Rating: T
Warnings: BoyxBoyxGirl Threesome (please don't read it if it squicks you), sex, character death
Genre: Romance, Tragedy, Comedy (?)
Timeline: Deviates at the three year skip
Characters: Neji, Tente, Lee, Gai
Spoilers: Pre-Shippuden stuff
Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto I'd be even worse then Kishi~
1. For their first Valentine's Day, Tenten got a small box of cookies and split them up amongst her team. She made sure she got a few more then the rest of them. Neji didn't get anything for them and neither did Lee. They both spent a good long time glaring over their cookies at each other.
Then Gai burst in on them with big heart shaped boxes for all and spent the rest of the day regaling them of his past Valentine's.
The next day, Lee gave them all unassuming, square candies and apologized for his lateness in getting them.
2. Their second Valentine's Day was spent training because the Chuunin Exams were just around the corner. Even Gai, who had seemed so enamored with the holiday the year before, was caught up in shouting orders and throwing kunai at his precious students.
The next morning Neji and Tenten both found unassuming, square candies on their bedside tables.
3. Gai used their third Valentine's Day to give them The Talk.
The day went down in Konoha history as the day Lee very purposefully got drunk and destroyed most of the shopping district.
No one ever knew that it was Neji who supplied the alcohol.
4. The fourth was spent at the Jounin Exams. Gai thrice cursed the fool who placed the Exam on the 'most youthful and lovely of all days!!'
The three of them made it to the third round. Then Tenten took a punch to the throat and was rushed off to the hospital. Lee broke through the fifth gate to the sixth and defeated his opponent only to be too exhausted to continue into the fourth round.
Neji made it to the finals and won. He was promoted less then a day later.
5. After throwing Neji to the ground for the first time ever, Lee helped him to his feet and handed him a small box of chocolates. Neji complained that he'd knocked off his hitai-ate. Lee responded by kissing the Curse Mark on his forehead.
Tenten giggled at the blank expression on the Hyuuga's face and exchanged chocolate boxes with Lee.
Gai gave them all hugs and announced he was off on another mission and would be sure to get them exotic sweets from the country of rain.
6. By their sixth Valentine's they were all eighteen and Tenten decided they should go clubbing. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Then they spent the night trying to keep Lee away from alcohol and Neji ended up dragging a loopy Tenten back to her apartment.
They found little heart boxes on their bedside table the next morning.
7. Their seventh was spent far far away from each other. Tenten was fighting on the border. Neji was covertly sneaking into a corrupt nobleman's house to slit his throat. Lee waited in Konoha, traversing the rebuilt shopping district and buying chocolate for three even though he knew he wouldn't eat any of it.
8. Neji finally asked Tenten on a date for their eighth Valentine's. It was mostly a disaster, ending with them screaming at each other and Neji called off for another mission.
Tenten went to Lee's ramshackle apartment and sobbed until she fell asleep. She found a box of chocolate by her head in the morning.
Neji discovered hard candies in his pack three days later.
9. Their ninth was spent at the hospital. Tenten and Neji forgave each other for being stupid and held Lee's hands until he woke up and smiled knowingly at them.
This time it was Lee who found candy on his bedside table.
10. They spent their tenth at a little tea shop decorated in thoroughly pink decorations. Gai dropped in on them for a few minutes just to hand out candy before racing off to... something. They didn't ask.
Rather, Tenten and Neji kept Lee from asking.
When they finished their tea, they wandered the town. Lee spent more money then they thought he had getting them chocolate and candy and sweets they wouldn't eat. Tenten let herself indulge just a little and forced a truffle down Neji's throat just to keep the lotus happy.
As the sun set, they split up, heading to their homes in various sectors of Konoha, but not before Tenten kissed both boys and Lee hugged Neji (very much to his chagrin).
11. Their eleventh Valentine's found them waking up to each other, rumpled and tired but smiling (or smirking in Neji's case). They shared breakfast and Lee read them a happy article out of the newspaper and they parted still smiling despite having missions to attend to and battles to fight.
12. For their twelfth they stayed in and toasted life, which entailed chocolate buying, ribbon tying and lots of sex.
13. They were far apart again when Gai died. Neji thought it was ridiculously ironic that their sensei died on his favorite day. Tenten just wanted to get home to make sure that Lee was doing okay. Lee took the news with alarming grace.
Afterward though, he returned to a raggedy apartment that he had shared with Gai not all that long ago and cried himself to sleep on a bed that was too cold. He wished his teammates could be there.
