Chapter Text
Life was mundane at best for Tenten.
Right after the shinobi war, there had been so much to do that the kunoichi hardly had time to breathe. There were buildings to rebuild, villagers to help, bandits to kill, and she had finally achieved her dream of opening a weapon store. Business was alright for a few years, and then trickled off as peace spread throughout the shinobi world. Days turned to weeks, and months to years. Before she knew it, Tenten was well into her thirties, and Unfortunately, she didn’t have much to show for it.
Most of her days consisted of light training in the morning, running the shop and (on good days) meeting a few customers, and then having dinner alone at night. She would occasionally take missions to make ends meet, but truthfully the monotony of their new world bored her. Even the missions seemed to be the same thing playing out over and over again.
Tenten let out a painful sigh perched on a stool in her shop. She had already done her usual routine of dusting deadly merchandise and sharpening blades, but the day was dragging on excruciatingly slow. Not a single customer came in, and it had been weeks since she had seen Lee or Guy. Her brown eyes focused on a small picture frame hidden just out of sight from customers near a rarely used register. Nestled safely in the frame was a picture of her old teammate Neji Hyuuga. It was taken around the time he was promoted to Jounin. There were no more recent ones of him, no, he had died about fifteen years ago. Fifteen uneventful boring years ago.
An analog clock in the corner of the shop ticked consistently with each passing second.
“I wonder if you would ever visit me here, Neji...” The woman picked the frame up and brought it closer to her face, a frown forming on her face at the thought of her old teammate. Tenten set the picture down quickly with a thud and threw her arms up to stretch.
It hadn’t been fair. It didn’t make any sense. Neji’s death had cleaved Tenten’s life into two halves; before he died, and after. Before the war, and after.
Tenten fought the urge to sigh again and jumped off the stool with a resounding click of her sensible shoes on the wooden floor. “Here we go again…”
A memory played in the back of her mind. Team Guy was getting ready together in a tent for the war. Guy and Lee left first leaving Neji and Tenten behind to join the main battalion. Neji caught her arm gently before she could follow through the canvas flap.
“Tenten,” Even now years later in the shop, Tenten could hear his voice clearly. It was deep and calm despite the situation waiting outside. “When this is all over, I want to be more than teammates. I know it’s not proper for me to ask this…” He had been so serious and explicit with his words that there was no room for doubt as to what his intention was. The woman had been caught completely off guard, uncertain what was happening, until he spoke again.
“Can I kiss you?”
A blush spread across her cheeks, and a few hot tears started to pool just under her eyelids. The sensation pulled Tenten right back to her current situation.
The kunoichi cursed herself for falling into this rabbit hole again. It always upset her. Time was supposed to heal all wounds, and here she was about to cry over something that happened in what felt like a different world. Tenten planted her hands on the floor and kicked up into a handstand holding it perfectly still as her blunt bangs drifted down towards the floor. The salty tears in her eyes reabsorbed as she closed her eyes in concentration.
If a customer walked in, they would likely be confused, but everyone knew Tenten trained with team Guy. It would be more surprising if she didn’t have any weird habits from it.
The loneliness had nothing to do with the people around her.
It wasn’t that she didn’t have friends. Sakura, Hinata, and Ino all were around. Sometimes they would meet up for coffee. She had a brother in Lee, and an eccentric uncle in Guy, but there was a definite Neji sized hole left in her chest. In the beginning, Ino and Sakura had set Tenten up on what felt like hundreds of blind dates. Throwing her at whoever was willing, and sometimes people that Tenten would have rather avoided.
Truthfully, the bunhead brunette had probably dated more random suitors than all of her classmates combined. It wasn’t that impressive of a number. Mostly everyone had gotten married to the first person they dated…. But for Tenten those dates never went further than a smooch, and she was still alone all these years later.
Every time Tenten met someone new, the only thought on her mind was how they compared to Neji. The more similar they were, the quicker Tenten would break it off.
It was useless. She was chasing after a ghost.
Naruto married Hinata and had some children; one of them had a weird name that Tenten couldn’t quite remember. Sakura married and had a kid. Ino did the same. Even Lee had a kid! It was difficult to not compare her life to others. Everyone else seemed to be doing alright, and here she was running a useless weapon shop repeating the same humdrum day over and over.
Guy told her she just wasn’t ready, and someday she would meet a good partner. Tenten figured she wasn’t meant to be with anyone.
The woman decided she had enough of this nonsensical thinking, and effectively derailed her train of thought. Tenten dropped back down to the floor from her handstand and looked at the wooden clock hanging above the door.
She wasn’t supposed to close the shop for another hour, but there hadn’t been a single customer all day. Without even a hint of guilt, Tenten closed up shop for the day. The sun was just beginning to set on the horizon, illuminating Konoha in a pretty orange and pink glow.
