25The Missing Scene after Hinata's Confession
Author's Note: Just a NaruHina one shot I wrote up for fun, inspired by Hinata's epic confession and Naruto's lack of response (grr). This was good training for my romance writing chops. If you like or hate, please leave a comment and check out my original stories "The Legend of Phoenix Mountain" and "COWBOY NINJA" at tinabot dot com. I am also rewriting my Naruto fanfics "Awakenings" and "All the Difference" and will move on to my long delayed, long awaited third sequel "Chibi Legends" to complete the trilogy.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, but I sure do love NaruHina ^_^
Naruto breathed in the early morning air.
As he walked among the trees of Konoha, his thoughts wandered back to the devastation, the devastation of the village, the devastation of the people, the devastation of his heart.
When he arrived at his destination, he saw the glisten of her ink-blue hair in the sun first. She was standing, leaning against the wooden training pole that Naruto had been tied to at his Genin test so many years ago. Her left cheek was pressed against it, and she had a left arm wrapped around it, almost tenderly.
Somehow, he had known she would be here.
As he walked out of the wooded area into the clearing, he could sense that she knew he was there. He stopped a few yards away, almost timidly, and just stood there, looking at her back, and the memories of her death flooded into his mind. Her eyes. Her smile. Her tears. Her blood. Her confession.
So many emotions had drowned him that day when he fought Pain, trying to defend the village, struggling with the memories of those lost. Love. Hate. Joy. Anger. Resolve. Fear. Grief. He couldn't pull them apart from each other, all of it fused together in his being in a tangled mess melded beyond recognition. And the question burned inside him, the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to know. What was that overwhelming? Where did that dark abyss come from? How did the rage seep so deep into every fiber of him that it literally opened up the gate and offered his soul to the nine-tailed demon inside? He was no stranger to suffering, so why had it destroyed him so completely this time?
Hinata shifted her weight and stood up straight, loosening her gentle hold on the wooden pole. As she turned around to face him, he involuntarily took a sharp breath in. There was his answer to his question.
She was different, very different from the dark, quiet and nervous girl he knew from the ninja academy. And it wasn't that she had stopped being herself. No, it wasn't that at all. Her eyes were wide and full of joy, her smile was carefree yet thoughtful, and her whole presence was serene but completely aware. She was like a flower in full blossom, turned willingly toward the sun, praising its warmth with an infinite depth of gratitude. She was turned toward him.
With his answer clear in his mind, the corner of his mouth curled gently up into a partial smile, the sort of smile that comes as a pure beam of honest emotion straight from inside.
"Hinata."
Her name flowed out of his mouth, and he reveled in the sound of it, every syllable and texture of it suddenly so precious.
"Ohiyou, Naruto."
She smiled back at him, a natural friendly tilt to her face. There was no fear, no nervousness, no dark self-doubt in her response. In fact, the lack of formalities in the way she greeted him pleased him to no end. Before, it was always "Naruto-kun" this or "gozaimasu" that, as if she were always terrified to offend him in any way. But now he could feel she wasn't afraid anymore. She was completely here with him, nothing pulled back or hidden away. Her strength and her compassion flowed out of her as freely as a life-giving river. Here was a woman who knew what she wanted, knew where she was going, and knew who she was.
Naruto felt the sureness of that welling emotion, as certain as the beat of his heart and as assuring as the cadence of his breath. He was sure of the answer he had found-Hinata was the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes upon. Of this, he now had no doubt.
"Morning, Hinata."
She took in a deep breath, closing her eyes as she inhaled, and then opened her eyes again as she breathed out, her smile even friendlier and more beautiful than before.
"It's so beautiful today, ne? So bright."
It seemed funny, to have her chat with him about the weather, so mundane and trivial a topic coming out of her mouth in this first meeting after what she had done, with this girl who not too long ago had willingly given her life to give him a fighting chance. But it wasn't a time killer, it wasn't idle chatter. Hinata was genuinely expressing her appreciation for the sun-warmed blue Konoha sky, the light breeze playing with the dazzling greenery around them, the peaceful floating white clouds above. Naruto realized that that's what happens, after facing death head on and coming out alive on the other side, it's the simple things, the obvious things that suddenly become so very cherished. It's realizing just how much you took for granted. He had definitely learned this lesson, too.
"Hinata, I…" Naruto realized suddenly he didn't know how to put his thoughts and feelings into words.
"Yes?" Hinata gave him her full and undivided attention, the look on her face encouraging and reassuring. So different from the terrified and stuttering girl she was before, and yet, it was like she was this beautiful woman all along, just trying to emerge from the shell that she had confined herself in.
