Author's Note: For lil monk. Don't care for Tenten, don't like Kimimaro, rarely write either. Interesting, at least.

Tenten was fairly sure that in the days following the Sound invasion, she was the sole person in Leaf Village who didn't have anything to do. Most genin teams were busy picking up the slack left by the massive amounts of shinobi who had been killed by the Sound and Sand, completing missions far above their abilities because they were the only ones available. Not her team. Not with Neji in the hospital, still recovering from his fight with Uzumaki Naruto in the finals of the Chuunin Exams. Not with Lee's future as a shinobi in doubt, his injuries preventing him from even walking without a crutch. Not with Gai-sensei off on high-class missions twenty-four seven, doing the work of a jounin that couldn't afford to have his students trailing after him, getting in the way. Tenten was, to put it frankly, at loose ends. She had literally no one to hone her skills with, and though Neji was expected to be up and about in just a few days, he had hinted strongly that he would be training mostly in the Hyuuga compound and no longer required her assistance in improving his defenses. Tenten had stopped short of asking why, though he had made his distaste for his family clear in the past. Neji had never been the easiest person to talk to, and family was one issue she had learned to avoid around her more temperamental teammate.

Most girls probably would have welcomed the break. Most girls, in Tenten's opinion, were utterly pathetic and made her ashamed to be a part of the same gender. Though she could not in any way compare with Lee, Tenten had always been a bit of a training fanatic, and the Chuunin Exams had made it abundantly clear that she was far from being a premier kunoichi. The skills of her opponent during the preliminaries of the exam had made Tenten briefly consider journeying to Sand Country just to experience the climate that produced such extraordinary shinobi, but the unmasking of Sunagakure's true alliances had pretty much killed her travel plans.

This had depressed Tenten. For about five minutes. She had spent the next four hours trying to hit the flower petals off a dandelion at a fifty yard range with one eye closed and hopping on one foot. While this had cheered her up immensely (the dandelion hadn't stood a chance), it still didn't compare to training with real people. Unless one happened to be a gardener with a weed problem, dandelions didn't fight back. More specifically, dandelions didn't try to slam you with an Initial Lotus while your back was turned. Then Tenten had remembered why she hadn't been avoiding unexpected attacks from behind during her training lately, and the thought of Lee with his crutch had almost been enough to make Tenten go through another pointless bout of depression.

Instead, Tenten had decided to be Proactive (one too many Gai-sensei speeches had caused a very long list of words to become permanently capitalized in Tenten's head) and went to ask Iruka-sensei if she could go on a training expedition to make sure her skills didn't rust away like an ill-maintained kunai. The simile had admittedly been unnecessary, but it was the worst thing Tenten could think of that could convince Iruka-sensei to let her go. She had never been very good at the flowery, Neji-style type of analogy anyway. Besides, birds didn't have anything to do with this.

Normally, Iruka-sensei wasn't on shinobi assignment duty, but it was the weekend. "Tenten, we don't usually allow genin to go off on their own, especially when there is so much work to be done around the village, but… seeing as your team is currently split, I don't see why you can't train by yourself for a few weeks." If Tenten had been talking to a regular administrator, there was no way she would have been allowed to leave. Mostly likely she would have been pressed into helping at the academy, teaching kids how to hold their shurikan properly and not cut themselves on the pointy edges.

Tenten was suddenly very fond of weekends. "Thank you, Iruka-sensei!" She had bowed energetically as she backed out the doorway, causing Iruka-sensei to smile in that nostalgic way of his that meant he was thinking how nice it was that today's genin could act so young and carefree. As soon as he had turned back to his paperwork, Tenten had bolted, barely slowing down to grab the backpack she had sequestered behind the door. It had, perhaps, been slightly presumptuous to pack before Iruka-sensei had given her the okay, but the chances of her former teacher saying no were so small, they hadn't even been worth considering. Besides, she was in a hurry.

Tenten didn't expect to be gone more than a month or so. The destination she had in mind was a small cabin her uncle owned on the northern outskirts of Leaf Country, since taking a trip to Sand was no longer feasible. Spending a few weeks camping out in the Forest of Death might have been a better way to improve her reflexes, but Tenten wasn't stupid enough to want to stay there without someone to watch her back. The man-eating centipedes she could handle, but even she had to sleep sometime.

Besides, the cabin would be good enough. It was pretty much abandoned, anyway, since it was as close to the middle of nowhere as was actually possible, surrounded by miles of wilderness on all sides without a human settlement within a day's walking range. Wide variety of environments in which she could perfect her skills. A few hostile predators here and there, just enough to keep her on her toes. She had even left her hitai-ate headband behind in Leaf Village on the off chance she ran into hostile shinobi, so close to the country's border.

She was bored after three days. Trying to throw shurikan accurately when standing under a waterfall was difficult, yes, but it wasn't interesting. It didn't force her to focus every bit of her concentration on one target, narrow her sight to that one point. There was no challenge in attacking something that didn't know how to block. To fight back.

