This one shot is a gift to raspberry for the 12 days of Nejiten gift exchange discord event! I'm so sorry for being late, though I hope you appreciate it all the same!
Dancing with your ghost
Tenten hated the holidays.
Actually, it's not so much that she hated the holidays but dreaded them.
It was not the loneliness she feared, oh no. Without chaotic Konoha finally taking a break from all its ongoing drama, Tenten couldn't be happier for some alone relaxing time in that blessed time of the year.
In fact, she wasn't much alone. With Gai and Lee always preparing a million winter activities and her having to make an effort to attend for Metal Lee's sake, Tenten didn't have much time to feel alone, even though she craved the rest that would come with.
Even if it wasn't Rock Lee and Metal Lee that occupied her day with running to another nation to make their annual snowman, it was Sakura and Sarada with whom she shared her evenings.
Tenten had gotten closer with Sakura over the years, not only because the pink-haired medic-nin had started a sort of co-parenting arrangement with Lee when they both ended up being single parents, but also because Tenten was there to help raise Sarada when her mother got busy.
It wasn't much of a choice, really. Tenten was the only one without a child in their groups of friends. So it started with Sakura asking her if she could watch over Sarada when she had an important meeting out of town, and from months of doing this, her friend started asking her to watch over her during the night.
At first, Sakura would ask Ino or Hinata or Temari if Sarada could sleepover, and they would always happily agree. But when she was four, her daughter had once told her she felt it was embarrassing to be the kid that always had to be welcomed into someone else's house because her mother was alone. The young girl had pleaded and pleaded with her overwhelmed mom that she could take care of herself alone in their house without having to go to someone else's house.
Not that Sarada would have said it out loud, but it was hard seeing other kids their age having what she only wished she had. But Sakura could still understand all the unsaid things her daughter tried to tuck away behind her small smile. Whenever she came back from her friend's house, she was a bit sourer, a bit sadder. Because when she was at the other boys' house, they sat down as a family for dinner, and when Sarada came back home, it would be just her mother and her.
It was a sort of cruel reminder each time.
Even though Sakura understood the predicament she put her daughter in, she didn't have many options.
"I can watch over her, Sakura." Tenten had finally sighed a few days after Sakura's talk with Sarada.
"You would?" Her green eyes gleamed with hope.
"Yes, of course." Tenten shrugged.
Sarada was a sweet kid, she wasn't hard to watch over, and Tenten had some affection for her. Truth be told, she reminded her of an old teammate of hers.
Through the years, a sort of sisterhood had united Sakura and Tenten. For all purposes and matters, was the closest thing to an aunt Sarada had. Well, a deranged aunt, really, the brunette's obsession with weapons was still a bit frightening for the young girl, yet she was still very fond of her favourite aunt.
Thus, Tenten really didn't have that much time to herself during the holidays. Between Gai's crazy ideas for Metal Lee and her evenings over at Sakura's and Sarada's, she barely managed to get in some much-deserved rest after her missions and making sure all was in order at her shop.
Yet, somehow, somewhere between the 24th spent at Sakura's for dinner and opening gifts at Lee's on the 25th, something strange always happened.
And that something strange was the reason why she hated the holidays with all her soul.
The first year it happened, she stiffened instantly upon seeing his face thinking something was incredibly wrong. Was this another Tsukuyomi dream? Then she shook her head. More plausible would be that she had indulged too much sake at Sakura's. After all, they were eighteen, and it was the first Christmas post the war. Maybe they had all celebrated a bit too much.
Sleep, you need to sleep it off. She thought, sluggishly going to her room and passing out in her bed. Morning came, and all traces of that strange event had disappeared, and she had shrugged it off.
The second year, she thought she went mad or lacked sleep or even that it was just the craziness of the holidays striking her with renewed grief.
The third year, she had called Lee in total panic, finally telling him about what had haunted her.
"I don't see anything, Tenten." He frowned at her.
He was not immune to the idea of paranormal activity, and he rushed in a second to her house, almost opening a gate in the process.
Tenten blinked, at her empty kitchen, even more puzzled than ever. Almost scared, but mostly angry, not that she would admit to it.
The fourth one, Tenten had asked Sakura and Sarada to stay the night at her place. And while the younger one was tucked, sleeping in Tenten's bed. The two women were talking in her kitchen. She had confided in the occurrences of the last years and wanted her medical advice. Sakura had agreed to stay with her until it happened, reassuring her that it wasn't uncommon to hear about such a thing in the field. Holidays were such a stressful period that oftentimes, people could have weird reactions during that time.
They had talked all night, in her living room, reminiscing of old days.
"Why don't you give him a chance?" Sakura asked when the wee hours of the day peeked.
"Who?" Tenten raised a brow.
Sakura rolled her eyes. "Ko."
Tenten gave her an odd look.
"He's into you, and you know that." Sakura held her friend's gaze. "He is, since that mission of yours."
After a minute of tense silence staring at the emerald orbs of her friend, Tenten ultimately looked away, shrugging.
"Not my type." She finally said.
Sakura gave her an assessing glance. "After all this time?"
Tenten proceeded to get up for the floor where they had drifted to from the couch.
"Well, the night is pretty much over." The brunette looked at the first rays of sunshine creeping over the top of the trees. "And no weird occurrences." She winked at her friend.
Sakura didn't push the matter any further. "It probably must have been the stress coupled with the fatigue and alcohol." She put her hand on her friend's shoulder. "Some griefs, you never get over. You just learn to live with." She gave her friend a sad smile, speaking from experience.
Some people didn't have to be dead to be gone.
"Thanks, Sakura." Tenten smiled back, squeezing her friend's hand.
"No worries, we got each other, right?" The pink-haired woman grinned.
And they did. For years to come, they did.
Because it hadn't happened the fourth year and it seemed to have disappeared the third, Tenten could only conclude that it must have been a manifestation of her stress like Sakura had said and that by telling Lee and her medic friend, she had got it off her chest.
So the night of the 24th, after a long evening of talking and laughing at the Uchiha's house with her friend and niece, Tenten came back tired to her apartment.
She unlocked the door, hearing with satisfaction the little click that announced she was soon going to be safe in her home and that she'd enjoy the few hours she would have of much-awaited solitude.
"My cousin Ko, really?" He asked her, sitting at her kitchen table.
