Please understand the referances.

Words Worth Nothing and Everything

"It's so romantic!" One of the courtier's cooed somewhere near his knee, but Shikamaru ignored her. Instead he stared at Chouji with blank eyes, as the chef turned to look back at him sheepishly. It was as if he was saying 'sorry, I couldn't help myself!', and it made Shikamaru's eyes roll.

"It's ridiculous," he snapped out easily, quieting down the chatter of the courtiers around them. He looked away from Chouji, only to catch Hinata's eyes... the Priestess still looked loopy, as if she had been drugged. But she was smiling like a woman in love. And that usually that meant that she was up to something.

"Ne... why would it be ridiculous, Shikamaru-dono?" the pale-eyed girl sang, her words more coherant than they had been.

"I just don't see why every girl who hears that story goes weak in the knees because it's romantic," he explained sourly, a frown marring his lips. As if those two could've ever been romantic... they were only 7! "Especially when they then turn around and and gawk over Sasuke and want to be with him... the two ideas are mutually exclusive."

"The story is romantic, idiot," Sakura's voice sounded from the other side of Hinata. "But seeing as no one knows if it's true or not, there's no reason to get upset about some fictional girl who hasn't been seen in god knows-"

"The story is nonsense," Shikamaru interrupted. A groan of voices followed, and the courtiers muttered to each other about how he was constantly being ellusive over the story. Honestly... if you had seen how often the two of them fought one another... the fact that they call one another 'friend' is a complete mystery to me.

"But is it true?"

It was Hinata who spoke. Her crystal clear voice rung high above everyone elses, stunning the room into an awed silence. Shikamaru turned to look at the priestess sitting beside him, a soft smile gracing her lips: he narrowed his eyes at her. "The past is the past, Hinata."

Her smile grew, causing her eyes to shimmer in her happiness. What are you up to, Hinata? "So it is, Shikamaru-dono... so it is." Standing up gracefully she moved through the group of courtiers, who parted around her easily to let the priestess pass. Shikamaru watched her go, her dress swaying with her movements as she made her way across the room, still speaking to him from over her shoulder. "I don't think that I'm going to be at dinner tonight, Shikamaru-dono... preperations and what not."

-

Shino stood in the shadows of the Hinata's tower, waiting patiently. It was something he could do all day if needed, but he knew that his pale-eyed priestess would return to him when she was ready.

Hinata, he thought to himself, exhaling slowly. He made sure to deplete his lungs entirely of air before inhaling, and shut his eyes to his thoughts. Why do you plague me so? Leaning back against the stairs, Shino pushed the hood off of his head to reveal his dark hair to the darkened stairwell; even though it was still early in the afternoon, the tower was dark. It's window-less tructure seemed to curse the light as if it were a demon sent from hell to harm his priestess.

My Priestess? He questioned himself with a laugh, the sound echoing in the silence. Since when have I been so possessive? But he knew the answer to that question, beyond a shadow of a doubt. He had grown possessive of Hinata before he had even met her.

Shino was born and raised in a little village on the very outskirts of the country, between a forest of song birds and a meadow of butterflies. As a child he spent his time alone, finding creatures and insects to bring home to show to his grandmother, the only person in his young life who cared and raised for him. Everytime he brought something home she would smile and examine it, and teach him about whatever little thing he had found. It was one day, when he was still too much a child to tell the times of the year, that he stumbled into his grandmothers arms with a delicate creature cupped in his hands.

The day was eternally etched into his memory.

Careful, she had told him. Her wrinkled face smiled at him, her body encased in long foldes of fabric as she hugged him close. Butterflies were delicate, she explained to him, coaxing her grandson into freeing the creature from his hands. He had, though reluctantly. And that made her smile even brighter.

And then she told him a story. A story that a fortune teller had told her years ago when she had been a young woman in love, about the common things between every child she would raise. All of them would be poor, all of them would be guarded, and all of them would be alone until they met the person who called them. As a young woman his grandmother had thought the words sad and troublesome, but with the wisdom of the years behind her she remembered the story more fondly.

His father had been like that, she told him. His father had been poor, barely making two coins to rub together in the time it would take a commoner to make a week's worth in meals. And his father had been guarded, his view of the world jaded with how he had been treated all his life. And his father had been alone... until, of course, he met Shino's mother.

I never thought grandmother was serious, he mused, opening his hazy green eyes to look at the cold stones of the tower walls. But he couldn't help but remember his childhood, living in a poor and desolite village. Or how his heart had become guarded against friends and family, even his beloved grandmother. Or how he had always been alone...

Until he met Hinata.

He came to the village on a whim, having left his home when his grandmother died just months prior. Wondering through the grassy hills, not knowing where he was or where he was going, he had seen a butterfly. Remembering that day, so long ago it seemed, when his grandmother had told him about butterflies and a calling love... following the creature's wings with his eyes, he was lead towards the village. But before he even entered the gates, he saw the thing that would change his life forever. She was so beautiful that day.

She had been waiting, sitting outside the gates and looking at him expectantly; Neji had stood behind her with a scowl, annoyed at having to dally about with his younger cousin. But she hadn't cared.

A whisper sounded in the back of his mind, like a trace of wind in one's dreams. He stood up gracefully, eyes turned towards the stairwell entrance. And not a moment later did she walk through, as if she had been poised outside waiting for his thoughts to come to that exact moment in their past.

"Shino," Hinata mumbled, sleep lacing her voice even though he knew she was wide awake.

"Hinata," he called out to her, thinking about that day.

She smiled, as if knowing. "Were you waiting for me..?"

You say that, Shino exhaled slowly, completely depleting his lungs of air before he inhaled again. Just as I had asked you a year ago, when we first met. "No," he parodied. "You were waiting for me."

Hinata closed her eyes, her smile becoming that much sweeter as tears brimmed her eyes. Stepping forwards, he wrapped his arms around her. Why must either of us wait any longer? "I'm still waiting, Shino-kun..." she folded herself against his chest. "Waiting for everything. But it will all come crashing to an end so very, very soon..."

His heart beated next to her's, wings fluttering in his stomach as he looked down at her blushing face. Yes... crashing to an end. The air he worked so hard to pushing in and out of his lungs slowly hitched in his throat, his mind drifting to not-so-innocent places. Reluctantly, he moved away from her touch. But we are still waiting now, making these actions that I crave to do inappropriate to push onto her.

"There's never enough time anymore," Hinata muttered, seemingly uneffected by their intimate moment. She drifted past him easily, climbing the stairs to her tower. "There used to be more time than I knew what to do with..."

He followed her, taking slow and easy steps behind her ones. Just call for me, Hinata, and I will give you all the time in the world.