It was an early fall morning and the trees were turning to beautiful shades of red, gold, and brown.
Dew was still on many of the plants in the area and the sun shone just enough to make it glimmer but still keep the sleepy atmosphere.
Tenten, however, noticed none of this.
Her mind was on her tardy teammate.
'Where could he be?' she wondered, "Neji's never late to practice.'
She was standing in a tree scanning the path to their training ground. Not a sign of life had she spotted on it.
She got an annoyed look on her face. 'He always says tardiness is one of the worst qualities a person can have. He always tells me that when I'm late. And yet he decides it's just fine for him to be late. What a hypocrite!'
The annoyment left her face as a thought struck her. 'Wait, what if he's in trouble?' She bit her lip.
Just then a white blob made its way up the path.
Tenten was momentarily relieved, but quickly switched into annoyed mode since there was nothing to be worried about.
"Neji! What took you so long? Isn't tardiness one f the worst qualities a person can… Hey wait, is that a black eye? What happened?!"
Tenten looked in shock at Neji's shiner.
Neji scowled at her.
"It is none of your concern." He said stiffly.
Tenten blinked. "Of course it's my concern! What were you doing? Did you walk into a door?"
Neji just continued with his glare for a couple more minutes. Then finally he spoke. "We should be training, not wasting time with childish antics, Tenten."
Tenten frowned but turned and went to the training ground. Something here was just not adding up. She would get to the bottom of this.
"Tenten? Aren't you ready?"
Tenten smiled at her teammate and drew some scrolls from her pouch. Yes, she was going to figure out what was up with her teammate. Even if he didn't want her to.