The end-product of my procrastination. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own any Naruto characters nor any valuable intellectual property or tangible property for that matter.

"The difference between friendship and love is how much you can hurt each other."

It amused him how eager his friends were to rush out of the school gates but once outside, they took their time going home and often took detours. Tenten had eagerly rushed into the newsagents to see if the new issues of Bleach and Fairy Tail had arrived. Lee was close behind her, leaving Neji to park her bicycle and his bicycle properly before following them in. Lee didn't have a bike as he preferred to walk or run instead.

Lee headed straight for the energy drinks in the fridge. It was probably part of the reason why he was always so hyper, Neji thought sourly. Neji spotted Tenten, who had a huge grin on her face as she waved the new issue of Bleach at him. That grin had become rather sheepish as she glanced up at him through her lashes. "Hey Neji, can I borrow money from you?"

"No," he replied flatly. He brushed past her so he could see what other mangas were out.

"Please, please, please, I promise I'll pay you back! I'll even pay you back with interest," she whined tugging at his elbow.

"Oh look, the new Fairy Tail is here too," he teased, shoving the plastic covered manga under her nose.

She groaned with frustration, "Please lend me money! I'm not going to get my allowance until next week."

He shook his head firmly, "You owe me so much money it's not funny, I already paid for your lunch today."

Tenten pouted, she did owe Neji two weeks worth of her allowance already. Lee popped up beside them with his energy drink in his hand. "Lee, can I borrow money?"

"Sure Tenten, how much do you need?" he started searching through his pockets.

She gave Lee a brilliant smile. "See how much nicer Lee is than you," Tenten said emphatically to Neji, who rolled his eyes in reply.

Lee continued to search in his pockets and then he looked up, "I'm afraid I don't have any money left to lend you after getting my drink."

Neji laughed as her face fell. She smacked him in the arm with the manga in retaliation. "Look, how about I buy the Bleach manga for myself but I let you read it first," he offered as he took the manga off her.

Her face lit up, "Really?! You're the best!" she squealed as she gave him a quick hug. Neji thought he felt butterflies in his stomach.

Summer was approaching. Neji cast his eyes up to the cloudless blue sky then focused on the cracked footpath before him as he wheeled his bike after his friends as they dawdled home. Lee had drunk his energy drink all at once already and was messing around with his soccer ball. Lee passed his soccer ball to Tenten who started bouncing it on her knees while trying to wheel her bike next to her with one hand. She then passed the ball back to Lee. Sometimes he wondered where those two got all their excess energy from.

Not concentrating on the ground before him as he was absorbed in practising a trick with the ball, Lee tripped on a crack and the ball rolled onto the road. Tenten dropped her bike and started after the ball but not before Neji grabbed her roughly by the shoulder and pulled her back onto the kerb. A car swung around the corner and sped past them.

"Idiot," he hissed angrily. His heart was pounding in his chest as he thought about how close Tenten had been to getting hit by that car.

"Tenten, are you alright?" exclaimed Lee worriedly. He had seen the near miss as well.

Her eyes were wide, "Yeah… thanks to Neji…"

Neji realised his grip on her shoulder and she rubbed it absently as she stared at the corner where the car had come out of the middle of nowhere. "Geez, you should have some road sense by now," he growled but his expression was one of concern. He bent down to pick up her fallen bike but ended up dropping it, as well as his own bike, as she flung herself into his arms and buried her face into his chest. She was trembling slightly still from the shock of the near-accident. Neji awkwardly patted her on the back, "Hey, it's alright, you're still alive."

"Thank you." Her voice was muffled. Then she finally released him and picked up her bike.

Lee checked both sides of the road for oncoming traffic before retrieving his ball.

The trio walked on in silence to the intersection where they split ways to their separate homes. Neji watched her out of the corner of his eye carefully. By then Tenten seemed to have recovered and was back to her usual self, humming slightly and kicking stray pebbles in her path. "See you guys at school tomorrow!" she yelled as she climbed onto her bike and began pedalling the rest of the way home. They only started cycling from this point once they parted ways with Lee.

"Bye! Take care!" Lee yelled back in reply as he waved at them enthusiastically.

Neji raised an arm without even looking back as he started cycling as well.

"What are we going to do during the holidays?" Tenten whispered to the boys sitting on either side of her during their free study period. Neji was concentrating hard on whatever complicated maths problem he was doing and Lee had his head down on the desk, drooling onto his notebook.

Neji simply shot her a glare that plainly said to her to get back to study before turning back to his homework. Tenten sighed and stated jabbing Lee's shoulder until he woke up. "What are we going to do during the holidays?" she repeated her question for his benefit.

"Oh we could have a Gai movie marathon!" Lee replied excitedly. Lee absolutely adored the kung fu star Maito Gai and even wore his hair like his idol and occasionally wore the green jumpsuit as well.

"We already did that last holidays," Neji pointed out grumpily.

A mutual love for Maito Gai movies was one of the few things that Tenten, Neji and Lee had in common. Well, they all had differing levels of love for the kung fu star. In Tenten and Neji's case it was more a case of liking rather than loving Gai. Lee's level of adoration of the man however, was on a completely different scale. On a completely different order of magnitude actually… They also all liked sports. Other than those two factors, Tenten knew they would not even have gravitated towards each other at school if it weren't for the fact that when they first started high school, they were all teased about their hairstyles.

The bell finally rang and it was time for lunch. The trio wandered outside heading towards the tree they liked to sit under, still arguing over what they could do during the holidays. "All these ideas require money!" exclaimed Tenten.

"Well we could get summer jobs?" suggested Lee.

