A/N: Much gratitude to NarutoShippings, Sayori Hollyhood, Crazee, and SilentMidnight2, who've managed to review practically every single chapter up until now-sometimes without even logging in, which is DEDICATION. I'm in awe.
Many more thanks to keroRiBBIT, misspandalily, Reiyaame, fanofthisfiction, huemid, White Tree Red Flowers, Yahboobeh, Shy-Tomboy, Rose-Aki, expiration, TheLise, Yukiko'Yuli, and EmeraldNorth!
*Also, I don't know if the –gate suffix is an exclusively American thing, but here's some context just in case: we add –gate to words around which a scandal (often political) revolves. For example, ex-House of Representatives member Anthony Weiner's sexting scandal was dubbed "Weinergate" by the media.
…
Wednesday, October 1st
Sometime, Homeroom
Mood: prickly
Observations: 331
Lies Told: 23
It's been five days since Electiongate. Or, more accurately, considering the end of that isn't anywhere in sight, Nominationgate. StuCoGate. Inogate. Sakuragate. The Incident, aka Nejigate. I don't even know. There are just too many gates in my life right now and not a single one is the rich kind.
How am I? Fine, I guess. I can't say that—just "fine"—in real life, though, because that's not how small talk works.
I probably hate answering "how've you been," or, even worse, "how was your weekend," more than I do taking exams. The difference is that I'm usually prepared with the right information for tests—I might not understand the material enough to actually apply anything, but hell, I'm prepared to write three or four sentences vague yet inarguable enough to pretend I get what I'm talking about.
Given how longstanding this pet peeve is and how uninteresting my weekends always are, you would think that I'd have thought to prepare a standard response to small talk questions. Of course, I'm just considering this now.
List of Things I am Not Terrible At
10. Thinking of ways to make my life easier but never actually going through with them.
Anyway, it's Wednesday. Why are people still asking about my weekend? I mean, what gives them the right? There should be an expiration date for questions like these.
Kami.
Nothing's happened.
Sometime, Somewhere
Mood: decidedly not amazing
Observations: 331
Lies Told: 24
"Hey, Tenten! How are you?"
"Good!"
9:50, Pre-Calc
Mood: scattered
Observations: 334
Lies Told: 24
It feels strange to write here after five days of nothing. If we're being honest, I've only started again as an excuse to not engage in conversations. I don't feel like talking to anyone, but I don't want people to think I don't want to talk to them. The feeling of receding from a group conversation because I can't think of anything interesting to contribute is not a feeling I want to relive. If I'm going to re-experience my past (aka life up until a couple years ago, when I was pitifully shy and hadn't yet learned how to hide it), I'd like it to be the moments when I still had friends.
My thoughts are so disjointed.
My point is, if nothing else, that writing here shows benign productivity instead of my true antisocial nature.
11:32 AM, French
Mood: reflective
Observations: 337
Lies Told: 24
Who is this helping, though? I don't know if the answer is me, even though I really thought so in the beginning. (Which was when? When was the beginning? Was there one?) I'm not writing anything substantial. Mostly, my hand just hurts and I've written a page full of nothing.
I haven't really been in limbo, even though that might've made more sense. Things have happened. A bit too much for me to make sense of. I think it just got to the point where it was easier to not try to write any of it down.
11:45 AM, Bio
Mood: headache
Observations: 341
Lies Told: 25
I close my eyes. My temples are pulsing. I want to clear the feeling with a shake of the head, but I respond to myself so sluggishly that I discard the movement halfway.
"Tenten," says Shikamaru somewhere in the distance. "Hey. Wake up."
"What, am I killing your vibe?" I mutter, sliding further into the desk. "I wasn't aware that we were sharing a finite amount of sleep between us."
"It's just not as cool now that it's caught onto you."
I crack open an eyelid long enough to glare at him before closing my eyes again. "Yes, because when I think 'cool' I think Shikamaru." I yawn. "I'm not sleeping."
"Clearly."
My eyes are closed, but that doesn't stop me from rolling them anyway for my own satisfaction. "If you must know, I'm trying to achieve an out-of-body experience." Sometimes, if I do this for long enough—closing my eyes and settling in just at the cusp of sleep—I can dissociate from myself. There's a clear point at which everything just… I don't know, falls away. I feel a lot lighter once I reach that place, but it takes time, usually.
