Hinata paced about her room, staring down at the big heart-shaped box of chocolates that she had purchased earlier that day. Although, at that time she had been quite out of her mind, you see, Ino had been there. Ino was a very persuasive woman who had given Hinata an enormous pep talk about being assertive and finding a boyfriend. And well, in that store, Hinata had felt none of the fear that she felt now… twisting in the pit of her stomach as that valentine stared back up at her with its cold steely gaze.
That's it! Hinata snapped. She bought it, and she was going to send it, darn it, to Naruto! She went into one of her drawers and pulled out a nice black sharpie. In the "To:" blank she wrote in nice handwriting "Naruto-kun". However, when she went to write in the "From:" blank, she found that instead of writing her own name her pen hovered uselessly over the blank as she returned to her original state of panic. "Your Secret Admirer" she filled in before she had really thought about what she was doing. Now it was a powder keg. She had to get rid of it right now. She wrapped it up in a cloth and stowed it under her arm as she began to walk, in the dead of night, toward Naruto's home. She peaked in his window, and indeed, Naruto was asleep in his bed, wearing his adorable and bizarre pajamas. At the sight of him, her panic increased a bit, but if she could just stay calm she could get out of this situation just fine. She went up to his door, which was unlocked and crept quietly inside. She carefully set it down next to the sleeping boy and tiptoed away, closing the door silently. Now, after holding her breath for so long she began to hyperventilate, thinking of what she had just done. Afraid that someone might hear her, she ran off, back to her place, to continue her worrying.
Naruto woke at day break. He stood up, preparing to change into his orange suit when he spied something on the floor. It was a heart-shaped box. "to Naruto-kun from your secret admirer." He stared at it in astonishment for a while before considering the ramifications of this. Someone liked him! But… he had to find out who. He headed out, carrying the box, to try to find out who it could be from.
The first person he asked, the one he really hoped it was from…
"Sakura-chan!"
"Naruto?"
"Did you see me this?" He asked, holding it up proudly.
"Huh, what is it? No…"
"You're sure? You're sure you're not my secret admirer?"
She nodded. "I'm sure. Go bother someone else now…"
He sighed and was about to go ask Ten-ten when he saw an arrow-shaped sign "Uchiha Sasuke this way." Naruto thought it strange, and so decided to follow it. He found another one, and another one, and another one, until he found saw that they were coming from all directions converging to a single point. That point was Sasuke, sitting in a great big pile of valentines, stuffing his face (which was speckled with various shades of lipstick) with chocolate.
"Milking this holiday a little much?" Naruto asked Sasuke, who was now lying on top of the pile with his belly sticking out of his baggy shirt.
Sasuke picked up another box of chocolates from his pile, ignoring the chalky-hearts and ripped into it, quite determined to eat all of his chocolate now. "What do you want, Naruto?" He asked between bites, sounding irritated.
"I'm not actually here to bug you about… this…" Naruto said with a little bit of disgust as he pointed to Sasuke's pile. "Someone sent me this." Naruto held up his precious box for Sasuke to see.
"No-one likes you Naruto. It's probably a trick," Sasuke snorted.
"Who would do such a mean thing?" asked Naruto… "It was YOU, wasn't it, SASUKE!" Naruto growled as red chakra began to surround him.
"Listen Naruto, no more talking to me when you're high. Off you go. Goodbye!" Sasuke shooed him, and Naruto returned to his normal state.
However, before Naruto had left, Chouji appeared on the scene. "Please!" he begged Sasuke.
"No, go away." Sasuke said, still lying down on the pile.
"Please, you have way more chocolate than you can eat!"
"No! Listen, you can have my delicious chalky hearts. It's a big sacrifice, but I'll make it for you."
"Oh come on, Sasuke! Please, just one box?" Chouji whined.
"No way, buzz off, hey look, Naruto has chocolate!"
"Naruto, can I have some?" Chouji asked, now clinging to him instead.
"No, these are special. Listen, do you have any idea who sent this?" Naruto asked, holding up his treasure.
