Illicit With You

Part 3

"I want to do something new with my hair."

He scribbles on his notepad, balancing it on his thigh. He puts down his pen and uses the same hand he was writing with to flip to the next page of the teacher's guide. Having one arm comes with its share of inefficiencies.

"Not bangs, I used to have bangs. I also don't want to chop it very short."

Hinata draws ticks and crosses on the sheets from the pile at her feet. They are sitting nearly shoulder-to-shoulder in his lounge with their backs against the sofa. The clock has just struck 7 pm.

"Akamichi? Smart kid," Hinata says after grading a test.

"Brightest in the class," he remarks.

"Hmmmm."

Hinata picks up another sheet from the pile.

"Maybe a long bob will do?"

He scans the passages of the teacher's guide. Noting what is important and disregarding the fluff. Second-year-level mathematics is easy to comprehend. The challenge comes in teaching ten-year-olds numeracy without sounding as though you are speaking a foreign language.

"Do you think that would suit me?"

"What would suit you?"

He looks up to Hinata's expectant eyes.

"A long bob cut."

"And I'm supposed to know what that is?"

"It's a medium-length hairstyle. It has a centre part and your hair is about," she points to her lower neck," this long."

He shrugs.

"Arithmetic patterns...geometric patterns..." he mutters under his breath.

Hinata sighs.

"You're no help. I might as well be talking to myself. I'm helping you grade your kids's tests but you can't even be bothered to give me input about my hair."

"Less talking and more grading, Hyuga."

"Hey, I'm not even getting paid for this. Stop being a slave driver."

"But you are getting compensated. I'm giving you the honour of being in my presence."

Hinata rolls her eyes. He lets out a smirk.

"Oh, how could I forget that I am in the presence of his majesty, the crown prince of Konoha."

"Exactly. And it's king, not prince. The exceedingly handsome and intelligent King of Konoha."

Hinata's eyes scan him up and down derisively.

"His Royal Highness is most certainly underwhelming."

Hinata finishes grading the tests in about half an hour. He finishes his lesson planning for the week not long after.

"Done?" asks Hinata from the sofa. She is lying on her back with her hands interlocked behind her head. He nods as he rises from the floor to stretch.

"My shoulders are a bit stiff," he says. He conveys a wordless message to her with his eyes. She knows him well enough not to miss it. She looks at him pointedly.

"You'll be just fine. Without my involvement."

"When did you become a prude? It's just a shoulder rub."

She raises her hand at him and shakes her head.

"One minute it's just a shoulder rub then the next minute we're doing things we shouldn't be doing. I know a bad idea when I see one."

She turns her face away. Anxiousness eats away her countenance. He says nothing, lest he say something to chase her away. He has not been properly acclimated to the space they are now in. From bedfellows to friends? Friends? Is that what they are now? Not friends but just a man and a woman who find comfort in each other's company? He can't quite wrap his head around the foreignness of it all.

"It's getting late. I should get going."

"Hey."

"Hi."

Hinata does not make a move to get inside. She lowers her eyes to his feet. He does not remove his gaze from her face. The thick silence is disturbed by the shuffling of feet that can only belong to a civilian. The glances of his passing middle-aged neighbour betray her nosiness. His neighbours leave him to his own devices but they are obviously more than a bit curious about the happenings of his personal life.

"Coming in?" he says to Hinata, leaning against the doorframe. She rakes her fingers through her hair. The mannerism is never a herald of good news.

"I don't think I should keep coming over. Maybe this is not a good idea."

He exhales sharply through his nostrils.

"Us talking is not a good idea?"

Hinata bites her lip and finally meets his eyes.

"I'm trying to do the right thing for me, Sasuke. I want to be at peace with myself. Sleeping with someone without loving them is not natural. At least for me. I've been ignoring that feeling for months but it's been tearing me up."

He wishes for anything but to hear that again.

"You've already made that clear," he says through gritted teeth.

Hinata folds her arms and looks away.

"Knowing what's right and practicing it are not the same. Sometimes, I look at you and I almost just..."

She shrugs before laughing dryly.

"I'm not going to pretend what we had didn't go on for so long. I'm not all of a sudden indifferent to you. There are days when I crave being touched by you. Crave it so much that I feel like I'm going insane."

She sighs and looks away.

