"Invigorating test of our stamina until our fingers freeze and fall off," Tenten muttered. Boys. No, really, just Lee and Sensei would do something like this. Her hair took just as long as Neji's to attend to, since she didn't want it slipping out of the buns in the middle of fighting.
Her weapons, regular and makeshift, were checked in their holsters as she strapped everything on. And her eyes were half-closed for part of it. Thank everything for routine.
Well. There was one thing she could agree with Neji on. "Try this tomorrow and I'm finding the silvery tape stuff I threatened the little Uchihas with."
She joined Neji in the kitchen, fixing tea for herself as well. At least they could get away with that luxury. If this was Sensei instead of Lee, chances were that they wouldn't get tea. And would have to finish fixing hair in the middle of moving out. It was because of his haircut. It took what, five seconds to fix that. Probably less.
"I'm not doing two hundred pushups. No matter what. The ground's too darn cold." Finishing her tea, she put the cup in the sink. She'd get it later. "All right. Where to?"
“We can do the pushups for a cooldown when we get back,” Lee said. It was important to slowly ease down from exercise, after all, and it conveniently bypassed Tenten’s excuse about the ground being cold. He managed to wait, just barely, for both of them to finish the tea- and really, did Neji have to sip his that slowly? before ushering both of them out the door.
The morning air was cold and crisp against Lee’s face, cutting easily through the dubious protection of his thin spandex jumpsuit. If he’d been a lesser man, he would’ve started having doubts about the wisdom of training when his breath turned to fog on the air and there was still a coating of morning frost on the grass.
“Where is your usual sparring place?” He hadn’t had the chance to explore the area surrounding their house much yet, and he looked at his team-mates expectantly.
"You can do pushups to relax." Neji groused uncharitably, refusing to move until he finished his tea. The morning was quiet if one ignored the anxiety in Lee's impatient eyes and feet- which always seemed to be obnoxious despite the absence of sound. Neji leveled a cool, even stare at Lee as he finally finished his tea and retrieved his bag before heading for the door.
The Hyuuga bristled unhappily as the cold air rushed into the house and turned to close the door. He missed the tentative heat in the house already and seriously thought about refusing to go altogether. But then he remembered the night's conversation, and his sigh froze into ice crystals in the chilly air as it escaped him.
"...I usually perform light training by the river..." He offered, shrugging, and stepped off the walkway to gesture in the general direction. Used to leading by some unspoken agreement, he didn't wait for a reply before taking off.
"No pushups. Period." It really was much too early to be cheerful. That was one thing she wasn't going to budge on; there was no way to do them in a way that didn't look stupid. At least she wasn't taking as long as Neji. That meant it wasn't her in danger of disappointing Lee.
Tenten gestured in a different direction. "There's a weak area in the safety fence that way. I like to make sure I'm still being accurate. But that's probably not the best place if we want to just work together without something random blundering in. We can try Neji's spot." They hadn't done much in the way of sparring together since she'd gotten here. When they were the two mostly in charge of keeping the household working, it was hard to find a whole lot of time for both of them to be away.
“We can go to Neji’s place today, and yours tomorrow.” There was a spark of interest in Lee’s eyes at the mention of ‘something random’, but Neji was already walking away as if expecting them both to follow, and the entire point of this morning was helping to bring Team Gai back together. He fell into step beside the Hyuuga, easily matching his pace, and looked back over his shoulder at Tenten. He hadn’t missed the implication behind the different answers- they weren’t even training together?
“What all do you do here?” Lee asked, expression curious.
Too tired to care that Lee was trying to accommodate both of them, it wouldn't be until later that he sorted out the reason for this venture other than a severe lack of common sense on Lee's part. Neji stifled the urge to yawn- the winter air slowly prickling away at his exhaustion.
"We manage a household, Lee- two in fact. It's been enough trying to make sure the second has enough insulation for the season..." He trailed off, frowning at the landscape in front of them.
"Other than that, we'll experience various unpleasant 'events' every other week and filter in new arrivals as they appear- as well as clean up and manage whatever the aftermath of any particular event holds. Of course, we also have the Akatsuki and other threats and issues to concern ourselves with."
Tenten nodded to Lee's proposal. It worked, and it was peaceful. There was no reason for Neji to be upset at it. "That works for me. But if we do something tomorrow, we do it when the sun rises. I'm not doing four in the morning again when it's this cold. Maybe when it warms up a bit." Not likely. But maybe.
"So we cook, for whomever is home, tend to anyone that's sick or injured, do the dishes, help gather supplies..." Tenten shrugged. "Sometimes we get help, especially if we ask for it. But it's easier to just do things. At least it's fun when the supplies fight back. We just dealt with giant birds - violent and tasty." She was starting to wake up, which meant she was starting to smile just a bit.
There was a bit of a sigh as Neji listed the challenges. "At least there are fewer Akatsuki than there used to be. But they're trying to recruit Sasuke, they're trying hard, and he keeps going over there. So sooner or later..." She was not happy with this, and had said as much to Jiraiya-sama, but there wasn't much they could do, not here.
