Update: This chapter has a lot of new content with the purpose of setting a better base for relationship.

Chapter 5: A True Friend

'I am going to train in area three', was what the note stated, 'Rest well, and if you need anything, don't hesitate to come to me. If not, I will come back at noon with food.' The word "food" was underlined a few times as an obvious reference to yesterday's events, his accusations about the empty fridge in particular.

The note was taped to a little snack bag. He pulled it off —'Sorry about that…'— was added on the back, accompanied by a drawn sad face. Kankuro couldn't help but chuckle as imagined Tenten's face twisting in the same expression. As he shook his head, still smiling, he opened the snack — it was fine actually. Especially considering it was the only edible thing around.

Kankuro sat on a chair with a sigh. He woke up a few moments ago and was still feeling dizzy.

His fingers unwillingly tapped over the table while his brain was trying hard to make a chart for occupying his time. He was too active usually and having "nothing" in his "to do" list made him anxious. In this case "nothing" might be actually good. It gave him a chance to take care of his body and let it rest for the time being. Showering also sounds wise — washing the stiffness and the pain away from his muscles would be nice. He briefly closed his eyes imagining the blissful feeling.

When he finished the snack, Kankuro slowly got up. The image in front of his eyes turned black. To prevent the fall, he placed palms heavily on the table to support himself. Even though he slept fine and was feeling relatively good, his body insisted it was not enough. Sleep was in order, but first — off to the bathroom.

After the shower, he stood in front of the mirror. He'd forgotten to wipe the colourful burden yesterday, but his face was now free of any paints. His fingers brushed over his chin, causing him to breathe out with exasperation — his beard had inconveniently started to grow. It was yet another thing that waited for him to deal with. Kankuro hurried to finish the task.

As he walked to the couch, he looked at Tenten's made bed. A mischievous thought of sneaking in and sleeping there instead made him grin, but he kicked it out fast enough. His gaze drifted through the window. Down there, on the street, the local people lived in their own little worlds and carried out their own tasks. To be able to do his own tasks as an elite shinobi, he needed to keep training. And that would be possible only if the hokage permitted it. So that was something he had to ask for when he woke up — the sooner, the better.

Back on the couch, his mind drifted to the previous night. He could clearly see the outlines of the kunoichi's silhouette. Her legs were…Ah, her legs were captivating. They were long, strong and lithe. He could bet their skin was smooth and well taken care of. Maybe she would have a few scars here and there, but come on, who didn't. The way she'd stared at him in the darkness, got him excited even now. Her eyes were beautiful, warm and really soulful — he wanted to look in them again and see what he could find in there.

Kankuro wondered what her character according to men was. Was she "the boyfriend" type? Or did she have a lover… maybe more than one? Was she the kind to bring one-night stands? He would need this information later on, as it was a real part of her — something he was supposed to know as a boyfriend of 2 years.

But there was something that kept him puzzled, in particular her reaction to his body. And not the pull, but rather her strong embarrassment when she saw him topless. Male body shouldn't be something that would make her feel shame or discomfort. Yet, it was there, clear as a cloudless sky. Curious.

The thoughts of Tenten were soon pushed aside as his sister's face flooded his mind. His throat contracted and prevented him from swallowing. An icy feeling crawled inside his chest, causing him to shiver. Gaara had promised to inform him about Temari's condition daily. He just had to find the right way to get the letters.

Remembering Temari's condition, when he left for Konoha, wiped all the excitement and hints of arousal away. He wasn't here to have fun. He was on a mission and his sister's life depended on its success. He needed the wedding certificate signed in as soon as possible. Kankuro knew he would be able to take a calm breath only when Tsunade-sama set her foot into the Suna's main hospital.

"Defend, Tenten!" ordered Gai-sensei and launched an attack at her. She was defending herself, all right. She blocked most of his attacks but not all of them. Her body took a decent amount of damage, consisting in painful bruises and lividities.

Next on the schedule was sparring with Lee. She still could hold herself well against him, as she witnessed every hit he had learned since they were 12 years old. Knowing good how to block, which one to dodge, when to hit while using the correct angle and force.

"Gai-sensei, it is 12:30, shouldn't we stop for lunch break?" Neji asked, looking at Tenten out of the corner of his eye. Her slight limping didn't go unnoticed by him, nor the way she unwillingly was stroking the right side of her ribs. The young Hyuuga wasn't the one asking for breaks usually, that's why his words were taken in consideration right away by their sensei.

