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Discalaimer: Naruto and the gang don't belong to me... They belong to Kishimoto, which makes me sad... T^T


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Naruto sighed. It had happened again. He had just come home from a long, dangerous mission wanting nothing else than to take a shower and get some sleep, but that wasn’t possible. This was the third time in as many months that his home had been vandalized. Most of his possessions, few though they were, were trashed. Someone had poured soda and milk all over everything, the fridge and freezer were left open leaking water all over and stinking of rot, and his bed was covered in urine. Someone had scrawled “hurry up and die, fox” on his living room wall. So, shoulders slumped, he’d gone to seek comfort from a friend, any friend. He tried Sakura’s, but she was out on a mission. He tried Sasuke, but he was gone as well. Shikamaru, Kiba, Choji, Shino, No one seemed to be home. So he found his way, at last to the Huuga compound, where there was one tiny ray of hope in the form of a faintly lighted window at two thirty seven am. Hinata’s window.
*
Tap.

Tap.
Tap.

Hinata lifted her head sleepily. She had fallen asleep writing in her journal again. She wiped drool from her cheek where it had collected as she dozed and looked blearily around. Something had woken her. Was it the door? She peaked out. No, no one there. She covered her mouth as she yawned. Perhaps it was nothing after all. She moved to her desk, with every intent of finishing her entry before sleeping, then… Tap. She froze. Tap! Tap! Someone was pitching rocks at her window. She rose and crept forward. He looked so forlorn down there, all alone, still wearing his Anbu uniform, his eyes glassy. “Naruto?” She opened the window “Naruto, what’s wrong?” her stammer was gone but she still trembled at the thought of him, and her voice echoed that uncertainty. He smiled and it was bitter, lonesome, “Can I come in? I…someone trashed my house.” He started to cry then, silent tears rolling down his cheeks in large drops. She nodded swiftly, her nervousness replaced by a sudden maternal concern. He climbed up to her window and her heart nearly stopped when she saw him stumble twice and almost fall, but he made it to her second floor room intact. He collapsed on the floor, shoulders shaking as he finally let it out. Hinata wrapped herself around her friend as he sobbed.

For a little while it was loud, uncontrollable weeping full of barely understood gibbering, then it slowed. He relaxed in her arms, still shaking but not the uncontrollable trembling of before. He quietly related his story, as she held him close, his eyes dry only because he had nothing left. He told her about the threats, the times he’d been bumped into in the street, all the jobs he’d been turned down for, all the nasty glares and subdued comments, his vandalized home, everything, and she nodded and took it all in, gently stroking his hair. He looked up into her eyes smiling faintly. The sudden realization that she was holding her childhood crush in her arms, and had been for what could be hours, took her by surprise. She blushed, blood rushing into her face, making her uncomfortably hot. He hugged her to him. “Thanks Hinata, I needed that.” He stood then, offering her a hand up. He locked her into another hug as she stood. She stiffened in his arms, part of her longed to hold him, to be held, the other part screamed to be released, freed. He could hurt her if she succumbed. In the end she pushed him gently away, wrinkling her nose through her blush. “Would you like to use the shower…?” she joked gently, her voice trembling. Naruto laughed running a hand through his hair, he was blushing too. “Yeah. That’d be nice. Thanks Hinata.”
*
The halls seemed so empty to Neji, without her voice echoing through them. He knew it was wrong, liking her the way he did, but she was everything he could want. She was sweet and caring, she was smart and beautiful, she was a more than competent ninja, and above all she had treated him kindly when everyone else had regarded him as “that Huuga prick”. He could think of nothing else but holding her in his arms, telling her how incredible she really was, the smell of her hair, the taste of her skin, the sound of her voice like quiet leaves in the spring. A small part of him rebelled, this was his cousin! His LITTLE cousin Hinata! It was wrong! But that part was dying as surely as the butterflies in fall, replaced instead by a new and more powerful realization, he loved her. He loved her with every fiber of his being, and all of his heart. And so he strode the empty halls to think, but he knew where his feet would lead him, and what his mouth longed to say. The closer he drew to her room, the more he ached. Perhaps it could wait another day. Yes, his love was strong enough to wait, but he needed to tell her. He needed once and for all to know if she felt the same way. If she did…his stomach fluttered at what could follow, but if she did not…He’d have to leave the compound if they’d let him. If they didn’t, well, he didn’t know what he’d do.
*
There was a faint knocking at the door. Hinata had a brief flash of rage. She was never going to finish her entry if she kept being interrupted like this! But then it passed. Surely whoever decided to knock on her door at…she checked her clock…five eighteen in the morning had a good reason. Her eyes flashed to the bathroom where Naruto was still showering. She said a silent prayer that whomever was wouldn’t be long, or would be stupid enough to believe that she was running herself a bath, then she opened the door.

She didn’t know what exactly she had expected to find there, but it wasn’t Neji. He looked lost, his large eyes peeking up at her from beneath his long hair. “Hinata… ah… can I come in?” She was so shocked that she ushered him in without a second thought. “Neji…” she whispered, she had harbored a casual crush for her older cousin for as long as she could remember, but with the appearance of Naruto in her first year of ninja school she had pushed it to the back of her mind. Now, with all the pheromones in the air already, that feeling came rushing back full force. “Neji…” He started at the sound of his own name, his thoughts had been lingering in another world. He stepped forward, arms wrapped around himself like he was cold. “Hinata,” he started, “We need to talk…” he stopped then, as the shower that he hadn’t even realized was going cut off in the bathroom. He stopped for a moment and stared at Hinata, shock apparent on his face. She looked guilty at first, then confident, aloof. Why shouldn’t she have someone in her room? She was old enough. Neji had no right to judge her. Just as she thought she had a handle on things, Naruto stepped out of the bathroom… wearing nothing but a towel.