this is a long one, I apologize. Took me forever to finish and I'm still not completely satisfied so give me your reviewsssss
read and reviews and i'll twiddle my fingers at you *magic*
TenTen threw herself onto her bed, ignoring the creaks that totally meant this bed was going to die soon. Not like her RA cared. All he did was take their complaints to the dorm managers, who didn't give one shit. Not even half a shit. She groaned into her pillow. Swinging her legs around to hang off her raised bed, TenTen checked her clock. The digital lights blinked on and off, 1:50am. She had ten minutes to wallow around.
"Fucking time difference. Mother-fucking schools. Fucking-" TenTen didn't finish her sentence. Instead, she opened the fridge and took out her special supply of cookie dough, meant for the really harsh days. Like today. She slammed the fridge door shut, even though she knew her roommate would get mad.
"We only rented this fridge! We're going to have to pay extra now!" Her whiny voice seemed to reverberate throughout TenTen's brain. She angrily scooped the cookie dough and stuffed it in her mouth. If only Sakura and Hinata hadn't chosen to go to a stupid prestigious school across the country, she wouldn't be stuck in a dorm room with a whiny rich kid who bought her way into the school. TenTen was on full scholarship, which means schoolwork all day, every day. She glanced at the clock again. 1:58am. She put down the cookie dough and smiled brightly, prancing to her cellphone and clicking speed dial. The phone seemed to ring for ages until she heard the crackly sound of a landline being picked up.
"Neji wejiiiiiiii you know you could just get a personal cellphone." TenTen strained her ears to hear past the crackling. His voice came in, a small chuckle that was taken apart by the fuzziness of the phone.
"Tennie, if you continue to call me that god-awful name from preschool, I won't pick up the phone next time. Also I have a surprise for you. Go open your laptop." TenTen looked at the phone, confused. She opened her laptop and logged in.
"Now what?"
"Get on skype." TenTen opened her skype and noticed she had a contact request.
'Neji Hyuuga requests you as a contact.' TenTen let out a long squeal. She could hear Neji chuckling on the other end of the phone that she'd dropped in excitement. She hurriedly picked up the phone and exclaimed, "You got a skype account?! You mean I can actually see your face now? Wait stop, I thought you hated videoconferencing. What is happening?" Neji chuckled again.
"Do you want to skype or can I go get breakfast?"
"NO! Nonononono! Gimme a second." TenTen looked at herself in the mirror. She looked like hell, like really. Her face was gaunt and dark circles made her look like a raccoon; her hair was sticking up weirdly and the pieces that made it into her buns were limp. She looked at herself, determined to fix something before seeing Neji for the first time in three months.
She grabbed her makeup set, her mom had bought it for her to use for parties that she never went to, and patted concealer under her eyes and around her dark spots. She dabbed red lip-gloss on her lips to brighten them back to their original colour and brushed a bit of blush over her cheekbones. She ran a brush through her hair, ignoring that her hair ended up on the brush more than on her head. She grabbed a donut-thing and created a fat bun, pulling her fringe out and framing her face.
TenTen was ready. She breathed in slowly and clicked on the green button under Neji's picture-less profile. The satisfying sound of the call going through made TenTen smile and suddenly her screen was filled with a beautiful, albeit a bit pixilated, Neji.
Neji looked good. He looked really good. Genius that he was, Neji was already in his last year of master's at Oxford and was already being wooed by several companies to become a head of some department, or a CFO, or what have you. Of course, anyone who knew Neji knew he was already in line to inherit his uncle's company, Hyuuga Corporations, with dealings in more than thirty different countries and five different trade markets. Neji was getting ready to graduate soon and his uncle was getting ready to retire soon, it worked out perfectly.
TenTen sighed, "Oh Neji. It really has been too long since I've seen you. At least I won't have to wait another three months." Neji smiled regretfully.
"About that. TenTen, I need to tell you something." TenTen groaned.
"No, don't do this to me now Neji. It's the one week I won't be flooded with work and research and internships." Neji rubbed the back of his neck.
"I know, I know, but Hiashi-sama wants me to go to our branch in Paris and go over the land issues there. I can't just say no, it's my duty TenTen." TenTen looked at him. Even through the pixilated screen, she could see the pain in Neji's eyes. His relationship with the Hyuuga clan got better when he went to Oxford for graduate school, but still he didn't have the freedom he so yearned for. She sighed and bit her lip. The two of them had canceled on each other three times in the past year.
