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“Once I’m discharged, we’re going on a date.”
Even through the haze of the painkillers, Neji was cognizant enough to appreciate the way Tenten’s jaw dropped at his pronouncement. It was a decidedly unflattering look for her, especially at this angle, but it was charming nevertheless.
Tenten being Tenten, of course, recovered quickly, snapping her teeth together with a distinctive click. She scowled down at him, in a way that strongly reminded him of how she used to look at Gai and Lee, when they were getting started as a team, like they were playing some impressive practical joke she could not entirely grasp. It was a look that, paradoxically, never failed to lift his spirits.
“Well?” he prodded.
“You hate dates,” she pointed out, rather than answering him directly. Though her eyes were still on him, her hands resumed their work cracking pistachios, depositing the shells into a small bowl that she placed on his bedside table. “You like appointments and engagements. Not dates.”
“Then let’s get engaged. It would save us time.”
Her mouth softened into an upwards curve, gently wry. That was good. “I should ask Sakura if she’s changed your medication.”
Neji looked up at the ceiling, suddenly feeling a little foolish.
“I take it you don’t want to get engaged then?”
He can imagine her shaking her head. “Not when you’re half-dead in a hospital bed. Very unappealing.”
“Those novels you used to sneak on missions would tell me otherwise.”
Tenten gasped in mock horror and flicked a few empty shells into his face; they bounced harmlessly off his forehead. Neji rolled his eyes at her, as moving anything below the neck was still guaranteed to hurt like a bitch.
“Well, if you don’t want to get engaged, do you have any objections to a date?” He asked, when her snickering subsided.
The corners of Tenten’s eyes crinkled as she smiled. “Of course not.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“It’s just unlike you,” she said simply, rising and leaning across him to scoop up the shells scattered on his bedspread. The light from the open window dappled across her; she turned her face from the glare, but it still reflected through her eyes, turning the brown of her irises warm and textured.
“How?” he asked, as she withdrew back to her seat, safely out of the sun.
She shrugged, but he could see that she was not entirely at ease. Her arms and legs were both crossed, and she seemed to have folded in on herself. He felt a flash of anxiety at the pose, but restrained himself from asking what was wrong; she would tell him. She was just looking for her words.
“We’ve never been on a date before,” she said at last. “We would probably be terrible at it.”
She didn’t ask: why now?
Neji supposed it was obvious, considering the context. If he had been whole and walking around after the war, the way she was, dating would not have crossed his mind. Not the way people normally dated, at least.
Still, that was why he was asking, because a date was obvious. Because a date would make this undercurrent between them official, at least in some form.
Their conclusion would have been the same regardless of whether she said yes, of that he was certain.
It was just, well.
He wanted her to say yes.
And if he had to say that she wanted her to say yes, then it would never work.
“Of course we will be terrible. All the more reason to get it out of the way now.” Is what he said instead. Then, because he couldn’t stop there, added, “Before we get engaged and can’t back out of it.”
Tenten just stared at him, even more baffled than before, though her mouth wasn’t hanging open.
Perhaps he should ask Sakura about the ingredients in the dosages she kept administering to him.
For a horrible moment, the silence stretched on.
But Tenten laughed, clear as a bell, and Neji breathed again.
“It’s a good thing you never asked me out before,” she said, amused. “I wouldn’t have been able to take you seriously.”
Neji found the strength to raise an eyebrow at her. “And only now you can? When I’m–”
“Wrapped like a mummy and high on painkillers? Yep.”
But there was a flush on her face, and when she leaned over his bed again, sunlight again reflecting through her eyes until he couldn’t see beyond them, Neji felt relief and, strangely, gratitude. For Tenten’s steadiness. For the taste of pistachios.
For life.