I have no idea if this story even makes any sense, but I had fun writing this chapter.
Have fun, kids!
Edit: some of you might notice that the summary has changed so many times because this fic did not go the way I expected it to at all. I'm not mad, though! Hope you like it anyhoo.
Tenten wasn't always in love with that ass of a Hyuga.
In fact, she'd never banked on it happening. If someone had bet her that she was going to fall in love with this son-of-a-dodo over a baked potato, marry him, and have three kids with him – why, she would have lost her life savings. The bet would have been a little too on-the-nose, but stranger things had happened to Tenten.
The first time she met that anemic ice-queen was in the Ninja Academy as a young child. He told her to get out of her seat and pushed her out of her chair when she didn't. Tenten didn't cry. She sat on the seat behind him and threw little pieces of paper at the back of his head the rest of the class, until the teacher caught her and made her stay behind to write lines. Of course, Neji hadn't even realized that she had taken revenge on him for that little act of cruelty until years later, when she told him on a mission, lying in separate sleeping bags in the same tent.
"Have you seen my hair? Do you think little bits of paper and eraser are going to get through all that to my scalp?" he demanded, indignant, but not for the reason she imagined. "God, my Byakugan was a mess at that age, wasn't it?"
Tenten did not bother answering.
Anyway, in the academy, Neji pushed all the children out of that seat until they got it in their brains that it was his seat. He was smarter and faster and stronger than any of the other kids, so, naturally, the girls loved him and the boys despised him. Rock Lee, a small, furry creature incapable of using his chakra for ninjutsu or genjutsu, declared Neji his rival and used him as a kind of scale to measure his own progress. But Neji progressed in leaps and bounds and somersaults in ways none of the kids could even comprehend. No one was anywhere near his level. He even made the teachers, all Chunin and some semi-retired Jonin, nervous.
During foster home #3, Tenten lived a half-block past the Hyuga compound. It was a massive collection of ancient manors, complete with its own restaurants, blacksmiths, healers – the works. She didn't care that Hyuga Neji was walking two feet before her, walking slowly as if to pretend that she wasn't there. The Sakura tree within the compound were enormous, gently blessing the road outside its walls with a shower of petals. Tenten caught one, quick as a flash, without much thought. Looking up, she saw the gate open before Neji, who was quickly swallowed up by the compound. There was no one waiting for him inside the gate and no cry of welcome was heard over the wall. Tenten hurried home, feeling a hundred pearly white eyes focused on her back. She had quite the overactive imagination as a child.
It should be noted that they weren't even friends during their academy years. Tenten and Lee became friends, though. Tenten despised him, looked down on him, even, just like all the others. She wasn't great at ninjutsu or genjutsu, either, but she had the basics down pat, pat, pat. The first time they sparred in the schoolyard, Tenten used a judo move she'd learned through a video and flipped Lee onto his back like he were a very big trout. He had the wind knocked out of him, and the other students cheered Tenten. She accepted their admiration with grace and was going to get a drink of water when Lee called out to her.
"Can you teach me that move?" he asked. Tenten turned slowly on the balls of her feet, incredulous.
"Don't you have any shame?" she asked.
"No," Lee replied, unsmilingly, breathing too hard. "I don't have time for that."
"Well, damn, alright then," Tenten said, using the bad word foster mother #2 had used. She taught him the move, slowly, demonstrating where to grab and how to shift his hips to accommodate the other person's weight before using it against them.
"Can I try it out on you?" Lee asked.
Tenten bit back the urge to curse him out and pointed out, bitingly, "I'm a girl."
"You don't look any different from me," Lee said, the idiot that he was, giving her a once over. Tenten threw him to the ground using a pro-wrestler move this time. After he was done choking on his own spittle, Lee beamed at her.
"Wow! That one was really bad! Can you teach it to me?"
And she did. Just like how she taught him how to better his aim and his grip on various weapons and equipment.
"Alright!" he'd yell. "If I can throw this kunai a hundred times, I'll be just as good as you!"
"No, you won't," Tenten would snap, affronted, and roll her eyes. Somewhere deep down in her heart, however, she feared it would be true, and she would throw alongside him.
When they were put in the same genin team, Tenten was pleased and displeased. Pleased because Lee and she got on well enough, displeased because the moment she saw him, dead-last Rock Lee, she knew Hyuga Neji, overlord of all things ninja, mister you-throw-like-a-girl-and-you-will-never-throw-better-that-is-your-fate-oh-is-that-so-then-let's-see-what-you-can-do-harrumph-any-shinobi-should-throw-at-least-that-well would be there to balance the team out.
She also couldn't believe she was only average.
Someone who definitely wasn't average was Might Gai, their teacher, who arrived on a turtle's back for crying out loud. He beat them all soundly in their first exercise to gauge their abilities.
