I'm Through With It All, And I Won't Be Back Again
"Oh Tenten…" The soft, lingering voice held no anger, though it held some concern and sadness. His heart wrenched horribly, as if his whole chest was grabbed by some sort of searing hand, and twisted, made into a bent piece of nothingness. There was no way to describe the harsh pain that his heart felt at the moment. "I'm still alive…I'm still here with you…you just have to find me."
I found myself in my bed. This was a daily ritual. I had always ended up in my bed after each visit to the cemetery. Lee, Gai-Sensei, or some other Nin usually brings me home after late hours after I pass out after hours of weeping.
"Tenten, you were out late again…you need to stop this, this isn't going to help you feel any better, and it won't bring the dead back to life, no matter what you do…it cannot be changed, so stop crying over it. A true ninja never displays emotions of caring, sadness, grief, or love. Learn how to handle it, or you will never get your fiery youth back." The voice was so familiar, and when I saw the taller teen standing at the doorpost, it was obvious who it was. I almost thought it was Gai-Sensei, based on the looks at least. But no, it was surely Lee. Lee had changed so much after the war. After Neji had died, he had mellowed out…though there was something he was most definitely off about him…to say, he had taken up the personality of Neji, which made everything worse. It made me miss the Hyuga even more than I already did. Lee had an empty void where his "youth and vigor" used to be, and it was replaced with some sort of apathy, as if he felt absolutely nothing anymore. He was lucky, he couldn't feel the way that my emotions tore away at my heart, ravenously attacking it, waiting for it to die, seemingly wanting to devour it and tear it to shreds.
Though something snapped in me, something that I knew shouldn't have snapped, because it felt so wrong, but yet so right. It was as if a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders, though it was wrong, because the way that my mind was going to take care of it wasn't the right way to take care of anything, especially for a kunoichi. It wasn't proper etiquette for a kunoichi to display her rage towards anyone.
"Don't tell me what a ninja can and cannot be, Lee! Just because Neji died doesn't mean that you are all high and mighty in our team! You know how it feels to love and be loved, you know how it feels to care, you know how it is to feel the warmth of someone else's arms, you know how it feels to be cared about, you know how it feels to watch your loved ones get killed or get hurt, it hurts, doesn't it? If you say that what I'm saying is false, than you are just lying straight through your teeth! You were the first one to breakdown when Neji died, I wasn't! You were the one who cried first, who screamed first, who cared first! You have no right to tell me anything, especially since you can't follow what you say! You love Gai-Sensei just as I loved Neji! You hated it when Gai had found a new student to teach, and when that student beat you in the first time you fought, you thought that Gai didn't care anymore, and you pushed yourself harder to make yourself more worthy to Gai, because you thought that you would never be his favorite anymore! You got stronger because of the betrayal of a loved one! Neji died, and I will get stronger from that! At least the person that you loved didn't die in that stupid war, at least you didn't lose your heart, at least you didn't have to go through the emptiness and sorrow of forever knowing that you will never hear their voice, or ever feel their touch, and knowing that eventually, as time goes by, your memories will soon vanish along with all those lost feelings!"
His dark, obsidian eyes didn't shift in any way, they just stayed focused on me. He didn't seem surprised by my outbreak, but to be honest, I was starting to get scared of myself.
"You know Tenten, you really don't understand."
Maybe I didn't. But he sure as hell didn't know anything of what I felt, at least, that's what I thought, and that's all I was going to accept at the moment.
"You do not know how it feels, for everyone around you to die…to feel empty, because the death of the team-mate that was the most special to everyone in the team died…and now everyone around you, your loved one in your team, are slowly dying inside…it hurts more than the death of a single loved person. It hurts more because everyone you love is slowly dying and suffering, and you don't even know what to do because you know that they're already too much far gone…you won't understand because you're too numb to see the fact that your withering is putting me through so much pain…I would rather die right now than go through another single moment watching you and Gai Sensei in pain, and watching your eyes clouded in sadness, and clouded with lost memories…it makes me feel like you don't care about me, and that you not even see me anymore…you render me lonely….as if you're not even around. I now know my place, it is about time that you have learned your's." His voice sounded stressed. Tears slithered down his cheeks like a snake, pooling at the rim of his jaw.
"Goodbye, Tenten."
And now I have just lost Lee. I lost him because I thought that I was the only one suffering, and that nobody understood what I was going through. It just turns out that I was wrong, and it cost me the loss of the second most important person in my life. I'm so stupid. I'm through with this all, and I was too far gone to come back again.