🧡💜ภคгยђเภค ๓๏ภtђ 2023🧡💜

Slow And Steady Wins The Race

Another part two of a NaruHina 2022 one-shot! It was called, Flipping The Script!

Chapter Thirty-One

Slow And Steady Wins The Race

Prompt: I made a mistake but I love you

"For the love of- you never do anything half assed do you? You always have to do things the hard way, but this really takes the cake! Leave it to you to be the first guy in history to realize you actually have feelings for a woman after you reject her," Sakura huffed, punctuating her exasperation with a slap to her forehead, "well, what the hell are you gonna do?"

"What do you mean, what am I gonna do?" Naruto replied, hands planted on her kitchen table as he leaned towards her with that sapphire resolve of steel she knew all too well burning in his eyes, a look Sakura knew meant Naruto was about to go to war and had every intention of coming out victorious, "I'm gonna win her back, dattebayo!"

She didn't know why she was surprised.

Naruto had always been a tenacious fighter, never afraid to get his hands dirty, to topple the impossible even if he had to claw through Hell to do it, but she'd half expected him to be as hapless and hopeless as he'd been that day he lay stretched out on her living room floor, flabbergasted and distraught to discover he could've asked Hinata out on a date rather than break her heart with his honesty. Therein lay the true crux of the problem, when it came to love Naruto Uzumaki was as clueless a newborn babe. His ignorance in believing a love confession was the same as an ultimatum was a vivid testament to the disturbingly deep depth of his cluelessness.

Looking at him now, the Naruto then compared to now seemed complete polar opposites.

Determined.

Resolved.

Confident in his course of action.

Despite not knowing what the fuck he was doing (of that she was certain), he was a far cry from that night on her floor.

His head was held high, shoulders squared, stubborn chin lifted in defiance.

This was the Naruto that faced off with Kaguya.

The one that was determined to win, no matter what came his way.

She wasn't sure if he could pull out a victory this time.

Hinata had changed, or rather, her feelings had.

With a straight face, without an ounce of turmoil or pain, Hinata had said to her, to Ino and Tenten at their first girl's night out after Hinata's self-imposed exile, words they'd never expected her to say.

Never in a million.

'I'm not in love with him anymore.'

Sakura had struggled not to cringe as Hinata said those words.

They felt wrong, the formation of that sentence going against the natural order of the world.

'Naruto-kun will always have a special place in my heart. I'm grateful for the pivotal role he played in my life and I'm truly thankful to have loved him and finally told him no matter how it end, but that time in my life, the time in which I loved him as a woman loves a man, is over now. I cried, I grieved, I wondered what could have been, and then, I came to terms with reality. I've close that chapter of my life. I'm ready to move on...no...I have moved on."