Back with a new chapter ;) This is slightly longer. I've written up to the 4th chapter so far.
Naruto, Harry Potter, and their characters do not belong to me.
Hello Wizard World
Chapter 3: Magical Things
The air in the hallway was much lighter and cooler than the thick humidity in the bathroom; Tenten waited outside her bedroom for Neji to get dressed in his sleeping clothes - a T-shirt and shorts - before grabbing a fresh pair of boyshorts and a camisole for herself.
Neji was seated in the whitish trapezoidal glow of the bathroom light when she emerged from the room, the plastic bag of Dolohov's belongings in front of him. She joined him on the carpet, on the other side of the bag, and crossed her legs like he did.
"So," she began, holding out a pair of nitrile gloves for him.
"So." Neji eased his gloves on (his hands were larger than hers, so the gloves were tight around his fingers) and watched while she pulled the bag open hesitantly, her own hands gloved.
"What disturbed you so much that we had to talk about it?" Tenten asked, getting straight to the point.
Dolohov's belongings were stacked neatly within the plastic bag, and she arranged the items on the carpet between them. There was the wooden stick that Dolohov was holding when he died - Tenten suspected that it was his wand - as well as a variety of other things, like a folded stack of papers, a sack of what felt like coins, as well as a shimmery, lightweight mass of dark cloth.
"The photos," Neji said, carefully lifting the stack of papers from the off-white carpet. Tenten watched as he folded them open - the photograph on top was black-and-white, but what struck her most was that the people in the photo were moving.
"I've seen that kid before," she gasped, even as she wondered at the impossibility of the moving picture. "He lives with the Dursleys, I think, just down the road. Quiet bunch of people. I don't see him for the larger part of the year."
The photo looked as if it was taken in a court room of some sort - a big, empty space in the middle, with the adolescent (he couldn't be more than twenty) strapped to the chair in the center. He was thin and dark-haired, wearing round glasses, looking from side to side at the rows of people seated around him. Even the audience were moving - some of them were turning their heads to talk to their neighbors, though there was a lack of other camera flashes in the room.
A full-page news article accompanied the photo, Tenten also realized. "Potter undergoes trial for underage magic" the headlines screamed.
She glanced at Neji, who frowned, but he did not look any more curious - this was what had rattled him, then. She wasn't surprised. The news article looked legitimate, and even if it didn't, the moving people in the picture was enough to throw one off. It was dated two years ago.
How had she not known that the boy living down the street was a wizard all this time?
A quick scan of the article later, Tenten was left more astounded than she was already. This Harry Potter boy was famous for banishing some evil wizard almost two decades ago. And he was still in school. A magic school. "Apparently student wizards aren't allowed to use magic outside school," she told Neji, who frowned.
"I take it that Dolohov wasn't a student, then," he answered dryly.
Tenten rolled her eyes. "It also says in the article that he used magic here, in Little Whinging! Apparently he claimed to be protecting his cousin from some Dementor attack - but none of this was on the local news."
They remained silent for a while; Tenten wondered just how much of this magic stuff was done and concealed from their eyes. And she wondered what a Dementor was. Probably not something she'd want to get anywhere close to. How was she not aware of all this? Was the article even real?
"Those guys were headed to Potter's place," Neji said slowly.
Tenten stared at him uneasily. "To join him, or to kill him?"
"I don't think we should find out," Neji answered. "In fact, we should be getting out of here."
She pursed her lips. "Where to? He could be referring to another Potter, or another of Potter's places."
"It's likely this one, on Privet Drive. Why else would they target this street?" he countered.
"But why random attacks? Why not just head straight to him?" Tenten frowned. "It doesn't make sense."
Neji exhaled heavily through his nose. "We don't have sufficient information to answer any of those questions, and even if we did, it doesn't concern us."
She pulled a face at him. Neji was right. "But if they've found him, they'd leave, right? As it is, it's more dangerous to leave this house than it is to remain inside."
Dark eyebrows drew together; Neji considered her words. "It is safer to remain inside," he conceded, "Especially with the news reports we've been hearing."