Lee looked between Neji and Tenten, listening carefully and nodding occasionally as they spoke. He felt a touch of relief when Tenten halfway agreed to training together again the next day. It’d be easy enough to make ‘if we do something’ into ‘when we do something’, and that was a step in the right direction.
“It sounds like there is a lot to do here!” And a lot that the two had apparently been shouldering on their own. It was no wonder that they both seemed stressed. “After we finish training, you will have to show me how I can help.”
Helping to run a household would be a new experience for Lee, but he was no stranger to hard work, and he was fully prepared to enthusiastically throw himself into any task his team-mates set.
"Ah," Neji agreed, nodding once and approaching the rush of water, "It's enough to keep us busy on a daily basis, and something we should be properly attentive to. You could assist by gathering supplies or running errands. With your natural speed, the task will finish sooner and you're the least likely to catch cold."
As long as Lee didn't try to cook or handle anything fragile, Neji didn't mind having his help where they could use it. But he also couldn't assign him tedious tasks he'd grow tired of too quickly. With Lee's attention span and love for outdoors, training, and his general ability to talk to anyone, sending him into the city seemed the best option.
"It seems the river has frozen in some places," Neji said mostly to himself, looking over the bank to inspect it. "To be expected, I suppose."
"Should be, need to be." Tenten shook her head. "I'm sure if we slacked off people would survive, but things would go downhill pretty fast. And there's no reason to ignore what needs to be done." She looked over at Lee. "That might suit you well if you want to help like that."
Sparing a glance at the river, Tenten was more focused on the ground. It was pretty flat - made more for close-range fighting like that Neji and Lee used as opposed to distance. But she'd sparred with them many times before. This would be nothing new.
"We just need to make sure not to go in. There's no reason to drown on top of freezing. Unless you had a tactical reason for noting the state of the river? It would be a tricky surface to fight on."
Lee glanced up from where he’d been stretching at Tenten’s comment, and looked over at the river. The ice was thin enough to be treacherous, forming a patchwork that would be just as easy to slip and fall on as step through. The grin that Lee got then was a familiar one- one that usually meant he’d gotten one of his admirably bad ideas in his head. The more he thought about it, the better it seemed. After all, it’d be awkward to try and spar with the three of them. Definitely something that they should do, but not today- not when the focus was on all of them training together as a team, rather than two of them pairing off to fight while the other watched, waiting for their turn.
Lee stepped out onto the delicate ice, expending just enough chakra through his feet to make sure that it would hold his weight, and beamed at his team-mates. “We should have a race!”
Neji glanced back at Tenten, a mild tiff of annoyance as he stood and folded his arms against the chill wind. "It was notable because this will be the first winter we'll have worry about frozen pipelines and the unsteady- or lack of -running water as a result of the cold."
But his look turned appropriately wary as Lee seemed to brighten at his comment, and as he spoke, regretted saying anything to begin with. That wasn't to say Lee wouldn't have thought of it on his own, but the possibility was gone now.
"A race, Lee?" He repeated skeptically, watching his teammate exert a special balance to remain on top of the fragile surface. Even with experienced chakra control and precision of that execution, he wondered if it'd bear all of their weight. "On the icy water, toward where?"
Of course Lee stepped onto the ice. Of course. She really shouldn't have mentioned that idea. She'd only been here a couple of months and already she was forgetting what encouraged Lee in dangerous ways?
"We could race. But I've already been warned to watch out for a squid in the lake..."
Hearing the annoyance in Neji's voice, Tenten took care not to match it. "We're training right now. We can worry about the house later. There's more than a few things to wonder and worry about there. And we're some of the few with running water. If it gives out, we'll cope like everyone else." She shrugged and focused on her own feet for a moment, adjusting the chakra flow and stepping out over Lee. Even if the ice gave out, they could move over water well enough.
Lee beamed happily at Tenten as she stepped onto the ice beside him, then looked at Neji hopefully.
"We can race to the lake, then back to here. The first person to make it all the way back wins!" It was simple in theory, but it would be treacherous in practice- perfect, in Lee's mind, for training. And if there was a giant squid in the lake that just happened to take offense at them dropping by... well, they'd had fun when they'd fought against that shark-man, hadn't they? Lee merrily ignored the fact that they'd spent most of that fight encaged in balls of water.
Her weapons, regular and makeshift, were checked in their holsters as she strapped everything on. And her eyes were half-closed for part of it. Thank everything for routine.
Well. There was one thing she could agree with Neji on. "Try this tomorrow and I'm finding the silvery tape stuff I threatened the little Uchihas with."
She joined Neji in the kitchen, fixing tea for herself as well. At least they could get away with that luxury. If this was Sensei instead of Lee, chances were that they wouldn't get tea. And would have to finish fixing hair in the middle of moving out. It was because of his haircut. It took what, five seconds to fix that. Probably less.
"I'm not doing two hundred pushups. No matter what. The ground's too darn cold." Finishing her tea, she put the cup in the sink. She'd get it later. "All right. Where to?"
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The morning air was cold and crisp against Lee’s face, cutting easily through the dubious protection of his thin spandex jumpsuit. If he’d been a lesser man, he would’ve started having doubts about the wisdom of training when his breath turned to fog on the air and there was still a coating of morning frost on the grass.
