Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Jiro Sato was 12 years old when he first activated the Byakugan, to his exhilaration and sheer terror. While he reeled from the shock of seeing the world anew, the bullies who’d taunted and beaten him in the academy schoolyard backed away immediately, then ran to alert the recess chaperone. Shock paralyzed Jiro, as did the searing pain in his knees and shins where angry scrapes ran across his skin. The bullies’ ringleader, Kenji, had pushed him to the pavement and reared his leg back to lodge a kick in Jiro’s face when his Byakugan emerged. Jiro’s golden brown eyes were now back to normal, and he curled on the unyielding concrete and blotted his eyes with the frayed hem of his sleeve. A few endless minutes passed before Shino Aburame ran to Jiro, only to find no activated Byakugan, and a boy close to tears.

“Is this some kind of cruel prank?” Shino snapped at Kenji and his friends, who stood in a loose arc behind him. “You’ve done enough to poor Jiro already. Please remain behind after classes for detention.”

None of them answered. Even if they held no regard for Jiro, they bowed to authority when the man addressing them had the discretion to expel them from the academy. It wasn’t until the bullies filed back into the academy building that Jiro dared tell Shino the truth. His teacher knelt next to Jiro and one of his hands ran circles around his back. The other settled on Jiro’s leg just above the bleeding wound on his knee. Jiro watched his hands so he didn’t need to stare at Shino’s scrutinizing expression.

“Actually, they weren’t lying,” Jiro whispered. “I could see everything. Their chakra, the building behind me. I-I don’t know what happened.”

With help from Shino’s extended hand, Jiro stood again and began his walk back to the classroom with his head bowed.

“I’m not accusing you of dishonesty, Jiro. I-I just find that rather difficult to believe when neither your mother nor your father have any kekkai genkai in their family history. The Byakugan belongs to the Hyuga clan...and neither of your parents are Hyuga, needless to say.”

Jiro had no Hyuga among his immediate classmates, but he regularly saw white-eyed boys and girls among the academy’s students. Their milky eyes unnerved him, and he shivered when he pictured himself – or either of his parents – with those blank stares. Heat gathered behind Jiro’s eyes at the thought of his parents’ eyes – Mom's golden brown eyes that mirrored his, and his father’s round black eyes beneath bushy eyebrows. Despite civilian origins, both served with distinction in the great war and remained excellent chunin. If only Jiro could say the same about his prospects.

“Yeah,” Jiro stammered, his tongue sitting heavy at the base of his mouth. “They’re not.”

Jiro so desperately wanted to sink into his mother’s arms and hear his father reassure him that he had the makings of a great shinobi. I shouldn’t, he told himself. I don’t need to bother them now. I’m 12 already. Age promised distance and alienation from his parents, who now expected greater maturity from him.

Shino escorted Jiro to the academy’s infirmary so the nurse on duty could disinfect and bandage his wounds. Though the question of Jiro’s parentage and newfound powers remained unresolved, they could at least address his most immediate needs. The nurse sighed and shook her head upon seeing Jiro yet again in her office, even if his current injuries were minor. The unspoken pity grated on him, and tempted him to snap that he didn’t need it. Jiro was a frequent visitor, often injured during practice spars or assaulted by schoolyard bullies. Instead of leaving Jiro in her custody as he usually did, Shino stayed behind while the nurse swabbed his wounds with alcohol and bandaged them. The bandages were green with shuriken and kunai printed across them. Jiro’s mother would have approved.

“Jiro, I’ve been pondering your apparent activation of the Byakugan for several minutes now, and it still utterly boggles me,” Shino breathed out. “I can’t make sense of it...unless –”

Shino cut his speculations short when the nurse drew an extended finger across her throat. Jiro narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips at them, curiosity driving him to lean forward on the nurse’s counter.

“Yeah, I don’t know what’s happening to me either. I’m a freak. Kenji’s right.”

At least Kenji and his circle of friends feared the Byakugan’s power enough to grant Jiro a brief reprieve. However, Jiro knew their torments would return with renewed intensity in the days to come, now that their usual target presented them another reason to single him out. Freak, mutant, monster. The words burned into Jiro’s mind, spoken in Kenji’s low hiss. Tears dripped down Jiro’s cheeks like snot ran from his nose into the furrow of his lip. Shino handed Jiro a wad of tissues from his pocket. Warmth didn’t come easily to him, but his face spoke of genuine concern for his friends’ son.

“Jiro, would you like to return home early? I can write you a pass, no questions asked. But I suggest you confer with your parents to discuss your...recent discovery.”

“Do I need to tell my parents?” Jiro whispered, latching onto Shino’s sleeve. “I don’t want them to kick me out because I’m a freak.”

“The academy does not have instructors on hand to provide any special training...assuming that your activation of the Byakugan is not a one-time fluke. Once again, I’d like to offer you an early dismissal because you appear to need it.”

Both Shino and the nurse watched Jiro with tilted heads and wide eyes. His pulse fluttered beneath the weight of their concern, and he attempted to smile back as his father always did with no effort.

“Okay,” Jiro muttered. “Thank you, Shino-sensei. Thanks, Nurse Akira. I’m sure my mom’s still at the store and she’ll know something.”

The nurse commented on his incident for the first time since his arrival.

“Yeah, kid. I’m sure your mom will know something. Maybe your ‘dad’ needs to know, too.”

“Oh, I guess.”

Jiro scrambled to understand the hidden meaning behind the lilt of her voice, fire flaring in his chest when he realized her innuendo. His parents married just after the great war, and they’d been on the same genin team with Might Gai. When he thought of his parents side by side through the years, he could never picture his mother betraying his father like the nurse seemed to imply.

“Good luck, Jiro. You’ll need it," Shino said. 

Jiro gave Shino and the nurse a parting wave before he cleared the nurse’s office with his shoulders bowed forward. Shino’s pass sat in his pocket, and Jiro ran his fingers along the paper’s crisp folded edges while he waited for his pounding heart to slow.

“If Rock Lee even is his real dad,” the nurse continued behind her office’s closed door.

Through the door’s clear glass window, Jiro saw Shino shoot her a withering glare, but he didn’t linger to know whether more bickering followed. He followed the cobbled streets of the hidden leaf village – little changed since his parents’ academy days – until he found his mother’s weapons store. Even before he opened the door, Jiro peered into the display window to find her half-asleep, a book slipping from her grip. Drawing a deep breath, he pushed the door open and watched his mother sit at attention, an open palm to her heart.

Her wide brown eyes betrayed embarrassment that her son had seen her so compromised. Mom compensated by stiffening her spine and throwing her shoulders back in a faltering attempt to assert her authority.

“Jiro! Are you...are you skipping classes at the academy? I’ll have you know –”

“No, Mom. Shino-sensei said I could leave. He told me I need to talk to you.”

He slapped his pass on the counter, complete with Shino Aburame’s signature and seal.

For the first time, Jiro thanked the gods that his mother’s weapons shop was always empty. Otherwise, there was no way he could disclose the day’s events without being overwhelmed by anxiety over who might overhear and deem him a freak.

“Well, if Shino-sensei gave you a pass…” Mom said, her brows scrunched. “I suppose you can be my shop assistant until I close and your father returns from his mission.”

She grinned and patted the stool next to her. The book sat forgotten on top of the cash register. Jiro stayed anchored before the counter, his knees unsteady. As much as he wanted to seek comfort from his mother, he worried about hurting her with the new powers he couldn’t control. Perhaps his Byakugan had abilities beyond those of a regular Byakugan, and Jiro would be even more poorly equipped to handle those. Jiro also fretted about facing her rejection when she heard about his “incident” at the academy. Conflicting impulses told him to run from his mother, and to run toward her.

“Jiro, dear – are you scared of your mom now?” she teased. “I don’t have horns and fangs, do I?”

“Mom. Do you promise you’re not going to kick me out for being a freak?”

His mother sighed and perched her chin on both hands.

“You are not a freak. Why would you ever believe that?”

He swallowed and shuffled to sit beside his mother, who ran her fingers through his downy brown hair. Like his eyes, his hair was so much like hers.

“Today...today, I think I activated the Byakugan when Kenji and his friends were pushing me around. I know I’m not supposed to because you and dad aren’t –”

He heard only a shaky laugh in response as the fingers combing through his hair stalled and tensed.

“Jiro. This...it was never supposed to happen. You simply shouldn’t be able to use the Byakugan when there’s only half of you that’s...um, that’s from him,” she breathed out. “But it’s not your fault, you’re not a freak.”

Him? Who’s he? Jiro wanted to ask, and would have asked, had Mom been in a better state to answer.

His mother’s breaths rattled as she drew Jiro into her shoulder. She pressed a line of kisses along his forehead and whispered how much she loved him, and how sorry she was. Jiro shivered, confronted with her urgent need to stammer out apology after apology. Mom shared Shino’s shock at his activation of the Byakugan, but her shock seemed balanced with recognition. Recognition of a clearly unwelcome conclusion.

“Wait – Mom, then do you know why I activated the Byakugan?”

“Yes, I do. I didn’t think it was very likely, so I never told you it could happen. And that was my mistake. Your dad...he...”

“My dad?”

Jiro recalled what the nurse said just before he went out of earshot, that horrible comment about how Rock Lee probably wasn’t his real father. But if Rock Lee wasn’t his father, then he could think of nobody else. Certainly nobody else he would want to call “dad.”

“It’s in your blood, even if it doesn’t turn up often in cases like yours.” His mother’s voice trailed off before she could complete her thought.

“So Metal can activate the Byakugan, too?”

Asking about his younger brother seemed to compound his mother’s discomfort. She released her first sobs and shook her head.

“No. Metal will never activate the Byakugan. I only ever thought it was possible with you.”

A tide of panic rose in Jiro’s chest. He gripped his mother’s arms and buried his face into her shoulder.

“So...I’m not like him?” Jiro whispered. “Mom, he’s my brother, right? Why’re we different?”

“Metal is your brother, but only by half. Your fathers are different. You might have figured that out already.”

So that horrible speculation had been correct. Jiro pictured himself torn away from his father and thrust into the arms of a dark, faceless man clouded in shadow. His new father’s white eyes burned through the darkness to pierce him as Jiro struggled to break away and run back to the man he’d always known as his father.

“No! I don’t want to say goodbye to Dad. I don’t want anybody else being my dad.”

Mom laughed, cupping both of Jiro’s cheeks in her hands that smelled of metal and old paper.

“You’re not going anywhere, Jiro. I promise, we’re going to figure this out and you’ll be okay.”

She squeezed him tighter, only looking up when the door swung open. A gray-haired man stood in the doorway with a boy next to him.

“Hey...uh, Ten-ten, my son really needs to go. Do you have a bathroom –”

“If you’re not buying, get out. The bathroom’s for customers only, sorry,” she spat, slapping a hand to the counter.

Jiro blushed and mouthed “sorry” at the man and his son. The occasional outbursts of his mother’s temper unsettled him, especially when directed at people who bore no responsibility for her failing business. By contrast, Mom seemed to relish the opportunity to unleash the distress coiling in her chest.

“Ugh, the nerve of some people,” she groaned at Jiro. “Anyways, we’re not kicking you out, and your father and I love you.”

He looked up at Mom’s glistening eyes paired with her tight smile, biting his bottom lip.

“Does my other father love me, too? Does he know about me and think about me?”

His mother pressed her lips into a line and nodded once.

“Jiro. I can’t say for sure. I don’t know whether...I’ll explain later, dear. Just, please understand that it’s not easy for me to tell you everything.”

Jiro wished he could sink into the ground. He was sure the full truth wouldn’t be easy for him to hear either. Though the Byakugan promised great power if he managed to master it, his life would have been so much easier had he never awakened the latent power in his eyes. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell his mother that he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to know of his “real” father so soon – or ever.

Chapter Text

Tenten didn’t how to tell Rock Lee that one of his sons was no longer his. Not in the sense that Jiro’s parentage would have shocked Lee. Her husband knew of Jiro’s true father since before they married, while Tenten struggled through her first pregnancy without Neji. But with Jiro’s activation of the Byakugan, he would no longer be Rock Lee’s son in the village’s eyes. Leaning against the kitchen counter across from her husband of over a decade, she licked her lips and started to speak a few times before stopping. Her mouth was far too dry, and no amount of water could wet it. Lee finally asked about her day – which he did daily, in their alone time between her return home and their family dinner.

Metal and Jiro sat upstairs working on academy assignments, fortunately out of earshot.

“Today was…” Tenten began.

If she weren’t paralyzed by shock and indecision, Tenten would have laughed – not at Lee’s good intentions, but at his blissful ignorance. He might as well hear it from me, Tenten thought. One of Lee’s shinobi colleagues would pass the news along or he’d overhear mentions of the Hyuga bastard while shopping for food. Tenten didn’t doubt that Lee could withstand ridicule for allowing another man to conceive with his wife, that he’d defend her honor and remain by her side.

“What, dear? Is anything the matter?”

“Today was...ah, a lot.”

Tenten flashed Lee a tight smile, and saw him venture a grin in response. Not his signature toothy grin, but an earnest one that nevertheless tapered his round eyes. She sighed, struggling to string together the words to describe Jiro’s incident.

“Jiro activated the Byakugan at the academy today,” Tenten began, after she concluded that no smooth talking would blunt the impact. “I know, I-I was surprised, too. You know, he’s only half. It’s not supposed to happen. There’s a reason they don’t marry outside the clan.”

Jiro is half Hyuga. Half of him, Tenten finished. The same thoughts probably ran through Lee’s mind, behind the wrinkle between his bushy brows. Her husband tilted his head to the side while he processed her revelation, spoken in such an understated way that Tenten may as well have told him the weather turned bad. Yet Lee understood the gravity of Jiro’s incident, just as Tenten’s 12-year-old son grasped it within the hour.

Whispers would spread, running like tendrils through the village as Jiro’s classmates told their parents, and their parents told friends and family. That poor little boy, the adults would say. Maybe they’d follow up with a muttered slight at his mother’s loose morals. If they were the fair minded type, they’d also incriminate his father for leaving a bastard in his wake.

The children wouldn’t stay hushed when they called Tenten Lee a whore.

“It is unfortunate indeed.”

Lee’s lip twitched, and he ran bandaged fingers through his bowl cut hair.

Is he jealous? Tenten mused. She speculated on whether Lee’s apprehension also stemmed from the sting of knowing that in a different world, she’d belong to another. Jiro’s activation of the Byakugan gave Lee an undeniable reminder, though he never struck Tenten as an overly possessive man.

“I’m sure Jiro thinks so.”

“Yes. That is quite a big event to report. I worry how Jiro is holding up. Maybe I should go talk to him before dinner.”

If jealousy crossed Lee’s mind, at least he suppressed his renewed resentments in favor of helping Jiro. That was typical of him, and Tenten wished she could have matched his selflessness.

Tenten shook her head and released a long, rattling breath. As soon as she returned from the weapons shop with her son in tow, he’d run upstairs to his bedroom and closed the door behind him. He hadn’t even looked in Lee’s direction, let alone paused to tell his stepfather what happened that day. Tenten could imagine the mix of feelings that Lee now inspired in Jiro. Love and affection, yes – but also alienation from the man who clearly wasn’t the father he believed.

“Don’t know how he’s doing now. They dismissed him from school early,” she said, shrugging. Unfiltered emotion cascaded forth as she recalled the sequence of events that followed from her son’s incident. “So he came to the store, and stayed with me until we closed. And you saw how he ran straight upstairs. He’s surprised and a little upset...as you might expect.”

Lee hummed. He leaned forward and locked eyes with Tenten while she considered how to phrase the next logical question. What do we tell him? When Jiro asked about his parentage earlier, Tenten had stalled him with a comment about the difficulties of discussing the past. Husband and wife would need to make the decision eventually, but Tenten dreaded that delicate negotiation with Lee.

“So, I...let him know,” Tenten continued. “Well, I didn’t let him know that his dad is...you know, but I told him you weren’t...actually his father. I thought the rest could wait. If we want to share it all.”

She stayed careful to avoid speaking the full truth directly. Instead, their shared knowledge filled in the gaps. Stumbling on her words, Tenten touched her fingertips to the tops of her cheeks as hot blood rose, and she rebuked herself for phrasing everything so tactlessly. She hadn’t even gotten to ask Lee what they would tell Jiro beyond what she already said. What parts of their thorny shared past as a team needed to resurface, and which ones should remain buried? Lee seemed as bewildered by the implicit question as she was.

“I must object to your wording, Tenten. It seems we have a different understanding of the situation.”

“Sorry – what?” Tenten gasped, biting her bottom lip.

“You said that I was not actually Jiro’s father.”

“You’re not. I mean, it’s just a fact –”

“I was there from almost the very beginning,” Lee interjected, a hard edge in his voice. “I am more of a father to him than –”

Tenten cursed. She hadn’t expected a casual turn of phrase to trigger such strong emotion within her husband. Lee’s outburst triggered a flash of anger – though Neji hadn’t been her lover in years, she hated Lee for dismissing him. For denying the love they shared in her teenage years. Locking her jaw, she slapped her palm to the counter and glared at her husband through narrowed eyes that projected venom. Lee kept her gaze, despite the shock written in his face.

Claiming Jiro as his own and implicitly demanding she relinquish Neji now struck Tenten as an insult, though that had been their previous arrangement. It served them for over 10 years, though Tenten now questioned whether it served them well. She wondered whether their arrangement served Neji well. He now lived on the other side of the village with his Hyuga wife, in the clan compound he ruled.

“Shut up.”

“I am sorry. It is only that I feel hurt that you would act as if I am not a father –”

“Making this about you. Gods, could you not be so immature?”

The air between Tenten and Lee turned thick with sickening tension. A voice in the back corner of Tenten’s mind urged her to apologize, to tell Lee that her rebuke had been entirely inappropriate. He’d articulated his objections with greater calm and regard for her feelings. And she’d failed to give him the same respect.

“Tenten. I do not mean to make this about me alone, though I cannot deny my love for Jiro and the role that I have played in his life. I also believe it is in Jiro’s best interests that we do not attempt to establish a relationship between him and his...father by blood. We must try to change his life as little as possible so that he may experience as normal an upbringing as we can offer him.”

Though she could appreciate Lee’s reasoning, Tenten’s chest tightened. No, we can’t, she responded in her mind. Jiro could never experience normal again, could never return to being a thoroughly unexceptional aspiring shinobi. Denying Jiro a connection to his actual father, and denying Neji the choice to enter his son’s life, also ran counter to Tenten’s sense of fairness.

It’s nothing you haven’t done since he was born, she reminded herself. Her stomach lurched from the whiplash of her sudden change of heart.

“I don’t know how we could keep pretending. I’m not sure I’d want to either. I say we tell him, and...well, that means both of them.”

Tenten mentally outlined the conversation with her elder son, as she confessed to him that “Uncle Neji” was his father and the one responsible for his Byakugan. She saw Jiro’s wide, bewildered eyes scanning from Tenten to Neji, then back again, full of newfound reproach for his lying mother and his absentee father. The years apart from Neji left her with little notion of how he would react to everything. He knew nothing of the illegitimate son raised apart from him, a parting gift left with Tenten when they’d split.

“We cannot change the past. I cannot agree with you that Neji should be reintroduced into our family when he has his own and it would be a massive disruption to their lives and ours.”

At the sound of Neji’s name, spikes drove into Tenten’s heart, and she cringed and curled her lip. Lee sighed before reaching across the counter space to place his palm on Tenten’s shoulder. Her muscles remained tensed in tight knots and she still refused to acknowledge him with anything other than a shrug.

“We can move past this,” Lee ventured. “Tenten, I love you now and you must accept that sometimes the past should remain behind us.”

A rebuke about Sakura Haruno sat on Tenten’s tongue. She burned to say something about how Lee would probably jump at Sakura Uchiha if she so much as winked in his direction. But the rational side of her agreed with Lee, to her dismay. What good would it do to reintroduce father and son, and expose Jiro to a side of him that they’d taken pains to hide? The raw ache of her breakup with Neji stung her tender heart – however much she’d encouraged him to choose his ambitions of reforming the Hyuga clan. Their love had been a minor sacrifice for accomplishing the dream that animated him through his youth.

“What if I don’t want to?”

Tenten’s voice emerged in a whimper, as if she were a little girl severed from her parents in a busy crowd. She bowed her shoulders forward, and buried her head in her sweat-coated hands. Tenten shook her head back and forth, back and forth, while Lee’s firm grasp anchored her to the kitchen. Whatever her justifications about the sacred bond between parents and children, her objections to the current way of things stemmed from a much baser instinct. I don’t want to. I don’t want to keep going with the way things are. I don’t want to live as if we were never in love.

Lee didn’t directly answer her plea. Instead, he cleared his throat – probably preparing to deliver an answer that was far too sensible for the relentlessly upbeat teammate she knew from their youth.

“There were many Hyuga who died in the war, Tenten. They are obviously not alive anymore to rebut you if you were to claim one of them as the father of our son.”

Our son. Jiro was their son on the village’s documentation, and he was their son as far as Jiro and Metal were concerned. Trying to steal him from Neji again, Tenten thought. Yet Lee claimed Jiro more out of love for her son than any lingering rivalry with their teammate.

“My son,” Tenten corrected, her voice breaking at the word son. “His, too.”

Again, Lee ignored her and redoubled his efforts to convince her to double down on polite lies.

“I understand that people would talk about you in a distasteful way, and that is not something I can control. But as your husband, I would be there to tell them they are wrong! What I have laid out is the best solution in this case, as Jiro would have an explanation for his Byakugan while you could avoid –”

Tenten interrupted Lee with a single cutting laugh that made him withdraw his hand from her shoulder. In the fleeting second she looked back at him, Lee raised both palms in surrender and blinked twice, quickly. How her husband so badly misinterpreted her, Tenten couldn’t know – wishful thinking, perhaps.

“Lee, do you really thing he’d buy that? Neji knows we were together. He wouldn’t forget. At least I don’t think he’d forget, ever. He’s not the kind of person who would forget...his first.”

He wasn’t that kind of person when she’d known him intimately, mind and body. He’d better not have forgotten, she added. If he retained no impressions of their love, Neji would have lost his first kiss, his first time being intimate, the first time he declared his love for a woman. If he heard of Tenten’s child activating the Byakugan, Neji wouldn’t have suspected any other man, not when Jiro’s age aligned with the timing of their separation.

Still, a thorny question remained. Would Neji would treat Jiro and Tenten as a burden, a liability obstructing the ambitions he’d yet to accomplish? Lee’s approach at least gave Neji an option to save face before his clan and his legitimate Hyuga family.

“He is not the same as he once was,” Lee countered. “I cannot say what kind of man Neji has become, when we see so little of him, and he speaks to us so little. It is very possible that he does not have an interest in claiming Jiro at all.”

Tenten couldn’t deny how the years changed her from an idealistic young woman who saw a future full of possibility. It followed that they would affect Neji similarly. He’d transitioned from repudiating the Hyuga clan to becoming its next leader with his uncle’s blessing. Of course, Hiashi’s blessing came with a precondition of marrying a Hyuga woman. Were she to confront Neji with their son, Tenten feared his rejection – or worse, his silence and avoidance. She couldn’t bring herself to agree with Lee, but cowardice paralyzed her. As did concern about Jiro’s reaction if his father were to repudiate him.

“Fine. Maybe you’re right,” Tenten spat, tears burning on the corners of her eyes.

Biting the side of her tongue, Tenten refused to let herself cry when Lee touched his lips to her forehead and pulled her into an embrace. He was warm, solid, reassuring. A good man, and an excellent husband. Tenten had a fortunate life with a man who cared for her and her children, whether or not they were his by blood. Yet Tenten closed her eyes, immersing herself in comforting darkness. The darkness soon gave way to visions, tempting illusions. Tenten imagined that another pair of lips pressed into her skin while she relaxed into the caring arms of her lover long past.

Chapter Text

Family dinner at the Lee house proceeded without any acknowledgment of Jiro’s incident at school. For that – Jiro was grateful. He remained a full member of the family, though the air hung heavy with the knowledge that he wasn’t really. Jiro imagined his mother spoke with Dad – or rather, Rock Lee – sometime between their return to the house, and the moment she rallied the family to eat. The usual squeal of chairs against hardwood and the clatter of plates on the table brought Jiro an odd sense of comfort. He could pretend all remained normal while surrounded by the sights and sounds of an unexceptional evening meal. Metal, Jiro’s younger brother by two years, occupied his parents’ attention while Jiro picked his rice grain by grain.

Normally, Mom would chastise him for toying with his food instead of putting it into his mouth. She liked reminding him that shinobi didn’t have the luxury of dallying at mealtimes. Her perhaps intentional preoccupation with Metal left Jiro safely out of her scrutiny. From years of experience with her often reserved older son, she knew when he needed space to process the roiling emotions beneath his calm features.

Metal was Jiro’s half brother, always had been. Yet Jiro saw nothing half-hearted in their sibling bond. He considered his younger brother as his only true friend, his refuge from the reproachful, pitying glances and violent mockery he suffered at school. Jiro was among the few people Metal addressed without stutters. The brothers passed countless hours chasing one another through sun-soaked village streets and playing board games sprawled on the carpet.

Metal stiffened as his parents alternated questions about his classes, whether he made any new friends and celebrations of his upcoming birthday. Mom and Dad’s gentle prompting coaxed him into shedding the quiver and breathy quality from his voice. Metal spoke with an upward lilt when he recalled the way his jounin instructor called him a “prodigy in the making” for his mastery of the shuriken jutsu. At his brother’s burst of fleeting confidence, Jiro smiled into the rice bowl he raised to his lips. The confidence would fade all too quickly – it always did, and Jiro’s self-regard was little better. Yet envy tainted Jiro’s happiness for Metal. His most flattering feedback from the instructors were notes that he’d “improved” on his previously subpar performance or didn’t perform too badly.

“Jiro,” Dad ventured, once he lavished Metal with the usual effusive compliments. “You do not look happy.”

When Dad’s round black eyes seized on Jiro, his heart jumped before racing faster and faster. Help. Help me, please. I don’t know what’s happening to me, or what I am, Jiro wanted to say.

“I’m...okay, uh...Dad,” he muttered instead.

His tongue stumbled on the word Dad, what he’d called Rock Lee for years. And the man at the table was his father, both in the village’s documentation and for every practical purpose. Dad’s bushy brows lifted in apparent surprise. Never before had Jiro hesitated before addressing him as his father. It occurred to Jiro that Mom was the only person at the table who was wholly related to him. Their blood bound them in a way inaccessible to Lee or Metal, and now so did the weight of her secret. How would Lee and Metal react upon seeing him activate the Byakugan? – Jiro wondered. That kekkai genkai was a strange, terrible power foisted upon him by a faceless father he’d never met. And now it isolated him from the family Mom and Dad had cobbled together.

“If you say so. I can continue to provide you space if that is what you want, but I am here to help!”

The thump of Dad’s meaty hand on Jiro’s shoulder bowed him forward into the table’s edge. The impact of hardwood to his stomach knocked air from his lungs with a whump. In his enthusiasm and moments of unbounded excitement, Dad often left his strength unchecked. Metal giggled and remarked that he would have liked to see Jiro’s face land in his soup, to which Jiro folded his lips into a mock frown.

“Lee! Gods, do you have to be so careless?” Mom snapped, her face contorted into a snarl. “How many times do I need to tell you to control yourself? They’re just children.”

“Mom, it’s okay,” Jiro interjected, before his mother could continue scolding Dad. Raising his thin voice made Jiro’s pulse tap at his temple in a shrill, deafening beat.“ Really, I didn’t get hurt or anything. Didn’t you say I needed to be tough to be a proper shinobi?”

Faced with her own words used against her, Mom released a long puff of air and leaned back. Her narrowed golden brown eyes glared at Jiro, like she blamed him for not sharing her anger. They’d retread the same conversation numerous times – Mom, Dad, Jiro – and the three resumed their roles like water flowing into grooves in stone. The familiar debate at least distracted from the pressing matter of Jiro’s incident. Still, Mom’s rebuke assumed an unfamiliar tenor, infused with bitterness that seemed sourced from deep within her. Under normal circumstances, she’d only give her husband a light warning before her lopsided smile returned and the dinner discussion shifted elsewhere.

Jiro saw no easy end to this impasse.

“That’s different.” Mom shook her head. “Dad is strong enough to seriously hurt you without meaning to.”

“Tenten, I am sorry. I only became excited and I wished to encourage Jiro when he was not feeling well.”

“Don’t be sorry, be better.”

“Sorry, and I will be more careful with the boys next time.”

The sounds of his mother’s rebukes and Dad’s groveling made Jiro flinch and curl his shoulders forward. Not once did Dad apologize to Jiro. They shared an implicit understanding that such things happened without substantial harm to either. Jiro appreciated that Dad was bold and shameless about showing his love, though he remained too self-conscious to get caught up in Dad’s flights of ecstasy. Part of Jiro dreamed of cutting himself free from his self-imposed restraints, so he could share Dad’s seemingly constant joy.

“Mhm. I’ve heard that one before, Lee. I wonder when it’ll actually start to mean something.”

The hard edge in Mom’s voice cut deeper than usual. Perhaps she resented her husband because he wasn’t Jiro’s blood father – and Jiro was only an excuse to vent her emotions. Had Mom nursed a seed of grievance against Dad for years, only to see it grow every time she tried to deny it light or air? Jiro wondered if his Hyuga father was anything like Rock Lee, or whether Mom married him to escape the specter of her former lover. Probably not, he concluded. The clan’s famed “Hyuga manners” frowned upon the open expressions of emotion that were Dad’s trademark.

“Jiro, I am sorry for not being more careful. Your mother has reminded me once again that I have a long way to go,” Dad recited in a stiff, somber tone. A bandaged hand settled on Jiro’s forearm.

“Don’t worry about it, Dad.”

“I imagine you wouldn’t be so unbothered about Metal,” Mom hissed, just loud enough for Jiro to catch the hard syllables of her words.

Dad no doubt heard her as well, from his seat at Mom’s elbow. Mom’s lip curled into an angry pout while she gathered the remainder of her rice in a pile. Metal. The way his mother spoke his brother’s name suggested that husband and wife shared an understanding over Jiro. Rock Lee had agreed to play Jiro’s pretend father for years out of regard for his wife. No, Jiro imagined Lee accepted his role with open-hearted eagerness. He would endeavor to love Jiro with every bit of intensity he devoted to his own son. Mom only projected her paranoia and maybe some guilt or pain lingering from the distant past. Jiro closed his eyes and prayed to disappear from the room. Though his mother’s bitter words grated on him, Jiro dreaded her scrutiny turning back to him. Never – ever – would he share those observations with Mom.

Ever the people pleaser, Dad also lacked the nerve to check the occasional flare-ups in his wife’s temper. Dinner concluded with only the soft cadence of chewing and the tap and clatter of tableware. Once the table cleared and Ten-ten retreated to their shared bedroom to read, Jiro approached Lee where he sat on the couch, browsing through evening TV programs. The screen’s flicker from channel to channel appeared to draw him into a trance. Suffering the brunt of Mom’s lashing and the strain of his most recent mission probably left him worn, eager for a distraction.

“Hey, Dad.”

Jiro slid onto the couch beside Dad with a whump.

“Hello!”

His greeting lacked the usual punch, but his round black eyes still shone at the sight of Jiro.

“Did you always know?” Jiro whispered.

“Know what, Jiro? There are many things I do not know much about, but I can try my best to assist you!”

Did you always know that you weren’t my father? Do you know who he really is? Or where he is now? The question tickled the tip of Jiro’s tongue and dared him to spit it out. However, Jiro instead shook his head and leaned into Dad’s firm shoulder. He feared the answers with a creeping dread that gnawed inside him. With Dad’s warmth against him, Jiro wanted to cling to whatever shreds of normal remained before the coming storm would tear them apart.

Risa Hyuga’s swollen midsection made walking difficult, and giving her husband a full embrace near impossible. Neji settled for drawing his wife to his side and pressing a kiss to her forehead once she met him at the bedroom door. With the trials of pregnancy and caring for two children, Risa needed rest – and it frustrated him that she further strained herself by springing from bed. He coaxed her back to her side of the bed, muttering that she didn’t need to stay awake waiting for him on nights when his obligations as clan head kept him late.

“If I don’t worry for you, nobody will,” she countered. Slender white fingers reached over the side of the bed for the sash of Neji’s yukata.

Neji’s face flushed, but he only sighed as Risa undid the knot and ordered him into bed alongside her.

“I don’t need you to worry for me. Worry for the children, if you feel the need to spend your energies worrying for someone.”

His hand traced the curve of her stomach, lingering just over her navel. Risa laughed and laid her hand over her husband’s, weaving her fingers between his. The baby – another daughter – didn’t respond. It remained too early in her pregnancy for any traces of movement. But Neji anticipated that the baby’s kicks and stirrings would soon become a simultaneous source of aches and joy for his wife.

“I’m sure you’ve had a difficult day. Regular meetings with other clan heads rarely last so far past dinnertime. Amaya wondered whether they killed you.”

Though she kept her tone forcibly light, her voice betrayed that it wasn’t only their elder daughter who fretted over his welfare. In the new peace of the shinobi world, clan politics didn’t escalate as they once did, and assassinations were rare even during Neji’s childhood. That didn’t stop Risa from jumping to the worst conclusions every time he returned to her even an hour late. Neji cupped Risa’s face, then pivoted her head so she looked right into his eyes.

“If Amaya needs to know that her father’s still alive, I can wake her now. But that would be ill-advised when she has academy classes in the morning.”

Risa pursed her lips and wrenched his hand from where it held her chin, not appreciating the mockery of her fears. Neji touched his lips to hers and told her – once again – to sleep.

“Still, the Aburame wanted something from you, did they not?” she pressed. “And you were reluctant to give it – otherwise, I don’t imagine you would be stuck in simple negotiations for this long.”

A lead weight tugged at Neji’s stomach as he dreaded telling Risa the details of his disagreements with the Aburame. Navigating the delicate balance within his family often made clan politics that much harder to handle. Marrying Amaya to an Aburame and giving her the Aburame name would patch the alliance between the two noble clans, but Neji refused to offer his daughter as a bargaining chip. Though Hiashi Hyuga had arranged Neji’s marriage to Risa, Neji recognized he was fortunate to have a wife who cared for him and complemented him so well. Not all political marriages ended in love. Salvaging the Aburame clan’s sense of self-importance in the wake of tensions between lower-ranking members of their clans wasn’t worth Amaya’s name and freedom.

His wife would hate the idea of Amaya’s arranged marriage even more. Risa wanted all of her children married to other Hyuga, living within the compound walls where she could keep her eyes on them.

“I’m sure you’d be pleased at my resistance,” Neji answered. “I have more meetings ahead of me, but I’m not giving them our daughter.”

Risa gasped, clasping Neji’s hands with enough force that her gold wedding ring dug into his skin. She kissed the corner of his lip and laid her head on his shoulder in a silent plea for him to stand firm.

“Amaya is a Hyuga, and she stays here,” Risa declared. “Unless the Aburame mean to lay claim to an unborn child? I can hardly believe they would sink so low, but perhaps –”

“No, they don’t mean to take our youngest.”

“Hm. I would sooner run from the village than surrender the baby for whatever sick ritual they do to make new hosts.”

Neji supposed he owed Risa some forgiveness for her prejudices and insistence on “keeping family together.” Leery looks cast upon her and their children by outsiders burned into her mind, further convinced her that non-Hyuga could never truly be trusted as family. Risa must not have sensed the irony in her perpetuation of prejudice against another clan while the judgments of outsiders bothered her so much. After nearly 12 years of marriage, Neji hesitated to challenge her convictions while her distress ran high.

And Risa hadn’t had a Tenten or Rock Lee to show her acceptance or prove that friendship between Hyuga and outsiders was possible.

“Risa. You know I’d protect her.”

She nodded, face contorted into a near-sob.

“Yes. Yes, of course. I’m sorry if I sounded like I doubted you.”

“The children come before anything else,” he reassured her.

Husband and wife shared a lingering kiss before Risa reclined into the pillows and closed her eyes. Neji brushed her bangs up so he could kiss the center of the cross on her seal. A strange sequence of events had led to a sealed clan head – first, Hanabi had died on a mission, then Hinata refused her birthright in favor of marrying the hokage. It pleased Neji that both he and Risa still wore their seals. The marks on the foreheads of the clan head and his wife reminded him that he’d rendered the seals powerless. If Neji had any appreciation for poetry, he would have considered it poetic.

“You’d have failed as clan head if you sacrifice any of us for the good of the clan,” Risa sighed, just as the rhythm of her breathing convinced him that she’d fallen asleep.

“Of course, dear. I’m not like my uncle was.”

As the first clan head to preside over the Hyuga since the end of the seal and the branch clan, Neji resolved not to fail. He would prove the clan could assert its interests without sacrificing its members’ lives or freedom.

Risa smiled and mouthed an I love you. Neji closed his eyes and tried to forget all the painful memories triggered by his reiteration of that promise. He’d sacrificed to reach his current position, cast aside youthful dreams of marriage and family with Tenten. Though he still resented his concessions to the insularity and noble pretensions of his clan, Neji told himself the broken dreams were shattered for the greater good. A necessarily evil so no others would suffer the same grief.

Chapter Text

Laying opposite Rock Lee in their marital bed that night left Tenten sleepless, growing progressively agitated with every second her husband’s snuffling snores sounded beside her. She arose even before Lee bounded from bed for his morning exercises, while the dark sky still peeked between her shutters. Neji Hyuga’s name burned on her lips, tongue and mind, as did the lingering question of what he’d think of what – or rather, who – he left behind. While the house slept, Tenten stood on the landing outside Jiro and Metal’s bedrooms. Maybe her elder son shared the stirring in her bones that refused to let her rest, not until she received some form of closure from her former lover.

Tenten figured it didn’t matter whether she opened her weapon shop an hour late – or ever. The odd customer had plenty of hours when she could give them her sole attention. And so she paced outside the Hyuga compound wreathed by fog, after she’d sent her sons to the academy and said “goodbye” to Lee. The unusual morning chill cut through the thin cotton of her side-button shirt and loose pants, sending an involuntary shiver up her spine. It occurred to Tenten that her sleep deprived mind’s plan wasn’t prudent from any vantage point, but she knew she’d never enjoy a full nights’ sleep unless she followed through. No more than two minutes must have passed between when she rang the bell, and when a servant approached to ask her business.

Her fluttering heart tapped at her breastbone and thumped her ribs. Too late to go back, Tenten thought, biting the inside of her lip and lifting her shoulders.

“Good morning,” she called across the gate. “I wish to speak with Neji Hyuga as soon as possible.”

The servant – a teenage boy whose uniform still had the stiff edges of a new outfit – glanced up and down Tenten’s form. Appraising her, wondering why a woman of no special blood and only modest means insisted on an audience with his master.

When the servant demanded to know why she wanted an audience with the clan head, Tenten wanted to scream that it was none of the clan’s damn business. Instead, she pinched the corners of her lips and promised that Neji Hyuga would understand and expect the servant to grant her audience. Tenten explained that she was among Neji’s oldest friends and his most trusted confidantes. Tenten couldn’t begrudge the new boy a bit of over-zealousness, when he no doubt wanted to prove himself a dependable servant worthy of continued employment – and possibly a raise.

“I...you see, I have news for him...he’d want to know, I promise,” Tenten finished, her last words no more than a soft hiss.

Recognition flickered across the servant’s features when he met Tenten’s wide golden brown eyes. He crossed his arms and tilted his chin upward, throwing his downy facial hair into relief.

“Sorry, I can’t allow any non-Hyuga entry without an explicit invitation bearing the Hyuga sigil,” he answered, palms raised. “If the clan head wanted to see you, I’m sure you could get one.”

If he wanted to see me… Tenten echoed the words back to herself. Of course Neji would want to see her – or would he? Would her news be welcome? The sudden flurry of uncertainty made heat rise to Tenten’s face while a stab of dread penetrated her heart. For a fleeting moment, she hated the boy for shaking her resolve, reducing her to a foolish, lovesick woman obsessed with an indifferent former lover. Neji’s goal of becoming clan head and overseeing his clan had driven him to spend hours studying clan history and politics in addition to his training. Like a good friend, Tenten had wanted nothing more for him than to see his dreams realized. Until the unpleasant reality of his arranged marriage became unavoidable, she’d imagined herself by his side, at the head of a reformed Hyuga clan.

“I understand. Good day,” Tenten stammered out through leaden lips. “I...I apologize if my sudden intrusion is an inconvenience to you.”

“Don’t worry about it, miss.”

The servant gave Tenten a half smile, then turned from the closed gate to stride across the compound’s front courtyard. Just doing his job, Tenten reiterated to herself. Nothing personal. The compound wall and closed gate stared back at her, unyielding regardless of her longing to spill years of repressed emotions to Neji. An unwelcome thought seeped into her consciousness like slow-moving poison. If Neji shunned her, perhaps his painful indifference could be rationalized as just doing his job.

Now that Neji found himself at the clan’s seat of power, the burden of his responsibilities cast a wall between him and those he once considered best of friends. His former teammates saw Neji at most three times a year when he answered her invitations to dinner at the Lee house. Those dinner reunions remained impersonal, always cut short by Neji’s announcement that he needed to leave early for some clan matter. Or his wife and his children. Neji never gave her the impression that his early departure rent his heart with painful regret, nor that he longed to spend just a minute longer with Lee, Tenten and their boys. The Hyuga clan head who heeded their calls to visit wasn’t her Neji – he was a near-stranger who maintained the most tenuous of ties to his old friends out of obligation. Tenten couldn’t even say for certain how many children Neji and his wife now had.

In the name of the bond they once shared and the one they might share again, Tenten resolved that she would force Neji to acknowledge her. But in the moment, she could only ball a fist at her side and walk back toward the village center.

The morning passed at the store in the usual boredom and solitude. She conducted another inventory and found every single item from the last inventory accounted for, a pitiful yet unsurprising discovery. The store hadn’t seen a sale for the entire month so far. In the tedium and maddening silence of her empty storefront, Tenten turned to reminiscences of her youth – and youthful indiscretion. Flashing through still images and private moments passed by Neji’s side, her nostalgia curdled into anger. Anger crystallized into a plan. Infiltrating the Hyuga compound wasn’t difficult, and she’d done it before – with Neji’s assistance. If he was as she remembered, Neji would hate the invasion of his home, the intrusion of an uninvited guest. He would lash her for her foolish gambit and try to force her out.

But if he was as she remembered, Neji would respect their former bond enough to hear her message, to protect her from any who might harm her.

Though the haze of time and distance blurred her memory, Tenten still recalled that blind spots existed in the guards’ patrol. Additionally, the guards grew lazy close to noon, right around shift change and lunch time. That was also when vegetable deliveries arrived at the compound, distracting the guards at the gate who’d remain occupied for at least 10 minutes while they inspected the load. In the compound’s southwestern corner, the limbs of an old tree growing outside the wall drooped down into the Hyuga grounds. The tangle of small branches and leaves would obscure her, and she doubted any guards would bother scanning the spot with their Byakugan if they sensed no movement.

Tenten closed the weapons store half an hour early for lunch and executed her plan without a single hitch. A few minutes of observation from without the compound confirmed that its routines remained unchanged. Peacetime no doubt compounded the guards’ complacency, the half-hearted quality of their patrol. After walking up the old tree and dropping into the compound, Tenten stowed her slim body between a tall hedge and the wall. Clever use of the substitution jutsu soon brought Tenten into the compound’s laundry room, where she hid behind a stack of folded sheets before transforming into a nondescript servant. Winding her way through the compound disguised as a Hyuga servant, Tenten allowed herself a laugh once she reached a secluded corridor.

Provided she resembled one of the hired help, Tenten could roam unquestioned. Eyes down, feet close together, Tenten thought. That advice had come from Neji, as he taught her to assimilate into the compound so she might subvert its defenses. If she projected perfect submission, then she’d fly beneath the notice of any Hyuga who might stop her. The clan cycled through enough new hires in their vast staff that an unfamiliar face alone wouldn’t garner a second look. Tenten reached the head family’s wing of the compound without a single servant or Hyuga glancing her way – except one visibly pregnant Hyuga woman holding a toddler’s hand.

“Are you lost, miss?” the Hyuga woman asked, a white hand bracing Tenten’s upper arm.

“No, I’m not,” Tenten whispered in the soft, high voice that servants used with their masters.

“And where are you going? You appear headed to my husband’s study, but he doesn’t permit servants access without his summons. Certainly not empty-handed new hires.”

“I promise, I’m not lost.”

The woman’s feathery dark brows furrowed in disbelief, her pale lips drawing into a line. She seemed tempted to say more, but kept her thoughts at bay – all the better to test the suspicious stranger in her midst. Sharp white eyes seized Tenten’s gaze and refused to release it.

“I have a delivery for the clan head. A very important confidential message.”

None of that was a lie. Still, the woman’s eyes narrowed and left Tenten paralyzed beneath the intensity of their glare. Tenten feared she might activate her Byakugan. With her free hand, the Hyuga woman formed the sign to activate the Byakugan just when the child tugged on her hand. Tenten used the distraction to shuffle down the corridor, advancing toward Neji’s study and praying the woman would forget her suspicions. Behind her, Tenten heard the hushed exchange between mother and child.

“Mother,” the toddler said. “Mother, you were going to take me to the park, right?”

“Reina, I don’t think we should let this lady see your father. We can go to the park later.”

“Alright, Mother.”

The child was obedient, easy to handle. More seen than heard. Just like an ideal Hyuga child, raised to standards that once turned Neji blind with resentment. The child, a little girl in a white dress, must have been Neji’s daughter, Tenten realized with a jolt. His youngest child was yet to be born.

“I command you to stop this instant. Any message meant for my husband may go through me.”

The woman’s shout shot down the corridor, stalling Tenten mid-step. Evading her would be useless now. Worse than useless, because it would magnify her suspicions. One look with the Byakugan would reveal Tenten’s transformation and embroil her in deeper trouble.

Shit. Tenten admitted that this wasn’t an ideal introduction to Neji’s Hyuga wife, or his Hyuga children. No members of Neji’s family ever came to the Lee house for dinner, and Neji never invited Tenten to dine at the Hyuga compound. As the woman approached, Tenten reassured herself that she would find a way to reach Neji. His wife be damned.

Somehow, his wife’s swollen midsection made her all the more intimidating. Tenten smiled her sweetest smile and kept her hands flat at her sides. Her pulse rang in her ears in the moments before she stammered out a response, a feeble attempt to rescue her doomed venture.

“I’m sorry, my lady. Your husband would want this message kept confidential from you. It’s...very important that you not trouble yourself,” Tenten told Neji’s wife.

“Nonsense,” she snapped. “A servant would not be the one to relay such a message. My husband wouldn’t be one to keep such secrets from his own wife.”

“My lady, I am not one to question my orders –”

“Liar.”

Tenten flinched at the low, menacing tenor of her voice. The toddler buried her face in her mother’s skirts and released a tiny whimper that sounded like stop, Mother. Neji’s wife ran a hand over her daughter’s braids before returning her gaze to Tenten with a growl on her face. The veins around her white eyes swelled and her fine features twisted upon confirmation that Tenten was not as she seemed. A proper Hyuga lady wasn’t supposed to wear such feral expressions on her face, to permit herself such depths of outrage. But protecting her family took precedence – and Neji’s wife seemed eager to defend him, out of some devotion that might have been genuine love.

“Tell me your reasons at once, otherwise I’ll call a guard,” she hissed. Two fingertips pointed squarely at the center of Tenten’s throat.

“I’ll leave the compound –”

“You should never have come. One single move, and I’ll paralyze you. I would never have expected a distinguished hero of the great war, a chunin in good standing of such treachery. Tenten.”

“Lady Risa, is there a problem?” a servant interjected from behind them, bearing an armful of fresh bed linens.

So Neji’s wife was Risa – Risa Hyuga, not that she would have changed her name with marriage. Facing Risa’s turned back, he probably couldn’t see the Hyuga woman’s threatening gesture, or hear the deadly sing-song in her voice.

“None at all, Kaito,” Risa muttered without stealing her gaze from Tenten. The corners of her lips pinched. “Our new hire has simply found herself lost. An understandable mistake.”

She flashed Risa a grateful smile once the interloper passed.

“Please, forgive me. My lady,” Tenten begged.

“Why should I?”

Inches from Risa’s face, Tenten saw the branching and curving of blue veins beneath her white skin. Risa grasped Tenten’s shoulders tightly enough to send a pulse of pain down her arm, strong enough that Tenten choked out an ouch. Tenten sidestepped Risa’s pointed question. How could she answer then and there in the corridor? Giving a proper accounting required delving into years’ worth of detail on her first love, and admitting that perhaps that love wasn’t behind her. Depending on Risa’s notions of honor, she might have considered Tenten’s truth far worse than the offense of invading the Hyuga compound.

“You were going to the park with your daughter, weren’t you? If you let me follow you, I’ll explain everything. Please, I mean Neji no harm. I mean you no harm.”

The sound of her husband’s name without the typical honorifics made Risa raise her brows. Within the compound, nobody spoke of the clan head or his wife without calling him “lord” and her “lady.” However, Tenten refused to speak her former lover’s name with honorifics, regardless of what titles he’d accumulated in the interim.

“Very well. Keep your transformation, and nobody will question you so long as you remain behind me.”

“Thank you, Lady Risa.”

Even if Neji would never become Lord Neji or Lord Hyuga to her, displaying proper deference before Risa was the least she could do in her precarious situation.

Tenten stayed three paces behind Risa and her daughter until they reached the village’s public park. Risa settled on a bench next to the playground with a sigh, patting her daughter on the shoulder and telling her to go play. With a fleeting look at Tenten that portended numerous questions for Risa to answer, the girl ran toward the nearest playground fixtures. From Tenten’s vantage point, the park was deserted save for the Hyuga girl and a baby on the swingset. After a scan of Risa’s Byakugan confirmed that nobody from the compound followed them, Tenten broke her transformation. Biting the inside of her lip, she faced Risa for the first time with her own golden brown eyes. The glare of Risa’s white eyes made Tenten’s mouth go dry.

“Explain yourself. You’ve gone through too much trouble not to speak,” Risa demanded, dry sarcasm dripping from her tongue.

Chapter Text

How would Tenten explain to Neji’s wife that her husband had another child, an illegitimate son who she’d passed as the child of another? I think I still love him. I wish he’d never met you. That your children had never been born – words rushed Tenten’s mind, unbidden. She cursed herself for even thinking to speak them before the woman whose family she now threatened to split. Drying her sweaty hands against her pants, Tenten grasped for anything that might delay the time until she needed to deliver her dreaded disclosure.

“You’re expecting?” Tenten ventured. “A son or a daughter?”

Risa pressed her lips into a line, as if to say Tenten’s stalling wasn’t appreciated.

“My third daughter.”

“Congratulations. I’m a mom, too. I have two sons…” Tenten trailed off before she could say and I’m here to talk about one of them.

“I seem incapable of producing sons, much to the dismay of certain elders.”

The clan’s line of succession could pass to a woman if the clan head failed to produce sons, but the more traditional Hyuga favored a male clan head. Tenten pitied poor Risa, judged for what she could not control. She wondered whether the clan would expect her to conceive repeatedly until she birthed a boy. Or whether Neji would face pressure to replace her for a woman who could produce a son.

“Oh, so long as your child is healthy, that should be what matters,” Tenten said with a forced grin.

Uncomfortable heat rose to her cheeks. The disconnect between the women loomed large, divisions of class and status thrown into relief by Risa’s throwaway comment. Despite Lee’s desires for a boy to share his passion for taijutsu, she’d never faced blame for something as trivial as the sex of her children.

“Hm. Enough about me. You owe me an explanation.”

Tenten’s toes curled in her heeled sandals.

“My older son? He’s...he’s your husband’s. He’s 12 years old, about to graduate the academy,” she began. “He activated the Byakugan in a moment of panic. My husband and I have lied to him for years to protect him. To keep your family intact. We pretended he was our son, but that fiction can’t stand any longer.”

“And now that your son has expressed the Hyuga kekkai genkai, you wish to inform him of his true parentage,” Risa finished.

“That’s right. I wanted to consult with Neji before I gave my son any specifics. Grant him to chance to claim his place in my – our – son’s life.”

Risa watched her daughter on the swingset for a few moments before turning back to Tenten with a shake of her head. Her chest heaved with rattling breaths.

“Neji has a mistress? I-is this why he stays out late at ‘meetings’?”

“No! We haven’t been involved since just after the great war. We were just teenagers...friends, teammates. Lovers.”

“If you say so. Interrogating his faithfulness is between us,” Risa huffed. “He...certainly has never told me of any lovers from his youth.”

“I promise,” Tenten pleaded. She held a palm against her heart. “I’ve never been unfaithful to my husband, or tempted yours to be unfaithful to you.”

To Tenten’s relief, Risa appeared to take her words as truth, without impugning her character or questioning the bond she’d once held with Neji. Neji’s wife twisted her hands in what remained of her lap before running one set of fingertips up the curve of her stomach.

“Either way, I advise you against telling your son that the Hyuga clan head is his true father. There are other ways to explain his Byakugan, no? Many of us were lost in the war – and war brings out many youthful indiscretions.”

So, Risa wanted Tenten to shift her lies, to tell Jiro that his father was a Hyuga lost to war. Both Neji’s wife and Rock Lee had come up with the same ruse independently. Hearing the proposal a second time, from a different set of lips, swelled Tenten’s heart with indignation. Whatever her deep-seated aversion to the idea, Tenten couldn’t deny that was a convenient lie. A dead Hyuga couldn’t contest her claims of fatherhood and Jiro would never attempt to seek a father who didn’t exist anymore.

Tenten had given up Neji once so her former lover could realize his ambitions of becoming clan head. The clan wouldn’t have accepted a non-Hyuga as the clan head’s wife, and revealing the existence of a bastard child would have ruined his chances even more. She’d gotten Rock Lee to cooperate in the lie she lived every day since before Jiro’s birth, to raise his teammates’ child as his own son. Keeping the peace with polite lies had been her policy for over 10 years, and she refused to simply pivot those lies.

“I have to disagree with your suggestion, Risa.” She spat out the Hyuga woman’s name, barren of honorifics, an expression of contempt that carried with it all her repressed grievances.

The answer must have come out harsher than Tenten intended, because Risa scowled back.

“My husband would agree with me. Sending your son after a father who could never acknowledge him, who is now married to another, would cause much grief to both our families.”

“Really?” Tenten sneered. “How convenient that Neji would agree with your selfish interests.”

In the moment after the words left her lips, Tenten conceded to herself that Risa had a point. So had Lee. She retread the same considerations from yesterday’s conversation with Lee, prompted by Risa’s repetition of Lee’s concerns over the impacts on both families. Whatever happened between her and Neji so many years ago, they’d both moved onto other commitments in the decade-plus since. Reminding him of their former connection threatened to undo the lives they’d built atop their self-denial and lies of convenience. Despite her ailing business, Tenten didn’t have a bad life – proctoring the chunin exams promised to advance her case for becoming jounin later that year. And Ino and Temari both envied her for landing Rock Lee as a husband, thought Tenten suspected that they mostly wanted an easily pliable man who would indulge and spoil them.

Before Tenten could apologize, Risa leaned in toward her, close enough that her heavy breaths hit Tenten’s face.

“My selfish interests? I could forgive your lack of virtue as a young woman, but I can’t believe you would ruin two families like this. Do you not love your husband as I love mine?”

Calling me a whore, huh? Tenten fumed. And he’s been stuck with this bitch for 12 years. That aristocratic, snobby, stuck-up little bitch. Any trace of remorse burned away beneath the withering heat of her injured pride, and she gave a single harsh laugh.

“I can see why you would say that,” Tenten taunted. “You’re afraid he doesn’t love you despite how long you’ve been married. You know he didn’t choose you. He only married you so he could become clan head, please his uncle.”

From the quiver in Risa’s bottom lip, Tenten could tell that she’d struck at one of her deep-seated fears. Even as the clan’s highest ranking woman and mother to three of the village’s most privileged children, Risa Hyuga apparently worried she might find herself cast aside tomorrow. The cynical side of Tenten attributed Risa’s anxieties to concerns over personal status amid the shifting groundwork of clan politics. Yet she was a mother and wife, a woman whose world revolved around her family. Risa pulled a handkerchief from one of the folds of her dress and covered her nose and mouth. Her free hand fell to the curve of her stomach while her eyes searched for her other daughter.

Risa sighed with relief when Reina emerged from behind a slide and ran up to the monkey bars.

“You’re despicable. I-I should have let the guards have you,” Risa choked out. “My husband would never abandon his children, or his wife…”

Risa’s sobs tore a gash across Tenten’s heart. Regardless of the gulf between her circumstances and Tenten’s, Risa was still a mother who wanted to secure her children’s future. That became much more difficult without a father in their lives, or the favor of the Hyuga clan head.

“Risa – I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said any of those things. You’re right that...telling my son about his father would mess up a lot of things.”

But Tenten’s reckless words had already damaged whatever lines of communication she might have established with Risa. The Hyuga woman shook her head and blotted her tears against the handkerchief.

“So this is what you’re after, isn’t it – Tenten? You want my husband to declare your bastard as his legitimate child, and reap whatever benefits that gives you.”

Bile gathered at the back of Tenten’s tongue. The misunderstanding had been entirely her doing, and Risa’s paranoid imaginings struck her as almost rational. She’d poisoned Risa’s heart against her with poorly advised taunts invoking a love long dormant. Yet Tenten had no interest in playing clan politics or making Jiro a pawn for her own advancement. Clearing her head, she renewed her pleas to salvage whatever audience Risa would offer her.

“N-no! I was talking out of anger, and I’d never dream of trying to take anything from you or your children.”

“You don’t see, do you?” Risa spat. “The elders of our clan would never accept your bastard as one of us, whatever his bloodline. Neji has enough to concern himself with, without...this incident drawing an unwelcome scandal.”

“Risa, I –”

“I suppose your ignorance is fair. You weren’t raised in the Hyuga clan as I was, as my husband was.”

“Hey, I –”

Risa raised a palm to silence Tenten, eliciting an annoyed sigh. The Hyuga woman closed her eyes and drew a deep breath to rally herself.

“If you have any love for Neji, if you care for him whatsoever, you’d give your son a normal life. Tell him to forget he ever activated the Byakugan, to the extent that the world will allow it. Tell him his father is no longer on this earth. Neji can’t afford any...distractions at the moment.”

Tenten’s breath hitched in her throat. She waited for Risa to continue speaking, reluctant to begin formulating an answer only to find herself interrupted. Before Risa could explain herself further, Reina yelped and cried for her mother. Risa jerked her neck, severing her focus on Tenten and fixating her gaze in the direction of her daughter’s voice. The shrill cries of Mother, Mother help chilled Tenten’s bones with how much they resembled her own sons’ calls for their mother in moments of distress. Risa groaned as she rose from the bench and fast-walked to where her daughter clutched her knee on the pavement.

Tenten followed, pulling a first-aid kit from her purse. Once she reached the mother and daughter, she offered Risa a packet of wet wipes to clean the wound.

“Oh, the village really should replace this concrete with something safer for the children,” Risa muttered as she wiped blood and dirt from Reina’s open scrape.

“They really should,” Tenten agreed.

Risa thanked Tenten for the ointment and bandages. Tenten gave mother and daughter a small smile, which Risa returned. In Risa’s cooing and the kisses she planted on her daughter’s forehead, Tenten saw herself mirrored. To the surprise of her parents and her shinobi class, Tenten had been a doting, nurturing mother to both sons in their early years. As adept at tending blood and flesh as she was at maintaining her “children” made of steel, wood and carbon fiber. As mothers, they shared common ground, their instincts attuned to the needs and emotional states of their children. Tenten was almost sorry about her plans to confront Neji. She dreaded upending little Reina’s world, exposing her to the reality that her Father wasn’t perfect, that he had entanglements beyond her family bubble.

But ultimately, Tenten didn’t bear responsibility for telling the truth. And with that declaration, she set herself free.

Chapter Text

Tenten shuddered when Lee draped his arms over her shoulders and kissed her cheek. The kitchen knife in her hand almost slipped and knicked her finger, a rare lapse for the hidden leaf’s weapons mistress. Her husband had returned from an unexpected weeklong mission pleading forgiveness for leaving his wife alone for so long. It wasn’t even that long, Tenten wanted to retort in response to his cloying pleas. Suppressing the words before they could emerge, she reminded herself that it wasn’t proper for a woman to address her loving husband in that way. Nor should she have recoiled from his touch.

“You did nothing wrong, dear,” Tenten laughed with forced levity. “Nothing out of the ordinary for one of the village’s best jounin.”

“Even so, I cannot imagine how lonely you must have been! I was missing you every single night that I was away from home. I looked at your picture at least 10 times a day!”

“Oh...that’s very sweet of you.”

After appealing to the hokage for a monthlong leave, Lee reported with excitement that he would stay in the hidden leaf for a good long time. He pressed a wet kiss to Tenten’s temple, giving an ear-shattering shout when he told of his excitement for the family time to come.

The air suddenly grew heavy and difficult for her to breathe. What’s wrong with you? Tenten thought. You should be happy. He’s your husband, for gods’ sake. Tenten was trapped with him, with both of her sons staying the weekend with her parents. She believed some time with Takako and the elder Jiro Sato would do both of them good, ever since they’d become entangled in a confounding web of truth and lies. Their family home offered no escape from the rolling aftermath of Jiro’s incident, despite Tenten and Lee’s attempts to conceal their continuing impasse. As long as Jiro refrained from activating the Byakugan around his grandfather, she was confident the weekend would pass without incident. Her father’s reflexive dislike of the aristocratic Hyuga clan died hard, and she only prayed that Jiro might escape the net of his prejudices.

“Tenten, what is the matter? Are you still upset? Lonely?”

“Oh,” Tenten breathed out. She couldn’t tell Lee that she wished for freedom from his presence and overbearing affection. Nor could she articulate the reasons why, even to herself.

“I’m just a little overwhelmed by everything that’s happening with the boys,” she lied. “Jiro’s not speaking to me like he used to, but I can tell he’s scared...confused. And Metal – oh, he’s just like usual. Painfully shy.”

She hadn’t fabricated her answer wholesale, Tenten reassured herself. She wouldn’t have foisted them onto her parents if their deteriorating mental state hadn’t weighed on her. Her biggest untruth was that thoughts of her sons – and not her husband’s displays of love – drove her current unease.

Lee sighed. As much as he tried to repair their family through forced cheer and “fun” contests, the futility of his efforts still left him dampened. At least Jiro still smiled when Lee challenged him to 50 rounds of coin flipping or rock-paper-scissors. Tenten’s husband rallied himself with a shake of his head, followed by a thumbs up.

“Do not think of that now! We have an entire weekend to ourselves to do whatever we wish while the children are gone!”

“Right...so, uh. What do you want to do?”

Tenten burned with resentment for her stubborn heart, one that could no longer manage to find happiness within the bounds of her marriage. Her husband tried so hard to keep his family together, to keep their marriage strong. His desire for a happy, whole family made sense considering Lee’s father left his mother before he enrolled at the academy. He only knew his father through pictures and a few family videos, a hole in his life that fueled his determination to never leave Metal or Jiro deprived. If only Tenten could fall into line and be the wife Lee needed.

Lee nuzzled the soft side of her neck, his hums sending shivers across her skin.

“There is a couples night at the hot springs tonight, including dinner and an optional massage afterward. I was going to surprise you with tickets later, but I think this is a better time.”

Lee handed her a pair of tickets – hot pink and covered in hearts – from a zippered pocket in his jumpsuit. The neon print – overstated and in-your-face – matched Lee’s persona with admirable accuracy. Surely it wouldn’t have been a difficult sale to make. Scanning the tickets with narrowed eyes, Tenten remarked to herself that the premium package looked expensive. Returning the slips to her husband, she decided she didn’t want to know how much he’d spent.

“Lee, thank you. This is just the kind of thing I wanted,” she sighed, clasping her hands to her heart.

“And if you would like, there is also an optional upgrade that would allow us to share the honeymoon suite at the resort.”

“That’s so touching.”

They’d never had a proper honeymoon. Once they signed their marriage certificate before the hokage, Lee and Tenten focused only on preparing for Jiro’s arrival. The teenage couple had lived in the attic of her parents’ apartment for Jiro’s first year, then saved enough to begin renting their current townhouse. The raises associated with Lee’s promotion to jounin allowed them to buy the house outright a few years ago.

“Anything for you, Tenten! I am sorry that we never had the opportunity to celebrate our special day as so many others have.”

Now, they had the money to spare for a honeymoon – but Tenten didn’t want one, not with Lee. She attributed her disinterest to their family’s ongoing crisis, denying the nagging voice that told her she never wanted to marry him in the first place. Of course I did, Tenten answered silently. He’s a great friend. Doesn’t have a mean bone in his body.

“Oh...let’s see where the evening takes us.”

She pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek. Any more overt or aggressive shows of affection made Lee blush and recoil. His idea of a honeymoon probably consisted of cuddles on their shared bed while watching cheesy action movies on the television. Wholesome, sweet and totally devoid of passion. Just like her husband, she thought.

With their plans decided, she could shrug Lee off with dinner preparations as an excuse. She couldn’t maneuver around the kitchen with his arms around her, and didn’t he want to eat? Stammering an apology, Lee settled into one of the kitchen chairs to watch her finish cutting vegetables for stir-fry noodles. Seeing Lee’s eager grin made uncomfortable heat rise in her chest. If Lee somehow left on a lifelong spying mission, she could settle the disconnect at the heart of their marriage without any difficult confrontations. The promise of painless relief – however unlikely – soothed Tenten’s aching heart.

But Lee wasn’t one for spying, and he was far too loyal to his family to accept an assignment that would tear them apart forever. Tenten dumped her sliced vegetables into hot oil and listened to their sizzle, flipping them in the pot to cook them evenly. She added the cooked noodles once the carrots had wilted and the onions turned clear. If only Lee left the village for the rest of his life, she thought, returning to her idle fantasy – then Neji could somehow break free of his wife and children. She and Neji could…

“Tenten, sweetheart. You may want to see whether the food is burning.”

She yelped. In her moments of distraction, she’d allowed all her preparations to go to waste. The cloying, unpleasant scent of burning food filled her nostrils, and she fanned the air around her in a bid for fresh air. Tenten dumped the charred mess at the bottom of the pot into the trash, and rushed out an apology.

“It is okay! We can begin our weekend of relaxation early,” Lee declared. “Why don’t we go to the sushi restaurant by the river?”

Tenten nodded in relief. The restaurant delivered good service and decent food on the few occasions they’d dined there with her sons, or as a couple. It wasn’t Tenten’s favorite place to dine – she much preferred a noodle house a block from her parents’ apartment. But Lee considered it the village’s best restaurant, and she considered it good enough.

“Thanks, that sounds great...dear. Love you.”

At the hot springs, Tenten immediately regretted agreeing to Lee’s exercise in “relaxation.” Other couples lounged in the steaming water, arms draped over shoulders, tongues tangling in open mouths. Amid the steam, she thought she recognized Temari and Shikamaru Nara next to Kiba Inuzuka and the girlfriend whose name she couldn’t recall. This certainly wasn’t the kind of place where Risa and Neji Hyuga would pass an evening, since Neji only showed skin with great reluctance. His prim Hyuga wife wouldn’t exhibit her body before dozens of other men, Tenten imagined. With the exception of her and her husband, none of the couples lounging around the springs appeared shy about baring their bodies to one another and everyone else present.

Meanwhile, Lee sat in his swim trunks and Tenten wore a two-piece bathing suit. Their hands tangled, but they otherwise sat side by side like 13 year olds on a first date. She swallowed another mouthful of the fruity alcoholic beverage in her hand, grimacing as the sickly sweetness coated her tongue. Once she drained the glass, the edges of the world around her softened. A giggle bubbled up from deep in her stomach at nothing in particular. Maybe drinking more would elicit the spontaneous passion missing from their “date.”

“Beautiful night, Lee. Hm. I think I’ll have another drink.”

Lee sipped his fruity beverage – minus the alcohol – and told her to treat herself.

This time, Tenten ordered a sweet, minty drink with bubbles that flew straight to her nose. The teenager serving drinks and delivering towels cast a puzzled glance at her bathing suit top and Lee’s trunks, but set the cool glass down without comment. She laughed when Lee commented on her reddening face, missing the note of concern in his voice. He’d developed a faint pink flush thanks to the rising heat – so she countered that he had little room to talk. Her second drink disappeared far more quickly than the last. Giddy with alcohol-induced happiness, Tenten tugged Lee’s hair to hold him in place for a sloppy kiss on the mouth.

Once she withdrew, Lee held the fingertips of one hand to the wet spot she left behind on his swollen lips.

“You know, Lee. It is weird that we’re the only ones dressed here. Do what you want, but I’m getting more comfortable.”

“Suit yourself, sweetheart.” Her husband covered his crotch with both hands, as if to signal there was no way he’d expose his most intimate parts with so little discretion.

Tenten pulled her top over her head, tossing the soaked fabric on the deck with a giggle. Then she weighed ordering another drink. No, another drink risked spoiling their evening with incapacitation and leaving her with a splitting headache the next morning.

“What do you think?” she breathed out, a laugh escaping mid-question. “Mhm. I think I might go for the honeymoon suite.”

“The honeymoon suite...uh, sounds wonderful. And you are beautiful as you always are.”

Lee’s hands balled into fists where they sat in his lap, recalling the way he needed at least half an hour of coaxing before every time they tried for a baby. He’d only cooperated once she reminded him that a baby was what he wanted. Some people were like him, she knew. Physical intimacy with women or men held no appeal for them regardless of their sincerely felt love. Tenten tucked her head between Lee’s neck and shoulders the way she did with Neji, but he felt wrong. The angle of his collarbone against her cheek was off, not where Neji’s would sit.

“You haven’t lost any of your figure,” she whispered, running a hand down his core. “I’m sure most of the ladies here wouldn’t say the same.”

Lee maintained his firm core and toned figure from hours of training and consistent deployment on missions. Her husband had no sagging rolls of skin or protruding belly, like other men sitting nude around the hot spring. You’re lucky, Tenten reminded herself and kissed behind Lee’s ear.

Tenten realized she performed for the assembled couples as much as she performed for herself, trying to convince herself she wanted him.

“Tenten, I am getting a bit warm. Could you please distance yourself a little?”

“Of course, Lee.”

She backed away to sit one hand length away from him and remained there until they retired to their honeymoon suite. In their perfumed bed, Lee appeared none the wiser when Tenten simply rolled over to face away from him. While his snuffling snores tickled the insides of her ears, she blotted her tears with the heart-shaped pillow. It seemed that no amount of kindness on Lee’s part, no amount of trying on hers, could sate her longing for more.

The photographs sat in a box behind Lee’s childhood leg weights, in a cardboard box that once held a shipment of kunai. The box followed Tenten from her parents’ attic to the townhouse she shared with her family, unopened for years and wrapped in thick plastic masking tape. She’d sealed them away with the part of her that loved Neji, as if he were dead and not merely separated by social station, distance and family obligation. Pale flecks of dust danced on the still air when Tenten retrieved the box from its corner of the closet. When she lifted the box with a groan, the weight of their memories sat heavy in her hands. Images flashed through her mind of the moments captured on the pieces of thick film paper in the box.

The box landed on the mattress of her marital bed with a whump. Pulling a kunai from the sheath wrapped at her thigh, Tenten slashed through the tape in three strokes – one along the box’s center seam and two along the sides. After dinner, she would call Jiro upstairs to show him selected snapshots of his parents together, to prove to him that their love had been real. Her older son wasn’t only a bastard disgrace conceived by two idiot teenagers without thoughts of the future, regardless of what anyone else tried to tell him. Tenten peeled aside the top flaps to see dozens of printed photographs. Their sharp corners were arrayed in a jumble where she’d dumped them 12 years ago without regard for any order.

They’d once sat in the drawer of her nightstand, so she could relive their happy moments if circumstance ever separated her from Neji for too long. Yet once their separation became permanent, she’d thrown away all picture evidence of their love except Team Gai’s first photograph.

Tenten’s breath hitched when her hands pulled out a photograph of the teenage lovers sprawled across her bed, an open-mouthed grin on Neji’s face. She’d captured the snapshot with her camera, a 10^th birthday gift from her parents, before Neji could object or wrangle his features into their usual expressionless state. Tenten couldn’t quite recall what elicited Neji’s amusement. A joke she told? Or simply the bliss that followed sex? His white shoulder peeked above the top of her bedsheet, along with the tops of her breasts. No – the memory felt far too personal to share with her son, who’d probably question what they were doing in bed together…

Another one, then. Tenten discarded the photograph to the other side of the bed and found one with only Neji – this time, he was fully clothed and clearly unhappy to see the lense of Tenten’s camera turned in his direction. Present-day Tenten giggled at the telltale arch of his brow, the bashful narrowing of his eyes. He only allowed her to keep the picture because it was her, and he trusted her not to show anyone else. Would she show that one to Jiro? How would she even explain what it meant to her, when to him, it would just be a silly photo of the kind teenagers often took with friends?

The third picture from her draw showed Neji with his face buried in the junction of her neck and shoulder to hide from the camera. Tenten had grinned and wrapped the back of her hand around his head, her fingers hooking in his long black hair. In that moment, he showed a childish side of himself that emerged so rarely, and not around anyone but her or Hinata. Then Tenten asked herself whether Risa Hyuga knew the face in the photograph. Neji’s Hyuga wife was clearly loyal to him and held their marriage vows with the highest regard. However, Tenten didn’t know if Risa was his wife out of duty, or if husband and wife were lovers.

Stop. Tenten restrained herself from probing Neji and Risa’s marriage before she could spiral further. Whatever Neji was to Risa now didn’t change what he’d meant to Tenten so many years ago.

But what had he been to her? If she intended to introduce Jiro to his father as she knew him, she’d need to come up with an explanation for him.

Jiro, your father was...the stream of words in Tenten’s mind faltered before she could complete the sentence.

As if searching for answers in the box, Tenten drew another photograph of Neji with his lips on her forehead. A spot along her hairline tingled, and she touched two fingers to it. That was the place where his lips pressed to her skin so many times. Hunger burned inside her – hunger for the connection lost for so long. Tenten’s fingers pinched the side of the photograph, leaving a tiny indent along Neji’s cheek. Maybe she could present that picture to Jiro and say – what, she wasn’t sure. The casual intimacy of their kiss would show him how deep their bond ran without lengthy explanation. Pictures were worth a thousand words, according to a popular expression she’d heard often.

That picture prompted her to find her words to finish the earlier thought that she’d left dangling.

Jiro, your father was my best friend. He knew me better than anyone else and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. I loved him. You’ll understand once you’re older, the kind of love I mean.

Pinching the corner of her lip, Tenten gazed at the shutters and watched dust drift through the afternoon sunlight. The clouds of dust she’d unsettled when she retrieved the box had yet to fully return to the ground.

I still love him, Tenten corrected herself. I still love him and I so wish I’d been just a little more selfish back then. If only I could feel that love again...

Tenten hugged herself by the shoulders and swayed from side to side, humming notes of a song constructed by her mind. She squeezed her eyes shut to expel the pain that threatened to rip her heart apart. Neji. Damn you. Her hands quivered despite her attempts to rally herself by balling them into fists. It had been her weakness, her weak hold on him that allowed their rift in the first place. She’d force Neji to acknowledge her, confront him with the truth of Jiro’s parentage where he couldn’t hide behind guards, locked gates, or his pregnant wife.

While she recalled how she’d feigned happiness on her last date with Lee, Tenten’s heart fell as she realized she had no easy escape from her marriage vows. But she was a kunoichi, no stranger to secrets. Perhaps a night-time meeting in the forests outside the village proper? No, she was no longer a teenager so consumed by lust that she’d fuck him against a tree.

Tenten clenched her fists until the exertion brought physical pain. He wouldn’t slip through her fingers again.

