Overcrowded Hallways
Yugao
Author's Note: So… here's the final update of Overcrowded Hallways, people. Thanks for the hits, faves, alerts, and everything else. If you wanted more, sorry it's so short; however, this was never meant to be a long chaptered fic. In fact I had it pegged down to four chapters, and what do you know? It stretched out for one more. This wouldn't have been completed without all your suggestions and support. I might not make a sequel, but I'll probably make other NTS triangles in the future, so you might want to watch out for them if you enjoyed this fic. Thanks again – Neji, Tenten, Sasuke, and I are eternally grateful.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Chapter 5… Confessions
Bare, unadorned white walls and white cloth curtains greeted Sasuke as his eyes opened. Still half-asleep, he wondered vaguely where he was. He pushed back the white sheet that blanketed him as he sat up, brushing the sleep from his eyes. When his eyes opened again, they widened – he remembered what had happened, if only barely, between him and the rage-driven Hyuuga.
His dark eyes fell on Tenten, who was fitfully asleep. She was sitting on a chair at his bedside, and was leaning against the edge of the bed, where her arms stretched out across the sheets. Her head lay on the mattress, with her hair in various forms of disarray and her face pretty even in disturbed sleep.
Not wanting to wake her, he pushed himself off the bed the side opposite her. Unfortunately, she woke up with a start at the sudden movement. "Sasuke? Don't get up," she said, albeit a little groggily. She pushed her chair back and stood to take a look at him.
"I'm fine," he replied obstinately, trying to mask the pain in his right arm. "Really. Just leave me alone."
She scoffed. "No, thanks. I've waited for a few hours to make sure you're all right, and I'm not about to leave so soon. Now sit back down, the doctor said you have a few injuries to your arm. How do you feel?"
At that, he stared at her blankly. She'd waited that long to see if he was fine? Absently he sat back down on the bed and sat there numbly as Tenten inspected his right arm. As she went about her silent work, he looked around the room again, and noticed two bunches of flowers hastily stuffed in a ridiculously small vase. The first was a bouquet of pale pink carnations, while the second was in the middle of them: three yellow roses.
He looked back at Tenten, who had sat beside him, done checking up on his arm. "Who are the flowers from, do you know?" he asked.
"The carnations are from Sakura," she replied, and pretended not to notice Sasuke's carefully stifled wince. "And the roses are mine."
He was silent for a while, before mumbling an almost incoherent, "Thank you."
She shrugged. "It was nothing. It's just a bunch of flowers. I got you and Neji into that fight, and three roses aren't enough to pay for your medical bill, you know. You shouldn't thank me like that."
"I'm sorry I acted without thinking, fighting him like that. If I hadn't reacted so quickly, maybe we might not have fought," Sasuke said slowly, picking his words with care. "I didn't want to burden you even more with seeing to us when you had your own injury to take care of."
Tenten grinned. "There you go again. You know what, ever since we became friends all you've ever been saying is sorry. I think it's… nice that you want to help me, but sometimes, Sasuke, I can help myself. If I was a helpless damsel-in-distress, after all, I wouldn't even have become a genin."
"I'm…" sheepishly, he caught himself in the middle of apologizing again. "I understand."
She laughed. "You know what?" she asked.
"What?" he answered quietly.
She looked him in the eye; her warm brown eyes were meeting steely gray ones. "Before we ever started talking, I always thought of you as out of reach. You were always so mysterious, so brooding, and so cold. Even then I knew you weren't like everyone else."
"But later, I got to know you better. You became a little less of a mystery and a little more of a person. What I once thought was out of reach became a reality. You aren't like everyone else, Sasuke – you're different, and most people like you that way," she continued.
Quietly, he diverted his gaze, afraid of what she would tell him. Would she push him away, nicely or otherwise? Would she leave him after what had happened? Should he even tell her how all this began?
But she surprised him.
"So, Sasuke, if anyone should be saying thank you…" she said with a wide smile, "It should be me."
Stunned, he looked back up at her again. The corners of his mouth tilted upwards in a little half-smile, and Tenten laughed at the sincere attempt. Suddenly, she put her arms around him in a warm hug, making him turn as red as his now short-circuiting brain would allow. "Thanks, Sasuke."
With that, she broke the embrace, stood and made to leave. But as she opened the door, he called, "Tenten."
"Yes?" she said, turning to face him.
He groped for the right words to say, and her words came back to him. "The roses were mine," he said quietly, almost hesitantly.
Tilting her head, Tenten's smile was not only on her lips but in her vibrant eyes, as well. "Yes. I know," she said amusedly as she closed the door behind her.
"Has he come awake these few hours?"
"No, he's been unconscious all day. He's been in quite an exhausting fight, I presume?"
"I prefer not to talk about it."
