When they first met

by Nanoue-Chan

Tenten doesn't remember when she first met Neji because they have always been best friends. But she clearly remembers the day she met Neji's girlfriend. That was when her world fell apart. And maybe the universe had a twisted sense of humour, because, through everyone they met and everyone that met because of one of them, Neji and Tenten always seemed to find each other back. AU.

12. When Hinata met Ino

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When they first met

Chapter 10 : When Hinata met Ino

Hinata hummed happily, looping the yarn another time around her needle. The growing red scarf she was knitting was comfortably resting on her expanding belly.

"Hey, Ino," The indigo-haired girl gently called out to her friend. "Remember the first time we met?"

Said friend raised her head from her nails she was painting, sitting on the floor at her friend's coffee table. "Yes…?" She raised a brow.

Hinata shrugged. "I was thinking about it the other day. How you knocked that girl Kin on the ground because she kept bullying me during our ballet classes."

Ino gave a disgruntled pout. "Oh, I hated her so much. Did you know she had a crush on Shikamaru?"

Hinata chuckled. "Yes, you always bring it up."

Ino shivered. "Imagine if they went out? I'd have to stand her."

"Impossible," Hinata vigorously shook her head. "Shikamaru would have never liked someone like Kin back."

"True." Ino agreed her focus back on her nails. "What does it have to do with anything, anyway?"

"Well," Hinata looped another red thread around her knitting needle. "I was thinking about how you didn't know me that day. Normally I only spoke to Tenten, and no one dared to bully me because they were scared of her. But that day, Tenten was sick because she…"

"... broke her arm fighting with Neji at the dojo." Ino laughed. "I remember Neji wouldn't let anyone approach her for months. He was like her personal bodyguard." She sighed. "He felt so guilty, and Tenten kept telling him it wasn't his fault."

Hinata shared a small smile. "Yes," She nodded, her eyes far away over her stitches, reminiscing old memories. "Even then, Neji was always so scared of hurting Tenten, and she was always so scared of losing him."

The indigo-haired pregnant woman shook her head to chase the bittersweet memories away. "In any case, that day, you stood up for me when you barely knew me. And during all the months when Tenten was healing from her broken arm, you put yourself next to me with Sakura, when you two usually stayed near the windows. You defended me until Tenten came back, until I learned how to speak for myself. And I remember that very first time, seeing Kin lying back on her helpless bottom after you pushed her out of my way; I remember thinking, 'Wow, she doesn't even know me, and she fights for me like that, I can't imagine to what lengths would she go for her closest friend?'. Then I had the privilege of growing up next to you for the past decade, and truly, your friendship has been a blessing every day since, and I still can't imagine to what lengths you go daily to protect and help complete strangers and how much you have given for your friends and…"

Hinata stopped, her voice suddenly charged with heavy emotions. Blame it on the pregnancy, she'd think.

"Hinata…" Ino whispered, worried by her friend's sudden emotional speech. "Is everything ok? You're not dying, right?"

The Hyuga girl chuckled, smiling happily, through the couple of tears that found their way out in her burst of feelings.

"It's just.." Hinata stopped to clear her throat. "It's just, I can only hope my son gets to have someone like you who will do anything to protect him so fiercely, you know?" She set her teary porcelain eyes on her blonde friend before continuing. "So, would you please be his godmother?"

Ino gasped. "Me? Really?"

The platinum blonde knew disbelief was not the usual response to your friend asking you to be their future child's godparent, but she couldn't help it. She hadn't thought in a million years Hinata would ask her. She knew the shy woman was closest to Tenten out of their friends' group. Otherwise, she thought she would probably ask Sakura since she was practically married to Hinata's husband's best friend, Sasuke.

But if she had to think about it, out of all their friends, Ino and Sai were the most stable, personally and financially, so it made sense, from a practical point of view. Yet, the kind words of her friend warmed her heart in ways she scarcely experienced. Not everyone saw her for who she really was. And maybe that's why she fell in love with Sai, someone who saw life through uncomplicated lenses of false social pretenses, he didn't stop at her physique to judge her inner self and had quickly zeroed on her truth.

