Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.

Special Thanks: goes out to Kagamine Arimonori, rao hyuga 18, Ami1010, and SilentMidnight2 for your reviews! Also thanks to everyone who's added this to their favorites and follows lists!

Author's Note: We see lots of other characters in this chapter - plus the return of NejiTen interaction! I hope you enjoy this chapter, and thanks for reading!

*~Chapter III~*

~Dinner~

The Yellow Flash was conveniently located in the center of Konoha, in what most people referred to as the "business district" of the relatively small town. Being the only sit-down restaurant in the area, it offered an eclectic variety of foods, from cheeseburgers to burritos to lasagna. There was something for everyone's palates there, which often made it a meeting place for patrons and employees alike at the nearby library, antique shop, grocery store, hospital, and any number of other businesses.

As Neji and Tenten stepped from the muggy heat outside to the cool, fragrant interior of the restaurant, the buzzing hum of numerous conversations battered the former's ears. The place was pretty busy, considering it was only a Monday, and the sound made the headache he'd been fighting since before lunch offer a particularly vicious jab just behind his eyes. The bright fluorescent lights overhead weren't helping, either.

Pausing just inside the door, next to the hostess stand, Neji scanned the patrons in search of Tenten's coworker. With his bowl-cut hair, wide dark eyes, and penchant for wearing lime-green and neon orange clothing, he shouldn't have been hard to spot, but he didn't seem to be there.

"I guess we beat him here." Tenten had obviously come to the same conclusion, and she glanced at her watch with a concerned frown. "And we're five minutes late. He did say six-thirty...?" She trailed off in confusion.

Just then Uzumaki Karin, niece of the restaurant's head cook Kushina, hustled up to the hostess stand. "Sorry about your wait," she apologized. Pushing her glasses up on her nose with one hand as she reached for menus and napkin-wrapped silverware with her other, she added, "As you can see, we're ridiculously busy tonight. Please, follow me."

Neji rested his hand on the small of Tenten's back as she preceded him across the dining room, following Karin as she expertly wove around patrons, her fellow servers, tables, and chairs. When they reached the rear of the restaurant, on the opposite end of the wall from the entrance to the kitchen, Karin pushed open the door to the overflow seating area and motioned for them to follow her in.

As soon as they stepped into the room, Neji realized what was happening. The overhead lights flashed on, giving him a momentary glimpse of the overwhelming amount of balloons, banners, and streamers decorating the room before the group of his and Tenten's friends gathered there shouted, "Welcome back!"

Karin grinned at them and tilted her head toward the group. "I was sworn to secrecy," she said. "But seriously, welcome back, you guys. And surprise."

Lee, in his usual enthusiastic way, bounded around the table and threw his arms around Neji and Tenten, hugging them tightly. "Welcome back!" he shouted, right in their ears.

"You saw me earlier today!" Tenten exclaimed, exasperated. "Did you organize this?"

Finally Lee backed off, and he grinned sheepishly. "Well, it was kind of a group effort, but it was my idea."

"And mine!" Maito Gai laughed as he followed his adopted son's steps to clap Neji on the shoulder - with far more force than necessary - and give Tenten a one-armed side hug. "I'm sorry for lying to you," he said to Tenten. "But I needed the excuse of a buying trip to get out of the shop for the day and help set all this up." An expansive gesture that, were it not for Lee's reflexes, would have given the younger version of himself a black eye indicated the overblown decorations in the room. "But I really will leave on a buying trip tomorrow," he added to Tenten.

The rest of their friends crowded around the newlyweds. Among the many hugs and effusive greetings, Neji noticed his younger cousins were missing. In a way he was glad Hinata and Hanabi hadn't come; having a separate celebration with them in his and Tenten's house later in the week would be much nicer.

Uzumaki Naruto, the son of the restaurant's owners, joined Karin and Hōzuki Suigetsu in taking drink and food orders, delivering the aforementioned items, and generally making sure everyone stayed happy. A couple of times he took a quick break from his duties to interject something into the current conversation or break up a fight between Karin and Suigetsu.