Naruto knew there was nothing better to do than just to jump right into it, the way he knew best, head-on.
"Hinata, you saved my life. If you hadn't stepped in, we wouldn't be here right now. None of us would be here right now."
Hinata laughed and shook her head. "That's not true Naruto. You would have come through for everyone. You always come through. That's just who you are."
"No, you don't understand. I had no answer to Pain. If you hadn't jumped in, I may not have found the strength to win…"
"You're wrong, Naruto," Hinata said with a sure voice. Her carefree smile suddenly turned into a serious expression. She closed her eyes again and sighed, but this time it was a troubled sigh. She turned away from him and looked out on the view of the mountains in the distance.
Naruto was silenced by the sureness in her voice. She spoke, still looking at the distant mountains.
"I heard that you were almost completely consumed by the Kyuubi demon. When I heard that, I realized that I had done the wrong thing, interfering."
"You didn't…" Naruto started insistently, but she didn't let him finish.
"No," she shook her head and looked back at him, dead seriousness in her luminescent eyes. "Being consumed by a demon is a fate worse than death. I knew what I did was selfish, but I didn't realize just how selfish it was."
"You couldn't have known, Hinata," Naruto said. He felt the conversation was going all wrong.
"I'm sorry Naruto. I just couldn't-"
"Couldn't stand by and watch me die."
Her brow furrowed in pain at the thought of it all, and Naruto had this intense impulse to wrap his arms around her and ease that suffering he saw expressed on her face.
"Hinata, you did exactly what I would have done in your situation. Stop second guessing yourself." Naruto let out a laugh. "You really are still that little weird negative girl I used to startle the living daylights out of back at the Academy."
She gave him a mixed wry smile at his little crack before looking away at the mountains again. She was still unconvinced.
"How…how did you keep from being consumed by the Kyuubi?
Naruto's eyes fell at little at the memory of what happened in his inner consciousness.
"My father was the Fourth Hokage who defeated the Kyuubi, and he was the one who sealed it inside me. He left some of his chakra inside me as a safe guard against my completely breaking the seal that held the Kyuubi back. When I was going to break the seal, my father appeared and stopped me."
When Naruto looked back up at Hinata after his explanation, he saw the pained look in her eyes, and then the tears started pooling at the corners of her eyes that quickly spilled over and streamed down her cheeks, glimmering in the morning sunlight.
"Thank goodness…for your father…" she sobbed, and lifted her hands to cover her face.
That was more than Naruto could bear. Swiftly, he stepped forward, and in no time at all, he had his arms around her, holding her to him, trying his best to assuage her suffering with his gentle yet firm presence. His embrace only succeeded in making her sob more uncontrollably. Naruto knew, though, that her outpouring of emotion was a result of not running away from her feelings—she was meeting them head on. The terror she felt at the prospect of the Kyuubi overtaking him and the blame she was putting on herself for it was overwhelming her.
"Hinata, don't do this." For all her courage and strength, she was still the same old self-deprecating girl he had always known. He held her and let her cry it all out, and finally, she pulled away from him, cleaning her face with a handkerchief she had pulled out of her jacket pocket, slowly composing herself again, though the red puffiness around the corners of her eyes remained as a testament to her tears.
He put his hands on her shoulders and almost gave her a little shake before he began talking.
"Listen to me Hinata. You are my hero. You saved me with your life when I needed you most. I couldn't ask for a better person to call my friend."
His words seemed to bring a measure of comfort and relief to her. Hinata managed a weak smile in response to his words, still wiping the corners of her eyes.
"Thanks…Naruto."
Seeing her at least back to smiling again, Naruto continued.
"And…and I…"
He couldn't quite find the words, though they were so obvious and on the tip of his tongue. Somehow, those same words didn't seem to weigh as much as her words had when she had placed herself calmly between him and Pain in the midst of a battle to the death, to her death. No matter how he played them in his head coming out of his mouth, they seemed to fall flat in expressing what he was really feeling. So he decided to show her how he felt instead.
His right hand slid from her shoulder up to her face, gently cupping her left cheek and jaw to tilt her face up. He could smell her fragrant and clean scent, sense the warmth emanating from her body, and feel the softness of her skin. He moved his face towards hers, his eyes beginning to close as his jaw relaxed and his lips parted naturally as they neared hers.
Just when his lips were about to touch hers, a hand came up to his face and blocked his mouth, holding his head at bay.
"What are you doing?"
It was Hinata's hand stopping his lips and Hinata's voice asking him that question.
He backed away a bit, his right hand still on her face.
