BK: I'm back! So I just finished this story! It's fabulous... and I think you'll love it.

BK

Their hands kept brushing against each other, but Naruto didn't notice anything particularly interesting about them. Not that he was the most perceptive person on earth, but the way Hinata and Genma worked together in front of him was like two people trying to get a boring job done as quickly and efficiently as the could.

Then why was it that Naruto's eyebrow kept twitching when Hinata passed the signed document about Genins and Chunins over to Genma? It was as if Genma's fingers lingered just a tad bit too much. Just a tad. A tad.

He ended up counting the seconds that Genma's fingers lingered on Hinata's. It wasn't a full blown second, but it wasn't half a second either. Genma's lingering fingers were bordering on the more than half a half of a second.

Of course Naruto knew he shouldn't be worried too much about this. He was simply observing them work. He had work himself like signing a thousand documents, but watching them, especially Hinata, was much more interesting than signing some papers.

"Oi. Hinata-chan... want to eat some Ichiraku ramen after this?"

Hinata paused in the middle of passing a signed document over to Genma, whose hand held Hinata's fingers in his own as they both stared at him. Naruto eyed the intimate touch before him and his eyebrow twitched.

"Naruto-kun?" she asked sweetly, asking him to confirm what he had just asked.

Naruto swore he saw Genma's fingers tighten on Hinata's delicate ones when he had asked the question. But as soon as he thought that, Genma took the paper away from the Hyuuga heiress and Naruto thought maybe he mistook it as Genma trying to grab the paper from Hinata.

"Uh... yeah, dinner on me." Naruto confirmed with a grin.

He was rewarded with a pink blush and Naruto inwardly yelled, "Score!"

Hinata looked down at the blank signature and signed it with the quill, "Of course Naruto-kun. I would love to have dinner with you."

Suddenly the atmosphere in the Hokage room turned heavy and thick, so dense that a knife could slice through it in half. Naruto gulped and he looked around. Nothing. He looked at the two elite shinobi in front of him to see if they too, felt that heaviness bearing down upon him. But they didn't look up or around. They just continued on with signing and passing and filing.

Hinata looked as serene as ever, her blushing pink face concentrated on finishing her work. The handsome man next to her did the same thing, his senbon tipping up and down. Naruto failed to notice that the senbon broke in half when he had asked Hinata to dinner.

Letting out a breath of hot air, Naruto sank down in his chair and decided that the heavy atmosphere was nothing but a mind trick. His feet hit the bottom of the desk and made a loud thumping noise. The heavy books Tsunade left in front of him that he never read fell over and stubbed the very tip of his toes. He yelled out in pain, cursing his stupidity for not wearing shoes that day, and jerked out of his seat immediately grabbing hold of his pained toes.

"Mother of milking cows! Oooh!"

Hinata rose immediately and she raced over to him, covering his cheek with one of her hands and the other on his shoulder, steadying him.

"Naruto-kun! Sit back down, I'll tend to it."

He nodded furiously and sat gingerly in his chair. The air grew thicker if possible. Hinata's blushing face grew darker as she bent down and touched Naruto's feet. She prodded at them and Naruto made a semi-moaning noise.

"Aaa-ah! That's..." Naruto sentence slowed to a stop as Hinata's face turned redder by the second, completely turning his pained noise into something more.

His face turned from pain to a sort of fancy as he realized that this could be his chance to recapture her heart. Apparently, not all her feelings were completely worn down. He cracked a grin and replayed that pained noise.

"Aaa-ahh! It hurts! Tsunade-baachan left such horrible, heavy books!"

Hinata blinked and she pointed to his whole feet, "Does the whole thing hurt, Naruto-kun?"

He nodded, completely disregarding his bodyguard which was observing the whole thing with carefully restrained emotions. Naruto watched as Hinata performed the basic medicnin ninjutsu on him and the pain carefully glided away.

"T-there... that should d-do it," Hinata said with a cute stutter.

Naruto's eyes widened as he made her stutter and he moved closer to her, leaning all the way out of his chair to meet her moon colored eyes.

"Hey... you're stuttering again." Naruto said with a triumphant grin.

Hinata blushed deeper and she began stuttering an embarrassed denial. The crack of a broken quill brought them back to reality as they both realized that they weren't alone. Genma Shiranui stared at them with his broken senbon in his stiff mouth. The broken quill was quickly discarded before Naruto had even registered that it was his favorite quill.

"Uh... what's up Genma?" Naruto asked dumbly.

Hinata blinked and she covered her red face with her cool hands. She moved back to her chair and she didn't dare look at Naruto or Genma, not knowing what the correct response was. She never saw this side of Genma and she didn't want to reawaken Naruto's hope for her feelings.

Quietly, she resumed her signing expedition and never looked up again.

Genma took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, eying the distraught Hyuuga, before he answered the bright and cheery Hokage, "If you're treating dinner, maybe you should invite me too."

Naruto raised an eyebrow and he was about to deny Genma when the brunette man cut him off, "We don't want Hyuuga-san feeling uncomfortable in the limelight of all those news stations."

The blonde Hokage stopped there and thought for a while. Genma was right. Naruto knew that they were the hottest topic in Konoha as of the moment. They dearly wanted to know how Naruto would win her heart back. Doing this would only make her shy away from him. Naruto sighed and placed his cheek against his fist, looking at the beautiful Hyuuga in front of him.

"Fine. Dinner on me."

Genma nodded, quietly satisfied and safely retreating out of the jealousy zone. He was just about to return to filing papers when Naruto rose and walked towards the Hyuuga. Immediately, his senses all fired up again.

Naruto walked over to Hinata and he grabbed her shoulders, making her face him. He boldly touched her chin and tipped her face so that they looked at each others' eyes. Sapphire gems gleamed into nervous opal pearls, and Naruto leaned in with a purpose.

Stunned, the Hyuuga heiress couldn't respond coherently as Naruto's eyes closed slowly and his handsome face neared hers. His lips came closer and closer. Hinata shut her eyes and then something swished between them, effectively cutting off Naruto's kiss.

A broken senbon landed precisely with a heavy thunk on the Hokage wall, narrowly missing the first Hokage's picture. Naruto's eyes widened and he looked straight at where it came from. Hinata too let out a breath and she curved her head to look at Genma who, unlike Sasuke, looked perfectly normal with a calm expression on his face. Hinata's face filled with a guilt as she couldn't look at Genma straight in the eyes.

Naruto's face fumed and he asked a threatening question, the chakra swirling inside him, "Genma Shiranui... are you trying to kill the Hokage?"

Hinata blinked and she looked desperately at Genma and Naruto, the two people in her life that she valued the most, "N-naruto-kun! Genma-san!"

Genma smiled and he threw another senbon as Hinata tried to tug at Naruto's shirt to get his attention. The senbon cut between them and he smiled at Naruto mischievously.

"Ah... sorry about that. My hand slipped Hokage-sama."

Naruto's eyes gleamed red and two words escaped his mouth with feral amusement and slight anger.

"Genma Shiranui!"

BK

BK: Teehee... jealous Genma. Poor Naruto. And then... Hinata. I want to give them all a hug!