Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto!

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Day Two: Kitchen Chaos By MyFallenAngel

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Cooking.

As in dealing with fires, kitchen knives, tomatoes, carrots, beefs, and forks.

As in dealing with apples, stoves, ovens, baked potatoes and napkins.

Tenten frowned unhappily.

"Yes. I see that you have see our schedule for today, Tenten-san." Tsuki said impatiently. "We are going to cook. We will be trying one simple egg recipe you can use when you are married with Neji-sama, Tenten-san. And to finish it off, we will try to bake a cheesecake."

Egg.

Oh yeah.

Dealing with the thing hens produced too.

"Now, shall we proceed to the kitchen?"

No, Tenten thought, feeling sick all of a sudden as she forced a weak nod and followed Tsuki to the kitchen.

She gazed around.

Oh, if only the air wasn't so heavy.

It was lighter back home.

Tenten hates kitchens. She hates cooking. She never cooks. She hardly enters the kitchen back home. It was her mother who did all the cooking, and her who did the eating. Oh, and cleaning sometimes.

That's enough for the reasons on why Tenten hates kitchens, I think.

"Here. Try to break this egg. You have cook before, haven't you?" Tsuki arched an eyebrows, clearly not pleased by Tenten's look. The weapon kunoichi gulped. "Err..."

"Hyuuga girls never say 'Err'. They give complete answers with no stuttering."

Then what is Hinata to you all? Tenten wanted to scream that out loud, but restrained herself quickly before letting her guards down. Hinata was from the Main House. She received much more understanding than Branch Houses did.

And in her case, she's categorized from the Branch.

"Okay." Tenten replied, gaining back her composure. "I haven't cook before, Tsuki-sensei."

"That's way idiot." Tsuki muttered under her breath, turning to the eggs. She handed one to Tenten, who took it guiltily. She stared at it.

"Have you ever tried to break an egg?" Tsuki interrupted crossly as she took another egg and broke it perfectly. "See? It's easy!"

Tenten grunted and crashed her egg with the table edge. "Slowly." Her impatient sensei said, but it was too late. Slowly was not even in Tenten's dictionary of cracking eggs. She had failed miserably, and now the poor, poor egg was practically dripping to the floor.

"... Crap." She muttered under her breath as she realized that Tsuki was practically glaring at her.

"Hyuuga girls never curse." Her sensei told her sternly. "I don't want to hear any curse word again. Got it?"

"Yeah."

"Hyuuga girls..."

"Never said 'yeah'. I know. Yes." Tenten cut her out, feeling sick of all the rules of Hyuuga Girls.

"Hyuuga girls..."

"Never cut people. I get it!"

"You just cut me."

"Then I'm sorry!"

"Hyuuga girls..."

Tenten was about to interrupt, but she stopped herself so that Tsuki can finish her sentence first.

"Hyuuga girls never say 'I'm sorry'."

"Right." Tenten said quietly, feigning the politest smile she could feign, "I apologize, Tsuki-sensei."

"Fine." Tsuki said coldly, giving her another egg. "Let's return to our cooking, shall we? First, you knock the egg slowly to somewhere with hard surface..."

And around the fifty-second egg, Tenten had finally managed to break an egg, perfectly.

--

"Now, we'll move to baking a perfect cake." Tsuki said, clapping her hand as she gazed at the mess Tenten had produced by breaking more than fifty eggs. "Well, we could do some cleaning first."

Cleaning! Tenten's eyes lightened up. She loves cleaning - simply because she could do it. Perfectly.

She took a wet napkin, which was prepared on the side of a sink and walked to the mess she created, until a hand stopped her.

"Hyuuga girls don't clean."

Tenten was stunned. "They don't?"

"No." Tsuki replied quietly. "It is the servants who do that for them."

"Servants?" Tenten narrowed her eyebrows. "But why call servants when you can do it yourself?"

"It's a tradition."

Tradition.

Damn tradition.

"But I could clean!"

