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The coffee shop was full of people, but not so full that anything happening inside of it could get lost in the crowd.
"That's it? You're not going to say anything?" she said.
Neji stayed silent, quietly focusing on everything else except the woman in front of him. There wasn't much attention on them right now, potentially not enough. He took a sip of his drink.
"I can't believe you."
"No, I think you should," he finally said.
With that cue established, she took the small glass of water in front of her and poured it over his head. It was cold and a chunk of ice managed to lodge itself in his shirt. The wince at that was very real.
"I'm done."
The coffee shop went almost silent for a few seconds.
Not saying anything else, she left.
Yukako had done a good job making it very visible, even if the water part wasn't part of the plan.
The 'breakup' hadn't been part of the plan at all either, for that matter, but circumstances and intel had changed and she was no longer a good fit for their mission. She was being reassigned and a new partner would be sent to him soon.
Neji gathered his things, still dripping, and left the coffee shop. Outside, he gave his hair a careful squeeze to get some of the water out. It was going to be a soggy enough walk back to his building as it was.
Before he could get going, one of the targets caught his attention.
"Hey! Kouya! Are you alright?" Kanata went.
Kanata was a rising mixed media artist, and as a result was a person of interest for the mission goals. He was also one of the friendlier fallback options.
"I'm fine," Neji answered, looking away slightly. "We just had a little disagreement."
Kanata let out a short laugh. "Little? You had everyone staring at you after she dumped that water on you!"
"Did we?" Neji let himself relax internally, even as he frowned. That was exactly what he wanted. "I guess there's no point in pretending. She's leaving me."
The other man shook his head, full of sympathy. "If you want a distraction, a few of us are going to a gallery opening tonight. Word is the owner is looking for some new artists and might even pay for some commissions. You might as well give it a shot even if you'll be working without a dedicated model for a while, but that's why you're not supposed to mix business and pleasure that much, you know?"
"It couldn't hurt," Neji answered.
It was exactly the opening they had been looking for.
Tenten finished up her training with a sigh, picking up and sealing away the weapons she had used. It had been a good practice to brush up on some of the tools she had not used recently, but training alone was just another reminder of how much everything had changed in the last year.
Both she and Lee had made jōnin after the war, but Gai-sensei's injuries had meant that her genin team had been officially disbanded. That part of her life was now over, whether she wanted it or not. It was now her turn to gain experience on missions and prepare to eventually lead the next generation of shinobi who would replace her.
It would not have been quite so great a life change, though, if Neji had been there to celebrate and commiserate with her and Lee, but after he was discharged from the hospital, he had thrown himself into his training with a ferocity she hadn't seen since after their first attempt at the chūnin exams, keeping himself too busy to meet with them, and then, as far as she could tell, had thrown himself into mission after mission the moment he had been cleared for full duty once more. Lee had seen him more than her, but not by much.
The last time he had been in the village, as far as she could tell, was almost five months ago, and from how Hinata had put it, it had only been long enough for him to turn in his mission report to the Hokage, do his laundry and replenish his gear, sleep, and then leave again the next morning on a new mission, and she didn't know when he would be back.
The only consolation she had was that Hinata was worried about Neji too, but Gai-sensei didn't seem to be that bothered when she and Lee had brought up their concerns to him, just telling them that Neji was on a mission; he had checked with Kakashi. That was an oddity in and of itself, that her sensei had to go out of his way to find out what one of his students was up to.
She didn't have any more time to wonder about the state of her old team because just as she picked up the last spear, a messenger bird flew down, dropping off a thin scroll for her.
The Hokage had a mission for her and she was to report to the Hokage office as soon as possible.
She quickly sped up sealing everything up, did one last check to make sure she had left nothing behind, and then started on her way to the administration building.
The walk there was just another reminder of how much things had changed; all of the villages had suffered serious casualties in the war, which was one thing, but Konoha was going through a surge of construction and growth, with civilians moving in as things were built, and she had heard someone mention that despite all the losses, the overall population had grown and it wasn't expected to slow down anytime soon.
Everything around Tenten was changing.
Once she made it to the administration building, she headed for the Hokage's office, politely knocking on the closed door.
It wasn't long until the door opened, and Kakashi-sensei let her in.
"Ah, Tenten, good timing," he went.
As far as Tenten could tell, the good timing had to do with the sheer quantity of stacks of papers, bound documents, and scrolls that were surrounding Tsunade-sama's desk, and she fervently hoped that her summons didn't have to do anything with paperwork. She was still too young to get desked and made to handle administrative work, or at least she hoped.
Kakashi-sensei was supposed to be replacing Tsunade-sama as the next Hokage, but things had been so busy that she was mostly sure that was why it hadn't happened yet, but there had been no mention of a date being set for him to take over. With how much paperwork there was in the Hokage office right now, she almost wondered if it was because Kakashi-sensei was trying to delay it.
She walked in, trying to avoid toppling any of the stacks. "You summoned me, Hokage-sama?"
"Yes," Tsunade-sama went, pausing for a moment as she flipped through whatever paperwork she was looking for. She settled on a thin folder before opening it, double checking it, and closing it. "I have a mission for you." The folder was held out to her.
Tenten took it, opening the folder. The text on the first page was more dense than she expected.
"There's an undercover operation currently going on in the capital," Tsunade-sama began. "Since the war, one of the noble clans under the daimyō started to skyrocket in wealth and influence, and it isn't clear where the money is coming from. The government hasn't been able to find conclusive evidence yet, but the daimyō's council is concerned it's connected to the international upsurge in illegal goods and human trafficking and asked us a few months ago to investigate it and stop it before it becomes a worse problem than it already is. It's important that we get to the bottom of this. You will be joining another jōnin who is already on the mission."
