1Sasuke put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair, carefully putting his feet up on the desk next to the keyboard he had been pouring over for the last hour. The phone lay in a heap on the floor, torn out in a frustrated rage when Ino, the secretary at the front desk, and Sakura, Kakashi's personal assistant, kept calling him. He looked around his cubicle and sighed. The report he was writing for Tsunade wasn't coming along well at all, and Kakashi was late for work, AGAIN.
"Probably gonna say that he got lost on the road of life," Sasuke mumbled as he looked again at the close walls of his 'prison'. Ever since he had come back from the Orochimaru, he'd been working a back-corner desk job. He didn't much mind, though. A lot of things happened behind-the-scenes, which he was able to see on the reports he had to deliver to Tsunade everyday. That, and the fact that his workspace was only 2 away from a certain blonde's didn't hurt much either.
Maybe just a little peek, he thought, and activated his sharingan. There was Naruto, straight to the right, fiddling with one of his kunai as he fretted over one of the scrolls that lay open on his desk. The shirt and slacks on his body were tight on his wiry frame. The white shirt was slightly see-through, and Sasuke nearly shivered in delight as he saw the white undershirt stretched taught across the skinny chest.
Skinny, but quiet muscular. Sasuke itched to run his fingers down that chest, to put his arms around that waist and hold that body which held so much desire for him close. Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he whipped around, drawing a shruiken and deactivating the sharingan at the same time. Neji easily blocked the blow with a shruiken of his own and smirked.
"Having fun staring at the wall, Sasuke?" Sasuke gave him a disgusted face and swiveled his chair back to the computer, trying to get back to the work he'd been in the middle of. He'd already started typing when the computer suddenly lost power, and taking a deep breath, he turned around to face Neji, who held up the power cord as if to mock him. "I still haven't gotten an answer from you," Neji said. He reached out and stroked Sasuke's face, his pearl eyes staring into the raven's cold jet ones.
Sasuke knocked Neji's hand away from his face and stood up. "I don't want to join in your little game with Kiba and Temari." He faced away from Neji, stretching out the kinks in his shoulders from sitting in the chair for so long. "It's sick." Sasuke suddenly darted for the door, but Neji had been expecting this. Neji caught him, swinging him around into one of the walls, Sasuke's back against the wall and his wrists pinned by Neji's hands.
"Unfortunately for you, I don't take no for an answer," Neji whispered in his ear, and his face swiftly changing directions, kissed Sasuke full on the mouth, his tongue finding it's way in, trying to attract the same response. All he got was a bite on the tongue. He cried in pain and stepped swiftly away wiping his hand across his mouth, which was quickly filling with blood, and glanced at the Uchiha mischieviously. "I like them fiery," Neji said before slipping out into the hallway.
Sasuke pushed himself away from the wall and grabbed the glass of water he kept on his desk, gulping it down to wash out the memory of Neji's tongue down his throat. As he gulped the last of it down, he spied a splash of yellow out the corner of his eye, and he turned to see Naruto standing in the doorway.
Naruto. Sleek, wiry, metrosexual, blue-eyed Naruto. Sasuke carefully put the glass back down and straightened his tie, blue with the symbol of the Uchiha on it, and bent down to plug the computer back in. "What was all that noise about?" Naruto asked, his eyebrows raised, the kunai still moving agitatedly from finger to finger. "Why was he spitting blood and why is there blood on your shirt?"
Sasuke looked down and noticed for the first time that his white shirt wasn't all white anymore. On the right of his tie, a trail of blood wended its way down til it reached his midriff and then stopped. It had dried already. Sasuke gave a noncommittal shrug and said, "Me and Neji had a disagreement over a certain topic that didn't end well for either of us." Naruto got the hint that Sasuke didn't want to talk about it and changed the subject. "So...you gonna see Tsunade today?"
That sentence held a lot for both of them and most all of the guys in the tower. You see, Tsunade wasn't the kind of boss who could keep her hands off all the guys she saw everyday. If Hinata, Tsunade's personal secretary, gave you a call, the visit to Tsunade's office usually entailed locking the door and holding her appointments for a few steamy hours. Most everyone had been called up at least once. Even Kakashi himself. Everyone, except for Naruto. For some reason, he was some special case, and nobody could figure out why.
Sasuke glanced at his broken phone, and Naruto, following his gaze, got the picture. "So you have no idea whether or not she wants you?" As Sasuke thought about it, more thoughts popped up. He didn't much care for Tsunade. She was a nicely filled out woman, with the right curves in the right places, but her taste for younger men disgusted him every time he had to make a visit to the top floor of the tower. When he walked in, Hinata would nod to him, but not look at him directly. She didn't seem to like what went on behind those doors much either, and suddenly Sasuke had a sudden surge of sympathy for the quiet girl. It must not be easy watching the different men walk past and hearing what was going on behind her everyday. He decided to talk to her later as he started to address Naruto's lastest question.
