Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Chapter 4 – Steps
It was rare for the Hyuga Genius to be lost, now however, Neji had no idea what he should do. At almost 20 years old, the boy never remotely had interest in any girl, or anyone whatsoever. Not until that brunet came waltzing into his life.
Should he try to get her attention? No, better not, he wouldn't lower himself for just a crush. If he ignored her well enough it would soon go away. Yes, that was what he would do.
Easier said than done. As their class together was nearing its end, he was practically begging inside his head for her to say something, or at least glance at his direction. For his dismay, class was over before he could think of anything. Apparently, realize that you like someone triggered a need for attention of said person.
'This won't do' he would have to do something about her, just ignore wouldn't do at all.
Tenten was humming doing some homework at work when someone cleared his throat. She didn't need to look to know who was, she planned on leaving Ivan to take care of him anyway.
"Oh my, what can I get you dear?" Ivan didn't loose time in attending Neji, who looked at him with annoyance, then looked back at Tenten, trying to see what she was doing.
Ivan rolled his eyes. Tenten had told him that she didn't want to serve the Hyuga anymore and asked if he could take his orders when possible. Of course, he agreed. He found it cute seeing the Great Neji Hyuga chasing after her without even noticing.
The past weeks the boy would only come when she was on schedule, and would always give him a face when it was him serving. The Hyuga never missed a chance to pick on Tenten as well, who would glare at him but say nothing, as she was on the clock and he was a costumer. Ivan wondered if the boy was conscious of what he was doing, or if he was oblivious.
"Your order, sir" Ivan tried again.
"Earl grey" Neji said without giving another word, Tenten rolled her eyes, the guy can't even say a 'Please'.
"Right away." While Ivan worked on his tea, Neji started to tap the counter, racking his brain for something to say, nothing coming to mind. Tenten on the other hand, was getting irritated by the continued tapping.
"What do you want Hyuga" She finally snapped, surprising both Ivan and Neji, glaring at the later. Ivan had the order ready but decided to see the fruition of this conversation, or discussion. It has been two weeks since she was trying to ignore Neji, and probably was the first time since that she started the discussion.
"You are ignoring me" Neji stated as it was something that she wasn't allowed to do. Tenten rolled her eyes.
"Why wouldn't I ignore you?"
Neji didn't understand the question. Who would anyone ignore him? The future CEO of one of the biggest corporations of the country, star of the men's volleyball team and a top scorer student.
"Because I'm me" She rolled her eyes, again. He furrowed his brow.
Now she was laughing, but not the kind of laugh that he wanted to hear, it was more, sarcastically?
"And?"
"Future CEO of one of the Hyuga corporation, star of the men's volleyball team and a top scorer student" he answered automatically.
"I'm talking about your personality, not achievements" She scowled him. Neji went silent, he never thought much about it.
He was quiet, knew that he didn't say nice things to people and tended to ignore everyone, only caring about his family and achievements.
At his silence, Tenten sighed. Ivan took the opportunity to deliver Hyuga's drink, who took it and walked away.
"Are you ok?" Ivan asked gently. Tenten looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah, why shouldn't I?" Ivan pointed to the retreating Hyuga, Tenten shrugged, "Only gave him something to think about. If he wants attention, he better start treating people right" she finished.
Ivan sighed, his friend could be as cold as ice when she wanted.
Shikamaru was the first one to realize that something was wrong with the Hyuga, he was making too many mistakes.
"Hyuga, pay attention to practice" Sasuke, however, was the first one to call out the man.
"Neji! What troubles you, my rival?" Lee cried, "Are you not feeling well? Do you need me to carry you to the health center?" Lee was already trying to get a hold of Neji.
"I'm fine, just a lot in mind" Neji dodged Lee, maintaining a good distance from the man.
"Whatever you have in mind, please solve it before weekend. The championship starts and we need you fully focused" Jiraya told him, his arms crossing, exanimating the Hyuga.
Neji grunted, his mind was still searching for the answer to Tenten's question.
When practice was over, Neji approached Sasuke and Shikamaru.
"I need to talk to you two, in private. Meet me by the exit after showers" He commanded and walked away. Shikamaru muttered troublesome under his breath and Sasuke frowned.
"First of all, why are they here?" Neji asked, eye twitching.
Neji was waiting for only two people to meet him, not four. Apparently, Naruto heard him and got curious, dragging Sai too.
"We are all worried, you were way too bad today" Naruto saying that was a direct hit to his ego, but he maintained his composure.
"In any case, you want help with someone, don't you?" Shikamaru stated, reading Neji like a book. With the look of surprise and horror in Neji's face, Shikamaru completed, "It's the only reason you would talk with Uchiha, he's the only one with a girl after all."
