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When Hinata was little, she used to play with her little sister. She was a toddler at the time, couldn’t be older than two, and they had lots of fun together, chasing each other around in the gardens. Sometimes, their cousin, Neji, would come to play with them, but most of the time he would just sit down and supervise them.
Hinata was a happy girl.
Then, one afternoon, she arrived from school and found all her family in the living room. That wasn’t all that uncommon, but most of the time these meetings happened over dinner. Her mother grabbed her arm, and she realized that they were not alone. In front of them there were ten men – she counted them –, dressed all impeccably, but had guns on their hands. A minute later, they were firing.
*
She woke up in a deafening silence. Something – someone – was on top of her, and the house was almost dark. She pushed the body off of her and stood up. It wasn’t dark enough for her to tell that there were a lot of people on the floor and she started crying. Blindly, she looked for the light switch, and when the house became alive again, she realized that her whole family had been killed.
The pool of red, red blood reaching the piano a few meters away.
Hinata went body after body, trying to wake them up just like she did, but none of them responded. Her cousin’s back turned and full of holes as he tried, in vain, to protect her little sister. Numbly, she grabbed the phone and called 110. She laid on the floor, in a fetal position, trembling and crying. When the police officers arrived, they started recognizing the scene and one of them came to her, sat down and stayed there until she recovered enough to sit down herself. She looked up at the man, he was kind-looking, had long hair and eyes as dark as the night outside.
“Hey, my name is Itachi,” he said with a gentle, soft voice. “What’s your name?”
Hinata took a second to register the words and looked down again. “Hi-Hinata…”
“Alright, Hinata, were you the one who called to the station?”
“Y-yes.”
“Okay, how about we wrap you in a blanket and we head back to the station, then?”
“No!” Hinata yelled, eyes panicked. “My s-sister, I-I can’t leave her.”
“Hinata,” Itachi started, “you are a very brave girl, but I need you to be brave for her too, okay?”
Hinata looked directly into his eyes, open and understanding, and she turned to look at the other policemen that were marking everything on the floor.
“S-she…” she looks at Itachi again. “S-she wasn’t breathing.” Hinata felt a tremor go down her spine, and she started crying again.
“Shhh,” Itachi shushed her, ruffling her hair. “Let’s go outside, okay?” he stood up, offered his hand and Hinata took it as she sobbed.
*
As she grew up, Hinata became distant of every single person she met before the murder of her family. The only people she kept constantly in touch with was Itachi, and his little brother Sasuke. Although there were times where she didn’t say a word to either of them for months.
Hinata finds Sasuke again in a coffee shop, almost six months after she communicated last. Her hair is short, her lips are blood red, and she looks slightly out of place. Sasuke’s sitting with two other people, a blond man and a pink-haired woman. It takes him a moment to recognize her, but immediately after he does, he stands up as fast as lightning, previous conversation forgotten.
“Hinata!” he says, and she turns around slowly. Her coldness becomes surprise, and her surprise becomes warmth.
“Sasuke!” She leaves the coffee line taking a step to the side and collapses against his arms.
“It’s been years since the last time I saw you. Almost didn’t recognize you. You have contacts on.”
“Yeah, well, I can say the same! Look at you, you’re all big now!”
“Shut up.” Sasuke says smirking at her. A moment later, Hinata becomes collected again, her features turning solemn.
“Follow my lead.” She whispers, and then an old man enters the coffee shop. “Honey!” she says, and she flies herself to the man’s side. Sasuke can see the minute way her body tenses as he kisses her on the mouth. He frowns. “Sweetie, this is Daisuke. He’s one of my childhood friends!”
Her voice sounds fake, her posture is too rigid, and her green eyes are hard. Not for nothing, Sasuke is the brother of a cop.
“Hello,” he introduces himself.
“Oh, it’s so nice to meet a friend of my Hikari,” Sasuke refrains himself from raising his eyebrows as he very pointedly keeps his eyes on the man. “She always talks so little about her past.”
“Oh, sweetie, you know it’s because nothing else matters before I met you.”
Yeah, that gives him a heads up that he should stay quiet and analyze what’s happening here. Hinata would never ever talk about her family like that, change her or his name and also the color of her eyes. There is something going on here and Sasuke will find a way to find out.
“Dai, let us buy you a coffee, it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other!” Hinata says, enthusiastically, “Can we, love? Can we?”
“Of course, how could I say no to my little light.” He pecks her in the lips, her red lipstick already smothered, and Sasuke feels his stomach churn.
Gross. What the hell is going on here?
Hinata disentangles herself from the man, and they both wait until she comes back from the coffee line in silence. Sasuke adventures himself and catches a look from Naruto and Sakura, and he shrugs minutely, like he’s just as lost as they are. Hinata comes back a few minutes later with three cups. He handles him his and then gives another one to the man.
“Ah, wait!” she says, before he starts drinking. “We’re forgetting your medicine.” And then she checks out her purse, takes a bottle of pills, opens it, and gives the man a blue and red pill. “Here you go, sweetheart.”
“What would I do without you,” he says, as he takes the pill and downs his coffee.
Hinata eyes him for a second and signals him with her eyes that he should take a look at his cup. Sasuke lowers his eyes and catches black ink popping from below his hand and turns the cup a little bit so the man doesn’t see it. She sighs relieved.
“Well, we should get going,” Hinata says, putting the pill bottle inside the bag and grabbing the man’s arm. “Dai, it was so good seeing you again.”
“You too,” Sasuke answers, unable to call her by any name.
As they get out, Hinata turns slightly and mouths Thank you at him. Sasuke nods and goes back to his seat.
“Who was that?” Sakura asks, interest in her tone.
“Just an old friend.”
“You have friends other than us?” Naruto asks mockingly and Sasuke rolls his eyes.
“Well, she left you a really big note.” Sakura points to the cup with her index finger and Sasuke lowers his gaze. There is, indeed, a note written in black sharpie.
Sasuke.
I know this is weird, I can’t really explain anything right now, but believe me when I tell you this:
I’m safe. I’m okay. Everything that’s happening is because I want it happening.
I cannot tell you anything else, and probably won’t tell you ever.
Trust me, please.
Text me.
xxx-xxx-xxxx
Sasuke can’t really believe that Hinata wants a man that probably triples her age kissing her, touching her, or even calling her love, not after seeing her tense up every time he did so.
He’s going to find out what’s going on, and he will not rest until he does.