Le Petit Ciel

Chapter one: Rencontre

Uzumaki Naruto was having an incredibly bad day. Most of his days didn't really go the way he wanted them to, but this day just seemed to be purposefully trying to piss him off. It must have been a Tuesday, just like a character in a story he once read he too had never been able to get the hang of Tuesdays. It had all started on his daily trip to the bazaar. The Downtown Marketplace was the lifeblood for the west side of Angleton. Being the poorer district of the city everyone living there was just trying to survive, therefore you were able find anything you could imagine at the bazaar and for very reasonable prices. So every morning Naruto woke up, threw on some sweats and a jacket and wandered out into the city in search for cheap supplies for his restaurant.

Naruto just so happened to be the sole owner and head chef of a cozy little French restaurant and candy shop. He had inherited it on the day of his birth when his mother had died giving birth to him and his father, stricken with grief, had died in a wreck trying to get to the hospital where his wife was slowly dying. The doctor who had delivered him had been a very kind old man and had given Naruto to one of his ex-medical interns turned nursery school teacher. They had lived together in a mediocre apartment not too far from the restaurant and his caregiver, Umino Iruka, Gave up his teaching career to run the little French shop until Naruto was able to. As soon as Naruto turned 18 he rightfully inherited the entire building including the small apartment on the second story. That was where he now lived, after an emotional move out of Iruka's apartment. He also finally got to take over his father's old restaurant. His biological father had been a master chef and the restaurant had been incredibly successful, even boasting some famous cliental. Naruto loved the restaurant and wanted to see it back to its original splendor and he also had this unexplainable bond with his deceased father that would not let him give up on the place. Unfortunately, Naruto was not the master chef his father had been and in the long absence of ownership patronage had dropped to just a few regulars who came merely because they had known his father and they wanted to help his poor struggling son. Hell, most of them brought their own meals. The only thing he was halfway decent at was chocolate and even that was a fifty/fifty shot in the dark.

But today was Tuesday and it had started off horribly when his alarm clock decided to malfunction and went blaring off at three bloody o'clock in the morning. And it wouldn't stop unless he hit the snooze button, which meant that every ten minutes for an hour the blasted thing would go off with zeal and rock Naruto's core until he finally threw it against his closet door smashing it to bits. Of course there was no way in hell he was going to be able to get back to sleep so he made coffee and watched infomercials until the morning cartoons came on at six then finally at seven in the morning he yanked on a pair of sweats caked in flour and the only jacket he owned which was an obnoxious orange thing that he hated but had never found anything more comfortable, then he was on his way to the bazaar.

It was at the marketplace when things started to go really bad even for a Tuesday, he found all his ingredients just fine except he wanted to try a new seafood menu and he couldn't find the guy that normally sold the fresh crab. When he did find a crab vendor it was a creepy old man with red markings on his face and a rather unnerving grin. He also sold pornographic novels, which he apparently wrote. That wasn't really that odd, well it was but a lot of vendors sold totally unrelated things. The place was more like a flea market/garage sale thingy, though porn wasn't a regular on the menu. No, the strangest part was when the man had told him that he had the perfect face to be one of the young 'boy toys' in his next novel. Not really knowing how to respond to that he had merely bought a dozen King Crabs from the man and paid quickly. Before he could get out of there though the weird old man had whispered in his ear.

"Some gifts are inherited and others just need a little extra help to make them shine. After all, what's a small miracle between old friends?" Naruto had stared at him incredulously, then tried to decipher if this was some way to get him to buy the old man's porn, he decided that wasn't likely and that the dude was merely insane. So, nodding and smiling like anyone would to someone they thought had gone completely bonkers, the blonde boy gathered his things and began to slink away from the demented merchant.

"Ah don't forget this one." The old man cooed as he picked up a large crab that had been scuttling over the side of the rusted bucket Naruto was using to carry them in.

"Wiley one, I suppose you and he were meant for each other. Keep an eye out, there might be other things besides crabs you were meant to be with." The geezer said cryptically before laughing and crinkling the red marks on his face. Naruto barely managed a sort of gargling noise before doing the nodding and smiling too widely thing again, but this time he actually turned around and ran for his life. But he forgot that this was Tuesday and Murphy's Law was especially fond of Tuesdays, so he hadn't managed to get twenty feet before smacking head first into something solid. His groceries spilled everywhere and the solid thing made an agitated 'oomph' sound indicating, much to Naruto's chagrin, that it was a living solid thing. Probably human and probably very angry. Though he wasn't guaranteeing human, no way, not with the way this day had gone and not with the alien being he had just bought his crabs from. The same crabs which were currently scuttling off across the bazaar grounds.

"Watch where you're walking." A cross but very smooth voice came from somewhere above the befuddled blonde's head. He chanced a glance upwards and was taken aback by the incredibly dark and handsome young man who stood before him. He was well dressed for a man in the bazaar. He looked more like someone from the east side of town and stood out in the shabby surroundings like a clown in a convent. Soft black hair blazed from the top of his head and even blacker eyes peered uncaringly down at the boy grabbing for lost crabs at his feet. Bouncy blonde hair and eyes a shade of blue too dark to real but undoubtedly was. The young man was striking at first glance and the dark haired boy couldn't hide his surprise when the blonde's beauty did not fade as he continued to look at him.

