Mislaid Plans (formerly Forgetting Tenten. But that title sucked so I changed it.)

Edit 10/27/09: Thanks, Andrien. You know, for being awesome and correcting my grammatical errors among other things.

Edit 04/19/10: changed the tense because the 'flashback' label was bothering me :I

Anyway. Enough of that. Enjoy! :)

"Hyuga Neji!"

Neji turns around to see an angry Tenten. Scratch that.

She is downright furious.

He inwardly cringes at the sight of his teammate's brilliantly red face. Tenten is very violent when she is angry. Neji wonders what happened this time. Surely she isn't PMSing; that was a week ago. Poor Lee had payed dearly when he mentioned her slightly off aim.

"You have some explaining to do, Hyuga," Tenten yells as she trudges through the foot deep snow. She hisses out 'Hyuga' like most people would say 'manure.' It is nearing Christmas time; of course that doesn't seem to help Tenten's anger issues one bit. One would think she would be a lot more manageable.

"What now?" Neji asks calmly, remaining stoic. Tenten lets out a screech and grabs Neji by his collar. She pulls him forward until he can feel her breath ghost across his face. He senses the killing aura. Eyebrow twitching slightly, Neji sighs, "What did I do this time? And please let go. You may suffocate me." Tenten's face somehow turns an even deeper shade of red. 'Ah, that did it...,' Neji thinks, waiting for the yelling to commence.

"What did you do?! You told me to meet you at the training grounds before six in the morning!" his teammate rants. Neji's mouth twitches. She doesn't need to scream.

"So what do I do!? I get up at freaking five and go to the training grounds without as much as a thin jacket! I wait two hours in the cold snow and then I am forced to train with Lee. Of all people, Lee at five in the morning?!" She continues to shake with anger. Neji allows a small pang of guilt then quickly shoves it down.

"Please release me," he deadpans. Tenten takes a deep, controlled breath then lets go of his collar.

Neji stares at the fuming girl head on. "I did no such thing." Tenten's eyes widen. The pompous conceited jerk dares to deny her claim? The fury returns.

"ARGHH! Are you--! You moron! You're calling me a LIAR?" She pokes the long-haired boy in the chest. Neji simply raises a brow.

"I certainly did not call you a liar." He swats her finger away. "And I certainly do not recall ever telling you to meet me at the training ground. Unless you imagined it." Here he smirks. "You look forward to out training sessions quite a bit, hm?"

Said girl turns the most interesting color of pink. "Don't you dare use that tone with me, Hyuga!" Neji's smirk widens just a tad. He notes with strange pleasure that she had not denied his accusation. And that she is blushing. She actually looks really cute like that-- He squashes that feeling as soon as it comes up. "Do you know what happens when you end up training with Lee? Gai-sensei shows up for torture sessions--"

Neji has only seen Tenten this angry once. He had forgotten her birthday and he payed very painfully.

Neji waited for Tenten at their usual training spot. "Hi, Neji!" Tenten greeted cheerfully. He raised a brow at her eagerness.

"Do you know what today is?"

"March 9th...?"

"And...?"

Neji furrowed his brows. What was so special about today? He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know." Tenten's face grew into a curious shade of red. Wrong answer, Neji.

"It's my birthday!"

"Oh... is that so? I guess it slipped my mind."

"You forgot?"

"Yes."

Tenten suddenly bowed her head.

"...Tenten?" She looked up at him. Neji inhaled sharply. It was a look of pure fury.

"How could you forget? I've been mentioning it throughout this entire week!" Neji winced at her loud voice.

"Please lower your voice, Tenten. Honestly, you can be louder than Uzumaki..." he drawled. Tenten's mouth twitched with barely repressed fury. She then withdrew a horrifyingly large fuma shuriken from out of thin air. (In the very, very desolate and far regions of his mind, Neji was slightly impressed and noted to ask Tenten how she managed to do that. After she cooled down, of course.)

Neji was fairly sure if he didn't start running like hell right that moment, he would become severely decapitated. But he, being a Hyuga and having problematic pride issues, decided that if he ran away from a simple chunin-- and a girl no less!-- he would never be able to live it down. So he opted for the most manly and possibly most idiotic thing he could ever do in his life.

"Honestly, Tenten. I do not mean to offend, but, seeing as you are quite a bit shorter and less skilled than me, that is hardly intimidating," he said, decidedly condescendingly. Tenten's hand twitched and Neji was suddenly pinned up against a tree. Before he could comprehend what was going on, a demonic-looking girl (who he, in his extremely dazed mind, didn't recognize as Tenten) gave him one the most vicious left hooks he had ever experienced.