"If it's international, why is it so crucial for us to handle this first?" Tenten asked. "Shouldn't we be working together? I've already done a few border missions with foreign shinobi."
"While we aren't the only ones having this problem," Kakashi said, picking up a stapled report from one end of the desk. "All of the intelligence that's been collected so far indicates that Fire is the hub of these operations. There are other units working with some of the other villages, but that will only go so far if we don't shut it down soon."
"Alright, but… I've never done any mission like this," Tenten said. "If this is supposed to be some sort of mission where I'm supposed to seduce some old man or something, I'm not sure I'll be very good at it."
Tsunade-sama sighed. "There won't be any seducing of dirty old men or anything like that. I'm never going to assign anyone to that kind of mission without them being cleared for it and in that specialty to begin with and the noble under investigation is too paranoid for that to work. The previous operative you'll be replacing wasn't able to make contact the way we hoped."
That still didn't sound very reassuring.
"Gai's told me plenty of times what he thinks you're capable of," Kakashi-sensei told her, and Tenten immediately straightened up a little. "He's always been very impressed by your ability to stay calm under pressure as well as your observation skills, along with your taijutsu and bukijutsu. The jōnin you'll be working with requested to be paired with a kunoichi in your age range who can think quickly and is skilled enough to fight in close quarters, since at this point he believes he'll be able to get in to make the confirmation, but he wants someone who is skilled at combat, since if this is the man we're after, it's likely going to end up being a fight instead of a clean assassination."
While she was capable of it, Tenten didn't actually like fighting at close quarters.
Shinobi were allowed to turn down missions, but Tsunade-sama had requested her directly, and Tenten wasn't sure she wanted to outright refuse. She decided to go with honesty instead.
"I feel very honored that I was considered for this, but I'm not sure I'm a good fit for this mission," she admitted. "If it has to be a kunoichi around my age who'd be able to fight in close range, I think Hinata would be a better fit, for example."
"Ah, I don't think she would be an appropriate choice," Kakashi said.
Before Tenten could even start to think about what that was supposed to mean, Tsunade spoke up, sounding annoyed. "Stop trying to convince the jōnin, Kakashi. They either take the mission or don't." Her voice softened slightly, but remained firm. "Take the file home with you and look over the details. As important as this mission is, I don't need an answer right now. I will expect one tonight, though. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Tsunade-sama," Tenten went.
"Then you're dismissed."
Tenten walked home to her apartment, only stopping to grab dinner on the way.
Once she got there, she slipped off her sandals and went to sit on her couch, letting out a sigh as she let her hair out of its buns.
She had gotten her apartment a little after making jōnin; she could have stayed with her family, but the thought of having her own place, that she could make her own and host others had thrilled her. She had picked out a cute dining table set and a cozy couch with a matching armchair for furniture, and had even set up a display case and hangings against one wall, where the Bashōsen, Kōkinjō, Benihisago and Kohaku no Jōhei were all displayed, with the Bashōsen taking up the center of the wall.
Both Lee and Gai-sensei had visited her apartment, and had even given her housewarming gifts, but Neji had never had the chance to stop by.
She flipped the folder open and started to read the file. It wasn't any less dense than it had been from the glance in the Hokage's office.
The formatting was a little different than she was used to, and she could only assume that it had to do with the fact that it was compiled from so many different sources, but soon enough she had a very good idea of what the mission was supposed to be.
The target was the Hine clan and its current head, Hironobu, who like many of the nobles in the capital worked as an official in one of the civilian government departments. The Hine clan was small and relatively unimportant, having long dwindled or branched away from whatever important ancestor or senior clan had resulted in its nobility to begin with. The clan's formerly modest assets had suddenly started to balloon almost immediately after the war, with Hironobu quickly gathering attention by starting his own art galleries and beginning to sponsor artists and shows. It had made him the new star of not just noble society, but the arts community in the capital as well.
The government's own investigations had not successfully made any connections between Hironobu and any illegal activities, but it had made it clear that the money making its way into the Hine clan's accounts were almost impossible to trace, which was abnormal and a red flag on its own, and only more so when it was paired with the fact that Hironobu had started to keep a platoon of mercenaries and shinobi from various minor villages as full-time guards. Most nobility could only afford one or two shinobi at a time, and even the daimyō only kept a couple dozen or so on hand.
Because of Hironobu's interest in the arts, the jōnin undercover was pretending to be an artist, doing his best to build connections within the community to gain access. If Tenten accepted, she would be posing— literally— as the jōnin's model and plus one for any invitations. The pay was…
Tenten sat up, leaning against the back of the couch and looked at the four treasures.
If she took the mission, she'd be easily able to afford taking the time off to find the fifth. Shichiseiken was the only one that had eluded her. There were a lot of things she could do with that kind of money.
The overly nice vase stuffed with beautiful flowers that Gai-sensei had given her as a housewarming gift suddenly made much more sense now.
When the messenger hawk arrived as she was eating dinner, Tenten sent her affirmative reply.
Neji let out a sigh as he dropped onto his apartment's couch, letting himself flop backwards as he closed his eyes.
The biggest downside to this mission was finding out that artists— or at least the ones who were trying to be successful and get attention to make sales as a living— were extroverts, or at least very good at pretending to be extroverts. That, and all of the cultural references that would start flying at a moment's notice. Other artists, popular and obscure. This singer. That musician. That play. This musical from Lightning. That song from this musical that was twenty-five years old, in another language, and made Neji's head hurt because he couldn't identify how there was any appreciable difference between the originating actor and one of the later ones who was also in some overseas pop band that Neji also had never heard of but was supposed to be popular.
He wasn't sure if all of it was because they were artists, younger civilians in the city, or some other third thing that was never going to occur to him.
