Disclaimer: I do not own Narutoor any affiliates. If I did, it would be called Neji. Or Tenten.

Written for the Live Journal NejiTen Contest 2007. First, Outer, Inner, Last.

The year that Tenten became a Chuunin had been a year of firsts. It had not been the first time she'd been discharged from the hospital with a scar, but there was something different about her this time.

Her family hadn't commented much on her leaving the house one morning in a white dress, but Neji had frowned.

"You can't be seriously thinking of training in that," he said disdainfully, when she walked into their clearing.

"Well, I'm not training today, am I?" She replied. Her voice was husky. Very husky (Neji would later have to confess that he found it very... attractive).

Neji blinked several times as he took in what she was wearing. A white cotton dress, with lace edging and ribbon trimmings to bring in the waistline. Floral clips to pin flyaway tendrils of hair back into her braid. An anklet. Completely impractical shoes. Rings and silver bangles. A sparkly, glamorous scarf that had no purpose whatsoever other than… to hide the ugly marks he'd given her.

"Sit down, then." Neji replied gruffly. He didn't really like this whole dress idea. It reminded him too much of the mock kimono some designer had cut apart and then labelled as fashionable. Black silk, a red obi and gold embroidery flashed in his mind and Neji stared at her, his mind's eye projecting the dress onto her lithe form, his hand against her neck, and her hands up against the wall. No wonder she shrank away from him.

"If I get this dirty, my mother would skin me alive," Tenten muttered, but she sat beside him anyway. "I have to be home in half an hour because my cousins are here for lunch."

The pair sat together awkwardly, refusing to meet each other's eyes. Tenten began to fiddle with the scarf and the bangles slithered down her wrist with a bright chime, glinting in the dappled sunlight.

"May I see it?" Neji asked tentatively.

Tenten looked up at him briefly. He'd been losing sleep lately, she knew. There were light smudges beneath his eyes and uncharacteristic worry made his eyes look… old. His hair had grown quickly over the past year and it was currently not its usual (strangely) shiny and enviously healthy state. Something was troubling him.

More often than not, it was some kind of Clan Tension. The other cases would be Tenten. It was laughable, sometimes, how predictable he could be.

"Tenten?" Neji prompted softly. He was being gentle with her, on purpose. Someone had probably told him. Or worse still, maybe he remembered something.

Tenten reluctantly raised her hands to her neck. She couldn't blame him- she wouldn't, either. But… the same eyes that wanted to see the marks that marred her skin had been the eyes that had burned her with their hatred and anger.

Neji watched as the scarf fell away to reveal the dark marks that still had not faded. She fidgeted uncomfortably and involuntarily flinched as he reached towards her with cool fingers.

"Tenten, I won't hurt you."

This time. She bit back the accusatory comment. He felt guilty, she knew that much at least.

"Please." Neji put his hand on her shoulder. Finally, the years of trust and teamwork arose in Tenten's mind- something that she'd forgotten over the past few days.

Surrounded by the scent of earth, sap and bark – Konoha– in the shade of their beloved oak trees, the two shinobi paused for a brief moment. Her bruises would heal over- and so would Neji and Tenten, unlike the kunoichi's new scar.

"What did I do to you?" Neji asked quietly, as if he was almost afraid to disturb the silence.

"Do you really want to know?" Tenten's voice trembled and they both knew it was not only because of her sore throat. "You came into the room, after Lee and Gai-sensei had gone off to secure Arata in a different room. I don't know where you had come from, but you were… angry."

It was an understatement by far, but his rage had been too far from expression with mere words.

"You were calling my name and pounding on the door, and there was not a weapon in sight because I hadn't been allowed to take any past the metal detectors. I let you in and called for Lee, but you insisted that you were fine." She took a deep breath and leaned against the tree. "You pinned me up against the wall with your hands around my neck. I got out at first, but you overpowered me and demanded to know who I was. And then you stabbed me." Tenten concluded, placing a protective hand over her hidden scar. "Lee and Gai-sensei came back into the room and knocked you out, and took me to the hospital. And that's all that I remember."

