IV

9th day of training

Hinata felt the ache all over her body, she had definitely broken a rib again and probably also sprained her left ankle. Sasuke sat next to her and looked completely unbothered, as if nothing had happened.

She looked down at her ankle that she was wrapping up and let out a small sigh. Uchiha Sasuke clearly was on a completely different level than her. Naruto and Sasuke were practically gods compared to other shinobis.

And she thought that she could be a partner with one of them…

"Are you already giving up?" the Uchiha spoke all of a sudden.

Hinata looked up at him through her mask, "What? N-no! I just…"

"Then stop sulking."

A wind blew through the training grounds, cooling the sweat on her back and forehead. She dropped it, and decided to unpack her breakfast instead. That morning she had not gotten enough time to make a bento box so she had just grabbed a few cinnamon buns on her way out the door.

She glanced at Sasuke again, he never brought any food with him.

"Do you want some?" she asked and offered him a bun.

Sasuke looked at it and scoffed, "I don't eat sweets."

"Oh…" Hinata said in defeat and took a bite of the cinnamon bun beneath her mask, "They're my favorite."

Before she could hear anything he looked to a bush next to them, out of it a black cat with a white tipped tail strut calmly over to them. It was pretty small, so it was probably not an adult yet. It went straight to Sasuke and pushed its body up against him.

"Is the cat yours?" Hinata asked, curiously. This little cat was the single most brave being that she had ever encountered.

"No."

"He seems to like you," she stated.

"She. I just give it some of my leftovers sometimes," he said, casually. It seemed very out of character for him to do such a thing, almost kind. She would have assumed that he would think of stray cats like pests.

"She's cute," she said and held out a hand for the little cat to sniff. The young cat looked at it a bit cautiously before she made up her mind and contently let herself be pet, but she quickly went back to Sasuke afterwards, he did not even look at the cat.

"What's her name?" she asked, wishing that she had brought some tuna or something to give to the cat.

"I don't know," he said, dismissively.

She looked at him then, his eyes focused on something in the distance that was not there with the cat continuously stroking her body up against his legs. Of course, he would not have named the cat.

"Cinnamon?" she said as a suggestion, taking another bite of her bun just to make a point.

"No," he said, almost sounding offended by her suggestion, "It doesn't need a name, it's a cat."

"Cats are proud beings, you shouldn't call her an 'it'," she said, surprising herself a little bit with her strike of reckless courage.

"You can name the cat whatever you want," he said, finally he stroked the purring cat with a rough hand, "Just don't name her after anything sweet."

12th day of training

She had legitimately broken a leg this training session and had almost passed out. It had sounded like a dry twig being broken in half and whenever she looked down she could see how it pointed out of place.

"We'll take a short break" Sasuke said.

Hinata could have scoffed at him.

Beads of sweat were beginning to form on her forehead and at the back of her neck. Her bone had to be pressing up against a bundle of nerves or something because she felt ready to faint at any second. She pushed slightly on her leg where the bone was broken in half, with her Byakugan she could see how it would not be too difficult to fix but she would need some help to do it.

She mustered up all her courage to be able to say the following question, "Can you help me… please?"

Sasuke looked at her, trying to see if this was just some secret motive of hers, then he looked down at the already discolored spot on her leg were it was broken.

"I just need you to hold my leg so that the bone is in the right position," she informed him, trying to reassure him that she had no ulterior motives.

Hinata could see the switch in his face when he decided to help her without saying so much as a word. He walked over to her and kneeled down in front of her, he looked down at her leg cautiously, as if it could jump off and bite him at any second.

Hinata clenched her jaw and pushed the bone so it was in the right place. "Just hold it still right... there."

His hand took over the spot hers had been at on her calf, it was large and firm on her skin. Contrary to her previous beliefs, the Uchiha actually had very warm skin. She had always imagined that the Uchiha clan would have cold skin, like the people in her own clan had. But at the moment she would have preferred it if he had had cold hands.

Sasuke looked anywhere but at her, and the air was thick and filled with awkwardness. Should she say something? It was not like she had let him drop kick her leg just so that he would have to touch her later.

"You break too easily," he said, suddenly, just slightly above a whisper.

Hinata jerked her eyes up at him, he was looking down at her bruised leg. What was the proper response for a statement like that? Well, she surely did not know.

Twenty minutes or so later she was done and wrapped up her calf, she would not be able to put any weight on it for at least two days, but it had been a clean break so it would heal fine.

"We're done for today," Sasuke informed and packed up his things and quickly left the training ground. Hinata sat still, looking in front of her, thinking to herself that it would have been nice of him if he could have helped her up from the ground before he left.

13th day of training

"Please accept this as my gratitude for your help," She handed over a bento box to Sasuke. He looked at it for a moment before accepting it without a word – hopefully her cooking was not as lethal as Sakura's was.

He looked down at her leg. She barely put any weight on it and it had clearly not healed completely yet.

"Don't be dumb. No training today," Sasuke said and sat down with her bento.

He would never say it out loud, but he had gone too far with her the day before. He had been frustrated with her because she had managed to shut off multiple tenketsu points in his arm and one in his left shoulder. When he thought that he had easily blocked one of her attacks she had managed to shut off another tenketsu point. She did not even need physical strength to be able to hurt him if she wanted to. She had made him heated and so he had been careless with her. A couple of years ago it would not have bothered him even in the slightest, but now he was trying to change. Maybe he was not a good person yet, but drop kicking his potential future partner, making her break her leg, was not something that even an okay person did.

