Naruto didn't know how long he'd been running through the pouring rain.

Minutes?

Hours?

He would have liked to have at least some idea of time, but his mind was kind of preoccupied.

Sakura.

Sakura.

Sakura.

He skidded to a halt at her door, skipping up the steps in a frantic dash. All of this would have looked perfectly heroic, had he not slipped on the welcome mat and landed on his butt, his legs resting vertically against the door.

''Shit!'' He winced. He might have laughed at this ridiculous situation, if he wasn't the proudest, most self-absorbed person he knew. Which he was, just to clear that up.

So he was embarrassed, and somewhat angry at the situation.

Especially when Sakura opened the door and the entire lower half of his dripping body landed in her hall with a thud.

By the time he gathered himself enough to look her in the eye, she'd crossed her arms and leaned against the doorpost.

His stomach churned at the sight of her puffy, tear-glazed eyes and then - somehow, his stomach flipped. In the best way.

She sniffed, arched an eyebrow and nodded at his legs, draped out over the floor, ''I just cleaned that.''

He took in her face, make-up running down her chin and eyes, her hair plastered to her forehead, her expression tired.

And then the strangest thought ran through his mind.

Beautiful.

She cleared her throat. ''Is there a reason you're here, staining my carpet and soiling my air?''

Whoa, snarky.

He kinda liked it.

He scrambled to his feet and managed to choke out, ''I need to talk to you.''

''Oh really?'' Again with that arched eyebrow.

He stood there, staring down at her awkwardly. All of a sudden he couldn't remember how to stand. How did his cool pose look again?

'Lean against the wall!' he commanded himself inwardly, 'do it!'

He started to move, but changed his mind. It'd look strained. This stuff had to flow naturally.

Sakura's green eyes flicked to his twitching hands.

''So...'' she started, probing him to start talking.

''I, uh...'' Naruto stood there, not knowing where to put his hands. ''I,'' A pause. He gulped and resisted the urge to face palm himself. He sounded like a - like a weirdo! ''Can I come in?'' He whispered.

Sakura groaned and stepped to the side, allowing him to enter. She slammed it shut behind the both of them.

''You know what?'' She said as she stepped into her living room. She stopped walking in the middle of the room and turned around, crossing her arms once more. ''You've got a whole lot of nerve and a whole lot of stupidity, coming here.''

He stood there gaping at her.

Sakura exhaled through her mouth slowly. She seemed to be more uncomfortable than she looked: she couldn't look him in the eye for more than three seconds at a time. ''You don't even have anything to say to me, do you?''

he kept standing there motionlessly, looking uncomfortable.

''Argh!'' She called out, thrusting her arms into the air exasperatedly.

'Say something, you idiot. Now.'

''I do have something to say.'' He said. He was happy to find that his voice didn't sound nearly as weak as he felt.

''Oh really? And what would that be?'' Sakura mocked, although her face remained expressionless.

'I was empty but you filled me up.'

Yeah, as if he'd say that. She'd laugh.

Words.

Words, now!

Ugh, he never was good with words anyway.

So he did what he knew for a fact he was good at. He stepped forward and pulled Sakura flush against him, crushing his lips to hers.

She gasped into his mouth but didn't push him away. He saw this as an encouragement to continue and slowly dragged his lips over hers, tugging her top lip up with his.

Sakura closed her eyes.

She tangled her hands in his spikes and pulled him even closer, fully able to feel every inch of his defined body, what with both of them still being wet from the rain.

Somewhere in the back of her mind Sakura knew this was wrong, that this wasn't how it was supposed to go - she was supposed to yell at him and hate him and throw him out on the sidewalk - but this didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Not that they were cold. Not that some of her smudged make-up ended up in their mouths and on his face. Not that she was pretty sure she loathed him.

The eruption of sparks that he ignited wherever their skin touched. The swirly feeling in her head. The urge to giggle into his mouth.

Oh my.

This explosion of passion seeping through her veins was unlike anything she'd ever felt before.

Her first kiss.

She realized one of her hands had drifted back down and that Naruto had captured it in his. He rubbed a circle on the back of her hand and she hooked her fingers through his. She was sure that nothing in the world could feel quite as good as - whatever this was.

But then the tip of his tongue touched hers, and reality crashed down on her like rain on her roof.

She pushed him off her roughly - Naruto's eyes still half-lidded, like he just woke up from a very good dream.

For a second they did nothing but stare at each other, the both of them panting.

