Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Human After All
.Poisoned Scarlet.
Anime: Naruto.
Pairing: Neji & Tenten.
Genre: Angst/Romance/Supernatural.
Type: Alternate Universe.
Format: One-shot; Possible second-part.
Warning: N/A—Pure fluffiness?
Summary: "We are simply trapped in this stage of our life; immortal, not indestructible."
I
And all the roads that lead you there are winding.
And all the lights that light the way are blinding.
There are many things I would like to say to you,
But I don't know how...
Maybe, you're gonna be the one that saves me,
... Because after all, you're my wonderwall.
He watched her. He'd always watched her. But now he had to stop watching her. He had to stop protecting her from unseen forces.
He had to leave her. The simple thought pained him.
"Neji, it's time to go." a voice came from behind him. Neji didn't move his eyes from the woman below. He watched as she tried to twist the knob of the faucet open with no luck; the hose limp in her hand. He watched as she inhaled deeply before dropping the hose, hurrying back inside before coming out with a man clad in green, his twinkling coal eyes on his wife. He saw him twist the knob and the hose lurch with life as water drained freely.
The man leaned in the kiss the woman. Neji tightened his grip on the railing; the sounds of it denting were loud. The next act startled him: she leaned away and gave him one of her dazzling smiles, waving him off with a tittering laugh and picking up the hose to begin spraying it over the flower bed.
The man clad in green didn't even waver. He laughed at her, shaking a finger at her in mock-anger before heading back inside and disappearing from sight.
Neji released his death-grip on the rail.
"If you keep this up, you're only going to end up hurting yourself." said the voice once more, heavy with knowing.
"I know," Neji answered. "But it's not of your concern, is it?"
The voice huffed with anger. "It might not be but I know of enough of our kind who's fallen in love with a mortal; they're no good, I'm warning you now. Mortals can not handle the knowledge of our existence—you'll not only hurt yourself but you'll hurt her if you get too close."
Neji continued to watch the woman rain water over the flowers blankly. She shifted position, spraying water onto the next section and so on. He even saw when she sneezed and wiped her nose with the collar of her stark-white shirt, dropping the hose in the act. He almost moved to help pick it up.
"I know." he said, with a hollow echo. "But I will not let her get too close to me; I'm not stupid enough to do so." He kept watching her. She crouched down, plucking out some weeds soundly. He could hear her disheartened sigh from where he stood, six floors up, standing by a rusted railing, the building right next to him shielding them with its cool shadow.
The voice was silent for a moment.
"You've fallen too far," it said, quietly. "I don't think you have enough will in you to dig yourself out of this ditch, Neji."
Neji chuckled at the voices condemning tone. He responded to the statement with a mere: "You have been indulging yourself with far too many fiction novels, Sasuke."
He didn't respond; he only watched as Neji watched the woman below with stony eyes. "I'm leaving—Be sure to leave nothing when you depart; we will not be heading back for stray things." and he vanished.
"Sure..." Neji answered lately, "Good-bye." For the first time since the conversation had started he averted his sight to something other than the pretty brunette below. He fixed them on the man clad in green, working out a rather absurd exercise routine in the room above, though all his eyes locked on was the blank pale white wall of the house.
Suddenly, the wind shifted, and the wondrous aroma of intoxicating lilies and lovely chocolate wafted to his sensitive nose.
He gazed down back to the woman below.
It came to a shock to him when he found her staring back.
II
She sat on the couch in her living room and stared blankly at the photo-frame holding up firmly on the coffee table. In the photo, it held twp people. A male and female, holding each other intimately, one grinning gleefully and the other baring an uncertain smile. She kept staring at the photo until her eyes felt moist with tears.
She blinked.
A drop of moister fell.
She frowned.
Where was he anyways? It was about time he arrived to watch her. Tenten always knew when he was watching her. She could feel the intense, cold gaze boring into her back; piercing through her. She shuffled into another position, driving her knees in and lying side-long on the fluffy beige couch.
She could hear her husbands loud and whooping cries of glee as he worked out to the beat of the exercise video his old, adoptive, father had created for him. There was another whoop. Tenten winced and brought her head closer in, not bothering to remove the fringes of chocolate that veiled her eyes.
Why did she marry him again? She couldn't remember anymore. She believed it was simply a fling—it was something that shouldn't have happened. It was a one-time thing. She couldn't believe how out-of-proportion the situation had become. It became something unmanageable; something that she couldn't longer break with a simple, "It isn't working out."
