It's lights, camera, and action for the casts of the well-loved series, Naruto Shippūden. With all the fighting scenes, unbelievable stunts, and epic CGI visual effects, who would have thought that ninja world would be far, far different from reality.
Because other than giving their fans of what they want—fan service couples, endless love triangles, unexpected plot twists—Naruto, and the rest of the casts have their own lives to think about!
And, it's not about saving Sasuke all the freaking time!
WELCOME TO REALITY!
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one
"Cut!"
Loud, and annoying.
Hinata, who has been in the middle of the set, rolls her eyes at the sound of his voice again. A sigh of defeat escapes through her lips afterward. She looks over her shoulder and folds her arms across her chest.
"What is it this time?" She asks. She ignores when one of the production staff offers her a drink, giving only her infamous smile.
She's not having any of this already. One wrong move and it feels like she has to call it a day. But as she remembers her script, she knows she has to calm down and listen to him for the hundredth time of that day.
"Hinata, my darling, your emotions don't fit into the mood." She feels Naruto cuts a glance toward her, but she ignores it. "You're saving your beloved Naruto-kun here. Is there something wrong? Aqua? You need aqua? Can somebody get this princess a glass of—"
"I'm fine. Sorry."
The man behind the camera looks at her with concern, "You sure? Okay. Try to put more effort this time. Express your greatest terror."
She breathes in before she finally compels to look back at Naruto, who immediately looks away after seeing her glancing back at him.
"We'll focus on your eyes, Hinata-chan, make this impressive. Get it rolling, Hanashi." The director ends with a high note, pointing to one of his cameramen on the set.
Hinata gathers herself altogether once more; she wets her lips and sighs again. For one last time, she takes a glimpse at Naruto, who has been lying down on his stomach on the dusty ground. Artificial iron rods connect to his getup as if to make an illusion that it pierces through his body.
The blond guy looks up at her, and despite the soft glares that she throws at him, a small smile of assurance forms onto his lips. "You can do it." He says.
She doesn't know, but Hinata pretends not to hear his words against that loud: "action!" of the man behind the set.
A huge, concocted explosion blasts across the field. Next to Naruto, Pein, the actor who plays the antagonist, is quickly hoisted up by two ropes securely attached around him. He flawlessly lands square on his feet on the ground. A few meters away from the two.
"Reinforcement, huh?"
"I won't let you lay another finger on Naruto-kun!" Hinata cries out, returning the same amount of glare to the man in front of them.
Never intending to waste any more time upon the perfect execution of her words, Naruto seizes his chance. "What are you doing? Get out of here! You're no match—"
"I know." She quickly counters. She pauses halfway through, and steals a glance at him, not that it is needed, but she just lets it be. Naruto waits. And, as their eyes momentarily meet, he almost thinks that she has forgotten her lines.
"I'm just being selfish."
"What are you talking about? What are you doing here? It's dangerous!"
Silence between them lingers a little longer than it should before she finds her words again. "I'm here on my own free will... I... I used to always cry, and give up... I nearly went the wrong way. But you, you showed me the right way. I was always chasing you, wanting to overtake you. I just wanted to walk with you..."
And as imperceptible as it is, Naruto's keenness never misses the chance to see how her fingers curl against the fabric of her sweater. She looks... somewhat... real at that moment. He wonders deep if she was still the Hinata they both had rehearsed before.
For some reason, he nearly wants to believe the words that she is about to say next. But he puts aside his thoughts and concentrates more on his character.
After a gush of wind; a quiet battlefield; a hesitance, she says,
"—because, I love you."
Naruto feels a slight tug underneath his throat—somewhere on his chest.
His authentic distracted face only adds to the moment. He looks at her, wide-eyed, he doesn't know, but it really does sound so real. But then again, she is Hinata. She makes everything so real, and authentic.
"Cut!"
As if he was pulled away from trance, reality hits him off square on the face. Naruto shakes his head, finally sitting up. "What the hell just happened?" He whispers to himself.
"Naruto-san, Naruto-san," his ears pick up the sound of the boy towering in front of him. "It's finished. I think it's for the break…" The words drown out at the back of his head, as one person comes into his mind. His eyes search across the set to find a certain raven-haired girl.
"What's wrong with her?" He whispers, rather loudly to himself.
"Who is?"
He looks up at the confused boy, and with realization washing over him, he laughs it off. He stands on his feet, hands over the coat to him, as he makes his way to Hinata.
"Hinata, my darling!" Daichi, the man behind all of these, calls out to her. Hinata spares him a glance; he has this huge, satisfied grin on his face that Hinata feels somewhat relieved to see. "That's what I've been talking about! You looked marvelous in there. Full of love, full of feelings! Beautiful, just beautiful. Masashi would be proud of this episode. Just bravo—"
Hinata smiles, and without a word walks away from him. With her sanity still intact, she plops herself down on the nearest chair. At her heels is, Mayumi, her personal makeup artist.
"That was his sixty-seventh cut for that scene only," Hinata says, wearing out already.
