Author's Notes: God help me, I'm actually writing a Naruto fic. I swore this day would never come, but… Oh who am I kidding, I love this crazy fandom and had oodles and oodles of fun with this story idea. XD
Hmm… so yeah, I've had this sitting around in the back of my brain for so long… Initially it was two separate stories and I couldn't figure out what to do with them, but one day they clicked together and VOILA! This fic was BORN!
The disclaimer! Don't own Naruto. And frankly, I am GLAD, because CRAP MAN, the fans are CRAZY in their efforts of trying to get their sticky paws on it! I would not have the power to fend them off, and my fine creation would go straight to the jackals and get ripped apart. XD
So yeah, I just borrow to play, and then put things back where I found them… with a little extra gay added in.
Pairings: Sasuke/Naruto, thwarted attempts of Sasuke/other people, side hints of Neji/Gaara.
Summary: Sasuke takes his life too seriously, and Naruto doesn't take his seriously enough. And yet somehow, some way, opposites attract. AU
Warnings: Boys bonking eachother.
Other Stuff: I have no idea what is wrong with me for the title that I chose for this. XD It just… seemed to fit? And I promise it kinda makes sense within the story! … sorta?
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Sasuke worked way too much.
True, he only had an odd job at a little in-mall food court, but he took it seriously, damnit.
Every day he would arrive no less than twenty-one minutes early, to set up his work area and get ready for the flood of people that would surely be pouring in once the mall opened. He worked a food booth, which was more than just a shabby booth, thank you very much. The area was sectioned off by walls on either side and one behind, with a large counter running along the front and a cash register off to one side. Sasuke always kept his counter spotless, and his cooking area (while not entirely under his control, as he did none of the actual preparing of the food) was always kept organized and clean.
Sasuke sold Japanese food. He sold Japanese food to authentically Japanese people looking for a quick takeout meal that would be familiar to them, but he also sold it to people who had no idea what they were looking at on the menu.
"What is teh…tem… temp…?"
"Tempura." He would tell them. "Deep fried and battered. It makes the food crunchy and breaded." A crude explanation of a much more delicate process resulting in exquisite, authentic, Japanese food… but it would suffice for the silly little girls who insisted on stopping by his booth, giggling and slandering the pronunciation of words that honestly weren't that hard, as far as Sasuke was concerned.
He didn't exactly like his job, but he thrived on it nevertheless. It gave him purpose and something to dedicate himself to. It wasn't as though he needed the money – his family was rather well off and paid for his rather lavish apartment and utilities, but his brother had thought it… prudent for him to get some real-world experience, and had casually mentioned the notion to their parents, who had taken to the suggestion quite enthusiastically and shoved him straight into working as a regular, lower-class citizen.
At the mall that they, technically speaking, owned.
But it wasn't as though Sasuke was going to have anything better to do over his summer vacation after a trying year of schooling. It was ironic, yes, that he was working as food court staff in an establishment that he could have just as well been lording over, but it wasn't terrible.
So every morning, exactly twenty-one minutes early, Sasuke would be the first person to work in the food court to set up his station for the busy day to come.
-o-
Every morning, around five minutes (give or take) late, Naruto would rush into the mall, pulling on his vest and tie as he dashed through other workers and early shoppers. Disapproving looks didn't even have time to stick, as he was in too much of a hurry, and didn't really care what anyone else thought, anyways.
Naruto was a bag boy. Oh, it wasn't glorious, but it paid the bills… barely.
Disheveled blonde hair that just hadn't fond the time to get combed was hastily raked through with nervous fingers as Naruto took his place at the end of the checkout counter conveyer belt. The employee he was working with, most unfortunately, was an enthusiastic young man with an ingrained need to fill everyone's day with advice on how to better themselves and have a more fulfilling life, so every morning, Naruto was treated to the same little speech.
"Naruto! Late again! It is unwise to develop such habits in your youth, when such is the prime time to build –"
"Can it, Lee." Naruto grumbled, fitting some plastic bags onto their hooks, so that he could easily rip them off as groceries came down the conveyer belt to him. It was a Monday, and Mondays SUCKED – he didn't need Lee's upbeat attitude kicking him in the face for his shortcomings this early in the morning.
In typical Monday fashion, the day just dragged on and on and on. It seemed as though fifty forevers had passed before it was – FINALLY! – time for his lunch break. Discarding his tie with a happy whoop and sticking it into his back pocket, Naruto skipped away to the food court for some lunch.
And it really was nothing more than a hop skip and a jump to the food court. The grocery store checkout was bumped right up against it, so all Naruto had to do was frolic his happy little self but a few yards, and he was right smack dab in the centre of a virtual paradise of wonderful things to eat.
Every day he went to the very same place to eat – a Godsend of a booth that sold delectable, mouthwatering ramen. Naruto supposed them must sell other things as well, but he never really bothered to check.
"Hi!" he greeted, just as he did every day, to the apathetic teen behind the counter. "How are you today, Shikamaru?"
As usual, the other boy couldn't be bothered with an actual reply, instead he just sighed and punched in Naruto's order out of habit without even having to ask. "You'll be having your usual?"
