Warning: extremely sappy, romance-y, fluffy in every way, as well as adoration nearing idol-worship on Hinata's part. What can I say? I was in that kind of mood.

Disclaimer: oturaN nwo t'nod i. Challenge yourself and read it backwards.

I have to say you're beautiful, it's hard to deny it

You smile, and I can easily cry

- Lia

Sun, Moon and Shine

I.

She emerges quietly from the stall and is relieved to see that no one else is in the bathroom. Then she's ashamed to be so relieved. I'm such a coward, she thinks; it has been her foremost thought for the better part of her life.

The lukewarm water runs over her small hands, the skin nearly as white as the surrounding sink. The soap smells of milk and honey and brings the fleeting illusion of sunlight into the dreary chamber, and she smiles to herself for a brief moment.

The smile fades as soon as she looks up. She is the same as always in the mirror - wide, colourless (soulless, she sometimes finds herself thinking, and her heart shudders) eyes, short straight black hair with the ends splitting, round face too soft to seem grown-up and too thin to look youthful. She is delicate but not pretty, the kind of princess in distress that no prince would ever bother to rescue. A princess too weak not only to defend herself but even to call for help.

A door slams behind her and she freezes, simply freezes and stares like a deer in headlights at the figure who has appeared in the mirror's surface. It's a boy - a boy so bright that she has to blink to make sure that that wild blond hair, those sparkling blue eyes are not just a shimmering hallucination caused by the summery fumes of the soap.

But he's real, and he's absolutely terrifying. She is ready to bolt, and then he smiles and she's frozen all over again. "Hi there - whoa!" His big eyes widen, baby-like and beautiful. "Hold on a sec, is this a girls' bathroom?!"

She can't reply. She hasn't even turned around, and now she can't - she is fixed in place by the memory of that smile reflected back at her. All white teeth and pink lips and more sunlight than milk and honey could dream of.

He is still speaking, babbling even, but she can't say a word to stop him. "I'm really, really sorry about this, honest! I didn't look, I mean I guess I must've looked but I didn't really notice, so, yeah, sorry!"

He retreats clumsily, her huge eyes on him in the mirror the whole time. But his smile lingers, pursuing its full-frontal attack on her, the burn of his fire, the shrapnel from his gorgeous explosion burying itself under her sensitive hide.

Quite some time later, when she has gathered her scattered, awestruck nerves together enough to dry her hands and proceed hesitantly to the restroom exit, she peers cautiously out into the hallway before taking another step. But there's no need for her timidity now, because the corridor is empty both ways with no trace of ever having been otherwise. He is gone.

She is relieved again. But a part of her, a small part that sometimes so desperately wishes to be brave that it hurts, is disappointed.

II.

"Hiya, I'm Naruto!"

He doesn't remember her, evidently, but she almost doesn't mind, because if he did his smile might not be quite so broad. But he doesn't and it is, and she is eclipsed by its brilliance so completely that she forgets to stutter when she murmurs bashfully in return, "Hinata."

But she somehow can't smile back - it's just that his smile is so much bigger and lovelier than hers could ever be that she can't bear to even try.

She shakes his hand, a large, tan hand with calloused fingers squeezing so much warmth into her that it's like the sun has opened up and dumped all its contents on her head. And she knows it should feel overdone, too fast, too strong to be true, but it's not - rather it's as if she's been cold all her life and now she's finally been granted heat, and the sensation is so grand and heavenly that the thought of letting go makes her shiver already. And the source is him.

She's weak with disbelief that he happens to be an acquaintance of a friend of hers and she's meeting him like this, or maybe she's just weak in general. But she can't stop watching him, glancing over, staring. She falls into step with him, staying a little bit behind because she's afraid that if she goes ahead she'll lose sight of him forever, and every moment that she can look at him is a precious one. But even though he's walking slowly, she can't keep up - he has an energy, nearly tangible, an energy that creates a live atmosphere around him, and every smile is like a hole in the ozone layer, letting those searing rays blast through.

