Tenten woke up the next day with her brain clinging on to the dream she had the previous night. The dream terrified her to the point that she didn't know anything but fear until breakfast. She had dreamt that her grandmother had been abducted and killed by a masked man. The awful scene kept playing through her mind; all she wanted to do was locate her grandmother to make sure that she was ok. She ran down the stairs to the living room where her grandmother usually sat rocking in her rocking chair. As soon as she saw her, her eyes lit up. Relieved, she ran over to her grandmother like she hadn't seen her in years. Her grandmother, Tomomi, smiled at Tenten's sudden appearance.
"Hello Tenten. Why are you down here in such a hurry?" the old lady hummed
"Grandmother, I just had the worst dream. You were taken and..." she trailed off not wanting to say the word 'killed' out loud
Tomomi smiled to see her granddaughter's concern for her well being and brought her into a weak embrace. "I'm not going anywhere dear."
Tenten smiled and pulled away "I better get ready or I'm going to be late for the academy." She ran upstairs to change, brushed her hair and teeth, and got her bag together. Her mind was no longer on the dream but on Neji. She wants to talk to him. Talking with him the day before made her feel that her situation isn't the worst there is. She feels like she can talk to him because he has gone through something similar.
When she finally made it to the academy, she met up with Sakura and shared a few laughs with her before their first assignment. During class, there was a bit of a delay for everyone taking the shadow clone jutsu exam. There was this one student who could not get the jutsu down even if his life depended on it. "Come on Naruto" said a familiar voice in the room. Tenten scanned the room to locate the voice's owner when she saw Kiba.
She knew it would be Kiba. He never knew when to shut his mouth, but he was her friend nonetheless. She continued scanning the room to find any other friends of hers. She saw Shikimaru looking out the window, Choji eating a bag of chips, Hinata looking at Naruto, Sakura flirting with Sauke, Ino looking at her reflection, and Neji was standing patiently waiting. She went over to Hinata to get her mind off of Naruto and to answer a few questions for her.
"Hey Hinata! How's it going?"
"G-Good, thank you f-for asking" she choked out
"Well that's good. Do you mind answering a few questions for me?" she asked
"I g-guess not. What questions do y-you have?"
"Well, they are about Neji mostly. I met him yesterday and I just want to get to know him a little better. My first question is, does he have any friends?" she almost didn't want to ask this question thinking that it would be rude to assume he had none.
"N-Not that I know of" Hinata said sweetly
"Ok, question two, what is his favorite food? I thought I might do something nice for him. It's what friends are for"
"Herring s-soba. He loves i-it" she stuttered while stealing glances at Naruto
Tenten let a small smile escape when she realized why Hinata was stuttering. "If you like Naruto, then go over there and talk to him"
Hinata's face ignited with a deep blush and said "I-I d-don't like him"
"Don't be afraid Hinata. He's just a boy. Go over and talk to him." Tenten begged as she put her hand on Hinata's back pushing her slightly toward Naruto.
Hinata fought back by planting her feet firmly to the safe spot. There was no way she was going to step any closer to the boy or she might die of embarrassment. Tenten understood Hinata's feelings and left her alone. She went over to Sakura to see if she was still drooling over Sasuke. Surprizingly, Tenten found no boy near her friend. She took this opportunity to talk to her about something that had been bothering her for a while. Seeing that Tenten had something on her mind, Sakura raised an eyebrow and said, "What's up Tenten?
Do you need to talk about something?"
Shocked that she picked up her body language so fast, Tenten let out a small blush and said, "Well, do you think that we could invite Neji and Hinata to eat lunch with us?" She desperately wanted to know these two better. They interested her the moment she saw their eyes. She had never seen a Hyuga before and wanted to know as much as she could about them. Of course she knew how respected the Hyuga clan was, but she had never seen a Hyuga in her life. She wanted to take advantage of this rare opportunity to see just what their clan was like.
