Disclaimer: No, I don't own Naruto.

Once everyone had fully recovered from our colds, we resumed training. As usual, this meant training alone with Neji while Lee and Gai did whatever they wanted, not that either of us minded. I've had enough of their craziness to last a lifetime.

One Friday, our day off, I was training by myself and was bored to tears. So I decided to pay a visit to Neji and ask him to train with me.

Even though I had seen the Hyuga complex before, its size never ceases to amaze me. I was about to open the gate when a short, blue haired girl rushed out and bumped into me.

"Oh dear, I-I'm so s-sorry," the girl said lowering her head and blushing.

"It's not your fault. It was an accident," I said. The girl raised her head to take a peek at me before hurriedly returning to her original position. I noticed that her eyes were the exact same pearly shade as Neji's.

"A...ano...who are you?" she asked shyly, twiddling her fingers.

"I'm Tenten, Neji's teammate."

"N-Neji-nii-san's teammate?"

"Yeah. Is he at home?"

"H-hai," she replied, opening the gate for me to enter. "I-I'll show you w-where he is..."

"What's your name?"

"H-Hyuga Hi-Hinata," she answered. "I'm Neji-nii-san's cousin."

"Pleased to meet you Hinata-san."

"J-just Hinata will d-do..." she stuttered softly. I grinned.

"Nice to meet you, Hinata-chan. You can call me Tenten."

My new accquaintance and I entered the Hyuga estate. I could vaguely remember the location of Neji's room, but all the buildings looked almost the same so I couldn't be sure which one was Neji's.

"Hinata-sama?" Neji's cool voice rang out, scaring the wits out of Hinata-chan. She literally jumped and muttered a soft greeting. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at the Academy?" Hinata gasped softly and bid Neji and I good-bye before running frantically towards the gate, stumbling every now and then. I giggled.

"Your cousin is a very interesting person," I quipped.

"Aa..."

"Neji." A man with obvious authority approached us. "Who is this?"

"This is my teammate, Hiashi-sama," Neji replied, his tone of politeness sounding strained and forced. "We were just leaving to train."

"I see," Hiashi said. Then he turned and left.

"Who was that?" I asked curiously.

"My uncle, Hiashi-sama, is the patriach of the Hyuga clan. Hinata-sama is the heiress and older sister to Hanabi-sama."

"You have one confusing family," I joked. Neji shot me a look before sighing and starting to leave.

"Let's go." When we exited, the imposing atmosphere vanished. I felt relieved while Neji actually looked happy to leave.

Several hours later...

"Neji, can we go now?" I asked, bored of throwing kunai randomly.

"One more," he replied, panting slightly. Even though he had already completed it, Neji still made it a point to practice his Kaiten. My summoning was improving in terms of both speed and accuracy. Lee? Who knows...

Once Neji was finished, we decided to go for lunch before coming back to spar.

"What do you think Lee and Gai are doing?" I questionned, slurping down my noodles.

"Ranting about youth?" he suggested.

"I meant in terms of training."

"Taijutsu," Neji confirmed my thoughts, taking a small bite out of his onigiri.

"Is it really true that we don't have enough teamwork?" Kakashi-sensei's words had been bugging me for a while now. It was true that Lee was stranger than most and Gai was more than just a bit biased towards him, but was it right to let that affect the team dynamics?

Neji thought for a moment before answering, "We'll just have to work on that." We continued to eat in silence, enjoying the occasional cool breeze that relieved us of the sweltering weather.

"There's something on your face." I brushed a grain of rice off Neji's cheek. His skin was surprisingly soft and smooth.

"Thanks," he replied, his pale skin looked redder than usual. Maybe it was the heat...

"Anytime."

When we were finally finished eating, we went back to our training ground and started our spar. Neji made the first move by throwing a kunai. I dodged and, instead of attacking directly, jumped into the trees while trying to come up with a plan. I had forgotten one tiny little detail.

"Byakugan!" No way I was going to be able to ambush him now. Time to do things the old-fashioned way.

Leaping from my branch, I summoned as many kunai and shuriken as possible, throwing every single one at him. They were all deflected by his Kaiten. Landing and quickly dashing towards Neji just as he stopped spinning, I aimed a kick at his chest. He caught my leg and used it as leverage to flip himself over me and land behind me. I whipped my head around just in time to duck a punch. Both of us jumped backwards and drew kunai from our holsters, preparing to strike.

Simultaneously, we charged at each other. Kunai was parried by kunai as my foot was parried by his hand. I moved the fingers of the hand that was free, making one of the shuriken that was on the ground fly towards Neji. Unfortunately, I wasn't that good at controlling my weapons with the chakra strings yet, so what was supposed to be heading for his arm was heading straight for the base of his neck. I tried to stop it, but it was too late.

"Neji, look out!" I screamed. Neji turned his head in the nick of time and instead of impaling him, the shuriken snagged a part of his forehead protector and pinned it onto the bark of a tree. The bandages around his head had gotten sliced in half and were now scattered all over the ground.

"Neji! Are you hurt?" Millions of questions were racing through my mind, but I was only concerned about Neji's safety.

"I...I'm fine," he said, raising his gaze to meet my worried one.

"You're not, let me check to see if you're hurt."

"Really, I'm fine," Neji insisted stubbornly. A thin trail of blood was flowing down the side of his face, unobscured by the hand that was covering most of his forehead.

