Between the Trees

An angel spoke to her once.

It didn’t descend from the sky, clouds parting around an ethereal existence unimaginable and unfathomable to human eyes. It didn’t have wings, or a halo, or a face.

A sword pierced through her and her scream got caught in a breath, a gasp; at that time, before her body had fallen to the dirt, she’d thought for a moment that it was funny. Iron in her side, iron on her lips. She remembered distinctly the way her body bounced on the cold dirt, the solid ground. A moment later and her opponent fell, too. A stream of chakra no greater than a strand of her hair had extended from her fingertip, slicing through air and flesh and chakra and bone. Her chakra flickered and waned as she lay there, and even with her Byakugan fading she could see the way the life left him in a rattle and a shake.

It was then that it happened. She worked on breathing less raggedly and pushed her palms to the earth, forced her weight onto her wrists. She got a single knee under her when she felt the chill on her skin, the baby hairs on her nape rising.

Later, Ino would ask her what she had expected; being the less spiritual of the two, Ino had her doubts and was more a blank canvas. Curious, but not expecting. Hinata had had expectations. Something to see, namely. Anything to hear. A figure or a note, moving through the air, hovering before her. She expected a certain kind of grandeur.

Instead it rose from the earth beneath her feet, a lowly thing, incandescent and glistening. More monster than messenger, she would later remember, when she still had memory of it.

There were no horns, no trumpets, no strings. There was no sound at all, except for this: a breeze like a song over her skin, the notes sinking into her veins, a chorus tucked away behind layers of cardiac muscle. Was it there for her?

She couldn’t see—couldn’t hear. The world narrowed to a pinhole in existence and all Hinata knew was that it was moving. She didn’t know how she knew, but that she was certain. And it was coming closer.

For her, then.

She felt something softer than feathers, lighter than air, right there under her chin. She looked up and warmth flowed through her.

Be not afraid, it said, and Hinata wanted to laugh. She hurt too badly to do so, and time was moving differently in this creature’s company. She felt lifted, floating while still on the ground. She reached out and curled her fingers in the dirt to ground herself; a reminder that this was real.

Who are you, she thought.

But there was only this: the breeze, warm as the first day of summer, somehow finding a way inside of her; it circled her spine.

She could hear it again, the muted chorus, unspoken but felt.

(A message, she thought, trying to make sense of the impossible—planted like a seed in the folds of her heart—)

Movement; a shifting of reality; Hinata heard only this:

True love is one soul residing in two bodies.

When her eyes slipped shut she expected the honest black of unconsciousness. Instead there was only the burning light of gold and white, a thousand times more harrowing than shadows for how cognizant of her own fading consciousness she was. Her eyes slipped shut, her periorbital veins constricted, and her world only continued to brighten, to brighten, to brighten.

Later, she would lose it all. The warmth. The blinding light. A chorus absent of voices, composing a new melody. Each more astonishing and indescribable than the last, and each forgotten.

But—miraculously—she remembered the words.

And it was the words she kept.

✧

He spoke to an angel, once.

He couldn’t tell you how he knew it was an angel, or why it was so important for him to say the words. His heart had been a rattle in the cage of his chest, clattering hopelessly, trying desperately to keep him alive. The back of his shirt had been soaked with blood, iron grit between his teeth.

It came to him from the trees.

Naruto remembered the stellar image it cast against the waning sky; that stark evergreen whispering through the breeze, trembling against a lavender sky. He remembered forcing his hand into the air, trying to capture it, to reach out and touch it. He had always been a physical person—learned his lessons best when they were beat into him first, even at the hands of friends.

He knew love through his fingertips, the palms of his hands. Him, reaching. Always. There were stories of love and rejection in those ravines between swathes of his skin, so many whispered uncertainties—theirs and his own and his own and his own.

So it wasn’t unusual for him to be the one reaching out, even to an empty sky. In this he had no uncertainties; he merely reached, extending his arm with his heart on his sleeve as he always had. It was the only way he knew how to love. Honestly, and without holding back.

When he was little, he had learned to expect rejection. Then, as he grew, he taught himself and learned from friends, from family, that he was worth more than expecting rejection. So he taught himself to reach with hope, instead. His arm was straight and strong and unwavering, he closed his fingers into a fist, once, around the overhead image of the branches and their beautiful leaves. He opened his hand again and let the lines of his palms whisper their secrets to the skies, and it was then that he felt the warmth against his skin.

He didn’t question it, wasn’t suspicious or wary. He let the heat play between his fingers, like a gold coin travelling over and under his knuckles. He felt the way it wound around his wrist, his forearm, the trembling muscle of his bicep. The heat sunk into his skin, a subtle burn down his spine.

And then the lavender sky fractured above him, and a faint light trickled towards him.

He blinked as he felt it reach his palm, settle into the grooves of his skin. It trembled there, so unbelievably fragile even as the light of it showed straight through his skin. He felt the power of it in his hand, contrasted with the way it rested there—and for one unthinkable moment Naruto wondered if all it wanted was to be held.

The thought washed away and the heat in his hand grew until he bent his arm, rested his elbow in the dirt at his side. Looking directly at it burned his eyes, the same kind of feeling as looking into the sun, but with a thousand times the brightness and a total absence of pain. Naruto wondered if there would be any color left to his eyes, after this, and pictured instead the curious beauty of colorless irises. Familiar to him, since—

The light flickered, a single charge, and Naruto watched it sink into the skin of his wrist. This, he felt. Of all the fire jutsu he had not been able to escape in his lifetime, this was worse, this was a million times worse. But he didn’t scream; there was no air left in the world for him to scream with. The light moved inside of him until he was totally, completely breathless. He watched it like a trail of pale liquid lavender move through the veins in his arm until it disappeared over his chest. He felt the warmth around his heart.

The tears he felt on his cheeks were almost more surprising. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d let himself cry. He did so, now, not because it hurt—and it did—but because there was a calm to the way it was circling his heart that he had never felt before. The pain faded from a burning to an aching and Naruto felt carved out, hollow. He felt Kurama in his mind and saw bars and shadows, as if the beast had cornered himself. As if he feared the light.

Naruto wondered about monsters and madness and felt starkly the way that the light—no larger than a dandelion seed—was unraveling him.

But this, he thought, was a pain he could tolerate. It was familiar to him. A childhood friend. Emptiness.

Suddenly the light flared and Naruto caught his breath, found himself gasping. The light gave one final burst, a flare of warmth around his heart, and then he felt it get caught in his throat. Naruto coughed and coughed until the light burst through, and when he gazed upon it once more, this incredible, unthinkable anomaly, he could think only of a sudden kind of music it had left behind.

He could only feel it, smoothing through him, somehow incomplete. Just beginning.

“Wait,” he said, brave as the light which began to rise. He could see it clearer now, his eyes seeing more and more the longer he looked up at it. The light was only a piece, he realized, a fragment a shattered jagged edge of something magnificent something magical and unbelievable and his mind began to throw images of great and mighty beasts he’d learned about in history class at him one after another until—

Sudden, all-consuming silence. This time, of Naruto’s own making. He put a name to the being in front of him and knew it angel. It was there in his heart where the leftover warmth still radiated freely. It was there in the multifaceted intergalactic mass of its creation, looming over him with utter gentleness. He had so many questions he wanted to ask, and he struggled to prioritize them in time. How much time did he have left, he wondered. Was there enough?

