He doesn't remember their first kiss.
Naruto isn't the kind of person to forget things like that—as many insults to his intelligence as he gets, he has an amazing memory—and a knack at recalling details. So months after it happens, and he tries to bring the moment to life in his mind and it's too hazy to really describe, he feels alarm settle in his chest.
How could he forget that? It had been the mark of success after years and years of effort on his part. Since they were in the Academy and he had developed the initial crush on her, following through the genin years where he had contested one-sidedly with the duck-butt Uchiha, and then through their teens until it finally all fell into place when she was eighteen and he seventeen.
And he could not remember the kiss.
It bothers him much more than it should—or perhaps just right. It's a huge thing. It's one of the biggest. Not only was it his first kiss period (he disqualified the one with Sasuke always since it wasn't even a kiss), but it was the first one he had shared with her.
He was supposed to remember those things—he remembered all the anniversaries, and all the promises he makes, and even what foods she does and doesn't like.
But he cannot remember the damn kiss.
It weighs down on him like a cinderblock of guilt, crushing him until he can hardly take it. It's been almost a year since it happened (he remembers the date of the kiss perfectly, and the events leading up to it just as clearly), and he doesn't know if she even remembers. It wasn't the anniversary of their relationship, anyway. Just of the kiss.
But he remembers the day and he cannot remember the very reason it's important.
He makes no mention of it throughout the day, when she wakes and untangles herself from his hold to go do her shift at the hospital, or when he stops by at lunch after he's gotten done with some training, or even when they both get home after grocery shopping when her day was done (since his days were missionless right now and he spent them lollygagging around).
No mention until it's night time again, and they're pressed close in their room, her back to his front, and she's dozing while he's still wide awake. It's troubling him much more than it should, but he just cannot shake it.
"Sakura-chan," he murmurs softly into her hair.
"Mmmmmm?" she hums, the questioning sound light and easy. It does nothing to assuage the tension inside of him.
"Do you know what today is?" he asks, a bit louder. She's quiet for a long moment, and he almost worries she's fallen asleep.
"It's an anniversary," she replies, sleep slurring her words together.
"Of our first kiss," he affirms, a slight smile taking over the frown he had been courting. "Exactly a year ago."
He can practically hear the mirrored smile spread across her lips. "You're ridiculous, Sunshine. Why do you remember the oddest things?" Her words are slow and still soft, but their meaning strike him in the feel bads.
"I don't remember it, though," he confesses in a whisper, expecting surprise and shock and awful things in return. But they never come.
"Why not?" she asks simply, not at all worried or… even upset sounding. His brow furrows, both in confusion and at the question.
"I… don't know. I just remember I haven't really stopped. They all kind of go together, now. It felt too natural to be important." He only realizes it as he says it, but when he does it makes sense. He remembers kisses as they happen—when he sneaks one while she's at work, when they're out for lunch, when they're resting during a mission. He remembers those more than he can ever recall the details of the first, because since that first they all seem like a given. Like it's the thing he's supposed to do. So why is one any more important than the next?
"Then shhhhhhh, Sunshine. Sleep," she commands him, running her hand up and down his arm, reassuring. She wasn't bothered in the first place, and now that he's made himself feel better, maybe he'll stop being so tense. Sure enough, with a grumble and a sigh, he loosens behind her, and she smiles as his breath steadies to match hers, and falls back asleep that way.