Chokechain

Chapter 1: Hide and Seek

Don't own Naruto… if I did, I'm not even gonna lie: I'd make myself a main character… oh yeah… btw the title I got from an Imogen Heap song. Give it a listen if you're up for something different…

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She never believed any of the shit people spread around about him. Rape, killing, dealing… it was all the same plot with a more dramatic twist than the one before. She blocked it all out from her mind. It was an easy thing for her to do. Why? Because she was in love, dammit. And nothing anyone said could change the way she felt about him. That's just how it was.

She reached out her hand to catch some of his loose strands of hair and brushed it back behind his ear. It was the perfect shade of soft coal to match his night-black eyes. She couldn't believe she had someone so perfect sitting beside her. She liked to think of him as royalty.

A king lounging beside a peasant.

She didn't mind what analogy it was – she knew he was better than her and she treasured the time he wasted with her. She dropped her hand and pressed it on top of his free one beside her. She gave it a quick, light squeeze and took in the feel of his softness. Perfection.

"Tenten?"

"Hmmm?" she murmured, mystified by his smooth voice.

"I'm glad you're here with me."

She laughed. "Me too, Itatchi."

She leaned over and pecked him on the cheek. In doing so, she caught a glimpse of the time on his cell phone he had laying out beside him. She sighed, "10:20… better head home."

She made a move to get up and wasn't too surprised to feel his smooth hand gripping onto her arm, yanking her back down. "Why?" he whispered up at her with his gentle voice he used only to persuade her. "I thought you're parents were gone for the next two weeks?"

"They are," she confirmed to him, barely trying to wriggle from his grasp. "But they left me at home because they trusted me. Because I am mature. I can't let them down in my shining hour!"

He leaned in a brushed his lips against her jaw lightly. She shivered. "I won't tell…"

She laughed, though this time it wasn't so much at the humor of what he had said. "I have to go now, Itatchi," she strained to say. "I'll just owe you, alright?"

He groaned and released her arm, standing up alongside of her. "Fine, I'll hold you too it."

He walked her to her car parked in his driveway with his hand intertwined with hers. She loved how much of a gentleman he was; he made sure she got in alright and assured her to call him if she had any problems. She kissed his cheek and pulled out carefully, driving alone through the dark development and onto the highway.

She liked driving and was even good enough to make some of the guys forget the common stereotype they had with female drivers. What she enjoyed most though was when she was alone like this and got to think. She had a lot on her mind at the moment, too, so this was the opportunity she had been waiting on for a while.

Itatchi was her biggest concern.

She ignored the rumors, but even he admitted his reputation with the ladies that went around wasn't too far off the mark. He'd admitted to her most of the strange relationships up until the point she shouted out that the subject of his ex's and what they did alone or with other people was a taboo topic. It sometimes irked her to know that he had multiple partners and she hadn't… well, had any. They had been going steady for a about three months now and had only ever held hands, hugged, and kissed each other's cheeks and foreheads.

Was that enough for him?

Would he stay with her for going slow?

Why didn't she want to go further?

She took deep breaths. Relax, she told herself. It's normal that you haven't gone off and screwed him after just a couple of months. But she couldn't help but feel that even though he said he wanted her and would wait for her that he didn't mean it.

So when she said she didn't listen to anything negative about him, did it count when he told her himself?

I need to stop stressing out about tha-

CRACK!

Tenten whipped her head to peer out her passenger window and slowed her car down to a stop. She was by a parking lot to a small restaurant, debating whether to get out and investigate what she had heard (it sounded like a gunshot) or to ignore it and continue going home.

She should have kept driving.

She should have considered that whatever was out there might hurt her.

She should have, but she didn't.

She kept her car on, windows rolled up, and car locked. She was just curious at that point. It's uncommon to hear guns firing in this sort of clean town with a decent reputation–

"Fuck!"

The words bubbled out of her mouth. A body was limping toward a streetlight in the middle of the deserted lot. When he reached the pole he leaned his back against it and let gravity slide him down. Tenten saw the injuries stained on his skin and the blood pool flowing off of him from her spot a good quarter of a mile away. She decided than to throw common sense out the window.

If she wasn't so selfless and impulsive, she would have realized that she should call the ambulance or get someone's attention first.

But Tenten was selfless and she was impulsive.

She ripped her buckle off and flew out of her red jeep, sprinting at the speed of lightening over to where the hurt man was.

When Tenten had gotten in front of him, she knelt down and gasped. This was much worse than a man she did not know sporting severe wounds, this was much worse.

"Ei-Eiji?" she stuttered. Eiji was one of Itatchi's friends. He followed her king around with the same look of awe in his eyes that she had.

