Notes: I apologize for the last chapter, which seemed to confuse some people. I'll try to avoid getting pedantic in the future. A tachi is an older version of the katana, longer and made for cavalry combat. That's all I know about it, because I am not a sword master. The Water and Wind forms Tenten mentions are taken from Miyamoto Musashi's Book of Five Rings (a very influential and historical book in Japan, still studied in military strategy classes today). And…and…oh, hells, I admit it. I've caved in at last. This story is now officially a romance. However! Do not let that lead you to believe that it will necessarily end that way.

Goals: To write the same scene from two different POVs, wherein the same events happen but make two different impressions on the reader. Without being boring or confusing.

Warnings: Some repetition. And 'romance.'

Chapter 13

Perspective

The first rays of early morning sunlight were only just trickling down through the thick foliage by the time Shino made it to the outer training grounds. The forest was still hushed, only on the edge of waking. The morning dew had not yet dried off the wings and feelers of many of the local insects, and until it did they would remain relatively quiet and still. He paused for a moment beside a particularly large Blue-eyed Darner to watch the beaded dew refracting light along the regal insect's magnificent wings, like smooth diamonds on silver netting. The dragonfly regarded him in turn, flicking its damp, heavy wings meditatively. A raft of mosquito larva had recently hatched nearby, and the predatory dragonfly was patiently biding its time, waiting for the sun to dry its wings enough that it could go on the hunt. Shino reflected that it was often the most beautiful creatures that were the most dangerous.

Some of the kikkai he had sent out to search the area buzzed softly in his consciousness as they locked on to a familiar scent. Shino turned away from the dragonfly, following his kikkai out into the sunlight.

He heard her before he saw her, or rather, he heard the soft, ringing swish of her sword as she moved through a series of rolling, fluid katas. Shino stood silently at the edge of the clearing she had chosen for her morning practice ground and watched Tenten flow gracefully from one stance to the next, the keen edge of her blade singing as she scythed and sliced it through the air. Midway through, her stance shifted and she moved faster, with shorter strokes and less slashing movements. Her face had the calm, peaceful expression of the totally focused, although once or twice Shino saw her lips pull into a brief smile of pure delight.

The sun was fully up over the treeline by the time she came smoothly to a standstill, arms outstretched with the sword held up before her on her palms, as if she were presenting it to the sky. She was breathing hard, despite the deceptively slow pace of the sword dance, and several wisps of her dark hair had come loose from her practical buns. She stood still as a statue, and for a moment Shino thought she might even be waiting for something, some angel to descend and take the blade she offered.

Then she exhaled noisily and swiped at the sweat on her forehead, sliding the blade into its sheath with a practiced click.

"Hey," she turned to him, face lighting up in one of her sudden smiles. "You're out here early. Weren't you supposed to come back late last night?"

Shino shook his head briefly. "Just before dawn."

"Wow, no wonder you look tired," Tenten remarked, and Shino wondered if he really did seem tired or if it was simply her familiarity with him that allowed her to see it so easily. He wondered if perhaps Tenten was a more observant person than he had thought (he'd judged her incorrectly once already), or had some technique for reading people that he had not yet discovered. Or if her talent in that area extended only to him, and if so, what that meant. Then he wondered if he could blame his sudden bout of mental incoherency on the fatigue of his recent mission or if Tenten herself was in some way at fault. Briefly, he considered the possibility that he was not thinking as clearly as usual.

Abruptly, Tenten drew her sword again, and Shino stopped thinking in circles and started thinking in sharp points as she leveled the blade with his throat. "Look," she said eagerly, and he realized that her smile was more expectant than challenging.

Shino looked closer at the blade. He was certainly not an expert in crafted weapons, but he had spent enough time with Tenten to at least recognize superb workmanship when he saw it. The blade was well-honed and looked smooth as glass, and the blue-bound hilt looked sturdy and perfectly balanced. It was not ornamental at all, but still had an efficient sort of beauty to it. Dangerously beautiful.

"My team gave it to me yesterday when I got home from my mission," Tenten told him, and he could tell that she desperately wanted him to ask why but was struggling to hide it. Probably because she thought he wouldn't ask if he knew she wanted him to do so. Which was a misjudgment on her part, because he was more than willing to give her what she wanted of him.

