My first ShinoTenTen fic... I've fallen in love with this so underestimated pairing!
Warnings: a little angst, then fluff!alert. Minor LeeShikamaru yaoi.
Dechiré
"You broke with him?"
Lee was looking at her wide-eyed, the noodles hanging from the chopsticks one inch from his open mouth. She shrugged dismissively, looking in concentration at her own plate.
"You broke with him?!" He repeated, the tone shifting from simple disbelief to sheer "What the hell, have you gone suddenly nuts?!"
"Come on, we weren't even really together. I mean… we were just seeing each other since what, two weeks? And we decided to drop out. It's no big deal."
Lee finally remembered the food and stuffed it into his mouth, swallowing at once. Then he put oth hands on the table, leaning forwards till his face was right in front of her companion, who backed defensively.
"No big deal. TenTen, you spent two whole days worrying about what to wear for the party he offered to take you on last Saturday, you even considered wearing a skirt for him. The day after you spent the afternoon missing targets 'cause you were too lost into daydreaming to care for training, at least untill he decided to show up, and suddenly you turned into a perfect killing machine just to show off for him. I've never seen you behave like that for anybody, and I've never seen you so…"
"Well, it seems I got carried away, and that I was wrong. The thing just deflated, ok? It wasn't so important." She took another sip from her beer.
"It wasn't…"
"Listen, Lee." Her sudden glare could have split shuriken in two. Lee shut up.
"I don't want to talk about it. Don't want to hear you giving speech about it, possibly I don't want to even hear his name again for the next six or seven months. Is it clear?"
The taijutsu specialist looked at her thoughtfully, his eyebrows slowly frowning in concern.
"Have he done something bad to you? 'Cause if that's the case…"
"No! For Kamisama's sake…" TenTen threw her hands up in exhasperation. "And just don't let something like that reach Gai-sensei or Neji, 'cause you three getting into this is the last thing I need. He hasn't done anything, all right? He…" She stopped, staring at her glass, her features turning into a bitter grimace.
"…He really hasn't done anything. That's the point."
After some moments of heavy silence she stood up, putting a hand into her pocket.
"Look, I'm not hungry anymore. I'll just pay and go home…"
Lee gestured to leave it alone. "My treat. It's my turn, anyway. TenTen, are you sure you don't want me to come along?"
"No, I'm ok. I just need some tranquillity."
He looked at her skeptically, but said nothing. He knew her well enough to know when she really wanted to stay alone.
"If you need me for something, anything, you know I'm here. Just call."
She smiled at her fellow chunin, and best friend.
"Yes, I know it. You're always here."
She waved him good-bye again through the little restaurant windows, then she leapt, pressing a feet on the wall, and jumped on the closest roof. She started leaping in the opposite direction from her house, towards the woods. Once she had put a good distance from the lights and noise of the village streets, she sat on a branch, her back leaning on the trunk, letting her legs hang down comfortably. After less than a minute, she jumped up again, caught hold of the branch over her head and hauled herself up, locking her legs on it and hanging head-down some seconds, then she pushed herself up to sit astride it.
She was starting to regret giving up to Lee's offer for company. If she asked him, he would have been more than happy to, say, spend the whole night busy with an unplanned survival training. To help her to keep moving. To help her not to think.
That idiot.
Suddenly, her dark-used eyes spotted a leaf, slowly falling in the air. Her arm moved, too fast for the eye to catch, and the shuriken hit the leaf, sticking perfectly in the middle of a creak in the trunk beside. She already had another shuriken ready into her hand, out of instinct.
You are so good you could hit a dragonfly. Not that I would ask one to play the target for you I mean.
At the time she had looked at him for a whole ten seconds, slowly realizing he had meant to make a joke. He had immediately looked away.Then she had started laughing, more at her own awkwardeness than at anything else, and he made a half smile, almost begging pardon for doing something so… uncharacteristical of him.
