Team Gai: Parents
Neji
Neji was pretty sure that after his dramatic monologue in front of the crowded stadium at the Chuunin Exams, everyone and their auntie knew about his father.
In fact, after getting free food and sweets and compassionate looks from everyone's aunties afterward, he was quite sure there wasn't anyone anywhere who did not know about the Hyuuga's sordid affairs in the area of Hyuuga Hizashi. Everyone knew about his father's tragic murder. Yet no one once seemed to ask about his mother.
It wasn't that Neji was upset about this. After all, his mother's death was not something he had ever wished to really bring up with anyone. And yes, his father's death had impacted him so much more. He didn't have nightmares about his mother, didn't see her corpse with bloody, empty eye sockets reaching out to him, grabbing at his forehead, pushing past his forehead, squeezing his brain until it burned, causing him to wake up in pain. No, he did not have nightmares about his mother, but he did think of her when he woke up from his nightmares about his father.
His mother had died before his father, by about a year. Neji wasn't above thinking that one reason his father was so willing to die so nobly for the main branch was because he had lost his wife. She had been a wonderful wife, his mother … but very, very sick. Not physically ill, no, though she claimed to be. No, she was sick in the head, making up false illnesses as an excuse to keep herself locked away from the world in her room. Neji had been allowed once a week visitation rights, slipping quietly in to sit next to her. She was nice to him then, slipping him sweets and playing with his hair. But the one time he had gone to her with a problem on a day they weren't supposed to meet, she had broken down. Coughing and crying and curling up in the corner, shouting, "I'm too sick, I'll make you sick!" over and over.
Neji had always wondered if it had been something about him, since his father had been allowed to visit her whenever he wanted. And when they weren't together it was just his mother. He could constantly hear her pleading with herself or with invisible people, or crying, or whimpering so clearly. She would scrabble desperately against the wall as if trying to carve to her freedom. Yes, his mother had been very, very ill. His earliest memory of her was her crying as she held him, the first and last time she'd done so. It was a fond memory, despite it all, and that was one of the reasons he thought of her and that moment after the disturbing nightmares about his father. She had loved him, through the sickness that ate at her mind she had loved him, and had always done the best she could to show him she loved him, all the way until she died.
His earliest memory was of her holding him, so it was only fair that his last memory was of him holding her. It was his weekly visit, and he'd walked in on her lying down as if asleep. Only two things threw it off; the foam collected at the corners of her mouth and the viscous liquid dripping from her eye sockets. She'd taken poison and died, the seal melting out her eyes, but he hadn't known this, only known something had happened to her as he'd clung tightly to her cooling corpse, shouting for help.
Really, it was better that no one asked about his mother. As long as no one questioned to her whereabouts he could easily focus on only the good times, her giggles as she plaited his hair or her melodious voice as she recounted the story of the girl and the thousand paper cranes. But if someone asked, "hey, Neji, where's your mom?" he could only reply "she's dead," since it hurt to think of the poison and her cold body and her empty eye sockets. Though maybe if it was Tenten, or Lee, or even Gai-sensei he could explain a bit more, because if they had stuck with him this long there was no doubt they had to care for him (even if it was just a little.)
TBC
A/N: Of course Neji's is the angstiest. He's the angstiest bishie that ever did angst. Tenten's next!