A/N: For once I have no excuse. Its summer and I have pretty much absolutely nothing to do, (except I watched the Olympics ceremony last night; pretty darn awesome if I do say so myself).
I was just lazy and neglected my writing.
-choke- I SAID IT! I ADMITED MY WRONG!
Now I shall write xD
--
Day 28
--
Tenten opened her eyes to stare at the slats of the bunk above her head, feeling a sort of elation filling up her chest with glee. She woke up feeling like this on the odd night that she went to sleep with a cup of coffee clutched in her hands, or on the day before a big martial arts match.
She knew for a fact that this particular morning was neither. She was simply in a terrifically good mood. Hey, she'd gotten her dances with Neji and Ino hadn't made her do anything remotely embarrassing all night and she felt so happy that Hinata had finally learned to stand up for herself and better yet, Hiashi was going to reconsider.
The Weapons Mistress twirled her way over to the bathroom and nearly brushed her teeth with Ino's foot lotion. Her hair, for once, didn't have the usual random bumps in it from being up in buns all day. After a moment to stare at her straight hair, Tenten tied it back up in buns. There were tiny little black smudges under her eyes where she had forgotten to remove her mascara, (Ino had been too busy gushing after the dance to supervise).
There was a groan back in the bedroom, the sound of a couple of completely uncoordinated footsteps, and then Sakura's head poked in around the bathroom door. Unlike Tenten, her mascara had been properly removed.
"Morning," she yawned broadly. "Can I come in?"
"Yeah," Tenten said through the real toothpaste that she was brushing with. Sakura grabbed her brush and began to violently tug it through her pink hair. Quite a few strands got ripped out.
Tenten raised her eyebrows and spat into the sink. "You got a vendetta against your hair?"
Sakura immediately stopped combing her hair and stared at her hand as if it had betrayed her. "Hm?"
Tenten sighed. "Never mind."
Sakura shook her head and started brushing again, this time much more gently. "Sorry. I'm a little out of it this morning. Stayed up pretty late, you know."
"I thought you were a night owl."
"I was up till dawn."
Tenten gaped at Sakura. "Seriously? Where did you go?"
A secret little smile stole across Sakura's face. "Wonderland."
Tenten decided that she probably didn't want to know.
O0O
"Tenten-chan, Hinata!" There was no way that you could possibly miss Naruto. He was wildly jumping up and down and waving his arms in the air while holding his skateboard. Tenten grinned and gave him a small wave back. Hinata's face turned beet red within seconds.
The park was ideal in the afternoon; sunlight was pouring all over the greenery and there was a light breeze. Desperate to get out and work off her high from last night, Tenten had dragged Hinata along with her, figuring they could get in some of that martial arts training that they had been neglecting.
"Hey, Naruto. Anybody else here?" Tenten asked as she and Hinata sat down on a bench.
Naruto shrugged. "Lee was, but he bailed. Said something about picking flowers while walking on his hands to build up his youthfulness." The blonde shook his head, clearly thinking his friend was psycho. "Well, Kiba stuck around. And Shino might be around someplace."
Tenten scowled at the mention of Kiba. It hadn't been easy letting Hinata and Naruto's relationship progress as it would; she wasn't in the mood to let Kiba mess with it. At least Shino might provide some entertainment or something. She wanted to see if he was still in his shades and high collar even in this perfect weather.
"Okay. You go ahead, Hinata and I are going to do some kung fu junk," Tenten said, standing up. Naruto grinned and jumped onto his board, rolling off into the halfpipe.
Hinata's red coloring receded somewhat once Naruto was out of the immediate vicinity. Tenten grinned at her friend. "Let's warm up and do some basic movements, and then you can go hang out with Naruto, okay?"
The raven-haired Hyuuga blushed faintly. "T-Thank you, Tenten."
O0O
At around seven in the evening, Tenten pulled on her Nikes and headed out to the Hyuuga Compound. She wasn't technically supposed to go, and she doubted that Neji was expecting her, but she was going anyways. Ino was out with Shikamaru, Hinata was having pizza with Naruto and the boys, and Sakura was downstairs on the internet. Tenten was feeling somewhat lonely.
The street outside wasn't quite dark yet, and the sky was golden blue with the setting sun. Everybody was tinted a strange sort of glimmering shade of silver. Tenten blended in with the crowd as she made her way across streets and down crowded sidewalks.
The sky darkened a few blocks away from the Hyuuga Compound. Dark clouds rolled in on top of the blue sky, and moments later, what seemed like bucket upon bucket of rainwater was being emptied on top of Tenten's head. She cursed and started to run, her sneakers filling up with water and trying not to slip on the ground.
Neji's windows were dark, although the shutters weren't drawn up. Tenten ran up to his door and violently knocked. "Neji!" she screamed against the sound of the gale, water filling up her mouth. "Open up! Hurry!"
