Chapter 24
There was something so intrinsically beautiful in being able to create something with his hands. To be able to shape something into something else, something entirely his own, changing the entire reality of what he held and touched into something that felt less like substance and more like being.
Uzumaki Naruto could not remember the first time he learned to love to build, to make something from nothing; to foster, where he had never been fostered. It probably wasn’t that deep, though, he thought grumpily as he moved through the doorway to his first course of the semester and found a seat in the back. Or maybe it was, he reflected, thinking of Sakura pursuing her degree in psychology and relentlessly analyzing anyone within arm’s reach of her. He slumped over immediately, rubbing at the bags under his eyes before allowing his forehead to fall against the wood of his table.
He had spent his summer working three jobs and none of them forgiving on his body, or his mind. Physical labor was his go-to, because he was strong—stronger than most. But working towards a degree in architectural design meant he had to put his brain to work, too, and he wasn’t about to slack off when he was so close to reaching his goal. Sakura would never let him, anyways; she knew how hard he’d worked to get here, to make it to higher education.
His fingers tapped a jagged rhythm only he knew, itching for something he couldn’t even conjure. All he knew was that this part of education was so boring—lectures might give him the knowledge for the skills he’d need but he could already see the designs in his mind, glowing effervescent against the shadows tucked against the insides of his skull. Building plans itching to be put into action, layouts that were compact but breathable, structures that were affordable for low socioeconomic status areas like the one he’d grown up in. He had the passion, the ideas, and the determination to make it happen.
And now he just needed the education, so that he could do it right.
And so he could deal with the legislation of the thing, but that was for another day.
Naruto yawned, a lion’s halfhearted roar as someone sat down beside him. He glanced over with a careless half-smile, friendly even while exhausted, and flicked a glance at his watch. His eyes followed the tick, tick, ticking of the minute hand as he wondered what kind of professor they’d have, and if they were someone he’d seen around campus. He dreaded the start of the class, even as he wanted it to be over.
It wasn’t that the subject wasn’t interesting, exactly the opposite in fact, but that he just hated having to sit still for such long periods of time, testing only his brain. He’d much rather test his strength, his hands, the challenge of creating—but first he’d have to wait. To sit and to learn, regardless of whether or not this class was going to bore him to tears. He really, really hoped that it wouldn’t—that whoever the professor was, they’d make it interesting enough to keep his attention.
He glanced up as the front door slid open, and his eyes held.
She moved with casual grace, her bright eyes turning to survey the depths of her classroom with a practiced kind of curiosity. His heart was loud in his ears, suddenly, and he frowned at the reaction. He lifted a hand up to his chest, fingertips pressing. She set a multitude of folders and a single binder on her desk and turned to the whiteboard behind her, and Naruto watched the seamless elegance of her wrist shift to guide her fingers in writing her name in stark black marker.
Professor Hyuuga Hinata.
She certainly had his attention.
✧
Naruto became a paragon of studiousness, with a single target as his goal of understanding.
Well, he sincerely hoped she was single.
“If you look here,” Hyuuga Hinata said, pointing to one section of hand-crafted plans she had drawn up herself, now being projected up onto the screen in the front of the room. “There’s a structural flaw, not in the building itself, but in the layout of the grounds.”
Naruto watched her lips move around the words, captivated. He’d long since given up his seat in the back of the room, choosing instead the aisle seat in the front row—so much the better option to gaze at Hinata more closely. He’d learned a lot about her in only a few weeks’ time, asking around where he thought was acceptable, of friends and of staff.
What he’d learned hardly surprised him—a prodigy, from a good strong family; graduated high school years early and was now well in the throes of grad school, this her first course completely her own.
His eyes flicked to her plans, with some effort, and he saw immediately the flaw she was hinting at. Her layout was beautiful, creative and efficient, but it was too closed off. There were too many open spaces, as if something within her had wanted more freedom.
He glanced back to her and watched the self-conscious way she tucked her hair behind her ear, and he was enamored. Even though she spoke in front of an entire lecture hall daily, still she remained shy and almost uncertain—not in the material, which she professed with an edge of pride that moved past efficiency and bordered on simple confidence—but in herself. Something about the way she moved, trying to make herself seem smaller, had Naruto tilting his head in curiosity.
He didn’t like it.
She never wore anything that molded to her form, but Naruto had a keen eye for his interests and he’d been shamelessly watching her for weeks. The subtle shift of material at one moment might hug a greatly rounded hip, or pull a little tight across her rear the next. Naruto felt his heart start to race when she turned back to her laptop and he saw her fingertips, long and lithe, moving easily over the keys.
He had thought about her hands relentlessly since the start of the semester, and it was strangely powerful how much he wanted her to touch him. Naruto was a physical person, more inclined to touch than to desire touch—and maybe that had roots in his past, too, a familiarity with reaching out because no one ever reached first—but with Hinata, it was quick and sudden in the way a storm sometimes could be.
He wanted her to touch him, just as much as he wanted to touch her.
