{ed il mio bacio scioglierà il silenzio che ti fa mia}
{and my kiss will dissolve the silence that makes you mine}
turandot, puccini
i.
"You've drank more than enough."
With that voice, he had meant to rebuke, but his tongue stripped away the words, and they slipped out his mouth flat and lifeless.
"Oh, now you care?" Inebriated blue eyes blinked at him, the cursory smile was deep and knowing. Hurting.
He let the sarcasm leave no wounds on his skin, and eyed the golden speckles of the sky-blue until they blinked and looked away. Naruto's thin red lips moved, and the voice that flowed out was languid and cold, "Let me."
Neji watched Naruto draw the bottle, watched cheap beer slosh against pink tongue, watched alcohol burn awkward pain and rusted frustrations. The shroud of cocky strength was thinning, and soon enough, he knew he'd see it. The rawness of festering wounds.
Above, grey black skies rumbled with thunder and threatened rain. He took this as a cue and let his hand––pale, sober and delicate––grip the shoulder of his fair-headed friend.
"Naruto. . ."
Dull blue on clear white gleamed. Thin red lips stirred, and they said, "Neji, take me home."
ii.
Home was too far, and the rains were too brutal. They did not make it home. Five more miles to the village gates, the nonchalant shower howled into a midnight storm, and Neji gripped the hand he was holding harder, tighter––and led them off course.
They ran into a temple, old and dilapidated. Or rather, Neji ran and Naruto stumbled. Pale hand pulled on tanned; pale feet stepped through dry door, dry floor, and dirtier muddier tanned feet followed carelessly behind. Pale hand yanked on tanned, and tanned feet slipped, and soon tanned back fell on wooden, creaky floorboards with a crash. To Naruto's ears already bleeding with intoxication, the thud of his head on wood seemed loud. So loud.
So damn loud.
Neji let the drunkard lie, and scoured the single-roomed temple for light and warmth. Behind broken statues of headless gods, he found dusty matches that he used to light dusty candles. The veil of gloom crept grudgingly away with the onslaught of soft orange glows.
"You're only rough with me when I'm drunk," the gentle mirthless laughter that followed chilled Neji's heart.
He walked to his inebriated friend on the floor, and looked down on the golden boy, wet hair plastered on wet forehead. "I hate it when you're like this."
With that voice, he had meant a gentle reproach, but it found anger and loathing in his throat, and left his tongue stained with disdain.
"Only because you know," pink tongue flitted out, wetting red lips. "You know I understand you best like this."
"You understand nothing."
Blue eyes scoured until they found his. Wet hands searched until the right found Neji's left feet and gripped it.
The thin red lips curled in a smile askew, and they said, "But I do, I do."
iii.
Lately all their outings had ended up like this. Naked on the floor, burning with unrestrained desire laced with love and hate. Lately all their conversations had ended with lips crushed together, hands that roamed searching for a more that was just too less. Warm breaths on faces, wet tongues on necks, twisted legs and hips that buckle. Lately Naruto would have his warm hands wrapped around Neji's pale shoulders, his blue eyes drunk on anger, love and alcohol, his voice choked with frustrations that had no beginnings and no ends. And lately, the question on his lips in those moments of rage were ones like this. Questions so bitter with the colour of spring's shadow.
"Do you love me?"
Neji let the question hang, let his silence drag out and fill the room until Naruto's eyes, already wild with desire and hope and fear, turned clouded with disappointment and anger. "Say that you love me."
"Naruto."
"Say that you love me, dammit Neji, say that you love me," desperation marred broken agony, anger rose and fell with the tides of hope and despair. "Why can't you love me? Is it her? Do you love her?"
"I don't love her. I merely need her."
"Then why? Why. . . . damn you," broken, breaking, bleeding, "Damn you, I hate you, I really fucking hate you so much."
His pale arms wrapped around the golden head, pulling it to his pale chest. "I need her," and he wouldn't continue, wouldn't say that he needed her to be free. Needed her to wipe away the cursed stain on his forehead, needed her to escape his humiliation, his burden of indignity. Needed her to escape the wrong twin, the wrong house, the wrong fate.
