Chapter 1: What He Remembers
Looking back on it now, Neji knew he'd been an idiot. Yes. In all of his pride and glory, the Hyuga prodigy knew he committed a grave mistake. It was actually funny how he realised it only now, standing alone in the balcony when he should be inside catching up with his old friends. It was a reunion for goodness sake, he shouldn't have bothered coming at all if he was going to be an old stick in the mud.
The lone man let out a sigh and removed his sight from the city-view and proceeded to lean back, focusing instead on the people at the other side of the glass doors. Particularly one brunette girl. No matter how long it had been, no matter how many other new people he had met, he could still single her out among the crowd. At the corner of his eye he could see her at the refreshments table. Wearing a simple white and maroon dress and her hair in a messy bun, she was as breathtaking as ever, surrounded by their old group of friends. Laughing, smiling and all around being her charming self, and all Neji could do was shake his head and turn his back to them once more.
Now, why was he sulking around on such a merry occasion you ask? Well, going back to our first point, he'd been an idiot.
oOo
Six Years Ago, Senior Year
It was not well known but Neji really liked spending time in the library. He preferred the silence to the noise that is the cafeteria and the unwanted audience he never failed to have when training in the school's basketball court. But he only went to the library when he needed the silence to just hear himself think. He was stuck in a dillema, you see.
He was eighteen and oh-so-in love. Not infatuated, in love. As a man who doesn't deal much with emotion, he could surely recognize one as it smacks him in the face. Not to say that he didn't have trouble coming to terms with it at first. Oh no, there had been multiple attempts to quash down these feelings, labelling them as distractions. But...if he were to be honest with himself, he thought, there was nothing wrong feeling the way he felt; no matter how hard he tried to surpress it, all efforts went to waste as she came bounding towards him with that smile on her face, as she put her arms around him in an embrace, with every excited text she sent him, every time she stood by his side and just...stayed there.
Yeah. He's got it baaaaaad.
So bad that he hadn't even noticed the object of his affections standing behind him until,
"Hey Neji!" Neji could only sigh. Only Tenten would know where to find him (and his other best friend, Lee, too actually but meh).
"Now, what's up with that?" Tenten said with a smile on her face and took the empty seat opposite himself. "I came all the way here to keep you company and you greet me like that," she added a dramatic forlorn sigh, " how mean of you." She finished with a pout.
"Hn." Neji narrowed his eyes at the still pouting Tenten.
"What do you want Tenten? You know better than to disturb me while I'm in the library." Because she knows that this was his special thinking place, dammit.
Neji had to hand it to her. She was quite the actress. With that affronted look on her face, she could have easily nabbed an academy award.
Still with that affronted look with matching hand gestures, "Why , I have never even-" a glare "-Well you see Neji," at least she had the decency to look sheepish.
"You know my birthday is coming up this weekend, right?" Yes, how could he not?
"What about it?" He inquired further with a raised eyebrow, suspicious already.
"Well, Ino suggested we, the girls and all, go clubbing," Tenten started cautiously.
Neji felt like he wouldn't like this one bit.
"I was hoping maybe, just slightly, you know you can say no if you hate me and leave me in the clutches of Ino and Karin alone; Hinata would be coming too, just saying-" "Stop with the guilt trip and get on with it Tenten."
"Is it working though?" Tenten asked cheekily.
She was answered by a blank stare. Moving on...
"Please, please come with us and don't bring the other guys with you. Sakura wanted it to be an all-girls thing but the thing is you know none of us can't hold our liquor very well, not that we'd be drinking that much but still." Tenten finished.
Neji was about to answer when Tenten hastily added, a slight annoyance hinted at her tone, "Also, my parents only agreed to let me go if you come with me, I already said that you will. You know they trust you more than me."
Silence.
"I'm slightly offended that you're inviting me to a girls-only party."
With just that, Tenten was already beaming.
"Is that a yes?"
"I never said anything of the sorts."
