Chapter Text
“Miss Tenten, please give me some details about this other life. I’m not following-” A man flipped through pages in a notebook circling something with the back of his pen. “-you said you owned a weapons shop. What was the name of that shop?”
The question was innocent, but made Tenten feel tiny. She swallowed and looked around the room for a moment taking in the off white walls and colorful books lined up haphazardly on a shelf by the window. Outside she could see the hustle and bustle of Konoha. “I don’t know.”
The man nodded and scratched out a few additional notes. “Can you tell me what profit you made, on average, each month from the shop?”
Tenten slumped into her chair. “No, I don’t know.” I always just had some money in my pocket somehow. The second part was silent.
When they first started treatment, Tenten had wholeheartedly expected to be brainwashed by an enemy shinobi; however, the longer she spent in the hospital, the more holes she found in her backstory. What was the name of her shop? She had absolutely nothing; in fact, she couldn’t even remember what color the lettering on the sign was.
The man nodded again from his chair, one leg resting on his knee with his notebook supported gently on his calf. “How about taxes? You’ve been in business for-” Another glance at his notes, “fifteen years?”
The kunoichi’s eyes slid shut and her head lolled back towards the ceiling. “I don’t know. I never paid my taxes.”
“Miss Tenten, believe me. If you operated a business but did not pay your taxes for fifteen years someone would have noticed.” He set the notebook down and drummed his hands on his legs for a split second. “I believe we should start challenging these beliefs you have.”
The woman’s tired eyes opened and she sat forward looking at him. “My beliefs are reality.”
“No, Miss Tenten. They most certainly are not.”
–
Time in the hospital was a whirlpool. Tenten slept, woke up, spoke with medical staff, sometimes ate, sometimes didn’t, and then she would have visitors. Without fail, someone was always there for her, everyday, and that someone was Neji. Tenten regarded him with the same cold suspicion she gave everyone, but everyday her icy facade melted away a little more.
In the beginning Neji tried to bring her items from home, only to have them confiscated by the staff when Tenten inevitably tried to make unorthodox weapons out of them. Tenten was also so smashed from whatever medication they had her on, that she was mostly struggling to stay awake when he visited in the evening; however, the true turning point was when Neji brought Lee.
The two men waited at a clunky gray concrete table while Tenten was escorted in, and, to Tenten’s groggy surprise, Lee had brought a baby with him! The toddler had a tuft of wispy black hair jutting out at a strange angle from his head like a cardinal, and even at his young age he already had two impressive eyebrows occupying his soft brow.
Lee’s upbeat character was unfazed in the gloomy location, and he spoke so loud that Tenten felt it rattle her seat. “Do you remember me, Tenten? My name is Lee! -and this is Metal!” He lifted the toddler up to show her, and Metal’s black eyes flashed in recognition. Lee tacked on additional information that no one asked for, but that Tenten might need. “My partner and I used a surrogate. His other dad is Gaara.” Two chubby arms reached out towards Tenten, and to Tenten’s disdain Lee forcefully passed her the child across the table.
“I advise against this.” A guard in the room watched the exchange, but Lee scoffed.
“You can’t seriously think that Tenten would hurt Metal!” The green clad man exclaimed in offense. “What is this a jail or a hospital?!”
Tenten had primarily been quiet during most of these ‘visits’ with Neji, but having a baby thrust into her arms was completely astonishing. The bit about Lee and Gaara just flew in one ear and zipped back out the other.
An embarrassed blush formed across her dull cheeks. The first sign of life in days. “Lee, please take it back!” Metal clamped down on a stray piece of her disheveled hair holding on with all his strength, and Lee shook his head.
“Metal is not an it, Tenten. He is a healthy baby boy.” Lee’s tone wasn’t irritated but corrective emphasized with a wiggling finger. The man adjusted in his seat and leaned across the table staring at her intently. Neji in comparison was quiet, downtrodden, and lackluster. The Hyuuga hadn’t said a thing since they sat down.
Tenten tilted her head in pain, unable to get the baby to release her hair. Her shoulders went rigid in terror that she might accidentally drop the toddler in her struggle. Metal was surprisingly dense, and the woman wondered if she had ever in her life held a baby. “Really, maybe someone else should hold Metal.” Her words fell on unlistening ears.
Lee began talking, and in an instant the eccentric man had watery tears streaming down his cheeks. “Tenten! You must cooperate with your treatment.” His hand slammed down on the table cracking the concrete, and Metal only looked over in curiosity. The little boy mimicked Lee and slapped the table, but he didn’t have the same effect.
Tenten’s dim brown eyes rolled, but she was unable to show much reaction since she was holding what might have been the strongest infant in Konoha. Everyone sounded like an echo.
The youthful man continued somehow becoming even louder. His arm flew up pointing at Neji in a dramatic display. Metal pointed at Lee following the behavior. “Have you ever thought about how hard this is on Neji?” - “He brings you a book, and you rip the pages out to make paper needles?!”
Lee didn’t let anyone else speak, “Do you realize they won’t even let Guy in here? He said he’d knock some sense back into you, and now he’s banned from entering the hospital.” The next part came out in an inside voice. “We’re all really worried about you, Tenten. So you’ve got to stop this nonsense.”
A small giggle escaped Tenten’s lips at the thought. Yeah, that sounded like Guy. This was so ridiculous! Why did Lee hand her his baby?
