Aug 28, 2024
seen from Cayman Islands
seen from United States
seen from Singapore
seen from United States
seen from Spain
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Indonesia
seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Israel
chouji/hinata! (Idk I just made it up)
send me a ship! ChouHina was sent by @icecurse
vomit / don’t ship / okay / cute / adorable / perfect / beyond flawless / hot damn / screaming and crying / i will ship them in hell
I LOVE LOVE the concept of this ship and think about it like once a week. Big Konoha hearts. Kindness. Insecurities over physical appearance. Finding each other and bonding over the idea that its the inside and the actions you commit that matter most, not physical appearance. Chouji’s dad out here telling them that they are the sweetest person in the world and Hinata just out here looking for somebody who will show her that? Wow, thanks my crops are watered and my skin is clear now.
Cooking Lessons
Another chouhina arranged marriage prompt from @amaronith.
---
Hinata is almost embarrassed to admit that she can't cook.
It's not that she doesn't have knowledge of it; it's that she's never cooked a day in her life. Oh she can manage meals while away on missions, stews and game meats and rationing are essential ninja skills.
When it comes to in-house cooking? To meals around a table, with family and friends?
Hinata's never even touched a pan. Such is the life of the oldest daughter of an incredibly wealthy family. Hinata has never thought much about cooking, other than to admire a delicious dish and sometimes help the family cook, when she can.
(this is rare; her father makes sure of it.)
Things are changing, though. Hinata is to be married. Granted, she is marrying well. It's not as though she will be in a home without servants or living in a manner to which she is unaccustomed.
Butt she's not marrying into just any other Clan.
She is marrying into the -Akimichi- clan.
And, well.
The ninja of the clan literally wear the symbol for 'food' on their stomachs.
Hinata steels herself when she meets the woman who will be her mother-in-law. Reiko is everything that Hinata's mother, many years gone, is not. Koshi was quiet; Reiko is loud, boisterous and strong. Koshi was elegant. Reiko comes to the door in an apron covered in flour.
Koshi never learned to cook. Reiko cooks every day. Many Akimichi do. They run the food pantries and soup kitchens of Konoha. Akimichi deliver meals to citizens too old or disabled to make it out of their houses. They do the shopping for large families with many children to feed. They bake bread by the shelf-full, make soup dumplings in vats big enough to boil an entire weeks' worth of laundry in.
Food is an important, sacred aspect of Akimichi life.
And Hinata Hyuga, who will soon be Akimichi, doesn't know a damn thing about it.
Reiko takes pity on her, once she realizes that the stuttering and the blushing are not nervous tics but products of a life lived in fear of failure.
"You have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet." She says to her daughter in law, and it becomes their mantra.
Twice a week like clockwork, so long as she is in the village and not away on a mission, Hinata Hyuga makes the trek across Konoha to the Akimichi compound, where Reiko teaches her about cooking.
Hinata learns the proper way to dice an onion. She learns how to test the doneness of baked goods without using a stick. She learns the proper way to wash rice, wears her arms into sore exhaustion pulling dough. She learns how to pickle, boil, and fry.
Sometimes, Chouji joins them. Hinata watches him out of the corner of her eye, watches his smiles and the ease with which he moves. She listens to Reiko tease him, listens to him fret over the perfect mixture for a rice ball.
Hinata goes with the Akimichi on their food rounds. She helps Makaro move boxes of dried seaweed, watches intently as Chouichi turns a big empty bin into a frozen storehouse for fish. She joins the line at the soup kitchen and smiles at every visitor, even those who glare at her too-nice shirt and her hyuga eyes.
The wedding comes closer, and Hinata asks Reiko for more intimate study.
They write a recipe book together, mother and daughter; all of Hinata's favorites, and all of Chouji's, too.
"I was afraid." Hinata admits to Reiko.
Reiko smiles at her, and it is a warm smile, a matron's smile.
"You always have to crack some eggs to make an omelet, Hina." She says, and the nickname will stick like glue, and Hinata will have a mother again, and a book of recipes for her and her new husband as they try to figure things out together.
“Do you love me?”
I asked my friend @Amaronith for some chouji/hinata arranged marriage prompts, and one of the ones I was given was based on this song.
---
"Hinata."
She looked up from where she was cutting leeks. He stood by the sink, the late afternoon sun streaming through the window lighting his hair up gold.
"Yes?"
"Do you love me?"
Hinata blinked. She put her knife down and pushed the leeks aside.
"Do I- what?"
"Do you love me?"
"Do I love you?" Hinata was staring openly now. Chouji's smile was sheepish, just like it had been fifteen years before, when they were both young and brave and afraid.
"What- what kind of a question is that?" Hinata asked, flustered. "You're a fool, Chouji." She added with affection.
"I know. But do you love me?"
Hinata stood and approached him. "Fifteen years." She said thoughtfully, laying one hand over his. Hers was elegant, long-boned and fine, with microscopic scars. His was large, weathered, calloused. "Fifteen years. Our oldest son is taking his chunin exam. I'm Matriarch of our Clan. And you ask me now?"
Chouji looked at her, over her, eyes far away. "I was terrified, on our wedding day." He said in the soft quiet.
Hinata smiled.
"I was shy." She said.
"So was I." He countered.
"Fifteen years," she said, "I've raised our children. I've fought by your side. I put up with a drunk Nara Shikamaru AND his entire bachelor party."
Chouji chuckled.
"Fifteen years." She twined her fingers with his. "If that's not love, Chouji.." she traced the swirl tattooed on his cheek, marks all their children bore. "what is?"
He turned and pulled her to him and she let him. Chouji's warmth enveloped Hinata, and her gentle heat held him up.
"After fifteen years," he said, "it's nice to know."
Hinata giggled, and her giggles turned to tears, and Chouji cried with her. Their daughters came home to their parents, red-eyed and laughing, over leek soup that should have been done an hour before.
A spring in their step by ~LilMis