"H-hey." She called out.

He turned around with a confused look on his face.

"W-why did you pick me to be your girlfriend?" By now her face was as red as her hair, normally she wasn't one for such deep and meaningful conversations but she absolutely had to know.

He still looked bewildered and blinked several times at her.

She clenched her fists as her gaze was aimed towards the floor trying to look anywhere else to avoid his gaze, the silence permeating through the sunset filled hallway.

"… What do you mean?" He had finally said, and her teary gaze snapped up to meet his. Hers full of cracked self-confidence and vulnerability, tears showing themselves clearly now as her stature gave him a glimpse at how defenseless she was.

"Why did you pick me!?" She was openly crying now, unable to hold back the emotional dam she had built to shield and ward off any new feelings that would have tried to break through to see the real her.

Wiping her face with her sleeve was a fruitless effort as even more tears streaked down her face unending in its assault.

She continued after giving up on trying to hide her feelings of uncertainty, the inescapable feeling of anxiety of learning what could be a harsh truth.

"Why did you pick me huh!? I ain't girly like Ino, smart like Sakura, or as pretty as Hinata or even as talented as Tenten! I'm just a yankee with no friends or family, I've never had a good life and I don't know the first thing about being a girl!" When she stopped she had realized that she had been shouting at him.

"… So why you like me so much?"

At that moment she was as fragile as glass, her usual strong-will and powerful aura now gone showing how helpless she really was.

She was out of her element, in a fight she might as well have been a Valkyrie, a renowned warrior of peerless ability and skill, but outside of that persona she might as well have been a shrine-maiden. She was untainted in more ways than she would have cared to admit, unversed in the ways of relationships and something this new and pure scared her.

It made her feel things she would never thought to have felt in her life. New experiences were opened to her and for once in her life she had felt… happy.

She would have never admitted it, but she was scared that everything she had felt in the past two months had been nothing but a lie. Afraid that everything he did was just a joke he was put up to by his peers or her enemies in an attempt to break her.

Though she would have never have had this chance were it not for him; the chance to hang out with friends, the chance to experience what it was like to be a girl, the chance to experience love.

… That was it. That was why she was so scared. She was in love.

Love… What a foreign word, even in her mind it felt out of place just as it would if she said it aloud. She had laughed when someone told her that one day she would fall in love, ironic that It turned out to be true.

Once she had said her piece she had looked at him to find a surprised look on his face obviously caught off-guard with her question, though her shouting probably had something to do with it as well.

Then he began to laugh, at first it started as a small chuckle but as it went on he apparently had to bend down and hold his stomach as tears began to form at the corner of his closed eyes.

At that moment she thought her unfounded fears were actually true and that he simply was just getting a kick from her torn emotions.

Trying to save face by forgoing her sadness and replacing it with anger she had shouted,

"You think this is funny!?"

And finally his laughter started to die down and after he wiped the tears in his eyes he looked at her. What she saw wasn't ridicule, or some sick perverted sense of schadenfreude, but a soft look of compassion.

He smiled and said, "And those are bad things?"

"… Huh?" she accidentally said aloud only realizing her mistake after voicing it.

"How are any of those bad things?" he said again only confusing her even more.

"What do you mean?" Curiosity winning over the initial shock and subsequent anger at his laughter.

He continued with a smile on his face. "Nothing you said was a lie, you are a tomboy, you're brash, loud, messy, ridiculously strong, and an overall boy in the body of a girl."

So even he thought she wasn't good enough-

"But that's what I love about you."

"… Eh!? W-what the hell are you talking about you goddamn idiot!?" She tried to hide her face but somehow he had managed to close the gap between them and pin her arms against the wall.

He could see her face as well as she could see his, in that moment there were no secrets, no false emotions, and no personas.

It was just them.

The world melted away the second she gazed into his eyes, she was lost in their ocean blue.

"Tayuya" He said breaking the illusion his eyes had casted on her, she could see his entire face merely inches away from hers, his breath making her face all the more warmer as he continued.

"You might not be talented like Tenten, or as pretty as Ino, or girly like Hinata and you definitely aren't going to be as smart as Sakura but that doesn't matter because I love you."

Tayuya turned her head away from his gaze but he still went on.

"I never did have friends growing up because of the way I naturally look, and I didn't have a family either as well as a nice life like you think. I found those along the way and for a time I was… content."

The pause had concerned her a bit, she didn't understand why he used content instead of happy.He had found friends, good friends, ones that wouldn't leave him alone if they thought he was in danger, and he had even found a distant relative to call family. Sure, -tits was a pain in the ass but overall she was a great woman. He had all the things she wanted in life, so why wasn't he happy?

"I wasn't happy because I knew something was missing." He said catching onto what the red-head was thinking.

"What I was missing was someone to share what I had, having wealth means nothing unless you have someone to share it with. When I first saw you I saw myself, you were alone trying to brave everything the world threw at you by yourself. When I talked to you that day I never thought my heart would beat like it was now."

He had taken her hand and placed it directly over his heart, though his face was calm on the inside his heart was pounding as hard as hers was.

"The more I got to know you, the more I got to love you Tayuya. I loved the way you kicked those guys' asses when they tried to mess with you on our night out. I love the way your hair looks when it shimmers in the sun, and I love the way you turn red whenever I compliment you."

He bent down and stared her right in the face, eyes connected as they showed no other emotion but pure feelings for her.

"I love you Tayuya."

He went in for a kiss and she let him, the kiss didn't last long and before she knew it he had let go of her arms and just was back in front of her face smiling down at her.

"… I love you too you blond haired bastard."

She grabbed the collar of his shirt slammed her face into his. This kiss lasted much longer than the last one and by the time they were done they were gasping for breath.

When they finally caught their breath Tayuya summoned up whatever courage she had to ask Naruto an important question.

"H-Hey Naruto c-can I call you m-my K-" (The word she was gonna say is Koibito the japanese word for lover)

"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH~3!" Tayuya was caught off when two separate squeals broke the moment she and Naruto were having.

Looking back in its direction, they saw both Ino and Sakura with happy smiles with the rest of Naruto's friends hiding around the corner.

"Tayuya-chan you were soooooooooo cuuuuuuuuute!" Ino squealed as she hugged the embarrassed girl who was comatose when she realized that all of Naruto's friends had seen everything.

"I never thought you had it in you Tayuya! It's a good thing I had told the rest of the guys to come back to school for some after school cleaning, because I would have never gotten this!"

She held out her phone and played a video,

"… I love you too you blond haired bastard."

… Her touchy feely moment was immortalized on video, before she could do anything about it, Sakura had an idea.

"Oh! I should send everyone a copy so they can watch it again too!"

And before Tayuya had a chance to destroy it Sakura had sent the video to everyone's phones, even hers and Naruto's.

When she took it out she found that the pink-haired girl had been there since the beginning.

Rage began to overtake Tayuya but Sakura didn't notice because she was too busy gossiping about the video with Ino.

"Sakura, Ino, you better run." Naruto hinted and the two girls saw what he was alluding to and saw Tayuya about to go on a warpath.

As they ran away screaming with a demonic looking Tayuya hot on their heels Shikamaru walked up to Naruto.

"You think she's ever going to find out you knew we were behind her the entire time?"

"… Probably yeah, Ino's probably going to bring it up to save her skin."

"You know she'll be mad at you."

"… It was worth it."

"…"

"…"

"Women are troublesome."

"But they're worth it aren't they?"