And here was Hinata showering her with so much praise, and it nearly made her cry. Well, scratch that. It did make her cry. Because everyone always thought she was so meddlesome, but the truth is she couldn't stand seeing people helpless. She had always been spurred to go towards people hurting and do her best to either help them or accompany them through their hardship. Often others saw it as her not minding her own business, and before she made it her vocation to help people with their mental health, she knew she sometimes was too intrusive in her eagerness to want to assist people with their life difficulties.

Therefore, Hinata being so sincere and seeing all her intentions for precisely what they were, made Ino feel not only seen and validated by her friend but also very much valued. Sometimes she had to admit she craved that external validation, knowing her friend appreciated her efforts even though she could be clumsy and brash.

Thus, it was with a lot of mixed emotions of pride, love and gratefulness that Ino lunged towards her friend and merrily accepted her offer, kissing her cheek many times in between her thanks. Half an hour later, after Hinata heard all of Ino's bubbling ideas for her baby shower, both women leaned back on the Hyuga's couch, hearts full and satisfied with laughter and joy.

"I can't believe," Ino breathed out, suddenly a bit exhausted by the non-stop ideas she had sputtered for thirty minutes. "How much things have changed in the past year and a half."

Hinata nodded silently, continuing her knitting work.

"You got married." Ino started. "Then, a few months later, Shikamaru eloped with Temari on their trip abroad."

"That really took us all by surprise." Hinata widened her eyes at the recollection of their Suna friend coming back from their Europe tour with a ring on her finger and a sheepish Shikamaru trailing behind her.

"At least, Tenten got to attend." Ino shrugged. "Now look at them, living the happily married life in Konoha. A badass lawyer with a genius computer engineer founding his startup."

"And Temari's expecting too." Hinata supplied Ino's list of changes in the past months.

"Already five months old," Ino smiled. "Shikamaru won't shut up about the echography picture, going around showing it to everybody. Never saw this lazyass that excited about anything."

Hinata chuckled.

"And Sakura!" Ino exclaimed. "Can't believe Sasuke popped the question already."

"It was long due," Hinata said resolutely. "They've been gravitating around each other forever."

"Oh, it was." Ino sighed exasperatedly. "Just like two other stubborn mules we know."

Hinata's lips pressed into a thin line. "Can't wrap my mind around the fact Tenten found someone." She was surprised by her own bitterness.

"Had I known she'd be stupid enough to date my cousin," Ino huffed. "I would have never asked Deidara to show Tenten around during her first months in London."

After a pause, Ino continued unsure. "How did Neji take it?" She bit her lips.

Hinata shrugged. "Since he started seeing therapists, he's been even more closed off than before, if that's possible." She sighed. "It's hard to tell, but I feel him more distant since he heard the news about her new relationship. A bit like he gave up, you know?"

Ino nodded.

"But they're still in touch from what I heard of bits of conversation he had with her on the phone." Hinata continued. "It's not much, but it's like they still can't let go. It's just sad, all of this mess is."

Ino mulled this over. "Maybe they need divine intervention."

The blond leaned in secrecy to whisper something to her friend. "I probably shouldn't say this, but it is important, and I think I have an idea. I talked on the phone with Tenten yesterday, and she told me that…"

Hinata gasped.

---

"Hostile and rude." The blonde psychiatrist snorted, reading aloud some medical notes to her freshly new patient. Shifting papers, she continued to an impassive Neji Hyuga. "Anamnesis impossible to define as patient constantly deflects any asked question." She raised a brow in his direction before turning another page. "Avoids eye contact. Curt replies. Tells me 'my questions are inefficient and unnecessary.'"

She assessed the cold man again while she read aloud the following note. "Refuses to answer me when I asked him about his childhood, tells me to 'look up his past medical records.' Proceeds to ignore me for the rest of the session."

The psychiatrist levelled her honey eyes at the stoic man in front of her. "This medical note only says 'Guarded, withdrawn and uncooperative. I give up.' Care to elaborate?" She eyed carefully the unmoving Hyuga before sighing at his lack of response.

"The referral I got from your last therapist says: although without any cognitive impairment, patient refuses to talk." The woman paused to assess if her patient gave any inclination he cared. Or that he was even listening to her.

