For your understanding about giri chocolate and honmei chocolate:
Giri choco (義理チョコ, lit. "obligation chocolate") is chocolate given by women to men on Valentine's Day in Japan as a customary gift. Unlike honmei choco, which is given to romantic partners, giri choco is a type of chocolate that women give to male co-workers, bosses, and acquaintances out of appreciation and politeness. Men generally reciprocate by giving women gifts on White Day, which is celebrated on March 14.
Honmei choco (本命チョコ, "true feeling chocolate") in Japan is chocolate given by women on Valentine's Day to men whom the giver has romantic feelings for. This is often given to husbands, boyfriends, and desired partners. Honmei chocolate is usually higher-quality and more expensive than giri choco.
(Source: Wikipedia)

Neji Hyuuga activates his Byakugan to take a look at … a clock. Unfortunately, his own has stopped and he has just come back from a mission. About half an hour ago, Neji learnt that Tenten wanted to meet him at a teahouse. To his personal displeasure, his companion forgot to mention which one. Her message was pressed into Neji's hands by Hanabi as he was slipping his shoes off his feet. Since then, he's been rattling off one teahouse after another at lightning speed – Neji can't stand being late.

Tenten nervously turns the homemade chocolate in her hands. She has wrapped it carefully in beautiful wrapping paper, just as it should be. On Valentine's Day, women don't just give gifts to their loved ones, but also to their colleagues – and Neji is one of them.

'Well, that's what you do on 14th February, isn't it, Tenten?'

'What do you mean, Ino?'

'What I mean? It's Valentine's Day! You're supposed to give chocolate to your love and teammates, remember?'

'I – I've never done that, I've never thought about it …'

'What?! Isn't Neji already a jounin? I'd say he deserved some giri chocolate, don't you think?'

'Hm, I guess you're right …'

Tenten had already given Gai-sensei and Lee their chocolate, it was no big deal. Today she had had a mission with the two of them and afterwards simply handed them the presents, saying that she would like to thank them for their good co-operation. The two were genuinely happy, Lee even promised Tenten to remember 14th March, the 'White Day', when men give women filled chocolate.

But Neji was leading a team as a jounin today, so Tenten couldn't just give him the chocolate on the side. Then Tenten thought about popping round to his house, but she doesn't want his clan members watching her. She can't quite put her finger on the reason herself …

Her train of thought is abruptly interrupted when she hears Neji's voice at the teahouse reception.

'Has a table been reserved here for Tenten or Neji Hyuuga?' Neji asks for the fourteenth time and is ready to sprint off again immediately if the answer is no.

Tenten is supposed to draw attention to herself, but prefers to play around with the gift until she realises that it is chocolate. It would be extremely embarrassing to have to present her jounin colleague with chocolate that has been melted and grubby.

Instead, she listens intently to the conversation between Neji and the employee.

'Yep, Tenten-san's a'ready in her place, if yeh'd like ter follow me,' replies the lady, whose strange accent immediately gives the two ninja an idea of who is standing in front of Neji.

Shinko Inari. She moved with her family to Konoha when she was nine years old and can't get rid of her accent. Shinko never tires of mentioning that she was once on a team with Itachi Uchiha as a genin. After the death of their teammate Tenma, she gave up being a ninja and decided to work in a teahouse.

Neji nods and follows Shinko to the back of the shop. As expected, Tenten is sitting at the table in question, but on impulse, she has made the gift disappear into her bag.

'Hello Tenten. I just made it on time, unfortunately your message wasn't very clear.'

'Hello Neji! Nice to see you. Erm, what do you mean by "not entirely clear"?'

He sits down opposite her and has a green tea brought to him.

'Jus' tea, Hyuuga-san? We've some great cakes on offer!' Shinko tries to get him excited about her pastries.

Neji keeps a straight face. 'All right, any cake then.'

'Any cake? No preference?'

'If you insist, a square one then.'

'A … square … I see, I'll be righ' back, Hyuuga-san,' Shinko mumbles and walks away, grumbling.

Neji turns back to Tenten, who makes a face as if she has to stifle a giggle. 'Tea house. You forgot to write which one you mean.'

She takes a moment, then her face gets redder by the second. 'Oh … Oh no!'

Neji waves it off in a relaxed manner, he has found it in time and there are more important things to discuss. 'All right, here I am. What's so urgent that we have to meet here? If it's about a mission,' his gaze wanders to Shinko, who is chipping away at Neji's piece of cake to make it square, 'this is the worst possible place to talk about it.'

Tenten raises her hands in embarrassment, still red in the face. 'No, not about a mission, I just wanted to meet you to – just because we haven't done this in a long time.'

