Sitting on a picnic blanket next to his best friend, Neji Hyuga pursed his lips and tried to resist rolling his eyes. A familiar deck emerged from Ten-ten's pack – tarot cards, which she now followed with almost religious fervor. He supposed reading the cards involved less mess than her previous fortune-telling obsessions. Over the past year, Ten-ten had dabbled in scattering tea leaves or deciphering cracks in chicken bones. She always grasped for ways to glimpse the unknowable, driven by what Neji supposed was a mix of fear and anxiety.
"Pleasant weather today," he ventured. "You chose a good day to eat outside together."
Wispy white clouds drifted across clear blue skies and the afternoon sun cast light shadows across their faces.
"Um, yeah, it's nice."
Ten-ten turned to him for a moment before fixating on the cards once again.
What questions would she ask of the cards today, he wondered – whether her newest mission would succeed? If she'd make jounin by the end of the year? If the tickets for a performance of a touring band would sell out by the end of the week? The cards were near infallible in her mind. If their predictions proved incorrect, she found all kinds of explanations for their faults. Maybe drawing cards in the reversed position somehow changed their meaning.
"Alright, I'll do my reading, and then we can have lunch."
He shook his head when she bisected the deck and shuffled the cards. The clack, clack, clack of laminated paper colliding filled the space between them. Neji clenched his fist to suppress a groan each time Ten-ten repeated the same motions – cut, shuffle, cut, shuffle.
Neji and Ten-ten had settled into a strange equilibrium. Whenever Neji told her about the silliness of her superstitions, she would dismiss his skepticism as the ramblings of a perpetual pessimist. He never disputed that label – though Neji preferred to call himself a realist. Nonetheless, any snide objections remained unspoken. In return, Ten-ten refrained from inviting him to discuss the meanings of her cards or otherwise participate in her readings.
The one time Neji begrudgingly offered his advice, he only needed to interpret the card in the best possible way to please her. That was how commercial fortune-tellers plied their trade and kept their customers coming. Neji told Ten-ten that her parents would indeed allow her to attend their team's hot springs night.
What did I tell you? Trust what the cards are saying, she said while they relaxed into scalding water at the hot springs. Afterward, Neji's sinking guilt made him swear against such insincere flattery in the future. So he told Ten-ten he preferred to sit and observe her readings going forward.
"Most probably, the deck should be totally randomized, assuming you've –"
"Shh. I have a routine. If I stop early, that'll throw off the balance of the deck."
He questioned why he indulged her. But Ten-ten's company brought him peace like little else in his life, and Neji didn't want to lose her welcome. His best friend had a terrible temper if she sensed even a hint of condescension. Neji wouldn't expect any less from a kunoichi who aspired to become like a legendary Sannin.
"Alright, we're almost ready!" she chimed, biting the side of her lip and rubbing her palms together. "Hey, wanna do the honors this time?"
"Not particularly," Neji muttered.
Neji had grudging admiration for the scam artists who sold the cards and guides to reading them. While he perused the village bookstore with her, Neji had seen Ten-ten spend hundreds of ryos on fortune-telling guides. All garbage, as far as he was concerned.
"Hey, suit yourself."
After witnessing so many, he knew the steps of a tarot reading by heart. Her "spread" included three cards for past, present and future selected from across the deck – wherever the cards "pulled" her.
Ten-ten fanned out her cards on the woven cotton blanket, humming a popular song off-tune. When she leaned over to spread the cards, Neji caught a whiff of soap and her floral perfume. Her familiar scent struck his heart with a familiar ache he couldn't yet identify.
"Then I'll get started."
And I'll do my reading, never. – Neji silently countered.
When spread in an arc, the cards assumed a pleasing symmetry. Her slender fingers danced across the cards, picking three – one from the far left edge, one from the center and one from the right.
"Past, present, future," she said, laying them face-down in a row before her.
Neji raised a brow when Ten-ten glanced over, beaming so widely that the tops of her teeth showed. The smile weakened his resolve until the corners of his lips curved upward.
