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The house was quiet except for the sound of cardboard boxes being dragged across the floor. Tenten wiped the dust off her hands and looked around. There were still so many boxes. She didn't realize she had this much stuff until she had to move all of it. Neji appeared at the doorway, arms crossed, surveying the mess with that calm expression he always had. "You brought too many things."
"I brought normal things." She pointed at him. "You just don't own enough stuff."
Tenten looked down the hallway. There were two rooms that still needed to be cleared, one on the left, one further down. She gestured between them.
"Okay. You take that one, I take this one?"
Neji glanced at both rooms. "Fine."
"Okay."
Neji turned and walked away without a word, but she caught the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth. She smiled to herself and got back to work.
Two days ago, they got married. The ceremony was real, the ring on her finger was real, and the mountain of unpacked boxes in the Hyuga residential house was very very real. They had moved in together right after. The house was already Neji's, clean and quiet and organized the way he liked it. Now they just needed to make space for Tenten's things, still sitting in her old place, waiting to be brought over. So here they were, two days into marriage, making room.
Tenten started with the easy stuff. She broke down the empty boxes first, stacking them flat against the wall. Then she moved on to the small things, an old training bag shoved in the corner, a pair of sandals she forgot she still had, a rolled up scroll that turned out to be blank.
She worked slowly, stopping every now and then to wipe the dust off something or check if it still worked. It was a small room. Shouldn't take that long, she thought. Then she reached the back corner, where a stack of old bags and folded cloth had been pushed together. She moved them aside one by one.
And that's when she saw the book.
The book was small, thin, with a dark cover whose edges had softened with age. The spine was slightly bent, as if it had been opened many times. There was no title on the front, no label, no writing on the outside. Tenten picked it up. It was light and clearly old, the cover had the faint scent of paper that had been in a closed place for too long. She almost put it back.
But maybe it was something important. Training notes, perhaps, or notes she had forgotten. She opened it to the first page. There was a date at the top, written in small, neat handwriting. Below it, a few short lines. She skimmed the next page. Another date. More writing. The same handwriting, all over the page. Tenten slowly looked back at the first page. She recognized the handwriting. Her stomach felt strange. This wasn't her book.
She checked the date again. Then she did the math. This was written twelve years ago, she thought. Then, she read some lines, this is Neji's diary when he was young. She didn't even remember what she did twelve years ago. Most of the line caught her attention. She didn't intend to read it but she unconsciously continue reading the book.
The first entry was short. Tenten almost missed how heavy it was because the handwriting was so calm. But the words underneath that neatness were something else entirely.
I don't know if I chose this or if this was just what was left. And honestly? I don't think it matters anymore. Everyone keeps talking about serving Konoha like it's some kind of privilege. Like I should be grateful. For what exactly? For being born into the wrong side of a family that decided my entire life before I could walk? For wearing a curse on my forehead like it's something to be proud of?
I didn't choose to be a shinobi. I didn't choose this village. I didn't choose any of it. There was just nothing else, so I walked through the only door that was open and apparently that makes me loyal. That's what they call it. Loyalty. It's not loyalty. It's a cage with better lighting.
Tenten stared at the page for a moment. She had trained next to him for years. She had seen him fight, had seen him lose, had seen him come back from things that would have broken other people. She thought she knew how his mind worked. She didn't know he thought about it like this. She turned the page.
I've been thinking about what happens when I die.
Shinobi die. Branch family shinobi especially. We're not people, we're tools, and tools get replaced when they stop working. That's not me being dramatic. That's just the math. But I swear to god, if they bury me as a fucking Hyuga I will find a way to be angry about it from wherever I end up.
That name is not mine. It was never mine. It was put on me like a collar and everyone just accepted it. Like it was normal. Like I was supposed to accept it too. I don't want it on my grave. I don't want it anywhere near me when I'm dead. I barely want it near me now. I don't know whose name I'd want instead. Maybe none.
Tenten's chest felt tight. She had never thought about it, what name went on a grave. She had a name she chose, in a way. Her parents gave it to her and she grew into it and it fit. She never had to think about whether it belonged to her. Neji had been thinking about it, she checked the date, thirteen. She turned the page again, slower this time.
