Hello hello hello! How are you, my preciouses? Still as cute as ever? Good.

Onward with the chapter!

Tenten watched as the young children milled around outside the academy, all of them excited for the first day of school to start. There were spontaneous games of tag starting at random intervals and gleeful laughter joined with too loud conversations along with screams and cries and scolding parents, all of this going on with a certain chaotic harmony that could only come with children.

Tenten distantly remembered a time when all of it would have been far too much for her to handle without losing her patience and her temper because of just how annoying and nerve racking all the noise was, but motherhood had certainly helped with that.

Though the spoiled little screaming twerps over there were never going to be tolerated with good humor.

Restraining herself from shooting a glare at the kids and their too easily manipulated parents she knelt down to be eye level with her own little angel who was taking everything around her in with wide eyes.

"Alright now, you have everything?"

"Yes."

"Paper? Crayons? Pencil? Glue?"

"Yes."

"Your lunch?"

Rin bit her lip and lifted her school bag up, rustling through it in search of the pretty pink bento box with the flowers and bunnies on it that she had picked out special for school, but no matter how many times she looked through the practically empty bag she just couldn't find it.

"But-" She protested, looking up to her mother for help to find the woman holding the very thing she was looking for in her hands, a smirking smile on her face. Rin laughed -she just loved it when her mother did those neat ninja tricks- and grabbed her lunch, putting it back into her bag.

"Will I learn to do stuff like that, Mama?" Rin asked with excited eyes and a huge smile, practically bouncing on the tips of her toes. Tenten smiled at her, able to see exactly what her little baby would learn, and easily hid how scary all of this was for her.

"Yep. And when you do we can start playing tricks on you dad." She loved watching how big and happy her daughter's eyes got, loved watching that little glint of mischief that she knew came from her light up eyes that by all rights probably should have been emotionless because of their color.

"Okay!"

Somewhere a bell rang and the masses of tiny bodies started to separate and gather into lines and groups, some of the parents and kids waving goodbye and others crying for fear of the separation. Tenten took a breath and prepared herself.

"Alright, well your teacher is going to be Natsumi-Sensei, so listen to her and do as she says, okay?"

"Okay."

Tenten nodded and had to stop herself from sweeping her baby up into her arms and declaring the whole venture a failure, taking the girl back home with her so that she'd be able to keep her safe from the dangers of the unknown that letting her go held.

But she was going to do this, damn it. She was going to do this and stay strong because it was what was best for her daughter.

"Well, she's over there with the rest of your new class. You see the woman with the short blonde hair?" Rin nodded and Tenten smoothed a hand over the soft black hair that had been left loose for the important occasion at her daughter's request. Preparing herself to be strong in the face of her daughter's tears and requests for them to not be separated she took a breath and brought the little speech she had prepared about the fun of school and being a big girl to the tip of her tongue.

"Rin-"

"Bye Mama!" Rin said happily as she slipped from her mother's hold and practically skipped over to the little huddle of children across the yard, leaving her mother to stare after her in shock, wondering what had happened.

Wasn't there supposed to be tears and little heart breaking pleas that would stab at her conscious? What had happened to that? She was her mother, she wasn't supposed to just turn away like they were just casual friends. She was supposed to miss her and be afraid of being without her and- was she over there laughing?

That little brat.

After standing there for a few more moments Tenten turned away with a huff, ignoring the heart-wrenching voice that was screaming from within her to turn back just to make absolutely sure that there wasn't any danger.

If her daughter could just turn away like that then so could she.

Having really no idea of what to do with herself without a little girl pulling on her pants and begging her to play or go walk around the market Tenten ended up wandering around without a destination in mind, hands shoved deep into her pockets as she sulked.

"Tenten! Hey!" She turned around to find a woman with shockingly pink hair waving at her from a little outside table of a cafe, a white haired man slumped into his seat beside her. Seeing something to take her attention away from her gloomy mood Tenten walked over, smiling gratefully at her friend.

"Hey Sakura."

"Did you just drop Rin off for her first day at school?" Tenten nodded and sat in the free seat, glancing down at the complementary glass of water that appeared in front of her like magic.

"Yeah. How about you and Karin?"

"Yeah, we got there a little earlier so we could talk to the teacher though. I think the girls got the same one." Tenten nodded and tapped the side of her glass with her fingers, a sudden thought occurring to her. Maybe the whole over-emotional scene was just exaggerated and it didn't really happen all that often.

"So... Did she cry when it came time to say goodbye?" Tenten hoped that the question sounded more casual to them than it did to her. Thankfully, if they noticed her odd behavior regarding the question they didn't show it. Sakura just laughed and shook her head no.

"No, there weren't any tears," A huge wave of relief flooded through her but Sakura's next words sent her right back to her earlier state of mind, "Though it was pretty close. She wouldn't let go of Kakashi's leg and kept on asking the teacher if we could come to school with her. She even promised that we'd be good." Sakura chuckled and there was a light of warmth and amusement in Kakashi's visible eye as it crinkled, and Tenten had to stop herself from glaring at the pair.

Well, wasn't that great? Their daughter loved them.

"What about Rin? Did she do anything?" Tenten shook her head and grumbled lightly under her breath, muttering something about having to go as she pushed back from the table. Sakura mentioned having to leave for her shift at the hospital and Tenten waved at her mention of having a baby free girl's day, pouting once again as she made her way back home to wallow in her misery.

Alone.

