A/N: Okay, I'm depressed because I was supposed to post this up for the nejiten community, but I didn't know how. (I'm so stupid) And today's the final day to submit, and now I can't, so I figured I might as well post these up somewhere. I hope you guys enjoy it! Sorry if it's kind of angsty. The themes are in bold, and it's a story, but sort of like split up into three parts.
White out
She had thought that death would be black. Actually, she had thought that death would be a lot of things. She thought that it would be dramatic, peaceful, maybe even (if she was lucky) glorious.
She had been wrong. Death wasn't black, it was white. White like Neji's eyes. And it wasn't dramatic or glorious, and most certainly not peaceful. It was numb and empty and painstakingly slow. Full of regrets.
Now that she was dying, all she could think about were the things she wished she could have done. She wished she could have finished the new katana she was going to give Neji. And she wished she could have said good bye to all her friends, and her father. Her father, who she knew would cry and cry over her death, just as he had cried for her mother a year ago.
But most of all, she wished she could see Neji's eyes.
Death was coming now. And for the first time since she had been stabbed in the stomach, she could feel it, slow and creeping, like an pale, sickly arm reaching for her, slowly…slowly.
She looked up at the sky, her eyes as heavy as lead. And the sky was white, everything was white. Her thoughts were broken and confused, and she couldn't remember if it was night or day; and she couldn't remember what his eyes looked like.
And she was scared, oh god, she was so scared. She was dying and she couldn't remember what Hyuuga Neji's eyes looked like. She needed to see him, she needed to see Hyuuga Neji, but she couldn't see anything past the white void she was trapped in. She moved, a last desperate attempt to break free.
And then there was pain. White hot pain, and she gasped, struggling for air, struggling for life because she needed to see him, if only one last time.
Neji…
She must have imagined Neji's face looming over her, his eyes just as beautiful and perfect as they always had been, just before the white overcame her.
It's been five days
The mission had gone wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. It was just supposed to be a simple delivery mission. But they had ran into a group of travelers (he had seen them with his Byakugan, but had not deemed them a threat; oh how he regretted it now). It turned out that the 'travelers' were actually disguised enemy nin.
It was a dirty trick, but it had worked. He, Lee, and Tenten had been completely surprised and outnumbered by the five exceptional ninja. Two had went after Lee, two after Tenten, and their leader had fought him. He had been so preoccupied with fighting the enemy nin that he had taken his eyes off of Tenten. And now…
Neji let out a frustrated growl, his fists clenching around the white sheets of the hospital bed. Now Tenten was lying unconscious in a bed with a torn up stomach and a punctured lung.
It had been five days. Five days. And the doctors said that if she didn't wake up soon, they couldn't guarantee that she would wake up at all…
His knuckles were as white as the sheets now, but he didn't care. He didn't care about anything. Not now that Tenten was…dying.
He rested his head on the side of the bed, one of his calloused hands reaching to cover Tenten's small one. He felt so exhausted. He had barely slept since he had found Tenten five days ago, gasping and wide-eyed, as if she was seeing things that weren't there. Immediately after he arrived, she had calmed down, her eyes closing and her breathing becoming quiet once more. So quiet that he had been scared that she had…died. He and Lee had rushed her over to the hospital, for the first time abandoning a mission, and she hadn't woken up since. Her father had stayed almost as long as he had, but was forced to go back to work a couple days ago. And Lee visited often.
Still, Tenten wouldn't wake up. And after five, long days of waiting and worrying and thinking, he had finally realized something. Something that he had always known.
He needed Tenten. He needed her to be there beside him, to tell him that everything was going to be okay. He needed her to smile at him. Oh god, he needed her so much that he felt like he was dying without her.
And, possibly—maybe he…loved her.
Tenten…come back to me. Please. I…I need you.
Sincerely Yours
The first thing she felt when she woke up was Neji's hand. She didn't quite know how she knew it was his hand, she just did.
The first thing she saw was white, and for a split second, she thought she was dead and that maybe, the hand holding hers wasn't Neji's and it was someone else, a ghost or a corpse.
The thought caused her to jerk, and the sudden motion caused her a dizzying amount of pain. She couldn't help but let out a strangled noise halfway between a yelp and a scream.
"Tenten…" Suddenly, Neji was looking at her, and everything within her seemed to settle back into place simply from seeing him again.
She smiled as much as her stiff lips would let her. "Hey Neji," she croaked out, her voice sounding foreign to even her own ears. Still, her actions seemed to relieve him, and he visibly relaxed, only to tense up a moment later as he seemed to realize something.
"You shouldn't speak," he said hurriedly. "Your lung is punctured, and your stomach is severely wounded. I should go get the—"
"I'm fine," she said softly, smiling her brightest smile at him. "Really, Neji, I'm fine," she repeated when he gave her a doubtful look.
He sat back down without a word, and looked at her with those eyes of his. And suddenly, she felt like crying just out of the sheer beauty of it all. She was alive, and he was with her again, and right now, it just seemed too wonderful to be true.
But she didn't cry. She just sat there and followed his gaze out the window, soaking in the sunlight and the air, and Neji, and the wonderful feeling of being alive.
"Neji…I feel like I've been sleeping…for a long time."
"You have," he replied, his voice seeming to carry a burden that she couldn't begin to understand. "It's been five days." He looked at her, his eyes holding a deathly serious look that she had rarely ever seen on him. "Don't do it again. You…aren't allowed to die."
She smiled, catching the meaning behind his words, and in a spur of the moment, she placed her both her hands on his.
"Don't worry, Neji. I'll always be yours. Wholly, completely yours."
A/N: Well, please review and tell me if you liked it! Thanks for reading!