I don't think I'm going to live that long anyway. I've tried. Thirty, forty, whatever. It doesn't compute. It just comes up blank every time. And I'm not saying I want to die, I'm not... I'm just saying that branch family shinobi don't get futures. We get assignments. Branch family didn't retire, they just stopped being useful and then they're gone, whether they commit seppuku or something.
So I stopped trying to picture it, the idea of getting old. What's the point of imagining something that was never going to happen anyway. I'm fine. I'm just being realistic.
She think, he had been fifteen, maybe. Writing like he was already making peace with not having a future. And now he was in the next room, reorganizing someone else's storage space, two days into a marriage he had agreed to, a life he had apparently never let himself imagine. She picked the book back up.
I've decided I don't want kids and I don't care how that sounds. I know I'm fifteen and that's an idiot thing to say. I just know how this works. If I have a child and they come out first, they're branch family. Done. Decided before they're even a day old. Decided before they even a fuck ass fetus. I would hand my own kid a curse before they could even understand what was happening to them.
I'm not doing that. I don't care if it's "not certain" or "things might change" or whatever else people want to say to make themselves feel better about this family and its disgusting system. The risk exists. That's enough for me.
No kids. Final answer. Not discussing it.
The handwriting got a little harder on that last line. Pressed deeper into the paper like he was trying to make it permanent by force. Tenten thought about the ring on her finger. The night he proposed, she had asked him, she said most serious things "You're not the type who wants a whole house full of kids, right?" And he had said "Not now, but eventually." She had laughed and said okay and moved on because it seemed so simple. He said eventually, she thought eventually, they were on the same page. But here it was, in ink, from ten years ago.
But then why did he say eventually like it was nothing, when at fifteen he had pressed this decision so hard into the paper she could feel the indent on the other side? She didn't mind about not having kids but she didn't even know whether he has certainty about this or not.
I'm so tired of people acting like they know me. They don't know me. They know my clan. They know my Byakugan. They know what I can do and what I represent and what it means to have a Hyuga on their side. That's what they see when they look at me.
Not me. Never actually me. So when people try to get close I just... why would I let that happen? There's always something they want. And even if there isn't, how would I know. How the hell am I supposed to tell the difference between someone who actually gives a damn fuck and someone who's just here because of what I'm attached to. I can't. So I don't bother. It's fine. I don't need it anyway.
Tenten remembered the first time she talked to him. She had been the one to approach him. She had said something stupid about his form during warm up drills and he had looked at her like she had grown a second head. She hadn't been thinking about his clan or his Byakugan or any of it. She had just thought his stance was off and said so. She had just been annoying. She turned to the last page she let herself read.
If I could have one thing, and I know how idiot this sounds so I'm only writing it because nobody's ever going to read this. I just want someone I can sit with and not have to be anything for.
Not Hyuga, not a genius, not a prodigy or a weapon or an angry brat or whatever else. Just sit there. Be quiet. And have that be okay. That's it. That's the whole thing. Forget I wrote this.
Tenten sat very still in the dusty room for a long moment. Then she closed the book carefully. She thought about all the times they had sat together after training, not talking, just existing next to each other. She had always assumed he just wasn't a big talker. She didn't know he had wanted it. That he had written it down at fifteen like it was something he wasn't sure he'd ever get.
He was in the next room right now. She looked down at the book in her hands. She should tell him she found it. She would. She would tell him. Just... not yet. She set the book down carefully next to her "keep" pile and went back to work.
The night came, lights were off. They had been lying there for maybe ten minutes. Tenten was on her side, facing the ceiling. Neji was next to her, close enough that she could feel the warmth coming off him.
"We still need to get a mat for the genkan." she said.
"I know."
"And your kitchen has no personality."
"It's a kitchen."
"It should have a plant or something. Something alive."
"You can barely keep yourself alive before 7am."
She threw her pillow at him. He caught it without looking. She took it back. They were quiet again. Outside, the Hyuga compound was still. No wind, no crickets, nothing.
Tenten stared at the ceiling. She wasn't thinking about the book. Then she was thinking about the book. She turned her head slightly toward him. "Danna-sama?"
