After

Six

He didn't come back the next day. Neither he contacted her. It was natural, she supposed, she had said words harsh and truthful, words that angered him enough to raise an attack. Not that it was difficult to anger Sasuke Uchiha. If she recalled she could find at least one occasion he had been irritated, angry even, in the few times he had been at her old house. But the agitation was never towards her, she was lost in the background of their beaming personalities that clashed and fought until they calmed again. She thought in that moments how two people so different not only in trivial matters as to how they wanted to spent their time, but to their core, were able to be so close. Their very views of the world were absolute opposite but he had chosen to step aside for Naruto to make his beliefs a reality. It was strange, because to her eyes Sasuke Uchiha was not a man to step down.
When she had expressed, at her then husband, her thoughts, Naruto had answered that Sasuke finally realised that he was never alone. That he made him see that he belonged. Hinata had thought that he was just tired, of fighting and running, of the cold the solitude offered, but said nothing. Because it was a fleeting thought and Naruto's light reflected on the walls around her.
She looked at the light grey the walls at her house were painted. It was a cold colour, relaxing nevertheless, quiet enough to dismiss it entirely and observe the objects on the room more carefully.
She opened the door and looked outside. Rain still reached the earth, but with less force today. The place where the lighting had stroke was black and life had been totally erased. The other side of her garden had been unnafected but the seeds would grow under the spring's sky. Her gaze stayed on the horizon for another moment and then she closed the door, leaving the room in the shadows. She had spent the rest of the night picking up the glasses of her broken window, trying to make the place like it used to.
Everything was fine. Expect from the black spot outside and the wood that had covered the hole where the window used to be. She wondered where he had found it in the first place, but then dismissed the thought, because he had the ability to be anywhere he wanted.
Since she was free, she probably should go and buy a new one. A set of curtains along with it.
She wore a jacket with a hood, she still hadn't bought a new umbrella, and the raindrops were mere flicks on her cheeks.
She went to the same store she had bought her previous ones. The comfort of familiarity was something she valued. She was never one to find thrill in surspises, the unknown scared her. The heart beat of the unexpected left her always tired in the end. Because everything out of the ordinary, was never something good, every change she had experienced until now, brought a darker shade. She had thought her marriage would be the exception but in the end it had turned out like all the others.
She exited the store, a bag was hunged from her wrist and a window big enough to cover her whole was at her feet. The man had insisted that she couldn't carry it by herself but Hinata assured him that she could.
She had learnt to do most of the handworks a house demanded, the little things that didn't need an expert. She had forced herself to learn because she didn't want anyone to step inside her previous home. It was a black hole that house, but it was her own, and every new presence that would come, every new mouth that would speak of it, would taint it. It would transform it into something else, something that it was not. In their ignorance people would speak of the change in the orange colours that the house used to have, of a broken titl above the sink, of a scar on the floor. They would speak and they would tell stories that weren't true, much like they did about the end of her marriage. And Hinata wanted that black hole that used to be bright like the sun in the middle of the day to stay exactly as it was.
She raised the big window that was covered in plastic and forced the chakra on her fingers to hold to it, even if her hands fell from the weight.
She walked slow, slower than she wanted, but it didn't matter. She would arrive at her house and she would cover the new hole and it would seem like nothing had happened.
She avoided the road that passed by the man's hotel and stopped to catch her breath. She brushed the rain and the sweat from her forehead and wished the people around her didn't slow their movement so openly, enough for her to understand.
She raised the window once again and took the road back.
When she opened her door, a letter drifted by the movement a few feet inside. She placed the object she was carrying for twenty minutes and put some chakra on her sore muscles. She bent and examined the white paper, before she opened it and read its contains.
I came by today and you weren't here. What happened? I am worried. Come by the house. Hanabi.
For a moment she had believed that the letter was from someone else. She wondered why she thought he would contact her after last night. He was prideful, not a man who would let an insult pass by.
She really wanted to finish the task but if she didn't go to her sister now, Hanabi would command all the Hyuga clan to search for her. If she hadn't already.
The visit was quick. She was informed that Hanabi was at a meeting. So she nodded and excused herself. When she reached the door, ready to leave her family house behind, the voice of her father stopped her.
"Wise of you to come." He said. "Your sister couldn't focus all morning."
He walked to her direction, closing the distance.
"I'm sorry. I didn't thought that she would panic. Nothing happened. A broken glass, nothing more." Hinata replied.
Hiashi Hyuga stopped in front of her. He was a tall man, his back straight despite his age.
"You should have come yesterday." He said without any movement on his voice. "Your sister was very worried."
Before she could answer, her father's gaze turned to the guards and she followed with her head around. One of them left his post as if a command was just heard.
"She is very busy." His voice brought her eyes back on him. "She is the head of the clan."
Hinata nodded.
"But I am not anymore." He said in the same even voice.
She sensed four presences behind her and saw them bypass her a second later.
"When something happens contact me." Hiashi finished his words and left to stare at her.
"Yes father." Hinata replied.
"Good." He spoke. "Do you need help with your window?" He asked then and Hinata let a small smile carved on her lips.
"I'm fine."
Her father nodded and she bowed.
That was his way of showing that he cared. He couldn't express it, he couldn't tell her that he was worried sick, so much that he send the guards out to look for her. Because Hiashi Hyuga was quiet about certain things, and Hinata had realised that she inherited the silence from him.