"I understand Neji. I'm just glad I can see your face, even if you are an ocean and a continent away." She smiled, a pearl of a tear threatening to drop onto her cheek. She stroked the screen, imagining Neji's smooth face there and took in a deep breath.
"Look Neji, I need to sleep, but I promise I'll call you before I leave for the lab." Neji looked concerned.
"TenTen, just please don't overwork yourself. I'm going to try and get a layover in JFK so I can see you okay? And eat more, you look way too skinny for someone who tells me she eats three meals a day." TenTen smiled at him sadly.
"What can I say? I don't have any of you guys to bug me when I forget to eat all day." She bit her lip again and smiled brightly at the screen. "Okay Neji, until next time. Don't forget to go outside and meditate under a tree. Also, cut your hair! It looks messy and you wouldn't want to become president of Hyuuga Corp. looking like Shaggy from Scooby-doo." And before Neji could say anything else, TenTen ended the call. She took in a shaky breath and washed her face at the sink, refusing to look at herself. She slunk into bed and covered her head, muffled her scream of frustration. She stared at the wall, ignoring her roommate as she came in at 3 am, drunk out of her mind and basically having sex with her boyfriend in their shared space.
Her voice crackled through the pay-per-call nokia he'd bought in a small cell store down the road, "Neji, it's like 2 in the morning, can't you just call me after you're done with classes?" Neji would never admit it out loud, but just hearing TenTen's voice in the early morning hours gave him a rush of energy that lasted through the whole day. Biting a smile back –which managed to make every single girl in the dining hall swoon– Neji sipped his coffee and pulled at his tie.
"Hn. Just wanted to make sure you remember our skype session tonight?" He could hear TenTen groan and sit up, presumably slamming her head into something, since the string of profanities that emanated from the phone included a lot of crashes and mumbled "ows".
"Are you fucking serious Neji? Why on earth would you call me at 2 AM on the day of my biggest midterm? Goddammit. –sigh– okay well obviously I'll remember now, can I pleeeease sleep?" Neji chuckled into the phone.
"Of course. Don't let me keep you up." As he moved to press the end button, he could hear TenTen muttering, "Sadistic, egotistical, conceited bastard. I hope he trips on his stupid robes." He grinned and put the phone down. If someone were to see Neji and not know him very well, they would've said that Neji Hyuuga was in fact humming while he rewrote some notes on a peer's essay.
"Can you see me?" TenTen whispered in a hushed tone. She was trying to skype Neji in the library at 7pm, because her neighbour at home was having a huge party and she couldn't study.
"You know, you could just go to a different place. I'm pretty sure your libraries have study pods for one person." TenTen rolled her eyes.
"I don't need your snide comments, ok. Just tell me if someone's behind me." Neji shook his head. He was settled on his bed, computer resting on his stomach, head propped on a couple of pillows. "You know, you're probably going to get bad posture and quite possibly a burn from that laptop." Neji chuckled and shifted.
"Well it's freezing outside so my suitemate thought it would be a brilliant idea to turn the heat up really high. I had no choice." TenTen rolled her eyes again.
"You don't see me taking off my shirt every time it gets higher than 60 degrees."
"I'm sure no one would mind."
"What was that?" Neji coughed.
"Oh nothing. Keep your voice down, you are in a public area." TenTen glared at him and proceed to do her homework as people trickled out for dinner.
"Are you ignoring me? On skype? Your maturity hasn't increased one bit." TenTen glared at him and stuck out her tongue.
"Yes well unlike some people, I still have a lot ways to go. And I don't need your atti- Shit, a librarian's coming. I'll talk to you later. Love you, bye!" TenTen shut her laptop before Neji could respond. Her heart started beating faster than a hummingbird.
'Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit. DID I JUST TELL NEJI I LOVE HIM?' TenTen could feel the words still emanating from her tongue and her breathing increased. In all the years Neji and TenTen had been best friends, never once did the word love come up. They definitely loved each other, it was visible in every thing they did for each other and the sacrifices they kept secret to make the other happy. They both came from broken and unhappy families and love wasn't a word they believed in. But now? Having spent more than two years apart, TenTen was realizing that her feelings towards Neji were increasing. 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder' She winced and packed up her things, silent as she passed the bus stop and walked, willingly, through the snow and back to her apartment. Walking through the apartment in a daze –thank god she lived alone- TenTen collapsed on her bed. Maybe it was time to come to terms with the feelings she's pushed away for so long.
Three weeks had passed since TenTen and Neji last spoke. Neji leaned back on his bed, staring at the low ceiling with such intensity; it should have fallen to pieces. He dared a glance at his phone. There were no notifications, no alert sounds, no lights. He should've known not to get a smart phone, the only person he cared about talking to was TenTen. But then again, he didn't expect to have her cut all contact with him. He grabbed the pillow and hugged it to his stomach. Did TenTen mean what she said? Was she just using terminology college girls used? Did she mean familial love? He buried his head into the scratchy wool blanket beneath him and groaned. This wouldn't do. He needed to fix this immediately.
A large pounding on her door woke TenTen up sometime around 4 in the morning. She groaned and pulled herself up. The recently warmer weather had been keeping her up as her landlord felt it wasn't necessary to fix the a/c until it was "actually spring. As in March 21."
"Two weeks. Two weeks." She muttered. The knocking continued as she slipped on a shirt and really short shorts that probably should've been given to goodwill a long time ago. She couldn't answer the door in her underwear, as she'd been accustomed to wearing to bed nowadays.
"I'm coming! I'm… coming" TenTen yawned and stumbled into the living room and towards the door. "I swear to every lord ever, if your cat got stuck in the laundry shoot again, I will have to talk to the landlord." She swung the door open, fully expected her crazy cat lady neighbour whose cats kept showing up in places they shouldn't be. She definitely didn't expect a walking pot of hydrangeas, accompanied by white eyes made her heart jump into her throat. The phone she hadn't realised she was holding dropped to the floor and any sleep fogging her brain was completely gone.
"Um… Hi?" Neji coughed and shifted his feet. TenTen stared at him for a full minute. Questions ran through her brain; why was he here? Why is he holding flowers? Isn't it the middle of the semester? Shit, does he want to talk about what happened- nope not going there.
"So… can I come in?" TenTen got pulled out of her daze and stepped away from the doorway, almost robotically as she mentally ran through every single possible scenario. As she was playing out the probability of her not dying if she tried to crash through the window, Neji set down the flowers on her dining table and turned towards her.
"TenTen? Are you okay? You seem a bit… scared." TenTen shook her head. This was ridiculous, Neji was her best friend. A voice in her head piped up, 'exactly. Was. After what you pulled, I wouldn't be surprised if he was bringing you flowers for your graveee.' TenTen bit her lip. She was probably overreacting.
"Yeah I'm fine Neji. But, what are you doing here? I was under the impression your semester at Oxford didn't end for another two months." Neji gave her a tiny smirk and stepped towards her. TenTen felt her heart flip and resolved to stand her ground. This lasted all of two seconds, by which time Neji was close enough that she could residue from the clay pots he'd brought the flowers in. She took a tiny step back, hoping he wouldn't notice. He noticed.
"Why are you asking? Would you rather I not be here for another two months? Is it because you don't want to talk to me? Because this conversation is taking place, now or in two months." TenTen's voice was stuck in her throat so she backed up again and stared into his eyes, unwillingly to break contact first.
"What conversation? There is no conversation to be had." Neji pursed his lips.
"Is that why you haven't talked to me in three weeks? No conversation needed?" TenTen sighed and forced herself not to cross her arms over her chest. She couldn't get defensive now.
"Look, I've just been really busy for the last month. It has nothing to do with you." Neji took a step back. She watched as he stepped back and fell onto the futon. He gazed at her from the couch, a look of- 'longing? Oh hell no Hyuuga, you are not doing this to me after what I put myself through the last three weeks!' She hesitantly stepped towards Neji and stood in the middle of her flat, not knowing what to do with her hands, or legs, or any body parts to be honest.
"Neji? Did you really come all the way from Oxford for- for me?" Neji gave her a hint of a smile. That was the only confirmation she was going to receive. He stared down at his hands and TenTen realised that he probably hadn't really thought about what he was going to do after coming here. "Oh Neji, why did you come all the way here? I'm really not worth the 6-hour flight, I mean-" "No." Neji abruptly cut her off. TenTen was taken aback.
