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Imperfect Portraits by SilverFoxGirl

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Chapter notes: Wow. I forgot all about this site *sweatdrop*

There’s something about this chapter that really bugs me, but I can’t pinpoint what. I hope they’re not too out of character.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Chapter One: An Odd Sort of Introduction

It was dark. Why was it so dark? A distant part of Hinata’s mind told her she should be concerned, but she couldn’t find the energy to listen. She was so tired, and so warm. Wait…warm? The distant voice grew sharper. She shouldn’t be warm. Why shouldn’t she be warm? Snow…

She remembered. It had been snowing. She had run outside without a coat. Stupid thing to do, the voice told her. But she hadn’t been listening at the time. Her father…yes, her father…it had been her first solo mission. She had been so proud. She would make her father proud of her, finally. The mission…

It had been an amateur mistake. No, not even that. She saw that now, and should have seen it then. But it was too late…the mission was a failure, a horrible failure. Her father…her father had told her not to bother coming back. There…that was the reason. Hinata felt the wave of despair again – that was the reason she’d fled into the blizzard without a coat even though it had been stupid.

The voice told her she was being unreasonable, that her father couldn’t possible have meant what he’d said. If nothing else, he would never let a Hyuuga, and a main branch Hyuuga no less, become a missing-nin when every village in the Hidden Countries wanted the byakugan. It was very persistent with its argument. Hinata found it annoying. She was too tired to be reasonable right now.

But…she still didn’t know why she was warm. It was so hard to concentrate. Hinata struggled to think now, her mind moving sluggishly. There had been somebody there. She remembered something yellow…blue eyes…Naruto…

Suddenly the fog lifted, banished by the sudden realization, and Hinata sat bolt upright. The room was strange…where was she? Where was Naruto? Her eyes scanned the room anxiously, taking in the white-wash walls, the plain wood floor, the simple couch across the room where a blond figure lay. The figure that was now moving. One brilliant blue eye cracked open at her sudden movement, partially hidden behind long bangs falling over it. That wasn’t Naruto.

“You feeling better?” the blond man asked sleepily, pushing himself upright and brushing the hair out of his eyes with a lazy gesture. Something that resembled a notepad clattered to the floor as soon as the arm was lifted, but the man ignored it.

Hinata’s eyes grew wide. Half-delirious with cold and an emotional wreck, she must have mistaken this stranger for Naruto. She’d never been more embarrassed in her life. And now she was in an awkward situation. She was pretty sure this would be considered worse than just talking to strangers.

The man seemed oblivious to her distress, and had already walked, yawning, into the kitchen, clothes rumpled from sleeping in them and hair tangled in a bad case of bed head. Hinata was left alone with her thoughts. She sat up carefully and took stock of her condition. She had no idea how long she’d been out in the blizzard, but there didn’t seem to be any lasting effects. She’d been lucky.

The situation wasn’t so bad, she told herself. Her rescuer seemed nice enough, and a glance through her pockets and usual hiding spots revealed that he hadn’t touched her things. Hinata figured she could simply thank him and be on her way. She would pack her things and return to Konoha. Though she dreaded facing her father, especially after their last conversation, she couldn’t fathom doing anything else. Now that she was thinking more objectively, she knew there was no way she would actually be kicked out of her clan, let alone the village. She felt a little silly for overreacting like she had, though she knew it was because she’d already been on the edge from the mission and the stress.

The man was back, carrying two small tea cups, and Hinata decided to get things over with. “Umm…I’m sorry to have caused you such trouble,” she said softly. It was only polite, but she hated the way her voice trembled. She must be more nervous than she’d thought. The man looked surprised, briefly, but covered it with an easy smile.

“It wasn’t a problem, un.” He placed a cup in her hands. “A girl as pretty as you shouldn’t be crying, un.”

Hinata froze, reply sticking in her throat. Had he…no, he was just being friendly. Still, she couldn’t help but blush at his words. Nobody had ever called her pretty – not since her mother had died. “Still, it was stupid. I should have known better.”

The blond just nodded in agreement and collapsed back on the couch. “You should drink your tea, anyway, un. It’ll make you feel better.”

“Ah…thank you.” She supposed it wouldn’t hurt, and she was thirsty. Tentatively, she took a sip. It was good, she realized. Really good. She told him as much, and he just grinned, already half done his own.

“My...friend made the recipe, un.”

Hinata wondered at the pause, but it was really none of her business. She put it out of her mind. “He’s very talented.”

“Yeah.”