Please, let me do it. It's the only thing I could do right when I'm here!

"No." Tsuki's voice was firm. "Servants!"

Two girls younger than Tenten immediately came in front of them.

"Clean up this mess." Tsuki ordered. "While then, let me show you the recipe of the cheesecake we'll be making, Tenten-san."

Tenten stared as she girls began cleaning.

Oh, really.

Such stupid tradition from such prestigious clan.

She did not see this coming.

"I will clean the mess up." She said suddenly, loud enough that the servants looked up to her. One looked confused, one looked like she was looking down at her. "I can do it." Tenten glared at the servants. "Go."

"Tenten-san!" Tsuki protested, but Tenten's determination was like hell. She turned to the servants, pride shown in her eyes. "I said go." She said firmly, and the servants went out.

Tenten took the napkin and began cleaning, leaving Tsuki and her jaw dropping down.

"Tenten-san, you couldn't!"

"I could."

"... But you're a Hyuuga girl!"

"I will be." She smirked as she began washing the plates. "But you did say that when Hyuuga girls are determined, they have to do what they think is right. Right, Tsuki-sensei?"

"That is..." The older woman looked troubled.

"It's okay." Tenten said, fastening up her washing. Five minutes after that, the kitchen was as good as new. She put her hands together, giving a satisfied smile to Tsuki. "What will it be now? Cheesecakes?"

"Yes." Tsuki had managed to gain back her composure while Tenten was cleaning. She handed her the recipe book, and Tenten eyed it quickly.

"We have the ingredients here." Tsuki opened up a drawer and took out oatmeal biscuits, a can of butter, and a can of cream cheese, ricotta, caster sugar, sour cream, vanilla essence and zest from lemons. "The eggs are prepared here." She pointed to a certain place where three eggs were sitting down peacefully.

Tenten eyed the recipe once more. She moved to the oven and preheated it to 230 celcius degrees, as Tsuki placed the oatmeal biscuits in a food processor and started to blitz them. She stopped when they had become very fine crumbs.

"What next?" Tenten asked heavily, not liking the fine-looking crumbs.

"You could melt the butter." Tsuki said, and Tenten started to melt the butter on a pan.

"Here." The sensei continued, taking the now melted butter and poured it over the crumbs, and began stirring the weird mixture equally. Tenten sighed as she prepared a springform tin, and Tsuki pressed the mixture on the sides of the tn, creating an even layer.

"Gross." Tenten breathed.

She stepped backwards, but Tsuki pulled her closer. "You have to mash this." She ordered quietly, placing a big bowl in front of her. Inside was cream cheese.

Tenten grunted unhappily and began mashing the cream cheese as Tsuki added the ricotta, sugar and sour cream as she mashed the mixture. She also added the eggs, vanilla essence, and the zest.

Before Tenten even knew it, she had snatched the bowl and had poured the mixture into the disgusting-looking biscuit-crumb layered cake tin. Tsuki cleverly put it inside the oven.

"Now all we have to do is just wait." She said, clapping her hand in glee.

"Right." Tenten groaned as she walked outside of the kitchen, feeling happy for the first time of the day.

But that is, until Tsuki stopped her again. She dragged her to a room near the kitchen and forced her to sit there, plopping a big encyclopedia of cooking on her lap.

Tenten's eyes widened.

"Learn that for ten minutes." Tsuki said. "I'll put the alarm clock here. If it reaches ten minutes, it will ring. You could happily learn the words there, Tenten-san. I need to go grocery shopping."

And Tenten knew better than to protest.

She dug her head into the book as the door slid closed, meaning Tsuki was gone.

Slowly, but surely, she dozed off to sleep.

--

"I care for you." Neji said.

"Really?" Tenten blushed. "Me too."

"... Tenten."

She looked up and gave him a warm smile. "What is it, Neji?"

"Tenten-san! Tenten-san!" He echoed.

She raised her eyebrows. Since when Neji called her Tenten-san?