"Oh! I love that I get to do this with you! Nobody else is interested," Ten-ten almost squealed, grabbing his shoulders and setting her head over his collarbone.
Her shrill voice and overflowing enthusiasm tensed every muscle in his body and elicited a shudder. Still, Neji gave a soft groan of disappointment when she lifted her head to sit upright again. The weight of her head on his shoulder was pleasant. And the soft tickle of her hair on his neck wasn't unwelcome either. Of course, Neji kept every scrap of pleasure to himself for fear of embarrassing both of them. Ten-ten gave affection freely, and surely her spontaneous gestures meant nothing.
Disclosing his feelings might make Ten-ten shrink back and stop coming near him altogether.
"I have no better uses of my day off when my uncle doesn't need me to train the clan's youth."
"Still means you're here."
Ten-ten hesitated with her thumb under the "past" card and her fingers across the top, her eyes drifting to the rustling treetops above them.
"Hm. I want to know, is there anything from my past that I'm holding onto? Anything I need to let go of?"
The gravity in Ten-ten's voice brought Neji a twinge of discomfort. Her questions were rarely so abstract. Usually she asked questions with clear answers. Neji said something about ripping off the bandage and confronting whatever awaited her – good or bad. Drawing a sharp breath and meeting his white eyes, Ten-ten sighed and nodded, as if drawing reassurance from Neji's presence. She flipped the card over before immediately turning it backside-up. Her hand flew to her pursed lips, fingertips turning white.
"Oh. Oh, gods. It's this one, huh?"
Neji straightened his back and set a hand on her shoulder. The messages in the cards were real to her, however much Neji considered them unhinged fakery.
"Sorry, what's so significant about this one?"
"Um. I think it's telling me –" Ten-ten's voice faltered. "It's saying I need to finally let go of him and accept that first love doesn't always work out."
Beside Neji, Ten-ten sniffed and blinked in rapid beats. She appeared to blot tears from her eyes. Her gaze darted in all directions but refused to meet his. He'd previously seen her contemplative or frustrated at a card. Never so devastated. If a stupid game inflicted such distress, Neji was tempted to sweep the entire damn deck into a pile and burn it.
"Is anything the matter?"
"Yeah. I'm...just trying to figure out how to do that. I'm not used to letting go."
Her pained voice trailed off into a high whimper as a sob bowed Ten-ten's shoulders forward. So much for a quick fortune telling session before lunch, Neji thought.
This was why he avoided romantic entanglements. Really, Neji shunned most entanglements other than whatever friendship he had with his team. He wouldn't have become the youngest Hyuga to make jounin if he allowed romance or the whims of other people to weigh him down.
"If you're so hurt by that card, I'll select another one right now. Surely it's not impossible that the deck pulled you in the wrong direction for once –"
"No, no. It meant for me to see this card."
Ten-ten seized Neji's wrist when he reached for the fanned cards to draw an alternate, one he might spin in a positive direction. Sweat and tears wet her too-warm hand.
"And you still love him? Shinji?"
"Yeah. Yeah, part of me does," Ten-ten confessed between rattling breaths. Her hand squeezed his wrist once.
"I see."
"Moving on isn't easy when he's the first person who held my hand, the first one I dated, the first one I...loved like that," she finished before dissolving into tears.
Mentions of young love – especially of sex – made Neji's pale cheeks flush. They were so far from his experiences that he had no ready response. A nagging voice declared that Shinji's absence was a good thing, an opportunity to act on his persistent affection for Ten-ten. Whatever his lack of social awareness, he knew that voicing the latest unbidden thought wasn't appropriate. Neji balled a fist in his lap.
"I can't relate."
"Y-you don't have to. I get that I'm weird, and I do weird things and I'm way too clingy. And that's probably why he left me."
"...oh, you said you left him because he showed contempt for your fortune telling hobby. Among other reasons, mostly pertaining to his off-putting habits."
Once the words emerged, Neji regretted them.
The small quiver in Ten-ten's voice revealed her lie – told out of pride, perhaps. Heat gathered in his hands and face. He was pathetic, incompetent, a failure where it really mattered. Neji burned to stop her flow of tears, but Ten-ten might have slapped him if he tried to hug her.
