Disclaimer: I disclaim Naruto. This was written for fun, not for profit.

One thing many people overlook about Hyuuga Hinata is that she is actually highly possessive. It is true that her quiet demeanor can make it difficult for the shy girl to develop these possessive feelings toward people or things around her. But once she has, she holds those bonds with astounding tenacity. If any team is to return from a mission unscathed, it is hers, simply because she will not lose the people she holds dear. So even though it may take some time and effort for her to stake an emotional claim, once it is made, she will hold onto it with all of her strength. And it is almost unsurprising that when Uzumaki Naruto, the friendly-but-oblivious object of her affections, came up one evening and gave her a kiss without preamble in the middle of the street, she took steps to stake that claim.

He saw her eyes widen with surprise and her body go rigid, and had just enough for a satisfied look to bloom on his face. Then the number one most surprising ninja of Konoha felt his own eyes widen as she pressed up against him and shoved her tongue into his mouth. One fist was clutching to the back of his jacket while the other was at the back of his head, holding him to her, but it was shock that kept him where he stood, tentatively returning the kiss and more than a little confused.

Moments before, he'd been wandering across the rooftops of Konoha on an evening slowly turning to dark. He'd had to leave the streets after a little... incident. Apparently, he was starting to look an awful lot like the Yondaime had; it was at least enough for drunks to mistake him. And it would seem that the greatest of the Hokages had been rather sought after. One misplaced and alcoholic smooch later, and he'd made a retreat to the much safer rooftops. Unfortunately, this wasn't the first time something like this had happened, though it was still rare enough he almost never expected it.

It was only a short train of thought later before Naruto had realized that he'd kissed a lot of girls, drunk or not. The drunks, of course, made for a larger portion than he'd admit, but there were others. There had been times on reconnaissance missions where a young couple had been the most believable cover. There were certain kunoichi who seemed to think a good kiss was the best way to say "job well done" after a mission. Even Sakura had kissed him once, half-dead and crying, after they'd finally finished a particularly deadly mission. And... well, some things just happen when you travel with Jiraya.

In fact the more he'd thought about it, the more he'd realized that he'd kissed just about every girl of any real importance in his life, and quite a few besides. And then he'd seen Hinata walking along the road, and realized that he'd never once gotten any sort of kiss from her. And really, if some drunk who thought he was a dead hero had kissed him, a girl he counted as a good friend should get the same. It was only sense. So he'd hopped down and done so, and just when he'd been about to pull away and tell her, "There! Now you've kissed me!" she'd done... that other stuff. And yeah, he'd wanted to kiss her, but that was pretty much it. One quick kiss, to kind of even things out. But this wasn't quick, and if he was honest, it really wasn't just one. This kiss was something else.

It was intimate.

Intimate is not a word Naruto often had reason to use.

As Hinata slowly, hesitantly stepped back from him, his mind began searching for an explanation, even as his face flushed. Was she playing some kind of joke? Had something bad happened to make her want... whatever that was? Was Hinata just the kind of girl to do that sort of thing? But the more he thought about it, the less he could figure it out. So, in the end, he simply let out a confused, "Hinata...?"

Her face was cherry red and, while she wasn't looking at the ground, she wouldn't look him in the eyes, either. Instead she had settled for staring at something off to the left side of the street. She seemed unsettled, and only made an unintelligible squeaking noise at his question. This, of course, only left the poor blond ninja more confused, so he asked, "Hinata, are you alright?"

"Y... yes," she squeaked, shrinking a little at the sound of her own voice.

"Hinata, what-"

"Have you eaten yet?" she asked in a rush, and her eyes were just a little wide as she did.

"Not yet," he answered, even more confused. What did that have to do with anything? "But-"

"Would you... would you like to go eat? I mean with... with me?" Now she just looked sick, as if her skin couldn't decide whether to get more red or to just go completely white.

Naruto looked at her, but gave her a reassuring smile and said, "Sure, Hinata!" before walking off in search of food, a vaguely relieved Hyuuga trotting quietly at his side. He didn't want to drop the subject, especially if it turned out there really was something wrong, but he was hungry. And besides, eating always made him feel better. By the time she'd finished dinner, she would at least be a healthy color.

Sure enough, as soon as they had found an eatery and ordered their food, Hinata started looking, if not relaxed, then certainly less sick. As they waited for their food, Naruto tried to think of reasons for Hinata's uncharacteristic behavior. In all the time he'd known her, she had never done anything quite like that. In his experience, uncharacteristic behavior meant something was wrong, but he couldn't imagine what could be wrong in such a way that it would make her act so different.

