Complications
by Nilladriel
6: uncertainty
The villagers of Sand slept through the heat of the day and were most awake at night; Naruto and Neji, having experienced the desert sun's wrath, followed their example—or tried to, anyway. It was hard for Neji to sleep during the day. It was too bright, and his mind refused to shut up. A thousand nonsense thoughts ran through his head, diligently keeping him awake and running in endless circles.
Finally Neji got out of bed. He tried to meditate for a while, thinking that might perhaps ease him to sleep, but it didn't work. Although his mind became dutifully clear of thoughts, once he opened his eyes again they all rushed back in again, clamoring for attention.
Thinking perhaps a drink might help, he walked out of his room. He found Naruto in the kitchen, considering a glass of water as if it held all the answers in the universe.
Or maybe he was just daydreaming.
Naruto glanced up. "Hey," he said.
"Hey," Neji returned.
"The water here tastes funny," Naruto announced gravely.
"I… see," Neji said, eyeing Naruto's half-empty glass. He poured his own glass, sat down, and took a sip. Naruto was right; the water did taste a little funny. Tinny, almost. But Neji drank it all anyway.
"Want to spar?" Naruto offered.
Neji gave him an incredulous look. "In this heat?" he asked.
Naruto pouted.
"We can spar at night," Neji said, carefully looking away. The village was eerily silent—another difference from Leaf, where people seemed unable to shut up. The little view the window offered showed empty streets and a clear, cloud-free sky.
"Alright!" Naruto agreed.
Neji smiled slightly. "I look forward to winning."
Naruto snorted. "Yeah, right. I kicked your ass at the chuunin exams, and I can kick it again."
"That was three years ago," Neji said, raising an eyebrow.
He doubted that they would have an actual spar; they were both too competitive and the spar would likely turn into a friendly fight, with a given value of "friendly." His blood sang in anticipation at the thought.
"Yeah, yeah," Naruto said. "Like I said, I'll kick your ass tonight!"
Neji smiled. In the tone of an adult humoring a child, he said, "We'll see."
"I came to drop off my letter," Temari said when Neji opened the door.
He took it and disappeared inside his room to tuck it safely into a pocket of his bag. When he came back out again, he saw Temari had seated herself on the couch.
"Would you like some water?" Neji asked after a moment.
Temari shook her head. "Where's Naruto?" she asked.
"Hunting down a ramen stall, I believe," Neji said, amusement coloring his tone. "He won't be back for a while."
"Really? And he left you behind?"
"I didn't want to go."
"Huh," Temari said, looking at him curiously. "I'd have thought he would have convinced you to go."
Neji didn't reply. Naruto almost had. Damn that smile of his.
"I guess I'll treat you to dinner, then," Temari said, managing to not look too disturbed by his silence. "I bet you're hungry."
"Thank you," Neji said, surprised.
"It's no problem," Temari said, waving a hand dismissively. They set off through Sand's streets, which had suddenly filled with people. Above the sky was a brilliant black and littered with more stars than Neji had ever thought possible.
"So why were you sent here?" Temari asked; the streets were crowded, but people seemed to recognize Temari as being Gaara's sister, and so made way with amusing haste. "I would have thought you'd be on a more important mission."
"Not many missions are coming in," Neji admitted. "Most of the higher-ranked missions are going to those who truly need the money."
"A bust period, huh," Temari said sympathetically. "We're going through the same. Everybody's been getting restless. Seems like there's a fight every day."
Neji snorted lightly. With people like Naruto and Kiba in Leaf, fights broke out every day anyway, despite the Fifth assigning patrol duty to anyone who dared to piss her off too much. As a result, Leaf had become a very safe village over the past few weeks.
"One of these days," Temari went on, "I think everyone'll get bored enough for another war to erupt. Ah, here we are."
The restaurant she'd led them to was nice enough, full of light metal tables and chairs; the customers were made up entirely of shinobi. Neji received a few watchful stares, but not enough to really make him feel threatened. Still, they chose a table a ways off from the rest.
"I'll have my usual," Temari said to the waitress who came by.
The waitress looked at Neji and smiled a sweet smile. "How about you?" she asked.
Neji glanced at Temari, and Temari glanced back. "He'll have my usual, too," Temari said, and Neji hoped her usual didn't have any lizard-meat in it.
The waitress didn't even look at Temari; she just nodded, eyes still on Neji, and smiled what she probably hoped was a flirtatious smile. "Would you like a drink, too?"
Temari was beginning to look annoyed. Neji was already annoyed. As coolly as possible he said, "Just water, thanks."
"Are you sure? We've got juice," the waitress said, obviously reluctant to head away from the table.
"Just water," Neji repeated, and glared.
