FANFIC
STRANGER THAN FICTION
CHAPTER 3: CONTAINING SEVERAL DRASTIC TWISTS OF PLOT
Hinata didn't dream very often. When she did, her dreams were pleasant and fairly boring- for instance, sometimes she dreamed about walking to the office and discovering that someone had thrown a St. Patrick's Day party despite it not being St. Patrick's Day. They were never scary.
Unfortunately, that meant that when she woke up the next morning, she couldn't convince herself that it had all been a nightmare.
Neji's fake blue eyes twinkled on her ceiling. "Good morning," she mouthed, with a rather dry smile.
Her skin felt crusty with sweat. Hopping out of bed, placing the kitchen knife she had held all night on her bedside table, she decided that the world would look much brighter once she had taken a long shower.
She paused in front of the bathroom to pull off her shirt and was hit with the delayed realization that she had slept in her clothes. At least they hadn't wrinkled. Her makeup had probably smudged all over her sheets, and her colour contacts were somewhere between the living room and her bedroom, but these weren't pressing concerns at the moment.
Brushing aside her fish-print shower curtain, she turned on the taps and held out her hand waiting for the water to cool. Then she stepped in.
When the strange boy had told her to show him Maid in Manhattan, she had automatically reached for the correct VCR buttons. Some things were just common sense. Complying with the requests of an apparent murderer sitting in your living room was one of those things.
"Um. Should I skip the commercials?"
The boy shook his head. His eerie green eyes were glued to the TV as clips from another romantic comedy flickered across it. In the light of the screen, Hinata could see every crease and hollow on his face. She slowly crossed her legs and turned her attention to the opening credits.
They got halfway through the movie.
Hinata was terrified at first. She spent the first ten minutes planning to either escape or somehow gain the upper hand, and the second ten minutes thinking of every little thing that could go wrong with her plans.
Eventually, she decided that worrying wouldn't get her anywhere. Since the intruder seemed focused enough on the movie to not pay any attention to her, she was best off waiting until his attention had shifted from her and then calling the police.
Just as Jennifer Lopez ran away from the dance, and Hinata was thinking that it was now or never, the movie got the gray fuzzies and stopped. The screen turned blue.
The boy turned to her with detached anger on his face. "I want to see the rest."
"The tape must be broken," she responded, pulling it out and taking a look. Something must have stopped working when she tripped over it. "I, um... sorry." And why was she apologizing to someone who had broken into her home and wanted to kill her?
"I want to know how it ends." A tendril of sand fanned out off the couch and towards her.
"Come back tomorrow night," said Hinata quickly, without even thinking about it, a lump at the back of her throat. "I'll rent another copy and you can see the rest."
The sand fell to the floor. Her intruder regarded her again, with more curiosity than anger this time.
"What?"
"I mean it."
Without saying another word, the boy stood up and walked unsteadily out of her living room. His sand followed behind him like a train.
***
The ring of the telephone jostled Hinata out of her remembrance of last night. Quickly rinsing shampoo out of her hair, she turned the water off and stepped out of the shower. There was a towel draped over the sink waiting for her. She rubbed it over her hair quickly, draped it around her shoulders, and hurried out to get the call.
"Hello!" the answering machine said brightly. "You've reached the home of Hinata Yuuhi. I'm afraid I can't take your call right now, but if you'll leave your name and phone number after the beep, I'll get back to you when I can. Thanks!"
There was a beep. "Hello," said a certain very familiar voice. "This is-"
Hinata grabbed the phone. "Neji?" she asked with surprise. He never called her.
"Hinata," replied Neji Hyuuga, pop star and idol of teenage girls across the continent. He sounded almost annoyed that she was there after all. Hinata could picture the stern downward curve of his mouth as he spoke. "What are you doing this morning?"
Suddenly shy even though he couldn't see her - or maybe he could, she wasn't quite sure how much psychic power he really had - she cradled the phone on her shoulder and wrapped the towel around her body. "Nothing. ...Where are you calling from?"
"My hotel room." That made more sense. If he was in town, he had no excuse *not* to call. "I was in the area for the concert. I'll meet you for breakfast, if you're not doing anything else."
What else would she be doing on Saturday morning? She wasn't a celebrity, or even a socialite. Her weekends were the most boring thing imaginable. "No, um, breakfast sounds good... there's a nice place down the road from my house, if you'd like."
