From Best Friend to Boyfriend

Comfort In My Madness

[Name]'s eyes opened slowly as she thought of the dream she had.

Ah, the cliché inner desires and visions, before death.

She was about still in a trance with her mind completely hazy and her chest feeling heavy.
Until she noticed a pair of lips pressed against her own.
Her eyes went wide as she gagged and coughed up all the water she had practically chugged down into her lungs, and immediately covered her mouth.
Simultaneously, Naruto fell back on his butt as his eyes were wild with shock.

[Name] coughed for a while as she looked at Naruto, then felt her lips and looked around to see the officers, Tsubaki and Hinata, as well as the person who supposedly tried to kill her.

"YOU'RE OKAY!" Naruto blurted. [Name]'s face became a deadpanned expression as she watched his eyes light up in glee. "You're a little too excited for someone that just had someone else practically regurgitate into your mouth, during CPR."

Naruto chuckled and hugged her. "Your lung water doesn't beat Kiba playing off his urine as apple juice. Plus, you're alive. I'm happier than I could ever be."

She slowly raised an arm to pat his back frowning to herself as she tried to decipher whether everything truly was a dream, or if there was some truth in what she supposedly heard him confess to in her 'vision'.
Hinata cleared her throat softly and smiled sadly as Naruto quickly let go and hopped up, hugging her and taking her aside to thank her for her quick response with the officers.

A few minutes later, none other than Sasuke arrived on the scene with his father, Fugaku.

Any case, pertaining to Naruto, was of top priority and that required the Head of Police to be there with his nosy teenaged son, ready to tackle the mystery along with him.

Sasuke pulled [Name] aside immediately for questioning while Tsubaki gave his full report to Fugaku, while Hinata and Naruto stayed together comforting each other as the additional officers took their accounts of the situation.

"Your face is more flushed than usual." Sasuke said as he looked up, catching [Name] off-guard, staring at Naruto.
"What? Oh, this?" She asked as she pointed to her cheeks and gave a nervous chuckle. "I was just trying out some make-up."

Sasuke's eyebrow raised slowly. "[Name] [Surname], using make-up? Okay, so clearly your day was going to go downhill since then."

"Okay, Mister 'Funny Guy'. When did you take stand-up as a career, huh?"

"When did you take up the position of the carnival's new clown? And for the record, your nose is meant to be red too."

[Name] hissed at Sasuke as he smiled subtly to himself. He then cleared his throat and looked at her. "You know...I was going to ignore the conversation, because I'm kinda repulsed by the idea of the two people I actually tolerate being around, liking each other, but it's obvious something is going on with you and Naruto-"

"Nope. Nada. Zilch. Zero." [Name] quickly interrupted and hugged the towel tighter around her body. "He's very much in love with Hinata and he's only showing concern because he's ALWAYS been protective and caring toward me."

"I'm always protective and caring toward you and yet you don't keep glancing at me approximately every 2.7 seconds."

"You're seriously on fire today. If I weren't completely traumatised I would actually laugh."

Sasuke sighed and shrugged it off. "Maybe we can have this conversation some other time. For now, we figure out what happened and why."

With that Sasuke took [Name]'s side of the story down on his notepad, before Tsubaki came walking over. Sasuke took his presence as his cue to leave and took the opportunity to speak to his father instead.

"Hey, you okay?" Tsubaki asked as he put his jacket around her. She sighed and shrugged. "I'm alive, I guess." She responded unenthusiastically.
Tsubaki smiled and pulled her in with one arm, petting her head. "I'm sorry." He said softly.

"For what?"

"I had my suspicions that you were being targetted so I decided it would be a good idea to isolate you from your family and Naruto."

[Name] felt her blood boil. She pushed him away and frowned. "What the hell, Tsubaki!? You thought it was okay to put my life in danger!?"

He sighed and folded his arms. "I never said it was okay. I acknowledge that it was messed up, but you helped us get some important information. Every last one of your family members are being targetted and these 'hitmen' seem to know your every move. The number of guys ready to attack is still a variable for the time being but we-"
"Tsubaki, you could have gotten me killed!" [Name] cried.

"I was ready for whatever happened. I knew what I was getting you into, [Name]." He tried to reassure her as he put his arm on her shoulder, but she shook him off and scowled. "Yet Naruto was the one pulling me out of the water to revive me. Goodbye Tsubaki. If you I see you again, it will honestly be too soon." [Name] mumbled.

And with that she walked over to the officers who escorted her and Naruto into a cop car and drove them home.

--*--
The ride was silent as Naruto twiddled his thumbs and hummed to himself. He glanced over at his best friend who sat motionless, staring out at the passing buildings.

He smiled to himself and patted the shoulder of the officer driving, and softly asked. "I know we're all kinda on edge and stuff, but is there any way we could stop at [favourite fast food restaurant] for some [favourite food]?"

The officer looked into his rear-view mirror and smiled. "Not a problem, Uzumaki-san." He replied and asked his partner to radio in and let the department know that they would be off duty for a little while.

"Hear that, [Name]? We can still have a little party of our own with a crap ton of [favorite food] and binge a few series until we pass out." Naruto chirped as he gently squeezed her arm, to which she responded with a soft smile and immediately turned to look out the window again.

Naruto sighed and let go before checking his phone and replying to Hinata's messages, letting her know he was perfectly fine.