A few moments before he blacked out, Neji attempted to save at least a shred of his dignity. "That..." he wheezed out, "didn't hurt. At all."

The last thing he saw was several sharp objects pointed at his person.

Neji had stayed in the hospital for two days. And Tenten stopped speaking to him for about two and a half months. He never did get to ask her about the fuma shuriken trick...

"--then made me run around the village--! You're not listening, are you?! HYUGA!"

Said boy sighs. 'This is getting quite irritating.' Rubbing his temples, Neji attempts to calm himself. He then looks back at his teammate and speaks as if he is scolding a particularly difficult child, "Tenten. I really do not care about your little escapades, but would you please stop yelling? I will apologize if you wish." The corners of his mouth curl up slightly when Tenten turns from red to purple.

"...Are you kidding me?" Her voice is low and dangerous. Neji vaguely wonders if purposely antagonizing his teammate is a bad idea. He thinks about it for a few moments, then quickly dismisses the thought. He is Neji freaking Hyuga. He never has bad ideas.

"I kid you not," Neji says, backing away slowly. "Now if you'll excuse me..." Before he can take another step, Tenten tackles him and tries to punch him in the face.

"You--" Neji manages to block the hand that is about to slap him. "--are--" With a great amount of luck ('Skill!' he reminds himself), he is able to crane his neck so that Tenten's fist doesn't hit his precious, precious eye. "--the most infuriating person I have ever met!"

Neji gracefully (read: clumsily) dodges more hits by shoving Tenten off and pinning her down. His brown-haired cutie -- 'Teammate, dammit! TEAMMATE!' -- growls, chest heaving. Neji just smirks and stands up.

"I've changed my mind. You are almost as competent as me." His tone suggests that this is indeed a great honor. Tenten closes her eyes and takes a long, deep breath through her nose. Neji tilts his head when he sees her mouth the numbers ten... nine... eight... seven... six... five... four... three... two... one...

She exhales wearily and gets up. Shaking her head, Tenten looks at him with such disappointment that Neji is actually tempted to declare his innermost feelings; he withholds such an embarrassing confession, of course. Tenten's lower lip trembles.

"Fine, then. Whatever. I don't need this." Her voice is oh-so-small and hurt that, before Neji registers what he is even doing, he grabs her wrist.

"I'm sorry," he blurts out. Tenten's eyes widen in surprise. "I... er, I apologize for angering you." Neji suddenly wants to look anywhere except her. Much to his bemusement, Tenten starts giggling.

"You're apologizing? Wow. I never thought I'd ever live to see the day." She grins and punches him lightly on the arm. He is still horribly confused and warily narrows his eyes.

"...Are you okay?" he asks cautiously. Tenten just shrugs.

"Eh, I can't really keep a grudge against you if you sincerely apologize. And anyway, you seem to have honestly no idea what I'm talking about." She nods to herself and mumbles under her breath, "Maybe that really was a dream...?" Neji, having superb-awesome-ninja hearing, can't help himself.

"So you dream about me?" He raises a brow mockingly. "Should I be worried about you stalking me?" Tenten just rolls her eyes.

"You seriously enjoy getting a rise out of me, don't you?" she asks.

"...Yes."

The brown haired girl shakes her head and looks up to the sky. "Heaven knows what I would do to you if you did something insanely suicidal. Like trying to kiss me or something. Now that would really piss me off." She looks back to Neji. He has the most sick little twisted grin on and Tenten immediately regrets saying that.

She steps back slightly.

He steps forward.

'Great,' she inwardly groans.

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A loud screech was heard throughout Konoha. Everyone that day swears they had seen Neji running like mad with the most pleased expression on his face. They also claim to have seen Tenten. Blushing bright red with a manic glint in her eye, she is said to have been chasing Neji yelling at the top of her lungs.

"Hyuga! How dare you kiss me?! HYUGA!!"

And somewhere, hiding from their beloved but certainly psychotic team, Lee and Gai give each other a thumbs up.

"You are such a genius for creating this plan, Lee! Now they will surely let their love bloom!"

"And you, the almighty Gai-sensei, are even more of a genius for pulling off that Neji henge with such aplomb!"

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

And they all live happily every after.

...Well, as much as a happy ending a bipolar kunoichi, brooding prodigy, obsessive protege, and equally obsessive mentor could get, anyway.

End

Hah! Look! I totally revised this and stuff. If you spot any errors in grammar, tense, etc etc, feel free to point them out. Also, yes. Neji and Tenten are kind of OOC, but you know. Whatever.

Remember: Reviews are wholly unnecessary. Kind of like candies. But we still love them, right? /has a cavity