Chapter 17
Hyuga Hinata is used to being around people she has to look up to, both literally and figuratively. Mostly literally, though.
Shino is a frequent towering presence beside her, one that casts a very cool shadow. Kiba isn’t particularly tall, but he still manages to need to look down to meet her eyes. They’d all grown in different ways, over the years; her boys mostly grew upwards, their height expanding every day it seemed.
She grew in dips and curves, her waist tucking in and her hips flaring out. She grew a little taller as well, but it wasn’t anything to brag about. It’s not that she had ever been self-conscious about that, though. There were a lot of people, men and women, that were her height, and she was comfortable with it.
Uzumaki Naruto used to be about her height, but that was back before he left the village with Jiraiya, on some grand adventure to gather strength and wisdom and answers to unasked questions.
The first time Hinata sees him step foot back inside the village hidden in the leaves, she has to tilt her head back to meet his eyes.
Oh, she thinks, when his smiling gaze turns and cuts through the crowd to find her, lips lifting into a delighted curl. Their friends seem to appear out of the woodwork of neighboring buildings, and instantly gravitate towards him and the inherent, gravitational pull of his joy.
“Hinata!” He greets, and he comes to her without hesitation, even as she continues to blink up at him, head craned back. He moves easily amongst their friends, and the every now and again village civilian stopping to stare at him in wonder.
She can’t remember a time when Naruto had ever stood so tall, or seemed so big. Her eyes drop to glance off the sharp edges of his wide shoulders and she has to swallow, heavily. Heat flares in her cheeks as she takes in the breadth of his chest, wide and strong and straining underneath the material of his undershirt.
“Long time no see,” he says, voice suddenly sounding lower, softer, almost gentle. He stops a step away from her and she can’t believe how big he’s grown—
It had always felt the greatest distance in the world, the space between his lips and hers. Now, though, she can’t imagine ever getting a chance at them.
She says, “Welcome back, Naruto-kun.”
She watches the way he receives the words, and how his eyes flicker with some inexplicable understanding. Their friends crowd around them, chattering a hundred miles a minute, calling out to Naruto and asking about what he’d done and what he’d learned, and yet he doesn’t look away from Hinata for a moment—not even to blink. His eyes settle heavily, dotingly, and she watches his hand lift to trail along her cheek. Time slows around her.
His fingertips trail over the edge of her jaw, so undeniably gentle, before he exerts the slightest amount of pressure just under the bell of her chin. He tilts her face higher, allows the sun to pool against her forehead and cheeks, and Naruto leans down until his lips press just once, so softly, against her lips.
He pulls back a moment later, his magnificent shoulders still hunched down to her level, and he smiles.
“It’s good to be home.”