Sakura was a regular at the bathhouse on Sarutobi Street; in all this time she had never seen a Hyuuga. Obviously their personal bathhouses were far superior to what the common mortals had to do with. So when she saw Hinata standing in the doorway with a tiny towel barely containing her generous curves, she was rather surprised.
"Hinata-san!"
"H-hello, Sa-Sa-Sakura-chyan."
Sakura was surprised. Hinata usually used -chan, not -chyan, which wasn't even a recognized suffix at all, and sounded more like a vocal typo. "Um. -chyan?"
"W-well, this is what Naruto-kun sounds like w-when he calls you," Hinata replied, twisting her fingers.
"That's because Naruto is an idiot who thinks sounding like a child with a lisp is cute."
Sakura was afraid she had been too harsh; but instead Hinata smiled, her beautiful pearlescent mauve orbs shining, her coral-tinted lips stretching in a shit-eating grin. "Yes, exactly!"
Sakura took a step back and giggled nervously. "Um. Please sit down! How have you been? Please don't smile like this ever again. You have beautiful hair, you know!"
Hinata looked particularly desolate as she sat on the little stool beside Sakura's. "Oh, but this is how Naruto-kun smiles!"
"Yes, and it doesn't suit you at all!" Sakura countered as she started washing her hair energetically; and then again she wondered if she had been too harsh. "I mean, that kind of wide grin suits him because he's all -- all blond and bristly and happy-faced anyway, you know? But you're more, um," she gave Hinata and the way she sat, legs gracefully folded to the side, a long look, "more demure and noble and feminine..."
Hinata sighed, caressed her long, smooth black hair, and sighed again. "D-do you think I should dye my hair?"
Sakura almost slipped from her stool.
"A-and cut it again, I mean it was a mistake to let it grow and I wanted to try looking like Neji-niisan but obviously it doesn't suit me, short hair like N-Naruto-kun would be so much better, h-how could I forget..."
Sakura was a doctor, not a therapist. So she just kept washing her hair vigorously, and tried to think of something bland and innocuous enough to answer.
She finally settled on "I'm sure Naruto will like you just as you are."
Obviously, this was the wrong answer. Hinata's hands lifted to her mouth, and she grew paler. (Far away, Orochimaru complained that someone was infringing on his copyrighted cadaverous complexion.)
"Oh no! Is this what you understood from my behavior? Oh, this is horrible! I want to be LIKE Naruto-kun! I didn't mean people to ever think I want to be WITH Naruto-kun! I'm so sorry, Sakura-chan, I never meant to come across that way!"
Sakura stared down at Hinata's hands, who were grabbing hers with surprising tenacity.
"You, um."
Hinata leaned toward her, moist lips half-open, towel dangerously loosening over her curvaceous cleavage.
"Sakura-chan..."
Sakura wondered how much like Naruto Hinata was trying to be.
"Please go out with me!"
Sakura's stool slipped out from under her butt when she jumped back in surprise and dawning love.
And then Hinata slipped, tripped on Sakura's stool, and landed on top of her.
And then Sakura's lonely heart yielded to Hinata's simple, pure, earnest love.
And there were boobsquishes. Everyone was happy.
Especially Naruto and Jiraiya, who had been peeping over the wall, but Jiraiya was a dirty old pervert so he doesn't count.
Wait.
Except Naruto, who had been peeping, but like all sane, red-blooded teenager males, couldn't contain his obvious horror at seeing his two love interest roll around naked together. "HOW COULD YOU BETRAY ME LIKE THIS!" he wailed, jumping atop the wall to point down at the two adulteresses.
He was promptly pelted with buckets, ladles and a wide assortment of scented shampoo bottles.
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A few hours later, Hinata and Sakura left the bathhouse hand in hand, pink
and well-scrubbed all over. And Sakura kicked Naruto in the ribs to wake him
up.
He looked up, saw them, and had a relapse of bottle-related trauma, in the form of a sudden nosebleed.
"H-how -- what -- SINCE WHEN?"
Hinata squeezed Sakura's hand, and they exchanged a tender look. "Since forever; I was just too blind to notice it before," Sakura whispered softly. "But Hinata is the one for me, and I know it now!"
Naruto sat up, looked conspicuously away, and scratched his head as he thought. "But -- but -- Sakura-chan, I thought -- what about Sasuke?"
Sakura started laughing. "Oh, Naruto, you're so blind. I just risked my life and proposed to throw away my friends and family to follow him because I had a silly schoolgirl crush. It isn't like I said, 'I love you' to him! I actually said 'I really really like you a whole hell of a lot'. See? Totally different."
Naruto scratched his head again. Now that he thought about it, it totally made sense. "Okay, then what about ME? I mean, now that you've grown past your destructive obsession with that bastard and aren't running all over the place trying to get him to come back, you totally want to settle down with me, right? I mean, I'm cute and loveable and I'd totally treat you right. Also, I've grown up into a real hunk."
Sakura sighed softly. "Don't be silly, Naruto. You know you see me as one of the guys, not as a woman."
Naruto blinked owlishly. "I do?"
"Well, yes. You peed in front of me when you were twelve and had even less manners than now! Obviously it means I'm not a woman to you."
"... Oh. Alright. And Lee?"
"He's too ugly."
Naruto sighed sadly and looked up at the two goddesses who had spurned him for each other. "It's alright," he said bravely. "I'm happy for you two. I'll support your love!"
He even intended on thinking up a support campaign this evening, in between bouts of heartbroken sobbing. His shower was such an ideal place, both for deep thoughts and emo. And he had just bought a whole bottle of lotion.
"D-don't be sad, Naruto-kun! Now you can free yourself from your d-denial, and go and be with your true soulmate. I know because I watched you! You will just have to b-beat him up a little, and he'll see the light, j-j-just like the two-hundred-seventy-six people before him."
Naruto jumped up on his feet, filled with a new resolve to apply his Jesus-powers to the task of getting Sasuke to forget his silly issues and see the light. Surely it would work, this time around. True love was so much more important than petty family jealousies.
He embraced Sakura and Hinata both, crying in gratefulness (Sakura's boobs were firmer, but there was more of Hinata's to snuggle with), and then left Konoha on his new quest, propelled by a vigorous kick of friendly love by his bestest best friend Sakura.
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Sakura and Hinata lived happily ever after, and abolished the Hyuuga family rule, and had seven sons with pupilless spring-green eyes and long, spiky black-with-pink-streaks-hair who all grew up to be medic-nins in ANBU.
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Naruto ended up deciding to get himself a harem, because he was just that awesome and the name rule didn't entirely apply to his Jesus-powers, so long as his first wife fit the bill (also because Sasuke didn't put out). And when he had his weekly orgies with Neji, Gaara and Sai, he couldn't help but think of Sakura-chan and Hinata-chan with a tear of gratefulness in his icy-but-warm-cerulean eyes. (Gaara looked pretty in bitch boots, red tunics and clingy short shorts, but Neji adamantly refused to learn the sexy-no-jutsu. Oh well. You win some, you lose some.)
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Far away, Yamanaka Ino and Yakushi Kabuto lived even more happily ever after, up to their neck in pretty clothes and formaldehyde.