She decided to continue nevertheless. "Euthymic mood with hints of anger and depressive symptoms, affect seems constricted though it is hard to say since patient also harbour many avoidant personality traits. No perceptual problem. Thoughts remain inaccessible. Patient is clearly refractory to psychotherapy. Psychiatrist's opinion needed, thank you."

She waited a bit, hoping for any kind of response before further pressing him. "What do you think?"

Neji's eyes lazily slid over Tsunade Senju's face, his newly appointed psychiatrist after he drove five psychotherapists to exasperation, the last one giving an ultimate try to help him with this referral to Dr. Senju.

Tsunade carefully put back the sheets in his medical record, then leaned back down her plush and cushioned seat, intertwining her fingers and looking with interest at the patient she met for the first time and already proved to be trouble with a capital T.

"What do you want from me, Neji?" She asked him. "No one dragged you here." She raised her hands questioningly. "You're a free man. You can walk out the door anytime." She waved towards the door. "Yet, you stay."

Her quizzical gaze noticed the slight frown of his brows. "So, let me ask you, what is it you expect me to do?"

Neji pursued his lips. He didn't like being forced into a corner this way, but really he knew he kind of brought it upon himself.

After his father found him crying in his room, his uncle soon joined the discussion about his nephew's welfare. He was the one to insist on his nephew seeing a psychotherapist, and being in that vulnerable position, Neji had agreed when usually he always refused. He knew he did it because he made her a promise. He gave Tenten his words he'd try to come back to her, ready. But it was easier said than done.

Neji did not fully realize how difficult healing could be. It not only required him to ask for help, which for someone as prideful as him was not easily done, but it also demanded him to open up and be true to himself. For someone that spent most of his life running away from himself, it was not only hard but excruciating to face himself, mainly when being such a perfectionist, he could not accept his flaws and missteps and occasional lack of judgement.

In other words, Neji could not tolerate his mistakes, his weaknesses and mostly his fears because all of his identity was based on striving and achieving perfection in every other sphere of his life.

Tsunade let the silence settle in. Any psychiatrist would tell you that silence can be as powerful a weapon as any carefully worded question. Mostly with someone like Neji, who seemed to battle himself. Her experienced eyes could see some part of him wanted to seek help, thrived to improve, but a much larger, much older one kept rebuilding all the walls that were painfully torn down; making it a Sisyphean task for any psychotherapist to make him open up a tiny bit only for him to shut down immediately like a clam.

But this time, something was different for Neji, and he knew he'd have to shove his ego down and be ready to confront himself.

And yes, it absolutely had everything to do with the return of a certain brunette in less than a week. Gosh, Neji couldn't believe how time flew by during the last year and a half.

It felt only like yesterday that they danced at Naruto's wedding, and she tore down all his walls. After that, they kept their contact minimally. He knew Hinata had told her about his endeavours concerning his mental health, and she tried to be as supportive by respecting the boundaries they had both established. One thing was indisputable for both of them; if they went back to each other right away, they would only perpetuate the unsustainable and emotionally closed-off relationship they had before. If Neji didn't care about it, Tenten had made it clear she did. And because she cared, he cared too.

During the next six months following their heated discussion during his cousin's wedding, Neji had pushed his first psychotherapist at end's wits, and Neji decided to call it quits the day Tenten took her plane to London. He had thought that by the time she took her plane out of the country, he would have figured his shit together, and they'd be together in time before she left.

Alas, no. He was still stuck at the first step: talking. So when Tenten left, he thought he had lost. Thus, Neji had abandoned the idea of therapy altogether.

"You know," Sasuke told him one day after they had trained at the gym. "At first, when I wanted to stop using drugs, I wanted to do it for Naruto and Sakura. I wanted them to stop worrying about me and to be worth their love." He shrugged. "But it doesn't work this way. No matter the guilt and responsibility you feel towards others, with those things, you gotta be selfish."

Sasuke's onyx eyes bored into his, wiping the sweat down his neck with his towel. "You need to want it for yourself. You must want to heal for yourself and no one else. Or else the magic does not work." He said the last part smirking, wiggling his fingers as if casting a spell.

