Hyuga Momma Love
The plot bunnies were this close to eating my soul, so I just gave in. I've always kind of wanted to write Hyuga momma ficcage, and I wondered what kind of relationship Neji's momma & Hinata's momma had.
Erm, I know the Sharigan is maternal, but I'm not sure about the Byakugen. For the sake of the ficcage, it's not, either way.
I really do kind of enjoy Tsuyu and Shin. Expect some more drabblelets about these two.
What Comes Around, Goes Around
“Shinryoku,” Tsuyu muttered, staring down at the water lapping at the cliff’s edge.
“Yes?” the other woman asked, her head snapping up at the sound of her name being caught on the wind’s tail end.
She was so typical, Hyuga Tsuyu, physically. That long black hair, swirling around, spreading like oil in the water, eyes pale, pale, pale like a full moon. Shin, she was poetic. She couldn’t look at something and see that thing in front of her, no. When she looked at Tsuyu she saw some angel, some creature that didn’t belong here, not on this earth, not in that House.
“You’re not going to jump, are you?”
Shin blinked and frowned, waiting for the impending just-kidding. When it didn’t come, she shook her head violently. “No, I was…it’s very pretty, the shoreline. I wouldn’t…why would you think…”
“You were looking down like you look at Hiashi.”
Shin blushed, and Tsuyu looked her blush, and found herself amused and pleased by this reaction.
“It’s pretty, that’s all.”
“So’re you,” she said, pushing herself up, laughing. “So am I. That’s why we’re here, I guess.”
Number one Rookie of her class, Shin was better than most of the Hyuga Tsuyu knew. They were understood to be good fighters and terrible conservationists, and so people assumed that…well, they were the best. And shinobi outside of the families were forgotten, brushed aside. People said Tsuyu was a black sheep, but she considered that whole damn House a black hole, sucking joy into it and spitting out the mere bones of people. She would often put her studies aside and take life by the reins instead.
The only thing that saved her was that she was good, underneath those cigarettes and indifferent attitude.
Tsuyu was a few years older, but it just took her a little longer to finish up that all that damn boring schooling. And here they were, school in the backdrop of the play that was their life. They’d been friends for a while now, and Shin was a good influence as anyone was. She never smoked, and she worked harder than anyone Tsuyu had ever seen in order…in order to do what?
Shin got that question a lot.
Her parents were two nondescript shinobi, and she almost hated them for that. They didn’t expect anything from her but the same mediocre things they could have managed themselves, and for that extra push, that shove, she needed to go elsewhere. She needed to compare herself to the Uchiha, to the Nara, the Inuzuka, the…the Hyuga.
Shin followed Tsuyu away from the edge, her hair cropped short and not billowing.
“What do you think about Hizashi?” Tsuyu asked her a good half hour later, as the village came into view.
“He’s sweet,” the smaller woman replied, eyeing her companion curiously. “Why?”
“Maybe I’m interesting in pursuing a dead end,” Tsuyu replied dryly, and Shin shot her a look. She didn’t like the talk about that kind of stuff, like most outsiders. Tsuyu, on the other hand, reveled in the reminder of precisely how screwed up her family was.
“I dunno…” she muttered, stopping suddenly and plopping down on the grass, her eyes squinting at the village as if through a fog. “It’s just…don’t you feel it? As if we’re losing time? How long will we last, as kunoichi? Eight, nine, maybe ten years? That’s barely enough to raise a child. Barely enough so that they remember us.”
Crossing her arms over her meager chest, Shin frowned down at her friend. “Don’t be stupid. We’re twenty-one years old, not thirty five. We’ve got time to spare.”
“Do we? Do we really?”
Shin sank down to Tsuyu’s level and threw an arm over her shoulders, pulling her in close. “Yeah. Loads of time. Now, c’mon, we’ve got a man down there waiting for us to seduce him…”
There was a long pause, and Tsuyu didn’t move. Finally, she turned to face Shin, and she smiled gently, as if she didn’t want to break the delicate balance of silence. “Too bad I can’t have a kid with you, huh?”
Immediately Shin drew away, as if burned by the words. Her eyes widened into twin saucers of surprise and her lips made a small o. Tsuyu thought was lovely, but knew she could never say so sincerely. Look away, her hand came up to play with a lock of her dark hair. “I just meant…well, we’re so close-”
“I’m not gay,” Shin hissed viciously.