The silence that followed as they sipped their tea was only slightly uncomfortable. Hinata drank it slowly, reveling in the warmth it sent spiraling down her body. At length, she realized she had been sitting there for quite some time, head resting on the wall behind her and cup empty on her lap. She’d fallen asleep, she realized with a start.

I must be more tired than I thought, she mused. The man was nowhere to be seen – he must have left while she was dozing. She sighed. It was time to leave, she supposed. Konoha would be expecting her back, and she had no idea how much time had passed since she’d given her report.

She placed the tea cup carefully on the nightstand beside the bed and stood up. She found the blond man in the room across the hall, sitting amidst a whirlwind of canvas, paint, pastels, and paper. He looked up as she entered, pausing in setting up a canvas on a wooden table that filed half the room.

“”You’re leaving, un?” he inquired, standing up. She nodded, realizing then that she didn’t know where the door was. The man smiled and, as if reading her thoughts, offered to show her out. “Do you want to borrow a coat? It’s probably cold out, and you wouldn’t want to collapse again, un.”

Hinata looked at the coat, considering. She didn’t like the idea of just taking someone’s coat, and she would be leaving the village as soon as possible. Still, it was cold out. Without it, the walk back to her hotel would be pretty miserable…

“All right,” she agreed. “But only for the walk back. I will return it before I leave the village.”

The man flashed the same smile as before, and to Hinata it seemed just a bit too automatic, reminding her of yet another blond she knew. He handed her a worn brown coat only slightly too big for her, scavenged from a tiny closet at the other end of the hall. Hinata put it on awkwardly, feeling self-conscious, as the blond man turned to an old wooden door beside the closet. Deftly undoing five different locks, three of which Hinata hadn’t noticed before he undid them, he finally turned the doorknob and pushed out. The door didn’t budge. Frowning, he pushed harder. The door gave an inch, protesting even that. He stared at it and muttered something about low-quality doors getting stuck. He took a step back, regarding the door seriously, and kicked it. Hard. Hinata winced as the door gave a loud crack, and the man sort of froze.

“Guess it’s really stuck,” he admitted belatedly. Hinata just walked over to a window in the kitchen just beside the door that looked just as old as the door. It was situated just above the kitchen sink and was covered in patched brown drapes, which Hinata flipped back to peer outside. Her eyes widened at what she saw. The blizzard had run its course, leaving snow drifts as high as a man at their peak and valleys that almost reached the bottom of the window. Either one could have successfully blocked the door.

The snow hadn’t been nearly that high when she had left the hotel room, she knew that much. So how long had she been asleep? She started as she felt the man peer over her shoulder, whistling at the sight outside the window. She hadn’t heard him walk up at all, and that disturbed her. A civilian shouldn’t have been able to do that, not unless she was really losing it.

“They really weren’t kidding about the snow here, un,” the man murmured. “Do you want to try climbing out the window, un? Or do you want to stay here until the snow melts a bit?”

“Ah…well…” Hinata couldn’t believe her luck, and not in a good way. At this rate she’d be stuck in the village for a week or more. She sighed, there was no changing the weather, she supposed. She’d have been just as snowed in at the hotel – in fact she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to get into the hotel if she left now. She didn’t have much of a choice, then. “If it’s not too much trouble…”

“Nah, I don’t mind, un.” The man finally moved away from the window and towards the door they’d come through. “The room you woke up in is the guest room, un. I just have to get some things from it first; you can raid the kitchen while you wait.”

While he had his back turned, Hinata acted on a suspicion that had been forming ever since he’d moved so silently to the window. Activating her byakugan, she turned to regard the retreating man. What she saw made her eyes widen in shock. As she’d expected, the man’s charka coils were longer than normal and pulsed slightly from a constant flow of charka. Only shinobi had coils that long and that active. What she wasn’t expecting was the odd arrangement. The coils were unusually sparse on every area of his body except his hands and mouth, where they were so densely packed she could barely make out the individual coils. It reminded her of the coil arrangements for the doujutsu bloodlimits – with the coils focused around the eyes. Not just a shinobi, then, but one with a bloodlimit.

Hinata frowned. Perhaps staying hadn’t been a good idea after all. She didn’t know who much he knew about her or what village he was from – for all she knew he’d been sent after her. It had happened before. If he had, she was at a disadvantage. He would have studied her fighting style beforehand, and if he was anything above chuunin she wouldn’t stand much of a chance.