The audacity he had to startle her so.
She blinked and blinked again.
"You're not real." She told herself, more than she spoke at her vision.
"Of course, I'm not," He scoffed.
She almost took the bite, ready to say something back. Then she tilted her head. He looked so real, so authentic, from the strand of hair that always stuck to his chin to his arrogant mannerisms. Obviously, she knew him so well, had spent so much time with him, her imagination could conjure up his exact copy.
She threw a kunai at him that he dodged easily. She did it numbly, feeling the dread in her stomach, the tsunami she had sealed like a Kyubi in her belly. A monster of fury and unquenchable sorry and untameable fire that would eat her up alive if she unsealed it.
"Tenten." He said her name, and she threw another kunai at him.
He smirked.
She hated it. She hated it so much. What kind of cruel joke her wicked, twisted mind she had to torture herself so.
The way he said her name, the way he smirked. He seemed so perfectly himself, so accurate it was blinding, dumbfounding. It seared her heart with a blazing sadness. She could barely breathe. Her throat seemed tied into knots.
His voice, his gaze, it was all too much. She numbly walked back to her room.
I'll just sleep it off, she thought to herself. She looked back. He was not following her, still sitting at the kitchen table. She could picture his shadow on her ceramic tiles.
She took the bottle of sleep pills Sakura had prescribed her after a particularly gruesome mission she had two months ago. She brought them to her mouth with a shaking hand, hoping it'd do the trick.
Come morning, her kitchen was empty, her mind was cleared, and she had less and less explanation for what had just happened.
The following years she took the habit of sleeping over at either Sakura's or Lee's.
Though she decided she had enough with all that in the tenth year and accepted that her raging grief played mind tricks on her.
"Are you sure you don't want to stay?" Sakura asked her after they had cleaned out the last of the cutlery used for their Christmas dinner.
"We love having you over," Sakura shrugged, throwing the towel over her shoulder. "And we can go to Lee's to open gifts like always."
Tenten shook her head. "Thanks, but I think this nonsense has lasted long enough. I was just in denial of my grief before."
The brunette ignored the unconvinced look of her friend. "I'll see you at Lee's tomorrow."
And sure enough, that night, when she came home, he was there sitting, like always.
Just ignore it, ignore it. She ordered herself.
"I'm not a product of your imagination." He said, blasé by her stubbornness.
"Shut up," She gritted. "Shut up, shut up, shut up." She said it more to herself than to him.
Of course, he was just a conjured hallucination.
She went to her bedroom, locked it and leaned against the wooden door.
Of course, he was.
She couldn't… He couldn't… It couldn't be.
Thus, the eleventh year, and after confiding in Sakura that it had happened again, they asked Ino to come over once her son was safely asleep.
"A sleepover!" Ino squealed. "We should have done this a long time ago."
Sakura and Tenten gave an unsure smile at Ino and Hinata and Temari, who trailed behind the blonde girl.
If Ino seemed ecstatic and Hinata overall happy, if not a bit worried for her kids, Temari couldn't be bothered more than that, even though the slight curve of her lips hinted at how needed that girls' night was for her.
"I brought cookies." Hinata smiled softly.
"I brought lots of booze," Temari smirked.
"And I," Ino put her hand on her hips, flipping her long blond hair over her shoulder. "Brought me." She winked seductively at the two unimpressed women.
"Well, please enter." Tenten had finally said.
Temari gave an appreciative look at Tenten's condo. The white aesthetic with wooden touches was very elegant.
"Like what you did with the place." Temari appraised, giving a look around.
"You have a lovely home," Hinata commented.
It was the squeaky clean and well-maintained luminous apartment of a woman living alone. No toys laying around, no forgotten socks from her husband she had to pick up, no writing on the walls, and mostly, fragile items in plain view. A porcelain vase here, a glass table there. No need to babyproof anything.
That was definitely not something Hinata could afford with two wild kids running around and threatening to break stuff and maim themselves on anything not cushioned or padded. And even though Hinata wouldn't change a single thing about her warm and buzzing home, she still eyed the surrounding apartment with a pinch of longing. The paradise bird on the corner thriving, the uniformized aesthetic, immaculate arrangement of each decorative and functional item that made Tenten's place look straight out of a design magazine.
But the more Hinata looked, the more she also missed her home. The overthrown hoodie Boruto always left on the couch, Himawari's doll that always stayed perched on the kitchen counter, Naruto's scrolls piling on the coffee table.
Ino scrunched her nose. "It lacks flowers."
Tenten rolled her eyes and smiled. "I'll pass by your shop this week, Ino."
Ino clapped her hands in excitement. "Let's have tea then!"
Tenten smiled more fondly. Only Ino could criticize something as a way to say she missed you.
"Such a nice idea to have this sleepover!" Ino took her coat off. "With the kids grown enough to have a sleepover at Metal's after Christmas dinner, it finally gives us some time to catch up!"
"So," Sakura began. "It isn't exactly a sleepover per se." She gave a lingering glance to her brunette friends while her other friends settled on the oversized angled cream couch. "Tenten has been having some kinds of… issues we thought Ino could help with."
"Oh." That was all Ino said. "Well," She shrugged. "Might as well make this fun while we're here."
Tenten nodded, smiling. "I'm happy it turned out this way."
"So, what's the problem?" Temari went straight to business, as usual.
Sakura wrought her hands, and Tenten glanced at Hinata, who took the picture frame on the lamp table next to the couch. The one of young team Gai, with Neji looking unimpressed.
There it goes, another tiny heart pinch.
"Well…" Sakura began, unsure of how to proceed.
"I have hallucinations of Neji." Tenten opted for straightforwardness.
It may have been a little bit too abrupt because Temari spat back the white wine she had just poured herself, and Hinata almost dropped the frame. Only Ino seemed unphased.
"That's it?" The mind-specialist asked back.
"Well, sorry if the news that our friend is seeing a dead person is boring to you, Ino-pig." Sakura frowned.
Tenten winced at the notion of a 'dead person.' Oddly, after all this time, it still wouldn't get into her head that he indeed died. In her mind, he just took the most extended mission possible and one day, he would be back. She'd just have to be patient. A lifetime of patience, and she'd see him again.
