#if you think naruhina are a slowburn couple boy howdy do i have News For You

[utsus]

Hi! Your writing is amazing! I love everything I've read. I was wondering if you'd be willing to write Sasuke x Hinata? Prompt: Unexpectedly in love. Thanks so much! (even if you don't write them)

Part 1. AO3

(Like the tide; push, and then pull.)

✧

Mornings in Konoha were each of them a spectacle, bright andblazing. The sun finely caressed the crests of the mountains, a lover’s morningkiss, filled entirely with heat.

Hinata blinked her eyes open and pointedly ignored the crickin her back, just there above her right hip. She could feel grains of stonepricking her palms as she pushed herself up, rising none too steadily beforeclutching the still-healing wound over her ribs. She rested her shoulderagainst the rocks, waning, lightheaded. An inn would’ve been much preferred, asfar as halfway houses go, but she’d been weak and bleeding and so damned tired; this small cutout cave was heronly option.

She’d dreamt of home, hot and bright and overcast with everyshade of welcoming morning. Now, she lifted her fingers in front of her tiltingvision and watched them shake. There was a coolness, here, amid nothing butrock and stone; It leeched into her body, her bones, and she thought of thecolor blue.

It was bound to happen sooner orlater, this.

Hinata pressed her eyes closed for a moment, pushing pastthe pain in her temples until her periorbital veins dilated. She opened hereyes and she could see it all; the flickering of a bird’s wings over the cave;the quiet ambush of ants over the carcass of some long-abandoned prey; theblood splashed over the dirt path several kilometers west.

Noticeably absent, however, were the bodies the bloodbelonged to. Hinata could feel it under her nails, a wasted thought, but theirabsence didn’t surprise her. She extended her vision as far as she could,unimaginably far, and after a tense moment of suspicion she sagged with reliefagainst the rocks. No one, shethought. I’m alone.

The blood rushing through her veins calmed, her vision andfocus narrowing back to that subdued blur at the edges. She knelt andconsidered healing the laceration on her ribs, which she could feel had bledthrough her hastily applied field dressing, but decided against it. Her chakrastores were nearly depleted, and it was a wonder she’d woken as early as shehad.

Having used too much time already—though for properpurposes, nonetheless—Hinata traced her fingers through the gritty earth beforeforming the appropriate seals. She pulled a scroll from the pouch on her legand unfurled it with a flick of her wrist, a single practiced motion. Exceptthat something in her wrist suddenly garnered her attention with a pulse ofpain, causing her to flinch but not falter. Ugh,she thought, frustrations curling her expression into something creased withlines. She’d thought her condition better than this.

The scroll unfurled and responded to her next set of seals,a message rapidly scrawled in code, and sealed itself in a single quiet fwip. She balanced it in the earth,surrounded by her hand-drawn seals, and used what precious chakra she had leftto transport it directly to the Nanadaime.

“There,” she whispered with a shaky smile, sitting back onher heels and wiping the fine sheen of sweat over her forehead away with aheavy forearm. She allowed herself a moment of respite, a single flicker of abreak from what she would have to do next before her thoughts returned to thecontent of the message and her smile slid away, stoicism replacing it. Itwasn’t a complete message, and it wasn’t good news. It was too important totransport with a scroll, which could easily be intercepted. It was also a majorcomplication, and Naruto wasn’t going to like what it meant for hisfast-tracked plans for peace between the villages.

Thinking of Naruto still brought warmth to her heart, but ithad been a long time since she had felt anything more than friendly admirationfor their newest Hokage. He had never responded to her confession, and Hinatastill wasn’t sure if that was because he didn’t know what to say, or didn’tunderstand the true meaning of what her confession had meant.

What it should have changed,between them.

Hinata shook thoughts of the past off her with a littleshake of her head, and stood to her full height. She made quick work of hertemporary sleeping area, returning it back to an appearance of untouched wildthat had never felt human change. She hefted her field pack onto her back andpaused at the lip of the cave, closing her eyes to listen to her surroundings,confident in her senses.

She knew to listen for the silence of a waiting predator,rather than the rustling of a moving creature. Shinobi had a practiced quiet totheir steps that Hinata was attuned to, having grown up beside Kiba and learnedfrom him and Akamaru about enhanced senses—and how to utilize them.

