"Marriage is the only war in which you sleep with the enemy."- Unknown
Naruto sat down at the dining room table, glaring fiercely at the Earl Grey tea that had been presented to him by one of the Uchiha mansion's many maids. Across from the expansive table was the source of his discomfort and the cause of his glaring, Sasuke Uchiha.
Sasuke is the son of a nobleman, who doesn't have much time left on Earth. In order to appease his father as he slept on his death bed, he was presented with a request: find a bride. Of course, Sasuke being Sasuke probably thought to himself that he couldn't-no, wouldn't carry out such a request because of his lack of interest in women. Mother had told him to find a beautiful bride who would have no problem serving her duties as a loving wife. Even though, many of the women in the land of Konohagakure were beautiful, they weren't particularly loving. Itachi, who had been studying abroad in Kirigakure, had sent a letter suggesting that he find a woman who he could trust and could tolerate long silences and not invade his personal space. The list had been ruled down to three names.
Hinata Hyuga, TenTen, and Sakura Haruno. Although, the last candidate was sort of iffy, because of the bumpy past that the two of them had when they were children. She would cling to him like a baby bamboo to it's mother.
Hinata wasn't particularly a problem for Sasuke, she seemed to keep her distance when it came to just about anyone. But her constant stuttering would occasionally work on Sasuke's nerves and before her older cousin, Neji, could yell (or hit) at him for being so rude, Sasuke would be walking off elsewhere.
TenTen, Sasuke didn't particularly mind, but her fascination with weapons was a bit…absurd. Other than that, her presense was tolerable, she didn't speak to softly, nor too loud. She kept her distance, and often times had quite the soothing presense, if only the knives could just be put away.
Unfortunately for Sasuke, she was already in the process of being courted by some other nobleman from Iwagakure. Sasuke couldn't be bothered remembering his name.
Desperate for a wife, Sasuke began to turn to the same gender as he. All in an attempt to keep his promise to his father, after all, his father never said the position was limited to women. Sasuke began scouting out male brides, which turned out to not be as bad as he thought it would be. At first, he was going to ask Neji to be his bride. The thought of the older male blushing was amusing, but not being able to move a body part due to Neji's Jyuuken style fighting technique quickly made him discard the idea. The Hyuga already had a thing for the heir to the Nara clan, a certain Shikamaru Nara. With Neji off of his list, he began to go down the list of other nobleman in the country of Konoha, striking lines through names and walking away just as rudely as he did to Hinata as he did to the other men. He was not prejudice against anyone.
For a while, Sasuke had no idea what to do in his situation. A majority of the village's nobleman had been put under three categories made up with the impatient and picky Uchiha; Annoying, Problematic and Too loud. Some (Kiba Inuzuka) of them were even under all three.
Not knowing who else to pick when practically all of the village's nobleman's son's and daughter's were ruled out for not being up to Sasuke's expectations, he felt as if he couldn't keep his father's promise to have a significant other to have by his side. The thought of that, made him slightly lonely, deep down in his heart, and Sasuke could not help but acknowledge that very small, but very large in importance, fact.
He continued to search to keep his promise to his father when he came across his long time friend, Naruto Uzumaki, working in the fields as a laborer. An idea had struck in his head. Father hadn't said that it had to be a nobleman that he had to court. He just needed to find a bride. Although, the thought of him being the first person to court a field laborer was a bit embarrassing, as if he were sullying the bloodline by marrying such an individual. Pushing down his pride, he said to himself that he would court the young man whether he liked it or not.
Thus Naruto's current situation. Sitting in some grand dinning room with a cup of tea. The tea leaves he probably picked from the field he worked in, the tea set probably was made in some factory and sold at an unbelievably high price. Naruto could only dream of living a life like this, but he couldn't see himself enjoying it much. Looking up to see his fiancé, who was sipping away just like the nobleman he was, he sighed as he felt slightly out of place when he noticed Sasuke's expensive clothes, and then compared them to his own ragged work clothes. He fought down the blush of embarrassment, he was an Uzumaki! He felt proud wearing the clothes that his father had taken hours to sew for him. His old clothes were beginning to fall apart, and he needed new ones at the time, desperately.
"-maki. Uzumaki!"
Naruto snapped his head up, alert. Apparently, Sasuke had finished his tea and was trying to strike up a conversation.
