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Hinata’s target is alone at last, sipping at his wine with a sneer, and she is reaching out in a gesture that looks nothing more than a casual tap when:
Thwish. Crackle.
“Oh my God, the president is on fire!”
Hinata hears the knife before it hits, but her dress, designed for a high society ball, is less than ideal for speed, and she’s left with a burnt cut pumping white-hot ache into her veins. The flames clot her blood and sear her skin, and the pain is pulsing, writhing, demanding to be acknowledged, but she swallows down her whimpers and directs her gaze to the buzzing crowd instead. Black contacts flit frantically from side to side, scanning the room for the perpetrator. Her mind whirs with a downpour of information, puzzle pieces zigzagging their way into place as her thoughts paint the face of the enemy. Fast knife, clean hit, dramatic flare.
She nearly misses him at first, but he’s just a tad too still, a tad too composed, and as her ocular implants zero in on him, she glimpses the small, circular fan peeking out from under his suit sleeve. Such a dead giveaway, Hinata thinks, but so much skill and talent, too. The Uchiha are notorious in the underworld for their fascination with fire and mastery of all things sharp, and you can always depend on them for a good show. How fitting that it would be them to go after the wealthiest man in Konoha, muses Hinata, and turns her attention back towards the man only to find a completely different person standing in his place.
“Looking for me?”
She has no time to be startled as he grabs her chin and tilts her face up to his, and the only thought on her mind is don’t grab my arm, don’t grab my arm.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now let me go before I make you.”
It sounds like an empty threat, because he’s a good head taller than her and her better arm is still a stinging mess, and while her face is carefully schooled to display cold, upper-class rage, her captor remains undeterred.
“Don’t bother denying it. Innocence is not a good look on you, assassin.”
Hinata winces, pretenses dead on the ground.
“Takes one to know one.”
The man continues on as if she’d said nothing.
“You’re too sloppy,” he says, matter of fact and completely devoid of malice, yet somehow that hurts even more. “Your attack was so obvious I could see it from a mile away, and getting hurt on the job is an amateur mistake. Tanaka is a high profile target. Why were you given this job if you’re not good enough?”
The sting of the insult forces her façade to come tumbling back into place. With a blank smile, Hinata jabs at a spot on his arm, and as it flops down like a ragged doll, she whirls on her heel and melts into the agitated crowd. Before she vanishes completely, though, she throws caution to the wind and turns back around, locking eyes with the startled man and murmuring her last sentiment.
“I’m never good enough, so don’t count on anything else.”
She walks away with her mask in shambles, but the load on her heart just that little bit lighter.
“So you mean to say that the Uchiha got to Tanaka first?”
Hiashi’s brows furrow ever so slightly, and while he merely looks disinterested, the contempt she sees in his eyes is unmistakable. But she’s too used to it, too familiar with the way he knocks her down and forces her back up just to repeat the vicious cycle over and over again, and she is glad that she doesn’t waver.
“It was Uchiha Sasuke, father.” No matter what other faults Hiashi might find in her, Hinata’s research skills are impeccable. She’d ran intel on all active Uchiha clan members until she’d found him, memorized him, catalogued every strength and weakness.
“The infamous second son,” Hiashi nods slightly. “That boy has a reputation. They don’t send him out for nothing. But…” And here he moves to stand, eyeing her burn with disdain. “That is still no excuse for your dismal performance.”
Hinata remains kneeling, head bowed in a gesture of respect she doesn’t think she means anymore.
He’s halfway out the door before he speaks once more, as if she’s merely an afterthought (and in a sense, she is, one that he plays like a pawn in his hands to be discarded one day when she’s no longer useful).
“Such a shame that you have failed me yet again.”
This time, her voice does crack, a gossamer fracture on a pane of broken glass.
“I will not disappoint you next time, father.”
Her words are but a hollow echo of his own, an admission of defeat that screams louder than even her father’s mocking disapproval.
