Truth…
I am so sorry for the long wait! I am not very good at keeping up to date with things, as you can probably see with my other stories but still I hope to at least continue this particular story well into its plot!
Chapter 3 – Wedding Plans
Naru awoke, not to sun beams streaming through her shutters, but to a pair of arms wrapped around her waist – That may have something to do with the fact that it was 5 am in the morning. As she wiped the sleep from her eyes, said arms tightened and a groan came from the person attached to them.
She chuckled and kissed the lips tantalizingly close to her own before slipping out from under the covers into the cool air surrounding the bed. "Come on" she said to Kurama, who was still snuggled deep beneath the covers "I'm hungry!"
When no movement was made she leaned in closer to her fiancé and whispered conspiratorially "I heard the forest of death does a very nice deer special Kura-kun" At that Kurama sprung from the bed but then yelped when he was hit by the chilly air once he was out from under the covers.
"Gah, Naru! That was mean" he pouted and Naru laugh before slipping out of room and into their en-suite to shower and dress. By the time she came out Kurama was already dressed, apparently deciding to skip showering.
They made their way out of the house and down to the path towards the Forest of Death. They jumped the fence surrounding the forest and proceeded to sniff out the area for any yummy-smelling food.
After just a few minutes Kurama located his favourite delicacy, deer, and bounded off to slaughter it whilst Naru continued her search for her particular taste of the morning, wild pig or boar. Eventually, she discovered one snuffling for food close to a lake.
She crept silently closer to it and bared her fangs hungrily. Waiting for the right moment, she pounced on all fours at the still unaware boar. At the last second it was made aware of her presence but it was already too late.
Her elongated nails clawed at its flesh, ripping and tearing until all that was left was a bloody mess. Kurama, having heard the boar's squealing, appeared from behind some trees – licking fresh blood from his lips.
"Can't you be less messy with your food; didn't someone ever tell you not to play with your breakfast, or any meal for that matter?" he drawled sarcastically. "Hypocrite…" she retorted, motioning to his crimson-stained hands.
Kurama just shrugged, allowing his fiancée to return to her meal. Soon enough, they had exited the forest and Naru began to drag Kurama to the centre of Konoha so that she could dump him on the other guys while she went to see the girls.
First she went to Kiba because he would be the most likely person to get along with Kurama as they were both relatively feral. She knocked on the Inuzuka Estate's main door and waited for someone to answer her call.
A few seconds passed before Hana Inuzuka, Kiba's sister, opened the door. She looked at Naru and because of her age assumed that the two were there to see Kiba. "Kiba!" She shouted into the house "Your little friends are here"
She smiled at Naru and Kurama as they waited for Kiba's heavy footsteps to get closer. "Oh, hey, Naru," he said, replacing his sister's place in the doorway "What you here for?"
Naru smiled sheepishly "Well, I was kinda wondering if I could leave Kurama with you, one so that he could get to know you and some of the other guys and two because I have to go discuss wedding plans with the girls"
Kiba nodded, then turned to Kurama with a sympathetic expression "Great Kami man, you're so lucky that she decided to dump you here cause I tell ya mate, wedding planning is not fun to be around, especially if it involves girls, I should know what with my sis getting hitched just last year and planning my own wedding with Hinata"
Naru huffed and glared at her childhood friend "Er no offence Naru" Kiba admonished but Naru just stuck her tongue out at him. "Well, I'll go call up Shino, Shikamaru – who'll bring Chouji – and Neji – who'll bring Lee and Sai – so come on in mate!"
Kiba grabbed Kurama who quickly planted a peck on Naru's lips with a call of "Have fun!" before the door was slammed in her face. She just shrugged uncaringly and left in the direction of Sakura's house.
Sakura's house was a cosy, two-bedroom cottage-like place as it was just her living in it. The outside walls were a faded peach colour and the roof was a shiny black that glinted in the bright sunlight.
Naru rang the doorbell and heard Sakura's call, from somewhere in the house, of "Coming, hold on!" Footsteps loudened at Sakura neared the door, soon they stopped and Sakura's pink hair and then her face appeared from around the door.