This was the kind of fear that rose unbidden when you realized that time didn’t bend for anyone; that you only had so much control over the life you were given. Naruto didn’t want to waste time voicing it. Instead, he looked straight into the heart of an angel and he said, “I don’t get it. I don’t know why you chose me, but I hope I can make something of it, you know? I hope I don’t let you down. And…thank you, I think. For, well. For reaching back.”

The docile light continued to rise, high up into the sky, losing color and luminosity the closer it got to the trees. Naruto hoped for a response, anything at all, even after the lavender sky swallowed the light whole and seemed to glow at the edges. He waited and waited, his blood cooling beneath him, and at last he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. He needed to get home, he needed medical attention, but he was exhausted. He was so, so exhausted.

As unconsciousness claimed him, he began to dream of lavender skies, of eyes drained of color, of hearts freed of uncertainty and fear.

Of a single flickering light in the darkness telling him this, and only this: Be not afraid.

✧

Hinata recovered from her wounds with the aid of expert medical care and her own dogged resilience. She went through rehabilitation with Kiba and Shino at her side during the days, and Hanabi at nights. Kurenai-sensei was a constant figure at her hospital bedside. She was healthy and strong and she took excellent care of herself, so she healed quickly. Within a week she was back to her normal training regimen, though Hokage-sama had given her a single crinkle-eyed smile and told her she wouldn’t be getting a mission for at least another week. That was fine with her; beyond the fact that she had been in mortal danger, there was something otherwise…bizarre, about the experience. She couldn’t remember much—she knew what concussions could do to a person—but for some reason she couldn’t get that simple phrase out of her head.

True love is one soul residing in two bodies.

What did it mean that she’d come away from a life-threatening mission with that particular phrase cemented into her memory? It was an anomaly; detached from all other identifying factors from the event, it floated above her, untethered. Where had it come from? She had not been thinking of love when that sound-nin had stuck her through with a sword the length of her arm.

“Lost in your thoughts again?” Ino asked amusedly, lightly bumping their hips together. “Tonight’ll fix that for sure.”

Hinata sighed. “Are you sure this is a good idea? I’ve only just recovered.”

Ino rolled her eyes. “You’ve been fully recovered for days and we both know it. And besides, going out tonight is not going to undo your recovery. Well, depending on how much you drink, I guess.”

“I won’t be,” she answered easily, grinning up at the face Ino made in response. “So that kind of settles that.”

“You’ll be the safest one around, then. You and Chouji, both.”

“He’s good company.”

“True,” Ino agreed, before something dangerous sharpened her smile. “But I know whose company you’d like even more.”

It was Hinata’s turn to roll her eyes. “You and everyone else in our generation,” she muttered, kicking idly at a rock as they headed further west.

“Just our generation? Hinata, please.”

Pink-cheeked as they turned the last corner before their destination, Hinata glanced up and spotted Chouji first, chatting with Tenten away to the side of the front entrance. On second glance, Hinata noticed Shikamaru just beyond them, leaning against the front wall, gazing skyward. The closer she and Ino got, the more of their generation she recognized. There were people from previous generations there, too; many of whom she had gotten to know after becoming a Jounin. She’d been on missions with many of them, and recognized more than she expected the closer she and Ino got.

There were those from newer generations, too. Many of which, Hinata thought wryly, looked too young to gain entrance to such an establishment.

As they got closer, Hinata felt herself edging towards Chouji, a comforting and conversant presence.

“Hinata-san,” he called, glancing up from a customary bag of chips. “You two made good time.”

“Chouji-san,” she greeted in return, smiling comfortably. Ino reached out and brushed a few crumbs from Chouji’s cheek, amusingly maternal, before going in for a quick hug.

“Glad you made it,” she said amiably, her eyes crinkling up in a way that Hinata had long since attributed solely to Ino’s boys. Ino wasn’t soft on many people, but her boys had a special place in her heart that seemed to melt her sharpest edges with just a glance. She moved past Chouji and cast a wry grin over her shoulder before turning back to punch Shikamaru lightly in the shoulder.

Hinata turned to Chouji and asked after him as usual; he was calm and receptive to her, his eyes shining when he laughed. He was such a kind person; Hinata felt totally at ease in his presence.

Some ways into their conversation, however, Hinata realized that she was distracted. It was abrupt, and jarring, the way she felt suddenly drawn towards the fading skyline. She glanced over Chouji’s shoulder and shivered, watching the way the sky bled down from the molten core of a multitude of golds, to the brightest, most eye-catching shades of crimson. She was drawn to the golds, the deep ambers and the fading traces of light. Her shivering abated and she felt a surge of warmth, just beneath her skin, sinking through her.

She wondered at it, as anyone would. What an inexplicable feeling, she thought, as Chouji explained how to properly season a roast. Her eyes flicked over his shoulder again, watching the brightest star sink behind the mountains. The golds remained even as the red grew, and when Hinata’s eyes came back down to earth they caught on ocean blue.

Naruto blinked, and Hinata realized she’d begun to stare; lost entirely in his wide eyes. Before she could glance away embarrassedly, he lifted a hand in greeting and she could do nothing more but to lift her own hand in response. She shrugged shyly, abashed, and watched the way he responded with a genuine smile. He peeled away from Sakura, Sai, and Rock Lee and began to head towards them, and Hinata felt her heart respond instantly.

“Hey,” he greeted easily, eyes trailing over her. He gazed at her with an air that was almost cautious, the trail of his eyes careful and intent, as though seeking out rather than simply exploring. Hinata flushed under his study and felt herself smiling, lips pursed but unable to hold back.

“Naruto-kun,” she offered, instantly embarrassed with how breathless she sounded. She cast a quick glance up at Chouji and felt her cheeks gain heat at his knowing, amused expression as he looked back and forth between them. Hinata didn’t know when he’d stopped talking about his culinary artistry, or if she had been so distracted as to be rude. She surely hoped not, and from the amusement spread over his expression, she doubted he took much offense, if any at all.

Chouji turned to Naruto with a smirk of his own. “Good to see you.”

Hinata watched as Naruto clapped a hand on Chouji’s shoulder affably, grinning crookedly. “You too, man. Glad you could make it out.”

“I’m happy so many of us were able to make it,” Chouji agreed, letting his eyes trail around them before settling back quite purposely on Hinata. She wondered idly if there was anyone left in the entire village who didn’t know about her feelings for Naruto.

“I’m pleasantly surprised Sai-san decided to come.”

“You might be the only one,” Naruto huffed, turning over his shoulder as the three of them watched Sai reach out and pull lightly on Sakura’s hair. Sakura turned to him with a stilted slowness, danger signs glaring, but he only smiled wider and let his shoulders bob up and down before offering an explanation—the picture of innocence.

“He’s a weird dude,” a new voice added, and Hinata recognized their new party without having to look. She reached out and felt a hand slide into hers for a moment, offering a cursory squeeze, and turned just in time to see Chouji and Shino silently bump knuckles as Kiba’s hand fell away from hers and he settled at her side with a yawn. “I don’t get him.”

“Maybe we should spend more time with him,” Hinata wondered aloud, eyeing the man in question. “Get to know him better.”

“Like go out with him?” Kiba asked, eyebrows jumping. “Or train?”

Hinata felt herself smiling. “Either, I suppose. But I had training in mind.”

“Let me just say right now,” Naruto began, lifting a finger. “He’s a strange fucking bird. But he’s a good guy. He’s an asshole,” he added, much to their amusement, “But he’s a good guy.”

