Happy Birthday

#36 – Fiesta

Summary: What makes a happy birthday? Being with the one you love.

Characters: Tenten, Neji, mentions of Lee

Word Count: 405

Extra warning: PG

A/N: For Tenten's birthday (and my own to a lesser extent). Neji/Ten undertones, but nothing extremely overt. Happy March 9th to everybody!!!

Tenten threw the kunai without a second thought.

The assailant dodged, or so she imagined, and appeared quite quickly right behind her. “If that was supposed to hit me, Tenten, I must say your aim has gotten sloppy.”

His breath tickled her cheek softly.

“If I’d wanted it to hit you, Neji, it would have.” Tenten opened her eyes slowly, and turned to look at her teammate. “What’d you want?”

Neji sat down beside her. “I’m supposed to find you to drag you to the surprise birthday party you ran away from.”

“I miss the days when nobody knew my birthday.”

“Liar.” It was simple, clear, cool.

“Alright fine. But I miss the days when nobody thought to throw me a party.” Tenten scowled. “Who throws a ninja a surprise birthday party anyhow?” Temari slouched further down, the back of her shirt riding up a little as she did so. She dug her foot into the ground. “Birthday’s suck.”

“Hn.”

“Are you gonna drag me back?”

Neji looked at her briefly, “If I did, I would have to attend the party.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’.” Tenten scowled. “You know, I heard Lee refer to it as a ‘fiesta’? I think all my body cringed when I heard that.” Tenten leant her head against Neji’s shoulder and watched the sky in happiness.

While Tenten was sure Neji cared enough about her to want to wish her a happy birthday, he had not done so. She was not upset that he hadn’t – she just chalked it up to another peculiar quirk of Neji’s persona. Neji was a hard person to get to know; Tenten was only grateful she’d learned as much as could about her stoic teammate. He was a great friend and she was lucky to have him.

Tenten’s eyes flickered closed and she felt the hands of sleep begin to claw at her.

She was tired.

Tenten descended into an odd state of being half asleep, half awake. It was relaxing, unusual, and blissful.

She was minutely aware as Neji shifted lightly to the side and toyed with her bangs a bit. She was minutely aware of his slow breathing. She was also barely aware of the sound of his voice, as he huskily and quietly whispered, “Happy Birthday, Tenten.”

It was a happy birthday.