A/N: The idea for this one-shot came about four minutes after I cracked my phone screen and took about three hours. So kick back, relax, and lemme know what you think.

The Boy She Saw

The boy she saw, no one else could see. They saw only what he allowed them to see, they only saw the smiles, the wild laughter, the energy to never give up and to always keep trying… that's what they saw. Despite all the abuse, despite all the hurtful words and comments that would have shattered a weaker soul, a determined drive to overcome was the only thing he ever let them see.

But she didn't see any of that. When she looked at him, she could see it all, everything he hid, bubbling and festering just underneath the surface; she could see his true expression behind the mask, hear the cries for help that his laughter drowned out, all of it, plain as day to her.

It didn't use to be. Back when they were first put onto the same cell together, she had been just as ignorant as the others, only seeing an annoying, goofy, blonde-haired nuisance with a penchant for pulling pranks. Always laughing, always running off at the mouth, boasting, falling, tripping, bleeding—it was a whirlwind of peevish things she had noticed about him, and yet somehow, she had failed to notice the most important thing.

That he was hurting. Worse than anyone she had ever known, worse than she had ever felt, worse than she ever wanted to feel….

She had first realized a little under a month ago, after a particularly shoddy performance against Sasuke during one of their usual training sessions. The fact that Naruto had not, for once, instigated it should have even enough of a clue, but at the time, Sakura was just still so sure that one of the many ways she could bring Sasuke into her loving embrace was by bashing everything Naruto did.

Even when he did nothing at all.

Even when he actively told them he wasn't feeling up to sparring, which naturally led to Sasuke calling him some form of worthless while Sakura backed him up with a few insults she wished on her life she could take back.

When the session was over and Sasuke walked away the victor, Sakura stayed behind to grind home the fact that Sasuke was his better in every way from his looks to his pure Uchiha-given talent. Normally, Naruto would have refuted that, it's what he usually did, he usually jumped up calling Sasuke an idiot and demanding a rematch. Only that time, he didn't. That time, he responded with two words that to this day dropped Sakura's heart into an icy black hole.

"You're right."

But she hadn't been. Not even a little bit. Not a single word out of her stupid mouth had been right, not one syllable.

The way Naruto picked himself up afterwards and stumbled away without even a backwards glance, without his usual promise to beat Sasuke next time, without doing or saying anything to suggest he was going to come back stronger and better than ever….

Back then, Sakura couldn't put a finger to what about her teammate had changed, or what could have caused it. Nor did she put much effort into trying to figure it out, because with Naruto out of the picture then that meant one less person to fight over for Sasuke's attention.

The more Naruto stayed quiet, the better. Who wanted to hear that ear-bleeding screech he called a voice anyway?

That's what she thought. It's what she thought she wanted.

Until a couple weeks ago when Sasuke fractured Naruto's nose during a sparring session, putting far more strength into his attacks than necessary in an effort at garnering some form of emotion from the quiet blonde. The sight of so much blood caused Sakura's stomach to clench; she remembered quite well how Naruto crashed to the ground, clutching at his crimson-streaked face.

And even then… all she could do was what she always did: praise Sasuke and berate Naruto.

After their training session was over, after Naruto had wordlessly departed, Sakura made to follow Sasuke. Everything, normal. Until she noticed a discarded hitai-ate amidst the grass, which didn't belong to Sasuke, he was still wearing his, or her, since hers was still hanging around her neck, and Kakashi's was forever around his face at a slant.

Naruto….

While she actively made it a point to avoid Naruto like the walking plague, even Sakura knew the importance of this forehead protector, she knew the story behind it, who gave it to him, what it meant, what it stood for, so for him to leave it behind….

"Fine," she had relented, and she picked it up with a sigh. "Okay. Just this one time."

Finding where Naruto lived despite having never been there was easy enough as her parents had long since showed her his residence coupled with a warning to never visit or even come within a mile radius of it. It was a warning Sakura was all too happy to heed, because when would she ever want or need to stop by his place?

"Never say never, I guess," she had muttered, looking up a few stories of the rundown apartment building. It was well past the time she liked to be home, drawing doodles of her and Sasuke together in the special binder she kept under her bed, so the scowl on her lips was warranted. The moon was perched in the sky and the streetlights were on, casting menacing shadows all along the decrepit buildings that surrounded her.

Why he would choose to live here, she didn't know. And honestly, she didn't care. What he did was no matter to her, he was no matter to her. She was simply there to return his forehead protector and nothing more. Hopefully, she could just drop it off outside his door and leave—no words, no contact, perfect.

