Sake Lullaby, a naruto fanfic

A/N: Okay, before I even start this Oneshot, I want you to all know that it's going to be a long Oneshot, and I apologize to people who read one of my other Oneshots where it promised that this one would come out a while again and it is just now coming out, but I've had a lot going on in the last couple of years. But this one is for all of my readers out there. Thanks for staying with me! Also, the order of who dies in this fanfic will be backwards to the song, but you'll understand, or at least I hope you do, and I hope you all get the joke about the title.

Saki Lullaby

TenTen walked down the road toward the Hyuga Compound, where she knew she would find Neji, her boyfriend. TenTen smiled as she thought of him. At the age of twenty-one, they were both two of the brightest and most talented ninja in the Village. He was now the leader of the Hyuga Clan, and she was a member of ANBU, the second in command next to Naruto. Sasuke, who had been presented with the opportunity, had rejected it and continued teaching cells of Genin and Chunin. Tsunade was now in her seventies (though no one knows her true age) and was having a harder time acting as Hokage, hinting that soon she would be naming her successor. There were three candidates that TenTen had heard rumors of being named for her succession: Naruto, Shikamaru and Neji.

TenTen and Neji had been dating for four years, and she knew in her heart that she loved him. She had no doubt that he was the one she wanted to spend her life with. However, recently Neji had become more and more busy, spending five out of seven days out of Konoha. Plus, with her own busy schedule, the two rarely ever saw one another. But when they did, TenTen felt as though she were in Heaven.

As TenTen walked down the road toward the Compound, she stopped when she saw Neji standing with his back to her down the road, his hair whipping in the wind. He was wearing the traditional black robe and pants of an adult male Hyuga. TenTen felt a rush of happiness and excitement, the same feeling she felt every time she saw him. TenTen walked up to Neji and was about to hug him when he stepped forward and turned around at the same time, dodging her hug.

Confused, TenTen took another step forward, but Neji held a hand up, stopping her. "What's wrong?" TenTen asked, confused.

"TenTen, we need to talk," Neji said.

Filled with sudden dread, TenTen narrowed her eyes, hearing the four words that no one wanted to hear. "Why?" she asked suspiciously. "What's wrong?" TenTen could tell he was averting his eyes through the Byakugan, unable to look at her. "Look at me," she said stubbornly. "Tell me what's going on."

Neji turned his attention back to her and he said, "I want to break up."

TenTen felt as though a kunai had suddenly pierced her body. For a moment she didn't say anything, and then she suddenly burst out and yelled, "What?!"

Neji blinked. "You heard me." His voice was flat and empty, and TenTen could tell that he was hiding all emotion from his voice, clearly trying to sound honest and sensible, though she knew him too well for that.

"What's going on?" TenTen exclaimed. "What'd I do? Why do you want to break up with me? We've been dating for four years. Why do you want to break up now?"

"Our lives are different now compared to four years ago," Neji said solemnly. "We've both changed. Neither of us has time for a real relationship. I'm always gone, and you're busy with work. Neither of us contributes to this relationship anymore, so there's no point."

"That's not true," TenTen argued. "We spend every weekend together and the time that we do spend together is wonderful. I know that something is wrong, something you're not telling me."

"What else do you want to here?" Neji's voice was growing impatient. "I already told you. Neither of us has time for a relationship, and when we're together, we're both trying to put so much work into it that it isn't worth it. Neither of us need a life where it's all smoke and mirrors."

"But it isn't," TenTen argued. "We both love each other. If that's true, then there's no reason to be having this conversation."

Neji hesitated and said, "What makes you believe that I still love you? Did I say that just now?"

TenTen felt her pulse, fear filling her entire body. "Are you saying that you don't love me?" she asked, barely able to say the words.

Neji was silent for a moment, and then said blankly, "I am."

TenTen took several steps back, her eyes wide. "But all those years, we both…"

"Our love may have been real then," Neji said. "But it no longer is. My love is a joke in itself. It should be directed toward my Clan and them alone, and it always should have been. I was a fool to ever allow myself to love you. Go, love someone who has the time and patience for love. I am not that person."

