress.

When he woke up from surgery, he was in a private room, and Hinata was at the door arguing with the police.

Was he surprised they came to arrest the wrong person? No.

Was he surprised that they let the other guy go after he somehow confused them into thinking he was the victim? Maybe.

Was he surprised to have a rich woman in a blood-stained evening gown talk to them like they were children? Yes, actually. Mainly because her soft tone, which portrayed her disappointment, was far more effective than her raising her voice.

Hinata sighed, crossing her arms, though it looked more like she was hugging herself. "He needs rest. I gave you my statement. I will make sure he calls you when he feels well enough. Just please let him recover first. He's the hero here."

Ugh, hero. Kisame wasn't sure he liked the sound of that, but it worked. The police bowed their heads, and she tucked herself back inside, realizing he was awake.

Hinata's cheeks turned red as she approached the bed. "I'm sorry. I hope you didn't hear much of that."

"I'm used to it." Kisame waved his hand, revealing how much he heard with very little.

Hinata frowned at the door like the police were standing. Was she this offended for people who didn't save her life? She placed the business card with their precinct phone number down on the bedside table. "I will give you the choice if you want to call them. I didn't give them your name."

Kisame's eyebrows shot up. "Why not?"

Hinata tied her fingers together in her lap. "I don't want your situation being used against you when you went so far out of your way to help."

Kisame couldn't blame her for having the thought. He was sure one exposed tattoo could make someone like her think he had a criminal past… and to be completely fair, he did.

"Don't worry about the hospital bills." Hinata dug into her tiny clutch purse, pulled out another card, and placed it with first. "I will take care of them."

Kisame angled his arm to pick it up but realized that was the arm his IV was in. Hinata frantically picked it up and presented it to him. He flicked it up to read it. Holy shit. He was joking about the heiress thing. She really was 'the' Hinata Hyuga.

"I…" Hinata started before second-guessing herself and just bowing her head. "Thank you."

Before he could say anything, the door opened, and in came Neji, her companion from before, with a bag. "Hinata-sama, here. You should change." Hinata stood up to greet him, her demanding demeanor gone with her panic. "Why are you still wearing your heels?"

Hinata's head dipped down to look at her feet. "I'm fine. Thank you." Neji looked past her, eyeing Kisame with a look he was more used to. He lowered his head to whisper something, but she backed her head away. Hinata's demeanor changed back to authority for a moment. "I'm not leaving."

Neji's face twitched before he nodded his head obediently.

Looks like Kisame was stuck with her. At least she was entertaining.

Kisame expected Hinata to stay for a few more hours and then disappear, leaving him on the other side of some assistant for the things she promised. He wouldn't have blamed her. From the news, it looked like they were running with the idea that it may have been Kumo, the company itself, or disgruntled laid-off workers who were responsible for the attempted kidnapping.

And if Neji was to believed, this attempt wouldn't be the last.

"I don't need the security team here. They are bothering the nurses." Hinata whisper-yelled at Neji.

"You wouldn't need them if you would stop coming here." Neji countered.

"He gets discharged tomorrow." Hinata excused. "Can you at least ask all but one to leave?"

Neji debated. "What are you going to do once he's discharged? He's not a puppy. You're not taking it home."

Kisame was used to being called it, but the look on her face made him realize that, yeah, maybe it was a little screwed up. The silent stare made Neji look down apologetically.

"Leave," Hinata told him firmly. "You can come back when you can keep a comment like that to yourself."

Neji stood firm for a moment longer before obediently leaving the room.

Hinata visibly straightened her face before returning to him with the bag that she requested Neji bring her in hand. "I apologize about him. He can be despicably rude."

"I've heard worse." Kisame accepted the food she laid out on his tray. He had yet to eat a hospital meal. Hinata didn't say much, but she came every single day, brought him meals, and made sure the nurses were checking on him. It was nice. He had to admit getting stabbed came with its perks. He was going to miss the little princess once he went back to his pauper life.

"You shouldn't have to." Hinata hummed irritably.

At first, Kisame thought that her outrage was a played-up, but after a few days, either she was an excellent actor for no real benefit, or she was really as sweet as she looked. "I'm going to miss the good food."

Hinata looked down, her discomfort playing on her features. Maybe he shouldn't have said anything. "You… you said you weren't a regular employee of the event coordinator?"

Kisame took a moment to chew and shook his head. "Nah, sometimes I get a call when they're short. I have a friend that tosses my name out when they need someone."

"I would like to offer you a more permanent job. On the security team or somewhere else, if you would like it." Hinata offered a phone number she had written down. "Lee-san will make sure he finds something for you."

Kisame poked his chopsticks into his food. "You're paying for the bills already."

"I appreciate you putting yourself in danger to help me." Hinata stared at her fingers as they twisted together. "I would love to have someone working with us that has your kind of integrity."