“…I know. It was a joke, Shin. You’ll have oodles and oodles of children with Hiashi and…and I…” Her voice cracked, and she frowned, inwardly cursing herself for that. Standing, she furiously brushed the dirt off her backside, and readied herself for returning to the village. They didn’t exchange any words the whole way down, not as they entered the house that they were staying in for a few days, not as they slipped on beautiful and tight fitting kimonos.
“I’m gonna get a drink first,” Tsuyu muttered as Shin closed the door behind. Shin shot her a sharp glance, but said nothing, just stood outside the bar as Tsuyu asked for some sake. Watching her as she swallowed it quickly, then came outside, greeting her with a strong grin.
“Ready?”
“Yep.”
---
Tsuyu’s eyes were alive with the flames of fury. Hands curled up into fists, jaw clenched, Shin was almost afraid of her.
Almost.
“Don’t you do anything,” she warned, standing up to move closer to the door just in case Tsuyu tried to make a run for it. “He didn’t mean anything by it.”
“He hit you!” Tsuyu raged, slamming her fists down onto the table, causing it to shake. A few papers fluttered onto the ground and no one moved to picked them up.
“And I hit him back! I’m not some submissive little wife! He apologized, and we agreed that this would be an isolated incident.”
“And Hiashi is the most reliable of men, huh?” Tsuyu scoffed, rolling her eyes. “He’s always been a bit of a pomp-”
Taking a step towards her, Shin raised one hand to shake her finger at Tsuyu accusingly. “You stop right there, Hyuga Tsuyu! You may think what you like about Hiashi, but he’s my husband!”
“And you’re my best friend, gods damn it! I won’t let someone like him treat you like this!”
“Treat me like what?! He respects me, and unlike you, he doesn’t expect more from me than I can give! He loves me…”
Tsuyu suddenly grew cold, and she slumped in her seat. “Well, I apologize, then.”
Shin drew in a slow, wavering breath and brushed some hair from her face. “No, I’m sorry. That…I didn’t mean that.” When Tsuyu didn’t answer she decided to continue. “Maybe…maybe you need a relationship, Tsuyu. Something more solid than a one night stand. Maybe-”
“Maybe I can follow your lead and allow you to hook me up with Hizashi, you mean,” Tsuyu finished, tone astringent.
“…You’d like him,” Shin replied lamely, sliding into the seat across the table from her friend.
Tsuyu stood up and rubbed at her eyes tiredly. She couldn’t handle this anymore, not today. Maybe not ever. “Whatever. Tell him I’m asking him to lunch tomorrow, then. Tell him to wear his nice underwear.” When she walked past where Shin was sitting, she stepped around the other woman’s outstretched hand.
“Remember when we used to talk about how our kids would be the best of friends?” Shin said abruptly, and Tsuyu’s hand paused on the doorknob, the screech of the door briefly silenced.
“How we’d have them play together as babies, and they’d grow up together and fall in love? Yeah, I remember.”
“We were such silly girls, weren’t we?”
Tsuyu chuckled wryly, and stepped out of the room. “We were. People have no control over who they fall in love with, do they?”
---
He was lovely, lying there on the bed with his hair splayed across the pillows. Shin stared down at him and wondered why her heart wasn’t pounding like gunpowder in her chest. She should love him, shouldn’t she? They’d been married for three years now, and she’d felt that surely she should feel something beside grateful. Something more than respect and vague appreciation.
She lay back down against the bed, and reached over to grip his hands. Even in sleep he drew away from her and turned onto his side, facing away from her. Sighing, she allowed the sounds from outside to infiltrate the mostly silent room.
Somewhere, a baby was crying.
She wondered if it was Tsuyu’s little child, young Neji. He was a lovely creature, his eyes round and pale, like his mother and father. Oh, his forehead so beautifully smooth, nothing marring his soft baby flesh. Not…not yet. Shin remembers crying when she first saw him, cradled gently in his mother’s arms. She hadn’t really understood why, but the tears had spilt nonetheless, and she’d felt embarrassed. Even so…it was Tsuyu.
Tsuyu.
She’d gained weight, but everyone said she’d lose it soon enough. She’d go back to her missions, and all that work would force the layers of fat away.