"Oh! Hey Naru, need help with the wedding plans eh?" Her full body emerged from inside the house and she grinned cheekily at her best friend who stood there nodding, a little embarrassed, in answer to her question.
"Well, come on! Let's go pick up Tenten and Ino so that we can all plan at Hinata's place" Sakura promptly decided to grab Naru and drag her all across Konoha to Hinata's house, stopping only momentarily to pick up the other two.
Hinata had moved into a smaller, but still quite large, compound than the Hyuuga Clan's one. One that she and Kiba planned to move into once they married in a few months.
Hinata welcomed them into her home and left them in the sitting room while she went to make a small snack and bring in some drinks. Ino grinned slyly at Sakura "We all know that Hinata will be accompanied by Kiba to the wedding and Tenten by Neji but who will you be going with, hmm?"
Sakura flipped her childhood friend off with a counter of her own "Ah, but Ino! I think the real question is, who will you be going with? Will Shikamaru accompany Temari or will you, or will you go with Chouji?"
Ino spluttered for a bit before answering "Well, if you must know. I have been giving it a lot of thought and have decided that Temari can have Shika for all I care, I could not put up with his laziness day and day out!"
They all laughed and Sakura grinned "And if you must know then, Sasuke is no longer on my radar – he's a bigoted prat and I can't even remember why I liked him in the first place!" The girls all cheered.
Hinata came in then, carrying a jug of lemonade, some glasses and a tray of homemade pastries "Who will you be going with then, Sakura?" her voice was light and flowing, completely different to her young, stuttering one.
Sakura looked down "I don't really know…" she said sadly and Naru wrapped an arm around her comfortingly, feeling totally at ease touching the other girl. Tenten looked at her "You know, Lee has had a crush on you all these years… You could always ask him"
Sakura smiled a little "You know, I might just do that" Hinata set the tray and drinks down "Well, you guys came over here to plan a wedding, so let's plan a wedding!" They started by assigning tasks.
"Ino you get a start on flower arrangements and décor, Hinata you go for the food and wedding cake, Tenten you find somewhere to have the actual ceremony and deal with the entertainment and Sakura you can stay with me working out the guest list and invitations. Then we can go shopping for dresses for us all!" Naru exclaimed.
"Never would have guessed you to be the girly type Naru and so organised too, not that I'm complaining; I can't wait to pick out a dress!" Ino laughed as she left to go to her flower shop to get some inspiration.
Tenten bit her lip, unsure of where to start until the perfect idea hit her – the academy, it was a special place for everyone and the courtyard with the swing that Naru had spent so much time on was a right suntrap.
"Naru" she began and the girl turned towards her in answer "How about the academy? The courtyard with swing, you remember right?" Tear's sprung to Naru's eyes as she remembered those lonely days but angrily pushed them away.
"Sure" she replied, it was actually a pretty good idea really – she'd just have to get over the fact that it brought back so many memories that she'd rather forget. Tenten noted the girl's hesitation in her answer but left it at that as Naru had agreed.
"I'll go and look into it and see what's available in the music department" Tenten assured as she stood and made to leave, intent on returning in an hour or so to get the dresses. Sakura began to speak but Hinata interrupted her shyly.
"Sorry Sakura but I just had a brainstorm, Ichiraku Ramen – the place you used to love right, Naru? – has become very successful these past few years and become a large restaurant that mainly focuses on ramen but does anything from veggie to steak" Hinata said excitedly.
Naru grinned wolfishly at the thought of ramen and steak, the veggie stuff… not so much, and answered Hinata in a rush "Yes! That's perfect Hinata, oh my god, go! Go and book it right now! Yeeeee!"
Hinata did a mental victory dance at her good idea "Great! I'll go do that then find Ino to see what the décor will be like so the cake will match" She left Sakura and Naru to get on with their currently empty guest list, ginning happily.
"Sooo, who are people who you really want to invite?" Sakura asked. "Hmm, well family kind of people like Tsunade, Iruka, Kakashi and Jiraiya and obviously all of the people we've grown up with" Sakura smiled then frowned.