"No, but you should open it. Sometimes there are notes inside. It's such a bad idea, though, I almost choked on one of those notes once." Chouji said and retreated back into his own thoughts.
Very carefully he untied the ribbon and opened the box. Sure enough, Chouji was right. There was a note taped to the top of the box. He removed it and read, "Dear Naruto-kun, I have had a crush on you for as long as I can remember. I think that you could like me too. You caught me by surprise once training under a waterfall. Remember? Well… um… if you don't like me back, I'm sorry to have bothered you. I hope you like the candy, though…" Naruto blushed.
"But I still don't know who it's from!" Naruto exclaimed.
"Go see Shikamaru. He can probably figure it out for you." Chouji said.
"That's right!" Naruto said, "Shikamaru's smart!" and he dashed off leaving the now sluggish Sasuke alone with Chouji.
Naruto knocked on Shikamaru's door.
"I'm not home!" He heard in reply.
Naruto knocked again.
"I'm extremely busy!" He heard Shikamaru yell back.
Naruto knocked furiously.
"Listen, I love you but I'm not in love with you!"
"Huh?" Naruto asked.
"Troublesome woman, Go bother that kid with the gourd."
"It's me, Naruto!" He shouted.
Shikamaru opened his door. "Oh, it's you. What do you want?"
"I have a secret admirer, and I need you to help me figure this out." Naruto explained, holding up his precious box.
"Fine," Shikamaru sighed, "come in."
Shikamaru took the valentine and Naruto followed him inside. After inspecting the package and the note inside he said, "So tell me about this girl under the waterfall…"
"Well, I was on a mission with Hinata and Kiba, and I got up in the middle of the night to pee, and I saw this naked girl dancing around in the water. Then I fell in the river, and when I got up, she was gone."
"Where were Hinata and Kiba?" Shikamaru asked.
"They were asleep."
"Okay… did you tell anyone about this?"
"I told Kiba." Naruto explained.
"That's all?"
"Yeah"
"Then it's probably from him." Shikamaru said.
"WHAT?! No way! Why can't it be from the girl! The pretty naked girl under the waterfall?"
"It's probably someone from Konoha, they knew your name, they knew where to find you, they knew just how to play you."
Naruto growled, snatched his valentine back and went off to find Kiba.
Kiba was standing next to Hinata when he found him. "Kiba!" Naruto shouted, "did you send me this?!"
Hinata turned pale.
Kiba looked at it and realized immediately that it was from Hinata. "Yes," he said matter-of-factly.
"Why you do this? It's not nice to play with people's feelings!"
"It was Akamaru's idea. Pretty funny, huh?" Kiba said, because if Naruto found out that Hinata liked him, it would ruin his own chances with her.
Akamaru growled skeptically.
Naruto growled and began to express his fox-like features as he became surrounded by his red chakra once more.
"Ahahahahahahaha!" Kiba laughed smugly.
"Juuken!" Hinata hit Kiba right in the face and he went flying. She panted angrily.
Naruto went back to normal. "That's right!" Naruto said, "that's pretty much what I was going to do. I know just how you feel." He said. "It's kind of sad though," he said as he dropped his shoulders and let his arms hang, "for a minute there, I thought someone really did like me. And you know… I was kind of excited. But, I guess that's impossible…" He began to wander home.
"Naruto-kun! Wait!" She spoke up, reaching out to him.
He turned.
"Kiba was lying. It was really from…"
"NARUTO!" Someone shouted as they grabbed him and began dragging him off. It was Sakura. "What did you do to Sasuke?"
"What are you talking about?" He asked while trying to squirm away.
"He's just lying around throwing up! You poisoned him or something, didn't you?"
"No, Sakura-chan! I didn't do it! Let me go!" Hinata could hear him yelling.
"Naruto-kun…" she said quietly, "wait…"
That's when Hyuuga Neji walked up. "Time to go, Hinata" he said.
She nodded and followed him. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the valentine sitting on the ground, abandoned. She wanted to go pick it back up, but she sighed and just let it go… thwarted again.