Taking a quick glance to each side, the woman pulled a small pack of cigarettes from one pant pocket and shoved her store keys in the other one. It was a horrible habit. It was unhealthy. She knew she shouldn’t do it, but here she was lighting up a stick and breathing in softly. Honestly, Tenten could have cared less. What was the point of living if you couldn’t enjoy something bad every once in a while? The pack was months old, and the cigarettes were stale anyway. Tenten shrugged, feeling all the stress in her body melt away as she breathed in and out.
She leaned against the shop door for a few minutes smoking, and then snuffed the cigarette out before it had even burned halfway.
Tenten set out towards her apartment on the other side of town, taking in the sights and sounds of her sleepy village. Everyone looked the same as usual, going about their usual life. She followed her normal habit of buying a frozen dinner at the supermarket on the way. No matter how bad things got, she always managed to have just enough money for rent, the shop, and food.
The woman lived in a rundown apartment in the less desirable side of Konoha; the apartment had old rotten wooden stairs, windows that needed to be replaced ten years ago, and it was a dingy studio apartment that didn’t befit a thirty-something business owner. Tenten had no dining room table, so she sat on the roof outside her window to eat her microwave meal. Regardless if her life wasn’t what she expected, Tenten was still managing day by day.
The kunoichi was never one to feel sorry for herself, but even she would admit that it would be better if she didn’t dream of Neji. Her dreams were lemon juice in a fresh cut.
Normally, Tenten’s dreams were fuzzy and confusing to say the least, but when Neji was involved they were sharp and vivid even if they didn’t exactly match reality. In her dreams, Tenten was a successful business owner; she was ten years younger, her skin glowed, she wore expensive clothes, and went on business trips to other nations frequently. Neji wasn’t dead; in fact the man seemed to be thriving. He was older than she remembered, possibly around twenty seven or so? The shinobi had matured into a very handsome man. Scratch that, dream Neji was an absolute hunk with muscular arms, dreamy eyes, and glistening hair.
Much to her delight, they seemed to have some kind of romantic involvement with each other. In her dreams of course. Unfortunately, Tenten was just an observer in these dreams, never in control of her own body, and just an observer.
Tenten could never stay long in these dreams. Maybe she would have less than an hour or so in the span of a single night’s sleep; Neji would listen to her talk about weapons or she would dry dishes while he washed them, and occasionally if she was lucky she got a chaste forehead kiss.
When she did have these dreams, Tenten soaked up the contents of the dream world for everything it was worth. The brunette had never told anyone about them. It was embarrassing! She had an entire second life in those dreams-with her dead teammate-,and that second life was better than her real one. Tenten figured if she ever told anyone, they would think her ridiculous or pathetic. Most definitely the latter considering that everyone else seemed to have adulthood figured out.
The woman shrugged off the thought and looked out over Konoha while she ate. A pretty red moon was just starting to rise on the horizon, glowing dangerously in the distance. She hadn’t microwaved the meal long enough, and Tenten pulled a face when lukewarm soup from a dumpling spread across her tongue.
The kunoichi shut her eyes tightly in disgust, and when her chocolate eyes popped open again the scene in front of her was completely different. Konoha was replaced with a softly lit dining room table. She had a pair of nice chopsticks wedged between her fingers, and grasped in the chopsticks there was a steaming dumpling. Warm soup dribbled down her chin, and Tenten hastily chewed and swallowed the bite in her mouth. It was delicious, nothing like the dumpling she had just been chewing minutes ago.
“What the fuck.” The woman had no other words. Her eyes took a moment to focus on the scene in front of her, adjusting and blurring multiple times before sharpening again. She was sitting at a large dining room table, a pot of dumplings was displayed on an ornate metal trivet, and floor to ceiling windows pointed towards a city that looked suspiciously like Konoha-but not quite. There was a modern chandelier hanging from the ceiling casting a soft orange light, and everything felt so cozy. Tenten dropped the chopsticks, and her arms flew up to her hair gripping tightly as she tried to make sense of what was happening. The sudden sensation of her fingers on her scalp sent goosebumps down her bare arms. “What the fuck.” The words fell out as a whisper this time.
The kunoichi looked at her hands and balled them into fists. Genjutsu? Would she even be able to dispel a jutsu of this caliber?
“Happy birthday, Ten.” A calm voice called out from somewhere behind her, and Tenten heard soft shuffles of house slippers on carpet. Her head snapped back much too quickly, and a rush of vertigo hit the woman like a ton of bricks.
