Chapter 6: Chuunin Together

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"Oh, come on Sakura-chan! Please!"

"No!"

"Aww, can't you just hear me out?"

"No!"

"But, Sakura-chan--"

"NO!!"

"BE QUIET!!" yelled a random lady, appearing suddenly out of nowhere and disappearing just as quickly.

Naruto folded his arms across his chest and pouted. Sakura, on the other hand, sighed and pulled the book she had been reading back to her face. It was her day off and all she wanted was to relax in the library. Of course, she should have known by now that ignoring Naruto was about as effective as trying to douse a fire with gasoline.

"Please, Sakura-chan!" he whined, getting big chibi eyes. "I've just got to have one more chance!"

"Shut up!" she hissed. "I'm NOT going into the chuunin exams with you and that's final! I'm too busy and it's not like we'd qualify anyway, with just the two of us."

This statement was enough to silence the annoying fox boy and Sakura took the opportunity to resume her reading.

"Hmmm," said Naruto, his face scrunching up into thinking mode. "OH! I know! We could find someone else to take the chuunin exams with us!!"

Sakura snorted. "What? Grab some random person off the street? For the last time, Naruto, the answer is no!"

"SHUT UP!!" the librarian roared. "Or I'll kick you both out!"

Sakura glared at her teammate, but her expression softened at the pathetic look on his face.

"Look, Naruto," she sighed. "I'm sorry, but I really am too busy. Why don't you go ask Lee-san's team."

Naruto blinked. "Fuzzy Brows' team? But, Sakura-chan, they've already got three people!"

"Not anymore."

"Eh?"

"You haven't heard about Tenten?"

"About...?"

"Yeah, she'll be out of commission for a while."

Naruto looked upset for a moment, but then a huge grin spread across his face.

"Fuzzy Brows' team! YES!" he cried, before being chased out by the angry librarian.

Sakura sighed and returned to her book.

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The hospital, meanwhile, was considerably quieter than the library. So quiet, cricket chirping could be heard in the background. Tenten was about as red as a tomato and Gai was rendered speechless for the second time in his life. The first had been when he'd suspected Lee and Tenten of engaging in certain unyouthful activities...

Tenten's thoughts were all a blur at that moment, but the predominant one was: 'did Lee just say that?'

Neji and Ino had finally caught up with Lee and were now standing, mouths agape, in the doorway of Hiroko's office. But, the silence didn't last long.

"Oh my God!!" Ino shrieked for the entire hospital to hear. "Tenten and Lee are shacking up!" And, before anyone could say anything, the blonde fled from the room--undoubtedly to tell Hinata that Tenten had been having a torrid affair with Lee this whole time!

"Oh my God!" said Tenten, but in quite a different tone of voice. She turned even redder and buried her face in her hands.

Lee, by contrast, turned albino, and like Gai, was robbed of the power of speech

"...Did I... just say... that?" he croaked when he finally regained his voice.

"Yeah, you did," said Neji, the tiniest smirk forming on his lips.

"Lee," said Gai, having also regained the use of his voice. "While I commend your altruistic intentions, I don't think this situation would be appropriate. As I told you before, you and Tenten are starting to reach that age where--"

"Gai-sensei!!" cried the now crimson-faced Lee. "That's not what I meant!"

Tenten uncovered her face at that point, relieved, but at the same time, vaguely... disappointed.

"T-Tenten!" Lee spluttered, reddening further under her gaze. "I-I never meant... what I meant to say was... um..."

Neji sighed. "Lee, you look like my cousin. Whatever you meant to say, just say it."

"I mean..." said Lee, looking away from Tenten. "When I was injured in the preliminaries, I moved to the ground floor of my building, and the apartment down the hall from me is for rent. So..."

There was a few-second pause, and then everyone in the room went: "Ohhhhhh..."

Gai was in raptures. "What a splendid idea, Lee! Tenten will be on the ground floor and have you close by to look after her! Wonderful!"

Hiroko was equally enthusiastic. "Yes, it's perfect! Tenten will be closer to the hospital and Lee could help her with her daily activities!"

'Or lack thereof...' thought Tenten, bitterly. While this was a better living arrangement than moving out of the village, no one had bothered asking her opinion on it.

