When you opened your eyes from your sleep, you immediately knew you were having one of those days. “Those days” meaning the days where you feel a need for skinship. It was one of those days where you were feeling extremely clingy.

Oh but the skinship you crave doesn’t necessarily have to lead to or anything, you just wanted physical touch. It was something you find comforting. It was, after all, your love language.

So when you peeked to the other side of the bed — your boyfriend Neji’s side — you couldn’t help but want to press yourself closer to him. But knowing that he was a light sleeper was enough reason to stop yourself from doing what you want. He just came home from a mission last night and he deserved to rest as much as he can.

You watched his profile as he took deep, even breaths — a telltale sign that he was fast asleep. You slowly and gently touched the side of his face, pausing still as you checked if he woke up at your movement. When you deemed that he was still asleep, you lightly rubbed your thumb over his cheeks, just a featherlight touch but an act where you poured your love for him.

You slowly rose up from the bed and placed a soft kiss on his forehead, exactly where his curse mark lied. Afterwards, you whispered, “I love you, Neji.”

It was the first time you’ve said those three words out loud. You felt a little but guilty for not being able to say it when he’s awake, but it’s not just something you can say out of the blue. Besides, you have to build up courage to actually be able to say it. Right now though, right now you were still a coward.

He stirred a little in his sleep. You were alarmed, afraid that you had woken him up or worse, that he had heard your confession. But his movement stopped when you ran your fingers through his hair. When you are sure he has fallen back into slumber, you slip out of the bed.

The Hokage, Tsunade, assigned a mission to you today so you had to get up early if you wanted to cook breakfast for Neji.

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At a young age your parents taught you the importance of learning other people’s love languages in order to build a good relationship with them. That’s how you found yourself observing what makes your friends happy. You wouldn’t tell them this though. You were quite sure they’d end up teasing you for worrying over trivial things.

You were sure your love language was physical touch because you often find yourself happily linking arms with Sakura or passionately fist bumping with Naruto. Not to mention you would hug them goodbye instead of waving your hands. It probably meant nothing much to them, but to you, it made you feel loved and accepted. It warmed your heart.

From observation, you learned that Naruto was happiest when people acknowledge him and his hard work so you made it a point to cheer him on and to give him words of affirmation from time to time. With Sakura, she likes to spend as much time as possible with you when you both don’t have missions to do. You were guessing she was lonely because of Sasuke leaving but it could also be because she was an only child and wasn’t really fond of her parent’s shenanigans. Either way, she was always up for quality time.

You were the closest with these two so you made it a point to act according to their love language. And just like what your parent’s said, it worked on strengthening your bond with them.

It was with them that you confided with your little crush on Neji. At first they found it weird. Because how can someone so sweet like you take a liking to someone who was a little… cold? Detached?

You chastised them immediately after hearing what they’ve said, claiming that Neji was honorable, strong, smart, good looking, and just overall dreamy.

Sakura giggled at how you zoned out with hearts on your eyes as you uttered those words and that’s when she knew you were serious.

Naruto, on the other hand, was cringing. He knew how mean and condescending Neji could be. It was painted on his face how he didn’t like Neji for you. But at least your crush wasn’t Sasuke.

When you got your bearings together, you immediately turned to Naruto and told him to keep his mouth shut. You recalled saying, “Naruto, If you ever talk about my teeny tiny crush, I’m going to leave Konoha all together, just like Sasuke did!”

You were exaggerating, of course. You wouldn’t leave Konoha just because of that, but your speech worked on Naruto. You recalled that his eyes widened in surprise and then promised that he won’t tell a soul. You doubted if he could keep a secret but eventually, you just didn’t care anymore. It was just a crush anyway, it wasn’t a big deal and it wouldn’t matter if he knew. If anything, you both weren’t really that close to begin with, so there’s no friendship that could’ve been ruined. And besides, Neji has always been the all-business type of guy, you were sure a little crush was something insignificant to him.

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When Naruto left the village to train with Master Jiraiya, you eventually became closer with the other shinobis that were more or less closer to your age. This includes Tenten, Lee, Ino, Shikamaru, Choji, Kiba, Shino, Hinata, and surprisingly, Neji too.

It all started when Sakura had begun training with Lady Tsunade. You’ve been assigned to a lot of missions where you were teamed up with different shinobis, but what was weird was that Neji was almost always on your team.

You just wished Lady Tsunade was assigning both of you often in one team because you were always both free at the same time or that you worked well together or that you were both very skilled and had high success rates on missions. Any rational reasoning really, as long as it’s not because Sakura had pulled some strings.

At first you were really nervous about teaming up with Neji on missions, afraid that you were going to mess up in his presence. But when the initial nerves died down, you’ve masked whatever little feelings you’ve had for him quite well. Not that it was hard. In fact, it was easy for you because you prioritize the safety of the village before anything else.

But the missions truly did make both of you closer. What started as only speaking about the missions became casual talks about your friends. Nothing much, mostly small talk, but it was enough to ignite the small flame in your heart.

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When you arrived back from your missions, despite being tired, you would always gather your friends around to hang out before another mission was handed to you.

Being a jonin meant you were assigned to more higher rank missions, but sometimes, it just meant having much, much more missions than normal. It was tiring, only having a day or two to rest unless you were injured before another mission was handed over. So somehow it became a tradition of some sorts to gather around after you’ve finished a mission. After all, only you and Neji were jonins in the group.

Unbeknownst to you, your friends viewed you as someone who glued them together. You were the reason why they were much closer than before, now that Naruto wasn’t around. So when possible, they would make it a point to meet with you, knowing how lonely it could be now that you were alone after your parents died when Orochimaru attacked Konoha.

Sakura would often give you a look when Neji was around as all of you spend time with each other catching up. He rarely joined the gathering, preferring to rest instead of socializing. But every now and then he would come too. And when he did, somehow Sakura found a way to make him walk you home. Not that he wouldn’t do it without Sakura urging him to. 

Ever since that one mission where you, Neji, and Shino were ambushed, Neji became much closer to you. Maybe it was because when one of the attackers somehow managed to stab him, you came to the rescue.

You were an exceptional kunoichi, your skills were one of the most regarded in the village so you were able to bring down most of the attackers, but not before they left a huge gash on your leg. When the fight was over, you rushed to Neji to heal him using medical ninjutsu that Sakura taught you. Luckily, Shino was only left with a few scratches.

“You know medical ninjutsu?” Neji asked, surprised.

“Yeah. A little. Sakura taught me every now and then when I’m not on a mission.”

“You should heal yourself first.”

“No, I’m fine. Your wound needs more attention than mine.”

It was true, his wound looks a lot worse than yours, but in the end you managed to heal it. However, it took too much chakra from you so with whatever minimal chakra you could use, you tried healing your wound as well. But that left you tired and weak which didn’t go unnoticed by Neji’s byakugan.

You were able to walk for a mile before your body couldn’t anymore. Neji has been looking out for you after you’ve healed him just in case this happened.

“We should probably rest a while,” Neji says.

“No, no. It’s just a few more miles to Konoha. We should keep going,” you say.

Neji looks at Shino, silently asking if they should continue or not. 

Shino nods ahead, “It’s much safer if we reach the village as soon as possible. Why? Because you are both not in good shape from the ambush. If we stayed here longer, we might get attacked again. If we push through going back to the village, we’ll reach it before sunset.”

Neji looks at you and the