"Well… of course. I didn't mean to pry."
"No offense taken. How soon do you think he'll come to?"
"The doctor says it won't be for another hour yet. He's badly hurt, but nothing's broken, luckily. He just needs his sleep."
"Of course."
"Will you be waiting here until he wakes up? I have somewhere to be, anyway, so if you'd like to be alone…"
"Yes, please. Thank you."
Neji kept his eyes closed even as the voices, seemingly distant, faded away. Finally, the door closed, and he let his eyes open slowly to adjust to the light. Surprisingly, the light flooding in from his bedside window was soft and almost muted, so he guessed it was late afternoon. How long had he been here, after his fight with the Uchiha? He cursed slightly that it took so much out of him.
"I'd guessed you were awake. The nurse told me you wouldn't be for another hour or so, but she just doesn't know Hyuuga Neji, does she?" Tenten said wryly as she sat down by his hospital bed.
He smirked. "No, she doesn't."
Restlessly, she pushed herself up off the chair and walked to the end table by the window. She took out three peach-colored roses and set them in the empty flower vase at his bedside. Casually, she asked, "So how long have you been awake?"
"Two, three hours, maybe," he answered. His brow furrowed slightly in confusion. "I thought you were mad at me," he pointed out.
Tenten shrugged, and gave him an amiable smile. "You know I can't stay mad at you, Neji," she said with a laugh, "You're my teammate, and you know me more than anyone else does. Staying mad at you is near impossible. I thought you knew that by now."
"Obviously I didn't, otherwise I wouldn't have been scared half to death that you wouldn't speak to me again," he answered, an ironic twist in his voice. He sat up, and leaned against the headboard for support. His arms were folded across his chest stubbornly.
She raised an eyebrow. "And that scares you so much because…?" she asked playfully.
He winced. He should've known better than to let something as small as that slip. Tenten never missed a thing.
"Well, Neji?" she said with a grin.
He looked back at her, and answered, "Because, like you said, we know each other more than anyone else does. If suddenly it stopped for such a petty reason…"
"Petty reason, huh? You and Sasuke almost killed each other," she pointed out.
He pretended not to hear her. "If suddenly our friendship stopped for such a petty reason, the time we spent together would've gone to waste."
"Oh?" she asked curiously. "Is that what you think?"
He looked at her quizzically.
"Getting to know another person isn't a waste of time. Even if someday, two close friends drift apart, they still have the memories of what happened, and experience isn't something easily traded away," she explained, with a smile on her face as she spoke, "But the paths they walked together, the lessons they learned on the way – those are more precious even than time."
He was silent.
She laughed. "I didn't mean to say that it would have been all right with me if we stopped being friends, Neji!"
He raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't thinking about that. I was thinking about everything that's happened these past few days."
"And?" her voice took on a playful tone. "What did we learn?"
He gave her a sardonic smile. "I wasn't trying to be funny, Tenten."
"Neither was I, Neji," she replied innocently.
He fell silent for a moment, and anyone looking into his pallid eyes would know that he was deep in thought. He pushed back the covers, and stood up to walk to the window. He looked out over the tangerine-amethyst dusk sky, and the myriad of birds flying past.
"What was it you wanted to say, Neji?" Tenten asked, seriously this time.
Neji smiled and approached her, stopping when he stood in front of her. "I wanted to say… thank you," he replied, "For everything."
And in that moment, his lips brushed hers in the sincerest symbol of what he said.
Sympathetically, Tenten held the eleven white roses in her arms for the last time. Unlike before, though, they were now wilted and browned around the edges of each once pristine petal. Unlike before, they drooped wearily, tiredly. Unlike before, their evanescent beauty was all spent.
She smiled sadly as she placed them carefully in the trashcan. She was going to miss coming home to the sight and fragrance of roses, but there was no use hanging on to them. They were, after all, only a memento of something more real, more beautiful.
She walked back towards a closed window at the far end of the room; she opened it, slowly coercing its rusted hinges to budge. Finally, it opened, and it let in the cool night breeze. Stars dotted the sky here and there, twinkling playfully down at her and everyone else in Konoha.
She closed her eyes, trying to bring back to mind the white roses and how they began a one-of-a-kind adventure. It made her closer with a new friend, brought her together with another, and taught her so much about life in general; she knew that afterward, life was never going to be the same. Not even in the sleepy town of Konoha.
Even though the roses died, and their beauty faded, I'm always going to remember this.
Author's Note: And here ends Overcrowded Hallways. I think I've said practically everything else in the topmost author's notes, except for one very important thing: please review. I'd really like to know what you thought of it, not just the last chapter but the whole story in general. Do you want another NejiTenSasu from me? Just send me a PM and we might work something out. But for the moment… thanks and goodbye.