From: Girl #13
You.
From: Dickless Bastard
I see you still have my number.
From: Girl #13
I see you still remember who I am.
From: Dickless Bastard
What do you want.
From: Girl #13
You. Library. Now.
From: Dickless Bastard
Who are you to order me anywhere?
From: Girl #13
As your partner for this history project, I think I have every right to order you to come to the library so we CAN ACTUALLY WORK.
From: Dickless Bastard
And if I don't?
From: Girl #13
Don't make me bring out the big guns.
From: Dickless Bastard
You do realize I'm still in class.
An inaudible sigh fell from Neji's lips as he sent his reply. He went to put his phone away only for it to buzz not a moment later with a new message.
From: Girl #13
So? Skip. I'm sure the great and revered Hyuuga Neji can manage to con his way out of class.
He stared at the message a moment longer, opting to ignore the girl and turned his attention back to the book at hand. His phone buzzed yet again and he fished it out of his pockets.
From: Girl #13
I know you read my message you bastard. Do it before I do it for you.
Making quick work of his phone, he deleted the message and turned back to his book, intent on finishing before the class was over. Completely submerging himself into the world of the book, he paid little attention the teacher or his classmates, only vaguely aware of the lecture going on.
He barely even glanced up as the door flew open.
"Sensei, Hyuuga Neji has to report to the nurse's office."
Neji finally looked up from the text in front of him at the sound of his name, eyes instantly landing on Tenten standing in the doorway.
"Is there something wrong?" the teacher questioned.
Tenten nodded her head fervently. "Yes! His cousin, Hyuuga Hinata, fell down the stairs—"
Neji abruptly stood, knocking his chair over as he grabbed his pack and, without a single word to his teacher, stalked out the door, Tenten trailing behind him.
He was halfway to the nurse's office before Tenten spoke up. "Hyuuga, I lied."
Neji stopped and slowly turned, eyes flashing dangerously at the girl wearing an infuriatingly smug look behind him. In two long strides, Neji towered over Tenten, his tall frame overshadowing her rather short one. She barely flinched as his hard gaze swept over her, her eyes dancing with unmistakable mirth, a smug smile tugging at her lips.
"I told you. Get your ass out of class yourself or I do it for you," she smirked, turning on her heel and sauntering down the hall in the opposite direction for the library.
-.-
"Alright," Tenten said, dropping a large pile of books onto the table, "what do you know about the history of weaponry?"
"And you're telling me this couldn't have waited until after school?"
"It's weapons! I could hardly wait till my prep and you want me to wait till after school?" she argued, crossing her arms and dropping into the chair across from him childishly. "Besides, you were the one who decided to follow me here anyways."
"There's no point in going back to class after you so rudely forced me out," he countered coolly. "You could've done the research on your own."
"I did not," Tenten muttered defensively, opting to ignore his second statement, sliding further down the chair until she fell and landed in an ungraceful heap underneath the table. She popped back up, pinning Neji with an expressionless glare.
"I did not just do that."
"Of course," Neji drawled.
"I did not," she repeated adamantly. She smacked a hand impatiently down onto the table, flinching at the pain rippling through her arm. "Now quit dawdling and tell me, what do you know about the history of weaponry."
Neji sighed, letting his head fall into the open palm of his hands. "Weapons have been in use since the prehistoric times, mainly for hunting and defense. They were made using stone up until metal, mainly copper, was discovered."
Tenten hummed thoughtfully, tapping her fingers against the table. "So you do know something about weapons. Of course, not as much as me, but still."
"I'm sure no one's knowledge on weapons is greater than yours, save your parents."
"Damn straight," she proclaimed proudly.
"So why am I needed?"
"Because," she whined pathetically, throwing her hands dramatically up into the air, "I can't stand doing all the work in a group project. Therefore, you are here so you can have half the work and I can do less."
"Thank you for taking my needs into such consideration," he muttered, flipping idly through one of the books she had gathered.
"You're welcome," Tenten replied airily.
-.-
From: Girl #13
We're not doing a powerpoint.
From: Dickless Bastard
I thought you liked doing less work.
From: Girl #13
But powerpoints are BORING!
From: Dickless Bastard
So?
From: Girl #13
Besides, too many other people'll be doing powerpoints. Let's be original!
From: Dickless Bastard
Instead of a powerpoint, let's use an excel spread.
From: Girl #13
…sarcasm doesn't suit you.
-.-
"So, I was thinking, we could bring in mock weapons and have the class engage in battle."
"What are you doing sitting here?"
"What?" Tenten stopped shoveling food into her mouth long enough to give Neji a perplexed look.
"When we were assigned this project, you said and I quote, word for word, 'I'd rather die than be caught in public with you again'."
