Ino was standing in front of the Hokage monument with a picnic basket in her hand. She got there at 11:55 and it was now exactly noon. Where is that idiot, he should be here right now. Ino didn't like a person to even be a second late. Then she heard something from up above her.
"Hey Ino!" Naruto shouted from the nose of Tsunade's face on the mountain.
"Hey Naruto, I thought you were late for a second there." Ino yelled as she jumped up and sat next to Naruto. "How did you get up here with out me noticing?"
"I was here before you." Way Be fore You... Naruto added in his head.
Naruto had actually decided to sleep on the Hokage Monument last night after the owner of the building he had been sleeping on told him to get off. It was much more uncomfortable than the rooftops. I mean have you ever slept on solid stone?
"Why didn't you call for me when I got here earlier then?" She asked in a carefree tone that Naruto had never heard her use before, not that he was around her that often. She was very conversational today.
"I wasn't really paying attention." Naruto lied. Naruto had actually still been asleep.
"If you were here before me, than how come you weren't watching for m-….just forget it." Ino said, giving him the 'its-not-worth-the-breath-it-takes' tone on the last part.
"Ok…what is with the basket?" Naruto asked, pointing at the basket in Ino's hand.
"Lunch, I figured we could eat somewhere around here, it is lunch after all." Ino stated with a smile.
"So like a picnic?" A mischievous grin appeared on Naruto's face.
"Yeah" Ino responded a little creped out by Naruto's grin.
"Well no need to stay around here, come on lets go." with that Naruto grabbed the basket out of Ino's hands and ran up the mountain with Ino chasing behind him.
"Hey, what are you doing!?" Ino shouted.
" Follow me I have the perfect place to eat it." Naruto yelled back.
When they made it to the top of the monument, Naruto continued towards the back of the Hokage monument. They were soon in a small forest settled atop the monument. They walked through until they reached a tree with a large symbol on it that meant 'slugs rule'. Before Ino could even begin to ask why they stopped in front of the tree. Naruto did a quick hand sign that Ino didn't recognize, and then pressed his palm against the symbol on the tree. The symbol began to glow blue, but then went 'poof' and the tree in front of them disappeared and behind it, where there was once bushes, there was now a small cave like entrance that was embedded into a wall of rock. The wall of rock was most likely a small 'blemish' on the mountain. ((Like a smaller mountain of rock on top of the Hokage Monument mountain.)) Again before Ino could ask, Naruto began to run into the cave, and Ino followed. They ran for around a minute before they saw some light at the end of the tunnel.
When they came out of the cave, there was a large dome like area. It had walls of stone surrounding it, making the place look like a bowl. It didn't have a ceiling; it was open to the sky. The whole place probably had the circumference of around 400 yards. The place was covered with beautiful flowers had a large cherry blossom tree in the middle.
"WOW." Ino said in aw as she looked around the place.
"It's Granny Tsunade's secret hideout. She told me everything about it because I won a bet." Naruto smirked. "The bet was if I could eat a hundred large bowls of ramen in a minute. I won one of her coolest secrets, where as she would have one her necklace back." Naruto said proudly, flashing his trademark fox grin.
"Why would someone bet against you about ramen? That's a losing situation for sure." Ino joked. "But what was with the tree poofing, and the handsign?" Ino questioned, as she looked back at where they came through.
"Well, Granny Tsunade put a sealing technique around this place so only a select few can come here. Right now, only Granny Tsunade, Shizune, Sakura, me, and now you know about this place. You have to know the handsign to get in, Granny Tsunade made the hand sign herself. " Naruto answered.
"Wow…..but why show it to me? I could see you telling your crush, Forehead girl, but why show it to a person you hardly know?" Ino asked, now looking Naruto in the eye, for some reason not even known to herself.
"I'm not completely sure why I told you, I just thought it was a good idea." Naruto paused for a moment. "I actually didn't tell Sakura, Granny did."
"Wait, why didn't you tell Sakura, you've been gaga over forehead girl sense like forever ago?" Ino asked, looking him in the eyes again. For some reason, Ino needed to hear his answer.
