Author's Note: Aaand here's a nice fluffy chapter before things get heavy again! Really enjoyed writing it, hope you like reading!
Summoning a grappling hook to latch onto the railing above her, Ten-ten pulled herself over the water tower's sloping curve so she could finally meet Neji's amused smile. She planted herself next to him and tangled her fingers with his in the space between their seated bodies.
"Hey, you know I hate heights," she panted, wondering whether he intended to punish her for initiating their latest argument.
She hoped he'd received and read her lengthy apology letter, nestled in their usual place.
No, he forgives me, she reassured herself. Otherwise he wouldn't have snuck out to see me.
From their shared perch, Ten-ten could see the hokage monument and the hulking statues of Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju in one sweep of her head.
I can see why he likes being above everything, she thought before queasiness overtook her. Ten-ten gasped and clung to Neji's shoulders as she glimpsed the ground hundreds of feet below her. She supposed that was one of the reasons he enjoyed taking her to great heights, where he was the only thing available to ground her.
He laughed. Kissed her cheek.
"Do you trust me, Ten-ten?"
Neji locked his white eyes with her golden brown eyes.
"Yeah...I just...haven't gotten used to this."
Ten-ten returned a flickering, uncertain smile. Grabbing his free hand, she dug her face into the hollow where his neck and shoulder joined. A rush of affection filled his chest – he loved when she sought comfort in his soft spot. That was all the answer he needed to his question.
Had even a toddler cousin shown such vulnerability before him, Neji would have peeled them off and scolded them for their weakness.
"Don't look at the ground. Look around you," he whispered.
A flock of birds coasted on the flowing air currents swirling around the village's water tower. Neji dreamed of joining them – cataloging the village streets from above, counting the squabbling ants below him. He dreamed of drifting past the Hyuga compound in the cold, thin air where neither his uncle nor Risa could demand he fulfill his duty to the clan. If he encountered Hiashi Hyuga, he would be just another ant, equal in size and standing to the peddler pulling his cart outside the compound walls. No, none of the chains that bound him on earth could reach him so far above.
If Risa wasn't expecting him for dinner, he could have sat watching the birds until dusk.
"Give me a minute."
"Take as long as you need."
He hoped Ten-ten would open herself to feeling the same weightless freedom. If she envisioned the world from above as he did, she could untether herself from the concerns that weighed so heavy on her mind. Compared to the massive world visible from above, they were flecks free to travel where the free-blowing winds brought them together.
Ten-ten squeezed Neji tighter before raising just her eyes above his shoulder, narrowing her eyes against the wind.
"Never thought you'd come out of there," he laughed.
She focused her mass against his side and tried to ignore the sloping ground beneath her. If she loosened her grip or shifted her weight by even an inch, she pictured herself plummeting over the 6-inch railing at her feet and down the steeply curving sides. The only saving grace was that she'd die a quick death once she hit the canopy. Even as a konoichi with no aptitude for medical arts, Ten-ten knew her body couldn't withstand the force of falling over 400 feet.
"If I fall because you dragged me up here...my dad's going to kill you," she gasped. "Maybe my mom'll join in."
Dad'll come for him right after he tells my dead body he was right about the cousin-fuckers all along, Ten-ten thought.
"You trust me – don't you?" Neji reiterated in the patient, careful tone he reserved for Ten-ten.
"Well, I do."
"I won't let you fall."
"I mean...I know that. But if I started to fall, you couldn't stop me," she rambled, words spilling faster as her panic accumulated. "Then you'd fall, too. And I'd feel terrible for the few seconds I had left to live before we'd both splat."
He sighed. Debating Ten-ten's fear of heights didn't threaten to upend their shared future. But he dreaded spending their few stolen hours together arguing – again.
"Ten-ten – being afraid won't stop you from falling. It won't stop me from falling with you," he declared. "Just hold onto me and don't look down."
"I guess I can do that."
She laid her head sideways on Neji's shoulder, muscles still tense. Within a few minutes, he felt Ten-ten mold herself around him. The muscles on her cheeks formed the telltale imprint of a smile.
"Sometimes I like to imagine there's nothing but air under me. Like I'm flying," he whispered into the breeze that tickled their faces.
"That would be nice," she replied, though the notion of suspending her body high above the treetops sounded anything but nice.
