Me again! lol multi chap Nejiten Christmas fic i plan to have this done by christmas day and new year's at the latest! lol enjoy the first chapter and arigato to Tenten Hyuuga and storywrite for letting me use Yumi Haruno for this (if you don't know she's Sakura's cousin and another character that may or may not be in this later is Hiroshi her teammate lol) enjoy!
Last Christmas I gave you my heart, but the very next day you gave it away.
This year, to save me from tears, I'll give it to someone special.
Tenten could hear the music play from one of Konoha's many snow covered, outlet stores. This song, however, seemed louder than the rest. It made her stop and remember her boyfriend a year ago, something happened that no one, but them, knows about.
Tenten sighed, holding back a tear full of anger, regret, and memories of nightmares, dates, and romance. She looked at her breath, digging her cold, fingerless gloved hands deeper into her coat pockets. "Just forget him, Tenten, he left the village a long time ago, he may even be dead. Either way he's out of your life forever," Tenten told herself.
Ever since Christmas Eve, last year, Tenten has had a hard time trusting others, even ones she is so close to. She wouldn't talk to her older brother, Takashi, for a week, and barely spoke a word to her teammates for months. She has had nightmares, sleepless nights due to fear, and panic attacks ever since that day. Tenten shook her head as the lyrics continued to play, seeming to circle her mind.
Once smitten and twice shy, I keep my distance, but you still catch my eye.
Tell me baby, do you recognize me? Well, it's been a year it doesn't surprise me.
She started walking again, only to be interrupted by a familiar feminine voice. "Tenten!" she said, suddenly a card was pushed in front of her face.
"Huh? What! Ino!" Tenten stammered, trying to get the card out of her face. "What was that for?"
"I'm trying to give you an invitation to my party on Christmas Eve!" Ino shouted, as Tenten finally grabbed the card.
"Thanks, I'll come," Tenten said reluctantly, as she opened the card, then noticing the little note at the bottom of the invite. She braced herself. "Ino, you don't mean…"
"That's right, wear a dress or a skirt, something hot! The guys will be there, we want to impress them!" Ino declared.
"Ino, it's not my personality to wear that kind of stuff, the only dress I own is for funerals," Tenten argued.
"You can borrow one of mine," Ino offered. Tenten thought about what Ino would hand her, she imagined some strapless mini-dress, and fishnet stocking that she would not be able to bend over in, and a pair of six inch stiletto heels. She shivered at the thought.
"Thanks, but I'll ask Yumi, we're the same size," Tenten managed to reply, escaping the awkward offer.
"Suit yourself, oh yeah, Gai wanted me to tell you about meeting up at three at the bakery, and Takashi has something to tell you," Ino said, before running off.
"What! What does Gai want now?" Tenten said, as Ino left her sight. "Ugh! That youth-crazed maniac just never let's anyone have a break!"
As Tenten mumbled to herself she heard someone talking. "Hey Babe," the voice said, the greeting wasn't toward her, but she recognized that voice.
"No way!" she whispered. "There's just no way!"
She didn't wait to find out if her suspicion was correct, she ran in the opposite direction. Whether she was right or wrong she didn't want to know.
Tenten ran towards the bakery, where Anko always gets her dumplings, she ran into her brother Takashi. Takashi is about five years older than her, about as tall as Kakashi, with the same color eyes as his sister, and spiky hair like Asuma's only a little lighter color brown than Tenten. He wore long black pants and a leather jacket to conceal him from the freezing temperatures. "Tenten!" Takashi shouted, catching her attention.
"Takashi-Ni! Ino said you needed to talk to me," Tenten replied, as she looked up to her brother who towered over her in height.
"Tenten, I need to know, what happened between you and Kaizo?" he asked, his eyes deeply concerned. Tenten's eyes only widened.
"It's in the past, Takashi, it's no one's concern anymore," Tenten said, she had a feeling as to what he would say, but she didn't want to hear it.
"I'm your brother, I promised Mom and Dad I would protect you, I need to know what he did so I can protect you from what I couldn't back then!" he argued.
"Can we talk later? I need to meet up with Gai-sensei and the others now," Tenten replied, slowly moving away.
"Tenten! I'm worried! I need to know what happened!" Takashi argued, grabbing Tenten's arm.
"It's my business, and my business alone, Takashi-Ni!" she argued back, escaping from her brother's grasp. "Now, if you want to tell me something, Ni, then tell me tonight, right now, I need to meet up with my team."
"Tenten-chan…" Takashi's voice drifted off, as his sister stormed off. "Damn it! How am I going to explain this to her!"
At the bakery, Tenten ran in out of breath, bending over and resting her hands on her knees as Neji and Lee looked at her. "Is everything all right, Tenten?" Lee asked.
"I just barely escaped my brother, he wanted to butt into my life again," Tenten laughed as Neji scooted over on his bench to allow Tenten to sit.
"What about this time?" Neji asked, he seemed to remain emotionless, but he was very curious on the subject. Neji knows Takashi pretty well and knows that he doesn't bother Tenten unless he thinks she is in danger.
"Long story, I don't want to get into it right now, so why did Gai want to meet up here?" she quickly replied, she didn't want her teammates to worry about her, especially if her suspicions are wrong.
"Gai-sensei wants to go over the training schedule from now until Christmas," Lee explained as a waitress came to take their order.