He scrawled something like scribbles in his notebook, pretending to pay attention, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. She avoided his gaze, almost intentionally, and Naruto had been wondering about that. Did he make her nervous? Was she aware of his unabated attention?
She glanced to him, then, catching his stare for a moment before flicking her eyes away. Her cheeks flared pink, and Naruto’s heard responded with fervor.
He swallowed and heard the tail end of her words as she brought the class to a close, wishing them all a good rest of their day.
It was easy to pretend to pack his things away slowly, until he was one of the last students in the room. He stood and slung his bag over his shoulder, tucking his hands into his pockets. When he moved around his table and approached her, he saw the way her shoulders tensed with obvious nerves. When she turned, a moment before he could say her name, as if she were so aware of his presence already she needn’t even be prompted to turn to him.
Her expression was still flushed, but it was open, and curious. There was no fear in her, though her shoulders remained tense, and Naruto understood that she was simply nervous.
“Hey,” he greeted. “Good class today.”
“You think so?” She asked, and the amused lilt of her tone had Naruto hesitating to answer. The corner of her lips kicked up and she added, “I was fairly certain you weren’t paying attention at all, Naruto-kun.”
Anyone else might have been aghast, might’ve tried to cover up their inconsistencies with little white lies. But Naruto wasn’t anyone else, and he was honest to a fault.
He lifted a hand from his pocket to rub idly at the back of his neck, messing with his hair and smiling unabashedly until his eyes crinkled.
He said, “Ah, you noticed, huh?”
He watched the slow shift in color over her face, until even the tips of her ears turned delicately pink. It was apparent that his sincerity had surprised her—that she’d been expecting him to react like anyone else would have.
He was ready to show her differently. He wanted to be more than just anyone to her.
He wanted to be someone important to her.
“Naruto-kun,” she whispered, and it was a gentle reprimand. Her voice spoke volumes, even so quietly, and it was telling. Naruto understood right then that Hinata was not unaware of his attention, hadn’t been for quite a while, and that she was hesitant to approach the reality of it. Naruto stepped closer to her, crowding her, and felt his skin heat when she didn’t step back. There were no other students left in the classroom, just the two of them, and Naruto couldn’t have stopped himself from reaching out to her.
He trailed his fingertips over the high curve of her cheekbone, feeling the heat there, and tucked a last strand of black hair behind her ear. He watched her lips fall open around a gasp, so breathtakingly quiet he almost missed it, and everything in him felt powerful. He let his fingertips trail down to the hinge of her jaw before falling away, returning to his side, tucking into a fist inside of his pocket for fear that he might reach again and not let go.
“Thanks for class today,” he said, tone unchanged, hiding the tremor that felt an awful lot like something powerful and warm gripping at his heart and his throat. “See you Wednesday.”
And he turned away from the shock of her expression, the brightness of her piercing stare that he could feel on his shoulders the entire way out of her classroom. He had to turn away, because if he didn’t, he wasn’t sure that he could stop himself from frightening her. His feelings had developed suddenly, an innocent kind of curiosity that sparked his interest and led to a wildfire raging under his skin, avid interest the least of what he felt for her.
Naruto turned down the hall and had to think about every step, so that he didn’t turn around and head right back to her, to see if her skin was as soft as it looked, her lips as kissable as he imagined.
Restraint, as it seemed, was his newest opponent.
✧
Naruto touched Hinata more and more after that; simple touches, trailing his fingers over her skin or reaching out to steady her when she stumbled. He walked with her after class now, and she let him. Sometimes he’d reach out and hold the back of her elbow, the furthest he thought she’d be comfortable with when in public. He wanted desperately to reach out for her tailbone, to press the width of his hands against her back and guide her along with him, right there beside him. He wanted to know what she felt like under his hands.
But Hinata was a shy creature, uncertain in the ways of affection, and that was equal parts frustrating and invigorating—that she wasn’t experienced with being wanted, and that he would be the one to show her the ropes. It excited him, made him look forward to waking up in the mornings when he knew they had class together.
Naruto was not unaware of the differences between their status, despite how often Sakura seemed to feel the need to remind him. He knew that it was taboo for a student and a teacher to get involved, at any level of education. There were obvious power differences, someone could get taken advantage of, and it didn’t matter that they were both adults. He knew it, and he had no misconceptions about it. He knew that it was considered wrong.
But he didn’t care. If it was a simple matter of finding Hinata attractive and wanting her, maybe that would be one thing and he could get it together and just ignore it. He had values, too, and he stuck with them wholeheartedly.
But he wanted so much more than to simply know her physically. He wanted to know what made her tick, what made her passionate, what she wanted most in life and how he could try to help her get to it. Somewhere between him reaching out to her that first time, feeling the heat of her cheek under his fingertips, and walking her to her car he had fallen in love with her.
And taboo or not, he wasn’t going to run from her.
He felt her shoulder brush against his arm, and he moved in even closer against her side. The hallways were crowded as ever, students walking past with arms full of books and binders, and it was easy to use the crowds as an excuse to feel the heat of her. Hinata didn’t shy away from him, only glanced up from under her lashes with the shyest of smiles, and a surprised breath slipped right through Naruto’s teeth.
