After

Fourteen

It was raining when they decided they were warm enough to leave. They stood just outside the door watching the raindrops falling down on the concrete forming little pools. A small fog surrounded the buildings and he remembered a time he had visited the village hidden in the mist. The place seemed depressing even for him, yet it was easy to be lost inside the thickness of the air. He had spent four months there and no one ever found out about his presence. He liked it, as he wondered among the common people who never shot him a second glance. Until he was sick of it, as if his very existence had slowly been erased only to become one with the fog around him.
He looked at his side. The woman seemed lost, almost mesmerized by the sound of the rain.
"I will escort you home." He said to wake her.
It took her a second to turn her head in his direction.
She moved her head as if in agreement but in the last moment she stopped it.
"You can go on Sasuke-san. I think, I will walk."
"I thought we were past that." He said.
"Past what?" Her forehead curved.
"You, not been able to stand around the air I breathe." He answered.
"Oh. We are. We wouldn't been able to work together if not." She replied.
He frowned.
"I invited you today, didn't I?" She continued, not realising that she had confirmed how unpleasant his presence had been. Perhaps she didn't care.
"I just want to walk."
"It's raining." He said in case her white eyes were really blind.
"I like it." She said. "The streets are almost empty and whoever is there is more concerned to find shelter than look."
"Look of what?"
"The other people. You. Me. Anyone." She said.
He opened his mouth. He wanted to ask what was that she wanted to avoid.
"And getting caught in the rain sometimes holds a nice feeling." She was faster.
"Yes." He said making sure she understood his irony. "A feel of wetness and urgency to cover under a roof."
"It's like that sometimes." She bowed. "Good evening Sasuke-san."
Her feet took the first step under the pouring sky.
He sighed but the sound was lost behind the noise the water was making.
She was a few steps ahead when he caught up with her.
"You don't have to." Her hair was stuck on her face, the coat she was wearing was almost completely drenched.
"Just to prove you wrong." He answered.
She was right, the streets were vacant. Yet despite that, he understood after a while that she chose the less busy streets to return to her house.
"What are you avoiding?" He asked, his voice just a tone higher to be heard.
"The stares." She answered, but he read her lips to understand since her voice didn't reach him.
"Of?" He wanted to know who gave her such look to make her hide.
"Of pity." She misunderstood.
He stopped.
"Who is pitying you?" He asked genuinely. He could not think of a reason as to why.
"Let's just enjoy the walk." This time her voice reached him. He heard annoyance.
She tried to walk but he stopped her.
Then he saw, the ever slight anger behind the unmoving features.
"I don't mean it as a joke." He said.
She stared at him for a moment, trying to keep her eyes open for more than she should.
"You are really asking." She finally replied.
She moved his hand off her arm and started walking again.
"If you looked at it from another perspective, with the eyes of someone that doesn't know..." She began and raindrops fell on her mouth.
"Yes?" He prompted her.
"There is a belief among the people."
"That is?" He asked.
She took a turn in a back road that let the centre of the village behind them.
When he followed, he almost fell upon her.
"The same one you had." She had stopped.
"That Naruto left me." She looked at him with a slight uprise of her lips before she sped up her pace enough not to run but make their distance further by the minute.
Even if he lost her from his sight, it didn't matter. He knew where she was going. Yet he walked faster too, to join her.
"And?" He said. "Even if that was the case, why someone pity you?"
She slowed down.
"Sometimes I don't understand if you have fooled us all into believing you are smart." She said.
He brought himself in front of her, cutting her off.
"I am smarter than the bunch of sheeps that live in this village."
The water had moved inside his coat by now. In his travels, he always cursed if the rain found him unprepared.
"Even if he did left you, he would be at loss."
She opened her eyes a little.
"Objectively he had more to gain if he stayed married to you than what you had."
Her head fell slightly to the right.
"He sure is the Hogake. And? You have a whole clan at your back, a wealthy enough as far as I know." He said.
"It is not a matter of statue."
"If it's not, he is a complete loser. He can't care for himself in any way. He can't cook, clean, take care of a house. He can't complete simple tasks, if there is not someone to place some order."
"That is not what marriage is about." She said.
"You said in the eyes of a stranger. In that perspective you offered more than what he offered you."
She looked at the sky for a moment. Then she pushed her hair out of her face.
"You are very logical Sasuke-san." She started to walk again.
"Do you mock me?"
"No." She smiled. "It's just an observation."
She moved as if the rain didn't bother her, almost as if it wasn't there at all.
The only thing that betrayed any sort of change were her hands that were slightly extended on either side and her open palms trying to catch the fleeting water. She was looking at the sky again, but her eyes kept closing until she decided that she could not command them otherwise and she shut them for good. She continued her movement almost like she could see.
"Don't expect me to catch you if you fall." He warned her.
"I don't." She answered.
"Better yet if you do. It will proved my point."
"I won't. I don't need my sight to walk on this path. I know it like the palm of my hands. Remember Sasuke-san, this is my home." She looked half crazy, half divine. Like an entity foreign to this world that causes terror and wonderment at the same time.
"Do you love the village Hinata?" His words stopped her. They were past the main road, taking the path that led to her house.
She turned and her focus was back on him.
"I do." She said with sincerety.
"Why?"
"For the same reasons you don't." Her fingers brushed her eyes. "Everyone I love is here."
He remained still watching her blink, realising that she waited something. A burst of anger, a denial.
He felt the wetness reaching his skin.
"Let's go." He bypassed her and walked the rest of the road in silence.
He wasn't planning to accompany her to her house. Yet as like many times happens, this weather disoriented him until the small garden appeared in front of him.
She stopped just before she opened the front door.
"Do you hate the village Sasuke-san?"
He was standing just behind her, almost as if he was waiting to follow her inside.
"I certainly don't love it." He answered and she turned around.
"Why are you here then? Why stay when you can go anywhere you want?"
The rain started to grow. If she was not this close, her face would be a blur.
"Where is that Hinata?"
She didn't answer at first.
"Wherever your heart desires."
He smiled.
"I desire nothing. I just exist. Have not figure it out yet?"
She smiled too.
"That is...a lie." She said and he frowned.
"If that was the case, you wouldn't come back. There is something here that you want."
"There is no such a thing." He looked at her straight in the eyes.
"But you hope there would be." She said after a moment of silence.
He breathed heavily. He was glad of this bad weather for once.
"No one remembers my brother except me." He said.
"No one would spare a thought of him, expect me. If, when..." He turned around to leave.
"We are still talking." She said.
"I am afraid I will dissapear one day, like they all did. And noone would know."
He said and he tried to walk.
"You have three people that love you." She replied. "Sakura, Naruto and Kakashi always.."
"They think I am wasting my life. We know each other well enough to understand that."
"You confuse concern with pity." She said more loudly to be heard.
He turned around.
"I am not fit for their world." He said. "And they don't realise that."
"What do you want Sasuke-san?"
He stayed silent.
"It doesn't have to be something great." She continued. "I wanted to walk in the rain."
"Because you are crazy." He answered, yet more relaxed without even realising.
"Perhaps. But I liked it. Did you?"
It took him a moment to reply.
"I want dry clothes. And heat." He answered.
She turned her back on him and opened her door.
"I can offer that." She said and walked inside.