Chapter Text

The familiar routine that accompanied her husband’s homecoming – honed over years of practice – brought Risa hard-won comfort. Once he cleared the kitchen door, Risa set her knitting aside to begin brewing chrysanthemum tea, his favorite. While the tea steeped, she could pretend for a few more minutes that all remained normal – and at least for now, it did in most ways. The day after her conversation with Tenten Lee in the village’s public park, Neji had left before dawn on an emergency mission. His unexpected departure bought Risa additional time to rehearse how she’d address Tenten’s revelations with him. But the brevity of Neji’s absence offered little benefit in that regard.

Risa forced a smile to her chapped lips once she sat on the couch beside her husband, a tray of tea on the small folding table before them. She leaned into the crook beneath his arm while he embraced her shoulders. When Neji smiled, his weary face lifted at the cheeks, highlighting the pale gray circles clinging to his eyes. Risa wrapped both hands around a cup of tea, relishing the combination of Neji’s body warmth and the heat seeping into her palms. Both children lay in bed, had retired at Risa’s insistence before their father could wish them goodnight in person.

“How have you been in my absence?” Neji ventured. He appeared to sense the strain in her smile, how her lips stretched a little too tightly and pinched at the corners.

The question struck Risa with a blunt blow in the center of her chest. The open-ended conversation starter provided her the perfect opening to disclose what so unsettled her. Risa urged herself to tell her husband how Tenten’s unexpected confrontation upended her concept of their marriage and family. Did Neji’s narrowed white eyes see the root of the anxiety behind her expression? Better he hears it from me, Risa thought. After fighting her own apprehension, perhaps Tenten had reached the same conclusion with regards to Neji and probably Rock Lee. Better he hears it from me. Who knows what he’d hear otherwise.

The village’s rumor mill often twisted the truth of a story with every iteration and spit out a version many times removed from the original core facts. Say it now, she reiterated. Yet Risa feared Neji’s reaction to the mention of Tenten’s name, not that she anticipated violent anger of the kind he hadn’t exhibited in years. She instead worried his face would betray some pang of longing for her, or he’d begin to question his marriage and the family he’d built around it.

“Hm, they could be worse,” Risa began, a shaky laugh prompting a disapproving shake of Neji’s head.

“That means they could be better.”

“I...yes, I suppose they always could be better.”

“Risa –”

“I met your old friend. Former lover, she says.”

Neji released a long, rattling breath that tickled the loose hairs around Risa’s face. She kissed her husband’s cheek while his downcast white eyes revealed that his mind lay elsewhere. His reaction remained muted and frustratingly difficult for Risa to read, despite their years of intimate familiarity. With a chill that penetrated the inside of her bones, she wondered whether the mere reference to Tenten had turned Neji to a stranger. Or whether he’d always been one.

“Met? How?”

Risa could tell that Neji wanted to say more, that more questions sat just behind his pressed lips. After drinking the cooled tea at the top of her cup, Risa closed her eyes to shut out the world while she flashed through the sequence of events beginning with Tenten’s home invasion. Though everything happened only days ago, the memories came to her in scattered drips strained through the hazy filter of time – or repression.

“She came here, concealed herself in the guise of a servant. She wanted to speak with you, but I stopped her because I noticed...discrepancies in her disguise.”

“Risa! You know that’s not safe when you’re so vulnerable. Both of you. I am more than capable of protecting myself, and...they need you more than they need me.”

Neji’s second arm darted to envelop her from both sides. For a fleeting moment, Risa considered giving a cutting quip about how he now worried for her safety far too much. But teasing him for his previous admonition would distract from the more pressing matter of Tenten and her son. Once Tenten parted ways with goodbyes to both Risa and Reina, Risa knew none of her warnings or advice swayed her. Tenten Lee still intended to press her bastard son’s claim – which Risa had no reason to disbelieve – damn the consequences.

“We spoke about her reasons for wanting an audience,” Risa continued. “She says you were her lover before we married, the father of her older son.”

And you never told me of any previous lover, Risa wanted to add. She wondered what other secrets Neji kept from her beneath his usual impassive face. Given her upbringing as a Hyuga, she understood his reasons for hiding anon-Hyuga lover from the woman he married. In the early days of their marriage, he probably feared judgment and condemnation from his new wife, a near-stranger he couldn’t quite trust. And once their bond grew, Neji’s fears changed. Now, he worried about driving a rift into their marriage, or he saw that aspect of his past as irrelevant to his present.

“Hm. I’d heard rumors about Jiro Sato activating the Byakugan. That’s...a curious case. I always believed the kekkai genkai would lay dormant in any half-Hyuga.”

Neji kept his tone level, approaching the question as a strictly intellectual one. From a certain perspective, ascertaining the truth of one boy’s parentage was a dry intellectual question. Neji either was, or wasn’t, Jiro Sato’s father by blood. Intimate acts between Neji Hyuga and Tenten Lee either occurred or didn’t, and they either did or didn’t have a causal link to Jiro’s conception. In this case, the absolute truth and the truth as the world recognized it needed to be different. The balance of two families depended on all the adults involved holding two truths simultaneously. The inability to distinguish both kinds of truth and keep them in their respective spheres would destroy their children’s innocence.

The hand toying with Risa’s braid quivered. The name of Tenten’s elder son no doubt roused Neji’s memories of his first lover. Maybe Neji reacted with longing for the lover he left, and the son he never knew. Did he hate his wife for playing a role – however indirect – in tearing him from the life he would rather have lived? You know he didn’t choose you. Tenten’s taunt, though no doubt an artifact of reckless anger, echoed in painful pulses at the back of Risa’s mind.

“Tenten says you’re his father,” Risa pressed. “Do you have something you wish to tell me? Before the bastard’s mother comes back to you, before she tries to make you acknowledge him. You know as well as I do how terrible that could be for us.”

“She could be correct,” Neji muttered. “In fact, I believe she is. We were together for years, Risa.”

Numbed by the impact of her husband’s confession, Risa nodded once. Her fingertips faltered in their hold on her teacup.

So Neji’s relationship to Tenten had been more than the deep friendship and close working partnership that often arose between genin teammates. It was one thing to hear Tenten admit that they’d been lovers, but another to hear Neji confirm it. Risa gave her husband a gentle push to signal her desire for space, then tilted her head back to trace the hairline cracks in her ceiling.

“Do you miss her? As she seems to miss you?”

You know he didn’t choose you, Tenten had said. The message replayed once again, circling Risa’s mind in a dreadful loop. Her permanent claim on Neji’s first love and his purity, seemed a point of pride to her. Risa imagined Tenten sequestering away that knowledge in some corner of her heart, grasping it to comfort herself in moments of distress.

“Risa, Tenten...was a mistake. I was young, and not yet aware of how my infatuation conflicted with my ambitions.”

“You told me nothing about her.”

The accusation lay pointed at Neji like the sharp end of a kunai, and the air hung heavy between husband and wife. Neji laid the truth before her without a single hitch in his voice, and for that, Risa was grateful. She supposed Neji considered his relationship history to be another case where the truth was better hidden. Still, his lack of apology bothered Risa – double standards and pragmatic considerations aside.

“I didn’t think it necessary,” Neji stammered out. “As I said, she was a mistake.”

“But you did love her? Of your own choice?”

“Yes. What is that to you now?”

Risa’s ongoing interrogation seemed to trigger a flare-up of Neji’s temper, one he tried to mitigate by locking his jaw.

“That’s what she said to me in a moment of ill-considered outrage. She said she was the one you chose, and the one you truly loved.”

“And you believe her more than you believe me?” Neji interjected. A fine droplet of spit landed on Risa’s nose.

The hard edge of his voice sent sharp pains shooting into her heart. Risa glared into Neji’s eyes and forced him to acknowledge her. If he truly loved his wife, he could tolerate a bit of earnest doubt without flying into a defensive rage.

“She must have some basis for saying so.”

“Rest assured, you’re the one I love now. How could you...how could you believe I care nothing for you?”

Puckered lips touched the part of her hair. Risa hummed, not quite content, but recognizing that whatever proof he could summon in the moment wouldn’t satisfy her. Love was proven through time and experience. Did Neji Hyuga love his wife, the mother of his daughters? Risa could find the answers for herself if she searched her memories and continued to observe her husband in their day to day lives. So she relinquished her fixation on forcing an answer from his locked jaw.

“If Jiro is your son, does this change anything about us? Our children and our family? I don’t know how we’d tell them. The children, let alone the clan.”

Neji didn’t answer immediately. A torrent of thoughts must have raced through her husband’s head as he sat beside her, toying with her hair. Appeals to personal responsibility perhaps tempted him to claim the child he conceived as a teenager, to establish his place in Jiro’s life. But making Jiro Sato a Hyuga would upend the clan’s order of succession. Even acknowledging him, while stopping short of conferring the Hyuga name, would risk his reputation with the elders. Without control of the seal at his disposal, Neji had fewer tools to handle a potential uprising than his uncle before him.

“Amaya is still my heir, and you are still my wife,” he whispered, clenching Risa’s hands until her fingertips smarted from blood deprivation.

“If the boy’s mother insists?”

“Tenten holds no sway over me on these matters. Jiro considers Rock Lee his father, and a single activation of the Byakugan is unlikely to change his perception.”

“She’ll come to you,” Risa sighed. “Tenten’s persistent. A little foolhardy –” At this, Neji snickered and rolled his eyes. “– but she won’t resign herself to your silence. This drive in her, I can’t quite comprehend it.”

No, that’s not true. I can understand it, Risa finished. I understand perfectly. Her conversation in the park with Tenten still sat uneasy at the forefront of her mind. Tenten was a mother, and like any mother, wanted the greatest opportunity and privilege for her child. Tenten had already taken the rather foolhardy step of seeking Neji in his study at the Hyuga compound, then confronting his pregnant wife. Risa could imagine Tenten cornering Neji, guilting him, pulling on whatever residual fondness he felt for her. Risa imagined Neji might fold, and he would agree to legitimize Jiro to the detriment of the family he’d built since.

For a moment, Risa’s heart swelled with pity for poor Jiro. He hadn’t asked for the burden and blessing of the Byakugan. Jiro had done nothing in his short existence to deserve a life with a pretend father, knowing he was a liability to the man who conceived him. Yet Jiro wouldn’t be impoverished or deprived if he grew up a Sato instead of a Hyuga. Even without the wealth and status of the Hyuga name, Jiro had a comfortable middle-class life with parents who loved him. A clanless shinobi could still achieve jounin and join the village’s ranks of respected citizens.

Risa raised a brow and held out her little finger. Her eyes darted to Neji, who rolled his white eyes.

“Really? I haven’t...oh, you’re terrible.”

Still, Neji’s little finger tangled with hers and he kissed the spot where their knuckles folded.

“Promise me. You’ll protect our children,” Risa said. “Please. They shouldn’t have this forced upon them.”

“I love you, Risa. Amaya, Reina. And our child.”

“The child needs a name, so you might stop calling her ‘the child’ or ‘our daughter.’”

“We can discuss this in the morning,” Neji countered. “You and the child need to rest.”

Risa pursed her lips at his not-so-subtle suggestion that it was time for bed. With her husband’s assertive streak, she sometimes forgot that she was several years his senior. The bed’s clean sheets and the faint scent of laundry soap lulled Risa into a pleasant daze while Neji’s warmth enveloped her. The couple exchanged whispers of good night, their little fingers still intertwined. The little gesture made Risa smile as her mind faded.

On their wedding day – Neji’s 19^th birthday, Risa’s new husband had refused to kiss her after speaking his vows of lifelong loyalty. In response to his vows, she’d pledged to obey and serve him in all ways. Risa still remembered the quiver in his lip, the way his darting white eyes seemed to plead for any way out. Finally, with prompting from Hiashi Hyuga, Neji had closed his eyes and extended a hand for Risa to shake. Confused, she’d wrapped her little finger around his, recalling the way she’d seal promises made to her cousins when she was a girl. She’d thought to herself that her husband really was a child. But even if Neji hadn’t done anything to seal his vows, there was no way their wedding could have ended with any outcome other than marriage.

Then the assembled Hyugas cheered and clapped. And she was a married woman.

Neji didn’t venture into her bed – or kiss her on the lips – until two months into their marriage, after a few cups of sake. She’d attributed her husband’s avoidance of intimacy to his youth and inexperience. Or his understandable distrust of a stranger assigned to marry him by Hiashi Hyuga’s notions of what made a good match.

Now, Risa speculated on whether Neji hoped Tenten might somehow save him from his new marriage. Maybe he wished he might wake up and find himself next to Tenten instead of a cousin who shared his name and seal.

The baby stirred within her, landing a kick at her lower back. Risa’s eyes shot open again, and she slipped out of bed to make herself a cup of tea. Groaning, she ran her hands over the curve of her midsection and hummed, praying her child would calm. As the kicks hit her with greater intensity, Risa thought to herself that any woman who endured the trials of pregnancy, birth and childrearing had every right to expect the best for that child. The thought applied equally to her and Tenten, though their shared interests had strangely made them rivals.

Chapter Text

The hidden leaf shinobi academy’s annual parent-teacher night offered a convenient venue for exchanging gossip, money, goods – and apparently, dinner invitations – among the village’s parents. Nearly every parent of an academy student, from the pig farmer to the Hyuga clan head, squeezed into the academy’s auditorium to hear instructor presentations. Presentations that – to Neji’s view – dragged on far too long for what should have been a simple update on the curriculum and student progress.

Neji sequestered himself in the auditorium’s top row, squeezing into a seat far too small for a man of his height. He gritted his teeth and prayed for the night to pass quickly, and for everyone to leave him alone. Usually Risa volunteered at the academy and attended parent functions, but she’d collapsed into bed after dinner and pleaded with Neji to go instead.

Shino Aburame showed a photo slideshow from the students’ recent field trip to hokage tower, where they’d managed one group photo alongside the harried seventh hokage. Neji imagined the tour, which was followed by a visit to hokage mountain, was intended to foster loyalty to the hidden leaf and reflexive pride in the will of fire. Yet he also recognized that loyalty to village and people meant far less than it did in his youth, when peacetime remained a distant dream. Most likely, none of the students staring in awe at the massive stone head of Tsunade Senju would need to risk death on the village’s behalf. Not in the way he once did, well before he could marry or drink a sip of alcohol.

Then Shino clicked to the end of his slideshow and handed the remote control to a brown-haired woman wearing her olive shinobi vest.

The kunoichi presented on the field day and student tournament, her high voice inflected with forced excitement. Neji huffed when the slideshow flipped to a photograph of Amaya Hyuga holding a plastic third place medal. Not a bad finish for his eldest daughter, but he reminded himself to give her extra training so she wouldn’t lose to Sarada Uchiha again. Another presentation passed, and Neji allowed the focus of his white eyes to blur.

Other parents mingled during the intermission to follow, leaving Neji with a strange hollowness in his chest. As Hyuga clan head, his status and obligations to his clan isolated him from those gathering in groups of two and three around him. He couldn’t slide into a conversation about the intransigence of academy-aged children or the drudgery of housework while pretending he was just an ordinary father. The classroom buzzed with laughter, whispers and idle chatter despite Neji’s vague unease. Neji bristled at the rising tide of noise and crossed his arms to signal his disinterest in small talk. Especially not with the jumpsuited former teammate settling in the empty seat next to him. He wasn’t inclined to indulge Rock Lee’s inconsequential rambling, nor to confront the past that now burdened him in unexpected ways.

“Good evening, Neji! I am both surprised and overjoyed to see you tonight.”

“Hello, Lee. I haven’t spoken to you in a long time,” Neji said. By choice, he added silently. He attempted to smile at Rock Lee, and pay him the respect due to an old friend.

“Your daughter is shaping up to be quite the skilled kunoichi!”

“Yes, she is.” Neji paused, his heart swelling with fleeting pride in Amaya’s achievements. “But Amaya really should not have lost to the Uchiha.”

Though the Uchiha clan had only three members – and two who lived in the village full-time, the old Uchiha-Hyuga rivalry still grated on Neji. Amaya’s loss to a Uchiha, no matter how minor, would sow doubts among the clan about his daughter’s ability to one day succeed him.

“Nonsense! Third place is an excellent showing! You should be proud of what she has achieved instead of what she has not accomplished yet.”

“I suppose you may have a point. I am proud of her,” Neji conceded. “She’s bright, diligent for a girl her age.”

He offered Lee a lopsided shrug to signal the end of their conversation, directing his eyes to the empty projector screen. But Lee refused to acknowledge the overt disinterest projected in Neji’s body language, or he never noticed it.

“That is more like it! It is not awards that matter most, but the reward of hard, honest work!”

So Lee had mellowed out since his days as Neji’s “eternal rival.” The Lee he knew in youth settled for no less than first place – and that mentality proved almost fatal in their first attempt at the chunin exams. It was for the best that Lee no longer pushed himself to near-death in the name of proving himself a splendid shinobi.

“Our children are doing well,” Lee continued against Neji’s stubborn silence. “I believe they would like to see their Uncle Neji again. Tenten and I want to invite you and your wife over for dinner next weekend if you are able.”

Neji huffed when Lee called him “uncle.” Neither Jiro nor Metal seemed especially fond of their parents’ occasional dinner guest, who addressed them with detached politeness fitting of a clan head on display. Both brothers sank into their seats whenever Neji’s white eyes passed over them, or he asked basic questions about their lives. Neji had little reason to expect that dinner would proceed any differently – until he recalled that Jiro wasn’t Lee’s son by blood, but his own. The older boy’s activation of the Byakugan left no doubt on his parentage, and Tenten seemed intent on forcing Neji to recognize Jiro.

“I find myself rather busy these days,” Neji stammered without conviction.

“You are never too busy to pass quality time with your friends! Please consider it. It would be a great favor to Tenten and I, as we have grown quite distant.”

The earnest gleam in Lee’s round black eyes swayed Neji with an unexpected rush of affection. He regarded his former teammate with a mixture of pity and longing. Lee and Tenten deserved at least his token attention, whatever his discomfort about facing the son he left behind. Over four months had passed since their last dinner – including a week that changed the entire balance of their relationship.

“Hm. I suppose Risa can leave the children with a servant...and I can reschedule some meetings.”

“Excellent! We shall look forward to seeing you then!”

Lee gave him a thumbs up and open-mouthed grin, leaving Neji no room to argue or renege on his newly laid plans. Neji’s lips stretched into a tight smile.

“Send an invitation over, and I’ll add it to my calendar.”

Lee swallowed and the light left his round eyes. Fleeting guilt struck Neji, because he understood the reasons for Lee’s disappointment even if the ever-cheerful shinobi never verbalized them. If Might Gai wanted to rope his team into a “bonding event” or they wanted to go out for ramen after training, there hadn’t been any need for formal invitations and finessing schedules. Neji’s position required that he regiment every interaction he had with anybody other than his immediate family. The mention of calendars and appointments no doubt tainted Lee’s friendly outreach with an artificial flavor.

“Will do!” Lee answered, his enthusiasm dimmed. “I look forward to meeting your wife. I am curious what she is like, because you have never discussed her in my presence.”

Gods, the intermission in the night’s programming had dragged on for an unreasonable amount of time. The sooner the instructors returned to their silly presentations, the sooner Neji could return home. He’d instructed a servant to watch over Risa, but he burned to check on his wife in person. Their baby, too.

“Her name is Risa. She’s expecting our third child currently. A daughter.”

What else was there to tell Lee about his wife? That beneath her thick bangs, she wore the seal that still marred his skin? That she was a stranger chosen for him by Hiashi Hyuga and married to him on his 19^th birthday? That despite the beginnings of their marriage, Neji loved and cared for her like he’d loved or cared for no woman other than Lee’s current wife?

“Congratulations! I trust the newest addition to the clan will follow in her sister’s footsteps!”

Lee loved children with pure-hearted glee that cast shame on Neji’s often stilted relationship with his daughters. Maybe he would allow Lee to see his baby daughter once Risa birthed her. Something about the way Lee doted over babies and rushed to attend their every need amused him. He noticed it during their first D-rank babysitting missions just out of the academy, though Lee hadn’t the first idea of how to care for small humans. As a father, Neji found Lee’s sentimentality endearing, and conceded that Lee was probably much better suited to fatherhood.

“I hope so.”

From the front of the classroom, one of the kunoichi instructors called the room to attention.

“–alright, parents! We were experiencing issues with the projector, but we’ve got it working now! Thanks for your patience.”

“It is okay!” Lee shouted back.

The woman laughed and said she wished her students shared his patience and understanding.

Neji couldn’t match Lee’s charity and kindness either. Maybe it’s best that Jiro only ever knows Lee as his father, Neji thought, though he suspected Tenten wouldn’t leave either man a choice. As the indistinct din of voices subsided around them, Lee stayed by Neji’s side, intent on not leaving him alone. The kunoichi instructor queued her slides on the projector and opened with a photograph of a group of girls playing in a field of flowers. From her presentation, it seemed that the kunoichi in training did little in their specialized class other than arrange flowers, learn to wrap kimonos and practice tea ceremony. Neji would tolerate the academy putting his daughter through those frivolities, so long as Amaya didn’t learn to debase her body for missions.

“Thank goodness you don’t have daughters,” Neji muttered to Lee, grateful he had someone to hear his complaint. “Amaya comes home with a new flower arrangement every week, and my wife insists on keeping them.”

Lee laughed into his fist.

“That is a pity. The flowers must aggravate your allergies.”

“Yes. They do,” Neji answered in a clipped tone.

Neji’s pollen allergies were mild enough that the regular blooming of flowers and trees didn’t bother him, except in high concentrations. But they’d offered Team Gai plenty of fodder for teasing the uptight Hyuga, as had Neji’s refusal to accept anti-allergy medication. The reminder of an inside joke long forgotten elicited a grin wide enough to taper Neji’s eyes.

They watched the remainder of the presentations, and Neji admitted to himself that exchanging the occasional remarks with Lee helped them pass faster. By the time the instructors finally dismissed all the assembled parents, Neji looked forward to dinner with Lee and Tenten. The hollowness in his chest had been supplanted by stirrings of joy. At the academy gates, Neji exchanged numerous goodbyes with Lee – mostly due to Lee’s refusal to leave him behind without a sufficient sendoff.

Neji returned home to find his daughters in bed, and Risa unconscious in their bed. Her slumbering breaths warmed the side of Neji’s cheek when he bowed his head to kiss her parted lips. At least she’d forgotten to worry about him long enough to rest. Tonight...went well, Neji thought in the moments before he joined his wife in sleep.

Not long after Jiro reported the Byakugan incident to his mother, the bullies returned to harassing their familiar target. The nature of their taunts changed to account for Jiro’s newfound insecurities. Their past torments hadn’t touched on his family or his bastard parentage. He almost wished Kenji and his friends would return to calling him a weak, pathetic boy – a loser because of his mediocre performance at the academy and lack of friends. Now Jiro’s pulse raced as he heard them insult his mother and father while they circled him in the schoolyard.

“Jiro’s mom is a whore,” Kenji shouted. “Everyone, Jiro’s mom let every man around fuck her. That’s why he has mutant eyes and doesn’t know who his dad is.”

Jiro had no idea what a “whore” was. The academy didn’t provide instruction on decoding vulgar language, and his parents hadn’t seen fit to fill the void. From the way Kenji spoke the word in his nasty sing-song, Jiro knew one didn’t call a woman a whore without expecting recriminations.

Hot blood rushed to his face and tinted his ears bright red. Stop it, stop it, stop it, Jiro wanted to scream. His vision blurred with tears. If only he were stronger, like his father, the village’s top taijutsu master. Or – the man who raised him as a father. Jiro silently apologized to his mother for not springing up to defend her honor with fists and flying kicks like Rock Lee would have. No wonder his mother married Rock Lee of all the eligible men in her age group.

From outside the circle of Jiro’s bullies, one of the girls playing jump rope snickered and stuck out her tongue at him. Others watched him with pity, but turned away. The pitying bystanders either didn’t care enough for Jiro to vouch for him, or they lacked the courage.

“Shut up. My mom’s not a bad person,” Jiro muttered. “She’s nice...and –”

“Oh, your mom’s nice alright. She’s so nice everyone wanted a piece of her,” Kenji’s best friend snickered. The wide-set boy’s name escaped Jiro at the moment, though he was often quick to strike Jiro with either cutting words or stiffened feet or elbows. “Hey, I think I know who Jiro’s father is. Wanna hear it?”

Shouts of yeah and tell us already sounded from around the circle.

“W-who?” Jiro answered, drawing his knees against his chest.

Morbid curiosity anchored him in place and kept his attention on the sneering boy before him. Jiro just prayed he wouldn’t propose anyone like Might Gai or Kakashi.

“I think it’s Neji Hyuga!”

“No – Hiashi Hyuga, you dummy.”

The former Hyuga clan head – Neji’s uncle – was nearly thirty years his mother’s senior. Jiro shuddered at the thought of his mother sharing a bed with the graying old man. As for the current clan head, Jiro admitted that at least their ages and years together on Team Gai offered them opportunity to develop a close bond. 

“He’s not my father,” Jiro protested. “My mom wouldn’t sleep with an old man.”

One of his bullies slapped him in the back of his head and snapped at him to shut up and listen.

“Okay, okay. Here’s what happened,” Kenji began. “Your mom was on a team with Neji, right?”

“Y-yeah, she was. Mom said she was his best friend.”

“Pfft. More than a best friend,” Kenji continued, leaning in until Jiro could smell his sour sweat and hear the puffs of his heavy breaths.

“W-what does this have to do with him being my father?”

“Well, you know how he’s one of the cousin-fuckers, right?”

“Um, okay?”

“Your mom let him sleep with her so he could have a little something different before he had to marry his cousin. Maybe she wanted a baby with mutant eyeballs.”

Against his will, Jiro pictured his mother tugging Neji’s hand and pulling him into her bedroom with mischief in her eyes. The image of her kissing Neji Hyuga or burying herself in his arms seemed so alien, when Mom only ever showed such affection to her husband. Somehow the image repulsed him even more than that of his mother in bed with Hiashi Hyuga or a faceless member of the clan. Perhaps Jiro’s visceral disgust penetrated so deeply because Neji hung around the peripheries of Jiro’s life, unlike Hiashi. The possibility of him sleeping with Mom felt so much more real. But the Hyuga clan head’s demeanor was cold as his white eyes – so was he really the kind to cave to such temptations? Jiro wouldn’t allow the possibility that Neji, a stranger who tolerated him at best, had more of a claim on him than Rock Lee.

“Not. True,” Jiro countered, his voice cracking on the last syllable. “You’re lying like you always do.”

“You’re just denying it. Your mom was really nice to take the stick out of Neji’s cousin-fucker ass and let him stick it in her. Gods, she must have been really good in bed if he was okay with getting zapped for it.”

Jiro slammed his palms over his ears. He heard himself shouting shut up, shut up, just shut up, his shrill voice blotting out the din of recess.

None of the bullies ripped his hands from his ears or tried to assail him with more taunts. Every boy in the circle remained preoccupied with self-satisfaction at his stellar wit. The sight of Jiro distraught and humiliated was enough reward for them, judging by the laughter that grated on his senses once he lost his voice.

“Look at him. Probably wants to cry for his mommy –”

“Stop laughing at my father.”

Jiro heard a girl’s unfamiliar high voice from behind him. Though she hadn’t interrupted Kenji on his behalf, Jiro directed automatic gratitude to the voice’s owner. Unlike the current chaperon on duty, she offered him a reprieve from his near-daily bullying. The resolve in her words renewed Jiro’s shame over his weakness. It must have been time for the recess shifts to change, and the girl was from another class. Vision blurred by hot tears, he looked up and saw a slender figure with the white eyes, long black hair and pale skin of a Hyuga. Her hair hung in tight braids on either side of her round face.

“Oh yeah? Your daddy’s a cousin-fucker, you freak.”

Daddy? Had she heard their slander against the Hyuga clan head and run to defend her father’s honor? From the snippets of conversation he caught between Neji and his parents, Jiro knew about Amaya, Neji’s daughter who was enrolled at the academy two years below him.

“Shut up, I mean it,” she snapped. “And he’d never do that to his cousin.”

Amaya’s continued determination and courage filled Jiro with awe and envy – how he wished he shared her confidence. He wasn’t sure whether she’d ever witnessed Kenji’s group beating him, or experienced the painful blows of playground bullies. But she still looked unfazed despite facing the ire of boys each at least a head taller. Amaya crossed her arms and curled her lip when they laughed ever harder, clenching their sides. At least they weren’t focused on crushing him now that a new target presented herself, almost begging them to beat her spirits down.

“Your mommy’s his cousin, isn’t she?”

“Yes. That’s entirely unrelated –”

“So he had to have fucked his cousin to get you. You’re such a fucking idiot.”

Pink spread across the tops of Amaya’s pale cheeks. From where he peeked over his folded arms, Jiro watched her narrow her eyes and grit her teeth.

“You’re a damn liar. Father doesn’t fuck Mother. All of you are terrible excuses for future shinobi.”

Amaya took one step closer to Kenji, who stared down at her with his features contorted in a scowl. She’d challenged his patience far too much, exhausted whatever amusement her ignorance had offered. The playground bully pointed a fat finger between Amaya’s eyes, his fingertip inches from poking her forehead. Run, Jiro thought in silent prayer. Run. It’s not going to be good for you. He couldn’t bear to witness the dreadful storm brewing before him, not when Amaya possessed so much heart.

“Make me shut up then. You gonna fight because I said some mean words about your mommy and daddy, little girl?”

She formed the sign to activate the Byakugan, the veins around her white eyes swelling. Amaya bladed her hands and readied herself to parry the incoming blows. Perfect form for attacking or defending, Jiro observed, though she remained careful not to initiate any physical confrontation.

“Hm. Don’t expect me to go easy just ’cause you’re a little girl and your daddy’s a rich asshole with a fancy house and a title. I don’t give a shit.”

Just as Kenji prepared to land a hit on Amaya’s jaw, one of the chunin instructors swept in to intercept Kenji’s elbow and shove Amaya aside. The instructor intervened within a fraction of a second, before Amaya’s foolhardiness could get her injured. Even when Kenji or his friends struck Jiro unprovoked, only certain instructors arrived to stop the bullies – and this instructor clearly cared nothing about Jiro.

“That’s enough, both of you,” he shouted. “Kenji, you should know better than to attack a Hyuga.”

The instructor’s careful wording didn’t escape Jiro’s notice. He didn’t condemn Kenji over his fondness for senseless violence, only that he’d directed it at an inconvenient target. One too risky to attack because she was a Hyuga, while Jiro remained a Sato regardless of his Hyuga blood.

“Fine. Just shut up and give me detention already.”

Kenji and his friends dispersed, grumbling about how they’d try again another day. One of the boys pointed at Jiro then Amaya, and pledged to beat them later. Once they’d retreated back into the academy building, Amaya crouched next to Jiro and asked whether they’d hurt him. The last stragglers from Jiro’s class had already gathered at the door to resume class, but Jiro found himself too numbed to follow. He answered that they’d done nothing more than “the usual,” laughing to shake off the impression of weakness.

“They’re trash and liars,” she spat. “Ignore them. I’ll fight them any day, I swear.”

Her bold promise made Jiro’s heart jump and he blushed. Dad would tell him that a man’s job was to protect women, not allow a smaller, younger girl to save him. But there was a certain hollowness to the bravery in Amaya’s words. She didn’t have to fear a single cut or scratch on her face because even the most apathetic instructor would intervene instantly to ensure no harm came to the Hyuga clan head’s daughter. Maybe having Neji Hyuga as a father wasn’t so terrible.

Still, he had to thank her for offering her position of privilege to shield him, even if she cared first about defending her father’s name.

“Thanks – your name is Amaya, isn’t it? Amaya Hyuga?”

“Yes. And you are Jiro Sato?”

Jiro smiled at her, wishing his recess wouldn’t end so he could sit with her just a bit longer. Jiro had gone through the academy largely friendless except for occasions when he’d eaten lunch with one or two other loners. Part of him dared dream that Amaya Hyuga could become his friend, or maybe she was even his sister.

“That’s me.”

“Strange that you have your mother’s family name, instead of your father’s.”

Amaya crossed her legs on the pavement and the corners of her lips pinched. When he caught her gaze, Jiro found her white eyes flitting back and forth.

“Oh. Mom’s her parents’ only daughter, so she gave me her name. You know, her parents needed someone to pass it on. Because I’m a son, you know? Being a Sato isn’t anything special, though. Not like being a Hyuga.”

“I’m sure Father wishes he had a son. All the elders think having a boy lead the clan after Father would be better,” Amaya muttered, running her nails along the hem of her dress. “I only have sisters.”

“There’s nothing special about being a boy. You’re a girl, and you’re stronger than me. Actually, I wish you could be my sister.”

She laughed and Jiro found himself compelled to add his laugh to hers.

“You think I could be your sister, Jiro? I personally think they’re all full of hot air. Father’s far from the only one who could pass you the Byakugan.”

For a moment, Jiro daydreamed about tasting even a touch of the wealth, respect and invincibility that came with being Neji Hyuga’s child. If he was the clan head’s child, he would be more than Jiro Sato, pathetic excuse for a shinobi in training and bastard freak. But no conjecture or proof of fatherhood would matter if his Hyuga father refused to claim him.

“Your dad’s got the strongest Byakugan, right? Mom said usually the Byakugan doesn’t turn up when a kid’s only half Hyuga,” Jiro rambled. “So, maybe I have it because his is just that strong!”

Amaya shook her head. She pursed her lips, and Jiro sensed that his line of thought displeased her. He fell silent to avoid losing the girl who he hoped would become his friend. If it meant winning her favor, Jiro would accept that she didn’t want to be his half-sister.

“No. Father would never tarnish his virtue like that. And he wouldn’t dishonor Mother either,” she insisted. “It must be another Hyuga.”

“As long as it’s not Hiashi.”

“You’re funny. No, I’m sure Hiashi isn’t your father either.”

As the final recess bell rang for Jiro’s class, he pinched his lips in a quivering smile to Amaya and waved goodbye. He walked back to the academy building with his shoulders lifted and chin up. Jiro prayed to whatever gods listened that when classes ended, he could catch Amaya again before she returned home. Maybe he could invite her for a playdate – and wouldn’t his mother be happy that her son finally had a friend to bring home?

Chapter Text

After a late family dinner followed by a quick shower, Neji wanted nothing more than to lie in bed. Risa joined him once she finished braiding her hair, so he could tell her of every tedious, dreadful and outrage-inducing moment of the day.

While Neji’s agitation escalated with each exasperating detail, the knot in Risa’s chest unraveled. She released her worries – about the baby, Neji’s bastard and her older daughters. There was strange relief in enmeshing herself in her husband’s grievances. She listened with eyes upturned while her husband vented about the hokage’s naivete during a conference of clan heads.

“And he believes he can force – no, convince – every clan to sign a charter that would supersede its laws. Ensure that clan laws are in line with his ideas of individual autonomy and freedom. I could read the room, even if he’s far too dense to see how that would never come to pass.”

“Hm, you’ve tried explaining what you understand of the clans? Of how they work, and what stands in the way of his hopes?”

Neji shook his head and huffed between his teeth. The shinobi world considered Naruto Uzumaki the savior of the world as they knew it, but winning at war and winning in governance involved separate skillsets. The Hyuga couple understood that clans didn’t reform because of pressure from without, or appeals to universal principles of fairness. The clans’ secret jutsu and kekkai genkai gave the village its strength, and the clan heads seated alongside Neji knew it. Plus, regardless of how a clan’s fortunes declined, old notions of pride died hard.

“He certainly doesn’t seem to think much of my advice. The lord hokage can be rather...how should I put this? Stupidly stubborn. He believes it’ll just happen, and I need to relinquish my concern.”

Neji’s long breath rustled the fine hairs around Risa’s face. He’d nearly exhausted his store of indignation, so she draped herself against his side to lend him comfort. Risa could understand why the hokage’s intransigence particularly vexed her husband, even if he considered himself among the man’s allies.

Neji hadn’t become clan head with starry-eyed optimism and faith that fate would resolve in his favor. He’d remained grounded in the realities of their system, willing to compromise on terms that struck him as unfavorable or unfair. From his teenage years onward, Neji held fast to his conviction that nobody would free the branch Hyuga if he failed.

Risa laid her head in the hollow between Neji’s neck and shoulder, running a lazy finger down his bare arm. Slowing his breaths, he traced circles around her back and kissed her forehead. The softness of the mattress and bedding made her long to fall asleep by his side – not that Risa ever wanted to fall asleep anywhere else. Nowhere, except her husband’s arms, in their bed. As if sensing she was safe and loved, her child lay still within her. The girl – who remained nameless – fortunately refrained from disrupting Risa’s rest with an inconvenient kick to her spine.

Yet Risa couldn’t help highlighting her husband’s hypocrisy. His life offered a compelling counterexample to his belief that standing on principle was doomed to fail.

“But he changed you, didn’t he,” Risa countered. “He gave you your dream, and you achieved it.”

Their hands tangled over his head and Neji smiled at his wife.

“He did, yes. I suppose anyone who’s known me since then can’t deny it. That does not change the fact that the man has no notion of practicalities.”

“Well. I should thank him for gifting me a wonderful husband, then.”

No, she couldn’t ignore the way a single afternoon on the sands of the chunin exams arena catalyzed his change. The Neji Hyuga she saw around the compound after that match sometimes had kindness in his eyes. He’d transformed into a brother to Hinata, a son to his uncle. For that, Risa had to thank the hokage.

Seated beside two of her Hyuga cousins, Risa had watched the match between Neji Hyuga and Naruto Uzumaki from high in the arena’s seats. Other than the sticky heat and the invasion that followed, Risa remembered the Uzumaki most. Every time he fell, the persistent blonde boy rose to spout more bold, yet foolish, words at Neji’s scowling face. Conditioned as a branch Hyuga servant, Risa hadn’t expected his declarations to impact Neji – or their clan by extension – so thoroughly.

“Enough flattery, Risa. How was your day?”

Risa’s breath hitched, Amaya’s mortifying questions replaying in a tinny echo. Mother, what’s a cousin-fucker? Has Father ever fucked you? The conversation that followed soon overprinted her initial humiliation with worry for her impressionable daughter. A woman who asserted herself without understanding her limitations was like a stuck-up nail. She’d inevitably get hit in the most brutal, unexpected ways – ones she couldn’t see at her age. Raised in peacetime without a potentially lethal seal on her forehead, Amaya possessed a brash quality that Risa couldn’t match. Recalling that hot day at the chunin exams arena prompted Risa to realize that Amaya had traits in common with the Uzumaki. However, a Hyuga heiress who behaved with such recklessness and refused to accept no for an answer wasn’t destined to become hokage. Rather, she’d find herself shunted into irrelevance by disapproving elders.

“You’re fortunate you didn’t have to explain to Amaya what a fucker was,” Risa groaned. The profane word sat bitter on her tongue. “She specifically wanted to know whether you’d ever fucked me, as if it were the most disgusting thing a man could do to a woman. I worry about her, though. Wait until I tell you how that topic of conversation came up –”

“Oh gods, Risa.”

Neji’s shoulder quivered with amusement. He muttered a curse before rolling Risa onto her back and burying his lips behind her ear.

“I would never dream of it,” he whispered. “I can’t imagine what kind of man would ever fuck his own wife.”

The kiss to the sensitive hollow behind her ear made Risa gasp and squirm. They shared a kiss, and she returned his laugh.

“I...told her fucking was simply a more vulgar way of referring to how husbands and wives conceived children, and gave each other pleasure. I said that any more detailed accounts could wait until she grew older.”

Heat rose to Risa’s face and neck as she summarized her answer. Still paralyzed by shock, her actual response to Amaya’s curiosity contained many more stammers and equivocations. Fortunately, Amaya’s clever mind pieced together Risa’s meaning before she needed to formulate more euphemisms for the act.

“So, what happened? You did promise you’d tell me.”

Risa passed along Amaya’s account of recess in the academy’s schoolyard, pausing to gather her composure at key moments. At least the instructors put a stop to things, Risa thought. But Amaya won’t always be so lucky. Amaya appeared unrepentent when Risa gave the obligatory lecture about not starting fights at school. Though Risa’s daughter didn’t contradict her, Amaya’s shoulders remained up, her chin forward. Risa suspected Amaya didn’t regret her actions in part because she was proud to defend her father’s reputation. She had also protected Jiro – her bastard brother, even if Risa was determined to ensure she didn’t know it.

“She also asked me whether Jiro was in fact her brother,” Risa continued. “Of course, I said no, and she seems to believe me on that matter at least.”

When Risa mentioned Jiro, Neji tensed beneath her and scrunched his brows. To her frustration, she couldn’t decipher the thoughts running through his head. Did her husband find it heartening to see his legitimate daughter treat her half-brother with kindness? Risa also wondered whether Neji wished to encourage their bond, or if he wished nothing more than for either sibling to pretend they never met.

“I suppose there’s no harm in Amaya befriending the boy. Granted, she should be encouraged not to provoke meaningless fights,” Neji remarked, sounding too resigned for Risa’s liking. “But her motives were in the proper place.”

“That bastard –”

Neji’s shoulder tensed, silencing Risa. She cleared the lump in her throat, trying to suppress the reflexive tide of resentment for Jiro. Tenten Lee’s bastard bore no responsibility for his conception. Her husband couldn’t say the same – though Risa supposed she’d rather hate an innocent boy than the man she married.

“Uh, I meant the Sato boy,” Risa continued, a clip to her voice. “I’d rather he doesn’t get any ideas about claiming what he believes he’s owed. I’m sure we can agree that an...illegitimate child making demands of the clan would be troublesome. And Amaya’s behavior is bound to get her in trouble if she doesn’t change.”

Considering her daughter’s well-intentioned ignorance, Risa imagined that Amaya might encourage him to claim parts of his “birthright” that the clan wouldn’t grant a bastard. Jiro and Amaya were children playing with matches, in a tinderbox that enveloped both of them and their parents. She lacked the grounds to forbid her daughter from seeing her bastard brother, nor could she justify any prohibitions without disclosing that Amaya had a brother. So all Risa Hyuga could do was pray that the children wouldn’t do anything too stupid.

And that her husband wouldn’t show his foolish streak. Either seemed like a testy proposition.

An hour before the couple needed to leave for dinner with Rock Lee and Tenten, Risa complained of a mild headache and retreated to bed early. I don’t need you babysitting me, Risa had said, waving him off with the back of her hand. Go. You were looking forward to this, weren’t you? Neji reasoned that a night without any pestering from her husband or children might serve her well, as pregnancy drained more and more of her energy. One of Risa’s first cousins had agreed to watch Amaya and Reina for the evening.

After asking a servant to attend to Risa, Neji dressed for dinner in a simple dark blue yukata. He grabbed Risa’s contribution – a tray of homemade red bean cakes – from the top shelf of the refrigerator on his way out.

Lee and Tenten lived in a townhouse several blocks from her weapons store, in a not quite affluent neighborhood. Traveling at regular walking speed instead of bounding over rooftops meant 20 minutes of tracing the village’s cobbled streets. Neji found the cool night air on his face – and freedom from the Hyuga compound’s confines – quite pleasant.

With only a house number, Neji managed to locate his former teammates’ modest two story townhouse. It looked just like every other on their street, except for the potted jasmine bushes Tenten planted out front. Soft yellow light filtered through the shutters into the dark street. He heard Tenten’s muffled voice, answered by Metal’s nervous ramble and Jiro’s laugh. Hot blood pulsed in his ears in anticipation of the rush of activity to come. You really should keep up with them, Neji reminded himself. You’ve come this far already. Neji balanced Risa’s red bean cakes on the palm of one hand before clearing his throat and knocking on the door.

“Oh, it’s your Uncle Neji!” Tenten exclaimed to her sons. “Just a second – I’m coming!”

A flustered but happy-looking Tenten opened the door. Her sloppy grin exposed both lines of white teeth, where Neji spotted a lipstick stain. The smear of red pigment across her front teeth made Neji flinch with reflexive embarrassment. The Tenten of his youth almost never painted her face, except to impress him – first during the chunin exams, then on their first official “date.”

“You’re here! No all-night clan meetings? No last-minute missions? I...don’t see your wife, though.”

“Good evening, Tenten. Risa sends her apologies and some red bean cakes for the table.”

“Oh, these...look good. Tell your wife my thanks.”

Neji nodded and seated himself at the dining table across from Jiro and Metal, while Tenten returned to the kitchen. He raised a single hand in greeting to both boys, who answered with limp smiles that unraveled a moment later. Pursing his lips, Neji noted Lee’s absence and asked Tenten why her husband hadn’t shown for dinner. After all, Lee was the one to offer the invitation to Neji and Risa Hyuga.

“Oh,” Tenten sighed. “Lee’s mom has been going through some health problems, and he’s being a good son. Staying with her to make sure she’s okay. Too bad. Lee was really looking forward to seeing you. He said he actually had fun at parent-teacher night for once.”

Neji’s heart sank into his stomach. Since Neji married Risa, he hadn’t spent any time in Tenten’s presence without Lee. He’d assumed Lee might serve as a buffer between the two former lovers, and he dreaded a potential confrontation over Jiro. But he’d already arrived and committed to his plans – and he trusted Tenten would address the thorny matter of Jiro Sato with tact.

“Hm. I will say Lee’s company made the occasion somewhat more bearable.”

Jiro giggled beneath his hands before falling silent once Neji turned his gaze to the boy. Our son, Neji corrected himself. Regardless of how many reminders he gave himself, the fact of Jiro’s parenthood rested uneasy on his mind.

“What’s so funny, Jiro?”

Biting his lower lip, Jiro looked to his younger brother and mother, golden brown eyes pleading for relief. Tenten set her spatula down, facing Jiro with both hands on her hips.

“Jiro! Show your Uncle Neji some more respect! He’s our guest tonight.”

Jiro’s wide eyes found Neji again and he blinked in rapid beats when they experienced a brief moment of eye contact.

“Um...I wasn’t laughing at you. I just...thought of something funny. Sorry.”

“No need to be sorry,” Neji answered. He forced his lips into a smile that didn’t quite touch the rest of his face, hoping to set Jiro at ease.

Jiro’s flickering eyes told Neji that he’d failed – not that he expected any different.

While they waited for Tenten to bring curry and rice to the table, Neji sat with his hands clasped before him. He fixated on Metal to avoid unnerving Jiro before they’d even begun to eat. Instead, Neji tried making conversation with Metal about his training. Then scolded himself for forgetting that Metal Lee was even more self-conscious than his brother. When Neji asked basic questions, Metal only gave one-word answers and stared at the table’s center.

All three gave Tenten their effusive thanks when she delivered plates to each of them. A small rush of adrenaline shot through Neji’s heart when she sat next to him, offering him a whiff of floral perfume. Both of her sons looked relieved to see their mother at the table, so she could free them from Neji’s clumsy small talk. Side by side, he and Tenten were almost like a couple with their children, Neji thought. Lee’s empty seat faded into the background, as did the fact of his absence.

“No radish pickles for you, Jiro,” Tenten teased. “You’re just like your mom.”

Jiro smiled back at his mother, his expression infused with warmth that he denied Neji.

“Yeah, thanks Mom.”

“We keep them for Dad, because he loves radish pickles with curry,” Metal offered, looking over to Neji. “Mom and Jiro think they’re awful.”

“And you like them too, dear,” Tenten answered. “You’re just like dad.”

Metal blushed and bowed his shoulders forward. He appeared to sink into the collar of his jumpsuit, a tinge of red coloring the tips of his ears. Clad in a green jumpsuit and bowl cut, Metal resembled Lee in miniature. However, Neji could still identify traces of Tenten in Metal’s almond shaped eyes and button nose. Jiro had his mother’s eyes, hair and oval face, but his fine arching brows and narrow nose were Hyuga traits. Not that Neji needed any more confirmation of Jiro’s parentage other than his activation of the Byakugan.

“Do you like radish pickles, Uncle Neji?” Metal asked.

Tenten’s stuttering younger son probably forced himself to make conversation with Neji knowing it would please his mother. Finding something endearing in his burst of confidence, Neji endeavored to reward his courage.

“I’m not especially partial to them, but I don’t resent them as much as your mother does.”

Neji held a bright pink piece of radish pickle between two fingers and popped it into his mouth. He feigned great enjoyment, raising his brows and giving both boys a wide smile. Jiro pinched the corners of his lips and picked at his rice with a self-conscious giggle on his breath. Metal snorted into his hands.

“See, Tenten, they’re not bad,” Neji joked. “Be a role model to your children. You should be encouraging them to broaden their tastes.”

Tenten laughed, then scrunched her nose and mouthed “no.” Neji’s mood lightened as dinner passed and both boys relaxed around him for the first time. Once Tenten brought their empty dinner plates to the sink, she set small dessert plates before every place. Risa’s red bean cakes sat in the center of the table, to be divided among their reduced dinner party. Before taking a cake for himself, Metal mentioned something about saving one or two for Lee. Tenten transferred two to an extra plate, then flashed Metal a grin.

“Always thinking of Dad, aren’t you?” she teased. “Always his little helper.”

“W-well, Dad’s not here...and...and, uh –”

“I think it’s good of you to think of your father,” Neji interjected, shoring Metal’s resolve and saving him from his awkward scramble. “My wife is an excellent cook, and I would hate for him to miss an opportunity to taste her work.”

Tenten gave Neji a single nod, then made a follow-up comment about savoring their opportunity to taste Risa’s contribution. She sampled a coin-sized piece while her sons watched through the corners of their eyes. Humming, she complimented the cake’s texture and subtle sweetness, and insisted that Neji pass each comment to his wife. Risa was an excellent cook, platitudes aside, trained from childhood to become the ideal housewife. However, Neji faltered even as he nodded and assured Tenten that Risa would know exactly how much she enjoyed dessert. Mentioning his former lover to his wife risked tipping their delicate, unspoken balance.

“Say thank you to your wife, Uncle Neji,” Jiro said. “I hope I can see her sometime. Her name is Risa, right?”

“Yes. Uh...Aunt Risa, I suppose.”

“That’s correct, Jiro,” Tenten concurred. “When your Uncle Neji’s wife comes for dinner, I want you to greet her as Aunt Risa.”

“Okay, Mom. Hope she brings Amaya. I really like her.”

Jiro began to say something more, but closed his lips and stuffed an entire red bean cake into his mouth. He examined the bitten edges of his fingernails, his cheeks flushed.

“She’s a lovely girl,” Neji offered. “I think setting up a playdate between you and Amaya would be a great idea.”

Jiro grinned and gave Neji a thumbs-up. Seeing her son imitate Rock Lee’s trademark sign of approval, Tenten slapped Neji’s shoulder and laughed, pointing at Jiro with both fingers. Even Metal joined his mother’s wonderful, jingling laugh, the sound that never failed to rouse joy within Neji. Dinners didn’t involve much laughter when Neji dined with Lee present, he realized. When all three members of Team Gai reunited in years past, perhaps Tenten didn’t feel quite so free – but then neither did he.

“Oh, please, please, please!” Jiro begged. “Tell Aunt Risa I have all kinds of board games from my grandpa that nobody ever plays with me except Metal, Mom and Dad.”

“Jiro. Don’t bother our guest,” Tenten hissed. “Uncle Neji will give you an answer later. Your pestering isn’t going to do a thing.”

The boy muttered yet another apology to Neji. A protective instinct pulled at Neji’s heart until his chest ached. The same bittersweet pains hit him when he saw Reina clutch a scraped knee, or Amaya bury her face in her hands.

“Jiro, you don’t need to be sorry,” Neji said, addressing him in a soft, mellow voice. “I...have gathered that you would like some friends.”

“Yeah. Nobody really wants to talk with me because I’m...you know, weak. Weird,” Jiro responded. “Amaya doesn’t seem to care, though. I want her to be my friend.”

“Amaya could use some friends as well. I’ll talk to my wife tonight and see what she thinks.”

He lacked the heart to shatter Jiro’s budding hopes of friendship by informing him what Risa already thought. His wife would come to see the benefits of a bond between brother and sister, Neji told himself. He recalled how she corrected herself when she called Jiro a bastard offhand – evidence that she could warm to Jiro.

“You could use some friends, Neji,” Tenten ventured in a teasing lilt that betrayed more serious concern. “Or, you could use some company from your old friends. I don’t think it’s right to just forget that we were a team.”

Parent-teacher night forced him to acknowledge how much his friendships had rotted, while dinner that night offered him hope of recouping his losses. The realization of Neji’s longtime dream had come at a steep cost to his happiness, however much he tried to ignore it. For a fleeting instant, he wondered whether the isolation that came with his position had turned Hiashi into the dour, authoritarian man Neji remembered from childhood.

“I wouldn’t object to coming over more often.”

A smirking Tenten slung an arm over Neji’s shoulders. Her warmth and the soothing smell of spices and perfume on her clothing drew him into her.

“I wouldn’t object to you coming over more often. Neither would Lee. He misses his eternal rival, you know.”

“I want to see you fight Dad,” Metal declared with uncharacteristic boldness. His voice lacked even the hint of a stutter. “I think Dad wins, by the way.”

Tenten winked in Neji’s direction. His face felt all too warm, and not for the first time that night. A simple wink was an innocuous gesture, but Neji sensed Tenten inviting him to share something secret, something illicit with her. In their lives before their rift turned to a chasm, she’d often ignited his imagination with well-timed winks, smirks and wiggles of her shoulder. Little flirtations unnoticed by onlookers. No. That’s not it at all, Neji insisted. A woman married for over a decade wouldn’t intentionally tempt a married man with the prospect of romantic mischief.

“Your Uncle Neji probably has some tricks, doesn’t he? He’s a genius.”

Hearing her call him a genius was addictive.

The old title and the reminder of Tenten’s past admiration swelled Neji’s heart with pride. Risa didn’t call him a genius with the same unabashed confidence in his abilities and potential. To his wife, Neji was dear or honey, the mundane terms of endearment shared between every husband and wife. He now burned with longing for the days before the Hyuga clan and its attendant politics consumed him. Back then, his future had been wide open, full of possibilities. Ending his relationship with Tenten to choose Risa and a life of clan politics had foreclosed so many of those possibilities.

“I...I suppose you could ask your father. Your mother perhaps overstates my abilities.”

“Mmh. I would still bet on you,” Tenten hummed. “What do you think, Jiro?”

“I guess I’d bet on Uncle Neji, too.”

“Like father, like son,” she murmured beneath her breath, seemingly without thought.

Neji wasn’t sure whether Tenten meant to suggest the link between him and Jiro, but her words still burrowed and settled beneath his skin. Jiro, too, appeared to recognize some hidden meaning in his mother’s little taunt. Confirmation from his mother that his father sat before him, that he called him uncle. Jiro Sato narrowed his eyes and caught Neji’s gaze straight-on for the first time that evening. For the first time since their introduction, in fact. Withering beneath the intense scrutiny of Jiro’s golden brown eyes, Neji could do nothing but look away.

Chapter Text

Tenten insisted that Neji follow her to the sitting room for sake after dinner. Though he thought of Risa all alone in bed, Neji assumed his pregnant wife would have lapsed into unconsciousness by the time Tenten uncorked a bottle of fine liquor. Of course, he suspected his body might have rendered his mind subservient to its will. Throughout the latter part of dinner, Tenten’s incidental brushes and the sound of her voice made his skin tingle with longing to be close to her. And she seemed happy to sate his cravings while sparking more in their place – Tenten sat next to him on the couch, the outer edge of her thigh touching his. Her arm draped across his shoulder, edging the line between friendly affection and intimacy.

Neji downed two cups of Tenten’s sake while advising Jiro on his shogi game against Metal. Each time he set an empty cup back on the side table, Tenten appeared all too happy to refill his cup.

“Uncle Neji, I don’t think I want to take advice from a drunk man,” Jiro said. The boy hadn’t offered any overt reaction to his mother’s throwaway comment during dessert. Still, the strained quality in Jiro’s voice and his narrowed eyes burrowed beneath Neji's skin.

“I don’t think I’m too drunk to offer you good advice.”

“Your face is all red.”

Glancing at his reflection in the back window, Neji saw that Jiro was correct. His entire face was scarlet red, with patches of white skin still visible on his hands and arms.

“Very well. But you’re falling into your brother’s trap.”

Jiro huffed, moving his piece to evade his brother’s advance. Neji raised his brows at Tenten when they both noticed that in his short-sighted move, he’d left his king piece exposed. From there, his defeat required only a few more moves on Metal’s part to entrap the king. Metal won the shogi game handily, as he often did according to Tenten.

“Well, it appears it’s now approaching your bedtimes,” Tenten prompted a beaming Metal and a dejected Jiro.

Neji’s heart jumped when she dismissed both of her sons to bed, telling them that she’d punish both of them if she caught them outside their bedrooms except to use the bathroom. Once Jiro and Metal kissed their mother goodnight and retreated to their bedrooms, Neji muttered something about leaving. The clock on the opposite wall read 10 PM, far later than he intended to stay for a simple dinner. Risa needed him, he said. Tenten countered that Risa Hyuga had a small army of servants on call for whatever she needed, whether she wanted her feet washed or a perfectly steeped cup of oolong tea.

And Tenten was correct, or Neji allowed himself to believe her and forget that Risa needed some things that only a husband could provide.

“You’re in no state to walk out there. It’s cold, dark,” she said. “Stay, and go back once it’s light again.”

Tenten downed another cup of sake in a single coordinated motion, tilting her head back at the same time her wrist tipped the liquor into her open mouth. Neji declined a refill for his cup. She pressed her side into his, and his leaden limbs refused to move. Everything seemed to slow down, from the way Tenten’s lips curved into a smile to the way her face drew closer to his. Neji’s pulse pounded at his temple. So close, and he only needed to tip his head forward to capture her lips in a kiss. Tenten’s lips looked soft, slightly puckered and parted. Like she wanted him to kiss her.

A voice at the back of Neji’s mind countered that he read nonexistent meaning into her expression, because his weak body wanted her. Whichever interpretation proved correct, the question had little relevance when he could never hope to indulge. The bounds of marriage and family constrained them to close friendship at best.

“I suppose you have a point.”

Tenten rolled her lower lip between her teeth, her eyes downcast at the folded hands in her lap. She furrowed her brows, and Neji tried to read behind the stony expression to determine what bothered her so much. His heart tapped a shrill beat against the inside of his ears, in anticipation – no, dread – of what she might tell him now that he’d agreed to stay behind. Without the buffer of her children, Tenten lost her lively luster from before she’d dismissed Jiro and Metal to bed. Then Neji reminded himself that they hadn’t spoken one on one in years. He should have been more surprised had she not found herself short on words.

“I found out a few months after it happened,” Tenten began.

Leaning forward, Neji tilted his head to the side so he could scrutinize the lines etched across her face. They revealed her deep unease, the pain she couldn’t begin to verbalize – partially because of how deep seated it was, and partially because he caused it. He draped long fingers across her forearm, running his thumb across the hem of her sleeve.

“About what?”

“Jiro.” Her son’s name passed between her lips with little more than a whisper. “Well, I found out sooner than a few months after you...left, I mean, we split. I just didn’t want to believe it.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Tenten shrugged rather than accept his apology or absolve him of responsibility for the undue burden imposed on her. Both knew that no words could mend the injuries rent by years of secrecy and unknowing neglect of his son.

“I knew there was no telling you, so...I found the next best person who I knew...was going to take care of us. I-I guess that’s not a great thing to say about him, huh?”

Her joking sing-song quivered as she forced through a shaky laugh. Her fingers pinched the bridge of her nose and Neji wondered whether she meant to stave off the arrival of tears. Because nothing he said could salve her pain, Neji swept Tenten into his embrace and constricted his arms around her upper back. He hummed and whispered I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Tenten. The words hung on the long breath he released over her shoulder. After tensing for a moment, she let him hold her, laying her hands against his shoulder blade and the back of his head.

“I never meant to leave you alone with him. With a child we weren’t ready for.”

Tenten straightened her spine to press her body flush against his.

“Are you ever ready, though?”

She wasn’t incorrect, Neji conceded. He’d been swept into his arranged marriage with little in the way of introduction to his new wife. Barely a year later, Risa had announced her first pregnancy with a hushed giggle on her breath, and Neji’s breath had stalled in his throat. At 20 years old, he comprehended the mechanics of conception on an intellectual level, but the knowledge that he’d helped create another human life still filled him with disbelief. None of his education in the shinobi arts included classes or training in how to function as a husband or father. His own father was long dead, and Hiashi Hyuga hardly offered the best role model.

Even so, he could detect Tenten’s feeble attempt at deflection. Neji knew she did it out of misguided pride or reluctance to admit her vulnerabilities to someone she wasn’t sure she could fully trust.

“No. I can’t say so, but you were especially not ready. I can’t say I was ready for my first –” At the mention of Amaya, Neji coughed and muttered something about a tickle in his throat. “– and I’d been married for a year at the time. There were servants to care for the child if my wife was ever not capable. I can’t imagine how much more difficult things were in your place.”

Their difference in status aside, Neji’s male body afforded him precious distance from the trials of carrying and nurturing the unborn child. If he needed to clear his mind, he could walk laps through the village’s side streets and pretend that Risa wasn’t pregnant, that he wasn’t already a father. Tenten had no such luxury, as waves of nausea racked her early in pregnancy then her swollen midsection confronted her once the child grew. As Risa told him during both of her previous pregnancies, the reality of a woman’s unborn child followed her for every waking moment until birth. Were reminders of Jiro tied inseparably to reminders of Jiro’s father, the one who left him behind and abandoned her for his own ambitions? Even if both agreed that those ambitions served the greatest good?

Neji wasn’t ready to ask.

“Yeah, I wasn’t ready. Not like I could have dropped you a line asking for child support or anything like that.”

“You know I would have offered it,” Neji interjected with a note of disappointment.

Pleading, even. He hated that his former lover and best friend thought so little of him, to assume he’d shirk responsibility for the life he planted within her. Without being forced to bear the consequences of his convictions, it was easy enough for Neji to insist in retrospect that of course he was an upright man. Compensating her for the care and feeding of their child was the bare minimum for someone who cared for Tenten’s friendship even if they’d killed their romance. The vulnerable child with his blood was undeniable evidence he’d once loved its mother. Yet declaring he’d borne a bastard or attempting to live a secret double life would have crippled his chances of becoming clan head. Very possibly sunken them, when his rivals still held a chokehold on the Hyuga clan council.

So, he couldn’t deny Tenten’s valid fears. Faced with a stumbling block on the steep, narrow path to realizing his ambitions, Neji could very well have spurned her out of panic.

“Name an amount and I’ll give it to you,” he insisted when Tenten gave no ready answer.

In his current position of relative affluence and comfort, Neji Hyuga could afford to pay for each year Tenten and Lee raised Jiro in his absence. She’d suffered indignities and injuries that were impossible to add in an accounting book, the invisible strain of parenting a child whose life was founded on a lie. Neji would leave her to quantify those costs, whatever the shortcomings of money as a form of penance.

“I’ll deal with the elders and my wife later,” he pressed. “Trust me, I have more than enough –”

“Forget the damn money. It was never about the fucking money. That’s not why I told you all this.”

The fire in Tenten’s voice drove Neji to drop his hands from her back. Once he flinched backward, he saw her with newly alert eyes. Of course, his reckoning had never been primarily about money. Of everything Tenten valued more than money, pride, loyalty and love were among them.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to sound as if I wanted to buy your forgiveness.”

“Seriously, Neji, forget the damn money,” Tenten snapped. “We’re doing well for ourselves – you know, besides the issues with the store. I just want you to listen, okay? I’ve been waiting since the day after. The day after Jiro came to me saying he’d activated the Byakugan.”

In the silence that followed, Neji could have counted their breaths. One, two, three, four, five, six… So long had passed since the former lovers were close enough to hear one another breathe – whether those were ragged pants or slow, steady breaths preceding sleep.

“It must have been that night, when it happened,” Tenten began, her voice thick as if she were in a trance. “Right after the war. You’d finally turned a corner in the hospital and of course, the first thing...”

Tenten rolled her lips in until only a thin line of pink peeked out along her mouth.

Neji’s recollections of that night arrived first in vague outlines and impressions of words. Then in detail far more vivid than he expected, than he was prepared to confront. His scar from his near-fatal stabbing during the war burned beneath Neji’s yukata. The incident, and his close brush with death, won him war hero status while sending Tenten into hysterics. He’d awakened to the sight of his lover’s sunken eyes, which brightened once they met his hazy vision. They hadn’t waited until Neji’s formal discharge to kiss, to touch one another in the way only lovers could. Amid the lifeless hospital atmosphere, Neji savored the pleasures of touching someone so alive, full of passion and unabashed devotion.

Tenten was probably right, down to the time and place. Little time elapsed between his recovery and their breakup – mutual breakup, Neji insisted to himself once again.

“I-I believe that must be correct,” Neji stammered.

Tenten shook her head a single time. One, two, three, four breaths passed. Neji could have sworn he heard her heartbeat in the stillness, pulsing the air between them.

“My parents said they were so surprised I could take care of a real baby. And you know, be sweet to Jiro one in a while. Kind of hard to escape them, though, because Lee and I...and the baby all lived in their attic.”

“They were surprised because you liked sharp objects more than baby dolls?”

Tenten laughed in his ear, laying her head on his shoulder. A shudder ran up Neji’s core, and a rush of relief that his ham-fisted attempt at relieving the tension worked. Swept up by her intoxicating warmth, Neji’s tensed muscles relaxed and he wrapped his arm around Tenten’s shoulders.

“Yeah, something like it. He was a sweet boy, though. Easy to love, but I guess I’m biased because I can’t help it. He used to do the silliest little things. Maybe he’d have made you laugh.”

“Good to hear Jiro wasn’t too difficult.” Neji huffed. It wasn’t quite the reluctant chortling laugh she probably had in mind, but it was the closest he usually came to laughing.

“When he’d try different foods for the first time or when he started crawling – or when he took his first steps, I’d wish you were there. It was just a passing thing, but I wanted it anyways. So much that it hurt sometimes. When Jiro first said dad and father, I hated that he wasn’t saying it to you.”

Here, Tenten held a fist to her heart and swallowed a gob of spit.

“I mean, why wouldn’t he call Lee dad?” she continued. “Lee took care of him, and treated him like his own son. But sometimes I just...wanted to slap some sense into Jiro. Tell him he had no idea what he was talking about. But once he got to the academy, I accepted that it wasn’t ever going to be you. It was more of just a matter of time, I guess. You weren't around every day, he was -”

“Tenten, I –”

“Things worked out better than they do a lot of the time when a girl has a baby, and there’s no dad. I should be happy. Lee’s a good man and I’m not just saying that,” Tenten whispered, a hitch in her voice when she stumbled on her confession. “You know, I missed you. I missed this. What counts is that I have you back now. I guess the nice thing about having my own place is that you don’t need to sneak in like you’re spying or stealing.”

The recollections of their past – of stealing seconds for a kiss, a caress or a quick fuck – brought a reflexive smile to Neji’s face. He’d taught her the weak spots in the Hyuga compound’s defenses, and she’d instructed him in how to slip through the shutters of her childhood bedroom without a sound. When neither of their bedrooms were available, they secreted away in whichever outdoor spot offered them a baseline of privacy and comfort.

“It was good shinobi training,” Neji quipped. “And the reward was far sweeter than sore muscles and another lecture.”

“It was, indeed,” Tenten concurred. She rubbed her cheek to his shoulder and trailed two fingers down his arm.

Through the thin cotton of his yukata, every touch sent sparks across his skin. Neji craved more, and he groaned when Tenten only wove her fingers through his. Images and sensations flashed through his mind, of Tenten laid bare before him and drawing him into her with greedy hands. Those were the times when Neji had felt the most alive, with her body pleading with him to take her. Tangled in each other, nothing of the outside could touch them, none of the disapproving faces who would tell them their relationship was unprofessional, or unbecoming of a Hyuga.

But that was years ago. Neji’s first obligation now was to the vows he’d made since then.

“I really should leave,” Neji cut in. His heavy tongue stumbled, weighed down by numbing intoxication and his own insincerity. “My wife is at home.”

His legs hung limp against the couch as if lead weights anchored them in place. Hot blood made Neji lightheaded, his mind drifting somewhere above the two intertwined bodies on the couch.

“Do you have to?”

Tenten pouted, her lower lip hanging out in an enticement to him. The sharp sting of alcohol clung to her person with the perfume she’d worn – for him, Neji reminded himself.

“I...no, I suppose not. She’s being looked after. Risa will be alright.”

Tenten winked and she rose to pour Neji another cup of sake, a stagger to her step. He prayed she might moderate his worst impulses, though she’d consumed just as much – if not more – sake that evening. Tradition held that women had better judgment when it came to such bodily temptations. And surely Tenten valued her bond with Lee enough not to spit on their vows.

“Then you can keep me company while Lee’s gone for the night.”

Through the haze of intoxication, Neji sensed her warmth, her scent, the softness of her body all the more acutely. With his vision blurred and his mind addled, Tenten sat the forefront of his consciousness, as did his craving for more of her. Those desires had no right to grip him so strongly, but Neji nevertheless emptied his sake cup with a deep sigh. The stinging heat settled in his stomach, mellowing into a satisfying warmth that spread through his veins.

Tenten acted intoxicated by something – something more than the alcohol that stripped his inhibitions. She tilted her chin to catch Neji’s white eyes and split her lips into a grin.

Neji’s dreadful realization silenced him. He couldn’t tell whether the unbearable heat in his system came from arousal or drunkenness. With Risa heavily pregnant, he hadn’t experienced real intimacy with a woman in months. Relieving himself with a few quick jerks of his hand didn’t come close to sating his urges.

“It gets cold in my room upstairs. I told you – I missed you, Neji. I need you,” Tenten breathed out, sitting up and clasping Neji’s face in both hands. Her tone suggested that it wasn’t just Lee’s temporary absence that left her frigid, but a deeper discontent.

Her eyes caught a pocket of light, and their pleading turned painfully clear. That look – the upward gaze while she angled her face down – was still as irresistible to him now as it was 12 years ago.

Tenten’s warm breath hit Neji as her face dipped closer. Their breaths mingled, and he leaned forward just enough to brush lips with her. Tenten hummed into their kiss and pressed her lips closer. Neji reached a hand around the back of her neck to hold her against him, venturing the tip of his tongue past her lips. The unprovoked kiss seemed to flatten time and space, erasing the intractable troubles he faced in the present and the years they spent apart. Tenten caressed Neji’s tongue with hers, trapping him in their whirl of tongues, teeth and lips. He reached a hand beneath the lower hem of her shirt, stalling when he reached her bra. Tenten paused for a second to catch a few gasping breaths and tear her shirt off.

“I’ve missed you, too.”

The electrifying rush of excitement burned away the last of Neji’s resistance. A single indulgence behind closed doors wouldn’t reach his wife or clan. Once he walked back through the Hyuga compound gates, he could continue living as if he’d never dipped his toes off the proper path. Neji reassured himself that if he could bury the truth from Risa, he was blameless. Sparing her the devastation of infidelity meant a single night of freedom did no harm.

“No shit,” Tenten sneered. “You coming or not?”

Neji trailed behind her as they ascended the narrow stairs to the master bedroom, where Tenten undressed before sliding under the sheets. A single finger directed him forward and Neji sat at the edge of the bed, heart pounding and knees weak. Tenten reached both hands over his shoulders to undo the sash on his yukata, her hands peeling back the two halves of his robe.

Chapter Text

Minutes after they entered Tenten’s bedroom, the cascade of fabric down Neji’s bare skin drove him forward into her arms. Their grasping arms found one another while their legs tangled beneath the sheets – this was freedom. Neji’s lips and teeth sank into the sensitive skin on the side of her neck and behind her ear. He relished her writhing beneath him, accompanied by little pleading whimpers. Tenten’s fingers snaked between them to grip his hardened flesh, then to rub his tip along her wetted entrance. Her sighs and whimpers urged him to dig his thumb into the bead between her legs, the fingers of his other hand curling into the sweet spot within her. Tenten’s head lolled back with overwhelming pleasure. The knuckles of one hand were jammed into her mouth to muffle her moan.

“More,” she whispered. “Fuck me.”

Moments later, Tenten’s climax soiled Neji’s fingers. Neji ran his wet hand down Tenten’s core and invited her to feel just how wet he made her. The low growl in his voice elicited a shaky giggle from her, and a fuck yes, I need you. The releases of her body left her primed for him to fuck her hard and fast. Just as she liked – Tenten loved relinquishing control to him and feeling his desire overwhelm both of them. Neji rolled his hips to join their bodies, biting at the junction of her neck and shoulder when she spread her legs wider to allow him full access.

After so many years without more than a chaste hug, Neji and Tenten’s bodies reconnected seamlessly, as if they’d starved without one another. The sentimental side of Neji told himself it meant they belonged together, that nothing about clan politics or years of separation could change their bond. Tenten’s hands roamed over his shoulders and down his back, settling at his hips. Those heated hands pulled him in and left him no escape, as did the legs curling around his upper thighs. Beneath him, Tenten’s eyes rolled back in bliss and her back arched upward. The sharp sting of fingernails digging into his lower back elicited a moan from Neji, who captured Tenten’s panting lips in a kiss. The forced closeness compounded his arousal so that he thrust faster, deeper into her.

“Shit,” Neji breathed out. “You’re so good.”

“I love you,” she moaned. “I never stopped loving –”

A second crush of Neji’s lips silenced her. Tenten tugged the locks of hair framing his face to keep their lips and bodies together. Her entire body seemed to keep him prisoner, telling him that she wouldn’t allow him out of her grasp again. Tenten’s subconscious seemed to fear that even a momentary lapse would see him slipping away from her. Neji’s rhythm faltered as he neared his climax, numbing warmth gathering in his lower core. Her body tightened around him, holding him inside her and tempting him to spill into her.

“Tenten, do you have...I don’t want to…”

Between heavy breaths, Neji forced himself to consider the future, however muddled his thinking. His justification for a single night of escape couldn’t hold if they found themselves with another illegitimate child. The child would be irrefutable evidence of his betrayal and hers – the shame of the Hyuga clan, like its older brother.

“It’s fine. I-I won’t get pregnant.”

Tenten’s shrill cries alternated with his when he buried himself inside her again. The guttural noises they made in pleasure always made Neji self-conscious, but he relished every little noise he coaxed from between her lips.

A few quick thrusts later, he finished, plunging deeper before his muscles failed him and he slumped over her. The air in Tenten’s bedroom hung heavy and thick with silence, punctuated only by the lovers’ breaths. Her touches turned from demanding to sensual as she traced the curve of his spine and combed her fingers through his frayed hair.

“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“I missed you, Tenten.”

She didn’t press him to answer the question implicit in her declaration – do you love me back? – though Tenten’s downcast eyes spoke of disappointment in his evasion. He sighed as she laid on the upper corner of his chest and planted a kiss on his collarbone before closing her eyes.

“You know, we could make this something regular,” Tenten ventured. “Lee...doesn’t have much interest in doing anything in the bedroom. I’ve been craving you again. Now that Jiro’s activated his Byakugan, I can’t stop thinking about us. What we were, and what I think we can be.”

The clock next to Tenten’s bed read minutes from midnight, jolting Neji back to thoughts of his family across the village. Returning at 10 PM already pushed the limits of what he could expect for a simple dinner with friends. While he traced loose circles across Tenten’s back, Risa probably lay curled on her side in their bed, sized for two and occupied by one. Or, two if he counted their unborn child.

“What did we do?” Neji asked – no, demanded – before Tenten could drift off.

“Mmmh. I think you know,” she whispered back, eyes still closed. A smirk played across her lips.

Neji groaned. Gods, her oblivious act was unbearable when he wanted serious answers.

“Are you going to wash the sheets again before Lee comes back? Tell me you at least won’t hurt him like this.”

“Of course I will.”

“Good. Thank you.”

Neji’s resigned answer lingered between them. Whatever the state of Tenten and Lee’s marriage, Neji knew him well enough that anything less than undying loyalty from his wife would leave him shattered. Lee wasn’t a man whose gaze drifted once he latched into a woman and declared her his “undying love.” Despite Neji’s youthful arrogance, Lee was truly the better man in matters of character.

“Hey, I’m not going to throw it in his face –”

“We’re both married, Tenten,” Neji countered with a bitter laugh. “Does that mean anything to you?”

