Rippling blue water stretched in all directions before Ten-ten's disbelieving eyes. Like the rest of her genin team, she had never seen anything so vast, blue or dizzying. Such emptiness disoriented and unnerved her. So did the hours of free time on the final day of their first C-rank mission, which ended unexpectedly early. Team Gai had escorted a box of holy relics to a nearby temple, where the monks blessed each of the genin and their teacher. Instead of heading home as Ten-ten hoped, Might Gai announced a "beach day" for his genin to enjoy the seaside.
Both Gai and Lee ran straight into the waves once the monks bowed before the team a final time, declaring the mission complete. Still wearing their familiar green jumpsuits, teacher and student chased each other through the water. Gai's booming laughter mingled with Lee's giggles. Ten-ten watched Lee trip, before Gai caught him in both arms and threw him back into the water.
Envious of their joy, Ten-ten had no idea how she might find any enjoyment from this dreadful, exposed stretch of sand and water. Sand dissolved beneath her fingers and retreating waves swept away the ground beneath her feet. Sitting at the water's edge, she feared moving closer because the waves could take her as well. So she sat cross-legged and let the water tickle her bare toes and wet the lower hem of her rolled-up pants. Neji lingered next to her, perhaps because he also didn't know what else to do.
She found strange comfort in their shared solitude. Ten-ten appreciated not sitting alone while watching Gai and Lee play like happy fools.
"I can't see why they like it here so much," she muttered.
A moment later, she yelped when a strong wave hit the seat of her pants before she could shift away. Neji smirked and raised a brow. He leaned forward to run his hands through the water at his feet, sighing.
"And you don't like it?"
Her lips popped open when he acknowledged her with something other than his usual huffs or hums. Still, Ten-ten wouldn't pass up the invitation to vent her frustrations.
"No, what's so great about some sandy ground and waves? You know, I'd rather be back at the village early. My parents could have used my help at the store."
"You'd rather be peeling radishes and stacking crates at your parents' grocery store than sitting on the beach without a single obligation to anyone?"
Ten-ten gasped, surprised that Neji questioned her feelings rather than commiserating. Surely he would have thought of training, and every jutsu he needed to hone. Oddly enough, he seemed to like the beach. His legs stretched to meet the water and his shoulders leaned back. Gazing into the mid-morning sun, his white eyes swept over the ocean. For once, he appeared...actually relaxed.
"Yeah," she answered, hardening her voice. "I don't like the beach, I told you. What? Do you find this fun?"
She drew her knees against her chest. When she tried to swipe sand from her shirt, the wet sand on her hands to stuck to the fabric. The sand would have been the worst part about the beach if not for another surge of water that left her pants and undergarments soaking. Choking out a curse, Ten-ten growled and pounded a fist into the warm sand.
"You're always in such a hurry to return to the village," Neji stated. He watched Ten-ten's scowl with tapered eyes and the trace of a smile. "Do you not like visiting new places?"
"I'm always in a hurry to return because that's my home," she snapped. "Not this crappy piece of sand. Don't know why anyone would like it better."
Her response appeared to sour his mood, and Ten-ten wished she could swallow her spiteful words. As she faced Neji again, Ten-ten's apology stalled in her throat. Heat and overwhelming shame paralyzed her. Who was she to impose her emotions on him and speak to him with such contempt because he didn't share them?
"The village is my birthplace and my home on paper, but I hardly consider it a home in the way you think of it."
Ten-ten knew of the restrictions placed on branch Hyuga and the inferiority pounded into them since birth. Every minute Neji spent away from the village was one minute away from his uncle, when he could pretend to be someone else. He could forget the all-too-familiar burdens of living in the leaf while he drank in foreign lands and sights.
"Oh. So...you actually like the whole beach day thing?"
"Yes. Becoming a shinobi wasn't the life I chose. A branch Hyuga has few other options," Neji began. "Traveling is one of the few things I appreciate about the job."
"Good for you...I guess."
Rushing waves punctuated the lull in their exchange. After pausing to really listen to them, Ten-ten began to find the sound comforting.
"Well, what do you like so much about the beach, huh?"
She extended the question to Neji as an offer of reconciliation, and hoped he'd accept it.
"I wonder what lives on the other side of that ocean. Maybe I'll find a way to go there someday."
"Well, there's the Land of Waves, right? And the Land of Water."
Neji shook his head. Farther down the shore, Gai and Lee floated on their backs, paddling through the water with arms rotating like pinwheels. In the distance, curved fins arced out of the water. Dolphins, that's what one of the local children called them earlier that morning – animals that swam like fish but weren't fish at all.
Then the girl's mother streaked across the sand to snatch her away, hissing at her not to talk to the foreign shinobi.
They're trained killers, you know. They could slit your throat in a second, she'd warned. Don't give them a reason.
Neji had smirked and muttered something about how he wasn't paid to kill children. Ten-ten felt the slightest bit guilty about laughing at that quip.
"I mean, what is there beyond that?"
