Ego Season (Naruto AU)

Chapter 12

(I referenced this dress in this chapter. Credit to the artist)

A gigantic smile decorated her lips. Tears of joy and happiness streamed down her rosy cheeks. She began fanning herself with her hands, feeling overstimulated with so many colorful emotions.  

“Yes!” Hinata giggled whilst nodding her head up and down. 

Naruto raised himself from his kneeling position and carefully removed the ring from the box. He gently took her hand into his own as he delicately slid on the elegant silver ring. 

She admired the dazzling band glistening on her finger. Her glossy tear-filled eyes raised up to meet her lover's exuberant gaze. At that moment, she felt so euphoric. She leaped into his arms and squeezed him close to her. 

In a quick motion, he wrapped his arms around her waist catching her as they both tumbled to the ground. Naruto let out a small chuckle and smiled brightly at his now fiancee.   

 Suddenly a dreadful thought popped into Hinata’s head. Did her father know of this proposal? No. Naruto would never tell him. Naruto knew her father was a very strict man and wasn’t particularly fond of him. If he learned of this proposal, he’d most definitely throw a tantrum right about now. Hinata and her father never had a great relationship, in fact he never really treated her as his daughter. She had always felt like a pawn to him. A weak link, but also a powerful piece to his business. He only ever cared about his money. She couldn’t remember the last time he had treated her as his child and not some object for his own wealth. Her father had even planned an arranged marriage with a wealthy man. This became her tipping point and she was furirated. In a fit of rage; her and Naruto ran off to Tokyo. They had dropped everything and left basically homeless. That was seven years ago and since then she hasn’t spoken to her father. She shook the vulgar thoughts away and decided that her father shouldn’t know about this marriage. She knew it was immature and a selfish move to make, but she was fed up with him. She wasn’t going to start dealing with his bullshit again, she had already put up with it for all of her childhood.

“Do Mom and Dad know?” Hinata asked, referring to Naruto’s parents. 

“Of course they know! I also told your sister.” 

“That’s fine. Though now that I think of it, she was acting strange last time we face timed each other. ” She snuggled closer to Naruto. She didn’t mind him telling her. They were always close with each other anyways so it wasn’t a problem. In fact they would often facetime twice every week to check in with one another and Hinata would ask the usual questions such as, are you eating and sleeping well? Are you keeping up your grades? But other than that they would discuss interesting weekly occurrences or gossip. If a problem would arise they would go to each other to talk it out. Because that’s what sisters are for. 

“Well she was never really that great at keeping surprises anyways.” Naruto added. 

Hinata started to sit up. Understanding that she wanted to get up he pulled away and sat up as well, pulling her up to stand along with him. Both of their sides were covered in dirt.

The first thing Naurto noticed was his completely white sweatshirt covered in dirt. “Ah man, really! My new limited edition Ichika-Chan sweatshirt is covered in filth!” Naruto whined. 

Hinata rolled her eyes with a small smirk upon her lips. “We can clean it Naruto and besides you’ve gotten tougher stains out of your other t-shirts and sweatshirts before.” 

“But still!” He tried brushing off the dirt in an exaggerated effort to get it off. 

“We could just go back home and change.” She suggested. But Naruto shook his head.

“No, I wanna take some pictures of you first.”  

Hinata’s cheeks turned a shade of pink and she nodded. As her fiancee went to the trunk to get his camera equipment, she stood there and once again turned her head to the view in front of her. The city of Tokyo. The place where she and Naruto started their life together. Seven years of memories flooded her brain. She thought of the beautiful life they shared together so far. Nostalgia hit her like a tidal wave and she marveled at each of those special moments they’d had shared with one another over those years. She realized just how much they’ve grown. She remembers when she and Naruto shared their first kiss. She found it funny how inexperienced they both were. There wasn’t any tongue action going on, it was simply a dry kiss of the lips. At the time they thought it was the best kiss ever, but of course they would think otherwise now. But she couldn’t blame their past selves from really not knowing how to kiss. The two of them had zero love life before the age of eighteen. Which to others at the time, was kinda sad to say the least. But she and Naruto couldn’t care less. 

Naruto snapped her out of her euphoric state announcing he was all set up and ready to shoot some photos. Before he could start he brushed off the dirt that covered the dress. Thankfully the dress was a dark indigo color and the dirt stains didn’t really show. He continued to instruct Hinata where to stand and how to pose. She was familiar with most of the poses since she modeled for him so often. 

Whenever Naruto took pictures of Hinata, he was on cloud nine. He absolutely adored taking photos of her. He was more excited than usual because of that special ring on her finger that dazzled whenever the sun hit it. Not only that, she was now his fiancee. She would have his last name soon and they would be soon considered “legally” family now. She would soon be his wife. He didn’t know why but he loved how that sounded. It was like music to his ears. Even though he already considered Hinata family long ago, he was just happy to be with her forever and be known as Mrs. and Mr. Uzumaki.

(Not edited)