Ino rolled her eyes, snatching the white wine bottle from Temari's hands. "It's just that I have seen that a lot after the war." She sipped from her glass and put it down on the table. "Well, not so much nowadays, but after the war, I'd sometimes spend days in the intel department, just helping out soldiers who kept hallucinating loved ones they had lost in the war." She turned to Tenten and Hinata. "Sorry for your loss."
"Tell us more." Temari finally cut in.
Tenten sat down and began recounting the previous Christmas and her hallucination.
"So," Ino recapitulated after her brown-eyed friend finished her story. "You only have that hallucination on December 24th?"
Tenten nodded.
"That's a bit unusual." Ino frowned. "Does this date hold any meaning for you… or Neji?"
Tenten took some time to think about it. "Not really…" She trailed. "Well…"
"Well?" Temari urged.
"Well," Tenten continued. "When we were fourteen, it was a couple of weeks after the chunin exams, we had just finished a mission with team Gai - back when we still had missions during the holidays." She chuckled. "We stopped in a little Inn because Gai-sensei insisted on us having a family dinner for Christmas. You know how he is. And for each of us, our team was the closest thing we had to a family." She shrugged, trying to keep her voice even. "The old lady who took care of the inn, she gave us those fortune cookies at the end of our meal. Said something about Christmas wishes and fortune cookies. I don't remember much, to be honest, but after that, we kept the tradition to…our very last Christmas together."
"So what Tenten made a wish with fortune cookies, and now she gets to see dead Neji every Christmas?" Temari deadpanned.
Tenten mentally winced again at the word dead. It was so easy for them to see him dead because he didn't mean the whole world to them.
Ino shook her head. "It probably just means it holds some significance for you, and you channel into that day the grief you suppress the other days. I had a man who only saw his best friend when he wore the hitai-ate they used to wear when they were children. A lot of weirder things have happened to people grieving."
"So, can you do something?" Tenten asked, somewhat hopeful, somewhat disheartened. After years of this occurrence, she had started to think there was something magical happening. Maybe she wanted it to be confirmed.
"Yes," The blonde nodded. "We just need to wait for your hallucination to happen. Hallucinations are sometimes just our deepest fears and desires that take over our subconscious. When it does, you need me to let you in your head, and I'll be able to help your inner self deconstruct the illusion it created for itself."
"Ok, then." Tenten tried to smile.
It was all so simple in the end, getting rid of Neji.
The silence was tense, and everyone seemed absorbed by old memories of a youth long gone until Tenten finally broke it.
"Let's get this pyjama party started in the meantime!" She exclaimed, trying to chase the heavy cloud that had settled upon them.
And Ino was right. This whole idea of a girls' reunion was uplifting. They laughed until they cried and kept updating each other on everything they missed well into the late hours of the night. She hadn't had that much fun in a long time, and she wondered why they ever stopped doing this.
"We should have done this way before," Temari commented, echoing her thoughts. "I get we're all pretty busy, and there are the kids, but we could have found a moment, and we could have found a babysitter."
Ino raised her glass. "True! It feels so good talking to someone emotionally expressive. I mean, don't get me wrong, Sai has made so much progress over the years, but ugh, sometimes I could just-!"
"Snap his neck in two?" Temari laughed. "Same here, the father and the son are so alike it kills me. Both just as lazy and aloof." She shook her head though her fond smile stayed in place.
Hinata giggled. "I know what you mean with Boruto and Naruto. I'm lucky Himawari is still in her sweet I-need-mama phase."
"Well, enjoy it while it lasts." Sakura took another sip. "One day you're their hero, then they near puberty and suddenly you're the devil and the reason why their dad…" She stopped abruptly, her throat box collapsing under the weight of emotions.
"Hey," Ino squeezed Sakura's hand. "It's not your fault. It never was. Sasuke always had his own demons to fight, but he has always loved you the way he could."
Tenten put a hand over her friend's shoulder. "And you're an amazing mother, Sakura." She reassured the medic-nin, who chuckled in response, wiping a couple of tears. "Sarada is just mad at her father, but she only has you to take it out on. She loves you more than anything. I just know it."
Sakura nodded, wiping another tear, shaking her hands as if to shake the sadness away. "It just gets hard sometimes, you know?"
"Yeah," Hinata sighed. "Same goes for Naruto. I barely see him enough as it is, and soon he'll be Hokage. Boruto has been putting up walls the more his father is absent, and I'm just left wishing we could go back to older days."
"It was all so simple back then, wasn't it?" Temari smirked then redirected her eyes at Tenten. "Always thought you'd end with that teammate of yours. Sorry for your loss." She added more softly.
Tenten laughed. "Neji? God, no." The sound of her own laugh rang false in her own head. "We were just friends."
Temari shrugged, reaching for the remaining wine. "It always starts that way."
"Neji was just not the type to get married and have kids." Tenten laughed. "Unless someone ordered him to."
Hinata laughed. "I'd have to disagree. I think nii-san wanted his own family if only to make his father proud."
Tenten tilted her head. She hadn't seen it this way. "Yeah, maybe you're right."
"And with father now allowing us to marry whom we want." Hinata played with her wedding ring. "I think, if Neji had to choose anyone, it would have been you." Her soft pearl eyes rested on Tenten's face. "Even when there was no one, there was always you. He was so closed off, yet you were his partner in all things. It would have made sense."
The other girls nodded.
"And you were always gushing about him like a schoolgirl in love." Temari reminded her. "That girl, when she came to Suna and met my brother, bragged about her teammate's perfect defence for half an hour straight."
"I did not!" Tenten rose, almost offended.
"Yes, you did, Tenten-chan." Hinata laughed. "I remember nii-san telling Hanabi and me."
Tenten was blushing furiously and turned her head to the kitchen.
"He still isn't here?" Sakura guessed what preoccupied her mind.
"No." The brunette couldn't hide their disappointment.
"We should recreate the conditions when your hallucination happens!" Ino pointed out.
Tenten was left standing in the middle of her kitchen, Ino downstairs in the hall of her building with her other friends.
"I'll give you fifteen minutes, and then I'll get in your head."
Tenten stared blankly at her empty kitchen table. It has been ten minutes, and he has not appeared.
She hated that she felt like crying because of that. Somehow, she wanted Ino involved because, deep down, she wanted to believe it was true. Yet, here she was, alone, ultimately.
She took a shaky breath and turned to her large windows overlooking the city. For all the good this apartment did to her in its pristine designed state, it sure felt empty at night.
