"Neji! Neji!"

"NEJI!"

Guy and Lee had been wandering around the woods for a good thirty minutes, searching for a missing Neji Hyuga. They'd waited faithfully at the training field after being promised by said Hyuga that he would meet up with them, but he never showed. A quick mental analysis of the situation between teacher and student provided them with a single, unbeatable explanation for Neji's lateness: he had been kidnapped! It was the only plausible reason for missing the exclusive, VIP, crab-walk-around-Konoha-a-thon that Lee and Guy devised on the spot that morning. What person in their right mind would have any reason to miss such an amazing event? Unless, of course, they were abducted on their way! Upon realization of poor Neji's predicament, the two shinobi set out on a self-proclaimed rescue mission, heading straight for the woods.

"Guy-sensei! Look at this! I think I've found a lead," Lee shouted, waving Guy over.

He pointed to two relatively recent sets of footprints. One pair was close to or exactly Neji's size; the others were a bit larger. They seemed to be headed in the direction of an old building that was once used for storage by the village.

"I can see it now, Lee! Poor Neji, on his merry way to crab-race with us around town, swiped by rogue-nin and pulled off into the forest against his will!"

"You're right! And with his luck, they're probably planning to lock him in that old shack and leave him for dead!"

Guy and Lee took a moment to dry the cartoonish streams of tears brought on by their melodramatic tale of Neji's alleged misfortune.

'We can't let the enemy win, Guy-sensei! Let's be real men and go after them, deal with the rogue, and free Neji so we can take him for two laps of crab-walking around town!"

The two nodded in affirmative to each other, sporting ridiculous grins, and took off through the trees.

They came to a stop outside of a small clearing, which the trail of footsteps disappeared into. Creeping silently along the row of shrubbery that separated them from Neji and his "kidnapper", they each ducked behind a tree to listen in on the situation on the other side.

"Nnh.. S-stop it! D-d-don't tease me!"

Lee and Guy shared a simultaneous jaw-drop. The voice- clearly Neji's- sounded endangered and helpless! What was the enemy doing to him? Tying him up? Slapping him around?

"Keh... Shut up... You know you like it, Nej..."

The green duo's facial expressions changed from shock to anger in an instant. Whatever this rogue ninja was doing, it was bad. Mocking Neji by telling him how he enjoyed the torture, shutting him up so callously... even the familiar way he shortened Neji's name. It was disgusting. If there was one thing that Guy and Lee both hated, it was when someone in a position of power was inhumane or unnecessary with their punishment of someone under them, and that only doubled when the person in power was an antagonist.

Deciding right then that what they'd heard was quite enough, they jumped into action, fists ready and nerves steeled. They glanced at each other in a "roger" signal, and burst, perfectly synchronized, through the barrier of plant life.

"Halt, enemy ninja! Unhand Neji now, and we might just be kind enough to take you in alive! Behold, Might Guy and Rock Lee, the ultimate rescue team! We've vanquished thousands of wannabe kidnappers across the globe! Cross us, and you'll wish you were never- born?..."

Lee and Guy stood in the middle of the clearing, striking outrageously hamlike poses that apparently struck them as "courageous". They had been able to improvise a good bit of monologue and over-the-top bluffing to scare some sense into Neji's kidnapper before they really took in the scene before them, noticing belatedly that Neji's kidnapper was not a kidnapping stranger after all. No, he was quite familiar.

Kiba Inuzuka.

Kiba Inuzuka, who was currently shirtless, sweaty, and quite tousled-looking, and had Neji pinned against the wall with his leather-pants-clad hips, using his hands to pull open the lapels of Neji's loose kosode top. He was frozen in place, head and neck turned to face the very loud intruders, mouth hanging open and one eyebrow raised.

If Kiba looked tousled, then Neji looked like absolute hell. His long, chocolate locks were piled on top of his head in a messy topknot, exposing his white neck and upper chest, both of which were covered in fresh hickeys. He was practically hanging on Kiba's shoulders for dear life, fearing the stunned dog-nin would drop him at any moment. His normally impeccable clothes were wrinkled, and his forehead protector had come loose and fallen to the ground by his feet. He too stared at Lee and Guy in surprise, the already prominent blush on his cheeks worsening by the second.