But apparently she couldn't even have a pity party by herself because as she lay on the couch sighing up at the ceiling she felt the familiar chakra of her husband approaching the house, apparently home from the mission he'd been on during the past couple of days.

Neji came into the room and took in the morose form of his wife, shaking his head at her slightly before coming forward to stand beside the couch.

"Are you upset that I didn't manage to get back in time to take Rin to school with you this morning?" He asked her and she shook her head, throwing her arms up to cover her eyes and pretend that he wasn't there, though she knew from experience that it would be impossible to ignore him.

The bastard.

"Well then, what are you upset about?"

Tenten briefly thought about just blowing him off and telling him that it was nothing but he'd just give her that stupid Hyuuga look of his -and she'd know he was giving it to her even if she couldn't see it; she'd be able to feel it- and she'd just continue to pout until eventually she'd take it out on him during one of their training sessions together and end up saying it anyway. She didn't really feel like going through that whole cycle at the moment, so she simply sighed and decided to skip to the end.

After telling him the whole little story there were a few moments of silence before Neji spoke up, his voice caught somewhere between the fine edges of amused and weary. "So... you're upset that you were unable to make our daughter cry?"

"No," She sighed, sitting up, "I'm upset because she obviously doesn't love me. She was all too happy to just skip away and leave me, not even bothering to question if she'd be alright without me there." Tenten huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, pouting at the wall as she felt that stupid Hyuuga stare being leveled at her.

"Tenten, Rin is six. She is unable to grasp the concept of even being unable to not love us, and I doubt that she would choose to do so even if she could. And if you remember we had a talk to her the other night about how school wasn't anything scary and that it was a place where she'd be able to do a lot of fun things. Obviously she chose to trust us in this, and this only means that we managed to raise a calm and smart girl who doesn't feel the need to whine when we tell her not to."

Damn that stupid Hyuuga for sounding so... reasonable. She wasn't done pitying herself yet and he had no right to just march in there and stop it like he did.

"She could have at least cried a little. Just a tear." She muttered and Neji merely sighed at her childishness.

"Yes, well, it's nearly time to go pick Rin up. Do you want to go too or do you just want to stay here?" Tenten grumbled and huffed but rolled off of the couch to stomp after her infuriating husband.

Watching the stream of happy children pour out of the building Tenten couldn't help the tiny little part of her that hoped her daughter had been miserable without her. There had once been a day that Rin could barely stand for them to be separated by a room, but now all of the sudden it seemed like her baby was growing up and it was happening way too fast and she just didn't like it.

Rin came out of the school with her classmates and broke into a run when she saw her parents, throwing her small arms around them for a big hug, smiling up at them. "Mama! Papa! Guess what happened today?" She prompted excitedly, grabbing on to their hands and swinging them as they began their leisurely path back home.

"What?" Neji asked, smiling slightly at the small girl.

"Well, first I met Aiko, and she's really pretty. She has purple hair! And when I told her that she said that I have pretty eyes and then asked me if we wanted to be best friends, so we are! And when what Natsumi-Sensei asked us to tell the class who we are I told everybody that I'm learning to fight with swords and everyone was really impressed. Some boy even told me that it was 'cool', but then he made fun of Aiko's hair bow so I didn't talk to him anymore. We colored too, and we had to draw pictures of our family so I drew one of all of us and Aiko told me that I was really good at drawing peoples, but she's good at drawing birds. She has four birds and one of them can even talk even though it's not a summon, can you believe it?!"

"Really?" Tenten asked, the appropriate amount of shock and wonder in her voice as she smiled down at the girl. It was impossible not to be swept away by her excitement and it was even more impossible to be calmed by the feeling of the girl's soft hand in hers.

"Yeah! And during play time me and Aiko played with the doll house, but it wasn't as pretty as mine, and Aiko had the same lunch box as me, but hers was blue with butterflies!" The girl giggled, gripping her parent's hands tighter for them to swing her up over a rock that was in the way, and beamed up at them.

"It was fun," She said simply, giving their joined hands another hearty swing, "But it probably would have been a lot more fun if you could have come too."

"Really?" Tenten asked.

"Yeah. You would have gotten all of the color answers easy, Mama, and you're the best drawer in the world, Papa."

"Thank you." Neji said, obviously amused with the high position the girl had just given him. Tenten smiled at the pair and felt most of her earlier feelings fade away.

Her baby was growing up way too fast and too soon and there was no way for her to stop that, but even still she was needed and wanted. No matter how old the girl got she'd always be her mother and Rin would always be her baby, and nothing would ever change the fact that she was there for her no matter what.

But still, maybe they could slow things down a bit, especially when she started talking about a slumber party with this Aiko girl. There was no way they were ready for a whole night's separation like that yet.

Well, I got the idea for this one when my mother was telling us about how on each of our first days of school we didn't whine or cry and just walked away while she was practically standing there in tears (She did say that she was used to it by the time my second brother entered school)

And on the last chapter since someone said something: I understand that not liking alcohol or other such things does not make a bad teenager. This (the partying, smoking and general unruliness) is a stereotype that is shown on TV and movies that most other people around my age (I'm 17) feel the need to conform to because it makes them feel more mature. I think it all looks like a waste of time and effort and don't feel the need to lose control of myself or my morals, so my friends and I constantly joke that we "aren't very good teenagers" because we don't participate in and generally dislike these things, so that is what I meant.

Well, see you late my dearlings. Love you lots!