Note: Thanks to everyone who reviewed. :)

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twenty-nine: affaire de coeur.

(fifty steps to falling in love.)

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Ring

Their first real interaction outside of the hospital examination room is the battle arena of the chuunin exams. Neji and Sakura regard each other warily, and there is a healthy respect for each of the others' abilities reflected in their eyes. They pace a complete ring around Shiranui Genma, watching, waiting, until Sakura springs forward, one of her chakra-enhanced punches missing Neji's jaw by an inch.

He leaps out of the way, into the Hyuuga fighting stance, and she lands in front of him, bringing her fists up into a defensive guard.

The battle has begun.

Hero

Sakura is one of the first people to know that Neji passed his jounin exams. Tsunade-sama had let it slip in passing, while turning him over to Sakura in order to have his post-match wounds healed up.

As she enters, Neji is sitting with his legs crossed on the hospital bed. He glances up wearily at her, and the action causes a searing pain in his neck. His hand makes it halfway there before he forces it back down, out of pride.

Sakura heals him in silence, perhaps because she finds it necessary to tranquilize him in order to sort out the trauma that the nerves in his neck experienced. She watches the Hyuuga prodigy as he sleeps, his long, dark hair fanning out on the pillows just like any girl, and, hell, Neji-with-the-girly-hair is a jounin. An elite. One of the best shinobi she knows.

She frowns, continues to knead the back of his neck, and resolves to work harder.

(Everybody assumes that her efforts were all for Naruto and Sasuke. She only ever tells one person of the role that Neji had to play in it, and that is Neji himself, on the night before their wedding. He blinks rapidly and the noodles fall from his chopsticks back into the elaborate porcelain bowl. Sakura laughs.)

Memory

Neji has woken up in a hospital bed to find Sakura leaning over him, fixing whatever dreadful injuries he has sustained this time, that the memory becomes permanently ingrained in his mind. Even when he wakes up in his own bed, he almost expects to feel her small hands on his chest, the warmth of her chakra against him, and the sweet smell of her shampoo gently permeating the air.

It takes almost seven years for this dream to become a reality.

Box

Neji is having a staring contest with the diamond ring in the far left enclosure of the jewelry store.

The diamond ring with its red velvet box, with the emblem of Konoha embossed in it in gold.

Neji loses the staring contest.

He walks home an hour after that, the box weighing heavily in his kunai pouch.

It is undoubtedly the scariest box he has ever encountered in his life.

Run

If there's one thing that Neji absolutely hates, it is flagrant disobedience from the shinobi under his command.

"Damn it, Sakura, run!" he yells, his shell of composure slipping, as it often does under the threat of impending death.

Sakura glances over at him and settles into a fighting stance. The fact that she is unarmed and shortly to be facing fifty enemy shinobi doesn't seem to bother her at all. "Not if it means leaving you."

Hurricane

"Did I ever thank you?" he asks, over the howl of the roaring wind.

Sakura tilts her head upwards, feeling the raindrops splatter on her face. "You never had to."

Wings

Neji finds an injured bird on the street once. He promptly finds his way to Haruno Sakura's apartment, disregarding the fact that it is eleven o' clock at night, and insists that she help him heal the bird.

Sakura is groggy and dressed in pajamas that have little pink strawberries on them, and is in no mood to heal a bird. However, she sees the look of determination in Neji's eyes, and deduces correctly that he will not take no for an answer.

It is one o' clock in the morning by the time they have the bird's wing set in a tiny splint, and have a makeshift nest for him in Sakura's only potted plant.

"So." Sakura says.

"So." Neji rubs his eyes. Normally he wouldn't be caught dead utilizing such a mundane retort, but the two solid hours of trying to make the bird as comfortable as possible have taken its toll on him.

"…I have ice cream."

"Ice cream sounds pleasant right now, thanks."

Neji and Sakura eat a pint of vanilla ice cream each, before falling asleep on her couch.

The next morning, Neji wakes up to see Hatake Kakashi sitting on the armchair across from him, a look of murderous intent emanating from his single visible eye. For a second Neji wonders why, and then he remembers that he is asleep with the Copy Ninja's sole female student in her strawberry-decorated pajamas. On her couch. Said female student is still curled up against Neji's shoulder, sleeping contentedly.

The thick amount of paperwork that Kakashi had brought to deliver from the Hokage lies forgotten on the table.

Neji swallows.

Kakashi smiles. His eye crinkles up into a half-moon smiley expression. It is the most frightening thing that Neji has seen in recent memory.

"Take a walk with me, Neji-kun?" he inquires pleasantly.

Later that afternoon, Hatake Kakashi and Hyuuga Neji are both taken to the hospital for severe injuries. Sakura is the head of their ward, and she chastises the both of them at length.

They're not talking.