"I'll check the Dursley's again."
Tenten rose to her feet and flicked the bathroom light off. With the flashlight from earlier, she made her way to her bedroom window, and pried the curtain open by a fraction, looking out carefully.
Privet Drive was just as quiet as before - no one was out on the street, and even the houses that were nursing small fires now had only glowing embers within. Across the street, the Dursley's place was just as dark, as if they were hiding in the aftermath of the attack, too. Was Harry Potter still in there? Or was he elsewhere, with the wizards who had attacked?
Tenten returned to the bathroom, and flicked the light back on.
"Well?" Neji watched as she settled back across from him, legs crossed.
"No sign of anyone. I think we're safe." She glanced at the laptop Neji had by his side, set up while she was studying the situation outdoors.
"Apparently the attacks have stopped," Neji told her. He turned the laptop so she saw the bright glow of its screen. "There aren't any new reports of people being killed or tortured."
"Huh." Tenten leaned a shoulder into the wall, and glanced back at the things between them. "I guess it's safe enough to continue pawing through these, then."
"For now," Neji answered, unwilling to give a firm response.
Tenten flipped through the rest of the papers in the stack she'd looked at minutes ago, then set it down in favor of investigating the other things.
"These are so fascinating," she breathed, picking Dolohov's wand up next.
It was a somewhat-long stick, at about twelve inches, and pretty solid. From what she saw, either end could be used to point with - there wasn't any marking or tapering to indicate direction. Tenten waved it around, altering her grip each time, but nothing happened.
"Maybe it only works if we chant a spell concurrently," she suggested.
Neji looked dubiously at her. "And I'm sure you know spells."
"Adacadabra," Tenten muttered, swishing the stick around. The air remained still, and she pouted. "Why don't you give it a try, Neji."
He frowned. "I'm not a wizard. It won't work with me."
"So? Give it a try!" She shoved the wand at him.
Begrudgingly, Neji accepted it, and gave it a few short flicks. There was no reaction - Tenten's shoulders drooped.
"Maybe you should hold it differently, or maybe you need to incant a spell," she suggested.
"It's a waste of time and effort," he told her flatly. "Feel free to try it 'til your face turns blue."
He set the stick down between them, and Tenten decided not to press him on the topic. Instead, she picked the little sack up, and traced the pads of her fingers over its coarse surface. Hard, curved ridges pressed into her palm. "Feels like coins to me."
"Coins?" Neji lifted his eyebrows. "It was heavy," he acknowledged.
"Think they might be jinxed? I've heard that Egyptians placed curses on the valuables in their tombs," Tenten mused. There was no one they could test these coins out on, though.
"He struck me as the type to kill someone right away, and not someone who had the patience to trifle with things like jinxes," Neji responded thoughtfully. "Even so, keep your gloves on when you touch them."
She nodded and undid the sack carefully, slowly prying it open by its mouth. As a precaution, Tenten spread an unimportant-looking news article open, and poured the contents of the sack out - slowly at first, then when all it looked to contain was a variety of coins, she emptied the rest of it.
"I don't recognize the coins," Neji remarked. He leaned closer, picking one up with his gloved fingers.
Upon closer inspection, Tenten found that the little bronze coins were "knuts", the silver ones "sickles", and the large gold ones "galleons". Their names were etched in cursive on the flat surface of each coin, and each denomination had a different mythical creature embossed on it. Newts gleamed on the bronze coins, unicorns almost whinnied on the silver, and dragons reared their heads on the gold ones.
"Think we can auction these off?" Tenten suggested, glancing up at Neji. "I'm pretty sure they're rare, if few people knew about the existence of magic."
He leveled a considering look at her. "Think about what they could buy you."
She paused, and her eyes widened. "Oh, wow. I'd never even thought about that."
Neji smirked at her.
"Maybe I'll be able to buy a unicorn with this," Tenten told him, grinning.
"With the amount of money a crook like Dolohov was carrying?" Neji scoffed. "His robes didn't look remotely decent. These probably aren't worth that much."
