The Secret Life of Teachers

Chapter 1: My Neighbor the Serial Killer

Dissection kits and coffee and impromptu beer runs, oh my.

Self-indulgent teacher fic is go! This story is largely a slice-of-life type of thing, but I hope you all enjoy it nonetheless.

24102106 | 23012017 | 4011 | AO3 | FFN | tumblr

—

Sometimes, Tenten swears the universe hates her. Really, she does. Because if it didn't, there'd be no reason for her to find herself standing in the fourth-floor hallway of her building, just outside her apartment, with an assortment of brand new and shiny-sharp dissection tools scattered around her feet in the presence of her new neighbor — specifically, the one she sees leaving the complex shirtless at six o'clock every morning for his daily jog, when she's still half-awake and on her second cup of coffee in an attempt to be partially coherent for work.

(Not that she'd been staring at him on purpose or anything.)

And yet here she is, frozen in time outside her door with her key in the lock and the contents of no fewer than ten entire kits of dissection tools littering the ugly paisley carpet of the hallway as the aforementioned neighbor stares at her from where he's just emerged from the stairwell, expression one of mild confusion and potential concern once he takes stock of just how many scalpels and forceps seem to be embedded in the floor.

Considering that the majority of the dissection tools have fallen directly in front of his apartment, which happens to be right next door to hers, she decides that his concern is rather justified.

It does nothing to alleviate Tenten's embarrassment, of course, but at least he's wearing a shirt, now, for which she is immensely thankful, and she supposes that maybe the entire situation isn't as entirely hopeless as she'd initially thought. It's enough to convince her that maybe she can somehow turn everything around in the hope that any future encounters between them won't end with him running away from her as fast as he possibly can, so without really thinking, and in what she hopes is a light-hearted and conversational way, she tells him, "I swear to God, I am not a serial killer."

It's as the words are leaving her mouth that she realizes what she's said, though already it is far too late to take it back. Instead, fearing that she may embarrass herself even further in front of her new neighbor as she watches him watch her, Tenten clamps her jaw shut tightly in abject mortification, and waits for the ground beneath her to open up and swallow her whole.

(The likelihood of this happening is extremely slim, of course, considering that they live on the fourth floor, but she decides that in this instance, that particular detail hardly matters.)

Awkward, she decides, is the only word that aptly describes the silence that stretches on between them, and Tenten is more than prepared for her neighbor to either get away from her as fast as he can or call the police and report her as some sort of criminal on the loose. Or maybe even both. For some reason, however, fortune decides to smile on her when he crosses his arms over his chest and looks her in the eye with an expression of mild interest.

"Don't worry," he replies in turn. "I figured as much."

(And it is at that moment, when she realizes that it may be possible she hasn't left a bad impression on him after all, that Tenten thinks the universe may not hate her as much as she thought it did.)

—

Hiss name is Hyuuga Neji, she learns twenty minutes later when she invites him over for coffee in return for his assistance in picking up the mess of her assorted scalpels and probes, and oddly enough he seems to believe her statement about not being a serial killer. He also thinks that it's terribly generous of her to use her own money to order so many new high-end dissection kits for her anatomy and physiology students to use in the upcoming school year. When he asks if she's a teacher at the local high school two blocks over, and she responds in the affirmative, Neji says that even though he's never had much of a stomach for dissections (the thought of cutting into something that had once been alive without the intention of eating or cooking it has always made his stomach a little weak, he admits, and the smell of formaldehyde certainly doesn't help) he looks forward to hearing that they're put to good use over the school year nonetheless.

"I'm the new physics teacher there," he continues by way of explanation when he catches sight of the puzzled look Tenten gives him over the rim of her own mug of coffee. "I officially begin at the start of the new school year."

She hums in response around a mouthful of black coffee before swallowing. "You'll like it there, I think," she tells him, because she certainly does. "I definitely do, and this is going to be my fourth year there."

He nods, takes a slow, pensive sip of his coffee, then. "How old are you, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Twenty-seven." The way he asks makes her guess that he'd tried to phrase the question in such a way as to not offend her, and while Tenten appreciates the thought, she isn't terribly offended, and she says just as much. "I know I have a baby face, so I get that a lot."

Neji smiles at her comment. "We're the same age, then," he replies with a thoughtful nod, "though I've never had people think I'm younger than I actually am."

Tenten makes a face. "It's terrible," she says. "We got a new security guard last year, and one day he chased me all the way down the hall after he saw me leaving the teacher's lounge because he thought I was a student out of class without permission."

From the adjacent couch, Neji raises one dark, elegant eyebrow in polite disbelief. "Really?"

