A/N: I really get in the mood for starting stories around exam time... It's probably not the best practice but this story came from it, heh. Review! :)

"I have an announcement!" Gai declared, shooting to his feet.

Lee's eyes immediately snapped to his sensei. Tenten fought the effort to sigh and turned to the green spandex clad man. Neji didn't bother to look up.

"Our dear Neji has been recruited by ANBU!" Gai exclaimed. "This week will be his last with us. Neji, congratulations on this youthful achievement!"

"Hn," Neji muttered. "I could've told them myself."

Gai shook his head, trying to look as if he had the wisdom of the world.

"Young Neji, when a teacher feels this proud of his student, he must announce it himself!" he protested.

Neji remained impassive as Gai smiled brightly. He looked over at Lee, which was a bad decision, seeing as Lee's grin was just as blinding.

"This is good for you, Neji!" Lee told him. "I'm just so glad, Gai-sensei!"

Neji turned to glance at the only female member of his team. Tenten met his gaze and shrugged.

"Nice job, Hyuga," she remarked. "I knew you had it in you."

His eyebrows furrowed at her comment. Tenten wasn't quite like Gai and Lee but he had expected a more boisterous statement. Neji watched as she left the training grounds; Lee and Gai were too busy hugging and reminiscing to notice. Since their attention was elsewhere, Neji decided to follow her.

A few seconds later, a kunai zinged past his shoulder.

"Nobody said you could come with me!" Tenten called.

"Nobody said I couldn't," Neji retorted, slightly miffed that she was reprimanding him.

The brown haired girl turned around and glared at him.

"Why are you on my trail anyway?" she asked. "I already congratulated you."

In a few quick steps, Neji caught up with her.

"Something seemed off," he pointed out. "When you're happy, your eyes seem happy too, but when you talked to me, that twinkle wasn't present."

"Nothing gets by you," Tenten said sarcastically.

Neji heard the bitter undertone in her voice.

"Are you angry that I was chosen for ANBU?" he asked, unusually curious. "Or are you jealous? You're a fine kunoi–"

"I'm not jealous," Tenten snorted, shaking her head. "Please, Hyuga. Jealous of you? I think not."

Neji didn't want to admit it, since he was generally excellent at reading people. This time, he was stumped. He had no idea what was going through her head, even though she was one of the people he spent the most time with, someone he could even consider a best friend. If she wasn't jealous, there had to be something else, and only one thing came to his mind.

"Worried, then?" he guessed. "Are you worried?"

Tenten didn't answe and Neji knew he'd hit the nail on the head.

"You should know by now that I am, by no means, weak," Neji told her. "I would consider myself a rather strong fighter, in fact."

"Of course," Tenten replied. "I know all that, Neji. I'm not stupid. Now please, just leave me alone."

"I never called you any of those things," Neji retorted impassively. "Tenten, this would go more smoothly if you would tell me what exactly it is that's upsetting you."

She sighed and looked up at the sky.

"I'm stuck on a team with Lee and Gai without anybody sane now," Tenten pointed out. "How would that not be upsetting?"

"That was a nice excuse," Neji chuckled. "But I know you well, Tenten, and you have feelings of love for them under that act."

Tenten laughed.

"The way you put it is just so logical, Neji," she giggled. "Have you ever tried thinking from your heart and not your swollen head?"

"My head is of perfectly normal size," Neji protested. "And it's not possible to think from your heart, really."

She shook her head in amusement. Before saying anything else, she undid the buns that rested on top of her head.

"Fine, if you're going to think from your head, I'll have to get you to guess in some other way," Tenten shrugged. "So, humor me, Neji."

He gave her a slight nod, letting her know that she could go on.

"Being a Hyuga, you've studied people's emotions extensively," Tenten continued. "And tell me, Neji, what have you learned of how people act when they're in love?"

"Using the object of their affections, it is easy to manipulate them," Neji responded immediately. "They will often display worry for their lover, as well as sadness, if they are not together. Couples enjoy being together and touching is something that they also do often, in various manners."

He stopped, unable to think of anything else.

"Wonderful," she told him. "Perfect book definition of love. Now, you told me it wasn't possible to think from your heart? Total crap. Of course it is. My definition of love is training until midnight just to spend time together, letting my hair down in an effort to appear attractive in any way, trying to talk even if I know nothing will ever come out of it, dreaming about kissing those perfect lips… That's what love is to me, Neji."

He looked at her, his expression letting her know that he had finally put the pieces together.

"You're in love with Lee!" Neji realized.

Tenten wanted to smack him.

"I realize that leaving the team may put you in an awkward position," Neji went on, ignoring the sinking feeling in his stomach. "And that's okay. Lee's feelings will grow for you, as yours have grown for him."

She shook her head violently and got up.

"It's you, Neji," she said softly. "I love you. You're just too damn thick to notice it. Thinking I'm in love with Lee… For all that talk of being a genius, you're really just an idiot. Good luck with ANBU."

With that, she walked away from the man she loved.

Neji sat there for a while longer, perplexed. He watched her go, as he didn't know what he'd say to her even if he did know where she was going. The first thing he thought of was the last book he had read on love. There was a mission he had to go on, involving the kidnapping of a man's wife. Neji had read the book to better understand the emotions he was going through.