"Why?" he asked, watching her re-sheath the sword reverently.

"Because," she looked up at him, smiling slyly, then burst out laughing. "I got promoted to jounin!"

"Ah," he nodded. "Congratulations."

"Thanks!" Tenten bounced on her heels a little, fingering the hilt of her new sword happily and grinning at him. The breeze picked up a little, and blew some of her wayward strands of hair into her eyes. Distracted, she brushed them away with one hand, only to have them fly immediately back in. She brushed them back again, but her efforts were futile. "Oh, forget this," she muttered, and held her sword hilt-first out to Shino. "Can you hang on to this a sec while I fix this mess?"

She reached up to pull the sturdy elastic bands that bound her hair up, and shook her head until the brown tresses fell in slightly sweaty, rumpled tresses around her face. She stuck the elastics bands in her teeth and swiftly started to coil her hair back into two neat buns. Shino found himself watching her deft hands as she tugged and twisted on her hair. She had long, fine-boned fingers that ended in almost brutally short nails. Her hands were feminine but calloused, and he could see the faintest of scars on the back of her left hand. Brown from sunlight and rough from work, strong, efficient, practical. No jewelry. A woman's hands, but not a lady's, he thought with a surprising sort of relief.

He felt his own hand clench around the hilt of her sword, and remembered how warm she had been, that night in the Ceremonial Hall when she had reached for him.

"So," she said, voice slightly muffled around the elastic. "How'd your mission go?"

I should have gone to bed, Shino thought to himself suddenly. I am tired and slightly…irrational. He looked at Tenten and thought, deliberately stern, this woman is my friend. And if she reaches out to me in friendship from time to time, that only makes her a compassionate friend. Only a fool would think it anything more, and a good shinobi knows better than to overanalyze things.

"That bad, huh?" She took the last hair band from her teeth and snapped it into place, eyeing him with sympathy. He blinked, realizing that he had neglected to answer her question entirely.

"It was unpleasant," he said at last. She frowned, probably hunting for something to say that wouldn't sound intrusive. "It's longer than I thought," he cut her off before she could.

The sudden change in direction caught her off guard, and she smiled in puzzlement. "Uh, what?"

"Your hair," Shino held out her sword to her, and she took it carefully from him, slinging it around her waist.

"Oh, right. Well, I haven't actually cut it in about three years," she confided. "Trimmed the ends a little to keep it healthy, but otherwise just sort of let it go." She wrinkled her nose at him. "I know it's not really tactical, but…" she blushed slightly, reaching up and brushing at her bangs self consciously. "I guess it's just that there aren't very many opportunities to be…to be…" she sighed and dropped her eyes, looking mildly embarrassed. "Well, girly, I guess. I mean, most female clothes are pretty impractical for a shinobi, and I don't do makeup or perfume of course, and I'm not really into some of the stuff I hear Ino and Sakura and the other kunoichi talk about sometimes," she shrugged, cheeks still pink but expression defiant. "So I keep my hair long. To remind me that I am actually a female, and if I really wanted to I could put it down and look like one, for awhile."

She rolled her eyes and sighed. "That didn't make a lot of sense, did it?" Then she met his gaze and smiled, half embarrassed and half amused. "Sorry."

And just like that, Shino knew that he loved her.

Only a fool would deny his own feelings, and a good shinobi knows his own strengths and weaknesses better than anyone else.

"It's alright," he said quietly. "We all have our quirks."

Her new jounin status was well-earned, Shino thought somewhere in the still coherent, analytical part of his brain. Her eyes never once flickered towards his sunglasses. But then, the very careful way she was not looking at his face at all was almost as much of a give away. But she was trying very hard not to be offensive, which was more than almost anyone else in his life had done outside his clan and his teammates (well, Hinata and Kurenai, anyway, because heaven knew Kiba and Akamaru had never had any problems giving offense). It was unsurprising that she would be curious about his eyes, though she would certainly never ask.

Shino reached up and took off his sunglasses. Tenten blinked, eyebrows shooting upward in shock. "Oh," she said in a startled voice, then recovered admirably. She tilted her head and regarded him with a thoughtful expression. "Yeah, I guess we do."

