The greatest birthday gift.
A NaruHina fic.

' ' - thinking
" " - talking

Hinata knew Naruto must have got her something nice. They'd already been going out for 5 months and now it was the 27th of December; her birthday. The day she was finally going to be 17. Before she walked out of the Hyuuga household, she checked her mailbox in case of any birthday cards or small gifts. As she opened it, all that fell out were 10 small envelopes. She picked them all off the ground and read through the names of each sender. Kiba, Shino, Ino, Shikamaru, Choijy, Rock Lee, TenTen, Sakura, Sasuke and even Neji. 'Neji?!' she thought to herself in astonishment. Still, she felt quite disappointed not to have gotten anything from Naruto, so she just shoved them all back into the mail-box and decided to collect them later.
'I hope he remembers…' she thought to herself and she walked through the village of Konoha towards the Ichiraku's Ramen Bar hoping she'd find Naruto there. However, to her dismay, Naruto was nowhere to be found. Hinata started getting worried. She walked back home thinking of all the places where he could be at that very minute, when she bumped into Sakura and Sasuke who were on a date.
"O-ohayo Sakura-chan… Sasuke-kun" she said realising they were staring at her blushing face.
"Hey Hinata!" Sakura said with a smile upon her face.
"Yo." was Sasuke's response.
"Oh, well, y-you haven't by any chance seen N-Naruto-kun, anywhere, ha-have you?" she said shyly.
"Hmm… No sorry, Hinata! Oh, happy birthday by the way! I hope you liked my card!" Sakura exclaimed.
"Oh I-I see. Er oh, yes, thank you Sakura-chan! Have a good day, y-you two!" Hinata replied and walked off. Sakura and Sasuke just turned to see the sad girl walking all by herself under a cloud of depression.
"I hope she's okay. Damn that Naruto! How dare he leave Hinata all alone?! Especially on her birthday! I'm gonna kill him if I see him!" Sakura said with a huge frown on her face. "She'll be fine. They'll be fine." Sasuke replied pulling her close and kissing her on the head.

Hinata just walked straight home. As she got to her bedroom, she lay back onto her bed, shut her eyes and imagined what it'd be like if Naruto was right there with her. At that exact moment.
She blushed smilingly and eventually drifted off to sleep.

She woke up again soon, looking at her clock indicating 7pm.
'My day will be at its end very soon. It's already getting dark.' she whispered as she gave out a small sigh.
She suddenly jumped out of the bed as she remembered something she had to do.
'The mailbox!' She ran outside as quickly as her legs could take her and opened the mail box. The same cards she had seen in the morning fell out, together with a note which read…

Dear Hinata,
I can't see you because you're not at home at the moment so I leave you this note instead.
Meet me at the waterfall at 5pm. Don't be late.
-Naruto

'Oh no! I'm so late! I hope he hasn't left!' she thought in hesitation and sprinted towards the meeting place.
As she got there, she looked around and found nothing. She looked and looked but Naruto was once again, nowhere to be found. She sat near the lake and embraced her knees placing her chin on top.
Suddenly, she felt a warm hand over her shoulder.
"I was starting to think you weren't gonna come." Hinata jumped in surprise and looked up at Naruto.
"I'm s-so sorry Naruto-kun." Hinata said, getting up and feeling hypnotized by Naruto's soft glare.
"It's okay. Now, come. The reason I wanted you to come early was so we could spend more time together. But since you didn't make it, I saved the best for last. I guess I didn't really have much choice anyway!" Naruto said with his warm hearted smile to Hinata.
Hand-in-hand, they dashed through the tree branches, over to the tallest tree in the whole of Konoha.
"Now close your eyes. And no peeking!" Naruto whispered jokingly, holding Hinata's hand. Hinata giggled and followed his pull.
"Right. We're here. You can open your eyes now."
Hinata slowly opened her eyes to the most beautiful sunset she'd ever seen in her whole entire life. She was stunned by the beauty of it all; she was almost speechless.
"Happy birthday, Hinata" he said in the most gentle way he could.
They sat there for half an hour or so, Hinata leaning her head against Naruto's shoulder and him with his hand on hers.
"T-Thank you so much, Naruto-kun. This is the best present anyone's ever given me."
"Hn. I still have one more thing." Naruto said winking at Hinata, leaving her heart in a throb.
"What else could you give me apart from all of this?!" Hinata exclaimed.
"This." He quickly said, pulling Hinata closer to him and gently pressing his lips against hers. "I love you." he whispered as she placed her forehead on his.

Soon, the sun went down and the two teenagers lay back on the tree branch admiring the night sky and each other's gaze until morning arrived.

The End.