Author's Note: Longest chapter yet! Thanks for reading, and I love receiving constructive feedback.
Just a heads up - Given the ongoing issues with FFN, I will no longer be updating this story here. That DOESN'T mean it's being abandoned! You can still find the full story and additional chapters on Archive of Our Own, under the same title (Bird in a Gilded Cage) by GerardWayisSexah. If you've enjoyed what you've read so far, I'd love to have you follow me there. :)
Ten-ten came prepared with a woven cotton blanket the next time Neji invited her to meet behind the waterfall. She knew why. Rumors circulated in the Hyuga compound that he still took forbidden liberties with her, and their proponents had begun to voice them in earnest. Sneaking into her bed after nightfall would risk discovery – especially with his paranoid aunt and like-minded relatives seeking confirmation of their suspicions. Far better for him to leave the compound in mid-afternoon and for her to slip behind the curtain of water half an hour behind him.
She found Neji meditating, his back against the cave wall. His white eyes opened at the click-click of her heels echoing against the rock.
"Hey," Ten-ten said, settling beside him. "I brought something this time."
Ten-ten spread her blanket across the cave floor, a rush of air ticking their faces.
"A blanket?"
"You know, next best thing to being in an actual bed," she answered. "Figured since we planned ahead, I could make this place a little more comfortable."
Ten-ten hated the sensation of cold rock against her bare skin, especially with every cave surface dampened by spray. During their last encounter, the rock's knobs and jagged edges had pressed into her exposed back when Neji pushed into her. His warmth and the shared pleasure of fusing their bodies only partially offset her discomfort. She'd felt degraded once the last traces of chemical euphoria receded – as if he'd purchased her body for a quick, discreet fuck to quiet the urges his wife couldn't satisfy.
She kept those recollections silent, knowing her lover also preferred the softness of a mattress and bed linens. Neji wasn't the kind of man to revel in fleeting pleasures or treat his lover like a piece of meat.
Don't need to make him feel worse, she thought.
Neji kissed the center of her forehead and nodded in acknowledgment.
"I'm sorry, Ten-ten. I would rather we had somewhere better suited," he whispered. "I should properly apologize for what I told you before. You're giving so much...risking so much for me already."
And I'm sorry that I'm about to ask you for more, Neji finished silently.
Ten-ten smiled back as her fingers worked down her shirt, undoing the buttons from her collar down.
"You don't have to – that's...not why I asked you here."
He grasped her wrists and watched her with concern.
"But I want to show you," Ten-ten answered. "I love you, and I'm not doing all this for you. Not just you, anyways."
The last button loosened, she pulled her shirt over her head and threw the crumpled fabric onto the blanket. Taking a breath, Neji wrapped a hand around her ribcage, fingers draped across delicate bones. His hand rose and fell with the rhythm of her breaths. The rousing sensation reminded him how fragile she was beneath her easy confidence backed by an arsenal of blades. One targeted strike, and he could stop her heart.
Ten-ten trusts me with her life.
Not for the first time, Neji wanted to yell at her that she was reckless. Ten-ten knew better than almost anyone the kind of damage he inflicted with hands alone. But he craved her touch too much to say anything other than I love you, too.
He wrapped a second hand around the side of her neck, watching a pink flush spread across her cheeks. Ten-ten's hands undid the clasp holding the front halves of his shirt together, then slipped the fabric over his shoulders.
"I guess this has overstayed its welcome," Ten-ten breathed out.
"No."
Ten-ten's lips parted in surprise as her lover abruptly withdrew his hands.
Eyes downcast, Neji pulled the halves of his shirt back together and redid the clasp. Ten-ten pulled her shirt over her head, but left the front row of buttons hanging undone like a gash. He needed to speak before they lost total control of their minds and bodies. And he didn't have the heart to address such consequential matters while the high of their climax wore off.
"Ten-ten – before we...progress our intimacy further...we should discuss something," he ventured, praying she didn't run.
Neji held Ten-ten's face cupped in both hands so she couldn't avert his eyes.
He rushed to reassure his lover when she tensed and gasped in the cool, still air of their secret hollow.
"I-you're not in trouble. I promise. But you need to hear this."
"Tell me."
"Let me ask you first – would you leave with me?"
