Sasuke got up, stumbling a little, and dusted off the seat of his pants: he couldn't tear his eyes away from the guy who was standing in front of him now, Suigetsu in his shadow, immobile. He hadn't seen him in so long, after all. Sasuke couldn't say he looked that different: he still had that unbelievably pale skin, the long brown hair that complemented that perfectly as it lay against his skin. Sasuke felt a pang of shame. This was the guy that he'd betrayed the most: no, it hadn't been Kakashi or Naruto or even Sakura…it had been Neji. Sasuke recalled that Neji had also been on his impromptu retrieval team. He wondered how the Hyuuga had felt.

He probably hates my guts.

Neji glared at Sasuke for a while longer before crouching down over Suigetsu. Watching them, Sasuke felt immense jealousy. They had both been his, after all. And now they were—

Neji touched a hand to the guy's cheek. It was cool. He glanced up at Itachi, who looked slightly worried but had kept his calm demeanour.

"He'll be fine," Itachi said, his eyes scanning Suigetsu's body. Apart from the fact that it was totally still, it still looked completely normal. Neji nodded and turned back to look at the motionless body before him.

So this is…Sasuke's…

He expected no less. The person lying there looked like Sasuke's type. Not to mention he looked pretty…lean. Neji's finger twitched as he stood up, his eyes still trained on Suigetsu.

Sasuke felt weak standing up, but he knew sitting down would be a sign of that. He stayed where he was, not wanting to do anything.

After Neji had risen, Itachi had taken Suigetsu's body, which looked even limper in his arms. Itachi wasn't even looking at Suigetsu, though. He was looking at Neji.

"Thank you," he said slowly. He knew it had been hard for the Hyuuga to hear about the situation, let alone put himself in the middle of it as some sort of peace maker. Itachi was grateful for that.

Neji nodded. "You take care of him, then,"
Itachi left quickly. Sasuke made no attempts to stop his older brother. Fuck Suigetsu, he had something—someone—else to worry about now.

Neji said nothing for a while. The light breeze picked up.

"My work here is done," he said, avoiding eye contact with Sasuke. He didn't want to look at him. If he did, he was going to—

"Bye, Sasuke,"

"No, wait—,"

Sasuke took a couple of steps forward and grabbed Neji's wrist. It felt small in his grasp. And warm.

Neji tensed up. "What?"

"Stay,"

"Is that all you have to say to me?" Neji turned around and his eyes met Sasuke's for the second time that night. Sasuke felt a jolt of the same chemistry he had felt two and a half years ago. "If that's it, I'm definitely leaving,"

"If you stay, you won't regret it,"

Neji shook his head.

"That sort of thing doesn't make me stay, especially for you,"

"I didn't meant that," Sasuke said sharply, feeling a blush creep across his cheeks as he fleetingly recalled Neji's naked body and his own, together. "I'll tell you…why I left,"

"We all know why you left. You sought greater power, and you left the Leaf for that. You followed Orochimaru,"

"Why I left without telling you…,"

Neji blinked twice in quick succession in what they both knew was in an effort to prevent tears.

"I don't care anymore," Neji said. "Now let go of my hand,"

Sasuke hesitantly slipped his fingers away from Neji's wrist.

"Time is a good healer," Neji began. "That was ages ago, Sasuke. You think I still give a shit about you?"

Sasuke flinched. Neji only swore when he was really, seriously pissed.

"And especially you," Neji continued angrily, speaking quickly now. "You're the one who left everyone without telling anyone. Don't think it was just me who was affected by the fact that you did it so secretively,"

"It would've been foolish if I told everyone before I left, don't you think?" Sasuke started sarcastically, hating himself for letting his old self take over and sounding like such an asshole when he was obviously the bad guy here.

Neji's eye twitched. "That's it, I'm leaving," he said as calmly as he could .But as calm as he thought he was being, Sasuke knew that he was supremely pissed off.

Well, obviously…

"…,"

Neji shook his head. "After all these years," he said. "I thought you would've at least learnt your place…as in, when you know you're wrong, you're wrong. And you're not going to be able to talk your way out of it by saying—,"

"Hey, I—,"

"Shut up and let me finish," Neji snapped. "You can't go around living life thinking that if you have a good, justified reason, you've done something right,"

"It was right," Sasuke said as softly as he could. "I didn't want to tell anyone because I—,"

"Didn't want to hurt us, did you?" Neji said in a somewhat patronizing tone. "Well, either way, you kind of did,"

Sasuke said nothing, defeated. He knew that that was exactly the way he operated. He always thought that if there was a good reason to do something, or if it was the best option to take on a particular situation, he was being completely moral.

"You're so ignorant about everything you did," Neji added, letting his two and a half years of thinking pour themselves out. "And now look what you've done to your—," he gulped. "—boyfriend,"

"He's…I'm not sure he is my boyfriend anymore. He's Itachi's now," Sasuke replied bitterly, crossing his arms. "But enough about that. Right now it's just us,"

"Us?" Neji said coldly. "Us…we were over ages ago,"

"It was never official…,"

Neji threw up his hands. "I'm not even going to say anything to that,"
"Okay, that was stupid," Sasuke admitted. "But, I just couldn't…at the time. Couldn't face you and just tell you that I wanted out,"

"Just shut up about that," Neji said. "Tell me. If I had cheated on you with, I don't know, Naruto…would you have tried to kill me, too?"

Silence.

Frankly, at the moment Sasuke was not thinking about Suigetsu at all. He didn't care about Suigetsu. And suddenly, he knew how Suigetsu felt. When the Mist nin had told Sasuke that he stood no chance when Itachi was around, Sasuke now knew exactly what that felt like. When Neji was around, Suigetsu stood no chance either…

"No," he replied quietly, not knowing if it was entirely true. "I would never hurt you,"

"Huh," Neji sniffed.

"At least, not…in that way,"

"I'd rather you hurt me that way," Neji said. "I'd prefer physical pain any day. At least then I wouldn't have anything clouding my thoughts every single fucking night since you left me like that!"

Neji began walking away.

Very quickly.