''Wait.'' She managed to breathe. ''You can't just - you can't just kiss me.''

''Why not?'' Naruto said. He cracked a smile. ''Seemed like you were enjoying yourself.''

Sakura's jaw dropped. ''That- is beside the point!'' she huffed angrily. But his satisfied expression didn't waver. Annoyed beyond reason, she yelled, ''You're so infuriating! You made a bet over my feelings, you wanted to hurt me. And you did!'' She put her hand on her forehead. ''You did hurt me. You broke my heart. You won. Woohoo. I'd throw confetti, but fuck you.''

His careful smile slipped.

For the umpteenth time that day, he didn't know what to say. She was hurt.

She was hurt, and it was his fault.

Her lips were pressed together tightly. ''Just... Please, I told you, you won. Like, there's no need for you to be here right now. I'm pretty damn sure you can't mess me up further, I hope you enjoyed whatever you think is so enjoyable about hurting people, and now you can go ahead and walk out of my life forev-''

"-I love you.'' He blurted.

Sakura stood there, blinking up at him.

''You... You what?'' she peeped.

''I love you.'' His town lowered and he frowned, as if he was choosing his words very, very carefully. He probably was. Saying the good stuff always was more Sakura's thing, anyway. ''I'm in love with you.'' He said finally. His eyes snapped to hers, and suddenly he didn't seem insecure anymore. ''I have loved you. Since fifth grade. I'm pretty damn sure you have my balls on a plate. I'm also pretty damn sure that nothing I could possibly do in my entire life could make me deserve to be with a girl like you.'' He took a deep breath, ''I'm completely hung up on you.''

Sakura's wide eyes watched him, her expression unreadable. Her lips came apart, but then closed again.

He continued, looking less calm by the minute, ''I'm sorry. I'm a disgusting bastard. I've known that all my life, but I never really cared - 'till I hurt you. '' A deep sigh. ''Just please, forgive me. If you don't, I promise I will walk out of that door and never speak to you again. It won't be easy, but I'll do it.''

Sakura was torn. She felt so many emotions rush through her - so many contradictions - and she had no idea which one had the upper hand. Anger. Maybe it was anger. Or relief. Or happiness. Or sadness. Or all of them. Probably all of them.

''Tell me what to do.'' Naruto whispered, his eyes pleading.

So Sakura stood there, looking at him straight in the eye. She tried to describe him in her head.

Tan skin. Sun-bleached hair. Red cheeks. Almost feminine eyes, an inhuman shade of blue... There was a brown spot in his right eye, she noticed for the first time. It reminded her of an island.

All the bitterness was gone.

She narrowed her eyes in puzzlement. How – how odd. This tightness in her chest had been there for such a long time now that she had forgotten it was there.

This wide-eyed realization came with another one.

She'd never hated Naruto.

She'd been angry.

At the same time she realizes this, she admits, ''I could never not want to be with you.'' She didn't even think it through. These words were the sad truth. The sky is blue. Chocolate is good. I could never not want to be with you. ''Sometimes I wish I could. You're kind of an ass, you know.'' She added, to make sure he knew that just because she happened to be hopelessly in love with him, didn't mean that she idolized him.

Despite himself, Naruto felt his mouth stretching into a crooked smile. ''So are you.''

And she laughed because she knew it was true. Even if it was the first time he'd ever said it. ''We'll have to work on that.''

Naruto shuffled closer to her. ''So does that mean we will work on it? On us?''

And she beamed, ''Yeah, that's what it means.''

Sakura wrapped her arms around his neck faster than she knew she could. He pretended she wasn't almost choking him and hugged her back tightly.

Have you ever felt so much for such a long time that not feeling a lot somehow feels like a feeling?

Whatever that was called, it pooled over them.

''You filled me up.'' Naruto whispered into her hair.

And Sakura could only smile into his damp sweater.

''Geek.''

So there they are, two silhouettes in a dull living room, completely and hopelessly lost in each other. Two people that made so many mistakes that it's no wonder that for once everything would go right.

This quiet peace could only last for so long, though. Lily Haruno comes home and Sakura has to restrain the both of them from attacking each other, both for the exact same reason. And Sakura feels like crying. The happy kind. Even if that seems bad. The love these people have in their hearts is almost too much to bear.

They eventually return to school. Naruto shamelessly introduces his new girlfriend to his friends, which people accept. But Naruto and Sakura like to hang out together more than with Naruto's jock friends. Sasuke seems to think the same thing, because he joins the two of them. After less than a month the three of them are like a team. They never talk to Ino again, and Ino never talks to them again.

