Desperation

Desperation

Chapter 3: Guilty Conscience

Hinata didn't know what to do after Naruto had seen her and then scampered off. She wondered if she should perhaps head to the Hokage Tower to help hand in the mission report, but her team had left some time ago, and they didn't really need her there to give the report if they had already done so.

Part of her wondered if she ought to chase after Naruto and talk about what had happened. That was a very small part of her and it was killed with a vengeance before it had time to speak its voice.

Feeling rather pathetic, as well as rather useless, Hinata turned and began walking aimlessly through the streets of Konoha.

So, Naruto knew. Or at least, he seemed to know as he had run when he had seen her. Either way it was a bad sign for Hinata. Sasuke seemed to know something, the broodish bastard – whoops, where did that thought come from? She must have Naruto's voice on autopilot because the words had sounded like they had come from Naruto's lips, even in her head.

With everything that had happened in the past few weeks, Hinata idly wondered if perhaps she ought to get her mentality checked.

She'd raped Naruto. Sort of. He had seemed willing enough, but wasn't the whole point that you were supposed to ask someone if they wanted to have sex or not? Wasn't that a fairly important part of it?

Okay, so perhaps it wasn't that bad. He hadn't confronted her about it, so it meant that he probably felt just as responsible. If he had wanted to he could have defended himself.

Hinata shook her head and hugged herself, feeling rather shy and shaky, not sure what she should feel or what she should do. Everything just seemed too strange for her to get her thoughts straight.

"Hello Hinata!"

Hinata froze. For a moment, Hinata wondered if she were hearing things, wondering if she were day dreaming that voice, but then she turned and saw blonde hair coming towards her and she realized that she wasn't dreaming.

"Hello Ino," Hinata managed to squeak out.

"I uh, I wanted to talk to you," Ino said, her blue eyes looking at Hinata's rather seriously.

'She knows!' was the only thought that Hinata could summon to her mind.

"I— I—" Hinata stuttered, trying to form the words to apologize to Ino. She hadn't meant to upset her. She really wanted Naruto to be happy, and she was sure that if Naruto wanted to marry her then Ino was surely capable of doing that.

"I need your help," Ino said, pulling a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Hinata blinked at her.

"Huh?" Hinata squeaked out. Ino giggled.

"You really are so shy and adorable!" Ino said as she reached out and pinched Hinata's cheek. Hinata could do nothing but move her eyes slowly to attempt to look at the spot where Ino had pinched without actually activating her byakugan.

Ino threw her arm around Hinata and began to walk, making Hinata stumble as she began to walk in step with Ino as well.

"As you probably know," Ino said as she flipped her pony-tail behind her shoulder, "Naruto and I are going to get married."

Hinata wondered if this was some sort of test, some sort of trick. Perhaps Ino wasn't sure if Hinata had had sex with Naruto after their engagement. Maybe Hinata could play her seduction off as a bad-timed effort when she hadn't known that Naruto was taken. The engagement had been sudden after all.

"Of course you know! Everyone knows. Everyone's been talking about it," Ino gushed when Hinata didn't say anything for a moment. "And, well," Ino threw a sidelong glance at Hinata conspiratorially. "Well it's no secret that you've-"

Hinata squeaked, her feet sticking to the ground, waiting for Ino to tell her that she knew.

"-gah!" Ino said as she kept walking when Hinata had not, her arm around Hinata's neck jerking her backward. Hinata's hand went to her throat to un-clutch Ino's arm from her neck and gasped.

"Sorry! I'm so, so sorry!" Hinata said, apologizing profusely, tears welling in her eyes. "I'm so sorry! I didn't know what I was thinking! I won't do it again!"

"Geeze, geeze! It's okay!" Ino said, waving her arms around frantically, trying to hush Hinata as all of the guilt from Hinata's actions over whelmed her, and Hinata began to cry. People were looking at them. Ino smiled at the few people who had stopped to see if Hinata was okay while shooing them away though somehow simultaneously trying to hush and calm Hinata down.

"I'm sorry! I-" Hinata's constant stream of apologizes and promises was cut short as Ino clamped her hand over Hinata's mouth.

"She's fine. Don't worry," Ino said to the crowd that had started to gather as she half-drug half-pulled Hinata from the middle of the street to a nearby ally. Two little kids were playing ball, but Ino gave them such a fierce glare that they took their ball and ran, leaving the two women alone in the ally.

Ino finally released her hand from Hinata's mouth and gave her a sharp slap across the face.

"Stop crying," Ino said firmly, but not harshly. Hinata took deep gulps of air, and she actually felt a little better now that Ino had slapped her. She deserved it. Ino put one hand on her hip and another on her head as she gave a sort of bewildered glare at Hinata.

"I'm sorry," Hinata mumbled out again.

"Hinata," Ino said, rubbing at her head, "it was an accident. No big deal," Ino said. Hinata turned to stare at her.