"Tenten," She swiftly turned around upon hearing her name, hearing his voice.
"Neji," She surrendered, for the first time, acknowledging him. He smirked, then she blacked out.
Tenten, she felt someone gently tap her cheeks only to wake up with emerald eyes worrying over her.
"I'm fine, Sakura." She pushed her friend away. "So?" She diverted her attention to a somewhat troubled Ino.
Said woman was leaning on her kitchen table, arms crossed and her eyebrows creasing which was rare for Ino since she usually avoided doing that to impede the formation of wrinkles.
"It was weird," The blonde began recounting what happened fifteen minutes earlier. "Normally, when I enter someone's head when they hallucinate, I can see the formed hallucination in their head. But this time," She shook her head. "There was only your inner self, nothing else."
"What does this mean?" Temari's curt voice snapped Tenten out of her daze, still remembering the opalescent eyes who had smiled at her. "Genjutsu?"
Sakura shook her head. "No, it doesn't have the typical characteristics of genjutsu. We didn't have to inject any chakra in Tenten to untrap her from her illusion.
Temari sneered. "Then what? Tenten is haunted by Neji's ghost on Christmas eve?" She asked in disbelief.
"I mean," Sakura intervened. "We did see stranger things happen."
"A goddess wanting to erase all of the shinobis?" Hinata offered.
"True," Temari admitted. "In any case, if I were you," She put a hand on the brunette's shoulder. "And I had lost Shikamaru. I wouldn't care if what I saw was a hallucination or Ino playing a mind trick on me or if this lazy ass found a way to walk his bottom from the beyond to come and talk to me…" She shrugged. "I'd just enjoy it."
"I-"Tenten was at a loss of words. "I didn't have with Neji what you have with Shikamaru."
"You were very close, though." Hinata reminded her.
"I think of all the rookies; you two spent the most time together," Sakura added. "Taking into account, Gai mostly took Lee apart to teach him taijutsu and all." She laughed.
"Maybe," Ino advanced. "Maybe next time you should confront it."
Confront it. Confront it. Confront it.
One year later, the words still rang in Tenten's head.
"Are you sure you'll be ok?" Sakura asked her, raising her pink eyebrow.
"Yes," Tenten assured, her voice a bit more nervous than what she would have liked it to be. "I'll see you tomorrow at Lee's."
"Ok," Sakura gave her a worried look. "If you change your mind, the guest room is ready."
Tenten smiled at her friend before walking down the road to her place. All Tenten could think about during her ten-minute walk was if he would be there. After all the years she had spent avoiding his ghost or this hallucination, it felt odd to feel so eager to see him this time. Maybe because she had something, God forbids, akin to hope blooming in her heart?
She couldn't say for sure.
She heard the comforting click of her door unlocking, took off her shoes and shuffled to the kitchen.
"Tenten." He said again, like all those times.
Even dead, he was so tirelessly patient.
She took him in, his long jet black hair, his porcelain skin. The arrogant curve of his lips. The shades of grey that characterized his unique family eyes that she could recognize within hundreds of other Hyuga eyes.
She took the chair in front of her, the sound of its wooden support scrapping on the floor.
"Is it really you," She suddenly felt so old, so sad, so tired. Through the reflection of the microwave's door she could see the bags under her eyes a bit more prominent with the emotions she was trying to fight.
"Yes," He tilted his head on the side, looking straight at her with his wary eyes that could read her emotions as if they were chakra lines. "I'm not a figment of your imagination, Tenten."
She scoffed. "Seems like something a figment of my imagination would say."
"Prove to me you're Neji." She challenged him, raising her eyebrow.
"I know you're still mad at me." He redirected. "You swore you'd never forgive me. That day, on the battlefield."
She couldn't help it, the glare she threw at him. She couldn't stand remembering that damned day.
"You still are." His eyes widened in realization. "After all this time…"
"Shut up." She hissed. "Is that all you've got? What are you some kind of fucked up Christmas ghost?"
Neji chuckled at her the way she knew he did whenever he thought someone was being ridiculous.
"Don't patronize me, Neji." She spat.
"It's funny." He let his eyes linger over her grown features. "For someone who denies I am who I am, you sure treat me as if I were."
She stayed silent, not wanting to incriminate herself more.
"I don't know more than you do." He shrugged after some time. "All I know is I died. There are a few things I remember from beyond but not much. Just that I can still hear people when they call out for me."
Tenten looked away, biting her bottom lip. She had shoved down her grief so far, shut it so tightly. It was destroying everything on its path, trying to open up and come up to the surface. Tears were engorging in her lower eyelid, threatening to spill anytime now.
"What is it you want me to say, Tenten?" He was beginning to lose patience.
She glared at him. "Say something only you would know."
"I know," He looked straight at her, composed while she was unravelling at her seams. "I know you never cried for me." He said softly, and she could swear she could hear a hint of disappointment in his voice.
It was almost violent, the way she scoffed at him, throwing her chair back and getting up to give him her back.
"Cry for you." She mumbled, looking at her feet, trying to keep her composure but nonetheless offended.
"The night before the war," Neji said. "When you went to a bbq with the other girls."
She turned back, perplexed. "What about it?"
"We went out with the boys too." He did not move, his hands on the table, so calm and collected. "I told Lee that,"
"What?" She raised a brow, urging him to continue when he stopped.
He looked thoughtfully at her, unphased. "That I wanted to ask you out after the war."
She laughed loudly. "Now I know I'm imagining you, Neji."
He frowned, with his signature irked pout. "Only Lee knows this. Go ask him." He challenged her, irritation tinting his tone.
She looked defiantly at him. "I might just do that." She swiftly turned around and out of her home.
"Tenten, is everything alright?" Lee opened the door, still blinded by the lights he had to turn on a few seconds after falling asleep. "It's almost midnight."
"What was the last thing Neji told you before going to war? That night you went to the bbq?" She spoke with a kind of urgency that startled Lee.
But what mostly startled his old teammate was talking about Neji after years of avoiding mentioning his death and pronouncing his name.
"Tenten, did you have another hallucination?" Lee immediately began to be worried about his closest friend.
Tenten shook her head. "Lee, please. What did you talk about that night before the war?"
Lee frowned, trying to remember. "I remember I talked about Sakura-chan." He rubbed his chin. "I wanted to take her out after the war and…."
