Kiraabi: Killer Beauty (UP FOR ADOPTION)

The Offer

Two months, it had been two months since Uzumaki Naruto returned from his travels with Jiraya. The blond ninja had quickly returned to the life he knew, catching up with friends and rejoining team seven. For the youth, the two years spent traveling and training had worn heavy on his heart, he had missed his home and one special pink haired Kunoichi in particular.

Since returning, Naruto had spent every possible moment renewing and rebuilding his friendship with Haruno Sakura and he hoped much more. Two years had changed them both, physically and emotionally. He was no longer a short twerp, having grown to a height of six foot one. His body had benefited from his continuous dedication to training and where there once was baby fat and love hands there was no only lean muscle that covered his broad shoulders and narrow waist. His blond hair remained unruly but having grown longer now fit the chiseled features of his face along with his mega-watt smile. That was one thing that remained the same, his goofy grin that could light up any room. While growing older and maturing he managed to retain his ultra positive attitude, making him more balanced. There was no denying that Naruto's dedication had paid off and he had indeed grown stronger, becoming a formidable ninja.

While many of the village's older generation still feared and hated him, upon his return it was somewhat easier to fit in with his generation, especially the girls. Like him, all the girls he had known growing up had matured in to beautiful women. None more beautiful to him that Sakura, in two years she had become a leggy beauty with slender curves that he loved to watch as she walked. Her mass of pink hair, always a standout from the other girls always smelled of strawberries and he found every reason and chance to stand near enough to breath in her wonderful smell and bask in the wonder of her.

Sakura too had matured, having mastered her skills as a medical ninja, second only to Godaime Hokage, Tsunade. A benefit of the additional training, she gained was a greater control of her anger. This was noticed only by those that knew her best: Lady Tsunade, Shizune, Kakashi and Ino, as Sakura did not draw undue attention to herself. Very few people knew of her skill or respected the price she paid to work at Tsunade's side.

Naruto noticed the change in her temper immediately on their reunion, when she did not beat him to a pulp, when his first sentence upon seeing her again after two years was to ask her on a date. Instead she had only looked at him incredulously and said, "You oaf, can't you even say hello first? How about 'how are you' or 'its good to see you'? She had watched as Naruto prepared himself for the first hit and merely shook her head and added, 'You know there's just no one else like you, Naruto...It's really good to see you again."

Then with a smile she had walked with him to his home, catching up on their time apart as he unpacked, then joined him for dinner at Ichiraku. Several times in that first meeting, they both brought up the situation of their lost teammate Sasuke, it was as if they hadn't been able to truly talk about it to anyone else while they parted. The opening of their hearts and the release of their shared pain gave them an unspoken bond, something closer than friends.

Ever the same knucklehead, Naruto never gave up but continued to follow after Sakura, hoping to win her heart. The young ninja wore his heart on his sleeve, with compliments and requests for dates. Sakura never openly said yes to a date and only thanked him politely for the kind words...but at the same time, she never sent him away. Somehow Naruto never noticed that all her time was his, so he kept trying and trying to someday replace Sasuke in her heart.

Sakura had no intentions of being cruel or stringing him along, but her battles with her inner self and doubts about her own worthiness kept her silent and aloof. During the time he was gone, she had come to accept the fact that the person she awoke at night hoping they were alive and well was Naruto, not Sasuke. No one knew but her, that she had months ago gone to his apartment and taken one of his t-shirts and that she slept with it every night...the only thing she found that brought her peace enough to rest.