Filled with pain and fear, TenTen turned and ran away, tears streaming down her face. How could he say such mean things? How could anyone mean something like that? How could it be true?

He put her out, like the burning end of a midnight cigarette

He spent his whole life trying to forget

TenTen leapt at the Stone Village ninja, throwing hundreds of weapons at him. Her chakra, however, fell short due to her lack of attention and heart, and he dodged, running straight into her and driving a kunai through her stomach and out through her back. She landed on the ground and coughed up blood.

"Back away from her, you wretched traitor!" Naruto yelled as he leapt through the air, raking his claws down the enemy's back and killing him.

As Naruto stood in front of TenTen, she looked up at her ANBU partner. They had been partners since they were recruited into the ANBU at the same time four years ago. Together they made a good team, and she was actually one of the few people who could deal with him, though he had matured a lot over the years.

Naruto looked down at her in confusion. "TenTen, what was that? I've never seen you so out of it and so distracted in the middle of battle before, not in the four years that we've fought together. You've never screwed up so badly."

TenTen lowered her head, feeling totally miserable. "I know," she agreed. "I don't know what's wrong with me." That wasn't true. She knew exactly what had distracted her. It had been two years since Neji had dumped her, but she still couldn't get over him. Instead, she drank a bottle of whisky every night she wasn't on a mission, and even snuck in a bottle during missions every once in a while. It was the one time she could stop thinking about him, and stop feeling that deadening pain.

We watched him drink his pain away, a little at a time

But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind

Until the night

He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger

And finally drank away her memory

Life is short, but this time it was bigger

Than the strength he had to get up off his knees.

"What?" Lee exclaimed, the phone pressed to his ears. "When?"

"I'm afraid that she's fallen among a bunch of sharps on the ground, but she's conscious enough to refuse to let us take her to the hospital," the voice of a paramedic said solemnly. "She said your name and the name of Hyuga Neji, but we couldn't get a hold of him."

"I'll be right over there," Lee said.

When Lee arrived at TenTen's house, he found three paramedics standing in the living room. One had helped TenTen to her comfortable chair, and had helped her take several large pieces of glass out of her chest and arms, which he could see were bandaged.

"Are you Rock Lee?" one of the paramedics said.

"Yes," Lee said, nodding.

"She agreed to have us tend to her wounds here, but she refuses to go to a hospital," the paramedic said. "It appears that she's been drinking a lot of Saki, and I do mean a lot."

Lee had already detected the scent of the Japanese alcohol and knew exactly what had happened, and why. "Thank you, sir," he said. "I'll take care of things from here."

As the paramedics left, Lee heard a faint voice say, "Lee, you came."

Lee turned around and walked over to kneel down in front of her. He set his hands on her knees and nodded, saying quietly, "Of course I did." He hesitated and then said, "TenTen, when did you start drinking so much? I mean, I know that you, Neji and I used to have drinking games for the fun of it when we were sixteen, but when did you really start drinking?"

"Three years ago," TenTen muttered, resting her head against the back of her chair. "When he…"

She didn't have to finish. Lee knew exactly what she was going to say. He set a hand on hers and said quietly, "You don't need to finish, TenTen, I understand."

"It's been going on ever since," TenTen whispered, unable to talk any louder. "It started out a bottle a night on the few days that I would have vacation from my ANBU missions. Then I started taking a bottle with me on each mission, and then I began screwing up on my missions. Realizing how much he had screwed with my mind and emotions, I began taking less and less missions. I think Tsunade realized how much I was hurting, and how much I was drinking, so she assigned them only when she knew that I was sober. When I started having less and less missions, I got more depressed, so I began drinking multiple bottles every night, and Naruto began coming over, worried about how I was doing."

Lee knew that Naruto and TenTen had become good friends ever since they had been put as partners in the ANBU. He wasn't surprised to hear that he had come visiting her in her time of distress.

TenTen continued. "Needless to say, I ended up here, drinking up to twelve bottles a day."

"Does Neji know?" Lee asked.