Hiashi’s footsteps echo from the empty hallway.
“You will do well to remember that.”
“Come on, Hinata, you can look now,” prods Ino, her voice brimming with excitement. Hinata cracks an eye open. “I can’t wait for you to see my handiwork.”
Hinata doesn’t question her friend, just does what she’s told to – she looks. And looks. And looks. Stares, unblinking, as her reflection sits stiller than a statue.
“I told you you’d love it! You look absolutely beautiful.”
You’re wrong, thinks Hinata as she gazes steadily into the mirror. Hinata tries, she really does, but she just doesn’t see. She sees the beautiful, alright, but she can’t for the life of her figure out the you. The woman in the mirror is not Hinata, that she is sure of. Because the real Hinata would never have her eyes as dark as death. Because the real Hinata would never have her lips stained with blood. Because the real Hinata would never even dream of looking like this stranger, graced with Ino’s wild magic and gazing, unblinking, back at her.
“It’s…” she falters, trying to find a proper word and drawing a blank.
“Hot? Sexy? Downright smoking?”
“Lovely. It’s lovely, Ino, it truly is, but this… I can’t go out like this. I don’t have what it takes to pull it off. I’m sorry, let me just wipe this off and…”
Suddenly there are nails on her chin and for a moment she is drowning in tulle and silk and black, black eyes, but her daze is gone in a puff of blonde and blue, and she comes back to reality to squint fearfully into the face of a very angry Ino Yamanaka.
“No, Hinata. You have more than enough to pull this off, and I’m not tolerating any more of this nonsense. No tissues, no micellar wipes, no anything that is going to ruin this makeup, you hear me? If I even see anything like that in your vicinity… You won’t like what I do to you. Is that clear?”
Hinata nods meekly in response. Once Ino goes into mama bear mode, there’s simply no turning back.
Ino’s temper deflates as quickly as it came, and she wraps her arms around Hinata in a soul-crushing embrace.
“Why can’t you see that you are so much more than what you give yourself credit for? Why can’t you just stop and not doubt yourself for once?”
Because I’m never good enough, thinks Hinata as Ino’s warm hug settles into her bones. I will never be good enough.
In the oppressive clamor of the bar, it takes Hinata a moment to pick up the curt demand.
“One whiskey. Straight.”
“Coming right up,” she says, glancing up from the shaker in her hands only to meet dark eyes that haunt the memory of her last assassination attempt. Her heart stutters, and she almost stutters with it, but she’s not 16 and tongue-tied anymore, and Ino’s makeup is both mask and warpaint in equal measure. So she smiles with her teeth, and turns the thrum of fear in her throat into hunger.
“Well, aren’t you charming,” she all but purrs, leaning forward on her elbows. The cut of her long-sleeved shirt is low, much lower than anything she’d feel comfortable wearing normally, and the fabric clings to her like a glove, highlighting swaths of bare, creamy skin.
Sasuke tilts his head, gaze narrowing on her face and not her chest. “Do I know you?”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Hinata lets the words roll off her lips like syrup. “I’d remember a pretty face like yours.”
The only response she gets is a quiet Hn.
“Do you have a name to go with that pretty face?” she asks, playing along while she readies his drink. “Haven’t seen you around here before.”
He glares at her. “If I tell you, will you leave me alone?”
Hinata channels her best Ino pout when the blonde is trying to get Shikamaru to pick up her astronomical tabs. “You’re no fun, darling. But fine. I’ll settle.”
She slides the glass across the counter, and he catches it without looking away.
“Sasuke. My name is Sasuke.”
Hinata doesn’t know what shocks her more, his honesty or the way he stares at her – as if searching for recognition, her brain supplies unhelpfully – but he picks up his glass and stalks further into the depths of the bar before she can open her mouth.
It doesn’t matter, she tells herself, shaking her head to clear her erratic thoughts. It’s about time her target got here, anyway.
