Deidara rolled his eyes. “Says the dumbass that failed a year.”
“I failed because I didn't do anything.” Hidan shrugged. “What's the point anyway? I am not going to university. What do I need a diploma for?”
✿ Photos of You ✿
Chapter 10 | DeiHina ✿ Ongoing
“I feel like I should be going to some kind of party like this.” Hinata looked in the much larger mirror that he had on the inside of one of the doors.
“You are.” Deidara crawled up onto his bed, kicking his shoes off as he did, getting up into one of the compartments, and digging through it before he pulled out a few things. One of which he tossed at her as he crawled back to the edge. “Put that on.”
“I remember my life being easier with him around.” Hinata didn’t know if she could explain how, if he asked.
Hizashi hummed out a reminiscent sigh. “I actually just spoke to him this morning, I swear that boy is 19 going on 65. You would think I’ve been getting a call from a retirement home, not a university dorm room.”
✿ Photos of You ✿
Chapter 9 | DeiHina ✿ Ongoing
“You want one?” Deidara gestured the marker towards her.
“Sure.” Hinata offered her arm. She was certainly very colorful today.
So, using no magic didn’t count to him? “Would you rather I let you die?”
“I would.” He snapped back his voice, losing its sound as he tried to yell.
✿ Once Again ✿
Chapter 17 | KisaHina ✿ Ongoing
Sasori squinted at it, taking the odd glasses he had to see the little things that he was working on off, to take a look at it. “Why do you have that?”
“Itachi gave it to me with the rings,” Hinata explained. “Do you have the sword?”
“I do.” Sasori eyed her.
“Can I see it?” Hinata begged.
✿ Please Marry My Son ✿
Chapter 23 | SasuHina ✿ Ongoing
When did that get so casual to say in his head. His wife. Had he really just gotten that used to it?
✿ House Husband ✿
Chapter 101 | ItaHina ✿ Ongoing
“I might need different shoes if we go back up.” Hinata commented.
“We can pick up a pair of sneakers.” Gai agreed. She had to admit his 'we can do anything' attitude was nice right now, when her will was through the floor, still not feeling fully healthy.
“One day.” Sasuke hummed, pressing his forehead to hers. “I will take the throne, and I will do more than visit.” He promised. “I’ll bring you back to me.”
Hidan's face scrunched up like he didn't believe her. “Then why are you here?”
“Uh…” Hinata didn't know how to answer that. “I was asked to help.
✿ Photos of You ✿
Chapter 8 | DeiHina ✿ Ongoing
Deidara grinned. “Fun, right?”
“It feels like the whole world is sparkly.” Hinata shifted her face around to see it move.
✿ Once Again ✿
Chapter 16 | KisaHina ✿ Ongoing
“You think she is hiding?” The person beside them wondered. “Or do you think that she was responsible, and they have just removed her quietly until they announced it?”
“Meh, not sure if she ever did much, anyway.” The first clicked their tongue. “Girls like that like to spend daddy’s money and act like they are working.”
✿ Please Marry My Son ✿
Chapter 22 | SasuHina ✿ Ongoing
“I’m not feeling well.” It wasn’t a lie. “I don’t think I can go today.” She told him as she pushed herself up.
Sasuke’s eyes followed her as she headed back to her room. “Do you need anything?”
“No.” Hinata told him without turning her head. “If you go, apologize to your mother for me.”
✿ House Husband ✿
Chapter 100 | ItaHina ✿ Ongoing
“Are you okay?” Itachi’s voice asked from the doorway.
Hinata pulled the cloth off her face and let her eyes drift to him. “I think I am fine now.” She touched the side of her face. “I think I might have a fever.”
Hinata’s eyebrows knit together. Surely she didn’t hear him right. “What did you…”
“Stay here,” Sasuke repeated.
✿ Once Again ✿
Chapter 15 | KisaHina ✿ Ongoing
“You are zoning out on me.” Sasori’s frown deepened.
“No, sorry, I am just… overwhelmed. I didn’t know about any of this two weeks ago, and now I am basically going on the run because Itachi handed me a thumb drive.” Hinata wasn’t sure if she should have even voiced what was on her mind. She didn’t feel like he would be sympathetic, and she was not sure she should expect him to be.
✿ Please Marry My Son ✿
Chapter 21 | SasuHina ✿ Ongoing
It was an adjustment. Not good, not bad, just different.
✿ House Husband ✿
Chapter 99 | ItaHina ✿ Ongoing
“It’s always food with you.” Itachi teased. “It makes it easy to shop for, but people expect me to get you nicer gifts.”
“I prefer something I can eat.” Hinata defended with the slightest pout to her bottom lip.
“You’re going to make me look like a bad husband who doesn’t know what you want.” Itachi continues teasing.
