Author's Note: After this chapter, expect a new chapter every week (probably Friday or Saturday evening, Eastern Time)! I'm interested to know - do you have any predictions for what happens next?
Still just 8:30 in the morning. Risa checked the clock above her vanity as she finished combing her hair. She tied it a few inches above her waist in one of the Hyuga's traditional hairstyles, worn by both men and women.
The Hyuga compound lay eerily still, save for the crews of servants washing dishes and clearing away messes left by the previous night's excesses. Most of the clan would remain asleep until noon at the earliest, then spend the rest of the day nursing hangovers or indigestion. As Risa entered the courtyard from her bedroom, she smelled a trace of vomit on the air – guess someone got carried away. She wondered who among her large extended family may have hurled the contents of their stomach behind a rosebush or box elder. Could it really have been Lord Hiashi? Images of the bent-over Hyuga patriarch ran through Risa's mind, eliciting a smile.
She settled on the stone bench overlooking the koi pond, watching colorful fish leisurely stream past one another. Risa considered visiting the kitchen for leftover rice to feed them. But the clan children already fed the fish plenty of scraps – and the koi had no way to stop themselves from overeating.
A voice from behind interrupted her thoughts. Neji.
"I was planning to meditate here," he stated. No greeting, just an implicit demand that she cede her seat to him.
"Hello, Neji. You never came to bed last night."
Risa straightened her back, turned around to face him with an open-mouthed grin. Her grinning face was met with a downcast scowl. Figures. He still hates the sight of me – she thought.
"Even if I'd come back to you, you were too drunk to notice. And it's none of your concern where I go. I think of you as my wife in name only."
She wanted to say – it is my concern if you were warming someone else's bed while I slept alone. Calling her his 'wife in name only' implied he felt no marital obligations to her, including basic fidelity. She wondered if he considered the Sato girl his true wife, though neither the clan nor the Land of Fire recognized their coupling.
Recalling her 'duty' to the clan, Risa laughed to herself, shaking her head. I shouldn't ask about the Sato girl now. He'd probably try to kill me. But I can't let him walk all over me.
"Wife or not, doesn't change that I arrived here first. And the bench is long enough for both of us to sit side by side," she replied.
Neji ground his teeth, but decided to accept her small concession.
"Fine. Move. You're taking up the middle."
He really is a child. He hasn't mastered his emotions nearly as well as he's mastered his jutsu.
Risa perched on the edge of the bench while Neji planted himself right in the spot she just vacated. He closed his eyes, breathing deep and slow. Tracing the path of an orange and red spotted fish across the pond, she savored the brief break in their simmering tension.
Minutes passed in uneasy coexistence until Risa saw her favorite cousin pumping his short five-year-old legs as fast as he could manage. He'd probably woken up early to feed the fish or sail his toy boat in the koi pond before the older children could push him out.
"Big sister! You're not sick anymore! And big brother Neji's here too."
The child's squealing voice broke Neji's concentration. He growled in frustration, brows scrunched between his eyes.
"Ryo, I think he wants some quiet right now. Do you want to help me make some breakfast?"
"Yeah! Can you give me a ride?" Risa sighed and crouched next to the bench. Her baby cousin now weighed over 50 pounds – someday, she would have to tell him that he couldn't ride on her back forever. Another time. She needed to move him before his babbling irritated Neji further.
With Ryo on her back, Risa skipped back to the kitchen she now shared with Neji. The boy's giggling almost made up for the ache building in her lower back. She doubted Neji appreciated the sound.
"What do you think big brother Neji wants for breakfast?" Risa asked her kitchen helper as she surveyed the freshly stocked refrigerator. The servants had done a rather thorough job.
"Mmm...I don't know. Maybe an omelet?"
"I think you just want to whisk the eggs."
Risa smiled and poked him on the nose.
Ryo put his hands over his nose, giggling.
"...maybe. But that's my job, isn't it?"
"Omelet it is, then."
