Author's note: Why am I writing a new story instead of the next chapter of Usurper? Because I'm a terrible person, that's why. Apparently I've made it my mission to overload myself with unfinished stories. On the plus side, now that it's up, it means I can never abandon it!

Really, I had to write this one because I don't have any Neji/Gaara-centric stories up yet, and after spending my holiday watching wedding shows, I realised that after getting married I have a lot of leftover knowledge about wedding planning, and I've never tried the whole 'write about what you know' thing before. So hopefully this comes across as knowing what I'm talking about a bit!

Keeping ambiguous about what country this is set in. It has a President, but I don't want to call it America necessarily, because I don't know too much about American systems. Or American wedding prices. XD

Oh, and last of all - whatever it may look like, there will not be even a second of Gaara/Tenten in this.

It was ten twenty-nine a.m. according to both the hotel reception clock and Gaara's own watch. He was an impatient man, and if the person he was supposed to be meeting here was even a minute late, he was going to leave. The lobby of Tennyson Tower One was stark and uninviting, although they would have marketed it as 'pristine and spacious', and even though he was about as much of a V.I.P. as one could be, he felt the staff were giving him hostile looks. He got those a lot.

Mostly it was his tattoo that garnered the unhappy stares – it was a Japanese symbol drawn conspicuously on his forehead in a colour that matched his red hair – but in his father's social circle, even having last season's shoes could get you into trouble. They were the elite, the highest of the upper class, and Gaara was left squeezed from both sides into a mould he just didn't fit. The political and social worlds bored him; not the most ideal situation for the youngest son of the President, but there it was.

His eyes flickered over to the clock again and saw that the long hand had ticked onto the metallic VI, indicating that the time had come. Automatically, he stood up and headed for the revolving doors. He wasn't waiting. He stepped around a well-dressed man who was coming inside and kept going.

"Gaara Sabaku?"

Immediately reacting to the sound of his own name, Gaara looked back over his shoulder – and since he was already inside the revolving door, the panel behind him kept spinning and hit him square in the face.

"Shit!" he cursed under his breath, staggering backwards into the other panel. He blinked rapidly to ease the shock and was eventually able to follow the door back inside. He could feel his face burning with humiliation rather than pain; public figures were poised, polished, not clumsy and letting doors run into them!

Everyone in the reception area was staring at him. He glared back, daring them to say something, silently demanding that they forget such an embarrassing display. The Tennyson employees knew him well and he suspected it would be nigh impossible to stop them from running their gossipy mouths off about him, but with any luck his father's name carried enough fear to stop them. The uniformed men and women were biting back laughter, some of them actually reaching for their phones already.

"Don't you dare," he warned the nearest one. "In a few months I'll be your boss, so is this cheap laugh really worth it?"

The lady's tiny smile vanished completely as she turned away, abashed. Gaara was satisfied that this was sufficient to scare the staff. Now there was only one person left to deal with: the man who had just entered before his little accident, the one who had called out Gaara's name.

It was an elegantly-dressed man, without a doubt, with long hair tied back in a loose ponytail, and cologne that made Gaara wrinkle his nose even as he recognised the expensive label. He despised cologne. It choked him. The stranger seemed ignorant of his distaste and took a step towards him, adjusting his aubergine tie as he did.

"Neji Hyuuga," he introduced himself smartly. "I recognise you from the papers, of course, and Tenten has kept me well-informed."

Gaara held out his hand to shake Neji's without enthusiasm. So he would have to go through with this meeting after all, on a day that was rapidly turning into one of his worst. Wonderful.

"Shall we go up to the restaurant to talk, perhaps? Most of my clients enjoy having wedding discussions over a cup of tea or coffee – or even something stronger, if the nerves hit them." Neji smiled with good humour. Gaara couldn't help but notice how conspicuously the man was avoiding mentioning his accident with the door. Was he just being tactful? Or, like the staff, was he holding back until the perfect moment to laugh at what he'd seen, like when the media were around?

Still, Gaara nodded. "The third floor. Whatever you order is free of charge, of course."

Neji kept smiling. It looked plastic. "Tenten always says the same."

