WARNING: SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 614. IF U HAVEN'T READ IT, DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER.
AGAIN, IF U HAVE NOT READ CHAPTER 614, DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER.
STAHP.
STAHP.
IF U HAVEN'T AND U CONTINUE READING DON'T BLAME ME.
It wasn't fair.
Tenten sits with Gai-sensei, who is staring hard at the picture of his student in front of the memorial, and Lee, who has tears streaming down his cheeks, although he constantly wipes at them. He mutters things under his breath about "lost youth" and "flame that died out" although Tenten pretends not to hear. She knows that the rest of the Konoha Twelve are sitting scattered throughout the crowd, remembering all their lost loved ones too.
Tenten stares at her lap the entire time. She doesn't dare look at the picture of the Hyuuga, or else she may burst into tears like Lee. And Tenten never cried. She hadn't cried when her mother died giving birth to a stillborn child, or when her father left her, or when she got kicked out of her apartment because she was the only one left. She never cried when Gai-sensei made her run fifty laps around Konoha on one leg, or when she got scratched or bruised from all the hours perfecting her aim.
She has never cried, and she isn't going to start now.
Tenten shouldn't blame Naruto, she really shouldn't, since he was the one who saved everybody. But a part of her inside wishes that he had died instead of Neji. She knows it's the wrong feeling, and that it's cruel and wicked and selfish, but she knows that if she had to choose between saving "The Hero/Future Hokage of Konoha" or Neji, the prodigy caged to the branch house, she would've picked the latter.
She contemplates how selfish Neji must've been. He wanted to make his own decisions, to be free, but did he know what that freedom cost? Did he know that his freedom cost him his own life? He must've known. She knows not for one second did he think of his grieving family, of Hinata or his uncle, Hiashi-sama. Never once did he think of how his second father and sensei would react, or how shattered Lee would be at his "eternal rival's" death.
And she would bet all of her weapons that he didn't think of her either.
She had loved Neji Hyuuga. But she never said anything about it—there was always a "tomorrow", right? He never showed anything less than platonic feelings for her, so she returned those simple feelings. Feelings of friendship, comradeship, and trust. Never feelings of love, or romance.
Something wet falls onto her knuckles that are grasped on her lap. She sniffles a little, and looks up at the picture of him amongst the hundreds of other pictures of fallen shinobi.
She thinks, "What if?" And she continues to think that, even after she graduates to Jonin, and becomes part of Anbu. She continues to think that, even after she retires from being a ninja and marries another man. She continues to think that even after she has children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and only a few of the Konoha Twelve Legacy remains.
She tries not to fall apart as she wonders,
"What if he loved me too?"
okay there it is! SO I'M LIKE SOBBING BAI