The girl immediately fled.
"Shit," Temari said, laughing. "You didn't have to scare her like that. She was only flirting."
Neji raised an eyebrow; he hadn't been the only one annoyed, but apparently Temari had selective and extremely short-term memory.
"Anyway, she was pretty. Kankuro would have flirted right back," she added, as if it was somehow the expected behavior.
"I'm not Kankuro," Neji said, his mind immediately sketching out a horrible mental image of himself wearing face paint and that awful black thing the puppeteer insisted on wearing.
"Pity. He's nicer than you. Why's your mood so black all the time, anyway?" Temari said.
Neji stared hard at her.
"See?" she said. "I thought it was just last night, but apparently not."
She was about to add something else, but then the waitress came by. The girl gave Neji a small, worried smile. He almost glared at her again, but instead sighed internally and forced himself to murmur a quiet thank you, twitching his lips in what may have been a smile but was more likely a grimace. The waitress beamed at this and walked off with a bounce in her step.
"Good looks are wasted on someone like you," Temari complained, having watched the whole exchange with an air of annoyed amusement.
Neji was too busy giving the food a horrified look to reply. Temari's usual was not, in fact, lizard-meat.
But it was a giant bug—a giant cockroach? Grasshopper?—swathed in some sort of honey-red sauce.
You're a ninja of Leaf, and a jounin with more than a hundred missions under your belt, Neji reminded himself, and picked up his fork with a swallow.
They ate in silence, although it couldn't truly be called silence. Other customers laughed and talked around them; one ninja, in a manner extremely reminiscent of Kiba, was leaning back in his chair and waving his arms wildly as he talked. A young girl in the corner was refusing to eat her food and making it known to the world by screaming her fool head off. A ninja—at least a chuunin, by the looks of it—was trying to calm her down and looking as if he'd rather be facing off against S-class enemies than getting the girl to eat. Maybe it was a D-class babysitting mission. A huge number of D-class missions had popped up recently; civilians liked to keep shinobi occupied. It was amazing how much property was damaged during peace-time because of restless shinobi seeking ways to make their training more interesting.
"It's not normally as full as this," Temari said after she'd finished off most of her meal. "I hate busts." She flagged a passing waitress down and asked for more water. This waitress, unlike the previous one, did not give shy smiles. She downright leered at Neji, making him feel a little bit like a piece of meat.
"But I hear some lord is marrying his princess off," Temari said. "So hopefully we'll be getting hired for assassinations and guard duty soon." She visibly brightened up at this.
Neji hated assassinating. There was something dirty about it, but he couldn't deny that it was good money, and he'd prefer it over guard duty, which often involved staying very still while looking as dangerous as possible. Staying very still Neji could do, but he tended to look more bored than dangerous.
"We've no such hope," Neji said.
"Poor bastards," Temari said immediately. She stood up. "Shall we go?"
She paid the bill; Neji didn't bother on insisting on paying his share. He was the guest, dammit—and he had no desire to pay for eating a giant bug.
They set off again through the streets. "By the way," she said, when they turned into the street Neji's current apartment building stood in, "Gaara wanted me to ask what Naruto means to you." She smiled.
Neji choked. "What?"
"He wanted me to—"
Neji fought to keep his temper under control. He failed. "Why would he want to know?"
Temari's smile widened. "Like I'd know. So?"
To Temari's obvious disappointment, Neji had managed to school his expression. "I fail to see how it would interest him. Or you," he bit out, every word dripping with ice.
"Oh, well, it's obvious anyway," Temari said.
Neji glared. As his cheeks were burning red, the effect was ruined.
"It is obvious, you know," Temari said.
Neji opened the door to the building. "Shut up, Temari," he said.
"Obvious enough that even Gaara picked up on it," Temari continued, obviously not listening to him. "No surprise, though. You look at him like he's the most precious thing in the world."
This last was said in a softer tone, almost in wonderment. "He is," Neji told her. He couldn't help it. The words slid out like vomit.
Then he slammed the door in her face. The door shuddered in its frame and cracked. If asked, Neji decided he'd blame the crack on Temari. Was that why she asked me to dinner? he wondered, glaring at the door. The door offered up no answers. It simply sat in its frame, looking slightly pathetic. And broken.
He turned around.
… And saw Naruto standing on the stairs, a hand on the rail, looking at Neji with a frighteningly unreadable expression.
Neji felt his face heat; even his neck and ears began to warm.
Shit, he thought faintly. Mustering up every bit of calm and dignity he didn't really think he had, Neji walked up the stairs and past Naruto, who just looked at him with wide blue eyes.
By the time Neji had reached the last step, Naruto seemed to have shook himself out of his stupor. "Neji," he began.
