Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

a·vun·cu·lar

(ə-vŭng′kyə-lər)

adj.

1. Of or having to do with an uncle.

2. Regarded as characteristic of an uncle, especially in benevolence or tolerance.

"Oji-san!"

"Neji oji-san!"

If Neji were not a seasoned ninja, used to ducking, weaving, and dodging around deadly missiles such as Tenten's Twin Rising Dragons and Lee's nunchaku, he would have gone down for the count against the most dangerous weapons of them all.

Luckily though, he was able to catch the ahoge-sporting little cannonballs right before they could crash into his stomach.

"Boruto. Himawari," he greeted, trying his best to keep his composure.

Bright eyes blinked up at him eagerly, as blue as the sky above and as mischievous as his irritating brother-in-law's.

Those eyes were much...cuter than his irritating brother-in-law's. It was clearly because of Hinata-sama's genes.

Yes. That was why they were cute eyes, even though they were...mischievous.

Because of Hinata-sama.

...He was looking into their eyes for far too long, wasn't he?

No, Neji, concentrate on your jyuuken, a voice in his mind scolded. You're already so out of shape.

He (reluctantly) wrenched his own white eyes away from his niece and nephew's blue, going back to his kata.

No such luck.

The two little cannonballs jumped onto his back, throwing his form out of whack again.

"Oji-san, I made you a sunflower crown," Himawari sang, pulling a clump of mangled flowers out of the pocket of her yellow dress and showering them upon Neji's head (how that made a crown, Neji did not know, but he had long since learned not to question the whims and fancies of his five-year-old niece).

"Aren't they pretty?" Himawari beamed up at him, her dark hair the same lustrous shade as Hinata-sama's. "Mama said that they're your favorite."

"They are," he agreed. "Because they remind me of you."

She beamed again, and for a moment, Neji thought that her parents had misnamed her – she wasn't a flower that merely faced the sun; she was the sun.

"Neji oji-san!" Boruto yelled into his ear. It was only due to long, long years of being stuck on a team with Guy-sensei and Lee that Neji did not flinch. His ears were made of steel. "See, I got a new trading card game that's been coming out, ya know, and I asked kaa-chan to play with me and she said to ask you because she doesn't understand how to play, so you've gotta play with me today, okay?"

"Okay," he found himself agreeing once more.

"No peeking with your Byakugan, 'kay?"

"Okay."

Looked like there would be no jyuuken training for Neji this morning.

Then again, he found that this really didn't bother him too much.

He brushed at a little sunflower petal on the sleeve of his white kimono and smiled.

Even if he put his niece and nephew in his eye, it wouldn't hurt.

"No fair, oji-san, you're cheating!" Boruto accused with a scowl and a pout.

"I am not," Neji said calmly.

Here they were in Neji's room in the Hyuuga compound, training manuals, mission reports, jutsu scrolls, and...children's trading cards scattered about. And here Boruto was, nursing his third defeat in a row.

Neji couldn't blame his nephew for being put out, but his victory was inevitable. He was a genius, after all.

If someone had told him seven years ago that he'd be playing a collectible card game with Hinata-sama's two beautiful children, he would have laughed scornfully and perhaps wondered if said someone had been spending too much time with Guy-sensei and Lee.

He was a fool, seven years ago.

"He isn't, onii-chan," Himawari said, backing Neji up. "You should have played the Shodai Hokage card when oji-san played the Nidaime Hokage's. Wood Release causes your enemy to take 5000 damage."

"Oh...oh. Right." Boruto scratched his blonde hair sheepishly and grinned. "Let's have a rematch then, oji-san."

"No, oji-san, let's have lunch, I'm starving," Himawari said, turning her sky, sky blue eyes onto him in a puppy dog stare.

"Rematch!" Boruto protested.

"Lunch!"

"Rematch."

"LUNCH."

Neji's head swung back and forth like a pendulum, watching the siblings bicker like no tomorrow.

