It was sweet in a way, just how many notes appeared on his apartment window in the weeks leading up to this. Almost every day, a new threat written in a familiar hand appeared, stirring a mix of exasperated fondness and bemused guilt. His team loved him, and he hadn't been able to be there for them much at all in the past year. And it really was a year now since he'd been promoted to ANBU. How time passed.

Neji collected them with a mind to present them to Obito should his Hokage attempt to assign him a mission that would take him away from the village on the date indicated. Not that he expected Tenten would forgive him, but he could at least say he'd tried. But it had been his own hope that for once, he'd be able to promise something to his teammates, knowing just how much it meant to all of them.

It was cold, and snow piled up on the edges of the training field, the river frozen over with a thin layer of ice. The storm had been awful and the snow was slow to melt and had a tendency to refreeze, but Neji had brought along an insulated blanket and laid it out over the frosted ground. The afternoon would warm, he was sure, and he settled in to wait for the rest of his team with an eye on the sky above.