The four ninja stood, gaping at each other in awkward silence, for what seemed to Neji like eons. Finally, Guy and Lee broke the silence...

By laughing.

It began with a contagious giggle, and soon escalated into full-scale cackling, complete with both Lee and Guy falling to the ground, rolling in hysterics. Neji blanched. He wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole and never come out. The situation wasn't helped at all by Kiba's blatant unresponsiveness, either; the poor dog-nin hadn't moved a muscle since the green duo's outlandishly theatrical entrance, and having him stand there dumbly while Neji wallowed in embarrassment was irritating to the Hyuga. He poked Kiba in the chest, earning him a sign of life, at least, when Kiba met his gaze with an equally tripped-out one and shifted his hips to un-pin Neji from the wall.

As Guy and Lee came down from their laughing fit, Neji slipped away from Kiba and dusted himself off. Taking a deep breath, he mustered up the courage to speak,

"Guy-sensei, if you'll let me, I'm sure I can explain my actio-"

"No need, no need! If anything, we should be apologizing!" Lee said, Guy nodding in agreement. "In our blind assumption, we ruined a private and beautiful moment! For shame!"

Neji buried his rapidly reddening face in his palm.

"Indeed! How could we have ever jumped to the conclusion of a gruesome kidnapping when the evidence of the true story was right under our noses... Neji, in desperate need of alone time with his lover, forsook our training for a make-out session!"

Guy began to laugh again just from the genius of his own deduction skills.

Neji, in an attempt to save face by keeping the conversation serious, started,

"I-I'm sorry, Guy-sensei; I shouldn't have lied, but I figured you'd try to talk me into going with you, and I-"

"Ah, the escapades of youth!" Guy swooned, cutting him off, "there's no need to make excuses, Neji; I understand completely! This behaviour, the need to fulfill the base desires of the human spirit, is only natural at your age! Why, even I experienced such feelings in my younger days..."
"This is wei-ird," Kiba whispered. Neji shot him a silencing glare.

"Next time, though, don't be afraid to tell me if you need some extra time off to spend together, alright?" Guy asked, winking in their direction with a thumbs-up.

"Guy and Lee, the Doctors of Love, are always willing to allow leeway for romantic pursuits!" Lee added, mimicking Guy's wink-and-thumbs-up.

Neji could barely manage a squeak in response.

"Well, we should be going now, Lee; we'd best leave these two lovebirds to their business! Wouldn't want to stick around too long and keep things from getting steamy, would we?"

Kill me now, please, Neji thought to himself.

"Negative, Guy-sensei! I believe we've intruded upon Neji's love life more than enough for one day!"

With a quick salute in Neji's direction and a nod to each other, Guy and Lee leapt forth from the clearing and made their way back to the village, leaving behind a painfully humiliated Neji and a thoroughly dumbfounded Kiba.

"Neji?"

"Yes," Neji choked out, cheeks burning as he held on to the other boy's shoulder.

"The hell was that?"

"That is the reason I told you we shouldn't keep at it; I knew they'd come looking for me!"

Kiba shook his head, clearing it a bit, before taking Neji by the waist and pulling him in for a hug. Neji reluctantly returned it, figuring it wasn't in his best interest to stay mad at the Inuzuka when he'd admittedly enabled him and let him keep going earlier...

"Well, sorry... Hey, at least he wasn't mad, right?"

"Maybe. I've seen Guy-sensei mad, and I still don't think it compares to... whatever... that was," Neji said, shuddering.

"Hn... Good point. Y'know, now that they're gone and you have extra time off, we could make out again, if it'd make you feel better," Kiba suggested, a sly grin creeping on to his face.

Neji sighed, rolling his eyes.

"Oh, alright... why not. I'll take anything as long as it'll keep the memories of that out of my head..."

"Heh... That's all I need to hear," Kiba said.

The two boys continued happily with their earlier activities, thrilled to know, if anything good could be made of the situation, that Neji's eccentric teammates wouldn't be back to interrupt them for the rest of the day.