Chapter 10: Shikamaru finds out

Tenten was on a B-rank mission with her team when Shikamaru returned to Konoha. The rest of the Rookie 9, minus Naruto, were training in earnest now that the date of the exam in Grass Village had been set.

He put the journey with Temari out of his mind. If all men married their mothers, he would probably end up with her. She was that scary.

He'd be happy with a strong kunoichi though, with a sweet smile, an appreciation for time spent just watching clouds, and a sense of humor that made him laugh and groan at the same time. And she wanted to play shogi with him too. It had pulled him through many a nerve-racking night camped beside the Suna kunoichi, dreaming about how he would tutor Tenten in the subtleties of the game.

A very subdued Ino was waiting for him at the training grounds.

"You did what?"

Ino could not recall a time that Shikamaru had ever gotten truly angry. It was too tiring, he claimed. He simply left the scene when he didn't like what was going on, or found ways to make the unpleasantness go away. He was never confrontational, unless there was no other option.

He was angry now, though. And he wasn't leaving.

"I'm sorry!" she said again, face streaked with tears, "I thought—"

"I doubt that," he cut her off, "I doubt that very much. You believe in silly things like love at first sight and a whirlwind romance and all that garbage. You had no right to meddle."

"Shikamaru," Chouji spoke up. "She's sorry." He placed a large hand on Ino's shoulder. "It's my fault too, for not stopping her."

Shikamaru glared at his best friend, probably for the first time in their long and close friendship, as Ino sobbed and his expression remained unforgiving.

"I'm going to try to fix this, and I'll thank you not to do anything else," he muttered, then walked away in disgust.

"He'll come around," Chouji comforted as Ino continued to weep, "I know you only wanted him to be happy."

Chouji wanted what was best for Shikamaru as well. The letter might not have been a good idea, but he thought a little nudge wouldn't hurt either. He was not the pushy sort, but he liked Tenten for Shikamaru.

He hoped everything would work out.

Tenten sighed for the nth time, glad the mission was over. As luck would have it, the mission had made a sharp jump into the A-rank at the discovery of a camp of more rogue ninja than you could shake a stick at, and one particularly nasty missing nin whom Gai had dispatched with very quickly, although the few seconds of agony he had caused them with his jutsu were excruciating beyond belief. It was a good thing Team Gai ate nails for breakfast and drank poison for lunch and all that jazz. In short, they were one tough team.

Chalk up her death toll to a number far beyond a hundred this time. Explosives plus kunai were the bomb. Tenten couldn't even crack a smile at her own lame pun.

Gai had clapped a congratulatory hand on her shoulder as they'd surveyed the damage from her new weapons. Neji and Lee had goggled for a few moments before moving in to finish off the survivors, Lee following in Neji's wake, the Hyuuga with his Byakugan activated to see through the smoke.

"Tenten," their sensei said, "Your weapons expertise will be invaluable once we have located and are pitted against the members of the Akatsuki. We'll work on your speed and stamina, and with a few more practice sessions with the team, no opponent will be able to withstand our joint attack."

Tenten nodded. It was well to remember that the ability to deal all this carnage was for a purpose.

"You'll need to hold back a little during the Chuunin exams though," Gai observed. "Grass won't take kindly to your bringing down the entire arena."

"I'm perfecting my chakra-sensitive explosives, and I already know how to distribute explosions to control damage due to ground vibration, air blast and flying debris," Tenten said. "I also have some taffy saved up for emergencies."

"Still not funny," Neji called out from the smoke as Gai and Lee laughed.

She didn't feel like going home just yet, so she bid goodbye to her team mates with the usual 'parting hug of youth' or whatever term Lee liked to call it.

The real reason she hugged them was because she made it a point to remind herself and her team mates that they were capable of gentleness as well as violence after a hard day of training or missions. Neji had been wary at first, but Gai had embraced the practice, literally, and incorporated it whenever they had cause to celebrate, or when one of them was having a particularly low day.

Neji still put up a token resistance, but they knew he considered them closer than his own family in many ways and craved the affection. Gai had promised him that they would not do such an embarrassing action before large crowds of people, which seemed to appease the Hyuuga, but Tenten had a sneaking suspicion Gai had an alternative much worse than hugging up his sleeve for 'public consumption.' She tried not to think about what would happen on that fateful day.

She supposed that, in a way, all shinobi had the same problem as the Yamanakas, the risk of losing themselves in the day-to-day brutality of the ninja way of life. One either became hardened and calloused, which was the recommended path taught in most Academies, or one took a leap of faith and chose to live according to the best of his principles, as Uzumaki Naruto had proclaimed he would do.

Here she was getting philosophical when there were senbon to sharpen and explosive tags to be made. Tenten yawned and wished she could set the chore aside for another day, but there was early morning training tomorrow and she wouldn't have any other time.

Her weapons arsenal was housed in a building of its own away from her home, full of scrolls and weaponry of every size and shape. Tenten liked to go there and just croon to her babies once in a while. They dealt death but they also saved life, and it was a balance she could live with.

In this place, she could almost forget the world outside. Including fake letters confessing a love meant to manipulate her heart…

Tenten shook her head. She had gone beyond being philosophical and straight into outright maudlin. She'd be singing sad love songs next.

Sitting at her work table, she placed her head in her hands. So be it. Blowing things up and hugging her team mates was fine for most things, but she felt really bad this time.

Maybe Shikamaru did like her. He had the worst timing though, in that case. Why confess at a point that could raise so many doubts about his sincerity? And leave her to wonder till he came back, without any form of reassurance? Was she being unreasonable? If this was love, it wasn't living up to the hype.

She sat, staring at nothing, weapons within reach but useless in this particular inner struggle.

She wanted him. She wanted to be with him, to see him smile at her, to be brilliant but humble about it, to pass it off as a bother, when everything he did was for someone besides himself.

He was really clueless when it came to women though.

Tenten tried to smile to herself, but it hurt.

She wouldn't fight it anymore. A good cry was in order. Even strong ninja cried. Why, she'd heard that after heading his first mission, Shikamaru had practically bawled his eyes out.

And so the tears fell.

From the shadows, Shikamaru watched the troublesome, troublesome scene in front of him and knew to interrupt now meant certain death. In his mind, he said goodbye to his future wife and kids, and took the necessary step.

"Tenten."

A/N: I knew it. I knew they were going to get melodramatic on me. Drat all these narutonovelas abounding on ffnet. I won't fault you if you stop reading now. (Oh, what a bluff. Please continue reading. Misery loves company).

On a lighter note, that 'fateful day' was, of course, the time Gai had them place their hands atop each other's in a glorious display of team work before they split up to find the different seals to the entrance of the Akatsuki stronghold.

Naruto was very impressed, as I recall.