Word count: 1,050 words

Characters: Neji, Tenten

Summary: Despite everything, Tenten believed in romance. And even though she had never experienced romance by the tender age of sixteen, she would often delude herself on the ideas of cheap romance novels. To her surprise, she soon found out that reality, occasionally, could be much sweeter but not necessarily as exciting. Sometimes, reality was indeed better than her fantasies.

Chapter 3:

Of Love and Novels

Despite everything, Tenten believed in romance. And even though she had never experienced love by the tender, or not so tender, age of sixteen, she would often delude herself on the ideas of cheap romance novels. Those she bought monthly and devoured viciously every night before falling sleep.

Perhaps, that was the real reason behind her uncharacteristic loneliness. She wasn't ugly in the least and she could easily surpass the title of beautiful if she tried, yet she always declined the couple of date proposals she received every semester. Part of her insisted on the inconvenience of sustaining a romantic –and unstable- relationship before graduating, the other one was more than aware for the reservation her heart occupied for the imaginary knight in shinning armor she had always imagined as true love. She wasn't different from those women who didn't actually believe in love but whose hearts internally melted before the idea of a thriving romance, for which they didn't seek.

And her life, her life continued as that of a caterpillar.

Tenten was aware of her late liking for words and did not hesitate to spend those last months of high school reading quietly in one of the corners of the library, pretty against her friend's frenzied complaints.

She met him one of those breezy days of late April. His silky brown hair, eyes as cold as the restless nights she spent on late December. Before him, she was nothing, for he was flawless with words, in a way she could not even grasp to imagine. She resented him then, but failed to face him once again until years later, extended library visits proving fruitless for the rest of the year.

Startlingly, even to herself, she forgot of her juvenile musings and found a much more eager regard for weapons, which eloquently enough lead her to pursue her career on Criminology, that and her fervent desire to prove herself.

Tenten withdrew within herself and her work, the handle of relationships she managed to build, quickly consumed by the mess that conformed her pitiless quicksand of cynicism, inexperience and quite ironically, work load.

And so, she lived through the romances of her friends, whose love lives were not much different from those exhilarating books she used to read on her teenage years, or so she led herself to believe. Those very childish and irreverent ideas were often clouds on the back on her head that would not leave her alone.

She lived through Sakura's ever struggling, passionate and sometimes even painful relationship with Uchiha Sasuke. Hinata's childish and tender fairytale-like relationship with Uzumaki Naruto. And even through Ino's often intermittent and short-lived relationships with Nara Shikamaru that broke apart as often as the golden leaves of autumn met with the ground.

At times like this, when those clouds of thoughts dissolved into thin sky, she couldn't help but to question herself the reason why her love life was very far from what she had always expected romance to be.

It was her second year in the office when she saw him again. Hyuuga Neji was his name, and he had been catalogued to be her partner for the next couple of years in the least. Other than finding him pedant and even more handsome than she had originally remembered, his resemblance to Hinata, which she hadn't picked up then, made his presence around her even more taunting. It was hard to know if he had recognized her from years ago, like she had, but if he did he said nothing. It was in his etiquette to be short on words.

Working with him turned out, against the odds, surprisingly pleasant. Parting from first bad impressions and threateningly agonizing formality, Tenten discovered that past Neji's cold exterior lived someone that even when he was far from perfect—unlike she had originally believed— happened to be reliable and determined, who hid behind a mask of indifference the deepest of pains and the warmest of cancers. On her behalf, she didn't mind on sharing the spontaneity and cheerfulness he often lacked on his everyday life.

Together they formed an unexpected, yet efficient duo. He found on her –not that he acknowledged it—someone he needed, while she found on him someone she probably didn't need but surely wanted.

Falling for him was very anticlimactic. No flowery background, soft voices or even passionate arguing, before she knew it gravity had done her job and all her hopes and dreams rested on his shoulders, not much different from they way babies tended to cling into their mothers.

He wasn't a knight on shinning armor, much less a prince but she loved him nonetheless, because she learned, love came to people in different ways. She didn't have problems to dwell on, discussions to argue over, jokes to giggle for, but an unwavering sense of security and ever constant friendship.

She knew –because she was sure to read him like the palm of her hand— that Neji was a hard individual, and falling for him had probably been a mistake. She tried letters, but was surprised when her evident amateurism with words proved futile to her musings. Face to face confrontation was evidently out of the question, because looking at him made her heart flutter and the eternal feeling of familiarity between the two set up an invisible barrier of kinds.

And so, she resigned. Love came in different ways, and friendship (and camaraderie) was just as equally important. For a relationship she held so dear and close to her heart, the probability of failure was definitely not an option, not when failure meant death (she was perpetually and scarily aware he had become her oxygen).

That was until he approached a sunny morning of May, and asked her what had been keeping her from performing well for the last couple of months.

"I love you"

His silence was enough answer.

The first time they kiss sparkles do flutter, it was no surprise they had chemistry, though being kissed by him was way too different from what she had initially imagined. She cherished the memory but it had been hard not to label such kiss as ordinary. Though, things did get better. Fair enough, reality differed from fiction, in more ways that she was eager to acknowledge.

A/N: And we're (I'm) back to normal. Personally, this is my favorite as of yet, even when it is the shortest. Mainly because this one has better flow and I happened to handle this 'theme' better, partly because I wrote this out of pure inspiration (I was walking down the street) and the fact that I sort of related it to my personal life and beliefs.

I'm still shaken for entering the contest (I'm such a shy person, lol), but everything is alright. Even if I don't win (which I'm sure I won't) the fact that I had the pleasure to participate in such a kind fandom and had actually the guts to get in is enough reward.

I hope you continue the reading. Constructive criticism is always welcomed, just as positive feedback or if you just happen to have an opinion or whatever, don't hesitate to leave a review.

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