“I know you know I want food.” Hinata sipped from her glass.
Kakuzu waited by the phone, waiting for him to come back and find his daughter gone and the note telling him to call. If Hiashi wanted to play dirty and leave the country to avoid his debt, he had no problem playing dirtier to collect it.
Hiashi’s daughter didn’t struggle much, though she seemed smart enough to know something was wrong and that it was in her best interest not to make a fuss. She peered at him from the couch of his office, where he told her to sit, holding tightly to a bunny that had seen better days. She was quiet and well-behaved. It was surprising, really. Most kids as young as her were walking nightmares.
Kakuzu tapped his finger down by the phone, annoyed that he had waited this long already. “You said he was meant to be back by noon, right?”
The little girl nodded slowly.
Kakuzu’s eyes lifted to the clock that was several hours ago. Who left the daughter, who was only a few short years into school, at home alone anyway? Especially when he had a loan shark looking for him?
“Sir.” A knock on the door frame accompanied the call for him.
“What?” Kakuzu sneered his bad mood at them.
“Uh…” They glanced at the little girl, whose eyes floated up to them. They stepped back out of the door and gestured with their eyes to make it clear that what they had to say they didn’t want to repeat in front of the child.
Kakuzu sighed and got up. “Stay put.” He pointed a finger at her before slamming the door shut behind him, expressing his irritation at the person that he was paying who had dared make him cater to the child over him. “What!?”
The underlying flinched. “Uh… well, it’s just that…” They groveled instead of actually saying what they needed to.
“Spit it out.” Kakuzu hissed.
“Hiashi Hyuga has made his flight and left the country.” They ducked their heads as they rushed the sentence out. “I just got word of it, but he left over an hour ago.”
“Without his daughter?” Kakuzu blinked. What?
“He came home and left in a hurry. We followed him, thinking that he was going somewhere to get the money he needed, but we lost him in traffic.” They cowered apologetically. “Our connection just told us he was on the plane he booked with just his one child.” They further explained.
Rage coursed through him. Hiashi really was a bastard. He saw a note and knew his daughter was taken as collateral, and instead of calling to settle his debts, he left his brat behind. What did he expect him to do with his brat? Did he think he wasn’t going to hurt her? Did he realize what kind of man that he signed a contract with? Did he realize what kind of game he was playing?
“So, what do we do with the girl now?” The underling whispered, tilting his head into the window to see her on the couch.
Kakuzu followed his eyes. That was a good question. Maybe he could find a way to contact Hiashi still and threaten to send his kid to an orphanage. “We will wait a few days. See how bad of a father Hiashi is. Maybe I will report him for abandonment.”
The man tilted his head. “Wouldn’t he report you for kidnapping?”
Kakuzu brought his hand up, and the man flinched. “Not without outing his debt.” That was what he was really running from here. “Go see if you can track down a location for him.” It would be difficult. Even knowing what country he was going to didn’t help much, but if they found that, maybe they could track him down by who he had worked with in the past or some of his extended family.
They nodded but paused before he went. “Has she eaten?”
Kakuzu waved him off and headed back inside. The girl was a little more skittish, wrapping the tighter around her bunny, practically hiding behind it. The door slamming probably scared her. “What’s your name?”
“Hinata…” She stuttered. Irritating.
“Hinata.” Kakuzu addressed, trying to be calm to get better answers out of her. “Do you know where your father was going?”
“A family trip,” Hinata answered simply.
“Where?” Kakuzu asked through his teeth.
Hinata shook her head. She didn’t know where.
Kakuzu rolled his eyes. That wasn’t helpful at all. Maybe he shouldn’t be surprised that he didn’t tell her where he was going. She was probably too young to really understand what was going on anyway.
“That was a lie, wasn’t it?” Hinata ducked her face into her bunny, pitifully. Kakuzu’s eyebrow shot up. Maybe she was smarter than he thought. “We’ve never gone on a family trip before. I thought it sounded too nice.” Her voice trailed off.
His eyebrows twitched together. That was an odd thing for a kid to say. “Do you know any of the numbers or addresses for your family outside the country?”
Hinata shook her head. “I’m not allowed to use the phone unless it's an emergency, and even then, it needs to be a big emergency.” She emphasized.
Kakuzu chewed on his frustration, this child was useless to him. “And you are sure he said he would be back for you a noon.”
Hinata stared at him for a moment before her eyes fell to the ground. “He’s not coming back for me, is he?”
Kakuzu was surprised that she got a hold of the situation so quickly. He would have thought a kid would kick and scream and be sure that their parent was going to come to save them, but he didn’t even have to tell her that her father had flaked for her to come to the conclusion that she had been abandoned.
