Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or anything in the series. I wish I did, but I don't.
Deep in the nexus of training fields hid a quivering boy; his shoulders shuddered violently with each breath inside the hole away from the hell that was his life. His eyes were red from withheld tears, only his sheer willpower kept him from reducing himself to a blubbering fool. 'I won't cry, never again. I've cried enough for myself already…' he told himself, whipping furiously at the saltwater that begged to fall with his orange sleeve.
"She chose him… after all this… him" Naruto's usual cheerful tone abandoned for a strained and scratchy mockery version of it. His mind lingered on the memory of Sakura throwing any and every object she could get her hands on at him not but ten minutes ago. Having Sakura beat the living shit out of him wasn't something uncommon, but usually he'd have done something to at least sanctify this to some degree; but not this time. No all he'd done was stick his life on the line to try and rescue some fucking bastard that obviously didn't want to be here, all because the girl he liked came crying to him to save the bastard.
Her little Sasuke-kun left Konoha earlier that day and had made it quite clear his opinion of her, he chose the sound but she chose him. After all these years of his neglect, abuse, and cold natured attitude she still found it in her heart to care for him, forgive him, and even wait for him. But when Naruto, who's only tried to show how much he cared for her and what he'd do for her, does one thing against her and she showers him with a hail of medical equipment. All because he couldn't keep some stupid promise to bring back the same bastard that held his affection's heart and that proceeded to step on it as many times as humanly possible. She could love this beast that wouldn't care if she lived or died and treats her below the dirt he walks on, but not the boy who'd do anything to just get a 'good job Naruto' or just a warm smile. Even try to bring back the one person between him and love.
A second wave of salty drops of his pains rolled into his eyes when the vault of memories swung open and proceeded to remind him of every time she'd ever hurt him. From the times in the academy when she'd throw him halfway across the room just to hear Sasuke's insulting her better to when she'd cried that Sasuke got away instead of worrying about the boy wearing a full body cast from trying to bring the one she loved to her. Particularly painful ones seemed to burn their images along his eyes; when he'd disguised himself as Sasuke and heard her bash him even more, during Kakashi's test when she ran off to save the Uchiha and had left him hanging from a tree, various times during the D rank missions when she flaunted over Sasuke instead of helping him deal with vicious cats or just leaving him to do all the work, when the fight with Haku was over and all she could ask about was Sasuke despite the needles sticking out of the blonde, each time she sided with Sasuke on what they should do while they were in the forest of death which in the end basically ended up with Naruto doing grunt work while the Uchiha 'supervised', when Naruto had been going up against Neji in the third round of the chunnin exams all Sakura could worry about was when Sasuke was getting there, and the most painful of all was the memory when Naruto had dealt with both Kabuto, and Orochimaru to get the great healer Tsunade to help save Sasuke and when all was said n' done Sakura never gave him so much as a thanks; seeing as she was too busy crying over the recovering Uchiha.
No matter how long he sat there thinking he couldn't remember a single time she'd ever acknowledged his existence other that to punch him. She'd always push him aside to be with the bastard that now happened to be amongst the missing-nin, and was to be killed on sight for treason. Though for some god unknown reason she could forgive him of those hundreds of thousands of times he'd hurt her (and now the village), and the first time Naruto can't give her every tiny thing she wants she's trying to finish what the bastard started. It made no sense!
His heart felt like someone had run a freezing blade through it; the pain in his chest was so much he almost wished he would die. A snap of realization broke that train of thought in an instant, he hadn't wished for death since he was a small child, ever since Iruka became the first to acknowledge him he'd been shielded from the pain. It scared him that this girl could hurt him this much and he still wished nothing more than to see her smile and know it was for him, especially since it reminded him to much of her own obsession with Sasuke.
"I'm invisible…" he said to himself with a sigh. 'The only ones that acknowledge my life are either sorry for me or see themselves in me; none of them cared for me' he thought to himself. "No one cares for me, and I'm invisible…" he spoke barely over a whisper, if Sakura couldn't find a way to care about him after all he'd done for her; then no one could.
"I… I…" a weak voice sounded from just outside the barrier of leaves. Naruto jumped at the sound with surprise, and tried to bury himself further into the plant. "I c-c-can s-s-s-s-se-ee you…" the voice spoke.
Curiosity flooded the demon vessel, pulling at the only thing between him and this person that seemed as if it cared for him. Halfway through the abundance of leaves he thought that this person must be speaking to someone else, some who wasn't a loveless freak, but hope refused to allow him to quit. When the last of the leaves broke from their post Naruto was gazing at the most beautiful set of eyes he'd ever seen before, the two pearls seemed to dance with the sunlight that now slipped through the ceiling of leaves every now and then, "…Hinata?"
The Hyuga heiress turned a deep shade of red at her name, and hid herself slightly behind a nearby tree, but made no motion to escape further. "N-n-naruto-kun…"
Of course! Hinata never showed any form of pity, and had even given him a pep-talk before the third round of the chunnin exam. Hell she'd told him she admired him and how much he'd affected her over the years. He looked back at her reddened face and broke down. He grabbed her sleeve and buried his face into her shoulder while sobbing silently.