Tenten let her shoulders droop. There were mostly bronze and silver coins in the sack - just a handful of gold ones. "I guess the galleons are worth the most, huh?"
"Looks like it." Neji picked a sickle up and examined it closely. "Though I'm not sure where we'd start looking for a magical shop. Definitely not when the wizards are attacking people as they were today."
She shuddered, remembering Dolohov's attack. "No, certainly not soon. We'll have to wait until things die down."
Neji dipped his chin, satisfied with her answer. "If you're venturing into the magical world, I'm coming with you."
Tenten grinned at the promise of his presence. "Afraid I'd get into trouble?"
His lips quirked in a tiny smile. "More like I'm afraid you wouldn't return. You'd be far too excited."
She didn't deny that he was right. So she grinned and asked, "Would you be able to stop me?"
Neji sent her a measuring glance, looking her up and down. (Inwardly, she was excited - that he didn't mind looking at her so intently, and that he would want to follow her into the unknown.) "When you're this interested in something, it's hard to stop you," he acknowledged. "It'll be like trying to prevent you from entering a knife store."
Tenten was sure that her eyes were twinkling when she beamed at him. "You know me well."
"I know you like the back of my hand, Tententen." He smiled steadily at her, and she blushed. He hadn't used that nickname in a long time, and that was the second time tonight that he'd called her that.
"Back to our loot," she fumbled, scooping the coins back into their sack. Tenten was relieved that they weren't strange bugs or something vile that would destroy the newspaper articles - information like that was probably rare where they lived, and she wasn't sure if it would be available on the internet. Her head snapped up. "Have you tried searching for information about magic and wizards?"
Neji inclined his head. "There are a lot of stories - it'll take time to sieve through them, to determine if they're real."
She sighed. "I guess it'll be a project for the morning, then."
"For your morning, you mean. I do still have to work tomorrow," he replied, reaching for a shiny pentagon box with the words "Chocolate Frog" on it. It was domed, purple surface speckled with silvery stars.
"You're such a workaholic, it's Saturday tomorrow," Tenten chided playfully. She watched as he turned the palm-sized box around, reading the few descriptions available.
"'Find out if you've got one of the rare wizard cards inside,'" Neji read, and flicked his gaze back up at her. "Unlike you, there are cases that require me to be on the job seven days a week."
She stuck her tongue at him. "Well, at least I'm flexible with your awful schedules, unlike so many of your dates."
He smiled at her. "You're different."
"Yeah, I put up with you showing up unannounced at my place at 10pm for dinner," she retorted. "At least you don't mind eating leftovers."
Neji shrugged half-heartedly, and cracked the box open.
At once, a little brown thing hopped out and landed on his thumb. Tenten yelped; Neji merely gave a start.
It was a chocolate frog.
A real, blinking, gulping, twitching one. It gleamed like tempered chocolate, and would have looked delicious, if it weren't for the fact that it was alive.
She glanced between the frog and Neji. "Is it a trap?"
A frown wrinkled his forehead. "I don't think so, though we can't be certain."
Slowly, Neji dropped the cardboard box, and lifted his other hand, to capture the strange brown creature.
It slipped through his fingers, and landed on the opposite wall in a powerful leap.
"What?" Neji muttered. He moved towards it warily, reached out, and the frog jumped onto his hand, then his cheek, and to the top of his head, leaving little chocolatey footprints behind.
Tenten bit a smile back. "That's kind of cute, actually."
It seemed that there was no way one could easily capture the frog with one's bare hands, so Tenten took the empty plastic bag they'd used to transport Dolohov's belongings upstairs, waved it around so it puffed with air, and brought the open mouth of the bag down onto Neji's head.
Miraculously, the frog did not escape when it could, and Neji was left with a plastic bag hat crowning his regal head.
Tenten grinned when the frog jumped onto the inside of the plastic bag - she promptly grabbed it off Neji's hair and tied it up, effectively trapping the little creature. She waved it triumphantly at Neji; he cracked a grin.
"So, what wizard card is in the box?" she asked, flicking her gaze to the forgotten cardboard container.
