Chapter Three: Him/Her
Naruto growled and rolled on his side as the morning sun filtered through his windows. Why did he replace the doors on the balcony again? The boring old standard ones the apartment had come with were fine.
When they broke he should have just asked the building supervisor to install more of the same. A door was a door, it opened regardless of how pretty it looked. Ceiling to floor sliding glass doors were no better than wooden ones with a little window in them.
But Sakura had liked them and well, that was all it took. That and no Shikamaru to argue with him that more light was not a good thing.
Oh well, he sighed to himself, peering over the arm of the sofa at the city outside his window. At least the view was pretty.
Besides, he was only grumpy because he'd slept on the sofa. Normally he'd have his bedroom and the blackout curtains. They'd found out he one hundred percent needed them if he wanted to get any kind of decent sleep at all a couple years ago.
God bless whoever came up with those things, they'd finally solved his sleeping problems once and for all.
Groaning lightly, Naruto rubbed at his back, doing his best to get rid of the stiffness stubbornly grabbing at the lower parts. He needed a new sofa, his was busted. Even he had to admit defeat after a night sleeping on it. First sofa he'd ever bought or not, when you felt a spring jabbing you in the back at three in the morning and couldn't find it when you were looking … it was time to replace it.
So yeah, new sofa and then he'd shove this one in Sakura's room.
The spare room, the spare room. Not Sakura's room.
Thank God he hadn't said that out loud again.
Shikamaru had given him so much shit for calling it that yesterday. Which was stupid, Sakura didn't so much as blink when he said it. Because that's what it was! The pinkette slept over so damn much she may as well have it as her room. It wasn't like he was getting another roommate after a couple years with Shikamaru, so why not let his best friend have a room at his place?
He had a drawer or two at her apartment after all. Seemed only fair.
Naruto yawned, whatever, he was too tired for this.
What time was it anyway? Just because the sun was up didn't mean he had to be. If it was any earlier than seven he was going back to sleep.
Slapping around the floor he found his phone and dragged it up to his face. Smiling softly as the ecstatically smiling face of Sakura from her last birthday filled up the screen.
They'd gone out to her favourite restaurant and wound up sharing more than one bottle of wine on the rooftop veranda of her favourite bar, dancing into the early hours of the morning.
God she was beautiful.
He managed to just about shake himself out of the memory, blushing at himself when he realised he was stroking her face on the screen and messing up his apps.
He was still reeling from his dream. The same one he always had when she stayed over. His poor abused shower really, he always felt just that little bit filthier in it afterwards.
What on Earth had convinced his brain that Sakura was that bendy?
Honestly, he could really do without the sex dreams when he was trying to convince all his friends and family that he wasn't in love with Sakura. Just because she was drop dead gorgeous, and he'd sheepishly admit to checking her out every now and again, didn't mean he was in love with her.
And, he felt it was perfectly okay to wake up with a morning erection you could break diamonds with, after your brain assured you that your objectively gorgeous best friend was so bendy, she could be a contortionist who specifically operated in your shower.
Obvious physical attraction wasn't love is all he was saying.
Despite what his old roommate, his grandparents or a heartbroken Hinata insisted when she'd dumped him. He still felt awful over that one. But he stood by what he'd said to her.
He wasn't in love with Sakura, he'd had a massive crush on her in school obviously, he'd never deny that. Because doing so would make him a liar, which he wasn't. But would he have gone out with Hinata in the first place if he'd been so madly in love with another woman?
Would he, the man who ran headlong into all sorts of dangerous active crime scenes be so afraid, to not ask a woman out if he wanted to?
But no, that didn't matter to Hinata. He was just a coward who wouldn't admit his feelings according to her. After a two year relationship. After they'd already shared I love yous and lost virginities to each other. When they'd been talking about moving in together after she finished university.
No, he was just with her not to be alone.
That one still stung. It had been years and they'd buried the hatchet more than well enough for him to be a groomsman at her and Kiba's wedding. And of course he'd forgiven her, because whether it was true or not, it was true to Hinata and he'd hated the idea that he had hurt her so terribly.
Didn't stop it stinging though.
Ugh. It was done now.
They could laugh about their relationship and even how it ended now. He was just being grumpy because he'd slept on his sofa, had the damn shower dream again and, upon checking his phone, it was only six thirty in the morning.
He tried to doze back off, but he was awake now and very aware of a tightness around his groin. And with the sun coming up at a steady pace, Naruto admitted defeat.