"Where at?" Neji sighed. He dumped his school bag on the ground before choosing a clear spot of grass to sit on. Tenten and Lee joined him and pulled out their lunch from their bags.

A familiar looking boy slouched past, looking half asleep, with his chubby friend in tow, heading towards the vending machine. Neji's eyes followed them speculatively, he remembered seeing them working at McDonalds on the occasions where Lee and Tenten had dragged him there. He refused to eat the food there because it looked disgusting so he had ended up observing the employees while his friends were deciding what to eat. "McDonalds?" he suggested sarcastically, he wasn't exactly keen on getting a job in fast food.

"Hey that's a great idea!" exclaimed Lee excitedly.

Tenten's eyes brightened considerably as she turned to Neji with a grin, "It's perfect, we'll almost certainly get a job there if we apply even though we have no experience because we're cheap to pay."

His eyes narrowed, "No, I refuse to work there."

Tenten scowled at him and crossed her arms, "Hey, you suggested it and just so you know, when we all go to theme parks, concerts and movies together, Lee and I are most certainly not going to pay for your tickets."

"Maybe I don't want to waste my money on going out," he replied sullenly.

"Neji, it won't be as fun without you!" exclaimed Lee.

Tenten fixed Neji with a glare and he met it unwaveringly. If it was to be a battle of wills he refused to lose to her. He almost didn't notice the group of girls approaching him. He finally looked up when their shadows fell in front of him.

"H-hi Neji," stammered his cousin looking down at her feet.

He sighed, wishing she would just be more confident in herself. "Yes Hinata, what can I do for you?" They didn't often see each other around school as they were in different grades and their groups of friends frequented different areas of the school. Hinata's liked to hang out on the rooftop basketball courts whilst his preferred the small garden courtyard. Hinata didn't often seek him out either nor he, she. Her friends must want some guy's contact details again. They used to try to hound him for Sasuke's number since they were on a lot of sporting teams together and Ino and Sakura had crushes on him.

"I f-forgot my l-lunch m-money t-today, c-could you lend m-me some p-please?" she half whispered, looking embarrassed.

"We didn't have money to lend her either," piped up Sakura apologetically before nudging Ino sharply when Sasuke strolled past with Naruto waving his arms excitedly beside him talking about something, probably ramen or football.

Neji sighed and searched his wallet and pockets for money without much luck. He barely noticed Lee staring at his cousin's pink haired friend with rounder than usual eyes and his mouth hanging open until Tenten elbowed the boy sharply. "I've only got two dollars," he muttered giving Hinata the coins. It was all he had left after lending Tenten money to buy lunch yesterday and buying the new Bleach manga.

"That's sad," Tenten observed dryly. "All the more reason you should try to get a job at Maccas with us."

He frowned at her, "You owe me money from yesterday."

"It was only three dollars, all I got was a lousy sandwich!"

"What about the manga?"

"You said you were buying it for yourself!"

"Well pay up the three dollars then," he snapped holding his palm out expectantly.

"I can't pay you back till I get my allowance," she muttered.

"You'd better, you spend it all as soon as you get it."

"N-neji, it's o-okay. T-two dollars is e-enough," Hinata interjected hurriedly, not wanting to be the cause of a falling out between Neji and one of his friends.

Both Ino and Sakura tried not to laugh as they dragged Hinata away to buy food. It was amusing to watch Tenten push his buttons.

Lee sighed happily as he continued to stare after the girls, "She is the most beautiful creature I've ever set eyes on in my whole entire life," he announced to his friends.

Tenten and Neji exchanged looks, Lee in love was a new development and they didn't know if it was a good thing or not. "Which one? There were three of them," Tenten pointed out helpfully.

"The one with the pink hair and amazing green eyes," breathed Lee dreamily.

"Sakura Haruno?" Neji raised an eyebrow disbelievingly. She wasn't ugly but she had an alien look with that colouring and big forehead. Frankly he could think of better looking girls.

"Sakura Haruno," Lee repeated happily. "I will make her my girlfriend by the end of the summer or else I will not be a worthy opponent of you Neji."

Neji tried not to choke on the water he was drinking from his water bottle. "It's fine Lee, you can have her, I'm not interested in her at all."

"But I shall be the first to get a girlfriend," said Lee standing up with a determined fire burning in his eyes before running off in the direction the three girls had been walking in.

Tenten turned towards her remaining friend and tilted her head to one side, "Well?"

"Well what?" growled Neji, feeling rather irritated by recent turn of events, Lee had an annoying habit of turning everything into a competition.

"Do you think he'll win Sakura over?"

He shrugged, "Maybe, but in any case once Lee gets a girlfriend we'll hardly see him because he'll be a good attentive boyfriend and spend all his time with her."

Tenten sighed then said slowly, "Do you think we shouldn't encourage him then?"

"No, we shouldn't try to stop him from being happy just so that we can continue the way we are now. Lee won't ever stop being our friend but people grow up and grow apart, it's just part of life," he replied. He glanced over at Tenten who was looking very contemplative.

"You're right, as usual," she said teasingly before her expression suddenly became serious. "I guess I just don't want my life to change because I always had this idea that the three of us would be together forever. Sometimes I just wish we didn't have to grow up because once we graduate from high school you'll go to your prestigious university to study, Lee will go off to train to be an Olympian and I'll hardly ever get to see you guys ever."

"You make it sound so final."

Tenten smiled at him, "You know you're my best friend right?"

A girl can kill a guy with a few words and it was those seven words that killed Neji Hyuuga.

"Yeah," he replied and stretched out on the grass so he could look at the blue cloudless sky.

A/N: Please feel free to leave me a review, reviews are always nice =)