Chapter 7 – Bruises
"The door was unlocked the whole time, wasn't it?" Neji replied, sipping his tea casually.
She felt her face heat up. He was the essence of composure: seated at his small table underneath an open window, one leg elegantly folded over the other, the sleeves of his crisp white shirt folded up to just above his elbows and a traditional-style cup of green tea cradled in his long fingers.
He smirked. "How long did it take you to figure it out?"
She collapsed in the chair across from him. "Two hours…" She groaned.
Neji lowered the cup to the table and she braced for his dry comment.
"Hn."
"What?"
"Pardon?"
"Don't you have some asshole comeback?"
He gave her a genuinely blank look. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Seriously!? That's, like, your thing! I say something and you smirk and say something like 'hm I knew all along you were locked in the boiler room office and had to pee for the entire time because I hacked your camera oh hohoho'."
"I do not sound like that."
She threw her hands up and sighed. "You know what? I'm not in the mood. This has been the second worst day of my life."
He gave her a sideways look. "I know, you just told me. In future, when someone says 'How are you?' you should treat it as a formality rather than an invitation."
Tenten let the barb was over her, instead letting her forehead drop to the varnished wood table with a dull 'thunk'. She felt tired and heavy and her leg ached dully from her run-in with the stairs.
She listened to him as he rose to his feet, crossed the room and unlocked his desk drawer and the knot in her gut tightened. He returned to the table and by the time she had lifted her head he had resumed his position on the chair opposite her, tea in hand.
A small sigh escaped her lips as she reached for the manila envelope he had placed in front of her. The room felt unreasonably small, not that Hyuuga Neji would have noticed; he was probably already organising his life on his phone while she quietly lost her shit. She snuck a glance at him and almost flinched when she was met with his intense gaze, instead.
She was transfixed for a moment by his strange face: white eyed and framed by straight black hair. Not to mention the black silk headband he was sporting again. He was simultaneously handsome and… otherworldly.
"Well?"
"Huh?"
He inclined his head towards the envelope.
"Oh, right." She gulped and unwound the string from the clasp. Inside, the four stacks of paper were neatly bound with small metal clips. She was suddenly aware of how clumsy her hands felt as they attempted to slide the documents out, their edges catching on the envelope and threatening to tear it.
"It's not going to explode, Tenten."
"I'm not taking any chances today."
He sighed and snatched the whole pile out of her hands. She flinched at the abruptness of the movement. He deftly slid the papers out and set them down in front of her.
"I made all the little changes you requested. Now read through them…" He slapped an expensive looking fountain pen down on top of the paper. "…and sign them." He resumed his position across from her, arms crossed tightly and eyes boring into her.
She looked down at her fists, clenched on the table. "You don't have to be such a jerk about it."
He scoffed. "You're being childish. I've spent all afternoon re-drafting these and now you're wasting more of my time."
Tenten huffed and snatched at the nearest document, tearing the front page in the process. She read the first paragraph. Then read it again. Then again. But none of the legal jargon that she'd had little trouble with the day before seemed to make any sense anymore.
'Focus, Tenten. This is important.' She told herself.
"What's the problem!?"
"I'm tired okay!? I want to read this properly to make sure there's no weird legal ninjutsu in here that'll screw me over later!"
"There were no changes on that page! You didn't have any problem with it yesterday, what's changed!?"
"You sure sound like someone who's trying to pressure me into signing a phoney contract."
She could tell she'd offended him the instant the words left her mouth. His face darkened and the air around her which had felt so oppressively hot was suddenly arctic. "I do not write phoney contracts."
Tenten rolled her eyes. "I mean something that you can work in your favour when I stop cooperating."
"It's illegal to draft a contract wherein a party relinquishes the right to withdraw sexual consent, intentionally or otherwise. I thought we'd been through this."
"There are a thousand other ways you could screw me over."
Neji pinched the bridge of his nose, as if he suddenly had a headache. "This would all go a lot smoother if you would just trust me."
Suddenly, Tenten felt like she was standing in front of the stairs again, looking down into the darkened basement. Now she knew who Deidara reminded her of.
She stood abruptly, her chair grating against the hardwood floor in protest.
He stared at her in a mixture of shock and irritation. "What now-?"
"At what point did you give me any reason to trust you!?" She spat. "Was it when you insulted me!? Or how about when you went through my facebook!? You've made it pretty clear I'm beneath you, that I'm only here because you can't risk anyone better finding out what you're up to." She swiped her backpack off the back of the chair and made for the door before pausing and rounding on him again. "And that's another thing: How am I supposed to trust someone who's working on his game so he can sleep with a spoiled millionaire for her Daddy's business connections!?"
