PRE-STORY CHAPTER.
I haven't done any fan fiction in a first-person point of view in a while. Here's to hoping I'm still as cracked as I used to be.
Disclaimer: All copyright names such as Naruto belong to their respective owners.
POV: Neji Hyuga. AU: Modern.
X.X.X.X.X.X.X.
It was a Friday night, a nine-in-the-evening that smelled like a good, old-fashioned drunkard. The kind of drunkard who knows you're underage but tells you to grab a shot of tequila anyway and hints to you that you're on your first shot when you're on your fifth, see. Yes, it just goes to show that the night was starless, urban… young. So was she…
She spoke of magic. God damned magic, it's what it was, she said. What was funny was that when she talked about it, it came out as more of a plague out of her mouth rather than a fable. Did fables have magic? It wasn't my job to question, anyway, so I went with. Once we were over the fact that it wasn't our drinking song on ninety point seven tonight—even though we specifically requested for it for three days now—I shoved a bottle of her pale across the table, the ice at the underside of the bottle crackling across the chipped beech. Drink, I urged, and be merrier. Her brows met pretty well, and I thought a good chug could fix it…
When she pushed the bottle away with a look of disgust, I got scared. Really scared.
"Geez, Nej, I can't drink that stuff now." The tone she was armed with was convincing. No, it wasn't a diet.
"Seriously?" I arched a slim brow, reached across the table and took the below zero, "What's up?"
She gave a small shrug and a tiny mumble. Definitely not a diet. "The doctor just said I shouldn't be drinking anymore."
There came an amused laugh out of me, catching a waiter's attention from a single for religion. "Ten, do you have a crazy disease you didn't tell me about? I mean, why on earth would Kakashi prescribe you with less alcohol? You never drink too much." Or enough, at least.
"It's not a disease. It's just a… problem."
Squinting my eyes at her accusingly, I could just imagine the difference between an STD and a problem. "It's something you ain't telling me about, that I'm sure of."
"I… I just found out this morning, all right?"
"We spent the morning together, Ten. You've been delaying the news by nearly fourteen hours." There came a shiver down my stomach when I touched my lips to my bottle. Brain freeze. There was too much to freeze.
She shook her head, rolled her wrist. "You don't need to know."
"Oho, strike one," I mouthed, taking offense, my tongue sliding over the bottle's lips. Would I kill to have them hers…
"I… I wouldn't want you to know, honestly," she mumbled with a quick breath.
"Strike two." Hey, I never shut up about anything when it came to her. I told her I killed Lee. She never judged me for that, even after we pitched in to bury the body in her backyard and bribed the police into discontinuing their search. So what commandment says I'd judge her for any lunacy she may have committed?
Back straight against her chair, she opened her mouth, took a good clench of the table edge. "Nej, you'd never understand."
"Fuck that," I sighed out, faster than she could hear. I've got no dibs. "Strike three, sweetheart. You're out. Some boyfriend I must be, not even knowing about that tattoo on your right thigh… Let alone why you ain't drinking anything tonight."
She pressed her legs together. Aha. So there is a tattoo. "I'm sorry," she whispered with a toy of her knuckles, "But I guess I might as well just come clean as… you'll see what I'm talking about soon, anyway."
Raise brows. Smirk. Try not to look too happy. Yeah, Neji, that's the way to go. Just hold her shaking hand—Shaking?
"Neji," she airily spilled it out of her throat, my name, "I'm pregnant."
… Damn, was she right. I didn't want to know.
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
Kudos to a successful promotion that I wish for. Only then would this truly begin.