a/n: This is really how I see their relationship being - non-dramatic, sweet, soft, constant (although I'm sure their whole relationship wouldn't be as sweet as this story is - they'd have their troubles, too, i.e. Kyuubi). Enjoy, and please leave a comment because I love to hear feedback.
This was written for a friend's birthday, even though I ended up doing it way too early (read: a couple months too early). When you have a plotbunny in your head and you want to write, you write. And, if you're like me, you don't have the self-control to resist posting after that. ;) So happy birthday, Catherine! NaruSaku forever:3
Star bright, star light, first star I see tonight
When Sakura was a little girl, she imagined herself with a golden-haired prince to save her. A knight, in armor, ready to give his life. A warrior, brave. A prince, gentle. A love, for happily ever after.
When she became a teenager, she put away childish things and took up the dream of an angst-wasted boyfriend who needed salvation in the form of her love.
When she grew tired of heartache and waiting, she stepped back and reflected again on what makes a fairytale and what makes love.
After a girl has lost the love of her life, the natural reaction is to pine.
She will cry and cry, and slowly she will step back.
She will remember all the things she loved – his good looks, his good manners, his good mind, his (had to be) good heart.
His fierce determination, his smile, his last 'goodbye' and 'thank you'.
She will think: was he worth it?
She will not have an answer at first.
And then, one day, she will wake up and realize:
No.
He wasn't.
She will wonder whether there are really fairytales and whether true love exists.
Whether love is nothing more than a weak dilution of fantasy or an excuse for lust. Whether there can be a love with no fantasy, a love with equal take as she gives.
"Love isn't fair sometimes, Sakura-chan," Naruto told her matter-of-factly. They were sitting on the edge of a bridge, over a cute little pond, eating a lunch Sakura had made for midday break.
She pushed him into the water.
He submerged for a second, but his blonde head quickly bobbed up, shining liquid sun in the summer light, and one blue eye – brilliantly blue, in this lighting – opened uncomfortably.
"You didn't have to do that," he mumbled.
Sakura just stared down sadly into her obento,. He stopped looking irritated to watch her intently.
"It's just that for so many years… it's been all give and no take."
Naruto would very much agree.
(The thing is, he had grown used to it long ago.)
The girl will swear that she's over him, now, and that might be true. But it doesn't quite work and it still hurts, only a little.
And then she will see him again.
Her dream.
An apparition.
(A star that she could never reach, no matter how far she reached out.)
And she will realize:
He is still handsome, he is still talented, he is still anything and everything and heartbreakingly beautiful in every way.
But he is not her Only.
And that almost hurts more than the crying.
She will find her Only, eventually.
That is what Sakura told herself. That is what she vowed. She would find the one man, the One,; the Only that could be what she so desired.
She would look out at the sky every night, wishing and praying to the stars, that destiny or the gods or merely her own good fortune might send her the one man who could truly be her light. The one person who could fill her life with something special that could make every day, every moment, treasure. If she could find that one man, that one hero, then there would not need to be anyone or anything else or even a heaven.
"Love isn't like that, Sakura-chan," Naurto told her lightly, pausing with a ramen noodle sticking out of his mouth in a way that was awkward and at the same time endearing.
This time, Sakura was too sullen to contemplate, for example, shoving his face into his bowl of ramen.
"Then what is it like?"
"It's just nice. It just makes you feel really good to be around that person. You're just… fascinated by them. It's not like it's something you need to make your life important or whatever."
"You're heart doesn't race, or anything?"
"Sometimes."
"How do you know so much? Do you like a girl?"
He slurps up some more ramen, not answering, and she's shocked. He had to be over her by now, right? Right?
Somehow, that thought kind of depressed her.
"Do you still li-love Sasuke?" he asked her. His voice was still conversational, light, and she realized that she couldn't be right, no, he had to have moved on and stepped back the same way she had with Sasuke.
(Why was that disappointing to her?)
"No… not really. But my heart always raced when I was around him, at first, and then every time he really looked me in the eyes I got shivers."
"Maybe there're different kinds of love."
"But which kind is true?"
He shrugged and slurped up another noodle. "I don't know."
She stared into her bowl of ramen, not hungry anymore. Her gut had a funny, uncomfortable feeling of realization.
"Do you think that… if someone was prepared to die for you, and they were injured, and you overreacted and thought something really bad had happened to them, and then you got really worried, and your heart just seemed to stop and start going really fast at the same time, and then when they were conscious again and you could feel yourself melting with relief, the only thing they worried about was having hurt you - do you think that's love?"
He looked over, with something like recognition and suppressed-but-sharp interest in his eyes. "Yeah. It probably could be."
Uh-oh.
No way.
"The stars are really bright."
"Yeah."
"Rooftops like this are kind of neat, aren't they?"
She stared up, and, half-there and half-in-the-sky, he replied:
"Yeah."
She nodded.
Quiet. A small dot of light moved slowly across an area of the sky.
"Oh, look, a shooting star."
They both watched it.
"Naruto?"
"What?"
"I always thought love was something explosive and passionate. Maybe it's just having someone who really, really loves you and really, really loving them back. And love isn't something dynamic, it's just… there. And it's good. It's not going to transform your life or anything, but it's good."
He paused.
"I think you're right, Sakura-chan."
There he was.
The only man who could ever serve as a constant, a light to guide her; what she had always wished for had been there all along. Only not quite the way she wished.
She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed to the stars.
Please…
And in two minutes, Naruto took her hand, met her lips, and her wish was granted.
I wish I may, I wish I might
Have the wish I wish tonight