Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Breakthrough
"Mufasa."
The softly spoken word jolted the man from his meticulous attention to the complicated work of art (stick figure doodle) on the canvas (notepad margin) in front of him. Quickly covering his surprise with a feigned twitch and cracking his neck in the process, the man wearing the tweed suit and wearing horn-rimmed glasses coughed politely and stared at the only other occupant in the room.
"Could you repeat that, Hyuuga-san?" he asked, placing his pen back on the notepad in front of him. After a glare and another long silence—this particular session was nothing but long silences, the man noted—the silvery-eyed jounin repeated himself.
"Mufasa."
After adding a decidedly rakish top hat to his stick figure…ah, work of art…the man made a 'hmm-ing' noise and nodded. "And what does Mufasa have to do with you?" he asked.
"You asked me when the last time I consciously cried was," Hyuuga Neji replied. "I cried when I saw Mufasa in the Lion King movie."
"Ah," the older man said, furiously writing in his notebook. Now they were getting somewhere! "So you feel that the relationship between Mufasa and his brother, Scar, somewhat mirrors your own father's relationship with your uncle. You associate the death of the character with your father's and formed an emotional attachment to the character's plight that triggered the release of your buried feelings! This is an amazing breakthrough, Hyuuga-san!"
"'Emotional attachment'…" Neji echoed. The excited man across from him nodded and the veins around the Byakugan user's eyes bulged in anger as he read what the other man was writing. 'Patient's identification with an imaginary character—animated, at that—shows an opening of self consistent with the behavior found in young males beginning to question and accept their possible homosexual leanings.'
Homosexual leanings…?
"You twit," the Hyuuga snarled. "I was crying because a kernel from Lee's popcorn flew into my eye as he was shoveling the trash down his throat, the overpowering stench from Sakura and Ino's perfume was making my eyes water, Naruto just belched in my face after eating onion rings, and the chain Tenten used to capture me so that I was forced to watch that idiotic film with them was cutting off the circulation to my leg!"
The man gaped in shock as Neji stood up and strode toward the door. "But, Hyuuga-san!" he called out. "We need to continue with this line of thought. It could be the key to your breakthrough!" The man in tweed followed the other through the packed waiting room, ignoring the stares and outright laughter aimed at him.
"They used duct tape to keep my eyes open," Neji growled as he turned to glare at the people responsible for the incident. "Human biology dictates that tear formation is necessary to keep the eye moist in instances where blinking is impossible. I am not gay!"
With that confusing—to the people in the waiting room—sentence, the Hyuuga genius left the office with a slam of the door.
The man in tweed rubbed his forehead and sighed in dismay. Looking at the assembled group of shinobi ordered by the Godaime to undergo therapy by a civilian psychologist—namely, the man in tweed named Genrou—he smiled sheepishly and croaked out one sentence.
"Who's next?"
A/N:
Insomnia always starts a writing kick for me…and either produces sad, introspective work or cracked out ideas. This is obviously the latter. I may continue this, I may not. Suggestions are welcome. So I'll repeat what the therapist asked:
Who's next?