Case in point: now. Bio seems a lot noisier than usual—Mrs. Carlton is surfing YouTube videos instead of teaching today, but that's not anything new—and I've got a splitting headache. It's difficult to forget yourself when Kankuro's in the background screaming bloody murder over some card game called Heart Attack.
"You mean you're trying to inhabit someone else?" Shikamaru asks, looking disturbed.
"Kami, no. Don't you think I would've chosen a different room?"
He pauses, presumably to survey the classroom of mostly high school seniors squabbling and shouting like five-year-olds. "Good point."
"Yup," I say, clearing my throat. It's so dry that the action stings a bit. I wonder why now, of all times, Shikamaru would have so many questions. Normally, I'm the one talking at him.
"Why not just sleep, then?"
"What?"
"Sleep," Shikamaru says slowly. "If you want the out-of-body experience?"
I'm confused. "Isn't that what I was doing before you told me to wake up?"
"You said you weren't sleeping."
Oh, yeah. I did say that. "You've got a lot of questions."
"You looked—look— like you're about to pass out."
"Presumably from sleep," I say. "I hear that's a symptom."
Shikamaru looks like he's about to respond, and, in this moment, I really don't want to hear it. I mean, I always act like I can't stand him, but we both know I admire his quick wit to no end. Now, though, I'm not in the mood. "Let me waste away in peace," I say.
He does.
11:52 AM, Bio
Mood: what is happening
Observations: 341
Lies Told: 25
"Can I talk to you?"
Still groggy from my state of non-sleep, I take a moment to reorient myself. My eyes are still trained on my journal, pen still clasped in my fingers. Maybe if I just keep writing, I…
"Can I talk to you without you taking notes?"
I am suddenly beyond irritated. "I don't know," I say in the most annoying imitation of all my teachers combined that I can muster as I look up, "can you—"
I'd meant to tack on "take a hint?" but the words fizzle in my throat upon eye contact.
12:46 PM, English (but actually Bio)
Mood: let's catch up
Observations: 359
Lies Told: 25
… In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have been so immediately combative. But that's not exactly a lesson specific to this incident, which makes me feel slightly better even though it should, by all logic, make me feel worse.
Anyway, I'll pick up where I left off about an hour ago. Basically what happened: I was still busy doing nothing when who other but Neji Hyuuga slid into the seat next to me, after weeks of the cold shoulder.
Would wonders never cease? Kami only knew how much more excitement I could handle in this life. Just couldn't contain my joy. Absolutely delighted, that's what I was.
Okay, yeah, all right. I'll try to restrain myself from snide commentary.
In the moment, all I could think about—which doesn't say much because my mind had short-circuited from the pure shock of Neji voluntarily placing himself less than one foot away from me, a situation he'd avoided like the plague since the Incident—was why he had chosen today of all days. In all the years I'd known Neji, and of the admittedly few times we'd fought, not once had he ever been the one to break first.
If I had been in the right state of mind, I might have played the whole thing off with a casual "what gives?" and proceed to pretend nothing had happened. I mean, I'm well-practiced in the art, because that's what Mom and I do every time Dad visits. Never mind that Neji would've thought me unhinged for one moment practically leaping out of his car into the rain and then playing dumb the next. At least I would've avoided confrontation. But because I was as far as you could be from the right state of mind, I sat there dumbly, instead, and brainstormed reasons as to why he'd come up to me of his own volition.
Had Neji's senior group ejected him? My first instinct was indignation, out of habitual defensiveness of my best friend. Those new friends of his had a lot to be jealous about—speaking with pure objectivity, Neji had probably been way out of their league since he first stepped foot into KHS as a freshman.
Then, remembering the circumstances, I quickly moved onto other hypotheses.
Did Neji have a fever? Salmonella? Had he heard my speech and suffered from secondhand humiliation so consuming that he had to let me know in person? Had he left his shampoo at my place?
… No. No, that was impossible. He would've noticed earlier, surely.
"I'm sorry."
I blinked, somehow even more thrown off by this answer than by my ridiculous guesses. Blinked again. It was one thing to be permitted to exist in His Highness Hyuuga's immediate vicinity, but an apology? This was groundbreaking.
