Note: Just a short drabble I don't think is very good. I don't know why I've been dragged back into this fandom. Actually, I know exactly why. Damn my best friend.

Warning: talk about menstrual blood

When Hinata knocks softy on Tenten's apartment door and asks how to use a tampon, she swings the door open with a wide smile. They are barely thirteen and it says a lot that the Hyuuga princess would bother her for advice rather than going to her own mother.

The girl nervously taps her index fingers together, a brown paper bag clutched tightly underneath one armpit. "I just s-started my first cycle a few months ago, and sanitary napkins are becoming too cumbersome on these long missions."

Tenten barks out a boisterous laugh. "Lemme guess, you're having to walk like a duck around, what is more or less, a baby diaper in your panties, or the whole damn thing keeps flipping upside down and snagging on your pubes?"

If it were possible, Hinata burns a brighter shade of red.

"It's h-hard to change in front of the boys, too, when we're out in the field."

Tenten shuts the door behind her and motions for her young friend to follow her into the small bathroom adjacent to her living room. She takes the paper bag from Hinata who looks all too willing to hand it over and dumps the contents out into the sink. There are a handful of tampons of assorted sizes all individually wrapped in bright neon plastic. At least Hinata knew that heavier flow days called for different absorbencies.

"Okay lady, drop trou," Tenten orders, unwrapping a Regular tampon.

"W-what?" Hinata is gazing glassy-eyed at her, perplexed and embarrassed. Mostly embarrassed.

"I'm going to walk you through how to insert it, dummy. Trust me. You don't have anything I haven't already seen on myself before."

Hinata nods sagely, deftly loosening the knot of your pants and pushing them and her panties down to her knees in one go.

"Yikes! Sorry!" she scrambles to remove the slightly soiled menstrual pad from view and tosses it in the wastebasket next to the toilet.

Tenten smiles at her, hoping to convey that everything was normal and there was no reason to be embarrassed. Even so, Hinata's face remains tomato-red.

She hands the tampon to Hinata. "Okay, grasp it in the middle where the ridge it at, and you're going to place the blunt end at your place and insert slowly, but do it kind of angled towards your butt."

Hinata's hand disappears between her legs and does as instructed. She sways slightly in her spot, so much so that Tenten grasps the girl's shoulders to help her stay upright.

"Are you supposed to feel a little lightheaded?" Hinata whispers, as if saying it any louder would be admitting she was a complete pansy.

"Yeah, of course. It's pretty normal at first until you get used to it. It's not exactly comfortable the first few times, you know." She lets go of Hinata once she's certain that she won't fall over immediately. "So once you have it pushed in to where your fingers meet, hold the ridge with two fingers and use another finger to push on the end where the string is at."

Hinata complies and instinct has her pulling the empty plastic applicator back out and chucking it in the trash with the empty wrapper.

"Did I do okay?" she questions, looking up at Tenten with pride on her features.

"Absolutely! Just keep the string outside your body, but if it gets lost, no worries. You'll just have to dig with a couple fingers and pull it back out. It's very important that you don't wear the same one for longer than 4-5 hours, and never use a large one if your period is light that day."

"T-that wasn't that hard. I don't know why I worked myself up so much over it," Hinata admits as she's washing her hands after pulling up her pants.

Tenten leads the girl out of the bathroom after shutting off the light. "Yeah, my first time putting one in was hard for me, too. Tell me, why don't you just use a jutsu to pause your periods when you know you're going on a long mission?"

"I don't like disrupting what is supposed to be a natural occurrence for us," she replies simply. "T-thank you for helping me."

Tenten flops on the couch and pats beside her. "Do you want to stay and hang out for a little while? I have chocolate." Hinata's face breaks out in a wide grin. Normal friends likely don't help each other put in tampons, but they are, first and foremost, ninjas. They were never meant to be normal.

Either way, Tenten is happy they have each other regardless.