He talks with an eagerness and animation that is childish but every so suited to him, and she listens with all the attention that she can muster while she basks secretly in his loud, bright voice. He is a bit tactless, very imprudent, his words rushed together a little as his mouth works faster than his mind, but there is a perfection in his imperfections that awes her.

He stops suddenly and says to her, "You're quiet, aren't you?"

She nearly trips, blushes and nods. She is quiet, has always been so and has been told so many times, but when he says it, somehow it doesn't seem like such a bad thing. Perhaps because the statement is accompanied by a grin and a peal of rich, boyish laughter, not mocking, purely joyful. He is genuinely happy, without reservations, and she envies him for it, but stronger than her jealousy of him is her longing for him, aching even when he is by her side.

He is very human, very flawed, but he can't possibly be made of the same flesh and bone as the other men in her life, as she is. He is an alien from a planet that she has never heard of but has always wanted to visit.

She glances at him, smiles a teeny smile, and dares to think that maybe she'd even like to stay.

III.

They stand and applaud, and Hinata is happy for her friend, but her gaze keeps straying from the stage to the blond boy a few chairs down from her, who is making more noise than the rest of the entire row put together. He whoops and claps his hands energetically, then he grins and the whole auditorium is blotted out.

But although she can't rip her eyes away from that smile, for once she wishes she could, because it is not meant for her. It is her smile, the one that dominates her dreams both sleeping and waking, but it is not for her, and it melts and breaks her heart.

The way he looks at that pink-haired girl accepting the diploma on stage, beautiful and accomplished and talented and everything Hinata has always failed to be, she recognizes it. She knows what it means. She knows she is nothing to him. Her existence to his is like a tiny, misshapen asteroid shooting for a brilliant, golden star. She is sure to burn to cinders before she reaches him.

Tears prick at her eyelids suddenly, blurring his smile in her vision, and she blinks them away rapidly, because she has promised herself something.

Only when he has stopped shining, only when that sun has left the sky - only then will she cry.

IV.

There is romance in the moonlight, a widely acknowledged fact, but there is also something daring in it, as if extraordinary things become possible in that pale illumination of the dark. She senses this, reflects on it wistfully, as she walks quietly away from the camp, away from her friends in the tents.

She is not particularly afraid to be out alone like this so late; in fact, strange though it may seem, Hinata is rarely afraid of anything that is not associated with people. The night is warm and humid, but the grass under her feet is pleasantly cool, and she is somewhat flimsily dressed in a thin, short lavender nightdress - not exactly practical for camping, but her strict father has a no-pyjamas policy, considering them indecent for young ladies. She has never tried to object.

The steady, rushing sound of the small waterfall nearby is calming, almost makes her feel at home in this nature of night. The glowing grey moon above doesn't overflow everything with life-giving light as the sun does, but it shines all the same, unobtrusively, shyly, benevolently.

Her bare feet lead her to the edge of the water, a shallow rock-bottomed stream at the base of the waterfall. Her toes get wetter and wetter as she gets closer to the muddy bank, and when she reaches the end of the land she doesn't stop for some reason, but simply keeps going, wading in, holding her skirt up daintily. She treads carefully, cold water twisting around her white ankles, and spots the hole behind the falls, that little dry area that the water drops right past. She gets sprayed a bit while squeezing in, but otherwise there is nothing but warm air along her bare arms and face, a breeze that stirs her to restlessness even as it relaxes her inner soul.

On a bizarre but very desirable impulse, she twirls, gently splashing the water that is now halfway up to her knees. She closes her eyes and sways, feeling a few minute droplets from the falls prick against her cheeks. Her lavender dress lifts and bunches up, spinning along with her, and she is thrilled by the sensation of turning on an axis, as if the world will have changed by the time she has come around again.

Then she opens her eyes, and finds that it has, completely and irreversibly.

He is standing there on the grass-populated shore, watching her. He is not smiling, but there is another expression on his face, one that she has never seen before - a light glimmering in his blue eyes, but dimmer and deeper than usual, his lips slightly apart as if he is taking in a big breath.

