I Love You

Author's Notes: I found this "who did/said" something first thing on Tumblr about Neji and Tenten so here we are. I'll probably do some other stories with some of the other prompts when I get inspired. Apparently today was a day for fan-fiction, not interviewing vampires. *winks*

General Warning: potential made up time-line though I supposed this could be in the Bonds universe. I'm not counting it as a Bonds Memory though. Anyway, there might be some OOCness, a bit of nudity because why not, some blood, but mainly: ONE SHOT.

I don't own the characters but I like messing with them.

Hyuuga Neji had said "I love you" to his girlfriend, Tenten before she could say the same to him. Contrary to the belief of their friends there had not been a romantic dinner involved, there had been no flowers, no beautiful starry night overhead, or any other sense of romance when Neji first spoke those words.

He had not planned proclaiming his love for the kunoichi. Of course, he had wanted to tell her he loved her and had made plans to do it properly but when the words came out, well, not even he had expected it. He did not regret it.

They had been together since fifteen, in secret of course, and Neji knew they would be together as long as they both lived. He planned to ask her to marry him after the war. He wanted to start a family with her. He wanted to grow old with her. He did love her and showed her in the little favors he did for her.

Tenten always grinned when he rubbed her back after she spent an entire day re-stocking and re-arranging her clothes. He would bring her tea in the winter and hold her extra closer when he knew she had become cold. He knew what brand of products she used for everything and had a sixth sense when she had begun to run out.

Tenten didn't know how he predicted when her uterus would rebel on her but he always showed up on her doorstep the morning of with her favorite ice cream and sesame dumplings. He would get her heating pad out, put in one of her favorite movies and simply lie on the couch so she could snuggle against him while he rubbed her back.

None of her friends believed Hyuuga Neji would be capable of so much caring but Tenten didn't mind. She knew he loved her. She did think it would be nice to hear it. Neji knew even this so begun to make his plan. Nothing ever goes according to plan.

Rain poured on them and Neji gritted his teeth. The rain chilled to the marrow of his bones and made his hair sopping wet enough it stuck to his entire back, most of his neck, and on the sides of his face. The Hyuuga robes were plastered to his skin, transparent in some places and if not for the gray outer robe he would be showing off more than he cared.

Tenten sneezed beside him and he wanted to wrap an arm around her to attempt to keep her warm. It would not work in the slightest. He shivered in the downpour and the little warmth he had kept his trunk warm. His hands trembled in cold and he could see blue appearing under his nails.

Tenten kept rubbing her hands together in her soaked gloves but Neji knew it would not work well. She had to try and they both understood this. If she could not throw her weapons properly then everything would go to Hell and they would have a distinct disadvantage, well, another disadvantage.

As it was, the rain made their sentry miserable and neither of them would be able to move as quickly as normal. Their bones ached and they might slip on the damp wood of the trees underfoot when they attacked. There were two of them against a dozen enemies who were nice and comfortable in their tents and wrapped in blankets.

He and Tenten were not in Konoha and though they traversed through the Rain Country many, many times, this place they did not know. They knew every Rain shinobi could use water release and they were surrounded by it. There were so many potentially dangerous situations they could find themselves in Neji did not want to linger.

Despite it all, they had to take these dozen down before morning. Tomorrow, they would attack the little hamlet downstream and along the border of the Hidden in Stone Village. The Hidden in Stone did not have a powerful shinobi force and those shinobi were stretched thin. The shinobi had to guard the border but bandits from the Rain ran rampant through the small Village which had to be taken care of more than borders.

They lack of shinobi made it possible for the Rain to attack along the borders of Hidden in Stone. A few more well placed attacks and Rain would gain a foothold no one wanted to see. Hence, he and Tenten had been sent to the border by Tsunade-sama to stop these dozen. They would be temporary border guards in this place while Hidden in Stone dealt with internal issues and re-grouped.

