A/N: Thanks to: EmeraldNorth, fanofthisfiction, expiration, SilentMidnight2, Crazee (what do you think about Kankuro now?), Yahboobeh (those reviews made my heart melt), Reading Fluff in Public, and StarryClouds (you're so welcome). I'll get to work responding to all reviews via PM tonight!

We left off last time at Neji "rescuing" Tenten from Lee and pulling her into Studio 2. Much more is revealed about the Incident and the two begin to reconcile. (Slow start, but hey, they're pretty difficult.) Also, shocker near the end!

...

X THOUGHTS ON THINGS X

6ish, Dojo

Mood: Strange

Observations: 491

Lies Told: 34

For all my years loitering in this dojo, I've spent the least time in Studio 2. It's my least favorite practice room by far. There isn't enough space to fully follow through with most movements, defeating the point of the "practice" part, but the room also isn't quite small enough to be a storage closet.

I'm convinced this room isn't supposed to exist—maybe some construction worker accidentally misplaced a wall because he misread the blueprint or underestimated units but then just went with it because he really wasn't getting paid enough to care. (Which I'm all for. Owning a mistake by pretending you meant it all along is the way to go.) Gai didn't know what to do with the room either, so he just slapped a mirror on one wall, leftover tarp on the floor, and called it a studio.

As far as I know, no one's used this place since. I suspect people have tried making out in here—just statistically, there's bound to have been someone—but I can't imagine they wouldn't have been weirded out just a little, having to lock eyes with themselves in the mirror while locking lips.

That's why I hate Studio 2. I hate it because it makes you feel small. Here, there's nowhere to hide. It's just you. Nothing but silence and the empty weight of your own gaze.

The studio's what makes me uncomfortable—absolutely nothing to do with its other occupant, who's leaning against the door waiting like I've just summoned him here. No correlation whatsoever. Not everything is about him. Really.

… is what I told myself, knowing full well that most everything was, actually, about him.

Awkwardly clearing my throat, I took inventory of my surroundings.

Survey of Potential Projectiles And/Or Escape Routes

1. Literally nothing. No objects to which I could fasten my gaze. The best I could probably do is to peel up the tarp and roll myself into a burrito.

2. My wild-eyed reflection.

3. Neji, leaning back against the only door and levelling me with an impassive stare.

Crap.

"You brought me in here," I said, a bit accusatorily. "Why're you waiting for me to say something?" I paused. "And what, exactly, are you expecting me to say?"

"I'm looking forward to what you come up with for your next excuse to avoid talking to me," said Neji patiently.

I winced. What gave it away?

"You keep eyeing all the viable escape routes, of which there are none."

"Yeah, I guess the air vent was a stretch," I sighed. "Be so much easier if you'd just let me through the door."

"It would, wouldn't it."

"… Please?"

He still didn't budge, but he had evidently expected more of a fight. "If I didn't know better, I would say you've gotten more sensible."

"Hey."

"But you're simply out of practice."

"Hey." This kind of goading, admittedly, would've worked before, but I wasn't about to take the bait. Mostly because he was right. Even back then, we had a 70/30 sparring record in his favor, and that included every dirty trick in my arsenal. But I wouldn't just lose if I attacked him now. Even if I took him by surprise, with my head rushes, I'd probably end up fainting on him. Which would bring up a host of other difficult questions.

The left corner of his lip quirked. "Need I remind you of Lee?"

"First of all, I'd like to see you escape a bear hug. Second, oh that's right, you can't, because no one wants to hug you. You're un-huggable."

"I fail to see why you're phrasing that like an insult."

I glowered.

"You need to work on your upper body strength."

"I have plenty of upper body strength," I said combatively, knowing full well that I had zero upper body strength. And that he knew I knew. (… Sparring partner. Obviously.)

Neji pointedly glanced at my thin arms, which you'd think would look more toned given that I throw around weapons for fun. "I must say appearances are particularly deceptive in this situation, if slightly hard to believe."

