A/N: Um... I'll bring Itachi in soon enough, but I don't want emo sadness to ruin a happy ending last chapter. Maybe next chapter. Yup, that sounds good. Egads... I need a lot of time skippingness.
Disclaimer: Don't own.

Somewhere there's speaking
It's already coming in
Oh and it's rising at the back of your mind
You never could get it
Unless you were fed it
Now you're here and you don't know why
He's everything you want
He's everything you need
He's everything inside of you
That you wish you could be
He says all the right things
At exactly the right time
But he means nothing to you
And you don't know why
Everything You Want

Chapter 10: Proposal

"Let's get married."

Inuzuka Hana threw open her eyes, sitting abruptly, as she twisted her fingers away from his. Her legs were thrown over the armrest, as they dangled over the edge, her head resting on the other armrest. She sat in his lap as he hummed softly, both resting in comfortable silence, before the Okamisora promptly proposed in the most casual manner anyone could. The four nin-dogs lifted their heads slightly, before nodding off to sleep. They really didn't care much about human love affairs, as long as it didn't affect battles and their food. They did not understand why humans blow simple mating out of proportions and have 'weddings' and so-called 'love'.

Hana was stunned, stupefied to the extent that movement could not be attained. All she could do was just sit there, on his lap, gawking at his calm demeanor. She opened her mouth, before closing it again. Was he being serious?

"What?" she blurted out. Seiko smirked, pushing her off of him to stretch his legs.

She landed on the floor with a loud thud as the older boy stood up, unfazed by her utter pain of ass meeting wood. She sat on the floor, letting out an irritated snarl, before crossing her arms and sticking her tongue out at the ANBU, just like a proper Tokubetsu Jonin should to make a statement.

Seiko chuckled that deep chuckle, as Hana's heart skipped a beat. He heaved her up with one arm, another wrapping around her waist, pulling her closer.

"Is that a no?" he murmured, his hot breath tickling her ear as he nipped it playfully.

Hana's voice caught in her throat.

She walked in, instantly meeting the eyes of the clan elders. Her heart dropped. She knew exactly what they were discussing.

Her marriage.

For one year she had been rejecting prominent suitors from animal-using clans around the country and even some from other hidden villages, turning down dates with many shinobi around her age, using the feeble excuse that she didn't want to. Now, she knew they were going to force her into an arranged marriage; they had after all, given her a year to look for love. The thought of marriage was hidden in the back of her mind, the last item on her list of priorities. Truthfully, Hana was scared.

"Hana..." Tsume started.

Hana masked her distaste with indifference, as she simply stated, "I know."

Silence filled the room, as the elders stared at her rigid figure. The Haimaru Sankyodai growled, annoyed at their master's displeasure, and Hana silenced them with a piercing glare.

Suddenly, the room erupted back into conversation, acknowledging her presence, and simply, not caring.

"What about Okamisora Seiko? He is still unmarried, and an honorable..." an elder suggested.

At the mention of her supposedly considered 'boyfriend', Hana blushed prettily, looking away, the indifference melting quickly. The elders smirked approvingly, knowing they hit a tender spot even at the mention of his name. Okamisora Seiko, her best friend and the handsome ANBU who just happened to be absolutely perfect had instantly become Inuzuka Hana's husband-to-be as soon as they heard of that gossip Kiba spread on New Year's Eve.

But Hana wasn't ready for marriage. Yes, she was nineteen-years-old, an age fully ripe and bursting for matrimony and for children. Normal village girls entered marriage and bore children at fifteen, sixteen even while most kunoichi married at the age of seventeen, eighteen. Hana was way past that, her mind clouded with training, with past horrors and pain.

The other elders agreed fully with the first, nodding proudly. They wanted the most beautiful Inuzuka in many generations to live a successful, full life, and what better than in the arms of the prodigious Okamisora?

She had entered the room for little more than a minute, before she excused herself. Sure, dating Seiko was fun, great even, but marriage?

"Um..." Hana answered intelligently.

"..." Seiko waited, one hand trailing up to stroke her hair. His hot breath that tickled her skin had fuzzed her mind, and she couldn't think straight.

"Why?" she finally asked.

She could feel him smile than actually see as he answered calmly, "Why not?"

"D-Don't you think we're too young for that?" Hana stammered, her fingers digging into the arm around her waist. She twitched involuntarily, unable to calm her mind. The rosy blush still tinged her cheeks, showing off her embarrassment.

"You should have been married to me a year ago," Seiko answered.

Hana groaned silently. That had been a bad point in their relationship, that proposal so long ago she desperately tried to forget. He had stammered out the words, the first ever in his life to be so nervous, holding up a beautiful diamond ring, and she had simply rejected him flat out. He had taken it strongly, and their friendship became a mix of awkward silences, longer routes home, and avoidance. Hana had ended it with a simple kiss and an 'it's too early' plea.

But now, he had the upper hand, he controlled the situation. She was stammering, blushing, the one with the uncontrollable butterflies, and he was calm, collected and oh so damn sexy.

