Japanese Military Support Base

Naruto

The shower was more than needed. The long day my team and I had along with some of the soldiers... that cold water felt really nice pounding against more sore muscles. I only need to do this for another two days. I can do this... I already survived more than half. I can do this!

I never realized how quiet the base got and how awfully boring it was with no Kazuki cracking some stupid joke or running around playing pranks on us or Hinata checking patients in the medicure alongside a lot of other familiar faces. Mina emotionlessly handing me reports and ignores me whenever I'm trying to make conversation. The drama between Hisao and Hanako...

With us leaving, more soldiers and medics came over for their time here in Eskon so the base isn't empty. It felt empty...since none of my friends (except my team) were really here to make life interesting.

Just two more days. No wait, this day has already ended.

Hell yeah! One more!

My phone started vibrating on the sink counter. Wrapping my towel around my waist, I headed over and picked it up without looking.

"Hello?"

"Help me, Naruto-kun!" Hinata's voice rang in my ears.

My blood ran cold. My brain screamed for me to jump on the helicopter and somehow fly all the way back to Tokyo to save her.

Dammit, is it Nagato?!

"What happened?!" I asked frantically, one of my legs already through my shorts. "Are you okay? Is Hajime okay?! Hinata!"

"Hajime won't take his nap and it's almost noon," she said, her voice strained with tiredness. 

You have no idea how relieved I felt.

"You should never start a phone call out with a very loud 'help me'," I pulled my shirt over my head. "I get way too paranoid."

Especially with Nagato slipping in and out of countries undetected but I didn't tell her that.

"Sorry," my girlfriend said. "Hajime is still a little jet-lagged, I think."

"Don't you start work in about half an hour?" I closed the bathroom door behind me.

"T-that's why I need him to nap!"

"Who's going to be watching him?"

"Sakura, Ino and Mina are," she replied, then I heard the door shut followed by a sharp yell. "But their only requirement for babysitting is that he sleep most of the time."

I sat down on my bed, "At least they're doing it for free."

"Y-yeah right. I'm buying drinks later tonight."

"Hey," I stood up suddenly. "Don't get too drunk and let some random guy at the bar take you, home alright? I'll be home in a day so -"

"Naruto-kun," she giggled cutely through the phone. "I won't let anybody into our house unless you know them, alright?"

"Good," I couldn't help but smile; noticing she said our home in the sentence. "So you've settled in then?"

"Yeah," the doctor sighed heavily. "It took a day or so but Kazuki, Hisao and a few of the soldiers that came back with us helped so the moving ended up being faster than expected."

Who got to go home early anyway? I was too busy worrying about how much I'd miss Hinata that I completely forgot which of my soldiers got to leave. I need to check the roster and see...

The sound of a doorbell echoed through the end of Hinata's phone followed by her shouting something at it.

"Hey, I gotta go, Naruto-kun," my girlfriend said quickly into the phone. "Wait, one more thing!"

"What's up?"

"When you get back," she started. "Y-you actually have come down to town hall."

"Why do I have to do that?"

"S-sign some papers," Hinata continued. "Officially make Hajime our s-son."

Oh that's right! Loving that little rascal isn't enough to make him my own son. 

Noooo... we still need to fill out a shitload of paperwork to make it official.

"Understood, ma'am," I blew a kiss through the phone. Wow...did I really just do that? "Tell Hajime that his daddy misses him. I'll see you both soon. Love you both so much."

I could feel her smile through the phone, "And we both love you so much, too."

I hung up seconds later, my eyes still lingering on the phone.

Hinata told me a few days ago that she really wanted to visit my little special spot once more before we left but we just never really got the time. The last week or so when she was still here with her team, they were busy packing up and wrapping up all examination on the Eskon patients so we barely even had time to ourselves. Every night when we'd be in my room to talk about this and that, she'd always be the one with her eyes slowly closing with every single word slurred.

I have a day left in this country.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Hinode General Hospital

Hinata

"One more stitch," Burying the tip of the needle through the patients skin one last time, I couldn't help but restrain myself from wiping the sweat that was covering my brow from the five hour surgery.

Finally, "Success." I dropped all equipment for the nurses attending to the surgery with me to clean up.

Claps echoed through the entire room as well as from the glass booth filled with  older doctors and professors from universities all around the world that had come to witness the open heart surgery of replacing the heart valves of a patient with heart murmur performed by Hinode General Hospital's now elite team of surgeons.

Dr. Hisao Shizuma, Dr. Hanako Miyahima, Dr. Minako Soga, Dr. Kazuki Yasuda, and yours truly: Dr. Hinata Hyuga.

The five of us, hands covered with blood all waved at the important people before exiting the room to clean up. I personally needed only food since the last meal I ate was at six in the morning before having to drive Hajime all the way to Sakura's and Sasuke's place the next town over so she could watch him.

All I ate was literally an apple. I was afraid some of the important old people could've heart my stomach growl from their seats.

I slumped down on the bench just outside the hospital in the courtyard. I sucked in two breaths then released giant clouds of frozen carbon dioxide back into the air. After lunch, I have to go and greet the new doctors that have just been recruited in the three months that we were away. 

Well, I better get going then. I need some food otherwise the dying whale sounds would only scare the new doctors away.

My team was already at their seats getting ready to eat when I entered the lunchroom. A tray of rice and teriyaki chicken waiting at my empty seat.

"Did you go out and get hit by a bus or something?" Mina greeted me as I fell back into my seat again. 