TenTen scoffed. "How would he?" she asked. "He's always on missions or working within in the Clan. He doesn't care. He doesn't love me anymore."

Lee hesitated, and then said, "Do you still love him?"

TenTen blinked as tears began rolling down her cheeks. "That's the worst part. I still love him. I never stopped. It was him who walked away, not me. I was so angry for the longest time. All I could think about was how unfair it was, how I never truly understood his reasons or how he felt before he said that it was over, or what finally pushed him over the edge. But I don't care anymore. I stopped caring about the technicalities a long time ago. All I cared about was him. I still love him. I still want him. I still want to be with him."

Lee sighed, knowing how she felt. He still loved Sakura, though she was happily dating Naruto. But he had learned to let her go and be happy long ago.

"I'm going to go get you some water," he said as he got to his feet. "Maybe we can get you sober before that Saki does some damage."

As Lee got to his feet and walked away, TenTen pulled out a piece of paper, held it close to her heart, and whispered, "Good bye, Lee." Then her eyes closed.

When Lee returned from the kitchen with a glass of water in his hands, his eyes half-closed when he saw TenTen lying with her head against the back of the chair, her eyes closed and her chest not rising or falling. He walked up to her, knelt down in front of her, and reached up to her neck to feel for a pulse. When he didn't feel one, he closed his eyes and crushed the glass of water in his hand, breaking the glass in his very hands.

We found him with his face down in the pillow

With a note that said I'll love her til I die

And when we buried him beneath the willow

The angels sang a whisky lullaby

La la la la la la la

Lee walked into TenTen's room, tears streaming from his eyes. He had just walked away from her body and he wanted to be by himself. He had walked up to her to find her holding a piece of paper against her chest, a piece of paper that he had pried from her fingers, desperate to find out what it said. In order not to cover the paper with blood, he had put ointment on his hands and wrapped them in bandages, pulling all of the pieces of broken glass from his skin.

Lee sat down on TenTen's bed and opened up the folded piece of paper. He recognized her shaky handwriting, and guessed that she had written this note within the past few days, when she had been completely plastered.

The note was written out of pure love, and Lee could tell that beyond the Saki, TenTen had known perfectly well what she was writing. She knew that she would die from over drinking. She knew that Lee would come over, and she had known that he would be reading this note, and probably wanted it to passed onto Neji.

The note said, "Four years ago I felt my heart ripped from my chest, though it still belonged to the culprit, and always will. But no matter how much he hates me, no matter how little he cares for me, I will love him until the day that I die, and beyond that."

Lee closed his eyes and felt as though he was listening to TenTen herself saying that. He could hardly believe that she was gone. He wanted to do something to bring her back. He would have done anything, but he knew that it was over. He knew that she was gone. He knew that it was only a matter of time before Neji found out, and he feared what would happen when he did. He knew that Neji still loved her, even though he had been sworn to secrecy not to tell TenTen, and he knew that this could very well kill him.

The room was full, but nobody knew how much she blamed herself

People showered the ground surrounding the gravesite where Gai, Lee, Naruto, who had been TenTen's ANBU partner, and TenTen's sister, Chi, carried her casket as pallbearers. Naruto Sakura stood with Sasuke and Hinata were holding hands, wedding bands on both of their left fingers. Choji, Ino and Shikamaru stood together, Temari standing beside Shikamaru and holding his hand. Temari had recently transferred her citizenship so that she could live with Shikamaru, the new Hokage. Kiba and Shino stood by one another.

TenTen's favorite song played, a song that made Neji's heart break and cry within his chest. He stood at the back of the crowd, his usual solemn and angry expression on his face. But inside, he was crying, unable to fool himself into believing that he no longer cared, that he had ever stopped caring. How had he not known that she had been drinking? Sure, he had separated himself from her for years, but surely he should have known about her absences in missions when he met with Tsunade and Naruto, the head of ANBU. He blamed himself. How could he not have known? But it boiled down to his lies. He had told her that he hadn't cared. That was a lie. He had loved her. She had been his, and now she was gone.

