Work Text:
I
Hinata has always been a I-prefer-staying-at-home person. It’s not that she doesn’t enjoy going out, she does! But you will never see her organizing any outside outing. Leave that to Ino and Sakura, she likes inviting her friends to eat lunch at her place better. However, it’s not like she’s going to say no to her friends when they invite her to go shopping or going out to a bar.
This time, though, they’re out at a mall, at the cinema, and she’s already sat with most of their friends, but they’re waiting for Naruto and Sasuke to arrive, Sakura waiting for them outside with their tickets. When they arrive, Naruto has one of the biggest popcorn buckets they sell, and Sasuke is coming empty handed.
“Where’s your popcorn, Sasuke?” Ino asks.
“Sasuke says that he doesn’t like popcorn, but he always steals from the person sitting next to him.”
“That’s not true.”
“Uh huh.”
There are only three chairs available, and Hinata will not stand up to accommodate either of them.
“You should have arrived earlier,” Neji tells them from behind her. “She won’t stand up until the movie ends, not even if she needs to go to the bathroom.”
Sakura gives her a strange look, kind of like a glare, but not quite. Hinata shrugs and continues eating her popcorn. Naruto sits to her right, and to his right sits Sakura. Sasuke sits to Hinata’s left, and she tries to concentrate on her own popcorn.
She loses herself in the movie, eating her popcorn and drinking her coke. She comes to a halt when she realizes that her paper cup has disappeared. Hinata frowns at the empty space and turns to look at Naruto. He’s chatting with Sakura, making her giggle, then she turns to look at Sasuke. And she sees her paper cup. Sasuke is drinking from the straw in her paper cup.
“Sasuke…” she mumbles, and he turns to look at her, mouth still on the straw. “That’s my coke.”
“Oh…” he gives it back to her and she narrows her eyes at him.
Hinata wonders as she sips just how many times Sasuke drank from her cup without her realizing it.
II
The last time Hinata let someone borrow one of her pens, the person never returned it. Of course, that was to be expected, wasn’t it? Nobody actually asks for their pen to be returned. Right? Hinata misses the time when her father would buy school supplies for her. Admittedly it was a long time ago, but really, going out of her way to buy school supplies was never the highlight of her day.
“Can I borrow your pen for a moment?” Sasuke asks her. She turns around to see if he’s actually talking to her and realizes that yeah, Sasuke, who ignored her completely when she arrived at the library, is talking to her. “I really need to write this down and mine ran out of ink.”
“Uh…” The pen falls out of Hinata’s mouth. She knows that if she does lend it to him, the pen will probably not come back. On the other hand, she has three other pens in her bag, she could easily replace it. “Sure.”
She hands him the pen, and then turns around to take another one from her bag. She focuses on her task at hand: finishing her Japanese Literature III homework before going to class. At 3:30 p.m. her phone vibrates, and she startles. She throws everything on her bag again and stands up, turning around to move the chair when she catches Sasuke’s hair and remembers that he still has her pen.
“Sasuke,” she starts. “Can I, um… can I have my pen back?” she says as she walks up to his table. She raises her eyebrows at the sight of him.
Sasuke’s hand is on his hair, he looks promptly stressed out and there are a lot of crossed out things on his notebook. Oh, and Hinata’s pen? Yeah, that’s on Sasuke’s mouth at the moment.
“You know what?” Hinata tells him before he can say anything. “You look like you need it more than me.”
“Thanks,” he murmurs, and he sounds sincere about it. Hinata smiles and turns around.
She has classes at the other side of the campus.
III
After moving in with Sasuke, Hinata discovered that the man wasn’t really a morning person. Sasuke woke up just after his fifth alarm rang, and he went straight into the kitchen, without brushing his teeth or anything, to drink coffee. Hinata figured it out quite quickly, thankfully, and by the fourth day she knows that Sasuke won’t really answer until he has at least two thirds of his second coffee down.
He’s mostly clean. Mostly. He washes the dishes when she cooks, and constantly tells her that living with Naruto was a nightmare (his stories go from underwear on the sofa to three days of unwashed dishes). Sasuke never outrightly tells her that she’s the best roommate ever, but she’s learned how to read in between the lines.
As she cooks lunch, Sasuke leans on the kitchen counter, watching her stir a pepper sauce he’s going to love – her words, not his –. Hinata turns the flame to the lowest and grabs a little spoon, dipping it on the sauce and trying it. She makes a humming noise and dips it again, turning around to face Sasuke.
“Can you try it?” she asks him, offering the spoon. Sasuke stares at her. “I don’t know if I should add more Brandy or not.”
Sasuke raises his eyebrows and tries the sauce, feeling the salty as well as the pepper-y taste. He frowns at her and clicks his tongue a few times as he considers.