“Where is your usual sparring place?” He hadn’t had the chance to explore the area surrounding their house much yet, and he looked at his team-mates expectantly.
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The Hyuuga bristled unhappily as the cold air rushed into the house and turned to close the door. He missed the tentative heat in the house already and seriously thought about refusing to go altogether. But then he remembered the night's conversation, and his sigh froze into ice crystals in the chilly air as it escaped him.
"...I usually perform light training by the river..." He offered, shrugging, and stepped off the walkway to gesture in the general direction. Used to leading by some unspoken agreement, he didn't wait for a reply before taking off.
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Tenten gestured in a different direction. "There's a weak area in the safety fence that way. I like to make sure I'm still being accurate. But that's probably not the best place if we want to just work together without something random blundering in. We can try Neji's spot." They hadn't done much in the way of sparring together since she'd gotten here. When they were the two mostly in charge of keeping the household working, it was hard to find a whole lot of time for both of them to be away.
"What are you thinking you want, Lee?"
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“We can go to Neji’s place today, and yours tomorrow.” There was a spark of interest in Lee’s eyes at the mention of ‘something random’, but Neji was already walking away as if expecting them both to follow, and the entire point of this morning was helping to bring Team Gai back together. He fell into step beside the Hyuuga, easily matching his pace, and looked back over his shoulder at Tenten. He hadn’t missed the implication behind the different answers- they weren’t even training together?
“What all do you do here?” Lee asked, expression curious.
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"We manage a household, Lee- two in fact. It's been enough trying to make sure the second has enough insulation for the season..." He trailed off, frowning at the landscape in front of them.
"Other than that, we'll experience various unpleasant 'events' every other week and filter in new arrivals as they appear- as well as clean up and manage whatever the aftermath of any particular event holds. Of course, we also have the Akatsuki and other threats and issues to concern ourselves with."
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"So we cook, for whomever is home, tend to anyone that's sick or injured, do the dishes, help gather supplies..." Tenten shrugged. "Sometimes we get help, especially if we ask for it. But it's easier to just do things. At least it's fun when the supplies fight back. We just dealt with giant birds - violent and tasty." She was starting to wake up, which meant she was starting to smile just a bit.
There was a bit of a sigh as Neji listed the challenges. "At least there are fewer Akatsuki than there used to be. But they're trying to recruit Sasuke, they're trying hard, and he keeps going over there. So sooner or later..." She was not happy with this, and had said as much to Jiraiya-sama, but there wasn't much they could do, not here.
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“It sounds like there is a lot to do here!” And a lot that the two had apparently been shouldering on their own. It was no wonder that they both seemed stressed. “After we finish training, you will have to show me how I can help.”
Helping to run a household would be a new experience for Lee, but he was no stranger to hard work, and he was fully prepared to enthusiastically throw himself into any task his team-mates set.
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As long as Lee didn't try to cook or handle anything fragile, Neji didn't mind having his help where they could use it. But he also couldn't assign him tedious tasks he'd grow tired of too quickly. With Lee's attention span and love for outdoors, training, and his general ability to talk to anyone, sending him into the city seemed the best option.
"It seems the river has frozen in some places," Neji said mostly to himself, looking over the bank to inspect it. "To be expected, I suppose."
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Sparing a glance at the river, Tenten was more focused on the ground. It was pretty flat - made more for close-range fighting like that Neji and Lee used as opposed to distance. But she'd sparred with them many times before. This would be nothing new.
"We just need to make sure not to go in. There's no reason to drown on top of freezing. Unless you had a tactical reason for noting the state of the river? It would be a tricky surface to fight on."
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Lee stepped out onto the delicate ice, expending just enough chakra through his feet to make sure that it would hold his weight, and beamed at his team-mates. “We should have a race!”
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But his look turned appropriately wary as Lee seemed to brighten at his comment, and as he spoke, regretted saying anything to begin with. That wasn't to say Lee wouldn't have thought of it on his own, but the possibility was gone now.
"A race, Lee?" He repeated skeptically, watching his teammate exert a special balance to remain on top of the fragile surface. Even with experienced chakra control and precision of that execution, he wondered if it'd bear all of their weight. "On the icy water, toward where?"
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"We could race. But I've already been warned to watch out for a squid in the lake..."
Hearing the annoyance in Neji's voice, Tenten took care not to match it. "We're training right now. We can worry about the house later. There's more than a few things to wonder and worry about there. And we're some of the few with running water. If it gives out, we'll cope like everyone else." She shrugged and focused on her own feet for a moment, adjusting the chakra flow and stepping out over Lee. Even if the ice gave out, they could move over water well enough.
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"We can race to the lake, then back to here. The first person to make it all the way back wins!" It was simple in theory, but it would be treacherous in practice- perfect, in Lee's mind, for training. And if there was a giant squid in the lake that just happened to take offense at them dropping by... well, they'd had fun when they'd fought against that shark-man, hadn't they? Lee merrily ignored the fact that they'd spent most of that fight encaged in balls of water.
"Come on, Neji. It will be fun!"
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