Hi there!

My New Year's Resolution was actually to finally pick up on my other stories (here and the Reader-Inserts over at dA) but as we all know, New Year's Resolutions are meant to be broken anyway, two days after is a new record for me though...

But damnit, New Year's Eve and stupid party customs decided I just HAD to start on this story I've been thinking about for some time, because Kishimoto actually GAVE Tenten some character depth and wrote down somewhere (probably on New Year's Eve) that she likes fortune-telling.

So I present to you: Tenten's fun (and Team Gai's horror) with Fortune-Telling! Or, because it's better-sounding: And Fortuna Smiles

Enjoy!

Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate.

—Sun Tzu

Sometimes Tenten wished she brought soap bubbles to the training area.

"Why are you giggling to yourself, Tenten?" Neji drawled from his position under the dummy post, but his eyes remained closed so the girl knew he wasn't really bothered by her little display of lunacy.

Biting down on her lip she suppressed any other random thoughts from bubbling to the surface of her bored mind. Bubbling…Soap bubbles…

"Tenten?"

She hastily caught herself and tried to hide the giggles with a cough.

"Sorry Neji, just having poetic thoughts about soap and the sunset…"

The Hyuuga grunted out a noncommittal "Hn" but still kept his eyes closed and his posture relaxed.

"You should not think during meditation, Tenten. It is an exercise to cleanse your mind off wordly troubles not for coming up with nonsensical ideas."

Tenten let herself fall back to lie in the grass, still warm from the early summer sun, which was now slowly fading below the horizon. It had been a long day of training and not even Neji could blame her for getting distracted by doing something more interesting than "not thinking".

"Whatever you say, Neji. But you know, if you got troubles it'd be better to try and actively solve them than trying to force them out of your mind. That way they will only accumulate and come back to bite you in the butt one day. And they will have merged and evolved into a monster of Gai-worthy intensiveness…"

She had to bite her lip again to stop herself from another giggle fit at the mental image of a blob-monster with bushy eyebrows trying to consume a petrified Neji, while mumbling "troubleeeee!". Yep, definitely time to call it a day.

Finally the Hyuuga boy opened his pale eyes to stare at his female teammate in bewilderment. Or as close as Neji ever got to such an emotion.

"Tenten, I'm not talking about actual, vital problems. Those have been dealt out by fate and have to be adequately reacted to, as you have taught me."

This got the girl to sit up again and blink at her partner in actual bewilderment.

"Aren't you in a chatty mood right now, Hyuuga."

Neji simply raised an eyebrow at her before he got up and dusted off his pants before offering Tenten a hands up.

"I simply wish to inform you of your misunderstanding before you try to force another of your so-called "educational demonstrations of how fate can be influenced by humans" on me. I have no problems!"

Tenten pulled herself to her feet with the boy's help and gave him a sour smile.

"Liar. And I believe I called it "Stop talking about birds, you idiot. I'm gonna tell you what birds have to say about your fate!""

"Actually you used a whole lot more swear words, but…"

"Whatever, bird-brain! I get it. You have no problems, none at all. I'll still bring my cards to tomorrow's team meeting!"

The Hyuuga stopped dead in his tracks and Tenten had to tip back onto her heels to avoid colliding with the taller boy. Slowly Neji turned his most intimidating look on her, the one which was not quite a glare but bordered on promises full of pain.

"No."

Neji resumed walking, faster this time and Tenten suspected he wanted to get away with his word being the last before she pestered him with her idea.

"Fat chance! Now I'm totally bringing them!" She called after the retreating Hyuuga and she could have sworn she saw him flinch slightly, but he did not turn around to dissuade her from the notion anyway.

Humming she resumed her own way home, scooping up her pack on the way out of the field, soap bubbles now the farthest thing from her mind, because tomorrow would once again be a "educational demonstration" of how just the right words at the right time to the right person could help shape their own perception.

Especially if you knew your customer as well as Tenten did her boys. And her tarot cards.

Lee would have a blast (again). And maybe Neji would smile at her badly disguised insinuations at his fate-obsession in their Genin days. And maybe, just maybe, this would (once again) make him forget his "not there"-troubles.

Next up: Augury

Oh and just so you know: I'm not a professional at fortune-telling, so some of the stuff I looked up, the other things I knew and most of it is artistic freedom, 'k? 'k