Title: Talk on Corners
Characters: Tenten, Hyuuga Neji, Rock Lee, Maito Gai
Special Guests: Nara Shikamaru
Summary: Tenten's first heartbreak had nothing to do with Neji whatsoever.
Nara Shikamaru (encore)
Tenten's first heartbreak had nothing to do with Neji whatsoever.
Or maybe it did.
But not directly.
i.
Tenten was finally awarded Jounin status a year after the Fourth Great Shinobi World War. She was the last one in her team who received the distinction—Lee had received it a month after the war, for his exemplar performance in the field. The Green Beast did not want the position at first, not if it meant leaving Tenten as the sole Chunnin in their little circle, but Tenten convinced him that it was best if he did. Besides, she was sure to catch up with the rest of them sooner or later. She always did, didn't she?
And catch up with them she did, after one long year of laboriously working her ass off to prove her worth, enough to receive a nomination for the position. And she did her best during the exams, because she knew her friends were cheering in the sidelines—she could literally hear Lee and Gai scream "Go Tenten! Show them the power of youth!" every now and then—and she'd be damned if she failed them.
That, and she promised Shikamaru, who was granted Jounin position alongside Lee, that she will make him proud of her.
(Shikamaru told her, frowning that ridiculously charming frown of his, that he was already proud of her, Jounin status or not.
It only made Tenten try even harder.)
ii.
She saw her four boys outside the Hokage's office after her appointment. Gai and Lee immediately rushed toward her and enveloped her in a bear hug, almost cutting off her oxygen supply.
"Tenten! You did it! You're a jounin now!" Lee was saying, bouncing up and down.
Tears were streaming down Gai's cheeks. "I am so proud of you, Tenten!" he said, and she'd never admit it to anyone, but Tenten's heart soar when she heard Gai's words.
"I really appreciate your enthusiasm over this," Tenten half-chuckled, half whizzed. "But I am sort of having a hard time breathing."
"Get off her, you fools," Neji growled from behind, and the two Green Beasts promptly let go of the kunoichi.
It took a couple of seconds before Tenten could catch her breath. And then, "Thanks, Neji."
The Hyuuga smirked, the side of his eyes crinkling in an expression of happiness and pride. "Didn't want you to suffocate on your first day on the job."
Tenten laughed.
"Yosh! We should celebrate this joyous occasion by training!" Gai suddenly burst out, pumping his fist up in the air. "Tenten, let's run around Konoha five hundred times!"
The new Jounin sweatdropped. "Uh, I think I'll pass."
"I'll go with you, Gai-sensei!"
"Lee! Truly you understand the meaning of youth more than anyone else!"
"Gai-sensei!"
"Lee!"
"Gai-sensei!"
Three pairs of eyes followed their retreating forms, not wondering for the first time where the waves crashing on the beach and the sunset came from.
Finally, "So, I'll see you tonight."
Tenten blinked. "Tonight?"
Neji raised an eyebrow. "You heard them. This is a night for celebration. We already have reservations. Gai made sure of that." Then, turning to Shikamaru, his smirk slipped off a little. "You may come, too."
The Nara heir did not respond, but the Hyuuga waited for none anyway. He walked away, leaving Tenten and Shikamaru alone, finally.
After a few seconds of silence, "Well? Aren't you going to congratulate me?"
Shikamaru tched, cupped Tenten's chin, and planted a small kiss on her lips. "Congratulations," he murmured, smirking, his lips inches away from hers.
Tenten blinked, and effectively smacked Shikamaru on the head. "I didn't mean like that!"
At the same moment, Tenten suddenly felt an eerie feeling, like somebody was watching them, somebody who was not at all pleased with what he saw, and was sending wave after wave of dark energy their way.
Tenten quickly turned around and scanned the surrounding area, but saw no one.
(Shikamaru told her, much later, that he sensed the same oppressing presence.
What he failed to say was that he had a pretty good guess where that bad vibe came from.)
iii.
The first mission she had as a jounin, she was paired up with Shikamaru to retrieve a set of valuable scrolls from a neighboring village.
Why the mission needed two jounins did not become clear to her until they were surrounded by a dozen enemy nin on their way back to Konoha.
Tenten and Shikamaru were able to defeat all the rogue nins, but not with the same efficiency as it would have had Tenten fought side by side with Neji or Lee (or, better yet, both), or Shikamaru with Chouji and Ino. Still, they made a pretty good team, all things considering—Tenten took care of the long-range attacks and Shikamaru the mid-range ones, and even created combo moved using Shikamaru's shadows and Tenten's chakra wires and kunai.
Unfortunately, by the end of the fight, Tenten's chakra was almost at base zero, and Shikamaru had to carry her all the way back to Konoha before she lost consciousness for good.