As they made their way into the polished elevator, Gaara felt a familiar sinking sensation in his stomach. Whether it was about his Neji Hyuuga or about the situation in general, he didn't know, but either way he knew the next six months were going to be hell of the highest degree.

He was getting married. Married. Married, for his father's publicity, to a woman he had no feelings for, in an institution in which he had very little belief. And to extend the torture, he was being handed the best wedding planner in the city and was expected to control every step of the planning process.

The whole unappealing event began several years before any engagement notice hit the newspapers, back when Gaara's father held a modest political office well below his current one. The President at the time was caught in an inextricable economic scandal and the media and the public were out for his blood. Reporters scurried around politicians' workplaces and homes to get a quote about the situation, but of course the politicians knew better – that is, apart from Gaara's father. Flustered by being badgered by journalists day after day, he lashed out: he cracked and yelled with several cameras on him that the President was a no-talent, out-of-control hack with the financial sense of a walrus.

The video went viral within hours, and he became the most popular politician in living memory.

A year later when the nominations for new presidential candidates rolled around, his party decided it would be stupid not to select him. What followed was a long period of successful campaigning and a landslide victory, but like with every leader, it didn't take long for the honeymoon phase to end, and suddenly the people's political hero was the cause of a lot of dissatisfaction.

Now, in the lead-up to a new election, his advisers suggested a family wedding to worm him back into the hearts of the people.

Temari, his eldest child and only daughter, was the heir to his political reign and couldn't afford any distractions like marriage.

Kankuro, his eldest son, was the black sheep of the family and hadn't been seen since he left high school.

And so the position of social pawn had fallen upon Gaara, the youngest, barely twenty-two and already signing his life away. He had put up a vicious fight in the beginning, but his father drove a hard bargain, and finally he gave in. it wasn't as if any other weddings were in his foreseeable future.

The only positive part of this was that his bride – his lip curled distastefully at the word – was as uninvested in this marriage as he was. She was the adopted daughter of Richard Tennyson, owner of Tennyson Towers hotels, and was due to come into her inheritance as soon as the old man retired, which was any day now. The young lady's name, possibly a nickname brought on by her surname (Gaara hadn't asked), was Tenten. She was charming, witty, sporty, and yet in no way attractive to Gaara. Nor was he to her.

She cared so little about their upcoming wedding that she remarked last time they met, "A circus monkey can decorate a ballroom better than me. In fact, you do it! I know a planner; I'll put you two in touch and you can organise the whole shebang. Everyone will think it's sweet, the groom trying to do it all himself. Just please, please, please, don't talk to me about weddings! Ugh!"

It was good that they shared the same sentiment, but of course this left Gaara with the painful task of being in charge of this mess. At least in exchange Tenten was handling any media interest, accepting interviews and making the Sabaku family look good.

So now Gaara was stuck with this wedding planner friend of hers, this Neji person. Admittedly, he had expected a woman, but that hardly bothered him more than anything else about this.

The elevator chimed and opened right into the hotel restaurant, bustling with breakfast patrons. The hostess at the entrance recognised Gaara immediately and hurried to get him the best free table. Neji appeared comfortable; apparently he and Tenten had known each other since they were about seven, so he was probably used to receiving special treatment at her hotels, too. However, Gaara suspected that they hadn't seen each other in a long time, or else his picture would have made the papers with hers, along with some caption like Tennyson Socialite off the Market?

"Well," Neji said after ordering a complex coffee from a waitress. "Tenten didn't tell me much, just that I was to work with her fiancé to put together a March wedding. I'm thrilled at the opportunity, of course. This is a big deal, obviously, considering who you both are. To start with, let me offer my –"

"Don't say congratulations," Gaara interrupted.

Neji's professional expression slipped a bit. "I'm sorry?"

"If I'm going to be a part of this, I won't do it under false pretences. There's no point pretending this wedding is anything other than a political manoeuvre."

Gaara didn't know if it was wise to be so blunt, or if Tenten was intending to let all her friends believe this was a real marriage, but it felt good to vent the truth. He wasn't allowed to do that often. Studying Neji's reaction, it seemed that the other man was being honest when he said he didn't know much: his brow was creased with the smallest of frowns, like he was experiencing something new and puzzling, but was well-trained in not revealing unwelcome emotions.