She handed him a pair of chopsticks and cracked three eggs into a bowl, pouring in enough milk to soften them in the pan. As Risa diced tomatoes, onions and mushrooms, Ryo sat on the floor circling the bowl with his chopsticks, well past when any separation between the whites and yolks would persist. She loved watching the Hyuga children grow up, loved the numerous brothers and sisters who salved the loneliness that normally afflicted orphaned single children. The unmarried young men and women of the branch clan watched toddlers and trained older children in the clan's secret jutsu. She regretted that she'd soon have to redirect most of her energy to waiting on Neji.
"Big sister, I have a question."
To Risa's surprise, the boy set his chopsticks down and looked over to her.
"Yes, what is it?" she lowered her voice and leaned forward to hear him.
"Why didn't big brother have sex with you?"
Risa sighed in relief that she'd stopped cutting before she heard his question. Her heart thumped in her ears and she stammered for a few seconds before asking how he'd heard about sex.
"At our table, Hanabi said big brother was taking you away for sex. She said sex is when a boy and girl hug on a bed all night, but then I saw him jump on the roof and he didn't stay to hug you."
His naive conception of sex made her laugh. She crossed the kitchen to give Ryo a hug.
"That's...not exactly what sex is. You'll find out when you're older."
The boy buried his pouting face in the waist of Risa's dress.
"No fair. I'm five already. My mom says I'm a big boy."
"You are a big boy. But remember, you'll be bigger someday. Sex is only for grown-ups. Just like marrying."
At least ideally. A 17-year-old Neji Hyuga had no standing to propose marriage to the Sato girl. She remembered her former genin trainees, the two boys and a girl who stayed on her team even after they reached chunin. Two years into her early retirement, and Risa couldn't recall if Might Gai was the kind of sensei who would urge his students not to grow up too fast.
"Okay. But you didn't tell me why big brother ran away and didn't have sex with you."
Hearing the word sex repeated in Ryo's shrill voice grated on Risa's senses. She set the boy on one of the kitchen counter's bar stools so he could watch her cook the omelet.
"Even grown-ups don't always feel ready for sex. I think big brother was overwhelmed because being married was so new for him."
"Oh. Maybe he was going to find a friend to talk to." He shrugged and toyed with his fingers.
'Friend' is one way to describe her.
She didn't have the heart to tell Ryo that his big brother Neji hated his big sister. That he hated being a Hyuga. In his child's mind, everyone in the compound loved each other and looked to the clan's sigil with pride. She doubted Ryo even knew the difference between the branch and main families of the clan.
"Should I make the eggs extra crispy or extra fluffy?" Risa asked. She had no idea of what Neji preferred. She just knew he would find fault with whatever she set on the table for him.
"Extra crispy!"
Ryo's favorite.
"Will do." Risa turned up the stove's temperature, listening for the hum of electricity as the coils heated up.
She took a breath before asking Ryo another question. Though she had no plans to act on his answer, she couldn't resist at least probing his memories from last night.
"Ryo, did you see big brother Neji go anywhere after he jumped on the roof?"
"Um...he went that way."
Ryo pointed a stubby finger in the direction of the village's downtown market district – where the Sato family lived in an apartment above their produce store. Risa nodded in acknowledgment, putting on a smile so Ryo didn't believe he did anything wrong. Yet he could tell she wasn't as content as her face suggested.
"Big sister, are you okay?"
"I'm just...worried big brother might go somewhere unsafe."
He giggled.
"You're so silly. Big brother Neji can fight anyone. Dad said he's a genius!"
Risa flipped the omelet. Turned off the stove. The sizzle of egg hitting the pan soothed her ears.
"Oh, I'm sure he can protect himself. You're right. Just me being silly."
A knock sounded on the doorframe. Risa opened the door to see Ryo's mother still dressed in her flowered cotton nightgown.
"Ryo! You shouldn't bother your big sister so early. And we're all waiting for you to have breakfast."
"Yes, mom. Sorry big sister." Ryo slid off the barstool and pouted at Risa in fake remorse.
"I don't mind having him around. He's been very helpful with breakfast," Risa interjected. She preferred the company of Ryo's childish innocence to Neji's childish temper.
"Oh, good. Good. Settling into the new place?"
"It's perfect."
"See you around then."
"Bye, big sister!," Ryo called back, waving his hand frantically as his mother dragged him out the door.
