Hinata-centric - “In Spring Rain”
Yes, it’s Sasuhina but that’s not really the focus. This is an exercise in grief.
Post-war AU. Neji lives. Other smaller changes as well. Hinata deals with Hiashi’s death.
“She looks at her wet, open palm and wonders what her father had been searching for.” - Hinata-centric. What’s born in the spring, and what dies.
“He was a good man,” Naruto tells her, hand on her shoulder.
It’s a strange thing to say, Hinata thinks – as though the measure of her father’s
goodness only now comes into question when he’s dead, as though such reassurance is necessary to make his passing palatable.
But Hinata cannot say whether Hiashi was a good man or not.
She turns to Naruto, hands still held gracefully before her, the sleeves of her kimono perfectly starched. “Thank you, Hokage.”
He frowns at her, glances back at the altar where Hanabi kneels. Incense wafts from the urn like languid rivers in the air.
Hinata clears her throat gently, tucks her curtain of hair back behind her ear. “And my husband? When is he to return?”
Naruto meets her gaze once more, his hand slipping from her shoulder. “I’ve called him back from the mission. He’ll be with you soon.”
Something of contrition passes over his features then, and Hinata flushes with that familiar need to soothe. She offers him a grateful smile. “I appreciate that, though you needn’t go through any particular trouble for me.”
Naruto blinks at her, his mouth pursing. He looks back to the altar.
Perhaps if Hyūga Hiashi was a ‘good man’ - or even a 'bad man’ - this scene might look different. But Hinata does not know what Naruto is looking for when he says these things, and she is afraid she couldn’t give it to him anyway.
Because Hinata cannot say whether Hiashi was a good man or not, only that he was a man. He was their Head of House, and now he is not. He was her father, and now he is not. He was alive, and now he is not.
He was all these things once, and now he is not.
And perhaps that is what it means to be a man. Perhaps that’s all there is.
Hinata pats Naruto’s hand comfortingly, and turns to receive the next condolences in line.