“Do with that what we will, huh?” Chouji laughed, and Hinata felt the warmth of joy rising under her skin. She was naturally introverted, but she enjoyed social situations when she was with people she knew and felt comfortable with. She could be perfectly social without them, of course—she’d grown up in a clan that prized propriety after all—but she preferred and responded better, as so many would, to the company of friends.

Hinata’s eyes fell heavy with admiration as she allowed herself to relish the reality of having so many friends. She felt intensely and privately lucky to be able to have so many people in her life that she could rely on; people that could rely on her. Though they were spaced out in several slivered groups, she knew that should they come together as a whole that they would not want for comfort, amusement, or joy.

Her unit fell into idle conversation just as the others had, and Hinata listened with half an ear as the warmth around her heart rekindled, drawing her attention. She kept finding her gaze on Naruto, which was neither surprising nor unsettling, though it was embarrassing. She did have some self-control. She was not unused to this behavior of hers. She couldn’t remember the first time she’d realized she was drawn to Naruto in a way that a moth was drawn to a flame—that total, all-encompassing pull; a path that was as beautiful as it was dangerous. He was strong of heart and body and soul and she’d seen all of that even before she’d developed her Byakugan. She’d looked at him and seen the heart of him, and ever since then she’d been his. So easy, she thought. And lasting.

But this time felt different, somehow. She wasn’t just looking to look, or drawn to him idly because she thought him the most interesting and beautiful person near her, though that was true. It was more than an idle attention; it was an affixed curiosity. A curiousness that she didn’t have an answer for, that reminded her of the golden flare of his hair and the way his smile shined so brightly it seemed to cast everyone around him in lesser light.

Why did that kind of luminosity feel nostalgic? What gap in her memory held such a marvel, but was still hidden to her present mind?

She could hear Shino’s low timbre, his textbook explanation of some kind of plant that could be used to spice a meal (and Chouji’s avid and verbal interest) as she glanced up once more to study Naruto’s profile. The sun had set behind him, the sky dulling down from vibrancy to romantic hues. Outlined in waning vermilion, Hinata fell in love with Naruto all over again; his idle grin; the way his eyes—bright and shining, ensnaring of every source of light outside of his own—danced from person to person; the bob of his throat when he laughed; the pink lines his nails left behind when he absentmindedly scratched his nape.

Hinata missed none of it. She looked too closely and felt all the chaos of being burned without any of the actual pain; only the heat, the flickering of light, and the absence of control. She took a careful deep breath, veiling it behind a smile at something Kiba added to Shino’s retelling of the garden tools that were so old he thought them cursed and imagined they’d fought back.

Hinata breathed around the warmth in her chest and waited several purposeful moments before glancing back to Naruto, as she had been since he’d joined their circle. Only this time, instead of catching on the sharp planes of his profile, she met his oceanic stare head-on.

She was so startled by his sudden attention she almost responded verbally, her silent gasp only just falling short of an audible “Oh!” She swallowed and blinked up at him, and it took her a moment to realize he’d asked her a question. She turned towards the elbow Kiba gently introduced to her side and the amused tilt of Shino’s sunglasses, and only just missed the curious, inquisitive trail of Naruto’s eyes over her skin.

“I’m sorry—What?”

“He said,” Kiba reiterated, “That it’s time for us to head in. Our tables are ready and the gang’s all here, apparently.”

Hinata tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear to give her something to do with her hands and nodded, embarrassed and unable to meet Naruto’s eyes again. “Sorry,” she offered quietly, laughing a little. She glanced up quickly, needing to see his response for only a moment before looking away. His amusement was muted and clear, as though charmed but not wanting to embarrass her further.

“It’s okay,” Naruto said, and she felt the heat of his hand suddenly pressed between her shoulder blades. He didn’t push, only guided; they walked side-by-side and followed the rest of their friends up to the second story and into the bar. Sakura held the door open for everyone and they filed into the boisterous chatter and smoke of their frequented tavern. They liked it because it was huge—two stories and large enough to easily house the lot of them and countless other patrons, too, without the irritation of crowding one another. Still, the tables were close together and there was no doing away with rubbing elbows with strangers, but it was the best lot out of several they’d tried in their earlier years.

Everything inside was deep, polished wood and the overwhelming smell of smoke and alcohol. Glasses clanked and people laughed, and on the far eastern side of the greatest room was a crowded dancefloor. Hinata caught a glimpse of startlingly fashioned gray hair sitting at the bar and frowned. Either her eyes were deceiving her or their Hokage was disguised and enjoying himself a whiskey. Neat.

Somewhere along the journey from front entrance to their table in the back room, Hinata found herself separated from her team and Naruto both. She ended up between Sakura and Chouji, with Ino and Kiba across from her. Naruto was seated just beside Ino, with Neji on his other side. Neji offered Hinata a fond grin that she mirrored exactly before turning back to what looked to be an involved conversation with Tenten. They ordered their first round of drinks—Hinata with her iced tea and Chouji with his water and lemons—before smoothly breaking off into separate conversations once more.

It never ceased to amaze Hinata how easily it came to her generation to check in on each other. There were bonds here that were unbreakable, enduring. There was a fair share of introverts and extroverts, both, and yet somehow they all managed to find a peaceful inquisitiveness that kept everyone up to date with everyone else’s latest business. Hinata was a private person by nature and upbringing, but wasn’t opposed to joining in on the sharing. Kiba already knew what was happening in her life, considering he’d been there with her every step of her recovery. Shino, too, but he was at the far end of the table sandwiched between Sasuke and Sai, which nearly had Hinata laughing out loud. She could only wonder what kind of conversations were going to be had over there, if any at all.

Hinata turned back to her section, still smiling from the thought, and caught on to the tail end of something her tablemates were discussing.

“It’s been rough for a while, right? It’s not just me thinking this. Right? Someone validate me.”

Hinata felt herself smiling, charmed with Kiba’s mannerisms. She heard Ino laugh and when she glanced over to gauge Naruto’s expression, she found his eyebrows raised, his lips pursed. He nodded his head, an easy affirmation.

“For once, I agree with you.” Ino said smoothly, tossing her long tail of hair back over her shoulder. She leaned back as the server brought their drinks, then made quick work of tasting her own to measure it against her palate. With a curiously quirked eyebrow, she seemed to accept it. Hinata watched her trail her fingertip around the rim of the glass almost contemplatively as another waiter set her iced tea down in front of her. She glanced up with a gracious smile and a quiet thank you, before turning back to Ino’s chatter.

“I had a mission last week that was so not worth the pay,” Ino continued, and Sakura huffed in agreement.

Chouji frowned. “What was the cost?”

Ino sniffed. “Nearly an arm and a leg.”

Chouji straightened, protective even so long after the fact, but Ino waved her hand to shush him. Sakura was gazing at her girlfriend with stern pride, a steady kind of unwavering admiration.

Ino added, “Obviously, they sent amateurs to collect. I still have all my amenities.”

“But it was close,” Hinata said quietly, sympathetic.

“Too close.” Sakura added starkly. Ino reached across the table for a moment and squeezed one of Sakura’s hands, a shared look offered between them. When she straightened back up and their hands slid away, Hinata glanced away from the heat in Sakura’s cheeks. Ino’s smile, intimate one moment and wry the next, led her into further explanation.

Hinata listened to Ino recount her mission from hell, in vivid detail, even as she canvassed the room. It was ingrained in her, as a shinobi of Konoha, as a Jounin with responsibilities. She could not, would not be careless. Her father had told her at a very young age that she would have to be stronger, faster, smarter than others. That the blood in her veins made her special, and dangerous, and different. That it made her hunted.