"Yeah? Well, I stabbed a girl once."

"You… what?"

"Oh, yes," I said, gleefully, "right in the back. Haven't you heard?"

That actually elicited an exasperated chuckle, although the amusement didn't fully reach his eyes. "Well done, that."

"The backstabbing or my clever way with words?"

"The humility."

"You're one to talk," I said, as we almost-smiled at each other. I remembered, again, that I'd avoided Neji for precisely this reason. It was just too easy to fall back into old patterns, to forget why I'd decided to keep my distance and to get too close.

Literally. Had we been standing just a foot apart this whole time? I didn't remember either of us moving. Then, sobering up: "Why do I feel like this is an intervention, Neji?"

Something in his expression shifted upon hearing me speak his name aloud. Maybe something in me, too. "It's not."

"That sounds like something someone who's staging an intervention would say."

"No, if I were staging an intervention, I would start with 'we're worried about you.'"

"And you're not?"

"We're worried about you," said Neji, the smartass. "Second on the agenda."

The way he stood there, intent and assessing and inscrutable, made my chest ache. Neji had this air of self-assurance, you see, this quiet confidence that made you surer of yourself, too, until one day you stepped back and realized you'd mistaken it for yours, having stood too close to tell.

Too close. Flashes of the Incident began to dance, unbidden, across my eyes, like some sort of mental PowerPoint presentation… for which Lee was in charge of clicking.

(That's what happens when you repress something too hard. Refusing to acknowledge its existence makes it so much easier to (not) deal with, but little do you know that the whole time you think you're going about your life as before, your subconscious is hard at work assembling an entire slideshow to throw in your face as some sort of revenge montage for making it deal with your problems alone.)

I saw the two of us in my kitchen, Mom out of town. Me, sitting on the counter and neck digging into a cabinet, blinking stars out of my eyes. Neji's hands on my thighs holding me in place. The mottled colors burning beneath his fingertips. Our gazes, level.

And, intermittently, Neji's present expression. The way he was looking into my eyes made me wonder if he could, somehow, be watching the flashback, too.

"Do we have a reason to be?" he asked. What was he talking about? Oh, being worried.

Knowing he'd be watching me carefully for any tells, e.g. looking toward the bottom right, I tilted my chin up to meet his gaze squarely. "There's nothing to be worried about," I said, strangely hoarse. "I'm fine."

For what really should've been good news—I mean, it saved him the trouble, didn't it?—Neji looked irritated beyond belief. He crossed his arms, gripping each bicep with such force he might've bruised his pale skin. "Is your knee all right?" He asked tersely, finally broaching the subject we'd danced around for what felt like forever.

"Yeah." Rather unreasonably, I wished he'd asked about me, instead of a body part. I couldn't say why, as both were basically the same thing, but for some reason I'd noted a difference. Either way. He was still a month late in asking, wasn't he? "My knee's doing fine. Really well, in fact. It landed its dream job and thinks its boss is considering it for a promotion—"

"I'm sorry."

"For what? Fixing it?"

"Interesting how we have such vastly differing perceptions of reality, as I seem to recall dislocating it."

"Kami, Neji. I was the one who got distracted."

"And I suppose you accidentally twisted your knee out of its socket, too, all by yourself."

"I don't careabout my knee, Neji, how hard is it for you to un—"

"That's the problem," he scoffed, so abruptly I was taken aback. "You don't care."

"That's… What?" I shook my head, incredulous. I didn't care? How did that make any sense? "That's not the problem at all."

"Possibly, we have multiple."

"… Fair. Listen. I know we can't keep avoiding each other forever. I've invested too much time and effort into being your friend, and you can't let me go because I know you laugh like a chicken—"

"Markedly false."

"—Objectively true. But about… that night," I said, feeling drained, "I just… Well, afterward, when I texted you all those times… I just felt like it's always me doing the fixing, you know? Just me." I noticed that I gave a different reason every time. Or were all my reasons the same, at their root?