It was Neji. At least, it was what Neji looked like in her dreams. His forehead was exposed, and the green seal was blatant. He was a man, and had finally grown into his sharp jawline. The Hyuuga was wearing a long sleeve turtleneck, but it betrayed the outline of his impressive physique. However, the most surprising thing about the man was that he was carrying a cake. The cake was ever so lopsided, and absolutely buried in fluffy whipped cream. It had two candles jutting out the top each lit with a homely red flame. Two and Six? Twenty six? Damn. Definitely genjutsu.
Or was it? Today was her birthday, wasn’t it! A flush of emotion spread through Tenten’s chest at the realization that no one had visited her in the shop. Lee, Guy, Hinata… No one had remembered the brunette’s birthday. In fact, Tenten’s birthday held so little meaning that she herself had even forgotten it.
The woman’s eyes swelled rapidly with hot tears, and then the liquid started to stream down her cheeks. Tenten smeared a hand across her face to wipe the tears away. She also managed to get some of the dumpling off her chin as well. There was only one explanation for all of this. “Am I dead?” The question came out as a complete blubbering mess.
Life was precious. There was never a guarantee of tomorrow, and there were plenty of random medical events that could take a person out of commission in an instant. Not to mention that being a shinobi also carried additional risk.
Neji’s face filled with shock, and he quickly stepped to the table to put the cake down. “What are you talking about?” The man slid a hand under her bangs to feel her temperature, and Tenten tried to pull back in protest but Neji’s other hand rested on her shoulder. “Are you still drunk from earlier with Ino?” The man’s pale eyes drifted to the table where Tenten had dropped a half eaten dumpling, tossed her chopsticks haphazardly, and made a small mess. It was so out of place on the immaculately set table.
The man knelt down, setting his hands on her knees instead. “Tenten, why are you crying?” His chiseled face was full of concern, but an undertone of confusion hid just under the surface. His lilac eyes scanned her expression quickly, but Neji was unable to get a read on what was happening. He had done the same thing he did every year for her birthday. He cleaned the house and prepared a special birthday dinner for her along with a cake, yet she was a blubbering mess at the table asking him if she was dead. It was completely out of character. He was expecting a happy carefree smile, and for her to present a cheek for him to kiss. Maybe more than a cheek later…
“Did you hit your head?” The man asked smoothly in a deep tone. The tears made absolutely no sense, and Neji reached up to smooth them away with his thumb. Tenten noted the realistic sensation of his skin sliding across hers, but it only made her cry harder.
Much to Neji’s horror, she doubled down. “Maybe I fell off the roof and hit my head and died.” Tenten looked down at him, swallowing heavily and struggling to breath through her nose due to the copious amounts of tears that were pouring out of her eyes. “Yeah, I must have fallen off the roof.”
The man reached up and began to run his hands along the back of her skull searching for some kind of bump, but he wasn’t able to find anything. Neji’s lips formed a harsh frown since he had no idea what he was supposed to do. She was fine up until he excused himself from the table to grab the cake and light the candles. When he returned to the dining room, she was completely different. “You’re not dead, Tenten. Stop saying that. It’s absolutely absurd.”
His pale eyes focused on the silvery white moon hanging heavy outside the window. Neji wasn’t even sure if the clinic would be open this late at night. Did this count as an emergency? It didn’t seem like anything was physically wrong with his wife. She had just started acting strangely out of the blue.
What she said next only made Neji’s mouth fall open in shock.
Tenten picked at her fingernails anxiously. The woman was beyond distressed; Neji had never seen her like this before. “Yes, I have to be. Because you’re dead, and if I’m here with you that means I’m dead too.” Tenten’s dainty hand drifted up to point at the full moon outside the window. “The moon’s the wrong color too. Either I’m dead or this is genjutsu.” She formed a shaky seal with her hands that Neji recognized as a dispel for illusionary tactics. Tenten tried to release what she mistakenly thought was an illusion several times before giving up.
Neji stood up and ran a hand through his dark cascading hair, and the man gripped his hair so tightly that he could feel several strands threaten to rip out. His eyes blinked dully a few times, and the Hyuuga tried to recall any training he received for incidents like this. He knew battlefield first aid. He could perform CPR. Neji had tourniquet training. However, nothing prepared him for this. It was like Tenten had lost all of her marbles in the time it took him to walk back from the kitchen, and now she was spouting some incredibly upsetting nonsense about how everyone was dead.
The moon was the wrong color?
“Come on, Tenten. Go wash your face in the powder room.” Neji picked up the cake in a swift motion and blew out the candles with two quick puffs of air. “We’ll pay Sakura a visit.” It was less a suggestion than an order.
The woman stood up from the chair, surprised that her legs worked the same way they always did. She never imagined what death would be like, but it certainly wasn’t this. Tenten looked around once, and began wandering around the home completely disoriented. It was like she had never been there before.
Why was Sakura here? Did that make sense? Tenten used the inside of her shirt to dry her eyes.