Shin’s fingers trembled against her own stomach, and she wondered if maybe her childhood fantasies would come true one day. Maybe their children would grow as close as they had been. She imagined two boys playing by the river’s edge, Byakugen activated and hands readied by their sides. Shin felt that her child would certainly be a boy.
A boy that would never, even fall in love with Neji. The world didn’t need more confused Romeos and Juliets.
“How the gods can touch the love of a man and wife,” Tsuyu crooned in her own corner of the Branch House, Hizashi watching silently from the bed. “And blossom it into the breath of life. Just look at this love…our eyes are filled with dreaming…we want so much for you, but we might fail you often before your life is through…”
Everything about him spoke of Hyuga, from his coarse dark hair to his strong nose to his pale stares. As if he saw everything, but understood nothing. Nothing, because everything he saw around him was painful, and pain was still an unfamiliar concept to him.
Tsuyu glanced back at Hizashi, but he’d closed his eyes and was pretending to sleep. Fine with her, she reasoned, and continued to rock her child in her arms, gazing out at the cloudy sky, where the moon would occasionally allow her glimpses of its scarred surface.
“May the night sky protect you…in a blanket of peace. May the angels sail beside you…they will never go away…they will never go away. Find your star, little dreamer. It is right where you are. Look around, little dreamer. Dreams are never too far…Dreams are never too far.”
No, they certainly weren’t, but proximity meant nothing when you knew you could never reach out and grab them.
Neji’s eyes closed slowly, and Tsuyu placed him down in his cradle. Staring down at him, she asked herself that same old question: would he remember her? Would she live that long?
And even if he did, would he only recall this sad shell of a woman, someone wasted long ago by the drink and cigarettes and too much pining?
Tsuyu considered getting into bed beside Hizashi, but she really didn’t want to be anywhere near him. He might want to touch her, to kiss her, and she wouldn’t be able to stand that. Not tonight.
Picking up Neji, she spent the night on the couch with her child curled up against her chest.
---
“How is Tsuyu?”
(short pause)
“Truthfully?”
“Well, I asked, did I not?”
(another pause)
“I think she’s depressed.”
“She is hardly the most stable of women-”
“No, Hiashi, I believe it’s different this time. She won’t even speak to me…”
“Is she caring for Neji as she should?”
“Yes, of course, and sometimes I wonder if he is the only thing keeping her-”
“Him and Shinryoku, of course.”
“…Yes.”
“My wife is having a hard pregnancy. I’m surprised that Tsuyu has not been…well, I have seen very little of her.”
“Tsuyu does not really leave the house anymore.”
“I see.”
“…We really picked the wrong pair to fall for, didn’t we?”
(longer pause, more thoughtful, and little bitter)
“I believe so, brother.”
---
Shin’s face was blotchy and stained with tears, but Tsuyu figured a few more wipes with the cloth would make her a little more presentable. After all, she was about to meet the most important person in her life, she might as well gather her senses a little.
Tsuyu grinned widely at her friend’s expression when the nurse came in with the bundle, and she stopped rubbing the damp washcloth against her face when the strange woman passed Shin her newborn.
“He’s beautiful,” Shin whispered, and Tsuyu leaned over, ready to agree.
“She,” the nurse corrected automatically, and Shin glanced up, shocked.
“Are you…are you sure?”
“You can check for yourself,” the nurse replied smoothly as she busied herself with the papers populating the bedside table. Shin gave Tsuyu a worried looked, but the other woman simply shrugged.
“I think Hinata’s a nice name,” she said instead, fingertips running over the child’s cheek.
“Hiashi told me it should be Hanabi if it was a…girl,” Shin told her nervously, staring down at her child with something akin to apprehension.
“Hanabi, then?” the nursed, her pen ready in her hand.
Both women looked at Shin expectantly, and she felt trapped under their gazes. What more did they want from her? Everything ached still, and she’d gone through hours of hell and…and….
Hiashi was on a mission right now, and Tsuyu was the one at her side, like she’d always been.
“No. Hinata. Hyuga Hinata.”
Tsuyu smiled and waited until the nurse had left the room before leaning over and pressing chaste kiss onto Shin’s cheek and then another on Hinata’s.
---
It was a short funeral, and it was a nice day. Neji kept tugging on Shin’s kimono, asking her when he and Hinata could go play. Shin couldn’t answer him. He didn’t understand yet, and maybe never would. He was so young, still…
It was all a self-fufilling prophesy, it seemed. Neji would never remember his mother.