'Fuck it,' he groused, throwing his legs over the side of the sofa. At least he could take longer in the shower this way. He was probably going to need it. Normally did after that damn shower dream.
Naruto was proven right when his usual ten minute shower lasted thirty and by the time he was making breakfast for him and Sakura, because Shikamaru wouldn't be up before eleven at the absolute earliest, it was pushing eight and Sakura was appearing out of her … the spare room.
'Hey Sakura,' he said cheerily. The cold shower and touching himself, the only reasons he could even look at her when she hadn't changed out of her nightwear. 'Enjoy your lie in?'
Sakura smiled back at him, a little tinge of pink on her cheeks and a weird stumble over her feet pulling his eyes for a second but he dismissed it. She had just woken up after all.
'A whole extra hour I know, lucky me,' she chuckled as she paused halfway to the bathroom. She glanced over at him and sniffed. 'Are you making breakfast?'
'Just about to start the eggs yeah, don't worry I'll leave yours on a hot plate.' He bent down to check on the bacon and turned it over again.
'You're an angel,' Sakura said with a sigh. 'Seriously Naruto, if you throw in a turndown service I might just keep you.'
Naruto laughed, doing his best not to let his eyes linger on her bare legs when they came into his view. 'Whatever you like Miss Haruno. At your service.'
They both laughed at that and he pretended he didn't catch Sakura's muttered words before she scooted off to the bathroom.
He didn't want to read too much into them and besides, cold water didn't stop his dream rocketing back into his mind when a half dressed Sakura was gliding off to have a shower in his bathroom. He didn't need to add her muttered 'yes please' to that cocktail of sexual frustration.
The fact that the t-shirt of his she'd slept in last night cupped her ass invitingly was more than enough fuel to that fire already, thank you.
Mercifully, Sakura reappeared fully dressed and with only her hair damp thirty minutes later and he'd had the time to think of decidedly unsexy things in the meantime.
Like how much of a pain in the ass waking Shikamaru was going to be tomorrow morning.
Why had he let him stay with him again? Chouji was the best man, and he'd offered his sofa to the groom. Why was Shika here?
But no, as they'd agreed at the bachelor party, Naruto had the spare room and they did technically work in the same building. It had seemed so sensible at the time. Then again he was at least six shots of tequila deep at that point and who knew how many beers.
The blond personally felt like Chouji just hadn't wanted to deal with Shikamaru in his house for a week. And Naruto was too nice to call him out on it.
But thinking about that had made it so when Sakura gave him that knock out smile, he was only slightly taken aback by how gorgeous she was.
He slid her plate in front of her and shimmied around the kitchen island to join her on a stool with his own plate.
'Did you wait to eat with me?' she asked glancing at his plate with a slight frown. 'Dummy, you should have eaten. What if I'd taken ages?'
Naruto shrugged and nudged her with his shoulder, earning himself a small smile. 'It's nicer eating with company anyway. Besides, it'd be rude to just sit here watching you eat.'
She nudged him back and chewed on a piece of bacon. 'Stubborn man, though I guess you're right, this is nice.'
He grinned victoriously and reached across her to get the jug of orange juice and held it by her empty glass, mostly to cover that he'd gotten a waft of her cherry flavoured shampoo and god it was heavenly as always.
She nodded, the whole thing adorable when she was daintily chewing on her breakfast, and he filled up her glass until she made a noise to tell him to stop.
Filling his own glass, Naruto found himself smiling. This might actually be his favourite part of Sakura spending the night. When they got to have breakfast in the morning without rushing off to work.
It felt very domestic and it was almost enough to make him ask her if she wanted to reconsider moving in. So they could do this all the more, maybe every morning. That'd be great.
But it was always an almost. They kept some truly crazy hours and while they normally matched up pretty well he didn't want to come barrelling in after a morning shift when she was still sleeping off an evening one.
Though since he'd been made a detective his hours were more set …
She pointed across him at the ketchup and made a few more adorable noises, he chuckled and went to pass the ketchup to Sakura, pulling it away when she reached for it, getting a light swat on the arm.
'Use your words Sakura,' he chuckled when he kept it out of her grabbing hands' reach.
She swallowed and glared at him. 'Please,' she sneered at him.
'There you go,' Naruto said cheekily, offering the bottle to her.
She took it with another playful glare and a poke in the rib. 'Smartass.'