She tipped his chin downward with two fingertips and raised her brows.

“Does it mean anything to you?”

“Y-yes. Even if I lost control of myself this time. I won’t let this happen again. We did a terrible thing tonight.”

Even as Neji pledged loyalty to his family, his faith in his willpower flagged, and Tenten’s pursed lips told him that she remained unconvinced. And her skepticism wasn’t unfounded – one fall to temptation paved the path for more illicit unions behind the backs of their families. Now that he’d allowed the intoxicating tide of infatuation to sweep him under again, Neji knew the depth of feeling she inspired didn’t lend it self to one-off affairs. There was no way he could walk away from this unaffected, satisfied with only a single night. The challenge ahead didn’t change the answer he needed to give when Tenten asked for more – an unequivocal no.

“Hm. Don’t pretend you’re better than me, Neji,” she snapped, the hard edge in her voice hitting Neji like a slap. “You know ending this the first time broke you as much as it broke me.”

Her hot tears bled into Neji’s skin and left him branded. He owed her the courtesy of speaking his true feelings. Dreams of Tenten haunted him for months after his wedding, whispering to him that forgoing his love for political ambitions was a horrible mistake.

“It did,” Neji confessed. “I had to, though.”

With Hinata married to Naruto Uzumaki and Hanabi killed on duty, circumstances compelled Neji to seize the opening for a branch Hyuga to become clan head. Another successor to Hiashi Hyuga might have brought the clan back to its traditional ways. Yet necessity clearly did nothing to blunt the pain that still tore through Tenten’s heart.

“I’m sorry, Tenten. I’m so sorry. I’m here now.”

His hands ran over her disheveled twin buns and down her back. He kissed the top of her head and heard her sigh in response. Once again, Neji reassured himself that he’d given his entire life over to his clan’s well-being. He didn’t need to hate himself for one lapse – and if Risa held a single instance of weakness against him, he would challenge her to prove herself flawless.

“Don’t leave, okay? I want to fall asleep with you.”

“I’ll stay.”

Neji bit his tongue to stay awake while Tenten’s breaths lapsed into soft snores. He couldn’t afford to oversleep and stay too long, an anxiety carried over from their days of keeping their love a secret. Neji pried off Tenten’s bare body – still sticky from dried sweat. He thanked the gods that she only stirred and mumbled when he slipped from beneath her. The floorboards of Tenten’s bedroom were cold against Neji’s bare feet. He activated his Byakugan to locate the pieces of his outfit where they’d fallen before and during their impulsive union. Once he dressed without a backward glance to the woman he’d left behind, Neji headed down the stairs and through the door. Cold night air bit at his nose and ears, adding an urgency to his step as he neared the Hyuga compound.

He slid the door to his bedroom open, only to meet Risa’s white eyes illuminated by a halo of orange light from the bedside lamp.The sight of his wife propped against the pillows, hands folded in her lap, sent stabs of almost physical pain to Neji’s heart.

“Where were you?” she whispered, extending a hand to cup his face. “Another half hour, and I would have sent a search party.”

Then thank the gods he’d arrived at home just in time, he thought. Neji dreaded to think what the search party would have found had they tracked him to Tenten’s house, and penetrated the walls to her bedroom with the Byakugan. His rivals within the clan would have taken the discovery as the perfect opportunity to expel him from his position, leaving him a disgraced shell.

“Uh. Poker. Tenten, Lee and I used to play late into the night. Team Gai tradition,” Neji muttered. “A few cups of sake...and we got carried away.”

“Hm. Then you did have fun, as I suggested. You do look as if you’ve relaxed. Let go of something, perhaps.”

Risa shifted to her side of the bed, and rubbed the sheets next to her. Neji undressed before laying in the vacancy she created by her side, kissing her temple when she rested her head against his shoulder.

“I think we should name the baby Asami,” she whispered, just as he believed she’d fallen asleep. “I like that name, if you do.”

“Good choice, Risa.”

He’d hardly heard her proposed name, but even a mention of their unborn daughter plunged him deep into freezing water.

“I-I know I’m not having a son, but I’m excited to see our family grow. She’ll be here before you know it.”

This time, Neji longed to sleep while Risa’s soft breaths hit his skin. He’d heard somewhere that pregnant women breathed more frequently because they also breathed for the children inside them. His present and future lay here – in his arms. Yet the stubborn tingle of excitement from indulging his forbidden desires refused to leave, and so did thoughts of Tenten. His infatuation clung to his insides like grime that resisted all attempts to cleanse himself. The woman pulling him closer in her sleep held no sway over his stubborn heart. Neji scolded himself over his improper thoughts - She’s your wife. He reminded himself that Tenten was not his wife because he'd chosen Risa over a decade ago, and those choices weren't ones to be reversed lightly. If he couldn’t restrain himself from falling back to Tenten, he’d need to take more forceful measures.

They couldn’t return to their cordial – if stilted – coexistence as former teammates maintaining contact out of obligation. Beginning tomorrow, Tenten no longer existed to him, and he’d accept no more invitations to dinner even in Lee’s company. And the task wouldn’t be difficult when he had clan head duties, missions for the village and three children and a wife to occupy his hours. They’d serve as a handy excuse for avoiding his former teammates, and a convenient escape from their specters. In that sense at least, his present position was a blessing.

Chapter Text

Jiro Sato spent the days after his first encounter with Amaya Hyuga hoping that soon, he wouldn’t need to pass through the academy alone. Neither would his sister. Twenty minutes after the end of classes, a servant of the Hyuga clan arrived to escort Amaya Hyuga back to the clan compound. Through quiet observation, he found that though bullies spared Amaya the torment he suffered until recently, she shared his solitude. Perched on a swing, Amaya sometimes pumped her legs to fly above the schoolyard, sometimes dangled her feet into the woodchips.

His heart swelled with a mixture of pity and excitement while he watched her waiting alone on the swingset. Jiro thrummed with excitement that he might make a friend of her because she, too, appeared to have nobody. Yet his stomach churned when he considered leaving his post atop the monkey bars to begin a conversation. Would he strike her as pathetic, or would disrupting her peace annoy her? She’d saved him from Kenji’s group once – which didn’t mean she wanted to hear from him ever again.

How was your day at school? Did you do anything fun? By the way, thanks for sticking up for me? Well, sticking up for your dad...but you know… Jiro rehearsed conversation openers one by one, knowing he couldn’t well begin with hey, you’re my sister. My mom basically admitted it.

That would catch Amaya’s attention, and her ire. If he ever broke the stalemate that kept him from approaching her, Jiro definitely needed to thank her for lending him the protection afforded by her privileged birth. His bullies no longer openly taunted or beat him, probably assuming that harassing Jiro Sato meant angering the Hyuga heir. They still hissed insults in his ears or called his mother a whore as Shino Aburame handed out exams, or their class lined up before a training exercise. But Jiro withstood those covert slights without difficulty.

One unremarkable overcast day, Jiro’s eyes widened as Amaya drove her swing to a stop with a loud crunch of woodchips beneath her sandals. She cast her narrowed white eyes up at him, the corners of her lips downturned in an expression he couldn’t quite read.

“You’re watching me,” she declared. “You’ve been doing it every day for a while.”

The second time Amaya came to his rescue, she saved Jiro from his own paralysis.

“H-hi.”

Jiro raised his left hand in greeting, but couldn’t force himself to wave at her. His heart tapped against his breastbone while he imagined the tips of his ears turning bright red. She lifted her hand in return, eliciting a rush of relief that she wasn’t totally hostile to his presence. After a minute of pause, Amaya walked over to the base of the monkey bars before setting her sandals to the first rung of the ladder. Jiro shuffled along the bars so that she could sit beside him, if that was her intention. Where they held the bars on either side of him, Jiro’s hands turned clammy against the cold metal. He scrambled to prepare an explanation for his uninvited observation, if Amaya meant to rebuke him for the unwelcome oversight. Then he would apologize in whatever groveling fashion she demanded.

“You’re Jiro, aren’t you?” she asked, once she settled next to him.

“Um, yeah. I am.”

Why did she ask the question when she already knew the answer? He refused to believe that Amaya Hyuga’s memory was so poor that she would forget his name so soon after they met. Jiro glanced over at the girl seated next to him. Though they sat inches apart now, so much separated brother and sister other than a two year difference in age and their family names. She was gifted from birth with full command over the Hyuga kekkai genkai, and the status that accompanied the Hyuga name. Her parentage afforded her all the respect due to Neji Hyuga’s successor, instead of the shame of being born a bastard.

“Sorry for watching you, by the way,” Jiro rambled, a shaky laugh on his breath. “I didn’t want to make you feel weird.”

Amaya twisted her hands in the lap of her white dress. Her slender, pale fingers seized on a loose thread in her sash, and her eyes soon fixated on them to avoid looking to Jiro. Based on her reaction, any seeds of friendship appeared dead in the water.

“I just don’t know why you find me so interesting.”

“I mean, I should say thank you for what you did,” Jiro replied without a beat of hesitation. Amid his panic, he remembered the gratitude he owed Amaya. “Nobody’s tried to save me from those guys before. Even though...uh, I get that you were just looking out for your dad. Which is okay...you don’t need to do anything for me. I don’t get why anyone would –”

“I told you – they’re trash,” she cut in, a defensive quality in her answer.

The sharp edge in her voice signaled the end of that particular conversation. Jiro fell silent, once again relieved that Amaya directed her spite at the bullies rather than him. Now he could broach other topics of conversation, but anxiety welled in Jiro’s chest when he fretted over maintaining Amaya’s interest. They lacked the easy rapport and years of shared experience Jiro had with his brother, and a stony, silent Amaya offered no help.

“How was your day?” Jiro ventured, once he dizzied himself tracking the back and forth motions of Amaya’s swinging feet.

“Boring again,” she answered, shrugging. “I already knew everything that was covered in class today. It was only basic chakra theory and taijutsu.”

“O-oh, that’s nice. So you read ahead in the books, I guess?”

“Mother and Father taught me when I was five years old. Uncle Ko, too.”

Jiro pressed a fist to his mouth so she wouldn’t hear his shocked gasp. He remembered his struggles at the academy when he’d gone through her year, the exasperated, pitying expression on Shino’s face when Jiro failed another “basic” skills assessment. Amaya unintentionally spat on his pain by dismissing the subject matter as the territory of toddlers, though Jiro forced himself to forgive her lack of tact. Children from clans received additional training in their clan’s proprietary jutsu, and every villager above the age of awareness knew it. Yet Jiro didn’t imagine that clan heirs also studied far in advance of the curriculum taught to every shinobi in training at the academy.

Perhaps with the resources available to a Hyuga, Jiro Hyuga would have excelled where Jiro Sato failed. But knowing his ineptitude, he would more likely falter beneath the heavy weight of his father’s expectations, throwing his failures into harsher relief.

“How was your day?”

“Good. Same as always now that I don’t have those guys beating on me anymore.”

He didn’t mention the challenging exams and class assignments of that day, or every day it seemed. A girl so talented in the shinobi arts didn’t need to know his substantial shortcomings, or she might consider him beneath her notice. Amaya nodded, her eyes flickering with indecision once she’d exhausted the obvious follow up to Jiro’s conversation starter.

“My mom thinks it’d be nice if we could play together sometime. Your dad said the same thing,” Jiro said, filling the silence with the first thought to arise. “When your dad came over for dinner a while ago. He was going to talk to your mom about that.”

Amaya’s face pinched in the reflexive way Jiro’s mother scowled when the dreaded radish pickles hit her tongue. Before he could rush out an apology, her expression of consternation turned to one of regret. Jiro’s heart sank into his stomach with the anticipation that she might say no, because she didn’t find him a worthwhile companion. Or she would concoct some excuse that kept her busy whenever she would otherwise have free time. On the few occasions he invited his classmates for playdates, the more tactful among them remembered all forms of chores and family obligations upon hearing him ask. Jiro somehow doubted that Akira, for example, needed to rake his grandfather’s leaves every weekend.

“I...oh, I’m not sure I’d be much fun to play with,” she muttered.

“Don’t worry about it! I have all kinds of games, if you like games – you don’t have to if you don’t want –”

A single laugh cut Jiro’s rambling short. In his rush to reassure her that any company was welcome company, he apparently overlooked the root of Amaya’s insecurities. Jiro reached over to the curve of Amaya’s bowed shoulder to reassure her. His heart skipped a beat when he felt her slender bones, so fragile. My little sister, Jiro told himself. Older brothers were supposed to treat their little sisters with special care, Jiro thought. They were meant to shelter their sisters from the worst of life with their superior strength and courage. Though he couldn’t forget that Amaya had already outdone him in mettle, Jiro figured he had some obligation to tend to her where he could.

“I don’t really have friends,” Amaya confessed. “Mother and my little sister don’t count. My cousins...well, I’ve never been close to them.”

So her father had been correct – Amaya Hyuga could use a friend.

“I don’t have any either. Do you...ever get lonely?”

“Sometimes.” She shrugged, leaning into Jiro’s touch. “But training with Mother and Father doesn’t give me much time to stop and think about it. I guess that’s a good thing.”

The urge to sweep Amaya into a hug left an itch inside Jiro’s bones, one he suppressed because he didn’t want to impose himself. Amaya resolved to sweep her momentary vulnerability aside, and Jiro gathered that she wanted him to move past it as well. Beneath the veneer of indifferent confidence, Amaya concealed a fragile core of feelings she didn’t want to confront. You can say how you feel around me, Jiro wanted to tell her. Then again, inviting her to express herself was an invitation to rebellion that she probably wasn’t ready to undertake. Amaya Hyuga – daughter of Neji Hyuga and future clan head – wasn’t permitted to show weakness before a stranger or admit her longing for more. Hyuga manners, Jiro recalled. Hyuga manners referred to the stiff composure expected of clan members – including his father, who Mom cursed the morning after dinner. Damn Hyuga manners. That son of a bitch couldn’t even say goodbye.

“You train over the weekend?”

While the words still lingered on his tongue, Jiro’s cheeks smarted with embarrassment. Of course the Hyuga clan heir trained over the weekend. Why else would she dismiss her academy coursework as child’s play?

“Father wants me to be strong so I can replace him someday. Since I was born a girl, the elders want more from me before they let me lead the clan. I train with him or Mother every day after school and for a few hours a day on the weekend. Well, not Mother lately because she’s pregnant.”

“You’d be pretty strong just training every day after school, right?”

“Mm. Father says I need to practice using my Byakugan every day or it’ll weaken. Like a muscle. I need special training to use it, because the academy doesn’t teach that.”

When Amaya recalled her father’s words, she spoke with special reverence. But Jiro couldn’t help thinking that Neji’s insistence on training his daughter after school and on weekends was among the reasons she needed friends. Another question arose, welling up spontaneously at the back of Jiro’s mind – Do you want to lead the clan? The deadpan quality in her voice suggested reluctance to follow her father’s footsteps. That resignation contrasted with the defiance Amaya displayed before his bullies, leaving Jiro unsettled at the difference.

“Sorry,” Jiro whispered.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, so I see no need for you to be sorry.”

“No, no – I meant that I’m sorry because I feel like you don’t want...ah, never mind –”

Instead of asking why a bastard would pity a daughter of privilege, Amaya smiled to reveal dimples on either cheek – the same ones Jiro had. Mom beamed whenever those dimples arose on his grinning face. In her carefree moments, she’d pinch his cheeks and plant kiss after kiss on his forehead. Those were Neji Hyuga’s dimples, though Neji displayed them on so few occasions. The resemblance struck him far more than the narrow nose or thin brows they shared in common, though Jiro couldn’t pin why. He smiled back, then promised to find her again the next day if she’d allow him.

“I don’t see any reason why not,” Amaya answered. “You’re nice. Nobody else wants to talk to me.”

“Yeah, same here.”

Jiro held his smile while she followed one of the Hyuga servants home. He swung his legs back and forth under the monkey bars to relish the whoosh of air under his feet. Save for the hard metal beneath him, he could pretend he was flying. When Mom arrived at the gate, Jiro met her with the smile she loved so much and told her he had a new friend – if he could keep her.

Tenten offered Neji a pinched smile the next time their paths crossed at one of the academy’s showcases of student talent. Hot blood crept up Neji’s face and neck until his white skin burned red with a feverish heat. Not here, not now, he pleaded. None among the assembled crowd seemed aware of his discomfort, as a wave of cheers and applause rose in response to a talented young student’s performance. Ten out of ten shuriken in the target.

Neji counted the number of students left before Amaya assumed her place 100 yards from the target and attempted to replicate that flawless show. From the folded paper program in his hand, less than ten remained. That translated to ten minutes before he could leave the academy grounds and return home to his wife. To the compound where walls and locked gates shielded him and his fragile heart. But his daughter needed to see her father’s face among the onlookers while she took the spotlight. Neji remembered Risa’s words to him not long ago – she looks up to you, Neji. Don’t disappoint her.

“Hey,” Tenten whispered from behind him. Her fingertips brushed the outer curve of his shoulder before she squeezed a single time. “I was looking for you.”

Distracted by the chatter around him and in his mind, Neji hadn’t noticed Tenten winding through the crowd. Tenten had been a friend before she became a lover – and maybe she wanted to revert to friendship. For all he knew, she could have searched the crowd for Neji’s face, burning to apologize for her behavior at dinner. Yet she’d shattered his inhibitions in the worst way, and Neji found that hard to forgive.

“You’re here for your daughter, I assume.”

Tenten persisted through the icy wall of silence. Foolhardy, as Risa had said. Incapable of taking hints or unwilling to accept things she didn’t want to see. During their teenage years, Tenten had the courage to face his seal without wavering her gaze, so unlike any other. She’d thrown herself body and mind into their love, regardless of the signs that it was doomed.

“You...going to say something?” Tenten pressed. Her question emerged more curious than accusatory, but her figurative finger still pointed squarely at Neji’s chest.

His heart pounded in his ears, a wet, pulsing noise that nearly deafened him. Neji stood paralyzed, anchored to the ground by feet that refused to move. He couldn’t bring himself to even say hello. Nor could he bring himself to say go away, we both know we shouldn’t see each other when repudiating her would expose their secret shame. Part of him wanted her to stay and wind her arm over his shoulder, however shameful the impulse. Undeterred by his cold reception, Tenten advanced into Neji’s line of sight. With ribbons in her twin buns, she looked good. The mid-afternoon sunlight illuminated her from behind to create a halo around her face.

“G-good afternoon, Tenten.”

Neji’s lips twitched before they fell limp. Heartened by his response, however faltering, Tenten released a happy little sigh and a hum.

“Why did you seek me out?” Neji choked out. He hoped stiff formality would keep their exchange short as Tenten realized he wasn’t interested in chatting.

“Do I need a reason?”

Before this rift emerged, she’d never needed a reason. Neji was reason enough for her, and he’d relished how freely they offered love to one another. Somewhere in the indistinct haze around him, Neji heard one of the academy instructors announce the next student’s name with strained enthusiasm. A smattering of polite applause followed. The student had no legions of supporters hooting and clapping at the sound of his name. Neji offered a few belated claps while Tenten called out a knock them dead!

A few parents – a young woman in a sundress, a mustached man with a protruding gut and a woman still in her apron – glared at the village’s weapons mistress. Tenten raised a single brow and shrugged with her palms out. Then she promptly turned back to Neji, redirecting her attention from the showcase.

“He’s next, you know,” Tenten said, her head tilted so her golden brown eyes seized his. “Jiro, that is. I...I saw you were here without your wife, and I figured we should watch together. Least we can do as his parents.”

“It didn’t occur to me to pay attention.”

“Now you know.”

“Yes, thank you.”

Tenten gave a quick chuckle. Her tone turned earnest, leaving Neji disarmed by her sincerity.

“Hey, you’re always welcome.”

A few halfhearted claps bookended the anonymous student’s performance, and Neji glanced over to see five out of 10 shuriken lodged in the target’s inner rings. An unexceptional showing for an undistinguished student without even a family to applaud. Tenten whooped while waving a hand above her head. Neji could only manage a few claps as his face burned from the heady mixture of embarrassment and admiration she elicited. The boy exited the target range with his head bowed, but Neji saw the corner of his lips twitch upward.

That was Tenten, bold and shameless where Neji’s restraint stopped him from matching her enthusiasm for life. Neji hoped that as the boy melded into the crowds, he’d been heartened by Tenten’s encouragement.

The instructor proctoring the showcase announced Jiro Sato’s name, to Tenten’s yell of make your mom proud! A sharp elbow dug between Neji’s ribs – do something, damn it, Tenten hissed. Neji managed a smattering of applause, which failed to dispel the disappointed expression on Tenten’s face. Tenten shifted half a step closer to Neji while they watched Jiro stand at the painted line 100 feet from the target. Jiro Sato – his son – shuffled back and forth, watching his feet to ensure that the tips of his toes aligned with the line.

Jiro obviously wanted to buy time, to the instructor’s visible irritation. Oblivious, or perhaps even more unnerved by the pressure, Jiro counted every shuriken from his pocket, inspecting them from multiple angles.

“Haven’t got all day, Sato,” the instructor said, keeping his tone light. But impatience added a hard edge to his voice.

“Come on,” Tenten prompted. “Help him along a little.”

Neji blinked once, twice. His mouth went dry with uncertainty over how to react to her call for him to raise his voice, to cheer his son on.

“I –”

“Gods, you’re so fucking stubborn,” Tenten said through gritted teeth.

Tenten’s call to responsibility wasn’t unreasonable. A few cheers and token acknowledgments weren’t much to offer Jiro when he’d neglected him for his entire lifetime. The mousy boy who’d called him Uncle Neji at every visit to the Lee house had so little confidence in himself.

“You – ah, you’ll do great!”

The staccato outburst tumbled from Neji’s lips in a moment when he managed to overcome his pride and conditioning. A few surprised or amused faces met his gaze when his eyes drifted over the crowd. His stomach roiled, stilled somewhat by Tenten’s smile. She whispered see, that wasn’t so hard, now was it? Neji killed his impulse to interject a sarcastic remark – something about how she’d exacted the words under duress. The warmth of her soft hand crept into his palm and she gave his hand a quick squeeze. If Neji leaned into their momentum, he could have easily locked Tenten into a side embrace or otherwise closed the inches between them. Instead, he unclenched his fingers so Tenten’s hand fell back to her side.

Jiro Sato launched his 10 shuriken in one fluid motion, copying every point of technique taught at the academy since Neji’s childhood. Nine shuriken landed within the target’s inner rings, and Tenten’s squeal grated on the insides of Neji’s ears. His lips tightened in an involuntary smile as he clapped his hands, then waved once Jiro looked in his mother’s direction. Whatever other applause, compliments or cheers came from the rest of the crowd, Tenten’s shouts of unfiltered glee drowned them all out. Shoulders turned and feet shuffled aside to clear a path between Jiro and his proud mother – and father, Neji reminded himself.

The sun reflected off the fine sheen of sweat on Jiro’s tanned skin, giving him a faint glow. Neji pressed his lips into a line as Jiro’s lips pulled back into a grin that exposed both rows of teeth. Tenten’s thumbs pressed into the dimples that emerged on either of Jiro’s cheeks. Kisses landed on his forehead, his cheeks, the crown of his sweaty head.

“You were great out there, Jiro! Must have been your...ah, Neji’s genius passed down to you, huh?”

“I-I guess, Mom. Don’t know how I did it.”

The hitch in Tenten’s voice suggested she meant to say something else. Seizing on the momentary lapse, Neji’s mind drifted into the realm of fantasy. How wonderful it would have been for Tenten to call him Jiro’s father without hesitation. Neji wished their child weren’t a damning secret, when they’d conceived him in love. The dream dissipated once Neji glanced down at his program to confirm where Amaya’s name fell in the sequence of student performances. Realizing his dream even in the smallest sense meant renouncing so many of the choices he’d made in his adult life.

And he didn’t regret his position, his accomplishments or his family. The aftertaste of the dream gone sour lingered on Neji’s tongue while Tenten and Jiro still basked in his triumph.

“I was impressed, Jiro,” Neji said. “I’d kindly disagree with your mother and say that you probably inherited her talents.”

“I think I just got lucky. I’m not good with this stuff most of the time, but thanks…ah, Uncle Neji.”

Jiro’s slender shoulders hunched forward to deflect the unusual outpouring of praise. Neji muttered something about getting some fresh air away from the crowds, tingles crawling along his skin. I shouldn’t be here, he insisted. The longer he remained, the more he’d imagine himself taking his place as Jiro’s father and Tenten’s husband. A few minutes remained before Amaya took her place at the painted line, and that had to be enough time to gather his composure. Before Neji could retreat past the crush of bodies, Tenten latched two fingers onto the flowing sleeve of his yukata.

“Hey, where do you think you’re headed?”

“I-I need some space. The noise is getting on my nerves.”

“Really?”

Incisive as always, she’d cut straight through his excuses. Tenten Sato, no – Lee, had always said Neji was a bad liar, including to himself.

“I suppose I can stay a bit,” Neji stammered. “Congratulations again, Jiro. If you work hard, you will be an excellent shinobi.”

“Come on, give your Uncle Neji a hug,” Tenten said. She touched her hand to Jiro’s shoulder blade, urging him forward. “You know, he’s here to see you.”

Jiro narrowed his eyes, tilted his head back and forth.

“Tenten, I wouldn’t push him. You don’t have to. I just happened to be here with your mother, and...ah…”

Sweat beaded along Neji’s palms and under his arms once Jiro wrapped his skinny arms around Neji’s midsection. Thanks for coming, Uncle Neji, his son whispered. Neji’s hands found Jiro’s shoulder and lower back, numbing warmth sinking to the base of his stomach at the sensation of a child’s body folded against him. Jiro squirmed in Neji’s arms, yet said nothing – probably because he lacked the nerve to say that their hug had lasted a bit too long. Neji stiffened at the scattered whispers of his name behind his turned back, then dismissed them along with any concerns for his reputation. Word of Jiro Sato’s Byakugan had ripped through the village’s collective consciousness – and the sight of Neji embracing Jiro would add a new urgency to the speculations.

I love you, Neji thought, with such intensity that he wondered whether he’d said the words aloud. Both of you. Mother, father, son. This was his and Tenten’s first real instance of co-parenting Jiro, though Jiro had at most an inkling of an idea that Neji wasn’t only a family friend.

“Mom, can we go home now?” Jiro asked. “Dad would want us home to help with dinner, right?”

Dad. A pulse of excitement shot through Neji’s veins before he realized that Dad was Rock Lee. Of course, he should have expected nothing different when Lee raised Jiro as his own. Lee had a lifetime of wiping Jiro’s tears, cheering him on, withstanding his intransigence and indulging his childish whims. All of those moments combined would render a single hug, a single afternoon’s events, meaningless.

“Oh – um, we can, yes!”

The back of Tenten’s hand brushed his, and the warm puff of Tenten’s breath stirred the hairs on the back of Neji’s head. Jiro didn’t spare Neji a second glance once they untangled, and his son found his mother’s side again.

“Hey...I’ll see you around, okay?” Tenten said. She sounded hopeful, but her voice had a fragile quality to it, as if she feared his rejection.

“I suppose I will.”

Chapter Text

The swirls of blue chakra and disorienting expansion of his vision continued to haunt Jiro weeks after his sole activation of the Byakugan. When he recalled his incident, Jiro sometimes found himself captured by fear of the unknown, wishing to somehow reverse time to become normal again. But different impulses arose elsewhere – a desire to feel and harness his inherent power, to transcend his status as Jiro Sato, pathetic loser. Nothing triggered Jiro’s longing to activate the Byakugan again more than the press of cold, rough brick against his burning cheek.

That, and Kenji’s forearm pinning his shoulder blades to the academy’s side wall. And his regular bully’s heavy breaths on the back of his neck.

Unfortunately for Jiro, Kenji forgot the threat of Amaya Hyuga’s retribution too soon, but remembered that Jiro lacked the strength or resolve to defend himself. After losing a sparring match to a girl in their class, the bully turned to Jiro to regain the rush of power he craved. A shove into the wall came without preface or justification, because Kenji’s superior strength offered all the justification he believed necessary. Pinpricks of pain shot down Jiro’s spine, with the sting of humiliation compounding his physical suffering.

Though Kenji showed aptitude with taijutsu and leveraged his body weight to good effect in combat, he lacked a proper shinobi’s restraint or emotional control. His hot blood would doom him one day, Jiro thought. But knowing Kenji’s shortcomings offered no consolation from his position, pinned and immobilized.

“You look like you’re ready to pee yourself,” Kenji sneered. His hot breaths bore down on the bare skin of Jiro’s neck and face, while he increased his leverage on Jiro’s slender frame.

Jiro released a shrill whimper that sounded like help me. His vision – still in full color, still showing the terrible scene in his familiar sight – wavered while panic overwhelmed him. The reactions of his classmates varied, as they did when Kenji and his friends terrorized Jiro during recess. A purple haired girl standing next to the schoolyard’s old shade tree clutched her knuckles to her lips. One of Kenji’s frequent accomplices arched a blonde eyebrow and lifted his chin when Jiro’s gaze drifted to him. The expression taunted Jiro – what’re you going to do? You going to just stay there like the pathetic loser you are?

“Too bad your mommy’s not here to rescue you, huh? She’s probably still fucking her way around town with any guy who’ll let her.”

“N-no,” Jiro choked out.

Were she watching, Mom would have wanted Jiro to show his strength, like a good shinobi-in-training. She would have wanted him to behave as a young man should. However, Jiro was neither a promising shinobi-in-training, nor a model of masculine virtues. Whatever Kenji’s advantages in size or abilities, Jiro had one key advantage – the Byakugan, bestowed on the Hyuga clan many generations ago and given to him by an absent father. Come on. Jiro pleaded with his stubborn eyes, with the gods perhaps. He thought no further than unleashing his Byakugan to shock Kenji into breaking his torment, as the sight of Jiro’s eyes turning white had done the first time.

“Then where’d she get you? You’re just a mistake she never wanted anyways. Too bad your daddy doesn’t want you either ’cause your mommy was just for fun.”

His pulse racing against his temple, Jiro asserted to himself that his father and mother loved one another enough to create a child. Stern, tight-laced Neji Hyuga didn’t seem to be a man who fucked for fun, regardless of what Kenji said to beat down Jiro’s confidence. For his own sake, Jiro needed to believe his parents’ love once flowed true. Part of him stirred with excitement at the thought that his parents still loved one another, even in obedience to the affection that lingered in their hearts after a decade.

He insisted that his father cared – not enough to legitimize him, but enough to grant him the smallest measure of affection in public. Neji Hyuga appeared pained when he withdrew from Jiro’s embrace, remorse weighing down the corners of his lips and his thin brows. Regret appeared etched in his deepening frown, though Jiro couldn’t say whether his father regretted his existence or their separation.

“I almost feel bad for you, Jiro. You have those freak eyes, but you can’t do shit with them.”

Trained members of the Hyuga clan could best all but the most talented non-clan shinobi in combat, Jiro recalled. The likes of Kenji, who heavily leveraged their muscle and physical momentum, wouldn’t fare well against the gentle fist’s fast, targeted strikes. If Jiro mastered the gentle fist, Kenji would kneel before Jiro on the unforgiving pavement as Jiro had done so often, helpless and cowed. Call my mom a whore, I dare you. You wouldn’t now, would you?

“Shut up. I’m going to beat you someday. You’ll see.”

Shino Aburame rounded the corner of the building, returning from a quick discussion with the academy’s head administrator, a dull-eyed chunin with a protruding belly. A swarm of chakra beetles gathered above the boys. Their instructor’s intervention proved enough to stop Kenji from venting the full weight of his temper on his old target. Shino admonished Kenji that true shinobi protected the weak and avoided relishing victory for its own sake, to be met by a single nod of submission.

Kana – a girl in their class – whispered to her friend that Jiro was too weak to survive a single mission. Even with the Byakugan, he can’t do anything, Kana hissed with disgust and pity. It’s wasted on him.

What a loser, Kana’s friend concurred. The two girls bowed their heads toward one another to share a discreet laugh that escaped Shino’s notice, but snagged on Jiro’s consciousness. I’ll show you, too, Jiro thought, fire rising in his core.

If he could harness the Byakugan on demand, Jiro could close off Kenji’s chakra network with a few well-placed swipes at his chakra points. He could summon the Hyuga’s Ultimate Defense against opponents more competent than a 12-year-old school bully, casting a near-invincible shield around himself in battle. His training in the Hyuga jutsu and the art of the clan’s kekkai genkai would necessarily fall on the one Hyuga he’d managed to befriend. Whether Neji Hyuga’s daughter would grant him access to the Hyuga’s secrets – to allow him a measure of legitimacy denied to him at birth – remained to be seen.

That day after school, the swingset’s rusty hinges squealed above Jiro’s head, filling the wordless space between him and his fortunate half-sister. The question he longed to ask – can you teach me? – hung on the tip of his tongue, held at bay by his fear of hearing Amaya refuse. The silence between brother and sister was most often a reassuring one because both preferred the other’s quiet company to inconsequential chatter. But with Jiro newly battered yet determined to rebound, every shrill squeal of the swingset chilled his blood, rebuking him for his cowardice. How could he hope to become more than a pathetic loser if he couldn’t bear to ask Amaya’s help?

Jiro wasn’t sure what snapped within him, when he’d consigned himself to existing as a loser on the peripheries of his class. Maybe Amaya’s friendship emboldened Jiro to dream of more. Maybe the particular force of Kenji’s slam into his shoulder knocked something loose.

“Hey, Amaya. C-can you teach me how to use the Byakugan?”

The question emerged in a quiet stutter, tumbling from Jiro’s lips and landing in a pile of soft leaf litter. His timid delivery ensured that none among the children racing around the playground or sitting in private conversation with friends would hear his daring request.

Her swing skidded to a stop, the woodchips crunching beneath her feet. The heels of her sandals drew a deep furrow in the woodchips that matched the furrow between her eyebrows. Amaya’s white eyes darted to the hands twisting in her lap, and Jiro’s heart sank into his stomach. His sister wouldn’t have averted her eyes if she weren’t planning to answer his question in a way that would have displeased him.

“I shouldn’t,” she muttered.

“What do you mean?”

Amaya kicked at the woodchips to propel herself again. Her twisted expression tempted Jiro to apologize for speaking out of line. He parted his lips to say sorry, I don’t know what came over me – but in the instant before his apology emerged, another voice said stand strong. He folded far too easily against those with stronger wills, which included almost everyone. From his stationary position, feet dangling off the swing, Jiro counted four rounds of back and forth before Amaya stilled herself again.

“You’re not in our clan,” she stammered out. “I don’t think it’s proper for me to teach you.”

You’re not in our clan. The words sent needles to Jiro’s heart though he heard no malice in Amaya’s voice – in fact, the lilt of her answer carried a hint of regret. She stated the fact as if it were a self-evident explanation for why Jiro Sato couldn’t access the secrets of the Hyuga kekkai genkai.

The privileged few were born into the Hyuga name, or on rare occasions, they married into it. And only a slightly larger subset of men and women from one of the great clans could do that. Jiro’s mother, the daughter of a grocer, lacked that hereditary privilege. Whatever his resentments toward the Hyuga order, Neji Hyuga had accepted its assumptions about the natural way of things. Powerful blood begat more, and Hyuga married their own.

“I know,” Jiro spat, bile gathering on the back of his tongue.

Every sneering whisper about the freak bastard reminded him that he wasn’t a Hyuga. The clan didn’t repress him with Kenji’s blunt violence, but in his blinding resentment, he viewed the Hyuga as little different from the bullies. To them, power was something they held, and leveraged to their advantage through exclusion.

“Father wouldn’t let you learn the Hyuga jutsu, or how to use the Byakugan.”

Amaya’s mention of their father lent Jiro one key piece of clarity. Claiming the Byakugan would spite the father intent on spurning his inconvenient legacy. Earlier that day, spite and preservation of his fragile pride drove him to defend Neji Hyuga against Kenji’s claims that the clan head cared nothing for his bastard. Yet Jiro now turned his ire toward the father who’d consign him to live forever as a bastard, denying him any possible benefit to his Hyuga blood.

“Then I hate your dad,” Jiro cut in.

The overwhelming heat of the moment blinded him to his sister’s scowl. An attack on their father’s character had galvanized Amaya into standing her ground against Kenji and his friends. Venting his feelings on Neji Hyuga might well drive her to abandon their friendship, but the hot blood pulsing through his system left Jiro indifferent to past or future.

“Jiro,” Amaya gasped, her hiss cutting beneath his skin. “The clan has laws. You can’t blame Father –”

“He can change them, can’t he?”

He’s my dad, too, Jiro countered in his mind, biting the side of his cheek to keep himself from making more intemperate remarks. Though his mother seemed eager to forgive the man, the stinging ache in Jiro’s heart reminded him that his Hyuga father had given him precious little. Not money, not protection, not tender affection in his weakest moments. Nothing but sporadic visits and token encouragement at his latest showcase. Jiro burned to state his equal claim on Neji Hyuga to justify the hatred and perhaps swing her to his side – if she believed him.

Rather than answer Jiro’s pointed question, Amaya pursed her lips and pointed her white eyes skywards. A flock of birds – no more than winged black specks in the sky – alighted from a shade tree next to the playground to land on nearby power lines. The moments of pause afforded Jiro enough time to calm his internal scream to a simmering growl. He drew deep, rattling breaths that drowned out the din of their academy classmates playing around them.

“Why are you asking me about this now?” she said at last, the hard edge in her voice flipping Jiro to the defensive position. He supposed he needed to allow her blunt inquiry out of fairness, when he’d interrogated her for the past minutes.

“Kenji did it again.”

“Did what?”

Jiro recounted the terrifying minutes before Shino Aburame intervened to stop Kenji’s assault. A lump rose in the back of his throat when he described his desperate hope that his eyes might activate again. That time, the threat of imminent physical harm hadn’t triggered whatever turned his ordinary golden brown eyes to white and converted the world into shades of black, white and pulsing blue chakra. During his telling, Amaya’s lips pressed into a tight line that Jiro couldn’t read.

“I see,” Amaya said, once she met Jiro’s probing gaze.

Her face contorted in disgust at the trash who terrorized Jiro on the playground, a reaction that granted him a measure of hope. His sister retained the same moral clarity she’d shown before, across the divisions of class and clan.

“You want to use the Byakugan and Hyuga jutsu to defend yourself?”

One nod, then another.

Surely she couldn’t condemn him for wanting to protect his person and his dignity. Amaya had enough heart to empathize, even if she wasn’t a vulnerable, clanless girl without status or blood to protect her from the kinds of cruelties visited on him. If their father remained unsympathetic, then Jiro longed to visit a fraction of his terror on him. Yet Neji Hyuga had lived in fear of the cursed seal’s power at Jiro’s age, beneath the thumb of his uncle – Hiashi Hyuga, the previous clan head. Jiro’s father had tasted the bile at the back of his throat in the seconds before pain was visited upon his helpless form. Wished to inflict revenge on the one delivering the pain.

“Well, yeah. I can’t control when the Byakugan comes out, you know. Not like you can.”

“I can’t see Father allowing it,” Amaya reiterated. “It isn’t my place to disobey him. I’m his heir.”

“What do you want? Forget your dad for a minute.”

During their first conversation on the monkey bars, Amaya Hyuga seemed hesitant to succeed their father as Hyuga clan head – and now, she showed the same reluctance to deny Jiro. She shot upright in her seat, apparently shocked that someone asked what she wanted rather than handing her commands. Jiro had pointed the sharpened point of a kunai squarely at her heart, compelling her to respond.

“I’d teach you, if I could choose.”

Jiro clenched his fist around the cold, biting metal of the swing’s chain, the delicate skin on the palm of his hand pinching between the chain links. He forced himself to concede her predicament, how he’d placed such a heavy burden on his younger sister. Despite the slight dimming in his resolve, Jiro swallowed and turned his pleas desperate. Not demanding, because he was in no position to demand from Amaya what she couldn’t freely give.

“I’m tired of this,” he began. “I’ve always been this, this loser to everyone and they beat me up...they say I’m not worth anything...I feel like I have no say. I can’t do anything.”

Recognition flickered across Amaya’s face, her fine brows, narrow nose and thin lips that so resembled his. Something he said, or the tenor of his voice, broke her wall of resistance. Her unconditional, blind deference to her father’s will appeared compromised.

“Me, too.”

The two words were whispered barely louder than a breath. The daughter of the Hyuga clan head must have lived a highly circumscribed life. Jiro could sense the ethic of obedience and submission imposed on her from birth, though Amaya might yet chafe against her constraints. She had the capacity for boldness when asserting her convictions, visible in her defiance of his bullies. With time, she might assert her disagreements with her father and clan.

“I can ask him after school today.”

The upward lilt of her voice made the answer sound more like a question – directed at herself, maybe, as she grappled with her conscience. Jiro slammed his heels in the woodchips to stop beside her. Amaya giggled when he grimaced from the sudden pain shooting up his shins.

“Please? Can you?”

“I promise I will. You’re my friend.”

Amaya set her cleared plate on her mother’s nightstand, balling a fist in anticipation for asking her father the question. On evenings when he attended, dinner was the best time to catch Father’s attention, when he could consult her mother if a decision needed both parents’ approval. Thanks to Father’s arrangements with the servants, both sisters and their father still included their often bedridden mother in family dinners. Whatever Amaya’s reservations, she’d promised Jiro an answer – and breaking a promise so easily kept meant she deserved to lose her new friend.

She counted to 100 after her father ate his final mouthful of rice and remarked to her mother that the compound’s new cooks were a good hire.

“Father,” Amaya interjected.

“Yes?”

Sharp white eyes burned into her skin, and she drew a sharp breath before appealing for a moment to think. In the hours between dinner and returning home from the academy, Amaya hadn’t given a single thought to the phrasing of her question. No, she had enough tact not to ask whether she could pass her secret clan training to a half-Hyuga boy from another class. But there wasn’t a perfectly tactful way to ask whether the clan laws could bend, if not break, for Jiro Sato, the Hyuga bastard.

“Amaya, if you demand my attention, don’t waste my time.”

“Neji!” her mother snapped. “Be gentler with the children. She’s only a girl. Amaya – take your time. Your father can afford to wait.”

Father huffed, but suppressed any other rebukes he had prepared for Amaya.

Rewarded with a quick smatter of kisses to her forehead, Reina jumped into the bed to burrow her face into her mother’s breast. Even Amaya’s toddler sister sensed when her mother’s pointed words offered protection from her father’s disapproval. Preoccupied with his older daughter, Father refrained from telling his wife to stop spoiling Reina and recognize that she was a shinobi in training, not a lapdog.

Her pulse ticked against her temple, counting down the seconds that she forced Father to wait. He arched a single brow at her, the corners of his mouth pinching. Say something, his expression said. Too late to turn back.

“Um...Father, I’ve been talking to Jiro at school, and he...activated the Byakugan, right?”

The words jumbled and tangled on Amaya’s tongue like a mouthful of gravel or perhaps of fine silk threads. The mention of Jiro caught Father’s attention, stilling his breath and driving him to mutter a curse into the fist pressed to his lips. Amaya supposed Father had taken a special interest in Jiro because of his previously undiscovered Hyuga blood. But a bastard borne from a random clan member’s indiscretions shouldn’t have merited this level of panic. Father’s white eyes narrowed, his bottom lip rolling inward.

“Jiro Sato?” Mother cut in. “Ten-ten Lee’s son?”

“Yes, Mother. Jiro...he wants me to teach him how to use the Byakugan.”

Amaya blinked away the haze that blurred her vision, trying to dispel her anxiety while Father regained his equilibrium. She folded her hands in her lap, straightening her shoulders. Judging by Mother’s frown, she also had an interest in Jiro, though Mother’s reasons were even less clear. Father’s prolonged hesitation was unlike him, Amaya thought. He always gave straightforward answers within a few seconds – yes, no or I’ll tell you my decision in a day’s time. Contrary to her expectations, Father didn’t give her an immediate no, absolutely not. You should know better, yet Amaya’s knees still quivered in anticipation for his scolding.

“And you considered his proposal?” Father began, slow and deliberate. “You would be willing to oversee his training?”

Instead of making eye contact with his daughter, Father searched his wife for approval – and Mother’s hardened face appeared to deny it. Father was usually the one who stood his ground against his children’s requests to bend the rules, and Amaya had expected stiffer resistance from him than from Mother.

“I did, and I would be.”

When Amaya studied both parents, her mother’s lip curled. Mother fixated her gaze forward, so enraptured in thought or consumed with anger that she ignored Reina’s calls for her attention.

“You absolutely may not teach him any of the clan jutsu,” Father declared. His tone remained level, the carefully moderated monotone of a clan head not permitted to display emotion.

From her bed, Mother nodded, belatedly running her hand through Reina’s hair to sate her younger daughter’s demands for affection.

“Listen to your father, Amaya.”

Or listen to you, Amaya thought, fire coiling in her core. Mother often counseled her daughter to give what she had to those who didn’t have it, but Amaya supposed that freely giving the root of the Hyuga clan’s power was a different matter from sharing items from her lunch.

“Why, Father?”

“Amaya, you should know better than to ask why. Our clan’s power depends on securing the source of our strength.” The hitch in Father’s voice betrayed a lack of conviction that Amaya found striking. “I welcome you to practice your basic academy jutsu with Jiro, but not anything you practice here.”

Amaya had heard about securing the source of our strength from her parents and Hyuga sparring partners numerous times. The platitude struck her as an empty deflection when it came to a boy who had the clan’s kekkai genkai already. Father, too, seemed unpersuaded that allowing Jiro access to Hyuga jutsu would substantially compromise the clan. Amaya knew he held only contempt for the way the clan’s most traditional members argued for the supremacy of pure Hyuga blood. To Father, the problem wasn’t that half-Hyuga bastards were born inferior. Rubbing Reina’s shoulders, Mother followed their conversation with a deepening frown, but she remained a silent observer.

“Father, Jiro has the Byakugan.”

“I am aware. That’s nothing you or I can change at this point.”

The lilt at the end of his clipped answer invited Amaya to speculate that more lay unsaid. Father was desperate to escape without a full accounting for his deflection, but Amaya wouldn’t permit it. Mother parted her lips before closing them, as if she thought better of compounding the tension.

“Then, you don’t care if he’s abused at school?”

The tips of Father’s chopsticks clattered against the inside of his empty bowl, a heavy breath filling the still air of Mother and Father’s bedroom. Amaya thrummed with tentative pride at besting her father, the Hyuga genius, the man whose correctness she was never supposed to question. Father squared his shoulders and pressed a hand to his heart, clearing his throat with a cough. A red flush blossomed across the tops of his cheeks, then dissipated.

“I-that is the concern of the academy’s instructors, Amaya,” Father stammered. “It falls upon them to ensure all students may learn in an environment free of bullying. I am not responsible for the Sato boy.”

“If he never learns to use it, that’s a waste of his potential. Another shinobi who has mastered the Byakugan would help the village, wouldn’t he?”

A flicker of some emotion – confusion, conflict, shock – passed over Father’s face.

“You’re not incorrect. My answer still hasn’t changed. Sometimes interests are in conflict, as you’ve no doubt noticed. However, I uphold this clan’s laws and I would be failing all of you if I did not.”

The clan laws can change, Amaya wanted to say. The clan laws had changed to abolish centuries of forced servitude. How ironic that Father – who once hated the clan’s ways and wanted to upend them – now became the ultimate apologist for the Hyuga’s exclusionary traditions.

Father’s decision grated on her, but the obedience conditioned within her killed her impulse to rebel. She had Father’s confirmation that instructing Jiro Sato in the Hyuga jutsu wouldn’t be permitted, so the part of her brain that commanded her to submit had its cue.

“Yes, Father.” Her head dipped in practiced deference.

His gaze softening, Father set a hand on Amaya’s shoulder. Father’s eyes appeared to re-examine his daughter, yielding newfound respect for her.

“You’ve grown clever, Amaya. Your intelligence will serve you well someday. You have a bright future ahead of you, and I would hate to see you waste it.”

Mother’s pinched face suggested not respect and admiration for Amaya’s intellect, but deep concern. Amaya braced herself for Mother’s admonishments the next time they found themselves alone, probably when Mother braided her hair before school.

“She’s clever, yes,” Mother conceded. “But there’s still much she needs to understand.”

Father stood to clear the table with an abruptness that shoved his chair backward, the legs screeching on the floor. As Father gathered the bowls, the plates, the chopsticks and sauce dishes, he signaled the end of their discussion. Amaya clasped her hands atop the table, straining to keep her posture perfect. Some part of her was eager to re-establish her as Mother and Father’s good daughter, and her white eyes scanned her parents for some hint of their approval. Mother kissed the part of Reina’s hair before meeting Amaya’s eyes with an uncertain smile. She couldn’t avoid the conclusion that her parents wished nothing more than to rid themselves of the Jiro problem.

Unfortunately, Jiro Sato’s existence presented no easy solutions for Father – if he didn’t compromise on his compassion, the Hyuga clan’s demands or his odd special interest in Jiro. Amaya considered his predicament, and arrived at the conclusion that she’d gladly sacrifice the second item on that list for the sake of the first and third.

Chapter Text

Neji’s throat seized the next time he thought he glimpsed Tenten across the street after a meeting at hokage tower. She stood before a vendor displaying a rack of jewelry brought from outside the village, one hand on her cocked right hip and the other latched onto her back pocket. His paranoid mind supposed the woman with brown hair bound in twin buns was Tenten, though she never turned her head or spoke so he could confirm. And regardless, Neji didn’t care to linger.

Fortunately, Jiro wasn’t by her side – that, he would have found unbearable. Neji loved his son, enough to speak the words to himself and enough to return Jiro’s embrace upon their last meeting. Yet hehad forced a guise of indifference to Amaya’s concerns over her half-brother, cornered by his clan and legitimate wife.

His eldest daughter and wife were no easier to face than Tenten or Jiro, but they were much harder to escape than the former lover and son who lived halfway across the village. For the several days after Amaya upended his equilibrium, Risa didn’t address the dinner argument with Amaya, her new friendship or solutions to the Jiro problem. Every night, Neji counted the seconds before Risa asked him to dim the lights, then pressed her puckered lips to his cheek. When their lights-out routine passed without a mention of Jiro, a mixture of relief and dread flooded Neji’s core. He’d bought another day of tentative peace – but at what cost? The way she lay stiff on her side, facing away from him, laid bare the rift between husband and wife. Like Neji, Risa avoided addressing their tensions, whether out of deference to her husband’s emotional state or the same strain of cowardice that afflicted him.

On the mission field, Neji’s fellow leaf shinobi often claimed he acted without fear, but the thorny patches in his marriage were far harder to navigate than enemy shuriken.

As Neji soon learned from an eavesdropping servant, Risa spoke about Jiro, just not to her husband. On days he wasn’t deployed or busy, Ko Hyuga – Risa’s first cousin and childhood best friend – kept her company through the bedrest meant to preserve her health. To him, she confessed her worries that Neji seemed to harbor sympathies with Amaya’s budding rebellion. Risa fretted over Amaya’s future, haunted by the specter of punishment that awaited headstrong young women.

She’ll only find grief like this, Risa whispered, according to the servant. She’ll become a bitter woman, unhappy for as long as she lives. Oh, and Neji – he’s...I worry he might be foolish and do something to intervene in this boy’s case. Or gods forbid, make him a legitimate Hyuga. At this, Ko hummed in acknowledgment. Amaya’s claim to succeed her father would necessarily fall behind Jiro’s claim, as a girl two years younger than Jiro. I do feel terrible that the Sato boy suffers this way at the hands of his classmates, but the boy isn’t our concern. I can see why Neji might feel obligated to the boy, and to his mother...

The servant, a wiry young woman with sharp brown eyes, didn’t pass along Ko’s response. Once she finished relaying her account, the servant looked to Neji with brows raised, her arms crossed. She appeared to expect something from her master, some form of reward for breaking his wife’s confidence. Neji’s mouth ran dry at the thought that his conflict with Risa struck at least some servants as a disconnect serious enough to exploit. He clenched a fist atop his desk and told the servant to refrain from interfering in the personal business of his family. She was lucky he had enough restraint not to fire her, he said, though part of Neji appreciated her intercession and burned to know more of Risa’s secrets. Stammering an apology, the servant bowed her head and shoulders forward enough for Neji to see the part of her hair, before vacating his study in a flurry of soft footsteps.

Only when Neji found himself alone in his study did he realize one other key implication of Risa’s overheard confession. Ko Hyuga was no doubt intelligent enough to piece together the link between Jiro and Neji from Risa’s outbursts. So was the servant, and she had shown a willingness to operate behind the backs of her masters. Neji dropped his forehead down to rest between his thumb and forefinger, muttering a string of curses.

Whatever Risa’s hopes about pinning Jiro’s existence on some Hyuga long gone, she’d let slip that Jiro Sato was her husband’s bastard. The bitter irony elicited the beginnings of a laugh, and Neji pressed his fist to his lips to keep it from escaping. Should the truth become popular opinion, Neji might be forced to make a public declaration on Jiro to the clan, if not the village. Perhaps the council of Hyuga elders would demand action in addition to words.He counted himself lucky that the council had thus farremained silent on the matter of Jiro Sato, though at least some among them must have suspected his true parentage.

His vision blurring, Neji withered beneath the torments of Risa’s lost confidence andway he continued to fall short of Tenten’s hopes. He released a long breath, shaking his head. The documents on his desk could wait until after he confronted his wife, eased the tension between them enough to keep their marriage a functional partnership. Of course, Neji wouldn’t mention that one of the servants had reported on her as if husband and wife were enemies. Risa didn’t need any more reasons for panic, not until they reconciled.

When he arrived at the bedroom he shared with Risa, Neji heard his wife’s high laughter followed by his younger daughter’s babbling from behind the door. Spoiling her again, Neji burned to tell Risa. You should know better. Reina would begin at the shinobi academy within the next two years, and she could ill-afford her mother’s indulgences.

When he opened the door, Risa turned her head in a quick jerk, her lips falling open. The little girl in her lap buried her face into her mother’s breast, hiding from her father’s disapproval.Neji’s wife raised her thin brows and pinched the corners of her lips in preparation for the argument she expected. Neji and Risa had clashed over her treatment of Reina on enough occasions that she knew he disapproved of her indulgent parenting. However, the question of spoiling their toddler was less important than his reasons for seeking Risa out.

After exchanging greetings with his wife, Neji informed her that Reina’s presence wasn’t suitable for a conversation of the kind he wished to have. Risa frowned, clearly displeased that Neji requested to send her daughter away. Kissing Reina goodbye, she rang a bell on her nightstand to summon a temporary babysitter, who whisked the girl away to the compound’s courtyard. Neji considered that his wife was guilty of obvious hypocrisy, when she’d criticized his supposed leniency toward Amaya. Only a distraction, Neji reminded himself.

“You wanted to speak with me, Neji? About what?”

Her white hands folded in what remained of her lap, white eyes dead-set on interrogating Neji’s intentions. He considered apologizing to his wife for a split second, then another part of him countered that Risa owed him an apology for speaking to Ko behind his back. Neji once again bristled that his wife considered Ko a more suitable confidante than her own husband. Yet the erosion of trust between husband and wife was in large part his doing – from his confession of premarital relations, to the infidelity that stained his conscience. Compared to Neji’s divided heart, a hushed conversation with an old friend was a minor infraction, and arguably not an infraction at all. Except to his pride.

“You’ve been quiet lately. Distant,” Neji ventured. “I’m worried about us.”

The terse statement included nothing about her words to Ko, or assumptions about her feelings on Jiro the bastard. Neji opted to avoidspeaking his conclusions before hearing her piece, so he wouldn’t kill their chances of a constructive discussion. Risa’s lower lip twitched, and her upper teeth found purchase in the soft flesh, an admission that Neji had struck a nerve. When Neji sat at her feet to invite a degree of intimacy into their dynamic, her shoulders hunched forward, her face pinching.

“Please,” he breathed out. “I love you.”

“Why do you say I’m distant?”

“Risa. You’re not well. You haven’t been well.”

Neither was he, but dwelling on his own agonies wouldn’t be helpful. Neji’s hands scooted forward to find Risa’s fingers, his thumb brushing over her knuckles. The muscles in her hand tensed, but he took heart that she didn’t withdraw or twist her hands from his grasp. Risa’s hands quivered as she drew a shaky breath, followed by a shiver that racked her entire frame.When Risa wrapped her right hand around the side of Neji’s face and cast her eyes up at him, he saw a plea for him to acknowledge her pain.

“Do you have affection for the boy?” she rasped.

Yes, how could I not? The most direct, truthful answer perched on the tip of Neji’s tongue. Only a cold, uncaring man wouldn’t love his child. And Neji couldn’t deny the links between the tender ache in his chest when he embraced his son, and the love that bound him to Tenten – then and now.

Neji leaned forward, pausing inches from Risa’s face when he thought better of planting a kiss on her cheek. Their breaths warmed the air between them, tension pulsing with every breath. With his face pressed so close to hers, Neji could see the corona of stray hairs around Risa’s face. Pale gray shadows tinted the white skin beneath her eyes and the skin of her lips was chapped, cracked at the corners.

“You know the one,” Risa continued, her fingertips pressing into the side of Neji’s cheek. “Jiro Sato.”

“What does it matter to you if I say yes?”

The counter-question left Risa’s face contorted in a fleeting scowl that graded to an expression of sorrow. Neji rebuked himself for not offering his wife a more direct confession. Though he didn’t intend his rhetorical question as a challenge, he could see how she might construe it as one. Panic welling in his core, Neji remained silent to avoid severing more frail threads in the tearing fabric of their marriage.

Risa’s hand jerked Neji forward until their foreheads touched, in a rough motion that conveyed a desperation for everything to become right again. The gentle brush of his wife’s puckered lips sent pleasant sparks down Neji’s spine, hope that Risa might reach a place of acceptance for Jiro, that two families might coexist. However, the wish struck Neji as absurd even in the moments after he reiterated it.

“Risa, the truth is I do care for him. It’s difficult not to when…”

When I loved his mother as much as I did, as much as I still do. When he’s so clearly mine – here, Neji recalled Jiro’s delicate features and the undeniable resemblance between them.

“I really shouldn’t blame you,” Risa conceded. “He’s your son. I can’t see myself not loving our children.”

“Yes, of course I care for him because he’s my son.”

“I only ask that you don’t upend our family for the boy’s sake.”

By that, she meant treating Jiro as if he wasn’t of his blood. That won’t be possible, Neji thought. Squeezing his wife’s hand, Neji gave a single dry laugh. Privacy wasn’t a given in the Hyuga compound. There were too many all-seeing eyes, too many sets of ears, and too much power at stake. A servant girl willing to betray Risa’s confidence to her husband would no doubt pass her words to others, chief among them, the Hyuga council of elders.

“The compound and the rest of the village will soon know confirmation of that fact. You...were overheard earlier.”

His voice contained no anger at his wife for speaking out of turn when she needed the counsel of a trusted friend. Defeated, Risa tented her hands over her mouth and nose, shaking her head. She’d set in motion forces outside their control – and when Neji reflected on things to come, he was almost grateful that she’d broken his paralysis. With the truth winding its way through the village’s network of whispers, Neji set himself free to treat Jiro as his son.

“Neji, I’m so sorry,” Risa cried, collapsing back on her stack of pillows. “So, so sorry. I never meant for it to come to this. I should have thought...I should have thought not to be so careless.”

Neji touched Risa’s clammy hands to his lips and whispered that she had no need to absolve herself. Risa’s cheeks reddened while she sobbed, bright splotches blossoming on her white skin. Neji and Risa configured themselves into the familiar posture of husband comforting wife – her head on his shoulder, hand gripping his collar. Though it remained yet intact, she grieved the loss of her family. Her words garbled and muffled by tears, she grieved the loss of her husband, driving Neji to clasp her tighter.

“You’ll always have me,” Neji insisted. “Now, I can hope that Jiro...might have me, too.”

The shove of Risa’s palm against his shoulder told Neji in no ambiguous terms that she wouldn’t accept even a degree of legitimacy for Jiro Sato. Risa’s red-rimmed white eyes shot fire in his direction, her face twisted in a feral snarl. This was the same woman who indulged her toddler daughter with forehead kisses and spoke loving words to her unborn child. Neji recalled the same glare when a drunk man whistled at Amaya, sneering that she should call him once she grew older. Hiashi hadn’t been wrong when he told Neji that Risa Hyuga loved children. She only happened to love hers most of all, Hyuga children second and the rest third.

“Never. You have your vows.”

Risa’s rasping voice tickled the inside of his ear. He rushed to reassure her that she didn’t need to fear Jiro displacing her children, further tempted to say anything necessary to calm her. Yet Neji envisioned Jiro’s expression of tentative hope and gratitude when they hugged. His bond to Jiro transcended petty clan politics, and even his marriage. His heart swelled at the thought of a future alongside Jiro – with Tenten as his co-parent, if he dared hope.

Of course, he refused to compromise the future for Amaya, Reina or his yet-unborn daughter. He’d find a way to fit them all into his life, Neji promised himself and his children, casting aside his cynical, pragmatic streak. Neji and Risa were perfectly matched in one regard – they both loved their children far too much.

Neji shallowed his breaths and kept his shoulders squared. The meeting – organized among the Hyuga council of elders – demanded his vigilance. The men and women assembled put him on the defensive, their white eyes demanding an explanation and a decision on Jiro Sato. Or whether Jiro Sato should become Jiro Hyuga. Grandstanding words, sweeping gestures and angry looks shot around the room, eliciting a visceral disgust in Neji’s stomach.

The scheming servant girl and the inopportune break in Risa’s composure had forced Neji’s hand. But so had Amaya’s interest in teaching Jiro to use his Byakugan. So had Tenten, when she confronted Risa to demand an audience with him and when she confessed her love. Since the moment he heard news of Jiro’s Byakugan, Neji had stalled for a permanent answer to the Jiro problem. Really, he couldn’t blame any of them – Risa, Amaya, Tenten, Jiro – for his current place withering beneath the elders’ scrutiny.

Most of the elders had solutions that varied in severity from using medical means to ensure Jiro never bore children, to applying a seal to prevent him from ever activating his Byakugan. Tenten was a sealmaster – surely Neji could convince her to work her arts on her own son. None of the elders disputed Neji’s claim that sealing a child’s Byakugan had never been attempted, at least not at any point recorded in the Hyuga clan records. Though the seal’s components worked in theory, the risk remained that Jiro could end up permanently blinded.

A worthy price, according to the hardliners.

Tenten would disagree – and so would any man or woman of good conscience. Neji dizzied, bracing his hands against the table to not teeter before the council. The council members peered at Neji like predators watching through the darkening woods, and so he resolved to show no weakness. They can’t know, Neji reiterated. Risa could know that he loved Jiro Sato, the Hyuga council could not – or he would dishonor himself by declaring sympathy for a bastard.

“I propose a compromise,” Ko Hyuga said, lifting a slender white finger for permission to speak.

A few of the elders shook their heads behind raised teacups. By all conventions, Ko had no place among them, and only Neji’s say-so permitted his presence. Informed by Risa of the upcoming meeting, Ko had knocked on the conference room door and asked to sit in. Neji found his request highly unusual for a non-elder with no direct stake in the discussion. Still, he allowed his cousin in with a curt nod – if only out of regard for Ko’s friendship with Risa.

“Yes? Please tell us, Ko,” Neji answered, dipping his head forward to grant Ko his attention.

Neji hoped his mild-mannered cousin offered more humane solutions than the clan’s other leading minds. Throughout the discussion so far, Ko had scanned Neji’s face during every back and forth. Beneath his easy smile, Ko had maintained a contemplative silence that made Neji nervous. Neji worried Ko might attempt to undermine him under the guise of kindness, perhaps acting on Risa’s instruction. Disaffected with her husband’s “weakness,” maybe Risa considered Ko a worthier clan head. No, Neji had no grounds to assume his wife and cousin meant to overthrow him, though neither of them had any great love for Jiro Sato.

“The boy’s Hyuga parentage is indisputable to any in the village who’ve heard about him,” Ko began.

Fortunately, Ko didn’t mention which Hyuga fathered Jiro Sato. He smiled, making eye contact with everyone at the table. Locking his teeth, Neji wished Ko would lay out his compromise directly, rather than wasting time by reiterating common knowledge.

“You tell us nothing new,” one of the elders – Noriko Hyuga – sneered. Her white eyes, narrow like a bamboo leaf, darted toward Neji. “The Byakugan does not spontaneously emerge, we know this.”

As Neji dug fingernails into his palm to stay his temper, Ko sidestepped Noriko without even a flicker of annoyance on his face. Ko clasped his hands before him and lifted the corners of his lips.

“We should attempt to bring Jiro into the clan through peaceful means, ones likely to be agreeable to the boy’s mother and her husband.”

“I believe taking a course agreeable to as many parties as possible would be best,” Neji answered. “The Hyuga clan cannot stand apart as it did in years past. The current hokage and climate in the village are no longer so tolerant of pretensions of superiority.”

Nodding, Ko stood at his seat and pressed a fist to his heart. Perhaps he wanted to set himself apart from the venal, cynical creatures more interested in preserving a name than their humanity.

“Yes, my lord. I believe we might broker a marriage between Jiro Sato and a Hyuga woman outside your line,” Ko continued. “However, I would stop short of legitimizing him as your heir or giving him the Hyuga name even after marriage. He remains a Sato.”

A few elders looked back at Ko with their lips curled, some releasing huffs of discontent. Ko’s answer was reasonable, far more conducive to peace than Jiro’s sterilization or possible blinding. Married to a Hyuga woman, Jiro theoretically wouldn’t pass the Byakugan outside the clan, and he’d no longer be an outsider to his blood relations. However, the notion of arranged marriage had enraged Tenten as a young woman – and he knew she still resented Neji’s marriage to Risa.

Forcing an arranged marriage on Jiro elicited further doubt in Neji, Tenten’s opinions aside. Deep-seated notions of honor within the clan would lead most parents to shun any notion of marrying their daughters to a half-Hyuga bastard. Neji would need to devise incentives to make them – and a prospective bride – agree.

“An interesting proposal. I see difficulties getting Jiro’s parents or a Hyuga girl to agree.”

“Ah, you’re well acquainted with the boy’s mother, I’m sure,” another elder sniffed. “I suppose you have intimate knowledge of her. Ongoing, current knowledge, dare I say?”

The open insubordination and the reference to his most intimate actsshot fire through Neji’s heart. It wouldn’t do him or Jiro any favors to have the meeting explode into screamed accusations of dishonor.

“Our past friendship tells me that she would find the idea highly objectionable, as would her husband,” Neji countered, his voice clipped. “She would resist. I’m certain.”

“More objectionable than any of the more drastic measures proposed?” Ko interjected. “We have no perfect answers here that would please everyone. Only lesser evils to avoid greater ones.”

“Hm.”

Neji sat in silence while every set of white eyes tracked his motions – the twitch of his lip, the quiver in his hand while he drank tea. Emptying one cup, Neji refilled his cup and drank again, counting the seconds until someone spoke.

“Neji.”

The sound of his name spoken without the standard honorifics raised his brow. Ko had walked to his side of the table and stood over him, their bodies inches apart.

“I understand your current paralysis,” Ko whispered. “However, leaving Jiro in his current limbo harms him more than what I’ve laid out before you. The boy grows older every day. Soon he’ll be a shinobi in his own right, then in a few more years, an adult man capable of bearing children. Do you think the elders will allow him to live a free man outside these walls? Will Jiro not grow to hate his father’s inaction later?”

Neji’s breath caught in his throat. He realized that Ko was the first in the room to reference Jiro by his actual name, and not just as the boy or the bastard. Whatever their differences in values or temperament, Ko shared Neji’scare for Jiro and was apparently unbothered by the optics of sympathizing with a bastard.

One of the elders hit the table and growled.

“Ko Hyuga, I will not have you speaking of us in this way,” he declared. “My lord, first you allow this man access to a meeting he has no right to attend, now you find his ridiculous ideas worthy of consideration?”

“Hm. Hiashi Hyuga would never,” Noriko concurred. “It’s due to your indiscretion that we have this problem in the first place, yet you shy away from solving it. Boys don’t deserve to lead.”

That was another first. None of the assembled Hyugas had cast the blame for the problem of Jiro’s existence at Neji’s feet in such stark terms.

The tenor of the conversation had shifted from veiled disrespect to borderline insurrection. A part of Neji preferred that the elders speak their minds rather than couch their true feelings in formalities. In another sense, their disrespect meant trouble – a possible rebellion to follow their treasonous words, certainly an indicator of Neji’s slipping control. Neji had feared a crisis of this kind catalyzed by the fact of Jiro’s existence, lived in dread while he counted the borrowed seconds until things reached a head. But the Hyuga clan didn’t deserve to exist if it couldn’t protect its interests without mutilating an innocent boy’s body.

“That’s enough. Allow me to share the proposal with Jiro’s mother and her husband.”

Noriko’s lip curled.

“What? You believe some sweet whispers would convince your dear friend?”

They didn’t know – they couldn’t, Neji told himself. From where he still stood next to Neji, Ko glared around the table.

“Remind her of the stakes. You are the one who stands between her son and the schemes of these elders,” Ko hissed, just loud enough for Neji to hear. “If she cares for him, she’ll heed you.”

Ko’s framing of Neji as his son’s sole protector inspired him to continue the fight. Although Ko could advise, he lacked the real power needed to act. Bringing the wayward branch back into the clan’s fold would be a daunting challenge with all the personal stakes involved. But it was Neji’s duty, and his penance.

Chapter Text

Despite the chill night air that assaulted his face and exposed neck, Neji twisted in bed to escape the heat that threatened to suffocate him. As his estrangement from Risa drew on, Neji still thought of Tenten’s hands, her smell, the feel of her breath on him. The mere brush of Tenten’s hand during their last encounter at the academy had tempted Neji to think of more. To think of where their unresolved love and the potent connection between them once led. Sparks trailed down Neji’s spine toward the region between his legs, where the fabric of his pants and undergarments tightened. Neji pressed his hands to his eyes to cleanse himself of the temptation for more illicit intimacy with Tenten – the woman he had no right to want.

Next to him, Risa groaned and muttered something about needing sleep. With a whump that depressed the mattress next to him, she flipped onto her back before her head lolled over in his direction. White eyes that mirrored his own flickered open to meet his panicked stare. Neji shushed his wife and stumbled halfway off the bed, intending to sleep on the couch where his restless mind and body wouldn’t trouble her. Yet he’d only set his bare feet to the ground before her hand clamped around his wrist.

“Risa, go back to sleep,” Neji hissed, twisting his hand to disentangle them. He strained against the unexpected strength of her resistance.

“Come back.”

Neji shifted back onto the bed in movements both stiff and sluggish. By then, his eyes had adjusted to the darkness well enough to distinguish the broad contours of their bedroom furniture and the details of his wife’s face. In the pale gray haze of their bedroom, Neji saw Risa prop herself against the headboard. The sheets curved over her swollen midsection, where the child might have awakened with her mother. Risa patted the stretch of empty sheet next to her, the corners of her lips pinched in an expression of concern.

Her hand withdrew once Neji returned to his place and laid a kiss on the ridge of her cheekbone. He hadn’t intended to abandon her for some late-night clan duty or emergency mission, he reassured her. I only needed to leave so I could take care of something, Neji thought, burning with shame that the retort even crossed his mind. Another kiss followed. Risa’s soft, slightly chapped lips brushed his with the loving tenderness he knew so well, one he returned under ordinary circumstances. While Risa encircled his head with one hand, the other crept across his leg to find the seat of his pants. The recognition of his arousal plunged Neji into a pool of ice that countered the heat rising within.

She reached past the waistband of his pants and undergarments to access his bare skin. Her fingers groped until she grasped him between her slender fingers, coaxing him to grow and take shape in her grip. Neji braced a hand against her wrist, but hesitated because a woman’s touch was a woman’s touch. And he craved the touch of soft, bare skin on his body.

“This should help you sleep.”

Risa’s voice lost its initial slurring, and a hint of mischief supplanted her shock. The last time she pleasured him with her hand had been many months ago, under circumstances now forgotten.

“You don’t have to,” Neji gasped. I don’t want you to, another part of him wanted to add. “I would never force you...get some sleep.”

The gentle workings of her slender fingers reminded him of Tenten’s hand making similar motions, whether behind a tree – just out of Lee’s view – or in his bed. Risa’s high voice and aristocratic accent ruined the illusion, however, as did the lack of calluses on her fingertips. You’re not Tenten, Neji thought. The insistent observations bubbled from the depths of his mind that remained untouched by notions of propriety or faithfulness. Arousal mingled with unease, driving him to twist his hips to avoid her touch.

He heard Risa’s soft gasp, felt her flinch against him. The elastic of his waistband snapped back against his skin when she withdrew her hand.

“Who says I don’t want to?”

Neji sighed and slumped against the pillows. Because she could no longer straddle his waist, Risa pressed herself to his side and angled his chin to meet her lips. His wife captured his lips in hers first with a soft kiss, then another. Neji shuddered at the brush of her tongue against his lower lip. The words stalled in his throat before he could tell her that it wasn’t a matter of what she wanted to offer. However he tried to sate himself by her touch and the love in her kisses, she wasn’t the one who inspired his fit of frustration in the first place. So her attempts to free him from its clutches were useless. Risa’s help was worse than useless because it reminded him that Tenten lay halfway across the village in another’s bed.

He pressed his lips closed the next time Risa moved in to deepen their kisses. His hiss of no, stop it right now, uttered with more venom than intended, sent her to the edge of their bed. From where she curled around her core and held the sheet over her face, his wife watched him with narrowed, reproachful eyes.

“Is anything the matter? I’m sorry – I sensed you were...ah, in need.”

Hot tears burned Neji’s eyes. He wished he could lose himself in the escape Risa was so ready to provide. If only the shadow of their conflict didn’t hang above him and he didn’t fantasize about another. Neji recognized that he’d torn a gash across his wife’s heart by rejecting her love. Jiro had cleaved a rift in his marriage far deeper than Neji anticipated – but so had the stirrings of his dormant dreams of a different life.

“No, I apologize, Risa. I shouldn’t have lashed out,” Neji stammered. “I haven’t been feeling myself over the past few days. Stress hasn’t been good for me. I promise you haven’t done anything wrong.”

Their disagreements over the Jiro problem aside, she truly hadn’t done anything wrong for a proper wife – Hyuga or otherwise. Her greatest crime in the moment was loving him too much, believing in their marriage more than he did. His crimes as a husband were far greater, he reminded himself. No leap of logic could convince Neji that his wife would ever fuck another man behind his back, then dream of breaking their vows again and again.

Risa’s hum expressed her painfully obvious disbelief.

“Then would you like to discuss it with me?”

Her hand extended toward their bedside lamp, fingers grasping for the switch. Neji seized her hand with enough force to elicit a whimper, his hardened grip delivering his answer.

“No.”

“I-I have no idea what’s happening with you,” Risa answered, her voice quivering in time with her rapid blinks. “This isn’t normal.”

In their years together, Neji had vented to her about the mounting problems of clan leadership, the neverending troubles of clan and village politics, and his sheer exhaustion. But disclosing the truth behind his restless mind would break her further and tear their family apart. Sure – he could lie about how negotiations with the Aburame clan continued to vex him, as did his daughter’s future. Rather than spin more layers of illusion to hide the truth, Neji only thought of escape from their bedroom, from the thick air that closed around him.

“Let me go. Some fresh air will do me good,” he choked out.

Neji touched his lips to the top of Risa’s head and slipped from their bed.

“When should I expect you back?”

He huffed, refusing to even cast a glance behind his shoulder. His sandals waited by the bedroom’s sliding door, and Tenten waited in her bedroom. If they couldn’t manage to evade her husband or sons, he’d relieve himself rather than using his wife’s hand to do it.

“Don’t stay up for me, Risa. I’ll be back by morning.”

Even as Risa stammered out an okay, Neji knew she wouldn’t obey him. Not out of spite, but because she cared for him too much.