"I… appreciate your candour," he said. "Although it puts me in an unusual position. Is there something I can do to make my service more – ah – appropriate for what you're after in a wedding?"

"I don't care," Gaara replied steadily. "I'm sure I should be telling you to make it a huge, public spectacle, but I really don't care at all. Do whatever you want."

He was being deliberately hostile, and perhaps Neji didn't deserve it, but then he was a wedding planner. Right now he represented everything wrong in Gaara's world.

Unexpectedly, Neji laughed. There was both something pleasant and unpleasant about hearing that laugh: it was a cool, refreshing sound, cutting through his polished professionalism like a sudden breeze – having spent all of his adulthood around rich sycophants, Gaara was an expert at spotting a fake laugh and he knew without a doubt that this wasn't one – but that being said, it wasn't a very likeable sound. It made Gaara think of a movie villain being caught out in the final stage of his plot.

"All right," Neji said after regaining his composure. "I get it. I suppose with Tenten being involved, I shouldn't have expected anything to proceed normally. And I suspect it's been some time since you yourself were associated with the word 'normal'."

Was it an insult? Gaara couldn't be sure, so he said nothing.

"If you really prefer, I can organise most of the wedding details without consulting you very often," Neji continued.

"Must you consult me at all?"

"Please, humour me. Not meaning to blow my own horn, but I'm ranked in the top three co-ordinators in the country, and that usually means that my clients have an acute interest in every last, precise detail of their weddings, otherwise they wouldn't waste their money. That's the simple logistics of it. Does that make sense to you? From a professional standpoint, ordinarily I'd be a laughing stock for attempting to seize total control."

Gaara scowled, not liking Neji and his business buzz words at all. Professional standpoint… simple logistics… politicians like his father used words like those when they wanted to mask their own ineptitude and lack of understanding. To hear the same verbosity from the mouth of someone as inconsequential as a wedding planner made it even more meaningless.

Their drinks arrived, although neither of them made a move to take a sip. Neji just sat there with his expression of patronising amusement.

"What?" Gaara snapped when it became too much.

"I'm wondering what colour scheme you'd enjoy."

"Excuse me?"

"Don't get worked up. I apologise; this is my job, so it's inevitable that I'm going to have it on my mind."

"Well, the only reason I came here was to let you know I'm not interested in any of this wedding mess, so you don't have to say anything else on the subject." He knew he was being rude, but it didn't bother him under the circumstances.

Neji bowed his head apologetically. "Of course. The customer comes first." He lifted up his mug of coffee, and as he drank from it, his upper lip curled with revulsion as if the barista had gotten his order wrong. In a five-star hotel like Tennyson Towers, such a mistake would be unthinkable, but Gaara had the sneaking suspicion that Neji would get offended if a single grain of sugar too many had been added to the coffee. If he tried to complain about something so trivial, Gaara would throw him out himself.

He didn't, though. They both drank in silence for a minute, Gaara finishing his Chinese white tea a little faster than usual in the hopes that without anything further to discuss, they could leave. He found himself wishing that Neji would snap out of his oily, businessman persona again; at least his villainous laugh was honest.

Looking into the other's mug, Gaara was disgruntled to see he'd hardly drunk a quarter of his beverage. This could drag on for hours.

"How's your head?" Neji asked pleasantly.

"My head?"

"You know, after your little accident downstairs."

Oh, of course. How could Gaara have allowed himself to forget so easily? If there was any reason to avoid being rude to someone, it was that they had seen him make an idiot of himself. Feeling heat rush to his cheeks, he changed the subject. "Why exactly would someone like you want to be a wedding planner?"

Neji arched an eyebrow. "That doesn't count as talking about weddings?"

"I'll allow it this time."

"I won't make the mistake of asking after your health again, then. All right: I co-ordinate weddings because I'm extremely good at it. The money is good and it's a market that is only on the rise."

"The same could be said about many careers," Gaara retorted.

"True," Neji admitted, sipping his coffee once more, still taking his time. "I've also had prior experience with wedding organisation, of course. That was how I learned all the intricate details involved in the work."

