Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hinata felt a rush of air wash past her as a streak of orange brushed her by in the hall, taking her heart with it. She looked over her shoulder to see Naruto’s bright smile and the orange jumpsuit jacket that he wore despite it not being part of their school uniforms, even though teachers repeatedly told him not to. She loved that smile. She loved how it lit up a room. She loved how it was there even when no one was smiling with him.

But what she wished for was for once, he would shine that smile at her. She always felt like she was just missing its bright rays. It was something she longed for, but knew that it was unlikely for her to ever receive.

Naruto’s smiles were usually for Sakura, whom he had run to as soon as he saw her. It made sense. Sakura was pretty and smart. She was confident, quick, and skilled.

… Everything Hinata wasn’t.

Hinata dropped her eyes away from them because she knew looking too long would make her heart ache. Her long hair fell down over her shoulders to shield the dimming of her own expression.

This was the cycle that she had caught herself in, that she felt like she would never get out of: catching a glimpse, feeling her heart soar, thinking about what she might do to catch a little of his attention, only to be reminded why that was silly.

She really shouldn’t be focusing on it. She knew that, but it still distracted her every day. Part of her wished that she could just lock it in a box and never have to see it again, so that she could move on with her life, but the other part of her really just wanted to push a little and see if it would catch his attention.

She knew she should give up, but she so badly wanted to be loved in return.

Hinata took a deep breath and forced her head up to pay more attention to where she was going because she knew if she were to get too distracted in her own thoughts, she was going to have everyone's attention from falling on her face and that wasn’t the kind of attention she was looking for.

Shikamaru stared down the hallway, seemingly at nothing, or so that is what it would look like to anyone passing. Was that because he was good at hiding what he was really doing, or was it because everyone assumed she was zoned out or sleeping with his eyes open?

Hinata had her eyes dropped to the floor as she turned the corner to their classroom, and he didn’t need to hear Naruto’s voice around the corner to know why she was down. She wore her whole heart on her face. She lifted her head and as she breathed in, trying to force her chin up and out of whatever thoughts she had trapped herself in.

She headed for the classroom, but before she did, she gave him a polite little head nod as a greeting.

Then Naruto passed in his normal group of Sasuke, trying to actively ignore him, and Sakura was only a moment away from smacking him in the back of the head. He gave him a half-wave and a smile before he passed him into the classroom, where he would sit in seats in front of Hinata, and she would sit there and stare at the back of his head when she wasn’t paying attention in class.

Shikamaru closed his eyes. Damn it.

It was annoying.

He had been in this crappy cycle for far too long. He watched Hinata watch Naruto watch Sakura watch Sasuke. None of them were happy. None of them liked this. He wanted off this stupid, obvious crush train.

He sat with an irritating recurring pit in his stomach. He knew he had options to make this stop, and he didn’t like any of them, so he did what he always did: he didn’t get involved and…

He wasn’t sure if his inaction hurt less than the rejection he knew he would receive, but he would rather assume than actually find out.

“If you are going to sleep, I think that it would be a lot more comfortable at your desk.” Choji teased him and patted his arm as he passed him to head into the classroom.

Shikamaru opened his eyes to see that the hallway was all but void of students. He looked out the window across from him, which was beating sunlight beating down on him. The sun was peeking out through white, fluffy clouds that were moving slowly across the sky.

It would be a good day to spend outside, under a tree, maybe with some quiet company.

Shikamaru rolled his eyes at himself and headed into the classroom with the rest.

That one he could only blame himself for.

“I think that it's stupid that they are making everyone participate.” Kiba sat with his legs crossed on top of one of the picnic tables. “Didn’t they use to get volunteers to help with these stupid festival setups?”

“They don’t get enough volunteers,” Shino answered.

“Well, that just means that no one wants to do it. So why are we doing it?” Kiba shot back. “If I had to choose between the crapy school festival that I have to set up and no festival, I would choose no festival.”

“It’s nice for everyone to work together.” Hinata hummed. She knew that it wasn’t going to be something that reinstated with him, but she hoped that at least it would make him think about it.

“You just think it's nice because Naruto likes it,” Kiba grumbled.

Shino hissed at him. “That was uncalled for.”

“Sorry,” Kiba added flatly.

Hinata shook her head. “It’s fine.” She couldn’t argue with him. He was right. There was one year when Naruto tried a prank on some of the teachers right before the festival, and he was forced to be on clean-up duty the whole day as a punishment. Hinata had volunteered for the duty that year because she thought that it was the best way to stay out of everyone's way, and changing trash bags and collecting recycling wasn’t really something that she could fail at, so that was a bonus. She got to spend a whole day with him, but her being her, she barely said anything the whole time, which was fine. He did most of the talking, and that was how she liked it.

“You have a few weeks to figure out how you are going to get out of it.” Shino brought the conversation back to the festival.

“You think that I can convince my parents to get my wisdom teeth removed that week?” Kiba tipped his head back dramatically.

“You don’t have wisdom teeth.” Hinata reminded him. Neither did she, but Shino did, and they had to be removed with he got his invisible braces last year, and that was why they talked about it.

“The school doesn’t know that,” Kiba said, like he was thinking about it seriously.

There was no way his parents were going to let him lie about that to get out of a day of school. Maybe his sister would sign a slip for him, but knowing her, she was more likely to call the school to sign him up for something just to punish him for asking.

