It was her first year at the Academy, and Tenten still barely knew anyone. Being an orphan of civilian parents who had died in the Kyuubi attack a few years ago, she was used to not knowing people. She had only the faintest memory of her parents, of someone's warm smile and someone's even warmer hands rocking her to sleep, and that was it, as far as she knew. The caretakers in the orphanage weren't too bad. They were nice and everything, but they had a million other kids to care for, and well, that meant that Tenten had to be strong and brave on her own for a while before the non-orphaned kids needed to be. People tucked her into bed only once in a while; she was a big girl who had to do that by herself most of the time. Likewise for defending herself from bullies, falling to the ground with a skinned knee, brushing her teeth, and twisting her hair into buns.

Tenten didn't mind it, honestly. It gave her a sense of...dare she say it?...freedom, and there were far worse fates for orphans like her. She had heard horror stories of a place called "Bloody Mist Village" and never was she more thankful to be an orphan of Konoha.

So like a big girl, she did things all by herself, whether it was deciding to be a ninja, deciding to be a ninja just like her idol Tsunade-sama, and (later on) deciding to chart her own path and be a legendary weapons user the likes of which the world had never seen.

Part of being a big girl, as Tenten had found out, meant getting to know people. You couldn't get by in the world without having at least one friend, because as big and strong as someone might be, she knew that while it was possible to do many things by yourself, it was impossible to do all things by yourself.

Someone had to tell that to one of the kids in her class, Hyuuga Neji. Just like her, he was a perfect stranger to everyone else in homeroom. But there was one key difference between herself and him. While Tenten didn't have any friends, it wasn't for lack of trying. It wasn't her fault that the morons in her class just couldn't appreciate her dream, her vision of the future, of being the second coming of Tsunade-sama. It wasn't her fault that they made fun of her ambitions. It also totally wasn't her fault, she found herself explaining to Iruka-sensei, that those morons ended up with bruised knees and bloody lips. They picked on her when she was trying to be friendly and sharing her dream, and when someone pushed her, she pushed right back. Tenten was a big girl, and if there was one thing she'd learned early on, it was that life was full of bullies, and big girls beat up those bullies. One day, she would find someone who truly appreciated her dream, and then that person would be her friend. And as she was a big girl, she knew that if she waited long enough, she would get what she wanted.

Hyuuga Neji, on the other hand, didn't even seem to try. She had no idea why. His cold gaze swept over the kids laughing and shrieking and pushing each other on the playground, and when Tenten examined his eyes thoroughly from afar, she didn't see even a glimmer of temptation, to her shock. Did he not want to play and laugh and make friends? He was a big boy, and just like with big girls, they couldn't get by in the world without having at least one friend.

Tenten wondered how this classmate of hers was seemingly managing so splendidly without one, though.

Perfect grades in every class. Perfect eyesight with that weird kekkei genkai of his. Perfect conduct in class (though quite stiff and frosty). Perfect...perfect everything. So perfect, apparently, that Tenten had so far not even seen the slightest of scratches on his body after their weekly class sparring matches, not like her bruised knees and bloody lips after sparring with those nasty bullies who had mocked her dream.

She wondered what Hyuuga Neji's dreams were, what his visions for the future were. Was his ambition just so amazing that he didn't even need anyone to help him fulfill it? Was it that, like with her, the ones around them simply didn't appreciate his dream?

When she became his teammate, though, she found out that the truth was far more simple. A bird in a cage just didn't have any dreams. Well, as much as Tenten respected Neji's genius and how splendidly he'd managed so far without any, she had to say he was wrong, after watching his match with Naruto.

Everyone needed a dream.

And everyone needed a friend.

Just one was enough.

It was a good thing for Neji, then, that he and Tenten weren't strangers anymore.

A/N: Written for Day 9: Strangers. Tried to do something new by not writing any dialogue. :)

Thanks for the reviews last chapter, and hope to see more! :)