"You better believe it!" the blonde enthusiastically replied. "One bowl of delicious ramen with all the good stuff!"
"Good stuff. Heh." Shikamaru echoed in an under-his-breath mutter, ringing the total up. Handing his hard earned money over (but it was worth it for a bowl of deliiiiicious ramen!) Naruto wiggled happily in anticipation for his food. "Your food will be ready in a few minutes."
"Thanks!" Naruto replied, as though the bored, monotonous male had done him a personal favour. Humming, he went to find a seat at the counter, hearing a tired "troublesome" follow him from the register.
As luck would have it, his seat was open. Yes, his seat. He was a regular customer, and therefore he had a regular seat. Every day he would order his food, move on down the counter to the barstools, and plop down on one specific bench, next to one specific person.
-o-
Sasuke never made much use of his lunch break. The food in the food court sucked, he didn't have enough time to go home and make a decent meal for himself, and he had never been one for socializing. So every day he would grab a cheap coffee, go back to his food booth, pull out a book that he always made sure to bring to work with him, and take the last seat at the end of the counter, intending on partaking of his break in the most anti-social manner possible.
But lately this had become rather difficult to do.
The counter was not especially long, but then again the customers were not excruciatingly frequent, so there were always plenty of open seats. However, in the past few weeks an obnoxiously cheerful blonde had taken to sitting next to Sasuke during his break, slurping loudly on his bowl of soup.
He never sat right next to Sasuke, but instead always left one seat open in between them. But still, it was an encroachment on personal space, especially since the idiot always insisted on giving him an upbeat greeting.
Every. Single. Day.
Sasuke never once returned the greeting with anything more than the occasional "hn", but that seemed to be enough to satisfy the blonde. Before long he would be too absorbed in slurping his noodles to give any more attention to conversation, but after his meal he would always set his chopsticks down with a happy sigh, turning to Sasuke once more to give a parting remark and skip back to wherever he came from.
And this day was no different.
"Well hi! Fancy meeting you here!" came the expected greeting, and Sasuke looked up from over his book, giving a glare and a light 'hn' of response. The kid said this every day. He seemed to think it was clever. As if every day it was a fucking surprise to see Sasuke, even though he had been there every single day at the same time for weeks. Thankfully, the blonde never seemed to expect a response, and as soon as his noodles were presented to him he would dig in and shut up.
Today, however, blonde's ramen seemed to be taking extra long, and the kid seemed to deem it acceptable to make conversation.
"You're always reading books." He commented, and Sasuke deadpanned. Was that really the best this idiot could come up with for a topic of conversation?
"Hn." He responded. He didn't like his precious break reading time being interrupted.
"Can't you say anything other that – Oh! My ramen! Thank you thank you thank you!"
And with that the blonde was silenced. Well at least he wasn't talking anymore. But his loud slurping was certainly less than quiet. At least the kid was a fast eater, so the messy eating habits only lasted for a very short while. Sasuke could have gone back to reading his book, but he found himself unable to look away from the spectacle that the blonde made of himself. His observation was discreet, as an Uchiha's should be, but in the end it didn't really matter, because the noodle-slurping guy was too caught up in his meal to pay attention to the fact that he was being looked at.
It was a shame, really, that the kid was such a complete idiot, because he was actually a rather attractive individual, once you got rid of all of his annoying mannerisms and that shit eating grin. His appearance was a striking counterpoint to Sasuke's own – where Sasuke's hair was dark, this boy's was light golden, where Sasuke's eyes were the darkest grey, the other's were a bright sky blue, and while Sasuke's skin held a pale radiance, this guy's had a healthy tanned glow – but in his own unique way he was good looking.
Not as good looking as himself, Sasuke reminded himself, puffing up his ego. But still attractive. Until he opened that loud mouth of his and started babbling, or stuffing it with noodles.
Looking closer, Sasuke had just managed to pick out faint scratches on the blonde's cheeks (scars, maybe? How… common. And yet still rather interesting.) but before he could investigate any further the kid was pushing his bowl away with a happy sigh, blue eyes squinting happily, like a pleased cat. He looked over to Sasuke, who quickly schooled his features into a glare before lowering his gaze back to his book, which was still held open on the counter in front of him.
"Hmm." The blonde hummed. "You shouldn't frown so much, it'll end up sticking like that."
Sasuke flicked his eyes up for a second to reinforce his glare before looking back to his book with a huff.
"Che, just sayin', bastard." Came the continued annoyance. "If you pulled that sick outta yer ass, people might like you better. S'not like you're terrible to look at, you just seem mean, is all."
"Don't you have somewhere else to be?" Sasuke muttered, not looking up from his pages. Out of his peripheral vision he could see the blonde's face light up in surprise, since it was the most Sasuke had ever said to him, but before he could comment he apparently realized the truth in the dark haired boy's words.
"Oh crap, you're right!" he gasped, pushing back from the counter, jumping off of his stool and rushing off. Sasuke watched him grab a tie out of his back pocket, sloppily pulling it on as he crashed back to his workstation.