The plan had been to attack the Rain shinobi once they found them. No one could hold for long against a frontal assault from him and Tenten for long. She would scatter the enemy with well placed bombs while he moved through resulting smoke and shrapnel to take down the blinded and stunned enemies. Tenten would watch his back and keep the enemies on their toes as Neji slammed through them at close range.

It would have worked had it not been raining and had the intelligence on the group been correct. They had thought they would be dealing with five chunin and one jonin level Ran shinobi. Now they had eight chunin and four jonin. They were drenched, chilled, and exhausted from carefully following the group.

"Hey, what's the plan?"

Tenten's voice remained soft but he could hear her teeth chatter softly. They had not discussed a plan in the two miserably wet days they had been following the group towards the unsuspecting Hidden in Stone hamlet. Neji had not even begun to concoct a plan of attack as he had been too focused on not falling out of the trees or falling too far behind the targets.

"Frontal assault is nearly impossible without heavy injury," Neji said.

"I hadn't noticed," Tenten said.

Her sarcasm made him smirk. No other shinobi would dare talk back to him, well except Kiba and sometimes Naruto or Shikamaru. Kiba he could handle with another sarcastic quip which would shut the other man down while Naruto always meant it in jest. Shikamaru always had a better plan so Neji never took offense when Shikamaru used sarcasm.

Ino had learned not to talk back to him on the few missions they had gone on together. Neji huffed at the thought of Ino muttering obscenities under her breath the time he had told her to they were going through the marsh, not around it. Her lack of proper aiming with a smoke bomb had nearly gotten them killed...

"You have smoke bombs with you," Neji said.

"Mmm, not as many as I normally carry since we didn't think we'd need distraction. Six small ones, four medium ones and a dozen large just cuz I hadn't pulled them out of my scroll yet," Tenten said.

A plan had begun to form in his mind. He would never let anyone know it had been because of Ino. Well, more of her lack of proper aim than anything else. He did not have Ino beside him tonight. No, he had the Weapons Mistress of Konoha, able to hit any target perfectly with one shot no matter how impossible, his partner, his guardian, and more importantly: his girlfriend.

"Hn, what about trip wire?"

"Please, you know I always carry miles of the stuff,"

She even waved a hand dismissively. Neji's plan would work then without an issue. First, he had to tell her.

"Of course, how foolish of me,"

"You know it,"

She had a grin on her face and Neji could not help smiling gently. Neji tilted his head to her. He did not have to as Byakugan allowed him to see her but he liked looking into her eyes when he described his plans. He spoke softly and her eyes began to light up. Her smile became brighter and she sat up taller. She nodded vigorously as he pointed out her targets. The Rain shinobi would not be prepared for this assault.

Running had not been part of his plan.

Tenten had done perfectly of course. She had strung her trip wire through kunai and threw them around the tents in such a way they made a tight net around the four tents where three Rain shinobi spoke in a piece. The trip wire acted as a web over the opening of the tents and surrounding areas.

Her smoke bombs, two large ones for each tent, had landed without error, one rolling into the tent and the other going off slightly outside to fill the entire area with thick fog no normal shinobi would be able to see through. Of course, Neji had pulled his hitai-ate down over his eyes and launched out of the tree the moment the smog burst from the bombs.

As predicted the Rain shinobi had tried to run out of their fog-filled tents and began tumbling over the trip wire in front of their tent flaps. Four had been completely caught in Tenten's net and she took them out with ideally placed senbon needles once she felt the vibrations along her trip wire.

Neji, Byakugan activated began to strike out at the confused and infuriated enemies, dancing around their blind strikes and shifting away from Tenten's trip wire traps. The smog had begun to die down because of the rain but Neji had not been concerned as so far eight of the group were down.

He had been moving in for a strike on the ninth shinobi when it happened: the single error in the entire faultless plan. He did not see the trip wire at his ankle thanks to the rain and the lingering fog. His Byakugan had been focused on the enemy in front of him and he took the final step forward to jam two fingers into the back of the man's neck.

