How Do I Work This?

By MadnessinmyMethod

Chapter One: How Now Brown Cow: An Introduction

Neji and Tenten had almost always been excellent teammates. Neji had intimidated Tenten for the longest time and it took Neji quite awhile to understand and respect Tenten. She originally thought Neji was far superior to her in every way and stood in awe of him. He had thought Tenten was boring, somewhat strange, and generally beneath his notice.

But working together each day, particularly with such characters as their mentor, Gai-sensei, and their fellow teammate, Rock Lee, brought them closer. Every now and then, Tenten fancied herself in love (or as she called it "deep like") with Neji. Occasionally, Neji found himself more than fond of Tenten. But these impulses were never acted upon. They were too busy training, or going on missions etc. It wasn't the right time to say anything.

And so they grew. Their friendship and teamwork was rivaled by few. Their skills developed. Neji always beat Tenten, but that never seemed to matter. When he became a chunin, she worked harder to become one too. And when he became a jounin, it was not long before she joined him.

Tenten saw one of Neji's students running through the streets in her direction. She struggled to remember his name. The boy had a fine shock of red hair and, if Tenten remembered correctly, he had a personality that was a cruel combination of Rock Lee and Uzumaki Naruto. Poor Neji!

"Ah-ha!" she said to herself, finally remembering his name.

The boy skidded to a halt in front of her. "Tenten-sensei," he panted.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Tsunade-sama wishes to see you," he said, a little less breathlessly.

"Thank you, Zei-kun." Tenten nodded at the poor boy and leapt off. As fun as it could be to send the genin on all the silly errands, there had to be a more effective mode of communication. Tenten pondered this as she went, gazing idly at the scenes around her. Lee training his own team of genin, Sakura exasperated by Sai and Naruto during yet another of their "manly eating contests" (ramen, of course), a couple kids throwing their kunai at a tree.

By the time she had finished her pondering of communication and the various goings-on of Konoha, Tenten had reached the much loathed stairs that led to the Hokage's office and she was forced to climb them all. All three-hundred and forty-six of them (she had counted them a few years ago). Tenten knocked resolutely on the office door, wondering what fate lay ahead of her.

"Come in, Tenten," she heard the Hokage call. Tenten breathed a sigh of relief at Tsunade's lack of extreme agitation. The Hokage could be horribly unforgiving at times.

Tenten found that there were four people besides herself in the office, three of whom she knew very well, and one who was a complete stranger. The three she knew were Tsunade, the esteemed Hokage; Shizune, Tsunade's honorable aide and protégé; and Neji, Tenten's own particular friend and comrade.

"Now that everyone is here," Tsunade said, "we can begin. Shizune," she prompted.

"Neji, Tenten, this is Mr. Artsuma Takeda," Shizune said, introducing the stranger. "He is our client for this mission. Mr. Takeda has a son named Shou who is engaged to be married to a young lady named Kuma. Recently the couple has disappeared and because of Mr. Takeda's important standing in this country, abduction is suspected."

"So we have to find them?" Neji asked. It seemed to him to be a silly thing for two jounin to do when perhaps one jounin and his genin team, or even a few chunin would suffice.

"Yes," said Shizune, "but that is not all that you must accomplish. Shou's and Kuma's presence is required for certain events beyond Mr. Takeda's control, so the two of you must pretend to be the couple."

"Come again?" Tenten asked a little too loudly.

"Shizune," Tsunade interrupted irritably, "perhaps you had best escort our guest to the lobby to fill out the paperwork while I explain the rest of the mission."

"Yes, Tsunade-sama. If you will please follow me, Mr. Takeda."

The office was silent until the door was firmly shut and Tsunade was sure their client was completely out of earshot. "Look, you two. Mr. Takeda is credibly wealthy. This mission and its success are highly important to the financial well-being of this village and therefore your well-being. Do I make myself clear?"

"Hai," Neji and Tenten said quickly, both with absolutely no doubt in their minds that Tsunade was perfectly capable of carrying out that threat.

"Good. Now the two of you will put on a very convincing act as the engaged couple. You will recover the real couple and do whatever else Artsuma Takeda asks of you. I trust you will handle this professionally. That is why I chose you both for this mission."

They nodded.

"Here's a photograph of Kuma and Shou. A standard genjustsu ought to do the trick. I have some basic files on them so you may acquaint yourselves with their characters and lives. I'm sure Mr. Takeda will fill you in on any other necessary details." She paused, giving Tenten and Neji time to look at the photograph of the smiling couple and glance through the files ("No fair! Neji gets to be a masochistic bastard! I just get to be a lame airhead!" "What's the difference from usual?" "Neji, you jerk!" "SHUT UP!")