"Even Sasuke?" she said quietly. Naru was quiet for a while then spoke unsurely "Well, he has been a large part of all our lives for a long time so I think we should invite him, even if he doesn't deserve it. Sakura smiled wryly, thinking of her fangirl days "Yeah, I guess he was"
In the end, the list was rather long as it included people from Konoha like the Konohamaru corps and from her travels including Inari, Tazuna, Tsunami and the Sand Siblings, with Temari being invited to be a bridesmaid.
It was decided that Jiraiya would be asked to give her away, Tsunade to be the priest, Konohamaru to be the ring bearer and Moegi to be the flower girl – Udon could deal with not being anything. They would be asked if they wanted to play their part on the invitation.
The invitation design was simple yet alluring, plain black card with orange and red swirls and white writing. In Naru's eyes it was perfect and she certain Kurama would love it too. By the time they finished this, the others were returning.
Each girl squealed and fawned over the invitation design, loving it. Hinata returned with good news, Ayame and Teuchi were delighted to cater for and hold the reception for the wedding. She had met with Ino and gone to see a cake designer as well.
Also, Iruka – who was now head of the academy – was overjoyed at the news of Naru's wedding and agreed to hold the ceremony at the academy immediately. Tenten had also managed to secure a flexible band that could play at the ceremony and even better, more entertaining music at the reception.
After seeing the invitation design and looking at the flowers in her shop, Ino was almost hysterical with ideas bubbling in her brain and instantly set to work on a catalogue of flowers and wedding décor she had brought with her.
While Ino worked on that, the others began scribbling out invitations until they finished and placed everything away with aching hands. Ino had, by this time, come up with a great décor that included the centre pieces, flower arrangements and the setting plan for the guests.
They decided that Naru could send the invitations out by her and Kurama's fox summons when she got home. They also felt there was no need for a wedding shower, they could come up with a hen party later and leave the stag party to Kurama.
They then set off to go shopping for dresses. They tried so many shops before coming to a small dress shop, finding a collection of the same dress in different colours that would be perfect for the bridesmaid dresses.
The dresses were strapless and ended at the knee . /pd_ Sakura chose fuchsia, Hinata chose lilac, Ino chose sky blue, Tenten chose sage and they reserved gold for Temari and purple for Moegi as they didn't know their sizes.
After this they went to a wedding dress shop and Naru tried on numerous dresses before she found the perfect one. The one-shouldered bodice hugged her form up until it reached her waist were it flared out in choppy chiffon waves. It was peach in colour and had a trail of diamonds reaching diagonally across the bodice. .
By the time all this was over, each and every girl was spent of their energy. They called it a day and made plans to meet up again to continue their preparations soon. Naru began to make her way over to Kiba's house to get Kurama so they could go home.
When she got there, she found the house filled with noise coming from all of the boys inside, she rapped on the door loudly in the hopes that they would hear it over their boisterous laughter. Luckily, Shikamaru had heard her knock.
"Hey" he said simply, grinning a bit before yelling out "Kurama, Naru's here!" and disappearing back inside. Kurama was at the door moments later "Time to go, love?" he asked. "If you're ready" she replied smirking and gesturing to the ever growing shouts from inside.
"I'll be right back" he said and momentarily dashed back inside only to reappear seconds later, stepping out and closing the door behind him. "Just saying goodbye" he said in reply to her confused face.
She laughed "So you had fun then?" "Yeah, I think we're all going to be great friends… Although Sai is a little weird" he said. "I wouldn't know, I've never met him. But if you liked him he can come to the wedding" Naru said.
"Cool," He said "how did it go on your side of things" "Fine" she smiled. "just fine?" he asked teasingly. "Okay, it was really fun. I got my dress by the way, and no, you can't see it!"
They talked a bit more about what each did and Naru found that Kurama wanted all of his new friends to be his groomsmen. "You're the one who has to organize them and a stag party, so whatever" she said in reply.
Back at home they spent the evening sending out summons with invitations and true to her prediction, Kurama loved the design. After dinner in the Forest of Death, they received a letter from one of Tsunade's slugs telling her that both their strengths had to be assessed tomorrow and also that the council had requested a meeting.
Naru sighed, her good mood vanished. Tomorrow was going to be an interesting day to say the least. With that though she fell asleep in Kurama's welcoming arms.