Lee gawked back at her, his thick lips open in shock. “This is not a laughing matter, Tenten!”
The woman let out a frustrated groan. “I know I know. Look, can you please just take Metal back?”
They passed the baby back over the table, and Tenten swore that a few of her long brown hairs went with him.
The woman put her head on the table and reveled in the feeling of the cool concrete against her skin. Her hands floated up and rested on the table as well, soaking in as much sensation as possible. “I wasn’t trying to make needles out of the pages. I was trying to make lock picks, but I fell asleep in the middle by accident. I just want to go home.” The last bit was a whisper.
“Tenten, if you cooperate then they’ll let me take you home.” It was Neji, finally. His voice cracked in a way that she had never heard before. “I just want you to come home as well.”
Tenten felt something touch the tip of her finger, and her hand flinched back instinctively across the smooth surface. The woman turned her head and glanced up at Neji. His eyes had puffed with tears, but the man was doing everything in his willpower to keep from crying. His hand was stretched out across the table and frozen only a few inches from hers. So it had been Neji?
Tenten tapped her finger against Neji’s curiously. She didn’t expect him to feel so normal; his hand was warm, a little clammy even, and the fleshy pad on his fingertip gave softly as she prodded it. The woman realized she was acting strangely and smiled softly at Neji.
A small smile bloomed across his face, but at the same time his brows knit together and Neji started to cry. In a split second, the tears he had been resisting trickled down his high cheekbones and slipped off his chin. Neji used the cuff of his sleeve to quickly dab the tears away, but Tenten had already seen them.
It was heart wrenching, even if Tenten wasn’t sure she believed any of this was real. “Don’t cry, Neji.” Tenten placed her hand on top of his softly, and Neji’s hand flipped over to grab hers. His thumb crammed in between her fingers in a somewhat awkward position, but Tenten felt an immense sensation that everything would work out spread through her chest and shoulders.
The woman peeled herself off the table, but kept a steady grip on Neji’s hand. “I guess I can try.” Tenten muttered out looking down at their intertwined hands.
The guard let out a small cough, just to make sure no one had forgotten about him. “Alright, visitation hours are over.” He came up behind Tenten and put a stern hand on her shoulder.
Tenten didn’t budge and looked at Neji with a determined face. “When was the first time you kissed me?”
Neji’s eyebrows shot up, and his eyes drifted from the guard to Lee and finally Metal. “In the tent.”
The guard began to forcefully pull Tenten up from the table, and she might as well have been a heavy sack of potatoes. “Interesting.” The gears were spinning dangerously fast behind her eyes, but Tenten still had a hefty amount of skepticism surrounding the whole situation.
–
Tenten was in the room again, looking longingly out the window towards Konoha.
“Miss Tenten, if I can just have you look at something for a moment. I think you might be interested in this.” The man presented a magazine to Tenten, but he wouldn’t let her take it.
She leaned over and looked down at the full color image on the front. Tenten’s eyebrow twitched in surprise, but she quickly removed the emotion from her face. “KonohaSphere?” Tenten repeated the publication’s name fidgeting in her seat.
“Do you recognize who’s on the cover here?” If it wasn’t already embarrassing enough, he pointed to the svelte woman on the cover. There was no mistaking it.
It was a picture of Tenten, looking sexy as hell. Her exposed legs looked like they went on for miles, as she sat posed in a short leather skirt with a matching jacket draped over her shoulders. White tank top, pin straight hair, katana in her hand and some sharp high heels to match. In the photo, she was perched on a rich purple velvet armchair, but her keen brown eyes revealed a subtle softness. Off center was a subtitle, ‘Unraveling The Weapon Mistress: Inside The Mind of TetsuTetsu CEO and Cofounder, Tenten.’
Two distinct thoughts ran across Tenten’s brain. The first was the type you didn’t say out loud-especially considering it was a photo of herself. Damn, I look good. The second she voiced to the man.
“What’s TetsuTetsu?” She asked head tilted in curiosity.
“It’s your company, Miss Tenten. It’s quite successful.” He flipped through a few pages looking to find an article explaining the name, and Tenten’s lips fell open in shock, seeing more pictures of her flash by as the pages fell. Neji’s distinct figure caught her attention, and Tenten shot a hand out to keep the man from turning past it.
There was a black and white shot of Neji and Tenten together; it feigned being candid, but Tenten assumed it was a staged photo. Tenten had this cheesy grin on her face while holding up a giant war fan that covered the majority of the photo. Neji was at her side with the smallest smile on his face while he helped hold up the fan. The photo had been snapped just as he glanced over at her, and his pale eyes were focused on her grin.
“Is Neji an important person to you, Miss Tenten?” Tenten wasn’t sure if her eyes started to fill up with tears before he asked or after he asked, but in the end it didn’t really matter.
“He was the most important person to me in the world. I really miss Neji.” She pulled the neck of her shirt up to cover her face for a moment, letting some well deserved tears fall.
The man set the magazine on a small coffee table and extended a box of tissues towards Tenten. “Neji visits you almost everyday. Maybe you can share that sentiment with him, I’m sure he would be quite happy to hear you say that, Miss Tenten.” - “Although, as we've established already in prior sessions, he’s perfectly alive and well, so maybe you shouldn’t use the past tense. I believe that might confuse him.”