"Tenten-san!" He continued and he leaned in, closing his eyes. Tenten blushed. Was he going to kiss her? She closed her eyes and leaned in too.

"Tenten-san!" Another call, and this time Tenten felt someone grabbed her shoulders and shook her wildly.

She opened her eyes, only to see no Hyuuga Neji in front of her, but Tsuki, who looked -oh, no- terribly mad.

"Huh?" Tenten frowned.

"Hyuuga girls never sleep when it's not the time to be sleeping! Have you memorized this all?" Tsuki asked as she touched the big encyclopedia in front of Tenten.

The weapon kunoichi gulped, feeling horribly guilty. "Not yet." She answered, looking at her feet.

"And have you take the cake from the oven?" Tsuki asked again.

She gulped again. "... No." She said, barely audible.

Tsuki's eyes widened. "Oh, Tenten-san!" She cried and ran into the kitchen, Tenten following behind.

To their horror, the kitchen was a mess! Their cake had burst and its crumbs were flowing everywhere! Tenten shrieked, hardly believing what's in front of her face, while Tsuki panicked.

"... What the hell!" Tenten said as she rushed inside and trying to stop the flow of the cake with her body, but instead of stopping it, she made the flow faster.

"Stop this!" Tsuki yelled. "Servants!"

And then they came running in.

"Clean this mess and throw that cake away!"

And soon the servants were running here and there while Tsuki pulled Tenten away from the kitchen.

"That's why Hyuuga girls never clean!" She told her sternly, "When we're baking cakes, we usually put a special ingredient to make the cake bigger! That's why I put ten minutes on your alarm, and you fell asleep."

"I'm sorry." Tenten said, feeling horrible.

"Hyuuga girls say 'I apologize'."

"Yes. I apologize, Tsuki-sensei." She said, really feeling guilty.

Tsuki groaned. "Apology accepted. Now you have to go to your room and clean up yourself. Take a bath, since we will be having dinner with the Hyuuga elders tonight!"

"Yes, Tsuki-sensei." Tenten replied, muffling her denial deep down her heart. She had done wrong, she will try to not do anything wrong again.

At least for the rest of the night.

She walked to the direction of her room, thinking about her 'lessons' with Tsuki. Nearly all of them turned out bad. Or even chaos. She was surely not cut out to be a Hyuuga bride, really. All their rules, their dignity, their pride, and such did not match her lifestyle. At all.

She was so deep into her thoughts that she bumped into somebody none other than her future husband - Hyuuga Neji.

And yeah, she succeeded greatly in making him dirty. He was now covered with crumbs too.

"Whoa, Neji! I'm sorry!" She said automatically and apologetically, forgetting how Hyuuga girls say 'I apologize', not what she had just said before.

He stared at her and examined her clothes. "Wow." He said after a while. "What happened to you?"

"... Nothing." She waved her hand in dismissal as she began to walk away from him, but a hand stopped her. She turned back and met face-to-face with Neji. "What is it?" She groaned.

"You're a mess." He observed carefully.

"I already said I'm sorry!" She groaned again and rolled her eyes sarcastically. "Oh right. I forgot that I should have say I apologize than I'm sorry. What the hell."

He gave her a laugh. "Anything's okay with me." He told her. "Take your bath and I'll escort you to the Hyuuga main house one hour from now."

"One hour?"

"Girls need a long time to take a bath, I gather?"

"Not me." Tenten said. "Give me fifteen minutes, and I'll be ready."

"It's a formal affair, don't forget. Your kimono will already be prepared in your room, I think." He explained, "Well, fifteen minutes it is. Be quick."

"Okay." She said weakly.

Maybe a normal dinner will be very good to cover up her whole kitchen chaos today.

But a dinner with the Hyuugas?

I'll be dead, she thought grimly as she entered her bathroom.

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That was all. (Groan) I should have make longer chappies, but I'm sorry. Got not much time, you see. I move around a lot nowadays, and school works are just grating my nerves. I'm trying to catch up with all the mess I left…

Reviews!