First Kisame, now Kakuzu? GASP! Hinata, you accepting little MINX, you!

I, personally, found Kakuzu strangely sexy. If we could have seen him without the crazy-ass threads (NOT TENTACLES, YOU CRAZY ASS HIDAKUZU FANGIRLS!) bursting out of his mouth, I bet he would have been just lickable.

DISCLAIMER: Dude, if I owned Naruto, Hinata and Kakuzu and Suigestu would have had MUCH bigger parts. Incidently: Did I miss something? Wtf happened to Suigetsu and Juugo? Did Z'bel skip a chapter? D':

Grave-Robber

Hinata x Kakuzu

The best part about Hyuuga Hinata? She was low maintenance. So low maintenance, in fact, that he got away with giving her a 99 cent card for her birthday. Not something you would typically buy your girlfriend for her birthday after three months of dating. But he made up for it during Christmas, anyway. That cellphone clover charm was almost ten bucks and 'cute as hell', according to Konan. It took a lot of friendly words exchanged between the two before he even bought it.

Hinata's frilly, materialistic friends had fumed and protested to such a 'small, insignificant gift' for his woman. HIS woman. What he spent on her wasn't even their business. He wasn't made of money, like their boy toys. Hinata's cousin was making a name for himself in the world of law and politics, taking that Tenten girl along for the ride (In a pretty red Mercedes of her own). The pinkette was the shoulder-monkey of Uchiha Sasuke, heir to the Uchiha fortune and Uchiha Enterprises. And the loud blonde had her own family chain of nightclubs to inherit. Hinata, herself, came from a family rich in reputation alone. Her inheritance shot through the roof.

And yet, she settled for him. Kakuzu. Old and spiteful and covered in ugly scars from wars long past. He was prestigious in the same line of work her family thrived in, even taking on a covert operation every once in a while. When the militaries of the world needed an assassination carried out, a hostage rescued, or a 'special shipment' safeguarded, they called the Hyuuga, then the Uchiha, THEN members of the Akatsuki Enterprises that Kakuzu worked for. More often than not, they wanted Kakuzu. He could be viciously calm during a bloody job if it meant money in his pocket.

Hinata didn't mind that. She didn't mind that he covered himself up in black from head to toe and refused to do anything mildly entertaining. No beaches or amusement parks. She didn't mind his bulky muscles or cruel opinions (severe honesty, he called it). Hinata didn't mind that no one knew just how old he was. She didn't want flashy PDA like her sloppy friends, but she would kiss him around their friends and co-workers. She wasn't ashamed. She only asked that he stay at her back, always there, watching her and keeping the world from abusing her. In return she gave her acceptance. She solemnly listened to every negative opinion her friends and family gave about him. Then thanked them for loving her enough to tell her. But her small soft hand always ended up back in his, rough and tanned and calloused like leather. She came back to him.

"Kakuzu?"

Bloodshot green eyes darted down, to meet grey eyes almost a foot below. His dark hair was held in a loose ponytail at the nape of his neck, but the thick black fur of his coat almost hid Hinata from view. It must've hidden him in a similar fashion, and Hinata was having none of that. She reached up and petted the fur down, then shoved her hands back into her pockets and hunkered her nose down into her scarf and repeated the question. "When is your birthday?"

He shifted, fur springing right back into place. But Hinata could see the grimace in the deep furrow of his brow.

"August fifteenth."

She nodded and lifted her fingers to her mouth to blow on them. Her nice, plushy blue gloves were in her shoe locker back at school. It had become an everyday ritual for the past two months. Kakuzu had a nice SUV, but with gas prices on the fritz, he refused to drive anywhere. He walked. That walk just happened to take him past Hinata's high school. His place wasn't too far from her family's estate. An apartment, more out of the way, easy to move out of in case work called for it. It wouldn't be the first time. But this time, he would have something to leave behind.

"Do you ever celebrate it?" she asked from between her fingers, long hair loose around her shoulders for a little more protection on her cheeks.

"There's nothing to celebrate, and I can't imagine why you would want to," he bit out, eyes narrowed into slits.

Hinata pressed her knuckles to her lower lip, chewing the already worn skin. He hated that habit. He didn't mind the rough feel when they kissed, but she'd get so much farther in life if she left her pretty round face alone.

"If it weren't for your birthday," she said quietly, "My walks home would be a lot more lonely."

He brushed the comment off with a shake of his head. Really, sometimes he could forget how much of a child she was. She was only seventeen now. He leaned his head back with a quiet groan. Only seventeen. Goddamnit. And a month ago, she was sixteen. God-DAMN-it.

"Listen, Hinata-"

"You're old." Her tone was light, trying to diffuse an argument before it started. Didn't work.

"Too old. And you can't get it through your thick skull. That's why I have to CONSTANTLY REPEAT myself, because you DON'T know."

He sounded creepily like Hatake-sensei. Déjà vu that Hinata did not appreciate. She looked up at him silently, adjusting her pace to walk a few inches further away from him. It made her uncomfortable when he took on that I'm-your-elder tone with her.

"Are you older than Tou-san?"

"Yes."

Hinata paused to stare at him. Kakuzu didn't stop. He wondered if her hesitation was because of his answer, or because of the simple fact that he did answer her this time. Eventually he heard her small feet struggling through the snow again. Her shoulder bumped his elbow and they continued the walk in awkward silence. Kakuzu moved slightly away as they stopped at a crosswalk. The cars meandered cautiously on the icy roads. Other passers-by stopped with them. One young man even wedged himself between them when the crowd got too thick. Hinata's heart dropped. When had they become so far apart during their walk? Had she finally overstepped some invisible boundary with just that simple, inane question?

The young man gave Hinata's short school skirt and black-hoed legs an appreciative glance. Hinata gave him a tiny nod in greeting, an itty-bitty smile, then faced forward again. The young man grinned.

Kakuzu reached around the man's back, grabbed a fistful of Hinata's white coat, dragged her around the man and flung his arm around her shoulders to keep her flush against his side. A startled few in the crowd shifted and coughed, the young stranger backpedaling when faced with Kakuzu's murderous glare. Hinata's face glowed bright red and she hunkered into his possessive embrace, hands wrapped daintily around his at her neck. The white stickman glowed, and the incident was forgotten as the crowd began moving again.

He had a habit of surprising her like that. One day he'd look about ready to kill her with a meat cleaver for questioning his penny-pinching, the next he was snapping at the rest of the population for so much as looking at her.

Kakuzu was a greedy man. Hyuuga Hinata was his.

I know someone out there is going "'Bel! What's with all the Hinata x Old Man action!" ... F*** if I know. X'D

This was suppose to be a simple little AU Oneshot that struck my fancy all of a sudden after watching Letters From Juliet. I don't know HOW the hell I got this cracktastic coupling out of that big ball of sap of a movie, but there you go. See how my mind works?

I'm more worried about how Kakuzu seems in this! I got a little carried away, I think, but I've got another chapter written up, so if Kakuzu seems adequately in-character, I JUST MIGHT put it up. But I'm terrified he isn't. XD Whether he is or not, I love that crosswalk stop thing at the end. I picture Hinata nearly face-planting the snow and it makes me giggle.

So. The other plotless chapter, or did I fail epically?