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#2. Masturbation

So desperately had he tried to grasp the elusive sleep that adamantly refused his hold and still he suffered the same result. Every time his eyes closed he saw the girl that wasn't there, touching him, working him down. Her touches were tattooed in his memory that burned blazoned whenever he thought of the things that they had done to him. A sweet tongue exotic to his skin, swirling like a paintbrush, his mouth the willing canvas, setting him on fire, coherency the glowing embers crumbling to ash and then gone when the wind of desire whispered "lust" in its path. Flush had she been beneath him, soft and beautiful and enticing like a feast to a depraved, starved man.

It had been… exhilarating.

And it was disgusting.

And it made him so desperate for more that it was embarrassing.

He understood that leaving Tenten like that was incredibly rude and cowardly of him, and that she deserved an explanation next time they meet. That was the right thing to do. That was what any dignified man would do. And he could predict her exact response, something along the lines of a stammering "No, I shouldn't have—" and "It's okay, I get why you did," and she would never touch him like that again. Not unless he told her he wanted her to.

His fingers pushed back the fringes of his bangs. Her exact intent had been clear when her hand traveled southwards.

Sex.

Neji knew it only for its practical purpose: reproduction. He had attended that mandatory health class his final year at the academy and he understood the basics of how it worked. Penetration. Repeated insertion. Ejaculation. Complete, and if pregnancy was not successful then the process started all over again.

If only it were as simple as that. Fragmented pieces of conversations heard as he tuned in and out from nonsensical musings of his fellow male-kind suggested that there was so much more to it than what the textbooks transcribed. He learned that it was much harder for a female to be pleased during the act, that pleasuring them required far more effort than what most men deemed worthwhile, that there were "techniques" and "tricks" to satisfying a woman on the farthest planet from his sphere of awareness. The harsh truth was Neji was on the complete outside of the finer things of sex and its mysteries. Like any boy in his blooming adolescence the earliest inclines of temptation hadn't eluded his interest, the occasional raised eyebrow at cleavage exposed a little too much and the spark of electricity shooting up his groin when he straddled Tenten during training, holding her hands above her head, dominating her.

And it absolutely revolted him.

A lot had changed about Neji over the years from his fatalistic pre-teens to where he was now—newly seventeen—but through and through he always held on to the belief that marriage was a prerequisite for sex and all who could not resist such animalistic urges were slaves to their desires and deserved every word of the repercussions. And in this way he always thought himself superior to his peers for being able to control and subdue his temptations, to the point where no one would bat an eyelash if told that he simply did not experience sexual attraction.

But Tenten had been his undoing. She awoke the lust he'd suppressed for so long in just under an hour and now those lewd thoughts were spreading all over his brain like a rampant epidemic. This had never been a problem before. He never needed to solve it.

Because Neji had never touched himself. Not once in his life. And damned be he if he started tonight.

It was the ultimate act of shamefulness—of shamelessness. It was so pathetic and desperate and utterly beneath him, and Neji had pride. A lot of it. And even if Tenten had driven him to the point where all that pent-up, held back frustration over the years was finally wearing him down he would never, ever, resort to masturbation. No primal stirrings within him couldn't be resisted with a thorough meditation session and a cold, cold shower.

He sat up in his bed and folded his legs into each other, placing intertwined hands in his lap, back straightened, eyes closed. Meditation, of course, his most reliable decompressor and weapon against unease. That was the answer.

Seconds of silence ensued and soon he was hyperaware of everything inside him, the contracting of his diaphragm, lungs expanding with the intake of air, oxygen passing through his capillaries and feeding the red blood cells in his veins. His chakra hummed like the sound of the Earth turning and somewhere in the world there was a wave rocking with the ocean's will, a slow rumbling crash into the shore and then he let it all wash away as with the air emptied from his rib cage. There was nothing to think, see, or feel in that moment except his body and its functions.

… And, of course, that included the loathsome offender taunting him in his boxers.

Nonetheless, Neji fought it. He blocked it out, pretended that he was perfectly at peace and in control of himself, but it was a great deplorable thing that could not be reasoned with. As far a distance he purged those indecent thoughts away they came hurtling back subliminally and stiffening him, all efforts in vain and ultimately useless.

