My first NaruHina.

Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me.


The sky clouds over with storms, sometimes.

Hinata loves the sky. She loves it for its simplicity: the color, the eternal depth, the endless corners that stretch overhead. There are not many elements to the sky, but it is still beautiful. Amazing.

It reminds her of him. Not without reason, either; when she sees him, she sees the sky in his eyes. She sees the sun in his hair. She hears strength in his laugh; sees determination in the slant of his eyebrows. Sees a promise in the gleam of his smile.

But Hinata knows better than anyone that the sky clouds over with storms.

She often catches sight of him walking alone when it's raining hard enough to envelop the streets rivulets of flowing water. He is always by himself and she always leaves him that way, watching from a distance with pearly silver eyes that glimpse what no one else does. Her throat aches when she sees him like that: on his own, a solitary figure carrying the weight of the world on tense, hunched shoulders.

You aren't alone, she wants to say. Naruto-kun –

But she can't. She doesn't. Hinata has never been very good with words and she can't tell him what she really wants – that all he has to do is turn around to see the people who are behind him. That she believes in him with all of her heart.

Instead, she says something else the day she accidentally runs into him walking in the rain. He looks surprised to see her outside in the downpour. Hinata isn't so surprised to see him. She feels a twist in her stomach as he greets her; an invisible barrage of words and emotions she is helpless to release. He is already moving away when she turns to face him, her heart in her throat. "N – Naruto-kun!" she says. She stands her ground, even as her cheeks flush. He is looking slightly puzzled. Her mind scrambles to put together phrases. "I – I don't like storms. But I – I think we have to have storms …s-so the sky will be more blue the next t-time we see it." She looks at him, moonlight eyes silently pleading. It's not much but it's the best she can give him.

For a moment he just stares at her. Then, slowly, she watches a smile split across his face like a ray of sunlight cracking through clouds. "Thanks, Hinata." His smile turns into a small grin and slides one hand out of his pocket to give her a thumbs up. "Thanks a lot."

And she returns a hesitant, hoping smile before she lowers her gaze shyly and leaves. The sky is still gray. It is still raining. On the surface, nothing's changed. Behind the heavy roiling black clouds is an eternal stretch of blue, pushed out of sight.

But already, Hinata can see in her mind's eye a single strip of blue, illuminating the storm.