"He followed me all the way back to my classroom so that I could grab my wallet and show him my driver's license — even my name tag wasn't enough for him, apparently."

This time Neji laughs, and Tenten decides she likes the sound of it. "I am so sorry."

She waves a hand dismissively. "Yeah, well, my main consolation is that by the time I'm in my fifties, I'll hopefully look like I'm only thirty, at most."

"Most assuredly worth it, in my opinion." He drains the rest of his coffee and gets up to put the cup in the kitchen sink (she doesn't question how he knows where the kitchen is — he'd passed it on his way in, and his apartment is the mirror image of hers anyway) ignoring her protests from the couch as he does so. "The coffee was great, by the way."

Tenten follows him into the kitchen, rinses her own empty mug and sets it in the sink. "I should be thanking you for helping me with the kits, honestly," she responds, "and especially for not thinking I'm a serial killer."

He smiles again and shrugs noncommittally, making his way to the door. "In that case, you are very much welcome." Neji leans down to slip on his shoes, and when he straightens again he's looking at her in a way that's vaguely friendly. "Thanks again for the coffee," he says, one hand on the door knob. There's a smile lingering at the corners of his mouth, and Tenten decides she like that, too. "I'll see you around sometime."

"Yeah," she replies with a smile of her own. "See you later."

And that, really, is how this story starts.

—

They see each other around a lot, after that, and it doesn't take long for them to move from being "acquaintances" to "friends".

Well. She likes to think of them as such, at least, if the number of times she finds herself having dinner at his place is any indication.

It starts quite by accident, about two weeks after that first meeting with the dissection kits, when she'd invited him over for coffee: she's been earning some extra cash teaching a biology course for the summer school curriculum, and with most of her time divided between work, grading, lesson plans, graduate school coursework, and the gym, Tenten's developed a bad habit of forgetting to do important things like buy groceries until her apartment is entirely void of anything edible. So when she comes home late one night to discover that her refrigerator is empty, she's quite surprised to find Neji at her door a few minutes later with a six-pack of beer and an offer for dinner.

She can't quite help but look up at him as though he is an angel descended from on high. "How did you know?" she asks. Then her eyes settle on the beer. "Is that for me?"

"No," Neji replies flatly. "I just got back from a beer run, and I was walking past your door when I heard you complaining about how you didn't have anything to eat and were certain you'd die of starvation by the time any takeout you ordered finally arrived." He raises an eyebrow (he's really good at doing that, Tenten realizes) and there's a smirk on his lips. "You're very loud and oddly specific when you're hungry."

Tenten huffs indignantly and folds her arms over her chest. "Well, you'd be hungry, too, if you hadn't had a proper meal since breakfast." And then she purses her lips thoughtfully. "Thanks for the offer, though — I'll be over in just a minute."

A little over three minutes pass, actually, by the time she finally makes her way over, but Neji doesn't seem to care too much about that. He does, however, look curiously between her and the twelve-pack she sets on his kitchen counter before his expression settles into one of vague indifference. "Why am I not surprised that your apartment is entirely out of food, but not alcohol?"

"Because I prioritize: tomorrow is Saturday and I don't have to wake up at the crack of dawn during summer vacation for once, so I am justified in taking advantage of it in order to chill. Duh." She's opened the box and stuck about half the cans into the fridge before popping the tab on one and taking a long, indulgent sip from it. "Besides, you're letting me eat here for free. I couldn't just waltz in and drink all your booze, especially when I know you just went out to buy some and I'm already here with the sole purpose of consuming everything you have that's even remotely edible."

"How considerate of you," Neji tells her, but he accepts the can Tenten offers all the same, takes a large sip before setting it down on the counter and moving to mix something in a pot on the stove.

Tenten takes it upon herself to find a seat while she watches Neji cook, and decides that the counter behind her — the one furthest away from the stove — does an excellent job of getting that done. "So, what are we having?" she asks, swinging her legs idly and enjoying the warmth of the kitchen on her bare skin. It's already the beginning of August, the tail-end of summer, and before long it will soon be autumn, and time for jeans and sweaters. "It smells great."

"I hope you weren't expecting a five-star experience." Neji takes another mouthful of beer and shrugs. "It's just fried rice."

"I'm not picky," Tenten assures him brightly. "I'll eat just about anything."

Neji smirks at her from the other side of the kitchen. "Somehow, I don't doubt that." Of course, she's not impressed by that, and when she lets him know as much by nonchalantly flipping him off while simultaneously chugging down as much beer as she can without seriously hurting herself, it doesn't seem like he is either, especially when his only response is to level a half-hearted glare at her and say, "I hope you realize I was under no obligation to invite you over for dinner."