“We should get inside for class.” Shino collected the last of the trash from their lunch.

“Ugh.” Kiba groaned dramatically as he unfolded his legs and hopped down.

“Did you do the homework this time?” Shino asked Kiba as they headed inside.

“We had homework?” Kiba blinked at him.

Shino sighed.

Hinata took a last look over the courtyard. It was a really nice day. The sky was a stunning blue, and the clouds seemed like cotton candy. Her eyes settled on a shadow under the tree, and a smile came to her face. Always there.

“Are you coming?” Shino stopped at the door.

“In a minute.” Hinata pointed under the tree.

Shino’s eyes followed her direction, and he nodded, heading back in himself.

A warm breeze washed by as the courtyard got quieter. He knew that he would have to get up soon, or he would be late for class. He didn’t really care, but it was annoying to be badgered by teachers who thought that their boring classes were more important than they actually were.

If his mother were more reasonable, he wouldn’t even have to come to school daily. If he had a home curriculum, he could breeze through the reading and classwork and have the rest of the day to himself, which was why he wasn’t allowed. His mother knew that he might actually enjoy his day, and she didn’t like that.

There was a light pressure barely applied to his shoulder, trying its best to wake him without startling him.

Shikamaru peeked out of one of his eyes to find the silhouette, which made him wonder if he had actually fallen asleep. This felt like a dream he would have had.

Hinata tucked her long hair, which was falling into her eyeline, behind her ear with a gentle smile on her face. “Sorry…” She whispered. “I wanted to wake you before we were late for class.”

Of course. She was being sweet instead of leaving him, like he had trained everyone else to do by ignoring them.

He stretched in place and sat up.

“Comfortable?” Hinata asked.

Shikamaru made a simple grunt and nodded.

Hinata's smile got a little brighter.

Shikamaru sat there, gazing up at the sun shining on her face. It was the one thing he would always be happy to wake up to.

Chapter Text

“I just don’t get why he needs to act like that,” Hanabi whined about a boy in her class. “Like grow up.” She rolled her eyes.

Hinata always thought that Hanabi was a little harsh on her friends, but she was also the first one to defend them, so maybe it was an all-around aggression problem that she would grow out of. She didn’t really have any guidance for her, and Hanabi wasn’t looking for any. She just wanted to complain, so that was what Hinata was going to let her do while she worked on her schoolwork.

A creak in the floorboard in the hallway made her pause and look over her shoulder to find her father glancing in her open bedroom door, his eyes drifted from Hanabi lying casually on her bed to her at Hinata's desk with his frown, but he didn’t say anything as he continued into his office.

“Do you have any schoolwork to do?” Hinata asked her in a low voice to make sure that she wasn’t missing anything that her father would blame her for ‘distracting her from’ later.

“No, I do all my work in my free period after lunch.” That didn’t tell her that she didn’t have any work to do, more so that she was just confident that she would be able to get whatever she hadn’t already gotten done during that period. It wasn’t that she didn’t think that Hanabi could get her work done. She was more worried about the one time that she underestimated how much work she would have, or her free period got taken up by something else she had to do, leaving her with no time… but she really couldn’t police how she was doing her work. “Oh, there was something that I wanted to show you, hold on, let me get it.”

Hanabi pulled herself up off the bed and headed out of her room, down the hall to her own, to get whatever she was talking about.

Hinata tried to pull her attention back to her homework, but when she placed her pencil down, the end snapped. She tried to let go of the initial frustration. She felt like this was how her whole life was, little inconveniences that she really couldn’t control, all that she just had to continue on like it wasn’t bothering her, because it shouldn’t. They were all little things, some of her own doing, that she was letting happen, that she was letting bother her, but she was feeling more and more like she was a rock losing all of its edges as the waves tossed it around again.

She opened her drawer to get her pencil sharpener, only to be reminded once again of those tiny frustrations.

On top of the drawer lay a small gift box, wrapped with care but hidden away because she was a coward.

She had gotten it before school started with the intention of giving it to Naruto at the beginning of the year, but time just went on and on, and she still hadn’t managed to give it to him. For a while, she brought it to school every day with the intention that every day was an opportunity for her to build up the will to push herself to give it to him, but after a while, it just made her anxious to have it in her bag.

It just reminded her every day of her inability to tell him. Haunting her. Reminding her of what she had already convinced herself was the truth. She was completely invisible to him, so if she confessed, he was just going to be confused. She felt like a ‘I have never thought of you’ rejection was almost worse than a ‘I have thought about it, but I like someone else’ rejection.

She reached past it for her pencil sharpener, and she was about to close the door, but she looked at it again.

Without trying to think about it too much, she picked it up and put it back into her bag, she wanted to rid of it, she wanted to rid of the anxiety. Maybe she could just… sneak it to him tomorrow so she could at least stop looking at it.

It would still be a failure in her eyes, but it was less of a failure than having it in her drawer to collect dust.

Shikamaru reached into the offered snack bag that Choji was holding to take a fist full so he didn’t have to keep sitting up to reach in. He sat back, munched away. He liked the time before class started because there wasn’t any expectation for him at this time, but he also hated it because technically it was just more time that he had to be here at the school. Then again, it meant that he didn’t have to spend the morning with his mother, who had somehow found more ways to be annoying because she was worried that she was starting to go through menopause. If there was ever a reason for him to ask to be at school more, just so he didn’t have to go back to the hellscape that was what his home was turning into, that would be it.

