Itachi yawned at another slow day that seemed to stretch out in front of him forever in all directions. He was a man of action, he needed to be doing something anything. A man could only play with his pens for so long before he snapped.
Worse still was that slow days allowed him the time to worry and fuss over things. Like the speech for Shisui's wedding he was supposed to be writing, or about Sasuke's Anbu mission, or the box full of marriage proposals directed to him and Naruto.
That was a beast he had been putting off for far too long. A lot of them were tied to various treaties and alliances. The thought of burning the box was a comforting one, but that would just make the other villages angry at him.
His desire to protect his precious little sister from the world was just barely beat out by their shared dream of a world of peace.
With one last glare at the box, Itachi threw his hat onto the hook and rolled his shoulders. "Might as well go train."
He opened the door and saw his "Precious little sister", no wait, beautiful young woman, little sister, the ideal woman, little sister, future wife, little sister! Smoking hot blonde! He didn't even know that Naruto had been an ugly duckling until he saw the swan that she had become.
"Yo, Itachi." That raspy voice he had once thought of as cute had grown up into a sensual tone that pulled at his heartstrings. Her blue eyes shined like a warm summer day, and her hair. Oh her hair his memory did not do her flaxen hair that flowed like liquid sunshine. "Long time no see."
His heart skipped a beat when she smiled. "I uhh, Naruto! I thought you were supposed to be a week away."
The letter said she was going to be here a week from now. He knew it said a week from now. This had to be an illusion conjured by boredom. Or more likely Shisui!
"Heh heh, changed the date so that I could surprise you." She stuck out her tongue and grabbed his hand. How on earth was it so rough and soft at the same time? "You're not busy right? Let's go get food! I'm hungry!"
His stomach felt empty., despite having lunch but a few hours ago. With a mouth as dry as the desert Itachi nodded numbly at Naruto. This had to be some kind of illusion or genjutsu, perhaps some kind of hallucination. Never before had he seen a woman this beautiful. "Sure, my treat I guess."
"It's a date then."
XXXX
Despite the years, the tea shop didn't hadn't changed much from when they last visited - the "grand opening" sign still hung above the entrance. While the place was good Itachi simply hadn't gone there since the time with Naruto.
"I'm surprised that you weren't insisting on going to get ramen." Itachi let out a low chuckled, he rested his head on one hand and simply looked at Naruto. He would never grow tired of staring at her, her's was an eternal beauty.
"Yea, well." With a stretch, Naruto rested her head and both hands, her smile was smaller but showed just as much joy as before. "I can eat ramen later, I wanted to be able to sit across from you and talk while we eat."
"But how will I hide the fact I'm talking with my mouthful?"
That earned him a glorious snort from Naruto. "How will you even find your food if you keep looking at me like I'm the only woman in the world."
"You're not the only woman in the world, simply the most beautiful." The words came out as the honest truth with barely a thought from Itachi. His reward was Naruto turning crimson her; he was going to enjoy teasing her.
She brought up the menu and dove her head under it. "I uhh, hey waiter we're ready to order!"
Itachi smiled at his victory it seemed Naruto could deal it, but she could not take it very well. He needed to press this advantage. "Oh, why are you so flustered Naruto?"
She glared at him over the menu. "It's your fault for being so smooth, can't you at least act a little embarrassed?"
"It's going to take more than a few words for me to be embarrassed." Uchiha didn't really do embarrassed really, Itachi couldn't even recall the last time he was embarrassed. Oh right, when he found a naked Mizukage in his bed.
Not that he was ever going to tell Naruto that.
XXXX
Naruto bit her lip as she followed Itachi around through the village. Her crush on him certainly hadn't vanished in her years away from Konoha. If anything it was stronger than ever. He was just so… so… so infuriatingly awesome.
Especially with those glasses.
"So, what are we going to do now?" She stepped up to his side arms clasped behind her back.
Itachi met her gaze for just a moment. He gave a deep sigh that he only gave when he was about to do something he didn't want to know. She hated that sigh. "Since you decided to show up early, the rest of your team is away assignment, so we're going to be taking care of something that I've been putting off for a while."
"Which is?"
Itachi frowned. "You will see."
When they reached her future office Naruto darted past Itachi, snagged his hat and claimed the chair that was rightfully hers. With a flourish, she spun in the chair twice and created a mustache out of her hair by placing it between her upper lip and nose. She folded her hands in the way the Third Hokage had once done. "Ahh, young Itachi, what is this important business you have for me today?"
Itachi walked past her with a warm chuckle. "Well Lord Hokage, today I must bring to you several proposals of an alliance, all of which have varying terms and conditions, and while we are able to accept them are there are a few terms that have been requested of us."
"Oh?" Naruto said in her best old man voice. "It sounds like everything is set then, why have you brought this to my attention?"
His smile vanished when Itachi pulled down a box filled with scrolls. He pulled out several scrolls and placed them in front of Naruto, there were five in total. "The alliances have a common request, to be sealed with a marriage proposal."
Naruto grabbed one of the scrolls and found the symbol of the sand on it. She allowed her fo-mustache to fall. "So who wants who."
"You."
Naruto stared at the scroll in her hand like it might bite her. "Who wants me?"
"All of them."
"Five people want to marry me?" A panic set upon her. She didn't want to leave Konoha! Who would even want to marry her? She was loud, annoying, stubborn, accident prone, and a political incident waiting to happen. And yet she had five marriage proposals! That was more than the number of people that had asked her out!
"Not five." Naruto let out a breath of fresh air at Itachi's correction. "Those are just from Gaara, he told me that the alliance does not hinge on you marrying him, but he seemed intent on courting you."
"Gaara?" Naruto furrowed her brow in frustration. That name seemed familiar. "Oh was he the sand jinchuuriki that I punched back during the invasion?"
"Yea he's their Kazekage now." Itachi began to place a more varied collection of scrolls on the desk one by one until the box was empty.
"Wow that's awesome!" Naruto couldn't help but feel a bit of pride and hope because her fellow jinchuriki had become a kage. "But why does he want to marry me? All I did was punch him!"
Itachi laughed at that. "Beats me, that Haku fellow is your intended should you choose to accept the Mist's alliance."
"I punched him too!" Naruto began to read through the scrolls with reckless abandon, finding her own name among the numerous characters only for it to be paired with another boy she beat some sense into. "I punched this guy too!"
"And this one! And this one! Why is it that when I punch people they want to marry me!" Naruto whined tossing the last scroll up into the air. She slouched down in the Hokage's chair and groaned.
Itachi placed a hand on her arm and kneeled down beside her. "Sorry if this seems like a lot, but I felt like you should know considering it involves you a lot."
Naruto groaned and kicked her feet against the desk. "You're not going to marry me off are you?"
She didn't want to think Itachi would do such a thing to her. But she wanted him to confirm it.
He squeezed her arm and a small measure of rage flashed across Itachi's face. It reminded her of the night with Mizuki, she had never seen him so fierce. Then it faded. "Naruto, you don't have to marry anybody you don't want to."
"Good." Naruto grabbed Itachi's hand and smiled at him. "Because the guy I'm going to marry loves Konoha as much as I do."
With a sudden flash of courage, Naruto swooped to the side and pressed her lips to Itachi's cheek pushing up his glasses slightly.
So that's what Itachi looked like when he was embarrassed.
AN: Short chapter! but felt like a good place to end it! Do you all want to read Shisui and Futaba's wedding? It'd probably just be an excuse for Itachi and Naruto to date.
A few chapters left if I'm honest, going to write some fluffy romance developing between Itachi and Naruto and end with a proposal or wedding haven't decided.