Almost no one knew that Naruto loved to write.

Maybe it was because there was so much doubt when it came to his intelligence—oh, he didn't understand complicated math or remember formulas very well, but he was good at other things. History? He excelled in, even if he didn't like it much. Politics and government? His favourite and his best classes. And when it came to his literature courses, he also excelled—at least in the writing portions.

After he had been set up with Jiraiya as his private mentor, the blonde had adopted the old perv's favourite hobby—not peeping in bathhouses, no, but creating stories. Jiraiya mentored him through that aspect of his learning as well, editing what he wrote and critiquing as he went, until he and Naruto had grown to use each other to bounce ideas off of, finding their 'work' to be a very finalizing tie in their bond.

When Sakura found out about it soon after they became roommates, it was a complete accident and it embarrassed him to no end.

"Naruto, I didn't know you wrote. Hell, and good at that," she had called to him from the living room. He froze, and dashed out of his bedroom looking paler than usual.

"I don't! What are you talking about? What are you doing? Why are you looking at that?" he asked, almost stammering. Peering over her shoulder, he could see that she was using his laptop (which he had said she could while hers was getting repaired), and had opened a Word file—from the looks of it, of a story he had just recently started writing.

"I was just going to make a list of things to-do, but I clicked open recent instead of new and it came up," she told him with a worried frown. Why was he flipping out about it? "Sunshine, calm down. This is actually really good."

A severe blush rose in his cheeks. "It's nothing. Just something I thought of a few weeks ago…"

"Nothing? Naruto, come on." She was staring at him with an exasperated expression, almost irked that he wasn't owning up to what he had written. It's not like she was lying—she really did think it was good. And not just from the mindset of 'oh he definitely doesn't write.' From a 'if I were looking for something to read I would continue with this' mindset, as well.

"Do you really like it?" he murmured, still looking more embarrassed than he normally ever afforded. Her harsh expression softened—she hadn't realized how… apparently self-conscious he was about it.

"I do. You should show me more of what you've written. I'd like to read it," she replied with a smile. He smiled back.

Following the revelation, she was constantly encouraging him to write more—whether it be his own work, or a fanwork. Just… something. She would read through them and offer critique if he asked for it, especially on the grammatical and technical side, and eventually they would discussed plots and characters.

Through all of that, he wasn't ever sure if the importance of that really struck her—that he was sharing this part of him with her, his imagination and creations…

They were what had gotten him through the most difficult parts of his life, and acted as a safe haven to retreat to. They were a part of him he protected like nothing else, and shielded from almost everyone. And he was just letting her in, and take part of that. No, even more than that.

She became a sort of muse to him—she inspired him to write more, even if he only showed her what he wrote. She made him want to create, just to see her face when she liked an idea, or swat him because why would he do something like that to a character? She turned into a driving force that kept him going, with his plots and stories, so he constantly constructed new things to discuss with her.

Over time, their best friendship—which still remained rather intact—developed into that 'more' he had been silently lusting for. It would figure that it came about when he told her in a story format the history of his feelings; she still called him a dweeb for it. There was basically no change—except he could be more openly worried when she stayed out late, and his bedroom in their two-roomed apartment had been turned into more so of a storage space.

The time that he was able to spend writing dwindled—he wrote less and less, but still plotted and thought, coming up with characters and twists. Naruto knew it saddened her, but he could hardly find the time to finish any of the things he started. Especially when he was having to take frequent trips to finish his diploma. Seminars in other cities for a weekend—panels that lasted a week. Little things like that.

"Hey, it'll be okay. I'll be back in three weeks," he spoke into the phone on one of these trips, just setting his bags down in the hotel he had been assigned. The stupid thing vibrated against his ear—it was on its last legs, having been used all day without being charged.

"It's twenty-three days," came the grumbled reply. He smiled sadly. Only she would point out the extra two days.

"Sakura-chan, you'll be wishing it was longer by the time I get back," he tried to soothe, keeping his tone chipper. He was dragging and exhausted from jet-lag, but it pained him to know she was hurting because of his absence.

"No, I won't! Sunshine, you're an idiot," she scolded, and he could hear rummaging into the cabinet. Probably looking for some sort of comfort food.

"Am not. It'll be okay, I promise. It's just twenty-three days." It left an ache in his chest, but he knew he could look forward to that day and be okay. But he worried more about her.

"I'm just gonna sit in bed and watch sad anime and eat sour watermelons until I have to get up to get you at the airport." As if to affirm her point, he heard the plastic bag of the gummies open.

"Baby, please be happy," he pleaded, unzipping his bags and putting things around the room the way he wanted. Clothes in the drawer, laptop on the desk, hygienics in the bathroom…

"Nope."

He could hear the pout on her lips through the phone.

"Please? I love you?" Silence hung between them for a moment before she sighed.

"I love you too, dweeb." Her voice was small and it made his resolve crack a little. It hadn't even been a day, and he already missed her so much…

"I'll make sure to call every day, okay?" he offered. Before he got a response, the phone vibrated again, and he heard that awful telltale FWOOM of the stupid thing powering off.

Scowling at it, he tossed it back onto the bed. He had no idea where his charger was, and knew it would take him fully unpacking to get to it. Moving to the desk, he sat down on the stiff wooden chair and plugged his laptop into the wall, and opened it. Swiping his finger across the scanner, he waited for it to start up. He would send her an email full of sappy stuff, and hope it would assuage her mood even a little bit.

But the first thing that popped up was a Word doc he had been looking at during one of his layovers, and stared at it for a long minute. Boredom had struck him hard, and he had found entertainment in one of his old stories—one of the ones that Sakura had loved. Mostly because the two characters were practically mirror images of them, and the story itself was one that she said she could see happened between them. Just a stupidly cute short that had made her smile.

A grin broke across his face, and he pulled open a new document, and began typing.

"There were only a few things in the world that he really cherished, and having grown up on his own as an orphan, they tended to be more... sentimental ideas, rather than material objects..."

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 hissmile in private, though. And he was willing to do most anything just to see it.

And if 'anything' included writing a stupidly cute short story every day until he saw her again… Well. That was fine with him.

AN: And that's the end of this!

Now, a brief explanation for it. When I first published this fic, I was 23 days away from going to visit my girlfriend of almost two years, who lives in Canada. I, unfortunately, live in Indiana, USA, and got back on the 25th of July. I've only seen her twice since we first started talking over three years ago, and both were in the past six months (first time was in March for our three year anniversary as friends). ANYWAY.

She's the Sakura to my Naruto- that's how we first started talking actually. A Naruto RP site. So most of the time when I write about them, I have her in mind. Anyway, so twenty-three days before I got there, she was upset and it really made my chest hurt and I just wanted her to smile, so I decided that I would write something every day for her that would for sure make her smile until I got there and could hug and kiss it all away. It didn't work out quite as a planned- I got busy and I'm awful with deadlines, but I did finish it regardless. Almost every chapter is something that either, A, has actually happened (good examples are chapters Icing, Showers, Birthday, Parents and actually most of them), and some are things that I can foresee happening or that we've talked about (Nursery, Sickness).

So some of them might not make sense to you- like Fast Food. But every chapter has something I knew would make her smile, and that's all I cared for. It's all I still care for. I'm just happy that you all enjoyed reading it, too.

AND YEAH. I dedicate this to her, of course, because she's my everything and I love and miss her more than anything.