Naruto's comment saying that Sakura is more o less his girlfriend is something strong to think it's not romantic
the protagonist liked Sakura from Chapter 3
Naruto wanting to spy Sakura
Naruto wanted to confess after to accomplish his promise of life (pissed of for that)
Sakura blushed thinking how strong and mature Naruto is at 245 .
You can not blame fans for see romantic overtones in NS, you can not blame people for believing that the protagonist be matched with the girl he liked from the start.
I know that we all has to get over it, but you can not say that we had a few romantic moments, because there was so much more than NH and SS actually NS spend all their time together experiencing missions makes it more plausible that any relationship manga, well that is just my opinion.