The next time they meet, Hinata’s dressed as a waiter and passing out hors d'oeuvres when she feels a shadow pluck a crab pastry from her tray.
“You’re Hyuuga Hinata, aren’t you,” the shadow states rather than asks, and Hinata feels her blood run cold.
“I’m sor-ry, s-sir. You must be mis-staken.” She’d let her bangs down for this job, hiding behind them like she did so long ago, and she looks up through them now to lock eyes with Uchiha Sasuke. Unlike her, he’s taken the route of fashion show guest, silk shirt the color of ripe pomegranates shining lushly amidst the riotous display of textiles.
The man continues on, unperturbed. “Two weeks ago, Yuri Nakamura died from cyanide poisoning. But that wasn’t the real cause of death. The ruptured pressure points on her neck, the Hyuuga’s trademark weapon – that was your doing.”
He levels the accusation at her as evenly as he would a dinner order. She notes, somewhat bitterly, that he shows no sign of hesitation, his words an assertion that leaves no room for denial. He isn’t gloating, though, which is something.
Hinata sighs, and takes a leap.
“How did you find out?”
She doesn’t expect Sasuke’s confidence to morph slowly into… respect?
“I almost didn’t,” he says, the truthful admission jarring her yet again. Her line of work is a veil of secrecy and deception, but even more than that, she’s forgotten the feeling of being seen – of being told that she’s anything other than a failure.
“I knew that I’d seen you before – good facial recognition is something of an occupational hazard,” he explains wryly, “but your disguise was almost bulletproof. It was only after I found Nakamura’s body that I put two and two together.”
Hinata ducks her head, suddenly shy. Why is it that she can withstand Hiashi’s most scathing comments, but a sideways compliment turns her into a blushing mess?
“You got Tanaka,” she says, willing the heat away from her face. “Now we’re even.”
Sasuke has the decency to look contrite. “Sorry about the knife,” he nods at her once-injured arm, “and what I said.”
She offers him a small but genuine smile. “No grudge held, Uchiha-san. Like you said, it’s an occupational hazard.”
Sasuke smirks and steals another canape. “Say, Hyuuga. You wouldn’t happen to be here for Izumi, would you?”
“And what if I am?” she challenges, peering at him almost playfully. There’s a boldness in her that she isn’t used to, something bubbly like champagne yet headier than wine, and she wants – no, needs – to grab hold of it, mold it into a key for the steel fetters of her insecurity and loneliness.
Sasuke holds up his hands in a mollifying gesture. “As much as I enjoy competition, I think that would be counterproductive. I have a different proposal for you.”
Hinata blinks, brain tripping over itself to process, as Sasuke leans in, slow and conspiratorial. His smirk widens.
“What do you say to a mutual aid pact?”
Sasuke’s idea is simple: if they’re given the same target, they will work together, staggering who takes the final kill to appease the clan elders’ prickly sensibilities. They will plan their missions in advance, trading information and resources, and every part of the job – who runs reconnaissance, who takes point – will be split between the two. It’s an efficient system, Hinata thinks as Sasuke sketches out his proposition, a kind of deadly symbiosis: two assassins, watching each other’s backs in a world where you are meant to trust no one.
(Before they bind themselves to the agreement, they add a single clause: they will not speak about this to outsiders. Especially to their own families.)
Things don’t go smoothly for the two of them, not at first. Really, Hinata should have seen this coming – after all, they are both lone wolves, accustomed to both the isolation and the freedom that comes with working solo, and trying to change habits forged from years of fieldwork is like breaking a bone and then forcing it to reset.
“Sit still, please, Uchiha-san,” Hinata says as she carefully cuts open his pant leg to reveal the bloody skin underneath.
The man in question glowers. “It’s just Sasuke. If you’re going to undress me, you might as well drop the formalities.”