One moment he had been raising his right hand to deal the strike which would shoot chakra through the man's brain to kill him. A split second after the thought of the strike passed into his mind, he felt the sharp snap of pain across the front of his ankle. A moment after this his eyes widened and he tried to re-adjust his footing so he did not fall.

It did not help and he began to go down. The shinobi he had been aiming for turned and Neji saw the man sneer. The other shinobi had a kunai in hand all ready and it began coming towards Neji's throat. Neji hardly managed to get one heel under him and half turn. The kunai lodged into his right shoulder and Neji held back his wince.

His left hand came up and he rammed his index and middle finger into the soft part under the shinobi's chin. Blue chakra flashed from his fingers and burst into the man's skull. No other shinobi saw the lightning show in the dying man's head because they lacked Byakugan. Neji tried to move out of the way but he hit the ground.

Pain burst across his left ankle as the six inch taller, at least eighty pound heavier, now dead Rain jonin landed on him. The weight of the man drove the kunai deeper into his shoulder and Neji bit back a grunt. He shoved the dead weight off him thanks to an air palm in the dead man's belly but the other three had recovered from Tenten's initial assault.

Kunai and senbon flew through the air and the men had to back away from him. Neji could see Tenten moving as she threw her weapons, coming towards him to cover him so he could get up and finish off the final three, jonin of course. They could not be lucky enough to have three chunin remaining.

Neji managed to sit up and gained his feet. His left ankle protested and he could not lift his right arm. He could see blood darkening his robes and dripping from the tips of his fingers. This would not be an injury he could quickly recover from without serious intervention.

He lashed out with his left hand with a Mountain Crusher but it had half the power. The three jonin did fumbled backwards and it allowed Tenten to throw another one of her larger smoke bombs in front of them. Neji saw them covering their eyes and felt a tug on his left wrist.

"Let's go," Tenten said.

He nodded and turned to follow her. His left ankle gave out and they stumbled. Tenten kept her feet and Neji winced as her keeping him upright included pushing against his injured shoulder. They took off but had no kind of speed. It had been his fault the plan had not finished off all twelve shinobi and they were running to re-group.

"Ten," he tried.

"Don't talk," Tenten said.

They could not even get into the trees, not with his ankle giving out every dozen or so steps. He knew what they needed. Shelter: a cave or a tree with an opening in its roots large enough to hide under. He could not feel his right arm but he had to ignore this for now. He had to find them somewhere to hide.

The Rain shinobi behind them had gotten their senses together. They did not bother to pack or take weapons from the nine dead men around them. One spotted the trail of blood he left and they began following.

"Ten, they," Neji attempted.

"Yeah, I figured," Tenten muttered.

She tossed something behind her and it landed in front of the Rain shinobi who were a mere fifty meters back. A full-out bomb this time which shook the ground they ran over and made trees explode around the three. Neji watched shrapnel ran onto the three jonin as they were blown back hard into the trees and onto the ground.

He saw bones snap and one man get a rock the size of his head to the stomach. A second hit the truck of a tree so hard three of his ribs broke at his spine. The broken bones were arms, ribs, and noses. One broke an ankle but Neji knew the three would be up once they regained consciousness and start looking for them again.

"Well?" Tenten asked.

His ears rung and he knew she had spoken louder than normally considering the situation. He would not chide her.

"Ribs, arms, noses, one ankle, but they are all unconscious and will be for a few hours," Neji said.

"Good, now find us a cave," Tenten said.

He did not mind being ordered around. He focused but nothing came to his vision field. Neji tried to bear the brunt of his weight but he could tell he had begun failing and quickly. The world had started spinning and his Byakugan to shrink in vision field.

"Ten," Neji managed.

He winced when his toes hit something hard and he began falling. He put out his left hand to try and stop the fall and heard Tenten yelp. He had not meant to fail her...

He'd tripped.