What must he do to appease that insufferable miscreant?

He knew, of course. He wasn't an idiot. The solution was obviously to appease himself.

But even if he had finally surrendered himself to the urge, satisfying it wasn't possible. He lived surrounded by shinobi with the ability to see through walls. Even if there was a strict rule prohibiting its usage within the compound, you could never truly know when someone was watching. Getting caught would be the death of him.

It wasn't that it hurt—it almost felt… well, if he were to describe it to someone (not that he would dare) he might say that it was an entirely physiological phenomenon; there was no physical pain, nothing at all to be felt except the heat of it exerting a rigid pressure on his abdomen. Sometimes his legs would move a certain way and it would brush up against his boxers and felt… nice, but other than that it was just… there, and it was distracting and it couldn't be ignored.

The problem was not being able to do anything about it. An erection was like a race, alert and adrenaline-ready to run a mile, except that the bullet was never shot and the runner was forced to stand there at the starting point for hours on end. And he was so, so anxious to reach the finish line but the official wouldn't give the damn signal—

All thoughts halted.

His eyes shot open.

Somehow, during his distressed deliberations, an unconscious hand had driven itself past his waistband and brushed his…

Neji yanked it away, cursing himself. Cursing the gods. Was this man? Was he to destined to succumb to his lust and degrade himself like that? Sacrifice his dignity? Sully his sanctity? Was there really no other way?

Eyelids fell shut. So be it. He would make this as quick as possible.

The ghost of a hand wandered a wary path from his stomach to his pelvis, and he remembered how Tenten had done the same just before stopping per his request. He was almost—almost—regretful for not letting her continue, for her touch had been far more natural than his uncertain one.

Neji hesitated; he wasn't… quite… sure how it worked. Those god awful pamphlets from that health class had made it simple enough in illustration. A firm grip and however many "tugs" as necessary and then the deed was over and done with. It shouldn't take a genius to figure it out.

A deep breath… and then he grabbed it.

Likely not the best course of action. His reaction was immediate, sharply sucking in air through his teeth and biting down on his lower lip. Such a simple step and he was responding to it so readily, oversensitive and expectant.

Seconds later after the initial shock and he was stroking it up and down, hardly applying any pressure, working out how this was to be done. It only made him harder, hotter, but that motion alone was gratifying and he had to remind himself that he was supposed to get it over with, not enjoy it.

Neji made his grip more tight, perhaps the strength one would use to hold a tennis racket, and then he tightened it a little bit more after that. Then his arm moved and he gave it a tentative pump—evoking another gasp—and repeated it, over and over until he fell into a speed that worked for him on the slower side of fast. Teeth dug into his lip even more, pounding and pounding as pleasure made itself known and his head thudded backwards, eyes steeled shut.

(Her lips leave butterfly trails along his bare neck as her hands amble to dangerous zones, whispering something warmly on his skin, the tips of her fingers grazing the shaft…)

Barely conscious of his purpose or surroundings anymore, Neji lost himself in his own touch and dazedly slowed the pace, breathing heavier. The world was forgotten in all his drunken enrapturement, drowning in the heavenly sensations of each languid, heated stroke.

(She taunts him, abandoning his neck to reach for lower places. Sensuous sweet caresses encourage his hips to buck to her lead and she kisses everywhere but there, and its driving him mad…)

He was sweating now, the pace quicked, and a strange, drawn-out whining noise escaped his throat. His eyebrows furrowed as it throbbed in his fist, pulsing with the steady build-up of pleasure in his abdomen.

(The pleasure is blinding. She works him like an expert, taking both curled fists to swallow his cock within the confines of her nimble fingers and it's killing him, the way she speeds up and slows down, wringing him out—in—like a wet, dripping towel—)

Red stained his flushed cheeks and he panted, pounding even harder, turning his head onto his pillow and biting into it as his lips had failed to hold back the grunts and soft groans of his throat. He remembered the feel of her graceful sinuous tongue and nothing else matters, shivering, reveling in the bursts of heat and the sparks that flared up his spine, all over his body, giving in—already received by rapture and the thrill of upcoming release...