14. Their fourteenth February the fourteenth found them battling an enemy without a face. Five months earlier, war had broken out and every available shinobi was called to fight.
Lee looked up and saw a grand fox fighting a beast of chakra and wondered if this would be the last battle. Tenten threw a kunai into the heart of her opponent and wondered if anything would be the same again. Neji kept his byakugan open and knew that this would be the end of one of them.
15. Their fifteenth passed with them in a trench. They passed around a bottle of sake. Even Lee got to take some because, with his broken leg, they knew the only chance he had of survival was if he was drunk.
When they kissed him, he didn't taste like alcohol.
16. The sixteenth slipped by. In fact they didn't give it a second thought between trying to stay alive in the mornings and trying to stay warm at night.
A week later though Lee and Tenten clutched at Neji's hand and pleaded with him to stay with them, stay with them. They whispered Happy Valentine's through their tears.
17. War was over by the seventeenth, but it didn't much matter to the remaining members of Team Gai. They attended the appropriate ceremonies, smiled at the appropriate people, holding hands when they got a chance to be alone. They didn't cry because it had been almost a year and Shinobi are not allowed to cry.
So they exchanged boxes of chocolate and kisses instead. Rocking under the sheets and the moon, they refused to meet each other's eyes.
18. No one could find Lee on their eighteenth. No one really looked for him though, not even Tenten. She had more important things to do.
Besides, she already knew he was sitting in front of Neji's grave, eating a bit of candy and wishing him a Happy Valentine's day. She wished she could forgive herself long enough to go join him.
19. Lee's eyes crinkled into a smile when she woke up on their nineteenth. She couldn't help noticing how old he was. Over thirty. They were practically white-haired grandparents by Shinobi standards.
She was in the hospital, another mission gone horribly wrong. He kissed her forehead and she knew the wounds she had were fatal. She was dead, but she supposed it had only been a matter of time.
She asked him how long and he shrugged, glancing at the drops pattering lightly against the window. Till the rain stops, he finally murmured. She knew he only said it because it sounded romantic. She asked him to stay if he had the time. He smiled, squeezing her hand a little.
He chattered softly for awhile, things he remembered from when they were kids. Like all that chocolate he had bought when they were nineteen. He never gave any of it to them. And also, that night they went clubbing. She had been so drunk.
He laughed, faintly. She asked him to keep going and he watched her with eyes that were so sad. She hated to leave him alone.
But, he was Lee and he had ignored his pain for years. So he continued with the time Neji and her had gone a date. He had felt very left out and she had cried into his shoulder. That was before they were true Shinobi. And also, hadn't their first kisses been great. They had been so shy.
And hadn't Neji been beautiful when he died? Weren't the three of them beautiful while it lasted?
Tenten nodded and nodded and nodded. Yes, they had been so perfect, she whispered because she was starting to feel weak now. Lee choked back a sob and she said it was okay.
He pressed his face into her shoulder and cried. His arm circled her waist and it hurt but only distantly. She let her fingers curl into his hair, let his tears shake her to sleep. The rain stopped.
They buried her with Neji beneath a cherry tree.
20. Lee visited them every day that year. He always brought candy or chocolate, only the best for them.
By the time Valentine's came again, he had spent every penny he had ever gotten. And he bowed in front of their graves. And then he collapsed, knees bent underneath him and arms stretched out. He traced the curve of their cheeks, because he never forgot a face, especially theirs.
Burying his nose in the grass, he asked them all the questions he had meant to ask before. Was Fate really so important? How hard was it to seal weapons in a scroll? Why hadn't they ever given up on their dreams?
Did they like that chocolate he'd gotten them?
He whispered until there was only one question left and his skin was turning red as Valentine's itself.
Why me? Why me? Why me?
He shouted, desperation making his voice raw. Then something brushed his shoulder and he turned. He gazed down the hill as the red faded away, and the grass rippled in the wind. He choked back the lump in his throat, standing slowly. His feet carried him into the forest.
And he never came back.
Life is short but this time it was bigger
Than the strength he had to get up off his knees
We found him with his face down in the pillow
With a note that said I'll love her till I die
And when we buried him beneath the willow
The angels sang a whiskey lullaby
-Whiskey Lullaby, Brad Paisley and Allison Kraus
I listened to 'Whiskey Lullaby' while writing 19 and 20. I almost cried a couple times…