"What?" Neji looked at her again, eyebrows furrowed.
"You know what TenTen. Of all the things in this world considered 'worthy' of sacrificing for, you are literally the most worthy and most important person in my life." TenTen felt her breath catch and a tingle in her nose which probably meant she was going to start bawling. Meanwhile, Neji was continuing his tirade.
"Yes TenTen, you are. You can't deny it. After my father was killed, you were the only person I allowed myself to be close and I never knew why. You were always there for me, and I for you. I would even come down off my high horse when you told me to. I never knew why. That 6-hour flight? A bus ride compared to what I would do for you. And until the moment I stood outside your door with some of your favourite flowers that I bought from a flower shop that was closed until I called up the owner at 3 in the morning, I had no clue why I would do such a thing." TenTen moved to touch him, his shoulder, something to calm him down as thoughts raced through her brain. She was preoccupied with pretending they were having a normal conversation, knowing fully well that he was about to throw some bomb at her and that she didn't want anything to change.
"Neji, I-" Neji stopped her by placing his hand on hers.
"No TenTen, this time let me finish. Let me say what is the culmination of years of friendship and sacrifice and emotions that run deeper than anything material in this world. TenTen, I love you. I love you, I am in love with you, I always have been, and I always will be." TenTen bit her lip and fell to her knees in front of Neji. She rested her head on the inside of Neji's knee and let her tears flow out.
Neji panicked and pushed himself off the futon and onto the wooden floor, to hold up TenTen. She grabbed his shirt and cried into his shoulder, letting everything that she had tied up in the back of her mind out and releasing every emotion she'd disregarded until now.
"Oh my god, TenTen. I'm so sorry, did I do something? Shit, shitshit, are you okay? I'm sorry, I'll take everything back, I'll-" TenTen abruptly looked up at him, making him swallow anything he was about to say. She searched his eyes, seeing so many emotions that she'd never noticed before. The worry on his face, the creases in his brows, the love, the fear… of rejection? She bit her lip. She had nowhere to hide, nothing to persuade herself that this wasn't real.
"Neji, don't you dare take anything back. Nothing. I'm not crying because I'm sad, I just—I can't—I mean." She watched Neji's features soften and his grip on her tightened just the slightest bit before he let her go. She blinked, coming back to reality. Neji was enveloping her, his knees surrounding her and his body shielding her, just as he had for the past 14 years.
"I understand TenTen." But TenTen was frustrated. If Neji could say it, so could she. She pushed herself back from Neji. Immediately regretting the lack of Neji, she wrapped her arms around her knees and steeled herself, scrunching her eyes and gritting her teeth. 'Okay TenTen, you can do this. You could reprimand your teacher, you punched a gangster in the face and survived. You can tell Neji what you feel. Iiiiiiiiin 3. 2. 1.'
"I LOVE YOU TOO NEJI HYUUGA!" The declaration came out a lot louder than she expected. She peered over her arms to see Neji chuckling at her. Offended, she stood up and attempted to move past him to her bedroom so she could slam the door. Neji grabbed her wrist and pulled her to his lap.
TenTen avoided looking at him, not due to anger but embarrassment, but Neji forced her head back towards him.
"TenTen, you really didn't have to tell me you loved me. And not that loudly either." TenTen glared at him and hit his chest, actually making him fall over. He grabbed TenTen and they ended up lying on the cold wooden floor.
"Now what?" TenTen craned her neck from where she resting on Neji's chest. This was a first for both of them. Neji looked back at TenTen and smiled.
"Now we live happily ever after." TenTen groaned.
"God, when did you get so cheesy?"
"When I fell in love with you." TenTen pulled a pillow from her couch and hit him with it. A pillow fight ensued and while TenTen exclaimed that he was going to rip her pillows apart, grinned widely when he tackled onto the couch, she couldn't help but think,
'Yes. We will live happily ever after.'
Yes extra cheesy I know. We're going to pretend this was a good story because I had a lot of conflict over this one and I'm just very done with it.
I shall have a new (less emotional/cheesy) one out soon and this time I won't bail for a few months
Okay byeeeee