Every time she thought she had shortened the distance between them, Sasuke showed her how wrong she was by pulling away and leaving her alone, even refusing to talk to her.

She could understand though, if only slightly. Her experience told her to let him cool down for a little, for anything she tried to say to him now he would just interpret as excuses, and, when he seemed calmer, approach him to apologize and explain things to him.

And so she waited, until the next night when she found him again in their usual training ground.

He was throwing shuriken at a target. He noticed her, she knew, by the way his shoulders tensed imperceptibly as soon as she appeared in his peripheral vision, but he kept ignoring her, instead walking over to the target, collecting his shuriken, and then returning to his previous position to throw them again.

She sat against a tree, folding her hands on her lap and waiting.

After what should have been around ten minutes of this, but felt like much longer as she picked at her nails, antsy over him ignoring her, Sasuke let out an exasperated groan and turned to her with a frown.

"What? If you want to say something, then do it!" he practically yelled at her. Hinata didn't like his tone, but she let it pass.

"I'm sorry, Sasuke-kun" she said simply, staring into his eyes with a pleading expression.

He looked at her, still frowning and with his hands forming fists at his sides. He analyzed her, or at least it appeared that way to her, his eyes fleeting from place to place on her face. Then, after a long while, he rolled his eyes and turned back to the target, but he didn't attempt throwing more shuriken at it.

"I hate it when you apologize" he muttered, surprising her.

"Why?"

"It's annoying. You always apologize for everything, even things that are not your fault" he complained.

Hinata took a moment, before saying. "But… this time, I was the one that said something wrong…"

"Yes, you did, and it was really wrong, but I know you didn't do it to be mean or anything, so there's no reason to apologize, because I know" he gritted his teeth as he said this.

Hinata took in a deep breath. "Well, I'm glad you know I didn't mean anything bad by it… but I also want you to know that I'm only apologizing for the way I phrased it. I'm not apologizing for wanting to make things better with Neji-niisan."

She held his eyes, as he looked at her with a deeper frown. Trying to breach the distance between her and her cousin was not something she thought was wrong, or that she should apologize for. If Sasuke didn't believe in it or her efforts, then that was fine. He didn't need to do anything.

She was doing it for herself, after all, she finally could admit to that. She was doing it because she just couldn't leave things as they were. She loved Neji, always did and will always do, and she wanted to take the hatred from his heart, because that would make her feel better. It would make her feel better seeing him live a better life, without the past always hanging over him like a sword threatening to kill him. And she wanted to do it, even if the relationship between the two didn't recover at all. If she had to become the sole target of his hatred, then so be it.

It was a conclusion she had come to while thinking about what Sasuke told her, late into the night. Of course, she wasn't going to tell him any of this. She didn't want to cause another fight.

"I'll keep trying, until Neji either accepts me or kills me for it, because I just can't stand how full of anger and hatred he is for something that's not his fault… or mine" she determined, to show him how sure she was of her decision.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes, and she thought, just for a moment, the he seemed to be trembling. Then, he turned around and she saw the way his shoulders rose and fell, as if he was breathing deeply. She waited patiently, still sitting against the tree with her hands on her lap.

Whe he talked, he sounded weary. "I don't know which one is more annoying; you apologizing over everything or being this damn stubborn. Fine, fine, do what you want. Try as much as you want. I won't say anything anymore."

Hinata saw him making his way over to the target and picking up the shuriken embedded in there. When he started putting them away in his pouch, she thought he would leave, but instead, he surprised her by looking at her and saying; "let's spar" without showing anything else of what he was truly thinking.

She nodded, put herself in position, and trained with him.