"Are you sure I said I'd rather die? Seems to be a bit too histrionic to be me." She waved her chopsticks to indicate at their surroundings. "In case you haven't noticed, we're not exactly in public eyes."
Neji rolled his eyes, intercepting Tenten's hand with a smack to stop her from pilfering one of his egg rolls. "What makes you think having a mock weapons' battle is a good idea?"
"Stupid, stingy bastard," Tenten mumbled, nursing her stinging wrist, eyes still trained on the egg roll. "Why not?"
"Not everyone's a weapons fanatic like you."
"What's wrong with loving weapons?" Tenten asked defensively, leaning back to stare down at him.
"Nothing," Neji answered. "Unless it's you."
Tenten huffed. "Don't make me stab my chopsticks into your eyes. They make for great weapons when need be."
He arched a brow at her as if to say she just proved his point. Tenten pouted, her arms crossing huffily under her chest.
"I still think it's a great idea."
-.-
From: Girl #13
We need to meet outside of school if we want to finish this project on time.
From: Dickless Bastard
And you are just realizing this.
From: Girl #13
…..SHUT UP.
From: Girl #13
Library. Your house. My house.
From: Dickless Bastards
Library.
From: Girl #13
What? Afraid I'll embarrass you in front of your family?
From: Dickless Bastard
You'd be more prone to embarrassing yourself than me. On that thought, let's work at my place.
From: Girl #13
You know what? You can SUCK IT.
-.-
"Apparently historians believed that Chinese didn't consider gunpowder important and yet they still used them constantly in battle."
"Uh-huh."
"Ooh! And then, during the Song Dynasty, crossbows were fitted so that they could shoot multiple arrows at once, able to kill multiple men in one go!"
"Very interesting."
"And then—"
"Can you stop focusing so much on Asian weaponry and put some more effort into European artillery?" Neji finally snapped.
Tenten stopped scribbling, head snapping up, a look of horror slowly settling on her face. "How can you say that! Wound my Asian pride, why don't you!"
"I'm also Asian."
"You are?" she asked, surprised. She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips, finger tapping thoughtfully against her chin. She smacked her head when it hit her. "Doi. Hyuuga. Largest corporation in Japan."
"Only you would forget, even after knowing it for years."
"Not forget!" Tenten proclaimed hotly. "Just a mere oversight, tis all."
"Uh-huh." Neji remained unconvinced.
Tenten shoved him and smacked him with the first book she picked up, snarling, "Fuck you."
Pushing back her bangs, she reached over and grabbed Neji's notebook out of his hands, eyes skimming across the page. Her eyes narrowed in hatred at his impeccably neat handwriting.
"Why do you have such nice handwriting?"
Neji cocked an eyebrow. "That's what you're hung up on."
"Fuck you."
"Once is enough, thank you very much."
Her witty retort died at the tip of her tongue, the shock of Hyuuga Neji joking taking over. "You have a sense of humor?"
"It's not that surprising."
"Yes it is!" she exclaimed, throwing the notebook aside and grabbed at her phone, finger flying across the keypad. "It's common knowledge that your sense of humor eloped with your overall personality and ditched you. Sakura and Ino will have a field day."
Neji's hand immediately shot out and snapped her phone shut. He grabbed her phone, keeping the electronic out of her reach. "You will not go around gossiping about me with your tittering friends."
Tenten sat back and scowled at him. "Okay. First of all, Sakura and Ino will maim you for describing them as 'tittering'. And second of all, just because my phone was out and I happened to be texting, that doesn't mean I was gossiping about you."
Neji cocked an eyebrow. "Right."
"I wasn't! Now let's get back to work. And give me back my phone."
-.-
From: Dickless Bastard
You do know this project is due in two weeks and we've barely gotten anything done.
From: Girl #13
Yes. And whose fault would that be?
From: Dickless Bastard
Yours.
From: Girl #13
How so?
From: Dickless Bastard
If you'd manage to stay on task for longer than five minutes, we'd actually have gotten somewhere.
From: Girl #13
Go stick your inviso-dick into a hole and shrivel up like raisin.
From: Dickless Bastard
You should really clean that mouth of yours out.
-.-
"Right," Tenten said, dropping her bag into an open chair as she took the one across from Neji, taking a sip of the coffee in hand, "so we have, give or take, a week and a half left to finish this project. I am not doing a powerpoint."
"We are not having a mock weapons' battle."
"Wasn't going to resuggest it," she replied airily, waving a hand dismissively, digging through her bag for her notebook as Neji slid his across the table at her.
He picked up hers, flipping thought the pages idly, eyebrows rising with each subsequent page. "What horrible handwriting. This is all on ancient Chinese weaponry."