"That's a loss of time!" Lee shouted, bouncing in a spot.

Tenten was puzzled by Neji's request, so she looked at his face with a silent question. His raised eyebrow and barely-there head-tilting reminded her she was supposed to go home. Of course he knew, she had told him so before the other part of the team joined them for the morning training session.

There was just one tiny problem — she was not ready to leave just yet. Tenten was still feeling self-consciousness about… the previous evening. Also her morning couldn't be weirder, or worse. She sunk in memories, remembering everything from the moment she woke up, too early, actually. She had spent at least fifteen minutes pondering about a suitable plan for action. Tenten hadn't been ready to face the sand shinobi then, all right. She wasn't ready now either. Her imagination had brought up different scenarios that eventually led her to a final decision soon enough — she had decided to chicken out. After getting washed, dressed, and packed, hair done included, she was ready to go for their morning training session. Shameful or not, she opened her bedroom window and sneaked outside, stepping over the narrow edge. A few agile movements later, and she quietly landed in the kitchen. She had kept the door between the kitchen and the living room closed last evening, and she was really grateful to herself she did so. Taking out a small piece of paper and pen, she wrote Kankuro a note and stuck it to the only snack left in her hidden stash. She had promised him to come back at noon with food. Tenten was not one to break her promises. Neji knew that, so there was his way of helping her out. There was a good reason he was kept informed about her mission, after all. And he was dedicated to his role.

Tenten bit her lower lip and spoke up, "I gotta grab something to eat." She paused briefly looking towards the village. "Also, I must go home for a bit. I've got to get some… I've got some female stuff to take care of." She smiled sheepishly, knowing this excuse would work perfectly.

Gai-sensei waved his hand dismissively. "Yes, of course. Go and take whatever the youth needs you to!"

She nodded, suppressing a proud smile at the little lie, and turned to head to the village.

"Wait, I'll accompany you," Neji called and jogged up to her under the surprised looks of the other two.

"Hey, Neji…" she said, still smiling, her voice trailing off — a familiar hint that she wanted to say something more, but wasn't sure how.

He semi-turned his head towards her. "Hm?"

"Thank you."

"There's nothing to thank me for. I'm not crazy enough to stay alone with those two all day long. They can get the worst out of me and"— he let an exasperated sigh — "drive me out of my mind." His mouth's tips curled upwards in a vague smirk, and he gave her an almost-playful glance. "You know that."

Both of them laughed, comfortable in each other's presence. Then they fell into a familiar, fast pace. That was until Tenten stopped abruptly. Neji followed suit, halting one step ahead of her. He looked at her over his shoulder with concern.

"What's wrong?" He sounded a bit puzzled.

"Neji, I really need you to do me a favour," she said quietly, voice pleading. "Would you mind helping me out?"

Looking straight in her doe-like eyes, he tried to guess what the problem was, but to no avail. "I guess if you need my help, I will do what is required of me," he spoke slowly. "Now, what exactly do you need my assistance with?"

"I need you to come with me in that store over there, and tell me what a decent fridge has to have inside." She gave him an awkward smile and blushed slightly. "You know me and my eating habits. I barely keep anything in my fridge, but now I am responsible for supplying food for one more shinobi…" She shut her mouth and closed her eyes, scared of what expression she would see over Neji's face.

His expression remained unfazed while quietly stared at her for a few moments. "Alright," he agreed, and she opened her eyes in relief. "If that's what you need, I will do what I can."

Then, with no more words spoken, he went ahead into the store, followed by his teammate. He helped her with no criticism and no questions asked. And well… Tenten realised long ago he was smart enough to make rightful guesses. Nonetheless, she held his support in high regard; he was doing what a true friend would do.

Lee, of course, would've also helped her, though it would've been really hard with him. He would've asked a lot of questions that she was not quite ready for. Tenten couldn't help but feel out of place in this mission. And if she couldn't convince herself that she belonged here, then how was she supposed to convince anyone else? But Neji knew. He'd found his right place in one really complicated structure — his family, the Hyuuga clan. So being able to see her correct place in a relatively simple mission wasn't really a problem for him. Truth to be told, as a whole, the mission wasn't particularly complicated. The tricky part, however, was she had to pretend to be something she was not — a girlfriend and a lover to a complete stranger.