"I know you love me," he heard Naruto's sharp whisper against his skin. "I know you love me, don't ever leave me."
The voice of self-deceit was silky smooth.
iv.
Sooner or later, it would end in a jagged pain that would surely heal in time. And on a summer's day, when the sun was high above, hot and blazing, he ended it with a chaste kiss on Naruto's cheek.
His fair-headed friend, smartly dressed in a black suit, oozing roguish charm that touched him and warmed him, grabbed his shoulder. Face contorted in disbelief, eyes so wide and sky-blue. The thin red lips trembled, and they said, "What do you mean? I thought. . . even though you're getting––"
"It's over."
With that voice, he had meant to end it with decency, with dignity, with some semblance of respect, but who knew there was so much coldness in his throat. It chilled the words so that when they left his lips, the message was of harsh nonchalance. A chilling lack of love.
"Neji. . ."
"Don't forget the ring."
He left it at that, walked away and refused to turn back. When he left the room, the tremors that made his heart sag dissipated, and when he closed the door, he found there was nothing left anymore. Only burning ambition. Only the sweet smell of a freedom soon in his grasp.
She was waiting.
Hanabi.
The key that would unlock his cage.
Yet when he took her arm at the end of a ceremony so full of sham, confetti in the air and beating drums in the background, he could only think of burning blue and the bittersweet taste of pink tongues and musky sweat.
v.
Lately, on these autumn nights, Neji dreamt of familiar hands and familiar scents. Of a throaty voice that whispered his name, that laughed with easy richness. He dreamt of soft lips grazing, warm hands touching, and he would wake up hours before dawn with a tightness between his legs and an unshakeable need for release. His wife would be obliging, excited, and he told himself that it was because she was young, so young.
That she only knew of rushing blood and easy touch. Of climaxes that would end with wetness. Of breasts needing to be fondled, of ragged breaths on pale skin––white on white.
So white, when it was him on her.
At the end of their ritual, when her face flushed with redness and her eyes glazed with love, he would lie quietly beside her, holding her, listening to her talk of an ardour that seemed all too familiar. And he would often wonder why, despite this, he could find no satisfaction, only the aftertaste of brutality and the chagrin smile of emotions gone wrong.
And later, when he stepped out of a shower so hot it burned his skin bright red, he would look at his reflection in the mirror, and wondered in a light less bright, would the redness of his skin turn the shade of tan, and the white pupils of his eyes turn a comforting blue?
But only the New Neji stared back at him.
Pale eyes on pale skin. Long dark hair. A forehead white and clean.
He was free, but who knew freedom could be this empty.
Then there would be a soft knock on the door, and the sound of his attendant asking him if all was all right, if he needed anything, if the water was too hot or too cold.
And New Neji would wrap a robe around his nakedness, and walk out, Master of the Hyuuga House.
vi.
It never snowed in the Fire Country, but floodgates opened in the sky and rain fell down in torrents. The days would be cold and wet, and the nights would be colder and wetter. The winter winds that ravaged the silent roads in early dusk were the kind that chilled bones and rattled teeth. But sometimes, very rarely, a subversive cold front would bring shivering temperatures, and the rain would turn into partial hail.
It never lasted long though, and soon the ice would surely melt into rain again.
That winter, they sent him on a mission in the outskirts of Fire, where natural borders flirted between Rain and Grass. There would be an important exchange of scrolls, of information, between Konoha and Grass. But with the exchange came a rabid group of Rain ninjas, foaming at the mouth with blood and gore, dizzy with skills and jutsus. They were as strong as the one from the Sound Four that he had fought so long ago. . . so long ago to save someone he could barely remember.
But he was older now, with jounin speeds and jounin skills, and he knew it would be an easy fight.
If not for the fact that he was one, and they were six. He was one jounin and they were six copies of that Sound Four called Kidoumaru. Still he was pleased when two went down easily in the first few moments of fighting, and less pleased to know that the other four learnt quickly.
Too quickly.
What happened next came just as swiftly. Jutsu after jutsu. Punches and kicks. Cuts and wounds and blood on lips. In the last moments, when he thought he would get through this little skirmish, the little dark-haired boy with yellow eyes and claws for hands broke through his defense by sheer luck and careful design.