She doesn't love you, Shino told himself calmly, not the way you love her. But that's fine, he replied, just as composed. She doesn't have to, not right now anyway. And maybe she will someday, and maybe she won't, and maybe it won't matter either way.

Tenten smiled at him in the morning sunlight. For now, that was enough.

Tenten was not by nature a morning person, but years of training with Rock Lee and Maito Gai had more or less developed her into one in self defense. Besides, today she was too excited to sleep in. Today was her official first day as a jounin of Konoha, and her team had given her a beautiful, rare tachiin celebration. Tenten smiled as she unsheathed the long blade and adjusted her grip on the blue-bound hilt. It was gloriously well-crafted, and though the circular guard was a little worn from age, it still balanced perfectly. Gai had claimed to have found it on a mission by pure chance, but she knew her team well enough to guess that they had probably searched for it for several days in anticipation of her promotion. Which they had known about long before she did, she thought wryly to herself, and had somehow neglected to tell her. Although it did explain why Gai's eyes kept streaming with pride all week whenever he looked at her. At the time, she'd just thought he had a head cold.

Tenten lifted the blade, sighting along the edge in the soft grey light of predawn. The sword was longer than most of her other swords, having been designed long ago for soldiers mounted on horseback fighting enemies on the ground. It would take a little practice before it felt as natural to her hand as any katana ever had, but she was more than willing to put in the time.

She swung smoothly into the first Water forms of Ni Ten Ichi, feeling the weight of the blade in her wrists and elbows. As she moved, she concentrated on the sensations of her shoulders, her neck, her back, then down to her legs and feet, until she was conscious of every muscle in her body moving. She could feel the push and pull of muscles, the steady rhythm of her heart, the rush of her breath, the slide of her skin. She felt her fingers curled around the tachi hilt, the roughened bindings against her palms, and the more she moved the more the sword's weight and texture and balance all became a part of her own body, like the weight of her arms or the texture of her own skin.

She reached the end of the Water form, but instead of flowing through the pattern again (which was how the Water forms were designed, so that one could move through them over and over with no seeming end or beginning), she shifted her stance slightly into the Wind forms, which involved much more movement of her feet and hands. Tenten felt a light cool air winding across her sweat-dampened skin, and she oriented her body to the direction of the breeze, listening to it sing along the keen edge of her blade. She danced with the wind as the world gradually became brighter and brighter, until at last she stopped, holding the blade to the sky and feeling the wind parting along it's sharp edge.

This, she thought in the small silence of the morning forest, is an awesome sword. I am so going to hug my team at training today.

Unless that was Neji standing off to the shadows, in which case she could hug him now – no, wait, not Neji. Neji would have come over to her by now. Tenten sheathed her marvelous sword and swiped at her face. A few strands of hair swung messily into her face, and she flicked her head to throw them aside. "Hey," she called happily. The tall figure stepped out into the clearing, hands deep in his pockets. "You're out here early," Tenten remarked. "Weren't you supposed to come back late last night?"

He shook his head a little, but something about the gesture looked, well, off to Tenten. "Just before dawn," he said. She frowned mentally, noting that all his movements seemed ever so slightly slower and more deliberate than usual. And there was something in his tone, something a little more distant and formal…he looked, she decided, like Neji when the Hyuuga had gone a few days without sleep. Stiff, even quieter than normal, and almost too careful in his movements. But then it was only just after dawn now, so he hadn't gone home yet after his travels from the Wind Country border. He'd probably been on the move all night.

"Wow, no wonder you look tired," she told him. He said nothing, simply stood there watching her. He probably ought to have gone home and gotten some sleep, she thought, but Shino was an experienced jounin who knew his own limits better than she ever would. If he needed sleep so badly, he would have done the rational thing and gone to bed. But since he was here, she might as well stop worrying about it and show off her new blade.

"Look," she said happily, feeling the excitement welling back up in her. She unsheathed the tachi and held it out to him, noting with pride that the blue hilt wrappings had already dried from the sweat on her hands. Good material, she thought with approval. Wonder where I can find some more? "My team gave it to me yesterday when I got home from my mission." She twisted her wrist slightly to let the sunlight flicker along the folded steel. She debated telling him why, but somehow just blurting it out seemed a little boastful. And she couldn't try to lead him into asking about it, because then he wouldn't. Of course, it was always possible that he already knew, thus negating the need to announce it anyway. Not that she needed to announce it, like a little kid or something. It was just a promotion. She was hardly the first kunoichi to achieve jounin status. It wasn't like the man would be impressed. Tenten slid the sword back into the simple blue scabbard and told herself to behave like the rational, cool headed adult a jounin ought to be.