I'd never heard—nor expected to hear—that combination of words to escape his mouth, ever. Which led me to the realization: what had I been expecting? Not out of Neji's surprise visit. Out of this whole mutual avoidance situation. I clearly hadn't been holding my breath for that apology, yet somehow, while leaving this mess unresolved, I'd subconsciously been hoping for some sort of magic reconciliation, regardless.
I guess the crux of the matter was that I didn't know who I was without him, to the extent that, throughout all this, I had never even once seriously entertained the idea of a life sans Neji. We'd always been a package deal. Neji and Tenten. Tenten and Neji. But to have so much of your identity center on being half of a pair couldn't be healthy, especially if you needed your other half infinitely more than he did you. I must've realized this, and I couldn't help but wonder if maybe part of this was to see how well I would fare without him.
Which was catastrophically. It'd been weeks—keeping up the pretense that I don't actually know exactly the number of days elapsed since the summer Incident, I mean—and already everything was falling apart.
I'd convinced myself our falling out would be temporary, because otherwise I just wouldn't know how to function. I'm not saying I couldn't, just that I wouldn't know how, and to "come to terms" with that horrible truth, I'd simply stopped thinking about it. So I guess I must've expected that I would get over myself eventually, after nursing what little self-respect that remained and then shredding it to pieces before crawling back to the idea of a friendship that would and could never be the same.
What was he even apologizing for? Yeah, I was probably more at fault; I'd been the one who'd ultimately screwed everything up and couldn't even muster the temerity to look him in the eye, let alone talk about what I'd done. But Neji… after watching me humiliate myself, he'd just… dropped me. For weeks, nothing on his end. I'd swallowed my pride and he'd never called me back. He'd answered my text, the third text ("Neji are you there?"), with a curt "What do you need?" When I finally confronted him in person, he accused me of avoiding him—okay, I admittedly wasn't actively looking for him but I didn't go sit with Narutoon the bus—and proceeded to shout my flaws at me, having chickened out of discussing the Incident. Oh, and he'd neglected to let me know that he was leaving me behind for the grade above.
I mean, none of that paints a terribly flattering picture—probably because it's my side of the story—but I think all this might stem from even more deep-seated issues. Like, Neji is my closest friend because he understands me. He knows too much. I haven't had many heart-to-hearts with him or anything; I just sense that he picks up on a lot. He's the one who pushes—pushed—me to improve upon myself, become a better person in general, but he's the same person with the power to knock me to new lows. And I can't afford that, especially not now. I can't even imagine being dressed down even further than what Nominationgate, Ino's horrible letters, drill team, a subject that isn't my strength anymore, and being friends with someone who is infinitely more accomplished than I am have provided me so far.
What would Neji have done, if he knew about the messages? Would he have, keeping to his brutally honest nature, told me there was some truth to them?
Kami. I was so tired. And Neji was still waiting for a response, evidently.
12:59 PM, English (but actually Bio)
Mood: not as emo now, I think
Observations: 368
Lies Told: 26
Sorry, had to stop. Something just happened and I guess I'll be writing about that later, if I ever catch up to the present. How did I keep up with entries before? Did things just not happen as rapidly as they are now?
I just want to put my life on pause. To keep the earth from spinning, to stop time—freeze frame and rewind, anyone?—long enough to make sense of things. Is that too much to ask?
I was in a mood earlier, wasn't I? I highly doubt that all that crossed through my mind during my actual conversation with Neji, because if I actually had the ability to think that quickly, I wouldn't be putting out crap timed essays. Those "thoughts" were likely just fleeting feelings that I melodramatically fleshed out in my last entry.
Just ignore them, I guess.
Anyway, after Neji gave me his monumental apology, do you know what I did? Gave an equally vague and all-encompassing apology back. "I'm sorry, too," I said, a touch coolly. And then: "Probably sorrier."
Honestly, there's no hope for me.
Neji's expression was a painfully familiar mix of appraising and amused. "I was not aware we were competing."
"Then I'm probably winning, aren't I?"