He would have laughed, but he was coughing blood.
Coughing blood, nursing broken arms and savaged legs. Running out of so much chakra, he thought he might just die. And that brat, that little dark-haired boy with light in his eyes looking down at his crumpled figure, with a sneer that should have been his sneer, the victory his victory.
God, too much blood.
The rain beating against his face, the cold bone-chilling winds of early dusk blowing, maybe it wasn't such a bad way to go. He closed his eyes and felt warmness envelop him, who knew death could be so comforting. Only when the raw cry of real death startled him that he opened his eyes and found the warmth came from the cloak wrapped around him.
A dark cloak that not too long ago hung on that tall body, those broad shoulders. The dark spiral of ANBU on that long arm, tanned and shapely. Golden hair wet with freezing rain. Fox mask impenetrable.
And then Neji did laugh.
God, so familiar, this scent of you.
vii.
It was still winter when he awoke. The chilling rain outside his window fell on the bare branches of trees whose leaves turned from green to orange, to red and yellow, until they fell in heaps and were swept away.
He found his arms and legs in casts as white as his skin, and pink-haired Sakura looking over him, telling him in her chocolate-rich voice that it would take another three weeks before they could take the casts off. Telling him that she was glad he was okay.
That she was glad he was alive.
But all he could think was that this smell of sterile medicine, this lingering stench of a body healing, was so putrid. So harsh and so wrong.
"Why was he there?"
The green eyes did not waver. "He was coming back from a long mission in Iwa."
"In Iwa? That's not a normal route back from Iwa."
"You know him," she smiled that gentle comforting smile she put on for all her patients. "He wanders around, gets lost and gets drunk. He said there was a ramen shop in Kusa that made him," she coughed and imitated that throaty voice, "cream my pants."
The side of Neji's lips twitched.
"He'll often stop there on the way back to Konoha," she explained like it was just a coincidence that he was there when Neji needed him. "And you are pretty lucky, Neji-san."
Luck. . . and not fate?
"When was he. . ."
"A few months ago, Tsunade-sama finally approved his ANBU application," she laughed, pink hair swept against her shoulder. "He looks pretty good in that uniform, hmm?"
Neji did not answer.
"Even Tsunade-sama did a double take when he came in the first time around although," she paused, "I still think she takes a double take every time he walks into her room."
He wanted to ask more, to probe and question until all the missing pieces between now and that day were filled, but his wife came in, her eyes red with tears and lack of sleep, and she fell on him and embraced him, covering him with her girlish scent of jasmine and hyacinth.
And for a while, just a little while, he felt the clenching pangs of guilt.
A secret shame.
viii.
By early spring, his body had found the easy rhythm of movement. His legs had relearnt the cadence of rolls and kicks and jumps. Broken bones were fixed, bleeding wounds were closed. His dance of empty palms and heavenly spins were as graceful, if not more powerful, as ever. The day he felt completely healed, his wife brought him outside the majestic Hyuuga compound. He in a dark grey kimono, and she, resplendent in petaled pink flowers draped on white satin silk.
They took a walk in the busy shopping district of food and clothes and perfumes. He let her lead him, and listened patiently to her idle chatter of things he knew little and cared even less, and when she ran into shops, he stood outside waiting, wondering why he agreed to this little excursion.
He knew of course why, but found it hard to admit to himself, and he pushed it to the back of his mind, consciously repressing the edgy feeling of hope and expectation.
Outside the little perfume shop smelling of lavender and blossom, while he waited patiently for Hanabi to emerge, he found what he had been hoping––no, not hoping, never hoping––for.
His pulse quickened, and his stomach turned into knots so complicated he thought he would heave acid. He needn't turn around to know, but he did anyway––to see.
And he saw Naruto.
Naruto, golden hair slightly longer. Jawline still sharp, cheeks still whiskered. Shoulders just as broad. He's grown even taller. Naruto, so uncharacteristic in that long-sleeved white shirt unbuttoned at the top, tie slackened and loose. The long legs hidden behind black trousers. Smart black shoes.
Naruto watching him.
Clear blue on clear white.
