VVVVVV

On the morning of the seventeenth day, Temari lounged on her boulder under a cloudless sky and amused herself by watching Neji train across the road and making occasional remarks of the genre "you call that a punch? I call that heavy petting. Stop harassing that tree."

When Neji started to get good and sweaty beating the crap out of the surprisingly resistant young tree, Temari called to him that she had a request to make.

"What?" puffed Neji.

"Take off your shirt," said Temari.

Neji rubbed his temples in a long-suffering way before saying "no" in a very final manner.

"Why not?" asked Temari in a way that suggested that these were only the preliminaries so such decisive finality was out of place.

"Because," said Neji, "I'll get a sunburn or something."

"Aw," said Temari. "You're just too shy to show off your buff bod."

"I don't have a buff bod," said Neji, and then he added somewhat acerbically, "ask Kiba instead."

"Who the hell is Kiba?"

"The beefcake."

"Oh yeah…" said Temari. "I'll be the judge of that. Take it off."

Neji turned to Temari with a look that threatened a gory death if she continued and so of course Temari continued.

"Take it off."

"I'm not going to."

"Take it off."

"No."

"Take it off –"

"Okay."

"Really?"

"If you take yours off too."

Temari paused to evaluate how much she actually wanted to see a sweaty Neji shirtless and decided that it wasn't worth risking her going topless at this point, lest some do-gooder Sand administrator wandered by to check on her and reported her for lewd behaviour. Which isn't to say that she wasn't tempted.

Temari was silent for a few minutes on her boulder and Neji waited impatiently for her to start stripping, but she finally declined and Neji was disappointed because this was uncharacteristically mature of her and that wasn't entertaining at all. And also at the thought of toplessness he had instantly planned on challenging Temari to a wrestling match so that they could engage in some shirtless luscious fun while pretending to be training. And maybe it would eventually devolve into pantless fun and skirtless fun and fishnetless fun.

But alas! She had refused. Neji found this totally selfish and he returned to abusing the tree rather crossly.

Temari sat and watched and finally asked if Neji didn't have a book she could borrow or something because, as riveting as it was to watch him assault an innocent tree and give it permanent psychological scars, she needed some real intellectual stimulation.

Neji grumpily mumbled something about having a couple of books on a shelf by his bed, and Temari took that as an invitation to check them out and she waltzed past Neji into his bunkhouse.

When Temari entered Neji's bunkhouse, she completely forgot about the books because the shiny flat-screen beckoned her to watch television for the next six hours while Neji trained like a nerd.

This plan was thwarted, however, because Neji had hidden the remote and all Temari could get on the television was an infomercial on repeat which seriously advised her that if her manhood was deficient in size she could use this amazing product to enlarge it to lengths of twelve feet. After watching this infomercial loop for several minutes, Temari decided that the characters on this show were well-endowed but insipid and the plot was way too repetitive and so she turned her attention back to the books.

There were precisely three books on the shelf by the bed and they seemed to have been placed there to make the owner look cultured rather than to provide actual reading material: there sat A Study in Ineptitude: Leaf Council Members Past and Present, and leaning against it was an abridged version of War and Peace, and 250 Exciting Aquatic Vertebrates of the Waterways of Konoha completed the trio.

Temari would rather endure an un-anaesthetized root canal than even lift the cover of any of those and so she knocked them about vindictively because just looking at them was sapping her will to live.

After War and Peace had fallen over, Temari's eye was caught by a slim volume that she hadn't noticed before and she picked it up hopefully. It was entitled A Brief History of Ninja Weaponry and, while that didn't sound like the most absorbing of books, it was sure as hell better than Tolstoy and Temari wandered back to her boulder quite satisfied.

Temari presently draped herself upon her rock, tuned out the sounds of Neji's tree-assaulting, and flipped to the chapter on war fans, which turned out to be quite an interesting read. Among other things, Temari learned that early practitioners of the art of tessenjutsu fought naked in mud, and she wondered vaguely whether she was somehow destined to revive that tradition because nudity and mud-wrestling were such frequently recurring themes in her life as of late.

