Persepolis130
Notes: Wow, nobody freaked about last chapter! And interestingly enough, some people think Neji should get back with Hinata, even though she's quite possibly his sister... we'll see! So Neji's worse than Itachi, eh? Maybe. Maybe not. Thanks for all the excellent reviews (they make me giggle), and sorry for taking so damn long to post this-- I do have several very good excuses though, the first being that I lost my job, the second being that I moved, the third being that I now have MONO! Blergh! No kisses for me!
CHAPTER 18
"Tenten! Tenten!"
Grabbing another pebble, Neji tossed it through her open second-story window. His Byakugan saw it plink gently off her cheek, and he hissed her name once more, as loudly as he dared at this time of night.
"Who is it?" she mumbled, blinking sleepy eyes at her empty room.
"It's Neji," he whispered, his hands cupped around his mouth to make the sound travel. "Come to your window!"
He watched her chakra output increase, flowing through her in a nice, even current, as she sat up and rubbed a patch of dried spit from the corner of her mouth. She smoothed her sleep-mussed hair back as she climbed to her feet, making her way to the window. "What do you want?" she asked, voice thick with sleep, "It's the middle of the night..."
He deactivated the Byakugan when he saw her form appear in the window, silhouetted by the glow of a full moon. "We need to talk," he told her, thinking offhandedly that she looked almost pretty. "Let me come up."
She sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Neji... I can't-- holy shit, what're you wearing?"
"My clothes were wet," he said in a low voice, forcibly not looking down at his current attire.
"So you decided to wear THAT!" she squeaked.
"Shh! Tenten!" he hissed, not wanting to wake the whole street, "I didn't have any choice!"
"But, but..." she squirmed uneasily, all traces of drowsiness gone, "Neji... have you LOOKED at yourself?"
Grimacing, Neji pulled at the uncomfortably clinging material that was currently rubbing unnervingly against his thighs, cramping his shoulder blades, and chafing at the bandage on his neck. "It's not like you've never seen green spandex before!"
Tenten gaped.
"I'm coming up," he announced, gathering his chakra for the leap.
When he landed on her sill, Tenten backed toward her futon, hands raised and a look of intense disbelief on her face. "Please tell me you haven't decided to wear that thing on a permanent basis. Because even if you don't have the eyebrows, it's--"
"I told you I didn't have any choice!" he said, pulling her window shut behind him. "My clothes were wet, and Gai-sensei loaned it to me! He doesn't own anything else!"
"How did your clothes get wet?" she asked, still looking highly apprehensive. "It hasn't rained."
Neji scowled. "I wore them in sensei's shower."
Tenten blinked.
Too exhausted to come up with a plausible explanation (if such a thing were even possible given the circumstances), the best he could do was, "First it was really incredibly hot out, and then this woman made me terribly upset, and after that Gai-sensei hit me and took me to his place for medication, and--"
"Are you drunk?" Tenten asked.
Neji sighed, slumping down onto her bed mat, and wished he were.
"...because you're acting really weird." Tenten sat down lightly next to him, looking concerned. Neji shook his throbbing head as she fiddled with the hem of her bedclothes nervously. "Um, Neji? Gai-sensei didn't... ah... do anything... strange to you... did he?"
Neji stifled an overly-knowing groan. "He's not like that."
Tenten shrugged, looking unconvinced. "If you say so."
Turning his gaze to a small scroll hanging beside her window that bore the kanji for "strength," Neji took a deep breath, his lungs stiff at the effort. His entire being felt open and raw, as if his soul had been scraped to the core with a dull kunai. But he had to go on.
"Gai-sensei says the first step is admitting you have a problem," he mumbled to himself.
He felt Tenten shift beside him. "What?"
"Nothing," he said quietly. Swallowing heavily, he added, "But... I think there's something... maybe... " he paused, his chest feeling unnaturally tight. "I might have a... problem..."
"Yeah," she answered, giving him an odd look, "you're wearing a hideous green spandex bodysuit."
Neji sighed sadly and shook his head, feeling grossly misunderstood. "Other than that."
Tenten giggled.