"I'm not hearing a no either," Tenten retorted in a sing-song voice.
He's going to regret this.
"Hn," Yes. But the huge smile she gave him was definitely worth it.
Tenten, in her excitement, flew out of her chair, wrapped her arms around his neck in an embrace and Neji automatically encircled his around her waist. Their position being Tenten sitted sideways on his lap.
Still hugging him, "Thank you, thank you Neji!"
Burying his nose at the crook of her neck, he replied, "No problem."
They stayed like that for a few more seconds then Tenten removed herself from his embrace and stood. Just like that the moment was done.
Giving him another smile, "Thanks again Neji, I owe you for this." With a wave goodbye, Tenten was out the door in the next second.
oOo
Neji was placed out of his musings with the sound of the glass doors sliding open and company making its form in a bowl-cut hair and sparkling teeth.
"Neji!" he exclaimed, sparkling teeth in a wide smile. "My youthful rival, whatever are you doing here all alone? Come, let us bask in the peak of our youth and engage in cheerful socialisation!" All Neji's hopes for isolation was all but destroyed by one person.
Rock Lee was his other best friend from way back when. They said some enemies started off as friends, some friends started off as enemies. Neji Hyuga and Rock Lee fell on the latter. It was in elementary when Lee had been the self-proclaimed eternal rival of one prodigious Hyuga. It was anything but friendly. The green fanatic Lee vowed to have the pompous-then Hyuga to recognize him as an equal in every way, be it academics or sports (of course Lee wanted to focus more on sports, just because. Don't ask why.) And frankly Neji doesn't want to lose.
They really only became friends one faithful day in a certain bun-haired girl's house during middle school. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the three had been grouped for a science experiment that accounted for thirty percent of their grade. With two months to prepare the girl, Tenten, being the grade conscious student that she was, wanted to maximize the given time. Maximize, they did not. All time was spent with Lee taunting Neji into all sorts of challenges. Sometimes the Hyuga would accept, often times he would say something that not only would rile up the other but also greatly intimidate the lone female in their group. It was only when the said female had been in the crossfire of one of their more physical challenges did they think to straighten out their ways. Both of them, along with the glue that pieced them together in the first place, had been inseperable ever since.
"Have you seen our lovely lotus, Neji?"
Neji jutted out his chin in the direction of the refreshments table, where Tenten was now talking to his cousin, a flute at hand.
"Ah. She has truly grown as the most lovely blossom." Lee said, serenity coating his words.
"Hn." Yeah. She's quite beautiful. But she's always been beautiful in Neji's eyes. He turned his back to her once more. Leaning again on the balcony's railing.
"Have you talked to her already?" Lee asked as he placed himself beside him, his back and elbows on the railing.
Neji shook his head in response. "Haven't since I left the country."
"Since you ran away from her, you mean?"
"Hn." He had no response to that.
"I never really knew why you did," Lee started, "Our lovely lotus gave me the story but I feel as if there is more to it." He casted a sideways glance at the long haired man beside him, "It's always the case between you two."
"I..." He didn't know how to answer that.
oOo
They went clubbing as planned that weekend. What he didn't plan was drinking a bit himself. Not enough to be considered drunk, but enough to lose his inhibitions. But that has made all the difference.
The night had ended with their clothes flying across his room and sounds that somehow didn't wake anyone in the house.
He woke up alone the next morning.
A/N
Heyyy. So if you noticed, but I doubt it, I deleted The Compromise. I'm really sorry! It's just that I do all my writing in my phone and when it broke a couple of months ago, all progress about it was lost. Aaaand I tried working on it this christmas break, re-read everything and I was like, " Wtf is this garbage?!" so yeah. I don't know if I would be starting it again. Maybe if I find the time but I don't know. The idea is there for others to adopt however. Feel free to write it, just give me a PM.
All in all this is a sort of sorry for those who actually liked The Compromise. I already finished the second chapter and the last chap will be started on asap. Sooo tell me what you think about it!