Even years later, Neji and Kakashi stubbornly silent about that particular event. It's a cause for amusement among every jounin in Konoha.

Cold

The Hyuuga compound tends to get rather chilly during winter. It is fortunate that Sakura, who never did like cold weather, always has Neji at hand to prevent her from getting too cold. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact.

Red

In his life as a shinobi, Neji had always associated the color of red with blood and death.

When he sees Sakura in her wedding kimono, he is forced to use his extraordinary Hyuuga willpower to keep his jaw from falling to the ground.

From that day on, in the life of Neji, red has a much more positive connotation.

Drink

Neji is determined to show her and the rest of them - stupid, stupid Naruto - that his tolerance for the Curry of Life has improved, not deteriorated, over the years, dammit.

So it really doesn't help that his face is slowly going from red to purple as he shovels yet another spoonful down his mouth, all the while eyeing the nearest glass of water with an expression of abject longing (which on his face, translates to a slight squint of the outer corner of his right eye).

As he begins to feel his internal organs slowly shrivel, Sakura takes pity on him. Before he knows what is happening, he feels the cool glass against his mouth.

"Drink, you idiot! You know better than to go against Naruto in an eating contest-"

Neji feels the icy, blessed relief slide up to meet his withered tongue.

This is one of many times he thinks that he first fell in love with her.

Midnight

"It's midnight and this time you don't have an injured bird in the palm of your hand. What are you doing here?"

Nobody ever accused Sakura of being perfectly polite when her beauty sleep is interrupted.

Neji shrugs. "I was in the mood for ice cream."

Sakura crosses her arms and glares. "That excuse is shit, Hyuuga."

Neji gives her a look. "The truth is that I am alone and desolate and am aching for your company, which is like a healing salve to my damaged, bruised soul."

Sakura sniffs and holds the door open. "You're an awful liar. Come in."

Neji smirks and steps inside. "You have no idea."

Temptation

Neji is thoroughly dismayed the first time that he sees Sakura in one of the medics' ANBU uniforms.

For hell's sake, it looks like skintight black leather. And she's just an innocent little medic accompanying their team because the Hokage had deemed it too dangerous to be undertaken without one.

Times like this, Neji hates life.

Sakura straps the katana across her back, arching her chest a tiny bit to do so.

He is sure that somewhere, somehow, the Godaime Hokage is having a laugh at his expense.

View

Sakura's optimism befuddles Neji a little bit. His outlook on life has brightened somewhat, thanks to Naruto's influence, but…still. He is hardly going to be skipping about Konoha, singing bright tunes and smiling to random passers-by in fits of goodwill.

Well. It's not like Sakura skips about Konoha. He's never seen her sing a bright tune. The smiling to random passers-by in fits of goodwill - she has that covered, though.

Neji tries to give it a try.

The first time he smiles at a group of random genin, walking around Konoha on their way back from the Academy, they all exchange frightened glances and dissolve into noisy tears.

When Neji relays this story to Sakura, she laughs, pats him on the head, and tells him that he just needs a little practice.

Neji's eye twitches.

Love or not, he is so not going to be helping any innocent old woman cross the street.

Music

Sakura always figured that, being all well-bred and noble and all that, Neji would enjoy listening to well-bred and noble music.

When they infiltrate a symphony orchestra for the purposes of a mission, as innocent members of the audience, Neji falls asleep halfway through the first piece. He snores. Softly. And in a very well-bred manner. But still. Snores.

Neji wakes up, mortified, to the sight of Sakura smirking at him in a decidedly un-Sakura-like way.

She never lets him forget it.

Silk

Neji's hair is like silk between her fingers. Sakura could just die with all the envy. She tells him so.

The next day, Neji gives her a bottle of the trademark, Hyuuga-patented, secretly brewed, special shampoo and conditioner that all clan members use.

Sakura laughs and hugs him.

Neji wonders if she knows that it's practically tantamount to a marriage proposal.

Cover

"Say, Neji-san, you appear to have fallen victim to my Whirlwind more often than usual this month," Lee says, kneeling down to sit beside his teammate. His eyes are round with worry. "Are you sure you're quite all right?"

Tenten feels Neji's ribs, where the kick had connected, tentatively. "I don't think you've got any fractures, Neji."

"…My ribs feel a little stiff. And there's a stabbing pain in the third one down to the left. I think that I am in need of urgent medical attention."

Tenten gives him an I know what you're up to kind of mischievous look. "If you're so very sure, I'm sure that the medics at the hospital would be able to help you out."

Neji stands up before she can go off on her a medic's gentle touch tangent. "I'll leave, then."

Lee looks greatly remorseful. "I apologize, Neji-san!"

Tenten looks like she is working very hard to restrain her laughter.

Neji glares. "Shut up."

Promise

Whenever Neji or Sakura leaves for a mission, they tell the other how much they love them.