When they reached the little plaza near her home, Neji stopped. "I suppose you are not coming back to training?" he asked softly.

"Well…" she trailed off, sighing. "I don't know… I really don't know, Neji. Maybe I will, maybe I won't."

"If you don't show up in the next hour, I'll tell them you have menstrual cramps," the man said, completely serious, and looked over her shoulder in the distance. "You almost never skip training, so they won't be suspicious."

Tenten giggled, "Make sure to use those exact words, please. It will give them both a nosebleed."

Neji examined her face, amused, then nodded.

She looked in his pale eyes with gratitude, her lips pulled in a smile. "Bye, Neji" she whispered and turned to head towards her apartment.

"Goodbye," he replied, then headed in the other direction, back to the training grounds.

Neji frowned, suppressing the desire to turn and look over his shoulder. He knew this mission would be heavy on her. She was, without a doubt, a tough girl. She could be easily set on the same scale with every male shinobi and she would probably be better than most of them. Tenten could handle men, but not like this mission requested to. Honestly, she was the one both Lee and him counted on for basically everything. She was a good friend, good comrade. But… The requirements for this task, this mission, were different from what she was used to. He had seen her communicating with men, who had obvious crushes on her. It had never ended well. She was always awkward, too tense, and she absolutely didn't respond to other men' advances. It was entertaining, but also a bit painful to watch.

Neji shook his head and the long, dark, brown hair followed the movements. He decided inwardly that he would do whatever it took to help her handle the mission, not only as a Konoha shinobi or a teammate, but as a friend as well. To be honest, he wasn't especially experienced in the field of romantic relationships, thus he wasn't particularly sure were there any rules or mandatory signs of how a woman would behave. He, himself, hadn't been in love, though he observed some of his peers going through it. Same went for the female comrades; and he had some close observations over his cousin's behaviour. But Neji couldn't quite fit Hinata's behaviour into Tenten's skin.

As Hyuuga's next generation, Neji was requested by his uncle to go on dates every now and then. Sometimes he could tell when his date felt warm feelings towards him and he had noticed some common signs and demeanours. He surely could teach Tenten those. Yes, that sounded like a good idea and good advice.

"I will support you, Tenten," he muttered. "I want to support you," he admitted under his breath. She couldn't possibly hear him, but it didn't matter. It was rather important for him to hear it aloud with his own voice.

Once in front of her flat, Tenten fumbled to unlock the door. While doing so, she propped one of the shopping bags up with her knee and managed not to drop anything.

The first thing she saw was Kankuro's back, turned to her as he was laying down on the couch.

Is he sleeping?, she asked herself, frowning. Firstly, she thought it might be time to wake him up, but almost immediately after that crossed her mind, she decided not to.

Kankuro heard the lock clicking and snapped his eyes open. He didn't move, taking a few seconds to assess where he was. His memory was much more responsive than it was in the morning, so he quickly remembered his current purpose and location. He decided to stay still, though his body tensed up, ready for defence, a habit soaked into his bones from the many years of being a shinobi.

She closed the door carefully, her eyes bored into his back. It looked like he was too stiff to be sleeping. Tenten narrowed her eyes, trying to figure if he was pretending to be asleep. He was way too quiet to be truly relaxed.

Little smirk graced her lips. "You may want to come and help me out," she said after assessing him for a few more moments.

Kankuro signed and a slight smile tugged at the tips of his lips. "Saw right through me, eh?" he replied but didn't turn around.

"Pretending to be a dead fox doesn't work on me," the kunoichi stated as she crossed the room. Halting before entering the kitchen, she semi-turned to look him over her shoulder. "It is about time to get up. Lying down for too long won't do you any good."

Tenten felt as if her heart was going to burst out of embarrassment. She was still feeling strongly ashamed of her late-night staring contest. While walking to her apartment earlier, she had thought of the best way to approach the matter. What she reached as a conclusion was that she would pretend it never happened, and will ignore everything related to that. So now, even if she felt her face hot, she still pulled together and walked forward into the kitchen, where the bags' content needed to be sorted. She set them down on the counter and started to take out little packages, vegetables, and fruits.

Shortly after, Tenten sensed his hovering presence and shot a glance at the door. He was standing there, leaning on the door frame with his arms crossed in front of his wide chest. His dark eyes followed her movements, she could tell. It was unnerving.