"No, I just lied to you and Lee so I could save face. Pathetic, really. I didn't want to be that girl who was dumped. There's no point in hiding it from you anymore, huh?"
"I suppose there isn't."
"Okay, here goes," Ten-ten began. "Apparently I was away from the village too often on missions, and...I wasn't there for him in the same way as his other friend. So he dumped me for her."
"Sorry."
That was what people said on such occasions, wasn't it? Neji deemed it a weird convention. Who would he even apologize for? Certainly not Shinji, who he'd only seen in passing and never spoken to. Not the gods or the thread of fate, or whatever power dictated the course of their lives.
"Oh, no need to be sorry."
Neji feigned a throat-clearing cough to spare himself the expectation of speaking.
"Oh well, he's gone now. So, I know what to do, but not how to do it. Real helpful," Ten-ten said, heat inflecting her tone. "Anyways, onto the present."
Ten-ten wormed her hand so their palms touched, before weaving her fingers between his. His fingers hung limp with shock for a moment, before Neji folded them around her hand.
"So – what do I need to do now to let go?" she whispered. "Please tell me, please, please."
This time, she flipped the card immediately with a sharp slap of paper on fabric. Her other hand constricted around him so tightly that his fingertips smarted from blood loss. The card was one Neji hadn't seen previously, one of the minor Arcana probably. While Ten-ten regarded the card with narrowed eyes, he sat still, not daring to breathe too heavily.
"Shit, this one's even less helpful."
"That's...unfortunate."
"Yeah, I know, right?"
"What does this card mean in your current context?"
"Oh, it's telling me that I need to find the answer right in front of me. Like what does that even mean?"
Her deep growl resonated across the field, as did the curse she screamed out.
"No idea."
Neji shook his head, a pit forming in his stomach. He wished he could disappear to avoid burdening her with his hopeless, awkward self. In a sudden flurry of motion, Ten-ten picked up the "present" card between two fingers and hurled it – or at least she tried to hurl it. The laminated paper flew a few inches, then drifted down to the grass. Her hand covered a single harsh laugh followed by a muffled sob.
"You know, the cards can't tell you everything," Neji ventured. "Maybe the universe is trying to suggest that you figure this question out for yourself."
"This helps," Ten-ten admitted, rocking their joined hands back and forth. "Having you next to me."
A smile played across her red, swollen face, even as her lips shook. Tender affection rushed to Neji's heart.
"I'll stay here for as long as you need me."
"Mmh. Thanks, Neji. Time to take a look at my future, though. Okay – what's my love life got in store for me?"
This time, Neji caught her hand before she could turn over the card. Though she tensed for a moment, the resistance soon faded and Ten-ten relaxed.
"I believe you don't need the card to tell you that."
"Oh. W-why not? Do you have fortune telling abilities now?" she snickered.
"Hardly –"
"Then what is it?"
Ten-ten's brown eyes pinned him in place. He summoned every bit of his confidence before swallowing twice and clearing his throat.
"I...I see myself in your future."
Neji forced himself to keep eye contact with Ten-ten while her lips parted in shock. She stammered something that sounded like help.
"I'm sorry. It was entirely inappropriate of me to –"
"No! You didn't do anything wrong, I promise," she began, hesitant. "You're right, I don't need the card to tell me when you're right here. So that's what it meant, huh? My answer's been right here the whole time."
She leaned forward to plant her puckered lips on Neji's cheek. They were plush and soft, slightly chapped around the edges. Their touch sent pleasant tingles across his skin.
"Hey, you okay?" Ten-ten asked when he sat paralyzed for a few moments too long.
"Yes. Yes, I'm fine, Ten-ten. You just surprised me, but I...I liked what you did there."
"Then I'll do it again." Ten-ten paused to kiss the tip of Neji's nose and then his lips. "Oh, the cards were right again."
Warmth bubbled in his core.
"I suppose they were right. As much as it pains me to say so."
In reality, the admission didn't pain him at all, not if he got to stay with her.