Hiashi kept trying to comfort her, but she ignored him until he finally gave up. He told Neji to go and find somewhere else to play. Take Hinata with him.
Neji asked why his father was crying.
Shin replied that an angel had died, and Neji grew quiet, and eventually somberly led Hinata away by the hand. Shin watched the two of them go off towards the trees, saddened by the fact that Tsuyu wasn’t here to seem them like this. Yes, they would grow up friends, but they’d never fall in love. They were cousins, and Hinata was Main House was Neji was Branch House. There was no future there.
She wondered how there could possibly be a future for…for anyone. Out of the corner of her eyes she spotted her husband, tall and trim and strong against the backdrop of Konoha. Oh, he was a good leader, maybe too traditionalist, but kind at heart. But she didn’t love him, and she’d borne his child out of the desire to put a wall up to hide who she really was. Hinata, down there, playing with Neji, was a mask.
When it came right down to it, so was Neji.
She was so deep inside herself that she didn’t realize Hizashi was standing right next to her until he spoke to her.
“She loved you. She always loved you more than she loved me.”
“She never loved you,” Shin hissed, feeling more vindictive than she should have.
“Why?” His voice was pained, and another short sob escaped from him. Shin almost pitied him in his mourning. She couldn't cry, not in front of all these people. Her sadness, that sharp burn in her chest, that all had to dealt with in private, where could scream out loud and question fate's motives.
Shin looked down at the woman in the coffin, her hair contrasted against the pillows underneath her head. She didn’t look at peace, just dead. They’d covered up her lower body so that no one would have to see the wounds, particularly the children.
“Because she never could take no for an answer.”
The two of them stare down at Tsuyu’s empty shell, wondering where she’d gone, and how long it would take for the two of them to follow behind her.
In the backdrop of this tragedy, Neji and Hinata looked up at the clouds.
“See over there? That’s a bird.”
“No. Rock.”
“They’re not all rocks, Hinata.”
“Rock.”
“Well, how about that other one? I think it looks like a bunny.”
Hinata paused, as if contemplating this. “Hm. Two rocks.”
Their giggles signaled the closing credits, and that was the end of that tragedy, but the beginning of yet another.
What comes around...goes around.
Erm, I know the Sharigan is maternal, but I'm not sure about the Byakugen. For the sake of the ficcage, it's not, either way.
I really do kind of enjoy Tsuyu and Shin. Expect some more drabblelets about these two.
What Comes Around, Goes Around
“Shinryoku,” Tsuyu muttered, staring down at the water lapping at the cliff’s edge.
“Yes?” the other woman asked, her head snapping up at the sound of her name being caught on the wind’s tail end.
She was so typical, Hyuga Tsuyu, physically. That long black hair, swirling around, spreading like oil in the water, eyes pale, pale, pale like a full moon. Shin, she was poetic. She couldn’t look at something and see that thing in front of her, no. When she looked at Tsuyu she saw some angel, some creature that didn’t belong here, not on this earth, not in that House.
“You’re not going to jump, are you?”
Shin blinked and frowned, waiting for the impending just-kidding. When it didn’t come, she shook her head violently. “No, I was…it’s very pretty, the shoreline. I wouldn’t…why would you think…”
“You were looking down like you look at Hiashi.”
Shin blushed, and Tsuyu looked her blush, and found herself amused and pleased by this reaction.
“It’s pretty, that’s all.”
“So’re you,” she said, pushing herself up, laughing. “So am I. That’s why we’re here, I guess.”
Number one Rookie of her class, Shin was better than most of the Hyuga Tsuyu knew. They were understood to be good fighters and terrible conservationists, and so people assumed that…well, they were the best. And shinobi outside of the families were forgotten, brushed aside. People said Tsuyu was a black sheep, but she considered that whole damn House a black hole, sucking joy into it and spitting out the mere bones of people. She would often put her studies aside and take life by the reins instead.
The only thing that saved her was that she was good, underneath those cigarettes and indifferent attitude.
Tsuyu was a few years older, but it just took her a little longer to finish up that all that damn boring schooling. And here they were, school in the backdrop of the play that was their life. They’d been friends for a while now, and Shin was a good influence as anyone was. She never smoked, and she worked harder than anyone Tsuyu had ever seen in order…in order to do what?