"You meant 'playing possum'," he informed.

"No, I mean a dead fox." She eyed him, then huffed, adding, "It is a long story… Anyway! I am sure the door frame is really comfortable, but I would appreciate you helping me out here." Her tone was more sarcastic than she initially intended.

"You do realise I won't be of much help as I don't know your kitchen arrangements?" Even though he felt the sting her tone caused, he decided to ignore it to keep the peace.

"You still can help," she mumbled. She stretched her hand, holding a tomato, towards him. "Put this into the fridge. Bottom left drawer." Tenten didn't turn to look at him, though.

Kankuro sighed quietly as he pushed away from the door frame. His steps were completely noiseless, so when he reached for the tomato, and his fingers brushed her hand, she flinched. Only then the kunoichi turned her head to give him a proper look and unwillingly froze for a brief moment. A coy smile appeared on his lips. He didn't say anything, instead he opened the fridge and put the tomato where he was told.

The sand shinobi often was graced with amazed and surprised looks when someone saw him bare-faced for the first time. It was amusing, actually.

"Now you see why I usually pretty myself with makeup," he said mockingly with an exaggerated sigh. "Not all of us can afford walking under the sun with bare skin," he added and by the sharp narrowing of her eyes, he just then realised how that sounded.

"Well…" she started, breathing out. "Some of us don't pay too much attention to our outlook because it doesn't really matter for being a decent kunoichi." Tenten had turned to face him in the meantime.

"Actually, this is not entirely true." Kankuro closed the door of the fridge. He opened his mouth to elaborate and explain he meant the undercover mission, as they were given to good looking kunoichis usually. It was simple — those missions usually were about gathering information or retrieving an item. And people, especially men with power, which were the usual targets, tended to trust more pretty, innocent-looking young women. But seeing the murderous glint in her eyes changed his mind. What he said could be taken as a direct offence to her looks, which was the conclusion she'd seemed to jump to.

"What are you implying?" Her hands moved to her hips and she leaned forward.

"Ok, before you bite my head off, let me explain myself, will you?"

"Please, go ahead," her tone was strained, but she still tilted her head to the side.

"I meant you don't have to put makeup on, because you don't need to."

"You are saying that it doesn't matter if I put any makeup on, because it won't change the way I look, hence it is not needed?"

Kankuro needed a few seconds to assess the right meaning of what she asked before forging a correct answer. He knew there was always a correct answer with women even if they swore in the opposite. Another thing women were really good at, was twisting one's words and presenting something that couldn't be more far away from the initial meaning invested.

"Only because I don't want us to start our relationship over a misunderstanding…" He supported himself with one hand on the counter and leaned forward. "I didn't mean you are ugly, if that's what you thought."

Tenten was taken aback by his bluntness. Yes, that was exactly what she thought he said. Her surprise was written all over her face, causing him to smile. Well, he didn't say she was good-looking either, but that was beside the point.

"Look," he began with a businesslike tone, "I am used to people looking at me differently with paints on and off. It's always funny when they see my bare face, because it's never what they expect it to be. By the look of it, my face is usually better than what they imagined it may be."

"So you are basically one self-centred, self-assured ass?" she added and crossed her arms with a huff.

"You drew conclusions anyway, I see." His smile turned into a crooked one.

"It is hard not to." Tenten shrugged.

"I guess," he agreed. "Well then, let me be a self-centred and self-assured, helping ass, for the time being." Kankuro's grin left her speechless. The way he didn't feel even a bit offended was a new conception to her. The boys she hung out with took her jokes hard, even if it wasn't about anything so sensitive. But here he was, standing in front of her — she had thrown an insult into his face, and he turned it into a self-irony, letting her words flow around him, untouched.

He didn't wait for her vocal reaction as he saw she was a bit stunned; so he took a handful of vegetables and made his way to the fridge.

Tenten bit helplessly on her bottom lip, having no idea of how to react. Then she settled for the most comfortable thing at the moment — to ignore him. She continued to put the little boxes in the cupboards as if nothing happened, as if no conversation had been going on just a few seconds ago.

When Kankuro finished with the vegetables, he retreated to the table and sat down on a chair. He waited patiently for Tenten to finish, still following her movements with his eyes.

Tenten sighed and placed her palms on the counter. "I am not a great cook," she admitted, still with her back to him.