"I'm sorry," he replied awkwardly. He'd hurt her before, in training- Jyuuken hits had been the main reasons for her various hospitalisations but she'd never been scarred psychologically before. Besides, his apologies were much better when she couldn't hear him- like always.

With a still slightly unsure look in her eye, Tenten allowed Neji to pull her closer into his warm, lean body. With a gentleness that did more than expose his guilt, he caressed the bruises he had given her.

Tenten placed her hand firmly on his chest, pushing lightly against his weight. He responded silently, sliding his hands away from her neck and onto her shoulders.

She was close to him now; she could smell his skin and see his pupils- small circles of silvery grey, fractionally darker than his lilac irises. She could feel the warmth of his gentle breaths spread across her cheeks like sunlight on a windowpane. She felt his heart rate increase beneath her fingertips. His eyes dropped to her mouth, now curved in a breathlessly sensual smile. There was a tentative innocence to him now- yes, he really was not the same person who had left her skin marred.

"What's that smile for?" He murmured, pulling her up into his lap. Tenten's hands moved up from his chest to his neck.

"Nothing," She smiled again. "You, maybe."

"Really?"

He didn't wait for her to reply this time, and captured her lips swiftly, chastely, with the image of her smile still firmly stuck in his mind. Wrapping his arm firmly behind her back, he quickly removed the band that restrained Tenten's hair in its braid. He smirked against her lips when he heard her gasp lightly.

"Prick," she smiled as she pulled away breathlessly.

"You love it."

He leaned back and ran his fingers through her luxuriant locks, taking no heed of the small floral clips that fell to the ground, soon to be forgotten. It was just like he'd imagined. The rich, silken locks settled to frame her face and he smirked as he cupped her cheeks in his hands.

As a response, she tugged the ends of Neji's hair before slipping the hair band free.

"And what's that smirk for?" She asked, shutting her eyes as Neji kissed her again.

"Nothing," he replied. He kissed his way down to her bruises, his lips ghosting over the dark marks. "You, maybe."

"Really?" She asked breathlessly as he kissed her again.

Neji drew away for a moment before answering. "Really."

Their lips met once again in a kiss that was far less chaste than the others that had come before. His arms were wrapped tightly around her, her hands in his hair, still running through those silken strands that smelled like the cedars in the deep forest. She liked having leverage over him- he more than deserved it, considering his actions as of late. Her head was bent over his own, her auburn tresses spilling over their cheeks and mingling with his ebony hued hair. Smiling inwardly, Tenten finally granted Neji the entrance he'd been begging for, letting him taste her just once before pulling away. Smirking, he moved in for another kiss, but Tenten moved back with a devious spark in her eye.

"How is it… that I feel that you're just a completely different person when you're alone?" Neji asked, hearing little more than the frenetic beats of his own heart.

Tenten placed her head on his shoulder and smiled. "Because," she replied, "it's the truth."

"I see." He felt Tenten wrap her arms closer around his neck as she checked her watch and smirked as she gasped before a string of colourful curses burst forth from her mouth.

"I'm going to be late!" She scrambled to pick up her clips and Neji watched her bemusedly. "The least that you could do is help me, you know."

"I'd rather just sit here and laugh at you," Neji replied. They both knew that the closest that he'd ever come to a laugh was a half attempt at a smile.

"Laugh away," Tenten replied tartly. "You can train with Lee for your Jounin exams."

Neji dropped his smirk.

"Faker," Tenten muttered as she brushed off the back of her dress, the skirt crushed and rumpled. She hurriedly braided her hair again and draped the scarf nonchalantly about her neck.

She was about to walk off when Neji decided to say what he'd been meaning to say for a while now.

"Tenten?"

She stopped and turned just as she was about to leave the shade and protection of the oak tree.

"Just so you know…" He looked at the ground and Tenten could have sworn that he was blushing, "… I like you in white."

The year Tenten became a Chuunin had definitely been a year of firsts. But it had been the last year that she'd worn that pink shirt.