青い骨の美 - The Beauty of Blue Bones

Chapter 17

Spring
Sunday—11:23PM

"Alright, I think this is all I have." Hinata huffed as she placed a box on the floor inside the somewhat barren room. She gave the two beds a good look over, assessing them carefully before opening the box to see what was inside. "These should fit, I think, but if they don't then I can always go out and buy better ones."

Sasuke leaned against the bed frame, not directly looking at her, though he wasn't ignoring her either. Naruto was currently occupying the bed to his side, only separated by a dresser with a lamp, flipping through a comic he picked up while they were outside shopping for beds. Well, Naruto did the shopping while Sasuke simply lagged behind since he didn't want to leave the house in the first place.

"That's fine, Hinata, anything would work! This is already better than sleeping on the floor, I can feel my spine realigning itself." Naruto stretched to emphasize his words, sitting up to look at her. "I still can't believe you're okay with this."

They've spent the last few days going in circles about them 'moving in' temporarily [and hopefully permanently for Naruto's sake]. Hinata was all for it, yet she couldn't find it in herself to stop them from doing something else that they preferred. So far, they've agreed that if they really wanted to, Sasuke and Naruto could crash at her place in between their trips. One step at a time.

"It's really no problem." She pulled out the sheets from the box, carefully placing the folded, and clean fabric at the edge of their beds.

"What if Hanabi comes over?" He instantly latched onto the light yellow covers—it was the closest thing to orange she had—already calling dibs on it even though Sasuke made no attempt at taking it from him.

"My room is always available, and my bed is big enough for the both of us. Besides...is this not temporary?" She blinked owlishly at him, her hair pulled up into a high ponytail that made her eyes appear bigger than they were.

Naruto couldn't help himself but to stare at her, he shook his head and cleared his throat as he hid his reddening cheeks. "Right!" He grinned and thanked her with a nod as she placed some pillowcases, a thin sheet and a duvet on his bed to match the fitted sheet he liked.

"This is the darkest colour I have." Hinata frowned in apology as she put down an identical dark purple set on Sasuke's bare bed. "You don't seem to like very bright colours..."

"I don't." He muttered as he surveyed the sheets carefully. "It's fine." He got up and began fixing his bed, not missing the way her eyes were washed with relief.

"So...What now?" Following Sasuke's example, Naruto got up to fix his bed as well.

Silently, Hinata reached out to Sasuke, clearly seeing him struggle with putting the fitted sheet on as she acknowledged Naruto's words. "We wait?"

"For what?" Sasuke raised his eyebrow, stepping back to let her fix it. He saw no reason to refuse her help, she would get that sad look on her face that she thought she was hiding if he did. He would have scoffed under his breath if she didn't suddenly stand up, her head coming just below his chin and giving him a good whiff of the coconut oil she used for her hair. He reeled back slightly, putting some distance between the both of them as she answered his question. He was just glad she didn't turn around, if her habit of fainting when she was overwhelmed was still prominent, that would have been a real annoyance.

Hinata shrugged, "an answer?"

"One's not going to magically fall on our laps, Hyūga." Sasuke pushed his hand into his pocket as he stepped around her to continue making his bed.

She would have told him that that was possible because of her companion who had been missing for a little while now, but she kept her mouth shut. If she were to talk about Enkai to the both of them, she would have to tell them a lot more than she was comfortable with. She could simply mask Enkai's presence and her words of warning as a dream; it would raise some questions [definitely on Sasuke's end] after some time, but that should be a long while from now. Theoretically, Enkai's entire existance is a clan secret that should not be shared unless absolutely necessary—they have not gotten to that point just yet that she would need to spill the beans.