Their food arrived and two cries of "Itadakimasu!" later, the pair were enjoying the meal. Stealing a glance out of the corner of his eye, Naruto watched her as his friend ate quietly. She did just about everything quietly, he knew. It made her really good at sneaking around, which was a good quality in a ninja. He, apparently, wasn't sneaky enough, as she turned to see him peeking at her and blushed again.

"So..." he started, trying and failing to be completely casual. "What was all that about?" He couldn't help the red that seeped into his cheeks any more than Hinata could.

"W-well," she answered, quietly swallowing her food, "You... you k-kissed me." Her blush was stunning.

"Yeah," he replied, "but why did you..." He trailed off, still a little red. He wasn't sure exactly how to refer to her response to that kiss. He'd really rather drop the whole subject. But if something was wrong, he'd need to know what it was in order to fix it. He couldn't just leave it alone.

"I... I really l-liked it. When you... kissed me." She quickly (quietly) filled her mouth with another bite, chewing perhaps more than strictly necessary.

Well, at the very least, it sounded like nothing was wrong with the girl. She wasn't really acting sad, and she didn't seem sick anymore. He'd trust her for now, and try to figure it out later. "Good," he nodded, before turning back to his plate, only noticing offhand how Hinata's eyes had widened. His food was tasty, and he didn't want it to get cold. "Hey, Hinata," Naruto said around his mouthful, "do you know any cool tricks with exploding tags?"

A quick glance at Hinata's face told Naruto that he'd shifted topics far too quickly, and he groaned internally. His mind had always worked best when he let it bounce from idea to idea on its own, but that sometimes meant he would leave the other half of his conversations a little lost. He'd been trying to fix that, but it hadn't been easy, and he still slipped up a lot.

Luckily, Hinata recovered relatively quickly, and, after a moments consideration, even had an answer. "Well... do you know many earth jutsu?" she asked. "If you can change the ground beneath the surface and place a tag at a weak point... you might be able to make use of a pitfall. You would need a better plan than just that to make it work, but... it might be useful."

"Hmm..." Naruto thought. "But couldn't a ninja just jump out? Or climb?"

"Well... maybe you could use an adhesive? Or... or a kunai trap, maybe. I guess... if you wanted to stick with explosive tags, you could use more to collapse the pit in on them."

"That would probably work. Alright! I'll try it out first thing tomorrow!" he cried. Then he cringed as a thought occurred to him. "Or at least, when they let me train with tags again," he said, a slight blush surrounding his sheepish grin. "I kind of blew up Training Area 24 today... I didn't mean to, though!"

Now Hinata was staring openly at him. "That was you?! They thought it might have been an attack, so they asked me to take a look around for any suspicious activity. Naruto, there couldn't have been more than half a dozen trees left standing there!"

Naruto just grinned and shrugged. "Well, sometimes I get bored while I train, so I try out different stuff. It usually doesn't work, but sometimes it does!"

"Still, Naruto," Hinata said softly, "You shouldn't do such dangerous things by yourself. You could have... you could have been hurt."

He could tell she was worried. So, he said, with a bright smile, "Don't worry, Hinata! The next time I train with explosive tags, I'll just get you to watch over me!" Hinata's face turned pink again.

They finished their meal and Naruto took the check. It wasn't often he got the chance to treat his friends to a meal, so he didn't mind it too much, but Hinata still protested. He simply said, "Hey, it's my fault you spent all that time looking for invaders who weren't there. I owe you." Whatever had made Hinata act so weird earlier might still be on her mind; he figured he should keep doing his best to make sure she was alright.

As they started to part ways, Hinata turned to Naruto and asked, "Do you think we could... do this again, sometime?"

He grinned. "Sure thing, Hinata! I'll eat with you anytime! Just let me know!" And with that, they both headed toward home. Despite the weird stuff, it had been fun seeing her. Sometimes he felt like he didn't spend nearly enough time with his friends, and Hinata was so quiet he sometimes felt like he was overlooking her. He did try to stay aware of her though; she was smart, hard-working, she cared about her team mates, and she worried about him. Not a lot of people worried for him. Many ninjas and villagers technically worried about him, in the same sense they worried about the bars on a lion's cage. But when it came to people who worried about his safety for his sake, the number was relatively low. In fact, as far as ninja went, Hinata Hyuuga was pretty cool.

