I. sink waves
It was funny, looking back to the time when the team was formed. The grief that she felt when their names were called by Mira-sensei in that class. She had never put up with Neji's personality during the years in the Academy, and being in a team together for the last six months didn’t help at all. And even her friendship with Lee wouldn’t make her blind to his eccentric personality. There was no way that they could work it out, right?
Now, seated in the Hokage room with her presently ex-teammates, Gai-sensei and the Hokage himself, she felt a bad taste in her mouth as she thought that she was right since the beginning; they couldn't work out.
“As solicited by the Head of the Hyuuga clan, Neji Hyuuga will become an apprentice to the jounin Hoheto Hyuuga.” The Hokage announced slowly as he signed the scroll that would set the end of her team. As she clenched her fists, she thought about how casual the moment that ended her career as a ninja was. “The change was approved by Maito Gai, his jounin sensei until now.”
She didn’t dare to move her eyes from the papers on the table, in fear that her hurt would show in her eyes—and that wouldn’t make sense; after all, it’s nice that she won’t be close to that arrogant nonsensical moron every day, right?—afraid of what she would see in Neji's eyes—relief for leaving his dead weight of teammates? Knowing that now he wouldn’t have anyone to hold him back?
Tenten could hear Lee gasping for air as he cried, and she bitterly wondered why he was so sad when Gai would personally teach him by himself. She would not be crying if she were him, that was for sure, but well, Lee was always an emotional one.
The room waited silently as the old sage took an inhale of his pipe. As he breathed out, he continued. “For now, Team 3 will be put out of activity until further notice.”
-
Tenten did not stay too long to hear anything more than Gai-sensei departing words of encouraging the flames of youth, or Neji talking about clan orders and his repeats of "Tenten, I’m so sorry.” She truly did not have any patience to look at any of their faces. So she left. And walked.
And walked.
And walked.
She walked with not a single thought going throughout her mind, only a numbness in her chest that contrasted with the sound of the lives of the civilians of Konoha. Children leaving school, merchants selling their goods of the day. The sound of shinobis running through the roofs of the village.
Everything became background sound as she walked.
She walked.
She walked.
She walked.
She got good at walking after all the months of physical conditioning that Gai had put her through. So it took a lot of walking for her feets start protesting. But even after feeling the first symptoms of pain, she still walked.
She walked even after the sun went down and dark came in.
She walked even after her stomach started doing circles through her guts.
She did not want to eat, she wanted to walk. So she did.
She walked.
She walked even after the night came in full. It did not matter. There was no one waiting for her at home anyways. So she walked.
She walked.
She just stopped walking when she realized that two ANBU have been following her down for the last hour. Perhaps it looked really suspicious to see a genin girl walking these hours.
Then she walked home, even if she wished to walk more instead.
When she finally got to her apartment, it took a few minutes for her to finally open her door; it was weird how her hands could not stop shaking. Stupid.
She took off her clothes and took a shower. She left with her hair dripping wet, but she did not care, falling to her bed without her dinner. She was not hungry.
Gai-sensei would be cross with her if he heard that she only had a meal that day. But it did not matter anymore; after all Gai was not her sensei anymore.
So she slept.
-
“Teams are forever,” Mira-sensei had said to her on the day of the announcement of the genin teams after she graduated. “You will find a family in them, Tenten-chan.”
A bitter laugh escaped her lips as she plugged in her rice cooker. It was past noon when she woke, and even if she could not feel her hunger, her body gave all the signs of needing food: hands shaking, a weakened feeling, and a dark spot in her vision.
So there she was. Cooking. Or waiting for the rice to get ready to mix with the beef that was in her freezer for over a week. She rather wanted the beef to be warm, but unfortunately her stove was out of gas until she found a way to pay her bill.
But that was the problem of cooking. The waiting. It did not help her in not thinking of things that she did not want to think.