Neji makes a puzzled face. He feels as if Tenten actually wanted to say something else. No, he's even quite sure. What is going on …?

Tenten doesn't know why she changed her mind last second instead of simply presenting Neji with her gift. All she knows is that she is almost losing her voice from nervousness anyway. She started to doubt herself: what if Neji doesn't like the present? Or he thinks it's stupid that she wants to meet him in a teahouse just for this? He can be very straightforward and in this case Tenten simply doesn't want to look stupid.

Neji smells a rat, but his colleague is not an enemy, so there must be something else behind it. Instead, he asks: 'That's all? And why today of all days?'

'Well, it's the 14th of February,' slips out Tenten. She wants to slap her hand over her mouth, what does she have to tell Neji that she was thinking about Valentine's Day! As usual, she tries to fix it and makes it worse by the minute.

Neji raises an eyebrow. 14th February? He can't remember this day being special in any way, at least not to him. Nothing interesting happened on this date, unless the event where Hiashi stumbled over the house cat counts. And that can't possibly be something Tenten wants to celebrate in a teahouse!

'I know what day we have,' Neji replies simply. Tenten looks like she's expecting some kind of response from him, but he hasn't a clue what kind is wanted.

Tenten senses that Neji has no idea that she's talking about Valentine's Day, which is good. That's very good, she could think of a reason other than Valentine's Day for their meeting, but what other great thing could have happened that day that would make them meet in a tea house?

Of course, Neji can't help but notice that Tenten is obviously thinking frantically about something. He has to admit that he is becoming increasingly curious about what his colleague is trying to hide from him. His birthday is in July, which is quite a while away, so it can't be that. His jounin exam was in May, so that can't be it either, and why celebrate it again? Oh, now he has an idea.

'I think we accomplished the mission around the time we had to rescue Gaara from Akatsuki, didn't we?' Neji ponders aloud.

Tenten immediately starts chattering: 'One of our hardest missions! Do you think about it often?'

'So, a square piece o' chocolate cake,' Shinko grumbles and sets the piece down in front of Neji.

His mouth narrows when he sees the cake. 'Thanks, Shinko-san.'

She looks at him sideways. 'Hope it meets yer expectations.'

'It turned out great.' He was quipping when he ordered a square cake but here it was.

She disappears again to turn her attention to other guests, while Tenten looks at Neji's cake with interest.

'I see you have a weakness for chocolate.'

'No, actually not at all. Well, I'll have to deal with it now,' he grumbles, but prefers to take another sip of tea before grumpily reaching for his fork.

Tenten dies a thousand deaths inside. Neji doesn't like chocolate! And why doesn't she know about it? Well, if someone gave him chocolate, which happened quite often at school, he politely accepted it and probably gave it away at home. They never talked about sweets, why would they? Tenten could slap herself! Why does she make chocolate without knowing whether Neji likes it? Well, because that's what you give on Valentin's … She has to think of something else! She can't possibly give him that when he's just told her that he doesn't like it! Valentine's Day or not!

'So? Are we meeting because you wanted to talk about that old mission? The fight against our doppelgangers was extremely demanding,' says Neji, assessing his cake.

'I like chocolate,' mumbles Tenten, Neji looks at her with a furrowed brow. Had something hit her in the head this morning?

'Er, I mean …' she reaches for the back of her neck, embarrassed, 'yes, yes, I was thinking about that old mission and we haven't seen each other for a while …'

'We saw each other last week.'

'Awfully long time ago, don't you think?'

'Actually not.'

Tenten's hand is still on the back of her neck, she feels incredibly stupid and suspects that Neji might think something hit her in the head this morning. 'Well, the fight against our doppelgangers was really something. Have you had another tough fight like that since then?'

Neji stabs listlessly into the cake with his fork. 'Not really, to my regret. The last few missions were strategically interesting, but as far as combat goes, they were relatively unspectacular.' Now comes the part Neji likes least – putting the piece in his mouth, which he delays.

The gears are rattling in Tenten's head; the meeting should at least look as if she really wanted to talk about the mission back then and didn't just seize the opportunity by chance. But Neji has probably already realised that anyway.

'Your cake looks really good, maybe I'll get one myself. Beautifully square.'

'So, yeh wan' a square cake too? All righ'.'

Without Tenten realising it, which is very embarrassing for a chuunin, Shinko had appeared next to them to see what was going on. She eyes Neji as he chokes down the piece of cake, trying to look like he's really enjoying it. Tenten is about to start giggling and bites her tongue.

'Right, another square piece o' cake, wha'ever it is tha' ninja like 'bout it these days. Is it fer good luck?'

