People always make Neji out to be the bad guy. The heartless jerk who hates everyone and everyone hates him.

Have you ever looked beneath the surface, and tried to figure out the mysteries behind him? What happened to his mother, why did he wear those bandages, is there another reason, a deeper meaning to why he hates Hiashi?

He's the classic example of the kid you hear about but doesn't believe exists- the kid who picks on others to hide their own misery, fear, and pain.

Do not hate Neji for what he has said or done, pity him for he never knew love.

Beneath The Surface

Chapter One- How It All Started

I can't tell you how or when it all started. It was always there. She was always there.

The fake woman I both alternately hate and fear, even to this day.

She was cruel, mean, and hateful. She would hit me, hurt me, tell me about how I was worthless.

I was three. She was nineteen.

She was my mother.

My father was very popular with the girls, and was always out doing something with them. He was twenty three, drunk, and slept with a fifteen year old girl.

She lied about her age, and anyone could easily believe that she was at least twenty.

I've seen pictures- she was gorgeous.

I can't blame him, he didn't know what she was or what she would become.

Even on the day he died, he didn't know.

She became pregnant, and her life was over. She now had to join the Hyuuga Clan. That's why we're such a huge clan- we're like vampires. We become pregnant and impregnate other people so they have to join the clan.

The whole rumor about us reproducing with our cousins is just that- a rumor and untrue.

But back to the story.

She was nice when Father was around, sucking up to him, hugging him, telling him how much she was madly in love with him.

Once, I tried to tell him what she really was, and he got mad. My mother laughed and said that we had gotten into a fight earlier. She then hugged me and said that she loved me.

As soon as he left though, she changed.

She would beat me and deprive me of my basic needs. She would make me go days without food, and kick me out of the house so I'd have to sleep outside the Hyuuga gates.

She asked to my uncle to have bars installed on my windows. He complied. She also had a lock fitted on my door that could only be unlocked from the outside.

I was a prisoner in my own house.

Not home, house.

But, like I said, as soon as Father came home, she would let me out and threaten me. If I told him, she would kill me. I didn't doubt her.

When he finally started noticing the bruises, she blamed it on my uncle.

He wasn't surprised- Hiashi-sama would often "train" with me. It was really him using me as a moving target while I tried to fight for my life.

They called me a genius and said I was gifted because I survived.

My father hated the main branch even more. He said that they thought of me as something simply to train with, and that if I was born into the main branch, they wouldn't do that. He thought that I had so much potential if I was able to fight Hiashi-sama at three and be able to fend for my own.

His hate intensified nearly tenfold.

If only he knew.

My father may not have been much of one, but he was my comfort, my hope, my savior. He was home maybe a quarter of the time, and that was what I lived for. With him around, I was safe from my mother.

And then he died.

I had to watch.

He screamed, cried, moaned in total agony as he thrashed on the floor clutching his forehead, before his body went limp and he died.

My uncle didn't even blink. This was his brother.

They had to restrain me from running at him and clawing his eyes out. I don't care if he would do the same to me that he just did to my father.

I hated Hinata. Why was she so weak that she couldn't yell for help? If it was me, I would have bitten them, screamed, did something, anything.

I hated the main branch. I just hated them for just what they did, for what they stood for. And since my father died, someone had to hate them.

But most of all, I hated Hiashi-sama. He knew what my mother did, knew my father was the only thing keeping me alive.

And he killed him.

To save his own life.

That coward.

I was now seven, and no better off than when I was four.

We, my mother and I, lived in our own little house on the Hyuuga property. It had two little bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a living/entrance room.

I could hear my mom in the kitchen moving around, and I knew what she was doing- drinking alcohol and getting high of drugs.

If I was lucky, she wouldn't notice me.

But luck was something I didn't have.

Well, that was the first chapter. Maybe now you are beginning to understand Hyuuga Neji a bit more.

I know I am, even as I write this.

But there is still so much more for us to learn about, to know before we are finished with this.

But until then, remember, don't hate him, pity him.

Disclaimer: I don't own anyone that is in this story except for Neji's mom.