They stepped into the sunlight and Naruto reached out to her hand, threading their fingers together as they stepped onto the asphalt, and Hinata did not pull away. Her fingers threaded around his, holding tightly, and when he cast his gaze back down to her he saw a trembling determination in her. Even while she shook, she would not back down.
He admired that; so much so that by the time they made it to her vehicle, he couldn’t help but to lean down and press a kiss to her temple, uncaring of who could see. He heard her gasp, and felt her fingers tighten around his own. She turned up to him, and there were walls in her expression he had seen her build, craftily and carefully.
But he had known her long enough now, well enough, to see through the architecture of her defenses—to the gaps of freedom she couldn’t help but to put in every plan. He moved into those spaces, filled them with himself, and hoped that he would become a kind of freedom she could love.
Hinata trembled as she said his name. He tilted his head down at her, watched the way the sun caught in the darkness of her hair and was held in the brightness of her eyes. It never failed to baffle him how every source of energy seemed to be drawn to her, in just the same way that he was—passionately, wholeheartedly.
Continuously.
“I know,” he said, tone low as he reached out with his free hand and traced the bow of her lower lip with his thumb. “I know what you’re thinking, what you’re gonna say. But I don’t care what people think. I’m not going to pretend that I don’t have feelings for you. I’m not gonna run.”
Hinata studied his expression critically, brows pursed, her eyes so heavy and uncertain it shook him. He didn’t move, however, didn’t want to push where she wasn’t willing to be pushed. He let her find whatever she was searching for in his expression and hoped that it led to something he could agree with, because if it didn’t?
Naruto didn’t know what he would do.
He watched her watching him, and it was an amusing turn in their relationship. She seemed to get the gist of his thoughts, then, too, and her lips curled around a wry smile. He was so used to being the one that gazed.
“Naruto-kun,” she began, and Naruto found himself straightening, wide shoulders thrust back far and wide. It was an unconscious gesture, making himself seem more opposing simply because he was afraid. Hinata did not shy away from it, or him. Instead, she reached out to him and traced the hard edge of his square jaw, fingertips so heartbreakingly gentle. She grasped his chin in her hands, dipping his face down so she could see every exposed facet of his expression with ease, her eyes missing nothing. “I like you.”
And then, right there in the university parking lot with students filtering in and out of campus all around them, she reached up onto the tips of her toes and pressed the gentlest of kisses against his lips. It was so light he could barely feel her lips there, and so quick he found himself trailing after her, bending to reach her and stopping when she shook her head and negated his movement.
With her fingers still holding his chin in her hand—the realization of this had Naruto’s head spinning, focusing so entirely on her hands and being held and this new and incredible warmth she had created in him through simple touch that he might have missed her next words entirely, if not for how jarring they were—she said, “But I will not compromise my career.”
Naruto didn’t move, not to breathe or to blink, and he watched the way she trailed her magnificent eyes over his features, searching for his response. After a long moment in which nothing but his heart seemed to move (harsh and fast and worried), she spoke once more.
“However, we share a similar mindset,” she said, and her smile was a slow-blooming spring over her deceptively calm expression, until all Naruto knew was that this was a victory. “I will not run from you.”
Naruto moved forward, then, because he couldn’t help it. It was as though being in her orbit was enough to draw him in, stronger than gravity. He kissed her with every wildly bubbling emotion of joy and relief that he had in him, and sucked on her upper lip with fervor, swallowing the low moan she emitted in response. Her hands came up to his biceps, not pushing but not pulling, so entirely in control.
Even as that impressed him, it ruined him. He wanted her to lose control with him, to be so overcome she couldn’t even hold back—much the same way that he couldn’t. It was a challenge he accepted, one he looked forward to, and as she pulled away lightly and allowed their foreheads to rest together, he smiled. His joy and acceptance reflected onto her expression as well, and they held one another close for a moment longer, Naruto already thinking of all the ways he planned to drive her wild.
She was the first to pull back, and that was a trend he was going to change, believe it.
“The only course you have that I teach,” she said, “Is this one. Afterwards, however—”
“You’re mine,” Naruto whispered, before she could get another word out, and moved into her space once more until they were pressed together entirely, leaning against her car. The heat of Hinata’s skin was a welcome respite, and Naruto bathed in her light.
Naruto knew it wasn’t going to be easy. There were months left of this course, months of which Hinata was telling him that he could not touch or kiss her, move in on her in the way he so desperately wanted to. He would have to fight headlong with his restraint and he would have to win—and he would, because Hinata wanted him. She had reached for him.
It didn’t matter what kind of challenge laid ahead of them, Naruto would face it and defeat it. He would do whatever it took to stay by her side, and when he looked down into the fierce gleam of her eyes he knew without having to ask that she felt the same. There was something that had been building between them since the moment they’d met each other’s’ eyes, and Naruto wanted to see it through to completion.
Naruto wasn’t entirely sure—he didn’t have much experience with this—but Hinata felt a lot like love, and he wanted to hold her in his hands and see what they could create.
What they would create.
Together.