I was so tired.

He didn't respond, and it was anyone's guess what he was thinking. Impenetrable as always, Neji was a mystery I'd accepted I'd never be the one to solve. It was just so easy to forget sometimes.

"Which is why, deep down, I appreciate your doing this, I really do." At Neji's skeptical look, I rolled my eyes. "Fine, really deep down. But it's all right. I'm over it, okay? Maybe we both screwed up. I was high out of my mind on painkillers and refuse to be held accountable for anything. You have a guilt complex. I misread the situation and said too much. We should move on."

He looked like he was about to say something but thought better of it.

"Friends?" I ventured, holding out my arms.

For a couple of horrifying seconds, it seemed like he would refuse. Then, with a strange, defeated look in his eyes, he stepped forward and wordlessly drew me into his chest. My arms reached up to encircle his broad upper back and squeezed, almost independent of thought. I pulled away before he could feel the thud of my heart.

The right decisions are always the hardest ones to make. Yet life without Neji had been so unappealing that I knew I could let anything go if it meant not jeopardizing our friendship like this ever again.

Neji's arms fell to his sides a second later. I tried not to think of how solid they'd felt around my waist, their warmth unimpeded by the thin fabric of my shirt.

"Well," I smiled shakily, not meeting his eyes. "Catch me up?"

"This is your intervention, though."

"Consider it commandeered."

Neji just shook his head. He opened the door to the now empty hallway. "After you."

And, ever so slightly, things began to look up from there.

9:20 PM, Dojo

Mood: Like I've fallen out of time or something

Observations: 495

Lies Told: 35

"Wait," I interrupted myself in the middle of relaying idiotic drill team rules to Neji, "don't you have combat class right now?" I couldn't imagine he'd have so much free time to just spend here talking to me. I'd been so caught up in catching up, learning about his wild schedule this year—he's taking so many online courses just hearing about them makes my head spin—to finish required high school credits and concurrently get an associate's degree, that I'd forgotten. At his core, Neji is 70% water, 30% organic matter, 10% effortlessly antagonizing everyone, and 90% efficiency. He makes it all work somehow precisely because he's so efficient. And because I refuse to acknowledge the constraints of arithmetic.

"No, it ended an hour ago."

I gaped. "Are you serious? Kami, why didn't you say anything? Aren't you the teacher? Who died and crowned you Kakashi?"

"Frankly, they could do with some practice on their own." Seeing my stricken expression and that I was about to remind him that they paid him, he continued. "And I pawned it off onto Lee."

"You're evil."

"You're impressed."

"You're… not wrong. I'm starting to realize that all my problems can be solved by throwing Lee at them."

"Why do else you think I keep him around?"

I made a face. "For kicks, I'm guessing. Physical ones." I craned my head around the hallway corner, where we were sitting. The dojo was a lot quieter at this time of night—there were only two classes still going and a couple occupied individual training rooms. "If your class ended an hour ago, what're you normally doing right now?"

"Heading home, actually."

"This early?"

"I'm waking up at four tomorrow."

I felt a twinge of guilt for not remembering. This was something I should've known, having used to tease him about his early bedtimes. Neji had also, ten minutes ago, talked about doing work for Rhetoric in the morning, and besides, he's always been an early bird. And night owl. Really, he just didn't seem to sleep. "Are you sure you're not working yourself too hard?" Neji expressed a more eloquent derivative of no, duh. "I was being polite," I sniffed. "Stop burning yourself out, you absolute numbskull, or you're going to start vegetating. That better?"

He sighed and stood up. I stayed where I was, back straight against the cool stone. "I need to return to the compound. Would you like me to walk you back home?" He extended a hand, presumably to help me up. I tried to ignore the smile that threatened to split across my lips.

"I think I might stay for a bit, actually," I said, shaking my head apologetically. "Sorry. I'm in a throwing things kind of mood." I nodded to Studio 7, the weapons room.