Ten-ten didn't know how to handle his unguarded admission. She knew on some level that Neji daydreamed, and on occasion entertained more focused thoughts of escaping his current reality. He was human like her. But flying? His fantasy seemed too childish for the Hyuga prodigy – but also entirely appropriate. After all, Neji couldn't sustain his haughty, unaffected demeanor every hour of every day.
Considering the burdens that awaited him on the ground, she could even sympathize with his desire to feel weightless.
"Easier to do when you're up here, isn't it?"
"Yeah, you're right. Where would you go? If you could fly anywhere?"
"Hm. I've never thought of that, Ten-ten...where would you go?"
Neji planted a quick close-mouthed kiss on her lips, then smiled wide enough to taper the corners of his eyes.
"Hey, no fair!"
Ten-ten shook her head and laughed.
"And why not?"
"Because I've never thought of that either," Ten-ten answered, shrugging. "I'm not the one who thinks about flying. If I magically had the power to fly, I'd spend all my energy trying not to die while doing it."
"Then let's think of somewhere we could go, together."
Her mind jumped to the windswept coastal village where she once traveled on a mission to escort a box of priceless relics belonging to the local temple. Though she found nothing else memorable in that mission, she could still mentally form the landscape's contours and colors, the stunning sight of the ocean as she saw it for the first time. Ten-ten found the stacks of gray battered rock hauntingly beautiful, almost heartbreaking in how they stood alone against a sea that laid them low day by day.
"Remember that village? The one with the temple?" she ventured.
The thought of ever returning felt like a child's fantasy.
The hokage rarely approved non-work related travel requests, and Ten-ten's schedule left little time for extended leisure trips.
But Ten-ten supposed spending a week by the sea watching the waves was no more a childish wish than Neji's dream of flying.
"Yes, of course. I'd never seen you smile so freely before, Ten-ten. I remember thinking that I wanted to see it every day."
She pressed a fist to her lips, trying to stem the rising heat on her face and neck. Her only recollections of Neji during the mission were his repeated complaints about their accommodations in a poor fisherman's cabin. Every time he lodged another disparaging comment at the fisherman's wife, Ten-ten could only restrain her anger by picturing herself muffling his dreadful voice.
To think even then...he looked at me that way. All I felt coming from him was contempt for everything and everyone, she thought.
"But...you hated it out there," Ten-ten objected. "Oh gods, I wanted to shut you up so badly. 'Madam, I believe you've confused boiling water for soup. Madam – '"
Neji huffed at the sound of her mocking sing-song.
His pale fingers enveloped her face, pulled her into him for a prolonged kiss. He could feel the upward curve of Ten-ten's lips as they pressed closer. Her hand wrapped under the black hair that fanned across his shoulders and around the side of his neck.
Withdrawing from their kiss, she sighed through swollen lips, pools of afternoon sunshine dancing in her eyes.
"We were both 12. I believe we can put that incident firmly behind us," Neji declared, inviting no further mockery of his childhood conceits.
"Well, okay. Still doesn't change that you couldn't wait to leave."
"I'd return because it would make you happy. I'd love to see you as you were on our last night there, sitting on the cliffs at sunset."
"Hey...you were watching me?" Ten-ten exclaimed, recalling that she scouted a 300-yard radius around the promontory before settling down to watch the orange sun dip below the ocean.
"And, what's this about wanting to see me smile every day...when you still totally hated us?"
Neji closed his eyes.
"I always noticed how hard you worked. But you weren't like Lee. You didn't do it so you could boast that you were the best," he said.
"I saw everything. You looked broken when Gai sensei said you still weren't training enough. I-I stayed away because I thought my consolation and friendship would mean nothing to you, Ten-ten. And I didn't know how to offer it. I wish I had tried years sooner."
"Better late than never, Neji," she whispered next to his ear, and slung an arm over his shoulders.
He grinned back at her. Ten-ten could see the tips of his teeth peeking between his lips. It was the closest she'd seen to an open-mouthed smile on his face.
"You're right. What do a few years matter when we'll have the rest of our lives?"
Soon enough, he added silently. Perhaps not in the hidden leaf.
Ten-ten's squeal made Neji's muscles tense with discomfort, but warmed his entire core with tender affection.
As they split a sesame seed-covered rice ball from Neji's packed lunch, he realized that he was already flying.