Author's Note: Hello, again! I really appreciate those who reviewed, followed and even added this story as their favourite! I will continue writing and I hope you guys will continue to enjoy reading it.

Chapter 2: Morning Problems

Tenten's POV

I knew most people wouldn't believe me if I were to say this. I was sure others will laugh at me for saying what I was about to say. But, trust me; I am not trying to fool anyone here.

Waking Neji up was the most difficult thing I had ever encountered in my entire life.

For the past fifteen minutes, I had been trying to wake Neji up but had failed miserably. He didn't even move a single inch! Judging from his looks, it was as if he was the type that wakes up extra early everyday to catch the sunrise. I didn't know why but I just felt that way. Maybe it was his formal and strict personality which made me thought that he was a morning person.

"Neji." My tone sounded desperate. "Would you please just wake up?"

I sat down on Neji's bed and looked at the clock on the wall.

"It's already 6.20 AM, for goodness sake! I don't want to end up missing breakfast because of you!" I yelled in frustration. It didn't wake him up, of course.

I stood up and kicked his leg, which didn't wake him up as well. I wanted to just leave him but I thought of what Sakura said yesterday before the meeting started.

We were all given a student handbook and we were advised to read through it. I didn't bother doing that though because it looked like a very boring book. However, the hardworking Sakura actually read through it. It wasn't that thick of a book but knowing that she read through all those boring stuffs made me admire her a lot.

Apparently, according to Sakura, if your partner was late to class, you'll be considered late as well. In this case, if Neji was late to class, I would be marked late. What was worse? If you were late for more than three times in a month, you'll be punished. What was the worst? The punishment wasn't stated so it was like a surprise attack. You wouldn't know what would be done to you.

I didn't really care about that last night because Neji looked like a morning person. I was actually worried that I'll be the one late and Neji would kill me.

Well, looking at things now, I would be the one doing the killing.

I decided to take a quick shower before continuing to wake the sleeping log up. It felt impossible and I was on the verge of giving up.

"No. I must not give up. I will not receive any punishment, whatever the punishment is." I told myself with determination.

Unfortunately, despite the sudden surge of optimism, I still failed to wake Neji up. I tried hitting him with various things, such as pillows, books and even his heavy backpack.

Nothing.

He still didn't move.

"You're impossible!" I screamed even louder when I realized that it was already 6.45 AM. Breakfast would start in fifteen more minutes.

I tried to calm myself down so I could think of a plan.

There was silence in the room and an idea suddenly came to me.

I quickly ran out of my room and knocked on my neighbor's door.

The door opened to reveal Sasuke who seemed to be done preparing to leave.

"Why can't Neji be like his best friend in terms of waking up in the morning?" I thought to myself, feeling the anger coming back to consume me.

"What brings you here?" Sasuke asked as he fixed his tie.

I noticed how nice the male uniform was. They wore white buttoned up shirt with long sleeves. The collar and tie made them looked smart as well. The tie was dark red and it was absolutely classy. The shirt's pocket had the school's logo on it. The pants were long and were of the same colour as the tie.

The female uniform was the same actually. Just that we wore short skirts instead of pants. Overall, I didn't have complains regarding the uniform.

Anyways, I had more important things to attend to right now so I didn't exactly have the time to think about uniforms.

"I can't wake Neji up. I've tried so many ways but none worked. I even shouted at his ear while punching him. He didn't even move an inch! You're his closest friend, Sasuke. Do you have any idea how to wake him up?" I looked at Sasuke desperately, hoping he would lend me a helping hand.

I ran out of ideas to wake up that stupid log.

Sasuke almost looked like he was about to laugh, which caught me by surprise. He quickly gained his composure though and started walking to my room.

He walked up to Neji and had this look on his face which made him look like he was preparing for a war or something.

I heard him taking a deep breath and the next thing he did caught me by surprise again.

Sasuke placed both his hands on Neji's neck and started strangling him.

I was so shocked that I became speechless.

It took me a while before I managed to bring out my voice.

"S-Sasuke! What are you doing?! Are you trying to kill him?! I am asking you to wake him up! Not kill the guy!" I was about to stop Sasuke when something suddenly happened.

