Thanks for all the love, you guys are the greatest! And I know, its been far too long since I last updated, so thanks for waiting it out too. That being said, I own nothing here - enjoy!

Summer in Konoha, and by extension The Land Of Fire, is scorching hot - instantly fry an egg on a car roof hot.

Unsurprisingly, the climate is what earned the country it's name. One can walk down the street stark-naked and still be sweating buckets. During the winter.

I pull on the school-issued skirt and button-down blouse. Sweat starts pouring down my forehead in little droplets - unfortunately, Konoha Academy didn't think to allow lighter uniforms for the summer months.

The telephone in the next room rings loudly. I throw a tie over my shoulders and bring the phone into the bathroom.

"Hello?"

"Tenten? It's me." A boisterous voice echoes from the other end of the line, voice cracking at the last word. Ah, the beauty of puberty.

"Konohamaru! What's up, squirt?"

Konohamaru Sarutobi: cousin, notorious youngest member of the Sarutobi family, incurable prankster, certified mathematics dud, and Naruto's protege. It all ties together, thinking about it.

"Stop calling me that," he responds curtly, "Grandpa wants to know if you're coming home for dinner on Saturday."

I chuckle at his change in pitch. "Maybe, why?"

"What do you mean, why? It's the the Sarutobi Family Reunion dinner; everyone needs to be there ."

"Right, forgot." I stop talking to apply mascara onto my lashes - a skill that I sadly cannot master, despite Ino's extensive efforts. "I'll be there."

He sniffs appreciatively, which I take as a gracious thanks. "I kind of miss you." Konohamaru stutters at my cooing response. "K-KIND OF! Key word: kind of! It's not like I cry myself to sleep, or anything. No. Ew. Yuck. Men don't cry."

I can visualise him puffing his chest out the way he did to prove his 'manliness' as a kid. "Aww, I miss you too buddy. Don't sweat it, I'll see you in a few days and we can catch up while Gramps talks to the old folks."

He huffs. "The old man won't stop waking me up before the crack of dawn for training. I'm going mad, and I think my muscles are growing muscles now! And you know what's annoying? He says that you woke up by yourself and at 4am exactly, and expects me to get up at least an hour earlier!"

I run a brush through my hair, leaving my signature buns for later. "What can I say? I'm a woman of many talents."

He cackles into the speaker. "Oh, please. Even Little Miss Perfect can't visit her family without tearing up."

I freeze on my way to the small living area, school books balancing precariously in one arm. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, come on," he starts off defiantly, but falters towards the end, "You never visit, and when you do it's always so tense and..." Konohamaru lets out a shaky sigh. "I miss him too. Uncle Asuma. Every day."

"He's dead." It takes every fibre of my being to keep my tone cool. "I miss my dad, too, but he's not coming back. It's time to move on."

The line silences for a few seconds. I lean back into the wall, pinching the bridge of my nose while blinking back tears. Enough have already been spilt, but that reasoning does nothing to stop them from tumbling out. The clock ticks.

"You should start listening to your own advice, Tenten." He stammers this out in between whimpers.

I open my mouth again, this time my voice comes out croaky. "You know why I don't live with you guys anymore. I just need more time to myself."

"No, no you don't," he shouts back angrily, "You had plenty of that for months!" A sob, and a few shaky breaths later, he speaks up again. "I just want my cousin back."

The line muffles for a split second, and light crying can be heard from the other end. There's a pregnant pause.

"I know."

Note to self: never leave a make-up-job-gone-awry-possibly-due-to-tears-after-an-emotional-phone-call alone. Especially on a hot summer day - then it goes from ugly to just plain uncomfortable.

Mascara runs swiftly down my face, accumulating in whirlpools at my chin. I run out of my apartment building, uncharacteristically avoiding the neighbouring ramen stall owners' greetings, before a car pulls up beside me and - lo and behold, Neji Hyuga, in all his glory.

"My god, you look like a rabid panda."

I hiss venomously. "Beat it, princess, I'm not in the mood to humour you." He looks concerned for a split second, but masks it with a smirk. It suits his slicked back hair, giving off the impression of a devilish spirit rather than a pompous prat.

"Why, Tenten, how you wound me."