(It was Neji she saw when she woke up in the hospital, half a day later.
He was on a chair beside her bed, watching her with pale gray eyes.
"You're awake."
"Hey," Tenten answered, voice raspy. "Shika?"
She saw Neji frown a little, but still, he gave an answer. "Debriefing with the Hokage. He left an hour ago."
"Oh," Tenten replied. Then, chuckling uneasily. "I overdid it, didn't I?"
"You did."
"I'm sorry," she squeaked, hiding her face behind her blanket. It wasn't the first time she used up too much chakra during a mission, but it was the first time Neji wasn't there, not counting the incident during the war. He never scolded her, not once, never gave a reprimand whatsoever, but she'd always catch him looking at her from behind, with that aggravated yet worried expression on his face.
It was the same expression he wore that very moment.
"You will never learn, will you?" Neji's tone was exasperated, to say the least.
Tenten hid further back in her makeshift shield.
Just then, she heard the chair being pushed back, and when she risked a peek, she saw Neji standing up, poised to leave. "I better go," he started. "I'll just see you when you get better . . ."
"Wait!" On instinct, Tenten grabbed Neji's wrist, earning a raised eyebrow from the jyukken expert. "Can you . . . stay?" Hand still around his wrist, she continued, "I've missed you. We never seem to see each other anymore."
"I just saw you before you left for your mission two days ago."
"But . . . we never to talk anymore."
"We're talking now."
"Neji," she said, exasperated herself. "Don't be difficult."
A small smirk appeared on the corner of Neji's right lip, and he sat down on the side of Tenten's bed, gently pulling her hand away from his wrist and enclosing it in his own. Tenten felt the fuzzy wuzzy bunnies in her chest doing marathons, and she tried her best to fight down a blush.
It still surprised her that Neji could make her feel that way, even when she has been dating Shikamaru for so long.
Tenten watched as Neji's smirk disappeared, and was replaced by a more genuine smile.
"I missed you, too.")
iv.
Sakura came to her room an hour after Neji had left and asked her if Shikamaru had gone as well.
Tenten said she never saw Shikamaru come in.
Sakura frowned and answered that Shikamaru had been in the hospital two hours ago, and he specifically told her that he was going to Tenten's room.
(The first crack in their relationship—the biggest one—quietly appeared.)
v.
Tenten's second mission as a jounin was executed more efficiently—she was with her old teammates, after all. That did not mean the group had come out of it unscathed, but at least this time, she only had to use Neji as her human crutch, while Lee limped behind them, his leg weights tucked in safely in his bag.
Shikamaru was waiting for them outside the Konoha gates, a frown affixed on his face.
"Shika?" Tenten whispered. "What are you doing here?"
"I heard you're due back today," he said, walking toward them, lifting her left arm and slinging it around his shoulder. "I'll take you to the hospital."
"I can take care of that," Neji's cold voice answered from Tenten's other end, tugging at Tenten a bit.
"I don't mind doing it," replied the Nara heir, pulling the kunoichi to his side.
"I don't mind either," answered the Hyuuga genius. Another tug.
Pale gray eyes clashed with brown, until finally, Tenten whacked both heads for good measure.
"Seriously," she huffed, pulling herself away from them, "I'll end up more injured, hanging between you two." Then, turning to her other friend, "Come on Lee, let's have that limp checked."
"But Tenten, I'm perfectly fine—" Lee paused in midsentence, frozen on the spot by Tenten's glare. "Of course! We must make sure you're not hurt, youthful flower!" And he allowed himself to be dragged away, but not before risking a glance at the two geniuses, both glaring sullenly at their retreating forms.
(The second crack appeared, more noticeable than the first.)
vi.
Shikamaru was outside the hospital when Tenten exited the building.
"Don't," she snapped, still annoyed at him. "I'm far too tired to deal with you being troublesome right now."
At least the Nara looked apologetic. "I was only going to walk you home."
Tenten paused, frowning at her boyfriend. Then, "How many times do I need to tell you that you don't have to compete with Neji in any way?"
"I wasn't."
"Oh really?"
"You're being troublesome again."
"I'm being troublesome? I'm not the one who made it his life goal to make my best friend his new eternal rival. And I thought Lee was over the top."
"Ten."
"Don't 'Ten' me," she almost hissed. "Neji is my best friend. Deal with it."
The shadow manipulator looked away and rubbed the back of his head, but said nothing. The silence stretched for seconds, with Tenten glaring and Shikamaru discreetly looking at the clouds.
Finally, Tenten sighed. "So, are you going to take me home or are you going to stand there all afternoon, muttering about how troublesome I can be?"
And Shikamaru tched, but he turned to look at Tenten, offered her a small smile, and apologized. Apologized, took her hand, and walked her home.
(For a while, Tenten thought things would change for the better.