So after this discussion, Neji decided to find a therapist himself, which ended up being a big waste of time because the one he saw was not a good match at all.

"Temari says you have to shop for the right therapist. Sometimes their methods do not match your needs, or your personalities just don't fit." Shikamaru once told him just after his trip to Europe, where he and the sandy blond eloped to everyone's shock.

So after swallowing all his pride, Neji decided to ask for Ino's help. He turned back on his feet immediately when she clasped her hands and squealed in delight. A couple years later, he would abstain from telling Sai that Ino was way more surprised by his psychotherapy questions than Sai's marriage proposal.

"What is your style of therapy? What are you looking for?"

He must have looked especially confused because she took a deep breath and went on an hour-long lecture regarding the different therapies he could look forward to from a humanist approach to the very hot-at-the-moment cognitive-behaviour therapy.

Which led him to his third therapist just in time before Tenten called him out of the blue on a Tuesday afternoon.

It was a bit after New Year's Eve, and she had been in London for the past four months. He remembered every detail of the coffee place he was at when he answered his phone. The brown leather couches that had seen better days, the blue ceramic mugs stacked on an oak shelf. The rain sliding down the windows, dimly lit by vintage lamps posed on high tables. He heard this voice, her voice, rattling his bones after such a long time. He swallowed hard when she told him she was going to date some guy named Deidara, who happened to be Ino's cousin. He mustered his most detached voice to spit out he was happy for her. He threw his coffee immediately after he hung up, suddenly nauseous, and never came back to that place again.

To say he had cursed their blond psychologist friend would be an understatement.

Neji was not the type to really care about social media. Heck, his Facebook profile picture was still the one Hanabi, and Hinata forced him to take it a few years back during an outing in the park. Therefore, it was with a lot of frustration and embarrassment that he asked Hanabi to help him a bit when it came to stalking and getting the dirt on this new man in Tenten's life. All the while, Kankuro's warnings from two years ago kept coming in a loop in his head.

At least I had some respect for what you two had.

Yes, the more Neji learned bits and pieces about this guy, the less he liked him, and he wondered why Tenten even gave him the time of day. He at least had some respect from Kankuro, but Deidara? No. And as it turned out, he was good friends with Itachi too, so Sasuke did not hesitate to fill him in even more during their biweekly workouts at the gym.

"He's a photographer," Ino told him once, out of the blue, while they were all unloading their tents for a camping weekend with their friends. She gave him a guilty smile. "I only wanted him to show her around so she wouldn't feel too lonely. I didn't expect them to…" She trailed, hesitant, knowing it was better to leave Neji digest the news.

Well, she's not alone anymore, alright. Neji thought bitterly.

"Ugh, I hate this guy." Hanabi once groaned, showing him an article she found on him while stalking him a bit more. She told Neji it wasn't very difficult to dig up info on him since he was quite the influencer.

His little cousin was a little bit too invested in Tenten's new relationship, even more bitter about it than him. It was true that she was probably their most ardent supporter. And whenever Neji came back to spend the weekend or an evening at the Hyuga Mansion, she would tackle him with loads of new information.

He always pretended he didn't care when Hanabi came harassing him with her weekly report but kept his focus pin-pointed on her every word.

"He is a very renowned photographer." She scowled, displeased by his apparent success. "Last year, he held a gallery of his best photographs and burned all of them simultaneously in front of the people attending his vernissage. The ashes of one picture sold for a million and a half. Such a show-off." She rolled her eyes.

Even Hinata got in on it, she, who never said as much as a vexed huff about someone. "He's such a wanker." She frowned, looking at his Instagram. "Look at this," She handed her phone to her little sister while Neji pretended he was too busy by the menu at their brunch place. "He tries so hard to look candid and unaffected in his pictures." The older Hyuga woman gave a dissenting pout.

"He was an epsilon alpha." Sasuke snickered between elaborate breaths as they were running on the treadmill. "Quite the player, never serious in life unless it came to his art. Itachi says he isn't the most reliable of men. Maybe they'll break up soon?"

Everybody had something to say to him concerning Tenten's new relationship. It was like the whole universe was mourning except him.