Kanata had become very invested in and concerned for 'Kouya''s mental health after the very public breakup with Yukako, and while it had become the break into the up and coming community of artists he had been hoping for and was leading to the connections he needed for the mission, the events and shows, social gatherings and everything in between felt almost nonstop since they were no longer only coming from Kanata.
It was enough that it was starting to cut into the time for the conditioning exercises he did to make sure he didn't get too out of shape, but Yukako had been firm in telling him that if it came down to it, personal training was the first thing to cut and not anything associated with the cover identity. Medium to long term undercover missions prioritized blending in and in nearly all cases, the element of surprise and being undetected were far more than adequate to outweigh getting out of shape or out of practice.
It was why he had requested a replacement.
That request had been sent before the breakup had been staged, to give Konoha enough time to select someone and have her establish her own cover. At this point, it had been long enough that he had been waiting with anticipation for the last few days.
As if on cue, the modified mobile phone he was sending updates through buzzed for a long time, alerting him to new messages.
He did not shoot up to go get it and check, instead taking his time to slowly sit up, stretch, and go grab it from its spot on the cabinet the art supplies were stored in.
Neji didn't really like the phone, but apparently this had started to become the standard for infiltration and undercover missions like this a couple years ago; since it was capable of sending and receiving encrypted messages, it was far more discreet for relaying messages and order changes instead of the older methods when it was information only.
It was a ugly, boring gray rectangle with a stubby antenna that could be pulled out. Its appearance was supposed to be deceiving. The external parts were for a normal mobile that had become popular, but the internal parts were for a satellite phone, though it could connect to the civilian cellular network if necessary. It was ugly, and expensive twice over: first for it having satellite capabilities to begin with and second for actually using it in any capacity. Even with jōnin pay, Neji would barely be able to afford one if he had somehow wanted one. As it was, it was too expensive for his cover to be expected to have even a basic one, so it stayed in the apartment.
The dim tiny screen showed there were two messages for him after he unlocked it with the phone's password. The Intelligence unit in the capital occasionally sent him updates, and these were probably one of them.
| MSG: Contact established.
There was nothing else.
Understood, he tapped back and sent.
Which meant the other message was…
| MSG: Hello?
Hello, he responded.
Tenten waved goodbye to the others as she split off to head down her street, only slowing down once she reached the building door, unlocking it and making her way further inside to the room she was letting, where she dropped down onto the bed, after pulling out the hidden mobile phone.
The last few weeks had been overwhelming, filled with new things at almost every other moment and way she turned.
After accepting the mission, Tenten had been sent right over to Intelligence, where the team in charge of handling undercover missions like the one she was going on had given her a quick rundown on what to do and how while they prepared forged documents.
While lying and making up a completely different persona might seem obvious, they actively advised against it; it made it difficult to keep track of everything and could just be a setup for misery depending on what the lies were. Keeping things vague and implied was better. As far as everything in the capital went, Konohagakure was rural, since it was out of the way and rarely up to date with anything, so saying she was from a rural town would be more than enough.
To make it easier, she was also recommended to go with a name similar to hers, whether it shared the same meaning, beginning, or was similar. Something that would be easy to remember and wouldn't trip her up in listening for it or writing it down.
Tenten had picked Atsuka; she felt like going with something with 'Ten' in it directly was just going to wind up with her forgetting somehow.
From there, she had gone through a solid battery of tests to identify any transferable skills she had, was told she'd be best off saying her work experience was in sales and working with customers, and then had been outfitted with a few outfits that consisted of completely new-to-her clothes and even shoes. The outfits were all secondhand, purchased elsewhere, and ranged a little in age, and she was told to pick out more once she got to the capital. She had to fight off the suggestion that she get a haircut to do her hair in a different style entirely, reluctantly agreeing to leave it down.
She had been sent off to the capital afterwards, with her head still spinning and carrying a bag that was uncomfortably empty of weapons. Once she had established herself in the capital, she was told to make contact with the Intelligence unit there, who would put her in contact with her new partner.
Establishing herself had been surprisingly easier than she expected; she had found an elderly couple who rented out single rooms and her application there had been accepted without issue, and had wound up getting hired at a clothing shop where she made fast friends with the other girls who worked there, soon reaching the point where she was being invited on outings with them.
It had given her enough time to get acquainted with the city, which was so different from Konoha and everywhere else she had ever been, and once she felt satisfied with her general knowledge, she had finally made contact with them, and in turn they had given her the contact information and goahead to get in contact with the other jōnin.
They had spent the last week and a half getting a feel for each other through the text messages. He was an experienced jōnin, unlike her, but was a combat specialist, just like Tenten was.
Because the arts community that he was trying to get Hironobu's attention through thrived on drama, his suggestion for their first meeting was to get attention from the regulars at the cafe the social group he had entered usually hung around at. The resulting gossip would help him be further noticed, which they both agreed was amusing; usually, that was something to be avoided.
The comradery she was developing with him was promising and she hoped it would be the same in person; it was always so much easier to work with someone you could make a good connection with and the last several months of taking missions with strangers had proven that to her.
The latest text message on the phone confirmed that he was fine with the time she would enter the cafe tomorrow and the signs he would look out for.
Tenten felt more than ready to meet him and was looking forward to it.
The next day, she found herself agonizing over what to wear even though she had already laid out an outfit, and ended up swapping it out twice before she stopped herself from doing it any further, taking just a little more time than usual to do her makeup and make sure her hair was brushed out smoothly. Back in the village, it wasn't something she usually did except on special occasions, but here it was just another difference in that it was somewhat expected. At this point, she was almost starting to get used to leaving her hair loose and doing her makeup everyday.
Today, it was almost a little more important, since they wanted to get attention, and a little extra care for her looks would help.
After giving herself one last lookover in the mirror, she left, heading for the cafe.