And Neji had to fight hard to hide the tremors of his knees. He wanted to smile, to nod, to acknowledge––but he could only stare, his demeanour frozen and his face masked with feigned disaffection.
A dark-eyed dark-haired, dressed similar as his golden boy, but with a tie that was in place and drapped in a dark jacket, came out of the shop where Naruto had been standing by. He saw Naruto's gaze move easily from him to this newcomer, and felt a gripping of something at the ease with which the attention shifted. He watched Naruto smile, Naruto laugh, the dimples on those cheeks so familiar.
"Is this jacket good?" The voice of the boy was cheerful in a way that seemed artificial.
"When did you start asking me for fashion advice, Sai?"
"It was not so hard to conclude that whatever your opinion is, the better one would be the opposite," dark-haired Sai beamed a smile. "If you said it was good, I would have gone back inside and gotten another."
"It looks crap on you."
"Thank you."
"But you look really hot in that belly-flashing half top that you always wear around. . ."
"Unfortunately the involuntary twitch of your lips often tells me when you are lying," Sai spoke, his cheerfulness grating Neji. "And I have accidentally heard a more truthful conversation between you and Kakashi where you disparaged my chosen costume."
Naruto's face broke in a smile. "Whatever, stupid-face, now are we going to go or not? I think Iruka's going to kick my arse when I come late to his wedding."
"Yes, especially when you are the best man."
He watched Naruto leave, watched Naruto walk away without a single glance his way.
The knots in his stomach unravelled.
Not too long ago, Naruto had been his best man too.
ix.
Spring turned to Summer turned to Autumn turned to Winter.
In between the slow shift of chilling winter rain to warm spring showers, Neji was sent to the Sound for a short reconnaissance mission. He came back with detailed information, some useful, others less so. The path back to Konoha took place at night, terse moonlight hidden behind a thick wall of grey and black. When the thunders rolled and the rains fell warm and hard, he soaked in the wistfulness of the moment, and found himself making way to a temple old and familiar.
Wet, dripping on wooden creaky floorboards, surveying gloomy darkness, he chided himself.
Of course, Naruto wouldn't be here.
Why would he?
He entered the gloom, not bothering with light, tearing his wet clothes off his damp skin, and found himself curled on the floor. White against black.
Outside, the spring rains––light and gentle––clashed with the aftermath of cold winter winds, and the fight turned into a warm humid tempest.
He stilled his mind, stilled his thoughts, then mocked himself for his weakness. Mocked the tender feeling that weren't there when they should have been, mocked the warmth that grew in absence. Mocked the freedom that cleared his forehead of its cursed-seal blemish, but fixed none of the other scars less visible.
He clenched his eyes, reeling in frustration.
"I thought you might be here."
He jerked up, and found him leaning against the door. The black cloak, wet and dripping, lied in a bunch by his feet. The fox mask on his hand. Neji bristled at his own inattention, his own carelessness, but silently, was awed by Naruto's chakra-masking abilities. He said nothing, and the wet yellow head cocked to a side, still watching him. One lone candle, burning a medley of blue, orange and red.
"You were supposed to go with Lee to the Sound," The tone was guarded and careful. "Why did you leave him at the border?"
"I told him I was going to go alone," he replied quietly.
"Really? That's not what he told the Baba. He said he woke up and you were gone."
"Perhaps he was too drunk to remember my instructions."
"Oh, you left instructions, did you?" The reproach rang clear. "Seems he didn't find any and ran back to Konoha saying you got captured."
"Is that so," a careful pause, "and I assume by your presence here, that you went to look for me."
Naruto took off the fox mask, and Neji could see the blue eyes. They were deep and hard.
"No, did you want me to?" There was a smirk on the thin red lips.
"Then what are you doing here?" Neji's voice was harsh.
"Because this is what you want, right?" Tanned hand dropped the fox mask on the floor. "Why would Hyuuga Neji cause a commotion, and get who knows how many jounins to search for him in the Sound if he wasn't looking for my attention?"
"You're too full of yourself."
"You just wanted me to come look for you. Wanted some excuse to see me."
"Don't accuse me with your made up theories."