They were tied together by the bond of holy matrimony.
Tenten brought her forearm to her eyes. Her life had whirled out of control the instant she took that ring and said, "Yes."
There was another whoop.
Tenten felt sick.
III
He laid down on his bed and stared at the leaky ceiling. Neji unbuttoned his shirt and ripped it off of him, slinging it to a chair near him with pin-point accuracy. His white eyes seemed to glow in the dark as he stared at the drop of water trailing across the slant of the ceiling before dripping off and hitting the bare of his chest.
He didn't bother to wipe it.
He recalled the late morning event that had taken him by surprise. She'd stared into his eyes with a sort of mystification that he couldn't classify. It wasn't bad, he saw. It was something more like realizing an age-old secret. It was something akin to finding out the truth behind the lies and in-between. It made him happy... somewhat.
But he completely broke the railing when her imbecilic, green-obsessed, husband trotted out of the house with a beaming smile and dragged her inside in a whirl of excitement. But even so, he saw her eyes only grow wider as he dragged her inside.
And throughout it all, they never broke connection.
He reached over to the drawer next to the springy bed and dug inside of it, taking out an old piece of parchment and a bottle of ink and quill. He sat up and jotted down a few words, stopping to think before continuing his writing.
The door creaked.
"Master Neji?" came a soft, timid voice. "F-Father calls for your presence..."
Neji stopped. "Thank you for informing me, Lady Hinata." The girl just swallowed deeply and kept her head down. She retreated from the door, waiting for her cousin to put the parchment down and follow her out like he usually did. When he didn't, she dared to look up and regretted it almost instantly.
There was a sort of haunted darkness in his pure eyes that she didn't understand. It scared her. She gripped the hem of her Victorian-style dress and pushed the large spectacles shielding her hereditary white eyes nervously, nodding her head back down.
"Tell him I'll be there... soon."
Hinata snapped her head up. She stared at him with horrified eyes. "B-But! Cousin... F-Father wants your pr-presence immediately! You must... You must go..." Hinata bit her lip. "He will—get very angry with me if you do not show... I believe it has to do with the rebel group you—you are affiliated with—!"
Neji stood up and grabbed the shirt slung carelessly across the chair. He buttoned it and slipped on his shoes before grabbing the hair-band strewn on the floor and wrapping his hair back tightly. He walked out and headed to the opposite direction his Uncle was located at.
Hinata followed timidly, bringing the long hems of her dress up so as she could keep up with her cousin. "Please—Cousin Neji, you must go and clear this misunderstanding." She struggled to keep up with his strides. "Father i-isn't one to be so merciful as to—"
"I don't care," he replied monotonously.
She stopped suddenly and stared at his retreating back with open shock. "Wh-What?"
Neji rounded the corner, but not before stopping and quietly saying: "I don't care anymore, Lady Hinata. I give up now. I will join that group and avoid this pointless battle against the Wolves; it's useless. Tell him I won't be coming back."
Hinata watched as the dark presence of her cousin soon dissipated and all that was left behind was the humble reverberations of his reply.
IV
It was tomorrow now, and Tenten was out tending to her miniature garden once more. She turned the knob with little difficulty now and started again to spray water evenly across the small patch of green beginning to rise from the fertilized soil. She could hear the muffled beats of the video her husband was playing loudly in the master bedroom.
She sighed and crouched, pressing her fingers into the soil softly. She held the hose up and to the side so as to not wet herself as she dug her finger into the wet earth. It had become routine for her to do this everyday. It kept her husband at bay, as well. Lately, he'd been trying to get a bit more intimate with her. He'd been trying to embrace her more often and more than once she'd felt his hand crawl up on her thigh in the black of night.
She couldn't keep her disgust hidden when he tried. At the moment, he was clad in tight green spandex tights tied together with hideous orange leg and arm warmers. He'd chopped off the braided pony-tail and decided on a horrible bowl-cut hair style—much like his adoptive father, Gai's, was shaped. His eye brows were still suitable for at least three people and his oddly twinkling teeth still as bright as ever.
Lee was Lee once more.
Tenten grimaced. "Such horrible tastes..." She went back to watering her flowers. They were beginning to bloom now; the buds already out and ready to blossom. The frosty winter season was no more and on with the warmth of spring. She smiled lightly; spring was always her second favorite time of the year.