"I don't know…lately my thoughts have been confusing me, so I honestly don't know." Naruto responded, looking confused.
Ino was confused too. Her thoughts, and even her emotions, have been pretty jumbled for the past day and a half.
Naruto set the picnic basket down under the cherry-blossom tree. He then walked back over to Ino, seeing that she looked deep in thought, he grabbed her hand and pulled her back over to the cherry-blossom tree.
Ino was surprised by Naruto's hand grabbing her own, but didn't resist. In fact she kind of liked it. Naruto's gentle and soft hand holding her own small delicate hand…
They reached the tree and Naruto let go of Ino's hand. Ino suddenly felt cold, like someone had just pulled the warmth away from her body.
Naruto had also felt as if the air got colder right as he, for some reason reluctantly, removed his hand from hers. Naruto was so confused that he hadn't put any sort of tone or emotion in his voice; he actually didn't even know what he had just said.
"Well, you want to eat then?" Naruto said in an impassive tone that Ino had never heard Naruto use.
Ino was surprised to hear the impassive tone coming out of Naruto's mouth, but she shrugged it off and answered him.
"Yeah, I'll spread the blanket." Ino said as she took a blanket out of the basket and began to lay it out on the ground.
Naruto came out of his thoughts when he heard Ino's voice, sweet like honey. When he looked at her, she was bending over and straitening out the blanket. Naruto began to think 'slightly' perverted thoughts and had to physically slap himself, resulting in a red mark on his face and a loud smacking noise. That is Ino! You are interested in Sakura, and when you are interested in someone else, you don't think about other women that way unless your at least part pervert! YOU ARE NOT A PERVERT!!! Naruto scolded/reasoned with himself in his mind. At the sound of the slap, Ino turned around and saw Naruto standing there with a red mark on his face in the shape of a large hand.
"What happened?" Ino asked confusedly.
"Nothing, why?" Naruto questioned back.
"Well I heard a 'smack' noise and turned around to see you with, what looks like, a slap mark on your face." Ino responded, walking towards him.
"Well…I uh-" Naruto was just babbling out 'I's and 'Um's now. Ino reached out to him and, without thinking, brought her hand up and caressed his cheek where the mark was.
For both Naruto and Ino, time stopped for a moment. And then they both leaned in towards each, closing their eyes, other without thinking at all. When their lips were mere millimeters apart, Naruto sensed a presence other than Ino and himself in the area and regained his train of thought, pulling away and looking towards the presence without realizing that Ino and him were about to kiss. When Naruto pulled away and looked away, Ino had stopped, because she didn't feel the warm breath on her face that she had a moment before, and opened her eyes to see Naruto in front of her looking towards something. Holy Kami was I about to kiss Naruto!??!!?!! Ino screamed at herself inside her head. Ino felt the presence that Naruto had felt moments ago and moved to see around Naruto.
"So Naruto, your using my sanctuary for dates now are you?" questioned Tsunade, who was standing in the entrance to the secret garden.
"What? No you have got it all wrong, this isn't a date, me and Ino are just friends!" Naruto explained as he flailed his arms in the air, blushing slightly. Ino was blushing almost as bad as Hinata did when she was around Naruto, but Ino just let Naruto do the talking.
"Oh, so you kiss all of your female friends in private? Wow, Sakura never told me about something like that." Tsunade mocked as she bit on her lip to stop from laughing.
"KISS?!" Naruto yelled as he flailed his arms and blushed even harder.
"Yes kiss, you know, when you bring your lips to another person's, eyes closed and moving forward like you were just doing." Tsunade said, still holding back laughter.
Naruto didn't say a word; his jaw was dropped almost to the ground. He didn't remember moving in to kiss Ino, but that would explain the hot, moist air he had felt on his face the moment before Granny Tsunade arrived.
"If your senses weren't as sharp as they are, I probably could have watched you two kiss, Or, by the looks of how your heads were cocked, play battle with your tongues." At this point Tsunade couldn't hold back her laughter. She broke out laughing like a mad man-or mad woman rather- and had to hold onto the side of the entrance to keep her self up.
Ino was to busy trying to hold back her blush to do anything but she wouldn't have messed with Tsunade anyway. But of course Naruto would. Naruto was currently clenching his fist.
"HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ME ANGRY!!!? CAUSE I CAN BE JUST AS SCARY AS YOU, YOU BATTY OLD LUSH!!!" Naruto yelled as a vein on his head throbbed and he snarled.
Naruto was partly pissed because Tsunade was laughing, but he was mostly angry because she came there and stopped him from kissing…..Ino. After Naruto came across this thought, his anger level dropped and he looked so confused, he couldn't believe it, he was mad at Tsunade, because she had stopped him from kissing….Ino? Why did was he going to kiss Ino anyway? He was interested in Sakura, not Ino, right? This is so fucking messed up! Naruto screamed in his head. How can I be interested in Ino and not Sakura all of a sudden…..AM I interested in Ino? He asked himself, meanwhile out side of his body, he had gone from incredibly enraged, to a completely blank face.
"Hey Naruto, what happened to all that anger from a second ago?" questioned an embarrassed Ino from behind him.
"Um…" that's all Naruto said before turning away from Ino, trying to hide a blush, but he was glaring at Tsunade because she could see him blushing. Tsunade kept quiet, she realized what a delicate/complicated situation she was messing with here.
"Well, you two are going to have to leave, becau-" Tsunade stopped, because she realized that Naruto and Ino were already silently packing up their picnic supplies.
Well the two teens were packing up there picnic blanket, their hands touched as they were trying to fold the blanket up. They had both pulled there hand away like they were touching boiling water, they blushed immediately afterwards, turning way from each other and mumbling a sorry before beginning to fold up the blanket again. Tsunade saw this and got a conniving smirk on her face. As she thought: If I could get those to knuckle-heads to realize that they want each other, then I wouldn't only be Hokage, Sannin, and Medial Ninja extraordinaire, but also the worlds best matchmaker!!! Muw ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!
When Tsunade came back out of her weird matchmaker thoughts, she realized that Naruto and Ino had already left and she was standing in the garden alone.
"Dam it…" Tsunade grumbled before going about her business.
Meanwhile.
Ino and Naruto were now outside of the Secret entrance to the garden and were jumping down the Hokage monument. When they reached the bottom, Ino broke the silence.
"So, were we really….about to kiss?" Ino asked nervously, while blushing.
"I guess…maybe it was just….the moment or something, it can happen to anyone…" Naruto lied as he scratched the back of his head. Ino could tell that he was lying.
"Well, sense we didn't really eat, do you want to have a picnic tomorrow?" Ino hesitantly asked.
"I don't have any missions tomorrow, so I don't see why not." Naruto stated, bringing his hands behind his head and giving his fox-grin.
"See ya tomorrow at the flower shop then?" Ino asked.
"Sure." Is all Naruto said as they both began to head their separate towards their own houses. Hinata left the area too, as she thought of ways to get Naruto to love her. Naruto wasn't exactly going to a house, he was heading around the corner, and then he jumped towards the Yamanaka Flower Shop. Naruto was going to sleep on the flower shops roof tonight so he wouldn't have to go far to meet her tomorrow. He landed on the roof and soon lied down and fell into a really deep sleep.
Later that night at around 12:00 midnight, Ino was walking up the stairs that led to the roof of the Yamanaka Flower Shop.
Ino couldn't get to sleep and she wanted to go to the flower shop, so she had left her house and came to the flower shop. She had arranged some flowers, but got bored and began to head up to roof.
When Ino got to the roof, she was shocked to find Naruto sleeping on a corner of the rooftop. She walked over to him and shook his body a bit. There was no response, but Ino could tell he was alive because of his chest moving up and down. He was in a very deep sleep by the looks of it.
"Why are you up here?" Ino mumbled the question, basically to herself sense Naruto was asleep.
Ino then ran back down the stairs and grabbed a blanket. She brought the blanket up to the roof top and put it over Naruto. He looks adorable when he's asleep…wait a minute…Argh! I'm sick of this, I've been thinking like that about him all day, just out of the blue!!! I wish this wasn't so confusing…
Ino then headed across the rooftops, back to her apartment, for some reason, she thought she could sleep now.