That had been the day he had asked her out, for that party. Kiba was going to take Hinata there, and he had forced him to promise he would go too. That was it, he said. He would have rather spent a night out in the peace of the country, but he had promised, and maybe she was interested into it. TenTen wasn't the party kind of person, but she accepted, vaguely thinking she too'd rather go out with him in a lonely place, all for themselves, but he seemed already quite uneasy telling her about the party, speaking in hald mono-syllables, so she left it alone. And in the end the two of them had left the party half-evening to go walking in the wood, talking. Luckily she had decided not to wear that skirt, in the end. But she had been planning to do it on the first occasion, just to see his face.
That before the doubts started.
She narrowed her eyes. It was her the idiot, here. They weren't really a couple. They just hanged out, they didn't even kissed once. Well, ok, it had been fault of a totally unopportune shinobi passing by they had not, but still… She should have stopped moping about it like some spineless hearts-filled head girl. She was stronger than that, she had to be. In the end, it had been her to tell him they should quit it.
Because being in… because being together with someone was something she didn't need, now. It was a distraction. She was still working so hard for her dream. To become a kunoichi strong like Tsunade-sama. She had finally made people forget how she had been one of the genin defeated by the Sand shinobis, on that damn exam years ago. Yes, to people she had not been one of the few ninja to get to the last phase. She had been one of the defeated, and defeated bad, before the finals. Exactly like Lee. And no talking from Gai-sensei about how she had become strong could have deleted those tears, the first she wept since her parents death.
So now she had to keep focused. She didn't think she could take strenght from loving someone, from looking to him like a beacon in the night, like Lee did, with Gai-sensei, with Sakura and now with his lover. She was much more similar to Neji, taking from all the past sufferings and bitterness, holding on her pride. So, she had done the right thing, hadn't she?
He surely had seemed of the same idea.
He had listened to her, intently, then when she had finished explaining her reasons (with, to say the truth, much less convinction she felt she should have had) he had just said it was ok. They looked at each other for some moments, the he had said her good-bye and turned, walking away from her. That had been all.
He hadn't done anything. He hadn't said anything more, not even asked her if she was sure about it.
He had to have been really looking for some way to end that thing himself, clearly. But then why hadn't he just say it? He just acted like he didn't care at all… TenTen had looked at his back while he walked away, feeling the sudden urge to call his name, say she wasn't so sure, say maybe they should try, after all. But at that point it had been her pride getting in the way. He'd have thought she was just a weakling, or that she had said all that just to see his reaction, like some stupid girl, and she could not allow it.
But that was ok! It had to be… she wanted them to stop seeing. So why the hell she was feeling so bad about it, damn it?!
TenTen winced at a sudden pain. She looked at her hand, realizing she had been gripping the shuriken hard enough to cut herself. She throw it away with rage, and sucked the cut. Here it was. Just thinking about him made her make such stupid mistakes. He made her clumsy, made her behaving like she wasn't herself anymore, he made her weak…
No. That was not true. She didn't feel weak when she was with him.
She felt sure. She felt at ease. She could talk freely or stay in silence, feeling no pressure at all. For the first time in her life, she had felt like giving a casual hug to someone (with who she hadn't been spending the last years in almost symbiosis, like with her team-mates), without thinking about it. She felt…
Was it possible he didn't feel anything of it at all?
TenTen stood up, forgetting her weapons and her wound. She leapt, and ran through the well-known woods.
He didn't do anything. She, on the other side had done too much. And still it wasn't enough.
"I'm sure it cannot end like this. I swear it, I've never seen her like that, she's in love with him, there's no way to deny it!"
"U-uhm…" Shikamaru nodded half-heartedly. He had taken advantage of the moment Lee sat a second on the couch, lying down on it with his head resting on Lee's lap, thus finally blocking him. Since he came home, Lee had gone on pacing around the living-room, talking about TenTen and Shino. Shikamaru had been surprised to know the weapons-girl had decided to break with the bug-boy… he had seen them together only twice, but he got a good feeling about it. He thought they were both too sensate to turn their affair into something troublesome for both… ok, so he guessed wrong. He asked if there was any chance of that being some complicate kind on manouvre on TenTen part to get him jealous (a devious plan of the kind Ino could definitely think about) and Lee had denied it, declaring outrageous to even suggest TenTen could do something like that.
"She… if I didn't know her so well, I'd say she was… scared." Said Lee. He leant back in the couch and looked to the ceiling, his fingers playing with Shikamaru's hair, loosening his ponytail.
