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She couldn't believe this. How could her father say that? That was completely uncalled for! It makes no sense! Since when did he know what was best for her and her body!? It wasn't even his!
An angry huff escaped her lips as she stomped down the bustling street.
It was dark, the full moon was relatively high in the sky at this point and the stars twinkled behind it. It was an overall peaceful night for anyone that wasn't Hinata Hyuga, for said woman was, to put it lightly, seething. Even the by-passers across the street could feel the furious aura practically leaking from her form.
Now, she isn't really known to have a temper, nor did people really associate her with anger. The main reason for this is because Hinata usually is an extremely patient and quiet girl. Never quick to anger and always doing her best to calm down those who are. That was just who she was, she was calm and a soothing presence to be around. However, now, that simply wasn't the case.
Why?
Her father, that's what.
Hiashi Hyuga had always been a strict father, even more so when her mother, Hitomi, died from breast cancer, leaving behind her 3 year old little sister, Hanabi, and Hinata's own 7 year old self with their grieving father.
After that, all Hiashi thought about was what was best for their world renowned dance studio.
The Hyuga Studio 64 was known by many as the ballet studio that produced the most elegant, talented and beautiful dancers. Thousands aspired to attend there in hopes of furthering their careers as ballerinas, and it was basically any normal dancer's dream to be taught there. But for Hinata, it did nothing but grate on her nerves.
You had to be told what to eat and how much, how long and how often you should work out or practice and everyone had extremely high expectations for you, and if you failed to live up to them.... you're done for.
Of course, it wasn't that Hinata didn't like dancing. She loved it, in fact. It was her passion. She felt that it gave her a purpose. It soothed her and was familiar. And the thought of putting your feelings into actual movements was incredible to her.
No, it wasn't the sport that bothered her, it was the expectations of being the best just because of who her father was.
Hinata didn't want to be the best, but everyone else wanted her to be, so she did it for them. But tonight, Hiashi had taken it a bit too far.
It was rude what he said, extremely so. She knew that she had been slacking off a bit with her lessons because of her finals for her first year on online college coming up and fast, but that was no reason to say what he said to her.
Just thinking about it made the bluenette's blood boil. Fists clenching as she continued down the street, she let her feet take her to wherever. She wanted nothing more than to get away from the fight her and her only parent had.
And that's how she found herself at the beach.
An exhausted groan interrupted the somewhat comfortable silence that once existed in the small, stuffy bedroom.
Nothing. He had nothing. No ideas. Nada.
It was pointless, trying to gain inspiration in such a bland and lonely room like this. It was an impossible feat.
He needed to go. He needed ideas, and what better place to gather them than traveling to the outside world.
Nodding to himself, Naruto Uzumaki plucked the charger from his phone and stuffed the device in his back pocket.
Opening the door to his room and stepping out, he made his way to the kitchen to grab a small bag of caramel rice cakes, placing them in his hoodie pocket, before turning to walk to the front door of his apartment, intent on slipping his orange sneakers on.
However, before he could make it, he was interrupted by a familiar whine. Swirling his head to face the sound, a soft smile graced the young man's lips at his best friend's antics.
"I'm sorry, Kurama, you can't go. I don't want you gettin' all riled up at everything." Naruto explained to the domesticated fox in front of him.
As expected, the whiny kitsune refused to take 'no' for an answer and began to trot around his owner impatiently, tail rubbing against the blond human's leg every other round.
Chuckling, Naruto refused to give in to his energetic pet's pleas, "I'm sorry, you can't go. Besides, I won't be gone for that long anyway. Just try not to make too much of a mess while I'm gone." He explained, though he knew the fox didn't understand him.
Thinking he had won, the Uzumaki put his shoes on and opened the door, only for Kurama to shoot out of the building and proceed running down the apartment stairs.
A flash of panic raged through his system and he quickly locked his door and started after his exotic pet.
"Kurama!"
He called as he tried is best to keep his fox within his line of sight.
People looked at him as if he were crazy as he bolted down the street after the loose fox. However, none of that mattered as Naruto's focus was purely on catching up with his best and only friend.