"It's just that lately..." he sighed, turning his gaze down to his knees, "women keep throwing themselves at me," he told her, too worn-out to explain. "And I... don't know what to do about it."
"Yeah, that must be awful, Neji," she told him, sounding annoyed. "However do you cope?"
He frowned at her sarcasm and yanked at his chafing neckline again, silently cursing Temari, himself, and the world in general. "No, you don't understand. I hate it. I wish I'd never had sex with anyone, ever. I never even wanted to in the first place, but--"
"Get out."
Neji blinked up at her, feeling cruelly betrayed. "But I--"
"No. This is not happening," Tenten announced, hands on her hips as she glared across at him. "The Chuunin Exams start tomorrow, and I am not missing an entire night's sleep because you want to make yourself feel better for publicly humiliating me, so--"
"That's not what this is about!" he insisted.
"Then what IS it about?" she demanded, "Why did you even come here!" She looked more tired than angry though.
Laying back against Tenten's bed mat, hands folded across his stomach, Neji stared uninterestedly at a water stain on her far wall. "I don't know. I just felt like I should."
He felt her lay down beside him, her shoulder brushing his. After a few moments, she said, more calmly now, "I don't get it."
Neji sighed. This was miserable.
There was nothing he wouldn't give to be with Hinata right now. She'd understand what he meant. She'd soothe him and fall asleep curled in his arms, soft skin warm against him, and the world would be right again.
But he couldn't have that anymore, not with what he knew now. He'd never feel that calm comfort, that feeling of oneness, of peace. He couldn't turn back time. Fate had dictated another path, and he had no choice but to follow the road ahead of him.
And there was no way he could go home tonight.
Closing his eyes, Tenten's bed soft against his back, he told her, "There are just some things you can't undo, no matter how much you want to."
"Like what?" she asked, turning onto her side and resting a hand on his shoulder.
Like falling in love with my own sister. "I don't know."
Tenten pondered this for some time, taking a strand of Neji's slightly damp hair and twisting it gently between her fingers. "Yeah."
They lay in silence for several long minutes, the sound of their breathing filling the room, Tenten's callused fingers trailing slowly across his cheek. "Neji..."
He felt her lean toward him, breath on his cheek. "Don't," he whispered, closing his eyes.
"You don't know what it's like," she murmured, sliding her lips lightly across his jaw line. "Feeling like this..."
Neji turned his head away from her, silently willing her to stop. "I wish that were true," he murmured.
He didn't know why he said it. After all he'd done to keep it a secret, he'd gone and said something like that. Maybe it was because, even with all he'd been through, he knew he wouldn't be able to resist her. But he immediately wished he'd kept his mouth shut.
As soon as the words left his tongue, he felt Tenten pause, lips inches away, fingers still but warm against his cheek, and he squeezed his eyes shut, silently begging her to silence. She hovered there for some time, her breathing slow. Eventually, he heard her take a deep breath before sliding down to lie beside him on the mattress.
Neji opened his mouth to somehow correct himself, but when nothing came out, he closed it again. He just couldn't deal with it right now, any of it. The only rational thought he could form was that he wished this spandex didn't chafe so damn much.
"Okay," Tenten finally whispered. Her fingers squeezed his shoulder in an oddly soothing way.
Neji sighed and relaxed back onto the mattress. Damn, he was tired.
"But..." Tenten began in a quiet voice, "Neji? Can you do me a favor? Just a little one?"
Neji took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He knew getting out of that had been far too easy. He was such an idiot. "I'll try."
"You can sleep here tonight if you want, but..." she sighed, "please, just..."
Oh god, thought Neji, here it comes...
"...just don't ever wear that outfit again. Okay? I mean, it just... really creeps me out. Alright?"
It was a testament to his level of fatigue that Neji heard himself laugh, quiet and low in the back of his throat, and when Tenten giggled and hugged him, he felt as though a weight had been lifted from him. He wondered briefly if this was what friendship was.
So with his head heavy, neck still throbbing, and teammate curled beside him, he finally drifted off to sleep in his clingy green spandex. After the day he'd had, he could've hoped for no better.