“I found a place,” Choji commented between bites. “That has these really good vegetable wraps. I think we should get some, maybe this weekend.”

Ino tilted her head. “Was that the place we got the peach tea from?”

Choji nodded. “And the chicken salad sandwiches.” He agreed. “But I tried their vegetable wraps and they’re amazing. The vegetables are roasted but still crunchy, and the sauce is like perfectly tangy, and there’s just enough of it, not too much to make it slimy.” He smiled at the very thought of it.

“Mm.” Ino hummed in interest. “I wonder if they have any new tea flavors as well.”

Shikamaru finished the last of the portion that was in his hands before he brushed them off and leaned deeper into his chair, and closed his eyes.

Choji prodded at him to get his attention. “You want to come with us?”

Shikamaru opened his eyes to give him a side eye. Why did he have to go? They were the ones who were drooling over the idea of this place. He was fine with a convenience store rice ball with some tuna inside.

“You’ll have to drag him.” Ino giggled. “But really, I think it would be fun, there’s a new store on that side of town that I want to see. I heard they had a lot of cute stuff.”

The only thing worse than going out on a Saturday would be going out on a Saturday to watch Ino shop. She took forever, she had to be in every aisle, she would talk the whole time about products, picking up so many of them to comment on how cute they were, but how they weren’t the perfect thing that she was looking for, so she would just put them back. He hated it.

Ino leaned over him to lower her voice. “You know, it would probably be a good place to try to get a gift for a certain girl.”

Shikamaru let his face twist to give her the full force of his irritation.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Ino hissed at him. Then shut up. “I’m not teasing you. I think it’s a genuinely good idea.”

“I don’t want your help,” Shikamaru told her flatly. If he wanted it, he would ask for it.

Ino tutted and leaned back to her own desk to pout. “Fine.” He didn’t understand why she was so invested anyway.

“Do you actually plan on doing anything about it at all?” Choji wondered. Not him, too.

“He doesn’t think there’s any point because of Naruto,” Ino answered for him in a tone that made it clear that she thought it was ridiculous. “He thinks that because of him, she is not going to even consider him.”

He didn’t think that was the case. He knew that was the case. He didn’t want to see the look of horror and embarrassment that would be on her face, followed by her scrambling to say that she wasn’t interested in a way that she thought might the least hurt his feelings. He didn’t want to see it, and he didn’t want to put her in that position to feel the guilt and dread when looking at him.

“Oh.” Choji frowned, getting the idea.

Ino turned to him and gave him a look. “You know she can’t consider you if she doesn’t know you’re an option.”

Shikamaru was not sitting here just to listen to this. “You know what.” He started to get up. “I think I’m skipping class.”

Ino grabbed a hold of him and pulled him back down into his seat. “Alright, I’m sorry.” She told him. He eyed her, warning her that it had better be the end of it. “I just want to help.”

“I don’t want help,” Shikamaru repeated.

Ino sat back and crossed her arms. “Fine.”

Shikamaru, unfortunately, knew that this was not going to be the last time that it was brought up, but he hoped at least that she would let it go for a few days, so at least he would have a break from it.

Chapter Text

Hinata wished she had left the gift at home. She had spent the whole morning trying to convince herself that she should just slip it to him so she didn’t feel like this anymore, but the thought of giving it to him, even secretly, was making her feel sick.

Her heart felt heavy, and she was just piling on more stress on the little box as she knew that it was just going to come back home with her to sit in the drawer and continue to haunt her.

This was why she didn’t try. Everything she did just made it worse. Every time she failed to even do the minimum made her feel more like she couldn’t do it.

Their teacher came in and started class, so she tried to focus on that instead, but as she dipped her head down and got into her bag to get the book she needed for this subject out, there the box was, almost like it was mocking her. She tried to ignore it while she got her books out, but when she set her bag back down on the floor, it tipped over, out came her pencil case, and the gift box skittered across the floor.

Hinata’s heart stopped. It was too far from her to pick up, and she didn’t want to interrupt class more than she already did with everybody glancing over at her because of the noise. She glanced around, ducking her head apologetically as she straightened her bag back up. She scanned back over to her pencil case and the gift box, only to see that they were both being collected off the floor from underneath Shikamaru’s chair. He scooped them up and set them on top of each other on the corner of his desk, only giving her a moment of eye contact to tell her that he would give them back when class was done.

Hinata focused forward, but she was going to have panic in her heart until she got the box back into her bag. As the class end, she hurried to get her things together, but before she could get up, Shikamaru had already come to her desk with her things.

“Thank you.” She told him sheepishly, quickly trying to hide them under books just to tuck them out of sight.

“It’s fine.” Shikamaru shrugged. “What’s in the box?” He nodded his head at it.

Hinata flushed. It was a reasonable question. She pressed her lips together and wondered whether or not she should try to lie or tell him the truth. He was observant, he probably already knew about her crush, though her probably didn’t care… and if he didn’t care, he probably wasn’t going to be all that interested in the answer, but… “It’s a gift that… I don’t really have the courage to give, even anonymously.”

Shikamaru’s face immediately flattened. She knew that he would understand what she was talking about. “Oh.”

