The weeks after that, Tenten didn't see the Hyuuga. She had expected him to come to her the day after the night of their "talk", but he didn't show. It came to the point that she started to worry. She finally brought herself to ask around to find out Neji's whereabouts. It was Hinata who finally told her that her cousin was on a mission with Naruto, Sai and Kakashi. She had asked the bright-eyed, younger woman if she knew how long Neji would be away. Hinata responded by saying that she didn't know, but expected it to be a long mission. Tenten thanked her and proceeded on her way to the Hokage's office.

In the hallway, she met Sakura going the same way.

"Hey, Tenten, whatcha doing here?"

"Tsunade-sama summoned me," she replied. "Hopefully, it's for a mission."

A medic nin then came running down the corridor.

"Sakura-san, please come quickly!" she exclaimed. "We need you at the OR immediately."

"Well, you heard her; I'll see you then, Tenten?" The pink-haired shinobi jogged away.

"See you," Tenten bowed before entering Tsunade's office.

Once inside, Tenten watched for a moment the aged Hokage behind her desk with piles of books and papers on either side of her; her expression worrisome as she bit her thumbnail. When Tsunade realized the weapon's mistress's presence, she bid her to come forward.

"Tenten, come in." She said before taking a rubber stamp and viciously pressing it onto an ink pan. She took one more glance at the contents of the text before stamping her seal and signature on the bottom of the document. "We just need to wait for Sakura to come, and then I'll start the brief on your next mission."

"Oh, but Tsunade-sama, Sakura-chan was just called to the OR." Tenten quipped.

"What happened?"

"I don't know, ma'am."

Just then Shizune burst into the room, in hysterics.

"Tsunade-sama, Sakura told me to call you right away, Naruto and the others came back from their mission, and they're—they need you down there!" Shizune stated.

"Tenten, this'll have to wait," the Hokage stood before running to the operating rooms.

Belatedly, Tenten remembered that Neji was with Naruto and the others for this mission. If they were hurt, then Neji could be hurt himself. Worry gnawed at the young woman. She rushed down after Tsunade and Shizune.

What if it was serious, what if Neji was killed? She couldn't bear the thought. As Tsunade disappeared through the double doors, Tenten slowed her sprint to a halt. She was scared, afraid of what she'd face on the other side. She could hear medics shouting orders to each other from beyond the doors. It sounded serious. What if Neji was dying? She thought as her blood pumped wildly through her body.

Tenten felt that she had no choice but to push through the doors. Once through, she was met with utter chaos. There were medics in white running and yelling, coagulating into a mass of bodies and equipment. In the far end corner of the room she spotted Neji atop a gurney, unconscious. In a matter of seconds, Tenten was at his side.

"Neji?" she whispered, timidly.

There was no response from him.

Upon closer inspection, Tenten realized that the unconscious male was attached to an IV drip and the whole right side of his body was neatly bandaged in medical gauze and tape. She spotted an area on Neji's chest where there blood had soaked through the bandage. As morphine dripped into his veins, Tenten was dumbfounded at this situation.

Never in all their time together had she seen Neji injured this greatly since he became a jounin. The said Hyuuga was paler than usual and a long thin gash was displayed on his bruised, purple-ish left cheek. This was the worst Tenten had seen her companion.

After minutes passed, Sai came to her side and told her of their frightful battle against two of the Akatsuki members. He told her how Neji had been victim to a sword wielded by a blue, fish-man. Sai even offered to draw the man's likeness so that Tenten could exact her revenge on him.

"We went against him before, as well as Itachi Uchiha." Tenten said.

"He had us trapped in water cells; Neji was the only one able to get out." Sai explained. "But, in the end, the he and Uchiha left mid battle. That probably saved our lives. Kakashi-senpai said that with Neji-san and Naruto's injuries, it was best that we returned right away."

"What's wrong with Naruto?" Tenten questioned.

"He went against Itachi Uchiha. Kakashi-senpai wasn't able to save him from the falling into the Mangekyo Sharingan. Tsunade-sama said it will take him longer than usual to heal."

"Will they both recover fully?"

"Naruto will because of the nine-tails. But, Sakura said that Neji might not be so fortunate. Tsunade is planning to tell him the prognosis when he's better. I know that since you're his girlfriend I shouldn't be telling you this, but, I thought that you should know." Sai affirmed seriously.

"I'm not his girlfriend." Tenten shivered, looking at Neji's bloody bandages. "I'm just an old teammate."

"Well, you should tell his girlfriend, then." Sai answered. "He wanted me to give this to her."

Sai held up a slender wooden box. It looked like an old cigarette case.

"He kept saying before he passed out to 'give this to her'. I didn't know who he was talking about, but I assumed it was a girlfriend or something like that since he doesn't have a sister or a mother; and you're the only woman I've seen him with. Do you know who she is?"

"Yeah, I do. I'll take it to her." Tenten took the wooden box into her hands. "Thanks, Sai."