She rolls her eyes, then, and with as much sarcasm as she can muster replies, "For which I am eternally grateful.", complete with a half-bow at her waist. Still, there had been a note of genuine appreciation in her voice as she said it, and Tenten sneaks a look at Neji over the edge of her beer to gauge his reaction.

He doesn't say anything, however, instead opting to simply smirk at her, and she narrows her eyes in response.

"What?"

"You're not trying to seduce me, are you?" he asks before turning around to shut off the stove, grab two plates from the cupboard behind him, and she almost spits out her beer at the question.

It takes Tenten a moment to regain her composure while Neji piles their plates with rice (because of the choked spluttering) and a moment more for her to join him at the small dining table (because on her way she grabs another two beers from the fridge as an afterthought while he reclaims his first one from where he's left it beside the stove — she's already finished hers).

"Obviously not," she informs him primly, once she manages to find her voice, and slides into her seat. "It's just that you might be the only person in this entire building who isn't terrified of me or thinks I'm some kind of weirdo, so." She shrugs and picks up her fork. "Yeah."

"I see," Neji says with a contemplative nod, before something seems to occur to him and he looks at her carefully with narrowed eyes. "And why would all the other tenants of this building be scared of you?"

The look she fixes him with, then, is almost terrifying in its seriousness. "You mean the fact that I keep a stock of sharp and potentially lethal objects in my apartment didn't tip you off earlier?"

—

When she and Neji walk into the school library together on the last Wednesday before the end of summer break for the annual pre-school year staff meeting mandated by the district that no one ever really wants to go to, the last thing Tenten expects is for Ino and Temari to corner her in the hallway afterwards on her way to her classroom.

Obviously, that is exactly what happens.

"Who is that," Ino begins, "and how long have you been sleeping with him?"

Beside her, Temari tries her very best to not seem interested at all in the discussion at hand, and fails terribly in the attempt when she adds, "And why didn't you tell us?"

For a moment, Tenten isn't sure how to respond, or to what. Then, and with no small amount of surprise, she realizes who they're referring to, and the thought is so weird to her that she can't help the disbelief in her voice when she asks, "Who, Neji?"

Ino gapes at her, and the sight is so hilarious it's all Tenten can do to not laugh in the other woman's face. "You're already on a first name basis with him?" she all but shrieks. Temari winces. "Since when?"

"He's my neighbor," Tenten replies simply. "Moved in a couple of weeks ago. We've been hanging out a lot."

Temari looks at her curiously, then. "And how naked were you guys when you were 'hanging out'?" She even uses air-quotes.

Air-quotes!

"He's my neighbor," Tenten repeats firmly. "We're just friends."

Ino doesn't seem to buy it, but at least she takes a step back, even if it is to give Tenten a critical, appraising once-over she might have found impressive if she weren't so incredibly annoyed at being on the receiving end of it at that very moment. "If you're dressed like that whenever you guys are 'hanging out'," Ino begins — and there are those damned air-quotes again — "I can definitely see why."

Tenten blinks, ignores the air-quotes. And then she scowls, because she's thinks her outfit (a white sleeveless blouse, her favorite pair of high-waisted skinny jeans, and the worn pair of deep red ballet flats she's had for years but can't quite bear to throw away) is pretty cute, even though it is rather simple and she'd chosen it solely based on the comfort it offered. "It's summer, and I'm busy enough as it is, so excuse you if I'm not getting dressed up to drink beer and watch shitty ninja movies with the only person in my building willing to hang out with me." She folds her arms over her chest, shifts her weight to one hip as she looks from Ino to Temari expectantly. "Well? Are we done here? I have a classroom to finish setting up, you know."

Ino opens her mouth and gives her a look that clearly says she expects to continue this conversation later, but Temari, at least, nods, waves her hand dismissively —"Yeah, yeah," she says, "go on, your weird Den of Science awaits." — and Tenten is making her way down the familiar hallways to the building's science wing before either of them can come up with another reason to stop her.

The interrogation she'd faced regarding the nature of her relationship with Neji fades quickly from her mind soon after she finds herself in the peace and comfort of her own classroom, at least, but it's only hours later that Tenten realizes she should have come up with some way of defending her classroom from Temari's blunt, if honest, description of it.

After all, Tenten's classroom had nothing on it in terms of apparent weirdness when compared to Shino's.

—

Here are some of the student body's favorite topics of discussion concerning the staff of their local public high school, in no particular order.