Maybe he misunderstood Hiashi. He thought he would, at the very least, care about his daughters as any normal man would care for his blood, but maybe he was too much of a scrum bag for even that.
A tear ran silently down her face, and she dipped her face into the bunny's head miserably, squeezing it to her.
Kakuzu huffed. Great, now he was stuck with Hiashi’s crying brat and his unpaid debt. If her own father didn’t want her, what use was she to him?
✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿
Hinata flinched as there was a heavy thunk in front of her.
“Here.” Kakuzu’s voice announced. “Eat.” He commanded.
Hinata lifted her head to look at the tray. It had a bowl of soup and another of rice. She didn’t really want to eat, but she didn’t want to upset him either.
He went back to his desk and sat down with a huff, looking at the papers on his desk. He looked at his desk like her father did, with a scowl on his face, but he was different. When her father scowled, it was deep, but… not. It was like he was still keeping so of his face flat on purpose. Which in some ways made it more scary because she couldn’t tell mad that he actually was. When this man scowled, he did it with his whole face, like he wasn’t hiding even the smallest amount of his anger. Or at least that was what she hoped because he would be terrifying if he were madder than his face was.
Hinata put her bunny to the side next to her backpack and got down on her knees next to the table to eat. She picked up the spoon and shoved a big bite of rice in her mouth to make it clear she was doing as she was told.
She shouldn’t have gotten excited when her father told her they were going on a trip. Maybe he never intended on taking her, but then why didn’t he just tell her? He had never gone to the effort of tricking her before.
She didn’t even know where he was going or even how long he was going to be gone.
And why didn’t this man know when he was going to be back? Did he not tell him? He came to watch her, but he didn’t know how long her had to watch her for?
She would just be on her best behavior so he didn’t have anything bad to report back.
Hinata tried to hold back her sniffles as she chewed. She didn’t think it was fair that she was left behind, but it was probably her fault. She probably did something. She should figure out what by the time he got back. He might expect her to know.
She felt the man’s eyes on her from the desk, so she picked up the bowl of soup and took a big sip of it to show him she was doing what she was told.
Maybe if she behaved, didn’t complain, and did what she was told she could go on the next trip.
Collateral
Pairing: Hidan x Hinata
Rating: T
Tags: Romance | Family | Fluff and Angst | Modern AU | Father Figure Kakuzu | Hidan takes a while to show up | Happy Ending
Hiashi has fallen into debt to Kakuzu. When Kakuzu comes to collect, and he finds his young daughter unintended, he thinks surely he’s not going to leave his child behind to avoid him… right?
Kakuzu had heard every excuse in the book over the years. Very rarely had he given out a loan that he didn’t have to chase down payment for, but if these people were smart with their money, they wouldn’t be coming to a loan shark in the first place. People only came to him because they knew they couldn’t go to the bank. Usually, they didn’t have enough assets, and they were too high of a risk for the normal financial system. Some of them were already in too much debt with the normal banks to pull out more, and some people… their pride just wouldn’t let them take money from something that was part of normal public record.
That last one was the type of man Hiashi Hyuga was. The kind that by all means could likely go to a normal bank, but was in enough a hole quietly that he didn’t want a financial audit that a loan would trigger that would expose just how badly he handled his finances.
Kakuzu didn’t particularly care what the cause was: gambling, bad investments, poor spending, it never mattered to him. What matters to him with a fish this big is if he had something to threaten them with when they enviably didn’t pay. For a man like Hiashi, the threat was his reputation. If he didn’t pay, people could find out not only that he owed money but he owed money to a shady source, which would open up a whole host of questions that he wouldn’t want to answer, like why he would need a loan, why wouldn’t he just get it from a bank, and why couldn’t he pay back the shady loan he took out?
A business never wants people to know just how bad with money they are. If it knew that its guarantees were all hot air, it would scare off investors and lose customers’ trust.
With a business like Kakuzu’s, no one needed to worry about that because he always tracked down his money, no matter what he needed to do to get it. If someone owed him money, he would make sure they paid, or he would ruin their lives trying.
Which led him to today.
Hiashi was behind on his payments. Kakuzu had sent a few of his associates to collect, but when they returned empty-handed and with legal threats, he knew he had to appear in person, but first, he did some research so he knew what he could take as collateral.
Hiashi Hyuga was worse off than most thought. Bad investments had made the man who came from a long line of wealth practically broke. His home was at risk of being foreclosed, and his car was already at risk of being taken back by the dealer. For all the money that he should have, none of it was liquid, which put Kakuzu in a difficult place. He only wanted to use the reputation card if he had to, as a ‘rich’ screw-up like this would always need more money and would be desperate for more at some point.