She could count the number of shinobi that could sneak up onher on one hand. Those that made the cut were familiar to her in name only;stand outs. She felt chills race down her arms at the thought of theirpracticed silence, the utter and absolute lack of presence they assumed whennecessary. Outliers.

She opened her eyes and wasconfident, then, that she was the only shinobi in the area.

Shinobi had a practiced quiet to their steps, a single scuffhere, a subtle pressure there. She would have heard it.

She should have—would usuallyhave prepared for the worst, but she was so damned tired, her chakra scrapingthe dregs of her potential, and maybe that’s why she missed it. Maybe she wasdistracted by her own exhaustion, so far from home, tired enough to be kickingup the dust of the past in her thoughts. She was waning, shaking, bleeding, andit just did not occur to her to look closer, look harder, find in thefluctuation of wildlife around her the one isolated statue of frigid absence;truly—

She had not expected an outlier.

✧

Hinata had been jogging back towards Konoha with adetermined but lilting pace for hours, with only a few breaks in-between. Itwas not an unfamiliar or unfortunate distance, from the borders of Mist, butHinata had several unattended wounds and aches that arose with the jarring ofeach step. Most concerning of all, however, was the way that her visioncontinued to blur at the edges.

She’d been ambushed by a troupe of Mist Jounin afterattaining the information she’d inadvertently stumbled upon during herreconnaissance mission, and one of them had carried a club. Hinata had madequick work of the first two men, had taken a few slices from a vicioussharp-toothed woman with fin-like blades before disarming and disqualifyingher. The lithe man with the club larger than his own body had snuck up on herand clocked her right on the back of the head, her reflexes getting her mostlyout of the way, but not enough to completely miss the blow. She could feel theraised skin there, still aching as she slowed to a walk.

How the troupe had discovered her presence, completelyveiled and hidden in the underbrush several kilometers away from their basecamp, she had no idea—but it reeked of duplicity. With the information she’dcaptured still whirling around in her mind, she didn’t have to wonder why.

Hinata stumbled, and it was a testament to how exhausted shewas that instead of catching herself, she instead fell to her knee. A stonejutted into her skin but not deep enough to worry her, even as she hissed. Hervision swam.

She hadn’t considered poison, until just that moment. Shehad a general pack of labelled antidotes and herbs in her pouch, her medicaltraining always present, but it suddenly seemed so far away. She brought herright hand up in front of her again and watched it swim before she clenched itinto a fist and forced herself back to standing position. She swayed slightly andmanaged to find her pouch, but when she pulled her medipack out the labelsswam, too.

“Damn it,” she cursed lowly, trying to steady her vision.Calling the Byakugan was unthinkable at this stage of exhaustion, and shewasn’t about to make herself faint on enemy land with no chance of aid orconcealment. She bit her lip hard enough to make it bleed, and focused on thepain there. Her vision cleared with the sudden change in focus—pain, as always,the champon of attention—and she pulled the vial for a broad-spectrum Mistantidote from her pack. It wasn’t easy but it was possible, after that, toprepare the syringe and inject it into the muscle of her thigh.

She waited a moment to feel the effects, which she soonrealized were not forthcoming, and felt the first pinch of tears begin to format the exact moment that she realized something all the more criticallyimportant.

The stillness.

The birds were silent, and had there not been a forthcomingbreeze, Hinata thought even the trees themselves would’ve been loath to move.The creatures of the underbrush were decidedly absent from view, the forestsnormally crawling carpet suddenly so spine-tinglingly motionless. Hinata could hearnothing but the sound of her own racing heartbeat.

She froze, every inch of her tensed in sudden realizationthat she had become prey. I can do this,she thought, trying to keep herself focused on positives rather than the truthof her situation: that she was easy pickings in the middle of enemy land,poisoned and hunted.

She tried to pinpoint where it was coming from, but it waslike trying to find the lowest frequency of light in a kaleidoscope of color,with blurred eyes and muddied senses. There was something about the air,though, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Her mind tried to come upwith an answer, but it was tired and sluggish, and all she could think was thatthe air felt suddenly electric.

“Show yourself,” she called steadily, her voice in directcontrast with her hands. Even if she could not find them exactly, she would letthem know that they’d been found, regardless. She straightened slowly, herevery movement smooth and unhurried. She was too smart to startle a predatorwith rapid, escapist behavior.