He struggled to raise his head up to look at her. He only made it halfway, but it was enough to let his bright eyes finish the job and find her. At first, he looked worried. "Te-ten-te-ten…"

"Hush, I'm going to get you out of here," she said in a rush, more to herself. She swiftly moved over and dug her shoulder in his armpit and put her hand under his other one, carefully lifting him up and allowing him to put all his weight it on her. "Alright, now walk with me… to my car. I'll get you to a hospital… oh fucking Christ, Eiji! Who the hell did this to you?"

He smiled weakly. "It's… it doesn't matter."

"I think it does! When we get to the hospital, y-"

Another gunshot. This one was close. Deafening. Tenten flew forward and dropped Eiji alongside of her. She pushed herself off the ground and made a move to drag him up until she saw that the bullet had gone through the back of his head.

Tenten just saw… someone die…

It was then she felt his blood clotting on her clothes and sinking into her skin.

She stood and twisted around to see one person looming under the light she had removed Eiji from.

One person…

… holding a gun…

…that was now perfectly aimed…

… at her.

Her breath caught in her throat and her skin exploded into chills that ran across her body. She felt hot tears pull into the corner of her eyes and leak through her lashes, drenching her cheeks. Her nose dripped, and at that moment she had thoughts echoing in her head all at once:

Itatchi, her family, how she just saw someone she knew and wanted to get to know better die, and… she was so ashamed of this and was refusing to admit it to herself… how gorgeous the man under the light looked.

Sirens blared from somewhere far away. The guy kept his gun directed at her but allowed his head to rove over to the direction the sound was escalating from. He moved his head back to Tenten, with his eyes narrowing and his hair whipping around him. "Hey, you! Girl!"

Tenten blinked angrily and whipped her snot and tears on her sleeve. When she looked back up she made sure she was wearing a nasty glare and frown for his blank face to take in. She refused to answer him.

"Answer me!" he shouted, though it sounded more like his voice just rose in volume since he sounded as emotionless as he looked.

"What?" she roared back, letting her emotions spill out with her voice. If she died, she wanted to do so making sure this guy would remember her enraged voice and face.

He didn't answer. Instead he walked to her. She shivered, feeling her nerves kick up, but refused to leave Eiji's side. That's when she realized he wasn't walking to her, but rather past her – he was going to her car.

"Get in and drive," he ordered, his voice icy cold… she'd never heard anything like it.

"No," she argued defiantly. "I will not leave my friend."

The killer stopped, and before she could inhale he was less than a foot in front of her, his gun pressing hard against her forehead. "He wasn't your friend and he's dead. Now go drive."

Tenten shivered and risked looking down at her classmate. She started tearing up at the realization that she was leaving him alone… she couldn't think about it. Not now. Not having much of a choice, she stalked off to her car and got in, slamming the door shut.

The sirens were closer.

"We have two minutes to get out of here," the killer said from his spot in her passenger seat. "Go."

"Where…?"

"Just go."

Regretting not turning her car off so she could stall and wait for the police, she slammed her door shut and sped off down the highway, going straight. She couldn't think like she had before. She couldn't think… couldn't breathe… just cry. She cried while she sped and gripped the wheel tightly and listened to the stupid commercials on the radio and recognized her growing hatred over the guy next to her who was staring blankly out her front window.

Once she reached her house, she pulled into her driveway as usual and turned the car off, taking her keys out of the ignition and sliding them into her purse she had on the floor.

Silence.

She made a move to get out of the car but a cold, hard grip on her upper arm made her freeze where she was.

"Anyone else home?"

"No," she whispered out, fighting back a new round of tears. She felt miserable and depressed and she just wanted him to either leave her alone or kill her already.

Silence.

He darted out of her car quickly and quietly. She was barely aware of what was happening as he went over to her side of the car and yanked her out – but she was shocked how he was … gentle with her. He led her to her front door and eyed her curiously; it was the first expression he had worn all night. "It's unlocked," she managed to mumble out coherently.

He confirmed this by opening the door. Tenten heard a soft hum that built up to a loud pounding against her skull as he stepped inside. She was losing touch with what was happening around her.

She couldn't take it.

"Why didn't you kill me first…" she thought aloud.

She barely got to see him turn around as she fainted and fell through her front door.

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AN: Yeah, I know… fainting is about one of the corniest cliffhangers that guarantee all readers will commit murder out of rage. You guys deserve so much better… anyways, please read and review so I have an idea what to be working on. Every reviewer gets a candy corn… and if you don't like that, creamery ice cream… if not that, err… socks are always thoughtful, right?