Chapter Text
Hinata Hyuga’s thesis lays in the hands of a stranger. A stranger that comes most highly recommended by her advisor, highly enough to send her on her little pale blue moped over to the place on a sweltering hot afternoon after a thirty second phone call.
But the storefront of Sunrise Computers and Computer Repairs does not reassure her.
It begins at the signage and only gets worse from there.
The name of the place is superimposed on its logo of a circle blocked out from red to white like something from the early 1990s. Fliers, decals, stickers - some yellowed and old - cover most of the available surface area of the windows. The kicker is the physical ‘OPEN’ sign suction cupped to the inside of the door.
‘Don’t let appearances deceive you,’ she had been told.
Hinata inhales through her nose and exhales from her mouth. Her hair sticks to her neck. Even if it turns out to be a dud, it is too hot to sit around outside, ruminating. She removes key from ignition, smooths down the skirt of her off-shoulder sundress, and kicks down the stand. Her tower had just barely fit in the rear storage compartment; it takes serious effort to wiggle it back out. The metal feels like it will burn red lines into her arms. She elbows the handicap button and walks through the door before it finishes opening.
A blast of cold air slaps her right in the face with its relief as she passes through the gate of theft detectors. There should be a sign, a sign…there, at the very back. White text on a big red banner hanging from the ceiling, framed by bars of fluorescent light.
↓ COMPUTER REPAIR STATION ↓
The aisles are a blur of expensive gadgets and boxes of parts with beautiful women or fearsome monsters in glossy color print. Laptops. Accessories. By some miracle she reaches the back counter. Her hands shake terribly.
She slides the thing onto the glass surface. Per the instructions on a piece of printer paper taped to the counter, she rings a little silver bell.
“Sorry!” A just-audible male voice calls out. Strained. “Just–one moment!”
While she waits, she tries to pull the neckline of her dress back up to where it belongs. Its mint stripes clash something awful with her hot pink canvas shoes. What she deserves for rushing over in a panic. Too sweaty; the dress doesn’t budge. She suppresses a whine and stares at the white tile floor.
Something clatters. He groans. Something else clatters. This time he curses. Footsteps. He barks something unintelligible to presumably another person in back. Finally, he emerges.
“Welcome to Sunrise Computers.” He sighs. “Sorry about that.”
“Oh!” Hinata’s head snaps up. “It’s no problem.”
He doesn’t really look like an employee. Sure, there’s a nametag (Itachi - Lead Technician - Asst Mgr)) affixed to his chest. He has a lanyard with a bunch of keys and a badge draped from his neck.
But at the same time, he’s a bit…grungy? Itachi's long black hair doesn’t seem very professional, even with a ponytail. His button-down shirt may have once been a uniform, but it lay open on some metal act’s band tee and the sleeves are rolled up. His eyeglasses take up a large chunk of his face with their black plastic frame.
Itachi glides a hand along the surface of her computer tower. His fingernails are painted black and most of his fingers have at least one silver ring on them. Hinata amends her assessment: he is very grungy.
“How can I help you?” Itachi asks, after a moment. Remnants of eyeliner, possibly slept in, rim his dark eyes. Perhaps he is also a little bit goth.
“Um…this is going to sound stupid.” Hinata hides her face in her hands. “But…my roommate’s cat…”
“Knocked it off your desk?” He makes an amused sound.
She nods. All she can think about is her thesis research sitting in her hard drive. It happened before she could copy the latest version over to her flash drive. Please be okay. Don’t make her redo it all from scratch. Please. So much research.
“Something probably just needs to be re-seated.” He rips an intake sheet off the side of a nearby console. “I’ll do a full diagnostic work-up, of course.”
“O-okay.”
He pulls a ballpoint pen out from behind his ear and scribbles out a bullet point list in the tiniest handwriting she’s ever seen.
Then he returns to the demographics section. “First and last name?”
“Hinata. Hinata Hyuga.”
Phone number. Alternate contact(s), just in case she cannot be reached (for this, she puts down both her roommate, Ino and her younger sister, Hanabi). She almost rattles off her personal email before she remembers.
“Oh! Um, I’m in a Masters program. Do you have a student discount maybe?” Her fingers twist around her purse strap. “My advisor told me about this store…”
“Yeah.” He ticks off a box. The corner of his mouth flips up. A tug of recognition. Hinata has seen that smirk before. “School email, then?”
“R-right!” She confirms her Konoha University email for him instead.
“Do you want to receive text alerts on the order status?”
“Yes. Please."
The way Itachi moves, the shape of his jaw. Even with huge glasses and those long bangs obscuring half of his face. His manner of speech, too. Hinata knows it.
It’s worth a shot to ask: “Sorry if this is rude, but…um, have we met before?”
