Author's Note: Another fluff-ier chapter. As always, constructive reviews encouraged and welcome!
For the first time he could remember in months, Hiashi Hyuga's orders worked in Neji's favor.
He thanked his uncle for disrupting the carefully designed mission schedule meant to minimize the time he and Ten-ten spent in the same vicinity. In an effort to foster Neji's bond with his legitimate Hyuga wife, Hiashi had aided the lovers' halting attempts to keep their relationship alive.
They'd managed to steal two early morning hours together in a forest clearing close to the village walls. Through a back and forth conducted over hidden slivers of paper, they agreed that Neji would leave the compound under guise of a library research trip while Ten-ten would evade Gai sensei by claiming her parents needed her at their store. She intended to evade her parents by telling them Might Gai called her and Lee for an early morning training session.
As planned, Neji reached the clearing first, then scouted a 500-yard radius with his Byakugan. Extending his range of vision, he sensed 24 birds, but no approaching ninja or civilian travelers – except Ten-ten. Once he caught sight of her perched on a tree branch overlooking the clearing, his eyes traced the lines of her face and the contours of her body through the morning mist. Neji found himself trying to memorize Ten-ten's appearance during every forbidden encounter, only to forget her in the intervening weeks before the cycle could begin again. But he could never forget the sensations of her body against him.
"Hey, it's been a while," she breathed out, landing in the grass next to Neji with a soft thud.
"Too long, Ten-ten," he agreed. "I missed you. I've thought of you every day since last time."
Ten-ten tensed when his hands reached for hers, her narrowed eyes pinned on the glint of gold around his left ring finger. She allowed him to grasp both of her hands, yet kept them stiffened to avoid wrapping her fingers around Neji's wedding band.
"Guess you're still wearing it," she muttered in defeat.
"What? I'm wearing nothing unusual –"
"Do you need me to say it? I'm talking about your ring, Neji."
He released one of Ten-ten's hands to slip the offending metal circle into a shirt pocket. Extended his empty palm as an invitation for her to tuck her hand back where it belonged. Giving her lover a smile, Ten-ten pressed him into the nearest tree for a kiss. Sandwiched between Ten-ten and a pillar of hardwood that loomed above his head, Neji could discern a determined fire in her eyes. She wore the same look when Ino Yamanaka invited him to meet her somewhere quiet after a mission. One glare from Ten-ten and Ino understood that their bond extended beyond close friendship. Ino soon spread word to the rest of their chunin cohort.
"Ten-ten, are you jealous of my cousin?"
Outside the Hyuga compound walls, Neji still refused to acknowledge Risa as anything other than a cousin – not that his careful choice of words blunted Ten-ten's hold on reality. Ten-ten felt strange always referencing a nameless, faceless 'she' when she, too, refused to call the Hyuga cousin Neji's wife.
"Ah...I guess I'm just thinking, you're with her every day. I don't like it," Ten-ten confessed, gripping both arms and pursing her lips.
Neji shook his head and pulled Ten-ten into him.
"Then don't. Think about us together, now."
He wouldn't…, she told herself. He wouldn't take her to bed. There's no way he could fall in love with her when they didn't choose each other.
She repeated those thoughts like a prayer. The hollow words were a statement of her hopes, rather than her unshakable convictions. Ten-ten imagined pale hands colliding at the table during a shared meal in the Hyuga compound. Pale hands seeking the warmth of another body on a cold night.
No, no...there's no way. He wouldn't risk so much for me if she was the one he wanted, she thought.
But it couldn't have been an accident that he left the ring on today.
The dreaded speculation settled in Ten-ten's mind, a leaden weight tugging at her gut.
"Do you like her at all?" Ten-ten ventured.
"I don't feel anything for her comparable to what I feel for you."
She noted that Neji stopped short of condemning his wife in the harsh terms he used previously – my cousin is a useful idiot, she's my uncle's tool, she's a hateful woman, I hate her as much as she hates me.
Ten-ten draped her arms around his waist, locking her hands over his lower back. Neji could tell she found little comfort in his truthful reassurance.
"Is she...your friend? I mean, do you like her as a person?" she continued, determined to soothe her frantic mind by identifying any seeds that could grow into love.