Shin got that question a lot.
Her parents were two nondescript shinobi, and she almost hated them for that. They didn’t expect anything from her but the same mediocre things they could have managed themselves, and for that extra push, that shove, she needed to go elsewhere. She needed to compare herself to the Uchiha, to the Nara, the Inuzuka, the…the Hyuga.
Shin followed Tsuyu away from the edge, her hair cropped short and not billowing.
“What do you think about Hizashi?” Tsuyu asked her a good half hour later, as the village came into view.
“He’s sweet,” the smaller woman replied, eyeing her companion curiously. “Why?”
“Maybe I’m interesting in pursuing a dead end,” Tsuyu replied dryly, and Shin shot her a look. She didn’t like the talk about that kind of stuff, like most outsiders. Tsuyu, on the other hand, reveled in the reminder of precisely how screwed up her family was.
“I dunno…” she muttered, stopping suddenly and plopping down on the grass, her eyes squinting at the village as if through a fog. “It’s just…don’t you feel it? As if we’re losing time? How long will we last, as kunoichi? Eight, nine, maybe ten years? That’s barely enough to raise a child. Barely enough so that they remember us.”
Crossing her arms over her meager chest, Shin frowned down at her friend. “Don’t be stupid. We’re twenty-one years old, not thirty five. We’ve got time to spare.”
“Do we? Do we really?”
Shin sank down to Tsuyu’s level and threw an arm over her shoulders, pulling her in close. “Yeah. Loads of time. Now, c’mon, we’ve got a man down there waiting for us to seduce him…”
There was a long pause, and Tsuyu didn’t move. Finally, she turned to face Shin, and she smiled gently, as if she didn’t want to break the delicate balance of silence. “Too bad I can’t have a kid with you, huh?”
Immediately Shin drew away, as if burned by the words. Her eyes widened into twin saucers of surprise and her lips made a small o. Tsuyu thought was lovely, but knew she could never say so sincerely. Look away, her hand came up to play with a lock of her dark hair. “I just meant…well, we’re so close-”
“I’m not gay,” Shin hissed viciously.
“…I know. It was a joke, Shin. You’ll have oodles and oodles of children with Hiashi and…and I…” Her voice cracked, and she frowned, inwardly cursing herself for that. Standing, she furiously brushed the dirt off her backside, and readied herself for returning to the village. They didn’t exchange any words the whole way down, not as they entered the house that they were staying in for a few days, not as they slipped on beautiful and tight fitting kimonos.
“I’m gonna get a drink first,” Tsuyu muttered as Shin closed the door behind. Shin shot her a sharp glance, but said nothing, just stood outside the bar as Tsuyu asked for some sake. Watching her as she swallowed it quickly, then came outside, greeting her with a strong grin.
“Ready?”
“Yep.”
---
Tsuyu’s eyes were alive with the flames of fury. Hands curled up into fists, jaw clenched, Shin was almost afraid of her.
Almost.
“Don’t you do anything,” she warned, standing up to move closer to the door just in case Tsuyu tried to make a run for it. “He didn’t mean anything by it.”
“He hit you!” Tsuyu raged, slamming her fists down onto the table, causing it to shake. A few papers fluttered onto the ground and no one moved to picked them up.
“And I hit him back! I’m not some submissive little wife! He apologized, and we agreed that this would be an isolated incident.”
“And Hiashi is the most reliable of men, huh?” Tsuyu scoffed, rolling her eyes. “He’s always been a bit of a pomp-”
Taking a step towards her, Shin raised one hand to shake her finger at Tsuyu accusingly. “You stop right there, Hyuga Tsuyu! You may think what you like about Hiashi, but he’s my husband!”
“And you’re my best friend, gods damn it! I won’t let someone like him treat you like this!”
“Treat me like what?! He respects me, and unlike you, he doesn’t expect more from me than I can give! He loves me…”
Tsuyu suddenly grew cold, and she slumped in her seat. “Well, I apologize, then.”
Shin drew in a slow, wavering breath and brushed some hair from her face. “No, I’m sorry. That…I didn’t mean that.” When Tsuyu didn’t answer she decided to continue. “Maybe…maybe you need a relationship, Tsuyu. Something more solid than a one night stand. Maybe-”
“Maybe I can follow your lead and allow you to hook me up with Hizashi, you mean,” Tsuyu finished, tone astringent.