“Yeah, more Brandy. And maybe something to ease down the salt?”
“Too salty?”
“Yup.”
“Okay,” she turns around to grab more heavy cream and he leaves the kitchen.
IV
Sasuke is aware that a drunk Hinata means that she’s going to get stutter-y and too affectionate. As they enter the apartment together, Hinata has already expressed that he’s the best person ever and that she’d really like to get coffee with him somewhere. Sasuke understands that as going out and drinking the coffee somewhere different than their apartment.
He leaves her sitting on the couch as he retrieves a glass of water from the kitchen. When he comes back, though, she’s fully laying down her body on the couch and she’s almost asleep. Sighing, Sasuke sits Hinata down again, helps her drink her water and then tries to make her stand up. She straight up refuses.
“No!”
“Hinata, we’ll just go to your room, you’ll sleep better on your own bed.”
“No! I’ll stay here.”
“You’ll wake up with a creek.”
“I d-don’t care.”
Sasuke sighs again. Looks up the ceiling and asks himself which decisions in his life brought him here. Hinata is trying to lay down again and Sasuke helps her lift her legs. He goes to her room and brings her a pillow and her comforter, he nods when she thanks him. Sasuke goes back to the kitchen and wonders where his glass is.
“Ugh, I probably left it in my room,” he mumbles to himself, and turns to grab Hinata’s glass.
He fills it up with water again and drinks it without thinking too much about it. He rinses the glass and leaves it on the cupboard, turning off the kitchen light as he gets out. When he checks on Hinata again, she has her eyes opened and she’s staring at him. Sasuke lowers himself down and brushes off some of her hair, Hinata closes her eyes and nuzzles into his palm.
“I like you a lot, Sasuke Uchiha.”
+ I
When Hinata wakes up, she has the worst headache she’s ever felt in her entire life, there’s just too much light and too much noise.
“Ugh, what is that?” she asks out loud, and thanks all the gods that her voice is so soft. She’s never been thankful of that before, might as well start now.
“That’s the washing machine,” Sasuke answers from the kitchen counter. She narrows her eyes at him and throws herself down on the couch again.
She stays under the covers for a minute or two, then promptly stands up when her bladder tells her that she needs to go to the bathroom now. She ignores the look Sasuke is giving her and escapes to the bathroom with awaited relief. After peeing, Hinata washes her face and brushes her teeth, moving back to the living room.
“Here,” Sasuke says, and he handles her two pills and a glass of water. “It’ll make you feel better.”
Hinata thanks him and swallows it all. Walking to the kitchen and opening the fridge, she mentally takes note of what they’re lacking of and decides to go grocery shopping after breakfast. When she takes out the last five eggs, Sasuke says:
“So, do you still want to go to get that coffee?”
Hinata frowns. What is he talking about? Is he talking to her or is he talking over the phone and she didn’t realize? She turns to look at him and narrows her eyes at the expecting look on his face. She searches on his features something that tells her what he means when it suddenly hits her.
“We s-should go out, uh, for coffee sometime.” And “I like you a lot, Sasuke Uchiha.”
Hinata goes pale. Then her face goes through various shades of red until it settles on something bright that makes her pale eyes pop up.
“So?” Sasuke asks, still waiting for an answer and do you know what Hinata should do? Escape.
She leaves the eggs on the counter, breakfast forgotten and how is he so talkative this morning? How much coffee has he had before she woke up? Jesus, she needs to go.
“Oh, no, you’re not going anywhere.” Sasuke says, grabbing her arm and stopping her from hiding in her bedroom. In retrospective, Hinata should have known that that could happen. He was in her way after all. “You just need to tell me if you want to do that or not.”
“If you still want that tomorrow, when you’re sober, sure.”
His words echo in her head and she wonders if he meant it.
“Did you mean it?”
“What.”
“That if I, uh, said yes, we’d, we’d go?”
Sasuke doesn’t answer her at first, lets her arm go and stares at her for a moment. Hinata feels her cheeks go hot, and she looks down. Sasuke tilts her head up, making her look at his eyes and she gulps before she hears his answer.
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
Hinata’s eyes grow big, and there’s a smile on her face and she looks positively happy.
“Then, yeah. Let’s go out for a coffee.”
Sasuke smiles at her and cups her face on his hands. She looks so beautiful and she’s looking at him, he never really though that would happen. He leans a little bit and Hinata meets him in the middle, eyes halfway closed. The kiss is soft, short and sweet. It’s innocent and it’s the promise of more kisses to come. He leans up a little bit and kisses her forehead, touching it then with his own.
Then, someone clears their throat and they both look to the side, startled. There, in the living room entryway is Naruto holding greasy paper bags and smiling at them. Sasuke wants to murder him.
“Who’s ready for some hangover-cure burgers?”