The door didn't open.
She hammered harder. Her teeth had started chattering and a headache was growing between her eyes. The rain was icy cold, beating down on everything relentlessly in synchronization. "Neji!" she screamed again.
At last, the knob twisted and Neji pulled open the door. He stared at her, standing drenched on his doorstep, before standing aside to let her come in. Silently, he closed the door behind her. He shook his head when she made a move to walk further into his room. "Stay on the mat and wring out your clothes. Wait there."
Tenten sighed and shook her hair out, proceeding to wring the buckets of water out of the ends of her shirt. Neji returned a moment later, tossing her one of his shirts. "The bathroom is two doors down, across the hallway," he said flatly.
Tenten smiled at him, feeling rather bemused. She wouldn't have thought that Neji could be considerate.
The bathroom was tiled in white, along with a white marble sink and white shower curtain and white lights in a row above the mirror, like a hotel. It was extremely clean, if not exactly colorful. Tenten grabbed a (white) towel off of a rack and quickly toweled herself off, pulling off her sticky clothes and pulling on Neji's T-shirt. She sniffed the collar. It smelled like laundry detergent and tea and like Neji, that one time that she had hugged him.
Neji was sitting on the couch reading what seemed to be the paper when she came back in. She shivered. His room was almost as cold as it had been outside. She hadn't noticed when she first came in. Now that she was dry, it was worse.
Tenten sat down across from Neji like usual, curled up in a ball and continuing to shiver.
"So, what're you reading?" she asked, trying to stop her teeth from chattering. Neji lowered the paper slightly to look over the top at her, his white eyes blank.
"Nothing of importance." He carefully folded the newspaper and placed it back on the table. Silence ensued.
Tenten coughed. "Thanks for the loan." She plucked a little at the shirt's hem. "That was…er…nice of you." Neji and "nice" didn't seem to fit comfortably into the same category. He seemed to read her mind. The corners of his lips twitched.
"Hn."
Neji reached up and touched a lock of Tenten's scraggly, still wet hair. "How long will it take to dry?" he asked flatly. Tenten shrugged.
"Dunno. A little over a half hour, maybe. Why?"
Neji's lips were a thin line. "You are not going outside until then."
"Why not?"
"You will become sick."
Tenten cooed. "Neji-kun, you really are a big softie!" She would have reached over and pinched his cheek, but the expression on his face scared her too much. Instead she just giggled and sat with her hands in her lap. Neji sighed.
"Tenten. Stop."
"Fine, fine. Be a party pooper."
"Is there anything you need?" Neji ignored her, flatly stating his question.
"Well, your room is an icebox for one. But that's it," Tenten said in her best Mother voice. "Seriously, are you keeping a body in here or something? I'm surprised that you haven't frozen to death yet or anything." She paused. "But then again, you are Neji. A giant dinosaur might land on you and you would just dust yourself off and walk away."
"You need to stop reading Superman, Tenten."
"Spiderman, Neji-kun. I read Spiderman."
"I see no difference between the two." Neji stood up and walked over to behind the sofa opposite Tenten, where a tiny one-person bed was sitting in the corner. Tenten realized that she had never really noticed the area behind Neji's appointed couch before. She only remembered the part of his room that was in front of him. Odd.
Neji took an old plaid blanket off of the unmade bed, (Tenten had been expecting crisp sheets and perfectly folded blankets all stacked up, but life was full of surprises), and tossed it over to her. It landed on her head, smelling of mothballs. Tenten sneezed, quickly pulling it off and wrapping it around her shoulders.
"Thanks. Much better," she laughed.
Neji came back over and sat down next to her again. She realized that he was notably closer; if she had wanted to, she could have touched his fingers. As of the moment, Neji was staring at his paper on the table, making no move to start a normal conversation. Tenten inwardly laughed. Neji was so doomed in the dating department. She drew an odd sort of comfort from the idea that very few people in the world ever had the patience to get to know Neji.
"You know, you can read the newspaper if you want," she said in a matter-of-fact voice. "It's not like I mind." It was true, she didn't. Neji was the one that wasn't letting her out of his house until her hair dried. She wasn't exactly obligated to talk to him. Or was she? Hm.
Neji shook his head slightly. "No."
Well, that was clear enough.
"Then…what do you want to do?" Tenten muttered, at a total loss as to how his mind worked.
Neji remained completely silent. Tenten sighed and took the time to study him. She noticed that he was wearing the exact same T-shirt that he had lent her to wear. "Hey, we match," she declared. Neji looked down at his shirt and then at Tenten, who was practically swimming in his clothes. A small smile made an appearance on his face.