They never promise to be back in two days, or tomorrow, or next week.

They don't believe in making promises they might not always be able to keep.

Dream

Once, Sakura confesses to Neji that she wouldn't have thought she would marry him, not even in her wildest dreams.

Neji remembers the mornings of waking up and almost feeling as if she was there beside him. "I would."

Candle

Once a year in Konoha, they light candles for the dead. Sakura always prays that she will never have to light one for Neji, and he does the same for her.

Talent

Neji has a strong pride in his own abilities, but he would rather die than tell Sakura that there are some times when he envies hers.

Silence

Even the silence between them is comfortable, bridged by the comforting warmth of their fingers intertwined together and their breath mingling in the air.

Journey

It took Neji three years to make jounin.

It took Sakura five.

They spent seven years trying to complete their journey together.

Fire

"The will of fire burns strong in both of you." Tsunade inclines her head over the couple, and an unusually gentle smile touches her face. "I couldn't be prouder."

Strength

Her chakra-enhanced, ground-splitting, earthquake-creating punches aside, and despite his ability to kill with a single gentle touch, Neji and Sakura draw strength from each other.

Mask

Sakura's small hands trace the contours of his new ANBU mask, and she smiles up at him, a look of true pride in her eyes. "I'm so happy for you, Neji," she says sincerely.

At that moment, Neji thinks that life couldn't get any better.

"…But what is this thing, anyway? It looks like some kind of a lizard."

Neji refuses to talk to her for three days.

Ice

Neji and Sakura refuse to call their sitting-on-Sakura's-couch-at-midnight-and-eating-ice-cream encounters dates.

Fall

The first red-touched leaf spirals from the tree to land gently on Neji's sepia-colored hair, and Sakura stands on the tips of her toes to pluck it out. She smiles. "Fall."

Forgotten

Neji firmly denies the fact that he is obsessive, but he's never forgotten a single thing she's said to him - including the rants about how he should take his health more seriously.

Dance

Despite his astonishing grace on the battlefield, Neji displays a surprising propensity for stepping on her feet when they dance at the annual ANBU Ball. Sakura thinks it's cute. Neji just doesn't want to tell her that the red cocktail dress is just very, very distracting.

Body

The first time Sakura orders Neji to strip from the waist up for a medical examination is when she is fifteen and he is sixteen.

Sakura spends the entire time trying not to blush and hating hormones, while Neji tries determinedly not to wonder if his chest is highly defined enough to be attractive.

Sacred

Despite the fact that it is an emergency healing and he is in danger of suffering injuries related to severe blood loss, Neji tries to resist Sakura's act of pouring her own chakra into him, in an attempt to close the wound. She hits him on the head just enough to stop the struggling, tells him that this is no time for chivalry, and he can do nothing but watch as her precious chakra mingles with his blood.

Farewells

"I don't trust you enough to leave you," she tells him, observing the way his shoulder is healing.

"You don't exactly have a choice," he points out.

She tells him that's the worst part of being a medic.

He takes extra care on the mission.

World

Sakura's hand touches the side of his cheek gently. "All the enemy shinobi in the world couldn't make me leave you."

Neji swallows and tries to ignore the burning in his eyes.

Formal

Sakura dons a kimono in preparation for her mission, to impersonate the daughter of an important lord. Her hair hasn't been dyed yet, and she is still the Sakura he knows for the moment, with her pink hair clashing horribly with the deep purple of her kimono. For all intents and purposes, he is her fiancé for the duration of the impersonation.

He is in his formal Hyuuga robes and she is in her beautiful kimono, and for a second, he is reminded painfully of seeing his mother and father together when he had been very young, despite the fact that his mother's hair had been very dark, and her eyes, white.

"Anything wrong?"

She touches his arm, gently, worried, and he shakes his head. "Nothing."

Fever

Sakura had never anticipated that she would get sunburn while walking between Suna and Konoha in the middle of summer while wearing a tank top, and that leaves Neji slathering lotion on her very red and relatively exposed skin.

Sakura is the one with the sunburn.

So why is he feeling so hot?

Laugh

The first time Neji laughs, outright laughs, in a way that isn't menacing or downright creepy, Sakura stares at him for a minute straight as she tries to figure out what the hell he's doing.

A very awkward moment ensues when Sakura tries to jump on him and perform the Heimlich maneuver. Neji looks confused. "I just found your story regarding Naruto and the irate chipmunks amusing."

Sakura blinks. "Oh. I thought you were choking."

"It always happens," Neji says in a long-suffering voice.

"Well, maybe you should laugh more often. Just so that it doesn't happen so frequently."

"Hn. The idea bears consideration."

Lies

"Oh no. This is not happening. You're delusional. I am not falling in love with him."

Ino gives her a disbelieving look. "Of course you're not."

