Love Just Is
Naruto liked to think that he had developed a special sensitivity to others' pain since he had become Hokage, sort of like a sixth sense. He'd always been able to tell when people were hurting, but in the year and a half he'd been the Rokudaime he had fine-tuned that ability and taken it a step further, always striving to help out others who were suffering. Perhaps that sixth sense was what had drawn him to Sakura's house in the middle of the night, on his way back from a meeting during which he just couldn't seem to concentrate. Perhaps he had felt her anguish and wanted to help her.
(Or perhaps it was just because she was Sakura, one of his best friends since childhood, one of the first people who had ever accepted him. He had always wanted to believe they shared a special connection.)
He knocked softly on her door, not wanting to wake her if she was already asleep. He waited, and after a moment he heard Sakura's voice. To his suprise, he wasn't surprised that it sounded strained and choked, like she'd been crying. "Go away." His worry wasn't unfounded.
"Sakura-chan, please let me in," Naruto said. She recognized the voice right away. "I... just felt like I had to come here."
There was a long pause. It was cold outside. Naruto rubbed his hands together, relieved by the warmth created from the friction between his palms. Patiently, he waited; he heard the door unlatch. She didn't invite him inside or even open the door, but he understood that as her way of giving permission for him to enter. He turned the knob and found that Sakura had already crossed the room again. She was sitting at her kitchen table with her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking. Naruto closed the door behind him and rushed to her side.
"Sakura-chan, what is it?" Naruto asked gently, stooping down to her level and putting a hand on her shoulder. "What's wrong?"
Sakura didn't speak for what seemed like an eternity. The only sound that broke the silence was an occasional sniffle. Naruto tried to pull her into an embrace, but Sakura shook him off. "I shouldn't have let you in," she told him finally. Her eyes were closed. "You should leave. I want to be alone."
"Sakura-chan, whatever it is, I'll try my best to help you," the sixth Hokage assured her warmly. He touched her cheek. "Come on, Sakura-chan, there's nothing to be afraid of. Tell me what's wrong."
Sakura slowly opened her brilliant green eyes, and Naruto's heart skipped a beat. They're so gorgeous, he thought. Even when she's sad, her eyes are beautiful.
"I don't need your help, Naruto." She spoke slowly, and her words sliced through him like ice. "I'll be fine. You just go back to your Hokage duties and stop worrying about me." She inhaled slowly and pressed her lips together tightly, as if restraining herself from saying more.
Naruto closed his eyes, and when he opened them back there were tears clouding the glassy cerulean irises. "I'm sorry, Sakura-chan," he said. It sounded so sincere it nearly made her sick. "I guess... I just can't help but worry about you."
Sakura cursed in exasperation. "Damn it, Naruto, stop it! This is exactly what I was talking about!" She cringed at his puzzled, hurt look and began to explain. "I had it so good before you came along. I loved Sasuke, you know that... and I was so sure he cared about me beneath that facade of indifference. I wasn't enough to stop him, though, and neither one of us was enough to bring him back." She clenched her fists and fought back a fresh torrent of tears. "Sasuke isn't coming back, Naruto. I've accepted that by now, but you - you still can't let it go. I don't care if you are Hokage, Naruto. To me you're still the same thick-headed moron you were when we first met, but I... I've changed, and you don't hate me for it." She took a shaky breath, looked him in the eyes, and continued: the moment of truth. "Sasuke doesn't matter to me anymore. I love you, Naruto. I love you, and I don't deserve you." At that final sentence, she burst into tears again.
He took her into his arms, numb with the shock of the unorthodox confession. She cried into his shoulder, tears of every emotion she had ever felt, and when she was done there was nothing but confusion left.
"I love you, too, Sakura-chan," Naruto said. "And I think you've got it completely backwards. I'm the one who doesn't deserve you. I would do anything for you, Sakura-chan. Anything. I want you to be happy."
Sakura should have felt better, but she only cried harder. His arms felt so good wrapped tightly around her, as if promising to never let her go. "Stop comforting me. I don't need comforting, Naruto. I'm not a child anymore."
"Everyone needs comforting sometimes, Sakura-chan," he said softly.
Sakura unwound Naruto's arms from around her waist and threw him roughly onto the floor. He was right. And as improper as it was, the image of the startled Naruto lying flat on the ground awakened a part of her that had stayed dormant with Sasuke. With Naruto it was so much deeper than a lusty infatuation. Not only did she want to sex him senseless, but she wanted to do all those cliched couple things too - look into his eyes and say all those sappy-sounding things that were really true, surprise him after work with a home-cooked meal, kiss him even when he was sick, let all her anger out in one massive fit of fury and still wake up in his loving arms in the morning.
What's wrong with a life like that? It actually sounds... nice.
Naruto. He looked up at her in genuine confusion and rubbed his head where it had hit the ground during the fall. "Jeez, Sakura, you don't have to kill me. If you don't want me here, I get it, I'll leave."
"No!" she shouted, and she dropped to the floor as well. "Stay here," she pleaded, straddling his chest. Maybe it wasn't quite proper, and maybe she still didn't deserve him... but if whatever higher power that was out there wanted to make Naruto love her in spite of her faults, she wasn't going to complain.
"Um... Sakura-chan? Why are you on top of me?"
She answered by pressing her lips very softly to his. "I'm sorry, Naruto. I didn't mean to make you worry about me, not now, not ever."
He was about to say something, but Sakura took advantage of his parted lips to invite her tongue into his mouth. They kissed steadily, mouths moving at an incredible pace, faces heating and body temperatures rising. Soon they began wrestling around the kitchen, tongues exploring every inch of exposed skin (the latter of which increased by the minute as clothing was twisted, rolled up, and removed). Finally, sweaty and stripped down to little more than their underwear, the couple paused.
"I love you, Naruto," Sakura said again, very seriously, and Naruto smiled, feeling happier than he had in years. He could already tell he'd never get tired of hearing her say it out loud.
"I love you too, Sakura-chan," replied Naruto. "So, you still think you shouldn't have let me in?"
Sakura rolled her eyes. "Just shut up and kiss me, moron," she requested, and he very willingly obliged.
A/N, Jan. 15, 2009: I wasn't truly satisfied with this oneshot even when I first posted it; needless to say, looking back over it more than a year later, I almost regret posting it in the first place. It's choppy, it's out of character, and (especially by now) it's outdated. I've decided to keep it up on the site, but I made some revisions to what I felt were the worst parts of the story. I wanted to keep the plot (...if you could call it that) the same, but I ended up changing more than I'd intended to hopefully eliminate some of the out-of-character...ness. I'm still not happy with it, but hopefully it's at least a little more readable now. If you never read the original... just ignore this author's note and consider yourself lucky. xD Oh, and I don't own Naruto.