The war had ended years ago, but some wounds never truly heal.
Naruto walked along the paths of Konoha with a strange feeling of emptiness. He was the Seventh Hokage, the hero of the village, the man who had achieved everything… and yet, every time he closed his eyes, he saw that image in his mind.
A house. Not a mansion, not a palace. Just a small wooden house, with a porch where they could sit together and watch the sunset. A home where laughter filled the hallways, where the days were peaceful, where happiness did not depend on victories on the battlefield.
It was the dream they once shared.
Naruto stopped walking as he reached the outskirts of the village, where the forest stretched out in silence. There, in a clearing among the trees, he had begun building that house in his imagination, stone by stone, as a refuge for the two of them.
But Sasuke never came back.
The promises dissolved into the breeze of time, leaving him empty-handed. He couldn’t blame him. Sasuke was never the kind of person to stay in one place. His path was on the horizon, always far away, always chasing something else.
And yet, Naruto couldn’t help but wonder: *What if he had wanted to stay? What if, in another life, they could have had that house, that home, that peace?*
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting the wind carry the echoes of a past that no longer existed. Then, with a faint, bittersweet smile, he turned back toward the village.
That house would never be built, but in his heart, it would always exist.
The place where, in another time, he imagined they could be happy.