Tenten smirked and shook her head when Neji’s face peeked between the slats of her shutters. Not that he expected anything different from a woman shameless enough to confess her love to a married man. While she rushed to reassure Lee and shush him back to sleep, Neji disembarked to meet Tenten at her front door. When she arrived to unlock the door for him, she relayed that her husband had simply rolled onto his side and snored on – true to form. Her voice carried no guilt, no remorse for lying so boldly to Lee. Either that, or she hid the voice of her conscience well, better than he could anyhow.

“I need you,” Neji stated simply. “Couldn’t sleep.”

The clock above Tenten’s kitchen table read close to midnight, and Neji flushed with guilt for rousing her. Yet Tenten waved off his apology, stringing him along by his little finger once she secured the entryway again. That was something he loved about her – how she understood what he needed and didn’t force him to elaborate.

His senses numbed by desire, Neji’s mind fixated on the cathartic pleasure to come. The soft footsteps of their bare feet resonated in the quiet of night, while Lee and Tenten’s two sons slept upstairs. Excitement elevated his heartrate and shallowed his breathing. The taste of freedom on his tongue – like faint sweetness – kept him from questioning the propriety of fucking a mother and wife behind her family’s back. The draw that brought them back together was all that mattered. He followed Tenten through the dark house, down a corridor then behind a door. Darkness swallowed them once the closed door shut out the moonlight and streetlamps that illuminated Tenten’s house in the night.

Prompted by a tap of Tenten’s fingers on his shoulder, Neji sat down on a hard surface. His seat was cold though the thin fabric of his clothing. Tiles – many of them, all square – met the soles of his bare feet. They were in a bathroom, Neji realized. The tile, porcelain and polished stone surfaces made it easy to clean up any messes once they finished. There were no sheets or carpeting to stain, no creaking bedframe to silence.

Without a single word exchanged between them, Neji exposed himself to Tenten’s hands – or, exposed whatever he could before her hungry touch overwhelmed him. She grasped him where Risa had less than an hour earlier, and Neji observed that she handled him with much more skill than his prim Hyuga wife. Tenten’s thumb toyed with his fleshy tip, spreading his wetness in a loose circle. Her hand ran from base to tip, gathering speed until his spine tensed in a taunt arc and she slowed to let the pleasure run through him.

“You couldn’t stay away,” Tenten breathed out, more of an observation than an accusation or a taunt.

“No, I couldn’t.”

Every nerve sang with frustration once Tenten released him just long enough to move herself to the tiled floor. She knelt before his spread legs, setting a palm on either quivering thigh. Neji’s pants lay bunched around his ankles, and his underpants sat halfway between his knees and his feet. Her puckered lips touched his tip while her hand held him at the base, fingers tangled in the coarse hairs between his legs. The warmth and wetness of her mouth recalled the warmth and wetness elsewhere inside her. Drawing a shaky breath, he rolled his hips to sink himself farther down her throat. Neji leaned back against the toilet tank, trying to kill the moans and whimpers rising from his chest.

“So good, Tenten,” he sighed. “I love you.”

The next few minutes passed in mindless euphoria culminating in a climax he didn’t have the foresight to warn her about. Tenten withdrew her mouth after the first sprays of cum landed on her tongue. The rest landed on her chin or collarbone, just above the low neckline of her nightgown. Neji’s panting filled the still air of the bathroom while he willed the heat in his flushed body to subside and waited for his heart to slow.

“I’m sorry,” Neji choked out, as soon as he mustered enough air to speak. “I should have been more careful –”

“Don’t be.”

Tenten wiped herself with a tissue and stood, tugging his hand so they could stand face to face. The evidence of his lost control was erased so quickly that Neji wanted to laugh. Her hand caressed the side of his face, every brush of her bare skin sending sparks of electricity along his frayed nerves. In the aftermath of his climax, his senses were heightened to every brush against his bare skin, especially from the object of his infatuation. Neji shared a long kiss with his lover, the tastes of salt and bitterness lingering on his tongue. His knees still weak, he couldn’t yet stabilize himself without her.

“I love you, too. In case that wasn’t already obvious,” Tenten said with tenderness that swelled his heart.

Both lovers stripped their remaining layers of clothing. Neji thought it was best not to leave strange stains that would draw the suspicion of a spouse or child. Tenten turned to brace herself against the sink. She spread her legs shoulder-width apart and lifted her backside to expose her entrance. In the confines of the bathroom, they couldn’t comfortably lie down, and fucking seated on the toilet promised to be more uncomfortable than pleasant. Neji staggered to position himself behind Tenten, his fingers reaching between her legs to toy with her entrance. He plunged his index and middle finger two knuckles into her, relishing the warmth and wetness that invited him in. When he curled his fingertips into her sweet spot, Tenten hummed and moaned her approval – tempting him to replace his fingers with something longer and wider.

“Gods, I want you to fuck me,” she pleaded. Her hand reached back to grab his length, and she snickered beneath her breath upon discovering that touching her had turned him hard again.

After two pumps of Tenten’s hand, Neji aligned his tip with her entrance and thrust his hips forward to sink all the way inside her. Her body pulled him in so perfectly, like they’d been created to fit together. He clamped a hand over her mouth to suppress a shrill whimper. The noise threatened to breach the thin walls and floor separating her from her children and husband upstairs. They can’t hear us, Neji repeated to himself like a prayer, biting his tongue so he wouldn’t shatter their silence. Tenten tightened around him when her spine arched with arousal, throwing her body back against him. I love you, she whispered, her words hanging in the air. I love you. It’s always been you.

Her declaration overwhelmed Neji with searing bliss. Galvanized by a new sense of urgency, he thrust harder and faster to claim her for himself.Neji kissed the side of her neck, right where her pulse struck her skin. His thumb dug into the hidden nub between her legs to please her as she pleased him, to unravel every muscle in her body. Tenten pitched forward as her right knee buckled, new releases from her body easing the friction between them. Her sweat-slicked palm barely caught the edge of the sink as Neji continued sinking into her. He couldn’t bring himself to stop. Not until he found release again.

“I’m almost there,” Tenten gasped.

A heartbeat later, a footstep sounded on the landing upstairs.

Neji muttered a curse into his lover’s ear when another footstep followed, this one falling on the stairs. His hips pumped faster in hopes that he might finish before the person on the stairs reached the bottom. He dug his fingertips into her hips, pressing his thumb on the ridge of her hipbone. Perhaps it was one of Tenten’s sons looking for a glass of water, or Lee sleepwalking. No, the footfalls were too light to be Rock Lee. Regardless of whose feet cascaded down the stairs, both lovers knew discovery meant the ultimate humiliation. Tenten tightened her grip on the sink until the tops of her knuckles turned white.

Once the footsteps reached the bottom stair, the person paused to cough, and Neji recognized a high-pitched child’s cough. Faster, faster, Tenten urged, little whimpers escaping from her pressed lips and from between his fingers. His body agreed to her pleas.

Neji spilled his cum inside Tenten in the moments before the footsteps started down the corridor leading to the downstairs bathroom. With both lovers basking in the aftermath of their shared finish, Neji didn’t dare move for fear of making noise – not even to withdraw from her. His pulse raced against his temple, and he could almost hear Tenten’s heart beating in time with his, so loud it echoed off the bathroom walls.

The doorknob turned, then the child on the other side hummed in puzzlement when the door refused to yield. Thank the gods Tenten had the foresight to lock the bathroom door before they undressed.

The rap of small knuckles along the doorframe jolted Neji from his paralysis. He prayed that the boy outside the bathroom wasn’t Jiro – as if disgracing himself before his son would be the worst kind of sin. He reassured himself that he and Tenten would find a way out, when they’d exculpated themselves from more difficult situations on the job. Their current bind didn’t have life or death stakes, unlike evading dozens of guards around a top-secret scroll or escaping an ambush. Neji clutched Tenten’s naked body to his chest to offer whatever small degree of comfort he could. She grabbed onto his forearm where it draped across her chest, her cold fingertips leaving rousing pain in their wake.

“M-mom? Dad? You in there?”

Neji inwardly sighed in relief. Metal’s soft stutter availed him of his worst fear.

“Yes, dear?” Tenten called back. “Is anything wrong?”

“Jiro’s using the upstairs bathroom. He’s taking forever.”

Neji wanted to laugh at the odd turn of events, and had he been an onlooker, he probably would have. How funny that an ordinary spat over bathroom space between two brothers had brought him and his lover so low. Tenten assumed an authoritative, parental tone, which Neji couldn’t have managed in her place. Holding his breath, he left her to negotiate their way out. Neji pressed his lips to the side of Tenten’s head, feeling sweaty hair and clammy skin beneath them.

Tenten gave a quick laugh.

“Sorry Metal – I think I have a little stomach bug, and I’ll probably be taking up this one for a while. Why don’t you go back upstairs to wait for your brother?”

On the other side of the door, Neji heard a long, rattling sigh muffled by the thick wood.

“Fine, Mom. Get better, okay?”

“Thank you, dear. Get some sleep.”

Metal shuffled back down the corridor and up the stairs one at a time. The thump and creak of Metal’s footsteps on the stairs was Neji’s signal to finally release his breath and laugh into the junction of Tenten’s neck and shoulder. Tenten touched the back of Neji’s hand to her lips and shook her head. Though they no longer needed to fear discovery from either of Tenten’s sleepless sons, Neji lingered where their bodies remained joined. Their union assumed a totally different tenor now that he no longer suffered the terrible urgency of needing to finish, or of hiding his presence. His lover’s body melded against his, signaling that she, too, saw little need to disengage. His body no longer pushed him to wring every ounce of pleasure from his lover, but to savor the feeling of being as close to her as possible. I love you, Tenten, Neji whispered, stray strands of her fine hair catching on his lip.

You, too, she answered, the words escaping amid slowing pants.

Their bodies disentangled, leaving the front of Neji’s body suddenly chilled from the absence of Tenten’s warmth.

“Fuck, that was too close,” she breathed out. “Not going to lie, that was kind of hot, though.”

“I wouldn’t disagree.”

“With which one?”

“Either proposition.”

Tenten swept her hands over his neck and kissed him until his lungs burned. Neji returned the kiss with equal fervor, then patted her shoulder to signal that he needed to dress. She released him a little, then all at once. Perhaps part of her didn’t want to let him go, fearing that if she allowed him to return to his wife and Hyuga family, he wouldn’t come back. His appearance at her window in the dead hours of night nullified his vow never to repeat his mistake. Yet Tenten must have known that their arrangement going forward would be negotiated meeting by meeting, week by week. Their love – always illegitimate to everyone but them – necessarily lived on borrowed time.

“Come back whenever, okay?” she ventured. The hopeful note in her voice clashed with the pain projected in the squeeze of his hand.

It wasn’t like the normally bold, confident Tenten he knew to beg without pretense. Neji’s heart swelled, as he burned to say of course you can depend on me to return. Of course I’ll come back to you because I love you and I need you more than anything. He could tell what remained unsaid on her part, enough to sense that Tenten longed to hear those words.

“Thank you for tonight.”

“Oh,” Tenten laughed. “I...ah, it’s my pleasure.”

“I should start heading home now.”

My wife is waiting. There’s a good chance she hasn’t slept yet this entire night because I haven’t come back to lie beside her. Neji wondered if his lover also speculated on his unspoken thoughts.

“Okay.”

Belatedly, Neji tugged his rumpled pants and shirt over his dirtied body, then turned toward the bathroom door. Behind him, Tenten wiped between her legs and covered herself with the nightgown that barely concealed any of her. But anyone who smelled the salt and sour sweat on her skin and saw the telltale dishevelment of her hair would see her sins laid bare.

“I love you,” Neji breathed out, as his hand encircled the doorknob. “I don’t think I stopped.”

Pivoting on the balls of his bare feet, he turned back to envelop her lips in a rousing kiss. Her involuntary little squeal gave him a jolt of excitement.

“I don’t think I can stop now,” he added once Tenten broke away for breath.

Risa wouldn’t know and neither would Lee. Neji rationalized the deception – not by swearing to never repeat his transgression, but by telling himself that something so blissful couldn’t possibly be wrong. Not continuing their dangerous game wasn’t an option, and neither was letting their discretion slip for even a moment.

Chapter Text

Seeing his father seated at the table with his hands around a teacup, Jiro could have imagined that Neji Hyuga belonged in their family. The Hyuga clan head appeared comfortable among the worn chairs and scuffed hardwood floors of their dining room, his lips pinched in a lazy smile. Mom flashed him a grin in return, exposing two rows of straight white teeth that rarely appeared around her actual husband. How fortunate Rock Lee had excused himself before his father arrived, though Jiro didn’t know whether Lee left out of courtesy or cowardice.

Jiro’s mother and father exchanged few words other than some inconsequential remarks, about new zoning regulations or the tedium of missions. Minutes of contented silence passed with only the sound of teacups thudding against the table or feet shuffling on the floor.

Watching his parents’ reverie turned Jiro into the outsider, an interloper incapable of comprehending the connection they shared. Several times, Mom’s eyes flickered over his father’s face while those white eyes surveyed her expression, then their eyes locked. Scarcely did one of them look to where Jiro sat with an untouched cup of tea. Yet Mom had insisted he stay for Uncle Neji – no, his father’s – visit, and he likewise wanted Jiro present. The moment his father turned to him, Jiro’s heart jumped into his throat. He grasped the edge of the table and attempted to smile, his lip quivering. The Hyuga clan head released a quick breath, like Jiro had left him frustrated.

“Jiro,” his father began.

One of his pale hands fell on Jiro’s knee. The weight of that hand sat far heavier than he probably imagined. Jiro had to respect his father’s determination to push through the layers of tension hanging between them. However, another part of him wanted to scream for his father to go away, to leave the house that had no place for him. It was his fault for displacing Jiro’s real dad from his own home.

“Jiro, you know I love you.”

“Yeah...okay,” Jiro muttered. His brows scrunched, lips pursed in a small pout.

Jiro looked to Mom, and saw an expression of equal puzzlement. The end of her pinky finger dangled off her lower lip, her chin leaned against her palm. His father’s stilted mannerisms had conditioned Jiro not to expect spontaneous outbursts of affection from him. You know I love you, but… Jiro repeated to himself, mulling over the words. Something less pleasant would follow his father’s declaration of love, he recognized.

“Neji, what is it?” Mom cut in. “Do you have something you want to say? Now, here I was – thinking you wanted to spend some time with us.”

The hard edge in her voice elevated Jiro’s pulse to a thrum. He swallowed the gob of spit at the back of his throat, watching the lump in his father’s neck rise and fall. Jiro almost pitied his father, who looked chastened by Mom’s accusations of deception.

“Jiro,” he continued, averting his eyes from Jiro’s mother. The hand on Jiro’s knee tightened its grip. “You...probably don’t want to hear what I have to tell you, and I understand why. I’ve acted in your best interests, against those who have none of my concern for you.”

Mom tented her hands over her nose and mouth, her golden brown eyes darting from side to side. Anxiety gripped her, as did fear for her son’s wellbeing. Did Mom want to speak but restrained herself to avoid worsening the situation? Or, did she defer to Jiro’s father out of trust for his judgment?

Jiro nodded once. He knew bastards made easy enemies among those who tasked themselves with maintaining honor, order and decorum. Fortunately, most who disapproved of his existence couldn’t do much more than whisper and cast disgusted glares in his direction. The few who weren’t limited to idle expressions of disapproval were the ones that concerned his father. The Hyuga elders probably didn’t take kindly to a clan head who shamed his clan and his Hyuga wife by conceiving a child outside marriage. Neji Hyuga’s illegitimate son perpetuated that disgrace every day through his continued existence.

“What is it...Father?”

Neji gave a small cough at the word Father, stiffening in his seat to reclaim his composure. Mom hummed in shock that Jiro would, unprompted, call his father by the proper title.

“You weren’t...exactly planned, and you probably know I am not married to your mother. Others within the Hyuga clan see this as a problem. There are things at play here that you wouldn’t understand at your age.”

The smooth, composed clan head had never looked so tongue-tied. Jiro also sensed deflection in the way his father said that others within the clan viewed his illegitimate son as a liability. He must have seen Jiro that way as well – at least to an extent. Why wouldn’t he? Before Jiro activated the Byakugan, Neji Hyuga’s past hadn’t threatened to undermine his reputation and his hard-won position of leadership. Jiro wanted to tell his father that he understood more than he probably assumed – of bloodlines and family ties, privilege and deprivation. Amaya had been a good teacher and so had experience.

“He’s right,” Mom concurred. “The Hyuga clan has many traditions, not all of them good. But your father has to consider them...and sometimes defer to them, regardless of his feelings. All so he can do the greatest good.”

Mom stumbled on her words, like saying anything conciliatory about the Hyuga clan’s traditional ways brought her physical pain. They’d thwarted her dreams, same as they caged his father from birth. Jiro’s father looked to the corner of the ceiling. He looked to his lap next, as if Mom’s affirmations embarrassed him. Sighing, he cleared his throat and gave Jiro’s knee a pat.

“Jiro. You no doubt realize the Hyuga carry the Byakugan in our bloodline.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Jiro couldn’t forget the Byakugan’s origins in the Hyuga line – not when his eyes so obviously betrayed his origins. He pictured the angular lines winding down a family tree, dotted where an illegitimate union bore a child. In the clan genealogies held in massive books at the village library, Jiro had found several such branches documented in writing. Many more probably existed, snuffed out before they could begin their own branches of the family tree perhaps.

“And preserving the secrets of the Byakugan is what gives the clan its power. Spreading the Byakugan to a child born outside of marriages approved by the clan is...um, frowned upon.”

Jiro pressed closer to his mother, who kissed the side of his forehead. Mom folded him against her shoulder with one hand, holding the other up to silence his father. She’d turned against his father in a disorienting reversal from her earlier attitude. From the corner of his eyes, Jiro saw his father jerk his head to the side. His eyes flitted to the table while he gathered resolve to say the difficult things he needed to disclose.

“It’s not that I consider you a liability, Jiro.”

“O-okay.”

“As difficult as it might be to believe,” the Hyuga clan head continued. “I do love you. I know I haven’t been around as much as I should have been and I’m sorry for that.”

Mom’s grip tightened. Jiro flinched at the press of her fingers on his temple, and her hiss of what’s the meaning of this? Just spit it out, damn it. Jiro longed for Dad to break the impasse between his former teammates. A few remarks of encouragement and maybe a silly contest would ease the scowl on Mom’s face.

“Do you want me to go away?” Jiro whispered.

His father’s fingertips braced against his forehead. He’d failed to convince Jiro to believe in his love, or that his unfortunate bastard wasn’t a burden to neutralize.

“The opposite.” Neji Hyuga forced a smile to his quivering lips. “Your mother could tell you that I’ve never been the best with words. Just...I figured I should clarify to you that you’re not my burden, no matter the impression you get from what I have to say next.”

Mom gave his father a dry smile. She hummed and combed her fingers through Jiro’s downy brown hair, whispering reassurances that he wasn’t in trouble and he was loved – very much. Hot tears gathered beneath Jiro’s eyes, leaving a characteristic sting behind. The tears spilled down his cheeks in defiance of his desperate hope that he wouldn’t fold before his father. His father hated weakness, if what he gleaned from Amaya was to be believed.

“I’m suggesting a way you could come into the clan, even if you can never take the Hyuga name.”

Jiro’s tongue sat like a dead weight at the bottom of his mouth, refusing to move at his urging.

“And what would that be?” Mom asked. Even as she kept her defensive posture, tentative hope seeped into her voice. “Are you saying you’ll adopt him?”

“No.”

“Then what –”

“Jiro, you can...you can call me dad if it makes you more comfortable.” His father’s disregard for Mom’s question, which he cut off to address Jiro, compounded her outrage. Beneath her glower, Jiro heard her teeth grind.

Calling Neji Hyuga “dad” struck Jiro as inappropriate, even a violation of his father’s personal boundaries. Amaya always referred to him as “Father,” never Dad or Daddy. He’d asked to meet his former lover and her son away from the Hyuga compound or his family home. That by itself told Jiro that he wasn’t fully ready to embrace him as family – and so dad felt doubly wrong.

Hearing no answer from Jiro, his father cleared his throat.

“Jiro. Back to what I mean to tell you.”

“Yes?” Jiro choked out.

“You’re young to think of marriage, I understand that. But, when you choose someone to marry, I would –” Here, his father cleared his throat. His white skin turned the sickly shade of a fish belly, or bleached paper. “It would be in your best interests if you select one of your cousins from the Hyuga clan as your wife.”

Before Jiro processed the implications of his father’s words, Mom slammed a fist against the dining table. The chatter of teacups on the table and the thud of her fist reverberated.

“So you’d force your own son into an arranged marriage?” Mom spat, breathless. “If that’s what you’re telling me, then you can get the fuck out of my house.”

His father flinched in response to Mom’s anger. White eyes pleaded with Mom’s golden brown ones, which offered him no sympathy. Fire danced in her eyes, leaving even her own son afraid of her feral rage.

“Allow me to finish, Tenten. Force might be the wrong word here. I don’t say any of this with joy –”

“There’s nothing else to say here.”

Instead of lashing out like his mother, Jiro nodded. Dread churned his stomach as he envisioned his parents fighting over him.

“Mom, he’s not hurting me,” he protested.

Jiro didn’t understand what marriage entailed, other than living under the same roof, sharing a bed, a table, a family. So long as he shared his life with someone kind, Jiro had little strong preference on what kind of person he married. He cared more about enjoying the access to power and safety from harm that Amaya got from her name. But he doubted those privileges would transfer if he couldn’t even call himself a Hyuga. Still, his father’s earnest vulnerability moved Jiro enough to intercede on his behalf, however futile his effort.

“You’d think everything you’ve experienced has taught you a thing or two,” Mom sniffed. “You know, I regret the day I ever said I loved you. You don’t have any conviction, any courage to stand for your own child. Lee has been a much better father than you’ll ever be.”

Deflated, Neji Hyuga appeared in no condition to defend his name, not that he was inclined to disagree with her assessments. Whatever Mom’s rebukes, Jiro respected his father’s willingness to face her hatred, to make difficult choices. Really, any choice would end in resentments from one side or another, whether his Hyuga wife, Mom, his clan’s elders, or Amaya. Authority sat uneasy on Neji Hyuga’s shoulders, souring into a sacrifice he made out of duty – or perhaps it had never been anything else.

“When you come of age...you will marry within the clan,” the Hyuga clan head pressed. “This will bring your...uh, bloodline...back in line with ours. Any children you have will be Hyugas.”

Jiro’s informal education taught him how much bloodlines meant to the hidden leaf. Breeding wasn’t a matter that typically concerned boys and girls of a civilian background – and now, Jiro was no longer a boy of no special birth. Had Neji Hyuga needed to think about marriage and breeding at 12 years old? Jiro had a difficult time imagining his father at his age. Given her years by his side, maybe Mom could see the boy who’d grown up as her friend, then her lover. The lingering bond between Jiro’s parents was proof that the man was once a child, had unknowingly conceived a child when barely out of childhood himself.

“No, he will not,” Mom interjected. “I’ll make sure of it.”

“You weren’t present while other solutions to...our problem were discussed.”

“And now he’s a problem? I see.”

Jiro noted the little smirk on her pursed lips and the disdain in her eyes, as righteous anger energized her. The back and forth between his parents – his father on the defensive, Mom pressing her case –gave Jiro no opening to assert himself. His agency slipped from between his limp, clammy fingers. It wasn’t only the bullies who left him powerless, but the good intentions of both parents.

“I’ll gladly accept that I am part of the problem, when I should have been more careful all those years ago. Jiro, I never meant to call you the problem –”

“Hm. He’s here now. Can’t undo the past, can you?”

“I never meant to say –”

“So many things you never meant to say.”

“Would you rather take even more choices from him? Possibly have him blinded?”

Mom’s repeated interruptions and the condescension dripping from her voice had galvanized Jiro’s father into finally defending himself. For a man used to receiving deference and shows of submission, he’d borne her insults for a long time before the low growl entered his voice.

“Or send him away from the village where the clan can’t reach him? Hide him forever, and pretend he’s dead?”

The suggestion sent needles to Jiro’s heart, piercing it with almost physical pain. He’d only left the hidden leaf village’s walls one time, when his parents took him and Metal on an ill-fated trip to the seashore. Beyond the village, he knew nobody, knew nothing of what he’d do.

“No, I don’t want to leave.”

“Don’t listen to him. The clan has no right to do any of this.”

Mom spoke with an edge of desperation, like she made those declarations partially to convince herself that they were true. Her earlier defiance had eroded, replaced by a denial just as fierce.

“Tenten, I don’t disagree with you. Once again, I assure you, they have their ways. They could make life in the village unbearable for you, Lee or your children.”

Neji brought his fingertips to his forehead for a moment before muttering a curse and letting them drop.

“Hate me all you want, Ten-ten,” he sighed. “Teach our son to hate me if you must. Some proposed placing a seal on Jiro’s eyes to prevent the Byakugan’s activation or transmission to any future generations –”

“Then there’s a 50 percent chance he’d go blind.”

His mother’s mouth fell open, her vise grip seizing Jiro’s wrist until he feared her crushing his bones. The stiffness in his father’s shoulders unraveled by a touch, probably out of relief that something had diverted Mom’s indignation away from him.

“Exactly. With your knowledge of seals, I knew you’d understand. I believe what I propose is the most sensible, even if finding parents willing to marry their daughter to Jiro would be a challenge…”

“With the damn clan, that doesn’t surprise me.”

“Tenten. You forget yourself,” Neji snapped.

Mom flashed his father the back of her hand, her brass bracelet catching sunlight from the window.

“Nothing you wouldn’t have said back then,” she taunted in a nasty sing-song, her eyes rolling.

Jiro grasped the obvious irony in the contrast between the Hyuga clan head’s past and present selves. A man who’d once hated the Hyuga and dreamed of escaping the trappings of his name was now the face of the clan. Lord Hyuga couldn’t defame his clan as a collective of inbred, snobby white-eyed freaks, even without any Hyuga ears present. Though his father had reformed the clan in his image, the clan had also forced him into its image, widening the disconnect between Jiro’s parents.

“And? I don’t see how this is relevant to the present.”

Mom’s smoldering expression made it clear that she wanted to accost Neji Hyuga with every curse possible. Instead, she rolled her bottom lip inward and huffed. She’d probably realized at some point during her bitter exchange that cursing and lobbing insults within earshot of her son set a bad example. They’d come no closer to an agreement on how to handle Jiro’s ties to a clan that didn’t want him but couldn’t afford to ignore his existence. Tugged in opposite directions by the force of their convictions, Jiro struggled discern where he stood.

“I’ll do it. If it’s my only choice. Mom...um, Father, I know you had to make hard choices. So I should, too,” Jiro said, his voice emerging thin and faint. Yet he faced his father with unwavering eyes and without even a stammer to his answer.

Afterward, he barely registered Mom’s panicked cries and the storm of shouted words between his parents.

In retirement, Hiashi Hyuga spent virtually all of his waking hours in his study or among the compound’s gardens, paintbrush and watercolor pad in hand. Unlike every clan head before him, Hiashi had declined to join the clan elders to advise his successor. Nothing in the clan laws mandated that he remain involved in the clan’s governance, but his near total withdrawal shocked most Hyuga. Neji envied him – unmoored from all decision-making responsibilities, from the difficult choices that always left a deep pit in his stomach. Far from an atonement for Hiashi, turning Neji’s dream to reality had been the former clan head’s most ingenious punishment. And its victim believed the punishment to be a reward for his striving. Neji gave a bitter laugh.

You can’t keep running, Uncle, Neji sneered to himself. He’d repay his uncle in kind, in whatever small way he could, by bringing the clan’s dirty business to his footstep. Perhaps he shouldn’t have thought of seeking Hiashi’s counsel in terms of revenge. His current predicament, after all, was not primarily caused by Hiashi Hyuga nor by fate.

When Neji sent a message appealing for Hiashi’s advice on Jiro, he’d been both pleasantly surprised and disappointed that his uncle agreed to meet in the compound’s main garden. He dreaded facing Hiashi’s muted disapproval over Neji’s role in inflicting the current crisis. The consequences of Neji’s most intimate acts, his private transgressions against his clan, made them undeniable. Tenten Sato wouldn’t birth a half-Hyuga without a Hyuga man’s indiscretions – and that man’s identity had no doubt penetrated every corner of the village.

Weaving through the garden’s gravel path, Neji soon found Hiashi seated on a stone bench painting one of his landscapes. Streaks of white now outstripped the black in Hiashi’s flowing hair. After months without more than a passing glimpse of the man, Neji was struck by how old he looked. During his youth, Hiashi had loomed several heads above him, more stone effigy than man. Now, age left him diminished. His knuckles bulged from his bony fingers and his shoulders permanently slumped.

“Uncle. Good morning,” Neji choked out, announcing his presence.

Hiashi stowed his paintbrush in his water cup and blotted a runny streak of paint, but didn’t turn to make eye contact. The lack of acknowledgment offered Neji little indication of how their conversation might proceed. They could allow their bitter past to embroil them again, and swap blame until neither man wanted to continue. If Hiashi intended to lecture him on the logical consequences of sexual impropriety, Neji wouldn’t indulge his moralizing for a single minute.

“Oh, I – didn’t notice you at first. I haven’t spoken to you in so long, but I can understand considering how busy the clan has kept you.”

Hiashi’s voice broadcast nonchalance that incited a flare of anger in Neji’s core. This isn’t an appointment for tea, Uncle, he wanted to counter, with bitter sarcasm to match Hiashi’s indifference. If you don’t wish to be of help, then I have other things to do.

“Yes. I’ve been rather beset by problems of every scale lately,” Neji said instead, a touch of impatience in his voice to inform Hiashi that his tone wasn’t appreciated.

“And you’d like my advice?” Hiashi asked with a hint of bemusement. “I read your letter twice to ensure that I didn’t misread. I suppose that if you’ve requested my advice, you must not be enjoying yourself.”

The air grew heavy. Neither missed the irony of Neji consulting the uncle he’d once cursed with every breath. Neji locked his jaw when Hiashi released a quick, breathy laugh at his own wit. Resisting the temptation to roll his white eyes, Neji remembered that he’d wanted so badly to break from Hiashi’s authoritarian tendencies. Because of course a victim of the old Hyuga order would know better than to replicate it. He’d failed, forced to trap his innocent child in the same cruel cycle. Yet Neji couldn’t resist projecting his self-resentment onto Hiashi – that smug bastard. Old habits died hard, for both uncle and nephew.

“Are you planning to advise me, or play the useless old man?”

Hiashi stared at a far point in the distance, humming a few scattered notes that belonged to no song Neji knew. When Hiashi finally turned, the corners of his lips formed a smile.

“I understand you have a son. As it so happens, I’ve only had experience with daughters,” Hiashi teased. Spots of red blossomed behind Neji’s eyelids before Hiashi muttered his apologies and pivoted to serious advice. “But, I can do my best – you’ve accepted the least of several terrible solutions, from what Ko tells me.”

Neji nodded.

“As I expected you would. You have a good head.”

Accepting the surprising compliment with a stammered thank you, Neji clasped his hands before him. Suddenly unsure of his conduct, he shifted his weight from side to side and pondered whether he should take a seat next to Hiashi. Deciding against the bench, he instead stiffened his shoulders and tilted his chin upward to reclaim whatever he could of his dignity.

“I’ve tried to appease everyone, while cornering myself into something nearly unworkable.”

Hiashi raised a finger before his eyes, then appeared to measure a flowering tree in the background. After less than five minutes of talking to his uncle, Neji had already faded from the forefront of his attention. Had age eroded Hiashi’s focus? Neji’s upper lip curled.

“You’ve cornered yourself only because you have too much heart to allow otherwise.”

“Nobody else seems to think of it in those terms,” Neji sighed.

He explained the debate at the meeting called to discuss Jiro Sato. How the elders seemed intent on – or at least indifferent to – the punishment they inflicted on the boy. Though Ko emerged to dangle a gentler compromise, Neji had won himself Tenten’s hatred by buying into its terms. He’d set himself against Risa by refusing to disown his interest in his son for the sake of honor and family. And he’d tarnished his daughter’s regard by telling her to temper her sympathies for her new friend. Perhaps Jiro Sato was the one who least resented Neji, among those who held stakes in the scandal centered on him.

Hiashi’s milky eyes found Neji’s as he invited him to take a seat on the bench. Neji perched on the far corner and surveyed the garden before them. With peonies in full bloom and buds opening on the trees, it was a beautiful place. Yet its beauty was artificial, maintained through daily weedings and pruning of any errant growth. Maybe that was why Neji had never loved the garden as much as Hinata or her father.

“So you still have an eye to justice after 10 years in this seat. I’ve found that the clan and the constant reminder of its interests consume you after long enough – until there’s no right or wrong. Only what serves the clan, and what’s most expedient.”

“Hm. I pity Jiro,” Neji answered. “A child shouldn’t pay for the mistakes of adults.”

Apparently old age and retirement helped Hiashi rediscover the conscience he kept buried, that only surfaced a few times in Neji’s memory of childhood. Neji clenched the hand in his lap, recalling Hiashi activating his seal and casting menacing glares in his direction if he dared disobey. In the silence that followed, Hiashi set his pad back in his lap and added to his composition, the tip of his brush dancing along the page as he painted in the trunks of trees.

“My greatest regret was discarding Hinata and making myself indifferent to her fate. I thank the gods she has forgiven me. For years, I’d lost any notion of myself as a man or father. I was only Lord Hyuga.”

The man was drained of all spite or resolve, Neji realized. That made him far more comfortable confiding what he said next.

“But I fear I might have conceded too much to the man in me. I still love her. She shares my feelings, Uncle.”

“Maybe your problems were inevitable then.”

Gods, Hiashi’s breathy snicker dug beneath Neji’s skin far more effectively than any verbal rebukes or lectures on virtue. Fortunately, Hiashi refrained from preaching about the importance of avoiding bastard children in the first place. Neji had even prepared a rebuttal on how he would have married Tenten if clan custom hadn’t deemed her unworthy. But his words would have been wasted now, temporary catharsis aside.

“Are you saying my weaknesses are that obvious?”

Hiashi responded with a comment about the challenge of painting sunlight filtering through the trees, then monologued on the limitations of watercolor as a medium for depicting landscapes. Neji began to wonder whether his uncle was senile and scrambled for excuses to leave him behind.

“I wouldn’t say they’re weaknesses,” Hiashi mused, just as Neji prepared to announce a forgotten meeting with some other clan head. “Strength comes in different forms, and some – like my past self – mistake certain forms for weakness. I just hope you can find the strength to tell the truth. To your wife and children, especially.”

The flush on Neji’s cheeks must have matched the shade of the roses growing at Hiashi’s elbow.

“No, that’s not an option.”

A confession of infidelity would make Risa’s cries echo against the compound walls. Perhaps she would even push him from their bed and declare that their marriage was over. Whatever infatuation Tenten inspired in him, Neji did still care for both women.

“Neji, I trust you can figure out your own priorities. I dare say all of this started because of dishonesty, and that’s what has deepened your problems.”

He bit his bottom lip to resist telling Hiashi that he’d created the circumstances for such dishonesty to perpetuate. Under Hiashi – and every clan head before him, Neji couldn’t have openly declared his love for Tenten. Or the existence of their child, had he known of Jiro. Yet if the same cloud of suffocating secrecy consumed him now, then Neji couldn’t help thinking he’d made precious little progress toward the freedom he craved. The way Hiashi urged Neji to speak the truth, doing it sounded so easy, like reading a weather report.

“I-I understand.”

“Truthfully, Neji – my greatest advice is toretire with fewer regrets than I. There’s a reason I don’t paint people, you know. They’re far more difficult subjects to capture than flowers and trees. I’ve decided I’m done trying.”

As with so many conversations he hoped might provide clarity, his meeting with Hiashi Hyuga left Neji frustrated with more questions than answers.

Chapter Text

Amaya’s white-knuckled fingers locked around the chain of her swing, quivering with the force of her grip. Her shoulders bowed forward, weighed down by invisible burdens – and Jiro had the sneaking suspicion that they related to him. When she’d offered him a quick hello as he settled by her side, his sister stopped short of saying his name. Proper siblings would address one another as brother and sister, but Amaya Hyuga and Jiro Sato hadn’t been raised or treated as brother and sister. Though circumstances rendered their blood relationship undeniable, perhaps Amaya didn’t yet want to admit the truth about her father, Jiro’s mother and the boy who belonged to nobody.

“I guess you’re a bit like him,” she ventured toward the end of their after school intermission, trusting Jiro would know who he was. “Mother wouldn’t care to hear that, though.”

Her soft voice drifted over the air between them, a musing directed mostly to herself. Amaya spoke with defeat – she’d been proven wrong about their father and disappointed by his past dishonor. Jiro also detected a hint of indignation in her voice, which he trusted wasn’t meant for him. Reeling from the shock of her latest discovery, Amaya had pivoted to reconciling the world she’d known with Jiro’s true parentage. According to common wisdom, children inherited more from their parents than special eyes and a reflection of their faces. Mom sometimes said her husband had every ounce of his mother’s boundless optimism, like it were a natural part of his inheritance.

Yet Jiro failed to see the Hyuga clan head in himself other than the obvious physical resemblance.

“I don’t really see it. He’s a genius, right? That’s what my mom said. You know, I’m not a genius.” Jiro paused to slow his ramble. “My mom thought the world of him until he, uh...came to our house a few days ago.”

Like father, like son. Mom’s teasing hint over dinner had offered Jiro his first confirmation that Neji Hyuga was his father. Then blinded by love for his father, Mom would have projected all forms of resemblances onto Jiro, reinforcing and legitimizing the bind between former lovers. Amaya hummed. Her thin lips puckered and her brows contracted, but Amaya shook her head.

“I think you’re like him in other ways.”

“Yeah?”

“Father used to say fate wasn’t something you could defeat. He cursed his uncle and the clan for putting him in a cage. That’s why he trained so hard,” Amaya explained. “Yes, he was born with one of the most powerful Byakugan ever seen, but he wanted to be more than fate allowed.”

Jiro knew the story of the former Hyuga caged bird seal from both the impersonal perspective of the village historians, and his mother’s intimate telling. Every student of hidden leaf village history studied the great clans in at least superficial detail. Mom supplemented the official narrative with stories of Neji Hyuga revealing the seal to her, of their days perfecting the Hyuga Ultimate Defense in the sweltering heat. His father’s suffering had justified his sacrifice on behalf of every other Hyuga who wore the seal. Or so Mom told him, before his parents’ reunion eroded her confidence in that answer.

“You’re saying I’m like that? Me?”

His final question ended on a shrill note. The lilt of his voice and his shocked expression projected disbelief. Jiro lacked the resolve his father mustered to face torture without breaking, the single-minded determination to shatter the cage holding generations of his family. No, he struggled even to look Kenji and his friends in the eyes when they tormented him.

Amaya laughed, a few undignified snorts punctuating her breathy snickers. Her laugh parted her lips wide enough that Jiro saw two rows of white teeth, with some of them crooked or missing.

“That’s what I told you.”

“Oh, I...didn’t think that was funny.”

Heat spread up Jiro’s neck and across his cheeks at his sister’s peals of laughter at his expense. Jiro drew circles in the woodchips with the toe of his sandal, starting in broad sweeps before bringing their arcs closer and closer to the center.

“It’s only funny because you still don’t think I’m being truthful,” Amaya continued between hiccups. “I don’t know if anyone else would have thought to ask me about learning the Byakugan. Only Father would have been so bold.”

Even if the gifts of the Byakugan aren’t yours to claim. The unspoken premise of Amaya’s words echoed in the back of Jiro’s mind. He was a bastard born with a weakened iteration of the Hyuga kekkai genkai, stolen from the clan that designated itself the guardian of the Byakugan.

Recalling the day he approached Amaya for lessons in the Byakugan, Jiro thought of how he would have challenged Neji Hyuga to deny his pain and fear. Father and son had that experience in common, though maybe time blunted his father’s impressions of that terror and the drive to never feel it again.

“You’re kind of right,” Jiro mused. “You know, I just wish I could have been a genius, too. So my wishing could mean something.”

He pictured his pathetic showing in class today, how he’d landed fewer than half of his shuriken on the target at all. Only one of the four on-target shuriken landed in the inner rings of the target, where all 10 shuriken should have found their marks. He’d been fortunate that his parents had come to the student showcase when he experienced a rare lucky break – and unfortunate that they now expected more from him.

“I think you’re good at something.” His sister reassured him that few showed equal aptitudes for all the shinobi arts. For example, Rock Lee’s taijutsu made his utter inability in ninjutsu or genjutsu irrelevant.

“Oh, my mom tried teaching me all kinds of weapons, but none of them stuck. Definitely not the shuriken.”

Or the nunchucks, kunai, war fan, mace, scythe or flail. Jiro’s mother had taken him to the village training grounds and run him through half of her store’s inventory before questioning whether taijutsu would better suit him. It hadn’t – so Mom trusted that the academy would mold Jiro into a competent shinobi, if not one exceptionally gifted in any specific domain.

“Taijutsu then? Rock Lee is the village’s most celebrated taijutsu master after his old teacher.” Jiro blushed again. Lee’s style of taijutsu depended too much on speed and forceful impacts, and left him unable to keep up during practice matches.

“Eh, I can’t do that either.”

“Maybe you need some sake to awaken the drunken fist within you. Worth a try.”

“Y-you know about that?”

“Father told me, yes. The merest touch of sake on his lips turns Rock Lee into a near-unstoppable force.”

Brother and sister shared a laugh, though a flash of remembered panic inflected Jiro’s amusement.

Rock Lee hadn’t tasted alcohol in over five years. The last time he mistook a cup of sake for medicine, he’d blasted a hole through the wall of their townhouse and broken Jiro’s leg. His mother had screamed to the neighbors for help, and only the collected efforts of three men managed to restrain her husband.

“Yeah, he’s always been like that. Mom keeps five locks on the alcohol cabinet now. I think she puts the keys in a safe, and carries the keys to that in her underwear.”

Amaya pitched forward as she dissolved into shrill giggles.

“I suppose your mother learned from experience. But couldn’t Lee kick it open if he really wanted to?”

Jiro shrugged. Most of Rock Lee’s regular taijutsu could bust open the wooden cabinet located within the family’s kitchen, rendering all of his mother’s precautions useless. Jiro had heard stories of Lee splitting rock with a simple kick. And a motivated Lee wouldn’t hesitate to unleash the first gate or barreling lotus if he really wanted a drink.

“Huh. You’re right, Amaya. I don’t think being an adult means you know anything.”

“Me neither. Not even Father, and he’s supposed to be a genius.”

Amaya’s casual mockery of their father made Jiro’s heart jump with a tiny pulse of surprise. Her realization about Jiro had come at the cost of her family’s peace, but supplanted her idolization of her father with a heavy dose of irreverence. Amaya once regarded her father a perfect figure like the hokages carved in stone, but she’d discovered he was a human with all the destructive impulses of one. With her former impressions shattered, she felt free to defy her father, to question him without fear or guilt overtaking her.

The hairs on Jiro’s arms bristled as Amaya seized his wrist after class, without even a word of greeting or a hint of her intentions. Though surrounded by the chatter and noise of playing children, Jiro’s senses registered nothing but his sister’s flickering eyes. What are you – Jiro began to say, before the grip on his wrist tightened.

She put a finger to her lips and led him behind a grove of trees on the outskirts of the schoolyard, his sandaled feet stumbling after her quick strides. A quick sweep of her Byakugan revealed nobody in the small yard behind the academy. A few instructors visited for minutes at a time on secret smoke breaks, after the administration forbade smoking in the academy itself or around the schoolyard. Otherwise, the hidden area offered them seclusion for whatever secret she hoped to share.

“So, what’re you doing?” Jiro asked. “Why are we back here?”

Stony silence met his question, supplanted by his increasingly heavy breathing.

A spark of paranoia shot through him, which graded into a nagging worry that today might be his last. The Hyuga elders may have decided to ensure the clan’s stray branch never bore fruit, and what better way to ensure his end than his trusted friend and half-sister? I’m not going to die, I’m not going to die, Jiro insisted to himself, scrambling for ways he might defend himself against someone so much more competent and naturally gifted.

“Father said no to this, so you can’t tell him,” Amaya declared, once she drew mere inches from Jiro’s face. “I mean, he said I can’t teach you.”

“You’re going to...train me to use my Byakugan?”

Excitement crept into Jiro’s quivering voice. She gave a nod, and reiterated her warning about not informing her father – their father in equal measure, regardless of the favor he showed his daughter. Jiro checked his pocketwatch. Fifteen minutes seemed too short for any kind of real training, but he would fixate his attention on whatever she could teach him in those minutes.

“I won’t tell him. Promise.”

If he ever met his father again, Jiro would sooner ask him any number of things, than confess to Amaya’s betrayal of the Hyuga clan. He’d damn himself before making his only friend pay for showing him compassion. A faint sweetness sang on the tip of his tongue – the flavor of freedom, opportunity and power.

“First of all, do you know your chakra nature? Fire, water, wind, lightning, earth?”

He furrowed his brows and shook his head. An odd question, Jiro thought, and totally irrelevant to unlocking his kekkai genkai. Shinobi didn’t begin training in elemental jutsu until they reached chunin level, so a shinobi in training had no need to learn his chakra nature. Jiro knew Mom had fire chakra, while his father’s chakra nature remained unknown to him. But chakra natures were only partially hereditary, and passed from parent to child without clear patterns.

“No, I don’t know. I’m not a chunin yet. I know my mom has fire and –” Jiro stopped himself before he said anything about our father.

“Oh, Father found out for me when I was three years old. We also know my little sister’s chakra nature and she just turned four.”

Amaya’s younger sister hadn’t yet entered the academy, nor would she learn her first jutsu for another two years if she were part of an ordinary family. Jiro wondered what other privileges clan children received by birth. Maybe the Hyuga’s early screening for chakra natures shouldn’t have surprised him, when Amaya’s life was tailored toward excelling in both shinobi arts and future leadership.

“What are you?”

The divide between them – newly laid bare – seemed too wide for Jiro to transcend, for him to even state any of his reactions.

“Fire. Like Father. Mother is water like most Hyuga, and so is my little sister.”

Fire. Like Mom. His parents’ shared chakra nature increased the probability that he, too, would have fire as his nature. By contrast, Amaya’s parents had opposite chakra natures – fire and water. Superstition held that opposite chakra natures could either complement one another, or sow a relationship with irreparable strife. A couple with like natures could either enhance one another, or mutually reinforce their worst excesses.

“Is there any way to find out mine? And, why do you need to know?”

“We need special paper,” Amaya cut in. “The way I teach you to use the Byakugan will be different depending on what type you have.”

Jiro glanced to his watch again. Five minutes. The thrum of his pulse accelerated. He burned to peek at the academy gates to see whether any servants bearing the Hyuga sigil came asking after Amaya.

“That’s too bad then. Maybe I’ll wait until –”

“I can show teach you some chakra control exercises for you to practice until next time. You’ll need to be good with controlling your chakra so you can keep it activated.”

“That would be great, thank you!”

Their shortage of time drove Jiro to drop the question of his chakra nature, and any baggage associated with it.

Amaya directed Jiro to close his eyes, to feel the chakra buzzing through the coils in his head. Jiro squeezed his eyes shut to focus his senses on the current of chakra flowing through him like water. Frustration mounted as he managed to follow the stream for one second, then lost track of its flow as it escaped him like water through his fingers. Pointing a finger to the center of his forehead, Amaya instructed him to concentrate his chakra at her fingertip, in as small a mass as he could manage. The touch of her cool fingertip rallied Jiro’s focus just enough that he found his chakra flow again and followed it through several loops around one of his coils.

When Jiro moved to form the hand sign for the Byakugan’s activation, Amaya shook her head.

“Learn to focus your chakra without help,” she said.

Jiro knit his brows to concentrate his efforts, but found the stream much too powerful to redirect. Once the strain overwhelmed him, Jiro released a sigh and rubbed his fingertips to his temples. His bleary vision re-focused on Amaya’s white eyes first, the outlines of her brows, nose and lips sharpening with each blink.

“Work on it. Work on it, and ask me again once you’ve mastered it.”

Jiro’s watch told him that the time had come for Amaya’s escort to bring her back home. His mother would arrive shortly afterward to bring him back to his house, where only he had special eyes and nobody learned their chakra natures early. Jiro and his sister returned to the playground where the slouching monitor appeared oblivious to their absence. A bubble of warmth rose in Jiro’s chest at his good fortune.

Amaya ran to the gate where a servant’s outstretched arms awaited her. Jiro watched the Hyuga sigil embroidered on the back of Amaya’s dress retreat until it dissolved into a black dot. When Mom arrived for him, she found Jiro squeezing his eyes shut, absorbed in his attempt to direct his chakra toward the center of his forehead. That time, he managed to dam one stream of chakra for just a moment.

“You had a good day, hm? You look happy,” Mom hummed, running her hand across the back of his neck.

“Yeah. I did.”

Jiro said nothing about his hopes of using his Byakugan someday, for fear of inciting her anxieties about the Hyuga clan. She’d avoided mentioning the Hyuga council of elders – or his father – since Neji Hyuga’s last visit, but the threat hanging over her son’s head still haunted her. Mom’s fingers wriggled into the hollow of his palm, and Jiro intertwined his fingers with hers like a much younger child. And although she would have rebuked the Hyuga clan head at the mention of him, Mom still remarked on how much she loved Jiro’s smile. His smile.

That night, Jiro stayed up an hour late practicing Amaya’s exercise. Fortunately, he could practice from anywhere, in total secret. The act of subtle subversion made Jiro’s heart patter in his throat, nervous excitement keeping him from sleep. It was just as his father had once reverse-engineered the rotation jutsu, unknown to his uncle and the clan elders. We’re alike after all, Jiro wanted to tell the Hyuga clan head.

And you weren’t wrong either, he thought, this time directed at his half-sister.

Every piece of sinew and muscle in Tenten’s body tightened like a rubber band when Jiro stalled in the middle of the road, his head turned to face away from her. His eyes sat wide, his lips just parted while he fixated his attention somewhere she couldn’t see. When she called for him to keep moving, he refused – muttering out a no, but otherwise ignoring his mother. A few seconds later, Tenten gripped Jiro’s shoulder and twisted.

“You keep doing that, and people are going to wonder what’s wrong with you,” she hissed. “Now, come on.”

They needed to return home for dinner with the groceries in tow, half of which dangled in bags hooked onto Jiro’s fingers. The force of Tenten’s pull jolted Jiro back to attention and his shuffling footsteps followed her until they reached their townhouse, where she paused to retrieve her keys from a pocket. While her fingers grasped for her key ring, the memory of Jiro’s temporary paralysis tugged at the back of her mind. Something out there – or someone – had seized on him with an undeniable magnetism.

Letting her keyring dangle from her fingertip, Tenten pivoted back to her son with a hand on her hip. Four bags of groceries still hung on Jiro’s hands, while he waited for her to open the door. They dropped to the ground once he saw her pause. He met his mother’s eyes, his wide gaze almost pleading with her to spare him another scolding. A sharp pain tore across Tenten’s heart, as she rushed to reassure him that she wouldn’t corner him with more of the impulsive anger he met earlier.

“Jiro. Is anything the matter?”

“No, Mom.”

The staccato response betrayed his lie. Whatever so captured his attention wasn’t something he wanted to disclose to his mother, for reasons that weren’t apparent to her discerning eyes.

Tenten pressed her lips into a line and shook her head, reaching to touch Jiro’s cheek. He’d outgrown her frame, she realized, angling her arm to reach his face. The very top of his head lined up with her buns, and perhaps he’d outgrow his father before he reached adulthood. Her son’s growth unnerved Tenten – soon, he’d regard his mother with pitiful contempt as many teenagers did. Despite his size, the comforting gesture still elicited a low whimper from her son, who leaned into her palm.

“Why’d you stop back there?”

“I thought I saw my dad...I mean, Uncle Neji.”

Shit, Tenten hissed. Of all people.

Jiro explained that they’d passed a man with Neji Hyuga’s long black hair tied close to the waist, wearing a blue yukata. To Tenten, the man’s actual identity was less important than the reaction his sighting drew from her son, and from her.

Her hand fell limp by her side, the keys hitting the ground with a tinny ding. Tenten had avoided any mention of her former lover in the days since she’d threatened legal action if he stayed in her house. She’d hurled those screams and terms of abuse she didn’t care to repeat, over Jiro’s protests that his father didn’t deserve her insults.

“I didn’t want to say anything because you’d be mad.”

“You – oh,” Tenten choked out. “You thought you saw him back there? Next to the bakery?”

“Yeah.”

“You were watching for him?”

Tenten articulated the question slowly, deliberately. He wasn’t much of a father anyways, Tenten told herself. And Jiro doesn’t know what an arranged marriage even is. Doesn’t understand he’d be signing away his entire future. Her scattershot attempts to explain their adult conversation to her 12-year-old son had ended in puzzlement on his end, and impatience on hers. Part of her pitied Jiro – cut off from the father who’d only begun to bond with him. Maybe Neji’s admissions of love continued to haunt him, to feed him a drip of longing. Another part of her resented his sentimental attachment to the man, his childish naivety.

You’re too nice for your own good, she thought. I need to protect you.

“Y-yeah, Mom. Sorry.”

“Alright. Let’s discuss this when we’re home.”

The pout in Jiro’s lips revealed his hesitance and distrust. She muttered a curse as she leaned down to retrieve the keys where they’d landed between two tiles. With a twist and a push, Tenten opened the door and gestured Jiro to follow with his half of the food. The cool air in their house cleared Tenten’s head, and she thanked the gods that it remained unoccupied while Lee and Metal visited Lee’s mother.

Tenten slotted the groceries in the refrigerator and cabinets while her son leaned against the kitchen counter. Closing the refrigerator door with a slam that knocked a current of air in her face, Tenten wrangled her face into a smile, which managed to coax the shadow of one from Jiro.

“Jiro, did you...want to see him?”

“Hm, maybe.”

“I think you did.”

“So what if I did? You said he’s never coming back,” Jiro shot back, heat rising in his voice.

“For your own good, dear.”

Tenten’s bottom lip quivered, her palms spread in a pleading gesture for Jiro to understand that she’d never intended to hurt him. It was her fault, she conceded. Her fault for introducing father and son, encouraging Neji to establish himself in Jiro’s life over her husband and his wife’s objections. But she’d never anticipated that Neji might betray their child in one of the worst ways. He’d made the decision to submit himself to an arranged marriage when he was an adult, one with ambitions that required it. Jiro was a child who didn’t understand marriage or love on any meaningful level.

“Do you think he really loves me, Mom?” Jiro stammered. “I mean, my dad.”

“I do.”

Tenten gave her answer without hesitation, but bit her tongue so she wouldn’t continue. He loves you, but he’s not good for you. She lashed herself for not realizing sooner the extent to which Neji had become a creature of the clan – or rather, blinding herself because their love had returned. Recalling their last intimate encounter, shivers ran down Tenten’s spine, out of disgust rather than arousal.

“Then why’d you tell him to go away? I didn’t want him to leave. I told you that.”

“Jiro,” Tenten said, keeping her tone soft but firm. “Do you know what an arranged marriage really is?”

“N-not really. I don’t care that much who I’m married to, if they’re not bad.”

Jiro’s hunched shoulders diminished his frame, to the point that Tenten could forget he was taller. His eyes flickered back and forth in shame, and she took comfort in his wavering conviction. Agreeing to an arranged marriage at 12 years old wasn’t what any mother should have wanted, when he couldn’t forsee the heartbreak to follow or the pain of forfeiting his freedoms.

“Have you ever loved anyone? Like I...cared about your father. At your age, I’m sure you don’t even know what that is,” she pressed.

“I don’t know.”

Vindicated, Tenten grasped Jiro’s arm just below his shoulder. In the pause that followed, her breaths rang in her ears, accelerating in time with her heart. The inches between them shrunk, until Tenten’s nose almost touched his. As a lump rose in her throat, Tenten rushed to tell Jiro of the pain that informed her choice to shield him. Otherwise, the sorrow would close her throat until she could no longer speak.

“I’ve seen all of it. Your father wanted to marry me, Jiro. We made you because we were in love...and I had to hide you from him. I wasn’t good enough – for him to marry, to have his children. He couldn’t live the life he wanted because the clan told him to marry one of them. I-it wasn’t about the life that would make him happy. You know, it’s the same thing he wants to do to you. That’s what an arranged marriage means, you got it?”

“I just won’t have a kid before I’m married, then.”

“You’re missing the entire point,” she growled. “Gods, you’re an idiot. Could you just...listen to me?”

Tenten’s vision blurred from the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. A moment later, the sharp smack of her palm on the counter tensed Jiro’s shoulders. The shock of the impact ran up her arm, pain lingering on the skin of her palms and fingers. She’d vented her frustration at Jiro because he was inches away and in no position to defy her. But really, Tenten wanted to lay the full weight of her feelings at Neji Hyuga’s feet. While a wave of tears racked her, Jiro’s voice faded, as if she were listening to him from underwater. He called out to her again and again – Mom. Mom, are you okay? Here’s a tissue. Mom?

She accepted the tissue between two quivering fingers.

“Sorry, Mom,” Jiro declared when she calmed herself enough to look at his face again.

The undeniable note of resentment in his words dug beneath Tenten’s skin. Drawing a deep breath, Tenten rallied herself, reiterating that Jiro was only 12 years old. And at 12 years old, she didn’t comprehend everything she now knew about love and sacrifice.

“You don’t need to be sorry, Jiro,” Tenten sighed. “You’re just a kid. I shouldn’t have expected you to understand. I didn’t, not until your father told me one day that we couldn’t be together anymore...”

Neji had apologized that day, asking for forgiveness he told her he didn’t deserve. Tenten closed her eyes at her sudden burning for intimacy with her lover, for his arms encircling her and his head resting on her collarbone. Neji had sought Tenten over his own wife when he needed a woman’s touch and affection. He loved her with the same intensity, withered without her. No, Tenten insisted to herself, tightening her resolve to shut off those inconvenient desires.

“He doesn’t want to marry me off either.”

“It’s not what he wants to do,” Tenten countered. “It’s if he has the strength to do better.”

The words rang hollow, and her voice faltered at the end.

“But I still want to see him.”

“I do, too. M-maybe we’ll find a way out of this together.”

Bile rose to the back of her tongue, and Tenten released her hopelessness in a bitter laugh.

Chapter Text

Tenten rolled her shoulder so her husband’s hand slid off her bare skin – and Rock Lee offered no resistance as his hand fell to his side on the wrinkled bed sheets between them. She couldn't recall what trigger, what overheard word or scent on the air had brought her failures back in overwhelming force. Perhaps she needed no reminder, other than Jiro's goodnight kiss and whisper of I love you, Mom. The hot tears that blurred Tenten’s vision turned the outlines of their bedroom hazy, and left his face unreadable. Had she a better view of her husband, she imagined she might have seen his round eyes widen in concern. Because Neji Hyuga would never share her bed or her body again, she told herself that she was better off learning to be satisfied with her husband – rather, relearning. The lessons didn’t come easy, to her frustration.

“Tenten,” Lee ventured. “Would you like to inform me of what is troubling you?”

She attempted to say no, it’s okay, but a sob swallowed her words and left her a quivering mess propped against the headboard. Tenten had little notion of where to begin explaining Jiro's bind, a bind she’d woven in part because she wanted Neji back in their son's life. Not anymore, she corrected herself, reminding herself that her former lover's weakness made him a poor father. Neji’s absence placed her heart in an additional bind, perhaps the most difficult to sever because that feeble organ craved him. In short, informing Lee about any of her troubles in detail would damn her, both as a terrible mother and a disloyal wife.

“If you do not wish to say anything right now, that is okay, dear.” Lee folded his wife into the nook between his shoulder and neck, ignoring Tenten’s mumbles of protest.

The tension in her shoulders and neck soon slackened as she accepted the comforting embrace Lee offered so freely. Whatever her wrongs against the man – and she’d sinned in both body and mind, Tenten craved intimacy that would reduce the weight of her burdens. Lee’s lips touched her hairline, though they stopped short of puckering in a kiss.

“I fucked up,” Tenten began, her voice thin and weak from the strain of crying. “I seriously fucked up and Jiro…”

And Jiro’s the one who pays for it. He’s got his entire future ahead of him, and I feel like I sold it all away. No, Neji sold it all away – or, he would if I let him.

The Hyuga clan head was willing to sell his son’s future in exchange for peace within his clan, to keep his Hyuga family intact and untroubled. Realizing she risked saying too much, Tenten pressed her lips closed and buried her face into the hard ridge of Lee’s collarbone. Her husband really was too kind, and he deserved none of the troubles she’d invited on him. Best not to trouble Lee any more, Tenten insisted to herself. Yet now that she’d mentioned Jiro’s name, Lee couldn’t recuse himself from the situation any more than she could control the part of her heart that yearned for another.

Twelve years ago, she’d asked Lee to roleplay as Jiro’s father by blood and act as his father in every way that mattered. From her husband's perspective, she couldn’t reasonably ask him to butt out of his stepson’s life. Rock Lee was a good man in that way. 

“What about Jiro?”

“It’s…” Tenten’s mouth ran dry. “It’s between me and Neji.”

“You told me yourself that it affects Jiro.”

Shit. Tenten lifted her head to face her husband with eyes that still burned and itched from her fresh tears. She tried to steady her breath before Lee’s unwavering stare to project confidence she lacked. 

“It’s not something you need to be concerned with. Like I said, it's between me and Neji.”

"What is it about Neji? Why is this his concern and not mine?" Lee pressed. "Is it that Neji has landed Jiro in trouble and you do not wish to tell me about it? It is just like him to cause such problems and leave, just like he left you with -" 

"Hey, you don't know shit, okay? You'll never get what we had;" 

Her core tightened with forced resolve, which proved short-lived. Tenten’s stomach churned when her voice echoed in her mind, when she confronted herself with the sound of her ill-considered outburst. A choking noise rose in Lee’s throat, and he balled a hand against his breastbone. A flush of red crept across the tops of his cheeks – telltale signs of outrage, though rarely expressed during the course of their marriage. Lee’s fingers grasped the corners of her jaw, and Tenten bristled at their callouses. They’d been calloused from their impacts against rough wooden training posts and other untold injuries incurred in day-to-day shinobi life. Love and family life left different kinds of lasting scars altogether, scars laid bare by the injury in his voice and his obvious jealousy.

"You are defending him now, but you did not say I was wrong."

Lee's statement pointed a sharpened kunai right at Tenten's heart. When her husband pushed her, she'd reverted right to apologizing for Neji despite his unworthiness. Tenten half-expected Lee to accuse her of fucking him behind his back, and if he did, she'd have no choice but to lie.

"S-so what?"

“I find your behavior on this matter unfair and unreasonable, Tenten. It was you who pleaded with me to become Jiro’s father because Neji was not able. I did as you asked. The least you can do is tell me what is happening with Jiro. Surely you can set your affection for Neji aside for that?”

Lee paused and Tenten squeezed her eyes shut, twisting her head aside to escape the heat of the moment. Her pulse tapped against the inside of her skull while her husband gathered his thoughts, or otherwise prepared himself to continue. Dressed in only a thin cotton nightgown suspended by thin straps, she sat exposed, with nowhere to retreat except into her own silence. Whatever his reasons for hesitation, Tenten could tell that her husband wasn’t finished rebuking her or begging on behalf of his stepson.

“You now behave as if I am not a part of Jiro’s life in any proper way – other than, what?”

Giving him a place to live, taking care of him, letting him cry to you – Tenten answered his rhetorical question in her mind. A few token displays of parenting on Neji’s part wouldn’t place him on equal footing with Lee as the father in Jiro's life. On practical terms, a father's deeds mattered more than blood when it came to Jiro's well-being.

“Lee, that’s not what I’m saying at all, okay? I’m not telling you to butt out of his life, I promise.”

“Yes, that is exactly what you are doing. What exactly has Neji done to deserve this degree of confidence from you?”

Heat rose in Tenten’s core, but not from the self-righteous outrage that came with wrongful accusations. Rather, shame burned through her veins and seared her insides. She could tell that Rock Lee had held those thoughts close to him for some time now, maybe even since disagreements emerged during that first conversation about how to address Jiro’s Byakugan. The hard wood of their headboard pressed into her back, reinforcing her feelings of entrapment and her instincts to shut down.

“No! Are you even listening to me?” Tenten’s answer trailed off in a shrill cry of protest. “I told you, some things are just between Neji and I right now. And I think it’s for the best that they stay that way. I mean, I don’t think it would help things if you just stepped in -”

“Is it such a terrible thing that I care about Jiro's well-being and do not wish to see him harmed? I will act however I can to protect him! I do not like you and Neji keeping such secrets.”

Lee’s breath hit Tenten’s face in hot puffs that left her struggling to breathe the thickening air between them. She grasped his wrist – so much thicker than hers – and tugged downward in an attempt to free herself from their uncomfortable proximity. Lee’s hand remained firm, his grip constricting for a moment so his fingertips dug into her soft flesh. The man locking her in place on the bed, wasn’t the amiable, kind Rock Lee she lived alongside for 12 years. No, he channeled a dangerous, unpredictable energy that scared her. Yet maybe this was the logical end to her husband’s deep and abiding care for those he loved, including the boy he’d cradled in diapers.

“I know you would. Of course, you’d do whatever you could. But he’s not even yours. There’s absolutely nothing you can do at this point,” Tenten spat, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. “You’re saying you don’t trust me – Jiro’s mom?”

A gasp escaped Tenten’s lips when Lee released her with a little shove. Not one intended to hurt, but needles shot into her heart at the clear message of rejection. The phantom impression of his fingertips on her jaw lingered on her skin, and Tenten brought her hand up to soothe the ache. He’s not even yours. Tenten’s rash words had broadcast another message, however unintentional. She’d told her husband that she considered herself, Jiro and Neji part of a family all their own.

“Right now, I have reasons not to trust you, whether or not you are Jiro’s mother! You informed me before we married that any entanglements between you and Neji were over.”

Rather than lie to her husband, Tenten slipped from their bed without a word. She’d declared to Neji that she wanted nothing more with him, just as he’d told her at 18 years old that their love was over. After the events of their last meeting, Tenten should have been able to truthfully tell Lee that she and Neji had no more love for one another. At most, they bore the residual goodwill of former teammates and good friends.

Lee allowed her to leave the room without a single word of protest or appeals for her to return. Tenten wasn’t sure whether that should have elicited relief or dread. Both tugged at her heart as she splashed cold water across her face in the upstairs bathroom, hoping for clarity that wasn’t forthcoming.

To Jiro, Rock Lee appeared strangely out of place at the dining table, re-wrapping the bandages around his hands and arms. He appeared ready to deliver a devastating kick or barrage of punches even in the early hours of morning over a plate of toast. And even on a weekend when he had nowhere to go, other than the training grounds if the impulse to train struck him.

“Good morning, Jiro!” his stepfather said, beaming with a thumbs-up.

“Morning...Dad.”

Lee raised a single bushy brow. Though Jiro had called Rock Lee “dad” since he uttered his first words, the word now grated on his tongue like sand. He now had a father – one whose life overlapped with his occasionally – and a dad, the man who raised him. After his two slices of toast popped from the toaster, Jiro sat at the table across from Lee with a huff. Mornings alone with his stepfather were rare for Jiro, but Mom had taken Metal as her shop assistant in place of her older son. The butter knife scraped against the dry toast with a soft tsch as he spread jam across the surface of his bread. A glass of milk gathered condensation at his elbow.

“Careful. You do not want to spill your milk out of carelessness. Imagine what your mother would say.”

Lee drew the milk to a safe spot in the table’s center, winking at Jiro. Jiro laughed and thanked him, grinning when he met Lee’s glimmering black eyes. Rock Lee bore almost no resemblance to him, and Jiro had inherited none of his trademark mannerisms or quirks. In some ways, the bowl-cutted, jumpsuit clad man before him felt more like a father than Neji Hyuga ever would. 

“Yeah, she wouldn’t be happy,” Jiro muttered.

The crunch of crisp bread and the tang of fruit jam filled Jiro’s mouth when he bit into his toast. He folded his bread to finish his meal faster and tipped the glass of milk down his throat. As Jiro stood from the table, Lee’s hand clamped on his wrist, firm and warm.

“Jiro, is there anything the matter?”

Lee’s black eyes hid unexpected depths, and Jiro detected compassion in them when they seized on his. Jiro’s pulse thrummed at the prospect of telling Lee everything bothering him, of his parents' open secrets and his pursuit of forbidden power. Lee’s hand pinned him in place, as did his own indecision. Jiro wanted to confide in someone other than Mom, who caused so much of his grief. But he had little idea where to begin, and little idea how to stem to tide of worries once he spoke.

“I’m okay.”

“It does not sound that way!”

Once Lee seized on his stepson’s unhappiness, he wouldn’t stop trying to cheer him until a smile reappeared on Jiro’s face – and Lee had a sixth sense for his feigned cheer. Jiro sighed and returned to his seat.

“It’s just a lot to worry about, Dad. Everything I found out, you know? That I'm someone else other than who I thought I was.”

Spoken aloud, Jiro's worries sounded petty. He didn't need to fear poverty or impending death on the battlefield, in this era of peace following the great war. He pressed his palms into his cheeks in an attempt to calm their heat, and flinched when he heard Lee draw a sharp breath. Until that point, Lee and Jiro had carefully avoided any references to Jiro’s parentage in their interactions. The corner of Jiro’s lip twitched in an apologetic expression, one that attempted to say sorry, I know you didn’t ask for any of this. In fact, Rock Lee was one of the few people in Jiro’s life who treated him no differently since what he now called the “Byakugan Incident.” It wouldn't have surprised Jiro if Lee wanted to pretend none of the disturbances to his family ever happened, that Jiro was really his son.

“I can understand how learning the truth is disorienting."

“I’m not a Sato – grand-dad doesn’t think so. I’m not a Lee, and I can’t be a Hyuga. I'm just a problem to everyone.”

A pained expression pinching his face, Lee beckoned Jiro to his side. His stepfather wound an arm around Jiro’s slender shoulders and embraced him, humming in his ear.

“You are not a problem and anybody who says so is sorely mistaken! You are a wonderful boy and I am so proud of you.”

So insulated from clan politics, it was easy for Lee to boldly declare that Jiro was nobody’s problem – and that his stepson should just ignore anyone who labeled him one. Yet Lee’s booming voice made his message irresistible and Jiro couldn’t help beaming. Lee couldn’t fix his grandparents’ prejudice or the clan’s, but he heard Jiro’s pain and Jiro wanted to believe that was enough.

“I love you, Dad. I guess...well, you’re not my Dad, are you?”

Lee appeared to wince, but recovered in time to squeeze Jiro closer. The tight grip of his Lee's arms drained the breath from his lungs. Outpourings of affection from his excitable stepfather so often lacked grace or restraint, and Jiro tapped Lee’s shoulder to release himself.

“Of course I am! Nothing has changed between us. I have always known I was not your true father, but I married your mother and agreed to raise you like my own son.”

“You...just don’t care at all?”

Again, meeting Lee’s reassuring gaze allowed Jiro to pretend that indeed, nothing had changed. His stepfather gave one resolute nod, the kind that said you have my word and you can count on me.

“I mean, everyone else seems to care a whole lot about who my real father is. That I’m a bastard and my mom’s a whore.”

Hot tears gathered in Jiro’s eyes when he recalled the playground taunts, and the cold reception from his grandfather that stung more than words. He turned the grief into anger at his mother, and at Neji Hyuga, for imposing this situation on him because of their carelessness as young lovers. Jiro’s parentage had grown to define him in the time since the Byakugan Incident, and he doubted most in the village could name a single thing about him other than that he was a freak or a bastard. And it was just as well – Jiro had little idea what else to say about himself. Well, he could have said he was a failure of a shinobi-in-training barely able to keep up at the academy, unworthy of the Byakugan.

“Those are terrible words that you should never use about yourself or your mother.”

“Other people say that, though. Doesn’t matter if it isn’t true – they still hate us.”

Jiro blotted his tears on the elastic fabric of Lee’s jumpsuit, the way he hadn’t since he was a boy barely up to Lee’s shoulders. Whatever he thought of their scorn, the world’s burning judgment still hung about him, made him leery of strangers glancing in his direction.

“The world can be a mean place, Jiro. They told me I could never be a splendid shinobi because I did not have genjutsu or ninjutsu –”

“But you’re the village’s best taijutsu master! Y-you sure proved them wrong, Dad.”

Lee pursed his lips. He locked eyes with Jiro, stopping Jiro’s breath in his throat.

“Yes. Even as my teammates, your mother and father did not believe in me at first. In time they saw that I was capable and strong.”

Mom had praised Lee’s abilities numerous times before both of her sons, called him the pride of the hidden leaf and a shining example of a master ninja. Now Jiro wondered whether his mother believed her words with the same earnest confidence that Lee displayed now. During dinner with the Hyuga clan head, she’d bet against her own husband, touting Jiro’s father as a genius beyond compare. Jiro’s stomach rolled as he bit the inside of his lip, the memory sitting uneasy within him. Just thinking about that dinner conversation racked Jiro with unbidden guilt, as if the knowledge of Mom's disloyalty forced him to choose sides between husband and wife.

“That’s good. I hope people start to see me...as me,” he muttered instead.

“They will see you!”

A meaty hand slapped Jiro’s slender shoulders and jolted him forward. True to form, Lee still didn’t know his full strength. It appeared that Lee mistook Jiro’s shocked grimace for an expression of sadness, and Jiro said nothing to correct him. Lee invited his stepson to walk with him through the village, so he could see what he saw, a turn of phrase that puzzled Jiro. Using such vague and cryptic wording wasn’t true to form for Rock Lee, but he nevertheless followed him through the front door.

Jiro trailed behind his stepfather as they meandered down the village’s sleepy side streets. Lee greeted old friends from the academy and his shinobi colleagues, including the hokage. Nobody who returned Lee’s toothy grin or waved back to him noticed the mousy boy in his shadow. Jiro released a sigh of relief every time someone else moved on without remarking on his presence or even glancing his way. So far, their foray seemed to confirm what Jiro already knew – he was beneath the world's notice, except as a mistake and a curiosity. Better pass beneath their radars than inspire yet another round of whispers about the Hyuga bastard.

Still, the brush of fresh air through his clipped hair and the warm sunlight on his face lifted Jiro’s mood. He found himself striding alongside Lee and engaging him in idle conversation about memories of his parents’ generation. Stories of his parents as genin elicited giggles that made his entire frame quiver. Jiro pictured his stern father as a lovesick idiot pining after his mother, to the point that he almost wore a woman’s dress to training because Kiba Inuzuka told him Tenten Sato would like it. Fortunately for both his parents, Lee disabused him of that delusion.

“Your father did not always behave like a genius, even though so many people called him one.”

“Yeah. Gods, I guess...well, he got Mom eventually.”

Jiro’s careless reminder of the romance between his mother and father sobered Lee for a moment. His stepfather walked in silence for a few paces before launching into a story of their team’s first babysitting mission. Soon, Jiro forgot his tasteless remark amid a rain of shrill giggles.

“So Neji really didn’t know how to hold a baby?” Jiro asked between hiccups. “He really tried to grab it by its feet?”

“That is correct. Your mother had to save the poor baby from his hands.”

They walked across one of the many footbridges spanning the river and wandered into a park. Guided by their parents, children of various ages and sizes played on the swings, slides and monkey bars of the playground. Elsewhere, watchful adults sat on the wooden benches while their children chased each other in the field. Lee paused at the edge of the playground beneath a shade tree, and asked Jiro to describe what he saw. The exercise triggered only confusion. Lee wasn’t one who normally asked trick questions. If anything, that sounded like something Neji Hyuga might have done to demonstrate his superior wits and diminish his company’s confidence.

“Um, what do you mean, Dad? Sorry, I don’t get this riddle.”

Lee’s booming laugh caught the attention of a few children, knocking a toddler girl on her butt.

“I do not have any secret purpose behind this question other than to help you see what I see. Answer whatever comes to your mind, Jiro.”

There it was again – see what I see. In this case, they were standing alongside one another and seeing the exact same thing, so Jiro needed no help.

“I see kids on the playground. It’s sunny and warm out, so it makes sense that they’d be enjoying it. Is that what you were looking for?”

