SasuHina: Beyond The Camera

Chapter 17

My whole face felt stiff and dry when I woke in the morning. A groan left my lips as I rolled over to turn off my phone's alarm. There was a numbness where the ache had been in my chest last night. Perhaps my body was still trying to deal with the heavy emotions caused by Naruto.

With a sigh, I sat up and rubbed my sore eyes. I hadn't slept well at all.

At some point in the middle of the night, the true weight of my actions toward Sasuke hit me and that only added to the negative string of thoughts that circled my mind like a mantra. At the moment, I was so distraught that I selfishly lashed out, but now that I thought about it, his expression hadn't been guarded in the slightest until I pushed him. I'll be lucky if he considers me anything more than a professional acquaintance after this. Of course I'd go and offend him when he'd only just started to open up to me.

It took a lot of energy to shove my regretful thoughts to the back of my mind so I could focus on getting ready for the day. I'll have to find a way to apologize to both him and Gaara today. Something tells me the Uchiha boy won't accept it, but I still had to try.

A soft knock came at my door and I glanced over to see Sakura peek her head in. She spoke gently, like a mother tending to her sick child, "Hey, how'd you sleep?"

I croaked out some noise that reflected my current state of being and was surprised by how much it hurt, not to mention how hoarse it sounded. My sleepiness disappeared in an instant.

Her eyes widened and she entered the room the rest of the way, "Oh no!"

My hands both came up to touch my neck, fearing that trying to speak would only do more damage. Our live debut was less than a week away and my voice was gone.

She cupped my face with her hands for a moment with a panicked look on her face before quickly perking up, "I'll make you some hot tea! Get dressed."

My roommate hurried out of the room and I swallowed, wincing at the ache that followed. All that crying, not to mention yelling at Sasuke, had to be the cause.

Despite crying myself to sleep, the hurt emotions in my body still churned chaotically. Ten years is an awfully long time to idolize someone and having your admiration ripped into pieces in a matter of minutes would take a toll on even the strongest of persons. That being said, I'm not much of a strong person, so it was difficult for me to keep myself mentally distracted from thinking about the blonde boy who kissed me over and over again last night.

The list of things to stress about was getting longer and longer. I forced my body to go into auto-pilot and climbed out of bed. My head was aching. After showering, I joined Sakura in the kitchen where she handed me a to-go bottle of hot tea and then we headed out. I sipped the drink and let the warmness seep through my numb body. It was still too early for the hallway lights to be on, so we made our way to the elevator in a dimly-lit silence.

"Keep drinking that, Hinata, and don't talk unless you absolutely have to."

I did as she instructed with my lips in a worried frown, staring down at the floor as we walked. When we finally arrived in the music room, Jiraiya wasn't present. Instead, the others turned to watch us as we approached. I stayed a few steps behind my roommate.

With a sneak peek at Sasuke, I acknowledged that he was, indeed, angry. His jaw was set in a firm line and the expression on his face was even more guarded than the day we'd first met.

The Prestige boys, and Tenten, were sitting on the floor in a half-circle and we sat down to complete it. Once we were seated, Tenten directed her attention to me, "Hinata, first things first: How was the date? I want all the dirty little details!" I thought she was being unusually quiet, but she'd simply been holding it back until we were seated.