Hinata nodded to herself and slipped the gift box under her books to put it into her bag, but her hand was stopped by him grabbing her wrist before she could sink it fully into her bag.

“I’ll do it.” He told her.

Hinata blinked at him, and her panic rose. “I don’t… I don’t think I can bear it.”

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t know,” Shikamaru promised her.

Hinata stared at him. She didn’t want to give it to him, but at the same time, she didn’t want to hold onto it anymore. She hated the feeling that it gave her, and she felt like it was just going to keep weighing on her heart if she didn’t get rid of it. She pulled it back out of her backpack and handed it to him.

Shikamaru tucked the box between his notebooks for safekeeping and gave her a reassuring nod.

“Thank you.” Hinata voiced as he left the class with the rest of the stream of students. She didn’t know why he would offer a help her, but she appreciated it.

Shikamaru could not regret this more. He had offered at the moment just because he wanted to get the miserable look of shame off of her face, to ease some of the disappointment that she held in herself, but at the expense of his own miserable feeling.

He knew it would be easy, but it was also what made it annoying. It was already clear that it was a gift. She had taken care to wrap it nicely after all. All he did was draw a heart on the corner of the box to make it clear that it was from an admirer before he slipped it into Naruto’s during classes when no one would be in the halls and no one would wonder what he was doing because it wasn’t all that unusual for him to be late.

So now he was here waiting while everyone collected their things to go for the day.

“Hey, what is this?” Naruto hummed as he found the box on the shelf. “This is cute. Did you put this in here?” He asked Sakura.

“No.” Sakura shifted closer to him to look at it. “Look, it’s got a heart on it, maybe it’s from a secret admire.”

Shikamaru’s eyes drifted across the hall to Hinata, who ducked down trying to make herself as small as possible behind Kiba, not being subtle that she was hiding, but it was fine because Naruto was an idiot and he wasn’t smart enough to look around for reactions to guess who might have left it.

Naruto opened the box. “Oh man, this is cool.” He grinned before looking up and down the hall and holding it up. “Hey, who left me this?”

Hinata flinched and tucked herself in more, which Kiba responded to by putting his arm over her to make it look like she was tucked under his shoulder and not burrowing into his jacket to hide.

Sakura smacked his arm. “What would be the point of giving it to you anonymously if they were going to answer, you idiot!”

Naruto flinched and pouted. “I just wanted to say thank you.”

Shikamaru closed his locker and walked the other direction.

He did what he said he was going to. He didn’t know why he stayed to watch the aftermath.

Kiba rubbed at her shoulder to try to soothe her as he shielded her until they got outside, where she finally came out of his jacket, but was still content to curl down as much as she could into her own. “You did it.” He told her.

“I didn’t, though.” Hinata huffed to herself, her red face looking just as miserable as it did when she talked about not being able to give him the gift in the first place.

“Just because you weren’t the one to put it in there doesn’t mean that it’s not you finally giving it to him.” Kiba tried to assure her. “Either way, he got it.”

“But he doesn’t know it’s from her.” Shino voiced her real concern. “So nothing has changed. She just doesn’t have to look at it anymore.”

“I still see it as a win.” Kiba waved his hands out. “It’s a side step into the right direction.”

Hinata took a deep breath and let out a heavy puff with her eyebrows doing that droopy thing that always made his heart hurt.

“There’ll be more opportunities.” Kiba tugged at her sleeve. “We have the whole school year before graduation for you to find something.”

“Why would I be able to do it this year when I haven’t been able to do it the last few?” Hinata’s eyes slid to him with all of her perceived failures weighing down on her shoulders.

“Because now you have a deadline,” Shino answered.

“And you never miss a deadline.” Kiba agreed, putting a hopeful smile on his face as he tipped his head over into Hinata’s view.

Hinata pouted. “Maybe.” She said, but he could see from her face that she didn’t really believe it. “Don’t worry about me.” She told him quickly. “I’ll be fine.”

Kiba gave her his own pout. He knew that she didn’t like to talk about it, mainly because she didn’t want to constantly have to tell them her insecurities, only for them to try in vain to build her up, but he wanted to be there for her. He wanted to cheer her on, even if he thought that Naruto was a really bad choice for her personally.

“You want to get a snack on the way home?” Shino changed the subject. “Choji said they got a new flavor of soda at the grocery store.”

“Do you think it’s finally grape this time?” Kiba wondered. “Who the hell thinks apple favored soda is a good idea?”

“Green apple doesn’t sound bad.” Hinata hummed. “But red apples don’t have a strong enough flavor to make sense in something fizzy.”

Kiba nodded in agreement. “Maybe if it were cinnamon apple.”

“Fizzy cinnamon sounds like a mistake.” Shino shook his head.

“Don’t they have fizzy apple cider?” Kiba squinted.

“I’m pretty sure that’s it turning into alcohol.” Shino countered.

Kiba shrugged. Maybe.

“I hope it’s grape,” Hinata added and straightened up her shoulders, trying to take the distraction and leave her embarrassment behind.

Kiba tossed his arm back over her shoulder and squeezed her to his side. “Let’s go find out!” He told her with a smile.

Hinata lifted her head and tried to smile back at him.