"Ino! I'm your best friend; you have to believe me!"

Ino raises her hands disarmingly. "I believe you, Sakura. You're not in love with Neji just like you don't dream of him, shirtless, every night, just like you don't so thoroughly enjoy your medic-nin privileges when Neji is involved, especially when you have to tell him to strip down so you can get a sight of that highly defined chest and the way his long hair drapes over those godly shoulders of his-"

Sakura collapses upon the table, her face as bright red as a tomato.

"Lies." she says in a muffled voice. "All. Lies."

Ino smirks. There are so many benefits to being a best friend. (And the Shitenshin no Jutsu doesn't not help, either.)

Forever

Contrary to popular belief, fate didn't tell Neji that Sakura was the one he loved.

…Everything else did.

Overwhelmed

The day Sakura forces Neji to do something that he had never, ever done before and never, ever intended to do is the day that everybody in Konoha finally realizes that, once and for all, the cute little pink-haired medic-nin has the greatest prodigy to come out of the Hyuuga clan completely whipped.

("I am not taking a vacation, woman! Vacations are for lesser shinobi!"

"Bullshit, Hyuuga, you're coming out of this office if I have to drag you out myself!"

Tsunade watches in amusement as her student grabs Neji by the arm and forcibly exits him from her office.

The resulting screaming match, however, she can still hear, even when the couple is two flights down.

"I don't care if I'm on vacation, I'm still not going to the dratted, infernal beach!")

Tsunade can't help but feel a little cheated. If all of her cases of overwork and forced vacation were this entertaining, she would be a much happier woman.

Whisper

"I think she likes you, Neji nii-san," Hanabi whispers into his ear after the latest visitor to the Hyuuga compound is safely out of earshot, her pink mane of hair slowly fading into the distance.

Neji chokes on his tea.

Wait

Neji sits inside the parlor of the compound, Hizashi sleeping in his arms. The sky is dark outside the window, and drops of rain splatter against the glass. His knuckles are white from how tightly they clutch the baby's blankets, the only outward signs that belay his anxiousness.

He waits.

Talk

Sometimes talking to Neji can be just a tad frustrating.

It's not that he's stupid. Far from it. As a matter of fact, he's so damned intelligent that he thinks that he's right all the time.

Maybe her masochistic tendencies are resurfacing, but she likes to talk to him anyway. It's a constant intellectual challenge, and it does more for keeping her on her toes than almost anything else does.

Search

Sakura had heard the old adage, "You find someone special when you're not looking for them," several times before.

…Actually, more like several hundred.

She scoffed at it when she was young.

But then, when she walked into the hospital room to see the newly-minted jounin Neji suffering from a serious neck sprain, she hadn't expected to find her soulmate.

Hope

Neji is probably one of the most self-confident shinobi in Konoha.

And yet, some compartment of his personality, deep down inside him, is blubbering in fear and hoping that she likes him. Wanting her to like him. With every fiber of his being.

Eclipse

It just so happens that she has to realize that she loves him during the middle of a highly violent battle. It's just the two of them against fifty enemy shinobi, and they probably might not make it out of this alive.

She sees Neji spin and the tips of his fingers make contact with the man he was locked in battle with, and the enemy crumples to the ground in a lifeless heap.

Sakura is splattered in blood and her eyes make contact with his, and suddenly, she has difficulty remembering a time when she has not loved him.

Gravity

It's not a gravitational pull or anything, but standing side-by-side with her feels right.

Highway

It has been a long road to where they are now, one paved by confusion; moments of frustration, and healthy amounts of denial aside, Sakura wouldn't trade it for the world.

Unknown

She stands, surrounded by the rest of the members of her Rookie Nine, suddenly thrust into a world that is much larger and more unfamiliar. Her green eyes catalogue the other, older, shinobi in the room, by the degree of unfriendliness on their faces and the emblem on their forehead protectors.

Sakura notices three others, less unknown than the rest. Team Gai. Her eyes pass over the boy in the green spandex, who had actually beat Sasuke, the familiar-looking girl with the two buns on her head - Tenten, the name pops up into her mind - and another one, a boy she feels she should know but doesn't really remember, with long, chestnut-colored hair and white eyes. His gaze flickers over her, before settling somewhere around Sasuke.

Her gaze lingers a little longer, before she looks away and crosses her arms, and thinks nothing more of it.

Lock

Sakura firmly denied the fact that she kept her heart under lock and key. It was one of the many things she denied that was actually very true.

Neji was the only one who happened to be skilled enough to make her forget that.

Breathe

Sakura's arms wrap tightly around his shoulders and his, around her waist, and they exhale softly, their soft sigh of contentment mingling in the air.

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Reviews appreciated!

Also, a note - this fic was written for the 30romances community on livejournal. Which means that, officially, the next chapter will be the final one.