On the fourth day, Tenten had wandered to a new area of the forest surrounding her uncle's cabin, whimsically considering the pros and cons of going back to Konohagakure and asking Iruka-sensei for a C-rank mission she could complete on her own. Her thoughts had abruptly stuttered to a halt as she came upon a wide open field, empty except for the thigh-high grass and the small stream that split the field in half. And the white-haired boy practicing a kata in the center. For a moment, all Tenten could do was stare.

Oh my God. I think I'm in love.

Physical beauty meant something completely different to Tenten than it did to most girls her age. While she was perfectly aware of the presence of a pretty face, and knew, for instance, that her Hyuuga teammate was probably the best eye-candy in the village, followed closely by Uchiha Sasuke, that sort of thing held little to no attraction for her. Even a boy's physique, which rated somewhat higher on her list of attributes to look for in a guy, didn't compare to what she thought of as most important.

Her thought processes on this were slightly twisted by a teenaged girl's point of view, but perfectly logical considering her profession. What she valued most above all else was how a boy moved. How fluid his attack, how tight his defense. How gracefully he landed after sending a roundhouse kick into the side of an opponent's head. This fascination with movement had led her to conceive an instant and powerful crush on Neji the first time she had ever seen him spar. It had lasted all of a week, but it still led Tenten to agree to help him improve his counters more readily than she would have with anyone else, just for the chance to see his body in motion.

Neji paled to the vision in front of her now. Even after watching the white-haired boy for several minutes, Tenten still wasn't sure if what she was seeing was real. No human could possibly balance that perfectly, jab forward that precisely. His technique was so excellent, in fact, that it took her almost ten minutes to spot the first flaw in the execution of his attacks. This was a new record. Neji had taken her less than five.

"Excuse me!" It was almost comical the way the boy froze halfway while practicing a kick that probably had enough weight behind it to break ribs. Almost. Somehow he managed to stutter the foot he was currently leaning all his weight on and keep his balance. Gracefully. Tenten had never seen a ballet, but it couldn't be nearly as beautiful to watch as this boy's most inelegant stumble.

He watched her warily as she walked across the field towards him, his eyes guarded, though his hands were dangling by his sides in a purposefully unthreatening manner and he made no move for the oddly-shaped sword lying in the grass a few feet to his right. "Who are you?"

Tenten waved away the question. "That isn't important. Look, you're very good," understatement of the year, but she wasn't in the habit of stroking egos, "But when you do that straight thrust with your left hand and the fingers flat, you leave the lower half of the left side of your torso open to an opponent with some speed. You need to keep your hand a little higher to guard against that."

The boy's facial muscles didn't shift an inch. "You're telling me you would be able to exploit that attack."

Tenten blinked. "Me? No. You're too fast. But just because I couldn't doesn't mean an enemy on a higher level wouldn't be able to shove a kunai in your intestines. Besides that, though, I couldn't spot any weaknesses in your technique at all. Of course, I'd need to watch you more than ten minutes to determine what other possible defects you might have in your fighting style, but overall-"

The boy's eyes narrowed as he studied her. He looked confused. "You want to watch me practice to help me improve?"

Tenten nodded. "Yes. Of course, if you want, I'd probably be able to assess you more accurately if I attacked you to gauge your reaction time- wait, I left my summoning scrolls back in the cabin." She turned and ran for the edge of the clearing. "Just wait here! I'll be back in a few minutes!"

It actually took something more like half an hour to make it back to the lodgings her uncle had leant her, find the necessary scrolls, and return to the clearing, but as far as Tenten could tell, the white-haired boy hadn't moved from the spot where she had left him thirty minutes before. "Alright, since I'm evaluating your overall fighting style, you'll probably need your sword so you can block instead of just dodge…"

----

It had taken almost a week before he had thought to ask her name again. This time she had answered. "Tenten. And yours?"

He studied her again, as Tenten had found he was apt to do when she said something he didn't understand or asked a question he wasn't sure he wanted to answer. Tenten could never bring herself to find the gaze unnerving. Not after dealing with Neji for so long. "Kimimaro."

The question had come up while they were eating lunch. They had made a bit of a routine of having their meals by the field's stream to make it easier to clean up after themselves. But only lunch. Kimimaro arrived at the field only after she had finished breakfast, and left before she returned to the cabin to eat a hot dinner. She didn't know where he went. She really didn't care. It wasn't any of her business.

Sometimes they didn't train together. Sometimes Tenten would just sit by and watch Kimimaro run through one of his more complex katas and wish she knew how to draw, though no still portrait could possibly convey what it was like to see such poetry in motion.

It was in the second week that Tenten first witnessed Kimimaro collapse. He was in the midst of a kata that consisted mostly of short jabs with his elbows and knees when it happened. It started innocently enough, as far as Tenten could tell. A cough into his hand that Tenten had first assumed was to get rid of some dust he had accidentally swallowed, but the coughing didn't stop. Didn't even slow down enough to allow him to breathe. In less than ten seconds he was on his knees, the wet hack causing his body to shudder. By that point, Tenten was on her feet and dashing to her new training partner's side. "Kimimaro? Kimimaro, what's wrong…" It was then that she saw the blood on the ground. "Oh God." She knelt by Kimimaro's side. "Kimimaro…" She reached out to him. To do what, she didn't know, but he looked like he was in so much pain. So much that for one gut-wrenching moment, she had been reminded of Lee.

