It's raining today

It's raining today. Lee freaks out because he can't train outside and Gai bursts into tears and begs him to "Hold onto his virtuously youthful hope" that the weather will get better. Neji cocks a dark eyebrow and shakes his head before heading back to his room to read. The jump suited duo head into the training room talking about something called "the youthful fist of strongness infused with love and generosity and youthful youthiness". I think it's a taijutsu move Lee made up.

I cross the room and stare out the window as the droplets of water flow down the pane of glass, creating streams and rivers, and flowing into the bottom of the windowsill outside. It's the middle of summer, and despite the humidity and general damp quality of the air outside, I decide to check what it's like.

I open the door and step out onto the porch. The rain is warm, and I smile as it spills down my face. Within moments, my hair is plastered to my forehead. I shake my head to rid my hair of its density, but only succeed in getting water in my eyes. I rub my eyes and when I take my fists away, Neji is standing right in front of me.

"Hi." he says.

I leap about a foot in the air, squeaking in surprise. Geez, I wish he wouldn't do that. It scares the heck out of me when he pops out of thin air like that. He's like a ghost…albeit a very, very good-looking one. VERY good looking.

"Oh…hi, Neji-kun." I panted, still a bit jittery after being frightened.

The Hyuga genius stared at me. Which made me blush, I'm pretty sure. "Are you okay?"

I nodded ferociously. "I'm great. Just great!"

He sat down on the porch steps and beckoned for me to join him. Nervously, I obeyed.

Neji stared out at the rain-soaked village, then up at the grey skies. He closed his pale-violet eyes and let the rain course down his face before joining me back in reality.

He smiled, an unusual occurrence. "I really love rain."

"Um…oh."

Ignoring my monosyllabic response, he stared at the sky again with a dreamy expression of longing on his face. "It's just so peaceful, y'know? When I'm sitting out here, just looking up at that," he gestured upwards. "It's like destiny doesn't matter anymore."

I'm shocked. He never talks like that in public. It's always, "destiny blah blah blah fate blah blah blah predetermined life blah blah blah anoying generic emo talk blah blah blah."

But here he was, talking like a normal guy and not a depressive, vengeful, slightly scary but really really ridiculously good-looking guy.

He glanced over to me. "What about you?"

I blushed. "I…I think it's really pretty. When it's raining I like to just go out and sit there thinking of nothing."

He leaned over and reached out, stroking the side of my face with an elegant, pale finger, then stared deep into my eyes.

I swear it was so quiet and my heart was so loud it was like we had a techno-dance soundtrack. If my heart hammered any louder it would pop right out of my chest and do a tap dance on my still twitching corpse.

Slowly, Neji's lips brushed over mine, and his hands cupped my face. I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him closer to me. He tasted like unsweetened peppermint and steel.

After a moment, we pulled back. I was breathless from what had just happened. I had never kissed a boy before, and now to have my first kiss be with Neji…perfect.

He gazed at me adoringly. "I've wanted to do that for five years now, TenTen."

I blushed. I seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

"R-Really?" I asked coyly. He nodded.

"Well…" I said, with a mischievous grin, "Can you do it again?"

He did. And we didn't even notice that the rain had stopped.