"I don't know..." said Neji ominously, looking from one crimson-faced teammate to the other. "I get the impression that... bad things could come from this..."

There was a few moments of silence while everyone pondered that cryptic statement, then...

"Nonsense, Neji!" bellowed Gai. "There's no reason why this wouldn't work!"

Tenten sighed as Neji began explaining exactly why it wouldn't work, Gai said something in reply, and Hiroko gave her professional opinion... blah, blah, blah... And soon, the noise level in the tiny office reached a deafening level.

Tenten covered her ears, so distracted by the noise, she didn't notice that Lee was suddenly next to her. It was really uncanny how he could be someplace one second, then somewhere else entirely the next. Tenten felt her face heat up at the sudden closeness.

"What, Lee?" she said, turning away.

Lee sat next to her. "How are you doing with all of this, Tenten?" he asked. "You haven't said much."

"Well, I... um..." But the rest of her sentence trailed away into nothingness and Tenten found that quite annoying.

Number one: she was rarely shy or at a loss for words. Number two: this was Lee. Not Sasuke. Not Neji. Lee. As in the closest thing possible to Gai-sensei without actually being Gai-sensei. At that thought, Tenten wrinkled her nose and made a face.

"Tenten?"

Well, that thought took care of her Hinata moment. "Never mind, Lee."

Suddenly, without so much as a knock, Tsunade came in.

"What's going on in here?" she yelled over all the noise.

The room fell silent.

"Tsunade-sama," said Hiroko. "I haven't finished the evaluation yet."

"I just wanted to catch you guys before you left," said Tsunade. "Because I just so happen to have an opening today for the surgery."

Tenten blinked. "... Surgery?"

"That injury warrants immediate attention," Tsunade continued. "So, Tenten, what do you think of today?"

Tenten's chest tightened. "...Surgery? ...Today?"

Tsunade nodded. "Sometimes, Achilles' tendon ruptures can heal fine on their own, but yours is practically severed from the muscle. If it isn't surgically reattached, you probably won't be able to fight again."

That got Tenten's attention. "But, right now?"

"The sooner the better," said Tsunade. "Once you've had the surgery, you'll just need to take it easy for a few days and then you'll be able to start rehab."

Tenten still looked hesitant.

Tsunade smiled. "But, we could still wait a few weeks if you want. Of course, you won't really be able to walk during that time. And there will be another few weeks of recovery time..."

That did it.

"Fine, let's do it today," mumbled Tenten, feeling sick. It was a little-known fact that she not only hated hospitals, she was petrified of any form of surgery.

"Good," said Tsunade. "Then I'll see you in an hour."

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Naruto, meanwhile, was still shouting jubilantly as he ran through Konoha. He had never imagined that his problem would have such an easy solution. Ever since stupid Sasuke-bastard had run off with the Michael Jackson of Konoha, Naruto wasn't sure what to do about the chuunin exams.

Of course, he knew that he couldn't compete with just Sakura, but Kakashi had made vague comments about possibly getting another team member.

Naruto had vehemently protested the suggestion at first, but he had second thoughts as the exams approached. Kakashi, however, made no more mention of another teammate, and Sakura always seemed to be too busy to train with him.

But, perhaps Naruto was a little too excited about this turn of events. After all, his chance to enter the chuunin exams with Team Gai had come at the expense of Tenten. Still, it wasn't as if she'd compete anyway, right?

Naruto eagerly made is way to Team Gai's training area, positively beside himself with glee. He was disappointed, though, to find the area completely devoid of said team members.

'That's weird,' he thought. 'Where else would Fuzzy Brows be on a training day?' Naruto sat down for a while and thought... and thought... and thought... Then...

"Aha!" Naruto suddenly shouted, startling all the wildlife within a twenty-mile radius. "Fuzzy Brows is at his dojo!!"

And, with that, he took off again.

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But, said Fuzzy Brows wasn't at his dojo at all. He was at the hospital--the waiting room of the orthopedic surgery unit, to be exact.

Neji had gone home to attend a "family meeting." The subject of discussion? How old a branch-family child should be before they're given the curse mark. Of course, Neji wanted to have some say in that.

And Gai was currently pestering Tsunade about the surgery. How long would it take? How many recovery days were necessary? And how much therapy would be needed afterward? Yes, he was certainly nervous about one of his students going under the knife, but not more than Tenten herself.

