Oof, volia I'm back I think Neji skidded a little out of character in this chapter, but I by the end he slides right back in. I figure he's a guy that just doesn't realise his own emotional depths yet. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Even with all my hard work, I still can't claim Naruto or it's characters as mine. gah, the unfairity of it!

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Errands

Konoha Market

Neji surveyed Hanabi-sama and Tenten with a sense of relief. Of course none of his close brush with death showed on his face. A man could only take being asked about hair accessories for a certain amount of time before he did himself serious damage. The asker being Hanabi-sama meant he couldn't simply brush the questions aside as ridiculous.

A hair tie was a hair tie was a hair tie. It was invariably black and strong and practical, that was the extent of his knowledge of hair accessories. Thankfully just before Hanabi had reacted violently to his lack of enthusiam, or worse made him try things so she could compare them, Tenten had passed by.

He didn't know how she'd guessed, but she'd immediately offered to help Hanabi choose her things. Freeing him and giving him the slightly less boring task of watching them flitter around the stands. Hanabi-sama seemed happy, she finally had someone who answered with more than grunts. He watched as Tenten chose and rejected item after item with Hanabi close by. He didn't wonder about the femine mystery, he just accepted that it was there and ignored it.

But recently being Hanabi's 'protector' meant his face being shoved more and more fully into the intricate differences between men and almost women. Like using the public baths in groups, what was that? Spending 2 hours eating a snack meal with a group of chattering girls, the need to buy things she barely ever wore outside of school. Tenten wasn't like that, why weren't other girls like her?

Of course she wasn't exactly acting normally right now, Neji noted with concern as Tenten giggled. She never giggled. She snorted, she laughed, she sighed, she groaned with disbelief over Lee but she never giggled. Was it possible that there were things he didn't know about her?

Neji snorted in derision. Of course not, he knew everything about Tenten, and she knew everything about him. Like his curse seal, his blind spot, and the limits of his abilities. He even knew how she like her nabe made. And yet watching her giggle made him wonder if she was in fact female, and not just the training machine that Lee and he were. He knew she was female, weaker in combat, softer in instincts, slightly less speed, slightly less everything, but not female, with giggling, and hair accessories.

Neji watched with worry as Tenten lifted a huge pink flower clip from the stand and placed it in her hair, showing Hanabi. He had to bite his lip to stop himself from commenting, but he didn't stop the grimace quickly enough. Hanabi looked at him mouth open for a second then said to Tenten that she thought it wasn't her. Tenten gave a laugh and replaced it. She picked out a clip with sparkling stones in. Neji considered it as Tenten held it against her hair for Hanabi to see. Finally he gave a slight frown, Hanabi shook her head and Tenten placed it down dissapointed. Hanabi slipped him a curious look, which Neji duly ignored. Tenten was busy chosing another clip.

After vetoing several more clips, Neji saw the piece for her. A simple five petaled white flower, not shiny but the colour seemed to glow in the sun. It was a type of stick thing that women stuck into twisted complicated hair styles. But he thought she could put it into her buns just fine. If only she would look over here and see it, he was sure she would choose it herself. Only, only she was with Hanabi and they were leaving, and the stick thingie, it was still there, and she hadn't seen it. He hesitated then snorting at his own stupidity he walked away from the stall.

He prayed they wouldn't find something else female to do. They chose a tea shop and beckoned Neji to join them. At least with a cup of tea in his hands he'd have something to do while they chatted. Sighing Neji sat down next to Hanabi blocking her against the wall and therefore putting himself between her and any lunatic that might arrive. Tenten sat opposite and then the female stuff started happening.

Under his uncomprehending eyes, they took out the hair pieces Hanabi had chosen with Tenten's help and they looked at them, again. As if they hadn't looked at them enough already at the stall. They turned them over, held them against Hanabi's hair and laughed and talked, and decided what Hanabi would wear with them.

Neji found if he concentrated on the little patch of table under Tenten's hands he could ignore most of the annoying banter. So he concentrated on the way her hands were slightly rough from so much weapon work, the way her nails were clean and short, the way her hands gestured with some phrases, the deft manner she handled the clips with. He jerked back when Hanabi hit his shoulder in annoyance.

He blinked when she asked him his opinion on a clip she had put into her hair. He looked at the clip and thought it wasn't that much different from having nothing in her hair. Fortunately he was more intelligent than to say it, so he shrugged in a non commital answer. Hanabi rolled her eyes and turned to Tenten again.

Neji was eventually saved from hanging himself by the arrival of Hanabi's team mates. Hanabi jumped up to greet them a little too quickly for Neji's liking. After all he knew almost nothing about the two young boys, he didn't see what there was to get so excited over. He relaxed the forbidding stare on his face as their sensei arrived.

The arrival of Hanabi's sensei meant that his supervision was no longer needed. Bowing to the Jounin, Neji left. Or tried to, he got stuck at the door, Tenten wasn't following him. Tenten always followed him. It was...traditional, he went somewhere and she followed, they were a team damn it. Yet there she was not following, he wouldn't have minded really, after all she was a completely separate, free willed individual, if she chose to not to follow him she was certainly within her rights.

What he minded was that she was not following because she was busy chatting to another man. And giggling, did he mention the giggling? He only noticed the intense frown on his face when the people trying leave the restuarant around him, (as he'd rudely placed himself in the middle of the door effectively blocking all entrance and exit,) decided that sitting down and waiting for the angry shinobi to leave would be better.

Who did that Jounin think he was anyway, flirting with her like that? It was unseemly in public, in front of him, er, Hanabi, what kind of example was he setting for him, er, her? Look at him joking and...wait, he didn't, did he just touch Tenten? Okay it was on the arm, but casual public touching between the sexes, what was the world coming to!

