I'm back everyone! Holy shit it's been a long time. I'm sorry for my absence, but the important thing is that I come bearing updates!

As always, nothing here belongs to me except for his dumb story. Enjoy!

Tenten jogged across the crisp autumn grass as she hurried to the back of the school. She had been running a bit late that morning because her alarm hadn't gone off despite being set the night before. Tenten hated sleeping in. She had always been a morning person, even at the orphanage as a young girl. More often then not she'd wake up before everyone else and sneak over to Lee's room and wake him up so they could talk before the day began. After she had been adopted she still loved early mornings. The only difference was now she would spend that time going over her homework and making breakfast for her parents if she had any time left. Tenten liked her routine, it made her feel refreshed and un-rushed before the long day ahead. But today she had slept in, and that relaxing time she savoured had been taken away. Tenten continued to sprint across the field. Her pretty purple sneakers, not quite dress code but she hadn't been caught yet, skidded slightly on the frosty dew as she rounded the corner of the school. Her school skirt swished annoyingly as she ran towards the small group huddled amongst themselves in the outskirts of the back field. Tenten had suggested at the beginning of the year that they meet an hour before classes started so they could have time to chat before they were separated for most of the day. She had wanted to give Lee the best high school experience possible since he had missed out on so many fun things being stuck at the orphanage. So she thought that if they could maximize their social time, even if it meant sacrificing a couple hours of sleep, then it'd somehow make up for the three years Lee hadn't been there. Everyone had agreed, and so they had claimed the back of the school as their official morning meeting place. Tenten stopped just outside of her group of friends, fixing the hem of her skirt impatiently.

"Sorry I'm late guys, my dumb alarm didn't go off," she huffed as she reached down to straighten her socks. Tenten hated their school's dress code. Nothing ever stayed where it was supposed to.

Usually Tenten's comment would spark a whole session of stories about alarm incidents and funny morning mishaps. Each friend would pitch in with a more outrageous story, generally ending with Sasuke revealing an embarrassing tidbit regarding Naruto that would result in the two fighting. Instead Neji's concerned voice rang out in response.

"Have you seen Lee?"

Tenten looked up from her hunched position, taking in the surprisingly worried faces of her friends. Everyone was standing together, minus the aforementioned teen and a certain redhead. The latter wasn't an uncommon morning absentee. Gaara, being an insomniac, really didn't abide by much of a schedule when it came to the mornings and evenings. So it wasn't unusual for the pale teen to not show up to these gatherings. Generally, his absence meant that he had managed to finally fall and stay asleep and his siblings hadn't bothered to interrupt the scant few hours he was getting. Gaara tended to show up eventually, whether it be at lunch or to one of the few classes he shared with Tenten. In the rare cases he slept through the whole day, the redhead still managed to text the group to let them know what had happened. Lee, however, was always early. Or, he had been until he had started working.

"You guys saw the text he sent last night, his work meeting ran late so he probably just slept in," Tenten waved off the other's worries. Tenten knew Lee. They had practically lived in each other's pockets at one point, and while they weren't as close as they used to be, something Tenten was realizing more and more, they were still best friends. Or at least she still considered him hers. Lately Lee had been distant. It had started when he moved out of Kage's. At first he spent most of his time just getting settled into his place, something Tenten understood but knew would pass soon enough. However, after he settled in Lee had immediately turned to job hunting, a time consuming task on its own, but the real nail in the coffin was when he finally did get hired. Tenten had tried to bring it up with Naruto, but the blonde hadn't seemed to think anything had changed. He had insisted that Lee was just experiencing a regular teen life and so now that his whole world wasn't just the Orphanage and Outside, his schedule was a bit more full then any of them were used to. Tenten had reluctantly agreed to her friend's assessment, but a part of her still felt like she was losing her best friend. Lee and her used to stay up and talk all night when they were at Kage's, and even after she had been adopted they had managed to stay in near constant communication. Tenten always knew exactly what was on Lee's mind and even what wasn't; but now, not so much. Regardless, she knew if something truly bad had happened to Lee, he would have found a way to inform her. "Lee's smart, if a bit too kind for his own good, so i'm sure it's nothing serious guys. Don't worry, he'll be running around that corner any moment, apologizing as loud as he can!"

Hinata and Naruto seemed appeased at Tenten's insistence that Lee had just been exhausted after a long night, and laughed along at the image she had painted of the tanned teen. Neji and Sasuke, on the other hand, still seemed on edge. Before Tenten could try and reassure the two males once more, a series of trills sounded. Tenten pulled out her phone, the others scrambling for their own, and read the message lighting up the screen. Sure enough it was a text from Lee apologizing for his tardiness.

