NejiTen Oneshots And Drabbles

Sine Qua Non

Snip, snip.

Hyuuga Neji silently watched as Tenten put down the scissors and fresh gauze on her bed. His teammate then hunched over to get a bottle of water. Whistling, she held out her wounded arm over the tiled floor and unceremoniously dumped the liquid over her wound's old dressing.

He had seen enough. Moving from the hospital door where he had stood for some time to observe her, he marched to her side and irritably grabbed the bottle from her hand.

"Stop fooling around, Tenten."

The brown-haired woman looked at him, grinning. "Since you were peeping at me, I thought I might as well put on a good show!"

"Move," he instructed through his gritted teeth, plopping down beside her as soon as she made the space available. "Why didn't you wait for the nurse to change this for you?" He briskly spread the remaining streaks of water over the edge of the tape to loosen it.

"I was bored. The nurse from last night's rounds took away all my toys," she grumbled, obviously displeased.

He yanked out a few sheets of tissue paper from the nearby dispenser. "The fruits were meant to be eaten, not to be used for target practice." One of the nurses had promptly brought him up to date regarding his friend's condition, including her odd penchant for utilizing nearly everything in the room as projectiles.

She curled her lips in annoyance. "Killjoy."

His pale eyes assessed her wound for possible signs of infection. To his relief, only a shade of redness remained on her arm. "Please don't do this again," he said quietly after a moment of pause.

To which, she shrugged, "Even if I want to, I already can't. They've banned all cutlery and eating implements in the room-" Her smiling eyes turned more solemn when she felt his grip on her tighten. "Neji…"

"Soloing an A-rank mission… what were you thinking?" He couldn't take his eyes off the dried blood splatters on the old dressing. "Lee could have backed you up. You could have sent a messenger for me..." and I would have met up with you. No matter what. He couldn't keep the angry accusation out of his voice—not with the disgusting carmine stains haunting him for not being there with her during the incident.

"Now, now, Neji! Don't give me that 'you're a girl' crap, or else I'll get mad, okay?" She proudly flexed her other healthy arm for him. "I'm alright, see? After all, I'm the teammate that you, Lee, and Gai-sensei trained."

But that was the problem. No matter how highly skilled his teammate was, he could not stop himself from seeing her as a girl—a girl he didn't want to see harmed in any way. When he returned from a week-long mission in the Sand Village this morning, he was promptly notified by the village guards about Tenten having been brought in a couple of days ago for emergency treatment.

He didn't even have time to think; his body moved on its own. The next thing he knew, he was in the village hospital, flying down the hallway and frantically searching for his teammate. He thought he heard someone yelling after him that Tenten was safe and was recovering at the last room on the second floor.

Only then did he feel that he could properly breathe again.

When he opened the door and saw his friend seated upright on her bed while checking out her bandaged wound, it took him all his sixteen years of discipline and mindful restraint not to rush to her and envelop her in his arms.