An anon prompted me to write the process of Naruto falling for Hinata over the course of the Last movie, and this is what I had to offer. The confession scene's dialogue is a little inaccurate, but I didn't want to scroll through my tags looking for the exact words when I could most likely convey the same overall idea.
As always, read and review, please!
She resigns herself to standing in his shadow.
He is always so much taller than her, tousled hair adding inches to the fluid trick-of-the-light that falls into step behind him. She likes to let the tips of her feet touch the outline of his shoulders on the ground, broad and squarish, but rounded somehow, almost as if they were molded into the shape by the life that surrounded him.
He looks back at her every now and then, and she ducks her head, afraid that he might see the paleness of her eyes or her skin, the darkness of her hair. She has wanted for him to look at her like that since their history began, to look at her as if there is something more to her skin and her bones than the chakra that holds them together. And yet—
—it frightens her, to think that he can look at her like that. To think that he is capable.
When he touches her hand, her fingers linger on the bruises lining the underside of his fingernails. They are small, and colored lavender. He pulls his hand back and smiles at her, touching them to the hairs at the back of his neck. It would be a lie to say that his cheeks don't color, even if only a little.
She simpers.
Maybe she can stand it. Maybe.
{…}
The cobwebs in her hair are unnecessary. So is the scream that peals from her mouth when the wisps of spider silk fall from their place on the walls and onto her like a halo.
It doesn't stop him from coming to her, though.
She drags her hand through her hair, filtering out the cobwebs, when he takes a few strands of violet into his fingers. She flinches, but as he loosens the silk, she lets her hand fall away, focusing instead on the simple smile that curves its way up his mouth.
Has the sun always been this gentle? She wonders at that.
{…}
He comes upon her knitting by the light of the fire one night, nimbly running the yarn through the needles. She does not notice him at first, too indulged in finishing what she hopes won't ruin like her first lovelaced creation. The tears in the frothy fabric are still fresh in her memory. She can hear the echo of it falling apart.
"What're you doing?" he murmurs, but not before something stark sounds from the hallway. The moment evaporates as soon as it condensated, and he whirls around, disappearing from the threshold.
She hears him tumble down the stairs.
He swears under his breath, quiet but still loud enough for her to hear. She flies down the stairs and touches a hand to his back. As he flinches in pain, her eyes go wide like the moon. "You're hurt," she says, stating the obvious.
When they make it back up the stairs, her eyes flicker to the scarf left on the floor. She fumbles through her pack until her fingers settle on the circle of a jar. He takes the ointment from her gingerly, murmuring "thank you" in the same way that he murmured before, with his lips barely stretched apart and the air frothing in front of him.
She senses the trouble he has in applying the ointment only moments after he takes it. His grunts harbor frustration, but not the dark kind, and she chuckles. His eyes fall on her, blue and bright against the dim firelight. Her cheeks color as she meets his gaze, and she ducks her head, whispering, "I should help you."
Her fingers skirt the fresh scars stretched across his back; his skin is harder here than it was under his fingernails. He sits silently as she rubs the ointment into his pores in small circles with her thumbs, the tips of her other fingers splayed gently against either side of his spine for support.
"Thank you," he echoes. She wonders two things: one, if he will ever not say that to her, and two, if she's making the words out to be larger than they really are.
{…}
The night she finishes the scarf is a firefly night. Their fluorescence hangs in the air like an oversized lamp, casting light about every which way. It makes fluid shapes in the water, sends shafts of light through the unnoticeable holes in the yarn.
He walks up to her, unexpected, and though she's surprised at first, falling into the rhythm of the conversation isn't hard. The words come to her mouth with an ease she hasn't felt since the war, and she muses if this is what otherworldy panic does: make the impossible, possible.
"I'll do anything to save Hanabi," he says, hands in his pockets, head downcast, nonchalance failing to follow through.
"Thank you," she says, standing up abruptly, hand leaving the yarn and needles. Her voice is soft, like her eyes, like her skin, like her hair. "You're so kind."
He blushes and does the thing again, with his fingers and the hairs at the back of his neck. "No, I- It's not just because I like you that I'm being nice to you. .
"I'm worried about her, too." These last words don't fall on her ears, though. Nothing does; not after the first "you" in his sentence. Goosebumps run up from the tips of her fingers to her shoulders, from her waistline down to her toes.
"Just now, what was that? What did you just say?"
He blinks back, confused. Confused and completely unphased by the words that have left his mouth. As if they were bound to leave it anyway. As if it were only a matter of time. As if—
—as if they were natural.
"I said I was worried about her."
"No, no. Before that."
"Before that… Oh."
He stares at her, solid. She feels as if she might break.
"I said… that I liked you."