Risa plated the finished omelet and re-opened the refrigerator to retrieve the milk. She jumped when the door opened and shut behind her.
"Using children to spy on me. How cute," Neji snapped, taking a seat at the table. "Tell me – where do you think I was?"
"I-well, I made you breakfast. You shouldn't be talking when you were just outside spying on me."
Sidestepping his latest attempt to provoke a fight, Risa set the plate and a pair of chopsticks down harder than she intended. She followed with a glass of milk seconds later.
Neji finished her food in less than a minute, a habit probably honed by numerous ninja missions.
"Not bad. A little cold. Needs more salt." He stacked the chopsticks and cup on the plate, then dumped them in the sink.
"Not that hard. You'll break the glass," Risa admonished, grabbing his wrist.
She lowered her voice to a hiss – "Hey, where on Earth were you last night?"
Glaring daggers at her, Neji wrenched his hand from Risa's grasp, face red with anger.
"Taking a walk. Getting a bowl of ramen. Anything to get some distance from this cursed place. From you," He stood over Risa and grabbed the side of her neck, resting his thumb mere inches from her airway. She gasped – he was a good head taller.
Please don't kill me. Risa's knees weakened and she felt her lungs constrict. Tears beaded in her eyes. She pictured Neji striking Hinata again and again without mercy until her heart almost stopped. She activated her Byakugan so she could strike back if he tried to choke her.
"Don't...don't hurt me," she choked out.
Neji released his grip on Risa and let her stagger backward into the kitchen counter. She sucked in deep, rattling breaths of air as if he'd just taken his hands off her throat.
"You're – you're really unbelievable. Kill me, and you die, too."
Risa pointed a shaking finger at the space between Neji's eyes. She watched him in anticipation that the veins on the sides of his face would swell, but his glare softened instead of intensifying into the Byakugan. Only her hands on the counter kept quivering legs from giving way under her.
"I wouldn't hurt you, Risa," he whispered, shaking his head. "Go to bed. Calm down."
Neji offered an arm to carry her back to the bedroom. Eyes wide, she held her hands in a bladed position in front of her chest – preparing to guard her vital organs. Assessing her surroundings, Risa found herself cornered between the counter and the refrigerator. A caged animal made an easy target.
"Listen, I'm sorry," he pleaded. "I – just didn't want you telling my uncle the wrong thing. He can't think I was with Ten-ten, or he'll punish me again."
The seal. If Lord Hiashi discovered his indiscretion, Neji would writhe in pain for days. Risa had never experienced the seal's powers, but she remembered how her parents screamed when the Hyuga patriarch activated their seals. They'd been punished at least three times before they disappeared over the mountains, and out of their 7-year-old daughter's life. Every time her parents were punished, Risa stayed at least a week with one of her aunts or uncles. It hardly helped soothe her inevitable nighttime crying when her cousins plied her with desserts or offered to braid her hair.
She kept her muscles tensed, ready to repel him at any moment. She said nothing in response to the apology – but noted that he hadn't apologized for insulting her.
"You'd better not do anything to Ryo," Risa spat. "It's not his fault the Hyuga boy genius couldn't even evade a toddler's eyes."
"I wasn't planning to threaten the child. And if I wanted to hurt you, I would have done it last night."
Risa turned off her Byakugan and let her hands fall to her sides.
"I won't say anything. As far as I'm concerned, I woke up to find you with me," she muttered at Neji's bare feet. "Don't hurt Ryo. He's innocent. Anyone asks, and I'll say he has an overactive imagination."
The thought of subjecting anyone to the seal's power made her sicker than the thought of Neji spreading the Sato girl's legs.
Neji laid a hand on Risa's shoulder blade, stopping short of embracing her. He assumed feeling his arms around her would re-trigger her defenses.
"Thank you, Risa. For breakfast."
He left her alone in the kitchen. Left her to clean up from breakfast and rebuild her shattered composure. A flash of anger rose in her chest.
Less than one day into marriage and she already found herself at her husband's mercy.
Thank me for keeping my mouth shut. – she retorted. But for all she knew, Neji had left her to find the Sato girl again.