"Scared to be in love?"
"Scared to get too lost in something so new, and unknown. She's never had stories, before… always thought of them as a loss of time."
"Uhm…"
"Maybe I should go talking to Shino." Shikamaru felt that kind of "challenge coming" undertone in the words and rested the book he was reading open on his chest, glancing up.
"Hasn't she asked you not to interfere?"
"Yes, but…"
"Why have you left her go away alone tonight?"
Lee looked at him, surprised at the question.
"Because she was needing time alone, to think about the whole thing. I know my presence would have been just a trouble, in the end all I can do is distract her and delay her getting ahead of things. I know it, and I know that if she really wanted me to be with her, she'd asked it. We're always sincere in this."
"You know her well enough to say. Well, I don't know Shino all this well, but I can bet he needs the same. They're very similar. They're both extremely determined, in action they work well with their team but they also are ready to do plans by themselves and go for them till the end, alone if necessary. And they don't like to leave things hanging." Shikamaru put the book down on the floor and closed his eyes. "I believe Shino is thinking about all this, brooding on it, and eventually they'll both come to some conclusion by tomorrow morning. I just hope it won't be the kind of conclusion which will involve Shino turned into a pincushion for kunai and TenTen's house full of cockroaches." He thought about it a moment, then shivered.
Lee laughed. "I don't think there's such danger… if she wanted to do something like that, she'd done it immediately this afternoon."
"…Now I feel reassured…"
Their talk was interrupted by a sudden knocking at the door. After a moment the knocking resumed, louder.
"Who is at his hour…" Lee mumbled, standing up to go answering much to Shikamaru's dismay. He opened the door and stared at the grey-cladded young man who was trying to calm his laboured breathing.
"…ah, Shino! What are you-"
"Is TenTen here?" Shino interrupted him.
"No. I've seen her a little ago, she said she was going home." Lee looked at the dark glasses, not doing anything to hide his surprise. Shino's usual composure seemed totally forgotten. He casted a glance beyond Lee, then tried to calm himself.
"I've been to her home, she wasn't there. I need to talk to her."
"I don't know what to tell you. Maybe she's gone to have a walk. She was…" The vision of flying kunai stopped Lee a moment before saying "quite upset". "…a bit nervous."
"Don't you know where I could find her? I've been also by Hyuga's but she wasn't even there."
"I'm sorry, but…" Lee trailed over, seeing a huge moth appearing from the darkness and settling on Shino's collar. Shino stilled for some seconds, then without a word more he turned and ran away, disappearing in the darkness and leaving Lee standing on the doorframe.
"Uhm…"
"…I still can't see what's the point of all these troubles." Shikamaru appeared behind him, putting his arms under Lee's and pulling him back. Lee's leaned in the hug, feeling a grin forming on his lips. Things were moving faster than he had hoped.
Shino ran as fast as he could, back to the houses of the Aburame clan. They lived secluded from the rest of the village, where they could bring on their researches in secrets, and where the numbers of insects living with them didn't trouble anybody. He stopped outside the recinction, and started scanning the trees around, looking for the one the moth had signaled him. Finally, he noticed a slightly darker shadow. He approached the tree. As he was under the shadow, he remembered to make some noise, not to alarm her with his sudden presence. The next second TenTen was in front of him, looking embarrassed.
"Shino, I… ah, I was looking for you. I went asking but your father told me you were gone out. So I thought to wait for you here." She said, looking everywhere but to him. Get a hold, she mentally rebuked herself.
On his side, Shino hadn't put his eyes off her.
"You could have wait for me inside." He said.
"I think I've waken up your father… he wasn't looking all so happy, so I tought better to be off."
Shino shook his head. "He's grumpy by nature. It runs in the family." He added.
"So… where have you been?"
"Looking for you."
TenTen stared at him. Then they started speaking at the same time.
"Look, I-."
"I wanted to-"
"You first."
"No, you go."
"Ok." TenTen breathed deeply. Oh, how the hell was she supposed to… Then she looked at him, realized how fatigued he look, how he should have been really looking for her through the whole village. Suddenly, with no logic or reason whatsoever, she felt anger growing inside her.