Groaning, I throw my hands up into the air. "Why are you being so annoying? Do you need a new attitude? "

"I assure you, mine is in working order." He chuckles when I glare at him. "Would you like me to drive you to school? You can fix up your make up on the way."

I look at him closely. To be rational, Neji is a ridiculously reliable person who, despite how uptight he is, is quite amicable and benevolent. Plus, he has a car and I have a bag that weighs more than an anvil.

After very little deliberation, I buckle myself into the passenger seat and shut my eyes.

"Are you sure you're not removing your, uh."

"Statement art." I finish off his sentence, triumphantly noting his uncommon use of a filler word. I flutter my lashes in rapid succession, faltering slightly at the stickiness of the mascara. "Haven't you heard? Statement is the new sexy."

Neji rolls his eyes, but says nothing until we reach the Academy. This suits me just fine, however, because lately I haven't been therapeutically confiding in my level-headed best friend Hinata due to her warranted hatred of me. Granted, Neji probably isn't all that happy to be my new confidante, but he's there and I'm in his car. We're practically girlfriends now.

"Thank you for the trip, kind sir. Carry my bags?" Neji grimaces a little.

"You're the taekwondo captain, Tenten, I'm sure you're more than capable of handling your own baggage."

I sling it over my shoulder in annoyance. Physical baggage, definitely so. Emotional? Still a long road. Smirking, he tightens his headband. It looks good on him: not loose and sloppy like Naruto's, but straight and immaculately pressed.

How very Neji.

I trudge into the school's front garden, taken slightly aback at it's unkempt nature. One normally walks through the gates and sees a vast, perfectly-manicured landscape with lovely evergreens lining the side of the main walkway and resplendent topiaries artfully on display in different places on the lawn. Today, however, is evidently not a day of emotional or physical stability as all of the plants look wilted and withered and...wizened. Maybe it's the weather, maybe it's a fired gardener.

"Maybe it's Maybelline."

Neji shoots me a weird look out of the corner of his eye. "What?"

"The garden looks worse than my make up. Haven't you noticed?"

Not quite following on from my previous statement, he nods. "Yes, I did just point that out a few minutes ago."

I blink, stopping when we reach the steps leading to the front door. It's a rich, polished sort of mahogany - not high tech enough for the school of a spy capital, in my opinion. Ex-spy capital. Same principle, right? "I'm sorry, were you saying something?"

He chuckles, and opens the front door for me instead of storming off in frustration like Ino does. Hinata usually doesn't mind it when I space out. Then again, she's not particularly minding me at all as of late.

My life is a mess.

"Tenten?" Neji's concerned face appears in front of me, eyebrows furrowing. "What's wrong?"

Smiling lightly, I wipe at the mascara under my eyes, probably smudging it even more. Seconds away from rudely storming off in frustration, he hands me a makeup wipe. There isn't a single hint of embarrassment on his face.

At my grateful acceptance of the wipe, and more or less questionable expression, he shrugs. "Hinata sometimes needs them after a tough morning, if you catch my drift."

It's official. If standing at the entrance of a rich, pompous school with a boy who is quite possibly the most rich and pompous of all and scrubbing every trace of make up off your face, regardless of whether a loud blonde trio plus Mr Rich and Pompous's cousin show up in the middle of it, isn't mortifying, then I don't know what is.

Luckily, said pomp happens to be a master of damage control, so he insists. "Tenten scraped her knee, so she's wiping off her makeup." Or. Not?

Temari cocks her head to the side. Ino looks confused and dubious - cubious? Hinata brushes past us with an oblivious Naruto in tow and a heated expression.

"I see." They reply in unison before linking their arms with mine in a death grip. "Bathroom pit stop; don't wait up, handsome." Ino waggles her fingers cheekily at Neji, who seems to be torn between amusement and bewilderment. Temari all but kicks open the door with her (illegal - in school anyway) high heels and flies us to the nearest bathroom.

I wrench my arms out of their grasps as soon as we barrage through the doors, wincing. "What are you two, The Incredible She-Hulks?"

"We do our best." Temari smirks. Ino rolls her eyes and 'reapplies my face', as she so humourlessly puts it.

"Pink alert: hottie has entered our domain." Temari nudges me repeatedly - un-subtly, might I add - when Jiraiya merrily introduces two new exchange students into class. I slap her elbow away.