Her heart raced so heavily she could feel it in her throat,could almost swallow it back down. The longer she stood, the weaker she felt,but adrenaline corded in her a new spine of iron. If she was going down, itwouldn’t be without a fight. She thought about the message she’d sent, just aglimpse of what was to come, and she knew that there wasn’t even an option ofchoices.

She had to send the message toNaruto, in full.

She used every ounce of adrenaline coursing through her, herleft hand flying through the seals as her right dipped and reached for anotherscroll, already unfurling with inked lines of code disappearing into theparchment before she’d even removed it fully from her pouch.

And then, it stopped.

Fingers like cords of steelaround her wrist, a breath away from breaking bone.

“Don’t,” the voice said, just over her shoulder, and Hinatawanted to laugh. She twisted in his grip, trying to dislodge her wrist even asher left hand reached for the kunai at her hip.

It happened so fast, she wasn’t even sure she would’ve seenit even if she had been firing on all cylinders. One moment he was there, ather shoulder and the next he had her back to a tree, both wrists held againstthe bark. Hinata blinked and felt a wary combination of relief and warinesscurl within her as she recognized her opposition.

I should’ve known, shethought dazedly, a moment before her adrenaline fizzled and consciousnessescaped her.

Silence that made silence stand out.

What was Uchiha Sasuke doing onthe borders of Mist?

✧

Hinata blinked her eyes open once more as consciousnessreturned, and found herself staring at wooden walls. She sat up abruptly andher vision swam for her trouble, even as Sasuke walked into the room and gaveher a disapproving look. Hinata felt the hairs on her nape stand up in responseto his proximity, even as he walked around her wordlessly and set a tray offood in front of her. He was dressed in shadows, obsidian from head to toe, andHinata felt even more uncertain about his presence here.

He moved to the opposite side of the room and crouched tosort through a pack, her eyes never once leaving him. She was pleased to notethat her vision no longer swam, and there was only the slightest pressurebehind her temples. She held up her hands and found them steadier, though shestill felt weak. She reached for the dressing on her ribs and felt that it wasdry. She wondered if the bleeding had stopped and the blood had dried, or ifher bandage had been changed.

If it was the latter…Hinata feltherself blushing, despite herself.

She opened her mouth to call outto him, to draw his attention, but the words tangled and dispersed on thesurface of her tongue. What should she call him? They were not friends. Theywere not even really acquaintances, nor were they really even compatriots. Hehad left the village at a young age, betraying everything she protected,everything she cherished.

Including the members of Team 7,who had grown to be like family to her. They were family.

And he had walked away fromthem.

So she was at a crossroads ofidentifiers; what did she call the betrayer of her loved ones, who had also,however inadvertently, just saved her life?

“Uchiha-san,” she offered, a neutral in-between. It was anattempt to try out her voice, which she found to be hoarse, too-long unused.She cleared her throat and was about to try again, before he glanced over hisshoulder at her. There was a curiousness to his posture, muted and buried underjaded ennui.

“Drink,” he said, and turned away from her once more. Hinatafrowned, turning back to the tray he’d brought her. She had no reason tosuspect it, given that he was now a fellow Konoha shinobi, semi-newlyreinstated under the Nanadaime’s order. But Hinata had always been wary ofUchiha Sasuke, prodigy and sole survivor of the Uchiha clan, traitor to hervillage, brother to the man she had loved for more than a decade. She was waryof this man, and for good reason; she knew from Sakura’s exasperated butwarning testimonies that Uchiha Sasuke could wield words and looks as efficientlyand lethally as he did blades.

Words that could cut. Eyes that could kill.

But then, she realized withrenewed confidence, those were not reason enough for her to be frightened away.A cascade of brown hair came to mind, a handsome and jarring expression ofindifference that clashed with the blade of a quick tongue. Neji had never beenafraid to cut with his words, either.And as for eyes that could kill, well. Hinata’s younger sister was a prodigyherself.

Hinata reached for the drink he’d left her, and was pleasedto feel the water cold and refreshing. She tried to take it in slowly, but shewas dehydrated, lips chapped, and couldn’t remember the last time she’d had icecold water. At best, she’d had tepid water from her pack, or cooked from astream.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, with silence as her onlyanswer. She took several more swallows before setting the cup down and feelingout her limbs, still aching but less so than the day before. Had it only been aday? How long had she been out? She turned again to ask Sasuke, and foundinstead an empty room.

She hadn’t even heard him leave.

She was growing ratherfrustrated by that.