"Why?" he asked her, and Tenten beamed like a little kid anyway.

"Because," she laughed. "I got promoted to jounin!"

"Ah," he nodded slowly, leaning against a nearby tree and watching her from his hood. "Congratulations." He sounded sincere, though his low voice was a little detached. He probably thought she was silly, standing there with her messy hair and sweaty face and prancing around laughing like a little girl on her birthday. But he was a good enough friend to let it pass.

"Thanks," she tried to make her own voice as calm and noncommittal as his, as if getting ranked and receiving a rare quality sword was no big deal and happened every day. It wasn't like she'd just invented some new technique or defeated a powerful enemy. Sheesh girl, she thought as some more of her wayward hair flopped into her face. Get a grip. She pushed at the brown wisps, trying to make herself look a little more presentable and collected, the way he always did. But her hair was in a stubborn mood today, it seemed, and she couldn't force it back into any semblance of order with only one hand. Shino stood silently by his tree, watching her struggle with it. How does he always look good? Tenten thought slightly irritably. Even when he's just traveled three days on foot through the forest and is obviously tired, he still manages to look like he's just out for a stroll on a spring day.

"Oh, forget this," she muttered at last, and held the tachi out to Shino. "Can you hang on to this a sec while I fix this mess?" If she was going to look like a silly girl, she thought firmly, at least she'd look like a well-groomed one.

The silence stretched between them as Tenten struggled to shove her hair back into presentable buns quickly and efficiently. Naturally, the harder she tried to get it done quickly, the more of a mess she kept making of it. Her fingernails snagged on a couple strands and pulling them loose again, or when she tried to twist one elastic band firmly around the first bun, it tangled in an unruly lock and she had to pull it free and start over. She felt Shino's eyes on her and blushed slightly as she realized that he was still standing there with her sword in hand, probably bored but too polite to leave while she struggled with her hair.

"So," she said awkwardly, trying to fill the silence with some conversation and hopefully make it seem less strained. "How'd your mission go?"

Shino did not answer, but the line of his shoulders under his overcoat seemed to tense, then drop marginally. The hand holding her tachi hung still at his side, but he pulled his free hand from his pocket. "That bad, huh?" she murmured sympathetically. Shino's chin lifted sharply, as if her words had snapped him back from deep within his thoughts. When he did finally speak, his tone was measured and careful.

"It was unpleasant."

Tenten finished snapping the last elastic band into place and debated telling him that he looked exhausted and should go home and sleep. He probably would not take kindly to being ordered around though, no matter how good her intentions. But since when, Tenten wondered to herself, have I ever balked at telling a friend what they needed to hear? What on earth is stopping me now? If it were Neji or Lee, I'd have frog marched them to bed myself, and tied them to it if I had to. Although I'm not sure if Shino is into that sort of thing - whoa! Tenten slammed her mental brakes on so fast that she almost felt dizzy. Where the freaking hell had that thought come from?

"It's longer than I thought," Shino said suddenly, and Tenten's mind scrambled to return to reality. She must have missed some part of the conversation while she musing about…about…things.

"Uh, what?" She asked, trying to comb her memory to see if he had spoken while she was wrapped up in her inexplicable and entirely inappropriate thoughts. Nope, couldn't recall hearing his voice, except the comment about his mission being unpleasant. He was holding out her sword to her, and Tenten almost absently took it back and slung it around her waist. I did not, she told herself firmly, not just think about brushing my fingers across his.

"Your hair," Shino clarified, and Tenten blinked.

"Oh, right," she rushed to answer. "Well, I haven't actually cut in about three years," she heard herself saying, a tad too fast to be completely relaxed. "Trimmed the ends a little to keep it healthy, but otherwise just sort of let it go." Yeah, great, Tenten, men love to hear about women's hygiene. That silliness factor you were so worried about? Going through the roof. "I know it's not really tactical, but…" she found herself trying to explain. "I guess it's just that there aren't very many opportunities to be…to be…" And now she'd backed herself into a corner. Not that Shino would laugh at her, but it was embarrassing all the same. Oh well, no way to bow out gracefully now. "Well, girly, I guess."