Perhaps this was an exercise to test and hone his shinobi instincts. Sweat beaded on Jiro’s palms as he remarked to himself that he’d failed miserably. Now Lee would regret ever expressing faith in his stepson.

“And what of the adults?”

Lee scanned the scene before them with his face smoothed over in thought. He otherwise didn’t offer Jiro any acknowledgment.

“It looks like some of them are the kids’ parents and they’re pushing their children on the swings and watching them and playing with them. Stuff like that.”

“Now let me ask you something – can you tell who’s a child’s true mother or father, as you would put it? As the rest of the village would put it?”

So this was a riddle that Jiro failed to detect. Jiro racked his mind on how to answer so he didn’t appear a fool.

“Huh? There’s no way to do that with my eyes alone. I guess I’d need to see how the adults treat the kids, you know? Like if they’re not touching them enough...or…what would you say, Dad?”

“You were correct the first time.”

Jiro’s brows furrowed and he paced around in the grass before Lee, hands clasped at his navel.

“So there’s no way to tell from watching them?”

Gods, had someone hit Lee in the head on his last mission?

“No. What matters is that the children are loved and cared for by somebody.”

Lee’s point, his mysterious words about helping Jiro “see” now made perfect sense. The jolt of realization drew a gasp from Jiro, who now stopped his pacing and stood with his head tilted toward the sun. Lee meant to say that his bloodline didn’t define him, that he belonged to those who loved and cared for him. And Jiro nodded. The man next to him changed his diapers and wiped his tears when he returned with scrapes and bruises. Before Jiro’s birth, Lee had comforted his mother through every mood swing and challenging night during her pregnancy.

To all of that, Jiro could only say thank you.

Chapter Text

Jiro had barely lifted the shades on the windows of his mother’s weapons shop when she choked out that she needed to use the bathroom. When Mom rushed to the bathroom for whatever sudden illness afflicted her, Jiro assumed her standard duties. As the shopkeeper’s son, Jiro spent enough of his days off as her shop assistant that he knew how to open the cash register and sweep the sales floor without her direction. The shop – half the size of his classroom at the academy – required little in the way of preparation before customers arrived to shop. That is, if they ever did. While Jiro gathered dust and dirt in a corner behind the counter, he bristled at the sound of vomit from behind the bathroom door.

Pulses of vomit – followed by choking and coughing – arrived in a few boughts. In between, Jiro’s mother gasped for breath and cursed a stream of insults at the gods, and nobody in particular.

Mom returned with a piece of chewing gum between her teeth and a tense smile.

“Everything look good, Jiro? Anything I still need to do?”

“Hm. You could do the inventory, I guess.”

He watched the grinding of Mom’s teeth and the gnashing of her lips. Whatever sickness afflicted her, his mother appeared determined to conceal it from him. His brows puckered in concern – prompting her to shake her head, like mother and son had just shared a joke. A fist constricted around Jiro’s heart, squeezing the blood through his veins faster and faster with every beat. A shrill little voice at the back of his mind pleaded for his mother to live. Despite her faults, he loved her – and he didn’t want to become an orphan by half.

“But I don’t think the kunai grew legs and walked away. Don’t know about you, though.”

According to the sales record, none of them had left in the possession of paying customers either.

Mom laughed and attempted to bend down for a kiss to his brow. When she tried, a pulse of pain or discomfort stopped her. Her bracelets jingled as a hand reached to clutch her stomach. The fist around Jiro’s heart squeezed hard enough to wring the air from his lungs.

“You okay?”

“Oh, just a little bug. I’ll count everything again just in case one of the kunai grew legs, hmm?”

She’s not going to die, Jiro insisted to himself. Come to think of it, Jiro recalled at least three classmates at the academy who’d called in sick from “stomach bugs” over the past week. Surely the illness would pass from his mother quickly. The last time she’d been laid in bed with illness was over five years ago, and that lasted no more than a day.

“Alright. I guess I can count the money in the register.” None of the money had walked off either. He mostly sought a distraction for himself, a reassurance to his mother that her illness didn’t burden him.

Jiro found comfort in the stacks of bills and coins arrayed before him. Taking measure of the store’s cash reserves had a reliable order that life lacked. A man or woman who woke in good health could fall ill and die by evening, for example. Stop it, stop it, stop it. Jiro slammed the heel of his hand between his eyes. He forced his gaze toward the sunlight filtering through the display windows, to remind himself that opening shop was his favorite part of the business day. It was Mom’s, too.

Morning was the time before the monotony of endless afternoons set in, when the pain of stagnant business and the village’s neglect hit most acutely. Jiro sometimes caught his mother smiling at the rare weapons, the not for sale weapons she displayed on the wall, as if remembering her days of wielding them. Perhaps Mom hoped todaywould be the day a rare weapons collector or fellow enthusiast came to express appreciation for her wares and spent tons of money. Jiro savored the smiles, because her face sagged lower as the day progressed.

Running the small weapons shop by herself really wasn’t that challenging for one woman. Jiro suspected she enlisted him more to keep her from spiraling into bitter depression or the insanity caused by sitting in silent confinement for far too long. On days when her son accompanied her, he could at least lift her moods by chatting with her or playing card games on the counter. Not that he minded – Jiro was his mother’s son, as everyone told him.

“I’m going to unlock the doors now,” Mom announced, jerking Jiro to attention. “Time to open.”

Jiro realized he’d lost track of how many bills sat in each stack. Yet he’d managed to divert his attention from Mom’s illness until opening time. The twist of Mom’s key in the lock interrupted Jiro’s thoughts with a sharp click. He cleared his mind for long enough to clear the bills and coins still sprawled across the counter, to make the shop presentable to anyone who might wander in.

The stacks of cash returned to their slots in the register, Jiro sat on his stool at the counter with his stack of books and comics. Last weekend, he’d finished “Tales of a Gutsy Ninja” by the Legendary Sannin Jiraiya over the course of a day. Unfortunately, Mom and his stepfather had barred him from checking Jiraiya’s other works from the hidden leaf library. So he instead settled for a historical novel set in the village’s founding period. By his side, Mom delved into yet another romance novel – and Jiro was also forbidden from reading that one.

Her breathing intensifying, Mom read with fingertips pressed to her lips. Her eyes seemed far too narrowed to focus on the words crawling across the page of her book. They squeezed shut, then Mom’s eyelids fluttered in apparent pain. The book fell pages-down into Mom’s lap, then to the ground with a clunk. Jiro gasped when she grabbed his hand and pressed down on his knuckles hard enough to elicit pain. The squeal emerging from between her lips sounded like help. Or please.

Behind the pained expression, Tenten Lee looked more like a scared teenage girl than an adult mother of two. Tears made her eyes glisten, or maybe Jiro only imagined them. They wouldn’t have been inconsistent with the contortion of her features.

“Mom, let’s go home, okay?”

“No. No, no, no. I’m fine. Jiro, I’m fine. Totally fine.” Mom’s answer rushed out, far too quickly, her voice emerging in a little girl’s babble.

You’re definitely not fine, he wanted to answer. However, the will to believe stilled his tongue.

Jiro tried reading through the next few pages of his book once Mom released his hand. But he found himself distracted by the sounds of his mother vomiting in the toilet and the rush of water as she flushed and washed her hands. Another piece of gum between her teeth, she returned with a quip about eating bad sushi when she’d dined out with Lee the previous night. Jiro tried to laugh for her sake, recoiling from the sickening smell of vomit on her breath mixed with mint. The combination somehow sickened him more than just the stomach-roiling acidity of vomit. The strained smile on Mom’s face faded quicker than the last, replaced by a grimace that resembled the beginnings of a sob. Her face didn’t broadcast the fear and disbelief of a woman facing death, but the panic of a woman facing another unknown.

“I always thought two sons was a good number to have,” Mom mumbled once she seated herself next to Jiro again. “A brother to keep you company. Never thought about having another one.”

The aside puzzled Jiro. Another one. He mulled the words over until they lost their edges like smooth river stones. Neither she nor her husband had expressed any interest in another child, and he doubted a woman of her age would want another. Never thought about having another one. That meant someone or something compelled her to think about it. The way her voice broke on her final sentence told Jiro it wasn’t a happy prospect.

“Oh. Um, what’s that about?”

“Nothing.”

Mom clenched both hands in fists atop her knees. The skin stretched taunt over her knuckles turned white, her shoulders quivering as her composure dissolved.

“Ignore me. I’m...a little tired from last night, actually. Sorry,” she added when a minute passed without anything from Jiro. “Not feeling my best, I admit.”

Jiro nodded a single time. He remembered nothing of his mother’s pregnancy with his younger brother, only that pregnancy introduced changes to a woman’s body that sometimes made her sick. Mom had mentioned something about it when one of the kunoichi she worked with occasionally took leave for her baby. The connections fell into place from there, settling at the base of Jiro’s stomach with a dreadful weight. His mother was expecting a younger brother or sister – one she didn’t welcome in the same way she’d welcomed her first two children.

“You shouldn’t be worrying about my problems,” Mom finished after she cleared her throat with her hand on her chest. “Your mom can handle herself...it’s my job to take care of you...even though I’m not doing so well at it.”

After another round in the bathroom, the remainder of the day passed without incident. That is, if Jiro ignored his mother’s muted sobs into her tented hands while he opened a shipment of carbon fiber shuriken. The zip of the box cutter across packing tape drowned out Mom’s wet, gasping breaths. The rustle of packing peanuts on cardboard blocked Mom’s whispers of sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry. What she had to apologize for remained unclear to Jiro, and he knew she wouldn’t answer if he asked. Though Mom had her lips pressed in a line and her shoulders back by the time Jiro gazed back at her, faint rings of pink still surrounded her eyes.

Tenten balled a fist on the toilet seat in the downstairs bathroom, the same place where Neji sat that night they convened in the dark silence of her sleeping house. She couldn’t bring herself to admit they’d fucked, though she couldn’t ignore the high probability that they conceived here. In a bathroom, behind the backs of Neji’s pregnant wife and her loving, loyal husband. The sharp edge of her thumbnail dug into her palm as the smell of vomit brought tears to her eyes. Once her initial wave of nausea subsided, she drew a quick sequence of rapid, heaving breaths that failed to fill her screaming lungs. Thank the gods no footsteps descended the stairs of their townhouse, or bore on the creaking floorboards upstairs. While Lee still slept, Tenten didn’t want to awaken him – because he had a rare day off, she told herself. No, it wasn’t because she dreaded facing his suspicions, even if her husband never articulated them.

On the last night they’d shared a bed, she’d insisted against his rising jealousy that she no longer loved their former teammate. Lee hadn’t questioned her about Neji or her allegiances to either man in the week since she fled their bedroom for the spare futon. The pillow and pile of blankets in the makeshift bed’s corner rebuked Tenten for her cowardice and dishonesty. And now she’d pay for both once Lee discovered confirmation of her unfaithfulness.

“Shit,” Tenten breathed out. “I’m fucked, aren’t I?”

The cool drywall braced her shoulders when she slumped backward against it, keeping her upright as the pull of gravity threatened to reduce her to a quivering mass on the floor. A rattling moan escaped her lips. She considered for an instant that she could pretend a faceless stranger forced her in an alleyway, or in one of the park’s hidden corners. But what remained of Tenten’s pride – even now – resisted the idea of pretending a man had overpowered her. The worst thing was, Lee would have believed her and probably spiraled into a frenzy trying to find the guilty man.

Alternatively, she could suck her womb clean before her midsection could swell and the thing inside became more than a blob. The procedure would require less than an hour and no more than a few days’ recovery. Tenten reminded herself that the longer she delayed, the longer both trials – the operation time and recovery – would last. Perhaps afflicted by the same rush of chemicals that turned her stomach upside down, Tenten pitied Neji Hyuga for the difficulties she’d inflicted on him. She hadn’t forgotten how he compromised Jiro’s freedom and future, but he’d acted out of love for his illegitimate child. In him, Tenten saw her best ally, both to protect her son and to handle the situation they’d caused together.

The hard tiles of the bathroom floor sent chills up her bare legs, and her thin cotton nightgown gave her no protection from the cold within. Bringing Neji back into her orbit was better than being alone, hiding in one of the few places where she found refuge within her home. Yet even if the Lee family lived in a sprawling mansion, all the rooms and courtyards wouldn’t have offered her enough spaces to hide.

He’d never asked for her body to defy their shared will, to keep their love detached from all consequence and inconvenient externalities. Their first time falling into bed together after years apart, he’d asked whether he needed to worry about creating another child. In his question, the Hyuga clan head had sought reassurance that he wouldn’t need to contend with another bastard.

Mom loves you, and she’s sorry, Tenten whispered. No way that thing she’d created with Neji could hear her, but hot tears gathered at the bottom rim of her eyes nevertheless.

How unfortunate for everyone involved – herself, Neji, Lee, her sons and the baby – that she couldn’t decide how to address her present bind. Ending the baby’s young life struck her as unjust, however she tried to convince herself that it would be a mercy. Though her contraceptive had failed, a few months more would pass until her pregnancy showed. Time was Tenten’s most valuable resource at the moment. It was Neji’s as well, if she chose to tell him about the baby.

Tenten closed her eyes to blunt her senses while regrets and futile self-hatred assaulted her. She only lifted her chin to attention upon hearing the thump of knuckles on the bathroom door. Lee. His knock had an assertive quality that neither of her sons could match.

“Y-yes?” Tenten choked. “I’ll be out of here in a bit. Just not feeling well.”

The door opened, bringing a rush of cold air from the hallway. A man barging in on a woman in the bathroom wasn’t respectful or proper, Tenten thought. But Lee had seen everything before, knew the entire map of her naked body. He’d shared her life for virtually her entire adulthood, and now she’d shut him out in favor of a man with a far less perfect record as a husband and father.

“You have been sick lately, and you will not tell me why.”

Heat flared in Tenten’s core. She wanted to tell her husband that she was a person separate from him, with rights to her own secrets. Rather than rebuke Lee for his sincere concern, she pressed her lips into a thin line and shook her head. Tenten’s eyes fell to the criss-crossing grout lines along the bathroom floor because making eye contact with her husband seared her heart. The silence between husband and wife rang in the tiny space that confined them both. Persisting through Tenten’s mask of indifference, Lee stepped forward so the tips of his toes were inches from her shins.

A hand extended from above to raise her up. Without thinking, Tenten wrapped her fingers around Lee’s hand. His warm, firm hand brought her a moment of clarity – maybe she would allow her husband to lead her out, and return to the old way of things. Wiping the slate clean made so much sense while Lee tugged at her hand, probably to lead her to bed afterward. No, that wasn’t an option. Releasing a long breath, Tenten let the hand slip from her grasp.

It fell into her lap, right over her lower core.

“I...had some bad sushi,” she laughed.

Tenten hadn’t eaten anything other than rice porridge for the past four days. After a week of vomiting any other food she tried eating, she’d admitted defeat and resigned herself to only the blandest fare.

“Every day this week? I find that difficult to believe.”

Lee sighed, disbelief obvious in the lilt of his response. His tendency to take everything literally doomed her desperate attempt to inject humor into her pathetic state, as she should have anticipated. He’d stayed by her side through both pregnancies, so he wasn’t ignorant to the ways a woman’s body changed while a child grew inside her. Her first had seen far more complications than the second, but the period of morning nausea featured during both. Fortunately, Lee spared her further questioning for the moment.

“Me too,” Tenten whispered. “Hey, I’ll be back out in a bit. Just...give me some space to breathe, okay?”

Her husband bent to touch his lips to the top of her head, murmuring a feel better soon, dear into her hairline. He retreated back into the hallway and closed the door with a soft click. Tenten had her space to breathe, and found that no amount of air would rid the feeling of suffocation in her lungs.

The click of their door behind Lee’s retreating back left Tenten with a hollowness in her chest, aching and throbbing around the hole he bored there. Her husband hadn’t closed the door in an angry way, and in fact, he’d made less noise than when he closed the door in one of his usual bursts of excitement. She was unsettled by the restrained way he closed the door, the little click that had a strange finality to it. The closing of their door sounded deliberate, not a matter of thoughtless routine. With the silence of their house ringing in her ears, Tenten could almost imagine that Lee meant to rebuke her. She’d wanted Jiro to reconnect with Neji over her husband’s objections, to invite Neji back into Jiro’s life as his father.

Now, he left her to reap the storm that approached. Maybe he knew – oh, that could have been why Lee refused to speak anything of his reasons, except to blame work. “Work” was never a bad excuse for a jounin, since the shinobi career could easily consume one’s waking hours like a whirlpool. But Lee was too kind to openly accuse his wife of disloyalty, and so it made sense that he’d voice his discontent by casting distance between them. Tenten’s hot tears threatened to leak from the corners of her eyes when three abrupt raps hit her doorframe. Neji – she thought, both because she expected his prompt arrival and because that was how he announced himself.

“C-coming,” Tenten called back. Her mind still drifting high above her body, she approached the door in shuffling footsteps and twisted the doorknob for him.

The door opened to reveal Neji standing with his hands balanced beneath a tray. Rice cakes, as a courtesy for his hostess. Tenten stammered out a hello and pinched the corners of her lips, ultimately falling short of a smile because she couldn’t manage to lift her face. Her pulse pounded in her ears, as part of her wanted him to leave but another wanted to draw him close.

“Hello, Tenten,” Neji answered. “Thank you for inviting me over...I-I wasn’t expecting to hear from you again so soon.”

“I wasn’t expecting to contact you so soon.”

Tenten spoke with a defensive edge. Her words removed her responsibility for the invitation, though it had been her letter that arrived at his desk. In her handwriting, with no mention of Jiro or her pregnancy. She relished inflicting just a fraction of her current pain on another, and Neji presented an easy target. After she’d pushed his back against the wall during their last time seeing one another in-person, Neji clearly yearned to win back her confidence.

“I’m happy you did.”

Tenten just managed to twist her body to the side for Neji to enter through the narrow entryway, so he could deposit his rice cakes on the dining table. He then draped his light jacket across the back of a chair. She blinked faster and faster to blot the tears gathering at the bottom rims of her eyes, tears which didn’t escape her guest’s notice. Though tears had since reduced everything in her field of view to indistinct shapes and colors, Tenten’s ears bristled at the soft padding of Neji’s bare feet on the floorboards. His hand brushed the side of her cheek, fingertips leaving sharp tingles along her skin. Gods, Tenten both loved and hated how circumstance glued them together. In the end, they had one another – when Neji’s clan left him cornered, and Tenten’s husband drew farther from her reach.

When they'd both fucked up, and created another bastard.

Sometimes, I feel that you and I are set against the world, Neji had said once. But you’re always there for me. No, he’d spoken some variation of those words more than once – he’d been prone to expressions of despair in their teenage years. Tenten had anchored him, same as he’d anchored her when fear of death, of injury or loss, threatened to overwhelm her.

“You’re crying.”

“I am, yeah.”

Her statement of the obvious facts would have been funny under different circumstances. The sarcasm she tried to project instead sounded tinny, the sad assertion of a woman who couldn’t muster the confidence to pretend.

She huffed while biting her bottom lip to avoid sobbing before the man she’d told in no uncertain terms to fuck off. Her quivering hand circled around his wrist to throw him off. Neji cupped the outer curve of her jaw, undeterred by her feeble attempt to break free. Tenten’s hands lacked conviction, and he could sense the temptation to fall back to him.

“I love you,” Neji said, as his other hand captured her face from the other side. He stepped forward in the same motion, setting his puckered lips to the crown of her bowed head. “I won’t force you to tell me what’s bothering you so much, but you can cry to me.”

Tenten must have appeared pathetic standing in her dining room as a dazed invalid. Neji’s ricecake offering grew cold on the table and she’d yet to begin steeping tea for them. And hadn’t the entire point of this visit been tea and conversation? So far, they’d shared little of either. Though she tried to apologize or at least begin to explain her predicament, Tenten’s tongue sat like lead at the base of her mouth. Yet her lover didn’t need a long explanation of what pained her, because he’d suffered the same agony – maybe worse. 

Whatever the truth, the racing thoughts eventually settled from her mind, replaced by the soothing relief of letting her worries go. Rather than a rush of voices, she heard only the rhythm of Neji’s breath tickling her bangs and the quiet thrum of her heartbeat. Tenten rested her cheek on his shoulder, their hands clasping at her side while they rocked back and forth in an odd dance.

“I should never have left you,” Neji sighed. “I’m sorry. I...if only we could have left everything when you discovered – ah, when you discovered you were expecting.”

“You’re here now.”

“Sometimes I think I was destined to find you again.”

Some thread – call it fate, or destiny – had bound them together across years and the distance cast between them by social station. Or, it was the life they created. Beyond the love they shared, his belief in the inevitability of their connection may have been why he’d forgiven her so quickly. Even when she’d thrown him from the house with curses and shouts, and promised that he’d never be welcome near her or their son again. With Neji’s hands resting in their familiar places on her shoulder and lower back, they felt inseparable.

“Then I guess you hate me for throwing you out last time, huh?” Tenten’s question held a trace of a bitter laugh. “You were just trying your best for us...and Jiro – he was the one who wanted to see you again. He said I should give you a second chance.”

The arms encircling her constricted to bring them closer, to the extent that they could further compress the distance between their bodies. Neji kissed the hollow next to her eye, impressing the curve of his smile on her skin. I wish I could see him again, he whispered, as if their son weren’t merely at school. Tenten squeezed her eyes shut so her tears could blot on his yukata while she remembered Jiro standing paralyzed in the street, haunted by the image of a father who may or may not have been there. With Jiro’s parentage a confirmed fact in the village, Neji couldn’t well appear in public alongside Tenten and Jiro without attracting judgment that would corrode his standing. She’d taken that kind of liberty for granted when it came to Lee and her children, and in a perfect world, any family would have enjoyed the freedom to love in public.

“He wants that, too,” Tenten reiterated. “I do.”

Neji gave no response other than to envelop her lips in his, stealing the sob that rose from the base of her throat. His hands holding her face still, he next brought his lips to the spot below the corner of her eyes, slicked by her tears.

When he withdrew a few inches, Tenten saw the tinge of red around his eyes, the telltale splotches on his nose and cheek. He, too, had been crying, though she didn’t know for how long. Through the tears, Neji had kept his back straight and his embrace firm, so she could enjoy his comfort without worrying about his unraveling. Tenten’s heart split from pity and an intense, almost painful rush of affection for him.

“We’ll find our way out of this together. We have to.” Tenten steeled her voice and seized the back of Neji’s neck. “I’m not going to let them do this to our son. You don’t have to accept that he’s fated to marry one of them. Please. You used to want to be free so badly. I don’t think you’ve lost your will to fight...just, do you want to keep settling for good enough?”

She paused, hearing only labored breaths coming from her lover. His white eyes scanned her face, flickering up, down, left, right. Tenten let her hand slide down to the junction of his neck and shoulder, while wondering whether her attempt to give Neji hope had done any good. Please, please, don’t give up, Tenten wanted to say, but she kept quiet to grant him time to process. And they had hours of time left until Tenten needed to bring Jiro home from the academy, and she guessed even more hours until Lee found it safe to return home. She’d given her husband no exact indication on how long Neji would be over, but his aloofness told her that he wouldn’t risk a chance encounter with their former teammate.

Still, Tenten burned for Neji to bolster her hopes right then. Yet her silence on the new life they created betrayed her lingering doubt. Call it self-preservation, perhaps - the defense mechanism of a wounded heart.

“Tenten – I want to say yes,” he said, in a soft hiss. “You were entirely correct when you told me...in less tactful words, that an arranged marriage for Jiro is an unjust punishment for him. I need to find a way. You’re worth it, though. Both of you.”

For now, Tenten would grasp the little reassurance – he wanted to say yes, even if numerous blocks prevented him from giving an unqualified yes. For the sake of their love, Tenten told herself that he’d get there eventually.

“I’ll...see you later?” Tenten whispered. Her thumb hooked onto his bottom lip, her eyelids fluttering closed. “Please?”

Neji placed both of his hands to her cheeks with the same reverence of a man holding something infinitely precious and fragile. He tilted his head downward so his lips met the part in her hair. They rocked back and forth across the same patch of floor in a strange slow dance, his frame stabilizing her swaying form. Whatever wreckage they’d made of their respective lives, Tenten remarked to herself that they could at least cling to each other amid the floating debris and broken dreams.

“I’m never leaving you again. Even if you want me gone.”

Chapter Text

The next time Amaya Hyuga tugged at Jiro’s wrist and used her shoulder to gesture behind the academy building, he only panicked for an instant. Excitement tugged at the base of his stomach rather than a spiral of anxiety and paranoia. After weeks passed with no more mention of teaching or learning the ways of the Byakugan, Jiro questioned whether his sister had changed her mind. Jiro could understand Amaya’s reluctance to stand against the father who dominated her life. A young heiress, however privileged, had little hope of surviving the discovery of her betrayal with reputation and family standing intact.

Yet she’d defied the clan’s rules and traditions – why, he couldn’t say on her behalf. 

“Why are you –”

In the small yard behind the academy building, Jiro caught Amaya’s white eyes, which narrowed beneath her furrowed brows. Before he could swear that he didn’t mean to broadcast any ingratitude, Amaya held a finger inches from his lips to quiet him. Jiro’s pulse jumped – of course, they still needed to keep their voices down to avoid notice.

“We’re friends, aren’t we?” his sister shot back in a hiss. “And I think Father is wrong. I don’t care that he said I can’t teach you, brother.”

The heat in Amaya’s whisper carried an undeniable determination, of the kind that teenage Neji Hyuga must have used to insist on the unchangeable nature of fate. Jiro swallowed the thick gob of spit at the back of his throat. Brother and sister had inherited his gifts – and his vices. He supposed one could just as easily be viewed as the other, purely depending on circumstance. Any response forming in the recesses of Jiro’s mind faded before his will to believe her. We're friends, aren't we? She’d called him friend enough times to acclimate him to the title, and he’d called his sister friend in return. But Jiro clung to those words because they spoke volumes of her allegiances.

“Thanks. I mean it. You’re really brave.” Jiro’s limp answer couldn’t express nearly what she could just by calling him her brother. He needed to try, though. To convey his sincere gratitude, in defiance of his awkwardness.

Amaya’s lower lip jutted out over her jaw, barely visible. Clearly his sister didn’t appreciate being patronized when she was only two years his junior, and his instructor. She muttered a it wasn’t that much to do for a friend, before drawing Jiro’s focus back to her. Returning to her area of expertise – the Hyuga kekkai genkai and jutsu – brought Amaya back to comfortable ground. Jiro, too. Familiar flutters stirred his heart when he envisioned leveraging his newfound gifts to ensure nobody ever hurt him out of boredom or cruelty without suffering consequences.

“Did you master the chakra control exercise?” Amaya ventured. “The one I showed you last time.”

Jiro pivoted his shoulders from side to side, hands in his pockets. He’d practiced the exercise at least a few times a day since they last met. He struggled to concentrate his chakra in the limbo between when he awoke in the morning and when Mom arrived to rouse him. Before sleeping. While the rush of scalding water swept over him in the shower. All to underwhelming results. His lackluster chakra control mirrored Rock Lee’s, and in another reality, Mom might have said like father, like son to that.

“Sort of? I can’t quite get all the chakra on my forehead in a dot the size of your fingertip. But I got it some of the way there. Like I have it to the size of a ping-pong ball.”

The ball of chakra he gathered behind his eyes rarely ever remained there for long. His chakra pushed back at him like the currents of a river resisting a dam, yearning to keep moving along his coils – the rivers within him. Amaya tented her slender white fingers over her nose and mouth, swaying on her sandaled feet. Jiro hoped that his earnest efforts wouldn’t go unrecognized, or unseen. If she thought he was incompetent, or worst of all – lazy, his sister might lose her patience. I’m worth the risk, Jiro wanted to tell Amaya. I promise I won’t let you down. However, if Jiro had learned one lesson from his parents, it was to avoid making promises without certainty that he could deliver.

“You need to keep working on it,” Amaya said, her voice flat. “We can move ahead while we're here, though. I’m sure you’ve been working hard.”

Amaya reached her fingers into the pocket on her dress that was tucked under her sash. While she fumbled and grasped at nothing Jiro could see, Amaya explained that she’d defied her father again, this time by stealing a piece of chakra paper from his study. A tiny sliver of the paper – all she’d snagged from his stash – cost as much as a week’s worth of food for Jiro’s family. Amaya’s lips cracked into a fleeting smile when she brandished the paper between her thumb and forefinger, before handing it to Jiro with careful instructions. Jiro was to hold the slip between two fingers while remaining still and keeping his fingers pointed upward. She promised to explain the purpose behind her request once something happened to the paper in his grasp.

“What’s going to happen?” Jiro asked. “This is safe, right?”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen, but...nobody’s going to get hurt. Trust me, okay?”

Her white eyes projected just a trace of warmth in their blank gaze, or maybe Jiro imagined the shadows gathering at their edges. Jiro nodded once. He took the paper between his index and middle fingers, eyes crossed where they fixated on the paper. Nothing’s happening, he thought, seeing only white paper crumpling slightly where his fingers gripped it. Then the top of the paper began to smolder, before the entire slip ignited. Jiro gasped and dropped the slip to the grass, crushing the embers beneath his sandals. The panic made Amaya laugh into her cupped palm.

She’d reacted the exact same way when her father put her through the exercise as a toddler, she said. Unlike their father, she wouldn’t scold him for being afraid of fire.

“Just like me, then. That’ll make it easier to teach you if your chakra type is also fire. The paper’s made of special wood that reacts to chakra, and if you have fire chakra –”

“It catches fire.”

“Yes.”

Still in awe of the fire within him, Jiro watched his sister with wide, reproachful eyes. Of all the elements, fire was the most dangerous element, the most unpredictable, the hardest to control.

“You’re going to...teach me something now?”

“It’s what you wanted, isn’t it? If you aren’t any good with your mother’s techniques or Rock Lee’s, you might have better luck with the Hyuga jutsu. What do you remember from the times you managed to activate the Byakugan?” Amaya asked, uncrossing her arms and bracing them against the academy’s brick wall. “Try to tell me.”

“Kenji was going to hurt me,” Jiro declared without hesitation. “He was ready to kick me in the face...”

Jiro swallowed. He wondered whether Amaya might try to force him into activating the Byakugan by risking his life. If a broken face was enough to spark Jiro’s sense of urgency, the threat of imminent death would do so much more. Trial by threat of death was an unconventional training method, to be sure, but effective under certain circumstances. Of course, any unsuccessful subjects wouldn’t live to complain. He’d heard Jiraiya trained the current hokage in that way, pushing him to summon Gamabunta in the moments before he died from impact. But activating the Byakugan while he plummeted from dozens of feet above the ground would do nothing to save his life. Jiro shrank against the rough brick wall and raised his hands.

“Please don’t try to kill me,” Jiro added. “That’s not going to help –”

“You’re so silly. What I mean is – tell me what you remember about the chakra flow in your head.”

“Not much. I was mostly trying to save myself.” Jiro paused. He closed his eyes to relive the terrible moments before his eyes changed, before this phase of his life had begun. Fear had rushed up from his chest, stomach acid rising in his throat. Then something beyond his primal fear response kicked in. “Felt like a door opening, and I could see everything so differently.”

“A door?”

“Yeah. Something was blocking the way to my eyes, and I opened it somehow.”

“Hm. Ideally you’d be able to get the door open before someone or something threatens to hurt you,” she teased, leaning against the wall next to Jiro.

“That’s the goal, I guess.”

“Once you gather and focus your chakra like you practiced, you can direct that chakra outward to push the door open. That’s how it works with fire-type chakra.”

“Okay.”

“Focusing your chakra then adding the hand sign should help. There’s not much for me to tell you from here – a lot of it’s practice, especially for someone like you who...you know. Just practice now.”

Someone like you who’s only half-Hyuga.

Jiro followed his sister’s instructions, and managed to activate his eyes for a fleeting second after much concentration. Amaya flashed him a smile, then shook her head. Not fast enough, she said. He activated the Byakugan again and again until he managed to compress every activation step into the time it took Amaya to blink twice. The effort made Jiro’s muscles tingle with exhaustion, his eyes throbbing. The thrill of grasping the forbidden made him smile as he slumped to the stunted brown grass at Amaya’s feet.

“Good,” she said. “Next, focus on holding it. Channel your chakra and keep it flowing through the door. Once you can do that, I’ll start teaching you how to use it for scouting and staying aware of what’s around you.”

“Holding?” he panted. “I’m so tired already.”

“You need to build your endurance gradually. You shouldn’t strain yourself too quickly or you’ll do permanent damage to your eyes.”

Numb, Jiro could only nod as the cold from the packed earth seeped past his thin cotton clothing and into his skin. His heart pattered against the confines of his ribcage. The strain of using his enhanced vision had overwhelmed him, leaving his heart and lungs struggling to compensate. But beyond his immediate exhaustion, Jiro found himself energized by a sense of power he'd never known. 

“I should say congratulations,” Amaya said stiffly while Jiro steadied his breaths. When his eyes opened to search her face, they had returned to their regular golden brown.

His fleeting activations of the Byakugan testified to yet-inadequate chakra control. Her brother could neither focus his chakra at fine enough a point nor focus it for long enough to keep his Byakugan activated. But Jiro deserved a bit of encouragement.

Kneeling on the ground with her dress hiked above her knees, Amaya reached an arm around Jiro and pulled him into her. He hummed, whispering thanks. In her arms, he was a warm and fragile thing, just a bit too thin. The hard ridges of his shoulder blades and ribs pressed into her hands. That was what she supposed a sister and a friend would do. 

“Thanks,” Jiro sighed. “I still have a lot to do before I can get actually use it, huh?”

“Yes. I think we both know that.”

Jiro shook his head and looked at a patch of bald dirt next to her.

Using her Byakugan came without great exertion on her part. At her age, activating her eyes came as easily as opening her eyelids, Amaya reminded herself that she was a full-blooded Hyuga – the only kind her father should have ever created, according to the clan. Her brother had a weakened version of the clan’s kekkai genkai that would require more persistence to master.

“Someday, nobody’s going to look at me and see a loser.”

His warm breath falling at the side of her neck, Jiro seemed to speak mostly to himself. Amaya stiffened her shoulders and nodded. She heard in his voice an invitation to share his dream, and it was a tempting one. If he managed to master the Byakugan, Jiro would see the world through new eyes in more ways than one. Amaya only wished he could see what she saw - a kind friend and brother, with strength of his own - with the eyes he already had.

Jiro smoothed the two bandages over his knuckles – shuriken and kunai on a green background. Mom would have approved, he thought, same as he had during his last visit to the nurse at the start of it all. He sat in the same spot as he had after he activated the Byakugan, but Nurse Akira now glanced at him sidelong with a mixture of awe and fear. Kenji sat in a vinyl-backed chair next to the door with an ice pack on his right cheek and a darkening bruise below his eye. The academy’s nurse gave Jiro an ice pack wrapped in a napkin, setting the bundle next to his hand. Jiro clutched the ice pack between his tensed fingers, which still stung with the dull ache of hard impact.

I didn’t start it, Jiro thought when Kenji cast a scowl in his direction. His regular bully’s angry look appeared almost pathetic – and certainly not intimidating – when mingled with a wince of pain.

I didn’t start it, Jiro insisted again, more to himself than any imagined version of Kenji. He held Kenji’s glare for a moment before he glanced to his lap with a twitch of his lip. Whatever his former aspirations for revenge, Jiro’s heart swelled at the sight of Kenji’s injury. The marks left by his fists and elbows had proven far more effective than any training he received with his Byakugan, training that still hadn’t yielded fruit.

“Be back in a bit. Don’t start anything else, okay, boys?” Akira huffed. “Both of you can restrain yourselves for 10 minutes, hm?”

The nurse clearly didn’t concern herself with blame or fret over who among the boys was at fault. She looked no farther than the headaches they brought to her footstep, and the injuries she’d need to treat.

The door clicked shut behind Akira’s thudding footsteps that receded down the corridor. A chill spread up Jiro’s core in the moments after he realized that Akira had left him alone with Kenji. He told himself that the 10 minutes would pass quickly, though the recriminations that followed might last well into his future.

I didn’t start it. They’ll see that, Jiro repeated like a prayer. You’re not in trouble. He’ll be the one in trouble. The reassurances did nothing to still the churning of his stomach.

Cruelty didn’t come to Jiro with the same readiness that it came to Kenji, regardless of whether he could claim self-defense. His mind raced with replays of the seconds leading to his decisive strikes. Kenji’s arms were locked around his chest, his knee digging into the back of Jiro’s leg. The particular trigger for this episode of bullying weren’t of particular importance. Kenji needed no pretense – though Jiro admitted to himself that he’d waited for the pretense to strike his bully. Sensing a loosening of Kenji’s grip, Jiro had dropped down in a single abrupt motion. His movement broke Kenji’s focus long enough for him to wrench himself free, then throw a series of blows at Kenji’s exposed face, shins and groin.

“You okay?” Jiro mumbled. He couldn’t discern whether Kenji heard him, and part of him prayed that the aside hadn’t reached its target.

“No, of course not.”

The bitter retort ended their exchange, probably the only words the two boys ever shared without the specter of intimidation. Jiro felt an upwelling of spite toward Kenji for rejecting his gesture of goodwill, however feeble it was. Kenji craved easy fights and easy targets, and Jiro supposed his main fault was proving he wasn’t one.

“You’ve never asked me that,” Jiro countered. He must have sounded like a whiny child, complaining about behavior that seemed all but baked into Kenji’s character. Expecting Kenji to check on the well-being of his favorite victim was as ridiculous as expecting his father to request his mother’s hand in marriage.

“Yeah?”

Kenji rolled his eyes. The droop of his swollen eyelid reduced the whites of his eyes to a mere sliver. And Jiro’s attempt at a reckoning fell flat, per his expectations. Instead of provoking his bully further, Jiro twisted his hands in his lap while he waited for Akira to swing back through the door, no doubt exasperated and cursing the antics of preteen boys. Jiro examined the cracks in his cuticles, the chip in his thumbnail – maybe from one of his punches to Kenji’s jaw. 

Chastened, Kenji didn’t venture even a single dig at Jiro’s mother or Jiro himself. The rhythm of footsteps echoed down the corridor, faint at first, then growing in volume and speed as they approached the door.

“Jiro, we’ve notified the parents listed as your official points of contact,” Nurse Akira explained with her voice in a forced monotone. “This is your first infraction, so your instructor thought it prudent to spare you detention or an official suspension.”

Parents listed as your official points of contact. Kenji concealed a snicker under the ice pack, but Jiro paid no attention to his reflexive contempt. Again, Kenji’s impotent expressions of condescension and his assertions of superiority didn’t register with the same pain as before. Jiro gave a stiff nod once Akira directed him to wait in the academy’s lobby for whichever parent could escort him – probably Mom, considering her husband needed to prepare for a mission.

An hour passed under the watchful eyes of the wall clock and the occasional curious glances of passing instructors or students. At one point, a kunoichi instructor asked him about the bandages on his knuckles with a sickening sweet quality in her voice. Jiro simply told her that he’d been injured while practicing his taijutsu. Technically not a lie, though his answer strained most popular definitions of “practice.” Fortunately, she neglected to ask why he waited in the lobby for his parents rather than returning to class with his injured hand.

Jiro didn’t have a half-truth ready to answer that particular question.

One of his parents did arrive to escort him from the academy’s premises toward the one and a half hour mark, but not the man Jiro expected. Neji Hyuga arrived with a note bearing Mom’s signature, his long black hair in a windblown topknot. Jiro wondered why Mom couldn’t shutter the store for an hour while she brought him to serve as her “shop assistant” for the day. Maybe Mom endeavored to make his father share in the tedium, the unpleasant duties of parenting. The Hyuga clan head raised his hand to acknowledge his son, and Jiro answered the greeting with his lips pressed. Once his father approached him, Jiro’s cheeks burned while he slumped forward in his seat.

“Your mother was unavailable to come for you as requested,” his father said, without a hello or how are you? “Your mother’s…husband was also unavailable.”

“Yeah, sorry about all this,” Jiro muttered. “I-I, uh, didn’t mean to have any of this happen.”

“Come with me. There’s no reason we can’t walk and have a conversation.”

“O-okay.”

They passed through the academy gate with Jiro three paces behind his father, the eyes of curious onlookers boring into his back.

Jiro cursed his father for taking a keen interest in his affairs on the day when he landed afoul of the academy’s rules for the first time. Neji Hyuga’s clipped tone left Jiro little indication on how he might approach his son’s discipline. Yet Jiro recognized that he had nowhere to go but wherever his father wanted to take him. Not back to the Hyuga compound, not unless his father had thrown all tact to the wind. Jiro considered arguing that he wasn’t feeling well, that he should return home to recuperate alone. 

“You were fighting in the schoolyard, I gather?”

Jiro wouldn’t – and couldn’t – forget the events of recess. The dulled ache in his knuckles wouldn’t allow it, and neither would the temptation to pick at his bandages.

“I was. It was wrong of me, I know. I didn’t start it, Father. I promise.”

He’d finally said the words – I didn’t start it. Spoken aloud, they sounded like a paper-thin shield against the approbation he deserved. The Hyuga clan head paused so Jiro’s footsteps closed the gap between them. By then, they’d distanced themselves from the academy by several blocks, reaching a quiet neighborhood of single-family houses with gated yards. Jiro tensed his core to brace himself for his father’s lecture on self-control, or the importance of obeying the rules set out for young shinobi in training. This was the Neji Hyuga who embodied Hyuga manners. The man who forfeited his love for duty, and his pride for the good of his clan.

“I snapped, Father. Kenji’s been hitting me and calling me a loser for years,” Jiro continued, when his father didn’t reply. “He’s been calling Mom a whore since everything happened with my Byakugan.”

His father hummed. This was also the man who bore the caged bird seal and its indignities for his entire childhood. Neji Hyuga knew the fear and pain that Jiro suffered throughout his school days. The man who lapsed back into his latent desires for a love long neglected. Maybe the Hyuga clan head would show sympathy before resorting to rigid discipline.

“I am aware of all of it,” Jiro’s father said. A note of anger added hard edges to his words – whether that was driven by his protective instincts toward his son or regard for Tenten Lee’s honor, Jiro couldn’t say. “Trust me, Jiro. I have heard about this boy from Amaya and your reaction is all too understandable.”

“Then…what did you want to speak with me about, Father?”

Jiro waited for his father to continue, given that his words back at the academy suggested far more than a short statement of understanding. All too understandable, but…

“Violence for the sake of retribution or compensating for your weakness is not the route to strength.”

Jiro offered his father a yeah, I understand. The fleeting rush of adrenaline through his veins faded with the immediacy of his clash with Kenji, leaving him with a hurt hand and without the satisfaction of overcoming his weakness. His father’s voice held no anger, no condemnation. Jiro recalled that his father had once brought his cousin, Hinata Hyuga, to the edge of death during their chunin exams face off. Driven by grief for his own father and hatred for the Hyuga main clan, Neji Hyuga had struck Hinata with fast, merciless blows meant to stop her heart.

In the years since their first attempt at the exams, they’d developed a cordial relationship, even if they were no longer in regular contact.

“As for whether you started it, I’ve come to believe what matters more is how you end it. None of the difficulties you’ve experienced at school are your fault, and I don’t want you to believe you’re responsible in any way for how that boy and his friends treat you. But Jiro – conditioning yourself to assert yourself with force isn’t good for you.”

“What do you mean by how you end it, Father?”

The Hyuga clan head stopped beneath a shade tree to clasp Jiro’s shoulders. Beneath the shadow of the tree’s branches, his father’s white face turned pale gray and the shadow of his smile lengthened.

“Jiro, I mean how you resolve your difficulties in a way that preserves your integrity. I’ve…made mistakes when I allowed my anger to twist me in horrible ways. You must know that I wasn’t the one who placed the seal on my forehead, or began that tradition –”

“I know,” Jiro interjected.

“Still, I believed that justified every ounce of hatred, and every act of violence. Your Aunt Hinata is fortunate to have survived, but perhaps I should say I’m the more fortunate one.”

His father’s voice hitched, and for the first time, Jiro noticed the traces of white in his black hair and the hairline wrinkles on his forehead. Though Neji Hyuga hadn’t yet reached 40 years old, he bore the same signs of age as Jiro’s grandfather. Jiro scrambled for a response, but found none handy when he’d never killed anyone or been goaded into attempted murder.

“More fortunate, how?”

Hinata Hyuga had remained in the hospital for two weeks after her defeat in the chunin exams at age 13, then required months more to regain full function. When Jiro paused to consider his father’s statement, he realized that Neji Hyuga might have suffered execution from his clan if the clan head’s daughter had died. Perhaps expulsion from the shinobi forces or sanctions for his unhinged killing of another leaf shinobi, regardless of what the chunin exam rules stated. His father forced a tight smile to his lips, one that told Jiro he wasn’t concerned about himself or potential recriminations for his actions.

“I did not become a murderer. At the time, the chunin exam rules allowed for the killing of one’s opponent, but I would have grown to regret my actions. However I justified them, they were not about winning in a fair fight.”

“But I didn’t try to kill –”

“I understand, Jiro.” His father's breath seized in his throat, a spasm running up his spine and stiffening his shoulders. “You did not err in quite the terrible way I did.”

Jiro held a bandaged fist to his lips to suppress the laugh that attempted to rise. No, his father’s solemn reflection on his past was not a good cause for laughter and Jiro would have proven himself callous if he allowed his laugh to break out.

“I liked it, though. Hitting him, when he’s done the same thing to me.”

Jiro’s whispered answer fell between father and son with the understated softness of leaves drifting to the ground. His father received the words with a hum and a twitch of his lip.

“I suppose we’re alike in our vices, though I can imagine even the kindest boy would fold like you did. You must recognize, then, that liking such things leads nowhere good. That mistake must not define you.”

The Hyuga clan head’s words tumbled out, fast and heavy. More so than cheering Jiro at an academy student showcase, Neji Hyuga embodied the duties of fatherhood when he addressed his son at his lowest, and laid himself low to compensate.

“Y-yeah. Thanks, Father. I guess.”

“May I ask? Did you want to learn the Byakugan for reasons of vengeance or power?”

“I…yeah, I wanted to be more powerful so they wouldn’t mess with me. I thought about using it in practice fights. And if they wanted to hurt me, I’d get back at them.”

At issue wasn’t Jiro’s blatant disregard for Hyuga clan law, or Amaya’s refusal to follow her father’s orders. Jiro dared hope that his father forgave him for daring to skirt clan laws for something so petty as personal advantage in schoolyard spats. Not that Jiro Sato was sorry – far from it, when he’d made progress toward achieving some form of mastery over his kekkai genkai.

“You sound like me. So much that it almost pains me to listen.” A mixture of regret and nostalgia – in what fraction, Jiro couldn’t be sure – weighed down his father’s voice.

The fist around Jiro’s heart unclenched by a touch, as he took the Hyuga clan head’s tone as confirmation that he was forgiven. Or, that other matters distracted Neji Hyuga from disciplining Jiro.

“If you do manage to master your Byakugan, I want it to be for a good reason,” Jiro’s father continued, after pausing to scan Jiro’s face.

A gasp escaped from between Jiro's lips. He wondered whether that message of tacit approval - a dramatic reversal from his earlier stance - would reach Amaya. Stunned by his father's words, he held his silence.

“Maybe because you’d like to protect someone weaker than you, someone precious. Someone you love. I don’t know you well enough to say who that might be –” here, his voice stalled again. “If you have that person in mind, don’t forsake them. There’s…fewer things harder to recover than lost bonds. Grow older with fewer regrets than I have. That’s what another man advised me recently, and I think I should pass it along.”

Jiro speculated that Mom had been his father’s guiding light and the one who kept him on the path toward using his power for good. Though the spark between his parents remained years after Jiro’s conception, so many patches of thorns and twisted boughs had sprouted in the rift between them. Unprompted, Jiro began wondering who might be the precious person in his life. Amaya and Metal needed no protection from him when his younger sister rescued him from harm, and his younger brother’s abilities surpassed his. A few moments later, Jiro settled on the baby sibling whose sex he didn't yet know, whose existence set them in an even more precarious position than the one he inhabited. 

“Okay, Father.”

Jiro crossed his arms over his chest and turned to face away from the white eyes that peered on him with uncomfortable intensity.

“I’ve never been good at this,” Jiro’s father sighed after a moment of pause. “I’m not predisposed to having these conversations with children, so I apologize.”

Jiro hummed and nodded. The lopsided grimace on his father’s face elicited a rush of pity. In the silence that followed his apology, Neji Hyuga reached down so Jiro’s injured hand lay across his palm. Narrowed white eyes scanned the damage on Jiro's knuckles and his careful thumb ran over the back of Jiro’s hand. He raised his hand an inch closer to his lips, but dropped it rather than give the injuries a kiss.

“Um, y-you know, Mom said you’re never going to be ready for kids. Don’t know if that makes you feel better.”

A glimmer of amusement caught in Neji Hyuga’s white eyes. Jiro’s heart jumped – he hadn’t expected his feeble platitude to amuse his father. At best, Jiro anticipated that his father would react with annoyance – after all, who was a child to condescend to him? – or pity at his son’s naivety. The Hyuga clan head laid a hand across Jiro’s shoulder, and Jiro observed that the top of his head reached just an inch below his father’s.

“It just so happens that I was the one who told her that. And I still believe it to be true.”

Jiro swallowed the gob of spit at the back of his mouth, and nodded. Soon, his father would see that statement tested again - but for the time being, he wouldn't be the one to bring the challenge.

Chapter Text

Risa Hyuga sat at the dining table propped up on two pillows. Her swollen midsection made her look much larger and more intimidating, though Amaya's mother now struggled to even reach the bathroom unassisted. Pale blue-gray circles sat beneath Mother’s eyes like shadows. Somehow, those made her appear more imposing. Unlike Mother, Father stared back with a blank face, one he rehearsed to perfection. 

“Do you have something you’d like to admit, Amaya?" Father began. The slightest trace of emotion flickered in his raised brow. "Your mother and I received a message from the servant who came to bring you home today.”

Amaya had prepared herself for the lecture in the intervening hours between recess break and dinnertime. Heat shot up her core when she pictured the instructor who caught her with her brother behind the academy building during a smoke break. The cigarette still wedged in the corner of his lip, the stocky chunin had assaulted her with a reminder that students weren't permitted there, brown spittle flying from his mouth. And her Hyuga inheritance wouldn’t save her from consequences for a brazen violation of academy policy, he said. Pressed by his persistent questioning, Amaya explained that she brought JIro Sato to the secluded yard for instruction in the Hyuga clan secrets. In the moment, it was less damning of an explanation than any number of other possibilities. It also happened to be the truth.

Glancing between her parents, Amaya wanted to shrivel her body into something small, something that could slip into one of the dining room’s corners or through a hole in the wall. But Mother and Father offered no escape.

“I’m very disappointed in you,” Mother spat. “You had orders from your father not to teach the Sato boy.”

Jiro is my brother, Amaya corrected silently. She wouldn’t call Jiro her brother within earshot of her mother, who’d flushed with indignation the last time Amaya let her tongue slip. Father perhaps reserved his angry lecture for later, to preserve the semblance of peace at family dinner. If he wanted to speak, she wished he would do it now rather than leave her waiting. His eyes fluttered closed, a fist balling next to his bowl.

“Risa. Leave this to me,” Father began, his head downcast as if he wanted to avoid Mother’s gaze. “I’m not angry with you. I want to understand why you did it.”

However angry Amaya made her, Mother wouldn’t violate the proper order of things – at least as she understood it – to argue with her husband in front of the children. With a huff, Mother turned to feed Reina a mouthful of rice and vegetables, cooing at her younger daughter. Petulant as she could be, at least Reina had the pliable mind of a toddler and would never dream of disobeying her parents. To Amaya’s sister, everything Mother and Father did was for the protection of their family. Of everything Risa Hyuga valued in children, she loved obedience most.

Amaya straightened her shoulders and explained her reasoning. It grated on her – that Jiro had the Byakugan, but would forever be unable to use it. He was a leaf shinobi in training and a leaf shinobi needed to marshall every ability to its fullest potential in service of his village. And the Hyuga clan was ultimately loyal to the leaf, she continued, careful not to present her loyalty to her clan and village as two forces in conflict.

While she spoke, Father nodded and tapped his fingertips to the end of his chin. 

“I see you have your own ideas of what fairness means,” Father remarked. “That’s interesting to see.”

The lilt of Father’s voice left Amaya unbalanced, uncertain of what he meant. Interesting could suggest disappointment, or pleasant surprise – and she hoped he would show her leniency or at least a measure of sympathy. 

“Y-yes,” Amaya answered, stiffening her spine.

Yet her lip still quivered with the urge to plead for Father’s forgiveness and admit her great mistake. To do so would betray Jiro, who might have escaped with the lesser consequences for now, but possibly faced worse. A half-Hyuga bastard not bound with the former Caged Bird Seal or any loyalty to the clan would be more problematic to the elders now that he had a rudimentary grasp on the kekkai genkai.

A glance at Amaya's mother and younger sister showed Mother distracted by a spill from her daughter’s bowl. Their preoccupation left her alone with her father, exposed to his searching white eyes.

“You remind me of myself as a child,” he continued.

The warmth in Father's words did nothing to slow Amaya’s pulse. Mother’s head turned from Reina for a moment, and her lips parted then closed.

“Is that true, Father?”

“I refused to accept the way things were as told by my uncle and the clan elders. For a long time, I believed my fate would never change. I never thought to do anything about –”

“Dear, you shouldn’t encourage her to seek such trouble,” Mother interjected. Her words grew louder, infused with the heat of her rising temper. “I’m disappointed that you would steer her into repeating this kind of behavior. I knew. I told you, that bastard boy would lead her nowhere good.”

The purse in Mother's lips dared her husband or elder daughter to disagree. Though she addressed Father, Amaya knew her real message was intended for her daughter – obey us and don’t pretend you know better. You’re only a girl. Eyes darting between Amaya and his wife, her father paused to eat a mouthful of rice.

“Amaya should be encouraged to think for herself. In a sense, I’m proud of her for disobeying me.”

In a sense. Father hadn’t quite vindicated his daughter or said he planned to spare her from punishment. The former rebel turned clan head faced a challenging bind – caught between his principles, his former rejection of authority and his need to fulfill the duties of his position. Leaving her unpunished would undermine him before his family – his wife, most of all - and compromise his leadership. Telling Amaya to obey the clan’s authority unconditionally because the Hyuga clan was family would render him a hypocrite, though all adults were hypocrites.

“Father. You’re proud of me?” Amaya pointed at her heart with two fingers.

“Of course. You’re a strong, intelligent young woman.”

And…? The lack of answers on her discipline chilled Amaya’s blood. Her father’s praise seemed to soften the blow for when he told her what awaited. Reina’s mess cleared, Mother likewise watched her husband and daughter with baited breath. Father flinched for a moment, perhaps overwhelmed by the burden of being the one to make all the decisions, disconcerted by the white eyes fixated on him.

“But Amaya, I can’t let you escape without consequence. You’re forbidden to see Jiro and I’ll take appropriate measures to enforce this.”

The corner of Mother’s lip twitched and her brows lifted. Father had awarded her a partial victory, but the measure of validation she received failed to wipe the exhaustion from her features. Instead, Mother’s expression threw the shadows beneath her eyes into sharper relief.

“Yes, Father,” Amaya whispered, her resolve unbowed.

“Thank you for your understanding.”

From her seat, Reina asked whether big sister was in trouble. Rubbing fingertips to his temples, Father declined to answer his babbling younger daughter. Risa pushed a spoonful of rise to Reina’s lips and answered that yes, Amaya was in trouble for disobeying Father. If Reina wanted to be a good girl, she need only follow her parents’ every instruction.

Neji refused to enter the bedroom he shared with his wife until after the bedside light had dimmed, and the telltale creak of the mattress signaled that she was going to try falling asleep. Then, he would wait over an hour in the sitting room, reading mission memos and intelligence reports. Trying to convince himself he was busy, when in fact, he had no reason not to delay his reading for daylight hours. He certainly had no reason to do this every night for the past several weeks, and Risa knew his state of denial, though she said nothing of it. Neji wasn’t lying to his wife about his workload – at least, he couldn’t call it intentional deception when he deceived himself, too.

Manila envelopes full of crisp printed sheets sat in Neji’s lap, where their weight offered him an odd reassurance. They allowed him a thin shield against his cowardice.

I love you, and I promise to always care for you and the children. He’d said those words months ago when their little fingers entwined in the limbo of half-consciousness before they fell asleep. The events since then had proven him a liar, and saddled him with another promise to another woman.

Risa – the mother of his three daughters – deserved better than a husband who lacked the courage to make amends for his drifting heart. During her pregnancies with Amaya and Reina, he’d indulged her with extra caresses, embraces and kisses to show her and their unborn children his devotion. Yet they’d grown out of the habit of any kind of intimacy, whether physical or emotional. He and his wife fell silent as soon as their daughters retreated to their bedrooms and the overwhelming weight of their distance engulfed them. Neji would never have intentionally hurt his wife, he insisted to himself, and he supposed that was one point in his favor. A more accurate way to describe his neglect was that he simply didn’t care enough about Risa’s feelings.

The papers clung to Neji’s fingertips, glued by droplets of moisture. Tenten’s touch ghosted across his cheek when he leaned back against his seat and pressed his knuckles to his eyelids. They’d met one other time after their reconciliation at her house, in the back room of her weapons shop among boxes of kunai and shuriken. She’d been different during that meeting – desperate for his touch in a way she hadn’t been before. Tenten compelled him to repeat his oaths over and over, to affirm for her that nothing would tear them apart. It was them set against the rest of the world, she said. She’d wanted to say something more, Neji recalled, but held her tongue despite multiple promises that she was safe to speak her mind.

I didn’t tell you last time...Tenten had begun. I should have let you know about – ah, never mind. It’s nothing much. Nothing much – just like the child who she’d hidden from him for 12 years before Jiro’s playground panic brought the truth to light. The glisten of tears in her eyes told him that she withheld the truth to preserve his sense of peace. Neji tossed the wad of papers in his lap, releasing a long breath when they landed on the coffee table with a whump. His lover’s secret loomed behind him like the long shadow of an approaching enemy. Their love was founded on secrecy, yet Neji feared that it would be secrets that tore them apart.

“Damn it,” Neji muttered. “Damn it, damn it, damn it.”

A formless, all-encompassing panic squeezed his chest and threatened to suffocate him. Without any hope of productive work – or maintaining the semblance of productivity to himself, Neji retreated to his bedroom where Risa lay on her side. The soft whistle of his wife’s breath brought hot blood to his face and neck. At least she managed to sleep.

Neji realized with an unreasonable amount of dread that his wife lay right in the center of the bed, and the blankets were trapped beneath her. It would be difficult for him to carve a space for himself without touching or waking her. Lately, the mere touch of his fingertips to his wife’s shoulder or the incidental collision of their hands at the table left a burning sensation on his skin. Rather than prod Risa aside, Neji turned his back to his sleeping wife and forced one foot in front of the other. He didn’t deserve a good nights’ sleep beside the woman he betrayed

Keep walking, he told himself. Spread across the couch, he could manage to claw a few hours of sleep from his unwilling body. Neji didn’t stop when he heard Risa’s breath hitch with what was clearly a sob.

Amaya sat before the mirror while her mother ran a bone comb through her long black hair. Her daily hairdressing – a 15-minute ordeal under normal circumstances – took much longer than usual now that Mother needed to rest so often. A servant could have readied Amaya for school every morning, but Mother insisted on staying involved in her morning routine when her body allowed. Grooming her daughter’s hair offered her a precious opportunity to address Amaya alone, uninterrupted. Amaya indulged the usual questions about her friendships, academics and training progress. Mother hummed in the pauses between her daughter’s answers and her next questions, their back-and-forth surprisingly unexceptional. Amaya’s stomach churned while she waited for Mother to ask about the reasons for her disobedience, or a pointed question that forced Amaya to confess her guilt. 

“I don’t hate you, dear,” Mother confessed as her white fingers gathered Amaya’s newly brushed hair behind her head. “I don’t blame you for wishing to help a friend.”

Amaya clutched the fabric of her dress hard enough to wrinkle the cotton. More awaited – otherwise, Mother wouldn’t have bothered qualifying her remarks in advance. But you’ve still disgraced the clan, Amaya imagined Mother saying. You make me ashamed, and you’re a naive fool. Mother’s careful hands tickled Amaya’s scalp, but she refrained from moving her neck or shoulders. Disrupting Mother’s grooming routine would perturb her more, and Amaya didn’t yet know how much anger simmered beneath Risa Hyuga’s fine features. The teeth of Mother’s bone comb raked down Amaya's scalp as she straightened a lock of hair. Over, under, over, under – Mother’s hands began their rhythmic braiding on one side of Amaya’s head.

“W-what do you want to tell me, Mother?”

“Is there anything you want to say?”

The lilt of Mother’s voice told Amaya that she wasn’t referring to opinions on the servants’ cooking or the weather. Last night remained fresh on Mother’s mind same as Amaya couldn’t forget the electric tension pulsing through the air during dinner. The open-ended question hit Amaya like a blunt slap – but her conviction wouldn’t permit her to beg Mother’s forgiveness or feign ignorance to her transgression.

“I know Father told me not to instruct Jiro Sato in the Hyuga jutsu or teach him to use his Byakugan. I believed Father was wrong, and so I disobeyed him.”

Amaya’s mother gave an especially sharp tug when she folded the next lock of hair into the braid now cascading down her ear. Then Mother’s hands froze in place, except for the tiny quiver that ran down to her wrists, only perceptible because she held them so close to Amaya’s head. Anticipating the sharp lash of Mother’s tongue, Amaya bit the inside of her cheek so she wouldn’t cry or say anything imprudent in response. No words came – angry, remorseful, or otherwise. Mother brought a lock of hair from the right side of Amaya’s braid to the center, before dropping her work altogether.

“Mother?”

When Mother sighed, her warm breath brushed the sensitive skin on the back of Amaya’s neck, almost like a caress. Rather than resuming her braiding, Mother ran her fingers through Amaya’s long black hair, rendered smooth and free of knots by her comb. In the mirror in front of her, Amaya watched the back of her mother’s hand run down the curve of her cheek. The spontaneous act of tenderness jolted Amaya’s mind into fevered speculation on Mother’s intentions. The smack of Mother’s puckered lips on her temple made her wonder whether Mother had in fact heard her defiant answer. The faint smile on Mother’s face, lit by the pale sunlight from the bedroom window, made her appear much younger. Like one of the teenage apprentice instructors at the academy, maybe.

“There’s much you don’t understand at your age. You have a good heart. I would hate to see you lose it, but…”

“What, Mother?”

“You need to think of yourself,” Mother shot back. “Everything you will lose if you continue to push back. I don't wish to see anything bad happen to you.”

Whatever Mother’s pretensions of parental concern, Amaya detected a hint of selfishness in her appeal. Rewarding Jiro with the Byakugan would legitimize Father’s indiscretions, implicitly downgrading her dutiful work as a wife and mother to the clan head’s trueborn Hyuga children. Risa Hyuga had walked the narrow path of a proper woman, unlike Tenten Lee. And now, she clung tighter to her husband and children, driven by fear that their family was falling apart. All of it, Mother projected onto Jiro, or so Amaya thought. No, Mother didn’t have the cruel streak necessary to wish harm on Father’s bastard, but she wasn't fair minded by any means.

“Father told me - he thought I did well, thinking for myself.”

“Your father doesn’t always think clearly. When he was young, he thought he would try to marry another. Even knowing...well, I suppose what matters is that your father found his sense of duty and did as he knew he should.”

“Jiro’s mother. Mrs. Lee.”

“Yes, Tenten Lee.” Mother parried Amaya’s statement with a quick dismissal. Her staccato answer was an appeal to move past Father’s first lover. To end their exchange without finishing her point.

Mother busied her hands by separating the hair on the right side of Amaya’s part into three locks, winding left over middle, right over middle. Every tightening of her braid sent pinpricks of pain to Amaya’s scalp. Mother braided until the remaining length of her daughter’s hair was too short to braid further without fraying into dozens of fine strands. The conversation – begun on Mother’s terms – had spun out of her control and she still reeled from the sudden shock.

Then Amaya asked a question of her own, which drew a sharp gasp from her mother. Their morning conversations usually involved Mother asking the questions and Amaya answering. Mother’s unbalanced state made for doubly bad timing, even more so because Amaya gave no preface for what she planned to say.

“Mother, have you ever thought about having a different life?” Amaya stumbled over her words, which rolled off her tongue like gravel.

Panic blossomed in Amaya’s chest as she wished she could retract the impulsive question. Please don’t be angry, Amaya pleaded to her Mother, or the gods that oversaw their fates. In rare outbursts of rage, Mother sometimes smacked her daughter with the back of her hand, or yanked her ears until they turned red. Amaya could remember a few occasions when the impact of Mother’s gold wedding ring left a telltale bruise on her tender skin and a ringing in her bones. Before Amaya could retract her words, Mother’s hands stilled as they braided the other side of Amaya’s head, and she spoke.

“What makes you ask that?”

Her words tumbled out in a soft whisper. In the mirror, Amaya saw Mother’s white eyes flitting back and forth.

“If you insist on knowing, then the answer is yes. I don’t think a person with a working heart or mind can survive without questioning what she’s told at some point,” Mother continued in the absence of a response from her daughter. “I harbored my doubts about your father, like he did about me.”

In the pause that followed, Mother mused, almost to herself – “I didn’t choose to marry him. No, I didn't know your father as I know him now, so I feared our match wouldn’t be a good one. Well, I guess there’s a lot you can’t know about a man until you marry him.”

Mother huffed, a trace of laughter on her breath. Amaya wanted to ask Mother what exactly she meant, what kinds of vital truths could only be disclosed through the ultimate commitment.

“A bad marriage is like a prison," Mother finished. "I understand that much, as all women do once they reach a certain age. I have a good life, all things considered.”

A good marriage could be a prison all the same, though its bars were merely stifling rather than oppressive. Father had abandoned his first love not because his heart had changed, but because his mind forced his heart to change course. Mother, too, had killed the stirrings of doubt in her heart for the sake of complying with expectation. But had she insisted on marrying a man she loved at a time that suited her, who in the clan would have supported her?

“N-never mind, Mother. I’m sorry. I asked in case there was anything I could learn from you.”

“Do you love Father?”

Amaya allowed herself to wince as Mother’s braid reached the base of her head, where Mother’s practiced hands pulled with extra force to draw the shorter hairs into the braid.

“Of course I do,” Mother replied, a hard edge to her voice. “We might not agree sometimes, but our family couldn’t have stayed so strong without love. Dear, are you alright? I don’t want to hurt you.”

“No. Keep going,” Amaya insisted, her breaths quickening.

“Love takes work. You can grow to love someone if both of you work on it, and I think that’s the kind of love that makes a family.”

Another jolt of pain ran up Amaya’s spine when Mother tugged her hair backward to tie off her second braid. Amaya detected no insincerity in Mother’s voice when she declared her love for Father. In her 10 years, Amaya had only known her mother to be unfailing in her loyalty to her husband, children and clan. The lilt of Mother’s voice implicitly challenged Amaya to present any counterpoints, so she could dispel them.

When Amaya sat with her lips pressed closed for a few moments, Mother sighed.

“Your father and I weren’t close in the way he was to Ten – ah, Mrs. Lee. You’ll find out once you graduate from the academy. The members of a genin team train together, sleep together, eat together. In time, I guess it would be inevitable that your Father would grow feelings for Mrs. Lee. But it was last clan head – your great-uncle Hiashi – who trusted we would complement one another and our marriage would prosper.”

Amaya thought of the love Jiro’s mother shared with her father that evolved from years of friendship. The transition to love, the intertwining of their hearts, must have felt natural, effortless compared to the hard-won love her mother described. With her hair bound on either side of her head, Amaya motioned to leave her seat when Mother grasped her shoulder. Dread shot through her veins – maybe a scolding awaited, to salve the insecurities that Mother laid bare.

“Please – could you spare a few minutes before school to massage your mother’s feet? Father has been too busy to attend to me, and they ache,” Mother pleaded. “Oh, it’s one of those things the baby does to me.”

“Of course, Mother.” Amaya didn’t mention that a servant could have rubbed her feet, treated them with hot rocks if that’s what she desired.

Mother shuffled over to her bed before positioning herself against a stack of pillows. While Mother negotiated with the mattress, pillows and headboard for a comfortable space, Amaya noted that her mother’s long, black hair hung in matted clumps down her back. The sight swelled her heart. Mother’s deft hands worked through her daughter’s hair until it hung free of knots, but she neglected herself.

Amaya applied her hands to the small, white feet that peeked from beneath the top sheet. Without more detailed instruction, she could only rub her fingertips in pads of Mother’s feet and heel, hoping it satisfied her. Kunoichi classes didn’t cover the finer points of massage therapy – no, concerned parents made sure of that.

“Your father wouldn’t share my bed for months after we married, and part of me worried that our marriage was a dreadful mistake.”

Perhaps Father couldn’t sleep beside his new wife out of residual loyalty to Jiro’s mother, or discomfort at the thought of living with another woman as husband and wife. Mother hummed in contentment beneath Amaya’s clumsy fingers. Perhaps Mother hadn’t craved a soothing touch in any particular place, but she’d wanted contact with anyone who cared for her. Though Father was too busy to tend to his wife, he’d somehow found time to escort Jiro home from the academy after he’d lashed out against Kenji.

“Ankles, please.”

Amaya pressed the heel of her hand into the side of Mother’s foot and ran her hand upward. Her fingers ran circles around the knobby bone of her mother’s ankle. Mother’s head lolled back against the headboard, eyes fluttering closed.

“Mother, why did you stay?” Amaya interjected without thought. “You told me a bad marriage was like a prison.”

If Amaya knew anything about her father, she knew his firm belief in duty. In that sense, she supposed her mother’s loyal heart complemented him nicely.

“I made vows to your father, and I convinced myself that he only needed time. Your father needed me to fulfill the promises he made to himself, that he would change the clan.”

Amaya didn’t need her mother to elaborate on why Father needed her, his legitimate Hyuga wife. Even at her young age, she could grasp the need to produce heirs and establish himself as a loyal Hyuga committed to continuing their bloodline. But she also understood that love wasn’t needed to produce children. The mechanics of reproduction remained in place however a man and woman felt about one another.

Her mother’s answer still lacked an accounting for the love between them.

“I suppose living together and cooperating as allies toward his goals brought us closer. We grew to trust one another and love...followed from that.”

Mother clutched Amaya to her chest and planted a string of kisses across her forehead. Her mother’s unexpected rush of affection made Amaya’s heart flutter with excitement. She turned to kiss Mother on the ridge of her cheekbone, eliciting a flash of teeth and an airy laugh.

“My pretty girl,” Mother breathed out. “You look so much like your father, and one day, you’ll be as accomplished as he is.”

“Thanks.”

Mother caressed the outer curve of Amaya’s face with the backs of her fingers. Their white eyes met and Amaya tried to force her quivering lip into a smile for her mother’s sake.

“Let’s have a few more minutes before I call the servant to take you to school, hm? I’m sure you’ll become more beautiful as you grow older, and your father will choose a wonderful man for you to marry.”

Amaya's mother had been raised to believe in marriage as a practical arrangement before it was a sanctification of a couple’s love. The calculations of clan heads didn’t seem conducive to the magical, unexplainable emotion that people chased and clung to once they found it. Amaya had thought little of her own marriage, except that it would likely follow the pattern of her own parents’ marriage.

Until recently, she hadn’t had much reason to find that objectionable at all.

Chapter Text

Tenten rolled a tiny round pill in her hand, while the second pill remained in its plastic packaging. The hard disc lay in the center of her palm, a single white eye gazing back at her and demanding a choice. The time for an easy choice – well, as easy as terminating could ever be – would soon pass, she reminded herself. Her child remained small within her womb, still unfeeling and unaware of its surroundings. A few more weeks, and the pills would no longer suffice for ending her dreadful, mistaken pregnancy. Tenten balked at the thought of visiting the hospital for an operation. Call it cowardice, but she hoped to resolve her situation amid the same secrecy that caused it.  

So far, nobody knew about the pills she'd purchased from the pharmacy and carried home in a plain paper bag. Though Tenten's mother supported her daughter with admirable zeal through her first pregnancy, she'd urged Tenten to do this. To save the marriage that wasn’t perfect or everything Tenten desired, but that held a certain kind of love within it. Good enough was often hard to come by in a world that left women vulnerable to the whims of men.

It’s unfair to your husband, Mom had told her. He’s already worked so hard for your sake without expecting anything in return.

Her hands quivering and her voice no steadier, Tenten had protested that she never intended to hurt Lee or destroy her family - not that intentions blunted the effects whatsoever. In the years since they married, Lee had expected nothing in return, except a devoted wife and a son of his own. Lee loved their family, and cared little that it was cobbled together and cemented by lies. All in all, not a terrible bargain for a pregnant teenager with no help from her child's actual father. 

You’re a whore, that’s what you are, Mom spat back. A bitch who can’t keep her damn legs closed.

Tenten’s mother had avoided any mention of the man she suspected – correctly – of fathering her daughter’s latest illegitimate child. Still, it was all too obvious that Mom knew who fathered Tenten’s baby. It was obvious when she called her daughter a two-faced, worthless bitch and smacked her jaw hard enough to leave the impact ringing in her bone.

Maybe Tenten carried a daughter nested inside her, she thought. A girl who would one day need to learn when to bury her heart for her own survival, her own sanity. As old fashioned as the name was, Tenten liked Ume for a girl, and she supposed Neji would soften to a baby girl’s smile more readily. 

A tear ran down the center of Tenten's heart as she forced herself away from thoughts of the child who would never be.

“Mom,” Metal called from outside the bathroom door. His voice was muffled by the wood, the edges of his words softened as if he spoke from underwater.

“Mom. Dad wants to know if you want to go somewhere for food, or if you want him to order something.”

Tenten groaned, closing her hand around the pill and flicking her wrist. Metal’s interruption bought her precious seconds before she would need to choose. 

“Hm, tell dad I’d be okay with ordering. Whatever he wants. Don’t want him to go through any trouble, and I’m not feeling good right now.”

Without responding, Metal turned from the bathroom door, his footsteps pattering down the stairs. Through the walls, she heard her younger son tell his father that she wasn’t fit to cook – clearly – and preferred takeout. Dealer’s choice, which meant curry from the shop a few blocks away. Lee agreed, and announced that he'd return before long. Through the walls, Tenten heard the slam of the front door and the jingle of keys. 

A good mother didn’t neglect her children, and giving birth to another child would leave her far less time for her sons. Her mother had mentioned that, too, as yet another reason to terminate. Tenten smacked her knuckles into her forehead and cursed, again and again. Tears burned the corners of her eyes when she imagined the consequences of birthing another bastard who might activate the Byakugan in ten years. Or twelve, or five. Neji had promised to never forsake his lover after she confessed that she still needed him. Did Tenten really want to probe his convictions by telling him that history had repeated?

Even if Neji’s loyalty held true, she hated to force more suffering on him. He'd need to contort himself to protect his lover and their children, made more difficult by an additional child and undeniable evidence of his moral failings. With her children watching television downstairs, Tenten slipped from the bathroom to the cool confines of the bedroom she shared with Lee, where she hadn’t slept for weeks. She’d lost count of the days spent apart from her husband – and at one point, even considered carving knotches in the side of her dresser as a form of self-punishment.

Blue light filtered through the thick curtains strung over the windows. Tenten had installed them for privacy, not because she worried about anyone spying on two loyal leaf shinobi. But living in a village of spies and trained liars had conditioned her mind to expect prying eyes at every turn, and to wall herself off from them. The dim bedroom offered her the temporary illusion of hiding from her family and the world, which she told herself might ease her choice. As sweat beaded on her clammy palms, the pill in Tenten’s hand turned slick with moisture.