"Hm."
"Do you want kids?"
Neji shifted slightly. "Eventually, but not now."
"Why not now?"
"Because we're both still a mess." He said it simply. "The war wasn't that long ago. We still wake up some nights. Sometimes a panic attack. Bringing a kid into that isn't fair."
Tenten blinked.
"But eventually." He continued. "Yes. I want that."
He said the last part like it was obvious. Like it was the least complicated thing he'd said all day. Tenten opened her mouth.
"But why?" she said, and it came out smaller than she meant it to. Neji turned his head to look at her. In the dark she could just barely make out his expression was calm, a little curious.
"Why do I want kids eventually or why not now?"
"Just... why? In general."
He looked at her for a moment. "Because I think we'll be okay. I'd like the idea of having kids... With you."
Tenten nodded slowly. She wanted to ask more. She wanted to ask but you were so sure, you pressed it into the paper, you said the risk was enough, what happened between then and now vut she just said "Okay."
Neji watched her for a second longer than usual. "Is something wrong?"
"No." she said it too quickly.
"Tenten."
"I'm fine, I'm just tired." She pulled the blanket up and turned slightly away from him, he didn't say anything for a moment.
"Okay." he said finally.
But she could tell from the way he said it that he didn't fully believe her.
The next day after training. They went to the waterfall in the edge of Konoha. Not talking, just existing the way they always did here. The water was loud below them, loud enough that the rest of the world kind of stopped existing. That was the thing about this spot, you could scream and nobody would hear you. You could say anything. Usually they didn't say much at all.
Tenten had her legs dangling over the edge, watching the water disappear into white below. Neji was next to her, close enough that their shoulders almost touched, looking at the same nothing she was looking at.
This was their spot. Had been since they were seventeen and stumbled onto it during a mission detour and Neji had sat down without explanation and she had just... sat down too. No discussion. It became a thing. She hadn't expected to still be coming here, married, with his shoulder warm against hers. She was glad he was.
"I was thinking about us dying."
Tenten turned to look at him. He was still looking at the waterfall.
"I want you to die first."
"Excuse me?"
"I mean it." He finally looked at her and his expression was serious in that quiet way that meant he had been sitting with something for a while. "I've been thinking about it. I want you to go first."
Tenten stared at him. "That's either the most romantic or most insane thing you've ever said to me."
"My father died." He said simply. "I was young. It was—" He stopped. Started again. "I don't want you to feel that. Whatever I felt then. I don't want that for you."
The waterfall was loud. Tenten didn't say anything for a moment. She was thinking about a page in a diary. Shinobi from the branch family don't retire, they just stop being useful and then they're gone, whether they commit seppuku or something. A boy who couldn't picture himself at thirty, a boy who didn't wanted to be buried with the name of Hyuga writing it down like he was just being realistic. She looked at him now, three days into a marriage he had apparently never let himself imagine having.
"Are you happy?" she asked.
Neji blinked. "What?"
"Here." She gestured vaguely at the waterfall, at the two of them. "This. Sitting here and doing nothing. Are you happy?"
He looked at her like she had asked him something slightly strange. Then he looked back at the water. "Yes."
"Okay." she said.
"Okay?" He glanced at her sideways. "That's it?"
"That's it."
He was quiet for a second. "Tenten."
"Hm."
"What happened."
It wasn't a question. It was Neji, which meant he already knew something was off and was just waiting for her to catch up. Tenten opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked at the waterfall.
"Nothing." she said.
He looked at her for a long moment. She could feel it on the side of her face. Then he reached over and pull her ear.
"Ow—"
"You're doing the thing where you go quiet and pretend you're fine."
"I am fine."
"You asked me if I was happy sitting next to a waterfall doing nothing?🤨" He raised an eyebrow.
"It's a perfectly normal question!"
"It's a strange question."
"Maybe, I just wanted to know!"
"Then why do you look like you're solving a math problem?"
She shoved his shoulder. He didn't move. She shoved it again, harder. He leaned into it slightly just to be annoying.
"You're the worst." she said.
"You married me."
"Worst decision of my life."
"Four days in and already having regrets." He clicked his tongue.