Thin red lips moved, and they said, "You know it's true. They didn't find you in the Sound because you didn't let them. You went about your little data-gathering mission, cleverly doing your job, stealthily hiding from people who were worried sick looking for you."
"You're not one of those people, what do you care?"
"Your wife was there," now the smirk was gone, and in its place a certain coldness. "Your wife was looking for you."
He turned away, silent, unanswering.
"You know why I didn't go? Didn't go looking for your damn arse in that land of bad memories? 'Cos I know you'd be here. I know you'd end up here somehow," Now Naruto was standing before him, looking down at the bare curve of his shoulder blades. "You must have thought I wasn't going to come," there was that chuckle he had heard so many times before, and Neji looked up to the whiskered face. "Surprised you?"
Neji trembled, his chest heavy, his throat dry. His right hand found Naruto's left leg, and the grip was tight and bold.
Thin red lips curled in a smile askew, "Guess I was right."
x.
There was a hand on his cheek. A hand warm and rough, quivering ever so gently with the nostalgia of a long absence. He touched that hand, his right palm feeling the knuckles, the long fingers, leaning his cheek into that warm touch.
"Why did you leave me?" Quivering hand and quivering lips. Blue eyes so piercing they touched him and robbed him of his sanity.
He moved the hand to his lips, kissed the fingers, felt its dryness, tasted rain and sweat.
"I don't know anymore."
"When you left. . . you knew," he heard pain in that voice, heard the crack of a wound that never healed.
Neji felt the surge of a thousand thoughts turned to words in his throat, thoughts that spanned four seasons and longer, thoughts that each fought the other for a voice and an expression on his tongue. Yet none of them left his mouth, dammed behind his teeth, behind sudden fears that loomed over him. He gripped Naruto's hand, and with his pale other, touched that face, those whiskered cheeks, drawing that head closer to his.
The nose that grazed his sent a tingle down his spine. He felt warm breath on his face, felt his own lips tremble when thin red ones descended on them, touching them so gently, so softly, that his thoughts ran back years and seasons, when they first touched him with the same quiet gentleness. His chest pounded, welled up grief burst forth from his ribs. Its cry muted, Its colours invisible. Yet Naruto would know, he was sure, of every colour in the spectrum of his anguish. He let Naruto kiss him, let Naruto touch him, and he kissed back just as desperately, just as hopefully, his clasped hands behind that smooth neck, touching that golden hair, needing that golden skin.
The kiss deepened, and soon he felt the pressure of a pink tongue rubbing against his lips. He parted his mouth open, inviting the heat.
Then there were only warm tongues together, tangling. Mouth tasting mouth, seeking tongue, touching teeth, until Neji––breathing Naruto's breath––wanted Naruto to swallow him whole till there was none of him left, only this sweet kiss, only this one clear moment of bliss.
"Naruto. . ."
And the kisses that came after that were the ones he knew best. Crushing lips, tongues desperate and caressing, hands roaming bodies that shivered with cold yet sweating with heat. Naruto ran his tongue along Neji's jaw, bit and sucked his neck––leaving marks that wouldn't disappear for days, and Neji could only moan a ragged cry for more, could only beg for another kiss, another touch here, another bite there.
Don't stop.
Naruto pinned him down with his arms, forced Neji's legs open with his knees. The fabric of his uniform scraping against Neji's bare chest, and Neji writhed under the pressure of the taller body. Naruto kissed his ear, sucked his earlobes, and he searched Naruto's back for an opening so that his hands could touch tanned skin, could grope tanned back. But before he found it, Naruto's mouth trailed down his chest, licking and biting at his nipples, teasing their hardness, the rough hands already on his hips, pulling at his white trousers. When the same hands wrapped around his member, he let out a moan that hadn't left his lips since those hands had been gone.
He grabbed at the yellow hair.
But now those thin red lips were trailing down to his tightness, and they played on his skin, grazing, testing, until the warm mouth plunged into his member, licking him, sucking him. His back arched and he cried out, the pleasure wracking through him.
"Naruto, no. . ."
He pulled at the broad shoulders, sat up so he could reach the face, and kissed long and hard until Naruto pushed him away, tearing his uniform off his chest. He grabbed Neji in a warm embrace and Neji melted under the beat of Naruto's heart.