Lee's eyes suddenly widened. "I remember I was walking down the road with Neji, it was pretty empty at night, and he had just been named leader of Hyuga troops that day. He was worried Hinata would be offended by that. And…"
"… And what?"
Lee gulped. "When I mentioned I wanted to ask Sakura-chan out, he said he had been thinking of…asking you."
"Me?" Tenten was stunned.
She felt nauseous, and the world around her suddenly seemed alien-like, just like it felt back in her Tsukuyomi dream.
"I'm sorry, Tenten, I should have told you before." Lee's eyes were downcast, and Tenten was barely registering what he said over the beating of her heart pounding in her eardrums. "At first, I wanted to tell you, at his funeral. But you were so… off-balanced. You rushed from one mission to another, and you were so defensive anytime we tried to approach the subject. Then I wanted to tell you at Hinata's wedding, but it was the first couple of days I saw you so happy, I didn't want… and over the years, it's silly I forgot…"
"I got to go, Lee." Tenten had difficulty breathing. It was all too sudden, too overwhelming, the information, what it changed, what it added to her grief.
"I'm sorry, Tenten, but…" His eyes were narrowed, trying to read her. "How did you learn this? Nobody else but me knew…"
Tenten's eyes widened in utter shock. "I'll see you tomorrow." She took off to a nearby roof before he could say anything else.
"So?" He asked her as soon as she walked into the kitchen.
Of course, it was Neji. No one could be dead and yet still eager to prove they were right.
"You were right." She hurried to say, knowing full well that it was what he wanted to hear. "So what, now you're a ghost?" She asked him, still dubitative.
Neji shrugged one shoulder. "I don't know much more than you, Tenten. All I know is that once in a while, it's like I wake up, and I'm in your kitchen, and here you are."
"B-but how." Tenten was so puzzled, but more than that, she was distraught. Not only just at the apparition of her deceased teammate but also at the blinding rage and drowning sadness that threatened to overpower her any second now from years of pushed back grief.
"I don't know." He looked at her intently, leaning on her kitchen counter while she sat at the table, head in her hands. "Does it matter?"
His question was met with silence as his old teammate did not move an inch from her defeated position.
"My turn." His voice was a bit harsher.
Finally, her head shot up. "Your turn what?"
"My turn to ask a question." His voice was firm, without any place to question, as she had always known it.
"I beg your pardon?" She was astonished.
"Why didn't you cry for me?" He asked her calmly.
"Are you kidding me?" She abruptly rose from her seat, the chair falling on the ground from her sudden movement. "How do you even know-"
"Answer the question, Tenten." He ordered her, and she felt like throwing the table at him.
Any second now, she was going to explode. Any second now.
Confront it. Confront it. Confront it. Confront it. Confront it.
No. No. No. Tenten tried her hardest to reel it in, to keep her breathing in control, but the man she should have never lost was there, in front of her, wondering why she didn't cry about him and why should she have cried?
"And why should I have cried for you?" She thrust her chin towards his casual demeanour, damn him for always staying so calm.
She felt a slight satisfaction through her mounting rage at seeing his glare directed at her.
"I would have for you. You're my friend, and I care about you." He finally said, his tone clipped. "If it had been you, I would have cried."
"Bullshit!" Tenten shouted, pivoting on feet, hands on her forehead. The ground was disappearing under her. "You cared about me?" She hissed at him. "I was your friend?" Her tone was rising, dangerously close to yelling now.
"When you care about someone," She started shouting. "YOU DON'T JUST THROW YOUR FUCKING LIFE OUT THE WINDOW AND LET THEM FIGURE OUT LIFE WITHOUT YOU, NEJI." She screamed at the top of her lungs, kicking the chair in the same process.
"You don't," She continued yelling. "You don't make split-second decisions to leave them behind for a lifetime of freaking hurt, Neji! You don't go on suicide heroic mission just to save everybody and condemn them to nothing more than walking half-dead through the rest of their life, Neji."
She was breathless, and what she feared most suddenly happened. That nasty truth, the one she couldn't express, her hatred for Neji. She hated what he had done to her. How horribly selfish was it, huh? To hate the person who ensured they still had a chance to win that war? Who sacrificed himself for everyone's wellbeing? All because her little heart was broken?
But now that that ugly confession was out, it seemed all her anger had vanished. A slow drip was leaking out of her mind. A little runoff. A prelude to the devastating waves of despair that had banged the doors of the sealed section of her mind where she had banished the concept of his death to.
"I hate you, Neji Hyuga." She spat, so softly, so drained from it all, surrendering to the inevitable.
Her watch, her decade-long watch making sure her wall didn't crack; it had ended.
It was too late, the first tears welled up, and they fell. They fell so tragically to the floor, in front of Tenten's powerless eyes, she thought the sound of them hitting the tiles was deafening.
"You wanted me to cry?" She looked defiantly at him, and his worried expression just made everything worse. "Well, you have them." She hit her heart. "You have it all, dammit. Fucking take all those tears you wanted so much!"
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Was the only thing resonating in her head as she unceremoniously sobbed in front of the man who was supposed to be dead and six feet under.
Neji made a step forward, his hand extended as if to take her arm.
"Don't you dare!" She spat, taking a step back.
Oh, how she would have given everything, sold all she possessed, ruined herself in all possible ways, just to have the real Neji Hyuga be in front of her and hug her out of her misery. But she was scared he'd put his hand on her, and it would just go right through her, reminding her once more he was dead and gone and that none of this was tangible to the least.
Leaving her in a hopeless mess. Again.
She sobbed, hugging herself, stubbornly looking at her feet. She couldn't see him right now. His perfect handsome face that had haunted her nightmares and dreams for the past years. She was afraid that blood would start streaking from the corner of his lips down to his chin. Then, she'd be stuck reminiscing over and over again the sequence that led to his horrible death.
After what seemed like an eternity, she finally took a shaking breath.
"I couldn't cry for you," Tenten began again, and Neji shifted a millimetre from the position in which he had been paralyzed in. "Because if I started, I don't know if I could ever stop."
She shrugged helplessly at her lamentable crying condition. "I don't know how to get over this, now." She chuckled darkly, levelling her stare to his. "I don't know how to get over losing you."