"Stopping this," she gestures between them, "is probably the responsible thing to do. If you play with fire, you eventually get burned."

"What is it that you want to do, Hinata? Forget about what you ought to do. What do you want?"

Hinata pauses for a minute.

"I love hanging out with you. I want to keep coming over. It's the best part of my day."

A warm something invades his chest. He squashes the feeling but can't kill it completely. The complexion of her cheeks becomes warmer.

"Please don't make it sound weird," she adds quietly.

The way forward is clear to him. He cannot lose this connection, sexless as it may be. Having Hinata the friend rather than Hinata the bedfellow is better than having no Hinata completely.

"It's simple then. Don't stop coming over. Leave it to me keep things from getting out of hand."

"Sasuke, we're-"

"What, playing with fire? I'm a Uchiha. Our whole thing is playing with fire and not getting burned."

Hinata smiles.

"Have a little faith in me. I don't falter when it counts. Itachi is proof of that."

And holding on to Hinata Hyuga counts. More than anything else in all of Konoha. And he plans on honouring his promise of keeping things sanitary between them. That look of hope in her eyes makes him... For the first time in his life, he feels compelled to put someone's wishes before his own.

"Are we going to stand here all evening or are you coming in?"

Hinata closes her eyes and inhales deeply. Her eyes seem less troubled when she opens them.

"I hope my faith is not misplaced."

"Sometimes I feel like they wronged me somehow. Abandoned me."

The sound of the knife chopping against the wooden board and the gurgling of the pot of noodles on the gas burner follow his words. Hinata is chopping up veggies for the yakisoba. They eat from the same pot nowadays. Their dinner arrangement is simple, he buys the food and she cooks it. Not only does the arrangement save him from the tedious work of cooking, Hinata's cooking surpasses his own. And although he would never say it aloud, being regularly subjected to someone's home cooking makes him feel less like a kinless orphan.

Hinata swerves around, knife in hand and switches off the burner. She pulls out the stainless steel colander from the cupboard and drains the noodles. She has not made herself at home in his kitchen, she has colonised it and made it her own.

"How messed up do you have to be to blame dead people for being killed?"

Hinata looks up from the cutting board, pausing from slicing boiled chicken breasts into thin slices for the stir fry. He is grateful that she does not shower him with pity. That is why he talks about these things with her. Because she does not treat him like a wounded puppy.

"Grief doesn't have to make sense, you know?"

A ghost of a smile briefly graces her expression as her eyes defocus on him.

"Accepting that sets you free. It has helped me cope with Neji."

She resumes slicing the meat.

"I fight grief by focusing on the people I still have. It doesn't make the pain disappear but it helps," she reveals.

Hinata lifts her head to send him a smile.

"Am I in that list of people?" he says.

He smirks before wagging his eyebrows. She rolls her eyes and sticks out her tongue. The Hyuga places a large skillet on a hob and switches on the heat. She drizzles the pan with sesame oil.

"Your mother, tell me about her. If you're okay with that. You never talk about her."

He grunts as he opposes gravity by pushing himself away from the ground. The muscles in his arm are burning with lactic acid and trembling from fatigue. One-armed pushups are never child's play. A breeze cools the sweat on his back. He slowly lowers himself again, pouring all his strength into one last pushup. His strength fails him on his way up and he plummets to the concrete floor stomach-first. A figure looms over him.

"I shudder to think what would have happened if the Fourth Shinobi World War had broken out while you were in this shape. We would have lost."

He turns onto his back.

"The Academy doesn't pay me to be fit."

"But you agree that you're out of shape, yes? That's why you're exercising on the rooftop in the middle of the evening. After sitting on your ass all this time since the war?"

"You do realise that your ass has gotten fatter in the last couple of months?"

Hinata's mouth drops open.

"And what business do you have with the size of my ass, Sasuke?"

He sits up.

"I doubt it's all cinnamon buns. I'm not the only one who's been taking it easy with keeping fit. Just admit it, peace - especially such unprecedented peace - is making everyone shinobi slack off."

"But I didn't stop training completely like a certain someone."

"Even in this shape, you wouldn't beat me in a fight."

Hinata rolls her eyes.

"Whatever."

"Plus I'm not exactly proud of letting myself go so much. That's why I'm exercising again."