Everything was going to go fine. While Tenten didn't think acting was something she was very good at, all she had to do was go in there, order a drink, and comment on a painting of wildflowers on the wall. He would bump into her, she would 'accidentally' start to stumble, he would apologize after catching her and they would start talking. It didn't need to be too much, it just needed to look romantic from the outside to people who were already taken to being imaginative, he had told her.
If it was anything like the messages they had been exchanging up to this point, it would be easy.
It was a refreshing late autumn morning, and Tenten tried to make herself enjoy the weather and the walk, since it was either that or start getting nervous.
Despite trying to avoid it, she found herself feeling more and more nervous once she reached the street the cafe was on, mentally reviewing everything from the messages as the cafe's storefront came into sight.
The cafe was on the ground floor of one of the many medium-height buildings that were in this area, a cheery red brick structure. Even from where she was, she could see that the cafe's windows were filled with colorful painted flowers behind the sets of small tables with chairs that were on the outside sidewalk, people sitting with drinks and food, enjoying the outside as they talked. There was a sidewalk chalkboard promising weekly specials with more illustrated flourishes in pastel chalk.
It was cheery, but very different from any of the cafes in Konoha, at least for now; there was already construction putting up similar buildings in the village, beginning to replace the ones initially put up after the initial rushed round of reconstruction before the war.
She inhaled a deep breath as she got to the door.
All she had to do was go in.
Neji was slowly losing his mind.
He had found out the hard way during his hospital stay that he hated being stuck in bed, but the experience had unlocked something he didn't like; despite never having issues with it before, after he was discharged he had found himself unable to stay still in one spot for too long, after being unable to move. Even Lee, who could barely keep himself still, was more sedate than Neji was after the war.
His newfound restlessness reminded him of Naruto.
Normally he was able to ignore it by keeping his hands occupied or finding something to do, but with each time the cafe door had opened he was finding it harder and harder to not twist around in his original seat at the windowside counter, until finally he had forced himself, not even fifteen minutes after his own arrival, to move to the sets of armchairs that were further away from the front, since that was what was available, where he wouldn't be able to hear the door open under the sound of the music playing on the speakers, but would be in range of the painting he had suggested the other jōnin to comment on.
It did mean that he wouldn't get a good look at her right away, but that was a sacrifice he was willing to make.
Some of Kanata's artist friends were at a table nearby, talking about prints for something, which probably meant that Kanata himself would eventually show up; that was a bonus, since the other man liked to gossip. They had said hello and he had spoken to them a bit, before leaving them to talk about whatever it was they were discussing, since from what he could tell they were talking about preparing for sales at some market or another. Under normal circumstances they would have dragged him in, but they were clearly focused on their planning.
The restlessness probably wasn't helped by how much coffee he had drunk since arriving.
However much he wanted to pace, that would both look off to everyone here that thought they were familiar with him and it would be unprofessional as a jōnin on a mission.
It was also impossible to expect someone to show up exactly on the minute and order at exactly that time, especially someplace like this, where there was steady enough regulars between the art crowd that hung out here and all the other locals who would stop by for something to take with them on the way to work or to enjoy at the nearby park.
He wound up finishing his current cup of coffee, which left him without anything to do.
Neji gave up, standing up. He took the empty mug to the spot for dirty dishes and got into the thankfully short line at the counter. All that mattered was that he was inside, so it was fine.
This time, though, he would probably get something with a little less caffeine, along with something to eat.
It had turned out to be just in time, since the door opened a few times and he could tell a line was beginning to form behind him.
Hopefully his new mission partner was one of them, but there was no point in turning to look.
The door opened again, just as he finished paying.
"Hey, Kouya! Help me with this, will you?" Kanata's voice. It was slightly muffled.
Neji resisted sighing— he couldn't afford to get too caught up in whatever Kanata wanted help with, even if he was a useful asset— and turned around.
Tenten was standing a few people behind him, right by the door.
Tenten stared at Neji in shock, taking an unintended step backwards just as the corner of something bumped forward, right into the small of her back. She spun around, unable to help that reaction.
Whatever it was, the person holding it didn't have a good grip on it and the move sent what turned out to be a very full and large cardboard box dropping to the floor, with hundreds of printed illustrations spilling out, a variety of sizes.
The man whose box it turned out to be dropped to the floor, scrambling to try and pick everything up. "Oh no…"
However she was imagining this was going to turn out, it was absolutely not like this. The situation was spiraling out of control.
Because it was her fault, even if it was by accident, Tenten dropped down to the floor to help.
She accidentally set her hand on a print at the same time as another, fingertips brushing, one that Tenten was intimately familiar and recognized after years of training and missions together. It was just a little different, because since the last time she had trained with him at all, his hands had not just lost many of their calluses from constant training and combat, but were completely absent of any of the little nicks or scratches that just came from their line of work. Neji's nails were carefully trimmed and clean, with none of the specks of dirt that sometimes wedged in.
She looked up and found him staring at her.
The biggest source of her initial surprise was just that— his eyes. She could see what he was actually looking at for the first time, because he was— or at least, he had to be, henge wasn't suitable for this kind of mission for most people— wearing contacts, with a light blue color that made it clear he was looking right at her. With his hair pulled into a loose bun and in clothes that weren't anything like he usually wore, the only thing almost familiar was that he was wearing a cloth band around his forehead to hide his seal.
Tenten yanked her hand back, along with the print, which she helped stack on top of the others like it.
"I'm really sorry," she told the other man, deciding to do her best to salvage something about the situation. She really did feel bad about backing into him and the box falling.
"That was my fault," he answered. "I didn't have a good grip on the box, and it didn't help that it was blocking my vision since I moved it so I could open the door easily."
"I didn't realize I was so close to the door," Tenten lied. "I was trying to get a good look inside my purse."
