A/N- Yay! Nejiten! For those of you who thought I was a serious girl because of my other two stories... you thought wrong. Those were just my best ones, and the only chapter stories I have right now. But I like oneshots. So here's a Nejiten drabble thingy. Totally random. But I love it. XD
Disclaimer- I don't own any of the characters or ideas in this story. If I did, Nejiten would've been a reality YEARS ago. (I can wait, though... XD)
Dancing, Flying
Leaves dance.
They just spiral around on the wind effortlessly. Since they lived in the Village Hidden in the Leaves, there were many trees, with too many leaves to count that lifted up unconsciously to dance on the breeze.
It happened so often most people just swatted the leaves out of their way in annoyance without any wonder at how an inanimate object could fly like they couldn't.
Or they would grab a broom and sweep them off of their porch without marveling at how many miles they might have traveled to land there, or what wonders that they had seen while they were suspended between earth and sky.
Not Neji, though.
Neji loved watching the leaves dance on the wind.
He loved how they lifted up off the treetops easily, like it was what they were meant to do. He loved how they just floated without any effort at all.
No, they didn't float.
They flew.
And he had been trying to fly like them for so long.
He had thought he was earthbound.
Had.
He knew better.
And he learned it by watching one person.
One person everyone else had thought couldn't do anything because she didn't have a surname.
Tenten.
She flew.
He had first seen her during one of their training sessions.
She had been just twirling around and around in her bare feet, waving a ribbon. He had watched her, probably just because he had been more interested in the more relatively sane person in his group than the two idiots who believed that they could be better through hard work.
For whatever reason, he had just watched her. She hadn't done anything that caught his attention for five minutes, and he was beginning to think that his whole group was completely worthless.
Then it happened.
Her feet lifted off the ground with barely any effort at all. She had only jumped, but Neji, who had been watching with his byakugan, saw something else.
He saw the ribbon that bound her to the earth…
Snap neatly in half.
She hadn't seen it, he was sure of that. But he was sure that there was a change.
When she came back down, she was smiling softly.
When her feet hit the ground again, she frowned slightly, like she wanted to stay up longer.
When she opened her eyes, they were full of life.
And the ribbon stayed folded up in a little pile on the ground.
It was still there.
When she looked at him, her eyes were happy, but there was a playful coyness in her gaze, too.
She had dared him.
Try to follow me.
Just try to fly like me.
Try, Neji.
I dare you.
And eventually, he had dared.
And she wasn't defeated.
She was daring him to fly higher.
Whenever she flew, she laughed down at him.
Come on, Neji!
Try to catch me!
And he wasn't angry.
He laughed back up at her.
I'll catch up eventually.
Watch me.