Title: Talk on Corners
Characters: Tenten, Hyuuga Neji, Rock Lee, Maito Gai
Special Guests: N/A
Summary: Tenten wasn't always informed when Neji would be sent to missions, but she always knew when he would be back.
Hyuuga Neji
Ten days after Tenten's 21st birthday, Team Gai officially disbanded.
It was inevitable, they claimed.
And perhaps, it was.
i.
When the announcement was made official, many civilians and shinobi alike were shocked from the news. They thought Team Gai was forever, that the bond they shared was enough to keep them together for a lifetime, even two.
(The only ones who were not really surprised about the breakup were the members of Team Gai themselves.)
ii.
"It suits you," she said, a small smile on her lips. She was tempted to trace the spiral with the tip of her fingers, but feared that he would pull away. So she kept her distance, smiling her small smile, keeping all the things she wanted to tell him locked deep inside.
She was met with a pair of curious, questioning eyes.
"What? I'm not allowed to admire a good tattoo now?" she grinned, looking up at the clouds. Funny how Shikamaru's habit of cloudgazing had rubbed on her, years after they called it quits. A faint knot in her stomach appeared, but she quickly quelled it with a chuckle.
She was answered with silence, but she didn't exactly expect one anyway. For the moment, she was content—sitting on the riverbank, gazing at the clouds, with her best friend sitting silently beside her. She figured she might as well make the most of it; Neji was being called to his first mission as ANBU the following day.
"How long will you be gone?" she asked, eyes still on the clouds.
"You know I can't tell."
"I was just kidding," Tenten laughed, her fingers playing with the soft grass beneath her palms. "Get me something nice from wherever you're going, okay?"
They remained silent for a couple of minutes—Tenten gazing at the clouds, Neji watching the waters below.
Then, "A year from now, do you think we'll still be friends?"
She could feel Neji's eyes on her, eyes that have always made her lightheaded and safe, nervous and at home. She knew he was struggling to give her the most honest answer he could afford, because, in all truth, who can say what could happen in a year? In a month? In a week?
Fact was, she didn't know, could not know. Neji, for sure, wouldn't, either.
Finally, "I don't know," came Neji's answer, and Tenten felt her eyes sting with unshed tears. But gentle fingers brushed her own, and when Tenten looked down, she saw that the tips of Neji's index, middle, and ring fingers were reaching out to hers.
When she looked up, Tenten saw Neji giving her a heartwarming smile that nearly broke her heart in two.
"But given a choice, I wouldn't have it any other way."
("ANBU, huh?" she grinned, as Lee and Gai pronounced loud "yosh!" somewhere to their right. The Hyuuga managed a glare, though Tenten knew he was trying very hard not to smile.
"Well, everyone expected it, you know," she shrugged, eyeing the patch on Neji's right shoulder. She knew a tattoo was hidden there, freshly marked, after his appointment hours ago.
It was supposed to be a secret—ANBU were not supposed to reveal their identities in public, but Neji told them anyway. It was his way of telling them he trusted them with his life, his way of saying "thank you" for sticking with him through the years.
"Yosh!" Gai suddenly popped from behind Tenten's shoulder, making the kunoichi yelp. "The time has finally come! Our Neji is now given responsibilities that will make him fight with the power of youth even more!"
"Yes, Gai-sensei!" Lee chirped in, dancing behind the byakugan user. "My eternal rival is definitely the best! I need to work triple hard to surpass him and make it to ANBU, too!"
"You can't be ANBU, Lee," Tenten said, exasperated, but with a twinkle in her eye. "ANBU needs stealth, which you obviously do not have." She grinned. "Besides, if you really dream of becoming like Gai, you should handle your own genin team." Years ago, she would never have dreamed of suggesting that, fearing for the sanity of Konoha's future, but Tenten has finally realized that between them three, Lee was the one who could manage his own cell best.
"My youthful flower!" Lee bounced toward her, enveloping her in a tight hug. "How wonderful of you to say something like that. You have made me so happy!"
Despite being crushed, Tenten managed to offer Lee a light pat in the back, and threw in a grin for good measure.
"And what about you?" Lee asked, after he finally let her go. "What will you do?"
Tenten found it a little funny that nobody said it out in the open, the inevitable fact that Team Gai was slowly but surely breaking up. It wasn't long in coming, she told herself—she knew sooner or later that Neji would make it to ANBU, that Lee would handle his own genin team, and that Gai will, well, continue being youthful in his own unique way.