Neji said nothing and she didn't want to look up at him in case he was still looking at her.
Soon enough, everything was back in the now slightly crumpled box, with surprisingly few damaged prints.
"Let me help you with the box," Tenten offered, still feeling guilty over it. She started to stand up, getting into a position to pick it up. "You must have been bringing it in for some reason, after all. With two people there won't be any issue, right?"
Neji stared at her, already reaching for the box as well. "He was asking me for help with it when he came in. There's no reason for a pretty young lady to have to pick up something so heavy."
Tenten stared back at him, doing her best to resist saying anything rude. "Thank you, but I'm very aware of my own strength. I'm not that delicate that I can't help with a box of paper."
They were still in the middle of glaring kunai at each other when Neji's friend spoke up.
"Uh… I can pick it up myself," he went.
"No, I can help—" "—It's my fault to begin with, let me help."
Their words interrupted each other, leaving them glaring at each other once more.
"We can do it together," Neji finally said, eyes staying focused on Tenten's own.
"That's fine with me," Tenten said, using the cheery voice she had perfected on missions to keep the civilians who had hired them happy and had recently started reusing with the clothing shop job. It was very convincing, so only Neji picked up on the fact that it wasn't.
She wound up surprised that a civilian man without that much muscle mass at all had been able to handle it on his lonesome, but it made it very clear that that was why he had lost control of the box just the slightest bump to begin with, as she helped Neji take it over to a table of mostly men and a couple women, who were all around their age.
None of them bothered to hide that they had been staring once they caught on to what was happening.
"Thank you so much, but I'm sorry for bumping into you to begin with," the man with the box said, sounding embarrassed. "I'm Kanata."
"My name's Atsuka," Tenten answered.
"It's nice to meet you, Atsuka. That guy's Kouya," Kanata told her. "Do you want to join us?"
"No thank you," Tenten said. "I appreciate the offer, but I just realized I forgot my wallet."
"Maybe later, if you swing around here again," Kanata offered; Tenten didn't miss that he didn't offer to spot her, but between how many prints were in the box and the fact that his clothes, while mostly bright and mixed together, were notably on the older side and were probably second hand, Tenten wasn't shocked. She had been advised to find a job for her cover to begin with because the arts crowd they were trying to infiltrate were mostly not well off.
"I'll think about it," Tenten agreed. "If that's your art, good luck. I hope you're able to sell everything. It looks great."
She quickly stalked off, leaving the cafe.
The second Tenten left, the table broke out into talk and laughter.
"Holy shit, did you see how hot she was?" Tsukihito went, and Neji immediately pushed all his effort into not reacting.
"Yeah, and you're never going to have a chance," Itoko chided. "Couldn't you see? The moment her and Kouya's eyes met…" She let out a sigh.
"Yeah, it was like out of a romance movie," Shiyon agreed. "They couldn't keep their eyes off each other!"
Next to her, Okaru let out a snort. "Yeah, up until Kanata got involved. 'That guy's Kouya'," he mimicked. "What sort of wingman are you?"
"He's a bad one," went Wazuki. "Don't let Kanata help you find a girlfriend."
"I wasn't trying to be one!" Kanata went. "I was too busy being embarrassed!"
"And now you've lost Kouya his chance," Itoko went. "It could have been true love!"
There wasn't any such thing as true love, but there was such a thing as true misery, and right now, that was what Neji was experiencing.
"I need to go," he said. Civilians discussing his love life— which he didn't have— when he needed to suddenly figure out how to salvage his mission wasn't something he needed right now.
"Yeah, you should," Shiyon urged. "I bet you could still catch up with her if you leave now. Just don't be weird!"
Neji started walking, but before he left the vicinity of the table entirely, he turned around briefly. "I ordered a coffee, but I'm not going to be around for it. One of you can have it."
He left with them squabbling over who would claim it behind them.
Neji absolutely had to catch up with Tenten before she got too far away, but not for the fanciful reasons they thought.
Instead of being able to do it any sooner, he had to leave the cafe and look down both ways before he could catch sight of her. But surrounded by people like this, he couldn't use the Byakugan; for this part of the mission it was totally useless.
She was still close enough for him to catch up.
He lengthened his stride, moving into a fast walk, despite however much he wanted to run to catch her.
As it was, he had to hurry, briefly losing sight of her as she turned a corner.
He caught up to her on the next block.
"Wait," Neji called out.
Tenten turned around, her hair swishing behind her, and stared up at him. "Why should I?"
He faltered for a moment, remembering they were both on a mission.
While no one around them cared right now, the run-down he had received had stressed that outside of cleared spaces, even in a low surveillance mission like this, it was better to not break cover, just to stay in the habit and to avoid potential awkward questions.
Right now, they weren't Neji and Tenten, two teammates who hadn't spoken to each other for months.
They were Kouya and Atsuka, who had just met, and one of them had just followed the other two blocks away from where they had met.
He couldn't make any demands, and she couldn't disagree, for the sake of the mission.
"I thought… since you forgot your wallet... My apartment is nearby. Would you like to join me there instead?"
It sounded stilted and horrible even to him.
Tenten stared at him in disbelief, but soon enough she remembered what they were supposed to be doing as well.
"...Sure," she said, sounding just as stilted and unenthused as he had felt.
They walked to his building in quiet awkwardness. This wasn't part of the plan at all, but that had fallen apart entirely, and right now, Neji couldn't come up with anything for them to talk about, even though by all rights it was obvious that silence was the wrong choice.
It was only helped by the fact that Tenten wasn't coming up with anything either.
The only positive was that he wasn't lying in any sense by saying that his apartment was nearby, which meant that it was a short, awkward walk to it.