For almost four months, he had taken care to avoid any allusions to fleeing the hidden leaf together or even making throwaway comments that could spiral into another argument. Ten-ten could still sometimes sense restless discontent in the way Neji returned her affection or said I love you.
Almost like he doesn't want to give me everything. Like he's unsure about me, she thought.
Following her exchange with Shikamaru over barbecue, the troublesome question hit Ten-ten differently. She could no longer resent Neji for asking it.
"You were right. About leaving...it's the only way to be together without...you know, having to sneak around like we're criminals," Ten-ten confessed, overtaken by nervous excitement. "As much as I hate saying it."
When she interrogated her feelings, Ten-ten found she still loved the village that raised her and honed her into a skilled ninja. She wanted to stay, and believe that Naruto could one day become hokage and force the Hyuga clan to abolish its caste system.
But Ten-ten's rational side doubted anyone could break over a century of inertia and shatter a status quo that worked for everyone except the bearers of the seal. And by the time a reform-minded hokage ascended to the seat, it would likely be too late for her and Neji.
"Well, thank you. I'm always right," Neji said with a smile that didn't brighten the rest of his face.
He noted that Ten-ten once again avoided answering his question directly.
Ten-ten smiled back and shook her head.
"Is that sarcasm I sense?" she asked, leaning into his shoulder. "Anyways, what were you trying to tell me?"
Neji clasped his hands around Ten-ten's waist and rested his chin on her collarbone, his shallow breaths mingling with hers. He stayed silent for so long that Ten-ten considered repeating her question.
"I'll never be free here," he said. "We'll never be free to live as we wish."
The simple declaration – stated in a voice uninflected by emotion – encompassed months of internal turmoil. It carried the tears he cried in her bed, and the embarrassed apology he gave afterward.
"I realize that now. How long have you known?"
"Since the day I spoke with my uncle about us. I let go of my last shred of doubt when he forced me to marry her."
"What kept you from going...back when it all started?"
Ten-ten could list one answer without thinking, but she hoped he would say something, anything other than their bond. The hokage. Hinata. Lee and Gai sensei. The will of fire – anything to salve her guilty conscience.
Had Neji disappeared from the hidden leaf without a word to her, her heart would have shattered. In time, she would have accepted his decision, understood that he couldn't remain imprisoned by his clan and the village without losing himself.
"I couldn't abandon you. Not when I caused the entire situation," Neji answered in a matter-of-fact voice that betrayed nothing of his present feelings.
"Hey – don't call him...don't call him that."
Her thin voice threatened to break into a sob. Sighing, he touched his lips to the part of her hair and folded her body against his chest.
"I'm sorry, Ten-ten."
She nodded, not meeting his eyes.
Neji recalled that at one point, Ten-ten told him their child was a boy. Heart heavy with grief, he'd responded with I understand. He gave the same response when Ten-ten said she gave him a name. Neji purged the name from his mind, along with the reality that he helped create the child's tiny body.
Perhaps if he'd never made his appeals to marry Ten-ten, she would now be raising a golden brown-eyed little boy in her attic bedroom. Whispers would rip through the village, but he trusted Ten-ten to stand tall against the villagers' contempt. In time, another man would have claimed her as his wife, and the boy as his son.
No, Neji insisted. He'd made her a promise, and she'd accepted. He and Ten-ten belonged with each other – and he saw no point in considering what could have been.
"Anything other than me?"
"Ten-ten – in truth, I was afraid. I know the village well. I can't say that of any place I might live the rest of my life in hiding. And I don't want to go alone."
Cutting myself free isn't worth it without you, he wanted to say. He imagined himself traveling alone from village to village through the trees and along rutted rural roads. Fighting in minor battles for pay. Accepting whatever work paid for food and housing. No lover to comfort him and remind him who he was underneath the disguises.
But he didn't want to unnerve her by wording his dilemma so directly.
Tentative hope rose in Neji's chest as he allowed himself to fantasize that Ten-ten would boldly pledge to follow him to the ends of the earth. She hadn't instinctively lashed him for raising the possibility of leaving. He could at least claim a small win.
"I've thought about it, and I – maybe I could make sure you're not alone."
He leaned down to kiss Ten-ten, and felt her lips yield to his. At the back of his head, her fingers dug into his long hair, locking him in place so she could deepen the kiss. Neji suppressed the impulse to ask whether she'd shifted her tone to please him, as a desperate effort to 'compete' with Risa. Inviting further reflection threatened to ruin his hard-won moment.
