The Guest

Summary: Somehow, it's right that she be the one to convey his congratulations to Naruto. She is the warmest, most genuine person he knows, and if anyone can best convey his feelings about Naruto's nuptials to the loudmouth, it's the woman who probably knows him the best in the world.

Disclaimer: This story utilises characters, situations and premises that are copyright Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, Shonen Jump and Viz media. No infringement on their respective copyrights pertaining to episodes, novelisations, comics or short stories is intended by KuriQuinn in any way, shape or form. This fan-oriented story is written solely for the author's own amusement and the entertainment of the readers. It is not for profit. Any resemblance to real organizations, institutions, products or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All plot and Original Characters except for those introduced in the canon books, manga, video games, novelizations and anime, are the sole creation of KuriQuinn. (© KuriQuinn 2016- )

Rating: K

Warning: Spoilers for pretty much everything up to Chapter 699.

Canon-Compliance: As close to canon as fanfiction can possibly be. With a few personal additions :P Takes place during the Blank Period.

AN: Originally, this was just meant to be a quick drabble in response to a prompt and meant to honour of the last episode of Naruto Shippuden. But then my brain decided to put some more details in, and we got this little one-shot. Enjoy.

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Not attending Naruto's wedding is one of the hardest decisions Sasuke has had to make since the end of the War.

It's a mark of how much he has changed in his years of wandering that he not only recognises this fact, but also continues to feel conflicted about it long after he's made the choice. In the past, he made decisions and simply moved on—what has been done cannot be changed, after all—but for once, his personal feelings have a place in his rationalizations.

That's also new.

Sasuke has never wanted material or arbitrary things. His desires have always been firmly rooted in goals: aiming to surpass his brother and to be acknowledged by his father, to avenge and restore his clan, to destroy the village that destroyed his family...

Not until he left his home the second time with a barely deserved pardon did he have a chance to experience the world outside of his own ambitions.

He learned to appreciate a warm bed and sleeping long past sun up. The satisfaction of playing with a stray cat or eating food for pleasure instead of only sustenance (he apparently has a weakness for bitter, dark chocolate that he never even realised).

And for the first time since he can remember he wants things.

He wants to read a book for leisure, and not because it might hold some long lost clan secret or technique. He wants to travel to as many places as he can and see if the sunset looks different in Iwa than it does in Konoha. He wants to climb a mountain just to breathe the crisp air, instead of seeing it as a stepping stone to some broader goal.

He wants to go to his friend's wedding.

Naruto is in many ways his brother, through time and through shared experience, and the only close friend he will ever have. (He doesn't see Kakashi as this; to him, the older man will always be the mentor, the surrogate parent where he had none. And Sakura...she's something else entirely, in a category he is only just starting to understand). He owes it to the blond idiot to be there, especially after everything that has happened between them.