It was a larger older building made of brick, with large windows dominating the front facing the street, and Tenten's eyes flicked towards him. He could guess why. It was very clearly a converted warehouse, and nothing like what his tastes usually ran towards.
It was only emphasized as they went through the doors and Neji led her up the steel and wood stairs to the second level, and soon to his door, where he unlocked it and let Tenten in.
He closed the door behind them, activating the Byakugan out of habit and did a quick sweep, just in case. There was nothing. "It's all clear," he said.
Before he could even deactivate them, Tenten twisted around to look up at him, her fists balled up, her chakra and heart both pulsing angrily. "You jerk!" she cried out. "This is what you've been up to?"
Neji steeled himself. "It's a mission," he answered. "It's normal for jōnin to take missions that are this long."
"Not without telling their friends and family!" Tenten shot back. "I at least told everyone I was going to be on a long mission! Hinata's worried about you because she doesn't know why it was taking you so long to get back. And I know you didn't tell Gai-sensei, because when Lee and I asked him if he knew anything, he told us he had checked with Kakashi-sensei and that we shouldn't be worried. Why wouldn't you tell anyone?"
He turned slightly to look away, deactivating the Byakugan as he did so he wouldn't have to see her expression. "It's my choice whether I tell anyone or not what I'm doing. You're usually the one getting everyone to calm down, so I don't know why you'd just help Hinata worry, anyway."
"If that's how you're going to be, you deserve it if Hanabi ends up stealing your room and more of your clothes than she already has."
"She can't steal all of it," he answered, feeling distant from himself at the thought of his younger cousin doing that. Once upon a time, it would have deeply bothered him. "Most of it's big enough that she won't be allowed to wear it."
Despite everything, his response to that somehow defused Tenten's upset, and after removing her heels, she took a further step into the apartment.
"You really live here?" she asked, twisting around to look at everything.
It was a large and mostly empty space, with two walls that were filled up with windows all the way to the high ceiling, the inner walls stark plaster. There was a boxed off space that led into the bathroom with the kitchen built against that wall, with another metal staircase leading up to a lofted space above the bathroom.
Even Neji would admit it was deeply sparse, because the only large furniture besides what had already been in the apartment was the couch near the front of the apartment, the table with its chairs, his bed, and finally the cabinet he was using for art supplies. Everything but the art supplies were second-hand.
"It's big, but it was the cheapest thing I could afford without sharing with someone, and it's cheap for a reason." Between the Byakugan and the seal on his forehead, he was unwilling to share a place with someone, because all it would take was a moment of invaded privacy at the wrong moment to ruin his cover.
"Why's that?"
Neji motioned at the windows. "They let in plenty of light, but they heat the whole place up in the summer to the point of being suffocating, and I expect it's going to be freezing in the winter if this mission lasts that long."
"That doesn't sound very comfortable," Tenten said.
"It wasn't."
There was a brief, almost imperceptible shift.
"We can't just stand here being annoyed and angry at each other," Tenten began, even though all of the annoyance and anger had been on her end. "The plan was to establish contact in public and then brief me on what's been happening and what the current progress towards the objectives are, wasn't it? Are you ready to do that?"
Tenten had always been the one to keep them on track, and it seemed like even with however she felt about him being on this mission, she wasn't going to let that get in the way of staying on task.
It just reminded him of why he had accepted such a long mission to begin with.
"Just let me get these things out of my eyes, first," he murmured. "You can sit on the couch if you want."
With that, he slipped his shoes off and padded his way to the bathroom, where he ignored the stranger staring back at him in the mirror as he removed the contacts from his eyes. It had been months of wearing them constantly now and he was still getting used to seeing visible irises in his reflection and having to deal with people knowing where he was looking without being up close.
Once the mission was over, he would be freed of dealing with the contacts and all of their related paraphernalia, including the eye drops that had turned out to be more necessary than he expected.
Tenten went and sat on the couch, watching as Neji walked away to get the contacts out.
She hadn't expected to feel mad and hurt at finding him on this mission, so far away from the village after almost half a year since the last time she had seen him, but seeing him look not just so different but acting uncaring at what she had to say had stung more than she had expected.
It made perfect, horrible sense that the mission's lead jōnin had asked for a combat specialist who could work well in close quarters and for a kunoichi around her age, now. Unfortunately for both of them, what Neji had asked for made for an incredibly short list for Tsunade-sama and Kakashi-sensei to select from.
When Neji returned, contacts removed and his eyes restored to their usual, it suddenly reminded her of the suggestion she had made over a month ago when the mission had been offered to her in the first place.
"What are you making that face for?" Neji asked.
"When Tsunade-same asked me to take on this mission, I wasn't sure about it. When Kakashi-sensei told me what you requested and that it was specifically for someone who would do well in close quarters, I had suggested that Hinata would be a better fit. He just said she wouldn't be appropriate without explaining why," Tenten said, finally giggling a little at the look on Neji's face as he pieced it together.
Neji grimaced, pulling his hair out of the bun it had been in up to that point. "She wouldn't be. We look too much alike for her to be a good choice for this kind of mission. Besides…"
She waited.
Whatever Neji was going to say, he stopped himself. "We're wasting time."
"Then go ahead and start, then," Tenten told him.
"There's been a rush of new art shows since I sent my request," Neji began. "But they're starting to hide who is behind them. I've been able to become friendly enough with enough groups to be able to pick up intelligence from them, and it's clear it's still the Hine clan, and not just others trying to get in on the art surge."
"Why do you think they're doing that?" Tenten asked.
"I think… they're spreading their local operations out," Neji said, frowning. "I managed to start getting invites as a guest to those shows through Kanata, and while I couldn't find anything while they're running without looking too suspicious, I was able to sneak back after the first one and there were more things being moved out of the venue than had been present for the show. The others showed the same signs. If they're using these shows as a scheme to disguise any hidden illegal sales or trafficking, they're doing it very carefully, because even with the Byakugan I couldn't see anything."