'I hope so …'

'What d'yeh mean, Tenten-san?'

'Oh yes, gives you all the luck!' Tenten hurries to say and nods.

Neji's eyebrows continue to rise. Is he sitting in a play and hasn't noticed? Rather unlikely for him as a jounin. He is also quite sure that Tenten does not want to talk about this old mission, but has something else in mind, but what?

Shinko returns with another square piece of cake, this time it looks like a lemon flavour. Neji suppresses a wistful sigh, he would have much preferred that to chocolate! But when he looks at Tenten's face, she seems to disagree.

Tenten can literally feel her tongue curling up in her mouth. Ew, sour! That's not her flavour at all!

Shinko puts the cake down and looks at Tenten curiously. 'Hope it's jus' like yeh imagined, Tenten-san.'

'Absolutely,' says Tenten with a pained smile and orders another hot chocolate while Shinko is around.

Neji grabs his cuppa and sips his tea with great concentration until Shinko disappears.

As soon as the waitress leaves, Neji asks with a grin: 'Lemon, your favourite flavour?'

Tenten grimaces. The very thought of sweet and sour turns her stomach. Her gaze falls on Neji's chocolate cake. He raises an eyebrow.

'Kawarimi no Jutsu?'

'Kawarimi no Jutsu.'

Shinko brings Tenten her hot chocolate and scurries on, the teahouse getting more and more crowded.

Neji eats his lemon cake contentedly. Kawarimi no Jutsu switches an object with another.

'Okay, spit it out already, Tenten.'

She looks at him, puzzled. What? The fork is sticking out of her mouth, which doesn't exactly make her look intelligent. What's Neji getting at?

'Why you wanted to meet me in this teahouse, tell me. You don't really want to talk about the old mission, do you?' Neji follows up, glancing unobtrusively at the clock on the wall behind Tenten. He doesn't have forever, otherwise his training schedule will fall behind.

'Yes, no, not really …' she presses on indecisively as her pulse skyrockets and her heart picks up speed. A tremor creeps into her muscles that Tenten only knows from fights where the opponent is really dangerous and she can't afford to make a mistake. But that's how she feels now, and she just can't think of a way to get out of this Valentine's misery! The present is rubbish, Neji doesn't care for Valentine's Day and they had to swap 's a mess.

Neji crosses his arms in front of his chest and wrinkles his forehead. 'What's going on? Have I missed something?'

Tenten sighs and hangs her head. Lies have short legs, and Neji can see through them anyway, byakugan or not. 'Well, it's the 14th of February.'

Neji ponders, this date seems really important … Oh, Valentine's Day! He's totally forgotten about it! But that's such a girl thing, he just never thinks about it. Hang on, when it comes to Valentine's Day, Tenten probably wants to –

'Tell me, didn' yeh've the chocolate cake, Hyuuga-san?' asks Shinko, who has suddenly reappeared next to the two of them.

'No, I've always had lemon,' Neji replies tonelessly. Tenten nods eagerly.

Shinko grabs her forehead. 'I'm absolutely sure it was chocolate …'

'It was lemon.'

'Hm, while I'm here – more tea, Hyuuga-san?'

He shakes his head, Tenten clutches her cup with a broad grin.

Shinko nods with satisfaction. 'Fine. Did I ever tell yeh tha' I was in a team with Itachi Uchiha when I was still a kunoichi?'

'Yes,' Tenten and Neji answer in unison.

'Oh … did I tell yeh 'bout the one mission where Itachi only had ter look at his opponent an' the job was done?'

'Yes.' That's actually a lie, but neither of them is in the mood for the story.

Shinko looks disappointed. 'Hm, all righ'. Y're a lovely Valentine's date, by the way. They all come ter me teahouse on 14th February, it's really nice, I dare say.'

Neji didn't miss this, he noticed how one couple after another came to the teahouse to enjoy cake and tea.

Tenten turns red in the face again and raises her hands. 'We're not a couple! We're teammates!'

'We're just discussing something,' adds Neji.

'Is that so? Thought the present yeh brough' was fer him, Tenten-san,' Shinko continues, but then a guest calls after her and she hurries away.

Neji scrutinises Tenten closely. 'Gift?'

Her face now resembling a sun-ripened tomato. 'On Valentine's Day … I'm supposed to give chocolate to you … Apparently you loath chocolate, but I didn't know that!' Tenten hangs her head dejectedly, but at least she's got out what troubled her so much. On the other hand, she doesn't feel particularly relieved, as if the chocolate thing is just part of her problem that she can't put her finger on.