The man had asked questions constantly and the tension surrounding him was nearly palpable. Neji remembered not ever wanting to feel like that but oh, he'd had that experience as well.

While he was on a solo mission, Lee and Gai had gone on a long training exercise. That left Tenten in Konoha and Tsunade assigned her a solo mission as well, not realizing that it was more of an A-Rank than a B-Rank. Tenten was missing for a month and when she did make it home, she was in bad shape.

He had convinced himself that it was worry over an excellent shinobi that had made him feel useless when he went to visit her in the hospital. He hadn't quite realized that it was worry over an excellent woman that made him feel useless.

After Tenten had recovered, Neji spent even more time training. Now that he'd felt that way, he wanted to make sure he'd never feel like that again.

These thoughts swirling in his 'swollen head', Neji slowly walked home, deciding to talk with Tenten again the next morning.

He showed up at the training grounds early, as he knew that she was there early most days.

"Here to say something logical?" Tenten asked, without turning around.

Neji kept his distance. Despite all the missions he'd been on, he was only afraid of a few things. One of those things was Tenten's temper.

"Put down the weapons," he suggested. "I just came to continue our talk. Since you stormed off yesterday, I wasn't sure if it was the best idea to go after you."

"Or you were just scared," Tenten teased, a smile pulling at the corners of her lips. "Okay, Hyuga. I don't mind talking to you for the thirty seconds it'll take for you to tell me what I suspected all along, that you are a robot and therefore, do not have feelings."

"You read too much fiction," Neji retorted. "If you would read more nonfiction, you'd realize that we have not progressed that far quite yet."

At seeing her sigh, he went back to the original topic.

"I found a new definition," Neji told her. "For love, I mean."

"Oh?" Tenten said, raising her eyebrows. "I'd love to hear it."

He sat down on a nearby rock and motioned for her to do the same. She grudgingly came and sat next to him.

"I believe it might be possible to think from your heart," Neji admitted. "If I hadn't done it myself, I would still think that the idea was ridiculous, but I've changed my mind. Love, to me, Tenten, is not anything from a book. It's purposely not deflecting a weapon to see the worried reaction, it's watching wisps of brown hair blow about freely in the breeze, it's not being able to say a lot because the fact that we're together is enough. And love is the heightened sensation that comes from the anticipation of our lips touching."

Tenten giggled.

"Hyuga Neji, a romantic," she mused. "Who would've guessed it? Although, that was a lot of long words in that last sentence…"

"I took your definition and tweaked it a little bit," Neji shrugged. "But that's not the only thing I plan to steal from you today."

She looked at him, perplexed. Neji took the opportunity to catch her in a gentle kiss. She tried to protest in the beginning, but after a few moments, her hand was in his hair; his fingers curled around her neck. When they finally broke apart, Tenten's eyes were sparkling.

"I suppose I've been in love with you for a long time, Tenten," Neji chuckled.

If his hand hadn't been so comfortingly warm on her skin, she would've pulled away and put her hands on her hips.

"You suppose?" Tenten inquired pointedly.

"Well, rational thinking leads me to believe I haven't suddenly fallen in love with you," Neji explained, trailing off.

She shook her head in mock disappointment.

"I'm never going to get that out of you," she realized.

"At least one person has to think properly for a relationship to work," Neji pointed out. "And let's face it, Tenten. That person is evidently not you."

Tenten glared at him.

"Neji, darling, I am perfectly capable of rational thought," she protested. "Much more capable than Mr. I let weapons hit me so that this really pretty girl will be worried about me."

"Oh, really?" Neji smirked. "Ms. I dream about kissing those perfect lips?"

"Perhaps those lips are why I fell in love with you," Tenten grinned. "I'm not seeing any other redeeming qualities here."

Neji couldn't fight his genuine smile any longer.

"I love you, Tenten," he told her seriously. "And joining ANBU won't change any of that."

"Oh, Hyuga, I know," Tenten replied. "I love you too."

Before Neji could kiss her again, they heard strange noises coming from the bushes near them.

"Who's there?" Tenten called. "Come out or I will start throwing weapons at you."

Even Neji was surprised as Gai and Lee sheepishly came out of the bush, their green jumpsuits drenched.

"What happened to you guys?" Tenten asked, looking at them.

"YOUNG LOVE!" Lee sobbed. "It's just so beautiful!"

Gai put his arm around his student.

"Lee, this is no time for tears!" he declared. "Even tears of joy! As a punishment, we will do fifty laps on our hands around the training grounds."

"Yes, Gai-sensei!" Lee exclaimed.

Neji and Tenten watched in disbelief as the two ran off, on their hands.

"I changed my mind," Tenten groaned. "Please don't leave the team."

"I apologize in advance for anything you have to go through," Neji chuckled.

"I'm going to decimate you during training today," Tenten threatened. "We still have a week together, remember?"

"The original Team Gai has a week together," Neji corrected her. "If I analyzed our feelings for each other and the likely lengths of our lives, I'm sure we would have much more than that."

Tenten could not deny that this rational thinking was some of Neji's best.