Blinding Ourselves
Title: Blinding Ourselves
author: hungrytiger11
Notes: Part of the Eyes that Cannot See Universe, this story takes places near the end of the story The Space Between Us, but can be read as a stand alone.
Summary: Neji considers what we cannot see and will not to see the day Hanabi gets the biggest mission of her career so far. Hyuugacest, Hyuuga-centric with Hanabi, Hinata and Neji.
“All I see is you.”
This is, Neji reflects, both literally and metaphorically true, but not, perhaps, the time to mention that to Hinata, though she had asked. Because just then, Hanabi’s voice breaks through from nowhere. He jerks his head, alertness strained to its very edges at this sound without a source, something not even his Byakugan can find. But that’s the point of their little exercise, he reminds himself. It’s why Hanabi drug the two of them out here with her.
“You can’t see me, then?” Hanabi’s voice, reedier than her sister’s, rises in excitement. She’s behind Hinata, somewhere low, Neji decides. Maybe in the bushes twenty paces away, or maybe slightly further to the left, behind a tree.
“You can come out now,” he says. “We’re all suitably impressed.”
Giggling, but no girl, appears, and Hinata is no help at all, bringing a hand up to hide a smile. Neji sighs and let’s them have their fun at his expense. Giving up on finding his younger cousin, he lets his Byakugan fade. Hanabi… Hanabi has always been a puzzle to him, more so as they’ve grown older. She’d stopped addressing him with any honorfics years ago, and while Hinata claimed to the contrary, he’s pretty sure he hasn’t seen her at any family dinner since New Year’s. She is not important, particularly, to him, except in the ways that she is important to Hinata, and there are so many other things, other problems, that eat up his day. Just a phase, Hinata had told him. Hinata’s sister’s apparent distaste for him was just a phase. A nice platitude of course, but he had seen the way Hinata’s nose scrunched as she said that, not sure of her own words. And anyway, Neji isn’t stupid. All it takes is some basic math skills to figure out what has his younger cousin so on edge. Three years ago he married her sister.
If they hadn’t always competed, however unconsciously, for Hinata’s attention, they might have gotten along perfectly. Funny to think that, but even now he finds himself looking over to Hinata, trying to catch her eye, see if her attention is on him or focused on finding the girl spying on them.
His wife’s face is soft, lips bit to keep from smiling too big at her sister’s actions, but the emotion gets shuttered away when she sees him watching. It melts into a softer, more settled look, and she reaches down, brushing across her chest and stomach before signaling for one more moment.
“You’re not the only one with secrets, Hanabi-chan,” she says. “So hurry up and get out here. How did you hide from us? Is that what your big surprise is?”
The brush stirs in a loud, deliberate way, and Neji is pleased to see his first guess, done even without Byakugan, was right. Hanabi had hidden in the bushes exactly twenty paces away.
“My commander was very impressed,” Hanabi says. Her face has a cat who ate the canary look to it, but this statement doesn’t get the reaction Neji’s sure she wants. Hinata looks at her passively, unsurprised, and seemingly unmoved.
“Yes, I thought he must be, though I didn’t know what, exactly, you had impressed him with till until just now. The Anbu offices sent me something. They want you for a spying mission.”
Hanabi wrinkles her nose. “Why’d you find that out before me? Its my mission.”
Hinata sighs and though he can see her fingers twitch in that old way they once did, he doesn’t go to her.
“They sent it to Father and he sent it to me. The mission is several months long- deep cover. They have to get the clan’s permission for that.”
“Stupid.”
“Well,” Hinata says in her soft, too-reasonable voice that can annoy even Neji sometimes. “ Father might want you for our own clan needs. Guard duty or something. Or- maybe a clan head would know a kinsmen was needed to help at home. A-a baby being born, or a parent dying, you know.”
Hanabi sighs dramatically and kicks a pebble. “Okay, whatever. You said, yes, didn’t you?”
Hinata bites her lip and at that Neji finally does go to his two cousins. Hinata’s fingers find his. Its a subtle gesture but Hanabi frowns at it.
“Yes,” his wife says. “ I said yes.”
Neji knows for a fact that the letter of request is still sitting unanswered on Hinata’s desk, because, well, sometimes clan heads know a kinsmen is needed to help at home. Babies are born, and parents die, and while Hinata’s stomach is still slim and Hizashi is still hearty and hale in nine months one of these two things will have changed.
Still, it’s probably worth it to see Hanabi’s face break out into a grin that threatens to crack her normally somber face. She pumps her fist in the air.
“Yes, yes, yes! Thanks you Hinata-sama!”
Hinata’s smile is much more sanguine. “Go ahead and run to tell Father. I had not yet told him what I thought.”
And soon-to-be-spy though she is, they don’t even keep an eye on Hanabi as she runs off, they are so sure of her enthusiasm. She’ll be telling her father the news for sure, rather than lingering to eavesdrop as she has done before.
“You won’t tell her, then?” he asks.
Hinata shakes her head. “You saw her. So excited. It’s a big honor to be asked to go on this sort of mission too, but it won’t last nine months. It would worry her to know now. She’ll just have a surprise when she comes back.”
And yes, Neji did see her, but he saw Hinata more clearly, and it costs her something to keep her secret. He leans over her, and bends till his lips are touching the shell of her ear.
“Ah, she will see more clearly then. And, just think, Hanabi, who prides herself on spying on everyone in the compound, will be so mad to come back and see a great secret she didn’t succeed in ferreting out.”
Hair tickles his mouth and nose as his wife succumbs to a fit of near-silent giggles. He smiles, takes her hand and leads her on the long walk back home.