"Neji is interested in a girl?" Sai asked, smiling like always.
"Its Tenten isn't it?" Naruto was way too excited for this, and way too correct. Neji sometimes wondered how the blond didn't catch how his cousin was head over heels for him, but would notice other small details.
Neji weas exasperated. It was supposed to be a small talk with only Shikamaru and Sasuke, who he knew wouldn't touch much in the subject, just answer his questions.
"You guys better be quiet" He hissed, and took a deep breath, "I just need to know about my personality, what do you guys think?" he asked.
"Arrogant"
"Idiot"
"Antisocial"
"Rude" The four of them took times to say, each adjective piercing through Neji's soul, although he knew it wouldn't be too good already.
"But you know, Sasuke was somewhat like that before" Naruto said, receiving a glare from the Uchiha, "But he changed, so you can change too! Believe it!" Naruto proclaimed cheerfully.
Neji pondered. Change, but how? It didn't sound bad, he just didn't know much how to do it.
"You can try doing small things for a first" Sasuke offered, "for me, I stopped ignoring Sakura."
'One thing at a time' He could work on it, hopefully something would change.
"Do something nice maybe?" Sai suggested. It was also a nice idea, but which gave him the question, what exactly?
"This is troublesome, rackling your brain for a woman" Shikamaru commented with a bored expression, "try to find out what she likes and whatnot."
That too, was a good idea. Maybe talk with all of them wasn't so bad, now he had things to work on, at least.
"Ok, I'll try" Neji pause, preparing himself for his next sentence. "Thank you" He bowed.
Naruto chocked on his own saliva, Shikamaru and Sasuke held a shocked expression. Even Sai changed his expression, from the smile to grin.
"If any of you say anything about this to anyone else, you're dead" Ahh, there was the Neji everyone knew.
Tenten was exhausted, after three weeks, the first wave of tests was upon her, and she was trying to conciliate classes with work with practice and study. Not to mention next weekend the championship would start. For her luck Ivan was an angel and handled most of the customers at work, so she could study. But she needed to help him afterwards with what she learned. It was still an awesome deal.
Hinata was already sleeping by the time she made it to her room. Quietly slipping for a shower, the thoughts of Hyuga emerged. She was attracted to him, ignoring him was hard, she was glad that at least he was an asshole most of the time, that helped her mission of ignoring him.
Why she was his focus of torment, she didn't know, but she would be damn glad when the quarter ended, and she wouldn't need to see his impossibly handsome face with those eyes. She learned the hard way that she could get lost in them if she stared too much.
Finishing her shower, Tenten stepped out of and quickly dried herself, putting some pajamas and crushing, quietly, on her bed. It was past midnight, and she needed to wake up in seven hours. It was a good amount of sleep, only problem was that she would get a lot of weird dreams of the darnish boy. Cursed the day she saw him all sweaty.
The sun was up faster than she wanted to. She was five minutes late when Tenten finally made it to her class, seating herself on the only empty seat, always by the Hyugas side.
"Good morning" her eyes almost flew out her skull at said man words. He never once said that to her.
Casting him a glance, she noted that his face had an awkward expression. She couldn't guess if he was nervous or embarrassed, maybe both.
"Morning" she greeted him and tried to pay attention to what the teacher was saying. There was an awkward silence, both just minding their own notes and thoughts.
His second strange action came when Tenten was stuck in an exercise.
"I can help you, if you want" she looked at him, wishing she didn't. He wasn't looking at her, but she could tell he was somewhat shy, and that was extremely cute.
"Umm, sure" She answered, and she thought she saw him smile, the faintiest smile, for a split second.
He explained like a normal person for once, not like the tips he would give her with insults. It was the first time he was nice to her, and she didn't mind him being close to her explaining that exercise at all, in fact, it was pleasant.
'Wait, when did him get that close?' Alarm bells rang in her head as she put some more distance between them.
Of course it wouldn't be easy, but it was a start. 'Being nice isn't that hard' Neji was very observant, and the nicest person he knew was his cousin. He wouldn't stutter like her, but he would try to be a as kind like her as possible. So far, so was confused by his actions, but she didn't glare at him, it meant that he was doing it right, hopefully.
While explaining something to her, he managed to get closer to her, but soon enough she slipped away. It took her some time tough to put the distance. 'One step at time' he kept telling himself, while he finished helping her.
"Thank you" She gave him a tiny smile then looked away, and his heart skipped a bit. If he ever hoped of suppressing this little crush of his, all hopa was crushed by that smile, tiny, damn smile. Grunting in response, he went back to his notes, feeling proud of his progress so far.