It was hard to believe that she had really thought that she had found something the day Team 3 passed the test Gai had made. She really thought that was the start of something unique. The day that she finally found the place that she belonged. A family.
She forgot that Neji and Lee already had one. They did not need another. She did.
Lee came from a good family. A civilian clan of merchants that are proud of having the first shinobi in the family. They did not care that Lee could not even produce chakra right, because they didn't even know what chakra was.
They were just proud of supporting their boy.
And Lee had Gai-sensei, who is not just a sensei to Lee. He was the father Lee did not have in his life. The father that she believed that both would divide. The only shinobi who saw Lee for what he could do and not for what he could not.
Neji was another. Born into a clan of power and prestige. Even with his complicated situation with the main family, they still came for him when they believed an insult to him was made.
It was stupid to believe that they would need a family as much as she did. So she laughed.
And laughed.
And laughed.
She only stopped when she heard the sound of the rice cooker being ready. Then she stopped thinking like an idiot and focused on getting her gyudon all set for her.
It was nice cooking. She liked it because it made her feel like she was taking care of herself. And Tenten loved to take care of herself.
It was a shame that today she only wanted to be taken care of. Miserably, the only adult who was responsible for her got his hands cleaned off her the day before; therefore, she did not have another choice.
She moved to sit at her table, which was completely full of seals that she was trying to see where it would go. Her fingers traced over one that she was developing for Lee, a seal to help him channel his chakra to his feets to walk in complicated landscapes, such as snow or sand. Well, she could still give it to him. His birthday was coming soon. And Lee was still her friend, was he not?
She rolled her scrolls and threw them somewhere to deal with later. She would eat her rice with her frozen beef, then sleep until the next day so she would not think about what she could not have anymore. That sounded like a plan.
-
The next day came way too early for her; sleep had not been as easy as she wished for it. Her body had too much energy to fall for an easy dream. And as she looked in the mirror of her bathroom, it indeed reflected the face of someone who went through a nightmare.
“Well, that’s enough,” she murmured to herself, her voice coming raw after a day of not using it. “Feeling miserable will not pay the rent this month.”
She was not in the best situation now. After two days of doing nothing but wallowing in self-pity, it made her pass two days without getting paid, two days earning nothing to pay for bills, her rent, or her food. And without a team, she was not getting out of the village for C ranked missions anytime soon.
Then there were only D missions left for her.
She had never walked alone in the mission's desk, but it made her feel uncomfortable seeing the genin team in front of her. Tenten knew them from academy days, a class a year ahead of her. Team 15, from the sensei to the members, a team with girls in all positions.
They looked nice together, she thought, comfortable with each other. It was what was going on in her mind as she saw the girls joking and playing with each other, one secured the hand of the other and seemed as if she was reading the palm of the girl. The last one was talking with her sensei about a mission that they took a few weeks ago. Their sensei looked like a nice and calm woman with a good head on her shoulders.
Tenten felt like throwing up. Unfortunately there was nothing to put it outside since she did not eat her breakfast this morning. She would eat on the path to her mission.
When it was finally her turn, she showed her credentials before the chunin could have the chance to ask for her team.
“I’m solo today,” she said simply. “Is any D-ranked person available to do it alone?”
The chunin leafed through the thick number of his pages. “Most missions here are faster done with a team; that’s the idea of D-ranked.”
“Well, I don’t need a team to babysit or weed a garden or find a cat.” She said without missing a second. D-ranked are missions that civilians could do themselves. Give her a break.
And just like that, she walked away with her first mission solo in her pockets.
With a quick stop to buy and eat an onigiri, she was on her way to spend a full day cleaning the garden of a rich woman.
The mission was as miserable as D-ranked missions tended to be. She ended the day with her palms in blood from the thorns of the flowers and with the back of her arms burning from the sun that made her hiss in pain. All of this for money that barely paid a week of her rent.
“Better buckle up the belt now; no C-ranked coming in my way for some sometime.”