Neji felt the guilt like bitter syrup down his throat. He should have known she was only trying to protect herself, yet it had hurt not seeing her express sadness at his death like others had done. After all, she was his closest friend.
"It was always us against the world." She murmured gently after her crying diminished. The pain still searing her heart, her tears still rolling down uncontrollably, but at least now able to use her voice. "It was always us two. We both had no one but each other. Lee and Gai, they were our family too, but we," She pointed to him and her. "We were each other's everything. We trained every day together. In that stadium, during the chuunin exams, I was the only one on your side. It was always us, you and me. And you left me, you left me behind and-"
She stopped, feeling her cries bubbling up the surface again. "And n-now, I-I'm l-lost in a w-world where I don't b-belong." She stuttered her words against the shaking sobs she was trying to swallow down. "I'm lost trying to navigate a reality I don't understand because you're not in it, and it hurts so, so much."
She raised her tear-filled eyes to look into his eyes and was shocked to see them glistening and just as much in pain.
"I needed you." She shook her head. "I still do. And everyone, everyone they found their place, their someone, their fate and I'm still stuck here, in this damned world, without you, trying to figure out what way to go and not even caring which way I end up choosing because they all feel like the wrong answer anyway. No matter which direction I go, what accomplishment I make or how strong I get, it does not matter because I can't share it with you. So I visit your tomb at night and tell you stuff you can't even hear and do things you can't even appreciate. All those dreams we shared under starry nights, I'd always thought you'd realize them before me. I'd watch you lead the Hyugas, mend your relationship with your cousins, become," She chuckled. "Stronger than Naruto."
She shrugged. "Now I realize my dreams, but they don't feel like dreams anymore because no one understands the value it holds for me like you did. They're just a checklist now. I tell Sakura or Lee of techniques I mastered, but it doesn't matter. It's like telling them I made my bed. You, you gave meaning to my life."
She ran a hand through her dishevelled hair.
"When you killed yourself," She dug her finger in his chest. "You killed me too."
She looked at him straight in the eyes and abruptly stepped back.
"Wait," shock overtook her sadness for a few seconds. "I can t-touch you?"
Before she could think more about it, something even more surprising happened. Neji's hand wrapped around her arm. It wasn't exactly warm, but Neji never was the kind to have warm hands anyway. But it was just as soft as she remembered them, which had always upset Tenten because her fingers were so callused with all the weapons-handling she did.
He dragged her in, held her close and wrapped his arms around her.
The last time Neji had been this affectionate, they were thirteen. She had just failed her fight against Temari, and she woke up to Neji holding her hand and casually telling her about Lee's fight and his own never releasing her from his grasp.
She could see it was surprising to see Neji hug her, but it was Neji. And Neji always was unsurprisingly surprising. Well, at least with her. He always held her a bit longer than needed to when she fell, always placed his hand on top of hers when she handed him things or lingered his glance a bit more than he needed to, especially when he was worried.
"I'm sorry," He murmured against her hair, his lips resting on the top of her head.
He let her cry in his arms for only God knows how long until he leaned against the nearby wall and slid them both on the floor, keeping her firmly pressed against him in between in his legs.
After a few minutes, after she had calmed down under the soothing touch of his thumb running up and down, she looked up at him.
"Great, now I'm hugging a ghost on Christmas Eve." She laughed lightly while he wiped the tears that remained on her cheeks.
She frowned, having just noticed something that she hadn't before, trailing her finger on the corner of his eyes.
"You have," She changed her position to sit on her heels, still between his legs, his hands resting on her waist. She traced the fine lines around his eyes. "You have wrinkles." She realized, befuddled.
"I do?" Neji blinked.
Tenten nodded. "You're…older than when you died."
"I don't know more than you." He replied, just as confused.
She sighed. None of this made any sense whatsoever.
If it were me and I had lost Shikamaru, I would have just enjoyed it.
She looked at him, not realizing the chance she had at having him, right here, in front of her. It was just a dream. She was going crazy. Her apartment was haunted.
Who cares?
Does it matter?
No, it did not.
The question was burning at the tip of her tongue.
"You wanted," She licked her lips, apprehensively looking at the eyes that had never left her face. "You wanted to ask me out?" She finally let out.
He nodded slowly.
"Why?" Her eyebrows drew together. "I mean we… we never…. You never said anything… I…"
He gently tucked a hair strand behind her ear. "We were still kids, and all we had in mind was getting stronger." He shrugged. "We had a nice build-up to it, don't you think?"
He was teasing her with his smirk, and she couldn't do anything to prevent her blush. She had never been so close to him before.
"You said it so yourself. It was always us against the world." He looked intently at her.
"When did you know you liked me?" Tenten blurted out.
She was bold to assume it so straightforwardly, but she wasn't an insecure teenager anymore. She knew when men took a liking to her.
Neji seemed to think about it. "I don't think I ever did."
For a quick second, Tenten was flabbergasted.
"Know, that is." He clarified. "It was just ever-present, this idea I needed you next to me. When I turned eighteen, I felt like things had changed, a bit, between us."
His stare bore deep into her eyes, trying to read her thoughts on the matter.
She shifted uneasily on her heels, remembering the awkward times that preceded the fourth war between her and Neji, the lingering touches, the unsaid things, the shared glances heavy with meaning.
"It was different, wasn't it?" She smiled, nostalgic.
He smiled faintly back. "Before the war, when my uncle made me a leader of the Hyuga troops, I asked him how it was for him the first time he went to war. He told me for him it was about making peace with his life, going to the battlefield without any regret helped clear his mind and lower his apprehension."
He stopped. He needed a moment to just appreciate those brown eyes staring back at him, those eyes that had anchored him so many times in chaotic moments of his life.
"That day, I realized that we never gave each other a real shot." His eyes travelled down her lips before darting back up. "It was bad timing, really." He shrugged. "To realize it so close to the war, I just thought we'd have more time."
"Did you know?" Tenten swallowed her thick saliva. "That you would die?"
He tilted his head like he often did when thinking about it. "I always had a sense of foreboding apprehension since my father died that I would die young." He shifted a bit on his seated position on the floor. "It's hard to tell. But did I go to war thinking I would die? Not really."
"Do you want to lie down?" Tenten suddenly asked.
Did ghosts get tired? Did they get uncomfortable?
"As you wish."