The third time Tenten was thrown in the air, caught by her ankle this time, she thought she saw a compassionate sparkle in his eye. But no, she was sure it was a psychotic gleam of joy as a moment later she fell into the lake and got a noseful of water. At least he threw Neji at nine trees – what, he only got thrown into seven? Hmm. Maybe Neji wanted to remember it that way. It was definitely nine. You can bet your bottom stinking-dollar Tenten was counting.
When Gai took on hardworking Lee as his protégé, something chilled in the pit of her stomach. She'd just gotten her friend stolen by a teacher – to think, Rock Lee, dead last, teacher's pet – and that left her with cold-blooded Hyuga.
He wasn't bad as a teammate, not as much as she expected anyway. He seemed to think her abilities with a kunai were halfway decent and deserved some sort of recognition. He would use her, she realized sometime after their second spar, to perfect his technique. That was fine with her, she thought as she steeled herself. She would use him to perfect her own. So they used each other in mutual understanding and grudging admiration.
The first time he insulted her intelligence and sense of good judgment, she gave him a piece of her mind the way foster mother #2 had done whenever any of her five children gave her attitude. To her surprise, she did not wake up murdered in her own bed the next day. To her surprise, it worked. He never mentioned that she should not be 'fooled into believing those scammers' and that he could 'understand why you would want to invest some hope in the endeavor, given what you've been through, but it really is a foolish one.'
Over a year, they'd really become good comrades, if not friends. Almost friends. She respected and admired him, while he acknowledged and trusted her talents and skills.
She fell in love with him two days into the Chunin exams, which wasn't fair to anyone, least of all herself. It was in the early morning, before the sun had risen high enough to penetrate the thick canopy above them, and Neji was meditating while listening to the birdsong, when he suddenly reached his hand out behind him. A small grey pigeon sat on his finger and he drew it close to him.
He liked birds.
That was it. That was the only reason Tenten fell in love with him.
Fu-uck.
Tenten was usually so no-nonsense that Lee often wondered aloud if she wasn't their fourth male member, comparing her to Sakura ever after that. But here she was, infatuated with her stoic, sociopath, overachieving genius of a teammate because he liked birds.
It was because he was sociopathic that she was caught off guard and liked him, she decided. If he had shown any semblance of gentle humanity before that day, she would have thought, "Oh cool," and cooked the pigeon.
But no, she watched him gently stroke the pigeon - no, the air around the pigeon, and then throw it aloft. She watched his eyes follow it hopefully, but the stupid bird did not leave the forest. His eyes darkened slightly, and he returned to meditation.
The moment had passed.
The fact that Neji was capable of change had never occurred to her before Naruto went ahead and kicked in Neji's worldview, but when she looked back and remembered that grey pigeon, she said, yes. It all makes sense now.
She gave him a paper crane before that match. She had been possessed to wear makeup. He accepted the paper crane and the hug without reaction and only looked at her slightly smudged lipstick like she might be insane. He was too polite to say anything, but if people thought Neji didn't express himself, they were dead wrong.
She hadn't slept all that last night, imagining that she'd get her first kiss with this lipstick. It would be her lucky charm. Blue was her lucky color that day, but she was not going with blue lipstick. She had a blue scarf in her pocket that she kept fidgeting with instead.
Her heart raced and her breath quickened and her thoughts came in frantic bouts, but still he just gave her that weird look, accepted her formal wish that he prevail, and left. When he was interested in the psychological state of another person, Neji was Sigmund fucking Freud, but he only ever extended that intuition to learn his foes' weaknesses or to catch his teammates out when they were lying.
Idiot.
Tenten ran into Naruto before the fights began and wished him a vague, pitying good luck. He was screwed and she knew it.
"Heh, thanks," he said, and turned around as an afterthought. "You're teammates with him, right?" he asked.
"Yeah." Idiot.
"Watch closely later! I'll show you how it's done," Naruto said confidently, and headed to his seat. Tenten would later recall how blue his eyes were in the sunlight.
"You know, when I was down there," he would tell her when they passed their next Chunin exam – Neji had made Jonin in one go, the lucky ass.
"What?" Tenten asked, flat out drunk. She and Lee had gotten into the sake and of course Gai had to knock Lee unconscious to get him to stop trying to fight Neji.
"Never mind," Neji said with a small, private smile.
"What is it?" Tenten whined, grabbing hold of his sleeve and shaking. And then she burped, except that burp wasn't the end of it, and she threw up all over Neji's clothes. He tossed her over his shoulder like a burlap sack of potatoes – his clothes were already ruined – and carried her home. Tenten had fallen asleep.
When she woke up the next day, she screamed in a low guttural voice the entire time she was in the shower and up to the moment she stepped out of her house, ready for training.
Neji was standing at her, his mouth slightly ajar, a container of porridge and some medicine in his bag. He didn't even say anything but pushed past her into the house. He set the porridge into a bowl and sat her down before it.
"Eat," he said imperiously, and she ate.
"What about training?" Tenten asked weakly after she had finished about half the bowl.
"What training," Neji intoned humorlessly. "Tenten, do you remember anything that happened last night?"
