Hello. This is my first attempt at anything Naruto based so I hope I did ok. I'd greatly appreciate if y'all would review so I know how I did. I love the Neji Tenten pairing and I want to make sure I represented them well. Thank you bunches!
Oh and for those of you reading A Tricky Start, I promise the next chapter will be up soon.
Disclaimer: I in no way shape or form own anything from the world of Naruto. It all belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. I just borrowed it for fun non-profit use.
It was just her luck. There were a multitude of guys in Konoha. There were civilians and there were ninja. She knew some of them. They were great guys that any girl would be luck to have. But Tenten just had to fall for that one. The one that would probably never reciprocate her feelings. (Not that she thought the other guys would fall at her feet.) She had to fall for the village prodigy. That stupid village prodigy. She cursed and blessed the day they became teammates. There were so many things that she hated and lo-liked about him. His hair, his darn silky hair that seemed to always stay in place. The hair she wanted to run her hands through. That smirk that she wanted to wipe off his face, but pulled her to him at the same time. Those eyes. She felt that they could see not only her tenketsu, but how she felt when he looked at her. Around others she was a strong kunoichi. Around him she could show no weakness cause he would always call her out. It was always 'Get up Tenten.' 'Work harder Tenten.' 'You need to train Tenten.'
"Quit daydreaming Tenten."
Yeah that one too.
"Ah. Sorry Neji-kun." Tenten said breaking out of her internal rant.
"Hn." he said, lowering into a fighting stance.
That was another one of those things that she like-hated. That 'Hn'. What, was he too good for words so he used sounds instead? Gah! He annoyed her to no end.
This annoyance caused Tenten to put more power into her throws.
Neji immediately sensed this change in her attack. It was a bit overzealous, but at least she was focused now.
That was one thing about Tenten, she was a good kunoichi but she tended to be otherwise focused. She never did that in battle, but their sparing matches were a different matter. He had to constantly push her to work harder. He wondered what she was always thinking about.
Both were now attacking with their usual vigor. Tenten pulled out one of her scrolls as she jumped into the air. Neji would have followed, but Tenten's form distracted him. She looked so graceful as she spun in midair, twisting the scroll to form a loose spiral around her body. The spinning affect sending the assorted weapons straight towards him.
40ft
30ft
20ft
10ft
5ft
He should probably deflect them now.
"Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palm Rotation!" he yelled.
"Huh. She distracted me again."
"Well no duh she distracted you. She looks beautiful."
"Who are you and what are you doing in my head?"
"I'm your inner self!"
Neji raised an internal eyebrow at this supposed inner self.
"I am the result of you holding back all of your emotions."
Neji kept his eyebrow raised.
"What? All your discarded thoughts and emotions had to go somewhere."
"Whatever, just stay out of my way."
So Tenten wasn't the only one who could get distracted. Lately Neji would notice the weirdest things while he and Tenten sparred. The way she gracefully pulled out her scrolls, how her eyes would have a determined gleam in them, the skillful way her hands threw assorted weapons at him.
He needed a way to concentrate.
His brain quickly turned this problem into an opportunity for training. There could be situations in battle where he could not look directly at his opponent's face. Being a Hyuuga and having the Byakugan he could read body language very well. This would help him to anticipate his opponent's movements. Neji decided to challenge himself and focus his attention to a place on Tenten where her movements would be harder to discern. Her movements would also not distract him so much. Both were valid reasons as to why he was now staring at the two buns of hair that sat atop Tenten's head. His solution was perfect. There was no way that her chocolate brown hair, which he had never seen down, or touched, could possibly distract him by making him think of what Tenten would look like if she let her hair down.
"Nah. You're not distracted at all." his inner voice said, words dripping with sarcasm.
"What did I say about getting in the way?"
"I'm not the one distracting you."
"I'm ignoring you."
With no other plan of action readily available Neji kept watching Tenten's hair. As they continued to spar Neji noticed something. A few stray hairs had managed to pull their way out of the twin buns. The hairs swayed around Tenten's face and swirled around in the air as she continued to throw her weapons. They seemed to dance and taunt him.
Darn it. Was every part of her distracting? This happened almost every time.
Looking for a way to salvage his now failed plan, Neji came upon an idea. It occurred to him that their spars were becoming increasingly predictable. She threw weapons at him, he deflected them, he challenged her to close combat, she hung in for awhile before going to a long range in order to throw more weapons at him. A good shinobi could perform multiple attacks and change his style in order to defeat his opponent. He couldn't just rely on his close combat and deflecting skills.
With this in mind Neji took a kunai out of the pouch strapped to his side. Tenten raised a brow at it, but didn't comment. The time required to make a remark was being put to good use, figuring out why Neji was changing his tactics.
'I haven't noted any changes from our usual training. He's planning something."
Before Tenten had time to continue her deciphering of Neji's odd behavior, a kunai flew over her head.
"Why is he aiming for my head? I'd consider it terrible aim if it were someone else, but Neji is definitely aiming for my head. Why?"
She was interrupted once again when she had to dodge another kunai flying her way. What was he up to?
