"We're on the bus and I'm really not trying to take up your space I'm sorry I just have rlly rlly long legs" AU

Naruto sprints across the pavement, his enormous backpack bouncing on his back so hard he's sure he'll probably have bruises later, but all he can think of at the moment is how he should've gotten up when his alarm first rang because his bus is leaving now and if he misses this one, it'll be another twelve hours before the next. His shadow races ahead of him, lengthening out as the sun slowly sets, urging him to pick up the pace.

The doors start to close and he bursts forth in a rush of adrenaline, practically flying the last few meters and he's moving so fast he actually slams into the doors in his rush to stop in time.

The bus driver opens the doors immediately, concern written all over his wrinkled features. "You ok, son?"

"Fine, super fine!" Naruto assures him though his nose throbs like crazy. He considers it a price worth paying though for making it on time.

"Hop on," the bus driver beckons and Naruto doesn't need to be told twice. He jumps up the steps and grins broadly in thanks at the driver. "I was wondering if you'd make it before the doors closed."

Naruto smile slackens and he blinks at the bus driver who settles himself cheerfully in the driver's seat, a twinkle in his eye.

"You-you saw me run- but the doors-" Naruto sputters, and the straps of his backpack dig into his back as his shoulders drop in disbelief.

"Better find a seat, we're leaving now," the bus driver tells him, a smile visible under his bushy grey mustache and in the next moment, he starts the engine up and the bus jerks forward in motion.

Naruto gapes for a moment longer then shakes his head and chuckles as he slowly makes his way down the aisle of the full bus. He's been had, but he's always enjoyed a good joke and a fun prank. He probably would've done the same if he were the bus driver.

He passes by children absorbed in their game consoles, teenagers ripping open snacks and swapping music and gossip, parents settling back for naps long overdue, elderly couples doing crossword puzzles and sudoku games together- but not a single free seat. He grips the edges of the seats for balance as he walks down, mumbling apologies as his large and heavy backpack accidentally clip a few people along the way.

He's wondering if he'll have to sit in the middle of the aisle when he reaches the very back of the bus. There is one seat left, right next to a girl his age reading a book. Naruto stops before her and when she looks up at him, his breath catches for just a moment at the sight of her eyes. They are a lavender so light, they are almost white and the sight should've been unsettling, but her expression is so open and sweet that he feels the slightest hint of a blush heat his cheeks. He's never been very smooth around pretty girls.

"Is this seat taken?" he asks, rubbing the back of his neck a little awkwardly.

"Not at all, it's all yours," she smiles back at him shyly, and it's so disarming that he finds himself relaxing and grinning back. He shrugs his backpack off and swings it up to store in the compartment overhead before sliding into the seat. He curiously notes that her cheeks are a little red as he settles down but his attention is pulled away as the intercom crackles to life.

"Welcome, welcome everyone, this is the bus over to Tokyo. It will be a long twelve hour drive but we will be stopping twice along the way. Please do not clutter up the aisle with bags or trash. It must remain clear in an event of an emergency. Please respect your neighbours and keep the noise down to a minimum. Lights will automatically dim down in the next hour or so. Thank you, and enjoy the ride."

Naruto sighs and he takes his time stretching his arms out, rolling and massaging his shoulders as he feels them start to cramp from the abuse his backpack put them through. He tries to contain his limbs to his seat but despite his best efforts, he ends up elbowing his seatmate in the side more than once.

"Sorry about that," he grunts as he tries to angle himself away from her. His elbow smacks her side once more as he readjusts himself. "Damn, sorry about that too." He winces, expecting a harsh glare or even a smack back but instead a light giggle and a sympathetic smile is what he gets.

"It's quite alright," she assures him. Her voice is quiet but articulate, soothing, the kind of voice he finds himself leaning towards to listen to more. "My little sister tends to poke me all the time, so I'm pretty used to it."

"Going to visit her?" Naruto asks. He rolls his shoulders once more and settles back in his seat, turning to talk to her properly.

"Actually, she and my cousin were the ones who pushed me to take this trip," she laughs, marking her spot and closing her book. She sets it down neatly on her lap, her movements concise. She smooths a hand over the cover and smiles in amusement, lost in thought. "I'm always working, and they wanted me to take a break."

"Have you ever been to Tokyo then?"

"Only for a few business trips, but I was never there for long," she admits. She glances up at him then, her long indigo hair sliding back and catching the faint light of twilight coming through the large bus windows. "Have you?"

"Nah, first time," he grins at her. He hesitates, but the interest in her expression encourages him to continue. "My… my godfather died recently, and he always took me traveling with him. I've been backpacking all over, as a kind of last hurrah to the old pervert. He wanted to take me to Tokyo, but never got the chance."