As the pallbearers set the casket down, Neji saw Lee look back at him, tears glistening from the corners of his eyes. Neji knew that Lee had been with her when she had died, and he could only imagine what TenTen had said to him, how much hate she had spoken of in her moments of dying. And why would she? He had sent her to her death.

For years and years, she tried to hide that whisky from her breath

She finally drank away her pain a little at a time

But she never could get drunk enough to get him off her mind

Until the night

Neji sat in the chair in his room, the moon shining through the window and onto his pale white face. His cheeks glistened with tears that came from his eyes. She had died because of him. He had spoken with Shikamaru and had seen for himself the note she had clutched to her chest and had died with, never letting go of it. It had said, "No matter how much he hates me, no matter how little he cares for me, I will love him until the day that I die, and beyond that."

Neji closed his eyes, trying to stop the tears from leaving his eyes. He clutched his fist around a bottle of Saki in his right hand and gave in to his desire to not hurt anymore by taking the bottle to his lips and drinking of its strong flavor. He wanted to forget. He just wanted to forget.

She put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger

And finally away his memory

Life is short, but this time it was bigger

Than the strength she had to get up off her knees

Hinata walked through the door and into the Hyuga Compound, where she pulled off her raincoat and left it in the walkway. "Neji?" she called out. "Nisan?"

CRASH!

Hinata used her Byakugan and looked around the entire mansion and gasped when she saw a glass jar crash around Neji's feet. He had fallen to his hands and knees upstairs. Hinata raced upstairs and ran through the door leading into his room.

Hinata stopped her in tracks when she saw Neji sitting in his room, shirtless and shoeless, on his hands and knees. His hair was pulled back, but it was messy. His eyes were blank and he was panting hard.

"Neji!" Hinata exclaimed as she ran to kneel down in front of her cousin. She carefully moved the sharps away. She held onto Neji by the shoulders, preventing him from falling over. As she looked around, she swallowed hard in fear when she saw close to seventy Saki bottles lying all over the floor. Immediately she knew that something was wrong. Neji was a perfectionist, a neat freak. He would never leave his room

"Hinata?" Neji rasped, his breathing hard. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you," Hinata said, her voice filled with worry and fear. "I, I was worried about you. You left the funeral early, before the service really began, and I saw the look in your eyes. You were afraid, filled with grief and self-regret. It's been a week and no one's heard from you. I was scared. Then I come over to find you like this?"

"You shouldn't have come," Neji rasped. "I tried to move when I heard your voice, but… heh, you know what saki does to a person when they try to stand up."

"I know that the Hyugas and Uchihas have an amazing resistance to alcohol, but why? Why are you drinking? It looks and smells like you haven't left your room since the funeral."

"I haven't," Neji muttered.

"But why?" Hinata said, and she helped her cousin up to the chair behind him. She could smell the Saki on his breath and wanted to vomit. But her fear and concern for her cousin made her stay where she was, at his knees with her hands on his knees. "I don't understand."

"The last time I saw TenTen, I told her that I didn't love her anymore," Neji said, his head hanging low and his eyes closed. "I was afraid that the life of a Hyuga was too much for her. I was constantly on missions and my life had become so busy that I had no time for her. I felt that she deserved a more normal life, but she didn't want to leave. I knew that the only way to make her leave was to make her believe that I no longer cared, so I told her that I didn't love her."

Hinata closed her eyes, suddenly understanding. When she opened her eyes, it was because she felt Neji take her hands in his and run his right hand over her left hand, brushing the wedding band and engagement ring that occupied her ring fingers, the ones that she never moved from her hand. She had married Sasuke two years ago and couldn't be happier. But in this moment, she saw the misery and felt it emitting from Neji like a flood over a dam.

"Love," Neji said quietly. "You found the person you love and who loves you. Hold onto him, Hinata, hold onto him with all your might and never let him go. I promise you now that if you let him go, you will never regret any decision as much and you will never find the happiness that you once did. I let go of the one I loved three years ago, and I never saw her again. I made myself so busy that I was rarely at the Compound, and I was rarely in Konoha. Never bury yourself in work. Love Sasuke, and love the rest of our family. When I'm gone, your sister will take over. Hanabi is the next person most eligible to take over the family."

