Chapter 2: The First Departure

Silk rustled. Neji watched as she slipped away, dark strands of hair curling softly over her eyes, the curve of a flushed cheek tilted away from his gaze. Black lace bled and trailed behind in her wake, their glossy sheen tainted momentarily a warm red in the flickering lamplight.

And then she was gone, and the soft imprint of her form on the velvet was all that was left. The curtains rose and fell gently, lifted by the breeze to drift gently across his line of vision.

He leaned over and shut the windows.

10 years ago –

It was summer and they preferred to train in the cooler evenings, working late into the night.

The aftermath of their training always meant silence and perhaps a gentle sort of companionship. He'd settle down and loosen his hair, sometimes stretching out his legs to fix his bindings. He never asked her to stay behind but she always waited for him anyway, loitering behind him or lazily picking out her weapons from the ground. Sometimes he'd murmur a few lines about her technique; other times she would hum quietly, slightly off tune. But mostly there was silence, their breaths mingling in the still air as they rested and watched each other.

She had gone easy on him today, and he knew why.

Their training ground was nothing more than an average sized clearing near the border of the forest. The canopy was relatively low here and moonlight managed to filter through the branches, drifting across twisted roots and pebbles, sometimes pooling in shimmering expanses of silver on the dirt ground. The terrain alternated from being terribly pockmarked, scattered with small pieces of shrapnel, to smooth, shallow circles from Neji's kaiten. This was their place, a little piece of Konoha they had claimed for themselves over the years.

But tonight -

Her face was too pale in the moonlight. She was leaning against a training post, running her fingers lightly over an elbow and up the length of her arm before tugging down nervously at the edge of a gold rimmed sleeve. Neji watched her shadow out of the corner of his eye but stayed put on the ground, seemingly focused on binding his knee, wrapping the white cloth tightly about his palm before threading it up, down, and around in rhythmic turns. He waited.

"I'm leaving," she said abruptly, because the apparent normalcy of the situation was fraying her already raw nerves and she had spent too long watching him like this, night after starless night.

"....Leaving?" His voice was calm, face expressionless as usual, but he had put down the roll of bandages and Tenten knew she had his full attention.

"Tonight. To train with Anko." She twirled a kunai between her fingers, a silly pretense at casualness.

"Where?"

"I don't know...somewhere far from here. I won't be coming back for a while."

"A few years, you mean."

Silence hung heavy between them, broken only by the quiet scattering of dry leaves in the wind. Tenten looked pointedly away from him and Neji felt something constrict in his chest painfully, something white and hot and embedded too deeply in him to ignore.

"Tenten," he began, standing up, trying to take on an exasperated tone but failing miserably. "You-"

"I've packed already," she interrupted him hurriedly, as if afraid of what he might say. "I just came here to tell you."

"Why?"

But he knew why.

"Eh, I guess I just want to see new places...try new things..." she trailed off lamely.

Liar.

"You don't have to do this to yourself." To us.

Her hands clenched, nails drawing blood. When she looked up to face him finally her eyes were dull. "This is for the best."

This is for the best. Tenten was running, bare feet slapping against the ground as she stole across the street and slipped into the alleyway behind the main street. Breathe in, breathe out, don't cry, don't think-

Screw that. Her mind was a filthy mess of memories and dreams of him, all entangled up like barbed wire tearing bloody gashes in her consciousness. Breathe in, breathe out and the narrow ditch before her was shimmering and blurring. She blinked and wet trails traced down her cheek, but she was off and running again, splashing through the tepid water and sewage even as she reached up and brushed the tears away, roughly. He wasn't suppose to be here, he wasn't supposed to be the one she had to kill –

Tenten had always known it was coming. For a while it was enough, walking behind Neji everyday. She thought she had found her place in life at the age of fifteen, following this bright star in her sky. She was his shadow and he was the embodiment of her dreams, her faith.

But she was ambitious, and ambition and faith are different things.

She'd catch herself sometimes, lecturing Lee for daring to challenge Neji. Or the way she hung reverentially onto his every word. She had tried to brush it off as loyalty -

But it wasn't. And somewhere along the way, she was losing her dreams in his blinding light.

