He's loud, brash, and utterly fallible – and Hinata decides that in the end, that's why she loves him.

It's not that she's living vicariously through him, not quite. But she can't be loud – she hasn't the nerve for it. She can't be that brash, with the duties of a future head of the Hyuuga family hanging over her. And with both the real and imagined glowers of her father following her, she definitely can't fail, not once!

But for him it's easy. He shouts where she stutters, rages where she wants to do nothing more than hide, falls but immediately gets back up again when she'd still be on the ground. If she was the worst student in their class she'd certainly have died from embarrassment, having failed her father and her family and her village and multitudes of people she hadn't even met yet – but he isn't even fazed.

She follows him sometimes, watching, reveling in his freedom and learning to see through his eyes. Failure isn't a threat with him, apparently. At first it's not even a thought; it's utter nonsense. But if it catches up with him, then it's only a stumbling block. Then he's off again: sneaking around the women's bathhouses, terrorizing the Hokage, excitedly breaking out strange new techniques to the admonishment of those around him.

If he knew about her attentiveness, she might be horrified, might just be distraught enough to will the ground to open up and swallow her. But he doesn't; so Hinata can watch, and on some level she can understand. But when it comes to acting out in the same way, she's crippled.

Outwardly, she's as they expect: quiet, shy, stammering her responses to rhetorical questions through yet another lecture on her responsibilities as her family's heir. Inwardly, though, she's him. She throws away all decorum and jumps on the table, she points, she shouts, she accuses, and everyone around her is shocked into wonderful, awed silence.

But she could never do that.

But maybe, maybe, one day... He could be there to help her with her fears, could be the voice she doesn't have. It'd be easier to be strong if he was there to encourage her. It'd be effortless later, when they were older and she'd had the time and space to relocate the backbone he'd encouraged her to show during her fight with Neji. And maybe, once she's become the head of the family and he's become Hokage, maybe...

Maybe later. Maybe then. And until then...

Until then.

There's a little ongoing conversation she holds with him, in the comfortable, safe place that is her own mind. It's not frightening to talk there; there's no stuttering, no time, nothing but the way her imaginary words flow as she pictures him smiling and paying attention, not demanding that she train harder or work faster, or chiding her about drifting off during those family lectures...

Startled back to the present, she looks up to meet her father's troubled gaze. "This is neither the time nor place for daydreams, Hinata. Save them for later."

Until then, Hinata reminds herself.

She smiles, her father scowls, and she thinks that maybe she is getting somewhere.