“Don’t be crass,” admonishes Hinata, pouring antiseptic deftly over his wound. The bullet had only grazed him, but she knows from experience that it is still going to hurt. “And stop moving so much. We wouldn’t even be here if you had just listened to me in the first place.”
“I got the job done,” is his mulish reply. “Isn’t that what you want?”
Hinata stands up so fast her head spins.
“What I want,” she says, crossing her arms protectively in front of her, “is to minimize damage. I won’t jeopardize the mission, but I refuse to put you in unnecessary danger.”
Sasuke raises a mocking eyebrow. “I didn’t know you cared.”
“If I didn’t, you’d be dead,” Hinata snaps, her patience fraying at the edges, before sighing and crouching back down to bandage his torn-up thigh. “Please, Sasuke, if you don’t trust me, at least trust the Hyuuga implants. They’re the best on the market, I have enhanced range and infrared vision, so when I tell you that three guards are coming…”
She doesn’t get to finish her sentence.
“Of course I trust you,” Sasuke cuts in roughly, as if he finds the mere suggestion otherwise to be personally offensive. “Your ocular implants are a bonus, yes, but that’s not why I asked for this partnership. I’m just willing to take more risks.”
The anger Hinata’s built up mellows.
“I know, Sasuke, but I’m not. My priority is for both of us to come out unscathed, so please, next time, don’t fight me on this?”
Sasuke scoffs, but doesn’t object further, and she files it away as a victory when she spies the barest hint of a smile tugging at his lips.
It’s a luxury, in her business, to have friends. Hinata has a list of contacts a mile long, but she can count on one hand the number of people who she can turn to for a casual dinner and drinks. Ino is Hinata’s sole confidante, and that is just as much out of practicality as genuine camaraderie, the Yamanakas’ monopoly on the poison market outweighing even Hiashi’s strictest risk parameters. And yet, between infiltrating drug rings and running away from police cars, she is surprised to find that Sasuke has slowly become more than just a partner of convenience.
Their friendship looks something like this: they are collapsed on the floor of a temporary hide out, caked in grime and sorely out of breath, when Sasuke announces, “I would kill right now for ramen.”
So they drag themselves, quite literally, across town, because Sasuke swears by this one place and will not be swayed by Hinata’s tired protests, and when she takes a slurp of the hearty broth, she thinks that she has finally died and gone to heaven.
“What did I tell you,” is Sasuke’s smug reply when she tells him this, his own mouth full of noodles. Hinata has half a mind to elbow him for being a conceited, stubborn prick, but then he says, “This was my mother’s favorite place,” and she clamps her mouth shut around the memory of Mikoto Uchiha’s kind face and the words “Deceased” and “Cancer” glaring angrily from beneath the photograph. I’m sorry lingers on her tongue, bitter and tinged with mutual grief. She swallows it instead and pours him another cup of sake.
Or: “Your next target.” Hiashi says, handing her a file. When Hinata opens it, she feels her blood run cold.
“Father, I can’t,” she begins, but Hiashi cuts her off with a glare.
“I expect results by next week,” he says, and that’s final. Hinata bows, head trembling, and tries to hold back the bile rising in her throat.
“I’m not afraid,” she tells herself, over and over like a prayer, like she can somehow erase years of childhood nightmares with one desperate plea.
She doesn’t fool herself, however, and neither does she fool Sasuke.
“You’re not okay,” he observes as he shows her his matching file. She wants to object, to retreat behind a mask of aloof professionalism, but he traps her left hand hostage, his palm cool against the clamminess of her own. “You’re shaking, Hyuuga. Don’t even bother denying it. What’s going on?”
It is his earnestness that undoes her, the quietude belying his concern that threads through her defenses and wears them down from the inside. In hushed tones, she relives her attempted kidnapping by Kumogakure’s head assassin: the whisper of curtains in the crisp December air, the man’s nails leaving painful crescents in the baby skin of her arm, the cruel gleam in his eyes that flickered out as he coughed blood onto her nightgown, Hiashi’s punishing hand driving deep into his sternum.