He almost cracked a smile at that, and I felt a traitorous upwelling of hope surge from the pit of my stomach to warm my core. It would be so easy, I imagined, to slip back into our old routine of repartee. Yeah, I liked to banter with witty people like Shikamaru, Ino, surprisingly Kiba, and Kankuro (though he's mostly just insulting, and there's a difference), and generally anyone who'd stoop to my level by engaging, but no one really could compare to Neji. He would be a natural at any form of sparring, I presumed.
But instead of retorting, he broke character. "Is anyone sitting here?"
The question, which might I say had come out of nowhere, was subtly pointed—I can't say I immediately understood in which way, just that it was—and I was taken aback.
He couldn't have honestly expected me to have reserved a place for him, if this was really about more than a seat at this Bio table. Even if—no. He wasn't irreplaceable. I had—would need to have—friends other than Neji. "Sasuke," I said, with inexplicable, tremulous reluctance. "Sasuke's sitting here."
It was the wrong answer. There was no visible shift—he remained impenetrable as always—but there was somehow a new sharpness to him upon mention of Sasuke, of whom I remembered he wasn't exactly fond. It might've been mirrored in mine, for all I knew. My features felt stiff, unnaturally arranged.
"Sasuke," repeated Neji.
"Yes."
"I was not aware that he was capable of taking up two entire seats," said Neji, finally, looking pointedly toward the other unoccupied chair. (Where was Shino when we actually needed him?) "Although I do suppose he must make room for that hot air balloon he calls an ego."
I did my best to suppress the snort, but Neji noticed it anyway, commenting only in the satisfied quirk of his lips. "You'd be interested to know that the ego you speak of nearly rivals yours," I returned once I'd pulled myself together.
"You'd be interested to know that the person you're so avidly defending hasn't any plans to sit with you."
I had barely registered Neji's odd use of three contractions in a single sentence before I was scrambling to unpack the implications of his actual words. I didn't even have time to be offended. "What?"
Neji, the epitome of poise, lifted his chin toward his left. Silently fuming, my eyes landed on Sasuke, who, for some reason, was sitting on the other side of the room, reclining lazily into his seat.
What had I done to deserve this?
Oh right, all the lying. I'd almost forgotten.
"You're using… a lot of… contractions," I made out heatedly, through gritted teeth, knowing exactly how desperate this subject change was.
There was a hint of a smile. "Are you onto complimenting my dialect, now?"
I stared at him blankly before it clicked. Kami, no. He wasn't bringing up the—
"How very nice of you."
—nice car. "Have I ever told you that, over the years, I've found you not to be the smug, goading asshole you come across as and are really a modest and gracious guy, despite all the talk?"
He paused. "No."
"Perfect," I beamed, "because that would be absurd. Jerk."
Neji laughed, a quiet exhale that sounded remotely approving, and for a precious moment we were just the same as before.
1:22 PM, English (but actually Bio)
Mood: cowardly
Observations: 380
Lies Told: 27
The flimsy peace was stretched thin within minutes as I began to wonder, every time Neji opened his mouth, when he would inevitably bring up the Incident. And as Carlton finally stopped playing YouTube videos of mating animals long enough to assign us a group project on organisms native to the area. And as I started standing up to go to the bathroom on account of my impending migraine only to experience my most dizzying head rush yet, thrust a hand to my chair to support my lurching weight, and immediately sit back down.
I let out an imperceptible sigh.
"You are not feeling well," asked Neji. Or, stated, rather. Neji typically avoids asking questions with obvious answers.
"Nothing out of the ordinary," I phrased carefully, waiting for my vision to refocus. And it was true. I'd been getting these head rushes so often they'd essentially become routine. Usually, I'd remember to not stand up so quickly, or at least have a hand free to steady myself, but I'd been admittedly a bit flustered by… the recent turn of events.
Otherwise, though, there really wasn't much I could do about them. The head rushes, that is.
I mean, I could probably eat healthier. And exercise more regularly, instead of in intense bursts every other day during morning practice (I hadn't gone to the dojo since last Monday, but even if I had gone I'd have probably passed the time throwing kunai around anyway.) And drink more water so that I don't sustain myself on a state of near-constant dehydration.
But I was trying not to delude myself here. "… Why?" I asked him. Were my eyes glazed over?