She wouldn't admit that to Lee, but the signs of her anxiety were fairly obvious. She was breathing hard, squirming in her chair, and wringing her hands together.

"Are you okay, Tenten?" asked Lee, rather unnecessarily.

She gasped, so absorbed in her own nervousness, she had forgotten he was there.

"I'm fine!"

Lee took one of her hands, just to stop her from wringing them together. "Your hand's all cold and clammy," he observed.

"I'm fine," Tenten repeated, taking her hand back and crossing her arms.

"It's okay, Tenten. I was nervous when I had my surgery, too."

"Well, I would hope so, Lee," said Tenten peevishly. "You had a fifty percent chance of dying."

"It's natural to be nervous, since you've never had a surgery before," he said. "But, you're doing it for your nindo, so it's the right thing to do!"

"My nindo..." Tenten murmured absently.

She remembered the last time she had heard those words.

It had been the day that Lee was having his surgery, in this very unit, in fact. Tenten had been positively beside herself with anxiety, because she knew that he had hardly more than a fifty-percent chance of living.

Practically a coin toss.

And she'd felt guilty, too, about all those times she could've visited him, but that she'd spent training with Neji instead.

As she stepped into the waiting room, the excuses she'd made--that Neji needed to train, that she hated hospitals, and that she could always visit Lee tomorrow--all flew out the window. She hadn't been sure, then, if there would be a tomorrow for Lee. And he obviously wasn't sure either.

Nonetheless, he'd smiled when she came in and said, "hey, Tenten, it's good to see you."

Her stomach twisted into another guilty knot, but she managed to smile back.

"Good to see you too, Lee. How are you doing?"

"Oh, fine."

Tenten sat down next to him. "Seriously?"

Lee shrugged. "Well, about as fine as I can be, I guess, given the circumstances."

"Lee, you don't have to do this."

He stared at her. "What?"

"There are other things you could do. You don't have to be a ninja."

Lee sighed. "But, Tenten, would you be able to go on living if someone took your weapons away?"

Tenten looked away from him.

"I don't want to go through with it, either," he admitted. "But, I know that it's the right thing to do."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because it's for my nindo!"

Tenten sweatdropped. Lee had come up with some corny lines before, but this one took the cake.

At that moment, Tsunade had stepped in. "I'm ready for you now, Lee."

Lee got unsteadily to his feet, but was prevented from going any further by Tenten taking his hand.

"Tenten?"

"Just don't die, Lee," she said. "We have to become chuunin together."

He smiled. "We will."

But, they wouldn't if Lee remained injured, and he wouldn't become uninjured if Tenten held him back. So, she let her teammate go, and watched as Tsunade led him to the surgical ward.

Then, Tenten went home and cried.

She regarded that day, which she spent wondering whether Lee would live or not, as one of the worst days of her life.

"Hey, Tenten. Tenten!" said Lee, bringing her out of her reverie.

Tenten shook her head. "What?"

"Tsunade-sama's waiting. Couldn't you hear her calling you?"

Sure enough, there was the Hokage, waiting expectantly.

"Oh... um..." said Tenten, blushing.

Tsunade smiled. "Daydreaming, Tenten?"

"No," she scowled, getting unsteadily to her feet.

"Don't worry Tenten, we'll still become chuunin together!" exclaimed Lee. "And, I'll treat you to some Chinese food and sesame dumplings when you get out."

"Oh, Chinese food and dumplings!" cried Tenten, eyes sparkling. "YES!"

Suddenly, the prospect of having her leg opened didn't seem so bad anymore.

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Naruto, on the other hand, was the very opposite of happy. He had made the long and rather difficult journey to Lee's dojo, only to find it completely devoid of Lee.

Naruto paced around and let out a growl reminiscent of his inner demon.

"Fuzzy Brows!" he yelled. "Where the hell are you?"

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A/N: Sorry for the slow update. I blame end-of-semester stress and the untimely demise of my laptop. But, my parents helped me buy a new one, so it's all good. Yeah, I know some of you were hoping they'd shack up, but they are still in their early teens. There are other reasons, too, which will probably be apparent in later chapters. Anyways... thanks for reading. ;-)

-Andrea