The last smile she ever saw on her uncle’s face as he sacrificed himself in the name of false retribution.
Their target is the dead assassin’s son, Hinata explains, mapping his features against those that plague her memories. Hiashi knows this – must have chosen him specifically, as a belated statement from the Hyuuga as much as a lesson for her weakness. She doesn’t say that she was three years old and terrified, that she spent countless nights afterwards not daring to fall asleep lest the boogeyman came for her again.
That even now, his son’s face sends shivers down her spine.
Sasuke listens to her story in silence. He remains silent even after she finishes, his grip on her hand firm and steadying.
That night, Sasuke takes both his and her files and leaves, quelling her questions with a simple look. She doesn’t see him again for half a week, but she does get called in by Hiashi and congratulated, albeit with his usual contempt, for a successful mission. She’s unsure what shocks her more: that Sasuke can make his work look like hers, or that he did it for her in the first place.
She learns Sasuke in stages. Learns, first, the way he operates: the spots he picks to watch from, the gun that she’s seen him use only once before but that he insists on always carrying anyway. Learns, second, the way he thinks, his mind constructing strategies and picking them apart in minutes.
Learns, next, the way he moves.
“Blue shirt, 4 o’clock,” he whispers inches from her ear. She giggles as if he’s told a particularly amusing joke, her laughter drowned by the heavy bass permeating through the crowd.
“That’s the sixth guard so far. We need to get close to Kenichi without tipping them off.”
His lazy smirk sends tingles down her spine. “This is a nightclub, Hyuuga. Live a little.”
Before she can ask what he means by that, and really, shouldn’t he be using her first name by now, it’s only fair, he’s already pulled her into the middle of the room, the throng of bodies closing in on them in a tidal wave. She gasps a little at the sudden change. The music here is louder, more potent, less of a sound and more of a primal rhythm, pulsing like a living entity.
For a split second, Hinata feels stupidly self-conscious. Bodies press against her on all sides, and she wants to step out, fill her lungs with air before she drowns in this roiling ocean of people. But Sasuke tips his chin up, eyes laughing and heavy-lidded in the dim light, and it’s an anchor and a challenge at the same time.
Hinata takes a breath, and plunges.
She realizes that while she doesn’t quite know what to do with herself, Sasuke is much, much better at letting go. He steps and turns and flows to the heavy beat with a grace that Hinata recognizes from when he’s fighting, all loose limbs and steady feet. His hands settle against her hips, twisting her this way and that as he moves suddenly in, the already trivial distance between them shrinking in an eye’s blink.
She teeters imperceptibly in surprise, but Sasuke catches it and grins, showing off ivory rows of teeth – a rare occurrence, she knows, one that means he’s genuinely enjoying himself, often at her expense.
I’ll show him flashes through her mind, a comet of a thought that brightens as it takes flight, and a spark of something that feels like alcohol or liquid courage takes hold of her body. She flashes him a grin of her own as she turns around, leans against his chest, and lowers herself oh-so-slowly to the ground, her hand looped casually around his waist for support.
When she comes back up, there’s a new gleam in Sasuke’s eyes, a feverish promise of reprisal and what she is surprised to recognize as thinly masked desire. Hinata doesn’t have too much time to dwell on it, though, since he guides her sinuously into another move, one that takes them closer to where their target dances, unaware of the threat that lurks around him.
The memory of Sasuke’s gaze lingers, a velvet, simmering heat, weeks after Kenichi is pronounced dead from an unexpected heart attack.
To them, death is a familiar mistress. They barter with her, act as her messengers, dole out judgement to those whose days she numbers.
But as they play at death gods, there are also times when they are reminded painfully of their own mortality.
It’s bad luck that they get caught, by a rival assassin who was supposed to be on a mission elsewhere but had strayed from her assignment to rekindle an old flame. It’s even worse luck that she had been armed.