She barely laid a hand on Kimimaro's shoulder before he shoved her, so roughly that she almost fell. "Don't touch me." His voice was filled with a vehemence she had never heard out of him before. With a venom she hadn't expected, out of a boy whose voice was normally so calm and controlled. "Don't ever touch me."

Tenten knew about tender spots. About places she could never go, no matter how much she wanted to help. So she did nothing as the coughs that wracked Kimimaro's body finally stopped, didn't move to give him a hand as he pushed himself to his feet, nearly falling on his face at the first attempt. She didn't ask if he was alright. She knew he wasn't. She knew he would tell her to never mention it again. So she saved him the trouble and never mentioned it in the first place. The next time it happened, Tenten turned away. It was easier for both parties involved if she pretended that she didn't see.

It was at the beginning of the third week that Kimimaro asked her if she had any proficiency at close-range combat. Tenten hesitated to answer. "I'm pretty good with a bo staff, but… my teammates back home are all hand-to-hand fighters, so I haven't practiced with one much in over a year. It seemed a little redundant."

He studied her, in that way that Tenten was beginning to find flattering. She had a feeling that he didn't give many people that consideration. "You shouldn't rely on your teammates." He didn't qualify, didn't say all the time or so much. But then, Kimimaro never spoke of his own teammates. Tenten was beginning to wonder if he had any, if his own solitary existence was what led him to try and teach her to rely only on herself.

The next day, he brought a bo staff, and told her to attack him with it. She was knocked flat within twenty seconds. He didn't criticize her technique or insult her for her clumsiness. He simply returned to a combat position and said the one word that Tenten would grow to hate over course of the next week. "Again."

At the beginning of the fourth week, she kissed him. His mouth tasted like a strange combination of blood and camellias. No other boy she had kissed before (all two of them) had tasted like that. Kimimaro didn't kiss her back, but he didn't move away, either. He did ask her a question, though. "Why did you do that?"

And there was only one answer Tenten could think to give. "Because I could." And it was true.

For a moment, Kimimaro looked confused. Then his eyes hardened. "It means nothing. I feel no loyalty towards you."

Over the past several weeks, Tenten had noticed that her new training partner was very careful with his word choice. When he said, "You shouldn't rely on your teammates," that was what he meant. When he said, "I feel no loyalty towards you," it didn't mean that he didn't feel anything at all. And Tenten didn't want loyalty. Not from someone who wasn't from Konoha. Intra-village politics made such ties too complicated to bother with. This was nice. But it wasn't permanent. It wasn't real. And Tenten didn't mind at all. Real was painful. Real was watching Neji trying to kill his cousin in a fit of bitterness and remembered pain. Real was finding Lee crying in his hospital room after failing to stand without the assistance of the wall. Real was the murder of the Sandaime Hokage, an old man who should have died in his sleep on some cold winter's day, not stabbed through the heart by a man who had once been his student.

Just then, the last thing Tenten wanted was something real.

"I don't want your loyalty."

At her words, Kimimaro relaxed, and the flint in his eyes faded away. "Good." The rest of the day, they practiced as if nothing had happened. Things proceeded in that way for the remainder of the week.

At the beginning of the fifth week, Kimimaro didn't show up at the field. After this happened for four days running, Tenten packed up and started on her return trip to Konoha. The fairytale was over. It was time to go home.

----

She came back to a changed village. Everything had been rebuilt. A new Hokage had been chosen, and Tenten almost hyperventilated when she found out who it was. She had always felt a minor case of hero worship for the legendary sannin, Tsunade. And Neji and Lee were in the hospital. That at least, had not changed at all.

This time, however, their positions were reversed from the days following the preliminaries of the Chuunin Exams. While now it was Neji who possessed life-threatening wounds and was not to be disturbed on pain of death, Lee had only minor injuries and was in a better mood than Tenten had seen him in months. "Oy, Tenten! Glad to have you back. You wouldn't believe the time we've had. Hokage-sama healed the injuries left by Gaara during the exams and I'm better than ever! Nothing is going to prevent me from becoming a shinobi now!"

Tenten smiled at her teammate's exuberance. "That's great, Lee!"

Lee grinned back. "That's not even the least of it! Sasuke-kun left the village." This sobered the taijutsu user for a moment as he reflected on this, but he was unable to stay still for long. "We weren't able to get him back, but I had the greatest fight. There was this Sound-nin guy who used his bones as weapons and he was really, really fast! I mean, if Gaara hadn't shown up- did I tell you about Gaara? Sand Village is our ally again- anyway, if Gaara hadn't shown up, I might have lost, but I managed to get in a few good hits, though I had the worst headache afterwards-"

It didn't occur to Tenten, not once, that Kimimaro could be the opponent that Lee was speaking of. The white-haired boy whom she had kissed near the stream in the field, whom had taught her a few tricks with a bo staff in the heat of the days of summer, in no way correlated with the cold killer who had tried to kill Uzumaki Naruto and Lee with the precision of a trained assassin. And they never would. It was probably for the best.

FIN