[A/N: I'm just starting things right and left, aren't I? Don't worry, I'm still working on everything else. I know Lee's the titular character in this, but it's going to be mostly from Neji and Tenten's perspectives because I like them. The entire plot of this takes place during the interim, just FYI.]

Chapter 1: In Which Neji and Tenten are Confused

"Tenten?"

Tenten shifted over a little as Lee dropped down beside her. It wasn't that she didn't like him (Lee was very hard to dislike, although Neji would make the occasional valiant effort at it), but he had little concept of personal space and could get very enthusiastic when he managed to hold still long enough to carry on a conversation. "What is it?" she asked.

"You know a lot about girls, right?"

Lee was talking without Capital Letters, so something was clearly wrong with him. "I suppose so. Why?"

"Why won't Sakura be friends with me?"

"Huh?" This was not the most articulate thing Tenten could have said, but she had been taken rather by surprise.

"I've done all the Youthful Things that Gai said boys should do for their girl friends, but she still won't be friends with me." Frowning a little, Lee tilted his head to one side and Tenten could practically see the little puppy ears which he didn't have but certainly deserved a lot of the time.

Light was beginning to glimmer. "Lee, I don't think you want her to be your girlfriend."

Lee looked as hurt as if Tenten had taken away his green tracksuit. "But I do—"

"No, because girlfriend means that you're in love with Sakura. If you just want to be friends with her, then you need to tell her so...and maybe back off with the Youthfullness a bit because I think all your flowers and Declarations of Undying Love have scared her off."

Much cheered up, Lee sprang to his feet. "Yosh! I will make Sakura be friends with me, or I will run five hundred laps around Konoha and then climb the Hokage Mountain backwards!"

"What was that all about?" Neji asked, coming up behind Tenten as she watched Lee disappear in a cloud of dust.

"I'm not sure," Tenten replied. "Lee was acting kind of strange, though."

"Lee always acts kind of strange," Neji pointed out.

"No, see, that's what I mean! He wasn't acting strange. Isn't that strange?"

"That is...strange," Neji conceded.

Tenten nodded, then stood up. "I've got to get back to the restaurant now, it's almost time for the dinner rush," she said, brushing off her pants.

"Can I come along? It'd be better than going home at the moment," Neji confessed. Tenten understood. She'd heard that Team 8 had been sent out on a mission, and Hinata was the only thing holding the Hyuuga clan together a lot of the time.

"Sure, as long as you don't mind helping out a bit. I could even talk Mom into giving you some of that orange chicken you like."

...

The Feng Huang Diner, while not as well known as some of the restaurants in Konoha (such as Ichiraku's Ramen), still did surprisingly good business and often filled with off-duty shinobi who wanted something a bit different. As shinobi are usually very hungry, this meant that Tenten's parents and assorted cousins had to work like fiends to get enough food out in time. Neji quickly found himself roped into washing dishes.

"Are you sure your parents aren't ninja?" Neji asked during a slight lull, ducking as a carton of chow mein flew over his head to land just so on the To Go counter.

"No, they've just had lots of practice," Tenten called back from across the kitchen. "They've owned this place ever since we got here so that's, what, seven years?"

"Tenten, we need more onions!" one of the cousins shouted.

"I'm on it, Chun Fu!" Tenten yelled back. "Neji, toss some over here, will you?"

Neji dried his hands enough to grab several onions from the vegetable bin and throw them to Tenten. Unsheathing a pair of lethal-looking Usuba Bocho, she had the innocent unsuspecting vegetables neatly chopped into exactly sixteen pieces each almost before they hit the counter. She wasn't Konoha's weapon mistress for nothing.

"Thanks!" Tenten called, blinking back tears from the onion fumes. "Oh no, there's nobody on orders," she said, hurrying over to Neji and dropping the chopped onions off with the cooks on the way. "You can do that, right? It's easy," she assured him, pushing him over to the counter. "You just ask what people want and write it down and add it up and take their money and then put the piece of paper over there—" she pointed but rather vaguely "—so the cooks can see it. Okay? I've got to hack up a few chickens."

With that she abandoned him to face a growing line of hungry and impatient ninja. Free orange chicken free orange chicken free orange chicken! Neji thought desperately, and resigned himself to his fate.

...

After half an hour, Neji was exhausted. After an hour, he was wondering why he'd ever been annoyed with Gai's training regimen. After two hours, he was beginning to think that climbing the Hokage Mountain with his teeth actually didn't sound half bad.