Hinata was obviously surprised at the gesture, and completely off guard at what to do. She eventually just placed her hand on his back and let him cry there. She only hopped that her efforts could some how take away some of the pain. The two of them sat like that for over an hour, neither one able to find the right words to say. When the stillness finally started to get to Naruto he decided to go ahead and break the silence, "I'm sorry…"
"F-for w-what?" Hinata's eyes drifted to the head on her shoulder, his face was screwed up in a rigid posture.
"For all of this, wasting so much of your time, acting like a baby, especially since you told me that you always looked up to me because I would always stand back up when someone pushed me down. Now here I am broken down, I must how ruined what you thought of me…" his voice was that of a child who had to admit to breaking his mother's favorite antique, something he was very out of practice at doing.
Hinata was taken back at his reasons. Laying a hand on his hair she whispered softly into his ear, "Y-you could n-never ruin my image of you… we're all human N-naruto-kun."
The blonde smiled into her arm, not the face splitting grin he wore as a mask but a true smile that he rarely wore. Without a second thought he spilled the story to her, from every thing he'd done for the pink haired kunoichi to what she'd done earlier that day. At the end Hinata was on the brink of tears herself, here she was with the boy she'd liked ever since the academy days and now the one he'd liked since then had shattered not only his heart but his confidence. Bitch gonna die!
"It just hurt so much… I'm used to her getting mad at me for every little thing," his voice was still weak, but it was quickly regaining its stable tone. "I guess I never really noticed but it hurt so much to know that she was so focused on someone who doesn't deserve her that she couldn't even see me. It just hurt so much Hinata-chan," his eyes threatened to release a fresh batch of tears at this.
"Yea… it does…" it was almost humorous that he'd said that to her, but then again this was Sakura that he was talking about; she'd always been smarter, prettier, and cuter than her. What could she expect?
One of the common beliefs about Naruto is that he's completely dense when dealing with anyone, which for the most part is true, but not this time; he heard the pain in her voice when she replied. Turning the gears in his head he sought an answer to why she was so upset, maybe she had the same problem? But who was the one she was having trouble with? Shino seemed to have no interest with anyone, and Kiba couldn't hold one person in his heart for more than three minutes before finding another, and Hinata never interacted with anyone else that much; just her teammates, her family, and himself. The little light bulb that had sadly been neglected during Naruto's life turned on with a brilliant light, if he thought he felt bad about ruining the image that Hinata held him in, then this was ten times worse,, knowing he'd just brought his love troubles to her. "I'm sorry Hinata…"
"Y-you h-haven't done anything N-naruto-kun."
Naruto brought his face out of the damp material of Hinata's jacket, his face now shown with his usual determined look, "Yes I did. All I've done is chase after Sakura like a blind fool; I never once saw the one who was always looking at me." Hinata's face reached a new shade of red. He continued on, "I know I never saw you for who you really were. Instead of Hinata the teammate; I should have seen you as Hinata, the woman," during the declaration he'd managed to wrap his arms around her waist and pull her close to him in a gentle hug. Hinata could have died there in his arms and would have been the happiest girl ever; sitting there listening to him was her version of heaven. "I have no right to say this, but I promise on my nindo; that I will see you from now on," he leaned in and pressed his lips softly to her cheek.
Hinata's heart leapt from her chest to her throat, every fiber of her being was jumping with joy, "N-naruto-kun…" 'Damn my stutter,' she thought angrily, 'it always insists to stay no matter how hard I try to rid myself of it.' "Th-thank you."
"No problem Hinata-chan" again he leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek, but the violet haired kunoichi had other plans, bringing him into a fierce kiss despite her shyness.
"Hey Hinata-chan…" began the blue eyed ninja when the need for air forced them to part. She raised an eyebrow to silently ask what it was. "You remember right before my fight with Neji? When you gave me that little pick-me-up talk." Hinata nodded, confusion slowly leaked into the violet pools of her eyes. "Well I need to tell you I was wrong when I told you, that it's people like you I like; I should have said it was you I like."
Hinata broke into a grin that threatened to split her face, "I like you to Naruto-kun."
A/N: Ok so I've noticed I have over 300 hits, yet only 5 reviews. That makes me sad that either that many people started to read this and just quit, or they just didn't like it enough to acknowledge it. I'd like to thank Soccerchick1551, hinatauzumakimi3, SunMoonNeko, and shadow-red0 for the encouraging reviews; and a special thanks to fionartan for the constructive critisim, as well as pointing out the canon of the story, cudos to you. But yes after re-reading the fic i agreed that the 'I love you's at the end, though indearing, had to go. So i replaced it with a less lovey-dovey-ness but closer to accurate. I'm thinking I might write a second chapter from Sakura POV, showing the reason she did all this. Well that's about it, I want to thank my reviewers again and hope that those of you reading this and any other thing I may post enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Rin