His lungs hurt like they were being squeezed and his legs stung from the impact whenever they hit the concrete, but he wouldn't allow himself to slow down. Not if it meant losing one of the only things that brought him joy.
Minutes passed and he hadn't had a chance to slow down, it was painful, yes, but it was worth it.
Soon enough, he reached a beach walk that had steps leading down to the sand, that also happened to be where Kurama wanted to go.
'Why would he want to go to the beach of all places?' Naruto couldn't help but ask himself. Shrugging it off, he wiped the sweat from his forehead as he rushed down the stairs to catch up with the animal in question.
As he suspected, sand was a heck of a lot harder to run on for both man and fox, significantly slowing down their pace and giving Naruto and chance to scoop up the sprinting ball of energy before it ran away again.
Gathering Kurama in his arms, Naruto rolled onto the sand in order to stop the inevitable face plant that was about to greet them. Landing on his side, he desperately hugged his friend tighter to his core as he breathed in greedily, trying to catch air.
"Kurama *huff huff* don't do that *huff* again!" The blond scolded his pet weakly, but it was clear he got the point across as the fox took the time to lick his face affectionately, whining loudly at his owner's distress.
'God, I wanna pass out so bad.' Naruto thought to himself as he opened his eyes to look at the moonlit ocean waves as they crashed to the shore.
Loosening his grip on the animal pressed against his chest, Kurama squirmed out of his grasp and pranced around his downed form, signaling for the blond man to follow him.
"Hold on, buddy. I'll follow you in a second," he assured breathlessly, "I just gotta.... catch my breathe a bit."
Apparently, the fox wouldn't wait any longer as he started to walk away from the human, making his merry way further down the beach.
Groaning loudly, Naruto pushed himself up and lazily followed his little kitsune to wherever the frick he wanted to take him.
After 5 more minutes of walking, Kurama suddenly picked up his pace, running towards a dark blue blob resting on the ground. Squinting confusedly, Naruto jogged over as the fox whined, pawed and licked impatiently at the unknown figure
"Kurama, what is it?" He asked, even though he knew the fox wouldn't give an answer.
Upon further long range inspection, Naruto was surprised to find that the figure was, in fact, a woman resting peacefully on the sand.
With nothing but the moonlight to illuminate his path, he trotted carefully to the young woman, ensuring that no sand wouldn't kicked towards her face, and gently put his hand on her shoulder.
Shaking her softly in order to wake her up, a soft, slightly annoyed groan escaped her lips as she rolled onto her back with her left forearm resting over her forehead.
With great struggle on her part, her eyes finally fluttered open, revealing white-ish lavender, pupil less eyes staring at the night sky above before groggily flitting over to him.
And in that moment, Naruto could've sworn his heart skipped a beat or two.
The first thing that noticed when she came to was the cold, grainy feeling of sand underneath her.
It was strange, had she fallen asleep at the beach she ran to? When? How long was she out for? What time was it? There were many questions running through her still sleepy mind, but they were rudely interrupted by what felt like a tongue licking mercilessly at her face.
Furrowing her brows in annoyance at the new comer, Hinata shifted her head in hopes of getting the unknown being to stop bothering her while she tried to get some semblance of alertness. Thankfully, it seemed to work, as the mysterious tongue had decided to back off. Not thankfully, however, another entity decided to take the last one's place as a hand grabbed her shoulder and shook her.
'What in the world do they want with me?' She thought with groggy bitterness.
Flopping onto her back, arm resting on her forehead, Hinata finally opened her eyes to the beautiful sight of Milky Way, though the image was a bit smudged because of the haziness in her vision that inevitably followed a good nap.
Blinking a few times, the young woman scanned her surrounding a little, taking in her current location.
What she didn't exactly expect to enter her vision was the sight of a... fox.
The frick.
'There's a fox on the beach... why is there a fox on the beach-'
"Uhhh... excuse me... miss." A gruff voice came from beside her, rudely cutting off her train of thought.
Looking to her right, she saw a young man, around her age, leaning a little over her.