Neji woke up.

His eyes opened rather quickly and he was coughing due to the strangling.

"What is going on?" I thought as I stared at Neji, who was trying to comprehend his surroundings.

He looked at Sasuke and spoke, "It's you."

"You're going to be late. Hurry up and get ready." Sasuke spoke as if nothing out of the ordinary happened.

I was still standing at the same spot, watching Neji finally getting out of his bed and heading towards the bathroom.

"Do I need to kill him to wake him up? What?" I was still confused, obviously.

Sasuke looked at me weirdly, "You looked confused. Why?"

"Because of what you did to wake him up!" I replied. "Did you kill him to wake him up or what?!"

"I didn't kill him, obviously." Sasuke must thought I'm very stupid because he had that look on his face. "I found out that strangling him is one of the quickest ways to wake him up."

I blinked a few times.

"Has he always been like this? Are there no other ways to wake him up?" I found the whole thing to be rather unbelievable.

"He has always been like that. You can try slapping him or pushing him to the floor. Those work as well." Sasuke said and proceeded to leave the room. "As Neji's roommate and partner, I wish you luck."

I guess Sasuke was referring to the rule Sakura talked about last night.

I really didn't want to receive any punishment because Neji wasn't a morning person. Slapping him and pushing him down to the floor weren't exactly effective too. First of all, she really didn't want to slap or strangle him. I mean, what if she accidentally killed him? He might not be that weak but accidents happen all the time! As for pushing him down the floor, even though I considered myself rather strong for a girl, Neji was much bigger and heavier than me. Pushing him would take up too much energy and time, hence, it wasn't an effective plan.

Asking Sasuke to wake Neji up every morning wasn't a good idea too. I doubt Sasuke would agree to it anyway.

"I need a plan." I sighed at that thought.

Neji's POV

"You still look very pissed off." I said when Tenten and I were eating breakfast.

"Yes, Neji. I am still pissed off." Tenten answered without looking at me.

I found out that Tenten had a difficult time waking me up this morning. She even asked Sasuke to help her out. I knew waking me up was never easy. Back home, it was Kenshin-san who wakes me up. He was my personal butler since I was born so he was one of the very few who was able to easily wake me up.

I was actually surprised Tenten didn't leave me in the room. That was when I found out about the rule which caused Tenten to be so annoyed.

I cleared my throat and said, "Tenten. I will try my best to wake up on time from now on."

Tenten glared at me, obviously showing that she didn't believe I could do so.

Well, honestly, I also felt that it would be difficult for me to do so.

It annoyed me as well, knowing that one of my greatest weaknesses was not being able to wake up easily.

"Before I can think of a plan of my own, I will stick to strangling you every morning." Tenten said that while giving me death glares.

I looked at her apologetically before finishing my breakfast.

After filling up her stomach, Tenten looked less upset. She went back to her usual talkative self when we were on our way to the main hall. There was a general assembly that morning. Since Tenten and I were late for breakfast, all of our classmates went ahead of us.

We weren't late at least.

"You know, Neji." Tenten said. "I still cannot believe that you are less of a morning person than Naruto."

I didn't know why but I felt insulted. My glare intensified when Tenten started laughing.

"Anyway, have you thought of what extra-curricular activity to join?" Tenten asked after she managed to stop laughing.

I actually haven't given it much thought. We were allowed to take part in two extra-curricular activities, which was a pretty good thing I guess.

"I don't know." I answered. "How about you?"

Tenten smiled, "I am planning to join the archery club!"

"Archery?" I looked at her questioningly. "Why?"

"I have always loved archery!" Tenten had a sudden burst of excitement. "I had been doing archery since I was young."

"I see. Will you join another club besides that then?"

"Right, we can join two. I haven't thought about it. I'll think about it today. We need to sign up by tomorrow evening. So we must decide by tonight."

"There isn't much time left then." I should probably start thinking about it now.

"Yeah." Tenten rolled her eyes. "The list of clubs was given to us when we enrolled but I didn't give it much thought before."

"Same here."