She had a lifetime of sunrise training sessions, endless simulations, and a few scars to remind her that though it was peacetime and her village was one of, if not the strongest village in the shinobi system, that she was still not safe. That she would never be safe. Not in this line of work. Not with this blood coursing through her veins. Not with these eyes.

So she canvassed the room, took note of every possible exit and entrance, of blind spots and safe spaces for civilians to be guided should they need it. She took in the high beams in the ceiling, the fragility of the tinted windows up front, the flammability of the curtains. Solid wood under her feet. Maybe fifty more patrons beneath them, on the first floor, taking to their meals on a weekday. She could’ve activated her Byakugan to get an exact count of both stories, but Hinata wasn’t about to cause a fuss just because she’d been raised to be overly prepared, even in the most unassuming of situations.

So she looked without the aid of her bloodline, and still she saw so much more than anyone else around her. She looked at the people, gauged their expressions, looked deeper for intentions. There was the boisterous group to the back left, just having a good time, beers sloshing and laughs bellowing. All around there were business peoples, studiously drinking and engaging in conversation. To the far right two women pressed close together, not obscenely so but enough to catch a few glances.

Hinata saw them all and took note of them. Hers wasn’t the only safety she was concerned with in this place. She was surrounded by people she would risk her life to save.

Her eyes flickered back to Naruto, as though called to him. She found his profile, strong and beautiful and engaging. His eyes were dim, studying Ino’s expression as she spoke. Kiba was shaking his head and Sakura was joining into Ino’s telling every so often. Hinata found herself entirely distracted with the angle of Naruto’s jaw, and the heat that image called up within her. She watched him as he watched others, noticed the way he seemed distracted himself, something heavy pressing on his mind. He licked his lips, once, a slow and idle gesture. She watched his brow furrow, consternation spreading subtly over his expression. His lips moved, and it took Hinata longer than it should have to realize he was speaking, joining his own story with Ino’s because Kiba was right, he said, that their missions had been uncharacteristically rough lately.

“I was…somewhere I can’t talk about but I got my ass handed to me. This massive group of Sound nin, showed up and just came at me immediately, no hesitation—”

“Weird, because you’re so hard to identify.”

Naruto turned to Sakura and pointed as if to shush her, obviously withholding a laugh.  

“So anyways, there I was just minding my own damn business—”

“In enemy territory,” Ino sang.

“Close enough, clearly, to stir the patrolling guard.” Kiba added playfully, cleaning his sharp nails out in the open without any sense of shame.

Naruto ignored them both, as Hinata and Sakura both muffled their laughter behind their hands.

“Whatever. So I’m cloning myself like crazy because there’s so freakin’ many of them, right? There’s gotta be a hundred of me and we’re all like, ‘Rasengan!’ ‘Rasen-Shuriken!’ ‘Kyah!’ And just like totally dominating at first, you should’ve seen it.”

Hinata felt laughter bubbling up into her throat again, amused and so totally charmed with Naruto’s mannerisms, his way of speaking. They were all in their twenties by now, but he still retained such a pure and untainted kind of childlike innocence when it came to conversation. He didn’t seem to care that they were laughing along with his story, and at his own passionate enthusiasm. Hinata felt her heart pounding as she watched with heavy eyes the way he used his hands to help tell the story.

“So I get down to like three of these dudes, really ugly ones, and it’s like they’d been playing the whole time. Like they were toying with me, or something.” Naruto’s enthusiasm muted in shaded hues, until everyone’s amusement died down and the realization that Naruto had been in grave danger became apparent. “They really kicked my ass. I mean, I held my own for sure, believe it! But when I got down to the last guy I wasn’t doing so hot. Which is crazy, right? That I’d just so happen to come across some guy that’s buff enough to exhaust me?”

It wasn’t arrogance that Naruto spoke with, and everyone at the table knew it. It was experience, and knowledge of his own limits—or lack thereof. Naruto’s harrowing amount of chakra was a well-known fact among them, so hearing him tell them himself that he’d been exhausted was more than worrying. Hinata sat up straighter, attention held. Beside her, Sakura’s hand fisted in the material of her skirt.

“Okay, then what happened?” Kiba asked, leaning forward in his seat. Naruto’s met his eyes evenly, his smile wry.

“He wiped the floor with me. You all know about my arm—can’t really hide these bandages. Thanks again, Sakura-chan.”

“It was a mean break,” Sakura said. “I don’t want to see it happen again, Naruto.”

Naruto quirked his lips, innocent but duly chastised.

“There was some internal stuff, too. Don’t really wanna talk about it. Just—by the end of it, I don’t know how I got him, but I did. We were both lying there and—and he took his last breath first. I kinda for real thought I would take mine, too.”

“It was that bad?” Ino asked, and for the first time Hinata heard real concern in her voice. She watched her eyes flick to Sakura, almost unconsciously, then back to Naruto. “Geez, Naruto.”

Naruto scratched at the back of his head, eyes crinkling. “Yeah, it was rough times.”

“Slightly,” Kiba groused, sighing. “I didn’t know you’d almost died.”

“You’re healing well now?” Hinata found her voice, at last, and held Naruto’s eyes when he looked over to her. His smile was lopsided, adorably perched, and his eyes grew heavy the longer he gazed at her.

“Yeah,” he said, voice somehow gentled, “Yeah I’m healing now. No worries.”

Hinata smiled, relief flooding through her. “Ah, that’s good.”

“So,” Kiba cleared his throat, his voice purposely poised to lighten the mood. He somehow managed to portray both an amused kind of curiosity that still managed to seem carelessly blasé. “Did you see a light at the end of the tunnel, and all that?”

Hinata noticed that it took Naruto a moment longer than ordinary to look away from her, and found herself looking away first. She glanced to Kiba and made a face when he smirked knowingly, lifting a hand to cover his visible incisors. He was laughing at her. Typical.

Naruto’s eyes left her and Hinata felt like she could breathe again—and when had she begun to feel breathless? She held off on bringing a hand up to her chest, though the image was there in her mind. A habit.

“No light,” he explained, and Hinata couldn’t help but to turn back to him just to gauge his expression. It was clear he was remembering the fight, the terrifying moment, but Hinata was surprised to find that he didn’t look fearful in the slightest. If anything, he looked confused. His brow pursed, his lips frowning; Hinata watched the way he worked on the words.

“Not at first. Not how you’d think.”

“What?” That was Sakura, speaking at last to something she apparently didn’t already know. This, then, was news to her; just as it was for the rest of them sitting around him. The constant haze of tavern noise rose and fell around them as Hinata found herself leaning forward slightly in her seat, curious and captivated. Naruto looked a man frustrated and confused, his apparent lack of answers gnawing at him. He drew his fingers across his mouth once, an idle gesture, needing the movement.

“So you did see a light?” Ino, that time.

“Well, yeah. But there wasn’t a tunnel. It’s weird, but it’s kind of hard to remember? There was the sky, this great shade of purple.”

“Purple?” Ino asked, voice full of disbelief. Naruto pursed his lips, trying to conjure something into words.

“Light purple, like—like those flowers! By the hot springs, just east of the Tower. What are those things called—”

“I’m assuming you mean lavender. The ones hanging in arches overhead?”

“Yes!”

Sakura laughed. “Naruto, that’s the flower and the color you’re looking for. Probably.”