"That's alright," he replied, setting his elbow on the table and resting his chin on his hand. "I am not marrying you because of your extraordinary cooking skills, after all." His voice was gleeful, holding a smile, which turned out to be contagious as Tenten also smiled.

"I hope not," she said honestly. "If that was the case, you would be left in deep disappointment."

She gathered the residues of her courage and turned to him. His face was… something that she would have remembered if she had seen it before. The smug smile on his lips made her heart flutter. The darkness of his eyes fell upon her like a black veil, and she forgot what she was about to say.

"I can cook, if that's something of importance to you," he confided with her. "I can't make fancy meals though."

Tenten blinked, his voice taking her out of her dozing off.

"I am not a fan of fancy stuff, anyway," she uttered.

"Ok, then, Miss Not-a-fan-of-fancy-stuff, what are your plans for the rest of the day?"

She leaned back on the counter moving her sight all over his face. "I am planning to take you out for a meal."

"Is this… a date invitation?" He playfully took a sharp breath, feigning surprise.

"Aren't you supposed to invite the girl on a date?" She retorted, amused.

"The times are different now." Kankuro shrugged, lifting his head off his hand. "Modern times, they say. So it is not mandatory for the guy to ask the girl out."

Tenten bit her bottom lip. "Well, I am a bit conservative about the matter."

"Is that so?"

"Kind of…"

"But you can't cook?" He raised an eyebrow, referring to the most conservative thing expected of a married woman.

She frowned. "I will learn if I really have to."

"Alright, alright." He waved his hand dismissively. "I'll drop it."

"Thank you." Tenten smiled. "Now, how would you feel about a cheese sandwich for lunch?"

"I could handle that."

Kankuro pushed his empty plate in the middle of the table and leaned back in his chair.

"I need to go to the Hokage sooner rather than later," he said matter-of -factly.

"That can be arranged." She nodded, taking a bite of her sandwich.

"Good." He kept silent for a few moments, looking through the window behind Tenten's back. "We really need to get our stories straight."

"You mean?" she asked right after swallowing.

"Your friends will stick their noses into our newly-announced relationship. We need to have the answers to their questions." He tangled his fingers and relaxed his palms on his stomach.

"That's true." Tenten shoved the last bite in her mouth and looked at him expectantly.

"We'd been introduced to the idea of an arranged marriage between us shortly after Tsunade-sama had become Hokage," he started with an even voice, his businesslike tone returning with full force. "We weren't charmed by the idea, but we went along with it."

"Why did we go along, if we didn't like the idea?" asked Tenten.

"We were convinced our marriage will someday serve as a union strengthening the bond between our villages. We were young and easy to manipulate, so eventually we both agreed."

"Sounds fair enough," Tenten nodded. "But why didn't we tell anyone? For example, even my sensei doesn't know about it, and he is like a father to me."

Kankuro narrowed his eyes, looking in her direction, but not really looking at her.

"Maybe we were asked to keep quiet?"

"Why?" Her voice was quiet but insistent. It was just like she was testing the story for credibility.

"Because I'm a fucking prince and they may have to marry me to someone else if they needed their asses saved in a case of political emergency, and if we were officially involved in dating process, it would mean a formal insult to your whole village."

Tenten looked at him with wide eyes, mouth agape. "Wow…" was all she could muster.

"What? Too much?" His eyes focused on her hazel pools, causing an unnoticeable shiver ran down his body.

"No, it's not that," she shook her head slightly. "It's just, you seem to be good at making up stories."

Kankuro kept his eyes on hers for a few more moments, unsure if she was mocking him, or if she was genuinely surprised… in a good way. That was it until he saw the pure admiration showing all over her face. She was so childishly expressive that it felt uncomfortable. He was used to other types of female behaviour and attention. "Thank you, I guess," he mumbled under his breath.

"Then we started dating." Tenten continued. "I have taken a vacation every third weekend in each quarter for the last two years," she informed him.

"When you don't have missions, I presume?"

"Exactly."

"But have you had… company, that may testify we are lying?" He tried to be careful in his words choice.

"No." She smiled and stacked the 2 plates on top of each other. "The point of the vacation is being away from every face I have to look at daily."

"Make sense," he admitted. "So, you suggest we use those little escapes of yours for our imaginary dates?"

"Sounds plausible, don't you think? Convenient, even." And kind of romantic, she added inwardly.