'You love it,' he said dismissively.
They sat there eating breakfast, in companionable silence for a few more minutes until Sakura broke it with a nervous clearing of her throat.
'So …' Sakura started, Naruto turning to look at her. 'I was thinking about the wedding.'
'Uh huh,' Naruto said, filling up more orange juice in his glass. 'If it's about how we get up there, you know you're welcome to drive up with me and Shika. I can pick you up from your apartment tomorrow morning.'
She beamed at him quickly. 'You're lovely, but no, we're having a bit of a girly night tonight and if I'm not there to drag Ino's hungover ass to the venue she'll never get there in time.'
Naruto shrugged. 'Offer stands Sakura, I can always take her up as well. You know how big the trunk of the Jeep is, remember when we went camping?'
Sakura bobbed her head from side to side. 'True, I'll let you know. But that wasn't what – um – I wanted to talk to you about.'
She blushed lightly, bit her lip and the searching look she gave him before she spoke just made him want to wrap his arms around her, and tell her he'd do whatever she wanted, as long as she smiled again.
'Yeah?' Naruto asked gently, sipping more of his juice.
She smiled a little and with what looked like a decisive nod said, 'I think we should go together to the wedding.'
Naruto made a face. 'Well of course, we were already going to Sakura, I don't under-'
'No Naruto,' Sakura interrupted her blush going a little darker and the biting of her lip turning into chewing. Her hands rubbing each other in her lap. 'As in go as each other's date. As in date date.'
Naruto wished he'd reacted with poise when Sakura had said that. He wished he'd given it a think and calmly and happily told Sakura he'd be happy to.
But he hadn't done that.
Naruto spat his orange juice all over the kitchen island counter and coughed and spluttered as Sakura looked truly terrified while he hurriedly wiped at his mouth and top with a nearby dish towel.
'What?!' Naruto croaked as he warily eyed his juice before sipping it down.
'I, uh, well, um,' Sakura said, stumbling over her words. 'I just thought it'd give us some relief from all the prodding and poking and we could actually enjoy this weekend if we took away their ability to tease us about how we should be a couple if we just showed up as each other's date. Like, we could keep it entirely platonic and just hang out like we were going to anyway, we know they're going to shove us together in every way they can so why not just take that away from them and beat them to the punch? But I guess you don't want to which is fine and I'm sorry, I just thought it would be fun, sorry.'
Naruto thought he caught all of the rambling, and he agreed with everything he heard. Problem was his throat was still burning from the coughing and he could barely do anything more than blink wetly.
She looked about ready to bolt, mortified more than he'd ever seen her and he could already feel the hurt bubbling in her eyes. 'Forget it, it was stupid. Sorry.'
'No,' he forced out, coughing his throat clear. 'Sorry, Sakura, you just caught me by surprise.'
She didn't turn to look at him fully, glancing timidly at him and wringing her hands as he coughed some more and sipped down more traitorous orange juice.
'I think that'd be great,' Naruto said finally, clearing his throat one more time and smiling as big as he could at the still hurt looking Sakura. 'It'd be fun.'
'You don't have to …' Sakura said meekly. She turned her face away from him to inspect something on the counter. 'It's okay.'
Ah fuck, why couldn't he be smoother? Or just a little less of an idiot. It really did sound like a brilliant idea and it would be so much more fun if they took the teeth out of their friends' teasing.
Plus it was yet another excuse to spend all the time he wanted with Sakura. Always a plus.
'Sakura,' Naruto said soothingly, reaching out to stroke her arm. She jumped slightly at the touch but didn't pull away. He wasn't completely up shit's creek then. 'I would love to be your date date.'
The pinkette looked him in the eye, nearly knocking him over with how gorgeous her eyes were. Their being watery making them shine even more than usual. 'You're not just saying that to save my feelings right? I'll kick your ass if you are.'
She frowned at him slightly as he grinned a little. 'I know, no Sakura I think it'd be great. It'd get them to shut up and focus on Shika and Temari, we were going together anyway and hell just cus it's a date doesn't mean we have to do anything we wouldn't do on a normal night out.'
'You sure?' Sakura asked, the uncertainty seemingly giving way to hope when he nodded. 'Okay! Great! I can't wait to see their faces when we tell them we're going as each other's date. They'll be speechless.'
Naruto chuckled as Sakura continued on with her breakfast and ran through all the ways they could mess with their friends. Throwing in a few playful suggestions which only seemed to fuel Sakura's growing excitement every now and then.