And what about her? What will she do? Without her boys, who will she be?
The thought sobered her up, so much that she didn't realize what was happening until she saw Gai and Lee with their right arms outstretched, waiting for her to follow suit.
"Ah," she said, "what are we doing this for?"
"To celebrate the blossoming of our youth, of course!" Lee boomed, but Gai, apparently, was thinking of something different.
"Friendship," the older jounin answered, and three pairs of eyes blinked at him, all of them silently thanking their sensei for teaching them, training them, treating them as family.
Gai suddenly grinned, teeth blinding them momentarily. "And the blossoming of youth, of course!"
And Tenten laughed, laughed heartily, and placed her hand above Lee's, knowing that Neji would do the same.
He did.)
iii.
Two weeks after Neji's first ANBU assignment, Tenten found him standing in front of her small apartment, mask still covering his face.
She knew it was him; no mask or any form of disguise would stop her from knowing otherwise.
"Neji?" she whispered, noticing the dried blood spattered on his uniform. On instinct, she wrapped her hand around his wrist, and pulled him inside, not minding the fact that he reeked of grime and sweat and the metallic scent of blood.
"When did you get back?" she asked, as she made him sit down her little couch. "What happened?"
The Hyuuga gave no answer, just sat there, back rigid, fists clenched on his knees.
Tenten felt her heart pounding madly in her chest, and before she could stop herself, she took hold of Neji's mask, and gently pulled it off.
The Hyuuga's eyes were closed, his forehead wrinkled with exhaustion. But what disturbed Tenten the most was the way Neji seemed so lost, so unsure of himself. She risked placing a hand on his shoulder, and realized that Neji, the Hyuuga Neji, was trembling.
"Oh Neji," she whispered, dropping the mask on the floor. She pulled him toward her, enveloping him in her embrace, willing him to be alright.
(It took a long while before he finally was.)
iv.
It became almost a ritual for them.
Tenten wasn't always informed when Neji would be sent to missions; she was, after all, assigned to a lot of missions herself, either solo or with a partner—sometimes it was Lee, when he could be pulled away from his genin team, and sometimes it was Sai, a few times with Kiba or Ino, and once with Shikamaru (she thought it would be awkward, and for the first few minutes, it was, but they managed to be professional about it, and the mission turned out to be a success)—and when she wasn't, she helped out in the weapons division, designing new weapons that were both efficient and inexpensive to make.
But Tenten always knew when he would come back. She'd find him outside her door, usually after she returned from the blacksmith's shop, a special assignment from the Hokage, or the rare dinner with Lee (and Gai, by extension). He never entered her place without her, even when she had told him a hundred times to just use the key under the pot! It's there specifically so you won't have to stand there like a block until I get back!
She learned not to ask questions, because all of Neji's missions were confidential, and far it be from her to make him break his oath. Instead, she treated his wounds if there were some, she served him dinner or tea, depending on the occasion, and she would regale him with stories about her day, her week, her month, as if to assure him that she was still the same, that they were still the same.
Neji usually kept quiet, but it was nothing unusual, so Tenten let him be.
She realized that more than her, Neji needed this, this sense of normalcy, the feeling of having something constant in his life, something he could hold on to.
Because Tenten realized, with much horror, during the first time Neji visited her after his first ANBU mission, that her best friend was very likely to lose his sanity if she didn't do something about it.
("You won't tell me what happened, will you?" she asked him, coaxing him out of his uniform. In her right hand she held a shirt, and she was trying to convince him that he needed to change.
"You know I can't," Neji whispered. Tenten was grateful that at least he was talking now.
"I know, I know," she said, succeeding in yanking out the ANBU vest from him. "You're not supposed to come here either," she said, tossing Neji the shirt and turning around to get the tea. "Nobody's supposed to know your identity, right?"
When she turned to face him again, she was glad to see that Neji had put the shirt on. "Not that I mind, okay?" she continued, handing her visitor his cup. Neji accepted it, holding in between his palms, while Tenten sat beside him, ever waiting.
"Tenten?" The voice sounded so lost. Tenten had to stop herself from hugging him again.
"What is it?" she whispered, and she again was reminded of how much she loved the man beside her, no matter who he was, no matter who he will become in the future.