Neji sat with his arms crossed and eyes pinched shut in a scowl. "Are you done?"
"Oh, you're damn right I'm done." She yanked open the door. "I am so done." She added before slamming it shut behind her.
xxx
"Stupid! Stupid! Stupid Tenten!" Small tears pricked at her eyes as she made her way quickly through the campus. She rubbed them away before they could run down her cheeks.
The air was humid and sticky that night which made the tears smear over her face without drying. To top it off, beads of sweat were making the angry scrapes on her right leg sting, all while her bruises maintained a steady, throbbing rhythm along with her footsteps. She adjusted her gait to favour the leg but that just made her torn slacks rub against the wounds.
"Goddamn it!" She hissed. Spying a bench ahead of her, she hopped over to it and sank down gingerly.
"What were you thinking, huh?" She muttered to herself as she inspected the scrape peeking out of a rip in the knee of her slacks. "You'd have some sort of wild sexual adventure and become a statistics genius on the way?"
A lump formed in her throat. Her scholarship didn't include accommodation for the summer so she'd had to take a second job to pay for rent on a basement apartment in the bad end of town. Factor in time spent on her internship and Tenten would be hard pressed to pass statistics, let alone get 90%.
To top it all off, she had to move all of her stuff without a car. Tomorrow.
"Jesus, everything's a fucking mess. Why didn't I just study stats properly when I had the chance?"
The tears were getting bigger now and threatened to roll down her face in great big blobs. She buried her face in her hands. "No! Stop it, Tenten! Get it together!" She hissed against her palms.
Everything was packed and she had her key. It was just a matter of making three or four trips downtown on foot… If she started tonight and only stopped to nap…
"Oh who am I kidding? In the middle of the night? I'll get murdered…" She sighed. Maybe she could negotiate another extension with the accommodations office. Yeah right, she'd have better luck striking a deal with the murderers. If only she hadn't wasted her afternoon arguing with that Hyuuga asshole then she might have been okay…
She was broken out of her miserable reverie by the sounds of a car pulling up behind her, reminding her that she hadn't exactly picked a deserted street to have her breakdown.
She pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes, willing the tears to stop as she stood up and started along the path again.
Hearing the sound of the car door opening and closing. The thoughts of murderers suddenly making her uneasy, Tenten peeked over her shoulder.
Only to come face to face with Hyuuga Neji again.
"Ugh what now!? I thought I told you I was done."
"I came to apologise, although at this point I'm not exactly sure what for."
"Oh really?"
"Yes."
"You honestly have no idea how you pissed me off."
"Yes."
"…Seriously? Are you socially retarded or something?"
He narrowed his eyes at her and she got the distinct feeling she'd struck a nerve.
"Oh my God you are." She laughed, still blinking tears from her eyes. "I can't believe I didn't see it! There were so many signs!"
He pointedly ignored her laughter, eyes focusing on her cheeks. "You've been crying."
She wiped her eyes again. "What? No! I haven't… I mean…"
"Why?"
She sighed. "Look, can we not talk about this here?"
He nodded. "Of course. Where would you rather go?" He gestured to his sleek gunmetal Mercedes.
"Are you fucking serious?"
"Ye-"
"Rhetorical question. There is no way I'm getting in a car with you. You're a creep."
His jaw clenched and Tenten braced for his biting retort but instead he closed his eyes and breathed a tense sigh through his nose before answering. "I never intended to force you to do anything. What will it take to make you trust me?"
She looked him up and down, searching for insincerity or manipulation. Instead of the Machiavellian über lawyer she had remembered, she saw a frustrated nerd who wore a headband everywhere and ironed his jeans.
She glanced at his car again and a stroke of genius came over her.
"Help me move."
"…Move house?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Tonight!"
"You can't be serious."
"Hey you asked what it would take! There's no truer show of friendship than helping someone move!"
He shut his eyes again. "…Fine."
She resisted the urge to jump up and down with glee. Finally, something was going her way!
Spurred on by her victory and the gnawing reminder from her stomach that she had skipped dinner, she added: "…and after that you're treating me to dinner."
He stopped dead beside the car. "No."
"Yes."
"I will not be used."
"Yes you will. We have a contract."
"…Which both of us have yet to sign and makes no mention of me buying you dinner."
"It's implicit. A social contract, if you will. Or you can think of it as your first lesson, on the house. Whatever floats your boat." She grinned.
He considered her for a moment before silently opening the passenger side door.
"See? You're off to a great start already." Tenten swore she saw him smirk.
2x combo update! Hope you liked it xox
