23 Smiles

by Society's Failure

But most of all, he cherished a smile. It wasn't his own smile, no— well, not the one on his face. He did like to think of it as his in private, though. And he was willing to do most anything just to see it. 23 drabbles of NaruSaku fluff, one a day for a special reason.

7. Ramblings are 17

Although Naruto always claimed that he loved every single bit of Sakura (which was true, of course), there were definitely parts of her, or things about her, that he loved more than the others. Silly little things like her love of wedding shows, or the borderline obsession with Fruit Loops.

But something that he felt was especially his, and really his alone, was how she would ramble about the most random things before they went to sleep. A lot of the time, it was something to do with work—something that he didn't have any clue about. That wasn't really the point, though.

He would pull her close to him, an arm around her waist, and his nose in her hair and his eyes already closed, and she would just talk. He didn't have to reply, and most of the time he didn't. But that didn't much impact whether or not she stopped. Her voice would be soft and it was so easy to tell she was sleepy, but it made him smile. Whether the topic was about how to perform a certain kind of surgery, or about the weird little patient she had had a week ago, there were just things that didn't seem important to bring up in normal conversation, and somehow ended up in her ramblings.

Naruto wondered if she really realized what she was saying, or if she just let it go as a stream of conscious. He didn't ask, because it didn't matter anyway. But it was funny when she would tell him the same thing, and he could actually recall the details before she continued. He did his best to remember what he was told, or at least the gist of what was being said, but he couldn't really be blamed for forgetting the intricate details of how to perform an open heart surgery.

Most nights that it happened, her voice would get slowly softer and softer until her murmurings he couldn't understand, and eventually she just trailed off and her breathing totally evened out, and that's when he knew she was asleep. And then he would resist the urge to laugh softly, and he'd kiss her shoulder, and whisper right by her ear that he loved her, even if she wasn't awake to hear it, and follow her example soon after.