Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

Well hello everyone! It's been a while. I thought that I'd get this series up and running again, and so here we are!

Enjoy!

Title: 029. Colour

Genre: Family/Romance

Length: 967

When Naruto had been younger, he'd come to the same conclusion as most children: that, after you were married, nothing happened for perhaps fifteen years or so until you were much older, and you had children of your own who you sent to the ninja academy.

How boring, he'd thought, and pushed any appeal the concept had straight away. A great deal of luck it'd brought his parents, he'd thought, and ignored thoughts about it at all. Besides, he had to make friends, and keep his best friend at his side.

He'd stay with his friends always, no matter what.

He'd get his friend back, no matter what.

He'd protect everyone, no matter what.

He'd done it. But he didn't manage to keep some of the promises he'd made. The thought tore him up.

And then, he fell in love.

It was only when he knew he was truly, deeply, irreversibly in love with Hinata that he thought about marriage again.

"If you want to stay with her for the rest of your life, marry her." Iruka had explained so easily one afternoon. "If you want her to be next to you when you wake up every day, or be the last person you see every night, then marry her. If you love her, marry her: it's that simple." The words were so easy he said them with a simple shrug. Somehow, they didn't feel very complicated to Naruto, either. That was all he needed as an answer, really.

So, they got married.

They had been to the hot springs of the Lightning Country on their honeymoon, a week spent of bliss and happiness. Naruto could only remember two times he'd been so happy previously and that was a completely different kind of happiness. Then he'd been beaming at the faces of his parents; now he was beaming at the face of the one he felt an inexplicable tie to. Like a red string of fate, or like the stars that led a ninja at night had led him to her side.

If Sasuke ever found out that he thought that way, he'd never win another argument without throttling the man.

He cares about that less when he looked at how happy Hinata was.

But now they returned to life and, two months into married life, Naruto found himself reflecting on the conclusion he'd come to when he was a child.

Life hadn't really stopped... but how much had it really changed?

Hinata's things had already littered the apartment for over a year now. And the night after their honeymoon wasn't the first time they'd woken up next to each other.

So what had changed? He racked his brain all day - but he couldn't think. Well, except for one thing. Hinata's father was less likely to gut him for finding him in Hinata's room. Somehow he missed the thrill that had added to his late-night visits.

"I suppose that the paperwork things aren't the answers you're looking for?" Hinata asked in response to his asking her, that evening. She looked over at him from the other side of the kitchen as she mixed up the dumpling filling and he began folding them into their blanket-like houses.

Naruto gave her an uncertain smile. "Not really, Hina."

"Well then, I suppose the answer is that the only differences are the ones that you want to be there."

Naruto hummed, thinking about it.

A few weeks later, he supposed that she was right. He didn't want anything to change - he was happier than he thought he'd ever be anyway. So nothing had changed to him at all.

But for Hinata, clearly, something had changed. She'd had an answer for him.

"For me?" She'd chewed her lip sweetly, putting the bowl down carefully on the counter. "Well, I suppose that I look at the future happily now. Before, I wasn't really sure what the future held for me. It was kind of murky, but with some vague endpoint. But now, even if I'm not sure what the future holds for me, there's so much more colour in it."

"Colour?"

"Yes. I mean, when I look at the future I don't really care what the endpoint is. I'm just happy that I'm here now, and I know that everything's going to be okay, no matter what."

Naruto thought back to her answer and smiled. Perhaps he was biased because she was the woman he loved, but he thought she was right. It's had been the one thing he'd never really re-evaluated when they got married but he, too, didn't really care what the future held because he knew that it was all going to be okay. In fact, it was going to be better than okay. The only reason he knew that was because if the present, the day-to-day life he'd dismissed as boring before was as perfect as it was now, if every day for the rest of his life were like this, then he'd be happy.

So the months of marriage passed. Then, they celebrated their first anniversary. Their second. Their third, fourth, fifth—

They fought, of course, but usually over things like where the place setting went and how many naruto went on the ramen. But there were only a handful of times Naruto was ever truly angry with her; and she, with her saint-like patience, even fewer times than him.

Life went by as life does - quickly when you're not watching - and they made it to that future they'd only imagined as the end of the 'boring bit' when they were children. But when they got there, it didn't feel like the future. Rather, the continuation of the life they'd loved living; that colourful present they'd enjoyed every moment of.

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