'How had I not seen him before?' She wondered to herself as she took in the man's appearance with a small blush.
The rather dim moonlight did not do much when it came to capturing the beauty of him, but she got a good enough look at him.
The thing that stood out about him the most were most definitely his eyes.
They were a gorgeous ocean blue and they seemed to reflect everything they looked at, even including the stars above. His hair was spiky (a constant case of bed head she guessed) and shined a vibrant blond color, maybe even bordering yellow if he was under direct sunlight. There were also, to her surprise, an odd set of whisker-like tattoos on his cheeks, 3 on each.
(Not that she would ever say it, but Hinata thought they really brought his look together nicely)
Yep, this total stranger was probably the most beautiful man she'd ever had the pleasure of laying her eyes on.
'Dang, did I just accidentally fall for some random guy that woke me up on the beach in less than 5 minutes?' Hinata couldn't help but tease herself.
"Hey uh, you good there? You spaced out for a minute." The mystery man asked her, letting himself fall out of his crouch and back onto the sand with the strange beach fox basically galloping up to sit next to, who she presumed must be, the kitsune's owner.
"O-oh! Y-yes, I'm alright. Thank you f-for asking, sir." Oh god, the stutter she thought she got rid of back in middle has reared it's ugly head once again.
"It's no problem, really. But-uhhhh.... why were you sleeping out here in the first place, if you don't mind me askin' y'know. Kind of a weird place to take a nap, dontcha think?" The blond said, confused.
Shaking her head shyly, the young woman sat up as she gave her answer, "Something happened and I got-uh.....mad. So, I came here a-and I guess I must've fallen asleep at some point." 'Why am I telling a complete stranger my reasonings for coming out here?'
The blond man hummed in response as he looked to the ocean. "It's pretty tonight, y'know."
"I-it is." Hinata replied, turning to the face the water as her eyes scanned the line where the starry night sky met the sea.
A comfortable silence lapsed for a few seconds with nothing but the occasional purr of the dark orange fox, who was now seated at the mystery man's side.
A sudden gasp escaped the young male's lips as he pointed up to the sky, a little ways away from where the full moon glowed bright.
"I just saw a shooting star!" He exclaimed excitedly, suddenly filled with childish curiosity.
"Really?" The Hyuga searched the sky for any sign of what her new companion had seen. "I-I don't see anythi- oh wait! I just saw one!"
True to both of their outbursts, a plethora of small meteorites burning up in the atmosphere began to reveal themselves all over the sky as they came and went as quick as the last.
Amazement sparkled in both of the young adults' eyes as they watched the spectacle with unhidden wonder.
A minute passed and the meteor shower showed no sign of stopping anytime soon. Taking this to her advantage, Hinata finally decided to find out who this mystery man was.
"I never a-asked earlier, sorry about t-that, but uh... may I ask f-for your name?"
Breaking his gaze away from the small light show, the young man observed the timid woman to the side of him as she looked down at her lap, watching her hands wring together now and again.
"It's fine, I'm Naruto Uzumaki. And you?" 'Naruto' said, sticking his hand out as he waited for her to shake his hand in greeting.
"My n-name is Hinata Hyuga." She took his hand into her own pale one and shook it gently.
"Nice to meet you, Hyuga-san."
"Likewise, Uzumaki-san."
A shooting star blitzed between them in the background as they interacted with each other for the first, and most definitely not the last, time.
They both ended up heading to their own respective houses eventually, but not before sharing a few stories and facts about themselves. Naruto even offered his rice cakes to the blue haired girl, though, she kindly denied it, explaining that she had a rather late dinner.
They exchanged phone numbers as they were leaving and neither adult reached the safety of their homes until it was well into the night, around 3 am.
An apologetic, yet scolding, stare greeted Hinata as she walked into her house, bitterly nodding in return as she retreated to her room.
An empty, cramped apartment welcomed Naruto as he and Kurama eventually made themselves home in is poorly air conditioned bedroom.
That encounter was the first of many to come, but all we'll ever come to know is how they met.