Christmas Chaos
Chapter 8: The Coup
December 21st - 4:38
Neji hurried to his grandmother's side, hoping to assist his elder.
She swatted the boy's hands away. "Don't, Neji." She threw him a fierce stare. "I can still make my own way in life."
Neji chuckled. "If anyone can, it has to be you."
She looked back fondly at her grandson and then looked back at Tenten once she reached her. "So this is who you decided to bring, eh?"
He tried to smile, but he was still perplexed at the sudden apparition of his grandmother. "Yes, this is-"
"Tenten." She smiled. "I know. Your father and uncle kept me up to date."
"What are you doing here?" He asked her, puzzled.
The old woman scoffed. "Why do you all insist on asking me this silly question? This is my home, lest you forget."
Neji smirked. "You hate this house, and you hate the gatherings even more."
His grandmother smiled back. "Indeed," She threw a look at Tenten, assessing her, much like Aunt Yuri had done, with the same intent of protecting her grandson, but she did it with a much warmer gaze. "She's already better than that redhead you brought two years ago. But then again, the bar was on the floor with this one."
Neji groaned. "My kingdom for respite from the Tayuya incident."
The elder laughed a bit.
"You made me believe your grandma was dead?" Tenten finally snapped out of it and decided now was a perfect moment to get some fun out of it. Her pretending eyes cast furious glares at him, and he retorted with an appalled expression, falling right in her trap.
"I did no such thing. I only talked about the grief of my grandfather." Neji replied firmly.
"And now, you're using the death of your grandfather as a way to get out of your omission." She gave him a playful glare.
Neji pinched the bridge of his nose. "You must be doing this on purpose." He looked at her face, holding her smile in, and he had to suppress his own. "Is your only mission in life to torture me, Tenten?"
This time, Tenten couldn't help but grin. "So far, I call it my divine calling."
His lips twitched until he realized the pretense they were supposed to be holding and turned to his grandma, ready to explain, but she only raised her hand, side-smiling at the pair.
"Don't bother." She cut his attempt before he had started. "Tenten, my dear, would you mind letting me have a moment with my grandson?"
The younger woman blinked and eagerly acquiesced before leaving in a hurry to wait in the hallway next door.
"What are you doing, Neji?" His grandmother finally asked, weary of it all. "You're a grown man. You know what is at stake. Why haven't you found a nice girl to settle down with?"
After a moment of silence where Neji avoided his elder's inquisitive stare, he finally spat out:
"I want to find what you and grandpa had." He looked away, embarrassed by his own romantic ideals. "I want to find a partner I love waking up to every single day, someone I can look at the way grandpa did with you. Someone who'll stay when things get hard."
"Your father and uncle seem to believe that someone could be this doctor woman. Is that true?" She raised one eyebrow.
"What do you know?" He asked, immediately on the defensive. "Don't believe uncle or dad if they told you I li-"
"Your father and uncle are fools if they think they can push you to like her," He nodded affirmatively, and she continued. "And you're a bigger fool if you think I can't tell when you're indeed in love with someone."
Neji knew better than to interrupt his grandmother when she started calling men of the family fools.
"Your grandfather was the biggest fool I ever met." She spat. "Such a pompous ass."
Neji's eyebrows shot up the sky. Now, that was new.
"Wasn't it love at first sight?"
The old woman scoffed. "That's what Hiro liked to say. He was the village heartthrob," She sat on a nearby red velvet bench, and Neji followed suit. "More like the village idiot, if you want my opinion. Oh, but all the girls down in Haepo would fawn whenever he'd come to town. That stupid cookie festival he started. Sometimes it felt I was the only woman in all the Fire Nation to see this man for what he really was, a spoiled, entitled, little sh-"
"Grandma!" Neji stopped her, outraged, and she smiled wryly at him.
"Hiro spent most of our childhood thinking of ways to annoy me." She continued. "He used to call my name all the time in the gardens when I was trying to read in peace while my mother taught his siblings. Sayuri! Sayuri! Sayuri! He would not shut up for all the money in the world - that the Hyugas already possessed, mind you. And when I didn't answer, he'd throw things at me. He asked me to the Yule Ball more times than I could count, and even more times, I turned him down, thinking he was messing with me. And every time he'd invite another girl, and he'd parade her in front of me just to spite me."
"I never knew that," Neji blinked.
"Those are old, old memories, Neji." Sayuri smiled with a mix of pain and nostalgia. "We were like cats and dogs. If he said yes, I said no. If he said right, I'd say left. But he would always laugh it off and come back for more. He couldn't get enough of teasing me. If it was not my braid he was pulling, it was my yukata he soiled with mud. If it was not a ball he threw at me, it was a newly invented mean surname he'd yell at me. The nickname he finally settled on when we were fourteen was Hibagabon, a sort of bigfoot, if you will, because he said I had abnormally large feet for a girl. He used that moniker so often in our teenage years he nicknamed me Hiba in our young adulthood."
Neji frowned. "He always said he called you Hiba because it meant 'gift from the heart' in Arabic."
She laughed, her wrinkled face illuminated from pleasant souvenirs. "That came after our honeymoon in Lebanon. We heard the name of our hostess, and we burst out laughing. It turns out it was a widespread name there. But during my teenage years, he used it to his every whim to annoy me from dawn to dusk. My mother, the poor woman, she'd always say, 'Sayuri, boys do that when they like you!' Bless her heart, but what a load of crap."
Neji's frown deepened. This was far from the romantic tales his grandfather would tell them. "Then, what happened?"
"War." She simply said. "I was twenty when the war hit the nations, and Haepo was not spared. Hyugas were in charge of several battalions, and they called on every man of fighting age to help out the troops to the south of Konoha. Haepo, we're a small village, alright." She turned to look at her grandson. "But we're mighty. Women stayed in the village with men who couldn't fight to keep it afloat. Alas, one of the men who went to fight was my brother, who had just turned eighteen, half a year after the war started, and it was at its bloodiest peak. I enrolled as a nurse for the war, hoping I'd find a way to keep a close eye on my baby brother."
She stopped, carrying in her the ache of decades of grief.
"He died," She continued once she was collected enough. "Not even three weeks into the war, he was led into a slaughterhouse. Men of the north were used as cannon powder, so to speak. They'd put them at the front lines to help increase the chance of survival of more seasoned fighters of the south. Unlike clans like the Hyugas, the Northmen were all farm boys, miners, factory workers. Their purpose was less valuable in war times. How I had hated my nation that day, I had loathed it. Almost wished the enemy troops would erase us all. I hated your grandfather the most. The great and mighty Hiro Hyuga, for all his bragging, when the time came, a great deal of good it did to us all if he couldn't even save our men from being human shields on the front line."