She rose slowly, getting her footing steadily beforeproceeding towards the door. She tried to listen for him, avidly focusing, butall she could hear were the chirps of birds, the groans of tree trunks swaying,and the soft babble of a nearby stream. She pushed open the door and there hewas, within hearing distance, but so unquestionably reticent. He sat on thefront steps with his blade on his lap, sharpening it meticulously.

Hinata didn’t want to startle him, her own self-preservationat the forefront of her mind, but she wasn’t arrogant enough to think that she was silent enough to escape his notice. She may move quietly, butshe was no Uchiha Sasuke.

She came to sit beside him, her every movement carefully controlled.She found herself approaching him quite like the predator she’d thought him tobe, slow to grow out of that response.

“Thank you for the water,” she said quietly, not wanting todisturb the peaceful air around them. “And the food.”

Sasuke didn’t say anything, but she saw his movements slowfor only a moment, as if considering. The next moment they returned dutifullyto his work, and Hinata glanced around them to better gauge their surroundings.He had brought her to a wooden cabin, only so big as the one room she had wokenin. There were trees touching the sky on every side, and no sign of the streamshe could just barely hear over the metallic slide of Sasuke’s blade. The grasswas tall enough to tickle her elbows, swaying ever gently, caressed by thebreeze. She frowned.

“What is this place?”

“A safehouse.”

Hinata turned back to him, pursing her lips. She watched hismovements for a few moments, hoping that he didn’t feel uncomfortable under hergaze. His body language was relaxed, his shoulders comfortably languid, muchlike a lazing cat. He didn’t seem to mind her staring.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” She prefaced, careful as always,“But how safe would you say this area is? Considering our location.”

Sasuke didn’t hesitate. “Safe enough.” He waited a momentlonger, almost reflecting, before he offered: “We are further South than youpreviously understood.”

Hinata’s eyebrows jumped, and she found herself glancingaround again, studying the types of trees, the position of the sun, the weedsat their feet. He was right, she realized. This vegetation was lesscharacteristic of Mist. They were closer to home than when she had lost consciousness.She wondered how far her cave was from here, and was amused that suddenly aformation in the mountain had become hersjust because she’d taken shelter there. This, she thought, was Shino’sinfluence. The man had a connection to the Earth that was unparalleled, and she’dfound herself attuned and receptive to that outlook early on in her girlhood.

“Oh,” she said, nodding.“Alright.”

And then, realizing her own rudeness, she flushed and added,“Thank you for bringing me here.”

At that, Sasuke’s eyes drifted over to her. She felt pinnedunder his gaze, sharp and barbed, endless shadows. His eyes traced herexpression, the heat of her cheeks, and she watched the shift in him; it wassomething immeasurable, she couldn’t put it into words. He moved withoutmoving, his dark eyes roving, and she felt mixed parts at ease and trapped.

She almost expected him to simply accept her thanks and returnto his work. All she knew of him was common knowledge in the village, and whatthe rest of Team 7 had shared with her about their experiences with him. If shewas honest with herself, she had always felt the slightest tinge of outsider’s resentmentfor Sasuke.

She understood what it meant to be a piece in a game,manipulated by higher powers—any shinobi did, though especially those who grewup in clan dynamics. She could not understand, however, how he felt losing hisclan. Having them taken from him. Shethought of Hanabi, of Neji, of her father and Ko and all the women who hadhelped her grow and her heart ached.She didn’t know if she could’ve lived without them, had they been taken fromher at such a young age, as he’d experienced.

But she could not realistically imagine betraying herclosest friends, her village, and all the people who tried to get closer tohelp him heal after the fact. That was not even an option for her. But Sasukehad done that and gone several steps further; he’d teamed up with an evil manwho had murdered a beloved Hokage, and he had even attempted, thoughhalfheartedly, to harm the members of his team when they had sought him out.

Hinata wanted to think, unforgivable,but she couldn’t. Hinata had never struggled to forgive, and when she thoughtof Sasuke the child surrounded by murder at his kin’s hand, her anger waned. Hewas a product of what had been done to him, and that didn’t excuse his past darkbehaviors, but there was something to be said for him coming back to Konoha andtrying to make it right.

She decided that he was just…complicated.

Now, sitting beside him, Hinata was reminded of the talesSakura had told her about Sasuke’s stoicism, his aversion to idle conversation.Hinata was more confident in herself and her worth than she had been as a younggirl, but even still, she did not expect Sasuke, a relative stranger to her, towant to pursue conversation with her any more than he had to. She waited forhim to turn away from her, maybe to nod his head or at the most, to say you’re welcome. He did none of thosethings.