"I…uh…was going to kiss you?"
He searched her eyes for disapproval of his forward action, but he found only puzzlement in them.
"Why?" was her pointed answer.
"Ah…because I like you?" He couldn't quite help responding to all of her questions with a question intoned answer, as if he were asking for permission while at the same time answering her queries.
For a moment, Naruto watched as Hinata's byakuugan pearl eyes searched his face, as if trying to connect dots. Then a realization spread across her face. She smiled.
"Naruto," she raised her hands to his wrists and lifted his hands off her and then held them together out in front of her while staring down at them, "you don't have to feel obligated to me. Just because I confessed my feelings to you doesn't mean you need to try and return them." She smiled sadly. "I know how you feel…about me." She looked back up into his eyes. "There's no need to pretend. I've already accepted that this is the way things are." She released his wrists.
Wait, what? Naruto was slow on the uptake here. As he was slowly trying to filter through her actions and words, Hinata serenely tucked her handkerchief away in her pocket again.
"Wait a minute, no Hinata. I'm really expressing my feelings here. I like you too—a lot. More, even."
"Naruto, you don't have to do this, really. It's enough for me now to just know that you know how I feel about you, what you mean to me. Now, we can move on, I can move on."
"But I don't want to move on! You're getting this all wrong, Hinata. I'm not pretending. I'm not doing this because I feel like I owe you. You said you wanted to be with me…and I…I want to be with you too."
He watched her intently as she was visibly taken aback by his words and then searched his face with a suppressed eagerness to find the truth of the matter. Then she smiled, and the hope flickered in him. Then she closed her eyes and shook here head, and that hope flickered out.
"No, Naruto, it's okay. You don't have to pretend."
Frustrated, Naruto scratched his head and racked his brain, trying to figure out how in the world he was going to convince this girl who liked him that he felt the same way about her. He was used to getting flat out rejected by girls, he knew how to deal with that, but this, this was a lot more complicated.
Maybe a metaphor would work.
"Hinata, when I saw you die, when I thought you died…" he flinched unwittingly at the memory of it "it was like, it was like someone had shoved a rasengan ball in my chest and it tore me up inside."
Not the most elegant of metaphors, but it made perfect sense to him, and he hoped it would to her.
Hinata stared at him, her mouth slightly open in thought and her eyes showing some understanding.
Naruto decided to take a more literal approach.
He curled the fingers of his right hand into a clawlike fashion and then twisted his wrist to hold his right palm face up in front of her. In it was a swirling, glimmering blue rasengan ball made up of his life force, his chakra.
"It's like this."
Hinata looked down at the whirling spherical galaxy Naruto had created in the palm of his hand. It was causing a wind that circled them, a few falling green leaves catching in the current and began to orbit them at different angles.
"It's beautiful."
"And powerful. And when I thought I'd lost you, it was like someone had shoved this into my chest."
As he explained, he motioned as if he was going to really shove it into his own chest to demonstrate. He wasn't going to, of course, but just to make a point, he did bring it to a hairs breath distance to himself. Instinctively, Hinata's hand reached out and grabbed his wrist, to keep the deadly mass of energy from making contact with his chest. The rasengan disintegrated and whiffed out harmlessly into thin air.
Naruto took this opportunity and put his left hand over her hand on his right wrist, then turned his right hand so that he ended up with her hand sandwiched in between both of his.
"Hinata, why won't you just accept my words and my feelings at face value? You said you've watched me for so long. Then look into my eyes and tell me, am I lying to you? Am I pretending?"
He stared intently at her as she searched his face and his eyes for an answer. By the look on her face, he could see that he was beginning to get through to her, though she was still hesitant to believe.
It was a start.
He stepped up close to her again, this time raising his left hand to her face. She looked up at him, still hesitant and withdrawing as she tried to warm up to his advances.
"Naruto, if you are pretending because you don't want to hurt my feelings, I'll be a lot more heartbroken when the truth comes out."
Naruto smiled and shook his head a little at her words.
"I promise Hinata. I hope you can believe it."
Hinata smiled, closed her eyes, and leaned her face into his hand in a tender gesture.
"I've always believed in you."
Naruto felt that same welling of feeling inside him again. Here she was, all his life, always there, always by his side. And finally, he realized he had never been alone. He leaned in towards her again, and this time he finally felt the long awaited sensation of her warm and soft lips pressed against his.
Author's Note: Oh snap! Romance writing level up! ^O^ I'm also writing the second book to both my original novel "Phoenix Mountain" and my COWBOY NINJA series. Please look forward to my writing!