Kakashi's Mission (Kakasak

18 : 恐れ Osore

"How are you feeling Neji?" Tenten asked her teammate who was seated next to her on the zabuton whilst sipping on his matcha tea.

Neji had been discharged from the hospital for over a week, what was most unusual was the fact that his nightmares were not as intensive as they were in the hospital. The vision of Hiroko was clearer in his mind, but the vision of Tenten was slowly changing into another woman. It gets blurrier every single night. He had no idea who that woman was. It was like viewing a pixelated view of her, he was pretty certain she was wearing something pink; that was about it. The rest was a horrible blur. The only thing for sure was; the nightmares were not as intensive as they were at the hospital.

Neji nodded as he spoke, "I managed to have at least 3 hours of less mortifying dreams in the Hyuuga estate. Which is a sublime situation as compared to what I had to deal with in the hospital."

Neji shook his head. There were days that Tenten had to run off for a mission which left him alone in the middle of the night. He would wake up scaring Sakura or Hiroko half to death with his sleep yells. It was preposterous, not to mention; embarrassing. He hated that he could not have any control over this.

"Well, I guess that's good. At least you get the rest that you truly deserve. Even if it's for a little while." Tenten spoke gently.

Tenten started to use a gentler voice around Neji ever since his stay in the hospital. Before, her voice was usually loud, chirpy and energetic. But since Neji was all jumpy and needed his rest back in the hospital, Tenten had to resort to using a softer voice to accommodate to his needs. Talking like that towards Neji was kind of stuck to her until now.

"Tenten." Neji spoke just as softly, gone were his authoritative voice when they were alone. "You are doing that again." Neji pointed out as he closed his eyes, secretly enjoying what she was doing.

Tenten looked down to realise that she was in fact, "doing it" again. She had unintentionally held onto his hand. Back in the hospital, whenever Neji was about to sleep, Tenten would draw little circles using her fingers on Neji's open palm. She found out it was one of the few ways to soothe him to sleep.

"Sorry." Tenten spoke but she did not stop when she saw Neji looking a little sleepy, right before he could doze off a little, the door flew open; in came Hanabi and Hinata.

Tenten and Neji merely stared at the duo who in return, stared back at them. Hanabi and Hinata eyed their hands in particular. Neji saw that and hastily pulled his hand away from Tenten's.

"Told you they were dating." Hanabi mumbled, not so discreetly.

"T-They can hear you." Hinata sighed softly before she bowed and apologised, "We should have knocked, but Hanabi was persistent in surprising you with our presence.."

"Liar. You wanted to catch them red-handed too. Admit it, you like the idea of them dating.." Hinata exclaimed before Tenten stuffed a huge mochi from the table into Hanabi's mouth.

"Hanabi you must try THESE MOCHI!" Tenten yelled enthusiastically before she stuffed more snacks from the table into the young heiress' mouth.

Neji inhaled and exhaled before he fixed his gaze towards Hinata and asked her, "What brings you here, Hinata-Sama?"

"Neji-Nii, Hyuuga Koh just came back from the main Hyuuga archives." Hinata explained as she eyed Tenten discreetly from the side.

Neji noticed this and nodded, the great Hyuuga archives was not even in the compound much to popular beliefs. No outsiders knew of this. It was hidden in one of the most secluded areas in Konoha,the tip of a dangerous and steep mountain that many would not dare venture to. There, the great Hyuuga Hanshiro built a passageway that led to a huge cave which had currently been revamped, an impressive library of all of the Hyuuga secrets were located there. Due to its secrecy and the danger posed to enter this area, it's hardly visited unless one really required deeper knowledge of a certain aspect. Neji had wanted to travel there himself with regards to the annoying dreams but Hinata stopped him citing that he was not well and sent Hyuuga Koh there instead.