Neji's Dilemma - It started out with one question that only festered to become something worse and purely chaotic. The question? Why are you so feminine? Directed at? Neji. Chaos endures.

Neji's Dilemma

"Neji. Why are you so feminine?" TenTen enquired, whilst Lee nodded sagely beside her.

The spoken to person grimaced, now knowing the reason for his teammates acting so secretive. "I'm not feminine," Neji said in a calm tone. Just act calm. Don't give them any reason to provoke you.

"But your hair is long," TenTen started, crossing her arms over her chest.

"And silky," Lee added in.

"And it always seem clean," TenTen remarked.

"And silky," Lee repeated.

Suspicion rose. "You planned this conversation didn't you," Neji asked accusingly.

Exaggerated looks appeared on his teammate's faces.

"Of course not," Lee insisted while TenTen nodded in agreement.

"But you didn't deny what we said about your hair," TenTen added in hastily.

Neji fought a sigh, attempting to stay calm. At least be relieved that Gai-sensei isn't here. "My hair is long because that is how the Hyugas wear their hair, and due to reasons of hygiene, my hair is clean and..." he paused, before adding in a disgusted tone, "Silky."

"Well what about the fact that you wrap bandages on only your right arm and your right leg?" Lee questioned.

"What does my preference of wrapping bandages have anything to do with me supposedly being feminine?" Neji demanded.

"Um... unique sense of fashion?" TenTen guessed.

"No. Now stop bothering me, you have nothing to back up your hypothesis of me being feminine," Neji said flatly, spacing out his words to leave no room for error.

TenTen and Lee did not look ready to give up with their concept and instead exchanged shifty glances. As one, they revealed their triumph card.

"Your eyes are a light purple," they said in unison.

There was an awkward silence as Neji ran over their sentence in his head to make sure he had not misheard himself.

And... silence ended now.

"My eyes are white, and how do the colour of my eyes make me feminine, it wasn't as if I choose them," Neji scowled.

"No... I am quite sure they are light purple... maybe lavender," TenTen said thoughtfully.

"Byakugan. White eye. White," Neji stressed out the word white.

TenTen and Lee did not look convince.

"My whole clan has the same eyes as me. White eyes. Byakugan," Neji continued, stressing each word out slowly.

"Why is he speaking so slowly for?" TenTen whispered to Lee.

"Maybe it's a feminine trait?" Lee suggested.

Their conversation did not go unnoticed by Neji. "What the hell? You make no sense."

"Well you said your clan has the same eyes as you, then we will go up to Hinata and ask what colour eyes she has," Lee decided.

"Will you leave me alone afterwards?" Neji asked, quite peeved off.

The two didn't answer.

"Let's just go." Neji decided, hoping this incident would just hurry up and end.

"Hinata-san!" Lee greeted out.

"Good afternoon Lee-kun," Hinata greeted politely, even though a look of confusion was on her face. "You are early," she pointed out.

"Ah sorry, I didn't expect Neji to agree so easily," Lee apologized.

"You planned this," Neji accused.

"Of course not," TenTen said absently.

"Then explain why those idiots are hiding around the corner holding microscopes," Neji said through gritted teeth.

"There's no one there," Lee lied, making wild gestures behind his back for the others to remain in hiding.

"You do realize that I can see your gestures... and do you realize that you can't exactly examine my eye with a microscope since it won't fit under the lens," Neji frowned.

"He's right!" a loud voice exclaimed, before it got muffled.

"Idiot!" another voice was audible. "That's why we got those magnified scopes."

Neji ignored the urge to slam his head into the brick as he realized the second person was just as stupid as the first. This is worse than when they thought my hair was black... "Hinata-sama, what colour are your eyes?" he asked, more respectfully.

"Um... I suppose...light lavender?" Hinata guessed. At the look Neji was giving her she hastily added in, "I mean white?" she asked rather than stated.

"There. She said white," Neji announced, quite ready to leave this nonsense.

"She said lavender first," TenTen declared.

"Whatever I am leaving," Neji turned around to walk.

"Quick! Plan B!" Lee yelled out as many shadows leapt out from the walls.

With a quick spin and releasing all his chakra, the 'attackers' were knocked to the ground.

"Haven't you learnt that, that doesn't work?" Neji demanded, his eye twitching.

He received innocent or blank stares in return.

"You did try that move on me several times when you were convinced I used to have black hair," Neji added in, gesturing his hand.

Still blank stares.

"Forget it," Neji muttered under his breath.

"So are you going to let us examine your eye closer up?" Kiba questioned.

"No. Why don't you look at Hinata-sama instead? You did claim she had the same colour eyes as me?" Neji suggested, quite willing to sacrifice his cousin to the microscope obsessed savages.

"We can not do that. Hinata is part of this... association..." Shino stated.

"I don't see her with a magnifying scope, or anything like that," Neji pointed out.

"She has her Byakugan," Kiba said in defence of Hinata.

Neji was starting to see a way out of this. "So if I join your association, then you would leave me alone?" he asked warily.

"That could work... but you don't have a microscope or even a magnifying glass," Kiba remarked thoughtfully.

Neji remained silent for a moment. No doubt that was the second idiot in hiding. "I have the Byakugan," he said, though clenched teeth.

"Which is why your eyes are purple," Kiba agreed, not even realizing what Neji had meant by his statement.

"No you idiot the Byakugan-... My eyes are not purple!" Neji started out before turning defensive.

"My eyes are white," Neji said wearily. I've made absolutely no progress in attempting to get them off my back. "You know what, my eyes are purple, now can you leave me alone?"

"I don't believe you," Lee said accusingly.

"What? You are the one that said that... forget it. What proof do you want?" Neji asked.

"Let one of us look at your eye through a magnified scope," Lee demanded.

"Fine," Neji agreed somewhat bitterly.

TenTen walked forward, holding the scope close to his eye. "Um. It's purple," she announced, still not moving away.

"That confirms it, Neji's feminine," Lee declared.

Anger triggered his byakugan. "Ah, it's horrible!" TenTen more or less shrieked, moving away from Neji.

"Let me see," Lee exclaimed excitedly, snatching the scope to Neji's eye. In his excitement, he accidentally jabbed the scope into Neji's eye.

Quite startled by the pain, Neji let out a yell before leaping back, one hand pressed to his injured eye. "Are you trying to blind me?" he demanded, but was quite irritated when he realized they weren't listening to him.

Instead the group were exchanging whispers.

"Neji. Your scream was rather feminine," Lee remarked, whilst the others nodded sagely.

Neji was more than tempted to smash his head against the wall.

The End

2006-06-15 - Neji's Dilemma published.
2011-02-13 - Slight update to replace line breaks.

-Demeterr