'Hn,' Sasuke thought 'With those kinds of job ethics it's no wonder he hasn't been able to aspire to anything higher than bag boy.'
And with that last, scathing thought about the random blonde who insisted on interrupting his break every single day, Sasuke went back to his own job.
…which wasn't much of much higher ranking in the job opportunity food chain of life, but it was better, thank you very much.
-o-
Naruto didn't understand how people could be so downright irritable all the time!
Every day he sat by Mr. Grouchy Pants at the ramen stand, and every day he was nice, and every day the guy was an outright jerk to him!
Naruto didn't see what he was possibly interrupting, the guy never really read his book anyways. Maybe he wanted to look like he was reading, but more often than not he wouldn't flip a single page, at least as long as Naruto was there. He thought he was so sneaky, but Naruto always saw him peering disapprovingly at him out of the corner of his eye, rather than reading the words on the page of his book.
Inwardly, Naruto would have liked to think that it was his good looks and charming nature that had the guy so fixated on him, but he could tell that the dark haired male was irritated with him from his only-slightly-less-than-hostile looks that he always sent Naruto's way. What had he ever done to that ice princess anyways, besides try and strike up a friendly conversation!
And today was the first day that the bastard had said more than an annoying 'hn' to him, and it had only been to hint at him to get out of there! Which, granted, ended up being a good thing, because otherwise Naruto would have been late getting back to work, but still! It was the principle of the thing!
Huffing indignantly to himself, Naruto pulled a plastic bag off of the hooks, packaging a customer's groceries.
"Well, well, well. Look who it is."
Looking up, Naruto was met with the sight of the last two people he wanted while he was working as a bag boy. How humiliating!
"Hi Sakura… Ino." He reluctantly greeted with a sheepish grin. "Fancy meeting you here."
Great. Juuuuust great. Sakura and Ino were the two most popular girls in town, and now that they knew he worked as a bag boy, he'd never hear the end of it. By the calculating looks on their faces, they found the situation highly amusing and were already plotting out how to best ruin his life with this newfound information.
"Fancy it indeed." Ino giggled, nudging her pink haired friend. Sakura held back a snicker, clearing her throat and smiling sweetly at Naruto.
"So Naruto, I'm curious… is this just part time, or what? Because I just know it's not that 'totally kickass' job you were bragging about landing a few months back."
"Oh." Naruto replied, fighting off the flush that threatened to rise to his cheeks. "Yeah, of course, this is just… part time."
Naruto clearly remembered the day he had bragged about having a "totally kickass job" to his classmates… it had, in fact, been an attempt at impressing Sakura. Growing up, he'd always had a bit of a thing for her, even after numerous, very blunt rejections. Over the years his enthusiasm for perusing the matter had dwindled, but old habits die hard and every once in a while he found his mouth running off in front of her in a vain attempt at getting some attention and admiration.
"Right." Ino disbelievingly replied, before turning back to Sakura and completely ignoring him. "So are you gonna go to Neji's party tonight?"
"Oooh, that's tonight?" Sakura excitedly replied. "I almost forgot! But Neji almost never throws parties, what's the occasion?"
"I don't know, but have you seen his house?"
Naruto rolled his eyes, shoving groceries in their bags and setting them aside as the girls continued gossiping.
"Oh, and did you hear?" Sakura was gushing in a half-whisper.
"Hear what?" Ino eagerly replied, and it all sounded so scandalous that Naruto couldn't help eavesdropping.
"Well that Sasuke's going to be there!"
"No!"
"Yes! You know Neji, Sasuke's like the only person he'll consider worthy enough to hang around, they're both so high up and all that. So I don't know why Neji's throwing a party, but every time he's ever had one he makes sure that Sasuke is there, so that he'll have someone he wants to hang around with!"
Naruto had never known Neji too well, and had only ever heard reverent whispers of who Sasuke was from the girls, but he didn't have a very positive opinion of either of them. They sounded like snobby, stuck up elitists to him, and frankly Naruto couldn't see why anyone would want to spend time around them.
But… this party. It had been a while since Naruto had crashed one, and this sounded promising. A big shebang, as it were. Hmmm… he was going to have to figure out how to get in on this. Maybe he still had a chance at impressing Sakura, if he could get in to this party, and if not there would still undoubtedly be plenty of people to see, food to eat, and fun to be had!
Placing the last grocery item in the girls's bags, Naruto brightly handed them over, grinning in a fetching manner. "Here you go!"
Suspicious of his suddenly chipper mood, Sakura and Ino sent him skeptical looks before taking their groceries and heading off, no doubt to go get ready for the party.
"Don't you ever wish," Naruto heard Ino saying to Sakura as they left. "That we knew where Sasuke worked, so that we could drop in and see him?"
"Maybe we could ask him tonight?"
"Oh, good idea!"
Naruto stopped listening at that point, and checked his watch. He got off work in a few hours… at which point in time it looked like he would have a few calls to make.
-o-
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-o-
Uh oh, Naruto! What are you planning! XD
Haha, so yeah, here's the first chapter of this little fic, and I hope everyone liked it! I'm really having a fun time writing it!
Seeya next chapter! 8D