Naruto looks away. Three months later and Jiraiya's death still hurts him as much as the day he died, but Naruto has to admit that traveling had been a good idea. Iruka was the one to suggest it and being on the move, seeing new places, meeting new people did help him keep his mind preoccupied with something other than grief.

There is a gentle squeeze on his shoulder and he looks back to see her gaze at him with sympathy. His blue eyes search her face but he finds no trace of pity, of which he is grateful for.

"I'm sorry for your loss," she murmurs, and they are words he's heard over and over and over again since Jiraiya's death but she is so honest and sincere that he takes comfort in her condolences. She doesn't look uncomfortable at his grief, something he is also used to seeing, and he wonders what kind of person she is or what she's gone through to know what to do in a situation like this.

Goodness knows he's more likely to put his foot in his own mouth at times like these. Jiraiya was always quick to point that out whenever it happened, and those are memories that has Naruto chuckling sadly, but fondly at.

He reads the invitation in her expression for him to continue, if he wants, but there is no pressure, no invasive curiosity that he feels from her and he's grateful for that too.

"He was a good guy. He was always telling me about these ramen places in Tokyo that I'd love- ramen's my favourite food!- and he always wanted to see-" Naruto abruptly shuts up, his face going red. Jiraiya had wanted to peek at the city's red-light district, a desire Naruto had always been uninterested and unimpressed by, but that was definitely not something to tell a stranger upon a first meeting. Naruto clears his throat, stumbling as he tries to recover, "-the, uh, gardens."

Her face lights up, becomes vibrant with her enthusiasm, and Naruto's relieved when she doesn't comment over his obvious hiccup. "I was planning on looking at some of those myself! I've heard amazing things about Hama-rikyu and Shinjuku Gyoen. Do you like plants…" she trails off, her expression becoming confused. Naruto searches her face and realizes her predicament.

"Naruto," he introduces himself, smiling widely. "And yeah! Actually, I do like plants a lot. I've never really been in a place long enough to take care of them properly but... someday. I'll have a ton of plants and a big garden maybe someday. I'm guessing you really like gardening?"

She blushes then and looks away, fiddling with her book. Naruto backtracks in his mind, wonders what he said to make her withdraw so suddenly.

"I do love gardens and plants," she admits. "I… well, I really like pressing flowers. My mother used to do it with me, and she always told me how it's a way of preserving a memory. It's like taking a photo, but the thing about flowers is that some of the smell gets preserved too. Whenever you take a breath, you can remember the place and the moment you picked the flower that much more vividly."

She's looking at him again, her eyes reading his expression for… something. He doesn't know what, but he does know that the way she spoke, the things she described, touches him. For a moment, he thinks of the scent of ramen, of clean laundry at Iruka's place, of the incense sticks Jiraiya always carried, and remembers. Remembers those pinpricks of time, those split seconds where he felt like he was home, where he laughed so hard his gut ached, where he knew, instinctively, that he could live forever in those moments.

He blinks and refocuses on her, and when his brain catches up with his eyes, he notices how she patiently, expectantly looks at him. How the dark purples and deep pinks of twilight fill the view of the bus windows that she is framed perfectly by. How her eyes almost seem to glow as night creeps across the sky and darkens the bus, but the way she looks at him makes him wonder how he ever thought the colour white was anything other than warm.

She's as pretty as a picture, as pretty probably as the flowers she likes to press. Prettier. And Naruto can't stop staring because he wants to remember this moment, this snapshot of a girl he's only known for an hour and whose name he doesn't even know.

"I've never pressed flowers," he says, belatedly aware of how long it's taken for him to respond. "But I would love to learn." And he really would love to learn, and learn from her, because the way she speaks about it makes him want to see what she does, want to experience what she feels.

"It's not very hard," she assures him, and the way her eyes light up again at his interest makes him want to pick a flower right now and press it with her. She bends down and digs in a bag by her foot, her hair sliding forwards to obscure her face. Her sweater slips down to bare a shoulder and the sight leaves Naruto a little flustered. He coughs to distract himself and looks away until she's sitting up again, but he can feel a flush warming his cheeks and he thinks of the dirty socks in his bag he needs to wash, of the stockpile of postcards he needs to send to people, of the two-day-old sandwich he probably shouldn't have eaten that morning.

He glances at the slim album in her hands as she flips it open and he catches a name written elegantly on the front page.

"Hinata." He tries it out loud and he likes how it rolls in his mouth, how it sounds in the air. It's a beautiful name. She glances at him, startled, and this time she is the one who blushes red.

