From Wells and Scrolls
Written for HalfBlackWolfDemon for the prompt "Special Summoning Technique"
While Sakura may have been the first to notice that something was up with Kagome and her feelings toward Naruto, it was Sasuke who noticed Naruto's predicament first. Despite how much they bickered and fought and couldn't get along without violence (just like they brothers they wished they were), no one knew the other better.
So when they went out on a double-date (Sasuke and Sakura, and Naruto and Hinata, not Sasuke and Naruto like Sai suggested when first mentioned within earshot of him), there were things he couldn't not notice. If only because he thought he had issues when it came to intimacy. But he cared about Sakura, more than he realized he did for years. So if it had been the same for both Hinata and Naruto, wouldn't things be similar.
Their hands never brushed as they passed food around, and Hinata made sure their chopsticks never touched either. While Sasuke was careful, he never was to such a degree with either Naruto or Sakura. He loved them in different ways and never minded the occasional brush of hands or thighs, or the inevitable chopstick war Naruto would instigate over the last spring roll that always ended with it being skewered into at least three different pieces.
This dinner was stilted. And awkward. Sasuke (and he was sure even Sakura was as well) actually looked forward to the fight at the end, but Naruto never instigated it. Conversation was kept polite and appropriate, with no nasty jokes or talk of missions or the 'good old days'.
It was so normal and boring that Sasuke swore to himself he would never again wish for Naruto to have manners. It was wrong.
Even the way they smiled at each other was wrong. Maybe Sasuke was just being resentful, but he swore they were forced. It was like watching a dog and a cat attempt to dance like people. What would be next? Kiba shacking up with a cat lover?
As soon as Sasuke saw Naruto the next day, he pulled him aside and demanded to know what was going on. But Naruto only shrugged.
"We're trying it out." He said that so casually Sasuke thought he might as well be talking about trying a new color for his wardrobe.
"You don't try out relationships." And Sasuke liked to think he knew a thing or two more about relationships than Naruto. Which, in anyone else's opinion, meant he knew slightly more than nothing.
Naruto scratched his head and smiled. "But isn't that what dating's all about? That's what Kagome-chan said anyway."
And Sasuke had been forced to concede that point.
Only to have another made very clear the next night when it was him, Sakura, Naruto and Kagome having their weekly catch-up dinner together.
Hands, knees, elbows and chopsticks all clashed together, especially at the end of dinner fight over the last piece of sashimi. Kagome even poked Naruto in the face with the wrong end of her chopsticks just to rub in his loss when she emerged victorious at the end.
Sasuke saw no forced smiles or manners that night. Sakura and he could only share an eye-roll over their friends' obliviousness toward their own feelings. The three of them were in such denial, it was disgusting. And that had to mean something coming from him.
Unfortunately, it was Hinata who realized something was wrong next. But when one had strove for something for so long, it was hard to give it up. And like most other girls, she had grown up on fairy tales and love stories, despite appearances to the contrary.
Love was all you need.
That was the one law about relationships every girl seemed to be taught. It was all they really heard, and so it became the only truth. But Hinata couldn't help feeling like it might be a lie.
If love was all anyone needed, then why wasn't it easier? She had enough love to love them both, of that she was certain. But no one told her just how trying it could be trying to fill a relationship up with enough love for two people. She knew Naruto was trying, but he wasn't quite at a point to say he loved her in any way beyond friendship either.
She had to remind herself often that while she had loved him for many years, he had loved and seen others for years as well. His looking at her as a possible love interest was new and…they had a ways to go. She had waited years, what were a few more?
Or so she tried to tell herself as the days went on.
But there were things she couldn't overlook and pass off as something that could be learned. When they held hands, it didn't give her butterflies like him glancing her way used to do. They had only kissed once, but it didn't cause her heart to flutter. Weren't those all things that were supposed to happen when with someone you loved? Or were those more lies about relationships that romantic stories and fairy tales made up?
She didn't know and she had no one to ask really, except those already in relationships. And she didn't want to do that.
If she asked, then they would wonder why. Or look at her with pity because they knew that while she had gotten what she wanted, it wasn't what she needed. And if this wasn't what she needed, she didn't know what to do. It had been her only goal for so long, her only inspiration, and if it had been for all the wrong reasons…
Instead she smiled and enjoyed the time she spent with him. She filled her heart up with all the hopes she had had since she was a child as she grabbed Naruto's hand as they walked through the village. After all, if Sakura could have her childhood wishes and desires granted happily, why couldn't she?
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