Sayuri shook her head, some wounds may heal, but their phantom pain still hurts.
"Then days turned into weeks and weeks into months, and lest I knew it, it was the second Christmas in this hell hole of a war, the second without my brother alive. Grief and war had stripped me of my humanity. I was like a robot doing the same thing over and over again. Sleep, eat, heal, teach the new ones how to change bandages. Blood, blood, blood. And the smell. Years later, I could still smell it on my clothes. I'd wake up in the middle of the night, trying to wash out my night blouse, crying, scrubbing myself until I bled. Hiro would take me back to bed and sing me back to sleep.
"But before we got there, we still needed to win this godforsaken war. That second Christmas, I walked around the dozens of beds where wounded soldiers would cry out in pain until I heard 'Hiba, Hiba, Hiba.' At first, I thought I had hallucinated it, then I wondered why all of a sudden I would imagine that particular word. Until one of the soldiers raised his hand and called out to me again, 'Hiba.' Then I realized it was that fool. He cried out to me one more time, and all that hate and that hurt and that anger; they had just disappeared. I hadn't seen anyone from my hometown in two years, only wrote to my mother, my father had passed away too. I ran to him like a goddamn schoolgirl in love.
"Ran and hugged that bastard like he was my own brother, and cried, cried. I cried all night in his arms. And we reminisced about Haepo and the local candy shop and the oak tree in the marketplace under which we played marbles with apricots' pits. I told him about how they treated the Northmen in companies. He had no idea because the divisions he had led farther east had not used that strategy. That night he got in a big fight with the General. Come morning, he came up with a plan to strike the headquarters just behind the enemy line. A targeted attack with his best men, and he asked me to come. They'd need someone with medical knowledge if they wanted a complete squad. I hated his idea, but we were all desperate.
"If this plan failed, either we died at our enemies' hands or at our peers' hands, branded as deserters. We risked it all during those three days it took us to get here. When we reached our destination at the break of dawn of the third day, he told me to hide in the nearby forest. I protested with all my might until he took my chin and said, 'Hiba, I could lose this war so that I couldn't lose you.' Sometimes it's not so much the words than how they are told. It was a hot and humid summer day, and I had goosebumps all over. Was Hiro Hyuga in love… with me, all this time?"
Her voice grew more high-pitched, her smile was wide, and her eyes shone with endearment.
"What a silly, silly thing to wonder in the middle of this humanitarian tragedy. Yet, that's all that preoccupied my mind. Until Hiro Hyuga kissed me. That foolish, foolish man, with his foolish, foolish smile, looking at me as if all would be well. The next thing I knew, he was running with his most trusted friends towards their headquarters. I stayed back, stunned, hiding behind a rock. I prayed, oh how I prayed. To all the deities I had heard of while healing wounded and dying soldiers from all over the continent. Deities I knew of and deities whose names I didn't even know if I was pronouncing correctly. Anything, just to be sure he'd come back safe. And his foolish, foolish plan worked. The great Hiro Hyuga, hero of the war. That's,"
She stopped and pointed at the photo he had been holding with Tenten a few moments ago, "That's what granted us that picture and the medals that came with it. Only twenty-three women had received that commemoration, and I was one of them." She smiled proudly. "Yet, the most foolish thing your grandfather did was bend on his knee and ask my hand in marriage with a torn piece of his uniform he wrapped around my finger."
"And you said yes? After everything?" Neji looked at her, stupefied by this story he had heard for the first time.
She turned her malicious gaze on Neji. "Isn't it odd? Isn't it strangely surprising how love can find its way? How the universe conspires so from years of futile, childish disagreements, suddenly love gushes forth like a spring in a barren desert, in the space of a mere couple of days?"
He shared a meaningful stare with his grandmother, not missing the underlying message of her story.
She raised her hand. "Your grandfather gave me his mother's ring a week after we got back in Haepo." She shook her head. "Because I was the biggest fool of all when I said yes, knowing full well that cursed clan would not welcome a mere commoner like myself with open arms. Oh, they have been a pain in my ass since. Yua, Yui and Yuri, always second-guessing everything I did, questioning how I raised my boys, how I raised you and the girls when your dear mamas departed. But goddamn," Her eyes shone with love. "I'd do it all over again because I have loved that fool for as long as I can remember. That, I did. Through the anger, through the hurt, through the joys, and despair, and hope. I have loved him with a blazing, piercing certainty. Even after he died, he never left here." She poked at her heart.
Her voice wavered, trembling under the flowing sadness from that kind of grief that could never heal, from enduring love that roamed the earth, failing to come home.
"Because love, Neji." She talked with the wisdom of an entire life lived. "Love is pure nonsense, the most foolish thing of all. It does not respond to reason and does not answer to the best outcomes possible. It does not care about what is right and traditions and clan rules and order. It just is. It does what it pleases. It wrecks, and it builds. Love, Neji. Love is pure chaos. And the universe, it tends towards chaos. Isn't it funny? That every person is a universe within themselves, and they tend towards love?" She settled her eyes on him, aiming straight at his soul. "And the biggest fool, Neji, is the one too scared to be fooled by love when it finally presents itself to them."
She raised her eyebrows at him and smiled gently, tapping his knee. "Don't be that fool, Neji, don't wait around for something that may be right under your nose."
"Is that why you're here?" Neji finally managed after shaking off all the mixed feelings his grandmother's story shed to light. "Because I'm a fool?"
"Precisely," She nodded.
Neji eyed his grandmother carefully. Sayuri was not one for many words. She was probably one of the most ingenious and most cunning women he had ever known, and that strength, she sourced from listening and observing rather than talking. The fact she took time to tell him all this right now, when things were brewing, it meant something. It was a lesson of great value, but he just couldn't figure out yet what she wanted him to make of it. He couldn't wrap his head around it just yet, even if the answer was at the tip of his tongue. Even if the answer seemed to look back at him with large, playful, warm, teasing chestnut eyes.
"Neji, things are more dreary than we had thought they were." Grandma Sayuri broke the silence. "The three heads of Cerberus, those three harpies, they descended their royal asses down in town to come to visit me this morning." She tapped her cane. "Yuri has been told that Mei has pretty much convinced anyone that we should call an emergency meeting today, while everyone is present, to bestow the title directly to Ko."
Neji's hands formed into fists, and he ground his teeth together.
"She has been visiting people in the family, and the consensus is that, without any prospect, three years to marry and conceive a male heir is unreasonable."
"But, I just presented Tenten-"
"You presented a girl, maybe a girlfriend, not a future wife." His grandmother gave him an dubitative glance. "As of now, Aunt Mei is about to make a speech asking the elders to reconsider their judgement of allowing you time until your thirty-three. I've asked Hiashi and Hizashi to hold her off while I spoke with you. Yuri, Yui and Yua will try to help you out, but they are still tied to what the majority of the family will want."
"Then, I should go now." He rose and took purposeful strides to the front door, hoping to reach the ballroom through the main hallways, but stopped.
"I'll get her to the ballroom myself." She assured him, reading his worry.
He nodded curtly and went on his way.
December 21st - 5:01 pm
Tenten silently followed Neji's grandmother back in the servants' stairs, where she wondered if such an old woman should be using such a treacherous path. This worry caused her to never let go of the grandmother's elbow and always turn around to see how she was faring.
"Stop worrying child, I've climbed mountains and crawled in muddy trenches under enemy's fire. It's not some rocky stairs that'll get me." She finally told her out of exasperation of being coddled so.
"Sorry," Tenten meekly laughed. "It's just that my meemaw fell down the stairs a few weeks back, so I'm a bit worried."
The old grandmother assessed her again, and Tenten suppressed a sigh of total exasperation. Since she had entered Hyuga Manor, all there seemed to be in people's eyes was an endless questioning of her worth. Which was all the more ridiculous since all this stress was caused by something fictitious. She tried to remind herself all the time because she got so caught up in this clan drama that she seemed to forget she was not actually going to marry into this family.
"I didn't choose to be a Hyuga." Neji's grandmother finally said. "Heck, I hated Neji's grandfather until everything changed in a matter of days, hours really." She gave a knowing look to Tenten, and she didn't know what to make of it. "But sometimes duty calls and sometimes love does, and in the rarest of times, when fates align, they both do."
The brown-eyed young woman blinked, incredulous, unassuming of everything that was happening, even more confused when she saw grandma Sayuri taking out her emerald ring with the Hyuga crest engraved in the golden band.
"If you're half as bold and spirited as Hiashi and Hizashi make you to be," She planted the ring in the palm of her hand, giving her a cunning smile and an assessing look. "You'll know what to do."
December 21st - 5:11 pm
Tenten entered the room just when Aunt Mei was at the center of the room while holding a microphone, giving her well wishes to Hanabi and Konohamaru.
"Well," Aunt Mei began, throwing a look around the room. "I must admit that amid this rare gathering of our magnificent clan, I must seize this occasion to bring forward an issue that has been a collective preoccupation for many branches of our family."
Tenten finally spotted Neji on the other side of the room. His back stiffened instantly, and she hastened to make her way to him.
"Hyugas have been one of the most powerful families of the Fire Nation for almost a millennium." The middle-aged woman continued. "It is no secret that if we have been able to maintain such excellency, it is due to the rules we have established to protect our clan and its values, as well, and most importantly, our will to follow those rules."
"Excuse me," Tenten whispered, trying to make her way through the crowd.
"Yet, and it pains me to say so." She brought a hand over her chest in a sorrowful manner. "That those rules have been bent to benefit and accommodate a small portion of this family, endangering the very processes that prevent our clan from falling apart."
Hushed murmurs erupted through the crowd after the bold statement.
Aunt Yuri got up during the rising commotion, and the tap of her cane against the marbled floors echoed through the ballroom.
"Silence!" She quieted the room, turning her eyes narrow as a slit on the instigator of the controversy. "Stop beating around the bush. What is it you want to say, Mei?"
Mei's smile did not falter. "Because Hyugas assemblies are so rare, now is not the time to forego an opportunity when it presents itself to correct a wrong. Ten years ago, we decided to allow Neji until his thirty-third name day to ensure his duties. Alas, he is now thirty of age and has yet to present us with," She scoffed. "A serious prospect. He is still far from being engaged, and three years to find, marry and conceive - let alone a male heir- is too close a call we cannot risk as a great house of the Fire Nation."
Agreeing murmurs spread through the assembled crowd when Tenten finally reached Neji, his grandmother's words echoing in her head as she toyed with the ring on her finger.
Sometimes duty calls, sometimes love does, but in the rarest of times, when fates align, they both do.
"I call upon our elders," Aunt Mei finally concluded. "To call an emergency meeting and revisit the decision they made ten years ago-"
"Mei," Yuri was hissed, seething, her cane shaking under her trembling hands. "You're trespassing your rights-"
"You will excuse me, Aunt Yuri." She smiled sweetly at the old woman. "But as much as I respect our elders, even you cannot go against a majority vote. Therefore I ask that an emergency meeting be held for…"
Tenten saw Neji take a step forward.
If you're half as bold and spirited as Hiashi and Hizashi make you to be, you'll know what to do.
She put a hand on his forearm to stop him from going further, springing forward in his stead, under his stunned, dilated pupils.
"…a verdict per majority concerning the abdication of Neji Hyuga as future Lord of Hyuga and a title transfer to the next eligible Hyuga male heir, my-"
"I'm sorry, Aunt Mei, is it?" Tenten snatched the microphone out of her hands before her proposition could be complete, which would have sealed all their fates by causing the immediate start of the emergency meeting that had been called upon.
The clamour grew tenfold, and Aunt Yuri tapped her canes a couple of times, calling for silence multiple times before the booming voices of hundreds of Hyuga relatives calmed down.
"Hi," Tenten began again after Aunt Yuri gave her an encouraging nod. She tried to muster all the grace and royal-likeness she could from emulating her friend Temari and using the long-forgotten lessons she had received before that debutante ball. Straight back, shoulders down, head held high and clear pronunciation.
"I have had the honour of meeting most of you only today," She continued with a poise she was shocked she was able to harness. "But for those who have known Neji and me in the past years, they have been much aware of the ups and downs of our relationship."
Half-truths, Tenten. Stick to the half-truths, and you'll be able to do this. She reminded herself.
"Neji came into my life like a hurricane, and I'd be lying if I said the first feeling I had for him was love." She chuckled a bit at the shocked expressions. "But somewhere along the way, without realizing it, we have grown with each other, each day seeing the other, working together, walking a similar path together. And somewhere along this path, something I pain to explain happened. Suddenly, I could not envision walking forward without his hand holding mine. Suddenly, I wanted to follow this man's steps, and I wanted him to follow mine. Suddenly, I wanted to stop where he wanted to and speed when he wished to."
Tenten turned around to look at Neji and smiled lovingly at him, her insides screaming at her in protest. She could feel every one of her cells quavering from this cognitive dissociation.
What was the truth, and what were lies? Where did her ploy stop, and when did her feelings start?
"I honestly can't tell you how it happened." She pushed the uneasiness away and continued. "Or when I decided it had to be you." She looked at him. "All I know is that I'm glad you barged into that emergency department seven years ago and have since then refused to leave my life in peace."
Tenten braced herself for the following words that would come, hoping she'd sell them well enough.
"And last week, you bent on one knee, and you asked me the question that made me the happiest woman." She reached out for Neji with her hand.
He walked up to her, astounded. That's when he noticed how scared she was when he could feel the slight tremble of her hand when holding it in his.
"We didn't want to announce it right away because Hanabi is such a dear sister to us. We wanted her to have her moment, but since that moment seemed to have already been stolen away." She threw a quick look in Aunt Mei's direction. "I guess it is now proper to share with you all this wonderful news."
She withdrew her hand from Neji's and shook off her Kimono sleeve so her hand with the heirloom ring from grandma Sayuri could be well seen by the crowd, the emerald stone glittering under the candlelights.
"Neji and I are engaged," She grinned to the shouting crowd whose noise rose exponentially by the second, and Aunt Mei stomped to the other side of the room, hoping to find another microphone, not yet admitting defeat.
Neji took this opportunity to close the microphone so he could whisper in her ear.
"Tenten," He hissed so only she could hear him. "What are you doing?"
"Buying you and your family some time," She hissed back. "You'll just tell them we broke off the engagement in a few months because I learned I couldn't conceive or something."
"You watch too many dramas." He hissed again.
"Just," Her voice was a bit shakier when she talked only to him. "Just smile and trust me, ok?"
"This is my fight. You don't have to risk yourself. My relatives will eat you alive." He pleaded, concerned.
"Then good thing I have a doctorate in putting Hyugas back in their place." She smirked at him. "Trust me," She insisted.
Their moment was cut short when Aunt Mei found another microphone.
"As charming as this all is," Aunt Mei began waving Tenten's speech away like an insect. "Are we supposed to believe that you magically found the right person just in time for when I called a vote?" She scoffed. "This girl comes out of nowhere, and we are just to believe that you suddenly got engaged?"
"It's my ring she has on her finger." Grandma Sayuri's voice boomed from the other side of the room.
The silence was deafening under each of her steps to the center.
"Will you also challenge my choice to accept her in our family?" The grandmother raised a defying brow.
"Of course not," Mei laughed. "But you'd do anything for your grandson."
"I can vouch for them, then." Hinata walked to the center with an assurance and a force that left everyone in the room stunned. "I have seen with my own eyes how their relationship has evolved. There is nothing in the affection my cousin bores to Tenten that I doubt."
"Of course, you would, honey," Mei dismissed her as if she was a child.
"I can vouch for them too!" Naruto rushed after Hinata, placing his hands on her shoulders.
"And just who are you?" She gave him an arch look. "You don't have a voice here, dear."
Now, that's maybe all it took Hinata, still running on the adrenaline of making out with the man of her dreams for about an hour in a closet, to find the strength to push back. Mainly that this awful woman was disregarding so rudely the sweetest man known to earth, in her humble opinion.
"Well," Hinata spat back, glaring at the older woman in a way that made her father proud. "When your first husband suddenly died of mysterious circumstances and out of the blue, you were pregnant with a new husband, nobody questioned it. If you want to question things in this family so much, maybe we should start there."
Now the raging voices talking over one another were at an all-time high. Even Hiashi had brought a hand to his mouth, gasping loudly, before turning to his twin, smiling from ear to ear.
"Did my daughter just…?" And Hizashi nodded just as amused.
"Why you little-"Aunt Mei started but was caught off.
Naruto was about to respond, but it was Aunt Yua that had interceded, calming the cacophony once she rose and spoke.
"Then you'll have to doubt my feelings, too." Yua articulated, the usual lightness to her voice gone, replaced by unforgiving harshness.
"And You'll have to doubt my judgement, Mei." Yui rose alongside her.
"And you'll have to doubt me." Yuri smiled the way one says 'checkmate.' "To anyone thinking Tenten's words are just pretense," She gave a look around before giving a pointed look to Tenten. "I can assure you, you are wrong."
Tenten felt herself blush. What did that even mean? She was pretty sure Aunt Yuri didn't hold her in very high regard.
Aunt Mei's hand holding the microphone tightened around the device, her knuckles turning white in anger.
"I think no one in our family doubts the feelings they have for each other." Hanabi came in, holding her fiancé's hand.
"Yeah, you should have heard what we heard yesterday." Konohamaru laughed. "It was truly entertaining."
Hanabi smacked her boyfriend's chest with the back of her hand, giving him a reproachful glare.
"I mean, truly moving." He corrected swiftly, wiping a fake tear away and earning himself a second swat.
"Hiashi and I also stand in support of their union." Hizashi sealed the discussion under the gasps of the reunited relatives. "We would have wished to announce it under better circumstances."
"But the correct timing was robbed from us," Hiashi finished for his brother, giving a disdainful look at the woman in the middle of this drama. "In any case, and I think you'd do well to remember it. But, I am still head of the clan, and I don't plan on going anywhere until Neji fulfills his duty."
He threw a glare that reminded the audience who they should really fear in this conflict.
"Unless someone objects," He turned towards Mei. "May I consider that you'll be withdrawing your statement?" He raised a brow.
Oh, the sweet sound of silence ringing like victory bells.
"Perfect," Hiashi settled the matter.
December 21st - 7:27 pm
"Pizza?" Tenten was pleasantly surprised.
"Yes," Hanabi took a vegetarian slice. "It's our comfort food post-Hyuga mayhem."
"You mean," Tenten looked at the youngest sibling, appalled. "Your meetings are always like that?"
Hanabi nodded eagerly. "Oh yes, last time we discovered uncle Akashi was married to three different women, and they ended up all coming to the reunion."
"It was very entertaining to watch." Hinata giggled at the memory.
Tenten blinked in shock. "And I thought my aunt Suki was something when she brought men half her age to Christmas dinners."
"What about we stop scaring Tenten away from marrying into the family, ok girls?" He hissed at the intention of the two Hyuga women, who shared an amused glance, coughing their giggles away.
"Well, well," Hiashi said, more loudly for the rest of the table. "You were pretty convincing the both of you today." He smiled at his nephew and Tenten. "Then again, I supposed you studied each other well enough yesterday. We could hear you devoting yourselves to your, err, academic endeavours well into the wee hours of the night."
Tenten almost choked on her bite of pizza, turning to Neji, who was impressively calm and collected as if his uncle hadn't just called them out on what they did last night. Even if that's how it looked from the outside, he was positively burning from humiliation on the inside. He just knew better than to indulge his uncle when he got like this. Things could quickly go out of hand.
Tenten, on her side, decided she might as well fight fire with fire. "Well, you did tell us to practice at being more persuasive, didn't you?"
"Tenten Maito," Hiashi said, pleasantly surprised by her comeback. "Well, for one, I think it worked out splendidly well for today."
"A toast," Hiashi exclaimed, raising his glass of wine. "To Tenten for saving the day," He winked at her. "To Ma' for being the mastermind of it all and to Hinata, for the best comeback, those halls have heard in centuries."
Laughs echoed around the tables are glasses clinked.
"Now, in all seriousness." Hiashi started again, focusing his stern gaze on Tenten. "About those five kids you want to have…"
Tenten spat out her wine. "I-I'm sorry what?"
"Oh, dear Lord." Neji raised his eyes to the ceiling.
"Well," Hiashi continued. "Know that women who marry in our family are given a substantial dowry."
She spat out her wine for the second time. "Are you trying to pay me off to bear your grandchildren?" Tenten asked, astounded.
"Obviously," The Hyuga leader replied, unphased, cutting his pizza with refinement. "In ancient times, Hyuga women who birthed male heirs received the equivalent of the baby's weight in gold." He gave her a pointed look. "I don't see why we could not revive this tradition."
Tenten was too stunned to speak. She looked around at the smirking Hanabi and laughing Konohamaru, Naruto and Hinata trying to hide their chuckles, grandma Sayuri side-smiling and even Neji finding all of this debacle a worthy amusement.
"Absolutely not-"She was about to say, but Hiashi cut in, pointing a triumphant finger at her.
"She hesitated!" He claimed before turning swiftly to Hanabi. "You saw, right?" Then to his brother. "Right?"
Both nodded, and Tenten shouted: "I did not!"
"Yes, you did." Neji calmly stated, smirking at her flustering state.
"Oh, Tenten, you're starting to be my favourite daughter-in-law." Hiashi gave her a vixen smile.
"I'm your only daughter-in-law." Tenten deadpanned.
"AH!" The oldest man exclaimed again, slapping the table with one hand while springing from his seat. "So you admit to being our daughter-in-law!"
"I did no such thing!" Tenten rose from her seat in stupefaction at the turn of events. "You're one shrewd lawyer, you know that?" She asked, stunned at Hiashi, who simply smiled more at her intention.
"As I should," He simply stated.
Konohamaru, Hinata, and Naruto were now openly laughing, and even grandma Sayuri couldn't keep her light laugh to herself.
"Hanabi, start writing her prenup," Hiashi ordered, ignoring the brunette's protests.
"Already on it." The young woman said, typing furiously on her phone. "Can I call you sis?" She gave the brunette a teasing smile. "Tenten-onee-chan, I love it." She teased mercilessly.
"Well, this calls for celebrations," Hizashi stated, rising too. "I'll go get the champagne."
"Excellent initiative, brother. I'll help with the glasses." Hiashi approved.
"You already have my ring," Grandma Sayuri winked at her, and Tenten blushed furiously, having forgotten to take it off and give it back in all the madness of the last events.
"A new sister, just in time for Christmas," Hinata giggled, reaching over the table to take Tenten's hand.
"Not you too!" Tenten was befuddled. Was this whole family mad? "Say something!" She turned towards Neji, swatting his shoulder.
He simply stared back at her with that weird look he had since this afternoon, all filled with warmth and affection, but his lips still curved in that mocking smile that wanted nothing more than to torture her a bit more.
He gently tapped the hand she had left on his shoulder after she had swatted it. "Now, now, honey." His smirk grew tenfold from her mortified reaction.
"Calm down, after all, and I quote" He grabbed her hand in his; her mouth gaped when he did. "You cannot envision walking forward without my hand holding yours." He quoted her earlier improvised speech.
Naruto's laughter boomed through the room.
"I will positively die of shame here." She said softly, murdered by the shame of it all.
"Don't fight it," Konohamaru suggested, his mouth full of pizza. "Take it from me. The more you fight it, the more they'll come after you."
"They did start solving the heir issue yesterday, though. So how mortified is she, really?" Naruto grinned like a fool.
Now that's all Konohamaru needed to spit out bits of the pizza he had engulfed and pained to chew through the abs-shaking laughter that took him.
"Way to go, Tenten." The younger man grinned, giving her a thumbs up. "Very proactive of you! So when are you giving us the five mini Neji you promised us?"
Now Naruto and Konohamaru looked like two peas in a pod laughing at her expense like two cackling hyenas, nudging each other in their shared hilarity.
'I'm telling Ino everything.' The blond mouthed once his laughter subsidized.
'I'll kill you first.' Tenten mouthed back.
"Let it be noted," Tenten said solemnly. "That I hate you all." She threw a glare at Naruto in particular. "Except you, grandma." She smiled sweetly at the old lady who winked back.
"She… hates… us… all." Hanabi typed. "Noted onee-chan." She grinned at the helpless woman still standing.
Neji gave her a tug so she would sit down. Resigned, Tenten sat down and gulped down the champagne flute Hizashi had just given her. Might as well let the bubbles, just like the madness, go to her head.
"Fine, then," She smiled maliciously. If you cannot fight it, you become it, right?
"But, Hanabi," Tenten called her out. "You should copy-paste that prenup for your future brother-in-law." She winked at Naruto, who instantly became crimson red.
Hiashi wheezed, and Hanabi nearly threw her phone in the air out of excitement.
"My plan worked!?" The youngest Hyuga sibling shouted in glee, eyes wide towards Hinata and Naruto.
"It worked wonders, according to the maids who found them hidden in a closet." Tenten winked at the couple. "So well, that when the maid opened the door, Hinata closed it right back."
"I told you it would!" Hanabi turned to her fiancé, gloating.
"Proud of my deranged woman who likes locking people up," He smiled, grabbing her chin to plant a kiss on her cheek.
"I'll lock you up if you don't shut up," She murmured back but, nonetheless, gave him a peck on his smiling lips.
"To Hanabi," Tenten raised her champagne glass, relishing in the sweetness of her revenge. "For the swift agility it takes to lock in two unsuspecting people," Hanabi laughed, and Tenten continued. "And giving us the start of something beautiful." She finished on a softer tone, smiling at Hinata and Naruto, who were now holding hands over the table and blushing like blooming peonies.
Glasses clinked, and laughter echoed louder.
"I'm also telling Ino everything," Tenten told Naruto, whose eyes grew wide in fear.
"Two down, two to go," Hiashi whispered to his twin, who clinked his glass with his.
December 21st - 11:47 PM
Tenten sighed as she got out of the shower.
Back to the scene of the crime.
This time, she made sure she had her change of clothes with her. Now that all the commotion had died down, the awkwardness settled back on them. They have been so silent in Neji's room, avoiding each other's gaze and mumbling out excuses when they run into each other.
She finished drying herself and getting dressed up. She took her phone to see her missed messages. She smiled at the messages Sakura sent in their conversation group, trying to justify why, earlier this morning, Ino had spotted Sasuke sneaking out of her bedroom's window. Then, Tenten frowned at the messages Ino sent her. She completely forgot Ino knew of her affair.
Dammit.
Message from Ino to you (10:12 pm): You are so lucky (and so is Naruto!) I barely have wifi while I'm here, and Sai insists we disconnect from our phones to spend quality time together. So as I stand, at 3 am, in the middle of my hotel's rooftop where the only traces of good wifi are, I just want you to know that it's all alright.
Message from Ino to you (10:12 pm): I know you're scared, little Tenten. You haven't let in a man in so long. And let's not call whatever year you spend with Shino real dating, ok? Poor pathology guy.
Tenten rolled her eyes. First, only Ino could be crazy enough to go to a hotel's roof in the middle of the night and how she managed to get there was a mystery Tenten had no intention of solving. Second, for love's sake. Would Ino one day stop with Shino? Ok, they dated kind of very casually. Fine, she had refused any physical advance in the nine months they were together. And sure, he was a great guy, and she had difficulty allowing intimacy to happen with him. Sometimes it happens, no? So why did Ino make such a fuss about it, trying to psychoanalyze her and all? Tenten would never know.
Also, Shino was a microbiologist and not a pathologist, but Ino blocked it out of her mind all the time because, in her words, she couldn't conceive that: "someone would want to dedicate their lives studying bacterias while I'm trying as hard as I can that billions of them are roaming our bodies like little insects. Ew. What does he find fascinating about that?"
Message from Ino to you (10:13 pm): Just trust the process, little Tenten, just don't throw it all away just because you're scared and can't name that anxiety as it is, just unfounded stress.
Message from Ino to you (10:13 pm): Most importantly, you need to talk to Neji. About what you need or how you feel. You always expect people to read your mind, girl! That's not how it works. Sometimes you have to voice it out. Actually, most of the time. If not, all the time. So get talking!
Message from Ino to you (10:13 pm): ALSO, please send DETAILS OF HOW IT WAS, WAS IT AS BIG AS IN YOUR SOUVENIRS?
Tenten gripped her phone a little stronger than she should, a bit irritated and mostly defeated. Few people could decipher her like Ino did. Damn those friends that knew you more than you do yourself.
Message to Ino (11:49pm): Stop. Calling. Me. Little. Tenten. I swear, Ino, I'll find whatever paradisiac island you decided to flee to, and I'll gut you there.
Message to Ino (11:50pm): But… fine. I'll talk to him. Just start annoying Naruto. HE KISSED HINATA.
That should give her some respite and redirect Ino's focus when she wakes up tomorrow. If Sai hasn't thrown her phone in the sea by the time they go for breakfast.
She slowly opened the bathroom door, and the bathroom's light crept in angular motions on the dark room's floor. Neji had already turned off the lights and was sleeping on his side of the bed. Tenten smiled at the cushions he put in the middle of the bed.
Better late than never, she thought.
She took her time closing the door, careful to make the least possible noise and shimmied her way under the covers. She was a bit disappointed. After all, she kind of made up her mind after reading Ino's texts to tell him how she felt about yesterday.
She let her head rest on the pillow, this day felt like three weeks, and she was exhausted.
"Thanks," Neji whispered across the night. "For today, you were… great."
"It's nothing." She smiled and was happy he couldn't see it. "Told you I'd learn by heart that damn essay."
He laughed.
He laughed, and she loved it. It was husky and light and bewitching.
"You even questioned the maids." He recognized.
It was her turn to laugh. "After a couple hours sitting in Hinata's chair being prepped, I had to make conversation one way or another."
"Well, thank you." He repeated and wanted to smack himself. Why did he sound so shy, like a schoolboy in love? "You didn't have to," He cleared his throat, turning on his side to face her, but she had her back to him. "But you took this seriously, and it meant a great deal for my family and me."
"Don't sweat it," She said even though she felt like doing so, feeling his eyes bore into her back until she finally decided to turn on her side too and look at him straight in the eyes. "I love your family. They have all been so nice to me. It was the least of things."
She could trace the faint line of his smile through the dark.
"I think they like you a great deal too." He said.
"Except Aunt Mei," She grinned.
"Except Aunt Mei." He agreed, and she could see the moonlight reflect on his perfect teeth when he grinned back.
"And Aunt Yuri," She added, laughing lightly.
"I think," Neji thought it over. "I think she actually likes you."
Tenten's eyebrows rose high. "You think?"
He nodded, scooting a bit closer, and she did the same.
"I think," Tenten began, hesitant, Ino's words like a spell over her tongue. "I think. I don't hate you all that much, Hyuga." She finally admitted and held her breath in.
As silly as it was, it was a significant admission given their history, and they both knew it.
"I think you're quite alright too, Maito." Neji finally admitted, and Tenten cursed her heart and the butterflies it produced. "About what you said today…" He trailed.
Tenten's eyes couldn't be big enough to drink him all in. He was so heartbreakingly beautiful, his head resting on his forearm, hair strands falling off his bun and his pale skin that still left invisible traces where he touched hers.
"What did I say?" She asked, almost meekly, her saliva thick.
"When you said you were average." He completed, his eyes never leaving her eyes.
She smiled bitterly. Of course, for someone as perfect as Neji Hyuga, being average was a difficult concept to wrap his head around.
"What about it?" Her tone was a bit more on the defensive side than she would have liked.
"I," He started. Then he seemed to think about it.
He stayed silent and turned to lay on his back. This way, Tenten could trace the profile on his face, the elegant arc of his nose, against the little light filtering through the nearly-opaque curtains of the room. He was looking straight at the ceiling, the faintest crease of his brow signalling he was thinking about what to say, until he finally turned his head around, his eyes immediately locking with hers.
