A/N: …I swear, I was eaten by rampaging llamas and then spat back out and force fed poisonous pizza, and THAT, my dears, is why I have not updated this fanfiction for an eternity and a half.
Really.
Okay, okay, life got in the way after winter break and I died under impending mounds of homework. Much less interesting explanation. But I don't deserve all of your reviews; I am a terrible updater.
-cries- Will you forgive me?
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Day 21
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Tenten was musing to herself.
The summer had gone so differently than she had planned: she had befriended Hinata for one. She had met Uchiha Sasuke, the possible axe murderer of one of her best friends. She had bumped into Karin, whom she had not associated with for months and had no wish to see again. The other day, she had tried the best spicy curry that she had ever tasted, and had a good time with her mental patient.
But did she still consider Neji to be her mental patient? By now, she was solidly convinced of his absolute sanity, (whatever jokes they might make about it). He wasn't dangerous, just secluded from other people and…different. Didn't she know what it felt like to be excluded from normal activities? Most other girls didn't connect with her much.
She was suddenly feeling very lonely as she walked on a burning hot asphalt sidewalk, passing other pedestrians by and realizing vaguely that they had crossed paths just this once in their lives, and would probably never see one another again. All of these people had complicated webs of friends, family, lovers, just as Tenten did, and she became a part of this complicated web for just a split second when they glanced at her on the sidewalk. And then it was gone again.
Lonely. What a stupid word.
I ought to be grateful, she thought chidingly to her inner self. I've got friends and a mother that loves me, (most of the time), and I've got a pretty good life going for me. She paused for a while.
Tenten thought of Ino and her mastermind matchmaking plots. As strange as it was, Ino and Shikamaru did have their own bond. Perhaps Shikamaru did love Temari, and perhaps the two of them were fighting at this period in time, but Tenten had a sort of strange premonition going in her head that Ino and Shikamaru could never truly be split apart. Maybe they didn't share the type of love that Ino wished for right now, but with time, that might come.
She thought of Sakura and her warped relationship with Uchiha Sasuke, the man of pocket knives and neck tattoos and shark hoop earrings. He did care about her deeply, Tenten thought, in some sort of twisted way. The pair of them were unlike anybody she had ever seen.
There was Hinata and Naruto, two of her best friends. She had already decided to put aside her overprotective, a little jealous, feelings for both of them and let the chips fall where they may.
So where did that leave Tenten, exactly?
She had no desire to change her single status as of the moment, but what about in five years, then ten? Would she still want to be alone then? Tenten didn't want to be the strange old lady with the ten thousand cats.
Tenten found herself in front of the door of the Hyuuga Compound sooner than she had expected. By then, her feet seemed to know the way better than she herself did. She was about to knock when she saw Neji's white eyes watching her from his room a few windows down. She laughed, and ran down along the house to his back door. He was standing there, looking rather amused.
"Tenten," he stated, his lips curling upward.
"Ohayo, Neji-kun," she smiled and sat down on the couch. She exhaled loudly. "Whew, its hot out." Unexpectedly, she felt a tickling sensation in her nose, and sneezed.
"You are sick," said Neji, sitting down across from her.
"No, I'm not," Tenten protested. "It was just a sneeze." Just as she finished speaking, she sneezed again.
"You are," Neji's smile grew more pronounced. "I think that you may have a summer cold, Tenten." He got up again and squatted down to feel her forehead. She blinked in surprise. The gesture of kindness didn't seem a very Neji-like thing to do.
"Your forehead is warm," Neji said with the tiniest of triumphant tones in his voice.
"You're not getting a thermometer anywhere near me," Tenten warned.
"Alright," Neji said reasonably, and sat down next to her on the couch, something he had never done before. Tenten stared at him.
"Really? Just like that? You're going to leave me alone?" she asked in disbelief. Neji raised both eyebrows, as if to ask, why wouldn't I?
"It's just that…usually my mother just ignores all of my complaining and jabs the thermometer into my armpit anyways," Tenten explained sheepishly.
"Hn," said Neji.
Tenten yawned. "I'm so tired today. It's probably the heat that's doing it to me; it always makes my head feel kind of fuzzy." She laughed lightly. "Does it do that to you, too?"
"No," said Neji flatly.
Tenten felt very strange all of a sudden. Her vision swam a little, and a dull ringing sounded in her ears. She sighed. The last thing she remembered was falling backwards onto the couch, and everything disappearing.
o0o
Tenten was waking up.