"I'll meet you at your house and we'll walk from there." He assumed she wouldn't object. Which was just as well, because she didn't.
"How's the family...?"
"I'll tell you in person. Bye."
"Bye," she replied, just as he hung up. Her cousin had never been one for long phone conversations. Or long conversations at all. She felt almost grateful not to have seen him in person for so long, because the catching up meant that at least they would have something to talk about.
Neji Hyuuga was a complicated person, and Hinata had long ago given up trying to understand him. It had been obvious since she was very young that her father considered him his musical heir. Even though Neji's hair was rather small, and he couldn't play electric guitar, he had the same star quality that had made him and Uncle Hizashi so famous. He wasn't afraid to capitalize on it, either.
Underneath the veneer of a charming mainstream singer, though, Neji was curt and taciturn to the point of being almost impolite. He didn't bear fools lightly, and as he considered almost everyone to be a fool, he lived in a constant state of frustration with an irrational world.
Or so it seemed. Hinata couldn't actually tell. The Hyuuga family, who had always been gifted with some kind of psychic power, kept mental shields up around each other to avoid learning things they shouldn't know. Neji was one of the strongest in family history, and his barriers were nearly impossible to break through. Nobody even tried anymore.
She had last seen him at a family gathering three years ago. It was usually held at Hiashi Hyuuga's home in Hollywood, but that had been the year her parents got divorced, so it had taken place instead at a distant cousin's in Toronto. Neji had been talking with Hanabi when she arrived. They had barely spoken all night, other than a few greeting words. They weren't very close.
Even so, Neji had a sense of duty towards the Hyuuga family that outweighed anything she felt. If he was nearby, it was only appropriate for him to visit. Anything else would be rude.
The doorbell rang. Hinata pulled on her quilted jacket and ran to open the door, remembering too late that she hadn't brushed her still-wet hair.
There was Neji; his hair was pulled back under his shirt and he was wearing a hat and sunglasses, but his mouth was still a mockingly perfect line that gave nothing away. "Good morning," he said. Then, "were you in the shower?"
Hinata nodded and thumbed through her purse for a comb. "Sorry... I-I thought you'd take longer to get here. Aren't you staying outside town?"
"The hotels on the freeway are tiny," Neji replied with a shake of his head. "They didn't have room for the concert crew. I'm staying at the Fairview downtown. Room service is better there, anyway." He snorted. "Although the maids have sex with their boyfriends in the vacant rooms. Residue all over the place."
"Ah," asked Hinata, turning red. "I, uh, really d-didn't want to know that." Smoothing her bangs out across her forehead, she stuffed the comb back in her purse and slung it over one shoulder. "...I'm ready now."
As they walked down the street, talking about who in the family was doing what, Hinata noticed several people watching them curiously. Mainly they were her neighbors wondering who she was going for breakfast with. Hinata was quiet and tried to stay out of their way most of the time. Now a few gossips in the area had begun to spy on her when she went out in company. She didn't mind one way or another what they thought.
"How's Hanabi?" she asked, thinking of her sister and her efforts at goth/punk music. "Does she have a record deal yet?"
Neji raised his eyebrow so high that she could see it above his sunglasses. Nobody could look patronizing like he could. "A record deal? They're starting production on the music video for the first single. You haven't talked to her lately, then."
Hinata shook her head. If she and Neji were distant, Hanabi was on another planet entirely. Hanabi was even quieter than her, wore ripped black lace and antique hats, and wrote songs about eating the small intestines of people she didn't like. "She... called me on my birthday last year. Um, what's the first single?"
"'Down the Road.' As in, not across the street." Neji made a lengthwise slashing motion on his coat sleeve. "She wrote it when someone at her school tried to kill himself."
Wincing, Hinata made a mental note not to by the CD.
The residential district gave way to a collection of small shops halfway down Shadow Clone. Known as Hidden Cafe Village to those who lived nearby, nearly a third of the shops in it served coffee and various forms of food. Hinata's personal favourite was the Dirty Spoon Cafe and Bakery.
"This is a nice street," Neji commented while they walked. "I thought you were living in a bad area."
Hinata shrugged her shoulders. "Well, it's not that great after dark," she admitted. "But, um, during the day, everyone's outside, so it's really comfortable..."