Kisame felt his face burn. He hoped her face stayed down so she didn't see his face turning purple. "I don't know if I would call it that. I just wasn't going to watch someone drag a girl off."

"You helped without thinking about it. That is integrity." Hinata's eyes came up to meet his and damn it, he could feel the sincerity. It made his stomach shrivel with an unfamiliar feeling of being praised. He wasn't sure he liked it, but was nice to hear.

Kisame could say that he had never been praised for that. Strength, brute force, a good big scary dude to come and look menacing when you were trying to get your deposit back from your slum lord apartment manager, but never for something like integrity. "Okay. Okay. I'll take whatever it is. Just stop… looking cute."

Hinata blinked at him, and her face broke into a small smile. It wasn't making her less cute.

"I agreed to one security detail." Hinata corrected Neji as he trailed behind her, trying his hardest to wear her down. Usually, it worked. It worked getting her to agree to the single bodyguard, but now he was pushing it, and she had already had a very irritating call from a VP who demanded to know why she was still rescheduling her appointments like her kidnapping attempt wasn't all over the news.

Unfortunately, she couldn't use visiting her savior as an excuse anymore. Hinata liked him. Kisame was a nice man. He couldn't take a compliment. They had that in common.

Hinata felt bad for having looked him up, but she knew that Neji wouldn't let her check on him if she didn't without letting him do a background check. He had a handful of arrest records for fights. None landed him more than a night in jail. He either had a good lawyer as a friend, was lucky, or most of those fights started how they met: him stepping in and ending a fight he didn't start.

The world needed people who were willing to help others even when it didn't benefit them. He didn't have to help her. He could have just yelled or called for help, and by the time security came out, she would have been gone.

Hinata would check up on him in a few weeks. Neji planted the idea that she was smothering him, and she may have thought about it a little too much.

"Two would make me feel better." Neji attempted.

Hinata gave him a final look that told him her answer. "One, or I'm not accepting any."

Neji relented. "I will have them here in the morning."

Hinata nodded and paused in front of her father's door. "Has he said anything?" Neji's silence told her everything. She nodded, continuing on to her own office.

Kisame flicked over Hinata's business card before putting it back in his wallet and looking at his suitcase. She insisted that she would check back up on him, then she disappeared, and he hadn't heard from her since he got out of the hospital. To be fair, that was what he was expecting. He got a job offer like she promised, and honestly, that was more than enough.

Kisame didn't realize how something as simple as her believing wholeheartedly in him after one interaction would get to him. She was probably over-trusting and saw the good in everything, but he would be lying if it didn't put a fire in him to stop being okay with the shit pickup jobs and to do something more substantial. So he made the call for the job to take her up on her offer.

Maybe he would see her again one day if he worked for her family's business, but half the city worked under her family's umbrella corporation, so that was unlikely. It was a direction to strive.

With a week of training passed, he was being sent to his assignment, and it came with its own room, so he was getting an even better deal of it.

Kisame tried to ignore the feeling that he really hadn't earned any of this. He got lucky. If he hadn't taken that cigarette, he probably would have gone inside when he saw her. Did he owe all of this to smoking?

Ironic. He didn't even smoke, really.

He looked up at the fancy hotel he was going to be working at. Maybe they sent him to the wrong place because even as security, most people didn't want to see someone like him at a place like this. Maybe they were hoping to stick him in a room with all the video feeds or something.

The lady at the front desk gave him an odd look before he gave his name. "I don't have a reservation with that name."

"No." Kisame corrected. "I'm a new employee."

She tilted her head and checked a clipboard. "Oh!" She bowed her head and offered out a key card and a slip of paper, pointing him toward a different elevator than what the guests were using. "You need the key card for the top floor."

Okay. Weird. Kisame used the key card on the elevator and rode up. Sometimes, they had offices in hotels. Was that where HR was? Was someone going to stop and explain to him what his job actually was?

The elevator opened to an empty hallway that looked a little too nice to be part of their normal rooms. He looked at his slip of paper and found a door with a matching number. He knocked. No answer. He used the key card, and the door opened to a large hotel room with a full kitchen.

Kisame stepped in and gave the place a critical look.

Okay. At this point, he was almost entirely sure that this was a mistake. He rolled his suitcase in and found a packet on the counter with a staff badge with his face and name on it.

… Looking less like a mistake.

Hinata Hyuga didn't screw around with her debts.

The packet had a cell phone and some documents in it that told him some basics about his job, but the first line stood out to him and made him stop reading. 'Always knock on the adjoining door before entering Miss Hyuga's private resident.'

Adjoining door? Kisame eyes feel on another door along the adjacent wall.

He dropped his things and the page and knocked on the door. The door was opened to reveal a small, pretty face that was just as confused to see him. "Kisame-san?"

Neji's head popped out from another room. His face said one thing: he was going to kill whoever arranged this.