First Date

Series: Naruto

Characters/Pairing: Uchiha Itachi/Hyuuga Neji

Theme: #1, "first date"

Rating: PG

Warnings: none

He never thought his family would set him up with someone like this.

Neji had gotten dressed up—nothing too special, just nice, clean clothes. A shirt, a jacket, slacks, something he'd just as soon wear out with his friends as on a first date. It was a blind date, no less, and he hadn't expected anything normal.

After all, it was his family.

But it was also Uchiha Itachi they'd set him up with—for chrissakes, Itachi was a man, and he was an Uchiha.

This was not what he had expected at all.

Neji shifted in his seat, trying to hide his discomfiture behind the menu. From the looks Itachi kept giving him, he was failing at hiding much of anything. Finally, he set his menu aside and started at Itachi, who lowered his and looked back.

"I suggest the sixteen-ounce steak, if you're looking for a recommendation," he said dryly. Neji shook his head.

"I'm not," he said. "Look—I'm sorry. This wasn't what I expected. My family—"

"—had nothing to do with this," Itachi cut in sharply. His eyes caught the light of the votive candle between them and swallowed it whole. "I approached them."

"You—what?"

"I approached your family about a match with you," Itachi said matter-of-factly. "They were understandably upset, but agreed."

"Itachi-san."

"Yes. Neji-san?"

"You're a man."

"Thank you for that astute observation. I will be sure to remember that." Neji couldn't help but wince at Itachi's tone. Those black-hole eyes cut like a honed kunai. "I realize that ours would be an unconventional union, Neji-san, but let us entertain it a while. I want to be remembered for more than the greatest Uchiha, the most handsome…more than the best dog of Konoha."

Neji nodded. He would use this alliance to better his own interests, as well. "Very well. Let's see how this proceeds."

To his surprise, Itachi leaned forward on the table. Those eyes glittered, as if they were now luminescing with all the light they had absorbed. "Perhaps we can make it more than another rung on the ladder of ambition, hm?"

Neji found he couldn't say no to the Uchiha, and instead picked up his menu, flush with embarrassment. Why first dates always had to have something strange happen on them…

Dinner was delicious. Itachi had chosen an upscale restaurant—not too extravagant, though, because his mission pay wouldn't let him do extravagance right now. The whole time, he watched Neji carefully. The flustered jounin really wasn't hard to look at, at all. Itachi hadn't found anyone else in the village that remotely interested him, men and women alike, until in jest and exasperation, his parents had flung Hyuuga Neji's profile at him.

After dinner, they both declined dessert and left the restaurant together. It was a warm summer evening, and Neji held his jacket over his arm. They were about a foot apart.

"Isn't the Uchiha compound in the other direction?" he asked, when Itachi seemed determined on walking with him to the gate of the Hyuuga compound.

"It is. But it would not be very gentlemanly of me to let my date return home unescorted," he replied. There was a hint of sarcasm in his words.

"It's a good thing your date is a jounin," Neji shot back.

"It's tradition."

"This date is not traditional."

"Neither is letting a date walk home alone. Stop arguing and enjoy the evening, Hyuuga."

They made the rest of the walk to the gate in silence. Neji made a perfunctory bow and waved as he let himself in, past the sleeping main house and into his own room in the Branch House. Stripping off his clothes, tossing the jacket over the back of a chair, he slipped into bed.

I'm never letting my family choose dates for me again, he thought as he drifted off to sleep.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The next morning, he awoke with a piece of paper weighted with a rock outside the door to the rock garden.

:How does next Friday sound to you?

-Uchiha Itachi: