A room with nothing in it is no room at all. It is a vacant, desperate vicinity, a three-dimensional prison with a hollow core for bars. It is a threat. In a white enclosure with walls and nothing more, there are no greater or minor details or indistinct items to occupy the capricious human eye and mind—nothing but the body therein, the person. Nothing to focus on but oneself and the misdeed that earned this cold incarceration.

Neji sat with her in this cell. Everything in her apartment that was neither him nor her disappeared. No distractions from the matter at hand. He ought to be the guard and warden, too, because this was a conversation whose proper, charted course had to be the penultimate priority.

He wanted her. He said it.

It was out there. The words left him with reluctance and yet he felt no desire to take them back. Power and gratification grew like flames in being bold, direct, driven. What he was saying now, and the more that he wanted to say, all were his vehicle. And he was in control. He would steer it how he wanted.

"... You…"

His stare didn't hesitate for a second.

"... W…. 'wanted'... me?"

"I did." His vehicle. "The same way that you wanted me." And their prison.

Tenten looked at the floor in embarrassment. Her hand curled around her mouth, color in her cheeks, and she stayed that way for a few moments. He could only await her response, and he was growing impatient.

"... Geez." She was still looking away. "You know, it's embarrassing when you just say it like that, Neji…"

"I'll say it again." And he was so serious. "Tenten."

He took her wrist, drawing her hand away from her face and forcing her eyes to focus on him and the here and now. It was getting darker in more ways than one.

"I wanted you." He didn't let go of her hand. "That kind of desire, I hadn't felt it ever in my life more than that night. I had…"

"...?" Now giving him her full attention, she stared at him concentratedly. Neji had paused.

Dare he continue? "You were on my mind even after I'd left."

Close... enough. She was free to interpret it as she pleased for now, but now felt inappropriate for his guilty, perverted admission about what else had happened that night in full.

"I tell you this because I do not want to see you ashamed. And I did not believe anything you did that night was wrong."

…

And that was the end of all he had to say.

He was clear, explicit, honest, leaving no room to misunderstand anymore. He communicated those helplessly entangled feelings Too often in recent times, both of them have suffered from something as foolish as a failure to speak to one another. It was ridiculous. He couldn't allow this to happen again. She knew his feelings, now. And he…

He did not yet know hers.

His lavender eyes arrested her sepia-brown gaze—in their prison—leaving her nowhere to run. He could tell that she was uneasy—but why? Hadn't he been completely forward? Wasn't it true that everything he'd said was all crafted to make her feel more at ease?

"Tenten," he urged.

"... I… just…" The pauses, the waiting, they pained him. "Neji… You're a little late, don't you think…?"

"'Late.'" He repeated. Just to make sure he'd heard the unfamiliar word correctly.

"Yeah. Late. I mean… What am I supposed to say to all of that? What am I supposed to do now?" A frown stayed on her face. He didn't like it. There was a soft sadness to the shrug that followed. "I don't know. Thanks for not thinking I'm disgusting, right?"

He felt the room boil—not with heat, but immediate discomfort, with a palpable incorrectness because he had done everything correctly. No less could come from the genius of the Hyuuga clan. He knew what his desired result was: perfect reconciliation—a handcuff key to release them from the hellish confines of all the agonizing disharmony in their relationship. He could praise himself for getting this close. He simply… did not understand why it was not yet in his hands.

What else could he do?

"Umm… it's starting to get late, Neji. You have to return to the compound soon, right?"

With some annoyance, he nodded.

"Exactly. So… why don't you start heading back now? Won't your uncle get worried if you aren't there soon?"

Again, he nodded. But he did not move.

Her silence, waiting for him to escape from this room. "Neji? What's wrong? Why are you just sitting there?"

He said nothing.

"... Oh! Is it your eyes? I completely forgot. I don't mind helping you get home. Come on, let's go."

But he still did not move. Her face changed from confusion to concern.

"Neji, are you feeling okay…?" She asked, and began to reach for his forehead. "Maybe you've gotten sick…"

He stopped her hand for the last time.

"Neji? Seriously, what's going on?"

And he leaned closer.

"... Neji?"

Slowly.

"Umm… what are you doing…?"

Closer.

"... Neji…"

Contact.

He felt her body tense when their lips met, and then she softened all at once. Soft, just like these lips of hers that he'd craved so, so badly. Things began to escalate. His hands grasped her body—and she started playing back, the motions of the two picking up the pace. He sensed hesitance in her, consenting to kiss him a bit more but only so much when he knew she could do more, so he would help her.

There was power in being bold, direct, driven. It grew like a fire.

When he squeezed her waist, her lips parted, and that was when his tongue slipped in—a trick he learned from that night—and then he was inside, he caught an "mmh" from her throat and swallowed it. There were more in her, more of those pleased moans, and he intended to draw them out. Now was the time to hunt them down.

His hand stroked her sides and she sighed again, reaping twin desperations as her fingers clutched the fabric of his clothes, which felt so unnecessary at the moment, and so did hers—a tank top and shorts, what good were they doing?

In the back of his mind, he considered that this might be too much all at once. His body felt like an engine running on instinct and appetite, uncommon for his astute and practiced self-control. But not unwelcome.

He kissed her more. It didn't feel wrong. He wanted to continue. Beyond his fervor for her body, Neji knew that he had to convince her of his truths. She didn't believe him before, but she would understand his feelings now. Not only had he wanted her that night, he wanted her still. She was always his priority, always his temptation. The only one who could instill him with this avaricious thirst. She needed to know. So he would not only tell, but show her.

He closed his eyes for a second and more memories of that night burned back—

(he hovered over her, eyelids low, breathing softly, holding back a groan when she slid her hand under his loose white shirt and stroked his hard stomach—)

—and this time he moaned into her and she gave it right back. The haunting, sensual memories added weight on his breath, heavy, deepening, he had to break apart from her lips for two seconds to breathe before diving back in with full indulgence. Their jaws drove the kiss back and forth, kissing each other with exceptional give and take—in a second his tongue was on top of hers and then the next hers atop his own. All of it felt so good.

Soon they shifted positions. Her back was laid down against the cushions of her sofa and he was the one above her. Her fingers drifted throughout the length of his hair and his lower half was all between her open legs. He was getting closer and he was hard. That forbidden part of him—his arrogant, stubborn, desperate, rigid—fuck, he felt so damn eager. He was ready at last to give in to his sex. He was too far gone. Images of wet, hot, lust churned in his mind and shot fervent, thrilling flames all the way to the firm, autocratic flesh between his legs. They didn't have to be imaginary ecstasies any longer. He could tear this pointless clothing off and fuck her like he should have on that first night. And it took everything he had to not reach down and soothe himself, place his palm over that place and stroke it gently just to appease himself until he could finally bow his body into her core...

But he didn't need to. Tenten had adjusted her legs at one point and kept one bent and propped up as their mouths coerced each other to go further. He would come to doubt that she had even thought about this action, because she could not have possibly intended to bend it so high that her knee would come in contact with his pelvis and rub against that place so softly and…

"—gh," he groaned inside her mouth and separated immediately, hanging his head down as the sensation continued. He was more sensitive than he'd thought. That very slight touch made his breath hitch, forced his grip on her body to tighten. She laid there still, as if confused, and then he heard her light gasp to signal her realization. All he could do was continue breathing.

And she surprised him.

She moved her knee up and down, stroking him, and he moaned and grabbed at the sofa cushions instead. How pathetic. It was so gratifying. His breaths cut shorter, panting, softly, paralyzed by that small and yet so satisfying contact—sometimes she brushed up against the tip and he could swear that he would die—and he buried his head in her exposed neck, agonized by her pleasures. Idly, he thought it humiliating that he, a trained and specialized jounin, could be so easily defeated by simple sensations that were not yet even sex. He felt vulnerable, under her control at this moment. In any other situation, and with any other person, that would be extremely dangerous. Disastrous. In some ways, this was dangerous, too. He didn't know how far things were about to go. Gods, he could not wait to find out.

Neji had never felt so animated. If fervorous, undiluted intensities like this were the height of human passion, then he was all-too compliant to succumb to his mortal weaknesses.

He kissed her neck and earned another gasp from her, who kept up with her motions, and he kissed her there again and again. "Neji…" she whined his name, as though asking for more. As he fought to keep his breathing under control, he moved his hand down and met the hem of her tight shirt. Surreptitiously, his fingers breached in and flowered up her stomach, noticing that the surface of her skin was both hard and soft—to be expected of a woman under Gai's coarse training regimen—and her hips jerked upwards so slightly at his touch. He kept kissing her neck, sometimes opening his mouth and laying his tongue flat against the skin there, begging for more pleased sounds from her yearning lips. He was making her feel good. The thought made his rigid cock jump in excitement.

Tenten, he thought to himself. I will give you what you want. I will volunteer my everything to you.

His hand continued travelling up until arriving at her chest… Her bra was there, but he started to lift up her shirt and that along with it so he could gain exposure to that never-before-seen part of her…

"W—wait. Neji." She stopped his wrist just before getting to see her chest in full. "Um… I think we should stop for now…"

She might as well have dropped an anvil on his head.

As usual, he retained his composure, despite the fact that he wanted her more than anything right now and he might go insane if they cut things short. "... And why do you think that, Tenten?"

"I don't know…" She averted her eyes, once more looking anywhere else but at him. "It feels like we're going too fast, don't you think…?"

"Then I will go slower." He dipped his head down to win another sweet kiss from her lips but she stopped him by his shoulder.

"No, no, that's not what I mean, Neji."

He furrowed his brows, his hair curtaining all around their cell. "Tell me what you do mean."

"I…"

"Tenten." He couldn't let this happen. "I want you. I want you right now. Tell me that you feel the same."

She turned her head to the side, color finding its way to her cheeks once again. It felt like she was tossing water on his flame when he still had wood to burn. He was ready this time, he knew that he was, and he was still so ready to get to the next step. "I do, but…"

... He had his answer.

He could not force her. Even in his haze of desperation and zeal to feel her for the first time… he knew that if she said it was time to stop, then he should stop.

"I'll get going. It is late, I must return to the compound."

"Neji…"

He stood up, fixing his disheveled self and heading to her door. "... I did not intend to rush you. I apologize."

The door opened, closed, and it was dark outside.

Now, he was sobered from his delirium. The chill evening air helped cool him off. Self-control. When it is exercised for years and years to near-perfection, Neji could calm himself down with little effort so long as he was distanced from the situation. Usually. As to be expected of the prodigy of the Hyuuga clan. A simple equation. She did not want to have sex. If she didn't, then he didn't either. However, still...

To have put forth so much effort, so much passion, so much of himself into that exchange which had felt so equal and cooperative—didn't she reciprocate perfectly?—only to be rejected in the end...

It was…

… undoubtedly…

… one of the worst feelings in the world.