Neji forced himself to calm down, a public outburst would only humilate him, and who knew how Hiashi-sama would take the news of such an embarrassment. Brawling in public over a conversation,... and the touching! He shuddered to think of the punishment for such behaviour. Turning on his heel, he stalked out of the tea shop seeing only red.

Coming to decision he turned again and strode back to the stall for hair accessories. He almost, almost, pulled his hair out when he found that Tenten's stick thingie was gone. Hadn't the stall owner realised that it was for Tenten and that he would've come back later to buy it for her?

Dumbass. He growled silently insulting the stall owner.

Surprised at himself Neji felt as if a bucket of cold water had just been dumped over him. He was starting to talk like Naruto. Thank goodness it was only in his head, but what was he thinking? What the hell was the problem with him. So Tenten was discussing something funny with Hanabi's sensei, so what? It was nothing to do with him if she wanted to talk to other men. It wasn't like she was going to start ignoring him, er, the team.

Shaking his head to empty his mind of the last lingering doubts, Neji ran his eyes over the other pieces.

Might as well choose something, after all a little gift between teammates is okay. I think her birthday is coming up, this year... or the next. Neji thought to himself, embarrassed when he realised that he didn't know Tenten's birthday.

It seemed stupid that they'd been teammates for almost 6 years and he didn't know her birth date. Come to think of it he didn't know Lee's or Gai-sensei's either. It seemed wrong not to know such a thing about people he might die next to. He tried to remember if they'd ever offered him a birthday present, or at least a happy birthday. Not that he was accustomed to receiving anything for his birthdays. After his father died, there was noone who cared enough to remember such a trivial thing.

He remember way back in the beginning of their team, Tenten and Lee had tried. They'd asked him his birthday, he'd brushed them off. But afterwards they'd checked Gai-sensei's file on him and they'd offered him little presents and wished him happy birthday. He winced remembering his less than enthousiatic response. No wonder they'd dropped trying to wish him happy birthday.

He tried to remember if he'd ever offered them a happy birthday. No, no, he didn't remember ever doing anything like that, he almost felt like blushing at his rudeness. He remembered slipping out of birthday dinners as well. They just hadn't seemed so important, even after his Naruto ephihany during the infamous Chunnin Exams, little things like birthdays just slipped under his radar.

He'd smiled, for crying out loud, not often of course he had a reputation for solid respectability to live up to, a Hyuuga standard of behaviour, but he'd opened up. He was sure he had, shown his teammates they were important to him. Who did they think he did all that training for? All that perfecting, and working and sacrifice?

Okay so I don't wish them happy birthday, or giggle with them, or talk casually, or TOUCH THEIR ARM! Panting Neji realised he was working himself up into a rage again.

Smoothing his hair down with trembling hands he returned to searching for a gift for Tenten.

So they thought he didn't care did they? Thought he never thought of them? Well he'd show them, he'd buy them presents and then all those years of missed birthdays would just be paid for and, and, well things would be balanced again. They would know then, that he, Hyuuga Neji, thought highly of them.

Pleased with himself, Neji stared at the trays of items. He ignored the flowers, too girly, decided against the hair pieces disguising weapons, she had alot of those. He wanted something that spoke to her female side, the one he'd had a glimpse of today. He'd show that laughing Jounin who knew Tenten the best.

Gritting his teeth in irritation Neji searched and searched finding nothing.

"Sir? If these don't please you, perphaps I have something here that would please you more?" The shop keeper's pleasant voice said.

Neji flicked his eyes up to him irritated. They widened when he saw the tray being offered. Here were pieces of rare beauty, and rare price Neji thought raising his eyebrows as he calculated the cost. Still no matter, he had to choose a gift that would show each of his team mates that he thought highly of them.

He scanned the pieces finding it hard to choose between them. A red lily shaped clip that would fan her hair out into a pony tail? A solid gold coloured pair of barettes with darker swirling patterns carved into them? A complicated knot decorated with birds drew his eye for a moment, but he couldn't even figure out what it was for, so he passed over it. He wished he'd just brought the little stick thingie when he'd first seen it.

He paused when a little white glow caught his eye. A pair of sky blue barettes sat in one corner, they were decorated with flying white birds and in one corner there was a hint of sunlight streaming down. The enamel work was beautiful and the separating gold wires were so fine he thought they seemed like auras of happiness around the little birds.

He indicated the barettes silently and paid the price without flinching. It left him with almost nothing in his pocket but he was content to have brought a present. Of course now he had really no idea what to buy Lee or Gai-sensei, if only he had a little help. Or the faintest idea of what might please them. As ninja it would be easy, but as people? Not a clue.

Neji faintly wondered if he really was such a genius if he'd failed to notice such things about the people the most important to him in the world. Taking a seat at a food stand he dipped slowly on a tea and tried to concentrate on his teammates trying to guess what would please them. It kind of hurt to think in an utterly new direction, but Neji was determined to show his teammates that he cared.

Afterall it was the right thing to do, show people you appreciated them. So deeply was he entrenched in his complicated thinking that he didn't react when Tenten slipped into the seat next to him. It wasn't until she reached across him for the hot sauce that he jerked out of his thoughts and blinked at her surprised. She smiled and went back to eating her food. Neji felt a slow smile grow on his face and he slipped his hand into his pocket fingering the package there.

Feeling a sense of contentment growing in him he looked up to order only to have a plate of his favourite snack already placed before him. He glanced at Tenten who grinned back, Neji looked down at meal and thought about how lucky he was to have teammates who thought of him so often.

"Tenten?" Neji said softly.

She looked up waiting.

"Itadakimasu."

Tenten grinned.

"Itadakimasu Neji."