Characters: Neji, Tenten, Hinata (mentioned)
Summary: She looked almost exactly like a china doll.
Pairings: NejiTen
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

When they were children, Neji once came across Hinata playing with a china doll.

It was a deeply overcast day in summer, the humidity buzzing and the sky a dark and stormy gray, and Neji found his four-year-old cousin in a secluded, neglected garden, huddling under a gnarled bush in the hard-packed earth with the doll in her lap.

Neji supposed that his aunt (not a Hyuuga by birth) must have given her the doll, since Hyuuga children weren't supposed to have toys, but rather to focus on their training from as early an age as possible. It only occurred to Neji later that Hiashi may have allowed Hinata to keep the doll as a sign that he was already contemplating passing her over as a good candidate to be his successor.

The doll had a white painted face with dark brown hair tied in a knob at the back of its head. Its blue eyes were disturbingly blank and staring. The doll wore a lavender kimono whose skirt was already slightly ingrained with dirt—Hinata took the doll everywhere when she was alone, since none of her cousins would play with her.

Years later, Neji looks long and hard at his kunoichi teammate, sitting at the base of a tree sharpening kunai with a whetstone, and thinks with wonder that she looks exactly like Hinata's old china doll.

They have the same face. Fair and unblemished skin, high, broad cheekbones and a heart-shaped face. Tenten's eyes are brown, not blue, but they're just as far-seeing, just as penetrating, and more beautiful by half, eyes that have depth and can see.

She seems to possess all the same delicacy of a fragile china doll too. Long, graceful arms and legs that are possessed only of small bones that look almost as though they could crack and splinter with a hard wind on them.

It's amazing, Neji thinks. Amazing that Tenten looks so frail, just like the china doll.

But he knows she's not.

Beneath those white sleeves Neji knows he will find hard, lean muscle and a few scars to break up the smooth coat of flesh—proof that this is a battle-hardened woman, not a soft girl. Those long, deft hands are callused and hard, capable of wielding both a kunai and a teacup with equal skill.

She's not frail. She's not fragile. She won't break if someone breathes on her too hard.

And Neji's glad of that.

Tenten wouldn't be Tenten if she were like the china doll in every way.

He'd miss that confident smile, that bold, bright gleam in her eyes, if she were like that.

Because a china doll can't smile like her.

And a china doll can't captivate him the same way.