"She's really a great girl," he thought as he walked back home.

One thing a lot of people overlook about Uzumaki Naruto is that he can do just about anything, if he wants to. It is true that many people have praised Naruto's strange ability to come out of almost any battle with a victory, some grudgingly so. But his determination isn't only for the battlefield. If any problem of any nature manages to catch his interest, he will work at it until it is solved, because he cannot allow something broken to go unfixed for very long. He has a very strong belief in the Way Things Should Be, and he has always worked toward that goal with every ounce of his strength, changing the world in the process. In light of this, it is almost unsurprising that when Hinata Hyuuga, the most quiet and unobtrusive ninja born to that clan in generations, grabbed him in the middle of the street and gave him one of the most searing kisses he'd ever received, he decided he needed to know why.

That night, after reaching his apartment, he lay back on his bed and started trying to figure it out. Trying to analyze things wasn't really his specialty, but if something had changed in his world, he needed to know what it was. Looking back at the day, he noticed that while they had been eating, she'd been acting much more like her normal self. After allowing himself a few minutes to gloat – eating had made her feel better – he decided that whatever the change was, it hadn't been effecting her then. When they'd talked over dinner, she really hadn't seemed upset or worried about anything. Well, aside from his experiment with the exploding tags, but that was understandable. She'd said that she liked kissing him, and the answer could be as simple as that. But he knew for a fact that that was the first time he'd kissed her, so it probably wasn't. It might have been something else entirely. He wasn't sure just what, but he also knew that he tended to miss things sometimes. For all he knew, she could have done it on some kind of really weird dare.

He made a decision. There might have been better ways, and there might have been more subtle ways, but it would get the job done, after all, and that's all he really wanted. The next time he saw Hinata, he'd just give her another kiss, and see what she did.

He didn't run into her again for almost a week, and when he did, she was having lunch with Kiba and Shino. He'd almost kissed her then anyway, until he remembered how protective those two could get, especially about their eager to please teammate. A fight would make it hard to get answers, and besides, he'd just had Sakura beat the tar out of him. The next time he'd seen her, she was with her father and several other Hyuuga, walking out from the Hokage tower. Naruto didn't know too much about parents, but Jiraya had stressed the importance of never kissing a girl in front of her father. Since it wasn't often the old peeper told him not to kiss a girl, he figured it had to be pretty important. And the next time he'd just caught sight of her leaving on a mission. So when he finally caught her in the streets four days after that, it had only been because he was actively seeking her out.

This time, she saw him coming. He waved to her and smiled, and she smiled back, her cheeks tinged that pink color she always seemed to have. He hesitated a moment, and then, just as he had before, he simply walked up and planted one on her lips. Her surprise, while less evident, was still obvious. Then, just like before, she did her best to make it the most powerful and sensual kiss he had ever had. Naruto had been relatively prepared for this reaction, so he had the time to notice things he'd been too startled to catch before.

She was almost frantic, trying to shove as much movement and passion into this one kiss as possible. And she was making tiny whimpering noises, almost like she was scared. In fact, everything about her was screaming desperation. As he started pulling back, she held him tighter for a moment, pressing herself against him. It was like she was afraid to stop.

She did stop, however, and stepped back away with her face bright red and looking off to the left, her eyes flickering over to him every so often before darting back away. Naruto watched her closely. Now that he'd been paying attention, it seemed like something really was wrong. Finally, he asked, "Hinata... why do you do that?" When her only response was a pitiful muffle, he prodded, "Hinata?"

"I like..." she responded, "Naruto, I like... I..." She hesitated before finally spitting out, "I like kissing you." She looked vaguely disappointed, but mostly just embarrassed. He was almost certain she was trying to hide something from him now.

A thought suddenly occurred to Naruto, and before he could think it was out his mouth. "Is it just me? Or is it anyone?" he asked.

He'd meant it honestly and innocently, but the girl's eyes went wide and she actually paled a bit. "No!" she cried, catching some implication in his words he hadn't meant to put there. "You're the only one! Really!" And then her face reddened again as she whispered, "You... you're the only one I want to kiss, Naruto." She was trembling, he could see, and he was worried that he might have hurt her somehow. Then his eyes went wide as what she'd said registered.

"I'm the... what?" Hinata remained silent, her eyes down and her body shaking.