"What did I say, he's just late see!" Tenten waved her phone scoldingly in Neji and Sasuke's direction. "No need to make a big deal out of nothing, we've done that once already and we definitely don't need a repeat," the brunette shuddered as she recalled the one sided screaming match she had forced upon her friend.

While Naruto laughed loudly and began to poke fun at Sasuke for how fast he pulled his cellphone out, Tenten couldn't help but focus on Neji's reaction. The male brunette seemed to be scanning the message over and over again, reading each word carefully under his breath. After what Tenten counted as the third read through, he finally closed his phone and let out a quiet sigh of relief before pocketing the device. Tenten quickly turned her head away as Neji looked up, avoiding his gaze at all costs.

If Tenten was being honest with herself, something she tried to be at all times regardless of how much it hurt to admit certain things, the immense relief in Neji's eyes stung. Tenten wasn't a jealous person, or rather, she hadn't been until she had developed a crush on the male Hyūga. The tomboy in her had been appalled that she had actually fallen for someone, let alone a walking teen drama cliché. Neji checked every box Tenten had professed to abhor; he was tall, conventionally handsome, smart, and of course completely not interested. At least not interested in her, she soon realized. But boy did she want him now, after everything that had gone down in regards to her crush, she still held a secret hope that Neji would end up returning her feelings.

She wouldn't do anything about her crush though. Not after what had happened. Not only that, but it would be admitting that she wanted something she had deemed too distasteful for someone like herself. So Tenten tried not to talked about it. When she had first developed the stupid crush she hadn't told anyone, not even Lee. She believed that she could have handled the crush, as unappealing as it was, so long as she stuck to her guns and stayed true to herself. That, it turned out, was easier said then done. To her horror, there had been a point in her life where she found herself becoming everything she had vowed to never be. She had started making herself more girly, and while it wasn't an extreme change, it was enough to make her uncomfortable. She had worn dresses, tight enough that they accentuated the merger curves she had, but feminine enough that they flowed in airy frills just above her knees. Tenten had even styled her hair down, forgoing her signature buns to let her long brunette locks flow free. She had hated it. But she had overheard one of her classmates explaining that Neji preferred feminine girls (and how she knew that, Tenten didn't know at the time, but for some reason she believed it).

Worse even was back then she had been obsessed with being the centre of Neji's attention. It had been subtle, a fact for which the Tenten of the present was thankful for, but in her first year of high school she'd purposefully wait until the other brunette was alone before corning him so she could attempt to strike up an awkward conversation. In reality, she would try anything to get him to interact with her, even just a little. It seldom worked, to her immense disappointment at the time, but he never told her outright to leave (which Neji had been known to say to some of the more persistent girls) so it wasn't an outright rejection, and that was enough to keep her foolish hope burning.

When Tenten had met Neji he hadn't much cared either way about her. Sort of like a take it or leave it kind of deal. They had met through Hinata, whom Tenten had started to talk to in their final year of middle school. There had been an instant attraction on Tenten's part, much to her dismay, but something had just drawn her to the other brunette. And after a year of chasing Neji around, Tenten knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the only reason he put up with her was because of her friendship with Hinata. She wouldn't delude herself into thinking otherwise, even back then at the height of her crush addled brain. The Hyūga cousins were close and Neji was especially protective of Hinata. So anyone Hinata liked kind of got a free pass with the elder. Tenten had convinced herself that she could deal with that, as heart breaking as that was. She had felt certain that she could deal with the awkward conversation, the stilted interactions, the silence. So long as she could be around Neji. Tenten shuddered to remember that point in her life.

What she couldn't deal with, especially back then, was the burning hot jealousy that sat heavy in the pit of her stomach. Any girl Neji talked to, even in passing, wasn't spared Tenten's ire in the early days of her crush. She would catch herself, on more than one shameful occasion, staring down these unfortunate girls with the full weight of her anger. Tenten knew she had a problem when she began to glare at Hinata whenever Neji would speak to her. It was shameful, even then, and Tenten regretted every instance that her jealousy overtook her after they had unfolded. But that shame hadn't been enough to stop her. And as awful as that was, as much as those moments made her loathe herself just a little bit more, Tenten believed she could deal with it. Or rather, she had told herself she would because her growing infatuation wouldn't let up no matter how hard she tried to convince herself otherwise. Eventually, after months of hounding Neji, he had just seemed to accept that Tenten wouldn't be leaving anytime soon and so he might as well tolerate her if she was sticking around. Tenten had been over the moon. Finally the male Hyūga would talk to her, albeit it wasn't as regular as she had hoped, but it was something. She hadn't minded the reluctant acceptance she had received. She had just assumed that was how the brunette was. She could live with the constant cold shoulder and the stunted conversations. At least Neji was finally acknowledging her in some small way. Or, she had been fine with it, until Lee had been brought into the picture. Tenten could never forget that moment, no matter how much she wished she could.

~~~*flashback*~~~ ~~~*flashback*~~~

Tenten couldn't contain her excitement as the weekend drew nearer. Lee was going to be spending the whole long weekend at her place. They had already spent the last handful of days planing what they were going to do when he arrived. They decided that best course of action would be to invite Naruto along so they could eat as much junk food as possible and have an extended movie marathon. Lee told Tenten over and over again how excited he was to hear more about their high school shenanigans, since he hadn't been able to leave the orphanage to attend school himself. It was going to be perfect. Tenten couldn't stop telling all her friends about her upcoming plans. She talked Neji and Hinata's ear off about every minute detail, the former ignoring the repetitive rambling while the latter avidly nodded along. Tenten would have been more embarrassed if Naruto wasn't as enthusiastic as she was. The hyperactive blonde would start every school morning shouting the number of days left before Lee's arrival as he barrelled into the petite brunette holding her in a playful headlock with a stupid grin spread out on his face.

The day before Lee's arrival Tenten was regaling another one of her plethora of Lee stories to Hinata in their math class, passing the scant few minutes left of their class with light chatter. Their teacher was handing back their latest test, clearly eager to end the class as fast as possible. Hinata was laughing at one of the funnier details of the story when her face dropped as her test was given to her. Tenten watched as the teacher made an irritated cluck under his breath and walked off before she refocused on her silent friend. Tenten knew Hinata wasn't the best at math, but she had always managed to pull through her assignments and tests. Hinata was smart, there was no doubting that. Not only was she nearly top of the class in all her subjects, but she was a diligent student and she studied more than anyone Tenten knew.

"That bad?" Tenten questioned as Hinata continued to stare at her paper.

Hinata swallowed audibly as she flipped the paper around so it faced the other girl. The paper was littered with red marks, each wrong answer underlined more furiously then the last. A glaring 46 was circled at the top with the note "I am not impressed" scribbled beside it.

"Ouch," Tenten winced as she looked over the paper once more. She hastily folded over her own test so the lavender haired girl wouldn't be able to see the 98 she had received and feel worse about her failure.

"I-I don't k-know what I'm g-going to do," Hinata's voice faltered as she bit her wobbling lip. Tears began to form in her pale eyes and her cheeks heated up in shame. "M-my father w-will not be p-pleased."

Tenten had only interacted with Hinata's father a handful of times, and from what she knew of him he wasn't exactly a kind man.

"Don't worry Hina, if you want we can go over the test together?" Tenten eagerly suggested, trying to make her friend feel better. "I can try and help you with the things you don't know. How about tommorrow? Yeah, we can have a fun study session! You said your parents were going out of town, so it'll be perfect! We can get some snacks and just relax and go over everything at our own pace, how does that sound?" The brunette asked.

Hinata seemed to brighten up at the suggestion, going as far as to nod enthusiastically, before her face dropped once more.

"B-but I thought L-lee was coming? I don't w-want to… to interfere w-with anything."

Tenten paused at that. Lee was coming, and there was no way she was cancelling those plans, but she really wanted to help Hinata out. The other girl had been her first and best female friend and had been there for her through so many of her own problems, but Lee was her best friend. She chewed her lip as she tried to think of how they could work around her already full schedule.

"O-oh!" Hinata suddenly exclaimed snapping Tenten out of her thoughts. "T-that is, L-lee could c-come with you."

"For reals!?" Tenten was shocked at the other's suggestions. The Hyūga's were a rather private group of people, and it took a lot to gain their trust. It had taken Tenten almost a year of knowing Hinata to even be invited over to her house, so the fact that she was suggesting Lee join them caught Tenten off guard.

"I-I mean…you a-and Naruto talk about h-him all the t-time…. it… it k-kind of feels l-like I know him," Hinata shyly whispered as she poked her pointer fingers together.

And that was true. Naruto and Tenten talked about Lee almost non-stop. The raven haired boy was with them at all times in spirit, and they made sure all their friends knew just how important he was to them.

"That's a great idea! I can't wait, if you like Lee in theory you'll love him in person! I'm so excited!" Tenten gushed as she pulled the other female into a quick hug. Tomorrow was looking to be even better than the brunette had assumed.

(To be continued...)

A new update is coming soon, so do not fret! I'm trying to make up for lost time (like four months holy shit) and so i'm going to try my best to churn out more of this fic as fast as possible.

By the way, if anyone even remotely cares, I have officially graduated university. Thank fuck that's over. But I can officially say I am now the owner of a HBFA degree!

Thanks again for all of you that have stuck around at this point and continue to comment on this story. I LOVE reading all your comments and knwing what you guys think.

Until next time!