This man's name was Uchiha Sasuke and he was far too rich to be in a place like this but he had a rather unruly driver that had been with him all his life and he liked to drag Sasuke off to places like this. Supposedly to broaden his horizons. He had never found anything of interest in all those trips until now. In fact nothing he had ever known in life had truly held his interest for very long. He found with time the most beautiful things became dull. But this boy, he was still just as beautiful no matter how long Sasuke stared at him and that was very interesting.

"Sorry about that, I hope I didn't get anything on you. Jeeze this is just not my day." Naruto smiled apologetically and noticed a glint of something in those dark eyes that hadn't been there before.

"It's fine." And with no other words the dark youth began gathering Naruto's things for him. The blonde was pleasantly surprised and bent down to help the handsome stranger. Just a few feet away the unruly driver, by name of Kakashi, paused and stared at the oddest thing he had ever laid eyes on. Uchiha Sasuke was helping someone that he didn't even know. It was enough to even distract him from his new novel he just bought off of old Jaraiya. He had heard the crazy old coot had finally finished the next installment of his favorite Icha Icha series, and so he had dragged his young charge to the bazaar where once in a great while the old man would appear with the newest and some other item for sale to draw people in. Kakashi was the old man's most loyal customer, but this new development in Sasuke was better than anything the geezer could have written.

"My name's Uzumaki Naruto. Thanks for the help and I'm really sorry about bumping into you like that." The blonde paused waiting for the boy's response. He really did enjoy the sound of the young man's voice.

"You ran into me at full speed." It was smooth and deep and extremely rude. That really wasn't the answer Naruto had thought he would get but smile on anyway.

"Yeah, sorry about that. Look I own a restaurant in town, why don't you stop by later on this afternoon and I'll give you a complimentary meal." That wasn't a bad idea, Naruto was proud of himself. He'd get to see the handsome man again and maybe the guy would be in a good mood. He probably just wasn't much of a morning person.

"If you're this clumsy on your own two feet I can't imagine what your cooking would be like. I'll have to pa…"

"He'd love to." Was the surprisingly jolly shout from somewhere behind the attractive young man with no manners. Naruto jumped and nearly dropped his groceries again, he couldn't help but get the eerie feeling that the silver haired man had just managed to appear out of thin air. In fact, the driver had sensed Sasuke was doing his usual act and that things would soon turn sour so he had quickly snuck his way over before the young man realized he was there so he could interrupt properly.

"Hi there, I'm Kakashi and I drive this little guy around." He said ruffling the young man's hair much to the boy's displeasure.

"And in case he didn't introduce himself, which is highly likely, the little tyke's name is Uchiha Sasuke. And he would be delighted to and honored to receive a gourmet meal from you." Kakashi smiled though it was hard to tell, he wore an eye-patch and had pulled his turtleneck up over the bottom half of his face.

"I'm pretty sure your charge was just about to refuse." Naruto ground out after recovering from the initial shock of this man's sudden appearance and seething over the insult that Sasuke had just shot at him. The guy didn't even know him for Hell's sake, and he was throwing jabs at him like it didn't matter.

"I really don't want…"

"He's just cranky in the mornings, we'll be there. You just go ahead and right down the address and we'll be there around one. Okay?" Naruto wasn't sure about this but he nodded and gave the odd man the restaurant's business card. And in turn the guy shooed away his young charge, thanked Naruto and left. It was the oddest thing Naruto had ever seen. God he hated Tuesdays, now he had until one o'clock to become a master chef and prove that dark haired jerk wrong. He didn't care how handsome the guy was, he was an ass and Naruto make him eat his words. The blonde spent his whole walk home plotting his revenge. Sasuke, on the other hand, spent the whole car ride home debating if this was a bad idea. He wondered if Naruto would lose his beauty if he saw him again like everything else in Sasuke's life. Beauty was just superficial and people usually turned out quite ugly once you got to know them so Sasuke preferred to keep all his relationships as superficial as possible. But even that didn't stop the beauty from fading. He had hoped that he could stay away from Naruto and keep his beautiful memory with nothing to mar it. He dreaded his lunch more then anything he had been forced to do in his life. Including that one time Kakashi made him go to that party for people who all liked this weird series of novels. He shuttered, no that one still won.

Just a short little beginning. It's my first delve into the world of Naruto. I'm horrible when it comes to updating but I hope that by tomorrow I've posted the next chapter to at least on of my ongoing stories. Oh well. I'm not familiar with writing these characters and it doesn't feel as natural as writing for the gundam universe so please feel free to tell me what I need to change. I know I haven't really gotten into personalities in this little beggining but I still wouldn't mind early pointers so when I hone in their personalities later on I'm not too far off. Thank you for reading, see you next chapter hopefully. Tootles.