This one shot is a companion to my other story, the meeting of ways. It starts slightly before Ed notices their arival at the ramen stand and warns her about a certain white haired shinobis hobby and leaves.
DISCLAIMER: Also, I don't own any of the characters from Naruto or Full Metal Alchemist. They're just unwitting pawns in the satisfying of my needs.
TenTen, Neji and Lee had been training all morning. With the exception of Lee, every one was exausted by their sensei's rather unorthodox training methods. Of course with Might Gai's training regimine, exausted is a MAJOR understatement. They had just got done with the sparing section of todays training when Lee challanged Neji to an eating contest.
'Great, just great. Now not only do I have to train till I feel like crawling into bed and sleeping for a week, I have to go see Lee and Neji make asses of themselves...though Neji stuffing his face till bursting would be a funny sight' thaught TenTen as a sigh escaped her lips.
20 minutes later they arived at their designation for the contest: Ichiraku's Ramen. When every body was inside, TenTen noticed that Ed was sitting down and eating his ramen, a look of concentration on his face. 'ooo Ed's here, but whares the old fart that was with him last time? Oh well, maybe this time I can strike up a decent conversation while I ogle him' thaught TenTen as she sat down next to him.
TenTen was about to open her mouth to speak when she was beat to the punch by her own loud mouthed sensei.
"Ah, good afternoon Edward" said Gai surprisingly not yelling.
"YES, GOOD AFTERNOON MY YOUTHFULL FRIEND" said Lee, yelling as usual.
"Afternoon TenTen, Lee, um...Neji, right? Hows goes the training?" Ed asked. TenTen stifled a chuckle and was about to answer when she was yet again cut off by her green clad teammate, Lee.
"YOSH, MY SPIRIT OF YOUTH IS BURNING SO BRIGHT GAI-SENSEI DECIDED TO TEACH ME A NEW TECHNIQUE!" 'Neji's such an ass, he can't even be social around Ed' she thaught as Lee was talking exuberently.
"Thats great Lee! hey, I'll jog with ya tomarrow morning, I've just been so busy working with the pervert that I've barely had anytime to do anything other than sleep."
Lee punched his fist into the air as a response being as there was now food in his mouth.
"So, uh, how ya been TenTen?" Ed asked and was too busy looking in his bowl with a slight blush to notice TenTens slight one.
'Play it cool, dont let him know how nervous he makes you feel around him' TenTen thaught. "I've been good, got alot of moving target practice today. Um, how about you Ed?" 'damn he's so cute.'
"Eh, I've been working with the legendary pervert. You know, he isn't too bad once you get him to stop peeping at the hot springs...by the way, you might want to stay away from the hot springs, other wise you might end up in one of his perv novels."
"I'll do that, thanks for the warning Ed" replied Tenten.
"Hey, TenTen...um, your parents run a weapons shop right?"
"Yea, in fact they make all of them on site, why?" 'I wonder whare this line of thaught's going? I hope that doesnt scare him off.'
"Uh, no reason. Hey, I'll stop by there some time, maybe get a custom peice made. Well, I've got to go. See ya around."
"Oh, well, ok. See ya Ed." she said and then sighed as he walked out.
She looked down at her noodles that she had forgotten about while talking with Ed and ogling him. She then looked over to her sensei and asked what bowl they were on and he simply replied that they were on bowls 11 & 12, respectively. 'Why do they always do this? Why is Neji always giving into Lees petty little chalenges? Oh well, at least I dont have to pay for their food.' It was with that thaught that TenTen went to pay for her lunch, only find out that Ed had left enough money and some instructions to pay for her lunch. She blushed at the thaught of him paying for her lunch because he liked her, then wrote it off as him paying for the information she gave him, even though all she told him was that her parents owned a weapons shop. That killed her blushing then and there, and it was replaced by a slight feeling of being used.
She left the ramen stand, bidding her teammates and sensei goodbye and headed home for some more 'target practice'. As she was walking home she got lost in thaughts concerning a certain Hyuuga and the stick up his ass when it came to dealing with people, his high and mighty attitude, and the seeming act of thinking he was better than everyone else. Her thaughts slowly drifted twords the enigma that was Ed. Whare was he from, what were his likes, how she thaught he was cute, his odd style of clothes, his similar honey brown eyes and other such amusing thaughts. By the time she reached her house her thaughts had slowly started drifting more twords what happend at the ramen stand. She quickly pushed those thaughts out of her head before she ended up with a headache from thinking too much.
Tenten wandered through her house, ending up in the kitchen whare she grabbed an energy drink from the fridge and headed out back to her throwing range. she opened the can and took a swig, tasting the vitaminy flavor of the drink and relishing the feel of it run through her body. She then sat the can down and took out several kunai, throwing them in rapid secesion at various targets. after half an hour of throwing kunai at targets she remembered her drink and finished it off. She then returned her atention to her targets, only this time with shuriken. Another half hour breezed by before she decided to call it quits for the moment. She then let her thaughts drift back to the subject of a certain blonde and it was starting to irritate her.
'Damnit tenten, why cant you stop thinking about him? What makes him so special that he kills off any other thaughts, whether hes aroud or not? Damn this is so agrivating!' TenTen thaught as she went inside to start working on a custom piece thad had to be finished in a couple days.
She started to prepare the work room for the task ahead when her father asked her if she would be kind enough to run to the store and pick up a few things. She couldn't just say no, and she knew that her father knew that, and that was why he asked her to do it. And she knew it. But regardless she went twords the house section of the building and got the list of things she needed to pick up from her mother. Unknown to her was that the reason for this wasn't exactly for groceries. It was to get her out of the house for the meeting that he was having with the Hokage in a couple hours. before she left Tenten was assured that he'd make up the time on the sword that she was missing due to shopping.
TenTen realy hated to shop. It was on her list of things to avoid, right under Uchiha fangirls and most recently, the perverbial stick up Neji's ass. She just couldnt see how so many girls liked him when all hed do was reject them. She was realy sarting to believe he that he didnt like girls in a sexual way.
She left the house/shop and headed for the business district, taking her time slowly walking in that direction. When she got to the first store she went in and looked around, only to find that they didnt have any of the items on her list. It was like that at every shop she went to, they'd only have one or two of the items and that was only if she was lucky. Most of the shops were out of one or more of the items on her list and it was realy starting to annoy her to no end. By the time she had all the items several hours had gone by, making her feel more exausted then she realy was.
'Damn it father, if you wanted me out of the house for this long, you could have just told me to go somewhare for a few hours, but did you? Nooooo. You had to send me on a fuckin wild goose chase.' TenTen was literaly seething by the time she got home. She didnt even eat dinner, she just went upstairs and went to sleep, hoping that the next day would be alot better than this one.
As she was laying down trying to sleep, an image of Ed floated into her mind. She didnt try to push it away this time. Instead she examined every minute detail that was him...or rather what she knew about him compared to the image she kept trying to draw. After thirty minutes or so she started to drift off, hoping to run into him the next day. Her last thaught before falling asleep was of him, with his shirt off exercising with her team in place of neji.