A strange new life

7.8

From the kitchen counter, where I worked preparing the baking dough, I heard Karin recounting the events from when we met to the two visitors.

To hear Karin tell it, I fought and overpowered an army of ninjas. I mean, her tale wasn’t wrong. I did fight a fair number of enemies, but most of the fight was done by Assassination-chan to distract the opposition and let us flee. Even so, my clone mostly did hit-and-run tactics, which resulted in much chasing around and much less killing. Assassination-chan, despite her dramatic name, hadn’t killed more than four, and those were mostly the weaker ones.

Once jonins joined the fray, she was relegated to more fleeing than fighting.

Still, the audience seemed captivated. Rock Lee’s eyes shone with enthusiasm at the recounting, while Sakura looked parts scared, parts relieved, parts interested.

But while I kneaded the dough, there was one question that kept nagging me.

Why was Rock Lee here?

Not that I was against him being here. No, I was giddy in a way I hadn’t been since academy graduation and my assignment with Kakashi-sensei. Rock Lee, in my living room. The barely suppressed snicker from Sakura was enough to tell me I wasn’t able to suppress all the excitement, or dancing.

I mean. I might have fangirled– just a little – once the surprise had its time to settle in. It was Rock Lee, gawdamnit. He was cool. Can you blame me?

That even led to a whole conversation in which Sakura-chan gleefully spilled some of my less-than-savvy early-years incidents. Ugh, it was embarrassing yet nice.

Sakura, I could guess why she was here. Naruto, or maybe someone else, might have told her the news that I was back. I was pretty good friends with the tsuntsun, and it was normal she’d want to visit after I went missing. That still didn’t explain Rock Lee. And from the way the two talked to each other, this didn’t look like a new development.

Hadn’t Ino, not so long ago, told me Sakura had left flowers for Rock Lee and visited him a few times? Was there more to this? Had Sakura finally let go of her Emosuke obsession? Again, at the risk of allowing Fangirl-sama to take over too much, Rock Lee was cool. I’d even go for him if I had any interest in boys.

Yeah, he might look silly and maybe could do with a better haircut and maybe trimming his eyebrows, but those were just details that— Gah, stop. Deep breaths, control the Fangirl, don’t let her control you.

I divided the dough in small bits and placed them on the cupcake molds. Once I had distributed all the dough, I put the molds in the oven. It was a waiting game now. In the living room, Karin was now going over how I ‘saved’ her from the badgers. She conveniently left out I was the reason she was in danger with the badgers in the first place. I cleaned my hands in the apron, took a jar of juice, some cups, returned to the living room. I had visitors, and I was going to do my best to be a good host.

“These are so good.” Karin moaned after taking yet another bite of her cupcake.

Pressed for time and opportunity, I went with simple flavors. I did have to hide a batch of the cupcakes, however. By the rate they just disappeared between the three teens, if I hadn’t, Ino’s sweets would have been devoured before I could leave the house.

At some point, I had taken an older version of my comms board from my room and strapped it to my arm. That got me an interested glance from Karin when the board popped out of the seal. It reminded me that even though we shared a lot of time together, fuinjutsu was never discussed.

The weeks walk underground had given me plenty of time to think and design changes to my seals. Something I’d have to start working on soonish.

I gave her a nod and a smile, she gave me another in return.

I wrote my question.

“How are you faring, Rock Lee?” I cast a glance at the crutches.

The mood soured a little. Sakura’s smile dropped. Rock Lee’s smile was slightly brittle, but he still sounded cheerful when answering.

“This is nothing!” He boasted. “This small injury won’t get in my way of becoming a splendid ninja!”

Two things I noticed, or maybe three. Rock Lee didn’t seem to be even a little bit doubtful about that declaration despite what should have been horrible news from the doctors. Sakura looked at Rock Lee with a gaze full of something I couldn't place. Karin did blush a bit, looking at both Sakura and Rock Lee.

I wished the redhead all the best of luck. She was in for a rough journey.

“But Hinata-san,” Rock Lee said after a brief silence. “There’s one thing I never understood. Why did you almost kill Neji? Isn’t he also a Hyuga?”

Karin looked at Rock Lee and then at me, trying to understand what the boy had said. Then her eyes widened, and a hand covered her mouth. I gave her a slight shake of the head. Wrote words with my threads in a way I knew only Karin would be able to read. “I’ll explain later, promise.”

To Rock Lee, I did have to consider things before writing my answer.

Why did my clone almost kill Neji? Maybe I could blame it on my clones being a bit wild and somewhat out of control, but that wasn’t the real reason. The question here was, do I want to tell them the truth? Whatever I said here might go back to the Hyuga.

I asked a question before answering.

“Ino-chan told me Hyuga Neji sought me out in the forest. Why?”

Lee read my words, tilted his head. Scrunched his bushy brows. “He never told us.”

I erased my words, wrote others. Decided I wasn’t going to lie. “He looked at me like he wanted to kill me. I had to disabuse him of that notion.”

“He wouldn't!” Rock Lee said, agitated. “You’re the daughter of the clan leader.”

“Am I?” I wrote back. Rock Lee opened his mouth, maybe to argue, but I cut him off. “My name is Hinata, I don’t have a surname.” I rasped out. Left the implications of that for them to decide.

The room sunk into silence. Karin looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time. Sakura had tears in her eyes for some reason. Lee looked troubled. I got up from the couch, went back to the kitchen to check the second batch of pastries. Maybe to flee from the awkward mood as well.

Not that I managed to flee for long. A knock at my apartment’s door forced me out of the kitchen into the awkwardness of the living room. On the other side was a bundle of chakra that had changed in the almost two months I was away, but it was still inherently recognizable.

I opened the door.

There on the other side was Sasuke, wearing the traditional Uchiha attire, looking at me.

There was this moment of silence, like he didn’t know what to say or why he was even here. I blame the awkward mood from the talk earlier making me overly emotional. Or maybe it was just teenage hormones messing with my head.

I crossed the distance and hugged Sasuke, something I never thought I would do again. I was glad he hadn’t fled or something silly like that.

Man, I was a horrible mess if seeing Emosuke made me this happy.