I pulled the collar of my light purple scrub up to cover my nose for a bit, "Hello to you, too."

"Is it Hajime?" Hisao-senpai scooped up a spoonful of steam rice. 

I nodded, "He misses Naruto-kun so he cries all night sometimes. Last night was one of them."

"That's..." Kazuki scrunched his face up a bit, thinking. "Three nights in the past seven days, right?"

"Just a-about."

"Well, you're lucky we were there then," Hanako-senpai smirked. "Otherwise the poor patient would be walking around with his chest open for everybody to see."

Yeah, after the surgery I completely forgot that we had to stitch the patient up altogether. If it weren't for Hanako-senpai, I would've walked out of there yelling success without closing him up.

"Does Captain come back today?" Kazuki asked, munching on his chicken.

I shrugged, eating some of my own chicken, "Today is the estimated day of his team's return."

"I miss Captain," Mina suddenly said, causing us all to choke on whatever we had in our mouths.

"Why you?" Hanako-senpai asked with a raised eyebrow.

Mina looked straight at Kazuki who was sitting across from her with his own eyes down in his food, "Because."

"Because what?" Kazuki suddenly demanded with a voice that made the three bystanders flinch with confusion.

The younger doctor looked at her comrade, not fazed at all, "Why? Jealous?"

That threw him back, but the angry wolf bit back, "So what if I am?"

What is happening here? Besides some of the half naked girls in magazines, Dr. Kazuki Yasuda has never (even once) expressed any interest in females that he could actually get. Yes, I will admit Kazuki is attractive but he's younger than me and I already have a sexy beast of my own. All the other female nurses, however, have all tried to ask him out. Well, at least the ones that have striked out with Hisao-senpai.

I just thought he wasn't interested or his standard are pretty high...

Never in a million years did I think he and Mina.

But once again, Hanako-senpai, Hisao-senpai and I could only watch silently at the weird little showdown going on between Mina and Kazuki.

"So you are jealous..." Mina drank some water before setting her cup down silently, eyeing the cup and not her comrade. "What does that have to do with me?"

My eyes swung over to Kazuki to see his reaction.

His reaction is just what we expected.

Hurt.

"I see," the usually cheerful doctor suddenly stood up, pushing his chair back with his tray in hand. 

I've seen Kazuki hurt once before and that was when he failed the MCAT examine to get into his once dream school: Columbia. But he recovered pretty quickly after that.

But unless Mina completely changed her blunt and clueless personality, I have a feeling Kazuki is going to be hurt much longer than not getting into an Ivy League college.

Once he was out of earshot, the three of us snapped at her in unison, "What was that for?!"

Of course, Dr. Minako Soga has no idea what was happening.

"What was what for?"

All three twitched in anger before we shouted, "Idiot!"

'''''''''''''''''''

Later that day

Kazuki wandered off somewhere but he did come back in time for our little speeches to the new group of doctors about an hour later. The hurt that was so visible earlier was gone but hints of it remained when he saw Minako mindlessly sliding the candies on her screen without a single care in the world. 

Since Hanako-senpai and Hisao-senpai were the third years, they got to get their speeches over with first. I would've been next but I'm still the leader for some damned reason. So here I am: stuck in complete awkwardness between two of my juniors. All I could do was help Minako get to the next level.

However when it was her turn to enter the conference room, I started the conversation with Kazuki with one simple word.

"When?"

He chuckled lightly, "That's a good question."

"So I take it for a while now."

"The only thing I can tell you is that it might've been a few years before we met you, Hina-senpai."

"That's over a decade," I raised an eyebrow. 

"It has, hasn't it?" He leaned back, taking his hands out of his lab coat to cross them across his chest. "Who would've thought the great Kazuki Yasuda would like a single woman for so long."

"Love," I corrected.

"Love?"

"Yeah," I smiled. "Like is for when you are still a boy. Kazuki, you are a man now so if you've 'l-liked' a woman for so long, it's most likely that you've fallen in love with her."

"I love Minako..." the doctor said the words as if trying to get them familiar on his own tongue. "But it doesn't matter if I do or if I don't. She doesn't see me that way."

My heart ached for his. Kazuki turned away, trying to hide his hurt that came back like a brick to his face. I wanted to say something but I don't think anytime I say would change his mind right now. 

All I could do was gently reach up and pat his head a few times to help ease his pain.

The door opened slowly, catch both our attention. The woman responsible for making the cheerful man feel down poked her head out and called him in. Kazuki blinked once before shaking his head and following her in without another word.

I wasn't left alone for too long. Maybe a minute or so but it was long enough for me to think about the situation that the idiot doctor got himself into with the most clueless person on the face of this planet. 

And here I thought Naruto was the only one that was completely clueless back then.

"Hina-senpai," Mina's voice brought me back to reality. "Your turn."

I nodded once, walking through the small door opening she provided for me. My speech wasn't anything special. It was just to welcome and make the newbies a little more comfortable since I'm pretty sure Hanako-senpai probably threatened them with something already. I walked to the podium, adjusted the microphone so it fit my height and cleared my throat.

But the moment I looked into the crowd of ten or so doctors, one particular feature from one of the female doctors caught my eye.

I opened my mouth but froze where I was; not a single sound came out.

Her own face was twisted into absolute shock as well.

The red hair, the glasses, the piercing red eyes.

"K-Karin..." I managed.

"Shit," was the only thing she could say.