The sun lowered slowly to the water's edge, touching the gentle film of blue with delicate burning fingers, setting the lake alight. Water lapped the embankment in front of you as shadows scurried to and fro across the surface from the trees blotting the horizon.

Pollen itched at your eyes and nose from the reeds rustling dryly at the waterside, their leaves bleached from exposure to the sun. Bone-white like a mirage of skeletons.

Hinata exhaled quietly beside you, picking daisies from the grass around him and threading them into a crown, like you used to do as children. You'd make each other flower chains and crowns and bracelets and pretend to be royalty. You were always his Queen. But thinking about that now only seemed silly. Childish ideals and fantasies.

He let out a frustrated growl as the flower in his hand snapped suddenly, petals drifting solemnly in the wind, getting caught in a spider's web that had been strung between the reeds, glinting silver gossamer threads. You looked away from him.

"Pretty sunset," you commented, setting down the blade of grass you were fiddling with and laying back to stare up at the sky. "Don't you think?"

"Mhmm."

You rolled onto your front and crawled over to him, resting your chin on your hands as you watched him thread the last daisy and complete the chain. "Hey, c'mere."

With a childish grin, you sat up and let him tuck the crown into your hair, the daisy stalks tickling your head. "Real cute," you said with a chuckle, patting the top of your head to make sure it stayed there.

Hinata smiled too, but you had to look away from it because it wasn't the smile you remembered. That smile was long gone, just like the old Hinata. Because something had changed. It was like something inside him had broken and you had no chance of fixing it, no chance of getting the old him back. You just had to accept that people changed, sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse. Whatever happened, you had to make the best of it, or you risked losing them altogether.

"Natsu used to love making daisy chains."

"She did, didn't she? I remember we always used to make crowns and take it in turns to be the King and Queen," you added, leaning over and resting your head on his shoulder. His body stiffened slightly, then his arm went around your waist and held you closer. You could feel the heat radiating off his skin, the fragrance of his breath dancing along your forehead. "We used to come here a lot when we were younger. Shame we stopped. It's peaceful."

You imagined Hinata didn't have much peace in his life anymore. Troubled by an uncertain, bleak future, still clinging onto his past. His head was a graveyard of memories he couldn't let go of, dreams that haunted him in the form of reality, a living nightmare. Grief wasn't a peaceful process. It was exhausting and chaotic.

"We should head back soon. Your mum will be worrying."

— ♠ —

"I wonder what his family think."

"Who's family?" You asked, already knowing the answer. You were both sat on Hinata's bed, his head resting on your shoulder as he looked through a scrapbook, the same one you'd taken away from him on the morning of Natsu's memorial.

"The man who killed my little sister." He spoke with such powerful hatred that you felt a chill touch the base of your neck, just ever so slightly, but enough to put you on edge.

He had a page open with her first school photo. Her hair was untidy and her uniform was askew but she had the brightest smile you'd ever seen, one that took over the whole face, made her eyes shine like stars. "I think they'd be... grieving too. Over the loss of their own son, over the loss of Natsu, over their disappointment of what he did. They're the only ones left to face the backlash."

A tragedy.

That's what they'd called it.

An unfortunate tragedy. An accident.

Reckless driver. Perhaps he was a drunk, or driven by road rage, or just blind-sighted at the wrong time.

But Natsu Hinata's death had been a tragedy.

It was all over the local news, only hours after it had happened. Hinata and his family were already at the hospital by then, sobbing over the body of the nine year old girl. The one who died too young.

"Well I hope they suffer for it," Hinata muttered, taking you by surprise.

"You don't really mean that-"

"I do, [F/N]. I really do," he corrected, "I'm suffering. Why shouldn't they?"

You looked down, unsure of what to say. Hinata was always so kind and laidback. Now he seemed callous in a way. Cold. Like Natsu's death had stolen all of the warmth out of him.

You turned your attention instead to the scrapbook again, flipping over the page and finding a photo of yourself, smiling lopsidedly at the camera with your eyes closed. It had only been taken around a year ago but you couldn't remember where you had been.

A few more photos of you were dotted amongst the others. "When did you do all this?"

Hinata shrugged. "During my time off school, I guess."

"Photographs are always a good way of remembering someone."

"Yeah, at least photographs don't change. At least they don't leave you," Hinata added bitterly.

Photographs don't change. But the people in them do, you thought quietly, biting the corner of your thumb. Hinata was starting to unsettle you with this sudden resentment to the world. You wanted to show him that not everything was over; that not everything had to be painful if he learned to see past the darkness clouded him. Every rainy day came to an end.

"I'm going to go and make us some tea," you suggested, almost tripping over your own feet in your rush to stand up. "I'll be right back." You left before he could say anything else, anxious to escape the thickening tension.

Shouyou's mother was in the kitchen when you went down, staring through the window that afforded a view of the front garden and the street beyond. Her eyes were glazed with that sort of look that people got when they were lost somewhere in the past, struggling to keep themselves grounded, anchored to the present. Her head was a graveyard of memories she was mourning for, wishing they were real again. It was a look you saw often on Shouyou's face, when a certain place or smell would trigger a sudden memory and he'd lose all grip on reality, transported to those dark skies in his head, unmapped places you were too scared to explore on your own.

"Oh, [L/N]-San," she exclaimed when she noticed you stood there, clutching her chest, "you made me jump." You gave her an apologetic smile and she gestured vaguely through the window. "I think the grass could do with a good cut, don't you?" She said with a vague chuckle, not quite humourless, but lacking... something. "Can I get you anything?"

"I was just going to make Hinata some tea."

Her face brightened slightly. "Ah, I'm sure he'll appreciate that... You're a good friend to him, [L/N], you know," she said with a smile. "How... how is he? I haven't been able to really sit down and talk to him since... since it happened. He always shuts himself up in his room. Only seems to come out when you're here."

You set the kettle to boil over the stove as she sat at the table, her thin, slender frame seeming much too small in the big space of the kitchen. "He's.. I don't know really, he's taking it hard. That's to be expected. But... he's different," you said carefully as you drew mugs cups from the cupboard, moving with the ease as if it was your own home.

"He is, isn't he," his mother agreed sullenly, her body folding in on itself, making her look smaller, as if she wanted to curl up and disappear. "Sometimes I feel like I barely even know him anymore. My own son! He used to be so happy, so full of life. But I barely even notice when he walks into the room anymore. It's like he's... a shadow."

The spoon clattered out of your hand, loud as it struck the edge of the cup. You swallowed past the lump in your throat and turned around. "He might have changed, but he's still your son. You're all the family he has, you won't lose him."

She gave a shaky laugh, dabbing the corners of her eyes. "You're right. He's still Shouyou."

You smiled, trying to convince yourself that what she was saying was true. "Yes, he's still Shouyou."

A/N — Too much description? Not enough story progress? Seems about right for my fanfics. But don't worry, there shall be drama (and murder) soon enough...