"That would mean everything to me, Ten-ten," Neji sighed into her parted lips.
"You said...as long as they think you're alive, they – your uncle – can reach you anywhere you go."
Ten-ten paused, brows upturned.
"Yes. That's correct," Neji said and waited for his lover to complete her thought.
He stopped short of verbalizing the logical conclusion of her statement.
They could never hope to love openly without beginning new lives where the hidden leaf couldn't find them. To begin those new lives, Neji Hyuga and Ten-ten Sato needed to die.
"Then you can make them think you're dead," she finished. "Keep them from finding you alive for...until you die, basically."
"You'll need to do the same."
Ten-ten drew a deep breath.
Abandoning the hidden leaf and her family without a trace was one matter. Her devastated parents could choose to believe that their daughter lived somewhere on the vast continent, ideally alongside a loving husband who wasn't Neji. They could send prayers to the gods that she remained safe and content, and she could pray that they would one day find peace.
Manufacturing her own death brought her betrayal to another level. She could hardly countenance torturing her parents with the finality of losing their only daughter forever.
"I don't have a seal on my forehead," Ten-ten objected.
"You're forgetting the ANBU, Ten-ten. Your body holds far too many jutsu for the hidden leaf to leave you alive and unaccounted for."
The hidden leaf saw few defections, so Ten-ten easily overlooked the masked ninja tasked with capturing missing-nin and securing their secrets. She shivered. Ten-ten never imagined herself turning her back on the hidden leaf, then finding herself hunted by the village she once served.
"Oh gods. I...I couldn't do that to my parents," she gasped. "They'd be broken...thinking I was dead."
Neji sank his nails into the palms of his hands. He couldn't deny his jealousy – the deep-seated feeling that Ten-ten's concern for her aging mother and father was disloyalty to him.
Neji recalled his last and only formal visit to the Sato apartment. How Ten-ten's mother dropped her polite chatter and her father's eyes turned almost murderous after he asked to marry their daughter. Both of them remained too fixated on berating him to comfort the crying girl clinging to his hand. They ignored Ten-ten's sobbed pleas to spare Neji their vitriol. The Sato couple regarded him as a dangerous pest who threatened to ruin Ten-ten's life, and he felt no warmth toward them in return.
"After the way your parents treated me, I am certain they will spend the rest of their lives trying to separate us if we stay. They may not have my uncle's reach, but they have his determination."
"Yeah? I know that, Neji. They're still my parents, though," she countered. "Even if sneaking around is wearing on me, and even if I don't want to spend the rest of my life fucking in a cave. Even if I really, really do love you."
Not that it means anything to him, Ten-ten thought, scolding herself for forgetting that they're family wasn't self-evident reasoning to Neji.
To Neji, family meant unwanted duties and expectations. Family meant denying his desires until he lost sense of his identity as anything other than a Hyuga.
She expected anger to flare across his pale features, but saw only a flicker of grief. He closed his eyes, bowed the corner of his lips into a frown.
"You're the closest thing I have to real family, Ten-ten. You, and Hinata," Neij whispered.
Covering her open mouth with her hands, Ten-ten willed the emerging sob to stay in her throat.
His confession should have filled her heart with an outpouring of warmth. Instead, all she could think was please, no. I can't choose. Not like this.
Through the kitchen door, Neji heard Ko's mellow tones blended with Risa's high-pitched laughter. Neji felt a twinge of annoyance – and he told himself it was because Risa sprang a surprise guest on him.
Not because of Risa's clear preference for Ko, Neji silently reiterated. In the muffled fragments of speech he caught from the corridor, he heard none of the guarded answers or prolonged silences typical of her conversations with him.
Neji reminded himself that he never intended to live with Risa as husband and wife. That he didn't care whether his limited time in the compound was filled by friendly conversation or wordless hostility.
They're only my family by blood, and in name, he insisted to himself.
Yet he couldn't deny that he wanted to belong.
He slipped through to find his wife reaching behind Ko to offer him a plate of red bean cakes, her hand brushing his shoulder. She met his eyes and grinned when he faked crying out in pain.
Risa's carefree expression dissipated when she turned to see her husband in the doorway.
"You didn't inform me we'd have a guest, Risa," Neji said, glaring at Ko.
