5

It was raining. It'd been raining almost all month. Ino felt like the sky was crying. The sky had been crying too long, crying the tears she wasn't able to shed.

All things considered, the number of casualties for a war of its scale was rather low, but those statistics didn't matter when Ino still came home every night to find her father's place at the dinner table empty.

She could hardly stand to go near the flower shop at first; she had too many memories of her dad behind the counter. But burying the dead meant funerals and new graves to attend, and fresh graves demanded fresh flowers. Ino's mother couldn't keep up the work alone—she and Inoichi had always collaborated on everything—so Ino faced her grief head-on and dove into work.

It got easier over time. There was so much to do that Ino barely had time to chat with customers—she took, sold, and filled so many orders of lilies and roses and forget-me-nots that she almost missed a receipt calling for a single bloom in the last week of December.

Ino knew it was from Neji before she even saw the name; he'd written a letter in advance and although she didn't recognize the handwriting, she didn't know anyone else who would address a card to "Hinata-sama."

The envelope was unsealed. Ino valiantly tried to resist reading it, but she only lasted a single workday before she had to pull out the letter and read it.

To her surprise, there was a note tucked on top of the actual letter that was addressed to her. She quickly unfolded it and began to read.

Ino,

If you read this letter, you're dead…or perhaps I am. If it's the latter, I suppose it can't hurt for you to read everything. It's quite personal, but you've always been one for blatantly disregarding the boundaries I've set against you.

In truth, this letter would not have been written if not for you, so perhaps you do have the right to read it after all. Consider it thanks for all you've done for me the past five years.

—Neji

P.S. Please remove this note before giving this to Hinata-sama!

Ino was already teary-eyed reading that, but then she opened the letter proper.

When she finished, she sank to her knees and sobbed. She cried so hard that she almost got the envelope wet and had to hold it stretched out in front of her while she struggled to compose herself. She didn't stop until it was closing time and her mother came in to help her lock up.

"Ino, are you all right?" she asked. "What is it? Do you need some time away?"

"It's OK, Mom," Ino said. "It's just…tomorrow, I have to do something really, really hard."

It was still raining the next morning. Ino tucked her delivery under her waterproof jacket and jogged over to the Hyuuga estate. The man at the gate recognized her and wordlessly led her to Hinata's room.

Hinata was sitting at her desk, her book of pressed flowers open in front of her. Ino could tell by the flowers she could see that it was the page dedicated to Neji; she took a deep breath—this was going to be even more difficult than she'd anticipated.

"Hinata?"

"Ino-san…" Hinata looked as though she was looking at a ghost. "I-I didn't expect to see you today."

"Yeah…um…there's no easy way to do this." Ino reached in her coat and pulled out a single forget-me-not and the accompanying letter. "Neji-san always ordered his flowers in advance…I guess he must have ordered this before…" She thrust them towards her and fought the urge to turn away; it was already difficult delivering a posthumous birthday message, but watching Hinata read it while knowing what it said was almost impossible.

Hinata opened the letter with shaking hands; she made no attempt to hold back her tears as she read. Ino wasn't surprised; Hinata was never really one to hide her feelings.

By the time she finished, she was still rather composed as she delicately folded the letter back up and placed it on her desk. Hinata was holding the flower in the palm of her hand, staring at it as if she didn't understand.

"Ino-san…" she said at last. "I'm embarrassed to admit that I cannot remember what meaning the forget-me-not has. I mean, besides the obvious, but that couldn't be what Neji-nii-san intended…" She swallowed hard and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. "What does it mean?"

Ino inhaled shakily; she'd hoped she wouldn't have to explain. "It means true love. Eternal love, actually." She bit her lip, trying to stop herself from crying; she couldn't lose control here, or she'd never stop.

Hinata blinked twice before she picked up the letter again and began rereading. This time, she understood and the tears came more quickly.

Ino had to turn away; with every sob from Hinata, she remembered what Neji had written, and it was all she could do to keep from falling apart.

To my dearest Hinata,

I hope that you should never read this letter, as it will only be delivered if I am unable to be there in person on your birthday, but I'd rather give you a birthday greeting in absentia than no greeting at all.