"You're way more photogenic." Kiba once said over a pint of beer as the boys carefully tried to broach the subject of Tenten with their friend. Since the incident with the letter, his friends decided it was better to dive into touchy subjects rather than ignoring them because they apprehended his reaction. After all, nobody knew what kind of three-years-forgotten-life-changing-item Neji may have ignored again because no one in their entourage dared to approach the issue with him.

If everyone had their opinion on the matter, Neji didn't. He couldn't bring himself to believe this was it for them. In his head, this wouldn't last more than a couple of months.

During that time, Neji met his third therapist and started boxing to release his pent-up anger. The therapist he dropped soon after, but the box he still continues to go.

It was not really the therapist's fault; he had to yield. After he learned of Tenten's new relationship, everything the professional told him felt frustrating and useless. He had already lost; she was out of his grasp, so what was the point anymore?

He only agreed to see the fourth one after realizing his sour mood, to avoid calling it a heartbreak, started affecting his concentration at work. He'd begin typing a report or reviewing an excel sheet, and his eyes would wander off to London.

What time was it there?

Was she sleeping?

Were they naked in his bed, was her new man holding her like he used to?

Did Deidara even appreciate the luscious elaborateness of her smell? Or notice the way her lips always curved a little bit upward before she opened her eyes when she stirred from sleep?

Did he even cherish the little sounds she made when she stretched in the morning? Did he know how she loved when someone played with her hair, massaging her scalp after a long day? Or that if you caressed the little spot under her shoulder blades a little bit on the left side, she instinctively cuddled closer to you?

He'd lose himself in infinite 'did he,' and just like that :

"Neji, you made a few typos in your last report." Hinata would bite down her lips.

"Neji, did you review that merging proposal I sent you?" Hiashi would raise a brow.

"Neji, you made a mistake in this excel sheet." Hizashi would frown at his son's unusual lack of focus.

And all Neji could think was how Tenten's love was wasted on someone like Deidara.

Someone who surely couldn't appreciate, honour her as he should. The irony of it all certainly didn't escape his notice. Because to be fair, who was he to talk? When he had the whole universe in his arms, and he squandered it away.

Obviously, he had to get her out of his head and went to another therapist Ino had suggested. Anything to be able to focus back on his work… except actually do the work required to get better.

"So tell me more about your childhood." He had asked at their third session.

No. This was out of the question. Not only has Neji been asked this question in dozens of different ways already, but he also never understood why they were so obsessed with how he was as a child when everything that turned problematic happened when he was an adult.

Fine, fine, he could understand the idea of how childhood was a foundation. And he knew, he knew certain things that happened in his past had shaped him. Yet it was repetitive, boring and unhelpful. And as the therapist tried to explain why going back could be key to his current issues, Neji zoned out, remembering some focus pill Kiba had talked to him about with caffeine extract and ginger roots or whatever it was. Maybe Neji could just try that.

Turns he hadn't needed any of that. When Neji had to handle and secure a big new client, the thrill of such a large case completely took his mind off Tenten and whatever she was doing. The side effects of compensating his sorrow by overwhelming himself with work were that he had no life outside his job. Every day if he was not at the gym, he was at his desk. He slept less, ate less, and only indulged in social affairs when propriety would dictate it essential.

Which ended up being the perfect recipe for burnout. By mid-April, he was so overworked that even the most minor tasks like answering an email or returning a call seemed like a mountain. He'd procrastinate everything out of anxiety and sheer exhaustion. Everything seemed to require too much energy, and if his uncle hadn't gone through something similar and seen the symptoms he had experienced reappearing in his nephew's behaviour; Neji would have still been holding his head on his desk, trying to focus on his breathing and steel himself to at least open one of the hundreds document sent at him.

If his uncle forced him to take a paid leave, he knew better than to force him into therapy again. But the one thing Neji couldn't afford to lose was his work, which had been his lifesaver throughout all this mess, so he went himself to see a psychologist who he had heard from one of his clients.