He shrugged. One arm. Kami, Kankuro really had made that a thing. I reminded myself to ask Neji about him next time. "See you tomorrow."

"Yeah, I guess we should start on Bio, shouldn't we?"

Neji walked over to the lockers, drew out his sleek black backpack, and slung it over his right shoulder in one fluid motion. He twisted to slip a Dasani water into the right pocket. "We should," were the last words I heard before the front door swung shut.

I exhaled and didn't move for another hour. The last class filed out, and I greeted familiar faces from my position on the floor. The studio lights flickered out, one by one. Studio 7, which I'd been facing, remained in the dark, having not been entered once.

10:01 PM, Dojo/Home

Mood: Disbelieving

Observations: 501

Lies Told: 35

Yeah, so I shouldn't have been walking home alone so late even though chances are I'd be able to defend myself. If I hadn't, though, I wouldn't have stumbled across the second strangest thing I'd seen all day.

See, when I'm walking with someone, night or day, I usually take the main road, but when I'm alone, I prefer the shortcut by the creek. Counterintuitive to my safety, probably, but it's only a couple of alleyways and, for the most part, there's high visibility. And the sounds of running water and chirping bugs are calming.

This time, though, some girl's screeching disrupted the soothing quiet. I had a kunai in my hand before I realized that the voice a) sounded familiar though I couldn't place it and b) wasn't so much distressed as just angry.

I dipped into the alley anyway, just in case she needed a hand. From the sound of it—the increasing volume of her shouts and proportion of expletives to substance—she had it under control. The girl's silhouette became clearer as I approached. Medium length frizzy blonde hair. Black combat boots. Windbreaker in 70-degree weather. The way her entire body seemed to angle downward suggested that she was screaming at someone on the floor, although I couldn't confirm because her back was blocking my view.

"Are you okay?" I asked. She was already turning around, the light from the lamppost striking her face to illuminate an unmistakable set of teal eyes. "Wait, Temari?" I hadn't recognized her without her hair up in those four ponytails. Without her hair pulled back from her features, Temari's face looked softer, less angular. Perhaps more approachable, had her eyes not been narrowed and her face red with fury.

Temari nodded stiffly, as though answering me would let loose another string of curses.

I took a cautious step forward and angled myself around her to glimpse who she was cussing out. "Who's giving you… Kami."

Kankuro sat against the wall, staring back at me as though nothing was out of the ordinary. Like we were sitting across each other in English, with Kurenai droning on in the background, and not meeting each other in some shady alley in the dead night. The way he sat, how his long limbs seemed splayed beneath him in a boneless heap, struck me as odd.

That's when I saw the empty beer bottles.

"Fancy meeting you here, Six," said Kankuro. I blinked, surprised he was able to form a coherent—if a bit slow—sentence with only slight slurring between words.

"I'm leaving," said Temari, finally, pivoting and stalking back the way I'd come. "You… I give up. It's useless. Tenten, just leave him alone. He never listens, I swear to Kami, he never listens to a word I say. Save your breath. He's a lost cause."

I watched her go. Then turned to Kankuro, who continued to stare ahead listlessly. "So this is where you come when you skip, huh," was all I could think to say.

"Yeah." If he was at all ashamed that I was seeing him in this state, he didn't let it show.

"Day drinking's kind of sad, Kankuro." He chuckled. It came out as a sad little burble. "How do you drink for over ten hours anyway?"

"I'm very good at it," said Kankuro.

"I take it you do this often. How come I've never seen you?"

"Why would you?"

"I take this way back from the dojo sometimes." I remembered I hadn't been going to the dojo recently. "Or from anywhere, actually."

"You wouldn't have noticed. I'm pretty quiet." He laughed when I snorted. Interesting that Drunk Kankuro had a much improved temperament over the original. "It's mostly Temari, and she comes pretty late from her tutoring." His phone rang, one of those cheery default jingles, and he lifted an arm. In a reflection of how wasted he was, his arm promptly folded into itself and flopped limply onto his lap. The phone kept ringing. He made no further move to answer it.