Of all the scenarios which had run through their heads when Neji had told her the plan she had not considered the fact he, Hyuuga Neji, Jonin at fifteen, pride of the Hyuuga clan, the Prodigy, and most importantly: her boyfriend would trip over one of her wires.

Oh sure it happened in training occasionally when the sun happened to be at the right angle and make the wires invisible even to his Byakugan. Him tripping happened so rarely she had never thought it would be an issue in the field but apparently they'd been wrong.

Now she had fallen over with him trying to get him to some semblance of cover. He had landed mainly on his front and she ended up half under him on his injured side and felt the hilt of the kunai jabbing into her upper back.

He'd tripped and gotten a kunai lodged into his shoulder so deeply blood dripped from his fingers. She could feel it seeping into the back of her shirt and Tenten bit her lower lip. She squirmed out from under him as quickly and gently as possible and rolled him onto his back to access the damage.

His thick hair stuck to his forehead and face. It ran across the forehead protector over his eyes and she wanted to brush it all back so she could see his face. She didn't. It would waste the precious moments she had to try and stop the bleeding.

Tenten winced. The kunai had been imbedded to the hilt into his shoulder. She could feel the point of it at the back of his shoulder and saw how his entire right sleeve had gone dark red with blood. She couldn't work on him out in the rain.

Worse, the darkness of the cloudless, starless night worked completely against her now. She would never be able to find shelter without his eyes. She was too far from Konoha to even get him home and still in some area of the Rain country she didn't recognize. They had even gone in the opposite direction of the stupid little backwash town they had been told to save.

Tenten let out a puff of air and closed her eyes. It helped her take mental stock of her scrolls to think of what she had on her which could help them. No tent because they had figured his eyes would always find them a place to hunker down with cover. Sleeping bags, sure but they wouldn't be able to act as cover.

She had the ladder she had brought to their chunin exams but it wouldn't help them. Thousands of kunai, senbon, and shuriken, another coil of (damned) trip wire, some charka absorbing chains and ropes. A variety of swords, their extra set of clothes, various food stuffs so they always had a decent meal, medical supplies, blankets...

Tenten grinned. She pulled Neji by the silly apron towards a thick-trunked tree. The roots were upraised and the tree had a bit of a hole near the ground. Not big enough for both of them to sneak into, not at their close to adult size. They might have made it had they been genin.

Tenten didn't mind. She got out the blankets and her kunai. She stabbed her kunai through the blanket and into the tree in front of her as high as she could. The other end got stabbed into the ground and Tenten fashioned a lean-to out of the blankets and kunai with help from some rope and the tree.

She slipped into it to find it blessedly dry and set to work. She cut Neji's shirt off around the kunai first and winced at the hole in his arm. Tenten pulled out her medical supplies before tugging the kunai out of his shoulder and working to stop the bleeding.

She hated how long it took her to get the bleeding to stop and to wrap his shoulder. His entire chest had become covered in gooseflesh and his pale skin had gone shades lighter from blood loss. He breathed deeply though, soundly, and Tenten listened to the steady thrum of his heart for several long moments.

Tenten let out a breath before sitting back. A shiver raked through her body and Tenten clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering. Stupid rain. She had been soaked right through down to her underwear and likely so had Neji. She hadn't finished her job.

Tenten got one of their sleeping bags out and carefully tucked it into the hole of the tree. She got Neji mainly into the trees cover then put their final blanket over him. Tenten pushed the hair out of his face and put his hitai-ate into its proper position so he didn't freak upon waking up.

She didn't want to go back out into the rain but she had to secure the area. Tenten planted a soft kiss on Neji's cheek and ducked under the blankets. It took her longer than she wanted to set up traps all around their tree, hidden by leaves and tucked into the damp dirt. Three would alert her to someone's presence from as far as half a mile off while the others would launch a rain of senbon onto the victim.