Ko ignored the implied challenge in his cousin's words.
"Should I see myself out?" Ko asked, reaching for the crutches he kept propped against the dining table. "I only broke a leg, so I can still take care of myself."
"No! Not when I finally made you comfortable," she answered, almost begging him to stay.
Like she wants to say 'don't leave me alone with him,' Neji thought.
"I already planned on dinner for three tonight," Risa added in a way that suggested she wouldn't accept a 'no' from Ko without protest.
"I...I can't say no if you're cooking."
Neji noted the rapid shift in Ko's tone following Risa's barely concealed demand, as if she'd passed her friend a coded message meant only for the two of them. But Neji had still managed to intercept his wife's double meaning. The accomplishment brought a rush of smug satisfaction paired with a trace of anger at the recognition that his cousins were casually casting him aside in his own home.
"Oh, good. Just stay where you are, and I'll have food ready in half an hour," she said. "You shouldn't be moving around when you're still injured."
Risa's fingers darted along Ko's shoulders as she left to brew a pot of tea.
Neji sat next to Ko, leaving the resentment between them unacknowledged. Ko's features scrunched into a scowl, then he flashed Neji a forced smile.
"I trust Kiba, Shino and Lee cooperated with your leadership?" Neji asked his cousin.
Neji's eyes darted to Risa's turned back, and he considered whether she blamed him for Ko's injury.
Shinobi break their bones all the time, he countered silently, though Neji hadn't so much as twisted an ankle in combat since making jounin.
Hardly unexpected. Not for a less capable jounin. Risa should understand.
"I've never had so many conflicting personalities on one team," Ko remarked. "Your friends handled themselves admirably in battle. The taijutsu user – Rock Lee, he kept asking about you. I was somewhat irritated that he insisted on calling me 'short-haired Neji.'"
Neji smiled at his mental image of Lee rambling to Ko about their sworn rivalry and pledging to one day defeat natural genius with hard work.
"Lee has made it his personal mission to one day defeat me with taijutsu alone," Neji explained. "He also believes every Hyuga looks like a copy of me, with minor variations."
"Anyways, I have Lee to thank for covering me against the enemy after I had my leg crushed by a rockfall. He's a loyal shinobi," Ko said after a pause. "Without his courage and quick thinking, I'd have been killed several times over."
"Remind me to thank him if we ever meet," Risa interjected, reaching over Ko's shoulder to set the steaming teapot on the table in front of him.
Neji heard her whisper I need you while she passed him on her way to the dish cabinet. Ko appeared oblivious to Risa's confession, her barely audible words swept away with the rustle of her skirt.
She returned a minute later with three teacups and matching coasters.
As he watched Risa pour Ko a cup of tea, Neji felt tempted to tell her that his hands weren't broken. His stomach swirled with revulsion at the sight of his wife – already marked for a life of submission – waiting on a member of the main clan like a servant. Searching Risa's face, he saw nothing but tenderness directed at Ko.
Risa didn't see a slavedriver sitting at her table. Neji replayed the moments of 'incidental' contact between them. Her admission that she needed Ko. The hours they spent in each other's company, walking through the village or talking beneath the courtyard's shade trees.
Neji realized he'd never shared such a carefree bond with any of his cousins, not even Hinata. The other Hyuga children avoided the sullen, scowling orphan who fixated on his departed father and the seal that kept him caged. He avoided them in return. Neji reasoned he had no need for the company of his weaker cousins, who struggled with the gentle fist while he'd already mastered the rotation jutsu.
Risa kept her white eyes fixated on Ko while she portioned out dinner, acknowledging her husband only when he asked for a second helping of rice.
"I heard from Risa that you enjoyed a nice dinner on her birthday," Ko remarked to Neji, smiling.
"Hm. Did she say it was nice?"
"A nice dinner is one I don't need to cook," Risa joked.
His cousins' shared laughter sent needles through Neji's heart. He flashed an awkward smile, then gazed at his lap when neither cousin acknowledged him.
"Dinner was a pleasant surprise. A learning experience for both of us," she finished.
"Happy to hear someone marked the day with you, Risa," Ko said, and Risa nodded without a glance at her husband.
She's probably imagining that she's married to him instead of me. That she lives with him and cooks for him every night, Neji realized.
