In Men's Clothing

It was something of an uncomfortable thing, to be in their shared apartment right now—or so Neji mused as he desperately tried to concentrate on the textbook he should be reading. Unfortunately, the distraction he currently faced was so adept at magnetizing his attention that Neji found focusing on homework a very difficult feat indeed.

Why had he agreed to a female roommate, again?

Tenten was flouncing in the kitchen, easily seen over the island and small bar Neji often sat at to do his homework. Ten minutes beforehand he had been reading on the couch, but Tenten had come in and flopped next to him, turning on the television and proving herself to be quite the hindrance when attempting to get work done. Neji had proceeded to relocate. Not six minutes later, Tenten had apparently gotten bored of the TV, and was flitting around doing seemingly nothing, but acting as if she was. He was positive she had filled the teapot and poured it out, only to refill it, at least three times already. She was filling it for the fourth time, and when she put it on the stove she finally turned the burner on—something she had cheerfully neglected to do the previous times.

The problem did not lie in the fact that it was Tenten buzzing to and fro, making quite a spectacle of herself, but rather what she was wearing that was the root of Neji's current problem.

His shirt. It was his shirt that currently covered (or otherwise) Tenten's short torso, a crimson two-toned silk that on any other occasion Neji would have found quite flattering on her. Well. The colour, at least, seeing as the shirt was several sizes too big.

But these circumstances, though some might not see it that way, were not the most opportune ones, and even as Neji quietly took notes, copying vocabulary words down with handwriting that was not quite as neat as usual, he couldn't help the inevitable slide of his eyes from the paper to the girl in front of him.

The button-down collared shirt hung loosely around her, and would have masked all sense of curvature to her body if it had not been mostly unbuttoned. And by mostly, Neji meant completely, except for one. It was the second button beneath her breasts, the location of which was about three-quarters of an inch above her bellybutton. While it seemed to cover what mattered, everything leading up to that point was exposed to his calculating eyes. Eyes that were currently narrowed as their owner forced them to cast down at the work before them.

It wasn't that he didn't find her breasts attractive; he was just trying to be respectful.

There was a cabinet mounted above the island. At that moment, Tenten decided she needed something from that cabinet, and snagged a small stool from the corner of the room, setting it in front of the bar where Neji sat and stepping up on it, reaching for the door of the cupboard.

Neji stared with eyes wide and mouth partially opened at the display. Her stomach was muscled neatly from her scheduled exercise every week, skin healthy and toned and so smooth looking. The shirt pulled tight against her breasts as she shifted, inching along her curves to the point where he thought it would slip off.

One second later, it did, and the material gathered on her arm below the shoulder it had only a moment before occupied. The line of fabric hung so low Neji could see the subtle shift in skin tone where her breast stopped and her nipple began. Its exact shade against the tan of her skin was an image Neji was not soon to forget. But, before he was caught staring he quickly averted his eyes, almost aggressively willing himself to just look down at his homework and ignore that which was in front of him.

He swallowed hard.

After eons seemed to go by, Tenten finally stepped down, curiously holding nothing in her hand. The kettle was whistling.

Neji successfully managed to block out the background noise, and was triumphantly turning to the questions at the end of the chapter when he heard a clink next to him on the tile of the counter.

Looking up, he found himself treated to an eyeful of cleavage, and a few inches up, Tenten's face, staring curiously down at his work, seemingly unaware of the show she was giving off. She pushed a mug of steaming tea toward him. "Thought you could use some," she explained, smiling disarmingly. "How's the work going?"

Completely and utterly dreadful, he wanted to say, but settled on an indistinct grunt and taking a gulp from his tea. It was hot and burned his throat, but Neji didn't care—a distraction was a distraction. Perhaps now would be the time to go get some water to soothe his throat. He had just downed liquid that had been boiling a few minutes before, after all.

But Tenten was leaning over the counter still, looking with more curiosity than she should have towards homework at the textbook in front of him. "Mayan history?" she inquired, trying to read the text upside down. "Sweet."