Until he threw in one particular idea without thinking and it left them both blushing and grinning sheepishly at each other.
'Sharing a bed might be a bit much huh?' Naruto chuckled weakly. 'We've already got rooms booked anyway, the venue staff probably wouldn't be too pleased with us if we tried to rearrange the day before.'
'Yeah,' Sakura agreed with her own laugh. 'You'll have to find another way to get me into your bed Mr Uzumaki,' she teased and Naruto felt like his face burst into flame at the cheeky wink she gave him.
'Challenge accepted,' Naruto teased back and tried not to read too much into the silence that fell on them after that joke.
They finished off their breakfasts, Sakura asking for a second serving of toast for the road and the conversation moved on to more logistical and safe topics. Like making sure he'd remembered to get the right kind of tie to match the other groomsmen, to remember to bring at least a couple spare pairs of socks and boxers just in case.
He could almost see what people were getting at about her being his wife when she reminded him for the fifth time in that conversation to pack his suitcase. Which while he felt personally was an unnecessary amount of times … he'd had a bag ready since before Shikamaru arrived … he knew Sakura was speaking from years of experience.
Neither of them wanted another fiasco like the group beach holiday. Naruto had forgotten to pack until the night before. Sakura had looked ready to murder him when she'd walked in to his apartment finding him throwing stuff in a suitcase haphazardly.
The rest of breakfast went along as per usual, Sakura had started watching a new TV program she wanted him to try and was telling him all about it dropping so many spoilers he probably didn't need to watch it anymore, and before too long it was time for Sakura to leave.
'Okay,' she said glancing at her phone as the screen lit up with a text message. Making Naruto groan.
She still had the picture of him with those stupid whisker tattoos he'd gotten when they were drunk, as her phone background.
'It's cute! You look like a little fox!' She always cooed whenever he protested that the picture was embarrassing. Like they were the little cherry blossom tattoo she'd gotten under her left shoulder blade. That one was actually really pretty. The whiskers had just been stupid.
And she always won that argument, if you could call it that, cus she'd just smile at him and flutter her eyelashes until he gave up with a grumbled 'fine.'
At least she'd held his hand when he'd gone to get the laser removal. It hadn't hurt but lasers to your face was still unnerving.
She caught him grimacing at her phone and grinned at him innocently. Hm.
'I think I'd best get going Naruto, Ino's still freaking out over what to wear to the reception and she needs me desperately.' Sakura said with a fond shake of her head. 'You'd think she was the one getting married.'
They chuckled a little and Sakura's phone went off again. She blushed and scowled at the new text message.
Naruto didn't need to ask what the message had said, he'd made the mistake of reading one or two before and well … he'd always known Ino had a dirty mind but seeing what she thought he and Sakura were doing at any given moment was something else entirely.
'Can I please tell her we're going as each other's date?' Sakura pleaded, reaching out to squeeze his fingers. 'I promise to save most of the reveals for tomorrow so we can just savour it but I can't put up with a whole day of … well this.'
She showed him the text message and it was Naruto's turn to blush. 'She's getting more inventive the longer we 'deny the obvious' isn't she?'
Sakura sighed angrily and shoved her phone into her back jeans pocket. 'You have no idea. So can I tell her?'
'Sure, but you know she'll only get worse. Everyone else will back off but you know Ino's gonna take it as an excuse to dig deeper.' Naruto shrugged, trying his best to banish the images Ino's text filled his mind with. He was going to need another cold shower at this rate, damn.
'That's fine, it might move to more romantic stuff instead of things that belong in a porno,' Sakura grumbled without looking at him. She pulled on her jacket and threw her bag over her shoulder. 'I'll text you later with the results kay?'
'Do, and try to have fun.' Naruto chuckled as he walked with her to the door. 'Let me know if you want me to pick you up tomorrow yeah?'
Sakura reached up on her tip toes as they hugged and pecked him on the cheek. 'I will, have a good day Naruto, love you.'
Naruto hugged back and opened the door for her. 'Love you too Sakura-chan.'
Sakura was blushing when he pulled back and by the time Naruto could register what he'd said …
'Okay, bye Naruto!' And she all but sprinted out his door and down the corridor.
He'd called her Sakura-chan. He hadn't done that since school …
'Ohhhhh,' Naruto muttered to himself. 'Uzumaki what have you gotten yourself into this time?'