“…You’d like him,” Shin replied lamely, sliding into the seat across the table from her friend.
Tsuyu stood up and rubbed at her eyes tiredly. She couldn’t handle this anymore, not today. Maybe not ever. “Whatever. Tell him I’m asking him to lunch tomorrow, then. Tell him to wear his nice underwear.” When she walked past where Shin was sitting, she stepped around the other woman’s outstretched hand.
“Remember when we used to talk about how our kids would be the best of friends?” Shin said abruptly, and Tsuyu’s hand paused on the doorknob, the screech of the door briefly silenced.
“How we’d have them play together as babies, and they’d grow up together and fall in love? Yeah, I remember.”
“We were such silly girls, weren’t we?”
Tsuyu chuckled wryly, and stepped out of the room. “We were. People have no control over who they fall in love with, do they?”
---
He was lovely, lying there on the bed with his hair splayed across the pillows. Shin stared down at him and wondered why her heart wasn’t pounding like gunpowder in her chest. She should love him, shouldn’t she? They’d been married for three years now, and she’d felt that surely she should feel something beside grateful. Something more than respect and vague appreciation.
She lay back down against the bed, and reached over to grip his hands. Even in sleep he drew away from her and turned onto his side, facing away from her. Sighing, she allowed the sounds from outside to infiltrate the mostly silent room.
Somewhere, a baby was crying.
She wondered if it was Tsuyu’s little child, young Neji. He was a lovely creature, his eyes round and pale, like his mother and father. Oh, his forehead so beautifully smooth, nothing marring his soft baby flesh. Not…not yet. Shin remembers crying when she first saw him, cradled gently in his mother’s arms. She hadn’t really understood why, but the tears had spilt nonetheless, and she’d felt embarrassed. Even so…it was Tsuyu.
Tsuyu.
She’d gained weight, but everyone said she’d lose it soon enough. She’d go back to her missions, and all that work would force the layers of fat away.
Shin’s fingers trembled against her own stomach, and she wondered if maybe her childhood fantasies would come true one day. Maybe their children would grow as close as they had been. She imagined two boys playing by the river’s edge, Byakugen activated and hands readied by their sides. Shin felt that her child would certainly be a boy.
A boy that would never, even fall in love with Neji. The world didn’t need more confused Romeos and Juliets.
“How the gods can touch the love of a man and wife,” Tsuyu crooned in her own corner of the Branch House, Hizashi watching silently from the bed. “And blossom it into the breath of life. Just look at this love…our eyes are filled with dreaming…we want so much for you, but we might fail you often before your life is through…”
Everything about him spoke of Hyuga, from his coarse dark hair to his strong nose to his pale stares. As if he saw everything, but understood nothing. Nothing, because everything he saw around him was painful, and pain was still an unfamiliar concept to him.
Tsuyu glanced back at Hizashi, but he’d closed his eyes and was pretending to sleep. Fine with her, she reasoned, and continued to rock her child in her arms, gazing out at the cloudy sky, where the moon would occasionally allow her glimpses of its scarred surface.
“May the night sky protect you…in a blanket of peace. May the angels sail beside you…they will never go away…they will never go away. Find your star, little dreamer. It is right where you are. Look around, little dreamer. Dreams are never too far…Dreams are never too far.”
No, they certainly weren’t, but proximity meant nothing when you knew you could never reach out and grab them.
Neji’s eyes closed slowly, and Tsuyu placed him down in his cradle. Staring down at him, she asked herself that same old question: would he remember her? Would she live that long?
And even if he did, would he only recall this sad shell of a woman, someone wasted long ago by the drink and cigarettes and too much pining?
Tsuyu considered getting into bed beside Hizashi, but she really didn’t want to be anywhere near him. He might want to touch her, to kiss her, and she wouldn’t be able to stand that. Not tonight.
Picking up Neji, she spent the night on the couch with her child curled up against her chest.
---
“How is Tsuyu?”
(short pause)
“Truthfully?”
“Well, I asked, did I not?”
(another pause)
“I think she’s depressed.”
“She is hardly the most stable of women-”
“No, Hiashi, I believe it’s different this time. She won’t even speak to me…”
“Is she caring for Neji as she should?”
“Yes, of course, and sometimes I wonder if he is the only thing keeping her-”
“Him and Shinryoku, of course.”