It finally fell silent. "How do you know Temari?" I asked.

"My girlfriend."

"… Oh," was all I managed.

"Sorry to disappoint."

I flushed. "No, I'm sorry. You caught me off guard. I didn't know you were capable of love."

He yawned. "You know," said Kankuro, "you're really the dumbest smart person I've ever met. Temari's my sister."

Sister?! 495 observations, and I was still like this. "Dumbest smart person? You're losing your edge," I said, trying to mask my embarrassment. "I thought you were trying to corner the market on offensiveness. Plainly I'm just dumb."

"Oh, that makes sense. What rank are you again?" he asked, his expression making it clear that he knew exactly what rank I was. Kami, I wonder what a field day he'd had when he realized he'd come up with the perfect nickname.

I blinked. "That doesn't mean I'm—what rank are you?"

"No idea. I'm guessing probably in the hundreds, at the very least."

"But you're smart," I countered, the compliment slipping out rather unintentionally. Although I guess it wasn't so much a compliment as it was a fairly obvious fact. Kankuro nodded, and I continued. "The GPA system is fundamentally flawed—"

"Kami, Six, learn how to take a compliment. It's possible for two people to be smart at the same time."

"Do you drunkenly lecture all passersby or am I just special?"

"You're—" His phone rang again.

"Are you going to answer that, or do you need some help? Oh wait, you can't stop me either way." I reached down and slid the vibrating cell phone out of his back pocket, preempting his "you like that?" with "if you'd like aluminum between your cheeks."

"Demon" calling.

"Relative of yours?" I asked.

He smirked. "Yeah, actually, that's Gaara. Don't pick up."

Of course I hadn't realized they were siblings, either. My finger hovered above "answer." "Shouldn't you be getting home? It's late."

"I might just stay here. Don't wanna move."

"For the night? Do you have a death wish or something?" I tried to pull him up, but he resisted. "I'm going to get someone." We both knew, I think, that he wouldn't budge no matter who came to help.

He held out a shaky hand, apparently for his phone. "Give it."

Something in his eyes made me listen. But not before I saved my number as a contact and texted myself. "You're not sleeping here. Go home and text me when you get back, okay? I have to go." I handed him his cell, and his fingers closed around the device. They were as cool as the aluminum.

He didn't even make a snide comment about me giving him my number—that's how apparently out of it he was. "See ya."

"Text me," I repeated. The phone began to ring again as I turned the corner.

11:34, Home

Mood: Hard to say

Observations: 505

Lies Told: 35

Mom was sitting at the kitchen table when I got back, eating a bowl of mung bean soup. She didn't even comment on how late I was. I doubt she'd noticed, as she was in one of those moods.

I used to get annoyed at how much stricter she was with me than other parents were with their children, but she's really mellowed out over the years. Probably because of Dad (or, more accurately, the lack of him). For me, it's basically always been the two of us, but he was a part of her life at some point. I won't ever know what that's like.

The way she was staring off into the distance was reminiscent of Kankuro. I ladled a bowl of soup for myself and ate next to Mom, waiting for his text back, until she drifted off to her bedroom. Then, for the first time in my life, I snuck out.

Well, just walked out the door, really, but doing so felt pretty momentous. I guess it's because I'm such a model child.

Ha.

I peeked into the alley to find that Kankuro had already left. The empty bottles were in the trash, and it looked like he'd hobbled home. Maybe puked in the corner—couldn't exactly tell how long the vomit had been there.

I turned on my heel to head home, my nose beginning to run and Neji's words still on my mind. "That's the problem. You don't care." I really couldn't say what he'd meant by that, still. I rather thought the issue was I cared a bit too much.

A/N: Had to push election stuff to next chapter. Thoughts? Theories? As always, reviews spur updates!