Naruto pointed at her, grinning. “Right! Lavender. Totally knew that. That’s the color the sky was, believe it! And I just remember lying there thinking it was all over, and that sucked, truly, because I had—have so much left I want to do.”

Hinata felt her heart beat like a punch in her chest, a heavy thud. They’d all assumed Naruto’s mission had been bad; his injuries had been awful and debilitating and what proved it all worse, even Naruto’s unshakeable resolve had been temporarily rocked. His first few days of recovery had been…difficult. But even then, helping to rehabilitate him, they hadn’t known it had been this: something so close to death he’d already had a taste of the shadows after the initial light. He spoke of it almost intimately. He rubbed idly at his nape once more, a nervous gesture Hinata had picked up on years back.

“It’s kinda fuzzy still, real hard to remember for some reason. But there was this little ball of light that came down from the sky, and I reached out for it and—it landed in my hand.” Naruto was in full swing now, enthusiastically recounting his experience with wide eyes still slightly downcast, and his hands moving with his words. Hinata glanced around their table to see the amused faces of their friends, and realized they didn’t believe him. They were looking at him with charmed amusement, as though he was deliberately or accidentally hilarious, and they didn’t care which it was. Only that they didn’t believe him. And Hinata understood; it was a fantastical story.

But there was something about his eyes, and the way he seemed so vividly stuck in that past moment; something about the way he spoke with a sense of—wonder.

She believed him.

And there was something more, too. Hinata felt a curious pull towards his words and the recollection of a kind of ethereal light. The more he spoke of it, the more breathless Hinata began to feel. His explanation, the details he offered of heat and random, inexplicable lyricism pounding along with his pulse had her beginning to unravel. He talked about a warmth he had never before experienced, one that radiated from within but originated outside of him, and Hinata felt the curious sensation of her body slowly seeping into adrenaline-laced waters, her heart beginning to race. The more he spoke, the more he explained of his near-death experience, the more alarmed Hinata grew.

She remembered this. She couldn’t explain it—could barely wrap her mind around the possibility, and what it could mean, but she remembered this.

Everything he was explaining, she had once felt, too.

“You’re laughing,” Naruto said suddenly, his grin muted, wry. Hinata blinked, startled back into sudden presence, and saw that their friends were in fact laughing at him. Not outright, in a gregarious manner. But the smiles on their faces and the amused glints in their eyes were enough of a tell. Naruto didn’t seem entirely bothered by this, though. Hinata studied his expression with sharp eyes, now far more prying than before. She watched the way he shrugged, almost self-consciously, as one corner of his lips curled. There wasn’t an ounce of doubt in his voice when he spoke, even after their obvious disillusionment with his retelling. He said, “But I could hear them. The music and the voices, somehow. They came from the light, and the light moved through me. Man, you can laugh, I don’t care. I know what I saw. What I felt.”

The expression on his face matched exactly the sudden understanding coursing through Hinata’s body. She could hear his unspoken words. What I can still feel. What I can still hear.

She remembered, so very suddenly, the words. The way that she had come home from a near-death experience herself and felt that same warmth, that same mystical musical revelation in her veins. The words, as clear as they were indecipherable in origin, spoken unto her:

True love is one soul residing in two bodies.

“Naruto, you were concussed,” Sakura said, not without kindness. “I’m sure you believe you saw those things, but they were products of traumatic brain injury.”

“It happens to all of us,” Chouji attempted to soothe, as Ino’s own humor gave way to support.

“We all see different shit, sure, but we see it.” She shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

Hinata watched carefully the way Naruto’s expression tensed, and how he wrestled with his words, trying to find the proper way to iterate his feelings.

“No,” he said, after a moment of pause, “No that’s not it. I know it was real. It wasn’t—yeah I took a few blows to the head, concussed or whatever, but I know the difference between what’s real and what’s not.”

Sakura’s voice was gentler, this time. Soothing. “We get it, Naruto. We’re not saying you’re lying, or faking it.”

“Yeah man,” Kiba added, reaching out to clap a hand on his shoulder as someone stumbled behind him, nearly spilling their drink on him. Kiba didn’t even flinch at the droplets on his own shoulder. “It’s cool. We get it.”

Naruto glanced up and met Hinata’s eyes, the last voice yet to be offered on the subject. He studied her in the same way she studied him, though his was with a calm and steady gaze whereas she felt nearly tangibly undone. She couldn’t find a response, couldn’t taste the words. They just wouldn’t come, no matter how hard she drew on them. She swallowed and never once looked away from him, and saw that his frustration, while potent, was brief. He glanced away and his expression shifted, and though he didn’t shrug his heavy shoulders again, the feeling of the gesture was there. Hinata could see the conviction in his eyes, the complete and total lack of doubt in his words. He didn’t need them to believe him. He’d only just been sharing with them the experience he’d had.

It seemed that after that everyone was ready for new topics and new ventures. Some were on their third drinks, while others had moved off to the dancefloor. Hinata was surprised to see Neji out there, swaying in place, while Tenten laughed and laughed and taught him how to move his body in anything other than harsh angles. She smoothed out his shoulders with a delicate flick of her wrist, a soothing swipe of fingertips, and Hinata, distracted as she was, felt herself smiling at the expression that rose upon Neji’s face. He was blushing.

When Hinata turned back to her table she was surprised to find it nearly empty of its previous patrons. She distinctly remembered Chouji mumbling something about going downstairs to get more food, with Shikamaru shadowing him along the way. Rock Lee was on the dance floor doing what Hinata could only describe as the “pool noodle,” and Kiba had rescued Shino from his company and was dragging him over to the bar. Sasuke and Sai had moved somewhere into the shadows, presumably, and Ino had come around the table to stand by her girlfriend, one hand reaching out to run through Hinata’s hair.

“Well,” Ino sighed. “That was something.”

Sakura turned in her seat and pushed her face against Ino’s side, nuzzling and comforted.

“I worry about him,” Hinata could just barely make the words out, muffled as they were against Ino’s side. Ino ran her fingers through Sakura’s hair and only nodded, offering a quiet, “I know.”

Hinata turned her gaze back to the man in question and found several people around him, only a few of which she actually recognized. From an outsider’s perspective, everything was once again right with the universe. The planets orbited the sun, and every light in the room paled in comparison to his radiance.

They were clearly fans of his, eager and joyful to share his space and attention. Hinata felt herself smiling crookedly, admiration spilling heat in her cheeks. But then her expression shifted as sudden intrusive thoughts began to arise. There were so many people looking for his attention, and more, his interest. She watched for a moment the way a young woman moved closer, reaching out to touch his shoulder. She smiled, batted her eyelashes, and laughed at something Naruto offered haphazardly to the conversation. Hinata wondered, not for the first time, what it was like to be so confident. She’d been wondering such a thing nearly all her life, though most especially when she went out with Ino and Sakura, who were each their own separate force of nature.

But there was no use to those lines of thought. She was growing at her own pace, far more confident than she had ever been before, and that was okay. Hinata was unique, too, and though she was reticent and self-conscious and so often embarrassed, she was honest and sincere and strong, too. Still, it was difficult to silence a voice as loud as self-doubt. The people around Naruto were beautiful, too, and they were probably strong, and wonderful and everything Naruto would want. Many of them were younger than her, too, new generations that knew of Uzumaki Naruto, the hero of Konoha, the legend of the leaf. They hadn’t grown up beside him, seeing his faults, his flaws, his setbacks. They hadn’t helped him fight to secure his bonds. They hadn’t been there with him through the Chuunin exams; Akatsuki; Pain. The Jounin trials.