"Yeah, what?" Naruto couldn't get into the groove of answering "My apologies, what did you say milord?". His dialect was still on farm boy mode.
Sasuke sighed, rubbing his pointer, middle, and thumb on the bridge of his nose to will away the on coming headache. "I said, 'are you glad I picked you to be my bride, Uzumaki'?"
Naruto glared fiercely at Sasuke, then slammed his open palms on the table, the delicate tea set chattering against the force of it, "No, I'm not happy! I wanna go back to my house on the hill!"
Sasuke merely chuckled, leaning forward and weaving his fingers together, "I'm sorry to say," he said, "but you wont be returning to that hut house any time soon. You're to be my bride, and you're going to live the life of luxury."
Naruto stood up, obviously pissed off his "fiancé's" attitude, "I don't want to live the life of luxury! I want to go home with my dad and live my life in the house I grew up in!"
Sasuke shook his head, then stood up in his seat with the poise of a lion, "I'm sorry to tell you Naruto," he began "but you will not be going back to that house ever again, except on holidays and special events of course, that of which I doubt you have any of."
"Are you saying that because I am poor, that I don't have any special occasions to make note of?" Naruto's anger was surging.
"That is exactly what I am saying." Sasuke retorted, not thinking that he had said anything offensive or heart breaking whatsoever.
Naruto, had had enough of his supposed "friend's" attitude. In a burst of anger, he picked up his cup, and flung at the Uchiha's head. Sasuke quickly leaned out of the way, and watched in disappointment as mother's favorite tea cup had shattered into a million pieces and was scatter all over the floor, the tea seeping into a shapeless form. Sasuke barely had enough time to dodge the well aimed punch that would have been delivered if he had decided to look at the cup for any longer. Catching the second punch, and delivering one of his own, Naruto laid on the floor, nursing his bleeding nose, glaring daggers at Sasuke, tears flowing from out of his red blue eyes.
"Accept it as a fact, Uzumaki," Sasuke began as he looked down at the bruised and bloodied young man, "you're to be my bride. We're going to be married in less than a year, try and warm up to the idea of fine dining and clothing." Sasuke then snapped his fingers, a nurse briskly walking into the room.
"y-Yes milord?"
"Get my fiancée out of these rags," he began "run some water and get the filth off of his body. After that, go to the kitchen and tell the head chef to cook a welcoming dinner for the family. Also, after the bath, get the doctor to fix Naruto's nose up for me, and also, tell him he'll be seeing Naruto a lot more often if he keeps this behavior up." The last part, he shifted his gaze from the maid to Naruto "Understood?"
She nodded hurriedly.
"Good. You may go now."
With that, the nurse quickly helped Naruto up from his spot on the ground. She reached inside her blouse and retrieved a handkerchief to try and keep the blood from seeping to his clothes and to the floor. Well, more the floor than his clothes. Sasuke was going to have those burned anyway.
Sitting back down at his seat at the head of the table, he chuckled lightly to himself and at the irony of the entire situation. The very thing he was trying not to get out of a partner (annoying, problematic, and too loud) were the very things that described Naruto Uzumaki. How funny.
After ordering a second cup of tea, and making requests to get the broken one repaired, Sasuke quickly walked off to his private study, where he could write down today's events, and maybe reply back to Itachi's letter. Hopefully, he hadn't run into any problems like he said he did in his previous letter.
Twenty minutes into writing today's events in his journal, a certain annoying, problematic and loud blond came barging into his room. His body; wet, and the only clothing on his person was a towel that the maid had provided. His nose had yet to be treated, but wasn't bleeding as profusely as it had been before. The maid came rushing in shortly afterwards, a strong blush on her face, a robe in her hands that were for Naruto to wear and her outfit equally drenched, maybe even more so, than Naruto, who was supposed to be the one to originally take a bath.
"Teme!" Naruto yelled as loud as he could. There goes the annoyance and loud factor. Sasuke hadn't bothered turning around. He was too busy shaking his head in his hands, wondering why in the hell he chose to have this farm boy as his bride-to-be.
"What is it, dobe?" came Sasuke's muffled response from behind his hands.
"What did this maid do with my clothes!" he yelled again "She went to take them somewhere and I want them back!"
Sasuke turned around and looked Naruto dead in the eye, "When I told you earlier to get used to the life of luxury, fine dining and clothing," he began "I meant that whatever rags you were wearing are to be discarded and you are to be assimilated into this kind of living. Must I write you a book on it?"