"I... I..."

Suddenly her mind flashed back to a dark figure, clad in red and black. Dark hair fell against his thin pale face, crimson eyes staring into her soul, paisleys twirling. She shook her head quickly, mentally berating herself for thinking about him of all people. He was an enemy, a criminal, not the man she loved, not the man she longed to marry. She hid the fact that the same criminal haunted her minds even when she was with her boyfriend, that the same enemy was by her side every night, those crimson eyes gazing impassively behind her eyelids. No, the Uchiha was only a foe, a foe she must defeat and thus, must never forget, not the man she loved to marry. Because that man was proposing to her right then and there, that man had always loved her, and had held her hand as she took her first steps. She no longer was hurt by thinking of that missing ninja, she no longer daydreamed for those olden days to return, those days she sat in his twirling chair, stealing it away from a thirteen year old Uchiha prodigy. She strove for acceptance from him, and she no longer needed his smirk, his glance her way. She no longer wanted to be Uchiha Hana, the deep guilty secret she hid from the world. Because those dreams were extinct, they no longer needed to exist, and thus, were terminated.

"You do love me right?" he whispered, and Hana could hear a sense of insecurity. She instantly nodded, her heart trusting every word.

He was after all, everything she could ever possibly want. He was even more; he became everything she could possibly need, in both physical and mental ways. He was strong, fun, handsome, nice, everything anyone would want. He had loved her back fully and sturdily, accepting her dark past in warm arms. He had lifted her up, so she loved him for the fact that she had always loved him, even more than she loved Kyoshi. She had loved the way he had become the mix of her once-old loves, a mix that intoxicated her.

"M-Marriage is a really big step..." Hana said her confidence dropping as she searched for an excuse, any excuse. She never viewed matrimony as much happiness and knew it was definitely not an easier life, and that view dropped more down the 'Happiness List' when her colleagues got married, and all they did was complain about their spouse or boast about their exciting nights in gruesome detail. She wanted neither in her life, perfectly content in training, healing, and the occasional drink with her best friend.

He snorted. "You didn't say anything the first time we've fuc-"

"I was drunk," Hana retorted. "I don't even remember it. You shouldn't use a girl when she's vulnerable, you big perverted-"

She had used that excuse, trying to hide the embarrassment that she did indeed remember that hot summer night, when she threw away her innocence to a night of intense pleasure and alcohol. Seiko knew it all along, but he continued to ease her nerves by pretending he didn't know.

"You're scared," he interrupted, a mischievous flash in his dark eyes.

"No," Hana snarled a little too quickly, confirming his belief.

"I'll be extra gentle and take it slow," Seiko smirked, as Hana punched him in the arm, blushing hotly.

His lips instantly met hers before she could retort venomously and she instinctively leaned against him before closing her eyes and greeting back.

As the intensity increased, her closed eyes pictured again the man clad in black and red, the enemy, the criminal. She tried to push away the thoughts of him, as she held him even closer. She loved the Okamisora, not the Uchiha, the Uchiha no longer existed in her life, he was just a fragment of the past, a fragment, that ever to return, would never destroy her again.

Before she knew it, his mouth had left hers, a sultry voice by her ear as he repeated, "Is that a yes or a no?"

"What do you think? Yes, you dumbass." she grinned, opening her eyes.

Seiko smiled back, before meeting her lips again. He murmured soft words that made her heart flutter, higher and higher, and then shatter in millions of shards.

"I love you."

Tears formed behind her eyes as she gazed into his ecstatic ones. She realized that from that point forward, people could no longer see her as Inuzuka Hana. They would see her as Okamisora Hana, the fiancée of the great ANBU, Okamisora Seiko. They would greet her as an Okamisora, and they would never imagine her as Uchiha Hana, they would never find out about her past secrets, her past longings.

From that point forward, she could not save herself for the love she had kept hidden, she could no longer fantasize of a world where Itachi had never murdered his clan, a world that she was happily in love with the Uchiha, an upside down world that allowed her to dream of the horrors of reality as just illusions.

And she knew those dreams; those wants were wrong, unrealistic, and traitorous to both Konoha and to Seiko. Those dreams that she instantly scolded away as soon as she caught herself, those dreams that kept her up at night, using sheer will to hold back tears to not wake the sleeping dogs beside her.

She smiled back, allowing the tears to fall as she stammered out in a voice that was too high for her own, "I love you too."

Inuzuka Hana could always interpret her feelings, and her tears unfortunately were not from joy as Seiko had saw them as. The salty tears were from the simple fact that she loved a man she could not have, she loved Uchiha Itachi, and now, that chance was obsolete, that small possibility blown into the wind, disappearing in the sky.

A/N: eh crappy much? I know, it is, but I wanted to gradually descend into, er, angst. Itachi will appear in the next chapter (I hope) Please review!

Whee... they're engaged! Ahh... the drama. It's so intense! (not)