Her rates were exorbitant, but at this point, all Neji wanted was to be functional again. Putting in the work and energy to gain back his self-efficacy was easy for Neji when it came to his job. But when she started to dig deeper into his personal issues, that's when things got tense. He had already crossed off the idea of keeping his word to Tenten. After all, she did not wait for him, and she was already happy with someone else.

He also knew that if it wasn't her, then it would be no one else. He didn't feel the need to have a stable and committed relationship with anyone else but Tenten. He did regularly enjoy a few meets here and there, but none of the quick hookups he had ever held a light to what he felt when he woke up next to his best friend and ran his hand down her back.

The disappointment and the self-loathing he subjected himself to whenever he woke up next to a stranger that could not hope to be half of what Tenten represented for him was so bitter he'd always promise himself to never have another one night stand again.

Yet, time after time, he'd be back in a bar gazing back and forth between the lusty eyes of a woman and the amber liquid in his glass. Gulping it down to find the courage to give in and hopelessly look for a little bit of her in all of them.

Psychologist number 5 was quite good, in all honesty. Gave him some trazodone that helped with his insomnia and recurrent nightmares, which he had very much appreciated. What he did not like was when she wanted him to elaborate on his bad dreams and when they appeared most frequently.

If he had cut ties with all the other therapists because they simply irritated him, he cut ties with number 5 because she was too good at her job. Always coming too close for comfort, knowing exactly which button to push, which question to ask and when to stay silent enough so he would slip up and say something just to fill the void. She knew too damn well how to read his evasive replies or his snarky comments.

No, number five was too dangerous. But she did prove a redoubtable adversary when she pulled that joker.

A psychiatrist referral.

Neji scoffed. He had never thought it possible. Yet, here he was in Dr. Senju's plush indigo couch, her scrutinizing gaze analyzing him over with all the gathered info that five failed psychotherapies could give her.

"Neji," She repeated again. "Neji, are you listening to me?"

Neji's attention snapped back to his current situation.

"Hn." He redirected his eyes back to her.

"Our time is almost up." She gave him a concerned look, which was a stark contrast to her playful smirk and unaffected gaze a few minutes earlier. "Why are you here, Neji?" She asked softly.

What was he doing here, after all?

Hope.

It was that damn, horrible, heart-wrenching feeling. Neji still had hope.

She was coming back in less than a week, and he wanted to at least be a bit better than how she had left him, a little bit of growth to show for himself, and unassumingly, be a bit closer to who he must be to deserve her.

Even if she had been with someone else for the past eight months. There was still hope, right? After all, he had been two years with Fu, and Tenten had been one year with Kankuro, and they still found each other, right?

Maybe, if she saw he was working towards better health, perhaps it would convince her, remind her, sway her.

He couldn't help but think so.

Hope.

And a tiny feeling lay behind all of these obvious reasons. Maybe some faint voice told him he wanted to feel better. If he stopped to take it all in, the past years, he wasn't happy much.

I just want happiness.

That's what she told him last time.

Maybe, that's all he wanted too. And even if not happiness, just contentment. He didn't expect to be happy all the time, but certainly, life couldn't always be so trying as it had been in the past. With Tenten moving away, Fu dying, his resentment and guilt overwhelming him for years, his complicated relationship with his best friend becoming his sort-of lover, his reignited unresolved grief over his mother, Tenten going away again.

He wanted to heal. And maybe for the first time, he could understand what the Uchiha meant when he said he had to do it for himself and no one else. It was too easy to find excuses to avoid facing yourself when you did it for other people. On the other hand, you couldn't fool your own mind, you couldn't lie to yourself, you knew of your cowardice. And if Neji hated anything, it was being a coward.

Tsunade had her fair share of recalcitrant patients in all her thirty years of practice, but this one Hyuga man really took the cake. Sure, she had patients who had refused to talk to her, refused to utter a single word for more than dozens of meetings even. But they all had very critical mental health issues like dementia, psychotic symptoms or experienced traumas so gut-wrenching that mutism was their only safe space. In other words, it's not that their lack of response was voluntary, contrary to this marble statue of a man looking at her with unimpressed eyes as if he expected her to have some sort of magic wand to fix him up.

As if that's how it worked.

As if he wouldn't have to fight for it.