He'd never seen siblings bicker like that before; he and Hinata-sama had a calm, peaceful relationship, while Hanabi-sama took great sadistic glee in teasing the two of them about anything and everything facing the sun (Neji usually did not take her bait, but sometimes he was tempted into scowling and glaring, whereas Hinata-sama flustered far too easily in response).

Himawari and Boruto were usually as thick as thieves, but whenever they had a falling out, they were the source of catastrophe, as he, Hiashi-sama, Hanabi-sama, and the rest of the clan had discovered to their peril. He had to put a stop to it, or else Hinata-sama would get annoyed at him, and then there was the danger of her deciding that he was too irresponsible to babysit her children.

That would be a real catastrophe.

He held up a hand. "Lunch, then a rematch," he said.

Simultaneous cheers shook his room, but he was thankful, for once, to Guy-sensei and Lee for their torturous training that gave him ears of steel.

"Say, Neji oji-san," Boruto said. "I heard from tou-chan that you like to eat out."

Neji hummed noncommittally. He didn't hate it, though he wondered why Naruto would be interested in sharing this with Boruto.

"So I heard from Lee oji-san the other day that when you were genin, you had this mission and you ate something called 'curry of life' – oh, to be reminded of that monstrosity again, he thought – "and he said it was amazing!"

Lee was amazing. Amazingly insane.

"So...so, since I know that you like eating out and that you liked the 'curry of life'" – he most certainly did not – "Lee oji-san and dad said that when we see you next, I should take you to the curry of life restaurant!"

Time stopped for a moment, the summer breeze suddenly faded to make way for stifling heat, and Neji stared flatly at his innocent-looking nephew.

What.

"I even tracked down the guy who runs the restaurant in Konoha, it's some old guy called Ranmaru and he said that for you, he'd give a special discount, 'cause you and him, you go way back or something!" Boruto continued excitedly, apparently taking Neji's horrified silence as enthusiasm.

Hold up, who gave Ranmaru permission to open up an eatery in Konoha? Surely it should have been illegal. Did Kakashi-sensei do it? Did Guy-sensei make him do it?

And who allowed Boruto to...track him down? Did Hinata-sama not care? Did child protective services not exist in this village? Neji had to say, it was a horror that small children such as Boruto would be able to chance upon the dreaded curry of life.

And then inflict it on him at the behest of his irritating, irritating teammate and his irritating, irritating brother-in-law.

Was this some sort of sick, twisted prank that Naruto and Lee had decided to play on him? They both knew that he fainted after eating that old lady Sansho's curry.

...But Lee was too earnest, and might have mistaken his fainting for sincere appreciation of that old lady's food. The idea of Naruto pranking him was far too plausible, though.

Well, no matter. Gullibility or deviousness aside, he could just refuse and spare his tastebuds...

"Oh, please, please, please, oji-san, can we go there? Please? I'm so hungry," Himawari begged, turning those insanely beautiful eyes onto him.

Sweat poured down his face.

"Oji-san."

"Oji-san."

"Please."

"Please."

And Neji caved, his willpower crumbling to dust in the face of his niece and nephew's adorableness.

"Okay," he found himself agreeing again.

He could already feel his tongue shriveling up and dying, unable to bear the heat of that curry.

He was going to kill Naruto.

And Lee. But Naruto first.

Putting his niece and nephew in his eye wouldn't have hurt.

But his tongue was a different story.

A/N: Oh, the joys and struggles of being an uncle. I reeeeaallly wanted to write an alive Neji AU featuring tons of NaruHina and Boruto and Himawari, so I came up with this. It's going to be a series of random one-shots in no specific order, and I'll accept requests, so if there's anything you want to see, drop a request!

For those who don't know, the curry of life thing is from a filler arc in the Naruto anime, and Neji has an extremely low tolerance for it and faints whenever he eats it.

And please review! :)