"We can discuss it again later! Oh, I heard there is a really nice dessert place nearby. We should go! Orientation ends at 6 PM today so we are free at night!" Tenten sounded like an overactive child.

"I don't like desserts." I answered.

Tenten stopped walking and looked shocked, "You don't like desserts?! Why?!"

"I just don't."

"I don't care! You're coming with me! I'm going to prove to you that desserts are nice! Especially this one since everyone says so!"

I rolled my eyes, "Whatever."

It seemed like arguing with her wouldn't change her mind, anyway.

Tenten's POV

We arrived at the main hall on time. We started looking for our classmates since we were supposed to sit with them. I saw Sakura waving at us. Apparently, we were assigned to sit at the front row.

"You're just on time." Sakura said with a smile.

"Yeah, glad we made it. Why are we on the first row? Feels kind of awkward." I said since I could feel people staring at us.

There was a huge stage in front of us and the teachers were sitting at the right side of the stage. The hall was so big that it managed to accommodate all students, teachers and staff of Konoha Academy.

"Bet you're feeling awkward because of all the stares." Sakura whispered.

"Exactly. What's with all the stares?" I noticed that since Neji and I entered the hall, people had been staring at us. It was as if they looked up to us or something.

"That's because we're from section A." Sasuke, who was sitting beside Sakura, answered.

"Ah, that made sense." I thought. Being in section A means that we were the best or something like that. Maybe that was why everyone was staring.

"Well, better get used to it then." Sakura said.

Soon, Tsunade-san was on stage giving a speech. It was rather boring actually and I tried my best not to yawn that much. From the corner of my eye, I saw Shikamaru dozing off and Ino was trying to keep him awake.

When Tsunade-san finished her speech, everyone gave a big round of applause. We were then asked to go to our respective classrooms.

On our way out of the hall, we heard people talking about us.

"Those are from section A, right?" A girl asked her friend.

"So those must be the best in our batch then." A heard a guy said.

"Hey, isn't that Neji Hyuuga? He's so hot!" I heard another girl said.

"Sasuke Uchiha is hot too." I heard girls giggling.

I tried not to laugh and whispered to Neji, "Hey, you're popular."

Neji rolled his eyes and didn't even respond.

Neji's POV

We were walking back to our classrooms and it was obvious that people were talking about us.

I ignored Tenten who said I was popular because I didn't really care about that.

A guy said something that caught my attention.

"That's Tenten! She is so cute!"

"Yeah, I know right. I follow her on Instagram as well. She's so adorable!"

Tenten must've heard those two guys speaking because she had a funny look on her face. She whispered to me, "It seems that I'm rather popular myself."

I smirked at her and continued walking to our classroom.

Our homeroom teacher turns out to be Kakashi-sensei himself.

"Looks like I'll be seeing all of you a lot from now on." Kakashi said when he entered our class. He was fifteen minutes late though.

The seats in the classroom were arranged in twos and Kakashi-sensei told us that we were supposed to sit with our roommate. Since there weren't a lot of us in the classroom, it felt very spacious.

"Now that everyone's settled down, I'll start explaining what the orientation will be like." Kakashi said. "For today, there isn't much to do actually. Today is more like the day we allow everyone to settle down. From now until lunch time, I'll give a tour around the school. It's best that everyone gets familiar with the way around here. Any questions so far?"

Kakashi noticed that nobody had any questions and continued, "Alright then, let's go."

I noticed that it was 9 AM and lunch was at 12 PM.

"Three hours of tour. Wow, that is a long time." Tenten said what I was thinking of as she stood up to follow Kakashi.

"The school is huge, after all." I answered and stood up as well.

"I might as well pay attention to the tour. I definitely wouldn't want to get lost in this place." I thought to myself as I left the classroom.

Tenten's POV

The tour ended a few minutes before 12 PM so Kakashi-sensei allowed us to have an early lunch.

I was hanging out with Sakura, Ino and Hinata in the classroom. We finished our meal and were just chatting. All the boys weren't there so it was just us. I wasn't sure where they went though.

"Tenten." Hinata suddenly called out to me with an amused look on her face.

I raised an eyebrow at her since I didn't understand why she was giving me that face.

