Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Jyuuken ❯ Hope and Doubt ( Chapter 4 )

Author's Notes: This chapter's too short? BULLOCKS this chapter's too short! I know nobody said that, but I was thinking it! That said, on with the show.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any characters therein. They are all owned by Kishimoto Masashi.

 

The hospital was…well, it was a hospital. There are only so many ways you can describe a place where people get better, or don't.

Nurses and medics bustled around, doing the sort of things you might expect. There were a few children -some patients, some not- which Kimimaro occasionally (and unintentionally) reduced to tears by glaring at them.

One thing he took notice of was that some of the nurses gave him sympathetic looks from time to time, and the medics always seemed to hurry past, possibly in case he wanted to ask them anything along the lines of “When will my treatment begin?” Both these things suggested they couldn't do anything for him, but that wasn't terribly important. He knew he was going to die. If he had any questions for the medics, it would be “How long will I live?”

Hinata, on the other hand, remained infuriatingly optimistic. Apparently, she knew more about the medics' diagnosis that he did, but she also knew something else. And she was in the middle of conveying this valuable information to him in a comforting way.

`I'm sure that…Naruto-kun will…I've heard she's a wonderful medic. I'm sure Naruto-kun will be able to bring her here.' Whoever this Naruto person was, saying his name induced strange reactions in people's faces. Often irritation. But whenever Hinata said it a lot of blood collected in her cheeks.

`I'm sure he'll find Tsunade-sama' Hinata continued, slightly fixated on this idea. Kimimaro gave her a long, slow look and breathed into his facemask. It didn't do anything, as far as he could tell, but he had been given a facemask.

While she had stopped stuttering so much when she talked, he still wasn't quite sure why she came to see him every day. Come to that, he wasn't quite sure why she had even tried to save his life in the first place. She did things that mystified him, and vice-versa.

In any case, she was easier to deal with than Tayuya had ever been, who would probably kill him if given the power and a chance to do so, and swore like a sailor. In fact, she was easier to deal with than anybody from Oto no Kuni. He could easily say that she was easier to deal with simply because all he had to do was ignore her, but that wasn't quite true. Generally, he didn't tend to ignore her. In fact, he paid her quite a lot of attention…

Curious.

 

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Hinata's father was a strict man, with the eyes, mouth, and other facial features to justify that description all by themselves. Hinata wasn't sure how he had found out about her visiting Kimimaro, but she wasn't surprised that he had. He always seemed to find out about everything.

`How do you know that suspicious-looking guy? Was he a classmate of yours at the Academy?' Now that was a trap, right there. He'd probably found out that he was from outside the village as well, and he wanted to see if she was going to lie to him or not. He probably knew that she had admitted him as well.

Looking down a mile of ugly conversational road, Hinata cleared her dry throat meekly. `N-no, father. I…o-only met him recently…' This was true.

`“Recently?” I don't recall you leaving the village “Recently.”' And there was a clue, to let her know just how much he knew. She never mentioned that Kimimaro wasn't from Konoha. If he was dropping his false-pretences…oh dear.

`I-I only m-met him a few weeks ag-go.'

`And you're going to see him every day? He must have left quite an impression on you…' Fake-amazed question followed by meaningless speculative sentence…No! Hidden rhetorical question!

Hinata remained quiet and cast her eyes downward. The Hyuuga clan's mild disarray over her besting Neji in combat was still hanging around the main household, like an unwelcome guest. And like most unwelcome guests, it was hard to ask it to leave. And by the third day it was generally wearing your shirts and leaving its stuff in your bathroom.

`How much do you know about him?' Her father was no exception to the disarray. He was both stunned that she had beaten Neji, and infuriated that she had given up in the semi-finals. He wasn't at all sure about what to make of her surrendering to Uzumaki Naruto, and now there was another boy around her age she was constantly…no. No.

Hinata tried to bite her lip, while simultaneously trying to make it appear that she wasn't. Lying to her father had always been a bit…tricky. `Umm…I know t-that he was…he was born in Mizu no Kuni.' Also true.

`Oh? And how did he come to be in the hospital?'

`He-he was caught up in the, um, Suna/Oto invasion. I think he c-came to…v-visit the hospital. He is ill.'

`So I hear.' Pointless statement: conversational dead-end.

`…'

Hyuuga Hizashi sighed a great sigh, laden with irritation at time wasted worrying that his daughter was getting involved with men of questionable character. She was a soft-hearted girl, and probably couldn't help becoming attached to an injured person as thought they were a bird with a broke wing. As long as she wasn't “…no. No.”-ing, no problem existed as far as he was concerned. Even with her escapades to the hospital, she stuck to her daily training regiment and came home every night.

In the end, what more can a father ask for?

 

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Kimimaro was getting worse. It was a gradual, but seemingly unstoppable process. Like a glacier moving. He spent more and more time sleeping, and was losing interest in…everything, really.

For a while, Hinata had brought books and puzzles to try and keep him doing something. They hadn't exactly been well-received, but now he tried to not even look at them.

But, at the moment, he was sleeping. Waking him up didn't seem like the most humane thing to do, so Hinata had found herself reading. It was some kind of fantasy novel set in a world where shinobi were heretics, and were being hunted to extinction by the “Inquisition” or something like that. It was…interesting, but predictable. No wonder Kimimaro wasn't too keen on reading them.

She glanced up and confirmed that Kimimaro was still asleep. Looking at his face, it didn't seem like he was dreaming, but one of his hands was twitching slightly. It must have been doing it for a while, since it had somehow managed to make its way over the edge of the bed and was dangling awkwardly.

Before any thoughts of holding his hand crossed her mind, she had reached out, lifted the hand gently, and moved it halfway back to where it should have been. Then the thoughts of holding his hand crossed her mind. She hesitated, and a tint of red started growing in her cheeks. There was no real reason for her to be embarrassed, but there doesn't usually have to be one.

In those few seconds of hesitation, she noticed two things. The first thing was; he had large hands. That made sense, since he was a fair bit taller than she was, but it was still a little striking. The second thing was; they were cold. They were well below room temperature.

Hinata forced herself out of the slight daze she had somehow arrived at, and carefully lay the cold hand down. Even though she knew he was alive, the coldness she had felt was a little disturbing, and prompted her to look at his almost-peaceful sleeping face just to make sure.

To say that she was both surprised and embarrassed when she saw a pair of green eyes looking at her thoughtfully, would be largely true while still not quite capturing the scale of the emotions that hit her. Her entire face turned red, and she started trying to apologise (she wasn't quite sure what about) and not say anything at the same time.

Kimimaro, in turn, gave her a blank stare. Looked at his hand. Watched Hinata silently mouth apologies while sweating bullets. Looked at his hand. Watched Hinata rise unsteadily, still talking silently, and stumble backwards to the door while still mouthing apologies.

When she was gone, he gave his hand one more appraising look. While not being sure about what had just happened, he was now more certain than ever that Hinata was indeed a strange and baffling person.

Stranger still: where her hand had held his, the skin tingled slightly, and had a lingering warmth that seemed somehow out of place.

Her hand had been very warm. And comforting -in a way he couldn't remember feeling before- deep in the recesses of his mind.