Meanwhile Neji was finding his new training strategy to be working well. By aiming for Tenten's hair ties he was able to hone his accuracy with a moving target. The fact that if he succeeded he would be able to see Tenten with her hair down was just an added bonus. A really good bonus. However he was not foolish enough to think that just continually throwing kunai at Tenten would cause him to achieve his ultimate goal. He did have a plan in place.
He purposefully pulled back his attack. Tenten took this opportunity to through another scroll's worth of weapons at him. This was just what Neji wanted. He used the Eight Trigram Sixty-Four Palm Rotation to throw Tenten's weapons back at her. Tenten avoided her barrage of weapons only to find herself needing to avoid even more kunai being thrown at her. In her attempt to avoid the endless chain of kunai coming from her left, she failed to notice the single incoming kunai to her right.
Tenten felt a thump as the unnoticed kunai embedded itself in the tree that the earlier weapon barrage had driven her in front of. Thinking it had missed her, Tenten tried to move. Tried being the optimum word. The single kunai had managed to hit the right bun's hair tie. It was exceptionally easy for Tenten to free herself, all she had to do was pull the kunai out. However in that time period Neji had made his way over to her and had pinned her against the tree.
Tenten had to fight the blush that was starting to spread across her face.
"You win, again." she said, hoping that admitting defeat would cause the Hyuuga to release her.
However Neji knew that had not yet won. In his mind he would only win once he had seen the kunoichi's hair down. Silently he took a kunai from his pouch.
"Neji-kun?" Tenten asked, still unsure of what he was doing. Her ninja instincts told her that if another shinobi has you pinned against a tree and has a weapon, you get out of there as fast as you can. Tenten logic, one the other hand, was telling her that this was Neji and he was trustworthy, even if he was acting a little weird.
Slice.
Tenten felt something move the bun on top of her head. Then she felt the weight of her hair as it came out of said bun and flowed to the side, seeing as how her back was currently being pressed against a tree.
Now she was really confused. Why was he taking her hair down?
The same process was repeated with the other bun.
Having finally seen Tenten with her hair down Neji felt satisfied. That is till he looked at her face. He would never admit it, but Tenten looked so incredibly-
"Cute."
Cute? What was he thinking? This was his teammate. Nothing more, nothing less. He was THE Hyuuga Neji, he didn't have feelings for anyone, besides respect for valuable shinobi. Granted Tenten was a valued shinobi and Neji did respect her, but he didn't like her. Did he?
"What do you mean, 'do you?' Of course you do! Haven't you been paying attention to what I've been saying?"
What is the meaning of this? What did you do?
"It wasn't me, baka! It's you! You like her! Geez, for a genius you sure are stupid."
"Tenten is a teammate. Nothing else."
"You don't think about Lee like that."
"…That is different and you know it."
"Fine. Don't believe me. But before I shut up, I want you to look at her and honestly tell me she doesn't look cute."
Neji looked down at Tenten. She was slightly shorter than him, so he didn't have to look far. Her brown hair cascaded down her shoulders to just above her waist, still wavy from being in buns. Her face had a light blush across it. Her large brown eyes were looking at him in confusion. Her lips…..looked exceptionally kissable.
"Great. That inner me has rubbed off on me."
"Neji-kun?" Tenten's voice broke his thoughts.
Neji looked at her.
"What are you doing?" Tenten asked.
It was then that Neji made a decision. He leaned in, putting his mouth right next to her ear, and whispered "I'm going to kiss you."
"Wha-" Tenten was cut off as Neji's lips landed on hers.
For the first few seconds Tenten was so in shock that she just stood there, trying to sort out her situation. For Neji these few seconds were filled with panic. An emotion that the Hyuuga was not familiar with. He worried that Tenten would reject him. He worried that he wasn't kissing her right. He feared what would happen to the cherished friendship between them if this didn't go right.
However, he needn't have worried. As soon as Tenten fully knew what was going on, she responded to the kiss. Their lips melded together and the two almost felt electricity run through them. The kiss was chaste, but it said everything that it needed to for the two ninja. Neither wanted to break apart, but sadly oxygen isn't optional for the continuation of life. When they did break apart they looked at each other and smiled. Well Tenten smiled, Neji made an expression that was his equivalent of a smile.
Then Tenten gave him a playful hit on his chest, and pouted.
Neji raised an eyebrow, asking what that was for in his own language.
"You ruined two of my hair ties." she said, glaring at him playfully. "I can't train with my hair down."
"Hn."
That was a problem. If they weren't going to train, then Tenten would want to go home. However he couldn't let her walk around the village with her hair down. He wanted to be the only one to see her like that. The solution was simple.
Neji put his hand in his pocket and pulled out two hair ties, similar to the one he held his hair up with.
Tenten gave him a questioning look.
"For your hair." he explained.
Tenten rolled her eyes. "I got that part. What I want to know is why you carry extra hair ties." she said, hands on her hips.
"A good Shinobi is always prepared."
Tenten darted forward and pressed her lips to Neji's. When she pulled back she grinned. "Where you prepared for that?"
"Hn."
"You're no fun." Tenten playfully whined.
Neji watched her as she put her hair back up and moved to the center of the training field. He already missed seeing her hair down.
"You ready?" she asked, taking a fighting stance.
"Hn."
Maybe he'd have to try his new training exercise again.
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