Tenten was so distracted by the crackling and popping of the twilight fire that she didn't notice the males of her troop gather together and draw straws to see who would come over to talk to her. She casually stoked the fire, eyes glazed over and only curtly nodded in acknowledgement as a body sat down next to her on the fallen log.
"You're welcome," Neji started, rubbing under his forehead plate where his cursed seal marred him. She had seen him do this a number of times when he was particularly worried, and only in the presence of his team.
She turned to him and only furrowed her eyebrows in response. He was being more cryptic than usual. What the hell was he talking about now?
"I made sure I was the one who drew the correct straw to come over and ask what is wrong with you," Neji responded and leaned slightly back on the log so she could have a full view of Gai and Lee duking it out in an all-out drawing-straws competition behind them. Why losing invoked such a weird passed time, she would never know. She had a vague inclination to ask how he managed to rig the drawing, but left the query for another time.
"Uh-huh," she sighed and repositioned herself into a more comfortable position, "And why, may I ask, did you do that?" Her voice even came out tired and only half-interested in what she was asking even to her. No wonder her team thought something was up.
Neji turned to face her, lifting an eyebrow of his own, "If you have to ask, then there must be more wrong with you than I originally anticipated." Tenten only snorted in reply. Neji didn't hesitate as he continued. "Hinata has informed me that she has noticed your absence at the compound lately." Neji began. Tenten mentally scrolled through the last time she had made time to talk to the younger kunoichi, clenching her teeth to hide the wince she wanted to make. She hadn't meant to neglect her friend. No doubt Hanabi would give her a dirty look the next time she came around for leaving her out as well. Perhaps she was avoiding Hinata because she thought Hinata might know, or not know, about her confusing feelings about Shino. She wasn't sure if she wanted anything confirmed either way, and she was certain that Hinata would probably know something, if there was something to know.
Neji interrupted her thoughts, "I must admit that I have noticed as well. You definitely add positively to the atmosphere during your stay." Neji's voice always came out even and low. Years of practice of carefully controlled vocalizations made him come across as cold and frigid. After all these years of him being her teammate, she was able to pick up in the slight offsetting tonality of a few words. Was Neji becoming emotional? Gai and Lee must have finally started to crack his brain. "You and Hinata are my closest friends, I would hate to have something bad happen to one of you, something that one of you might try to hide from me, so that I may not try and help and provide some kind of solution or relief." He shifted almost imperceptibly on the log. She wasn't sure when Neji had turned into Mr. Fixit, but the thought was nice. It had been three days since she had saved Shino, and she had left for a mission with her team early the next morning. They would arrive at the gates some time the next evening, and honestly, she doubted she wanted to read the letter from Shino gracing her door mat.
If he left a note at all.
Her thoughts were swirling around in uncertainty regarding the Aburame heir. The mission that Shibi proposed to her, her near death experience at the hands of Shino's destruction bugs, the kiss at the construction site, his hands roaming all over her body during their mission together, how he placed hot kisses all over her neck when he…
She shook her head. She needed to stop thinking about him like that. How good he had felt when his skin touched hers. He was distracting her to the point that NEJI noticed. This was not good.
She refocused on tending the fire, looking up for a brief moment to watch Gai and Lee raucously become overjoyed with the outcome of a round in Lee's favor. The sunset in the background could be seen even more clearly as the two embraced, bellowing each other's names as tears of joy ran down their faces. Tenten closed her eyes and rubbed one of her temples. Perhaps she should advise that they pull an all-nighter to get back to Konoha. Between Gai and Lee's antics, and Neji's sudden prying, all she could think about was getting as far away from there as humanly possible. She did not want to discuss her situation with Neji, as sweet, and perhaps creepy, as him being concerned was.
"I promise I am not mad at your cousin, and I will spend more time over there as soon as I get some things worked out. Aburame Shibi wants me to go on some kind of mission, and I have been mulling over weather I want to accept it or not."
Neji seemed satisfied with this reply, taking his own time to ruminate over all she had said for a few moments in austere Neji silence.
She didn't want him prying further, however, and sitting around the campfire seemed to make her even more antsy.
She happily slapped her lap, stood straight up and plastered on a fake smile.
"I bet we can race to Konoha tonight!" she exclaimed excitedly to everyone, "I bet you we can make it if we run there in five hours!"
"Let us strive to make it there in four!" Lee exclaimed, pumping a fist into the air with determination.
She totally asked for that.
With even more gusto she shouted, "Let's go!"
(o)
Stupid was a word that crossed her mind repeatedly as the gates of Konoha finally came into view. She was lucky she knew a remedy for the buildup of lactic acid in her muscles or she would be hurting like hell tomorrow. Her legs were aching for respite, and she fought a yawn as her body finally came to a halt in front of the guard post.