"Couldn't you just activate it outside of the venue?" Tenten asked.
Neji shook his head. "They're doing those shows in these big mansion estates right outside of the city limits. There's enough of a buffer between the property walls and the buildings themselves that the interiors are outside of my range, and they're crawling with hired shinobi that are meant to keep anyone uninvited out. A few of the guys Kanata's crowd knows think it's fun and games and try to sneak in to get attention, but it's too risky of an option for us. I don't think they're trying to take account of the Byakugan, but if we want to shut them down properly, we need to secure physical evidence, and ideally enough to put an end to it."
Tenten bit her lip as she thought over what Neji had said, and everything she had learned in the past year. "I think… this might be the war's fault," she concluded.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, the last big conflict only really ended back when we were little kids, right? But that was all different countries against each other. With this last one, we were all working together and it put us all into direct contact and able to get a better idea of the kind of skills other shinobi have outside of our direct allies, and everyone is still cooperating. There are a bunch of gaps in security coverage and everything else because of all the losses, but because we've been sharing the work, it's not as dire as it could be," Tenten said, thinking of the various missions she had taken since. Everyone had much better general ideas of their counterparts' capabilities than they used to, according to a more experienced jōnin on one of those missions. "I think because Hironobu is hiring so many shinobi from different minor villages, he's taking advantage of the passive intel about shinobi capabilities and is trying to establish himself at the center of illegal trade while he can, in hopes that the international cooperation ends sooner than later."
Neji looked thoughtful. "If he's really trying to do that, he's expanding too quickly."
"I'm not sure," Tenten went. "Because Tsunade-sama and Kakashi-sensei seemed to think this would become a huge problem for diplomatic relations if we're not able to get it under control. He might be hoping that some added pressure will take care of having to worry about international cooperation catching him."
"For now, we're just going to have to focus on getting his attention. There's a pattern in the artists he likes to pick up. He likes little stories. That's why I wanted to arrange for a public meeting first."
"Oh no," Tenten realized. "We ruined that."
Neji turned to look away from her. "I'm not sure about that. Kanata's group of friends seemed to think it was love at first sight for both of us."
Something formed like a rock in Tenten's gut. "Well," she said, managing to sound light, "That just shows it's all in their head, isn't it?"
"Maybe it will work out then."
"Maybe."
The next time Neji stopped by the cafe, it was with Tenten by his side, and he tried to ignore the approving looks and especially the approving whistle from Tsukihito.
It was just a mission. It wasn't real, no more permanent than the colored contacts hiding his eyes.
So, he did his best to ignore it as the girls at the table tried to extract as many details as they could from Tenten, made only worse by the fact that since Tenten actually knew him, some of those details were actually true, and not just made up, even as she reframed them in the pretend stage they were acting on as a new couple.
He had never realized how many things Tenten had picked up over the years about him, or that he had learned about her in turn.
But even so, he kept clammed up at the attempts to get him to divulge those details, even though he wasn't stopping Tenten from doing it.
It was just a mission.
Despite that, it gave Neji a quiet thrill when Tenten stopped by of her own choice; while he could have gotten away without her present, it helped a little to actually have her in front of him.
He had decided against dragging the supply cabinet to the loft because he wasn't totally sure he trusted it up there, and he knew Tenten was aware it was there, but the first day still made him smile against his own will when Tenten realized that he was able to draw and paint; it wasn't totally an act.
"I thought the unit out here was providing you with the art you needed," she said with awe, staring at the last painting he had completed of Yukako before they had decided her skills weren't needed on the mission. It was all bright colors, cheerful contrasts against the shape and form the portrait otherwise took. "You really made this?"
"Yes," he quietly admitted.
"Neji, this is beautiful," Tenten said, turning towards him. "Why didn't you tell anyone you could make something like this?"
"I only picked it up when I was in the hospital," he demurred. "Since there wasn't much else to do while I was stuck in a bed. Besides, I did tell someone. Gai-sensei knows."
His uncle did too, but that was from him finding out and not being told, and it really didn't count as a conversation when Hiashi's only reaction to it was to bring him a large box of various art supplies and a few reference books the next time he stopped by without Hinata or Hanabi. He still felt oddly grateful that while they hadn't spoken about it, it had been a tactic endorsement and something that Hiashi had left as totally Neji's. It wasn't something he had to share with his cousins.
"What did Gai-sensei say?"
"He cried over a watercolor I did and got the colors all muddied."
"Oh no, he ruined it?"
"It's okay, it was a gift for him to begin with." Gai-sensei had also been cooped up in the hospital, after all. The difference was just that between a ruined leg and slowly regrowing and healing multiple holes through your torso, only one of them was allowed to move around a little, and it hadn't been Neji.
"Well, I'm sure he prizes it," Tenten said.
Tenten was starting to get used to the artists that Neji regularly networked with, and there was something refreshingly different about them in a way that the girls at the clothing store weren't. Like so many of her friends back in Konoha, the crowd of artists had their own strong personalities, and the way they went about it was bombastic in ways that reminded her of Gai-sensei and Lee.
Their art was their passion, but it was also their livelihood— or what they wanted to turn into their livelihood— and they were loud and energetic at trying to get attention for it, because that was the only way they would succeed.
It was also funny, because while they were all like that, the only one of them who regularly kept track of the work he was doing and what he was doing to get customers or picked up at shows was Kanata, and it made it clear why Neji had decided to pick him as a target to associate with. The others had smatterings of various successes, but Kanata was disciplined in a way similar to Neji, and reached out for even smaller jobs that wouldn't necessarily make him as much money but would still get his name out there.