The only sound she heard at first was the metallic clink of the hitai-ate against the steel grated floor when she unceremoniously dropped it. "There. You're welcome." Job done, she made to leave when another sound caught her ear and she stopped in her tracks.

Crying. The agonized sound of someone struggling to hold back but losing to their grief. Sniffles broke up the unsteady rhythm, a shuddering inhale that caved to more sobs; Sakura was moving before her body could give the command. She found an old wooden crate that she used to give herself a boost to the window next to the door.

Her eyes widened with horror. "Oh… my God…."

Grime covered the glass like a thick film but there was no missing that puddle of shocking scarlet. It pooled around Naruto; he was hunched over, his face contorted with agony the likes of which not even a beast could endure. Droplets of tears streamed down his face, trickles of blood pulsed from the jagged gash sliced into his wrist.

If it weren't for the hand that Sakura had slapped over her mouth, the scream that rose to life in her throat would have given her away.

Next to Naruto lie a discarded kunai, the blade saturated with his blood. Somehow, even with his fingers trembling, convulsing, refusing to obey him any further, Naruto reached out for it, and the pain that lit up his face struck Sakura almost physically. She saw a curtain of red escape the slice in his wrist when he picked it up, squeezing with all the strength he possessed until his knuckles turned white.

He brought the cutting edge to his other wrist, simultaneously bringing a wave nausea that writhed in the pit of Sakura's stomach and kept her as still as marble, her eyes widening with disbelief, heart hammering just between her ears. She couldn't even begin to make sense of this moment, her brain was grinding to a halt. What was happening? What was he doing? Why was he doing it? Why wasn't anyone around to stop it, to help him? Where were—

A flash of silver cut across Naruto's flesh, slicing through in a torrent of blood, and fortunately for her, when she screamed, so did he, except his was louder, a pitched cry that upset Sakura's footing and she tumbled off the box to the unrelenting metal floor below. The pain that bloomed to life in her hip was negligible; she didn't stay down long and was up in a flurry of pink hair, scrambling for the front door. In hindsight, it was probably locked, but if it had been, it did very little to keep Sakura from snatching it wide open, almost off its rusty hinges.

"NARUTO!"

If she hadn't heard her own voice just then there's no way she would have believed herself capable of such a stricken scream. What happened next she could barely recall, even when she adamantly tried, it came back in disjointed bits and pieces. She remembered slapping the kunai out of his hands, desperate to get it away from him; she remembered crying, almost worst than him; she remembered not knowing what to do, not knowing what to get, what to touch, how to help….She could only hug him then. And she hugged him tightly, squeezing like someone or something was ready to snatch him away if she faltered; she sobbed out apologies, begged for him not to die—it was all a garbled train of regret, of things she should have done, of what she shouldn't have done, of things she promised to do differently.

She wasn't sure how long she had sat like that, holding onto Naruto, clutching handfuls of his shirt, and he made no move to separate himself from her. If anything, he seemed to melt into her embrace, drained and exhausted. She cried, he cried; she told him not to die, he told her he didn't want to, that he was just tired of fighting. Fighting the adults, fighting the others their age, fighting thrice as hard to prove himself only to fail, fighting his teammates, just… non-stop fighting with no end in sight.

"I know, Naruto, I know it hurts right now, I know it h-hurts real bad but, please… it'll get better, I promise it will," she told him, burying her chin amidst his unkempt mop of blonde hair.

A choked sob proceeded Naruto's response and he sniffled against her, shaking his head. "You c-can't," he had strained out through clenched teeth, "you… Sakura-chan, you can't p-promise that, you have no idea what I'm dealing with, it's… it's really terrible a-and I can't stop it…."

"What? Tell me, whatever it is, I'll help you, Naruto—we'll get through it together."

"I… I…." When he suddenly convulsed, for a split-second, an otherworldly chill ran a finger up Sakura's spine, but she only squeezed harder. "I can't tell you…."

"That's alright," she told him softly, "you don't have to, Naruto. I don't have to know everything. I already know enough.…"

Every hoarse word out of Naruto's mouth comforted Sakura's heart in more ways than one. She wasn't sure how he hadn't succumbed to blood loss yet—although her mind vehemently told her it had something to do with what he couldn't tell her—but she didn't care. So long as he kept talking then he was alive, and that was all she wanted in the moment. More than anything in the world she wanted Naruto to be alive, to be here with her.

The boy she saw right now, the trembling blonde huddled against her, this boy was no monster. He wasn't anything like what her parents had warned her about. There was no danger with him, he wasn't cursed, there was no reason to spit at him or kick him or… or do any of that. The slow realization caused Sakura's eyes to burn with fresh tears and she brought him in closer. What she held was simply a kid her age who was tired and terrified, who lived his days filled with fear and ridicule.