"…Yes," Tenten said, in what she thought oozed nonchalance.
"Then you remember getting the results of our Chunin exam and going out to celebrate and the thing that Lee became, yes?" Neji asked.
"Yes," Tenten said, truthfully, as bits and pieces came back to her as he mentioned them.
"And so you remember me escorting you home so that you might get a good night's rest before training the next day, that is, today?" Neji continued.
"…Yes," Tenten said, untruthfully this time.
"Wrong, because that is not what happened," Neji said, still in that dead dead voice he used when he was pissed or annoyed. "What happened is you were so inebriated I had to carry you over my shoulder and then you got in the shower and cried that life is beautiful and then threw your plates at me and told me you were never going to see my face again because I was an ignorant ass-face."
Tenten chortled despite herself. Drunk Tenten was funny. Neji did not seem inclined toward a feeling of humor or companionship at that moment.
"Wha-at," Tenten told Neji's judgmental look. "You came back, with porridge no less. I'm happy to see your ignorant ass-face."
She patted his cheek casually, pat pat, and went back to eating.
Neji looked at her ceiling and breathed hard through his long nose.
"You're a terrible drunk, Tenten. You're no better than Lee," Neji informed her, cutting her to the quick. Tenten gave him a look of genuine hurt and confusion.
"That's low," she said, her voice cracking despite herself.
"I mean it," Neji said firmly, crossing his arms over his chest. "You're never drinking alcohol in my presence again. One of us will be forcefully removed from the situation, and I do not plan on being removed."
"Drunk Tenten was right," Tenten said, making a face at Neji. "You are an ignorant ass-face."
"Really?" Neji shot back without missing a beat. "Drunk Tenten had a very strange logic that claimed that the reason I am an ignorant ass-face is because I kiss birds."
Tenten froze with her mouth open and accidentally drooled a little into the porridge. She sucked the spit right back up and Neji condemned her with his expression.
"I said that?" she asked, hollowly, cleaning out her bowl anyway and washing it – anything to turn her back to him. He could see her face now if he wanted, but she hoped he didn't want to. A red heat rose up her neck, her ears, and her face, coming to a rest at her forehead like a fever.
"Yes, and I would appreciate if you clarified what that means, especially since I didn't finish what I was going to say yesterday," Neji told her back. He probably saw steam coming off her ears.
"Well, I can only say that Drunk Tenten was drunk," Tenten said apologetically. "Sorry. Don't know."
"Hn," Neji grunted, as though he had expected as much.
"So," Tenten said curiously, taking a seat again. "What were you going to tell me yesterday?"
"The moment of companionship has passed, Tenten," Neji informed her.
Tenten drew a face and imitated him right to his face.
"The moment of companionship has passed, Tenten. You're a worse drunk than Lee, Tenten. You will never drink alcohol in my presence again, Tenten. You cannot handle your liquor. You never will learn to control your liquor. Such is your fate."
Tenten knew she had crossed a line when Neji got up abruptly.
"Holy shit, Neji, c'mon-," Tenten said, chasing after him and jumping on his back in an effort to tackle him. He deposited her smoothly back on her feet and whirled on her, his face awfully close. Two bright red spots sat high on his cheeks and Tenten felt her breath catch in her throat. He wasn't awfully tall, but neither was she, and his black hair came down on both sides like a curtain, making a distinct space where their breaths mingled.
Could it be-?
Tenten puckered her lips. She couldn't help it.
"Wha- what are you doing?" Neji demanded incredulously, instantly distancing himself from her.
"I – who the fuck knows, Neji! I thought you might want a little sugar! Maybe that was what you were going to talk to me about last night! You're probably re-al wound up, if you know what I mean, and I do know what I mean – I mean, you know what I mean 'cause you're a freaking genius, Hyuga Neji, always knowing everything except that you're an ignorant ass-face 'cause ya kiss birds!" Tenten yelled, backpedaling frantically and bumping into the table behind her.
"That's what I was going to tell you about! The birds!" Neji yelled right back.
They stared at each other, chests heaving. Neji's face was a bright red. Tenten fared no better.
"Say what now?" Tenten said after a while.
"The birds – I was going to tell you about the birds," Neji said impatiently, still half-yelling. "When I was in the Chunin exam, in the fight against Naruto, I saw the birds – there was an eighth bird, there always was an eighth bird, and that's what I wanted to tell you about!"
Neji explained his training with the Byakugan where he tried to find all the birds behind him. There was always one that he just missed in his blind spot, and he was going to tell her that he thought it was funny because that was the day his life changed. Tenten deflated and slid to the floor, laughing shakily.
Neji stared at her impassively.
"What's so funny?" he demanded, the volume and passion lost from his voice.
"I have no idea," Tenten howled, crying from the laughter, until Neji rolled his eyes at her and smiled.
"Are you absolutely sure that you do not want that sugar?" Tenten asked when Neji made to leave.
"What exactly are you offering?" Neji asked, turning slowly back around.
It turned out he wanted the sugar.