Hinata sits next to him cross-legged. The stars are out tonight. There is a vast blanket of darkness splattered with glowing grains above their heads.

"I can't believe you just called me a fat cow."

He shrugs.

"Excuse me? You're not even going to defend yourself and reassure me that's not what you meant?"

"I didn't say you're a fat cow. If that's how you want to perceive what I said then be my guest."

"Oh, what a gentleman you are, Uchiha."

He smiles.

"Only the best for my queen."

"I hate you."

"And here you are gazing at the stars with the one you hate. I think you might be a little confused, Hyuga. They do say there's a very thin line between love and hate."

Hinata thumps the back of his head.

"There. I've fixed the malfunction in your head."

She wipes her hand on her lap while grimacing.

"Ew. I touched your sweaty scalp."

He raises an eyebrow.

"Says the girl who bit me and licked my fucking blood."

Hinata whips her head towards him.

"Timeout."

He meets Hinata's eyes. There's an edge of apprehension in her lavender orbs.

"Too suggestive?"

"Quite," answers Hinata. He tilts his head.

"Yes. For me, it is, Sasuke."

"Fine," he concedes.

"When are your two years ending?" asks Hinata.

"Three months."

"And what will you do after you regain your freedom?"

"I think I'll keep on teaching. Maybe eventually take on genin teams to keep things interesting. I think I'll stick to being called Sensei for a couple of years. It's more fulfilling than babysitting aristocrats or beating up thugs."

Hinata cracks a smile.

"Definitely."

"But traveling is the first thing I'll do when my sentence is over. Explore the world without being distracted by hunting down people to kill."

"For how long?"

"Until I feel like I've seen it all."

"Sounds like quite some time. It's a big world."

"And I'm in no hurry."

He turns his head and finds Hinata watching him. A dark curtain has fallen over countenance.

"Sucks for me," she replies, voice insulated with paper-thin levity.

Hinata lays down next to him, her head less than a forearm apart from his.

"You stink."

He throws his armpit over her face.

"Sasuke!"

Hinata jabs him. Pain flares up his side. His companion freezes.

"I'm so sorry. It was purely reflex."

"Damn it, Hinata," he says through gritted teeth.

"Are you trying to kill me?"

His side feels as though he drank a gallon of water at the starting line moments before a sprint. Except the pain is ten times worse. A stream of healing chakra flows to his side. The sharp pain subsides to a dull throb. The flow of chakra continues until his side merely feels tender.

"Better?"

"Mhmm."

"I didn't come up here for all of this. I came to tell you that dinner's ready."

Hinata gets on her feet. He stretches out his hand towards her.

"Don't think I'm going to start babying you just because I hurt you by mistake," says Hinata. She helps him up anyway.

"So you're going to miss my birthday just like that?" Hinata says as they enter his apartment.

"At least now I know that you hate my guts and wish death upon me."

"You have your friends. You'll be alright," he replies, closing the door. Hinata plops down on the sofa.

"They're not you," Hinata moans. "Plus they've always been there to celebrate with me. I just thought this year..."

He peels off his soaked shirt. Hinata looks away.

"Take a few days of leave at the hospital and rendezvous with me in another country for your birthday. I could show you a spot or two."

Hinata's eyes light up.

"Wait. Really?"

"Do I look like I'm joking?"

Hinata beams.

"I'd love that, Sasuke."

Perhaps it would have been better if he had forgotten her address. Then maybe such vulnerability would have not been exposed to the light of day. Should vulnerability not have bounds? Where does the line run? If only he still knew.

A quick inquiry with the caretaker refurbishing the lobby of her apartment building points him in the direction of her floor. He makes his way up the building and finds her door.

"Sasuke?"

There is a touch of incomprehension in her features. It's early. An hour after sunrise. She is already dressed for the day. He cannot hide the heaviness in his heart.

"What's wrong?"

"Today's the anniversary of the massacre."

A part of him feels a drop of pleasure at the melancholy that rearranges her expression. Misery loathes to have no company.

"Would you like to come in?"

He shakes his head.

"I'm going to the gravesite."

She tugs her lips into a sad smile.

"Let me put my shoes on."

She is fluent in the language of the unsaid.