And she had surely inflicted her fair share of pain.

"It won't be the same, Naruto," she told him with a shuddering gasp, "n-not like before… I'm here, okay?" She leaned back just enough to gently lift his head by the chin. When she saw those eyes, those alarmingly blue, bloodshot eyes, Sakura almost broke down. She could see the burning desire to believe her words right there behind his pupils as they searched her own for clarity; he really wanted to take refuge in such a wonderful notion, that things would be different, but his heart carried too many wounds and a thousand bad memories flew over his vision, each one worse than the last, and Sakura saw them all.

"No, no, no," she began anxiously, sensing his tension and quickly shaking her head, "I'm here—see? I'm right here, Naruto, you can feel me, I'm really here." It was hard smiling, it was the last thing she felt capable of doing, but for his sake she managed somehow, showcasing a smile framed with tears. "And… and if I'm here, I need you to be here, too. O-okay…?"

A haunting silence followed and her jaw clenched. Of course. After all he had been through, suffered through, such an ask was too much for Naruto to deal with right now. And that was alright. A lot of damage had been dealt over the course of his life, it would take time to set it all right, if there even was such an outcome where 'right' existed. Some of it would heal, with time, and whatever didn't… Sakura was prepared to be there to help him through. It didn't matter that he couldn't give her a straight answer—it's what she would have wanted, but she had spent a long enough time getting that. It was time that Naruto got what he wanted, what he was long overdue.

He was with her now, that was all that mattered.

And even now, a week later, Sakura was still there. In fact, she was over at his apartment and wiping away a layer of sweat from her prominent brow. There was no hiding her smile as she clapped her hands, glancing gleefully at Naruto who was staring back with a matching smile and looking just as sweaty.

"Well, I'm no ace at this kind of thing but you can't deny, it certainly brings some color to the place, doesn't it?" she asked, studying the new curtains they had managed to install over the living room window. The sun was shining bright behind it, extending its warm rays into an apartment that was starting to look like an actual place of residence since Sakura had lent her hand in helping him bring it to life.

"I mean, yeah?" There was something playful about the way Naruto shrugged. "Not too wild about all the pink buuuuut… I guess it'll do for now, until we get a better color," he said, falling out on his back.

Smirking, Sakura fell out next to him. "Pardon me, but I know you're not insinuating that there's something wrong with the color pink, right?" she wondered with a quirky grin.

When Naruto angled himself so that his head was resting over her stomach, Sakura's fingers began to sift through his hair with a soothing grace. Again, he shrugged, closing his eyes comfortably. "Heaven's no, Sakura-chan, it's a great color… but I can't really see the future Hokage owning a place that's seventy percent pink."

And that much was utterly true. Around his small apartment were a lot of pink replacements for the things he previously owned that had been cracked or else broken over the years, like the kitchen table coasters, or the throw pillow on the beat-up couch, and even the new rug that covered the floor—although to be fair, the rug was mostly a mix of pink and deep maroon.

"Hey, you could be the first Hokage to buck gender norms, not a bad legacy to have if I do say so," she said funnily and Naruto gave a laugh that was cut short by a wide yawn. "Tired?"

"Exhausted."

She smiled warmly. "Then take a nap, idiot. We've got a few hours before Kaka-sensei comes calling anyway."

It was hard to think that the blonde boy lying over her now was the same one who had been on the edge of giving up a couple weeks ago. They almost seemed like two different people. But Sakura knew better. The boy from back then was still there, the pain still reverberated just underneath his skin, she saw it every now and again despite his best attempts at hiding it. She saw it whenever he rubbed at his eyes, she noticed it when he went to the bathroom for longer than usual, and she could hear the dread that laced his words whenever she deemed it was right to discuss what he was going through. Because it needed to be talked about, even if Naruto had every intention of white-knuckling it to the back of his mind.

The road to recovery was indeed a bumpy one and he had broken down numerous times over the past week but true to her word, she had been there.

"Well… okay," he relented, turning onto his side facing her, and the look over his face was such a vulnerable one that it made Sakura want to hug him. "Thanks, Sakura-chan…."

Her whole heart went into the smile she gave him and her fingers continued to work through his hair. "I'll still be here when you wake up," she told him, already knowing the words he needed to hear to get truly comfortable.

When his eyes finally closed after a few struggling blinks, she continued to stare at him with a fondness that only continued the grow the more she got to know him.

Because this was the boy that she saw, that no one else could see.

"But that's gonna change," she uttered into the peaceful silence, caressing one of his whispered cheeks with her knuckles. "They're gonna know you soon enough, Naruto, and I'll be right there beside you."

A/N: #yearoftheoneshot