青い骨の美 - The Beauty of Blue Bones

Chapter 8

Winter
Wednesday—12:51PM

Hinata finally built up enough strength to make the trip to the Hokage tower after a few days of lazing around and letting Enkai hold her close. She knew it was a bad thing, something deep down told her it was, to let such a strong spiritual presence get near her, yet alone hold onto her for hours. She didn't know why she allowed it to begin with, but the coldness that Enkai brought, along with the feeling of safety that Hinata had not felt since she was a child was addicting.

The weather was much warmer that afternoon than it had been the week prior, she knew that Spring was quickly approaching with how snow became sparse, and the green of the grass began to peek through the remaining icicles. Pushing her hands further into her pocket, she brought her shoulders up to bury her nose into the warmth of her scarf.

She walked through the front gates without a henge, earning herself a few shocked looks from people who had not seen her since the first day of winter. It wasn't at all surprising to her; she did go no contact for months, only ever crossing paths with Sasuke, and that bit was somewhat out of her control. The trek to the Hokage tower was as normal as it's ever been; the secretary gave her a slight nod the moment she saw her, silently conveying that Kakashi was free.

Knocking on the large doors, she stepped inside and bowed as she greeted him.

"It's been a while, Hinata." He smiled at her and crossed his hands on his desk.

"That it has."

"I take it that you've been enjoying your stay away from your family, you look...better."

Did she really? She didn't feel like she was; she felt tired all the time, her appetite would come and go, and she barely slept. Though, she supposed that she might have looked far worse before, besides, she's been doing a lot of training so she didn't look at all malnourished to the point of concern.

"I have." Her smile barely reached her eyes. "I came to request some time off, I plan on taking a trip and I don't want you to think that I've gone rogue."

"So, you've heard the rumours?"

"How could I not? I still stroll around the village, albeit under a henge, to do some of my weekly shopping and scouting. Word gets around quickly when you look in the right places, unfortunately, my family are not as tight lipped as they'd like to believe they are with how many of the younger Hyūga clansmen run around whispering under their breaths." She shrugged, "I noticed that I haven't gotten any missions as of late, but I didn't want to assume that there wasn't anything you'd need me for, hence why I'm telling you now."

"You've changed." Kakashi nodded as he took out a form that he began to fill out. From the text she could see, she recognized it as one for a temporary, disclosed mission—in other words, he was lying about what she was doing so she could go on her trip without being attacked by her peers if they came across her.

"Is that a good thing?"

"Do you think it's a good thing?" He stamped the official seal at the bottom of the form and folded it carefully.

"I'm not sure, no one has pointed that out yet."

Kakashi raised his eyebrow, "none of your previous teammates have noticed that their 'dear Hinata' has become...somewhat distant?"

"If they have, they don't bother reaching out. Things changed after the war, Lord Kakashi," she saw the way his mask crinkled at the name, he definitely did not like that. "I'm different than before, everyone is, we're not as close as we used to be."

"I assumed that the old Konoha Twelve decided to stick together after what happened, I see the others go out often..."

"I was not informed of those meetings. Was it not you who taught Team Seven to 'look underneath the underneath'? You've noticed it, how everyone is just hiding how traumatized they are just so they could live normally. That's what shinobi do, we hide away our sadness and move on. I...I don't want to do that, and if that causes a rift between me and my friends, so be it."