Chapter Two: Star Festival
Tenten carefully pulled the ornaments out of her hair, letting the intricate bun fall in brown waves around her shoulder. She washed the makeup off her face, utilizing the water as a substitute for tears. She unraveled the obi around her rest and tugging off her lavender kimono, letting the expensive fabric drop in a pile on the floor. Stripping from the rest of her clothes, she slipped into an old yukata and picked up a bucket and towels.
After the most heartrending wedding on her part, Tenten needed to relax.
Wrapping a towel around her thin body, almost sickly from her lack of food, she dipped her foot into the hot baths. She sank in a moment later, letting out a relieved yet painful sigh.
It had been three months, three months since she felt his lips against her own, and Tenten had gradually, excruciatingly, gotten used to the coldness. The damp air forced distant memories to flash before her eyes.
It was a humid day, as most summer days are like in Konoha. She was exiting the Mission Headquarters after a debriefing; he was entering for his own mission. He was clad in a form fitting ANBU uniform, higher in status then her plain Jonin flak jacket. They bumped into each other, surprised on her part and pained on his. He held her forearms to keep her from falling, although both of them knew it was to have human contact, one more time. She was drowning in his ivory eyes, before wriggling free of his grasp. He instantly let go, and moved to the side to let her pass.
And she couldn't help but murmur quietly, "Good luck on your mission, Hyuuga-sama."
The rigidly formal tone she held his name caused him to stiffen, before he nodded and kept walking, the look in his eyes indescribable as he pulled the porcelain mask over his face.
And when she came home from her mission, she found an invitation on her kitchen table. An invitation to his wedding.
His wife was a pretty creature, and Tenten had found her oddly bland for Neji. Neji would be too much for the poor girl, his emotions and his feelings too intense to keep the girl sane. But the girl had beamed happily, blue eyes gazing into his ivory ones. She was from a high ranking family from a different land, and by her movements, she was not quite a ninja.
She would be his stay home wife, the one that would be waiting for him after he returned from another bloody battle, washing away his stained skin and kissing away his pain.
The wedding was elaborate. She stood in the back, watching his new wife walk down the aisle grandly, her sophisticated kimono shimmering in the blistering heat. Everyone held their breaths as the girl reached up on her tiptoes to kiss her new husband, but Tenten had looked away and exited. Her arm was caught by the Sand ninja, Sabaku no Kankuro, who futilely tried to sympathize. The auburn haired boy settled on asking to accompany her to the Star Festival later that night, a festival for the new Hyuuga couple and for the star-crossed lovers of Chinese legend. And the brown-eyed woman could do nothing else but smile and nod.
She soaked comfortably in the water, trying to push away the thoughts. Suddenly the door slid open, as five giggly girls walked in. They didn't notice her presence, much to Tenten's relief. She knew it was time for her to leave. She lifted herself up from the water, slipping out of the hot baths before any of them noticed she was there and had left.
She pulled on a pretty tailored kimono, pink in color with cherry blossom flowers stitched on. It wasn't one of formal wearing, opening at mid-thigh. Tenten knew she no longer could keep wishing, wishing that the old days could return. She wore a lace holster around her thigh where she kept a few slim senbon just in case, her hair returning to the two buns, held up as it usually was with pins and laced with invisible senbon.
He had picked her up in a dashing yukata, abandoning the Kabuki makeup. Tenten held his arm as a couple would, and the two walked into the bright lights of the festival. They saw a booth, the red paper sitting on the wooden table. She had smiled, pulling one of the red papers out as Kankuro paid for it, writing in graceful calligraphy that awed even the master puppeteer.
'Let them both find love and happiness together, the way I once did.'
And she wasn't particularly thinking about herself; she knew that her love for Neji could never be. She wished for him and his new wife to find happiness, she wished for him to follow what he said and forget about her, because she knew of those nights. Those dark moonless nights when he would come, and he would watch her and although it hurt on both sides for him to come, he still did.
And even the puppeteer could feel how much she was in love with the Hyuuga, and he felt oddly jealous. Her thin fingers carefully wrapped the red paper around the bamboo tree; he could tell her weak frame was due to the bastard, the bastard that hurt her. And he led her away, pulling her away before she could see his ivory eyes stare at her and the red paper on the bamboo.
And he had to leave her side, forced to perform a play for the little children due to their puppeteer falling ill. She had smiled and chuckled as she urged him to go, that she was fine, and she'll catch up with him later, before waving softly and kept walking, walking away. And Kankuro knew that he could never replace Neji in her heart, he could never be the one she smiled so happily to or the one that could make her cry the way she did.
Her arm was tugged into a gap between two booths in the darker part of the festival, one of her wrists clasped over her head and the other at her waist roughly. She stared into ivory eyes, and the crash of waves behind her eyes threatened to open. He had held her hard and aggressively, never like the way he used to hold her - like something too valuable and too fragile. But this time he didn't care to break her, because he was already broken. He had read her wish, he had known how she wanted him to be happy, she wanted him to be happy more than she wanted herself to be. But he couldn't be happy, he couldn't without her.
"What does he mean to you?" he spat out angrily, pushing against her furiously to keep her from running away.
"What?" she looked up at him with wide chocolate eyes, her body too thin and sickly to be healthy. She hadn't been eating, she was getting weak, and he didn't like it. He hated it.
"The bastard, what is he to you?"
Her voice turned icy at the insult, "It's none of your business," she had retorted, much to his anger. "My life no longer concerns you."
"Your life is my own," he replied before he could think, pressing his lips against hers forcefully. The emotions held inside flooding through them, burning their skin as he let go of her wrists and held her closer. Her scent, her body, he was drowning in everything about her. He didn't care about anything except her, he didn't care that he was newly married, that he had duties as a Hyuuga, that he was going against his wife he had just kissed a few hours ago.
She had slapped him.
"You're married, you can't do this anymore," she murmured, trembling.
"I don't care," he answered, before pressing into her again. He needed her, even if it was wrong. And she needed it too, and he had to fulfill both of their subconscious wishes.
A shriek was heard, and they were caught.
A/N: The Star Festival is a real festival in Japan about two star-crossed lovers derived from the Chinese legend. Thank you Wikipedia.