Neji reached over for it, pulling it open fully. Tenten watched as he withdrew a colorful pentagonal card. Like the photo on the newspaper article, the wizard card also had a moving picture, one that neither she nor Neji was surprised by by this point. In the picture, a thin, old man wearing half-moon glasses smiled and winked at them, his silver beard billowing from his chin.
"'Albus Dumbledore,'" Neji read.
"Never heard of him," Tenten replied cheerfully.
He looked at her, unamused. Neji scanned the back of the card - a bunch of words in cursive. "Albus Dumbledore apparently defeated the dark wizard Grindelwald, discovered the uses of dragon's blood-"
"There're dragons?" she yelped, eyes wide. Suddenly, the world seemed less safe than it already wasn't.
Neji shrugged. "That's if you believe this."
Tenten pursed her lips, glanced dubiously at the colorful wrapper. "What else does it say?"
"He deals with alchemy, and his hobbies are tenpin bowling and chamber music," Neji said with some finality.
She stared at him. "That... sounds like us. Like normal people."
Ebony eyebrows arched. "What were you expecting?"
"I don't know, something like fighting dragons, or inventing new spells, or something." Tenten faltered. She took the card from Neji and scrutinized it. Like the photo on the newspaper, there was no wiring behind it - the only way this could be possible in her and Neji's world would be if the pictures were on some incredibly flat screen - but the photo seemed to be printed on plain cardboard. "Maybe he doesn't exist."
Neji shrugged again. "For all you know, he's been on this street before."
"No way," Tenten scoffed, frowning. "What would an important person like him be doing here?"
"Visiting the Potter boy, maybe," Neji suggested.
"I assume those thugs who broke in earlier were dark wizards," Tenten mused. "Would've been helpful if someone like the Dumbledore guy came around and stopped them. Maybe even Dumbledore himself."
Neji took the card back and glanced over it. "It says here that he defeated Grindelwald in 1945. Supposing he was twenty then, he'd be seventy-two now. He might be dead."
Tenten made a face. "What about other good wizards? We're too pathetic and non-magical to be helped, huh? Better yet, why aren't the dark wizards targeting them?"
"It could be that the dark wizards have the upper hand now," Neji suggested, glancing at her. "That would explain the conflicts and unexplainable events that have occurred over the past two years or so."
She winced and shivered. "Ugh."
Neji set the card aside. "What shall we do with the frog?"
Tenten considered it for a moment. "Do you think it's edible?"
"I wouldn't want to try it," he responded flatly.
"It could be an explosive," she thought suddenly, and cringed. "With artificial intelligence."
"Would wizards be able to make that?" Neji returned, glancing at the plastic bag. The frog wasn't moving. "Or are we giving their abilities too much credit?"
"No idea," Tenten muttered. "We should capture a wizard alive and ask."
"Too dangerous," Neji countered. "We barely avoided far worse consequences tonight."
"What if it's a time bomb?" she asked next. "We should get rid of it."
"And how would you suggest we do that?" Neji looked expectantly at her.
"Throwing it out into the backyard. I'll pierce it with a knife," she responded.
"I'm not opposed to that," Neji answered.
They made their way to the back of the house, and Tenten cracked a window open, flinging the plastic bag at the approximate middle of her backyard. It had been folded carefully so that it occupied an area the size of the frog, and weighed down with a stone.
Tenten reluctantly bade her knife goodbye, and flung it at the white shape of the plastic bag. Neji tensed next to her, ready to grab her if anything went wrong.
The knife hit with a soft thud, and nothing else happened.
"Well, that was anticlimactic," Tenten muttered. At least she didn't lose a knife to that frog.
They waited by the window for five minutes, just to be sure, then retreated back to the bathroom, to examine the last mysterious item.
"Want to try the other chocolate frog?" Tenten asked, waving the only other intact box at Neji.
"No," he said in a tone that brooked no argument.
She grinned and set the box aside.
Everything else that Neji found on Dolohov's person wasn't all that interesting, like pieces of string and paperclips, and half-eaten pies wrapped in foil (Tenten tossed that in a bag that went straight into the bin). The very last item, though, was a dark mass of cloth, that was both shimmery and lightweight.