"I don't know what to do with this! I don't… This's not like me, not at all! Look at what you're doing to me! I'm not behaving like me, and it's all your fault!"
"I could say the same." Shino said, calmly.
"Then what should we do about it?"
"Today you said it was better to end this…"
"Do you think it's better?"
"I wanted to do what you thought of better." Shino said, matter of factly.
TenTen looked at him in disbelief.
"What do you mean? That everything I'd say, you would go for it, even if you were totally contrary?!" She clenched her fists. Oh my god, she wanted to punch something. "What kind of reasoning is that?!"
"The reasoning of someone who got no idea of how to deal all of this." Finally Shino reacted, talking with harshness. "TenTen, I assure you that I've never been like this before, I've never wanted to be together with anybody. I thought it was just a loss of energies, I didn't thought I could even feel like this for someone. Surely nobody around here think I could. Not being me like that. Today, I just thought you…" He stopped, uncertain. TenTen took a step forward. She was feeling the anger disappearing quickly as it had rushed over her.
"Me what?" She asked, her voice lower.
"…That you thought the same than everybody else. So I thought it was better to make things the simpliest possible, for us both. I didn't think I would have been so crushed, after. I kept on thinking I've lost the only real good thing I've ever found in my life. Going melodramatic that way…"
"You weren't the only one." TenTen felt the urge to specify, just to be sincere. Shino looked at her questioningly, then he went on. "Then it occurred to me that what I did today... I just behaved like everybody would've think I'd do. And that if I ever had any chance to make you change your mind, I'd just taken it and thrown it to hell. I hadn't even finished phrasing this into my head and I was already running to your home." He looked up. "I don't have the right to ask nothing from you. And most of all I don't have the right to ask you to take something away from your dreams , from your fights, in order to… be with me. But I wanted you to know that if I once in my whole life felt like being a complete, useless asshole not worthy nobody losing their time with, that has been this afternoon when I left you first like that because I didn't want to see you walking away from me. And now I'd give anything to have done things differently. To have said what I really thought, I really think. I… am and I want to be in love with you. I went looking for you to do that."
"And I came here, instead." TenTen said softly.
"Yes, you did."
For a moment, TenTen tried to look for the right words. About all the things she had tought of while sitting on that branch, waiting for him. Then she just closed the distance and hugged him, pressing her face against his shoulder. His arms rose immediately, and after an awkward, excruciating second, Shino embraced her tight, holding like he was never going to let her go. He pressed his cheek on her chocolate hair, breathing their profume, turning to press a soft kiss on them. When she felt him shift again, she backed a little, raised on her fingertips, and turned her head to meet his lips. Shino backed till his back was against the trunk, and they kissed leaning on it, making TenTen wonder why the hell haven't they started doing it since the first day they began… seeing each other, how she had put it herself. That made her chuckle inwardly. Shino broke the kiss to look at her, reaching to caress her face. She reached for his glasses, finally doing something she had always wanted to. To think she'd almost lost her chance to do it. She looked into his dark eyes, then she pulled him down, to softly kiss them both.
"I'm sorry." She whispered. Shino shook his head. Their faces were so closed, they kept on touching them, their hair, their features, like to assure the reality of all it.
"Me too." Shino kissed the hand she had pressed on his cheek. "I won't never let it happen again."
She nodded, then smiled against his skin. They finally sat down on the cold grass, holding themselves.
"You know I can be really a pain sometimes, right?" TenTen whispered, kissing him again on the cheek.
"You know I'll make you want to punch me endless times, don't you" He retorted, holding her tighter.
"Just remind me to put off my scrolls, before."
"And I've got tons of relatives. Aunts who'll never let you go without giving you lessons on every aspects of ninja-house-keeping, from cooking to settling booby-traps…"
"That's fine. I got too few relatives on my own." Shino, looked at her, suddenly worried he had said something he shouldn't, but she just smiled to him, her face bright.
"And I can always bring Gai-sensei to every family lunch. I bet he'll be happy of it. After all, you are dued to at least two speeches about the energy and importanc of our youthful blooming love…"
Shino chuckled, his breath tickling her neck.
"I'm eager for them."