When Tsunade chose Sakura to be her student Tenten had smiled sweetly and congratulated the younger girl. On the way home she had torn herself into shreds, her own mocking voice ringing in her mind.

I want to become a great kunoichi. I want, want, want –

Wanted so much that it became painful to train or fight with Neji, watching his graceful, strong movements and feeling unbearably inadequate. Weak.

She went to find Anko.

The windows slammed shut with an unnerving kind of finality. Neji slumped forwards, resting his shoulders against the glass for a moment before groaning and falling back onto the couch, fingers crumpling the velvet beneath him. Why, why hadn't he run after her?

He didn't know.

Or maybe he did. Tenten was a missing-nin – an enemy of Konoha. Chasing after her, catching her, would have also meant killing her and dragging her body back to Konoha. This was wartime and the political situation was too sensitive, too dangerous – there could have been no mercy, no pardon from the Hokage-sama despite what he had said earlier.

He didn't trust himself enough to be sure he could choose correctly between his duty and his heart.

Her pack was light. A little food, water, and a choice selection of her deadliest weapons were all Anko had allowed her to bring. The road out of Konoha stretched before her, cutting directly across small paddy fields before twisting down and around to meander rather aimlessly towards the forest. Tenten stood quietly, watching the huge iron gates swing slowly open. Anko was at her side, a pack even smaller than hers slung casually over one shoulder. She waved to the guards on the watchtower jauntily and jabbed Tenten with a sharp elbow.

"Ready?"

The training grounds were on the other side of the village. Tenten and Neji had parted ways quietly, him towards the Hyuuga compound, her for a quick detour to her apartment to pick up her pack.

She nodded. "Yes."

One foot forwards. Be brave now, Tenten. Another foot forwards. Then -

"Tenten." The voice from behind was quiet but insisting, and perhaps Tenten had already guessed that he would be there. This didn't mean he was any more welcome and she sighed before swinging around to face him.

"You shouldn't have come," she stated plainly, glaring half-heartedly at the boy before her.

He looked to Anko, silently asking for a few moments with her new apprentice. Anko cocked her head to the side, scrutinizing the two of them closely for a while before nodding briefly and stalking forwards through the gates.

"Catch up with me later." A casual wave and she disappeared into the dark, footsteps gradually fading into silence.

Neji grabbed Tenten by the wrist. The stone walls that bordered the village loomed tall and imposing above them as he dragged her deeper into their shadow, hands sliding up her arms to rest possessively on her shoulders. She said nothing but looked blankly at him, letting her pack drop to the ground at their feet.

"You're...already strong." His words were awkward and his voice dry, cracked. "You don't have to do this to yourself." His grip on her shoulders tightened, his breathing was accelerating, he was close to shaking her and fuck this, he just had to make her stay.

She shook her head and tilted her head to the right, trying to smile, but the look in her eyes was hard. He stared at her for a moment, wondering why she was being so cruel – then realized that this was called following your dreams, that sometimes love (or something like it) had to wait. His gaze dropped downwards and he wondered vaguely why his hands were shaking.

Tenten waited for a few moments before gently disengaging herself from his hold. Neji stopped her, unable to give her up without one last try.

He leaned down and kissed her, clutching at her like she was slipping between his fingers (she was). She closed her eyes and her palm came up to rest on his cheek, thumb gently brushing over the corner of his eye. When they broke apart her eyes were bright.

"Stay," he breathed into her ear, fingertips gently brushing against her temples. "Please."

And then she pushed him away, picked up her pack and walked on. (Because kisses in the dark are just not enough).

He lay on the couch for nearly an hour, eyes flickering across the ceiling, down to the window, back up again.

He had to find the kunoichi spy. Retrieve her body if Tenten had killed her. Report back to the Hokage-sama and wait for her orders. He knew all this, but all this time only one thought had rung clearly in his mind. Here, amidst the fading warmth and faint, lingering scent of incense and chrysanthemums, of Tenten:

I want her back.