"How did you feel waking Neji nii-san up?"

My eyes grew wide at that question while Sakura and Ino looked confused.

"It was horrible!" I yelled. "I didn't know it was so difficult to wake him up! It was as if he was dead or something!"

"Wait, what? Neji isn't a morning person? I thought he is!" Ino said, looking shocked.

"I didn't expect that as well." Sakura said. "Oh, that reminds me. Did you happen to ask Sasuke to help you out?"

"Yes, I did." I said with a sigh. "I was desperate and didn't know what to do. Since Sasuke is right next door, I asked him for help."

"No wonder. I heard your voice when I was in the bathroom. I thought I heard wrongly." Sakura said.

"Neji nii-san has always been like that. Sorry about that, Tenten." Hinata looked apologetic now.

"You don't have to apologize for that annoying cousin of yours, Hinata! Right now I need to come up with a plan to wake him up." I sighed again.

"How did Sasuke did it?" Sakura asked with a curious tone.

"He strangled Neji."

"Seriously?!" Ino exclaimed. "Was he trying to kill the guy?!"

"That's what I thought too! I was so shocked! I'm not going to do that to wake Neji up, though. I mean, what if I accidentally kill him?!" I was still rather shocked about the event that morning.

"I think it should be fine." Hinata said.

"I still don't want to take the risk. Sasuke suggested slapping him or pushing him down the floor. But I believe that I can come up with more effective ways." I began thinking right afterwards.

"I don't think those are good ideas. Plus, doing that early in the morning seems tiring, don't you think?" Sakura said and laughed a little.

"Exactly! I'm not that much of a morning person. I'm not a fan of doing exercises right after I wake up! Help me think of something, guys." I gave them a sad look.

Ino looked like she was deep in thought and suddenly exclaimed, "I know! Why don't you kiss him, Tenten?"

There was silence for a few moments after Ino said that.

I blinked a few times at the blonde girl, "K-Kiss?"

"Yes, kiss." Ino repeated, as if it wasn't something unusual. "You should give it a try. It might work! It'll be great if it works, you know! You don't have to use much energy and you get to kiss a hot guy almost every morning! You're killing lots of birds with one stone! Or one kiss, to be exact."

"I will not do that!" I stood up from my chair. "Never!"

"Why not?! Just kiss him on the cheeks or something!" Ino argued.

By then, Hinata's face was red and all she could do was looking down at her hands.

Sakura was rubbing her chin as she thought, "You know, Tenten. It might work."

"Not you too, Sakura!" I yelled once again.

"It's worth a shot." Sakura said, looking convinced it was a good idea.

"Y-Yeah, Tenten." Hinata spoke, still looking rather embarrassed. "Neji nii-san never had a girlfriend so I assume he might never kiss before. Perhaps a kiss can wake him up."

"See, it might actually work since he is inexperienced with kissing!" Ino looked even more confident now.

"You guys are serious?" I asked, with a desperate tone.

"Yes. Just give it a try." Sakura said.

"Hang on." Ino said as if she suddenly thought of something. "Hinata, Neji never had a girlfriend? But he is so hot!"

Hinata's blush came back when Ino said that, "Y-Yeah, he never had one."

"I am actually surprised." Ino said with wide eyes. Then she looked at me with a smirk. "Perhaps Tenten could be his first."

Out of reflex, I threw a notebook at Ino's face.

"What was that for?!" Ino yell.

"For saying what you said!" I couldn't see my own face but I could feel my cheeks burning.

"You're blushing, Tenten." It was Sakura's turn to smirk.

"S-Shut up!" I had been yelling too many times today.

Just then, the boys entered the classroom, including Neji. So I sat down again, not wanting them to have the slightest idea of what we were talking about before they came in.

"I doubt someone like Neji would be interested in someone like me, anyway." I thought while everyone was going back to their own seats.

Neji's POV

Kakashi-sensei entered our class a few minutes after the others and I came back. I was rather surprised he wasn't as late as usual.

"I hope lunch was great." Kakashi started at he walked to stand in front of all of us. "For the afternoon session, we will be gathering at the gym. There will be some games and you'll compete with the other two sections."