Naruto's face grey red in anger, "You bastard! How do you expect me to live like this! You're taking away everything I grew up with and expect me to live in such a way! You're a tyrant, you know that!"
Sasuke stood up to be at Naruto's height, although, Sasuke was slightly taller than Naruto by a few inches. This was a slight advantage, yes it was. "Look Uzumaki, I don't want to discuss this anymore. Just accept the fact and move on!"
"Like hell I will! I'm going to get my clothes and go back to my house on the hill, so why don't you take that and write it in your damn diary!" Naruto stomped off, and rudely snatched the robe out of the maid's tiny timid hands, but not before uttering a small 'thank you' before slamming the door in his wake.
The drenched maid didn't know whether or not to start spewing apologies or start packing her bags before she gets yelled at.
Sasuke's face contorted in anger, not liking how that simple farm boy had managed to talk back to him. Much less, yell at him. Sasuke looked down at the floor, trying to understand what was going on. He didn't understand the workings of Naruto Uzumaki's mind. He was giving him a chance to throw away his old life and live a life of luxury! Who wouldn't want to do that? Leave behind that old hut house, picking tea leaves and only living on chump change from month to month. Here, they had an enormous supply of food, so much that most of the village's needy wouldn't have to worry about how to get their next meal for months. Sasuke shook his head, he didn't understand why Naruto would refuse such an offer! This sort of opportunity doesn't come knocking on just about anyone's door.
"u-Um, Lord Sasuke?" a timid voice said.
Sasuke looked up, glaring at the maid who had interrupted his train of thought, "What is it?"
She put on her bravest face, her arms clenched up tightly against her chest, "You have gone about this all wrong!"
Sasuke rose his eyebrows at the maid, "What do you mean?"
"I-I mean," she swallowed the lump that was in her chest, "I mean to say that you're not giving Sir Naruto a warm welcome at all! That is why he is so defiant!"
Sasuke turned the chair around and sat in it, thinking over what she had said, but once again he came up with nothing. "I don't understand. I've shown him my home, given him tea from my mother's favorite cup, and has accommodated to his stay. What else could that fool want?"
"Respect, perhaps? Maybe even a reason for staying here too. People like Naruto, who aren't charmed by material possessions want something precious to keep them in one spot for a long time." as she elaborated, Sasuke began to understand her more and more. "Naruto isn't greedy, he's a wonderful person who only wants to be with his most precious person at his most precious place: his father and his house on the hill. Don't you understand Milord? He has a special connection with those two things in his life."
Sasuke nodded, finally understanding where the maid was coming from. "Yes, yes of course, I understand." he began "But, how do you know about this?"
She smiled warmly at Sasuke, "How do you think I felt when I was told to get a job and make a living as a maid for you? I was a farm girl as well, don't you remember milord?"
Of course, Sasuke did not remember when this young girl had been recruited, but for the sake of the situation, he pretended that he did.
Walking past her in order to make amends with Naruto, he patted her on the shoulder, not effected by the water at all, and began to leave the room.
"Oh, and maid." He couldn't help but forget her name
"Yes, Milord?" she said
"You can have the rest of the day off," he began
Beaming, she bowed graciously "Thank you, Milord!"
"I wasn't finished yet. You can have the rest of the day off, but from now on you will be my own personal maid, is that clear?"
She didn't know whether or not to weep with joy or with sorrow. The opportunity would bring in more money, which means that she can send more to her family who're still at the farm living off of chump change. But this also meant that she would be the one responsible over Sasuke's care, as well as one other butler, a Kakashi Hatake, who was in charge of his foreign affairs. In the end, she just nodded and muttered out, "Yes, milord."
"By the way, remind me of what your name is."
"h-Hilda." She stammered out
"Hilda," Sasuke began "You're now in charge of my domestic affairs. Go and find Kakashi and he'll tell you what to do from there." Right as Sasuke was about to walk off, he took a step backwards and gave her a good hard stare, "Oh yes, and change your clothes, you're sopping wet."
"y-Yes, Milord."
A/N: It has occurred to me that there are two ways to spell fiancé, along with two different meanings. The first is the previous word that I just spell checked. Fiancé, is a man to whom is engaged to a woman and fiancée, is a woman to whom she is engaged to a man. In this case, fiancé refers to Sasuke and fiancée refers to Naruto, just to clear things up.
I can haz review nao?