Disclaimer: NO. LEAVE ME ALONE.

A/N: YAAAWNN. So much work to do!

Nevertheless, I came up with this.

Ahahaha, oh well. OOC? Again, I tried. Truly.

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Could've Been, Might've Been

By: Kikushi

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Two weeks have passed since the festival, and the village of Konoha was in a ready state of dreary exhaustion. Yet another day was coming to a close and husbands came home from work to their families and children were ushered back inside the house for dinner. Shops and stands were just about ready to close and everybody was intent on going home to relax after another hard day's work.

Everyone, it seemed, except for two young adolescents just off by a few miles from the village streets. They were there every single day— sunup to sundown— in a small clearing of the forest that they claimed their own. They trained relentlessly and tirelessly. They fought fiercely and calculatingly. They were focused and committed. They were—

Well, the boy was, anyway. The girl, however, was an entirely different story.

"Neji, it's time to go!" the kunoichi whined, waving a kunai in frantic surrender, "the sun's just about down and everybody is going home!"

Neji ignored her ritual pleas (must she do this every day?) and lunged at her. She dodged his unwelcome attack and growled in aggravated frustration. "Neji!" she screeched, annoyed.

"Tenten," he began, equally irritated, "how will you get stronger if you don't take sparring seriously?"

Tenten rolled her eyes. This charade that began precisely two weeks ago began to infuriate her. She'd plead for Neji to stop, he'd say the exact same line each time, and she'd ignore him and leave in a huff.

"GOODBYE Neji," she said, emphasizing the farewell as well as ending the charade. Rubbing her sore shoulders, she walked away from him and sourly began the five-mile trek home.

The white-eyed prodigy stared after her rapidly vanishing figure with a deflating heart. There was a reason behind his (in Tenten's words) "intolerable" desire for hardcore training. From sunup to sundown he manipulated her into spending each day with him training. Foolishly, deep inside him, he knew he was waiting for something to happen. Now that he figured out his love for Tenten, he was scared to let her go. He was waiting— desperately and impatiently waiting. But two weeks had passed right under his nose; time wasted. Every day turned out the same. He'd show up, eager and lost in thought. Before he knew it, and way too soon, Tenten would start complaining, the sun was down, and the day was over. 'What happened?' the baffled prodigy would always find himself thinking. Then, disappointed, he'd start the long walk home, telling himself that tomorrow would be the day.

Nothing ever happened.

Terribly upset, Neji knew that he'd actually have to say or do something in order for something to happen. The question: what was there to do?

Should he serenade her? Woo her? Buy her gifts?

Angrily, he began to walk home, foot in set towards the direction of the manor when a sudden rush of emotion swelled inside him. Pivoting in the opposite direction, he launched into a full sprint to where Tenten (his Tenten!) had disappeared only moments before.

'Now!' His mind encouraged in a deafening scream. 'Tell her now!'

Neji felt his head (or was it his heart?) throbbing in a crazed symphony of nervous anxiety. His ears were ringing with the blood pounding in them and he literally saw red with what he was about to do. Briefly, his mind wandered back to 'tomorrow will be the day!' but feelings overwhelmed the pathetic thought and he kept at the full-blown sprint.

He was about a mile and a half away from her house (oh how he knew) when he spotted the lone ever-so-familiar figure walking by the side of the road in a languid pace, whistling a merry happy-go-lucky tune.

It was too late to turn back now.

He grabbed her wrist in an effort not to run right past her. "Tenten!" he exclaimed breathlessly.

The young kunoichi, caught off-guard (Neji observed disapprovingly), spun around in a flash to meet her captor. In the horrible momentum of Neji's speed, as well as Tenten's miscalculation of their proximity, fate (actually, gravity) brought them tumbling to the ground in a rather… intimate manner.

Tenten, self-conscious as she was around Neji, rose to immediately get off him when a firm hand lodged itself at her back, ultimately pushing her back down to a certain prodigy's chest. Tenten, shocked, could do nothing but lay still against his beating heart, and tried very hard not to think about how she straddled his hips. In the silence, Neji's apparent lack of breath intrigued her. Was it because he just so obviously ran some three miles in order to catch up with her? Or was it because of their current… position?

Shaking her head and mentally laughing at herself, because that just couldn't be, she lifted her head up carefully to peek up at him. Surely she just left something behind?

"Neji," she began carefully, "what…"

She trailed off in silence, not knowing how to continue. Just what had she been asking him again?

Suddenly, she felt herself slowly rising and she realized that Neji was making an effort to sit up with her still atop him. Once the feat was managed, she looked up at him and was momentarily mesmerized. He looked at her deeply, as if trying to convey some secret code or message that he, for some reason, desperately wanted, but could not, say. He stared at her with such intensity that Tenten blushed. 'What does he want?'

Instantly, she looked away and made yet another attempt to get up. Again, startled as she was, he pressed her closer to him, eventually wrapping his strong arms around her and binding her to his chest. Tenten felt him bury his face in her hair. 'What is going on?' she wondered, woozy.

Surely, if some random passerby just happened to walk in on them, they would surely misjudge. "Uh… Neji, was there something in particular you needed?" she asked, her voice wavering only a fraction before she somehow managed to control it once more. She needed to get off him. Now. What if some murderous Neji-fangirl happened to be making her way down this very street right THIS INSTANT?

