Proclamation of the Heart

Each of the boys took a knee and placed their free hands against the ground. In doing so each of the boys went “poof” into a puff of smoke. Before the smoke could clear there appeared a bouquet of flowers before the girls, each with a flower centered in the middle that they had only seen in one other place before.

“Go to the ball with us?” the boys shouted in unison.

“Ne-Neji-kun…I can’t…I thought I already told you,” Hinata stammered with her head turned away, still in shock over the fact that her cousin was doing the unthinkable.

“But I’m not Neji. Take a closer look,” the voice from the smoke said.
Hinata looked up and found, through the clearing smoke, these two bright blue eyes that could only belong to one person she knew.

“Na…Naruto-kun?” asked the puzzled kunoichi.

The smoke completely cleared now and Hinata noticed that Chouji had appeared before Ino and Lee before Sakura and Neji before Tenten. She then looked back down only to find Naruto kneeling before her.

“You never answered my question Hinata-chan…will you go to the ball with me?” Naruto said with a beaming smile as he continued to hold out the flowers for her to take.

“Naruto-kun…I…I,” the words were escaping her, they were just no where to be found.

“It’s been driving me mad ever since Granny Tsunade told us about the ball…I knew you were the one that I wanted to go with from that very moment so please tell me you’ll say yes.”

Hinata reached up with her free hand and pinched herself on the arm.

It hurt…it really hurt…does that mean that this is real and not one of my dreams…Naruto-kun is really holding my hand and asking me to the ball
Hinata began to blush an unimaginable red at the realization.

“Is that a yes Hinata-chan?” Naruto questioned as he recognized her reaction.

“Naruto-kun,” still too embarrassed for words she nodded her head in confirmation at her dream turned reality and took the flowers from his hand.

“Hinata-chan,” he shouted in elation as he leapt up and embraced her.

This proved to be a tad too much for Hinata to handle because as soon as the deed had been done she collapsed in Naruto’s arms.

Beep beep beep be

Hinata began her ritual bashing of her alarm clock before she realized where she was.

“Good morning sleepy head,” a voice said out of the corner of the room, “you sure have been out a long time.”

Hinata looked up through her sleepy eyes to see Neji sitting in his usual perch, sitting backwards in her desk chair.

“So it was a dream, wasn't it Neji-kun?”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you but…it wasn’t a dream Hinata…last night the guys and I asked you all to go to the ball with us and Naruto asked you and…you said yes.” Neji smiled a little bit as he leaned back and swung out of the chair and headed over to her bed.

“Then if it wasn’t a dream how did I end up here?”

“That’s an easy one…after you passed out on Naruto we paid out bill and he carried you home…everybody came back here to see if you were going to wake up soon but as it got later and later they eventually headed on home…Ino and Chouji left first and then Lee and Sakura and once it hit eleven I walked Tenten home, but Naruto insisted on staying until you woke up because he felt that it was his fault…hehe…when I got back he was passed out on the floor next to your bed so I woke him up and told him he’d better head back to his place, buthe made me promise that I’d stay in here until either you woke up or he got back here today and so…well…here I am.”

“N-Naruto-kun carried me here and was asleep in my floor?”

“Yeah…I told him that the Henge no Jutsu was going overboard a bit and that we could just take a knee to our right and summon the flowers and that would be fine but he wouldn’t have anything to do with it and turned into me so we had to go along with it and followed suit.”

“This…it’s all so much.”

“I know,” Hinata started to rise out of her bed, “but you need to rest some more…I think Naruto might try and kill me if he doesn’t find you in bed when he gets back.” Neji couldn’t help but crack a smile at what he had just said, Hinata did too.
Hinata rolled herself onto her side and tucked herself back in and closed her eyes but as Neji was headed out the door she opened them again and noticed a vase full of the most beautiful flowers and then it hit her.

Those are the flowers Ino-chan helped me arrange at the shop

“Neji-kun,” Neji stopped and stuck his head back though the door he was already half way through, “where did those flowers come from?”

“Heh, oh those. I guess we kind of surprised you all with those didn’t we,” Neji stepped back in and took a seat on the end of Hinata’s bed, “well we were all going to the flower shop the other day to ask you all if you’d teach us to dance…when we got there Ino’s mom told us that you had gone out to lunch and figured that you wouldn't be back for another fifty minutes or so…well we noticed these four bouquets of flowers sitting on the front counter and asked her about them…she said that she thought that you all had arranged them and set them out for display because she hadn’t put them there and they weren’t on any orders for the day…we asked her how much they’d be but she told us that she couldn’t possibly sell them since you had obviously put a lot of effort into them…well we got discouraged and started to leave and that’s when Shikamaru showed up…evidently his father had some apologizing to do to his mother and he wanted him to pick up some flowers for him…we told him about our predicament and that’s when he came up with the idea for the dinner… ”

So that’s why Shikamaru knew they were waiting for us…I don’t know whether to thank him or kill him</>

“…Naruto pleaded our case to Ino’s mother and told her what the flowers were going to be used for…she refused to let us pay for them and even threw in the vase and put in a special formula into the water that would make sure that the flowers wouldn’t wilt for at least two weeks…after that she shooed us out the door just to make sure that we weren’t there when you got back,” Neji finally finished as he took a deep breath, he hadn’t expected to take that long in the explanation but it just kind of turned out that way.

So that’s why Ino-chan’s mother down played selling the flowers…she’s a sneaky one

“Who brought them here Neji-kun?”

“Naruto did…he insisted that he carry you and the flowers and we weren’t about to say no…I guessI forgot to mention that part,” Neji said as he rose to his feet, “well I’m gonna go ahead and go since you’re awake so you rest now.”

“Ok Neji-kun and…thank you.”

“No problem Hinata-chan,” and with that he finally left the room.

Naruto-kun carried me here…with my flowers too…he gave me “our” flowers…Naruto-kun

Hinata could feel her eyes getting heavier as she started to drift off to sleep again. As she was drifting off she heard a small tapping at her door and the door knob turn.

“Hinata-chan,” Naruto greeted her as he entered. It was too late though, she was asleep again before she could respond.
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