NejiTen rules the world, people.

Disclaimer: Don't own. The lyrics belong to Momentum by Vienna Teng. Don't own those either.

Dedicated to NakoudoByakugan for being the most awesomest person to work with ever.


Why am I walking barefoot upon this road with no one around?

--

Her first memory is of falling roses.

She remembers it – watching the dark petals drifting down like rain, scattering over the floor, specking it with color. She remembers seeing them bloom across the ground, withering petals that grew fuller before her eyes. The roses are red.

Tenten knows they are not flowers.

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Would you help me rise up?

--

She works hard when she enters in the Academy. She listens raptly to the teachers and trains every day, hurling kunai after kunai until all of them find their mark. She studies and practices until the flowers fade from her mind. She is building her life so that she will never see roses again.

She makes friends, in the Academy, though not many. She surrounds herself with people like her, all of them reaching for something they must work to get. There are not many girls who are as good as she is. Some of them don't care – others admire her skill.

She feels the sunlight on her face and smiles at her fellow students. It is nice not to be alone.

--

Touch my face and watch me try to breathe again.

--

The first thing she notices when she meets him is his eyes. They are silvery white, a color she has never seen before. She has heard some girls say his gaze reminds them of pearls, but Tenten does not think of pearls. She thinks of the moon, cold and high and untouchable.

And then she thinks of moonlight, warm and gentle and light. And she wonders if one thing can be two things at once.

They are only twelve, then. He looks at her and through her, the way he does everyone else. She watches him and smiles at him, the way she does everyone else.

After all, they are only beginning.

--

Always I am mistaken. I look for love and I find a storm.

--

She learns to depend on him during their missions. He learns to watch for her and she learns to feel for his gaze. It is always there, on her back, and it gives her courage to move faster and leap higher. She dances like a blur, her blades flashing silver in the light, and he watches her, spinning in his own vortex of blue.

An invisible web weaves itself around them.

--

I come to you in friendship. And hold my breath against the snow.

--

She comes back from her first solo mission thinking of dark figures and hearing footsteps in empty hallways. He meets her at the gates and does not take his eyes off her. She looks at him and smiles like before, but the smile is empty and her thoughts are elsewhere.

She sees the blank eyes of her victims and thinks of rose petals, drifting in the wind.

He brushes his fingers against her face. "Tenten," he says, and she looks up at him. This time, her smile is real.

"Neji," she says, and she twines her fingers through his.

They stand together under the sky.

--

What are you thinking as I gaze into you?

--

She is like the sun to him, like air and freedom and light.

She finds the opposite in him. He is what she follows when she has nothing else. He is the moon still shining in the night when all the stars are dim. And when she loses herself, she knows he will find her. Nothing is invisible to Neji.

She is his wings to fly. He is her eyes to see.

--

You are the answer. Cry and smile the same.