The Uchiha compound is rundown with neglect. Dead lawns, unkempt trees, leaves and plastic waste cover nearly every inch of ground. It pains him to see his childhood residence desecrated but who is there to blame besides himself? Death lingers on every corner. Every wall watches him with resentful eyes, envious of the fact that death spared him.

They reach the cemetery. A pocket-sized valley of dry bones and unrealised futures. At each grave in the first five rows, a rectangular slab of granite stands perpendicular to the edge of the disturbance in the ground. The rectangular slabs are tombstones. There is something peculiar with the subsequent rows of graves. There are no tombstones. Too many souls had perished at once for the burial team to be bothered to demarcate which grave housed whose remains. And there had been no Uchiha left to complain.

There is a granite monument with the names of all the souls lost in the massacre. It stands behind the last row of graves, looming sinisterly over the ground. He takes ahold of Hinata's hand and leads her to the memorial stone.

"This clan is all just a memory now."

A gaping hole has dug itself into his chest. Nothing could replace what had been stolen from him. Nothing. He allows his head to bow. Hinata squeezes his hand.

"You're still here, Sasuke. You'll rebuild it."

Hinata's voice distracts from the blizzard raging in his heart and the heaviness pressing down his shoulders. He turns to her.

"And which sane woman would want to be involved with this cursed clan?"

Something mellows in her eyes before she smiles a little.

"You'd be surprised by what a woman would be willing to put up with when she loves you."

The approach of his birthday stirs no excitement within him. The anniversary of his birth is never an occasion that evokes a celebratory mood. The absence of his loved ones is never more glaringly apparent than when he sits alone in a still room with no one to celebrate his birth with. There are people who would be willing to celebrate his special day with him - Naruto, Sakura - but he has always shunned their company.

Unfortunately, he forgets to pass on the memo to Hinata Hyuga. She comes knocking at his door on the evening of his birthday. He marches to the door, frowning. He swings open the door and fixes his tongue to tell her off but the sight of her sews his lips shut.

She is wearing a little black dress, the same one that captured his interest so many months ago at a party he vaguely remembers. On one hand, she is carrying a transparent cake carrier housing a chocolate cake. On the other hand, she has a long object that is covered in turquoise gift wrapping. Her parcels and her dress are not what seizes his attention. Perhaps it is the pink flush of excitement on her face and the flickers of nervousness in her eyes that stay his tongue. A moment of heavily condensed silence passes.

"May I come in?"

He remembers those words to be very same ones she said to him the day she barged into his life. This time, he is of the impression that she will not fight her way in if he refuses her passage. He gets the sense that her face will fall, perhaps her eyes will gather tears before she departs without protest. May I come in, four simple words with the bludgeoning weight of a loaded question. Her request for entry opens something in him. What right does he have to curse the loneliness but then shun company?

He opens the door all the way and she enters. He studies the way the dress hugs her figure as she sets the cake on the counter. Her exposed nape entices him. Her hair is tied in an updo, it is more elaborately styled than usual.

He can almost feel the buzz of nervous energy in her when she turns and faces him. She is wearing mascara. The emotional response he expects from himself is irritation. Instead, immense relief arrests him.

"Happy birthday, Sasuke."

She presents him with the wrapped object. He wordlessly accepts the gift and unwraps it. It is a leather katana sheath of a finer leather than any sheath he has ever owned. It is the perfect length. It is embossed with the Uchiha insignia just below the hilt. A pricey item. No one has put such thought into a gift for him since the culling of his clan.

"I hope you like it," Hinata adds.

Hinata is not meeting his eyes and smoothing down her dress. Her blush paints her with a nonexistent innocence.

"It's perfect. Thank you."

The last two words have a foreign feel on his tongue. Her eyes brighten, her mouth settles into a smile.

"You're welcome."

Her face takes on an apologetic quality.

"I was going to cook a special dinner but things got hectic at the hospital. I only became free an hour ago."

He glances at the clock. The hands show ten minutes after eight.

"We could eat out?"

"I'd rather stay put," he says in a tone he hopes does not sound dismissive.

"Leftovers?"

He nods.

"Leftovers it is."

Hinata warms up the leftovers. She walks over to the sofa, plates of chicken curry balanced on either hand. She passes him a plate and sits next to him.

"Leave room for cake."

Hinata shares bits of her day with him. And he tells her about his kids's performance in their recent mathematics test and the little girl who put in a good word for her cousin as a potential romantic partner. It's all mundane to a fault. But after years of chasing vengeance and a war, he's pretty happy with the mundane.

