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After the war, this is what it boils down to—
“Sakura, are you free tonight?” He asks gently and the woman blinks once.
Hand slapping lazily against his chest, she laughs. Half-sentient from her thirty-hour shift, she swats another hit and it’s softer, this time. “What the hell, Naruto? I’m literally treating your wounds right now.”
“So.” He searches her eyes, jade of sea glass and dreams, of things he has long been loving and wishing and letting go. “That’s a yes, right?”
“That’s a ‘you better stay still if you want your arm to work again,’ actually.”
Which is fair. Very.
Straightening his posture, she has always kept his best interest in mind, hers somewhere else in the blurring lights. He thinks he’d like it if she can look after herself more. Knows that she doesn’t.
So, like always, he’ll take it upon himself then.
♡
(Sasuke leaves the village. Again.
And she’s alone. Again.)
He finds her on the same bench as before, completely conscious this time but wishful nonetheless. She doesn’t try to chase after their mutual friend anymore, which is a plus. Which is good and he settles down next to her warmth.
“Hi.” He starts, doesn’t finish it.
“Hi.” She smiles, voice soft and slightly rueful.
They sit there for a while longer, clouds passing by in streaks of hues.
♡
Ino sometimes gives him a glance. Studying.
Sai says it’s because she’s worried about his next step and he groans that there isn’t any, walking off.
(Then he comes back a day later because it would be nice to bring something to the hospital where she works. Just casually. Naturally.
You’re not fooling anyone, the blond florist doesn’t say and he looks away from her smirk.)
♡
(He gifts Sakura a hairpin on their fifth appointment. Which is more of a clumsy ‘thank you’ afterthought.
Naruto isn’t sure if he prefers her bangs like this, unkempt and long. The hairstyle makes her eyes shaded against view, rounding them out more when her words no longer bite as hard.
It’s her, but strange.
He doesn’t know how to feel about it.)
♡
She cuts her hair eventually, only growing out the part behind her head and he feels as if he’s been going full circle to the beginning again. Cherry petals on silk strands, she asks:
“What do you think?”
Sakura, this—
Beautiful—
You’re more than beautiful—
He stops himself, careful not to overstep into her ecosystem again for he’s scared of never leaving, again. Feelings that are of vines and affection coils in his guts, Naruto exhales, kind.
“It looks good on you.”
(He hasn’t noticed he’s still looking when she walks away, a blur of pink in the canvas of remnants passed. Marvelling and staring and oh shit she’s turning this direction so run—
She’s beautiful.)
♡
Hinata visits him often when he’s recovering. A different shade of lilac every time she comes in and leaves, lingering by the door slide a bit too long even when he has reassured her a hundred times.
Then she doesn’t anymore and he has yet to ask, either.
(He thinks about her bravery, then her grief.
Sometimes they overlap and he can’t tell which one is more important to focus on.)
“Are you still waiting for her to make the first move?” Sakura asks once. Her ears listen carefully to the beating from an endoscope. “At that rate, you’ll miss all the shots you don’t shoot.”
Her fingers graze his chest, then stop, then back again to find a steady place for his pulse.
“Nah.” He retorts, quiet.
Breath halting in a slower pace between her touches, he’s already missed the shots he’s been shooting all his life.
♡
(“Just ask her out.” Shikamaru says, bored already and his voice is blocked from the book resting on his face.
Naruto doesn’t really like this temporary roommate situation, but half of Konoha is gone to dust and this is how they will rebuild things. People that are people and eventually, homes.
Except on nights like this where he still wishes he could have been bunkmates with someone else less sharp, less knowing in dark eyes. A sigh between his lungs when he can’t find room to stretch his legs, words minced.
“Can’t.” He shrugs, then says it louder because Shikamaru can’t see that he shrugged. “She loves Sasuke, remember?”
“From a lifetime ago, yeah.”
“It -- it’s not just that.”
When you love someone first, you’ll love them for a lifetime and more.
This —— He’s always reminded in the same room with her, smiles soft.)
♡
Kiba takes the boys —— now men, out for drinks and it takes his second sip for the other to string a full sentence behind the celebration. Black eyes glittering of the purest joy he has ever seen on his friend, Kiba grins.
“Hinata said yes, we’re together now.”
Naruto watches as the butter coloured foam tipped over his glass, sinking.
Not everything has to abide by his previous thought, he realises. Quiet in his own little world in between the loud cheers, bright constellations unveiling into something else.
(He calls Sakura later, because it’s a routine. Because he misses her in the forty-hour shift and wonders if she’d ever miss him as well.
“I have food.” He states. “I’m also outside of the hospital. But yeah, I have food.”
She yawns once. “Enough for the whole crew?”
“Dunno. But I can get more if needed.”
“Good enough.”
Sakura takes five whole minutes to reach him, her coat ivory and hair ruffled. For a brief moment, he reaches a hand out, half wanting to comb it through her knots, half wanting to kiss her.
Clenches it instead.
“Sorry,” she says apologetically and he laughs because it’s truly okay. Five minutes to someone who has been chasing after her for his whole lifetime —— is okay.)
