With You in the Future

699.7 (Part 2)

As years went by, Ichiraku restaurant had become quite popular at Konoha, but now, it was all around the world. So Naruto wasn't surprised to see the queue at the entrance at dinner time.

Summoning his patience, he stepped at the end of the queue before seeing Kiba, Shino and Choji a few meters before him. He was about to join them, being in a way better mood than earlier, when his loud brown-haired friend started to be agitated.

"I don't understand what Hinata's doing. It's been three days now since Naruto came back, and yet I heard Sakura saying to Shikamaru that Hinata hadn't come back home even once."

"I heard their meetings are really long." Choji said. "Poor Hinata, she must be so tired."

"I'm not saying they're not. I just don't understand, that's all. We don't even know what these stupid meetings are about."

Immobile, Naruto saw Shino suddenly turn his head in Kiba's opposite direction, as if to avoid his gaze.

"Shino... You. You must know something."

"Why will I know something, uh? Because Hinata reveals more secrets to me?"

"No way, buddy!" Kiba screamed. "Hinata reveals a lot of stuff to me! As much as she does to you. So what do you know?"

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Shino sighed. "Weddings are the meetings' main topic."

Naruto felt his blood turning cold all of the sudden. Weddings?

"But it's just rumors-"

Kiba laughed, "So Naruto proposed to Hinata and she's harassed with questions. Poor her, she's so shy... Wait! Why do I know that only now?"

"Because that's not what I meant." His teammate looked at him.

"Yeah, I don't think your theory's valid Kiba because my dad told me Hyuuga's weddings are arranged marriages."

At Choji's last words, the three friends fell into silence, whereas people around them kept chatting happily.

"Do... Do you think Hinata's wedding's already planned with another man than Naruto?" Kiba voiced his friends' quiet concern.

Reality crashed onto Naruto's face. Oh no, no, no, no!

"Hey, Naruto!"

Head lowered, Naruto ran away from the queue without noticing Ino and Shikamaru approaching him.

He tried to remember any detail he might have missed when the head of the Hyuuga clan had come to thank him for saving his younger daughter. Was he the only one who had thought to have found some common ground with the old man when Naruto told him he wanted to date Hinata? Did Hyuuga Hiashi wanted to get rid of him even since that day? If he did, did it mean he had already found another suitor for Hinata?

Anger, soon turning into rage, squeezed his heart. It was so overwhelming that he couldn't understand who he wanted to unleash it on. Hinata? Himself? Hiashi?

It was so painful that only one clear idea crossed his mind: once he had destroyed everything, he'd take Hinata back because she was his and nobody else's.

***

Hinata wasn't very comfortable being alone with those men. It was true, she knew all of them, but they were much older than her and them having a block when it came to celebrating love matches was starting to get on her nerves.

Rubbing her forehead to get rid of her annoyance, she told herself she was just tired. She would've given everything for this interminable day to end, or for her father to come back.