Her hands trembled as she tied a final knot and she tried not to breathe so heavily. Her arms hurt and she couldn't stop feeling cold. She'd never get warm again at this rate. Tenten peered into the direction her bomb had gone off but couldn't even see the explosion site. She raced back to the tree and ducked back under the blankets.

Neji slept peacefully and some of the color had returned to his cheeks. The blankets had done well to stave off the rain and hold in the slightly warmer air. Tenten pulled sticks from one of her scrolls and made a fire swiftly. She had left enough of a gap at ground level to let smoke out without it looking weird and let out a breath.

Heat raced across her cheeks and she shook her head. She had to get out of her wet clothes so she wouldn't catch a cold. Neji hadn't exactly seen her naked yet. He had seen her in a bra and in a bikini but not nude. She needed to take his apron and pants off so he didn't get sick either. Tenten bit her lip and nodded.

She ducked her hands under Neji's blanket first and pulled off his shoes. Easy. The buttons of the apron were in the front and it came off without a problem. She laid it near the fire. Tenten licked her lips and reached back under the blanket. If he opened his eyes he would see her face glowing because damn it the ties of his pants were hiding somewhere and she kept having to feel around his hips, stomach, and lower back. She found the tie at the front and groaned softly at having missed it half a dozen times.

Stupid Hyuuga and tucking the silly tie into the front of the pants so it blended in. At least she knew where it was for...

Nope, she couldn't think of sexy thoughts now. Tenten bit her lip to stop her mind from wandering as she tugged the knot out from its hiding place then untied the knot. Neji's pants slid down his legs easily and within moments she held the wet fabric in her hands. Tenten gulped and put his pants near the fire.

One more item of clothing and Tenten prayed whatever he wore under the pants had been saved from the rain. She dipped her hands back under the blanket and came into contact with his upper thigh. Tenten inhaled sharply and had to cough a few times since she'd begun choking on her spit.

Her hand traveled upwards but did not come into contact with fabric until reaching near his hip. Tenten realized Neji wore briefs and her brain went offline for a few moments. When she came back to reality she realized she had put both hands on his hips and clenched onto the thin material at his hips. The thin, damp, material at his hips.

She had to take off his briefs.

Tenten gulped and had trouble getting the briefs down. They stuck to his skin and she had to use one hand to lift his body upwards. She had never touched his bare butt and wanted to linger but focused instead on getting the wet material off his body. After what felt like hours, she had Neji's briefs in her hands.

They were black and rode high in the hip and low at the waist. They would cover his ass but leave the lower part of it exposed. They would certainly cover his front and Tenten had to take a moment to breathe lest she succumb to the need to fall over in a swoon.

Tenten placed his briefs beside his pants and apron then stripped. She had never gotten naked so quickly and now she regretted it. Tenten got out the other sleeping bag and shoved it as close to Neji as she could. She ducked into it and let out a long breath. The fire crackled three feet away from her and their clothes were lined up to dry three feet above her and away from the fire. Another four feet separated the fire from the edge of the blankets and she had enough room to stretch out flat on her back without her toes hanging out of the blanket fort.

The night wore on but none of her traps went off. Tenten knew the three jonin could not attack the little village as injured as they were. Even farmers knew enough to stab with pitchforks or throw rocks at weakened shinobi with broken ribs or faces.

Their enemies had to be re-grouping somewhere and as soon as she felt dry and warm she would go out to see if she could find them. It would be difficult without Neji and his Byakugan but if she could get a well placed senbon coated with poison into all three then they could focus on getting back to Konoha.

"Tenten,"

She turned her head at the sound of her name to look straight into Neji's white eyes. He hadn't opened his eyes all the way and they were glazed from sleep. Hair had fallen across his forehead again and she couldn't help lift her hand to push it out of his face. A little smile tilted his lips upward and she grinned.

He would be okay. Sure he had lost a lot of blood and had been drenched but she had gotten him to safety and he would heal. It might take a few months, weeks if Sakura and Tsunade-sama had anything to say about it, but he would be fine. They had even protected the stupid little village and it hadn't been so bad but...

