Expect updates to be sporadic. Also, I'd like to warn any potential readers ahead of time that there isn't much plot, although there is a worrying amount of oh-woe-he-doesn't-love-me angst and why-did-I-DO-that!? angst and actually it's more wangst than angst but I hope you enjoy it anyway.
The next chapter will be uploaded sometime next week (or maybe sometime next month, or sometime next year; who knows?) and won't be quite as depressingly short.
I am not quite sure why I am starting this right before NaNoWriMo, but there you go.
Complications
by Nilladriel
1: it
It—whatever it was—had first started just outside of Leaf Village's strong walls. The moon had been full and bright, and the night had been darkly gentle. It had been a little warm, but that was fine; there had been a breeze, swift and cool.
It had been a very romantic night, if you ignored the mud that had stuck to Neji's face and hands and clothes, and the way Naruto's clothes had been torn and stained and made more of holes than actual fabric. After all, they'd decided to have an impromptu sparring session, not because they really wanted to but because midnight had been creeping up, and neither had been able to sleep, and they'd been bored, and there was nothing else to do with a fellow ninja you happened to bump into in the middle of the night.
After, they'd sat under a tree scarred with kunai and burns, and there had been no conversation at all. Neji's mind had been a mess; he had not been able to concentrate at all (and later he would swear to himself that that was the only reason Naruto had been able to bruise him). He looked at Naruto often, and then would remember himself and look away. Not that it mattered. Naruto's bright eyes had been fixed solely on the moon, a queer, pensive expression on his face.
Neji sat there for what seemed like hours, gathering his courage which, after years of helping him through life-and-death situations, had fled and was now whimpering somewhere in the corners of his mind. Finally he'd just thought, Fuck it, (except far, far more eloquently of course) and had leaned over and kissed Naruto square on the lips.
Well, all right. He'd lost his nerve at the last moment—er, that is, he'd missed, and he hadn't really kissed Naruto on the lips, but rather that area where lips meet cheek, but Naruto had gotten the idea all the same. His yelp had made that obvious.
And that was when it had started. Neji really wasn't sure what it was, except that it seemed to involve a lot of awkward looks and flushing and pretending that the not-quite-kiss hadn't happened at all, nope, not at all.
Not at all.