"What about the four year gap between the arranged marriage presentation and the actual dating, which started two years ago?" Kankuro leaned forward, setting his forearms on the table.

"Hmm…" Tenten tapped her chin, her eyes drifting to the left upper corner of the room.

"Love letters?" He joked.

"Actually, just regular letters also sound plausible. It is not something someone would've noticed. Especially if we drop 'love' from the possible definitions."

"As long as you don't read your personal correspondence to your friends or teammates, that is." He chuckled, earning a raised eyebrow.

"Anyway," she emphasised, "it sounds like a decent way to keep a kind of polite communication between us until the dating time comes or you are married off to someone else." She grinned at the imaginary option.

"Yeah, greeting cards for birthdays, official holidays…" He nodded more to himself than to her.

"Wait…"

"What?"

"You're joking, but I do have really nosy friends," she said slowly.

He looked at her face, sensing whatever would come, he wouldn't like. His tone was filled with caution, "Yeah?" He hurried to add, "I wasn't really joking, but enlighten me, please."

"They may pester me about your cards. The ones you supposedly sent me. They may force me to show them the cards," she finished hesitantly.

"What kind of people would want to see your very personal correspondence?" He frowned.

"The worst type. They are called girl-friends." She laughed, her laughter ringing like bells in the wind. Kankuro really liked that sound. It kind of reminded him of the wind-chimes Gaara kept on his window; the memory filled him with warmth.

"Fine, you will get your cards." He sighed and rolled his eyes, yet again feigning exasperation.

"You would do that?" She perked up, smiling.

"It doesn't sound like I have a choice," he replied. "Unless you come up with a story of the card box being ruined by some accident, or something."

"Hey, that may be an idea." Tenten clicked with her fingers.

"Alright." He pressed his lips in a straight line before speaking again, "Our first date was awkward as expected. We haven't actually seen each other for the last four years. So even if we wrote some rows every now and then, it didn't mean that we picked up our mutual interest."

"Ok, if I wasn't participating in all of this, I would've believed you." Tenten chuckled. "Keep going, you are doing a great job."

Kankuro huffed with amusement but obliged anyway. "I liked you, so naturally I'd started to write to you more and we settled for dates whenever possible; which in our case is every third weekend in each quarter."

"And why did you come over?"

"Suna Council pressed us to move the marriage forward and make it official. So I've been given a long leave out of duty to come to Konoha, get engaged and bring my new wife home as soon as possible."

"Why did they press now?"

Kankuro narrowed his eyes for a moment, then said, "I'm the only engaged out of the three, and of age to continue the Kazekage line. Also the political situation seems to call for union strengthening."

"Sounds alright, I think," she admitted quietly.

"Then that should be the basics. Feel free to add details, but don't forget to notify me of what you've said." He gave her a semi-pleading glance. "And, please don't go overboard. I'm not a particularly romantic type. Everyone who knows me would sense something fishy if there are too many romantic gestures or any similarities."

"If you say so." Tenten sighed. "But a girl needs romance, as they say."

He made quite an unintelligible sound resembling a snort. She ignored it.

"Get dressed. We're going out soon."

Kankuro nodded and slowly got up on his feet.

"Very well. Give me a few moments and I will be ready to perform on the Konoha stage." He headed towards the door, when he halted and looked over his shoulder. "Do you tolerate occasional physical contact in public places?" He asked as if he read the next point in an invisible list.

She narrowed her eyes and mused over the thought. If their relationship wasn't a lie, she would probably be happy to touch her boyfriend, slash fiancee, slash husband. And she needed to be honest. There was not really a problem if she lied to him, but her friends would easily catch her being untruthful.

"I'm not particularly a cold or reserved person, and I can see you also are not. So, in my opinion, it would look strange if we don't occasionally display physical closeness."

"Hand-holding?" he offered.

"I'm not sure. Let's just see what feels more natural," she suggested instead.

"Nothing here is natural," he reasoned. "Just think about it and let me know. I'm not going to cross your boundaries," he promised with a small smile. His voice was low and quiet when he added: "I don't have to actually touch you to leave the impression of high intimacy."

Tenten nodded and took the plates so she could wash them before they left. Mainly, she wanted to hide the deep blush on her face that the word "intimacy" had caused. For the sake of being honest, it was not the word itself but the way he said it.

Thank you, mfw_no_gf :))