"Your pupils are dilated."
I supposed that made sense, seeing as I still couldn't exactly see. "Give me a moment," I said, choosing a blurry spot of lavender—Neji's left eye, I assumed—to use as a focal point. The disorientation receded, spreading away from my eyes to concentrate in a pinprick at the back of my head, which vanished within a couple seconds.
Taking advantage of the time it took for my vision to sharpen to observe Neji without him making some smug comment about staring, I studied him closely.
Something about him was different, but I didn't know if I was referencing back to before school started or when I saw him last. I hadn't exactly been paying close attention to his features during the car ride—the very opposite, in fact, as I distinctly recalled trying pretty damn hard not to look at him.
People describe Neji as unapproachable, at least based on their first impressions, for a variety of reasons. Everyone knows he's intelligent, often unsettlingly so. You go up to him and he just watches as you attempt to say something of significance. He speaks stiffly, to authorities with well-bred manners and to his peers like he simply puts up with them and nothing more. He comes across as cold. Haughty. Which he definitely can be.
But I didn't see any of that aloofness. I mean, I usually don't—I'm one of the "lucky" few victims of his often acerbic teasing—but especially not at this moment. Neji has an impressive poker face and is typically able to maintain a stony expression (personally, I wouldn't call it cold), but at that moment he looked so… tired.
Okay, not so tired. Relatively tired. I'd just noted his expression was slightly pinched, seen the slight crease between his eyes that marred his otherwise flawless skin. Against the faint beginnings of dark circles, the nacreous white tint of his irises stood prominent.
"Are you okay?" I blurted, a bit annoyed at myself for not having noticed earlier. The signs weren't obvious, and maybe he'd just had a bad night yesterday, but nothing about Neji had ever been obvious and it was my job as his friend to understand. Or it had been. I wasn't sure. "Didn't sleep well?"
Neji gave a half-shrug that instantly reminded me of Kankuro. I frowned. The both of us were really hanging around that asshole too much if we were already picking up his stupid, too-cool-for-you habits. "Well, thank Kami," I said, rolling my eyes at Neji's characteristically noncommittal response. "It would've been so insufferable if you hadn't elaborated in such remarkable detail."
"I appreciate the recognition. You've a keen eye for talent."
Shikamaru, whom I'd already forgotten existed, cleared his throat and we both turned to look at him. I quickly pressed my lips together. Raising an eyebrow, Shikamaru twisted open a bottle of Dasani water and shoved it toward me. I swiped the bottle before it could teeter over the table's edge and spill. "Drink up," he said.
I looked down at the water, then back up at him. I mean, I was thirsty, but that was oddly abrupt. "I could just go to the water fountain," I said. "You don't have to; I've got my own water bottle."
Shikamaru didn't have to know that I just could never remember to refill it.
"You just can never remember to refill it," said Shikamaru drily. "Just drink the damn water and stop being so troublesome. I know you're thirsty."
"Well, since you asked so kindly," I muttered, though I was actually kind of touched. "Thanks, Shikamaru."
He immediately looked uncomfortable. "Uh—"
"Carlton's saying something," Neji interrupted him sharply.
"Can you listen for us?" asked Shikamaru. "If she's still talking about the project?"
I was actually grudgingly impressed by how long that woman could spend talking about five minutes' worth of content. "I wouldn't be surprised if she is."
"Group project," Neji dutifully reported. "Six to seven minute video on assigned native species. Song required."
Shikamaru looked mortally offended just imagining that amount of work. "Are we six?"
I flinched, despite myself, and heard Kankuro's snickering in my head.
"We pick our partners."
"Shikamaru," I said automatically. Or shouted, rather, so quickly that I almost jumbled the syllables. A couple heads from adjacent tables turned, and I laughed sheepishly, sliding a bit lower into my seat.
Shikamaru looked between me and Neji. Presumably. I was resolutely avoiding looking in his general direction. We'd semi-reconciled, yeah, but just the possibility of having to meet Neji outside of school, in close quarters, was the worst idea I could imagine. Any progress we'd made would be shot. I was far from ready to show up at the compound after what had happened the last time I'd paid a visit, I didn't think I could watch Mom gush over him like old times, and, besides, I was having some major Sasuke flashbacks.