And though her presence beside him in those moments certainly did not mean nothing, neither were they singularly great enough to secure her a spot in his heart that none of those other undeniably incredible Konoha shinobi might also share. You could be someone’s best and closest friend, someone’s most loyal supporter and admirer, and still fall short of the kind of love that called on the soul.

That was the root of the importance of free will; it was all about choice. And no matter how much Hinata grew or matured or changed with the times, all at Naruto’s side as a dear friend and fellow shinobi, the only deciding factor on who he would love enough to give his whole heart to was of his own choosing.

And there were so many incredible, beautiful candidates.

Hinata turned away with the sour taste of envy on her tongue, and forced herself to shake it off. You don’t feed the monsters you don’t want to grow. She drank some of her iced tea and focused on the cleansing coolness that swam through her, the tinge of lemon, the clinking of the ice cubes. She turned and heard Ino and Sakura’s chatter, far-shifted from any topic relative to Naruto, and still found that her mind was singularly focused on him. On his words, and his experiences, and how they measured up to her own.

The similarities were uncanny, alarmingly so. The intimate yet nearly indescribable way he’d spoke of that warmth was so familiar to her that she could feel it. It had been weeks since her own incident; weeks since she’d been left with only a message; weeks since she’d felt the warmth she’d only later been able to faintly remember. But now, with Naruto so close and his words so incredibly familiar, the feeling was ineffably present.

It wasn’t unusual for Hinata to feel drawn to Naruto, but this feeling was somehow new. This was more than the usual magnetic pull that drew her eyes to him. This was something deeper, at her core, speaking to him.

✧

Naruto had grown up surrounded by people who doubted him; it was no longer as jarring as it had once been. He knew by now to trust himself. And besides, he thought with a slight smile, his story did sound farfetched. Had he really expected them to believe him?

Someone tapped his shoulder, a gentle one-two, and he turned to see a young woman gazing down at him. Her smile was crooked and her eyes bright, and when he turned completely he saw that she was one of many crowding around him. He blinked, lips parting in surprise, showing teeth.

“Hey,” He greeted uncertainly, resisting the urge to lift his hand and rub at his nape. He leaned his tailbone against the table and tried to meet each of their eyes. He still felt overwhelmed when things like this happened. That out of all the people in this place, they would seek him out. Just because he’d done his job, and helped save lives. Many lives, sure, a village full of them—but his friends and his teachers had all done the same, too. He didn’t understand what made him stand out, when before he’d tried everything in the book and remained overlooked.

It was a…bizarre change.

“Hi!” She said, and Naruto forgot every one of their names after they introduced themselves, even when he tried to repeat them in his head and actively remember them. There were just too many of them, and there was barely any room for him to think. Already the girl who’d tapped him—Hana?—was asking him about his evening and what kind of plans he had later on and Naruto really just couldn’t focus.

He kept coming back to his story and how it still felt so real; even now, in this crowded tavern, safe and surrounded by so many people—the complete opposite of the original scene—he felt the warmth under his skin. It made his heart skip every now and again, the simple reminder of how close he’d come to something so otherworldly.

“Uh,” he said, when a gap of silence hung between them and he realized belatedly he was supposed to offer something here. He laughed at himself. “Sorry, I’m not sure. I’m here with a bunch of good friends.”

“Oh,” she said easily, “That’s cool!”

“Yeah,” he said, for lack of anything else. He glanced around at their group and asked, “Are you all together?”

“No,” a young man said, inching slightly closer.

“No?” Naruto asked, newly baffled. He flicked his eyes around the semi-circle of strangers once more and found himself laughing, out of his league. “Well, how did that happen?”

“We wanted to talk to you,” Ann (?) said eagerly, pressing forward. She and Hana were close enough that he could feel Hana’s sleeve against his elbow, and if Ann had reached out, she would’ve been able to touch his jaw. He didn’t feel claustrophobic or uncomfortable with their closeness—he was a physical person himself, often overstepping into other peoples’ personal space. But he did feel a certain kind of discomfort simply because he didn’t know what these people expected of him. He didn’t know how to act, so he didn’t. He stayed true to form and just did what Naruto would do.

“That’s weird,” he said, though not without kindness. “What did you all wanna talk about?”

“Well,” Ann stuttered, startled at the question. Her eyes flicked to one of the women at her side and then back to Naruto, uncertain. “Well, anything really.”

“Yeah,” Hana added, not one to be outdone. “What’s new with you?”

Naruto thought instantly of the light, the warmth, the blood draining out of his body. For reasons he couldn’t put into words, he looked over his left shoulder at the spot where just minutes prior Hinata had been sitting, quiet and attentive and as graceful as always. He couldn’t help but to gaze at her, often, even when it would’ve been polite to glance around. Their friends had been around them and still he hadn’t cared. His eyes were drawn to her, magnetic and electric, both. She was beautiful and kind, gentle and strong. And she was the only person at the table who had not denied his claim. Maybe, he thought absently, just maybe she believed him.

But she wasn’t sitting there any longer. Her space was empty, her chair tucked in. Her iced tea was empty and when he glanced around a last time he didn’t see her nearby. He turned back and smiled weakly. For some reason, his recent brush with death and the resulting glimpse of something—something other wasn’t a topic he felt comfortable broaching with strangers. It wasn’t that he was afraid they’d doubt him too, or that they’d judge him, think of him differently because of it.

It just felt too…intimate.

“It’s been kinda boring for me lately, ya know? Missions ain’t always fun. And outside of that, well, I guess I’ve been spendin’ a lot of time with Iruka-sensei lately. Especially now that I have time off—uh, yeah. Just, more time lately. He likes to go down to the vendors and bargain with them, though I don’t really get why, because even when he gets the numbers down he buys more than he told me he would and they end up getting more than they originally asked for. He’s weird like that, sometimes.”

A young woman several inches taller than everyone else smiled, adding, “I hear Iruka-sensei is as strict as ever at the Academy.”

Naruto smiled. “I wouldn’t doubt it!”

“Is he still strict with you, Naruto-san?”

Laughing, Naruto asserted, “He’s the strictest with me, believe it!”

“That’s kind of hard to believe,” Hana laughed, bringing her fist up to cover her lips.

“You should hear the lectures he gives me!” Naruto appealed, before going into a brief but detailed reiteration of his most recent trip to the hot springs with Iruka-sensei. Iruka was the only father Naruto had ever known, and he loved him dotingly. Naruto knew that his stern nature, exemplified in Naruto’s presence, was one of the ways that Iruka showed affection. He wanted those he loved to do well, to constantly chase their best selves. It was a strict road to follow, but he offered encouragement and support throughout the entire journey. Naruto was the man he was today because Iruka had been there for him—when no one else was.

When the people around him began to join in, offering their own stories to blend in with his, he found his attention once again pulled aside. It began in his fingertips, a tingling heat that brushed up against his veins. It trailed up his arms and corded around his ribcage. The warmth surrounded his heart and he felt an all-consuming calm, his heartbeat slowing, relaxing. He turned again and his eyes cast over the room, searching. The warmth pulsed; bright, colorless eyes across the room. Was that—

“Is that Uchiha Sasuke?” One of the women interrupted another, and Naruto’s attention returned to her with avid amusement. He could’ve laughed for the familiar tone and the expression on her face, both such common occurrences when they were kids.

When Naruto turned back to them, most were looking somewhere over his shoulder, though several continued to gaze wonderingly at him. He blinked at them, his eyes falling on Hana’s direct gaze. She smiled, and he had no idea what to do with that.