"I must admit that you look better in the shirt," Tenten chuckled. The laugh turned into a shiver. The blanket was doing a pretty good job of keeping her warm, but she might have caught something after all. Life was so unfair.
"Neji, come here," Tenten commanded.
Neji raised his eyebrows. "Why, pray tell?"
"Because I'm cold!" Tenten whined. "I need blubber warmth!" Before he could object, she scooted forward a few inches, still bundled up in the blanket, and gently wrapped her arms around him. "Aaaahh…" she sighed. "You're really warm."
She felt a vibration through his chest as he responded with a "Hn". Her legs were crossed under her, so leaning over to hug Neji wasn't the most comfortable position she could ever have been in, but the warmth was worth it. After a few seconds, Neji tentatively wrapped his arms around her too.
"Better?" he asked in an uncertain sort of tone. It didn't fit well with his voice. Tenten almost giggled at the sound.
"Much," she said agreeably. She tried to get her legs out from under her again, and instead overbalanced, falling over the edge of the couch and taking Neji with her. They landed with an oof on the floor, Tenten cushioned by her blanket and landing on Neji's stomach.
At the stunned expression on his face, Tenten immediately burst out laughing. "Are you okay?" she chortled.
"I am alright." He still seemed to be taking in the fact that he had actually lost his balance. It didn't seem to happen to him too often. Tenten tried to roll off of him, but she was wrapped up like a burrito in the blanket. They were wedged in between Neji's sofa and the chair.
"Neji-kun?"
"Hn."
"I think we're stuck," Tenten laughed again. The situation seemed rather ridiculous to her. "I mean, look at us. I can't move and you're pretty much pinned under me."
Neji sighed faintly. "We need outside assistance."
"I'll say."
Another pause.
"Hey, Neji?"
"Hn."
"Wouldn't it be bad if somebody came in and jumped to conclusions as to why I'm on top of you?"
All blood seemed to drain from Neji's face in the span of two seconds. Tenten raised her eyebrows at him. "I was just joking, you know. I doubt anybody you live with would think you would ever try anything with a girl."
Neji glared at her in silence.
Five more minutes passed. Tenten was getting pretty sick of staring at Neji's face from a two inch proximity and not saying anything at all while she watched all the blood rush to his head. "Well. I think this is reasonably awkward," she sighed.
Neji glared at her some more. "Talking will not help us."
"Yeah, well, we might as well chat while we wait for the rescue squad," Tenten insisted. "It could be a lllooooonnnnggg wait."
"You are not the one that has a hundred-pound burden on their stomach," Neji countered.
"Actually, a little more than a hundred," Tenten corrected. "And at least you get to rest your head on the floor. I'm getting a crick being stuck in this position."
Neji raised his eyebrows. "Why do you not just rest your head?"
Tenten snorted. "Well, obviously if I rested my head I'd practically be kissing you. I thought you would prefer if your first kiss were a little less strange."
"It would not be my first," Neji muttered.
Tenten choked. She would have done a spit take if there was any water in her mouth. "Really?" she gasped. Had everybody kissed somebody besides her? Hell, maybe Lee had even smooched a girl as things were going.
Neji was staring at her obstinately, his white eyes expressionless. "Is it so astonishing?"
"Well, yes," Tenten sputtered. "No offense, but you have about as much life in you as an ice box!"
The corners of Neji's lips twitched. "No offense taken," he said simply.
"Aren't you going to tell me who it was?" she asked when Neji made no move to talk anymore. "I'm sure there's an interesting story behind this one."
"Tenten…"
"No, seriously! I wanna hear what happened!" she insisted, trying not to pout like a toddler.
She could have sworn that Neji smirked. Really, hadn't that been the Uchiha guy's thing?!
"Why are you so interested in this story?" Neji asked in a seemingly uninterested voice. Tenten fell silent, her cheeks suddenly heating up. She stuck her tongue out at Neji and tried in vain to get out of the blanket and off of him.
"What's it to you?"
Neji shrugged, though the effect was odd when he could barely move. "If it is not so important to you, I would prefer not to tell you the story. That is all."
"Well, it doesn't matter to me," Tenten said with an attempt at airiness. "I was just surprised, is all." Silence ensued, with Neji just staring straight ahead, probably at the ceiling and counting sheep or something. Tenten sighed, cursing herself for deciding to come over to visit Neji on that particular night.
A few minutes passed, and then Neji managed to free his arm. He reached up through the few inches that separated his face and Tenten's and touched her cheek. A faint smile spread on his face. "Tenten, you are blushing."
Tenten immediately jerked away from his hand. "No, it's just that the blanket's making me heat up," she muttered.
Neji's smile grew slightly, and he pressed his fingers to her cheek again. This time, Tenten made no move to protest. "You are right," he agreed. "It must be the blanket."
--
A/N: Heh heh, please review!