“What were you thinking?” He asked instead, and there was anedge to the question that almost tasted of frustration. Hinata frowned,wondering at that.

“I’m sorry?”

And there was the temper she had heard about from Sakura allthose years, flashing in the depths of his eyes. It was there one moment andgone the next, extinguished under indifference. Fascinating, Hinata thoughtabsently, even as she felt her heart thump against her ribcage. “What were youthinking, walking around in that state?”

Understanding curled around her, and she felt her cheeksflush even as she straightened her posture further. “I was returning home.”

“You were limping to yourgrave.”

Her own anger prodded, Hinata turned towards him further andmatched his stare as best as she could. She ignored her heated cheeks, rapidlyspreading to the tips of her ears. The realization was sudden, then, that Sasukewas unquestionably beautiful, in a way that almost hurt to see—but Hinata wouldnot back down.

“I was okay,” she began, but before she could continueSasuke’s gaze sharpened, heavy with disapproval. After a moment of pause sheargued, “Maybe I was a little worse for wear, but I was up to the challenge.”

Sasuke shifted, and if Hinata had known him better shewould’ve said that there was a softened edge to that expression that was almostfond, but this was Uchiha Sasuke andthe only thing he’d ever been fond of was vengeance. And, if Sakura’s drunkengossip was true, maybe cats, too.

“Hinata,” he said, not unkindly, “You tripped over a treeroot, and it brought you to your knees.”

Hinata bristled with indignation and a little bit of shame,that he had seen that moment of hers. Simultaneously, in a darker and less familiarcorner of her, another kind of heat flared. He had remembered her name.

“Well!” She sniffed, turning away from him so he couldn’tread her like the open book she was. “Maybe I wasn’t doing so great after all.”

Sasuke allowed the silence between them to last, his handsmoving carefully, his wrists delicate but strong. Hinata glanced down from thecorner of her eyes and noticed scars, there.

“That being said,” he muttered at last, voice so low shefelt herself leaning slightly towards him to better hear it. “I still don’tunderstand what you were thinking traveling like that. If I had been Mist—”

“I know.” Hinata whispered, acknowledging the unspokenstatement. It unfurled within her, overcame her, the knowledge she’d beendenying herself since she’d left the cave. Had she been intercepted by anenemy, she would not have lived. She had been in too poor a state.

“Foolish,” Sasuke added, almost as an afterthought, andHinata wondered at the expression that grew across his face at thatword—something nostalgic.

“Yes,” she admitted almost silently, scuffing a sandalagainst the hardwood step below her. She glanced back to him as he continuedsharpening his blade, and really let herself look at him.

She had always been blinded by Naruto, the bright figureheadof her heart’s desire. Where the village had highlighted Sasuke’s prodigiousskills and handsome looks, Hinata had only had eyes for Naruto’s unshakingfaith, his square fists. She didn’t remember much of Sasuke, back then; onlyrumors, and gossip, and her friends’ daydreams.

She looked now and it was not difficult to see why hispresence alone had carved out a place in the village only the sun could rival.There was a chiseled kind of beauty to him, all angles and edges, the sharparrow of his nose. He seemed a statue come alive, so pale he early glowed underthe rays of heat. His dark hair looked soft, though Hinata would never dare toreach out and test the theory—for every angle of Sasuke that was beautiful,there was an added edge that was dangerous. There was no questioning his power,even now with his posture relaxed, shoulders hunched over his blade, and hiswrists unhurried with ease of movement. There was not a doubt in Hinata’s mindthat even though he moved languidly, slow and easy and drawing to the eye,there was a caged panther lurking beneath.

Hinata could understand the draw, there. She still hadchills over her skin just by sitting this close to him, and she had neverreally looked twice at Uchiha Sasuke. Now, she found it was difficult to lookaway. And the chills? They remained, though she reflected that could’ve beendue to the weird electric current to the air around them. She still hadn’tidentified that added energy.

The sounds of stone against steel disappeared, and Hinatablinked at the sudden change only to find Sasuke had stopped working and wasmeeting her stare with a muted expression. Embarrassed, she quickly jerked hergaze away and returned to assessing their surroundings. How long had she beenstaring, lost in her own thoughts? She didn’t care enough to consider that shehad fled from that little confrontation, however small it may have been.