First came sounds that she could hear: the gentle whispering of wind and the rustling of some sort of fabric. Then she could feel warm sunlight touching her forehead and arms, and she was aware that it was a very hot day. At least she didn't have on blankets. Blearily, she opened her eyes.
Neji was sitting on a stool next to her, his white eyes carefully watchful. He was holding a steaming cup of some sort of transparent brown liquid. He smiled slightly at her confused expression, and handed the cup to her.
"Drink. It will make you feel better," he said quietly.
Tenten sniffed the cup. The faint scent of brown sugar wafted to her nose. She drank greedily, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Thanks," she said gratefully. Neji didn't bother to reply. "What happened?" Tenten asked him.
"You fainted," Neji said matter-of-factly.
"I what?" Tenten said incredulously, feeling utterly humiliated. She had never done that sort of thing before.
"You lost consciousness," Neji said again.
"I know, I heard you," Tenten said hastily. "Its just, fainting isn't usually the way that I roll." Neji arched an eyebrow.
"You do not get to choose when you faint," he said, sounding amused.
"How long was I out for?" Tenten moaned, holding her head, which was warm, but probably just from the sunlight shafting in through Neji's window. She realized that he had been keeping the blinds up so that the window was open a lot more lately.
Neji shrugged vaguely. "Five, maybe ten minutes. You slept like a dead pig."
"Gee, thanks," Tenten rolled her eyes and laughed. "I can tell that you were awfully worried about me," she let playful sarcasm leak into her voice.
"I was," Neji said very seriously. Tenten was taken aback.
"You were?" she said blankly. "But...I was just joking about that," she stammered.
"Hn," said Neji. "Why should I not be concerned about your wellbeing? You are the only person who has ever bothered to…." He trailed off, seemingly unable to think of the words he wanted.
Tenten relaxed, and lay down on her stomach on the couch, her chin on her folded arms, and looked at Neji. "You know, I feel really safe with you," she said. "I'm usually the one that has to look out for my mother, because I'm the stronger one physically and maybe mentally. I'm used to taking care of myself. It's the way that I live. But I feel like you take care of me sometimes, and that's a nice change for me, you know?" Tenten said all in a rush. "You make me feel safe," she repeated to herself.
Neji stared at her passively with his white eyes with the strangest expression on his face. "Perhaps that is the same thing that you make me feel," he finally said. "Safe."
Tenten laughed. "Wow, we're such a pair of nerds. I've never been a fan of all this let's-talk-about-feelings junk. But really, it's true. I feel like you protect me from…myself? I don't know," she laughed again, louder this time.
Neji's eyes crinkled slightly at the corners. "I am glad, then."
o0o
Neji ended up walking Tenten home to the boarding house even though it was broad daylight. He said that she would probably pass out again and be lying under a bus the next time he saw her if he didn't. Although Tenten highly doubted this fact and protested for a very long time, Neji won anyways. As usual.
"I'm going to stop at the Starbucks for coffee," Tenten explained. "You could come if you want," she suggested.
Neji shook his head. "I highly dislike coffee." Tenten drew in a sharp breath of mock horror, but nodded.
"Okay, then. Thanks for walking me."
"Hn," said Neji. He faded into the crowd a few moments later, and Tenten got in line for coffee.
A few minutes later, she was carrying the coffee, (iced, it was too hot for normal), when she realized that she was hungry. She went up to the dorm, set down the drink.
Sakura was doodling something on a little scrap of paper. It was a chibi depiction of Ino with her hair cropped short like a boy's and huge muscles. Ino was actually laughing at the picture, and even Hinata was smiling. This was unusual.
Tenten suggested that she go and get curry for all of them from the place that Neji had shown her. Ino was laughing too hard to reply, but Sakura wanted some, and so did Hinata.
Tenten walked back down the steps and out into the sunshine once more.
o0o
The curry shop was practically empty at this hot part of day, save for a few customers sitting at random tables. A few waitresses and a waiter were sitting at a booth for four and chatting over a plate of the house specialty, but Karin was nowhere to be seen.
Curiously, Tenten poked her head behind the reception desk, and then wandered off towards the women's restroom and figured that she would comb out her hair while she waited for somebody to get back, because all of her bangs were sticking to her forehead, and her buns were frizzing.
She rounded a corner and froze.
A white-haired boy with thin, slanted eyes and skin so pale it was tinged almost blue had Karin pressed against the wall and was kissing her with reckless abandon. His hands were tangled in her hair, and it looks like he was pulling roughly on it, but Karin seemed to be enjoying herself too much to mind. All of their limbs were entangled, and she kept making little purring noises. Tenten gagged, and then cleared her throat.