Hinata finds herself being jostled in Sasuke’s arms, slipping in and out of consciousness as the bullet wound in her side spills scarlet all over her borrowed disguise. Ino will never get the stains out of this, her brain supplies unhelpfully, already fading away before the insistent sound of pounding feet pulls her back to the surface.
Sasuke’s voice, composed and frantic at the same time, reaches her from behind a fuzzy curtain. “Hyuuga, listen to me. We’re almost there. Hold on, Hinata, for fuck’s sake.”
She wants to smile at him, tell him that apparently all it takes for him to use her first name is to get shot, but she has no strength left to prop open her eyes, let alone move her mouth. The mist rises swiftly to claim her again.
She comes to with a dull ache on her right and the warmth of Sasuke’s resting form on her left. It’s not a hospital she recognizes – the one frequented by the Hyuuga would have asked too many questions, would have reported Sasuke’s presence to her father even as they rushed her to the ER. No, this hospital has cracks in its plaster walls, and the smell of disinfectant wars with the coppery tang of blood in a truly nauseating mix. Yet despite the unfamiliarity of her surroundings, Hinata feels much safer than she would have ever imagined.
She doesn’t have to wait long before Sasuke stirs from his sleep. When he sees her, dizzy but awake, relief breaks across his face only to be followed instantly by pure, unrestrained rage.
“If you weren’t half-dead right now, I’d strangle you myself,” he growls through bloodless lips. Hinata almost shies back at the sheer force of his anger. “What the fuck were you thinking, Hyuuga, getting in the way like that? I had things covered, damn it, I didn’t need your fucking help.”
Belatedly, Hinata notices that Sasuke is cradling her hand as if it’s fragile cargo. His thumb makes small, soothing circles across her own, and she wonders whether he’s doing it for her benefit, or to reassure himself that she is really, physically there.
“S-she was-s aiming at you,” she replies, her old stutter coming back unbidden in her tired state. “S-she was ab-bout to sh-oot.”
Sasuke leans forward in his chair. “That doesn’t mean you dive into the line of fire like you have a death wish, you absolute idiot.”
Hinata pouts reflexively. “I’m sor-ry I s-saved your life. S-some thanks I g-get.”
The gleam that she’d spied so many times before returns to Sasuke’s eyes, more dangerous than ever.
“You want thanks, Hyuuga? Fine,” he says, looming over her like a shadow. “I really fucking want to kiss you right now. How’s that for thanks?”
Maybe she’s still high on the adrenaline from their earlier fight. Maybe it’s whatever drugs the hospital staff have pumped into her system to keep her sedated. Or maybe she’s just done with tiptoeing around this impenetrable tension between them. Whatever it is, she startles herself by saying:
“W-well, w-what are you waiting f-for?”
She’s barely finished her sentence when Sasuke lunges, covering her lips with his, and even though he is trembling, from shock or joy or residual ire, she cannot tell, he is so incredibly gentle, caressing her lips with soft, languid kisses that make it difficult to catch her breath, and she feels light-headed from something decidedly other than blood loss.
After, they will share many more kisses – some just as sweet and tender, some that are anything but, that make her heart pound and her blood boil and her legs go weak at the knees.
This first kiss, though, Hinata locks away like her most prized possession.
As a Hyuuga, Hinata doesn’t know silence without apathy. The Hyuuga compound is more of a headquarters than an actual home – a barren place that eschews emotion for the sake of structure and inhuman precision. She has long learned to read dismissal in the quiet after she hands in her reports, spy dissatisfaction in the soundless frowns on the elders’ faces.
With Sasuke, she discovers that silence can also be a vessel for love.
He loves her in the mistful hours of dusk, his hands brushing reassuringly against the small of her back as they sweep their temporary hideouts: side by side, not speaking, barely even breathing. Loves her in the pitch-black depths of the night, tucking away errant strands of hair as he nudges her awake to take second watch, always second watch because you need rest, Hinata, don’t fight me on this.