Temari finished the chapter on war fans and, since she was not particularly interested in the development the industrial production of the poisoned senbon, she began to flick through the rest of the book half-heartedly.

When she reached the final chapter, she noticed a small piece of paper that had been slipped between the pages and, judging by its yellowed edges, forgotten about a long time ago.

Temari raised an eyebrow, plucked it out and turned it over.

And then she started to scream.

Across the road, Neji whirled and scanned the area for the hordes of monstrous enemies that must have been making their way towards Temari for her to be shrieking "oh my god" like that. He saw none, of course, and so he directed his attention to Temari herself and asked her what the hell was the matter, had she sat on a kunai or something?

Temari was silent for a moment because she was sucking in air after having sustained the word "god" for so long, and then she feebly waved the bit of paper at Neji and seemed to be in some sort of swoon.

Mildly concerned, Neji made his way towards her and wondered if he should, like, do some pre-emptive CPR on her just in case.

When he reached Temari, Neji tried to snatch the paper out of her hands but she absolutely would not let him have it and she only held it for him to look at instead.

As it turned out, it was a photograph.

Of himself.

At age two.

Naked.

And so Neji contemplated suicide for the second time in 48 hours.

Thankfully it wasn't a full frontal shot: the baby Neji was squirming about on his stomach like babies do and looking up at the camera with an expression of vacant optimism – nevertheless, when Temari babbled disjointedly about how cute his bare bum was, Neji wanted to try that hara-kiri ritual self-disembowelment thing right there and then.

Meanwhile, Temari was collapsing of paroxysms of terminal cuteness and struggling to recover the ability to breathe.

"You were so cute," Temari finally exhaled. "And now look at you. What happened?"

"Puberty happened," said Neji, "give it here," and he made to grab the picture again because, as he told Temari, it needed to be destroyed and then he would have to kill her and himself too so as to obliterate this from all living memory.

Temari held the picture out of Neji's reach and poked her fan into his chest to keep him away. She eloquently expressed her rejection of Neji's plans for the picture with an emphatic "hell no," and then she looked at it again and shrieked something incomprehensible about baby cheeks and cherubs and button noses and cupcakes and rainbow sprinkles.

Then Neji utilized another of his impressive arsenal of secret ninja techniques, the Full Body Slam No Jutsu with its variation, And Hold Her There Technique which at least assured him that Temari wouldn't be going anywhere with this horrible picture any time soon. And plus they could wiggle together, and that was always fun.

"Where," Neji breathed angrily in Temari's face, "did you say you found this?"

"I don't remember saying," said Temari querulously because her beloved boulder was now pressing into her back and her unbeloved border duty partner was now pressing into her front and trying to steal her new most prized possession.

Neji then glanced at the copy of A Brief History of Ninja Weaponry that lay a little ways off and narrowed his eyes because it looked familiar and then he realized that it was his book and that his bunker was the only place Temari could have found the picture and, therefore, because he had given Temari permission to borrow a book, this terrible situation was his own doing, and then he wanted to engage in hara-kiri and kamikaze-ing at the same time inasmuch as that was at all possible.

Then they grappled with each other some more, Neji striving determinately to get at the picture and Temari holding it just as determinedly out of his grasp and much struggling and straining and grunting ensued until they toppled over and the combat became more vicious because Temari was sure as hell not letting herself get pinned down this time and Neji was sure as hell not letting her get away to where she might ruin his life forever by showing anybody that picture.

Finally Neji shoved Temari back up against her rock, grabbed her by both shoulders and said very seriously, "stop please," and Temari stopped her struggling because he looked so very serious, and Neji said:

"I will do anything to have that picture."

And Temari smiled slowly and widely and said, "anything?"

"Well," said Neji after a moment of hesitation, "almost anything."