"I'm sorry, I never did introduce myself. Hinata would be me," she says, and then she's laughing quietly to herself. "I suppose better late than never."

"We have-" Naruto checks the watch on his wrist, "-ten more hours together. Chances are your name would've come up at some point. And the funny thing about bus rides like this is, I feel like I've known you for ages already, even if I didn't know your name."

Hinata smiles, and it's small but bright. "I know what you mean," she agrees. She flips to a page and Naruto catches sight of red flower- a poppy, he wants to say- before the lights in the bus dim and everything goes dark. The sky outside is a soft velvety blue with a scarce scattering of stars beginning to blink awake and the flashes of passing streetlights and traffic glide over Hinata's form and across her book.

"Oh, I think people are wanting to sleep," Hinata drops her voice to a whisper. She glances at the book and sighs. "You can't really see the flowers now."

"May I?" Naruto holds his hands open towards her and gestures. She looks confused- and Naruto can't blame her, he doesn't quite know where this is coming from either- but she gently hands the book to him regardless. He cradles it with care and brings it up close to his nose before inhaling deeply.

It's definitely poppy. The smell is familiar, tangy, and as he inhales again, the scent suddenly brings forth a memory to him, as strong and vivid as when he first experienced it.

"I was on a hike once, with Jiraiya," he recalls, and he's not even really aware that he's speaking out loud. The memory plays out like a movie in his mind and the story flows out of him, needing to be told. "We were up in some of the mountains of Kobayashi, totally lost- though it wasn't my fault this time! Jiraiya was pretty good at navigation actually, but somehow we ended up in kind of the middle of nowhere instead of in the city. I was pretty pissed. We'd been walking for most of that day and we ran out of water and it was super hot and I kept telling him we should double back and find the road again but he kept insisting on going forwards."

Naruto pauses, unsure if he is being a jerk by monopolizing the conversation but Hinata smiles encouragingly at him. She's turned to face him fully, her hands folded in her lap, and her eyes watching him with her full attention. He lowers the book and stares at the page, his mind piecing together what the poppy looks like pressed on the page from the flashes of light that illuminate it bit by bit.

"I thought he was just jerking around with me, but we went around a few farms and then I literally fell into field just completely covered in poppies. It was pretty incredible. There were red ones, white ones, orange ones, even some blue ones!" Naruto chuckles to himself. "I ran around like a six-year-old. I couldn't believe how incredible it was. We walked around that field for ages, just laughing and joking around. My stomach hurt, from how much I laughed that day." He remembers too, that deep satisfying bellyache and how the sensation was as delicious as a full stomach.

He looks up at her just in time to see her eyes flutter open, as if she is waking up from a dream.

"I could imagine it so clearly in my mind," she murmurs, and Naruto is touched that she made the effort to see what he saw. "He must've been a great man, for him to make you smile even now."

Naruto hadn't even realized he'd been grinning nostalgically at the memory until she pointed it out, and feels a warmth curl in his stomach, similar to how the laughter from the field filled his stomach. The warmth grows as he sees Hinata smile back at him, clearly sharing in his happiness, and he hurries to distract himself before starts wondering what it means.

"What is this flower to you?" he asks, because he can see some writing scrawled on the bottom of the page and a date. He doesn't want to read it without her permission, but he looks at her, invites her to share with him just as he had shared with her.

Hinata hums and takes the book to rest on her lap. She runs a finger along the outline of the poppy before smoothing over the words at the bottom.

"When we were very young, my sister and I were playing out in the front yard when I lost in her in a game of hide and seek. It was terrifying actually. I was so sure I knew where she'd been but when she didn't answer me after I started calling for her when our fifteen minute time limit passed, I panicked. My father was at work, our caretaker was cooking lunch, and… well, I've always looked out for her. Hanabi would always come to me when she was scared or wanted someone to play with. So I looked everywhere for her, even venturing in the forests that surrounded our home. They're actually very beautiful, the trees of the forest, but they seemed so large and frightening at the time, like monsters with claws coming out to grab me." She shivers a little at the memory, rubbing her arms, and Naruto sympathizes. He's had his own share of monsters haunting his overactive imagination.

"I don't know how long it took for me to actually find her. It felt like forever. Days, at least. It was probably only a few hours. But when I finally found her, she was fast asleep in a ring of poppies in the middle of a clearing and I remember spotting her because of how bright the poppies were in the dark of the forest. I woke her up and she picked some to bring back home. Hanabi told me that she followed a tree sprite and lost track of time.