(It quickens, she is relentless in her torture and she circles the tip like its nothing but it does everything for him and then she flicks her tongue—)

It was too much, too much, too much, it felt too good and he was getting rapidly approaching that one desired bright white land—fuck, his jaw clenched and meager wetness leaked from the head on his slick pumping fist. His thumb swiped over the sensitive tip and then a chorus of fervent moans droned from his lips only to be muffled by his pillow—fuck, gods, fuck, almost—he was on the height of something amazing, began to feel the coveted tugs into another world—

(Tenten. Everything is Tenten, the shallow dip of her collarbone and her amused smirk and the smoothness of her legs, softness of her arms, her pert, heaving chest and the divine, hellish motions of her hands and fingers, controlling his sex, his woman, his heavenly escort to completion...)

Everything was black and then it went white. His spine curved as an arched bridge into that world where the Earth halted on its axis and white noise surrounded him and he plummeted off into oblivion, the spread sinful of wet, staggering ecstasy jerking all over his palms. It came out in stuttering long spurts, his hips jutting into his slick hand, coupled indivisibly with a harsh ragged moan and the twitching of his cock and the clutches of his covers by his free, writhing fingers. Savage groans dissolved with the pleasure and draw his lips from deformed variations of the letter "O" to a taut, pressed line, his face scrunched and grieved like a man in pain.

He let his climax wash away his body and guide the venture into blissful nothingness. The best (the worst) of it was beginning to fade and the slow, contended tides of post-orgasmic sleepiness ensued. Uneven breathless pants soothed to relaxed puffs of hot air. His grip on his bedspread lessened and his eyelids parted leisurely, confused. Those lavender eyes moved from the left to the right, taking in the darkened white walls around him in uncertainty because he seemed to be facing temporary amnesia. All he remembered was Tenten and the pleasantness that tingled his lower half. He failed to recall his own name or his location. Where was he? What was going on? What had just happened?

Sluggishness and sleepiness blurred his vision. He groaned and moved to comb his fingers through his hair until he stopped suddenly and noticed something wet on his hand.

The sight shocked him out of his reverie in horror. It all came flooding back and hit him like a freight train to his gut—Tenten—kissing—the indecency of—oh gods, no—the climax—his—his—

He didn't let his shock derail him anymore as he all but jolted out of his bed and sprinted the fastest a ninja could run to his bathroom, spinning the sink's knob as quickly as possible and knocking over a glass in the process. Hot, scorching hot water ran over his palm and Neji held the entire length of his arm far away from the rest of his body, wanting nothing to do with the dripping mass of sin and shame he called his right hand. He refused to acknowledge it, refused to believe that the great prodigy of the Hyuuga Clan had just done something so demeaning, so humiliating, so animalistic, so—

"Um… N—Neji-niisan? Are you—um… are you alright?"

Fuck. Fuck. Curse the gods. Curse every spirit and kage and the great holy mother of chakra—

"I heard some, um, there were some strange sounds coming from your room a few minutes ago, a—and then there was a crash, so I was wondering…"

Dear lord. Had he been so loud that Hinata could have heard him from across the hall?

Never was Neji Hyuuga so mortified. Pink heated his cheeks and it was with award-worthy lucid composure and brevity preceded by a deep breath that he assured, "Nothing is wrong, Hinata-sama. Go back to sleep."

"Ah, um, okay…" Her soft voice was unsure, but compliant. "Good night, niisan..."

"Good night."

A handful of seconds that felt like forever passed, and then the sound of her bedroom door closing shut secured him. The tension of a layered knot came undone, his rapid heartbeat settling down. Running water was all that remained in the silence that followed.

Minutes later the shower was on and his stripped clothing lay discarded in the hamper (though there was one article for which he would die first before allowing anyone but himself to wash). The water was cold as the dial would accept, and its freezing sharp droplets pummeled his rigid body from the showerhead as the embarrassment declined, but the regret was forever tattooed in his head. In that self-reflecting moment, Neji was certain of one thing.

He, most definitely...

… had gotten carried away.