Naruto gives her a salute and heads home. Feeling the gravel underneath his sole in a visceral sense, moonlight creeping on his long dragged shadow when he quietly thinks about the walk he’s been too familiar with these days.
Always coming to her workplace and back when he can,
His confusion aches a little less afterwards.
♡
(He remembers having his hands over her shoulders when the first person they know -- dies. “It’ll be okay. Everything will be okay.” He coddles and soothes, over and repeating and she’s crying and the noises still don’t stop over their heads of bodies and breaking and war and time passed.
Naruto thinks he’s said it two hundred and eight-teen times to her heart before it finally registers through the waves.)
It makes him pause, the memory.
Opening his eyes again, she’s smiling to herself over a sundown. Another day spent in her hemisphere, half in the wrinkle of time —— they’re both laying down on the ground and staring up at the sky’s floral patterns, unreachable.
“Isn’t this a pretty sight?” She asks, counting stars that have yet to bloom.
Not looking at the same view, he replies. “Yeah.”
♡
(“Go out with me.” He says at eleven. Dirt beneath his fingertips and there’s a stag beetle somewhere in his pants. Somewhere.
“No.” She replies, her tongue sticking out her lips, redder than the rest of her dress and hair. “Never.”)
(“Go out with me.” He tries again some other days, five years later and they’re both sixteen.
“Ichiraku Ramen again?” She asks, and he’s still figuring out how to look at her from this height, their gaze meets perfectly when he turns his head and she’s there. Always.
No, I meant, he almost says. This isn’t what I asked, he almost says.
“Yeah.” He does say because it’s easier than correcting her on it. “Yeah.”)
They’re twenty.
Naruto looks at her, looks at her not looking at him and he breathes, soft.
“Go out with me?”
“Oh but aren’t we already—”
“No, Sakura.” He presses on the consonants. “Go out with me?”
The silence which follows stretches awkwardly and he thinks please reply, and please don’t because he has been in love with her for ten years now, and he thinks it’s worse spoken into reality than left untouched.
Then her eyes snap open wide and he thinks she may have caught on to it, finally, the cadence of their tale, his heart.
“Naruto—” She replies and he doesn’t answer because it hasn’t been a question. Only a dragging of his name under her breath, quiet.
Her face shifts to something gentle, pink dusting on the rims of her eyes and the repeating scenery makes him wonder if he has ever told her he loved her. If he should even try right now.
(Thinks he doesn’t— Thinks Sasuke has covered it better than he could— Stops thinking.)
“—You know what? Why not.”
Her fingers clench around his, the palm is slightly dampened but he appreciates the courage in her that pushes this to happen. “Let’s do this, but only on this Friday night and it better be booze-free because I have a shift after that.”
Naruto laughs, disbelief, and that’s that.
♡
Their first date is a disaster.
“It’ll get better next time,” She jokes. Or not.
Sakura kisses his cheek and Naruto has a feeling it’s the latter.
♡
By their unofficial third date, he has written a letter to Sasuke, barely asking for permission but something akin to a blessing from his best friend before making it anything serious.
“You’re a fool.” The reply states, and. “Of course.”
Knowing the other guy, this is the best it can get.
♡
(Their first kiss happens on the same night, not by plan, he hopes.
This is what he’ll remember later:
A lame complaint about her calloused fingers is cut short when he brings dainty fingers to his lips, light kisses planted on her knuckles as given, then stops. The music he has chosen is terrible, but it makes her laugh in this long pause and that’s always a melodic sound he’s loved. Like chimes.
Then, “I like you.”
Brushing a lock off her face during a full moon and her eyes aglitter in the light, he’d remember the taste of honey chapstick. Not sure about the brand nor the sweet consistency, but if he has to take a half-hazard guess through taste, then, honey.
He thinks about that for a moment before she kisses him back, because it’s unlikely, very.
Except she does and he’s melted beyond saving.)
♡
And it’s like this after a while—
They’re together, in public and private. He moves out of Shikamaru’s shared apartment to hers and they start anew, his soon-to-be Hokage cloak is hung next to her work outfit and she kisses him every morning before work. Her lips slowly lose the taste of coffee and long nights as time curls and moons pass.
Sakura doesn’t blush, too familiar with his touch to react wildly in rose and pink.
But she smacks at him once, half asleep when she’s woken up by him on her bedside, on one knee and his giggles sell him out before he finishes setting up the light. Which should be a given. Which should require more planning from a man loving her for over a decade.
But Sakura blinks, and yelps, and hugs him, and screams and hits him blindly again. Not necessarily in that order, but she does and he’s in the air, floating.
“Thank you for giving me the exclusive joy to be Haruno Naruto,” He jokes once, lamely and she watches the gold ring around her finger when she pokes at his side. His tan arms coil around her figure, mindful of the belly’s curve.
She runs that through her half-awake mind for a moment, then yawns and curls around the pillow fort he’s made, her face buried in between his chest like she sometimes would when they were children.
“You know what, that sounds about right.”
♡
When you love someone first, you’ll love them for a lifetime and more.
This —— He’s reminded daily with her,
And it sounds just right.