happy ending
077. fairytale

She often told him stories. He never interrupted; he listened like a proper audience should, and never said much afterwards, either.

In one story, they were a married couple, happy and prosperous. The Uchiha clan wasn't slaughtered, Sasuke didn't leave, and no one pursued Naruto for the beast dwelling within him. They had two children—one boy and one girl—who were growing up to be fine shinobi.

In another story, she was part of the Akatsuki, too—they would fight side by side until they were old and worn, and then they would die in each other's arms. (He had told her that one was particularly cliché and slightly lame, but she just giggled inaudibly and watched the starry sky above her softly as she lay on the cool nighttime grass.)

There was another story where they weren't shinobi at all. They lived in a faraway land, where she was a princess and he was her most trusted knight. He would protect her from any dangers (and, of course, malicious princes who wanted to take her hand in marriage), and they loved each other very deeply. But then one day, a dragon devoured her, and in despair, the knight took his own life, too. That was how that one ended.

He very much disliked one of them—it was the one where they were in a different world completely. People travelled in strange devices, instead of walking—cars, she had named them—and the way of fighting had evolved differently than their world had. (What good would a world like that be, he had asked her. No shinobi and no slaughtering meant that they would have never met the way they did.) In the end, they weren't involved with any wars, and they had a more or less happy life. She often had much fun telling him this tale, explaining everything in this other world that he so despised.

But there was one story he particularly liked—not that he'd never tell her he actually had a preference.

In that story, she would visit him every night at their meeting place. They would lie in the grass and stare at the sky, whether it be cloudy or clear, where the little pinpricks of light shone as bright as her eyes. As they lay side by side, she would tell him stories—one after another, until she stopped mid-sentence because she fell asleep.

He particularly liked that one because it always ended with, And they lived happily ever after.

A/N: Sadly, I particularly dislike this one…