It's 2018. Happy New Year everyone! Here's a new Nejiten fic for you. I hope you enjoy it!

Let's get into it:

Disclaimer: None of the characters or Naruto itself belongs to me.

Chapter 1: Distance

His hands were on her shoulders. His chest against her back as he leaned in close so he could speak directly into her ear-his breath tickled her ear as he spoke and she could peripherally see his breath due to the cold air. The potential for snow was high on that morning but at the moment it was just overcast with a biting wind. Neji's voice was smooth and calm. Tenten's heart rate increased as beads of sweat glided down the side of her face.

"Keep your eyes closed" he spoke gently almost breathlessly which made Tenten feel some type of way but she did as she was told

Her eyes remained shut as she focused on his presence. She blocked out everything else-the slightly whistling wind that swept past them, the sounds the forest training grounds became background sounds. She could feel him physically touching her but more than that, she could feel his chakra, the disciplined strength she'd know him for. His right hand moved from her shoulder to her hand. He'd closed his hand around hers after placing a kunai in her hand. His hand was warm; the interaction was electric for her.

"I-I'm not so sure this is a good idea, Neji" she spoke hesitantly

"You need to stop doubting yourself" he said as he backed away "You can still feel my chakra right?" he said as he walked to the tree on the opposite side of her

"Yeah I can tell where you are, I can feel your chakra"

"But can you feel all of it? All over my body from the top of my head to my feet?"

Tenten paused for a while. Up until he asked her she'd always focused on just finding the highest concentration of chakra which was in the centre of the body. She shut her eyes even harder and focused on him-her senses working harder to find the rest of his chakra until she could see a silhouette in her mind. She could feel all of him all the way to his fingertips.

She could sense all of his chakra.

"I-I think I'm doing it, I can sense all of you" she said with pride as her grip on the kunai tightened

Neji was impressed to say the least. They'd only started this training to improve her sensory skills a few hours earlier. The fact that she was able to make such progress so fast came as a bit of a surprise to him-although when he considered it, it made sense. Tenten was a weapons expert. Truly mastering the ninja tools was a difficult task only accomplished by those with incredible precision, accuracy and discipline-combine that with the skill of the summoning jutsu and you got Tenten. She was definitely a formidable opponent.

Pride welled up inside him when he saw her smile.

"Great work, now focus on my chakra and aim just above it to hit the target"

"You're awfully trusting considering this is my first time doing this"

"Have you ever given me any reason to doubt your abilities?"

"With my eyes open, no but this…

"You'll be fine"

"It's not me I'm worried about" she finished before concentrating again. She took in a breath and released it-imagining the white puff of smoke leaving her lips and disappearing in the cold wind before throwing the kunai and hoping for the best. She was concerned when she hadn't heard anything.

"Neji are you alright?" she asked before opening her eyes. She was surprised by the results.

"And that is why I never doubt you" he took a step away from the tree to admire her perfect shot

The kunai had hit its mark perfectly. The target was set just above his head and landed there. Tenten was beaming-her sensory skills had come a long but she'd never been this accurate when doing target practise with her eyes closed and it was her first time doing it with a partner.

'I'm going to miss this' the words involuntarily came into her min

They repeated the exercise, each time increasing the risk level for Neji and the number of kunai for Tenten to throw in his direction. Eventually he stood surrounded by targets incredibly close to his body and he had his eyes closed as well. The most interesting of all was having him run to each target and Tenten's job was to hit each target a split second before he passed it. The results weren't surprising; she'd done perfectly as he knew she would.

It was late afternoon when they decided to call it a day. The two teens rested on a large tree stump.

"That was a great training session although there were a few times where I thought I'd miss but, I guess the right incentive made sure I didn't. I wouldn't want to be responsible for grazing that flawless Hyuuga skin" she smirked at him and he playfully raised a brow at her sassy comment.

"As if you could ever miss" he stood up and she followed suit. The two of them headed back to the village at a leisurely pace "Believe it or not you're actually even more dangerous when you can't see" he looked up to the grey sky

"What do you mean?" she asked as they walked through the front gates together

Xxx

The two of them had had dinner together and Neji was walking Tenten back home. A routine the two of them had started ever since he'd become a Jonin and Lee and Gai started doing their missions together. The Konohan streets were quieter than usual that evening. Few villagers were out and about but Tenten still enjoyed walking with Neji nonetheless. The sky was covered in stars-the clouds from earlier had completely dissipated-as she took them in with her larger chocolate brown eyes as she and Neji walked in a comfortable silence. She stole a glance at him-he looked like he had something on his mind. A feeling she wasn't unfamiliar with-she too had something weighing down on her but she didn't know how to approach the topic. He spoke up when they reached her apartment.

"You were awfully quiet tonight, is something wrong?" he looked at her for longer than was necessary and she felt uneasy as though he could see into her mind.

He was always good at reading her.

"Nope!" she answered a little too quickly with a smile he knew was fake "I'm fine, there's nothing really" she said hoping he'd take the hint that she didn't want to speak about it and forget it. Apparently he got the message and left it at that but she knew this conversation was far from over.

"Goodnight Neji" she said softly before turning away from him. She went inside after he greeted her. She leaned her forehead against the closed door and let out a heavy sigh.

"Get it together Tenten" she thought back to how close they were that afternoon. He was basically pressed up against her and she'd enjoyed that feeling but things were going to change between them very soon and that was something she feared.