"Okay, you can take a break now," Tenten said finally. Neji promptly collapsed across the counter.

"I can't believe you do this every night," he moaned.

"Oh, it's not like this every night. This wasn't that bad, actually. A lot of the time we get a lot more customers than that."

"More?" Neji found this very hard to believe. "Tenten, every single shinobi in Konoha came through here! Twice!"

"You're just not used to it," Tenten argued. "I'll get some orange chicken and we can—hey, hide!"

Startled, Neji failed to react quickly enough, so Tenten grabbed the back of his shirt and dragged him down behind the counter. "Tenten, wha—"

"Shhhh!" Tenten whispered insistently. "Lee's here. With Sakura!"

"How badly is Lee hurt?" Neji whispered back. "It must be serious if he couldn't get to the hospital."

"No, he's not hurt. They're...talking."

Still unconvinced, Neji activated the Byakugan in order to see through the counter. Sure enough, Sakura and Lee were sitting at a corner booth, just as Tenten had said. Even more strangely, Lee was not professing his Eternal Love to Sakura or falling at her feet. They were, indeed, just talking, in a surprisingly normal, ordinary, not-especially-Youthful manner.

"My brother's the one who brings home all the animals," Sakura was saying. "Right now we have three turtles in a wading pool in the livingroom. The only pet I ever had all my own was a parakeet when I was about seven. Did you ever have any pets?"

"I had a cat," Lee replied. "Gai-sensei brought it back from a mission. It was Very Youthful; it would even run after me when I ran laps around the village. But then it got hit by a cart, so Gai-sensei sent it to a farm so it could get better."

"That's so sad..." Tenten whispered.

Neji moved so Tenten't mouth wasn't directly by his ear. "What's so sad about it?"

Tenten raised one eyebrow, an ability that Neji never failed to be jealous of. "Didn't you ever have a pet 'sent to a farm'?"

"No, I'm branch house, remember? We don't get pets." Actually, none of the Hyuuga clan had pets, unless one counted the ornamental koi pond, but Neji didn't see any reason to mention that. "I don't see what's wrong with it, anyway."

"That's just it! Being 'sent to a farm' is what people tell their kids when a pet dies and they don't want to admit it!" She sighed. "Poor Lee."

Neji nodded in agreement, as that seemed to be what Tenten wanted.

"What are you two doing hiding down there?"

Neji and Tenten jumped guiltily as Tenten's mother loomed over them. Luckily, she didn't wait for an explanation. "Go and serve the customers!" she ordered, putting a menu in Tenten's hands and shoving her towards the seating area. Tenten dragged Neji along with her on the way over.

Lee was still doing the little puppy-dog thing when they reached his table, but other than that he was being less hyperactive than either of them had ever seen him. Luckily, he didn't seem to think that their turning up so suddenly was in any way suspicious. Sakura apparently did, from the way she was looking at them, but she was courteous enough not to say anything.

"Hello, my Youthful Teammates!" he said as they arrived. "What are you doing here?"

"My parents own this restaurant, Lee," Tenten explained. "Here's a menu. What would you like to order?"

"We, um, didn't exactly come here to eat," Sakura said. "We just ducked in here so Naruto would stop following me around."

"Well, how about some tea, then?"

Lee and Sakura both nodded.

"All right, I'll bring some green tea over in just a moment." Tenten smiled in her best waitressly manner and hurried back to the kitchen without actually looking like she was hurrying, Neji following close behind.

"What do you think that's all about?" she whispered as she spooned tea leaves into an infuser. "I've never seen Lee acting like this. Do you really think he's okay?"

"He looked happy enough to me," Neji said.

"But he only said nine words, how are you supposed to judge someone's happiness from that? Go get a couple fortune cookies, they're over there," she added, putting the teapot on a tray with two cups.

Neji obligingly got the fortune cookies for her, but waited behind the counter while she took the tray out.

"My fortune says, 'Every flower blooms at its own season.' Fitting, huh?" he heard Sakura ask as Tenten rejoined him. "What does your fortune say, Lee?"

"Your destiny is in motion," Lee read. "Beware secrets discovered by enemies."

"That's funny," Tenten said suddenly, making Neji jump. "I don't remember writing that one."

...

[A/N: Neji and Tenten are very fun :-)]