Mayumi doesn't bother saying a word. She knows better not to pique Hinata up, especially if she's not in the mood to some joke or two. So she leaves the rest of it with just a nod, and a nonchalant shrug, as she freshens up her forehead with a towel.
"You look incredibly surreal there."
Hinata's lavender eyes glance up at Uzumaki. She shoots him a look. "Since when I'm not?" She says, and then she turns to Mayumi, who busies herself. "It's okay, now. Thank you." Hinata reassures her.
Mayumi takes her cue to leave, rather relieved that she could finally get away.
"Well, Hinata, my darling, hate to break it to you, but we still have to push through the last scene, that's the week's final note."
She looks over her shoulder only to see Daichi nonchalantly drinking his four seasons drink. "Seriously? You should've told sooner. That's your sixty-seventh."
"Could you blame me, darling? Both of you," he points out to the two of them, Hinata takes a glimpse at Naruto, who only shrugs at her, "look so real, like a real, real couple!"
She groans, feeling a headache coming. "I can't believe this." She grumbles underneath her breath. In crossed legs, she leans back her head on the chair, easing out her frustration.
She's not usually the fastidious type, but something today really gets on her nerves, and she couldn't pinpoint what it is. Some of it might be because of what has happened days prior, the other is probably due to stress.
She thinks about Naruto and remembers it again.
"Hinata are we good?"
"Yeah, we're good." She says, massaging her nape.
Naruto is her good friend, but sometimes he makes her wonder why she still sticks to him.
"You seem in a bad mood."
"Glad, you have an idea." She says.
"Did I do something wrong to you or anything? Or is it the time of the month?"
"I'm fine, Naruto. Just tired maybe."
He bends his knees, and lowers himself down in front of her, a wide, bright smile on his lips. "Let me treat you ramen somewhere else, yeah?"
She glances down at him. A flash of confused look paints over her face as if taken completely aback to his sudden invitation. When she didn't move the least bit, Naruto grabs both of her hands, and immediately after that, she feels the weight of the people's gazes directed to both of them.
"Okay?" Naruto repeats, amused to see her growing tense.
Hinata pulls her hands away from his grip. "Just because your girlfriend is not around, you're supposed to make a scene now." She says, afterward. She ignores the looks she must have been getting because of him.
He snorts. "Girlfriend? Who? Sakura, you mean?"
She throws him a glare that hasn't dented him at all. "You think, I've forgotten about your—"
"Hinata, she's not. Okay?" Naruto reassures, chuckling. "She's not." He repeats just so she understands. "Besides, I'm not taking no for an answer."
She sighs in defeat, folds her arms across her chest. "Where are you taking me first?"
"C'mon, you'll see. Let's just go." And with that, he grabs hold of her hand again and pulls her up.
If he has been looking at her, he would have probably seen her flustered look, but then everything about her has always been a shadow in the periphery for him.
"We'll be back in an hour, Direct!" He shouts, storming off with her after that loud thud of the door.
- x x x -
"There are rumors going around about sighting the two of you together in Okinawa. Is there anything else you can confirm to us, who are here in the conference, are you two have finally made it official?"
He leans forward on the table, as he wets his lips. He looks at the girl on his side, and watches her, as she smiles to the people in front of them. He chuckles when her smile hardly shows any kind of reaction to the question, so he nudges her arm as if telling her to answer for the two of them.
The pink haired girl looks back at him, then to the press. "Of course not," she says, smilingly. "We are just friends." She adds, and then hears a certain Uchiha beside her chuckles again, which undoubtedly earns a lot of disappointment from the crowd.
"Sasuke-kun, and I are just friends. The Okinawa trip, yes, we went there along with our other friends. It was a nice place to catch up with our circle. As for Sasuke-kun, and I… we have respect for each other. We treat, and care for each other like a family." Sakura says, as she tilts her head to her right, and catches him looking at her. "You guys wouldn't believe how much I treated him like my little brother."
"I'm taller."
"You are two years younger than me, Sasuke-kun." She teases. "He's just like that. Isn't he?" Sakura says.
Sasuke ruffles her hair, and Sakura rolls her eyes at him, which resulted for the Sasuke x Sakura fans seated at the back of the room to cheer for them again.
"But as I was saying, there's no need for any public justification for all of that. We portray what is only true, and authentic to you guys. Am I right, Sasuke-kun?"
"Sakura's right. We do what is real. I don't think we owe anyone explanation to everything else we do."
She laughs, trying to lighten up the mood. "But of course, except for the scenes we've made last year. That's purely out of the context, and made purely for the fans of SasuSaku, who after all of this, have continuously supported us even through the odds."
Sasuke leans over to her side. "Big words, Sakura. Big words."
Sakura turns around to him, with only a few inches parting between their faces, Sakura sticks out her tongue at him.
"Are you two sure!?" Someone shouts at the back, which gains people to press on the matter about the real score of their love life. "Like really, really sure!?"
Sasuke shifts his attention back to the press. The apparent dismay from the crowd from when he pulls away from Sakura is so loud, and overwhelming at some point.
But Sasuke, who glances at Sakura for one last time, has shut them off with a: "Yes, we're sure. Nothing's going on."