And that was a shame. As a genin, she had only had four missions of level C until now, but it paid as much as a month's worth of D-ranked. She never ate so well as the weeks following their first C-ranked in Cha no Kuni. If she had known what would be coming to her, she would have been more responsible with that money. Well, lesson learned.
Passing in the mission desk to collect her payment worth less than a dinner in a barbecue restaurant, she left to go back to her apartment. She definitely could not eat out that day at all.
It was clear that her streak of bad luck was not going away when she saw Lee waiting for her in the building entrance to her apartment. He was doing flex-ups, and she noticed a few bags around him. Tenten truly should have seen that coming; her teammate was not one to understand that she was not in the mood for pity talks. Even if Lee was not a person who would pity someone.
“Tenten-san, my teammate! I was worried for you!” The kunoichi winced as the boy's voice hollered through the street. Lee could not know discretion if it hit him straight in the face.
She moved fast to get her keys and open the door to let both of them inside before more people could look at them. After the last few days that she had, the girl was not in the mood to be the center of attention of her neighbors gossip.
“Why are you here, Lee?” she asked tiredly while she untied herself of the scrolls on her back. The day had been rough; her body was disgustingly dirty with pieces of earth, compost, and occasionally worms that she did not want to think about. Tenten claimed a hot shower. Sadly, she was out of hot water, seeing that she still did not have the money to pay her gas bill.
As she waited for her friend to respond, she made a quick scan through her tiny apartment. It was a flat studio where her bed and kitchen were reunited in the same area without dividers in less than thirty square meters. The only other door that was not the one to enter was for the even tinier bathroom.
Her bed was a mess with a bunch of scrolls with fuuinjutsu sketches that she was playing with, as well as a bunch of her kunais and shurikens merged in her blanket. On the floor, there are a few of her dirty clothes that she should have taken to wash at least a week ago. If Neji was there, he would cross his nose at her disorganization, but with Lee she felt safe to let it be there for one more day.
Lee’s usual animation had dimmed slightly since taking off his shoes in the hall. She appreciated the fact that he did not even bat an eye at the mess, focusing on putting the bags on the table. “I have brought dinner,” he said simply while removing bento boxes. “It’s Obaasan’s kaiseki; she made it just an hour ago, it’s still very warm.”
Tenten's stomach that was sleeping had suddenly awakened with this new information. Lee’s grandmother's cooking was one of the best things that she had in her short twelve years of her life; after a day where the only thing that she ate was a small onigiri by morning, even if she did not have plans to eat that night, since her cupboard was empty, she would jump at the opportunity to eat a hot meal after the disaster of her last dinner with frozen beef.
“Alright,” she said simply while taking a set of clean clothes from her wardrobe. “Get the table ready while I take a shower.”
The shower had gone as quickly as she could while tasting the smell of the dinner from her bathroom. Not even the cool water could lessen her spirituous knowing that she was about to experience good food.
“You better not start eating without me,” was what she said, opening the door to leave the bathroom.
Lee was already waiting for her, having put the food on various smaller plates. It looked like a quite nice dinner. “Wouldn’t think about it.”
As she sat in front of him, she noticed the third bento box that was still warm and full. “Is Neji coming here too?” She doubted it, the Hyuugas had claimed their mark on him fully and Neji was a coward and wouldn’t show his face for some months, she believed. But in case she was wrong, she wanted to know how long she would have to put her mess under her bed, not wanting to listen about how much of a pig living in the mud she was.
Lee shook his head. “I did not call him.”
Relieved, she took a first bite after thanking him for the food. The food tasted as immaculate as any dish coming from Jeido-san. “So why the third bento?”
Lee tried for a grin, but it did not reach his eyes. “Ah, you see, Obaasan made a lot, so she asked me to bring more so it wouldn't go to waste.” It was funny how Lee could not lie to save his life. There was not a world where anything that Jeido-san cooked would go to waste because no one would not eat everything that was on their plates. The concept of leftovers did not exist when it was her food on the table.