"Oh!" She lets out a soft exclamation and clasps her hands together, stilling abruptly. She is embarrassed, she is afraid, she feels naked under his serious scrutiny, and her heart races in her chest. But she is standing in the moonlight, braver than she has been in a long time, and she knows instinctively that if he turns and leaves, she will not be relieved. She will be disappointed, because it will mean that she returns to who she has always been.

"Hinata?" he says at length, and there is a quality to her name that she has never heard before, a feeling in his tone. He sounds uncertain, as if he barely recognizes her. Perhaps she does look different - he does, at any rate.

He is bare-chested, and it heightens everything.

"You're...you were...you looked..." he fumbles for words, but slowly, not stumbling over them in his haste to express his meaning as he usually does, "...you look beautiful."

Her emotions all rise up in her at that single statement, hope and pleasure and love blooming wildly, and she almost reaches for him, almost runs to him. She does take a step forward, but her stride is halted by crippling hesitation, and she can only respond softly, stammering in a whisper, "Th...thank you."

Some of the Naruto she sees every day comes back, and he shrugs his shoulders amiably and smiles at her, offering her his hand to help her out of the water. For once his smile doesn't dazzle her, but rather simmers warmly in her breast and causes a kind of inward quivering.

He takes her by the hand and leads her back to camp, and she has never been more mortified.

She has never been happier, either.

V.

"You never smile, Hinata," he tells her one morning at the bus station as they wait for everyone else to arrive. He frowns and puckers his cheeks in an adorable pout.

She is taken aback - she does smile. Not as often as he does, of course, but she wouldn't say that she never smiles. However, he clarifies by continuing, "At me, I mean. You'll look at me and you don't look sad or anything, but you don't smile. You smile at other things, though, and it's nice. How come?"

She is blushing long before he has finished speaking, and she can't look him in the eye as she apologizes, stuttering, "I - I - I'm sorry." She can't do better - she can't tell him the real reason, because he'd never believe it, and he wouldn't approve of it either.

He scowls babyishly. "See, you even apologize more often than you smile! It's wrong." Suddenly his whole face brightens, an idea coming to him, and he crosses his arms and requests firmly, "Smile, Hinata. C'mon - just do it, right now."

She is tomato-red by now, and she shakes her head as he leans down toward her, guileless blue eyes pleading with all their innocent, powerful might. "Wha...b-but...j-just like that..."

"Yeah, just like that! Practice makes perfect, and I wanna see you smile! Come on, Hinata. Smile!" He is persistent, convincing, and he himself is smiling by now, unable to frown for long. "Please? Pretty please? Pretty pretty please? For me?"

The image of his begging face, wide-eyed and grinning and whiskered and glowing, is so funny and beautiful and just appealing to everything in her that she can't deny him any further - helplessly, she lets a little smile curl timidly over her lips, and the sudden feeling of contentment at its spreading across her expression surprises her.

She catches a momentary glimpse of childlike delight in his eyes before they fly shut abruptly, his lit-up face swoops down toward her, and his lips press against her own. Their touch is light and brief, and rough yet gentle in that way particular to Naruto, but every millisecond of it is stamped into her memory forever. She is so shocked that the blush drains from her face.

She stares at him, then begins to stammer, and she's somehow terrified by what just occurred, but then he smiles at her and she feels the bliss all at once. A bit delayed, but strong and amazing and better than anything she ever dreamed of. She floats high above her small grounded self, giddy and dizzy and wholly ecstatic with every fibre in her body. She strokes her just-been-kissed (for the first time!) lips with trembling fingers. They feel different. She feels different in every possible way.

Unbelievable as it seems even to her, she thinks she may have discovered something that she likes even more than his smile.

A/N: Don't say I didn't warn you. But whoa, reading it over, it is practically nauseating. Oh well, that's how it came out.

I'm not used to writing in the present tense. It's kinda fun, though, as long as I don't forget and switch to the past halfway through. And now I need to go read the bunch of Naruto chapters I missed during my vacation.

Review? You know you want to! Or wait, maybe not. Anyway, you know I want you to. Thanks all!