The ex-ANBU ROOT ninja bobbed his head once before leaving the OR.

"Neji, what have you done?" Tenten asked Neji's unconscious body.

She touched his forehead, and wiped his long bangs from his face. She watched him until he was taken to Sakura once more to get his bandages changed before being taken to the rehabilitation wing of the hospital.

Tenten stayed by his bedside until visiting hours were over. The hospital only allowed family to stay overnight. Hinata had visited earlier along with her sister and father, but was called to train with her former team.

As Tenten walked home, she felt numb. She kept true to her word, and did not cry a single tear for Neji. Instead, she focused on getting home to open Neji's box: the red-stained, cherry wood box that Sai had presented to her. Thirty minutes later, Tenten shut her bedroom door behind her. She changed into her pyjamas, brushed her teeth, and pinned up her hair in a badly done coiffure. She sat on the edge of her bed, trying to decide whether she wanted to open or not open the box.

After half an hour of debating, Tenten finally decided to open the box. She opened it and flipped its contents onto her bed. The small box contained pictures from their genin years. There was one picture of Team Gai with the four of them huddled together. Another photograph showed her and Neji standing side by side: her eyes lit up with youthful excitement, while his were filled with innate cockiness. The photo after that was of her smiling mindlessly into the camera, the sun beating down from above. She turned the picture over and found Neji's faded messy script on the back. It simply said four words: My Best Friend, Tenten.

Tenten then frantically turned all the other pictures on their back to see if they said something as well, but, as it turned out, the only one with writing on it was the picture of her. Could he have written it recently? No, the ink was faded and the aged condition of the photograph showed that it was evenly discoloured. Neji must have written it all those years ago. His writing had gotten better since then.

For the first time in a long time, Tenten was taken aback by Neji's actions. Maybe, he hadn't loved her, as she did him, but he liked her enough to call her his best friend. After all the years of her thinking that he was using her and taking all the glory, made her feel guilty. He didn't mean to do any of those things. It was her fault for not saying anything to him. If she had just confessed her feelings for him back then, she wouldn't have suffered for the last ten years. If she had pointedly told him how she felt about him taking up all of her time to train, she was sure that he would have stopped asking her to come with him. He always did give her a choice. She could have said no to him: it was her own decision to say yes.

Thinking back, Tenten realized what a failure of a friend she was to Neji. She had blamed her circumstance and shortcomings on him. He had enjoyed her company—he hadn't used her. It was true: she was Neji's girl, because she was his best friend. It was her own lovelorn bitterness that made her believe otherwise. Neji was nothing but a gentleman towards her; he had cared for her and was protective of her. Her adolescent unrequited love was the one who ruined their friendship in her eyes. Her own actions were what made her dislike the man she had loved. In the end, she was the one who had used him. She was the one who continued her friendship to him to keep him at her side. She was the selfish one.

XXXX

Neji woke up from his coma a week later. His chest felt heavy and he was really thirsty. His throat was too dry to speak. He gave a soft moan before trying to get up. It didn't work. He still laid flat on his back, unable to move. He tried to call for help, but only a pitiful gurgle came from his lips.

Neji managed to turn his head to the side and saw his uncle asleep on the uncomfortable, plastic chairs provided by the hospital. What was he doing here? His confusion only grew when his cousin, Hinata, emerged from the door beside his uncle.

"Father, I thought you'd like some food..." the timid Hyuuga trailed off when she caught Neji watching her. "Neji, you're awake!"

Before Neji could voice—or in this case, croak—his concerns, the female Hyuuga already left to tell one of the doctors of his conscious state. Neji sighed and winced when he caught a whiff of his breath. It was dreadful.

The whole right side of his body felt numb. His neck had a crick. It was the worst he'd ever felt before. Just then, Sakura came rushing through the door along with the Hokage. What could they been doing in his room, he thought. The last thing he remembered was feeling a sharp pain on his chest before passing out.

Tsunade was the first to move. She brought her hand to his forehead to check for a fever. When she didn't feel one, she proceeded to give her orders to Sakura. Sakura ran out of the room before Tsunade started pushing his bed down the hallway. The IV drip was guided by his cousin through the corridor and his respirator was being pushed by his uncle.

"Wha..." Neji tried to ask as he was speedily brought into the OR once more.

There, in the impeccably white room, Sakura waited and replaced the needle on the back of his hand with another. Neji immediately felt numbness crawl to the rest of his body. He tried to move his left arm and wiggle his toes, but they soon became frozen. Sakura counted slowly to thirty and her voice grew softer as Neji became panicked.

"Please," Neji said roughly, wanting to know what was going on.

Tsunade answered.

"Neji, we have to operate on you immediately. Most of your chakra portals have been severed, shredded actually. We have to operate on it right away." Tsunade answered.

Sakura immediately cut the bandages off his chest and proceeded to cut away the damaged skin around the wound. They had no choice but to do the operation while he was conscious, because when a chakra user is in a coma the chakra ways were harder to see. It was a very delicate situation. Sakura had only seen this type of operation once before.