"No, I have no idea whether or not she wants me or some other guy is taking care of her unsatiable appetite." Now Naruto knew that Sasuke was slightly touchy on this subject, but he pushed on anyway. "I mean, I haven't gotten a call from Hinata, and I have no idea why. Do you know?" Sasuke shook his head, and then thought about it. Why hadn't Naruto been called up? Tsunade wasn't the type to be selective about who came into her office. She just ran down the list of male employees. Why had Naruto's been skipped? The list was alphabetical by clan. Every time Sasuke had gone up, Naruto should've been next. Why was another one halfway up the list called up instead? He'd have to talk about it with Hinata later.
Naruto opened his mouth to ask another question, but the sound of footsteps quieted him. The click of heels on the wood made Sasuke groan. Naruto looked at him questioningly, but he was answered when pink-hair suddenly appeared behind him and green eyes peered over his shoulder to look at Sasuke. Naruto was shoved roughly out of the way as Sakura stepped into the cubicle. Sasuke felt a slight surge of anger towards Sakura for almost hurting Naruto, but Naruto, like the ninja he was, caught himself deftly and straightened back up, looking balefully at the back of Sakura's cherry-blossom hair.
"Why aren't you answering your phone Sasuke?" The whine in her voice was almost enough to make him sick. He glared at her, and Naruto said, "His phone broke." Sakura looked round at Naruto, looked at where the phone had been (now a jagged hole in the wall trailing phone wires), and followed the wires to where the phone lay like a twisted piece of metal. She absorbed this all, and smoothing down the folds of her secretarial suit, looked back up at Sasuke. "You really need to get that fixed." she admonished him, bending purposefully over to pick up the phone. Naruto felt slightly uncomfortable at this, seeing Sakura's butt so up close, but Sasuke didn't feel a flicker of discomfort. Only disgust. As she straightened back up again, holding the dead phone, a flurry of footsteps was heard in the hall again, and the white-blonde pony-tail swishing behind her back announced Ino's arrival. Her purple secretary's suit clashed horribly with Sakura's red and green one, and they eached glared at each other with enough ferocity that would make even Kakashi raise his eyebrows, had he been there.
"And what are YOU doing here, idiot?" Ino hissed menacingly, glancing around the cubicle. Spotting Sasuke, she batted her eyelids and struck a pose, but that ended quickly. "I'm here trying to help Sasuke-kun with his phone. It seems to have broken." Sakura was surprisingly cool. Then again, she had known that Sasuke was watching her, so she tried her best to wave Ino off. "Who's at the front desk, Ino?" Somewhere, a phone was ringing like crazy, but nobody was answering it, whoever's it was. Ino stared in disbelief at Sakura, glanced at Sasuke, then sneered. "Why aren't YOU at your desk, Sakura? You're supposed to be finding Kakashi aren't you?" Sakura paled slightly at this, but she held her ground. The damn phone was still ringing and it still wasn't being answered. Sasuke was getting irritated by the girls, the phone, and the fact that Naruto had eyes only for Sakura and none for him. The tension began to build to a danger point in the small space. It felt too crowded with the four of them there. The phone had stopped ringing.
Thank God, Sasuke thought, That was getting really annoying. Wonder who it was for. He watched the two pathetic girls who wanted his heart grasp at strings trying to impress him. Needless to say he wasn't. Finally, he couldn't take anymore of their staring contest and stood up. Ino and Sakura turned to look at him, and Naruto's eyes flickered from Sakura up to Sasuke's face. That blue-eyed gaze. Those damned blue eyes. Sasuke cleared his throat. The girls were expectant, as was Naruto. Sasuke looked at Sakura and Ino with all the contempt he could muster.
"Ino, Sakura, why aren't you doing your jobs?" They blushed simultaneously, looking away from his obsidian gaze. They mumbled something about "...checking the phone..." and "...worried about power loss..." but he didn't care. "I'd appreicate it if you'd go and do what you're supposed to. I don't have time for catfights, especially in this small of a space." They both winced, but they nodded their assent and both headed for the doorway. However, somebody was already there, waiting for them.
"Naruto-kun?" Hinata's very appearance there among all of them was enough to shock them all, but Sasuke was the only one to regain his composure enough to examine Hinata. She was biting her lip, her fingers fidgeting worse than ever. She seemed like she was about to cry. Her pale eyes never looked up. She avoided everyone's gaze, especially Naruto's. Why nobody noticed this, he didn't know, but what Hinata said next struck him to the core and made him forget completely about wondering why Hinata looked like she was on the verge of collapse. "Naruto-kun, Tsunade wants to see you."