The sun was high overhead, warm and steady, slipping through the gaps in the trees that bordered the foothills beneath the Hokage Monument. Wind brushed through the tall grass, stirring up the scent of pine needles and dry dirt. Birds chirped lazily in the distance.
Haruki moved through the clearing, breathing hard.
His palms were scraped up again. His shirt stuck to his back with sweat, and his sandals had almost come off twice from all the sprinting.
He kept going anyway.
Push-ups until his arms gave out. Then get up, shake it off, and do it again.
Run from one end of the clearing to the other. Fall. Trip. Get up. Try again. Over and over
He wasn't sure how long he'd been at it. Hours maybe. His muscles burned. His legs felt like they'd been replaced with heavy logs. But he didn't stop. Not yet.
There was no one out here to watch. No one to tell him if he was doing it right. No cousins. No elders. No judging looks.
Just trees. Dirt. Stone.
That was kind of the point.
Out here, there was no clan house. No perfectly folded uniforms. No sideways glances when he walked into a room.
Out here, he could mess up as much as he wanted.
He dropped onto a flat rock near the edge of the clearing, sucking in a few shaky breaths. His arms were shaking, and he had a cut on his elbow from when he slipped earlier. Didn't really hurt anymore. Just stung a little.
He wiped sweat from his forehead, then stopped.
He felt it again.
Not pain.
Not soreness.
Something else. Something under his skin.
He pressed a hand to his stomach and closed his eyes.
There it was.
That quiet thrum. Like something humming faintly inside him. Not his heart. Not exactly chakra — at least, not the way they talked about it. But close.
It was always there lately. Low and quiet. Like it was waiting.
When he was scared, it curled up tight.
When he was nervous, it moved away, like it was trying to hide.
And sometimes… when he was really overwhelmed…
Weird things happened.
One time, a branch that should've hit him just… didn't. It bent somehow. Another time, a sharp rock he was about to land on rolled to the side at the last second.
No one saw it. No one would've believed him anyway.
He hadn't told anyone. Not even Neji.
Especially not Neji.
And it wasn't just stuff like branches or rocks. Sometimes, it was people, too.
He could feel things. The way someone's chakra tensed when they were lying. How it flared when they were angry or clenched up tight when they were pretending to be nice.
People smiled at him a lot. But he could tell when it wasn't real.
He stopped expecting it to be.
His eyes drifted down to his hands.
Small. Bruised knuckles. Dirt under the nails.
"Other people's chakra feels loud," he murmured. "Mine just… listens."
It made him feel safe, kind of.
But also a little more alone.
Because even when someone said something kind, he could tell they didn't mean it.
Even when they looked at him with pity, it didn't feel warm. It felt sharp.
He didn't know what that meant. If he was strong or strange or just broken in a different way.
He just knew it made him different.
And in the Hyuuga clan, different wasn't something you wanted to be.
Neji's Arrival
A rustle of leaves behind him.
Haruki didn't turn. He already felt the chakra. Steady. Clean. A little annoyed, maybe.
"Your form still sucks," Neji said, stepping into the clearing.
Haruki rolled his eyes. "You say that every time."
"Because it's still true."
Neji looked the same as always — serious, a little taller now since he started at the Academy. His forehead protector was a bit crooked, like he hadn't figured out how to tie it properly yet.
Haruki's eyes flicked up to it once. Didn't say anything.
Neji dropped a cloth near him. "Your elbow's bleeding."
Haruki wiped it without much thought. "It's not that bad."
"Infection's still a thing, idiot."
Haruki grunted.
They trained for a while without talking. Neji showed him a few corrections on his stance. Haruki ignored most of them.
They sparred a bit. Nothing fancy. Just light strikes, quick dodges. Neji was more polished, obviously, but Haruki didn't make it easy. He was fast on his feet. Never really stopped moving.
It wasn't about winning.
They didn't even keep track.
Their silences weren't weird anymore. They'd been training like this for a while now.
It just was what it was.
The wind picked up.
It whispered through the clearing in low, rustling tones. The kind that made the trees sway, not enough to scatter leaves, just enough to murmur.
Haruki sat with his back pressed against the trunk of the crooked tree, arms loosely wrapped around his knees. His forehead rested just above them. He didn't speak. Not for a long while.
Neji stayed close, crouched nearby, checking over a scroll he'd half-unrolled in silence. He wasn't really reading it.
He was waiting.
Haruki finally said, almost too quietly, "I hated him."
Neji didn't look up.
Haruki swallowed. "Not really. Not... all the way. I just—when I saw him run like that, laughing like he didn't care what anyone thought, I felt something tight in my chest. Like it was my own voice being ignored."
He stared ahead at nothing.
