pigment (or, a really self-indulgent modern/art!au starring the baes)

to hell with canon tbh

i. in which Sasuke is pestered by his coworkers, and there's a new girl across the hall.

###

He crushes the last cigarette on the table.

So he's finally down to three sticks a day. Six months ago smoking a pack a day, cutting down to this number would have been unthinkable. But he's Uchiha Sasuke after all; he can make anything happen he set his eyes on.

Or at least that was the plan.

He doesn't want to but he hears the conversation in the lobby.

"Daddy, I'm fine. You don't have to check up on me every hour. Do you have an idea what time it is?!"

No response. It's a full minute before the voice speaks again. "Yes, dad. Okay. I'll call you back tomorrow — " a pause, " — wait, it's already tomorrow. Later, I guess… Yes, I love you, too, daddy. Tell mom hi from me."

Instinctively, Sasuke glances at the watch on his wrist. A little past 1 am. Huh.

He tries but finds he's unable to go back to the paper in front of him. He presses his fingertips to his forehead to soothe the crease he knows has formed there, remembering the lecture his team leader had given him and his coworkers (but mostly him) earlier.

"The blueprint was needed yesterday, Uchiha. What do you mean it's not ready?"

Fuck him, to be honest, Sasuke says loudly... in his head. Hyuuga Neji and his slave-driving ways. Whatever, he could slack off for a month and still get more work done than Kiba and Naruto combined.

He stares at the crushed cigarette butt he just noticed he's still holding. Great, now he wants another smoke.

Sighing, he takes the coat he's dumped on the couch when he came home six hours ago. He could use a walk, maybe some coffee (which he forgot to pick up at the grocer's) and takeout. Some place should still be open.

He shuts the door behind him quietly, and with a deft movement slips the keys in the deep pocket of his coat.

Dark eyes meet angry blue ones. Hers.

"Hey grumpy face."

"Hn. Princess."

As far as he knows she's an artist of some sort or other, comes back at odd hours in the night or morning. Some part of her, usually her arms or the knees of her jeans, is always covered in paint or clay or whatever artists use these days. Today though she's wearing clean clothing — thank god — crop top and jeans, hair tied in a sloppy bun at the back of her head. Her lips are an unnatural shade of red, as usual. On the floor by her feet are a duffel bag and three brown shopping bags with their contents spilling.

"I'm locked out," she says, somewhat defensively, though Sasuke hasn't said anything.

"It's rude to stare, grumpy," she adds, eyes narrowed, "especially if you're not going to offer help, and knowing you, you won't, so."

Sasuke smirks. "Have a great night, Princess," he calls over his shoulder as he makes his way to the elevator.

Ino sticks her tongue out at him. It's only been a month since the she moved into the apartment across the hall, and they're already calling each other names.

###

The nickname thing started at the tenants' meeting on her first week. The landlord, a peculiar 30-something man named Guy who used to teach Phys Ed at a local high school, had asked Sasuke a question, to which he only grunted in response (to be fair, the question had been, "Don't you think so, Sasuke-kun?!" The older man's irritatingly masculine voice gave him something of a headache. )

Ino, who had been in the seat in front of him the whole time, turned to him, head cocked to one side, sly grin spreading on candy lips, "Well, aren't you a grumpy one." She'd called him Grumpy since.

He got his payback a few days later, when he bumped into her and her father on the way to the elevator. Father and daughter were both carrying shopping bags and seemed engaged in a serious discussion.

"Well, I couldn't let my princess starve, could I," her dad, who had the same flaxen hair and milky complexion, was saying with a stern look on his face. Ino pouted and blushed, muttered something that sounded like "not a little girl anymore" and fixed her angry blue eyes on the floor.

When they had gotten off the elevator, Ino whirled around to face Sasuke. She held up a finger in front of his face. "Don't even think of saying it."

"Sure," he scoffed, "princess."

She let out a long groan, looking like she was ready to pull out her hair or kick him in the shin or both, but her father called out to her before she could do anything.

"Hurry, Ino, the food is getting cold."

They parted in the hallway, glaring at each other.

###

Sasuke presses the button for the ground floor. When the elevator doors close he tries to remember what he had for dinner. The doors open again before he realizes he hasn't had any. He nods curtly at the guard who greets him as he walks out of the building. He pulls the collar of his coat close to his face, and wishes Akimichi's is still open at this hour.