Neji sat at the head of the table, Tenten crowded in next to him. While she and her friend Yamanaka Ino, whose family owned Konoha's only flowershop, laughed over something the blonde said, Neji took a moment to appreciate the surprise their friends had set up for them. Nearly every day on his job he encountered people who had suffered things which gave them a new appreciation for life. He couldn't spend time around any of them without coming away with a certain zeal for it himself.

Though he was an introvert by nature, he'd overcome a lot of his social awkwardness in high school. Dating someone like Tenten, who was comfortable in her own skin and with being around people all the time, had forced Neji to break out of his shell and just be around people. He'd retreated a bit once he reached college and med school, but he'd been so busy with his studies he'd really only been able to make time out of his ridiculous schedule for Tenten and his family.

But now, as he looked at the people gathered around the tables pushed together in the center of the room, Neji felt a new appreciation for his and Tenten's friends. Besides Ino, there was Haruno Sakura, who worked at the same hospital as Neji, albeit in a different ward; Naruto, who was basically friends with everyone; Nara Shikamaru, a lazy genius who was a whiz at both creating and breaking security systems; Akimichi Chouji, who had come to the restaurant on his day off from being a cook to celebrate with his friends; Inuzuka Kiba, an officer on the police force; Lee and Gai; and Aburame Shino, who drove the 90 minute commute to the college town of Columbia to teach entomology at the University of Missouri.

There were only three missing faces among those gathered. Besides Hinata and Hanabi, Sai, who was the art expert at the antique shop, hadn't been able to come because he was on a buying trip. Of all their friends, Neji mused, he was probably the one the two of them knew least. Besides having the unfortunate habit of blurting out whatever he thought, he could spot a fake painting in three seconds flat, but tact remained something which always escaped him.

Neji shook away his thoughts and returned to the conversation, where Tenten was busy regaling the other occupants of the table with stories about the beautiful outdoor market they'd gone to several times in the Bahamas. She shook her head so her ammolite earrings, which she'd picked up at one of the stalls, caught the lights and flashed their brilliant rainbow of colors.

"It was so beautiful there." Tenten sighed. "I so wasn't ready to come back home. If I'd had a choice, I think I would have moved there permanently. The sky and water were so blue, the sand this beautiful silvery-white, and everything just seemed so bright and fresh there."

"Except towards there at the end," Neji said. Tenten nodded her agreement, and when the pair received several puzzled looks, he elaborated. "A tropical depression rolled in toward the end of our trip. We couldn't go to the beach our last full day there, and the power went out in our hotel in the middle of the night. It was back on by morning, thankfully. It was a relatively minor storm, so we were still able to leave on time. But it was an interesting experience, for sure." And one he'd not trade for anything in the world - even the part with the storm.

Right then, with his wife next to him and his friends all around them, Neji acknowledged the indisputable fact his life was perfect.

And, to his surprise, he realized his earlier headache was now nowhere to be found.

Tenten hung her car keys on the hook next to the garage door when she and Neji got home around two hours later. "I am so full I never want to eat again," she groaned. "Kushina makes some of the best food in the whole, wide world."

"Besides you." Neji pressed a kiss to her cheek on his way past her, deeper into the house.

"Flattering as that may be, you know it's not true." Tenten kicked off her sandals and pulled the clip out of her hair, allowing the long brown strands to fall down around her shoulders and face. Toying with the clip, which was decorated with a dragonfly made of colored glass, she followed Neji into the kitchen. "But I thank you anyway."

Neji leaned against the counter as he nursed a glass of water. "I'm not going to want to get up in the morning," he groaned, looking at the clock. "I'm far too full to go to bed. But it was worth it, seeing everyone again. I know it's not been that long, really, since we saw them last, but it was still nice."