"I wonder what this is for," Tenten said, shaking the cloth out. It seemed to be a long cloak, with wide sleeves and a deep hood. It didn't smell musty or old, and Neji said that Dolohov kept it in a very accessible pocket - so the chances of it being safe were very high.
To be safe, she slid one arm into the sleeve of the cloak.
It disappeared.
Tenten shrieked, and Neji started.
"Tenten!" he exclaimed worriedly, moving forward.
She yanked her arm out of the cloak, and it was intact once again, opaque and tangible. Neji's eyebrows knit together; he reached for the cloak and took it away from her.
"This is dangerous," he said, looking suspiciously at it. "We shouldn't trust it."
"But what if that's all it does?" Tenten retorted, intrigued since she could feel every bit of her arm, and it didn't feel like she was about to die the next minute.
"We don't know for sure," Neji told her.
"Well, try what I did, then," she told him. "Put your non-dominant arm in. It feels just like a cloak made with tissue."
He watched her dubiously, then found the other sleeve, and slowly slid his arm in. Now that Tenten was expecting it, she wasn't surprised to see his hand, then his forearm, disappear.
"It doesn't seem as dangerous as I thought it would be," Neji acknowledged. He drew his arm out anyway.
"What if something only happens when you become fully invisible?" she asked next.
"I wouldn't want to try that," he answered.
"We should," Tenten returned. "Just in case it proves to be useful."
"According to your imagination, what might be the worst-case scenario?" Neji asked, brows drawn low.
Tenten paused and thought for a bit. "We get transported to another dimension? Or we die?"
Neji glowered at her.
"What if we wear it together," she told him. "Then if something happens, we won't be alone in it."
He considered it for a while. "Fair enough."
They stepped into the bathroom together, stood in front of the mirror, and awkwardly squeezed themselves into the cloak. It was a tight fit - Tenten took the left sleeve, and Neji had the right. She felt his chest press into her arm and back when they pulled the front of the cloak shut.
All Tenten saw in the mirror was her head and Neji's, floating in midair.
"That looks really creepy," she remarked. Yet she could feel her body pressed against his, and it felt nothing like the end of the world.
"Ready?" Neji asked, lifting the hood up over their heads.
She took a deep breath. "Yeah."
The light, shimmery cloth was snug around both their heads - Tenten's nose and chin were visible, so Neji shifted, wrapping an arm around her waist to adjust her position next to him, and the hood concealed them completely.
All she saw was the painted wall behind them.
"Wow," she breathed. "We're still alive."
Neji's cheek was pressed against her temple, and she felt every bit of his body heat through her clothes. It didn't seem as though they were in any immediate danger, and Tenten relaxed.
She grew very aware of Neji's form against hers, and heat pooled in her belly, all over again.
"I guess this is safe to wear," she said breathlessly. "Can we move around in this?"
They attempted to walk together in the cloak - Tenten looked down, and saw their toes when they tried to take too-large steps, though for the most part, the garment was long enough to render them completely invisible.
"This is priceless," she told him. And the experience of being pressed up against her best friend was beyond that.
"It'll be very useful in the event that we have to protect ourselves by hiding," Neji agreed.
"Which could be anytime in the near future," she reminded both of them. "Who's going to take possession of the cloak when you leave here to go to work?"
Although she couldn't see any sign of them in the mirror, Tenten could still glimpse Neji's face right next to hers, as if it was a separate dimension within the cloak, that the gazes of others could not penetrate.
"You keep it," Neji told her. "I want you to be protected when I'm not around."
She frowned at him from the corner of her eye. "What about you? You should be the one taking the cloak."
"Then you shouldn't have asked," Neji told her. "I answered first, so you're keeping the cloak and using it to ensure your safety."
Tenten stomped on his foot. "That's not fair!"
He hissed in pain. "What was that for?"
"Putting me over yourself. Don't do that, Neji Hyuuga," she snapped.
"Then what do you suggest?" He leveled a look at her from his side of the hood.
