I don't even know how I pulled this one out of the hat. SasuTen friendship just seemed to appeal to me recently…
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Disclaimer: Oh, Naruto Oh, Naruto Why art thou not mine?
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Respite- A period of rest; temporary delay
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Tenten did not normally avoid people.
(It wasn't avoiding, she told herself, it was deliberate putting off of a meeting between her and Neji)
She found it funny though, that while trying to not run into one emotionless prodigy she ran into the other.
Sasuke Uchiha was sitting in the shade of one of the tall trees surrounding the training ground she'd gone to for refuge, obviously resting after a training session. It struck her then, how familiar this man was to her though she had never so much as uttered a word in his direction.
(She was most defiantly not going to admit it was because he was so like a certain Hyuga)
Quickly deciding that the Uchiha would not care if she sat beside him to distract her thoughts from contemplating her situation, Tenten did just that. As she sat down her companion cracked a single dark eye open to observe what she was doing before closing it and shifting to make room for her in the shade.
(She unwillingly thought of times Neji had done the same for her then mentally berated her self for it)
They sat there for awhile in each other's company and Tenten took the chance to study the former avenger beside her. She remembered uneasily the times in which he was gone: Naruto blind determination, Sakura's quite loneliness…
…Neji's wounds after he came back from that failed retrieval mission…
(Could she not go a minute without thinking of Neji?)
This young man beside her was the focal point of it all…
But she could not quite connect this quiet, serious Sasuke with the brooding adolescent Sasuke she had first met at the chunin exams.
Grudgingly, she admitted that even the most set in their way people could change.
(Sort of like …damn it!)
Tenten would have liked nothing more than to at least dislike Sasuke for all the pain he had inflicted on two of the people she had come to value as important friends, but Sasuke was no longer that angry avenger boy and she could not hate someone for something they weren't any more.
She sighed, shaking her head to clear it. Her dark companion watched her with one black brow arched in silent questioning of what she had been thinking of.
(Yes, she understood ice-cube speak)
"Why?"
(She could speak it to. Sasuke would understand.)
"I thought I needed to."
"Thought?"
There was an empty cast to his eyes as he answered.
"I don't regret it, but revenge is hollow."
"I suppose you've gotten a lot of I told you so's."
The Uchiha snorted and looked away toward the slowly falling sun. Tenten's lips twitched into a small smile as the silence returned, hovering on the edge of a full blown grin. Sasuke caught sight of her smile out of the corner of his eye and frowned in confusion.
Tenten laughed.
"People have a weird tendency to smile when they make new friends, you should try it some time."
His frown deepened in more acute confusion.
"We're friends? "
"I'd liked to think we've satisfied the definition of 'bonding moment'."
"Hn. As long as you're not as annoying as the Dope…" he shrugged.
Tenten laughed again.
So, there we go!
review, please!