Naruto was caught off guard. It made a sort of weird sense, when he looked back on some stuff, but that sort of thing just hadn't really crossed his mind in a long time. The kissing stuff, sure, but he hadn't thought about an "only one" in years. He was completely unprepared for something like that.

But Hinata was just standing there, sneaking quick glances from beneath her bangs at his surprised face, so he'd have to think quick. Girls could be really weird when it came to this stuff, and if he didn't do anything he might really hurt her. Still, he needed time to think.

"What..." he started, on uncertain ground. "But..." he continued before trailing off. "Have you eaten yet?" he finally asked, and since she looked surprised instead of sad, he counted it as a victory. She shook her head no.

"Well, would you like to go get something?" he asked her. She squeaked an affirmative, and they headed off to find Ichiraku's. He was going to need some ramen.

They got to the bar and he yelled out his order. Hinata made hers at a more acceptable volume and they sat down to wait. She was looking... well, a little better, but she was still obviously tense. They sat in silence, broken only by an "Itadakimasu!" when their food arrived, until after they'd finished. Then Naruto spoke.

"Look, Hinata," he started, and as soon as he said those words her face fell, like she knew what was coming. But he didn't know how else to say it, so he just plowed through. "I haven't really thought about that kind of stuff. I mean, it's not like you don't look great, and you're an awesome girl, really. But the Old Hag's been wanting out of her job since she got it, and she's probably my best bet for a nomination, so I've really been trying hard to get strong enough. I just haven't been thinking about... stuff like that."

Hinata looked hurt, and a little confused. "Then why... why did you k-kiss me... that first time?" she asked.

His face reddened with embarrassment as he said, "I can't remember exactly why, but... it just seemed like you deserved one." He'd been distracted by her reaction that day, and had completely forgotten his reasons.

"Oh," she said. She still looked a absolutely crestfallen, but she gave him a sad smile anyway. "Thank you, then." They both sat there awkwardly for a minute, before Hinata stood to go. Naruto covered the check again, to her quiet protests, before offering to walk her home.

"I don't..." she started, trailing off. Finally she sighed softly. "Yes, please."

The walk was a little awkward, but they made some smalltalk. They both obviously had other things on their minds. It wasn't until they were getting close to their destination that Naruto stopped them.

He was uncomfortable and unsure about this, but he said it anyway. "Hinata, do you think we could... do this again, sometime? You know, go get something to eat."

Her eyes found his, and they searched him out. Sometimes he forgot how a Hyuuga could look right through you like that, figure out things even you didn't know. Apparently, though, she saw something she liked, because she just nodded at him and said, "Of course, Naruto. I'd be glad to eat with you at any time. Just let me know when."

"What about three days from now?" he asked. "Me and Sakura spar on Fridays, and she'll tire out sooner than me. I could probably make it back by seven." He'd have to rush to get cleaned up – and Sakura never pulled her punches, so he couldn't skip it – but he would probably make it.

"I would like that very much, Naruto. You could meet me at the estates if you'd like to," Hinata replied, and he was very glad to see her give him a soft smile. He hated it when he hurt his friends, and their forgiveness was very important to him. Naruto felt relief settle into his stomach as they continued walking toward the Hyuuga estates. Their conversation came a little easier, too, and when they parted ways it had been with smiles. Naruto made his way back to his apartment, utterly pleased that everything had turned out so well. It could have been so much worse.

It was only when he finally flopped down on his bed that he realized he'd just asked Hinata for a date. At first he was worried; he'd just wanted to make sure they were still friends, not lead her on. But the more he thought about it, the less it seemed like a bad idea. Despite the weird stuff, it was always fun seeing her. She was smart, hard-working, she cared about her team mates, and she worried for him. Not a lot of people worried for him. In fact, as far as girls went, he could do a lot worse than Hyuuga Hinata.

"Yeah," he decided, before he drifted off. "Hinata's really a great girl."

End

A/N: Wow. I actually wrote something. It was only supposed to be about a page long, too, but it just wouldn't end. Also, I think I was asleep for most of the brainstorming behind this. I truly have no idea where it came from, other than the sleepy idea that once Hinata finally got a kiss from Naruto, she probably wouldn't just let him go.

Anyway, this is pretty much my first story ever, so please feel free to tell me where I can improve, and how.

06/13 Edit: Smoothed the transition between kissing talk and jutsu talk (which is to say, there actually is one, now). If it seems a little weird or unnatural, please let me know, I'll try to fix it.