The boy pulled away from her and grinned demonically at her, revealing canines even sharper than Sakura's. Tenten stared at him with a jolt of recognition. Suigetsu.
Karin straightened her shirt and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, her face flushed. Suigetsu still had her pressed against the wall, and she grinned at T enten.
"Yo," she said, not the least bit embarrassed. "Sup." Her syllables were slurred. It sounded like she was drunk. She giggled when Suigetsu leaned down to place a butterfly kiss on her jawbone. Tenten raised her eyebrow.
"You people have take out, right?" Tenten said.
"Sure…sure…" Karin said distractedly, and giggled again, pushing Suigestsu playfully away from her. He grinned and took it in stride, sauntering off with his hands in his pockets. "Come over here," Karin motioned.
"Whaddya want?" she asked from behind the hostess counter a few seconds later, still sounding punch-drunk and throwing Tenten a folder with a menu in it.
"Just four of the plain curry, one of them extra spicy," Tenten said coldly, tossing the menu back to the red-headed girl. She caught it with surprising agility and placed it neatly and calmly back onto the stack.
"Alright then."
Five minutes later, Tenten was walking out in the sunshine with plastic bags filled with takeout boxes, which were in turn filled with steaming curry. She felt a sort of disgust with Karin. She had never used to be like this. They had used to have fun together. Now, Tenten wondered how they could ever have been friends.
Sakura and Ino devoured the curry with enthusiasm, but Hinata ate slowly with her back stiff and wiped her mouth every now and then with a napkin. "This is v-very good, Tenten-san," she commented, smiling. "I've n-never had curry that's c-cooked so well."
"Neither have I. Cheers, Weapons Mistress!" Sakura said, toasting Tenten with a fork.
Tenten laughed and watched the three girls eating around her, lounging in the dorm.
These are my friends, she realized. Hinata and Naruto and Lee and Sakura and Ino and maybe even Kiba. Not Karin. Not Suigetsu.
She smiled to herself. And there's Neji, my personal bodyguard.
o0o
Sakura woke in the middle of the night in pitch darkness. She lay still in her top bunk for a few minutes, not quite sure what had caused her to wake up. For all she knew, it could have been because Ino had shifted and a squeaky spring moved. She was that light of a sleeper.
But then the sound came again: a gentle tapping on their door.
She got up and silently made her way across the wood. Hinata turned in her sleep, but otherwise, her friends seemed undisturbed. She opened the door a tiny crack. She couldn't see anybody outside. She opened it a little more, cursing that they didn't have a peephole.
Her green eyes widened and she gave a start. Uchiha Sasuke was standing there, leering at her with his hands stuffed in his pockets. She motioned for him to go with her down the steps where they could talk without being heard.
Once they were outside, she opened her mouth to yell at him, but he stopped her with a look. She took a deep breath and started talking in a more subdued voice. "What are you doing here?" she hissed.
He smirked, amused. "You and the blonde strung toilet paper streamers from my home. You didn't believe that I would just let you be after that…thoughtful message of yours?"
"I didn't paint it, Ino did," Sakura said defensively.
"I should hope so," Sasuke chuckled darkly. "It sounded too cliché for one such as you, little cherry blossom."
"I hate it when you do that," she muttered venomously.
"Do what?" he said innocently.
"Call me that," she said. "You know perfectly well that if it weren't for that fact that I would probably raise an alarm right now, I would most likely hit you in the jaw."
"Hn," he said.
"I didn't think you would hold a grudge for something like teepeeing your house," Sakura mused.
"I don't," Sasuke said quietly.
"So why are you here?" Sakura asked, having expected this.
"It's a full moon out," Sasuke said vaguely.
"The Hell does that have to do with anything?" Sakura asked. "Would you get to the point for once?"
"Your eyes are lovely at this time of night," he said in that same vague voice. She stared at him incredulously.
"You came here to tell me that my eyes are pretty in the moonlight? What kind of crazy sap have you turned into? What are you going to do next, start throwing rocks at my window and play me a serenade?" Sakura said sarcastically.
"Witty as always," he said, his tone amused, using his thumb and forefinger to tilt her chin up to look at him. Her eyes burned with resentment.
"Don't give me that crap," she said softly.
"Sakura, you know why I am here," he replied in return.
"Why is that?" she said, playing along with him.
His lips curled into a trademark smirk. Automatically, her features twisted in response into an identical expression, and he laughed slightly in a low tone.
"Because I owe you my soul," he said, and kissed her lightly on the forehead.
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A/N: I hope that you enjoyed it!!