You’d think you would have learned something, Tenten, Mom had said. Fucking that Hyuga like you're still a lovesick girl. She'd continued rebuking her daughter while her practiced hands rolled out circles of dough for dumplings. Without thought, Mom had bunched up the ones that didn’t turn out round enough, or had gotten too thin. With a few kneads, those dough balls turned supple again and shapeable into a more perfect form. Unfortunately, Tenten Sato wasn’t so easily remolded into a model wife and mother.

“I didn’t. I can’t,” Tenten whispered in response to her absent mother, her brows scrunching in the center. She felt the specter of her mother perched on the end of the bed, judging her weakness for refusing to forget the love that caused her so much hurt. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

With all her harsh words and blows, Mom challenged Tenten to prove her wrong about her recklessness, immaturity and destructive tendencies. If she were only wise enough to swallow the pills or suck her womb clean, Tenten would show herself to be better than a cheating whore. The measure of her accumulated adult wisdom should have led Tenten to ensure her mistakes couldn’t follow her, then swear off her past entirely. For over 10 years, she’d done well to keep the past walled off in a tiny corner of her heart, as a responsible woman would in Mom's estimation. Now the weight of Tenten's past and her present crisis threatened to crush her.

Tenten hissed as alcohol scorched the lining of her throat and filled her stomach with fire. Drinking cup after cup of sake wasn’t good for the baby, not that Tenten saw a future for the unfeeling nodule growing inside her. If her drinking incidentally poisoned it, she’d be relieved of the burden on her conscience that came with swallowing the pill or ordering the operation to dispose of it. Razor thin as that distinction might have been, Tenten clung to any reduction in fault she could find for herself. There wasn’t much, not when every assessment of her situation told her that she’d been the one who made everything worse – for her sons, for Lee, for Neji, for Neji’s Hyuga wife and daughters. She tipped the liquor into her throat with a hand that grew less steady with each cup. Once the coordination in her hands failed her, she instead brought the rim of the sake bottle to her lips.

She angled the bottle to force more liquor down her throat, suppressing the gags of protest her body attempted. Maybe her body was trying to save her from her own penchant for self-destruction, and Tenten was determined to thwart it. She spat out a curse alongside a dry heave once only a few dregs of alcohol remained at the bottom of the ceramic bottle.

Wetness gathered at the bottom rims of her eyes, brought on in equal measure by the alcohol and her enduring guilt. She set her most recently emptied sake bottle next to the collection that sat on the far end of her shop counter. The days had begun growing shorter, windier and colder as the coming winter approached fast. And so by the time Tenten finished dinner with her family, darkness greeted her from without. With the village streets dark and emptied of all but a few clusters of people walking beneath the streetlights, Tenten's empty storefront was the perfect place to numb herself. She hadn’t even switched on the light in the tiny store. No need to raise the power bill.

Lee could watch over the children at home, where the boys probably played games of shogi, read or watched television. Her children didn't need to witness their mother trying to drink herself into an indifferent stupor, piling on the alcohol when that numbness continued to elude her. Neither did anyone else she might know, which is why she avoided the village’s bars. Tenten wasn’t sure how long had passed since she told her husband and sons that she planned to take a walk in the night. At least an hour, but she couldn't say with any certainty.

As for how she would return home, she hadn’t anticipated that challenge or cared enough to slow her drinking. A nagging voice in the back of her mind reminded her that her husband and children would worry if she passed an entire night without returning. A walk to clear her head, to relieve the restlessness in her feet, would normally last no longer than an hour or two. Wrangling the cork of another sake bottle, Tenten thought only to bury that particular worry with more alcohol. A warm haze enveloped her halfway through that bottle. Success. Another few drinks and perhaps she would be fortunate enough to fall into total darkness. Whatever happened once she awoke wasn't as important as forgetting, as erasing her problem if she was lucky. Anyways, she'd never intended to seek clarity from the array of empty sake bottles watching her with judgmental eyes.

“What’re you looking at?” Tenten slurred, a single laugh ripping up from her throat. She narrowed her eyes to focus on the bottles shifting back and forth in her faltering vision. “I’m...okay. Fuck you.”

She flopped against the back of her stool, her head lolling backward because her neck could no longer support it. Drool leaked from the corner of her mouth down her chin. Drawing air grew harder breath by breath. Then, the whump-whump-whump of a fist banging on the back entrance roused Tenten from her daze. Shit, she whispered.

She held her palms against her ears to shut out the sound, praying that whoever found reason to seek her might take the lack of response as its own answer. The storefront was her space to use or abuse as she liked.

More knocking, this time louder and more urgent.

“Mom. Mom, are you there?”

Jiro’s voice elicited the beginnings of remorse within. Maybe Lee and her sons had split up to comb the village for her. She imagined her husband pleading for any information from street vendors or citizens who happened to cross his path. She pictured her children torn from their beds to search for a woman who didn’t want them to find her. Tenten bit the inside of her cheek in hopes that the pain would bring her enough awareness to stumble to the door. In the hidden leaf village of her adult years, a child of Jiro’s age could venture out after dark without fearing for his safety. Yet Tenten had failed as a mother because she'd driven him to worry over her, when she should have been to one to fret over his well-being. She called back something that sounded like I’m coming and don’t worry about me. Tenten knew her reassurances were empty when everything about her present state called for him to worry.

Jiro slipped through the door in the half-second after Tenten managed to fumble the uncooperative knob to let him in.  In her state of inebriation, Tenten’s wobbling ankles refused to support her weight. He steadied her with an arm around her shoulder – when had her son grown so tall? - and let her drag him down when she fell to her knees. Once slumped over before her son, she lowered her face into her hands, to his apparent confusion. The sobs began a moment later, hot tears wetting her palms and fingers.

“Jiro, dear. Do you remember how I was sick?

“Y-yeah. What about it?”

Jiro’s joints weakened and he curled his toes in dread of what she might tell him next.

“Y-you can probably guess, but I’m having another baby.”

To Tenten’s relief, he didn’t question how the baby happened, or how her precautions had failed her. However improper their role reversal, he kept his lips pressed to remain strong for her. She didn’t deserve the pure love of a child too young to fully comprehend how horribly she'd betrayed her family. Jiro loved her because she was his mother, and she almost wished he would shower her with hate instead. The guilt brought on by his earnest care stung her more than a thousand of her mother's angry screams. 

“It’s your father,” she confessed. “I still love him. As much shit as he’s put me through, and put you through. Still in the same damn place I was in before.”

I was in the same place with you, Jiro. Carrying a baby who shouldn’t exist, Tenten finished. She renewed her sobs when she replayed the moment she could no longer deny her first pregnancy, her baby's fatherhood confronting her like a slap. Then she'd inflicted the same calamity on herself again because she couldn’t remain content with her perfectly good marriage and family. Chasing dreams had won her a failing business sustained by an endless series of loans and two bastard children. Yet Tenten couldn’t restrain herself from fantasizing about Neji maybe, perhaps promising that he'd watch over her and their baby.

“Mom. It’s going to be okay,” Jiro muttered, wincing as pain shot to his heart. “You’re going to be okay.”

She supposed she needed to forgive her son for his feeble response when the situation was far too messy for a 12-year-old boy to cope with. And wasn’t that what she told him every time he met her with tears, whether from a scraped knee or his wounded heart? It’s going to be okay – Tenten echoed her son’s words to herself, and found them empty. He didn’t know that Tenten’s own mother had turned against her daughter for committing adultery. For being unfaithful to the one man that Takako Sato – correctly – believed was almost incapable of doing wrong. Her husband kept his distance – though he stayed cordial around their children, the cold wall of hostility hit Tenten anytime they talked in private.

“You don’t know that.”

So much depended on her rising again, drying her tears and walking both of them home. Tenten should have told Jiro that she’d suffered only from a brief bout of panic, trying to save what face she could amid the empty sake bottles. She should have straightened her back to conceal the slow-rolling fear that gnawed at the insides of her stomach. Told him she’d figure things out, because that’s what adults did when confronted with difficult situations.

“I have to do something,” she rambled, hiccuping. “I can’t...it would be horrible for everyone if I have the baby.”

“Why? I’d love my little brother. Sister, if it’s a girl.”

She wanted to laugh, to clasp Jiro’s cheeks and rebuke him for staying so naive. As the Hyuga clan head’s illegitimate child, he must have understood the terrible realities of creating another life that nobody wanted. The baby knitting itself together inside Tenten’s body would enter a world predisposed to see only a bastard. 

“You...really don’t know?”

“No, what do you mean, Mom?”

Tenten’s hands quivered when she grasped both of her son’s wrists to force him to attention. If she couldn’t justify her choice to herself, she couldn’t well justify it to her son with a steady voice. I’m sorry, she wanted to tell the baby. I’m doing this because I love you too much to let my mistakes ruin your life. However harsh her words, her mother had been right about the baby’s prospects when she presented Tenten with a razor-thin path to redemption. She gave Jiro’s wrists a squeeze before squeezing her eyes shut. 

“It’s my fault. Adults can do all kinds of stupid, selfish things. Nobody’s going to know about the baby. I’m going to make it go away, and we’re never going to tell anybody.”

Lee could accept that his wife miscarried, in a coincidental turn of fate that suited his purposes. Miscarriages were common in the early months of pregnancy, common enough that discarding any evidence of the bitter white pill would leave no reason for doubt. 

“Where’s the baby going to go?”

Ending her pregnancy with the pills she had at home was perfectly legal, and she knew nobody who objected to discarding a little nodule that came at the wrong time, in the wrong place. Had she cared to tell them, anyone would have said it was as valid a choice as becoming a mother. It was a choice she had no need to apologize for – so why did her mouth go dry when she opened her mouth to explain how she’d guarantee that the baby was never born?

“Nowhere,” Tenten said at last. Her voice emerged thin and fragile like a single silk thread. “It’ll go away.”

Jiro’s eyes darted to the ground. She’d done nothing to answer his question, only deepen his suspicions that something terrible would happen to the baby. Away meant gone, never forgotten by its mother but entirely unknown to its father. For a fleeting second, Tenten hated Neji’s legitimate children and their mother. Had they never existed, she and Jiro could have lived the life denied to her, and nobody would have questioned her pregnancy. In a different reality, Neji might have stood next to her bed in the hospital while she rubbed their baby’s toes between her fingers. She imagined his white eyes crinkling at the corners, gazing upon her with love. Most of all, she hated Neji for not running away with her where nobody would know them as illegitimate lovers. Instead, he’d sacrificed her and their son for his own ambitions. The new baby had done nothing in its short existence to merit any kind of punishment, yet it would suffer the worst fate of all of them.

“Are you going to tell Father?”

“No. Your father can’t know.”

Tenten dried her tears against the backs of her hands. Part of her burned to tell Neji about the baby, in hopes that it would be the catalyst for him to leave his Hyuga family behind. Yet Neji wasn’t in a position to do as she wanted without destroying his family – if there was anything to salvage when his heart no longer lay with his wife. Poor Risa Hyuga was a decent woman, despite the friction between her and Tenten upon their first and only meeting. 

“Whatever he says, I’m only a problem for him, just like I always was.”

Her son’s hands quivered, and his head turned to face the shop’s display window. Tenten’s blurred vision couldn’t see much more than a few fuzzy orbs of light where the streetlamps cast their halos. She parted her lips to ask Jiro where he wanted to go, what he saw outside that she couldn’t discern. Yet her heavy tongue refused to move, and her eyelids fell over her eyes like sheets of rock. Then she sensed her head falling forward onto Jiro’s shoulder, and her son’s hands braced against her shoulders and lower back. He lowered her to the floor, following her murmured orders to turn her onto her side. If she vomited, Tenten wouldn’t suffocate herself – and the baby. Jiro’s pounding footsteps followed by the thud of the closing shop door were the last things she heard before plunging into total darkness and silence.

Tenten awoke to the brush of fabric against her cheek, and the tickle of hair against her forehead. Someone else’s hair – long, silky, fine. Her brows contracted as a headache racked her brain, eliciting a muttered curse. Not that the one holding her appeared to mind. Puckered lips touched her forehead and a mellow voice told her to rest because she had nothing to worry about. I already know everything, he told her. Jiro told me about the baby – trust me, I love you and I’ll never leave you. You’re not a problem to me. You’re not, and you never were. Tenten drew a sharp gasp. Between the voice’s mentions of her son and the child inside her, she could only conclude that her lover’s arms encircled her and Neji Hyuga was the one who Jiro had left to find.

Though she gave a feeble twist of her shoulders, her sluggish body failed to wriggle free of her lover’s embrace. Not that he intended to let her go. Tenten’s head fell back against the ridge of bone along Neji’s shoulder while he threaded his fingers through her loose hair. Beyond her immediate surroundings, she heard the tap of footsteps downstairs and a few hissed whispers through the walls. Forcing one eye half-open, she saw the outlines of the spare bedroom of her house, the pile of blankets where she’d left them. The voices downstairs were probably her husband and children talking – about her, about the man whispering into her hair. About the baby, the hapless source of her shame.

Her eyes closed again.

“How?” Tenten managed to choke out. How did you end up here?

“Jiro. He was quite insistent. Uncharacteristically assertive with the man at the gates. Of course, because it concerned you, I knew I needed to follow him back…”

How are we getting out of this?

Perhaps not even Neji knew the answer to her second unstated question.

When Tenten opened her lips to call Jiro’s name, nothing emerged except a huff of dry air. She pictured her bashful, stammering son demanding to see his father. Facing some pale white-eyed Hyuga calling him a bastard, a disgrace to the clan and his parents. Adding further insult to the simple fact of his presence and existence in the same village, Jiro came appealing for help on behalf of his whore mother, the woman who’d laid Neji so low. As much as she wanted to lash Jiro for burdening his father and exposing him before the clan, the Hyuga clan head had chosen to come to her aid. Only he fully knew what consequences awaited him once he left her house.

“Is that what you wished to tell me that one time? When you started to tell me something, then told me to ignore it?”

“Y-yeah.”

Neji’s shoulder shifted beneath her head as he sat up straighter against the wall. His arms constricted around her tighter. He stayed quiet for a few moments before asking whether she wanted some water. The burning in her throat made the answer obvious – and the cool trickle of water past her lips did little to alleviate either her headache or parched insides. Tenten braced herself for his inevitable question – why didn’t you tell me? - and could only answer that she hesitated to place the ultimate test on him and loved him too much to drag him further down with her. Regardless of their romantic notions of staying together as their worlds collapsed, he had far more standing to lose than she did. She remained in awe that he’d come to her in her most pathetic moment, consequences be damned.

“I’m disappointed that you didn’t tell me, but I can understand why you didn’t. I know I haven’t done my best to...take care of you. I’ve tried to do too much,” he breathed out. “Created too many regrets for myself. I should have been more careful. I shouldn’t have ever been with you again – no, that isn’t right. I don’t know. I can’t bring myself to regret it.”

With her lips and tongue still weighed down by her hangover, Tenten couldn’t manage to say that she wasn’t angry with him. That she was sorry fate didn’t treat them better in the first place, either when he’d had to decide between love and duty the first time or now. Instead, she touched her lips to the exposed side of his neck and brushed her thumb along his cheek. When she reached his mouth, she felt the pinch of Neji’s lips into a slight grimace. The reluctant sweep of his hand as he coaxed her fingers from his face.

“Not here,” Neji stammered, though she hadn’t meant to escalate to anything more intimate. “Lee and your children are downstairs.”

Tenten balled her hands in her lap to avoid worsening the shame she’d triggered with her touch. Settled in his arms, she’d forgotten her shame – and it occurred to Tenten that maybe she should have felt more of it. On the other hand, arriving at her doorstep lying limp in Neji’s arms left little doubt about their relationship, or who fathered her baby. If any remained on Lee’s part, that is.

“And your...your family?”

He sighed and bowed his head so that the tip of his nose pressed into her forehead. The reminder of Risa, his daughters and the child yet to be born no doubt triggered his sensitivities. If her family knew of her disloyalty, his clan probably also had at least an inking that the Hyuga clan head loved another. For now, the full weight of Neji’s actions hadn’t been realized, and his flinch told her that he dreaded facing those consequences back home. Tenten imagined that Risa would be inconsolable, trying to rally her children in the wake of their family’s disintegration. Not even her ingrained Hyuga manners could keep her air of dignified indifference. Tenten could believe that the Hyuga woman had spent the better part of the last few months trying to convince herself and her daughters that their family remained fundamentally the same. I'm sorry, Risa, Tenten thought. Neji’s poor wife had never asked to be implicated in her affair, never even knew he had a previous lover.

“Don’t worry about them, Tenten. That’s for me to handle once you’re alright.”

The beginnings of a harsh laugh tore up from Tenten’s throat before it dissolved into a fit of coughs. She wouldn’t be fully alright for a while – at least until she settled into a new normal with Neji, her husband and her children. Tenten wasn’t sure whether she could ever convince her parents to forgive her for the lies she’d fed them, Lee and her children. Still, if Takako and the elder Jiro Sato couldn’t love their daughter on some level despite her obvious mistakes, she wouldn’t waste more heartache on them. What form their relationship would take, nobody could know at that point. The tenor of Neji’s voice told her he understood that reality well, but she latched onto his certainty that she would be alright at some point.

“I’m happy you didn’t end it,” Neji ventured, and Tenten immediately grasped what it meant. The baby – his baby. “That’s not to say...if you did end it, that would have been your decision, and I would have no say in the matter -”

“That would have broken me,” Tenten interjected. “My mom told me it was the only way I could be a good wife. A good mother to my sons.”

The pills still sat in the nightstand next to the bed where the lovers were entangled. Swallowing the pills one after the other at home would have kept her termination and pregnancy hidden from the wider village. But Tenten’s conscience would still have nagged at her, and she knew she’d spend the next few weeks crying herself to sleep. Dreaming of the child who lived for far too little time in a world without a place for it.

“It would have broken me, too. We have another chance to do things the correct way, though it’s more difficult now.”

The correct way could only have meant a wedding, a home together for their children. Tears rushed from Tenten’s eyes, and she didn’t bother to suppress her sobs as she cried in relief. However silly and improbable the idea, Tenten told herself that if the world only knew how much they loved one another, everyone would have no choice but to accept them.

Chapter Text

A searing ache settled into Tenten’s bones when Neji closed the spare bedroom door behind him. After planting a kiss atop her forehead, her lover had squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to turn his back. Better he show some resolve, because she couldn’t have mustered it. Stay, stay, stay, she wanted to tell him, the word racing through her mind at the pace of her pattering heart. Don’t leave me again. To no effect, she tried telling herself that he needed to make amends with those who would consider him a criminal. All so they could have a chance at a future in the open. Yet Neji wasn’t the only one who needed to account for the secrets brought to light by the previous night's events. Tenten buried her face into her sheets and hoped her invalid status might buy her time before either her husband or children asked after her.

And when Lee or Metal asked her to explain why she’d opened her legs for a man who now belonged in a different world, who had a wife and family? She’d have nothing to say, save for I wasn’t happy. I wanted more. She released a sigh and shifted onto her back. I wasn’t happy, she'd tell her husband. You weren’t enough. No, it’s not you. You’re kind, sweet, selfless…Out of whatever affection he retained for her, Lee’s heart would soften for his wife. He’d understand her bind, Tenten insisted. A decent man didn’t keep a woman chained to him in marriage if she wanted a separation. Metal was a different matter, because of his age and because of the bond she couldn’t break with her son. A child shouldn’t have needed to suffer for his mother’s freedom to find her happiness. Tenten's mother would have expressed that sentiment in much cruder terms. Much as Tenten hated admitting her wrongs, she’d committed many of them as a mother and wife.

“Tenten? Are you alright?”

Lee, calling to her from outside the door. Concern added a quiver to his usually decisive tone. He was a good man for caring still, when she’d proven herself unworthy of his devotion. Someone who’d thrown his goodwill back in his face wasn’t worth his respect. Tenten was a bitch for resenting that he wasn’t Neji returning to hold her in bed and reassure her that he loved her.

“I’ll be okay,” she answered.

The door creaked open by a touch, letting the stale air of the bedroom mingle with the rush of cold from without. Tenten’s husband stepped through the door before she could smooth her rumpled hair or seat herself against the headboard. Instead, Lee’s round black eyes met the sight of Tenten curled around her core, hands pulling her shins against her chest. In the light that caught his eyes, she saw pity and a lingering shock, as if he still couldn’t quite believe that their old teammate had walked through his door carrying his unconscious wife. She lifted the corners of her lips in a feeble attempt to greet Lee, but her gaze faltered a few moments later as did the smile that looked more like a grimace.

The dull scrape of wood on the floorboards grated on Tenten’s ears as Lee brought a chair to her bedside before perching on its edge. A chill ran to the core of her bones and locked her muscles in place, her throat swelling until she could barely breathe.

“I am happy...he was able to bring you home safely. You, and the child,” Lee ventured. “I am sorry that I did not properly thank him.”

Tenten managed to nod a single time. Her husband even flinched at the mention of Neji’s name – little wonder that Lee wasn’t forthcoming with gratitude toward him. Her lover, her savior, her downfall. Lee’s one-time friend, his rival. The one always destined to win over him in the end, though the taste of victory smacked too much of the bitter sting of ash. What had Lee given Neji in place of the thanks he was apparently owed? Perhaps he’d glared into the back of his head with narrowed eyes, stepping aside only so he could bring Tenten to bed. Tenten imagined Lee holding his tongue for the sake of the children, so they wouldn't see their father act in ways uncharitable or ungracious.

It was too much to ask Metal or Jiro to understand the tangle of repressed emotions that simmered between the three former teammates. Again, Tenten thought to herself that Lee was a good man who would have considered them first – unlike their mother.

“You can pass him my thanks the next time you meet.”

“S-sure.”

A bandaged hand extended toward her from Lee’s lap, fingers grasping for the blanket that had slipped from Tenten’s shoulder. The hand retracted before his fingertips could touch the fabric, or his wife. Though they sat less than shoulder width apart, the rift between them was indeed too wide to reach across. A fist constricted in Tenten’s chest as she watched Lee’s hands ball in his lap. The swell of his knuckles stretched the cotton strips wrapped over them. After Lee left her alone, those fists would probably turn to pounding one of the weathered posts at the training grounds. They’d cleave the wood in half, then turn it to splinters – a total loss of control she’d seen only a few times. Once when their team failed a mission, allowing a mother and toddler’s throats to be slit by bandits. Another time when he came within a hair of defeating Neji at a spar, and ended the fight with his face planted in the earth.

“I suppose I should let you rest.”

Lee offered Tenten no room to negotiate, though he no doubt grasped that she wouldn’t have argued. No, he would have known that she was the one waiting for him to excuse himself from the room. She gave him no goodbye other than a whispered okay, and he gave her none other than a terse smile before he closed the door behind him. Tenten pressed her fingertips into her eyes and cursed her inability to sleep, though she wanted to numb herself to everything that troubled her. The baby growing inside her – or, so she hoped – had made it impossible to retreat into the comfort and protection of her old lies. That she loved her husband, and that her past no longer cast any shadows over the present.

Drink something, Tenten told herself. She needed to care for her body so her child could live, so she could live for her family and the love she craved.

Gulps of water disappeared down her throat, trickles running down her chin and into her shirt.

Maybe the root of her spiraling life was far deeper seated than this latest pregnancy. Tenten thought not of assembling alongside Neji and Rock Lee with their new sensei, or the day she shared Neji’s bed for the first time. No, she conjured the low rumble of her father’s voice as he recounted stories of the legendary Sannin, her face lifting when he spoke of Tsunade’s might. Of course, the daughter of a shopkeeper had no need of strength that could lift mountains or devastate enemy armies. But Tenten Sato had asked her father to repeat Tsunade’s story so many times that he finally suggested she attend the shinobi academy. A life of inventorying vegetables, haggling with vendors and balancing accounting books was a far cry from the thrilling adventures that so enthralled her. He’d been half joking, she knew, even if 5-year-old girls weren’t the greatest at catching the subleties of adult sarcasm. I want to be a great ninja like Tsunade! - she’d declared to her parents over breakfast one morning, in the months before enrollment forms were due at the civilian public school.

If only she’d never aspired to be anything more than her father’s successor, the one who assumed ownership of the family business once his aging body forced him to retire. Selling produce offered modest profits, but enough to survive and afford a few indulgences. Everyone needed to eat, regardless of whether scientific ninja tools made sharpened steel obsolete.

If only her parents hadn’t signed the shinobi academy intake forms, she’d never have met or spoken to a Hyuga except if one stopped by the family store. Her world would never have overlapped with Neji’s enough for them to fall in love and dream of breaking the walls between them. Her troubles had begun with wanting more than the world would readily grant her, with a compulsion for striving that pushed her past the bounds of safety and comfort. Tenten had paid dearly for her refusal to accept what was certain and expected in her life. Still, the part of her that retained enough hope to dream had refused to die. And perhaps she needed to thank whatever gods existed for its resilience - because if it died, Tenten's spirit would have followed soon after.

Risa refused to meet Neji’s eyes when he returned to the Hyuga compound, after forcing himself away from Tenten’s grasping arms. Locking his jaw as a jolt of pain shot through his heart, the Hyuga clan head admitted that his wife had only given him the treatment he deserved. His mind flashed to the sounds of Risa’s wet sobs into their shared bed in the moments before he turned his back on her, because sleeping beside her hurt too much. Confronted with his wife's rebuke, Neji craved the hard-won moments of peace from that morning.

He’d dreaded opening the door of Tenten’s spare bedroom, as if a rain of kunai awaited him outside – and in a sense, it did. They could pretend behind that closed door, the three of them. He could touch his lips to the part of his lover’s hair and rest his hand over her lower core, as if nobody existed in the world aside from their little family. Not even their older child, who sat downstairs stewing with the knowledge that he’d broken two families. Whether Jiro came to regret his choice or not, Neji appreciated his son’s stroke of courage the night before, however fleeting. Now came his time to show courage because it was the least he owed the woman he’d spent most of his adult life alongside. Yet Neji certainly lacked his son’s heart. He’d deferred the full accounting of his wandering heart, the resolution of his cowardly indecision, until no lies could let him dodge what needed to be done.

“I don’t know what to say to you,” Risa whispered, her voice too thin to carry past the inches between them. His wife’s fine brows scrunched between her eyes before she pressed her lips together and cleared her throat to continue speaking.

“Neji, I’ve been faithful to you, and I don’t believe it’s too much for me to expect the same,” she added. The hard edge to her syllables cut into his skin like needles. “You were the one who decided to marry me. You know full well that your uncle would not have forced you into a union you didn’t want.”

The lump in Neji’s throat stopped him from telling Risa that she was entirely correct – though now was the worst time for his stubborn pride to leave him tongue-tied. His ambitions required him to forgo his dreams of a life with Tenten, and he’d been the one to shatter her dreams so many years ago. Then he’d made Risa an instrument of his advancement, however noble the cause. Much as Neji would have liked to blame the vagaries of Hyuga politics and that elusive thing called destiny, he needed to claim his part in her pain. He’d achieved the overturn of the Hyuga order that he wanted since childhood, but was ultimately unwilling to pay the price.

“I understand.”

Risa lifted her head to show white eyes ringed by red, blood vessels creeping into the whites of her eyes in fine tendrils. Those two words were far too little recompense for the wrongs he’d visited on his Hyuga wife, when she needed far more than a simple acknowledgment of his faults. His wife’s upper lip curled and she shook her head. Perhaps the events that happened just hours ago, in the limbo between late night and early morning, left her with a strange satisfaction. That is, whatever satisfaction could be gained from the confirmation of her sneaking suspicions and a resounding rebuttal to her husband’s feeble lies.

“Do you? I’m having your child. Do you even remember her name?”

“Asami.”

They’d conceived their unborn daughter in different times, when Tenten still hung around the edges of his life. They’d named her before Neji had another child to name, whose sex he didn’t even know. Because he had a man’s body, he could too easily forget the hopes and fears that came with nurturing another life, knitting a tiny body together inside a womb. He ventured an outstretched hand toward Risa’s swollen midsection, only to meet the backside of her fingers. The cold metal of Risa’s gold wedding band hit Neji’s knuckle with an impact that felt so much harder than it was.

“You do remember. Not that I imagine she matters much to you, when you’d rather pretend you’re still a boy. I...have no idea how you’ll explain to our daughters that you hate their mother -”

“I don’t hate you, Risa.”

“What else explains everything?” Risa raised her left hand in a gesture of resignation and let it drop back to the sheets with a thud. “Can you say you love her either, when you were content to play both of us for your...own pleasures? That woman wanted more from you, and you know it.”

Neji bit the inside of his lip, knowing he might as well have hated her. He didn’t know whether he’d improve his image in Risa’s eyes, or further downgrade it, by admitting that he’d reiterated his love and loyalty to Tenten already. Maybe he didn’t need to state how he felt about Tenten when he’d left the compound to save her, when Jiro had sought him out as the one person who could avert an oncoming tragedy.

The betrayal of the man Risa had spent so much of her life loving and supporting hurt even more because there’d been real affection between them at some point. But Risa had attempted to force a choice on him that he could never have brought himself to make. Her – and their daughters – or Jiro Sato, his bastard son. By rejecting the choices she’d set before him, Neji had undermined the integrity of their bond by his own decision.

“I don’t hate you. I promise. I shouldn’t have been -”

“A liar and a coward?”

“Y-yes.”

Risa’s white, bony hands lifted to cover her face. Beneath those hands, Neji pictured her face splitting into a sob. Comfort her. Do something, he urged himself. Drawing on what remained of the love and trust they’d built during their years of marriage, Neji swept Risa into his shoulder, pressing her close so that the curve of her stomach brushed his chest. His wife released a little whimper and braced her hands against his forearms, though she made no attempt to shove him off.

Still, her shoulders remained square and her hands stiff.

“I suppose our marriage is over. It is, to me," Risa breathed out.

“I-if that’s what you desire.”

He should have met her declaration with relief, when part of him had started to resent their marriage as a liability. Divorce among the Hyuga – especially initiated by the wife – was a rare event, precipitated only by abuse of the worst variety or infertility. Our marriage is over, Neji echoed to himself. He wasn’t sure what he should have expected when marriage and full commitment to two women wasn't possible.

“What can she give you that I can’t?” Risa hissed. Her white eyes gazed up at him with their corners narrowed in hostile anger. “I loved you. I hope you know that, whatever little lies you need to tell yourself to justify -”

“I’m finished lying to you.”

The words escaped between Neji’s lips in time with the staccato of his heartbeat. Risa’s pointed interrogations, her declarations of past love that she’d sharpened like a weapon, had pushed him to answer her in the first way he could think of. Redemption in the eyes of his wife lay farther away than even the possibility of salvaging something of their marriage. But some part of Neji resolved to try, to prove to Risa that she hadn't wasted her affection on a man who never existed. He clasped his wife’s hands between his fingers and clammy palms, resting his left thumb on her wedding band.

“Are you?”

Risa drew a sharp gasp and tugged her hands back toward her, then stopping before she could free herself of his grasp.

“Yes.”

His uncle’s voice echoed in the recesses of his memory, granting Neji a jolt of resolve to heed his advice given that day in the Hyuga compound gardens. To leave his position as clan head with fewer regrets than his predecessor. Entrenching himself further in half-truths was pointless when there remained no marriage, no reputation left to salvage after the previous night.

“Then tell me,” Risa spat. “You have less than an hour before the children return to eat, and I’d hate for them to see their mother and father in this state.”

Neji gave her a single nod. At least he wasn’t totally deplorable in her mind yet. He gave her hands a single squeeze. It was a promise to stop running – from the love that should never have gripped him so tightly, from the consequences of his past, from the impossible choices that love pushed on him.

“You’ve proven yourself loyal and kind above all, Risa. You’ve been a wonderful wife, and an amazing friend -”

Here, Risa squeezed her eyes shut and released a long breath. Neji tightened his core to push himself forward, to force just enough indifference to his wife’s pain that he could give her the truth she deserved.

“Any man would be fortunate to have married you, and I was.”

“You show gratitude in strange ways, Neji.”

Marriage to a respectable Hyuga woman, who’d shown him such grace, love and patience, should have been a reward in itself. A successful marriage and family of white-eyed children complemented his achievements as clan head, a symbol of the clan’s prosperity to others in the village and of strength and competence to those in the clan.

“But I...can’t fully explain why I desired what I had no right to want.”

Jiro realized that cleaving her parents apart was no way to repay a friend. Amaya had faced her parents’ disappointment and defied the rigid expectations set for her since birth, all for their friendship and her notion of what he deserved. As they sat on opposite sides of the swingset, his Hyuga sister had glanced at him a single time with her lips in a tight line. His heart had torn in two when she turned away again to face the woodchips beneath their feet. He didn’t blame her for hating him – however much he wished she might sympathize with his reasons for interceding on his mothers' behalf. Unfortunately, their shared love for family made them bitter opponents. But at the same time, he also understood that leaving his younger brother or sister fatherless, his mother distraught and sinking into her self-destructive vices, went against what their father had told him.

Neji Hyuga had told Jiro that he'd be truly empowered when he used his power to protect rather than hurt. Was this it? Jiro wondered, flinching from another pulse of pain across his heart. Doing good and making the difficult – but correct decision – was supposed to feel better than this.

“I’m not supposed to talk to you,” Amaya confessed when she sat on the swing next to his, the chains giving a quick squeal of protest at her weight. “Father told me, because of what I showed you.”

She reminded him of her instruction in the Byakugan with a hard edge to her voice. Jiro’s sister didn’t need to state that she’d gotten in trouble for his sake, only to see him betray her. At least that was how she viewed the situation, blinkered by the trauma of watching her parents’ marriage tear in two. Still, Jiro didn’t bear responsibility for the magnetism that drew his parents together. 

“Sorry. It’s my fault.”

Heat rose to Jiro’s face and neck. He touched his fingertips to the corners of his eyes to blot the beginnings of a tear on either side. No, he refused to cry when he’d done the right thing, the very thing Father said was supposed to resolve his constant feeling of powerlessness. Now, rather than facing the sting of Kenji’s fists and feet, Jiro dealt with a deeper hurt. It was the pain of losing someone who once cared for him.

“Sometimes I wish you were never born,” Amaya answered, a heartbeat later. Tinges of pink gathered around her white eyes, which blinked faster and faster.

The air from Jiro’s lungs deflated, leaving him unable to fill them with air no matter how many breaths he drew. For a moment, he envisioned making a different choice – calling his mother’s husband rather than his father. Letting adults handle their mistakes in the ways they saw fit, not overstepping outside a child’s domain. Mom was Lee’s responsibility because they’d married so many years ago, after she’d sworn off her first love. The Hyuga clan head’s first obligation was to his legitimate wife and daughters, and the clan he took oaths to safeguard.

But being born altogether? That wasn’t anything he’d chosen, or had any say in deciding when Mom was the one who wanted him. She’d loved him even if he was a Hyuga bastard who his father could never acknowledge in the open. Regardless, Amaya had good reason to see him as the one who laid the seeds for her parents’ current rift. No Jiro meant no surprise activation of the Hyuga kekkai genkai – and that meant Neji Hyuga would have no reason to reconnect with Tenten Lee. Mom would have no reminder of Jiro’s actual father to stir her discontent with the life she’d led since they parted ways.

“I could say the same for you.”

Jiro’s counter lacked the venom in his sister’s voice. His words tumbled from his lips in a whisper, drained of all conviction.

Amaya hadn’t chosen to enter the world either – her parents’ obligation to produce an heir had ensured it. Yet undoing the steps that led to her creation meant reversing the marriage between Neji and Risa Hyuga, and somehow influencing his father to make a different choice. Had Neji Hyuga never resolved to become clan head, he would have remained with Mom, then married her once they discovered they’d created a child. Maybe even before.

“Mother doesn’t want to be married to Father anymore,” Amaya continued, her words awkward on her tongue.

It’s your fault, she meant to say.

Jiro didn’t choose for his existence to be a crime in the eyes of the Hyuga clan. While the rest of the world may have believed he was a bastard at his core, he liked to believe that the things he chose to do defined him.

He’d protected someone precious to him - his younger brother or sister. His father was pleased with him at least, setting aside the fact that Jiro had woken him up around midnight while sleep still clung to his person. Jiro still remembered the telltale flicker in the Hyuga clan head’s white eyes when he met him in the clan compound’s dark corridor. That look in his eyes told Jiro that he knew he’d be damned once he returned. Neji Hyuga had made a choice then, to cast aside all pretense of indifference toward his bastard son and the woman he shouldn’t have loved. The Hyuga guards patrolling the compound at that hour of night had stood back with their hands clasped at their waists, their eyes averted from their superior.

“She knows now – everything.”

For that, Jiro could claim some responsibility. His mother would have kept her secrets had he never intervened, and the knowledge of the baby’s existence would never have reached Amaya’s mother. An innocent woman, one devoted to her family, had seen crushing proof of her husband's disloyalty because Jiro decided to throw secrecy and caution aside.

Mom’s in trouble, Jiro had pleaded, explaining that his mother was pregnant and distressed. She needs you. I know you’re the only one who can help. Father asked no more questions, other than whether Jiro could lead him to her. From around Father’s left side, Jiro had seen Risa Hyuga – Amaya’s mother – standing in a doorway. She had a white oval face, almond shaped eyes and thin brows, her features reflected in his sister's face. Dressed in a white nightgown and wrapped in shadow, the short, pale woman appeared like a ghost. Swallowing the gob of spit at the tip of his tongue, Jiro had forced himself to ignore her. The entire time they walked to his mother’s shop, his father had kept his hand tight against his. Jiro could almost sense the thundering of Father's pulse against his skin.

“That’s...I’m sorry,” Jiro whispered. “I guess that is my fault.”

Young as he was, he’d known there was no way his parents’ infatuation could have ended in anything but heartbreak and pain for someone. Shame choked him when he admitted that he’d rather see that pain inflicted on Risa Hyuga than on his mother. He’d rather have seen his step-father divorced than watched his mother extinguish the thing inside her to preserve their marriage. Faced with his half-sister’s pain, Jiro hated himself for casting his family’s interests above hers, for giving his only friend a reason to hate him at all. If only they could have continued to exist in that limbo where nobody was fully happy, where their peace rested on secrets, but none of them needed to suffer the devastation of a broken family.

Amaya shook her head.

“Father made his choice. So did Mother,” she said, stiffening her shoulders. “Anyways, I’m not supposed to speak with you.”

“Please – I know you’re mad at me, but I had to do -”

“Like I said, I’m not supposed to speak with you.”

Jiro gripped the chains on his swing until the gaps in the metal bit into his hand. He watched Amaya’s retreating back and the swing of her braids until she melded into a group of students on the blacktop. How unfortunate that he lacked the words to say he was sorry, but also had no regrets for any of it. Reaching out to touch her shoulder wouldn’t earn him any favors, as much as he burned to comfort Amaya. At best, she’d shrug his hand away. She’d decided to project her resentment onto him, because her obligations to her parents barred her from lashing out against them. And she’d never met Jiro’s mother – but the things Mom had done with their father were so far beyond her control. Jiro remained the only one she could hurt without consequence.

Whatever she now thought of him, Jiro couldn’t bring himself to ever regret the fact that Amaya Hyuga had been born. His daughter had been one of the few good things to come of the path his father took after his parents parted ways the first time. And their former friendship, one of the few good things to come since his eyes first turned white.

Chapter Text

Tenten slipped the strip of ultrasound scans from her pocket and ran her eyes over them. Among the static, the nurse at the hospital had pointed out the child’s head and arm. She was expecting another boy – her third, in contrast to Risa’s three daughters. A glimpse of the baby reminded her why she needed to confront Lee that evening, once he returned from training with Metal. Tenten wished Neji were by her side to reassure her with a quick hug or kiss to her temple. She reminded herself that she would have the remainder of her life to see her lover without shame – or, mostly without shame – once she cut her marriage ties to Lee.

It should have been easy enough to ask him for a divorce. A divorce was downright easy compared to living in a pretend marriage for decades longer. Part of Tenten hoped that Lee would make their separation conversation easier on her by asking for a divorce, much as Neji’s Hyuga wife had declared their marriage over. 

“What do you want for dinner, dear?” Tenten asked Jiro, who sat at the family’s dining table studying for an exam at the academy.

It was an ordinary question that she might have asked any day of the week. A jolt of searing pain shot through her heart when she considered that her days of asking what do you want for dinner while sitting in her kitchen would soon end.

“Don’t know. Don’t really care,” he answered, without glancing up from his paper. “Noodles, I guess.”

Jiro hummed, a pinch at the corner of his lips as he concentrated on a challenging practice problem. Tenten couldn’t in good conscience burden his slender shoulders with even more of her problems when she’d forced him to absorb so many tears already. The sake cabinet tempted her – the warm, numbing tingle of alcohol in her system would help her face Lee with her head high. Heat flooding to her face, Tenten told herself that her baby was the only reason she dared leave her husband. Harming her child again was the last thing she wanted. 

Jiro, are you mad at me? - Tenten wanted to ask, burning for some sort of absolution from her son. You must think I’m terrible for doing all of this to you. The latter thought wasn’t a new one, but it assumed a new resonance after the night he found her. The night her son saved her.

“I love you,” she muttered into the still air, illuminated by the hazy late afternoon sun filtering through the curtains.

“Um, thanks...Mom.”

Her son peered up with narrowed eyes. The sun illuminated his golden brown eyes that looked so much like hers and her parents’. Tenten could hardly believe in the moment that they were capable of turning white, like his father’s.

A familiar flurry of footsteps sounded outside, accompanied by Metal’s eager tones and his father’s knowing laugh. Digging her nails into the meat of her palm, Tenten answered the door with a too-shrill welcome home, Lee. She rolled her shoulders sideways when Lee drew a touch too close for her comfort – a gesture that escaped Metal’s notice, but left her husband reeling. Lee released a small groan and muttered something about going upstairs to shower. Tenten flashed a tight smile into Lee’s retreating back, for show. To reassure their children that things were amicable between their parents and whatever animosity lingered from that night was nothing important.

“You feeling okay, Mom?” Metal asked, a tentative smile on his lips.

Her younger son resembled a younger version of Lee in most ways – and his choice of haircut and dress only made the resemblance stronger. Looking into his almond-shaped eyes, Tenten saw the one trace of her on his face. She bit the inside of her lip at the recognition that he was her child, too, and she prepared to force a terrible choice on him. No child should have had to choose between his mother and father.

“Oh, I’m alright, Metal. I...heard you talking to Dad outside. You make good progress on training?”

“Yeah, I did. Dad said I was shaping up to be an excellent shinobi. He said he was proud of me.” Metal said nothing more and offered his mother a quick hug.

“I’m proud of you, too. I hope you know that,” Tenten answered. “Wherever we end up, I’ll always love you.”

The words rang hollow once she said them. Tenten couldn’t help loving him, but her love felt worthless when she’d very likely end up loving him from across the village. She prayed Metal couldn’t detect the hitch in her voice, but the scrunch of his brows told her that he noticed.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she hummed. “You’re going to give yourself wrinkles before you’re 20.”

Metal flashed his mother a mouthful of teeth just when Lee returned downstairs, as fast in the shower as he’d been during their genin days. Catching Tenten’s eye, Lee prompted his son to go upstairs to clean himself for dinner and waved her over to the living room. Jiro stacked his books and papers, then followed his brother upstairs - perceptive, as always, on when his presence wasn't wanted. Lee settled onto the couch in the exact spot where Neji sat the night they came back together after so many years apart. Tenten sat on the opposite end of the couch, hands clasped in her lap.

“Let us talk quickly because we do not have much time until Metal finishes showering. I could tell you wanted to speak with me.”

“Oh, I...did want to talk,” Tenten choked out, words escaping her grasp now that Lee granted her an audience. “About us.”

When her mind failed to string the proper words together, she slipped her fingers into her pocket and brushed the top edge of her ultrasound scans. Tenten held her breath and offered Lee the strip of images before she had time to second-guess herself. He accepted the film strip in his outstretched hand, closing his thumb and forefinger around the paper with unusual care.

“Still healthy. Alive,” Tenten said, raising her head to face Lee. “A boy.”

“I am relieved to hear that, after what had happened.”

The lilt of Lee’s voice told Tenten that he thought to say more, but decided against continuing because she had endangered her baby. Her husband no doubt inferred that reminding Tenten of her mistake wouldn’t make for a constructive conversation. She knew his expression of relief was sincere. Lee wasn’t someone who would feel any kind of joy over the loss of a child. Her intentions, however, threatened to sour that relief.

“Are you going to show them to him?”

Lee’s voice fell between them, soft and low. His round eyes lingered over each image, then the tips of his fingers traced the outline of the body that appeared in white against the black and gray background.

Tenten hummed and nodded, though she remained unsure when she would next see Neji. Handling his ongoing divorce and clan affairs left him without a clear opening to visit his lover and children. Tenten thought for a moment that the images of their newest child and her account of his fluttering heartbeat might offer her lover strength. She expected he would need it to weather the recriminations he faced on their behalf.

“Good. I believe he would like to see them.”

Without looking at his wife, Lee set the pictures on the couch cushion between them and toyed with the bandages around his hands and forearms. Her husband’s refusal to speak their former teammate’s name left a hollow in Tenten’s chest. Despite the years they spent as distant acquaintances, Lee had been the one who urged Neji to reconnect with his old friends, to salve the isolation that came with his position. Now Neji, Tenten, and Lee were farther apart than they’d been in the years before Jiro activated his Byakugan.

“Neji’s going to be part of his life,” Tenten declared. “I’m...going to tell him the truth about his father, not like I did before."

“That is acceptable to me.”

Tenten nodded and wrestled her face into an expression meant to convey gratitude. It probably looked more like a grimace. 

"I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but Neji’s wife requested a divorce...um, because of...what he did.”

She waited for Lee to tell her that he wanted a divorce in light of everything she'd forced him to suffer. As she had in the endless leadup to her husband’s arrival, Tenten prayed for him to announce the fateful decision so she could concur, thank him for his honesty and spare herself the pain. Breaking her marriage to someone so loving and kind would leave Tenten feeling like even worse of a person than she already did. But Tenten had done so many selfish, short-sighted and morally questionable things in the past months. Divorcing Lee would be a mercy, so he wouldn’t be bound to a woman who cared too little not to hurt him, again and again.

“Would you like to say anything more?” she whispered. “Lee – just tell me whatever you want. I owe it to you to listen after everything I’ve put you through.”

Tenten rolled her lip inward and turned to face Lee again, determined not to tear her eyes from her husband. Expecting Lee to divorce her was borderline delusional, she realized. He’d spent years chasing scraps of Sakura Haruno’s affection like a spurned puppy. Rock Lee was more likely to say that he wanted to repair their marriage, and make amends for the coldness he’d shown his wife when he suspected her love for another.

“I have nothing to say other than that you are still my wife. I will not deny that you did not behave as a wife should, but I made a promise to love and protect you. I would like to make things right between us.”

She noted that he neglected to mention Neji whatsoever.

With that simple answer, Lee proved her right about who he was – not that Tenten needed much guesswork. Hearing him affirm his loyalty shattered her heart. Damn you, Lee, Tenten thought. Just yell at me. Call me a whore, anything. Footsteps sounded on the stairs above them – Metal, now finished with his shower. Tenten swallowed the gob of thick spit on her tongue and tried to muster her courage to tell Lee something so simple yet impossible.

In her years of marriage to Lee, she never imagined herself seeking a divorce. Divorces were a last resort for women facing infidelity or abuse from their husbands, and Lee was guilty of neither. To want a divorce for any other reason was disreputable, and Tenten had spent most of her adult life avoiding disrepute.

“I...shouldn’t be your wife anymore,” Tenten choked out.

“Pardon me?”

Metal’s entrance in the living room left Lee no space to question his wife’s sudden declaration. It was unfair to him, to drop something so consequential then leave him unable to answer her honestly. Tenten attempted to plaster a smile on her face for her son’s sake. 

“Hi, Mom. Dad,” Metal stammered. “Can I watch some TV? There’s a new movie playing in a few minutes and I really want to see it.”

Tenten almost laughed at his mundane request. Her poor, unsuspecting son really had no idea of the conversation between his mother and father. He acted as if his family were still intact, and his mother hadn’t made a formal request to dissolve it.

“Of course, dear. Just remember – only two hours of TV on a school night. And keep the volume low. Jiro is studying,” Tenten answered, playing the good mother. Indulgent, but not too permissive.

She released a long breath when Metal’s lips curved into a grin and he kissed her on the cheek. He turned the TV on and scrolled through the channels until he found the one playing Shinobi Strike 7: Wings of Justice. The rush of pounding music accompanying the title card resonated in her bones. Tenten nodded to Lee and tilted her chin toward the staircase. Let’s continue this conversation in the bedroom, the gesture said. The thin walls upstairs meant Jiro would probably hear his mother and stepfather discussing their divorce. But her older son no doubt anticipated a breakup between his mother and stepfather over his unborn younger brother.

Husband and wife sat side by side on the bed, with Lee perched on the edge. Regarding his wife’s form against the headboard, he maybe pictured Neji on the mattress with Tenten pinned beneath him, or relaxing with Tenten’s head on his shoulder. Though any traces of her lover had been long washed away from their sheets, the consequences of her affair couldn’t be so easily cleansed.

“I sincerely care for you and our family,” Lee pleaded. “You know I do not hate you for conceiving with another man.”

“I know, and that’s why I’m leaving. You...love me and I can’t give that back to you.”

Confusion knit Lee’s bushy eyebrows. Heat rushed to Tenten’s face and she scolded herself for her lack of grace, once again. What she meant as a conciliatory, gentle remark instead came out sounding dismissive.

“What I mean is – I don’t feel that way about you, Lee.”

“You do not love me?”

The tiny rattle in Lee’s voice told Tenten that he sat close to crying, and his tears would melt her resolve. They always did, because she hated the sight of his normally cheery face marred by tears.

“Not the way I...need, and the way you deserve. I’ll always love you as a good friend.”

“Then you have lied to me.”

The accusation hit Tenten with a blunt slap, even while her husband spoke the words without hatred or bitterness. Perhaps he thought that in retrospect, it was little wonder that his wife lied to him when she lied to Jiro about his parentage and Neji about the son they’d made. He merely stated the truth as he saw it – and he had good reason to see it that way. She’d told him I love you at their wedding and numerous times afterward, to convince her husband and herself in equal measure. She gazed back at Lee, wide eyed.

“I was lying to myself, too. I tried to love you for so long. I told myself we made a good couple...” she rambled, before her voice trailed into a hiccup. “You were good for Jiro – really good to both of us. Logically, that should have made me love you the way I was...um, in love before.”

Lee’s lips compressed into a tight line and he watched his twisting fingers.

“It feels pointless to speak of what should have been. Rather, what you want to do now would break our family -”

“You think I haven’t thought about that?” Tenten cut in, heat rising in her core when confronted with yet another reminder of her guilt. “Trust me, I feel terrible about making the kids choose. I never thought I’d be the one asking for a divorce. I wish I’d never put us in this place.”

Her words could have either meant that she wished she’d never married her husband, or that she wished nothing tempted her away from him. Tenten didn’t know which she meant and she doubted Lee cared.

Lee bowed his head forward into his hands. He muttered something that sounded like please – you do not need to do this. Tenten set a hand on his shoulder blade and ran her palm in circles, hoping she might soothe him. They remained locked in their limbo for minutes that felt like hours, until his breaths were her only sign that he still lived. In the meantime, Tenten heard Jiro plod down the stairs in his usual careful gait and join his brother on the sofa. The punches and explosions from the TV set, interspersed by occasional exchanges between the brothers, registered as faint pings in the back of Tenten’s mind.

“Then what will you do once you are no longer my wife?” Lee asked at last.

“I’ll...I don’t quite know yet,” she admitted. “Neji and his wife are also separating so…”

“I am not sure that is an answer.”

A rare hint of sarcasm from her husband, borne of bitterness against his former rival? Tenten bristled with surprise. She mouthed an I know, because she had only an inkling of how she and Neji might begin their lives together. A place to live, marriage licenses, custody of their children – so many questions needed resolution. Yet limited time remained for her and Neji to realize their dream of a life together. That dream, deferred for so long, could no longer afford delay when she would give birth in a little more than half a year.

“I just know that I won’t be here anymore. We’ll figure it out, him and I.”

“I just worry that you are not making this decision with enough thought. Neji has not even told you that he would be willing to marry you or move in with you.”

“He told me he wanted to do things the right way,” she countered, though her voice sounded like the feeble whining of a child desperate to believe.

A fist constricted around her heart because her lover hadn’t mentioned anything about marriage. What else could he have meant? Tenten thought. The question that followed cast more doubts in her mind - Where else could he go? Neji Hyuga was ruined goods in the eyes of any self-respecting Hyuga woman, and he’d likely lose his clan head status over his latest offense. No, a man wouldn’t have sabotaged himself for his last resort lover.

“Again, that does not strike me as much of an answer.”

“Yeah, and you haven’t given me an answer yet,” Tenten prompted, raising a single brow.

Deflecting from the unknowns put her back on comfortable ground, as comfortable as she could be while proposing a divorce to her husband of over 10 years.

“On which question?”

“Us,” she answered without leaving a breath of space between their words. “But if you need some time to decide what you want to tell me -”

“No, if it is what you want, then I have no right to deny you. I only wish you the best.”

The square set in Lee’s jaw left Tenten uneasy, her breaths shallowing as she awaited what he would say next. His response – however clipped and forced-sounding - was what a man in his situation should have said, out of respect for his wife and her independence. But Tenten sensed that much remained unsaid on his part.

A breeze cut through the still air of their bedroom as Lee strided toward the door and continued down the stairs without a pause.

Tenten closed her eyes and decided against pursuing him. Her husband needed space to think apart from the woman who threatened to destroy the life he’d built. As the movie transitioned into a commercial break and her sons chattered about the lackluster genjutsu special effects, Tenten realized she’d left her ultrasound scans on the couch downstairs. Cold dread bathed her entire body.

There was no turning back for Tenten, much as she might have wished to regain some of the tenuous peace of before – even if that peace was founded on lies.

Neji Hyuga cleared the treeline to find Rock Lee at Team Gai’s old training ground, pounding his bandaged fists into a wooden post. Ironic how something had driven both former teammates to the same place, the place that reminded them of times when their main concerns were completing mission objectives and advancing as shinobi. Those pursuits were far more straightforward than seeking fulfillment in their intimate lives while keeping their family obligations. Lee fixated so intensely on beating his mock opponent that he didn’t turn to acknowledge Neji until the men stood less than one body length apart. Lee’s final punch dented the wood several inches deep and sent splinters flying.

“Why, hello there, Neji,” Lee stammered. “I am surprised to see you here.”

“Likewise.”

Lee gave Neji an awkward smile before rearing his shoulder back to strike the wood again. He offered Neji none of the chatter he normally would upon a chance meeting. Their roles had reversed – now Neji needed to extract the words from his recalcitrant former teammate. Though Lee’s chattiness often annoyed Neji, his silence disturbed him more. Neji wondered whether Lee held some unspoken grudge against him, which would be very uncharacteristic of the always upbeat person he knew.

“Lee – wait a minute,” Neji gasped, as he seized Lee’s arm.

The tension in Lee’s flexed muscle, the sheer power he just held back, scared Neji far more than he expected. No, there was nothing to fear with Rock Lee, a man he’d known since childhood and saved numerous times. And Lee had returned that favor an equal number of times, if not more. Lee pivoted to face Neji and met his former teammate’s blank gaze with his round black eyes. Lee’s pressed lips confirmed Neji’s suspicions of his barely suppressed hostility, which now surfaced.

“Something seems to trouble you,” Neji ventured. “I haven’t seen you so upset in all the years I’ve known you.”

“Let me go, Neji.”

“Yes, of course.”

Neji obeyed before standing two steps back. Lee leaned against the wooden post and crossed his arms over his chest. 

“Have you ever considered that I value my relationship with Tenten as well? We have been married for over 10 years now,” Lee spat. “You had to take her from me, but I suppose that is who you are, Neji. It is what you have always done.”

Neji noted that Lee refrained from saying anything about his wife's choice, that Neji would never have forced Tenten to love him. But Rock Lee wasn’t someone who relinquished his infatuations easily, or ever. 

“Lee – I didn’t tell her to do anything. I admit my fault, but she made her own decision.”

“You clearly have not changed one bit since the day we were assigned to a team together. You care about nobody other than yourself and consider everyone far beneath you.”

The old wounds of their childhood laced Lee’s words with extra venom, and it shocked Neji that Lee would still remember his former snobbiness, the way he bullied him like it happened yesterday. Neji parted his lips to apologize before Lee continued.

"I was so foolish to believe you ever became a different person. Surely you think it was your destiny that entitled you to do whatever you wanted to her." 

Resisting the urge to interject, Neji told himself he owed Lee a hearing, however ill-considered his words might have been.

Would it matter to Lee if Neji told him that he was merely collateral, that none of what he’d done with Tenten was meant to hurt him? Those words would have been wasted, Neji concluded. The effects were still the same – Lee lost his wife, and the hard-won family he'd provided for over most of their adult lives. In a sense, Neji’s lack of consideration for Lee’s interests made his betrayal far worse. Lee hadn't been important enough for him to weigh his wants against the yearning between him and Tenten, beyond an occasional twinge of guilt.

“I never had a father when I was a child, so having my own family was always my dream,” Lee said, much of the fire now absent from his voice. His tone turned reflective. “Now that is dead. Tenten told me yesterday that our marriage was over because she could no longer remain with me in good conscience.”

"Hate me if you must, but I'm sorry I...killed your dream." 

"That is very touching," Lee spat. 

Bandaged fists continued striking the post with renewed energy, sending shards of splintered wood flying across the training green. Swallowing, Neji pivoted to stand away from the stray pieces of wood but in full view of Lee’s almost feral scowl. Yet the intensity of each punch meant that Lee tired far quicker than usual and within minutes, he stood panting with hands clutching his sides. He met Neji’s eyes for a moment then his head bowed forward as if he were a puppet whose strings were cut.

“I apologize,” Neji said, letting the words hang between them. “I understand my apology may not be worth much to you at the moment. Please know, I am sincerely sorry for whatever hurt I've inflicted on you since everything happened with Jiro.”

Lee shook his head. Pacing before the destroyed training post, Lee appeared a defeated shadow of his normally cheery self. Though Neji burned to see his former teammate greet him with a thumbs-up and toothy grin, he knew nothing he said or did could restore Lee’s confidence. Navigating such sensitive personal affairs didn’t come naturally to him, and Lee’s sagging face presented Neji yet another reminder of that fact.

“You are correct that your apology is not meaningful when the damage has already been done. I suppose it has always been you, Neji. Tenten would never have been truly happy as my wife.”

“In what sense?”

“Tenten called you a genius and said you could defeat anybody. Seeing you defeated did not change her perception of your abilities. Meanwhile, she called me a hopeless idiot and said I should not even try to surpass you.”

“Lee, we were 13 – you can’t still be –”

Even as he said the words out of a reflexive need to absolve himself, Neji knew it wasn’t just their petty genin rivalry that bothered Lee. No, Tenten's casual dismissal of her future husband during their teenage years must have echoed when she cast him aside for his rival.

“She never stopped loving you and believing in you, even as you threw her away.”

Lee left unsaid that he - unlike Neji - had never abandoned Tenten or her children.

Neji had no ready response. He cleared his throat and muttered something about how Lee was correct. He had chosen his ambitions, noble as they were, over the woman who loved him. Unfortunately, that choice had set them on two separate paths and made their decision to separate all that much harder to reverse. For the sake of their newest child, Neji told himself that they needed to find a way forward. And it was inevitable that some of what they’d built in their years apart would fall.

“I won’t do that again.”

Lee had shamed him into reiterating his commitment, to showing that he wasn’t the arrogant teenager or insecure young man of before. Putting the promise into practice was another impossible task to his growing list, but one he needed to make possible.

“You had better not,” Lee concurred, crossing his arms in a challenge. “I may not be Tenten’s husband any longer, but I still do not want to see her hurt again.”

Neji nodded. Their shared interests led to a fragile understanding between the former teammates. Tenten and her baby would be protected.

Chapter Text

The house sat silent when Tenten answered the door a few minutes after midnight. Neji's face - tinged by red from the chill evening air and sunken from stress - appeared in the doorway. He'd come to her in need, the way he had when they’d fucked in her downstairs bathroom. Though Lee traveled for work as he often did, her sons still laid in their rooms, hopefully asleep. A sharp shout of excitement, decidedly improper for a soon to be divorced woman, would rouse their attention. Tenten could excuse a bit of covert infidelity to a dead marriage, but she didn't need her children losing what remained of their faith in her.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Neji explained, brushing the outer edge of Tenten’s face with cold fingertips. “I needed to see you.”

“Well, I suppose you’re lucky that I’m not going anywhere. Not when I’m knocked up.”

The corners of Neji’s lips pinched and his white eyes darted to the threshold where he stood. His uncharacteristic shyness, elicited by his infatuation for her, prompted a quick rush of affection. Or he’s still trying to wrap his head around the fact that he’s going to be a dad again, Tenten thought. She lifted his chin so their eyes could meet again, whispering an I love you.

"I love you, too. That's part of why I came -" 

"When is it not?" Tenten breathed out, her words chased by a soft laugh.

"It's...different this time. You'll see."

Her lover released a heavy breath before nodding a single time and squeezing his eyes shut. The hand on her face lowered to grasp the one that hung by her side, his thumb pressed into her knuckles. Tenten noted with a jolt of satisfaction that Neji no longer wore his wedding band, even while hers still graced her left hand. That only meant she was a damn coward, ultimately incapable of committing to him though her heart had settled in his hands long before.

“While you’re here,” Tenten began. “I wanted to show you something. Our baby. I got to look at him for the first time...without you.”

“Please. I would like that. And, I should probably close the door so I don't let out any more heat.”

The front door closed behind Neji’s turned back with a soft thud. Tenten led him toward the spare bedroom upstairs, where she’d stowed the strip of ultrasound images in the nightstand’s top drawer. Seated on the rumpled bedsheets, legs hanging from the edge of the bed, Neji and Tenten shared a kiss that left sparks tingling across her lower lip. She shuddered at the light tug of his teeth on her lip. Tenten could tell that he wanted more, wanted to take their kiss further. But it wasn't the occasion for lacing her fingers into his hair and drawing him into her, much as he tempted her.

The lamp cast a soft orange halo when she twisted the knob on its side, and her hands groped in the nightstand drawer for the pictures. The corners of the strip had thinned from wear. She brought the pictures out before bed and upon waking every morning to peer at the little body swimming in a sea of black and gray. He’d been so alive, his tiny heart pattering in her ear like an insect’s wingbeats. 

Once she held the paper between two fingers, she laid it across her thigh. Her lover’s hand crept forward, his index finger hovering over the spot of white at the center. White eyes lingered on her lower core.

“He’s healthy. Doctor said his heart is strong. It was going fast when he let me hear it. I’m so happy that he wasn’t hurt when...I…”

Her words trailed into a shaky hum. Neji lifted his hand to the side of her head, sweeping her face into his shoulder. He’d dragged her out of it, which relieved Tenten of the need to explain herself. The stiffness in Neji’s muscles told Tenten that things remained unsaid on his end as well. Perhaps he hadn’t wanted to compound her worries when carrying a new life inside her and handling the split in her household was enough. In the silence between them, she fretted over the burden he refrained from sharing. The ridge of bone along his shoulder felt harder, more prominent than it had the last time she’d laid on it.

Still an idiot, she thought. Trying to be strong for me. Neji had always been the one to take her watch shifts on missions so she could sleep longer.

“So, you’re expecting a boy?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not sure I can see anything in the pictures.”

“If you look for more than a few seconds -”

“I understand.”

Tenten's eyes tapered at the edges, and Neji's signature dimples appeared on either cheek. 

“Glad I didn’t have to explain that one.”

“I love him. I love both of you. But I’m sure you know that.”

“Of course I do.” Even if that wasn’t always obvious. Tenten swallowed the bile welling at the back of her throat.

“I see no harm in telling you again.”

Neji touched his puckered lips to Tenten’s hairline and she sensed the traces of a smile in the way they curved. Another boy, an ironic turn of fate. Neji had tried for over 10 years to conceive a legitimate male heir with Risa Hyuga – and failed, through no fault to either of them. But his two sons with Tenten would never be eligible to inherit his position.

“I wished you were there -”

“I know,” Neji cut in. “I’m sorry for failing you again. It won’t happen the same way, I promise.”

The heat in his voice gripped her, anchored her in place. She remembered the hours she’d spent enveloped in him the morning after Jiro insisted that he save her and their child. Neji had declared to her that he wanted to redo things the right way, and his presence next to her added weight to his promise.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Tenten answered with a breathy, nervous giggle. “I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad about...ah, the first time. Or missing this one.”

“I know you would never. Not intentionally. You’re too kind.”

A full laugh ripped from the base of Tenten’s throat – too kind? When she’d laid her lover so low, fed her devoted husband lies for months? She swallowed the laughs building in her core before either Jiro or Metal could awaken. Yet Tenten reassured herself that second chances existed. Their baby proved it, as did the second chance he’d given her by saving both of them.

“I told you – we’re going to do things the right way this time,” Neji insisted. Tenten detected a hint of anger in the sharp edges of his words, anger that she’d apparently ridicule his convictions.

“I believe you.”

Neji pinched a stray lock of Tenten’s hair between his thumb and forefinger, slipping it behind her ear. His hand lingered a second too long before settling at the junction of her neck and shoulder. Tenten laid a kiss on his collarbone, covered by the cotton fabric of his yukata. She tried to imagine what it might be like for them to be in the right as lovers who didn’t need to reserve their affection for the shadows. With both of their divorces underway, the guilt of betraying their families no longer clung to them like thick, cloying oil.

“I brought something for you, Tenten.”

“A gift? Oh, you didn’t need to bring me anything.”

“Yes, I did.”

Neji’s shoulder shifted beneath her head when he reached into a fold of his yukata. Her heart tapped at her breastbone, fluttering like the tiny heart that beat in her lower core. Her lover’s white eyes averted her inquiring gaze when he lifted his hand out with something square enclosed in his fingers. White knuckles swelled with exertion, and Tenten imagined beads of sweat gathering on the polished wood surface.

“What is it?” Tenten whispered. “I’m sure I’ll appreciate it. Whatever it is -”

“I said I planned to do things right. This should have been yours from the beginning.” Neji’s words emerged in a clipped staccato. “I want to marry you. I’m asking you now.”

A ring.

His grip on the box loosened by a touch, enough for his fingers to fall away from the plain black box. Tenten bit the inside of her cheek so she wouldn’t make any noise – so she wouldn’t cry out with I love it, or thank you. Or even what took you so long? She angled her head upward to touch her puckered lips to the top of his cheekbone, drawing out a quick, embarrassed gasp. Neji Hyuga had always been cute when he was flustered, overwhelmed by emotion he couldn’t express with the same cool confidence he normally carried.

“You know the answer,” Tenten said, once the rush of blood in her veins slowed. “It’s the same one I’ve had in mind for so long.”

“And that would be no?”

Neji turned his hand so that it covered the ring box, withdrawing his shoulder just enough for her to notice. Teasing her, a little boy seeking validation.

“You’re supposed to be a genius, you know.”

“Maybe they’re all wrong.”

“Yes. Of course it’s a yes.” Tenten lowered her voice, losing her sarcasm. “I wasn’t expecting this. I'm a bit embarrassed to say...I’m still wearing my wedding ring.”

Her lover closed his eyes for the second she needed to slip the ring onto the nightstand. The scuffed gold band – rarely removed from her hand in the years she’d been married – fell with a solid thunk. The fourth finger on her left hand was now bare, suddenly lightened by the absence of a piece of metal no heavier than a coin.

Another ring slid onto Tenten’s finger, cold metal warmed by the heat of her hand. A shiver ran across her skin. The void left by her first ring hadn’t lasted long.

“We’ll make it official soon enough, with the village. The clan will need to acknowledge it in time.”

“You make that sound easy.”

Tenten leaned forward and touched the tip of her finger to Neji’s nose. His brows bunched in the center.

“I would never try to tell you that. But you said that I was a genius. If you still believe in me, I’ll not let you down.”

Risa Hyuga narrowed her white eyes when her husband entered the bedroom they’d once shared. He'd meant to enter, gather what belongings remained and slip away without leaving any trace other than the empty spaces in the room's closets and drawers. Neji’s frayed nerves sang with anticipation. Images flashed through his mind, of her sniping at him with some pointed comment about leaving so soon or forgetting to give her a kiss. Closing her eyes, Risa continued running her bone comb through her waist-length black hair. 

“You didn’t wait long to ask her hand in marriage,” Risa said to Neji’s turned back. His hand quivered, dropping his suitcase to the hardwood floor.

He’d mentioned his proposal to Tenten the day after the fact. I thought I should tell you that I intend to marry her, Neji had muttered over dinner, which he still attended at Risa’s insistence. His wife was steadfast about maintaining a semblance of family life until their divorce was legally finalized – which could have been months into the future. At the time, she’d met the news with an I understand followed by that’s certainly an interesting development.

Now, the layer of courtesy she showed around their daughters had been pared back. Risa's pointed observation seemed to ask did I matter that little to you? Was our marriage so inconsequential to you that you couldn’t even wait until it was over to jump into another?

“No. I’ve delayed enough. You were the one who told me that our marriage was over.”

Risa hummed. The long breath she released had a telltale waver to it, like she meant to laugh. Neji urged himself to make some excuse to escape the white eyes that pinned him, boring into the soft, rotten core of his heart. Yet his tongue sat at the base of his mouth when he tried to force words forth – about some forgotten meeting, or work-related matter.

“We’ve had this conversation already, Neji. About how I no longer wish to be married to you.”

“We did.”

“Part of me didn’t expect you to ever propose marriage to her. In a way, I commend you.”

“We’ve been married for over ten years, and I can’t tell if you’re mocking me.”

“No more than you’ve mocked me,” Risa shot back.

The electricity sparking in the air of their bedroom made the hairs on Neji’s arms bristle. His heart swelled as he anticipated another argument over past deeds that neither of them could change. He’d grovel before his wife and admit the full extent of his betrayal, but he refused to pass the entirety of his life apologizing to her.

“Please, Risa. There’s no need for that.”

“There was no need for you to stray either.” Risa’s face pinched, and her head bowed to face what remained of her lap. “Anyways, I wish you best of luck with your new marriage, assuming you can persuade the clan to approve it. Assuming you don’t find another woman once you’ve said your vows to her.”

Risa released a huff. Taunting her husband, daring him to react to the needles she shoved beneath his skin. She almost wanted him to lash back at her, Neji thought, so she had an excuse to shred what remained of her Hyuga manners.

“I -”

“You don’t think she wonders, hm? You’ve proven your nature to both of us. Admit it to yourself, don’t you wonder whether Tenten Lee fantasizes about another man while you take her in bed?”

“Shut up.”

Heat rose to Neji’s face and neck. Tenten loved him and him alone, he reassured himself. Nothing else explained her determination to reunite after years apart. Unless he'd been a mere distraction from a marriage that lacked any physical or emotional spark. Neji bit the inside of his lip so he wouldn’t lash his pregnant wife. She’d made an ill-considered comment that bothered him more than he wanted to admit and he wouldn't let her bitterness poison his love, his future.

“I’m only telling you that disloyal men and women don’t change their characters.”

“I’ll say to you once again that I’m sorry – nothing can fully make amends for how I treated you. I don’t disagree with anything you said, except that I’ll never wrong Tenten like I’ve wronged you.”

His wife’s hand twitched when she grasped the comb between her fingers again. The wood landed on the table with a soft thunk followed by a muttered curse. If you say so, Risa whispered, almost indistinguishable from another breath. I hope you’re right for her sake. Rather than answering his wife, Neji stepped forward to stand behind her, until his face reflected in the mirror above her head. Their identical white eyes stared into the reflective glass, ringed by hairline wrinkles and shadows that reflected more than their years.

He reached around her elbow to take the comb, to continue combing and braiding her hair. In their years sharing the same bedroom and the same morning and evening routines, Neji had watched Risa do both hundreds of times. Yet a fist tightened around his heart as he brought the tines of the comb to her scalp. Please don’t push me away, Neji pleaded. They wouldn’t ever share the intimacy of husband and wife again, but he hoped they could still share a simpler, more innocent closeness.

“Don’t pull too hard,” Risa said. Neji glanced into the mirror and noted that her eyes were closed.

“You were correct that forcing you to apologize until your death is a pointless punishment. I wish to...live side by side for the sake of our children.”

“Risa, you’ve been far more gracious than I could ask for.”

For the most part, Neji thought. His wife was a woman with all the insecurities and weaknesses of one, who’d allowed her jealousy to cloud her. In moments with less clarity, Neji was tempted to blame her resentments toward Jiro for the breakdown in their marriage. Now, she thought not of her grievances, but of the children who’d lose their father to another woman.

“Thank you.”

Neji paused halfway down Risa’s back when her eyebrow lifted in apparent pain. Once she nodded and whispered that she was alright to continue, he dragged the comb down to the ends of her hair. Shivers ran from his fingertips down to his wrist when he brushed the side of her face as he gathered hair behind her back.

“I have no desire to leave our family behind. Or you.”

“You say that now. I dread giving birth without you. Knowing you don’t care for me as you used to, would you even come?”

Though Amaya and Reina were away, their third child remained in the room with them. The way Risa’s hands folded across her swollen midsection reminded him that his wife would give birth within the month. She could have her pick of servants to hold her hand in the hospital, cousins and friends to assist her with everyday tasks in the days afterward. For some reason, Risa still wanted his presence. Whatever his missteps, she still believed her husband had something to offer her in one of the most difficult times of a woman’s life.

“I would. As soon as I knew, Risa.”

“You’d better. I’m sure there’s honor in you yet.”

Honor in you yet, Risa’s words echoed amid the swish of the comb through her hair. Risa and Tenten had that conviction in common, as did Jiro. He refused to give them any more reason for doubt.

The next Hyuga clan council meeting confronted Neji with a roundtable of stern faces, white eyes glaring at the clan head with flickers of contempt and distrust. Of course, proper Hyuga wouldn't outright call their superior a traitor to his blood, or label Tenten Lee a whore. Hyuga who weren't faithless had regard for traditional Hyuga manners. Neji pressed his palms into his pants and ran them back and forth until the friction left his skin raw. Yet wiping until his skin was no more would have done nothing to blot his sweat - and he was sure he would have switched to sweating blood. As a father, he couldn’t betray his responsibility to his unborn child. Jiro, courageous as he’d been the night Neji learned of Tenten’s pregnancy, wasn’t suited to sitting in clan council meetings. Tenten was absent – as she should have been.

“I believe you owe us an explanation,” Noriko Hyuga began. "I was so foolish to hope that you might talk some sense into that woman. Not only have you failed to persuade her to cleanse herself of that thing, but you're now intending to marry her." 

The months since the council last convened seemed to only have sharpened the angles and hard edges of her weathered face.

"I never tried to talk sense into her." Neji’s mouth ran dry, and he pressed his lips into a tight line. "Because there is no thing she needs to cleanse herself of." 

The outlines of Noriko’s scowl blurred in his vision, as did the council room’s shades of brown, white, and gray. He had no version of the truth to share that would be acceptable to the council members. A clan head wasn’t supposed to allow his personal entanglements to overtake the clarity of thought and action required of his position. Yet so much depended on at least trying. Unless he offered an adequate defense, a vote of no-confidence would probably soon follow. With it, the culmination of his younger self's dreams and ambitions would unravel.

Neji’s palms ran along his thighs once, twice. He parted his lips to begin speaking, lifted his chin to project confidence he lacked.

“I have to say -”

“What explanation would satisfy you?” A familiar voice cut in – mellow yet with an edge that betrayed more than just casual curiosity. “I’m not sure the point of my nephew answering when you’ve already declared him guilty.”

Seated between two elders with long, white-streaked hair, Hiashi Hyuga sat with his shoulders straight, a porcelain teacup held between his thumb and forefinger. Neji puzzled that nobody in the room had mentioned the former clan head’s presence among the council members. Hiashi had finally chosen to take an interest in the wider affairs of the clan he once led, to look away from his water color paints and the pursuit of capturing dappled sunlight on the page. His uncle’s white eyes widened by a touch when they met Neji’s, and Hiashi’s lip tugged upward at the corner. Neji burned to clutch his hands and squeeze them until his uncle’s bones pressed into his skin, swearing his thanks until his words lost cohesion.