Chapter Text

“I think we should do a dunk tank.” Naruto offered nudging at Sasuke. The school festival was probably one of his favorite times of year. A whole day to screw around at different booths set up at the school, and this year, since they were in their last year, they were the ones who got to make the booths without having to be recruited by the upperclassmen.

“No,” Sasuke answered flatly.

Naruto pouted at him. He was determined not to have any fun with this.

“I think it would at least be fun to do something together,” Sakura said sweetly to Sasuke, but that bastard just gave her an annoyed side eye. “Maybe a karaoke booth?” She offered, ignoring the look that he gave her.

“What a great way to annoy everybody,” Sasuke commented dryly.

“Haunted house,” Naruto added.

Sasuke shook his head. “It’s going to be way too hot for costumes.”

“Fortune teller booth.” Sakura leaned more on his desk.

“Who the hell would be the fortune-teller?” Sasuke made a face.

Sakura shrugged her shoulders. “We could get a tarot card guide or something.”

Sasuke rolled his eyes back and slid down in his chair like he was trying to get further away from them. Always a miserable pain in the ass.

They weren’t getting anywhere with ideas. “Hey, what are you guys doing?” Naruto leaned over to ask Choji.

“Me and some of the other girls are setting up a photo booth.” Ino chimed in.

“Oh, that actually sounds really cute.” Sakura hummed. “Can I join you if Naruto comes up with something stupid?”

“Sure.” Ino chirped.

Naruto’s shoulders slumped. She had given up on him already.

“I’m doing a pie-eating contest,” Choji answered, pointing his thumb over at Shikamaru. “He’s giving me a hand because he doesn’t want to come up with anything on his own.”

Shikamaru barely shrugged his shoulders. “It’s the type of thing where you buy a bunch of supplies and all you have to do is put them out and clean up the trays.” Yeah, that seemed like the kind of thing that he would agree to.

“My sister is letting me borrow a baby goat to feed.” Kiba slotted himself into the conversation.

“That’s not fair.” Naruto’s jaw dropped. Were they even going to let him do that?

A small voice used the slight pause in the conversation to speak up. “You could host a game.” Hinata voiced barely.

A game? He liked games. He could handle that. “What kind of game?”

“Hinata is doing a giant game of Go,” Kiba explained.

“Oh.” Naruto blinked. “I don’t know how to play Go.” For some reason, he was thinking more like a game show, but he wasn’t really sure how that would work.

Shikamaru sighed outwardly. “You wouldn’t need to, you just need to run the booth.”

Hinata’s eyes drifted to Shikamaru. “Yeah, and I know how to play, so I can make sure everyone is following the rules.” She added.

“Oh yeah.” That made sense, and at the end of the day, if no one else had known how to play go, they could play however they wanted as long as they were having fun, right? “Can I join your booth?” He asked her.

Hinata blinked at him and looked like, for a moment, that she was going to say no, but she just quietly nodded.

“Awesome!” Naruto grinned. Now we knew what he was doing, and he didn’t have to think about it anymore. “What are you doing then?” He prodded back at Sasuke, who was the only one who wasn’t accounted for.

“I might just sign up for the loading and clean-up crew.” Sasuke leaned his head back. “That way I don’t have to run any stupid booth.”

Naruto tutted at him. It was like he was allergic to fun.

Shikamaru could feel the look that Ino was giving him, and he was actively avoiding it, which didn’t work on his mother and didn’t work on her very well either.

“Why didn’t you offer to help her go?” Ino hissed at him.

“Because she doesn’t want my help,” Shikamaru stated the obvious. “She offered it to Naruto.”

Ino made a show of rolling her eyes and dropping her shoulders dramatically. “You know, that’s not what I meant.” She whispered.

“Come on, back off.” Choji put his hand out in front of her to try to calm her down. “Maybe he’s playing some high-level chest right now and he’s just showing Hinata how dumb Naruto can be.”

Ino shook her head and crossed her arms because she knew that wasn’t the reason, but she shut up, so he wasn’t arguing about it.

If he wanted to, he had all kinds of opportunities to slot himself in beside her, but he didn’t see the point in it. He wasn’t wanted, she was looking for so it wasn’t going to change anything.

What Choji was even suggesting just felt… evil. He knew it was how people tend to think, that anything you could do to win out over someone else and get the relationship you wanted was fair game if you came out happy, but that was sad. He didn’t want to trick her into spending more time with him, he didn’t want to find some psychological way to get her to like him, he just… wanted the feeling to go away so he didn’t have to deal with it.

The library was still and quiet with only the occasional quiet clattering of a pencil off to the side, the airy flap of a notebook being turned over to the next page, or stifled sneeze from a table across the room, but Hinata felt like the whole room was echoing with panicked overreacting of her heart as she thought about the very idea of working with Naruto at the fair.

She hadn’t planned on offering it to him. She planned on doing it on her own because originally her and Shino we’re going to do it but Kiba having to handle a live animal it made more sense for one of them to help him, and as cute as she thought a baby goat would be the go game was her idea and Shino wasn’t actually that familiar with it and… She didn’t expect Naruto to ask.

She tried to focus on her schoolwork. Her goal right now was to make sure she had done as much of her work as possible so she could focus on making the stand and the game when they had time to work on it.

She didn’t think no matter what they would do that they would win the booth award, but she wanted it to be nice enough that Naruto wasn’t outwardly disappointed in it.