She laughed despite herself. Neji looked satisfied in that small, understated way of his. She leaned her head against his shoulder. He let her. After a moment, she reached down and found his hand. His fingers were loose at first, then they closed around hers without him saying anything about it.
She looked down at their hands without meaning to. Both rings visible. His, plain and simple the way he wanted it. Hers, sitting exactly where it was supposed to be. Four days, she thought. They had been married for four days and she was already keeping something from him. The waterfall kept going below them, loud and endless and not telling anyone anything. I'll tell him, she thought.
Two weeks. It was longer than she planned. She kept almost saying it, at breakfast, after training, during the quiet moments that were becoming familiar now, domestic in a way she was still getting used to. She would open her mouth and then close it and tell herself later. Later kept moving. Until one night... She told him.
"I need to tell you something." Tenten said.
Neji was still. "Okay??"
"I found something. When I was clearing out that room." She paused. "A book."
Nothing from his side of the bed.
"It had your handwriting in it." She continued. "I thought it was mine at first, I just opened it to check, and then I saw the date and I- I kept reading. I shouldn't have. I know I shouldn't have. But I did and I'm sorry and I've been trying to tell you for two weeks."
Silence.
"You mean my old diary book? The dark cover one?"
"Yes... I'm sorry." She said.
Then "...how much did you read?"
"Most of it."
More silence. Tenten stared at the ceiling. Her heart was doing something uncomfortable.
"That was—" He stopped. She heard him exhale slowly through his nose, the way he did when he was recalibrating. "I was young... And stupid."
"You weren't stupid, you were—"
"I was dramatic." He said and there was something in his voice she almost never heard. Embarrassed. "Those were the thoughts of someone who didn't know anything yet."
Tenten turned her head to look at him. In the dark she could just barely make out that he was looking at the ceiling, jaw slightly tight.
"Danna-sama."
"I don't, I'm not that person anymore."
She reached over and found his hand under the blanket, the same way she had at the waterfall. His fingers closed around hers after a moment.
"I'm sorry I read it." she said.
A long pause.
"It's fine." He said.
"Can I ask something?"
Neji was quiet for a moment. "Sure."
Tenten stared at the ceiling. "The part about Konoha. That you didn't choose it. That it wasn't loyalty." She paused. "Is that true?"
He didn't answer immediately. She could feel him thinking. "No... Not anymore."
"What changed?"
"Time, mostly." He shifted slightly. "When I was young I was too angry to see anything clearly. But the longer I lived here the more I just... started to actually live here. You know?" He paused. "And if I'm being honest, politically speaking, being born in Konoha isn't bad. The resources, the infrastructure, the alliances. It's not a bad place to be from."
"Very romantic way to love your village after you wrote that twelve years ago."
"I also love the Ichiraku ramen."
Tenten blinked. Then she laughed, quiet and surprised.
"The training grounds." He continued, almost to himself. "The river, the Nara forest, the waterfall in the early morning when nobody else is there." A beat. "I didn't notice those things when I was angry and young. And stupid."
Tenten smiled at the ceiling. She took a small breath. "But the part about not wanting to be buried with the Hyuga name?"
The room went a little quieter. Neji exhaled "The clan has changed." He said. "After the war, there was reform." He was quiet for a moment. "It's not perfect but it's different now."
"And?"
"And I—" He stopped. Started again. "I hated them for a long time. I think I had every right to. But after the war, I don't want to carry that forever." His voice was even. "I want to try. To make peace with it. The name, the clan, all of it."
"So now?"
"So now..." he said quietly "Yes. I think I would be okay with the name on the grave."
Tenten didn't say anything for a moment.
"But you wrote that you couldn't picture living long?" She said it carefully. "That branch family shinobi don't get futures."
Neji was silent. "I was a kid, Tenten." he said finally. "A kid who had never been given a reason to think otherwise."
"And now?"
"Now I'm an adult who has been through a war and come out the other side." He said it plainly but there was weight underneath it. "The fourth war left things in me that I'm still figuring out. I won't pretend otherwise. But the fact that I'm figuring it out means I'm still here. Still trying."
Tenten turned her head to look at him.