As they passed Tim Hortons, which was the only large food chain with a store in the neighborhood, she stopped and looked in the window to see if Shikamaru or Chouji were working today. Instead, she saw her boss having donuts with a vaguely familiar man.
"What is it?"
The stranger turned around for a moment, and Hinata recognized Lee's martial arts teacher. Gai Maito was fairly hard *not* to recognize. She wasn't sure if he was actually related to Lee, but they looked it; they had the same shiny shellacked black hair, the same bizarre taste in clothing, and the same cheerful corny disposition. Gai was a known philanthropist and apparently slept with a stuffed turtle. His personality was completely different from Kakashi's in every way.
Hinata wondered what they were doing together, reached delicately into Gai's mind, and found out all she needed to know.
"Just some friends," she answered, turning slightly red as she turned away from the window. "It's nothing. Let's go."
Neji stopped for a moment, but followed her down the street to the Dirty Spoon. "So," he started as they entered the cafe, "have you talked to anyone in the family recently, or are you trying to keep out of sight as usual?"
Taking a seat by the counter, Hinata bit her lip to avoid an answer she would regret. "I'm... just, um, sort of busy... I don't r-really have the time to phone home..."
"You know something?" Neji took a seat across from her, lowered his sunglasses, and stared piercingly at her for several seconds. She felt the uncomfortable sensation of her mental barriers being probed for weaknesses.
Eventually, Neji's mind retreated. "What?" she asked.
"That's the first time you've stuttered all day." He unwrapped his knife and fork from the napkin. "Where's the menu?"
By the time Neji offered her concert tickets, near the end of the meal, she ended up taking them just because he thought she would refuse. It gave her satisfaction that she wasn't read quite so easily. Of course she would go. Concerts and large crowds were difficult for Hinata, but she could block out the alien minds enough to hear him sing. She really couldn't resist that chance.
Neji's voice wasn't fake. The songs and the sentiment behind them were canned maudlin pop at its very basest, but his singing was amazing. Hinata was never sure if it was a side of himself he didn't show to her, or if he just had such talent he could manipulate even people who knew him into thinking
he cared.
That was what kept her thinking about Neji Hyuuga - that uncertainty. When she listened to him sing, she was tricked into believing in something other than a callous and disdainful cousin. And, sadly enough, she enjoyed it.
***
That afternoon, she returned Maid in Manhattan to the Exotic Pet Store and Video Rental.
Naruto was squatting in the corner, spooning mealworms into a hedgehog cage. He didn't notice her until she went to the counter and hesitantly tapped the service bell. Then he turned around, wiping his hands off on his jeans, and straightened up. "Hi!"
"Hi..." she replied self-consciously, turning the video case over in her hand. "How's it g-going?"
One of the animals growled a little. Naruto grinned sheepishly. "Can't complain. Hold on a sec, okay? I gotta feed the rest of the pets."
Hinata watched as he moved from cage to tank to cage again, admiring the curve of his spine and the muscles mostly hidden under his shirt. Most girls in town wouldn't think of Naruto as attractive. She found that crazy but understandable; after all, most of them liked Sasuke, who was clean and sharp and cold as the grave. Naruto Uzumaki was completely alive. Maybe not everyone found that attractive, but she certainly did.
"So, um, have you..." He turned around. Hinata very quickly averted her eyes to the movie posters on the front of the display window. "...do you have tickets to the Neji Hyuuga c-concert?" she asked finally, searching for a line of conversation.
Naruto shook his head. "It sounds fun, but I can't really afford it. Besides, it's not my thing. Do you?"
Beating down her shy nature long enough to take an opportunity when she saw it, Hinata reached into her purse and pulled out her tickets. "I got them from a relative," she replied with a nervous little laugh. "I wan't a-all that interested in going, but... if you'd like to go...?"
"Yeah, sure!" Naruto grinned. "It's not like my calendar's full or anything. That'd be fun. Are you sure you don't want to give one to someone else, though? ...I mean, not that I don't want to go with you, but don't you have a boyfriend?"
Hinata blushed and shook her head, feeling extremely stupid for asking. "No," she squeaked, not wanting to sound desperate, "but it's fine if you don't want to go, I'll find s-someone else..."