If he played his cards right, Hiashi would pay him back and then open another loan, that was if the man didn’t declare bankruptcy, but even if he did, that wouldn’t mean anything to him because he wasn’t going to go after him legally, where something like bankruptcy protected scum like Hiashi. No, he would just nip at his heels until he found the money.
Hiashi didn’t have much to his name. His wife had died a few years ago, a nephew he had sent to boarding school the moment he could, and two young girls.
Girls, he was sure that he wanted to take good care of.
Maybe that was his weak link, something that would push the same nerve as his reputation.
“I think that Hiashi is planning on leaving the country.” An associate brought him a document. “I just talked to a friend from immigration, and he has issued passports for both of his daughters, and he has bought three one-way tickets.”
Kakuzu looked at the domination with a new-found frustration for this man. No one was going to run off without paying. It looked like he was going to make that visit sooner than he thought.
✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿
Hiashi closed another suitcase before pulling it off the bed and putting it on its wheels. He looked around, wondering what else was worth taking with him.
He was so angry that it had come to this. He was forced to leave his home because he was being hounded from all corners. He could believe this. If he ever got a hold of that financial advisor, he would kill him. Thousands were gone because of a few bad bets in the market. Thousands more in investments that he assured him were completely safe. Businesses that he invested in were failing left and right in this economy, and they all cried that they were the victims, but they didn’t realize that their failure was his loss. Their lack of work ethic was making him have to take out questionable loans so people didn’t know how badly he had chosen.
He should have never taken the risk of those failures. He should have seen the writing on the wall that those people wouldn’t have succeeded and that they were a waste of space for ever trying.
Scum. Societal rejects. They deserved to fail, but they were unforgivable for dragging him down with them. He would never be so foolish again.
A creak in the floorboards made his irritation spike. He turned his head to the door where his young daughter was doing a very poor job of hiding herself, peaking in. She ducked her head apologetically. She was, unfortunately, old enough now to ask questions.
“Come here,” Hiashi told her.
Hinata padded her way into his room with her hands tucked behind her back. “Are you going somewhere?” She asked, looking at his suitcase. What a dumb question. Why would he be packing a suitcase if he wasn’t going somewhere? “When will you be back?”
Hiashi set his hand on his suitcase and wondered how much he should tell her. He couldn’t trust a child her age to not repeat something she was told. He didn’t want her telling her relatives what ever he told her. “We are going to go on a family trip.” He told her. “We will be back shortly.”
Hinata’s eyes lit up. “Family trip? All of us?”
Naive, bordering dim witted. He would have hoped that she would be smarter than this by now. It was unfortunate that she could so easily be tricked. Neji at least understood that sending him to boarding school was not just for his benefit. He would have had her follow him, but the all-girls school only started taking students two years older than the boy school for some reason. At least his youngest was already showing promise. “We’ll be leaving tomorrow. I’ll have to run an errand tomorrow morning. Then we will go to the airport.”
Hinata tied her hands together, trying to contain her excitement.
Hiashi nodded his head to the door. “I’ll pack your bag. Go grab a few things you want to take with you.”
“Okay!” Hinata headed for her room.
Hiashi shook his head. She was a frustrating child. Maybe the foreign school system would be able to do something with her.
✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿
Hinata sat with her backpack on. She had never been on a plane before but she knew that her father had many times. He packed her a suitcase that he already had in the car, but her backpack was full of the things that she wanted to take with her. Like the bunny she got from her uncle when she was little and Hanabi’s favorite blanket because her father didn’t pack it.
Her father should be back soon. He didn’t like it when she wasn’t ready when he got back, so she was going to sit and patiently be ready so that he wouldn’t be grumpy for the trip.
She didn’t know where they were going. Would it be to see family? Where are they going to see Neji? She missed Neji.
The doorbell rang.
Was that her father? Why would he ring the doorbell? She hopped down from her seat and headed to the door, and the doorbell rang again, more impatiently. Maybe he forgot his keys, and he would be very upset if she didn’t answer.
Hinata opened the door and peeked out. The man at the door was not her father. “Hello?” She asked.
The man with dark skin and hair in his eyes dropped to her height. “Is your father home?”
Hinata shook her head. “He’s coming back, and then we are going on a trip.”
The man's nose twitched irritably, just like her father’s did when she did something wrong. “So the bastard is running.” He crossed his arms, and his head turned away in thought, and he only seemed to get angrier the more he thought.
Then his eyes dropped to her.
Collateral
Pairing: Hidan x Hinata
Rating: T
Tags: Romance | Family | Fluff and Angst | Modern AU | Father Figure Kakuzu | Hidan takes a while to show up | Happy Ending
Hiashi has fallen into debt to Kakuzu. When Kakuzu comes to collect, and he finds his young daughter unintended, he thinks surely he’s not going to leave his child behind to avoid him… right?