"Do you think I made the right decision? Becoming ANBU."
Tenten had never heard him more unsure of himself, and her heart almost shattered into a million pieces because of it. She wanted to cry for him, because she knew he wouldn't, couldn't, do it himself. Instead, she answered his question in the most honest way she could, knowing it was the best way to help him.
"I think," she said, tentative at first, "I think being ANBU is a big responsibility, something that not all of us can do." She paused, risking a glance at her silent companion. His eyes were closed, as if he was trying to memorize her every word. "You can either take that as a gift or as a curse . . . but you have to decide that on your own."
She received a small smile in response, a slight tugging of the lips, upward, and Tenten felt she just said the right thing.)
v.
Six months later, the former Team Gai finally managed to find time to go out and have dinner together.
Neji was on leave—the Hokage gave him a few weeks to recuperate after a long, dangerous mission, a mission that almost drove Tenten to the walls when she saw the extent of the damage he received. Gai just came back from a solo mission, Lee sent his genin team home early, and Tenten finished designing a new weapon that made the blacksmith so excited he let her clock out early for the day.
And so there they were, in their favorite restaurant, eating dinner, conversing like their last mission together wasn't half a year ago. Tenten was glad that they remained friends, even when they did not see each other much anymore, and that they could still talk casually to each other. Even Neji was his usual stoic self, the kind of stoicism he reserved just for his teammates.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Lee asked, "Are you two finally together?"
As Tenten felt the blood rise to her face, she felt Neji froze beside her. More than Lee's actual question, Tenten was surprised with his phrasing of words, as if he actually expected that she and Neji would be together at one point.
"Lee!" she shrieked, her face the color of a ripe tomato. "What the hell!"
Lee blinked innocent eyes at them. "You mean you're not?" Tenten did not fail to notice that he was directing the question more to Neji than to her. Swiftly turning to her companion, she found Neji with his eyes closed, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gai trying to hold back his laughter.
"Am I missing something here?" she choked, wondering if she had just become the butt of a cruel, cruel joke.
"You mean you haven't told her?" Lee pressed on, and Tenten watched as Neji's forehead creased all the more.
"Shut up, Lee," the Hyuuga finally said.
"But . . . " Lee was about to continue, but Gai had already had a hand on his shoulder.
"Do you want some ice cream, Lee?"
Round eyes became rounder, and before Tenten could even begin to comprehend what was happening, Gai and Lee had already left the table, with the excuse of buying ice drops for all of them.
"What was that about?" Tenten huffed as she watched the two Konoha Green Beasts scamper away. To her surprise, she felt a warm hand on her own, and when she turned, she found Neji smiling, really smiling, at her.
"Ah," she managed to whisper, and realized she couldn't breathe.
(When Gai and Lee returned to their table with their promised ice drops, they found Neji, alone, with Tenten nowhere in sight.
Booming in righteous indignation, they ganged up on him and tried to wring his neck, shouting what did you say to our precious flower?, when Tenten suddenly popped from behind, eyebrow raised, wondering why the Hyuuga was trying to hold off two hyperactive taijutsu masters with his bare hands, five minutes after she slipped into the ladies' room.)
vi.
"Off to another mission?" she asked, when she found him standing in front of her apartment at four in the morning, five days before her 22nd birthday.
She was still asleep when he came knocking. She had half a mind not to answer the door, except that she knew it would be him; very few people were brave enough to venture to her side of town in the wee hours of the morning.
"You know I can't tell," was his answer.
She stifled a yawn, rolled her eyes and planted both hands on her hips. "Right," she muttered. "Then why the bloody hell are you here so early?" She pushed her door open to let him in, and headed to her kitchen. She heard him come in after her and close the door, and within minutes, she had two steaming cups of tea ready for them both.
"What time are you leaving?" she whispered, after they have both settled down in her couch.
"Eight."
"Ah."
They sipped the tea in silence for a few minutes, then, "How long?"
"I don't know."
She sighed. "You won't be here for my birthday, will you?"
Silence.
She sighed again, placed her cup on the small table in front. Neji followed suit. "What are you doing here, Neji?"
Silence once more. Finally, "You never gave an answer."
It took her a while before she realized what he was referring to. When she did, she found herself smiling softly, and she fought the urge to hold Neji's hand and tell him not to leave, to quit ANBU and come back to them, to her.