Neji abruptly slammed his book shut, rising and moving to go work in his room. He hated using the desk there, and so rarely did, because the bedroom was cramped and the desk was badly furnished with little room for everything he needed. However, this was a serious case.

Sacrifices would be made.

Fifteen minutes later Neji heard footsteps behind him. As they neared, he speculated that he had never fancied the thought of dropping dead as he did right at this point in time. It didn't work right now better than it had before.

Muscled arms that were almost too strong for a woman wound around his shoulders and a chin took its spot on his shoulder. It wasn't an unfamiliar position, but in the line of current circumstances…

Well. To put it quite frankly, Tenten apparently… was cold. Ahem. And certain things he could feel very easily against his back through his shirt, and he wondered with a mind dripping with guilt if the shirt on her happened to be absent from the space between them, because his at-home wear was not exactly thick, and there was so little that he could feel the heat from her body against his skin, and it was more distracting than someone leaning against him had ever been in his life.

He cleared his throat, and fidgeted, and wondered if she'd say something, or, even better, leave completely. Neither happened, and he tried to grasp why watching him do homework was so interesting that she had to follow him into his bedroom to do it.

If he turned his head a fraction to the right, and looked out of the corner of his eye, he could see the carved line of her collarbone against her throat. His mind conjured up the image of her defined torso unbidden, and Neji had to slap himself mentally to make it disappear. Right now he was not supposed to be ogling his roommate or having fantasies about her (rather beautiful) body. Right now Neji was supposed to be working, and not focusing on every little detail he could see, from the spread of her hips, to her bellybutton, to the smooth curve of her ribcage, to the colour, size, and position of her nipples, which he had been flashed with at least four times in the entire time she had been flouncing around the apartment in indecent attire.

Sheesh. Sure, they had made out… a few times while living together, and things had gotten… interesting at certain points, and he was absolutely positive that they had both liked each other for some time now, but honestly. Did that really give her incentive to walk around barely covered as if the apartment was all her own?

Tenten's attention seemed to wind from his homework and to his neck, which she turned toward, eyes closing and nose and forehead resting against the skin in a relaxed way that put the tension of his own body to shame. Her breath was hot and rolled across him like a wave of particularly desirable something-or-other. She hummed softly in what he could only assume was contentment.

Heaven above, this was far too much.

Neji stood up slowly, to avoid jarring her, and carefully unwound the arms from around his chest. "I just remembered," he intoned quietly, and rather stiffly. "I made plans to study at the library today." It was a cheap lie, but at least it would get him out of the house. This was an embarrassing enough spectacle as it was, anyways. Without a second to lose, Neji made a beeline for the door, only stopping to grab his jacket and slip on his shoes on his way out.

He didn't notice until he was halfway down the driveway that he had forgotten his books.

The worst part, he supposed while on his drive to the library, was that so-not-body-shy Tenten probably had absolutely no idea that anything was wrong, and couldn't even begin to conceive the effect she had unwittingly had on him. She was lucky he had such strong self control.

"So, Tenten, how'd it go?" Ino's squeal was excited and infectious for anyone who was in the mood to be cheerful. Which, for the record, Tenten wasn't.

Kicking a rock out of the path glumly, she grumbled, "Awful."

Ino and Sakura, who had been until this point keeping her distance, both swarmed to Tenten at this point, invading her personal bubble with demands as to why her big night had turned out as dismal as she said. "Didn't our plan work?" Sakura whined in question.

"No!" Though she had tried to contain it, the word came out a wail, and Tenten plopped down on a park bench, burying her face in her hands. "He didn't even look at me," she confessed mournfully through her fingers. "I mean, I don't think I could have made it anymore obvious, but he just didn't seem to get it! I kept pushing, but he even made it a point to look away." The girls made various sounds of sympathy and shock, patting their dismayed friend.

The rest of the day was spent watching bad movies and eating icecream at Sakura's apartment, bemoaning Tenten's failed seduction of her roommate and long-time love interest, Hyuuga Neji.