"Now then," Tsunade said a little heatedly. "Go join Shizune and Mr. Takeda in the lobby and get out of here. Don't screw up. Oh, your genjutsus!"

Neji and Tenten nodded and transformed themselves into an engaged couple. Neji ran his hand through Shou's short hair. He grimaced. "Weird."

"No kidding," Tenten said. "My boobs got bigger!"

Tsunade sighed as they departed from her office. "And here I thought two jounin from Konoha could be professional. What has the world come to?"

"Baachan!"

"Oh, hell no!"

Within a half an hour, Neji and Tenten had been shoved into a carriage with Artsuma Takeda and were on their way to some obscure portion of the Fire Country that would take a day and a half to reach. The worst part of the journey however was being trapped in a confined space while Mr. Takeda told the story of how Shou and Kuma had met.

"…when she saw him save those poor kittens, it was love at first sight."

Tenten mouthed the words "gag me" at Neji who smirked in reply. He was trying to be slightly more expressive since Shou clearly talked more than Neji did.

Neji and Tenten tried to hold in their sighs when they finally stopped for the night, but their relief was rather evident as they stood outside the cozy looking hotel.

"Well," said Artsuma Takeda quietly as they entered, "Shou and Kuma usually share a room. I trust you have no problem with that." Neji and Tenten had a huge problem with that. Did this man think that ninjas were savages with no sense of decency? Tenten was about to open her mouth to give the man a piece of her mind, but Neji put a hand on her shoulder to quiet her.

"It will be perfectly fine," he said shortly.

"Fantastic," Mr. Takeda said and Tenten struggled to suppress thought on how thrilled the man must be about saving money by only getting his ninjas one room and how she longed to tear him limb from limb very slowly.

When at last Neji and Tenten were alone, all hell broke loose. "Who does he think he is thinking ninjas have no morality? What gives him the right? He's a bastard. A total bastard. He's just lucky he's rich or I'd wipe the floor with him. I'd… I'd—"

"Tenten!" Neji said loudly. He had been trying to interrupt her for awhile now.

"What?" she snapped.

"I'll sleep on the floor if it'll make you feel better."

"Oh, Neji, I'm not worried about that. It's just that pompous Artsuma Takeda. And dear gods, the kitten story. What a nightmare!"

Neji continued to listen to Tenten rant, pausing only to open the door and allow the hotel staff to bring in dinner. "Perhaps you should eat, Tenten," Neji said. She nodded and continued to spew out gibberish between intervals of actual eating.

Eventually, even Tenten ran out of things to talk about having digressed not too long ago about how bushy Lee's eyebrows had gotten ("I swear, they're alive or something, Neji!").

"Sleeping would be advisable," Neji said.

"You're probably going to have to stop using such big words, Neji. I doubt Shou knows what "advisable" means," Tenten replied with a smile.

"Hn."

"Oh alright then. Sleeping it is." She giggled.

"Pervert," Neji muttered turning off the lights one by one.

"I didn't say anything!" Tenten protested.

"You were thinking it," he replied.

"So now you're a mind reader too?"

"Yes."

"Alright then, Neji, what am I thinking?"

Neji did a very terrible impersonation of a girl. "Oh my god, like, Neji is so much awesomer than me!" Tenten raised her hand to smack him, but he caught her arm deftly. "See? Awesome."

"Jerk."

He smirked and let her go. "So about those perverted things I was allegedly thinking about," she said, "in your dreams, perv. And try not to hog all the covers tonight. I may just have to beat you with a stick if you do and you know I have several sizable ones for the job."

"Hn," Neji replied and joined her under the small pile of blankets the hotel had provided them.

For a few moments they lay quietly in the dark, but that of course didn't last. "Neji, stop grabbing my ass."

"I'm not."

"Then who is?"

"I don't know."

"Is there anyone else in this bed?"

"Doubtful."

"Then it must be you!"

"Tenten, with all due respect, you're full of shit. Go to sleep."

And so began Neji's and Tenten's harrowing adventure. An adventure involving pirates, buried treasure, and dark terrible magic…

Okay, so their adventure would have none of those things, but it would be a great adventure nonetheless, one that would test the ties of their relationship either to bring them closer together than ever before or to tear them tragically apart forevermore.

Author's Note: Hey Everyone, I hope you enjoyed this first chapter of How Do I Work This? I've been working for a few months now figuring out how to write a decent NejiTen fic and hopefully I haven't completely (pardon my language here) fucked this up. Well, I feel pretty confident about it's quality anyway, so I hope you liked reading it as much as I liked writing it and please leave a review if you don't mind. Next Chapter should be up probably within a week.