"Well, we are still certainly hoping for a miracle to happen, anyway... due to your love team's popularity," One of the reporters from the press enunciates. "Take note, number one loved couple in Asia, and even international brought by these Naruto series in Japan, how can the two of you live up with it? Any changes so far in your personal, individual lives?"
"It's not new to me. Before Naruto aired in Japan, I was already used to the people's admiration toward me." The Uchiha bluntly admits, which earns him a playful hit on the arm from Sakura.
"That's cocky, Sasuke-kun. Could you tune down that self-centered attitude of yours a little? And stop smirking." With a huff, she returns her attention back to the press, gracious smile tugs on the corner of her lips. "As for me, wow, thank you for those endless supports. I didn't even know that we are loved that much."
"Well, it's true!"
"Ha, so to say, this phenomenon, Naruto, that we speak of, well, to be completely honest, when everyone was just starting, we have a very little idea that it'd become this big, let alone the SasuSaku tandem."
"And why is that? SasuSaku is a success, together with its rival in success, NaruHina, coming in the 2nd lead. Imagine."
"Before I met him on the set, I already have an idea that I'd be partnered to him. I read the script, and I realized this wasn't like the typical romance thing. I thought to myself, how we would be able to pull that off? Especially on what happened on the series, right? He left the village to get his revenge. So, a greater question is, how do we keep the chemistry alive even after he left? I really didn't know how to keep it… maybe it just comes out so naturally."
"It does." Someone agrees from the crowd.
Sakura smiles at the person. "Maybe it does since I already met Sasuke way back before we started Naruto. We were in a same workshop, and a lot of people were already pairing us up. I really thought he was the standoffish type, which was true I guess—no, I'm just kidding! All along I really thought we couldn't pull it through. But Sasuke-kun here was so easy to work with. We do things as partners, he's a team player. And maybe, that's where the chemistry work."
"We love you, our Queen!"
"Thank you, I love you, too."
There are a few moments of pause when Sakura gathers herself to answer. "In my personal life, of course, the impact was overwhelming. It felt like I was living a dream. Well, I still am, but, um… What is important is, to still keep yourself grounded. That fifteen minutes of fame is temporary, you'll never know what will happen next. So always be humble, but know when to trust yourself at times of need." She laughs. "Yes, believe it!"
"You're spending so much time with that idiot," Sasuke says.
Sakura lifts a perfectly plucked brow at him, a small, triumphant smile playing across her lips. "So what if I do?"
"Stuff... Sakura," he says, giving her a look. "It gets in your head, do you want that?"
She rolls her eyes at him, smiling afterward. "You're annoying. Guess that infamous line of yours proves that I should stop spending time with you, too."
Sasuke, as if forgetting his surroundings, playfully pinches Sakura's cheek. "Alright, chipmunk, have it your way."
The crowd's spirit at the back returns after that simple action. Sasuke ignores it.
"Settle down, on to the next question, this one is for Uchiha-san."
"Alright," Sasuke says.
"Uchiha-san, what's your take about a certain Uzumaki taking his chance to your reel life partner, Haruno-san?"
Sasuke briefly looks at Sakura. "Does he really? I don't think so. What you guys don't understand is, when on set, we don't mind who hangs out with whom. He's my good friend, we get along just fine. I don't find any problem with that."
Sakura just smiles at that.
"You're not jealous or anything?"
"Let's ask her," Sasuke turns to Sakura. "Do you want me to?"
And as instant as that answer is, the people at the back grows wildly excited to that straightforward reply. Sakura remains candidly dispassionate about it. She witnesses with smiling eyes, as the room begins to fall under the cacophony of ambiguous shouts, and whatnots. Despite her flawless grasp to her emotions, Sakura couldn't almost resist the urge to roll her eyes to that.
"Okaaay! How about a new project? Are you willing to work together as one to a popularized fictional book, or manga? The Heroine Shikkaku, we supposed, could be a big break to both of you as Japan's hottest love team of the decade."
"We…" Sakura begins, "are not yet in the place to conclude that, but as far as I can say to you, guys, we are currently on a project together, of course, along with Sasuke-kun's real-life brother, Itachi-san, the three of us will work together on a Rom-Com." she tucks her hair behind her ear, as she steals a glance at Sasuke.
Sasuke nods in agreement.
"It's one of the most famous shōjo mangas in Japan, and I'm so honored to be part of that project." She continues on. "I'll leave you guys only up to that, since I can't give, at least not yet, any more information but that."
"That's new! I'm sure it'd be a box office of the year!"
"Uchiha brothers in a movie, is not surprising at all, considering you've already made several first-rate movies before. But a romantic movie with Haruno-san? That's something."
Sasuke only shrugs. "What's wrong with that? I'm up to some challenging roles, and as long as Sakura is fine with it, I'd like to have more projects with her in the future."
Taken completely aback, Sakura finds herself tugging his leather jacket as if to signal him to look at her. Sasuke catches the signal and raises a brow at her.
"What?"
"You're hopeless," Sakura whispers to him.
.
tbc.