Accident? Hinata's mind took a moment to catch up when she finally realized what Ino thought Hinata was apologizing for. Ino thought that Hinata was apologizing for stopping in the middle of the street so abruptly and dragging her backward.

Was it possible that Ino didn't know? Had Naruto not told her? Then, again, Hinata wondered, did Naruto really even know?

"Ah, yes. Sorry for the hy-hysterics. I came from a d-difficult mission," Hinata stuttered out. Ino gave her a sympathetic look before waving her hand dismissively.

"Shikamaru told me you were weird, but I didn't know just how weird," Ino said thoughtfully, and then added, "Not that being weird is a bad thing or anything."

"Naruto likes weird girls. He told me," Hinata let slip before clamping her hand over her mouth. That had been years ago, and she wasn't sure how Ino would respond to Naruto confiding in Hinata the type of girl that he liked.

"Actually, that's what I need to talk to you about," Ino said. Hinata looked at her puzzled. "Listen, Hinata, besides Sakura, you're the only other girl that seems to really know Naruto. I mean, no offense, but it was kind of obvious that you had that silly little crush on him all those years ago. You watched him and all for so long. Anyway, I need your help. I'm getting married to the man, and I need to know a bit more about him, from a girl's perspective."

Hinata blinked at Ino. Need to know a bit about him? Wasn't that supposed to happen before you decided to get married? Hinata was starting to agree with what Sasuke had said. Something was a bit weird with Naruto and Ino's engagement.

"Why don't you ask Naruto?" Hinata said. It was the most obvious thing to do when you wanted to get to know someone.

"Well, of course, but you know Naruto. He doesn't like to talk about himself that much," Ino said, waving her hand dismissively. For a moment Hinata thought Ino was being sarcastic. Naruto loved talking about himself. When Hinata realized Ino was serious, she began to seriously wonder how long their relationship was going to last.

"But, he does like talking about himself," Hinata practically pouted.

"I know he likes ramen. He wants to be Hokage, and all that other stuff he spouts. I mean, he doesn't ever talk about him – his childhood. He always clams up and changes the topic," Ino said thoughtfully. Hinata breathed a sigh of relief. So Ino had noticed that. It wasn't as bad as Hinata thought, though she was a bit jealous that someone else had noticed that about her...er...Ino's Naruto-kun.

"Well, I don't know quite what to tell you. Shouldn't you ask Sakura about Naruto? She was his teammate when they were younger, and they still do a lot of team missions together," Hinata said thoughtfully.

Ino seemed to beam at Hinata.

"I have! And I'm going to drill her more! But, the point is, Sakura was so mean and nasty to Naruto when they were younger that I think she missed a lot of things. So, what I want to do is have a girl's night out where we talk about Naruto. You won't mind that, right?" Ino asked.

Yes, Hinata minded that very much, but she had promised herself that she would do everything in her power to make Ino and Naruto as happy as possible. So of course she had to agree.

"That sounds nice," Hinata said, smiling slightly. Ino grinned widely and threw her arms around Hinata.

"You're going to be such a big help – you have no idea! And, even though Forehead Gi-er, Sakura is going to be my maid of honor, I think it would be lovely to have you as another bridesmaid. You are the only other female that graduated with the Rookie Nine, and you know both Naruto and me. It just makes perfect sense!" Ino said.

Hinata wasn't sure that made perfect sense, but knowing what she did about Ino, it seemed like perfect Ino reasoning. Then her brain caught up with Ino's words. Her? A bridesmaid? In Naruto's wedding?

"Me, a bridesmaid?" Hinata asked hesitantly.

"Of course! Doesn't that sound so cool? I knew you'd agree," Ino said, smiling. Hinata blinked, wondering when she had agreed, but this bubbly side of Ino that she knew some had found annoying reminded her strangely of Naruto. It was a depressing thought for some reason.

Hinata watched as Ino gave her a big smile, as though Hinata could really help her out. She was going to be telling Ino the things she had seen in Naruto when they had been in the Academy – and even when they were genin. She was going to be a bridesmaid.

In describing her current situation, the word ominous came to Hinata's mind.

"Well, it seems all settled. Meet me at my place tonight at seven. Sakura's going to be there too, and we're going to have a lovely girl's night! See ya!" Ino said, bouncing off happily.

Hinata watched her go. Honestly, Ino did seem more cheerful than Hinata had ever recalled seeing her. Naruto just had that effect on people. Hinata sighed, feeling slightly miserable (okay, so she felt horribly miserable). Even so, she was still happy that Ino didn’t seem to know that she’d seduced her fiancé, Naruto didn’t seem to outright hate her (he hadn’t yelled at her), and she would at least get to see Naruto some more if she were a bridesmaid.

Somehow things would work out. They had to, didn’t they?


Next Chapter: The Past


Sorry that I didn’t update last week. There were some errors on fanfiction dot net, so I decided not to post. Hope you liked this chapter. ~ Jelp