Neji finally understands why Tenten is acting like she's on pins and needles. She no longer wants to give him her present after he has so openly expressed his dislike of chocolate. 'Oh, Tenten. I think it's nice that you thought of me. Gai-sensei and Lee must have got chocolate too, right?'

'Yes, but they like chocolate!'

'Was that in a teahouse too?'

'No …'

'Where did you give it to them?'

'I just gave it to them today after the mission and that's it,' Tenten admits, shrugging.

Neji is confused. 'And why am I sitting in a teahouse now?'

Tenten's pulse speeds up again and her face feels like it's on fire. In the meantime, her hands have become so sweaty that she fears her cup will slip away any second. 'I don't know, I thought that'd be nicer …'

Neji thinks about it for a moment. 'Yes, that's actually true. The teahouse is really nicer than just doing it on the side. We used to train together a lot more, but it hasn't worked out that way lately, but I'd be happy if we could do it more often again,' says Neji and continues eating cake. He actually thinks it's nice that Tenten obviously thinks it's right not to hand him her present in passing. Besides, the cake tastes very good when he likest he flavour.

Tenten feels relief washing over her. Neji doesn't think it's stupid, he's actually pleased and the question about training together is one of the greatest compliments she's ever received from him.

'I'm glad you like it. Suddenly I wasn't sure any more. I know how much you hate wasting time,' says Tenten with a sigh, finishing her hot chocolate in one go.

Neji has finished his cake and is waiting. After all, he's about to get a present, and even if chocolate doesn't exactly make his heart beat faster, it's the gesture that counts and not so much the contents.

The two sit opposite each other in silence until Neji finally clears his throat. 'Well – the present?'

Tenten is taken aback. 'You still want it? But you don't even like it!'

'Yes, but it's about the gesture. If you don't mind, Hanabi loves chocolate. I used to give her my Valentine's chocolate when I was at school. Once it was so much that she got sick of it.'

Tenten waves it off. 'No, I don't mind, but I'd like to give you something you actually like,' she says, reaching into her bag and pulling out the beautifully wrapped chocolate. The wrapping is the be-all and end-all of a gift, it's almost more important than the gift itself. Tenten sat with the paper for ages and tore off the first attempt in frustration.

Neji takes it and thanks her. 'It turned out pretty. Did you make it yourself?'

Tenten sighs. 'Yes, indeed. Hanabi will be pleased.'

'She's like an beast, tearing down the paper and devouring it all in one go. Not a pretty sight.'

Tenten giggles, glad that the tension is easing, but she still finds the situation disconcerting. She likes it, but it still makes her nervous.

'Give me a lemon,' Neji suggests.

Tenten raises an eyebrow. 'When life gives you lemons …?'

'Then make a cake,' Neji finishes the sentence with a smile.

Tenten finds the idea odd and good, and the two decide it's time to leave the teahouse. They pay Shinko and get ready to leave. As they reach the exit, Shinko comes over again to take a closer look at the gift.

'Very nicely wrapped, Tenten-san.'

'Thanks.'

'I always recognise homnei chocolate at firs' sight,' Shinko claims proudly, nodding with satisfaction.

Tenten's face changes colour again. 'That's not honmei! Neji and I are just teammates!'

Shinko looks at the two of them suspiciously. 'Y're a funny pair, an' I know fer a fact that yeh swapped yer cakes. I used ter be a ninja too, I know the Kawarimi Jutsu. That's honmei, that's fer sure. Hope ter see yeh soon, yeh two,' Shinko says goodbye to the two ninja and goes back to attending to her other guests.

Tenten growls disapprovingly. 'It's not honmei …'

'Hm, if you say so. Can I at least have a honmei lemon then?'

Tenten chuckles, stretches in the fresh air and takes a deep breath. 'Of course you can! There should still be some at my house.'

'Don't you even have a lemon tree?'

'Yes, we have. I love it when it blooms,' Tenten enthuses.

Neji nods in agreement. 'Yes, it smells great. I'm still jealous of your tree.'

'Oh, by the way …'

The two ninja turn round, puzzled. Shinko obviously has something else to say 'Lemon trees symbolise adoration, commitment an' romantic feelings.'

'Thanks for that information, Shinko-san,' Tenten mumbles contritely, signalling to Neji that they should get going.

'See you soon, Shinko-san.'

'Yes, see you soon.'

Neji and Tenten walk relaxed towards Tenten's home, the atmosphere is already much more comfortable and they have been talking about something other than missions and training for a long time.

Shinko looks after the two ninja, shaking her head. 'O' course it was honmei, a blind man with a walking stick can see that!'

'Ey!'

'Oh, excuse me, sir. Wasn' talking 'bout yeh.'