So Lee decided to bring more food consciously. Her cheeks heated as she thought about being treated as a charitable case. She hated being seen as someone dependent on charity. Even if she was struggling, she hated when people did things like that, because it showed how people noticed her poverty.
Still, it was Rock Lee. Her friend. Her first friend, and probably her only one after this fiasco with the Hyuugas. He did not see her as a charitable case, she assured herself; he must have probably been worried about her. He knew that she had a problem with eating when in stress.
“That’s nice, thank you.”
Lee relaxed slightly at her words, probably expecting an earful that he would not be receiving that night. She was way too tired to fight a lost battle.
“So, where are you today? I went looking for you this morning, and you were not in your house already.”
“I left early to take a D-mission.” she answered, taking a rest to chew her bite. “Turns out that it takes a whole day to clean a garden when you are alone.”
Lee's eyes widened for a moment. And in the next second he was standing with a hand on his chest. “Yosh! As expected of such a youthful friend.” Tenten rolled her eyes. “To honor these flames I will run a hundred of laps-”
“Lee, you will not run laps anywhere; it’s night.” She cut him up, knowing that if she let him, he would forget about the food. “Sit down and eat, please.”
It took a little more coaching to get Lee back to eating. He slowed down, his brows furrowed as he took a better look at her. She consciously relaxed her shoulders, trying to appear at ease. She did not like when Lee started to be looking a little too concerned for her peace of mind. A worried Lee was a complicated one to deal with.
“I did not know that they gave missions without a jounin sensei,” he said. “It must have been quite the exercise. You look exhausted.”
Tenten shrugged, swallowing a hiss that almost came out after a deeper cut on her hands made direct contact with her chopsticks. “As long as I get my pay.” Lee did not look very convinced. “Seriously, it’s fine, Lee. I have survived worse than a day working in the garden.”
Lee decided to let it go. He knew that she could be stubborn if she felt the need.
Silence filled the unspoken conversation. Tenten finished her dinner hastily; she had spent the whole day starving. She closed her eyes for a minute, appreciating how nice it was to have her belly full. Hopefully eating too fast after a long time without eating would not come back to kick her in the ass.
After a few more minutes where Lee spent time chewing as slowly as possible, he let his chopstick down. “Gai-sensei asked about you today.”
She stayed quiet for a minute, focusing on the wall behind Lee. There were a lot of cracks for her to count. “And what did you say?”
“That I did not see you,” he answered truthfully. “I believe he feels guilty.”
A knot made its home in Tenten's stomach, and suddenly she knew that she should not have eaten as fast as she did. “He should not. It’s not his fault.”
And it was. Gai-sensei did not have any choice in the disbandment of the team. The moment the Hyuuga clan had put in a request to end the team only a month after they graduated, Gai had fought with his bare teeth for his students.
But she could not say that he choosing to not have her as a student after the disbandment did not hurt.
“And it’s not your fault either, Ten-san.” Lee returned as quickly.
She did not respond.
After waiting for Lee to finish his dinner, she took the dishes to the sink. The pain in her stomach was getting worse and she did not want to throw up the dinner that Lee had given her, so it was better if she focused on the dishes rather than having heartfelt conversations.
To her misery, Lee did not agree. “It’s unfair.”
She hummed as an answer, trying to give a clue that she did not want to discuss this topic anymore.
It did not work. “I couldn't believe that the Hokage accepted it. I always believed him to be a man with a good mind.” As he continued to speak, Lee's explosion grew with him. Tenten was quite dumbfounded because normally who would grieve about the injustices of the world was her, not Lee. “Just because the Hyuugas are part of the Clan Councils, they should not have this power in the decisions of shinobi teams, and-”
“But they have.” She quieted him down, placing a wet plate to dry with a little more force than necessary.
Tenten turned her body in his direction and looked at his eyes. “They have, and they did it, and it’s over, Lee.” As her breath got caught up in her throat, she coughed for a few seconds before continuing. “It’s over, and there is nothing left for us to do but move forward.”