When they were younger, it was something they often did, a habit from their nights during missions. They'd just lie next to each other. Whether on the ground or on a tree's branch, it was comforting, and most often than not, that's how Tenten found her sleep during their first missions, having him next to her. She hadn't needed to say it out loud for him to understand and how precious it was when aloof Neji came from himself to sit or lie next to her.
Though they had never really lied down in a bed, just the two of them. Tenten's elbow grazed his in her queen bed, and they both stared at the ceiling.
"How was it, dying?" She asked candidly.
"Like falling asleep but with complete surrender." He answered bluntly. "There's a moment of absolute clarity when you realize being alive is like breathing in a fog, but there are a few seconds before it all fades out where there are truths that just shine through and then, it doesn't matter anymore."
Tenten turned to look at his face, and upon hearing her head shift on her pillow, he did the same. Her tears didn't stop from pearling out and rolling down, though they were less relentless than they had been when she had yelled at him.
"Did it hurt?" She held her breath.
The hardest thing about her grief was imagining the pain he must have endured.
"I got impaled by three giant sticks, Tenten." She could hear the smirk in his voice. "Of course, it hurt."
He must have sensed her anxiety because his hand got closer to hers, the tip of his fingers brushing hers.
"But it didn't last long," He reassured her, looking at her helplessly nodding her head, her pillow stained with tears.
"I'm sorry." He said after some time of silence. "I didn't want to leave you behind. I didn't really think of what it would mean for anyone, other than I had to protect Naruto and Hinata."
"By being a human shield?" She regretted her snappy, sarcastic tone.
"By being a human shield." He confirmed softly.
"I thought about your death at least a million times, you know." She told him, and he frowned. "About how it could have been avoided, what I could have done. I-"
"There is nothing you could have done, Tenten." He cut her sharply. "Hindsight is a powerful tool." He added more softly. "It can bring as much clarity as it can bring madness. What happened, happened." His fingers moved ever so slowly between hers, hoping she would accept that simple affection.
"Did you," She trailed, not wanting to ask that pitiful question but needing to voice it out. "Did you think of me when you did it?"
"No." He replied instantly.
Tenten laughed a little. Give it to Neji to give it to you straight, no bullshit.
"So many things were happening around me. I was exhausted. I wanted to keep my family members safe. After all, I was their leader. I didn't want any of them to die because I hadn't been able to protect them."
His gaze travelled around her face, taking in her distraught features.
"Then I saw Hinata-sama run to protect Naruto. Naruto was the key to winning this war. If we lost him, it was game over. It all happened so fast. One minute I was fighting next to my uncle, the next I was in front of Hinata, wood piercing through me."
"If it's any consolation," He pursued. "I had never felt so great. That split-second decision, it was mine and mine alone. I chose my death. Me, Neji Hyuga. Not a main branch member telling me how to sacrifice myself or activating my seal. I chose this. I chose to make my death meaningful, protecting the people I loved. And I had finally understood my father." He took a deep breath in. "So no, I did not think about you, but that doesn't mean I didn't care for you."
He turned his body entirely around to lay on his side and have an unobscured view of the woman he had missed. "You know I was always thinking of you, during our missions, during our training, during our exams. Always the target of flying weapons, weren't you? How did you manage to survive this long without me?" He smirked.
She laughed, shoving his shoulder playfully, wiping her running nose with her sleeve. "Don't let it get to your head, Neji. I only let you save me cause to give you the impression you're being useful."
Neji shook his head, a small smile playing on his lips. She smiled back.
Looking around, Tenten realized her room was slowly brightening, and panic started to assault her again. She had no idea how this worked. Would he be gone come morning? When exactly would he disappear? Was this the last time she ever saw him?
She rose from her bed in a hurry, opened her curtains. She could see the horizon paling in hues of washed blue. The sun was rising.
She turned around, pressing her back to her window sill. Neji had come up behind her and seemed to be reading her mind.
"You disappear at sunrise, right?" She asked him.
He nodded. "I think so."
"You only come on Christmas Eve." She commented again as he slowly approached. He stopped a bit. Something seemed to have clicked in his brain. Tenten wondered if ghosts had any notion of time or even if Neji really was a ghost or not.
"Will you be back?" She asked, her voice trembling. "Or will you be gone for good now?"
"I don't know." He whispered, getting so close to her his nose was almost touching her forehead.
"I don't know if I can survive it again." She hated how her voice broke, how her hands shook and how her lips felt numb.
"You will." He took her chin in her hands again. "And I'm sorry my decision has been so hard on you." His words were silky soft, his breath dying on her skin. "But you would have done the same." He gave her a knowing smile. "If it was me, or Lee, or Gai-sensei, or Naruto, or Hinata, or Sakura, or anyone really. You would have done the same." He was like a teacher, gently admonishing her.
Gosh, she hated him being right the most.
"I would h-have preferred it to be me." She replied, each word harder and harder to get out of her closing-in throat.
"And I would have hated it if it had been you." His hand went from holding her chin to cupping her cheek, wiping a tear with his thumb. "Dying is easy, isn't it? It's continuing on; that's hard."
He stroked lovingly her cheek streaked with tears. " I'm sorry I put the burden of my -how did you phrase it?" He smirked a bit. "Suicide heroic mission? On you."
She laughed a little through her tears. "You and your saviour complex, almost as bad as Naruto."
He laughed a little, ever so slightly tilting her head towards her.
"What did you wish for?" Tenten asked out of the blue. "At that inn, we went to for Christmas after our chunin exam, with the fortune cookies?"
He looked at her strangely, pressing his forehead to hers. "The same thing you wished for."
Tenten knew better than to press Neji when he got this enigmatic, everything about him, in life or in death, was fleeting, and she was scared he'd disappear anytime now.
"What did you wish for?" He whispered against her lips.
She smiled sideways. Give it to that cold bastard to deflect a question and make you answer it instead.
"To grow old with you." She let the world fly out of her mouth. She had already surrendered to him long ago so why would it matter to reveal her most secret wish to him, now?
"What," She continued. "Where would you have taken me if I had said yes...after the war?"
He chuckled. "That sesame dumpling place, of course."
She laughed along. "Of course." She agreed, and he brought her lips a bit closer.
"Why," Her mouth was so dry, she let her hand rest on his arms that were holding her. "Why did you want to ask me out?"
He let out an amused breath against her lips. "You do ask stupid questions sometimes, Tenten."