They weren't naive Genin anymore. Lee and Tenten were Chunin and Neji a Jonin. The stronger they got the higher up the ranking ladder they'd climb; just another reminder that they weren't going to be teammates forever. Tenten knew this and understood it. Lee had made it easy on himself and decided to fully commit to his personal training with Guy sensei which made the transition from team guy to a solo shinobi a lot easier. This wasn't the case for Tenten-ever since their Genin days it had always been Lee and Guy sensei with their endless reserves of energy and talks of youth. Then there was the more normal part of the team which was her and Neji-that was the dynamic she'd gotten used to. It had always been that way and it was how she always wanted it to be but she could tell that Neji was only going to keep climbing higher up the shinobi ladder.

She would accept things a lot easier if there hadn't been all the unacknowledged moments between then that left them wondering what they meant to each other. They were just teammates at first but then as they grew older something had developed between them. There were moments that were more platonic than others; be it a hug that lasted longer than usual, the looks they gave one another when they thought the other wasn't looking, the suggestive comments they'd say to each other from time to time or more recently Tenten feeling flustered whenever Neji got too close to her or touched her. She didn't want to lose Neji without finding out what they were to each other and yet she also didn't want to bring it up because she was afraid of what his answer would be and that she was just seeing what she wanted to see.

Tenten took a long hot bath soaking in her thoughts. The steam quickly filled the bathroom leaving her in a world of mist and tile.

Xxx

Neji had just changed into his sleepwear after taking a hot bath himself to rid his body of the icy chill from being out all day training with Tenten. He sat at his desk in his room and looked out the window-looking in the direction of her apartment. He was thinking about her. He wondered what was going through her mind although, why she looked so strained by her thoughts. There was clearly something bothering her but she'd refused to tell him anything after each attempt he'd made. A familiar voice outside his room brought him back to reality.

"You can come in" he said turning to face his cousin

"You seemed a little distracted at dinner Neji, is something wrong?" she asked genuinely concerned

"I'm not sure…" Hinata waited for him to continue his explanation "Tenten's been quite guarded lately especially around me but she won't say what's bothering her"

"I see…" she took in his words then glanced at the white envelope on his desk "Have you told her yet" her eyes never left his desk-he understood her question.

"No not yet. I'm not sure how to bring it up yet"

"Don't you think that maybe the reason she's been so distanced is because of this? She may not know about the letter exactly but she probably has her own concerns about losing you eventually. You've been a Jonin for five years now it's only natural that you progress in you shinobi career." But she'd purposely left a part out of her explanation. The part that was clear to most-that she had feelings for him. And he had feelings for her but he was unaware of it.

Neji stopped to consider Hinata's words. Could she be right? Could he really be the reason that Tenten was going through all this? He thought back to earlier in the day when he'd told her to focus on his chakra. He remembered wondering why she was so tense around him at that moment-he had no idea it was because him. Thinking back Neji actually noticed how often moments like that had happened between them. They were never conscious of what they were doing or how close they were until after the event had happened.

Tenten was definitely more important to him than just a friend but they weren't exactly dating-no matter what their friends said.

"She definitely has the intuition for it. I suppose I shouldn't delay in filling her in" he came to his conclusion

"Delaying it would only make things worse. You should tell her and soon" she said as she stood up and left his room after saying goodnight

Neji turned out the lights and rested his head against the pillow.

'All this fuss over me…' his last words before closing his eyes and waiting for sleep to take over

One a.m…

Tenten left her apartment warmly dressed and in no way tired enough to sleep so she headed to the training grounds to do some target practise to tire herself out. She reached her destination and took out her scroll to summon her weapons. She'd set up the targets and stood in a starting position. She closed her eyes and thought back to the previous day with Neji. Although this time was different because there was no chakra for her to sense but only the image of the targets positions burned into her mind. With these thoughts she threw her five kunai. When she opened her to see her work only one kunai was slightly off from the bullseye. She let out a sigh before going to retrieve them and that's when she felt a familiar chakra behind her.

"You know there is such a thing as over-training" he said walking closer

"Couldn't sleep so I figured I might as well train" she turned to face him "You knew I was here?"

"I didn't yet here I am. I couldn't sleep either so I thought I'd take a walk…

"And with our luck we ended in the same place" she smiled at the irony

"This seems to happen to us quite often"

"Yet we've never talked about it-any of it" she took a seat on one of the tree stumps and he sat next to her

There was a heavy silence between them; neither of them had said a word but there was so much that they had to say to each other. A snowflake landed in her hand. The two of them looked up to see the cloud covered sky and the crystal snowflakes slowly falling from above.

"Looks like your training session has been cut short"

"Yeah we should head back" she stood up and was about to start walking when Neji held on to her hand. She looked at him in confusion but he hadn't said anything yet.

"It's been a while since we were this relaxed around each other"

"That's because we're just talking, no training, just us" she looked at him with a small smile "We definitely need to talk"

"I agree" they started walking back

"But not now in the middle of the snowy early morning."

"But we're definitely talking today" they'd stopped when they reached the point of going their separate ways only just realising they'd walked the entire way hand in hand. Tenten looked at their joined hands then up at Neji. Their gazes were soft until they leaned in. Their faces were close their lips closer but they'd both stopped at the same time still unsure of where they stood with each other. Tenten was blushing but hid her face from him. She turned away and squeezed his hand before letting go and heading off.

Neji remained on the spot and watched her leave. He'd acknowledged how fast his heart was beating at that moment-how much he'd enjoyed having her hand in his and more importantly how much he wanted to kiss her. He put his hands in his pockets and headed home as the snowfall was intensifying. She remained on his mind the entire time and he finally came to a conclusion-

Tenten wasn't just his friend-

Not anymore.

And thats chapter one done, I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to leave a review and let me know what you thought or a fav or a follow (or all three XD). And as for Scars (for those of you keeping up with it) do not worry I have not abandoned it. I'm still busy with the next chapter, I'm not stopping that story until it's finished. Well that's it from me-

Until the next chapter-

Ketsui Tasogare :-)