Their senior year flies by. Sakura gets accepted into Southern University and Naruto gets offered a football scholarship at Konoha University. Their colleges are three miles apart, and they decide to move in together. They get drunk. They fight. They break up for about two days until they get drunk again.

She gets a card from her father with a picture of a Canadian town named 'Hope' on it. It says nothing else but "Love, dad,'' and he takes it from her hands without a word and sticks it onto the fridge, the picture facing the room.

Jiraiya comes to visit and what started off as an inappropriate joke ends with both men standing on either side of the table, shouting things they don't mean at each other at the top of their lungs. It takes about two of Sakura's speeches for them to get over themselves.

He grows a mustache and she teases him mercilessly until finally he shaves it off again.

They graduate college and Sakura starts as an intern in the Hospital, causing her to get back in touch with Tsunade, too, who quit her job at the high school. Naruto plays for the Konoha Foxes and gets them into the state championships where they ultimately lose in the finals. He swears they'll win it next year and he's right.

Sakura discovers she's pregnant on the same night Naruto proposes to her – it wouldn't be Naruto if that didn't go completely wrong, of course. He'd planned to have the canteen staff at the hospital put it under the cookie she always gets with her night-shift coffee, but the staff ended up giving it to the only other pink-haired intern that happened to work the same night, which resulted in a very awkward moment between her and her boyfriend. The entire thing gets sorted out quickly, but only after Naruto has a near mental breakdown.

Afterwards they laugh about it until they can hardly breathe.

They agree on Iris for a girl and Toby for a boy – Naruto's mom used to say there was something about that name.

They marry on the beach on the kind of static-loaded day that isn't so rare for July, but the wind blows and they have to rearrange the crimson tip-up seats placed in the sand so the wind won't carry their voices away. Jiraiya walks her down the aisle. Karin shows up with that silver-haired boy from high school she used to hate. Sasuke cries. It starts storming in the middle of the ceremony and they end up finishing it with the priest, Naruto and Sakura huddled in a bus shelter, the rest of the guests crowded around it. Lily catches the bouquet.

It is perfect.

Sometimes you reach what's real just by making believe.

- Carrie Underwood

Almost a year. It has been almost a year after my last update. I left you guys hanging after the second-to-last chapter. FOR A YEAR.

I'm the worst person in the world. I deserve to be trapped in the hell of high school forever – funny cause that is actually what I did to myself. I'm doing a year of high school in the good ol' USA, remember?

For those that gave up on this story: I don't blame you.

For those that didn't: I don't deserve you.

I just hope that this ending lived up to your expectations. I know it did to mine.

It's been an amazing journey we've all taken together. So much has happened since I started Make Believe – in your lives, too, without a doubt. I like to think we've all grown, although that is without a doubt not relative to my story in any way.

I like to think it is..

A few of you sent me PM's, asking me about Make Believe's progress. I can honestly say that without you reminding me, this chapter would have taken another few months. Thank you so much Turson, ravens-narutofan, raidersfan777, ahmadaziz, Skatergurl32, n0tafangirl, S. Rowanhill 20 (without the spaces, for some reason FF doesn't let me put your name in) and IvyZee.

And thanks to the lovely Twinkletoast for being my faithful BETA - we teamed up a bit too late, and I forgot to consult you for this chapter entirely, but you were always full of amazing ideas, and your wide vocabulary raised this story to a whole new level.

Also thanks to harunoanduzumaki, who actually drew the post-transformation version of my Sakura. It's beyond gorgeous, and you can check it out at www. com./art/ Make-Believe-286567445 without the spaces.

So here we are. At the end of my very last author's note on Make Believe. I'm getting all emotional and nostalgic and stupid (are those tears, pricking at my eyes?) – but I don't want to make you guys wait any longer.

I'll go upload it right now. Please tell me what you think.

Oh, and I started a new NaruSaku story. It is AU – because it's what I do best, sadly – but is different from Make Believe in every way. I tried out a new writing style and everything. It'll be more humorous. That's if you like my sense of humor, anyway. Even I have to be in the mood for it.

One last fun fact: today is exactly 3 years ago that I posted the first chapter. I didn't even plan it. The chance is 1 in 365 and I managed to upload it exactly March 19th, without even realizing. I've been marveling at that for about half an hour now.

Okay, now I'm really done.

Breathe in.

Upload.