Loves her in the naked daylight, with fleeting smirks that set her ablaze from the inside out, with stolen glances that make her heart skip a beat and her toes curl in her shoes as she struggles to fix her attention back on their target.
“There’s something different about you,” Ino remarks one night, pointing an accusatory finger at Hinata across their booth in a dimly lit cocktail bar. She and Sasuke have just come back from another successful mission, and the taste of him still lingers, delicate and impossibly sweet, on her lips.
Hinata hopes the flush that rises to her face can be blamed on the half-empty margarita in front of her.
“R-really?” she asks, taking another sip of her drink to cover her surprise.
Ino’s blonde ponytail bobs, as if the final puzzle piece has clicked into place.
“You’re sitting straighter, did you know that?” she says with a flick of her hand. “When we went out before, it was like you would shrink – not enough to ruin your posture, but enough to make you fade into the background. But now,” her friend’s eyes sparkle.
“You have guys checking you out left and right.”
And Hinata realizes with a start that the stares she’s felt all night have been aimed at her as much as Ino, crackling across her spine in sparks of careful interest. Mortification crests, followed by the jarring aftertaste of guilt and the thought of Oh no, am I betraying Sasuke? that spirals furiously in her mind.
But beneath it all is the barest hint of pleasure, a kind of dark satisfaction that she is no longer someone that can be so easily ignored.
Ino gives her a knowing look.
“How does it feel? To not have to hide anymore?”
Hinata tilts her head, considering. “It’s good,” she says with a tentative smile. “Better than I imagined.”
Ino’s returning grin is edged with teeth.
“I’ll drink to that.”
The change in Hinata is a subtle, but tangible thing. It is there when she slides into her disguises, donning different personas with a newfound ease; when she spins and twirls to evade their opponents, lighter than a whisper; when she strikes, inhumanly fast, a ribbon of motion slicing through the air. Her aim is truer, her fingers that much deadlier.
In the oppression of the Hyuugas, Hinata had been a shadow of herself: her wings clipped, her song suffocated.
In the safety of Sasuke, she feels like she can finally soar.
She should have known it wouldn’t (no, couldn’t) last.
Hiashi’s smile is unnaturally placid as she flips the file open to find Sasuke’s photograph – familiar and beautiful, yet cruel all the same.
“Father, I d-don’t understand,” Hinata fumbles, trying to paint her face with indifference and failing.
“I think you understand perfectly, daughter,” Hiashi says. His voice, bordered with steel, brooks no argument. “The Hyuuga do not have use for disloyalty. Should you refuse this assignment, you will be eliminated along with the Uchiha.”
“So do not refuse.”
Hinata doesn’t know how she makes it out of her father’s room after that, let alone across half of Konoha. She only knows that she stumbles through the front doors of the Yamanaka Apothecary, hair windswept and eyes streaked with tears, startling Ino from her place at the register.
“Hinata, what’s wrong?” her friend asks immediately, coming around to usher her into the back, where the ever-watchful security cameras are blessedly absent. “Are you okay?”
The blonde’s voice flits in and out of Hinata’s ears, her pulse hammering an unbearable pitch in her chest. Like funeral drums, she thinks suddenly, and spends a full five minutes hyperventilating to stave off the catatonia threatening to devour her whole.
Between each savage breath that she struggles to pull into her lungs, she spills the entire story to Ino: her and Sasuke’s fateful encounter and his proposal to work together, their growing companionship and budding romance. The secrecy oath hangs solemnly in the air, but fear and desperation propel Hinata onwards, the words pouring from her lips almost of their own accord.
Ino’s expression is terrible by the time she finishes. Rage burns, bright and incandescent, behind the blonde’s eyes, tempered only by the worry that creases the lines around her mouth. Yet despite this, the only thing she does is offer Hinata a tissue and ask:
“What do you need?”