“Speaking of stern,” someone said, not without humor. “That’s definitely him.”

“What, really?”

“I can’t believe he’d come here, of all places.”

“Doesn’t seem the type, right?”

“It’s a fair place to brood, though,” Hana offered at last, though her eyes never shifted. It had been a long time since someone had described Sasuke as brooding, though he had never not been so. As such, nostalgia coiled through Naruto and he did laugh, a little, as he nodded and pointed over his shoulder where Sasuke undoubtedly wilted against the shadowed wallpaper, uncomfortable and out of place. Naruto didn’t even have to look to know he was there, right where he’d targeted. He knew him too well. It was a good reminder, though, that he should probably rescue him soon. At least for a moment, so he wasn’t so uncomfortable.

“Sure is,” Naruto said, a little belatedly. “This type of meet-up isn’t really his thing, ya know?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” someone added, sounding glib. “He looks plenty comfortable to me.”

Naruto blinked, and the woman beside Hana—what was her name? Ann?—snorted.

She said, “I didn’t know he was so close to the Hyuuga princess.”

It was the strangest sensation of breathlessness that came over Naruto in that moment, as he turned over his shoulder to see what they were accurately describing. His eyes searched for a fleeting moment before finding them, tucked close by necessity of space in the shadowed alcove away from the dancefloor and the tables, both. Hinata was there at Sasuke’s shoulder, discussing something Naruto couldn’t even pretend to guess, her hands adding detail to the words. Sasuke leaned towards her, strangely receptive to her body language and whatever it was she was discussing. Naruto felt his heart in his throat.

Before there was suspicion, there was simple joy: that two of his best friends were getting along well with one another. And of all his friends, it was Sasuke, no less! He was the most stubborn person Naruto knew, and though countless fawned over him and chased after him, he was notoriously fastidious about who he allowed to get close to him. Pickier even with who he sought out himself.

Had he gone to Hinata? Or had Hinata gone to him? And why did the answer to those questions hold such weight in Naruto’s heart?

He felt a raw, uncomfortable kind of ache in his throat and swallowed, pushing himself away from the table. He turned back to the people around him and offered them his most winning smile, at last succumbing to his habit of idly scratching at his hair.

“I guess you’re right!” He said lightly, his eyes crinkling. “I’m gonna head over and ask Hinata what her secret is. Sasuke-bastard so rarely socializes at these things!”

“Oh, uh, okay then.” Hana seemed startled by his dawning retreat, and tried for a moment to stall. Ultimately, though, Naruto turned away and she said only, “Well, talk to you soon, Naruto-san.”

She held his eyes, and he thought for a moment that maybe there was something significant to the way she looked at him before he shrugged his shoulders and lifted a hand in passing.

“Sure. Bye then!”

He missed entirely the way her expression fell, and was already turning back to Hinata when one of Hana’s friends reached out to her consolingly. He moved through the crowded room with renewed purpose, offering Sakura a transitory, distracted smirk when she raised her eyebrows at his passing before heading straight towards that alcove. The closer he got the clearer he could see Hinata’s expression, and the way Sasuke blinked down at her in a way that wasn’t totally apathetic. Whatever she was talking about had her animated, her hands coming up to show a certain kind of sign before a burst of quiet laughter that had even Sasuke cracking a smile.

Naruto’s strides broadened and by the time he made it close enough to garner their attention, he heard the last bits of Hinata explaining some trip with Mirai involving chakra control.

“She’s quite wonderful,” she said, as Naruto came to stand beside them. Hinata glanced over and again with more surprise, lifting one hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She bowed her head slightly to greet him, and Sasuke merely flicked his eyes over him and away in acknowledgement.

“Hey,” he offered, nodding to Sasuke but turning to Hinata. She smiled at him, a warm greeting.

“Naruto-kun,” she explained, with an open gesture to include Sasuke. “We were just discussing Mirai—Kurenai’s daughter. She’s quite the fireball.”

“I’ve heard, yeah,” he nodded, seamlessly moving into their conversation. He shoved his fisted hands in his pockets and leaned back on his heels, thinking back to what he’d heard from Iruka about his most outstanding students. “Iruka’s mentioned her before.”

Hinata smiled. “I was just telling Uchiha-san that he would like her. She’s quick.”

“She won’t be quick enough.” Sasuke said blandly, and Hinata laughed.

“I don’t just mean physically, Uchiha-san.”

Naruto snorted, shaking his head when Sasuke turned to him with that look he sometimes got.

“Typical competitive bastard,” Naruto laughed, and Sasuke clicked his tongue.

“As if you’re any less competitive, dumbass.”

“Maybe not,” Naruto admitted easily, rocking back onto his heels again, fluid and at ease in their company. He turned to Hinata and winked, playful and drawn to the way her cheeks gained color in response. “But at least I know better than to challenge a kid.”

“I wasn’t challenging her—” Sasuke began, before Hinata laughed lowly and quickly added, “Sorry to contradict, Naruto-kun, but wasn’t it you who recently had a run-in with Academy students that resulted in a formal reprimand?”

Sasuke choked on his beverage of choice and Hinata laughed behind her palm as Naruto sputtered, hands coming out to wave in the way.

“Wait, wait,” he pleaded, “That’s so not fair!”

“What did you do? Fight them?” One delicate black eyebrow lifted and the humor in Sasuke’s eyes made Naruto stand taller. Hinata shook her head and before Naruto could explain the situation, she spoke.

“He didn’t fight them,” she explained easily. “He merely taught them to gamble.”

“I made a wager,” Naruto said exasperatedly. “Big deal!”

“Naruto-kun,” Hinata smiled, “They were ten year olds.”

“Old enough to carry around chump change,” Naruto grumbled, and Hinata’s shocked amusement pulled at his heartstrings, even as she began to laugh at him in outright exasperation. Sasuke continued to shake his head, arms coming up to cross over his chest as his expression seemed to document every facet of this for future recollection and black mail.

“Dumbass,” he said with a smirk. “Did you even win?”

Naruto’s temperature rose into his cheeks and he turned deliberately to Hinata, his eyes pleading as he changed the subject.

“So!” he exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “How about that crazy mission I had recently, right? The one where I almost died, but totally took down the bad guys in the coolest way possible?”

Sasuke sighed, rolling his eyes and peeling himself away from the wall. He turned to Hinata with a nod and said, “I’m not listening to this story again. See you.” And without another word he moved out of the shadows and somewhere into the crowded room. Naruto turned to Hinata with a careless shrug, as if to say, what can you do?

She offered him a kind smile, turning to face him completely. She leaned back against the wall slightly, and Naruto instinctively dropped his eyes to take in her street clothes. She dressed modestly, not much skin showing, but her shirt clung to her curves and when she leaned slightly off-center he could see a glimpse of skin at her waist. She was beautiful. He’d always known that, seen it. But for the past few months she’d begun to look different to him, somehow. He had trouble understanding it; all he knew was that one moment she was there, the most beautiful girl in the classroom and so out of his league he didn’t even realize there was potential for anything more than friendship between them, and then—

And then she was everywhere. He saw her everywhere and he didn’t shy away from looking. And when she was gone, away on mission or simply somewhere else, he found her in his thoughts. She was everywhere.

And with her, a warmth.