“Tenten, perhaps the Hokage-”
She could not believe what she was hearing. “Lee, shut up, please.”
Before he said something that would make her throw a plate at a friend, she decided to put it back in the sink. She would wash it another day.
“Do you understand that we became a topic of discussion and vote inside the Clan Council? That a bunch of Clan Heads sat down and spent hours of their lives and listened to the Hyuuga talking shit about us, about you, about me and decided that yes, this team should not continue? Five of nine Clan Heads agreed with them.”
Shimura. Aburame. Kurama. Sarutobi. Onikuma.
She would never forget those names.
“The Hokage’s clan voted against us! If this doesn't tell you how he felt about this situation, I’m sorry, but I don’t know what more I can say to you.” She took a few steps ahead, going back to her seat.
“There is only justice for the ones that have the power to pay for it, Lee. And we can’t afford it.”
Lee was doing badly. With his eyes lost on the table, he looked very close to hitting someone or starting to cry out loud. She did not know which one it was preferred. It had been very few times in her life that she had seen her friend this sad.
He was one of these people that had a naturally good perspective of life. Tenten believed that Lee came to balance her negative headset in life. When she would always turn to the pessimistic outcome, he would find a way to bring a better angle of view of things. That’s how they worked it.
She hated to see him this way, it was not natural; it felt like a bad genjutsu made by someone that wanted to take a piss on her. “So, how was training today?”
Being friends with Lee since the first year of their academy days made her learn the magic words to light him up easily. It did not take long for him to narrate every type of exercise that Gai and Lee had done throughout the day.
It was nice.
She wished that she could feel truly jealous of Lee, for having the chance to have Gai for himself. But she could not when the two felt like a son and a father doing bonding activities together in the park. And her friend deserves everything good in life.
But she was jealous of the bond that they have. And a lot.
She wanted it for her. She wished for it since when she was a little kid stuck in the orphanage for an adult to pick her up and love her unconditionally, the same way that Gai loved Lee. How lucky someone had to be to find a father in a teacher?
Gai loved her as his student, she knew that, and she loved him back for being the first adult to love her so. But their student and teacher relationship was nothing close to the bond that these two had with each other. It was devotion that you could only find in the same way in people of faith, when they prayed for the deities that they believed in.
She knew that she would never have this.
But it didn’t mean that she did not want it.
“Oh, I almost forgot! Gai-sensei wished for me to tell you that he will find a time to speak with you this week.” She heard, and then it took a few seconds to understand what she had just listened to.
“Oh, that’s nice?” Came hesitantly. She should have expected this. Gai-sensei would not leave her without cutting loose ends. “I mean, it is nice! Tell him that I'll be coming home at lunch time.”
After that, it did not take much time for Lee to take his leave. It was almost midnight, and he was surprising her for being out this dark of the night. She knew that his bedtime sleep was before nighttime.
“Tenten-san” His voice came unsure. Whatever he had more to say, it was something that he was not comfortable talking about. “Even not being from the same team anymore. We are still friends, right?”
She would have laughed if she did not know how serious this affirmation was for him.
“Of course we are! Are you an idiot?” Before he could say something, her hand was in his hair, as she messed up his bowl haircut. “We are friends before the team, why wouldn’t we be friends after?”
Lee smiled as he removed her hands from his hair and tried to put his hair back in place. “Of course, my mistake.” As he started his walk out of the corridor, he turned back. “So you will be turning this friday to Tama-chan's birthday, won’t you?”
Tama was Lee’s little cousin. A little girl with a mouth too big for her mouth that Tenten liked very much. “If her mother does not care that her daughter's birthday present will be a shuriken kit, I’ll go.” It was the only gift she had been able to afford these days.
Lee laughed. Both knew that his aunt was not a fan of Tenten's specialty. “It’s fine, I will talk with her.”
“So, see you friday.”
“See you.”