They didn't.)
vii.
Tenten's third mission as a jounin almost ended in disaster.
She was teamed up with Neji, Shikamaru and Ino, to scout enemy territory at the other side of the border of Fire Country. It was theoretically the best team for the job—Shikamaru and Ino worked well together, especially for reconnaissance assignments, and the Neji/Tenten tandem was one of the best pairs in Konoha in terms of combat abilities. The former pair can focus on gathering intel, while the latter can take care of any enemy nin that will block their path.
Except that Shikamaru and Neji would not speak to each other unless it was absolutely necessary, and Ino kept on giggling at what she called the love triangle of the century, and Tenten wanted nothing more than to finish the mission so she could go home and train with Lee, who was becoming pretty much the sanest person she knew at the moment.
Then all hell broke loose, and the two shinobi decided too late to cooperate, because by the time their backup reached them, Ino had been rendered unconscious, Tenten's left arm was broken in two places, Shikamaru could barely stand because of loss of chakra, and Neji was the only one fending off the enemy nin, despite the condition of his hands from using the Gentle Fist one time too many.
(The mission was a failure.
Ino was in a coma for a week. Tenten's arm had to be put in a cast, and the Godaime commanded her not to do any strenuous activity for a month. Neji found himself with three broken fingers, and could not use his jutsu for two weeks. Shikamaru, who was the least injured among the four, spent the week either visiting Tenten or Ino in the hospital, or camping out in the Nara forest.
He did not go cloud watching for a month.)
viii.
"Ten."
The kunoichi flexed her left arm, testing it out, before summoning a kunai and deftly throwing it to a random target board in Team Asuma's training ground. The Hokage finally had her cast removed, on the condition that she would not overexert herself by throwing too many weapons at the same time. "Hm?"
Silence followed, and Tenten spent a couple of minutes throwing kunai using her right arm, not wanting to force her left and thus earn the wrath of her lifetime idol.
"Are you happy?"
The weapons' expert paused, and cocked her head to the side. Raising an eyebrow, she regarded Shikamaru with curious eyes. "What?"
"Are you happy?"
Tenten grinned. "Of course I am!" she chuckled. "I can finally start going to missions again!" She summoned a new kunai, and threw it toward Shikamaru, missing his ear by a few centimeters. The weapon hit the bull's eye on the board behind the shadow manipulator. Shikamaru blinked, but otherwise showed no other reaction. For a fraction of a second, Neji's image came unbidden in her mind, and Tenten recalled how he wouldn't even blink whenever she threw a weapon his way.
"I didn't mean that."
Tenten creased her forehead. She walked to where Shikamaru was standing, and poked his forehead. "Then what do you mean?"
Shikamaru regarded her quietly, and Tenten realized that that her boyfriend was serious. "Hey," she said, holding the Nara's arm gently. "What's wrong?"
Shikamaru touched Tenten's cheek lightly, and pulled her toward him. Before she could even blink, her lips were against his, but unlike the other times he kissed her, Shikamaru did not pull away after a quick peck. Her eyes widened for a couple of seconds, but she, too, closed her eyes, the hand around his arm tightening a little, her other hand finding its way on Shikamaru's shoulder.
When Shikamaru did pull away, he rested his forehead against Tenten's. Eyes still closed, Tenten relished the moment, willing the seconds to go by slowly. A small smile escaped her lips, and she allowed Shikamaru to hold both her hands and enclose them in his own.
"I was very happy to be with you," Shikamaru whispered, and Tenten's heart leapt in joy.
Before she realized that Shikamaru was talking in the past tense.
"Was?" On instinct, Tenten pushed Shikamaru away, her brown eyes widening in confusion.
Shikamaru smiled a small sad smile, and Tenten felt her heart plummet down her stomach. She took a step backward, and shook her head, wanting Shikamaru to not say whatever he was about to say. But the Nara heir held both Tenten's hands firmly, and Tenten felt her heart shatter in her chest even before Shikamaru could say a single word.
"I'm letting you go."
("Neji! No!"
Tenten's yell pierced the air, but it did not stop the Hyuuga from charging toward the enemy, even when his left index finger was broken and his chakra was running low.
Beside her, Ino lay unconscious, using what was left of her chakra to send a message to their village, requesting for immediate backup for their team. Shikamaru was a little to her right, holding off five enemy nin with his shadow jutsu.
Tenten, her left arm broken from fending off an attack meant for Ino, immediately stood up and rushed after her best friend.
"Tenten, stop!" she heard Shikamaru yell, but she paid him no mind. She'd be damned if she let Neji fight on his own, especially in his current condition.