"You could stay over at my place until this whole mess dies down, and if anything goes wrong, we'll both have access to this," Tenten suggested.
"You're being paranoid," he said tonelessly. "Besides, I have to go to work."
"You don't if you're under a doctor's orders," Tenten retorted. "I'll call Sakura on your behalf."
Neji heaved an exasperated sigh. "I'll contact Uchiha. You don't have to trouble yourself with getting me out of work."
She grinned. "That's more like it."
Neji looked as though he would dearly love to roll his eyes, though he did not.
"With this, we can actually go to the store and back," Tenten said suddenly. "I don't think they'll be able to trace us with this... unlike Sauron and his Ring."
"For all you know, someone's keeping track of this," he answered dryly.
She winced. "Well, let's see what happens, I guess. What's done is done, and we'll defend ourselves if we have to."
"With a magic stick we can't use?" Neji countered.
"You go on and get that stick to work. I'll use my knives," she said, elbowing him lightly in the ribs.
"I'm not a wizard," Neji reminded her. "We should get out of the cloak - it's getting warm in here."
"I'm too hot for you to handle, huh?" Tenten grinned, and bumped her hip against his.
Neji frowned at her.
Without quite thinking, Tenten grabbed the hand he'd anchored on her waist, and dragged it up her side. His fingers caught on her tank top, and his palm slid over bare skin that their movement exposed. Neji caught his breath.
Her heart was beating a little too loudly; Tenten pulled the cloak open and stepped out, hardly watching how she and Neji manifested from thin air in the mirror.
"We should get some sleep," she told him decisively, looking at anywhere but him. "I want to write three chapters tomorrow."
Neji scoffed. "Weren't you just ribbing me for working on Saturdays?"
Tenten shrugged and looked at the pile of things on the floor. "Well, I set my own schedule. I can write whenever I want."
"Workaholic," he muttered beneath his breath. She glowered at him.
"Like you aren't," Tenten muttered back.
They stashed Dolohov's belongings in new bags, set them back in the spare room, and returned to Tenten's bedroom, after making sure that the neighborhood was, indeed, quiet and at peace for the night.
Tenten locked her bedroom door; Neji raised an eyebrow, visible under the light of the bedside lamp.
"Are you locking yourself in with me? I may or may not infect you with the super-potent workaholic bug," he informed her, face completely straight.
She rolled her eyes. "Well, I'll infect you with the nymphomaniac bug if you do."
"Is that a threat, Tententen?" Neji asked softly as he settled into the side of her bed that was closer to the door.
"Yes, it is," she told him. "Do you want to see how contagious my bug is?"
With the banter they had going back and forth, it was easy to ignore the fact that she was to be sharing a bed with one of the Most Eligible Asian Bachelors in London. Or perhaps the whole of England. Who was also her best friend. With the way his presence made her heart quiver with excitement, he may as well be the Most Eligible Bachelor in the Universe. Period.
Tenten lifted the sheets and planted her bottom on the mattress on her side of the bed, before swinging her legs up. Neji checked his phone briefly for messages, then lay down, and watched her expectantly.
There were still some inches between their bodies when they lay side by side, heads centered on their pillows - though, of course, Tenten would much rather be pressed up next to him.
Neji left the bedside lamp on and turned to her, so his face was partially cast in shadow. "So," he began, "Your nymphomaniac bug. I'm interested in how you propagate it."
Tenten lifted her eyebrows in surprise. "You are?"
It wasn't like she was actually a nymphomaniac, but she wrote enough about it in her books to be counted as one. Neji nodded solemnly.
"Well, I stick my tongue in your ear," she told him, which was the grossest treatment she could think of on the spur of the moment.
His brow crinkled. "That doesn't sound remotely sexy."
"Oh?" Tenten challenged, and grinned. "Then maybe you'd find it sexy when I do it to you."
He looked doubtfully at her, and she turned onto her side, facing him with her body.
"So," she started. "Are you game enough to subject yourself to my bug propagation?"
"It sounds like you're proposing an invasion of my body," Neji muttered, pale eyes fixed on hers.