“Why don’t you allow him to speak?” Noriko sneered. “I was under the assumption that you’d retired, and let the boy take your place. Now, if you believe you were mistaken in trusting him -”

Noble as Hiashi's intentions might have been, Neji doubted he could do much to save him. Years of inaction had much diminished the influence Hiashi once held over the clan, and no amount of bargaining could erase the evidence or consequences of Neji’s transgressions.

“I don’t believe I was. I maintain that he was the correct choice for clan head, and the most obvious. Certainly more obvious than your son.”

Cast on the defensive, Hiashi’s eyes flickered over to Noriko and he appeared almost bored to Neji’s eyes. His uncle raised the teacup to his lips, paused to blow on his tea, then drank. How the years had changed Hiashi, who would have once punished him for loving outside the clan. In his old age, he appeared indifferent at most to the mistakes for which the council wanted Neji to pay dearly. Maybe part of him even pitied his successor for the sacrifices he'd imposed.

“Uncle,” Neji began. “Please. I’d like to answer for myself.”

Chairs skidded on the wooden floorboards. In the still air of the council room, Neji’s ears fixated at every huff and groan. His heart tapped just a touch faster as he gathered the attention of the Hyuga elders. The rush of excitement as he commanded the eyes and ears of the assembled men and women had never entirely faded from the first time he convened the council at 19 years old. It didn’t matter that most were drawn to him by a desire to watch him fail, to tear him from his place because he didn’t deserve to lead. 

“If a bloodline or a clan demands that I neglect my duties to my children, then I question whether its demands are proper. Other clans have realized that strength doesn't come from exclusion, and ours need not depend on keeping our gifts apart.”

The wrinkles on Noriko Hyuga’s face deepened with disgust at Neji’s lack of groveling repentance. He’d offered his deepest regrets to his wife, who deserved his every apology. He couldn’t say the same of the Hyuga council’s members who cared more for a bloodline than about anyone bearing it. Jiro Sato hadn’t been born within the confines of a legitimate marriage, but that didn’t weaken his claim on Neji’s attention. Tenten’s unborn child hadn’t been conceived under any definition of proper circumstances – still, it needed a father.

Heat filled Neji’s core when he recalled Tenten confessing that she’d hidden a baby from him - twice, considered disposing of their second before her husband knew. It had been his fault she didn’t trust him to protect their family. He hated to concede that Tenten’s fears hadn’t been unfounded.

"How touching that you've developed such principles because you couldn't resist Tenten Lee's spread legs." 

“So you take our willingness to entertain a marriage between your bastard and one of our own,” Kazuo Hyuga began, his thin lips quivering. “And you conceive another bastard with that woman. I would never have countenanced Ko’s proposal -”

“I take issue with your choice of words,” Neji countered. “I may have erred…and ah, that is between Risa and I. I wronged her in one of the worst ways that a husband can. I did not wrong any of you.”

He had nothing to lose – and everything to lose at the same time. His past fear of the elders no longer restrained him from challenging the council that ruled over 30 years of his life. Neji had everything to lose from not respecting Jiro’s courage and asserting himself in lieu of his lover or children. The balance he’d walked wasn’t one he could have sustained, as he’d known for longer than he cared to admit. 

Hiashi would have been pleased that his nephew planned to retire with fewer regrets than his predecessor. 

“You mean to tell us that you do not wish to be a Hyuga?”

The words tumbled out in an angry hiss. Kazuo Hyuga’s tone meant to shame Neji into submission. The raised brows and pinched lips among the assembled elders told Neji that they expected him to stammer out a retraction of his statements. They were accustomed to abject submission – first, from the branch Hyuga when there was a branch and main clan to speak of. After the abolition of the main and branch clans, they’d manipulated Neji into agonizing over what they might think or say about his decisions as clan head.

“I am a Hyuga by blood, yes,” Neji said. “I don’t wish to be a Hyuga on your terms. I see no reason why that must be the only way."

Neji hadn't chosen his name, or the privileges and burdens that came with it. Whether his children were Hyuga or Sato, he resolved that a family name wasn’t grounds to exclude or control. A pointed glare from Noriko Hyuga’s narrowed white eyes elicited a tingling burn where the winding green lines of Neji’s seal still perched on his forehead. Yet the echo of past punishments only galvanized Neji into continuing – consequences be damned. No honest observer who'd witnessed his service in his present position could say he’d never tried to be a good Hyuga.

Being a good Hyuga meant supporting the clan’s interest in accumulating power and influence for itself. To what end, Neji wondered. The pursuit of clan interests left him no happier and didn’t leave its members any more free. Yes, his Hyuga children enjoyed privilege even in a village that had supposedly discarded the noble clans’ chokehold, privilege that Risa was intent to preserve. Maybe it was the diverging priorities of husband and wife that made their separation only fitting.

But Neji recalled Amaya’s insistence that Jiro Sato had equal right to the secrets of the Byakugan when he was born with the Hyuga kekkai genkai. His daughter’s suggestion that sharing the clan’s knowledge was a matter of loyalty to his village, of fundamental fairness, should have been self-evident. 

“Your services as head of the Hyuga clan are unnecessary, and they have been for a while,” Noriko answered in a tone that invited no rebuttal. “Even before you ever laid with your little lover. Tenten Lee really does have no shame if she plans to bear your bastard while she remains married to another. Still, she’s not the head of the Hyuga clan, is she? You're a weak man, and that’s in your nature.”

“Leave Tenten out of this.” Heat simmered in Neji’s breathless rebuke. “Hate me if you will – I don’t care. She’s not at fault for whatever issues you may have with me. And my child would not be a bastard if his parents are married.”

“Your wife would surely agree with me on this. A man who can’t be expected to remain loyal to his legitimate wife can’t be expected to remain loyal to a clan.”

“I told you – I reject your notions of loyalty,” Neji spat, not even leaving a breath between Noriko’s last word and his.

He almost found it funny, how Noriko ignored his indifference to her disappointment.

A flush spread across Neji’s cheeks. Galvanized by Noriko’s insult to Tenten and his lover’s tug on his heart, he insisted to himself that everything would resolve in the best way. His impasse with Risa and their children, Tenten’s pregnancy, his future with his lover. Jiro wouldn’t need to marry a Hyuga cousin to reunite the family tree’s wayward branch with its main body. Tenten’s unborn child would only know life with a married mother and father. The Hyuga clan had changed once under his direction, and it could evolve again. 

“Is that all you have to say on the matter?”

“Yes. I maintain that your ideas of -”

Blinding pain followed, the first activation of his seal that he’d experienced in over 15 years. The last had been for attempted murder during the chunin exams tournament. This one could have been attributed to any number of so-called crimes against the clan. Noriko – or another Hyuga elder – must have run through the sequence of hand signs to activate the seal with hands beneath the table. Hiashi’s expression of horror was the last impression Neji had before lapsing into unconsciousness.

Chapter Text

Risa never thought she’d see her husband in their bed again. Lying, disloyal husbands didn’t deserve indulgence, not when the Hyuga compound was vast and the servant quarters had at least a few vacant bedrooms. But his vulnerable state entitled him to some mercy.

Seeing her husband hanging between two servants, escorted to her step, made her heart stir with pity. Neji Hyuga was at his core, a good man who didn’t deserve the torture inflicted on traitors. The servants gave no answer when she asked to know how her husband had collapsed so suddenly during a clan council meeting. Not that Risa needed their answers to confirm the suspicion tugging at her mind.

“I have no idea, Lady Risa,” one of the men said with his head bowed.

He spoke with his black eyes downcast and brows scrunched in the center. You’re lying, Risa wanted to say. At least you have the decency to look away when you do. Calling a servant a liar served no purpose when servants lied at the request of their masters. In cases of punishment, refusal to speak the truth preserved the honor of the Hyuga who received the torture and the one who administered it.

“Please leave,” Risa muttered instead. “I’m still his wife.”

The unfortunate man tasked with passing the lie flinched at the cutting edge in Risa’s voice. Innocent as the servant was, his reaction concerned her less than readying warm tea and a cooling towel. A low groan escaped Neji’s lips when Risa covered him with the sheets and blankets on their bed.

Upon his recovery, Risa didn’t doubt that Neji would lose his position in the clan. He’d likely even forfeit his right to call himself Neji Hyuga.

“I’m sorry,” Risa whispered as she cleared strands of long black hair from Neji’s forehead.

Her fingertips brushed across the green lines of his seal and for a moment, Risa wanted to kiss the center of the cross. She found strange satisfaction knowing that his lover couldn’t comfort him now. Gods, her stubborn weakness remained even when she’d called their marriage over. He’d declared its end months earlier when he chose to lay with Tenten Lee.

How unfortunate for Neji that he had probably faced the pain for her sake.

“Are you happy now?” Risa said, one corner of her lips lifting in a grim smirk. “I suppose this is what you knew would happen if you continued sharing her bed.”

Her husband stirred for a few moments when she laid a wet towel across his forehead, obscuring the seal from her view again. Then the soundless motions of his lips stopped. Risa’s stomach roiled when she fretted over how to explain his condition to her daughters. Lying served them no purpose other than temporary comfort – and even that was doubtful. Amaya would hear Risa’s lies in the quiver of her voice, while Reina already had an acute sense for her mother’s fear or grief.

Better that they hear the truth from their mother, who wouldn’t call their father a deplorable traitor.

It’ll have to be a lesson to her, Risa thought, her older daughter’s face flashing into her mind. Amaya resembled her father – and bore his defiant streak. Risa curled her lip when she recalled Amaya’s naive refusal to keep her distance from Jiro Sato.The wall between the clan’s marked masses and returning to submission had been thinner than Risa knew. She thanked the gods that her daughters didn’t receive the same curse that haunted her.

The patter of footsteps in the corridor sent a chill shooting up Risa’s spine. Ko’s mellow voice and the rumble of his laughter mingled with Reina’s high sing-song. She heard Amaya only in the cadence of her footsteps and her sigh at her younger sister. They’d just returned from the training grounds, mercifully absent for the events of the past hour. Her heart raced in her ears when Ko’s feet stalled outside the sliding door.

To Risa’s relief, her cousin called for her daughters to play in the courtyard while he spoke to their mother, for Amaya to look after her sister. The sounds of her daughters’ voices dissipated down the length of the corridor. In the moments before they disappeared, Reina whined something about wanting her mother. Amaya answered with a clipped follow me and don’t make any trouble for Mother.Her father would have commended her.

The door opened with a crisp ktch. It wouldn’t have surprised Risa if Ko knew of Neji’s reckoning and ushered the girls away to grant their mother time to process. Speechless, Risa swallowed the thick gob of spit on her tongue and stepped forward to meet Ko. His hands settled at her shoulder blades and lower back, sweeping her into his embrace.

“Are you alright, Risa?”

“Y-yes. I’m well enough, under the circumstances. Trying to stay strong.”

Anyone who asked her that question would have expected the answer she gave. Speaking without polish was unlike a proper lady, a woman married to the head of the village’s most powerful clan. Submission and propriety were woven into Risa’s person, whatever occasional ambitions she harbored for independence. Ko met Risa’s charade with a low chuckle muffled by the palm of his hand. The twitch in her tight smile betrayed her too readily.

“I suppose it’s for the best that you’ve retired from the shinobi corps. Your arts of disguise are wanting, not that you need to exercise them around me.”

The hand on Risa’s shoulder blade trailed up and down her back. The gesture acknowledged her anxieties without forcing her to admit them. Ko had been a friend since before marriage and motherhood became her calling and her entire person.He kept his silence, letting Risa’s breaths whistle past the side of his neck.

Her two absent daughters – and the third unborn – had never done anything to deserve living in the past she’d escaped. She hated Neji for threatening their futures over the past he couldn’t forget, and the bastard nobody wanted.

“I never imagined he would be so foolish. I have no idea what kind of demon possessed him, but -” Ko began, before Risa cut him off.

“I can. It’s who he is.”

Ko’s white eyes widened and a puff of air emerged from his lips. His eyes darted around the bedroom and Risa heard him stammer out a curse. Risa Hyuga – a devoted mother and loyal wife for almost her entire adult life – probably seemed to him like the last woman who could speak so ill about her husband.

“I’m shocked he couldn’t spare a thought for his children, his wife…”

Everyone he wanted to save, Risa finished. The youngest Hyuga with the cursed seal were in their teenage years. The oldest were men and women whose seals burned bright green while all other color on their bodies faded.

“I honestly wouldn’t blame you if you hated him.”

Despite Ko’s assumptions, she hadn’t meant to attack Neji’s character, only to remark on the man she knew.

“I don’t hate him.” Risa shook her head.

At the corner of her vision, her husband stirred beneath the sheets. His deep, even breathingtold Risa that he remained unconscious and unaware of their conversation about him. He could unravel the consequences of his defiance once he awoke, in a few hours or half a day. The flicker of Ko’s white eyes toward Neji’s prone form on the bed showed his skepticism, his conviction he deserved harsher judgment. He shrugged to dismiss the point of disagreement between the cousins.

To the eyes of a pragmatic Hyuga like Ko, Neji Hyuga’s defection from duty and sense was insanity or the worst stupidity. Like him, Risa saw a fool. But she found something pitiable in his mistakes, the soft vulnerability at his core that guided him.

“He never wanted to live this way, whatever he told himself. The responsibility, the compromises,” Risa began. Her words emerged thin and a touch too quick, before she gathered her resolve.

He never grew up, Risa thought. That angry young boy who stood with squared shoulders in the chunin exams arena lingered in the man she married.

“I suppose you would know.”

“You weren’t the one married to him. You didn’t share his bed until...well, until the end.”

Risa’s teasing drew a staccato laugh.

“Point taken. I’ll say that his...impulses haven’t served him well. I only see more hardship in his future,” Ko ventured.

“In our futures.”

The seal beneath the thinning black hair of Risa’s bangs tingled, warmth flashing across the bright green lines.

Her interjection prompted a pause because no equivalent seal lay under Ko’s hidden leaf shinobi headband. Her cousin hadn’t wanted to speak the words, out of reluctance to confront her new reality or his inability to deliver her. What struck Risa most was that he could find no grounds to disagree. No adult clan member with even an ounce of awareness would have had any.

“I did come to tell you that you’re not entirely helpless here. It seems your husband is set on marrying his...lover, consequences be damned. Legitimizing his bastard children, even.”

Ko released a quick little cough into his fist. Her breath seized at the prospect of legitimacy for either Jiro Sato or the unborn child whose name she didn’t know. Few clan heads in the history of the shinobi world had ever given their names and inheritances to bastards, and none since the last decades of the warring clans era.

“And we can stop him. I want your cooperation in this.”

“So what if I do?” she shot back. “I have no desire to remain tied to him in marriage. This woman clearly means so much more to him than -”

“You’ll spare yourself. Your daughters, and your husband. I’ll attempt to use my position on the jounin council to have Tenten Lee assigned to a long-term mission outside the village. Once she’s no longer with child, that is. The child she’s currently carrying can be raised – ah, apart from her.”

Shock ripped across Risa’s heart.

“I understand. It’s...best that Neji doesn’t resist.”

Though pregnant despite her best precautions, Tenten loved her child – and so did its father. Risa’s tongue sat heavy when she considered asking clarifying questions that might yield an unwelcome answer. An upbringing in the Hyuga clan for a bastard would bring a life of hardship, of the kind that hardened young Neji Hyuga’s eyes.

Risa almost sympathized with the woman forced to pass her life away from her children. Justice in the clan and village was often a blunt, dumb instrument. With her children’s future at stake, quibbling over the finer points of justice and injustice was an indulgence Risa couldn’t afford.

“In her absence, I believe his defiance may be treated as a simple misstep. A temporary lapse in judgment caused by a childhood lover. It’s not as if these incidents are entirely unprecedented in Hyuga history.”

“You suspect that in her absence, he might act with more of...what you’d consider sense?”

“Right.”

“You speak of my husband as if he’s a dog or a toddler.” A sharp shake of her head accompanied Risa’s breathy snicker.

“Hardly. You said it yourself – you shared his bed until the end. You can convince him to forgo his foolishness far better than I can.”

“Maybe I never knew him at all.” The lilt of Risa’s voice drew a flicker of exasperation from her friend.

“Hm. I believe you can try, Risa. Other than the two of us, few in the clan are in a place to intervene in his favor. Don’t speak to anyone else of what we discussed. As for the Sato boy -”

“Forget the bastard,” she choked out.

The unfortunate boy hadn’t done anything to deserve losing his best chance at a life with most of his freedoms intact. His mother’s resistance to an arranged marriage for her son didn’t matter now, when the far more salient opposition came from the Hyuga clan’s default leadership.

“Yes, I would say you’re better off not concerning yourself with that. It’s not something you can help.”

Ko’s answer carefully avoided any mention of Jiro by name, or references to his person.

“And what might that be?” The question slipped past Risa’s lips, defying her insistence that what happened to the boy mattered nothing to her.

“He may need to accept the seal. The elders deem bastards to be untrustworthy creatures, prone to treachery by nature. Tainted by the circumstances of their creation.”

Jiro Sato seemed to Risa a kind boy, a good friend to her daughter. A 12-year-old boy with no awareness of his blood until recently didn’t have the makings of a conniving, pathetic traitor. He’d no more chosen his parents or birth than any Hyuga of the former branch clan. Yet the tuggings of kinship faded fast. Jiro was born outside the Hyuga compound walls, to a non-Hyuga woman.

He wasn’t hers.

“Is that something you believe?”

“Doesn’t matter. I know you well enough to guess that it doesn’t matter to you, either.”

Risa drew a sharp breath before answering Ko’s implied question with one of her own.

“You say we might use that to spare ourselves?”

“I’d say we should use any recourse we have. Right now, we don’t have many choices.”

So long as we’re spared.Risa hated the rush of relief that came with Ko’s admission. A whisper tickling the back of Risa’s mind told her that the seal for Jiro Sato didn’t bode well for the former branch clan – legitimate or not. If circumstance presented Risa with a choice between Jiro and her daughters, she’d choose any manner of punishment for him before conceding her girls’ welfare.

“Here I was, believing you were merely coming to comfort a poor woman in need.”

Risa collapsed to the floor in a single motion, leaving a rush of air in her wake. The hardwood of her bedroom floor pressed into her knees and shins as tears spilled from the corners of her eyes. Her hands, cold yet slicked with sweat, twisted in her lap. Risa swallowed once, then twice, to suppress the tide of bile rising in her throat. My children come first, always. She’d first articulated that conviction to herself months ago – testing it brought her no pleasure.

Though she nursed him now, she’d soon need to stand against the man lying in the bed at her back. Neji Hyuga would understand her motives, even if their diverging interests turned them to enemies. Her children were his as well.

Amaya Hyuga woke to the drip of her mother’s spit on her cheek, blinking away the weights on her eyelids. The pale morning light hadn’t yet turned golden with the arrival of midmorning. What time is it? - she thought, even before stirring. Father’s admonitions against sleeping too far into the day died hard. The clock on the right nightstand read that she’d awakened just before 7 am, right when Father would have roused her or had a servant do the job.

“Mmh, you’re up early,” Mother murmured, her lips twitching.

A set of barely-open white eyes met Amaya’s gaze, and Mother’s curved finger brushed a lock of stray hair from her forehead. Her surroundings sharpened into the familiar features of Mother’s face and her little sister’s head of knotted hair, nestled in bleached white sheets. For the past two nights, Mother insisted that both of her daughters share her bed while she kept them safe.What was once her parents’ bed had been constructed for two adults, and forced mother and daughters to cluster at the center for space.

Father slept in what had been Amaya’s bedroom, recovering. Mother hadn’t allowed him more than a night in his old bed.

“Good morning, Mother. I’m sorry if I woke you.”

“Go back to sleep. You’re still safe.”

“I -”

In the gaps left by Mother’s thinning bangs speckled with white, Amaya could see peeks of the green lines on her forehead. The seal was a relic of the era that Father ended. The bright, electric green now appeared to glow in the sunlight.

“I need to keep all of you safe. I’ll do whatever I can to keep them from touching you, while your father can’t protect you.”

Amaya bit the inside of her lip. She also suspected Mother’s unspoken need to see her daughters’ bare foreheads every morning. Reina knew no better. Before sleep took her, she’d buried her face in Mother’s swollen breast and accepted the rain of kisses on her head.

“Aren’t you worried that they’ll hurt you?”

Mother’s thumb rubbed the outside of Reina’s little ear. Before answering her older daughter, she touched her nose to Reina’s forehead and lingered for a few breaths, maybe confirming that her youngest still slept. Risa Hyuga understandably hesitated to fill Reina’s mind with anxieties about torture and death. Another side of Mother must have thought of how her 10 year old daughter shouldn’t have needed to confront those realities either.

“Nothing new for me,” she murmured. Mother’s fingers ran circles over the curve of Reina’s shoulder. “It’s not your job to worry about your mother. I hope you know why I didn’t want you helping...your friend in the way that you did. Among other reasons.”

“I’m sorry, Mother.”

The glue of her thick spit kept her from saying something to keep Mother’s tears from spilling into Reina’s hair. She’d caused her mother’s grief through her naive, stubborn defiance.

“Don’t be sorry, dear. Just be careful. So I don’t lose you, and you don’t suffer. I know it doesn’t sound fair to you, but bad things happen to girls who don’t listen.”

A girl’s bright eyes and round cheeks once took the place of Mother’s ashen face. How old had her mother been when her parents told her about the cursed seal’s purpose? Younger than her, no doubt.Risa Hyuga’s vindication probably tasted like bitter ash on her tongue, though maybe she’d never shed the fear that clinged to her like thick oil.

“Mother, how does it feel?” The words tumbled from Amaya’s lips, the sting across her heart following too late. Once spoken, her question couldn’t be retracted, no matter how obviously inappropriate.

Mother’s face contorted into a grimace, her lips stretching tight over her white teeth.

“I’ve never had them hurt me. It happened to your father when he was younger, before he married me and before you were born. Others I knew too...I’ve heard them say that it’s the worst pain you could ever feel. Like your mind being lit on fire. Worse than giving birth to you and your sister.”

Worst pain you could ever feel. She’d heard those terms from Father and Ko as well in passing, no more than an abstraction to her because the punishment was a memory.

The air between mother and daughter hung thick before Mother touched her lips – papery, slightly chapped – to Amaya’s forehead. Mother’s tight smile told Amaya that she couldn’t blame her daughter for showing a child’s curiosity.

“You don’t need to be afraid. Be good, and nobody will hurt you. I can’t lose you, too,” Mother sighed.

In Mother’s voice, Amaya heard the echo of her grandparents, of generations of Hyuga parents chiding their children to behave. Mother would bow until her forehead touched the floor, mouth any number of oaths of submission so her children stayed safe. Amaya resolved to ensure her mother never needed to plead on her behalf to a main clan Hyuga who could deal the same punishment to her.

“You’re afraid, Mother.”

“It’s not your concern.” The declaration cut into Amaya’s bone, silencing her impulse to insist otherwise. “I pray that it was only one time...my experience tells me that won’t be -.”

A shrill gasp swallowed whatever words would have followed.

Mother’s body twitched and she dug her teeth into her lower lip before her expressions of pain got louder. A whimper sounded from behind her locked jaw, a call for help. A shock of adrenaline stiffened Amaya’s spine as she propped herself into a seated position, arms tight around her shins. Mother’s eyes fluttered shut after a series of rapidfire blinks. Tears escaped from beneath her eyelids, her body stretching taunt every time another pulse of pain arrived. Sweaty white fingers wrapped around Amaya’s forearm.

“Get one of the servants. Your father. Somebody,” Mother gasped between twists of her body in the rumpled bedsheets.

“Mother -”

“The baby’s coming and I need to go to the hospital.”

Amaya swallowed and slipped from the bed, still dressed in her sheer white nightclothes. She remembered little of Reina’s birth through the haze of her early memories. Her sister arrived in the early hours of morning, and she’d scarcely woken for a few minutes before her mother had disappeared to the hospital.

The sight of her mother writhing in pain, pleading for an end, choking out strings of curses to the gods jarred her. Apparently the pain of the cursed seal’s activation was worse – how much, Amaya prayed she wouldn’t have to know. Even as every fiber inside her drew tight, Amaya stood paralyzed, ankles stiff. Her sweaty feet stuck to the floorboards.

“Mother, are you going to be okay?”

“I-” Mother swallowed. “I have to be. I can’t die.”

Without glancing backward at her crying mother or her younger sister stirring in the bed, Amaya tore down the hallway of the Hyuga compound, a scream building in her throat. So this was how pain molded the human mind into a stunted, fearful thing. For the first time, she could comprehend the true horror of living under the seal.

Amaya watched her mother clutch a pale, dark-haired bundle to her swollen breasts, a barely-visible curve gracing her lips. Her baby sister – Asami Hyuga – had the white eyes of every other legitimate clan member, though they were closed while she fed from Mother’s breast. The nurses and med-nin at the hospital hadn’t allowed Amaya into her mother’s room until after the screaming, cursing and crying concluded. A girl her age wasn’t considered fit to see the baby until they cleaned her of blood and wrapped her in a bleached cotton blanket.

Reina remained at home, since Mother had requested more time to rest before her younger daughter visited the baby. Reina’s manners were lacking, or so Amaya was told. Mother didn’t need to worry about Amaya perturbing her rest when their sterile surroundings dampened her voice and locked her joints.

“Your sister,” Mother whispered. A bony knuckle brushed against Asami’s cheek. “It was 10 hours.”

Ten hours of mind-rending pain, what she only glimpsed before running away. Father only experienced his punishment for no more than a few seconds. If that torture rendered generations of Hyuga into obedient servants, then Amaya couldn’t find the words to describe what happened to Mother.

“I was worried you were going to die.”

“Why, dear?” Mother swallowed the giggle that emerged on her breath. “It was the same when you were born, you know. And Reina. I remember you took 12 hours. A wholenight.”

Rather than answering her mother, Amaya hummed and brought her feet to the edge of the plastic seat next to Mother’s bedside. What she wanted to answer was that she’d never seen her mother in such agony or been forbidden to see her for an entire day. The worry compounded as morning graded into afternoon and Amaya watched dusk descend on the Hyuga compound. Even in Ko’s company, she’d only thought of Mother, how her pain must have worsened in her daughter’s absence.

“I don’t want to lose you. Not like Father.”

Mother rolled her lips inward and squeezed her eyes closed. The baby released a little whimper as if she could sense the droop in her mother’s shoulders or a flinch in her muscles.

“You...we aren’t losing your father. He’s still your father. Nothing can change that.”

Answering Amaya exhausted what remained of Mother’s energy from giving birth. Telling half-truths to her daughter and herself must have drained her resolve, when they only reminded her of their new reality. The old order that Mother and Father cast behind them.

“Does Father hate me?”

Mother’s upper lip curled as if she’d just tasted something sour on her tongue.

“No. No, Father doesn’t hate you.”

Her question dug beneath Mother’s skin, unearthing memories of words spoken and bitter thoughts that precipitated the end of a marriage.

“Do you hate me?”

White eyes peered from atop the knobs of Amaya’s knees. Mother met Amaya’s eyes with rapid blinks to blot the tears that stained her cheeks.

“No! Why would you ever think that? Please, tell me – why?”

While Father fled for want of a greater love, Mother stayed. Hyuga custom left her little choice. Following a few years in the shinobi forces, marriage was meant to follow for Hyuga women, and from there – motherhood. Mother’s sacrificeleft Amaya with a stinging guilt that rested uncomfortably alongside her anger.

“Because I hurt you. You said that.”

“I – that isn’t to say that I don’t love you.”

“Do you ever wish I wasn’t born?”

“Never. Not all pain is a curse, dear. Not if it brings you closer to me. I was so happy that I could hold you in my arms, just like I have your sister now.”

Amaya drew her folded legs closer to her core. What might Mother have become had she never married Neji Hyuga and borne three of his daughters? If asked, Mother was sure to tell Amaya that wasting so much thought on what could have been was pointless. Father had let the creeping tendrils of long-dormant dreams and regrets consume him, and found his fate balanced on a knife’s edge.

“You make my life so much richer. I promise, I would choose any life that had you over one that didn’t. If your father may feel differently, I consider that a pity.”

A pity, but no amount of Mother’s pity changed the truth.

Before she was Mother to Reina and Amaya, Risa Hyuga had been a jounin. She’d done little more than train the clan’s children and her own in her years out of service.Without a husband and children to bind her, she may have developed unparalleled mastery of the Hyuga jutsu and perhaps surpassed Father.

“Your father isn’t like me,” Mother continued. “I told your cousin, Ko. I knew him well. Maybe not as well as I assumed. But he’s never been happy with having less or just enough.”

“Was I...was I what you dreamed of?”

Father had dreamed of Jiro’s mother since they’d been teenagers without marriage, children or age separating them.

“Unlike your father, I don’t think it matters. Sometimes dreams are better forgotten.”

Chapter Text

Faced with his wife and newborn daughter, Neji Hyuga found his tongue weighed down by the sheer mass of everything he owed them. Neji's paralysis left him unable to even greet his wife before he filed into the stiff-backed guest chair that smelled faintly of alcohol. Yet he couldn't entirely fault himself when the Hyuga clan denied them the privacy owed to a man and his wife. A young Hyuga man, the ghost of facial hair gracing his chin, shuffled his feet from side to side by the single window in Risa’s hospital room. The young man - no, the boy - was their clan-appointed chaperon. Were they alone with their child, Neji would have wept out an apology to Risa for missing their daughter’s birth. Clutching the hospital bed railing or a nurse’s hand instead of his must have magnified the pain.

Say something, Neji urged himself, his hands tensing where they gripped his thighs. Pushing past the tension in the room brought but a second of pain, in contrast to the hours Risa suffered.

“She’s beautiful,” Neji murmured. “I...hope it wasn’t too difficult.”

“It’s over now,” Risa answered from bed, her syllables clipped. “I’m relieved.”

He hummed out an I’m happy to hear that before falling silent.

Fuck you for leaving me alone. For breaking your promise to be next to me, he imagined Risa telling him in the seclusion of their home. His Hyuga wife wouldn't have spoken such profanities in the company of others. Perhaps their chaperon’s presence wasn’t entirely unwelcome.

The Hyuga elders probably sent the young man to ensure that Neji had in fact planned to visit his Hyuga wife and child. They'd justified his presence by stating that he required someone to monitor his condition on an ongoing basis whenever he left the compound. Neji would have sooner believed they planned to admit Jiro Sato as a member of the clan. Regardless, his marriage to Risa was now a sterile, dead thing by his doing. That fact would have remained, chaperon or not.

“I’m sure that you came as soon as you were able,” his wife continued.

Her tone remained flat. Risa seemed to broadcast that Neji had no need to issue groveling apologies. Neji feared that his mistakes rendered any words of apology meaningless, destined in her mind only to be repeated once he erred again.

“Believe me, I did. I had no intentions of ever doing otherwise. I still care for you. The children. This child.”

“Hm. You came all this way, so I suppose you’d want to hold her.”

By the window, the young Hyuga man ran the fingertips of one hand through the clipped black hair above his neck. When he pivoted on the heels of his boots, Neji noticed a kunai holster tied to his thigh and a knife tucked into the side of his boot. Dressed every bit like a shinobi on duty, but acting every bit like a bashful child.

“If you’d allow it.”

Risa sniffed.

“Of course I would.”

Neji stood by the railing of Risa’s bed and reached his hands under the baby’s neck and backside. His wife’s core stiffened and her breath stalled when he brushed her arm. Whatever she’d told him, part of her – or more than just a part – didn’t want to relinquish their child to her father. Once Neji returned to the visitor’s seat, he brushed the side of the baby’s white cheek with the outer edge of his finger. White eyes that matched his own opened and her fingers wrapped around his. Asami wore a full head of black hair that tickled the soft skin exposed at his wrist.

“A bit early to know who she resembles.”

His wife nodded a single time and toyed with the hem of her hospital blanket. Over the next months to years, the button nose, round eyes and fat face of a baby would mold into the features of one or both parents. How painful it would be for Risa to watch their daughter grow up with the face of a faithless husband.

He’d created this fragile thing in his arms, endured months of fragile hope followed by crushing disappointment while trying for her. Guilt dropped like lead in his stomach when he thought of the child Tenten carried, conceived in the last months of Risa's pregnancy.

Neji huffed in amusement when Asami’s fingers splayed out, releasing his finger.

“I’m sorry, again.”

“No need to say it," Risa shot back, confirming Neji's suspicions. Declarations of remorse were best left unspoken.

Risa’s nostrils flared, the corners of her lips pulling downward. The red tinging the undersides of her eyes suggested unshed tears.

“I-it’s been a few hours since I last fed her. I suspect she may want to eat again,” Risa muttered.

Neji mouthed an I understand and handed their daughter back to his wife. Their hands brushed when the baby passed between them, all without Risa lifting her head to look into her husband’s eyes. Heat rose to the tops of Neji’s cheeks when Risa unbuttoned the front panel of her hospital gown to expose her right breast. In their years together, he'd seen his wife's bare body hundreds of times - but seeing it in the twilight period of their marriage struck him as vulgar. Part of Neji pitied the poor young man who flinched at the sight of Risa coaxing the baby to latch onto her breast. Another part of him found satisfaction in watching his discomfort and knowing he wasn't the only one at odds.

“Lady Risa, would you like me to offer you some time alone with your...husband?” the man asked. “I have been ordered to not allow him out of my sight, but I don’t want to overstep -”

“That’s not necessary,” Risa interjected. “I don’t want to cause you trouble -.”

“I’ll be sitting outside.”

Boots tapped on the linoleum tiles of the hospital floor and the door closed with a dull thud and a metallic click. Neji noted with some amusement that any Hyuga could have easily peered into the room. And a good shinobi could redirect the chakra around his ears to tease out the strains of their conversation from amid the room’s background noise.

“Tell me,” Risa said, a few seconds after they’d been left alone. “Was it worth it? Our daughter asked me if her father hated her.”

Cold spikes drove into his heart. Neji began to ask which daughter ventured the unfortunate question, before the realization silenced him. The question could only have come from their eldest, the one who so resembled him. How gut-wrenching that Neji himself had asked the same question about his father at Amaya's age.

“What do you mean?”

“You know. The reason you were absent for her birth. You’ve thrown all of us aside for that woman and the bastard in her belly.”

His wife’s white eyes stared without wavering. Her voice reverberated through the room, though it was barely louder than the hum of the air conditioning system.

“I...would never want Amaya to believe I hated her. For that, I owe her answers,” Neji began.

He paused to gather his resolve. Risa’s trap was none too subtle. “But I haven’t changed my intentions, and I refuse.”

Neji’s heart pattered. Half of him didn’t care if the Hyuga outside the room heard him. No, he wanted the man to know that the punishment left him unbowed. Yet Risa was correct that he had more than his pride to concern himself with – children and a clan chief among them.

“I asked whether your little pleasures were worthwhile. This marriage would place our family in danger in ways I’m sure you’d realize if you weren’t so blinded. You've already been punished for your intent. Now, picture that for all of us. Think about everything you’ve done. That we worked for together.” A hard edge crept into Risa’s words. “You could marry again in the clan if that’s what you insist -”

Neji dug his fingernails into the meat of his palm. Normally clipped, they’d grown long. His wife’s desperate gambit, her plea on behalf of her children, drew a flash of heat to his face. I’m not doing that again, he insisted to himself.

“Risa, I care about our daughters. I wouldn’t forsake them. I’ve told you this before, and I’ll keep saying it until you understand. I love all of my children in the same way.”

Risa rolled her white eyes at her husband.

“Words are easy, dear. I believed...before all of this that you were a man with honor underneath all the lies. I have a much harder time still holding to that when your noble intentions fail to do any good."

Neji locked his jaw and buried his face in palms that smelled of salt and metal. Risa persisted on, undeterred by her husband's humiliation. Emboldened by it, even.

"I will never forgive you if our daughters end up wearing the same seals we have.”

“I would not forgive myself either.”

To Risa, his concurrence meant nothing unless he presented her with a plan to avert disaster. Or, he followed whatever frantic plan she’d made while he lay in their bed, drifting between consciousness and sleep. His punishment had shattered his foolish hopes of an easy compromise between his obligations to both families. Tenten had called him a genius on the night he asked her to marry him. The words soured in his memory now that he saw no obvious path to make good on his promises to her.

“You wouldn’t forgive yourself, but you refuse to give her up.”

“Yes. I promised her we’d marry.” The answer emerged from numb lips and a stiff tongue. “It wasn’t a promise I made lightly.”

“I don’t believe you’re that kind of man, Neji. Still. I know you love her, I believe it with everything," Risa pressed. Her words tumbled out with the frantic tenor of a plea for mercy. "But your first promise was to me and our family. Your vows to her were hollow. What means do you have to grant her and your bastard any kind of future?”

Neji bit his tongue so he didn't rebuke his wife for using the word bastard again. The conversation wasn't his to dictate.

Risa touched the little finger of her right hand to the centerline of her lip, as if she recalled the binding of their little fingers on their wedding day. The last time they’d shared the gesture, he’d told her that their family would remain protected. Months later, he’d fled into the night to intercept his lover before she harmed herself and their child.

“That’s none of your concern.”

“It’s my concern when you’d leave our children unprotected.”

“I wouldn’t. I told you that -”

“You’re acting like a child, and I almost pity you.”

“Careful what you say,” he spat, Risa's taunts shredding his restraint.

“And I take it that you’ve shown so much care? So much that your daughter believes you hate her for being born? Tell me – what’ll I say to the others once they’re older?”

"Risa -"

"I'd withdraw my petition to separate from you if that's what it requires for you to keep one of your damn promises. The one you swore before our clan and the village. Not just to the mother of your bastards." 

Had they sat on opposite sides of a gambling den, Risa would have slapped every chip remaining in her pile down before him. Then laid down a winning hand of cards while he could do nothing but bluff. Whatever objections registered, Neji couldn’t force himself to continue protesting. Village law entitled him to separate from his wife even without her agreement. However, losing her cooperation promised to make the process much more difficult. He might have had every right to leave her, and her heart blackened by bitterness and spite. Still, he reminded himself that no insistence on his rights could erase the wrongs done to his innocent daughters.

“We all make mistakes." In the face of Neji's collapsing resistance, Risa now pivoted from mockery. “We loved each other for 10 years. I have...every confidence that we can devote ourselves to each other once again."

"Risa. Do you really believe that?" Neji breathed out. 

After you shunned me. Promised to divorce me. Called me a terrible husband and a worse father.

"I'd chain you to me for the rest of our lives even if I thought you were a rotten man to your core. I need to believe it, though. If you do as you’ve planned, it’ll be too late to avoid the consequences.”

“Do you still love me?”

“A piece of me does. I always will, as weak as I am.”

Risa fixated on her baby daughter while she confessed, avoiding eye contact with her husband. Red tinged the tip of her nose and the tops of her cheeks. Weak, but somehow still stronger than me, Neji thought. His stiff lips held his silence while he let the whir of the air conditioning echo.

“For that, I’m sorry, Risa.”

Little whimpers from the baby at Risa’s breast punctuated the silence. She moved to shush the baby, rubbing her fingertips into Asami's back. Neji considered it a good thing that the baby lay in his wife’s arms – with the trembling in his hands, he feared he would have dropped her.

Fixating on her crochet work stitch by stitch distracted Tenten from the roiling in her stomach, acid still burning the inside of her mouth after she’d lost the morning’s meal. Her illness had worsened in the past weeks until she barely left bed. The other pregnancies hadn't taxed her body so much. Age and simple misfortune had made this one a special challenge - or perhaps the gods punished her.

The child she carried wasn’t a curse, Tenten insisted. The child's father and mother loved him like they'd love any legitimate child. His father faced dishonor, torture and death to claim him. A flash of resolve relieved a bit of her discomfort.

The scratch of yarn on her fingers also kept her mind from the other, more recent development that made her ill. The mission assignment came in the two days prior, brought home by Lee and dropped on the nightstand of the spare bedroom. Her soon-to-be former husband had regarded her with gleaming round eyes, too choked by grief to speak.

Poor, sweet Lee must have known what the letter contained, though the envelope’s seals remained crisp. He’d never been good at breaking bad news, whether it was telling the hokage of a failed mission or telling Tenten she’d have less than a year at home.

Report immediately upon completion of parental leave, the notice said. Parental leave was a misnomer when she’d have no time to nurse and care for her newborn son. He’d become a ward of the Hyuga clan because of their claim on him as next of kin. Where she’d spend the decades left in her life, she didn’t know. Permanent stations abroad were almost never given to shinobi with families or marriages. Tenten turned scarlet at the creeping suspicion that the mission itself was a death sentence. She'd be killed in the line of duty rather than executed by legal decision, providing the clan and village plausible cover.

What mattered was that she didn’t tempt Neji Hyuga into falling from his proper place as a Hyuga. Being a hero of the Great War and a chunin in good standing did nothing in her favor. A turn of her hand brought a gleam of light to the ring she’d received from her lover. You said we were going to do things right, Tenten wanted to tell Neji. You made me a promise you couldn’t keep. The only right she saw was that their child would live.

A set of knuckles rapped on the door before it creaked open. Not Lee, for sure – her husband wouldn’t have entered without her spoken permission.

“Your husband said you were free today. He told me to find you here.”

The woman sounded like a Hyuga – Risa. The realization chilled the insides of Tenten's bones. She'd heard Risa's voice only during their single exchange months ago, when the Hyuga woman had urged Tenten to avoid trouble. A dark-haired bundle lay slung across her front. Her baby - Neji's legitimate Hyuga daughter.

“He was correct,” Tenten answered, fists locking around her crochet work. "You could have said hello."

“Good. I wouldn’t have wanted to waste my time.” Risa’s white eyes faced Tenten with cold indifference. Calculation, almost. “I didn’t know you had an interest in needlework.”

Tenten scowled. There’s a lot you don’t know about me. In fact, there’s probably more that you don’t know about me than what you think you know.

“Something like it. I started this two days ago.”

Something for the baby. The words faded from Tenten’s tongue when she considered that Risa wouldn’t care. No, she’d probably come because she wanted Tenten gone. Tenten looped a strand of yarn over her index finger, crochet hook clutched in the fingers of her other hand. Double crochet, then single, Tenten recited to herself, making the next two stitches in the sequence before setting her work down.

She’d never paid much attention to the needlework lessons from kunoichi class. The girl who loved sharpened steel had shown more interest in knitting and crochet needles’ potential as weapons in the right hands. Her instructor, Suzume, had commended her for her creativity, but nevertheless marked Tenten’s grades down because she hadn’t completed a single actual assignment.

“Your stitches look clean,” Risa replied. “When I was still expecting, I often knit in bed. Helped distract my mind from certain matters...like waiting for my husband to join me.”

Sharp blades burrowed beneath Tenten’s skin.

“Thank you. Now if you have nothing else to say, I’d rather -”

“I-I came here to tell you that I would raise your child as my own. In your absence, that is.”

The wrinkle between Risa's brows and the quiver in her voice betrayed a semblance of guilt. She couldn’t bear to leave her own baby at home for a few hours, but could apparently countenance taking the child of another.

What could Tenten have told her uninvited guest? That she had no intention of giving up her child to a clan – least of all, a woman – who never wanted him to exist? Worse fates existed than a life with Risa Hyuga as his adoptive mother. Risa had let her husband go to his lover when she needed his rescue. She'd expressed some degree of compassion for Tenten when they'd last spoken. Tenten’s mother and father had scorned her for betraying her legitimate marriage and refusal to terminate the thing inside her. They’d treat her bastard as a disease, a disgrace.

“I’m aware that the Hyuga clan has claim on him because of his father.”

Risa nodded a single time.

“Your child is my kin. As painful as this may be for you…”

“You want to get rid of me. So does this village,” Tenten spat, her frantic tone breaking Risa’s measured statements. “Because I’m a whore, and a bitch. Admit you want me to die.”

Tenten’s heart pattered at the thought of her husband or children hearing her outburst. 

White eyes shot open. Hearing her deepest wishes articulated in such direct terms probably rendered them repulsive – or, Tenten could have hoped.

The special mission wouldn’t have come to Tenten had she betrayed her husband for the tea shop owner down the street. As a woman of no special blood or status who held the Hyuga clan head's heart in her palm, she kept him from being a more perfect servant of the clan – and by extension, the village. It was always doomed. You and him. The thoughts sunk into the pit of Tenten’s stomach like a ball of lead. Destiny pulled at the lovers far stronger than their will to fight together.

“It’s in your interest, Tenten.”

The Hyuga woman spoke her name without honorifics. Her plainly spoken name could have been a signal of friendship or of contempt. After she’d lashed Risa, Tenten didn’t doubt it was the latter.

“It’s in yours, more importantly.” Fine droplets of spit landed on Tenten’s forearm where it rested across her bent knee. “Convenient of you to think of my interest when it matches what you want anyways.”

“I won’t deny that. You have to understand though, that there are ways to address your situation that aren’t in your interest or your child’s.”

Risa was correct. A few hopeful months would give way to a lifetime without Neji, her children, or anyone familiar. How stupid they’d both been. 

“I carried three children inside me,” Risa continued against Tenten’s silence. One of those children whimpered against her breast, and Risa touched her lips to the side of her head. “Gave birth to them without painkillers, fed them from my own body.”

“So did I.”

“So I understand what you feel.” The lilt of Risa’s voice had a pleading quality, trying to convince Tenten that she wasn’t heartless.

“If you understand what I feel, then you’ll know that your own come first. I get why you’re trying to screw me. Stop acting like you're so kind.”

“I...won’t deny that fact. It would indeed be in the interests of my children, me, and others of the Hyuga clan if you departed the village permanently,” Risa answered. Her lips scrunched as if she’d tasted something sour or bitter – the unwelcome upwelling of guilt, perhaps. “I reject that I am screwing you in any way.”

“You’re not doing this for me, though.”

“No. I...won’t deny that either.”

Risa Hyuga watched her slender white hands twisting in her lap, the bones of her hand protruding. Tenten’s fingers flew through the remaining stitches in the row she’d left unfinished in her crochet blanket, the fibers of the yarn stinging her fingers as she gained speed.

“You must admit that your children come first as well, then," Risa pressed. "For you, as for me.”

Hefting her baby daughter on her shoulder, Risa turned her gaze back to Tenten, casting her on defense.

“Yeah. I didn’t say otherwise.”

Tenten had already given Neji’s wife plenty of evidence that she’d put her children first. Certainly before another woman’s marriage and family. No, another voice insisted. You – Tenten - put yourself first. Risa gave sound advice in the days after Jiro’s eyes flashed white for the first time – leave things be, let the peace continue. So the voice told Tenten that she owed it to Risa to offer her the one favor she still could, after it was now too late to reverse her mistakes.

Another side of Tenten insisted that it wasn’t too late. For the moment, the child inside her was still safe – nestled in her womb and shielded from any who might steal him away. 

“You can’t expect that he’d honestly marry you...not now.” The lilt of Risa’s voice tightened the noose around Tenten’s neck as the Hyuga woman closed off Tenten's avenues of escape or denial.

“Not now?”

“I...there are consequences we Hyuga have lived with for failing to...do right,” Risa murmured. “In the past and now.”

“What happened?”

It can’t be. It can’t be, Tenten repeated to herself as a knot constricted in her stomach. The green lines winding across Neji’s forehead hadn’t inflicted blinding pain in more than a decade. What else could she mean? - Tenten asked herself a second later. Risa’s hum answered the question for her. He’d known. He must have known the knowledge to activate the seal still existed and only the compliance of the elders – and his compliance - kept it dormant. Even so, Neji Hyuga requested her hand in marriage, sacrificed his honor for their family.

“Does he still want to -”

“No. He wishes to spare you the danger. He regrets ever betraying our vows for you.”

Risa’s response cut through the still air between the women. Tenten heard no note of sympathy, none of the niceties Risa had attempted earlier. Then again, she shouldn’t have expected any softness from the adversary in their negotiation over their intimate lives and the future of their families. Not after the resistance she’d presented. The point of a blade twisted in Tenten’s gut alongside another twinge of nausea. Baby-related or not, she clutched the sheets beside her until the haze in her vision subsided.

“You don’t want to be married to him anymore,” Tenten countered. Risa's husband had thrust both of them into the same orbit, and so bitterly split them.

“That was a lapse in my judgment. We’re all capable of them. Marriage is my duty to my children and the clan.”

“He told me that he wanted to do things right this time. Marry me. Raise the baby together.”

“Circumstances change,” Risa paused to shake her head. “Never mind, that’s unimportant. He’s said he changed his mind. I wouldn’t blame him.”

Risa’s final sentences hit Tenten like a cold-handed slap, leaving a sting across her cheek and tears smarting in her eyes. Fuck you, Risa Hyuga. The pain wouldn’t have set in so deeply if Tenten saw no sense in Risa’s words.

“I’m sure he'd never turn on me like that,” Tenten insisted. “You’re lying.”

He’s done it before, Tenten conceded a second later. Flashes of her conversation with an 18-year-old Neji over their future – their lack of future – haunted her.

Risa sighed, exasperation drawing out her breath.

“You’re being a damn fool. You’ve been a selfish, short-sighted fool.”

In the moments after Risa’s retort, Tenten could imagine that the Hyuga woman took more than a little pleasure in rebuking her. Boiling heat radiated out from Tenten’s core.

"Well, fuck you, too," Tenten sneered. She swallowed to repress the acid in her throat and crossed her thin arms.

“If you love him, you would do what’s best for him."

Tenten locked her jaw and curled her lip at the Hyuga woman’s condescension.

“What’s best for you, maybe.”

Following her feeble retort, Tenten’s mind swam with images of her lover clutching his sides in pain, unable to escape from the torture that racked his body. No, not for me. Not for my sake, she thought, chills running down her legs and curling her toes beneath the blanket. Without Tenten’s shadow lingering over Neji’s marriage and tenure as clan head, he had a narrow path to redemption. A better woman would have cast off the denial that kept her clinging to a dead-on-arrival marriage proposal.

She’d fallen so far for his sake, only to find nobody there to catch her.

“He can choose. I’m sorry that he didn’t choose you, Risa.”

“You can choose, too. You failed to make the right choice so many months ago.” Risa paused to draw a breath. “Well, and afterward. It’s not too late to look after his interests and the interests of both our families.”

“I’m not getting much of a choice.” A rush of tears flooded Tenten’s eyes. “Except that this is my house, and I want you to get out of here.”

Chapter Text

Rock Lee’s knuckles hit the doorframe in time with Tenten’s thundering pulse. Numb with shock, she couldn’t say whether 10 minutes or 10 hours had passed since Risa Hyuga closed the door behind her. When the end approached, the distinction mattered little anyways.

“Come in,” Tenten murmured into her pillow. 

The door hinge creaked. Tenten tugged her blanket over her shoulder and rolled to face the wall. She locked her jaw when the wooden legs of a chair dragged against the floor toward the bed. Bit the inside of her lip when Lee sat down with a huff. Maybe Lee came to rebuke her for how she'd addressed Risa Hyuga, apologizing to the Hyuga woman with every step she took toward the door. If he called her rude or a selfish, stubborn woman, she would laugh in his face. Ask him how he’d react to Risa’s ultimatums and threats.

“Tenten,” Lee ventured. “Are you alright? You seemed rather...upset by your conversation with our guest.”

Guest. A generous way to describe her, when Risa appeared uninvited to exact such cruelty.

“Yeah. Something like that. She wants me gone. Wants to take the baby. Thinks there’s nothing left for me here...and maybe she’s right.”

Her mother's slap echoed in her ear and in the core of her bones that still rang from the impact. Whore. Bitch. How could you do this to someone so kind? If Tenten replayed Risa's admission that Neji turned his back on her, she could almost hear a touch of satisfaction in the lilt of her voice. She could understand his change of heart, faced with the full weight of the clan's reprisal. Love meant a readiness to sacrifice for his sake, even to relinquish her claim on him. So unfortunate that Tenten had staked her future and her unborn child's future on a man who defaulted on his promises. 

 “That is not true. You have me," Lee countered. "Is that what Neji's wife wanted for you to believe?" 

"Y-yeah. Pretty much. If I really think about it, she's right, though. I've put so much...so, so much hope in him. I know that's where it all started. Hoping for more than what I had when it was always good enough. Like I wanted to be like Tsunade, like I wanted to marry Neji since I was 16." 

Lee set a palm on Tenten’s shoulder, the reassuring pressure from his fingertips bearing into her skin. The heat of his palm burned her with shame. She’d never lose Lee the way she lost her lover twice, this time without a single goodbye. Maybe the worst thing was that her husband didn't flinch upon hearing she'd wanted another for so long. He'd been conditioned to accept that truth without spiraling into despair, otherwise he couldn't have survived living under the same roof with his wife. Looking at the two children they shared. 

Fresh tears beaded at the bottom rims of Tenten’s eyes before she tightened a fist around her aching heart. She imagined her tears would only annoy Lee. An unfaithful wife and mother had no right to demand his pity.

“Perhaps I should not have let her see you. I would never want to cause you pain. More pain than you are already feeling.”

"I probably deserve to feel more of it -" 

"Why? You have not done anything to make it so that your life should be over." 

Pain. In Risa’s telling, she’d caused her lover pain far worse than a shattered heart, family, and future. Tenten and their children would no doubt have caused him more if he continued resisting on their behalf. The horrible secret lingered between her and Lee, but Tenten's conscience insisted that her husband deserved to know Neji’s fate.

“They punished Neji for swearing he’d marry me. Risa told me he’s changed his mind about that. I can’t blame him.”

The heat that rose to Tenten’s face and neck suffocated her, making every breath of air harder. Lee’s fingers tensed, his hand sliding from her shoulder. Next to her bed, the chair’s worn joints squealed and groaned as he adjusted himself, trying to find comfort that remained elusive.

Even after Jiro activated his Byakugan in the open, she could have turned back and tried to continue as normal. Risa and Lee had sense in proposing that she tie Jiro to one of the great war’s Hyuga casualties who could offer no objection. Then Tenten would have been a reckless girl and a whore to some, but not a woman who upended families. To those who thought like her mother, there was honor in accepting her mistakes and atoning for them. 

“I feel like shit knowing this happened because of me,” Tenten continued. “You know, he didn’t want to turn on his wife for me at first. It was me, all me. I didn’t think you and I were enough. I pushed him into being with me and didn’t care about where it’d all end. He tried to turn back, put some space between us after that first time. I just...couldn’t accept that. I had to have him. Fuck the consequences.”

“It would indeed have been for the best that Neji never returned to our lives. Yet he was a man who could choose.” Lee’s words lodged into her soft, vulnerable heart. “I pity that your children cannot escape what you and Neji have done.”

Tenten parted her lips once before pressing them closed again. It was only logical that Lee's anger would bubble to the surface now, like it had on their last night sharing a bed when they argued over Jiro. He’d held back the full force of his anger when another man carried his wife to bed, claiming her unborn child as his own. He'd checked his temper when she’d announced the beginning of their end as a married couple. 

“Yeah. I’ve thought about that more than you know.”

“If you insisted on betraying our marriage, you could have at least ensured you did not make another child.”

Tenten’s penchant for destroying lives apparently stopped at the one growing inside her. Her mother all but demanded that she dispose of the thing she’d created with her lover – and doing so meant her indiscretions would have remained a secret. Tenten clung to the idea that something beautiful, clean, and pure had come out of the wreckage of their lives. Her embittered husband, her mother, and her lover’s wife could never convince her the child was better off not existing.

“Too late for that,” Tenten breathed out, running the back of her hand across her eyes. “Shit, I was on...oh, never mind. I just replay everything over and over again, and there’s so much I should have -”

“That does not help you in the present.”

“I know I’m a terrible mom.” A desperate air inflected Tenten’s voice, a plea with Lee to recognize her remorse. Even if that remorse changed nothing, and nobody could reverse time. “The baby...I don't think Risa would hurt him. I just don’t want to think Jiro’s going to be hurt because of this.”

“You should have shown such concern for Jiro -”

“I know,” Tenten shot back. “I can’t know what’s going to happen from here.”

“You could have seen that it would not be good.”

Her husband sighed and looked over his bandaged hands. The implicit dismissal challenged Tenten to do better than meaningless despair. Lee remained Jiro's father in most practical regards, and needed to believe that his mother hadn’t surrendered.

“He can’t be here anymore,” Tenten said. “I’ve figured out that much. His only chance of being normal is to go somewhere nobody knows him from anyone else and stay there for a while. We have family – well, I have family. They’ll take him. All I need to tell them is that Jiro’s my son and we can’t take care of him right now.”

Her chest constricted as she channeled her self-loathing into a frantic plan to protect her son. The Sato family had cousins on her father’s side who lived in the Land of Grass. Her family had visited with them once years ago, a much longer journey without the railroad tracks that criss-crossed the continent. Their stretch of farmland and small villages could hide one mousy, lanky boy from any who’d wish him harm.

“You are in no condition to travel with how ill you have been lately.”

Lee grimaced. To his eyes, Tenten was still impractical and unreasonable – bound to cause more problems. She tilted her head to catch his gaze, desperate to tell her husband how she was trying to extricate her son.

“I wasn’t saying I would.”

“Run if you want to. Take Neji with you if he is willing. I would not try to stop you, even if I would not give you any aid. You and Neji are still dear to me because we made a promise to be friends for life.”

Calloused fingers crept forward to lay across the back of Tenten’s hand. She half-expected a trap laying just a few misspoken words away. Lee held his duty to the village in high regard, his loyalty oaths as a shinobi unbroken since he graduated from the academy. Would a man so devoted to his nation support his wife if she chose to disobey orders from the village command? Yet she knew Rock Lee well enough to know he couldn’t manage subterfuge, not with a woman he'd known since childhood. 

"Oh - I'm...surprised you'd -" 

“But do not think to take Jiro with you, or to send him away.”

Lee’s hand constricted. His iron grip drew a yelp from Tenten, as did the fire in his voice.

“W-why?” Tenten stammered. “He’ll be safer. They won’t find him. He’ll have famil-”

“He has suffered enough from your plans already. You would take him from his brother, from me. From the life he knows here.”

She’d lost Lee’s vote of confidence as a mother – to both Jiro and Metal. Maybe he now believed that allowing Tenten to decide anything for Jiro would be the boy’s downfall. Lee wasn't wrong that Jiro needed a stable life at last, free from the adults in his life pulling him in all directions. Trying to assert their claims on him, while he remained painfully aware that a bastard belonged to nobody. Forcing him into a life away from the only home he'd ever known would throw his life into far worse disarray. 

Jiro sat downstairs working on academy homework at the dining table, probably struggling to calculate the angle of a shuriken’s trajectory from a treetop perch. He would have seen Neji’s wife enter, meet with Lee’s offers of refreshments, and walk upstairs with her baby. He must have at least peered up from his pencil and paper when Risa Hyuga left, and Lee walked upstairs to address his mother. Tenten pictured Jiro pushing his homework aside on the table and sitting with hands folded before him, paralyzed with anxiety. For his family, for his future.

His greatest worries should have been finishing his homework in time to play board games with his brother or watch a movie before bed. 

“I know. I know. I’m trying to do something right here.”

“I agree that what is being demanded of you is unjust and all but guarantees you an early death,” Lee said. “Tenten, if you wish to do right by yourself and claim what you always wanted, I will support you.”

“What I always…” Tenten mouthed the words, then shook her head.

Distracted by thoughts of her eldest son, she’d forgotten Lee’s proposal that she abandon with village on her own terms, with her lover. The door stood wide open before her to fly free, unencumbered by her marriage, her children, the village's judgments. Staring at the open skies that awaited, Tenten shrank back from the threshold.

“No, that’s not what I want.”

“You surprise me, Tenten. The way you have pledged to leave me and how you were intimate with Neji behind my back led me to believe otherwise.”

“I might have thought it sometimes. Wished I wasn't tied to you and Metal. I dreamed of it sometimes - hitting a reset button that would make all those years go away.”

"I-I understand. I should be grateful that you are telling the truth." 

Lee perched his forearms on his thighs and leaned forward, lips just parted by a hair. Dreams were all too easy. The box of photographs and forgotten gifts sitting in her upstairs closet allowed her a glimpse of the first love she left behind. Her unmet longings in her years of marriage made those memories ever sweeter by contrast. We had something good here, Tenten thought, not for the first time. We have something good. But this time, she'd finally realized just how important she found the bonds she'd neglected in favor of a lover who could give her no future together. Whatever Risa Hyuga wanted her to believe, she had so much to anchor her to her home and family.

“Yeah. I owe it to you. Having him without...the boys...or you...I couldn’t do it.”

“Without me?” Lee breathed out, disarmed. “I am glad that changing diapers for you and waking up to give Jiro the bottle made you so fond of me.”

Among other things. Facing Mom and Dad about the baby. Refusing to give up on me when I'd so clearly betrayed you.

“Come on. You were more than that.” Tenten’s voice crackled with laughter that bubbled up through her chest. A thin thread tugged at the stiff corners of her lips. “I wasn’t the one who saved Jiro when he almost crawled out of the attic window. You had him by the foot, remember? I was hiding in the corner because I just couldn’t look until he was back inside.”

“That was when your mother and father saw fit to install bars on the window.”

Lee met her low chuckle with the same laugh that joined hers when their toddler sons did anything foolish, but so amusing. Tenten rushed forward to cup Lee’s jaw in her hands and closed her eyes.

Another few inches closed between them and Tenten’s forehead touched his. Lee’s hands wrapped around her wrists.

“I’m home now. I’m not leaving.”

Risa lay stiff on her side of the bed like a corpse, the faint whistle of her breath her only sign of life. Salvaging their marriage was a sensible decision, he told himself. His daughters wouldn’t be troubled by the thought that he hated them or their mother, and he could restore his honor with time. Time, and good behavior. He’d need to accept that his relationship with Tenten was over without a single word shared between the lovers. Breaking away to say a simple goodbye was too dangerous for both of them.

In a matter of months, Tenten Lee would leave the village. His lover had volunteered for a lifelong espionage mission, asked for the assignment so she could cut herself loose from him at last. Ko had mentioned it during a meeting of the clan council in which he’d seen fit to insert himself. By the hums of approval that permeated the room, Neji could tell the council found the news most welcome.

Risa was a kind woman for agreeing to raise his newest child as a brother to her own, much as Neji found his gratitude in short supply. Neji touched his lips to the back of her head, fine hairs tickling his nose and chin. He hoped it came close to a thank you, because he'd never formally thanked his wife for accepting another child into the family.

Goodnight, dear, Risa whispered.

“Goodnight, Risa.”

Tenten Lee was foolhardy and sometimes too persistent for her own good, but she'd never been suicidal. Never wanted to harm herself. At the end of everything, Neji couldn't hate Tenten for choosing to run away rather than face death or punishment. It was only fair that she leave without a word when he’d cut her off the first time.  

Neji reclined on his side, curled around his core. As his weary eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he saw the outlines of their bedroom drawn in gray. Pieces of the life he shared with his wife loomed in the darkness like gray ghosts. By the foot of the bed sat Risa’s vanity stocked with silver jewelry that complemented her white skin and white eyes so well. He’d gifted much of her collection in their years of marriage, including the earrings she’d received on her last birthday. The frame bearing a photograph from their wedding day was a dark square on the white wall. 

“What are you thinking of?”

The words enveloped him in a suffocating bind just as Risa’s arm draped over his hip. He'd fallen out of practice at sharing his thoughts and fears with Risa, refrained from burdening Tenten with his stresses on the few occasions they stole time together. Once he mulled Risa’s question again, tears beaded on the undersides of his eyes. He’d have another chance with the elders if Risa and Ko – two Hyuga in good standing – vouched for him. One more chance, or he’d face banishment or death for certain. He needed to try for their children and for those he once freed.

“The way back.”

“Oh,” Risa hummed. No need to ask what he wanted to find again. “We’ll reach it again. How it was before.”

He looped his fingers through Risa’s rather than tell her the truth. Though it was better than his current disgrace, Neji flinched when he recalled how it was before. He lived unaware that his eldest child wasn't the first daughter he'd borne with his Hyuga wife, or that Tenten had repressed her hunger for their love in the years they spent apart. The former way of things had been sustained by ignorance that was impossible to restore. Neji’s breath caught in his throat when Risa rested her cheek against his shoulder blade. How could she touch him so easily and slip right back into the kind of intimacy they’d shared before everything changed?

“Are you thinking of anything?” he asked in return, to distract himself from the tightening in his chest. A good husband cared to know his wife’s sentiments, and being a good husband was the first step back.

“How much I prayed I wouldn’t lose you. I look at our girls and I think about how terrible it would be to raise them without you.”

She’d set aside the bitterness brought on by his betrayal to bind him closer to their children. Keep him in a place where he could protect the freedom that had been his children’s birthright. Deceiving himself that Risa fought for their marriage out of duty was easier than believing it was for love. Regardless, Neji had no reason to believe she’d lied that day at the hospital about still loving him. 

“And I think of whether you love me as I still love you.”

“I...I care deeply for you, Risa.”

“Are you thinking of her?”

Neji dreaded to tell Risa that his lover almost consumed more of his thoughts in her absence than she ever could lying beside him. Tenten, I never would have expected this, Neji would have told Tenten, had fate given them another minute to speak. The baby...he’ll never be ours. Not truly. Not like we wanted. His heart swelled with the longing to say goodbye, the longing that would remain forever unfulfilled.

“She’s lost to you,” Risa snapped, goading him into a response.

By answering, he'd tell her that he cared at least enough to grant her some acknowledgment. To venture a moment of discomfort for her sake. Neji coiled his body around his heart and drew a deep breath to keep his tears from flooding the pillow.

"It's difficult to forget when she changed her mind about us so quickly. I also can't forget that she's expecting." 

Expecting my child, he finished. 

Risa released a low growl and propped herself on an elbow. She had him pinned with the threat of punishment, of disgrace at his back. So that's how she repays my honesty, Neji remarked to himself, bile at the back of his throat. Before he escalated another circular argument about his disloyalty, he urged himself to show Risa some leniency. The wounds of his neglect cut deep and still bled. 

“You have me. You’ve always had me so long as we’ve been married.”

“I know, Risa. Thank you.”

“You don’t care, do you? You only care that you’re happy pretending, playing house like a child.”

“I never said that.”

His wife collapsed back to the mattress with a resolute whump, then pressed her body closer to Neji’s curved back. The tension in her arms and shoulders told him that she remained unconvinced, but forced herself to end their exchange to maintain the peace. Maybe Risa Hyuga reassured to herself that time was on her side, not Tenten's. Her husband would grow to love her again, the accumulated affection and warmth of 10 years softening him to her. 

Tenten Lee might as well have laid in the bed with them, her specter occupying the gaps between Neji and Risa’s bodies. Risa could no doubt feel the invisible presence between them. That must have been why she hugged Neji closer, to expel Tenten Lee from the empty spaces in their bed.

“I still can’t believe you would ever do this to me while I was with your child. Even now, I know you’re here only because she chose to end her ties with you.”

“It was never going to end in the way I thought.”

Never going to end with marriage, a shared home, children sleeping in the bedroom next door to their parents. Maybe Tenten still wore the ring he’d given her, or she’d slipped the gold band off her finger and left it in a corner of her nightstand drawer. The hollow in his chest ached at the thought of his lover sleeping alone, longing for his touch. Or not. 

“No. I’m happy you’ve managed to achieve some degree of clarity on that matter.”

The dryness, the note of sarcasm in Risa’s voice grated on Neji. With words alone, he’d failed to give her any reassurance – so he brought her hand to his lips and traced a line down to her wrist. The light kisses elicited a flurry of little sighs. In the days before they’d drifted apart, those noises were what prompted him to take things further. Whispers and sighs would turn to gasps, would turn to moans and shrill cries in his ear. They'd finish with the soft whistle of their breaths warming the air in their bedroom. When she wasn't heavily pregnant, it had been his to take almost any night he was home. No sneaking, no sinking guilt in the aftermath. 

We can't. We can't, Neji repeated to himself like a prayer. It's too soon. Not right.

“Mh, I love you,” Risa breathed out.

After Neji released her hand, his wife’s fingertips settled on his chest and ran down the centerline of his breastbone. A weight settled at the base of Neji’s stomach when her fingers continued their path downward. He squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath, recalling that he’d abandoned Risa for Tenten the last time she tried for intimacy. Risa latched onto his waistband and tugged twice.

“Do the doctors say you’re okay to…lay with a man again?”

Risa’s hands paused. Giving birth to their daughter had taken a steep toll in her body, and Neji dreaded further tearing or bruising his wife inside.

“They healed me after I gave birth. I-I asked for it.”

Her fingertips danced along the strip of skin above his waistband while she waited for his answer. The tickle of her hand on his bare skin added sparks of pleasure to his discomfort. This time, Tenten Lee no longer loomed in Neji’s mind as the one he could have had instead. He reasoned that the remainder of his married life with Risa would pass with less pain if they had more than children and duty keeping them together.

“It’s been too long,” Neji said.

Too long since he’d laid with her like a husband. Too long since he’d considered her his wife in more than name. Too long since he returned her love that grew heavy like fruit left on the vine to rot. Neji pulled his pants and undergarments down, his motions mechanical. His night shirt followed. The rustle of fabric by his side told him that Risa freed herself from her nightgown to keep pace.

“I’ve needed this. Your touch. I-”

“I know. I haven’t touched you like this in months.”

Risa’s breath caught with what Neji suspected were sobs. He wondered if she could have gone through with their divorce after the initial shock of outrage and hurt faded. Tenten’s decision was a fortunate break for Risa, then. Yet she still had reason to cry. Neji’s Hyuga wife was – and had been – his second choice woman. The latest developments had made that painfully clear.

“Then do it now.”

Quivering hands found his lower back and soft, dry lips met his. He set one hand against the side of his wife’s neck and the other on her waist. Risa’s body was smaller than Tenten’s, her bones thinner and more fragile. Her hunger wasn't shameless like the advances from his lover that swept him in. Risa was timid, but every touch burned into his skin. Neji breathed out a curse. He hoped Risa took it as a sign of arousal rather than overwhelming emotion - relief, lust, doubt, disgust with himself. The mechanics were easy enough – but recapturing the former heat and electricity between them proved elusive.

The tip of Risa’s tongue pushed at the entrance of Neji’s lips, her right hand cupping his cheek. Her thumb rested on the side of his cheek while her fingers tangled in the hair behind his ear. A nagging whisper implored him to lead, rather than barely responding to Risa like a passive doll. Whatever Neji’s reservations, his body wasn’t discriminating about whether he kissed Tenten’s lips or his wife’s. The bed sheet brushed the sensitive tip of his cock as it stiffened from his wife’s kisses and the feel of her skin.

His wife’s hand brushed between his legs, chased by an airy laugh. Sparks shot through Neji’s system, giving more fuel to the part of him that only wanted to fuck. Risa giggled in the half-second following her last kiss, muttering something about how she wouldn’t keep him waiting. 

“I need you, Risa.”

Neji propped his body on one elbow while he arranged himself between Risa’s legs. His head bowed to meet her lips, capturing her little gasp of shock. Though they’d fucked dozens of times in the years they’d been married, she somehow still carried an innocent quality about her. Risa Hyuga had only ever lain with her husband – and the reminder of that made Neji shudder. Hot blood coursed through him, gathering at his face and neck and between his legs. Her hips rolled up to accommodate him and Neji let his momentum carry him forward.

Yes, yes, yes, Risa whispered in his ear where it rested beside her face, her words emerging in time with his thrusts into her. Her arms laced over his back and shoulders, sweaty palms resting along the curve of his spine. As pleasure gathered in his core, Neji wrapped his arms around her upper back for leverage. Wife or lover, a woman’s body was a woman’s body as far as his cock was concerned.

He finished a few minutes later, breathless. Groaning, Neji braced his palm against the pillow by Risa’s head and pushed himself onto his back. The room lay silent except for their shared gasps for air. Risa whispered a I missed that when he recovered enough to turn to her. Neji answered by brushing the loose locks of hair by her cheek and his wife’s hand caught his. She loved him, she wanted him, and that was more than he deserved.

Chapter Text

Jiro and Metal sat amid a maze of wood pieces, scattered screws and assembly instructions for their baby brother's new crib. Before he departed on a daytrip mission, Rock Lee had tasked both brothers with assembling the bed and - hopefully - repairing the divide between them. When he returned at nightfall, he expected the mess of detritus around them to take the shape of a baby's first bed. Somehow.

Board A attaches to Board B on the top, while Board D slots in on the right… Jiro held the l-wrench from the assembly kit to his pursed lips as his brother toyed with one of the long, thin pieces that formed the panel of bars. Stationing the crib in the spare bedroom was an act of defiance. Once the spare bedroom transformed into his younger brother’s nursery, anyone who visited the Lee family home would know they had no intention of disappearing Tenten Lee or her baby.

“I’m happy we’ll have the crib set up in time for the baby,” Mom said. “Going to be hard for me to see it empty. Knowing the baby’s still a few months away.”

Jiro glanced to Mom where she watched her children from the corner of the room. Dad had brought her a seat with a cushioned footrest, where she sat still save for the hands that added rows to her crochet blanket. She hadn’t been ill for most of that day, and had even hummed a few notes while Jiro unboxed the pieces of the crib. A good day so far. Mom appeared at peace, even if she couldn't forget the reproach of everyone who wanted her gone.

“Yeah, can’t wait.”

Actually, we could stand to wait, Jiro thought. When his baby brother arrived, the family would face a new set of troubles.

In the coming weeks, Dad would join them to paint the walls pale blue to cover the room’s scuffed white paint. Jiro had chosen a sticker set of glow in the dark stars to paste across the ceiling. Metal had chosen to turn his back on his father and brother while muttering that he didn’t care how the baby’s room looked. Decorating was stupid, a waste of his time. His brother’s slouch against the wall told Jiro that he didn’t care much more for furnishing the future nursery. Despite the stinging burn of his face and ears, Jiro fought to ignore the quiet defiance. Family bonding over the preparations for their family’s youngest member didn’t reconnect the brothers like Dad hoped.

“Hey,” Jiro called to his brother. “Can you hold Board B while I screw it in the two spots?”

Metal shrugged. He spun the wooden bar in his hands, then shrugged when it clattered to the floor.

“This is going to be hard to do by myself. Come on, I’m already doing most of the work,” Jiro pleaded.

“I don’t want to do this,” Metal shot back. No stutter, no softness in his black eyes.

His upper lip curled when Jiro released a quick gasp. A short screw – not even the kind Jiro needed to join the boards – rolled in Jiro’s direction, nudged by his brother’s foot. 

“Dad’s making me help. Now I’m helping.”

Jiro grasped the head of the screw between his thumb and forefinger. His brother had been his best friend for years of an otherwise lonely childhood, ever kind and cheerful like his father. Rather than respond to Metal with a bitter retort that would drive their rift deeper, Jiro closed his fist around the screw and winced at the bite of the threads against his palm.

“You didn’t need to do that,” Jiro whispered. Stars blossomed behind his clenched eyelids.

“I helped.”

“N-no.”

“Get Amaya to help if you like her so much -”

“Don’t talk to your brother like that,” Mom cut in. “If you don’t want to help your brother, I’m not going to make you.”

Metal perched his chin atop his knobby knees and glared at Mom with her almond-shaped eyes. The floor of the bedroom wobbled beneath Jiro’s feet, as he reeled from shock. Jiro’s brother never so much as grumbled at his parents when told to wash dishes or redo his folding of the laundry. Metal was the child who stared at his feet and stammered out apologies. Never told his parents no. 

“Shut up, Mom.”

“Metal, why would you -”

“I knew Jiro was your favorite. You just want to take him with you, so you can forget I was ever there.”

“I’m not leaving you. You’re mine, too. I love you just as much as I love Jiro.”

Mom’s voice wavered, her needlework dropping in her lap. The yarn ball rolled from her lap and bounced to the foot of her chair. She pinched the corners of her lips in a strained smile, an expression that failed to win Jiro’s confidence. Or Metal’s – more importantly.