Principal Umino is totally dating the new district superintendent, who may or may not be a ninja because of the way he seems to always show up in random places unannounced and the fact that no one has actually seen his face. There is a very good chance that the art teacher is an international spy working undercover. If her interactions with the new physics teacher are any indication, Miss Tenten might not be coffee-and-protein-drink-sexual after all.

—

"You're taking AP Physics this year, right? With Mr. Hyuuga?"

"He's new this year, isn't he? I hope he's a good teacher."

"Like that matters — have you seen him?"

Chatter among students at the beginning of class was something Tenten had long ago gotten used to: gossip is a standard of the high school environment, particularly among the juniors and seniors of her Anatomy & Physiology classes, and it helped students expend some of their excess energy before they had to settle down and focus for class. It was mostly harmless, anyway, and as she takes a sip of her coffee and grabs her class roster for second period, Tenten doesn't think much of it until her students' focus shifts from the physics teacher across the hall to her instead.

"Hey, Miss T," one of her students begins, "how well do you know Mr. Hyuuga?"

The last thing Tenten expects on the first day of the school year is to face the Spanish Inquisition, so when her anatomy students — many of whom she'd had in previous years as freshman and sophomores in her regular biology classes, and so already have a certain degree of familiarity with her — decide to fill the remaining time before the start of class with questions about Neji, she is rather taken aback.

The flood of questions that follow leave her feeling vaguely overwhelmed.

"We saw you guys walking in from the teacher's parking lot together — did he give you a ride to school?"

"How long have you known each other?"

"Is Mr. Hyuuga a model?"

Somehow (and she's not entirely sure how she does it) Tenten manages to deflect the rest of their questions with half-hearted jokes and references to Monty Python, but it doesn't make it any less awkward, and when the rest of the class trickles in and the final bell signaling the start of class goes off, she only barely manages to hide her relief as she calls for attention and begins the standard first-day-of-school routine of introducing herself and the course and getting to know her students. That's the trickiest part of being a teacher, being able to converse easily with students and have a good relationship with them while still maintaining and enforcing her position as an authority figure. It doesn't help that the questions continue in her next anatomy class after lunch, either, or the fact that many of her juniors and seniors also have Neji as a teacher for either regular physics or its advanced placement level equivalent. That his classroom is directly across the hall from hers, only serves to complicate the matter even further, and by the time the school day ends, Tenten is absolutely mentally exhausted.

"Did you know," she begins as she and Neji are making their way to the parking lot after school, "most of my students are convinced that you're a supermodel?"

"Really." He doesn't seem particularly surprised by the question, and Tenten wonders just how many times he's had someone ask him that before. "That's interesting."

She nods, reaches into her purse and digs around for her keys. "Yeah, dude; I swear, it was like the freaking Spanish Inquisition."

Neji nods. "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition," he intones sagely through his nose, and Tenten lets out a very undignified snort at that.

—

The rest of the first week of school passes by uneventfully in terms of unexpected questions (the students had stopped asking for the most part, after that first day) and when Friday finally rolls around, Tenten finds herself in Neji's classroom during lunch, doing her best to convince him to make an appearance at the football game later that evening.

"Why?" he asks from behind his desk after swallowing a mouthful of herring soba. "Are you going?"

"Obviously," she says, tossing her carton of leftovers from last night's Chinese food across the classroom and into the trash bin beside Neji's desk. "It's the first football game of the school year! All the teachers go, for that and the homecoming game. It's tradition!"

Neji does not seem convinced. "Really."

Tenten scowls at him. "Come on — you're new, here. It'll be good for you to go. The kids already think you've got a stick up your butt as it is. If they see you loosen up, I guarantee that they'll think more of you." She folds her arms over her chest, then, and leans toward him conspiratorially. "Plus, all the teachers go to Sharktooth afterwards, and going to that is definitely worth it: Umino covers each round of shots for the entire night."

The promise of free alcohol has the intended result, and Tenten grins knowingly when Neji puts on a show of sighing and fixing her with a long-suffering expression. "Fine," he says, "if I have to, then I suppose I'll make an appearance after all."

The bell rings, then, signaling the end of lunch and the start of the next period, and Tenten rolls her eyes as she stands up and grabs the remnants of her lunch. "We'll get a cab," she assures him, glancing quickly at the door to make sure no students have entered the classroom yet. "And don't forget to wear red and white!"

It's then that students begin trickling in through the door, and Neji shoos Tenten out the classroom as he orders his impeccably-neat desk in preparation for his next class. "Just get out," he says, but as she turns to walk away she doesn't miss the smile on his lips, and somehow the sight of it keeps her in good spirits for the rest of the day — winning the game and having Iruka buy everyone rounds and rounds of celebratory shots at the bar hours later is simply the icing on the cake.