"What?" Kiba said. "But there's so few of us."

During the morning assembly, I also noticed that there were at least three times more students in other sections. "I'm sure you'll all do just fine." Kakashi assured us with a smile.

"I wonder what kind of games it will be." Tenten said.

"No idea." I answered.

"Alright, let's go to the gym now. It'll start in fifteen minutes." Kakashi said that and led us to the gym.

There were already a lot of students in the gym by the time we got there. Just like in the morning, people couldn't stop staring at us.

Ino and Sakura were in front of me and I heard Ino said that the staring made her felt like some sort of superstar. I heard Tenten, who was walking beside me, laughing at what Ino said.

"Doesn't it make you feel like a star, Tenten?!" Ino asked.

Tenten just continued laughing.

Everyone was just standing around, waiting for the event to start.

Fifteen minutes had passed since we left our classroom and I heard someone spoke on the stage at the far end.

"Hello, the blossoming youngsters of Konoha High! Welcome to the annual orientation games! This is going to be so much fun so all of you better bring out that youthful spirit of yours!" A man in green spandex and very bushy eyebrows was talking in a highly enthusiastic tone.

"Why does that man reminds me of Lee?" Tenten commented.

"You're right." I said as I noticed the resemblance.

"I'm Gai! I am your physical education teacher and I'm looking forward to meeting everyone! For now, however, let us start the games!"

There was applause from the crowds and Gai-sensei was beaming weirdly.

"There will be three rounds of games and there will be breaks in between games. The first game is an obstacle course! The obstacles are changed every year and it is always a surprise. So let's see what this year brings us! Each section should choose eight people, four boys and four girls. I will give you five minutes to choose!"

Kakashi turned to us and said, "Well, since there are only four girls in section A, they have no choice but to all join. To be fair, I prepared a lucky draw. Just in case there isn't enough volunteers."

"Oh, great." I thought as I watched Kakashi-sensei taking out a transparent box with papers inside. I assumed the papers had our names written on them.

Kakashi-sensei took four papers from the box and read out the names, "Let's see. We have Sasuke, Kiba, Hinata and Shikamaru. Since Hinata is already a representative, I'll pick out another paper." Kakashi took another paper and read it out loud, "Oh, we have Neji. Okay, it's settled now."

"Troublesome." I heard Shikamaru said, sounding like he just woke up from a nap.

"What kind of obstacles were there in the previous years, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked.

"Well, let me think." Kakashi looked like he was deep in thought. "Last year, they had the students do embarrassing things like doing stupid dances or asking them to sing ridiculous songs. There was also once when the students were given limited ingredients but were asked to cook up something. You know, stuffs like those."

"Those sound pretty unusual for an obstacle course." Tenten said.

"It is Konoha Academy. There are a lot of unusual things going on in here." Kakashi said.

"Alright, may I ask all representatives to gather in front of the stage?" Gai-sensei said in that rather disturbing energetic voice of his.

When the representatives were all gather already, Gai-sensei counted us to check if it was the correct number of people and continued giving instructions, "The obstacle course will be held at the outdoor track field. The other students can watch from the seats at the sides. Without further ado, let's all head there!"

Gai-sensei led all the first year students to the outdoor track field, which wasn't so far from the gym. We were asked to stand at the starting line of the track field while other students were finding seats for themselves. Again, the seats were divided according to sections. That was why I saw my classmates at the best seats in front together with Kakashi-sensei. Other teachers were also present there and I even noticed Tsunade-san and Shizune-san.

Gai-sensei was still holding his wireless microphone when he announced, "Each stop along the obstacle course has a person who will be reading out the obstacle. Each representative is only allowed to play once. If all the representatives are ready, we will be beginning the game soon! At the count of three, we will officially start the game!"

"Let's do our best, guys!" Ino yelled.

"Three, two, one, go!"

"Since I'm part of this, might as well win this." I thought as we all ran to the first stop.

Author's Note: I hope everyone enjoyed the story so far! Please leave a review so I know what my readers are thinking. Feel free to give suggestions so I can continue improving. Sorry for any mistakes I made throughout the story. Thanks for reading, everyone!