And Temari was looking mischievously at Neji and Neji was starting to feel extremely nervous about this horrible situation.

"Almost anything…" said Temari, and she looked at the picture coyly and then held it behind her back quickly when Neji made another grab for it. "I'll think about it."

"Um," said Neji with an extra squish against Temari to make his point, "you aren't going anywhere until you give me that picture."

"Fine," said Temari. "I'll think about it right here."

And so Temari thought about the possibilities of almost anything plus Neji and considered the pros and cons of various situations and began to giggle to herself, all while Neji waited somewhat apprehensively, and, incidentally, totally pressed against Temari and that was cool, not that either of them was noticing it or anything.

"Almost anything…" mused Temari, and then her eyes lit with a devilish glint and Neji thought, "oh no," because whatever it was, it was going to be bad.

Thus it was that, when Tenten came a'swingin' out of the Konoha forest an hour later, she found Temari lounging on Neji's log, feasting decadently on Neji's Knipschildt chocolate truffles and watching Neji train wearing only his boxers.

Temari spared Tenten a glance and offered her a truffle in an offhand sort of way before turning back to watching Neji, who was by this time very aware that one of his team-mates was there, and he wondered how the hell he was even going to begin to explain this situation. And he really wanted to kill Temari, not for the first time, or the last.

"Wow," said Tenten to Temari with a jerk of her head in Neji's direction, "how'd you manage that?"

"Feminine wiles," said Temari casually, and then she did a double-take because she recognized Tenten and it occurred to her that maybe she was out for revenge against her for that chuunin exam fiasco.

Tenten's intentions seemed to be peaceable enough, however, because she ate a truffle, said "right on," and then turned to Suna and began to walk that way.

"Hey," said Temari, who vaguely remembered something about guarding the border, "where're you going?"

"To Sand," said Tenten, "I need to find someone."

"Who?" asked Temari, promptly forgetting whatever it was about guarding the border, "I might know them."

"This one puppeteer freak who makes really bad jokes and smells like manure."

"Oh," said Temari, "you must mean my brother."

"Does he wear makeup?"

"Yeah," said Temari. "He likes your buns, by the way."

Tenten narrowed her eyes and said, "which buns now?" and then both kunoichi laughed in a very un-ninjalike manner.

"Why are you looking for him, anyway?"

"I want my shuriken back," said Tenten. "He ran away before I could kill him and the one stuck in his chest has my initials engraved in gold filigree. It was expensive."

"Fair enough," said Temari, and to be helpful she gave Tenten Kankuro's address but asked her to please leave him alive since he was good at cleaning out barns.

"Okay," said Tenten, and she popped another truffle into her mouth, nodded to Temari and headed off to Suna to beat the crap out of Kankuro.

Meanwhile, Neji had never felt so ignored in his life.

Since Tenten hadn't even bothered to ask him why he was training in his boxers and Temari was now engrossed in the little pamphlet that came with the truffles ("praline! I love that stuff!") Neji got dressed again, took a handful of bits of paper out of his pocket (which had previously been the photograph) and proceeded to re-shred the pieces until they were so small and smushed that they started to biodegrade.

Temari raised her eyes from her pamphlet and watched Neji work and she smiled a slow Cheshire smile. She had neglected to mention to Neji that there had been a short strip of photonegatives wedged between the pages of the book too, and they included not only that photograph but four others, including a full frontal shot.

And that strip of negatives was now stuffed very secretly, safely and snugly in Temari's bra, and there it was going to remain until she could get the pictures developed, enlarged, framed and sent to Neji by express courier. Then it occurred to Temari that she could rent an advertising billboard instead, with the added benefit that Neji and the entire population of Leaf would see these pictures.

Neji saw Temari smile and said, "what?" and Temari replied, "nothing."

And then she noticed that he had gotten dressed and said, "hey. Take your shirt back off," and Neji complied grumpily and Temari's smile widened some more and she almost started to purr.