A moment later, the slide ofstone and steel returned, just like that.

They sat together in relative quiet, allowing their bodiesto heal in a rare moment of relaxation. Hinata couldn’t help her mind fromcrawling back to the enigma at her side, who seemed all too suddenly confusingto her. Her friends had described him differently than this. Harder, moreguarded. Less abiding. Less conversational.

Hinata wondered again what he was doing on the border ofMist, and why he had intercepted her. How had he found her? How long had hebeen following her? Was his mission in conflict with hers? She wouldn’t give upinformation as critical as—her message!

She leapt to her feet immediately, and for the first timesince she’d woken, Sasuke’s posture became tense. He didn’t hesitate in hismovements, but his shoulders became defined, the muscles in his arms tense withforetold movement. The electricity in the air snapped, and Hinata’s chillsraced down her spine anew.

“My mission!” She exclaimed, her heart racing. She turnedbut didn’t look at Sasuke, didn’t see him. She strode back into the house andswiftly gathered her belongings, strapping them back on to her person andheading back for the door. She found Sasuke in the same spot she’d left him,still sharpening his katana, still stiff and ready to pounce.

“I have to go,” she explained, without really explaining. Therewas something to be said about the regret she felt, for having broken the calmatmosphere they’d shared. She ignored it, however, and hesitated in front ofhim, unsure of this strange thing between them that had allowed them to sharepeace and quiet with each other despite the chaos of their careers, theirlives. The moments felt strange, somehow, already so far in her past butuntouchable. Pure, in a way.

“Thank you for—everything.” She said, beginning to walkbackwards and away from him. His movements stopped and he watched her silentlyuntil she turned and he was removed from her sight once more. She started at ajog, and when she realized she already felt stronger, she began to run.

Had Sasuke given her an antidote? Had he known the poison?She felt healthier, stronger. He must have done something, and that, she realized, didn’t sit right with her if shewas just going to leave. She stopped at the edge of the trees, hesitating foronly a moment, before she turned back to him. He was still watching her, thatstrange prowling stillness strung tight like a bow in every line of his frame.She waved a hand and called, “I owe you one, Uchiha-san!”

And then she turned, and ran forhome.

✧

Hinata had run the entire way back to Konoha and felt adifferent kind of exhaustion as she finished her debriefing in the Hokage’soffice. Naruto looked on at her with clear concern, an open book as he alwayswas. Hinata stood straight and tall and her voice was steady as she spoke.Hinata had long since lost the feeling of awkwardness standing in front ofNaruto, the man she had once confessed to. All that was left for her now washer duty to her Hokage, and her admiration and love for her friend.

Naruto concluded their briefing with a long, drawn-out sigh,running his hands through his hair. He looked handsome, but so tired. Hinataworried for him silently, hoping that he was getting enough sleep. She must’veprojected that worry onto him, because in the next moment he asked, “Are yousure you’re okay, Hinata?”

Hinata tried to stand straighter, to dispel any signs of herweakness. She was a Jounin of Konoha, she had done her mission, and she wasready for the next. Hopefully she could have a few days in-between and get somesleep and tend to her garden and go play with Mirai—but her duty to her villagealways came first.

“I’m fine, Hokage-sama.” Shehesitated, wondering if it was okay to share such a thing with her Hokage, whojust so happened to also be her friend. In the end, she decided to go with it. Sheadmitted, “It was a long mission.”

Naruto’s worry didn’t wane in the slightest. “That’s true,”he agreed, starting to stand from his chair. Hinata blinked, wondering if hewas going to come around the desk to comfort her. She had to shake the mentalimage off, surprised at it. She had not thought of Naruto romantically foryears, and yet ever since she ran into Sasuke, Naruto had re-surfaced in herthoughts. Ino would probably say it was some sort of revival in her romanticside, or something, Hinata thought wryly. Sakura would probably say that Hinatawas simply thirsty.

She wasn’t sure she wanted either of those things to betrue. She was doing just fine on her own.

“Hey,” Naruto said, and her intuition had been right. Hecame around the front of his desk and moved as if to cup a hand on hershoulder, but his eyes leapt from hers to somewhere over her shoulder and hefaltered. Blinking and curious, Hinata turned and jolted when she saw Sasukestanding there, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest.His eyes were heavily lidded, watchful, and Hinata wondered how long he’d beenthere, and how soon after she’d left had he followed.