"I want to work with Shino," said Shikamaru.
The little—
"Who's not even here," I said through gritted teeth.
Shikamaru exaggeratedly spun his head left and right as though searching for Shino. I imagine it must've been an immense amount of physical exertion on his part. "Oh, he's not? I hadn't noticed. Brilliant, isn't it? That way he can't refuse. Although, you know who is right here?"
"Subtle," said Neji.
Shikamaru rolled his eyes. "One of us wouldn't recognize subtlety if it bashed her in the face with a shovel."
"I'm right here, that's who," I piped up indignantly, chucking my entire pencil bag at him. He didn't even bother to dodge, letting it hit him square in the chest. "And hitting someone with a shovel is the exact opposite of subtle."
"Congratulations, you got the joke."
"You don't have to work with me if you don't want to," said Neji, before I could lunge across the table to throttle Shikamaru.
"No!" I said quickly, realizing how rude I was being. I was perfectly capable of being civil. "No, sorry. Obviously you're the better partner. Superior in all ways to Shikamaru, just based on your average quantitative contribution to projects not being zero. I'm just…" A coward. And rambling. "Sorry."
Neji didn't reply, and I looked away guiltily.
1:30 PM, English (but actually Hallway)
Mood: cowardly
Observations: 384
Lies Told: 27
"Tenten," Shikamaru said, stopping me at the B Hall staircase. "Hey. I know I strong-armed you into that, but you two—and by that I mean mostly you—are getting ridiculous."
"Yeah," I said. "I get you."
"I mean, you two were a package deal."
"Yeah."
He studied me, a strange glint to his eyes. "Do you not want to sort things out or something?"
"I do. I miss… things. I just don't really know how to go about it."
"I know how you shouldn't go about it. Want a hint?"
"Can we not talk about this now?"
A look of pure frustration flitted across Shikamaru's features. "Okay," he said with difficulty. "Okay. It just seems like you won't ever want to talk about it. But that's your choice." The wrong one, his eyes said.
I knew it was, too. But I just couldn't stop choosing it. "Thanks."
"There's more. I wanted to ask you about some notes you've been getting?"
I've no way of knowing for sure, but I can imagine my expression shuttering closed. "Ino put you up to this," I said, lips heavy, weighted. So she'd told Shikamaru. Who else knew?
"You really think Ino wouldn't just ask you this herself?"
"Yes."
"Okay," he said, expression inscrutable. "She would probably like to know. But she's too proud."
"Right."
"You know," he said after a bit, "communicating with people might actually help you."
"I think you mispronounced 'screw up everything forever.'"
Shikamaru moaned. "This is so troublesome," he said, side-eyeing me. "As a principle, I leave things alone because that's easier. But this keeps getting more and more troublesome." He reached into his backpack and pulled out… another bottle of water.
What was going on?
"Where do you keep getting these?"
"I'm guessing the ocean."
I grimaced but took the water from him. Did I look especially thirsty today or something? Why was everyone giving me water?
Hold on.
Oh, Kami. Nejigate. Nominationgate. All the gates.
"Uh, are you okay? You look terrifying."
The giant evil grin that had spread to eclipse the rest of my features was probably the most I'd emoted in days, so concern was probably warranted. "Kami. Shikamaru. It's… Watergate."
Yeah, it was a dumb joke. Didn't mean I couldn't find it the most hilarious thing that'd happened to me all day.
Honestly, I hate myself.
"Water—" Shikamaru looked at the water and back up at me. He looked patently unimpressed. "I don't even want to know."
I just cackled quietly, unable to stop laughing long enough to give him the proper context.
"I really dodged a bullet on that partner thing," remarked Shikamaru, who'd started to edge away. "It's finally happened. You've cracked."
Instead of disputing fact, I took a swig of the water, screwed the lid back on, and sent the bottle flying gloriously into his pineapple head, where it nestled quite snugly into place like an eco-friendly dunce cap.
A/N: And here… we split. But Part 2 won't be far away; I'm now on winter break (hence the existence of this chapter, which I just wrote this week.)
Actually, this chapter is also brought to you by EmeraldNorth's review from a few days ago. I use reviews as reminders to spur updates, if that's incentive enough.