"Wine?" he says after they finish eating.

"You mean the wine you've been keeping refrigerated for the longest time? I thought it was decoration."

"It's a celebration, right?" he says with a smirk. Hinata smiles mischievously.

"Just don't get me into a drunken mess. I'm a lightweight."

"Softie."

"I'm just a girl."

He fetches a sweating bottle of 5-year-old wine from the bottle rack in the fridge and two glass tumblers. Hinata shifts closer and crosses her legs when he returns.

"Toast?" he says as he hands her a tumbler of wine.

"To friendship and a future kinder than the past," Hinata says as they clinch glasses.

"Anything you want to toast to, Birthday Boy?"

"To freedom."

Hinata smiles.

"To freedom."

He gulps the wine. The heat of the alcohol settles in his stomach. Hinata's first sip is more tentative. He finishes his glass in three or four gulps. He sits back, closes his eyes and absorbs the moment.

"Almost forgot the most important part of the evening. Cake," Hinata giggles ten minutes after toasting.

"Don't tell me you're already tipsy."

"I'm not," Hinata giggles.

"Since when are you so giggly?"

Hinata rolls her eyes. She heads to the kitchen, opens the cake carrier and is about to slice the cake before she catches herself and calls him over.

"Come do the honours. The birthday boy is supposed to cut it first."

"Do I have to?"

"Humour me. Please?"

He rises from his comfortable station on the sofa, takes the knife from Hinata's grasp and cuts two modest slices.

"Would it kill you to slow down? I didn't even sing for you," complains Hinata.

"Another time."

He ruffles her hair. She slaps his hand away. He returns to the sofa, a slice of cake in tow. Hinata rejoins him.

"Fourth serving?" He says to Hinata as she approaches the cake carrier once more. She looks over her shoulder and narrows her eyes at him.

"I have a sweet tooth."

"Hmm."

Hinata glares at him. She points an icing-covered fork at him.

"Hey, I'll count my own calories."

"Who said anything about calories? I just don't understand how you have such a high tolerance for sweet things."

"Oh, so this is not about me eating my way to being a fat cow?" Hinata asks as she plops down beside him.

"Have I suddenly developed a profound lack of anything better to do with my life than to regulate your waist measurements?"

"I'm watching you, Uchiha."

She complements the declaration with the corresponding gesture before taking a sip of wine.

"Kinky. I didn't take you for a voyeur. What other surprises do you have up your sleeve?"

Hinata gags on her drink.

"Plenty of surprises. Unfortunately for you, Sir, you will never find out because we're friends now."

"I guess this is the part where I kill myself."

Hinata rolls her eyes.

"Please don't kill yourself before you help me repaint my apartment."

He nods enthusiastically.

"Of course. Anything for you, Bestie."

The sunlight pouring through the open curtain stirs him. He opens his eyes only to shut them as his eyes struggle to adjust to the brightness. His back is stiff from sleeping on the hard floor. He opens his eyes once again with better luck and looks down at the indigo below his chin. The breathing tempo of the woman lying on his chest tells him she's awake.

"What time is it?"

He yawns.

"No idea."

"The last thing I remember is that we were sitting on the floor talking. I was drunk out of my mind," says Hinata.

"Seems about right."

"You brought out more booze."

"Yeah."

"So we didn't...?"

"Our clothes are still on," he replies. "Your hand is under my shirt."

There is a warm hand resting slightly above his belly button.

"I know," says Hinata. She does not remove it.

There's a missing page in his memory. He does not know whether he has alcohol amnesia or if he merely fell asleep. He feels his crotch. His pants are fully zipped.

"Are you missing anything under your dress?"

"You mean are my fucking panties still on?"

"If you wish to put it in a less ladylike manner, yes."

"No, nothing's out of place with regards to my underwear. Thank you for your concern about my privates. Would you like to sniff them just to confirm they're mine?"

"You know exactly why I'm asking. Don't be an asshole, Hinata."

Hinata sits up. He stands up, feeling woozy on his feet.

"What's worse? The headache or the nausea," Hinata says as she massages her temples.

"I've never had a headache from a hangover. Don't include me in your peasantry."

Hinata rolls her eyes.