"I love you,"

Her hand froze on his scalp, tangled in his soft, thick, pretty, pretty hair, and she wished she could close her mouth and her eyes wouldn't bug out of her skull. His lips curled into a bigger smile and his eyes closed. He fell back asleep and she wanted to shake him awake. It would hurt his shoulder and besides, his proclamation of love had made her all giddy and giggly. She didn't want to freak him out or hurt him.

Tenten grinned and kept her hand tangled in his hair. She moved so she could snuggle closer to his side and put her other hand on his chest, over his heart, not really caring her sleeping bag had come down to expose her collarbones, shoulders, and a bit of her breasts.

Neji loved her.

It took him several long moments to assess the situation. Neji blinked grit out of his eyes and spotted a fire over Tenten's bare shoulder. There were blankets beyond the fire and above her but he had mainly been shoved into a hole in a tree. He lay on his sleeping bag, she in hers but a single blanket covered him from neck to over his feet.

His shoulder throbbed and his left ankle protested but these could wait. His groggy mind could not get passed Tenten's bare shoulder, her exposed collarbones, and the soft curve of the tops of her breasts. He could not see the areola but damn he had never seen this much.

One of her hands rested atop his head, her deft fingers curled into his hair and clutching while the other lay flat over his heart, more specifically, against his bare chest. Neji could feel he had been stripped of every bit of clothing and spotted his pants, outer robe, and his briefs drying by the fire.

Tenten's pants, shirt, breast bindings, and panties were close to his clothing and Neji gulped. She lay naked in her sleeping bag, as nude as he lay atop his under a blanket. They were naked and beside each other. Blankets protected them from the rain and Neji knew trip wires would alert them to any enemy who came within a half a mile of their warm little cocoon.

He could not get past the fact they were nude.

Neji let out a long breath and focused on Tenten's face. Her eyes were closed and the high points of her cheeks were pink thanks to the warmth kept in from the blankets around them. Neji took a moment to admire the ingenuity of Tenten's lean-to then looked back to her.

She had not removed her hair from its customary buns nor had she taken off her hitai-ate. Her lips were parted, pink and damp, and she breathed deeply in sleep. His eyes wandered down the graceful curve of her neck and slipped down the tanned skin of her collarbones for a moment before sticking on the slightly lighter skin of the tops of her breasts.

He swallowed with difficulty and willed the blood flowing to his groin to go anywhere else. A tent had formed all ready and Neji kept his groan back. Damn his hormones, the single part of him he had not learned to fully control when in contact with Tenten.

Naked contact with little separating their flesh from running over each other and feeling the heat of...

Neji rubbed his eyes with the fingers of his left hand and bit his lip. He could not, would not, think of sex now. Despite his beautiful girlfriend being beside him while her clothes were well away from her body and the damned sleeping bag had sunk low in the front.

Neji rolled his left ankle and the pain brought his mind out of the bad (wonderful) place it had sunk to. He let out a long breath and felt movement beside him. Neji held his breath and shifted his eyes to Tenten's face. Her eyelids opened and she blinked a few times.

Her brown eyes with their little flecks of gold met his and her cheeks went pinker. A smile crossed her face and Neji felt her hand tighten in his hair as she pulled closer to him. The sleeping bag slipped down a little more but she spoke:

"So, you love me huh?"

Neji froze and stared into her amused expression. When had he? Why had he? There would have been an entire evening dedicated where he would finally say those three words under the moonlight at the little pond they found where the fireflies congregated and they could smell the sweetness of the flowers in the air...

He had seen her leaning over him with a worried expression on her face as she pushed the hair back from his forehead. He had known she had fixed his shoulder and would stay with him until he felt ready to move despite the mission. His heart had been so full and he had been so giddy (probably in part due to blood loss but he didn't care now) and her head had been haloed with light. The words had slipped out.

"Yes," Neji said.

"Good timing, Hyuuga," Tenten said.

