Date: November 5, 2009
Pairing: Naruto/Hinata
She was always nervous, and they had always hated her for it. She was expected to be confident and proper and have many confident and proper children with her confident and proper husband who had been chosen for since the day she was born. She had wanted to be a shinobi, and they had even let her. But she wasn't even as good as Neji, a boy worth nothing more than the ground beneath her feet. It made her scared.
He wasn't what they'd wanted for her. He was completely rejected, completely alone, a lost cause no one bothered to fight for. He wasn't even an average ninja; he'd graduated bottom of his class, even below the Nara boy, who did nothing in the academy but sleep. Yet he'd proved himself. He wasn't a jounin, or even a chunin, but he'd mastered the rasengan without issue and worked under Jiraiya until it was too late. And he was still chasing Sasuke, even after all these years. Anyone else would have given up, but not him.
He never gave up, and neither would she.