Rivals For The Hokage's Love

Don't tell me the person you love is......?!

Neji was getting tense. Naruto... he wanted the blonde so badly, yet he held back from coming out and confessing. What was wrong with him? Heck, even Hinata had confessed, more or less.

He waited until it was completely silent in the Hokage's office. Naruto was still working on some other paperwork, approving different requests and so on. It was shattering to watch.

"Hey, Naruto," Neji said finally. He would go mad if the blonde kept up this mad pace of work.

"Neji?" Naruto turned around to the ANBU who had stayed by his side for every last second.

"Naruto, let's take a break for now," Neji said firmly. "A couple of hours won't kill you."

"Alright." A little taken aback by the strange request, Naruto followed Neji out of the office.

"Naruto, you know, it's become a lot more peaceful than when we were kids, but... you know, I think you can call it a different type of dangerous, what you're facing," Neji said quietly.

They had bought ices, and were in the park, relaxing in the calm night breeze that was blowing.

"What do you mean, what I'm facing?" Neji could have facepalmed. How stupid WAS Naruto?

"People hitting on you. Let's face it, even in the week or so that I've been revived... first, was it Itachi-san? Then Anko, Hinata, Gaara. Ino confessed to you, and I heard Kiba got rejected too. I'll be blessed if someone doesn't try to jump you at night! Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, I'm worried about this," Neji said. "That's one reason I wanted to become your bodyguard."

"Say... how many of them do you think are even sincere?" Naruto asked. Neji looked up.

"Sincere? Are you implying that they are all insincere confessions?" Neji grit his teeth in anger.

"Think about it, Neji. Ino. When has Ino so much as looked at me? It was always Sasuke for her. When Sai came along, she found a distraction. The only time she's been interested in me has been after the war. I keep wondering, why didn't she go back to loving Sasuke? Did she love him in the first place? When you look at it that way, I doubt Ino truly loved any of us." Neji was surprised that the dunce-boy had turned into a man of such insightful thinking.

"Then there's Kiba. Come on, man, Kiba has called me a rival since forever. Suddenly he can't bear to see me get a scratch? While it's nice and all, it isn't like him, not one bit. I'm not really sure if he was in love with anyone before, but he had an eye out on Hinata all through the war. Maybe he loved her, but was scared to tell her? Anyway, I couldn't figure out how he decided that he was in love with me. They are good with each other, I'm glad they worked it out."

""Okay... Anko. I'll tell you, she's a nuisance most of the time, but that's the first time she's so much as hinted at doing something like that. One more thing, she doesn't like me, I can tell. She knows who I'm in love with, has known before she died, so she just wanted to provoke him. I really don't think she's someone who should be on your list, Neji."

"Wait. There's just two things I want to ask you... the first being... well... you're gay?" Neji was thankful of the darkness that covered his blush, as he finally blurted out the words.

"I guess." Naruto sighed. "It's not new, I've always been gay, and I knew it. I wouldn't admit it, and I used to think it would be trouble, if anyone else knew, so I went out of my way to make it look like I had a crush on Sakura. She was quite the banshee though, it was a nightmare."

"No kidding," Neji smiled, glad that Naruto was being honest with him. "How did Anko know?"

"She found out. Soon after the Chunin exams, after I met this ghost called Kisuke. Well, Sasuke was being his usual annoying self, and Sakura was annoying the hell out of me. It got lonely, what with Kakashi-sensei always being out on missions and all. I actually wondered if it were worth to get a new team. So I was moping around the village, ditching all the training exercises that Kakashi-sensei told us to do in his absence, and Anko found me. We got talking, and since I'd never had someone to talk to like that, we talked about a lot of things. The way Orochimaru had treated her, why she came back. What kind of techniques I could use. We got bored of just talking though, so we played truth or dare for a while," Naruto smiled at the memory. "Of course, knowing Anko, I didn't have the guts to pick a dare. She asked me on my second truth. Name the person you are in love with. Well, after she promised not to tell, I told her."