“You were going to leave. I’m sure you would have taken Jiro and never visited me again. You never wanted me, did you?”

The tension coiling in Jiro’s chest loosened by a touch. His brother’s fundamental problem wasn’t with him. No, Metal resented his mother’s past and her disloyalty to his father. He doesn't hate you - he's just angry. Understandably. Jiro couldn't escape that he'd forced his Hyuga father’s hand and exposed his parents’ shame to both their families. Because I had to. Because I couldn't let Mom ruin her life and the baby's life. Whatever his certainty that he'd done right, Jiro knew he wouldn't stop suffering the backlash anytime soon.

“No. No, your dad and I wanted you so much. We were so excited when you were born. I-I told you – wanting to leave was a mistake. Even if I did leave, I would have visited you all the time. At least once a week. Once a day if you wanted me to.”

“He wouldn’t have wanted me because I’m not his.”

Jiro's deepest fault was being born to the man Mom loved first, and still loved at her core. Jiro was a product of love, Metal of obligation and an attempt to build a family from a marriage of convenience.

“I’ll always be your mother, nothing can change that.”

Mom closed her eyes and sighed. What worried Jiro was that Mom didn’t rush to disagree. Had Mom ever mentioned Metal around Neji Hyuga, or expressed a moment of concern for her younger son? She hadn’t rebutted Metal’s contention that she planned to begin her family with Neji Hyuga, Jiro, and the baby inside her. All without consulting Jiro, he realized, with a flash of anger. He was again a pawn in the aspirations and grand plans of others, with no one asking how he felt. 

“You’re the same, Jiro."

Pinned by the intensity of his brother's conviction, Jiro wiped his slick palms on the seat of his pants.

“I – what’re you talking about?”

“You want your perfect family with Mom and your dad...your sister -”

“When did I say -”

“Don’t lie.”

You didn’t need to say anything, Metal probably wanted to say. You told me when you went to him. 

“Again, there’s no need to talk to your brother like that,” Mom snapped. “I’ll tell your dad, and he’ll be disappointed that you couldn’t behave for an afternoon. Be angry with me if you need to. Jiro didn’t cheat on this family. I did.”

“I hate you, Mom.”

The words drifted across the still air in the spare bedroom, a light growl on Metal’s breath. There he was again – Jiro Sato the fearful loser. The tide of chakra behind his eyes surged, though he stopped short of pushing open the door to activate his Byakugan.

“Tell me you wouldn’t choose them, Jiro. I don’t even know if you’re my real brother.”

“Your father won’t tolerate this,” Mom spat. “You know he wouldn’t let you talk about Jiro like that. He’s always treated Jiro like your brother and a part of this family.”

For once, the certainty of facing his father’s reproach didn’t seem to bother Metal. Rock Lee would have been disappointed in his son for the way he treated his mother and older brother. He’d ground him, force him to write a letter of apology. Maybe Metal would have to build the crib without help while Mom watched. Mom had no choice but to hide behind her husband when her authority meant nothing. She’d betrayed and tried to leave her family, then insisted on reclaiming her place as Mom to Jiro and Metal. 

“Shut up. I wasn’t talking to you, Mom.”

“I wouldn’t have left,” Jiro stammered out, his face overwhelmed with heat. “I don’t want to.”

Rock Lee’s riddle about the children and parents at the playground returned to Jiro. Would Neji Hyuga have passed the parent test? The Hyuga clan head had made halting attempts to play the father to Jiro, to protect him from the clan. But Mom wouldn’t have cleaved Jiro away simply by telling him that he belonged to his blood father.

“You’re just lying like she does. You get it from her. From him, too. You were already wishing I didn’t exist. You and everybody,” Metal pressed. “You were going to be happy without me. Then he changed his mind about you.”

“Nonsense. Dear, I wish you wouldn’t make these things up. I could never be happy without you.”

Guilt flickered across Mom’s face. Lying. You get it from her. From him, too. Bastards were supposedly fickle, dishonorable creatures, incapable of being anything else due to the circumstances of their conception. His own brother should have known Jiro enough to understand otherwise.

Jiro reached for his brother’s shoulder and met eyes glistening with tears instead of rage. He stopped short of drawing Metal into a hug, his brother’s rejection still burned in his memory. Words alone wouldn’t convince Metal that Jiro was speaking the truth. Jiro hoped the warmth in his touch would make the case far better.

“I feel like since this whole thing started, everyone’s had their own ideas of what’s best for me,” Jiro began.

“That’s because you’re still a boy – I’ve been trying to protect you this whole time,” Mom said. “So has your father.”

“I-I want to have my father. I want to have you, Mom. Metal. You know, I’m not a Hyuga. I never asked for any of this. I want to be here like I was before.”

“I regret that I ever acted in a way that made you feel like you weren’t enough for me. I could have run away with...Jiro’s father. Left both of you behind. Your father would have let me, too.”

The echo of Mom’s words lingered in Jiro’s ears and he was sure Metal’s as well. Jiro fumbled with the crib assembly instructions, but the words and drawings on the paper read as nonsense. Leaving the village with Jiro’s father would have marked the closest Mom could ever get to a clean start to her adult life. A break from the compromises, the hurt from being the one he didn’t choose.

“Family stays loyal,” Mom continued. Pleaded with her children for even a touch of absolution. “I love you. I’ve loved you since I carried you inside me for nine months. I’m not perfect. I love you, and I wish you’d give me a second chance.”

Long days spent alone with Reina and the baby offered Risa Hyuga the kind of peace she'd yet to reclaim in her marriage. Her youngest daughters were simple creatures that were happy when they were fed, held, caressed, and loved by their mother. They had no notion of not loving her with the wholehearted devotion of young children, even when they screamed or refused to quit crying. Amaya and Neji confounded Risa, treating her as an obstacle to overcome. Rather than a wife and mother with an equal stake in her family, Risa had been a simple woman to be pacified with lies. 

The day Reina broke her mother’s heart, Risa remembered preparing a fresh batch of buns for lunch that day. Stubborn patches of dried dough still caked on her cuticles and the base of her hand when she left the lunch table to accept a laundry delivery. Upon returning to the table less than 15 minutes later, her bare feet skidded on a pool of water spreading across the hardwood floor.

“Reina, did you spill the cup of water?”

“No. I didn’t, Mother.”

Risa grasped Reina’s tiny wrists in her hands, her lips pinched into a tight line, head tilted. Her toddler daughter gazed back at her mother with wide white eyes and her tiny lips pursed. Even at her young age, Reina knew how to soften her mother's heart to stave off punishment. Part of Risa burned to pinch her daughter’s cheeks and plant kiss after kiss on her forehead. Yet a good mother didn’t neglect her children's moral instruction. 

“Reina, dear,” Risa began. “You told me you didn’t spill water on the floor, but I don’t know who else could have done it.”

“Don’t know. The wind blew it.”

A sigh bubbled up from deep in Risa’s lungs. Reina’s childish incompetence grated on her nerves almost as much as the intractability of her lie. No servants had entered their quarters in the few minutes that Risa left her daughter unattended in the kitchen. The wind was completely still outside the sliding doors that opened to the courtyard.

“It doesn’t fall from the counter by itself.”

“I didn’t lie, Mother.”

“Yes, you did. Don’t keep lying.”

Gods, Reina's fibs hadn't been this stubborn the few times Risa previously caught her lying.

Reina’s nose crinkled and she sniffed into the sleeve of her white dress. The round tip of her nose and her cheeks turned red, tears blotted by her fast blinks. Guilt tugged at Risa’s heart, but she needed to neutralize Reina’s lying habit before the toddler girl became a more sophisticated liar. Risa lifted her daughter’s face with her index and middle finger, wiping her tears with her thumb.

“Why did you lie? Tell Mother, why did you lie? I’m not angry with you. I only want to know so you don’t do it again.”

“I didn’t lie,” Reina repeated, her voice quivering.

“Mother still loves you. I won’t do anything to you. I’m not angry. I promise.”

Risa touched her lips to her daughter’s hairline. Sorry, Mother, Reina whispered, her voice catching on a sob. I’m so sorry. Her daughter’s moods changed so quickly – from defiance to pleading remorse. Unlike her older daughter, Reina was still at the age when Mother’s approval mattered above all. 

“We’re a family and we need to be honest,” Risa sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t feel like you need to lie, dear. Why did you do it?”

Risa closed her eyes. Their family had – in a sense – been constructed on a lie, worsened by her husband's recent disloyalty. Her lies were for the greater good of their family – and the future generations of their clan that mattered more than her marriage alone.

“I didn’t want you to be mad.”

Mother embraced daughter. Risa released a long breath through her locked teeth. She brought one hand to Reina’s cheek and attempted a smile. Reina's round baby face had started to give way. Risa’s middle daughter resembled her in the shape of her eyes and mouth, with Neji’s nose. She had Risa’s oval face rather than Neji’s square jaw, resembling her mother almost to the degree that Amaya resembled Neji. The reflection of her features on Reina’s elicited a twinge of pain.

At least Reina’s lies were innocent, Risa conceded. A cleaned spill would leave no mark. On the other hand, Risa had counseled Tenten Sato to lie about her son’s father. Lied to her husband about his lover’s intentions, and lied to Tenten about Neji’s rescinded marriage proposal. 

“Are you saying that you don’t trust me?”

“I trust you.”

“Good. Then you don’t need to lie.”

Please don’t lie. I couldn’t bear it if you did. If you lied like they have. 

Behind Risa’s back, the sliding door from the courtyard opened with a swish and a click. Her husband muttered a greeting to his wife and daughter before seating himself in the living room, his pack splayed next to him. At the sound of Neji’s voice, Reina hid her face in her mother's shoulder. Risa – and Neji – had insisted to their daughters that Father now he knew where his loyalties lay. Apparently Reina was slow to forgive.

“You’ve returned earlier than I expected,” Risa remarked, returning his greeting.

She hoisted Reina on her right hip, despite the strain her younger daughter’s weight placed on her body. Neji pinched a corner of his lip in a grimace and raised a brow. Still conscious of his standing in their family, he refrained from disparaging Risa for indulging the girl. In a year or two, Reina would outgrow her mother’s ability to carry her. Then, Risa could quit spoiling her.

“Is that unwelcome with you?” Neji leaned forward as if he meant to alight at Risa’s say-so.

“No. Do you want anything to drink? To eat?”

“Later. I...wished to surprise you. Reina. The baby. I've felt...so far from you.”

Risa sat on the couch next to Neji with Reina in her lap, the girl’s eyes downcast to avoid looking at her father’s face. Before, Reina had carried fear of her father, tinged with admiration for the man she’d been taught to revere. This fear - perhaps disgust - was different. Risa folded her body around Reina’s little frame and by instinct, turned her shoulder to shield her from Neji.

“That’s kind of you, dear.”

“I truly mean that. There’s much I need to make amends for, and I want to prove to you that I want this.”

Risa smiled to her husband with a beam that he could have distinguished as insincere. At her age, Reina wasn’t quite so discerning, she hoped. Part of Risa burned to throw Neji from their quarters for disrupting her peace. But the problems that came with his presence were less than those that would emerge in his absence. He's your husband. Their father. The best hope for the clan.

“Reina, do you want to come over here? I brought home something nice for you,” Neji prompted.

His voice quivered with fragile hope. A concession to Risa, a show of his willingness to soften to their children. A rare show of tender affection to his daughter.

“Reina, why don’t you sit in Father’s lap?” Risa asked, coaxing her daughter’s hands to loosen from the sleeve of her dress. “Father came home to see you. Aren’t you excited?”

Reina twisted around in Risa’s lap to bury her head in her shoulder. The vibrations of Reina’s whine vibrated at the junction of Risa’s shoulder and neck. Her stomach roiling with unease, Risa glanced to Neji in apology. She touched the inside of her husband’s thigh with the hand that wasn’t cradling Reina.

“I don’t want Father,” Reina protested. “I don’t.”

“Reina! He’s your father, and you shouldn’t talk to him this way. Tell Father that you’re -”

“I want Father to go away.”

“That’s unacceptable -”

“No, Risa. It’s alright. Perhaps I should have considered that I might not be...her favorite at the moment.”

Neji leaned over to touch his lips to Risa’s forehead. Now, Risa hoped that her daughter might just find it in her to lie for a few moments.

Risa blinked away the sleep from her eyes when the mattress depressed next to her with a rush of air. Neji slid beneath the sheet and tugged the corner of the blanket over his shoulder. Her heartbeat tapped at her breastbone for a few seconds as she adjusted to sharing a bed with her husband again. This is his bed, too, Risa told herself. She’d chosen to allow him back again for the sake of their children, their clan, the love they’d built together.

“Go back to sleep,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“What kept you?”

“Don’t worry yourself.”

They’d fallen asleep a few hours after dinner as they had in the years before his gaze snagged on another woman. In the intervening hours, Neji had slipped away from her, pried her off his chest. Gone to see her? The unwelcome question burrowed through Risa’s mind. With the patrol of Hyuga guardsmen along the corridors of the compound and in the courtyards, her husband surely wouldn’t dare to break away for his lover. If he had, he would discover that Risa had lied to him, to Tenten.

“It’s difficult for me not to. I can’t help wondering if you were -”

“My ties with her have ended,” Neji interjected. “You told me herself. She doesn’t wish to place herself and her family at risk for a marriage that would be doomed.”

“Y-yes. That’s what she said.”

"Risa. I understand how you feel. I'll work every day so you never doubt me - once you feel ready, that is." 

Regardless of his promise to earn her trust, Neji betrayed a desperation to sweep away their recent past, an impulse all too clear in the lilt of his voice. 

Risa now knew her husband on another level. She knew what it was to feel the shadow of her lies creep along the walls until they’d one day converge on her. Neji’s black shadows had swallowed him already, and he was still trying to claw his way from under them. He has no right to hate me, Risa told herself. He was the first to soil this marriage. Their marriage was about so much more than true love of the variety her husband chased with Tenten. If she needed to, she could keep Neji just as close as she held her contempt for him.

“On the matter of where I was...the baby woke crying. I cleaned her and fed her from the bottle.”

Risa scanned her memories of the night, gleaning a few snippets from the fog. The shrill scream of her daughter’s cries punctured the air and roused her for a few seconds, before she lapsed back into sleep. A few too many hours of missed sleep had run her into exhaustion.

“I...I slept too long and didn’t feed her,” Risa sighed, falling back against the bed. “Asami -”

“Risa, don’t worry about it. Her father should take some of the burden, don’t you think?”

Risa shook her head. Caring for the children and maintaining a nurturing home were her sole occupation. She’d failed if she needed her husband to feed Asami from a plastic bottle rather than her mother’s body. 

“Relax, dear. An active duty shinobi who can’t stand to wake at odd hours shouldn’t be serving.”

Husband and wife’s laughs mingled.

“Since I woke you, I suppose I should do my part to put you back to sleep.”

“Hm, try me.”

Neji leaned forward to slip his tongue through the opening in her lips and slide the lower hem of her nightgown up. Her toes curling against the bedsheet, Risa let her husband apply his lips to her breasts, then her ribcage and stomach. 

Risa parted her legs when the tickle of Neji’s hair reached the hollow of her hip. She bit the side of her hand and leaned her head back against the stack of pillows on their bed. I love you, I love you, I love you, she breathed out. Risa’s spine stretched taunt in an arch when his thumb brushed the sensitive bead above her entrance. Her husband’s lips sucked at the junction of her leg and hip before he kissed the hairline between her legs. She thought to tell him that he didn’t need to please her with his lips, that it was late at night and he needed to sleep before morning arrived. A rising moan stole the words from her mouth, as did Risa's insistence that she accept the pleasures Neji offered to offset her pain.

Chapter Text

“Reina, do you want to tell Father about what you did this week?” Risa asked, whispering into her daughter’s hairline.

Reina covered her face with both hands and flopped into her mother’s shoulder.

“No thanks.”

“She’s just being shy.”

Risa met her husband’s pinched smile with a quick, breathy laugh. Neji shifted a touch closer to his wife and second daughter along the couch. He held Asami on his lap, the baby’s fists toying with his dangling hair. With hazy sunlight slanting across the living room, Risa wished she had a camera in hand to capture the scene.

“Yes, don’t keep me waiting.”

Coaxing Reina to lift her head, Risa tickled the underside of her chin.

“You made Mother very proud. Now, I’m sure Father will be, too.”

Risa touched her lips to Reina’s closed fist, pressing a series of quick kisses to her daughter’s knuckles until her fingers splayed open. Mother and daughter shared a breathy giggle of excitement, prompting another spontaneous round of kisses. They’d worked on Reina’s activation of the Byakugan over the past several weeks, culminating in the fleeting swell of chakra veins around her daughter’s eyes. During the half-second before she lost focus, Reina’s eyes popped wide as she saw the world through the lens of her kekkai genkai.

“I...used the Byakugan.” Reina choked out her entire answer at once, her words stumbling over one another.

“For a short time,” Risa added, to Neji’s knowing nod. “I’m sure she’ll improve quickly.”

Drilling Reina to speed up the activation of her eyes could come later. So would building endurance so she could use her Byakugan continuously without conscious focus.

“Just like you, Mother,” Reina said. “Like big sister and Father.”

Like Father. Risa took slight solace knowing that Reina no longer reacted to her father with reflexive disgust. You shouldn’t have doubted yourself, Risa insisted. Our marriage has survived for far longer than he was ever in thrall to that woman. A quiet weekend day spent in their home, free from expectations of training, missions, or clan responsibilities, would serve them well. The children would see their parents treating one another with respect and affection, while Neji would bask in everything he’d planned to leave behind. It was a chance for him to show penance and a re-commitment to being a father to his Hyuga children.

“I’m happy for you, dear. I only hope...”

Neji’s flickering white eyes betrayed a racing mind. His gaze lingered on Risa, as she saw him torn between what he should have said, and what he wanted to say.

“For what?” Risa cut in.

Risa’s stomach twisted – her husband could ill afford to show hesitation or equivocations when it came to his duties. Showing pride in the clan’s unique gifts was the least, the easiest test to pass.

“Never mind. I misspoke.”

“Congratulations,” Amaya interjected from her place at Risa’s feet. She no doubt spoke to salve Reina’s pride after their father’s faltering attempt at feigning excitement. 

Risa prompted Reina to reply with a thank you, big sister, as was proper when receiving compliments. The girl still needed some instruction in that respect. Her older sister pivoted back toward the television set, to a broadcast of an educational program on the great clans. The village’s public access channel had struck a careful balance between the self-regard and sensitivities of each clan, and their real histories. Almost. The Hyuga had been described in the narrative as the hidden leaf’s most insular, prideful, and traditional great clan with a hint of contempt.

"Why don't you change the channel, dear?" Risa said. "I don't think this is appropriate for you and your sister -" 

"It's perfectly suitable for them," Neji cut in. "I don't see what your problem is." 

Risa would need to have a conversation with her daughters within the next several days about allowing the messages of ignorant strangers to undermine their pride. The talk would be made easier by the practice she’d gotten from clarifying the cousin-fucker epithet with Amaya. It was one thing for a prejudiced broadcaster to show his hand. It was another for the nominal clan head to show his fraying loyalty. Yet because her husband was meant to be the ultimate authority in their family, she left him unchallenged in the moment.

“I’m sorry,” Neji began, clearing his throat and lifting his head. “I’ve been troubled by matters within the clan lately. I didn’t mean to sound...any less proud than a father should be.”

Two sets of smaller white eyes seized on Neji, with Amaya’s brows scrunching above her eyes. Risa’s older daughter was perceptive enough to register Neji’s unease that ran deeper than typical work stress. Not now. Don't do this in front of the children. Risa locked her jaw. She followed her appeal with a squeeze just above Neji’s knee, her fingertips lingering to apply a touch of pressure.

“Forgive your father, dear.”

The words tasted bitter on Risa's tongue while she so struggled with forgiving her husband. 

"Why...are you sad, Father?" Reina whispered. Risa glowered at Neji over Reina's head. 

"I'm not. I'm happy for you," Neji began, before pausing. “Those eyes. They're a burden, a responsibility, too. You’ll carry it for the rest of your life. Just like I have.”

Because of his birth, he carried disappointment over a life never lived. The limitations, the expectations, the lost chances at love. At least that's how he must have laundered his lifetime of service to the clan - and his marriage - through his mind. Risa constricted her hand around Neji’s thigh a second time, meeting defiance in his stony face. She cast him a sidelong glare that hopefully expressed her disapproval of his insolence without outright broadcasting their contention to their children. No, it wasn’t the burden of the Byakugan that Neji Hyuga carried, but the rot in his heart.

“Yes, dear. The Byakugan is your birthright,” Risa explained. “Almost every Hyuga has been proud to have it, and use it for the service of the village and clan.”

“Her birthright. I see.”

Bitter amusement seeded Neji’s voice. Amaya’s hands worked at the frayed ends of her braids. She, too, needed to know her place, Risa thought.

"Yes, her birthright," Risa retorted. 

A huff of hot breath emanated from her husband. Now Neji was the one who restrained himself to avoid directly countering Risa's provocation. Her birthright, and not Jiro's birthright. All because he was born in the wrong place, she imagined him hissing at her. Risa couldn’t entirely disagree when Tenten’s two sons had done nothing to deserve their birth. Still, her daughters were legitimate, and she was the clan head’s lawful wife. Both at the time of their conception and now. Law and tradition needed to mean something - or her adult life had been a lie.

"We're more than what we're born with, Reina." 

“The Hyuga clan is founded on the protection and continuation of our unique gifts,” Risa countered. “There are many who might want them…”

Neji’s grimace kept Risa from finishing her sentence. No matter - she saw no need to further provoke his outrage. The low rumble of Neji's growl told Risa that he knew who she’d intended to address. She hadn’t meant to call the likes of Tenten a schemer or whore, but if he took that meaning from her words – Risa had greater worries.

The meaning of her parents’ argument flew over Reina’s black crown, but she understood enough to seize with fear beneath the volleys of sharp words. Reina looked on her mother with her eyes wide and lips pursed, then leaned her head against Risa’s shoulder and buried her face.

“Did I do it wrong?”

The air between husband and wife froze.

“Congratulations, dear,” Neji said, brushing the curve of Reina’s turned back. “You’ve done well. I love you and this is...this is a happy day for me.”

“She has done well.”

Neji swallowed and rolled his bottom lip between his teeth. His upper half seized, as if he wanted to cry but wouldn’t allow himself the indulgence in front of his wife and daughters. Risa almost pitied her husband, how pathetic he was. She steeled herself to avoid striking back at him while he lay so low.

Risa’s sympathy receded somewhat when she considered how he'd had no problems neglecting her at her weakest and most vulnerable.

“Not all gifts come free,” Neji continued, the noise almost lost in Asami’s gurgling. “The price might not be obvious, but -”

“Perhaps you need some time in bed.”

Neji’s eyes fluttered closed and he sighed. His hands tented over his mouth and nose.

“What’s wrong, Mother?” Reina asked. “Why is Father crying?”

“Your mother and father sometimes have to do hard things. Father will return to the way he’s been soon enough. He’s only thinking about how to take care of you. Let’s do some practice with your Byakugan, hm?”

Reina gave her mother a single stiff nod. The stubby fingers of a child formed the hand sign for activating the Byakugan, her breath turning heavy with exertion. She gave a whimper of disappointment when she failed to direct enough chakra to her eyes. Amaya turned to offer her younger sister some pointers on sustaining the focus of her chakra. The village’s public access channel had since started playing a cooking program, and she’d turned to only giving the television occasional glances.

“You only need to concentrate,” Amaya advised. “Soon you’ll be able to hold the Byakugan without the hand sign.”

Perhaps Amaya had given Jiro Sato the same advice when she taught him to activate his Byakugan. Reina surely wouldn’t have known the details of her sister’s defiance, beyond a vague notion that her mother had been displeased over it. Amaya now appeared chastened, careful not to mention Jiro at any turn, though she probably thought of him at least in passing. Her older brother, her best and only friend at the academy.

"You're good at explaining. Better than I would be." Neji's compliment to his oldest daughter came far more readily than his lukewarm praise for Reina. Amaya's lips curved into a reluctant smile. "Seems like your brother had a good teacher." 

"I don't have a brother," Reina said, with a questioning lilt to her voice. "Only Amaya and the baby." 

Husband and wife exchanged glances. Neji's incidental mention of Jiro plunged Risa into a freezing sea, the ice in her veins numbing her jolt of anger.

"That's correct. You have two sisters -" 

“Maybe you’d like your brother, Reina. Maybe you'd like having a younger brother and a younger sister.”

Risa squeezed her eyes closed and bit the inside of her lip so she wouldn't scream. Beneath the seam of her eyelids, hot tears leaked onto her cheeks. Though neither of Neji and Tenten's sons were legitimate heirs on par with her children, Tenten had nevertheless produced two sons by him. When the dreaded thought lingered at the back of Risa's mind, the veneers of legitimacy and clan institutions seemed thin indeed.

The splintering training post spoke where Rock Lee remained silent, shoulders square and chest heaving. The absence of birds in the trees above told its own story. In the time before Neji arrived, the earth-shaking pounding of fists on wood had probably scared them off. Neji watched Lee for what felt like an hour – more likely a few minutes - before daring to approach his former teammate. Lee had unleashed the same storm of repressed anger in the wake of Tenten’s pregnancy revelation and thwarted plans to leave him. It might have been in this exact part of the training grounds, actually. Did Lee’s distress concern his wife and her precarious state? 

Had the singe of his teammates' betrayal returned? Neji prayed that hadn't been the trigger for this latest outburst.

“Lee,” Neji breathed out. “Are you...alright?”

Lee’s black eyes, usually bright, looked like dark stones when he met Neji’s gaze. Neji pinched his lips into a tight smile. Reassurance had never been his strong suit, but Lee’s obvious distress forced him to try. Out of respect for an old friend, guilt for stealing his wife’s affection, some voyeuristic curiosity. Any plans of practicing his scouting in the forest, same as he had in simpler days, died there.

“I should be with her right now.”

One of Lee’s wrapped fists hit the training post from the side, raining fine splinters into his bowl cut hair. The impact of his forehead on the training post precipitated a smaller rain of splinters.

“Who?”

Tenten. Who else could he mean? Damn it, do you have to be so stupid? The matter of Tenten had lingered between them when they last spoke in this place. 

“My wife. She has not been well and the baby has been making things difficult for her.”

“How -”

The air drained from Neji’s lungs, keeping him from finishing the question. Lee slammed the side of his fist against the training post a second time in a weaker echo of his last punch. He released a slight growl before shaking his head. In the end, maybe Lee reasoned that Neji cared for Tenten like few others, and needed no explanation of how she'd reached her current state. Hatred for her former lover wouldn’t heal the woman his heart refused to abandon.

“She has been in the hospital for over two weeks now. There is concern that she may need to stay until the child is delivered.”

Carrying a child placed a woman in a uniquely vulnerable position, at risk for death, even. Abandoning Risa during the critical final months of her pregnancy had been an act of cowardice and disregard for duty. Doing the same to Tenten now would compound on that failure. Strange how he’d never asked whether Tenten hoped to eventually have more children after they rekindled the intimate connection they once shared. He supposed the answer didn’t matter when she hadn’t intended to have more children with him.

“Tell me she’ll live,” Neji pleaded. “I couldn’t...I don’t want to have her death on me.”

“If she is monitored and cared for in the proper place, the doctors say she has a good chance of survival and delivering a healthy child.”

Neji gave a stiff nod. The hidden leaf village was a leader in medical ninjutsu and scientific treatments not based on the ninja arts. He insisted to himself that would be enough to defy nature and the weaknesses of her human body.

“I have so little time away from work that I should take every free hour to see her,” Lee continued. “I tell myself that I am just so busy with everything I must do. But the truth is, I have struggled to see her in the same way since she…”

“Betrayed you,” Neji choked out. Since I betrayed you. His friend had wanted Neji back in his life, pushed past his reservations and their differences in station to reunite their old team. In the end, Lee’s earnest efforts had laid the foundation for Neji and Tenten to spit on his good intentions in the worst way possible.

“Yes. I care deeply for her. I still share moments of connection with her when we can talk and laugh together like we did before. She is my wife and has treated me with nothing but kindness since we reconciled. But I can’t stop thinking about how she said she was never really in love with me when we married, and all the trying she did in the years after did her no good.”

“You want to avoid her now so you can avoid everything she makes you feel.”

Such sharp observations of human emotion and behavior weren’t typical of him. Neji didn’t make his declaration to accuse Lee of a moral deficiency, when he was the last man in any position to condemn him. Most men wouldn’t have ventured reconciliation with a woman who laid with another man, tried to leave him, then pleaded for redemption. Lee’s goodwill wasn’t infinite, nor the love that poured from him even for one who loved another. He was no longer the teenager falling over Sakura Haruno like her footsteps turned the earth to holy ground, undeterred by Sakura's love for Sasuke Uchiha.

“I can’t blame you,” Neji concluded. “You’ve treated her far better than most would.”

No, Neji reminded himself that the failing wasn’t Lee’s. The last time they’d spoken at the training grounds, Neji and Lee had made a pact that Tenten and her baby would be protected. Tenten had spurned Neji, but she’d done it before and he'd promised not to forsake her - even if she wanted him gone. Granted, this time she spurned him out of genuine fear for herself and her children, rather than anger over his attempts to manage a situation beyond his depth.

“Perhaps the time that I would spend visiting her is wasted,” Lee said, leaving Neji’s observation unanswered. “I believe she misses you. As I told you before, it has always come down to you." 

Chapter Text

In the dappled shade of a maple tree, Risa Hyuga nursed her youngest daughter, holding her hand over Asami’s face to shield her from direct sunlight. The day was unseasonably warm, enough to venture out with only a light jacket layered over her dress. A tiny hand pawed over her breast while Asami’s white eyes remained half-closed. At least the baby was at peace after a night of howling every two hours. Risa’s eyes stung from sleep deprivation.

“You’re eating now. If only you could have been so good last night,” Risa muttered, her lips pursed.

She knew this corner of the Hyuga compound’s interior courtyard well, recognized the maple tree and paving stones from her teenage years sharing secrets with her cousins. While her parents sat on the stone bench where she now sat, Risa threw stale rice into the snow to tide the birds through the winter. In the early days of her marriage, husband and wife had tucked themselves away in that enclave to feel out the contours of the one they’d married. 

She missed the excitement, the flutter of hope as he warmed to her, the flights of fantasy over how they could grow closer still. In spite of his initial distance, the Hyuga boy genius somehow endeared himself to Risa. So many years later, she had three daughters by a man who thought his Hyuga family was a liability and his clan inheritance a yoke around his neck. Who saw no problem with calling his bastard children the siblings of her own.

I have a duty. So does he, Risa affirmed to herself. Against the tickle of doubt in her mind, she insisted that she wasn't chaining him to their family out of selfish, petty jealousy. Everything she did was to secure her children’s futures and the future of a free clan. Her daughters were irrevocably of her body and blood.

“Risa. Enjoying the beautiful spring day, are you?”

Taro Hyuga – one of the most senior clan elders – ambled along the paved path to Risa’s bench, gnarled cane tapping on the paver. He was only one generation removed from the Warring Clans era, born as the first hokage’s legend was still in living memory. Taro had witnessed the Hyuga clan’s transition from an independent military power into an institution of the village, a source of its fighters and informants. Now he saw fit to watch unsuspecting women with their breasts exposed.

“If you would consider it such.” Risa’s clipped tone invited no further conversation. "It was only winter yesterday." 

Risa tucked her breast back into her dress and closed her eyes while the hot blood dissipated from her face. She slipped a pacifier between Asami’s plump lips to quiet the rising cry bubbling in her throat. The interloper gave no apology for disrupting the baby's feeding – bastard. Risa fumed at his casual confidence that his chatter or scheming would be of interest for her.

Still, his confidence wasn’t unfounded. An elder's idle ramblings commanded attention because his ramblings could signal a lesser Hyuga's rise or fall.

“It may as well be. These frozen old bones could definitely use a taste of warmth.”

“The gardens offer ample space to enjoy the sun.” There were numerous corners and pockets across the sprawling compound separated from hers by hedges, fences, and distance.

The corners of Taro’s eyes crinkled and he shook his head, taking Risa’s underhanded dismissal for a joke.

“I tire of wandering and wish to rest. I take it there’s room to take a seat next to you?”

“If you wish.”

To say otherwise to an elder of the clan would have been insubordination.

Folding Asami into her shoulder, Risa watched Taro sit on the opposite side of the stone bench over the curve of her daughter’s back. The old man kept a good foot of cool gray stone between him and Risa, conscious of her distrust despite his outward nonchalance. Taro, and the rest of the council, had been complicit in her branding as a branch Hyuga. He’d watched Neji’s punishment and even if he hadn’t personally formed the hand sign, she wasn’t aware of any objections he registered. 

“How have relations with your husband been of late?”

“Acceptable.”

Keep him close, Risa reminded herself, Neji’s face lingering at the back of her mind. Unfortunately for her, the only face she could picture was his scowl during their last argument on the living room couch. Any amount of cold resentment would have been acceptable to Risa so long as they remained married and he kept his seat. She supposed keep him close could have applied to Neji and Taro, if he wished to offer Risa an alliance. In the unlikely event he wants to help.

“Marriage can be difficult. I suppose that often the state of affairs between husband and wife can be best described as acceptable. Better than unacceptable.”

“I’m contented with my husband and children.”

Risa brushed the fleshy side of Asami’s cheek with her bent knuckle, fixing her eyes on Taro while touching her lips to her daughter’s downy hair.

“It’s difficult enough without split loyalties. In my day, one woman was difficult enough to handle. Your husband is an ambitious one in more senses than one...youngest Hyuga to make jounin -”

“There’s no need to play games with me,” Risa cut in. She feigned a slight cough to hide that his words sucked the air from her lungs.

Risa’s pulse hopped in the wake of her rash statement. Though she parted her lips to apologize for disrespecting an elder, terror had stolen her voice. Beneath her thinning bangs, perhaps Taro glimpsed the green lines of her seal and relished the reminder of his power. She clutched Asami to her chest and dipped her head in anticipation of her punishment.

“I see our senses of time are different. You wish me to get to the point, then.” Taro chuckled, indifferent to Risa’s scorn or her flash of fear. To him, she must have been a simple animal to be toyed with. “It’s only sensible that a young woman like you doesn’t see things like this old man does. I like to approach life at a more...leisurely pace. I’m no expert in women, but I take it you haven’t forgiven his betrayal. I find it likely you never will.”

“Forgiveness is one of the most difficult parts of marriage. I believe that only makes it more worthwhile." 

“Some transgressions shouldn’t be forgiven.”

Risa accepted that she could never be her husband’s first love, or the woman who weighed most on his heart. Tenten Lee would occupy that place for the rest of his life, sparking periodic episodes of longing in Neji when he met reminders of their time together. But she’d sooner stand by her duty than throw her fortunes in with a prospective ally whose true agenda wasn't hers.

"Some vows shouldn't be broken. Not lightly." 

Taro's sigh read almost as a mockery of Risa's earnest loyalty. He angled his body toward her, head tilted to assess his mark with white eyes that remained sharp despite his age. 

"It's not my place to speak on the elder council's internal deliberations to outsiders. However, given your intimate connection to the matter, I believe I can make an exception. Understand that the council prefers to avoid overturning the rightful heir under most circumstances. Still, a clear majority supports a vote of no-confidence in your husband and from there, a new clan head will need to be selected from among -" 

"Not surprising, given at least one saw fit to punish him during one of the last meetings he attended." 

Had it been Taro? He seemed a shrewd dealer, one careful to temper his passions. In the days before the partition between main and branch clan ended, he hadn't acquired a reputation as quick to use the seal, more content to let its threat speak for itself. He'd been in the room, though. Risa hesitated to dismiss the possibility.

"His uncle is an exception, but Hiashi Hyuga holds no more than one vote. His influence has diminished in his years puttering away with watercolors and calligraphy. From all accounts, highly unlikely he'll choose to reprise his seat even if it's his right. Enough of my digressions...a vote of no-confidence means you'll no longer be Lady Hyuga."

Taro let Risa consider what being stripped of her status as the clan head's wife meant. With her husband's fall, what mattered more was that she and her daughters risked being branded by association with him.

“I’m aware that your father hoped to become Hyuga clan head. Unlike the man he served, he wanted no part of the hidden leaf village,” Risa began. “In the way that fathers tend to, he probably passed that hope to you -”

“My father has been dead for longer than you’ve been alive."

"I know," Risa cut in. 

If he approached Risa trying to cleave her from Neji, Taro must have seen more than a simple housewife. He saw a potential player in the tangle of clan politics. A pawn, not a player. Risa needed to remind him that she wasn't a piece to be sacrificed to fell the king. 

"I've had my disagreements with...the clan leadership that has come out of your husband's line. I’ve known nothing but life in this village, and yet – I know the Hyuga clan has seen humiliation after humiliation at the hokage’s hands. The kidnapping of our heir, the insistence that we just accept this.”

"That's treason against the village. Now, the current hokage wouldn't have your life, but the penalties -" 

"Clever girl, Risa. I trust I can have your confidence, yes?" 

"Hm." The tops of her cheeks burned, her vision swimming. Risa scrambled for an exit strategy from a conversation that had dragged her into deadly territory. Yet her panic obscured any easy answers. 

"No matter. I trust I'll have your confidence soon enough." 

Don't count on it, Risa wanted to say. She settled for you sound rather confident on that.

"You have a daughter nearing marrying age, yes?" 

"Not this one." Asami gurgled, pacifier sliding from between her lips.

"Of course not. I'm speaking of your oldest." A note of impatience crept into Taro's voice, though he kept his tone light. "The one who apparently shows so much promise. They say she's quite like her father in looks and talent." 

"Amaya hasn't graduated the academy yet." Risa chased her remarks with a laugh despite her anxiety. "She needs time before her father and I...well, until I search for a suitable husband within the clan."

If she didn't have Asami in her arms and Taro by her side, Risa imagined she might have emptied the contents of her stomach into the dormant flower beds. Amaya wasn't a trading chip to be shuffled around to ease tensions between clans, or an instrument toward Taro's political ambitions. Through her revulsion, Risa pieced together that Taro had both a younger son and grandson without wives - Hyuga or otherwise. The family line that ended with her husband and ran through his uncle and Hiashi Hyuga's father had passed down the seat of clan head in unbroken succession for over 20 generations. Solidifying the upended succession would require uniting Taro's line and Neji's through marriage and an heir. Otherwise, a cousin or in-law to Neji or Hiashi might have disputed the inheritance of Taro's next of kin.

And because Neji Hyuga had no legitimate male children, her daughter would be little more than a puppet because of her inferior sex and age. A male heir older than Amaya's 10 years wouldn't be so vulnerable to a clan elder's manipulations, regardless of his father's disgrace.

"You wouldn't be opposed to a betrothal, no? My grandson is quite the sensitive and intelligent young man -"

"Isn't he nearing 24?" 

"He'll treat your daughter well. Any Hyuga would be honored to wed a young woman with a Byakugan as strong as your husband's. We can wait until Amaya reaches 16 years old before the marriage becomes official." 

Marriage at 15 or 16 years old hadn't been unusual in the Warring Clans or Founding periods of the clan's history. When war threatened to snuff out young lives soon after their debut on the battlefield, Risa supposed it made a kind of brutal, utilitarian sense. But Taro seemed only interested in realizing the full benefits of the proposed marriage as soon as possible. Risa's anger nearly blinded her. The age difference and disregard for their compatibility would have made Taro's grandson a questionable match even if Amaya were well into adulthood.

"As her mother, I require some time to think about what you've proposed." I require time to think about how to refuse you. 

Taro raised two wrinkled hands, palms facing Risa. He must have thought better of continuing to stoke her anger if he wanted her cooperation.

"Take the time you need, Risa. I believe I'm about ready to continue my wandering. Enjoy the day while we have it." 

A senior member of the elder council had the potential to be a stronger ally than a clan head whose standing was waning. Taro must have assumed that laying his terms before Risa and spelling out how little leverage she had left would sway her to his side, however begrudgingly. His designs didn't require winning her love or approval after she handed over her young daughter as past generations of women had been surrendered to early marriages. If Amaya died young or lived the remainder of her life in despair, that wouldn't have been of much consequence to Taro's succession plans if she provided an heir. 

If only Amaya had been born a son. Risa turned her eyes to the baby in her arms, picturing Amaya in Asami's place for a moment. She'd fed and cradled her oldest in much the same way. Neji Hyuga did have one potential male heir - the bastard whose existence caused Risa so much pain, who'd now be her best and final hope. Nausea welled in Risa's stomach and she covered her mouth to avoid heaving into the flowerbeds. The path to passing the clan head's inheritance to Jiro ran through her husband and Hiashi Hyuga, the same man who'd arguably catalyzed this mess by betrothing them.

Neji Hyuga could have taken his pick of answers if anyone at the hospital asked about his relationship to Tenten - lover, friend, concerned former teammate. But the hospital staff allowed him access to her room without comment, whether out of deference a clan head or a worried friend.

Takako Sato – Tenten’s mother – brimmed with words unspoken. The stout woman with streaks of white in her black hair refused to let Neji within five feet of her daughter, a thick finger pointed at his chest like a kunai. No doubt she had much to tell him while Tenten snored in the narrow bed behind her, most of which would have drew Tenten’s passionate protests had she been awake.

At least from the glimpse he caught of her, no bright blood stained the bedsheets as it had in his most lurid mental pictures. Instead, Tenten looked utterly drained of blood like a ghostly shell.

“You’ve come,” Takako stated, her lips puckered.

“Y-yes. I’ve been ah, out of touch with Tenten and Lee over the past months. I needed to see her, when I heard…”

In his years as Tenten’s teammate, friend, and lover, he’d only said hello to Takako and her husband a handful of times. Now, Takako somehow turned him into a quivering, inarticulate mess. Her golden brown eyes narrowed, her head shaking. His standing as a clan head didn’t impress her whatsoever, nor did his aristocratic accent.

“If I could, I’d tear that thing from her with my teeth and nails.”

“I assume you haven’t told her that,” Neji spat.

He prayed his child wasn’t killing her, because that would make him a murderer by a degree of separation. If it meant saving her, he’d rip the child out himself. Yet Takako only appeared concerned with destroying the thing she considered a disgusting product of evil and weakness. She wouldn’t actually touch him, he insisted to himself.

His hands quivered at his sides, the lines and colors in the room wavering. Tenten loved her mother, and for her sake he'd attempt to be civil. 

“She knows exactly how I feel. She insisted on keeping it because she couldn’t bear to rid herself of your baby.”

“I would have allowed her to...dispose of it if she wished.”

Takako rolled her eyes and showed Neji the back of her hand. He hesitated to tell Takako that he was happy she hadn’t terminated, despite how the pregnancy burdened her. A child they created out of love wasn't a curse worth cleansing from the world.

“My daughter is a fool. She’s always been one when it comes to you. At this point, I don’t even think she has much strength left to recover after she’s been sick for months. That thing is taking everything from her. I just – don’t want it to kill her.”

“The child is a boy,” Neji choked out. “When I discovered she was with child, I was terrified. But I couldn’t bear to leave her even if she did say she wanted nothing more to do with me. In the end...in the end, we both wanted him to live.”

“If she dies, I’ll kill it, then I’ll kill you.”

To Takako Sato, Neji was guilty because the child wouldn’t have existed without him. If Tenten died of complications in pregnancy of childbirth, he’d be the murderer and the murder weapon. 

“I haven’t threatened you. As for your threat to kill me, I’d laugh if circumstances were different. I could have killed you with my bare hands when I was half your height.”

So much for civility - though Neji’s taunt was half-hollow. Something about Takako’s pain and raw fury would have made her far more formidable than the average civilian housewife. Tenten’s reckless streak must have come from her mother, that defiance which brought them together initially and drew her back to him years later.

“I’m aware.” Takako scowled. Neji’s answer to her provocation seemed to chasten her, at least for a moment. “Still, I admit I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

Two sets of eyes darted to Tenten’s midsection. She'd grown since Neji last visited his lover to give her the ring symbolizing his promise to marry her. He’d never realize that promise now, but he could still check in on her and the child in their most desperate hour. Neji had pulled them both back from the brink once despite his humiliation before the clan. Takako Sato wouldn’t have stopped him.

“Should I apologize?”

Despite the fact that you didn’t apologize for threatening to kill me.

Takako hummed. The incised lines on her face slackened.

“No.”

You can stop with the hostilities then, Neji thought, turning his back to Takako to face Tenten. He hadn’t come to bicker with an old woman. He almost dared Takako to pull him back as he stepped forward.

“I believed you were too cowardly to show your face in her presence after...what happened with your clan and wife,” she added. The sound of Takako’s voice jerked Neji’s attention back to her. “You may be a liar, but at least you aren’t a lying coward. You’re better than other men would be in your place. I’m sure it’ll bring some comfort to see you.”

“That’s my hope, Mrs. Sato.”

Takako’s eyes fluttered shut before she buried her face in her hands. Drained of blind rage, she must have realized that lashing her daughter's lover wouldn't have give her any more control over Tenten's fate. That powerlessness was something she and Neji had in common.

“I know you love her. My Tenten. She’s my only daughter. While she’s disappointed me, I love her. I’ll never stop. You – you have children, so you must know.”

Before Neji could thank her for her confidence, the room’s door clicked shut. Maybe that was the closest he’d receive to an apology for the intemperate threats she’d thrown around earlier. Only the whir of fans and electronic hums and beeps sounded in the newfound emptiness. Without Takako obstructing his path or threatening death, Neji crossed the linoleum floor to sit at the plastic chair by Tenten’s bedside. His lover’s skin had turned nearly as pale as the bedsheet, her limp head bent at a sharp angle on the pillow. Once she awoke, her neck and shoulders would ache – so Neji adjusted her head and rearranged her stack of pillows.

Neji’s thumb lingered on her cheek, fingers tangled in her loose brown hair.

How many times does this have to happen? - he asked himself, thinking of every time they’d come together then pushed apart. In what felt like another life, he’d told Tenten that he’d never leave her, even if she wanted him gone. They’d rocked in loose circles around her house that day, and that promise had felt so easy. Subsequent events tested his resolve to keep that promise, not least because Tenten pushed him away - again.

In the half-second before he withdrew, Tenten’s hand wrapped around his wrist, adrenaline shooting up his veins from the imprints of her fingers.

“Lee?”

Neji managed a nervous, breathy laugh. He bristled with strange disappointment that she’d thought of her husband first.

“No. He’s currently away. I’ll leave you if you wish.”

Tenten’s brows contracted and she released a gasp of recognition once she realized who stood at her bedside.

“Gods, it's really you." 

Tenten opened her eyes - golden brown that matched her mother's hue - to confirm that she wasn’t dreaming.

“I don’t want to die," she pleaded. "I don’t want our baby to die.”

Neji’s heart tore with the painful reminder that he couldn’t tell her you won’t die. You’ll live, and he’ll live. He knew the med-nin working at the hidden leaf hospital were giving Tenten the best in medical ninjutsu and pharmaceutical interventions. But they didn’t work magic, and so they couldn’t guarantee her life or the baby’s life either.

“I’ve beat worse odds,” Neji said instead. He set the palm of his right hand over the webbed scar tissue in his chest. His title as Hyuga clan head was worth little, his promises even less. But the undeniable evidence of his near brush with death and eventual survival was eternal. “You’re strong. Stronger than me, and I believe you have the strength in you to survive.”

Tenten lifted a quivering hand to rest atop his.

“If you say so. I’m scared, Neji. I’ve tried to be brave for Lee and the kids. I don’t want them to worry about me. I’ve done enough to them this year and Lee’s doing everything around the house now, and working...and seeing me whenever he can.”

“You’re free to worry me. I’ve told you this.”

Regardless of his failures in virtually every other respect, he could listen to the secrets she saw fit to confide only in him. A guilty man was good for one thing – for he was just as guilty as she was and could pass no judgment.

“You know, I don’t want them to hurt you. I should tell you to go away because you were right about protecting yourself. I already patched things up with Lee, or I tried. He forgives me. Can’t believe it, but he does. Buys everything I’ve said about being loyal to our family and I meant it. I wanted to mean it. To stop thinking so much about myself and what I was missing from him."

Protecting myself? Neji wanted to counter that she'd cut him off in the interest of her safety and her family's. He blamed the delirium on medication or lingering sleepiness, and dismissed the discrepancy in their accounts.

“Risa’s been less forthcoming on her full forgiveness. She’d be incredibly angry if she discovered I’ve come to you. Our marriage is strained due to an argument we had last week, and she questions my commitment to the family ever more now. I can imagine there might be...consequences...from others. I needed to do this regardless.”

Tenten’s closed eyes and single nod spoke of the understanding they shared regarding his Hyuga wife.

“I know we shouldn’t see each other again. You were right.”

He agreed that the rational, self-preserving part of him had been right at every turn. On the first night they'd fallen into bed as married parents, he should have returned to Risa after dinner rather than knocking back shots of sake to keep pace with Tenten. After the regret from that night sank its hooks into him, he tried throwing walls between them, to no success. If only they’d stopped at one unfortunate mistake, Tenten wouldn’t be lying in a sterile hospital room. Held hostage by her fragile human body. Whatever their mistakes, he couldn't bring himself to regret their children's existence - not that he could have undone it now.

“Lee told me about your condition, and that reminded me how I promised I wouldn't abandon you even if you wanted me gone.”

“I guess that's why the village - why I got assigned that lifelong mission away from the village after he's born. To keep me away from you because I've done enough.”

Then in a whisper, she continued - "not that I plan to do it. I'm not leaving my family. Don't know how this is going to pan out or work, but I know I won't." 

Tenten’s tears shone against her sunken cheeks, once flush with life and dimpled with mischief. In her current state, she asked no questions – nothing about why he’d come, or what he wanted of her - other than whatever questions her grasping hands harbored. Her hands and heart weren’t asking Neji why he’d come to see her, only why he’d taken so long to find her again. 

“I’m sorry. Sorry I didn’t come to you sooner. Gods, Risa...nobody told me you didn't want this."

The twitch in Tenten's lips told him that either Risa Hyuga had been misinformed, or his wife was a liar. Now wasn't the time to interrogate Risa's honesty or chase down the truth of the matter from a sick, weakened woman. 

"No," Tenten breathed out. "Do you think I'm that kind of mom?" 

"No, no. Of course not. Are you...are you feeling well? As well as you could be under the circumstances?”

Tenten closed her eyes and swallowed. Her eyelids were creased by worry and tinted pale gray. Part of him – the hopeful half – expected Tenten to shoot back with a snarky comment along the lines of what do you think? I just checked myself in here for fun. As one does. The choking sob racking her chest dispelled Neji’s optimism. The tubes, needles, and sensors attached to her body must have sapped what remained of her sense of humor.

“The drugs help, I guess. The chakra treatments do, too, but apparently they’re not enough and I need all these things I can’t even name. My mom also told me I was sleeping for something like 12 hours last night. She’s been here every other day. Well, feels like it anyways. I hardly keep track of time anymore.”

“Your mother just left. I spoke to her briefly when I came in.”

Tenten drew a sharp breath, mouthing a sorry. Their eye contact broke.

“Hope she wasn’t too hard on you. You’re not really on her list of favorite people right now, not that you’ve ever been there.”

“She threatened to kill me if you died.”

Laughter racked Tenten’s body, her chest caving with the hitches in her breath. Neji joined her partly out of relief that she could still feel something other than despair. Their fingers wove together and they shared a knowing smile. In the moments as their faces relaxed into quiet contentment, Neji scrambled for ways to keep the expression on her face – and found his mind blank.

“Sorry for laughing. That sounds like my mom...unfortunately. She’s on edge right now -”

“As am I. What Mrs. Sato thinks of my interest in her daughter’s welfare is none of my concern. She ultimately allowed me time alone with you. To raise your spirits, as a friend might.”

Tenten’s eyes panned across his face with some expectation of more – an expression of affection greater than friendship, maybe? Takako Sato wouldn’t have allowed him in her daughter’s private company if she believed unfaithful thoughts or acts might blossom between them. But Tenten had also said that she wanted to mean what she told her husband about restoring their marriage. And that implied hesitation, ambivalence.

“Do you still love me?”

“If I said yes, what would that mean to you?” The lilt of Tenten’s voice cut to the bone. “You’ve been trying to make it work with Risa, and that’s your choice. I was selfish before for wanting you and wanting my nice family and my nice husband. Just...I want you to be safe.”

Tenten paused to swallow. 

"For the record, I love you enough to let you go." 

The time remaining in Tenten's pregnancy bought him time to determine how to keep her family intact. Surely, there was something he could do to protect her from afar.

Chapter Text

Risa Hyuga found Hiashi Hyuga in his study with a scroll open across his desk, wire-framed spectacles perched on his nose. A quivering finger followed a line across the scroll. She rapped two knuckles on the wooden doorframe, but he kept his head bowed. His finger still traced the same, unbroken line on the paper. Hyuga were prone to nearsightedness or blindness in old age, something about their white eyes and the Byakugan’s strain on their optical nerves. The former Lord Hyuga wasn’t exempt from the curse of myopia, but Risa wasn’t aware he'd suffered hearing loss as well. 

“Excuse me,” Risa ventured, her voice thin.

She’d spoken to the former clan head a handful of times during his tenure, most of them inconsequential exchanges in which he wished her a happy birthday or congratulated her on the birth of a new child. Their longest conversations had been following her betrothal and wedding to his nephew. He’d trusted her to steady Neji and ground his impulses. The past year of her spiraling marriage must have proven her failure as a wife in his eyes, just as it reflected on Neji's moral failures. Risa hoped Hiashi might forgive her.

Hiashi’s finger bumbled to the end of the line before he closed the scroll and lifted his head. His white eyes peered over the spectacles like her kunoichi class teacher chastising her for a poorly written assignment.

“Risa. Hello. Yes, I remember we made arrangements to meet at this time. Please, take a seat.”

Gaining an audience with Hiashi Hyuga had become significantly easier since his retirement. Gaining his full attention was now much harder. Risa sat in the straight-backed wooden chair at the opposite side of Hiashi’s desk with her hands flat against her lap.

“Good afternoon. I appreciate your time and I'll try to keep my stay here brief. My husband faces certain troubles, as you may be aware,” she began. “The strong possibility of removal is...the latest that's come to my attention. This leaves the succession uncertain.”

“The servants are prone to talk, Risa. You’d do better not believing every piece of nonsense they whisper.”

Over the past year, that nonsense had included Jiro’s true parentage and the fact of Neji Hyuga’s punishment during a clan council meeting. Regardless, Hiashi raised a palm and opened his scroll again with the other hand. She’d have hurled the scroll against the wall if she’d been closer to a 14-year-old Neji Hyuga in temperament.

“Taro’s hardly a servant, my lord. He sounds rather confident that his designs are not nonsense, as you say.”

Hiashi folded his spectacles in the wrinkled palm of his left hand and shook his head. As he set the spectacles at the corner of his desk, Risa scrambled for something else she could say to hold his attention, to force him to care about the future of his clan and family. You may not care about me, but those children are your grandchildren by blood. She worried the justification would strike him as pathetic. He focused most of his grandfatherly affections on Hinata’s son and daughter, and had met her children on only a handful of occasions.

But he’d surely not want Amaya married so young.

“I mistrusted him, as did my father,” Hiashi said. The flicker of a scowl gave Risa hope that he might be the friend she needed. “His family’s standing in the Hyuga clan predates the village by hundreds of years. So neither of us were ever able to rid ourselves of his influence. That bastard is a vulture, but a coward. My father always said the Hyuga clan head must project strength to keep men like him in check.”

Risa proceeded to recount her conversation with Taro in the garden. She kept her sentences terse and factual, allowing Hiashi’s preconceived ideas about Taro and his understanding of clan politics to color his interpretation of the events. It would do little for her cause to break into hysterical cries of how dare he? He can’t possibly be allowed to do this.

“Have you told him of this yet?”

“I-”

The question paralyzed Risa. Neji would need to know before he was deposed, before he’d have no more opportunity to make contingency plans – like designating his chosen successor. Taro had given him a gift by misreading Risa’s allegiances and believing that a heady mix of hate and desperation would drive her into his clutches. 

“So, you haven’t.”

“No.” Risa toyed with a loose thread on her dress, wrapping it around her fingertip until her flesh turned white.

More than foolish, impotent anger or reckless self-sabotage, what Risa feared most from Neji was apathy. A tacit admission that he didn’t care to fight like she did. Neji had stated repeatedly that he was determined not to abandon the interests of either his legitimate or illegitimate children. The words now meant little more to her than wind when her well of trust in him had run dry. 

“He’s your husband. You were intended to become one when you married.”

He decided otherwise, Risa thought.

Fear left her clinging to him long after he'd made it clear that she cared more about their marriage than he ever had. Fear of engaging in the game of clan politics in her own right and fear of redefining herself apart from him. Fear drove her deception and fear the acceptance of his half-hearted reconciliation.

“I will tell him. I’ll need to,” Risa snapped. “I’ve thought of how I might address this. There’s no way to do so without him.”

“You’ve made plans of your own?” Hiashi leaned back from his desk.

When he looked at the woman across from him, Hiashi must have seen someone who’d had every major decision made by another – her seal, joining the shinobi corps, her marriage. Risa Hyuga was born to be an instrument of her clan and village, not a player who moved her own pieces. Though the sequence she’d concocted in her head had seemed straightforward enough amid her initial panic, Risa now envisioned any number of breaking points in her plan. Neji makes Jiro his heir. Unless Jiro’s legal parents refuse to allow it or someone sees fit to assassinate the bastard. Hiashi becomes clan head until Jiro comes of age. Unless Hiashi dies before that time or he doesn’t see reason to exit retirement.

Finally, Jiro Hyuga becomes clan head.

The bastard heir ascending to the seat sounded like the most dubious step of all. The acceptance of the majority of the Hyuga clan – however improbable – wouldn’t have changed how wrong that felt.

“Difficult not to when your daughter’s future lies in my hands.”

And your hands. Hiashi raised the bony, spotted index finger of one hand to cut Risa off.

“Yours alone? Amaya has a father. You told me less than a minute ago that -”

“If you only knew what he’s said to me...to us -” Risa curled and uncurled her fists. “About how the clan and the Byakugan are a curse on him. He thinks of her, I know it. He wants her when he lies with me.”

“Has he used the word cursed exactly?”

“N-no. He hasn’t, my lord. He all but implied it when he said Reina’s gift was a burden as well. I’ve had no choice but to conclude that I can no longer have confidence in him as I once did.”

“Then go on about what you’ve planned. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.” The tension between Hiashi and Risa dissipated by a touch, though she couldn’t ignore his reflexive defense of Neji. Perhaps he needed to believe in his nephew’s fitness for leadership and fatherhood to justify handing the clan to him.

Risa explained the maneuvers she envisioned, Hiashi’s expressions unreadable. 

“It’s somewhat rude of you to make such demands on me in my retirement, Risa. These are supposed to be my best years.”

The old man was so damned frustrating that she almost pitied Neji for the times he’d asked Hiashi for counsel and come away with more questions than answers.

“Good to know that you take your clan’s future so lightly.”

“Risa, I have to say you’ve adopted something of your husband’s temper.”

So what if I have? Her lifetime of patient service and quiet perseverance wouldn’t save her family now.

“It’s hard for almost 12 years of marriage to leave a woman unchanged,” Risa said instead. The last year had done more to stir her fire than the other 11 combined, however.

“Not that I think that’s entirely a bad thing. I...wish I’d fought harder for my eldest daughter, even though she disappointed me. Yours is fortunate to have a mother who can show her tenderness and courage.”

Risa flashed a brief smile that didn’t taper the corners of her eyes. She’d never known Hiashi Hyuga’s eldest daughter well or spoken to her any more than she’d spoken to her father. But Hinata had understandable reasons other than marriage ties for renouncing her Hyuga name and moving away from the clan compound.

“Your right to serve as clan head would be undisputed. You’d stabilize the clan as you did for over 20 years,” Risa answered. If Hiashi saw fit to call out aspects of Neji’s rashness in her, some flattery was in order. 

Hiashi waved off Risa’s flattery. Years of leading the clan probably left him no patience for the flattery of favor-askers. He probably also held some awareness that certain branch Hyuga still resented him. An openness to reform in his later years hadn’t redeemed him to all who hated the former main clan. The obstruction of Taro's family and other would-be clan head claimants was inevitable. His right to reprise his position would be undeniable, but exercising that right would be far from seamless.

“Funny, I was reading about something similar when you interrupted me. You’re familiar with the great Hyuga civil war, I assume?”

“Every Hyuga knows.” Risa touched the center of her seal.

The Hyuga war of succession between two rival lines within the clan had prompted the victorious faction to brand the losers and their allies with seals. The seal had become a tool to prevent the descendants of those insurgents from rebelling again, and to clarify the succession in cases where conflict was especially likely. For example, between Hiashi and his identical twin brother. She’d learned of the seal as an instrument of mercy, when other clans during the Warring Clans Era would have had the lead insurgents mutilated, banished, or killed.

“I should hope there won’t be any blood shed over this. We live in a different time," Risa stammered, panic seizing her. Times were different hundreds of years later, but not so different that bloodlines and clan institutions had lost meaning. "The village has even declared that killing on missions is only reserved for -”

“Your imagination is getting ahead of you,” Hiashi cut in. Hints of the former stern, authoritarian clan head peeked through his easygoing, grandfatherly presentation. “What I mean is that the truce included the retiring clan head returning to his seat. Peace in the clan was too fragile to risk granting the seat to any of the claimants for the time being.”

Risa nodded. Nervous flutters stirred in her core. Convincing Hiashi Hyuga to commit himself to her plan hadn’t been quite as difficult as she feared. She allowed the rush of excitement to wash over her before she thought of the steps ahead. “You see your duty similarly.”

“Some jobs require a second try to get right. I suppose the third hokage might have felt the same. I’d say there were certainly lessons learned from my first try.”

“I’ll suggest that we keep Jiro Sato’s legitimacy and designation as heir a secret for a time. Until such a time that -” Hiashi coughed into his fist. “Those of the older generation pass on from their roles on the elder council or we judge it appropriate. You’re correct that I still have a few good years left in me. While not generally considered good form, the clan head is entitled to keep such actions undisclosed, provided they’re documented on signed and sealed decrees. And properly witnessed.”

Hiashi could serve as one witness, and Ko or Risa could be the other.

“I see the wisdom to what you suggest.”

Jiro would need to live outside the Hyuga compound until it was deemed appropriate to integrate him, while he received training in the clan’s jutsu and the fundamentals of leadership. The boy would benefit from some normalcy in his teenage years, if he could salvage any. Not taking Jiro away to live in the Hyuga compound would hopefully ease his parents’ worries about his new destiny.

Risa's lips stretched tight in a relieved grin. She bowed her head low and deep. Had she sat on the floor, her forehead would have pressed into the cold wood floorboards.

“Thank you. I’m sorry I haven’t made it quite clear how much I appreciate you taking this burden on our behalf. I’ll repay you with time...I’ll make sure Amaya does as well.”

Hiashi shook his head.

“The biggest burden isn’t mine, Risa.”

“My children -”

“Not yours. Jiro is some woman’s son. A boy with his own notions of the future he wants.”

Hiashi narrowed his eyes, the wrinkly bags around them puckering. A pang of guilt struck Risa when she remembered that she’d been ready to have Jiro accept the seal if sparing her family required it. Becoming the clan head’s heir wouldn’t be a moment of empowerment or reward for his striving, but a one of submission. To fate, to his bloodline.

“If you want to shape him into a worthy clan head, you need to start seeing him as more than your tool. Your last resort, the inconvenient bastard. Risa, his fortunes are now yours.”

Neji Hyuga kissed a line down from Risa’s forehead to her temple and collarbone. Their hands clasped above her head, her fingers pressing into his bone. They’d both lied and cheated within the marriage that was meant to make them one for the rest of their lives. Once he confronted her with the facts, she’d claim the protection of their children left her no choice but to lie to hold them together. What she wouldn't confess was her fear of moving past her life as his wife and the mother of his children. Despite it all, he needed her heat now, the softness of her skin.

“What are you doing?” Risa breathed out. “We-”

“Do you need to ask?”

Saying goodbye, Neji answered silently. He'd decided the night after his last goodbyes to Tenten to accept the spying missing on her behalf. It was the penance he owed her for not being present for their newest child. The penance he owed Risa and his daughters for bringing shame on them. In his youth, he’d practically quivered with anger in his waking moments, falling asleep to the numbing tide of tears or the pure exhaustion of unspent rage. Now, he had no anger, no hate to give the woman who’d stabbed him in the back. 

He pressed his lips to the spot on Risa’s neck where her heavy pulse hit her skin, hit by sudden grief over the prospect of never seeing her again. His wife angled her head back against the pillow, her back arching into him. Then a hand pushed off his shoulder. Hurt by her rejection, Neji rolled onto his side to study her expression. Hooded eyes refused to look directly at him.

“I don’t believe this is right,” Risa declared. “I know you’re still my husband, and I owe you a duty. I...I don’t want this, though.”

Her slender white fingers worked her disheveled braid into something more presentable. With her shoulders squared and neck straight, Risa somehow still managed to show the dignity and even-handed poise of the ideal Hyuga woman. Neji parted his lips to ask why she’d stopped him, but he sensed she’d answer with some variant of do you need to ask? When she was feeling spiteful, his wife excelled at throwing his words back to him.

“I understand, Risa. Truthfully, I probably shouldn’t want this either,” he answered. “Knowing what you’ve done.”

He avoided telling her he needed to feel the familiar closeness between them before he’d lose it forever. The confession would have sounded pathetic, both to himself and probably to her. Risa kept her composure, simply nodding instead of mounting a defense or appeal to his hypocrisy. They’d both hurt one another and schemed against the other’s will, treating it as something to be overcome through dishonesty.

“I have no regrets. You’re seeking an apology, but I won’t give you one.”

The twitch at the corner of Risa’s lip carried a faint smirk. The edge in her voice told him she’d prepared for a bigger confrontation over her lies.

“I don’t want one. I respect you enough not to wish for something you’re not going to give.”

Risa fell silent. His last declaration left the matter closed, restored a degree of uneasy peace between husband and wife. Neji extended a hand in Risa’s direction, before balling a fist on the sheets once he thought better of touching her again. Gods, he couldn’t kill his need to touch her, to feel close to the woman he was still married to after everything.

“Another matter I wish to discuss,” Risa began. She brought a small, white fist to her lips. “I have reason to believe your fortunes in the clan are on the decline, and...you – we – need to plan accordingly.”

“Nothing new,” Neji answered, mustering a smile for his wife. Her concerned act grated on him, even while it touched him.

She huffed and shook her head vigorously enough to swing her braid back and forth. Grasping the loose sleeve of his sleep shirt, she launched into an explanation about the meeting in the garden, the strategizing with Hiashi, her wild hope for Jiro.

“This is -”

“I know, nothing I would have countenanced a month ago.”

“That, and you’re using him. Setting him up for failure. Risa, I don’t expect you to care about Jiro as much as I do, but I never expected you’d do this to him. Keeping the succession secret until he’s an adult won’t remove the bright red target on his back once he takes his place.”

“You’re the one who ensured he couldn’t be normal.” Risa didn’t bother to dispute Neji’s contention about the target on Jiro Sato’s back, or how little a bastard's life mattered to some. Her cool deflection elicited a flash of anger.

“You, and his mother,” she continued. “He could have graduated from the shinobi academy and taken a perfectly respectable job with the village. From what I hear of him, he wouldn’t have been exceptional, but he’d have made decent money and lived an uneventful life. Found a wife, had children. He didn’t choose this. I didn’t. Your stubbornness and hers chose this for him. I want his success. So the bright red target on Jiro's back is as much a worry for me as it is for you.”

“The day he activated the Byakugan, the gods decided for him. I realize that. He'd never have had the life you speak of.”

“I suppose you’re right." 

Risa didn't absolve him and Tenten of responsibility, but she had sense enough to abandon the fight.

Another silence settled over the couple, before Risa muttered goodnight and shut off the light on her side of the bed.

There would have been no way to avoid Jiro Sato’s reckoning with his Hyuga blood, whether he was the clan head’s illegitimate son or not. He’d known that when he proposed an arranged marriage between Jiro and a Hyuga girl, which Tenten shut down with curses and protests. At least Jiro’s parentage offered him a path to become more than a pawn as was the most common historical fate of bastards. In a different time, he might have turned into the pawn of a secret military organization that scrubbed recruits of familial bonds and all emotion. In another time still, he might have become disposable fodder for the clan’s army.

With Jiro’s power and agency would come threats to his position – his life, even – from entrenched powers within the clan. His son’s uncertain fate scared Neji when he’d have no way to shield him from anyone who’d wish to tear him down. 

Risa’s soft, snuffling breaths lulled Neji into a numb stupor as he drifted into the edges of unconsciousness, then shot back awake. Staying in the village was even more untenable now with what Risa told him about the council’s likely decision to remove him. His decision was a straightforward one, but saying yes was the most difficult part of all. Neji wished he could stay in this limbo where he had the satisfaction of knowing what to do without confronting the finality of his choice. Telling Risa, Tenten, Jiro, his daughters, and the village authorities would make his self-imposed banishment final, and he wanted more than anything to delay.

Once he told her, he imagined Risa would use their children as a pretext to keep him around. But Neji believed with every fiber in his body that his wife would live better once she broke free of him, and her perceived need for him. He hoped she’d remarry in his absence to a better man who’d reward her loyalty rather than spitting on it. Reina and the baby would be too young to remember their father. 

Leaving his two oldest children behind would put the biggest tear in his heart, no doubt. He’d make sure to burn into his mind the impressions of the girl whose face resembled his so well and the boy with his eyes and smile. Much as he loved both of them, loving them meant forgetting his identity as Neji Hyuga and leaving them behind. He’d leave a checkered legacy behind him – of two poisoned marriages, a clan head career derailed, two children by the woman he couldn’t forget, three by his Hyuga wife. He’d leave the Hyuga clan hopefully freer than it’d been in so many generations past.

A bastard heir had been one piece of that legacy he couldn't have anticipated.

“I absolutely will not allow this. I do not care what his mother says when she has proven less than capable of being his responsible parent.”

Neji raised a thin black brow, chin propped on the heel of his palm.

“That’s a rather strong reaction,” Risa breathed out, a hiccuping laugh on her breath. “You haven’t heard me speak of everything this would do for him -”

“I do not need to hear anything you say. That is because I can feel that you yourself do not believe you are here to help him.”

Whatever concern for Jiro that Risa managed to feign now, Lee couldn’t avoid that few women bled with compassion for their husbands’ illegitimate children. Lee didn’t doubt that Jiro would inherit a windfall of wealth. He’d have access to the best training, the deference that came with the Hyuga name. But with money and power over an entire clan came rot of the worst kind. The clan head seat was at best a burden that Neji and Risa Hyuga wished to pawn onto a hapless victim or at worst, a poisoned prize. Placing the clan head’s bastard atop that nest of vipers would leave him vulnerable to sabotage – even assassination. 

“You’re calling me a liar?”

The Jiro who returned home every day after school to do his homework at the dining table and watch corny action movies on the living room TV didn’t need money or power. He needed at least one parent who’d defend him with the unconditional devotion he deserved. The boy needed to remember that family was more than blood - arguments about bloodline inheritances and family duty be damned.

“Mrs. Hyuga, I find it difficult to believe you would suddenly show such an interest in my son for his benefit.”

Rock Lee regretted setting out the red bean cakes and tea for Risa and Neji. Not that his Hyuga guests touched the cooling green tea or congealing red bean cakes, save for Risa’s obligatory bite. In fact, he regretted allowing them into his house – the house he’d purchased for his family from years of saving and overtime work. Neji wouldn’t have known what striving for wealth and stability was like, which might have explained why he destroyed Lee's home and family with so little care. Childhood friend and teammate or otherwise.

“What of Jiro himself? Would he accept?” Risa asked. Her evasions were clumsy, but she respected him enough not to lie. Her second bite of the red bean cake on her plate somehow made Lee more angry than her husband’s practiced nonchalance.

“Jiro is a child.”

Risa flinched, her shoulders pulling back. The Hyuga woman had children of her own and his conviction must have elicited some guilt in her. She was the same woman who didn’t want marriage pressed on her daughter at too young an age. Lee’s words clearly didn’t elicit enough shame because she pressed on.

“He’s nearly old enough to decide that he wants to fight and possibly die on behalf of the village,” Risa countered. “However unlikely death is in our current world. He wouldn’t be forced to make the decisions of a clan head until he reaches adulthood. Or even have it be known that he’s my husband’s heir.”

The current Hyuga clan head gave Lee a tight smile, drumming his knuckles against the kitchen table. His white eyes bore the pale gray shadows of regret, as did the bags beneath them. Lee tore his eyes from Neji’s face to suppress the upwelling of sympathy for a man who’d done nothing but give him grief lately.

“If he says no?”

“I...I would never compel him,” Neji began, speaking for the first time since Risa explained her simple proposal to him. “I’d never want my own...Jiro to feel as if he has no control over his future.”

Neji’s answer made it clear that neither of them considered no an option. Risa Hyuga bore only a distant blood relation to Jiro while Neji was Jiro’s father by blood. With Risa, Lee seethed with anger, but no bitter disappointment. The anger brought fire to Lee’s core, but the disappointment left him hollowed out. Worst of all, Lee imagined Jiro folding against the pressure, the guilt that came with being told he needed to protect his sister. Maybe the Hyuga name drew him in with the promise of being more than the loser boy in his academy class.

“Neji, I did not know I was still capable of being more disappointed in you than I have been. I admit that you have somehow done it.”

Neji sighed and twisted his hands together on the table. If they were sparring, this would have been the moment that Neji lay injured on the ground with his forearms braced over his face. This would have been the moment when Lee decided whether to deliver the finishing blow or draw his fist back because there was no joy in crushing a helpless opponent. Lee leaned back into his seat and met Neji’s eyes with what friendliness he could muster. Today, he'd chosen the latter.

“I’ve failed. I know I have. I’ve tried to...if not please everyone, then balance their interests. There was the past I couldn’t change -”

“And the more recent choices you could have,” Risa muttered. 

“-the fight between my head and heart. I understand now why my uncle said being a good clan head stripped him of his heart until all he thought of was the clan. Until he was only Lord Hyuga and not Father. Now that I’ve been in his place for most of my adult life, I admit we've both failed the ones we were meant to love and protect. I'm Father in name only to all of them, less of a father to Jiro than you are, certainly.”

Lee didn’t need to watch the family at home to see that Risa was the one who could have told him more about their daughters’ personalities, their fears, their favorite foods. Yet Neji Hyuga was an improvement over Hiashi because he’d yet to disown any of his children. He’d attempted in his own flawed and ultimately doomed fashion to do right by Jiro and the baby in Tenten’s womb. Had Neji given him this confession under different circumstances, Lee would have told him his blunders didn’t run as deep as his uncle’s, as low as that bar was. But now wasn’t the time to offer Neji his commiseration.

“That is part of the reason I do not want Jiro anywhere near your seat. Even if it is his kindness and love for his sister that may motivate him to say yes. He is simply too good and I do not want to see that taken away from him. Your problems within the Hyuga clan are not his or mine to solve.”

“You want Jiro to live a life like yours. Preferably without another word spoken to one of us,” Risa said. “In a better world, I would have wanted that for him as well.”

She’d conceded that benefits aside, she didn’t make the offer of legitimacy from a position of strength. White eyes met black with some flicker of understanding passing between them. Both of them would have chosen to keep the old normal, however imperfect. Neither chose to see their lives upended by the brown-eyed boy with a Byakugan. In their ideal world, Risa Hyuga and Rock Lee would never have sat across his dining table negotiating Jiro's future.

“Yes, I want a normal life for my son. Jiro is not a Hyuga and I do not want him faced with the troubles your kind has.”

“We can’t change what’s been done already,” Risa answered. “He’s half-Hyuga whether we wish it were this way or not. I can’t promise a clean, perfect path forward for him. But someone else in the clan will decide his future if he doesn’t. You might wish for Jiro to forget everything he has seen that proves he’s not...like you. I can tell you, they won’t forget.”