"Wah! Neji!" she half-yelled in sudden worry for her well-being, as well as because she was becoming completely, intolerably awkward with the entire thing, and he just wouldn't talk to her damn it!

He pulled away from her, albeit reluctantly, and stared at her once more. "What, Tenten?" he asked in a voice so defiant that Tenten believed herself to be the one making the mistake. She made an attempt to clear her mind, baffled.

"Don't you 'what' me, Hyuuga! What are you doing?" Then she blushed again under that look (oh that look!) and tried to squirm out of his grasp. Didn't he reject her… oh, let's say, some few billion times already?!

"Tenten…" he whispered her name so huskily, so desperately that the kunoichi almost swooned in delight. She swallowed with much difficulty.

"…What?" she asked, unaware that she was whispering.

"Urhg… uh…hm…"

"Excuse me?"

"Nrrgmphh… Mrrmmm…"

Tenten blinked. Was the Hyuuga actually struggling for words?

Neji was not having a great moment. He had liked it (more than liked it, actually) when Tenten came crashing down on him, straddling his hips in a manner so suggestive he almost groaned underneath her weight. He had no choice but to hold her softness against him, and on impulse, that was exactly what he did.

And her smell... So intoxicating. Her hair smelled like Jasmine and cherry blossoms and he just wanted to keep smelling her like an over-abusive drug addict.

But now he was completely at a loss. He hadn't been expecting to get this far. What on Earth should he say to her?

"Urghmp… Tenten," he began nervously, "uh…"

"Neji?"

By now, Tenten was starting to be concerned for her teammate. Was he ill? She knew how hard he trained, but did exhaustion and fatigue finally catch up with him? Slowly but determined, she raised a hand and gently pressed it to his forehead.

Blinking, Neji shut his mouth and they looked at each other.

"You don't seem to have a fever…" Tenten mused, more to herself than to Neji. Something was wrong with him. He had never been romantically interested in her, a fact she had proven once upon a time, and his sudden actions unnerved her. 'He's definitely sick,' Tenten decided.

"Come on," she urged, "let's go to my house."

"Y-y-y-your…"

There was an odd expression on his face which Tenten gladly returned. "What?"

Somewhere deep down Neji's brain, a long-forgotten piece of his functioning mind seemed to be floating back up rapidly. "Tenten," he said coldly and abruptly, causing Tenten to twitch in surprise, "Good work today. I will see you tomorrow."

"…What?" Tenten asked, unsure if she heard him right. For some reason she couldn't even begin to fathom, she felt her swelling heart withering. 'You had hope… don't deny it…' she berated herself angrily. She hated lying to herself, no matter how bitter the fact. How could she have ever thought that Neji could be anything other than Neji?

"TENTEN!"

In a flash, she found herself tumbling to the hard, dirt road. Neji, stiff and alert stood beside her, avoiding her shocked (and hurt) stare. She turned to the shadow of an approaching figure; the one who had shouted her name.

Tenten squinted in the dark, trying to block out the Hyuuga standing beside her. 'Why isn't he leaving yet anyway?!' she thought, annoyed. 'Hey… that looks like…'

"Shizune?!" Tenten exclaimed, surprised. She got up, dusting herself off haughtily. She waited as the older woman stopped in front of her, catching her breath. She was in her traditional kimono, usually a good sign.

"Tenten," Shizune breathed, "I'm so glad I caught you!"

Tenten only looked at her in confusion. Why did she need her so late at night?

In a hurry, Shizune pulled out something from the inside of her kimono and presented it to her. Slowly, Tenten took it between her fingers.

"A response letter! From the village of the Sand!" Shizune breathed excitedly, eyes twinkling, "As well as the Kazekage's promise that he will visit again around the next few days!"

Tenten tried her hardest to ignore the stiff (and very tense) Neji beside her. 'Why should he care?'

"Oh…" she heard herself say, "He finally responded to my letters…"

Shizune giggled. "Can't wait for the wedding!" she teased, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

"Shi-Shizune-san!" Tenten spluttered, embarrassed, "We hardly know each other! We're just meeting as friends!"

The older woman grinned at her knowingly, nodded at Neji, and left without another word.

In her frustration, Tenten whirled around to confront Neji about earlier, but found that she was already alone in the empty street. The dull streetlights flickered on as the gray sky steadily grew darker.

Aggravated, Tenten let out a high-pitched screech, feeling her nose start to sting as unwelcome tears started to form in her eyes.

"DO YOU HAVE A MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER OR ARE YOU MAN PMS-ING AGAIN?!" she screamed into the cold air.

This was so not how she had planned to end the day.

Without warning, she broke out into a full-crazed sprint to her house. She ran like never before.

She was on her couch in a record time of five minutes, her ankle swollen from having to kick her door several times before it broke down.

It was only while her tears subsided and when she heard a twinkling noise and felt the gust of wind blowing in through her empty doorway that she remembered the spare key she had placed inside the little house on her wind chime, hanging right above her outside doormat.

A/N: Aw... isn't that sad? :(

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