Even so, she could see that Neji's sharp focused self-discipline was beginning to take hold as a general practice with the others in the group and got him respect.
She had the luck of being there at one of the galleries Kanata was showing at when Neji was approached by a professionally-attired older man.
He was invited to provide art for an art show hosted at one of the Hine clan's properties right outside of the capital. The networking had paid off.
They had successfully reached their target.
In just a few weeks, their mission would be over; they would either find the proof they were looking for and be able to act on it or not, but at this point, everything was leaning towards the first.
And after that, everything would be over, and they would return to Konoha and put everything about the last few months behind them.
The pretending had been nice while it lasted, but it was clear that Neji had no interest in her that way, and she had done her best to stay respectful of that, keeping to their boundaries as friends and former teammates when they weren't in front of others.
She spent the rest of that night in a daze, lost in her own thoughts.
The next morning, she wasn't able to sleep in at all despite getting back late, and instead of continuing to wallow in bed, she got ready and dressed, choosing to head to Neji's instead.
By now, it was outright cold in the mornings, a far cry from the pleasant weather when she had first arrived. She had never realized how much a difference a hundred miles could make for what the weather would be like.
There was no response when she knocked at Neji's apartment door, so with some hesitation, she unlocked it; he had given her a key.
It was almost as chilly inside as it was outside, which she was aware of by this point, but what took her by surprise was that Neji was asleep on the couch, tangled up in blankets and half out of his clothes, only one arm in its pajama sleeve. He didn't look well.
She was familiar with the sight of the seal on his forehead by now, since after their first chūnin exams Neji started to stop keeping it hidden all of the time when they slept on missions.
But it was the first time she saw any of the scars left on his torso from the war, though; the one the most visible was a round punch out of paler flesh, ringed by raised scarring that separated it from the rest.
She quietly shut the door behind her. "Neji?" she spoke up.
He didn't rouse.
Tenten carefully made her approach, crouching down by the side of the sofa before gently shaking him. "Neji, wake up. Are you okay?"
His eyes fluttered open, showing that the contacts were still in, even though she knew he hated keeping them in. "No," Neji quietly went, before shutting them again. She wasn't sure if that was to her question or her telling him to wake up.
She set a hand on his forehead; it was warm and feverish despite the cold apartment, but that was probably why he was unwell to begin with.
Tenten let out a sigh and started boiling water in the kitchen, before looking through the sparse apartment.
Despite the fact he had even told her he expected the apartment to get cold, she couldn't find any space heater, and stripped the bed of its blankets, which left Tenten suspecting that despite its presence, Neji wasn't actually using the bed. She laid the warmest blanket out over him.
By the time the water was finished and she had prepared a cup of ginger tea for him, Neji had finally roused, sitting up with the blankets pulled tight and his hair fanned around him in a gentle halo from sleeping with it loose and the dry static getting a hold of it.
He still looked sleepy and ill.
"Are you alright?" she asked again, once she handed him the mug.
"I didn't want you to see me like this," he murmured, after taking a drink.
"What, sick?" she asked. "I've seen you sick before. Remember when we all got sick when we were coming back home from that one mission, that one time? We had to stop for a few days but thought Lee was fine until he kept throwing up from exerting himself."
Neji made a face. "That's not what I mean. I meant…" He set a hand to where his chest was, where Tenten had seen the exposed scar earlier.
"...Neji, why would you not want me to see those?"
"It's a reminder," he said, not quite above a whisper. "I don't regret what I did but when I was in the hospital… I saw you crying. I didn't want you to cry because of me. I don't want anyone to feel like that because of me."
"I— Neji, I wasn't the only one crying," she went. "It's because we all care for you. I was relieved. The medics didn't think you were going to make it, much less be able to get transported all the way back to the hospital in Konoha. That was the first time I heard that you were going to live. I didn't even know you were conscious then. Is that why you were avoiding us?"
"I thought if I did, I wouldn't be holding anyone back," he admitted.
"Neji…"
He looked down, into the mug.
"What are you really afraid of?" Tenten asked.
"I… I like you," he finally said. "That's what I'm afraid of. I love you, I want you, but I don't deserve you and you deserve more than me."
The last several months suddenly recontextualized themselves; it hadn't been their whole team Neji had been avoiding, it had been her. It hadn't been just chance that Lee had seen Neji a little more than she had, it had been a conscious choice on Neji's part, stepping further and further away from her.
"Is that why you were avoiding me?" she asked, even though she already knew. "It's not fair that you decided to make that kind of choice without telling me. I like you, too. I have for years. But I always thought you only wanted to be friends, Neji. You've always been so serious and focused on your training and being a shinobi. I didn't want to get in the way of that by telling you something that'd just get in the way."
Neji stared at her in shock, and she darted in to grab the mug and set it down on the floor before it got loose from his grip.
"I thought you were the same way," Neji admitted. "But… I thought even if I could let you know and you developed feelings for me in return, it wouldn't be fair. You deserve someone who'd be able to give you all of the support you need. I can't—"
"Why can't you?" Tenten asked.
"Because I have to protect and support Hinata. My uncle's been giving me more responsibilities inside the clan. I'm getting asked for advice and to help with certain missions. I—"
Tenten leaned over, setting a finger on his lips. " —can do all of that with me," she said, cutting him off. "If you let me. We can support each other. Gai-sensei and Lee wouldn't want it any other way."
She reached down and ran one hand down the slope of his chest, the blankets falling away as her fingertips trailed down along the sinuous raised lines where the scarred flesh met unblemished skin.
Neji let out a breath that she wasn't aware he had even been holding in.
"We can do it together," Tenten said, as her eyes met his. She could tell exactly where Neji was staring. "Neither of us have to give anything up. We can finish this mission, then go home and figure things out. Do you trust me?"
There wasn't any hesitation.
"Yes."