Nabbing the glass from her husband, Tenten took a drink before handing it back. Then she pulled herself up to sit on the counter and swung her legs, smiling as she nudged a container of peanuts away from her hip. "You're right. I just wish-" The phone tucked into the pocket of her capris buzzed, and she cut herself off with an apology as she reached for it. "Oh, it's a text from Hinata."

"About dinner?" Neji asked, coming over to read her screen upside-down.

"Hmm," Tenten hummed her reply while reading the text. "Saturday okay with you, love?" She looked up, and Neji's face so close to hers made her momentarily forget her train of thought. What, exactly had she been doing again?

Neji smiled, as if he knew exactly what he was doing to her, and swooped in for a quick kiss before backing off and giving her room to breathe, let alone think. "Saturday's fine. What do you think, around five?"

"Works for me if it works for them." Shaking off the last of her fuzzy-mindedness, Tenten texted the information to Hinata. Then she tapped the fingers of her free hand against the edge of the counter while she waited for a reply, watching Neji finish off his glass of water and suddenly wishing she had one of her own, too.

As if reading her mind, Neji refilled the glass and handed it to her right as her phone buzzed again. Taking a sip from the glass with one hand, Tenten opened the text with her other and glanced at its contents: Sure thing. Watching a movie with Hanabi. Talk to you later.

"I'm glad they seem to be getting along okay," Tenten commented, setting her phone aside. "Hina says she and Hanabi are about to watch a movie together."

"Good." Neji turned to look out the window over the sink, then closed the blinds, shutting out the last velvety purples of dusk on the horizon. "But I still wish Hinata hadn't agreed to Uncle's demands. It's not fair to her."

"No, it's not." Tenten set her now-empty glass on the counter next to her, then thoughtfully swung her feet, crossed at the ankles, a couple of times. "But somehow, I think this might be good for both of them. Now that they're together and outside the sphere of Hiashi's direct influence, who knows?" She shrugged. "They might actually get to be friends."

"Maybe." Neji sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, suddenly seeming disgruntled. Tenten knew him well enough to know what he was going to say even before he spoke the words. "And now they've both got boyfriends. I'm afraid it's going to be like throwing kerosene on a fire."

"Or," Tenten pointed out, feeling the sudden need to play devil's advocate, "it will be just the bonding experience the pair of them need. After all, they've got something in common now. Could be that's just the ticket to them getting along famously." Or so she hoped. Saturday, she had a feeling, would really tell the tale.

Just who were these mysterious men who had stolen the hearts of the Hyuuga sisters?

"I feel the sudden, intense needs to hunt those boys down and give them a good talking to." Neji scowled.

Tenten bit her lip to hold back her laughter. "I doubt either of them are 'boys' in the way you mean." Sliding off the counter, she went to wrap her arms around his waist and lean her head on his chest. His chin came to rest on the top of her head as she listened to his steady heartbeat beneath her ear. "We'll check them both out Saturday," she said. "And then if one or both of them is nothing less than the perfect gentleman, you can have at them, okay?"

Her husband's large, warm hand, which could throw a punch hard enough to shatter ribs yet also delicately stitch together wounds, rubbed up and down her back soothingly. "All right," he sighed, ruffling her loose hair. "When that does happen, may I borrow your katana?"

She couldn't help but laugh. Though the Hyuuga family had their faults and foibles, she wouldn't trade a single one of them - well, except maybe Hiashi - for anything.

Especially not her Neji.

*~To Be Continued~*

Author's Ending Notes:The surprise party scene was so much fun to write. I enjoyed getting Neji and Tenten together in a room with all their friends, so they could spend some time together and catch up, as it were. On another note, did anyone else catch part of the Perseid meteor shower at its peak last night? It was a pretty amazing show! I have to admit, while I was out watching it, I could just imagine Neji and Tenten snuggled up together watching them (and each other)... Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, thanks for reading, and I hope to see you again for next week's update!