"Don't," Neji said. "Just—don't."
"Don't talk to me like that, dammit!"
Neji ignored him. He entered their apartment, went to his bedroom, and locked the door.
Obviously, even Naruto knew how to lock-pick, but Neji didn't think he would. There were certain lines you didn't cross when you weren't away on a mission, when desperation wasn't forcing you to go to extreme lengths.
He reached for his backpack and pulled out a few scrolls, meaning to study. He almost feared he wouldn't be able to concentrate, but he found he could.
He lost himself in it soon enough, and was glad when he did.
The door crashed open.
Neji bolted up, instantly alert (but not instantly awake), hands snapping through seals.
It was only Naruto, though. Apparently he had decided to forgo picking the lock. Or maybe he really didn't know how to. Neji sighed, muscles relaxing, and rubbed his forehead with his fingers. That's two doors we've broken.
"What," he said, "are you doing in my room?"
Naruto glared at him. "You've been avoiding me the whole day!" he said.
"I was sleeping," Neji replied, which was not entirely true, but Naruto didn't need to know that. "Why are you in here?"
"Because I'm sick of the way you've been avoiding me!" Naruto snapped.
Neji closed his eyes, took a deep, calming breath that did little to actually calm him, and opened his eyes again. I do not want to deal with this, he thought, and stepped around Naruto to get out of the room.
Except Naruto's hand shot out, quick as anything, and grabbed Neji firmly around the wrist.
"Listen to me, dammit!" he snapped.
"Let go," Neji said.
"No," Naruto said. Neji pulled his hand away, but Naruto wouldn't relent; he had more brute strength than Neji, and his grip was hard enough to leave bruises on Neji's skin. Naruto reached out with his other hand and grabbed Neji's right wrist and, with sudden force, pulled the white-eyed ninja close.
Neji's eyes widened. "What are you—"
"Will you stop acting like this!" Naruto yelled. "Stop acting so fucking weird around me!"
Neji stared.
"Ever since you kissed me you've been treating me like a bomb," Naruto continued, not registering Neji's wide-eyed, bewildered expression. "It's like you're running away from me! Like you're scared of me or something! And even when you talk to me you're so fucking distant, and you—"
For no apparent reason that Neji could see, Naruto shoved him back violently and let go. He stumbled back, and only a hand against the wall behind him saved him from falling onto the floor—except he slid slowly down to the floor, anyway, not quite able to process the raw frustration Naruto had thrown at him.
Neji's wrists ached; when he glanced at them he saw that, indeed, he had bruises. Slowly, he pulled himself to his feet.
Naruto's chest was heaving, his face flushed. He was staring at Neji with a frighteningly intense expression—as if they were in the middle of a battle, not a room in the middle of a foreign village.
"I... apologize, then," Neji said finally.
"That, right there! That's exactly what I'm talking about!" Naruto said, brandishing a finger at Neji.
Once again, Neji stared, baffled, feeling somehow that he was missing something.
Naruto was glaring at him. And then, quite suddenly, he threw up his hands and stomped out of the room, leaving Neji staring after him, bewildered and confused and rubbing the bruises on his wrists.
Before he could even stop and think about what had happened, the doorbell rang; Neji went to answer it, pulling on a long-sleeved shirt on as he walked, so that the bruises on his wrists would be hidden.
"Are you done fighting?" Temari said. "I heard yelling."
Neji wasn't sure if it had been a fight, exactly; it had started off as once, certainly, but it had become... something else. Maybe Naruto had just wanted to yell at him, but that just made it sound like an odd sort of therapy session.
"Anyway," Temari said, holding out a few scrolls, "you're to take these back to Leaf."
Neji took them.
"Tonight's probably the last night Gaara's free, by the way," she added, and Neji nodded.
"I'll tell Naruto," he said, and left to do exactly that. Temari shook her head and gave an exasperated sigh, muttering something about impossible, hard-headed men and soft Leaf shinobi.
"Thanks," Naruto said after Neji had stepped into his room to deliver Temari's message. "Guess this means we'll go back tonight."
Neji turned to go, but then he hesitated. He wanted to say something—to apologize, perhaps, but...
Neji opened his mouth, closed it again. Finally he said, "Remember, I owe you a spar when we get back."
Naruto blinked at him, obviously surprised, but then a grin spread across his face, wide and bright, and Neji inhaled sharply and deeply.
"Naruto," he said, "I lo—"
He stopped, shook his head; Naruto's grin was now replaced with a puzzled look, and somehow that made him feel a little sad.
"I look forward to it," he said instead, and ducked out.
When he stepped into the bathroom to collect his things, he was surprised to find a small smile on his face.
He stared at his reflection, watching the smile slowly fade.