Lucky for him, it is. The place is near empty save for a few familiar faces. Choji is fixing something behind the counter. On a table sits Shikamaru, half-dozing off listening to a babbling Naruto. Sasuke went to school with these guys. Now he's working with Naruto in the same company. He's not really sure what Shikamaru does for a living.

Naturally they turn to look at him the minute he enters the shop. He nods to them in greeting and lowers himself on the empty seat beside Naruto.

"Oi, you pulling an all-nighter, too?" Naruto asks.

He answers with a shrug.

"What will you be having, Sasuke?" Choji calls out from behind the counter.

"Just the usual, Choji."

His bulky friend shakes his head grimly. "I'm sorry, I think can only serve you ramen now. Pops has put away all the other ingredients and I can't wake him up to — "

Why bother asking then? he wants to scream. Sasuke glances at his watch. 01:35. Seriously who eats ramen at this hour? He sighs. "Fine."

Choji's face lights up as he disappears into the kitchen.

Sasuke turns to Naruto. "Is Inuzuka back yet? He's bringing in the final floor plan?"

Naruto frowns. "Yeah, about that. Left him a couple of voice mails. He's supposed to have been back this afternoon, but I haven't heard from him. Maybe he got held up? Okinawa is a long way from Tokyo."

This does not bode well, Sasuke thinks, his expression darkening. "You do remember the full building design needs to be submitted in the morning. Which is approximately six hours from now."

"I know, I know!" Naruto says, grabbing his head with both hands exasperatedly. "Neji's going to kill us!"

Kill you, idiot, Sasuke wants to say, but he knows Naruto isn't far from wrong. "Do you have any back-ups? Did Inuzuka leave behind sketches or drafts or…anything we can use?"

"I found these on his desk," Naruto answers, picking up his briefcase. He fumbles with a few sheets of paper and drops them on the table in front of Sasuke.

"These aren't very helpful," Sasuke says, scanning the papers with a frown. "Did he not leave behind actual measurements and — "

This is bad, really bad. This was their team's first big project for an important client, and Neji had made it clear — too clear — that there would be no room for mistakes, any mistake.

And not having the blueprints ready in time for the deadline will be a very, very grave mistake. He needs to think fast.

"Okay, do you have access to Inuzuka's computer at the office? If he's not a complete idiot we will find something useful there."

"Yeah, I don't think his computer is password-protected. If it is, I'm a hundred percent sure the password is 'AKAMARU' because he uses that for everything. Akamaru is this big fluffy white dog, he's adorable, I don't know why he's called Akamaru, though, he doesn't even have red fur, anyway —"

Sasuke gets up and pulls out his phone from the pocket of his jeans. "Yeah, listen, I'm going to call Neji. He's going to know anyway and if we're going to fix this, we're going to need all the help we can get."

He calls out to Choji from the counter. "Choji! I'm going to have to cancel that order."

Choji's head pops up on the kitchen window, eyes narrowed. "I'm already making it."

Sasuke shrugs. "Feed it to Shikamaru. I'll pay for it, anyway."

"Okay."

Sasuke drops a few bills on the table and drags Naruto by the sleeve toward the exit. Shikamaru glares at him just as he closes the door.

"I already ate."

"Not my problem." Sasuke turns to the distressed blond beside him. "Come on, we need to get back to the office."

###

"Hey, mopey."

She's gotten herself locked out of her own apartment again, and as usual, she crashes at his.

"The building manager doesn't pick up after 12," she explains. "If I waited for him, I'd be locked out until morning. Do you want me sleep in the lobby? Or worse, in the streets?"

Yamanaka Ino, master manipulator. She says this all with a grin, because she knows he won't refuse her.

But that doesn't mean he can't be grumpy.

Neji doesn't look up from the pile of folders he's half-buried his nose into. Wisps of his fine brown hair have escaped the loose ponytail at the top of his head, and he doesn't have the time to brush them away. That's sad, in many ways.

"Let's grab some dinner," says the blonde lying on her back on his couch. Her sandaled feet dangle over one armrest. She watches the TV on mute because he doesn't like noise when he's working. "I've been sitting here for the last three hours with you ignoring me."

"It's only been thirty minutes, Ino."

"You know what I mean."

Know her he did.

He and Ino had been friends since childhood. They grew up in the same village, went to the same high school and university in a nearby city. She was two years younger, and his friends at uni teased him for having such a "cute girl" for a kouhai. He'd never admit it, but he turned down (forcefully, on occasion) every bribe and request from his classmates to be introduced to her. Their school days passed just like that: her, being effortlessly conspicuous no matter the situation, and him, silently keeping the idiots away.