"What do you use on those? Knife sharpeners?"

Ino's hair jumps into our conversation. "That's ridiculous, Tennie," she scowls, "Everyone knows they're made of metal."

"Girls, if you're going to fight, at least make it physical." Jiraiya calls out our conversation from the front of the room, slightly creepy smile on his face. Why is he still working here? I should start a petition to get him fired.

"Now, seeing as these three were not paying attention earlier, I'd like to welcome Sakura Haruno and Sasuke Uchiha. They're exchange students from our sister school in Suna."

Temari replaces her elbow with her foot the moment Jiraiya's hand gestures to a dark haired boy standing confidently at the front of the classroom.

His eyes travel across the room as the biology teacher rambles on about school values, and whatnot, before landing on our table.

For someone who supposedly transferred from Suna, he's remarkably pale, and has deep, black hair to boot. That's a colour palette someone expects from someone who lives in colder climates, not where the sun is more blazing than Konoha's during the summer. The only aspects of his face that are Suna-typical are his eyes - coal-black and riddled with suspicion.

A sudden urge to run up and embrace him overwhelms me, and I have to pinch myself to make it go away.

"Wow..." Ino whispers in front of us. "He's so..."

"Sculpted." Temari finishes.

He and Sakura sit at the front desk as per Jiraiya's request. Temari decides to allocate observation times for his ramrod straight back(side) - "it's not creeping, you nun" - with half-hourly intervals between her and Ino.

"You," they give me a pointed look, "already have Neji. He's ours."

"First of all, I don't have Neji. He's just a...n acquaintance of mine. Don't give me that look. And, you don't even know the guy! Why are you planning out your wedding?" Ino, hissing, covers the beginning sketches of a wedding dress.

"Because, roses are in season!"

"They're always in season for you." Temari points out flatly.

"That doesn't even make sense." I add.

"You know what else doesn't make sense?" Temari replies, grin stretching out from ear to ear, "why you were in the car with Neji. From what Hinata tells us, he doesn't let anyone in his car unless it's an emergency."

Ino grabs her books and pounces over to sit at our table. Jiraiya continues to prattle on about specific parts of the human body. Thankfully, biology with him is the one class students can get away with misbehaving in - hence it's popularity. "Yeah, what's with that? I thought you two were just 'acquaintances'." She uses air quotes at the end, smirking.

"I liked you better over there, bimbo."

"I'm going nowhere, Tonton." She smiles wickedly. "And, stop avoiding the question."

"He saw me walking to school, said I looked like a dead panda, then gave me a lift. End of story."

"That's not what he told me," Temari remarks skeptically. The class silences. We look up.

"Life," Jiraiya starts, "A true mystery. Today, we uncover the true story behind reproduction, and the-"

The class resumes it's usual habit of ignoring his repetitive sex-ed lectures - save for the Sunese exchange students, who look positively revolted yet remain silent.

"What did he say?" I demand.

"Well," she shrugs, "Nothing at all, actually. He just grunted and did his work."

I roll my eyes. "Yes, how romantic."

"-Sasuke!"

The entire female population in the classroom cranes their necks to look at Sasuke. Kin looks like she's about to faint.

"Yes, sir?" He replies, deep voice and all. Temari swoons.

"It's your lucky day." And proceeds to fire off what seems like a million questions about sexual intercourse from a 'purely scientific perspective, of course'. Sasuke answers them fluidly and in rapid succession.

There's a triumphant look on his face when the questions stop and it's quite literally the only emotion I've seen him express for the past half hour. Speaking of which.

"Your turn, Spiky." Ino dutifully looks down at the same time Temari hungrily, savagely, fixates her gaze on Sasuke.

"Whatever happened to being your own woman and not needing a man?"

Temari shakes her head at my grumbling, never taking her eyes off the Uchiha prodigy the entire time. "Being a woman, Tenten, isn't that black and white. It's about being able to find your own happiness and living a life that you deserve. And besides," she spares me a split second glance, "He has a nice butt."

"My god."

Two words: Yamanaka Residence. Two more words: Sakura Haruno.

