I'm sorry Neji. I know I may seem a bit slow or stupid and maybe most of the time I am. But this time I know what those words mean.
"Because you called me a genius."
It sounds so simple, just a token of how much our friendship, fleeting and brief, had meant. But it's not, and I wish I knew earlier. Was my opinion the one that truly mattered after our fight? How, I wonder, did I become so important to you that an offhanded remark, just an observation really, came to mean so much?
All this trust - and hope. Everyone believing in me. It's what I once wished for - to be acknowledged. And now I am, here on this battlefield as the only ray of light left. And yet something inside me is constricting, tightening its hold on my heart and making me want to cry out in grief and rage.
Your body is getting cold Neji, here in my arms. I wish I had known earlier. But at least I was able to offer you some small comfort at the end. Just holding you in my arms. How long had you yearned for that to happen?
But you knew didn't you, you genius? Knew behind my friendship with Sasuke I loved him. How long had I yearned for him to wrap his arms around me feeling the same way I did? I don't even recall when it became so. Was it the same for you? Just happening all of a sudden, a realization one morning?
I'm sorry Neji, that I didn't know earlier. Maybe, just maybe I could have gotten over him. Could have held you. Maybe we could have been a great pair, unstoppable partners had I known. Maybe I could have stopped you from dying. Maybe I could have loved you.
Thank you for telling me at least at the end. I'm glad. Really, I am. Don't mind the tears. They're not all sad. I will always wonder now whether we would have made each other happy. But that's all right because it means I'll never forget you. I won't let you die in vain. You'll see Neji from where ever it is you've gone. I'll hold true to my promise to change the Hyuuga. I'll stop this war and bring Sasuke back. No one will have died in vain.
And maybe, just maybe like you Sasuke's been hiding his feelings too. Why now am I not so sure I want them?
It seems so wrong to want him with you here in my arms. Your body as icy as the personality you used to have. And all I can think of are the maybe's, the what if's. Even Hinata's confession didn't make me rethink my feelings for Sasuke. Yet you, of course you could.
You once made my blood boil, and gave me one of my greatest feelings of triumph when I beat you. I thought I had something to prove, and I did, and I proved it. I wonder now, if I had been beaten that day would you still be alive right now? Was that victory for all the happiness it brought worth your death?