(no subject)

[moonsheen]

She always liked Lee.

It wasn’t something entirely voluntary. He was a bit weird, or at least Tenten could never figure him out. For as long as she’d been going to the Academy, he was always just there, round faced and sitting in the front row at perfect attention while the students behind him lobbed paper balls at the back of his head; but he held himself with pride, and always asked the most questions out of anyone. For all of his enthusiasm, there was never a doubt in their minds where he wasn’t heading. Some people were meant to be ninja, some weren’t.

There wasn’t supposed to be any shame in it. Tenten herself came from a family that for the last two generations had gone to the Academy and left their training at that. A lot of the girls she talked to had other plans. They’d graduate, and work with their parents, or go into some sort of private tutelage, or relax, or maybe even go abroad—though getting the permission for that in a Hidden Village was a challenge of its own. Getting married was also a popular one. Always was. Tenten didn’t understand it, and maybe that made her a bit weird like Lee. There was no doubt in her mind of where she was heading. If she was going to graduate, she was going to become a genin no matter what—and she was always that round faced student in the back sitting up way too eagerly when the lessons on bladed weapons came up. Her friends had started giving her funny looks and stopped inviting her along to go flower picking.

Tenten liked Lee because, even if he looked and acted a little funny sometimes, he was a nice guy. She learned it the first time she ever actually talked to him, when she’d left her bag on the training grounds and he’d run after her to return it, despite the fact that her new set of shuriken and her lunch had been in there and any other boy his age would’ve probably been eating to his heart’s content. He’d flushed, and bowed, and flushed some more when she thanked him, and said something about how it was just what a real man should do, but she’d shrugged it off. That afternoon she’d repaid him when the class lined up and boy behind him decided it would be clever to start pulling on his braid. The wise guy had soon found himself face first in the dirt with his pants around his ankles. Tenten, who’d been standing behind him, innocently wound the string back around her fingers and stepped over the heap, complimenting the nice purple shade of his boxers. The next day Lee sat next to her at lunch, and that was the way it was for the rest of the year, which sort of made them friends. She’d had just never expected to see much of him after Academy.

Boy did she get that one wrong.

Which explained, when she wondered, what she was doing in the hospital, a few comics under her arm, Neji behind her, and her hand on a door that opened into an empty room.

“So he’s gone again,” Neji said.

Tenten sighed, “Looks like it.” She shut the door, and joined Neji where he rested against the wall, letting her head fall back with a thump. “We should go find him.”

“Probably.”

“Before the nurses get a hold of him—And you know, I could’ve sworn they took his crutch away after the last time.”

“They did. He made a very vocal protest.”

“So how…”

“It’s Lee,” Neji said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He did that a lot. Back in the Academy days, it would’ve annoyed her—if she hadn’t been too busy being scared of him like everyone else.

What made it worse was the fact that he had a point, most of the time. Like at that exact moment. “It’s Lee.” Tenten agreed reluctantly, wringing her hand as though she could strangle the guy in question with her thoughts, and occupied herself with that for a minute before Neji politely cleared his throat, gesturing with a shoulder towards the hall they came from.

“Are we going?” He asked. She nodded, pushing herself off the wall.

“Yeah. We’re his teammates. Got to look out for him.”

“There’s that.”

“Got to /kill/ him.”

“And then there’s that.” Neji almost looked like he was smiling instead of smirking. “Just be mindful of his injuries, Tenten. He’s an idiot, but he still needs to recover.”

“Oh fine. Only a little bit, then.”

Comments

[saturnoolaa.livejournal.com]

Curses. Now I want to write about Tenten also, you terrible person.