"Do you remember the wound i still had from that war? I want to get better." He said quietly. "That means I want to keep going. That's not nothing."
She looked at him for a long moment in the dark. "No, it's not nothing."
"Okay." Tenten said. "If we have a kid. They'd be branch family?"
"Yes."
"But—" She frowned slightly. "Isn't the firstborn supposed to be main family? Like Hiashi and Hizashi? Hiashi was born first so he's main family."
Neji was quiet for a second. "You're already a Hyuga expert, aren't you😏"
Tenten laughed. "I married one and he won't shut up about it, I had to do some research."
She could hear the small exhale that meant he was almost smiling. Then he shifted slightly, settling into explanation mode.
"It's not just about birth order." he said. "There's a rule in the clan. Four generations have to serve as branch family before the line can return to main. My grandfather was the firstborn and branch family. My father was branch family. I'm branch family." He paused. "So my child would be the last generation required to serve as branch, regardless of whether they're born first or not."
Tenten was quiet for a moment, doing the math. "So our kid would still be branch family?"
"Yes."
"And you still want one?" She said it carefully. "Because you wrote very clearly that you didn't."
Neji exhaled. A long pause. "I'm too embarrassed to say this... And I'm not very good at saying romantic things."
Tenten blinked. "...okay?"
He was quiet for another moment, like he was choosing words the way he chose footing in a fight deliberately. "When I wrote that, I meant it." he said. "I wasn't going to put a child through what I went through. That felt like the only responsible decision." Another pause. "But then things changed. The clan reformed after the war. It's not perfect but it's not what it was when I was born into it. My child would have it different."
"Danna-sama..."
"And..." he continued, slightly quieter "You changed things. Since we started... All of this. I started wanting things I didn't think I was allowed to want." He stopped. "So yes, I want a kid. Eventually. When we're better. With you specifically."
Tenten stared at the ceiling. She thought about the diary entry. Pressed so hard into the paper she could feel the indent. And then she thought about him, right now, quietly telling her she had changed the answer. She didn't trust herself to say anything big, so she just said "Okay."
"Okay." he repeated. "There are no more questions?"
"Nope." She said.
He looked at her for a moment. She could feel him trying to read her the way he always did, looking for the thing underneath the thing.
"I'm sure, Danna-sama." She settled back against her pillow. "I just wanted to know if you were happy sitting at that waterfall doing nothing with me. And you said yes. That's enough."
"It is."
Tenten smiled at the ceiling. Outside the compound was still. The night was the same as it always was. She turned fully toward him this time. Her hand found his chest, fingers resting light against the fabric there, feeling the steady rise and fall underneath her palm. "Danna-samaaa."
"Hmm."
"Are you tired?"
Neji glanced down at her hand, then back up at her. "No."
"Free tonight?"
He looked at her for a second, that look, the one that meant he knew exactly what she meant and was deciding whether to make her say it out loud. He didn't make her say it out loud.
His hand found her waist and pulled her closer, slow and deliberate, until there was no more space between them.
"Ask me properly." He said, against her hair.
Tenten laughed softly. "Danna-sama..." she said "Will you—"
"Yes." He said. Before she could even finish. She laughed again and he tucked her closer, then he kissed her, not the soft kind, not the gentle goodnight kind they had gotten used to over two weeks of being new at this. This one had intention behind it, warm and unhurried and sure of itself.
His hand stayed at her waist as he guided her back, the futon soft underneath her, with him on top of her, and when he pulled back just slightly to look at her she was already looking up at him. She put her hand flat against his chest.
"Do you love me?" she asked.
Neji looked down at her. "The Hyuga wedding alone was not cheap. And you're asking me this now? Do you think I accidentally marry you?"
Tenten burst out laughing, the kind that came from the stomach, and he watched her with that small satisfied look he got when he made her laugh and was pretending he hadn't meant to.
"Answer it anyway." she said, still smiling.
He looked at her for a moment. Something in his expression shifted. "Yes, I love you."
And he kissed her again before she could say anything back, she kissed him back just as sure, and outside the Hyuga compound was still and quiet and completely unaware of the two people inside who had spent two weeks carrying something heavy and were only now, finally putting it down for good.