"So… have you seen Tenten lately?"
Upon hearing the words that were being asked by his egg-headed companion, Neji snapped out of his daze and was able to utter a very intelligent sounding 'huh?' before masking his expression with stone.
Lee, being the silly naive boy that he is, didn't catch the fact that Neji only listened to him when he was inquiring about a certain brown haired girl. He was in the hospital once again for over training.
"Well," he said, "I think she might be mad at me for some reason." He looked up at Neji for a comment from his hospital bed, but seeing that he wasn't going to be getting one, he continued, "You see… she usually visits at least twice a week, yet it's Saturday, and I haven't seen her once yet." After pondering a moment, he snapped his head up and asked with a concerned tone, "She's not… sick is she?"
"No," was the simple answer Lee got, but Neji added silent to himself, 'unless you count blushing and giggling as fatal symptoms.'
"See?" said Lee, his mouth shaped like an 'o', as if he had just discovered the cure to cancer, "She must be mad at me!"
Neji stayed silent, letting the bowl-haired boy think whatever he wanted to. Truth be told, he felt somewhat embarrassed that Tenten was dating someone- for reasons unknown.
Lee peered closely at his silent companion, trying to find an emotion on his unreadable face. He wasn't successful. Deciding to break the silence, since silences weren't really his thing, he asked, "Do you know what's wrong with her?"
Neji, being Neji, was about to answer with his usually one word answer (no), but was interrupted by the exact bun-haired girl in question flying through the hospital door. She wasn't alone.
"Lee! I'm so sorry! I didn't notice until halfway through my date," Neji inwardly flinched at the word 'date', "that it was already Saturday and I hadn't visited you once this week yet! I'm so sor- Neji!"
If Neji hadn't been glaring with utmost intensity at the unknown man that was currently threading his fingers through Tenten's, he would've noticed that it had taken her 11 seconds to notice his presence: a whole 7 seconds longer then usual.
He composed himself quickly, and raised an eyebrow at her, asking without words, 'what?'
"Wow… I guess I just didn't think I'd find you here…" she looked lost for words, her mouth agape, looking not too intelligent.
An awkward silence filled the room. Lee, as always, was the one to break it, asking cheerfully, "Aren't you going to introduce us?"
"What?" Tenten stared blankly at Lee for a moment before realization crept up her face. "Oh! This is Hiro. He's a junior designer." The guy standing next to Tenten grinned, showing off his perfect teeth. "Hiro, that's Lee," Lee smiled broadly with a trademark sparkle on his own teeth, "and this is Neji." Neji nodded, keeping his eyes on Tenten, emotionless, as always, and showed no teeth.
"Cool! You must be what's been keeping Tenten so busy recently," Lee teased.
Already squirming under Neji's gaze, Tenten blushed at Lee's comment. "Lee… don't… We haven't been out that much."
The tall brown haired man, or 'Hiro', as he was called, put an arm around Tenten's slim waist, saying, "Then again, we've only been together for a week."
Neji's eyebrow twitched slightly.
"Actually," said Tenten, her usual air of superiority around her, "8 days."
Neji's eyebrow twitched noticeably.
Lee looked amazed. "Wow. See? You do go out a lot! At least, well, more then me. I lay here all day… and my hobbies include timing how fast I can drink a cup of water and counting ceiling tiles." The grin on his face was telling them that he wasn't at all sorrowful about it. "Actually, it gets kind of fun. Like just yesterday, I counted 235 tiles, but today I counted 246! And, the day before that, I counted 243. So, I did a little bit of math, and it averaged out to about 241 1/3, but since you cant really have a third of a tile, I figured there are probably 241 tiles. You know, rounding down." He grinned proudly at them, but his face soon fell when he saw the crazed looks he was receiving. Well, from Hiro. Tenten looked embarrassed, and Neji looked, well, like Neji.
"Er- well, I thought it was interesting…"
The silence that greeted him was deafening.
Lee swore he heard a cricket chirp.
Neji, starting to feel uncharacteristically sorry for his friend, broke the silence by standing up and coughing softly. "It was nice to meet you," he said quietly, to Hiro.
Hiro looked at him, as if sizing him up. "Same here," he said, although he looked anything but it. He turned to Tenten. "You ready to go?" Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed her hand and would've pulled her out of the room if she had not protested.
"Yeah, in a second." She walked over to Lee, shaking off Hiro's hold on her arm, and gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder. "Don't count too many tiles while I'm gone," she said, teasingly.
Lee smiled weakly, still trying to figure out why they didn't seem impressed by his tile counting. "I'll try not to."
The brunette girl smiled. "I'll see you in a few days, ok?" At Lee's nod, she turned towards Neji, and tried to read his expression, but was failed considerably.
"Uh- Neji," she tried her hardest not to blush under his steadfast gaze, and congratulated herself for succeeding. "Sorry about my training absence. I've been, well-"
He cut her off. "Don't worry about it. You're a girl, grown at that. Your life can't be only based on getting stronger." He gave a nod to Lee, Hiro, and finally Tenten, "I'll see you guys later," before stepping out of the room and closing the door behind him.
Out in the hall, Neji had to school his expression to be able to keep it emotionless. What he really wanted to do at that point was to go back into the room and beat that 'junior designer' to a pulp. But of course, poor Neji, being Neji, couldn't do that. Dignity wouldn't allow it. Plus, he couldn't give Hiro the satisfaction of knowing that inside he was boiling with jealously.
A/N: Sorry for the long wait! I went on vacation to Yellowstone national park, and it was absolutely gorgeous. You should definitely go if you haven't already. Anyway, thanks for all the reviews! I'll try to update this at least once a week, if not twice.
Thanks to- Salem-Vampire-Witch-Hunter . Takari-san . Yoshimi Aki Hyuuga Uchiha . Yukina . Dark Nemesis 7 . Angl . h4t5uh4ru . Cookie6 . Nousama & Fwoggie - for reviewing!