"Pass me the scalpel." She instructed one of her attendants as she placed a surgical mask over her face and antiseptic gloves on her hands. "Get ready for suturing the vessels close."

"Yes, miss." One of the other medic ninjas answered.

The entire procedure was seven hours long. With Tsunade's guidance, the operation was a success. Sakura peeled off her mask.

Neji was kept conscious throughout the entire procedure using Tsunade's jutsu. At one point in the operation, the anaesthetics had lost effectiveness and Neji had screamed in pain. His heart rate had increased to dangerous levels and all feared for his life. Sakura had quickly given him another dose of morphine before finishing the procedure. Now, the Hyuuga male slept; exhausted.

Meanwhile, Tenten had waited behind the double doors of the operating room. She paced the floor for the umpteenth time before hearing Neji's screams. At one point she was about to barge in through the doors, but Hiashi had stopped her.

"We have to trust, Tsunade-sama." He had said.

"But, Neji might die!" Tenten retorted as Neji's anguished screams continued. "I need to be there!"

"What are you able to do for him there?" Hiashi replied harshly. "You have no medic experience. And he's still in pain because of you. You could kill him if you go in there now."

Tenten nodded silently. Hiashi was right. She could only cause Neji pain.

Neji's screams lasted only a few minutes more before ending in silence.

"Do you think he's..." Tenten gasped unable to finish her question.

"No, he's not." Hiashi said looking through the walls using his jutsu.

The two sat in the waiting room until Sakura came out through the doors with Tsunade in tow. Tenten rose first and ran to their side.

"Will he be okay?" she cried pitifully.

"It's hard to say," Tsunade replied. "Hiashi-san, I must speak with you privately."

"Of course, Hokage-sama." The Hyuuga bowed before leaving with the Hokage.

Sakura was left with a hysteric Tenten. She felt a swell of sadness for Neji's former teammate. The pain on the dark-eyed woman's face was flagrant. Tears tracked down her face. Sakura took the older woman by the hands and led her to her small office. Once inside, Sakura sat the distraught woman onto a comfortable chair.

"He's going to live," Sakura started; talking about Neji.

"But..." Tenten continued for her.

"But," Sakura repeated. "He might not be able to have the same use of his right arm."

"So, what are you trying to say?" Tenten had stopped crying, turning serious.

"Any excess strain on Neji's chakra pathways may kill him."

"What?" Tenten stood, incredulous. "That can't be!"

"But, it's still too early to tell." Sakura continued. "We have to let him heal first to see what will happen to him."

"Why are you telling me this?" Tenten stared at an empty space in front of her.

"Why are you here?" Sakura stared down the brown-eyed woman with her translucent green ones.

"I'm his teammate." Tenten shrugged.

"That's not the reason, and we both know that, Tenten. I can see these things." Sakura stood. "Tell you what, I'll give you one hour with him."

"What are you talking about," Tenten followed the pink-haired medic. "Why are you doing this, Sakura?"

"Because, I believe in true love." Sakura answered turning fully to her. "Also, I like meddling in other people's love life."

"Oh," Tenten blushed. "But, we're not...together."

"You should get to him then, how many years have you been in love with him, anyway?" Sakura announced. "Better get him to settle down soon, so he won't have any reason to leave Konoha for missions. He is nearly thirty, Tenten, past an average field ninja's life expectancy; even Yamato-sensei retired at our age. We should let the younger generation deal with the Akatsuki. They have the strength and youthfulness to do so."

Tenten, keeping silent, didn't know how to answer that. So, Sakura left her in Neji's room without another word.

Neji was asleep as the machine beside him beeped rhythmically. Tenten watched him silently. Her heart didn't skip, it didn't titter or speed up. All she felt was a sense of grief. If she lost him she wouldn't know what to do. But, did that translate to loving him?

The answer was: yes. Yes, it did.

Tenten thought that if there was anyone else who could make her feel like this, it would be Neji. He was the one person in the entire world to make her feel happy as much as he made her feel sad, angry and violent. Her heart didn't swoon nor did she think of him 24/7 but maybe it was because she was comfortable with him. Maybe true love meant that she knew him by heart; that there was nothing he could do that would make her heart ache permanently. Maybe true love was finding out that the person she thought was perfect beyond any other man, had his own flaws—his own imperfections. Maybe true love is when two people complement each other so much so that they can never work properly without the other.

Tenten parked her chair at Neji's bedside. She watched him for the rest of the hour and kissed his cheek before she left. She was wrong, yet again. She had thought that he was too late, when in fact, she was too early. Finding true love is never a mistake. It isn't a girlish crush or a forced, unrequited commitment. Love simply is what it is: the bond of two halves of a whole.

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A/N:

I hope you liked this chapter, it was very emotional for me to write. I had to look at what love truly was. The only thing I came up with was that it was a bond--a most unbreakable one--between two people; two parts of a whole. Thank you for those who have taken the time to read and truly appreciate this story.