She sighed and collapsed into the nearest chair, putting her arms on the small table decorating the center of the kitchen and resting her head on them. She’d turned off her byakugan as soon as the man had disappeared into the hall. The Hyuuga were a well known clan, but there was still a chance this man didn’t know about them. Hinata gave a small smile at that thought. Why was it that all the complicated situations happened to her?

The man was back, carrying a small bag slung casually over one shoulder. He barely spared her a glance as he deposited the bag in the broom closet beside the window. There was a silver lining in all this, Hinata decided as she eyed the shinobi’s back, remembering how it had looked through byakugan. She might get a chance to examine this strange bloodlimit further. She’d always found the different bloodlimits fascinating, but most of the clans back in Konoha were wary of having their charka systems examined.

As if he sensed her eyes on him, which was likely, the man turned around and gave her a questioning look. Hinata felt her face redden slightly as she realized she’d been staring. Immediately, her manners kicked in and she averted her eyes with a murmured apology. When she glanced back, however, he was still looking at her, a thoughtful expression on his face. She frowned. What was he thinking?

Whatever it was, Hinata never got the chance to ask. Just as she opened her mouth she was interrupted by a low, gurgling growl, and Hinata remembered with a start that she hadn’t eaten since before the mission. The man looked at her blankly for a second, then started to laugh, an easy, casual laugh that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Didn’t I tell you to raid the kitchen, un?” He closed the broom closet and ambled over to the refrigerator. “What do you like, un?”

“Ah…anything will do. I’m not picky,” She really wasn’t. Her mother had often commented on what a pleasure she was to cook for. Hinata smiled at the memory.

“Then we’re having instant ramen, un. I don’t feel like cooking.” That said, the man bypassed the fridge altogether in favour of the cabinet to the right, pulling out two instant ramen cups. As he was filling them with water, Hinata was reminded of the one time Naruto had incited her over for dinner. He’d tried to act enthusiastic, showing her in as if to a palace, but she could tell he’d been nervous.

This man…he was a lot like Naruto. He was calmer, more mature, but the resemblance was unmistakable. Because of that…being around this strange shinobi was almost familiar. But he was still a strange shinobi, she reminded herself, and she couldn’t let her guard down while around him.

She blinked as a ramen cup nudged her nose, then sighed. Not letting her guard down was easier said than done. Reaching up, she accepted the cup and a pair of chopsticks. As the man sat down opposite of her and snapped open his own chopsticks, she idly noted that whatever mission this man was on he wasn’t staying here long. Otherwise he wouldn’t have only disposable utensils.

The silence started to become uncomfortable, and Hinata found herself wishing for a distraction. She stirred her ramen nervously, trying to come up with a decent topic of conversation.

“So…” She remembered the room she had glimpsed as they had left the guest room. “Are you a painter?”

He glanced up, noodles still hanging from his mouth, and blinked at her. Despite herself, Hinata giggled at the sight, then slapped a hand over her mouth, face blushing scarlet. She couldn’t believe she’d just done that. The absolute rudest reaction she could have had. The man, thankfully, didn’t seem offended as he pushed the noodles all the way into his mouth and swallowed.

“There’s nothing wrong with laughing, you know,” he informed her seriously. “This isn’t a banquet or anything, un.” He waved his chopsticks in the air as he spoke.

“Ah, I’m sorry. It’s just that I was taught that it is terribly impolite to laugh at somebody, especially during a meal.”

“Right, right. You’re from one of those rich families.” His grin only grew wider at her startled look. “What, you thought I didn’t know? It’s obvious to anyone actually looking. The way you walk, the way you talk, even the way you blush just screams “well-bred.”

Hinata didn’t know what to say about that. She hadn’t known it was that obvious. “I see. Well…you haven’t answered my question. That could also be considered rude.”

The man scowled at her halfheartedly. “Whatever. Yeah, I’m a painter.” His chopsticks were back in the ramen cup now and his hand now supported his cheek. Suddenly, as if just remembering something, his eyes lit up. “Oh yeah, that’s right. I’m supposed to do a portrait for this contest thing the guy that hired me is doing. Since it’ll be a while before the snow melts, do you want to pose for it?”

Hinata was caught by surprise. Had this been the reason for the thoughtful look earlier? She thought about it, and couldn’t see any harm. While anyone who’d heard of the Hyuuga would recognize the significance of her eye colour, they would have no way of finding her though it. And since the man was a shinobi, he’d be able to take care of himself if they traced the painting back to him. She told him she would, and he seemed genuinely pleased.

“We’ll start tomorrow, then. I have to get some things ready.” He paused, and a slightly bemused look crossed his face. “I still don’t know your name.”

End Chapter
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