Neji's presence at the table ruined her fantasy, so she ignored him.
Neji channeled his discontent into anger – anger that Risa treated him as an outsider in his own home and anger at his cousins' mindless chatter. He preferred anger over allowing the inkling of hurt to overtake him.
After clearing his plate, Neji dismissed himself to meditate in the courtyard, finding his usual seat by the koi pond. Despite the warm evening breeze, chills ran down his skin. He focused chakra in his core to stave off the cold. But he knew there was no place he could go within the Hyuga compound where he could feel warm.
Inhale. Exhale. Neji tried to relinquish the concerns that swarmed his mind – Ten-ten, escape from the hidden leaf, the undeniable loneliness seeping into his bones.
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. The more forcibly he attempted to clear his mind, the more his unwelcome burdens lodged at the forefront of his thoughts. His breathing accelerated, until he opened his eyes and resigned himself to watching fish circle the pond in the last night of dusk.
I'm not family to her, Neji thought. He felt foolish for telling Ten-ten that she was more of a family to him than almost any Hyuga. The unguarded, desperate plea left him more raw and vulnerable than his long-ago declaration that he loved Ten-ten.
They hadn't stayed in the cave much longer after she muttered oh, I...didn't know in response to his confession. She'd half-smiled before buttoning her shirt and giving him a kiss on the cheek without any of the typical feeling or warmth. Sensing his lover needed space, Neji said something about his cousin expecting him for dinner, then slipped back around the curtain of water.
Neji made it to the forest before the sting of tears forced him to stop behind a tree.
"Are you cold?"
Risa walked up to the bench, her husband's white cloak slung across her arm. She wore a knitted sweater over her dress. In the hours since Neji began his futile quest for inner peace, the temperature had dipped substantially. Cold winds blew right past his loose cotton shirt and trousers.
"Somewhat," he replied, accepting the cloak. He rarely wore the heavy wool garment except on missions, but he had few other pieces of warm clothing. The weight of the fabric settling over his body elicited a satisfied sigh.
"Ko left?"
"He hobbled away an hour ago. You didn't miss much – we argued...about you."
Surprised, Neji took a sharp breath. He set his lips in a thin line and nodded, prompting Risa to continue speaking.
"Ko doesn't approve of you," she stated plainly.
"I am aware."
He recalled the fleeting scowl Ko couldn't suppress.
Even as Neji's uncle elevated his nephew as the clan's brightest star, Ko watched him with narrowed eyes, tensing whenever he came near Hinata. Long after Hinata shed the last of her lingering apprehension around Neji, Ko never lost sight of his genius cousin's potential for murderous rage. Neji guessed that he'd suppressed his contempt to avoid spoiling dinner.
"He kept asking if you ever injured me, or whether you've attempted to violate me in a moment of anger. He didn't believe me when I told the truth."
Neji flinched, scowling at Ko's conviction that he held such monstrous impulses within him.
"And this started your argument?"
"Yes, I told him you're just young and too headstrong for your own good," Risa added. "I said you had a kind heart, and you would never harm me."
"Hm."
A kind heart. Risa's words echoed.
Neji never heard kind-hearted used to describe him, except by Ten-ten, Hinata and on one occasion, Lee. Blood rushed to his neck and face because he detected nothing but sincerity in Risa's tone.
He shifted on the bench to allow Risa to join him. She sat down with a huff, leaving a hand's length between them.
"I will say I've cast a less than favorable image of you in my past conversations with him," she almost whispered, gazing at the constellations above their heads. "Correcting the record is...difficult."
Neji met her admission without anger.
I likely deserved whatever harsh words she had for me, he conceded, driven to a rare moment of vulnerability by Risa's honesty.
"What are you doing out here, Risa? You're usually asleep," he asked.
"I wanted to check on you before retiring for the night. You seemed distressed at dinner. Maybe I would have arrived to find you in perfect inner balance, but I can't know without coming outside."
"Why...why do you care?" Neji answered, his voice breaking. "You seemed preoccupied with Ko and thoroughly unconcerned with me."
He thanked the gods that the hood of his cloak concealed his face from the woman next to him.
"You should know, Neji. We're family. By blood and marriage. I care about you, like I know you care about me."
Under the hood, Neji smiled. Part of him wished Risa could see that expression, but he kept his face hidden. Instead, he simply told her thank you.