Chapter Text
Sasuke picked up the get-well card on Itachi’s desk. “Who sent you that?” His heart sank to his stomach as he opened it and found perfectly practiced handwriting inside, with a sweet personal note.
Itachi looked up from his laptop. “Hinata. Didn’t she send you one?”
“No,” Sasuke sighed as he put the card back down.
They were both only in the hospital for less than a day. The car accident was a minor fender bender, and the only reason they even made a trip to the hospital was because their mother was overprotective, but of course, Itachi got a card, and he didn’t.
“Hm.” Itachi idly commented. “She is usually diligent about things like that. Maybe she is waiting to give it to you in class.”
Sasuke seriously doubted that.
Sasuke collected his bag and closed his locker. “My mother is going to a benefit tonight, which means that I have to fend for myself for dinner, you want to grab something?”
Naruto tilts his head. “Are you not going to the study night?”
Sasuke face twisted. “What study night?”
Naruto pulled out his phone and held up a text from Hinata. “Hinata and Sakura were planning on studying together for the next exam, and then Kiba said he needed help, then Ino, so Hinata was just going to invite everyone.”
Everyone but him. “I didn’t get anything.”
“Hinata must have just missed you.” Naruto put his phone back in his pocket. “Or maybe she doesn’t have your number.” He shrugged. “So, are you coming?”
“Sure.” Sasuke followed him.
Sasuke watched as Hinata handed out little, carefully made baggies of cookies. He wanted one, but he knew he wasn’t going to get one.
“You know, maybe you intimidate her.” Ino leaned on his desk with her cookies, taking a bite to spite him. “You are glaring at her from across the room. Maybe she is too scared to share with you.”
“I don’t want to hear it right now,” Sasuke grumbled and flattened himself to his desk.
He hated that she figured him out. Ino had long since gone from fan girl to tolerable, but he made the mistake of not seeing her as a threat as the school premiere in-the-know queen. She knew everyone's secrets and had annoyingly spotted his.
At least she promised to keep it to herself, but that wouldn’t keep her from bullying him about it.
Sasuke watched Hinata give out the last of her cookie pouches, and his heart fell as she once again skipped him. He knew it was going to happen, and it hurt anyway.
He was sure excluding him wasn’t malicious. Her sweet, open heart was just absent when it came to him. It just felt cruel because he wanted that affection so openly given to everyone else.
“These are great,” Naruto mumbled with his mouth full of cookies. He looked over at him. “Did you finish yours already?”
Twisting the knife in.
“Sasuke didn’t get any,” Ino whispered.
“What? Did she miss you?” Naruto turned his head, and before Sasuke could stop him, he called over to Hinata. “Hey, you forgot Sasuke.”
Sasuke swatted at him. Damn, stupid idiot. Shut up!
Hinata's head turned to them, and her face flushed. Ugh. She probably didn’t have enough because she never intended to give him one, and Naruto was going to embarrass her. He hoped she could use the easiest excuse: he didn’t like sweets. It would be simple. It would shut Naruto up. “Sasuke doesn’t like girls giving him gifts. I don’t want to make him uncomfortable.”
Sasuke froze.
Wait.
Was she excluding him all this time because she was afraid that being kind to him was going to upset him?
Ino snorted and dissolved into giggles. Bitch.
Sasuke lowered his face back to his desk. This was his own fault. Being cruel to all the fan girls had come back to bite him.
‘Sasuke doesn’t like girls giving him gifts.’
Ugh. It kept playing in his head like a living nightmare.
He glared up at the sky like it was keeping the answers from him.
Ino flopped down to lay down beside him in the grass, folding her hand over her stomach as she got comfortable where she wasn’t welcome. “So. I have a plan, but you are going to have to swallow your pride.”
“I don’t want your help.” Sasuke shot back.
“Of course you do.” Ino sang and continued ignoring his protest. “So, Hinata has a hard time taking things without giving them back. I think, if you want her to give you something, you are going to have to give her something so she feels obligated to return the kindness.”
“I’m not tricking her.” Sasuke rolled his eyes away.
“It’s not tricking her. By giving her something first, she can conclude that you find her safe to get things from.” Ino swung her arm out to pat him with the back of her arm. “But Hinata is dense, so you might have to do it a few times.”
That sounded tedious.
“Or, you could just confess your feelings and…” Ino was cut off by Sasuke sitting up.
“I’ll try giving her something.” Sasuke interrupted.
Hinata paused at her desk before sitting down and finding a juice waiting for her. She picked it up and looked around. Kiba and Shino walked in with her, so it wasn’t them. Ino caught her curious eye and pointed to Sasuke, who was sitting alone, waiting for Naruto to show up late to class.
… Huh?
She sat down and turned the package to look at the label. Maybe he got something he didn’t like and gave it to the first person he thought would drink it.
She pulled the straw off the side and poked it in, holding it up to her lips and sipping. It was good. It was nice of him to pass it to her instead of throwing it out.
Sasuke tossed two bags of crackers down on the table. “The machine gave me two.”
Hinata only briefly looked up before returning to her lunch and Kiba’s rant about basketball practice.
“I’ll take one.” Naruto picked up one of the bags but Sasuke promptly took it out of his hands and slid across the table off the edge, right into her lap.
Hinata blinked at him, picking it up and holding it up with an unasked question.
Sasuke flicked his head, telling her to take it. “They’re your favorite, right?” He opened his own bag.
They were, but she didn’t know that he knew that. “Thank you.” Her voice was lost under Naruto joining in on Kiba’s complaints.
“Are you feeling better?” Kiba asked as Hinata sat down at her desk.
“Yes. Thank you.” Hinata was out for two days with a cold. She hated missing school. Missing school meant missing classes. Missing classes meant possibly missing things in her notes and missing the related questions on the exams.
“That’s good. I missed you.” Kiba pouted.
Hinata smiled. He missed her because Shino didn’t like basketball, and so he didn’t want to listen to him talk about it.
Hinata flinched as a notebook was dropped on her desk. “Here,” Sasuke said before returning to his desk.
Kiba leaned over. “What is it?”
Hinata skimmed the page and flicked through the next few. These must have been the notes she missed. She looked back up at Sasuke, who had flattened himself out to look at his phone as he waited for class to start. “I didn’t know Sasuke even took notes.”
“I don’t think this is working.” Sasuke side-eyed Ino. He felt like he was embarrassing himself by just trying.
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Ino nodded her head at his locker, where Hinata was waiting, with his notebook held close to her chest. “You could always make this easier if you just say how you feel.”
Sasuke ignored her as he walked up to her and his locker, opening it while she found what she wanted to say. She waited until he got his things and closed his locker before holding the notebook out to him.
“Thank you,” Hinata told him. “And I’m sorry.”
Sorry? He looked at the notebook for a sign of damage. Not that he would care. He didn’t really write notes.
Hinata held out a package of crackers in the same little bag she gave out cookies. Homemade. “I know you don’t like gifts from girls or sweets, but if it felt wrong not to give you something since you helped me make up my missed classes.”
Sasuke could hear Ino singing I told you so in his head.
Hinata's eyes shot down. She was expecting him to be upset with her.
He took the bag out of her hands. “Thank you.”
Hinata's hands twisted back into her chest, and offered him a relieved smile, surprised that he accepted it. She ducked her head at him before disappearing down the hall.
Sasuke held up the bag and the little personally made crackers inside.
Finally.