Kaito closed the shop after that.
Right now he was sitting on the counter with Hinata sitting on his lap.
She was wearing one of Kaito’s nightshirts that hung wide on the shoulders and short on the thighs; the dark fabric clung to her still-damp chest and didn’t quite cover the marks on her skin.
Her midnight-blue hair was gathered up with a pin. She was barefoot, feet dangling, knees together with that useless discipline of someone who has already opened her legs for this man and still tries to look decent.
Kaito wrapped his arms around her waist. He rested his chin on her shoulder and read along with her her favorite book.
“You really like this book.” He couldn’t help laughing.
Hinata nodded, blushing. Without saying a single word.
“Tell me how you feel after trying what you read in the book.”
Hinata lowered her gaze to his hands, crossed over her belly.
“Good,” she whispered.
Kaito kissed the edge of her ear. Hinata shrank a little from the embarrassment.
“Did you enjoy it?” Kaito asked suddenly.
Hinata covered her face with both hands. Her ears were burning.
Kaito pulled one wrist down.
“Don’t cover yourself. Talk.”
“I don’t know… how.”
“Start with what you liked.”
The silence stretched between them for a few seconds until Hinata finally spoke.
“When… you told me to look at you.” She began.
“Uh-huh…”
“And when… you did it from… behind.” Her voice was almost inaudible. “It made me embarrassed. But… I didn’t want you to stop.”
Kaito smiled against her hair.
“I know. You asked for it.”
“I didn’t want to ask for it.” Hinata covered her face again.
“And you asked anyway. That’s what’s incredible, Hinata-chan. The way it embarrasses you to want it and you want it anyway.”
Hinata let out a small sound, half laugh, half protest.
“Your books… are worse.” She said.
“Worse?” Kaito asked.
“Yes. They’re more… explicit. I used to read them and think nobody actually did that.”
Hearing this, Kaito couldn’t help remembering the first time this girl visited his bookstore.
He had opened the bookstore on a Tuesday morning. The new wooden sign still smelled of varnish. Konoha was full of mission footsteps and rumors about Akatsuki.
Hinata then came in like someone who had the wrong door.
She wore her characteristic coat buttoned too tightly for the season. Her hair fell damp down her back from having walked too fast.
Her pearl eyes ran over the spines with a clumsy eagerness, of a reader who has grown up among jutsu scrolls and suddenly discovers that other kinds of writing exist.
She stopped in front of the new arrivals table.
Her sensei had told them on the way back from a mission that her younger brother had opened a bookstore with a variety of interesting books.
And Hinata decided to go take a look.
In the section where she looked. There was a volume bound in dark cloth. No author’s name on the spine. Only a short title.
She opened it out of curiosity.
She spent several minutes reading until she reached a point where the color rose from her chest to her ears with an almost feverish violence.
She slammed the book shut, as if the pages could see her. She didn’t look up toward the counter. She left the volume exactly where it was, corners aligned, and left so fast the bell barely had time to complain.
Kaito had been left speechless.
But what left him even more speechless was that the next day she came back.
She arrived earlier. This time Hinata didn’t go toward the table. She went toward the same shelf, pretended to look for other books and only when she thought he was busy with an elderly customer did she stretch out her hand and take the dark-cloth book again.
This time she took it to the stool corner. She sat with her back too straight and read.
Kaito watched her over his glasses while attending to the old man.
What caught his attention was the way she bit the inside of her lip when a sentence got under her skin. The way she crossed and uncrossed her ankles. The tiny flush of heat that formed on her neck, right where her hair couldn’t cover it.
When volume III ran out, Hinata sat staring at the last page as if a door had been slammed in her face.
She closed the book and put it back on its shelf. Then she approached Kaito at the counter.
“Is there… a continuation?” She asked in a whisper.
“Tomorrow.” Kaito said, a little speechless.
He hadn’t expected this girl to take an interest in this kind of books.
After that day, she started coming more often.
She would come in, greet with a minimal bow, and lose herself among the back aisles.
Sometimes she bought poetry. Sometimes a minor history scroll. Almost always, when she thought he wasn’t looking, she turned her face toward the counter, looking at him slowly and with curiosity.
Wanting to ask something she still didn’t dare to ask.
Until one afternoon she approached him with her face completely red.
“I… I’m Hinata. Hinata Hyūga. I’m… a student of Kurenai-sensei. Your older sister… I mean… I just… came…”
The sentence fell apart in her mouth. She mixed up her clan, her teacher, Hanabi, herself. It was a complete mess.
Kaito let her talk. He rested his forearms on the counter with his head a little tilted until she finished.
“I know,” he said softly. “Hinata-chan.”
The ‘chan’ made Hinata tremble involuntarily. She tried to open her mouth but in the end said nothing. She only nodded.
The intense look Kaito gave her made her gasp silently. She felt as if he were undressing her with his eyes.
Just like it was described in the book she was reading when the male protagonist looked at the female protagonist.
Hinata then left with volume V pressed against her chest. As if that could cover her hard nipples that showed under her coat.
Days passed like that.
Hinata learned the hours when the shop stayed almost empty. She also learned his scent: paper, ink, a clean trace of flower soap and, underneath, something drier and warmer that slipped into her throat when she came close to ask something.
Volume VIII didn’t arrive at the shop that morning. Kaito told her while wrapping a book.
“The last volume isn’t here. It’s at my house. You have to wait until tomorrow. Otherwise you can come by my apartment in the afternoon. I live near the Hyūga compound.”
That afternoon. Kaito naturally wasn’t expecting her. So when he opened the door and saw her, he went stiff and speechless.
Hinata wasn’t wearing her characteristic shinobi outfit. Instead she wore a simple dark tunic.
“Come in.” Kaito said after processing this girl’s enthusiasm for his book. To the point of not being able to wait until tomorrow.
The apartment was narrow. It smelled of cedar, dry ink, and tea he had put on to heat just for himself.
There was a single desk lamp on in the back room. Shelves again, but these weren’t for customers.
Hinata took off her shoes and received a coolness upon entering fully that gave her goosebumps.
“Sit.” Kaito said.
She sat on the edge of the cushion, knees together and her hands on them.