Hinata was not looking forward to today.
Two days had passed since her visit to the Hokage's home, and, later, to the Hokage's favorite ramen restaurant. That meant the start of the ridiculous deal she'd gone and agreed into. An hour and a half of her life to be spent with Naruto Namikaze, 'Seeing how he lived.'
She knew how he lived. It was half the reason she hated him. But she'd given her word, and she wasn't so low as to duck out of a promise.
She hadn't forgotten Fox's advice, either. Talk to him, get to know him better, and things might just work themselves out. But Hinata felt like being childish, just for a bit, so she'd spent the morning hiding out in her room mentally preparing for the afternoon to come.
That's where she was, reading on her bed, when a single finger tapped her door.
The noise was quiet, almost silent, but Hinata immediately shut her book and rose, straightening her clothes as she hurried to the door. When she opened it, a stern and slightly-wrinkled face greeted her.
"Father," she said, bowing her head.
She'd known it was someone from the clan. No one else knocked that way. The light taps were impossible to notice if you weren't extremely aware of your surroundings… Which was the point. A Hyuuga must not be inattentive. A Hyuuga must never be so garish as to clench their hand into a fist.
"Daughter," Hiashi greeted her. Not her name, just her relation to him. "Are you doing well?"
There were two questions wrapped up in that. The first one was polite, just good etiquette, and something the clan leader couldn't care less about the answer to. So Hinata didn't waste time and answered the second one.
"I met Naruto Namikaze at the dinner you arranged. This afternoon, I will be meeting him again to deepen our relationship, part of a recurring agreement."
Hiashi actually smiled. It wasn't a very big one, and it didn't look natural, but his lips definitely curved up.
"You have done good work," he said.
Hinata decided it was for the best that she left out the origins of their agreement, and the way it came out of her snapping at her husband-to-be. She also left out the other irregularities that plagued the evening. Her task was still on track. That was what mattered.
And it didn't hurt to see her father smiling for a few seconds longer.
Hiashi cleared his throat. "Are there additional resources you require?"
"No, father." Hinata turned her eyes toward the floor. "I can handle this."
"Hinata."
Her name sounded awkward in his mouth, but the effects were immediate. She jerked in place, lavender eyes widening.
"Do not take chances," Hiashi said. "You act for all the Hyuuga in this. Our hopes rest on your shoulders. No matter what, you must not fail."
Hinata stood frozen. Saying it like that just wasn't fair. Hiashi turned, gliding away down the corridor.
"I will succeed!" Hinata called after him.
He silently raised one hand above his shoulder, offering his acknowledgement.
Hinata was left alone again, wondering why even now she couldn't help but call out to him, always from far behind.
O-o-O
Hinata should've been surprised, really, when the slip of paper fell from the sky directly onto her head, but unfortunately that just seemed ordinary after the few days she'd had.
She was dressed casually, but with an eye for style— nice black pants, a light-purple shirt, and like always, her headband centered on her forehead.
She had arrived like that at the park Naruto set as their meeting point. It wasn't a part of town she came to often, deep within the Civilian Sector. A nearby playground was crowded, and Hinata had been amusing herself watching the parents walk after their kids, studying how differently non-shinobi moved. The entire park was in the shadow of the Hokage Monument, sculpted cliffs towering high above them.
Hinata's fingers had snagged the falling paper reflexively, catching it like a kunai. As her brain caught up with her body, she stared at what was in her hands.
The paper had a very simple message.
Look Up.
As if that was too complicated, an arrow had been drawn on for extra help. Hinata tilted her head back, craning her neck to stare toward where the paper came from. Her eyes traced along the Hokage monument, traveling up and up.
All the way at the top she spotted a dark dot. Her Byakugan flared to life, extending her range of vision dozens of times over. Naruto Namikaze came into focus, waving at her while perched all the way at the top of the cliff. He was telling her to join him.
Slowly, Hinata lowered her head. She resisted the urge to rub her face in exhaustion. Then she set off, looking for the best route to complete a climb like this one.
It was the better part of an hour before she finally stepped onto the top of the cliffs. Despite all her speed and the ability to literally walk up any vertical surface, climbing the Hokage monument was no easy task. Konoha was sensitive about its greatest geographic landmark. At any time the sculptures were tightly guarded by some of the village's best.
"Took you long enough!" Naruto called out.
Hinata walked over to him without an expression. She came here expecting to be annoyed. It would take more than that to break her composure.
As she approached, it quickly became clear that Naruto had not been up here doing nothing. He had a brush in one hand and a container of instant ramen in the other. At least fifteen more empty containers were strewn around him. Using the brush he painted complex patterns onto a roll of parchment, at the same time chugging ramen broth like a tall glass of beer.
"How did you even heat those up?" Hinata had to ask.