Class was over too soon for his liking, and he watched the girl disappear from his side, leaving in a hurry like always. He needed to talk more to her but didn't know how. In class it was bad to chat and finding her on campus would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. He knew the girls had practice today, however he didn't know what time. Maybe he could talk to some friend of hers to find out more about her, maybe her hangout spots.
Lee was out of question. The boy would ramble his mouth to her at the first chance. Naruto was the same, Sasuke probably didn't know her very well, neither did Shikamaru. Her colleague from the café? Maybe, he would keep that man in mind, but would rather talk with someone else.
That's when it hit him. He had a very close person, whom he could trust, that shared the same room with the brunette.
"I'm sorry, but are you lost?" He looked at the man in front of him, then looked at the clock. He spent a lot of time thinking and now he was late for his next class, very late. 'Crap'.
"Hinata-sama" Neji started, he and Hinata were seated at a table in one of the university's restaurants. He invited his cousin for lunch to talk about Tenten. However, now that she was in front of him, he was nervous, how would he say things?
"Yes Neji-nii?" It was strange seeing her cousin so nervous, whatever was that he wanted to talk, it should be important.
"I need your help with Tenten… I mean, how do I get her to like me" His face was red, he was blushing. Hinata never dreamt of seeing her always cold and stoic cousin this shy and nervous, his eyes anywhere but her. It was adorable.
Hinata pondered for a moment. She knew that the brunette didn't have a good impression of Neji, how to change that was the question…
"I already know that I need to be nicer and these things, but I don't know what to talk with her, nor where to find her aside in a classroom or her work." He clarified. So he already knew what to do... "What do you talk about with her?" He asked.
"Well, when we chat, we usually talk about our days in general, sometimes about family and past. I don't know where she is during the day though." Hinata said thoughtful, trying to recall something useful for her cousin.
"I see, you know what she likes?" Neji asked expectantly.
"Mmm, volleyball, action or comedy movies… she likes to admire pointy weapons too, I believe" Hinata recalled once when Tenten went wild over an article about an ancient kunai.
"Pointy weapons?" Neji was dumbfounded, "Ok, I guess…" Recomposing himself, he bowed "Thank you Hinata-sama."
Hinata smiled, she liked helping her cousin, and seeing him finally take interest in someone, trying to improve for said someone, it made her want to cry from happiness.
"By the way, I took the liberty of inviting Naruto for lunch as well. I'll try to help you too, to get close to Naruto, I mean" Hinata's smile was replaced by shock, and her face turned a dark shade of red. Her cousin didn't like Naruto very much, and never really approved her crush on the blonde. Him supporting her now meant a lot.
"T-thnak you, nii-sama!" Hinata smiled happily, face still red. Neji just nodded and pointed behind her. Turning around she could see the blonde waiving at them, making her panic.
Hinata lasted till half of lunch before Naruto made her faint. Neji sighed, and made Naruto take care of his unconscious cousin while he got out of there.
"It's chillier than usual tonight" Ivan commented while he walked her back to her dorm. It was past 11pm, and the temperature greatly dropped that night. Hugging herself for warmth, Tenten regretted not grabbing a hoodie before heading to the library after her practice. "Sorry, I don't have any coat to lend you" Ivan apologized.
"Hm? Ah, don't worry, we are almost there" She said while giving him a trembling thumbs up, then getting lost in thought again.
"What's in your mind? You've been spacing out a lot today" She was spacing out all evening, and Ivan knew something was off. When she didn't answer, he poked her arm.
"What?" She jumped at him, making him chuckle.
"You've been spacing out a lot" He poked her head, "What's in this little head of yours?"
"Nothing" she said hurriedly, but Ivan wouldn't buy that. Sighing, she told him about her confusion "Hyuga was nice today to me today, that was all"
"I see, so You've been thinking about handsome Neji?" Ivan teased, earning an elbow to the side. Laughing, he said "You know that I ship you both"
"Well, but I don't" Tenten partially lied. A part of her, her pride, wanted to stay away from the Hyuga. Him being nice scared her, because the other part of her wanted more now. Ivan said nothing more, only smiled to himself.
They reached her dorm and said their goodbyes. Tenten entered quietly through her dorm, Hinata was already sleeping as expected. Getting under a hot shower, Tenten let the water wash away the cold and soreness of her muscles, concentrating in thinking only on important things. As she made it to her bed, she welcomed a much-needed sleep.
TBC
Chapter 4 done, It was a hard chapter to write, hope you all liked it! Give me your thoughts. Every comment and critic is appreciated.
I apologize for gramar erros.
Be safe and take care!