"Don't judge." Tenten looked at him as if he were crazy. She made a gesture, drawing a circle in the air around her face. "Well, doi. Chinese pride."
Neji remained unamused.
"Oh don't be like that," Tenten cajoled as she tore out a spare sheet of paper and began scribbling furiously. "There's also Japanese and Korean weaponry somewhere in there."
"That makes it so much better."
"I've told you multiple times, sarcasm doesn't suit you."
"I wasn't being sarcastic."
Tenten flitted her eyes to glance through her lashes, taking in Neji's straight face, and rolled her eyes.
"I'll believe that."
She finished off her list with a flourish. With a satisfied grin, she handed both notebooks over to Neji and stuffed the paper into one of her backpack's side compartments. "Just compile all the notes together into a presentation."
"There will be no mock weapons' battle," Neji reiterated flatly.
"For the love of all things holy," she muttered in irritation, "I swear on my great-grandfather's moldy old bones that I'm not going to do that."
-.-
From: Girl #13
Did you finish your part?
From: Dickless Bastard
Who do you think you're talking to?
From: Girl #13
Fine. But it'd better not be boring
From: Dickless Bastard
And yours better not be over the top.
From: Girl #13
In your dreams
-.-
Neji stared in well-disguised horror at the pile of wooden weapons Tenten dumped at his feet. He continued to stare as Tenten dropped to her knees and started to sort through the pile, separating them into "Europe" and "Asia".
"I thought I told you not to go overboard."
Tenten's head shot up, hands hovering over a broadsword, looking confused. "I didn't. There're a lot of weapons I left out."
He remained skeptical. Mentally counting all the weapons that he could see, Neji stopped when reaching thirty-five and seeing that there were plenty more to go. "There has got to be more than fifty different weapons it that pile."
Tenten shrugged helplessly. "So I couldn't choose what to throw away and what to keep. Sue me."
"And you didn't go overboard?"
Tenten lightly tapped her head in a show of hitting herself, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth comically. "So maybe I went a little overboard."
"A little," Neji parroted.
Tenten nodded fervently. "Yes."
Neji took another look at the growing piles of weapons. "You are not demonstrating any more than seven," he deadpanned.
Tenten's eyes widened, horror settling onto her features. Dropping the crossbow that she as holding, she scrambled up hastily. "What? Why?"
"You'd be there for a month and a half nonstop."
"But….but," she whimpered, her lower lip wobbling as her eyes welled up with tears. "Do you know how hard it is to choose just seven?"
He just stared emotionlessly at her. She returned it with a teary eyed glare, lips pouted, an occasional sniffle interspersed here and there. The unspoken war of wills waged on, neither giving any edge.
"That look never worked on me before, what makes you think it would now?"
Tenten huffed, wiping away at the tears that had gathered at the corners of her eyes. "Who knows. Your heart of ice could've melted for all I know."
Tenten turned her eyes to gaze forlornly at her pile of weapons. She whimpered dejectedly, fingers caressing the carved wood of a spear. "This is going to be painful, having to choose just seven."
-.-
From: Girl #13
Just so you know, I happen to be able to pick just seven.
From: Dickless Bastard
Took you long enough.
From: Girl #13
SHUT UP. IT IS A MIRACLE I WAS ABLE TO DO IT THIS TIME. I WAS GOING INSANE.
From: Dickless Bastard
Should I be worried about your sanity then?
From: Girl #13
What sanity? ;P
From: Dickless Bastard
….
-.-
"A 'B'?"
Tenten stared in mild surprise at the giant red letter glaring off the white paper.
"I'm shocked," Neji drawled, coming up behind Tenten. "Considering you stabbed a guy, I thought for sure you'd fail."
"It was an accident, okay?" Tenten wailed. "I didn't know that a wooden, blunt katana could hurt someone so horribly."
"And now you do."
"At least I didn't shoot an arrow at him."
"Like that's any better."
"Ah well," she chirped, stuffing her grade into her backpack, "I'll take whatever I get."
Swinging her bag over her shoulders, she hummed, stretching her arms to relieve her muscles. Tapping her chin thoughtfully, she murmured, "I could really do with a coffee right about now."
"Two creams, three sugars."
Tenten stopped walking, tilting her head to observe Neji with twinkling eyes. "Looks as though you still remember. Are you offering to pay?"
Neji didn't bother to answer, sauntering down the rest of the hallway. Tenten blinked owlishly after him, angling her head to stare after him in confusion. Cupping her mouth, she called after him, "Are you?"
He stopped walking when he reached the doors, shooting her an impatient glare. Realization dawned on Tenten.
She laughed, rushing to catch up to him.
"If this is your way of asking me out again, honey, you have got to do better."