As if there was something wrong or broken in him from the beginning. People weren't screwed up. It was their reactions to things that needed improvement. She always made sure to make the distinction with her patients.

For the umpteenth time, the psychiatrist sighed in exasperation.

"Neji," She continued, opting for another method. "Let me ask you one question and just answer this one for today. It's going to be easy, just yes or no, alright?"

Well, he didn't appreciate being talked down to like a child, but he had to admit he had been quite uncooperative. Thus, he couldn't blame her much and nodded his consent, although not without a certain reserve.

"Do you think you deserve love?" Her candid question flowed out right away.

Neji snorted. What kind of corny question was that?

Obviously, yes. Wasn't it the only possible answer? Who in their right mind would say 'No, I deserve to be hated.' Of course, he deserved love, health, and success. He was a nice -well, most of the time- person, and he worked hard in life.

Yet, the word 'yes' did not escape his mouth as spontaneously as it should have, as straightforwardly as it came to mind. The word pooled at the tip of his tongue burning like hot oil, heavy like a marble, ready to drop, but stubbornly holding on at the entrance of his lips.

Of course, I deserve love. He tried to scold himself out of his stupor.

But the word 'yes' could not escape his mouth even with his best efforts. He had to swallow it back, swallow down the lie, forced to look back straight at himself. In his inner mind, facing a mirror reflecting his darkest side, his almost alter-ego. Smirking back at him, hooded eyes, pale skin shrouded by pitch-black self-loathing. Shadows defined its features sharply like obsidian blades against skin. The reflection looked warped, inhumane, devilish, too pale, too cold for life.

It smiled cruelly back at him, taunting him. So you think you deserve love?

He wanted to run away but there was nowhere to turn to. He was back in a glass maze of his own doing, afraid of himself, of the sound of years of his own silence. He had neglected something that had desperately wanted to grow, to feel love. He had deprived this fragment of his soul of what it queried for the most. Belonging, affection, tenderness, intimacy. This part of him that should have known love now did not know how to receive it, even less give it. It had to grow against its own nature, a sin in itself. Now it was a monster lurking in the depths of his regrets, haunting the corners of his mind Neji avoided like dimly lit back-alleys in an eerily deserted village.

Forced to ponder the question, in the pristine, clean, well-kept logical part of his mind, well, yes, Neji thought he deserved love. But lost in the ruins of all the could have beens, Neji was forced to wonder : did his actions correlate with this affirmation? Did he treat himself and his relationships in a way that allowed him to receive love?

He thought of Tenten, he thought of Fu, and he thought of the many nameless women he had had sex with. As far as intimacy went, he mostly kept it physical, even with Tenten, who was probably his safest space on earth.

No, Neji could only conclude, as frighteningly clichéd as it was, he had not sincerely believed he could be loved for who he was, for all his scars and dark secrets. He held the firm belief that if anyone got to see him for who he really was, under the perfectly curated carapace of a handsome, aloof genius; people would run, dismayed by his true self.

His inner self was far less charming and grandiose than his outer shell. It was scarred and disfigured and limping and Quasimodoesque.

"No." came his flat reply.

The word left his mouth like a forbidden sin, unexpectedly. It blurted out as if it had waited years for the realization to take place so it could finally shake itself free from the shackles of an over-controlling mind. A cry for help, at last, that did not escape the discerning eyes of Tsunade.

She almost raised a brow, surprised by his honest answer when she was about to give up, a minute before the end of their first session.

"Why?" She whispered, as gentle as a light breeze, afraid any tone, any raised volume would disrupt this almost invisible, as frail as a spider thread, trust that was forming between her and her recused patient.

The answer to her question burned at the tip of his tongue, and Neji wanted to swallow it back. He looked at the clock, he knew in thirty seconds their meeting would end, and he'd be free to go back to false pretenses and safe lies. To comfortable misery and familiar drowning waters he knew how to navigate and torture himself in.

But Neji had to choose, either he jumped out of this burning mountain he had built out of his fears and doubts and dived in the sorrow he had avoided, or he stayed and let the fire consume him once and for all, lose himself in denial for good.

Lose her too.

What will you do when the next man will make her forget about you?