We never could find that clearing again. We went back to look the next day, and we looked for it again over the years but we never saw those poppies again."

Naruto reaches out and traces the page with a finger in the silence that follows her story, taking it all in. He can see it, a younger Hinata, scared of trees that took on the form of looming monsters but plunging into the dark in spite of her fear to find her sister.

"That's really brave of you," he says, and her startled, if curious expression tells him that isn't a word she often used to describe herself. "Your sister is really lucky to have you."

"I'm very lucky to have her," she replies with a fond smile and her eyes dart across the open pages on her lap, following the flashes of passing streetlights dancing over her lap. "Hanabi balances me. She's always encouraging me to go out more and meet new people. She's always telling me to 'exercise the spirit of spontaneity'," Hinata laughs, smiling so widely that her eyes are like crescent moons and her cheeks begin to pink. She brings a hand up to cover her mouth and Naruto fights the urge to draw her hand to the side. Her smile warms her and he finds it impossible to look away.

"This seems like a great start," Naruto points out, stretching a little to ease the stiffness in his limbs. "You're going to a relatively new place by yourself and you've befriended a stranger!"

"You don't feel like a stranger though," Hinata yawns as she closes the album and tucks it safely in the pouch of the seat in front of her. "I feel like I've known you for a long time. You're very easy to talk to."

Naruto can feel a blush heat his cheeks as she stares sleepily at him, her eyes half-lidded. He feels like taking her hand and never letting her go, a compulsion he neither understands nor acts on. But it lingers in his mind and makes his fingers twitch, and he settles for smiling slowly and warmly back at her.

"It's easy to talk to someone when they're as kind and friendly as you," he admits. "Thank you, by the way, for showing me your flowers. It's pretty important to you, huh?"

"Mmm," she nods. She studies him for a moment, and he wonders what she reads in his expression. "Meiji-jingu is a beautiful Shinto shrine right by Harajuku station. It's very peaceful there, a good place to pay your respects. And in the courtyards, there are patches of poppies that bloom everywhere."

Naruto sucks in a breath as her suggestion hits close to home. His eyes wander to the album tucked in the seat pouch before looking back at her, his own eyes tracing her features this time, gauging her reaction. "Do you want to take me there? I wouldn't mind having company."

Her eyes widen in surprise and her cheeks darken. She's astonished for a moment and just as Naruto is wishing he could retract his offer and save her from the pressure of answering him- even if he really did want to continue being with her beyond this bus ride- she smiles widely, openly at him, delight clear in her expression.

"I would love to," she murmurs, and Naruto's heart races at her acceptance and he feels like he could fly.

His nerves hum in excitement and he stretches his legs out in hopes of unwinding himself a little before he gives himself away with how eager he is to spend more time with her. He grimaces at the lack of space, curses at having such long legs until Hinata reaches over to tap him on his thigh.

"Here," she whispers, her voice drowsy, and she tucks her legs up on her seat until she's curled like a cat, leaving the space in front of her free. "I'm more comfortable like this anyway."

Naruto hesitates then slowly stretches out in her space, adjusting himself until he curves around her. He glances at Hinata and sees her eyes droop and then flicker shut, her head nodding as she succumbs to the late hour. He watches as she drifts off into sleep, her breathing deepening and evening out, and her head gradually dips until she rests on his shoulder.

He slowly reaches for the seat pocket in front of him and rummages until he finds the complimentary blanket. It takes him a while to unfold it and drape it around them both, and he is careful not to jostle her awake at any time.

When the blanket is settled comfortably over them, Naruto turns until his nose brushes the top of her head. He closes his eyes and inhales.

She smells like lavender, and Naruto knows he will always think of her now when he smells that particular fragrance.

He watches the streetlights race on by like the ticking of a clock, marking the passing of time but, as he listens to Hinata's quiet and steady breaths, he thinks this moment feels more like forever.

He looks down and the smile that tugs on his lips instinctively at the sight of her is small, but gentle and fond. He feels warm by her side and he wonders if she wouldn't mind his company in exploring this new city together. He has a feeling that in the end, it wouldn't matter where he goes as long as she is by his side.

AN: It has taken me an age and a half to update this. I've actually got several WIPs slowly simmering away for this story. They've all been meatier stories though which require a lot more time and thought but things have been very worrying and stressful as of late due to my dog falling ill D: To distract myself I thought, let's do something quick and light and fun. I gave myself a one day time frame and now here we are. It kind of became an exercise in dialogue, something that's totally out of my comfort zone, which is great. There will be a second part to this au! Loosely related, though it could read on its own too. Thanks for reading!