Summoning an array of weapons from her scroll, she quickly threw it toward the five incoming ninjas, throwing them back in time for Neji to jyuukken the two remaining enemy nin. The weapon mistress reached Neji's side to block off an attack coming from his blind spot. Both Neji and Shikamaru watched in horror as Tenten thwarted the attack by showering the opponent with a barrage of shurikens, but not before his own weapon—a metal chain ball surrounded by spikes—crashed against her already broken arm.
Blinded by pain, Tenten barely noticed Neji catching her before she hit the ground. She heard Shikamaru yelling her name, but she was so focused on Neji's agonized eyes on her.
"Tenten!" she heard him call her, "Tenten!"
"Neji," she managed to say, wincing as the pain on her left side spread to every point of her body. "You're okay."
"I am," Neji answered, byakugan eyes on the ready as another onslaught of enemies drew near. "Don't worry. I got you."
She managed a grin despite the pain. "I know.")
ix.
Neji found her in their usual training ground, throwing senbon after senbon on a row of tree trunks approximately thirty yards away from her. When her senbons ran out, she summoned all her kunai, and when they were gone, the shurikens came next. She had thrown her third battle axe and was about to summon her katana when Neji finally called her attention.
"Lee will be upset if you destroy the squirrels' home."
Dropping the katana, Tenten heaved a huge intake of breath, clenched her left hand, and half-turned to where her best friend was standing. She tried to offer him a grin, but the smile she managed was small, pained, and mingled with unshed tears. "Hey," she whispered, her voice cracking.
Neji's face remained stoic, but Tenten could see the concern in his eyes. "Something happened." It was a statement, not a question, and Tenten wished nothing more that Neji was not so good in reading her. Not that it would be hard to realize that something was off, with her looking dishelved like that.
"He broke up with me." She said it so easily, even forced a grin to stop herself from shedding tears. Still, her heart remained broken in her chest, and she barely noticed that Neji had stood near her. She only realized he was so close when she felt his hand on her shoulder. Looking up, she locked eyes with him, wondering what he was thinking. He remained silent, but his eyes were questioning, and behind them, she saw the anger he felt for Shikamaru.
Finally, a sob escaping her lips, she asked him something she never thought she would, not in a million years.
"Can I ask for a hug?"
She was half-expecting Neji to refuse, but to her great relief, the Hyuuga prodigy obliged and pulled her close, locking her in his embrace.
"I got my heart broken, Neji. It hurts more than I thought it would," she sobbed softly, so softly she wasn't expecting Neji to hear her. But his hold on her tightened, and in the muddled aftermath of her tears, she wondered if Neji had planted a small kiss on the top of her head.
She buried her face in Neji's chest, clinging to him as if that will give her strength, as if that will heal her broken heart.
(Her heart did heal, but not as fast as she hoped.)
x.
"Hey."
A pause. "Hey."
"Can I join you?"
Silence.
Taking his silence as a yes, Tenten sat down next to him, then looked up the sky in search of familiar patterns in the clouds. She spotted one that looked like a pineapple.
"That one looks like your head."
She got a tch in response. "Aren't you going to say I'm troublesome or something?"
An exasperated sigh, as Tenten waited quietly for a response. Still nothing.
Sighing, Tenten stood up and stretched her arms upward. "Well, I'm off," she whispered, sparing the pineapple cloud one last glance. The pineapple morphed into a bird in midflight, and Tenten raised an eyebrow in amusement.
Finally, she heard him stir. "Ten."
"Hm?" Tenten answered, her back facing the Nara heir.
A long silence, and she almost gave up, until an answer she finally got.
"Are you happy?"
It was Tenten's turn to be silent. For a long time she just stood there, thinking. Finally, she turned around to face Shikamaru one more time, and smiled.
"Yes," she answered, and watched as Shikamaru mirrored her grin. "I think I am."
("He said he wants me to be happy," she whispered, as she sat beside Neji, hours after she had calmed down enough to talk. "That dumbass. I was happy with him."
Neji remained characteristically quiet, but Tenten knew he was listening intently to every word she said. "I mean, granted, he could be difficult at times, and he says 'troublesome' too much, but he's very caring, even if he doesn't look like it, and he . . . he . . . oh Neji, how can I ever be happy now?"
Gentle hands found their way on hers, and when she looked up, she found Neji looking at her, his eyes filled with so much warmth and affection.
"Aren't you happy when you're with me?"
A small, kind smile graced his lips, and despite her broken heart, Tenten felt a warm sensation spreading down her toes. Because Neji—her comrade, her best friend, her first love—was there with her in one of the lowest points of her life, and for once, he was not being the cold, unfeeling person that he usually is.
"Yes," she whispered, and slowly, she found herself mirroring his smile, "I think I am.")
Thank you to all your reviews! I'm slow to responding to them because of my busy schedule, but I want to express my appreciation to everyone who's been reading (or rereading) this series. We're almost at the end, so hang on tight!