Tenten was having a beautiful day. But that was before the giant snake came crashing into the Konoha skyline.
She and Neji were eating at that one dumpling shop that made the crispiest sesame dumplings, and Neji, who was surprisingly quite the gentleman, didn't even ask before grabbing her arm and pulling her inside. She knew from her colleague Naruto that his favorite was herring soba, but at the moment, he seemed to have spontaneously become a dumpling aficionado for her sake. Or perhaps he was genuinely fond of dumplings; his bandaged brow was creased and he was chewing slowly and thoughtfully, staring at the dumplings on his plate like they were fascinating medical specimens that Dr. Shizune or Mayor Tsunade would have loved to dissect and study.
That meant he liked them...right? Tenten's own brow creased as she watched Neji eat. Her colleague was hard to read. In the several years she'd been casually acquainted with the superhero of the renowned Hyuuga group, he'd revealed vanishingly little about himself, leaving Tenten the job of painstakingly constructing an image of him from the tiny shards that she'd collected of his life. So far, she knew for certain three things about him. One, he had a precious little cousin, colleague Hinata, for whom he'd jump into lava to protect (he'd actually done that once, earning third-degree burns and an skull-shattering rap to the head from their colleague Sakura). Two, there was something funny going on with his group and those mysterious bandages wrapped around his forehead. Three, he hated spicy food (and pumpkins). Colleague Naruto had figured this out during their Hero Apprentice days, when he'd forced Neji to eat a bowl of extra-spicy ramen with red pepper, and somehow Neji had ended up hospitalized.
Well...Neji didn't seem to be in any medical emergency at the moment, so Tenten supposed that he liked the dumplings...she hoped.
"I like these," he comfirmed, finally swallowing the one in his mouth. Oh. Nice of him to clear that up. He gave her a calm smile that reached all the way to his trademark white eyes. "You have good taste, colleague Tenten."
Tenten's ears warmed. "Ah...thank you very much, colleague Neji. I'm very surprised that you know my favorites, though."
Neji sighed in exasperation. "It's all because of that idiot Naruto." He dissected another dumpling resignedly. Tenten noted that he didn't call his childhood nemesis-friend-whatever colleague. Hmmm. Interesting. "He's of the opinion that I'm 'uptight' and 'frowny' and that I need to make more 'friends.'" He sighed again. "I'm sorry that he put you and me up to this. I didn't mean to inconvenience you."
Outwardly, Tenten retained her blank, neutral facade. Inwardly, Tenten was cheering on their mutual obtuse colleague-friend-whatever. Naruto may have been a moron 99% of the time, but the 1% of the time he wasn't...well, supernatural events happened during those times. Like him suddenly developing out of the world perceptive skills and realizing that Tenten barely knew Neji, that Tenten wanted to know Neji, and that he, the Number One Superhero of the world, needed to fix this, grabbing the "uptight" and "frowny" superhero of the Hyuuga group, and all but throwing him at Tenten, yelling about friendship and connections.
Hence she and Neji enjoying this beautiful afternoon together, eating crispy sesame dumplings.
And then the giant snake came crashing into the Konoha skyline and ruined the moment.
Screams rang out across town (though oddly enough, not inside the shop; maybe they were used to the weekly disturbances). Tenten sighed heavily as the walkie-talkie strapped to her waist came on.
Another day, another attack on town by rogue villain Orochimaru, Tsunade's old friend and former candidate for Mayor. Last month had been the Hero Council Elections, and Tsunade had won in a landslide, despite all of Orochimaru's fervent campaigning for the spot. Orochimaru believed himself to be the best person for the job, but his habit of greatly extending his snakelike tongue and using it to lick his lips had grossed out a lot of people.
Unfortunately, rogue villain Orochimaru was a sore loser.
Screams rang out once more. Something fell. Maybe it was a building. Tenten scowled. Everyone was put off by the weekly attacks, not least the famously lazy Nara group. If Tenten heard colleague Shikamaru utter the word "troublesome" again, she would snap and kill him.
"MY BEAUTIFUL YOUTHFUL COLLEAGUE TENTEN!" her best friend's tinny voice exploded from the walkie-talkie, causing everyone in the dumpling shop to turn around and glare at her. "KONOHA IS UNDER ATTACK BY THE VILE ROGUE VILLAIN OROCHIMARU! COME QUICKLY WITH YOUR SHARP POINTY OBJECTS AND WE CAN DEFEAT HIM!"
"Oi!" she snapped into the walkie-talkie. "You're supposed to use my code name when you use these things to communicate!"
The walkie-talkie went momentarily radio silent. "Oh...sorry..." he said sheepishly. "Anyway...come quickly with your sharp pointy objects, Dragon Lady. The Youthful Green Beast is signing out!"
Everyone went back to their meals, totally uncaring at the fact that the rogue villain Orochimaru had beseiged Konoha. Tenten supposed that it was the law of decreasing marginal utility, only with constant weekly attacks. Not like rogue villain Orochimaru could do any permanent damage anyway...they had Squad Commander Yamato to fix things up with his amazing wood controlling superpower. Come natural disaster or rogue villain attacks, Konoha could always count on Squad Commander Yamato to repair millions in property damage. On top of that, Dr. Shizune and Mayor Tsunade had otherwordly medical skills, so no one was even hurt in the long run. Well, not too seriously anyway.
Still, rogue villain Orochimaru was deeply annoying, with his overly long tongue and overly large snakes and overly silky voice and overly frequent attacks on Tenten's hometown.
Neji raised an eyebrow at her. "Colleague Tenten, don't tell me that was colleague Lee? His code name is 'Youthful Green Beast'?"
"You got it." Tenten gloomily took out her wallet and started counting coins. "Looks like we'll have to meet up another time, colleague Neji."
It had been such a nice meal too. Stupid rogue villain Orochimaru...
Surprisingly, Neji rose, brushing stray crumbs off his pristine white robes. It was Tenten's turn to raise an eyebrow.
"...Colleague Neji?"
"I'll come with you," he said calmly. "After all, I'm a superhero of Konoha too, and I believe that rogue villain Orochimaru is attacking us?"
She smiled weakly. "Right." It was a shame that it was happening during her lunchtime, though.
"Then let's go." He gracefully gathered the remains of the sesame dumplings into a plastic box that he for some reason had coincidentally just been carrying in his bag. This earned him glares from the restaurant owner, glares which he seemed completely oblivious to.
"We have a rogue villain to defeat." He paused and tucked the box back into his bag, striding off into the street. "Show me what you're made of, Dragon Lady."
Tenten blinked bemusedly at his back, his long, dark, neatly combed hair fluttering out, beckoning her to go with him.
Neji of the Hyuuga group...was still a mystery to her. What was going on beneath those odd white eyes?
Still, more shards clicked into place, bringing her mental image of him closer and closer to completion.
Hmmm.
Colleague Neji may have been difficult to read, but Tenten always did like a challenge.
A/N: Written for Day 2: Superhero. :) I tried to make this similar to the ninja world, but different at the same time. Hence Neji and Tenten barely knowing each other in this AU.
Please review! :)