He paused to kiss her forehead, enjoying the warm puffs brushing his cheek as Ten-ten inhaled and exhaled. Neji deliberated on how best to squash her notions that his coexistence with Risa might evolve into romance.
We hate each other and she makes me miserable – no, not true. Risa clearly imagined herself saving her husband from his own foolish impulses, saving him from far worse than mere misery.
She and I are totally at odds – not true either. At least not after his stupid gambit at Hiashi Hyuga's birthday dinner, and their first shared laugh over the tangle of hairpins.
"I wouldn't consider her my friend. She and I hold incompatible beliefs that preclude any kind of friendship," Neji said, choosing each word carefully. "Ten-ten, you're the only one I could ever love. I meant every word when I said I'd leave everything for you."
He watched Ten-ten's face for eyebrows raised in incredulity or a telltale twitch at the right corner of her lip that indicated displeasure.
"I don't like my cousin. I tolerate her so I can survive under my uncle's nose until we break away," he finished.
Ten-ten's eyes narrowed and she ran a fingertip along the edge of her right eye.
"You're...getting used to wearing that ring –"
"I forgot, Ten-ten. I forgot one time," he insisted. "I was too eager to see you again."
His long, white fingers lifted her chin so she could read the pleading in his face.
"O-Okay. I'll stop bothering you," she said, sniffing and pinching her eyes shut.
They stood in silence for a few minutes, her head finding its usual place over his collarbone. Neji swayed side to side with his lover enveloped in his arms.
"I love you," he whispered into her temple. "I promise, whatever ring I might wear...any performance I need to make for our sake...it changes nothing about us."
Ten-ten giggled.
"You going to prove it, Neji?"
He could picture her smirking. A challenge he couldn't decline.
"In the usual manner?"
"I wouldn't say no," Ten-ten answered, wiggling a single brow.
Her simmering giggle broke into a full laugh.
"Can't go back to my room now, though. Obviously."
No plans to commit suicide today, she mentally added.
"I know a place – follow a few paces behind me and to the right."
Disentangling, Neji and Ten-ten sprinted through the treetops until they reached the waterfall just outside the training grounds. Ten-ten paused to catch her breath – someone's excited, she thought. He'd pushed the limits of his speed, leaving her struggling to follow the white blur in front of her. They'd made 'double time' at least, no exhortations from Lee or Gai sensei needed.
"Here? Give it 10 minutes and there'll be people everywhere," Ten-ten almost shouted. "It's like you want them to see us."
Neji gave no immediate answer except to take her hand and smile.
"Trust me, Ten-ten. There's a cave behind the waterfall. We'll be hidden."
The damp, mossy hollow was only accessible by a single-track dirt path weaving through the grass and down the waterfall's jagged rock like a thread. The rushing cascade created a curtain of water and sound concealing them from any tourists enjoying a swim or picnic at the waterfall's base. Adrenaline coursed through her – part of Ten-ten relished thought of sneaking an intimate encounter somewhere so public. They were practically right under Hiashi Hyuga's upturned nose.
Locking her grinning eyes with Neji, Ten-ten slipped two fingers between her neck and collar, tugging the crisp fabric ever slightly to the side. He pressed himself against her from behind and loosened the button holding her collar upright against her neck. Then he pulled the fabric aside to kiss the newly exposed skin.
The sensation of lips on her neck elicited a groan. Ten-ten twisted as her lover trailed a hand down her core, stopping just short of the junction between her legs.
"Mm...you're spoiling me. I wish I could throw that ring over the edge and never see it again."
"Or I could do this…," he countered. Neji slid his gold band onto her left ring finger, where it hung loose before Ten-ten closed her hand around the cool metal.
As layers of fabric fell to the cave floor, Ten-ten circled Neji's wedding ring around her finger and allowed herself to fantasize that it was hers.
She kept the ring on her finger for the few breathless minutes until Neji collapsed on her, whispering I love you and you feel amazing.
"I only want you, Ten-ten," he said, once their breaths re-equilibrated. "Not my cousin. I promise you'll have a proper ring soon. Then I'll throw that one over the waterfall."
"I'd like to do the honors," Ten-ten replied coyly.
"Deal."