The sound of a book being set down in front of her made her jump and broke her thoughts. She followed it up, but there was no one standing there anymore. She turned her head to find Shikamaru’s back as he walked toward the back.

Hinata blinked at him before reaching forward to slide it to herself, and finding that it was an advanced guide to Go. She turned her head again, but he was gone. She would have got up to thank him, but he was probably tucking himself away to find a place to nap.

She picked up the book and opened it. This must be a personal copy. It didn’t have the marking denoting it as property of the school.

She turned her head over her shoulder in the direction that he went, again. This was nice of him, but it also just reminded her that he could see through her well enough to know that she would need the help.

Shikamaru ignored the sound of students swarming around him. His head was down in the nest that he made with his arms, trying to avoid any conversation that Ino wanted to have.

There was the softest sound of something flat being placed beside his head, which he also ignored until he knew that Hinata was back at her desk.

When he let his eyes drift open, he was just expecting that she had slipped him the book back the same as he gave it to her, but no, she wouldn’t let it be that simple. She had given it back with a small box that had a single bakery cookie inside and a simple thank-you note.

He re-closed his eyes and dipped his head down into his elbow. Maybe if he had let her say thank you when he gave it to her, she wouldn’t have felt the need to give him something too, and he would have avoided this feeling he was trying to ignore, but part of him knew that she would have probably done it anyway because that’s just how she was.

Simply kind, wanting so badly to return kindness to others.

He kept his head down as class started, despite Ino’s prodding at him. He didn’t want to even pretend that he was paying attention today.

Chapter Text

Hinata came in to find that most of the girls were crowding around a middle desk. She hesitated, not wanting to step around them to get to her chair, so she took the long way, going the whole way to the back and around to get to her chair.

“It’s going to be extra romantic because of all the lights they put up for the festival.” One of the girls cooed.

“It would be a great place for a confession.” Another said dreamily.

Hinata was thinking that it might actually be a nightmare.

“There are always a lot of confessions around the fountain because it glitters in the lights.” Sakura agreed.

“I was confessed to there last year.” Ino nodded her head along.

The girls turned their attention to her with gasps. “But you’re not dating anyone.”

Ino flicked her hair over her shoulder. “I didn’t say they were successful.”

The girls collectively giggled.

Hinata was trying not to think about it, but the thought had crossed her mind. She would be spending all day with Naruto, if it went well… maybe she could confess to in in front of the fountain. The school gardens were already really pretty and where a lot of couples went to confess, so… maybe…

“Hey.” Naruto leaned over from a chair he didn’t usually sit in because one of the girls was in his for the time being, making her jump. “Can you teach me this game we are playing for the festival?”

Hinata stared at him, feeling her face slowly darken from his proximity. “I… I can.” She mumbled.

“Cool.” Naruto nodded and smiled at her.

Hinata’s heart soared into the ceiling, but then her eyes drifted past him to Shikamaru. She wondered if she knew he would that she would need to know the game better to teach Naruto. He seemed to know everything.

“Also, everyone’s getting together to paint signs and stuff for their booths after school, so we should work on ours,” Naruto added.

Hinata brought her attention back to him and nodded. “Sure.”

Shikamaru sat cross-legged on the floor on the edge of a banner that Choji was painting, being more of a paper weight than actual help. He didn’t think the pie-eating contest really needed that much signage, but Ino talked Choji into making banners to string across the front of the table and signs for where they were going to have people sign up.

Choji gave him a paintbrush, but once the letter that was closest to him was painted in and he ran out of paint, he just sat there and waited for Choji to be done. He didn’t seem to mind at all. He was having way too much fun drawing different pies and pie slices.

“What kind of pie do you even have for a pie-eating contest?” Shikamaru asked, looking at the different flavors and types Choji was painting. He has never seen an apple pie for one of these.

“I think it’s usually cherry,” Choji commented. “That’s what I ordered anyway.”

“Sounds like a mess.” Shikamaru made a face.

“The mess is half the fun.” Choji grinned.

If that was the case, he hoped that they were close to a hose hookup or something so they could just hose the table down to clean up the mess, because he certainly didn’t want to be cleaning it up by hand.

“Ee!” Hinata squeaked as a can of paint hit the ground, drawing the spread-out group’s attention to her.

“Sorry!” Naruto told her loudly and held his hands up. “It was closed.” He announced picking it. “You’re really jumpy.” He chuckled at Hinata, who retracted in on herself as she turned red.

She was really quiet. She had barely said two words the whole time because Naruto kept talking to Sakura as the girls were nearby making props with Sasuke, a tow, because he refused to run the booth with so she was making him work on it instead.

Sakura would probably have a lot more success with getting Sasuke to tolerate her at all if she would realize that things like this, dragging him to places that he didn’t want to go, and nagging him constantly, were the reason he never gave her a chance. She wasn’t giving him any space. If this was what she was like when they were just friends, why wouldn’t he think it would be a nightmare for her? Sasuke, like him, was easily irritated, and there was nothing that made you not want to consider something more than what they were when he was already being actively irritated by it repetitively.

Hinata squeaked again, but this time, when everybody looked, she was shielding her chest as there was a paint splotch on it.

“Ah. Sorry!” Naruto shrank back from her.

“See, this is what you get for not being careful!” Sakura snapped at him.