"Neji." She warned, but without any strength.
"I just kept wondering…" His voice was so low, so faint. "How it would be…" His lips brushed against hers. "To just…"
Now, Tenten had kissed about a dozen men in the last decade, but it had always felt like a task more than anything else. A check-off her list, a way to pretend she had at least tried to regain a sense of normalcy since he was gone, that she was not wholly at the mercy of his death, owned by the simple lingering spirit of this man she never could have had.
It never felt quite right, never fit quite right, mostly when comparing to how her friends talked about their own first kiss or the first time they lost their virginity. It was never the same thing.
But Neji. Goddamn, Neji.
He felt perfect, his lips against her. They lighted explosions in areas of her heart she didn't know could still beat. It made her feel new colours, new sounds, new feelings. His firmness, yet so soft, claimed her unapologetically. She was bursting at the seam of everything that held her together because she was now disabled, disassembled by his touch, his love.
She went to wrap her hands around his neck, but his lips that were pressed so tantalizingly against hers seemed to be fading into thin air, and her arms closed in on herself, grasping at emptiness.
She opened her eyes. The sun was brightly shining.
A new day had come, and he was gone.
Again.
Leaving her behind.
She didn't know how much time she had cried that morning. A blessing or a curse, she didn't know what had happened and couldn't even sort her conflicting feelings right now.
Fuck.
All she remembered was that when it was time to get up again, she found it in herself to do so. To shower, put ice on her swollen red eyes and plaster her usual grin on. She took the bag of gifts she had for her friends and met them at Lee's.
"Are you sure you don't want to stay?" Sakura wiped her hands on her apron.
It was mid-day on December 24th, and Sakura was deep into feast preparation. Sasuke had returned briefly that year, and he had promised Sarada he'd be back for a day during the holidays.
"Sarada would be so happy to have you over, mostly that Sasuke is going to be here. It would mean a lot if everyone was there." Sakura added.
Tenten shook her head. "No, I need to know."
"Ok then," The pink-haired woman gave her an unsure glance. "If…" She hesitated. "If he doesn't appear, you're welcome to join anytime."
Tenten nodded, smiling.
She fidgeted with her hands all the way to her home.
She paced around in her apartment all day, rearranging the table she had dressed with sesame dumplings and soba noodles on it.
Do ghosts eat?
Are ghosts supposed to feel and grow old and touch you?
Is he even going to reappear tonight, or did last year give him his final rest, easing a regret so he could now move on?
She brought a hand to her lips, brushing the lingering kiss, a memory she had fought hard against time to preserve.
"You made supper."
Her head snapped back up to a Neji slightly older than last year.
"I-"She could barely remember how words were formed.
Relief flooded through her, and it was all she could take before running to him, wrapping her arms around him.
"I thought you wouldn't be here," Tenten admitted.
"You've grown quite affectionate." He teased her, wrapping his arms around her. "So, supper?" He pondered.
She shook her head. "What about picking up where we left off?"
His lips instantly found hers, but this time more hungrily, without any place for discussion anymore. And she was just as passionate as he was. Consumed by his smell, his touch, that felt all too real, all too much of a blessing she didn't deserve and was afraid to lose any time.
She let her hands roam under his shirt, and he unbuttoned hers, and when all was said and done, when he had kissed scars he had known and discovered just now when she had memorized him all over again; she just lay on top of him, and they talked about mindless things.
"So Naruto is now the Hokage. After everything." Neji smiled. "How are Boruto and Himawari doing?"
"They're doing great." She tightened her hold on him when the night started fading. "Hinata, she misses you a lot."
For all the blessings it was to have him one day a year, it was a curse for the other 363 ones.
One day a year, he was real and he was all hers. One day a year, she danced with his ghost, and three-hundred-sixty-three other days, she lived with it.
"It's more than many people get."
This constatation came from both Sakura and Neji.
The former had smiled sadly at her. "We didn't choose easy men to love, did we?"
"Then marry me," Tenten had said to the latter. "For one day a year, be my husband."
It was weird to wear a golden band around her finger one day a year, but like with many other things since his death, Tenten had learned to be content with the small, odd, sad, happy things that presented themselves to her. And she just loved how the ring rested on his fingers when she took his hand.
However, the biggest blessing was that she saw him age year after year. If Ino did everything, tried every serum, cultivated every plant to make sure her wrinkles would never show, Tenten couldn't wait for every Christmas Eve to count his fine lines and the new white hairs on his scalp.
Though every morning came with the gut-wrenching deception of seeing him gone and bracing herself for another year of wait.
"I have this old patient from a foreign village, who told me about an old lady who made fortune cookies you could wish upon on Christmas." Sakura had told her once, Sarada was now an adult, freshly a jonin. "He said that if two people simultaneously wished for the same thing without knowing, their wish was granted. He said he saw it happen with his son."
Tenten laughed. "A Christmas miracle?"
This felt even more stupid than any other explanation she had thought of.
"Well, stranger things did happen." Sakura shrugged.
Indeed, but Tenten had stopped long ago questioning this gift, this curse, this wish, this illusion. For all she knew, maybe she was still dying on that battlefield, and she was dreaming up everything in a delirious agonal state.
But one day, when her wrinkled fingers were intertwined in his wrinkled hand, the sun rose above them and brightened up everything, yet his grasp remained firm. It didn't grow faint like it usually did. And the light grew brighter and brighter until it had washed out everything.
Until she was walking behind him, and he led her through nowhere, his hand still firmly holding her. And they walked until she couldn't even remember where they came from. Until the smoothness of her skin returned and until the man she was staring at was eighteen again.
"Neji," He stopped and turned towards her. Her eyes widened. Her voice was just as chirp as when she was still a kid. "What now?" She breathed out.
He brought her in closer, kissed her chastely as if they were teenagers again, back on their training field and without a clue of the world's harshness.
"Now, I never leave you behind again."
A/N: Sorry for this very late gift again, raspberry. I hope you enjoyed it!
It was hard going back to an angsty mood while writing something as fluffy as Christmas Chaos. So I needed some readjustment, nothing the omicron wave and working at the ICU didn't help with.
Now I'll focus on finishing Christmas Chaos so I can also finish When they first met. After that, I'll probably take a break to focus on my upcoming exams!
Thank you all for reading and being so supportive of my stories.