There, she'd said it. Now if only I could stop trying to explain, she thought mournfully, while her mouth went right flapping, heedless. "I mean, most female clothes are pretty impractical for a shinobi, and I don't do makeup or perfume of course, and I'm not really into some of the stuff I hear Ino and Sakura and the other kunoichi talk about sometimes."

Shino was leaning against his tree again, but he was pulling that looking-without-looking trick again, and Tenten found herself surreptitiously scanning the immediate area for a hive of kikkai. That was the only way he could make her feel like he was scrutinizing her down to her bones without even fully facing her. Normally the idea didn't particularly bother her except on a friendly competitive sort of level. But at this particular moment she felt disjointed and a little off balance, and the last thing she wanted was her friend to know that she was letting some random hormones turn her brain into mush. That's what it is, she repeated mentally. Hormones. Shino is a good guy, but if I start turning into a horny girl around him, I'll just freak him out and ruin the friendship.

"So I keep my hair long," she said, only half listening to herself talk while she mentally scolded herself to stop being stupid. "To remind me that I am actually a female, and if I really wanted to I could put it down and look like one, for awhile."

Oh, well done, moron, she thought acidly. Never mind that it was a little too much honesty to be comfortable, but making a point to remind him she was female was about as subtle as a billy club. Control your stupid hormones before you turn this into a real mess, Tenten! Fighting to cover her embarrassment, she rolled her eyes and sighed. "That didn't make a lot of sense, did it?" Tenten looked up to see that Shino was facing her fully again. The sunlight reflected off his sunglasses, and his face was still mostly hidden behind his collar and hood, but she didn't see any condemnation or irritation in his body language. "Sorry," she offered him, smiling self-consciously.

Well, he was a good looking guy, she told herself defiantly. And he was intelligent and a powerful shinobi. There was no shame in being attracted to the guy, so long as she kept it under control and didn't let it mess up their friendship. I can handle that, she thought. It's not like I've never been physically attracted to anyone before. I'll get over it soon enough, hopefully before I get myself into trouble.

"It's alright," he said, and Tenten allowed herself to admit that he really did have a great voice. Low, smooth, a little smoky. "We all have our quirks."

Like my sudden desire to attack you just so I can have an excuse to touch you again, Tenten thought in the privacy of her mind. Then she mentally slapped herself. Stop thinking about it! Look, his hands are still out of his pockets; he's tense about something. Probably picking up on you radiating pheromones or whatever.

Shino moved one of his hands suddenly, and because she was already staring at it, Tenten followed it up to his face.

Shino took off his sunglasses.

"Oh," Tenten heard herself say.

There were two popular theories in Konoha about Aburame Shino's sunglasses. Well, okay, there were two popular theories among the Konoha kunoichi of Tenten's general age group, excluding of course his teammate Hyuuga Hinata, who declined to comment. The first giggly, fangirlish theory was that the Aburame had multi-faceted eyes, as if they had crossed their DNA with huge mutant flies. The second breathy, even more fangirlish theory was that the Aburame had very beautiful eyes that they kept hidden for mysterious and appropriately angsty reasons.

Privately, Tenten had always thought it likely the glasses were just personal preference. Later, after Sakura had enlightened her a little on Aburame physiology, she recognized the shades as a means of protecting a minor vulnerability and thought no more of them. In all likelihood, Aburame Shino's eyes were perfectly normal, if slightly more sensitive than normal.

When she was given the opportunity to learn the truth, Tenten had to admit that she had been wrong. But then, so had all the fangirls. Aburame Shino did not have bug eyes, nor did he have wide, shoujo-manga style pretty-boy eyes.

Aburame Shino had absolutely gorgeous eyes.

Crap, Tenten thought as she found herself staring at clear gray eyes that seemed capable of piercing her all the way down to her soul.

I am in so much trouble.

**

"Yeah, I guess we do."

**

(forgive me, lord, for I have fangirled.)