Tenten quirked a brow. "You don't want to go there, Mister. I can come up with at least three ways to make that logically possible."
And another three to make it incredibly sexy.
He sighed. "You and your science fiction."
"Well?" She grinned. "Bug propagation or no?"
He looked at her in long-suffering silence. "You may as well do it quickly, and we'll not speak a word of this again."
Tenten felt her lips twitch. She propped herself up on her elbows, leaned in close. (Neji's damp hair smelled like her shampoo, and his skin was smooth and soft.) Carefully, she tucked his long black locks behind his ear, and parted her lips, slowly lowering the tip of her tongue into the grooves of his ear.
Neji didn't pull away, though he frowned, and shifted a little when she finally licked the entrance to his ear canal.
"Well?" she asked, drawing back to gauge his response.
His brows were still drawn, and he looked to be at a loss for words. "It's... a unique experience."
Tenten smiled. "Did it work? Are you feeling the least bit amorous?"
Nej's pale eyes didn't leave hers for long moments. "No," he said finally, "You'd have to try harder to infect me with that bug of yours."
Her eyebrows rose all the way up her forehead. "Really? And you'd subject yourself to that?"
He seemed to debate with himself for a bit, before finally yielding, "Yes."
"You don't know what you're getting into," she told him, and returned her lips to his ear.
Tenten wet her tongue. This time, she was going to try her darnedest to get a reaction out of him.
She grasped his arm lightly and breathed over his ear, then took his earlobe between her lips, nipping gently on him. Neji drew a quick breath; she smiled, and switched to dragging her teeth over his skin. From the corner of her eye, she saw his pale eyes widen, felt his heart quicken beneath her palm, and drew the tip of her tongue up the helix of his ear.
It was like a very adult kiss, but with his ear, slowly, teasingly, sliding into the groves and following the ridges, until she reached the hollow next to his ear canal, and licked over that opening.
Neji was marginally less composed when she pulled away - his gaze jerked to hers, and he was breathing a little faster than before. Whether that had to do with her kiss, Tenten wasn't sure.
"How was it?" she asked with a grin. "Are you infected by my nymphomaniac bug now?"
He narrowed his eyes, and she found herself pinned to the mattress in the next moment.
Neji's lips were on her ear, and he was doing the exact same thing to her - suckling on her earlobe, and dipping his tongue into her ear in a way that made her think this wasn't the first time he'd done something like that.
His tongue was deft, warm and moist, sliding along the shell of her ear and probing inside, in a manner so intimate that heat arrowed straight between her legs and moisture leaked from her flesh.
A gasp flew from her lips, followed by a soft moan, and Neji broke the kiss, leaving her breathing unevenly, all too aware of the way his palm was on her midriff and how her nipples were straining at her tank top.
"We should sleep," she croaked, turning away from him the moment he released her.
Sleep was the last thing on her mind, but Neji couldn't know how much she wanted to be beneath him right now, with nothing separating their skins.
"You infected me with the nymphomaniac bug," he commented mildly behind her, straightening the sheets over them. The lamp flicked off. "I should return the favor with my workaholic bug."
Despite how flustered she was feeling, Tenten couldn't help but smile. "Really?"
"Tomorrow," Neji told her quietly. "I'll get you back for it."
Was he really infected by her bug? Tenten wondered what the implications of that statement were, and was tempted to ask, when she felt Neji slip a warm arm around her waist.
"I'm not dating anyone," he murmured into her neck, his chest pressing lightly into her back, and her breathing hitched. "You don't mind, do you?"
"No," she answered, her heart hammering against her ribs. He kept his hips and legs away from hers, but she didn't mind, didn't think to muse upon it, because this was already more than she could hope for.
Except, of course, it would help if her pulse wasn't thudding insistently in her crotch.
First world problems, Tenten told herself, and smiled. They'd deal with all bug and wizard problems tomorrow.
A/N: I don't know how dealing with wizards turned into dealing with bug problems LOL.
For those who aren't into the Potter fandom, I hope this chapter wasn't too much of a drag. ;) Thank you all for taking the time to leave your thoughts, as always!