"Hinata-chan~ I missed you~"
Naruto picked up his girlfriend and twirled her in the air. She giggled, cheeks reddening. Neji pointedly looked away from the two of them, and glared a few uncles into doing the same instead of staring reprovingly at this disgusting display of mushiness. Like they weren't used to it by now, anyway; Naruto and Hinata had only been together for the last three years.
"Heya, Neji!"
"Naruto." Neji looked him up and down, and wrinkled his nose. "Perhaps you should take a shower."
Naruto snorted, and instead of taking care of his incredible dirtiness (and thus leaving Neji an opening to leave without looking like he was avoiding Naruto), threw an arm around Neji's shoulders. "I'll go later. So... How are you?"
Neji replied, "Good, thank you." His tone really meant 'you do stink and incidentally my shirt was clean', but as always Naruto failed to translate it properly. Neji had always thought it was unintentional, but perhaps Naruto was really sharper than Neji had thought. In that case, he was also secretly evil.
"Good! You doing anything this weekend?"
Washing the stench of cow out of his hair -- still -- sounded like a tempting possibility. But Naruto didn't let him answer.
"Because -- hey, Hinata, wanna go on a double-date with Lee and Sakura-chan?"
Hinata nodded, smiling, and drew closer. Naruto took her hand, without letting go of Neji's neck. Neji was starting to feel slightly trapped.
"Okay! And Neji, you've got no excuse not to come 'cause I know you have no mission. And Sasuke's coming too. You can always *snerk* spar afterwards."
Neji stared at Naruto.
Naruto grinned back. "Relax, it's not a candlelight occasion. You don't have to buy him flowers."
Hinata was watching the both of them, a hand on her mouth. To hide horror or mirth, he didn't know; probably both.
"Though if you buy him flowers, I'll owe you one. I'd give half my ramen stocks to see his face."
Neji stared harder. "There are sounds coming out of your mouth, but they're not making any sense."
Naruto burst out laughing. "Oh man, you really do fit well together. You even sound like each other."
Neji wanted to deny, but his sense of decorum was leading a bloody battle against his need to shake Naruto until his brain stirred itself into some semblance of sense, accompanied with a few curse words. He didn't say anything in the end; it felt a little like admitting defeat and not as much like horrified confusion as he wished, but with Naruto, that was better than sounding like denial.
"I think that's where I'm supposed to tell you to treat him right or I'll tear off your balls, but he might tear mine off if I steal that pleasure from him, so hey. Besides, between the three of us, I think Sasuke's more likely to dump you than you him."
"Naruto."
"Yeah, yeah, you're-not-dating-it's-just-sex-really." Naruto grinned, and nudged him. "Saturday, around noon. If you're not here I'll find you. Hey Hinata-chan~, let's go! Bye, teammate-in-law."
Neji stared at Naruto's back as he dragged Hinata off, and wondered whether he could fight Sasuke for the right to make Naruto disappear in the night, one of these days.
Perhaps they could even do it together. No one would ever know what happened. Naruto would approve; he seemed to want them to bond so strongly, after all.