Naruto shook his head too, looking ashamed for saying anything. "No! That's not it! I'd love to go! I just thought that, y'know, you're really pretty so there'd be a lot of other guys wanting to go with you, but if you want to go with me that would be awesome! I didn't mean to make you think I... I kinda say stupid things sometimes..." He gestured helplessly.
After several more minutes of making fools of themselves with explanations and constant backtracking, they finally agreed to go together. Hinata only hoped that the concert - she knew that if she thought about it as a date she would lose her nerve at once - would go better.
"So... you came to bring back that movie, right?" asks Naruto, heading for the counter. "Um... Maid in Manhattan? The predictable one?"
As soon as Hinata put the video on the counter, she found herself presented with a choice.
Up until this point, she assumed that she would call the police and let them handle the stranger from last night. That was the smart thing to do. The dumb thing would be to keep her word, which had been made in a state of shock to someone who was obviously deranged. Hinata didn't usually do dumb things.
"Actually," she said, with a nervous little smile and a ring of ice around her throat, "I was, um, watching it again with a friend last night and w-we got halfway through before the tape went bad. Do you h-have any other copies...?"
"Sure! Anything else?"
"...Well... hold on a moment..."
***
He came in that night at, presumably, the time he'd been there the night before while she was at Aunt Kurenai's. This time Hinata was a little bit more prepared.
"Come in," she said, with a nervous, cheerful normalcy. "Would... you like something to drink? I think there's s-some pop in the fridge."
Without responding, her 'guest' turned towards the apartment kitchenette and stepped forward. The sand on the floor at his feet traveled with him. Hoping that the surreality of the situation would keep her from showing too much fear, Hinata followed after him.
The strange boy took a bottle of Pepsi from the fridge and twisted the cap off, drinking deeply as fizz ran down his chin and neck. Then, still drinking, he stalked into the living room and seated himself on the couch opposite the TV. "I want to know how it ends."
"Of c-course," replied Hinata, grabbing the remote control. The tape was already in her VCR. She pressed fast forward and settled onto the floor cross-legged. "...S-so... um, if you... don't mind me asking... what should I call you? Do you have a name...?"
The question seemed to throw him off a little. "Yes," he rasped, watching rapt as the first half of the movie flew across the TV screen.
"T-then, do you have... some kind of family...?"
His eyes narrowed. "No."
Hinata wasn't quite sure what she was doing. She didn't have any delusions that she had the ability to reform a wandering psychopath. She was a journalist, not a social worker. Then again, she had been acting on impulse ever since she chose not to call the cops, so this wasn't so strange after all.
If she could look into his mind...
Instantly, she discarded the idea. There was no 'if' about it. Sasuke's mind was bad, but this would be a thousand times worse. There was no way she could be brave enough to do it.
They watched the rest of the movie in silence. When the credits began to roll, Hinata turned around to face him. "So, uh... w-what did you think of the ending?"
The look of confusion that had been on his face when she asked about his name returned. "It didn't make any sense," he responded, sounding frustrated and almost a little angry. "I don't understand. Why did they..." His voice trailed off, and he rose from the couch. "You kept your word. I'm going to leave."
"You know, we d-didn't have all that much left of the movie," commented Hinata carefully. "I got out another one, too. It's really good. I still have s-some time tonight, if, um, you'd like to see the first half...?"
The stranger sat back down. "I want to see it."
Hinata smiled and switched Maid in Manhattan with Dirty Dancing in the VCR.
***
She was woken up at six thirty the next morning when the phone rang. She could have tried to ignore it, but it wouldn't have worked, so she stumbled into the hallway and picked it up grudgingly.
"Hinata?" Sakura sounded strained, as though she was trying not to cry. "I... can I talk to you? Something's happened... I'll pick you up if you say yes, I've got Lee's car, you know how Ino would act if I called her and I can't handle it right now, I'm... oh..."
Taking a deep breath, Hinata was hit with a sudden jolt of adrenaline. "Of... of course I'll come," she said, trying carefully not to stutter. "What's happened...?"
"It's... it's Lee..." The tears were not to be kept in, and for a brief few moments Sakura stopped talking and just sobbed into the phone. "He was in Henderson park last night, and he was attacked... and now he's in the hospital... and he hasn't woken up... and he's all covered in *sand...*"
***
TO BE CONTINUED
(I basically have nothing to say about this. Except that it's sort of embarrasing, but I still think I had some pretty good ideas...)