"The only peasantry here is you not know being able to cure yourself of a headache like me."

"No, you being a woman is peasantry."

Hinata raises an eyebrow.

"Excuse me?"

"You've been excused."

Hinata shakes her head.

"I'm waiting for the part where you grow up, Sasuke."

Hinata stands. She holds on to the sofa armrest to steady herself.

"Unfortunately I can't redo puberty, my dear."

"Shut up. I'll burn your apartment down."

"Do that and I'll come strangle you in your sleep."

"Choke me if you want but don't go blaming me when I start squirting all over you instead of dying."

The barb makes him pause.

"What?"

The Hyuga giggles.

"I need a shower," she says.

"Help yourself. Your towels are in the bottom drawer."

Hinata beams.

"You kept them?"

"So what?"

"It's sweet of you."

She walks up to him and shows her back to him.

"Please unzip my dress."

He grips the zip and pulls it down till it reaches the small of her back. A knot materialises in his gut at the sight of her bare back. She turns around and faces him. Then she wriggles out of the dress right in front of him. She stands there in a sultry black pair of underwear and bra. His member hardens and pokes against his trousers. Hinata giggles.

"Care to join me in the shower?"

He wishes he could say yes.

"It's a little cramped for the both of us."

"Are you sure about that?"

"I'm definite."

"Your loss. I was trying to give you one more birthday present."

Hinata blows him a kiss and saunters off to his bedroom. She stumbles twice or thrice before reaching the bathroom. The shower starts running a minute later. He takes a moment to compose himself and suppress the thoughts running in his mind. The urge to dash to the shower and let her have her way with him is nearly overwhelming but he restrains himself.

He distracts himself by preparing breakfast. He empties his mind and focuses wholly on cooking. The shower stops running but Hinata does not emerge from the bedroom. He finds her passed out on his bed wearing his shorts and t-shirt. He eats breakfast by himself and reclines on the sofa.

The sound of the tap running wakes him up. He is lethargic with sleep. The grogginess tells him he's been asleep for a long time. Hinata turns to him when she hears him stir. She drinks from the glass she has filled, refills it and brings it to him.

"Thought you might be thirsty."

"Thanks."

He glances at the clock.

"I was out cold for four hours," says Hinata.

"Make room."

He repositions himself into a sitting position. Hinata sits next to him and crosses her legs.

"I fell asleep less than an hour after you."

Hinata flushes.

"I'm sorry about that whole thing from before. I do that sometimes, wake up still drunk."

"Yeah, I figured you weren't completely sober when you threatened to squirt on m-"

"Okay! I get it. Now shush."

He rubs his eyes and chuckles. She smacks his shoulder.

"Don't laugh. It's not funny."

He laughs even louder. Hinata punches his shoulder. Hard. He elbows her side.

"Ow!"

She grabs his ear and twists it. He pulls his head away and pushes her off the sofa with his foot. She lands on the ground on her bottom.

"That hurt, you prick."

He smirks.

"Kiss my ass, Hyuga."

Hinata's face is dark before she lunges for his neck. He outmaneuvers her and pins her to the ground with her arm twisted behind her back. She grunts beneath him.

"Let go of me, Sasuke."

"Are you going to behave if I let you go?"

"Yes," Hinata shouts, writhing beneath him.

"Yes, who?"

"Yes, Uchiha-sama."

He gets off her.

"You don't play nice," says Hinata, glaring at him.

He retakes his position on the sofa. Hinata joins him.

"I swear you bring out the worst in me, Sasuke. What an infuriating man."

She shakes her head.

"I'll miss you too when I'm gone," he quips.

The fire burns out of Hinata's countenance. She stares at him mutedly.

"What?" he asks.

"You say it as a joke but I'm genuinely going to miss this. Miss us."

At that moment, a step beyond Konoha's gates feels too distant a journey. He would probably not refuse if she asked him to stay.

"I guess there's a season for everything, right?"

This time she is not downplaying her feelings about him leaving after he regains his freedom. She shows him her disappointment in its nakedness. Nine days, that is all that is left before he is once again a free man.

"Hinata. This is still my home."

Hinata smiles. She shifts closer to him and leans her head on his shoulder.

Thank you for reading. Please like, favourite and review. Final installment (part 4) coming up. Until next time.

{The Immortal Sage}