But she could never do that. ANBU was Neji's dream, and she was not about to take that away from him.
Instead, she answered, "You never asked a question."
(He didn't, not directly.
But Neji wasn't the type to be direct with those kinds of things anyway.)
vii.
The day of her birthday came and went, and minutes before it ended, Tenten found herself standing in their old training ground, watching the stars twinkle in the night sky. She had left the restaurant a few hours ago, after spending the better part of the evening with Lee, Gai, and a couple of other friends.
Her original plan was to head home, but her feet brought her to the clearing, and slowly, lovingly, she let her eyes wander through the worn-out target boards she used for practice, the poles Lee kicked during training, the trees Neji leaned on during short breaks. She didn't really plan on reminiscing, but reminisce she did, because she realized, a year after Team Gai disbanded, that she missed them so much it literally hurt sometimes.
All of a sudden, Tenten heard the crunching of dried leaves behind her. Suddenly, she knew.
"You're back."
The footsteps came nearer, and Tenten felt that, just like in the restaurant back then, she couldn't breathe.
"I am."
And she turned around, and there stood Neji, not in his ANBU uniform, but in his usual attire—white shirt with loose sleeves, matching white pants, and he looked every bit of a Hyuuga and not a special ops assassin.
"Hey," she whispered, trying her very best not to smile.
"I got you something," Neji whispered back, stepping closer and producing a small box from his pocket.
Tenten blinked. "What—"
"Don't worry, it's not a ring," Neji assured her, as if sensing Tenten's apprehension.
Face flushing red all of a sudden, Tenten chuckled nervously. "Never said it was a ring." She managed to grin, but her heart suddenly plummeted to her stomach. "Well, are you going to give it to me?"
"Depends," Neji answered, cracking a small smile. "Do you want it?" Do you want me?
An unspoken question, but she heard it nonetheless. It was as close to Neji ever confessing anything, and she guessed she should expect nothing more.
"Yes."
(It was a ring.)
viii.
"It suits you," she said, a small smile on her lips. She was tempted to trace the spiral with the tip of her fingers, and this time, she did. Neji shivered slightly at the contact, but Tenten knew it was of the good kind.
When she turned to him, she was met with a pair of curious, questioning eyes.
"What? I'm not allowed to admire a good tattoo now?" Tenten grinned, looking up at the clouds. Cloudgazing still reminded her of Shikamaru, but the knot in her stomach no longer made her queasy.
She was answered with silence, but she didn't exactly expect one anyway. For the moment, she was content—sitting on the riverbank, gazing at the clouds, with Neji sitting silently beside her.
Then, "A year from now, do you think we'll still be like this?"
She could feel Neji's eyes on her, eyes that have always made her lightheaded and safe, nervous and at home. She knew he was struggling to give her the most honest answer he could afford, because, in all truth, who can say what could happen in a year? In a month? In a week?
Fact was, she didn't know, could not know. Neji, for sure, wouldn't, either.
Finally, "I don't know," came Neji's answer, but Tenten no longer felt her eyes sting with unshed tears. Because gentle fingers brushed her own, and when Tenten looked down, she saw that Neji's hand completely covered her own, the ring he gave her nestled between them.
When she looked up, Tenten saw Neji giving her a heartwarming smile that made her heart soar.
"But given a choice, I wouldn't have it any other way."
("Ah," she managed to whisper, and realized she couldn't breathe. Then, "Why are you smiling like that?"
"Lee could never keep a secret for long," Neji answered, his hand still on Tenten's. "Not that I'm surprised."
"Secret? What secret?" She was nearly hysterical, and Neji's warm hand on hers wasn't helping things. "Damn it, Neji, quit smiling like that and tell me what's going on!"
The smile never left Neji's lips. "I've been thinking."
"Thinking of what?"
"Of quitting ANBU."
Tenten blinked. "But . . . why? ANBU is your dream!"
Neji's hold on Tenten became all the tighter. "It was." A pause. "But I have a new dream now."
The fuzzy wuzzy bunnies, which have disappeared for the longest time that Tenten thought they were gone for good, came back full force, and they tumbled and did cartwheels in her chest and stomach.
"And?"
Neji smiled, a smile that said so many things at once, so much that Tenten thought her heart would burst with joy.
"It includes you.")
Thank you for all the love and support! One more chapter (maybe) to go!