Tenten's breath caught in her throat. His eyes were so earnest about something she couldn't put her finger on, diving deep in her mahogany ones.
"There's nothing average about you, Maito." He finally let out, his words cutting the night with slicing certainty, a shaking firmness.
And damn her belly for bursting in flames the way it did. It was weird how much effect these simple words had on her, but it wasn't just the words; it was the way he said them.
Tenten had no idea what to say because she had no idea how she felt about all this. Something in her was stirring, things coming and bubbling up the surfaces like only midnight confessions have the power to bring to light.
"That's what my ex told me." She finally said, and she could feel him shift. "He said that he wouldn't have cheated on me if I hadn't been so average." She shrugged. "I dumped his ass and never looked back."
So why was her heart weeping now?
Truth is, Neji is famously known for never knowing how to comfort a woman. He was as clumsy in this area as Hinata was clumsy around Naruto in the first years of her crush. Nothing ever came out the right way.
But this time, it wasn't uneasiness that overpowered him but a simmering, boiling rage.
Fine, he was not a big fan of that crazy woman. Did she make him go blind in anger? Too many times to count. Were her sassy comebacks the plight of his existence? Without a doubt.
Was she one of the most spectacular women he had ever met? Yes. Without thinking twice, yes.
Who could see this woman, this girl who saved lives in split-second decisions, who bore so much love for her friends, who stole his popcorn teasing him all the way, and made him laugh like no other, and who turned his knees to jelly when she was on hers, who mindlessly snowboarded down one of Haepo's steepest slope on her first try, who took down his most scheming relative and saved his fate and his family… Who could look at such a woman, no matter how gut-wrenchingly annoying she could be, and see anything less than the mind-blowing revolution she was?
Because the more Neji got to know her, the more she turned his world upside down, the more she brought this revolution to his life. Everything felt out of place when she was there, yet everything felt where they all belonged. In all honesty, and it's scared him out of his mind, Tenten made sense. In his life, with his family. She made sense, she fit, and he didn't know what to do with that except, simply say:
"I don't think I could ever forgive the man," He felt words spill out of him like sand between his fingers while he kept looking at her, solemn, earnest, caring. "Whoever made you believe you were less than extraordinary in all matters."
Neji wanted to feel mortification for what he had just said. He knew how much this had just shifted the axis of the dynamic they had always known between. But he didn't, if anything, he felt a sort of relief, of being to voice how it felt and maybe a drop of hope, that it would lead somewhere unexpected.
Tenten couldn't keep her eyes from his. Any minute now, he would start smirking and turn what he had just said into a joke. But the seconds passed, and he simply waited for her to do something, which, at the moment, was simply impossible. All her focus was directed at her lungs and nose, trying to keep her breathing in check, having already lost the battle against her speeding pulse.
"Thanks," She finally let the word fly out of her mouth, still dizzy by the words he had just whispered through the night. They kept repeating in her head like a lullaby, soothing something she hadn't known was still hurting.
You always expect people to read your mind. Sometimes, you need to voice it out.
Neji had sort of resigned to this single word being her only answer and was turning away, hoping the exhausting events of the day would help him find sleep against the agitation he felt in his heart.
"I like to be held." She blurted out as quickly as he sat up, startled by her sudden desire to talk after such a long silence.
"What?" He asked, puzzled, resting on his elbows and looking at her.
She didn't believe she could ever not be in awe at the way his hair fell perfectly into place. It was alluring, almost seductive, how some strands hung over his shoulder and others fell like ink stains over his white silk pillowcase.
"I prefer to be held," She repeated, licking the bottom of her lip, her mouth suddenly so dry. "After sex, that is." She finished, trying to sound as assured as Ino would in the same situation. "Not in a romantic way. It's just that," She could feel her nerves unravelling like tangling wool. "I think it's more natural this way."
"Oh." That was all he said.
"I," She began, unsure, to hell about what Ino would have done. "I have to go to the bathroom."
She fled like a thief to the little room. What a stupid way to react, but she had no other choices. She wanted to bang her head on the wall until she could claim amnesia to go through this embarrassing moment. If Ino had been there, she would have slapped.
"Never feel ashamed for expressing needs, fears or gratitude." She would say, raising an admonishing finger.
Tenten gulped, sitting on the edge of the bath. If truth be told, her mind was still stuck on what he said about her not being average. It took her back to the old days, and she wasn't ready for all the unexpected emotions that were threatening to spill out of her one way or another.
"Obviously, if you weren't so average."
His words, it's been a decade, yet they still cut soul-deep, nested themselves like worms in an infected wound that his abuse had slashed into her formative self.
That's what Deidara told her when she confronted him on why he had been seeing another woman behind her back. She remembers how she was helpless, on his porch under the pouring rain, begging for a reason, so it'd at least make sense.
"I'll never be enough for you, won't I?" She had finally realized. How she had hated those fucking tears that she had wept in front of his underserving ass.
And that's when he said it. Average.
It is such a simple word that should be anything but a neutral way to qualify someone, but he meant it as an insult. He wanted to hurt her, to feed on her teenage insecurities that still hid somewhere in her twenty-three years old self. Since then, she had worn that quality like armour, refusing to let her confidence falter, growing stronger despite his arrogance. If the average was what she was, she'd own that truth and make the best of it.
Yet here she was, in Neji's Hyuga's bathroom, a decade later, only now realizing how buried that pain was until he pressed his finger on it and released the trauma from her subconscious' grasp.
And it happened, she didn't think she still had tears to shed about it, but she cried.
She cried as silently as she could in the adjacent bathroom. It was not the type of cries that came from sadness or despair, neither from joy or comfort. It was that particular type that released itself when you had an epiphany. The kind of tears that gushed out of you as if the truth just uncovered had nourished your soul, and your body's only response was to leak the source of its life, like a present back to nature, a communion with the universe.
That night Tenten cried because she could finally drop off her shoulders a burden she had been hauling for way too long. For years, unknowingly so, without even realizing, she had let Deidara's words weave into her truth. In all the relationships that had happened after, she had always doubted herself, ended things prematurely. Because deep down, she had carried this belief like a torch through the dark oblivion he had left her in when he broke her heart.
Because his actions left a gaping wound that refused to heal without a reason. And since he was too narcissistic to own up to his efforts, Tenten had clung onto what he told her as an explanation to allow herself to move.
She was just average.
"There's nothing average about you, Maito."