"You're bleeding..." Neji still refused and tried to get his forehead protector, but I got it first. "Either you let me treat your wound or I won't return this." I said, clutching it tightly. Neji sat down on the forest floor but still didn't remove his hand from his forehead. The kunai had made a clean cut mere millimetres above his ear. It wasn't very large but it was clearly quite deep judging by the amount of blood that was oozing out.

"How am I supposed to bandage you with your hand in the way?" I asked, trying to get him to move his hand away. After much persuasion, Neji finally agreed. "Wha-what's that?" In the middle of Neji's forehead was a strange green symbol. I thought back and remembered that Neji had always kept his forehead covered, even during our Academy days. Now I knew why.

"It's nothing," he replied, head bent low. I decided not to pursue the matter since Neji looked so uncomfortable about it, but I made a mental note to ask him about it later...

Once I had finished bandaging his wound, I returned his forehead protector. There was a big hole in it so it was pretty much useless.

"Here, you can have mine." I undid the one around my head and handed it to him. He accepted it and winced slightly as he tied it over his bandages. Once he was done, I was unable to contain my outburst any longer. "Why didn't you dodge it? I thought that you had three hundred and sixty degree vision? Do you have any idea how worried I was? What if it had hit you?"

"I couldn't see it," Neji stated. I gaped in shock, unable to come up with a response. "The byakugan has a blind spot."

"But...but why didn't you tell me earlier? What if we were on a mission and I was a real enemy? You could have been killed!" I cried. Neji didn't say anything to that. "Neji, if you had such a blindspot you should have told me so that I can cover for you during missions."

"Hn."

"Can't you say something other than that?!" I nearly screamed. Clenching my fists while trying to control my temper, I continued, "I just want to help you. That's what teammates are for." Neji remained silent. "If you were hurt because of me, I would never forgive myself. You're my teammate Neji, we're supposed to look out for each other."

"I know. I'm sorry, I should have told you."

"You're not saying that just to shut me up are you?" I asked, narrowing my eyes suspiciously.

"I mean it," Neji said, his expression serious. Then again, he was always serious...

"Look Neji, what I'm trying to say is...if you ever have any problems, I want you to know that I'll always be here for you and that I'll do my best to help in whatever way I can."

"You've already done a lot for me."

"No I haven't. It's always been you teaching me and saving me. All I've done is spar with you once in awhile and now I've hurt you!" I insisted. All my pent up frustration at myself and my lack of skill burst out in that one instant. "If I were stronger, this wouldn't have happened." Neji walked towards me.

"It's not your fault and you're one of the strongest people I know, so stop blaming yourself."

I couldn't control it any longer. Throwing my arms around Neji's neck, I buried my face in his shirt. "I'm sorry...I'm so so sorry," I murmured between small sobs. Neji awkwardly patted me on the back and leaned slightly into my embrace.

"It's ok..." I could feel Neji's warm hands on my shoulders and smell the faint scent of oak and cinnamon as he comforted me. Only the chirping of birds broke the wall silence between us.

"Err...sorry I wet your shirt," I said when I had calmed down sufficiently.

"It's fine."

"Does it hurt?"

"No." I tapped the middle of his forehead lightly and he hissed in pain.

"You don't have to lie just to make me feel better."

"Hn."

I was itching to ask him about the symbol on his forehead, but decided not to. I probably wasn't supposed to have found out about it, especially since he had taken so much effort to keep it hidden. Maybe it would be better if I didn't know...

"What's wrong?" Neji's voice interrupted my musings.

"Nothing."

"It's about the thing on my forehead right?" How did he know? I gazed at him in shock and he took it as an indication to continue."I'm not sure how or whether it may affect us in future so it's best that you know. Just don't tell anyone else." I nodded.

"Within the Hyuga clan there are two sub-clans, the main house and the branch house. Hiashi-sama, being the patriach, is in the main house along with Hinata-sama and Hanabi-sama. My...my father was Hiashi-sama's twin, his younger brother and ,therefore, of the branch house with me. The branch house members have this seal in order to protect the main house and to prevent the branch house from going against the main house. Activation causes severe pain and destruction of the nervous system, resulting in death."

I didn't know how to respond. A part of me was protesting against the unfairness and cruelty of such a system. On the other hand, I felt sorry for him.

"How could they do something like this? Does that mean that you might..." I couldn't bring myself to complete my sentence.

"I don't know." Neji looked more downcast then I had ever seem him. I had always envied Neji for being a member of a wealthly clan and owning such a powerful bloodline limit, but now I realized that things were not as simple as I thought.

"Neji, I shouldn't have asked you about something so private," I apologized again for reminding him about something so depressing. I had hurt him again, though this time emotionally. Neji's light lavender eyes met my chocolate brown ones.

"I don't think I mind as much as before. The burden feels somewhat lighter after sharing it with you. Thank you." He gave me one of his rare tiny smiles. One of the things I loved most was his smile. Neji's smile always gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling, it was as though seeing him happy made me happy too.

I grinned back. Maybe I was able to be of some help to him afterall...

Author's Note:

Hi! Did you enjoy this chapter? It took me ages to think of how to phrase and describe everything nicely. I dunno if I made Tenten seem too Sakura-like or Neji OOC. I hope not. Anyway, there's the fluff I promised my sister.

Thanks to all who reviewed previous and current chapters. Just so you know, I'll probably update every Saturday unless I'm busy/have writer's block which I hope won't happen. (By the way, I found this uber cute comic about Deidara and artist's block. You can see it on deviantart. Just search for "Deidara Artist Block".)

Beta read by Midnight Memories.

That's all for today. Ja ne!