It was too much. Surely it was too much. There was no way that anyone could smile as much as Naruto did and not suffer facial damage. As far as she could tell, he'd always been like this.
Back in the Academy, he'd have this wide, wide smile plastered to his face. Smiling whenever he made Iruka-sensei laugh, guffawing when Iruka-sensei scolded him in a fit of irritation. Smiling whenever his prank went right (and even once when his prank went wrong and his eyebrows got singed, he grinned like he'd planned it that way, even though Hinata knew he didn't).
And when he sat all by himself after school, to Hinata's sharp eyes, it looked as though he was forcing himself to smile even harder. She hoped it didn't hurt.
That was why it was a breathtaking thing for her to see him with a real smile, a real, real smile, one that made his eyes squeeze shut in delight, one that made him show off all his teeth. And what was even more breathtaking was if she was the cause of the smile. Whenever that happened, her body would make her gulp down gallons of air, as if to compensate for her lightheadedness.
During the Chuunin Exams, when she wished him luck and he gave her a sheepish grin. That he didn't need to cheat because he was an incredible ninja, and besides, he wouldn't want her to get in trouble.
A little smile when she said hello to him once when they were sixteen. A big one when she accompanied him to Ichiraku and she graciously footed the bill. She may have given him a smile of her own when he offered to pay her back the next day. A soft, tender one when she told him that her hobby was flower pressing, and they somehow ended up having a full, twenty minute conversation about fertilizer, of all things. A watery one after the war, after Neji nii-san, after the Infinite Tsukuyomi. He still scrunched up his eyes like he used to, but Hinata's sharp eyes caught the tears pooling at the corners of his eyelashes. She knew it hurt, but at least he wasn't forcing himself to smile this time.
His smiles were many and varied, when he didn't force himself to, when they came out naturally like flowing water in a river.
After the war, she may have...gone out of her way to draw those smiles out of him.
Dropping by the hospital with a warm bowl one day after he complained of being on a ramen withdrawal. He'd given her a vibrant sunbeam of a smile and a cheerful, chirpy, "I really, really like you, you know that?"
(She turned away so that he wouldn't see the look on her face.)
Helping him hold chopsticks in his clumsy, non-dominant hand. That brought forth another grateful smile and a, "Thanks, Hinata! You're awesome, did I ever tell you that?"
Sparring with him one bright, clear day and knocking him flat on his back with her Gentle Fist. He'd just stared at her, awestruck, then smiled like he wanted to outshine the sun again.
It was when she was strong, she noticed. Those were the times she made him smile the brightest.
She'd have to keep being strong, she decided.
The brightest smile of all, though, was the one he gave her back when they were genin. The smile that turned her world upside down.
When he told her that she was a shy, dark weirdo, but that he liked people like her.
A/N: For the prompt "It's too much" (past tense though, haha).
That's all for now. I hope you all liked these little one-shots, and since I've been asked for fanfic recommendations, please check out my favorite stories and favorite authors pages. :)