“Sorry,” Naruto said again.

“I’m fine.” Hinata tried to tell him while still actively keeping her hand up over the paint splotch. “I’ll just go to the bathroom and see if I can get it off.”

Naruto’s shoulders fell as she left the room. “Did she look mad to you?”

“I would be.” Sakura stuck her nose up at him.

Shikamaru waited for a moment before he pushed himself up and headed out into the hall closest to him, so as not to follow her out.

“Hey, where are you going?” Choji called after it was already too late.

The water ran in the sink in front of her as she dipped another paper towel into it and tried to blot out the stain on her shirt. She was getting most of it, but it would probably come out better if she could soak it. She didn’t have anything else to wear and now she just had a big wet mark right in the middle of her shirt.

The more she thought about it, the more she felt like she was going to cry, she wasn’t going to be able to get it all out, she didn’t even know if she wanted to go back to get her things, maybe she could text one of the girls to have them pass it out to her or…

There was a knock on the bathroom door. Hinata paused and then turned off the water so she could hear better. This was a multi-stall bathroom. She didn’t understand why someone would knock on the door, so she peeked her head out of the main door only to have a pull-over hoodie held up in front of her face.

Hinata blinked at it and realized that it was Shikamaru, which explained why he knocked on the door rather than just coming in.

“Wear this so you can clean your shirt.” He told her.

Oh. Hinata accepted the hoodie. “Thank you.”

“Keep washing out the paint with cold water until the paint comes out. Don’t put it in the dryer. It will set the stain.” He told her before turning and heading down the hall.

“Thank you,” Hinata told him again as she disappeared back into the bathroom and changed out of her shirt, pulling the hoodie over her head. Now that she was no longer wearing it, it was a lot easier to use the water and some of the hand soap to get the paint out. Luckily, it wasn’t an oil-based paint.

When she came back, Shikamaru was back in the spot that he was in when she left.

“Are you okay?” Naruto asked. “You’re not mad at me, are you?”

Hinata brought her attention back to Naruto, and she quickly shook her head. “No… I’m not upset.” She assured him. “I just need to be more careful because this isn’t mine.” She waved her hand at the hoodie.

“Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t be painting.” Naruto put his brush down. “How about I cut out the big pieces for the board?”

“That sounds like a good idea.” Hinata agreed.

Naruto gave her a thumbs up before he grabbed a pair of scissors and some cardboard.

Hinata rolled up the sleeves of the hoodie and picked up the paintbrush. She took another glance over at Shikamaru, but he wasn’t even facing her direction.

The sun was warm, almost too warm, beating down just shy of the shade of his usual spot under the tree in the courtyard.

Shikamaru wanted to be comfortable, but he wasn’t. His chest was hurting, and he knew why, but he was electing to ignore it. He wanted the feeling to go away because it was annoying. He wanted to stop being so drawn to her. That’s why he kept nudging her closer, pushing her towards Naruto… or at least that’s what he was telling himself.

He felt the shade over him shift, from the partial shade he was getting from the leaves that would let through the occasional sunspot, to a hard shadow as someone stepped in between him and the sunlight.

He didn’t want to open his eyes, but he didn’t have to to know who it was as soon as they quietly crouched down beside him.

He waited for a hand to come and prod at his arm or his shoulder, or a soft voice calling to wake him up, but instead, he just heard something crinkle as it was set in the grass beside him before she got back up and left him to be alone in the shade once more.

Shikamaru peaked half an eye open to see only the back of Hinata as she went back to her table, where Kiba and Shino were currently sitting, and she had left behind a bag that presumably had his hoodie inside it.

He let his eye drift back closed as a new pain of disappointment tried to swirl in his chest.

He was going to ignore that, too.

Chapter Text

Sakura turned around in her chair to Ino with two ribbons in her hand that matched the cheer uniform she was wearing. “Could you help me with my hair before the game? I found a really cute way that I want to put my hair up, and I have these and some gel, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to put it up on my own.”

“I can’t.” Ino pouted to her. “I have an away volleyball game tonight.”

“Oh, yeah.” Sakura’s face fell. “That means you’re not going to be at the basketball game either. That’s so not fair. Why would they put them in the same night?” It was bad enough that the seasons overlapped.

Ino tilted her head, letting her long hair dust past her to the side. “What is unfair is it the boys’ basketball team always gets the cheerleaders on days that we have both games.” She said with an appropriate level of attitude.

Yeah, that too. Sakura looked down at her ribbons and defeat, but maybe she could just find somebody else, who, out of the girls, usually went to the game? “Hey, Hinata.” She tilted back to see her behind the chair that was between them. “Are you going to the game?”

“Uhm, yes,” Hinata answered, looking like she was even caught off guard.

“Can you help me do my hair before it?” Sakura held up the ribbons. “I have a picture of what I want.”

“Sure.” Hinata nodded.

Sakura smiled back. “Thanks.” Now, with that solved, she turned back to Ino because she had another question. “With both games happening tonight, is anybody going to your game?” One of the biggest problems with overlapping games was that not only could the cheer team not be in both places, but a lot of their friends couldn’t be either.

“I am,” Choji commented, raising his hand. “Shikamaru is not coming, but that’s because he doesn’t come to either game.” He waved dismissively at him.