The woman next to him looked down at the bento box that he had opened and started eating from in his lap.

"Is it good?" She asked, curiously.

"Shouldn't you know if your own food is good?"

She halted before she put a piece of eggroll in her mouth, thinking of a response. "I know what I like, but you might not like it."

"If I don't like something I won't eat it," he said without even looking up from his food and continued eating.

When Sasuke was done he had not left even a single grain of rice.

"Can I watch you while you spar?" she asked when he stood up from his spot next to her. He looked down at her, so she quickly elaborated. "I-I have nowhere else to be today and I'm sure that I could learn a lot from you by just watching."

She was fidgeting with her chopsticks until she grasped them tightly.

"Fine," he said.

Hinata stared at the back of his retrieving body. She felt like she could learn a lot from simply watching him move when she was not being attacked by him. Although he was clearly an extremely dangerous being, she could not help but think that there was something beautiful in the way he moved; so precise and smooth. Every move and turn of his body leading to the next in something akin to a deadly dance. When they were sparring all she could think of was how to avoid getting hit by it, and maybe get in a hit herself, but now from a distance he looked like a lethal weapon in a human form. And to think that he was not even using all of his strength made even just the thought of him send a shiver down her spine - just another reason to respect him.

He only fought against his shadow clones for about an hour, after that he just did a bunch of core exercises and it felt weird for the young woman to look at him doing that, it was not like she did not know how to do a pull up or push up. But it would be worse if she left then, she had asked if she could watch him, so to just leave then would be a bit rude.

Sasuke sweat easily, so he had a tendency to remove his upper garments whenever they would practice together. His physique was not something she had time to admire when she was doing her best to get away from it. Hinata had a faint set of abs on her, but compared to him they would look about as sharp as a stack of marshmallows. Meanwhile on him, it looked like someone had carved out each and every one of his muscles.

Not until after he was done did she realize that she had stared at his body like some lunatic for way too long and quickly put her mask back on and stood up.

"I need to go, I have a thing… I forgot about. I'll see you tomorrow, Uchiha-san." Hinata said, desperately trying to sound casual and failing miserably.

Sasuke just quirked an eyebrow slightly before he wiped his sweaty face off with his towel.

"Tomorrow's a Sunday." He said and there was a glint of something in his visible eye that Hinata could not look at for too long.

"Oh… You're right. Then I'll see you on Monday." She said, still unbelievably embarrassed by the fact that she had looked at him the way she had.

17th day of training

To bring two bentos with her was something Hinata did naturally now, Sasuke had not complained so far (but there was that one time when he had left almost all his nattō behind so she stopped making that for him.)

"You're slow" he said during their break.

"I know…" in her old team she had been second when it came to speed out of Shino, Kiba and her. And Sasuke was really not comparable with them so she could imagine that she looked like a slug next to him.

"And your knife throwing skills are a disappointment, to say the least."

Hinata felt the urge to sink down into the underground.

"I'll help you, if you even become half as good as me you'll be lethal with shuriken and kunais," Sasuke janked her elbow to make her stand in front of him, not too close, still outside his comfort zone. But it had definitely shrunk because Hinata was immediately on high alert. "The target is never simply what you see. But you know that already."

"I can see all targets," she said with a slight pride as she was just about to take a shuriken from the pouch on her thigh.

"Not all, thinking that you do is your biggest weakness," he took half a step forward, Hinata froze, Sasuke was close enough for her to smell the sweat off his body, she could barely even register what he said next. "Take off your mask."

Hinata nodded her head before she could even think twice about it, her heart was practically beating out of her chest. She lifted up two shaking hands to her mask and fumbled with the knot in the back. She could hear the unzipping of his pouch and soon something was being tied around her head to cower her eyes. He leaned in with his mouth to tie the knot.

He gave her a shuriken. "Throw it."

"Wha-what?" she barely even remembered where the target were at anymore, and to hit it? Blindfolded?

"Use your other senses instead," she could feel his electric presence disappear as he stepped away from her. "You rely too much on your eyes, it's hindering more than aiding at this point."

So, Hinata listening to his advice, threw the shuriken in the direction she thought the target were at. A miss, she could tell because of the low thud it made when it hit the grass. She quickly threw another one, this one with a bit more force. The thud it made when it connected with a tree stump made her extremely excited.

"Am I close?" She asked, feeling hopeful.

"Not at all." He said and she could hear him scoff quietly. Did he find this amusing?

She threw another one. It made a swooshing sound before it landed somewhere further down in the forest.

Time felt like a strange concept when you were blind folded, and after what felt like a whole day had gone by, with very little progress, Sasuke had decided that she should spar with him as well. Which felt like a terrible idea to Hinata since she could barely even get close to him when she could see him, and now she was supposed to do it blind folded?

Although he could not see her entire face, he still got to see more than he had before.

Now, he could see how full her cheeks were - tinged with red. He could see that she had a small button nose, red color matching that of her cheeks. He could see how her thin brows were in a slight frown of concentration as she did her best to avoid the onslaught of his light jabs.

And her lips.

"Put your mask back on."

AN: No excuses, just sorry for this delayed update. Hopefully the amount of interaction makes up for it a little bit.

24/06-2020 update: I am currently working on this. Unfortunately all my work got deleted. There will be a re-imagining of this story that will be devided into three long parts. I will save this somewhere so that you will still be able to read it.

Thank you for being patient.

Take care.