Somewhere Other Than Here

Ice Cream Cones

It was a sunny day.

The sun was completely out and no clouds were in sight. Everyone outside were sweating and shade became a necessity.

Team Kurenai and Team Guy just arrived from their joint mission. They said hi to the front guards who were fanning each other.

"Uggghhh I would kill for Ice-Cream" Kiba complained with Akamaru barking in aggrement.

Shino nodded and Guy, sweating the most out all of them, got infront of them.

"You all go to get yourself some ice-cream! Invite the others as you all deserve! Kurenai and I will take care of the paperwork!"

And with that, Guy picked up everyone'a bags and ran towards the Hokage building. Kurenai sighed, waves goodbye to everyone and followed Guy. All but one chuckled in amusement, soon following suit and went to find the rest of their friends.

Shockingly, they found everyone surprisingly easily and they all went to their favourite ice-cream shop and found a spot in a training ground with enough shade for all them. They all sat down collectively, each with their own cone and flavour.

Even on such a sunny day, everything seemed to lack brightness.

Sakura noticed this and tried to change it.

"So, how was the mission? Heard both of your teams got together for it"

"Yeah, our sensei told us we were finally ready for our first B rank mission but the Hokage didn't want anything wrong to happen so she sent two teams" Kiba answered in-between slurping his melting cone.

"What was it?" Sasuke asked, intrigued. To see if his team just had bad luck with mission.

"We had to find a Shinobi who was terrorizing the people of a village" Hinata answered, delicately savouring her cold treat.

"We went to the Village Hidden in the Waterfall" Shino answered, having already finished his cone without anyone noticing.

"It was a tough fight since we were fighting in unknown territory but we got it done at the end." Neji stated. He didn't get a cone. He doesn't like ice-cream.

"That's good, one less evil removed from the world" Sakura said.

Tenten faintly clicked her tongue. Silence consummed everyone yet again. The lack of brightness became more and more apparent.

"W-what about you? How were your missions?" Lee, uncomfortably biting his cone, asked to Sasuke and Sakura.

"Oh well we got a-" Sasuke stopped himself as he stared down at Sakura who moved their head side to side.

"Well we had to go and repair a dam that if broken would've destroyed a small town underneath it. It was nothing but physical labour but we saved people so that's all that mattered"

"A-alright that's good!" Lee tried to be cheery, trying to hide his discomfort.

Everyone has finished their ice-cream cones. The silence came back.

"A-anything else going on?" Choji asked, nervously scratching the back of his head.

"Not really, I hope we don't get a mission soon because I'm dead" Kiba leaned back and dropped himself on the grass, fakely admiring the sky.

Their attempt failed and the silence came back once more. Hinata was the first to break.

"I miss him" She bluntly said in a sad tone.

Tenten clenched her arm to hide her anger from everyone.

"Do you think he's safe" Sakura asked to no one in particular. Not even to herself.

"I hope so but...." Neji tried to speak in his usual demeanour but couldn't manage. Not when talking about someone he in some ways idealized only to have learned it was all fake to hide their pain. He felt betrayed.

"When do you all care..." Tenten whispered, heard by everyone. They all looked at her who was just staring off in the distance.

"What-"

"You heard me, when do you all care?" She bluntly asked to them, turning her head towards them and staring them in their eyes.

All but one answered and another wanted but didn't. Everyone else were afraid to admit the truth. They never did.

"Since the start I cared!" Hinata spoke ou. Tears started to fall. "I've always cared and I still do!"

"So where were you when he needed it?"

"W-what?-"

"Where were you when he was beaten? Where were you when his house was being vandalized? Where were you when he was slandered at school and outside of school?"

"I-I didn't know-"

"How?!-"

"I was powerless! If I seen helping him and talk back to everyone I would've been slandered just as much or worst, I would've been forced to never see him again-"

"So you didn't help because you wanted to protect your own image, how disgusting. That's very out of your character Hinata"

"Well you don't know me and you don't know how much I cared for him! What makes you say such things-"

"I helped him! I bandaged him when he was half dead in an alley hidden by garbage from the attackers! When he wasn't there, I would clean his house and walls! Remove those disgusting words off his walls! I heard someone slander his name in the street. Now they are afraid to even think about Naruto."

Everyone was shocked. The sheer emotions in her words. They've never seen Tenten speak out in such ways. Hinata kept on crying, confused on how to feel now.

Tenten stood up and began to leave. Everyone let her leave. They all took their own amount of time to digest what was just said and told to them.

"That's her. She's the one in his letter."