Midterms Round 1 are almost over. The light at the end of the tunnel is soooooo close I can almost taste it. It tastes like free-time D:

I do not own Naruto. I'm so far behind on the manga since I quit after 630. I don't even know if it's still ongoing :/

"Where's Lee?"

Honestly, it was a simple enough, innocent enough question, one that shouldn't piss him off. However, considering this was the first time in quite a while that Tenten had spoken to him, and it was only to ask that question, Neji had to admit he was a little peeved.

He tried not to let it show, however, in his response. "I saw him this morning. He was shouting your name and running toward your apartment. You can't honestly tell me you didn't notice him…" He trailed off as he finally noticed the pained look on Tenten's face. Her eyes were darting around as though hoping Lee would magically appear out of thin air. "Is something wrong?"

She bit her lower lip and seemed to chew it for a moment before answering. "I can't discuss it right now. I just need to find him." She still refused to make eye contact, and Neji had to resist grabbing her head and holding it in place.

"Do you have any idea where he went?" He asked, trying to keep his voice as calm and soothing as he could for her benefit. While he was concerned for Lee, he felt confident enough that no physical harm had befallen their teammate, and that whatever the problem was could be solved once they had located their friend. In all reality, Neji didn't think it would be too hard, considering Lee was the type of person who attracted attention in spite of the fact he was trying to be incognito. That was usually the time when he attracted the most attention.

"I saw him head toward the shopping district, but he wasn't there, or at the training grounds, Ichiraku's, or even visiting that old lady he likes so much." She ticked off the locations on her hands, sounding increasingly strained.

Out of habit, Neji placed a hand on her shoulder. As soon as he realized what he had done, he almost pulled it back. But Tenten didn't react other than finally making eye contact with him. When her expression didn't change and she didn't flinch away from the touch, he gave her shoulder a gentle, reassuring squeeze. "We'll find him. Although it would be nice to know why we need to find him," she seemed to get nervous at his tone, though she relaxed slightly as he continued, "that can wait until we make sure he's alright. I'll go search the north part of the village. You take the south. We'll meet back here in an hour, whether or not we've found him. Alright?"

Tenten nodded. "Thank you, Neji."

Neji shook his head in response. "You don't need to thank me. You and Lee are my closest friends." He smiled slightly, and Tenten returned the gesture, though he couldn't help but notice it seemed a bit strained.

As they took off in opposite directions Tenten had to wonder how true that statement actually was.

It was already three in the afternoon, and Lee had been at her place at nine. It had taken her two hours to pull herself together, and at first the search had been more casual. Like Neji, she assumed it wouldn't be too difficult. As soon as she realized that Lee had actually managed to make himself scarce (for once) she hadn't even though twice about asking Neji for help when she spotted him.

As she hopped across the rooftops, scanning the area for a should-not-be-hard-to-find shinobi, she mulled over what she was going to say. And by mulled over she meant tried to figure out. She hadn't asked Sakura or Sai to go along with her, because that was cowardly, not to mention unfair because those two hadn't actually done anything wrong, and at the moment she was desperately trying to hold onto whatever shreds of self-respect she had left. Although, she would have been grateful to have someone to bounce ideas off of.

She stopped for a moment, hopping off of the roof of a building in order to check a pair of garbage cans. It seemed sort of silly that Lee would be trying to hide in a garbage can. But there had been one day that Team 10 had been assigned to investigate a supposedly possessed trash bin that had been singing strange folk songs about flowers and fish. They had been hilariously surprised (and vaguely disturbed) to discover that Rock Lee was actually hiding inside, practicing both his camouflage and singing. No one was really sure if they should count that as a successful practice, because everyone had indeed thought he was a trash can, but he was horribly off key.

Shaking her head as she replaced the lid, she focused on the far more serious situation in which she and her teammate were currently trapped. She had no idea what to say to Lee. There really was no way to sugar coat it, much as she wanted to. The truth would probably be the best, but she wasn't sure she was going to be able to say it to him. 'Oh, hey Lee, I slept with Sai two nights ago, and he enjoyed it so much he brought Sakura along for a second night. And Sakura is bisexual, and I might technically be too, but I'm not sure since I was drunk and I still don't know how I feel about it since I have never been sexually attracted to another woman, but either way it wasn't just me and Sai the second time around. Did I mention they're dating?' The look of betrayal on his face would be too much for her to handle.

She was about to jump back onto the roof when she heard Gai sensei shouting, "So you will accept my challenge?" It didn't take her long to spot her teacher along with Kakashi sensei standing in an intersection about a dozen meters away. As usual, the unshakable Kakashi didn't even glance up from his book at his shouting rival. Relief spread through Tenten; perhaps Gai sensei would know where his pupils had disappeared to.

As she started to run toward them, Gai announced his self-imposed rule. "If I lose this game of checkers I will run 5,000 laps around the Hidden Leaf while wearing a bikini!"

Tenten came to a screeching halt. She tried not to vomit as the image of Gai sensei wearing a bikini ripped through her head despite her best attempt to keep said image out. If she wasn't so busy being nauseous she might have notice the disturbed look in Kakashi's normal eye, and how he looked rather disgusted by his book at the moment and chose to put it away. "I forfeit," he choked out, backing away slowly.

"Nonsense! We must have a match! And don't you dare try to go easy on me, my youthful rival. I will notice immediately." Gai smiled rather brightly, and Kakashi was looking around desperately for a distraction.

It didn't take long for the copy ninja to spot the still green Tenten standing only about two meters away from them. "Look, Gai. It's Tenten! She looks sick! You should help her!" If there was an edge of desperation in his voice before he disappeared in a cloud of smoke, no one was paying enough attention to notice.

The original green beast, however, did notice that Kakashi escaped before Gai had even turned away to look at his student. He coughed and waved his hand as the smoke started to dissipate. "I challenged you to a game of checkers, not hide-and-go-seek!" At this point he turned to see his female pupil looking rather traumatized. "Tenten! What has happened?"

Tenten shook her head, knowing that she had just had an experience worth about three weeks of scream-inducing nightmares (the peanut butter incident had been worth a record five weeks), but figuring she could have her mental breakdown later. "I can't find Lee. Have you seen him?"

Gai shook his head, crushing whatever hopes Tenten had. She assumed that Lee would probably want to talk about it, and of course if that was the case then the first person he would seek out was Gai sensei. But it seemed that even talking to his beloved sensei was unappealing to him.

Tenten had really screwed things up, hadn't she?

"I have not seen him today. However, with the power of youth we are sure to locate him!" He gave his signature thumbs-up and smile as he nearly shouted the declaration. The moment he finished his announcement, he took off toward the east, leaving Tenten in the dust.

She just sighed and looked up as she brushed the dirt off of her shirt. While she wasn't expecting Lee to magically drop out of the sky, (though stranger things had happened), and considering her hour was nearly finished it couldn't hurt to take a cursory glance (actually with her luck she wouldn't have been surprised if it had been Sai and Sakura to fall from the clouds). After a moment or two without seeing a human being dropping from the clouds, Tenten gave up and lowered her gaze to the ground. She just hoped that Neji had been successful in locating their friend.