Ino's room is eclectic, and littered with an assortment of whimsical knick-knacks collected from garage sales and op shops, as well as some of her own creations. They're quite beautiful, and she has a great eye for interior decorating because the space doesn't look as cluttered as it should.

Sakura meekly sits on a bright, flame coloured sofa when Ino ushers us into her room. Her face falls even further when Temari fixes a scrutinising gaze onto her face.

"Cut it out."

"What?" She says, affronted. But she knows what I'm referring to, and stops. "She's my love rival."

Ino rolls her eyes. "By all means, whisper. So, Sakura, these are the meatheads I was talking about earlier."

We curtsy in synchronisation, not even bothering to feel offended. "Tenten, senior meathead." "Temari, professional wind-breaker."

Sakura flushes the colour of her hair. "Sakura Haruno, it's a pleasure to meet you?" She extends an arm nervously, painfully aware of Temari's judgemental expression.

There's a strange moment of silence where Temari finally decides to act like a decent human being, and shake her hand like it's no big deal.

"Welcome to our crew."

Oh, I do not like her smile.

Ino notices too, but ignores it. Suddenly, I realise what they're trying to do: eliminate the enemy. It's all too obvious now.

"So," I drawl out slowly, catching their attention, "what brings you into town, Sakura?"

She perks up. "My parents are doctors, and just recently got a job at the one here. We decided that it would be more economical if everyone moved. Besides," her mildly sullen expression brightens, "I like it here. In Suna, there was so much sand that you had to wear goggles just to walk down the street!"

Temari and Ino listen attentively, letting out the occasional hum in agreement. "My family lives in Suna, too," Temari speaks up, a genuine look of interest on her face, "I moved here for business reasons, so I guess we're in the same boat."

It isn't wrong; her two brothers still live in Suna with her dad, who essentially kicked her out of town for the sake of establishing a Sabaku branch in Konoha. She doesn't take it too personally, strangely, but there are moments when Temari zones out and sits in a vegetative state for a while. I know she's hurting inside, underneath the layers of female empowerment and inner strength.

The animosity in the air dissipates rapidly with their random spurt of bonding. Within moments, Ino all but jumps on Sakura and demands details on Sasuke.

"I honestly don't know who he is." Sakura places two hands on either side of her head in a placating gesture. "He was a bit of a loner in Suna - kept to himself most of the time. Honestly, you guys aren't the first to obsess over him. Most of the female population did, at some point in their lives."

Their twin expressions are so coy and unassuming that I almost believe them.

"I don't even remember speaking to him before entering Jiraiya's class, and that was only a 'good luck'. He's hot," she adds hesitantly, "but kind of...eerie."

"How so?" Ino pipes up, "I mean, I get the whole silent angle, but isn't he just broody?"

Sakura shakes her head vehemently. "There's a difference between brooding-silent and eerie-silent. It always feels like he's hiding something, or knows something scary that no one else does." Her apple-green eyes widen when she finishes off her sentence.

Temari is the kind of girl who thirsts for the feel of wind whipping past her ears and licks her lips at the sight of danger, so it's unsurprising that she's completely unfazed by Sasuke's potentially-psychopathic tendencies. "I like mysterious men. It's a challenge!"

"First impressions aren't always accurate," Ino starts diplomatically, throwing me an apple, "Eat. There's paranoia written all over your face."

"He sounds like a ticking time bomb," I take a bite into the apple, as per her stern glare, "And what's your plan, anyway? Stalk him into oblivion?"

"No," they reply flatly, "stalking is for amateurs."

"Right, 'operating covertly' then." Simultaneous grins are shot back. "Just don't get yourself arrested. I've heard about how rich he is."

Sakura guffaws. "Wading in cash is a better way to put it - the Uchihas owned half of Suna's businesses before he moved. And get this," we all move closer to her, "Of all the mansions and penthouses he could've chosen when he moved here, he chose that dinky little building next to a ramen stall." Her giggling is met with stunned silence. MY building is the only living complex next to a ramen stall, AND it's dinky - something Temari and Ino are achingly aware of. We all share a quizzical glance.

Sasuke Uchiha, child billionaire, prodigy, Sunagakure gene lottery and potential psychopath... is my new neighbour?

Things just got more interesting around here.

R&R, please!

~misspandalily