Disclaimer- I do not own Naruto… there, I said it!

To Thank You

"Glad you made it," he smiled. It was a sly smile, where the corners of his mouth curled up playfully. I looked to his hands, which were at the moment twirling a disposable Starbucks coffee cup. Twirling it? Was he nervous? Because I knew I was.

On the way here, I got that jittery feeling – the one that I always get before I go to ride on a roller coaster. I had kept on telling myself, 'I'll be all right. I shouldn't be worried about anything. Yeah! It'll be just fine!' And then I got here. All my confidence flew out the window.

I guess I should explain how I got here. Here at my hometown; my hometown that I haven't been to in over six years.

I am currently working as a lawyer, and I'm pretty well off. I'd thought that I very well deserved all of that money, after going through the years of tedious school. I'd always thought of myself as a hard working and deserving person, and the large salary I was making was just proof of that. Oh, all right. I was a big jerk. I thought I owned the world, when everything was going my way. But meeting him again changed that.

I had gotten an unexpected email. From him. He wanted to see me, saying it had been years (which it had) since he had spoken to me. When I first saw it, I was completely shocked by the sudden invitation. 'I can't go' I thought. 'No, I won't go. It's pointless for me to go back home, when I have everything laid out for me here, in New York. Murrieta, California is such a small town. I shouldn't even be seen there. Not to mention, I have tons of work to do' (I was actually on vacation, but it felt nice to have an excuse).

Then I had gotten a call from my mom, as I did every Sunday. I told her about his email, and she told me, "You should go, dear! While you're here, you can see me, too! Oh, I see your little fr – I mean, your friend (I suppose it was hard for her to come to terms with my generation all grown up now), all the time at the store, and he always tells me how much he misses, you, sweetie! Please come – if for anyone, do it for him. He really does want to see you."

How can I argue with my mom? Her story had actually tugged at my heart (the bit of true heart that I have left, anyways) and I decided that a little visit to that pathetic city of Murrieta couldn't hurt, could it? So now, I'm here, and so is… he. It's still difficult for me to come to terms with the situation.

"Sit down, sit down," he said eagerly. He jumped up from his seat and pulled at the chair next to his, looking at me expectantly. I stared at him for a second, gave a few quick, small nods of my head, and then took my seat, my eyes glued to the table. Once I was seated, he moved over so he smoothly slid into his seat and propped his head on his hands, elbows pressed together on the table.

"What's been going on with you lately?"

My head snapped up from its position and my hair bounced backwards. A slight blush came to my face as I realized I must have resembled some kind of freak. "Um… nothing, really." My eyes must have blinked about ten thousand times.

His eyes widened for the slightest second, and then turned down, his mouth falling to a sad smile. "Oh," he said. "I just thought that my best friend would have been doing something really spectacular lately."

How pathetic am I? 'Nothing, really' was all I could come up with? Why did I hesitate in telling him about my fabulous life? Did I honestly care that he might think of me as some selfish, fat hog that didn't care for anyone? It wasn't as if I ever cared about what others thought of me for the past six years.

"Hey…hello?" My friend had his hand, waving from side to side, just inches from my nose. "Are you alright? You just spaced out there."

My face flushing, I hastily took hold of his hand and brought it down to the table. "No, I'm fine," I said, giving a smile that I hoped he would take as real.

For the quickest moment, I could have sworn I saw a look of anguish cross his handsome face, and his eyes cast downward. Before I could fully comprehend what it meant the corners of his mouth lifted into a brilliant smile. "That's good. I was a bit worried for a second, but now I see I have nothing to worry about!" He cocked his head back and let out a jubilant laugh. Then he turned to me again, his eyes closing slightly, the huge smile coming down to a sentimental, slight lift of his mouth. "That's why we were the best of friends. You always made me laugh…"

I captured the features of his face at that time, and have always remembered them since. His blue eyes glistened with the beginning of tears, I suppose, and his cheek bones took the light and made it dance off of his skin. Wisps of his blond hair caressed his cheeks and danced, all the while shining with amazing light. Suddenly, I couldn't take it anymore.

"I'm sorry!" I gasped, putting my face into my hands. "I'm just so, so sorry…" My warm tears began to pool over and slowly made their way down my face. "All this time… all this time, I never came to see you, never called to say hello, never even sent you an email to tell you 'happy birthday…' I didn't even think about you, let alone how much you meant to me. The love of money and power consumed me, the worst sin! The worst because is made me forget you! It made me forget how much I cared about you… how much I needed you… how much I… loved you…" My shoulders shook and I crumbled down to the wooden table, not caring if anyone saw me like this – anyone except him. What did he think of me? A sad human being, a sad woman, too broken down and weak to not have the strength to not cry. Why… why?

I felt something warm touch my shoulder. The source of warmth smoothly made its way to the side of my tear-stained face, and another warm thing came to the other side. They lifted my face so I came to look at him again. On his face I read a gaze of painful joy, as if he had known the entire time he was talking to me that this was how I felt when I saw him again.

"You don't need to apologize…" he muttered, blinking away the forming tears and slowly turning his head from side to side. "I forgave you a long time ago… so long ago…"

And from then on, my life has been all that I can dream, and more. To you, Naruto, thank you.

End

Thanks for bearing with me, everyone! I know it has been a while since I have written something, so this is a story I wrote for my English class – I just changed the name and made a few changes. Sorry it's so short! It had to be only a page long for my class, and I felt it was missing something so I had to edit it, so now… it's over a page, teehee :3 I hope you enjoyed it! 3