"Did you get married yourself?"

"No."

"Are you gay?"

Unexpectedly, Neji coloured. "I don't see how that's relevant."

"It could be." Gaara didn't care about Neji's sexuality one way or the other; to him, the question had been the natural one to ask as the conversation progressed and wasn't meant to imply any criticism. It appeared to offend Neji, though, so he decided to press the issue. "You don't have to answer, of course, but you can't deny there's a correlation between men being gay and working in… festive occupations."

Yes, that had well and truly pissed the wedding planner off. He was fully unmasked again, poise gone, uncovering an expression that said he wanted to spit in Gaara's face or worse. Why on earth was this such a sore point for him?

Through thin lips, Neji answered, "There's a big difference between things with which you are born and things you choose. As a matter of fact, I am gay. But it certainly isn't a choice and doesn't even slightly relate to any of my professional choices. There are billions of people of all orientations who couldn't do what I do, and gay men have no inherent advantage."

"This sounds like a cause of yours," Gaara said shrewdly.

"Not a cause. Just a personal hate."

"Do your clients discuss your sexuality often?"

"No, that in itself isn't the issue. I… " Neji stopped, as if catching himself before he revealed too much, but then after a moment he continued. "I just have a problem with people assuming I was born into any role. No matter how good a co-ordinator I am, if I didn't want to pursue it, I wouldn't have. I'm sure you can relate to that in some way. Did you honestly have no choice at all about this marriage?"

Gaara considered, and shrugged noncommittally. It seemed a fair comparison: he was being forced to get married, true, but there was every chance that if either he or Tenten had protested violently enough they might have escaped. He wondered now what bearing this had on Neji and his career. Perhaps some older relative had nudged him towards wedding planning and it was only reluctantly that he liked it at first. Perhaps now his whole family assumed they controlled his decisions, and he resented that.

"I suppose I can empathise," Gaara said.

Another sip of coffee. "Are you gay?" Neji questioned.

"No."

Yes. But he didn't have to share everything.

"Of course. You're not in a festive occupation, so how could you be?"

"Is this your way of telling me to apologise for using that stereotype? Because I won't."

"Why?"

"Because it wiped the infuriating smirk off your face."

Neji blinked, looking genuinely surprised. Behind his eyes, the synapses in his brain were firing wildly to understand and interpret what Gaara said, like he really didn't anticipate ever hearing such a thing. Tentatively he picked up his coffee mug, studied it, then put it straight back down again. "I don't smirk," he said – suspiciously, like he thought Gaara was deliberately lying.

"Yes, you do."

"I may approach clients with a very formal outlook –"

"You smirk," Gaara reiterated. "And I didn't appreciate it. As your client, if we ever have to meet again, I advise you to remain more like you are right now. Less pretentious."

"Pretentious," Neji repeated. He still seemed disbelieving. "You think I'm pretentious."

"I imagine everyone thinks the same and just keeps it to themselves. They probably think it would be rude to complain about it."

Unreadable for a second, Neji's face cracked into a faint smile. A real one. "Or all of the people I know are equally as pretentious and don't notice it."

"That's also possible." Gaara didn't quite smile back, but he did all of a sudden feel a bit less hostility towards Neji, like this was a humble admission of fault. By criticising others like himself, Neji was giving the impression that his tailored suit, silk tie, slick hair and even slicker attitude were nothing but a tawdry costume for playing pretend, and not at all part of his real persona.

What would Neji look like, Gaara wondered while shifting about in his seat, if he wasn't here in an official capacity? The life of a wedding planner must have left plenty of casual time, so he surely wore casual clothes. Maybe he was a jumper-and-track-pants kind of person. He might have worn sandals. He almost certainly would have let his hair out of its strict ponytail. Gaara enjoyed the idea of informal clothing; being in the public eye so much, he himself was barely allowed out without a tie, lest it embarrass his father. He occasionally envied his brother, far away without any care for this political nonsense, probably barefoot with a wife-beater singlet in the streets somewhere, but there could only be one eccentric in every power family. The other relatives had to be twice as ordinary to compensate.