As I write to you, the entire world is on the brink of war, the likes of which our generation has never seen. It is possible that neither of us will survive, and thus, I am compelled to somehow capture my feelings on paper, a daunting task considering that I am even now unable to convey them through spoken word…I suppose it's best to be direct.

When I saw your lifeless body on the ground in the aftermath of Pain's attack, it felt like my heart stopped. To think I was away from the village and unable to protect you…if you had died then, I could have never forgiven myself. I haven't told you, but I vowed then and there that I would never let that happen again, even if it meant…well, needless to say, if you die in this war, it will not be on my watch.

This is not out of any loyalty to the rules of our clan. I want to make it clear that my desire to protect you is not because you are of the Main House, but because…I don't know how to say it. Perhaps this is why historically, people have used flowers to express their feelings; this year, I shall let my flower selection speak for me. I trust you'll know what it means.

Happy seventeenth birthday, Hinata-sama. I hope that you have many, many more to come.

Yours entirely and always,

Neji

Six months went by.

A lot had changed—Kakashi was Hokage now, Sasuke was occasionally visiting the village, and strangest of all, Sai was actually having regular conversations with Ino. He'd gotten really interested in painting still-life art, and she was usually working whenever he came in to buy flowers. Most of his conversation subjects were bizarre, but he was cute and sometimes it was nice to talk to someone who wasn't Chouji or Shikamaru or Sakura.

She actually thought it was him coming in when the door to the shop swung open that morning, so her greeting of "Welcome! Can I help you?" was a little more peppy than usual.

"H-hello, Ino-san," Hinata replied, a little taken aback. "I…um…I was hoping you could help me pick out a flower."

"Of course!" Ino said. "I'd be happy to help. So who's it for? Naruto?"

Hinata blushed at the mention of Naruto. "Um, no…actually, it's for Neji-nii-san. Tomorrow's his birthday, and I wanted to…to bring some flowers to his grave."

Ino froze. "I forgot his birthday was in July."

"July third." Hinata gave a half smile. "He wasn't one to draw attention to it."

"Right…" Even so, Ino realized that she'd never even once given Neji a birthday present. He'd given her one—OK, so it was a soldier pill while they were on a grueling escort mission in late September, but he'd still said "happy birthday" as he gave it to her. "Sorry, what kind of flower did you have in mind?"

"Aster," Hinata said, knowing that Ino would know its meaning: I won't forget you.

"Good choice."

Later that day, Ino approached the graveyard with a flower of her own. Neji's grave was easy to find; it was completely covered with flowers placed there by his friends. She assumed that Lee had brought the lotus flowers, perhaps the sweet peas were from Tenten, and of course, there was Hinata's bouquet of aster neat and upright in a vase beside the headstone.

She wondered what Neji would think about all those flowers; he'd probably ask her about their meanings and then make some sort of sarcastic remark about how she was much too interested in what exact statement Lee was trying to make with his flower choice when the reality was just that Lee really liked lotuses…

She shook her head; it didn't do any good to imagine what Neji would say or do or think when he would never do anything again. She blinked away tears and cleared her throat.

"Hi, Neji-san; I just wanted to bring you this." She laid a sprig of jasmine at the bottom of his headstone. "I know you would ask, so I'll just tell you: jasmine means "friendship." I'm really honored that you let me into your life even just a little bit. You were the last person I ever expected to be my friend, but…in your own way, you were, and...

The wind picked up and caught a bluebell from another grave, which landed at her feet. Ino wasn't normally superstitious, but she knew without a doubt it was Neji expressing gratitude one final time.

"Well, anyway…happy birthday, Neji-san."

Author's Note: For those unaware, today (December 27th) actually is Hinata's birthday, which is why today was my deadline.
It killed me to write this, but I believe that devastating head canons are meant to be shared (preferably in fan fiction format), and thus, I had to inflict this upon you all. Thank you so much for reading and sharing my misery; despite the morose subject matter, I hope you were able to enjoy (or at least scream "why would you do this? why?" at your computer screen). See you all in 2015!