They had each pursued a different direction in terms of career. Neji grew up in the large Hyuuga compound, with its traditional houses and intricately-designed shrines and memorials, a stark contrast to the modern apartments popular in the rest of the town. Not surprisingly, he developed an interest in buildings and an eye for structures early on. He was the smartest pupil in his grade, and, equipped with a natural talent for measurements and computing, he entered a prestigious university and graduated with a double degree in architecture and maths, both in flying colors. (Talk about overachieving, Ino used to say.)

He decided to move to Tokyo for his first job. He was scouted by a successful, private firm after one of his former teachers, Hatake Kakashi, recommended him. His family did not like the idea of him moving, however. They had expected him to stay behind, being the oldest of the third-generation Hyuuga offsprings. He was third in line to succeed his uncle as head of the clan, but clan politics repulsed him. He had always dreamed of moving to a larger city and making a name for himself by being the best at his craft, not because of the name he'd inherited from a group of people who didn't seem to bother about him as a person anyway.

Ino is the only relic from his past he had willingly kept, if relics were supposed to be loud and colorful and indubitably alive, not some muted washed up thing from the past. For as long as he could remember she had been all sunshine and energy, a screaming mural smack dab in the middle of a grey crumbling wall. She had always been artistic, even as a child — he couldn't count the times her mother looked about to cry when Ino went home with Crayola stains on a new white Sunday dress. Later, she experimented with other media: oil paint, charcoal, water color. In college, she dabbled in sculpture the same time as her then boyfriend, the inexplicable Sai. These days she sticks to large canvases and oil painting, but from time to time she also makes pottery. The tiny sky blue tea cup sitting on his desk right now had been a gift from her. It was one of her very first creations.

"I can't get dinner," he says, imitating her voice, knowing that irritated her to no end, "I'm working. And besides, it's almost 2 am. No place is going to be open now."

Ino shifts her position on her couch. She's about to say something but is interrupted by Neji's phone. Neji holds up a hand before he answers.

"Make this quick, Uchiha, I'm busy."

###

Neji had been in the company two years longer than everyone else in his team. Working nine hours and beyond on some days gave him a constant headache and whatever free time he doesn't spend on lecturing his juniors he spends nursing his head with a cup of tea and some aspirin.

He had been given his own team close to eight months ago. Finally, after what seemed like centuries of slaving away at the far end of the privately owned architectural firm, he was given a rag-tag team of new employees straight out of an industrial arts college in the city. One of them, fortunately, was something of a prodigy, or so he heard, some kid who graduated with near-perfect scores in most of his classes.

Neji would know a thing or two about prodigies — after all, he was the prodigy of a few years back.

The new talent, Uchiha Sasuke, reminded him of himself actually: the same dark hair, flawless academic record, and reputable family. The same irritatingly icy demeanor, permanent grimace, and unnerving popularity with the ladies. Not that he was happy about that last part; more than anything having his female coworkers swoon over his every word just added to the perpetual ache in his head.

Even Tenten, the most levelheaded person he knew in the office, had nudged him playfully — painfully, he might add, girl is stronger than she looks — in the ribs on Uchiha's first day, going, "Well, if he isn't the cutie," much to his irritation.)

###

Ino sits up from the couch suddenly, face mildly interested. Over what, he isn't sure exactly.

Neji presses his fingers on his temple. "What do you mean Inuzuka bailed? Tell him to get his ass back to Tokyo. If you have to drag him back here yourself, Sasuke, do it. We are going to finish this project on time. Being delayed is not an option — "

He pauses, listening to the voice on the other end. "I'll look it over. I'll meet you and Uzumaki at the office in twenty."

He hangs up. He turns to Ino, about to tell her they would have to do a raincheck on that dinner, when he saw the expression on her face.

"Uchiha…Sasuke?" she says, eyebrows raised. "Guy with the same name lives in my building. He stays in the flat across the hall. You work with him?"

Neji frowns. "Yes. Is he bothering you?"

Ino grins, crossing her arms. "Nah, wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole. He's kind of a prick. But he does remind me of someone..."

Neji's frown deepens as he stands up to gather his things. This is bad, very bad.

Of all he had to remind Ino of, it better not be Sai. No, not him, because that pale motherfucker could only mean trouble.

"… you know, he reminds me of Sai."