They rocked quietly together, holding each other, feeling skin and bones, shapes of arms and shoulders, until Naruto's hands moved down again. Moved down until it was on his throbbing fervour, fingers wrapped around his member, moving slowly then faster and faster, and he––already so close to coming before––could no longer hold in the barrage of excitement. He gasped and when it came flooding out of him, cried and bit at the tanned neck, hands clawing.
He heard that chuckle, pulled away and saw blue eyes gleamed. Thin red lips kissed him, and he shuddered with pleasure.
Naruto touched the warm stickiness that flooded his chest, that ran dribbling down his side, and Neji knew what he wanted. He watched Naruto zip down his black trousers, pulled at them and threw then aside. Watched the soft ripple of muscles on the thighs, the hardness of the skin against the hair that was golden down there too, and then they were both naked on the floor, touching and kissing, legs rubbing against each other.
"I want you," the throaty voice whispered in his ear. The rough hand taking a scoop of his sticky fluid, and using it to lubricate his hardness.
Neji turned around, on his knees, and Naruto teased the Hyuuga's slit, rubbing against them until pale eyes trembled and knees grew weak. Then he entered, he thrusted, and Neji growled at the pain that was pleasure, and Naruto throbbed in him, mouth filled with ragged breaths, sharp groans.
He had waited too long for this. The moans that came with the pounding, the harsh thrusts, the impulsive shoves. He felt the surge of adrenaline as Naruto cried his name, and urged the other man on, urged him to come faster, to thrust deeper, and Naruto responded with more than he needed, the tanned hands on his porcelain hips gripped and shuddered. They moved together, engulfed in guttural cries that became louder with every movement until the final cry wracked Naruto, his back arched, neck exposed, and Neji felt flowing heat inside him.
Naruto collapsed on him, then fell on his side on the wooden floor. The long tanned arms wrapped around Neji's chest, warm breath tickled his ear, his back was against that chest pounding hard and for him. Naruto kissed the back of his neck, and Neji held onto those arms tightly, not wanting them to leave.
"I need you," his anguish and his voice cracked against the silence and the darkness.
Thin red lips stirred and grazed his neck, "I know."
xi.
Sunlight streamed in through the torn paper windows, mottling his skin with brightness and shadows. Neji awoke to the fresh scent of dew, the chirping of forest birds, and an emptiness in his arms.
Naruto was gone.
The temple was empty of any trace of his midnight lover, as if he had never been there. As if the flesh and blood that Neji touched and ravaged the night before was merely an illusion orchestrated by his confused mind. He rocked on the wooden floor, awashed with sudden dread until the pounding in his head cleared and his pulse hummed to its usual quiet rhythm.
Yet the emptiness permeated him, wounded him, and he was chilled to the pits of his stomach. He lied there longer, not moving, so still it hurt, and let the voice in his head placate him, ignoring the waves of pain in his chest. Somehow, though he didn't know how, he found the strength to dress, found the will to stand up on shaky legs that knew where they had to go but needed ten times as much effort to move.
But as he pushed open the fragile doors, sunlight in his face, sunlight on his hands, he found the image he had burnt so many times in his mind standing before him, watching him in lonely glory.
Quiet blue on trembling white.
Throaty voice laced with regret, laced with anger, touched him, "I was going to leave you."
He could not answer, his hand gripped hard the wooden door.
"Tried to leave you," the blue eyes hid hurt with defiance. "See how far I've got."
He wanted to say, not very far. Wanted to run over to those arms, wanted to be held until the trembling of his body ceased and disappeared. But he stood there, rooted in his spot by small fears that had grown too large, and larger fears even more so.
"Do you. . . still––" he choked on that word, his tongue lashed against his mouth, frightened, angry.
"Do I still what?" Yet the voice knew exactly what.
And Neji swallowed hard. Swallowed everything in his mouth. Swallowed everything in his chest. The silence between them dragged out and filled every cell of his body until he felt he could choke on himself, choke on his being, choke on blue eyes so blue.
Then thin red lips stirred and thin red lips smiled a hundred different shades of yes
"You're a fool Neji, you really think I ever stopped?"
And pale white fought back tears so blue.