It’s in moments like these that Hinata is reminded just how grateful she is for Ino’s friendship; for how she pushes Hinata to do and be more than what she believes she is capable of, but also knows when to step back and offer support instead of advice.
Hinata doesn’t bother wiping away her tears, and they catch in her lashes like raindrops on a spider’s web. She is no longer ashamed of them, of this emotional outburst that would be deemed a weakness in her household but which strengthens her spine instead when she tells Ino, voice trembling but resolute:
“I need you to take me out.”
Twilight falls in the blink of an eye, setting the sky awash with indolent purple. Hinata stands on the rooftop of an old building, her toes dangling precariously over the precipice in this liminal space between life and death.
It doesn’t take long before she feels his presence slip beside her, as intimate as a lover’s caress.
“I assume you’re here to kill me,” she says, “like I’m here to kill you.”
Sasuke hn’s in acknowledgement. “I have to report to the elders by midnight.”
“I thought we’d have more time,” Hinata confesses, eyes flickering to take in the relaxed set of his brows, the calm curve of his patent half-smile.
“An occupational hazard,” he jokes, and she has to choke back a gasp at the old repartee, the fond memory like a technicolour picture fading rapidly at the edges.
The warmth of Sasuke’s fingers enveloping hers is a welcome reprieve from the evening chill, soothing the insistent tremor that racks her body in waves.
“Do you trust me?” she whispers, turning to face him.
Sasuke’s smirk is answer enough.
“Don’t insult me, Hyuuga.”
She’s not sure who moves first: she leans, he bends, and they intertwine in the torturous silence – two ghosts, waiting with bated breath for the bloody axe to fall. I’m sorry, I love you, he tells her through each messy slide of his lips against hers; I love you, I’m sorry, she tells him through every frantic kiss as she wraps her arms around his neck.
The hiss of the syringe punctures the night sky, sharper than a blade. Sasuke presses a tender kiss to her temple before his body goes limp and he slumps, knees hitting the concrete with an awful finality. His chest stutters to draw in air for the last time.
From behind a column, a man steps out, coalescing as if from shadows. The metal of his gun glints silver in the slumbering moonlight.
Hinata closes her eyes.
“The Uchiha send their regards,” the man grins, and pulls the trigger.
“Coming at you live from Hidden Leaf Studios: at 8:07PM last night, a burning body was recorded falling from the top of the abandoned Izuka Highrise. Dental records have identified the body as Hyuuga Hinata, the eldest daughter of Hyuuga Hiashi, Chairman of Hyuuga Holdings – a conglomerate specializing in construction and real estate. Police have found no traces of outside interference and believe that her death was a premeditated suicide. Hyuuga Hiashi has declined all requests for an interview.”
“Breaking news: Uchiha Enterprises have just announced that Uchiha Sasuke, slated as the next in line to take over the company from his father, Uchiha Fugaku, has passed away in a tragic accident. Uchiha Enterprises caused quite an uproar 15 years ago when Uchiha Itachi, the then successor, publicly denounced the company for corruption and was subsequently removed from company leadership. Funeral arrangements for Uchiha Sasuke will take place in the upcoming week.”
With a long-suffering sigh, Ino turns off the morning news coverage and places a video call on her laptop. Shikamaru’s cybersecurity measures route her through several servers before someone picks up on the third ring.
“You owe me big time,” she says without preamble, narrowing her eyes at the half-hidden figure on the other end.
Hinata’s answering laughter is as clear as windchimes in the summer breeze.
“We’ll send a gift basket from Kirigakure,” the girl says with a smile, and Ino smiles as well, bright and genuine, because she can’t remember the last time Hinata looked quite this free.
“Make that two,” the blonde quips, aiming her voice off screen, to where she knows Uchiha Sasuke is standing sentinel over her friend’s dreams.
“And I better be invited to the wedding, or else!”
fin.