"Theals," Naruto said, slurring the word with the copious amount of noodles clogging his mouth. Hinata saw his throat bulge as he gulped. "That's pretty much how I do everything I want to."
From anyone else she wouldn't have believed it. But this was the boy who created a work of art like the book she 'borrowed' from him, and it had already been made clear that he had no issue using those skills on insignificant chores. Even his wallet had storage seals incorporated into its lining. She spotted them when she fetched it.
Hinata knelt close-ish to the blond, sitting on her knees and pooling her hands in her lap. Naruto glanced at the empty ramen cup in his hand.
"I meant some of these to be for you," he said, "but I'm pretty sure that was the last one. I didn't expect you to be so slow getting up here."
"There are ANBU patrolling the monument face," Hinata said. "You do know that, don't you?"
She'd only seen them with her Byakugan. A lesser ninja wouldn't have been so lucky, and the village's elite weren't known for their leniency when it came to restricted areas. Even with her eyes, avoiding them had been a tricky task.
"That might be my fault," Naruto admitted.
"That should surprise me more than it does."
Naruto grinned, reminiscing on something in the distant past. He tossed away the empty ramen container to join its brothers.
"The day I graduated from the academy, I wanted to celebrate, see. I wanted everyone to remember the day the same way that I would. So I did something I was sure they wouldn't forget."
Hinata cast her mind back all the way to the day their class graduated from the academy. Things had been so different back then. She'd only recently lost her position in the clan, her forehead had been clear and unblemished, and she could hardly speak a sentence without stuttering.
At least she'd grown out of the stutter.
There was only one thing she remembered about that day other than her graduation. Her eyes widened.
"That was you!" she said.
Naruto began to laugh.
"You've got to admit, it looked better that way," he said.
The image was still fresh in her mind— standing in the academy courtyard, gaping with the rest of her classmates and teachers toward Konoha's most famous landmark… which had turned a startling shade of pink.
"I was going to do orange at first," Naruto admitted. "But then I told the idea to Sakura, and she called it a stupid joke. So I made it pink in her honor."
"You painted the entire Hokage monument?" Hinata asked, appalled.
"Not by hand," he said. "That would've taken forever! I was already learning some seals back then. So I mixed one for creating ink with some elements from an exploding tag, stabilized it with a few kanji out of a stasis array, and poof! Pink Hokage's. All basic stuff."
"How could you do something like that to your own father?"
Naruto looked befuddled. He slapped the rock next to him.
"I did it to this mountain, not him," he said. "He's a person that walks around. This is a big carved rock that looks like him. They're different, ya' know?"
"But… why?"
Naruto actually blushed. "It's a little embarrassing. Honestly, I was being a brat."
He laughed awkwardly as he finished another seal array with a flick of his brush. "Dad wasn't home a lot back then. There were weeks I barely saw him once. I just wanted to make sure I saw him on that day, even if it took getting dragged into his office by a bunch of angry shinobi. Of course, that plan backfired pretty spectacularly when he showed up to my ceremony on his own right as the seals went off. When he found out I did it, he blushed so hard that the real one was even pinker than the monument."
A pang shot through Hinata's heart. It wasn't to do with Minato's plight, although she did pity him for having to handle his son. Instead, it was just an insignificant detail that stuck out to her, pulling at old wounds she thought were long-shut.
Even the Hokage found a way to make time for his child's special moment. And yet…
"Do you regret it?" Hinata asked.
"The prank. Yeah, I do," Naruto said. "Not because it wasn't funny. It was hilarious. I think Tobirama really pulled off the new look, even better than the others. But I regret making my dad's life harder. Y'know, looking back now, I can see he was doing everything he could for us. He didn't need any other distractions, even one as insanely funny as that."
"I see," Hinata said.
They sat in silence. She thought he might have forgotten she was there entirely, staring at the view and sinking into memories. Even the hand working on seals had gone still. With nothing better to do, Hinata looked out the same way.
At first she only saw the sun. It was getting low to the horizon, shining bright behind the low mountains on the far side of Konoha. The longer she looked, though, the more details began jumping out at her. She saw the way the reddish buildings blended together. She saw the roads that ran between them, lined with the colored canopies of carts and stalls. And on the roads, nothing but tiny black dots from where they sat, people moved and talked and lived.
"It's a lot isn't it?"
She looked at Naruto.
He nodded toward the view, smiling. "There's so many people and so much happening. And all of it, one way or another, comes back to my dad. Like I said, he's busy. By the time I realized that… Well, I haven't gone painting any monuments since."
Hinata kept her mouth shut. As much as she couldn't believe she was thinking it, that was something admirable coming out of the blond's mouth, a rare moment where he seemed truly grown up instead of a child in a mature body. She was worried that if she spoke, he'd go and ruin it with a quip.