"You know," Neji remarked, "you don't give off the fondest first impression, either. I've noticed from magazines that you don't talk to reporters very often, but I hardly imagined a President's son could get away with being so surly."

This managed to make Gaara chuckle. Insults didn't bother him – he wasn't exactly a prize with the media – but he knew from the tone of Neji's voice that the other man needed payback after the smirking comment. So, with some amusement, he allowed it.

Fine," he said. "If for some ridiculous reason, some great emergency, we happen to have drinks again, I'll be less surly."

"And I won't be pretentious."

"Good."

"Although… "

"What now?" That had seemed like such a perfect point to finish up, shake hands and never see each other again in their lives. Neji had even finally finished his drink.

"It's probably nothing, but I can't help wondering all the same." Neji coolly tilted on his chair like a rebellious schoolkid. He was studying Gaara's face intently, maintaining eye contact with the ease of a formidable expert at social games. "It breaks your rules, but I have to ask: if I were more casual about it, would it really be so terrible to discuss the wedding?"

Gaara's chest felt a little bit tighter, as it always did when he remembered that he was expected to get married in a few months. "Yes. I don't want to think about it."

Shrugging, Neji said, "If you're sure. It's a shame, really. Most people look forward to their weddings and enjoy the planning process, even the grooms, nowadays."

"I can't imagine I fit any portrait of a normal groom," Gaara replied.

Neji considered. "No," he said finally. "You certainly don't."

They stopped the conversation briefly as their waitress approached the table and asked if they required anything further. Thankfully, Neji declined, so the young woman bustled away with their used cups, leaving a receipt even though she chirped, "On the house, of course, Mr Sabaku. Happy to have you." After she left, the two men sat in silence for a while, readying themselves for the goodbye formalities that were coming.

"Well, I suppose we've said everything that needs to be said," commented Neji, starting things off.

"I suppose so."

"Then I'll next see you… on the forbidden day of reckoning. March the thirtieth, isn't it?"

"Something like that," Gaara said. "I'm not keeping it appointed to memory."

"Any idea where you want to have it all?" Neji asked casually.

Gaara narrowed his eyes and pushed his chair out to leave. It squealed loudly against the polished floor, but he ignored the sharp looks he received for it. "That sounds like planning to me."

"Ah well, I had to try." Neji grinned and stood up as well. "Come on, think about it. If you can bring yourself to answer, I'll never bother you again."

He just wouldn't stop pushing the issue, would he? But perhaps because Gaara had exhausted all his argumentative reserves, he didn't walk away yet. For a fleeting second a ghost of an image ran through his head, of a gaudy hotel ballroom covered in white, with a mess of coloured ribbon and tinsel decorating the walls. It made his stomach turn. For him, that image was less a wedding than a nightmare.

"All right," he said, causing Neji's face to light up with interest. "I have something. Whatever location you book, don't let it be a hotel. Especially Tennyson Towers. I don't want that."

Neji nodded, moving slightly back into business mode. "Understood."

This time they did shake hands. Walking back towards the elevator along with a handful of diners who had just paid their bills, Gaara felt less tense and agitated about his morning. He adjusted his collar, loosening it while still keeping it presentable, and he noticed that Neji was mirroring his actions. It wasn't quite jumper-and-track-pants, but it was a start.

"Just for the record," Neji said quietly when they stepped into the elevator, "I'm glad you said no hotels. If I'm going to be organising this without any input from you, I need a strong sense of who you are and what you and Tenten will like. Now, I know Tenten, but you? You're difficult to read, but I expected you wouldn't like something as standard as a hotel, or as obvious as Tennyson Towers. I'm pleased that I was right."

The doors opened at the ground floor and Neji and Gaara alighted, walking with synchronised steps to the exit. Neji rather teasingly watched Gaara head through the revolving door but wisely said nothing about it.

Just as they were about to separate for good, Gaara had one last question. "What was it that told you I wouldn't be the sort to like hotels?"

"An educated guess." Neji's mouth remained straight and polite, but there was an amused smile pulling at the corners of his eyes. "I simply thought about what I would want in a wedding."

Perhaps foolishly, Gaara did think he was leaving this encounter behind him and would never hear from Neji again.