"Uhhh, I honestly don't know. Maybe that's the end of the world and you'll just float off. I don't really care about finding out."
"Why?"
Neji's soft question lingered between them. His piercing white eyes made her toes curl. She wasn't used to him probing her, taking an interest in who she was other than a kunoichi teammate. Ten-ten buried her hands in the sand while she reflected on why leaving home unnerved her so much.
"You'd be willing to potentially go off the edge of the world?" she laughed. "I can't swim...and I like my life at home a lot. My parents are nice, even if they're a little annoying and –"
"That would be a fate I chose for myself."
"H-hey, I don't want you going off the edge of the world."
At the world's edge, she imagined water cascading off in a long waterfall with no bottom. However much Neji's snobbery or upturned nose annoyed her, Ten-ten didn't want him disappearing into a watery grave or plummeting into nothing.
"You assume that's true. But maybe if I go far enough, I could one day come back to the village."
"That's crazy. No way the ends of the map come together," Ten-ten countered. "There's nothing out there – just look. It's water everywhere. And can you even swim?"
She envied how Gai and Lee navigated the water with ease. They swam well enough to do flips and spins, before racing as they did on land. Almost drowning in the river scarred Ten-ten enough to never put her head underwater again.
"No. I can't."
"Then aren't you afraid of drowning, too?"
Neji watched his pale toes peek through the sand and pursed his lips.
"Why do you think I haven't tried going into the water?"
How ironic that someone who dreamed of traveling across the waters had no recourse if he found himself floundering. Her laughter made Neji cringe and hug his arms around his shins, shoulders curled to shield his injured heart.
"Hm. S-sorry about that," Ten-ten stammered.
She scrambled for something she could offer to right her insensitivity, before realizing she could only match his vulnerability with vulnerability of her own.
"Hey – you want to try going in the water? I'll go with you, if you want me to."
Neji drew a sharp breath.
"You're afraid, aren't you?"
"Mmh. I am, yeah. But together, I guess we could make it better, you know?"
Neji snorted, seemingly at her naivety, but turned with her with a smile and reached for her hand. The warmth of his skin swelled Ten-ten's heart.
"You're right, Ten-ten. The water's shallow enough for us to stand, and those two manage it just fine."
"Together. Don't let me go, okay?"
Her hand tightened around Neji's and he squeezed back.
Neji rose first, then tugged Ten-ten to a standing position alongside him. They took a single step, inching their feet forward until water lapped at their ankles. Ten-ten faltered. But Neji took another step, and she found herself drawn to follow. He led her forward while she squeezed her eyes closed. With every step, seawater seeped through her thin cotton clothes. The shock of cool water on her skin elicited a shiver and gasp.
When Ten-ten ventured a peek at their surroundings, she saw Neji turned to face her, his free hand beckoning her forward. The waves just reached the bottom hem of his black shorts.
"Don't be afraid."
"Okay," she breathed out. "Okay, I'm moving in."
Once they advanced to calmer depths, where the waves no longer crested, Ten-ten found herself strangely soothed by the water. Neji's hand kept her anchored in place. For the first time since they stepped off the beach, she dared grin at him. The broad, billowing waves lifted her toes from the soft sandy bottom, setting her down once the current swept onward. As she bobbed in the water, her mind drifted far above them, light and free.
"Have you changed your mind?" Neji asked.
"Yeah. This isn't bad."
Ten-ten released a little scream when an especially large wave bowed her forward. Fear rose in her chest before Neji caught her, and reassured her that he'd keep both of them safe.
They stayed in the water until Might Gai called them to shore for ice cream – his treat. By then, Neji's face and neck had turned bright red, skin peeling from his nose and the tops of his cheeks. A weakness of his pale complexion, Ten-ten supposed.
Once back at their team's shared hotel room, she spent part of the evening rubbing soothing lotion on the back of Neji's neck. Though he protested when she first approached with lotion on her fingertips, the tension in Neji's muscles dissolved beneath her careful massage.
"So, how did you plan to get across the ocean if you can't swim? You could take a boat, but you'd better be able to swim if you fall."
"When I think about going across the ocean, I think about flying, like those birds."
Ten-ten remembered the seagulls coasting above their heads, flying over the waves so they could plunge into the water for fish. While they sat on the shore, Neji had lifted his head to trace their paths across the sky.
"They all come home, don't they? They've got nests, babies, eggs..."
"But they fly hundreds of miles. Across the continent and the ocean, even."
"And they still come home after all that."
Huffing, Neji shook his head.
"Hm. I suppose they do that. Like I told you, I'm...not sure I have a place I would consider home."
His voice faded into a sad whisper.
"Hey, my mom told me that sometimes your real home is with the people who care about you. Everyone needs to go home, though."
Fuzzy warmth settled between the teammates. They were alone in the room while Lee showered and Gai ran his evening laps around the hotel.
I could be it, Ten-ten thought. If you'll let me. Though Neji said nothing, the way he leaned into her hand and smiled told her that he wasn't opposed.