"So how is it?"
Even without her help, Naruto's pensive smile rapidly turned teasing.
"Pardon?" Hinata said.
"How is it so far? The way I live?"
For a moment, Hinata had forgotten what this deal was supposed to be about in the first place.
"It's more plain than I expected."
"It's only the first day!" Naruto yelled, waggling his eyebrows. "I didn't want to blow your socks off too fast!"
Hinata sighed as he returned to his usual volume. She'd been enjoying the brief reprieve of a serious conversation.
"Want to see what I've been working on?" Naruto asked excitedly.
When she nodded — because the deal had been for her to follow his lead — he hefted the papers he'd been scribbling on since she arrived. One by one he began explaining not just what the purpose of the seals were, but the meaning of each miniscule kanji, as well as the way they all interacted with each other.
Hinata nodded so often that she felt her neck growing stiff. Luckily, she had lots of practice listening demurely while others talked.
"I feel like you're bored," Naruto said suddenly, having finished expounding on the way this storage seal was different because it could keep liquids cool, and the distinct applications that offered.
"You can keep going, if you'd like," Hinata said.
If this was how their deal went, then so be it. She'd imagined worse when worrying beforehand.
Naruto pouted.
Yes, the grown, twenty-four year old man puffed out his whiskered cheeks and looked down, pouting.
"I really thought you liked this stuff though!" he said.
Hinata stared at him, her cool expression twisting with confusion. "Why would you think that?"
"Well, y'know, cause of this," Naruto said.
Hinata might have been a terrible Hyuuga. She certainly heard it enough times throughout her life to know it: the failed heiress. Her skills were average by branch family standards, and terrible compared to the lofty demands of the main house. She was promoted to Chūnin with the assumption she'd never make it further. But despite all her shortcomings, the one thing she was confident in were her eyes.
They were the only part of her family's legacy that she truly inherited. Even when her Byakugan wasn't active, they were far sharper than even some Jōnin's. They hardly let her down across her entire life.
Those same cherished eyes failed to see Naruto move.
He was sitting there in front of her, and a moment later he was still sitting in front of her, now with a Konoha headband resting in his palm. Hinata sat completely still, feeling strands of blue hair fall across her forehead. Cool air touched her above the eyes. Slowly, she brought a hand up, feeling her forehead…
And the eight-lined seal now on full display.
"I knew I smelled old ink!" Naruto said.
"Give it back!" Hinata wailed.
She lunged, swiping for her headband in his hands, but the blond pulled it away too quickly.
"Why?" he asked, sounding genuinely confused. "Do you not like that seal for some reason?"
"I need it back!" Hinata shouted, bordering on hysterics.
"You really hate the seal this much?"
"Give it!"
Hinata forgot all about her dignity. That shattered the moment she lost her headband. She crawled forward, Byakugan activating as she tried to claw the stolen cloth back. Tears were forming in her eyes. Her movements were clumsy and desperate.
"Here."
Suddenly Naruto was directly in front of her. Their faces were inches apart. The tears must have been blurring her vision, because Hinata could have sworn his pupils were red. Two of Naruto's fingers were pressing against the seal on her forehead, glowing to her Byakugan's sight with an unimaginable amount of chakra.
Hinata's world erupted.
Something unbelievably hot felt as if it were puncturing her head. It roiled against her, violent and corrosive. Chakra gnawed at her like a wild animal. She might have screamed.
The last thing she felt before passing out flat on her face was a sense of absence, as if a part of her being had been cauterized away. And yet somehow, the sleep she fell into then was the most peaceful she'd had in years.
-
Hinata awoke alone in the same place that she passed out. A camping bedroll had been nudged underneath her, and a blanket had been laid over her back. She shoved herself up as she came to her senses, casting her eyes around, but Naruto was nowhere to be seen. Even his ramen containers and piled seals had disappeared.
From the height of the sun, not much time had passed. Perhaps half an hour. Even though Naruto was gone, she did spot a new piece of paper where his seals had been.
Picking it up, Hinata read what was clearly a note left for her.
Sorry, something came up, it read, followed by another, more hastily scrawled message:
You're welcome!
Her forehead protector had been attached neatly below.
As she picked it up, Hinata caught sight of her reflection in the headband's polished metal.
Her purple eyes were still red from her earlier outburst. The cheek she'd been lying against was a dull pink. Her blue bangs hung down in a way they didn't usually, partially covering her forehead.
A blank, unmarred forehead. No matter how much she turned the forehead protector side to side with increasingly-desperate movements, digging away her hair with her fingers, what she saw never changed. For the first time in years, she had no curse mark.
Hinata's forehead protector slipped from loose fingers as emotions overwhelmed her.
"Oh," she said quietly. "I'm fucked."