“…Yes.”
“My wife is having a hard pregnancy. I’m surprised that Tsuyu has not been…well, I have seen very little of her.”
“Tsuyu does not really leave the house anymore.”
“I see.”
“…We really picked the wrong pair to fall for, didn’t we?”
(longer pause, more thoughtful, and little bitter)
“I believe so, brother.”
---
Shin’s face was blotchy and stained with tears, but Tsuyu figured a few more wipes with the cloth would make her a little more presentable. After all, she was about to meet the most important person in her life, she might as well gather her senses a little.
Tsuyu grinned widely at her friend’s expression when the nurse came in with the bundle, and she stopped rubbing the damp washcloth against her face when the strange woman passed Shin her newborn.
“He’s beautiful,” Shin whispered, and Tsuyu leaned over, ready to agree.
“She,” the nurse corrected automatically, and Shin glanced up, shocked.
“Are you…are you sure?”
“You can check for yourself,” the nurse replied smoothly as she busied herself with the papers populating the bedside table. Shin gave Tsuyu a worried looked, but the other woman simply shrugged.
“I think Hinata’s a nice name,” she said instead, fingertips running over the child’s cheek.
“Hiashi told me it should be Hanabi if it was a…girl,” Shin told her nervously, staring down at her child with something akin to apprehension.
“Hanabi, then?” the nursed, her pen ready in her hand.
Both women looked at Shin expectantly, and she felt trapped under their gazes. What more did they want from her? Everything ached still, and she’d gone through hours of hell and…and….
Hiashi was on a mission right now, and Tsuyu was the one at her side, like she’d always been.
“No. Hinata. Hyuga Hinata.”
Tsuyu smiled and waited until the nurse had left the room before leaning over and pressing chaste kiss onto Shin’s cheek and then another on Hinata’s.
---
It was a short funeral, and it was a nice day. Neji kept tugging on Shin’s kimono, asking her when he and Hinata could go play. Shin couldn’t answer him. He didn’t understand yet, and maybe never would. He was so young, still…
It was all a self-fufilling prophesy, it seemed. Neji would never remember his mother.
Hiashi kept trying to comfort her, but she ignored him until he finally gave up. He told Neji to go and find somewhere else to play. Take Hinata with him.
Neji asked why his father was crying.
Shin replied that an angel had died, and Neji grew quiet, and eventually somberly led Hinata away by the hand. Shin watched the two of them go off towards the trees, saddened by the fact that Tsuyu wasn’t here to seem them like this. Yes, they would grow up friends, but they’d never fall in love. They were cousins, and Hinata was Main House was Neji was Branch House. There was no future there.
She wondered how there could possibly be a future for…for anyone. Out of the corner of her eyes she spotted her husband, tall and trim and strong against the backdrop of Konoha. Oh, he was a good leader, maybe too traditionalist, but kind at heart. But she didn’t love him, and she’d borne his child out of the desire to put a wall up to hide who she really was. Hinata, down there, playing with Neji, was a mask.
When it came right down to it, so was Neji.
She was so deep inside herself that she didn’t realize Hizashi was standing right next to her until he spoke to her.
“She loved you. She always loved you more than she loved me.”
“She never loved you,” Shin hissed, feeling more vindictive than she should have.
“Why?” His voice was pained, and another short sob escaped from him. Shin almost pitied him in his mourning. She couldn't cry, not in front of all these people. Her sadness, that sharp burn in her chest, that all had to dealt with in private, where could scream out loud and question fate's motives.
Shin looked down at the woman in the coffin, her hair contrasted against the pillows underneath her head. She didn’t look at peace, just dead. They’d covered up her lower body so that no one would have to see the wounds, particularly the children.
“Because she never could take no for an answer.”
The two of them stare down at Tsuyu’s empty shell, wondering where she’d gone, and how long it would take for the two of them to follow behind her.
In the backdrop of this tragedy, Neji and Hinata looked up at the clouds.
“See over there? That’s a bird.”
“No. Rock.”
“They’re not all rocks, Hinata.”
“Rock.”
“Well, how about that other one? I think it looks like a bunny.”
Hinata paused, as if contemplating this. “Hm. Two rocks.”
Their giggles signaled the closing credits, and that was the end of that tragedy, but the beginning of yet another.
What comes around...goes around.