"He smiled even when people didn't look at him right. Even when they whispered. Even when the shopkeepers shouted at him to leave. He kept smiling."
Haruki dug his fingers into the dirt.
"I don't know how to do that."
The trees creaked gently above.
Neji didn't interrupt. He let Haruki speak in his own time.
"I keep pretending it doesn't matter. That I don't care what the elders say. What they think. That I'm not mad about... everything. But I am."
His voice was barely a whisper now.
"I'm really, really mad."
The wind shifted.
For a second, the air around Haruki pulsed — not loud, not visible. Just a pressure. Subtle. Spatial. Like a breath drawn in too deeply and then held.
A faint shimmer warped the dust around his feet.
Neji felt it.
He didn't flinch.
He didn't comment on it either.
Haruki didn't even realize.
"I tried to be better than him," he said. "More polite. More quiet. More useful. So people wouldn't look at me like they look at him. But it didn't work."
His voice cracked.
"They still look at me like I don't belong."
Neji finally rolled up the scroll.
"You don't have to become like him," he said.
Haruki looked up slowly. "Then what should I be?"
Neji met his eyes.
"You."
Haruki scoffed, bitter. "You think that's enough?"
"I don't know," Neji admitted. "But it's all we've got."
Haruki exhaled. His chakra steadied. The strange distortion faded.
A bird trilled in the distance. The sun had started dipping lower, casting long shadows over the training field.
They sat there for a while longer. Neither spoke. There was nothing urgent to say.
But when Neji got to his feet and offered a hand down, Haruki didn't hesitate.
He took it.
Neji pulled him up without effort, then brushed dirt from Haruki's shoulder.
"Your form still sucks," Neji muttered.
Haruki managed a small laugh. "So does your hair."
Neji snorted.
And just like that, the heaviness lightened — not vanished, not fixed — but carried, together.
....
Later They packed their things as the sun slid lower.
Then Haruki stopped.
Just for a second.
Something pressed at the edge of his senses. A flicker. Like the air had shifted—too still, too focused.
Not a bird. Not an animal.
Chakra.
It didn't move like a person. It waited
Heavy, like a boulder held perfectly still. Like someone was holding their breath and watching very, very closely.
High up. Somewhere in the branches.
Haruki turned his head slightly.
Neji noticed. "What?"
Haruki didn't answer right away. He kept looking at the trees, his eyes scanning the shadows between the leaves.
"I thought... nothing," he murmured.
But his steps were slower after that.
He didn't know why, but something about that chakra made his skin prickle.
Not in fear.
In recognition.
Like it had seen through him.
And then, whatever it was — it disappeared. Quiet as a breeze. Not gone. Just... no longer there.
Haruki glanced back once more.
Then kept walking.
...........
The path veered near the village outskirts, where the trees thinned and voices rose in childish bickering.
"—I told you not to sit on the mochi, Choji!"
"I didn't sit, I leaned!"
"You crushed it, that's still sitting!"
Haruki blinked as Ino stomped into view, arms crossed, followed by Choji clutching a squished rice cake and Shikamaru walking ten paces behind, looking like he'd rather be asleep.
"Great," Shikamaru mumbled, noticing Haruki and Neji. "More overachievers."
Choji waved cheerfully. "Hey! Haruki! Wanna trade snacks? I've got the squished kind!"
Ino elbowed him. "Don't offer squished food."
"I don't mind," Haruki said quietly. Then paused. "Wait... why were you sitting on it?"
"I wasn't!" Choji protested, but Shikamaru cut him off.
"It's a long, troublesome story."
Ino leaned in. "Did you sneak off to train again? Your shirt's a mess."
Haruki glanced down at his torn sleeve. He hadn't even noticed the new tear.
Neji smirked faintly. "He hit a tree. Repeatedly."
"You're both so intense," Ino sighed. "It's like you're trying to be grown-ups already."
Shikamaru scratched his head. "Kind of sad, honestly."
Haruki shrugged. "You'll need to grow up eventually."
"Not today," Choji said, already unwrapping another snack. "Today is for snacks."
Neji actually let out a quiet chuckle at that.
But Haruki's gaze lingered on the trio. They were loud. Clumsy. Unfocused. And yet... they smiled easily. They bickered without real anger. None of them flinched when he looked at them. None of them weighed his presence like a secret threat.
They were what he could've had.
If he hadn't been born Hyuuga.
If his chakra didn't hum differently.
If—
A familiar pressure curled low in his chest.
'He didn't know if they'd ever look at him the same way he looked at them — with wonder.'
"See you," Haruki said abruptly, and started walking.
Neji followed.
Ino tilted her head. "He's weird."
"I like him," Choji said.
Shikamaru sighed. "He's going to be a pain when we're older.
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AN: So what do you all think about Haruki's character growth before and after everything went down?