"Are you alright?"
The words pierced through the air like the senbon sitting on the ground.
An arrogant laugh filled his ears, as he closed his snow white eyes to slits.
"Hm? What makes you say that?" she mocked, twirling a kunai between her fingers,
"You've been acting strange since training began," Neji murmured to his teammate, "As if you hate me."
She laughed. The naughty laugh, arrogant smirk-something was up.
"What did I do?" Neji asked, slightly hurt and surprised at her reaction.
"Absolutely nothing, Neji-baby." she smirked.
Now Neji was absolutely sure-something was wrong.
"A-are you a-all right, Tenten?" he stuttered like his cousin.
"Perfectly fine," she walked towards him, hips rocking from side to side. She ran her index finger on his jaw, and smiled up at her slightly blushing teammate.
"A-are y-you sure?" he stuttered, adding a slight bit of color to his pale face.
"Hmm..." she cackled evilly, "Why are you so scared?"
"Because," Naruto changed from the pale Hyuuga prodigy to his usual blond self, "I'm not sure if you're okay with this."
Tenten cringed when the boy in the orange jumpsuit appeared in front of her, as opposed to her handsome male companion. "Ah-"
"-Well." Ino appeared behind the trees, to a now confused Tenten.
"Wh-what? Ino? Naruto? What're you two doing here? And where is Neji?"
Naruto rubbed the back of his neck guiltily and smiled a very cliché, very Naruto-like smile. "Well, you see, I had bushy-brow distract him while I posed as him to see what it's like to train with Konoha's weapons mistress."
"Really?" Tenten plucked at her sleeves, satisfied with herself.
"No. Me and Lee had a bet that if I posed as Neji, you could tell right away. I guess that I won't be getting any free ramen today..."
Tenten sweatdropped, stood up again, and slapped Naruto in the face.
"OW! That hurt, you know?"
"That's what I was aiming for." she hit a pressure point in his neck, sending him into the void of unconsciousness for a while.
"And you," she turned to the OTHER annoying blonde in her presence, "what are you doing?"
"Hehe, well you see, Sakura Hinata and I thought that we could spice up your love life with Neji a bit, so I took over a bit, with my knowledge of, well, that kind of stuff," she clapped her hands, "and it would've worked too."
"I'm flattered, but Neji is just my teammate, nothing more." Tenten reassured.
"You sure? Because Lee-"
"LEE! What'd he say?" Tenten fumed at this new discovery.
Ino sighed. "Well, Lee said that you whisper his name in your sleep, and you have a major crush on him, and you-"
"Okay, okay, I get it."
"If only Naruto didn't get in the way." Ino kicked Naruto where it hurts and that's all it took to-"AHHHHH! INO!"
The girl snickered. "Hina-chan won't be so happy when she finds this out." Ino sprinted into Konoha, out of sight before the orange-clad boy could notice.
"Where-"
"That way." Tenten pointed the direction.
"Thanks!"
That left her all alone. She sighed, and picked up her wasted weapons from that training session with Naruto. She then slumped onto the ground, cross-legged, and drew into the ground with a broken senbon.
"I, wish, that, Neji, would, come, soon." she quoted the words being scribbled into the dirt.
As if on cue, the prodigy stepped in right behind her when Tenten was dotting the "i" in "Neji" with a heart.
"I wish that Neji would come soon. And maybe love me a little. Maybe Ino was right. Maybe my love life does need a little spice. But where to start?"
Neji stepped back, into the trees, and went to the top of a branch right above her. He watched her scribble pictures around the words upon the musty brown canvas of hers.
"Ready to train?" he said, calmly.
She jumped, and looked up at the long haired shinobi in the green leaves. "How long have you been here?"
He jumped down, and took a seat beside her. "Long enough."
"How much did you hear?"
He paused. "Enough of it."
"Like..." she motioned with her hands for him to put in words exactly what he heard.
"I'm not quite sure."
She simply sighed. "That's what I was afraid of."
Silence. Perhaps the birds in the trees might've known what to say, or maybe the whispering breeze. But from Neji and Tenten, silence.
Neji stood. "I forgot. I planned on asking Gai-sensei about a jutsu." He turned on his heel, away from the disappointed girl.
"And Tenten?"
She looked up. "Hm?"
"I might love you a little."
She tackled him. "Who are you, and what have you done with Hyuuga Neji?"
"What are you doing?"
"The real Hyuuga Neji wouldn't say that, and the real Hyuuga Neji wouldn't ASK GAI-SENSEI FOR A HAM SANDWICH, FORGET SOME FANCY JUTSU."
"Tenten, it's really me."
"Oh." she eased off a bit, then stood from him.
"Then let's get training."
He smiled.