“Bastard,” Naruto greeted him suspiciously, but with a smallquirk to his lips. “You’re back early. Like reallyearly.”

Hinata turned back to Naruto, unsure of where she shouldlook. In fact, she realized, she’d probably been silently dismissed. Moving onthat estimation, she bowed slightly in Naruto’s direction and turned, droppingher chin slightly to acknowledge Sasuke before moving for the door. Before shecould even make it, Naruto called, “You sure you’re okay, Hinata? I could makea clone to walk you home?”

Hinata frowned, turning over her shoulder with a look ofdisapproval. Naruto rubbed at his nape and laughed self-deprecatingly.

“Okay, okay, bad idea,” headmitted, and Hinata felt herself smile.

“I’m perfectly fine,” she said, and then bowed once more,dismissing herself. “If that’s all, Hokage-sama?”

“Ah, Hinata, I told you not tocall me that!”

“Dumbass,” Sasuke interrupted,unfurling from the wall. “Let her go home.”

“Don’t call me dumbass,dumbass!”

And with that, Hinata, smiling, moved out of the Hokage’soffice. She headed down the hallway and nodded to fellow Jounin, and those whorecognized her as the Hyuuga Clan Head’s Advisor. Hanabi would probably be in ameeting when Hinata returned home for herdebriefing on their clan happenings. She winded down the twisted staircaseand took a deep breath of fresh air at her first step outside the building. Shewas looking forward to her bed, and the probability that Neji would make her ameal, despite her telling him he didn’t need to. If he was not on mission, ofcourse.

The sun was just barely starting to set as she made her waythrough the village, winding in and out of the foot traffic. She allowed hermind to trail in the clouds for only a moment before her thoughts returned toher stolen intelligence.

The likelihood of a traitor inNaruto’s midst, feeding Mist Intel.

She was only a few blocks away from the Hyuuga manor whenshe felt a presence at her side, almost deliberately so, and turned to seeSasuke slouching beside her, perfectly in tune with her steps. She startled toa stop, so surprised at him being there, and just blinked up at him. He met hergaze and she could read nothing of his expression, just that he was there, forreasons unknown, and he wasn’t about to explain it, either.

“Uchiha-san,” she greetedcautiously, nodding her head. “Did you need something?”

“No.”

“No?” Hinata reiterated, and got nothing in return. Shepursed her lips, nodding slowly. Then, she simply started walking again. Amoment later, she felt him at her elbow, not close enough to touch, but almost.His hands were tucked in his pockets and his footsteps were as silent as thegrave, but he was letting her know he was there even though she could see himout of the corner of her eye.

“You know, Uchiha-san,” she said conversationally, after itbecame clear that he was not going to separate from her. “With all due respect,I distinctly remember telling Naruto-kun that I don’t need an escort home.”

“That’s true,” he agreed easily.Hinata waited a moment.

“Must I repeat the samesentiment, even though you were in the room for the first?”

Sasuke didn’t falter. “What ifthere are tree roots in your path?”

Hinata’s cheeks flared, her lips parting around an almost-silentgasp. Was he—being playful? She turned to gauge his expression and foundnothing noticeable but for a swift gleam in his eyes as he glanced down at her.It appeared he was laughing at her.

Hinata turned back ahead and was left speechless with therealization that Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura’s teammate, known for being ice coldand as emotionally expressive as a moldy stone, was playing with her. And what’smore, he had saved her life, brought her to a safehouse, had let her see a sideto him that she was uncertain the world knew about.

She was, at the very least, confused.

And, though it was strangerstill to admit it: she was intrigued.

They turned a corner and she was home, the skyscraping wallsof her compound rising before them. She turned to Sasuke and didn’t know whatto say, how to remark on his behaviors and how curious they made her. Instead,she offered him a shy, questioning smile that he did not reflect. He simplywatched her, head tilted slightly, as she said, “Have a nice night, Uchiha-san.”

And Sasuke, the beautiful, but emotionally stunted stone she’dgrown up hearing about, reached out to tuck some of her hair behind her ear asif it was the most normal gesture in the world. His expression didn’t change, boredand indifferent even as she froze in place, every curve of her tense. His eyesflickered between her own, and his voice was heartbreakingly small when at lasthe responded.

He said, “Goodnight, Hinata.”

And then he was gone.