Her primary season was winter because that was when she met him all those years ago. It held memory's she kept close to her heart, always.
Her grip on the hose tightened as the booming music from the house droned her aching thoughts. But it didn't help ease the small sprout of fire that erupted from inside her chest. It waited, blue and dim, then consumed the inside all together with a spurt of red and angry lashes of heat.
She closed her eyes as she recalled that late winter evening. She had barely accepted Lee's proposal and he'd left her to her thoughts happily; bouncing out of the bar to tell the grand news to his friends. Tenten had stayed bolted to the chair, her eyes wide, before scampering to the bathroom with a sudden urge to vomit and slamming open a booth and leaning over the toilets edge and retching out the alcohol in her system.
After a few dry heaves, she lifted her head and rested it on her forearm; completely out of tune with the world.
I need to get out of here, she'd told herself in that phase of insanity. I need to go somewhere—do something. So she'd hurried out of the bar and sprinted into the blinding white clouds of snow. She ploughed her way through them until she was met up with the frozen fountain located deeply inside the city.
She sat on the edge. She picked at her new wedding ring before taking it off and placing it neatly on the block next to her. She stared at it. She started to pace and wipe the tears that trailed down her flushed-pink cheeks because of the situation she'd brought herself in. The cold was beginning to sting her bare hands and arms; in her hurry, she had forgotten her coat.
Her very warm coat Lee had bought her for her birthday.
She felt like vomiting again.
She wrapped her hands around her absently. It's.... cold... she'd said to no one, swallowing down another uproar of stomach acid.
That's a good sign—you know how you're feeling. His deep voice said. A coat was draped over her shoulders soon after. Tenten had looked up and locked eyes with the most beautiful man she'd ever lay eyes on. His aristocratic features were almost as startling as his pure snow eyes. His face was pale—paler, even, than the snow beneath her shoes. She was tempted to reach out and see if it would crumble beneath her fingers.
It jerked her inside when she acted out her thoughts. He didn't seem to mind, though; he let her fingers trace over the invisible creases of his face. He brought a hand up to cover her own and curled his lip in amusement when she gasped at the sudden frostiness of his skin.
You're so cold, she'd told him. You're so cold—you're going to freeze! She had taken a few steps back, gulping down his full figure as she did. He wasn't as lanky as she'd assumed. He was built properly; stood properly; looked properly. It made her feel a bit incompetent how perfect he looked standing in the patch of snow feet away from her.
Come, he told her in that sultry, sweet voice of his. You must be cold—standing out in the snow this. He looked at the rumbling clouds and added, There might be a storm heading in. Follow me, I have a house close by here.
The odd part was, stranger he might be, she followed him without a word.
V
Tenten kept that memory close to her. That was the only time, the only night, she'd felt true desire and she longed for him to drop out of the shadows and walk before her like he did that snowy night.
She wanted him, it came to her. She wanted to be with him very badly.
She clutched the hose in her hand so hard her hands ached from the sheer force. She couldn't be with him any ways, though. They were too different. He was too different.
He was much too surreal for something as real as her.
"I think the flowers had had enough water for the day," came a voice behind her. Tenten froze. It was just the way she remembered it; deep, leisure, and sultry. She dropped the hose and whipped around to come face-to-chest with the man she'd met only years ago.
Her eyes were wide already and her breathing was hard. She gripped his pristine white collard dress shirt softly and snapped her head up to meet his stony, unfeeling, eyes, which weren't so unfeeling at the moment. They were clouded with resistance rather than the usual empty glaze. Her gaze lowered to the ash pale of his lips.
Something sharp glittered in the dim light.
"N-Neji..." she whispered with restrained delight. "Neji... Neji, you're back." Her grip on his shirt was almost deathly as she forced him closer to her. Tenten felt the same flame of desire ignite within her at his mere presence. It was something she didn't feel with Lee at all... not anymore... and even so, it'd never been as strong at it was with Neji. It was something life-threatening. It clutched her until she wheezed and even so it never relented.
It hurt so badly it felt good.
"Tenten," The way her name sounded as it rolled off his lovely tongue was heavenly.
"You're... You're back." she repeated, pressing her head to his hollow chest and shutting her eyes. The water was beginning to leak through her flip-flops. It was over-flowing the flower bed she worked so hard on keeping alive. The budding flowers began to drown with the excess water; their silent cries of help never reaching the ears of the woman holding that evil man.