His words, like winds that swept the darkness, as if he had kissed the curse away, unveiled her blindness to the hurt she still dragged like a chain at her ankles. Her lament was of liberation and newfound freedom, like phoenix tears that healed her scar and brought her back from agony. She felt alive again from something she hadn't even thought was still gripping at her heart until he healed it for her.
And for fuck's sake, Ino was right. She was happy she told him how she felt. It was empowering even. He could do damn well what he pleased with that. That was his prerogative, as was hers to name what she wanted.
Behind the wooden door, he could hear her quiet sobs and the uneven shift in her breathing pattern, and he felt crass.
Oh? Oh? He was beating himself about his meagre excuse of an answer since she locked herself in the bathroom.
It's that, when she told him so bluntly, he kept thinking about what his grandmother had tried to make him understand that day.
Isn't it odd? Isn't it strangely surprising how love can find its way? How the universe conspires so from years of futile, childish disagreements, suddenly love gushes forth like a spring in a barren desert, in the space of a mere couple of days?
He tossed and turned in his bed, haunted by the sobs that had only lasted a minute, but the silence felt a thousand times worse because he was deprived of the few means of knowing how she felt. Left in the dark, he felt incapable of reaching out to her, of understanding her.
His grandmother's words looped in his brains like an annoying ad targeted straight at him. Could it be possible? How quickly feelings could change? After all, they did say all is fair in love and war.
And at times, hate was just another clumsy way to love what felt forbidden.
Shaking off all these intrusive thoughts, he decided to get up from the bed. His hand hovered on the doorknob. Debating with himself if he should knock, enter, ask her if there was anything he could do, or if, instead, he shouldn't just let her be.
He went back to the bed, wracked with doubts and remorse.
He should have asked her yesterday. She had trusted him, been vulnerable with him, allowed him in the temple that was her body. And he had failed to protect it, treat it like the sacred space it was. He could have just asked her what she wanted, yet he had assumed for her.
Truth is, if he felt regret, it was mostly for himself. Because his lack of wording also had deprived him of something he had craved so much. So when she came back to bed and tried to slip in the covers without waking him, he took the pillows in the middle away.
"Can I hold you now?" He asked. "In place of yesterday." He lied, knowing he would have done it no matter the circumstances.
At the moment, in this whirlwind of unpredicted emotions and with all the chaos of the previous days, there was nothing she wanted more than to feel secure in his arms again. She turned towards him and wrapped an arm around his waist as an answer.
"Alright, but only to ease off your guilty conscience, Hyuga." She lied back, the softness of her words betraying her nonchalant facade.
He embraced her body to bring her so close to him, she ended up over him. Her ear pressed to his chest, she fell asleep to the beating of a foolish heart.
And nothing could disturb the peaceful slumber she was slowly falling into. Nothing except that she would have to tell Ino she was right and endure her gloating for months to come.
Fuck.
A/N: Oh. My. God. This day took forever to write. It was just an important chapter and not just because it held a lot of events, but it was also a crucial turning point in their relationship. And as much as I hate when ambiguous feelings drag on, I think it important for their relationship to go back and forth in mixed feelings of irritation and affection, so there's still some tension and some funny moments to come.
I SWEAR THE MAITOS ARE COMING NEXT CHAPTER. I'm so excited for you to meet them. I'm sorry for the amount of OCs, I feel like I'm not giving them that much place so it shouldn't feel too annoying, but since holidays are all about reunions and family chaos, I believe I need that amount of imported characters to flesh out both of their families. Also, there is a parallel between their growing relationship and how they each start discovering the other's past and get to interact with one another's loved ones.
Finally, I told y'all I would, in a subsequent chapter, explain my choice of specialties for each of them. So here it is:
Tenten: she gives me more orthopedic surgeron vibes because female ortho are a bit cracked up, with all the admiration I hold for them. Also, their operating room is FILLED TO THE BRIM with tools, it would feel exactly as if Tenten had opened her scrolls. I gave her emergency for the plot, which I think also fits her high-energy profile and I think intensive care could have fit too, because she is very 'head first, act fast' in her problem solving style.
Neji: I would have given him neurosurgery if not for the plot, not only because it's prodigy-level kind of stuff, but also because working your way around neurological pathways feels a lot like Neji's fighting style with blocking/unblocking chakra.
Naruto: emergency all the way. High-energy, master of all trades kind of stuff, the hospital rests on his shoulders kind of vibe. I just see it.
Hinata: fits perfectly with pediatrics. Kind and gentle, but never dismiss the gentle waters that can conjure up a storm. When it's time for pediatricians to show their claws, you'll regret messing with them. Also, I could just see her having rainbow badges and teddy bears shaped pens in her white blouse.
Sakura: high key a GYN-OB, they are the gunners, they are the women that you do not want to mess with. Scary and brilliant and extremely hardworking. Sakura all the way.
Sasuke: not all cardiologists brag, but most of those who brag in medicine are in cardiology. I don't make the rules and I def would see Sasuke be the bragging type if he stopped brooding long enough that is. I could also imagine the Uchihas and the Hyugas both having big medical name brands and the Uchiha being known worldwide for their echocardiograms last generation and monopolizing the stethoscopes market.
Ino: getting in people's head and loving the gossip are the two requirements for psychiatry, they won't admit it, but we know. Also, hands down the most caring doctors.
Sai: I struggled at first at finding his right specialty than it hit like a thousand bricks. Drawing/looking at pictures all day, it has an artistice 3d-visualisation to it that fits him perfectly. AND THE FACT HE IS SO PALE AND THE RUNNING JOKE IN MED IS THAT RADIOLOGISTS NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY, I GAG.
Shikamaru: I would have gone with nephrology because it's one of the specialty that is the most complex to really master in my opinion, with haemato-oncology, so really either one would work. But I went with anesthesiology because of how ironic that his job is to make people sleep when all he wants to do is sleep. Also, no matter how lazy he is, he always seem to be rushing to action when something happens. So I could just see him, sleeping over crosswords and leaping to CPR someone and intubate them in a split second, murmuring how everything is so troublesome.
Shino: bacterias, bugs, all the same in my opinion. Microbiology for him makes sense.
Kiba: like a said, the douche stereotype of orthopaedic aedics. It just fits.
I unfortunately gave no one family medicine, which is a damn shame, because it's my chosen field and I think it's the best specialty ever. I think Naruto could fit as a family doctor, often overlooked but ends up saving the healthcare system every day, let's not kid ourselves.
ALSO, Lee and Temari are coming soon. Can you guess which specialty I'll give them each?