You must want to heal for yourself and no one else. Or else the spell does not work.

Please, find me.

Maybe you and Tenten needed to find your own paths before you could find your path together.

Every time I hold you, I lose you.

Everything you did. It was always for her, wasn't it?

Don't let me go.

You need to talk about her, Neji.

You need to talk about her, Neji.

You need to talk about her, Neji.

Twenty seconds left until the end.

Voices mingled in Neji's dizzied mind. All of the events of the past few years came into a blur with spoken words overlapping as his brains tried to zero in on one particular souvenir he had pushed far away in a dusty corner of his memory. Every time he came close to it, he tried to run from it again. All the while, those spoken sentences came, like radio interferences, impeding him from finding refuge in any other memory than the one he had buried deep within.

Ten seconds left.

He felt alone, stranded in the dark. He was nine-year-old again, alone in a pitch-black room, surrounded by voices repeating the exact same words, growing louder, circling him faster, until he couldn't take it anymore. Until he couldn't fight it anymore, and his inner child crumbled, his callous expression disappearing, everything disappearing, but the crystal clear voice of Tenten.

You need to talk about her.

Then, it came, blurry at first, he tried to push it down, but it burst through. He was too vulnerable. He had opened too many doors he couldn't shut back quickly. Unlike the other times when people shattered his shell, he could rebuild it quickly. But when he opened the doors himself, he couldn't back out as easily.

A hand, pale, streaked with crimson. Far away, charcoal eyes, watery. Pale chapped lips, murmuring his name. Weak, feeble, dying. His own hands, trembling, and his heart exploding, panicked.

His screams, soul-piercing, high, alien-like.

Blood, it stained, it had a wretched metallic smell. It was a blade piercing through his senses. Severing him from his once untainted credulity that the world was good and bright.

"Neji?" Tsunade asked, unsure of whether she had lost him again.

He looked back at her eyes, hesitant. He was at the edge of release, of diving in, of taking the leap.

I deserve all of you.

His eyes grew moist, unlike his parched throat. His heart was bouncing wildly. He might as well be standing at the edge of Mount Everest, waiting for the world to crash onto him.

Five seconds left.

"I…" He began, words grazing his tongue, clinging to him, paining to get out.

Three seconds left.

Doubts, fierce, bold, intransigeant. Fighting him, overpowering him.

"Because.."

Fear, of others, of himself, of truth and even of healing. Because what was he if not in pain? What was his life, if not his self-made purgatory?

He gave up. This was useless.

Hell, maybe, yet still home to him.

Two seconds left.

No.

Home was her. Home was warm, glistening chestnut eyes, ylang-ylang notes, crystal clear laughter and silky smooth honey skin wrapped around him.

Never mind what stood between them. She was Tenten and he was Neji, and this silly simple truth implied they would find each other. They always did, and they always would. Because who were they if not meant to each other?

"Because…" He licked his lips in apprehension. Almost two decades holding his deepest, darkest secret, and now it would spill, disintegrate his impregnable fortress and render him at the complete mercy of fate.

"Why do you feel you don't deserve love?" Tsunade asked again, urgency in her voice, afraid they would lose everything they had worked on in the past hour.

It needed to unblock, now and here, before she'd lose him for good, and he'd retract in a shell she'd never have access to again. It was now or never. The Sisyphean nightmare that Neji lived in needed to end right here. She needed the rock to be pushed over the hill right now, his emotions to be bared so they could never be veiled again.

"Why?" She insisted, leaning forward, eyes glued to the slight tremble of his lips, hesitating over the words they wanted to form.

Now or never.

"Because..." His throat was closing in on itself, air barely making its way through.

One second.

Then, it all exploded. The fortifications, the fortress flew like ashen dust in an ink-stained soul.

"Because I killed her." He finally let out in a strangled voice, gasping and panting as if he had just almost drowned in his inner war. More calmly, still breathless, he repeated:

"I killed my mother."

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A/N: The next update is going to take a little bit of time because I want to finish the story completely before updating the next chapters. Only four chapters left, I can't believe how far this went!

Thank you, everyone, for your kind comments! They're so fun to read. I'll answer them in the next chapter!

Take care.