"I thought your team wasn't due back until afternoon?" the guard flipped over his papers on a clipboard with a quizzical look. "Tomorrow."
"The power of youth compels us," Tenten huffed and then sucked in enough air to recover and give a Gai-approving thumbs-up and smile at the attendant.
Gai nodded and winked at her while Lee beside him let out a loud, "Yosh!"
The guard flipped the file back neatly in place, and spoke an exaggerated, "okay," brushing off the off-kilter comments as he waved the team passed.
"Later guys!" Tenten called, already walking in the direction of her apartment before they had a chance to protest her departure. A clean getaway was definitely called for, and she was anxious to see if there was a note on her doorstep.
(O)
Tenten was asleep in her bath tub, head resting on the side of the porcelain, when a loud, hurried knock brought her sleepy eyes open suddenly. She sloshed sluggishly around the bathtub, making a poor attempt to regain her bearings in her groggy state. The water had long since gone cold. She had still been mulling over just why there was no note from Shino on her door mat when sleep and exhaustion finally won out. Muttering obscenities under her breath about falling asleep in her bathtub again, she hastily found a towel and wrapped herself in it before opening her front door.
She found herself suddenly wanting to hide under a rock for all eternity.
A momentarily shocked Shibi appeared on the other side of her door, more disheveled than she had ever seen in her life. The stridulous chorus of his bugs hitting so loud in her ear she nearly fell over when she opened the door.
"Please, you have to hurry," he pleaded, "get dressed, there is no time!"
Tenten blinked in response, trying to mute out the loud destruction bugs edging in their opinion. He looked panicked and scared, and Tenten realized that Shino must be in great peril for him to be so distraught.
"Give me twenty seconds to put on some clothes," she replied.
Shibi nodded grimly, looking like he was willing to give her anything at that point if she would just agree to come along.
She hopped into some clothes and they took off towards the compound. Shibi rambled on about atelectasis so fast that Tenten had to ask him to slow down twice before she got the gist of what he was he was trying to say.
"Whoa, an infection and a collapsed lung?" Tenten paused, "Why are you not going to the Hokage or Sakura for this! They are far better qualified!"
"Not for an Aburame," Shibi countered hurrying them along. "Shino's kakkai are confused and are low on chakra. They would attack them if they came near him. He can't breathe, he needs someone to heal him now or he won't make it another hour. The infection has gone systemic."
"What do I have to do with this," she nearly hissed as they crossed the Aburame compound threshold. They ran down the hospital hallways, Tenten impressed with herself for still remembering the path to his room without needing to be led or directed by Shibi.
Before Shibi opened the door, he paused and spoke firmly, "Brace yourself."
All hell was breaking loose as he opened the door. Large amounts of kakkai were either flying about or crawling on everything. The two Aburame doctors were busy yelling at one another on either side of Shino's bed, injecting things into his IV and monitoring his breathing with a stethoscope. What she knew she should have expected, but didn't, was how noisy it was going to be with everyone's kakkai screaming at one another in response to such a delicate situation. She wanted to cover both of her ears with her hands but she remained calm and tried to adjust to the uproar. As she took a step in further, she noticed a bug clone in the corner, morphing in and out of a corporeal presence and into a swarm of kakkai over and over like a broken record or a fuzzy TV channel. What scared her most is that it was her figure that it was drifting in and out of. But she didn't have time to think about that as a crash cart was nearly clipping her hip to get into the room.
She got a look at Shino, the three seconds it was taking her to drink it all in. He looked ashen and emaciated, a far cry from when she left him on his bed, inviolable and unbroken. Dried blood lingered on the corner of his mouth and his head had fallen to the side of the pillow to be intubated. His swathed wound was bleeding out a gooey yellow in places where the blood wasn't so pronounced. He was dying, there was no doubt about it.
Then a familiar sting brought her attention to her wrist. The lone kakkai flew off after drinking its fill of her chakra, signaling to the others that a tasty meal had finally arrived. Shibi had meant for her to be the sacrificial lamb, offering up her chakra so that his son could live.
She should have known. She should have slammed the door in his face when she had the chance.
She knew that the outcome would have been the same regardless, because even if he had told her that she was just coming over to have her chakra drained so that his kakkai could heal Shino, she would have gone with him anyways, willingly.
As they began to swarm over her body, she looked gravely at Shibi, "Tell Lee happy birthday for me tomorrow. His present is on my desk in my bedroom." They over powered her, but she refused to scream as they began to suck her life force away. She briefly hoped that Shibi might prevent her head from splitting open on the floor as she blacked out into oblivion.