"What would you like, handsome?" the waitress asked Neji, he merely sighed.
"How about two orders of dumplings and three orders of the House Tea," Neji replied, Lee and Tenten nodded in agreement.
"Alright, I'll get for you in a jiff!" the peppy waitress said, skipping off towards the kitchen.
"That waitress seems to like you, Neji," Tenten teased.
"I thought I was done with this crap after the whole 'Rookie of the Year' thing was over," Neji replied, exhaling deeply.
" TEEEEEAAAAAAAAAMMMMM GAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIII!" Gai shouted, jumping into the bakery landing in the seat next to Lee.
"Oi," Tenten said under her breath as both she and Neji sighed at their sensei's overexcitement, just as the peppy waitress came with their order.
"Here you go, handsome, anything else?" she asked, winking at Neji, he groaned quietly, Tenten giggled a little.
"No thanks, we're fine," Tenten replied.
"Alright, if ya need anythin' just holler." The waitress walked away.
"Youthful Sensei! What will we be discussing today?" Lee asked.
"We need to figure out how we're spending the holidays," Gai explained.
"Christmas Eve and Day I'm booked," Neji and Tenten said in unison, then looked at each other a little creeped out.
"Okay then, if that's the only objections then we'll train the rest of the days!" Gai announced happily.
"Not quite, Gai-sensei," Tenten interrupted. "I still have some last minute Christmas shopping and Ino's probably gonna need help setting up for Christmas Eve, oh, and Takashi and I still have to put up our lights." Tenten was counting out everything she still had to do until Christmas.
"I need to finish putting up lights, and help Hinata and Hanabi put up the tree, I'd probably have to cut training a little short," Neji added.
"Same, sorry, Gai-sensei."
"That's just fine, be sure to meet up tomorrow morning for training," Gai said, disappearing in a cloud of smoke.
"Gai-sensei! You didn't say anything about the power of YOUTH!" Lee shouted, running after his sensei as tears streamed down his face.
"I swear, there must be something wrong with those two," Tenten declared, unaware of her being said aloud.
"They've always been like that…." Neji replied standing up.
"Yet, we still haven't gotten used to them," Tenten finished.
"So, where are you heading now?" Neji asked, placing the money for the bill and tip on the table.
"I blew off my brother, so I may as well go talk with him," she replied, putting on her white trench coat, "you?"
"I promised Hinata that I'd help her pick out a Christmas tree, but she's so indecisive, it could take 'til midnight," Neji replied, putting on his dark brown winter coat.
Tenten laughed, Neji chuckled a little. They walked out onto the snow-covered streets of Konoha as even more snow fell. "More snow?" Tenten questioned aloud.
"Yeah, I hear this is supposed to be the coldest winter in decades," Neji replied, as Tenten looked at the snowflake as it melted in her hand.
"Winter hasn't even begun!" Tenten chided, shivering a little, as the two walked.
"You okay?" Neji asked, staring at the shivering Tenten.
"Yeah, I still haven't gotten out my winter coat, it's somewhere in the attic," she replied, now shaking.
"Do you want my coat?" he offered, about to unzip it.
"No, no, I'm fine, really," she insisted.
Neji felt bad for her, she was freezing, it was getting dark, making it even colder, and it had to about -3 C. He looked around, making sure Takashi wasn't around, if he knew what Neji was about to do, he would kill him. "Here," Neji said, unzipping his coat and wrapped his arms around Tenten, she half gasped. "My god, you're freezing."
"You didn't have to do this," she replied, as they continued walking.
"Just don't tell your brother, he'd kill me," Neji laughed.
"I won't, he'd kill me for letting you," Tenten replied, slowly gaining warmth.
Suddenly, a girl, taller than Tenten, because she was wearing high heeled boots, dark, dirty blonde hair, wearing a blue winter coat ran over to the hugging couple. "No way! I didn't know you guys were finally going out!" she said, almost aggravated that she didn't know this.
"Yumi! We aren't going out! What do you mean by finally?" Tenten blurted, Yumi laughed a little.
"The bakka over here hasn't brought out her winter coat yet," Neji explained, as Tenten eyed him coldly.
"Okay, okay, oh, Tenten! Did you talk to Takashi yet?" Yumi asked, a curious look appeared on her face.
"I saw him earlier, he had to tell me something-"
"So is it true?" Yumi interrupted.
"Is what true?" Tenten asked, Yumi realized instantly that Takashi hadn't told her yet.
"That he didn't tell you yet?" she quickly recovered. "Listen, Tenten, as soon as you see Takashi, talk to him about what he wanted to tell you."
"What? Why?" Tenten was all sorts of confused now.
Yumi quickly glanced around her. "Just talk to him, if you need me, you know where to find me," Yumi said, referring to the house next door to Tenten and Takashi, before she ran off.
"Wait! Yumi!" Tenten called then sighed. "Why can't I get a straight answer?" That was when Neji let go of her.
Suddenly a familiar voice pierced the air, freezing Tenten where she stood. "Sorry, Babe, but it's not gonna work out," he said, Tenten turned around, hoping that she was imagining things.
"Tenten? Are you okay?" Neji asked once again, as Tenten backed away.
"God, I hope so, sorry I just have to go!" she replied, running off.
"Tenten!" Neji yelled but she was already too far away.