[thread] Speak to me [Nejiko, Hinaji]

[weighted_wings]

[ooc: I forget when exactly we wanted to have this take place (aside from after Kureno's sentencing, so, ah, I'm open to suggestions, Squeak. :D ]Finding a nice, quiet place within the Hyuuga compound wasn't difficult. As a rule the inhabitants therein preferred to keep to themselves and to give each other space for private thoughts. Nejiko took

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[weighted_wings]

...He would understand and decide accordingly. Or, he would do something Nejiko wasn't expecting. Ahh, life. Things were so much simpler with her teammates. She understood them, they understood her. Hinaji, for all that he was her cousin and a Hyuuga, still managed to throw her off in small ways. No matter. She had approached him, after all.

She suddenly felt glad for the long-sleeved shirt that hid any evidence of new wounds. Namely her shoulder. Her side and thigh would have been covered regardless. Hinaji couldn't know she had been part of the mission Kureno abandoned. Doing any mission as ANBU required a certain discretion. But he could know how annoyed she was at Kureno's betrayal of duty.

"Hinaji," she answered just as quietly. She stopped outside what would have been her own personal space bubble so she wasn't crowding him. "Have you spoken with Kureno?" The man no longer deserved any suffix from her. Truthfully, he should be pleased she still deigned to use his given name instead of relegating him to the distance and bare toleration of his last name.

[hyuuga_hinaji]

He nodded his head slightly as she said his name, although his expression didn't lighten at the mention of his sensei. He turned back to look at the water, shoulders slumped as he leaned over the railing.

"...Not really, no." Kureno hadn't seemed to want to talk, not right after getting home. "Hopefully soon we'll all go."

He glanced over at his cousin, watching her closely. Was she disapproving? He knew how much upheld duty, did he want to know what she thought of his teacher now?

"...Have you?"

[weighted_wings]

Nejiko gave her cousin an odd look, head tilting slightly. "No. He wasn't my sensei." Therefore she had technically no reason in which to go see him. Though she could now use the explanation of Hinaji's own concern for the man to see him if she wanted.

Unless... "Did you want me to speak with him?"

[hyuuga_hinaji]

"Ah? N-no, that's alright... It's just...you're both jounin so..." Honestly, he wasn't sure what he was thinking, now that he was trying to explain himself. Nejiko had no reason to talk with Kureno, regardless of being jounin or not.

...Maybe he was just anxious for some form of news.

He rested his chin on his arms, expression dark. "...None of this...feels right."

[weighted_wings]

"Not all jounin move within the same circles. He works mainly in intelligence." Nejiko also wasn't specialized like Kureno, nor was she a jounin-sensei. Thank Fate. "And if what he did is supposed to feel right," she added carefully, "then I imagine something would be seriously wrong."

She attempted to conceive how she might feel if Gaia-sensei had done the same as Kureno - abandoned a mission to go after Kakami, perhaps. She felt the same measure of disgust and anger but in a different flavor. Gaia-sensei also believed strongly in duty and never shirking a commitment/promise (which was how Gaia-sensei treated missions, as promises to the Hokage), and therefore to run off to do something else would have been... not entirely outside her nature, but at the same time, not something Nejiko would be able to easily imagine the green-clad woman doing.

Secondly was the fact that Team Eight's dynamic was much different from her own. She refused to presume how they worked except for the fact it did work. So accurately guessing how Hinaji felt was a long shot in the dark. But she could imagine, and she could sympathize.

[hyuuga_hinaji]

"...Of course. That's true..." Perhaps he had just been hoping for more answers than was possible at the time. The only way to really understand would be to visit Kureno with everyone.

...That shouldn't make him as uneasy as it did.

"...H-how...are you doing, anyway...?" It was rude to talk only about his own problems when she surely had to have her own. "Is your team well...?"

[weighted_wings]

"They are. Leigh and Gaia-sensei have vanished on another of their training missions of youth--" here Nejiko didn't bother to roll her eyes, used to this as she was "--and Tentsuke is taking some extra time for a vacation of his own." And no word yet on whether or not they passed the exam. She expected they had, with the way all three of them trained. "I am fine." Angry with Kureno, yes, and missing her team especially Tentsuke, but otherwise fine.

She waited a few moments before finishing up with a soft, "Yourself?"

[hyuuga_hinaji]

Hinaji smiled softly to hear her talk of her team. She might not let it show, but he was sure they'd helped her. Maybe it wasn't his place, but he was glad she had people who were closer to her so she didn't have to go back to being how she was before the chuunin exam.

He lost the smile a little at her question, though. "We're...alright. As well as we can be, anyway." He closed his eyes for a few moments before opening them again and looking out over the water. "...We're trying hard."

[weighted_wings]

She nodded once, her eyes not leaving him. Sometimes, that was the best that could be done. She didn't have to actually voice it as he understood the look she gave him.

She tipped her head politely at him. "Good night, Hinaji," she said.