"So, tell me, Tenten. When the terrible but beautiful Kaguya put us under her Genjutsu, what did you dream of?"
Lee knows her well enough in the past decade they've been friends and teammates to spring the question on her right after a rigorous training session, while sweat is still fresh on her brow and there is enough adrenaline pumping through her system to keep her from feeling any aching yet from Lee's furious Taijutsu. Still, though the years of peace have brought serenity, she hasn't lost all her sharpness, and she closes her mouth before an answer can slip out. Fixing her friend with a level gaze, she challenges "Lee, what do you think?"
"Perhaps the legendary Tsunade-sama adopted you and took you under her tutelage and you were acknowledged by shinobi everywhere for being a strong blossoming weapons mistress who cannot be overcome in her knowledge of shinobi tools! Which of course we already know you are but surely such acknowledgement would not be amiss! Or perhaps you were whisked off into a beautiful Hyuuga wedding by none other than our beloved departed Neji-kun? Or perhaps..." his impressive brows furrowed. "You won my heart over Sakura-san and we lived happily in marital bliss, raising a blossoming family of young warriors with-"
In a half of a moment she stands over him, a paper fan in her hand and a skid mark in the dirt under her feet from him flying 10 meters and bouncing a few more. "I didn't dream of having your kids you sick idiot!" she chastises, a vein in her forehead pulsing rhythmically.
"Please accept my apologies, dear teammate! And it is very unyouthful of you to pummel me after a spar," he adds the last part in a low tone, as mutinous as his voice gets (still somewhere between sunshine-bright and songbird-cheerful). He stands and brushes off his jumpsuit, quiet for once as he watches her try to formulate an answer. He's no idiot—he knows his chances of an answer improve if he can wait. Somehow his silence unnerves her, uncommon as it is.
As her eyes close, the memory comes vividly. The dream she'd had was beautiful and heartbreaking in its simplicity. "You know I'm not ambitious like you or Neji, you dork." (She always speaks of their teammate in that manner, as if he waits just out of sight.) "Wanting the whole nation to recognize me is silly. And hoping for Tsunade to adopt me is even sillier! It's not rational, especially not when I couldn't care less about learning medical techniques. I think I'm to old to be adopted anyway."
Her calculating manner drops, the air of pragmatism and pure rationality fades, and he sees a hint of the her that is a dreamer. Or was a dreamer. It's been so long-buried, since Genin days when she picked up the no-nonsense attitude to protect him and make Neji at ease. Since Chunin days when she slaughtered people without seeing their faces and pulled her weapons out of their unmarked graves. Since the war when she lost Neji, who was God-knows-what to her, and almost lost everything else, and had her one shot at recognition with the Bashonen but lost that too.
"I dreamed of things being normal. You and me and Neji and Gai-sensei were all normal together. Even you, you dork, and Gai-sensei. You two were actually cool," she laughs, but rubs the bridge of her nose uncomfortably. "Nothing special."
"On the contrary, you know you are very special, Tenten-chan," he counters. She hadn't been talking about herself, but he knows her better.
"The dream, I meant," she snaps, but she fidgets with a kunai.
A beat passes, long enough for the rapidly-cooling autumn breeze to rattle the branches of the tree. "It doesn't matter though. It was just a dream, and a trap besides that. Let's get dinner, okay?" Her voice sounds normal enough, and she flips the kunai deftly from hand to hand.
"Good idea as always beautiful flower; I am famished!" he says, hoping the cheer in his voice can fill whatever is missing in her heart. He knows better, but Lee is an optimist, because that's how he survives. "You ARE special, and your dreams and hopes are special as well, Ten-chan," he adds, since he can't resist.
"I suppose so. Being together again would be special indeed," she murmurs, like it's a prayer. His heart breaks at the simplicity of her earnest request. How is it that some can have their wildest dreams handed to them, yet his dear friend cannot have such a humble wish granted? He slips an arm around her shoulders, because she is his friend, but also sometimes because he fears she could collapse from within.