It was a beautiful dawn in the konoha village. The threats to public safety in the form of the akatsuki was over. In fact, it was over a year ago pain was defeated, six months when the uchiha's were defeated and four months from the time uzumaki naruto woke up from his two month old coma. A very lazy yawn was heard from the nara family house seconds before an alarm clock went off.

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNGGGGGG

"I actually went out of my way to set the alarm last night, and I woke up before it went off. I don't even feel like getting up to turn it off. But I can't deal with this stupid ringing forever. *sighs* thinking about all of this is so troublesome." Thought shikamaru as he was sitting on his bed and staring into space.

Elsewhere, the other citizens were just awaking to the dawn of a new day and so was uzumaki naruto. He woke up the same way he had for the past four months. Feeling happy that he hadn't been killed in the fight against madara and sasuke six months ago but sad he was not able to keep the promise he made to himself. The promise to bring sasuke back.

He headed to clean himself up. He looked straight in the mirror and flashes of the battle flooded his senses. They had gotten information about the whereabouts of the uchiha's and tsunade had ordered the ambush and their possible annihilation sending the same teams as during the reconnaissance mission. Things hadn't gone has planned and they were separated with naruto, sakura, hinata and kiba against sasuke and the captains with both sai and shino fighting it out with madara. Due to sakura's gullibility, she had gotten herself in a terrible position. And just as sasuke was about to land the killer blow, naruto jumped in and shielded sakura with his own body. Bleeding profusely, naruto turned to face sasuke and with some unexplainable combination with hinata, defeated him.

Before plummeting into the unfamiliar realm of total unconsciousness, naruto watched as a previously casted aside kiba and a tear faced hinata rushed to his side to help him with sakura over at sasuke. He took one last glance at hinata and his final thoughts were "when did she get so good?"

After waking up four months ago he and hinata had become really good friends. He now considered her one of his best friends. "speaking of hinata" naruto thought as he got out of the shower and into his clothes "it is almost time for our spar." Naruto had begun sparing with hinata as a way of saying thank you to her for helping him out during the battle with sasuke.

Naruto headed straight to the ramen shop in his usual bright self forgetting he was ever sad that morning. Filled, he headed for the training field.

He arrived at the fields and wasn't surprised to see hinata. "she is always early" he thought to himself.

"Oi hinata" naruto greeted in his usual way.

Hinata gasped. "o-ohayo n-naruto-kun" she stuttered without facing him.

It looked like she was about to hide something when he came and just as he was about to look over her, she turned and faced him.

"N-naruto-kun. I am sorry" she started while blushing slightly.

"About what?" naruto asked.

"I h-have to go. T-tsunade-sama just handed ino, sakura and I a mission and we are to leave immediately" hinata answered.

"Oh. And how long is this mission going to take?"

"About a week" hinata answered.

"What! But I would have died of boredom by then" naruto said disappointment evident in his voice.

Hinata giggled at his childish antics and assured him one week wasn't a long time.

As she left, naruto began to wonder. There was this feeling he got whenever he was around her that he couldn't explain.

He looked up at the clouds, sighed then lay down on the floor. "now what am I going to do?" he asked himself. Then his eyes spotted something, a paper. "what's this? hinata must have dropped it while she was rushing off" he said to himself. He picked up the paper and couldn't help but read:

I want to let you in on a secret

I'm not who you think I am

In fact, my disguise is so thin I'm surprised you haven't seen right through me.

I'm the girl of your dreams masquerading as your best friend

Sometimes I want to rip of this façade like I did during the invasion of pain

But I can't because you'll get confused and run away from our already perfect friendship

So I decided that it's better to live with the lie than expose my true feelings.

A friend of mine once told me there were two types of girls

The one's you grow out of and the one's you grow into

I really hope I'm the latter.

I may not be the one you love today

But I'll let you go for now hoping one day you'll fly back to me

Because I think you're worth the wait.

Naruto's eyes widened in shock. "I d-don't understand. H-how could I not have noticed. And I have been her friend for so long. She has always been in love with…*gulps* with… someone" naruto said in disbelief.

He looked at the paper and read the part of my disguise is so thin I'm surprised you haven't seen through me and thought to himself "who would be so stupid to not notice a girl like hinata likes him. But there is nothing to worry about. I will find him, beat some sense into him and make sure everyother person gets a swing at him also." And with that, he was off to find possible clues to the boy hinata likes. He said to himself "but I only have a week before hinata gets back so I have to hurry. First off is neji."

Authors note: Not done with it yet. In fact, this is where the story begins. So I guess it's a to be continued story. Next chapter coming up very soon. In this story, naruto does not remember hinata confess to him during his battle with pain and let's just say kabuto died somewhere along the line.

"Oi" used by naruto in the story means hey and "Ohayo" used by hinata means good morning.

I just love to reiterate the fact about shikamaru's laziness. So that's why he is in this chapter.

I don't own naruto but, reviews will be good.

Special thanks to minzunogirl and k. 999999999 for adding the other story to their favorites' list.