Neji was having trouble restraining himself; her intoxicating scent of warm vanilla chocolate and the dancing aroma of lilies made him stagger—perhaps he should have fed more. It was getting harder not to sink his milky teeth into the soft flesh of her neck... that delicious, porcelain skin...
"I'm not back, Tenten." He told her, cradling her in his strong arms. "I'm only here to say good bye."
Tenten froze, moisture building in her eyes. "W.. What?"
"I have to go," he rested his chin on the top of her head, breathing in her wondrous scent. "There are—things out there that want me gone. I have to leave."
"No," she whispered, her eyes tortured. They became enraged soon. "No! You're staying here! With me! Stay..." She clutched him closer to her, bring his almost stone-like body as close to her as it would allow.
"Tenten," he started with that same lace of adoration. "You must remember that we are simply trapped in this stage of our life," he brushed away the even fringes of her hair. "We are immortal—not indestructible."
"I know.." she said, her voice cracking. "But—But you just came back! How could you... How could you just leave me like this?" It pained him how much hating accusation her voice held. He almost wanted to give in to her demand and simply stay with her.
But he knew he couldn't.
If he wanted to stay, he would have to leave.
"It would be worse if I were die, would it not?" he said reasonably; in that tone that made Tenten hate enormously; that rational tone. "I couldn't be here with you anymore if I ceased my existence, right, Tenten?" he breathed into her hair. Tenten held him closer, swallowing down a bile. She wouldn't cry in front of him. She wouldn't; it wouldn't be right—fair to someone who could feel that exact horrible emotion twice-fold. "I'll be back. Just wait for me."
The nineteen year old gripped him tighter. "Wait how long?"
"For as long as you can, Tenten." he replied cryptically, flashing his eyes up to the glass-door ahead. He stared at it for a moment, his ears catching the loud, rambunctious steps of her wretched husband. "And when I do return, I shall take care of that bloody husband of yours. He doesn't deserve you... you're mine." his voice was possessive, furious.
Tenten didn't say anything to object. "When will you be back?"
"Soon." he said with finality, releasing her weak death-grip on his body. "Soon. Wait for me." The same amused smile was on his lips. The band wrapped around Tenten's chest was strapped on so tightly she reached up to grip the area of her heart. It didn't help, but made matters worse as his words sunk in.
His cold fingers touched that sensitive part of her neck. They ran over the two, nearly invisible, twin marks sunken into her skin. "When I'm back... you will know." he said quietly. "You will always know where I am, Tenten."
She stood rigid as his fingers trailed down to the curve of her breast and to the dip of her hips. She bit into her lip. "I hate you... so much..."
He smiled monotonically. "A bond built of hatred. It sounds more my style, no?"
"Shut up," she said harshly. "Shut up, this is no time for your jokes, Neji! STAY WITH ME!" She pushed to him, only to come in contact with air, and stumbled. She turned and turned and turned until she made a full circle and she was experiencing vertigo. Her eyes were stinging badly now. They hurt from the tears being held back in them.
Slowly, ever so slowly, they began to stream down her flushed cheeks, despite her fierce restraint.
She swallowed and bowed her head, smiling and laughing bitterly as her vision molded the colors of her world with each new sprout of moisture. She wrapped one arm around her left arm and whispered and almost inaudible: "I'll wait... I-I'll wait for you... yeah.."
The hose, she noticed, was now flooding the green, crisp grass below her.
Flooding...
"Come back for me soon.." she said to the wind. "If you don't... I'll do something horrible... so you better come back, damn it!" she sniffled as Lee came bouncing down the stairs, blabbing about how he mastered some movement.
That's all I asked for in my centuries of existence... She could almost hear his selfless response in her mind as she picked up the hose and began to water another section of her garden, oblivious to her rowdy husband and the glowing white iris eyes watching her one last time before flashing and disappearing.
A/N: Aww, look at this? A vampire fiction dished out randomly. I owe this fiction to Hyuchia Ruki because she was the one who inspired this... I was messaging her as I wrote this. In all honestly, I just wrote this according to my mood—so I was feeling cliché, doesn't everyone?
Yes, this is just a one-shot. Perhaps I will write a second part to this fiction later...
Review please! If you read, you could at least review, no?
Song lyric: Wonderwall by Oasis.
Panda.