“He would be a boring crowd member anyway,” Ino added, rolling her eyes. Yeah, that was a good point. Who wanted a crowd member who was falling asleep in the back? At that point, why even buy a ticket?

“Do you even like any sports?” Sakura asked him. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who was going to sit in front of a screen and yell at the refs, or the kind of guy who was going to willingly tackle someone else for a ball.

“I like baseball,” Shikamaru answered, despite looking like he wasn’t listening to the conversation.

“I cannot see you playing baseball.” Sakura made a face. She could almost see the outfit on him, maybe seeing him as an outfielder where he didn’t have to pay all that much attention, but… she couldn’t see him doing training. Baseball players really needed to run.

“I wouldn’t play, I watch,” Shikamaru answered like it was obvious, and maybe it should have been.

“It’s a stats game.” Ino filled in. Oh, yeah, that made sense. Something that he could think about without actually paying that much attention. “I feel like you’d be good at sports betting.” She turned to him with a suspicious look in her eye.

“He would get banned for being too accurate.” Choji joked.

Shikamaru nodded in agreement. “Sites like that don’t actually want people to win.”

Yeah, there was something about Shikamaru, like that was a possible path for him, to never have a job, just like when a bunch of money gaming a gambling system and then investing it or doing something in stocks, that made it so he never actually had to work.

Oh. Sakura pulled her attention back to Hinata. “I need to show you this post so you can see what I want to do with my hair.” She got out her phone to bring up the post and passed it over to her. “What do you think?”

“I think this will look pretty on you.” Hinata agreed. “I have actually done this before. My sister likes this style.”

“Oh?” Sakura forgot that she even had a sister. “Oh, that’s great.” She hummed. “I think this would be cute on you as well.” Hinata’s hair was long and perfectly straight. It would look like a silk waterfall in the right half up to.

Hinata stared at her for a moment what looking like panic before she shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“No?” Sakura couldn’t see why not. Her hair was longer but… Maybe it was just a self-confidence thing, and she needed a little bit of a boost. “Sasuke, what do you think?” She held the phone out to him, but he didn’t even look at it.

He was still being a jerk because they forced him to help set up their booth. She didn’t understand why he thought it was fair that everybody else was working on things, and he was just going to load supplies day of.

Sakura nudged Naruto instead. “Don’t you think that this would look cute on Hinata?”

Naruto turned his head from whatever he was doing completely. Not paying attention to looking at the phone. “I think that it would look better on you because of your short hair.”

Sakura hissed at him and swatted at his arm. Why would he say something like that?

Naruto flinched away from her. “What did I do?”

Sakura tutted and frowned as she brought her attention back to Hinata, but she didn’t seem to be paying attention anymore.

Jerk. If she asked if something like that would look good on a woman, he should just say yes.

“I think it would look cute,” Sakura told her firmly.

Hinata brought her eyes up and gave her a half-smile, but she could tell that it was forced on her face. It was sad. She was pretty. She just needed to know so she could glow a little more.

Hinata hooked her fingers in Sakura’s hair, trying to keep the tension just right on the braids that were going back to her scalp and weaving in new pieces as she went. Sakura’s hair was really soft and easy to work with, and overall, she was just pretty. She had always been pretty, sweet, and cheerful. Hinata understood why Naruto liked her, but it did hurt every time to be compared to her, even though it’s not what Sakura was trying to do.

Hinata always felt like she fell short behind her, falling into another shadow like she was always doomed to be. She couldn’t blame her, though. It wasn’t Sakura’s fault that she was just better. It wasn’t her fault that Naruto was in love with her. It wasn’t her fault that Hinata wasn’t good enough.

With elastics in the end and the ribbons weaved through and tied into bows, she adjusted how they were sitting until they were just right.

“Does that look straight to you?” Hinata asked her to get a final verdict before she stopped fussing with it.

Sakura looked in the mirror. “It looks perfect, thank you!” She chirped before hugging her tight and jumping back to collect the rest of her things and put them back in her locker before she grabbed her pompoms, ready to go out to cheer on the basketball team. “Are you going to sit all the way in the back again?”

Hinata blinked at her, unprepared for the question. She didn’t even realize that was something that she would have noticed. “Uhm.”

“You can sit up front with the cheerleaders.” Sakura offered. “You might catch a player’s attention.” She tried to entice her with a smile and an excited quirk to her shoulders.

That was exactly why she sat as far back as she could. She didn’t want anybody thinking that she was sitting up there specifically to catch a player’s attention because she didn’t really want anybody speculating about which player she was interested in.

Hinata flushed. “No…” She waved her hands. “I’m not so sure about that.”

Sakura pouted but didn’t push the issue. She just smiled and thanked her again. “Enjoy the game!” She told her, shaking one of her pompoms, and she headed to the front bench that the cheerleaders sat on between plays.

Hinata looked at herself in the locker room mirror, trying not to feel her heart sink at her own reflection, before she pushed her way out, headed up the stairs, and came into the gymnasium that was filled with energy as everybody anticipated the start of the game.

She quietly headed up to her normal spot at the top of the bleachers, as far away as she could manage. She glanced back down at Sakura as she brightly smiled at her fellow cheerleaders, sitting her hands on her hips as she chatted. She glowed like the sun, and Hinata felt like it was just another dark cloud that you wished wouldn’t rain on you.

Hinata wished more than anything that she had her confidence.