“I would remember meeting you before,” Itachi says, matter-of-factly, without looking up. He signs and dates the intake sheet before taping it to her computer. “I should be able to get it done in about a week. Payment due at time of pickup. Any questions?”
“Not that I can think of.” He’d remember her? What a strange reply. “I really, really appreciate the help. Have a nice day!”
“No problem.” He smiles, surely in a detached customer service way. “You, too.”
—
Ino has a ritual. She paces around Hinata upon the front door’s being locked, pale yellow ponytail swishing dramatically as she examines Hinata for injury or emotional turmoil. Her blue eyes miss nothing, for better or worse. Hinata doesn’t remember when it started, because she was (optimistically) blackout drunk that first night.
Today is one of the “worse” days, because she stops, dramatically points at Hinata’s face, and then angles her freshly manicured index finger down.
“Did you know you’re not wearing a bra?” Ino asks.
Hinata’s mortified silence is sufficient.
“Was that loud crash earlier you?” She crosses her arms. “It woke me up!”
“Um…kind of.” Hinata slinks over to the couch and hugs a pillow to herself. “Sakura’s new cat knocked my computer over.”
“Oh.” Ino stretches her arms in a yawn. Her crop top shifts with the movement. “Sorry for snapping. I was up late.”
Hinata glances away before she gets too much of an eyeful of the underside of Ino’s breasts. Unfortunately, Ino settles in on the couch and wraps her arms around her waist.
“Seriously. I wish I’d checked in instead of trying to go back to sleep.” Ino giggles. “If only to make sure you don’t just…throw on the first thing you see before heading out.”
She flops to her side with a groan and takes Ino along for the ride. “Sorry…I – Professor Yuhi told me about this repair place when I called her, so…”
“Did you get the pervert discount, at least?”
“No, of course not!” Hinata squeaks. “The tech was really nice, if goth-y…He gave me a student discount and– and everything.!”
“Oooh. A tech? Was he cute?” Her shark-like grin is audible. “Did you get his number?” Ino purrs.
The pillow falls out of her arms as Hinata fully considers her encounter with Itachi, now that the adrenaline has worn off. Fully considers his straight nose, dark eyes, and little smirk. She thinks about what those hands might do to something that isn’t attached to a computer. She hides her face in her hands. Cute doesn’t even begin to cover it.
The front door opens with a loud bang, saving Hinata from further interrogation.
Sakura’s home. Her pink hair (in need of a root touch-up) is pulled back into a ponytail and her dark scrubs are rumpled. She kicks off her white tennis shoes and shuts the door again. Her backpack crashes to the floor.
Ino launches herself off the couch. “Hey, five-head. Your stupid cat broke Hinata’s computer.”
“Shut up, pig, no he didn’t!” Sakura flips Ino off.
“He…kind of did,” Hinata mumbles from between her fingers. “I’m sure it was just an accident…he’s a big cat.”
The cat in question, a black Maine Coon named Fishstick, darts from the hallway and paces around Sakura’s legs. His purr bears no small resemblance to the sound of her moped’s engine. Hinata props herself up using an elbow.
A gift from Sakura’s…what was the word Hanabi had just taught her? Oh, yes. Her situationship. Sasuke. Hinata opens her mouth but gets beaten to the punch.
“How is your…manlet, by the way?”
Not that she would have phrased it quite that way.
“We’re going on a date tonight, actually!” Sakura sticks her tongue out. “Don’t even think of stealing him. I know you want to.”
“Oh!” Hinata sits up ramrod straight. She snaps her fingers. “That’s it!”
“Hinata?” Ino raises an eyebrow.
“The tech…he…he…um.” She feels herself turning red all over again. “I thought I had seen him before, because he…looked just like Sasuke.”
Sakura frowns.
“Not like that!” Hinata lifts her hands up in surrender.
“Oh, no, it’s just…” Sakura taps her chin in thought. “Sasuke never talks about his family. I kind of got the vibe that they’re not on good terms.”
“So you think he has like, a brother or something?” Ino asks with a smile, baring teeth. “Or a cousin?”
“It’s not impossible, I guess.” She frowns again. “Wait. Hinata. I thought you had a guy?”
“Oh…I…” Naruto. Sasuke’s opposite in every way: blonde, tan, an intoxicating whirlwind of a person where Sasuke is pale, dark-haired, and frequently rude. “Might have. Broken it off with him…he’s got this post-grad sabbatical thing and I didn’t want to distract him…”
“I tried to tell her they could do the distance thing until he got back,” Ino mutters.
“It hadn’t gotten too serious. I mean, if it’s meant to be, then we’ll meet again some day…” Hinata smiles, dreamily.
She ignores the Look that passes silently between Ino and Sakura.
Her phone buzzes:
Your repair request has now been processed. Estimated completion time: 7-10 business days.
This is an automated text alert. Please call the store if you have questions.
Text STOP to opt out.