Tears began streaming down Hinata's face. "Why are you talking about dying?" she asked, choked back by tears.

Neji brushed the back of his hand against Hinata's soft white skin. She closed her eyes, having never felt so close and so far from Neji at the same time. He said quietly, but sincerely, "Tonight I will die," he whispered. "It may be in our blood to drink massive quantities of alcohol, but in the last week I have drank close to a hundred bottles of Saki. My alcohol levels are that beyond any our family has ever reached, and even now I can feel all of my energy draining from me. But before I die, I want to ask a favor of you."

Hinata blinked in order to clear her vision somewhat. "Anything," she said, knowing that her cousin was telling the truth.

"Underneath my pillow is a framed picture," Neji said. "Please get it for me."

Hinata quickly got to her feet and walked over to her cousin's neatly made bed. She guessed that he hadn't moved from the chair except for maybe once a day to go to the bathroom. She was sure that he hadn't slept in his bed in a week, since he had begun drinking. She reached under his pillow and sure enough, there was a frame there. She pulled it out and looked down to see that it was a picture of TenTen in her ANBU uniform being held in Neji's arms. Both of them were smiling for once. As Hinata looked at her cousin in the picture, so neat and formal as usual, she could hardly bare to turn back around and look back at her cousin in his present, filthy form. But she did, knowing that this would be the last time she saw him.

Hinata walked over and knelt down in front of Neji, handing him the photograph before setting her hands on his lap and her forehead on her hands, tears streaming down her face.

Neji lifted Hinata's head with his hands and as she looked up at him, she saw the same expression in his eyes that he had in the picture, happiness and love beyond any she had seen in his eyes before.

"Little sister," Neji whispered, "I apologize for the way I treated you when we were in school. I'm sorry about how I made you feel worthless, inferior. You are and have been for many years, a formidable ninja. You were the one cousin I loved and resented at the same time, but I realized that it wasn't you I resented, but my father's death, and the curse of the Branch House. But no matter what, I always admired the way you carried on, in spite of how your father treated you inferior, and how badly I treated you. You really are like my little sister, and now it is time for you to know how I really feel, in my final hour."

"No," Hinata cried, bawling now. She buried her face in his legs. "You can't die. You just can't."

"I'm sorry, Hinata," Neji said, pressing his forehead to the back of her head. "But it's my time."

We found her with her face down in the pillow

Clinging to his picture for dear life.

We laid her next to him beneath the willow

Lee stood at the gravesite, tears glistening from his cheeks as he stared down at the tombstones of his two best friends, who had died without knowing how the other felt. As he stared at the tombstone of Neji and TenTen, he felt alone, and yet comforted to know that they had died loving one another, that though they weren't together, they had died out of love, they had died because of one another, though that still didn't relieve the pain of loss that he felt.

"Lee," Hinata's quiet voice said from behind him.

Lee turned around and he saw the twenty-three year old kunoichi walking over, her face covered in tears.

"I heard that you were with him when he died," Lee said quietly.

"And you were with her," Hinata said.

Lee nodded. "Yes," he admitted. "It was the most clarifying and horrific experience I've ever had. I never thought that the death of one of my best friends could put everything back into perspective. I don't know what to do know, but both of my teammates and friends are dead, and my worst fear is that without them, I'll be lost."

Hinata nodded. "I know how you feel," she said. "I felt the same way when I was with Neji. He told me things that both thrilled and horrified me. I felt so scared and so close to him. He told me that he still loved her, and that he regretted every decision he had made in the past three years."

Lee sighed. "It's too bad that TenTen never got to hear that."

Hinata walked up and set down a picture, one Lee recognized as one he had taken of TenTen and Neji, TenTen in Neji's arms and both of them smiling, not smirking, but sincerely smiling at the camera.

Hinata and Lee just stood there as the sunset, watching as the sun set on their friends' lives and their love.

While the angels sang a whisky lullaby

La la la la la la la