“Naruto-kun,” she said, her quiet voice almost drowned out under the sea of voices around them. He moved closer to hear her better, and had the fleeting thought that if he reached out to her, he’d be able to touch her cheek. But would she reach back? “About your mission,” She began, and Naruto waved his hands again, ushering the topic aside. He rubbed at the nape of his neck just for something else to do with his hands and laughed, just this side of self-deprecating.

“It’s okay, we don’t really have to talk about it again. I only really said it to change the subject, and I knew the bastard would get pissy.”

Hinata’s smile was gentle, and kind. “I understand. But, um, if it’s okay I did actually want to talk to you about it. Alone.”

Naruto felt himself perking up, standing taller and leaning towards her engagingly. He couldn’t imagine what she had to say about his most recent and bizarre mission, but he was curious beyond belief and fully open to listening. He smiled, curling his fingers at her encouragingly.

“Of course. What d’ya wanna talk about?”

“Well,” and here Naruto’s eyes flickered over her expression, and the way blush spread through her cheeks. Naruto felt his heart in his throat and a curious kind of warmth spreading, and spreading, and was nearly on his toes waiting for her to explain her reaction. He watched her fidget for a moment, twisting her fingers and biting her lip, before turning to him with her shoulders drawn back, resolute and unafraid. She lifted her chin slightly and said, “I believe you.”

Naruto’s smile was crooked and lazy, his eyes growing heavy-lidded with warmth. It was such a simple thing, she believed him, but it felt significant and as though he’d needed it. It felt redeeming, somehow, even though he’d thought his was the only conviction he’d needed. Hers felt like a warming balm on his skin, soothing and healing.

“You do,” he grinned, watching her nod.

“I do,” she agreed, and right when he felt himself reveling in her faith in him, she ducked her head and said, “There’s something else, too.”

Naruto tilted his head, curious and encouraging.

Hinata seemed nervous to explain, her gaze still downcast for several moments before she met his eyes again. Her expression seemed to plead with him, as at last she finally said, “It might sound even crazier, I know it, but I had a similar experience on my last mission.”

Naruto’s heart hammered in his chest, thud-thud-thudding away as he tried to make sense of her words. A similar experience? She couldn’t mean the light—the warmth; so did that mean—

“Hinata,” he breathed, moving closer. He reached out at last and rested his hand on her shoulder, studying her expression for fear or anything else that might paint him a clearer picture.

“Did you almost—was it so bad that you—”

“I had lethal wounds, yes.”

Naruto felt knocked over, turned to ash. That somewhere in the world Hinata had laid nearly lifeless on the ground with no one there to comfort her or assist her, broke his heart. I should’ve been there, he thought irrationally. I could’ve protected her when she actually needed protecting. But there was no use thinking like that now, with her alive and safe and within reach, here and now. He had his hand on her shoulder, felt the warmth of her in the palm of his hand. She was safe.

But at one point, she had been in such danger her life had been at risk.

“I didn’t know it was that bad—I mean, you were covered in wounds and you had to rehabilitate but you healed so fast. You never said—you could have died.”

“It was bad,” Hinata said easily, and then shrugged. “But I got through it.” She grinned and almost amusedly added, “That’s not the similarity I was talking about, though.”

Naruto’s words stopped dead and his mind whirred incessantly, coming up with nothing certain. She’d had a near-death experience, just like he had, but that wasn’t the similarity she was focusing on?

Hinata hesitantly reached up and rested her fingers over his on her shoulder, glancing down as she carefully pulled his hand away. He bent towards her slightly and watched the way she watched him, flicking her eyes up to gauge his expression even as some people jostled them nearby. Her eyes fell once more to his hand, turning it over so that his palm faced the sky. She trailed her fingertips over the lines of his palm and he felt tantalizing chills race down his spine. She curled his fingertips in towards his palm, as if to help him keep his hold on something precious there beneath the cracks. She looked up at him in baffled wonder.

“A light,” she said slowly, as if just now remembering and feeling nothing more than reverence. “A warmth.”

Naruto shot upright immediately, startled and amazed at her admission.

“You said, ‘a similar experience,’” he said.

She nodded. “Yes. A near-death experience, and I hadn’t remembered anything but the words for so long, until just—just now. The presence of a light that shone brighter than anything I’d ever seen. And a warmth that was unlike anything I’ve ever felt. And together, there was this…”

“Music,” Naruto answered.

His heart raced in his chest, in his ears, blood rushing until he could just barely hear that fleeting symphony—the mystery he had yet to solve since the moment of his awakening from that mission. What were the words that sang through his veins? Why did they feel so incredibly important, and how could Hinata have experienced something so incredibly bizarre in just the same way that he had? He found himself marveling over her, seeing her with new eyes, noticing more than just her luminous nature and her gentle, beautiful kindness. He reached out and trailed his fingertips over her cheekbones, watching her gasp, and he remembered lavender skies. He felt the heat of her cheek and knew a similar warmth in the very heart of him. He looked into her beautiful, bizarre, colorless eyes and he remembered the way the light had engulfed him in a heat that didn’t burn but ached.

And it was sudden and novel and incredible when he realized, oh.

He loved her.

“I know that light,” he said, even as he moved closer to her, staring down at her in furrowed wonder. There was no hesitation in him. He didn’t take the time to wonder over his own feelings or question them. He merely acted on them. He loved her. And suddenly the most important thing in the world to him was this: if she loved him in return.

His voice quieted but he knew that she would hear him: “I know the warmth of that touch.”

With apparent uncertainty, she reached out and hesitated before placing her palm over his heart. She glanced up at him, probably to make sure she wasn’t overstepping any boundaries, and when she met his eyes he made sure that she couldn’t look away. His eyes felt wet, filled with a stunning kind of affection as they trailed over her face, noted every beautiful feature. He couldn’t quite rap his head around the fact that Hyuuga Hinata, renowned as one of the strongest kunoichi in Konoha’s history, heiress of her clan, and the kindest, gentlest, most striking woman he’d ever seen had shared a once-in-a-lifetime near-death experience with him.

What in all creation could that possibly mean?

The moment he thought it was the moment he knew the answer. He didn’t need to hear the words in the song of his veins to know it, but he craved them. He looked at Hinata and in the sometimes mystical way that intuition can be dead-on, even before she spoke the words into the space between them, he knew it.

“The music isn’t like normal music, though. I know this sounds bizarre—it is—but it feels like it’s…in my veins. Coursing through me. I know the words and I remember the light and the warmth but I couldn’t feel them until—”

She looked at him and the love he felt in his heart was reflected back at him through her timeless eyes. He loved her. It was so much more than that. It was the most brilliant of lights shone on the two of them, and a warm and kindling fire set beneath them; incentives to show them the obvious they’d somehow missed or overlooked.

Naruto said, “I know the music. But I don’t know the message.”

Hinata’s lips parted to speak the missing words and Naruto thought of homecomings.

“The light,” she said quietly, and Naruto watched the way his warmth reached her. “It spoke to me.”

Naruto reached out and gave her the option to step into the warmth of his chest or remain against the wall, and folded joyously around her when she chose the former. He felt her lips against his collarbone, and heard the words as if in a stupor.

It felt to him like they were floating, completely and totally separate from that plane of existence. Had he looked down beneath their feet, maybe he would’ve seen the Earth, a blanket of charcoal space wrapped around them, with holes bleeding light into existence. They paled, somehow, in comparison to the light that shone from Naruto and Hinata pressed heart to heart in a crowded room.

Her words were a long-awaited revelation against his skin.

“True love is one soul residing in two bodies.”

Naruto breathed out, and in, and together their hearts beat as one.