She had a coy grin on her face and Neji chuckled. Her sarcasm made his embarrassment slip away. Her smile allowed his nervousness fade and he knew she accepted his love and would without issue.

"My timing is always impeccable, Tenten," Neji said.

"Uh-huh, you keep thinking that, dumpling,"

She hadn't stopped grinning. Neji shifted closer to her, carefully, and the hand she had on his chest wrapped around him so she lay flush against him in her sleeping bag. It had come down more but now her pressing against his side had stopped the view of her chest.

"I will because we both know it is true,"

"Oh sugar-pie,"

She giggled and Neji smiled. Neji wanted to shift so they could lie face to face but he would have to move onto his right side. His shoulder would not allow it so he had to be satisfied with her front against his right side. Neji frowned when he remembered how they had come to this place and he hummed.

"Aww, don't think of the mission now," Tenten said.

"We have no choice," Neji said.

He activated Byakugan and spotted the signs of three alert-type traps and dozens which would rain senbon down onto a victim in his vision field. They had made it hardly six hundred meters from the site of the explosion and the three injured shinobi had simply crawled away from the blast site to one side, huddled close to a tree which provided little protection.

The one who had taken the rock to the stomach had his eyes closed and his chakra barely moved. It had gone dim and Neji could see the man would die of internal bleeding shortly. The one with the broken ankle hadn't stopped shivering and his chakra focused on his trunk alone. His hands and feet had gone too pale and his eyes were too wide. The final one with the broken ribs scarcely breathed and Neji could see all three ribs had pierced the man's lungs.

"Hn,"

"What?"

"They are near the explosion site, six hundred meters out and dying from injuries or the coldness of the rain,"

"So, we don't have to move?"

She had stuck out her lower lip in a pout when he re-focused to look on her. The three were not going to be able to go far. One would assuredly die in half an hour while the other two would be too injured to help themselves let alone their partners. They would be dead within half a day.

"No, we do not have to move, well except for food," Neji said.

"Good. Right food, yeah, we should eat. Turn off Byakugan and close your eyes," Tenten told him.

Neji did so reluctantly and heard Tenten get out of her sleeping bag. He heard the familiar puff of air as she summoned something then the rustle of clothing as she got dressed. Something landed on him, soft but heavy and he raised his eyebrows.

"I'm dressed. That's your back up set of clothes,"

Tenten had turned her back to him and Neji hummed in thanks. He had to push the covers off him and it took a moment to navigate his briefs onto his body with one hand. He could not get his pants on or his shirt. Neji huffed at the uselessness of his right arm then glanced over to Tenten's back.

"Tenten?"

He ignored the heat in his cheeks when she turned. Her eyes went wide but she nodded. She helped him into his pants and he tried not to linger on how she tied the knot he used and tucked the knot into the hidden area of his pants.

She pulled the left side of his shirt on first before they carefully moved his right arm into the sleeve. It hurt and he had to bite his tongue keep awake but his shirt had been put into place. She got his outer robe on then helped him into his shoes.

Neji watched as she began making them something to eat. He did not concentrate on the food but the way her hands moved as she prepared the meal. The little expressions of concentration when she had to get the food cooked made him smile. Her beaming grin when she presented him with the meal made his heart race and warmth spread through him.

"I love you," Neji said.

He could not help it. Besides, it had come out once without negative repercussions so why would it be different this time? He grinned when she had to catch their plates and her entire face went pink.

"You, you, you're going to tell me all the time now, aren't you?"

"Yes,"

"Softie,"

"Hn,"

He took his plate from her and frowned. He could not eat left handed. Tenten spied the issue and snickered. She sat beside him and placed their plates side by side in front of them. Neji blinked when she offered him food from her chopsticks.

"You're lucky I love you back,"

Neji took the offered food with a smile. He certainly had a peculiar amount of luck. He would not question it. Tenten loved him and her love would be more than enough.

Reviews welcome.